Conspiracy Theory
As we proceed farther off the beaten track, we hear from other people. I don't know if you'll believe this, but there are those who are of the opinion that the leaders and powers-that-be in the global society are not telling the truth, and actually do not have your best interests at heart.
1. Background and a perspective;
I don't call him 'the latest and greatest' conspiracy theorist, but I feel it appropriate to start off this section with the work of the late, great Frank Zappa; specifically, the lyrics to his song;
'I'm the Slime' (1976)
I am gross and perverted
I'm obsessed n deranged
I have existed for years
But very little has changed
I am the tool of the government
And industry too
For I am destined to rule
And regulate you
I may be vile and pernicious
But you can't look away
I make you think I'm delicious
With the stuff that I say
I am the best you can get
Have you guessed me yet?
I am the slime oozin out
From your tv set
You will obey me while I lead you
And eat the garbage that I feed you
Until the day that we don't need you
Don't call for help...no one will heed you
Your mind is totally controlled
It has been stuffed into my mold
And you will do as you are told
Until the rights to you are sold
That's right, folks..
Don't touch that dial
Well, I am the slime from your video
Oozin along on your livinroom floor
I am the slime from your video
Cant stop the slime, people, lookit me go...
'I have existed for years, but very little has changed..'
The first television station in the US was WRGB in Schenectady NY, in 1928. The first television advertisement in the US was in 1941. Frank performed 'I'm the Slime' in 1976.
It is now 2012. Do you know what YOUR television set is putting out to control your mind?
This is another cautionary tale that would go right along with 'The Little Red Hen Protocol' (to be seen under 'Learn;activities, sustainability, thrift').
Many speak about combinations of forces that work under the aegis of sociopolitical institutions, exerting covert control and manipulating domestic and world circumstances and events for profit.
2. 'The military Industrial complex' (first so-named by Dwight D. Eisenhower, President of the United States, in 1961; 50 years ago.
http://www.h-net.org/~hst306/documents/indust.html
3. 'The prison industrial complex', already a topic in Wikipedia; please read this article.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison%E2%80%93industrial_complex
'Prison–industrial complex' (PIC) is a term used to attribute the rapid expansion of the US inmate population to the political influence of private prison companies and businesses that supply goods and services to government prison agencies. The term is analogous to the military-industrial complex that President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of in his famous 1961 farewell address. Such groups include corporations that contract prison labor, construction companies, surveillance technology vendors, lawyers, and lobby groups that represent them. Activists have described the prison industrial complex as perpetuating a belief that imprisonment is a quick fix to underlying social problems such as homelessness, unemployment, drug addiction, mental illness, and illiteracy.
The promotion of prison building as a job creator and the use of inmate labor are also cited as elements of the prison industrial complex. The term often implies a network of actors who are motivated by making profit rather than solely by punishing or rehabilitating criminals or reducing crime rates. Proponents of this view believe that the desire for monetary gain has led to the growth of the prison industry and the number of incarcerated individuals. These views are often shared by people who fear or condemn excessive use of power by government.'
1. Background and a perspective;
I don't call him 'the latest and greatest' conspiracy theorist, but I feel it appropriate to start off this section with the work of the late, great Frank Zappa; specifically, the lyrics to his song;
'I'm the Slime' (1976)
I am gross and perverted
I'm obsessed n deranged
I have existed for years
But very little has changed
I am the tool of the government
And industry too
For I am destined to rule
And regulate you
I may be vile and pernicious
But you can't look away
I make you think I'm delicious
With the stuff that I say
I am the best you can get
Have you guessed me yet?
I am the slime oozin out
From your tv set
You will obey me while I lead you
And eat the garbage that I feed you
Until the day that we don't need you
Don't call for help...no one will heed you
Your mind is totally controlled
It has been stuffed into my mold
And you will do as you are told
Until the rights to you are sold
That's right, folks..
Don't touch that dial
Well, I am the slime from your video
Oozin along on your livinroom floor
I am the slime from your video
Cant stop the slime, people, lookit me go...
'I have existed for years, but very little has changed..'
The first television station in the US was WRGB in Schenectady NY, in 1928. The first television advertisement in the US was in 1941. Frank performed 'I'm the Slime' in 1976.
It is now 2012. Do you know what YOUR television set is putting out to control your mind?
