The US Government KNEW in 1994 that irresponsible and illegal banking practices would steer the country towards a financial collapse and an economic disaster 15 years before it actually happened.
To make things worse, it was one of our government’s own agencies (doing its job) which blew the whistle on the matter. The government (specifically Congress, our Executive and the Federal Reserve) squashed it.
Here it is:
In 1994 over-the-counter-derivatives (OTCs) got the attention of Clinton’s Commodity Futures and Trading Commission (CFTC) chief Brooksley Born, when it was revealed that OTCs were behind the collapse of Banker’s Trust.
CFTC’s Born, began investigating over-the-counter-derivatives and quickly found out that:
1) the government did not follow OTCs
2) the government did not regulate OTCs
3) the government did not know what OTCs were
4) the trade of over-the-counter-derivatives (OTCs) was occurring between banks freely, without exchanges and secretly without any accountability (in short, it was a gigantic black market)
5) the trading market was awash with secretly traded OTCs
and
6) OTCs had collapse of the major banking institution of Bankers Trust)
Now it does not take a genius to see that this needed looking into, especially when you are the head of the COMMODITY FUTURES TRADING COMMISSION, in charge of regulating the TRADE OF COMMODITIES AND FUTURES, like Brooksley Born was.
But in this she was about to discover how wrong she was.
During the investigation, Born got an alarming impression of over-the-counter- derivative trading as she heard the recordings of OTC traders laughing at the gigantic amounts of money they were getting for junk derivatives.
These men knew they were selling junk, that they were selling it in mass quantities and that somewhere down the ladder, people were going to get screwed.
In fact, they called the act of investing in OTC derivative options “placing bets,” a term that would become more and more common in Wall Street.
It didn’t take long for the 12 largest banks in America to notice that the CFTC was about to launch an investigation into their unrecorded, under-the-table, free-for-all trading of derivatives.
They mobilized all their resources at their disposal to stop the CFTC, and its chair, Brooksley Born, from uncovering their scam.
They sent their peons, Arthur Levitt (Security and Exchange Commission – the SEC), Robert Rubin (Secretary of the Treasury), and Alan Greenspan (Chairman of the Federal Reserve) to talk to CFTC chair Brooksley Born and block her investigation.
Their message to CFTC chair Brooksley Born and to Congress:
if this type of investigative effort was pursued, economic Armageddon would occur.
But the CFTC wasn’t buying it. Quite to the contrary. In their mind, if this type of out-of-control derivative trading continued, they saw a definite economic Armageddon coming.
So the banks mobilized Levitt (SEC), Rubin (Treasury), Rubin’s deputy, Larry Summers (Rubin’s deputy) and Alan Greenspan (Federal Reserve) to testify before Congress on what a clueless amateur and destructive bureaucrat Brooksley Born was.
Unbeknown to Born, they also mobilized their trump card: the banking lobbies (the most powerful lobbies in the nation), who assailed Congress in an all-out coordinated lobby blitzkrieg.
By 1998, Congress was brought into the picture, and a whole series of Congressional hearings were scheduled to see what the CFTC was doing.
Arthrur Levitt (SEC), Robert Rubin (Treasury), Larry Summers (Rubin’s deputy), and Alan Greenspan (Federal Reserve) all testified before the Senate on how CFTC interference in the flow of derivative trading would bring the economic boom the nation was enjoying to a jarring halt.
This was strange because all the CFTC was threatening to do was investigate derivative trading.
Just investigate.
But this seemed such a delicate issue that the cover-up quartet lobbied for immediate suspension of all such investigative activities.
You see, what the CFTC had stumbled across something very big and very dangerous.
During the Congressional hearings, one bought-and-paid for Senator after another took turns grilling and chastising CFTC chair Brooksley Born on what a presumptive, over-reaching and economically damaging thing she was doing by threatening to ‘interfere’ (actually merely investigate) derivative trading.
Senator Phil Gramm (R-Texas) made an especially big ass of himself, as did Senator Richard Lugar (R-Indiana), who could not help nodding and smiling warmly at the testimony of the cover-up quartet.
Most of these Congressional jack-asses did not even know what a derivative was, but there was Alan Greenspan, reassuring them everything was alright, but that the alright would not continue if Brooksley Born was let loose.
That was all that Congress needed.
See that?
Brooksley Born was trying to warn America that the economy was on its way to self-destructing. And it was our very own Congress who was putting her through the wringer for daring to do so.
Our very own Congress was selling America down the river!
In fact, it would later be Congress itself who would pass all the laws further de-regulating the banking industry and guaranteeing this irresponsible behavior when it came to mortgages (for the 'good of the American homeowner', of course). This would eventually lead to the bust.
But back to 1998...
Congress, and more specifically, the Congressional committee had the whole situation sewed up, with the respective committee chairs, under the guidance of the banking lobby, directing the crushing of Brooksley Born and the CFTC.
Congress proceeded to remove the authority of the CFTC from investigating any derivative trading...which was incredible in and of itself.
In effect, Congress had shut down the CFTC and crushed its director on the behest of the banking lobby.
