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Off The Grid Radio co-hosts Bill Heid and Brian Brawdy discuss American Exceptionalism – what it is, what it was, and what it could be. The discussion really centers on Putin’s Op-Ed article in the Wall Street Journal earlier in the week.
They also go over off-the-grid ideas for listeners wanting to get out of the cycle of despair perpetuated by the mainline media.
Trends Journal Publisher, Gerald Celente, joins the conversation to examine current events and trends shaping the news.
Off The Grid Radio
Ep174
Released: September 13, 2013
Brian: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Off the Grid News, the radio version of OffTheGridNews.com. I’m Brian Brawdy. As always, here with Mr. Bill Heid. Bill, how are you sir?
Bill: Brian, I’m concerned.
Brian: You’re concerned? Okay.
Bill: I’m concerned the world – I’m telling you, right now, right out of the block so I’m not going to … You know how I usually hold things in? I’m sort of like you, a little bit of an introverted fellow.
Brian: Reserved!
Bill: You just can’t look at the news today and think that everything’s okay. And you wonder, how long can it go on like this? How long can things move sideways? Now, maybe Rome moved sideways years ago for a long, long time before the Huns actually moved in, got an apartment next door to Nero’s, you know, or whatever. But look at the headlines, would you? Look at the headlines.
Brian: Yeah. Billy Ray Cyrus has come out, finally talking – is that what you’re talking about? Those headlines? Billy Ray talking about Miley? Is that her name, Jeramy, Miley Cyrus?
Bill: It should have been, yeah. Well.
Brian: Is that the headline?
Bill: Well I’m glad he finally came out of the closet and started to talk about her, but, you know. All of the Kardashian babies and everything else aside – we haven’t talked about Lindsey Lohan for a long time – but, no. The, the hard news, the stuff that’s really in the news cycle, just seems absurd.
Brian: Well, I have to tell you, I was kind of surprised to wake up this morning and read an opinion piece in the New York Times, written not by our President, but by President Putin of Russia. Did you see that piece? A plea for caution from Russia.
Bill: Well, listen. Did you ever thing – you and I are close to the same age – did you ever think that you, in your wildest dreams, even as a young man, did you ever think that you would read former KGB agents, peace, look at the world peace, and writing and article that gets published in an American publication and say, “You know what? I’m not a Putin guy, but he seems to understand these things maybe a little better.” And here’s something else, Brian. A little better than some of our politicians. Here’s something else that’s interesting. We were talking about this earlier this morning. It seems as if, if you’re an ally of Russia or China, let’s say you’re an evil ally, right? Let’s cast the Syrian leadership as evil in this case. It seems to me like they still take care of their allies, like if you shake hands with somebody and say, “I got your back,” … Now, go 180. If Obama says, “I got your back,” what would, if he said that to you, Brian, “Brian Brawdy, I got your back,” you, you know, you better run. You better think something’s going to happen bad to me. Because if you look at all the people we generally support, we, our former allies, we’ve destabilized this. There’s this process of dis-stabilization that we seem to have, our State Department seems to have an agenda that says any strong man in the region can’t exist, right?
Brian: Absolutely.
Bill: We’re just … And then not knowing, never, never knowing what the outcome will be, and of course they have no idea what the outcome will be. They don’t know what can take place. You have all this in Islam, all these intersect tribal warfare in, in things in many cases I don’t think we can even understand.
Brian: Well, and I would also look at, for me, in addition to the fact that President Putin was able to put the article, it’s in the New York Times. Right? So, even the New York Times now is starting to question some of the things that are happening. Granted, it’s only the opinion page, but still, nonetheless, they had the ability to get it published. So I, I would ask if the New York Times is starting to raise the veil a little bit, what else is going on around the world? What, what do other countries think when they look at it and say, “Now President Putin is the one brokering the deal? President Putin is the one that seems calm and level headed? President Putin is the one calling not for military action but for more investigation? President Putin. The guy who jails dissidents.” I mean, I don’t know Bill.
Bill: Of course we jail dissidents too, Brian.
Brian: I was just going to say.
Bill: I mean, there are people trying to, trying to have a peaceful life. Obama’s jailing – there are policies in this country that’ll allow him to jail people selling food alongside the roads. You know, we’re jailing raw milk producers, and so forth. So, gee, I don’t know.
Brian: Chicken farmers.
Bill: Chicken farmers. Chicken ranchers.
Brian: Chicken ranchers. I’m sorry. Chicken ranchers.
Bill: We’ve had those people on our show before. But let me talk – I’ll tell you what creates a kind of calm in you? You’re able to be calm in a situation and confident if you have a plan. Now, even if the plan is a poor one, at least he has a plan. At least he understands his relationship with his allies.
Brian: Sure.
Bill: Which seems to be rather clear-cut. Now, us on the other hand, it seems as though we have no clear-cut policy. Which folks will tell you that that’s something that is, well, it leaves you open-minded. It allows you to sort of react to things. I don’t think Benghazi was a reaction. I think that was something that was just a logical outcome of not really having a coherent policy. Chaos, if you don’t tend your garden, weeds grow.
Brian: Sure.
Bill: And so we’ve got weeds growing all over the world because we’re confused about who we are. This goes back to talking about Putin. He understands who he is. We may not like that. We might disagree with, you know, killing tigers with a knife or whatever he says that he does, but at the same time, he kind of knows who he is. Wow, what a comforting thing. We all know what teenagers are like in this country that don’t know who they are, right? They join gangs because they want to know, they want to know who they are. They want to have personality in their life. They don’t want to be a mindless number. They want relationships. So, same thing, man. Same thing.
Brian: Well, it’s interesting because nbcnews.com is reporting that the Jihadis are gaining ground in Syrian rebel movement, as the moderates grow desperate. So here we are talking about giving the Syrian rebels, right? John McCain: “I’m a maverick. I’m a rebel.” People look at these words and think, “Oh, these are democracy fighters.” These guys aren’t fighting for democracy at all! We’re getting ready to arm. We begin delivering weapons, according to a report in the Washington Post. U.S. weapons are reaching the Syrian rebels. But the Syrian rebels aren’t a solidified group. They’re not freedom fighters, right? They’re not fighting for democracy in Syria, as they look more and more, and for NBC to report, you know, that a lot of these people coming in and fighting on behalf of the rebels are joining Al Qaeda to do so, how is that not a red flag for us? John McCain goes to meet with the rebels, comes back and says, “Well, I can vouch for them.” Who are you? You can vouch for them? Who are you? I think you should be held accountable for it. If they find out that we’ve done something to arm the rebels and the rebels turn out to be a front company – so to speak – for Al Qaeda, I think Senator McCain should be held responsible for his comments.
Bill: And Brian, he just simply does not understand the situation.
Brian: How can he not?
Bill: Years ago I remember Billy Graham going to Russia and of course they took him to the state churches and everybody pretended – this was back when, before the “tear down that wall” – so he, Billy Graham went to Russia during the Marxist regime and came back and was just waxing eloquent about how much freedom there was.
Brian: Sure.
Bill: In Russia. And of course he went places that were staged, people glad-handed him and shook his hand, because they wanted to use him as a dupe to sort of not get the, hold onto the idea that they were subjugating people at the time, and so I think in the same way that Billy Graham has been a dupe – it doesn’t mean that Billy Graham is wrong in everything that he does – but I’m just saying he, he definitely was a dupe in that situation. I think McCain’s basically a dupe. And this – Here’s Putin’s statement that I think is so relevant, and here’s why he’s right: American exceptionalism has, used to be a concept that described what, what our actions were. What we did. Today, as we talked earlier, it’s a description. It’s not an action word in any sense, but it’s more of a description of an attitude that you have. So here’s this cocky Senator who’s dumber than a box of rocks. He thinks he can go to Syria and visit with the rebels for 48 hours and that he’s got it locked and loaded, right?
Brian: Sure.
Bill: I understand this completely. Well, I think, you know, watch Black Hawk Down. If you want to understand thinking that you understand a situation when you don’t understand a situation, that was the motif there. And that certainly is the motif in much of the world. We just don’t plain understand it. But we act as if we did. And so we’ve got that brashness that used to exist. And really, the confidence that used to come in this country that McCain inherited, politically, which was true years ago, did come because the people, we had coherent policies, where this is what we stood for and not everybody always agreed one way or the other, but this is what we stood for and so our allies knew that we stood for that. We kept our word. Now, I mean, just think. Saddam Hussein, we promised him – he was one of our allies at one time – we promised him things. We took him out. Just on and on and on. And it doesn’t seem to be any end to the truth factor in any of this, and I think Putin is right in some sense. I think it’s dangerous to pretend that there is such a thing as American exceptionalism. And please, our listeners should learn, should understand, I’m not talking about the guys working at the Chrysler plant, or the guys mowing yards this morning as we talk. Just hard working Americans. I, I certainly think there’s something great to America, but I’m speaking in a political sense, that just gives us this idea that we have this sort of hegemonic, you know, aura around everything we do. “I’m going to go to the Middle East and I’m going to bless it and everything’s going to work,” and I’m going to deliver a speech and somehow President Obama or someone like him is going to give a speech and that’s going to affect Islam … the fight between Islamic sects that’s been going on for hundreds of years? Be more than that, in this case, and he’s just going to go over and patch it up? Well, that’s folly, plain and simple, Brian.
Brian: And I would say, Bill, my take along with yours, I would add this, that you know my belief that politicians, you know, are not great communicators. They have speechwriters, who know how to write a speech. And then you’re labeled as a great communicator as to whether you’re able to parrot that speech in a passionate way, right? So whenever I see someone say, “Oh, this speech was written or that speech was written,” I always want to meet the speechwriter, right? That’s where the brains are. So for me when I saw this by Vladimir Putin, I think he’s using the term exceptionalism almost with the mindset of believing we think we’re above the law. And then there’s other people that look for exceptionalism and go, “Wow, he’s an exceptional guy. He’s an exceptional talent. He’s really great at what they do.” So they’re two different meanings, right? Like the law applies to everyone, except Bill Heid. The law applies; the rules apply to everyone except Jeramy Jennings. That’s one definition of exceptionalism. And I think maybe that’s what Putin was trying to get at. But for the rest of us, we look at exceptionalism going, “Hey, when you try to do good, when you use your talents that you were given, when you try to make a positive impact on the world,” that’s the form of exceptionalism that I think most of us think of. But I think Putin and he’s speech writers kind of missed the meaning of the word, and what they tried to say in a word was encompassing, you know, what’s, what’s troubling is when someone thinks that the law applies to everyone except them.
Bill: Exactly.
Brian: And I think that’s what he was trying to get to in that case.
Bill: No, and I think you and I are saying the same thing. All I’m saying, kind of to echo what you’re saying, Brian, is that we have to look carefully at form and substance. Because what, what used to be (inaudible 13:45) in this country, that created American exceptionalism, both economically, politically and, and many different manifestations, now is sort of formal. And so, gee, there’s a big difference between sort of a symbol of something and the thing itself.