This is another cautionary tale that would go right along with 'The Little Red Hen Protocol' (to be seen under 'Learn;activities, sustainability, thrift').
Many speak about combinations of forces that work under the aegis of sociopolitical institutions, exerting covert control and manipulating domestic and world circumstances and events for profit.
2. 'The military Industrial complex' (first so-named by Dwight D. Eisenhower, President of the United States, in 1961; 50 years ago.
http://www.h-net.org/~hst306/documents/indust.html
3. 'The prison industrial complex', already a topic in Wikipedia; please read this article.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison%E2%80%93industrial_complex
'Prison–industrial complex' (PIC) is a term used to attribute the rapid expansion of the US inmate population to the political influence of private prison companies and businesses that supply goods and services to government prison agencies. The term is analogous to the military-industrial complex that President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of in his famous 1961 farewell address. Such groups include corporations that contract prison labor, construction companies, surveillance technology vendors, lawyers, and lobby groups that represent them. Activists have described the prison industrial complex as perpetuating a belief that imprisonment is a quick fix to underlying social problems such as homelessness, unemployment, drug addiction, mental illness, and illiteracy.
The promotion of prison building as a job creator and the use of inmate labor are also cited as elements of the prison industrial complex. The term often implies a network of actors who are motivated by making profit rather than solely by punishing or rehabilitating criminals or reducing crime rates. Proponents of this view believe that the desire for monetary gain has led to the growth of the prison industry and the number of incarcerated individuals. These views are often shared by people who fear or condemn excessive use of power by government.'
USA incarceration timeline
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Prison_System/Masked_Racism_ADavis.html 1999
The New Jim Crow (complete title The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness), reviewed in Wikipedia, on my list of books to buy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Jim_Crow
4. Zeitgeist; http://zeitgeistmovie.com/ ; truly, the mother of all conspiracy theories. There are 3 movies in the series, all running over 1 hour in length, all available on this site. I took notes.
You may or may not agree with much; or any; of their rhetoric. But I will tell you; this is where I first heard of the pamphlet 'Modern Money Mechanics'. I bought a copy. It reads just like they say it does in the movie, and the recent imbroglio with wall street, mortgage and bank defaults, the buyout, and the world financial meltdown, are all well predicted by the principles in this book.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/File:Modern_Money_Mechanics.pdf . This is a PDF of the entire pamphlet.
http://www.truthsetsusfree.com/ModernMoneyMechanics.pdf . Same.
http://www.archive.org/details/ModernMoneyMechanics . Same.
5. Fractional Reserve Banking; which seems to be the root cause of why 'Modern Money Mechanics' has wreaked so much havoc on the finances of the US (and secondarily, world finances).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_fractional-reserve_banking
Terminology (from Wikipedia)
'...Critics of fractional reserve banking and the related fiat paper monetary system may use the term debt-based monetary system or credit-based monetary system to emphasize the role that credit plays in the current monetary system. These terms are not in general use, and economists generally refer instead to the money supply, broad money and the money multiplier when discussing the mechanism by which the commercial banking system expands the quantity of money in an economy. The study of monetary theory in the economics profession is referred to as monetary economics.
General criticisms
'...Critics of fractional reserve banking claim that since money creation requires loans from the banking system, people are required to go into debt in order for any new money to be created. They assert that this can debase the means of exchange. While there is no controversy over the fact that the commercial banking system expands the money supply, critics find it problematic that banks "create money out of nothing."
'...One criticism posits that since debt and the interest on the debt can only be paid in the same form of money, the total debt (principal plus interest) can never be paid in a debt-based monetary system unless more money is created through the same process. For example: if 100 credits are created and loaned into the economy at 10% per year, at the end of the year 110 credits will be needed to pay the loan and extinguish the debt. However, since the additional 10 credits does not yet exist, it too must be borrowed. This implies that debt must grow exponentially in order for the monetary system to remain solvent. This was the argument of the Social Credit movement of the 1930s, who proposed to remove the job of money creation from banks and give it to governments.
'...Other criticisms relate to the potential fragility of bank liquidity in a fractional reserve banking environment, the financial risk of bank runs that depositors bear when depositing money with banks, and the impact that demand deposits have on the stock of money, and on inflation (that is, the implicit expansion of the money supply and its associated impact on prices and the exchange rate). An alternative to fractional reserve banking is full-reserve banking. With full-reserve banking, some monetary reformers, such as Stephen Zarlenga of the American Monetary Institute, support the concurrent issuance of debt-free fiat currency from the Treasury, while others such as Congressman Ron Paull and some economists from the Austrian school, call for a commodity currency as existed under the gold standard.
