Submitted by Brandon Smith of Alt-Market blog,

In 2009, Jim Rickards, a lawyer, investment banker and adviser on capital markets to the Director of National Intelligence and the Office of the Secretary of Defense, participated in a secret war game sponsored by the Pentagon at the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL). The game’s objective was to simulate and explore the potential outcomes and effects of a global financial war. At the end of the war game, the Pentagon concluded that the U.S. dollar was at extreme risk of devaluation and collapse in the near term, triggered either by a default of the U.S. Treasury and the dumping of bonds by foreign investors or by hyperinflation by the private Federal Reserve.

These revelations, later exposed by Rickards, were interesting not because they were “new” or “shocking.” Rather, they were interesting because many of us in the field of alternative economics had ALREADY predicted the same outcome for the American financial system years before the APL decided to entertain the notion. At least, that is what the public record indicates.

The idea that our government has indeed run economic collapse scenarios, found the United States in mortal danger, and done absolutely nothing to fix the problem is bad enough. I have my doubts, however, that the Pentagon or partnered private think tanks like the RAND Corporation did not run scenarios on dollar collapse long before 2009. In fact, I believe there is much evidence to suggest that the military industrial complex has not only been aware of the fiscal weaknesses of the U.S. system for decades, but they have also been actively engaged in exploiting those weaknesses in order to manipulate the American public with fears of cultural catastrophe.

History teaches us that most economic crisis events are followed or preceded immediately by international or domestic conflict. War is the looming shadow behind nearly all fiscal disasters. I suspect that numerous corporate think tanks and the Department Of Defense are perfectly aware of this relationship and have war gamed such events as well. Internal strife and civil war are often natural side effects of economic despair within any population.

Has a second civil war been “gamed” by our government? And are Americans being swindled into fighting and killing each other while the banksters who created the mess observe at their leisure, waiting until the dust settles to return to the scene and collect their prize? Here are some examples of how both sides of the false left/right paradigm are being goaded into turning on each other.

Conservatives: Taunting The Resting Lion

Conservatives, especially Constitutional conservatives, are the warrior class of American society. The average conservative is far more likely to own a firearm, have extensive tactical training with that firearm, have military experience and have less psychological fear of conflict; and he is more apt to take independent physical action in the face of an immediate threat. Constitutional conservatives are also more likely to fight based on principal and heritage, rather than personal gain, and less likely to get wrapped up in the madness of mob activity.

What’s the greatest weakness of conservatives? It’s their tendency to entertain leadership by men who claim exceptional warrior status, even if those men are not necessarily honorable.

Constitutional conservatives are the most substantial existing threat to the establishment hierarchy because, unlike dissenting groups of the past, we know exactly who the guiding hand is behind economic and social calamity. In response, the overall conservative culture has come under relentless attack by the establishment using the Administration of Barack Obama as a middleman. The goal, I believe, is to misdirect conservative rage toward the Democratic left and away from the elites. The actions of the White House have become so absurd and so openly hostile as of late that I can only surmise that this is a deliberate strategy to lure conservatives into ill-conceived retaliation against a puppet government, rather than the men behind the curtain.

Department of Defense propaganda briefings with military personnel have been exposed. These briefings train current serving soldiers to view Tea Party conservatives and even Christian organizations as “dangerous extremists.” Reports from sources within Fort Hood and Fort Shelby confirm this trend.

The DOD has denied some of the allegations or claimed that it has “corrected” the problem; however, Judicial Watch has obtained official training documents through a Freedom of Information Act request that affirm that extremist profiling is an integral part of these military briefings. The documents also cite none other than the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as a primary resource for the training classes. The SPLC is nothing more than an outsourced propaganda wing for the DHS that attacks Constitutional organizations and associates them with terrorist and racist groups on a regular basis. (Check pages 32-33.)

This indoctrination program has accelerated since January 2013, after Professor Arie Perliger, a member of a West Point think tank called Combating Terrorism Center (and according to the sparse biographical information available, a man with NO previous U.S. military experience), published and circulated a report called “Challengers From The Sidelines: Understanding America’s Violent Far Right” at West Point. The report classified “far right extremists” as “domestic enemies” who commonly “espouse strong convictions regarding the federal government , believing it to be corrupt and tyrannical, with a natural tendency to intrude on individuals’ civil and constitutional right." The profile goes on to list supporting belief in "civil activism, individual freedoms, and self government” as the dastardly traits of evil extremists.

Soldiers have been told that associating with “far right extremist groups” could be used as grounds for court-martial. A general purge of associated symbolism has ensued, including new orders handed down to Navy SEALs that demand that operators remove the “Don’t Tread On Me” Navy Jack patch from their uniforms.

The indoctrination of the military also follows on the heels of a massive media campaign to demonize Constitutional conservatives who fought against Obamacare in the latest debt ceiling debate as “domestic enemies” and “terrorists.” I documented this in my recent article “Are Constitutional Conservatives Really the Boogeyman?”

Obama and his ilk have been caught red-handed in numerous conspiracies, including Fast and Furious, which shipped American arms through the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. And how about the exposure of the IRS using its bureaucracy as a weapon to harass Tea Party organizations and activists? And what about Benghazi, Libya, the terrorist attack that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton allowed to happen, if they didn’t directly order it to happen? And let’s not forget about the Edward Snowden revelations, which finally made Americans understand that mass surveillance of our population is a constant reality.

To add icing to the cake, a new book called Double Down, which chronicles the Obama campaign of 2012, quotes personal aides to the President who relate that Obama, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, when discussing his use of drone strikes, bragged that he was “really good at killing people.”

