Month: May 2011

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A JOURNALIST’S INTRODUCTION TO SKULL AND BONES

Skull & Bones Sutton
By Eric Samuelson, J.D.

This brief introduction to Skull and Bones is dedicated to those journalists in America who have both the courage and the ability to inform the public regarding what others may consider to be a taboo subject — a foreign-born secret society that has exported itself to this nation and may succeed in securing the highest office in the land for still another of its sworn initiates. The two main characters in this story so far are Antony C. Sutton and David Armstrong. The first is a scholar of the first order to began the definitive work on this subject and then vanished. The second came to Texas from California, became the editor of the most liberal Texas magazine, wrote a series of very insightful articles on the Bush family and then, like Sutton, was apparently muzzled.

INTRODUCTION

In May of 1994 a Texas Monthly story (p. 146) by Skip Hollandsworth, on George W. Bush, briefly stated: “Although he did not graduate Phi Beta Kappa as his father had, he did follow his father into the university’s Skull and Bones Club, a secret society for the males of prominent families.”

The majority of Bonesmen are from old-line Puritan families. They include the following families: Whitney, Lord, Phelps. Wadsworth, Allen, Bundy, Adams, Stimson, Taft, Gilman and Perkins. A second group of families in the Skull & Bones are: Harriman, Rockefeller, Payne, Davison, Pillsbury and Weyerhauser. The Order of Skull and Bones was once called the “Brotherhood of Death.”(1)

At any given time, only about 600 or so members of the Order are alive. Of that number only 150 (about one-quarter) take an active role in the society. It is estimated that a core of perhaps 20-30 families run the Order. Recent Bones inductees include a few blacks, gays, and even some foreign students. In 1991 Skull and Bones began to admit women members. Each initiate gets $15,000 and a grandfather clock. A neophyte’s name is changed to Knight so and so. The old Knights are known as Patriarchs. Outsiders are known as Gentiles and vandals. It meets annually — patriarchs only — on Deer Island in the St. Lawrence River.(2)

THE SECRECY OF BONES

“Initiates are sworn to secrecy. They are required to leave the room if The Order comes into discussion. They cannot — under oath — answer questions on The Order and its organization.”

— Antony C. Sutton(3)

The Senior secret societies at Yale, wrote Lymann Bogg, “never mention their names.”(4) Not even the inquisitive Pamela Churchill Harriman could get her third husband to talk about Bones: “(Averell) Harriman regularly went back to the tomb (the Bone’s Temple) on High Street, once even lamenting that his duties as chief negotiator at the Paris Peace Talks prevented him from attending a reunion. So complete was his trust in Bone’s code of secrecy that in conversations at annual dinners he spoke openly about national security affairs. He refused, however, to tell his family anything about Bones. Soon after she became Harriman’s third wife in 1971, Pamela Churchill Harriman received an odd letter addressing her by a name spelled in hieroglyphics. ‘Oh, that’s Bones,’ Harriman said. ‘I must tell you about that sometime. Uh, I mean I can’t tell you about that.'”(5)

UNIVERSITIES AS SPAWNING GROUNDS OF THREE DIFFERENT SECRET SOCIETIES

Between 1983-1986, the British-born conspiracy scholar Antony C. Sutton wrote a series of pamphlets about the Order of Skull & Bones. Sutton said that his series was “based on several sources, including contemporary ‘moles.'”(6) The short pamphlets were compiled into one volume and published as a book in 1986. Sutton noted that secret societies had been organized at three universities: “The Illuminati was founded at (the) University of Ingolstadt. The (Cecil Rhodes) Group was founded at All Souls College, Oxford University in England, and the Order was founded at Yale University in the United States.”(7) He noted: “The paradox is that institutions supposedly devoted to the search for truth and freedom have given birth to institutions devoted to world enslavement.”

BUT, WHAT’S WRONG WITH SECRET SOCIETIES?

