Here’s a thoughtful article by Tzvetan Todorov on “Concern for Truth” and how democracy can not be sustained without it. Translated by truthout.org.

This abandonment of the duty of truth among opinion makers does not reflect some nefarious intention, but rather the fear that seized the country’s population following the September 11, 2001, attacks. The need to protect one’s own life, to assure the security of one’s loved ones, to eliminate threats judged to be imminent, made everyone forget habitual precautions. Verifying and evaluating the news, arguing and reasoning were perceived as signs of a lack of courage and sense of responsibility. Meanwhile, fear is a poor counselor, and we must be afraid of those who live in fear.

A good reminder for me that even when the world seems upside down, I need to think things through, paying no heed to the voice of fear.

By my best estimation, we are about to see a “hard landing” for the U.S. economy. I’ve been watching the signs for several months now, and in the last two weeks there have been some Big signs of imminent disaster. The stock market may be able to maintain its speculative climb in to insanity for a month or two, but sooner or later things are going to come down.

The possibility of economic uncertainty first reached my awareness earlier this year through articles written in international publications such as the UK’s Indymedia— “Why the Dollar Bubble is about to Burst” —and Canada’s Maclean’s magazine— “Is America Going Broke?”

A little while later, I heard about the trillion-dollar housing bubble. Low interest rates in the early 2000s gave rise to an investor buying frenzy, along with ARM and other exotic loans to higher-risk individuals. In the first quarter of this year, the residential housing bubble burst and has been “falling off the cliff” ever since. If the “commercial construction trails residential construction” trend holds as it always has, then we are now about to see the commercial real estate bubble burst as well. According to CalculatedRisk, this translates in to a loss of half a million jobs over the next 6 months.

Then I heard about the dismal auto sales. General Motors and Ford announced they would each slash 30,000 jobs at the end of last year. Ford hired a new CEO to try to pull the company out of its slump. According to the New York Times, significant drops in auto sales have predicted recessions 5 out of the 6 times America has undergone a recession, and concludes, “[a significant drop in auto sales] has never warned of a recession that did not occur.” Auto sales are definitely falling.

Now, in the festive Christmas season when nobody is watching, the Treasury/OMB released the Financial Report of the United States Government in which the Comptroller states (p. 152):

Despite improvement in both the fiscal year 2006 reported net operating cost and the cash-based budget deficit, the U.S. government’s total reported liabilities, net social insurance commitments, and other fiscal exposures continue to grow and now total approximately $50 trillion, representing approximately four times the Nation’s total output (GDP) in fiscal year 2006, up from about $20 trillion, or two times GDP in fiscal year 2000.

As this long-term fiscal imbalance continues to grow, the retirement of the “baby boom” generation is closer to becoming a reality with the first wave of boomers eligible for early retirement under Social Security in 2008.

Given these and other factors, it seems clear that the nation’s current fiscal path is unsustainable and that tough choices by the President and the Congress are necessary in order to address the nation’s large and growing long-term fiscal imbalance.

4 times the GDP! Can you imagine a sane bank manager offering a loan to someone whose “fiscal imbalance continues to grow”? Foreign lenders, like banks, will very soon be calling the same stops on the U.S. government. As the risk of investment increases, so will their demands on interest rates. (See also the commentary by Chris Martenson, “The United States is Insolvent“.)

As if this news weren’t foreboding enough, some shady things are also going on. The measure of how much cash is available in the world economy, a statistic published by the Fed as “M3“, was discontinued in March of this year. From what I understand, it’s possible to put M3 together using the still-published M0, M1 and M2 statistics (plus some other pieces, I presume), and someone has done just that. According to this calculated M3 stat, the real inflation rate of the U.S. dollar is closer to 8 or 9 percent.

My last observation, and the one that convinces me that we’re really in for a big dip here, is that everyone is starting to catch on. There’s an elephant in the room, and we know it. And people are talking about it all over the ‘net. It’s on Digg and Reddit. It’s in blogs. The international papers have long ago covered the topic, and are continuing to do so. And, cautiously, our U.S. news outlets are making mention of it too.

