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This tweet explains it well:

AidenHunterX (@Aiden Hunter) posted: Does anybody else get the distinct impression that Murray’s appearance was supposed to be some kind of profound culture-changing moment that would finally shut us up?

It’s like they were counting on Murray to go in and broadside Joe by surprise. Not to engage in argumentation.

See here.

 

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Le ultime settimane sono state caratterizzate da manifestazioni di dissenso nei confronti dell'amministrazione Trump. Dagli attacchi vandalici alle Tesla in giro per strada agli incendi degli stabilimenti industriali della stessa casa automobilistica, il sentimento contrario e di protesta sta emergendo con una certa violenza. Non solo, ma due fine settimana fa abbiamo sentito dai canali informativi ufficiali che in gran parte delle grandi città americane erano scesi in piazza manifestanti per esprimere il loro dissenso nei confronti di Trump. Giornali, telegiornali e giornalisti hanno subdolamente fatto intendere che tutte queste cose sono squisitamente “spontanee”. Lasciatemi essere campanilista nei confronti del lavoro che svolgo su queste pagine (virtuali): senza la voce analitica di uno come me, non ci sarebbe scampo dai megafoni della propaganda mainstream; spazi divulgativi come i miei dovrebbero essere supportati affinché possano continuare a operare nonostante i venti contrari provenienti da mancanza di sponsor e dalla facilità con cui potrebbero essere perfidamente silenziati (“shadow ban”, spinta più in basso nei risultati di ricerca, ecc. cosa già accaduto dal 2021 al 2024). Detto questo, ecco servita l'ennesima confutazione dell'informazione generalista: si scopre infatti che c'è coordinamento nel sottobosco dell'estrema sinistra per quanto riguarda la devastazione mirata di Tesla. Non solo, ma ciò vale anche per le altre manifestazioni di protesta contro Trump e la sua amministrazione, in America e nel resto del mondo (oltre alle “rivoluzioni colorate” in Georgia, Moldavia, Serbia, Romania). Infatti la realtà è ben diversa da quella disegnata e diffusa dai canali d'informazione ufficiali. Sto esagerando? Allora leggetevi questo lungo articolo del Time dove si riporta, prove estese alla mano, l'esistenza di una rete sotterranea di coordinamento e finanziamento facente riferimento alla sinistra e allo Stato profondo. Lo smantellamento della USAID, quindi, e il licenziamento di fannulloni nella macchina pubblica sono passi nella giusta direzione. Sebbene lo Stato profondo non resterà a guardare, una pubblico attento e con spirito critico nei confronti di ciò che legge è essenziale affinché esso non riacquisti forza e attiri dalla sua parte anche chi è stato accuratamente fuorviato da un'informazione mainstream distorta e (convenientemente) omissiva.

____________________________________________________________________________________

di Matthew Palumbo

(Versione audio della traduzione disponibile qui: https://open.substack.com/pub/fsimoncelli/p/soros-e-la-usaid-un-matrimonio-diabolico)

La recente attenzione rivolta alla USAID e le rivelazioni esplosive sulla reale destinazione delle sue spese rappresentano sicuramente un regalo di Natale anticipato per Rand Paul, quando arriverà il momento di preparare il suo rapporto annuale Festivus.

Dal finanziamento dell'insegnamento ai giornalisti dello Sri Lanka su come evitare il “linguaggio binario di genere” ai cambiamenti di sesso in Guatemala, all'attivismo LGBT in Armenia, Giamaica, America Latina, Uganda, tra innumerevoli altri, l'agenzia si comportava più come un'organizzazione di attivisti che altro. C'è anche dell'ironia nella rivelazione che molte cosiddette “Organizzazioni non governative” (ONG) ottengono la maggior parte dei loro finanziamenti dal governo federale.

Altre cose che saltano all'occhio includono il finanziamento di Sesame Street in Iraq, laboratori di drag show per migranti venezuelani in Ecuador, la promozione del turismo in Tunisia ed Egitto, la sensibilizzazione degli africani sui cambiamenti climatici e l'insegnamento alla popolazione del Kazakistan su come difendersi dai troll su Internet.

L'elenco potrebbe continuare per centinaia di pagine, ma il concetto è chiaro.

Anche i progetti di aiuti che potrebbero essere considerati più legittimi sono macchiati dalla politica e questo grazie a George Soros. Nel 2017 la Heritage Foundation ha svelato come Soros avesse sfruttato la sua influenza per mettere vincoli agli aiuti umanitari erogati dalla USAID, tutti i quali richiedevano ai destinatari di sottoscrivere un'agenda politica di estrema sinistra, specialmente nei Paesi che non la volevano:

[...] ma stanno emergendo prove che negli ultimi otto anni [a partire dal 2009], Soros, la sua Open Societies Foundations (OSF) e le loro numerose affiliate più piccole hanno ricevuto denaro dei contribuenti statunitensi tramite USAID e che quest'ultima ha reso OSF il principale esecutore dei suoi aiuti.

Fu nel 2009 che la USAID iniziò a vincolare i fondi per lo sviluppo ai Paesi che assumevano posizioni progressiste sui diritti gay/transgender, tra le altre cause di sinistra, tra cui anche la legalizzazione della prostituzione e la depenalizzazione delle droghe (non nel modo in cui molti libertari vorrebbero, ma piuttosto secondo il modello “San Francisco”). Ciò accadde ai Paesi africani e ai Paesi europei “dall'Irlanda alla Macedonia”.

Heritage ha anche scoperto che, nonostante alcuni aiuti da parte della USAID siano aiuti umanitari, abbiamo decenni di dati che dimostrano che non hanno migliorato la crescita economica e lo sviluppo nei Paesi finanziati. Quindi non c'è davvero alcun problema a buttare via il proverbiale bambino con l'acqua sporca quando si tratta di eliminare la USAID.

Per quanto scandalosi siano alcuni dei progetti progressisti e caricaturali in cui la USAID ha investito, dare fuoco ai soldi non è nemmeno lontanamente una delle loro attività più distruttive.

Ecco alcuni esempi.

Albania

L'Albania è la nazione più colpita dalla corruzione amministrativa nella regione, con il 57% dei cittadini a cui vengono richieste tangenti occasionalmente e il 47% che prende parte a transazioni corrotte. In collaborazione con USAID, la Open Society Foundations (OSF) di Soros ha contribuito con $60 milioni tra il 2000 e il 2015 ai cosiddetti sforzi di riforma della giustizia in Albania, e l'OSF ha stanziato i fondi.