Brian: Sure.
Bill: Like if you go, if you see a sign in a kitchen that says, “restroom,” and it’s pointing at the restroom that’s that way, and you think that’s the restroom, but it’s not the restroom, it’s the sign of the restroom, people are going to think you’re pretty crazy thinking that that’s a restroom, when it’s just a sign of a restroom. So I think we all need our decoder rings in some sense. Which is common sense here, because we’ve got to think, “Well, what is the difference between a country that once had a coherent policy and a country that maybe is, is running their ship on the fumes of that old policy, but there isn’t anything really there. The emperor has no clothes, and so forth.” And I think the emperor doesn’t have any clothes, as far as we’re concerned by – what is our message, to the people of the world? What is our message? It’s not about freedom.
Brian: Right.
Bill: Is Egypt free today?
Brian: Right.
Bill: Is, I mean, in other words, here we go and we can get into another thing that I think our listeners should really pay close attention to, this idea of constantly breaking down a dictator and saying that anarchy is somehow better for the average person than a dictator. And I’m not so sure that that’s true. The Israelites had good kings and bad kings. We have a lot of history from the Bible. And the Israelites had good kings that they lived well under and prospered. And they had wretched kings. You look around – and the people suffered. You look around today and there are good governments and there are wretched governments, so I don’t even know that monarchy is the exact worst thing that could happen to a people. The English certainly thrived under many of their monarchs, as well as the French and other people, so we’ve made this mistake in saying anything good – a political policy good – is one that de-stables a centralized government. Well, I hope we don’t look in the mirror!
Brian: Absolutely!
Bill: Because what did Jesus say to Peter? You live by the sword, you die by the sword, Peter. And, and if Obama wants to foment and his State Department and, and Hitlary or whatever her name is, if they want to foment all of this revolution, you have to be careful. Because that’s throwing the boomerang. You, you live and sow, right? We talk about reaping what you sow, and boy you have to be careful about using different language for different people and say, “Well, what about your centralized government?”
Brian: Sure.
Bill: Is it a good thing for us to disrupt our government? And they would say, no our people are free. But are our people free? Are we really free? The way we were free under the founders? Were we even free probably prior to the Civil War? We’re not even close to free.
Brian: Well, I’m so excited that people – I think, Bill – most certainly our listeners have been here for awhile, but people are starting to wake up and listen to it, right? How many years have I been asking you just how gullible do they think we are? I cannot imagine Senator Kerry thinking that he could get to a podium, and given – at the time Secretary Powell’s pounding on the table, showing us all the pictures of the weapons of mass description that Saddam Hussein was alleged to possess, right? “Oh, here’s the satellite photos, we’ve got them. Here’s where they’re moving them. Here’s this. Here’s that.” That a Secretary could go to a podium and think, simply based on their speech, and their almost adamant grit that this is the truth, and that everyone’s just going to dovetail in and believe them, I’d just like to see a little more proof … that President Assad signed off on that order.
Bill: But, listen. What if there’s all the proof in the world. If there were all the proof of the world and you’re sitting around with Washington, Jefferson and Adams and saying, “Look. Here’s what this Islamic faction did to this Islamic faction.” I don’t think John Adams was going to say, “Let’s send all the ships.” We certainly sent ships to Tripoli and other places, but those were a tax on us and our Navy and merchant marine vessels and so forth. And so, we, you know, us Americans, we’re definitely in harm’s way. That’s what constitutional scholars like John Eidsmoe say, yeah, you can do some things, but you have to … what’s the criteria? Anytime, when one person does something or one group does something to another group, is that the rule? That would say that we’re now involved, because one group’s doing something to another group? Well, gee. We better take a hard look at Russia, a hard look at China, a hard look at every country, almost, on earth. (Inaudible 18:57) are arresting people for, for just disagreeing with what their government says about, about homosexual marriage. You can go to England and say something and just get arrested. So is that a free country, when you can’t say something free? I mean, look at every other country in the world, Brian.
Brian: Absolutely. North Korea. Somalia.
Bill: There’s problems everywhere.
Brian: Sure.
Bill: Why, why here? So there’s always something that the American people don’t really know or understand. There’s always cards that people aren’t showing when they’re playing. You know, the old thing about when you’re, when you walk into the room and you don’t know who the mooch is, you’re it?
Brian: Right. That’s right.
Bill: Well, I think that’s the American public. We’re the mooches in this situation. We’re certainly footing the bill, tax wise and so forth, but we are the international mooches. Because we are so confused that we don’t know truth from fiction anymore. We just don’t know. And we don’t even know how to interpret the facts.
Brian: Well, not only that, Bill, that’s why I started off wondering if the headline you were talking about wasn’t the fact that yet again Miley Cyrus stuck her tongue out for the TV cameras, right? When you look at Kardashians, when you look at any of the other things that are used. Here’s the thing – I see the Syria thing. I get it. Allegedly 1,400 people gassed. Who knows who did it? I’d like to know about four people, not 1,400. I’d like to know about four people, killed over a year ago, in Benghazi. You want to throw a number out? You want to be so good at figuring out who did what? Come to national TV, come to the podium and tell me who killed four Americans in Benghazi. You want to be the reader of the tealeaves? You want to be the great seer of the crystal ball? Come to the podium and tell me who capped four Americans in Benghazi over a year ago. Right? You’re so good, that you can tell who signed the order in Syria to gas 1,400 people – if that’s even the number – but you’re not adept enough to tell me who killed four Americans, one an Ambassador? His assistant and two former special ops guys?
Bill: The very policy, Brian, that created that situation is in operation in Egypt, in Syria, right now as we speak. That is the policy, the destabilization policy, in a world that we don’t really know or understand.
Brian: Sure. Right.
Bill: So with revolution comes revolutionary consequences. It shouldn’t, you know, it shouldn’t be like, “Oh, gee, every morning the sun comes up. I woke up and the sun came up and everyday I’m surprised.” I think it should be a surprise if revolutionary politics sort of don’t beget revolutionary behavior.
Brian: Sure.
Bill: I think that’s one of the main things that everybody needs to think. Here’s another take on this whole thing, one that I’ve been thinking a lot about lately and one that maybe I’m trying to work out in my mind, but as part of this, why is it – I’m thinking in my mind – why is it that we want to rule. Remember that show, that song in the ‘80s, Tears for Fears …
Brian: Everyone wants to rule the world.
Bill: Everyone wants to rule the world. Why do we want to sort of be involved in all these things? So at the same time we’re trying to micromanage these conflicts among Islamic sects, and Islamic personalities – sometimes those two are the same thing. We’re micromanaging those things in a, in a galaxy far away, right? A long way away, which violates Sun Tzu’s supply lines.
Brian: It’s interesting that you use Sun Tzu, the author of The Art of War, because to me, and I don’t like using the term because I haven’t, I don’t know much about it’s origin, but who first coined the phrase “The military industrial complex?”
Bill: Dwight Eisenhower.
Brian: So, why do we keep doing it? Because when they arm the Syrian rebels, and this goes wrong and there’s a huge conflict, more of the military industrial complex will be called into action to go save Syria.
Bill: So you’re saying it’s a follow-the-money thing, which I can totally buy.
Brian: Absolutely.
Bill: I can totally buy.
Brian: Why is the CIA sending arms to Syria? Because they know it’ll go south and who’s going to have to go in to make it go north again? Once it falls apart, who, who you going to call? Not Ghostbusters, right? You’re going to call the government of the United States and we’ll come up with some other military objective that we can go in – like in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Egypt – we’ll find…
Bill: And that’s what it is. They play the troops card all the time, and they know because we’re all affectionate toward those that are willing to put their lives on the line and fight, whether it’s a firefighter or it’s a police officer, they know that that’s our heart. And what they do is they exploit that, because they know it’s a hard thing for any conservative Christian person to say, “Well, I’m this radical person and I don’t support our troops. I don’t support …” It’s a difficult concept to not support your own country, in that sense. So they know that that’s in our hearts, and they take the things close to us like that and they use it against us. They said, “Well, we’re out there. Our troops are out there doing something.” These guys know how to write good copy too. They’re good marketers. They write good public relations. They film things. I remember not too long ago, hearing about how when they tore down Saddam Hussein’s statue, that was a carefully filmed event. That wasn’t spontaneity. They got Iraqi kids and they lined it all up so media’s complacent in this, while working with … You get a little bit of that in, what was that Matt Damon movie? Was it the Green Mile? Or the Green Zone.
Brian: The Green Zone. Right!
Bill: A little bit of a flavor for that, and I’m sure a lot of conservatives that don’t like the liberals that were saying, “Hey, there’s problems over there,” I think perhaps some of that movie at least conceptually was dead on. Was dead on. You’ve got people being fed stories.
Brian: Sure.
Bill: And they want to get the stories. They want to say, “Hey look. I’ve got a story that came from, you know, ground zero, and my name’s going to get in the Wall Street Journal if I’m the top story, that pushes me ahead.” So it feeds this complex, as you’re saying. But it’s many-faceted, isn’t it? It’s not just big companies like general dynamics. It’s the reporters, just on their own, trying to get the next story and living – I’m not sure that greed’s the right word – but trying to claw their way to the top. Get a story. Meanwhile, these guys are feeding them stories.
Brian: Absolutely.
Bill: “And look. If you don’t play ball, I’m going to send your media group home.” Right? How welcome would we be, as press core members, if we went to some Middle Eastern place and were working with our government? We’d get capped, is what would happen. We just couldn’t happen. So you end up with only the players. Only the media who really want to take the bait, and so it’s awful difficult to sort of get a story if you’re someone running against the grain.
Brian: Absolutely. But unfortunately, that’s why you don’t see reporters anymore – and you can tell the difference when someone says, “Well, I’ve always wanted to be a reporter,” and they look like a runway model. You know? It’s a different world now. As you know, I worked as a news reporter for a, in a major market for a major network, and it’s not what you think it is anymore. And that’s why I’m so excited to see people just if not questioning authority, then questioning themselves. What do I believe about this? What do I think the truth is? And whether they can ever prove about the 1,400, who did it and who didn’t it, that a politician thinks he can just go to the podium and because he says it, we’re all going to believe it – and there’s not going to be any debate, there’s not going to be any question to it – is just fascinating to me. But it’s come to that point, because for years, we’ve listened to everything their speechwriters wrote. Right? You want to talk about reporters? Speechwriters! Man, they get paid, for putting tears in your eyes. They get paid for giving you goose bumps. They get paid to make sure there’s a standing ovation.
Bill: Without a doubt, Brian. That’s the, that’s the name of the game. And the very, the cream of the crop rise to where there’s the most money. And where is the most money in today’s world? It’s right there in the political ballgame. So.