Sutton’s “magnum opus” laid out his views regarding secret societies: “Secret political organizations can be-and have been-extremely dangerous to the social health and constitutional validity of a society. In a truly free society the exercise of political power must always be open and known.” (8) He then stated: “Moreover, organizations devoted to violent overthrow of political structures have always, by necessity, been secret organizations. Communist revolutionary cells are an obvious example. In fact, such revolutionary organizations can only function if their existence was secret.”(9) Further, said Sutton: “In brief, secrecy in matters political is historically associated with coercion. Furthermore, the existence of secrecy in organizations with political ambitions or with a history of political actions is always suspect. Freedom is always associated with open political action and discussion while coercion is always associated with secrecy.”(10)

A pamphlet on Bones described the walls of the tomb as “adorned with pictures of the founders of Bones at Yale and of the members of the Society in Germany when the Chapter was established here in 1832.”(11) Sutton asked: “Think about this: Skull and Bones is not American at all. It is a branch of a FOREIGN secret society.”(12) Sutton concluded that Skull and Bones “is a clear and obvious threat to constitutional freedom in the United States. Its secrecy, power and use of influence is greater by far than the masons, or any other semi-secret mutual or fraternal organization.”(13)

SUTTON COMPARED BONES TO THE BAVARIAN ILLUMINATI

While critics concede that the Illuminati “was an actual group that existed from 1776 until 1785. . . ” it is also explained that: “Given the fact that Weishaupt’s ideas ran counter to the authoritarian, church-intertwined-with-state power structure, he was forced to keep his Illuminati secret and work through Masonic lodges. He was not successful.”(14)

Sutton made numerous tentative comparisons between the Illuminati and Bones. Each member, according to an 1876 anonymous satire, has an “inside name” and “these names bear a remarkable resemblance to those used by the Illuminati, e.g., Chilo, Eumenes, Glaucus, Pristicus and Arbaces.”(15) He added: “During its time, the Illuminati had widespread and influential membership. After suppression by the Bavarian Government in 1788 it was quiet for some years and then reportedly revived.”(16) Sutton promised that “in a subsequent book, we will trace the order to the Illuminati. . .”(17) Also, Sutton stated: “The significance of this study is that the methods and objectives (of the Illuminati) parallel those of the Order. In fact, infiltration of the Illuminati into New England is known and will be the topic of a forthcoming volume.”(18) He later wrote: “At this point we want to draw a comparison between the Order known as Skull and Bones and The Order known as Illuminati in 18th century Bavaria. This is not the time and place to draw final conclusions.”(19) Sutton noted that “It (Bones) was introduced into the United States by William Russell, later General William Russell, who brought a charter back from his student days in Germany.”(20) [So far a check of Russell’s biographies has revealed no hint of a German education]. When the Skull and Bones “Temple” was raided in 1876 a card was found that read: “From the German Chapter. Presented by Patriarch D.C. Gilman of D. 50.”(21) The Yale Bones catalogs indicate that Skull and Bones began in the U.S. in the 3rd decade of the second period of the organization. The first decade of the second period would be 1800 with the first period being 1790-1800: “That places us in the time frame of the elimination of Illuminati by the Bavarian Elector.”(22)

Two years later Sutton, in 1988, wrote The Two Faces of George Bush. In this work he identified George W. Bush as a Bonesman like his soon-to-be President father. Sutton has not written further on the Order. At least one close associate claimed that Sutton became and remains “a fugitive in his own adopted country.”

EDITOR OF TEXAS OBSERVER, DAVID ARMSTRONG, LASTS EIGHT MONTHS

On March 22, 1991, a crusading journalist named David Armstrong became the editor of the Texas Observer. His career at the most liberal and outspoken Texas magazine lasted just over eight months. On April 5, 1991, he wrote an article entitled “The Great S&L Robbery: Spookbuster Pete Brewton Tells All.” On July 26, 1991 another article by Armstrong was entitled: “Oil in the Family.” On September 20, 1991, Armstrong wrote another piece entitled: “Global Entanglements.” The cover featured a cartoon of George “W” Bush with “Harken” on his head and CIA agents (spies) all around him.

On November 29, 1991 David Armstrong’s name appeared on the masthead of the Texas Observer for the last time. Armstrong deplored and described what he termed a trend of preemptive journalism: “Mainstream media have never demonstrated a keen interest in challenging the status quo. Contrary to the popular image of an independent and adversarial press, U.S. corporate media are, in fact, little more than lackeys for elite interests.”

