U. S. A.  and the  WORLD
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CULTURE  or   ECONOMICS ?

                  Despite what may be the intended projection to influence public perception of reality; for any society it is not economics that
                      shapes its culture.  The opposite is true.  It is the cultural underpinning that shapes the economic life of that society.
 

                      Regretfully,  the  constancy with which reference  is made  to the notion of a “global economy”  results in the obfuscation of
                      that  which is  taking  place.  The phrase  is a mask used  to conceal the actual event and  to  foster upon public  opinion a distorted
                      impression of what occurs.  It is a method imposed  with regularity  in order to  convince society to accept a distorted view of itself:
                      that is, to deprive society of its ability to reason about its actual condition.
 

                     The ultimate goal of this approach is to rob people of their precious freedom; and thus to establish control over the life of the
                      greatest majority.  This arrangement  in essence  is not an economic but a cultural issue cast in the guise of an imperative economic
                      event.  The economic aspect is but a  pivotal  tool toward  the  achievement of  the ulterior goal.  Thus,  when  a  people surrender
                      their  freedom by self-conviction,  the loss  is  far more devastating  than an economic loss.  All the wealth  in the world loses most
                      of its meaning  if the holder is unable to use  it  as desired.  And,  when  society  becomes convinced that  its material prosperity, or
                      else  lack—in the absence of culture—is the only measure of  its worth;  then that society  is a slave to its own deception and also a
                      subject to the will of anyone who controls its economic life.

                     The concept of globalization  has an exclusive economic focus that  lacks the element of the meaning in human  life.  It is an
                     instrument  for  particular  gain within a  reduced quarter of  the world’s  population.  Its endless  pounding  in  the minds of people
                     debases  the fundamental  conviction of  freedom.  The method leads  to  the disintegration of  the  balanced  economic function of
                     established  societies, lowering  the  standard of living  on  a  universal scale through  the loss of  the industrial base and  intellectual
                     mass.  The resulting economic deterioration by the imposition of  ill-apportioned international  trade activities produces  the ultimate
                     desired result;  which is,  universal control of a culturally emaciated  world population.  This leads to the understanding that it is not

            the world population who owns the the global economy;  it is instead the global economy that owns the world population.  Thus,
                     the central questions become: Where does the final locus of control lie?  Is such control as dispersed as we are led to believe?  
 

                    On  the other hand, society  itself  carries responsibility  to foreclose on the  intrusion imposed upon it.  That is, by allowing a
                     deterioration  or  collapse of ethical and moral integrity,  it opens  the door to  the abuser  who  enters under the pretext of help and

           accommodation in support of  permissiveness.  The activity  becomes an  accelerating  downward  spiral to the ultimate  weakening

           and vanishment of social integrity and will—unable to claim even the minimum of a civilized economic standard.   

                                                                                                                                                                                                    [Mark A. C. Karras, M.A. (Econ.), Ph.D.]

Expansion of Western Civilization: from Constantine the Great to Constantinople and Byzantium and onward to America

NEW BYZANTIUM is The AMERICAS
 We are sincerely pleased you have come to visit our Site and we extend to you our warmest greeting in the highest tradition of BYZANTIUM.  Our Principal goal is to impart to you heretofore intentionally little known facts about BYZANTIUM as the foundation of Western Civilization.  We will avoid knowingly withholding the truth as an aim to social disorientation.  Practice of historical deception must cease.  We hope that you will enjoy our contribution to the fullest.  Welcome.
Constantine the Great began his eventful climb in York, England and reached the apex of his achievement in Constantinople, the City that he founded and named after himself (Constantine+Polis [city]=Constantinople).  By means of these pages, our readers travel through time, touching upon the early periods, including that of Constantine, of historical Constantinople, and of Hagia Sophia—the nexus of the Christian world—to arrive at places and events of our present day.  Our readers reach the outermost limit to which both Eastern and Western Christian groups expanded, bringing forth the flower of Western Civilization.  That limit is the Western Hemisphere as a whole, and in particular the coast of California near San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge where the two groups converged  as they approached from the North and from the South.