Gli sforzi di riforma hanno ampiamente aiutato il Partito Socialista a consolidare il potere. Esso è guidato dal Primo Ministro Edi Rama, fotografato con Alex Soros quasi ogni mese, e che lo chiama suo “fratello”. Un documento dell'OSF redatto nel 2013, l'anno in cui Rama ha assunto il potere come Primo Ministro, ha delineato come riformare la Costituzione albanese. La riforma giudiziaria USAID-Soros-Rama è stata completata nel 2016.

Una revisione degli sforzi per quanto riguarda la riforma giudiziaria nel luglio 2021, esattamente cinque anni dopo la sua promulgazione, mostra come siano stati scarsamente all'altezza del linguaggio roseo che l'OSF e i socialisti hanno usato per promuoverla. I risultati sono stati devastanti:

• I tentativi dell'OSF e del Partito Socialista di impadronirsi della Corte Costituzionale e dell'Alto Ispettorato della Giustizia albanesi hanno lasciato l'opinione pubblica senza di essi per quasi quattro anni.

• Le Corti d'appello e le Corti di primo grado hanno solo un quarto dei giudici di cui hanno bisogno, e la Corte Suprema metà. Di conseguenza si stima che ci vorranno due decenni per smaltire l'arretrato di oltre 100.000 casi legali, 36.000 dei quali sono in attesa di essere esaminati dalla Corte Suprema.

• L'High Judicial Council ha esternalizzato l'amministrazione dei fascicoli della Corte Suprema all'East-West Management Institute, finanziato da Soros e USAID, gestito dall'ex-moglie di Rama, che è anche ex-presidente dell'OSF. L'East-West Management ha ricevuto oltre $270 milioni dalla USAID.

• Le riforme pongono le reti delle ONG sotto la competenza del Partito Socialista.

• La corruzione è aumentata. Il prezzo delle opere pubbliche con denaro del bilancio statale in Albania costa tra 6 e 8 volte di più rispetto alle opere pubbliche eseguite in “campi simili” con il finanziamento delle banche europee.

Si può solo immaginare quanto disastrosa sia stata a livello locale l'ingerenza di Soros nel sistema giudiziario americano: all'estero è stata ben peggiore.

La rivoluzione colorata nella Macedonia del Nord

Nella piccola nazione della Macedonia del Nord (formalmente Macedonia), che ha una popolazione di poco meno di 2 milioni, Soros, attraverso la sua Fondazione Open Society Macedonia (FOSM) e le sue attività sostenute dalla USAID, ha creato canali di informazione per promuovere la propaganda di sinistra e ha fondato 80 organizzazioni con lo stesso obiettivo, tra cui think tank, associazioni di giornalisti, gruppi che promuovono l'aborto, la droga e gli elementi più stravaganti dell'agenda LGBT. La FOSM era composta in gran parte da persone provenienti dall'ala “riformista” del partito comunista.

Sul tavolo erano previsti anche metodi diretti per un cambio di governo.

Nel 2015 l'Unione socialdemocratica di Macedonia e Soros (con l'aiuto della USAID) hanno finanziato gruppi per avviare una Rivoluzione colorata e rovesciare il partito conservatore al potere VMRO-DPMNE, in carica sin dal 2006. Durante le proteste gli attivisti di sinistra hanno apertamente esultato per il loro sostegno a Soros, indossando magliette con la scritta “esercito di Soros”. Un giornalista che ha posato per una foto indossando una delle magliette ha anche condotto uno show televisivo che promuoveva la rivoluzione colorata nella Macedonia del Nord, e alla fine della trasmissione è stato esposto il logo della USAID.

Guatemala

Una relazione di Judicial Watch ha rivelato come la USAID abbia incanalato milioni di dollari in programmi allineati con gli obiettivi di OSF in Guatemala. Le reti di Soros hanno speso oltre $100 milioni in America Latina dal 2015, con la “riforma della giustizia” come interesse principale. Rispetto al PIL OSF spende in Guatemala oltre il doppio di quanto spende la USAID nel Paese, cosa che ha fortemente allineato le iniziative di ritorno di Soros e ne ha finanziate direttamente alcune, come la Commissione internazionale contro l'impunità.

Come molte cosiddette organizzazioni anti-corruzione finanziate da Soros, tale Commissione è stata trasformata in un'arma contro i leader di destra del Paese e promuove “riforme” di estrema sinistra. Le loro azioni hanno portato alle dimissioni di un presidente a cui Soros si opponeva, Otto Perez Molina del partito di centro-destra Patriot Party, e hanno anche preso di mira il suo successore, Jimmy Morales del partito di destra National Convergence Front.

Negare, negare, negare

Cosa ha da dire OSF a riguardo? “Le affermazioni secondo cui le Open Society Foundations, fondate da George Soros, ricevono finanziamenti dalla USAID, o dirigono il finanziamento di un'agenzia governativa statunitense multimiliardaria, sono palesemente false”.

I bugiardi mentono, ma la documentazione no.

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

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Brass knuckles, which can be made of any material, metal or not, are worn around the knuckles of the hand to increase the force and damage of a punch. Although they are not illegal on the federal level in the United States, they are illegal in about 20 states and in many foreign countries—but not in “Red” China.

A 1931 law in Michigan, MCL 750.224(1)(d), imposes severe penalties, including a possible prison sentence, for possession of brass knuckles. A Grand Rapids-area man was charged with unlawfully possessing brass knuckles. He argued that the statutory prohibition violates both the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Article 1, § 6 of the Michigan Constitution. A state trial court denied the man’s motion to dismiss the charges. However, the Michigan Court of Appeals, in a unanimous 18-page opinion, recently affirmed the state’s prohibition of brass knuckles.

Judge Christopher Murray wrote in his opinion that the Michigan “ban on the possession of metallic knuckles falls within the historical tradition of prohibiting the concealed carry of metallic knuckles as a dangerous and unusual weapon.” He previously said during oral arguments in November: “If you ask everybody out here, probably they’d all say brass knuckles are used by the gangs and the thugs who want to go make a point. The history and tradition of the use is not a glamorous one.”

So, since brass knuckles can be used to assault, harm, disfigure, disables, or even kill someone, should the state of Michigan or any other state, ban them?

Of course not.

First of all, brass knuckles don’t assault, harm, disfigure, disable, or kill by themselves. They are attached to someone’s hand and move as the hand moves. Brass knuckles are an inanimate object.

Second, brass knuckles are not just offensive weapons. They can be used to fend off an assailant and let him know that he picked on the wrong person.

Third, hammers, knives, axes, clubs, baseball bats, crowbars, scissors, pipe wrenches, and blunt instruments can be used to assault, harm, disfigure, or kill just as much as brass knuckles.

Fourth, the deadliest weapon that can injure or kill at a distance is a gun. Thousands of Americans are killed every year with pistols or rifles. Yet, guns are not illegal in Michigan or any other state. They may be regulated, and in some cases heavily regulated, but they are not illegal like brass knuckles are.