Armstrong also blasted criticism of Stone’s JFK movie prior to the scenes even being shot. He criticized Times Harken coverage as “half-measures.” His last Texas Observer words were: “Time’s handling of the Harken story is just one more example of the disturbing trend toward preemptive journalism. The consequences of this practice are serious indeed, for it has the potential to not only diffuse and obscure information, but to prevent it from ever being debated in the public arena at all. Unlike the alternative press, mainstream sources are widely available and well indexed. For that reason, they are widely cited and help shape official history. Twenty years from now when George W. Bush is running for president, researchers and journalists interested in his business activities in Texas will likely turn to Time magazine and other mainstream sources of their information. But if they’re interested in reading the whole story, they’ll have to look elsewhere.”(23)

Thus ended David Armstrong’s editorship at the Texas Observer. It is believed that there was a last conversation between Armstrong and his publisher but no explanation was ever written that explained his departure to the Observer’s readership. Armstrong’s prophecy of a run for the presidency by George “W” Bush has now come true. But his pen is no longer telling more of the real Bush story.

Further Information on Skull & Bones

Background to the Skull and Bones
Everything You Wanted to Know About Skull and Bones
Rites of initiation
Skull and Bones Article from Esquire Magazine, September, 1977
New York Observer investigation

Bibliography

1. Antony C. Sutton, America’s Secret Establishment 5 (1986).
2. Antony C. Sutton, America’s Secret Establishment 5 (1986).
3. Antony C. Sutton, America’s Secret Establishment 213 (1986).
4. Antony C. Sutton, America’s Secret Establishment 186 (1986).
5. Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas, The Wise Men 82 (1986).
6. Antony C. Sutton, America’s Secret Establishment 186 (1986).
7. Antony C. Sutton, America’s Secret Establishment 80 (1986).
8. Antony C. Sutton, America’s Secret Establishment 185 (1986).
9. Antony C. Sutton, America’s Secret Establishment 185 (1986).
10. Antony C. Sutton, America’s Secret Establishment 185 (1986).
11. Antony C. Sutton, America’s Secret Establishment 188 (1986).
12. Antony C. Sutton, America’s Secret Establishment 188 (1986).
13. Antony C. Sutton, America’s Secret Establishment 186 (1986).
14. John George and Laird Wilcox, American Extremists 81 (1996).
15. Antony C. Sutton, America’s Secret Establishment 189 (1986).
16. Antony C. Sutton, America’s Secret Establishment 80 (1986).
17. Antony C. Sutton, America’s Secret Establishment 77 (1986) (emphasis added).
18. Antony C. Sutton, America’s Secret Establishment 80 (1986) (emphasis added).
19. Antony C. Sutton, America’s Secret Establishment 212 (1986) (emphasis added).
20. Antony C. Sutton, America’s Secret Establishment 212 (1986).
21. Antony C. Sutton, America’s Secret Establishment 212 (1986).
22. Antony C. Sutton, America’s Secret Establishment 214 (1986).
23. David Armstrong, “Preemptive Journalism,” 12 Texas Observer (November 29, 1991). intro1.htm

For a hard copy of this book visit Antony Sutton.

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Lady Gaga’s Judas and the Hell’s Angels

Lady Gaga Judas

Lady Gaga has launched the music video for her track, “Judas”, set in a motorcycle gang with the names of Jesus and his twelve disciples. The patch on the gang’s vests are a skull and bones much like the Hell’s Angels death’s head. Gaga is decked out as a 1960’s LSD flower child complete with hippie glasses.

The Hells Angels are nothing more than an extension of George H. Bush’s CIA/Skull n’ Bones narcotics-smuggling cartel. The Hells Angels were originally formed by former WWII/Korean War and Vietnam War vets ( a high % CIA AIr America pilots/paratroopers/international drug and weapons smugglers).

They named themselves Hells Angels because it is a term that reaches all the way back to elite WWI mercenary paratroopers, the ‘for hire’ covert operations assassins and terrorists known as Hells Angels who carried out illegal civilian kidnappings, interrogations, tortures, assassinations, and numerous terrorist atrocities on behalf of the U.S. government. Howard Hughes made the film Hells Angels about WWI-era fighter squadrons and named it after them. The Hells Angels have always been a conduit for the street drugs that the Skull n’ Bones/CIA international narcotics trafficking network fly or ship into the United States and Canada.

