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What good are democracies when the outcome of elections bring the opposite of what voters wish?

In June 2016 the United Kingdom voted for Brexit:

The 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, commonly referred to as the EU referendum or the Brexit referendum, was a referendum that took place on 23 June 2016 in the United Kingdom (UK) and Gibraltar under the provisions of the European Union Referendum Act 2015 to ask the electorate whether the country should continue to remain a member of, or leave, the European Union (EU). The result was a vote in favour of leaving the EU, triggering calls to begin the process of the country’s withdrawal from the EU commonly termed “Brexit”.

A main public issue in the run-up to the vote was immigration:

The Brexit vote will be debated for years to come. But the story is straightforward. Propagated by an unlikely pair of effective messengers, Leave’s “Take Back Control” message harnessed the motive power of immigration, an emotionally charged issue that had been baked into British psychology long before the vote was called. These immigration fears, not abstract concerns about a “democratic deficit” that required rescuing UK sovereignty from Brussels bureaucrats, do much to explain why Britain voted for Brexit.

Demagogues like Nigel Farage played a key role in this:

The rise of Nigel Farage and the UK Independence Party (UKIP) also played an important role in cultivating this concern among economically left-behind voters. Between 2013 and 2015 UKIP began to mobilise these voters into politics, convincing them that the issues of immigration and the EU were deeply entwined. At the 2016 referendum the vote for Brexit was strongest in areas that had given UKIP strong support two years previously. Had these voters not been galvanised by UKIP then it is unlikely they would have turned out in the numbers that we saw on June 23rd, 2016. Indeed, we also find that if somebody felt anxious over the immigration issue, and economically left behind, they were significantly more likely to vote in the referendum.

It took three and a half years to finally executed the Brexit move. The results following it though were not what people had expected:

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As the Wall Street Journal writes (archived):

The Tories, despite repeatedly promising lower overall immigration levels, soon lost control of the system they designed, triggering the biggest influx of legal migration the country has ever seen. In just one job field, care aides who look after the infirm or elderly, one government forecast assumed some 6,000 migrants a year would come to work. In the space of four years, 679,900 carers and their families arrived, government figures show.

In total, 4.5 million people arrived in Britain between 2021 and 2024, primarily from India, Nigeria and China. One in every 25 people living in the U.K. today came during that four-year window.

In comparison, the U.S. typically averages about one million new lawful permanent residents, or green card holders, a year—to a country with a total population five times the size of Britain’s.

After Boris Johnson, who had campaigned for Brexit, had become Prime Minister he implemented an industry friendly,  extremely liberal immigration policy. Workers from Europe were shunned but everybody else was welcome:

Employers no longer had to try to hire workers from Britain before recruiting from abroad. To acquire a skilled-worker visa, foreign workers weren’t required to have a college degree, they just had to be offered a job with a minimum salary of £25,600, which at the time was 23% below the full-time U.K. median salary.

There were also carve-outs. Firms could sponsor visas in certain sectors, such as construction, where there was an acute shortage of workers, paying them as little as £20,400 a year. And students could come with their families for a one-year master’s course, and stay on for two years after completing their studies. Net migration from the EU went into reverse, and arrivals from elsewhere surged. In 2021, 93,000 people arrived from India. By 2024, that number was 240,000. The number of Nigerian migrants increased fivefold in the same period.

Many arrived with families in tow. In the 12 months ending March 2024, nearly half of all visas were issued to dependents, not workers.

It is thereby not astonishing to find that Farage is back:

This sudden demographic shift, which has come at a time of economic stagnation and piled pressure on Britain’s stretched public services, is roiling the country’s politics. Immigration is now voters’ top concern. Reform UK, which says it would freeze most migration and deport those who arrive illegally, got the most votes of any party in recent municipal elections. The Tories, having lost power last year to the Labour Party, are now a distant third in the polls.

The 61-year-old Farage, long dismissed in Westminster as influential but unelectable, is now being taken seriously as a possible prime minister, though national elections are unlikely before 2029.

I doubt that voting for Farage would change a thing.

Reprinted with permission from Moon of Alabama.