What should you do? Get out of debt. Invest in gold. Invest in silver. Diversify your currency in to the Euro, Swiss Franc or some other foreign currency that isn’t heavily tied to the U.S. dollar. And scoop up some stocks in mining companies or indexes such as NYSE:GLX. I’m also invested in some smaller startups like American Creek Resources in Canada.

If the U.S. dollar collapses and is replaced by something like the Amero, you don’t want to trade dollars for Ameros. You will get a very bad deal.

Navy seaman Jonathan Hutto has initiated an Appeal for Redress^[1], a letter that has gained support from more than 1000 military personel, many in active duty.

The Nation reports:

Not since 1969, when some 1,300 active-duty military personnel signed an open letter in the New York Times opposing the war in Vietnam, has there been such a dramatic barometer of rising military dissent.

One of the signers, “Lisa”, wrote:

I joined up two weeks after I turned 17 because I wanted to save American lives. I wanted to be a hero like any American child.

I supported the war when I joined because I thought it was justified. Only after my own research and the truth coming out did I learn how wrong I was, how–for lack of a better word–how brainwashed I was.

Now I know the war is illegal, unjustified and that our troops have no reason for being there.

Lisa is probably refering to the fabricated evidence that led us to war, among other things. Kudos to the many brave soldiers who’ve risked physical loss and who now risk other losses in order to stand for what they know to be right.

Update: Another article was recently published at truthout which verifies Tony Blair’s foreknowledge.

1. www.appealforredress.org did not respond at the time of this writing

A friend of mine, Brad Fish, recently wrote a response to my article “From President Ahmadinejad.” He had some strong feelings and honest concerns that I’d like to address here. It seems like a good place and time to bring some of these points up.

1. The nuclear program

Brad: “He doesn’t seem to want to discuss or negotiate his nuclear program very much”

And for good reason, although I do hope an opportunity opens up soon.

First, we can’t really be certain of what Iran’s intentions are with its nuclear program. On the face of it, Iran claims its program is a civilian energy program. So far, we have good reason to believe them. The CIA claims there is no evidence to date that Iran’s program is anything but what they says it is.

So, Iran claims they have every right to a nuclear energy program. This seems reasonable. The US, on the other hand, claims they have no right to a nuclear anything. This position seems to be based on fear. Both sides seem unrelenting—thus it’s not just President Ahmadinejad who is an instigator of the negotiation stalemate. Neither the US nor Iran seems to “want to discuss or negotiate…very much.”

But “what if” I’m wrong? What if Iran’s intentions are deceptive after all, and they have a clandestine nuclear enrichment program in full production right now? That’s the question that gets all of us worried. That’s why we’re willing to suspend reason and follow our leaders faithfully. But, as with the reasons for war in Iraq, it’s a ridiculous argument if you turn the tables around. What if Kim Jong Il is making bombs for the purpose of nuking America? Should we engage his country in another pre-emptive war? What if America is planning to go to war with Iran? Shouldn’t they prepare to defend themselves by bombing America? What if Israel intends to use its nuclear bombs on Lebanon? Where does “what if” end?

Brad: “And I’m sure he agrees that the United Nations and every nation in it is corrupt as well?”

I realize you’re asking this tongue-in-cheek, but I’ll answer directly anyway: I doubt it. The fact that the United States started an illegal war with Iraq based on doctored evidence would scare me silly if I were Iranian. There’s simply no reason for them to believe that we, the United States, won’t cook up some new “evidence” with which to justify a new war with Iran. But in spite of this, it appears that there is some evidence of good will in the letter from President Ahmadinejad. I don’t know of any letter from President Bush to the Iranians, assuring them that there exists a great deal of common ground on which we can all try to work. I think we should work with the evidence—then add to that a dash of hope in a peaceful future—and try to suppress our natural fight-or-flight instincts.

2. Iran’s position of responsibility

Duane: “Iran, more than any other nation will—like the mother of an illegitimate child—bear the responsibility of the political chaos and social upheaval we started in Iraq.”

Brad: “Can you explain how this is the case?”

My point here is that Iran has *no choice* but to be politically and financially responsible for the mess in Iraq. They are neighbors. Thousands of people are fleeing Iraq, moving to adjoining nations, including Iran. The US, on the other hand, has no such material obligation. Morally, of course, we are obligated—just like the father who conceives a baby is morally obligated to pay child support. But how many divorced fathers actually do that? The United States does not *have to* help in the same way as Iran does.