Brian: And making sure that we keep up this attitude. What is the one, this one commercial I’m seeing now? Before anyone sends the emails – I normally say send them to Jeramy – you’re welcome to send them to me. I’m a dishonorably discharged vet, so before all the little panty-weights start in about, “Oh, Brian’s saying something negative about the troops,” I was one. And I was also a police officer at the same time. So they start this whole thing about, “Oh, we don’t stand up for our troops. We don’t stand up for this or that,” as you had mentioned earlier. Our troops know what the deal is. Right? Our troops know when they’re being played. Our troops aren’t this non-descript body of people that don’t think for themselves. They know when they’re getting played. They know when they’re getting duped. And you talk to a vet, or you talk to someone that’s currently serving –
Bill: Who voted, who wanted, where did Ron Paul raise all his money? Remember that? When he ran? Where did most of his money come from? Our foreign, our, our Army. Our Navy. They were funding his campaign. Our Marines.
Brian: And you said Navy, and that’s what started me on this. You know, the, a global force for good. I don’t want to be a global force for good. I want to be a force for good here, defending and protecting the Constitution, defending the borders of our country, whatever they may be.
Bill: And yeah, the reason you say that is a good one. Because what, if you see that, a lot of times the Navy will run that commercial during football season because they think that football players are tough and they’re looking for that. But look at, look at how opened ended that means. What does that mean?
Brian: What does it mean?
Bill: Does that mean …
Brian: A global force for good means as soon as we’re done in the military war covering this planet, we’ll be a global force for good on the moon.
Bill: And who’s paying for all of this?
Brian: You and I.
Bill: And how much is the cost of a global force for good?
Brian: Yeah. Every time I see that commercial, it makes my skin crawl. There are people that have signed up to defend their country. Now, you can argue, should it be defending the country? Should they be defending honor? Should they be defending what’s right? I will tell you, that when the Benghazi story finally breaks out, there were Special Forces guys that wanted to go in and save those four, right? Because in the end, it comes down to honor, right?
Bill: Certainly.
Brian: In the end it comes down to, are you going to stick, are you going to do what you can to defend the defenseless, and especially someone on your team?
Bill: Remember in Black Hawk Down, at the end of the movie, the guy says, once the weapons start to go off, once you hear gunfire, all the political ideology is out the door and you’re trying to cover the guy next to you.
Brian: Next to you.
Bill: That’s it. And it doesn’t get any more. And listen, I know World War II vets have told me this same thing, in maybe a little different manner, and folks that were in Korea have said the same thing to me and Vietnam as well, so I know that’s just a truism. People aren’t rushing hills, necessarily. I guess when you finally win the battle you put the flag up, but all the way up to Iwo Jima, you were worried about your best friend. You didn’t want him to get …
Brian: And if you listened to the speeches of the ones who are still alive, or you read some of the speeches of the ones that have passed, the winners of the Congressional Medal of Honor, what do they tell you? “I just went after my buddies.”
Bill: Certainly.
Brian: “They were in the crossfire. I went in and got them. They were inside, I kicked in the door.” There’s nobody … and if you look at them, at least the ones of late, Bill, that we’ve been able to watch, I know a couple of times over the last few years, Jeramy and I have been out filming and we’ve stopped. Remember that one time, Jeramy, we stopped at lunch, to see a presentation of a Congressional Medal of Honor. They don’t want to be there. They don’t want to be at the White House. It doesn’t matter what President, what Congressional Medal of Honor is given by what president. They just wanted to do what was right by their buddies. By the people that they were there, to do good by.
Bill: All right, Brian. As we wind down, we’re running out of time, what do we leave – we’ve got a couple of minutes – what do we leave people with? Because I think there’s always a danger in going through and dissecting the news or talking about the philosophy or theology of behind the news cycle, what’s going on. I think there’s, the danger exists in leaving people (inaudible 31:49), right? And so, you know, I think it’s incumbent upon us to say, “All right, what is it?” Because you know me. You, I’ve never met someone more upbeat. You understand how things are, but you come in where. When you hang out with us, you’re probably one of the most upbeat people. I think there’s … I always like to think that I have a hope. What is my hope? I have a hope for the reason that I’m in existence, and my hope is based in Christ, and so I have this optimism. It’s not a pessimism, it’s an optimism. So I hope folks, when they hear us, we are describing what’s going on. I think we are supposed to be (inaudible 32:27); we’re supposed to be smart. We’re not supposed to be dumb. We’re supposed to be thinking things through.
And where’s our first loyalty? Our first loyalty is to our God. Not to our country. I would put our country down pretty low on the list. Not off the list, certainly, because I love this country, but I think certainly our family comes right below our God. And our community and other things are very, very high. And our country, certainly we live in a country that needs to be defended. And we can’t say that freedom is free. It’s not. There’s vigilance that has to be here. We have to fight these things. And how do you fight this? Here’s what I want to leave people with, and just get your comment on it. We all have to fight this battle together. But this battle, God’s put us all in different places. Not every one of us is a Senator. Not every one of us is a Congressman. We are, we have different jobs. But listen, we must learn how to defend our position. What is right? Because as things get more progressively cloudy – here we live by the Mississippi River and it’s muddy, that river, and so you can’t really see the bottom four foot up. It’s muddy. It’s murky, and it’s hard to find out where, where things are in the river because of that mud, because of that fog. So we live in a very foggy, perhaps the most foggy time that’s ever been in existence, because of the leverage of communication that all these big players seem to have.
So, I’m just, I wanted to get your impression. Here we are, but we’ve got to tell people, “You’ve got to defend people what’s right and you’ve got to step up, first in your family.” In your own little world. First yourself. You’ve got to get down, “What are my moral and foundational principles, upon which I’m going to base my life?” Then your family. Right? Then you’ve got to work your way out of your community. Everyone’s worried about the big picture and perhaps it’s justified, but I’m saying if we don’t even have our own act together and we’re out there preaching to other people, I thin it’s a dangerous thing.
Brian: You know, Bill, you talk about the fog earlier. What always burns off the fog? The sun. So for me the optimism is, you were given a human brain. God gifted you a human brain. Just use it! Don’t be duped. Don’t be gullible. Look at both sides of the story. Don’t parrot some plagiarized talking points memo. If it’s not your talking points, I don’t give a crap about it. I don’t care what O’Reilly has to say. I don’t care what Beck has to say. I don’t care what any of these people have to say. I care about what you have to say, and what you have say and what you have to say. So what works for me is that I think that more and more people are going, “Eh, I’m going to listen to my conscious on this. And I’m going to listen to my gut. I’m going to let my intuition have a little free reign in what I’m thinking here.” And I have a deep, deep, deep belief that as the great-great-great-great-grandchild of the Divine, you’ll make the right decision.
Bill: Or even …
Brian: That’s what’ll burn off the fog.
Bill: Exactly. And I think another thing is, you know, people say … remember Luther. What did Luther say? “Look, I’m not going to give. There’s two things that have to cross-reference here, and you don’t …” He’s talking to Charles and all the Papal authorities saying, “You don’t have either. Number one, you’ve got to convince me by scripture.” So, as we close, I’m saying, “Has anybody said, what’s the Bible say about war?” Has anybody thought about that? Maybe the Bible is irrelevant. I don’t think it is. There’s a lot about war in the Bible, sort of (inaudible 36:03) and conceptually that we can, we can learn from.
Brian: On both sides of the coin, Bill.
Bill: Without a doubt, on both sides of the coin. Yeah, that’s the beautiful thing of scripture, compared to many of the other religions is that you get the negative side of in the Bible of the course of wrong behavior and the course of actions that take you down the central path. So, he said, “Unless you can convince me by scripture,” which is what I’m saying, “Unless you can convince me, my conscious,” which is what you’re saying.
Brian: Sure, absolutely.
Bill: I’m not going to give up. So those are your two weapons, ladies and gentlemen. The listeners. You’ve got scripture and you’ve got your conscious. And so you have to really examine scripture and examine your conscious and that’s how you …
Brian: I think it’s like any other muscle, Bill, in your body. If you haven’t used your conscious in awhile, it atrophies. Just like your leg – if it’s been broken and it’s in a cast. So you asked me what was my final thought. What’s the good news to leave on? It’s that if you’re here, you still have a conscious. Use it. Or lose it. That’s where I am.
Bill: We’re in that hour, aren’t we?
Brian: We are in that hour, and it should be! Can you help me real quick before we go, and then Jeramy, you can cue it. What’s that thing you have about the dawn? Help me. I can’t believe I don’t remember that.
Bill: It’s a crazy thing that a lot of our people, our listeners won’t know, because it’s Jim Morrison. Certainly no Christian, but in one of his songs, he says something really powerful and he says, “No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn.” Really. He’s talking about not doing anything. He’s talking about the same principle Edmund Burke’s talking about when he said, “All that is necessary for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.” Jim Morrison’s saying, “You’ve been given the day. Don’t waste it.”
Brian: Don’t waste it.
Bill: It’s a sin to waste it.
Brian: Because the future and the divine will hold it against you. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so very much. We’re going to go ahead and run, Jeramy, to a quick commercial break. We’re going to run to a quick commercial break and then we’ll be back.
Bill: And we’re back with Gerald (inaudible 38:06), probably the leading forecaster, trends forecaster, in the world today. Gerald, welcome.
Gerald: Thanks for having me.
Bill: Always a pleasure to have you. Gerald, I’ve got to ask you, if you’re Barrack Hussein Obama, and you can’t really recognize a Sunni from a Shiite, what’s the single best thing you could do in Syria right now?
Gerald: Well, you know, I’m up here in Colonial Kingston, New York. We’re about two hours north of New York City, and about 100 feed, 1,000 feet, a stone’s throw, there’s the Senate House, 1777 they made New York State and the state capital. The British burned it down the same year. And this is the home of the founding fathers, this area. And they’d be turning in their grave if they could see what the presidents following them, only in the last 40 or 50 years, have created. Has anybody ever heard of no foreign entanglements? And then you look at the other issue – this is the most amateurish foreign policy procession I’ve ever seen in my life, and I’m old enough to remember the Cold War and the Cuban Missile Crisis. This is, this is the Presidential reality show. Seeing him going out there and trying to make his case, floundering around, having no clear vision of what to do, is it any wonder that America lost the Afghan war, the Iraq war. We lost that time-limited, scope-limited (inaudible 39:40) action in Libya, and now they’re going to do something positive in Syria? And I have to tell you also something. People can say, “Oh, Americans are really stupid.” Oh yeah? That’s why some 80-percent of them are against this? We’re not so stupid.
Bill: People do get it, I think, Gerald. People on the street, as you know. But there’s a little bit more common sense that really exists on the street than there is once you get into state department matters. As you say, this is not something that just is a function of the Obama administration state department, but it’s been going on for awhile, right? So what’s this concept that … and I think in a way we were talking earlier about Putin challenging American exceptionalism and dog gone it, I think he makes sense. Of course, I think our listeners both know that you and I don’t back dictators or KGB agents or anything like that, but man, when … did you ever think growing up as a little boy that someone from the Soviet Union, someone from Russia, someone, a KGB agent would write an op-ed piece that kind of makes more sense than what our own government’s making?
