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The White House released its budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2025 on March 11th, and the news was depressingly familiar: $895 billion for the Pentagon and work on nuclear weapons at the Department of Energy. After adjusting for inflation, that’s only slightly less than last year’s proposal, but far higher than the levels reached during either the Korean or Vietnam wars or at the height of the Cold War. And that figure doesn’t even include related spending on veterans, the Department of Homeland Security, or the additional tens of billions of dollars in “emergency” military spending likely to come later this year. One thing is all too obvious: a trillion-dollar budget for the Pentagon alone is right around the corner, at the expense of urgently needed action to address climate change, epidemics of disease, economic inequality, and other issues that threaten our lives and safety at least as much as, if not more than, traditional military challenges.

Americans would be hard-pressed to find members of Congress carefully scrutinizing such vast sums of national security spending, asking tough questions, or reining in Pentagon excess — despite the fact that this country is no longer fighting any major ground wars. Just a handful of senators and members of the House do that work while many more search for ways to increase the department’s already bloated budget and steer further contracts into their own states and districts.

Congress isn’t just shirking its oversight duties: these days, it can’t even seem to pass a budget on time. Our elected representatives settled on a final national budget just last week, leaving Pentagon spending at the already generous 2023 level for nearly half of the 2024 fiscal year. Now, the department will be inundated with a flood of new money that it has to spend in about six months instead of a year. More waste, fraud, and financial abuse are inevitable as the Pentagon prepares to shovel money out the door as quickly as possible. This is no way to craft a budget or defend a country.

And while congressional dysfunction is par for the course, in this instance it offers an opportunity to reevaluate what we’re spending all this money for. The biggest driver of overspending is an unrealistic, self-indulgent, and — yes — militaristic national defense strategy. It’s designed to maintain a capacity to go almost everywhere and do almost anything, from winning wars with rival superpowers to intervening in key regions across the planet to continuing the disastrous Global War on Terror, which was launched in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and never truly ended. As long as such a “cover the globe” strategy persists, the pressure to continue spending ever more on the Pentagon will prove irresistible, no matter how delusional the rationale for doing so may be.

Defending “the Free World”?

President Biden began his recent State of the Union address by comparing the present moment to the time when the United States was preparing to enter World War II. Like President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1941, Joe Biden told the American people that the country now faces an “unprecedented moment in the history of the Union,” one in which freedom and democracy are “under attack” both at home and abroad. He disparaged Congress’s failure to approve his emergency supplemental bill, claiming that, without additional aid for Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin will threaten not just that country but all of Europe and even the “free world.” Comparing (as he did) the challenge posed by Russia now to the threat that Hitler’s regime posed in World War II is a major exaggeration that’s of no value in developing an effective response to Moscow’s activities in Ukraine and beyond.

Engaging in such fearmongering to get the public on board with an increasingly militarized foreign policy ignores reality in service of the status quo. In truth, Russia poses no direct security threat to the United States. And while Putin may have ambitions beyond Ukraine, Russia simply doesn’t have the capability to threaten the “free world” with a military campaign. Neither does China, for that matter. But facing the facts about these powers would require a critical reassessment of the maximalist U.S. defense strategy that rules the roost. Currently, it reflects the profoundly misguided belief that, on matters of national security, U.S. military dominance takes precedence over the collective economic strength and prosperity of Americans.

As a result, the administration places more emphasis on deterring potential (if unlikely) aggression from competitors than on improving relations with them. Of course, this approach depends almost entirely on increasing the production, distribution, and stockpiling of arms. The war in Ukraine and Israel’s continuing assault on Gaza have unfortunately only solidified the administration’s dedication to the concept of military-centric deterrence.

Contractor Dysfunction: Earning More, Doing Less

Ironically, such a defense strategy depends on an industry that continually exploits the government for its own benefit and wastes staggering amounts of taxpayer dollars. The major corporations that act as military contractors pocket about half of all Pentagon outlays while ripping off the government in a multitude of ways. But what’s even more striking is how little they accomplish with the hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars they receive year in, year out. According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), from 2020 to 2022, the total number of major defense acquisition programs actually declined even as total costs and average delivery time for new weapons systems increased.

Take the Navy’s top acquisition program, for example. Earlier this month, the news broke that the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine is already at least a year behind schedule. That sub is the sea-based part of the next-generation nuclear (air-sea-and-land) triad that the administration considers the “ultimate backstop” for global deterrence. As a key part of this country’s never-ending arms buildup, the Columbia is supposedly the Navy’s most important program, so you might wonder why the Pentagon hasn’t implemented a single one of the GAO’s six recommendations to help keep it on track.

As the GAO report made clear, the Navy proposed delivering the first Columbia-class vessel in record time — a wildly unrealistic goal — despite it being the “largest and most complex submarine” in its history.

Yet the war economy persists, even as the giant weapons corporations deliver less weaponry for more money in an ever more predictable fashion (and often way behind schedule as well). This happens in part because the Pentagon regularly advances weapons programs before design and testing are even completed, a phenomenon known as “concurrent development.” Building systems before they’re fully tested means, of course, rushing them into production at the taxpayer’s expense before the bugs are out. Not surprisingly, operations and maintenance costs account for about 70% of the money spent on any U.S. weapons program.

Lockheed Martin’s F-35 is the classic example of this enormously expensive tendency. The Pentagon just greenlit the fighter jet for full-scale production this month, 23 years (yes, that’s not a misprint!) after the program was launched. The fighter has suffered from persistent engine problems and deficient software. But the official go-ahead from the Pentagon means little, since Congress has long funded the F-35 as if it were already approved for full-scale production. At a projected cost of at least $1.7 trillion over its lifetime, America’s most expensive weapons program ever should offer a lesson in the necessity of trying before buying.

Unfortunately, this lesson is lost on those who need to learn it the most. Acquisition failures of the past never seem to financially impact the executives or shareholders of America’s biggest military contractors. On the contrary, those corporate leaders depend on Pentagon bloat and overpriced, often unnecessary weaponry. In 2023, America’s biggest military contractor, Lockheed Martin, paid its CEO John Taiclit $22.8 million. Annual compensation for the CEOs of RTX, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, and Boeing ranged from $14.5 and $22.5 million in the past two years. And shareholders of those weapons makers are similarly cashing in. The arms industry increased cash paid to its shareholders by 73% in the 2010s compared to the prior decade. And they did so at the expense of investing in their own businesses. Now they expect taxpayers to bail them out to ramp up weapons production for Ukraine and Israel.

Reining in the Military-Industrial Complex

One way to begin reining in runaway Pentagon spending is to eliminate the ability of Congress and the president to arbitrarily increase that department’s budget. The best way to do so would be by doing away with the very concept of “emergency spending.” Otherwise, thanks to such spending, that $895 billion Pentagon budget will undoubtedly prove to be anything but a ceiling on military spending next year. As an example, the $95 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan that passed the Senate in February is still hung up in the House, but some portion of it will eventually get through and add substantially to the Pentagon’s already enormous budget.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon has fallen back on the same kind of budgetary maneuvers it perfected at the peak of its disastrous Afghan and Iraq wars earlier in this century, adding billions to the war budget to fund items on the department’s wish list that have little to do with “defense” in our present world. That includes emergency outlays destined to expand this country’s “defense industrial base” and further supersize the military-industrial complex — an expensive loophole that Congress should simply shut down. That, however, will undoubtedly prove a tough political fight, given how many stakeholders — from Pentagon officials to those corporate executives to compromised members of Congress — benefit from such spending sprees.

Ultimately, of course, the debate about Pentagon spending should be focused on far more than the staggering sums being spent. It should be about the impact of such spending on this planet. That includes the Biden administration’s stubborn continuation of support for Israel’s campaign of mass slaughter in Gaza, which has already killed more than 31,000 people while putting many more at risk of starvation. A recent Washington Post investigation found that the U.S. has made 100 arms sales to Israel since the start of the war last October, most of them set at value thresholds just low enough to bypass any requirement to report them to Congress.

The relentless supply of military equipment to a government that the International Court of Justice has said is plausibly engaged in a genocidal campaign is a deep moral stain on the foreign-policy record of the Biden administration, as well as a blow to American credibility and influence globally. No amount of airdrops or humanitarian supplies through a makeshift port can remotely make up for the damage still being done by U.S.-supplied weapons in Gaza.

The case of Gaza may be extreme in its brutality and the sheer speed of the slaughter, but it underscores the need to thoroughly rethink both the purpose of and funding for America’s foreign and military policies. It’s hard to imagine a more devastating example than Gaza of why the use of force so often makes matters far, far worse — particularly in conflicts rooted in longstanding political and social despair. A similar point could have been made with respect to the calamitous U.S. interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan that cost untold numbers of lives, while pouring yet more money into the coffers of America’s major weapons makers. Both of those military campaigns, of course, failed disastrously in their stated objectives of promoting democracy, or at least stability, in troubled regions, even as they exacted huge costs in blood and treasure.

Before our government moves full speed ahead expanding the weapons industry and further militarizing geopolitical challenges posed by China and Russia, we should reflect on America’s disastrous performance in the costly, prolonged wars already waged in this century. After all, they did enormous damage, made the world a far more dangerous place, and only increased the significance of those weapons makers. Throwing another trillion dollars-plus at the Pentagon won’t change that.

Reprinted with permission from TomDispatch.com.

The post Spending Unlimited appeared first on LewRockwell.

The Islamic State (IS) – a CIA creation – claimed credit for the attack.

However, the political end of this attack is more complex.

On March 7, 2024, the US Embassy in Russia warned Moscow that a terror attack may take place in Moscow within the next few weeks. No further details.

Is it one of the now fashionable “predictive planning” stunts?

On the same day, the same US Embassy in Moscow warned US citizens in Moscow not to visit shopping malls. How much did the US know?

Speculations abound. Was this an empty warning to destabilize Russia and Russian elections?

Or was it one more provocation to pull Russia into a larger conflict?

On the day of the attack, John Kirby, spokesman for National Security at the White House said in a Press Conference that there were no indications that Ukraine had anything to do with the attack. In early March Washington just had some indications that a terror assault may hit Moscow.

“Some indications”? Why then the warning on the same 7 March to US citizens in Moscow not to visit any shopping malls?

It could not be more obvious that a hidden agenda is being played by Washington – and, may be added, by NATO and Europe?

Whether the Islamic State (ISIL), Al Qaeda or another CIA / MI6 terror creation – or even Kiev directly — was involved in this mass-killing is irrelevant, because whoever acted, did so on behalf of US / NATO and the West’s “Classe politique”. 

It is no coincidence that French President Macron practically simultaneously sends officially 2,000 French NATO troops to Ukraine. “Officially”, because western / NATO military advisers, trainers and coaches for Kiev’s Nazi-military have been in Kiev for quite a while.

Polish Foreign Minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, has called it an open secret that Western soldiers are in Ukraine. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said, “there are already some troops from big countries in Ukraine.” See this.

Crossing Russia’s Redline

This is clearly the crossing of President Putin’s Red Line. Mr. Macron knows it, those who mandate the crossing of the Red Line, like the WEF and those dark Deep State Cult forces behind the WEF, know it – and Moscow knows that they know it.

Is it a provocation to pull Moscow into a hot war?

And the Moscow Concert Hall assault being a doubling-up of the Red-Line crossing?

This happening in the Ides of March, and just ten days after the confirmed landslide re-election of President Putin on 17 March 2024.

The Ides of March

Ides of March is the day in the ancient Roman calendar that falls approximately on Mid-March and is associated with misfortune and doom.

The date is also known as the date on which Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC.

Most US wars were initiated in March. Has it become a symbolic cult ritual of the west?

“With the exception of the War on Afghanistan (October 2001) and the 1990-91 Gulf War, all major US-NATO and allied led military operations over a period of more than half a century –since the invasion of Vietnam by US ground forces on March 8, 1965– have been initiated in the month of March.”

(See: The Pentagon’s “Ides of March 2024”: Best Month to Go to War?, by Michel Chossudovsky, March 01, 2024

It would perfectly fit into the Death Cult of the Great Reset (WEF) and the UN Agenda 2030, which are currently plaguing humanity – worldwide.

There are other “non-coincidences”: Yugoslavia

The 24 March 2024 is the 25th anniversary of the 1999 US-NATO assault on Yugoslavia (Ides of March) – currently being commemorated by a two-day Conference 23-24 March 2024, in Belgrade.

The destruction and dismembering of Yugoslavia were also planned by a long hand.

After Josip Tito’s death in May 1980 (he served in several leadership positions of Yugoslavia from 1943-1980), there were some lesser communist successors, who were vulnerable to western / NATO “pressures”, and let what was a solid Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) deteriorate, western-style.

In 1990 Slobodan Milošević, President of Serbia became de facto President of the SFR Yugoslavia attempting to hold the federation together – which in the ten years after President Tito’s departure was financially destabilized by the west. In the 1990s the SFR Yugoslavia was one of the first “cases” where the World Bank, IMF Washington Consensus was applied full-scale – indebting to destabilize, create internal unrest – and divide.

Mr. Milošević was captured, detained at the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) prison in The Hague. He was poisoned on March 11, 2006 in his prison cell – shortly before his scheduled appearance at the International Criminal Tribunal on Yugoslavia (ICTY).

Once divided with constant civil unrest, there was “justification” for western rescue, i.e., bombing Yugoslavia literally into bits and pieces – leaving what we have today, numerous so-called independent former Yugoslavian Federal States – being economically and with “sanctions” controlled by the west.

Read the Whole Article

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Just humor yourself and do a search on the title of this post: Misunderstood communism. What you will find are mostly defenders of the ideal, trying to explain away its failures; trying to champion the cause.
You can find several communist Substacks with thousands of subscribers who have no idea what they are talking about.

Communism, some say, has never failed because it has never REALLY been tried. I am not going to talk about that as there is no point in arguing with religious fanatics. I am not going to address the “yes, but…” and the “what about the free stuff…” arguments either.

After I left communist Hungary, my greatest frustration was with those who sympathized. With the slightly condescending “you poor victim of totalitarianism….” attitude. The anti-communist West pictured communism in black and white, the Gulags and the propaganda, neither of which had much to do with real life.
In that real life, I had many friends, the summers were beautiful, the sexual revolution was raging just like in the West. We did not have access to all the goods the West produced, but what we were able to get, was appreciated far more than in the West.

The problem with the Western perception of communism is that both sides are using a fundamentally moralizing approach to very pragmatic problems.

• The left sees its lofty goals and grandiose promises while the right looks at its most inhuman excesses.
• The left is pointing to its supposed and nominal social rights while the right bemoans the loss and suppression of individual rights.
• The left is smitten by its cheerful propaganda, the right is appalled by its blatant lies.

The real problems of communism were, of course, in the grey, depressing middle.
In the details that are hardly ever talked about.

The problems

• In a system of strictly enforced centralized decision making, there can be no healthy economy.
• In a system without a healthy civil society, there can be no morality.
• In a system of compelled conformity, there can be no creativity.

It is important to understand, that these statements are not absolutes. In communist countries, there was (is) a more or less functioning economy, moral behaviour and creativity, but all of it existed DESPITE, not BECAUSE of the system that can only function on the remnants of attitudes, instincts and social conditioning that evolved over thousands of years of civilizational evolution. People living in communist countries are still humans.

Communism/socialism is a paradox that can only exist on the values it aims to replace.

There are two essential works to help you understand the economic aspects of the problem:

• Mises’: Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth
• And Hayek’s Nobel prize lecture on the pretense of knowledge

Mises explains how planning is impossible without market signals, while Hayek explores the pitfalls in the arrogance of the central planners.

In the first post of this series, I made the case for the value of distributed decision making.
The closer you are to the object of the decision, the more you can take into account the details that are needed to make the appropriate ones.
The further away you are from the details, the more of those details you will have to disregard in your decisions.
Communism is the ultimate example of centralized decision-making with a strictly enforced decision making hierarchy. Central planners are so far removed from the details, that it is not possible for them to even know what they are.
The pretense of knowledge is not driven by nefarious intent, but sheer necessity.
Marx called his economic delusions and political phantasies ‘science’.
The moment you buy into the ideology, you have to start treating Marx’s seriously confused ideas as gospel. Every communist had to treat them as such. Since the foundational questions – who will make decisions based on what information – could not be addressed, reality had to be shaped into matching the ideology-based projections. Of course it didn’t work. Ever.

In centrally planned economies there is constant waste on the one hand, shortages on the other;
black-markets and petty corruption, theft of public resources and bribes to get proper services or goods from the shadow economy.

