Money Talks: Mike Ruppert

The Occupied Times talks to star of the movie ‘COLLAPSE’, Mike Ruppert, about the economics of survival.

OCCUPIED TIMES: What do the nex2 months hold?

MIKE RUPPERT: 12 months? We need to focus on the next 12 weeks. That may be all the time we have to press for change before chaos sets in. The global economic system will likely be totally dysfunctional by next February.

OT: What is the fundamental problem?

MR: We live in a civilization predicated on infinite growth, which is obviously no longer possible.

OT: You’ve been charting problems in democracy, politics and society for decades. Is there anything new about what’s going on today?

MR: What’s new is that there is no more room to focus on the false or half-measured “solutions” that we have been manipulated into pursuing until now. Humanity’s back is against the wall. We solve this problem completely or else many of us – many more than necessary – are going to die and suffer. No sacred cows can be exempt from examination or challenge. In fact, it is our most sacred cows that must be challenged first! Our revolution must be complete and total, resulting in the death of the infinite-growth paradigm. Nothing less will do. The revolution — as Thomas Jefferson might say — must be complete and thorough.

OT: If you were President for the day, what’s the first thing you’d do?

MR: Tough question. My first instinct would be that I would resign, because the American president is a prisoner of the banking system, housed in a government with three branches that are all controlled by banks. But if not, the first thing I’d do would be to implement the terms of a constitutional amendment just offered by Florida Representative Ted Deutch called “Outlawing Corporate Cash Undermining Public Interest in our Elections and Democracy”. This is something I believe that every occupation in the U.S. should jump on immediately and that every occupation around the world should adapt for their own country.

OT: So get the money out of politics?

MR: It’s essential. Assuming that I had dictatorial powers I would instantly scrub the airwaves clean of all commercial advertising paid for by lobbying groups, especially those connected to energy and banking interests.

OT: How would you tackle the energy crisis?

MR: I would immediately eliminate all corporate tax deductions for energy. This idea was originated by my colleague Colin Campbell in Ireland and it’s a brilliant way to incentivize conversion to renewable energy where possible. I would order immediate halts to fracking and then I would order a safe shutdown of every nuclear reactor in the United States within 120 days. These reactors must all be shut down before collapse and infrastructure failure make them impossible to control. Fukushima is far from contained and Japan is mortally wounded as a result.

OT: You’re having a busy first day as President…

MR: It gets busier. I issue an Executive Order directing all federal agencies to immediately prosecute banks and corporations for well-documented crimes, and I would make it clear that failure to comply with those directions would result in immediate job loss, loss of civil service protections, and loss of all benefits for all federal employees failing to comply. But I don’t believe anyone sitting in the Oval Office would be able to accomplish all this alone because the American political system is so corrupt, with so many embedded rules favoring the banks, that it essentially has to be torn down and rebuilt from scratch. If you leave the foundation intact and build a new house on top of the old foundation, the new house will look remarkably the same as the old one.

OT: What is it like for you, as an ex-cop, to see the trillion-dollar frauds and theft that goes on?

MR: It is still as aggravating, painful and frustrating as it was when I discovered CIA smuggling drugs into the country thirty-four years ago. I still take great satisfaction in seeing real bad guys go to jail.

OT: Are you optimistic about the future? Are there glimmers of hope…?

MR: There are big glimmers of hope. I see an awakening I have waited a lifetime for taking place at almost the speed of thought. But certain things are unavoidable. There can be no return to growth. Prosperity (as we have conceived it) will not be returned, any more than any of the missing pension funds, benefits and services will. The street lights that have been going off around the world for three years will not come back on again. Infinite Growth is over and we cannot expect to create conditions of better living conditions, wages, benefits, and low prices for seven billion people.

OT: So there are no economic quick-fixes in your book?

MR: There has to be a complete cultural transformation to a resource-based economy in harmony with the planet that we live on. It’s as simple as that. I see that awareness emerging fairly quickly throughout the occupy movement. Whether it will be enough or in time to prevent total extinction events is in question. We are all watching this movie to see how it ends.

OT: Can measures like the Robin Hood Tax help?

MR: It doesn’t excite me in the least. Until you change the way money works, you change nothing.  I’m sure the bankers would like to lead occupy down into this cul de sac. What the Robin Hood tax says is, “Leave infinite growth in place. Leave the banks in power. Leave the politicians in power. Let them earn their greedy inexcusable profits and then just feed ourselves in a parasitic partnership with the criminals”. Yuk! I will not be an accomplice to the way the system operates. All the Robin Hood tax does is essentially demand a bribe. It is also quite parasitic.

OT: If it’s a let off for the banking system, what gets them on the hook? How do we win this thing?

MR: Our fight will not be over until fractional reserve banking, compound interest and fiat currency have been forever removed from the human (and planetary) experience. Those three things constitute the heart of the beast and until and unless they are removed, the beast — like cancer — will always return like a Zombie. Until you change the way money works, you change nothing.