Brooksley Born would resign soon after the thrashing.
The memorable and haunting image of Brooksley Born, a highly trained commodity specialist, simply looking down and smiling in resignation as one congressman after another figuratively breaks a chair over her head is priceless.
She knows the game is up, the congress has been bought, and that the big bosses have taken control, and that America is on course for destruction.
That same year, LTCM (Long Term Capital Management) went under by way of derivative trading.
Greenspan, Rubin, Summers and Levitt again appeared before congress, warning that economic Armageddon was here if the government did not act...to bail out LTCM.
Let me point out Greenspan’s hypocrisy here.
He had always said, and his attacks on Brooksley Born were based on the assumption that the “market regulates itself.” Well, here was a golden opportunity for the market to do so - by doing away with LTCM.
What did Greenspan do?
He went screeching to government for a bailout!
After 4 days, Mr. ‘market-regulates-itself’ Greenspan arranged for the top 14 banks to contribute $400 million each to the Fed bailout fund to rescue LTCM.
That was just the beginning.
Later, with the Bush administration, and its compliant Congress, absoute deregulation mania took hold.
With Bush, derivative trading increased exponentially, and spread to the real estate market.
By 2007, the totally unregulated over-the-counter derivative trading market had grown to $595 trillion (that’s $595 trillions worth of junk!) kept afloat by a continuous river of demand created by the banks funneling the Fed’s easy money.
So there you have the names of the men who helped cover-up the biggest, most corrupt and most destructive (it has destroyed our economy) scandal in our history:
Alan Greenspan (chair of the Federal Reserve)
Robert Rubin ( Secretary of the Treasury)
Arthur Levitt (head of the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC)
…and Larry Summers (deputy secretary of the Treasury and Rubin’s stooge)
Along with the cooperative members of our Congress.
Oh, and one more thing.
Brooksley Born was replaced as head of the CFTC by Rubin’s assistant, (Gary Gensler) who now continues to hold the post under Obama.
…and…
…Larry Summers survived his role in covering up the economic destruction of America to become…
…director of the National Economic Council under Obama!
From here this man continues to make key economic decisions.
In other words, a man responsible for America’s ‘economic armageddon’ under the last administration continued to direct economic policy behind the back of our new 'change' president.
More recently, after making sure the US economy was totally trashed, Larry Summers abandoned the sinking ship of state and went back to Harvard. Who wants to be on deck when the stuff hits the fan, right?
Some ‘change,’ Obama.
REVIEW
What’s important here?
The Federal Reserve, The Treasury Department, the SEC, the CFTC, Congress and probably the President himself (the Treasury, the SEC and the CFTC are all agencies under his supervision) knew what was happening in 1996.
They went out of their way not to listen to the CFTC’s whistle-blowing alert on the unsound state of our economic system, but they collaborated to squash it.
Get it?
Our government knew the economic basis of this country was not sound way back in 1996. They were warned, and could probably see that it was self-destructive system, bound to collapse some time in the not too distant future.
They did not care.
They said ‘we are going to continue on this road.’
In 2008, a full 12 years after our government was informed and abundantly warned that a collapse would happen. It happened.
What the CFTC warned us would happen, happened.
The shame of it all is that our own Congress (especially our congressional committee leaders) itself led the way into silencing and then disempowering the CFTC from doing what it was supposed to do: regulate the commodity and futures market.
This was an incredible instance of the Legislative branch castrating a portion of the Executive…for the worse.
But, I guess the incredible happens when the banking lobby enters the picture.
In other words, we were warned more of a decade before of the economic collapse that would follow if the irresponsible banking practices of the 1990’s were allowed to continue.
And I am sure the CFTC and Brooksley Born were not the only ones giving us warning.
We did not listen. In fact, we killed the messengers.
Do we deserve what we are now going to get or what?
I always held our Legislative branch (Congress) in high esteem. I always thought they would be the branch that would blow the whistle (not kill the whistleblower).
After analyzing this event, I cannot see Congress as more than a branch of the corporate and banking world.
Get it?
These guys are not our representatives, they are their whores. They represent Wall Street directly and will do whatever Wall Street tells them to do, even if it means destroying their very own country.
Congress went out of its way to make sure we continued along the road to doom that we were following. They suddenly developed a form of solidarity and dynamic initiative when it came to shutting down the agency which tried to warn us.
See, Congress is not really a collection of ineffective fuddy duddies. They act quite cunningly and effectively when they get a direct command directly from the masters!
In this case, a direct command to let America destroy itself.
What gets me is the hypocrisy of these people.
They are the first to start pointing the fingers and screaming at Greenspan, AIG, and FreddiMac,when it is THEY, yes THEY who created the laws and deregulations which destroyed this country economically.
It was they who, after having created such laws, destroyed the careers of anyone who opposed them.
Thank you Congress, you bunch of bought and paid for whores.
The key lesson is this:
The PAC/Lobby system is completely broken and has to be done away with before it does away with us, which cannot be too far off.
The funny thing is how they keep threatening economic Armageddon every time we disagree with their policies.
