government

Rampant Unreality

Rampant Unreality on August 28, 2010

On a private visit two weeks ago to the USA, my first since 2008, I was able to enter and leave the country with no personal problems, but on a two-hour tour which a friend gave me of a major American city, devastated by the recent economic downturn, I observed some daunting social problems:—

As we drove towards the city past a handsome housing estate in the country, he said, “You see all these expensive-looking houses? They are in fact poorly built, cookie-cutter houses, way over-priced, bought with money out of nowhere from the Clinton era (1992–2000), by people living in a dream, from paycheck to paycheck, in a false paradise of high credit, materialism and excessive spending. If they lose their jobs, as many are doing, they will be lucky to get half their money back on their houses. The men have no real skill or trade. Theirs is a world of slick tongue nonsense . . .

“They are mostly white people who have fled from the inner city suburbs where we are now arriving. Look around you at all the houses boarded up, abandoned, dilapidated, with huge gaps in between where the housing has been destroyed to give the illusion of prosperity. But the lost jobs will not come back, so there is no real basis for a return to prosperity. The neat houses you do see have been repaired or re-built with Government money borrowed by the broke city in accordance with unreal housing projects, because the neat houses will not usually be cared for, but will soon be dilapidated again. There is a kind of Government aid which can do more harm than good to the people it is supposed to help, by trapping them in their dependence on it . . .

“Now we are coming into the downtown where you see tall handsome buildings, but also few people circulating. The buildings go back to the 1920’s when this city was a great industrial centre, but after World War II the USA began to lose its industrial pre-eminence. Around the Reagan years (1980–1988) began, as I see it, a false stimulus by the credit card being made available to the common man. In the 1990’s a non-white mayor was elected here who did his serious best to bring business back to the city, and some of these handsome buildings are due to him, but he was voted out by his own people because he was not like one of them . . .

“The economy is hanging on a thread, yet most people think everything will be fine in a year’s time. They think it is lovely if the Government just prints or digitalizes more and more money. Five per cent of the people, or less, understand just how grave the situation is, and less than one per cent see religion as playing any part in their country’s downfall. People look only for band-aids, not for deep or real solutions. The whites have allowed themselves to be given a huge guilt complex, and they have caved in without admitting it. There is a huge problem that everybody senses and knows, but they are too afraid to talk about it . . .”

Yet within 50 miles of this city thrives an SSPX parish and school, unknown or disdained, yet embodying the one true solution: God.

Kyrie eleison.

Truth, Farewell

Truth, Farewell on April 3, 2010

Another voice of truth risks falling silent in the United States. It is not, at least overtly, a voice of Catholic truth, but are not the great problems for truth today not problems specific to Catholics, but problems so basic that they are common to all men? Therefore when a columnist and writer of the stature of Paul Craig Roberts, who has outstanding Establishment credentials and who was an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration, announces that, apparently out of discouragement, he is laying aside his pen, it is a sad day for all of us.

His farewell article of about ten days ago deals precisely with the universal loss of truth. Its opening section deserves to be quoted at length: “There was a time when the pen was mightier than the sword . . .when people believed in truth and regarded truth as an independent power and not as an auxiliary for government, class, race, ideological, personal or financial interest. Today Americans are ruled by propaganda. They have little regard for truth, little access to it, and little ability to recognize it” (my underlining). “Truth is an unwelcome entity. It is disturbing. It is off-limits. Those who speak it run the risk of being branded “anti-American,” “anti-semite” or “conspiracy theorist.” Truth is an inconvenience for government . . . and for ideologues.”

He goes on, “Today many whose goal once was the discovery of truth are now paid handsomely to hide it.” Examples from many domains prove that “wherever one looks, truth has fallen to money. Wherever money is insufficient to bury the truth, ignorance, propaganda and short memories finish the job.” Further examples confirm that “Intelligence and integrity have been purchased by money . . . Americans, or most of them, have proved to be putty in the hands of the police state.” They have been brainwashed by the mainstream media which “do not serve the truth. They serve the government and the interest groups that empower the government.”

Fascinatingly, Roberts argues that “America’s fate was sealed when the public and the anti-war movement bought the government’s 9/11 conspiracy theory. The government’s account of 9/11 is contradicted by much evidence. Nevertheless, that defining event of our time, which has launched the USA on interminable wars of aggression and a domestic police state, is a taboo topic for investigation in the media.It is pointless to complain of war and a police state when one accepts the premise on which they are based” (my underlining again). I would only add the religious dimension: how can souls grasp the one true religion of God when they accept the premises on which their whole godless environment is based? In the early 2000’s many Catholics in the USA did not want to hear sermons emphasizing the fraud of 9/11, but how can souls that are unconcerned to get to the truth, get anywhere near to the true God? How can souls losing their taste for reality keep any taste for the supreme realities of the soul and the after-life?

