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The Solari Report – 16 Apr 2009
Dmitry Orlov is an engineer, author and blogger. He was born in Leningrad and moved to the United States at the age of 12. He has a BS in Computer Engineering and an MA in Applied Linguistics.
Dmitry was an eyewitness to the collapse of the Soviet Union government, currency and economy over several extended visits to his Russian homeland between the late 1980s and mid-1990s. His observations are described in his book, Reinventing Collapse, published last summer.
His articles on the Russian collapse experience and what Americans can learn from it are widely read, including, Closing the Collapse Gap, which compares the collapse-preparedness of the USA and the USSR, and Social Collapse Best Practices (video version.)
On this Thursday evening’s Solari Report, in addition to covering current market events and your latest questions, I will be speaking with Dmitry about the possibility of a collapse in the United States and what we can learn from the Russian experience as we move together through tough economic times.
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The essential difference between communism, as concretely occured with the Bolshevik revolution and the Maoist revolution, is the elimination of a view of man as having primarily a spiritual vocation–something which admittedly modern man generally has betrayed, but which the materialist conceptions deny explicitly and seek to destroy. The freedom to openly practice one’s religion is the essential freedom. Without it, everything else is threatened, for the simple reason that the human being is no longer conceived as human, but simply as a clever beast, as “labor” and, at need, as a disposable “useless eater.” The sacred is the essence of all values. If it disappears all that is good will disappear in turn. The fact that it can be abused or betrayed is a completely separate issue. Yes, the US is riddled with errors, the “system” is corrupt, in many ways we are a menace to ecological equilibrium, and so on. But we maintain, to a very limited degree it is true, a sense of the sacred, a faith in a transcendent Reality which is the First Cause and the Last Judge. That is the crucial difference, the only one worth dying for.
Kindly insert, if possible, the phrase “and the still nominally Christian and Islamic societies, as well as in certain other traditional countries,” after the phrase “The essential difference between communism, as concretely occured with the Bolshevik revolution and the Maoist revolution…”
There are way too many realistic similarities between today’s USA and the former Soviet Union to address in a short note, the problem is which are relevant to the topics at hand. It’s hard for me to imagine whom Orlov might be working for if he is an agent of disinformation. He arrived as a pre-teen to the states before the fall of communism, and now I’d be surprised indeed if any remnant of the KGB remained in Russia to run an agent who had the good fortune to be marooned in America during the shredding of the iron curtain. Sometimes a Ruskie is just a Ruskie. By the way, the expat-Eastern Bloc immigrants I have met (way more than a few) are the most anti-communist, anti-Marxist people in my ken.
There are plenty of ways for the USA to come to ruin: one is for its leaders to let it be run into the ground by those who can, and do, do what they want, while a confused and disorganized public wonders what to do, if anything (that is if they notice anything is wrong, between commercials). Often, the government takes an active role in breaking things.
A huge USA/USSR equivalence is the powerlessness that the people have in affecting policy as enacted by their “leaders”. William Greider tackles this sad topic from the point of view of democratic failure well in his book “Who Will Tell the People”. Or, maybe he is in the pay of sinister foreign powers , too.
When the topic is “governing corruption”, a big difference is that today very few Americans–including some of the most cynical–have even a faint grasp of how bad things really are, but may more freely speculate on the topic; in Soviet Russia nearly all knew the score (including the Powers), but could say nothing publicly.
Maybe it’s that Clinton and Obama are really Summerians.
It is a fact that oil will run out, maybe sooner than most think (sorry abiotic-oil delusionists); it is true that that what waits in the wings to replace oil is inadequate to fill its shoes–at todays requirements, (sorry optimistic alternate/renewable-energy enthusiasts); and I fear that very few understand or can imagine what this means and how it could play out, thank you Orlov and Kunstler, you contentment destroying agents of realism, you.
The bottom line is that if you try to get people to take their focus off the smoke and mirrors such as Catherine has done, you and your family pay the price. The media is the surrogate mind of the masses in America. “Democracy and Markets” is the talk but Totalitarinism is the walk and only the likes of Catherine Austing Fitts and a few others with the help of God will prevail against it.
I have been hearing the sky is falling since I was a little girl in grade school where I, and former kindergartners were made to practice crawling under our desks in case of a nuclear bomb. As a daughter of depression era parents who struggled during the late 1920’s my mother laughs at how “bad” those that didn’t live through it make it out to be. I also worked at one of those 1980s “failed” Savings and Loans where the VP was a former Treasury Officer and a brilliant, highly respected woman in banking. The little boys sent in to audit by the feds didn’t know how to spot a good loan in SF if it slapped them in the face. The VP quit when the Feds took over warning that the govt would drive this particular S & L into the ground – one that would have survived fine as the market improved. The man the Feds put in place was a nutcase and I saw exactly what she said would happen = happened.
Well, you all are going to have fun with this one.
I spoke with Dmitry this afternoon. We covered the schedule and the outline for our discussion on The Solari Report this evening.
He never called in tonight and he has not called or returned our calls or e-mails.
I ended up discussing what I have learned from studying the Russian implosion that is relevant to our situation.
I will try to find out what happened and post.
So sorry to have missed the program last night. I had a tight schedule, and it went off the rails (almost literally) thanks to our antiquated Boston subway system. Perhaps we can do it some other time.
-Dmitry