What did Treasury Secretary Rubin tell Congress would happen if they began supervising derivative trading?
Economic Armageddon.
What did Treasury Secretary Paulson tell America would happen if we failed to bail out all the banks?
That’s right, Economic Armageddon.
Well, guess where we’re at guys.
That’s right: ECONOMIC ARMAGEDDON.
The funny thing is we got here by being stampeded by the same people who made sure we would come to this by threatening us with exactly what we would get anyway.
Let’s stop listening to these people.
Oh, but before going, let me just demonstrate to you who is really in charge with a simple list of our 'officials':
Treasury Secretary under Clinton: Robert Rubin (ex-head Goldman & Sachs)
Treasury Secretary under W. Bush: Henry Paulson (ex-head Goldman & Sachs)
Treasury Secretary under Obama: Timothy Geithner, (Rubin’s (Goldman-Sachs’) protégé and undersecretary)
Head of the President’s National Economic Council under Obama: Larry Summers, Rubin’s (Goldman-Sachs) obedient protégé and undersecretary).
See the connection?
Goldman-Sachs and peons of Goldman-Sachs are in charge of the Treasury Department, …and have been since the Clinton Administration.
They engineered the economic collapse of America which has been happening since the Clinton Administration.
Since the Treasury Department is itself in charge of the President’s security through its Secret Service, this makes the President de facto dependent on Goldman-Sachs for his own life.
How else to say it?
The President, along with the Treasury Department, and our entire economy seems to be held hostage by one of the most powerful banking house in the world.
Can you spell o-w-n-e-d, boys and girls?
How’s that for corporate government?
You can see a well documented version of the whole sickening story in the Frontline episode “The Warning” available from PBS.
I urge you to first watch the film ‘Pandorum’ before reading this essay.
It will make so much more sense (and prevent any spoilers).
I watched the science-fiction film ‘Pandorum’ the other day and quite soon soon I began noticing a few things about it.
First of all, it was not an American production (too much meaning on too many levels).
Sorry Hollywood.
Second, it was continuously referring to many archetypes and myths, which struck me and stayed with me much after seeing the film.
It took me several days to work out what had haunted me about the film, and I found out it was more than just the disturbing story.
The movie was talking in code.
It was babbling about reality and creation, about god and the devil, and about the ‘fall’ of man.
I have never been struck so deeply by a film.
This to me was a very disturbing movie, and not just on the viewing level.
The film actually puts factors into play that challenges and questions our view of reality from the occult and religious point of view.
In short, it offers us an alternate perspective of the fall of creation by stating:
Creation has a mad man at the controls
How off-base is that really?
Look around.
I am not a religious person, but I do believe we exist in a state of denied reality.
I admit that what follows comes from a momentarily disturbed mind. Disturbed at being exposed to the concepts that Pandorum had to offer.
But then waking into a nightmare is often disturbing.
Read the following carefully, but be forewarned - the material which follows...
...can trigger Pandorum.
What follows is a direct list of the astounding 'triggers' and archetypes which appeared in the film, many which contradict basic understanding or religious culture:
THE TRINITY
The concept of trinity in the three crewmembers who are left to manage the ship while the rest of the crew sleeps in suspended animation (unawareness).
THE DEATH OF THE TRINITY
The concept that the world had originally been put under the rule of three ‘gods’ (The Trinity) but that that this trinity is now dead, and that the world is now headed by the one surviving member.
We always hear of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
In the movie, if you look at the three crewmembers of the trinity, they are equal to father, mother and son (God, Mary and Christ?).
In remembering the Holy Trinity, are we remembering not what is, but what was?
THE DEVIL
The concept of the devil in that one of the trinity turns against the ship (creation) and kills the other two, leaving him as sole god of that world (the ship). The Trinity (and the correct order of things) has been totally deposed.
FALL OF THE GODS
The concept that humanity is a race of fallen gods.
Every crewmember aboard the Elysium is the equivalent of a ‘god’ in that he or she is a highly trained technician, in other words, a peer and equal of Gallo.
Yet because creation has fallen and is under the control of the Devil (Gallo), they are not allowed to see this. They emerge from their sleep chambers, and they don’t even know who they are, vulnerable to Gallo’s instruction on what reality is. Everyone has heard the occult phrase ‘We are all gods’ or ‘I am god.’
Makes you think, doesn’t it?
BEING CAST OUT OF PARADISE
The concept of humanity being cast out of paradise (a better existence) not out of righteousness, but because of more base reasons.
The casting out of the crew into the lower bowels of the ship to live in a state of slow deterioration, constant fear and eventual cannibalism resembles the casting out of man from Paradise unto this world.
But in the case of the Elysium, it is not punishment, but the will of a ruthless control-freak. Add to this the reason Adam and Eve were cast out (for eating from the tree of knowledge) and you have another uncomfortable analogy.
THE CORRUPTIVE EFFECT OF ABSOLUTE POWER
The concept of absolute power corrupting absolutely through a form of inevitable insanity.
As absolute God of the ship, Gallo gets to practice every sort of depravity amongst the sleeping crew, as he awakens them one by one to play games with them for almost 1000 years.