Let me state it again, that all of this corruption was essential for some sort of economic functioning. The communist authorities were naturally blaming all problems on the people for not being in line with the ideology. If we were good communists, everything would be working fine – we were told.

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Some things in life will never dwell together in unity. Examples from the physical world illustrate this easily—oil and water, equal magnetic poles, or cats and birds. The ideological world provides even more examples— prosperity and socialism, for example. As with other South American victims of the Left, this point is illustrated clearly in Brazil.

Younger Americans nonetheless love to agitate for socialism’s shiny promises—the “free” stuff like college educations and medical care, or the “cool” stuff, like high-speed rail or mass transit. Life under socialism appears to be one big, happy hostel, full of licentious delights, music festivals, and climate-friendly “solidarity”. What was “available for years in Europe” is now available here—if only people will, “like, save democracy” and vote!

Like European cars, real socialism would presumably bring stylish improvements to the clunkier traditions of American life. For the star-gazing Left and its young disciples, there is something pleasing and progressive about socialism’s brutalist, gender-fluid aesthetic. Regardless of the hipster window dressings applied to this dismal philosophy, though, one will only find the old deprivations and tyrannies within.

My regular Uber driver, a Brazilian guy named Alex, only shakes his head at his American peers’ mindless appetite for socialism. Like many in the ride share business, Alex is finding some success here. He’s happy to work long hours and build wealth along with his wife, who is also a citizen, now pregnant with their first child. Over the course of several airport drives, he described Brazilian socialism—the popularly touted “social democratic” variety that he escaped through a costly and legal immigration process.

As a newer American citizen with first-hand experience of socialist blight, Alex fears that socialism will bring another once-prosperous country to its knees. I was therefore intrigued by his take on young Americans’ economic make-believe; he described the hard facts that these hare-brained fantasies never include.

Surprisingly, his heavily-accented personal history don’t focus on stories of privations, shortages and censorship—although he observed those things, too. Instead, most of his Brazilian backstory was disturbingly relatable; it was as if he was describing my American life from a vista of the future, just a little further on down our current road.

When I asked about the “free” medical care enjoyed in Brazil—the left’s famously touted benefit of socialism—he shared his experience working for an oncology practice, where he scheduled patients for cancer surgeries. As is always true, “free” wasn’t worth much at the doctor’s office; most Brazilians still need private insurance because government medical care is poo— if you ever manage to get it. On many occasions, by the time he contacted cancer patients on the long waitlist, the patient had already died.

Government schools—both in Brazil and here— are the training and acclimation grounds for all such dismal results. Brazil teaches us where a socialist education model leads; public high schools and universities there are known to hang posters of Marx or Che Guevara. Public education is generally abysmal, so even struggling middle-class families will cobble funds to send their kids to private schools instead. Sexual performance “art” is increasingly common on college campuses. None of this is difficult for Americans to imagine anymore—to a large degree, it’s already happening here, too.

After hearing Alex mention the communist wall art, I remembered my own brushes with public education poster campaigns. In my middle school years, we saw “Reading is FUNdamental” and “Food Pyramid” posters in the library and lunchroom; they seemed like harmless, if unconvincing, ways to promote literacy and good health. Things have progressed on schedule, though; now schools have graduated to fist-up posters extolling power, pride, diversity, or banned books—the calls to action for today’s little K-12 revolutionaries. The Brazilian wall art probably isn’t that far away.

Before my talks with Alex, Brazil was Rio de Janeiro and exotic rain forests; but through my Uber seminars, it was revealed to be an eerily familiar prophecy of our own future, should our political left continue to run the show. Brazil’s powerful Supreme Court tramples legislative powers, and corruption is an entrenched feature of both sides of the political spectrum. Brazil’s Marxist leader, Lula, now aims his firepower at conservative ex-president Jair Bolsonaro and the Left’s favorite “threats to democracy,”—things like free speech and religion.

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How much longer will the Biden administration and the mainstream media continue to deny that we are in the midst of a very painful economic downturn?  Debt levels have never been higher, delinquency rates are spiking, the commercial real estate market is crashing, the banking industry is mired in turmoil and large companies are conducting mass layoffs all over the nation.  Anyone that attempts to claim that the U.S. economy is in good shape is just being delusional.  Unfortunately, it is those that are at the bottom of the economic food chain that are being hurt the most.

If you want to know what is really going on with the economy, pawn shops are a great place to look.

When the economy is doing well, pawn shop inventories tend to go down because people aren’t pawning much stuff and there is lots of buying going on.

But when the economy is not doing well, pawn shop inventories tend to go up because people are pawning lots of stuff for fast cash and there aren’t as many buyers as there were during the good times.

So what are we seeing during the early stages of 2024?

One pawn shop owner that was recently interviewed by USA Today admitted that he has “a glut of inventory” right now…

Clay Baron has everything in his pawn shop from gold rings and pearl necklaces to vintage cowboy boots, silver belt buckles, stereos and ticking clocks.

The only thing he’s short on is space. “Right now we have a glut of inventory,” Baron said, “which tells me that our clientele doesn’t necessarily have money.”

Accumulating pawn shop inventory means fewer buyers than sellers – a sign that for the lowest-income Americans, times remain tough.

That same article pointed out that inventory levels have also grown rapidly at some of the largest pawn shop chains in the entire nation…

Two of the largest, publicly traded pawnshop corporations in the U.S. – which between them own roughly 1,700 pawnshops nationwide – are also reporting growing inventory and increased demand for short-term loans.

FirstCash Holdings Inc. operates nearly 1,200 pawnshops under the FirstCash and Cash America brands in 29 states and the District of Columbia. The company reported “record pawn receivables” in its most recent year-end earnings report and a 10% increase in inventory at its U.S. stores.

EZCORP Inc. also owns 530 pawnshops in the U.S. and reported an 8% increase in inventory at U.S. stores in the company’s latest earnings report. The “challenging macro-economic backdrop” continued to fuel demand for short-term cash loans, the company said.

If anyone comes to you and tries to convince you that the economy is doing well, just show them these numbers.

That will be the end of any debate.

One of the reasons why so many Americans need fast cash is because debt loads have risen to unprecedented levels.  Here is just one example…

For Denise and Paul Nierzwicki, credit cards are the only way to make ends meet. The couple, ages 69 and 72, respectively, have about $20,000 in debt spread across multiple cards, all with interest rates above 20%.

The trouble started during the pandemic, when Denise lost her job and a business deal for a bar that they owned in their hometown of Lexington, Kentucky, went bad.

They applied for Social Security, which helped, and Denise now works 50 hours a week at a restaurant. Still, they’re barely scraping together the minimum payments for their credit card debt.

Can you imagine how much stress they must be feeling on a daily basis?

Sadly, there are millions of others that are in similar positions.

The combination of high debt levels and high interest rates has created a “perfect storm” of suffering for U.S. consumers, and so it should be no surprise that delinquency rates have been surging…

The signs are obvious. Last week we noted that banks’ charge-offs are accelerating, and are now above pre-pandemic levels.

…and leading this increase are credit card loans – with delinquencies that haven’t been this high since Q3 2011.

On top of that, while credit cards and nonfarm, nonresidential commercial real estate loans drove the quarterly increase in the noncurrent rate, residential mortgages drove the quarterly increase in the share of loans 30-89 days past due.

When large numbers of people start getting behind on their mortgages, it is only a matter of time before foreclosures start to spike.

And that is precisely what we are witnessing…

Home foreclosures rose again in February as Americans continue to grapple with the ongoing cost-of-living crisis.

That is according to a new report published by real estate data provider ATTOM, which found that there were 32,938 properties in February with foreclosure filings, which includes default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions.

Sadly, things are only going to get worse during the months ahead, because the labor market is starting to get very tight.

One 26-year-old woman that has multiple degrees hasn’t been able to find a job even though she has already applied for approximately 1,000 different positions…

Cheyenne Barton, 26, of Kissimmee, Florida, graduated in December with one degree in biomedical sciences and another in computing technology and software development – the kind of practical background employers have coveted.

She initially targeted software development jobs but is now looking for “really any job” where she can use her degrees.

Barton has applied for about 1,000 positions but hasn’t yet notched an interview.

Companies “say they want recent grads who are teachable and can learn quicker,” she says. “But then you apply for the job and it’s like, ‘Oh, we already have over 100 applications with people who are more qualified.’”

Wait a second.

Joe Biden told us that good jobs are easy to find these days.

So why can’t Cheyenne Barton even get an interview?

Something is not adding up.

Of course the truth is that we have seen a major shift in the labor market in recent months.  According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the number of layoffs in February was the highest that they have ever recorded for that particular month…

The pace of job cuts by U.S. employers accelerated in February, a sign the labor market is starting to deteriorate in the face of ongoing inflation and high interest rates.

That is according to a new report published Thursday by Challenger, Gray & Christmas, which found that companies planned 84,638 job cuts in February, a 3% increase from the previous month and a 9% jump from the same time last year.

It marked the highest layoff total for the month of February in data going back to 2009.

The outlook for the rest of the year is absolutely dismal.

So even more Americans will fall into poverty.

And even more Americans will fall into hunger.

And even more Americans will end up homeless.

Over the weekend, a story about a homeless man in Wasco, California that was apparently eating “a severed human leg” has been going viral…

Video footage shot in Wasco, California appears to show a crazed maniac waving around a severed human leg and taking bites out of it before police apprehended him Friday.

Reports have suggested that the man ‘stole’ the leg from the scene of a train accident, where a person was earlier hit and killed.

The footage shows the man, identified as 27-year-old Resendo Tellez, holding and examining the limb, with witnesses saying he was eating parts of it, before attempting to walk away waving it around as multiple police cars close in on him.

That is pretty shocking.

But it is also a preview of where this country is heading.

The economic suffering of the past couple of years has been very painful, but the truth is that it isn’t even worth comparing to what is in front of us.

Reprinted with permission from The Economic Collapse.

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di Barry Brownstein

Nel suo libro The New Puritans Andrew Doyle scrive: “Abbiamo visto gli evangelisti della 'giustizia sociale' prendere il controllo delle nostre principali istituzioni culturali, politiche, educative e aziendali, assetati di opportunità per sconfiggere i diavoli, siano essi reali o meno. [...] Queste tendenze illiberali [...] minacciano di sabotare tutti quei progressi che abbiamo compiuto sin dai movimenti per i diritti civili degli anni ’60”.

Troppo pochi ascoltarono F. A. Hayek quando lanciò un messaggio simile quasi 50 anni fa. Nel suo libro Law, Legislation and Liberty, Volume 2: The Mirage of Social Justice Hayek scriveva, parlando di “giustizia sociale”, che “i vecchi diritti civili e i nuovi diritti sociali ed economici non possono essere raggiunti contemporaneamente ma sono di fatto incompatibili; i nuovi diritti non potrebbero essere imposti dalla legge senza distruggere allo stesso tempo quell’ordine liberale a cui mirano i vecchi diritti civili”.

Non penso che Hayek sarebbe scioccato dalle iniziative DEI (diversità, equità e inclusione) e dal loro uso del razzismo per “combattere” il razzismo. Di recente la Facoltà di Medicina della Johns Hopkins University, famosa in tutto il mondo, ha ripudiato il punto di vista del suo responsabile della diversità, la dottoressa Sherita Golden. Quest'ultima, nella sua newsletter mensile, aveva scritto che tutti “i bianchi, le persone normodotate, gli eterosessuali, le persone cisgender, i maschi, i cristiani, le persone della classe media o possidente, le persone di mezza età e le persone di lingua inglese” sono privilegiati .

Conosciamo tutti la retorica della Golden, l'unica sorpresa è stata che l'università abbia ripudiato la sua dichiarazione. Pensate ai commissari dei criteri DEI come a quelli sovietica memoria.

Nell’ex-Unione Sovietica un commissario era un burocrate inserito nell’esercito, o in altre organizzazioni governative, per garantire che le decisioni fossero fedeli allo spirito del partito comunista. Il loro compito era mantenere la purezza ideologica.

Le scene del romanzo di Vasily Grossman, Life and Fate, sono ambientate durante la battaglia per Stalingrado. Le vittime furono tante e una brigata aveva bisogno di un nuovo capo di stato maggiore. Il colonnello Novikov aveva bisogno dell'approvazione del commissario Getmanov per nominare il maggiore Basangov. Getmanov rispose: «Il secondo in comando della seconda brigata è un armeno; vuoi che il capo di stato maggiore sia un Kalmyk [mongolo]? E abbiamo già un Lifshits [un ebreo] come capo di stato maggiore della terza brigata. Non potremmo fare a meno dei Kalmyk?».

Il destino dell'Unione Sovietica era in bilico e il commissario badava alle identità etniche degli ufficiali. Novikov cedette al commissario e nominò un russo. Anche se Novikov “rideva dell'ignoranza militare di Getmanov [...] aveva paura di lui”.

Oggi in America molti potrebbero ridere dei commissari dei criteri DEI, ma come nel caso di Novikov, un’ombra di paura attraversa la loro mente.

Il vecchio movimento per i diritti civili a cui facevano riferimento Doyle e Hayek era vantaggioso per tutti: uguaglianza di fronte alla legge. Le iniziative DEI di oggi sono invece a somma zero: una persona meno qualificata riceve un lavoro in base alla razza, al sesso o ad altro status, mentre a qualcuno più qualificato gli viene negato.

Hayek spiegò che “la richiesta di 'giustizia sociale' diventa quindi una richiesta affinché i membri della società si organizzino in un modo che renda possibile assegnare porzioni particolari del prodotto della società ai diversi individui o gruppi”.

L’abuso della giustizia sociale, scrisse Hayek , “minaccia di distruggere la concezione del diritto che è a salvaguardia della libertà individuale”. Spiegò inoltre che quando questa “superstizione quasi religiosa” della giustizia sociale usa la coercizione, dev'essere combattuta perché è “la minaccia più grave alla maggior parte degli altri valori di una civiltà libera”.

Hayek poi aggiunse: “Quasi ogni richiesta di azione da parte dello stato a favore di particolari gruppi è avanzata in suo nome, e se si riesce a far sembrare che una certa misura sia richiesta dalla 'giustizia sociale', l’opposizione a essa s'indebolirà rapidamente”. Oggi i commissari dei criteri DEI avanzano le loro richieste contando su una debole opposizione.

L’American Library Association ha definito la giustizia sociale come “un mondo in cui la distribuzione delle risorse è equa e sostenibile e tutti i membri sono fisicamente e psicologicamente sicuri, protetti, riconosciuti e trattati con rispetto”. Hayek predisse che vaghe parole incomprensibili, come quelle dell'ALA, sarebbero diventate la norma.

Una volta che il termine giustizia sociale viene utilizzato come arma, scrisse Hayek, non può che espandersi: “È nella convinzione che qualcosa come una 'giustizia sociale' possa essere raggiunta che le persone hanno posto nelle mani dello stato poteri che ora non può rifiutare; da impiegare per soddisfare le pretese di un numero sempre crescente d'interessi particolari che hanno imparato a utilizzare il grimaldello della 'giustizia sociale'”.

Il pastore di Chicago, Corey Brooks, è in prima linea per alleviare le sofferenze della sua comunità. Ha esposto l’ideologia dei criteri DEI per quella che è:

L'ideologia dei criteri DEI [...] non ha alcuna capacità di aiutare [...]. Non offre fede e non offre alcun significato esistenziale [...]. È retorica manipolativa [...] ideologi di professione usano il nostro dolore per alimentare il loro tornaconto attraverso le istituzioni americane. La loro merce di scambio è un veleno che distrugge l’anima, i cui effetti morali e nel mondo reale sono altrettanto negativi per le nostre comunità quanto quelli di qualsiasi altro farmaco venduto nelle farmacie.

Brooks ci invita a considerare gli effetti distruttivi delle iniziative DEI. Hayek scrisse: “il liberalismo classico [...] era governato da principi di giusta condotta individuale mentre la nuova società deve soddisfare le richieste di 'giustizia sociale'”. Oggi alle persone viene detto che sono vittime o carnefici; le vittime si aspettano che lo stato risolva le loro lamentele.

Hayek predisse che una volta che la giustizia sociale fosse diventata un criterio accettato per allocare le risorse attraverso la coercizione, lo stato avrebbe dovuto trattare le persone “in modo diseguale”. Il fatto che ci siano troppe persone che si preparano per la carriera di commissari dei criteri DEI non avrebbe affatto sorpreso Hayek:

Una volta che le ricompense che l’individuo può aspettarsi non sono più un’indicazione adeguata di come dirigere i propri sforzi dove ce n’è più bisogno, perché queste ricompense non corrispondono più al valore che i suoi servizi hanno per i suoi simili, ma al merito morale o al disertare il valore che si ritiene le persone abbiano legittimamente guadagnato, perdono la funzione di guida che hanno nell'ordine del mercato e vengono sostituiti da autorità totalitarie.

