Aggregatore di feed

Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok has gone full Nazi after changes were made to its programming to give it a heavier right wing bias, sparking international headlines with its tweets praising Adolf Hitler’s treatment of Jews and babbling about Jewish conspiracies to spread anti-white hate.

The official X account for Grok announced that the team is “aware of recent posts made by Grok and are actively working to remove the inappropriate posts,” saying “xAI has taken action to ban hate speech before Grok posts on X.”

So apparently they’re having a hard time teaching their chatbot specifically what kind of right wing bias they want it to have.

Shit’s getting weird, man. The age of AI is weird.

AI is presenting a very interesting dilemma to each of us. We now each have to decide as individuals just how human we wish to keep our experience, because we’re hitting a point where we can become just about as divorced from the things that make us human as we want to be.

We can choose to let AI do our critical thinking for us if we want to. We can choose to let it do our reading and writing for us. We can choose to let it create the art we produce and consume. We can choose to let it formulate arguments for us justifying our opinions and our worldview, or to let it reshape our worldview altogether. We can even choose to anthropomorphize it and have relationships with it if we are lonely.

We all have to choose for ourselves where the line is now. What point we will not cross beyond. What parts of our humanity we are willing and unwilling to trade for convenience or cognitive ease.

Just how far into the guts and gristle of humanity do you want to be?

How deeply do you want to be immersed in the breathing, sweating, pulsing fleshiness of the human adventure?

How fully do you want to feel the erotic ticklings of creativity moving through you, and the frustration you’ll experience on the days when it doesn’t show up?

To what extent do you want to experience the highs and lows of intimate human relationships, and all the unpredictability and insecurity that comes with them?

How much cognitive discomfort are you willing to push through in order to form a new opinion, learn about a new subject, or understand an unfamiliar idea?

How separated are you ready to become from that within us which produces the perfectly imperfect art, music and literature of our species?

How much do you want to feel the earth beneath your feet, the wind in your hair, and the sacred thrum of existence in your veins?

These didn’t used to be questions we needed to answer for ourselves. If we wanted something written, we had to write it. If we didn’t know how to write, we had to learn. If we didn’t put in the work, the thing we wanted to write never got written.

Now it’s a conscious choice for us how far we’re each willing to move into this new AI thing. We all have to decide for ourselves how far is too far, with the understanding that every step we take in that direction is costing us something. Maybe something very dear to us. Maybe something we can never get back.

_________________

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Click here for links for my mailing list, social media, books, merch, and audio/video versions of each article. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

The post In the Age of AI, We Each Have To Choose How Much of Our Humanity We Want To Keep appeared first on LewRockwell.

With Gaza ceasefire negotiations under way and President Trump raising hopes of a deal being reached by week’s end, Defense Minister Israel Katz on Monday revealed that the IDF will create what it calls a “humanitarian city” in the wasteland that is Rafah, and then forcibly concentrate Gaza’s entire population of nearly 2 million people inside it.

Though the Israeli government and its advocates will likely to condemn already-widespread usage of the term “concentration camp” to describe this undertaking — likely claiming it’s somehow antisemitic given the parallels to Nazi Germany — it’s unambiguously applicable under the Merriam-Webster definition of the term:

concentration camp (noun) a place where large numbers of people (such as prisoners of war, political prisoners, refugees, or the members of an ethnic or religious minority) are detained or confined under armed guard  

In the first phase, the IDF plans to round up 600,000 displaced Palestinians who are living in the coastal Mawasi area and move them to Rafah, a city in southernmost Gaza that borders Egypt and Israel. Eventually, every Gaza resident will be moved. After security screening, Palestinians will be ushered inside the camp, with IDF guards ensuring that none are able to leave, Katz said.

While the Israeli military will secure the perimeter, the Netanyahu government is looking for some type of international organization(s) to take charge of the interior, to include overseeing the distribution of aid, an enterprise currently managed by the shadowy Gaza Humanitarian Foundation with the IDF dishing out mass killings of Palestinians approaching the aid points; more than 600 are reported dead around the aid stations since late May. Whistleblowing soldiers have told reporters that lethal weapons are being used against unarmed people as brute-force crowd control.

Katz’s announcement contradicts what the IDF Chief of Staff’s office told Israel’s High Court on the very same day. In response to a petition filed by IDF reserve soldiers asking the court to determine if Israel was violating international law by forcibly displacing Palestinians with perhaps the ultimate goal of expelling them, the Chief of Staff’s office said there was no plan to move masses of Gaza residents or to concentrate them somewhere in the territory. However, that assurance is itself seemingly contradicted by the operations order for “Gideon’s Chariots,” the IDF’s latest operation launched in May, which says one objective is “managing and mobilizing the civilian population,” Haaretz reports.

On Monday, Katz also reiterated Israel’s intention to subsequently facilitate Palestinians’ departures to other countries, telling reporters that Israel will implement “the emigration plan, which will happen.” Separately, however, an official told Haaretz that Israel’s overtures to various countries have all been refused. While Israel’s champions commonly claim such refusals prove that Palestinians are dangerously undesirable people, Middle East governments are intensely wary of being perceived by their own populations as facilitating ethnic cleansing by Israel, for fear of domestic backlash up to and including insurrections.

RAFAH, GAZA BEFORE & AFTER.

-TRT World pic.twitter.com/EusxcxEHdP

— International Defence Analysis (@Defence_IDA) July 3, 2025

For somewhat similar reasons, Israel is likely to struggle to find what Katz called “international partners” to run the interior of the Rafah concentration camp. Human-rights-oriented groups and foreign governments will recoil at an invitation to serve as a key component of a scheme that most objective observers would characterize as a war crime. Given that, we could see the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation fill the void, which would only compound the controversy.

Meeting with President Trump at the White House on Monday evening, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu struck an optimistic tone about the prospect of mass Palestinian emigration, and characterized the idea as voluntary in nature:

“If people want to stay, they can stay, but if they want to leave, they should be able to leave. We’re working with the United States very closely about finding countries that will seek to realize what they always say, that they wanted to give the Palestinians a better future. I think we’re getting close to finding several countries.“

Trump echoed Netanyahu’s optimism, saying, “We’ve had great cooperation from … surrounding countries, great cooperation from every single one of them. So something good will happen.”

Though the implementation phase is apparently now imminent, the idea of corralling all of Gaza’s population into Rafah and then moving them out has been circulating since the very beginning of Israel’s response to the Hamas invasion of Oct 7 2023. A Ministry of Intelligence policy paper dated Oct 10 2023 and obtained by +972 Magazine that same month recommended herding Gaza’s entire 2.2 million residents south and then forcing them into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

More recently, as Dave DeCamp notes at Antiwar.com, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich outlined a forcible displacement scheme in candid and grim terms that belie Netanyahu’s characterization of coming emigration as “voluntary.” In May, he boasted to attendees of a West Bank settlement conference that Palestinians will have no choice but to abandon a land rendered uninhabitable by the IDF:

“Within a few months…Gaza will be totally destroyed. The Gazan citizens will be concentrated in the south. They will be totally despairing, understanding that there is no hope and nothing to look for in Gaza, and will be looking for relocation to begin a new life in other places.”

Where, exactly, will those “other places” be?

This article was originally published on Zero Hedge.

The post Israel Defense Minister Unveils Plan for ‘Concentration Camp’ in Gaza appeared first on LewRockwell.

From the Tom Woods Letter:

Auron MacIntyre, who’s been a Tom Woods Show guest several times, makes an excellent point about making our intellectuals into “content creators”:

The right is facing a serious problem about how to handle its intellectuals.

The left has the university, where it can assign smart people good-paying, high-status jobs where they can explore and cultivate ideas.

The right has no similar institutions, so right-wing intellectuals end up in think-tanks or content production.

This creates the “public intellectual” who comes onto the scene with a burst of insight.

Content production is a grind: even if you’re saying intelligent things eventually the need to say something about everything leaves you little time to think deeply about anything.

Academics are also not really equipped to be public figures; they are not built to do battle with a hostile public on a regular basis.

I think this is a lot of what has happened with guys like Jordan Peterson. He should be given the time to reflect on an issue and put out something every few months. Instead, the content churn and social medial battles make it difficult for him to say anything new or interesting.

With no time to reflect on and cultivate new ideas, the public intellectual has less and less to say and more and more demand for saying something.

Not trying to make Peterson a victim here, but the right needs a better plan to cultivate its serious thinkers. Throwing them into the content mill is not a sustainable plan.

This is obviously true. Whatever benefits we may derive from social media, it is deeply unnatural for genuine intellectuals — or any person, for that matter — to feel obligated to have a ready-made opinion on every matter of importance as it occurs.

I myself refuse to do it. There are plenty of issues you will search my social media or email newsletter in vain to find commentary about, simply because I either (1) have nothing particularly unique to say, or (2) I haven’t given the matter the kind of dedicated thought it deserves.

I can’t imagine trying to make a living as an “influencer,” always trying to stay ahead of the news cycle, as well as other influencers. Sounds like a recipe for a nervous breakdown to me.

Instead of doing that, I get to be a podcaster who interviews interesting people and shares the odd provocative opinion when he feels like it. I’m not in a race with anyone, I don’t have to pretend to know everything about everything, and I can travel when and where I want, without worrying that I should be on Instagram or writing Facebook posts or in general “creating content.”

I’m able to do that because thank goodness I’m not trying to make a living as an influencer.

I watch these poor souls drive themselves mad trying to do it — and they don’t even know how to do it. They build up a huge following on some platform, they get kicked off that platform, and they have spent a total of zero minutes building up a Plan B.

Never pay for a book again: TomsFreeBooks.com

The post Our Intellectuals Have Nothing Valuable To Say appeared first on LewRockwell.

Do you wince when you hear someone rip “capitalism” for some alleged evil, then propose a new government program to correct it?  Are you frustrated when hearing people demand the soaking of the rich to relieve the poor?  Are you frustrated further when realizing the poor are still poor after government has intervened?

Are you exasperated at the media for lying about origins of the US-Ukraine war on Russia or dismissing the reality in Gaza?  Do you have a sinking feeling when you see MAGA supporters dump on Elon for criticizing the Big Beautiful Bill?

Do you curse the public schools when Mark Dice takes to the street and interviews random passersby who come up empty about basic American history or the value of gold coins?  Do you see societal decay in the works when talented people are sidelined for mediocrities because of race or gender?  Are you wondering why people study economics if a president can violate sound theory and impose tariffs as a tactic to save American jobs?

Do you want to SCREAM when you hear Trump calling for the Fed to lower interest rates or threatening a government take-over of the Fed?  Do you want to scream again remembering how popular Ron Paul was with voters when he called for ending the Fed?

