The Formula of War vs. a Pandemic of FreedomBy Jon Rappoport Follow the bouncing ball all the way to the end, which is a beginning. Making war makes money. Winning a war makes more money. The desire to keep making war requires building up and maintaining a standing army. When many nations are pursuing this general course, the threat-need for maintaining a standing army rises to a new level. The need, for the sake of defense and preparedness, to strengthen armies is exactly what war makers exploit. Dismantling this whole operation, by scaling back foreign military bases, withdrawing troops, and setting boundaries and no-go zones is anathema to war makers. If JFK, as a few scholars suggest, was planning to get out of Vietnam, and if he was also in the process of planning space missions with Russia, these would have been ample reasons for his assassination. Everyone has his favorite reason for JFKs murderhe wanted to take money-creation out of the hands of the Federal Reserve; he was about to blow the whistle on UFO secrets; he was on the verge of destroying the CIA; he signed the 1963 nuclear test ban treaty with Russia; he and his brother were trying to destroy the Mafia; JFK was about to lay taxes on multi-billion-dollar Liberian shipping operations; anti-Castro Cubans hated him because he failed to back the Bay of Pigs invasion; he was determined to push forward an ocean-turbine technology for the generation of electricity. Everyone who has a reason for JFKs murder is quite sure it is the primary or only reason. If withdrawal from Vietnam was one reason, it speaks to the sensitivity of the war machine and its allied industries. If international peace broke out, what would happen to the US economy? To be more precise, what would happen to those corporations who depend on the largest government military contracts? To be even more precise, what would happen to these corporations, who depend on government taxes and money invented out of thin air by elite government-backed banks? Those corporations would imagine new enterprises or crash. And? The nation would have to find another way to have an economy. Would this signal, beyond the chaos, the end of the world? No. Along a similar front, if gangs were wiped out, along with drug cartels, and if the main terrorist groups were isolated, attacked, and defunded (cut off from drug money, diverted government tax money and elite invented money), other sectors of the economy would take a hit, but again, the world would not end. Along a similar front, if corporations who manufacture and sell poison (e.g., drug companies, pesticide companies) were punished to the full extent of the law, and even disbanded, the economy would take another hit, but again, the world would not end. Along a similar front, if cheating, lying, and thieving banks and allied Wall St. firms were punished to the full extent of the law, and even disbanded, the world would not end. What would the new emerging economy look like? That would depend on the imagination, and challenging work, done by individuals (not governments) who see new possibilities. That would depend on people who attempt to wake up a population muddled in passive acceptance of whatever consumer products are shoved down their throats. Yes, I know all this speculation sounds like dreaming impossible dreams. But while Im at it, here is another one: what would happen if everything Ive written so far in this article became the subject of reasoned debate in colleges? Im talking about serious lengthy debate about a new economy. Several things would happen. First, it would come to light that the overwhelming number of students are intellectually incapable of carrying on such a dialogue. That in itself would rank as an inconvenient truth. Students dont learn how to think in a rational fashion. They know next to nothing about logic. Most of them arent even aware of what a line of reasoning looks like. They cant follow such a line. Second, it would become obvious that the overwhelming number of students are incapable of conceiving a new economy that is not spearheaded and controlled by government. Students are brainwashed into thinking that all significant change must come from above. It must be planned. It must be designed to produce some vague outcome called equality. This preference for central government control and planning is sustained even though, with a little thought, its clear that government has been the driving (and permissive) criminal force that protects the very economy that is causing all the trouble. Third, it would become obvious that the faculties of colleges are also intellectually incapable of carrying on this debate. They, too, have been trained to ignore logic. Theyve also been trained to push a values-laden agenda that celebrates centrally planned collectivist economies. Fourth, the idea that free and independent and creative individuals could spearhead a new economy seems outrageous, preposterous, and even illegal to the mass of students and professors. For them, all non-group-associated individuals, viewed in any light, are, a priori, greedy criminals. So actually, this article isnt about creating a new economy. Its about the barriers to a rational, extensive, lengthy dialogue and debate about the creation of a new economy. A dialogue, by the way, that goes beyond what might be contained in cell phone texting or tweeting. How shocking. Here is just one idea that might spring up in the kind of dialogue Im talking about. Urban farms. They already exist, of course. In each case, they began as an idea in the mind of one individual. They didnt spring to life, originally, when six people, walking down the street, suddenly turned to each other and said, Urban farms. These are very large operations that grow food crops for residents of cities, especially those who cant afford good food. The people themselves learn to grow the crops. What would happen, what would be the consequence of, say, 10,000 urban farms across America? What would this do for the health and morale of people in cities? How would profit be made? And, peripherally, why is it that local, state, and federal government havent backed such an ideafor an infinitesimal fraction of the money they spend on alleviating poverty; money that, by the way, seems to make things worse. Again, peripherally, what would happen if thousands of college students, who matriculate on privileged campuses and yap endlessly about their lack of privilege, instead turned their victimhood-energies to starting urban farms and working in them? Would the world end? Would the sky fall? The same questions could be asked about the students professors, many of whom are merely paid propagandists of the State. There are all sorts of interesting questions that could arise in a real debate/dialogue. Heres another one: what would a world without Monsanto or Merck actually look like? Or: what would America look like with an army dedicated only to defense of the nation? Such a dialogue could lead to action. Many separate actions. What a thought. Would the world end? Would the sky fall? You want more? Pay particular and close attention to this one. What would happen, if one state in the union decided that anyone could offer health advice and non-harmful, non-toxic treatment to another person, for any ailment or illness, without control from above, without the need for government licensing? Suppose this arrangement, between consenting adults, was done by contract, not license? Suppose both parties asserted that no liability or blame would be attached to the outcome of such advice or treatment? In other words, God forbid, the citizens would actually take responsibility for themselves. Do you think many citizens and practitioners might flock to such a state? Do you think an economic bonanza might explode in that state? Do you think the outbreak of freedom might raise the morale in that area? Do you think improved health might result? Do you think other states might follow suit, merely by removing, at no cost, their grotesque rules and licensing/enforcement bureaus? Would you be afraid of such an arrangement, understanding the fact that current orthodox medicine, as licensed and practiced throughout the land, results in widespread pharmaceutical devastation? Shown a projection of the foreseeable economic bonanza from the new arrangement I just outlined, do you think there is at least one state in the US that might throw irrational caution to the winds and enact this program of health freedom? In the kind of extended dialogue Im talking about here, individuals come up with lots of interesting ideasideas that could very well lead to action. And in the process, the nightmare zombie cloud of government control and meddling takes major hits. All its operations aimed at interfering with freedom are exposed. The crud washes off. The unconscionable dreck drains away. People start actually thinking again. They start imagining again. They feel their chains slipping away. They come out of the collective dream. They experience cascades of new energy. They think about entrepreneurship in a new way. They think about morality and ethics in a new way. They re-find themselves. Does the sky fall? Does the world end? No. It begins. Perhaps (miracle of miracles) the quantity of self-invented victims begins to diminish. Perhaps untold numbers of people floating along in a New Age daze (because they see no way out of the dilemmas and conflicts of our time) rise up from their plastic lotus pads, sensing a genuine impulse of hope and desire for the first time in many years. Their own hope. Their own desire. Perhaps millions of people trapped in dead-end robotic work feel a creak in the psychological and spiritual machinery that surrounds them, as it begins to malfunction and split apart. Perhaps moon-blown, full-bore, doctrinal collectivist freaks feel a few pin pricks in the purple bloated corpse of their one-size-fits-all planetary vision. Who knows what might happen if a true ongoing dialogue about a new economy persisted long enough? If a person is dead inside and doesnt want to be dead inside, he has to ask himself (paraphrasing Clint Eastwood) this question: Did he fire six shots into his psyche or only five? If only five, can he fire that last bullet into the passive trance that keeps him in thrall to Control Central? Waking up may be hard to do, but its also contagious. If a college dared to offer a four-year course which consisted entirely of the dialogue/debate Im proposing, carried out along respectful lines, omitting and barring the screaming opponents of free speech, who knows what might happen? As William Blake wrote, If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise. As the dialogue proceeds, all sorts of foolish ideas would come to light and unravel, and turn into other ideas, and those ideas would transmute into useful ideas, out of which would be born a few brilliant ideasand on it would go. And the process itself would act as a catalyst for every person within listening range. His own imagination would rev up. He would discover his own future path. Would that be a calamity? Would the sky fall? Would the world end? Or would the dawn finally break? Its instructive to read what authors wrote about core values a hundred or two hundred years ago, because then you can appreciate what has happened to the culture of a nation. You can grasp the enormous influence of planned propaganda, which changes minds, builds new consensus, and exiles certain disruptive thinkers to the margins of society. You can see what has been painted over, with great intent, in order to promote tyranny that proclaims a greater good for all. Here are several statements about the individual, written in 19th century America. The authors, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and James Fenimore Cooper were prominent figures. Emerson, in his time, was the most famous. All greatness of character is dependent on individuality. The man who has no other existence than that which he partakes in common with all around him, will never have any other than an existence of mediocrity. James Fenimore Cooper The less government we have, the better, the fewer laws, and the less confided power. The antidote to this abuse of [by] formal Government, is, the influence of private character, the growth of the Individual. Ralph Waldo Emerson The former generations acted under the belief that a shining social prosperity was the beatitude of man, and sacrificed uniformly the citizen to the State. The modern mind believed that the nation existed for the individual, for the guardianship and education of every man. This idea, roughly written in revolutions and national movements, in the mind of the philosopher had far more precision; the individual is the world. Ralph Waldo Emerson If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. Henry David Thoreau They [conformists] think society wiser than their soul, and know not that one soul, and their soul, is wiser than the whole worldSociety everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members.Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Ralph Waldo Emerson Can you imagine, today, any of these statements gaining traction in the public mind, much less the mainstream media? In the public mind? Yes, I can. The world, as it is presented to us, is a shrunken mural in which the individual must carve down his energies, in order to fit in. If he reverses that process, he finds a new world that didnt seem to be there before. But now it is. It most definitely is. (To read about Jons mega-collection, Exit From The Matrix, click here.) Image Credit: Anthony Freda Art The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here. let freedom beginthrow out the boob tube. 