Hayek sapeva che la giustizia sociale avrebbe indebolito la parità di trattamento ai sensi della legge. Oggi, secondo le parole di Doyle, la giustizia sociale pone “l’accento sull’identità di gruppo rispetto ai diritti dell’individuo, sul rifiuto del liberalismo sociale e sul presupposto che i risultati disuguali siano sempre la prova di disuguaglianze strutturali”. I commissari dei criteri DEI, come la Golden, diffondono la velenosa dottrina secondo cui la società si basa su alcuni gruppi che esercitano il loro “privilegio” a spese di altri.

Hayek disse che quanto più questo veleno si diffonde, tanto più la nostra civiltà è a rischio. Perché così tante persone hanno ignorato il suo monito? Conosciamo la risposta: per paura. E conosciamo anche l'antidoto: il coraggio.

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

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This weekend’s late-night spending vote in Congress seems like another in an endless series of sequels to a bad suspense movie. Just at the brink of “disaster,” just before the stroke of midnight, Congress pulls off a miracle and passes an omnibus bill to save us from a “government shutdown!”

The heroes have saved the day!

Unfortunately, this latest sequel is as bad as the previous ones, as the American people are left with a massive $1.2 trillion dollar spending package to add to our already $34 trillion in debt. Military spending will, of course, be increased yet again, as the military-industrial complex demands more of our wealth to feed its ever-increasing appetite. And if this military spending increase is not enough, Congressional leadership is promising another huge supplemental bill to further fuel proxy wars in Ukraine and Gaza – with some money to provoke China as well.

Republicans like to talk a good game about reining in spending – especially during election season – but as we learned with this “compromise” and all previous “compromises, it’s all talk. At the end of all the dramatic warnings about shutting the government down, we are left with a Washington-style compromise, meaning the leadership of both parties gets to throw anything and everything they want into the massive bill. Because it is only presented to the rank and file at the last moment before “disaster,” none of the Members get a chance to even read it, much less shape it through amendments and debate.

The Republican House leadership promised the Members 72 hours to read any new bill before a vote, but they broke their promise without hesitation. Members would not have the chance to read the more than 1,000 page bill, which was worked out in secret behind closed doors

There is likely a reason that Congressional leaders did not want Members to get the chance to read the bill. As Rep. Thomas Massie discovered, buried in the bill is funding for 13 year old children to get help with gender transitioning without consent from their parents. He also pointed out that although nowhere was it in the authorization bill, just hours after the omnibus passes the Department of Justice announces the creation of a Federal “Red Flag” center to attack our Second Amendment rights.

Who knows how many more items like these – and far worse – are deeply buried in the “must-pass” spending bill. Keeping these items from the American people by secretly embedding them in “must pass” legislation increasingly looks like a feature, not a bug. No wonder Congress enjoys such a low approval rate among the American people.

In the end, the bill only passed the Republican-controlled House with the support of Democrats, fueling a growing rebellion against Speaker Johnson among House conservatives.

The media-celebrated “bipartisanship” is not all it’s cracked up to be. It means that both parties embrace policies that are leading to our financial bankruptcy. This further threatens the dollar as the world’s reserve currency and will result in catastrophic changes worldwide that nearly no one in Congress seems capable of imagining. Republicans capitulating to Democrat demands to “save us” from a government shutdown may temporarily keep the appearance that “this is fine,” but in the end they are making the coming crash all the worse.

The post Congressional Omnibus Is Like a Bad Hollywood Movie Sequel appeared first on LewRockwell.

In America if you go on vacation for a week or two and leave your home unoccupied, or if you rent property and it is vacant between leases, immigrant-invaders can break into your property and occupy it as squatters. Home owners and rental property owners can get no help from police, prosecutors, or from “their” legislators.

This 20 minute video reports on the situation. It is not misinformation. It is not a conspiracy theory. It is our reality.

How did it come about that in the US where the Constitution protects property Americans are defenseless against immigrant-invaders stealing their property? American homeowners are being arrested for interfering with squattrers’ occupation of their homes. In America it is possible for immigrant-invaders to dispossess you.

As I have emphasized for years, the liberal/left have destroyed the American belief system and constitutional protections. The US cannot even protect its borders. Citizens cannot protect their property. The country is up for grabs, and it is being grabbed.

America has been intentionally destroyed. The Democrats are a principal enabler of this destruction, and Americans still vote for them.

And the dumbshits in Washington think the US, a country unable to protect its borders and the property of its citizens, is a superpower.

The post The US and Europe Have Given Their Countries to Immigrant-Invaders appeared first on LewRockwell.

RFK has pointedly announced that he will pardon Deep State prisoner Julian Assange on day #1. That sent a powerful message that the destructive rule of Washington’s bipartisan War Party will be brought to an abrupt end if he is elected President.

Likewise, RFK should announce an intent to stop dead in its tracks the Fed’s egregious servitude to Wall Street and the one percenters who luxuriate in the massive inflation of financial assets it enables. Pledging to hand ex-private equity impresario, Jay Powell, his walking papers on January 20, 2025, would give forceful expression to that intent.

At the substantive level, three policy markers could further convey that a sweeping regime change at the nation’s central bank is coming down the pike—changes that would liberate the Fed from the grip of Wall Street speculators and Washington spenders alike:

• Enactment of an extended moratorium on any further Fed purchases of US Treasury or Federally guaranteed debt.
• An end to Fed bailouts, interest rate subsidies, stock market puts and any other open market manipulations on Wall Street.
• Return to a discount window-based modus operandi as provided by the Fed’s original authors, where member banks needing liquidity can get Fed advances against sound commercial collateral at market rates of interest plus a penalty spread for using the public credit.

These measures would kill two very bad birds with one stone. Without the prospect of the Fed’s false bid for government debt, bond yields would rise sharply and the warmongers and big spenders on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue would finally be faced with the true economic cost of their profligacy.

At the same time, a sharply higher bond yield would put the kibosh on the gigantic stock market bubble that has massively shifted wealth to the tippy-top of the economic ladder. Since 1989, for example, the net worth of the top 0.1% has soared from $1.8 trillion to just under $20 trillion. That’s a gain of $138 million per household.

By contrast, the aggregate net worth of the bottom 50% or 66 million households has risen from $0.7 trillion to $3.6 trillion. That’s a gain of just $44,000 per household.

Accordingly, the top 0.1% gained 3,100X more net worth each than the bottom half of America’s households. And that lopsided outcome was not due to the fact that the top 0.1% was much richer to begin with.

In fact, the aggregate net worth of the top 0.1% was 2.45X that of the bottom 50% in 1989, but by Q3 2023 it had grown to 5.45X. But that shift had nothing whatsoever to do with merit, investment prowess or contribution to American economic life. It was simply a product of financial asset inflation and the ready ability of the very wealthy to speculate with the cheap leverage supplied by the Fed.

In short, the drastic widening of the wealth gap depicted in the chart below was not the natural outcome of free market capitalism functioning on the basis of honest money. Instead, it was a product of the rampant money-printing by America’s rogue central bank—a state institution that has been taken over by Wall Street lock, stock and barrel.

Net Worth Of Top 0.1% Versus Bottom 50%, 1989 to 2023

The reason Powell needs to go, of course, is that he has now proven in spades he is clueless about the real impact of the Fed’s endless flood of cheap credit on Wall Street.

The latter, in turn, has been driven by the sheer insanity of its 2.00% inflation target, and the license it gives the Eccles Building to print money with reckless abandon.

Over the last several decades the Fed’s excuse has been either that inflation was missing its 2.00% target from below or that any temporary inflation flare-ups were transitory and would be soon getting back into the target range. Accordingly, the Fed never stopped printing fiat credit, raising its balance sheet from $200 billion in 1987 to $9 trillion at the peak in 2022. That 45X gain in central bank money massively exceeded the mere 5X rise in national income (GDP) during the same period.

That lopsided ratio alone says that the Fed’s printing presses need to be put on idle for a good while to come. Yet at Wednesday’s presser Powell implicitly affirmed that Wall Street will soon get a new flood of money, with at least three rate cuts (75 basis points) later this year. And that’s notwithstanding the fact that after family budgets have been clobbered by 20% higher prices since early 2021 the monthly inflation data in January and February was still coming in well above the Fed’s dubious 2.00% target:

The Fed won’t ignore bad news, but it also won’t overreact, he said. “They haven’t really changed the overall story, which is that of inflation moving down gradually on a sometimes-bumpy road toward 2 percent,” Powell said.

But here’s the thing. There is not a shred of evidence that 2.00% inflation does anything at all to benefit the main street economy or middle- and lower-income households. As we have demonstrated repeatedly, real economic growth rates, investment levels, productivity gains and middle-income living standards have all faltered badly relative to historical trends since the Fed went into heavy-duty money-printing during the Greenspan era.

But what 2.00% or higher inflation actually does is destroy the meager savings of main street households, which cannot afford to roll the dice on Wall Street or invest in risky junk bonds, securitized real estate or other higher yielding assets. Accordingly, even as the net worth of the top 0.1% rose by 1,000% between Q3 1989 and Q3 2023, the value of a dollar saved by an average consumer back in 1989 was worth only 41 cents at the end of this 34-year period.

Stated differently, the Fed’s pro -inflation policy savages the middle class and average wage-earners, even as it pumps massive amounts of cheap liquidity into the gambling dens of Wall Street.

So RFK simply needs to demand that the whole money-printing scam be brought to an abrupt halt. The rich don’t need any more cheap gambling chips and inflated financial assets and the middle class truly cannot stand any more “help” from Fed-fueled inflation.

Depreciation Of Consumer’s Dollar Since Q3 1989

What the PhD’s who peddle 2.00% inflation targeting always ignore is that inflation is cumulative, and there is no guarantee that any particular worker’s paycheck will keep up.

For instance, here is the average manufacturing wage (dashed red line) since Q3 1989 compared to food, energy and shelter costs.

We’d say that all this Fed-supplied inflation was not exactly a bargain for the average manufacturing worker—if he or she managed to actually keep their job. In point of fact, however, there are actually 5 million fewer such well-paying manufacturing jobs today than there were 34-years ago.

Nevertheless, the average hourly wage for manufacturing workers did not keep up with any of the principal living cost items during that period.

Cumulative % Change Between Q3 1989 and Q3 2023:

• Hourly Wage of Mfg. workers: +156%.
• CPI for Food: +157%.
• CPI for Shelter: +188%.
• CPI for Energy: +211%.

In a word, inflation ain’t no bargain for wage workers. The whole idea of targeting anything other than price stability amounts to thinly disguised academic gobbledygook designed to obfuscate the Fed’s true aim, which is to generate wealth on Wall Street out of the misbegotten Greenspanian notion that “wealth effects” and “trickle down” are a boon to main street America.

But when you compare the chart below with the net worth gains shown in the chart above the evidence screams out quite loudly: Inflation is a very bad deal for main street and a completely unwarranted and unfair windfall to Wall Street.

Change In Average Manufacturing Wage Versus CPI for Food, Shelter And Energy, Q3 1989 to Q3 2023

Needless to say, both ends of the Acela Corridor would scream bloody murder about firing Powell and shutting-down the cheap money spigot to the US Treasury. But there are simple and straight-forward answers to all of the red herrings that are likely to be offered by beneficiaries of the current rotten monetary policy regime at the Eccles Building.

Yes, a new President technically cannot fire the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, but Powell’s term as Chairman does end on May 15, 2026. So he can be called into the Oval Office on day #1 to receive word that he will not be reappointed under any circumstance and that should he choose to be a wounded lame duck during the following 16 months he will face an unrelenting assault from the Bully Pulpit.

Put that way, we are quite sure that Powell would choose to take the gold watch on January 20, 2025.

Secondly, it will be claimed that significantly higher bond yields will cause mortgage rates to rise proportionately, and to the detriment of middle class.

Well, yes to the first part and no to the second. According to the current government data, the average home mortgage in the US is $89,643, but in this case the average tells you almost nothing.

As shown below, the average mortgage held by the bottom 20% of households amounts to less than $15,000, while that for the 50th percentile is about $55,000 and the 99th percentile is $524,000. So the dollar benefits of artificially low mortgage rates overwhelmingly accrue to more affluent households.

Mortgage Debt Secured by a Primary Residence By Income Class

Moreover, if the government want to help middle- and lower-income families afford market rate mortgages, then the solution is not to subsidize the jumbo mortgages of the rich by suppressing interest rates, but to provide targeted, means-tested transfer payments to households on the lower end of the income scale. A buy-down of the mortgage interest rate for first-time homebuyers would be one mechanism to accomplish that.

Finally, it will be argued that an extended moratorium on Fed purchases of government or GSE debt will leave the financial system high and dry in the event of a liquidity crunch.

But that’s the worst red herring of all. If we want a radical break from the Fed’s abject servitude to Wall Street, the answer is to shutdown the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) and get the central bank’s operations out of the canyons of Wall Street entirely.

Indeed, the original designers of the Fed led by the great Carter Glass took great pains to keep the central bank as far away from Wall Street as possible. That’s why they provided for the Fed to operate through 12 regional discount windows, where member commercial banks in each region could obtain cash advances, but only on the basis of sound commercial collateral and at an interest rate based on the free market plus a penalty spread.

Today, the commercial banking system holds more than $12 trillion of loans and leases excluding Treasury debt and GSE securities. That’s more than enough collateral to meet any financial stringency; and, besides, what is wrong with requiring banks to pay market rates of interest plus, say a 200 basis point penalty, for using the credit of the central bank?

We’d say, there is nothing wrong with that at all, even as it would free the Federal Reserve from the baleful grip of its current Wall Street masters.

Reprinted with permission from David Stockman’s Contra Corner.

The post RFK to Jay Powell on Day #1: You’re Fired! appeared first on LewRockwell.

As Robert Higgs noted in his 1994 speech, “War and the Leviathan State,” World War II acted as one of the most pervasive changes to the psyche of the average American in regards to foreign policy. Not only this, but unlike previous wars, World War II did not see a return to a peacetime constitution like in previous conflicts. In many ways, it acted as the birth of the Military-Industrial Complex, leading our politicians into continuous, seemingly never-ending government involved in foreign conflicts. One such foreign conflict was Korea, the war that never was.

Often remembered as the Forgotten War, the American psyche around Korea is the polar opposite of that surrounding the Second World War. Despite this, Korea serves as one of the most important points in the birth of Post-War America. The mentality that came out of World War II, which viewed any sort of non-interventionism as the sort of “isolationism” that eventually led to U.S. involvement, would finally be tested. The MIC would truly become ingrained into American politics. Korea, as will be shown, was the final blow in returning to the foreign policy that made America great, instead turning it into a global occupier, eager to maintain an empire abroad.

Prior to the conflict, Korea was divided along the 38th Parallel by the Soviets and the United States. This was due to the previous Japanese occupation of the peninsula during the Second World War, when both sides had the understanding that at some point, the two Koreas would need to be united. However, as could’ve been predicted by any previous observer, this would be a disastrous idea. Each side had their own “democratic” government ruled by their influencer’s chosen strongman, Syngman Rhee and Kim Il-Sung, and both quickly became an area of focus for the two burgeoning superpowers. However, during this period, the relationship between the Soviets and the Americans was still up in the air, as highlighted by Paul Pierpaoli, Jr.,

Between 1945 and 1950, the United States oftentimes struggled to formulate a consistent, coherent foreign policy that would keep the Soviet threat at bay, protect vital national interests, and expand liberal, free-market capitalism. And although the Truman administration had decided to “contain” communism even before the concept was articulated and later expanded upon by George Kennan in 1946 and 1947, it is clear that the United States adhered to this containment mechanism – until war broke out in Korea in 1950. Prior to the Korean War, initiatives such as the IMF, the Marshall Plan, GATT, and even NATO would feature economic and political – rather than military – containment of the Soviet Union.

In essence, while an underlying idea existed that America needed to be the antisocialist bulwark, in practicality, the way that the United States was to bring this about was completely unknown.