Knowing you’re not alone doesn’t help much, but there might be a better way to view the propagandized, coercive scene.  Most people have to earn a living, and they do it by trading their time and talent for what passes for money.  They don’t do it with a first-hand, in-depth analysis of what’s going on in Washington — that’s the job of the bought and sold mainstream media that they’ve learned to distrust.  They don’t have the time, skills, or energy to research it in-depth.  If their jobs are stressful they might seek relief doing something different, but that excludes introducing more stress into their lives, such as listening to talking heads or reading about politics.

Butler tells them the cold truth

That profound book you’re working on will not reach most people because most people don’t read profound books.  Your choir might read it, and if enough do, it could make the Times bestseller list.  But the political machine rolls on regardless.

Consider the books exposing in bloody detail the military-intelligence-complex.  This list is long and damning, but far from complete.  What impact have they had?  One of them, War is a Racket, written by two-time Medal of Honor recipient Marine Major General Smedley D. Butler, opens with these words:

WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small “inside” group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. (Emphasis mine)

Published in 1935, his book is based on speeches he gave during a nationwide tour in the 1930s.  It was condensed by Reader’s Digest, which helped transmit his message.  It’s available on Amazon Kindle for less than a dollar.  It can be read in one sitting.  Given his background and the clarity and power of his writing, his message about war corruption could not have been missed, yet today it’s just another anti-war classic most people have never heard of because it had no influence on government policy.  Turned out war solved FDR’s unemployment problem when his Keynesian New Deal had let him down.

Ellsberg exposes the war machine

Not included on the MIC book list was Daniel Ellsberg’s Pentagon Papers, the first installment of which was published in the NY Times on Sunday, June 13, 1971 under the title “Vietnam Archive: Pentagon Study Traces 3 Decades of Growing U.S. Involvement.”

The article was based on a 7,000-page, top-secret Defense Department history of American involvement in Vietnam leaked to the newspaper by disillusioned former Pentagon employee Daniel Ellsberg. To keep the scoop secret, the Times kept it from most of its own employees and rented a suite at a Manhattan hotel where a small hive of reporters feverishly parsed the leaked information.

Shortly after President Nixon saw the article he accused the Times of treason.

By Monday night, Attorney General John N. Mitchell had spent a furious 24 hours assessing legal options for preventing further publication of the Pentagon Papers, which the Times had teased as a multi-part series.

On June 15, Nixon obtained an injunction to block further publication, citing national security risks.  Other newspapers, including the Washington Post, defied Nixon’s injunction and began publishing excerpts of their own.  On June 29, 1971 Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska obtained a copy and read 4,000 pages into Congressional Record, making it available to the public. Nixon’s fight against the Papers led to a landmark free-speech case that became the focus of the 2017 Spielberg movie, The Post.

In New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971), the Court avowed that “Any system of prior restraints of expression comes to this Court bearing a heavy presumption against its constitutional validity.” . . . “The Government “thus carries a heavy burden of showing justification for the imposition of such a restraint.” Regarding the Times and the Washington Post, the Court agreed with the lower courts that “the Government had not met that burden.”  On June 30, the Court ruled 6-3 in favor of the papers.

Later, Ellsberg was indicted on 12 felony counts under the 1917 Espionage Act and faced up to 115 years in prison, but the case was dismissed after Judge Matthew Byrne discovered White House “plumbers” had illegally broken into Ellsberg’s psychiatrist ’s office.

Conclusion

How confident are you today that US courts would side with Ellsberg and the First Amendment?  Or other government whistleblowers?  Ever wonder why Edward Snowden is still living in Russia?  How many newspapers published legal challenges to the Big Pharma Covid narrative?  Why were challengers routinely punished with loss of jobs? As Ryan McMaken has written,

It has become abundantly clear that the federal government—and especially the executive branch—regards legal and constitutional limits on federal power as mere inconveniences to be ignored. Debates over constitutionality are now, for the most part, a relic of an earlier age.

What might have been a trend toward freedom with Butler and Ellsberg turned out to be another fleeting moment.  Perhaps the best strategy for survival is not to become a news junky but to follow the survivalists’s credo of self-sufficiency.  Don’t count on a government approach to make America great again.  Stay far away from its wars but do listen to Tulsi’s warning about nuclear war.  Don’t get lost in day-to-day minutiae.  Pick your gurus advisedly.  The federal government is pursuing a path of self-destruction with its unlimited spending facilitated by the Fed and its counterfeit money.  When government checks bounce, make sure you can live without them.

The post The Political Machine Rolls on Regardless appeared first on LewRockwell.

On June 18, the Supreme Court ruled that a Tennessee law banning dangerous “gender-affirming care” for minors did not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Skrmetti should be applauded as a victory for restoring sanity and protecting children from barbaric procedures. However, a specter looms over the Court’s jurisprudence on sex and gender that has the potential to wreak havoc.

The infamous “textualist decision”—Bostock v. Clayton County—looms over each Court case related to sexual orientation and civil rights. While the Court rejected Bostock’s logic in this instance, the Supreme Court needs to do the right thing and overturn that case.

Much ink has been spilled regarding Bostock’s holding.

In a confounding majority opinion, Justice Neil Gorsuch declared that the legislators behind Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act understood the word “sex” to include sexual orientation. Gorsuch attempted to revise history by arguing that “because it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex,” Title VII needed to be amended to reflect this fact.

The real salt in the wound was Gorsuch’s attempt to posit the decision as a victory for the originalist school of interpretation. But as Justice Samuel Alito wrote, it represented “the theory that courts should ‘update’ old statutes so that they better reflect the current values of society.”

Alito’s dissent compared the majority to a pirate ship—sailing “under a textualist flag” while representing the judicial philosophy disdained by textualists. The “illogical” and “arrogant” opinion could not survive its logic.

Alito wrote:

The Court argues that an applicant could not answer the question whether he or she is homosexual without knowing something about sex… Just because an applicant cannot say whether he or she is homosexual without knowing his or her own sex and that of the persons to whom the applicant is attracted, it does not follow that an employer cannot reject an applicant based on homosexuality without knowing the applicant’s sex. 

In addition to the “textualist” decision, Alito also raised concerns regarding the application of Bostock. Specifically, Alito warned, “the position that the Court now adopts will threaten freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and personal privacy and safety. No one should think that the Court’s decision represents an unalloyed victory for individual liberty.” Gorsuch arrogantly dismissed this reasoning, stating, “We have not had the benefit of adversarial testing about the meaning of their terms, and we do not prejudge any such question today.”

Gorsuch could not have been more wrong, as his small gesture had “unexpected consequences.” A couple of months later, the Biden Administration issued an Executive Order preventing LGBTQ+ discrimination, which directly cited Bostock. The Executive Order sought to “prevent and combat discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation, and to fully enforce Title VII and other laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation.” Thankfully, President Trump rescinded the Order on his first day in office.

Those consequences continued, however, as many religious institutions are facing discrimination suits, empowered by the Bostock decision.

For instance, Liberty University, a Christian university, is being sued for discrimination for the termination of a transgender employee. Liberty Counsel wrote that the university’s decision was rooted in its sincerely held religious beliefs, and “Title VII’s text exempts that religious decision from employment discrimination suits.” However, the federal judge refused to dismiss the lawsuit, citing Bostock as part of the reasoning. Despite the supposed protections for religious institutions under doctrines such as the “ministerial exception,” the Court will likely have to readdress the underlying logic of Bostock.

Thankfully, in Skrmetti, the Court refused to expand the logic of Bostock outside of Title VII. Roberts, for the majority, wrote that since the Tennessee law did not “exclude any individuals on the basis of transgender status,” but rather age and medical use, Bostock was inapplicable.

Additionally, Justice Clarence Thomas reaffirmed his disdain for the infamous opinion. Thomas wrote that Bostock’s majority opinion “fails on its own terms,” and applying Bostock to this issue “would depart dramatically from this Court’s Equal Protection Clause jurisprudence” so the “courts need not engage Bostock at all.”

The larger problem reveals itself within these opinions. The Court is dealing with a precedent that conflates “because of sex” with one’s sexual orientation and gender identity. If the makeup of the Court were a little different, Bostock’s logic would probably have been extended outside of Title VII.

The Skrmetti decision was not just a victory for common sense but also for proper judicial interpretation. However, the victory does not mean that America is out of the woods yet. The Court has, unfortunately, been the primary source of many of America’s political problems. Whether it is redefining marriage, writing what is ostensibly poetry in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, or rewriting statutes, the Court has transformed from a bench of watchful guardians into unaccountable legislators.

The Court must overturn Bostock. Just as the late Antonin Scalia called the Lemon test a “ghoul in a late-night horror movie,” Bostock haunts the Court’s jurisprudence on sexual orientation and gender. It’s time for the Court to send Bostock to the ash heap of history.

This article was originally published on Crisis Magazine.

The post Overturn Bostock! appeared first on LewRockwell.

O Jewish man or woman,
does your heart swell with pride
when you contemplate the Gaza genocide?
Do you make excuses like
“It’s a complicated situation” or
“Israel has a right to defend itself” or
“The Palestinians are not really a people”?
Do you follow the MAGA crowd, supporting its
genocidal cult leader Donald Trump?  Are you
one of the sheeple, as he aids and abets the bombing,
slaughter, starvation, and mass murder of two-and-
a-half million people?
Or does the Israeli/US/UK-engineered genocide
leave you repulsed and nauseous?  If so,
then why is your voice so timid and cautious?
Why aren’t you shouting your anger and protest
in every synagogue service, every public forum,
every newspaper, every college campus, every
B’nai B’rith gathering across the land?
Do you understand that Trump is a totally-owned
Zionist tool who does Netanyahu’s bidding, as was
the senile pervert Joseph Biden and the cackling hideous
Kamala Harris?  Trump’s buddy Jeffrey Epstein, a Mossad
agent who ran a sexual blackmail racket, probably has
a load of incriminating tapes featuring The Donald with
underage girls.  Trump’s first priority is not Make America
Great Again, it’s Make Israel Great Again.
Do you realize that the U.S. Congress is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Zionist State of Israel, through bribes and blackmail?  And millions of Trump’s Christian Zionist supporters believe that Palestine must be wholly Christian to pave the way for The Rapture.  These forces exert a stranglehold on the American political system and the un-free press.

The Israeli people by and large support the genocide, according to the latest polls.  “It’s either us or them.  We stole the land from them, and we’re not about to give it back.  So it’s okay if Israeli soldiers shoot babies in the head and murder pregnant Palestinian mothers.  It’s okay when we bomb hospitals, schools, kill starving people lined up for food supplies, destroy over 80% of Gaza’s infrastructure, and turn the Strip into a wasteland of rubble.”