In the 60’s Orange Sunshine LSD was manufactured and distributed exclusively by a group known as “The Brotherhood of Eternal Love” who operated out of a beach resort near Los Angeles. The Brotherhood had among it’s drug manufacturers and dealers, one Ronald Stark, who is believed to have manufactured 50 million doses of LSD, and had known connections to the CIA.

It was this very same batch of acid that was available in abundance four months later during the fateful free concert held at Altamont Speedway. Four people died at that concert, one of them after being brutally stabbed to death by a group of Hell’s Angels who had been given access to multiple tabs of Orange Sunshine. Many people who attended that concert noted that the LSD seemed to be “contaminated” and that the general vibe one got from using it was that of extreme negativity, violence, and death. Additionally, Orange Sunshine was in use among American ground forces during the Vietnam war, having been smuggled into that country from the California coast.

It has been more than four decades since the battle at Khe Sanh, Vietnam; more than four decades since Mick Jagger sang “Sympathy for the Devil” at Altamont Speedway, the last great concert of the 1960s; more than four decades since Students for a Democratic Society and Young Americans for Freedom clashed over the meaning of patriotism, since LSD, free love and the pill transformed a generation.

Mick Jagger thought he was Lucifer at this concert. Jagger is a man of “wealth and taste”. His song was a ritual to bring about Crowley’s aeon of Horus. When the Hell’s Angels found out they were part of this Satanic ritual and sacrifice of a black man to start Charles Manson’s apocalyptic race war they put a hit out on Jagger. They failed to kill Mick Jagger because he is protected by British Intelligence SIS/MI6. The Rolling Stones usually get the purest drugs from their SIS connections and they’ve never suffered an overdose. Keith Richards is often called the walking dead but since his heroin is pure he seems to be living a full and long life.

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Closing the ‘Collapse Gap’

the USSR was better prepared for collapse than the US

by Dmitry Orlov

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I am not an expert or a scholar or an activist. I am more of an eye-witness. I watched the Soviet Union collapse, and I have tried to put my observations into a concise message. I will leave it up to you to decide just how urgent a message it is.

My talk tonight is about the lack of collapse-preparedness here in the United States. I will compare it with the situation in the Soviet Union, prior to its collapse. The rhetorical device I am going to use is the “Collapse Gap” – to go along with the Nuclear Gap, and the Space Gap, and various other superpower gaps that were fashionable during the Cold War.

Slide [2] The subject of economic collapse is generally a sad one. But I am an optimistic, cheerful sort of person, and I believe that, with a bit of preparation, such events can be taken in stride. As you can probably surmise, I am actually rather keen on observing economic collapses. Perhaps when I am really old, all collapses will start looking the same to me, but I am not at that point yet.

And this next one certainly has me intrigued. From what I’ve seen and read, it seems that there is a fair chance that the U.S. economy will collapse sometime within the foreseeable future. It also would seem that we won’t be particularly well-prepared for it. As things stand, the U.S. economy is poised to perform something like a disappearing act. And so I am eager to put my observations of the Soviet collapse to good use.

Slide [3] I anticipate that some people will react rather badly to having their country compared to the USSR. I would like to assure you that the Soviet people would have reacted similarly, had the United States collapsed first. Feelings aside, here are two 20th century superpowers, who wanted more or less the same things – things like technological progress, economic growth, full employment, and world domination – but they disagreed about the methods. And they obtained similar results – each had a good run, intimidated the whole planet, and kept the other scared. Each eventually went bankrupt.

Slide [4] The USA and the USSR were evenly matched in many categories, but let me just mention four.

The Soviet manned space program is alive and well under Russian management, and now offers first-ever space charters. The Americans have been hitching rides on the Soyuz while their remaining spaceships sit in the shop.

The arms race has not produced a clear winner, and that is excellent news, because Mutual Assured Destruction remains in effect. Russia still has more nuclear warheads than the US, and has supersonic cruise missile technology that can penetrate any missile shield, especially a nonexistent one.

The Jails Race once showed the Soviets with a decisive lead, thanks to their innovative GULAG program. But they gradually fell behind, and in the end the Jails Race has been won by the Americans, with the highest percentage of people in jail ever.

The Hated Evil Empire Race is also finally being won by the Americans. It’s easy now that they don’t have anyone to compete against.

