The Bible and Greater Israel
Sources and Footnotes
4.1 Bible Time Lines
Machiavelli wrote in his Discourses - religion is the most necessary support of any civil society.
He opined an attentive review of Roman history shows the great degree to which religion served in the command of the armies, in uniting the people and keeping them well conducted, and in covering the wicked with shame. He concludes religion was one of the chief causes of the prosperity of Rome. (1a) “And certainly, if the Christian religion had from the beginning been maintained according to the principles of its founder, the Christian states and republics would have been much more united and happy than what they are.” (1b)
Machiavelli wrote of religion as it should work and as it has often worked to the betterment of government.
I submit America is now a corrupt principality with the mere veneer of a Republic ruled by warlord princes. We mere plebes are allowed our freedom but only very limited freedom to rule.
Machiavelli, contrary to his reputation, supported good government and preferred Republics over Principalities. He would not be pleased with the current state of America. Read his thoughts on corruption in Chapter 8 of this eBook. Five hundred years ago he wrote in these words an apt description of America today.
I believe God’s laws are written in the hearts and minds of men. I believe we are more naturally of good character than bad. But, in a corrupt world it is only with suffering that we can maintain our good character. I do not believe we need religion, but that it can assist us. Many of us including myself would like such assistance. I submit, however, that now we must assist our religions.
The most significant corruption in America is our willfully ignorant cowardice. We are unwilling to face some awful truths.
The War on Terror
After the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Franklin Graham said Islam "is a very evil and wicked religion." (2) The Reverend Jerry Vines, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, called the Prophet Muhammad “a demon-possessed pedophile.” (3) Pope Benedict joined this chorus in his 9/12/2006 speech at the University of Regensburg. In an 47
excerpt from this speech, the Pontiff speaks of the conversation between Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaiologos and an educated Persian about Christianity, Islam, and the truth of both:
“In the seventh conversation ("diálesis" -- controversy) edited by professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the jihad (holy war). The emperor must have known that sura 2:256
reads: "There is no compulsion in religion." It is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under [threat]. But, naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later, and recorded in the Koran, concerning holy war.
Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the
"Book" and the "infidels," he turns to his interlocutor somewhat brusquely with the central question on the relationship between religion and violence in general, in these words: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." ” (4) The Pope used the words of Manual II to express himself, but he also stated in his own words that there were surahs written after 2:256 which called for forced conversion. In fact, there are no such surahs. There are surahs which, when taken out of context, could be construed to come close, but no surah as clearly calls for forced conversion as surah 2:256 prohibits such action. (5) I submit these pseudo-Christian leaders serve the lie that is the war on terror. See chapter 2.
The Bible and Greater Israel
Genesis 15:18 Then and there the Lord made a covenant with Abram. He said, “I promise to give your descendants all this land from the border of Egypt to the Euphrates River…”
17:7 “…The whole land of Canaan will belong to your descendants forever, and I will be their God.”
17:18 …He asked God, “Why not let Ishmael be my heir?” 17:19 But God said, “No. Your wife Sarah will bear you a son and you will name him Isaac. I will keep my covenant with him and with his descendants forever. It is an everlasting covenant…”
I think a reasonable interpretation of these Genesis verses is that Canaan/Israel was promised to the descendants of Isaac and Jacob, the Jews, in perpetuity. I do not deny this promise. I deny, however, that God would sanction the current, unjust means now used to bring about a greater Israel.
I once called greater Zionists - Fundamentalists. They are not. They do not follow the fundamentals of their religions. As the Pharisees in the time of Jesus, they are overly concerned with the literal letter of the word and insufficiently concerned with the spirit of the word. They refuse to obey the following:
The 10th Commandment – Do not covet another man’s house... They covet Palestinians’
lands.
The 8th Commandment – Do not steal. They support the theft of Palestinians’ lands.
The word of God in Ezekiel 47:21-23 “Divide this land among your tribes; it is to be your permanent possession. The foreigners who are living among you and who have had 48
children born here are also to receive their share of the land when you divide it. They are to be treated like full Israelite citizens and are to draw lots for shares of the land along with the tribes of Israel. All foreign residents will receive their share with the people of the tribe among whom they are living. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken.” (6) Most important, they refuse to have faith in a powerful and just God who will keep his promises by just means.
There are parts of the Bible I have come to believe are not inspired:
The Hamitic/ Canaanite Curse – Genesis 9:18-29
Ham found his father naked and drunk and then told his brothers of their father’s state. In return for this slight, Noah cursed all the descendants of Ham’s youngest son Canaan. Not only was the punishment grotesque in relation to the minor crime, but also, the punishment was directed not at the offending person but toward another and all that persons’ descendants.
I have read the theory that “exposing one’s nakedness” meant to cuckold someone by having relations with their wives or concubines. There is no mention of Noah having concubines, and I find it difficult to believe Ham had relations with his mother. Jacob’s eldest son Reuben had relations with one of Jacob’s concubines. In his last words Jacob said because Reuben dishonored Jacob’s bed he would not be the most important son, but Jacob also called him the strongest of all his sons and “my strength.” (Gen 49:3-4) Reuben certainly “exposed Jacob’s nakedness” yet suffered much less than Canaan’s descendants for Ham’s slight.
Additional theories include the possibility that Ham castrated Noah, Ham attempted to assert his dominance over Noah by fathering Canaan with Ham’s own Mother, Canaan was guilty of some abuse or perversion against his grandfather Noah, and Ham witnessed this abuse, did not interfere, and spread the story. I think a more plausible explanation for these passages is simply that they were written to rationalize the subjugation of Canaan. I conclude these verses are a self-serving tribal story.
Genocide
Deuteronomy 7:1-2 “The Lord your God will bring you into the land that you are going to occupy, and he will drive many nations out of it. As you advance, he will drive out seven nations larger and more powerful than you: the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. When the Lord your God places these people in your power and you defeat them, you must put them all to death. Do not make an alliance with them or show them any mercy…”
Deuteronomy 20:16-18 Rules concerning war - “But when you capture cities in the land that the Lord your God is giving you, kill everyone. Completely destroy all the people: the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the Lord ordered you to do. Kill them, so that they will not make you sin against the Lord…” God allows Satan in the world but not the Canaanites.
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The Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Hivites, and Jebusites among others were listed as descendants of Canaan in Genesis 10:15-20.
The Book of Joshua tells of how Joshua obeyed the Lord. Joshua 10:40 “…He spared no one; everyone was put to death. This was what the Lord God of Israel had commanded.” Joshua 11:12 “Joshua captured all these cities and their kings, putting everyone to death, just as Moses, the Lord’s servant, had commanded.”
Genocide is one of the worst of all possible sins. Yet, God is alleged to have commanded it. I did not have a problem with God flooding the world or killing the first born of Egypt, but in this case, he commanded mortal men to do this awful work. I know we cannot fully know the mind of God, and it is not our place to judge God. I also know that ours and Canaanites’ mortal lives are nothing in relation to ours and their spiritual lives. Still, God commanding such actions is utterly inconsistent with basic tenets of all Abrahamic faiths.
I see the enhancement of political control as one possible reason for the inclusion of these myths in the Bible. The Israelites did not get these commands directly from God. They received them through intermediaries such as Moses and Joshua. Machiavelli in his “Discourses” claimed religion was an essential element of state control. What more control could one want than the ability to get good people to commit great sin? There are not many sins greater than genocide.
If God can command genocide, he could command almost anything, but of course, only through his intermediaries.
These myths may have been deemed necessary for the protection of the Israelites. The Bible timeline and Jewish calendar appear to have been manipulated possibly to perpetuate these myths. See Section 4.1 Bible Time Lines.
Bible Archaeology - The consensus in Bible archaeology, except for fundamentalist maximalists, is that there was no mass Israelite captivity in Egypt, no mass exodus from Egypt, and most important to this paper, no genocidal invasion of Canaan. Canaan suffered decline and internal rebellion. Further, the Israelites are believed to have come substantially from the ranks of the Canaanites. Source: The Bible’s Buried Secrets 2008 PBS Nova at:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/bible/program.html.
The idea that Israelites came substantially from Canaanites is backed up by the fact that Hebrew is in the Southern sub group of the Canaanite languages. Further, an evolutionary genetics analysis of the Y chromosomes of Jewish men in seven communities found them related to each other and to present-day Palestinian and Syrian populations (7). Today’s Jewish men and Palestinian men share common ancestral fathers.
It is poetic justice that a large portion of Jewish greater Zionists are, in fact, self-hating anti-Canaanites.
We may still find kernels of truth to support the Captivity, the Exodus, and even the Conquest.
We have found Pi Ramesses, and 1252 BC is the optimal time estimate for the Exodus (See Section 4.1). The Captivity and Exodus likely did not involve hundreds of thousands, but these 50
may still have been historical events. There are kernels to support the Conquest. Hazor has a destruction layer at c 1200 BC. Lachish has a destruction layer at c 1150 BC. Mere kernels, however, even without the contrary evidence, would not support a full invasion and genocide of Canaan.
There was no Conquest of Canaan, Torah verses calling for genocide are fiction, and the Book of Joshua is fiction.
I submit these fictions have caused great harm. If God can command genocide, he could command anything. These fictions paved the way for innumerable atrocities. The First Crusaders massacred Jewish and Muslim civilians on their way to and in the city of Jerusalem.