Brad: “How are they helping to rebuild?”

To my knowledge, they are not doing anything at the moment. But if Iran’s close ties to Hizballah is any indication of how Iran will treat the poor and the weary, the battered and orphaned, the hungry and the homeless, then the way that Hizballah has helped to rebuild southern Lebanon is quite a testimony.

Hezbollah has promised to provide housing and furniture for the next year to each of the tens of thousands of families whose homes were destroyed by the month-long Israeli bombing campaign. Hezbollah spokesmen say the funding will come from foreign donors, including Iran, and it will be disbursed directly, not through the Lebanese government. (NPR)

Of course, Iran is also funding Hizballah’s military restocking as well, and there’s little doubt that this stream of support is also going to new arms and new defense options. I know it’s not all peaches and cream with selfless interest here. But there are thousands of people in Lebanon who are willing to covertly help Hizballah. Why? Are they all terrorists? I think it’s a tribute to the security and hope that the people feel that Hizballah has grass-roots support.

3. We never intended to stay

Brad: “First we criticize the government for staying in Iraq, and then we criticize the government for NOT planning to stay in Iraq? The hypocrisy is mind-boggling.”

I can understand the confusion. Perhaps I can recycle my “illegitimate child” analogy to shed light on this apparent hypocrisy.

The question, I believe, is almost irrelevant. Neither his staying nor his leaving will reprieve him of his first crime.

As a nation, we didn’t know at first what was going on. We didn’t know we were being lied to. We went to war on a sacred trust that the cause was legitimate. I believed President Bush was the best thing that could have happened to America in such a time of need. But then things became a bit murky. Osama Bin Laden slipped out of sight. The connection between Iraq and 9/11 began to unravel faster. Doubts crept in. But most of us still followed President Bush’s “stay the course” resolution.

Now, however, we are beginning to see that the first act—9/11— was perhaps not just incompetence on the part of our leaders, but actually criminal. In that case, the Bush administration is and ought to be “damned if they do, damned if they don’t” with regard to Iraq. And if it is criminal, then whether we stay the course or cut and run, we, as a nation, were absolutely in the wrong.

Brad: “We have stayed in Iraq, and we are trying to rebuild it.”

At the moment, we are trying to keep the number of deaths down. I’m not sure I would consider that “rebuilding”. Maybe it’s fair to say we’re trying.

4. Lenses

Brad: “Perhaps you should reassess some of your own hardened opinions and views towards those you criticize?”

Something I am willing to do. I just can’t get around 9/11 without believing there was gross criminal negligence or criminal intent on the part of the Bush administration. Given the strong evidence, the lens through which I see our world has refocused.

5. Iran is the instigator?

Brad: “[Iran] disrupted peace between Lebanon and Israel by kidnapping Israeli soldiers in their neighbor’s backyard and thus incited the Israelis to violence.”

While I am no authority on the Middle East and its cycles of bloodshed and hatred, I am surprised that you think there is such a clear “bad guy” that instigated the war this summer. This is a war that has gone on for decades. There is terrible pain and suffering that has been felt by families on both sides. But if you want to find a “first cause” for this particular bout, then from what I understand, it was more the Israeli’s fault for kidnapping two *civilians* on June 24th (several days prior to the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit). This is according to Noam Chomsky, someone far more qualified than I am to tell who started it.

6. Terrorism, terrorism, terrorism

Brad: “Iran has a proven track record of terrorism.”

And so does nearly every other country in the world, including this one. What bothers me most about our culture here is that we believe we are so enlightened that we ought to go and beat others in to submission so that they can be “enlightened” like we are. We accuse everyone else of being deceitful but we are skeptical when we hear people attest to our own country’s corruption. We think that “cooperating with the international community” is synonymous with “cooperating with the United States”.

If President Ahmadinejad wrote a letter of contempt, would you interpret it as something other than contempt? Let’s get off the high horse and take a letter of good will for what it is—a letter of good will.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wrote a beautiful letter of good will to the American people yesterday. In spite of any ill feelings and suspicions that people harbor against him, I think he is an honest man who is trying to make his country and the world a better place. That’s more than I can say about our political leadership.

