TURNING BACK THE CLOCK OF CIVILISATION By ED Butler – Releasing Reality Page 70 onwards

     As we have seen, Douglas had as early as 1924, in Social Credit, warned of the impending disintegration of Civilisation under prevailing finance-economic policies. The Great Economic Depression of the thirties prepared the way for the Second World War, both events being predicted by Douglas. The rapid expansion of the Social Credit Movement throughout the English-speaking world, including the U.S.A. during the Depression years, and the serious threat to the Credit Monopolists with the direct challenge in Alberta, was met in part by a diversion in the form of what came to be known as 'Keynesian Economics.' As Douglas said, John Maynard Keynes was an able man. He not only conceded that the banking system creates all new credits, but by inference in his major work, 'The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money', admitted that Douglas was right concerning a deficiency of purchasing power. The Keynes solution was not to recommend that the individual gain access to his own inherited credit as a right, but that depression conditions should be overcome with an expansion of credit to finance deficit budgets. This would enable Governments to "stimulate" the economy by "pump-priming." It would, of course, increase centralised control over the individual. And Keynes did admit that one result would be inflation, but this could be "controlled." Keynesian type "money-reforms," which Hitler and Mussolini had introduced, were offered to desperate people as the only answer to major depressions. Marxist theoreticians like John Strachey welcomed Keynesian policies of "controlled inflation" because they must inevitably undermine stable society. Consider the state of industrial societies today, as inflation produces increasing confrontations between employers and employees. In a little-publicised attempt to help avert the threatened Second World War, Douglas at one stage made an approach to Hitler, suggesting that if he were genuine in his anti-Judaic sentiments, he would end the policy of "full employment" which required Germany to strive to "export or perish." But Hitler, a paranoiac, was a product of the will-to-power philosophy.

The result was, as Douglas said, that by "allowing himself to be put in ostensible control of powers greater than himself" Hitler was at the mercy of those who put him there. When the Second World War started, Douglas expressed the view that the work of the Social Credit Movement would not be lost. Early in the war he predicted that the real objectives of the war were the establishment of an International Police State, the restoration of the Gold Standard and the Debt system, the "elimination of Great Britain in the cultural sense, and the substitution of Jewish-American ideals," and "The establishment of the Zionist State in Palestine as a geographical centre of World Control, with New York as the centre of World Financial Control." In an article in The New Age of January 14, 1932, 'The International Idea,' Douglas examined the reasons for the campaign to establish the World State: "there is a perfectly straightforward and practical explanation of this propaganda for internationalism, and for practical purposes one does not need to look further. Hardly a day passes without a leading article in The Times or other papers of the same type of interest, remarking, as though it were axiomatic that the world is one economic unit, and that no adjustment of the present discontents can be expected which does not proceed from international agreement. These journals are ably seconded by High Clerics. This opinion, you will notice, is never argued; it is always stated as though it were obvious to the meanest intellect, which is, in fact, just about what it is . . . the simplest explanation of this is that if you can make a subject large enough and involve a sufficiently large number of people in the solution of it, you can rest assured that you will never get a solution. A democracy of a thousand voters can be personally approached and convinced on any subject within a reasonable period of time, but if you enlarge the franchise to include everyone over twenty-one in a population of 45,000,000 you can be reasonably sure that any general conclusion at which it will arrive, it will arrive at twenty-five years after that conclusion ceases to be true. If you can superimpose upon that by means of a controlled Press, Broadcasting, and other devices of a similar nature, something that you call 'public opinion' (because it is the only opinion which is articulate) you have a perfect mechanism for a continuous dictatorship, and moreover, it is the form of dictatorship which is fundamentally desired by the collectivist mentality - a dictatorship which has power without responsibility."