The post They Voted For Brexit To Stop Immigration Only To Get More of It appeared first on LewRockwell.

Bulldozing hundreds of established olive trees last week, and thousands since 1967, and unleashing feral pigs to destroy Palestinian fields and gardens are parts of Israel’s war on agriculture and the environment. These tactics are important to Israel’s national security project.  A country has a right to defend itself, after all. Targeting food and the ability to grow and produce food to defeat an enemy, as well as for domestic population control, is historically typical state methodology.

North American bison were all but eliminated in order to drive native Americans off their lands and hunting grounds. We watch historical dramas like Downton Abbey and marvel at how food defines and separates class, liberty and power.  Americans, as tenants of empires on the cusp of collapse will do, obsess over food, and their health.  Simultaneously the people who will build the new republics that will inherit this continent are studying how the state, especially the corporate state, uses food for profit and control – and we are discovering and building new ways to combat that.

The last thing the state wants to see is someone who can grow and produce his or her living, and share with their community via a marketplace, unhindered and untouched by the state.  There is a reason that there are so few local USDA inspected meat processing facilities serving small-holders – as this same federal entity banned all sales of non-USDA inspected processed meat, and other food items. Creative solutions, like farm shares, have become the only way that many people can access fresh and raw food and not be criminals in the eyes of the authorities.  Food icon and rebel Joel Salatin had to buy and refurbish his own processing facility in Harrisonburg in order to honestly serve his customers and live more freely.  His facility is, of course, USDA approved.  Government is so important, a real value add.

The US is blessed with natural abundance and a relatively sparse population, and Americans in general believe caring for land and producing food for the market are good things.  Farming and food production is hard work, sometimes impossible, and for many, not rewarding or even happiness-producing.  In this arena, the difficulty is compounded by hundreds of US state agencies and functions, and thousands of pages of regulatory controls.  These should all be altered or abolished – but in the meantime we’ll do just fine.  After all, USDA, FDA, Commerce Department and IRS agents aren’t armed and deputized, right?

The Visual Capitalist recently assessed countries in the world in terms of daily calorie consumption.  I’m pretty sure even all-you-can-eat Florida Congressman Randy Fine won’t be able to guess which country is Number 1!

It’s Belgium!  It’s sheer coincidence that Brussels is the “de facto” capitol of the European Union, filled with unelected bureaucrats and those getting wealthy on insider information and war.  No, it’s just expensive cheese and chocolate.

The number 2 country was a real surprise: Israel.  Number 3?  The US.  These runners-up come in at 3875 calories (US) and 3895 (Israel), only 20 calories separating them.  It’s almost like they are the same country!

There are a lot of jokes about “traditional Israeli” food, and obesity in America, but it’s no laughing matter.  Both countries face significant hunger, with 1 in 7 Americans not being well nourished.  In Israel, one in three children live below the poverty line, according to Yadezra, an Israeli charity oriented to feeding the hungry in Israel with their American partners.  Oh my!

The Visual Capitalist analysis just ranked the top 40 calorie consumers.  With a bit of digging, we can find how other populations are doing in the food races. I suspect that Gaza is near the bottom of the list, with a whopping 245 calories a day reported last year in northern Gaza, fourteen starving months before the UN backed body, the IPC, actually declared a famine there last month.  Wait – did I leave out a zero?  No, sorry, Gaza’s daily calories are in the low triple digits, far below the calories required for sustainment of life. Turns out, it’s a genocide after all, even according to key Israelis.

Curiously, the top three calorie consumers, where nutritious and high caloric food is most plentiful, have all worked really hard to continue the devastation being wreaked on Gaza’s mostly unarmed, unfed, unhoused and uncared for.  Belgium, in hosting the EU, is stuck with a unelected bureaucracy for Europe that is remarkably corrupt and out of touch.  The US consistently armed and subsidizes Israel, and vetoes UN statements of support for Gaza, and organizational attempts to feed people.  The US Ambassador to the UN denies that Israel is intentionally starving the remaining 1.7 million Gazans that our bombs and munitions haven’t killed or buried already.  Israel maintains that starvation and state murder is just national security, and as we all know by now, Israel has a right to defend itself.