Israel is a profoundly sick society, immoral to the core.

The state of Israel was founded through ethnic cleansing, terrorism, land theft, imperialist backing, and mass murder.  The UN partition plan of 1947 awarded the Zionist Jews over half the land—and all the fertile land—even though they were only around one-quarter of the population.  Needing to be in the majority in order to create a theocratic Jewish nation-state, the Zionists launched a systematic terror campaign between 1947 and 1949.  They demolished 570 Palestinian towns, villages, cities and urban neighborhoods, bulldozed and set fire to Palestinians’ homes or stole and occupied them, carried out more than 50 point-blank massacres of Palestinian men, women and children, and forced over 800,000 people—half the non-Jewish population—into exile.

Now the Palestinians’ cramped place of exile has been obliterated by the genocidal partners, Netanyahu and Trump.  The first one’s nomination of the second one for the Nobel Peace Prize takes degeneracy to a whole new level.

The post Making Excuses for the Gaza Genocide appeared first on LewRockwell.

Writes Jay M.

Is it common knowledge that we get ALL of our enriched uranium from Russia?  Not the highly enriched weapons grade, but the lesser enriched for use in nuclear power plants, etc.

 

The post Enriched Uranium appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Tom White.

The post Green Energy appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, David Krall.

The Mizrahi Perspective

 

The post How Israel ends appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Johnny Kramer.

The post The Malibu Fires 6 Months Later appeared first on LewRockwell.

The post The Quiet Part Of The Epstein Deception – today on the Liberty Report: appeared first on LewRockwell.

Writes Greg Privette:

Hi Lew,

I saw the above noted post today.

It reminded me of an old joke. An American and Soviet citizen are arguing about how advanced their countries space programs are. The American boasts that his country invested millions and developed the ball point pen so the American astronauts could write in zero gravity. The Soviet citizen said they just gave the cosmonauts pencils.

 

The post Space Shuttle Theatre appeared first on LewRockwell.

Click Here:

John Leake

 

The post “No Evidence” of Epstein Blackmail Operation Not Surprising appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Frahm.

Reclaim the Net

 

The post London Police Facial Recognition Scans Millions appeared first on LewRockwell.

È davvero sconcertante come la stampa finanziaria (inglese) riesca a rimbambire talmente tanto le presunte voci “indipendenti” da farle ripetere a pappagallo determinate tesi senza che esse si fermino un attimo a riflettere. Uno di questi esempi è il rollover americano dei $7000 miliardi. Tutti preoccupati, tutti pronti a essere gli avvoltoi sul cadavere americano... Un noto aforisma di Twain recita che “le voci sulla mia morte sono state enormemente esagerate” ed è quanto di più calzante ci possa essere in questo contesto. Infatti esiste già un cadavere e puzza da fare schifo. Anzi due: Banca d'Inghilterra e BCE. Qui c'è da ricordare che l'Ucraina ha mancato un importante pagamento dei propri debiti e che gli asset emessi a supporto di essi circolano nel mercato dei finanziamenti rapidi europeo, il cui collaterale accettato vedrà un significativo allentamento in termini di normative riguardanti la cartolarizzazione. Entrambe suddette istituzioni stanno liquidando i rispettivi Paesi. La FED invece sta facendo il contrario. Questo significa altresì che non c'è più un canale coi dollari che possa salvare la baracca nel momento del bisogno a scapito degli Stati Uniti. La BCE e la BoE devono mettere in campo il loro di capitale se vogliono sopravvivere (ovvero il contribuente inglese ed europeo, dapprima). Infatti l'unica cosa che la BCE può fare è comprare debito deteriorato della periferia europea e parcheggiarlo presso la Bundesbank, ma ormai anche la Germania ha perso quel blasone che l'ha caratterizzata storicamente. Questo gioco può andare avanti per il momento grazie all'enorme  mole di debito americano immagazzinato da inglesi ed europei durante la presenza della Yellen al Dipartimento del Tesoro e al surplus commerciale (strutturale) nei confronti degli USA. Il rialzo dei tassi da parte di Powell e i dazi di Trump fanno parte della stessa strategia per annullare questi “vantaggi”. La velocità del primo fenomeno ha reso sommerso il bilancio delle banche europee, dato che hanno comprato diversi asset con rendimenti ridicoli in passato e adesso sono incagliati; il secondo vuole chiudere il rubinetto commerciale in modo da contrarre ulteriormente l'offerta di eurodollari. Nel frattempo i capitali continuano a essere attirati negli USA e, attraverso il GENIUS Act, il mercato dei titoli del Tesoro americano avrà una portata più capillare a livello internazionale dato che verranno tokenizzati tramite Tether e coperti da un hard asset come Bitcoin. Chi è quindi che si trova DAVVERO nei guai? Chi naviga nel collaterale non contabilizzato in modo appropriato, come gli USA, o chi non ha niente come l'Europa?

____________________________________________________________________________________

di Conor Gallagher

(Versione audio della traduzione disponibile qui: https://open.substack.com/pub/fsimoncelli/p/lo-zombi-ue-usa-trump-come-spauracchio)

Donald Trump è il movente che continua a mantenere in piedi la classe dirigente occidentale. Qualsiasi imbroglio antidemocratico presente nella lista dei desideri dell'UE viene ora spacciato come rimedio contro di lui (e se non è Trump, è la Russia).

Secondo loro gli Stati Uniti non sono più un partner affidabile nella difesa. Dobbiamo, quindi, dare più potere a Bruxelles e inviare miliardi alle aziende produttrici di armi.

Secondo loro gli Stati Uniti non sono più un partner economico affidabile. Dobbiamo, quindi, aumentare la competitività indebolendo il lavoro e rafforzando la finanza.

Gli elettori del Regno Unito potrebbero aver optato per la Brexit, ma Londra e Bruxelles stanno “sfidando Trump” con una dichiarazione di “libero e aperto scambio” che include negoziati “su difesa e sicurezza, pesca ed energia, nonché un'intesa comune su quali argomenti saranno trattati nei negoziati intensivi per il ripristino della Brexit quest'anno”.

La cosa strana di questi piani, tuttavia, è che prevedono la dipendenza dalle armi e dall'energia degli Stati Uniti e l'allineamento con gli obiettivi geopolitici e geoeconomici degli Stati Uniti.

Un recente commento di Rosa Balfour, direttrice di Carnegie Europe, riassume perfettamente queste argomentazioni. In un articolo intitolato, “L'Europa ha cercato di proteggersi da Trump, ora sta elaborando un piano B”, spiega perché l'UE non ha altra scelta che riorientare la spesa sociale verso l'industria bellica.

La versione romantica della storia recente secondo la Balfour inizia il 28 febbraio. È allora che ha avuto luogo “l'umiliazione televisiva del presidente ucraino Vladimir Zelensky” e “l'Europa si è resa conto di non poter più contare sul suo alleato di lunga data, gli Stati Uniti”.

La sconvolgente profondità di questa presa di coscienza non può essere sopravvalutata. I leader politici degli stati europei, dell'Unione Europea e della NATO hanno dato prova di compostezza e coordinamento, ma dietro le quinte la colonna sonora è una frenetica jam session di free jazz con tonfi drammatici e una lunga pausa: il silenzio che accompagna la consapevolezza che la zona di comfort europea è finita.

E ora cosa stanno facendo questi “leader politici” composti e coordinati? Annunciano che l'Ucraina è la prima linea di difesa dell'Europa, elaborano grandi progetti per una “coalizione dei volenterosi” e dichiarano che l'Ucraina diventerà un “porcospino d'acciaio”.

La coalizione dei volenterosi si è disgregata, il porcospino d'acciaio è stato ridicolizzato e mentre quelli al Cremlino non stanno perdendo il sonno, gli europei invece sì. Questo perché, come scrive la Balfour, la Commissione europea “può svolgere un ruolo di supporto mobilitando risorse finanziarie e gestendo complesse trattative interne”.

Questo è uno dei tanti modi di dirlo...

La Commissione si sta lentamente avvicinando all'invocazione di poteri di emergenza per far approvare parte del suo fondo di riarmo. Il Parlamento europeo sta reagendo, ma il fatto è che Ursula può comunque farlo con un sostegno minimo da parte dei governi dell'UE. Probabilmente sta solo aspettando il momento giusto. Diamo un'occhiata allo stato dei miliardi destinati alla militarizzazione europea.

Il 19 marzo la Commissione ha presentato una proposta da €150 miliardi, la prima tranche di un totale di almeno €900 miliardi, per istituire lo strumento di azione per la sicurezza in Europa (SAFE) attraverso il rafforzamento dell'industria europea della difesa.

Vuole procedere con l'articolo 122, che prevede poteri di emergenza, e richiede solo una maggioranza qualificata in Consiglio – a differenza del consueto consenso – articolo che consente a Ursula e ai suoi amici di aggirare i fastidiosi veti dei Paesi membri. La procedura per l'articolo 122 è la seguente:

1) la Commissione propone una misura del Consiglio; in seguito a ciò 2) il Consiglio adotta la misura in linea con [voto a maggioranza qualificata]. Non sono previsti ulteriori elementi o partecipanti.

Questo articolo consente alla proposta di bypassare i negoziati parlamentari e di passare direttamente al Consiglio per la negoziazione e l'adozione. Il ruolo del Parlamento si riduce a presentare suggerimenti e richiedere dibattiti.

Tanti cari saluti al vostro ordine basato sulle regole democratiche...

Con una votazione a scrutinio segreto del 23 aprile, la commissione giuridica del Parlamento europeo ha appoggiato all'unanimità un parere legale che respingeva il tentativo della Commissione di aggirarlo sul fondo di riarmo da €150 miliardi.

Sebbene si trattasse di un voto non vincolante, segnalava sì un'opposizione al piano di Ursula, ma non si trattava di una presa di posizione di principio a favore della volontà del popolo o di un'idea romantica del genere.

No, si trattava piuttosto di dividersi le fette della torta, dato che i lobbisti dell'industria bellica europea  sono sempre più attivi a Bruxelles e cercano di assicurarsi che i loro clienti vengano ricompensati. E gran parte della debole opposizione riguarda l'introduzione di una clausola “acquista solo europeo” più forte nel SAFE (che attualmente richiede che il 65% dei materiali di consumo e dei sistemi complessi per la guerra provenga dall'UE, dall'Ucraina o dagli stati SEE/EFTA, tra cui Turchia e Norvegia).