The Soviets, too, were in a similar situation. Prior to the conflict in 1950, Stalin had been providing weapons and ammunitions to communist groups in China. With the victory of the Chinese Communist Party, military intervention was not necessarily the top priority of the Soviet Union. Instead, it seems to be the case that the Soviet Union had little involvement in the start of the war. While the actual reasoning for the beginning of the conflict is shrouded in mystery, like most things involving North Korea, what is known is that many around Stalin and Kim seem to suggest that Stalin was unaware of the conflict before it occurred. In Khrushchev’s memoirs, he is even quoted as saying, “I must stress that the war wasn’t Stalin’s idea, but Kim I1-Sung’s. Kim was the initiator. Stalin, of course, didn’t try to dissuade him.” This is also the narrative held by a close advisor to Kim Il-Sung by the name of Lim Un who revealed that Stalin would not back fighting the United States even if they got directly involved in the war.

This continues to be a reappearing narrative. Prior to American involvement, Korea should have been thought of as more of a country on the verge of civil war. Robert Simmons concludes that the start of the war was most likely due to a nationalism which surrounded both sides and a political struggle between Kim Il-Sung and Pak Hon-yong, who was the head of the Communist Party of South Korea before it was banned by Syngman Rhee. Since both were in a rush to see who could unite the peninsula first, it seems that the power struggle led one of the two to eventually start the war.

Although, it should be noted that South Korea also bears responsibility, as pointed out by Karunakar Gupta, “While the United Nations Commission on Korea heard the North Korean broadcast on 25 June 1950 alleging the South Korean attack on Haeju, it simply brushed aside that complaint without any enquiry and accepted South Korea’s complaint of an unprovoked aggression to be true.” He suggest that the border skirmishes started by the Rhee administration also helped to provoke the invasion, which would seem to back up the view that the war in Korea was more akin to an inevitable civil war than any sort of Soviet invasion.
Soviet and Communist Chinese intervention seemed to be limited even after the start of the war and the Soviets seemed unprepared for the conflict. For instance, the Soviets weren’t present at the United Nations vote for intervention in the conflict. Chinese support for the war also was rather limited, with much of it being a response to the success of UN forces and fear of having an American puppet right on their border. The idea that the war was primarily fought by Chinese hordes was mostly a myth and the majority of Chinese forces were out of the peninsula before the end of the war. China was more focused on their interior than on the conflict abroad, which is one of the main reasons Kim received few Chinese armaments before the war started.

However, this was not the perspective of the United States. Once the war officially started, McCarthyism came into full swing, with Korea becoming the first domino in the Domino Theory. From here, there was no turning back. During the Korean Conflict, America permanently entered its modern state of affairs. The Truman administration controversially passed NSC-68, which saw military expenditure increase from $13 bil. in 1950 to $50 bil. by the end of 1951. Most importantly, much of this was marketed not for the Korean War, but instead acted as the nexus for the continuation of the military-industrial complex, along with the Marshall Plan being shifted to focus on rearmament during this period as opposed to economic growth. Pierpaoli notes “The decision to mobilize for the long haul of the Cold War meant that balanced federal budgets in America were no longer sacrosanct. The limited social Keynesianism that had guided American economic thinking since the late 1930s was to be wedded to the military Keynesianism of the World War II era.”

The effects of Truman’s policies were unpopular, acting as one of the greatest power grabs for the office of the president. Unlike previous administrations, no formal declaration of war was ever launched by the Truman administration and, despite saying the policy of the United States was that of containment, the US crossed north of the 38th parallel in order to unite the entire peninsula, which, as highlighted earlier, acted as the catalyst for Chinese involvement and directly increased the scale of the conflict.

This decision by Truman would lead to unprecedented human casualties. As Charles Armstrong notes,

The number of Korean dead, injured or missing by war’s end approached three million, ten percent of the overall population. The majority of those killed were in the North, which had half of the population of the South; although the DPRK does not have official figures, possibly twelve to fifteen percent of the population was killed in the war, a figure close to or surpassing the proportion of Soviet citizens killed in World War II.

Much of this was due in part to the indiscriminate bombing campaign of the United States, which dropped more bombs in the span of the Korean Conflict than the entire Pacific theater during World War II. In the end, this resulted in the death of over a million civilians in the North alone, leading to a psychological fear of the United States that persists to this very day.

It is believed that the Korean Conflict was one of the primary reasons for the Democratic defeat in 1952, however the Eisenhower administration failed to reduce the scope of the federal government in his presidency. Instead, Truman’s precedent would come to influence American foreign policy in Vietnam and his “limited aggression” would go on to be a major influence on the foreign policy of Henry Kissinger.

Of course, despite all this bad, I imagine there are those out there still thinking the conflict was worth it. I would instead suggest that this is not the case at all. America essentially traded away it’s freedom for a massive military base in Asia and used American and Korean lives to pay for it. However, that is not the complete scope of the tragedy. The consistent military training directly on the North Korean border can be attributed to much of the nation’s continuation of Stalinism and has led to repeated human travesties. It also cannot be said that America brought freedom to the nation. For decades, the American puppets, Syngman Rhee and Park Chung Hee, ruled the South with a brutality that caused the North to have a larger economy than the south until the mid-1980s. Only later, with the assassination of Park Chung Hee and the protest that followed was South Korea’s current, more pleasant government founded in 1987.

On the other hand, if America stayed out of the Korean affair, the end result cannot be determined. What is known, however, is that the DPRK could not rely on it’s unending nationalist cause of reunification to empower the regime, nor could it fall back on fear of foreign invasion to justify the Kim family’s rule. These reasons are primarily what caused North Korea to reject unification after the fall of the Soviet Union and remain in the situation it is now. However, by looking at other dictatorships like Ceausescu’s Romania or China after the death of Mao, it seems clear that without these causes, the eternal communism held today by the nation could not continue to exist without a true outside threat to “the people’s way of life”. At best, Korea could have ended up a united and prosperous post-soviet state like that of East Germany and at worst ended up in a similar situation to Vietnam or China, but it seems unlikely that the Juche regime could persist forever.

In conclusion, Korea should not be a forgotten war. Instead, it should be remembered as the war that the state used to greatly increase its power on false pretense. Korea permanently ingrained the Military-Industrial Complex into our society and began the policy of domino theory. It also saw the end of constitutional war, with the President being able to essentially deploy the US military wherever he wants globally. During the Great Depression and World War II, the federal government increased to an unprecedented size, as desired by the despotic nature of FDR. However it was his successor, Harry Truman, which ended any hope of returning to peace and it is Korea that acts as the point of no return.

Sources:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/493313

https://archive.org/details/strainedalliance0000simm/page/n7/mode/1up?view=theater

https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-02332-8.html

https://www-jstor-org.spot.lib.auburn.edu/stable/2756413?seq=7

https://www.jstor.org/stable/652290

https://www-jstor-org.spot.lib.auburn.edu/stable/41887070?seq=1

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More than 30 years ago, Congress enacted the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992. Enacted in the wake of Oliver Stone’s movie JFK, which posited that the Kennedy assassination was a regime-change operation on the part of the U.S. national-security establishment, the law mandated that all the assassination-related records of the Pentagon, the CIA, the Secret Service, the FBI, and other federal agencies be released to the public. Having succeeded in keeping their assassination-related records secret for almost 30 years, they didn’t like that at all.

Today — more than 60 years after the assassination — the CIA continues to keep thousands of its assassination-related records secret. Its justification? You guessed it: “national security,” the two most powerful and meaningless words in the American political lexicon. CIA officials maintain, with straight faces, that if those still-secret assassination-related records were released, the United States would fall into the ocean, be taken over by communists, or have its “national security” endangered in some other silly way.

How in the world can “national security” be threatened by the release of records that are more than 60 years old, regardless of what definition is placed on that nebulous term? Indeed, how can any American really believe this nonsense? They obviously take Americans for dupes.

It is a virtual certainty that those still-secret records contain circumstantial evidence that further confirms criminal culpability on the part of the CIA and the Pentagon in the assassination of President Kennedy. After all, the CIA knows that that is precisely what most everyone is thinking with respect to the continued secrecy of those records. Why would the CIA want to leave people thinking that? One reason: Because it’s better to have people thinking that those records contain incriminating evidence rather than knowing that they do.

What could the CIA be hiding with those still-secret records? The answer necessarily has to be speculative in nature, but my hunch is that some of the still-secret information deals with Mexico City, where the accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was supposed to have met with Cuban and Soviet officials.

In the immediate aftermath of the assassination, it is obvious that everything went wrong with the Mexico City part of the assassination plot. For example, there were audiotapes that supposedly contained Oswald’s voice and then suddenly there were no such audiotapes. There was a photograph of Oswald except that it was a photograph of someone else.

Why was Mexico City an important part of the assassination plot? As I detail in my newest book on the assassination, An Encounter with Evil: The Abraham Zapruder Story, an essential part of the assassination plot was to frame a communist. This was the height of the Cold War, when most everyone hated and feared the Reds. By framing a communist, the national-security establishment could rest assured that Americans would be reluctant to come to Oswald’s defense or believe anything he said.

Mexico City played an important role in this endeavor. Oswald was ordered to travel to Mexico City, where he was to meet with both Cuban and Soviet officials. In that way, the plotters could definitely tie the future assassin to the Soviet and Cuban communists.

Why would Oswald obey such orders? Because he was an operative for U.S. intelligence. Intelligence operatives follow orders, especially when they’re told that they are part of an intelligence operation.

In fact, in one of its first meetings, Earl Warren, the head of the Warren Commission, told the commission that there was highly discomforting evidence that Oswald was, in fact, an intelligence operative. Once the CIA and the FBI, which, of course, would never lie about such a thing, assured the commission that such wasn’t the case, Warren ordered that the meeting be kept top-secret and never revealed to the American people.

When he was serving in the military, Oswald became fluent in the Russian language. That is not an easy thing to do. It takes language experts, which the U.S. government has. That’s the only way Oswald could have learned to speak fluent Russian while he was in the military.

There is also New Orleans, where Oswald had moved from Dallas prior to his trip to Mexico City. In New Orleans, Oswald spent a lot of effort building up his “pro-communist” persona, especially with the help of an anti-Castro group called the DRE.

Immediately after the assassination, the DRE sent out a press release informing the nation that Oswald was a communist. There is one big important thing about the DRE that the nation did not know and would not know for several decades. It was a CIA-funded and CIA-supervised group. Thus, it was actually the CIA that wanted the nation to know that the president had been killed by a Red.

As JFK researcher Jefferson Morley, who first discovered the CIA’s connection to the DRE, has also discovered, the CIA was secretly monitoring Oswald in the months leading up to the assassination, including secretly reading his mail. Why would the CIA be doing that? Because if one is going to frame a person in a very complex murder plot, one has to be certain that the person being framed doesn’t figure out what is going on.

Will the CIA succeed in keeping its assassination-related records secret forever? Given the overwhelming power that the national-security branch has within the federal governmental structure, it’s a virtual certainty that it will succeed. But what difference does it make? The evidence that was released by the JFK Records Act already proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the Kennedy assassination was a national-security state regime-change operation, especially with respect to the fraudulent autopsy that the military conducted on JFK’s body and the fraudulent copy of the Zapruder film that the CIA produced. (See my books The Kennedy Autopsy and An Encounter with Evil: The Abraham Zapruder Story.) The CIA’s still-secret assassination-related records would only add more circumstantial evidence to what we already know.

Reprinted with permission from The Future of Freedom Foundation.

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Starting in 2021, the FDA mounted a misinformation campaign about ivermectin, an inexpensive, Nobel Prize-winning medication that showed promising signs in the early treatment of COVID-19. 

While the death toll from this campaign is difficult to calculate, the impact was far-reaching. The campaign was used as fuel to terminate the employment of doctors who understood the science behind ivermectin, as well as justification for pharmacies to cease filling ivermectin prescriptions when people needed the medication most. 

This war on Ivermectin touched us here at the OP as well. An article we published about a peer-reviewed report, Jagged Little Pill: How Many Lives Could Have Been Saved If We’d ACTUALLY “Followed the Science?” was targeted as ‘disinformation’ and used to downgrade our ranking with advertisers, costing us untold revenue.

It was used to discredit everyone who even dared to mention it. Users or those who wondered if it might be viable were treated with mockery and defamation.  Famously, Joe Rogan took it when he came down with Covid and recovered remarkably quickly, only to be scorned endlessly online for using “horse paste.”

Courageous doctors fought back.  

In 2022, doctors filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over the agencies’ unlawful attempts to block the use of ivermectin for treatment of COVID-19.

“We’re suing the FDA for lying to the public about ivermectin,” said Dr. Bowden, a plaintiff in the case. 

The complaint directly cites US laws, including the provision that the FDA “may not interfere with the authority of a health care provider to prescribe or administer any legally marked device to a patient for any condition or disease within a legitimate health care practitioner-patient relationship.” 

On Thursday, the court ruled against the FDA and mandated the removal of all previous social media posts that specifically addressed the use of ivermectin for the treatment or prevention of COVID-19. The posts have started to come down, including a popular one titled: “Should I take ivermectin to prevent or treat COVID-19? No.” 

Americans are waking up. 

Dr. Peter McCullough, America’s leading cardiologist and outspoken critic of the healthcare system’s response to COVID, said in a recent interview that in waging its revolting “horse de-wormer” propaganda campaign against ivermectin, the FDA systematically harmed the American people and should be held criminally and civilly liable for its malfeasance. 

Early treatment of respiratory illness like COVID with ivermectin is a critical tool in the medical arsenal. Dr. Peter McCullough explains: 

“Early intervention at the first sign of illness is critical to avoid a hospital visit. I have always wished patients could keep critical medications like antibiotics and Ivermectin on-hand so they can act fast; a recommendation whose importance was underscored by the drug restrictions during COVID.  This is now a dream come true from The Wellness Company.” 

How to get IVERMECTIN and the other effective drugs the FDA tried to ban. 

Escape the FDA propaganda and prepare ahead of time for illness with The Wellness Company’s Contagion Emergency Kits. Designed by elite doctors, including Dr. McCullough mentioned above, these prescription kits have emerged as a key piece of every household’s emergency preparedness plan, saving Americans thousands of dollars in unplanned hospital visits. 

After the last debacle, I’ll always keep critical life-saving medications like Ivermectin on hand. It’s all about the money and new drugs that make billions of dollars for pharmaceutical companies. If those drugs have negative side effects or don’t work? *shrug* They made their money.

Be ready for the next emergency and sleep with peace of mind. The Wellness Company’s Contagion Emergency Kit is the gold standard in preparation. It contains four life-saving medications: Ivermectin, Z-pack, Hydroxychloroquine, and Budesonide.   

1. IVERMECTIN: The Nobel-prize-winning medicine demonized as “horse paste” by the FDA. 

1. HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE: An antiviral that has been used for 50 years for the treatment of various diseases was suddenly banned when Trump endorsed it.  

1. GENERIC Z-PAK: One of the most commonly prescribed antibiotics in history, it has promise in treating COVID-19.  

1. BUDESONIDE: This became restricted due to supply chain shortages from Big Pharma’s outsourcing. 

The Contagion Emergency Kit also includes a nebulizer and guidebook to aid in the safe use of these life-saving medications.  

This kit is prescription-only – you can’t find it in any store or pharmacy. Simply fill out a short questionnaire after purchase and a trusted Wellness Company doctor will confirm your suitability and issue your prescription Contagion Emergency Kit. 

The Wellness Company and their doctors are medical professionals that you can trust. I’ve written about my experiences with them here.

SAVE 15% OFF A CONTAGION EMERGENCY KIT WITH CODE “FDA” AT CHECKOUT 

Reprinted with permission from The Organic Prepper.

The post The FDA Stops Its War on Ivermectin appeared first on LewRockwell.

This time Peter tackles Jerome Powell’s speech from Wednesday, in which he announced that the Fed is holding the federal funds rate between 5.25 and 5.5%. He also briefly discusses Bitcoin’s pullback and the media’s lies about Donald Trump. 

On Powell’s announcement, several commodities surged in price, with silver, gold, and copper performing especially well. Peter sees this as a repudiation of Powell’s messaging:

“I think we’re on the verge of the biggest bull market in commodities since the 1970s. Of course, this flies in the face of Powell claiming that inflation is going to go back down to two percent. There’s no chance that inflation is going to go back down to two percent! All the data shows that inflation is on the way up. Plus, if you understand what inflation is, it has nowhere to go but up.”

A hotter-than-expected Producer Price Index (PPI) report last week also contradicts Powell, with the PPI increasing from last month by more than twice the most conservative estimates. The PPI, in addition to a recently announced 13% federal deficit increase, does not bode well for the economy:

“This is why we have inflation. It’s driving prices higher. All this money is being spent. How can it not bid up prices? This is why the Fed is not only going to taper the QT [quantitative tightening] program but go back to quantitative easing because government spending is going ballistic. And all of it is stoking the fires for inflation. … There’s no downward pressure from five and a quarter, five and a half percent interest rates. Those rates are still too low.”

