By Mickey Walker
When trying to control a sovereign country and attempting to get the citizens on your side, you got to light a fire under the people. Give them something. Something to move them. Something to fear. Something to hate. And the moving stimulus need not be what it seems. As in Hitler Germany, Jews were the stimulus to hate and for Ayrians to feel a sense of national pride and holier-than-thou ethnic nationalism. But the hidden agenda of Der Fuhrer and...
Read MoreBy Mickey Walker
In these strange times where big money buys truth and trumps the common good, I drift back to the days of my childhood. Way back then, I had utmost respect for my country, my president, my mother and father, and the Supreme Court. Back then truth was not debated so much. It just was. These days the US Supreme Court has recently ruled that an unlimited amount of money can be
Read MoreI received the following comment from a reader of my last TPJ Magazine column dated 8/26/2012:
“I enjoyed reading Mickey Walkers' column in the current issue. So I decided to step back and read some of his past commentaries and I. learned something very quickly while doing so. I discovered that Mr. Walker lacks even a rudimentary understanding with regard to the FACT that the U.S. is a Monetarily Sovereign Nation. It is not like a member of the European Union, it is not like a local government nor a state government and it is certainly not like a household, you and me. Until he educates himself in matters economic and becomes cognoscente about Monetary Sovereignty and it's meaning he should avoid commenting on such matters. It is a FACT that those who fail to understand Monetary Sovereignty to not understand economics.”
Obsolete Italian cognoscente (now conoscente) from Latin cognoscere "to know"
Indeed. But the fair reader does make some valid points. I am not a cognoscente when it comes to economics to be sure. I do understand, however, that when a sovereign nation can and does print money that all bets are off when the leaders of a sovereign nation such as America prints excessive dollars just to cover its mistakes and departures from borrowing and spending too much. In short, a sovereign nation such as the United States can screw the country and its people to the wall if it wants to by printing vast amounts of new currency without adding one cent of value to each dollar fresh off the presses. On the contrary these new dollars plus the ones in your pocket become devalued and will not buy what they used to buy. Inflation begins to choke us down (been to Kroger or the Exxon pumps lately?). In short, a monetarily sovereign nation can screw its people. It can borrow trillions of dollars to start wars and never pay back the money borrowed nor even the interest on the money. That’s not cognoscente economics; that is a blight brought upon an innocent nation to fuel the Military Industrial Complex Ike warned us about, isn’t it? And social programs promised by candidates seeking election to public office. Many years ago Congress and many presidents set up elaborate social programs that cost trillions of dollars and helped bring our national debt to a stunning $15.5 trillion! Mr. Reader is correct that even if America did not have the cold cash to finance all these military expenditures or welfare programs no matter. America is a sovereign monetary nation and can print as much money as it wants to. But will there be consequences?
It is a fact that the United States as a sovereign nation can and does control the money supply. It can devalue our dollar; our houses can go underwater, our jobs overseas as the government pathetically tries to borrow more and more money from other nations. And when it does not get the money necessary to keep our government from shutting down guess what? The Fed buys the entire shortfall. That’s right, the Fed buys the US Treasury Notes and Bills that China and Japan did not want. Otherwise our government would shut down. And the Fed pays for the Treasuries with newly printed dollars. Monopoly money, anyone? If you got a printing press why worry? Is this legalized debauchery what Mr. Reader meant when he said, “It is a FACT that those who fail to understand Monetary Sovereignty to not understand economics?” I do not think many Americans would think this wanton abuse of the value of the dollar comes under the discipline of economics. But we all understand monetary rape. I think we would be better served if we understood the peril of not having checks and balances on our sovereign nation borrowing and spending and printing money.
And if understanding that is to understand economics, I say bunk. That is grand theft America. And that is what has happened to us while all the cognoscente’s of economics were guiding the future of this great country and flushing it down the financial toilet. Maybe that is why so many Americans favor auditing the Fed, eh? Understanding basic arithmetic and the justifying the purpose of the secretive Fed seem like the number one thing that should top our “economic” agenda.
