Consistency: Behold a Pale Horse pp. 65-69

The Silent Weapons document is very confusing. I've reminded you, the reader, several times already and it bears repeating: the first chapter is not something that Cooper is claiming he wrote. He claims that it was found in an old copy machine that was being tossed in the garbage, but that Cooper could verify its authenticity because of his work in Naval Intelligence. This document is supposed to be for new recruits in the silent war or new recruits prepping to use the silent weapons--or something, I can't keep the thread because Cooper loses it frequently. 

Caveat: I've never been in the military so I don't know if the frequent section breaks are a normal thing.

The other factor that we must remember is that Cooper's silent weapon is economics. Again, he doesn't have the grasp of economics that he thinks he does, but that is the weapon he's described so far. Computer analysis of economic systems that are far more advanced than the average person can understand are used to make us slaves to the elites. This implies that up until the Harvard Foundation and the Tri-Lateral commission, there was a parity in economic power. Even Cooper's own mythology cannot sustain that claim. If the Tri-Lats were able to create this system of control--they were already in control. In any case, there are no instructions on how the new recruit is supposed to be doing this. I suppose we need to move on...

One thing that I've noticed in conspiracy circles, especially right-wing conspiracy circles--is the hypocrisy of their position. Anti-government types with "blue lives matter" stickers on the back of their Ford trucks, the same people claiming that Obama was destroying the Constitution literally attempted a coup, etc. Cooper is not one of these people...maybe he would have become one we will never know. 

Cooper has an anti-authority streak that is nothing but contempt for those in charge no matter who they are. It became utterly clear that the pro-Constitution TEA party types were just mad that the guy they didn't like was the president. Cooper wants to slander all politicians, but not in the typical way. Cooper wants to slander the concept itself. 

"The fear of failure is manifested in irresponsibility, and especially in delegating those personal responsibilities to others where success is uncertain or carries possible or created liabilities (law) which the person is not prepared to accept. They want authority (root word -- "author"), but they will not accept responsibility or liability. So they hire politicians to face reality for them."

It's an interesting gambit from a person like Cooper. Yes, politicians are bad, but they are bad because we made them that way. We made a democratic system so that we could offload the bad stuff onto the people we elected and then take credit when everything works out. 

What the politician really does though is serve the elites. This is the argument we are most familiar. The elites want more money and power while the politicians are just their puppets making it happen. The major thing that politicians do is serve the war machine. You don't get the same anti-war message from modern conspiracy theorists that you get with Cooper's generation. The main reason is probably that Cooper served in Vietnam and understands that pro-war isn't a tenable position when you are not being attacked. Modern conspiracy theorists and their unabashed support for Russia are alien concepts to 90s conspiracy theorists who would view Russia as another tool of the elites and impossible to be an ally. 

The war machine is fed through "THE DRAFT." Cooper, according to his own words in the introduction willingly joined both the Air Force and the Navy (if we remember I have doubts about the former). He was never drafted, but that does not mean he can have no opinion on the matter. It means that his anger about the concept of the draft is not personal. He genuinely dislikes it for reasons that are not because it inconvenienced him. The problem of the draft is more than just risking lives in war, "A primary purpose of a draft or other such institution is to instill, by intimidation, in the young males of a society the uncritical conviction that the government is omnipotent."

There are factual problems with this. If the goal was the impression of omnipotence we would still have a draft. We would not even need a war, just something to send people off to. The US has so many foreign bases and territories that the government could just send people to one of those. The obvious reference here is to the Vietnam War's draft, but that's a "dark washing" of history. In the earliest days of the war, after the Gulf of Tonkin, the US had no shortage of volunteers. In fact, more people dodged the WWII draft than the Vietnam draft. It is only because of the results of those two wars that we think it the opposite. 

To find a parallel with Cooper's draft problem, we have to go back to WWI and the resistance to the draft. Cooper calls the draft, "THE DRAFT (selective service, etc.) is an institution of COMPULSORY collective SACRIFICE and SLAVERY, devised by the middle-aged and elderly for the purpose of pressing the young into doing the public dirty work."

He's got an interesting argument here, but one that I have not seen before. In my other life, I teach philosophy and one thing I teach in philosophy is issues surrounding free speech. One of the most important free speech cases in US history is Schenck v. US where the court ruled that opposition to the draft was not protected speech. What matters for our purposes is that Schenck was passing out socialist literature encouraging people to resist the draft on 13th amendment grounds. Socialists were claiming that the draft was slavery. 

I find this parallel very interesting as it would absolutely not fly in today's circles at all. Cooper could probably get some support until someone pointed out that he's making the same argument as 20th-century socialists and they would drop him. It all goes to the motive for the draft--profit. Socialists claimed a empire and profit motives in WWI and Cooper is doing the same thing in the modern age. The socialists weren't exactly right then and Cooper isn't correct now. Cooper closes this section with the claim that the price of silver hasn't changed at all. He claims, "it being possible to buy the same amount with a gram of silver today as could be bought in 1920."

This is patently false. In January of 1920 the price of silver, adjusted for inflation, was 15.97. In January of 1980, it was 137.46/oz. I'm sure this has nothing to do with Cooper's side business of selling gold and silver certificates and everything to do with the truth.