Fifth, guns, knives, and clubs “are used by the gangs and the thugs who want to go make a point” just like brass knuckles. Yet, it is only brass knuckles that are banned in Michigan (and about 20 other states).

Sixth, if someone assaults, harms, disfigure, disables, or kills someone else—whether it is with brass knuckles, a metal object, or a gun—then he commits a crime that should be punished. No one should be punished for possessing an object that might be used to commit a crime. If so, then no one should be allowed to own golf clubs.

Seventh, if brass knuckles are outlawed, then only outlaws will have brass knuckles. No one who is going to assault, harm, disfigure, disable, or kill someone is concerned about laws against brass knuckles.

Michigan should legalize brass knuckles and any other object or substance that it prohibits. And the federal government and all of the other states should do likewise.

The post Seven Reasons Why Brass Knuckles Should Not Be Banned appeared first on LewRockwell.

For many years now I have been talking about the growing global economic divide between East and West. This volatile opposition between the BRICS nations and the US is not a product of the Trump era. It has been decades in the making with a myriad of complex working parts and numerous US trading partners have been preparing for the fallout as far back as 2008.

At the same time behind the scenes there have been malicious influences at play: Special interests within the Davos community have been working diligently to undermine the US economy and the dollar. But what is the ultimate aim of this agenda?

In 2018 I published an article titled ‘World War III Will Be An Economic War’ – In it I outlined the basic mechanics of the East vs West paradigm and how banking institutions like the IMF and BIS were positioning to take advantage of the chaos. At the time, the “trade war” witnessed a kind of false start, but all the pieces were there for what we are seeing today. Don’t let the 90 day pauses on some tariffs fool you, economic decoupling is going to be the dominant theme of the decade and the tariffs will undoubtedly spring up over and over again.

Trump’s incredible return to the White House sets the stage for the end of globalism (and that’s a good thing), but I want to make it clear that the pitfalls are numerous and the establishment could try to use the end of the old world order to bring in their “new world order”.

In 2018 I noted:

“The bottom line is this: Russia and China are in full support of globalist controlled institutions like the Bank for International Settlements (the central bank of central banks) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The governments of both nations have called for the IMF to assert their Special Drawing Rights basket currency framework as a foundation for a new world reserve currency system. Again, both Russia and China want the IMF, a globalist controlled entity, to become the de facto ruler of a new global monetary structure…”

“With the rise of simple to generate cryptocurrencies and the easily tracked blockchain exchange mechanism, globalists now have the perfect liquidity tool for replacing the dollar as world reserve. All they need now is a crisis event to provide cover for the transition…”

“…It would appear that a crisis event is now being triggered in the form of an international trade war. This trade war, in my view, is designed to become so widespread that it will one day be considered a “world war.”

As I’ve mentioned many times, the dollar’s world reserve status, instituted with the Bretton Woods Agreement in 1944, has long been America’s Achilles Heel.

The US technically enjoys an enviable trade advantage as well as a monetary stimulus advantage because the dollar is used in the majority of international transactions. This means the Federal Reserve can print dollars with wild abandon and most of them will be absorbed overseas by foreign banks, governments and corporations. In this way, the dollar is already a kind of beta test for a one world currency.

However, the Bretton Woods Agreement came with a series of caveats, some of them unspoken. For the “privilege” of controlling the reserve currency, the US is expected to financially backstop allies as well as provide the vast majority of military support for NATO. The revelations behind the DOGE audits alone show an endless flood of dollars from American taxpayer funds into a vast array of subsidies for foreign governments. Americans has been paying for everyone and everything.

You know those supposedly amazing social welfare and healthcare programs in Europe? Yeah, we make that possible through billions in foreign aid to the those countries along with hundreds of billions spent on defense so that Europeans can sleep easy at night.

The situation is even worse when we consider how many trillions of dollars were created from thin air by the Federal Rserve and transferred overseas after the crash of 2008. Not to mention the trillions poured into foreign economies during the pandemic. In the meantime, relentless money creation is finally catching up to us in the form of a stagflation crisis. The dollar system, as we know it, is precariously unstable and more stimulus is not going to save it.

It’s not surprising the US has been hit with an inflationary freight train. We haven’t just been printing dollars for ourselves, we’ve been printing dollars for the entire planet.

The old world agreements are ending, and in many ways this is necessary. European leaders are going full authoritarian; they now throw people in prison daily for online speech and they are also throwing their right-leaning political opponents in prison to prevent them from participating in elections. Europe is no longer our ally and the US public is starting to realize it.

Outsourced production in Asia, the foundation of the current global supply chain, is in need of reform. Because of our reserve status America has become the world’s cash cow. We have been relegated to the position of dutiful consumer nation, spending our increasingly devalued dollars in a spiraling cycle of inflationary decline while we produce very little on our own soil.

Donald Trump’s tariff actions, which I suspect will be cumulative over the next few years, are an expression of America’s desire to end the globalist status quo and bring back balance. That said, the rhetoric from the rest of the world and the media is that these tariffs constitute an “act of war”.

As I predicted years ago, the US is not allowed to stray from the Bretton Woods system without being painted as an “aggressor” nation bent on destroying our neighbors. Keep in mind, most of the countries affected by Trump’s tariffs have had their own tariffs on American goods for decades. When they do it, it’s normal. When we do it, it’s a betrayal.

Enter the BRICS; this international trade body is currently headed by Brazil and includes China, Russia, India, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates among others. The running theory for many alternative economists is that the BRICS will eventually move to fully decouple from the US dollar and introduce their own shared currency system.

I have posited a similar theory, though I argue that the situation is not as simple as some analysts think. This is not just an East vs West division leading to a break in the dollar structure; there is a lot more going on.

Ten years ago the BRICS were in a much better position economically and that would have been the time to introduce a competing monetary framework. Today, Russia is in the midst of a proxy war with NATO in Ukraine, China is on the edge of deflationary collapse and South Africa is on the edge of social collapse. There’s not a single BRICS member beyond oil producers like Saudi Arabia that is not facing extreme fiscal turmoil. In other words, the BRICS do not currently have the ability to counter the dollar.

That said, I don’t think this was ever the plan. Rather, globalist institutions like the IMF, BIS and World Bank have been preparing for the rollout of CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies) along with a single IMF controlled global digital currency attached to the SDR basket. The BRICS cannot compete with the dollar, unless the IMF and BIS help them to do so.

As IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva admitted in 2023:

“CBDCs should not be fragmented national propositions… To have more efficient and fairer transactions we need systems that connect countries: we need interoperability…For this reason at the IMF, we are working on the concept of a global CBDC platform.”