'...Some commentators, like debt-focused critics including Stephen Zarlenga, Lew Rockwell and Murray Rothbard, link together fractional-reserve banking, central banking, and government-enforced "paper" or fiat currency as negative features of modern monetary systems. They argue that fiat money and the practice of fractional reserve banking does not impose a natural limit on the growth of the money supply, and that this causes inherently unsustainable bubbles in asset and capital markets, which are vulnerable to speculation. These commentators often use the term "debt-based monetary system" to refer to an economic system where money is created primarily through fractional-reserve banking techniques, using the banking system.
'...Mark Anielski, and other political thinkers such as Michael Rowbotham, argue that this system of money supply has characteristics similar to a pyramid schemme, where the newly indebted are compelled to induce others into debt to pay off their own debts. (Me- So Bernie Madoff was in good company- or perhaps bad company. He was the one who got caught. Other institutions doing the same thing got bailed out by the Federal Government because they were 'too big to fail'- unlike individuals bankrupted by predatory lending.)
'...There are individuals, even within such groups as the Austrian school, that reject the notion that fractional reserve banking is inherently destabilizing and that full-reserve banking is the appropriate solution. One such Austrian thinker, Steven Horwitz, argued that full-reserve banking would impose similar costs of price adjustments in reaction to growth (through a reduction in the overall price level) as would inflation, and hence offer no inherent advantages over fiat currencies and fractional reserve banking.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetary_reform
6. John Perkins, quoted and filmed in Zeitgeist, author of several books concerning worldwide policies and multinational interests;
http://www.johnperkins.org/
http://www.johnperkins.org/?tag=dreamchange
confessions of an economic hit man
part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTbdnNgqfs8
part http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sNV6h7DOyY&feature=fvwrel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOwE0nGLvR4&feature=fvwrel
7. Multinational corporations
http://www.corporations.org/system/top100.html
8. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=home
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10473
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=listByAuthor&authorFirst=Michel&authorName=Chossudovsky
9. Other 'Industrial Complexes' (work with above #2, 'military-', #3, 'prison-', etc.)
'organic industrial complex; http://www.mindfully.org/Food/Organic-Industrial-Complex.htm
'food industrial complex'; http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/15/magazine/15wwln_lede.html?_r=1 , http://capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/pete-davis/2420/food-industrial-complex-wins-kids-lose , http://wildopenheart.com/2011/11/16/your-food-industrial-complex-makes-me-sick/
'communications network-industrial complex (which kind of takes you back around to FrankZappa, but in 2011) http://www.comnetwork.org/the-algorithm-industrial-complex-and-me/
10. 9/11 conspiracy theories; http://ae911truth.org/
The New Jim Crow (complete title The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness), reviewed in Wikipedia, on my list of books to buy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Jim_Crow
4. Zeitgeist; http://zeitgeistmovie.com/ ; truly, the mother of all conspiracy theories. There are 3 movies in the series, all running over 1 hour in length, all available on this site. I took notes.
You may or may not agree with much; or any; of their rhetoric. But I will tell you; this is where I first heard of the pamphlet 'Modern Money Mechanics'. I bought a copy. It reads just like they say it does in the movie, and the recent imbroglio with wall street, mortgage and bank defaults, the buyout, and the world financial meltdown, are all well predicted by the principles in this book.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/File:Modern_Money_Mechanics.pdf . This is a PDF of the entire pamphlet.
http://www.truthsetsusfree.com/ModernMoneyMechanics.pdf . Same.
http://www.archive.org/details/ModernMoneyMechanics . Same.
5. Fractional Reserve Banking; which seems to be the root cause of why 'Modern Money Mechanics' has wreaked so much havoc on the finances of the US (and secondarily, world finances).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_fractional-reserve_banking
Terminology (from Wikipedia)
'...Critics of fractional reserve banking and the related fiat paper monetary system may use the term debt-based monetary system or credit-based monetary system to emphasize the role that credit plays in the current monetary system. These terms are not in general use, and economists generally refer instead to the money supply, broad money and the money multiplier when discussing the mechanism by which the commercial banking system expands the quantity of money in an economy. The study of monetary theory in the economics profession is referred to as monetary economics.
