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Kirwan Articles
The Merchants that Created Us
And the Choices that may Kill Us
February
16, 2008
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Since the War here is not going well, but as yet there are no tanks in the streets, it might be useful to explore how we came to be in this diabolical black & white world of
“Us versus Them.”
We need only go back about 400 years to 1600 when Shakespeare’s play, The Merchant of Venice was first performed. For those who prefer their history on the big screen, there’s a recent film version with Al Pacino & Jeremy Irons on DVD. The play depicts a practice that had by the late 1500’s become commonplace in the Western world. The ‘practice’ was money-lending.
Long before that time there were two major Western religions, the Catholic Church and Judaism. The followers of Catholicism had become prominent throughout Europe and were ruled over by a corrupt church from Rome. The Church forbade the practice of ‘making money by loaning of money,’ as a general rule. However this practice tended to keep smaller countries and principalities at a disadvantage when it came to being able to expand their enterprises or to arm their forces to the degree necessary, to compete with the larger nations and interests in the world at that time.
Since most of the Western nations were Catholic, their leading personalities were limited to the use of whatever monies they could create directly without credit. This was insufficient, especially when time became of the essence in the affairs of states that relied upon trade or war to stay alive. The Jews of that time had no reservations about the loaning of money, at least not in the same absolute prohibitions as the Catholic Church had forbidden.
Consequently a middle-ground was created. Jewish money-lenders were sought out to perform the service for those who could afford it, and to that degree they became part of the Western
world –
however they were largely denied participation in the societies they served. As this practice grew the Jews became a people-apart, a marked group not trusted, but necessary, to the growth and prominence of the nations in which they lived and worked.
The tenure of the Jews in any one place was determined by their own success. As those they served grew prosperous, the Jews that had assisted them became a liability and were usually either banished or killed. Those that survived soon began to try and find ways to integrate into the population of their adopted nation-states: some succeeded many did not. However the one thing that the Jews and the Catholics did bequeath to all of us was and is, the modern day practices of the Bankers that are today’s version of the much older Money-lenders.
The key piece in this abbreviated ‘history’ is that during this period of amazing-growth in the Western world, facilitated by the availability of ‘credit,’ there was a price to be paid by all who partook of this ‘business arrangement. To survive both the severity of the unbending Catholic Church and the rigors of the lowly position created for the money-lenders: a trade-off came about that is with us still. All parties to these practices hit on the notion, each for his or her own reasons, of creating a dual-system of morality.
In theory under the Catholic Church, there could be only one moral law: but the church was as impractical as it was corrupt, which led to the need for a black-market in what we might call loan-sharking. The Church turned a blind eye, the merchants of the day took full advantage of the situation and the money-lenders began to dream of a day when they might actually be able to own or control: all the money. So it was that the law of that day and time was shattered, yet its evil mirror-image with two heads is still with us today.
The world has one set of principles for “business” and an entirely ‘other set’ for private life. In brief anything at all may be done in business, so long as it is for reasons of “business” while what one may do to another privately, remains thoroughly circumscribed, and is very closely monitored. A business may evict a person or take their livelihood away, even strip another person of everything they own: but if it’s a business transaction then there is little recourse for the victims: As in what literally happened to Enron’s employees, after their collapse. While if anyone had done to those employees what Enron’s executives
did –
they would have at least faced trials.
The problem is that this duality of supposedly moral attitudes is unbalanced in favor of the rich and powerful. This is especially true in the larger business world where people no longer matter except as road-kill or to enhance production for “consumers” to consume until corporately-created-poverty will begin to shrink the number of American-consumers to a trickle. Consequently, if any solution is ever to be found for the kinds of colossal collapse that we are currently playing with: then the world must outlaw the special-treatment enjoyed by business in the courts and in the world.
Needless to say, these practices that are at least a thousand years old won’t change in my lifetime or yours, unless there’s a revolution. But that does not change the fact that this is the problem that has derailed the economics and the morality of the world. Because instead of fixing this, each successive generation has simply tried to use it to get
rich –
and let everyone that doesn’t choose to use it just die away. In the eyes of far too many: This is the one true test of “the Survival of the Fittest,” what they like to call
‘The Art of Making Money'!
Speaking of money: The Decider has decided that the strength of his “sound economy” is not strong enough now to let people know what the actual data is that determines how His economy is actually doing:
“The U.S. economy is faltering. Family debt is on the rise, benefits are disappearing, the deficit is
skyrocketing, and the mortgage crisis has
worsened. Conservatives have attempted to deflect attention from the crisis, by
blaming the media’s negative coverage and insisting the United States is
not headed toward a recession, despite what economists are
predicting.
The Bush administration’s latest move is to simply hide the data. Forbes has awarded
EconomicIndicators.gov one of its “Best of the Web” awards. As Forbes
explains, the government site provides an invaluable service to the public for accessing U.S. economic data:” (1)
And on the morality front the Decider is beginning to confuse even himself:
"This Saturday at midnight," you said Thursday, "legislation authorizing intelligence professionals to quickly and effectively monitor terrorist communications will expire. If Congress does not act by that time, our ability to find out who the terrorists are talking to, what they are saying and what they are planning will be compromised." You said that "the lives of countless Americans depend" on you’re getting your way.
This is crap. And you sling it with an audacity and a speed unrivaled by even the greatest political felons of our history.
Richard Clarke - you might remember him, sir: He was one of the counter-terror pros you inherited from President Clinton, before you ran the professionals out of government in favor of your unreality-based reality - Richard Clarke wrote in the Philadelphia Inquirer:
"Let me be clear: Our ability to track and monitor terrorists overseas would not cease should the Protect America Act expire.
"If this were true, the president would not threaten to terminate any temporary extension with his veto pen. All surveillance currently occurring would continue even after legislative provisions lapsed because authorizations issued under the act are in effect up to a full year."
You are a liar, Mr. Bush. And after showing some skill at it, you have ceased to even be a very good liar.” (2)
As these Bushfires continue to breakout, they happen against a deepening backdrop of impending Marital Law as can be seen from this police video taken during the 2003 Portland demonstrations that have since become much more common; just as the police in the United State have become much more hostile to the public they are supposed to be protecting. (3)
As people we have claimed that we are superior to every other form of life on this planet, yet we have failed to observe even the most primitive of all the natural laws of this
universe –
self-preservation. Every one of the higher life-forms knows that when threatened they must either fight or flee: but whatever is done, they cannot simply ignore the dangers. Yet Americans choose to ignore everything that is happening everywhere around
them –
be that yesterday, today, or especially tomorrow!
When the survival of the human race has been so blatantly targeted as we have been by these self-appointed owners of ours: And when we DO NOT TAKE NOTICE, much less ACT in our own
defense –
then we must recognize that we have perhaps become far less intelligent than any other life form with which we share this planet. This means that we will become extinct if we do not begin to act against the owners and in our own best interests, for a CHANGE! We must do this as individual
people –
and we must do it soon!
Jim Kirwan
NOTES:
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1)
Bush Administration Hides More
Data, Shuts Down Website Tracking
&) The Mother of All Rip-Offs – Mike Whitney
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2)
A Veto of the FISA Bill Endangers Americans
(video and text)
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3) This is what a police state looks like
- video
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