Hitler could order the Holocaust. Americans in the good war could target and fire bomb the civilian populations of German and Japanese cities. Today’s terrorists can claim they use Godly means when they target unarmed, innocent civilians.
Conclusion
I call on all Abrahamic religions, not to change their canon, but to instruct their followings that biblical passages claiming God commanded genocide are uninspired, tribal stories. God did not order Israelites to kill all men, women, and children of Canaan. He did not order Israelites to kill all men, women, children, and babies of the Amalekites (1 Samuel 15:3). These passages were the work of men not of Yahweh, God, or Allah. God would not have ordered men to commit genocide - to claim otherwise is blasphemy.
Our more conservative religions should at least conclude these passages “may not be inspired”
and certainly should not be looked to for guidance in our lives.
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Primary sources:
“Good News Bible” For Catholics - Today’s English Version 1992 second edition published by the Catholic Bible Press a division of Thomas Nelson Publishers.
The Holy Quran translated by Maulana Muhammad Ali 2002 Edition
Published by Ahmadiyya Anjuman Isha’at Islam Lahore Inc. USA
(1) The Prince and the Discourses by Niccolo Machiavelli
(1a) First Book, Chapter 11 - Of the Religion of the Romans
(1b) First Book, Chapter 12 – The importance of giving religion a prominent influence in a state, and how Italy was ruined because she failed in this respect through the conduct of the Church of Rome.
(1c) Corruption
First Book, Chapter 18 - How in a corrupt state a free government may be maintained, assuming that one exists there already; and how it could be introduced if none had previously existed.
First Book, Chapter 33 – When an evil has sprung up within a state, or come upon from without, it is safer to temporize with it rather than to attack it violently
See excerpts from these referenced chapters in Chapter 8 of this eBook.
(2) Washington Post Article – “Franklin Graham cut from Pentagon prayer event for anti-Islam”
remarks By David Waters | April 22, 2010; 12:37 PM ET | Category: Under God
(3) 05/08/2003 San Diego Union Tribune p. A21 “Evangelicals rip remarks against Islam” by Rachel Zoll AP
(4) Pope Benedict’s 09/12/2006 speech at the University of Regensburg from an early translation provided through Zenit.org. The translation provided through the following link is insignificantly different. https://zenit.org/articles/papal-address-at-university-of-regensburg *
https://www.cbcew.org.uk/full-text-of-the-pope-benedict-xvis-regensburg-lecture/
(5) Surah 2: Section 24: Fighting in Defence Verses 189-196: Verse 190 “And fight in the way of Allah against those who fight against you but be not aggressive. Surely Allah loves not the aggressors.”
(6) Contrary to the long-standing assertion that Israeli settlements are built on unclaimed territory, in 2006, a Peace Now report asserted that 40% of West Bank settlements are built on private lands seized from Palestinians. The land was seized by the Army long after Israel’s Supreme Court outlawed the practice in 1979. (Source: 11/22/2006 San Diego Union Tribune p. A12 “Israeli settlement land disputed” from the AP)
(7) 5/14/2002 New York Times - In DNA… by Nicholas Wade
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2011 05 06
Rewritten 2017
The Bible timeline, the Jewish calendar, and the historical timeline should all reconcile with each other. The Bible timeline, as calculated in the spreadsheet below, has 4,175 BC as the world’s Beginning. The Jewish calendar has 3,760 BC as its Beginning, for a difference with the Bible timeline of 415 years. We will reconcile this difference and differences with the historical timeline.
I submit gross errors left unidentified over a long period are most always intentional. Gross errors by their very grossness should be easy to identify.
Major differences between the Bible timeline (BT), the Jewish calendar (JC), and the historical timeline:
As you will see below, The BT shows Terah was 130 when Abram was born, while the JC
shows Terah was 70 at Abram’s birth.
The BT shows 430 years in captivity while the JC shows just 210 years.
Both the BT and JC show 480 years between the Exodus and the beginning of Temple construction - in the 4th year of Solomon’s reign. This BT using 925 BC for Shishak’s campaign in Judah gives 967 BC as Solomon’s 4th year while the JC shows 832 BC as Solomon’s 4th year.
The JC shows the Temple destruction in 422 BC while the historical timeline shows 587 BC.
I submit the Bible’s Pharaoh Shishak was Egypt’s Shoshenq I, and these time lines should all meet in 925 BC, the fifth year of Rehoboam’s reign in Judah. Further, all time lines should show the Temple destruction in 587 BC. We can accomplish these by eliminating all the differences as follows:
The 415 years difference will be eliminated from the Bible timeline. The differences between the Jewish calendar and the historical timeline will fully offset each other. Review these adjustments with the spreadsheet below.
1) We adjusted the Jewish calendar by adding 60 years to the calendar before Abram’s birth under the assumption that Terah was 130 years old not 70 when Abram was born. These 60
years were offset by subtracting 30 years from the period between the Exodus and the Temple construction and subtracting 30 years from the period between the Temple construction and destruction. These three offsetting adjustments were made only to the JC.
Genesis verse 11:26 states, “After Terah was 70 years old, he became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran.” Unlike the prior verses which stated the ages of the Patriarchs at the births of their apparent first sons, this verse only says all Terah’s sons were born after he was 70 – not when he was 70, and it does not specify when after 70. The chronology in verses 11:32 to 12:4
indicates Terah died at 205 before Abram left Haran at age 75 (205-75=130). Verse 12:1 states God asked Abram to leave his father’s home - not to leave his father. Stephen in New Testament Acts 7:4 states, “After Abraham’s father died, God made him move to this land (Canaan/
Palestine)…” Terah was 130 when Abram was born.
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2) The Jewish calendar shows the Egyptian captivity as lasting only 210 years versus 430 years in Ex 12:40-41 for a difference of 220 years. I submit 430 years refers to much more than the time from Jacob entering Egypt to the Exodus. We will assume the Jewish calendar and 210
years is correct. We reduced this period in the Bible timeline by 220 years to match the Jewish calendar. (See Footnote 1) This adjustment (2) combined with adjustment (3) will place the Exodus at 1,252 BC on both time lines.
Ex 12:40 states, “The Israelites had lived in Egypt 430 years.” Both time lines now show 425
years from Abram’s departure from Haran/ arrival in Canaan/ arrival in Egypt to the Exodus with the Israelites leaving Egypt, and 400 years from the birth of Isaac to the Exodus. There is close New Testament authority for this interpretation in the words of Paul in Galatians 3:17 and Acts 13:17-20.
An Exodus date of 1252 BC was after Akhenaten, allowing for the possible influence of the Aten monotheism/ monolatry on proto-Israelites, and after the conflicts in Canaan noted in the Amarna letters. It was shortly after the 1254 BC death of Amun-her-khepeshef the first son and heir of Ramesses II. Most important, the date allows time before 1252 BC for proto-Israelites to have helped build Pi Ramesses. After 1252 BC, there was time for 40 years of Wandering and a few years in Canaan before the Merneptah Stele in 1209/1208 BC. The Israelites would arrive in Canaan near the beginning of the Bronze Age Collapse.
3) The remaining difference of the 415 years is 195 years (415-220). Both the Bible timeline and the Jewish calendar claim there were 480 years from the Exodus to the beginning of Temple construction (1 Kings 6:1). 480 was a symbolic length of time representing 12 Biblical generations. If we reduce this to 285 years for both calendars, they will both match the historical timeline at the beginning of Temple construction in 967 BC. We reduced this period on both time lines by 195 years.
Jewish calendar - This 195 years adjustment was offset by the 165 “missing years” on the Jewish calendar (587 BC - 422 BC = 165) and 30 of the 60 years we added to the Jewish calendar before Abram’s birth. The missing years are missing from the Jewish calendar after the Temple destruction primarily if not wholly in a truncated timeline for the Persian/ Achaemenid Empire.
The historical timeline for this Empire was 550 BC to 330 BC. We replaced those missing years with 165 of the extra years from before the Temple construction.
These 195 years were removed from the Bible timeline not the Jewish calendar where they were simply moved elsewhere. The differences of 220 in years of captivity and these 195 years total 415. We have eliminated the 415 years difference between the Bible timeline and the Jewish calendar.
4) The Jewish calendar timeline is reduced another 30 years between construction and destruction of the Temple offset by the remaining 30 of the 60 years we added to the calendar before Abram’s birth. The result is 587 BC as the date of the Temple’s destruction.
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5) Add 165 of the extra years from before the Temple construction to the Jewish calendar after the Temple destruction to replace the 165 missing years.
We added 225 years to and subtracted 225 years from different places in the JC. We have eliminated the differences between the Jewish calendar and the historical timeline.
Resulting Bible timeline/ Jewish calendar/ Historical timeline
The Beginning
3,760 BCE
Mythology
The Flood
2,104
Birth of Abram
1,752
Exodus
1,252
4th Year of Solomon’s Reign
967
5th Year of Rehoboam’s Reign
925
Destruction of the Temple
587
History
Questions:
Why does the Jewish calendar show Terah’s age at Abram’s birth to be 70 while the Bible writers show 130? And/or Why didn’t the Bible writers clearly note the age of Terah when Abram was born as they had noted such ages for all the other Patriarchs?