Power was made to be shared.
The holy trinity demonstrated in the story reflected this natural fact, which exists in things like the distributed powers of our own government, and in many other things.
Absolute power is not only evil, it is unworkable.
Just look at North Korea, and its god-man. The absolute power that Gallo assumes over every single member of the crew on his ship corrupts him absolutely, and leads to a form of existential hell.
The notion of one man, without any reference to the opinions of any other (like absolutist dictators - or God?) is demonstrated as leading to a form of alienated insanity.
TIME
The concept that time is not what it seems.
The relativity of time comes across as something awesome.
What does time matter if you are Gallo?
You can walk out of your suspended animation chamber and do whatever you want until you become bored. Then you can go back to sleep. For how long? A decade, a century? How about for three centuries, just to supply some interesting change to the environment?
Time is meaningless to a being that can suspend time, and come in and out of it at a whim.
In this way, Gallo is virtually immortal (like god).
THE CORRUPTIVE EFFECT OF IMMORTALITY
The concept of immortality as being corrupting
As a ‘god’ Gallo is not only omnipotent, but immortal.
He is in total control of the reality of his creation. Because there is no limit either by way of morality or time, or reference, Gallo truly assumes the disposition of a ‘god’ in that everything he thinks simply is or becomes. Every thought he creates is righteous and true. In other words, it just is.
CREATION AS HAVING BEEN SABOTAGED
The concept that creation has been sabotaged and taken over by some evil force.
Obviously creation was something majestic and grand – the Elysium functioning as it should be, granting its entire crew an aware, secure and prosperous future, and a measure of immortality (through the hibernation chambers), as well as a democratic and powerful society on its way to paradise.
The Elysium could itself be seen as a sort of Mount Olympus, a home of the gods. All this until the ‘one’ enters the bridge and takes over the entire vessel (creation).
Mythology is filled with the concept of a ‘war of the gods’ and a ‘casting down’ of the gods. The Greek mythic battle of Kronos and his Titans (the original inhabitants of creation) againts Zeus (Kronos’ son) and his allies (the rebels of creation).
In the end, Kronos (the real father of creation) is cast down into Hades, along with all his loyal allies, and Zeus is left in charge. Now Zeus’ one can readily relate to that of Gallo.
Zeus is simply a self-absorbed and paranoid imp, toying with creation, which he treats as his own private playpen.
The Greeks respected Zeus not because he was the most perfect, but because, he quite simply seemed to be at the controls of creation (much like Gallo is).
In the same manner, Christian concepts present a battle between the Devil and his angels and God and his angels, with the Devil being cast down into the world.
But who is to say who cast down who?
Isn’t the victor the very first to proclaimed the vanquished ‘the devil?’
Take a look around you. Read the newspapers, and then think about it: who cast down who?
In the Egyptian mythos, Set, the Devil, actually kills Osiris (the good god). Osiris later re-emerges again, but this time the god of the underworld, to which he has been cast down.
How is that for uncomfortable?
DEMONS
The concept that demons are the enslaved and servile remains of what used to be gods.
The concept of demons, the ‘Hunters,’ represent the fallen gods (or angels) who have been corrupted by the actions of the one god so much so that they can no longer be considered to have any resemblance to their original form. They are virtually mindless beasts.
How close is the behavior and appearance of the ‘Hunters’ to that image we all have of demons. But the tragic revelation is that the demons did not become so through acts of their own, but of the god who enslaved them, and now manipulates (not orders) them to do his bidding, just as he does with the humans.
The double tragedy is that the demons emerged not from the very worst, but from the very best, who refused to go along with the Devil, and so were banished to the ‘netherworld’, not for being evil, but for being good.
Tolkien offers a similar concept in the creation of the ‘orcs’.
LOWER AND HIGHER EXISTENCE
The concept of a lower and higher existence or dimensions.
The ending of the film, brings into stark and chilling contrast, a form of ultra-dimensionality, of opposite worlds so close to each other, yet an infinity away.
The Elysium is only a thousand meters under an ocean surface that separates it from paradise. Yet how hopelessly separated it is!
ABSOLUTE POWER and UNAWARENESS PAVES WAY TO HELL
The concept that absolute power and absolute unawareness leads to a hopeless perdition.
The movie makes clear that there is a very clear cut way to hell:
1) absolute power and 2) absolute unawareness.
Looking at this planet’s history of intellectual suppression and reinforced ignorance, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that we are quite close to achieving it (absolute hell, that is).
Centralized absolutist governments have not made happy abodes for their inhabitants. Each one becomes like a Gallo, slowly losing touch with reality, while reality becomes more hellish.
Awareness is the key factor here. Each inhabitant of the Elysium (except Gallo) is totally unaware of reality. As such, they are totally under Gallo’s control.
This asphyxiating unawareness makes it impossible for them to better their condition or change their reality in any way. The ‘hunters’ represent the ultimate and extreme condition of unawareness.
There is a tie-in here: Absolute power demands absolute unawareness.
They go hand in hand.