Perché la commissione di Ursula deve mettere da parte il Parlamento e alcuni stati membri per spendere €900 miliardi in acquisti militari? È spiegato chiaramente nella loro proposta. C'è la solita sciocchezza sulla Russia:

L'UE e i suoi stati membri si trovano ora ad affrontare un'aggressione russa sempre più intensa contro l'Ucraina e una crescente minaccia alla sicurezza da parte della Russia. È ormai chiaro che tale minaccia persisterà nel prossimo futuro, considerando che la Russia è passata a un'economia di guerra che le consente un rapido potenziamento delle sue capacità militari e la ricostituzione delle sue scorte. Il Consiglio europeo ha pertanto sottolineato, nelle sue conclusioni del 6 marzo 2025, che “la guerra di aggressione della Russia contro l'Ucraina e le sue ripercussioni sulla sicurezza europea e globale in un contesto in evoluzione costituiscono una sfida esistenziale per l'Unione europea”.

Ovviamente c'è anche la scusa di Trump:

Allo stesso tempo gli Stati Uniti, tradizionalmente un forte alleato, ritengono chiaramente di essere troppo impegnati in Europa e di dover riequilibrare la situazione, riducendo il loro ruolo storico di principale garante della sicurezza.

Una domanda che viene spontanea è cosa succederà a quest'ultimo argomento ora che l'amministrazione Trump si è legata all'Ucraina attraverso il cosiddetto accordo sulle terre rare, ma sicuramente se le potenze europee sono arrivate fin qui con crisi create ad arte, saranno in grado di superare questo ostacolo sottolineando l'insistenza di Trump su quella che chiamano una pace ingiusta per l'Ucraina.

Da qui il “riarmo” per decreto tramite emergenza sovranazionale – con la Balfour del Carnegie e tutti gli altri plutocrati buffoni di corte nei think tank transatlantici che lo acclamano come una vittoria contro le orde autocratiche fuori dalle mura dei loro sepolcri imbiancati. Ecco di nuovo la Balfour che riassume lo stato d'animo di questa folla:

[...] è stata tracciata una traiettoria di cambiamento, con un potenziale trasformativo, non solo per il continente europeo, ma anche per la riorganizzazione globale delle relazioni internazionali post-americane. La jazz band ha trovato il ritmo, anche se la melodia non è del tutto armonica.

Non so se sia la musica che la Balfour sta ascoltando, o il tintinnio dell'oro e dell'argento. Anche se può essere difficile sentire qualcosa al di fuori del frastuono proveniente dall'élite, c'è sempre un accordo mancante nel genere militarista. Di sicuro la Balfour, appassionata di jazz, saprà che la curiosità era considerata uno degli ingredienti essenziali della musica. Se applichiamo questo concetto alla sua metafora jazzistica, potremmo iniziare a porci alcune domande come:

• Perché l'UE ha bisogno di mettere in atto tutta questa militarizzazione?

• Perché non può esserci pace con la Russia?

• Perché le nazioni europee hanno contribuito a sabotare i negoziati di pace tra Kiev e Mosca?

• Perché l'UE ha aiutato gli USA a rovesciare il governo dell'Ucraina e a usare il Paese come ariete contro la Russia?

• Perché l'élite dell'UE desidera così tanto la guerra contro la Russia?

• L'UE non è forse più sicura e prospera grazie a legami amichevoli e a scambi commerciali con la Russia?

E perché l'UE, che nel complesso è già seconda al mondo per spesa per la difesa, deve spendere cifre ancor più esorbitanti? Quanto la renderà sicura, competitiva e indipendente?

Queste domande non vengono mai affrontate. Tutto invece rientra nell'ordine naturale delle cose, ovvero che la Russia sia nemica dell'UE e che quest'ultima debba dotarsi di armi costose e di grandi dimensioni a causa della cattiveria di Trump. La cosa triste è che questo messaggio incessante diffuso dai media europei sta funzionando, almeno secondo i sondaggi dell'UE stessa. Ciò non sorprende affatto, considerando che questo messaggio viene pompato senza sosta dai media dell'UE.

In ogni caso, i governi europei stanno correndo. Sedici Paesi chiedono all'UE maggiore margine di manovra fiscale per investire ingenti somme nella difesa – richieste che non vengono mai avanzate durante l'infinita austerità sociale.

Sì, i cittadini dell'Unione continueranno a vedere il loro tenore di vita scendere, ma non preoccupatevi, l'allargamento dell'UE e la maggiore spesa per la militarizzazione porteranno a una maggiore “competitività”. Non ditemi che non l'avete già sentita questa panzana...

Profit margins for Weapon and Ammunition at Rheinmetall went up from 23% to 28.5% from 2023 to 2024. Of every Euro in public money spent on weapons from Rheinmetall, the company makes 28.5% return on sales, quite spectacular even compared to other Rheinmetall business. pic.twitter.com/SvKmjNcB30

— Isabella M Weber (@IsabellaMWeber) April 28, 2025

Nonostante i notevoli ostacoli che l'industria europea della difesa deve affrontare (e un breve periodo di raffreddamento dovuto allo shock dei dazi), i prezzi delle sue azioni stanno salendo poiché gli investitori si aspettano un sostegno incondizionato da parte di Bruxelles.

A proposito di ostacoli…

Una ricerca dello Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) dimostra che negli ultimi cinque anni l'Europa ha aumentato le sue importazioni di armi di due volte e mezzo rispetto ai cinque anni precedenti, con i due terzi provenienti dagli Stati Uniti.

Anche altri membri di Carnegie Europe nutrono dubbi sul programma UE. Ecco cosa dice Judy Dempsey, ricercatrice senior di Carnegie Europe:

Ditelo alla Polonia. Sta rapidamente potenziando la sua infrastruttura di difesa acquistando kit americani. Quando Varsavia ha voluto fare acquisti altrove, come in Corea del Sud, ha subito forti pressioni da parte di Washington affinché non lo facesse. Questo è un punto importante. Gli Stati Uniti vogliono che l'Europa si assuma maggiori responsabilità per la propria difesa, ma non a spese dell'industria militare americana. Gli Stati Uniti sono un importante fornitore di componenti militari per molti Paesi europei. Per fare questo passo ci vorrebbero tempo e la volontà politica dell'Europa di costruire una strategia comune di difesa e approvvigionamento.

Oltre alla considerevole pressione politica, c'è anche il fatto che i tempi di consegna per quanto riguarda le capacità di difesa sono lunghi. Quindi, parte della strategia dell'UE è quella di inviare miliardi di dollari in più all'Ucraina affinché possa potenziare la sua industria della difesa. Un modo molto più economico per produrre armi piuttosto che in Europa occidentale e ha già un settore manifatturiero per la difesa attivo e funzionante.

Bene... ma ci sono delle falle in questa logica?

Innanzitutto l'Ucraina è ora il maggiore importatore di armi al mondo, assorbendo l'8,8% dei trasferimenti globali. In secondo luogo i Kinzhal russi potrebbero avere voce in capitolo nella produzione dei produttori di armi ucraini.

È difficile capire cosa tutto questo significhi per la competitività europea, figuriamoci per il medio Josef, José, o Giusseppe. Ecco cosa dice la Balfour su questo tema che dovrebbe essere venduto ai proletari:

Dal punto di vista politico, per garantire il sostegno pubblico al riarmo europeo e compensarne gli inevitabili costi, gli sforzi del settore della difesa dovrebbero essere parte di una più ampia strategia di innovazione economica e tecnologica. Infatti questi sforzi potrebbero dare impulso all'economia europea stagnante. A livello UE le ricette sono disponibili nelle recenti raccomandazioni in materia di competitività, produttività e innovazione tecnologica.

I primi 100 giorni di Trump stanno spingendo l'UE a dare slancio a progetti in corso ormai da anni. Legare questi obiettivi all'allargamento dell'UE a Ucraina, Moldavia e Balcani occidentali offre una nuova prospettiva per l'espansione del mercato unico. L'ampliamento dell'UE e l'approfondimento delle relazioni con altri Paesi europei – come Regno Unito, Svizzera e Norvegia – contrasterebbero la frammentazione che la competizione tra grandi potenze e le disgregazioni politiche interne stanno infliggendo al continente.

È spaventoso per la sua sicurezza meccanica e semplicistica. Da nessuna parte in questo PowerPoint si intravedono i notevoli svantaggi, che, al limite più disastroso dello spettro, includono la completa distruzione dell'Europa.

Forse la speranza migliore è che i piani di questi folli per il riarmo dell'UE siano solo un gigantesco racket. Ma si potrebbe dire lo stesso del complesso militare-industriale statunitense, e guardare cosa ha scatenato: morte e distruzione senza fine e numerose guerre perse. Una differenza fondamentale tra i piani di militarizzazione transatlantici, tuttavia, è che gli Stati Uniti sono isolati tra due oceani. L'UE confina non solo con la Russia, ma anche con un regime neonazista al collasso in Ucraina, il che rende l'adesione a un complesso militare-industriale una proposta molto più rischiosa.

I racket hanno un modo tutto loro di prendere vita. Anzi, si potrebbe sostenere che l'attuale traiettoria dell'UE sia quella di uno zombi spinto dalla russofobia, che ridistribuisce denaro verso l'alto in nome di tale odio. Il problema è che l'aspettativa di vita non è lunga per gli zombi e per chi li circonda.

[*] traduzione di Francesco Simoncelli: https://www.francescosimoncelli.com/

Supporta Francesco Simoncelli's Freedonia lasciando una “mancia” in satoshi di bitcoin scannerizzando il QR seguente.

I left my California idyll, and soared into milky, hazy US skies.

I touched down to change planes in Minneapolis, which I recalled as having been the corn-fed, friendly Midwest.

I saw that now, almost everyone employed by the airlines, as well as everyone working as ground crew, was of Somali descent, or were recent arrivals from Somalia.

They spoke Arabic or Somali to one another, not even bothering with English; passengers and colleagues alike were greeted with a hand to the heart. The flight attendants for Delta, out of Minneapolis, wore chic little grey attenuated hijabs, pinned to their hair. (They happened also to be in furious moods.)

I have no problem with reasonable legal immigration; I have no problem with other religions. But I did wonder what had happened to all of the US-born former staffers that used to be employed in those fairly well-paying jobs. It was not diversity I was seeing now, but a new kind of hegemony.

I wondered what kind of security issue it might represent when an entire major US travel hub was now under the management of a single recently-arrived nationality; one that is not our own.

The fact that the entire sensitive Minneapolis-St Paul airport infrastructure — which I was surprised to learn is a joint civil and US military facility — is in the hands of Somalis, is an example, to me, of the chaos and vulnerability we import when we in the West lift humans wholesale out of their sometimes-dangerous, sometimes-abusive contexts, and re-situate them in influential Western contexts, with almost no acculturation, or assimilation metrics.