Why did Bible writers state the Egyptian captivity was 430 years while the Jewish calendar shows 210 years? (1)
Much of the current Hebrew Bible was written and/or codified in Babylon and Persia ruled Judah following the destruction of the Temple and has been preserved ever since. The destruction of the Temple at the beginning of the Babylonian exile was a significant event for the Israelites.
Would not the date of this destruction also have been preserved? If the Hebrew Bible could be preserved, why not this one date?
Why does the Jewish calendar show the destruction at 422 BC rather than 587 BC?
Who, what, when, where, how, and why were the 165 “missing years” identified?
We can easily adjust the Jewish calendar to bring it in line with the historical timeline. A quick reiteration: Add 60 years to the calendar before Abram’s birth, subtract 30 years between the Exodus and the Temple construction, and subtract 30 years between the Temple construction and destruction. Eliminate the 165 “missing years” by subtracting them from between the Exodus and the Temple Construction and adding them back to the calendar after the Temple destruction.
The Jewish calendar only required five adjustments to bring it in line with the historical timeline
- possibly as early as the Exodus. These adjustments offset each other. Why were these such simple adjustments? If they were intentional manipulations, why were they left in plain sight?
Again, I submit gross errors left unidentified over a long period are most always intentional.
Gross errors by their very grossness should be easy to identify.
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Deuteronomy 29:29 states, “There are some things that the Lord our God has kept secret…”
Why would God keep secrets from us? I suspect it would be better for us not to know our individual futures. Such knowledge might affect our free will. Daniel 12:9 states there are secrets sealed till the end times. What other secrets might best be kept from us? Do God’s intercessors keep his secrets from us? The idea that these time lines should come together as a result of these few adjustments cannot be a new idea.
If these time lines were manipulated, why?
One Possible Answer:
A problematic timeline has made it difficult to determine the dates of the Conquest and thereby prove or disprove its authenticity. The dates of the destruction layers in Canaanite cities cover a wide range of possibilities – Ai c 2400 BC, Jericho c 1550 BC, Lachish c 1150 BC, etc. As long as the timeline was undefined, the possibility of a Conquest remained open. Bible writers may have wanted the Israelites, for their own protection, to be seen as potentially genocidal and serving a powerful, genocidal god.
Footnote (1): Exodus 12:37 states 600,000 men not counting women and children set out from Ramses, Egypt. Numbers states a census was taken one year and one month after leaving Egypt.
Numbers 1:46 states all men over twenty and fit for military service were counted except the Levites. The total was 603,550. 603,550 – 600,000 = 3,550. 3,760 – 3,550 = 210. This result/
code was imbedded in appropriate text. It was imbedded in sacred text. 3,760 BC, however, was calculated from the Anno Domini AD numbering system developed by the Monk Exiguus in 525
AD – more than a thousand years after these scriptures were written. Interestingly, the AD
system made this coding possible, but apparently erred on the date of Jesus’ birth. Jesus would have to have been born in 4 BC or earlier to be born before Herod the Great died in 4 BC.
Is this derived 210 just a coincidence?
Numbers 26:51 gives the result of a second census at 601,730. 3,760 – 1,730 = 2,030. Is there any significance in these numbers?
Is there any similar evidence in the Bible supporting 285 years between the Captivity and Temple construction? 1 Kings 5:16 states Temple workers had 3,300 supervisors. 2 Chronicles 2:2 claims 3,600 supervisors. 3,600 – 3,300 = 300. This is close to 285.
Fun Stuff:
2030 - 23 is a significant number. There are 23 books in the Tanakh/ Hebrew Bible sans Daniel, which was written much later than the original books. Daniel in the Tanakh is not placed with the Nevi’im/ Prophets but rather with the Ketuvim/ Writings. There are 22 letters sans variants in the Hebrew alphabet. Hebrew alphabet, acrostic poems often included a 23rd line beginning with the letter Peh. The first letter of the 1st 12th and 23rd verse/line, aleph lamedh and peh spelled Aleph indicating the completeness of the work (Source: The Unity of the Hebrew Bible by David Noel Freedman pgs.81-2). Moses’ brother Aaron died on Mount Hor at the age of one hundred “twenty-three” (Numbers 33:38). In Numbers’ second census there were 23 thousand Levites. The second census was taken just before the Israelites entered the Promised Land.
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Perhaps Armageddon will be in 2030 AD just before we enter the 1,000-year reign of the Messiah/ Christ/ Mahdi. The seven-year influence/ reign of the Beast would begin in 2023.
Luke 3:1 states John the Baptist began his ministry in the 15th year of the rule of Emperor Tiberius, 29 AD. John ministered to and baptized many eventually baptizing Jesus. Jesus went thru his temptation. He then returned to Galilee and began his ministry when he was about 30
years old. If we reasonably assume Jesus began his 1st ministry in 30 AD and if Armageddon is in 2030 AD, it will have been exactly 2,000 years from the beginning of his 1st earthly ministry to the beginning of his 2nd earthly ministry.
There are 23 pairs of chromosomes in human cells.
The earth’s axial tilt varies around 23 degrees (22.1 degrees to 24.5 degrees, currently approaching 23.4 degrees). The Arctic Circle will be at 66.6 degrees North latitude.
Note: Jesus said of his second coming in Matthew 24:36, “No one knows, however, when that day and hour will come - …the Father alone knows.”
Rothschild – the Beast, Rev 13:18 – “This calls for wisdom. Whoever is intelligent can figure out the meaning of the number of the beast, because the number stands for the name of someone.
Its number is 666.” Rothschild, in English, is red shield. I submit the Rothschild’s red shield showed a Star of David with a six-sided hexagram, six small triangles, and six points, 666, and has equilateral triangles large and small with 3 60-degree angles, 60 60 60/ 666. What exactly were the red shields over the “red shield houses,” the house of Anselm Moses Bauer in Frankfurt? And the earlier house of Isaak Elchanan?
Pope Benedict – False Prophet, 2nd beast Rev 13:11 – “It had two horns like a lamb’s horns and it spoke like a dragon.” The Pope is the representative of Christ/the lamb on earth, but Pope Benedict spoke like a dragon in his 2006 Regensburg speech.
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Bible Timeline
Ten
Age at birth of
Patriarchs
-
X
BCE
Adam
130 Seth
1656
Seth
105 Enosh
352
Enosh
90 Kenan
720
Kenan
70 Mahalalel
480
Mahalalel
65 Jared
967
Jared
162 Enoch
4175 Beginning
Enoch
65 Methuselah
Methuselah
187 Lamech
Lamech
182 Noah
Noah
600 when Flood came.
1656 years before the Flood
-1656
2519 Flood
Ten More
-98 Age of Shem when Flood came.
Shem
100 Arpachshad
Arpachshad
35 Shelah
Shelah
30 Eber
Eber
34 Peleg
Peleg
30 Reu
Reu
32 Serug
Serug
30 Nahor
Nahor
29 Terah
Terah (a)
130 Abram
Abram
352 From the Flood to the Birth of Abram
-352
2167 Birth of Abram
Abram
100 Isaac
Isaac
60 Jacob
Jacob
147 Died
-17 Years Jacob lived in Egypt before he died.
(b)
430 Years of Egyptian captivity, to the day
720 From Birth of Abraham to the Exodus
-720
1447 Exodus
From Captivity to Solomon beginning the
(c)
480 Temple
-480
967 was the 4th year of Solomon's reign
967 Temple construction begins
2793 AM
380 From Temple construction to destruction
-380
587 Temple destruction
3173 AM
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Jewish
Masoretic
ADJUSTED
Calendar
Calendar
J C
J C
BCE
AM
BCE
AM
130
105
90
5768
5768
70
-2008
-2008
65
162
3760 Beginning
3760
0
65
187
182
600
1656
-1656
-1656
Flood
2104
1656
2104
1656
-98
100
35
30
34
30
32
30
29
70
-60
292
-292
-292
292
Birth of Abram
1812
1948
1752
2008
100
60
147
-17
210
500
-500
-500
500
Exodus
1312
2448
1252
2508
30
-30
165
-165
480
-480
-480
480
Temple constru
832
2927
967
2793
30
-30
410
-410
-410
410
Temple destruc
422
3338
587
3173
-165
165
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You can download an Excel workbook and adjust this spreadsheet with your own
assumptions. Create or sign in to your account at google.com then go to the workbook titled “4.1
Bible Time Lines.xls” at: https://goo.gl/KYPFSf OR
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0ByIC4F1Uo9zwQzVGa1dUckpuRTA?resourcekey=0-
74jmrmu_watvs7fcYuOfOA&usp=drive_link
The “Time Lines” spreadsheet within this workbook includes Bible sources and a History/
Archaeology timeline.
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5 Motivation for the attack on the USS Liberty
2008 06 08
Today is the anniversary of the Israeli attack. Along with others (1), I submit it was undertaken to keep the US from interfering with Israel’s attack on Syria the following day.
On June 8th 1967 at 2:00 PM local time, in the middle of the 1967 Six Day War, the intelligence ship USS Liberty was attacked by Israeli air and naval forces. By June 8th the fighting had ended on all fronts (2a). The Six Day War could have been the four-day war. Instead, on the morning of June 9th Israeli forces initiated new actions against Syria. This attack led to significant international intrigue. Both the US and USSR considered military intervention. If the US had had prior knowledge of Israeli plans, they may have stopped them. Israel took action to preempt this possibility.