Such program could only be accomplished after serious economic turmoil has made the populations of all nations desperate for a centralized solution. The upcoming BRICS Summit in Rio de Janeiro, slated for July, should be watched carefully because it is timed almost exactly in line with the end of Trump’s 90 day tariff pause. The summit is expected to address the trade war in depth as well as the subject of “de-dollerization”. Trump has previously threatened a 150% tariff on any country that makes an attempt to de-dollerize.

While speaking at the BRICS Summit in 2024, held at Kazan (Russia), Russian President Vladimir Putin said:

“The dollar is being used as a weapon. We really see that this is so. I think that this is a big mistake by those who do this”.

This was the same summit where Putin shared a mock up of a “BRICS dollar” and spoke about the adaptation of a BRICS currency. Of course, Russia is in no position to field a new reserve currency and neither is China, but I believe this talk is a precursor to a larger international push for a new reserve system managed by the IMF.

The BRICS intend to court the Mexican government at the July 2025 summit in Rio de Jeneiro and there is also talk of European nations increasing trade with China as a way to frustrate Trump’s tariff efforts. But again, China’s economy is currently flirting with deflationary disaster and there’s not a single nation or group of nations that will be able to fill the void in consumer markets left behind by the US.

Even though a Chinese-based solution is unlikely, the behavior of the BRICS indicates that there is some kind of plan afoot. China and India have been stockpiling massive gold reserves and this may be in preparation for a break from the dollar, with gold skyrocketing as the dollar falls. The ongoing shift into crypto and CBDCs is also, I believe, an attempt to create a cushion for de-dollerization.

Just remember that none of this is possible without globalist organizations facilitating the spread of the technology. The BIS has been particularly active the past 5 years in testing cross-border CBDC swaps and secure CBDC transactions. The BRICS would be nothing more than a vehicle for the proliferation of a globalist CBDC reset.

Does this mean that the US and Trump are falling into a trap? Do tariffs make it easier to justify an international shift way from the dollar? Is Trump making things easier for the globalists? I argue that this reset is going to be attempted regardless; Trump and conservatives are going to be blamed regardless. Americans will blame the BRICS and Europe – The BRICS and Europe will blame America.

It should also be noted that the middle class and poverty stricken citizens of China and Europe largely HATE their governments. The elites have abused them beyond all measure and what little freedoms they have left are being erased. Most of these people are on the side of anti-globalism. This war is not everyone in the world against the US, though the corporate media would have you believe this is the case.

Tariffs are a way for the US to disrupt the forced interdependency of globalism, but there’s going to be pain involved as things change. In other words, tariffs are necessary. The end of globalism is necessary. America needs to stop relying on the dollar’s reserve status and the global supply chain. But we should be wary of what kind of system ends up replacing the Bretton Woods structure. Meaning, we may have to use any means at our disposal to stop a new global monetary scheme before it can take hold.

The next BRICS Summit should be scrutinized carefully because it could give us insight into when the next stage of the “reset” will begin. Don’t be surprised if their rhetoric is wildly hostile towards the US and decoupling from the dollar is the main topic of discussion. Also don’t be surprised if “de-dollerization” becomes a household term in the next couple of years.

This article was originally published at Birch Gold Group.

The post Is ‘De-Dollerization’ on the Table? BRICS Summit Approaches as Trade War Simmers appeared first on LewRockwell.

A change of pace is always welcome, especially when writing a column about politics. The latter can be as boring as writing about cooking, and the only newspaper that used a cookery writer as a political pundit is The New York Times. I think he’s called Frank Bruni and he’s reported to be going blind due to his loathing of Donald Trump.

Never mind. When your correspondent was still in shorts and newly arrived in America, the greatest and most feared gangster was one Frank Costello. Brought up in front of a Senate investigating committee, his lawyers managed to keep his face out of camera range and only his hands were televised. Somebody at home figured out that his nails were manicured and polished. He lost a few points among us after that.

Years later at a chic nightclub I watched as some greasy-looking fellow kept running his fingers up and down my wife’s naked back. I stood up and punched downward. All hell broke loose. The owner, Oleg Cassini, Jackie Kennedy’s couturier and JFK’s procurer, demanded I apologize to the slob I had hit as he was Senator Williams of New Jersey. The year was 1966. I did nothing of the sort but instead went to the bathroom to wash my hands as I had cut my knuckle during the fracas. That’s when I heard the following from a man speaking on the telephone: “Yeah, his name is Taki, and he lives in the Sherry-Netherland.”

“When your correspondent was still in shorts and newly arrived in America, the greatest and most feared gangster was one Frank Costello.”

Although he was a mincing rat of a man, I took what I was hearing rather seriously. In fact his words had an elegiac sense of doom—gangsters spraying the 18-year-old wife’s face with acid and other such horrors. This, I said to myself, is real; cancel culture for good. So, with no time for heroics, I called on my friend Tom Corbally, man about town, lady-killer par excellence, decorated rear gunner on more than thirty missions over Germany, and among the best-looking men in New York City and definitely connected with the city’s most powerful but criminal members. “Don’t worry, kid, we’ll go see Mr. C,” said Tom when I visited him at 530 Park Avenue. Mr. C was the way people in the know referred to Frank Costello, retired head of the Cosa Nostra, but still no one to disrespect, and then some.

We met at Childs, on 79th Street and Madison Avenue, where Mr. C lunched and dined daily. His voice was gravelly, more like Robert Kennedy’s today, and his accent was not exactly upper-class, but neither was it Brooklynese, as my father used to call it. After I explained my predicament, Mr. C asked only one question: “Were you in any way out of line?” “No, sir,” I answered truthfully. “I’ll see what I can do,” said Mr. C.

A few days later at P.J. Clarke’s, another popular city hangout back then, the rat man spotted me and came up with his hand extended. “Hey, Taki, no hard feelings, everything’s fine,” said the rat. “And the senator said you had a hell of a right.” Obviously Mr. C’s magic wand had done the trick. Incidentally, Senator Williams, having survived a right cross, did not end well. Like a more recent senator from New Jersey, he was indicted in something called Arabgate and disappeared from view. My problem was how to thank Mr. C for services rendered. My finances were tight, so I went to my mother and spilled the beans, and she came to the rescue. “Just don’t tell your father you know people like this gangster,” she warned.

Alas, more problems ensued. My mother bought a pair of Cartier cuff links that if memory serves were green and very chic and expensive. They did not register with Mr. C, who told Tom Corbally that “your friend Taki is a cheapskate.” Size mattered to those gents, and the cuff links I gave him were understated to say the least. But then we made up for good. Tom had told Mr. C that Gianni Agnelli and I were great friends, and Mr. C told me he’d like to meet the Fiat heir and chairman-to-be. Costello had a daily morning shave at the Waldorf Astoria barbershop, and Gianni Agnelli kept a suite at the Waldorf Towers. I pleaded with Gianni to come down to the barbershop for two minutes, and he finally said yes. Mr. C called him Giovanni, while Gianni called him Mr. Costello. “I wanted to meet you and tell you my first car was a Fiat,” said Mr. C. “I won it in a raffle in Atlantic City when I was a kid. I told the man holding the mic that No. 9 wins. He told me to get lost. Then I showed him the rod and repeated that No. 9 wins. And it did.” “How amusing,” said Agnelli, “I don’t think our advertising department can use it.”