Controlling human movement and access to food is how the state in extremis manages its population. Israeli weapons of crowd control, targeting-AI like “Where’s Daddy,” advanced population surveillance techniques, and drone warfare are all being tested and honed on a weakened, concentrated and largely dying Gazan population.  Also being tested are the weapons of lockdown, movement corridors, food dissemination and adulteration, water and environmental poisons.  The US government and its War Department are knee deep in all of it.

As we approach our Labor Day festivities, perhaps with a big meal together at the end of summer, we may ask each other if we are hungry yet, as we anticipate a satisfying meal.

After we eat, maybe we can begin to digest the deadly dangers of our own government, and its corrupt and warlike allies.  It has always been the state that salts the fields, starves the children, kills the livestock, crushes the cities, and corrals the people on a can of beans a day.

Like all states, in times of trouble, war and even in peace, the US exhibits totalitarian overreach.  Washington’s current domestic wars – on drugs, COVID, immigrants, the First, Second and Fourth amendments, dollar-based purchasing power, working class prosperity – are matched by an array of bristling global military outposts, threats of war, aid to wars in dozens of countries, and ongoing CIA regime change operations. The weapons the state now wields and trains on  – including some of what we are witnessing in Gaza today – will come home, not only to haunt us, but to destroy us.

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Ever since 1913, the United States of America has been captive to an unconstitutional and immoral institution known as the Federal Reserve. The U.S. government is forbidden from counterfeiting money, so they outsourced it to a “private” cartel of banks. This is similar to how the government outsources censorship to “private” social media companies. Ever since 1913, the Fed has destroyed the value of the dollar, along with the U.S. economy; and it has financed endless wars and debts that cannot be honored. America can’t the “land of the free” as long as there’s a Federal Reserve.

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Eugyppius

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Writes Bill Madden:

This article will be good advice for our younger Americans after we correct our governance back to the Constitution.  It was published in: www.lewrockwell.com along with many other great articles.  If only good communication could help control our increasingly powerful central government and return some power back to the people.

Most of our country’s problems stem from unconstitutional agencies, legislation and activities but, unfortunately, those profiting from unconstitutional government are very willing to share some of the profits from unconstitutional governance with our politicians and bureaucrats.  Therein lies the problem.

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Il manoscritto fornisce un grimaldello al lettore, una chiave di lettura semplificata, del mondo finanziario e non che sembra essere andato fuori controllo negli ultimi quattro anni in particolare. Questa una storia di cartelli, a livello sovrastatale e sovranazionale, la cui pianificazione centrale ha raggiunto un punto in cui deve essere riformata radicalmente e questa riforma radicale non può avvenire senza una dose di dolore economico che potrebbe mettere a repentaglio la loro autorità. Da qui la risposta al Grande Default attraverso il Grande Reset. Questa la storia di un coyote, che quando non riesce a sfamarsi all'esterno ricorre all'autofagocitazione. Lo stesso accaduto ai membri del G7, dove i sei membri restanti hanno iniziato a fagocitare il settimo: gli Stati Uniti.

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(Versione audio della traduzione disponibile qui: https://open.substack.com/pub/fsimoncelli/p/il-progetto-tecnocratico)

“L'umanità tenterà di superare i propri limiti e di giungere a una più piena realizzazione”, dichiarò Julian Huxley nel 1957, coniando il termine “transumanesimo”. Nel 2022 Yuval Noah Harari ne avrebbe annunciato l'oscuro compimento: “Gli esseri umani sono ora animali hackerabili. L'intera idea del libero arbitrio [...] è finita. Oggi disponiamo della tecnologia per hackerare gli esseri umani su larga scala. Tutto viene digitalizzato, tutto viene monitorato. In questo periodo di crisi, bisogna seguire la scienza. Si dice spesso che non si dovrebbe mai permettere che una buona crisi vada sprecata, perché una crisi è un'opportunità per attuare anche delle ‘buone’ riforme che in tempi normali le persone non accetterebbero mai. Ma in una crisi non si ha alcuna possibilità, quindi è meglio fare ciò che noi, le persone che capiscono, vi diciamo di fare”.