Gerald: No. You know, who would have believed it? And again, you know, as you know the motto of the Trends Journal is history before it happens. Well, I could give you some history before it happens in the spring issue of the Trends Journal 2012. And what we wrote about, you know, this is what people should understand. These politicians keep throwing this exceptionalism word out there, to their advantage, anytime they want. And of course, most people wont’ remember President Obama’s 2012 State of the Union address to the people. And here’s what we wrote: “For all the talk about exceptionalism – and by the way, all the presidential candidates were pumping this stuff out too – America is just another run of the mill, rundown empire committing suicide by squandering its dwindling resources to rage futile foreign wars that drain the treasury as its economy faltered.” So maybe Putin’s subscribing to the Trends Journal, because we’ve been writing about this for a real long time now.
Bill: And I think Gerald, the good stuff you’ve been writing about in the Trends Journal – certainly the spring edition as well as the summer edition which is about the police state – what I’m kind of interested in, and it’s not just the police state. There was a day when the police state was just the police state. Now it’s like the police empire, right? So you’re not comfortable just arresting Amish vegetable merchants. Now you want to go patrol every square inch of the planet and you want … you know, our founders. You mentioned them. They would say that God is a God of providence. Well, now our God is the God of government. Our government wants to be the God of providence too. So we’re going around, trying to predestinate and be the providential God, everywhere on the planet.
Gerald: This is over the top. Look, Eisenhower warned about this. Now this is a two-term president, Republican at that, so nobody could call him a Lefty. He was the supreme commander of the Allied Forces during World War II, not one of these guys that call themselves Commander in Chief, that couldn’t fight their way out of a paper bag and think a bad round of golf or a basketball game is being in the trenches. This is a guy who was a five-star general that warned the people as he’s leaving office that the military industrial complex is taking over the country, robbing us of the genius of the scientists, the sweat of the laborers and the future of the children. And now add on top of that, Bill, the cyber-industrial complex. Oh, and then throw another one in there as well, and now that we’re at it, how about the prison industrial complex? With their wars on drugs and all of the militarism that’s taking place in the police forcers. I mean, you see it. It’s like every other day you see somebody being beat to an inch of their lives for not obeying law and order. And these guys got enough armaments on them to go through the Battle of the Bulge and they beat up little girls and boys.
Bill: How about this 107-year-old, Gerald, that just got shot by a SWAT team. Did you see that story?
Gerald: I know! I know! I’m saying, every week there’s another atrocity. But, again, the good news, Bill, is that the people see what’s going on. And what you just saw with the Obama administration’s performance – and I watched, I suffered through all of those hours of Senate and House hearings – there’s nobody behind the curtain. It’s empty. It’s the Wizard of Oz. And if the people would realize that, we could have the greater nation that we deserve.
Bill: Well, Gerald, it seems like – it’s kind of funny you said that – it seems like it’s almost created this system that runs without it, President Obama or Bush before him, could have simply left and the Presidential spokespeople would come out and speak everyday. The media would churn and churn and churn all of the publicly released stories that are sort of written by the (inaudible 45:10) bureau and it really doesn’t even need anybody. You could have a robot come out and do the presentations every once and awhile and just say the sort of status, status quo pitch. But it seems to just be on autopilot.
Gerald: Again, you know, just to give you a little background, when I got out of graduate school, I used to run political campaigns in Westchester County, which at that time, that was the premiere, cruise ship actually came, and Nixon, that’s where they went. Westchester was the place. So anyway, out of graduate school in 1971 and I started running campaigns. And then they sent me up to Albany. I was the assistant to the Secretary of the New York State Senate, at 23 years old. And then I was also, I designed and taught American Politics and campaign technology at St. John’s University. When I was up in Albany, it was the worst job I ever had. That’s the capital of New York. All day long it was watching grown men grovel to suck their way up to the top. If people could see who’s running the government and who these people are, hey, all you had to do was watch the New York Mayoral primaries. Elliot Spitzer? The guy that got caught with $4,300 a night hookers, as he passed (inaudible 46:27) as his governor? If you or I got caught with a hooker, you know, we’d have to go in front of a judge. But hey, when our governor’s doing it, it’s a different trip. And then this other guy, this little wiener Weiner, who was showing his stuff on Facebook, running for mayor? I mean, look what this country has declined to! This would have never even been broached before. So what we’re looking at, Bill, is a bunch of lightweights and losers that call themselves Senators and Congressmen that are taking us on a path of disaster, and unless people speak up, stand up and take a step forward – as they did, by the way, just now, again current events form future trends – over there in Colorado, they just threw out two State Senators who voted for gun control. And that was the first time there was a recall in Colorado that threw out the ruling people. And by the way, this is a global trend. Just yesterday, over 1.5 million people joined hands in Spain as the Catalonians want to succeed from the corrupt Spanish government. So, the future is in the people’s hands. If they would only recognized that and stop bowing down and sucking up to the political mafia.
Bill: Do you think, Gerald, that we do sort of relax … there is that Edmund Burke thing about, you know, all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing – do you think good men do nothing when they’re kind of fat and happy? In other words, they got all the television they want. They’re eating well. Many of them still have their jobs, and so kind of it’s easy to see why, because it almost, if you look at (inaudible 48:24) sort of hierarchical thing, it kind of seems like rushing out doesn’t seem to help. If I go vote, if I go do this, if I go do that, the world is so big and so darn crazy, it doesn’t seem to, I can’t see a cause and effect relationship, and so I tend to go back to sleep. Do you see at least some of that existing?
Gerald: Yeah, I see some of that existing. But you know that’s as old as history. And you know people, taking in your individual lives, you know, anybody that’s gone through life. You know, sometimes you don’t do things until you wake up to it, but when do you wake up and how many wake up? And as I see it now, I see a great awakening. As a matter of fact, that was one of the top trends for 2013. The first one was war. And the last one was a great awakening. And you can see America’s great awakening. This was such a bad dog and pony show that they put on – and people got to see the best. McCain. John Insane McCain. Lindsey Graham. John Kerry. You see the performance in these people, and how pathetic! How pathetic! And all with a bad attitude, by the way. All with a bad attitude. And the reason they get away with that bad attitude, in front of their peers, is because of how I began the conversation about working in the state capital in Albany. Because the people lower than them are always sucking up, bowing down, pulling out their chairs and saying, “Good morning, Senator. Good afternoon, Senator.” You know. And so they can get away with that in their arena, but they can’t get away with that in the real world. And they’re not getting away with it. This is the greatest geo-political foreign blunder that I have ever seen in my life that Obama has pulled off. And this is going to hurt him, by the way, for the rest of his, his presidency. By the way, I say that. That’s a throw away line, because what’s he done during his presidency? Only more of the worst.
Bill: Yeah, I mean we’ve got him trying to still bring Obama Care into action, which is, maybe it’s the second greatest problem for him. In other words, just, when you go to create a bureaucracy that big, well, it’s no surprise that there aren’t some bumps. I mean, what do you think about implementation of Obama Care?
Gerald: There are four words, to me, that killed capitalism in America. Too big too fail. In capitalism, nobody’s too big to fail. When you’re bailing out major corporations, that’s the merger of state and corporate powers – that’s call fascism, by definition. Obama Care is another form of fascism. It’s not socialism. We’re being forced to buy insurance through private insurance companies? Now who’s making this up? I mean, if you’re going to go do socialized medicine, let’s call it what it is. We are being forced to buy from private insurers – to me that’s the merger of state and corporate powers. To me, it’s fascism, another degree of it.
Bill: Gerald, as we kind of wind down a little bit, I know you only have so much time and we appreciate you spending it to us, with us today. But let me ask you really kind of a serious question – it seems like in the trends that you’ve been talking about, you’ve got these Middle Eastern trends, you’ve got the great awakening trends. Simultaneously you have sort of dark side trends. How do you see things moving through the next six months through maybe through the end of next year and into the next year, in terms of just, just like you’ve got low pressure systems and high pressure systems and sometimes it rains and sometimes it doesn’t rain because one thing prevails over another? What do you see prevailing in the next six months?
Gerald: It’s really hard, you know. There’s so many wild cards out there. That’s why nobody can predict the figure. And right now, it’s a very volatile time. Because geo-politics is front and center, but then let’s not forget, is geo-politics front and center, look what’s going on in the emerging markets. With the talk of tapering. All that hot money that flowed into those emerging markets is now leaving. You have, you have controls, currency controls in India that are restricting people from taking money out of the country. They’re, they’re desperately raising interest rates because the rupiah in Indonesia and India, the real in Brazil, the Lira in Turkey, they’re all trying to back their currencies up with money and raising their interest rates because of all the hot money running out. You’re looking at China, where the country has a huge debt problem hanging over them. And the government first saying they weren’t going to put more hot money in, and now they’re doing it because they’re fearing a collapse. And by the way, you know what China’s greatest fear is? Its own people. There are 1.2 billion of them, and they can’t control them when they get out of control. So they’re going to be dumping more money into it too.
I think the two things to watch right now – obviously number one, the economy. Because this tapering, it’s going to come up shortly. And I believe they were taper, marginally. It’s going to have huge impacts. The other one is going to be, I don’t believe the United States is going to accept anything that Syria does, even if they do it legitimately. The war drums are beating. This is only an excuse, this gas issue, this sarin gas, or chemicals. If you want to talk about the height of hypocrisy, who is the United States demoralized about anyone using weapons of mass destruction? Anybody ever hear of the atom bomb knocking Hiroshima? Hey, how about all that Agent Orange that the United States dumped all over Vietnam? Remember those pictures of that little girl burning in (inaudible 54:20) that the United States used so generously throughout Vietnam? Oh, don’t forget this Bill. All that white phosphorus and depleted uranium, that the United States poured over Afghanistan and Iraq, and we’re talking about this guy extensively killing 1,400 people with chemical weapons? Oh, by the way, over 1,400 died two weeks ago in the military coup over there for the United States – still refuses to call military coup in Egypt. Hey, it’s all right. You can blow their brains out, but no gas? I mean, come on.
Bill: Yeah. A million people died in Iraq, so … I mean, 1,400 people …
Gerald: Yeah.
Bill: Anyway.
Gerald: And who killed them? Our tax dollars.
Bill: There you go. Gerald, you’re probably working on the fall issue of Trends Journal. How can people, what are you working on and what’s going to be in it and when’s it going to be out and how can people get their hands on a copy?
Gerald: They should get their hands on the summer issue, because by reading the summer issue, they’re going to see what’s going to be happening in the fall. History before it happens. All they have to go is to go to our website, trendsjournal.com. And by the way, Bill. We know people are having a difficult time. There’s a discount request page there. So we try to make it available to everyone, anytime, any place in the world.