Sorry, but I could not help looking up such a $10 word such as “cognoscente” used in such a small, stuffy context (and come to find out it is an obsolete word as well.). From what tongue would such a word slide off so like a meandering serpent, seeking to intimidate and to evoke an image of an erudite messenger, maybe a scholar of economics or some other lofty discipline? Is this what Mr. Reader portends? Should I be impressed? Or grateful that I am not “eat up” with the same demons that make him fixated on theory instead of reality and real people who would prosper or suffer due to sovereign monetary mistakes that hurt real Americans? Like, why continue to bait up your trotline when you can see a 50-pounder thrashing a few hooks down? His solution for my redemption, he hints would be for me to develop even a “rudimentary” understanding that the “FACT” (all caps) that the U.S. is a “Monetarily Sovereign Nation.” I have no argument with him on that point: we all could stand some enlightenment on all subjects humans enjoy talking about. Except for the fact that his chosen word, “cognoscente” is a noun, not an adverb. Sorry to sound so tacky but what is more urgent, in my humble opinion, is Mr. Reader’s need to take a remedial crash course in 4th grade Mathematics so that he might grasp the FACT that economics cannot excuse nor cure our $15 trillion dollar debt (and counting).
Perhaps Mr. Reader you should try a taking a deep breath, relax and go slumming a bit by trying to explain the 8-year pestilence of Ronald Reagan’s “voodoo economics” he inflicted upon us taxpayers back in the 1980s. You know, the Supply Side stuff, the Laffer Curve monstrosity that fueled Ronnie’s biblical “Evil Empire” witch hunt. You remember how he convinced the American people and Congress to follow his lead (trust me; I am in charge of the Monetary Policy of a Sovereign nation, wink, wink)? After all we needed to bring the Evil Empire to its knees, didn’t we? The war corporations needed to sell some more $500 hammers. And borrowing the $3 trillion to that divine end was okay, right? As a sovereign monetary nation we can just print more money to cover the shortfall of Treasury Notes we need to sell, but cannot. So we buy our own paper. Cheney said later that Reagan taught us that deficits don’t matter, and like a silly goose, Bush II obliged and attacked Iraq. Ka-ching! $4 trillion more was borrowed and spent and added to our National Debt. Poor old Ike’s grave warning for us not to allow our government to be in bed with the Military Industrial Complex went poof in the night.
Mr. Reader, please help us all feel better and to understand Reagan’s spendthrift economics that plunged our country to an additional $3 trillion in the hole (not counting interest for 3 decades)? As a cognoscente of economics that should not be a hurdle for you.
Please tell us things will be alright now that we have fallen into the abyss caused by borrowing and spending to line the pockets of the Military Industrial Complex at a time when the U.S. was at peace with no need to spend money to fight anybody, or any Sovereign nation? Same goes for Bush II and his mindless attack on Iraq (duh, wrong target) Mr. Reader. Perhaps you could explain that little borrowing and spending spree of over $4 trillion that will be choking us Americans trying to make a living now in 2012 when the interest on that little piece of borrowing will haunt us and our posterity forever as our National Debt soars for eons. Where are the cognoscente’s when you need them?
Greenspan was an economist, a real cognoscente if there ever was one. He said he understood economics yet later on admitted that he had been totally and completely wrong. Poor baby. You can read all about it by Googling “Greenspan admits he was wrong.” But the really damning video has been taken down from YouTube where once he admitted total guilt and now he is accepting “partial” fault for being wrong about his model for the economy. Duh, was he a “cognoscente?” Probably so, Mr. Reader because he believed we as a sovereign monetary nation could never fail. Note below: Greenspan says “Just print more money.”
http://www.cnbc.com/id/44051683/No_Chance_of_Default_US_Can_Print_Money_Greenspan
Laffer and his “trickle down” economics was a cruel joke that gave Americans burger-flipping jobs that Reagan labeled manufacturing jobs. I understand “Monetary Policy” all right. Whoever has the keys to the United States Treasury can exercise his Sovereign Monetary philosophy so that he can borrow and spend trillions of dollars on whimsical folly. And never have to pay it back.
