The solitary wisdom of a leader
Odysseus at the Mast
They lashed him halfway up the mast
And he screamed above the silent oarsmen
As they rowed him relentlessly away
From the bone-cluttered island shore of the Sirens
Sitting in the flowers singing unearthly promise.
…
His anxious men, blessed with the silence
Of the blind, saw only the soundless agony
As he fought the bonds of the rigid mast.
Gerald Barrax
Kitco reports that last week, U.S. House Representative Alex Mooney (R-WV) introduced HR 9157, the Gold Standard Restoration Act. The bill would finally
- confess and confront the Nixon Shock and
- begin to restore the constitutional mandate for Congressional pegging of the US currency to something REAL
- in order to address rapidly cascading global deficits, debts, inflation and instability arising from a corrupted and contagious US fiat money and credit system.
"The gold standard would protect [the entire universe] against Washington's irresponsible spending habits and the creation of money out of thin air."Mooney is a true leader … like Homer’s Odysseus … who understands the limits and frailties of humanity and the civilizing need for the rule of law in the form of impartial restraints rigidly grounded in tangible [and, to the profligate, terrible] reality.
The shared delusion of fools
But, of course, the only Homer known to Americans is Homer Simpson … and, in America, leaders only watch the crowd then run around it to try to get in front. This is the sycophancy of a leaderless democracy that results in the not-so-subtle abandonment of the rule of law and the ruthless rise of authoritarianism in its place … witness the new forms of fascism appearing all around us.
And so, no sooner was HR 9157 introduced than the familiar voices from Wallstreet and its fawning sycophant elites [political and academic alike] began to more or less calmly shout it down [or just ignore it] … the voices, that is, that are not already screaming bloody murder [eg. the UN, Ray Dalio and Cathie Wood] about the suddenly desperate central bank threats [as yet unaccompanied by any substantial and sustained action] to limit Wallstreet's and Washington's access to the NON-REAL, purely financial narcotic known as Quantitative Easing.
What we have in the world today is a perversion of Homer’s tale of Odysseus and the sirens in which the true leaders [like Rep. Mooney] must now disregard the cries of the financial sirens, their accomplices and the hopelessly deluded public while they work [with little help] in a final attempt to steer the ship of state away from certain destruction if it continues its current course.
And so, no sooner was HR 9157 introduced than the familiar voices from Wallstreet and its fawning sycophant elites [political and academic alike] began to more or less calmly shout it down [or just ignore it] … the voices, that is, that are not already screaming bloody murder [eg. the UN, Ray Dalio and Cathie Wood] about the suddenly desperate central bank threats [as yet unaccompanied by any substantial and sustained action] to limit Wallstreet's and Washington's access to the NON-REAL, purely financial narcotic known as Quantitative Easing.
What we have in the world today is a perversion of Homer’s tale of Odysseus and the sirens in which the true leaders [like Rep. Mooney] must now disregard the cries of the financial sirens, their accomplices and the hopelessly deluded public while they work [with little help] in a final attempt to steer the ship of state away from certain destruction if it continues its current course.
Making sure there are enough "masts and crosses" to go around
So when some confused populist or aspiring dictator cries out against reestablishing the uncivilized and brutal practice of crucifying people on a monetary cross of gold, remind them that it was not the crucifixion of man’s carnality by the rule of law to which William Jennings Bryan [an ardent bimetalist] objected in 1896 … merely the limitation of the material for that cross to gold when the world is full of equally valuable REAL resources … from metal to millet and from cattle to calories … which we can use in addition to gold to construct the REAL masts, crosses, currencies and credit to which we must be lashed and nailed if we are to escape the certain destruction of finance’s unearthly promises.Then comes Scylla and Charybdis
But even if Rep. Mooney is able to find the courage and support in Congress to deliver us from the financial sirens, the twin monsters of currency collapse and sovereign debt default still lie ahead. How so?
Let's assume Congress finally obeys the Constitution and begins to regulate the value of the US$ in REAL goods such as gold and silver. What is to prevent them from adjusting the price of gold higher every Monday ... in effect continuing the monetary inflation? Nothing. And if they do continue the inflation, the US currency [in which the common laboring people receive income and hold wealth] will be slowly destroyed ... Scylla.
But what if they don't continue the inflation? What if they don't continue to decrease the value of the currency [raise the price of gold and silver]? What happens then? The federal government collapses in a sea of unpayable sovereign debt ... Charybdis.
In the Odyssey, Odyseus chooses to sail closer to Scylla as the lesser of two evils and sacrifice some sailors to Scylla. I suspect this is the fate that awaits us ... the powers that control us will continue the inflation and sacrifice the working poor and their families to the beast of inflation ... but preserve their power and control over the federal government ... at all costs ... for as long as possible.
As you can see, what lies ahead for America is dire in every scenario. Many of us will never make it "home" alive.