Roberts concludes sadly, “As the pen is censored and its might extinguished, I am signing off.” No, dear Dr. Roberts. The pen is still, despite all appearances, mightier than the sword, only not if it is dropped. Keep writing, however few be the souls that will still read you for the sake of the truth, because such souls, like the Truth, “are mighty and will prevail.”

Kyrie eleison.

Sensible Economics

Sensible Economics on January 23, 2010

When too many powerful people have a vested interest in “economists” being confused and confusing, it is a relief to come across (on jsmineset.com) the common sense of the “Seven Commandments”of the Austrian School of Economics. The first two, as listed below, are elementary. The last five condemn five ways in which many State governments today, no doubt under political pressure, are trying to get out of obeying the first two. Here they are, each with a commentary:—

1) “Thou must earn.” With all men’s continual need to spend on food, clothing and shelter, every person, family and State must somehow earn. They can only earn by producing or providing the other members of the community (or other States) with goods or services which those others are willing to buy.

2) “Thou shalt not spend more than thou earnest.” No person, family or State can go on for ever spending more than it earns. Otherwise it must pile up debt until the creditors call a halt. Then the debt must at last be repaid, which is painful, or it must be defaulted on, which can be disastrous

3) “No State may make too many rules.” A State must make rules for the common good, but if it restricts the citizens’ productive activity by making too many rules, it will harm the common good by restricting instead of promoting that activity.

4) “No State may tax too much.” Similarly too much State taxation levied on productive activity will hinder, even paralyse, that activity, so that an excess of taxation will even diminish a State’s tax income.

5) “No State may spend its way out of a recession.” In a recession where most citizens of a State are both earning and spending less, no government can resurrect that earning and spending simply by spending more itself, because to get that extra money to spend, it must either borrow (see 2) or tax (see 4) or print money out of thin air (see 6). All three alternatives have strict limits.

6) “No State may print its way out of a recession.” Nor can a government solve a recession by fabricating extra money to spend merely by printing more and more banknotes or by hitting more computer keys, because unless there is an increase in the production of goods corresponding to the increase in the money supply, too much money chasing too few goods will force up prices until hyper-inflation can eventually destroy the money altogether.

7) “No State may employ its way out of a recession.” Nor can a Government solve unemployment merely by hiring the unemployed as non-productive government bureaucrats (see 1), or by paying out more and more unemployment checks (see 5).

However, if “democratic” peoples so adore Mammon that they keep on voting for politicians bought out by the servants of Mammon, who can they blame but themselves if these money-men take over their government? And if the result will be a living misery for the same peoples, will not the Lord God have punished them by where they have sinned? And will they have left him with any other way of making them understand that he did not give them life just for production, economics and money or even the Austrian School? Or of bringing home to them that these things are necessary in their rightful place, but that above and beyond all of them there is an eternal Heaven and an eternal Hell?

Kyrie eleison.

Psalmist’s Perspective

Psalmist’s Perspective on January 2, 2010

Another year begins. What does it bring? If a global disaster in finance and economics is on its way, it has certainly not yet hit with full force. Will it hit in 2010? In any case it will draw closer. As the pressure mounts, it will become more and more important to see in that pressure the hand of God and not just the machinations of men. Here, with comments for the 21st century, is one of the 150 Psalms to help us see things as a soul close to God sees them. Psalm 27 has only nine verses:—! “Unto thee will I cry, O Lord” (and not to the media or governments): “O my God, be not thou silent to me: lest if thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit”

A powerful soft current is pulling all souls today towards the pit of eternal hellfire. God can easily help me, and he longs to do so, but I must turn to him and beg his help. The Psalmist will beg –

2 “Hear, O Lord, the voice of my supplication, when I pray to thee; when I lift up my hands to thy holy temple.

3 Draw me not away together with the wicked; and with the workers of iniquity destroy me not: who speak peace with their neighbour, but evils are in their hearts.”

The Psalmist is not a silly soft liberal who pretends that all men are nice and mean well. He knows that in many sweet-talking men God has wicked enemies who are powerful enough to have set up a whole environment, such as we have in 2010, that threatens to drag him down to Hell (verse 1). To deal with them, it is to God that the Psalmist will turn –

4 “Give them according to their works, and according to the wickedness of their inventions. According to the works of their hands give thou to them: render to them their reward.

5 Because they have not understood the works of the Lord, and the operations of his hands: thou shalt destroy them and not build them up.”

