Obi Wan Kenobi Makes Dire Bilderberg Warning

[jts]

Bilderberg season again. Alex Jones and associates will be on it like ugly on an ape.

[moralist]

Very cleverly composed clip. Alex Jones is truly an entertaining personality... and sometimes he's even right. It's each individual's own personal responsibility to prevent themselves from becoming victims of international bankers... whether their threat is real or imaginary.

Greg

[syrakusos]

Without the Bilderbergers we would have had that atomic war by now, maybe be in the 50th year of it, like something from Philip K. Dick or Harlan Ellison or worse...

The international banking conspiracy gelled too late (Federal Reserve 1912) to prevent World War I, which led to World War II. But they got their act together, along with the Council on Foreign Relations, the World Bank, the OECD junto, and, of course, Davos. The Bilderbergers are just one set. Yes, they have interlocking directorates. That is still better than the alternative.

According to the theorists, these bankers want us in debt to enslave us. What would freedom look like to you? A world without banks? A world without debt would be half a world, like an accountant's monopole. Debit an asset to increase it. The books must balance.

Have you heard of E. C. Riegel? His theories were validated after his death when art historian Denise Schmandt-Besserat figured out the debt-tokens of Sumeria. The leftwing anarchist David Graeber's book Debt: The First 5000 Years takes the same position as Alex Jones. However, as an anthropologist Graeber does have his fundamental facts right: debt is a positive social obligation. Without it, we would be apes.

[william.scherk]

I've never been a big follower of Obi-Wan Kenobi. But Michael Marotta raises a couple of interesting points.

What is the "OECD junto"? I know the OECD as Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and I know Junta as the gang making the decisions in a military-led government, a military dictatorship. A Junta I can bring to mind is that of Greece and Argentina last century.

The other fascinator is currency, specifically the legendary Sumerian metallic rings I have read preceded coinage. MM, do you have a few paragraphs in you to explain the legend/reality?

[moralist]

According to the theorists, these bankers want us in debt to enslave us.

It is only possible for people to enslave themselves with debt. They then create a government in their own fiscally irresponsible image. Their fiscally irresponsible government can now fulfill a useful purpose. It is something for the self ensalved to blame (unjustly accuse) for their own slavery.

What would freedom look like to you?

It looks exactly like things already are right now.

debt is a positive social obligation. Without it, we would be apes.

And yet with it, people make monkeys out of themselves.

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

Debt is leverage, thus dangerous.

--Brant

[moralist]

Debt is leverage, thus dangerous.

--Brant

Only to monkeys...

Greg

[syrakusos]

What is the "OECD junto"? I know the OECD as Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and I know Junta as the gang making the decisions in a military-led government, a military dictatorship. A Junta I can bring to mind is that of Greece and Argentina last century.

Sorry. I just meant junta in its original sense, as a legislative collective. OECD is often treated as an entity. I see that "junto" always means a gang or cabal, as a play on junta, which is the formal term. Thanks for getting me to look them up.

… the legendary Sumerian metallic rings I have read preceded coinage. MM, do you have a few paragraphs in you to explain the legend/reality?

I am not familiar with those. The Egyptians apparently had gold rings, uniform in size, and weighed out. (See the British Museum here: http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/online_tours/africa/the_wealth_of_africa/ancient_egypt.aspx) But note that 1400 BCE is much later than the Sumerian system of clay tokens which goes back at least to 5000 BCE and perhaps 7000 BCE. The clay tokens represented promises to the temple. They are found in midden heaps because, like our bank drafts, when the debt was paid, the instrument was "cancelled." (I have several write-ups about these Sumerian tokens on my own blog, but you can find them in Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_writing_ancient_numbers#Clay_tokens

Realize that this was the origin of both numeracy and (only eventually) literacy. Temples and merchants kept inventories thousands of years before the Gilgamesh was set down. And these "promissory notes" were common for thousands of years before the first coins were invented.

In fact, that brings up an interesting point on "debt." In the 19th and 20th centuries invoices often were "2-10-EOM" i.e., "take a 2% discount if you pay by the 1oth, otherwise pay the full amount by the end of the month." At the same time, especially in the 19th century, merchants often forward-dated checks three days in order to allow all the moneys to get to all the banks before the checks would be cashed. Those both reflect customs involving debt, which is the same as the extension of credit. Would it be condemned by those who oppose debt?

