IntroductionSome say "The past is the past" – irrelevant – "what matters is now." If so, how do we chart a course towards the future? How do we choose our direction if not by drawing a line from the past through the "now" to see where it points, and then making considered corrections? Absent direction, our course is hap-hazard. Thus, far from being irrelevant, the past – our collective history – is essential. This book draws a line of evidence from the past through the present towards a future even George Orwell might cringe at, and every day's news adds force to this vision. Do not let events pass unremarked and unchallenged. Be informed, and play an active role in choosing humanity's course, or accept the consequences of silent consent.
If historians ever write an objective history of the United States for the fifty years bridging the 20th and 21st centuries, they will say it was an “Age of Grand Illusion,” an era when most of our citizens lived in a state of “suspended disbelief,” like watching a movie, where logic and reason were switched off in favor of a beguiling alternative reality. Historians will note this collective state of mind required an atmospheric condition – something breathed into our lungs unconsciously, something so intoxicating we failed to grasp its significance. Historians will also note this situation was no accident. While many factors contributed, they will conclude this state of suspended disbelief was induced over time by being maneuvered into converting the US dollar from a gold-backed currency to “fiat currency,” then by becoming addicted to the ease with which more dollars could be printed to "pay" for those things we otherwise could not afford.
