Even establishment mouthpiece entertains notion of mass civil unrest as backlash to economic collapse
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
With protesters in France entering a seventh day of strikes and demonstrations against draconian austerity measures, many political observers in the U.S. are now wondering how long it will be before similar scenes unfold on American streets, with even Time Magazine now conceding that the prospect of a civil war in the States “doesn’t seem that far fetched”.
To be clear, Stephen Gandel’s article entitled Will the Federal Reserve Cause a Civil War? largely dismisses the possibility that the Fed’s upcoming November 3rd meeting, during which Ben Bernanke is expected to announce a fresh round of money printing, will prompt national uproar, but it doesn’t exactly debunk the notion of longer term social dislocation as a backlash to the crumbling economy, as many are now forecasting.
As we highlighted yesterday in a piece that was later picked up by the Drudge Report, it’s only a matter of time before Americans are hit with almost identical austerity measures to those that have caused the French to set up fuel blockades, stage running battles with riot police, halt air and rail travel, and virtually shut down some areas of the country.
The question remains – how will Americans react if the Obama administration pushes ahead with its plan to seize all private 401(k) pensions, which will be swallowed up by the Social Security Administration under the banner of mandatory Guaranteed Retirement Accounts? How will Americans react to the upcoming announcement that the Federal Reserve will further eviscerate the value of the dollar by purchasing junk assets from big banks at exorbitant prices with money printed out of thin air?
Time Magazine, which as a guardian of the establishment would normally be expected to disparage the potential of mass civil disobedience, actually lends the notion some spotlight by linking to a Zero Hedge story which paraphrased economic forecaster David Rosenberg, who warns that the Fed’s plan for more quantitative easing, “positions US society one step closer to civil war if not worse.”
The article also features a quote from a Washington’s Blog piece which warns that the Fed’s policies could lead to the very destruction of the republic.
“In a very real sense, Bernanke is throwing Granny and Grandpa down the stairs – on purpose. He is literally threatening those at the lower end of the economic strata, along with all who are retired, with starvation and death, and in a just nation where the rule of law controlled instead of being abused by the kleptocrats he would be facing charges of Seditious Conspiracy, as his policies will inevitably lead to the destruction of our republic.”
Lending the notion credence, Gandel writes, “With the Tea Party gaining followers, the idea of civil war over economic issues doesn’t seem that far-fetched these days.”
Yes, you read that correctly. Even Time Magazine is now conceding that the current economic course of the nation could lead to outright civil war and revolution.
Gandel finishes the article by leaving the prospect of widespread civil unrest as an open question.
“So it seems clear what the Fed is likely to do,” he writes. “How the economy, the militias and the rest of us react is up in the air. The count down is on. T minus 15 days to Fedamageddon. See you there, hopefully.”
Of course, people like Gerald Celente and a host of other economic forecasters have been predicting civil unrest, food riots and tax rebellions for the past two years, but to have Time Magazine seriously entertain the notion of civil war in the United States is a shocking reminder of just how close to the precipice we now stand.
Numerous forecasters, governments, spy agencies, and international bodies are predicting mass riots and unrest in response to a worsening economic picture.
In November 2008, right as the economic implosion was unraveling, the U.S. Army War College released a white paper called Known Unknowns: Unconventional ‘Strategic Shocks’ in Defense Strategy Development. The report warned that the military must be prepared for a “violent, strategic dislocation inside the United States,” which could be provoked by “unforeseen economic collapse,” “purposeful domestic resistance,” “pervasive public health emergencies” or “loss of functioning political and legal order.” The “widespread civil violence,” the document said, “would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security.”
A British Ministry of Defence report struck a similar tone when it predicted that within 30 years, the growing gap between the super rich and the middle class, along with an urban underclass threatening social order would mean, “The world’s middle classes might unite, using access to knowledge, resources and skills to shape transnational processes in their own class interest,” and that, “The middle classes could become a revolutionary class.”
How Americans will react to what many see as a make or break moment for the US economy, the Fed’s announcement on November 3rd, largely depends on how well they understand the fact that their financial future and that of their children now hangs in the balance like never before.
As the Economic Collapse Blog points out, QE2 represents the biggest bank robbery in history, and is nothing less than another huge transfer of wealth from American taxpayers to big banks. The money Bernanke prints out of thin air, which will further devalue the greenback and every dollar earned or saved by American citizens, will be used to purchase large quantities of “troubled assets” from U.S. banks at well above market price. Small banks will be allowed to wither and die, whereas the huge megaliths will collect mountains of free money at the expense of hard working Americans.
The long term impact of the Fed buying these toxic junk assets with money printed out of thin air will be an inflationary holocaust that does nothing to rescue the US economy but everything to depreciate the very real assets of the American taxpayer.
We are already on the road to serious inflation and the Federal Reserve has not even fired up the money hoses yet. So what is going to happen after they pump trillions more into the economy?
Printing more money and giving it to the banks is not going to solve our economic problems. It is just going to make them worse.
But unfortunately, American voters get no say about any of this. Our national monetary policy is in the hands of an unelected central bank that does pretty much whatever it wants.
If as many Americans were aware of what the Federal Reserve is about to do with their financial future as are knowledgeable about the intricacies of Dancing with the Stars, then the “civil war” that even Time Magazine is now presenting as a justifiable response to the crisis would be a very plausible prospect.
As it stands, according to the majority of voters in our poll on Prison Planet.com, Americans will react to the situation not by organizing fuel blockades, marching in the streets and shutting down the country, but by scratching their butts and flipping the TV channel.
Watch Matt Taibbi’s explanation of what the Fed is about to do with your money.