Bill: Gerald (inaudible 55:40), thanks so much for your time today. We really appreciate it.
Gerald: Hey, thank you, Bill.
Bill: Ladies and gentlemen, we know your time’s valuable and we appreciate you spending it with us today on Off the Grid Radio.
Brian: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Off the Grid News, the radio version of OffTheGridNews.com. I’m Brian Brawdy. As always, here with Mr. Bill Heid. Bill, how are you sir?
Bill: Brian, I’m concerned.
Brian: You’re concerned? Okay.
Bill: I’m concerned the world – I’m telling you, right now, right out of the block so I’m not going to … You know how I usually hold things in? I’m sort of like you, a little bit of an introverted fellow.
Brian: Reserved!
Bill: You just can’t look at the news today and think that everything’s okay. And you wonder, how long can it go on like this? How long can things move sideways? Now, maybe Rome moved sideways years ago for a long, long time before the Huns actually moved in, got an apartment next door to Nero’s, you know, or whatever. But look at the headlines, would you? Look at the headlines.
Brian: Yeah. Billy Ray Cyrus has come out, finally talking – is that what you’re talking about? Those headlines? Billy Ray talking about Miley? Is that her name, Jeramy, Miley Cyrus?
Bill: It should have been, yeah. Well.
Brian: Is that the headline?
Bill: Well I’m glad he finally came out of the closet and started to talk about her, but, you know. All of the Kardashian babies and everything else aside – we haven’t talked about Lindsey Lohan for a long time – but, no. The, the hard news, the stuff that’s really in the news cycle, just seems absurd.
Brian: Well, I have to tell you, I was kind of surprised to wake up this morning and read an opinion piece in the New York Times, written not by our President, but by President Putin of Russia. Did you see that piece? A plea for caution from Russia.
Bill: Well, listen. Did you ever thing – you and I are close to the same age – did you ever think that you, in your wildest dreams, even as a young man, did you ever think that you would read former KGB agents, peace, look at the world peace, and writing and article that gets published in an American publication and say, “You know what? I’m not a Putin guy, but he seems to understand these things maybe a little better.” And here’s something else, Brian. A little better than some of our politicians. Here’s something else that’s interesting. We were talking about this earlier this morning. It seems as if, if you’re an ally of Russia or China, let’s say you’re an evil ally, right? Let’s cast the Syrian leadership as evil in this case. It seems to me like they still take care of their allies, like if you shake hands with somebody and say, “I got your back,” … Now, go 180. If Obama says, “I got your back,” what would, if he said that to you, Brian, “Brian Brawdy, I got your back,” you, you know, you better run. You better think something’s going to happen bad to me. Because if you look at all the people we generally support, we, our former allies, we’ve destabilized this. There’s this process of dis-stabilization that we seem to have, our State Department seems to have an agenda that says any strong man in the region can’t exist, right?
Brian: Absolutely.
Bill: We’re just … And then not knowing, never, never knowing what the outcome will be, and of course they have no idea what the outcome will be. They don’t know what can take place. You have all this in Islam, all these intersect tribal warfare in, in things in many cases I don’t think we can even understand.
Brian: Well, and I would also look at, for me, in addition to the fact that President Putin was able to put the article, it’s in the New York Times. Right? So, even the New York Times now is starting to question some of the things that are happening. Granted, it’s only the opinion page, but still, nonetheless, they had the ability to get it published. So I, I would ask if the New York Times is starting to raise the veil a little bit, what else is going on around the world? What, what do other countries think when they look at it and say, “Now President Putin is the one brokering the deal? President Putin is the one that seems calm and level headed? President Putin is the one calling not for military action but for more investigation? President Putin. The guy who jails dissidents.” I mean, I don’t know Bill.
Bill: Of course we jail dissidents too, Brian.
Brian: I was just going to say.
Bill: I mean, there are people trying to, trying to have a peaceful life. Obama’s jailing – there are policies in this country that’ll allow him to jail people selling food alongside the roads. You know, we’re jailing raw milk producers, and so forth. So, gee, I don’t know.
Brian: Chicken farmers.
Bill: Chicken farmers. Chicken ranchers.
Brian: Chicken ranchers. I’m sorry. Chicken ranchers.
Bill: We’ve had those people on our show before. But let me talk – I’ll tell you what creates a kind of calm in you? You’re able to be calm in a situation and confident if you have a plan. Now, even if the plan is a poor one, at least he has a plan. At least he understands his relationship with his allies.
Brian: Sure.
Bill: Which seems to be rather clear-cut. Now, us on the other hand, it seems as though we have no clear-cut policy. Which folks will tell you that that’s something that is, well, it leaves you open-minded. It allows you to sort of react to things. I don’t think Benghazi was a reaction. I think that was something that was just a logical outcome of not really having a coherent policy. Chaos, if you don’t tend your garden, weeds grow.
Brian: Sure.
Bill: And so we’ve got weeds growing all over the world because we’re confused about who we are. This goes back to talking about Putin. He understands who he is. We may not like that. We might disagree with, you know, killing tigers with a knife or whatever he says that he does, but at the same time, he kind of knows who he is. Wow, what a comforting thing. We all know what teenagers are like in this country that don’t know who they are, right? They join gangs because they want to know, they want to know who they are. They want to have personality in their life. They don’t want to be a mindless number. They want relationships. So, same thing, man. Same thing.
Brian: Well, it’s interesting because nbcnews.com is reporting that the Jihadis are gaining ground in Syrian rebel movement, as the moderates grow desperate. So here we are talking about giving the Syrian rebels, right? John McCain: “I’m a maverick. I’m a rebel.” People look at these words and think, “Oh, these are democracy fighters.” These guys aren’t fighting for democracy at all! We’re getting ready to arm. We begin delivering weapons, according to a report in the Washington Post. U.S. weapons are reaching the Syrian rebels. But the Syrian rebels aren’t a solidified group. They’re not freedom fighters, right? They’re not fighting for democracy in Syria, as they look more and more, and for NBC to report, you know, that a lot of these people coming in and fighting on behalf of the rebels are joining Al Qaeda to do so, how is that not a red flag for us? John McCain goes to meet with the rebels, comes back and says, “Well, I can vouch for them.” Who are you? You can vouch for them? Who are you? I think you should be held accountable for it. If they find out that we’ve done something to arm the rebels and the rebels turn out to be a front company – so to speak – for Al Qaeda, I think Senator McCain should be held responsible for his comments.
Bill: And Brian, he just simply does not understand the situation.
Brian: How can he not?
Bill: Years ago I remember Billy Graham going to Russia and of course they took him to the state churches and everybody pretended – this was back when, before the “tear down that wall” – so he, Billy Graham went to Russia during the Marxist regime and came back and was just waxing eloquent about how much freedom there was.
Brian: Sure.
Bill: In Russia. And of course he went places that were staged, people glad-handed him and shook his hand, because they wanted to use him as a dupe to sort of not get the, hold onto the idea that they were subjugating people at the time, and so I think in the same way that Billy Graham has been a dupe – it doesn’t mean that Billy Graham is wrong in everything that he does – but I’m just saying he, he definitely was a dupe in that situation. I think McCain’s basically a dupe. And this – Here’s Putin’s statement that I think is so relevant, and here’s why he’s right: American exceptionalism has, used to be a concept that described what, what our actions were. What we did. Today, as we talked earlier, it’s a description. It’s not an action word in any sense, but it’s more of a description of an attitude that you have. So here’s this cocky Senator who’s dumber than a box of rocks. He thinks he can go to Syria and visit with the rebels for 48 hours and that he’s got it locked and loaded, right?
Brian: Sure.
Bill: I understand this completely. Well, I think, you know, watch Black Hawk Down. If you want to understand thinking that you understand a situation when you don’t understand a situation, that was the motif there. And that certainly is the motif in much of the world. We just don’t plain understand it. But we act as if we did. And so we’ve got that brashness that used to exist. And really, the confidence that used to come in this country that McCain inherited, politically, which was true years ago, did come because the people, we had coherent policies, where this is what we stood for and not everybody always agreed one way or the other, but this is what we stood for and so our allies knew that we stood for that. We kept our word. Now, I mean, just think. Saddam Hussein, we promised him – he was one of our allies at one time – we promised him things. We took him out. Just on and on and on. And it doesn’t seem to be any end to the truth factor in any of this, and I think Putin is right in some sense. I think it’s dangerous to pretend that there is such a thing as American exceptionalism. And please, our listeners should learn, should understand, I’m not talking about the guys working at the Chrysler plant, or the guys mowing yards this morning as we talk. Just hard working Americans. I, I certainly think there’s something great to America, but I’m speaking in a political sense, that just gives us this idea that we have this sort of hegemonic, you know, aura around everything we do. “I’m going to go to the Middle East and I’m going to bless it and everything’s going to work,” and I’m going to deliver a speech and somehow President Obama or someone like him is going to give a speech and that’s going to affect Islam … the fight between Islamic sects that’s been going on for hundreds of years? Be more than that, in this case, and he’s just going to go over and patch it up? Well, that’s folly, plain and simple, Brian.
Brian: And I would say, Bill, my take along with yours, I would add this, that you know my belief that politicians, you know, are not great communicators. They have speechwriters, who know how to write a speech. And then you’re labeled as a great communicator as to whether you’re able to parrot that speech in a passionate way, right? So whenever I see someone say, “Oh, this speech was written or that speech was written,” I always want to meet the speechwriter, right? That’s where the brains are. So for me when I saw this by Vladimir Putin, I think he’s using the term exceptionalism almost with the mindset of believing we think we’re above the law. And then there’s other people that look for exceptionalism and go, “Wow, he’s an exceptional guy. He’s an exceptional talent. He’s really great at what they do.” So they’re two different meanings, right? Like the law applies to everyone, except Bill Heid. The law applies; the rules apply to everyone except Jeramy Jennings. That’s one definition of exceptionalism. And I think maybe that’s what Putin was trying to get at. But for the rest of us, we look at exceptionalism going, “Hey, when you try to do good, when you use your talents that you were given, when you try to make a positive impact on the world,” that’s the form of exceptionalism that I think most of us think of. But I think Putin and he’s speech writers kind of missed the meaning of the word, and what they tried to say in a word was encompassing, you know, what’s, what’s troubling is when someone thinks that the law applies to everyone except them.
Bill: Exactly.
Brian: And I think that’s what he was trying to get to in that case.
Bill: No, and I think you and I are saying the same thing. All I’m saying, kind of to echo what you’re saying, Brian, is that we have to look carefully at form and substance. Because what, what used to be (inaudible 13:45) in this country, that created American exceptionalism, both economically, politically and, and many different manifestations, now is sort of formal. And so, gee, there’s a big difference between sort of a symbol of something and the thing itself.
Brian: Sure.