Slide [5] Continuing with our list of superpower similarities, many of the problems that sunk the Soviet Union are now endangering the United States as well. Such as a huge, well-equipped, very expensive military, with no clear mission, bogged down in fighting Muslim insurgents. Such as energy shortfalls linked to peaking oil production. Such as a persistently unfavorable trade balance, resulting in runaway foreign debt. Add to that a delusional self-image, an inflexible ideology, and an unresponsive political system.

Slide [6] An economic collapse is amazing to observe, and very interesting if described accurately and in detail. A general description tends to fall short of the mark, but let me try. An economic arrangement can continue for quite some time after it becomes untenable, through sheer inertia. But at some point a tide of broken promises and invalidated assumptions sweeps it all out to sea. One such untenable arrangement rests on the notion that it is possible to perpetually borrow more and more money from abroad, to pay for more and more energy imports, while the price of these imports continues to double every few years. Free money with which to buy energy equals free energy, and free energy does not occur in nature. This must therefore be a transient condition. When the flow of energy snaps back toward equilibrium, much of the US economy will be forced to shut down.

Slide [7] I’ve described what happened to Russia in some detail in one of my articles, which is available on SurvivingPeakOil.com. I don’t see why what happens to the United States should be entirely dissimilar, at least in general terms. The specifics will be different, and we will get to them in a moment. We should certainly expect shortages of fuel, food, medicine, and countless consumer items, outages of electricity, gas, and water, breakdowns in transportation systems and other infrastructure, hyperinflation, widespread shutdowns and mass layoffs, along with a lot of despair, confusion, violence, and lawlessness. We definitely should not expect any grand rescue plans, innovative technology programs, or miracles of social cohesion.

Slide [8] When faced with such developments, some people are quick to realize what it is they have to do to survive, and start doing these things, generally without anyone’s permission. A sort of economy emerges, completely informal, and often semi-criminal. It revolves around liquidating, and recycling, the remains of the old economy. It is based on direct access to resources, and the threat of force, rather than ownership or legal authority. People who have a problem with this way of doing things, quickly find themselves out of the game.

These are the generalities. Now let’s look at some specifics.

Slide [9] One important element of collapse-preparedness is making sure that you don’t need a functioning economy to keep a roof over your head. In the Soviet Union, all housing belonged to the government, which made it available directly to the people. Since all housing was also built by the government, it was only built in places that the government could service using public transportation. After the collapse, almost everyone managed to keep their place.

In the United States, very few people own their place of residence free and clear, and even they need an income to pay real estate taxes. People without an income face homelessness. When the economy collapses, very few people will continue to have an income, so homelessness will become rampant. Add to that the car-dependent nature of most suburbs, and what you will get is mass migrations of homeless people toward city centers.

Slide [10] Soviet public transportation was more or less all there was, but there was plenty of it. There were also a few private cars, but so few that gasoline rationing and shortages were mostly inconsequential. All of this public infrastructure was designed to be almost infinitely maintainable, and continued to run even as the rest of the economy collapsed.

The population of the United States is almost entirely car-dependent, and relies on markets that control oil import, refining, and distribution. They also rely on continuous public investment in road construction and repair. The cars themselves require a steady stream of imported parts, and are not designed to last very long. When these intricately interconnected systems stop functioning, much of the population will find itself stranded.

Slide [11] Economic collapse affects public sector employment almost as much as private sector employment, eventually. Because government bureaucracies tend to be slow to act, they collapse more slowly. Also, because state-owned enterprises tend to be inefficient, and stockpile inventory, there is plenty of it left over, for the employees to take home, and use in barter. Most Soviet employment was in the public sector, and this gave people some time to think of what to do next.

Private enterprises tend to be much more efficient at many things. Such laying off their people, shutting their doors, and liquidating their assets. Since most employment in the United States is in the private sector, we should expect the transition to permanent unemployment to be quite abrupt for most people.

Slide [12] When confronting hardship, people usually fall back on their families for support. The Soviet Union experienced chronic housing shortages, which often resulted in three generations living together under one roof. This didn’t make them happy, but at least they were used to each other. The usual expectation was that they would stick it out together, come what may.

In the United States, families tend to be atomized, spread out over several states. They sometimes have trouble tolerating each other when they come together for Thanksgiving, or Christmas, even during the best of times. They might find it difficult to get along, in bad times. There is already too much loneliness in this country, and I doubt that economic collapse will cure it.