“The immigrant” is positioned always in liberal discourse as in need of “our” “help.” The narrative is always about “our” “responsibilities” to such immigrants, and all of the immigrants are always positioned within this narrative as being a/ helpless and b/ innocent. And C — the immigrants’ culture that is being imported along with the immigrant, is always supposed to enhance the United States’ culture, simply because it is “other” from the nasty, racist, homogenous culture of the United States.

In fact, this narrative actually to me itself seems to be quite racist; simply a new, NGO-reframed revamp of the condescending 18th-century European trope of the non-European innocent, admirable “Noble Savage.”

This narrative, indeed, reveals, in my view, a profound ignorance about the actual world — a lack of awareness of the kinds of struggles that peace-loving, justice-loving, freedom-loving people, living in failed states and under oppressive regimes, actually face.

Some societies are in fact neither helpless nor innocent.

At the level of leadership and of social contracts, and especially of the treatment of women and girls, Somalia, to take just one example, is a horrible, culpable society.

Individual Somalis no doubt are likely to be people of great decency. But look at Somali norms and society as a whole, which we are also importing when we resettle people en masse.

According to Amnesty International, all parties in that nations’ current civilian conflict, a confrontation between the government and a militia group named Al-Shabaab, abuse their own civilians and deprive their own people of human rights. In other words, no Somali party is innocent.

The crisis in Somalia is not currently derived from those cliches of racialized identities, “white against black”, or “colonizer versus colonized”. It is, rather, a crisis of Somali against Somali. And very specifically, it is a crisis of Somali men against Somali women and girls.

There are half a million internally displaced Somali people, 80 per cent of them women and children, who are suffering horrific abuses, including sexual assault, forced marriages, and “gender-based violence” — meaning beatings and female genital mutilation — at the hands of Somalis.

According to the European Union Agency for Asylum, female genital mutilation affects almost the entire female population of Somalia:

[Source: https://www.fgmcri.org/country/somalia/]

The chart above, explains FGM/C Research Institute, shows a dip in the ages 15-19 simply because girls that age may not have been “cut” yet.

In 2018, three young girls, two of them sisters, died within a single week in Somalia, from complications arising from female genital mutilation.

A 13-year-old girl died of female genital mutilation in Somalia in 2021 — and the Guardian reported a rise in the practice during the pandemic.

Yet, points out Amnesty International: “The federal [Somali] parliament failed to pass bills on sexual offences and female genital mutilation.”

According to the FGM/C Research Initiative, which centers on studying the issue of female genital mutilation, a staggering 99.2% of girls and women in Somalia aged 15-49 have endured female genital mutilation. The average ages when Somali girls are “cut” is from ten to fourteen years of age.

Even though, worldwide, many Muslim feminists and even progressive Imams are speaking out against the practice, and pointing out that female genital mutilation is not in fact demanded by Islam, 72% of Somali girls and women believe that this mutilation is a requirement of their religion.

The Somali community has the highest percentage of genitally mutilated women in the world; there are 61,000 Somali people in the state of Minnesota alone, and many sources confirm that Somali girls and women continue to suffer genital mutilation while in the United States. In other words, Somali immigrants in Minnesota have not stopped this abuse of “their” girls and women, just because they are now also Minnesotans. A scholarly article asserts that between 150,000 and 200,000 American African girls are still at risk of undergoing genital mutilation:

“Sanctuary for Families indicates that Somali and other African families import traditional practitioners from overseas into the United States to circumcise their daughters, and in some cases, they send their daughters abroad for circumcision. The practice of sending their daughters abroad has become known as “vacation cutting”’.

So these communities’ arrival physically in America did not magically heal this cultural corruption. This culture of mutilation has not in fact vanished. This nation did not magically wash this cruelty, away.

Somali “female circumcision” is different from other forms — it is by far the most severe. Somali FGM is Type III genital mutilation, which means the excision of the entire outer part of girls’ genitalia, and the stitching together of the raw wound that is left behind. Somali FGM involves: “the complete removal of the clitoris and labia minora, together with the inner surface of the labia majora (Jones, Ehiri, &Anyanwu, 2004; Rasaq, 2012; Weir, 2000).”

Women and girls subjected to this kind of mutilation suffer chronic bleeding, horrific pain during intercourse, problems in childbirth, infections, and dramatically increased mortality: “This increased mortality rate translates into an estimated 44,320 excess deaths per year across countries where FGM is practised. These estimates imply that FGM is a leading cause of the death of girls and young women in those countries where it is practised accounting for more deaths than any cause other than Enteric Infections, Respiratory Infections, or Malaria.”

Somalis now represent over one per cent of the Minnesota population. This organized, politicized community, of course, can now swing elections. Why should we think that, since this horrific practice endures even now in the US, a ten per cent make-up of Somalis in Minnesota, won’t alter American culture in the direction of this kind of misogyny — a form of misogyny that Somali women themselves are seeking to combat?

For that matter, why should we assume that a mass influx of immigrants from closed societies, will champion open societies?

There is no freedom of expression in Somalia, for example. Journalists are being killed, arrested and detained there. The head of a media group, Ali Nur Salad, was arrested when he posted on social media that the drug khat was being used by Al-Shabaab members. Salad was denied legal representation. He faces charges “including “offending the honour or prestige of the head of state”, “committing obscene acts”, “distributing obscene publications and performances”, “insult”, and “criminal defamation”, as well as restrictions on travel and [on] speaking to the media.”

The government of Somalia raids live television debates: “On 6 January, Somaliland intelligence officers raided the offices of MM Somali TV in Hargeisa, the Somaliland capital, interrupting a live debate about […] Ethiopia/Somaliland […]. They arrested the MM Somali TV chair, Mohamed Abdi Sheikh (also known as “Ilig”), Ilyas Abdinasir, a technician, and Mohamed Abdi Abdullahi, a reporter.” The International Federation of Journalists condemned the arrests.

Somali journalist Mohamed Abdi Sheikh and two other reporters who were arrested with him:

That — that failed state, that society without the rule of law or protections for free expression; that society that sees fit to gouge little girls between the legs with razors, to excise their clitorises, and to injure them permanently; those bad norms; as opposed to “bad individuals” or “a bad group of people” — let alone “a bad ethnicity” — are what we should object to importing wholesale; in this case, to run the management of our key airport hub in the sensitive center of our nation.

Reporters in Somalia, women in Somalia, refugees in Somalia, even Parliamentarians in Somalia — “On 2 September, Somaliland police arrested Mohamed Abiib, an outspoken opposition MP, and detained him in Mandera Prison” —- live in a state of fear. Amnesty International and other human rights organizations call Somalia a “failed state.”

It is okay for us here in the West not to want to live in the state of fear, that many Somalis, Afghanis, rural Pakistanis, in much of civil society — as well as journalists in Mexico, and anti-trafficking activists in Colombia — suffer.

Voice of America, in an article about Somali “Political Victories in the West”, reports that Somalis in Minnesota have become well organized politically: “Abdirahman Sharif, the imam and the leader of the Dar-Al-Hijrah Mosque in Minneapolis says another reason Somalis have risen in U.S. politics is because they are a tight-knit community.

“When Somalis came to [the] U.S., they moved to a foreign country where they could not communicate with people. So, for them, being close to people from their country meant having someone to communicate with and that helped them to unite their votes, and resources for political aspirants,” Sharif said.” Imam Sharif says nothing about Somalis wanting to learn to communicate with their American neighbors, or about their wishing to help America to succeed, or wishing to contribute to the shared destiny of all Americans. In this article, at least, the Somali political voice is a separatist one. The article describes Somali electeds gaining high office also in Britain and Canada and Finland, Norway and Sweden. Other Somali leaders stress with pride the separateness of the community. A Swedish Somali leader similarly does not mention wishing to contribute to Sweden, which welcomed the community, or wishing to assimilate into Swedish society successfully. Rather he too is proud of the separateness of the community:

“Mohamed Gure, a former member of the council of the city of Borlänge, Sweden, said there are unique things that keep Somalis together and make them successful in the politics in Europe.

“The fabric of Somalis is unique compared to the other diaspora communities. They share the same ethnicity, color, language, and religion. There are many things that keep them together that divide them back home. So, their togetherness is one reason I can attribute to their successes,” Gure said.”

Somalia is just one example of a separatist immigrant society with viciously misogynist practices. But across Europe, and in Britain, other viciously misogynist societies’ norms are being imported wholesale, along with mass separatist immigration.

British and European and Irish women have started to protest against the harassment, intimidation and sexual violence directed against them by immigrant men from various countries that treat women and girls badly; these attacks are being minimized by the courts in these “advanced” nations. In Britain, a British mother of a 12 year old girl, Lucy Connolly, who had recently lost her young son, is in jail for 31 months for a tweet she posted in the wake of the murder of three little British girls, at their dance practice, by an immigrant. Conolly called for immigrant housing to be burnt down “for all I care” and for immigrants to be deported.

Read the Whole Article

The post A Stopover in the Heartland appeared first on LewRockwell.

Humanity is facing a challenging turning point ahead as the new global system readies to reset the worlds’ governments by the year 2030. This is the United Nation’s sinister Sustainable Development scheme which will completely restructure society and laws and pulverize the free will of every human being. These freedom-stealing sustainable development goals have already been adopted into American society, and yet, the majority of citizens respond to this infringement of their rights with a passive whatever and who cares attitude. American patriots have a long history of laying their lives down for their freedoms. Why are they surrendering them now without resistance?

There is no soft way to answer this question. Our government has been using Directed Energy Weapons (DEWs) and psychotronic mind weapons on the populations to manipulate thought processes so that the upcoming Great Reset transitions without mass mutiny by the people.

The sobering subject on psychotronic weapons that I am about to talk about in this article will sound science fiction and conspiratorial to some readers, therefore I want to preface this article with an excerpt from a lengthy 2009 substantiated research report on the history of the US concerning mind-weapons, and the US government’s blatant disregard for human rights. The report, documented on Project Censored, is titled Electromagnetic Weapons and Human Rights, and was written by Peter Phillips, Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University and Director of Project Censored, Lew Brown, Psychologist, and Bridget Thornton, History major at Sonoma State University.

The report states:
“This research explores the current capabilities of the US military to use electromagnetic (EMF) devices to harass, intimidate, and kill individuals and the continuing possibilities of violations of human rights by the testing and deployment of these weapons…”

I can verify from my own experience that every word in the above research report is accurate and that mind-altering weapons are being targeted against American citizens. For the last year, both my wife, June, and I, have been victims of a psychotronic weapon attack, perpetrated by the US government, which has caused us bodily harm and mental torment. No surprise here. Since 2019, we have both exposed the Covid pandemic hoax, the weaponized mRNA Covid vaccines, Agenda 2030 and other corruption and fraud inside this government.