Yep, those were the days, and they all came back because of a new movie, The Alto Knights, that features Frank Costello played by Robert De Niro. In this film Mr. C is shown as an uxorious husband. In real life Mr. C was married but spending three nights a week with Thelma Martin, his mistress, whose apartment was a couple of blocks down from where he lived with his wife. Movies always show life to be worse than it really is.

This originally appeared on Taki’s Magazine.

The post The Real Costello appeared first on LewRockwell.

Millions of people around the world were at the edge of their seats over the weekend, waiting to hear whether Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff’s indirect talks with the Iranian foreign minister would ratchet down tensions or would break down and bring on a major Middle East war.

If it seems bizarre that the outcome of a meeting between a US president’s designated negotiator and a foreign government minister could determine whether we plunge into possibly our biggest war since World War II, that’s because it is bizarre. In fact, this is an excellent example of why our Founders were so determined to keep warmaking authority out of the Executive Branch of government. No one person – much less his aide – should have the power to take this country to war.

That is why the Constitution places the authority to go to war firmly and exclusively in the hands of the representatives of the people: the US Congress. After all, it is the US people who will be expected to fight the wars and to pay for the wars and to bear the burden of the outcome of the wars. When that incredible power is placed in the hands of one individual – even if that individual is elected – the temptation to use it is far too great. Our Founders recognized this weakness in the system they were rebelling against – the British monarchy – so they wisely corrected it when they drafted our Constitution.

Unless the US is under direct attack or is facing imminent direct attack, the Constitution requires Congress to deliberate, discuss, and decide whether a conflict or potential conflict is worth bringing the weight of the US military to bear. They wanted it harder, not easier, to take us to war.

When wars can be started by presidents with no authority granted by Congress, the results can be the kinds of endless military engagements with ever-shifting, unachievable objectives such as we’ve seen in Afghanistan and Iraq.

We are currently seeing another such endless conflict brewing with President Trump’s decision to start bombing Yemen last month. The stated objectives– to end Houthi interference with Israeli Red Sea shipping – are not being achieved so, as usually happens, the bombing expands and creates more death and destruction for the civilian population. In the last week or so, US bombs have struck the water supply facilities for 50,000 civilians and have apparently blown up a civilian tribal gathering.

Starting a war with Iran was the furthest thing from the minds of American voters last November, and certainly those who voted for Donald Trump were at least partly motivated by his promise to end current wars and start no new wars. However, there is a strange logic that to fulfill the promise of no new wars, the US must saber rattle around the world to intimidate others from crossing the White House. This is what the recycled phrase “peace through strength” seems to have come to mean. But the real strength that it takes to make and keep peace is the strength to just walk away. It is the strength to stop meddling in conflicts that have nothing to do with the United States.

That is where Congress comes in. Except they are not coming in. They are nowhere to be found. And that is not a good thing.

The post Standing at the Edge of the Iran War Cliff appeared first on LewRockwell.

Whatever else you think is happening in our world, contraction is the reality-based order-of-the-day, and everything else is downstream of that. The world has to get by with less. Nothing is going to fix this for everybody, though any number of schemes for redistributing what’s left will preoccupy the political mojo.

Right now, it’s tariffs, which are an attempt to restore industry ceded to the formerly left-behind people elsewhere in the world — taking back what we used to do. You are correct to wonder if this is even possible. The wish is surely understandable, if a bit fuzzy and over-simplified: to be again a nation of people occupied purposefully in the service of a bright future. Redemption stories are deeply appealing.

Many of us are aware that the hour for this is late. We’ve already lived through our decades of pumping cheap oil out of American ground, extracting the ores, fashioning the metal into I-beams and rails, raising the skyscrapers, laying the asphalt ribbons of highway, and strewing the landscape with split-level houses and strip-malls. Let’s not try a re-run of that.

What have we got to work with? An overly-complex matrix of systems and subsidiary systems operating on the verge of failure at excessive scale. For example, our cities and their asteroid belts of suburbs. The rot is already well-advanced in many of them from their centers outward, and we can see the process underway of strip-mining the remaining assets on-the-ground. Detroit, Cleveland, Baltimore. . . all occupy important geographically strategic sites. All are populated by dwindling societies of the cope-less, floundering their way out of existence. The geographies will abide without them. Others will come along and make something of these places’ virtues.

Agri-business is a method for strip-mining the value from what remains of our fruited plains. Everything about it is on an arc of failure, mortgaged to a futureless giantism. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and now that time has passed. The remaining soil itself can probably be rescued with heroic ant-like peasant labor over generations, which is to say a long and rather desperate project with no quick resolution. Even if Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., hadn’t come along to read America the riot act on food, anyone can see that the age of Froot Loops is drawing to a close.

Town and country, what human society at its best was composed of, has got to be rearranged. This is something that MAGA is not talking about. MAGA looks like it is seeking a reenactment of the years 1950 to 1964. That isn’t going to happen. What then? The tech broz propose something that looks like an A-I printed robotic future. They are drunk on their own Stanford University brand Kool-Aid, hallucinating a future that is little more than math dressed in spandex.

It is nearly impossible to grok the size of their vast fortunes, their billions. Thousands upon thousands of millions. From what? From marshaling squadrons of lawyers to draw up ownership documents for this and that venture enabling idiots with nose-rings to lecture each other about sexual etiquette on cell-phone screens? Warning: don’t become infatuated with singularities, journeys beyond biology and the ecology of planet earth. That’s a story for saps, cargo-cultists, the mentally ill.

Speaking of all that money, one thing you can surely depend on is a violent unwinding of global finance. The vast bottom of humanity already has plenty of nothing, and their abundance will abide. The hedge fund broz and related broz in the shared hallucinations of capital can make some provision for wealth preservation if they have half-a-brain. It’s the great wad in the middle that has the worst problem: they get wiped out and then they discover they have no Plan B. That’s when the fun really kicks off in America (and other sovereign lands, of course.)

Things are breaking ‘out there.’ The financial world’s feedstock is promises. In a trusting world, promises are a splendid technology. Promises allow you to borrow hamburgers from next Tuesday to have a hamburger today. . . .and all else that follows from that. In a not-so-trusting world, promises go up in a vapor with the morning dew.