The outstanding fact here is how much of a gigantic difference awareness really makes, and how devastating unawareness really is.
If you come right down to it, absolute power reinforces unawareness and proceeds to construct its own reality, just like Gallo does.
MORALITY IS RELATIVE
The concept that morality is relative, changing and totally dependent on its environment.
Morality is presented as something which is subject to what surrounds it. If there is no one to judge or even know what one has done. judgment becomes impossible.
Without judgment, morality becomes nonexistent.
Morality is relative.
One hopes that there is a universal law that proclaims what is constructive moral, while what is destructive is immoral, but who is to differentiate if only one entity is in charge of it all, and everything revolves around his own construction?
STAGNATION AS A PROCESS OF PERPETUAL DESTRUCTION
The concept of perpetual self-destruction as a form of perpetual stagnation.
Every single living thing aboard the Elysium exists to serve as protein (food) for the other living things.
In other words, it is a world that exists by eating itself in perpetuity.
How close are we to this dark world of perpetual destruction?
All you have to do is read our history to see how we rise and fall, create and then destroy ourselves.
Isn't our very own world building and destroying itself…in perpetuity.
How many civilizations have risen and fallen into dust?
Aren’t we really trained to ‘eat' (compete against) each other and prey on each other? At work, we fear those under us because they are bright, and hate those above us because we find them undeserving.
Aren’t we living out Gallo’s reality?
THE DEVIL AS IN CHARGE OF THIS WORLD
The concept of an evil being having dethroned creation and sabotaged it, to present us with the reality in which we exist today.
Having killed off the other two thirds of the trinity, the true Devil is in charge of the world, regardless of what he calls himself: Peyton, Gallo, or God.
GOD OR DEVIL?
The concept of us not really knowing who is God or who is Devil.
Do the terms actually mean anything except who is the evil one and who is the good?
How do we know which is which? Who deposed who? Who won the struggle?
Is God Gallo, disguising himself as Peyton?
Is the 'Devil' Bower really the 'serpent' trying to rescue us from a fallen and naked existence?
Certainly the serpent sounds more like Bower when he tells Eve to eat from the tree of knowledge.
And God sounds more like Gallo when he becomes alarmed that man has eaten from the Tree of Knowledge and makes sure he does not also eat from the Tree of Life to make sure to deny man all true knowledge and all true life.
What is this really?
Who is who?
Indeed, what type of God is God, when he becomes alarmed that humans are coming together and collaborating in their endeavors. His greatest fear: That "there will be nothing too difficult for man to accomplish"?
How much like Gallo is he at Babel, where he makes sure humanity is separated and neutralized through alienation and ignorance?
The victor will always present himself as just, and the deposed will always be presented fallen.
So does it really matter who claims to be God and who is proclaimed to be the Devil.
You will forgive my ‘blasphemy’ if I say to judging any entity by its acts instead of its label.
THE DEVIL IN DISGUISE
The concept of the Devil always presenting himself as someone else.
But the devil cannot reveal his true self to the inhabitants of his ‘creation.’ First of all because it is an usurpation and a fraud, and second because he is the cause of it.
So Gallo, through his many releases of the unfortunate humans, always presents himself as someone else. Someone good, someone they can trust…like Payton. But the Devil’s purpose is not really to cause someone to fall (he has caused that already), but to amuse himself, and to make sure his creation continues under his control.
Somewhat a more complex view of the Devil, isn’t it?
What would an enthroned master teach to his fallen slaves?
'Turn the other cheek'?
‘The meek shall inherit the earth’?
‘Give Caesar what is onto Caesar’?
‘Slaves, be loyal to your master’?
Or how about this masterpiece:
"Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment." (Romans 13:1)
Makes you think, doesn't it.
Feel any divine blessing after reading that?
Or how about a philosophy of pacific acceptance and resignation like self-sacrificial Christianity or the resigned deprivation of India's caste system?
How about this one:
Believe exactly what you are told, do not deviate from it in any way shape or form, or you will be subjected to eternal torture.
In so many words, this is the mantra of most religions.
It isn’t clear what Gallo attempted to teach to those whom he released, but one thing is absolutely clear: there is only one master and one absolute source of all authority and power - Gallo.
And for humanity there are only three commandments:
1) Eat each other
2) Do and believe exactly what your are told
3) Never truly come together in any way shape or form.
Gallo plays with the destiny of those he releases rather than speak to them directly or reveal anything of value to them.
RELIGIOUS MYTH
The concept of religious myth presenting only a vague reference to reality.
Who is to say that Gallo did not release Leland at one time or another to play with him and finally approve with amusement of Leland’s final transformation into a well-off, indifferent cannibal priest?
Leland is indeed a special case.
Gallo seems to have revealed to him more than any other on the Elysium: the true story of how it all began, which Leyland preaches with a form religious fervor inside a form of ‘cathedral.’ He even uses the original end-transmission from Earth as a form of church organ.
Leland is the archetype of our priesthood.
Gallo might have perhaps revealed the story to Leyland as a sort of existential self-affirming and confession.