Slide [13] To keep evil at bay, Americans require money. In an economic collapse, there is usually hyperinflation, which wipes out savings. There is also rampant unemployment, which wipes out incomes. The result is a population that is largely penniless.

In the Soviet Union, very little could be obtained for money. It was treated as tokens rather than as wealth, and was shared among friends. Many things – housing and transportation among them – were either free or almost free.

Slide [14] Soviet consumer products were always an object of derision – refrigerators that kept the house warm – and the food, and so on. You’d be lucky if you got one at all, and it would be up to you to make it work once you got it home. But once you got it to work, it would become a priceless family heirloom, handed down from generation to generation, sturdy, and almost infinitely maintainable.

In the United States, you often hear that something “is not worth fixing.” This is enough to make a Russian see red. I once heard of an elderly Russian who became irate when a hardware store in Boston wouldn’t sell him replacement bedsprings: “People are throwing away perfectly good mattresses, how am I supposed to fix them?”

Economic collapse tends to shut down both local production and imports, and so it is vitally important that anything you own wears out slowly, and that you can fix it yourself if it breaks. Soviet-made stuff generally wore incredibly hard. The Chinese-made stuff you can get around here – much less so.

Slide [15] The Soviet agricultural sector was notoriously inefficient. Many people grew and gathered their own food even in relatively prosperous times. There were food warehouses in every city, stocked according to a government allocation scheme. There were very few restaurants, and most families cooked and ate at home. Shopping was rather labor-intensive, and involved carrying heavy loads. Sometimes it resembled hunting – stalking that elusive piece of meat lurking behind some store counter. So the people were well-prepared for what came next.

In the United States, most people get their food from a supermarket, which is supplied from far away using refrigerated diesel trucks. Many people don’t even bother to shop and just eat fast food. When people do cook, they rarely cook from scratch. This is all very unhealthy, and the effect on the nation’s girth, is visible, clear across the parking lot. A lot of the people, who just waddle to and from their cars, seem unprepared for what comes next. If they suddenly had to start living like the Russians, they would blow out their knees.

Slide [16] The Soviet government threw resources at immunization programs, infectious disease control, and basic care. It directly operated a system of state-owned clinics, hospitals, and sanatoriums. People with fatal ailments or chronic conditions often had reason to complain, and had to pay for private care – if they had the money.

In the United States, medicine is for profit. People seems to think nothing of this fact. There are really very few fields of endeavor to which Americans would deny the profit motive. The problem is, once the economy is removed, so is the profit, along with the services it once helped to motivate.

Slide [17] The Soviet education system was generally quite excellent. It produced an overwhelmingly literate population and many great specialists. The education was free at all levels, but higher education sometimes paid a stipend, and often provided room and board. The educational system held together quite well after the economy collapsed. The problem was that the graduates had no jobs to look forward to upon graduation. Many of them lost their way.

The higher education system in the United States is good at many things – government and industrial research, team sports, vocational training… Primary and secondary education fails to achieve in 12 years what Soviet schools generally achieved in 8. The massive scale and expense of maintaining these institutions is likely to prove too much for the post-collapse environment. Illiteracy is already a problem in the United States, and we should expect it to get a lot worse.

Slide [18] The Soviet Union did not need to import energy. The production and distribution system faltered, but never collapsed. Price controls kept the lights on even as hyperinflation raged.

The term “market failure” seems to fit the energy situation in the United States. Free markets develop some pernicious characteristics when there are shortages of key commodities. During World War II, the United States government understood this, and successfully rationed many things, from gasoline to bicycle parts. But that was a long time ago. Since then, the inviolability of free markets has become an article of faith.

Slide [19] My conclusion is that the Soviet Union was much better-prepared for economic collapse than the United States is.

I have left out two important superpower asymmetries, because they don’t have anything to do with collapse-preparedness. Some countries are simply luckier than others. But I will mention them, for the sake of completeness.

In terms of racial and ethnic composition, the United States resembles Yugoslavia more than it resembles Russia, so we shouldn’t expect it to be as peaceful as Russia was, following the collapse. Ethnically mixed societies are fragile and have a tendency to explode.

