This editorial was originally posted by Ron Holland at The Daily Bell.
Editor’s Note: Between the manipulation of gas & oil prices, to the contentious events in Ukraine, with ISIS in the Middle East and the new debt bomb in Greece, there is little doubt for anyone paying attention that a currency war is definitely underway.
The only question is: who will prevail, and who is holding a stronger hand?
Greece alone has the potential to unravel the Euro-zone and shatter the fragile dominoes across the global financial markets. And that’s just one area that is exploding.
Though Russia is taking a hit from the falling gas prices, and the combined effect of sanctions, it has also been furiously stockpiling gold and working with China and the BRICS nations to build a counter-balance to international development and currency manipulation, as SHTF has reported.
Something huge is happening with currencies on the global scene, but it is a quiet war – you won’t hear about it on the mainstream news. Just make sure it doesn’t sneak up on you; instead, be as prepared as you possibly can for whichever why the wind blows and the hammer falls. Have you considered your plan? Have you invested in gold, silver, storables or valuable barter items?
Are You Ready For Total Currency War?
“Are you ready for total war?” “Sind Sie bereit für totalen Krieg?” – Joseph Goebbels
On February 18, 1943, German Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels delivered a rousing speech at the Berlin Sportpalast, asking the German people, “Sind Sie bereit für totalen Krieg?” or “Are you ready for total War?” Germany had planned for Blitzkrieg and a short war and was unprepared for a world war as the combined military forces of the United States, England and the Soviet Union crushed the Reich relentlessly and systematically. Although the people and economy rallied in defense of Germany, total war only prolonged the horrors of war and delayed their inevitable defeat.
Today, 72 years later, another quasi-fascist empire formerly at the pinnacle of world economic power is being taken over, this time on the economic front, by China and the BRICs. Yet it retains the ability to project military power on every continent, with troops deployed in over 150 countries, and is involved simultaneously in regions ranging from Europe and the Ukraine, across the Middle East and Africa to the nations in Asia surrounding China.
The leadership of most foreign vassal states are threatened, bought off or blackmailed into doing the empire’s bidding lest they be overthrown and replaced through covert black-ops that often masquerade as homegrown domestic uprisings like the Arab Spring or the Ukraine coup in 2014.
Non-cooperating foreign nations, central banks, domestic nationalists and powerful centers of influence are threatened with state trade sanctions, individual sanctions and blacklisting, banking prohibitions and bond-rating downgrades in addition to other economic and outright military threats. The empire’s powerful propaganda machine based in New York and London that, when needed, can within only weeks turn former allies into evil despots without cause, reason or evidence.
An unforgiveable crime is to threaten the mountains of government debt and endless trillions in derivatives issued by vassal state governments led by controlled foreign political leaders where old bond offerings are simply rolled over, along with interest owed, into new obligations. This further burdens citizens and taxpayers just so favored global investment banking interests in the US, UK, Germany and others can continue their fee and commission gravy train.
Greece is the Achilles Heel of the European Union
But the cardinal sin for a politician or political leader is to threaten the ruling entity, as Greece is now doing with the European Union. The EU has a ruling junta of unelected politicians and banking bond-holding interests hiding behind political leaders like Merkel in Germany. This modern-day creation of a permanent union built upon the fatal flaw of the American union, where formerly sovereign states are free to join but can never leave, is a recipe for disaster.
This was the case with the Civil War in the United States or today in Greece, with the total economic destruction and destitution of both the state and the people to foreign banking interests and debt slavery. This permanent debtor status to German and other banking interests appears to even preclude Greece getting financial help from Russia or China.
Make no mistake; tiny Greece does threaten the survival of the EU monstrosity. Should Greece prevail in its efforts to separate from the EU, Italy, Spain, Portugal and other nations will surely follow its bold path back to prosperity, independence and sovereignty, not possible without a dramatically weakened euro.
The Establishment Media Insures the Currency War Is a Secret War
“The first casualty when war comes is truth.” – Hiram Johnson a Republican politician from California who served in the United States Senate for nearly 30 years.
Thanks to the establishment propaganda media outlets – all major cable news channels including the neocon Fox News – relatively few Americans are able to see the ongoing global dollar and economic wars raging from Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Iran to Greece and the Ukraine. Most assume the EU banking assault on Greece in response to its threats to leave the European Union and its bond debts to German banks is a separate economic issue from US and EU financial sanctions against Russia. Likewise, there is little discussion and even less understanding by Americans about how the ISIS movement, originally created by the US as a moderate faction against the Syrian government, suddenly morphed into the Sunni Caliphate movement now controlling the majority of Syria and Iraq.
The real question is whether this economic and financial war being waged between Washington and vassal states including the supra-national European Union versus the Russia/China alliance will remain an economic and currency war or go hot over ISIS and nationalistic resistance. The ultimate goal of the empire is to maintain the survival of the petrodollar energy market priced in dollars – and that is the reason behind the ultimate US goal, which is to wrest control of oil and gas pipelines through Iraq, Syria and the Ukraine from opposition regimes.