Obviously, Mr. Reader, you are an economic cognoscente. So do you approve of Ben Bernanke’s remedy for our running out of money when other Sovereign nations have refused to continue loaning the US more money? He is printing trillions of paper dollars, having no added value other than the ink and the paper. Do you understand borrowing and stealing? Oops, I meant borrowing and spending. How about Addition and Subtraction? You say that a sovereign monetary nation does not operate on a budget like you and me, and I give you that. But would that be so wrong as opposed to the shambles we find ourselves in? Do you really believe we Americans will not suffer because our sovereign nation borrowed trillions of dollars that we will never pay back? Are you at all concerned that the US Dollar as the world currency is being replaced by other countries’ currencies, e.g., the Chinese Renminbi and Yuan? Do you think an ever-rising debt and interest on it all is not a concern because we are a sovereign monetary nation and can just print more money? Do you understand the aftermath of people without jobs, homes, and quality of life thanks to the cognoscente's who call themselves economists and leaders who with a wink and a nod brought us to the brink of financial bankruptcy? Do you empathize with the millions of senior citizens who are faced now with cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security? Or maybe you would prefer to debate the technicalities, and talk about theory, not the reality that is the catastrophe of what now lingers due to the trust we placed in our Sovereign leaders? It is difficult to care about your textbook comments about how a Sovereign Monetary policy works when we all have been had by the leaders we elected and trusted to do the right thing.
Oh, and you said you enjoyed reading my last column. Thanks. But I got to ask, what did you think about Reagan’s having Jimmy Carter’s solar panels taken down from the White House so we taxpayers could pay more taxes due to higher electric bills incurred at the White House? Is that an example of your Sovereign Monetary policy of a nation? Could it be defended without using doublespeak? And I do apologize for misusing cognoscente, not as a noun which most all world dictionaries agree is its given literary character. But when you used it as an adverb, well I never. Ergo, flippantly, I used it any which way it would fit into a sentence, and I hope you don’t mind because at present I am feeling a bit guilty for doing that. Meanwhile, thank you for your sincere comments and advice. I will take them under advisement.
Whenever the human mind sets out to distort the truth, reality and the good things of the earth always seem to suffer. In fact, all forms of bizarre human behavior vex the spirit every time. It gives you pause. Why, for instance, would someone tell you to jump off the Empire State Building, telling you that you could fly? Or fill your gasoline tank with water and advising you that your Chevy would magically convert to steam power? Why would someone advise you to light a cigar with a $100 bill?
Such bizarre behavior is not that uncommon. Like when on the first day Ronald Reagan took up residence in the White House Ronald Reagan promptly had the solar panels taken off the roof. Isn’t that the same as burning money? Wasting tax dollars? Ain’t that a jaw-dropper?
Back 1986 I had lunch with an old boss, president and CEO of a large lumber manufacturer in the Southwestern United States. We were in Albuquerque, adjusting to our new jobs in new industries, and trying to figure out what had just happened to our old company. He now sold commercial real estate and I had resigned and had taken a position with a municipal bond underwriting company in Houston, Texas. The lumber company had just been bought out by an international holding company in London with the word “Trust” at the end of the new company name. My old employer had been fired and replaced with a young CEO from afar who would promptly begin working at the axing and selling-off of what had been the 64th largest lumber manufacturer in the world.
All this happened during Ronald Reagan’s second term as president. Reaganomics (Voodoo Economics so said Poppy Bush before joining the daffy Laffer Curve morons) was in full flower then. Companies were buying and selling each other, cutting off the arms and legs of healthy companies, raining pink slips like a cow pissing on a flat rock from a high cliff, and pursuing the sacred bottom line for the sole benefit of stockholders and CEO bonuses. It was like, don’t confuse me with the facts or any sentimental meanderings, just cut. Employees were forced to scurry for new positions in a strange new world. Some got new jobs manufacturing products (flipping burgers according to Reagan), and all had to settle for less pay. The new tax codes allowed companies to buy tax credits from one another as well. It was the anything-goes corporate buggering of employees and once profitable American companies. But all was made legal and respectable during Reagan’s reign. Unions were scuttled, bonked, and rendered impotent after Reagan fired all the air traffic controllers. And our lumber company was one of the first companies to see the blood of the legalized butchering. Repositioning assets and wealth from one pocket to the other was all that mattered. Human welfare and decent-paying jobs became the ultimate casualty.