Israel was apparently unsatisfied with the terms of its 7/20/1949 armistice with Syria. Prior to the 1967 War, to enhance its influence in the de militarized zones, it instigated border clashes with Syria. Moshe Dayan admitted in interviews that Israel was responsible for at least eighty percent of the border clashes with Syria between 1949 and 1967 (2b). On the morning of June 9th 1967, Israel instigated another border clash with no initial interference from the US.
One could argue that the closing of the Gulf of Aqaba was an act of war, but it was Israel that began preemptive military action in the four-day war. Further, it was Israel that began military action in the two-day war, and this action was in no way preemptive. Two thirds of Syria’s air force had already been destroyed; Syria could offer no serious threat. It was precisely this weakness that, allegedly, lead to Dayan’s final decision to attack (2c). I submit this decision was actually made well in advance of June 9th.
Both America and Israel are aggressor nations. Both have acted contrary to American ideals, but their interests are not always synonymous. We should not let Israel dictate American foreign policy.
Sources and Footnotes:
(1) Several books and the BBC documentary USS Liberty : Dead in the Water argued that Liberty was attacked to prevent the U.S. from knowing about the forthcoming attack in the Golan Heights, which apparently would violate a cease-fire to which Israel's government had agreed.
(Source: Wikipedia – “USS Liberty incident”)
(2) Primary Source: The Fifty Years’ War – Israel and the Arabs by Ahron Bregman and Jihan El-Tahri. This was the companion text to the 1998 PBS documentary of the same name.
Excerpts are in page number order:
p. 109 (2a)
“On June 8 at 7 PM, Prime Minister Eshkol summoned his ministers. Just four days after the war had begun; the fighting had ended on all fronts: the Egyptian army was defeated, Jordan was crushed, and the West Bank and Jerusalem were in Israeli hands.
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The only Arab state, it seemed, that would survive the war intact was Syria.”
p. 111 (2c)
“On June 9, at 3:30 AM, Mossad intercepted a cable sent from President Nasser to Syrian President Nur el Din Attasi. ‘I think,’ wrote Nasser, ‘that Israel is interested in concentrating its forces against Syria, in order to crush the Syrian Army… I would like to advise you to end the hostilities and let U Thant, the Secretary General, know in order to keep the Syrian Army intact.
We have lost this battle. God will be with us in the future.’
When Dayan saw the cable, he concluded the Syrians would not put-up serious resistance and phoned David Elazar, who oversaw forces in the north. Dayan asked, ‘Are you ready for an attack?’ Elazar replied, ‘Yes, I am.” Dayan said, ‘So, go ahead and attack.’”
“…At the Dan Hotel, Eshkol was in for a shock when his wife called him to the phone. It was 8
AM, and Dayan was on the line. ‘We have gone up to the Golan Heights,’ Dayan said.”
p. 315
In the 7/20/1949 Israeli-Syrian armistice agreement, Syria withdrew from the areas it had occupied allowing these to become demilitarized zones without either country having sovereignty. “…Although Israel signed on the dotted line, the Israelis were unhappy with this agreement and, during the nineteen years leading up to the 1967 war, took actions to expand their control over the demilitarized zones. These tactics were intended to provoke the Syrians, so that the resulting border clashes could be exploited to increase Israel’s influence in the areas. Moshe Dayan, a former chief of staff and defense minister, admitted in a newspaper interview, ‘It used to go like this: we would send a tractor into the demilitarized zone knowing, in advance, that the Syrians would start shooting. If they refrained, we would instruct the tractor to keep on advancing until the Syrians lost their temper and started shooting. Then we would use our cannons and, later, also our air force.’”
p. 315 (2b)
“While Syria was responsible for some border clashes, Dayan also admitted in the interview quoted above that Israel was responsible for at least eighty percent of the clashes between 1949 and 1967. ”
p. 316
“In 1967, Israel went on the offensive, consolidated its hold on the demilitarized zones, and took the Golan Heights… Israel took action to turn the Golan Heights into de facto Israeli land by starting to build settlements on the Heights, and, from autumn of 1967 up to mid-1968, systematically destroying Arab houses and villages.”
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6 Great Recessions II
- coming soon to an economy near you. 12/29/2013
We are again in a bubble economy created by our plutocrats for their extraordinary profits. The Fed in its primary function of facilitating and managing instability has helped create this bubble with a 2.5 trillion money creation account hidden in depository institutions’ excess reserves. Our total nonfinancial debt has increased beyond our capacity to repay. And, bubbles burst.
December 23rd was the 100th birthday of the Fed. Congress as its supervising authority should once again review and amend the Fed’s systems and delegated
authority.
Outline: Intro
Current Stats
Economics Theory 1A/1B
History
- S&L crisis, Great Recessions GRs I, and Great Recessions GRs II
The Fed
- protecting us from deflation and affordable housing
- Fed accounting
Predictions
Miscellaneous additional recommendations
Sources and Footnotes
Intro
The American economy is once again a bubble intentionally created by our plutocrats and their cronies. Our plutocrats are the flesh and blood people who own and operate our large corporations including banks. Corporate welfare is plutocrat welfare; corporatism is plutocracy.
Our plutocrats want the instability that comes with bubbles to create opportunities for extraordinary profits. Normal profits from a job creating, sustainable, stable economy are simply insufficient. The Fed was created by our plutocrats not to provide stability but to facilitate and manage instability. The Fed now has 2.5 trillion in a money creation account hidden in excess reserve deposits. This magic money was/is used to purchase long term LT securities to keep LT
interest rates artificially low and thereby facilitate the creation of another bubble economy.
Lower LT interest rates increase the value of bonds, increase the price earnings PE ratios in the stock market, and increase the price of housing by lowering mortgage interest. All these markets are now volatile bubbles. Their volatility was evident in the quick 100 basis point rise in LT
rates resulting from Fed Chairman Bernanke’s May announcement on future tapering - in quantitative easing QE 3/4, the Fed’s current LT bonds purchasing programs.
Unnaturally low interest rates over extended periods negatively affect other areas not normally considered. Lower returns have contributed to growing deficits in our pension funds. Lower returns on insurance company investments have likely increased our insurance premiums. Low interest rates have encouraged our excessive borrowing…
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Total domestic, nonfinancial debt is 248% of GDP - 41,431.9 B in debt to 16,695.7 B in GDP
(a). This is the highest or one of the highest debt/GDP ratios in our recorded history. We cannot service such indebtedness. Continued debt forgiveness with concomitant losses to creditors is unavoidable. This annual ratio has stayed above 247% since 2009 in spite of a growing GDP
and a trillion dollar reduction in household mortgages with over four million foreclosures (b).
Federal debt has seen the most growth, growing from 5.1 trillion in 2007 to 12 trillion at the end of September. Yet, all areas but household mortgages have increased debt. Note - this discussion is of nonfinancial debt and excludes financial debt such as debt the federal government owes itself in the Social Security trust funds.
Source: http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/ See the 12/09/2013 release pages 5 and 12.
Corporate debt increased 1,910.1 B from the end of 2009 to 9/2013. During the same period American corporations purchased 1,880 B in treasury stock per Birinyi and Bloomberg data (c).
From a macro perspective, our corporations replaced 1.9 trillion in MV equity with 1.9 trillion in debt. It is true this increased current earnings per share and selling shareholders did well given rising, high stock values, but remaining shareholders received overvalued treasury stock and are stuck with excessive debt which will reduce future earnings when interest rates rise – more proof their treasury stock was overvalued.
Our debt will continue to be a drag on our economic growth. In the past we have inflated GDP
to reduce our debt/GDP ratio and paid back our debt with inflated dollars. This may not be as acceptable to creditors as it was in the past.
Inflation – has been 1.2% over the last year well below the Fed’s latest general goal of 2.0%.
The Fed is normally concerned with keeping inflation low but is currently, allegedly more concerned with the possibility of deflation.
Source: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cpi.pdf
12/2013 Report
We are not going to get cost push inflation from higher costs in our resource/factor markets until interest rates rise and, of more importance, labor costs rise. Though labor costs are shrinking as a percentage of national income, labor costs at 64% remain a much higher percent of national income than the cost of financial capital (d).
GDP gap – is the gap between a full employment GDP and the current GDP with current unemployment. Full employment is defined as an unavoidable 4% unemployment. November unemployment was reported at 7.0% and is in line with the Fed’s QE target, but this measure only counts people still looking for work and does not measure underemployment. We have been in an extended downturn. Labor market participation is near a 35 year low at 63.0%. I submit the current GDP gap is much more than the difference between 4% and 7%
unemployment, and we need a full employment GDP to maximize our ability to pay our debts.
Source: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm 12/06/2013 report The 09/01/2017 Employment Situation Summary for August 2017 reports unemployment was just 4.4% but the labor participation rate was still 62.9%.
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Free market – is a lie. We are a corrupt monopoly/ oligopoly capitalist system not a free competition capitalist system which would allow competitive effects to self-regulate markets.
The government regulation we most need is antitrust regulation to reestablish free competition by breaking up our monopolies/ oligopolies and the too big to fail. Competition is the only way markets can self-regulate. Such self-regulation would preempt the need for other more onerous, micro managing regulations.