But it is only half the story, told in a veiled and occult narrative. The real culprit is not even identified by name.
How many Leylands do we have in our cathedrals telling us only a vague and veiled reflection of what has really happened?
When Leyland arrives onto the bridge of the Elysium, indeed, its almost as if he and Gallo had known each other before. Gallo seems to become frustrated at Leyland’s unplanned appearance and kills him (the Devil God likes everything to happen his way and hates surprises (loss of control).
THE DEVIL AS INSANE
The concept of the devil being hopelessly insane.
The image of Gallo is the image of insanity. He is obviously hopelessly demented, absolutely self-absorbed, and ultimately, self-destructive, left at the controls of creation by a moment of carelessness and a set of unexpected coincidences.
TO THE DEVIL, WHAT HE DOES MAKES PERFECT SENSE
The Devil following his own unmistakable logic.
To Gallo, what he does makes perfect sense. Liberated from any bond of morality, responsibility, accountability or conscience, he sees himself and his creation – the sabotaged Elysium – as one.
Gallo is an insane god.
He does as he pleases and what he pleases becomes creation.
‘Life eats life, and what remains is what is,’ he says.
By that same token, his proclamation seems to support the notion that what exists is the result of the strong and the cunning. Everything else is swept away and meaningless. That is the way of nature and the universe. That is what Gallo sees.
How many times do we hear this same philosophy from the mouthes of deluded evolutionists, racists and ghetto dwellers?
THE DEVIL IS NOT ALL POWERFUL
The concept of the Devil, not as all powerful, but simply as one of the Gods who has found himself at the controls.
The devil is rather weak and vulnerable, as Gallo demonstrates. He is just a human being fooling a ship full of other human beings (or what’s left of human beings) into following his map of existence.
The main mantra is ‘Do, don’t think.’
Ever hear the expression "You think too much?"
As such, Gallo is not a revealed god. He is not to be worshipped, or even known, but instead, a god happy to be at the controls of existence.
As such, he is an occult and all-powerful god.
Isn’t our own God an occult being we know little or nothing about?
Isn't our own God an occult God?
Why?
ELYSIUM
The concept of Hell as a warehouse not of the evil ones, but of the good and the true.
Elysium is the ancient Greek paradise reserved for the good and the just. The very name of the ship is a cruel mockery of the crew’s destiny.
The Elysium is no paradise.
The good, the just and the brave are literally clobbered, ridiculed, destroyed and forced to live in deprivation, while the corrupt rise to the top of the food chain.
Sound familiar?
In the film, Elysium is not the paradise of the brave and the just, it is simply their warehouse.
It is the place where they are trapped by the Devil simply because they are a possible danger to him.
THE TEMPTATION
The concept of the Devil tempting man.
Gallo’s appeal to Bower at the end of the movie represents the temptation of the devil. We see the archetype within the Bible during Eve’s temptation by the serpent, Christ’s temptation by Satan and in Star Wars, by Vader’s appeal for Luke to join ‘the dark side.’
The Devil actually believes in what he is talking about.
Gallo represents surrendering to Pandorum (a type of space insanity) as a form of liberation, a total freedom from the bonding chains of morality, restriction, limitation or parameters. The ‘sky is the limit’ or ‘remove your parameters’ or ‘you can do anything you set your mind to’ as they say.
And Bower is tempted. He feels the ‘power’ of the insanity. Hasn’t it, after all, given Gallo absolute power?
"I am offering you the kingdom" says Gallo.
How similar to the Devil offering the world to Christ.
Wasn’t Christ (like Bower) ‘released’ here, meandering here and there in a supposed nebulous ‘mission’ he didn't even seem to understand completely - a cruel set up by the impish god?
Wasn’t Jesus abandoned at the end, crying out “father why hast thou forsaken me?”
Just like when Gallo abandons the clueless Bower in the bowels of his creation?
Who was Jesus's god?
Gallo playing another one of his 'games' perhaps?
EVIL AS NATURE
The concept of the false idea of nature as brutal and hard.
During the temptation of Bower, Gallo uses the old justification of nature as brutal. “life eats life” he says. How many times have we heard evil being justified as blunt reality...or the lesser evil...or that might makes right...or that the future belongs to the strong?
BABEL
The concept of a purposefully divided and alienated humanity.
The humans aboard the Elysium are themselves hopelessly alienated from each other. The humans Bower runs into are fearful, distrustful, parasitical or exploitative, several speak undecipherable languages.
One thing is sure, the humans are lone wolves, who exist in absolute alienation from each other. They do not trust each other, they cannot work together, many cannot even speak to each other.
How similar is that to this world we live in?
Aren’t we kept in a form of social, cultural, linguistic, religious isolation, down to our lowest denominator?
How did this come about?
Is it because Gallo releases only one human at a time (like he did with Bower), so that they and their descendants (like Manh) grow up depending only on themselves? Remember – Gallo has the luxury of waiting entire decades between each release.
The ‘creator’ has made sure man exists one apart from the other, separated by fear, distrust, predatory instincts and rage.
