Armstrong Economics Blog/Basic Concepts Re-Posted Jan 6, 2021 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Concerning 911, you said the people in Guantanamo Bay are innocent so they never bring them to trial. Was that the break which set in motion the decline of our civilization?

KJ

ANSWER: That is certainly possible. Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani was the terrorist they put on trial in New York and was supposed to be their best case. On November 17, 2010, a US jury in New York found him guilty of one count of conspiracy but acquitted him of 284 other charges including all murder counts. Basically, the jury found he may have “agreed” with the bombing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, but that he did NOT participate himself. Nevertheless, he was sentenced to life imprisonment by Judge Lewis Kaplan for the one count when he was acquitted of any murders. Under US law, the judge has “discretion” to sentence you to whatever he desires, for he is not nullifying the jury’s decision, but “increas[ing] his sentence because of the manner in which he committed the crime of conviction.”

They put him on trial in NYC, assuming the people would give him the death penalty. When they acquitted him of 284 charges, they could no longer put people on trial, for he was their BEST case. The others have languished in prison with no trial because they are not guilty. If they had the evidence of anything, they would have put them on trial for the publicity. When the government lost 284 counts, they would not dare put anyone else on trial and face a jury who might acquit them.

This was indeed part of the decline and fall. But it was not the first. Ethel Greenglass Rosenberg (1915-1953) and Julius Rosenberg (1918–1953) were United States citizens convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage during a time of war and were executed. It is well known that Ethel was charged only to try to put pressure on her husband. You would think if he really had the information they claimed he did, he would have turned it over to save his wife. The jury found Ethel guilty and both were executed. It has been long established that she was innocent.

This is the very problem with the ABSOLUTE IMMUNITY the Supreme Court created, not just for police, but for prosecutors who can knowingly send you to your death and they are NEVER held responsible.

What the Supreme Court has done in the 2020 election is torn up the Constitution claiming they have “discretion” to defend the Constitution whenever they decide it is convenient. You cannot take an oath to defend the Constitution, and then in the next breath claim you have the discretion to hear cases.

There can be NO CIVILIZATION without the rule of law. This is not a matter of if the evidence supported Trump or not. The refusal to decide that case leaves a cloud of doubt. Both sides will now be entrenched and opposed to each other, and the only resolution, like the Civil War after the Dred Scott decision that blacks had no rights, will be violence.

A civilization is a complex human society. It embodied a rule of law that allows people to come together. It is not a specific cultural type, for there have been many variations from Inca, Maya, Babylonians, Romans, Greeks, etc. There is also different technological development, which has embodied everything from sailing ships, roads, and the development of agriculture to metal refining. First, civilizations are generally distinguished from nomadic tribes by the fact that they have created urban settlements with the development of laws and typically religion.

All civilizations go through a cycle whereby it is beneficial to come together. Then they peak when corruption begins to take hold, and they collapse as people leave when the bonds no longer make sense. This is why Marxism is so dangerous. It pits one group against another (class warfare), and in the process, it is no longer advantageous to remain in the group. If the opposing group tries to prevent them from leaving, tyranny reigns and that leads to the final collapse.

Edward Gibbon wrote in his “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” about Commodus. He wrote of him:

“distinction of every kind soon became criminal. The possession of wealth stimulated the diligence of the informers; rigid virtue implied a tacit censure of the irregularities of Commodus; important services implied a dangerous superiority of merit; and the friendship of the father always insured the aversion of the son. Suspicion was equivalent to proof; trial to condemnation. The execution of a considerable senator was attended with the death of all who might lament or revenge his fate; and when Commodus had once tasted human blood, he became incapable of pity or remorse”

(Book 1, Chapter 4).

We are at that stage where corruption dominates everything and everything is being made criminal. People are being fined thousands of dollars for not wearing a mask to being thrown in jail for two to three months. Indeed, “distinction of every kind soon became criminal.” In Spain, you cannot freely travel without permission from the state, as was the case in East Germany. Anyone refusing a vaccine is imprisoned in their home, and their names are being collected. This is not unlike Stalin.