The mission of the new CEO of the lumber company was to chop off sawmills or shut them down, and auction off all the real estate, machinery and equipment. This took only a few years before the second- largest lumber company in the Southwest became history. We all had to say goodbye to a company that had had sawmills in Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. The mills, 7 in all, had been top money-makers since 1945 and had employed several hundred people. Poof. All gone by the mid-1990’s, one by one. But I am getting sidetracked and ahead of the story and the point about human nature I wish to make.
So we sat there at the table back in 1986 having freshly been whisked away from such a fine old lumber company by a foreign international chopping block company. Having worked for this great company for over 15 years, I was left scratching my head and wanting answers.
Right after the new company took over the first thing that changed was that the lumber quality that we had been so proud of all those years went to the dogs. New companies back then were interested in profits. The numbers. Bean counters thrived. And if you could squeeze out another nickel by lowering the quality of lumber stamped with the same old stamp, good for you. You would be rewarded with a bigger bonus at year’s end.
“How can you just switch from the quality lumber that has defined you for decades and take to selling crap lumber with the same grade stamp on each piece?” I asked him.
“What do you mean, ‘How can you switch?’” he asked, with a crooked grin. “You just do it.”
“But why?” I persisted. “Won’t there be repercussions from customers? Won’t they complain and quit buying the lumber?”
“Nah,” he smiled, “They will just cut the price and the customers will love it and just adjust their presentations to their contractors. Everybody will forget all about it in no time.”
“But it seems like such a deviation from what our former company used to stand for.” I said.
He sighed a knowing sigh and put his palms on his forehead for a second. He had been the nephew of one of the original founders of the lumber company that had created so many jobs in several states. With him it was personal. I knew that it was with me too. It was the finest job and association with my fellow creatures of the business world I had ever known. It wasn’t easy shooting your best horse, but it was necessary. Business was business, and if the new owners could sell crap lumber cheaper and make it all work so be it.
He looked up at me with sad brown eyes.
“Have you ever heard the fable, ‘The Scorpion and the Horse?’” he asked.
“No.”
He proceeded to tell me the story, but years later I discovered that the most popular version called, “The Scorpion and the Frog.” No problem. I stuck with the “horse” version.
He began with, “Once there was a scorpion in a desperate predicament, clinging to a branch in high water due to a flood. A horse came swimming by on his way to higher ground in the distance. The scorpion pleaded with the horse to let him hitch a ride on his back. The horse said, “Neiggghhh”, no way, that he feared getting stung and drowning on the way to high ground. But the scorpion was a smooth talker and finally convinced the horse to let him ride on his back. So when the horse almost reached the shore, the scorpion stung him right behind the right ear. The horse began to founder and lose control of his muscles. He was beginning to give out. The horse said, ‘Why would you do this when you said you would not? Now we both will drown.” The scorpion knew all this. In advance. But he said, “I could not help myself. Stinging is what we scorpions do. It is because we are scorpions.”
There was no good reason for the scorpion to kill himself and the horse in the process, but the explanation is meaningless; there is no explanation beyond what is. From the remote origins of human culture to the daily events of our time, what is most insanely stupid is that human beings can and will do harm to others and to themselves for no understandable reason, just because “it’s their nature”.
My old boss looked at me, slowly shaking his head and said:
“Don't be surprised by someone's actions. If it has always been a person’s nature to be destructive to himself and his company why would you expect any different? Operating at a profit is secondary to acting out according to your scorpion nature. Should it really be a surprise to the horse that the scorpion stung him?”
Wow. He was absolutely brilliant when it came to understanding the human condition. Even at its most bizarre limits.
I get angry sometimes at how people act stupidly and screw up the good guys for no valid reason. I would have to guess that Reagan had some good coaching on the need for him to remove the solar panels Jimmy Carter installed on the roof of the White House some 4 years prior. Perhaps Big Brown, nee the electric companies, General Electric, Exxon, you know the crowd, tutored the Gipper on why it would be in his best (do 327 PAC campaign contributions ring a bell?) interest to take the annoying solar panels down, you think? Why else would you throw away something good that generates free electricity from the sun? I mean Germany encouraged their citizens to build their own solar panels to generate megawatts of electricity for the common good. They used their brains to prepare for the God-given solar energy of the future when times get hard and old inefficient power grids brown out and fail. The government paid their citizens handsomely for all the net-metered excess electricity the people created. Germans must think that we are a nation of idiots. Yet Reagan is touted in many circles as one of our greatest presidents, do you love it? Sheesh.