The folks in charge will attempt to manage the manifest contraction that is upon us by doing everything possible to pretend that it isn’t happening and to deflect from any signals that happen to get through the muzak they broadcast about blue skies and staying on the sunny side. If you are serious — even serious about the comedy sure to arise out of this — you will be prepared for all kinds of trouble: shortages, hunger, civil strife, cold, darkness, the absence of TikTok. Your number-one job is to stay sane. Now, go forth and revel in today’s fine spring weather, mindful of the many more fine days to come as history spools out.

Reprinted with permission from Kunstler.com.

The post Systemic Considerations appeared first on LewRockwell.

(Montgomery, Alabama) – Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has signed Senate Bill 130 into law, reaffirming gold and silver as legal tender. This symbolic victory marks Alabama’s latest step toward promoting constitutional sound money in the state.

Sponsored by Sen. Tim Melson and Rep. Jamie Kiel, the Alabama Legal Tender Act recognizes “any refined gold or silver bullion, specie, or coin that has been stamped, marked, or imprinted with its weight and purity” as legal tender in the Yellowhammer State.

The law ensures that no one is obligated to accept gold and silver for transactions unless specified by a contract or required by law.

The measure, backed by Money Metals Exchange and the Sound Money Defense League, sailed through the state legislature with unanimous support, receiving no negative votes in committee or floor votes in either chamber.

Article 1 Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution reads: “No state shall… coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; [or] make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts…” Senate Bill 130 aligns with this constitutional mandate.

“I’m proud to sponsor this legislation reaffirming gold and silver as legal tender in Alabama,” said Senator Melson in an exclusive interview with the Sound Money Defense League.

“While inflation continues to erode the purchasing power of the U.S. Dollar, encouraging stable, time-tested, and constitutional alternatives like gold and silver is a commonsense step. This bill upholds their constitutional status and supports sound money for our citizens across the state,” he concluded.

This marks the fifth pro-sound money law enacted in 2025, a national trend driven by the Sound Money Defense League and Money Metals Exchange for over a decade. Alabama joins Kentucky, Wyoming, and Idaho in passing related laws this year.

So far this year, Wyoming has established a $10 million physical gold reserve, Idaho passed bills eliminating capital gains taxes on gold and silver and reaffirming the two precious metals as legal tender, and Kentucky became one of the dozens of states to end sales taxes on purchases of precious metals.

After President Nixon “temporarily suspended” the convertibility of dollars into gold, America’s 54-year experiment with a purely fiat currency system has fueled high inflation, ballooning deficits, and unchecked government spending.

When savers, wage earners, and investors seek ways to protect their savings from the ravages of inflation, they often choose precious metals over fiat currency because precious metals have preserved purchasing power over time.

Since 2018, Senator Melson has advocated for several sound money bills alongside the Sound Money Defense League to expand tax exemptions and remove barriers to using gold and silver in Alabama. Senate Bill 130 offers symbolic support to Alabama citizens making this choice, and it is a modest next step toward continuing to promote sound money legislation in the state.

This year’s legislative success builds on the passage of seven sound money bills in 2024, five in 2023, and three in 2022 – each of which enjoyed strong support from the Sound Money Defense League.

With SB 130 passed, Alabama, currently ranked 9th on the Sound Money Index, is expected to rise in the 2026 edition.

This originally appeared on Money Metals.

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Back in 1949 the world was still recovering from World War II. The Korean War wouldn’t start for another year, but George Orwell was already focused on the dangers of communism and the totalitarianist government it builds. World War II was started by totalitarian governments; but worse than that was how such governments treat the citizens living under their control.

In his book 1984, the government, encapsulated in the persona of “Big Brother,” knew everything about everyone; where they were, what they were doing and even what they were thinking much of the time. This was used to keep control of people to an extreme that even the now defunct Soviet Union couldn’t reach. Yet with modern technology, the reality of such a government could very well be forming around us and we don’t even see it happening.

As we know, the government is actively spying on every one of us. That’s the essence of Edward Snowden’s message, since he left the employ of the NSA. While that spying is intended to help prevent terrorism, we’ve seen some in government be awfully free in their use of that term. One can quickly find themselves labeled as a terrorist if the political winds blow the wrong way.

On top of the NSA, big tech is in cahoots with government in a number of ways, most especially with providing information to law enforcement officers, as they seek to solve crimes. But that same information which is being used for the good of tracking down and convicting criminals can very well be used against the rest of us. After all, any of us can become an instant felon, simply by Congress passing a law making something that has been legal, suddenly illegal.

An excellent case in point is the current push by Democrats to restrict our Second Amendment rights. Should they do that, then millions of law-abiding citizens will suddenly be faced with the option of turning in valuable firearms or hiding them from the government. Will the government hunt down those who haven’t turned in their guns, using the same tools they are currently using to track down criminals? Only time will tell.

So, what can we do to keep the government from having an idea where we are and what we are doing? To start with, we need to understand that the government has multiple means of tracking us, not just one or two. That means we’re going to have to defeat them all, if we expect to protect ourselves from electronic spying.

Here are a few places to start.

Use a Burner Phone

The easiest way for the government to track any of us is through our smartphone. We really don’t have a handle on everything that our phones are doing in the background, while we’re not looking.

Yet there’s nearly constant communication between our phones and the local cell phone tower.

It’s clear that the communications we have through our phones is readily available to the NSA and others.

You can even pay online services to do a little spying on family members, seeing their text messages, who they’ve talked to, what they’ve looked at online and where they’ve been. If you and I can do this, then you can be sure the government can do more.

Shut Off GPS Tracking

One of the most common ways our phones help the government keep track of us is through the phone’s GPS. Google and Apple keep track of our every move through that part of the phone.

If you go to Google Maps and click on your timeline in the menu, it will show you everywhere you’ve been, for the last several years.

This feature alone could put you in danger if you just happen to be in the same place that a crime was committed. While that alone wouldn’t be enough to convict you; it would be enough to make you a suspect.

And that’s just one example of how the GPs could be used against you. What if they want to track you down because it has been reported that you said something against the government; they’d have no trouble tracking you down.

Clean Out Internet Browsing Activity and Cookies

One of the big ways that companies use the internet to keep tabs on us is through our browsing history and the cookies downloaded to our computers by the various websites we visit.

A lot can be learned about who we are and what we do by looking at that. That’s why major corporations invest so much in data mining, looking for people to buy their products.

Haven’t you seen how you can look at something online, then find advertisements for the same sort of product showing up in your Facebook feed and just about any online article you read?

That information is also admissible in court as a means of defining your character. Government prosecutors could build a totally false narrative about you as a terrorist or planning mass murder, backed up by no more than the websites you have visited. Simple curiosity can and will be used against you, perhaps even in a court of law.