In the case of the hunters, they are no longer even members of the same species, and are its predators - the demons at the mindless service of 'the devil'?
One can see the method to Gallo’s madness. He keeps the inhabitants of his creation separated by race, language, fear and aggression, so that they can never come together to do much of anything.
Sound familiar?
Read the story of the Tower of Babel.
Was it really God or the usurper of the Trinity who created Babel amongst us?
THE OCCULT - SECRETS THAT ARE KEPT FROM US
The concept of occult worlds and occult reality.
The term ‘occult’ means that which has been hidden or which has been cut off from our reality. I can think of no better term. What we see and know is not all there is. A large chunk of it has been hidden from sight, just like with the inhabitants of the Elysium.
The occult has been occluded for a reason, good or bad.
Is it to avoid having to face nightmares like Pandorum? Or has it been made so to keep us impotent subjects of a self-absorbed monomaniacal god?
I don’t know the answer, but the fact that the occult is occult for a reason is enough to scare me.
PANDORUM
The concept of too much knowledge leading to insanity.
The very name seems to suggest Pandora, who opened up the forbidden box, and let all sorts of evil out onto the world.
Is it really an insanity, or a revelation which is so awesome and powerful that it drives the limited minds of the revealed insane? The nature of Pandorum is always left a mystery, presumably because the humans themselves don’t really understand what it is.
Could Pandorum be simply the universe forcing its way into the mind of a perceptive recipient, driving him totally insane?
Upon perceiving the awesomeness of the universe, and, perhaps its oneness, does the little mind of he perceiver begin to think he is the universe?
Whatever the case may be, the end-symptoms of Pandorum seem to be a form of lucid insanity – the individual victim become a perfected form of sociopath.
How many of these are up there at the controls of our society even as you read this? What did they get revealed to them?
If anything, the disease called ‘Pandorum’ is simply a warning to us, innocent and naive space-faring race that we are (on our spaceship Earth), that we know little of what’s out there and that we’d better be very careful where we step.
THE CROSSING OVER
The concept of the frightfulness of taking that first step into occult reality.
The jettisoning into the void is one of the scariest endings one can imagine. Indeed, it was the ending for many aboard a previous expedition. But near the end of the film, it becomes the means to reach paradise.
What a powerful symbol for crossing-over into the occult!
It is frightening because it is unknown. How much secure and safer is it to remain aboard the Elysium than to jettison yourself into an unknown void?
Of course, the occult secret is there is no deep space, but an ocean, and on the surface of the ocean, paradise, but no one has gone there until Bower breaks the pattern.
I don’t pretend to know what the occult is. But penetrating it is bound to be scary, just like jettisoning into the void from within the bowels of the Elysium.
Just like following the directions to one occult experience or another, whether it be accepting Christ, going into a drug-induced trance, participating in a sweat-lodge, summoning entities, etc, penetrating the occult is scary and unnerving.
Sometimes, just getting to the bottom of the truth is scary.
How many of us really dare to jettison into the void?
And, for that matter, what really lies on the other side?
AWARENESS SO CLOSE YET SO FAR
The concept of awareness as a world-changing factor.
The inhabitants of the Elysium are only a few thousand meters from paradise, yet they are totally unaware of it.
How well this represents the occult.
How close this resembles the trance of religious masters who see the glimpse of something we can’t imagine? Life is an illusion, they say. You are a lot more than this, they say. We are at the bottom rung of the universe, they say.
Who’s to say they aren't right?
It sure looks like the bottom rung from where I am sitting.
WE ARE GODS, WE JUST DON’T KNOW IT
The concept of humanity as fallen gods.
The film presents a curious opposite view of creation. Instead of it being the Devil who is cast down from heaven by God, it is the Gods who are cast down from Heaven by the Devil…who then proclaims himself to be God. Then, he proclaims the down-casted Gods mortals, groveling for their very existence.
Nobody knows the better, do they?
Is humanity a race of cast-down gods, ruled by one of their own, who exalts himself above all simply because he has gotten at the controls?
THE FLOOD
The concept of the flood as doing away with an unloved creation.
It is obvious that what threatens to end the existence of sabotaged Elysium and all therein is a giant flood.
The man-god in charge, Gallo, in fact, puts all the pieces in place for it to happen. Did he plan it that way? Certainly he seems not too perturbed that his entire creation is about to be destroyed.
It is simply god allowing his unloved and abused creation to be destroyed.
The monomaniacal self-absorbed God is a total sociopath. He doesn't care for the very creation he himself created, and is willing to destroy it at the drop of a hat.
Read the story of the Flood
GOD ESCAPING HIS OWN CREATION
The concept of God bailing out of his own creation or destroying it at a whim.
It is obvious that Gallo, the god-man, has created a living hell, which he does not even really care for one way or another.
Everything is a whim.
As the end of his world seemingly approaches, he begins to consider abandoning his own creation.
Young Gallo’s advice (actually Gallo talking to himself) about jettisoning from the ship is not insanity, but a serious consideration as he begins to suspect Bower might not shut down the reactor and that the ship is doomed – the Devil is considering abandoning his doomed creation without a whim, just like God abandoning his 'creation' at the time of the Flood.