I just realized that I must write at least one more sequel to this ongoing solar massacre in these United States, and so I shall follow up with a Part III in 2 weeks. Then I will strive to show how Big Brown bribes and uses the state legislatures of each state to thwart and kill net-metering of electricity produced by an American citizen in his own backyard. Translation: any electricity generated by a private citizen and put on the electric grid becomes the property of the electric company. No compensation to the private citizen.
And so we are forced to sting ourselves into electric grid oblivion and inevitable brown outs and higher electric rates to keep us forever enslaved. Thank you Big Brown. For giving us a 50% efficient, outdated, electric grid due to your terminal greed. Screw allowing American citizens to sell back excess electricity generated from their own private solar panels and windmills.
We will take a look at the states that do not allow net-metering. And those states who attempt to throw a bone when the private citizen generates and puts excess power back onto the grid. We will examine all the necessary hoops to jump through to even qualify. And we will examine the more friendly states toward paying a decent price for excess electricity sent back to the grid by the American consumer trying to make a difference in America. Stay tuned.
Why do you suppose Jimmy Carter had solar panels installed on the roof of the White House first thing when he moved in? If you answered he was a nuclear engineer and understood free energy from the photoelectric principles when photons from the sun collided with orbiting electrons in silicon atoms you would be right. Carter knew that these photons knocked millions of electrons out of orbit as sure as the sun rises each day, and rendered them collectible and storable in batteries as electric current. To wit, electric energy. Carter also knew that an inverter would be necessary to change the direct current in the batteries to alternating current if he was going to use this stored electricity to power his television set so he could watch the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather. Or maybe he could make himself a peanut-flavored salad dressing in his blender with his free electricity born of his ingenious curiosity. Or his computer or washing machine.
Why do you suppose that 4 years later when Reagan moved into the White House that he had Carter’s solar panels taken down? Why, with no moving parts they would have just sat there on the roof collecting electricity, helping the taxpayer out a little bit by reducing the light bill at the White House. So, what kind of statement was the Great Communicator, the Gipper, trying to make to us the American people? Are we to believe he did not want free electricity?
Meanwhile, it warms my heart to know that sometimes we do get a president like Carter, an intellectual, a science-minded leader. Takes me back to the days of Thomas Jefferson. Ever notice all the scientific instruments in Jefferson’s study at Monticello? Brass optical instruments like sextants, telescopes, and all the busts of the great scientists of his time, Bacon, Newton, Copernicus, perched up on his walls? It is obvious that Jefferson held them in the highest esteem. As you stroll through Jefferson’s home, you can see all the scientific evidence of his experimental zest for discovering new methods of growing plants in his step-gardens that followed the natural contour of the land. Sun dials everywhere. It does something for us Americans who care to pause to look at the man and into the character of who he was, a true citizen of the world, an engineer, and astronomer, a statesman, a human being who sets out to better understand the mysteries of the universe. And yes, a person dedicated to the betterment of mankind through curiosity and caring.
Ever read the book Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury? It is about burning of books by oppressive governments in a future world. The title suggests that paper books burn at a temperature of 451 degrees F. In the splendid movie version by the same name, Oscar Werner plays a fireman whose job is not to put out fires, but to collect and burn books for the futuristic state in which he lives. It is a tender movie in parts as denoted by quotes such as:
“Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there. It doesn't matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.”
Carter made life better by placing the solar panels on top of the White House. He was a leader. Reagan took them down to make life less. He was a book-burner. A suppressor of the common good for Americans searching for equilibrium after Reagan borrowed and spent over $3 trillion that still is a part of our $15 trillion National Debt. Some legacy, Ronnie. All you did was to shift trillions of dollars of wealth over to the deep pockets of the filthy-rich Military Industrial Complex cronies who helped elect you. Pretty good work for them, especially in peacetime, eh, Gipper? I mean, it ain’t easy to sell hammers for $500 a pop in the first place, right? And selling a million of them in peacetime is like selling freezers to Eskimos, don’t you agree? Good salesman, Reagan. A wink and a nod and a smile will do it every time. Especially when you got God, Falwell, and the Moral Majority on your side.