Now, my question is, why would the Obama Administration make so many “mistakes,” attack conservatives with such a lack of subtlety, and attempt to openly propagandize rank-and-file soldiers, many of whom identify with conservative values? Is it all just insane hubris, or is he serving his handlers by trying to purposely create a volatile response?

Liberals: Taking Away The Cookie Jar

Many on the so-called “left” are socially oriented and find solace in the functions of the group, rather than individualism. They seek safety in administration, centralization and government welfare. Wealth is frowned upon, while “redistribution” of wealth is cheered. They see government as necessary to the daily survival of the nation, and they work to expand Federal influence into all facets of life. Some liberals do this out of a desire to elevate the poverty-stricken and ensure certain educational standards. However, they tend to ignore the homogenizing effect this strategy has on society, making everyone equally destitute and equally stupid. Their faith in government subsidies also makes them vulnerable to funding cuts and reductions in entitlements. The left normally fights only when their standard of living and comfort to which they have grown accustomed plummets below a certain threshold, and mob methods are usually their fallback form of retaliation.

Austerity cuts, which the mainstream media calls the “sequester,” are beginning to take effect. But, they are being applied in areas that are clearly meant to create the most public anger. Reductions in welfare programs are also being implemented in a way that will certainly agitate average left-leaning citizens. The debt debate itself revolved around those who want the government to spend within its means versus those who want the government to spend even more on welfare programs no matter the consequence. The loss of subsidies is at bottom the greatest fear of the left.

A sudden and inexplicable shutdown of electronic benefit transfer cards (EBT cards or food stamps) occurred in more than 17 States while the debt debate just happened to be climaxing. This month, cuts to existing food stamp funds have taken effect, and food pantries across the country are scrambling against a sharp spike in demand.

Remember, about 50 million Americans are currently dependent on EBT welfare in order to feed themselves and their families. The response to the relatively short EBT shutdown last month was outright fury. Imagine the response in the event of a long-term shutdown, or if extraneous cuts were to occur? And where would that anger be directed? Since the entire debt debacle has been blamed on the Tea Party, I suspect conservatives will be the main target of welfare mobs.

The left, once just as opposed to government stimulus and banker bailouts as the right, is now unwittingly throwing its support behind infinite stimulus in order to cement the continued existence of precious Federal handouts. The issue of Obamacare has utterly blinded liberals to fiscal responsibility. Universal healthcare, perhaps the ultimate Federal handout, is a prize too titillating for them to ignore. Democrats will now go to incredible lengths to defend the Obama White House regardless of past crimes.

They are willing to ignore his offenses against the 4th Amendment and personal privacy. They are willing to look past his offenses against the 1st Amendment, including the Constitutional right to trial by jury for all Americans, and Obama’s secret war against the free speech of whistle-blowers. They are willing to shrug off his endless warmongering in the Mideast, his attempts to foment new war in Syria and Iran, and his support for predator drone strikes in sovereign nations causing severe civilian collateral damage. They are willing to forget Snowden, mass surveillance and executive assassination lists — all for Obamacare.

And the saddest thing of all? It is likely that Obamacare was never meant to be successful in the first place.

Does anyone really believe that the White House, with billions of dollars at its disposal, could not get a website off the ground if it really wanted to? Does anyone really believe that Obama would launch the crowning jewel of his Presidency without making certain that it was fully operational, unless this was part of a greater scheme? And how about his promise that pre-existing health care plans would not be destroyed by Obamacare mandates? Over 900,000 people in the state of California alone are about to lose their health care insurance due to the Affordable Healthcare Act. Why would Obama go back on such a vital pledge unless he WANTED to piss off constituents?

Already, liberal websites and forums across the blogosphere are abuzz with talk of sabotage of the Obamacare website by “the radical right” and the diabolical Koch Brothers (liberals had no idea who they were a year ago, but now, they the go to scapegoat for everything). Once again, conservatives are presented as the culprits behind all the left’s troubles.

As I have stated in the past, Obamacare is designed to fail. The government has no capacity to fund it, and never will. Its only conceivable purpose is to further divide the country and excite both sides of the false paradigm into attacking each other as the reason the system is failing, when both sides should be questioning whether the current system should exist at all.

As the situation stands today, at least 50 million welfare recipients and who knows how many others exist as a resource pool for the establishment to be used to wreak havoc on the rest of us. All they have to do is take away the cookie jar.

Who Would Win?

Who would prevail in a second American civil war? Tactically speaking, conservatives have the upper hand and are far better prepared. Food rioters wouldn’t last beyond three to six weeks as starvation takes its toll, and mindless mobs would not last long against seasoned riflemen. The military, though suffering purges by the White House, still contains numerous conservatives within its ranks. Outside influences, including NATO or the United Nations, are a possibility. There are numerous factors to consider. But I would point out that the most dangerous adversary Constitutional conservatives face is not the left, Obama, or a Federal government gone rogue. Rather, our greatest adversary is ourselves.

If lured into a left/right civil war, would most conservatives be able to see beyond the veil and recognize that the fight is not about Obama, or the Left, or tyrannical government alone? Could we be co-opted by devious influences disguised as friends and compatriots? Will we end up following neocon salesmen and military elites who materialize out of the woodwork at the last minute to "lead us to victory" while actually leading us towards globalization with a slightly different face?

If a civil conflict has been war gamed by the establishment, you can bet they have contingency plans regardless of which side attains the upper hand. In the end, if we do not make the fight about the bankers and globalists, the Federal Reserve, the International Monetary Fund, the Council On Foreign Relations, etc., then everyone loses. Who wins in a new American civil war? If we become blinded by the trespasses of a certain White House jester, only the globalists will win.