Saturday, November 30, 2019

The Turnaround - Kunstler (Reality intrudes on DaImpeachment!)


At yesterday’s Thanksgiving table, fifteen adults present, there was not one word uttered about impeachment, Russia, Ukraine, and, most notably, a certain Golden Golem of Greatness, whose arrival at the center of American life three years ago kicked off a political hysteria not witnessed across this land since southern “fire eaters” lay siege to Fort Sumter.
I wonder if some great fatigue of the mind has set in among the class of people who follow the news and especially the tortured antics of Rep. Adam Schiff’s goat rodeo in the House intel Committee the past month. I wonder what the rest of congress is detecting among its constituents back home during this holiday hiatus. I suspect it is that same eerie absence of chatter I noticed, and what it may portend about the nation’s disposition toward reality.
The dead white man Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 – 1860) famously observed that “all truth passes through three stages: first, it is ridiculed; second, it is violently opposed; and third, it is accepted as self-evident.” America has been stuck in stage two lo these thirty-six months since Mr. Trump shocked the system with his electoral victory over She-Whose-Turn-Was-Undoubted, inciting a paroxysm of rage, disbelief, and retribution that has made the Left side of the political transect ridiculous, and repeatedly, ignominiously so, as their fantasies about Russian “collusion” and sequential chimeras dissolve in official proceedings.
The astounding failure of Mr. Mueller’s report did nothing to dampen the violent derangement. There was no rethinking whatsoever about the terms-of-engagement in the Left’s war against the populist hobgoblin. The solidarity of delusion remained locked in place, leading to Mr. Schiff’s recent antics over his false “whistleblower” and the enfilade of diplomatic flak-catchers tasked to ward off any truthful inquiry into events in Ukraine.
But then, with the Thanksgiving shut-down, something began to turn. It was signaled especially in the Left’s chief disinformation organ, The New York Times, with a week-long salvo of lame stories aimed at defusing the Horowitz report, forthcoming on December 9. The Times stories were surely based on leaks from individuals cited in the IG’s report, who were given the opportunity to “review” the briefs against them prior to the coming release. The stories gave off an odor of panic and desperation that signaled a crumbling loss of conviction in the three-year narrative assault on the truth — namely, that the US Intel Community organized a coup to overthrow the improbable President Trump.
From this point forward, the facts of the actual story — many of them already in the public record, one way or another, and sedulously ignored by the news media — will be officially detailed by federal authorities outside the orbit of the coupsters, and finally beyond the coupsters’ control. The facts may include the uncomfortable truth that Mr. Mueller and his helpers were major players in the bad-faith exercises of the Intel Community against the occupant of the White House.
I’m not so sure that the Resistance can keep up the fight, since their enemy is reality as much as reality’s mere personification in Mr. Trump. The violent opposition Schopenhauer spoke of in his three-stage model was just procedural in this case, moving through the courts and committees and other organs of the state. I don’t think the Left can bring the fight to the streets. They don’t have it in them, not even the ANTIFA corps. The hard truths of perfidy and treachery in the upper ranks of government will rain down in the weeks ahead, and when they do, there’s an excellent chance that they will be greeted as self-evident. The Times, the WashPo and the cable news networks will have no choice but to report it all. My guess is that they will display a kind of breathlessly naïve wonder that such things are so. Most remarkably, they might just assert that they knew it all along — a final twitch of bad faith as the new paradigm locks into place.

I expect that we will see something else happen along with that: a loud repudiation of the Democratic Party itself, a recognition that it betrayed the mental health of the nation in its lawless and demented inquisitions. I expect that sentiment will extend to the party’s current crop of candidates for the White House, to the delusional proposals they push, and perhaps even to the larger ethos of the Wokester religion that has programmatically tried to destroy the common culture of this country — especially the idea that we have a duty to be on the side of truth.
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Friday, November 29, 2019

Vox Popoli: A clear warning


The three primary anti-globalist powers are sending a very clear message to the prometheans of GloboSatan Inc: the planetary balance of power is shifting:
Iran, China, and Russia will hold in the coming weeks their first-ever joint war drills, which leaders say are meant to send a "message to the world" about increased military cooperation between the rogue countries.

