Why Backlash?
Our economy sucks, our leaders, most of them, appear to be corrupt, too much of what we are told appears to be a lie, and too many imbeciles and idiots dominate our culture.

If you want to know if an idea is stupid, look at what our opinion leaders say about it. If most of them approve, then it's probably wrong.

The Idiocracy
It's as if we live in an Idiocracy, but one in which really smart people compete to see who can make the dumbest ideas sound good.

Why would they do that?

Because if we're all too busy chasing our tails to accomplish anything significant, then we will never pose a threat to...

...to whom?

Conspiracy?
It doesn't make sense, unless it's part of a conspiracy.

But it couldn't be a global conspiracy, could it? A secret organization of wealthy parasites directing their evil minions to waste our time doing dumb things. No, there are too many people involved for that. And it couldn't be that we're all dumb enough to do this on our own, could it? That we are freely and eagerly pushing and shoving our way to the bottom. No, there are too many smart people for it to be that.

Then what?

I lean toward a conspiracy theory. You don't need to control everybody to make it work. If you have the money and connections, you can choose the trend setters, the opinion leaders, the news editors. You can influence who gets picked to head up what agencies.

In this way, a few thousand people, maybe less, could loosely control the entire world.

Pick people who really believe in stupid ideas. Put them into positions of authority and influence. Give them editorial control over the editorial pages. Make movies that promote really stupid ideas. Employ writers to turn a bad idea into a good script. Hire great actors. Use high quality cinematic values. Target it toward an impressionable audience. And gradually influence people to agree with a bad idea.

Like Machete. The movie obliquely supports the Reconquista Movement.

Reconquista is a movement to return the southwestern United States to Mexico. Proponents figure their ancestors stole the territories of the southwestern United States from the American Indians fair and square, and when the Americans stole those territories from them, it wasn't fair and square, and so they're going to steal them back.

As an American Indian, I find it absurd that many otherwise intelligent people seem to agree with this argument. The only way in which their rationale would make any sense whatsoever, is if they demanded that the territory be given back to the original inhabitants. But most of the descendents of the original inhabitants are now American citizens, and many of them live on a reservation that is larger than the country of Ireland. So what's the point?

The point is to maintain control through keeping "the masses" distracted with nonsense. These efforts infect every part of our society. The four most destructive being sex, politics, money and health.

Sex
In the 1950s, the feminist movement made sense. Women should have the same choices and opportunities as men. Seems only fair. But then in 1963 a writer, frustrated that she couldn't find evidence to support a controversial position and make a bestselling book, lied.

Her name was Betty Friedan. In the late 1990s she admitted that she lied. Try to find any mention of that fact on the web, now. But at the time it was widely publicized that she made up the "problem that has no name."

Basically, she claimed that the vast majority of American housewives were suffering from clinical depression. She called it "the feminine mystique." And she blamed it all on men.

That book became the vehicle to pervert a movement for fairness into a witchhunt against men. And against all reason, the powerful and elite said little to oppose it. Most opposition has come from grassroots efforts and a few fair-minded feminists. But they have been unable to prevent the destruction of millions of families.

The "victim-feminists," as Christina Hoff Sommers calls them, have destroyed the lives of millions of women and men.

They could never have done this without the help and active support of politicians. Years ago, Rep. Patricia Schroeder bragged that, to get legislation passed in the House, all she had to do was claim that it would support women.

Politics is a weapon that has been used to conquer the American poeple.

Politics
Politics has always been a dirty business. Some politicians truly serve the best interests of the people. I believe Ron Paul is one of them. And I believe that most smalltime politicians do, too. People serving on school boards, city councils and state legislatures generally don't stand to gain much from lobbyists. But it's a different story at the federal level, according to William Greider.

The cynicism of the bigtime politicians can be disheartening. On the campaign trail they, and their mouthpieces on radio, TV and in print, viciously attack one another. Yet, they are often the best of friends. It's just a game they play. And what they are ultimately playing for is money, and the power it brings.

Money
In 2005 it was very obvious to me that our economy was in serious trouble. I distinctly remember a conversation I had at that time with my father. "You're not thinking of buying a house, are you?" he asked. "Absolutely not," I replied, "housing prices are too high and we're about to go into a recession."

The following year, on June 15, 2006, I stood before government officials at the Skyview High School in Vancouver, Wash., and told them that "a severe recession is coming" and that "jobs at our casino will be wanted."

You can download the video of that here. Look for the "Cowlitz Indian Tribe Casino Project 6-15-06" link. It's a big file, so it will be faster to download it and watch it on your computer. You'll find my comment at 1 hour, 25 minutes and 26 seconds.

A year later we were in that severe recession.

I thought it was a regular business cycle recession. In email to a newslist I maintain, I predicted the "recovery." And, right on schedule, the government declared the recession was over. Except, it was obvious it wasn't. So I went looking for an explanation, and found it in Aftershock: Protect Yourself and Profit in the Next Global Financial Meltdown.

The authors make sense. The economy is now dominated by artificial bubbles. If you knew there are artificial bubbles, and knew how to spot them, you could not only make a fortune, but you could impoverish almost everybody else in the process. We know there are some people who do this. George Soros almost bankrupted England, and made a fortune in the process. We know about Soros. How many more are there whom we don't know?

The global economy is dominated by a wealthy few.