Liquidity trap – In classical theory savings and investments always moved toward equilibrium.
Given the correct interest rate, savings would equal investments. Keynes made the case that there was no such natural equilibrium. Savers and investors were different people with differing motivators. During down times savings would increase to cover future uncertainties. The trap was that increased savings/ liquidity was funded by decreased consumption spending which led to reduced economic activity with concomitant uncertainties leading to increased savings in a continuing, viscous circle.
Keynes reasoned that savings would lead to lower interest rates but not necessarily increased investment. Business investors must consider all costs and benefits in a business investment, not just interest rates, and during down times potential profits are low. Regardless of how much or how long the Fed lowers interest rates, low rates will not necessarily increase job-creating, business investment.
Keynes theorized a solution in which government could replace private business investment with public investment. Deficit spending could lead to increased economic activity in a beneficial circle which would eventually create increased taxes to pay off the deficit debt. It worked.
Deficit spending helped make the bad times better. It also made the good times better leading to unending deficits and high debt. This outcome is not what Keynes intended. Keynes is not responsible for our fiscal irresponsibility.
Public investment, despite high debt, could still be used to stimulate our economy and meet long neglected public needs like our crumbling infrastructure. America needs value adding jobs more than we need transfer payments and plutocrat/ corporate welfare.
Wealth effect – is the increase in consumption spending attributable to the perception that one is wealthier. It is a double-edged sword in that consumption spending will decrease from the perception one is poorer. There was a positive wealth effect from the increase in home prices before their peak in July 2006. There was a negative wealth effect from the drop in home prices after their peak. We now appear to have regained the net worth we lost in the great recession.
(Source: 12/09 Z-1 release pages 113-115.) I submit this is bubble wealth. Our wealth was bubblicious before the Great Recessions GRs I, and it is bubblicious now before the Great Recessions GRs II. Just like our plutocrats, to recognize this bubble wealth, you will have to sell your bubble assets well before the GRs II.
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Deregulation and regulatory forbearance have repeatedly led to booms and busts in our real estate RE markets, but the only thing we learn from history is that we do not learn from history.
Savings and Loan S&L Crisis
Deregulation in the early eighties gave new powers to S&Ls such as making commercial RE
loans, making construction RE loans, selling mortgages, etc. S&L bankers and examiners had little experience in these areas and were ill equipped to manage them. This was followed by regulatory forbearance in that the Reagan administration refused to fund adequate numbers of FSLIC examiners to meet the needs of this fast-growing industry and refused to fund their reeducation to deal with the industry’s expanded powers.
RE values went up then down creating selling and buying opportunities for those who were aware of what was happening. I did not assume this was a manipulation until it happened again.
Great Recessions GRs I
Deregulation and regulatory forbearance lead to another RE boom and bust.
The Glass-Steagall Acts of 1932/1933 separated commercial banks, investment banks, and stock brokers thus eliminating conflicts of interest and the potential for abusive self-dealing. In 1999
Glass-Steagall was repealed. I was still working as a bank examiner at the time, and I remember thinking there must be people much smarter than me to calculate we would be better off without this legislation which had served us well for over 65 years.
Brooksley Born in 1998/1999, as chairperson of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission CFTC, lobbied to give the CFTC oversight authority over off-exchange, over-the-counter OTC
markets for derivatives in addition to its authority over exchange-traded markets for derivatives.
These OTC derivatives were known only to their counterparties and those counterparties’
regulators if any. There was no way to assess systemic risk. This systemic risk was made apparent in the 1998 collapse of Long-Term Capital Management LTCM which had leveraged itself into an extreme risk position with the extensive use of unregulated OTC derivatives. Even their investors could not assess LTCM’s risk exposure.
Born’s position was opposed by other regulators and plutocrat cronies including Treasury Secretaries Rubin and Summers, Fed chairman Greenspan, SEC chairman Levitt, and Congress.
Congress in December 2000 passed the Commodities Futures Modernization Act CFMA within a FY 2001 appropriations bill. The CFMA legislation excluded financial derivatives including credit default swaps CDSs from supervision under the Commodities Enforcement Act. It reasserted and strengthened their exemption from state laws which could construe them to be gambling.
CDSs were used as insurance against defaulting securities, but while Insurers are precluded from underwriting policies for persons with no insurable interest in the subject property, naked CDS
allow parties to have no interest in the contract referenced security. It is a very sophisticated hedge or, more likely more often, a plain and simple gambling. Naked CDSs made up as much 66
as 80% of the CDSs market (e). Insured commercial banks and other “too big to fail” institutions should not have been allowed to use them to speculate/ gamble.
Deregulation combined with regulatory forbearance to facilitate a massive worldwide securities fraud. Terrorism played a role in this forbearance. On 9/11 all SEC records in New York were eliminated with the destruction of WTC 7. More important, law enforcement resources were transferred from addressing corruption to addressing terrorism. Regulators allowed banks to securitize subprime, liar loans into fraudulently AAA rated securities and their derivatives.
You could make the case bankers and others were not gambling in their use of CDSs because in fact they had rigged their games. It wasn’t gambling; it was stealing. SNL Financial reports America’s six largest banks have agreed to pay 65 billion in settlements related to their mortgages and the financial crisis. Further claims were projected to increase that figure to 85
billion. (11/02/2013 Economist p. 81) Bloomberg reported our six largest banks, between 1/2008 and 6/2013, paid 56 B in legal fees and 47 B to mortgage investors (12/8/2013 SDUT
p.C3).
Just one indicative example was Abacus 2007-AC1. Investment bank Goldman Sachs colluded with John Paulson to create, sell, and bet against a synthetic collateralized debt obligation CDO
Abacus-2007 AC1. The contract referenced securities in this transaction were intentionally picked to default. Goldman Sachs paid 550 million in settlements on this transaction but admitted no wrongdoing, and no one went to jail. Paulson made 1 billion from this transaction (f) and apparently suffered no legal consequences.
We are the most incarcerated country on earth. Though we are only 5% of the world’s population, we have 25% of the world’s prison population. There is room for victimless criminals like marijuana smokers, but no room for our plutocrats and their cronies who cheated the world of hundreds of billions.
Great Recessions GRs II
The lack of correct, adequate reregulation and, I believe, improper regulator interference has created another RE boom soon to be bust.
The repeal of Glass-Steagall allowed conflicts of interest and self-dealing. During the run up to the GRs I, our bankers abused those conflicts of interest. Since the GRs I, the abuse continued.
Our large banks are too large, have too much power in too many areas, are willing to abuse those powers, and are willing to collude in abusing those powers.
The following are a few indicative examples:
Banks which are supposed to compete colluded to fix the Japanese benchmark rate, Euribor, and Libor. Bloomberg News reported global fines had totaled 6 billion by 12/4 (g).
JP Morgan, the country’s largest commercial bank, paid a settlement of 410 M to FERC for Enron style manipulation of energy prices. In 2003 an exemption was passed which allows Wall Street banks to enter transactions in physical commodities that are complementary to their financial activities (8/17/2013 Economist p.59).
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I submit we do not need feel good PR in an unnecessary, new consumer protection agency or a thousand pages of regulations and interpretations on the Volcker rule prohibiting banks from proprietary trading. We need to reestablish and enforce Glass-Steagall and anti-trust regulations.
We are micro managing when we should be macro managing.
The Fed
- protecting us from deflation and affordable housing
Fed management states it has kept interest rates low to stimulate the economy and stop deflation.
As noted above, this will not necessarily increase business investment. It has been temporarily successful in fighting deflation given the rise in our bond, stock, and homes markets. But, if as I believe we are in a bubble, then the coming GRs II will eliminate this temporary success. I believe Fed management is aware of these points and is pursuing other purposes.
The S&P Case-Shiller US national home price index was 100 in 3/2000, 189.93 in 6/2006 peak, 124.20 in 3/2012 low, and 150.92 in 9/2013. The homes market peaked nationally in July 2006.
It then dropped dramatically reaching a market low in early 2012 but that low was still much higher than the homes market in 2000. The homes market in 2000 was not deflationary, and the homes market at the 2012 low was also not deflationary. Source: 12/2013 Report
http://us.spindices.com/indices/real-estate/sp-case-shiller-us-national-home-price-index *
The unnatural state of our homes market is apparent in the fact that 42% of all residential sales in November were to buyers who paid cash – investors/ speculators (h). They’re bidding up the prices of our homes; they’re blowing bubbles.
There has been a campaign to get people to refinance their homes at lower rates to help keep them in their homes. All the reporting about refinancing never mentions that once you refinance you cannot use your state’s anti-deficiency laws. Most states prohibit creditors from pursuing borrowers personally for deficiency balances in foreclosures on purchase money mortgages.
Creditors can only move against the collateral. Once you refinance, you become personally liable for your loan beyond the value of your collateral. When this bubble bursts, refinanced borrowers will not be able to walk away from their mortgages on underwater homes and escape personal liability.
California changed its laws in January 2013 to allow anti-deficiency laws to apply to the portion of a refinancing used to pay off a prior, purchase money mortgage, but this law is not retroactive.
Whether the price of your home is 1 million or 200,000, you still need a home to live in. You must sell your home to recognize an increase in value. I submit higher home prices do not increase our standard of living if we simply stay in our homes, and certainly reduces the standard of living of new buyers and indirectly increases rents, reducing living standards of renters.