The commander of Iran's navy, Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi, said Wednesday that the Islamic Republic will team up with Moscow and Beijing within the next month to hold the mass war drills.... The joint war drills will be aimed at sending a message to the world, particularly Western nations, like the United States, that have sought to constrain Iran's expanding military ambitions.

This gathering of resisting forces very likely accounts for the desperate sense of urgency that Dr. Charlton has observed among what he describes as the Ahrimanic evil of the global establishment:

The interesting aspect is the sheer urgency. There is a very obvious attempt to create a worldwide sense of emergency, of imminent cataclysm, of terrible things that are Just About To Happen... unless, we hand over complete power to the Establishment (preferably the-day-after-tomorrow, or quicker). And this handover - this Power Grab by the Global Establishment - is being aimed-at Very Soon; on a timescale of months, not years.

Like it or not, the reality is that the U.S. military has been the primary tool for global evil for the last 75 years, due to the invasion of the USA and the abandonment of the American principles of isolation, non-intervention, and the avoidance of entangling alliances. And now, having been converged and repurposed, the U.S. military is observably no longer able to perform its primary purpose, which is to defend the American people from enemies foreign and domestic.


Bruce Charlton's Notions: Apocalypse Now!?


I get the feeling that the Apocalypse, which began some fifty years ago, is reaching a crescendo Now. There is a tremendous urgency towards the goal of a global totalitarian takeover by the 'Ahrimanic' powers of evil: that is to say, the type of evil which is cold, calculating, systematic, anti-spiritual, anti-human, bureaucratic and transhumanist.

As has been usual in recent decades, the Ahrimanic evil is fuelled by old-fashion 'Luciferic' evil: by stoking-up the traditional 'instinctive' sins such as pride, resentment, fear, greed, hatred, anger, lust, sadism - that is by stirring up all kinds of conflict, setting groups against one another (especially by universal, coercive mass immigration; but also by resurgent socialism, feminism, antiracism, environmentalism and the sexual revolution's LGBTQPP... endless supply of causes and victim groups). The Mass Media have a key role here.

But what is aimed-at - what is supposed to be the 'answer' to these created problems, is a total system of surveillance and control; funded by a massive shift to replace the current technological infrastructure with a new generation of self-styled 'smart', 'green' and 'sustainable' technologies - AI5G and so forth...

The interesting aspect is the sheer urgency. There is a very obvious attempt to create a worldwide sense of emergency, of imminent cataclysm, of terrible things that are Just About To Happen... unless, we hand over complete power to the Establishment (preferably the-day-after-tomorrow, or quicker).

And this handover - this Power Grab by the Global Establishment - is being aimed-at Very Soon; on a timescale of months, not years.

That is the message of the Climate Emergency/ Extinction Rebellion Establishment-created movement. This is the message of the impatient attempts of the Establishment to manufacture a soft coup to get rid of President Trump without waiting for next year's election.

I don't know why this should be, but I am more convinced with each passing month; what is being attempted - now and on a daily basis - is the biggest shift in power in the history of the world; the attempt of a tiny global 'elite' (possessed-by and serving demonic powers) to impose a complete system of behavioural and thought control.

And it is nowthis is the Apocalypse; this is what it looks-like from the inside!

If the urgency of the Establishment has a reason, then that will soon become apparent; one way or another (depending upon the individual choices of millions of people) we shall -within the year - see huge changes in everybodys' lives.

It is difficult to believe, I hardly believe it myself; but - as I say - there must surely be a reason for the extreme urgency of this power grab. I don't know what that reason is; but it must be expected to take effect on a timescale of months*.

I can't say I am exactly looking-forward to discovering the answer; because I don't suppose the surprise will be a pleasant one. However, I haven't long to wait.


*
Note added: My guess is that it would be a Thing that could be caused by the Establishment, but plausibly blamed on Climate Change - and that there would need to be an awareness campaign before it happened, so that the public could be made to believe the link. What springs to mind as the kind of thing would be to cause a devastating tsunami by breaking a huge chunk off a glacier with a covert explosion, blamed on the spring melt. Something of that sort...