In terms of religion, the Soviet Union was relatively free of apocalyptic doomsday cults. Very few people there wished for a planet-sized atomic fireball to herald the second coming of their savior. This was indeed a blessing.

Slide [20] One area in which I cannot discern any Collapse Gap is national politics. The ideologies may be different, but the blind adherence to them couldn’t be more similar.

It is certainly more fun to watch two Capitalist parties go at each other than just having the one Communist party to vote for. The things they fight over in public are generally symbolic little tokens of social policy, chosen for ease of public posturing. The Communist party offered just one bitter pill. The two Capitalist parties offer a choice of two placebos. The latest innovation is the photo finish election, where each party buys 50% of the vote, and the result is pulled out of statistical noise, like a rabbit out of a hat.

The American way of dealing with dissent and with protest is certainly more advanced: why imprison dissidents when you can just let them shout into the wind to their heart’s content?

The American approach to bookkeeping is more subtle and nuanced than the Soviet. Why make a state secret of some statistic, when you can just distort it, in obscure ways? Here’s a simple example: inflation is “controlled” by substituting hamburger for steak, in order to minimize increases to Social Security payments.

Slide [21] Many people expend a lot of energy protesting against their irresponsible, unresponsive government. It seems like a terrible waste of time, considering how ineffectual their protests are. Is it enough of a consolation for them to be able to read about their efforts in the foreign press? I think that they would feel better if they tuned out the politicians, the way the politicians tune them out. It’s as easy as turning off the television set. If they try it, they will probably observe that nothing about their lives has changed, nothing at all, except maybe their mood has improved. They might also find that they have more time and energy to devote to more important things.

Slide [22] I will now sketch out some approaches, realistic and otherwise, to closing the Collapse Gap. My little list of approaches might seem a bit glib, but keep in mind that this is a very difficult problem. In fact, it’s important to keep in mind that not all problems have solutions. I can promise you that we will not solve this problem tonight. What I will try to do is to shed some light on it from several angles.

Slide [23] Many people rail against the unresponsiveness and irresponsibility of the government. They often say things like “What is needed is…” plus the name of some big, successful government project from the glorious past – the Marshall Plan, the Manhattan Project, the Apollo program. But there is nothing in the history books about a government preparing for collapse. Gorbachev’s “Perestroika” is an example of a government trying to avert or delay collapse. It probably helped speed it along.

Slide [24] There are some things that I would like the government to take care of in preparation for collapse. I am particularly concerned about all the radioactive and toxic installations, stockpiles, and dumps. Future generations are unlikely to able to control them, especially if global warming puts them underwater. There is enough of this muck sitting around to kill off most of us. I am also worried about soldiers getting stranded overseas – abandoning one’s soldiers is among the most shameful things a country can do. Overseas military bases should be dismantled, and the troops repatriated. I’d like to see the huge prison population whittled away in a controlled manner, ahead of time, instead of in a chaotic general amnesty. Lastly, I think that this farce with debts that will never be repaid, has gone on long enough. Wiping the slate clean will give society time to readjust. So, you see, I am not asking for any miracles. Although, if any of these things do get done, I would consider it a miracle.

Slide [25] A private sector solution is not impossible; just very, very unlikely. Certain Soviet state enterprises were basically states within states. They controlled what amounted to an entire economic system, and could go on even without the larger economy. They kept to this arrangement even after they were privatized. They drove Western management consultants mad, with their endless kindergartens, retirement homes, laundries, and free clinics. These weren’t part of their core competency, you see. They needed to divest and to streamline their operations. The Western management gurus overlooked the most important thing: the core competency of these enterprises lay in their ability to survive economic collapse. Maybe the young geniuses at Google can wrap their heads around this one, but I doubt that their stockholders will.

Slide [26] It’s important to understand that the Soviet Union achieved collapse-preparedness inadvertently, and not because of the success of some crash program. Economic collapse has a way of turning economic negatives into positives. The last thing we want is a perfectly functioning, growing, prosperous economy that suddenly collapses one day, and leaves everybody in the lurch. It is not necessary for us to embrace the tenets of command economy and central planning to match the Soviet lackluster performance in this area. We have our own methods, that are working almost as well. I call them “boondoggles.” They are solutions to problems that cause more problems than they solve.