I find it interesting that while his previous letter in May was addressed to President Bush specifically, this letter is addressed to us (or, if you don’t want to count me as American, to you), the people of America. His reason for this distinction is laid out clearly: he is aware that the people who govern us in this country are not properly representing us as they swore to do. And he goes to great lengths to show that in spite of everything we hear from our government and media, there is a common ground that can be sought after if only there were honest dialogue between our two countries. Perhaps he has conceded that efforts to negotiate with our largely corrupt government is futile.

It strikes me that Iran, more than any other nation will—like the mother of an illegitimate child—bear the responsibility of the political chaos and social upheaval we started in Iraq. According to General Scheid, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld actively discouraged the top US strategists from planning the restorative “phase 4″ of the war. From the word “go”, we never intended to stay in Iraq and clean up after ourselves. Although I find this disturbing, it seems to align well with what others, like the BBC, have identified as a plan to govern by fear by means of an indefinite “war on terror.”

In these troubled times, I wish President Ahmadinejad the best and hope for more sensible dialogue between our two nations. Thank-you, President, for extending a hand of good will.

The past year has been an education in discernment. I used to trust the big-name news services much more than I do now. But things have changed, and I think it’s been a good experience over all. I’d like to share what I’ve learned.

• On many important subjects, Americans don’t usually get the same story as the rest of the world. For example, Newsweek published an article, “Losing Afghanistan” last month (October) which was printed everywhere but the U.S. I’m sure there was a lot of political pressure that went in to that decision, considering the GOP was about to lose congress to the Democrats.
• According to Reporters Without Borders, an international watchdog association, Freedom of the Press in the United States ranks 53rd in the world. President Bush’s “War on Terror” is often used as a pretext to suppress truth, citing “national security” as his wild-card reason.
• American News seems to me to have deteriorated in to a kind of entertainment. I’m not a big TV watcher these days, but shows like Planet Mancow and Hannity and Colmes are ridiculous. They don’t look for new input, they look for ways to mock and make fun of people who hold opposing points of view. I urge anyone who wants to get more of the truth to visit websites such as TV News Lies and What Really Happened. I also highly recommend this roundup of untruths: “What Else is the Mainstream Media Lying About?”

With such a poor record of late, I wonder how Americans can with such naivety claim that if it wasn’t reported in the mainstream news, then it must not be true. For example, on a recent Planet Mancow show, there was a “debate” on the subject of whether or not 9/11 was an inside job. The primary evidence used by Fireman Brian Harvey (in support of his belief that it was not an inside job) was that if 9/11 were an inside job, then we’d have heard about it on the news—and we haven’t, so it wasn’t.

I’m sorry, but you have to find other ways to discern the truth these days. The media companies aren’t doing it for you.

Being election day and all, I thought I’d just make a note that I am very interested in the outcome of the many decisions made today. I wish that I could be more involved—and I’m getting better at that within my sphere of influence—but as a non-citizen, I do not have the right to vote in this country.

I recently read an open letter from Mike Krause, a war vet. He writes:

That nearly 80 million people didn’t make it to the polls that day [in 2004] was a special punch in the gut to my friends and me, because we were watching the election results from deep within Iraq’s Sunni Triangle. Some Americans heard political commentary that night- we heard mortar fire.

Our country is at war. A 60% voter turnout isn’t good enough. … Today, you can make your voice heard.

If I could vote, I’d vote for the Constitution Party. Maybe it wouldn’t make a difference immediately, but anything I could do to help send the GOP packing would be worth doing. More than ever, we need honesty and transparency in government. The Republicans under Bush have not been honest, nor have they been transparent.

Update: If you’re interested in the issue of vote fraud, or if you just want a good laugh, check out The Problem with E-voting Machines. Thank goodness for comedians. Without Jon Stewart, I might develop a tumor just thinking about all of the threats to our liberty.