We need never worry that God will not deal with his (and our) enemies, even in our 21st century, when they may seem to have triumphed. They do not deceive him, nor will they escape him. What is more, God certainly looks after souls that turn to him –

6 “Blessed be the Lord, for he hath heard the voice of my supplication.

7 The Lord is my helper: in him hath my heart confided, and I have been helped. And my flesh hath flourished again, and with my will I will give praise to him.”

Note that the Psalmist is neither an idiotic angelist, pretending he is too perfect to have bodily interests – God has looked after him, “heart” and “flesh.” Nor is he a self-centred individualist, as is shown by his prayer for all of God’s people –

8 “The Lord is the strength of his people, and the protector of the salvation of his anointed (meaning, ever since the death of Our Lord upon the Cross, souls anointed with the Catholic sacraments). 9 “Save, O Lord, thy people, and bless thy inheritance: and rule them and exalt them for ever.”

Today we would say, save, O Lord, thy Catholic Church.

Kyrie eleison.

Third Position

Third Position on January 17, 2009

When I am out driving somewhere in unknown territory and I come to a fork in the road, and I take the road to the left and it turns out to be a dead end, and I take the road to the right and it turns out to be a dead end, then unless I give up going anywhere, will I not turn back to the last previous fork or junction and look for any other road than the one I just came down?

To save “capitalism” in the USA, the outgoing Republican Administration has resorted to such a massive degree of Government intervention and control as to resemble more and more closely a “communist” government. And, just before the incoming Democrat Administration comes in, it gives all the appearances of resorting to the same “communist” solution for the “capitalist” problem. But ever since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, has not Communism been evidently a loser? In which case do not both Administrations resemble the motorist who turns from one dead end to another?

Of course just as diehard Communists will claim that “true” Communism was never given a fair trial, so many believers in “Capitalism” will today claim that only abuses of the system are forcing it to morph into Government control. But just as the worst horrors of Communism do not contradict, but follow from, its basic principles, so, given poor old human nature, was not free enterprise Capitalism bound to morph into that finance Capitalism now obliging the Governments to take over?

After all, cannot Capitalism, named from capital – money – be defined as a maximizing of freedom for all citizens to make as much money as they will and can? And how could that not end in the stronger devouring the weaker until they become TBTF: too big to fail?

Then in what direction might one look for a third road, leading to neither implicit nor explicit atheistic materialism? How about the Sermon on the Mount? – “You cannot serve God and Mammon . . . Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his justice, and all these things (economic goods) shall be added unto you” . . .(Mt. VI, 24, 33). But who wants the solutions of God?

Kyrie eleison.

Mind-Rot Explains

Mind-Rot Explains on October 11, 2008

Let me quote another reader’s reaction, this time a little more complimentary, but only in order to suggest to readers puzzled or offended by seemingly anti-Roman positions of „Dinoscopus” that a time may come for them when these positions begin to make more sense. Here are extracts from the letter I received, which I summarize and paraphrase, but without changing the sense:

„Around 1999, reading a (non-SSPX) manifesto of protest against Church leaders, I threw up my hands in a kind of fear of finding myself „outside the Church.” I decided I would give the Conciliar Popes the benefit of the doubt and just try to focus on practical Catholic matters while awaiting a „reform of the reform.” But after the election of Benedict XVI, I was gravely disappointed by his apparent failure, after meeting directly with the clear heretic Hans Küng, to sanction him in any way.

„My optimism was dashed to the ground. It became clear that Benedict XVI was constructing a new unprecedented pluralism which embraced heretics and Traditionalists, also Jews, and every other kind of Church enemy. Frankly it broke my heart. The Traditionalists were right and I was wrong . . .

„Last year I found some old classroom videos of yours, with descriptions of the modernist mind and its contradictions, due to absorbing the polluted spirit of the age. I was helped to see at least the possibility of there being a difference between material and formal heresy in some theoretical instances . . . I now wish you and I had talked more in depth when we met many years ago. Maybe I would have spared myself some pain and confusion . . . I plan to buy your letters from Ridgefield and Winona as soon as I can.” (End of extracts from letter).

For anyone else who can imagine how the mental pollution of our age might ease for them the agonizing problem of how the Conciliar Popes can be so uncatholic and still popes, let them also try Volumes I and II of the Ridgefield and Winona Letters, available from True Restoration Press. The mind-rot of modern times is the explanation that has always made the most sense to me. See also „Eleison Comments” of April 19 of this year, „Deadly Mush.” The Conciliar popes are much to be pitied. They are truly into their false way of thinking!

Kyrie eleison.