This is not a wild conspiracy theory. Forbes magazine published an article about it: The 147 Companies That Control Everything. They don't really control everything. Just 40% of everything. But who controls the companies? The stockholders? Not hardly. The boards and officers hired to run them? Or the people who choose them?

The people who hold the greatest wealth are just people. They're like you and me, except for all that money and power. Many of them earned their wealth. Bravo! Good for them. We should not envy them, but view them as good role models.

Others, however, acquired their wealth through government connections: the so-called "crony capitalists." Another word for this is mercantilism.

Crony capitalism is not true capitalism. It's the "too-big-to-fail" capitalism. It's the companies that use government agencies to prevent competion. Like many of the drug companies.

The American Pharmaceutical Drug Cartel is a prime example of crony capitalism. They use the FDA to prevent and destroy competition. High on their list of targets is healthy eating and nutritional supplements. Basically, they oppose your health.

Health
Food that makes you sick is cheap and easy to get. Food that makes you healthy is frequently subject to heavy-handed regulations that drive up the price and make them harder to find. A recent example of this was publicized by the Life Extension Foundation: FDA Says Walnuts Are Illegal Drugs. In the article, it was noted that companies are allowed to tout the health benefits of potato chips. Which, by the way, are loaded with carcinogens. Yet, when a company tried to tout the health benefits of walnuts, the FDA threatened them.

Why?

Power, but not to the people
The "monied elite" want to hang onto their position in society. They don't want competition. Competition leads to messy things, like a family being wealthy and powerful today, and somebody else being wealthy and powerful tomorrow. They just want to hold onto what they have. Wouldn't you?

We might sympathize with their motives, but not their methods. Which includes killing us off with crap food, patent medicines, toxic additives, and basically trying to prevent us from achieving optimum health.

Americans have not been this unhealthy in generations. Obesity is epidemic. Toxins are added to our drinking water and foods. The American life expectancy is expected to start going down. Our economy is in crisis. The middle class is shrinking. All while the wealthy grow ever richer.

Why Backlash? The real question should be, why isn't everybody involved in a backlash? The answer to that is: they will be, soon.

What does the future hold?
The general consensus of the people whose views I respect is that the mainstream politicians and central banks will continue to do the same things that have not worked before. More government spending. More money printing. More policies that put more wealth into the hands of fewer people. The rest of us will get poorer.

We should expect "stagflation." That's an old term for recession and depression (economic stagnation) and high inflation. Unofficially, we already do. The unofficial rate of inflation is about 12%. And the unofficial unemployment rate is 22.9%, according to ShadowStats.com.

Unemployment will remain high and go higher. The real rate of inflation is higher than reported, and will get higher. A flurry of improvement here and there will give hope. But it will pass.

The central bankers will begin to panic. Maybe they already are. The global economy is trembling on the verge of depression. Absent the intentional inflation, deflation would pull prices down and then down some more. Government debts are high. Too high ever to repay. There is only one choice: inflate. Will inflation turn into hyperinflation? Maybe.

Extremely high inflation and hyperinflation are hard to handle in any economy. But what happens when it's the reserve currency of the entire world? We will find out soon enough.

If I could suggest only one thing
If I could suggest only one thing, it would be to buy gold and silver. Stocks? Sure. Do your homework, first. Here's a good place to start: The Gold Report. Casey Research is another. But one way or the other, many of the world currencies, including the US Dollar, are going to be worth less. Much less.

To insure against that, I suggest buying gold and silver. The shiny kind. If you know and trust a local dealer, use them. If not, consider Provident Precious Metals. That's not a paid endorsement. They're who I use. Take delivery. Find some place safe and secure to store them for a rainy day.

Rainy days are coming.

Consider buying guns. Hope for the best, plan for the worst. The worst includes desperate people trying to take what you have. Buy guns, but be sure to take a gun safety course. I like the .40 S&W Heckler & Koch, but it's pricey. You can get a very decent .40 S&W Smith & Wesson for about $300 less.

HK is top of the line, but the Smith is good, too. For price, I'll probably go with the Smith. But I haven't decided, yet. Still too much investing to do.

Crisis Investing
A few years ago I began to invest in the stock market, again. This might seem like a very bad time to invest in stocks. But times of crisis are often the best times in which to invest:

"Buy when there's blood in the streets, even if the blood is your own." - Baron Rothschild

"Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful." - Warren Buffett

But you have to be smart. Charging in and buying a little of everything in sight might work. But the odds improve when you do your homework. I subscribe to several newsletters. You might want to do the same.

In 1979 I read a book called "Crisis Investing," by Doug Casey, head of Casey Research. I have long been a big fan of Doug Casey, and I will subscribe to one or more of his newsletters, soon.

Other advisories I like include Agora Financial, Stansberry Research, and the Financial Intelligence Report.

Many advisories give away a lot of free information, and I post links to a lot of their articles on the Backlash.com Home page. That's something I started doing in October 2011.

Educate Yourself
Economists make it sound like economics is mysterious. It's not. If you read the books advertised on my homepage and in the archives, you'll get a great education. If you buy them through the links I provide, you'll support my site. But your library is your friend. If you don't have a library card, get one. You can save a lot of money by checking out these books from your local library.

My hope - Why Backlash?
My hope is that you will find Backlash! useful. That it will help you to survive and thrive in the crisis that is now upon us. And that it will equip you, in the aftermath, with the knowledge to recreate a nation predicated upon liberty. Because that's what America is really all about.

Sincerely,