There have been some great videos made available online recently regarding the World Trade Center towers. The first (which I highly recommend if you haven’t looked in to this stuff yet) is about Building 7, that 47-story building that fell in the late afternoon of September 11th. This one shows 3 or 4 different views of the building as it collapsed, with a comparison to other known demolition jobs:

WTC7 Controlled Demolition

Next up is video footage of a presentation by Kevin Ryan. Kevin is the chemist at Underwriter Labs who was fired for his making public a letter to upper management that questioned Underwriter Labs’ silence on several key points of its analysis of the World Trade Center structural steel. This video is an excellent and detailed wrap-up of the 4 government-sponsored studies of the towers’ collapses and how these studies have largely been pseudo-science up to this point. I was particularly interested to see that the 4 studies were each directed and authored by the same handful of scientists and engineers:

Kevin Ryan’s “A New Standard for Deception”

I’ve also been fascinated with a fun but instructional music video whose content is made up entirely of controlled demolition footage. Check it out:

Sonic Bomb

And finally, a newly released and never-before-seen home video of the twin towers from “Bob and Bri.” Their blog is here. They kept this video private due to the personal nature of this film:

What We Saw

Robert D. Steele, “former Marine Corps infantry and intelligence officer for twenty years and … the second-ranking civilian (GS-14) in U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence from 1988-1992,” [wikipedia] recently reviewed Webster Griffin Tarpley’s “Synthetic Terror: Made in the USA” on Amazon.com. In his review of the book, he reports:

It is with great sadness that I conclude that this book is the strongest of the 770 books I have reviewed here at Amazon, almost all non-fiction. I am forced to conclude that 9/11 was at a minimum allowed to happen as a pretext for war (see my review of Jim Bamford’s “Pretext for War”), and I am forced to conclude that there is sufficient evidence to indict (not necessarily convict) Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and others of a neo-conservative neo-Nazi coup d’etat and kick-off of the clash of civilizations (see my review of “Crossing the Rubicon” as well as “State of Denial”).

…

I sit here, a 54-year old, liberally educated, two graduate degrees, war college, a life overseas, 150 IQ or so, the number #1 Amazon reviewer for non-fiction, a former Marine Corps infantry officer, a former CIA clandestine case officer, founder of the Marine Corps Intelligence Center, and I have to tell anyone who cares to read this: I believe it. I believe it enough to want a full investigation that passes the smell test of the 9/11 families as well as objective outside observers. I believe it sufficient to indict Dick Cheney and other neo-cons. Sadly, the Executive is now in the service of corporations that benefit from high crimes and misdemeanors, rather than in the service of the American people who suffer great ill from these terrible mis-deeds.

As I’ve delved in to this new world of politics and events, I’ve become aware of some of my own shortcomings. For example, in one of my conversations with Jeff Moss the other day, I realized that I don’t know that much about PNAC, Israeli spy rings or even Dr. Steven Jones’ hypothesis about the World Trade Centers coming down by thermite.

I’m also feeling a little humbler today, having read Zach’s comment about my misunderstanding Jeff’s statement. I’m not sure how much I got right or wrong (perhaps Jeff can clarify), but I’m getting better at this “trying to understand the world” game. A lot of it starts inside, by trying to understand myself.

It seems to me that as we learn new things and try to teach others about what we’ve learned, a very powerful process takes place. I’ll call it the “maturity of influence”. Basically, what I’m finding is that we all have a strong drive to be “right”. Why? Well, one reason seems to be that we perceive our social influence to be directly proportional to our ability to make accurate predictions. We want others to trust us, and we know that they’re less likely to trust our predictions if past predictions have turned out to be false. In other words, we fight to be “right” because we perceive our social value and influence to be dependent on our “rightness”.

As everyone admits, however, we don’t know everything. As a consequence, inaccurate predictions by the best of us are inevitable. When such a failure occurs, we have two choices: admit it and move on, or deny it and try to protect our image. So far, I’m in the “admit it” category, and trying to remain there. I also feel strongly, however, that I’m in the “face it” category when it comes to truth. I have a deep desire to know what’s real, true, trustworthy, accurate etc. For this reason, I question a lot of issues of faith as well. Likewise, I’ve questioned a lot of issues related to contemporary American history. So far, I’m grateful for the opportunity and excited to continue.

With regard to my recent vigilant posts regarding 9/11, human rights and government responsibility, I hope you will continue to learn what you can from me. My promise is that I will try to synthesize what I can, report accurately and truthfully at all times, and most of all, admit I’m wrong when I know I’m wrong. God bless you all.