So here we are today, and it’s 2012 already, about August 1 at this writing. Yesterday, ABC News told the world that the largest blackout in the history of the world just occurred and there were 100s of millions of people with no power from parts of Europe, India, the Middle East, Africa, and etcetera. Jesus, did the world really need to see the lesson in such graphic, stark reality? Such a loss of power worldwide points to an antiquated electrical grid system that is inefficient, broken down, and just plain old. When I heard the news, I first thought of when Reagan with all the stealth of a night burglar, had the solar panels taken down from the White House as one of his first acts as president. Could the world really be flat?
So why is the world electrical power grid so out of date? Why is it so susceptible to failure and million-human brownouts of no power for days? And is the day coming when the grid will fail to where the next brown out will become a permanent black out?! Back to coal oil lanterns and candles anyone? Horse drawn carriages, maybe?
Upon hearing the latest blackout news how many Americans were reminded of Ronald Reagan removing Jimmy Carter’s solar panels from the White House when the Gipper became president of the United States? How many citizens of the world are aware that Germany, a nation with very few sun-days is the nation leading the rest of the world in solar power? How many humans know that Germany has the most up to date, modern electrical grid in the entire world? It would be a good thing to hire Germany out as a consultant in green energy so that our own grid doesn’t fail tumble down on our heads someday. How would we Americans fare without electricity for days, weeks, or even months? Can anyone say Katrina? Like in Hurricane Katrina?
But let’s talk briefly about how Germany solved its electrical grid problem and turned it into the most modern, efficient grid in the entire world. First, Germany owns its own electrical company. A few years back, the government electric company was charging the equivalent of 15 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity. The German government came up with a brilliant idea. Let the people build Germany a brand new grid and let them share the wealth by government incentives. It was simple. Germany told the people, the villages, and the communities that if they would erect their own solar panels in accordance with good established engineering specs that the German Electric Company would pay the German people who hooked new solar panels up to the national electric grid for all the electricity generated above and beyond what they used themselves. The excess electricity created by the new solar panels would go onto the grid and become the property of the German Electric Company. This principle is called Net Metering. All excess electricity generated would be paid back to the people at the rate of 55 cents per kWh. That’s right, 55 cents per kWh!! Such a deal. No wonder the German grid was built in record time. In a market where the Electric Company was selling electricity for 15 cents per kWh, 55 cents per kWh was unheard of as a price going back into the pockets of the industrious Germans who helped build the most modern electrical grid in the world at a break neck speed.
Imagine that. So with your newly-constructed village solar panel system, you and your village get all the power you need for yourselves and your neighbors for free. FREE. Nothing is free, you say. Okay. But the carrot of paying the people an unheard of price of 55 cents per kWh for electricity generated from the new grid helped defray the costs of solar panels with a good profit going into the pockets of the German people to boot. Everybody won. Such a lucrative incentive! No wonder the Germans built this brand-new electric grid and build it post haste. In addition the German Electric Company (again owned by the German Government) provided enough incentive for the people to more than pay for the construction costs of such a mammoth project, including hooking these new panels up to the German National Grid all over Germany.
Of course as time passed, the Electric Company reduced the 55 cents per kWh to 45, then 35, 20, until back to parity with the going rate of 15. As the price fell the German people who were building solar panels knew they were in a race against the clock. Brilliant motivation. Brilliant government concept. No need for the Germans to worry about black or brown outs in the future. The German Electric Company could weed out old parts of the inefficient grid at will. They are set. And the people are enriched by the experience of people working together to make something good. And for the common good.