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12/31/2012 Federal Reserve Combined Financial Statement
Depository Institutions
1,491,045 M
Footnote m. Deposits, Depository Institutions
“Depository institutions’ deposits represent the reserve and service-related balances, such as required clearing balances, in the accounts that depository institutions hold at the Reserve Banks.
The interest rates paid on required reserve balances and excess balances are determined by the Board of Governors, based on an FOMC-established target range for the federal funds rate.
Interest payable is reported as a component of ‘Interest payable to depository institutions’ in the Combined Statements of Condition.”
Source: http://federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/files/BSTcombinedfinstmt2012.pdf
See pages 5 and 16.
Never in accounting history, has so much money been explained by so few words. And, I believe it’s a lie. Most of this account balance is not reserve balances.
We are supposed to believe, as of 12/11/2013, institutions have left 2.5 trillion in excess reserves at the Fed to be paid 25 basis points interest. And, excess reserves increase by 85 billion every month paid the same 25 basis points interest. Further, would not short-term rates rise if 2.5
trillion in funds were taken out of circulation in excess reserve deposits?
Source: http://federalreserve.gov/releases/h41/
I offer the following estimate as an alternative accounting. It is oversimplified and not accurate, but it is certainly more accurate than the Fed’s disclosed accounting:
12/31/2012 Institutions’ Deposits (M)
Debit
Credit
Required Reserves
60,000
Excess Reserves
447,541
Money Creation Account
1,712,327
Money Elimination Account
-728,823
Total
1,491,045
Required reserves were estimated to be 60 billion. Gross required reserves for the two weeks ended 1/9/2013 were 114 billion from which we can subtract eligible vault cash of 54 billion.
See 1/10/2013 Fed Report H.3 (502). Note – Total institutions’ deposits were 21 billion in 1951 and 19 billion in 2006.
Excess reserves were 447,451 M equal to 507,541 M in total reserves less 60,000 M in estimated required reserves.
Right or wrong the source for the 507,541 M:
http://federalreserve.gov/econresdata/releases/combanksal/combanksal120130331.htm
Money creation account balance was 1,712,327 M equal to total securities of 2,838,988 M less Federal Reserve notes in circulation of 1,126,661 M.
Money elimination account balance was -728,823 M equal to the combination of 447,451 M
offsetting excess reserves plus 281,282 offsetting funds primarily from sources outside of institutions’ deposits.
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I do not believe the Fed would subject itself to the interest rate risk involved with funding trillions in long term assets with trillions in short term funds. If as I believe LT assets are not funded by reserve deposits, whatever happens to the future level of reserves is irrelevant. The Fed is still subject to interest rate risk in that LT securities will depreciate as LT interest rates rise. The Fed has stated it will not sell its mortgage-backed securities, if so, their depreciation will be irrelevant. The Fed will still have more than enough interest earnings to fund its operations and continue to refund unspent interest earnings to the Treasury.
One way or another, these accounts are manipulated. If the public and Congress understood the magic used to create money the Fed uses to purchase LT securities, they would lose whatever faith they may still have in the Fed.
Predictions: Our next, wholly avoidable crises will arrive in late spring/early summer. Look for significant events on or around 5/22/2014.
Fed QE 3/4 tapering is set to begin in January 2014 with a mere 10 B reduction in securities purchases. The longer they extend tapering, the larger will be the financial collapse . New purchases continued through 2014. All redemptions/principal payments have been reinvested since then. 09/20/2017 Fed Chairman Yellen announced plans to reduce principal reinvestments in both Treasuries and Mortgage-Backed Securities MBS by 10 B per month beginning in October 2017. This 10 B cap will rise to a meaningless 50 B cap over the next year – 30 B in Treasuries and 20 B in MBS. Most months redemptions will not come close to these limits (The Economist 09/16/2017). Note – the Fed holds over 2.6 trillion in bonds not backing Federal Reserve notes.
Fed Taper Day, December 18th 2013, was the beginning of the end. The bond, stock, and then home market bubbles will begin to collapse into the Great Recessions II.
2017 It’s coming.
The troop level in Afghanistan is projected to be down to 34,000 by the end of February 2014 as promised by Obama in his 2013 State of the Union Address. Long term plans call for force levels to drop to between 20,000 and 10,000 in 2014. April 5, 2014 is the next presidential election in Afghanistan.
Karzai or the new President will sign a status of forces agreement with the US.
Force levels will stay around 30,000 as they were during the Bush years for possible use in Iran and to protect illegal drug profits. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime 2008 report showed the potential metric tonnage of Afghan opium production rose from 185 metric tons during its ban in 2001 to 8,200 metric tons in 2007. UNODC 2013 report showed potential metric tonnage at 5,500. 80% of drug profits are made in the country of consumption i.e.
America. The loss of these profits would hurt our plutocrats and deepen our recession. (i) The end of April will be the end of nine months of peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine.
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Negotiations will end without a final agreement. The collaboration will continue between greater Palestine terrorists and greater Israel Zionists. Terror and occupation will continue to rationalize each other.
Israel/Palestine will explode in violence. The UN will recognize Palestine without borders as a full member state by the end of 2015.
Terror threats against the US will skyrocket with a concomitant negative effect on markets.
The end of May will be the end of the initial six months delineated in the interim, nuclear agreement with Iran. Iran will have had another six months to comply with international demands and will be deemed just months away from the capability of producing a nuclear device. The Interim Agreement was signed 11/24/2013, but the referenced, initial six months began on 1/20/2014 and ended 7/20/2014. The Final Agreement/ Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action JCPOA was signed 07/14/2015 with Implementation Day on 01/16/2016.
Congress will push for war. This was, obviously, a self-unfulfilling prophecy. Our war plutocrats and their cronies will attempt to sell the war as an economic necessity. WWII brought us out of the depression, but given our current high debt, this war would deepen the coming recession.
Full disclosure – Given the extraordinary rise in home prices in the early 2000s, I predicted a negative wealth effect from a bursting bubble home market would result in a recession in the spring 2004 then the spring 2005. I was several years premature. 2017 Oops, I did it again.
Additional miscellaneous recommendations
Refinance our short-term ST nonfinancial federal debt into 20/30-year maturity bonds before LT
rates skyrocket.
End our war economy by all just means necessary.
Stop aggressor Americans from unnecessarily killing tens of thousands of Iranians as they/we killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.
Support a military option against those who support an Iran military option.
Next war, civil war – Prepare for a war to end all America’s unjust wars.
Corruption - Reestablish honesty, integrity, and trust in American business and financial markets. As recently made evident, markets cannot function in their absence. I suspect during the Lehman Bros 2008 Panic, banks would not lend to each other for fear that other banks were as dishonest as they were. Don’t bail ‘em, jail ‘em.
We must all stand up to the corruption in our individual lives and workplaces. Risk your job or risk your country.
Employment - If you are receiving transfer payments such as welfare, unemployment, or social security, and you are either able bodied or able minded, recognize an obligation to work at least part time as a volunteer. We all need to help reestablish a sustainable, stable economy.
If your job is not adding value, get a new job.
Do Good.
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Raise the federal minimum wage to $10/ hour 50% of average hourly wage of nonsupervisory personnel at $20.31/ hour. This is also in a reasonable 40-45% of national average hourly wage at $24.15/ hour. Such a raise would reduce these workers need for aid, increase consumption spending given these workers high propensity to consume, and would moderately help fight deflation. Source: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm 12/06/2013 report 8/2017 average hourly wage of nonsupervisory personnel was 22.12, 50% of which would give a national minimum wage of 11.06.
Keep a six months’ supply, no more no less, of gin and tonic for the coming hard times. If you keep less, you may be overcome by depression. If you keep more, you may think you have enough to drink yourself to death - and then attempt to do so.
Sources and Footnotes:
Primary sources: The Economist magazine, San Diego Union Tribune SDUT,
www.wikipedia.com, www.federalreserve.gov, www.bls.gov,
http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/ See the 12/09/2013 Z-1 statistical release.
(a) The GDP figure used was the average annualized figures for the first three quarters of 2013
from the 12/09/2013 Z-1 release. Gross domestic product GDP indicates our capacity to service our debt. It is the market value of the products and services produced in one year in our product markets. The flip side of this figure is what our producers pay for labor and financial capital in our resource/factor markets. GDP in the product markets roughly equals national income and fixed capital consumption in the resource/ factor markets.
(b) 9/16/2012 SDUT p.C1 from Nation’s Housing article by Kenneth Harney – “1.2 million families across the country are now at some stage of foreclosure, 3.8 million homeowners have been foreclosed upon since September 2008…” This was in September 2012.
(c) Bloomberg News in the 12/17/2013 SDUT p. C4 and the 12/09 Z-1.
(d) Source: 11/2/2013 Economist p.12. Note: The 12/9 Z-1 release p.13 shows 3rd quarter annualized compensation of employees/ national income was 60.9% (8,889.1B/ 14,596.7B).
A portion of proprietors’ income is compensation for proprietors’ labor which would significantly increase this percentage. See also footnote (a).