     Douglas went on to observe that a Jewish financier had contemptuously remarked that 'the reason the Gentile could not shake himself free from the domination of finance was because the Gentile could not distinguish between numbers and things', adding, "I should be inclined to go further than that, and say that the mentality which is attracted by the Internationalist idea is incapable of distinguishing between numbers, things and individuals. It is a type of mentality which is fostered and ultimately becomes inseparable from people who deal with nothing but figures, and is, in my opinion, the reason why the banker in particular is fundamentally unsuited for the position of reorganiser of the world. No banker, as such, has any knowledge of large undertakings. He thinks he has because he deals with large figures, and he mistakes the dealing with large figures as being equivalent to dealing with large numbers of things and people . . . this is the idea which is at the root of the International idea, where it is held sincerely. It is that you can obtain an elaborate series of statistics regarding the populations of the world and put a committee down at Geneva, or elsewhere, to legislate for them on the basis of statistics. It is an idea which would never be accepted by anyone who had ever run or organised a small business. The danger to the world of this idea is instant and practical. There is a world movement definitely conscious of its aims, counting amongst its adherents many persons placed by social position, prestige, and other conditions, in what would seem to be a most impressive relation to politics and organisation, which is consciously working for this purpose. With it, or behind it, however you like to regard the matter, are all those forces whose ends are best served by the subjection of the individual to the group. While it will certainly fail, its backing makes a conflict certain."

     The end of the Second World War was the signal for an even faster retreat from Civilisation. The break up of the British world, the only real potential barrier to the establishment of the World State, was proceeded with. The first major blow was struck at the Bretton Woods Agreement during the Second World War, when Keynes joined with the secret Communist agent in the American Treasury, Harry Dexter White, to establish the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The most devastating blow against the British world was the ruthless campaign which forced Britain into the European Economic Community, the promoters openly claiming that this was a major step towards the establishment of the World State. Since the death of Douglas in 1952 the retreat from Christian Civilisation has accelerated. The retreat has been masked to some extent by feverish material activities as industrialised societies over-drive their production systems in a desperate attempt to keep them from breaking down. But a Civilisation is much more than its material achievements; it is the incarnation of undergirding values and principles. Once these have been eroded nothing is left but an empty and soul-less shell. History is repeating itself. It is the disintegration of Rome all over again. Disintegrating Rome had every social problem afflicting mankind today, including the youth revolt movement. A desperate people called for "strong Government." But a Caesar could not halt the rot. The destructive inflation continued. In an attempt to obtain more money from an over-taxed people, Rome even resorted to public lotteries. Modern Caesars are doing likewise! And, as the problems grow greater, the call now is for an International Caesar, a World Government. Nations and their peoples are called upon to surrender their few remaining freedoms in the interests of "world brotherhood."

     Symbolic of the state of retreat is the call by the pro-Marxist World Council of Churches for support for the New International Economic Order, for the very concentration of world power which Christ rejected. As the twentieth century dawned, mankind was on the threshold of what could have been an advance in Christian Civilisation far exceeding all achievements of the past. By discovering and applying the truths concerning solar energy and technology, the bread of life, and much more, could be easily produced in an abundance for all with progressively less human labour. Real freedom based on economic freedom, was possible on a scale never before possible. Man could be freed to devote himself to the things of the spirit. The foundations had been prepared over hundreds of years. But the very productive capacity which could have been used to expand freedom, was unleashed in an orgy of destruction in the first of a series of disasters, the First World War. It was during this disaster that Douglas emerged with the answer to the problems which had been exploited to precipitate the disaster. He was a true prophet, but he was rejected by those best placed to take constructive action about his message of salvation from further and worse disasters. And many found the truth so blinding that it was "too good to be true - too simplistic." It is now 65 years since the beginning of the First World War. In that comparatively short period of time, which promised so much, the destruction of human life in warfare, in the Communist hells, as a result of famines resulting from tribal conflicts in Africa, and many other man-made disasters, has exceeded the total loss of human beings of the previous thousand years. Standards in all spheres have declined. The very technology which could have served the cause of freedom has been used to promote lies so enormous that the mind boggles.

     In a short 65 years the clock of Civilisation has been put back 1900 years. And there is worse to come. The stability which still prevails is the result primarily of the spiritual capital of the past. But that capital is being rapidly exhausted. Reality is the ultimate disciplinarian, and Douglas said that the real threat was not that power maniacs could establish and operate a World State, but that in the attempt to create such a monopoly of power, they would produce increasing chaos. Where then does the follower of Douglas stand today in relationship to such a situation? He or she stands where the early disciples of Christ stood as they looked out on a dark world from which the civilising influence of Rome had been removed. Those who are going to advance the purpose for which Christ said He came must first be clear about that purpose. Christ said, "And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." Truth then is the way to the objective of freedom. In one of his typically penetrating and concise statements, Douglas defined freedom as the right "to choose or refuse one thing at a time."
Without genuine freedom of choice the Divine destiny of man is impossible.