Just look around you, and you will see boondoggles sprouting up everywhere, in every field of endeavor: we have military boondoggles like Iraq, financial boondoggles like the doomed retirement system, medical boondoggles like private health insurance, legal boondoggles like the intellectual property system. The combined weight of all these boondoggles is slowly but surely pushing us all down. If it pushes us down far enough, then economic collapse, when it arrives, will be like falling out of a ground floor window. We just have to help this process along, or at least not interfere with it. So if somebody comes to you and says “I want to make a boondoggle that runs on hydrogen” – by all means encourage him! It’s not as good as a boondoggle that burns money directly, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Slide [27] Certain types of mainstream economic behavior are not prudent on a personal level, and are also counterproductive to bridging the Collapse Gap. Any behavior that might result in continued economic growth and prosperity is counterproductive: the higher you jump, the harder you land. It is traumatic to go from having a big retirement fund to having no retirement fund because of a market crash. It is also traumatic to go from a high income to little or no income. If, on top of that, you have kept yourself incredibly busy, and suddenly have nothing to do, then you will really be in rough shape.

Economic collapse is about the worst possible time for someone to suffer a nervous breakdown, yet this is what often happens. The people who are most at risk psychologically are successful middle-aged men. When their career is suddenly over, their savings are gone, and their property worthless, much of their sense of self-worth is gone as well. They tend to drink themselves to death and commit suicide in disproportionate numbers. Since they tend to be the most experienced and capable people, this is a staggering loss to society.

If the economy, and your place within it, is really important to you, you will be really hurt when it goes away. You can cultivate an attitude of studied indifference, but it has to be more than just a conceit. You have to develop the lifestyle and the habits and the physical stamina to back it up. It takes a lot of creativity and effort to put together a fulfilling existence on the margins of society. After the collapse, these margins may turn out to be some of the best places to live.

Slide [28] I hope that I didn’t make it sound as if the Soviet collapse was a walk in the park, because it was really quite awful in many ways. The point that I do want to stress is that when this economy collapses, it is bound to be much worse. Another point I would like to stress is that collapse here is likely to be permanent. The factors that allowed Russia and the other former Soviet republics to recover are not present here.

In spite of all this, I believe that in every age and circumstance, people can sometimes find not just a means and a reason to survive, but enlightenment, fulfillment, and freedom. If we can find them even after the economy collapses, then why not start looking for them now?

Thank you.

Editorial Notes

Energy Bulletin published an excerpt from this talk yesterday (Dec 3), and Dmitry reported that his small webserver was overwhelmed with requests. Although it’s good news that his writing has such a following, PLEASE don’t access the document on his web server (Club Orlov). The same content is here, on Energy Bulletin’s heavier duty webserver.
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Orlov has many penetrating insights, couched in his dark humor. Particularly striking is the strong case he makes that the peoples of the USSR were actually better prepared for a collapse because

  • they had learned to be more self-reliant
  • many crucial functions (like housing and transportation) were taken care of by the state sector which was more stable than a private sector would have been.

Orlov’s cynicism about the possibility of intelligent government action was probably justified in the case of the Soviet Union, but I think it would be a tragic mistake to abandon efforts to change the direction of the U.S. The Soviets had little chance to make democratic institutions work. We do have that chance.
-BA

UPDATE: Dmitri Orlov writes on March 4, 2007:
You wrote that “The Soviets had little chance to make democratic institutions work.” That’s not entirely true. Perestroika and Glasnost were all about democracy, and in my opinion it had the same chance of success as the hopelessly gerrymandered system that passes for democracy in the US, (although much less than any proper, modern democracy, in which the Bush regime would have been put out of power quite a while ago, after a simple parliamentary vote of no confidence and early elections). The problem is that, in a collapse scenario, democracy is the least effective system of government one can possibly think of (think Weimar, or the Russian Interim Government) – a topic I cover in Post-Soviet Lessons.

Lastly, I don’t think calling me a cynic is exactly accurate: I’ve been in the US a long time, watching the system become progressively more dysfunctional with each passing political season. It seems to me that it is not necessarily cynical to be able to spot a solid trend, but that it could be simply observant.

UPDATE (October 30, 2007):
We’ve noticed an influx of visitors to Dmitry Orlov’s article, since its mention on several websites. Dmitry writes that his new book, “Reinventing Collapse,” is due from New Society Publishers in the springtime.