Iran, Russia, China to Hold Joint Wargames in ‘Message to the World’ - by Adam Kredo


Iran, China, and Russia will hold in the coming weeks their first-ever joint war drills, which leaders say are meant to send a "message to the world" about increased military cooperation between the rogue countries.

The commander of Iran's navy, Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi, said Wednesday that the Islamic Republic will team up with Moscow and Beijing within the next month to hold the mass war drills.

"When we talk about joint wargames, we are talking about two or more countries with a high level of relations in various political, economic and social fields, which culminate in cooperation in the military sector, with wargames usually being the highest level of such cooperation," Khanzadi was quoted as saying in remarks to Iran's state-controlled press.

"A joint wargame between several countries, whether on land, at sea, or in the air, indicates a remarkable expansion of cooperation among them," the military leader said.
The joint war drills will be aimed at sending a message to the world, particularly Western nations, like the United States, that have sought to constrain Iran's expanding military ambitions.

"The joint wargame between Iran, Russia, and China, which will hopefully be conducted next month, carries the same message to the world, that these three countries have reached a meaningful strategic point in their relations, with regard to their shared and non-shared interests, and by non-shared I mean the respect we have for one another’s national interests," Khanzadi was quoted as saying.

The Iranian military leader emphasized the importance of performing military drills in the sea, where the Islamic Republic has been particularly troublesome for Western nations. Iranian naval vessels routinely harass American military ships and have played a role in various sabotage efforts aimed at disrupting international shipping lanes.

"The wargame seeks to deliver this message to the world that any kind of security at sea must include the interests of all concerned countries. We do not condone the kind of security that only caters to the benefits of one specific country at a specific time and which disregards the security of others," Khanzadi said. "Seas, which are used as a platform for conducting global commerce, cannot be exclusively beneficial to certain powers.

Adam Kredo is senior writer reporting on national security and foreign policy matters for the Washington Free Beacon. An award-winning political reporter who has broken news from across the globe, Kredo’s work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, Commentary Magazine, the Drudge Report, and the Jerusalem Post, among many others. His Twitter handle is @Kredo0. His email address is kredo@freebeacon.com.



Wednesday, November 27, 2019

The Invention of Modern Slavery Called Democracy - By Gary D. Barnett


“All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: its one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple him. If it be aristocratic in organization, then it seeks to protect the man who is superior only in law against the man who is superior in fact; if it be democratic, then it seeks to protect the man who is inferior in every way against both. One of its primary functions is to regiment men by force, to make them as much alike as possible and as dependent upon one another as possible, to search out and combat originality among them. All it can see in an original idea is potential change, and hence an invasion of its prerogatives. The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is very apt to spread discontent among those who are.”
~ H. L. Mencken, A Mencken Chrestomathy