Note: Mani, Yucatan, Mexico, Site of massive book (foldout Mayan codices) burning in 1561
The Martian orbited and slept for many earth-hours before resuming his studies of the vast historical data on earthling behavior. He found that lies perpetuated to cause a desired result made some earthlings be Christians, not Muslims, and Republicans, not Democrats. The Holy Wars and Crusades of an earlier time on earth, the alien read, was set off by a series of Roman Catholic Popes who for over 100 years encouraged soldiers and knights from Europe to attack Muslims who had taken over the Holy Land in or about Jerusalem. Groupings of knights such as the Templars were famous in doing God’s work in the Holy Land, it seemed. Yet they managed to sack and steal much of the treasures there as well. But it was God’s work they were about so they were good.
These same Popes gave Spain and other religious wing nut rulers in other Christian countries the right to hold a Grand Inquisition to drive Satan out of the Church even if it led to the tortuous death of Christians. And Moors. And Jews. Somehow in the spiritual purging, many Jews lost their fortunes, their properties, and their very lives during this Christian Inquisition to boot. Imagine that. The Martian smelled a rat. It was simple. The popes lied. That they wanted control and power was obvious, the Martian concluded. But Jesus and preaching fear of the eternal damnation of an earthling’s soul was good for business. Jesus and fear provided a source of income the likes of which the earth has never seen. Earthlings were a stupid lot, thought the Martian, and he felt sorry for them for not being able to detect the ruse or the pope behind the curtain.
It took an alien creature to know that they were not at all like their lord, Jesus. They were about the riches, not the saving of souls. Also the Church encouraged the rape of American Indian cultures such as the Aztecs and the Incas to turn their hearts toward Christ and away from their heathen ways. As they burned the Indians alive to drive out the demons of savagery and convert them, dead or alive, mind you, the European conquerors took the Indians’ gold. All of it they could grab. Melted it down and sent it across the Atlantic Ocean to the national treasury of the Kings who ruled the nations of Europe. All you had to do was to say it was God’s will when you pillaged the savages (converted them to Christianity) and robbed them of their land and gold. It was in the service of the Almighty, this no-see-um deity that earthlings were quick to conjure up whenever an ulterior motive or hidden agenda like stealing gold was in the offing. Or sacking the turquoise that they forced the Indians to mine until they died from exhaustion and disease. All this he studied through the Martian osmosis books of data from his spacecraft databanks as he drifted round and round the earth, dozing off at times.
On the third orbit, the Martian awoke. The ways of earthlings were heavy on his mind. What a paradox, these creatures! But now as the Martian resumed his pre-contact reconnaissance he wondered if all the billions of earthlings who were fed this obvious irrational fiction in the name of religion or some unseen deity in the universe were aware of their fatalistic folly. Or how politicians used religion to capture votes. He wondered if earthlings really did love each other. After all, they preached love to each other while raping the planet and their fellow man of his belongings, his job, his assets, and his very essence. And how, he thought, could earthlings justify attacking and killing others of their species in the name of Jesus when He told them all to turn the other cheek and to “love thy neighbor?” What a paradox, indeed. But then lies did help. Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Propaganda Minister, he learned was a hero of sorts to many students of earth political science even now.
Was this unbridled human anger a condition of the universe, and unseen force that causes all creatures to harm each other, and in so doing harm the planet and the solar system itself? This might prove interesting information for his paper. Maybe it was an affliction not just of earthlings but other beings in the known universe as well. As he circled the planet again and again, he watched with a hollow stare the unnatural explosions and constant flares. He knew the colorful fires all over the globe were man’s aggression bursting lives apart as earthlings struggled to survive. Many of them were non-combatants and innocents caught in the crossfire. All the chemical and nuclear bursts, it was beyond doubt, were killing the planet. The residual mess of war was indeed fouling the earth and those who breathed the very air. This human activity caused a metamorphosis that rendered earth a planet beyond the point of no return for the long term survival of life forms. Sadness began to take the Martian. For what could be logical about serving up an early death sentence for yourself and your own kind?
The Martian orbited and studied the vast data on earthling behavior. He found that lies and false information were easy to spread and to have whole nations swallow as the truth. The hot blood within, the anger for revenge set the stage for an American president to attack Iraq based upon the lie that Iraq had nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction pointed at US cities. The desire to lash back at al Qaeda for killing 3,000 Americans during the 911 massacre sent us to attack not al Qaeda nor a country that helped al Qaeda hurt us, but Iraq and Saddam Hussein who had nothing to do with Osama bin Laden or al Qaeda. Or the 911 tragedy.
