The Return of the Great Depression and The Establishment of a Police State

Knowledge of Self
Sott.net
Sun, 04 Dec 2011 00:27 CST

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History repeats? In an early show of totalitarian force, officers of the New York Bureau of Investigation -- the “Black Police” -- march down 14th Street in August of 1938, shortly after being recruited from the state’s penitentiaries.

"True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made." - Franklin D. Roosevelt

The United States is transitioning to the days of the Great Depression. The Great Depression of the 1930s was defined as "Great" because it affected so many places in the world. Considering the state of world economics today, this description is not far from what is happening now, especially in EU and North America. I'm going to be speaking mostly about what's happening to the US economy rather than worldwide. I will assume that if you're reading this, you by now realize that the state of the economy in the US is dire. But if you haven't yet, let's review some key issues:

• The US national debt is over $15 trillion and rising.
• Unemployment is at an all-time high.
• By March this year, nine million Americans had lost their health insurance since 2009, due to job loss.
• Americans are losing their homes in foreclosures and the housing market is not improving.
• Americans have been steadily losing their pensions since 2008.
• Even veterans have been hit hard by the economy.

The above points are just some of the things going on right now that immediately affect a vast number of Americans, and this is just the beginning: I read something the other day that made me realize that things have gone from bad to worse and there is no more denying it.

It was that President Obama just signed a bill legalizing the slaughtering of horses for meat in the US.

What this comes down to is that the economy has become SO bad in the States that the people can no longer take care of themselves, let alone horses. Most people have trouble putting food on the table for their families, and can't afford to keep horses any longer. So they donate them to animal shelters who also can't afford to take care of them. They are rarely being adopted and the government's solution is to kill 'em off. While they're at it, they'll make some profit off their meat, selling it to other countries in Europe and Asia where horse meat is considered a delicacy.

We've been here before: the slaughtering of horses for horse meat was a common occurrence during the 1930s depression, for the very same reasons stated above. It was quite a shock for me to realize just how bad things have become on our planet, with no sign that things will improve.

The Occupy Movement in a Police State

A few nights ago I watched a documentary called Capitalism: A Love Story by Michael Moore. In it, he described a situation in 1936 where protestors had occupied GM plants for 45 days and how their actions effectively led to the creation of a middle class in the US. But what I found most interesting is what happened when the police were dispatched to get rid of the protestors, President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) sent in the National Guard to protect them from police brutality and preserve their First Amendment rights. This is not even close to what has been happening with the 'Occupy' protest movement today. In fact, it is the reverse.

On 30 November, 2011, at around 12:40 am, Occupy LA was evicted. Over 1,000 LAPD officers came out in riot gear and began tearing down the tents set up in City Hall Park for the previous two months. Although it was relatively less violent than what happened at Occupy Wall Street in Zucotti Park, New York, or at Occupy Oakland, it was a covert and stealthy operation. The media commended the LAPD in its execution of the eviction, calling it a "sneak attack" on the protestors. The LAPD overwhelmed the protestors by force of numbers. It was like watching a scene out of 1984. Some protesters left, because they did not want to be arrested or hurt, while around 300 stayed and were arrested by the end of the night.

What this shows is that the numbers of protestors in the Occupy movement are still not enough to make a stand against what can only be described as a small army of police. The police arrested 300 peaceful protestors, a clear violation of the First Amendment. Violence on the part of the police at this moment in time is not even necessary because their numbers will overwhelm the peaceful protestors. And whatever these protesters will choose to do next, they will be faced with the same if not more severe tactics by the police.

To make matters worse, and to put in the final nail in the coffin of 'freedom and democracy' in the US, Congress recently voted down the Udall Amendment, a bill that opposes amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). What is the NDAA, you ask? Well it's basically a bill that turns you - the ordinary American - into a de facto terrorist. What it means is that if you protest, if you speak out against the government, if you're reported on by a fellow citizen to be anything but 'patriotic', you will be taken into custody without due process! You may very well be sent to Guantanamo Bay or similar and never be tried.

A brief paragraph from this article sums up exactly what the implications of NDAA are:

In support of this horrific bill, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) explained that the bill will "basically say in law for the first time that the homeland is part of the battlefield" and people can be imprisoned without charge or trial, "American citizen or not." Another supporter, Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) also declared that the bill is needed because "America is part of the battlefield."

So why is all this happening now? Well one possible scenario as this article points out could be:

Raimondo points out that, given that the entire economy could crash any day now, the real reason that these people in Washington want to have this martial law power is because they know that when banks run out of your cash and you want to get it, and when food shortages occur, there will be panic, looting, food riots, and violence.

The Government is well aware of the unhappiness of the American people as displayed by the Occupy movement. And although the Occupy movement has been peaceful thus far (on the side of the protestors) there is no doubt that things could get very ugly should the economy crash completely.

If the economy crashes and looting and food riots occur, the government will no doubt send in the police and maybe even the National Guard to take people to jail. But the thing is, if events get violent, the American people will not continue to be peaceful because America is an armed nation! The disgruntled masses will get out their millions of handguns and hunting rifles and challenge the government and this could lead to a bloody revolution or perhaps even civil war, if the Republicans succeed in convincing the grassroots Tea Party movement that they are not part of the '99%' and that the Occupiers are their adversaries.

However, another scenario could pan out and believe it or not, this one is even worse than what I described above.

I have read a lot of articles about the Occupy movement. And from all the things I've read and all the protestor interviews I've heard, the main reason for a lot of people to be out on the streets boils down to the simple fact of the high unemployment rate. Put simply, there's no jobs! It's sad because although the Occupiers have a valid grievance, they are not informed about psychopathy and ponerology. Most of these people have not had a profound epiphany about the fact that the US is in the state it is in because of how much money it has spent waging illegal wars on other countries. And funding others' illegal wars, such as Israel's occupation of Palestine. Basically, there is a fundamental problem with the Occupy movement - lack of knowledge about psychopathy being the root of all the problems in the world. I fear this blindspot will be exploited by the psychopaths who have taken over the people's government.

That is why this scenario that I'm about to describe is so frightening.

Consider what Hitler did for Germany before WWII began: He created jobs for an impoverished Germany (mostly in arms and munitions manufacturing) and brought the country out of a severe economic slump. Once the people were happy, their bellies full and their minds bombarded endlessly with propaganda about how great a country Germany was, they didn't care what Hitler did next. The very same thing could happen in the US.

If the powers that be put in power a charismatic leader who provides jobs to people, most will stop protesting.

The US could then 'protect its interests' and openly wage its war on other countries and no one would say anything against it for two reasons: for fear of being considered a terrorist and arrested, tortured or deported (it doesn't matter how unlikely you think that is at the moment - everyone knows what happened to those other people - the 'Muslim terrorists') and secondly apathy would set in again - since they'd now have jobs and their bellies be full again, why complain?

All in all, we've entered an interesting time in history. And speaking of history, as I mentioned before, FDR helped the average American back in 1930s to protest peacefully. He also had a vision. A vision of a "Second Bill of Rights", and he presented it to the people while he was very sick after his State of the Union Address in 1944.

I can't help but wonder what the world would have been like had the US government implemented this second Bill of Rights. But as it stands currently, the US is trying to get rid of the first Bill of Rights. FDR's vision for a secure and prosperous economy for all will most likely never come to pass.