Most believe that the days of kings and queens are behind us, and that such obvious despotic rule has no place in modern times. The commoners after all, had enough of such arrogance long ago, and were getting restless. The ruling class knew they had a problem, so they came up with an ingenious idea they called democracy in order to quell the tide of discontent evident among the people. The government retained power, but easily fooled the people into believing that with democracy, they would govern themselves. This was a fool’s game from the beginning.
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Yes, the government decided on democracy, and the masses in their ignorance rejoiced. They had only changed the name of the beast, and accepted slavery in a different form without realizing the error of their ways. While most believed democracy meant freedom, quite the opposite was the case. Actually, democracy, or its evil cousin, a democratic republic, is a far greater danger to liberty long-term than is a monarchy. This is because of mass deception instead of clarity.  The people once again were fooled into believing that a better solution had been won, and that they actually had a say in the process called government. It is instructive to understand that the Greek root of the word government means to “control the mind.” Concerning politics, this is a much more honest term than democracy, which in Greek means people power. The simple reality of the political change in this country from early to modern times is one from monarchy to oligarchy. Ruling changed from one to a few, while the bulk of society still remain slaves of the state.
Since people today can vote to choose their rulers, they are prisoners to what they falsely believe is national rule, an impossible absurdity on its face. If given a choice, I would always choose a monarch over rule by a few or by a majority of millions of strangers, all with a multitude of agendas. A king at least is exposed. This insane concept of voting brings with it the ridiculous and false notion that self-rule is evident. Self-rule is freedom, but in a democracy, each individual has surrendered all sovereignty to an unknown entity called the nation-state. This country has never been ruled over by the people at large. The ruling elite has for most all our history kept control of the governing system. Giving up individual sovereignty for a perceived rule by the majority, especially given that the real rulers remain mostly hidden in this current treacherous political system, is intellectually bizarre.
Those who are fooled into believing that they are free when they are not would be better off knowing that freedom did not exist in the first place. In this country, when a child is born, he is automatically owned by the state, and therefore is the property of the state. This means he is subject to extortion for life. He is issued a birth certificate, and a claim is filed stating that he is a U.S. citizen. As a U.S. citizen, he is subject to theft by the state in the form of mandatory and forcible taxation. This is simply thievery where government takes what property its citizens earn for its own nefarious use. In addition, almost nothing is allowed without a permission slip in the form of licenses issued by the state. Virtually everything is regulated, and most behavior, regardless whether anyone is harmed or not, is restricted under the threat of prosecution, incarceration, or death.
The government itself is a massive monopoly because it has a monopoly on power over the individual. Most monopolies in the U.S. are accomplished due to fascist partnerships between government and its rulers in banking and corporate America. The monopoly of force held by government and its controlled agents in the military, allows for unlimited aggressive war. The monopoly of the monetary system and the money supply held by the Federal Reserve Banks in partnership with the government, leads to an unlimited supply of money to fund its criminal and murderous activities.  In addition, when the same banks that control the supply of money get into trouble, they simply bail themselves out at the expense of the lowly taxpayer. Other monopolies allowed by government gain great advantages, and in turn reward their co-conspirators in government for their efforts. Monopolies cannot exist in a true free market, so if monopolies are present, as is the case today, freedom cannot survive.
The idea of democracy and democratic government is a scam. It is corruption at the highest level and the mortal enemy of freedom and liberty. Government is criminal, fraudulent, dishonest, sleazy, and indifferent to the plight of mankind. It is a worthless endeavor, and deserves no respect. It is and has always been a conspiracy of evil against life and love. I believe what Mencken said, and I will strive to be a dangerous man, and spread discontent far and wide for as long as I can.
Gary D. Barnett [send him mail] is a retired investment professional living and writing in Lewistown, Montana. Visit his website.