(e) Bloomberg News 7/24/2009 article “Banning Naked Default Swaps…” As much as 80
percent of the credit-default swap market is traded by firms that do not own the underlying debt, Eric Dinallo, the former superintendent of the New York State Insurance Department, estimated in a January (2009) interview. The following broken link is for reference only:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a0W1VTiv9q2A *
(f) http://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2010/comp21489.pdf p.3
(g) 12/05/2013 SDUT p.C4 from Washington Post article by Danielle Douglas
(h) 12/29/2013 SDUT p.C1 from Nation’s Housing article by Kenneth Harney
(i) Sources: American War Machine by Peter Dale Scott p.227 and p. 235 and
http://www.unodc.org/wdr/index.html
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7 Gun Control – A Bigger Picture
2014 03 04
Outline/ Summary
Hypothesis - We are a sick society. Gun violence is a mere symptom of this
sickness. George Orwell’s doublethink creates cognitive dissonance leading to mental illness and too often irrational, criminal behavior. A primary doublethink is claiming American ideals while we aggress against and occupy the world. A society with immoral leadership cannot expect its lesser, weaker members to act morally, and nihilism makes perfect sense in the vast gulf between our ideals and our immoral reality.
Terrible Truths
Plutocrat corruption/ welfare
Gun control we need – Cut by half defense, security, and intelligence spending.
Cut this funding of our aggression. Eliminate this primary doublethink and make our ideals our reality in American foreign policy.
Gun control we must avoid – eliminating citizens access to effective weaponry for the defense of ourselves, others, the country, and the world. We the people are capable of self-governance and self-defense.
An American phoenix program
Sources and Footnotes Addendums
Hypothesis
Americans are people of the lie – willfully ignorant cowards unwilling to face terrible truths.
The truth is we have an immoral government, run by an immoral plutocracy, with the acquiescence of an immoral populace. Contrary to our ideals we have aggressed against native America, Canada, Mexico, Spain, Vietnam, and Iraq. We needlessly killed millions in Vietnam and hundreds of thousands in Iraq. We support financially, diplomatically, and militarily Israel’s aggression in the West Bank. We are the bad guys.
There are many areas of contradictions and hypocrisy in our society which contribute to our sickness. We claim to be a land of equality, but we have not had such inequality in wealth and income since the 1920s. We claim to have a free market economy, but we are not a free competition capitalist system. We are a corrupt, monopoly/ oligopoly capitalist system. We claim to be free, but with only 5% of the world’s population we have 25% of the world’s prisoners. We claim to be a Christian nation, but we more often extend the back of the hand rather than the helping hand. I will concentrate in this paper on our most egregious hypocrisy –
our claiming American ideals while perpetuating unnecessary killing in unjust wars.
Doublethink is Orwell’s term for holding two contradictory beliefs at the same time. This contradiction creates cognitive dissonance (CD), too often resulting in irrational and/or destructive behavior. CD theory postulates deviant behavior results from our natural bias to seek consonance between our expectations and our reality. Given this bias, we attempt to reduce the 73
dissonance by lowering the import of one of the discordant factors, adding consonant factors, changing one of the discordant factors, etc.
I suspect we also compartmentalize in an attempt to separate different realities. We separate our religion from our science. We require individual morality but allow our government to act immorally. I submit integrity is the integration of all our values into all our realities. What is true in science is true in religion. What is true for an individual is true for a country. Truth is not relative. Time and space are relative. Our individual perceptions of truth will vary, but the truth does not vary. Truth is absolute.
Whatever games we may play, pieces of the truth leak into our consciousness.
Terrible Truths
America has often gone to war through gross manipulations. General Zachary Taylor was attacked after being ordered into disputed territory between the Nueces and Rio Grande rivers, Spain could not have benefited from blowing up the Maine, the Lusitania had munitions in her hold, it may not have been mere coincidence that there were no aircraft carriers at Pearl Harbor on 12/07/1941, the first Tonkin Gulf incident was provoked, the second incident didn’t happen, I don’t believe jet fuel fires in the upper floors could have thoroughly demolished the entire superstructures of both the Twin Towers on 9/11, Bin Laden was intentionally allowed to escape Tora Bora in December 2001, and there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Further, a nuclear capable and/or armed Iran will never be a significant threat to the United States.
We have overthrown democratically elected heads of state because they were socialist and/or threatened American business interests. We overthrew Mosaddegh in Iran 1953 for Iranian oil, overthrew Arbenz in Guatemala 1954 for the United Fruit Company, and helped overthrow Allende in Chile 9/11/1973 for ITT, Anaconda, and Kennecott. If we were immorally capable of coup de tats elsewhere, why not in America?
I believe our war plutocrats assassinated John F Kennedy in 1963 because he planned to get us out of Vietnam. Kennedy was not a socialist, but he threatened future war profits. Kennedy had refused to introduce US troops into Cuba, Laos, and the Congo. He allowed military advisors into Vietnam but refused to introduce US combat troops. Through the 10/11/1963 NSAM 263, he approved plans to remove 1,000 advisors from Vietnam by the end of 1963 and most of the 16,000+ advisors by the end of 1965. Sources: http://www.jfklancer.com/NSAM263.html and
“JFK and the Unspeakable” by James Douglass. Just over eight months after his assassination, we created the Tonkin Gulf incidents. There would have been no such incidents under JFK. See Section 7.1
Plutocrat corruption/ welfare
America is a plutocracy. Corporate welfare is plutocrat welfare, and corporatism is plutocracy.
Blaming our problems on Corporatism allows our plutocrats to escape their personal responsibility as the owners and operators of our large corporations. Every level of American government, government bureaucracy, media, and academia are corrupt. We the people are free and have influence, but we do not control our country. Millions in the streets before the attack on Iraq did not keep America from attacking. On 10/10/2002, 68% of the House and 77% of the 74
Senate authorized unilateral war with Iraq while only 37% of their constituents supported unilateral war (1). Congress refused to abide by the wishes of their constituents and followed the wishes of their contributors.
The finance and real estate industries are the largest contributors to American politics and thereby among the worst corrupters. Their plutocrats have destroyed the world’s economy for their extraordinary profits, but while their corporations are fined, and even though we are the most incarcerated nation on earth, none of these plutocrats went to jail. Even after the devastation of the Great Recessions I, we have not reregulated. We have not restored free competition capitalism, not eliminated abusive conflicts of interest by reestablishing Glass-Steagall, and not reestablished honesty in our markets. See the case for these ideas in Chapter 6
Great Recessions II. Chapter 6 deals with corruption on a national level, but it is at all levels of government. See the addendum at the end of this chapter on redevelopment in San Diego, CA.
If Americans are willing to acquiesce in this corruption, I can accept their acquiescence until this corruption leads to unnecessary killing in unjust wars.
I submit foreign states and terrorists are not existential threats to America, while Our war plutocrats are our domestic enemies and an existential threat to America. War plutocrats are the flesh and blood people who own and operate our major defense contractors and other large corporations with major benefits from our war economy. I submit the goals of our perpetual war are cheap resources and war profits for these plutocrats.
The Carlyle Group – combined privileged information and deep connections for high profits. In 2001 - its total investments in the arms industry made it the 11th largest US defense contractor.
George H W Bush and James A Baker were advisors. Former British prime minister John Major was the Chairman of Carlyle Europe. The Group combined the House of Bush and the House of Saud including the bin Laden family until after 9/11 (2). George W Bush provided the American military while Saudi Arabia provided 15 of the 9/11 hijackers. No doubt Carlyle’s pre 9/11
defense investments became extraordinarily lucrative after 9/11.
Two 9/11 hijackers were known to the CIA before they entered and while they were in the US, al Mihdhar and al Hazmi on Flight 77. These men were helped by Saudi nationals in LA and San Diego. Their landlord for a time in San Diego/ La Mesa was an FBI informant who was allegedly unaware they were with al Qaeda. The CIA refused to inform the FBI of their presence in the US (3) Source: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/military/spy-factory.html.
Former counterterrorism czar Richard A Clarke believes the CIA planned to turn these men into double agents (4). The CIA and its sixty employees who knew these men were in the US have never been forced to openly explain their actions. I suspect they took no actions to turn these terrorists, and they were not incompetent. They were simply following CIA traditions in the service of our war plutocrats.
There are other examples of nominal enemies colluding:
Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban – (The Afghan Taliban and Pakistani Taliban are two different, separate organizations.) American Military and Intelligence in Afghanistan have continually complained of Pakistan’s duplicity. Pakistan, our nominal ally, helped create the Afghan 75
Taliban, allowed its leadership, the Quetta Shura, to stay in Quetta, Pakistan at least through February 2010, and I believe allowed bin Laden to stay in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Pakistan played and likely continues to play its part in this perpetual war.
Greater Palestine terrorists are collaborators with greater Israel Zionists. Unending terror rationalizes unending occupation which rationalizes unending terror. It makes perfect sense for Israel to release terrorist prisoners and then refuse to give up the West Bank. I doubt there is direct collusion, but I believe there is indirect collusion.
The control we need -
Cut defense, security, and intelligence spending back to year 2000 levels - 50%. We now have 600 bases and/or deployments spread over 156 countries and consume just under half the world’s military spending (5). The 2014 defense budget is 625 B (6). This defense budget does not include 73.3 B for military construction and the VA, 39.3 B for the Department of Homeland Security, and 49.0 B for the State Department and foreign operations (7). If we cut the defense budget by half, we would still greatly outspend Europe with a total defense budget of just 275 B
(8).