Come Truman Burbank nel film The Truman Show, viviamo in un mondo in cui la realtà stessa è sempre più manipolata. E come Truman, la maggior parte delle persone rimane ignara della portata di questa manipolazione finché non ne vengono mostrati gli schemi. Ma a differenza della cupola fisica di Truman, con le sue telecamere e i suoi set artificiali, il nostro ambiente opera attraverso sofisticati sistemi tecnologici e vincoli digitali invisibili. I meccanismi di questa ingegneria della realtà – dalla manipolazione dei media alla programmazione sociale – sono stati esplorati in dettaglio in una precedente analisi. Ora ci concentreremo sulla forza trainante di questo mondo artificiale: la tecnocrazia, il sistema di controllo che rende possibile tale ingegneria della realtà su scala globale.

L'architettura tecnocratica non è stata semplicemente tramandata attraverso le istituzioni, ma è fluita attraverso le linee di sangue. Al centro di questa rete dinastica si trova Thomas Henry Huxley, noto come “il Bulldog di Darwin”, che contribuì a stabilire il materialismo scientifico come nuova religione mentre faceva parte dell'influente Tavola Rotonda di Rodi. Suo figlio Leonard portò avanti questa fiaccola, mentre i nipoti Aldous e Julian divennero architetti chiave dell'ordine mondiale moderno. Non si trattava di connessioni casuali, ma piuttosto dell'attenta coltivazione di reti di potere multigenerazionali.

I legami si approfondiscono attraverso il matrimonio e l'associazione. Charles Galton Darwin, nipote di Charles Darwin, scrisse The Next Million Years nel 1952, delineando il controllo della popolazione attraverso mezzi tecnologici. Suo figlio si sarebbe poi sposato con un membro della linea Huxley, creando un potente nesso di influenza che abbracciava scienza, cultura e governance.

Questo progetto intergenerazionale si è evoluto con la capacità tecnologica. Laddove Rockefeller una volta dichiarò “abbiamo bisogno di una nazione di lavoratori, non di pensatori” mentre costruiva la sua industria dell'informazione, oggi i tecnocrati si trovano ad affrontare un'equazione diversa. Con l'intelligenza artificiale che elimina la necessità del lavoro umano, l'attenzione si sposta dalla creazione di lavoratori obbedienti alla gestione della riduzione della popolazione, non attraverso la forza aperta, ma attraverso una sofisticata ingegneria sociale.

L'amministratore delegato di BlackRock, Larry Fink, ha di recente reso esplicito questo cambiamento, spiegando come l'intelligenza artificiale e l'automazione rimodelleranno le dinamiche demografiche: “Nei Paesi sviluppati con una popolazione in calo [...] questi Paesi svilupperanno rapidamente la robotica e la tecnologia dell'intelligenza artificiale [...] i problemi sociali che si avranno nel sostituire gli esseri umani alle macchine saranno molto più facili in quei Paesi con una popolazione in calo”. La sua schietta valutazione rivela come la capacità tecnologica guidi i programmi delle élite: man mano che il lavoro umano diventa meno necessario, la riduzione della popolazione diventa più auspicabile.

I messaggi sul cambiamento climatico, il calo delle nascite e la normalizzazione dell'eutanasia non sono sviluppi casuali, ma estensioni logiche di questo programma in evoluzione.

Dal cervello mondiale alla mente alveare digitale

Nel 1937 uno scrittore di fantascienza britannico immaginò un futuro in cui tutta la conoscenza umana sarebbe stata accessibile a tutti. Oggi lo chiamiamo Internet. H. G. Wells vide molto più della semplice tecnologia. “Il mondo ha un Cervello Mondiale a cui, in ultima analisi, tutta la conoscenza deve essere indirizzata”, scrisse, “e ha un sistema nervoso di comunicazioni stradali, ferroviarie e aeree che sta già iniziando a unire l'umanità in un tutt'uno”. La sua visione andava oltre la mera condivisione di informazioni. Attraverso The Open Conspiracy invocava “un movimento di tutto ciò che è intelligente nel mondo”, sostenendo esplicitamente la governance tecnocratica di un'élite scientifica che avrebbe gradualmente assunto il controllo della società. “La Cospirazione Aperta deve essere un movimento mondiale e non un movimento inglese o occidentale. Deve essere un movimento di tutto ciò che è intelligente nel mondo”. Wells delineò il suo schema per una classe di individui istruiti e razionali che avrebbero guidato questa trasformazione globale. Persino nella sua opera di narrativa, Shape of Things to Come, si legge di un progetto, in particolare nella descrizione di come una pandemia potrebbe facilitare la governance globale.