Bill: Like if you go, if you see a sign in a kitchen that says, “restroom,” and it’s pointing at the restroom that’s that way, and you think that’s the restroom, but it’s not the restroom, it’s the sign of the restroom, people are going to think you’re pretty crazy thinking that that’s a restroom, when it’s just a sign of a restroom. So I think we all need our decoder rings in some sense. Which is common sense here, because we’ve got to think, “Well, what is the difference between a country that once had a coherent policy and a country that maybe is, is running their ship on the fumes of that old policy, but there isn’t anything really there. The emperor has no clothes, and so forth.” And I think the emperor doesn’t have any clothes, as far as we’re concerned by – what is our message, to the people of the world? What is our message? It’s not about freedom.
Brian: Right.
Bill: Is Egypt free today?
Brian: Right.
Bill: Is, I mean, in other words, here we go and we can get into another thing that I think our listeners should really pay close attention to, this idea of constantly breaking down a dictator and saying that anarchy is somehow better for the average person than a dictator. And I’m not so sure that that’s true. The Israelites had good kings and bad kings. We have a lot of history from the Bible. And the Israelites had good kings that they lived well under and prospered. And they had wretched kings. You look around – and the people suffered. You look around today and there are good governments and there are wretched governments, so I don’t even know that monarchy is the exact worst thing that could happen to a people. The English certainly thrived under many of their monarchs, as well as the French and other people, so we’ve made this mistake in saying anything good – a political policy good – is one that de-stables a centralized government. Well, I hope we don’t look in the mirror!
Brian: Absolutely!
Bill: Because what did Jesus say to Peter? You live by the sword, you die by the sword, Peter. And, and if Obama wants to foment and his State Department and, and Hitlary or whatever her name is, if they want to foment all of this revolution, you have to be careful. Because that’s throwing the boomerang. You, you live and sow, right? We talk about reaping what you sow, and boy you have to be careful about using different language for different people and say, “Well, what about your centralized government?”
Brian: Sure.
Bill: Is it a good thing for us to disrupt our government? And they would say, no our people are free. But are our people free? Are we really free? The way we were free under the founders? Were we even free probably prior to the Civil War? We’re not even close to free.
Brian: Well, I’m so excited that people – I think, Bill – most certainly our listeners have been here for awhile, but people are starting to wake up and listen to it, right? How many years have I been asking you just how gullible do they think we are? I cannot imagine Senator Kerry thinking that he could get to a podium, and given – at the time Secretary Powell’s pounding on the table, showing us all the pictures of the weapons of mass description that Saddam Hussein was alleged to possess, right? “Oh, here’s the satellite photos, we’ve got them. Here’s where they’re moving them. Here’s this. Here’s that.” That a Secretary could go to a podium and think, simply based on their speech, and their almost adamant grit that this is the truth, and that everyone’s just going to dovetail in and believe them, I’d just like to see a little more proof … that President Assad signed off on that order.
Bill: But, listen. What if there’s all the proof in the world. If there were all the proof of the world and you’re sitting around with Washington, Jefferson and Adams and saying, “Look. Here’s what this Islamic faction did to this Islamic faction.” I don’t think John Adams was going to say, “Let’s send all the ships.” We certainly sent ships to Tripoli and other places, but those were a tax on us and our Navy and merchant marine vessels and so forth. And so, we, you know, us Americans, we’re definitely in harm’s way. That’s what constitutional scholars like John Eidsmoe say, yeah, you can do some things, but you have to … what’s the criteria? Anytime, when one person does something or one group does something to another group, is that the rule? That would say that we’re now involved, because one group’s doing something to another group? Well, gee. We better take a hard look at Russia, a hard look at China, a hard look at every country, almost, on earth. (Inaudible 18:57) are arresting people for, for just disagreeing with what their government says about, about homosexual marriage. You can go to England and say something and just get arrested. So is that a free country, when you can’t say something free? I mean, look at every other country in the world, Brian.
Brian: Absolutely. North Korea. Somalia.
Bill: There’s problems everywhere.
Brian: Sure.
Bill: Why, why here? So there’s always something that the American people don’t really know or understand. There’s always cards that people aren’t showing when they’re playing. You know, the old thing about when you’re, when you walk into the room and you don’t know who the mooch is, you’re it?
Brian: Right. That’s right.
Bill: Well, I think that’s the American public. We’re the mooches in this situation. We’re certainly footing the bill, tax wise and so forth, but we are the international mooches. Because we are so confused that we don’t know truth from fiction anymore. We just don’t know. And we don’t even know how to interpret the facts.
Brian: Well, not only that, Bill, that’s why I started off wondering if the headline you were talking about wasn’t the fact that yet again Miley Cyrus stuck her tongue out for the TV cameras, right? When you look at Kardashians, when you look at any of the other things that are used. Here’s the thing – I see the Syria thing. I get it. Allegedly 1,400 people gassed. Who knows who did it? I’d like to know about four people, not 1,400. I’d like to know about four people, killed over a year ago, in Benghazi. You want to throw a number out? You want to be so good at figuring out who did what? Come to national TV, come to the podium and tell me who killed four Americans in Benghazi. You want to be the reader of the tealeaves? You want to be the great seer of the crystal ball? Come to the podium and tell me who capped four Americans in Benghazi over a year ago. Right? You’re so good, that you can tell who signed the order in Syria to gas 1,400 people – if that’s even the number – but you’re not adept enough to tell me who killed four Americans, one an Ambassador? His assistant and two former special ops guys?
Bill: The very policy, Brian, that created that situation is in operation in Egypt, in Syria, right now as we speak. That is the policy, the destabilization policy, in a world that we don’t really know or understand.
Brian: Sure. Right.
Bill: So with revolution comes revolutionary consequences. It shouldn’t, you know, it shouldn’t be like, “Oh, gee, every morning the sun comes up. I woke up and the sun came up and everyday I’m surprised.” I think it should be a surprise if revolutionary politics sort of don’t beget revolutionary behavior.
Brian: Sure.
Bill: I think that’s one of the main things that everybody needs to think. Here’s another take on this whole thing, one that I’ve been thinking a lot about lately and one that maybe I’m trying to work out in my mind, but as part of this, why is it – I’m thinking in my mind – why is it that we want to rule. Remember that show, that song in the ‘80s, Tears for Fears …
Brian: Everyone wants to rule the world.
Bill: Everyone wants to rule the world. Why do we want to sort of be involved in all these things? So at the same time we’re trying to micromanage these conflicts among Islamic sects, and Islamic personalities – sometimes those two are the same thing. We’re micromanaging those things in a, in a galaxy far away, right? A long way away, which violates Sun Tzu’s supply lines.
Brian: It’s interesting that you use Sun Tzu, the author of The Art of War, because to me, and I don’t like using the term because I haven’t, I don’t know much about it’s origin, but who first coined the phrase “The military industrial complex?”
Bill: Dwight Eisenhower.
Brian: So, why do we keep doing it? Because when they arm the Syrian rebels, and this goes wrong and there’s a huge conflict, more of the military industrial complex will be called into action to go save Syria.
Bill: So you’re saying it’s a follow-the-money thing, which I can totally buy.
Brian: Absolutely.
Bill: I can totally buy.
Brian: Why is the CIA sending arms to Syria? Because they know it’ll go south and who’s going to have to go in to make it go north again? Once it falls apart, who, who you going to call? Not Ghostbusters, right? You’re going to call the government of the United States and we’ll come up with some other military objective that we can go in – like in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Egypt – we’ll find…
Bill: And that’s what it is. They play the troops card all the time, and they know because we’re all affectionate toward those that are willing to put their lives on the line and fight, whether it’s a firefighter or it’s a police officer, they know that that’s our heart. And what they do is they exploit that, because they know it’s a hard thing for any conservative Christian person to say, “Well, I’m this radical person and I don’t support our troops. I don’t support …” It’s a difficult concept to not support your own country, in that sense. So they know that that’s in our hearts, and they take the things close to us like that and they use it against us. They said, “Well, we’re out there. Our troops are out there doing something.” These guys know how to write good copy too. They’re good marketers. They write good public relations. They film things. I remember not too long ago, hearing about how when they tore down Saddam Hussein’s statue, that was a carefully filmed event. That wasn’t spontaneity. They got Iraqi kids and they lined it all up so media’s complacent in this, while working with … You get a little bit of that in, what was that Matt Damon movie? Was it the Green Mile? Or the Green Zone.
Brian: The Green Zone. Right!
Bill: A little bit of a flavor for that, and I’m sure a lot of conservatives that don’t like the liberals that were saying, “Hey, there’s problems over there,” I think perhaps some of that movie at least conceptually was dead on. Was dead on. You’ve got people being fed stories.
Brian: Sure.
Bill: And they want to get the stories. They want to say, “Hey look. I’ve got a story that came from, you know, ground zero, and my name’s going to get in the Wall Street Journal if I’m the top story, that pushes me ahead.” So it feeds this complex, as you’re saying. But it’s many-faceted, isn’t it? It’s not just big companies like general dynamics. It’s the reporters, just on their own, trying to get the next story and living – I’m not sure that greed’s the right word – but trying to claw their way to the top. Get a story. Meanwhile, these guys are feeding them stories.
Brian: Absolutely.
Bill: “And look. If you don’t play ball, I’m going to send your media group home.” Right? How welcome would we be, as press core members, if we went to some Middle Eastern place and were working with our government? We’d get capped, is what would happen. We just couldn’t happen. So you end up with only the players. Only the media who really want to take the bait, and so it’s awful difficult to sort of get a story if you’re someone running against the grain.
Brian: Absolutely. But unfortunately, that’s why you don’t see reporters anymore – and you can tell the difference when someone says, “Well, I’ve always wanted to be a reporter,” and they look like a runway model. You know? It’s a different world now. As you know, I worked as a news reporter for a, in a major market for a major network, and it’s not what you think it is anymore. And that’s why I’m so excited to see people just if not questioning authority, then questioning themselves. What do I believe about this? What do I think the truth is? And whether they can ever prove about the 1,400, who did it and who didn’t it, that a politician thinks he can just go to the podium and because he says it, we’re all going to believe it – and there’s not going to be any debate, there’s not going to be any question to it – is just fascinating to me. But it’s come to that point, because for years, we’ve listened to everything their speechwriters wrote. Right? You want to talk about reporters? Speechwriters! Man, they get paid, for putting tears in your eyes. They get paid for giving you goose bumps. They get paid to make sure there’s a standing ovation.
Bill: Without a doubt, Brian. That’s the, that’s the name of the game. And the very, the cream of the crop rise to where there’s the most money. And where is the most money in today’s world? It’s right there in the political ballgame. So.