Before I talk in more detail about our horrific ongoing ordeal, I want to provide solid leverage to my claims that our government and foreign governments are using harmful technology as weapons of warfare against the mental and physical health of populations worldwide. Do not think for one moment that any government will spend billions of dollars to develop directed energy weapons to attack a few political dissidents. No, this type of weaponized system is highly sophisticated and expensive warfare, and developed to restructure and dominate the minds of the masses into obedient and easily controlled lapdogs.

Over the last thirty years, the infiltrated powers-that-be have deliberately submersed and encaged humanity within a hula-hoop of harmful electromagnetic and radio wave technologies, enabling easy indoctrination over human minds. Wireless cell phones, computers, cell towers, radio towers, and so forth are being used as gateways to these mind-altering directed energy weapons. “Nah, not true,” you might argue. “My cell phone provides me with convenience, easy communication, and entertainment!” Yes, it does all of that, but deception always comes in pretty boxes.

Directed Energy Weapons of the mind are not new technology. The Russians themselves claim they are in the 5th generation of mind-controlling DEW development. This is true. Their technology on how to create a controlled beam of energy from far distances to harm human targets can be traced back as far as 1920. The testing stages were surpassed long ago and they are now super weapons of mass suppression and destruction.

Psychotronic weapons are Directed Energy Weapons, and defined as weapons that aim to control or modify the psyche, or attack the sensory and data-processing systems of the human organism, with the goal of confusing or destroying the signals that normally keep the body in equilibrium. Other mind-altering weapons that fall under Directed Energy Weapons are Neuroweapons, High Energy Radio Frequency (RF) weapons or Influence weapons, Lasers, High-powered Microwaves (non-nuclear electromagnetic pulse), Sound or Acoustic weapons, Infrasound weapons, and Ultrasound weapons. All these weapons harm both the mind and the physical health of the body.

Today’s run-away and unregulated technologies have submerged humanity and the environment into unparalleled harmful levels of electromagnetic fields (EMF). Symptoms of EMF include skin inflammation, headaches, nausea, dizziness, tinnitus, sleep disorders, fatigue, fibromyalgia, heart arrhythmia, memory loss, brain fog, anxiety, mood disorders and thoughts of suicide.

Validations on the dangers of EMF to human health were completed over five decades ago, and still being confirmed through scientific research, and yet today we are fed constant lies by the government-controlled media that WIFI and RF technology is completely safe for human health. But even the World Health Organization classified radio frequency radiation as a possible carcinogen and the California Health Department issued warning that cell phone radiation increases the risk of brain cancer and low sperm counts.

On February 2nd, 1998, the US Army War College Quarterly published an amazing article by Timothy L. Thomas, titled “The Mind Has No Firewall.” He addresses a truth that few citizens ever think about, and that is the simple logic that the human body was formed much like a computer, containing countless data processors. Our brain is extremely unique, and without its constant signaling to the other parts of our body, our physical, cognitive and emotional state would be out of balance and impaired, even causing death. Every human being should be required to read Mr. Thomas’ article, because the advancements in technology today are extremely damaging to human health, and can be used as weapons against us, individually or as an entire populace. Humans can be hijacked, destroyed and eliminated just as easily as a computer that has been infected with a destructive and irreparable virus.

Our cell phones, our computers, our TV’s, our cars, and the chips in our credit cards all track our whereabouts, allowing the controllers to know where we stand, travel, eat and sleep. They have gotten the world so dependent on their WIFI gadgets, and the convenience they provide, that the people have surrendered their privacy and freedoms, and allowed their governments across the world to confine them within an invisible wall of harmful radio frequencies, wireless signals, and excessive electromagnetic fields. All of these gadgets, like cell phones and laptops, are gateways to psychotronic weapons.

If the government does not like you, they will track you from every device you own. They will follow your signals from the satellites above, and aim highly advanced Directed Energy Weapons at your brain while you sleep, or use radios and phone lines to send unhealthy electromagnetic impulses. We are now living in a precarious time where the human body is being manipulated and debilitated on a daily basis, without our knowledge or consent. And like Mr. Thomas’ article warns, computers have firewalls, but our minds do not. We are constant open targets for all governments whose aim is to reset society by 2030, and keep citizens tightly-surveilled and controlled during the final takeover. Sadly, we as a people allowed them to imprison us under their technology, and they now own us.

The evils of psychotronic warfare were exposed back in 1999, by Russian author, N. I. Anisimov, in his informative book entitled Psychotronic Golgotha. Anisimov was spokesperson for psychotronic victims, and interviewed by several Russian mainstream news departments in the 1990’s. He appeared in the 1998 documentary, Zombies of Russia, aired by German television and has been quoted in Timothy L. Thomas’ article, “The Mind Has No Firewall.”

Anisimov explains how these direct energy weapons are developed to penetrate through any type of barrier, using powerful generators, with a high degree of accuracy, and striking victims at any distance. These weapons are attached to a person’s biological field so that intellect and psychological type can be observed and studied, and depending on the program for that particular victim, artificially induce various illnesses into his organs.

The most ambitious (and chilling) of the USSR’s goals for mind-weapon programs provides a clear explanation on why humanity is not told the truth about the ill-effects on the human body caused by today’s WIFI and RF technology. They are the following:

– Controlling human behavior from a far distance using electromagnetic fields.

– Creating physical and biological influence and harm on humans using electromagnetic fields, magnetic fields, and acoustic waves, without their knowledge.

– Erasing information from the brain using electromagnetic fields.

– Creating a new race of bio-robots, using distant influencing of populations with the goal to create an obedient and loyal people to the government and its political system.

– Preplacing psychotronic weapons in space {satellites}, with the goal of controlling and managing the populations.

Is the above information a reason why on October 2nd, 2001, Congressman Dennis Kucinich introduced bill H.R. 2977, the “Space Preservation Act of 2001?” He was certainly aiming to outlaw space-based weapons and ultra-low frequency weapons systems, including psychotronic weapons that were directed at individuals or populations for mood management and mind control. The bill was referred to the House Committees on Science, Armed Services and International Relations—and was expediently vetoed.

What Anisimov goes on to mention in his book grabbed my attention, especially because I had warned (and still warn) people against being immunized with Covid mRNA vaccines. He affirms that the USSR’s secret service conducted vaccinations on the population, secretly injecting almost 30% of the populace with micro-schematic chips. The chips, once injected, allowed recipients to be radio-controlled and tested with radio frequencies. This resulted in creating controlled bio-robots for the Soviets’ ideological manipulations.

Could it be that the psychopathic gangsters running the Western nations faked a pandemic to warrant and mandate mass inoculation of the mRNA vaccines onto the public for the same reason the USSR secretly injected micro-chips into their population—to pave a pathway for people to receive signals inside their bodies for use of psychotronic weapons on a mass scale? This would explain why mRNA bioweapon technology was used in the development of the Covid vaccines, allowing for easy transport of genetic or other added nanoscale materials directly into cells.

Micro-chipped Covid vaccines might explain the reason why everyone was ordered to stand 6-feet apart from each other. Medically, the 6-foot rule carried no soundness, and was not recommended by CDC based on data; but makes sense by a rogue pack of wolves who needed to ensure signaling was working on a mass level. And since cell phones, computers, and other WIFI gadgets can be tracking devices and transmit signals, the governments worldwide are guaranteed the masses remain psychologically disrupted.

According to Anisimov, the Soviets used powerful generators and microwave apparatuses for their psychotronic weapons. These generators could be stationary or portable, located on earth or orbiting above via satellites. I suspect the attack on me and June comes from a satellite above. I discovered online that there is a top-secret military facility located at Fort Huachuca near Sierra Vista, Arizona, three hours away from where we had been living, which tests Ultra High Radio Frequency (UHF) Satellite Communications and Electronic Weapons. Electronic Warfare (EW) is the use of electromagnetic and directed energy to control the electromagnetic spectrum or attack an enemy. I have no idea what they are up to, but testing for ultra-high radio frequencies in relation to satellites is something every human being should be very worried about, especially in light of the information I am providing in this article.

It took some time for me and June to figure out that we were targets of a DEW. Our nightmare began mid-2024. June began feeling severe pain in her left ear. Antibiotics and over-the-counter medications did not bring relief. Then sporadic body tremors and brain fog hit her, which provided clue to a strong electromagnetic field going on inside our home. A few days later, a nerve-wracking radio frequency squealing sound battered our ears and brain, along with constant ringing and pressure. Upon examination I noticed a red-raw laser-like burn in June’s left ear canal. The sound, like a hot-wired energy ray, intensified at night, mainly between the hours of 8:00 pm and 6:00 am. Our entire bodies heated up like a microwave and our blood pressure soared. We could not get relief from the intensity of the torment on our mental and physical health. We were sleeping with metal and copper sheets over our heads to try and block the wave, but those barriers were useless. The pressure and sound became so unbearable at night that we fled our home and drove to various hotels each night, but that beam of energy followed us. We were confused and baffled because none of our neighbors heard the sound or felt sick.

A month later, the pitch died down enough for us to function inside the house during the day. Around this time, I experienced a rapid weight loss of about 40 pounds, lost the majority of muscle mass in my entire body, and my hair started falling out. I went to the doctor, and he prepared me for the possibility that I had cancer. I did not tell him about our troubles, but I suspected the intense radio frequencies had destroyed my health. I was right, a full body scan showed no cancer.

I resigned from my job and we moved from our home, hoping that by relocating to another state we would get our life back. Instead, that mind weapon followed us from state to state. As we drove across country, we noticed newly erected sky-high radio towers strategically located mile after mile, approximately ¼ to ½ miles apart on every highway, back road, in every rural town, busy city, and in every state. Next to these radio goliaths tall cell towers had also been raised. These towers enabled that high-pitch energy to continually assault our ears, and we suspected that our cell phones were transmitting signals of our whereabouts by those innumerable radio towers.

We were correct in our assessment regarding our phones. When we started parking a good distance away from our hotel rooms, and leaving our phones in the car, we felt relief from the pitch. We drove to the Eastern coast, and lodged at an extended-stay hotel for a month, and felt joy to get our minds back. But when our Arizona car tabs expired, and we had to register our cars in that new state, we provided the DMV with our hotel address. The following day, that pitch found us again, and we had to bolt from the hotel. We drove across the border to a neighboring state, and found another hotel. And for two more months we dodged the wave.

After that few months, we let our guard down, and believed we were free from the attack. We badly wanted to settle and moved into a nice house, but a week later, within eight hours of updating our address at the Social Security office, we were hit again with that weapon, causing us to flee our home again, and return to the previous hotel. It was obvious the US government was involved, because we became heavily targeted both times we updated our new addresses at government agencies.