Americans did not flinch much at such a grandiose and heinous act on the part of the American government. Making a note of his data files the Martian was sad to realize that many times earthlings lash out at the “most convenient targets” of their own kind for no good reason. Dress up the anti-Muslim rhetoric and hatred toward those who have different cultures and religions and you got instant war games. And if you are in the war corporation complex you can make absurd amounts of money borrowed from China by your president as Commander-In-Chief on a holy mission. Sounded crazy to the Martian, but the facts were there and would not go away. It had been over a million earth years since the Martian and his species had evolved away from such barbarism toward their own kind.
But now as the Martian continued his pre-contact reconnaissance he wondered if all the billions of earthlings who were fed this obvious irrational tripe in the name of pleasing God or some other unknown, unseen entity in the universe were aware of their fatalistic folly. Surely they had to know. It is a popular means to starting a war for all earthling countries to damn their enemies with invoking the name of God who just so happens to be on our side, not theirs. Besides there would always be too much money and greed in the equation of blowing each other up for any earthling to claim ignorance in the matter. They knew what they were doing alright.
When the Martian awoke he was ready to descend into the abyss of humanity awash in the sea of wars, lies, and greed deep within the blue planet. Anger and killing was the norm. Claiming God’s own hand in directing aggression seemed to be the tricky part. But it was nothing a few billion propaganda dollars spent here and there would not solve. Maybe such anger and aggression pervaded the entire solar system. Maybe all creatures were made of the same angry stardust. Maybe this anger was a condition of the universe, an unseen force that causes all creatures to harm each other. And perhaps earth would someday implode and go “poof” into the oblivion of the darkest corners of the galaxy. Thinking about it made the Martian’s head hurt.
As the Martian descended into earth’s atmosphere he felt an uncontrollable fear of such that he had never known. He, too, would be in peril of these earth creatures if anything went wrong with his invisible screens. If discovered he would be shot or maybe tortured as an unknown entity in the universe, yes, a threat to the earth, in short an alien. That was it. These earthlings feared and killed all that they could not understand. And a real alien from Mars would be enough to set earthlings to quarreling amongst themselves, setting up trillion-dollar earthland security government agencies to protect earthlings from alien invaders from other worlds. Because the cause was righteous, God could be invoked to help the creatures of earth against those aliens from another world that most likely prayed to their false alien gods as well.
The Martian’s middle green finger slipped slowly toward the ABORT button on his instrument panel. Touching it slowed the invisible ship to a much slower speed, and small jets fired sideways and set the little ship into instant orbit once again, only closer to the earth this time. At this point he could see the torn faces of earth, the misery, the people cowering in fear of governments, both foreign and domestic. He saw private armies in black helicopters shooting up the countryside of Iraq for sport. He saw the street demonstrations all over the planet of earthlings out of work, out of food because the governments of every sovereign country had borrowed too many trillions of dollars and printed too much free money that had become worthless. At the supermarkets in America a loaf of bread had soared to over $100, and no one could afford gasoline at then a price of $78.00 per gallon. Crumbling infrastructure in world cities would never be repaired because there was no more money that would buy anything. And the Martian saw in the eyes of these earth creatures, a defeat like no other he had seen in all his travels in the universe.
He had seen enough. It would live with him for the rest of his life, all the images of earth and its human beings. He decided not to go in for a closer look. He activated the automatic pilot system to blast him out of earth’s orbit and into a straight line back to his home. He was going back to Mars. He would not speak of his visit to planet earth as it would force him to relive the overwhelming sadness. It was not worth reliving, he thought, as the pure darkness of space seemed to cleanse him of the earth’s predicament and bleak future as a planet. He figured that earth would implode in the near future and that it would be like turning off a light in the universe.
He would rethink his dissertation and perhaps choose another subject. He had plenty of time to think about it. He was shedding the shackles of despair now as he drifted silently back toward his home. He was now looking forward to his return and later, perhaps some fishing in the silver rivers on the northern latitudes of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. It would be something to look forward to. Something good to hold in your two hearts.