Brian: And making sure that we keep up this attitude. What is the one, this one commercial I’m seeing now? Before anyone sends the emails – I normally say send them to Jeramy – you’re welcome to send them to me. I’m a dishonorably discharged vet, so before all the little panty-weights start in about, “Oh, Brian’s saying something negative about the troops,” I was one. And I was also a police officer at the same time. So they start this whole thing about, “Oh, we don’t stand up for our troops. We don’t stand up for this or that,” as you had mentioned earlier. Our troops know what the deal is. Right? Our troops know when they’re being played. Our troops aren’t this non-descript body of people that don’t think for themselves. They know when they’re getting played. They know when they’re getting duped. And you talk to a vet, or you talk to someone that’s currently serving –
Bill: Who voted, who wanted, where did Ron Paul raise all his money? Remember that? When he ran? Where did most of his money come from? Our foreign, our, our Army. Our Navy. They were funding his campaign. Our Marines.
Brian: And you said Navy, and that’s what started me on this. You know, the, a global force for good. I don’t want to be a global force for good. I want to be a force for good here, defending and protecting the Constitution, defending the borders of our country, whatever they may be.
Bill: And yeah, the reason you say that is a good one. Because what, if you see that, a lot of times the Navy will run that commercial during football season because they think that football players are tough and they’re looking for that. But look at, look at how opened ended that means. What does that mean?
Brian: What does it mean?
Bill: Does that mean …
Brian: A global force for good means as soon as we’re done in the military war covering this planet, we’ll be a global force for good on the moon.
Bill: And who’s paying for all of this?
Brian: You and I.
Bill: And how much is the cost of a global force for good?
Brian: Yeah. Every time I see that commercial, it makes my skin crawl. There are people that have signed up to defend their country. Now, you can argue, should it be defending the country? Should they be defending honor? Should they be defending what’s right? I will tell you, that when the Benghazi story finally breaks out, there were Special Forces guys that wanted to go in and save those four, right? Because in the end, it comes down to honor, right?
Bill: Certainly.
Brian: In the end it comes down to, are you going to stick, are you going to do what you can to defend the defenseless, and especially someone on your team?
Bill: Remember in Black Hawk Down, at the end of the movie, the guy says, once the weapons start to go off, once you hear gunfire, all the political ideology is out the door and you’re trying to cover the guy next to you.
Brian: Next to you.
Bill: That’s it. And it doesn’t get any more. And listen, I know World War II vets have told me this same thing, in maybe a little different manner, and folks that were in Korea have said the same thing to me and Vietnam as well, so I know that’s just a truism. People aren’t rushing hills, necessarily. I guess when you finally win the battle you put the flag up, but all the way up to Iwo Jima, you were worried about your best friend. You didn’t want him to get …
Brian: And if you listened to the speeches of the ones who are still alive, or you read some of the speeches of the ones that have passed, the winners of the Congressional Medal of Honor, what do they tell you? “I just went after my buddies.”
Bill: Certainly.
Brian: “They were in the crossfire. I went in and got them. They were inside, I kicked in the door.” There’s nobody … and if you look at them, at least the ones of late, Bill, that we’ve been able to watch, I know a couple of times over the last few years, Jeramy and I have been out filming and we’ve stopped. Remember that one time, Jeramy, we stopped at lunch, to see a presentation of a Congressional Medal of Honor. They don’t want to be there. They don’t want to be at the White House. It doesn’t matter what President, what Congressional Medal of Honor is given by what president. They just wanted to do what was right by their buddies. By the people that they were there, to do good by.
Bill: All right, Brian. As we wind down, we’re running out of time, what do we leave – we’ve got a couple of minutes – what do we leave people with? Because I think there’s always a danger in going through and dissecting the news or talking about the philosophy or theology of behind the news cycle, what’s going on. I think there’s, the danger exists in leaving people (inaudible 31:49), right? And so, you know, I think it’s incumbent upon us to say, “All right, what is it?” Because you know me. You, I’ve never met someone more upbeat. You understand how things are, but you come in where. When you hang out with us, you’re probably one of the most upbeat people. I think there’s … I always like to think that I have a hope. What is my hope? I have a hope for the reason that I’m in existence, and my hope is based in Christ, and so I have this optimism. It’s not a pessimism, it’s an optimism. So I hope folks, when they hear us, we are describing what’s going on. I think we are supposed to be (inaudible 32:27); we’re supposed to be smart. We’re not supposed to be dumb. We’re supposed to be thinking things through.
And where’s our first loyalty? Our first loyalty is to our God. Not to our country. I would put our country down pretty low on the list. Not off the list, certainly, because I love this country, but I think certainly our family comes right below our God. And our community and other things are very, very high. And our country, certainly we live in a country that needs to be defended. And we can’t say that freedom is free. It’s not. There’s vigilance that has to be here. We have to fight these things. And how do you fight this? Here’s what I want to leave people with, and just get your comment on it. We all have to fight this battle together. But this battle, God’s put us all in different places. Not every one of us is a Senator. Not every one of us is a Congressman. We are, we have different jobs. But listen, we must learn how to defend our position. What is right? Because as things get more progressively cloudy – here we live by the Mississippi River and it’s muddy, that river, and so you can’t really see the bottom four foot up. It’s muddy. It’s murky, and it’s hard to find out where, where things are in the river because of that mud, because of that fog. So we live in a very foggy, perhaps the most foggy time that’s ever been in existence, because of the leverage of communication that all these big players seem to have.
So, I’m just, I wanted to get your impression. Here we are, but we’ve got to tell people, “You’ve got to defend people what’s right and you’ve got to step up, first in your family.” In your own little world. First yourself. You’ve got to get down, “What are my moral and foundational principles, upon which I’m going to base my life?” Then your family. Right? Then you’ve got to work your way out of your community. Everyone’s worried about the big picture and perhaps it’s justified, but I’m saying if we don’t even have our own act together and we’re out there preaching to other people, I thin it’s a dangerous thing.
Brian: You know, Bill, you talk about the fog earlier. What always burns off the fog? The sun. So for me the optimism is, you were given a human brain. God gifted you a human brain. Just use it! Don’t be duped. Don’t be gullible. Look at both sides of the story. Don’t parrot some plagiarized talking points memo. If it’s not your talking points, I don’t give a crap about it. I don’t care what O’Reilly has to say. I don’t care what Beck has to say. I don’t care what any of these people have to say. I care about what you have to say, and what you have say and what you have to say. So what works for me is that I think that more and more people are going, “Eh, I’m going to listen to my conscious on this. And I’m going to listen to my gut. I’m going to let my intuition have a little free reign in what I’m thinking here.” And I have a deep, deep, deep belief that as the great-great-great-great-grandchild of the Divine, you’ll make the right decision.
Bill: Or even …
Brian: That’s what’ll burn off the fog.
Bill: Exactly. And I think another thing is, you know, people say … remember Luther. What did Luther say? “Look, I’m not going to give. There’s two things that have to cross-reference here, and you don’t …” He’s talking to Charles and all the Papal authorities saying, “You don’t have either. Number one, you’ve got to convince me by scripture.” So, as we close, I’m saying, “Has anybody said, what’s the Bible say about war?” Has anybody thought about that? Maybe the Bible is irrelevant. I don’t think it is. There’s a lot about war in the Bible, sort of (inaudible 36:03) and conceptually that we can, we can learn from.
Brian: On both sides of the coin, Bill.
Bill: Without a doubt, on both sides of the coin. Yeah, that’s the beautiful thing of scripture, compared to many of the other religions is that you get the negative side of in the Bible of the course of wrong behavior and the course of actions that take you down the central path. So, he said, “Unless you can convince me by scripture,” which is what I’m saying, “Unless you can convince me, my conscious,” which is what you’re saying.
Brian: Sure, absolutely.
Bill: I’m not going to give up. So those are your two weapons, ladies and gentlemen. The listeners. You’ve got scripture and you’ve got your conscious. And so you have to really examine scripture and examine your conscious and that’s how you …
Brian: I think it’s like any other muscle, Bill, in your body. If you haven’t used your conscious in awhile, it atrophies. Just like your leg – if it’s been broken and it’s in a cast. So you asked me what was my final thought. What’s the good news to leave on? It’s that if you’re here, you still have a conscious. Use it. Or lose it. That’s where I am.
Bill: We’re in that hour, aren’t we?
Brian: We are in that hour, and it should be! Can you help me real quick before we go, and then Jeramy, you can cue it. What’s that thing you have about the dawn? Help me. I can’t believe I don’t remember that.
Bill: It’s a crazy thing that a lot of our people, our listeners won’t know, because it’s Jim Morrison. Certainly no Christian, but in one of his songs, he says something really powerful and he says, “No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn.” Really. He’s talking about not doing anything. He’s talking about the same principle Edmund Burke’s talking about when he said, “All that is necessary for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.” Jim Morrison’s saying, “You’ve been given the day. Don’t waste it.”
Brian: Don’t waste it.
Bill: It’s a sin to waste it.
Brian: Because the future and the divine will hold it against you. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so very much. We’re going to go ahead and run, Jeramy, to a quick commercial break. We’re going to run to a quick commercial break and then we’ll be back.
Bill: And we’re back with Gerald (inaudible 38:06), probably the leading forecaster, trends forecaster, in the world today. Gerald, welcome.
Gerald: Thanks for having me.
Bill: Always a pleasure to have you. Gerald, I’ve got to ask you, if you’re Barrack Hussein Obama, and you can’t really recognize a Sunni from a Shiite, what’s the single best thing you could do in Syria right now?
Gerald: Well, you know, I’m up here in Colonial Kingston, New York. We’re about two hours north of New York City, and about 100 feed, 1,000 feet, a stone’s throw, there’s the Senate House, 1777 they made New York State and the state capital. The British burned it down the same year. And this is the home of the founding fathers, this area. And they’d be turning in their grave if they could see what the presidents following them, only in the last 40 or 50 years, have created. Has anybody ever heard of no foreign entanglements? And then you look at the other issue – this is the most amateurish foreign policy procession I’ve ever seen in my life, and I’m old enough to remember the Cold War and the Cuban Missile Crisis. This is, this is the Presidential reality show. Seeing him going out there and trying to make his case, floundering around, having no clear vision of what to do, is it any wonder that America lost the Afghan war, the Iraq war. We lost that time-limited, scope-limited (inaudible 39:40) action in Libya, and now they’re going to do something positive in Syria? And I have to tell you also something. People can say, “Oh, Americans are really stupid.” Oh yeah? That’s why some 80-percent of them are against this? We’re not so stupid.
Bill: People do get it, I think, Gerald. People on the street, as you know. But there’s a little bit more common sense that really exists on the street than there is once you get into state department matters. As you say, this is not something that just is a function of the Obama administration state department, but it’s been going on for awhile, right? So what’s this concept that … and I think in a way we were talking earlier about Putin challenging American exceptionalism and dog gone it, I think he makes sense. Of course, I think our listeners both know that you and I don’t back dictators or KGB agents or anything like that, but man, when … did you ever think growing up as a little boy that someone from the Soviet Union, someone from Russia, someone, a KGB agent would write an op-ed piece that kind of makes more sense than what our own government’s making?