Peter expects rate cuts in the future. Every political force incentivizes the Fed to cut rates soon:

“The Fed is cutting rates come hell or high water. It doesn’t matter what the data is. The Fed is going to cut rates because the country is broke. They’re not cutting rates because they won the war against inflation: they lost that war. They’re cutting rates because they have to avoid a financial crisis— a banking crisis. They want to try to reelect Joe Biden. They want to try to save the government from having to default and cut social security and cut Medicare, and so everything’s going to be cut through inflation.”

Powell’s dovish remarks are a textbook case of the Fed’s inability to unwind its policies. Once it starts manipulating the dollar, it can’t go back:

“Bernanke— in 2009, when the Fed just started to increase the balance sheet— said that, ‘After the emergency, we’re going to bring it right back down to where we started. We’re not going to keep any of the bonds that we bought, because we’re not a banana republic. We don’t monetize government debt.’ Well, now you have Jerome Powell saying, ‘We are a banana republic. We do monetize debt because we want to maintain an ample balance sheet.’”

The one thing Powell got right is that rising wages are a symptom of inflation, not its cause:

“If wages are going up, that’s a sign that there’s still an inflation problem. … It’s like when you take your temperature with a thermometer and you know you’re sick. The thermometer is not making you sick. You’re sick because there’s something wrong with you. The thermometer is simply allowing you to confirm that you’re sick.”

The Fed’s inability to handle inflation has sentenced the economy to a grim fate:

“We haven’t experienced anything like that since the 1970s. The difference is we’re in much worse shape economically than we were in the 1970s, and we don’t have the ability to put out this fire. We’re not going to get another Ronald Reagan. We’re not going to get another Paul Volker, and even if they were there, they couldn’t do what they did back then because of the financial position, the weak position that America now occupies that it didn’t occupy back in 1980. So it’s a whole different ball game, and it’s going to have a very different ending.”

With hopes of rate cuts sparked by this week’s report, more cheap credit will only add fuel to the raging flames of inflation.

This originally appeared on SchiffGold.com.

The post Inflation Bloodbath on the Way appeared first on LewRockwell.

“In terms of the Moscow terror attack, the fact that those who carried out the attack were captured is now causing a huge headache for those who were ultimately responsible.” — The Sirius Report on “X”

You’ve got to ask yourself: really, who seems to hanker more for a red-hot World War Three, “Joe Biden” or Vlad Putin? Since “Joe Biden” is only a figment of American politics, first you’d have to ask: a figment of what? Answer: A figment of our greater intel blob, led, of course, by the Central Intelligence Agency. Which is to say, the blob is our government now; there is no government except the blob. We are the United Blob of America! In Blob We Trust should be printed on our money.

That being the case, blob policy rules. And since deception is one of the blob’s chief duties, we mere sniveling citizens should expect to be deceived at every turn about everything. So, when the blob’s news cut-out, The New York Times, serves up a comprehensive history of the gang known as ISIS-K Monday morning after the Moscow Crocus Concert Hall Massacre, you might suspect that some deception is afoot.

ISIS-K immediately took credit for the Crocus Massacre. K stands for Khorasan, a set of provinces in eastern Iran, leaking over into Afghanistan and Pakistan. ISIS-K supposedly evolved out of the original ISIS that sought to establish an Islamic caliphate out of Iraq and Syria. After Mr. Trump broke it up in 2019, the gang regrouped in K-land, deeper in central Asia. Curiously, this ISIS-K has carried out attacks against Iran, where it lives. Go figure. . . . Its progenitor, the plain old ISIS-no-K was responsible for the horrific Bataclan Theater massacre in Paris, 2015 and the suicide bombing of the Ariana Grande concert at the Manchester Arena, UK, 2017. They’re sort of the Concert-Massacres-R-Us of terror orgs — you really couldn’t find a better patsy for the Crocus op.

Is it as simple as that? Not if you consider Scott Ritter’s theory that the first ISIS was a creation of the CIA, with the mission of ousting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, considered by the blob to be an uber-bad dude, largely for enlisting Russia’s help in ending Syria’s civil war. And if you can actually figure out what Syria’s civil war was about, other than a US blob op to gain control of Syria and its oil, you could win a MacArthur Genius Prize. But you might also ask: did the United Blob of America hire ISIS-K to slaughter 137 Russian civilians Saturday night? And also: did it do so directly or indirectly, through cut-outs?

One blob weakness is that it can’t resist the impulse to telegraph its plans ahead of some dastardly act. Both “Joe Biden” and State Department war-hawk Victoria Nuland verbally signaled the op to blow-up the Nord Stream gas pipelines well before the act. Before “retiring” (or getting cashiered) from State this month, Ms. Nuland warned Russia to expect “some nasty surprises” in the days ahead. Was she fired for opening her big mouth? Now, a photograph has surfaced of one of the captured Crocus perps, Shamsidin Fariduni, posing in the Crocus concert hall date-stamped March 7. A set-up? A deep fake?

In any case, on March 8 the United Blob State Department issued a warning to Russia’s foreign ministry that something wicked was coming their way, and likewise warned our diplomatic personnel to steer clear of concert halls and other public venues. Was the Crocus op already well in motion? And was the blob trying to cover for Ms. Nuland’s big mouth by warning about something that was too late to stop?

Whatever else you think about the Russians, they are not dumb bunnies. You can be sure they are carefully putting together the puzzle pieces, having already been careful to take the suspects alive. They were, incidentally, all in one car driving toward the Ukraine border when apprehended by Russian police. That is being considered “a clue” as to who their handlers are. But then, who is Ukraine’s handler? (Cue: thinking music.)

At least one of them — Fariduni — confessed that his gang received all their instructions over a Telegram social media channel. The gang, by the way, were all natives of Tajikistan, a former Soviet republic. Its population is 98 percent Muslim, around 97 percent of them Sunni and 3 percent Shia. Neighboring Iran is militantly Shia, for what it’s worth. The four Crocus perps were living as immigrant workers in Russia. How hard would it be to track who was the proprietor of the alleged Telegram messaging site that offered payment and sent orders to the perps? I’m guessing that would not be so difficult.

The United Blob sent lavish condolences to President Putin on Sunday. We’re so sorry. . . boo-hoo. . . . The directorate of the CIA was awash in crocodile tears, I’m sure. Russia was already busy answering Ukraine’s attempted Belgorod incursion of the previous week by turning off the lights in Kharkov. Meanwhile, Polish, French, and German regular army troops have moved directly by rail and air inside Ukraine to Cherkassy, south of Kiev. The mental defectives running Poland, France, and Germany seem avid for NATO to jump with both feet into ground action in Ukraine, that is, go directly to war with Russia. It’s hard to imagine an act with a potentially worse outcome for NATO, for Europe, and, by extension, for Western Civ. Despite all their posturing, Euroland’s armies could not be less prepared to go up against Russia on the Ukraine battlefield, and are therefore begging for an epic ass-kicking. They’ve already sacrificed their industrial economies at the United Blob’s bidding, so why not just get Europe’s ticket punched for an express trip back to the 11th century?

How about “Joe Biden,” front-man for the United Blob of America? What’s in it for “him?” We might surmise that the “Joe Biden” re-election campaign seeks a big, fat, juicy major distraction from its so-far pathetic effort to keep a near-mummy in the White House. Well, how about that World War they’ve been itchin’ for? Plus, they probably calculate, it’d be great for business! Besides, considering the poll numbers, this might just be the blob’s last stand, since they know as soon as Mr. Trump gets back in the White House (if the blob can’t manage to kill him first) the words “You’re fired!” will echo so thunderously between Foggy Bottom and Judiciary Square that every last critter in the DC Swamp will light out for the territories to avoid the prosecutions sure to follow.

Reprinted with permission from Kunstler.com.

The post In Blob We Trust appeared first on LewRockwell.

I could not help thinking about the current state of the Church in America while watching the emotionally powerful movie Cabrini, just released by Angel Studios. The archbishop she dealt with in New York seemed to me to be a caricature of the prelates who are lions within the flock and lambs outside of it. I am sure the lions appreciate the variation of style. You can browbeat the more conservative sections of the Church ad intra but can be meek and mild ad extra to the powers that be.

It is a consolation to me to think that while Catholics in America at least recognize the name of Mother Cabrini, not very many would be able to come up with the name of the bishop with whom she dueled. While I presume that there was some artistic license in the presentation of the drama of the first part of St. Francesca Cabrini’s ministry in America, an elision of dates and figures, I would like to see the reaction of many of our prelates as they saw the film.

The screenplay has a symbolic gesture that reveals many layers of meaning. The corrupt mayor of New York berates a timid archbishop and then offers him a drink. His Grace is slow to drink it, and His Honor doubles down the insult and says, “You’re an Irishman, bottoms up,” or something to that effect. At that point another man might have been tempted to throw the drink at the mayor or just walk out; but the cowed archbishop meekly drinks up and then, with a frustrated, weak-man’s bravado, slams the glass down on the mayor’s desk.

When Mother Cabrini goes to the mayor after some ruffians attempt to burn down her hospital in the midst of its remodeling, His Honor is unable to make her afraid. He then offers her a drink, which she accepts and takes up without need of bullying. She had won the mayor’s respect, and the audience’s, of course, by the confrontation. Her lack of reluctance quaffing the whiskey was a symbolic difference between how she operated and how her ordinary did.

Undeniably, Mother Cabrini was a forceful personality and was not inclined to docile acceptance of the course of least resistance. There is a clerical legend around Cleveland that our Archbishop Hoban (honorary archbishop), who knew the great woman from Chicago, had said that saints are supposed to be in Heaven because they are hell to live with on earth, or something to that effect. The lady had a way with clerics.

Read the Whole Article

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I moved away from home when I was fourteen to train at one of the most demanding gymnastics clubs in the country. In 1986 I became the U.S. National Champion.

But this title came with a heavy price. I trained forty hours a week and subsisted on a forced starvation diet. I was publicly berated by my coaches for gaining a quarter pound. I practiced on a broken ankle for two years. But I kept going.

Finally, beaten down to the point of suicidal ideation, I moved on from the sport and built a life outside of the gym. I started working at Levi’s in 1999 as an entry level marketing assistant and by 2008 I became a vice president. Despite my achievements, the coaching abuse continued to haunt me.

In my attempt to make sense of what I’d endured as a child, I wrote a memoir called Chalked Up (2008). At the time, it was the only first-person account of the abusive training environment in gymnastics. And it included the first public accusation of sexual assault by the 1980’s Team USA coach, Don Peters.

Former teammates and USA Gymnastics leaders dismissed my story as that of a bitter ex-gymnast just trying to cash in. I was harassed by the CEO of USA Gymnastics (USAG) with bullying voicemails.

The gymnastics community was trying to sweep the misconduct and crimes under the rug to maintain their lucrative corporate sponsors. Their attacks only strengthened my resolve.

In November 2016, Larry Nassar, the doctor for Team USA Gymnastics, was arrested on federal charges of possessing child pornography. He was also charged with 22 counts of sexual conduct with a minor. These explosive charges revealed the toxic culture for all to see. After eight years of harassment, I was redeemed.

I was the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) at Levi’s by this time. I was astonished that companies like AT&T and P&G were maintaining their support of USAG despite the arrest of Nassar and growing evidence that USAG had covered up Nassar’s sexual abuse of athletes for decades.

I wrote to marketing leaders at these companies to suggest that they apply pressure by ending their sponsorship of USAG. No word back.

Read the Whole Article

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Just for funzies, what would be the legal ramifications if it was determined that Biden in fact did NOT validly win the 2020 election?   There is no precedent.  Would the entire 2020 elections be voided, including state, and local?  Would every Congressional member who was up for 2020 re-election be ejected?   Every law and EO rescinded.  Every Bill signed – automatically dead?  Every fine collected by the government returned?   Every lawsuit VOID.   Would federal salaries and pensions have to be returned?  Rewind everything?   What about the Stock Market?

How Can You Possibly Unravel 4 Years?

As more and more testimony reveals fraud was rampant – how do you recount when states tossed their ballots?  You can’t.   Therefore, it would mean that for the sake of legality – it would all be automatically repealed.   Everything.  A surreal outcome.   One that would put the US into chaos.

The Liberal left were quick to accuse Russia of election fraud after Putin’s recent win.   Yet will vehemently deny that election fraud can occur or ever has occurred in the US – because such people making these statements are delusional…  It is much easier to accept when the candidate of your choice is the elected winner.

When looking at newly elected leaders throughout the world, it is worthwhile to see which candidate the Corrupted US Establishment is rooting for.   That candidate would likely be the preferred coup given they have been bought, groomed and subjected to an Oprah makeover. The election will be a ‘landslide’!  The anointed politician will show up for all duties – but their voice will be a script, their pen devoid of ink, and their wage will be subject to a Rothschild tithe of 10%.   Control of their country will be handed to the Cartel.   The only means of getting it back?  A military uprising.   As we watch – Africa.

But in the US, the military has already been couped.   The vast majority are minions.   When a Tweeter declares their hatred of Trump because he didn’t serve – which President’s did serve?   The easier answer is – 14 did NOT serve including Clinton, Obama, Trump and Biden.  Between 1909 and 1945, all six Presidents did NOT serve in the military.  Most enlisted for their compulsory service 2-4 years in the Reserves.

The purpose of the Secretary of the Department of Defense, Lloyd Austin, is for him to act as the defacto military head and make the decisions before reporting and recommending those decisions to the President.   Wherein, The President has The Last Word.  When disgraceful Generals make  scandalous comments about Trump – they don’t disparage Trump – instead they reveal they are NOT Military at all – at least not the military of CODE – their eethics and values are twalette water.

In the business world, a leader surrounds himself with men who have unique perspectives to consider – to balance the scales.   A Leader’s downfall can typically be attributed to who surrounded him.   For Example:   Russia’s President Putin has Lavrov – someone he can trust and entrust with his very life and never doubt that loyalty.   That doesn’t mean they have the same opinions – it means they value and respect each other and draw from each other’s viewpoints.   Sounds simplistically easy…

But that’s not how it is working in DC.

Loyalty is bought.   Respect is cynically laughable.   Trust is a foreign entity living inside a Mars crater.   When Putin speaks – everyone listens.   When Congress/Biden speaks – everyone starts doing the merenque on the dance floor we call the Capitol Gay Bedroom.   And yet, despite this vast chasm of reality, the liberal half of the population thinks Congress are mini me gods.  And how dare anyone speak opinion.  Because opinion is now Hate Speech curable by re-education camps, a hefty fine and 8-10 years in jail.

The Masked Marauders.  Are – Unmasked and making perverse mistakes.

They surrounded themselves with fools and jesters.  Druggies and the dementia riddled.   The Marauders have alienated the thinkers and instead aligned themselves with plastic robots melting in the sun.  Their brains already pledged.   As such – one country, Russia, has been able to hold at bay and out maneuver;   Ukraine, America, Canada, Japan, Australia, and the entirety of Europe sans Belarus and Hungary.   Pitting the strategy and critical analysis of hundreds of Marauders & their drug induced minions against Two – Putin & Lavrov.   And they lost.   Behind closed doors, the ego fallout must be heady!

The $1.598 question isn’t how Putin will react to the terrorist attack, the question is ‘when’ will The Marauders pull the plug out of desperate self preservation… as losses mount and debt colludes.  Putin and Lavrov are guided and governed by logic.  The Marauders are male emotional hysterics.   Putin knows how to extract the impacted tooth while The Marauders only know how to infect ALL the teeth.

Bunkers:   Media News – Zuckerberg is building a bunker on Kauai.  REALITY:  Zuckerberg started the project a decade ago – and the bunker is likely already fully functionable.  It appeared Oprah was building a bunker inside a mountain on her Maui property.   BlackRock reportedly has upwards of eight bunkers located at crucial points across the US, although New Zealand and Australia are subject to multiple bunker rumors as well.

Banks:   Follow the CEO exodus.   JP Morgan ‘reshuffling’.   New York Community Banks shares fall 21% in one day.   Swiss Bank CEO resigns effective immediately.  Ally Financial CEO stepped down.  TD Group new CEO exits.   Morgan Stanley CEO stepping down. UK Bank CEO quits.  Discover CEO resigns abruptly.   1500 CEO’s quit last year.

Maersk Shipping said it will no longer lay waste to the Red Sea and is suspending that service in favor of the much more expensive longer route necessary to deliver commodities to EUROPE.   Shortages.   Pricing.