General criticisms
'...Critics of fractional reserve banking claim that since money creation requires loans from the banking system, people are required to go into debt in order for any new money to be created. They assert that this can debase the means of exchange. While there is no controversy over the fact that the commercial banking system expands the money supply, critics find it problematic that banks "create money out of nothing."
'...One criticism posits that since debt and the interest on the debt can only be paid in the same form of money, the total debt (principal plus interest) can never be paid in a debt-based monetary system unless more money is created through the same process. For example: if 100 credits are created and loaned into the economy at 10% per year, at the end of the year 110 credits will be needed to pay the loan and extinguish the debt. However, since the additional 10 credits does not yet exist, it too must be borrowed. This implies that debt must grow exponentially in order for the monetary system to remain solvent. This was the argument of the Social Credit movement of the 1930s, who proposed to remove the job of money creation from banks and give it to governments.
'...Other criticisms relate to the potential fragility of bank liquidity in a fractional reserve banking environment, the financial risk of bank runs that depositors bear when depositing money with banks, and the impact that demand deposits have on the stock of money, and on inflation (that is, the implicit expansion of the money supply and its associated impact on prices and the exchange rate). An alternative to fractional reserve banking is full-reserve banking. With full-reserve banking, some monetary reformers, such as Stephen Zarlenga of the American Monetary Institute, support the concurrent issuance of debt-free fiat currency from the Treasury, while others such as Congressman Ron Paull and some economists from the Austrian school, call for a commodity currency as existed under the gold standard.
'...Some commentators, like debt-focused critics including Stephen Zarlenga, Lew Rockwell and Murray Rothbard, link together fractional-reserve banking, central banking, and government-enforced "paper" or fiat currency as negative features of modern monetary systems. They argue that fiat money and the practice of fractional reserve banking does not impose a natural limit on the growth of the money supply, and that this causes inherently unsustainable bubbles in asset and capital markets, which are vulnerable to speculation. These commentators often use the term "debt-based monetary system" to refer to an economic system where money is created primarily through fractional-reserve banking techniques, using the banking system.
'...Mark Anielski, and other political thinkers such as Michael Rowbotham, argue that this system of money supply has characteristics similar to a pyramid schemme, where the newly indebted are compelled to induce others into debt to pay off their own debts. (Me- So Bernie Madoff was in good company- or perhaps bad company. He was the one who got caught. Other institutions doing the same thing got bailed out by the Federal Government because they were 'too big to fail'- unlike individuals bankrupted by predatory lending.)
'...There are individuals, even within such groups as the Austrian school, that reject the notion that fractional reserve banking is inherently destabilizing and that full-reserve banking is the appropriate solution. One such Austrian thinker, Steven Horwitz, argued that full-reserve banking would impose similar costs of price adjustments in reaction to growth (through a reduction in the overall price level) as would inflation, and hence offer no inherent advantages over fiat currencies and fractional reserve banking.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetary_reform
6. John Perkins, quoted and filmed in Zeitgeist, author of several books concerning worldwide policies and multinational interests;
http://www.johnperkins.org/
http://www.johnperkins.org/?tag=dreamchange
confessions of an economic hit man
part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTbdnNgqfs8
part http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sNV6h7DOyY&feature=fvwrel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOwE0nGLvR4&feature=fvwrel
7. Multinational corporations
http://www.corporations.org/system/top100.html
8. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=home
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10473
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=listByAuthor&authorFirst=Michel&authorName=Chossudovsky
9. Other 'Industrial Complexes' (work with above #2, 'military-', #3, 'prison-', etc.)
'organic industrial complex; http://www.mindfully.org/Food/Organic-Industrial-Complex.htm
'food industrial complex'; http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/15/magazine/15wwln_lede.html?_r=1 , http://capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/pete-davis/2420/food-industrial-complex-wins-kids-lose , http://wildopenheart.com/2011/11/16/your-food-industrial-complex-makes-me-sick/
'communications network-industrial complex (which kind of takes you back around to FrankZappa, but in 2011) http://www.comnetwork.org/the-algorithm-industrial-complex-and-me/
10. 9/11 conspiracy theories; http://ae911truth.org/