It has come up here, I am pretty sure, that someone pointed out that many "libertarians" seem hellbent on telling everyone else in the world how to live their lives. Ultimately, I think that Murray Rothbard just wanted to supplant the actual government with himself, at least as far as regulating who could and could not be a "bank" (however defined).

[william.scherk]

… the legendary Sumerian metallic rings I have read preceded coinage. MM, do you have a few paragraphs in you to explain the legend/reality?

I am not familiar with those.

It was something I read in some anthropology journal or similar quite some years ago, and your post rekindled the vague memory. This isn't the article I remember, but it covers the 'rings' I remember (better said as 'coils' or 'spirals'). From a 1998 Discover magazine article "The Cradle of Cash" ... I think you will find this fascinating, and maybe it will add to your arcane numismatic/currency knowledge.

Like similar tablets, it hinted at an ancient and mysterious Near Eastern currency, in the form of silver rings, that started circulating two millennia before the world's first coins were struck. By the time that tablet was inscribed, such rings may have been in use for a thousand years.

[...]

Other members of the upper crust favored a more convenient form of cash: pieces of silver cast in standard weights. These were called har in the tablets, translated as "ring" money.

At the Oriental Institute in the early 1970s, Powell studied nearly 100 silver coils--some resembling bedsprings, others slender wire coils--found primarily in the Mesopotamian city of Khafaje. They were not exactly rings, it was true, but they matched other fleeting descriptions of har. According to the scribes, ring money ranged from 1 to 60 shekels in weight. Some pieces were cast in special molds. At the Oriental Institute, the nine largest coils all bore a triangular ridge, as if they had been cast and then rolled into spirals while still pliable. The largest coils weighed almost exactly 60 shekels, the smallest from one-twelfth to two and a half shekels. "It's clear that the coils were intended to represent some easily recognizable form of Babylonian stored value," says Powell. "In other words, it's the forerunner of coinage."

Here's an image capture from an old document archived at the U Chicago Oriental Institute site. The image is apparently from an old exhibit at the institute, "Mesopotamia," which included the silver rings/coils. Neat stuff.

Edited June 10, 2015 by william.scherk

[moralist]

In fact, that brings up an interesting point on "debt." In the 19th and 20th centuries invoices often were "2-10-EOM" i.e., "take a 2% discount if you pay by the 1oth, otherwise pay the full amount by the end of the month." At the same time, especially in the 19th century, merchants often forward-dated checks three days in order to allow all the moneys to get to all the banks before the checks would be cashed. Those both reflect customs involving debt, which is the same as the extension of credit. Would it be condemned by those who oppose debt?

There's a difference between opposing debt and not needing it. Opposing tells others what they shouldn't do... while not needing is unconcerned with what others do.

With awareness of this distinction, I'm content with my own choice no matter what others choose, because their choice has no effect on the consequences of mine...

...only on their own.

Greg

[jts]

Bilderberg season again. Alex Jones and associates will be on it like ugly on an ape.

This is what Alex Jones thinks Bilderberg is.

http://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/ccphanson/clips/the-cantina-scene-from-star-wars-episode-iv-a-new

[syrakusos]

… the legendary Sumerian metallic rings I have read preceded coinage. MM, do you have a few paragraphs in you to explain the legend/reality?

It was something I read in some anthropology journal or similar quite some years ago, and your post rekindled the vague memory. This isn't the article I remember, but it covers the 'rings' … I think you will find this fascinating…

Thanks, that is interesting. I had no idea. I knew that late Sumerian or Babylonian culture had silver money, but I did not know the forms. I just took the Biblical "rings of shekel weight" to be literal jewelry.

I archived the source documents you liked to. I appreciate your thinking of me in this context.

MEM

[moralist]

Bilderberg season again. Alex Jones and associates will be on it like ugly on an ape.

This is what Alex Jones thinks Bilderberg is.

http://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/ccphanson/clips/the-cantina-scene-from-star-wars-episode-iv-a-new

That's what it is to me... a meaningless freakshow.

Greg