Know the Enemyby
Paul Hein In the parable, the master was not confused when his servants reported that weeds had sprung up with the wheat. He knew he had sown good seed. "This is the work of an enemy," he declared, and, of course, he was right. Today, our society is riddled with weeds. Have you bought gasoline lately? Or food – especially rice? What’s the value of your home? Is it holding its own? Have you taken a trip by plane recently? Can you smoke in your favorite tavern? Are you being photographed at the bank, the supermarket, the department store? Does the lady in Bombay who is helping you get your cable-modem up and running want to know your social security number? Are your children prohibited from saying a prayer at school? Can you be arrested for saying something that offends a person belonging to some minority group? If you’re a landlord, can you discriminate between prospective tenants? Don’t be confused: an enemy has done this. It’s not simply that the petroleum companies are greedy, or the food producers inefficient, or that the tavern-owner is concerned about the health of his patrons. There’s a system at work here; an organized, interconnected series of steps orchestrated by an enemy. The enemy is subtle. He doesn’t stride about barking orders. You will rarely hear his voice at all, and when you do, it is soft and well modulated. His expressed concern, his overriding concern, is always for your welfare, and that of your children. Of course, your welfare is in jeopardy unless the environment is well treated and protected! Don’t worry; he will take care of that for you. In fact, it’s a near miracle that the world has survived this long without his guidance. Put yourself in his hands, and relax. He is the State, or an agency of the State. It is the State, you see, that has the power to accomplish these good things. Not all of the good things, however, may be apparent to you. Some may be hidden, for your own good. The ultimate goal, and it has been freely admitted, is the elimination of artificial boundaries, and the establishment of a single one-world union of nations, with a corresponding single, one-world government of enlightened (of course!) rulers, working for the good of ALL mankind! It is a breathtaking concept; the ultimate political good, but its benefits may be difficult for the man in the street to understand, so it is presented indirectly: environmental concerns, availability of oil, exchange rates, etc. And don’t forget treaties, which override the Constitution. This concept will achieve reality more readily when all men are on a more or less even footing – the "level playing field," in other words. Merging rich nations with poor will not set well with the rich, who might, in their shortsightedness, regard themselves as ripe fruit, ready to be picked. Besides, competent people might awaken to the fact that they have little need for government. To bring about the level playing field, therefore, the standard of living of the "rich" must be reduced. We are witnesses to that process. To whom will we turn when gasoline is so expensive that travel becomes virtually unthinkable? What will we do when there are food shortages? When what remains in our savings accounts loses its buying power, how will we find relief? The State stands ready to deal with all of these problems! Of course, history teaches us that the State deals with problems by making them worse, but that’s only because of inexperience and lack of funding – or so the State would have you believe. Additional money and personnel will bring about efficiency and prosperity, although not necessarily in our lifetime, or even the lifetimes of our grandchildren. These things take time, and we must be prepared to sacrifice to bring them to fruition. The State, however, is not the ultimate force leading us to a brave new world. Behind the State, and concealed by it, is the ultimate social force, the éminence grise: banking. The banks create money from nothing, and charge interest for it. Repayment is made possible by more lending. The State has been the biggest borrower, but as long as it pays interest, the principle need not be repaid: the state’s reward for legitimizing this abomination. There’s nothing new in this system, and we can learn from the past that it inevitably fails. When banks first began creating money in a big way, some banks expanded their deposits (i.e., loans) faster than others. If the depositors in such a bank became concerned about its solvency, they could go to the bank with their bank notes, and demand redemption. This was the so-called "run on the bank," and it revealed the dishonesty of the banker who issued receipts, or bank notes, for money that he did not possess. With the advent of the Federal Reserve, the "run on the bank" became a thing of history, because there was no longer anything to run to. Banks no longer needed to fear insolvency, because they were ALL insolvent. They all dealt with the same bank notes, and not a single one of them was redeemable. Problem solved: for the time being. Now the chickens are coming home to roost. A system that cannot exist without continuous borrowing will fail when the cost of borrowing simply becomes too high. When we hear officials of the Federal Reserve itself warning of the possibility of a recession, look out! Ah, but relief might be just around the corner. If the dollar fails, let’s replace it with, say, the Amero. When/if the Amero fails, there’s the euro, which the North American Union of Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. can employ when it joins the European Union. A currency can only fail by comparison with another currency. A single currency, therefore, will be incapable of failure, just as insolvency is impossible if there is no solvency. With a single governing body for the entire world, and a single currency, we will have achieved Nirvana, or Utopia. All the problems besetting us will fade into history, as we enter a bright New Age. You think? Or has an enemy done this? The weeds are waist-high, and growing fast. May 31, 2008 Copyright © 2008 LewRockwell.com
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