Gerald: No. You know, who would have believed it? And again, you know, as you know the motto of the Trends Journal is history before it happens. Well, I could give you some history before it happens in the spring issue of the Trends Journal 2012. And what we wrote about, you know, this is what people should understand. These politicians keep throwing this exceptionalism word out there, to their advantage, anytime they want. And of course, most people wont’ remember President Obama’s 2012 State of the Union address to the people. And here’s what we wrote: “For all the talk about exceptionalism – and by the way, all the presidential candidates were pumping this stuff out too – America is just another run of the mill, rundown empire committing suicide by squandering its dwindling resources to rage futile foreign wars that drain the treasury as its economy faltered.” So maybe Putin’s subscribing to the Trends Journal, because we’ve been writing about this for a real long time now.
Bill: And I think Gerald, the good stuff you’ve been writing about in the Trends Journal – certainly the spring edition as well as the summer edition which is about the police state – what I’m kind of interested in, and it’s not just the police state. There was a day when the police state was just the police state. Now it’s like the police empire, right? So you’re not comfortable just arresting Amish vegetable merchants. Now you want to go patrol every square inch of the planet and you want … you know, our founders. You mentioned them. They would say that God is a God of providence. Well, now our God is the God of government. Our government wants to be the God of providence too. So we’re going around, trying to predestinate and be the providential God, everywhere on the planet.
Gerald: This is over the top. Look, Eisenhower warned about this. Now this is a two-term president, Republican at that, so nobody could call him a Lefty. He was the supreme commander of the Allied Forces during World War II, not one of these guys that call themselves Commander in Chief, that couldn’t fight their way out of a paper bag and think a bad round of golf or a basketball game is being in the trenches. This is a guy who was a five-star general that warned the people as he’s leaving office that the military industrial complex is taking over the country, robbing us of the genius of the scientists, the sweat of the laborers and the future of the children. And now add on top of that, Bill, the cyber-industrial complex. Oh, and then throw another one in there as well, and now that we’re at it, how about the prison industrial complex? With their wars on drugs and all of the militarism that’s taking place in the police forcers. I mean, you see it. It’s like every other day you see somebody being beat to an inch of their lives for not obeying law and order. And these guys got enough armaments on them to go through the Battle of the Bulge and they beat up little girls and boys.
Bill: How about this 107-year-old, Gerald, that just got shot by a SWAT team. Did you see that story?
Gerald: I know! I know! I’m saying, every week there’s another atrocity. But, again, the good news, Bill, is that the people see what’s going on. And what you just saw with the Obama administration’s performance – and I watched, I suffered through all of those hours of Senate and House hearings – there’s nobody behind the curtain. It’s empty. It’s the Wizard of Oz. And if the people would realize that, we could have the greater nation that we deserve.
Bill: Well, Gerald, it seems like – it’s kind of funny you said that – it seems like it’s almost created this system that runs without it, President Obama or Bush before him, could have simply left and the Presidential spokespeople would come out and speak everyday. The media would churn and churn and churn all of the publicly released stories that are sort of written by the (inaudible 45:10) bureau and it really doesn’t even need anybody. You could have a robot come out and do the presentations every once and awhile and just say the sort of status, status quo pitch. But it seems to just be on autopilot.
Gerald: Again, you know, just to give you a little background, when I got out of graduate school, I used to run political campaigns in Westchester County, which at that time, that was the premiere, cruise ship actually came, and Nixon, that’s where they went. Westchester was the place. So anyway, out of graduate school in 1971 and I started running campaigns. And then they sent me up to Albany. I was the assistant to the Secretary of the New York State Senate, at 23 years old. And then I was also, I designed and taught American Politics and campaign technology at St. John’s University. When I was up in Albany, it was the worst job I ever had. That’s the capital of New York. All day long it was watching grown men grovel to suck their way up to the top. If people could see who’s running the government and who these people are, hey, all you had to do was watch the New York Mayoral primaries. Elliot Spitzer? The guy that got caught with $4,300 a night hookers, as he passed (inaudible 46:27) as his governor? If you or I got caught with a hooker, you know, we’d have to go in front of a judge. But hey, when our governor’s doing it, it’s a different trip. And then this other guy, this little wiener Weiner, who was showing his stuff on Facebook, running for mayor? I mean, look what this country has declined to! This would have never even been broached before. So what we’re looking at, Bill, is a bunch of lightweights and losers that call themselves Senators and Congressmen that are taking us on a path of disaster, and unless people speak up, stand up and take a step forward – as they did, by the way, just now, again current events form future trends – over there in Colorado, they just threw out two State Senators who voted for gun control. And that was the first time there was a recall in Colorado that threw out the ruling people. And by the way, this is a global trend. Just yesterday, over 1.5 million people joined hands in Spain as the Catalonians want to succeed from the corrupt Spanish government. So, the future is in the people’s hands. If they would only recognized that and stop bowing down and sucking up to the political mafia.
Bill: Do you think, Gerald, that we do sort of relax … there is that Edmund Burke thing about, you know, all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing – do you think good men do nothing when they’re kind of fat and happy? In other words, they got all the television they want. They’re eating well. Many of them still have their jobs, and so kind of it’s easy to see why, because it almost, if you look at (inaudible 48:24) sort of hierarchical thing, it kind of seems like rushing out doesn’t seem to help. If I go vote, if I go do this, if I go do that, the world is so big and so darn crazy, it doesn’t seem to, I can’t see a cause and effect relationship, and so I tend to go back to sleep. Do you see at least some of that existing?
Gerald: Yeah, I see some of that existing. But you know that’s as old as history. And you know people, taking in your individual lives, you know, anybody that’s gone through life. You know, sometimes you don’t do things until you wake up to it, but when do you wake up and how many wake up? And as I see it now, I see a great awakening. As a matter of fact, that was one of the top trends for 2013. The first one was war. And the last one was a great awakening. And you can see America’s great awakening. This was such a bad dog and pony show that they put on – and people got to see the best. McCain. John Insane McCain. Lindsey Graham. John Kerry. You see the performance in these people, and how pathetic! How pathetic! And all with a bad attitude, by the way. All with a bad attitude. And the reason they get away with that bad attitude, in front of their peers, is because of how I began the conversation about working in the state capital in Albany. Because the people lower than them are always sucking up, bowing down, pulling out their chairs and saying, “Good morning, Senator. Good afternoon, Senator.” You know. And so they can get away with that in their arena, but they can’t get away with that in the real world. And they’re not getting away with it. This is the greatest geo-political foreign blunder that I have ever seen in my life that Obama has pulled off. And this is going to hurt him, by the way, for the rest of his, his presidency. By the way, I say that. That’s a throw away line, because what’s he done during his presidency? Only more of the worst.
Bill: Yeah, I mean we’ve got him trying to still bring Obama Care into action, which is, maybe it’s the second greatest problem for him. In other words, just, when you go to create a bureaucracy that big, well, it’s no surprise that there aren’t some bumps. I mean, what do you think about implementation of Obama Care?
Gerald: There are four words, to me, that killed capitalism in America. Too big too fail. In capitalism, nobody’s too big to fail. When you’re bailing out major corporations, that’s the merger of state and corporate powers – that’s call fascism, by definition. Obama Care is another form of fascism. It’s not socialism. We’re being forced to buy insurance through private insurance companies? Now who’s making this up? I mean, if you’re going to go do socialized medicine, let’s call it what it is. We are being forced to buy from private insurers – to me that’s the merger of state and corporate powers. To me, it’s fascism, another degree of it.
Bill: Gerald, as we kind of wind down a little bit, I know you only have so much time and we appreciate you spending it to us, with us today. But let me ask you really kind of a serious question – it seems like in the trends that you’ve been talking about, you’ve got these Middle Eastern trends, you’ve got the great awakening trends. Simultaneously you have sort of dark side trends. How do you see things moving through the next six months through maybe through the end of next year and into the next year, in terms of just, just like you’ve got low pressure systems and high pressure systems and sometimes it rains and sometimes it doesn’t rain because one thing prevails over another? What do you see prevailing in the next six months?
Gerald: It’s really hard, you know. There’s so many wild cards out there. That’s why nobody can predict the figure. And right now, it’s a very volatile time. Because geo-politics is front and center, but then let’s not forget, is geo-politics front and center, look what’s going on in the emerging markets. With the talk of tapering. All that hot money that flowed into those emerging markets is now leaving. You have, you have controls, currency controls in India that are restricting people from taking money out of the country. They’re, they’re desperately raising interest rates because the rupiah in Indonesia and India, the real in Brazil, the Lira in Turkey, they’re all trying to back their currencies up with money and raising their interest rates because of all the hot money running out. You’re looking at China, where the country has a huge debt problem hanging over them. And the government first saying they weren’t going to put more hot money in, and now they’re doing it because they’re fearing a collapse. And by the way, you know what China’s greatest fear is? Its own people. There are 1.2 billion of them, and they can’t control them when they get out of control. So they’re going to be dumping more money into it too.
I think the two things to watch right now – obviously number one, the economy. Because this tapering, it’s going to come up shortly. And I believe they were taper, marginally. It’s going to have huge impacts. The other one is going to be, I don’t believe the United States is going to accept anything that Syria does, even if they do it legitimately. The war drums are beating. This is only an excuse, this gas issue, this sarin gas, or chemicals. If you want to talk about the height of hypocrisy, who is the United States demoralized about anyone using weapons of mass destruction? Anybody ever hear of the atom bomb knocking Hiroshima? Hey, how about all that Agent Orange that the United States dumped all over Vietnam? Remember those pictures of that little girl burning in (inaudible 54:20) that the United States used so generously throughout Vietnam? Oh, don’t forget this Bill. All that white phosphorus and depleted uranium, that the United States poured over Afghanistan and Iraq, and we’re talking about this guy extensively killing 1,400 people with chemical weapons? Oh, by the way, over 1,400 died two weeks ago in the military coup over there for the United States – still refuses to call military coup in Egypt. Hey, it’s all right. You can blow their brains out, but no gas? I mean, come on.
Bill: Yeah. A million people died in Iraq, so … I mean, 1,400 people …
Gerald: Yeah.
Bill: Anyway.
Gerald: And who killed them? Our tax dollars.
Bill: There you go. Gerald, you’re probably working on the fall issue of Trends Journal. How can people, what are you working on and what’s going to be in it and when’s it going to be out and how can people get their hands on a copy?
Gerald: They should get their hands on the summer issue, because by reading the summer issue, they’re going to see what’s going to be happening in the fall. History before it happens. All they have to go is to go to our website, trendsjournal.com. And by the way, Bill. We know people are having a difficult time. There’s a discount request page there. So we try to make it available to everyone, anytime, any place in the world.
Bill: Gerald (inaudible 55:40), thanks so much for your time today. We really appreciate it.
Gerald: Hey, thank you, Bill.
Bill: Ladies and gentlemen, we know your time’s valuable and we appreciate you spending it with us today on Off the Grid Radio.