As an American, I’m writing here about a coverup of an ongoing war between Washington, London and the EU versus Russia and China. The EU, historically a vassal state controlled by Washington, is now being pushed into a military conflict over Ukraine. Today there is a policy rift taking place between Germany’s Merkel, joined by other major European countries, and the formerly dominant US/UK leadership as to whether military weapons should be provided to the American-installed government in Kiev.
Europeans Remember the Horrors of World War Two
What most Americans do not realize is that during World War Two, every European nation had at least a contingent of troops fighting on the side of Germany against the Russians – and Russians are tough fighters. Putin’s 80% approval rate in Russia dwarfs the popularity of every Western politician and political party. It is difficult to imagine German or French troops fighting and dying for Merkel or Hollande on the plains of the Ukraine, formerly part of Russia, where millions of Soviet troops died during the Second World War.
While the usual neocon spokesmen like John McCain and Lindsey Graham might want the US involved in a military conflict with Russia in the Ukraine, and uneducated Americans might even go along with them, Europeans know their history and are rightly horrified at the prospect.
Remember, the old Soviet Union during the World War was a hated communist government led by a tyrannical dictator. Active military conflicts are tough for politicians to justify unless there is a cultural, religious, patriotic or ethnic aspect to the military action. Joseph Stalin, one of the world’s greatest tyrants, was able to get the Russian people behind his war with Hitler only because to the public, defeat meant either lifetime serfdom or death under the foreign Nazi regime. The cruelty of the German and SS armies ultimately guaranteed their defeat; although in many areas they were initially welcomed as liberators, eventually military occupation by the Nazis became equal to or worse than the terrors of Stalin and the Soviet Union.
Today the Internet Limits the Effectiveness of Government Propaganda Efforts
Governments and politicians now have to deal with the Internet Reformation where alternative media outlets often present an entirely different view of war and financial market manipulation than does the establishment media with their sanitized video footage supported by “patriotic” propagandistic editorials and financial news comments.
While historically the Washington Empire was somewhat benign and even helpful to former adversaries following World War Two, US incursions over the last two decades have been more of a horror story of nation destruction than liberation and prosperity – witness Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and Yemen just to name a few. Of course, all nations and empires compete and none of our competitors from Russia, China or Iran etc. are ruled by saints or without their own atrocities but retribution does happen and the chickens do come home to roost when nations or empires lose in military, economic or currency wars. Sadly, the innocence of civilians is no protection when the surging tides of empire turn.
Innocence Does Not Offer Protection
Ask the hundreds of thousands of Germans who were drafted into the Volkssturm in the last year of World War Two, given a Panzerfaust and marched to the front to attack Soviet tanks and defend the Nazi leadership in Berlin. Or consider the innocent civilians in a firebombed Dresden where tens of thousands were roasted alive or suffocated by the allied terror bombing at the end of the war, not to mention the hundreds of thousands in Japan who were victims of fire-bombing and atomic bomb attack.
Personally I don’t plan on defending American politicians in Washington from foreign or domestic assault or the central banking cartel and Wall Street investment bankers who ultimately will destroy the world in a sea of debt. But emergency presidential executive orders guarantee we will not be able to protect our retirement funds, savings and investment portfolios from confiscation when the chickens come home to roost on the Washington Empire.
If we have some wealth or property left when the dollar fails, we cannot stop the future “means testing” of our Social Security and Medicare benefits. Much of our domestic real estate holdings may well be stolen by favored groups and individuals when we can’t pay the exorbitant annual property taxes just like much property in the defeated South was taken by northeastern “carpet baggers” after the War Between the States – or lost during the Great Depression, which is a more likely scenario for comparison of what all productive Americans will face in the future.
Right now there is a world war taking place right in front of us but all we see on cable news are the nightly military skirmishes on the periphery of the conflict. The real war is economic, financial and currency related and the empire is already over-extended in debt, military operations and financial manipulation. Surely the near-term dollar strength is evidence that while defeat is not imminent and that all markets can be manipulated for a season, ultimately real global market forces will prevail.
Don’t Wait Until It’s Too Late
Americans should take advantage of recent dollar strength to diversify into gold, investments, real estate and safe haven locations outside the US dollar and the United States. Better to be early than too late because eventually the consequences of aggressive military actions, central banking manipulation and uncontrolled government debt and unfunded liabilities will come home to the American people. Neither the guilt of our political and banking leadership nor the innocence of our citizenry will protect you, your assets or your family. (Ron will be speaking more on this topic at the May 13-17 High Alert Investment Conference.)
Don’t wait for a Greek withdrawal from the EU, a run on euro debt, a third US invasion of Iraq, war against ISIL or an escalation in Syria or the Ukraine in an attempt to secure oil and gas pipelines to act. Just remember that all empires eventually become over-extended financially, economically or militarily and the consequences of retribution and blowback are real and deadly to innocent populations.
Source:: ShtfPlan