The BIG PICTURE:

China remains an anomaly even though America backstabbed them – there remains a psychological desire to be a part of the Football Clique.   They wanted to wear the Letter Jackets and have all the girls.   They wanted to be a super-power.   As such, the American apparatus destroyed their economy and reputation.  Still, that Letter Jacket looks awfully cool – even Putin wanted one.  Once upon a time.

BOEING:   And then there is Boeing.  Boeing is one of the world’s largest defense and space contractors.  For the military, Boeing provides:   missiles, fighters, bombers, transports, munition, spacecraft, etc…   Their planes are literally falling apart in the sky.   Their CEO resigned in humiliation.   How reliable are their jets?  Their missiles?   Are they having the same fallout?

November 2023, Boeing Osprey crashes in Japan Sea.

February 2024, two Boeing Apache helicopters crash

January 2024, Navy helicopter crashes in Coronado California

June 20222, and August 2023, Super Hornet made by Boeing crashed near Trona.

Short Answer:  YES.   The FBI is now warning that criminals are sabotaging passenger flights.  Presumably, employees of – Boeing.  Or maybe Boeing accidentally gave the vax to the wrong employees and have a severe shortage of mechanics and engineers?   Who the Fark knows in the Truth or Disinformation Pundit Board Game.

Will we overturn the 2020 Election.   Not likely.   Not because the proof isn’t available, but because our politicians take each step marked by fear, money, blackmail, and self preservation.  Trump can not “Save America” – however, no one could.   what he can do is slash and gash eliminations that become legally solidified prohibiting government expansion and ANY NGO infiltration financially, economically, politically or ethically.   READ THE BILLS MORONS!

– A Big Thank You To Sarah For Plugging Me on Substack!!! Appreciate it!

Reprinted with permission from Helena-The Nationalist Voice.

The post Voiding the 2020 Election – Russia, China, & Illusions appeared first on LewRockwell.

Back in 2015, the Guardian published a fascinating report titled Now the truth emerges: how the US fuelled the rise of Isis in Syria and Iraq, which detailed how U.S. and British intelligence were supporting Islamic jihadist rebel groups in Syria with the objective of overthrowing the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The report included a link to a leaked 2012 Department of Defense document about U.S. support for these rebel groups in Syria, including ISIS. This report stuck with me, and I was a reminded of it a couple of years later when Assad was accused in April 2017 of using chemical weapons against Syrian civilians.

Notably, this chemical weapons attack just happened to occur the day after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson publicly announced that regime change in Syria was no longer official U.S. policy. In other words—we were told—the day after the U.S. announced it was getting off Assad’s case, he committed an atrocity (of zero military value) that would guarantee that the U.S. recommit itself to getting rid of him.

Though most of the legacy press endorsed the assertion that Assad’s forces were behind the attack, a few discerning reporters noted that it could have easily been carried about by one of the Islamic jihadist groups operating in the region to make the Trump administration rethink its abandonment of its regime change objective. Sure enough, a couple of days after the chemical attack, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced that he was reconsidering his announcement the week before.

Now comes the news of a major terrorist attack on the Crocus City Hall in Moscow that has left hundreds dead and injured. The U.S. government claims the attack was carried out by ISIS-K, which has reportedly taken responsibility for it. However, Kremlin officials have alleged that some of the gunmen were trying to escape into Ukraine, utilizing a ‘window’ of support from across the border.

The U.S. government just issued a statement condemning the terrorist attack in Moscow, but this reminds me of U.S. government doublespeak about ISIS back in the 2012-2017 period—that is, publicly condemning ISIS while secretly supporting it in Syria.

My concern now is that the attack on the Moscow theater was—like the Re’im music festival massacre in Israel last October—designed to provoke the absolute maximum violent response.

A hypothetical scenario is the CIA and DoD have continued to support ISIS and that the gunmen were indeed attempting to escape through Ukraine.

If this is indeed the case, it suggests that the gambit is for Russian intelligence to discover the plot and conduct a major reprisal in Ukraine. The Biden Administration will insist that the U.S. does NOT support ISIS, and that the Russian reprisal is further evidence that Putin is a maniac.

This originally appeared on Courageous Discourse.

The post U.S. History of Using ISIS appeared first on LewRockwell.

 

 

di Jason Montgomery

Una recente ondata di podcaster di destra e di tendenza libertaria ha insistito nel voler parlare di socialismo, ma lo ha fatto in un modo che mi ha talmente infastidito da spingermi a scrivere questo pezzo. Le loro argomentazioni erano del tipo “Perché viene ancora preso in considerazione? Quando capiranno che NON FUNZIONA e lo lasceranno perdere?"

Questa critica merita uno sguardo più attento e forse anche il socialismo stesso. A proposito, definisco il termine come un qualsiasi paradigma economico che affida i mezzi di produzione alla “società”, ai “lavoratori”, o a qualche altra entità fittizia che significa nell'effettivo lo stato; e limita o vieta la proprietà privata.

Sì, il socialismo è fallace, perché ovunque venga istituito (che non è neanche lontanamente vicino a quello della Scandinavia ma questo è un argomento diverso) l’abbondanza promessa non riesce a materializzarsi. Invece le persone finiscono per soffrire di povertà estrema, fame e deficit di ogni tipo. Le prove sono disseminate nel corso della storia, in tutto il mondo, quindi qualsiasi idiota che continua a promuovere questo caos pianificato ignora i fatti.

Nessuna teoria politica astratta, solo la domanda di fondo: funziona? Punto. Guardate le statistiche storiche, ogni altra considerazione non corrisponde al mondo reale, quindi è inutile. Abbiamo di fatto relegato il socialismo nella pattumiera della storia, giusto?

Niente affatto.

Non sono qui per confutare questo fatto, dato che è molto peggio di così.

Innanzitutto c'è una domanda ovvia: cosa significa che un sistema economico “funziona”? Che nessuno è povero? Qual è lo standard di “povero”? Un certo margine universale di reddito disponibile? Un livello di PIL? Forse in un sondaggio condotto su 1.000 persone a caso in cui 672 di loro hanno valutato la loro condizione economica come minimo “soddisfacente”? Quali sono i criteri? Qual è il barometro? Come possiamo sapere se “funziona”?

Qualcuno non potrebbe semplicemente scegliere uno standard arbitrario di “funzionamento” col senno di poi e pubblicizzare con orgoglio il grande successo del socialismo? È già successo in passato! Ed ecco la vera domanda: chi potrebbe essere questo qualcuno? Con quale diritto potrebbe decidere questo metro di misura a nome di un intero popolo?

Bene, queste potrebbero essere domande difficili a cui rispondere, ma sicuramente possiamo sapere cosa significa non funzionare. Il socialismo ha ripetutamente prodotto carestie, razionamenti, carenze produttive e l’apparente scomparsa delle risorse naturali. Un record economico come questo deve essere sufficiente per buttarl oalle ortiche.

Non la pensate così? Permettetemi di chiedervi un paio di cose...

• Siete contrari alla schiavitù perché non genera una fiorente industria agraria?

• Siete contrari a limitare la libertà di parola perché non protegge i sentimenti delle persone?

• Siete contrari alle perquisizioni domestiche casuali perché non scoprono abbastanza contrabbando per rafforzare la sicurezza pubblica?

Se no, perché no? Questi sono gli esatti motivi per cui rifiutate il ​​socialismo; perché sembra proprio non soddisfare gli obiettivi sociali dichiarati. Pertanto...

E se funzionasse davvero? Se producesse una società di proletari leali, che sopravvivono felicemente con le risorse assegnate, lavorando con orari limitati nelle fattorie e nelle fabbriche comunali, con molti giorni liberi e godendosi i loro hobby approvati dallo stato con tutto il tempo libero di questo mondo? Immagino che sareste d'accordo, no?

È davvero questo il vostro punto di opposizione, o c'è qualcos'altro in gioco?

“Certo, c'è di più!” potreste dire. “Al di là dell’economia, il socialismo ha ripetutamente portato alla sorveglianza di massa, all’incarcerazione arbitraria, alla tortura, ai campi di sterminio e alle più grandi atrocità umane conosciute! Questa è la vera controargomentazione!”.

Vi state solo scavando la fossa più in profondità nel fondo della retorica.

Conoscete le risposte a tutte queste queste controargomentazioni, ripetetele dopo di me: “Quello non era il vero comunismo”; “Si trattava solo di un cattivo capo in comando, il sistema stesso non può essere accusato per la sua mala gestione”; “Era l’avidità e il sadismo residui dell’economia di mercato”; “Il marxismo è scientificamente valido, richiede solo un periodo di maturazione affinché le persone imparino i giusti valori, poi tutto si trasformerà in paradiso”.

Queste banalità sono frustranti? Ebbene chiunque sostenga che “non funziona” ha tacitamente accettato le stesse identiche premesse di fondo.

Questa tesi fa appello al pragmatismo, all'utilitarismo, all'empirismo e al consequenzialismo; i quattro cavalieri della sofistica. Vi dice di non criticare il socialismo finché non lo si prova: valutarne gli impatti pratici (pragmatismo) basandosi esclusivamente sull’esperienza (empirismo) per vedere se conferisce il massimo bene al maggior numero di persone (utilitarismo) garantendo l’uguaglianza economica e la prosperità promesse (consequenzialismo).

Ciò fa parte della disperata campagna di lunga data volta a rendere l’economia una scienza naturale, con una risposta definitiva, scopribile attraverso una rigorosa verifica delle ipotesi. Se accettate questi termini, allora “non funziona” non è affatto una controargomentazione. La possibilità di un esperimento fallito è incorporata proprio in questo schema: non ha ancora funzionato, quindi modifichiamo la teoria e riproviamo.

Abbiamo ottenuto... ricchezza e felicità per tutti? Grande! Ha funzionato! Oppure... una campagna di sterminio di proporzioni bibliche? Oops, torniamo al laboratorio di progettazione; non c'era modo di prevederlo.

È qui che il “non funziona” supera l'infruttuosità e diventa controproducente. Se postulate un risultato sfavorevole (o sfavorevoli) come motivo per respingere in blocco la teoria, l'altra parte può definirvi incoerenti e non scientifici, e avrebbe ragione! Vedete come il loro ragionamento fraudolento può far sembrare sbagliata una conclusione corretta?

Pertanto il socialismo continua ad essere giustificato, razionalizzato, promosso e di conseguenza implementato in tutto il mondo; con più rimonte degli Aerosmith (perdonatemi Aerosmith).

(Questi punti sono trattati brillantemente in A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism di Hoppe.)

Tutto ciò gioca con due delle grandi truffe storiche di Marx. In primo luogo, il commercio e ogni azione umana possono essere progettati scientificamente da un’autorità centrale per produrre i fini desiderati; in secondo luogo, la nobiltà di questi fini in un futuro indeterminato giustifica tutti i mezzi, compresa la sofferenza potenzialmente illimitata, nel presente.

Altro che etica, moralità e agire umano; la questione se “funziona” non potrà mai essere determinata ma solo dibattuta all’infinito, rendendolo il foraggio ideale per i media generalisti. Sotto ogni esame legittimo il socialismo crolla sotto il suo stesso altezzoso peso intellettuale, perché manca qualcosa alle sue fondamenta: principi fondamentali che possono essere accertati come veri o meno.

Per perseguire il socialismo è necessario mirare ai suoi principi fondamentali. E quali sono alcuni di questi?

• Radicato nel collettivismo: nessun individuo ha importanza materiale, solo la società nel suo insieme. Qualsiasi bisogno, preferenza e vita può e deve essere sacrificato per il bene della collettività.

• Assenza di mercato: la produzione e il commercio operano per volontà dei pianificatori centrali, non degli attori di mercato. Ciò che viene prodotto, in quale quantità e per quale utilizzo non è determinato dalla domanda dei consumatori o dalla motivazione del profitto, ma da calcoli top-down. In base a cosa? Tali domande non sono tollerate. Adesso mettetevi in fila per il pane! Il che ci porta a...

• Necessità di uno stato totalitario: questa centralizzazione dell’economia richiede una microgestione così approfondita dell’azione umana che il monitoraggio, lo spionaggio, le molestie e le sanzioni per i trasgressori (tanto per cominciare) devono diventare la norma. Alcuni aderenti sostengono che il controllo statale, e lo stato stesso, un giorno diventeranno inutili grazie al socialismo, una volta che le persone si saranno allineate (leggasi sottomesse con la forza). Ma, come l’arrivo dell’abbondanza universale, quel giorno non arriva mai. Maggiori informazioni su questo punto tra poco...

Questa critica potrebbe non essere perfetta, ma notate le differenze tra essa e il punto da cui abbiamo iniziato. Queste premesse sono assiomaticamente parte integrante del socialismo. Non è necessaria alcuna esperienza, sperimentazione, o ricerca per confermarle; nessun dato statistico arriverà a cambiarle. Non sono fini, che non possono essere conosciuti in modo definitivo all'inizio di una qualsiasi iniziativa (semmai possano esserlo davvero anche dopo); si tratta di mezzi che si conoscono istantaneamente e con certezza, poiché diventano le condizioni materiali della vita in una data società. L’economia è un viaggio, non una destinazione, quindi le promesse di ricchezza e apolidia in cambio della vostra attuale sofferenza non significano nulla per l’essere umano che vi spinge in avanti con il fucile.

Ora può iniziare un VERO dibattito.

Il socialista deve essere pronto a difendere come minimo tutti i punti di cui sopra. Qualsiasi affermazione che non sposa la necessità di questi fattori può essere accolta con gioia: “Allora non è vero socialismo!” Se poi si preferiscono le proprie ideologie à la carte, cogliendo i “punti buoni” del socialismo ed eliminando i gulag e le fosse comuni, allora si sta sostenendo qualcosa di completamente diverso, un’economia mista, ovvero l’inquinamento del mercato con un certo grado dei principi di cui sopra.

I grafici e i dati hanno qualche validità? Certo, come supporto persuasivo. Ma non possono ESSERE il vostro argomento di base. Quest'ultimo deve provenire dai Principi Primi: libertà, proprietà e sovranità individuale. Questo è tutto ciò che conta. Subordinarli ai numeri e alle statistiche significa scartarli completamente.

Quando si tratta di socialismo smettetela di dire che non funziona, smettetela di definirla un’idea perfetta sulla carta ma che vacilla nella realizzazione, e smettetela di giustificare i suoi sostenitori con la scusa delle“nobili intenzioni”. Dategli quanto gli è dovuto dal punto di vista intellettuale e solo dopo potrete definirlo per quello che è davvero: un concetto malvagio che non deve trovare posto nella specie umana.

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

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di Robert Breedlove

Nella Parte #4 abbiamo descritto le origini del governo, della criminalità organizzata e della proprietà per vedere come questi costrutti sociali cambieranno con l’ascesa del sovranismo durante l’era digitale. Oggi scaveremo nuovamente nella storia, esplorando gli effetti che la tecnologia ha nel rimodellare le istituzioni politiche e l’interazione umana. Il potere politico scaturisce dalle realtà economiche e tecnologiche prevalenti di ogni epoca. Le tecnologie digitali dissipano in gran parte l’utilità della violenza che è stata “l’alfa e l’omega” dell’organizzazione umana fino a questo punto della storia e metteranno quindi fine alla moderna preoccupazione per la politica. Le variabili mega-politiche stanno ancora una volta riconfigurando le strutture del potere umano, questa volta penalizzando la coercizione e premiando la competenza. Un’istituzione dell’Era Analogica dipendente dagli alti ritorni economici della violenza, il modello dello Stato-nazione, sta invecchiando e si sta dirigendo verso il proprio viale del tramonto.

Senilità dello Stato-nazione

“Lo Stato, nelle parole di Oppenheimer, è “l'organizzazione dei mezzi politici”; è la sistematizzazione del processo predatorio su un dato territorio”

~ Murray Rothbard

A partire dall’era agricola la sistematizzazione della violenza e della protezione è diventata il mezzo principale del potere sociopolitico nel mondo. Quando furono istituiti monopoli sulla violenza (governi) legittimati a livello locale, ottenere il controllo politico di queste imprese e dei loro clienti (i contribuenti) divenne il modo migliore per esercitare il potere nel mondo. Quando è possibile rubare denaro e proprietà, i ritorni economici della violenza sono positivi. Ciò porta a un maggiore potere conferito allo Stato e a una maggiore enfasi sulla politica. Sconosciuta ai più, l’ossessione moderna per la politica deriva in gran parte da questa modalità statalista di organizzazione socioeconomica basata sulla violenza, resa possibile dalla violabilità della proprietà privata.