Our military strength has been derived from our economic strength. No doubt we have some economic advantages derived from our aggression, but our economic strength more influences our military strength than vice versa. Unfortunately, we are now economically decrepit partly due to overspending in defense/ offense.
Total domestic, nonfinancial debt is 248% of GDP - 41,431.9 B in debt to 16,695.7 B in GDP
(9). This is the highest or one of the highest debt/GDP ratios in our recorded history. This annual ratio has stayed above 247% since 2009 despite a growing GDP and a trillion dollar reduction in household mortgages with over four million foreclosures. Federal nonfinancial debt has seen the most growth, growing from 5.1 trillion in 2007 to 12 trillion at the end of September.
Republicans always want to blame our federal deficits on high social spending. They refuse to recognize the effects of low taxes and high defense spending.
The F-35 Lightning II fighter program is the poster child for needlessly high defense spending.
The Foreign Policy Association states it is literally the “most expensive weapon ever developed.” (5) The program has a current projected price tag of 391.2 B for 2,443 aircraft (10).
Future costs including maintenance over the life of the aircraft are projected to be a trillion on this program (5). That’s a trillion with a T plus the hundreds of billions already spent for this one fighter program. The F-35C carrier version has a current flyaway cost of 200 million for just one fighter. There have been 163 B in cost overruns so far, and there will be more (11).
The F-35 program was moved into production while still under development ensuring the likelihood of continuing the program. There was no dual contracting to allow competitive effects in fighter production. We’re developing a thoroughbred racehorse to work on the farm.
This delivery system and its munitions will cost far more than most all their targets. And, we already have a fifth-generation fighter in the F-22 Raptor.
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Iran - We have caused great harm to Iran. We overthrew Iran’s democracy and their Prime Minister Mosaddegh in 1953. We supported the aggressor Saddam Hussein in the Iraq Iran War from 1980 to 1988. Iran is flawed given its support for the targeting of civilians by Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Syrian regime, but neither America nor an American armed Israel has a morally superior position from which to attack Iran.
We cannot afford a protracted engagement with Iran. It is true that WWII got us out of the depression, but all the deficit spending for the depression and the war resulted in a 1946 total nonfinancial debt to GDP of only 164%. Further, in 1946, given the world had just been decimated by depression and war, there was nothing but growth ahead of us. Today we have no similar growth to look forward to. Unless we pillage defeated countries as did Nazi Germany, war today makes no economic sense from a macro perspective. War plutocrats may see their cheap resources and war profits as advantageous from their micro perspective, but they will prosper while America dies.
If we used our military strength to support just causes like stopping genocide in Bosnia, Rwanda, or Darfur, I could justify continued though necessarily diminished support for defense spending, and the world would love us. Instead, we continue to aggress for the benefit of our war plutocrats, and the world hates us. I am not recommending we isolate ourselves in fortress America. Step back from the world militarily but step forward diplomatically. Instead of going into the world to kill people, go into the world to help people. Do good.
Full disclosure – In the summer of 2001 just before 9/11, I condemned the mainland Chinese government as the most belligerent in the world and made the case we should increase military spending to meet the threat she posed to Taiwan. I even voted for Bush in 2000 for fear Gore would not defend Taiwan. After 9/11 the Chinese government was replaced by the Bush Administration as the most belligerent on earth.
China on 11/23/2013 declared an air defense identification zone ADIZ over the East China Sea including the disputed Senkaku/ Diaoyu islands. On 1/1/2014 China announced new fishing regulations in the waters of Hainan Province which claims 2 M square kilometers of the total 3.5
M in the South China Sea (12). I am still concerned with possible Chinese aggression; I am just more concerned with continued American aggression.
The control we must avoid -
The second amendment delineates an inalienable, preexisting individual right, but also provides for a well-regulated militia. Reasonable regulation is acceptable, but the removal of effective weaponry is not acceptable. America may be corrupt beyond nonviolent redemption. Rough justice may be the only justice possible. We do not need effective weaponry to shoot Bambi; we need such weapons to shoot the lowest form of life on the planet, Homo sapien predators. If you think we have progressed beyond our Wild West culture, how do you explain our unnecessary killing of millions of Vietnamese and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis?
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There is no better deterrent to our enemies, both foreign and domestic, than a well-armed citizenry. Further, our heavy military weapons do not provide deterrence against our domestic enemies, the only enemies that now existentially threaten us.
Just over 50 years ago the M14 rifle was adopted by the American military. Irvine C Porter as a member of the NRA Executive Council wrote the following about the M14 in March 1963, “All that remains to be done, in my opinion, is to provide means for every physically fit male in the age bracket of 18-65 years to qualify annually at least as a Marksman with this fine weapon.
Such an achievement will materially strengthen the physical as well as the mental and moral fiber of our nation, contributing greatly to its defense.” (13)
California has among the most restrictive gun laws in the nation but still allows some effective weapons including the M1A rifle, the civilian version of the M14. I believe the laws are overly restrictive in prohibiting the AR-15 rifle, the civilian version of the M16, but the laws do allow a version the M1A rifle that has been somewhat modified such as eliminating its flash suppressor.
Relative to the M16, it has a more effective, higher caliber 7.62 mm cartridge and with scopes a longer effective range of up to 875 yards. The Taliban can muster 440 yards from M16s with near impunity. The M1A is an effective weapon.
California’s Democratic governor recently had to veto a law which would have prohibited this weapon. The CA legislature passed this law SB 374 indicating we must continually defend the legality of these weapons. We have an inalienable right with or without the Constitution, and hopefully, we can keep these weapons legal.
Open carry laws - should reestablish the practice in California. Prior to 2012, Californians could openly carry an unloaded pistol with separated ammunition. On 2/13/2014, the Federal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found California’s concealed carry weapons CCW laws to be unconstitutional reasoning the second amendment requires states to permit some form of carry for self-defense outside the home. Given CA CCW laws only allow carry permits for applicants who can show “good cause” for a permit, most ordinary citizens do not qualify. Ordinary citizens were prevented from both open carry and concealed carry. The court therefore nullified the “good cause” qualification in the CCW law. I submit open carry would satisfy the court, be a safer alternative to CCW, and provide greater crime deterrence than CCW.
California could and should clean up its Armed Prohibited Person System. The State Auditor in an October 2013 report found the program failed to take guns from 21,000 Californians who had lost their gun rights. The report also found the current mental health, criminal, and gun databases were riddled with errors, and that 3 of 8 confiscation decisions were incorrect. Gun Owners of California, a pro-gun organization, estimated the system was 40 to 60 percent incorrect. Others put the percentage lower, but it was still high. (14) This is not reasonable regulation.
Stand Your Ground laws
- should be repealed. It is not okay for civilians or police to shoot unarmed attackers. If one is faced with shooting an unarmed assailant or retreating, the correct choice in most all cases is to retreat. One can then continue to pursue an attacker when sufficient help is available.
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School Security
- We do not have to live in a police state or make our schools armed camps.
As part of a general initiative to extend personal responsibility for our own security, I recommend all schools have secured gun safes at a few locations on campuses. The safes would hold weapons and ballistic vests to be used by capable staff for the protection of students and staff. Vests should be clearly labeled “School Security.” We have former soldiers everywhere fully capable of using such weapons, and non-veterans can be trained to use such weapons. Obviously, all staff would not be capable, but certainly several capable staff can be found in most all schools. The primary effect of such a program would likely be deterrence, but it would also save lives when deterrence does not work.
Flight 93 – Todd Beamer and other passengers took actions against hijackers after learning three other planes were flown into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. These passengers were not able to save themselves, but they saved the Capitol building or the White House. This assumes 93 was not simply shot down. Even if the plane was shot down, passengers took action. I submit passengers of the other planes would have taken action if our intelligence community had condescended to inform the public that suicide hijackings were possible, and citizens should not necessarily be passive.
We the people are capable of self-governance and self-defense.
An American phoenix program
The Vietnam Phoenix Program between 1965 and 1972 neutralized over 81,000 Viet Cong VC
operatives, supporters, and informants. Those targeted were not soldiers but civilians who were part of the VC infrastructure. Neutralized meant captured, converted, or killed. Over 26,000
were killed.
I propose a similar program in America targeting the worst of our war plutocrats and the worst of their political, bureaucrat, media, and think tank cronies. Support the threat to neutralize these aggressors if Congress authorizes military action and/or concurrent with any future military action against Iran - next war, civil war. The immediate and primary purpose of such a program would be to save the lives of tens of thousands of Iranians.
George W Bush and Dick Cheney committed high treason in December 2001 when they repeatedly refused requests for the resources and actions necessary to prevent Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda from escaping Tora Bora. If we had captured or destroyed bin Laden and al Qaeda at Tora Bora, the rationalization for continued war would have ended, but Bush and Cheney wanted war for cheap natural resources and war profits. I submit, if we had neutralized Bush and Cheney for high treason in 2002, we may have been able to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. See the case for their treason in Chapter 2 The War on Terror is a Lie.
We should overthrow our war plutocrats’ control of the government, not the government. Our government and police are not our enemies. These institutions certainly include the corrupt in their ranks, but their ranks also include those who stand against the corruption and support 79
