The enemy within
"I only regret that we are in a period when intelligence is being used as a weapon-but more against ourselves than our enemies."
John McLaughlin
The former deputy director of the CIA, Washington Post, Wednesday, November 24, 2004.
The 18th and 19th centuries, when a massive experiment in fiat currencies in France and the United Kingdom produced the asset inflation of the Mississippi and South Sea stock market bubbles, are the only historical parallels to indicate what we and the generations to follow are about to experience.
The subsequent collapse heralded a series of depressions and social unrest. Terrorism ruled. The established order collapsed. In the West the American War of Independence and the first French Revolution were the defining moments. In the East the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth provided a brief glimmer of hope for the future.
Then, for over 200 years, the Western capitalist economies enjoyed a period of sustained economic growth, powered by a revolution in technology, with a couple of corrections. From 1982 to the year 2000, the stock markets of Western capitalism advanced without seeing a single year where the low of the year dropped below that of the previous year.
Beware the bull
The markets topped around March 2000 and formed an intermediate term bottom in March 2003. The subsequent market rally has raised the expectations of the herd even further with the highest levels and the longest duration of optimism than at any time in recorded history. This is now about to end.
The longest bull market in history and the prevailing optimism that made it happen have encouraged the belief in a 'new reality' and in man's ability to control his own destiny. Yet technological progress is external to ourselves. It is universal and cumulative. It spans disciplines, generations and geographical locations. Human psychology, on the other hand, is a constant and the emotions that rule within us rule in each and every generation. Each generation is destined to repeat the mistakes of preceding generations, in patterns that are cyclical and local. But the present generation is encountering problems that are unique.
At this key turning point in the history of the human race it seems that the battle is for the very soul of mankind.
With the development of the printing press around 1450, Gutenberg man commenced his reign with the dissemination of the Word of God. The printing of the Bible in its various versions powered this media revolution. It has been estimated that between 1815 and 1975, about 2,500 million copies of the Bible were printed.
The 20th century ushered in the electronic media (the telegraph, radio, films, telephone, television and now the internet), which have transformed and are transforming all aspects of our sensory relationships, of our social and psychic existence and our values and institutions.
Information overload
In the 21st century the Internet, the most recent and most rapidly developing aspect of the electronic media, is powered by pornography and pedophilia. It would appear that once Homo sapiens satisfies his basic instincts he panders to his base instincts and ends the cycle in an orgy of voyeurism and self-indulgence. The growing pandemics of sexually transmitted diseases and obesity point the way.
But the Internet and the electronic media pose other problems for the generations yet to be born.
One is a surfeit of information. A classified audit completed in July for the U.S. Justice Department found that three years after the September 11 attacks the FBI had more than 123,000 hours of audio intercepts that it has not translated. In some cases, potentially crucial surveillance material was being automatically deleted before it could be reviewed.
In a new book, Spinning the Spies, published by the Social Affairs Unit, Anthony Glees and Philip Davies write that the bottom line "is not that the intelligence community as such was at fault. It is rather that the Blair administration placed the professionals of the intelligence community in an untenable position by requiring them to act as advocates rather than analysts."
Certainties and convictions are beginning to rule again in the life of man, and information that does not support the passionately held views is either distorted or ignored.
John McLaughlin
The former deputy director of the CIA, Washington Post, Wednesday, November 24, 2004.
The 18th and 19th centuries, when a massive experiment in fiat currencies in France and the United Kingdom produced the asset inflation of the Mississippi and South Sea stock market bubbles, are the only historical parallels to indicate what we and the generations to follow are about to experience.
The subsequent collapse heralded a series of depressions and social unrest. Terrorism ruled. The established order collapsed. In the West the American War of Independence and the first French Revolution were the defining moments. In the East the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth provided a brief glimmer of hope for the future.
Then, for over 200 years, the Western capitalist economies enjoyed a period of sustained economic growth, powered by a revolution in technology, with a couple of corrections. From 1982 to the year 2000, the stock markets of Western capitalism advanced without seeing a single year where the low of the year dropped below that of the previous year.
Beware the bull
The markets topped around March 2000 and formed an intermediate term bottom in March 2003. The subsequent market rally has raised the expectations of the herd even further with the highest levels and the longest duration of optimism than at any time in recorded history. This is now about to end.
The longest bull market in history and the prevailing optimism that made it happen have encouraged the belief in a 'new reality' and in man's ability to control his own destiny. Yet technological progress is external to ourselves. It is universal and cumulative. It spans disciplines, generations and geographical locations. Human psychology, on the other hand, is a constant and the emotions that rule within us rule in each and every generation. Each generation is destined to repeat the mistakes of preceding generations, in patterns that are cyclical and local. But the present generation is encountering problems that are unique.
At this key turning point in the history of the human race it seems that the battle is for the very soul of mankind.
With the development of the printing press around 1450, Gutenberg man commenced his reign with the dissemination of the Word of God. The printing of the Bible in its various versions powered this media revolution. It has been estimated that between 1815 and 1975, about 2,500 million copies of the Bible were printed.
The 20th century ushered in the electronic media (the telegraph, radio, films, telephone, television and now the internet), which have transformed and are transforming all aspects of our sensory relationships, of our social and psychic existence and our values and institutions.
Information overload
In the 21st century the Internet, the most recent and most rapidly developing aspect of the electronic media, is powered by pornography and pedophilia. It would appear that once Homo sapiens satisfies his basic instincts he panders to his base instincts and ends the cycle in an orgy of voyeurism and self-indulgence. The growing pandemics of sexually transmitted diseases and obesity point the way.
But the Internet and the electronic media pose other problems for the generations yet to be born.
One is a surfeit of information. A classified audit completed in July for the U.S. Justice Department found that three years after the September 11 attacks the FBI had more than 123,000 hours of audio intercepts that it has not translated. In some cases, potentially crucial surveillance material was being automatically deleted before it could be reviewed.
In a new book, Spinning the Spies, published by the Social Affairs Unit, Anthony Glees and Philip Davies write that the bottom line "is not that the intelligence community as such was at fault. It is rather that the Blair administration placed the professionals of the intelligence community in an untenable position by requiring them to act as advocates rather than analysts."
Certainties and convictions are beginning to rule again in the life of man, and information that does not support the passionately held views is either distorted or ignored.