In 2018, Stew Magnuson wrote an article in “National Defense,” titled Exclusive: Doctors Reveal Details of Neuro-Weapon Attacks in Havana. His article divulges the truth behind the mysterious 2017 attacks on American personnel while employed at the US Embassy in Havana, Cuba. Three expert physicians, Dr. Giordana, Dr. Hoffer and Dr. Balaban, investigated the 25 cases of reported illnesses, and concluded that Directed Energy Weapons, or more precisely stated, a series of wide-scale electronic neuroweapon attacks, caused the disruption and damage to the victim’s brains.

It is interesting to note that the DEW attacks in Havana did not happen at the Embassy, or in one location, but took place at numerous locations, either at a victim’s home or at a hotel. The targeted employees reported that it felt as though an invisible beam of energy had zeroed in on their whereabouts inside their dwelling places, and would only stop when they opened the front door. As well, the attacks seemed individually personalized because other personnel, living in the same dwelling place as the victims, but in other rooms, felt no symptoms whatsoever—strongly suggesting the sophistication of these psychotronic weapons in being able to lock in on individuals.

An article in Space and Defense (2016), called Attack on the Brain: Neurowars and Neurowarfare, by Armin Krishnan, is a revealing and honest draft on the dangers involved when Directed Energy Weapons are secretly tested and enacted without oversight and public knowledge. He reveals that the MK ULTRA mind-control documents of the 1950’s and 1960’s prove that the CIA and US military desired to have superior intelligence on hypnotic and physical control of the mind. Krishnan believes that neuroscience will lead to the development of neuroweapons, because neuroweapons can manipulate mental states, perceptions, thoughts, emotions, and behavior. And this explains why he mentions DARPA’s intrusive interest (after 9-11) on developing brain research for the National Security sector. DARPA played a big role in Covid vaccine development and implementation (let’s not forget the millions who died after taking the vaccine), and I am not surprised to see them putting their big noses in interests of the mind.

Krishnan mentions a quote from Vladimir Putin that should solidify the horrors of DEW technology:

“Such high-tech {mind} weapons systems will be comparable in effect to nuclear weapons, but will be more acceptable in terms of political and military ideology.” Vladimir Putin

Psychotronic weapons are tangible threats against humanity and can replace the use of biological or nuclear weapons. The controllers in power are striving to restructure world governments and need to keep the worlds’ populations habitually dependent on their EMF-charged technology. Citizens who are targeted as a whole for mind manipulation under these weapons (more than likely at night) might not feel symptoms, as the waves and beams of RF will be synchronized and aimed at a lax potency, to bring about controlled changes to mind and body. And if the government choses to eliminate individuals or entire populaces, they could increase frequencies on those towers using generators mounted on satellites above.

I have no doubt that the unhealthy saturation of tall radio towers spread uniformly across the landscapes of this nation is a “weaponized” move by this government for possible preparation of DEWs against the population. The taller the tower, the longer the range, as they can transmit signals over buildings and hills, and those higher power transmitters emit stronger signals, which can travel further, with signals possibly reaching up to 45 miles. So, why are those radio towers put up so close together across America, every ¼ to ½ mile apart in most cases? On the website “Steel in the Air,” a United States 2023 map reveals a whopping 175,000 active radio/cell towers. This is extremely disturbing!

I am wrapping this up with the last paragraph published on the US Electromagnetic Weapons and Human Rights report, which I mentioned at the beginning of this article, because I find it the best answer on how We the People can take back our country and preserve our minds, bodies, freedoms, and God-given rights to pursue happiness.

“For the US Government to unilaterally declare that our country will not comply with international human rights laws, nor uphold the core values of our nation’s foundation is an indication of extremism that supersedes the values and beliefs of the American people. When such extremism exists we need to take seriously the founders’ declaration that, to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness.” Declaration of Independence 1776

References:

https://www.projectcensored.org/us-electromagnetic-weapons-and-human-rights-2/

https://press.armywarcollege.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1871&context=parameters

https://www.psicopolis.com/psipol/arch/psychotronic.htm

https://ehtrust.org/scientists-and-doctors-demand-moratorium-on-5g-warning-of-health-effects/

https://higherdose.com/blogs/the-high-life-blog/12-common-symptoms-of-emf-sensitivity-you-need-to-know?srsltid=AfmBOooXd5Y1dOUCRAFPiLH9VPChZ6jaRxMECVCZFChUmImrhqZ-vbUu

https://appliedenergetics.com/

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jun/02/microwave-weapons-havana-syndrome-experts

https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news/its-official-california-issues-caution-cell-phone-use

https://cyberdefensereview.army.mil/Portals/6/Documents/CDR%20Journal%20Articles/Thomas_CDR%20V5N2%20Summer%202020.pdf

https://www.steelintheair.com/blog/number-of-cell-towers-and-small-cells-in-the-united-states-in-2023/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0013935118300161?via%3Dihub

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0039625788900884

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412014001354

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/13/fiber-broadband-and-small-cells-an-unholy-municipal-alliance/

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00788R001300020001-6.pdf

https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/revealed-the-soviet-unions-1-billion-psychotronic-arms-race-with-the-us-1b0b3d97df54

https://www.usafa.edu/app/uploads/Space_and_Defense_9_1.pdf

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/archive/report-soviets-used-top-secret-psychotronic-weapons

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havana_syndrome

https://cyberdefensereview.army.mil/Portals/6/Documents/CDR%20Journal%20Articles/Thomas_CDR%20V5N2%20Summer%202020.pdf

https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2018/9/6/exclusive-doctors-reveal-details-of-neuroweapon-attacks-in-havana

https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2017/5/11/weaponizing-the-brain-neuroscience-advancements-spark-debate

https://techwellness.com/blogs/expertise/phone-track-you-when-it-is-powered-off-shut-down-emf

https://slate.com/technology/2013/07/nsa-can-reportedly-track-cellphones-even-when-they-re-turned-off.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_masts_and_towers

https://www.steelintheair.com/blog/number-of-cell-towers-and-small-cells-in-the-united-states-in-2023/

The post Today’s Technology: The Gateway to Psychotronic Weapons and the Reprogramming of Humanity appeared first on LewRockwell.

Recently, an associate offered the following observation with regard to the likelihood of war in the immediate future:

“The big guys like to play chess with the world. It’s the biggest game. The bankers need ups and downs and wars to make money. The military needs wars to exist. The politicians need both to exist.”

Whilst he was reiterating a concept we have discussed on many occasions, it occurred to me that I have never seen the subject defined so succinctly, nor so informatively.

Let’s break it down:

The bankers need ups and downs and wars to make money

Just as bankers increase their profit as a result of upward and downward economic fluctuations, so, too, do they benefit from war. It is not unusual for a given bank to finance those who would create armed conflict, and indeed, they sometimes bankroll both sides. Whilst banks have other means of making money, war is often more profitable than conventional banking.

The military needs war

The military-industrial complex is in the business of selling armaments to governments. Although armament sales may tick over nicely in peace time, they boom in war time. Therefore, any armament supplier will benefit from war. It matters little whether it is an all-out war or a series of smaller ventures. The object is sales.

The politicians need both banks and war

This is true in the sense that politicians need both bankers and an active military to thrive. Political campaigns depend upon funding. Banks and armament suppliers have long been a major source of campaign funds for candidates of the primary political parties. (If each party is well-paid before the election, favourable treatment towards banks and armament suppliers is assured, regardless of which party wins an election.)

But there is further necessity for armed conflict with regard to politicians. First, it is a truism that a country rarely changes leaders during times of war, and nothing is more imperative to the politician than gaining a further term of office.

Second, nothing distracts the voting public like war. If a politician is receiving increased criticism from the voters, a good war can be counted on to get the voters concentrating more on the war than on the politician’s poor stewardship.

Third, governments typically remove the freedoms of a populace over time. Whilst citizens may object to the loss of their freedoms in normal times, they are often more willing to relinquish them “temporarily” in times of war, “for the good of the country.” Not surprisingly, lost freedoms are seldom reinstated after a war.

Consider the words of James Madison, the fourth US President:

“Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies and debts and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the dominion of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended…. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”

Generally speaking, the citizens of most countries would prefer to avoid war. After all, they rarely benefit from it. But then, the impetus for war is almost never generated by the people of a country. Unless a nation is actually attacked, in nearly every case, the people need to be talked into going to war.

Convincing the People

A good example of this is the US, who, since World War I, have needed convincing on almost every occasion when political leaders proposed war. In World War I, the Lusitania incident was created jointly by the UK and the US to motivate them. In World War II, the goading of Japan was needed. In Vietnam, the trumped-up Gulf of Tonkin incident was needed, and so on.

Suffice to say that, when bankers, the military industrial complex, the politicians, or all three decide to instigate war, war will come to pass. Whether it is a conservative government or a liberal government, if a clear threat does not exist, one will be invented.

At the present time in history, the countries of the First World have created the greatest pillaging of the state coffers that has ever occurred. As complacent as the peoples of both the EU and the US have been in recent decades, there does seem to be a growing understanding amongst the peoples that they have been scammed.

The respective governments are running out of rabbits to pull out of the hat to distract the masses. It would therefore seem that there has been no time in history in which war was so needed by national leaders—both as a distraction to the populace and as a last squeeze at the monetary lemon, prior to the inevitable crash.

And so, what does that mean to the reader? Assuming he is not invited to take part, shouldn’t the drums of war be of little interest to him? Well, in terms of his own physical safety, that may well be true, but here is an historical fact to consider:

Any country that is considering waging war against another country should first consider that the loser is almost always the country that runs out of money first.

No venture is more costly than warfare. The EU and the US are bankrupt now. Those presently living in those locales may escape actual duty in the military, but they will unquestionably be expected to pick up the tab through taxation and inflation.

Those who presently feel that their obligations to their governments are already barely manageable might wish to consider what they will be, both during and after a major war.

Reprinted with permission from International Man.

The post War Is a Certainty appeared first on LewRockwell.

“Depending on who you ask, the US bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities in Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan was either a smashing success that severely crippled Tehran’s nuclear programme, or a flashy show whose results were less than advertised … In the grand scheme of things, all of this is just drama”.

The big issue – second only to ‘what next in Iran’ and how they might respond — says Michael Wolff (who has written four books on Trump), is “how the MAGA is going to respond”:

“And I think he [Trump] is genuinely worried, [Wolff emphasises]. And I think he should be worried. There are two fundamental things to this coalition – Immigration and War. Everything else is fungible and can be compromised. It’s not sure those two elements can be compromised”. 