IS THE ELYSIUM EARTH?
How similar is the meaningless existence we are offered here on Earth to the existence of the hunters and the derelict humans on the Elysium.
The truth is we don’t have much of purpose here except to survive, compete, breed and die, oh, and go along with one of the occasional brutal and demented games called wars and genocides (Gallo having fun?).
How similar to the inhabitants of the Elysium we are.
Did the inhabitants of Earth ever have a higher mission (seriously - did we ever have a higher mission?), like the crew of the Elysium did?
Prologue
Isn’t Earth itself a form of spaceship traveling through space with its unfortunate crew, totally ignorant of its original goal or mission, stagnant, sabotaged and seemingly at the hands of a mad ‘god’?
How much like the gods are we ourselves?
Does not the Bible say God made man in his own image?
Wasn’t God’s prime directive to Adam and Eve that they never eat from the Tree of Knowledge?
Some directive.
The order is to remain in ignorance in perpetuity. A directive that might very well have come straight from Gallo.
Of course, in any conflict, it is the winning side that assumes the mantle of righteousness, and the losing side who is labeled as evil.
In other words, the winner will always be the god, and the loser will always be the devil.
So we read with a bit of suspicion when we see the ‘devil’ say to Eve:
“God knows in fact that on the day you eat it (from the Tree of Knowledge) your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods.”
Isn’t 'the devil’ in this instance acting and sounding more like a Bower than Gallo?
Isn’t he seeking the actual liberation of mankind?
And in the end, isn’t God acting more like Gallo than any form of righteous entity?
Once ‘god’ finds out that man has eaten from the Tree of Knowledge, he becomes alarmed and frightened.
Really, the God creator of the universe frightened?
If what the ‘devil’ said was a lie, why is ‘God’ frightened?
Indeed, ‘God’ states (apparently talking to himself like Gallo):
“See, the man has become like one of us, with his knowledge of good and evil. He must not be allowed to stretch his hand out next and pick from the tree of life…and live forever” (Geneseis3:22)
Is this a kind and caring god, or is it a Gallo, seeking to cover up the truth about the Elysium and keep fellow crewmembers from learning the truth -that they are all Gods just like him?
Let me quote ‘god’ again at the construction of the Tower of Babel, when he sees men come together and collaborate in his endeavors.
Yes, the ‘god’ of the entire universe becomes frightened again, and exclaims
“There will be nothing too hard for them to do.”
Accordingly, he proceeds to separate and alienate humanity, much like Gallo has done in the Elysium with his human victims.
Oh yes, if the human population of the Elysium ever came together, who knows what havoc they might create aboard Gallo’s twisted creation?
The scene where Gallo argues with himself is one of the most disturbing in the film.
How many times do we see god arguing with himself in the Bible? Who is he talking to?
Himself?
Or is he pretending to talking to the Trinity he himself murdered?
The purpose of this essay is not to tell say God is the Devil or the Devil is God, but to point out a possibility of a lie and an occultation in our existence, and the reason for that lie and that occultation.
I am not going to say I know exactly what is, but I will say things smell very fishy now and then.
Regardless of what the truth may be, of one thing I am pretty sure: humanity is a fallen race with a lot of latent potential, which has been put in that condition (fallen)probably more by design than by accident.
The ‘Gallo’ entity or sabotaged reality (whatever that may be) probably wants to keep it that way.
We use 10% of our brains.
Most of our DNA is ‘useless,’ and, according to our bright scientists, serves no purpose at all.
(yeah, right).
90% of humanity lives in abject poverty and deprivation.
Hey, that's virtually all of us.
There goes that fishy smell again.
Is reality our reality or the reality we experience really a manufactured reality put together by the Gallo of this planet?
Are we living reality or Gallo’s reality?
Are we going somewhere or are we simply existing in Gallo’s insane manufactured version of the world?
Look around.
Our mission, our reality, our purpose has been sabotaged.
Our World (the Elysium) has been sabotaged.
Gallo is at the controls.
All we are left with is the twisted reality of an insane and isolated existence, vague twisted explanations of the past and glimpses, dreams, insights really of a future that was supposed to be...
...and the feeling or idea that we can somehow reach the true 'paradise' we were destined for.
There are things you are supposed to know and there are things you are not supposed to know.
One thing you are not supposed to know is that the computers of the major banks in America went down simultaneously on Saturday, November 6, 2010.
Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and US Bank and all the other big banks (at the very least) were unable to process transactions because their computers went down simultaneously NATION WIDE.
No newspaper reported, no news program made it known.
As far as I can see no conspiracy site 'exposed' this.
Ladies and gentlement, this was (is?) something BIG.
That not a peep made it to the 'all-seeing' Internet is a scary reminder that the whole shebang is censored.
A multitude of people are talking about how all the computers across the country at their bank shut down over the weekend, but (amazingly) no news story or expose has put it all together to reveal that ALL THE MAJOR BANKS COMPUTERS SHUT DOWN SIMULTANEOUSLY ON 11-6-10.