Democracy Is the Ideal Distraction - By Jeff Thomas


In the days of yore, there were kings. Everybody could agree to hate the king because he was rich and well-fed, when most of his minions were not.
Then, a more effective system was invented: democracy. Its originators had in mind a system whereby the populace could choose their leader from amongst themselves – thereby gaining a leader who understood them and represented them.
In short order, those amongst the populace who wished to rule found a way to game the new system in a way that would allow them to, in effect, be kings, but to do so from behind the scenes, whilst retaining the illusion of democracy.
The formula is to create two opposing political parties. Each is led by someone who’s presented as being a “representative of the people.”
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You then present the two parties as having opposing views on governance. It matters little what the differences are. In fact, you can have the differences be as obscure and arbitrary as, say, gay rights or abortion, and they will work as well as any other differences. What matters is that your two parties object to each other strenuously on the declared issues, working the electorate into a lather.
Once you have each group hating the other group “on principle,” you’re home free. At that point, you’ve successfully completed the distraction. The electorate now believe that, whatever the trumped-up issues are, they’re critical to the ethical governance of the country.
Most importantly, the electorate actually believe that their future well-being depends on the outcome of the next election – that it will decide whether their own view on the issues will prevail.
In a dictatorship, the leaders try to convince the people to support the dictatorship by claiming that more than 90% of the people voted for the dictator. But this is primitive thinking. It results in the same focused anti-leader sentiment that plagued the kings.
Far better to have the people fail to recognise who their actual rulers are and focus on the candidates, who are mere bit players and are changed as needed.
And, in a country where the illusion of democracy has become refined, the rulers come to understand that elections should not result in an overwhelming victory for one party or the other. Quite the opposite. If it can be arranged effectively, the best election is one that results in a 51% to 49% split.
This ensures that the 49% will not lose hope – that they’ll be both frustrated and angry at their near-miss, and redouble their efforts in the next election in order to have a win. And the 51% will wipe their collective brow in relief at having won, but will fear losing their slim advantage next time around.
Both parties must remain both hopeful and fearful. Keep them focused on each other – hating each other – and they’ll never figure out that you control both candidates like marionettes. The focus should never be on you, the real ruling class.
It’s also quite important to switch winners often. The ball should bounce back and forth from one party to the other frequently, allowing each winning party to dump the other party’s actual accomplishments when they take over.
However, just as important, the new winning party does not rescind the more oppressive accomplishments of the previous party. In this way, it becomes possible for the only long-term accomplishments to be the growing power of the government over the population, not advances for the populace.
And of course, this, by definition, means that the real rulers, the perennial group of individuals who control those who are elected – continually expand their power and wealth at the expense of the electorate.
But what of the candidates themselves? Do they recognise that they’re mere foot soldiers in the game?
Ideally, no. At any given time in any society, there are sufficient people whose egos exceed their abilities. Such individuals are ideal as candidates, as they tend to love the limelight, but will easily cave to the desires of those who made their candidacy possible. No candidate at the higher levels ever attains office without owing his soul to his backers. That ensures that, in spite of their public bravado, they remain controllable by their masters.
What’s extraordinary in this picture is that it’s possible for the populace to figure out the scam and yet, still believe that they live in a democratic system in which their vote may decide the future of the country.
Increasingly, particularly in Europe and North America, the citizenry are becoming aware that the Deep State collectively rule the countries. They understand that this largely invisible group of people are the true rulers, yet they vainly imagine that somehow the puppet leaders that they elect have the power to effect a solution.
In the UK, the electorate imagine that Boris Johnson will actually take them out of the European Union.
Instead, he delivers a Brexit deal that’s a reheated version of the Theresa May Brexit deal, which is not Brexit at all, but a perverse form of remain.
The Brexit debate is mere window dressing for democracy, whilst the Deep State carries on, according to its plan – the unelected EU government rules the UK.
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But he’s immediately castigated by the media. He’s given his marching orders from the Deep State that, once again, he’s to do as he’s told. By the next day, Mister Trump announces a reversal of his decision.
There will be no end to the Middle East war for the US. It’s far too profitable. The discussion is mere window dressing for democracy, whilst the Deep State carries on, according to its plan.
Time after time, regardless of how adamant the marionettes are that they’ll follow the will of the people and save the day, in every case, the people’s hopes are dashed and the national policy reverts to business as usual.
In every case, the true leaders create the problems, cash in on them, then present the government as the solution to the problems, then cash in again.
In every case, the electorate pick up the tab and, rather than rebel, vainly hope that the next election will provide them with a group of marionettes who will actually deliver them from evil.
What’s astonishing is not that the Deep State lives only for its own ends, but that the populace recognise that it exists and still imagine that change from the status quo is possible.
Voting is not intended to count. It’s meant to be the pacifier that’s inserted into the public mouth periodically, when the public become grumpy that they must submit to kings.
Reprinted with permission from International Man.
Copyright © 2019 Phyle1, LLC

Vox Popoli: Mailvox: the success dealers (Ahh - the art of pure unadulterated politics!)


A former candidate for Congress explains how it works:

Back in [REDACTED], I had been moved to righteous anger to run for political office, Congress, in my [REDACTED] district which was being weakly held by a non-progressive Democrat.  There were a number of Republican contenders, but the local party had picked one of their donors, an unfortunate blockhead with inherited money.  I took exception to this and pulled a Trump-to-Jeb! on the dude at every public engagement, which only earned the ire of the local party for my uppitiness and Ron Pauline views on government.

At a fundraiser dinner, I had a small coterie and the other candidates had theirs, larger and smaller, and I was surprised when a delegation of state Republicans - well known and connected - came over and asked me to join them at their table.  I obliged.  They showered me with compliments - how they liked my style, how I was clearly the one with the brains and ability to win etc - and then asked what path I was taking, where did I want to go: executive branch, senate, state politics, or if Congress was my goal.  I told them Congress was where I felt I could be most useful, and they pulled out a diagram that had my name on [a state organization] for a number of years, then county supervisor, then Congress.  They told me that this was not only the path they envisioned, but the path they could guarantee. Their words. All I had to do was drop out and endorse the blockhead. But he'll lose, I argued, and explained exactly why.  They nodded in agreement and said, we know. That's how we know you'll win here in [REDACTED].