Il governo è il servizio più costoso per cui la maggior parte di noi potrà mai pagare e la politica è il meccanismo che lo controlla. La verità economica è che se il capitale non potesse essere confiscato, avremmo tutti molti meno motivi per preoccuparci delle reciproche inclinazioni politiche. Ma poiché il furto della proprietà privata è stato storicamente un pericolo sempre presente, la politica ha fornito uno strumento più pacifico per raggiungere il consenso sulla distribuzione della proprietà rispetto alla sua naturale estensione: la guerra. Preservare gli interessi della proprietà è sempre stata l’impresa dei governatori locali, che nel corso della storia sono finiti sotto il controllo politico, pertanto gli Stati hanno speso grandi risorse in propaganda per modellare l’opinione politica allo scopo di promuovere i propri interessi economici giustificando la confisca delle proprietà privata.

“Tutto quello che lo Stato dice è una bugia e tutto quello che possiede lo Stato l'ha rubato”

 ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Tutti i sistemi politici si basano sul controllo e sulla razionalizzazione dei poteri coercitivi dello Stato sulle persone. Derivato dalla parola francese politique, il termine politica apparve per la prima volta in inglese agli inizi del 1500. Anche allora la parola pare fosse usata in senso peggiorativo, poiché veniva usata per descrivere “opportunisti e temporizzatori” sia nelle parti del mondo di lingua inglese che francese durante e prima del XVI secolo. La politica è l’imposizione di un’aggregazione di forze di volontà su altre: per funzionare richiede una certa vulnerabilità sfruttabile nella popolazione obiettivo. Senza una fonte credibile d'influenza o minaccia di forza per sostenerla, la politica è per lo più un inutile esercizio di condivisione di opinioni. Una velata minaccia di violenza sostiene la rilevanza di tutte le istituzioni politiche. Per queste ragioni esiste ancora oggi una correlazione positiva tra i ritorni economici della violenza e la prevalenza della politica.

“Lo Stato – o, per rendere le cose più concrete, il governo – è composto da un gruppo di uomini esattamente come voi e me. Paragonando l'uno e l'altro, non hanno alcun talento speciale per gli affari di governo; hanno solo talento per ottenere e mantenere una carica. Il loro principale espediente a tal fine è scovare i gruppi che ansimano e si struggono per qualcosa che non possono ottenere e promettere loro di darglielo. Nove volte su dieci tale promessa non vale nulla. La decima volta viene mantenuta saccheggiando “A” per soddisfare “B”. In altre parole lo Stato è un intermediario nel saccheggio e ogni elezione è una sorta di asta anticipata sui beni rubati”

~ H.L. Mencken

Nei moderni Stati-nazione la politica è il discorso su come e perché applicare la violenza o la coercizione. Cambiando i modi in cui la violenza può essere applicata, la tecnologia è la variabile mega-politica chiave che influenza la politicizzazione delle istituzioni sociali. Con l’invenzione della polvere da sparo il costo della proiezione della forza attraverso lo spazio è crollato, migliorando così i ritorni economici delle azioni violente. Sulla scia di questo cambiamento tecnologico si è verificata la logica escalation nella lotta per il controllo dell’apparato politico che dirige lo Stato. La politica è cresciuta fino a diventare l’organo decisionale che cattura gran parte di questo margine di profitto nell’impresa commerciale della violenza. Sulla scia della rivoluzione della polvere da sparo, questo bottino di potere sarebbe servito come sostentamento economico per alimentare uno Stato-nazione più grande e più oppressivo. In questo modo la politica è cresciuta fino a diventare una caratteristica primaria in molte culture moderne.

L’economia è a monte della politica e della cultura: Economia e Tecnologia (generatori e allocatori volontari di ricchezza) —> Politica e Guerra (consumatori e allocatori involontari di ricchezza) —> Cultura (come gli esseri umani godono della ricchezza creata: un riflesso a valle delle sorgenti economiche, tecnologiche e politiche che sgorgano a monte).

A contribuire al ridimensionamento organizzativo del modello statalista nella nostra concezione moderna di Stato-nazione è stata l’immobilità del capitale. La maggior parte di esso nell’Era industriale era costituito da grandi fabbriche, impianti e attrezzature pesanti che soffrivano di mobilità limitata o nulla. Valutando tutto ciò attraverso la logica della violenza, è evidente che quanto meno mobili sono i capitali, tanto più la “lotta” diventa la strategia dominante. Quando gli oggetti di valore non possono essere spostati o nascosti, l’unica opzione di fronte agli aggressori che avanzano è (tipicamente) difendersi. Al contrario quando il capitale è ipermobile e può essere trasferito in modo rapido, economico e discreto, la strategia dominante è molto spesso la “fuga”. Come ogni altra impresa la violenza è soggetta alla tirannia del calcolo costi-benefici. Il modello dello Stato-nazione era utile in una società industrializzata in cui la maggior parte del valore economico era legato a fabbriche, impianti e attrezzature immobili.

Nell’Era digitale gran parte dei ritorni economici derivanti dalle operazioni su larga scala sono stati compressi dalla mercificazione industriale. La proprietà intellettuale e altre protezioni legali legate al monopolio (a eccezione di quelle che salvaguardano i monopoli sulla violenza e sull’emissione di valuta) sono scadute in molti settori, aumentando l’intensità competitiva e l’innovazione. Di conseguenza nel lungo periodo i prezzi al consumo delle materie prime sono diminuiti, rispecchiando un aumento della ricchezza aggregata. Tali vantaggi economici derivanti dalla mercificazione possono scaturire solo dal libero scambio. In combinazione con la natura fluida dei sistemi informativi meno dipendenti dall’intermediazione e con il crollo dei costi di distribuzione per le aziende moderne, è chiaro che ogni settore che può essere gestito in modo nativo digitale è fortemente incentivato a farlo. Riduzione delle spese immobiliari, di affitto e fiscali; minore dipendenza da beni capitali immobili e su larga scala; una selezione più ampia e qualificata di talenti non locali; capacità di “piegare lo spazio-tempo” sfruttando appieno gli strumenti digitali; tutto ciò  rende l’organizzazione orientata al digitale una forza da non sottovalutare in ogni settore. In breve: una maggiore mobilità dei capitali comporta una maggiore resilienza contro ogni tipo d'imposizione politica.

Come ha affermato Andreessen: “Il software sta divorando il mondo”. Questa proclamazione non si limita all’ecosistema imprenditoriale privato, tutte le istituzioni sociali utilizzate per organizzare gli affari umani sono a rischio di mutamento. Quanto più rigida e imponente è la struttura di potere istituzionale in questione, tanto più è suscettibile alla dissoluzione nell’Era digitale. Gli Stati-nazione e le banche centrali – le istituzioni più grandi e meno flessibili – rischiano di perdere di più nella conseguente trasformazione digitale. L’incapacità, o la riluttanza, ad adattarsi alle preferenze dei consumatori fa sì che le istituzioni meno agili siano svantaggiate in un mondo digitale sempre più facoltativo. Dopo secoli d'infantilizzazione intenzionale dei cittadini per far sì che divenissero dipendenti, e quindi asserviti, alle strutture di potere imposte dall’alto, il modello dello Stato-nazione è invecchiato e si avvia lungo il proprio viale del tramonto. La forza è una strategia meno produttiva quando la fuga di capitali è un’opzione concreta.

Negli anni del tramonto dello Stato-nazione, i governi sono sempre più vulnerabili al collasso improvviso. Non solo soffrono di una diffusa disapprovazione, ma anche i loro modelli di reddito sono direttamente minacciati da Bitcoin. Più i politici e i burocrati tasseranno le loro popolazioni e svaluteranno le loro valute, maggiore sarà l’indignazione morale e maggiore sarà la domanda di una forma di denaro a prova d'inflazione e difficile da tassare. Offrendo alle persone la possibilità di uscire dai regimi fiat delle banche centrali trasformandosi in una “banca decentralizzata” impenetrabile, Bitcoin amplifica la sovranità individuale e fa perdere leva finanziaria alle istituzioni politiche. In un mondo governato dalla politica, le implicazioni del successo finale di Bitcoin sono sismiche.

#Bitcoin upends the geopolitical order by transcending territorial monopolies, bankrupting nation-states, and making World War III unaffordable.

Few.

— Robert ₿reedlove (@Breedlove22) March 6, 2021

Forse ancora più significativa della transizione dall’Era agricola a quella industriale, l’Era digitale ci costringe a rivalutare tutto ciò che pensavamo di sapere. Ma quali sono i segnali a cui prestare attenzione mentre si manifesta questo cambiamento storico? Avanzando verso l’ignoto, possiamo tracciare alcuni parallelismi mega-politici con la caduta della Chiesa medievale.

La megapolitica della Chiesa medievale

“La tecnologia sta accelerando una rivoluzione nell’esercizio del potere che distruggerà lo Stato-nazione proprio come la polvere da sparo e la stampa hanno distrutto il monopolio della Chiesa medievale”

~ The Sovereign Individual

Un indicatore importante di un imminente mega cambiamento politico è l’indignazione morale. Di solito tale vetriolo è rivolto ai leader istituzionali ritenuti corrotti, ma man mano che le persone che operano sotto la gerarchia politica in questione diventano consapevoli della sua diminuzione di utilità o rilevanza nella loro vita, iniziano a vedere i responsabili in modo sfavorevole, soprattutto quando è coinvolta l’appropriazione indebita o l’espropriazione di capitali. Senza un’efficace riforma strutturale, questo disfavore può rapidamente trasformarsi in odio e addirittura culminare in un collasso istituzionale.

Dopo il peggioramento delle condizioni economiche e il peggioramento della corruzione istituzionale, la Chiesa medievale iniziò a perdere il sostegno popolare. I membri del clero sia dei ranghi inferiori che di quelli superiori erano tenuti in grande disprezzo dalle masse. Questo spirito, che assomiglia molto all’atteggiamento popolare nei confronti dei politici e dei burocrati di oggi, si sarebbe rivelato un precursore del collasso della Chiesa, ma l’indignazione popolare da sola non fu sufficiente a far crollare l’istituzione dominante dell’epoca. Ad attualizzare il fallimento istituzionale finale della Chiesa fu una tecnologia apparentemente semplice: la macchina da stampa. Oggi diamo per scontati i libri, l’alfabetizzazione e la matematica, ma solo col senno di poi la loro connessione con il collasso istituzionale della Chiesa è diventata evidente.

“La capacità di produrre libri in serie è stata incredibilmente sovversiva per le istituzioni medievali, proprio come la microtecnologia si rivelerà sovversiva per il moderno Stato-nazione. La stampa indebolì rapidamente il monopolio della Chiesa sulla parola di Dio, creando anche un nuovo mercato per l’eresia”

~ The Sovereign Individual

A quel tempo non era ovvio che la stampa avrebbe accelerato la proliferazione dell’alfabetizzazione e della capacità di calcolo in un modo tale da ridisegnare per sempre le linee del potere politico nel mondo. Prima della stampa la Chiesa deteneva il monopolio sui libri tramite gli scriptoria, che le conferivano una stretta mortale sulla quantità e qualità delle idee che fluivano nella società medievale. Nell'ultimo decennio del XV secolo oltre 10 milioni di libri furono pubblicati utilizzando la macchina da stampa, più di quelli stampati nei circa 500 anni precedenti alla sua invenzione. Quando la Chiesa si rese conto della minaccia esistenziale che la stampa rappresentava al suo monopolio sulla produzione di libri, e quindi alla sua influenza sui flussi di conoscenza, tentò di sopprimere questa tecnologia emergente, ma poiché la stampa era solo un’idea, ed era giunto il suo momento, sfidò la repressione e divenne rapidamente un’inarrestabile mega forza politica.

I tentativi della Chiesa di censurare l'adozione della stampa non fecero altro che accelerarne la proliferazione. A testimonianza dell’inarrestabilità di “un’idea il cui tempo è giunto”, la mano pesante della Chiesa portò all’uso di macchine da stampa per stampare libri su “come costruire una macchina da stampa”. La conseguenza involontaria della soppressione tecnologica fu l’alimentazione della sovversione istituzionale. Oggi una dinamica simile vale per la diffusione delle tecnologie basate sulla crittografia: i tentativi dello Stato di sopprimerle incoraggeranno la diffusione e lo sviluppo di una crittografia sempre più sovversiva. Detto in modo semplice: la mano pesante della censura crea una maggiore domanda di strumenti resistenti a essa, diminuendone così la rilevanza.

“La Chiesa scoprì che la censura non aveva soppresso la diffusione della tecnologia sovversiva; le aveva invece permesso d'essere utilizzata nel modo più sovversivo possibile”

~ The Sovereign Individual

Una più ampia disponibilità di libri ridusse i costi di distribuzione delle informazioni e quindi accelerò la diffusione della conoscenza tra le menti umane. Migliorando la “liquidità delle idee”, una maggiore quantità e qualità di pensiero e di pensatori emerse come risultato diretto della stampa. Allo stesso modo oggi la tecnologia digitale ha ancora una volta fatto crollare i costi di distribuzione delle informazioni e sta contribuendo alla crescente irrilevanza delle istituzioni dell’Era analogica. Invece di fidarsi ciecamente delle istituzioni o dei marchi aziendali, le persone, in particolare i nativi digitali, sono molto più propense a svolgere le proprie ricerche prima di prendere una decisione importante sulla salute, sulla ricchezza, o sullo stile di vita. Come la stampa secoli fa, la tecnologia digitale sta ancora una volta facendo crollare il costo dell’informazione, accelerando radicalmente i flussi di conoscenza in tutto il mondo e migliorando la qualità della cognizione.

La macchina da stampa fu il principale propulsore dell’alfabetizzazione, della capacità di calcolo e dello studio autonomo in tutto il mondo medievale. In quel modo la gente poteva avere accesso diretto alla parola di Dio e la necessità di intermediari era diminuita. Ciò ebbe un impatto negativo sulle entrate derivanti dalla ricerca di rendita della Chiesa, come le indulgenze, e contribuì alla sua perdita di potere. In una svolta inaspettata della storia, la stampa alimentò la diffusione dell’alfabetizzazione e della capacità di calcolo che andò a indebolire il dominio della Chiesa. L’alfabetizzazione e la capacità di calcolo – forme indispensabili di psicotecnologia – avrebbero abbassato i “costi di transazione” della condivisione della conoscenza, il che avrebbe migliorato la “liquidità delle idee” e avrebbe portato a una popolazione decisamente più intelligente e con un pensiero indipendente.

“Un’altra conseguenza sovversiva della stampa fu il suo effetto nel ridurre drasticamente i costi di riproduzione delle informazioni. Una delle ragioni principali per cui l’alfabetizzazione e il progresso economico erano stati così bassi durante il Medioevo era l’alto costo della duplicazione manuale dei manoscritti”

~ The Sovereign Individual

A riflettere questo mega cambiamento politico del passato nella sfera della conoscenza sono oggi i media digitali. Per i sovranisti un modello di distribuzione delle idee top-down non è affidabile, accettabile e nemmeno rilevante. Invece la conoscenza utile si ottiene dalle correnti incrociate del libero scambio tra una molteplicità di mezzi tra cui i social media, la messaggistica asincrona peer-to-peer e il cosiddetto dark web intellettuale. Mentre i media generalisti (più propriamente chiamati stampa aziendale) si basano su un modello di distribuzione “uno a molti”, i media nativi digitali sono un modello “molti a molti” e, quindi, sono più efficaci nel filtrare pregiudizi, programmi politici e altre forme di propaganda immesse dalle istituzioni politiche.

I appreciate the reframing of @michaelmalice on this topic: since the “mainstream” media does not represent the views of the social mainstream, we should instead call it by its true name: “the corporate press.”

— Robert ₿reedlove (@Breedlove22) July 22, 2021

In circostanze mega-politiche simili a quelle che hanno portato alla caduta della Chiesa, oggi stiamo assistendo alla tecnologia digitale che dissolve la coerenza dello Stato-nazione tramite l'abbattimento del sistema bancario e la cosiddetta stampa aziendale. Scivolando nell’irrilevanza economica a causa delle perturbazioni (psico)tecnologiche prodotte dalla stampa, la Chiesa cadde gradualmente in disgrazia, portando a un rinascimento scientifico con un’etica incetrata sul motto “non fidarti, verifica” e radicata nel profondo del suo tessuto sociale iper-razionale. Questo ethos pragmatico alla fine avrebbe portato, secoli dopo, all’eclettico frutto finanziario, tecnologico e filosofico noto come Bitcoin. In quanto nuova (psico)tecnologia affascinante, Bitcoin promette di rendere irrilevanti le istituzioni politiche moderne così come accadde alla Chiesa medievale.