Get Rid of Alexa, Siri, and other Voice-recognition Assistants

One of the key elements of Orwell’s imaginary society in 1984 was that the government was tracking what everyone was doing through their television sets.

Yet today, rather than the government having to hide that capability in our TV sets, we buy devices and use them in our homes.

Those devices track everything we do, listening in on our conversations, so that they can “serve us” better.

Employees of those companies have come forth, confessing how employees at big tech companies listen in on people’s private lives.

If they’re doing it, then the government has access to it too. Remember, everything that device does goes over the internet and the NSA is tapped into that thoroughly.

Create Alternative e-Mail Accounts for Memberships

Our online identity is largely tied into our e-mail account.

Pretty much everything you sign up for, from buying dog food to looking at different sites, involves creating an account using that e-mail address. That online presence can lead government agents to look into all areas of your online existence.

The solution is to create multiple ‘personas,’ utilizing them for different things.

In order to do this, you’re going to have to provide false information at some point, as pretty much all e-mail services try to verify that you’re a real person and that you’re who you say you are.

Read the Whole Article

The post 10 Ways the Government Is Watching You and What You Can Do To Protect Your Privacy appeared first on LewRockwell.

High on a mountaintop off one of Southern Vermont’s most treacherous roads stands a white farmhouse from 1780 and a charming barn, a place two Jersey cows, Jupiter and Rain, call home.

Every morning at 8 a.m., a farmer greets the pair to begin their daily milking routine, producing raw milk—a subject as polarizing as last year’s election.

Influencers are calling raw milk “liquid gold,” while the FDA continues to label it “dangerous.”

Where’s the truth?

Is raw milk the same as pasteurized milk? Why are people going out of their way to buy raw milk on the black market? It’s not exactly a psychedelic trip, so why the fuss?

Ironically, the controversy seems to be fueling the craze. The more the media bashes raw milk as a potential health hazard, the more coveted it becomes. It’s the best unintentional dairy PR since the iconic Got Milk? campaign that began running in the 1990s featuring Jennifer Aniston.

In a world where so many people are following FDA rules religiously yet still feeling sick, tired, and depressed, raw milk has become a tantalizing promise.

But the mainstream media isn’t having any of it. Legacy journalists have been on a raw milk smear campaign since President Trump nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for HHS secretary, amplifying the FDA’s warnings with fear-inducing headlines: “Please Do Not Drink Raw Milk,” “Raw Milk Can Cause Influenza,” and “Bird Flu Detected in Raw Milk.” Many articles express alarm that, if appointed, Kennedy might push to legalize raw milk nationwide, raising concerns about potential exposure to harmful viruses.

Other countries around the world have strict regulations for raw milk. In Japan and Canada, raw milk is illegal to sell because milk is required to be pasteurized before sale. But in France, Germany and Italy, raw milk is legal, regulated by strict health and safety standards.

This debate is nothing new. Raw milk has been a heated topic in healthcare since 1987, when the FDA required all milk sold across state lines to be pasteurized, effectively banning the interstate sale of raw milk. At the time, it was left-leaning liberals who rallied behind raw milk as a catalyst to healing. Nearly 40 years later, the movement has shifted, with right-leaning voices now at the forefront.

The question remains: is raw milk actually dangerous?

For an answer to this age-old question, look no further than farmer and educator Leigh Merinoff, who serves on the board of Children’s Health Defense and is an advisor at the Weston A. Price Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to advocating for nutrient-dense foods in modern diets. [Merinoff is also on the finance committee of American Values PAC which funds The Kennedy Beacon.]

Once a sculptor thriving in the big city, Merinoff swapped her fast-paced urban lifestyle for the slower rhythms of a sustainable homestead. She’s currently living in an underground house berm surrounded by 200 fruit trees, colorful peacocks, a blacksmith shop and cozy sugar shanty – which sounds like the setting of a 1800s fiction novel, but in reality is a place people can go to get their gut bacteria in order. Farm to table isn’t a trend there – it’s a ritual woven into every meal.

These days, Merinoff takes her morning coffee with a splash of raw milk – a luxury not everyone has access to. In Vermont, the only way to get raw milk is by purchasing it directly from the farm or through a cow-share program where people can obtain raw milk by “owning” a share of the cow. This inaccessibility is why some wellness influencers are calling farmers like Merinoff their “milk dealer.”

During a phone call last November, Merinoff explained how raw milk is in high demand, even as the media continues its coordinated efforts to tarnish its reputation.

”Pasteurized and homogenized milk – their sales have been going down, but if you have a dairy cow and you sell raw milk, you have a waiting list because Americans are not really listening to the news anymore,” Merinoff told me. “They’re doing their own research. And if you do your own research, you’ll see that raw milk is a way to absorb nutrients and be extremely, extremely healthy.”

Merinoff believes raw milk is one of the best things humans can put in their bodies for healing, claiming it contains beneficial enzymes, probiotics and vitamins that are inactivated by pasteurization.

Added Merinoff, “One of the extraordinary opportunities of our time is to continue to get food that nourishes every cell in our body and that is raw milk. Raw milk is filled with all these vitamins and nutrients and anti inflammatories.”

Merinoff recalls a time that she did the unthinkable: accidentally left a glass of raw milk out in her closet for four months.

“I left a glass of raw milk in my closet and I was like, oh, I’ll get to it… And then I became afraid of it and then I thought it was going to explode,” she said.

“I finally opened it with a cloth and it was clabbered cheese and I ate it…and it was delicious!”

According to Merinoff, if raw milk is left out, the bacteria will turn it into a cheese.

“Because you’re not killing the bacteria, the bacteria stays balanced,” Merinoff said. “This is why raw milk is safe because it’s balanced bacteria and they don’t allow the bad bacteria to grow and take control.”

Sally Fallon, the president of Weston A. Price, has been spreading the raw milk gospel for years, holding workshops that educate people on its alleged health benefits.

Read the Whole Article

The post What’s the Skinny on Raw Milk? appeared first on LewRockwell.

The present-day tariff-trade-war conflicts boil down to Neocolonial strategies to gain control of markets for exports and resource extraction on terms that are only favorable to the Neocolonial power.

The title of today’s essay pays homage to the inimitable John D. MacDonald’s novel The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything in which the gold watch has the power to stop time.

In the context of today’s keening cries of tariff-trade-war agony, let’s use this imaginary power over time to return to the ancient world’s many long, dangerous and immensely profitable trade routes, for example the (mostly) sea route from Rome to the ports and riches of the southern coast of India, an enduringly profitable trade bonanza ably described in The Roman Empire and the Indian Ocean: Rome’s Dealings with the Ancient Kingdoms of India, Africa and Arabia.

Let’s start by dispensing with the conveniently pliable fantasy of “free trade.” Though some reckon the author’s estimate that 30% of the Imperial income resulted from Rome’s duties on foreign trade exceeds the actual percentage, the trade’s great volume through the customs offices in Alexandria are described in ancient texts.

On the Indian side of the trade, various restrictions limited Roman access to approved ports and local merchants’ dealings with visiting Roman ships and merchants, who established permanent polyglot colonies of Mediterranean traders in Indian ports.

What characterized this trade was not that it was “free” but that it was mutually beneficial and not within the control of either side of the trade. Rome ruled the Mediterranean largely by extending the mutual benefits of commerce to the territories it had conquered. Pay your taxes and customs duties, and all would be well. Try to eliminate the Imperial slice of the pie–now that would bring trouble in the form of legions.

Even if Rome had hankered to control the coast of southern India, it could not project power that distance with the modest craft of the day, and to what benefit when trade delivered goods and income without the horrendous expenses of transporting troops and supporting permanent garrisons? For their part, Indian merchants established trading communities in ports on the Red Sea but relied on Roman policing to protect the land route across the desert to the Nile.

Once technologies enabled imperial ambitions to extend across the globe, then two profitable possibilities emerged in the form of Mercantilist Colonialism. Once an imperial power wrested power from local rulers and established a colony, two profitable forms of commercial control could be imposed:

1) The colonial subjects could be forced to buy manufactured / finished goods produced by the imperialist nation’s home economy, guaranteeing a reliable market for its value-added exports, and

2) The colony’s natural resources could be secured at low prices for the express use of the Imperialist domestic economy.

In the post-colonial era, mercantilist advantages were gained by severely restricted imports while flooding the domestic economies of trading partners with below-cost goods, driving domestic competitors out of business and establishing a quasi-monopoly that could be exploited once the competition had been eliminated.

These mercantilist strategies were typically hidden within regulatory thickets rather than visible tariffs. For example, in the 1960s and 70s, Japan mastered the art of limiting goods imported from the U.S. via various bureaucratic subterfuges while making full use of the relatively open door to Japanese exports.

(As I have explained in numerous essays, this policy was the direct result of America’s Cold War with the Soviet Union, which incentivized the U.S. to support its allies’ postwar economic recovery by opening the vast American market to their exports.)

Currency manipulation plays a key role in the mercantilist strategy of restricting imports while flooding others’ economies with exports. By devaluing one’s currency, the cost of imports rises while the cost of one’s exports priced in competing currencies declines.

In effect, currency devaluations act as a hidden tariff on imported goods which soar in price, while slashing the price of exports in economies with strong currencies.

The quasi-monopolies created by mercantilist policies are forms of Neocolonialism–colonialism imposed not by military force but by currency manipulation and state support for exports and bureaucratic thickets that limit finished-goods imports.

The profits from this mercantilist Neocolonialism are then used to buy up mines, ports, agricultural land, etc. in resource-rich nations–another form of Neocolonialism, that is, control of markets and resources by means of mercantilist finance rather than military force.

Another mercantilist strategy is to demand transfers of intellectual property / patents as the price of access to local markets, which turn out to be heavily restricted via bureaucratic thickets.

Financialization is another form of Neocolonialism: flood a smaller target economy with low-cost credit at a scale never before available, indebt the target populace as they snap up motorbikes and other goods previously out of reach, then as they default in the inevitable bubble pop / recessionary hangover, buy up land and other assets on the cheap.

(For example, the Thai Baht lost half its value in the complex Asian Financial Crisis of 1997-98, plummeting from 25 to 56 to the US dollar. Thai assets were then “on sale” for those holding US dollars.)

Once the ensuing sovereign debt crisis crashes the local currency, this too is advantageous, as the financiers’ currency gains purchasing power, in effect putting all assets priced in the local currency on sale.

The present-day tariff-trade-war conflicts boil down to Neocolonial strategies to gain control of markets for exports and resource extraction on terms that are only favorable to the Neocolonial power.

Read the Whole Article

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As Washington’s cold war with China escalates, we can expect to see a massively reinvigorated anti-China propaganda campaign in the west. As this unfolds, please know that everything you learned about the mass media’s dishonesty regarding Gaza is equally true of empire-targeted nations like China.

If your eyes were newly opened by the Gaza holocaust, the most important thing to understand is that Gaza isn’t some unusual aberration in the behavior of the mass media and the western war machine. They’re always doing things like this. The empire is always inflicting horrific evils upon people in the global south, and the mass media always help them lie about it. Gaza is just more obvious because it’s history’s first live-streamed genocide. But you need to understand that the empire and its propaganda machine have been doing this sort of thing this whole time all around the world, and will continue to.

Aggressively question every new narrative that emerges about China, in the same way you’ve learned to aggressively question every new narrative Israel releases about Gaza and Hamas. Question everything you’ve ever been taught about China throughout your life, in the same way you’ve learned to question everything you were taught about Israel. If you are sincere and open to the possibility of proving yourself wrong, you will find that many of the beliefs you’ve been indoctrinated about regarding China were misinformed.

The new cold war has been in the works for a very long time, and the propaganda machine is locked and loaded. As Michael Parenti wrote in his 2004 book Superpatriotism:

“The PNAC plan envisions a strategic confrontation with China, and a still greater permanent military presence in every corner of the world. The objective is not just power for its own sake but power to control the world’s natural resources and markets, power to privatize and deregulate the economies of every nation in the world, and power to hoist upon the backs of peoples everywhere — including North America — the blessings of an untrammeled global ‘free market.’ The end goal is to ensure not merely the supremacy of global capitalism as such, but the supremacy of American global capitalism by preventing the emergence of any other potentially competing superpower.”

When Parenti here speaks about “the PNAC plan”, he is referring to the Project for the New American Century, a neoconservative think tank notorious for its role in pushing Washington toward its massive increase in interventionism in the middle east after 9/11. The same vision which has been driving US warmongering in the middle east since the turn of the century also envisions “a strategic confrontation with China,” which we are seeing in these latest escalations in the new cold war.

The term “neocon” is almost meaningless today, now generally taken to mean simply “warmonger”, or often more specifically “warmonger who Donald Trump doesn’t like”. But the term has also lost its usefulness because the freakish vision of global domination that this small faction promoted has since become the mainstream foreign policy consensus in Washington. The policies advancing the agenda of US planetary domination put forward by PNAC and the Wolfowitz Doctrine are now supported by virtually everyone on Capitol Hill, and certainly within the White House.

If you’ve awakened to the lies about the empire’s warmongering in the middle east, make sure you also keep carrying that awakening forward and awaken yourself to the empire’s lies about China as well — because it’s all part of the same agenda. The propaganda campaign against China is just as dishonest as the ones against Palestine, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and Iran, and the lies are only going to get more frenetic as the new cold war picks up steam.

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