They were offering me a seat in Congress if I played their game, changed my views, endorsed their loser, and then they would rig the system to ensure victory. Not MY victory, but THEIR victory with me as their puppet. I told them no, thank you, I was my own man and I'd rise and fall on that merit. They said the doors were always open and then went to the next table where a woman was also running for the same seat. They showed her a different diagram.  Two years later she was the Republican nominee for US Senate.

God was looking out for me.  But the point is that you are absolutely right - there are people who will buy your soul and they roam about like wolves preying on the ambitious, vain, or naive.

I've personally seen this sort of thing play out in music, media, politics, and publishing. I've heard about it from those who were offered the ticket in Hollywood, both in television and in movies. David Chapelle has spoken openly about the latter... hence Africa. And the modus operandi is always more or less the same. One little knee, one little submission, is all they initially ask of you to give you whatever you want and more.

They are success dealers, and the first hit is almost free....

Keep this in mind if you're tempted to accuse people of being jealous of those who are wealthier, more famous, or more successful. I can only speak for myself, of course, but I'm not jealous of anyone who has taken the ticket. I know the price they are paying and it isn't one that I was willing to pay.


Monday, November 25, 2019

The JFK Files: What Gov. Connally Told Me That Every American Should Know - By Gerald Celente

Yesterday was the 56 anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Not a story about it in the major media…New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CNN.com, etc.
Also forgotten was President Trump’s broken promise to release all the confidential files of John F. Kennedy’s assassination by 26 April 2018.
Here is the inside story told to me by then-Texas Gov. John Connally, who was seriously wounded when he took a bullet in the back sitting in front of Kennedy.
Everyone old enough to remember that day recalls where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news. I search the news every Nov. 22 to see how the Kennedy assassination is commemorated. For the most part, it is only dutifully mentioned or barely reported on. This year, though, with the expectation that the sealed files of the assassination will be released, the upcoming anniversary will be more extensively covered in the news.
As a young boy in grade school, I saw Kennedy campaign in front of the Yonkers train station at Larkin Plaza. A few of my Catholic school classmates and I took a bus to see him. As Kennedy’s motorcade left the campaign stop, I ran up behind his car, reached over the back of the trunk and touched his outstretched hand.
As life would have it, we would connect again.
FAST FORWARD
The year was 1992. The place was Dallas, Texas. It took me 46 years to get from 2940 Hone Ave. in the Bronx, where seven of us lived in a five-room walk-up, to Dallas.
It was there that the former Democratic governor of Texas and former Treasury secretary appointed by Republican President Richard Nixon, John Connally, who almost was assassinated along with Kennedy, wanted to meet me on a Sunday.
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I’d planned to get away that fall weekend with my wife to an Adirondack lake resort where I was to give the keynote address to a healthcare association the following Monday.
But I knew in my gut that going to Dallas was more important than going to Lake George.
Weeks before the 1992 presidential election, there I was having lunch with Connally and a few others in the restaurant at the Anatole Hotel. I was asked to meet with him because he wanted to know how, three years earlier, I’d forecast the rise of a third political party when only 13 percent of the public thought such a movement possible.
What’s more, in my book Trend Tracking (1989), I had singled out Ross Perot as just the kind of political maverick who could pull it off. Perot, a third-party candidate, was making a serious run for the White House.
I’d come all this way to have lunch with Connally, but frankly, I wasn’t an admirer.
I thought of him as a cowboy con artist, a smooth-talking wheeler-dealer only interested in feathering his own nest. But as he talked over lunch, I realized my dislike was based on his media image. The more he talked, the more ashamed I felt for prejudging him. Secondhand dislike swiftly turned to deep admiration.
I found myself getting annoyed with others at the table. I’d never heard anyone speak as articulately and with such economy of words as Connally. Each word seemed like a sentence, each sentence a paragraph. I remember wishing I had a tape recorder to capture every word.
I wanted to hear what he had to say and what was on his mind. “Please shut up!” I’d say to myself, hoping the power of suggestion would work when others at the table cut him off and talked about what they thought and believed. It didn’t. Quietly and courteously, he would yield to them.