Psicotecnologie e politica

“Credo anche – e spero – che la politica e l’economia cesseranno di essere importanti in futuro come lo sono state in passato; verrà il momento in cui la maggior parte delle nostre attuali controversie su questi argomenti sembreranno banali, o prive di significato, come i dibattiti teologici in cui le menti più acute del Medioevo dissiparono le loro energie”

~ Arthur C. Clark

La tecnologia, qui definita come l’uso sistematico di strumenti, modella le azioni quotidiane intraprese dagli esseri umani. Essendo l’unico animale con una concezione sofisticata del tempo, gli esseri umani trascorrono gran parte delle loro ore di veglia impegnati nel lavoro e nei preparativi per un futuro sempre incerto. Il lavoro implica l’uso di strumenti, la realizzazione di strumenti, la realizzazione di strumenti per la fabbricazione di strumenti e così via in processi produttivi sempre più lunghi e complessi. Nel corso di sequenze di produzione sufficientemente lunghe, l’uso ripetitivo degli strumenti favorisce cambiamenti adatattivi negli utenti: un operaio che fa oscillare quotidianamente una mazza svilupperà muscoli e una tecnica di oscillazione eccezionalmente forti; un impiegato d'ufficio che passa le giornate a preparare e-mail svilupperà la capacità di digitare molte parole al minuto, o forse anche la sindrome del tunnel carpale (si veda teoria del coinvolgimento materiale). Ma non tutti gli strumenti e le tecnologie sono tangibili, alcune “tecnologie” sono costrutti puramente mentali e possono, grazie alla neuroplasticità, avere un impatto ancora più pronunciato sull’adattamento umano. Le cosiddette psicotecnologie sono strumenti non corporei che migliorano la produttività umana sistematizzando la cognizione.

Due psicotecnologie ovvie e pervasive sono l’alfabetizzazione e la capacità di calcolo, che insieme facilitano la stragrande maggioranza del pensiero umano, della comunicazione e della tenuta dei registri. Le psicotecnologie meno ovvie includono la retorica (che fu determinante nell’ascesa della politica), i palazzi della memoria e la lettura veloce. Senza alfabetizzazione, il nostro pensiero e la nostra capacità di cooperazione e competizione economica sarebbero drasticamente limitati, portando a una grave diseconomizzazione dell’azione umana. Attraverso l’osservazione di noi stessi e degli altri che agiscono nel tempo, gli esseri umani generano conoscenza procedurale – il sapere “come” – che viene successivamente codificata come conoscenza semantica – il sapere “cosa”. L’alfabetizzazione e la capacità di calcolo migliorano la capacità umana d'immagazzinare e scambiare conoscenza semantica: la rappresentazione simbolica di azioni o eventi nel “mondo reale”. La civiltà è una costruzione di conoscenza semantica accumulata intergenerazionalmente e implementata proceduralmente come lavoro e capitale. In breve: la civiltà si esprime nel modo in cui gli esseri umani agiscono e nelle cose che creano, e questo è stato il motivo per cui la stampa l'ha catapultata in avanti.

Come acceleratore della diffusione delle psicotecnologie fondamentali, la stampa ha inaugurato cambiamenti mega-politici senza precedenti nel mondo. L’evoluzione verso i media digitali porterà a una proliferazione e permutazione ancora maggiore di molte psicotecnologie utili. Ad esempio, grazie alle tecnologie digitali, la parola parlata beneficia ora della stessa portata e permanenza della parola scritta, ma con una distribuzione ancora più efficiente. Di conseguenza il pensiero umano e la rilevanza istituzionale stanno nuovamente subendo un cambiamento rapido e radicale. Vista in questo quadro di trasformazione della cognizione e delle istituzioni sociali, la storia può arrivare a considerare le (psico)tecnologie dell’Era digitale tanto cruciali quanto l’introduzione della stampa. Tra di esse ci sono Internet e Bitcoin, i due elementi che hanno avuto il maggiore impatto.

Un ibrido unico di tecnologia e psicotecnologia, il denaro è tra gli strumenti più basilari e importanti che un essere umano possa maneggiare. Il denaro è una tecnologia nel senso che storicamente (spesso, ma non sempre) ha avuto una manifestazione fisica, come i metalli preziosi o i titoli di Stato. Il denaro è una psicotecnologia nella misura in cui influenza le percezioni, i calcoli e gli orientamenti degli obiettivi umani. Dando a chi lo usa la capacità di eseguire calcoli economici, il denaro è incorporato nel nostro software mentale (basti pensare a quante volte avete pensato in termini di dollari nell’ultima settimana). In quanto linguaggio del valore, il denaro è uno strumento commerciale indispensabile: ci aiuta a comunicare, negoziare e pianificare. Il denaro è un simbolo vivente di puro potere, poiché può essere utilizzato per ottenere i poteri offerti da qualsiasi altro strumento o tecnologia che il mercato possa sopportare. Data la sua fisicità e il suo enorme potere, alcuni gruppi di umani in ogni civiltà hanno ritenuto nel loro interesse acquisire e controllare, in modo violento, i sistemi monetari per imporre il loro dominio politico sugli altri.

A horrible suspicion that has sometimes haunted me is that the Conservative and the Progressive are secretly in partnership. That the quarrel they keep up in public is a put-up job, and that the way they perpetually play into each other's hands is not an everlasting coincidence.

— G. K. Chesterton (@GKCdaily) July 25, 2021

Il denaro monopolizzato ha sempre dato maggiore importanza alla politica. Quando i governanti si arrogano l’autorità assoluta di manipolarne l’offerta per arricchirsi a spese dei cittadini, il potere quasi illimitato che questo meccanismo conferisce attrae sempre coloro senza scrupoli affinché prendano il potere. La licenza di “stampare denaro” è un privilegio politico asimmetrico che può essere preservato solo attraverso la violenza e l’inganno. Quando si trascura la “prova di lavoro” necessaria per ottenere denaro sul libero mercato, s'innesca una struttura d'incentivi inevitabilmente destinata a fallire. Le banche centrali distruggono l’etica del lavoro di tutti coloro che traggono beneficio dei proventi rubati attraverso l’inflazione dell’offerta di denaro. Inoltre poiché il denaro denomina i paesaggi di rilevanza collettiva degli attori di mercato, politici e burocrati possono distorcere le percezioni, le valutazioni e la rilevanza economica distorcendo i prezzi. Armate della capacità di manipolare il denaro, le banche centrali hanno il potere di riprogrammare le coscienze umane, come minimo ai margini.

Il denaro è una (psico)tecnologia per eccellenza per il ridimensionamento della società: quando è disaccoppiato dalla fisica della realtà – la termodinamica del lavoro – non può funzionare correttamente. Come la formazione muscolare di un uomo che trascorre la sua carriera facendo oscillare una mazza, o il tunnel carpale di chi scrive un'e-mail, le caratteristiche di una determinata moneta possono plasmare nel tempo determinate qualità di chi la utilizza. Garantendo ai monopolisti una fonte virtualmente illimitata di ricchezza confiscata, la semplice esistenza delle banche centrali incentiva le persone a essere più politiche, in cerca di rendita e disoneste: una corruzione pervasiva che affligge allo stesso modo i responsabili e le vittime dell’inflazione. Senza responsabilità nei confronti delle preferenze degli utenti, tutti coloro che operano all’interno di un paradigma di valuta fiat diventano inquinati e politicizzati. Mentre l’inflazione amplifica i prezzi – i pacchetti di dati che comunicano la scarsità economica – la civiltà soffre e la coesione sociale si disintegra. Il denaro monopolizzato è il meccanismo che alimenta la crescita ipertrofica delle istituzioni politiche in sovrastrutture ideologiche irresponsabili. Uno strumento in grado di “nascondere” le conseguenze dei fallimenti passati impedisce la riallocazione del capitale lontano dalle imprese fallite e impedisce anche agli attori di mercato di apprendere la lezione impartita da tali fallimenti. Senza un’allocazione intelligente del capitale e un apprendimento costante, il progresso continuo della civiltà cessa e le divisioni politiche si allargano.

Money is meant to hold market actors accountable. When central banks print money, they “paper over” accountability.

Fiat currency is self-deception at scale.#Bitcoin is the wisdom of money.

— Robert ₿reedlove (@Breedlove22) July 31, 2021

Una tecnologia monetaria radicalmente nuova, ovvero Bitcoin, rappresenta un diritto di proprietà apolitico. La proprietà è una relazione esclusiva tra proprietario e bene; la preservazione dei diritti di proprietà è responsabilità dello Stato, il che li rende vulnerabili ai capricci, agli artifici e alla corruzione. L’inflazione dell’offerta di valuta fiat e l’esproprio sono violazioni dei diritti di proprietà attraverso mezzi politici. In un’economia basata su Bitcoin, tutto ciò che conta per il vostro potenziale di guadagno è quanto gli altri sono disposti a pagarvi per soddisfare i loro desideri. In altre parole, in un mercato libero sono i consumatori a essere sovrani, non i politici. Il rango militare, l’affiliazione partitica e la vicinanza sociale alla stampante monetaria, visti come determinanti del posizionamento nella gerarchia della ricchezza mondiale, sarebbero in gran parte mitigati in un Bitcoin standard. Eliminando l’inflazione come fonte di finanziamento della guerra, Bitcoin elimina i sistemi di violenza su scala geopolitica. Aumentando il rapporto costi-benefici della confisca della ricchezza, Bitcoin rende la violenza a livello individuale meno gratificante. Poiché la politica si basa sull’utilità del saccheggio, Bitcoin riduce gli incentivi a politicizzare le istituzioni sociali. In quanto capitale ipermobile, Bitcoin offre a chi lo usa il massimo “vantaggio del difensore” nella sfera della proprietà. In questo senso Bitcoin rappresenta l’estinzione della politica come leva dominante del potere nel mondo.

Tutta l’autorità politica si fonda sulla violabilità della proprietà privata. Perché dovrei obbedire ai comandi altrui a meno che non ci sia una minaccia credibile imminente? Che si tratti di tassazione, inflazione, o confisca diretta, il furto della proprietà è oggi l’unica fonte di entrate per gli Stati-nazione. Come rivendicazione su tutte le altre forme di proprietà, il denaro è metaproprietà. Conservato correttamente, Bitcoin è l’unica forma di denaro che non può essere rubata, l’unica proprietà inviolabile. Una forma di denaro che resiste alla confisca in questo modo è un elemento cruciale per costruire una civiltà sostenibile.

“Se la storia potesse insegnarci qualcosa, sarebbe che la proprietà privata è indissolubilmente legata alla civiltà”

~ Ludwig von Mises

Politica con altri mezzi

L’indignazione morale nei confronti di politici, funzionari governativi e burocrati è oggi sempre più evidente. Come per il crollo della Chiesa medievale, questo “canarino nella miniera di carbone” è tipicamente un indicatore affidabile di un imminente cambiamento istituzionale. I lockdown, la minaccia delle vaccinazioni obbligatorie e la dilagante inflazione della valuta fiat sono tutti attacchi palesi alle proprietà dei cittadini. Quando le persone si renderanno conto di questa guerra contro la loro proprietà privata, cercheranno di mantenere l’unica proprietà inattaccabile dalle istituzioni politiche parassitarie. Quando Bitcoin sarà completamente monetizzato, le gerarchie umane si baseranno più sulla competenza piuttosto che sulla coercizione, e il modello di Stato-nazione del XX secolo cadrà finalmente nell’oblio. Alcuni Stati-nazione, come la Nigeria, si stanno già rendendo conto della minaccia esistenziale posta da Bitcoin.

Esso è un’istituzione sociale radicalmente nuova, indipendente dalla politica: ogni nodo sceglie da solo le regole di Bitcoin e non può essere costretto a scelte sfavorevoli. In virtù della resistenza intrinseca della sua rete alla coercizione, Bitcoin premia solo la forza di volontà umana incanalata verso la soddisfazione della domanda dei consumatori, gli unici attori sovrani in qualsiasi libero mercato. Limitando le incursioni degli Stati-nazione e degli attori politici nelle proprietà dei cittadini, Bitcoin dà potere all’imprenditorialità. L’importanza della politica come componente critica dell’identità individuale e di gruppo è una psicosi di massa basata sulla corruttibilità della proprietà privata. In quanto diritto di proprietà incorruttibile e istituzione sociale, Bitcoin annullerà secoli di programmazione politica nelle popolazioni che lo adotteranno.

È sciocco pensare che un particolare politico possa realizzare un cambiamento sistemico duraturo. Nessun essere umano è migliore dei suoi incentivi e i politici sono incentivati a vincere le elezioni a breve termine, indipendentemente dal costo a lungo termine. Nell’Era digitale la fede nel potere politico come costante dell’azione umana non capisce che le leve analogiche da cui i politici dipendono stanno morendo lentamente. Non riuscite a ottenere un permesso per armi da fuoco? Stampate una pistola. Soffrite di tassazione attraverso l'inflazione? Conservate i vostri risparmi in Bitcoin. Lo Stato censura le vostre comunicazioni? Ospitate i vostri contenuti su una piattaforma social immutabile e basata su Lightning Network. Più i politici saranno severi e spremeranno le loro popolazioni, più velocemente i sovranisti scivoleranno tra le loro dita e salperanno verso le acque internazionali digitali. Man mano che il mondo sarà testimone di questa migrazione, la psicosi politica svanirà; l’enfasi sull’identità politica è un’illusione moderna destinata a essere dissipata dal capitale a prova di saccheggio.

In a perverse way, govts benefit from more of the population being dependent on them. How else do you justify such large budgets and departments?

Bitcoin gives more people the capability to self reliant. Change the economics, change the culture, change the politics.

— Stephan Livera (@stephanlivera) January 23, 2021

Ogni nuovo blocco di Bitcoin è un mattone nel muro di una civiltà apolitica e in cui la coercizione è ridotta al minimo. Ci sarà sempre la politica negli affari umani, ma i modelli di entrate non consensuali degli Sati-nazione, utilizzati per finanziare l’imposizione di decisioni politiche su una popolazione riluttante, sono destinati a crollare in un mondo in cui esiste Bitcoin. E quest'ultimo rimarrà così: una forma di denaro avvolta in una crittografia di livello militare ottimizzata al solo scopo di sopravvivere. Una moneta con regole inviolabili che non può essere confiscata, inflazionata, o fermata: Bitcoin è il segnale acustico dell’imminente crollo dello Stato-nazione dipendente dalla violazione della proprietà privata. Potremmo definirlo un “aggiornamento software” a livello mondiale della (psico)tecnologia chiamata denaro; la grande promessa di Bitcoin è ridimensionare la politica e l’economia della violenza che presuppone.

“La guerra è la continuazione della politica con altri mezzi”

~ Clausewitz, Della guerra

L’autorità politica è una truffa e la sua scomparsa è una buona notizia per gli esseri umani. Quando le regole non possono essere violate e il denaro non può essere rubato, il perseguimento della cooperazione pacifica diventa la strategia più produttiva per tutti. Il denaro inviolabile è l'estinzione della politica e la sua continuazione clausolawitziana: la guerra.

La politica è una psicosi di massa aggravata dalla corruzione dell’importantissima (psico)tecnologia della civiltà: il denaro. Bitcoin è una forma di denaro incorruttibile e quindi porterà all’estinzione della politica. In poche parole: se la politica è la discussione su come applicare la violenza e la coercizione, allora Bitcoin mette fine a tale discussione.

What Congress fails to understand is that cyberspace has no borders. Their laws are powerless there.

A lawmaker is no match for a cypherpunk. pic.twitter.com/Tr4x5EM6ey

— RoninDojo (@RoninDojoNode) August 1, 2021

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

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

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???? Qui il link alla Prima Parte: https://www.francescosimoncelli.com/2023/12/sovranismo-parte-1-distruzione-creativa.html

???? Qui il link alla Seconda Parte: https://www.francescosimoncelli.com/2024/01/sovranismo-parte-2-bitcoin-sistema.html

???? Qui il link alla Terza Parte: https://www.francescosimoncelli.com/2024/01/sovranismo-parte-3-mega-politica-la.html

???? Qui il link alla Quarta Parte: https://www.francescosimoncelli.com/2024/02/sovranismo-parte-4-lascesa-della.html

???? Qui il link alla Sesta Parte:  

???? Qui il link alla Settima Parte: 

???? Qui il link alla Ottava Parte:  

???? Qui il link alla Nona Parte: 

???? Qui il link alla Decima Parte:  

???? Qui il link alla Undicesima Parte: 

???? Qui il link alla Dodicesima Parte: