“Too often we… enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”—John F. Kennedy
I’m back! My boys are settled into college, and I’m still struggling with elbow tendinosis and SI joint pain. So I’ve had to quit the gym and stopped running for now. Instead, I’ve been walking barefoot on the sands along Lake Michigan, in deep contemplation. I live in an incredibly beautiful place that gets nice and quiet after Labor Day, when tourists go back home to their daily grinds. The winds of autumn bring majestic waves, and the skies are packed with cottony clouds and all kinds of magnificent forces. It’s a time for change, in my personal life, in nature, and in the world.
Yesterday, I was reflecting upon my Peace Corps experiences. I served four years, two in West Africa and two in South America. The Peace Corps was established by executive order on March 1, 1961. It was Democratic President John F. Kennedy’s baby. He sought to encourage mutual understanding between Americans and people of other nations and cultures. I’ve been reminiscing on what was perhaps the best investment and finest democratic accomplishment in history. Do you remember the times in following excerpt from the JFK Library?
On October 14, 1960, at 2 a.m., Senator John F. Kennedy spoke to a crowd of 10,000 cheering students at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor during a presidential campaign speech. In his improvised speech, Kennedy asked, “How many of you, who are going to be doctors, are willing to spend your days in Ghana? Technicians or engineers, how many of you are willing to work in the Foreign Service and spend your lives traveling around the world?” His young audience responded to this speech with a petition signed by 1,000 students willing to serve abroad. Senator Kennedy’s challenge to these students—to live and work in developing countries around the world; to dedicate themselves to the cause of peace and development—inspired the beginning of the Peace Corps.
Just two weeks later, in his November 2, 1960, speech at the Cow Palace in San Francisco, Kennedy proposed “a peace corps of talented men and women” who would dedicate themselves to the progress and peace of developing countries. Encouraged by more than 25,000 letters responding to his call, Kennedy took immediate action as president to make the campaign promise a reality.
As noble as it seemed, the Peace Corps actually grew out of the Cold War. The Soviet Union was serving the world with communists, and Kennedy thought that we needed to be serving the world with young enthusiastic liberals, like me. The political idea was to win favor with developing countries that weren’t aligned with communism or democracy. This was a long time ago, when the word “liberal” stood for freedom and peace, when soft power was used by the United States to co-opt. Now, the United States uses hard power (proxy war, sanctions, threats, bombings, assassinations, etcetera) to coerce other countries, while China and Russia are building soft alliances through BRICS.
A few days ago, I watched a short interview with Robert F. Kennedy, who has joined forces with the Republican party, and Trump, in the upcoming election. He said, “The Democratic party has dramatically changed; it has become the party of war. The party that I grew up with, the party for John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy, is gone. It was the party of peace, the party of civil rights, Constitutional rights, free speech, and the abhorrence of censorship. It was the party of the working class, of cops and firefighters and labor unions. The Democratic party today is the opposite. It’s the party of war, it’s the party of the wealthy…it is the party of censorship.”
How did this happen? How did liberals become liars, bullies, and tyrants that gaslight the public through captured media? The ancient philosopher Heraclitus and modern psychologist Carl Jung both understood that things change into their opposites over time. It’s the nature of cycles and psychological development, otherwise known as enantiodromia; “the emergence of the unconscious opposite in the course of time” (Jung). It happens at extremes. In this case, liabilities in the credit-backed monetary system have grown to such an extreme that a strong counterforce has developed to compensate. This counterforce (sound money) closed at another all-time high of $2606 on Friday.
Since freedom has been built on a foundation of debt, freedom will be challenged when the credit bubble bursts. Those who were once freedom fighters are still pretending their liabilities are assets as we begin the birth pains of a sovereign debt crisis. How do you defend freedom with tyranny? You don’t, you can’t…so you lie, and manipulate, and cover up problems with bread and circuses and propaganda. You think you’re defending freedom, but you’re really defending a broken system, a rotten foundation on which your house is built. We are here now, at the pinnacle of a long-term debt cycle, and the beginning of its implosion. The world is moving away from fiat, and financial instruments, to real assets in the global economy.
Just as people voted for Biden to keep Trump from being re-elected in 2019, many people will now vote for Trump to dodge the self-destructive policies of the “tyrannical” Democratic party of war. We no longer vote for something and someone, but against something and someone else. Americans are tired of war and the world is tired of U.S foreign policy, and its proxy wars under the guise of democracy. Counterforces have the potential to “make America healthy again” but it probably gets sicker first. I would have voted for Kennedy, but since Americans can’t seem to see outside of the dualistic regime of Democratic and Republican parties, former democrats like Robert Kennedy and Tulsi Gabbard have joined forces with the Republican party. Their idea is to get into office, to help America think again.
But I’m not sure it matters who is elected, since the problem is not a person or persons, and it’s too late for anyone to change the trajectory of a sovereign debt crisis. Something has to give and when it does, a great deal of wealth will vanish into thin air. One president may be more entertaining than the other, but they’re both taking us in the same direction long term (printing $$$). There will be no superhero who can save the day when the bill comes due. It’s either inflate away the debt, or devalue the currency, and they’ll probably inflate away the debt, as much as people will tolerate. Gold always, eventually, does the accounting for debt-backed fiat currency.
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