But I would not. Whenever there was a pause, or I was able to create an opening, I’d prompt Connally with a question to lead him back to his previous stream of thought.
I had flown from New York to Nashville the previous day to meet with John Jay Hooker, the Tennessee gadfly who’d arranged the meeting. As we were finishing lunch, Hooker boomed, “What do you say John, ready to go now? The limousine is waiting.
In his rumpled seersucker suit, sporting a white Stetson hat, the tall Hooker was right out of Central Casting. It was he who’d brought us together and, unbeknownst to me, had arranged with Connally and his wife Nellie to go with us to the Texas School Book Depository.
Hooker had lost a close race for governor of Tennessee several years earlier, but never left the political scene. His finely appointed Nashville apartment walls were covered with pictures of him and the late-greats. It was a who’s who of American politics: all the Kennedy clan with him at Kennebunkport, Hubert Humphrey, Lyndon Johnson and a cast of congressional movers and shakers. He was now a vociferous opponent of America’s electoral process that promotes the buying and selling of politicians through campaign financing.
“They won’t let go of the tit, Celente my boy,” Hooker said, looking and sounding almost like W.C. Fields. “Once they’re in power, they’re all the same. They think that tit’s only for them to suck on and that no one else is entitled to the mother’s milk of our great country,” Hooker told me, referring to Democrats’ and Republicans’ permanent grip on the political system.
John Jay Hooker, the man who prompted Ross Perot to throw his hat into the race for president in 1992, had now convinced John Connally and his wife Nellie to return to the scene of JFK’s assassination. This would be the first time they’d gone back since the day it happened, almost 30 years earlier.
And there I was, this kid from the Bronx, parked outside the book depository listening to John and Nellie Connally tell, firsthand, what had happened on 22 November 1963.
WHAT CONNALLY SAW
Connally set the scene, pointing out the direction the presidential motorcade had taken around Dealey Plaza. He had been sitting in the jump seat in front of President Kennedy. A tall and rangy man, Connally imitated his uncomfortable scrunched-up position in the small seat and how he was holding his Stetson hat on his knee. To his side sat Nellie, directly in front of Jackie Kennedy.
“I heard a gunshot. I knew it was a gunshot because I’d been hunting since I was a little boy,” Connally said. “I looked to the right and didn’t see anything. I was wearing a dark blue suit that day,” he recalled. “When I looked to my left, I saw brains on my shoulder. I knew they were brains because my daddy was a butcher.
“Then I felt as though there was a pounding on my back,” he said, making two parallel fists as if to mimic someone hitting him on the back. He grimaced as he explained what he felt when the bullet meant for Kennedy tore through his back, hand and his knee.
And so, he and Nellie went on, recounting the minute details of that gruesome event: The three gunshots and the ensuing chaos… The screams of fear… Nellie throwing her body over her husband to shield him… The mad dash drive to Parkland Hospital.
Connally had incredible luck in those worst of times. A thoracic surgeon, seeing the motorcade screaming into Parkland while on break, rushed to the emergency room. As luck, or life, would have it amid the mayhem, he would be the doctor that would immediately operate on Connally’s lung and save his life.
It was hard for me to process what I was hearing and how fortunate I was to be there.
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For me, it was a day of epiphany.
On the way back to the hotel, hardly a word was spoken. On my left sat Hooker. Pat Caddell, the pollster, sat on my right. Connally was across from me. To his right was Rama Fox, Larry King’s girlfriend at the time, and Nellie to his left.
It was then that I figured out why I was so taken with the way Connally was speaking, with his calmness, extraordinary clarity, his gestures and assuredness. I knew with absolute certainty that he was a man with a lot to say… and not much time to say it.
Connally was dying.
I could see the signs – a stiffness and weakness like those I noticed some 10 years earlier when my father, may his soul rest in peace, was dying. Like Dad, Connally was suffering from a pulmonary condition. His was from the gunshot that had ripped through his lungs. My dad’s lungs were rotted from asbestos poisoning when he worked in shipyards during World War II.
When I looked at Connally’s hands, I saw my father’s hands before he died. They were stiff, with big, purplish splotches – a reaction to massive doses of prednisone, a cortisone used to temper his lung inflammation.
Connally, remembered as a “straight shooter” by those who knew him, would die of pulmonary fibrosis eight months later. I don’t believe he consciously knew he was dying when we met on that sunny Sunday. But I was convinced that it was his subconscious that dominated his conversation.
When the limo pulled up to the hotel, Connally and I, the middle passengers, were the last to get out. The others were a dozen steps ahead of us, heading for the elevators. Connally stopped and turned to me.
“Gerald, I read your book and it’s a fine piece of work,” he said. “And I know that your heart is in the right place, but you don’t have a clue of what’s going on in the government, and neither do the American people.
“Because if they did, there’d be a revolution in this country.”
MY EPIPHANY
Without another word, he headed for the elevators and caught up with the others. For an instant, I stood alone. I didn’t know what was behind that remark, but with Connally as the source, it came less as a shock than as a confirmation. Even without knowing the details, I understood what Connally was telling me.
Over the years, the unique Globalnomic trend-forecasting system that I had developed, and which was proving remarkably successful, had given me an advantage in viewing the world and machinations of government with a critical eye. I was able to stand outside the political box and beyond the scope of print- and broadcast-media reporting. With no agenda to sell and beholden to no one, I had become a political atheist, uncommitted to either party and interested only in accurately interpreting the facts.
But what I had not quite realized before my lunch with Connally was the extent of corruption and slim odds of anyone bucking the system and winning.
This was coming from the horse’s mouth. Here was a man who had been at the top of government and deep inside the corridors of power. This was not Sunday morning Beltway babble coming from Face the Nation or Meet the Press. This was a one-on-one straight scoop coming from a man in a position to know, talking outside of a public forum.
I recognized it as a singular and privileged moment. I was given insight into the real gravity of just how bad things were. It was the culmination of a long process.
Straight out of graduate school, I had begun my career as the No. 2 man running the Republican/Conservative mayoral candidate in Yonkers, New York. From there, I went to Albany as assistant to the secretary of the New York State Senate.
Recognizing that I was seeing politics in action from a different vantage point than those caught up in party dogma, I designed and taught “American Politics and Campaign Technology” at St. John’s University. I spent the next several years as a government affairs specialist working between Chicago and Washington, D.C., representing a major segment of the chemical industry.
Beginning as a believer in the American democratic system, I held that belief into my early 30s. But, by the time I met Connally, I had lost my naiveté and harbored deep doubts about government. And my disdain for most politicians was growing. It was not just what Connally said that moved me, but the authority and gravity of the way he said it.
He was my epiphany.
We all went up to his suite and had a couple of drinks, a few snacks and some small talk. Hooker was trying to sign Connally onto the Board of Directors for a chain of steak houses he wanted to develop. Caddell, a Washington pollster, and Connally traded tales of political days gone by. Fox cooed about her engagement to Larry King.
I half listened and said nothing. My brain was back in the hotel lobby replaying Connally’s statement: “If the American people knew what was going on in this government, there’d be a revolution.”
That line reinforced my political atheism. I refused to believe in political dogma, genuflect before any political preacher or vow obedience to any political god.
I would not be a member of any party or follow any leader.
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That day in Dallas strengthened my resolve to base forecasts on verifiable data and to select those facts that illuminated the actual situation rather than those supporting a particular political/economic/philosophical agenda.
“If the American people knew what was going on…” I wondered if revolution would happen and when.
A quarter-century later, most people fight among themselves, defending the political party they believe in and the cast of cowards, liars, freaks and fools… the politicians for life they pledge allegiance to who run and ruin their lives.
As I look back now, not only is the political divide worse than ever, so too is the State of the Union.
Can it change?
Yes.
It is up to We the People, not the dictates of the current failed political system.
“It does not take a majority to prevail… but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.” — Samuel Adams 
Gerald Celente is founder and director of The Trends Research Institute, author of Trends 2000and Trend Tracking (Warner Books), and publisher of The Trends Journal. He has been forecasting trends since 1980, and recently called “The Collapse of ’09.”
Copyright © 2019 The Trends Research Institute
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