The signal from Hegseth (‘we are not at war with the Iranian people – just its nuclear programme’) clearly reflects a message being ‘walked back’ in the face of MAGA pushback: ‘Pay no attention. We’re not really doing war’ is what Hegseth was trying to say.

So, what’s next? There are basically four things that can happen: First, the Iranians can say ‘okay, we surrender’, but that’s just not going to happen; the second option is protracted war between Iran and Israel with Israel continuing to be attacked in a way that it has never been attacked before. And thirdly there is attempted regime change — although this has never been successfully achieved by air assault alone. Historically, America’s regime changes have been accompanied by mass slaughter, years of instability, terrorism and chaos.

Lastly, there are those who warn that nuclear Armageddon is on the table with the aim of destroying Iran. But that would be a case of self-harm, since it likely would be Trump’s Armageddon too — at the midterm elections.

“Let me explain”, says Wolff;

“I have been making lots of calls – so I think I have a sense of the arc that got Trump to where we are [with the strikes on Iran]. Calls are one of the main ways I track what he is thinking (I use the word ‘thinking’ loosely)”.

“I talk to people whom Trump has been speaking with on the phone. I mean all of Trump’s internal thinking is external; and it’s done in a series of his constant calls. And it’s pretty easy to follow – because he says the same thing to everybody. So, it’s this constant round of repetition …”.

“So, basically, when the Israelis attacked Iran, he got very excited about this – and his calls were all repetitions of one theme: Were they going to win? Is this a winner? Is this game-over? They [the Israelis] are so good!  This really is a showstopper”.

“So again, we’re in the land of performance. This is a stage and the day before we attacked Iran, his calls were constantly repeating: If we do this, it needs to be perfect. It needs to be a win. It has to look perfect. Nobody dies”.

Trump keeps saying to interlocutors: “We go ‘in-boom-out’: Big Day. We want a big day. We want (wait for it, Wolff says) a perfect war”. And then, out of the blue, Trump announced a ceasefire, which Wolff suggests was ‘Trump concluding his perfect war’.

And so, suddenly — with both Israel and Iran apparently co-operating with the staging of this ‘perfect war headline’ — “he gets annoyed that it doesn’t run perfectly”.

Wolff continues:

“Trump, by then, had already stepped into the role that ‘this was his war’. His perfect war. Television drama at the highest level: War to create a headline. And the headline is ‘WE WON’. I’m in charge now and everybody is going to do what I tell them. What we saw subsequently was his frustration at the spoiling of an outstanding headline: They’re not doing what he tells them”.

What is the broader ramification to this mico-episode? Well, Wolff for one believes Trump is unlikely to get sucked into a long complex war. Why? “Because Trump simply does not have the attention span for it. This is it. He’s done: In-boom-out”.

There is one fundamental point to be understood in Wolff’s analysis for its wider strategic import: Trump craves attention. He thinks in terms of generating headlines — each day, every day,  but not necessarily the policies that flow from that headline. He seeks daily headline dominance, and for that he wants to define the headlines via a rhetorical posture — moulding ‘reality’ to give his own showstopping Trumpian ‘take’.

Headlines then become, as it were, a sort of political dominance which can subsequently metamorphose into policy — or not.

Nonetheless, it will not be quite as easy as Wolff suggests for Trump to simply ‘move the spotlight on’ from Iran — although Trump is a master at finding a new point of contention. For fundamentally, Trump has committed himself to the ancillary headline of ‘Iran will never have a bomb’. Note that he does not define that in policy terms, but gives himself wiggle-room for a possible later victory claim.

Yet, there is another fundamental point here: The Israeli attack on Iran on 13 June was supposed to collapse Iran like a house-of-cards. That is what Israel expected — and what Trump clearly expected too:  “[Trump’s phone calls on the eve of the Israeli surprise attack] were all repetitions of one theme: Were they going to win? Is this a winner? Is this game-over? [The Israelis] are so good!  This is really a show–stopper”. Trump foresaw the possible collapse of the Iranian State.

Well … it wasn’t ‘game over’. Israelis may be hugging themselves in excitement at the Mossad pièce de théâtre on 13 June; at the ‘professionalism’ of Mossad-led decapitations; the assassinations of scientists, the cyber and the sabotage attacks. Mossad is acclaimed by many in Israel — yet all were tactical achievements.

The strategic objective — the ‘be all’ and ‘end all’ of it — was a bust:  The ‘House-of-Cards’ did not implode. Rather, it powerfully rebounded. Instead of Iran being rendered weaker, the attack succeeded in firing-up Shia and Iranian national identities. It has ignited a largely dormant national fervour and passion. Iran will be the more resolute in the future.

So, if the Israeli 13 June assault didn’t succeed, why would the plan go any better second time around and with Iran fully prepared? A long attritional war with Iran may be Netanyahu’s preference to fuel his own hoped-for ‘Great Victory’ headline. But Netanyahu cannot now pursue such delusions (neither can Israel survive an attritional war) – without substantive American help (which might not be forthcoming).

Though Trump’s very evident queasiness (as painted by Wolff’s interlocutors) over whether the Israeli sneak attack would prove to be a quick win or not, is suggestive of Trump’s inner temper: “Is this a winner? Is this game-over? It needs to be a win: It has to look perfect: In-boom-out”.

These repetitive enquiries to those around him spell more a lack of self-confidence, rather than suggest that he wants — or has the attention span — for a long-drawn out slug-match, bereft of a clear ‘game over’ moment.

Too, he will be rightly fearful of the effect on his MAGA base of a long war, as well as on young Trump voters (who are already beginning to drift away from Trump – as focus group polls suggest). Trump’s majorities in both Houses are incredibly precarious. $300m could tip them either way.

Recall too, the second fundamentally important point is that Israel was attacked in a way that it has never been attacked before. Israel still hides the extent of the damage inflicted by Iranian missiles; but even senior Israeli security watchers – as they digest the incrementally exposed extent of damage done to Israel — are drawing the bitter lesson that the Iranian ‘programme’ may not be able to be destroyed by military means. But only through a diplomatic agreement of some sort — if at all.

Regime Change also has been revealed as a chimaera. Iran has never been as united and as steadfast as it is now. The threat to kill the Supreme Leader also completely backfired. Four Shia leading religious authorities (Marja’iyya), including the celebrated Grand Ayatollah Sistani in Iraq, have issued rulings that any attack on the Supreme Leader would trigger a jihad fatwa obligating all of the Ummah (community) to join with religious war on America and Israel.

Negotiations between the US and Iran reaching an agreed outcome seem far off. The IAEA has made itself a major part to the problem, rather than forming any part of a solution. Trump’s attention span on the Ukraine ‘ceasefire’ ploy seems to be ebbing — and this possibly might be the eventual outcome with Iran too. Long negotiations leading nowhere, as Iran quietly re-starts its enrichment programme. And presumably Israel launching further assaults on Iran, leading to Iran’s inevitable response – and escalation.

The views of individual contributors do not necessarily represent those of the Strategic Culture Foundation.

The post ‘The Land of Performance’: Trump Wanted a Perfect War, a Headline Showstopper appeared first on LewRockwell.

As “dip buyers” get eviscerated, more dominos fall, and at a tipping point, the herd realizes the tide has reversed and it’s time to sell–but alas, it’s too late.

Illiquid, Overvalued describes a great many assets that are on the books as “rock-solid investments.” Illiquidity means there are few if any buyers for the asset being offered for sale, and this can arise from various conditions.

1. Credit is tight and expensive, limiting the pool of potential buyers to those with cash.

2. Nobody wants the assets because they’re grossly overvalued.

3. The pool of buyers with the expertise and financial backing needed to buy the asset is inherently limited.

4. “Animal spirits” have left the room and buyers are “on strike” due to caution / fear of future losses.

Bill Ackman outlined some useful principles of illiquidity in a recent commentary on X in his discussion of the illiquid nature of many assets held by Ivy league university endowment funds:

“Harvard’s endowment is principally invested in illiquid private assets including real estate, private equity, and venture capital funds.

Real estate and private equity funds are highly levered so relatively small changes in asset values can have a large impact on equity values. For example, if a real estate fund’s asset values decline by 15% and the assets are levered 60%, the fund’s equity value will decline by 37.5%.

The increase in cap rates and interest rates have impaired real estate and private equity asset values. These funds do not generally mark to market as public assets are marked leading to a wide disparity between public values and private values when overall values decline.

Venture funds generally mark their assets to the last round valuation so these marks can also be overstated as these values can become stale.

I believe that a substantial part of the reason why many private assets remain private despite the stock market near all time highs is that the public market will value private assets at lower values than they are being carried at privately.”

In other words, assets held privately can be “marked to fantasy” because they’re not exposed to the market’s appraisal of their liquidity and value, which are two sides of one coin: if nobody has the cash and willingness to buy the asset, its value is essentially zero, regardless of its “book value.”

When Alan Greenspan issued his mea culpa in late 2013 about missing the subprime mortgage implosion and the resulting Global Financial Meltdown (Why I Didn’t See the Crisis Coming Foreign Affairs), he identified two sources of his failure to “see it coming”:

1. He assumed markets would remain liquid, i.e. that a buyer would emerge for every seller

2. The total failure of everyone’s sophisticated models to predict the collapse of confidence.

The core failure lay in the models’ reliance on the notion that humans make decisions rationally as Homo economicus, when the reality is we are extremely prone to irrational exuberance (a.k.a. running with the euphorically greedy herd) and panic (running off the cliff with the herd). He invoked Keynes famous “animal spirits” as the missing variable in economic models.

Irrational “animal spirits” generate “tail risk,” events that supposedly happen only rarely but when they do happen, they trigger outsized consequences, and the Fed’s models failed to accurately account for “tail risk” because they happen more often than statistical models predict.

All this boils down to illiquidity caused by a panic-button urgency to sell and a profound reluctance to buy: When “animal spirits” are confident in ever-higher asset valuations, participants place a constant bid under the market because prices will keep going up so I’ll make more money. This constant bid is called liquidity: cash is flowing into the asset class, be it stocks or housing or cryptocurrencies or commodities.

When “animal spirits” turn to panic, sellers rush to sell as buyers vanish as they fear that prices will keep going down so I’ll lose more money. Buying into a downtrend is known as “catching the falling knife”: the initial “buy the dip” players have their heads handed to them on a platter, and those on the sidelines decide not to try to catch the falling knife.

This is an illiquid market: the bid keeps dropping until buyers are willing to gamble that “this is the bottom.” But should asset prices continue sliding after an initial euphoric pop higher–“the bottom is in, buy!”–then those who held back find their caution reinforced: that wasn’t the bottom after all, and everyone who jumped in lost money.

Read the Whole Article

The post Illiquid, Overvalued appeared first on LewRockwell.