Questo piano ha trovato la sua espressione istituzionale attraverso Julian Huxley all'UNESCO. “La filosofia generale dell'UNESCO dovrebbe essere quella di un umanesimo scientifico di portata mondiale e di matrice evolutiva”, dichiarò in qualità di primo Direttore Generale. Attraverso opere come Religion Without Revelation (1927), Huxley non si limitò a suggerire la sostituzione della fede tradizionale, ma delineò una nuova ortodossia religiosa con la Scienza come divinità e gli esperti come sacerdozio. Questa devozione quasi religiosa all'autorità scientifica sarebbe diventata il quadro di riferimento per l'odierna accettazione incondizionata delle affermazioni degli esperti su tutto, dagli obblighi di vaccinazione alle linee di politica sul clima. La maggior parte dei civili non possiede le conoscenze specialistiche per valutare queste questioni tecniche complesse, eppure ci si aspetta che le accolgano con fervore religioso: “fidarsi della scienza” diventa l'equivalente moderno di “fidarsi della fede”. Questa cieca deferenza nei confronti dell'autorità scientifica, esattamente come immaginava Huxley, ha trasformato la scienza da metodo di indagine a sistema di credenze.

La famiglia Huxley fornì l'architettura intellettuale per questa trasformazione. “L'umanesimo scientifico mondiale” di Julian Huxley presso l'UNESCO stabilì il quadro istituzionale, mentre suo fratello Aldous ne rivelò la metodologia psicologica. Nella sua intervista del 1958 con Mike Wallace, Aldous Huxley spiegò come il rapido cambiamento tecnologico potesse sopraffare le popolazioni, facendole “perdere la capacità di analisi critica”. La sua descrizione del “controllo attraverso la sopraffazione” descrive perfettamente il nostro attuale stato di costante sconvolgimento tecnologico, in cui le persone sono troppo disorientate dai rapidi cambiamenti per resistere efficacemente ai nuovi sistemi di controllo.

Ancora più importante, Huxley sottolineò l'importanza di un'implementazione “graduale”, suggerendo che, calibrando attentamente i cambiamenti tecnologici e sociali, la resistenza potesse essere gestita e i nuovi sistemi di controllo normalizzati nel tempo. Questa strategia graduale, che rispecchia l'approccio della Fabian Society, è riscontrabile in ogni aspetto, dalla lenta erosione dei diritti alla privacy all'implementazione incrementale dei sistemi di sorveglianza digitale. Il suo monito sul condizionamento psicologico attraverso i media prefigurava gli attuali algoritmi dei social media e la modifica del comportamento digitale.

Between Two Ages di Zbigniew Brzezinski ampliò questo quadro, descrivendo un'imminente “era tecnetronica” caratterizzata dalla sorveglianza dei cittadini, dal controllo attraverso la tecnologia, dalla manipolazione del comportamento e dalle reti di informazione globali. Fu straordinariamente esplicito riguardo a questo progetto: “L'era tecnetronica comporta la graduale comparsa di una società più controllata. Una tale società sarebbe dominata da un'élite, libera dai valori tradizionali [...]. Presto sarà possibile esercitare una sorveglianza pressoché continua su ogni cittadino e mantenere archivi completi e aggiornati contenenti anche le informazioni più personali. Questi archivi saranno soggetti a un recupero immediato da parte delle autorità”. Oggi molti potrebbero ricordare sua figlia Mika Brzezinski come co-conduttrice di “Morning Joe” su MSNBC: mentre suo padre plasmava la teoria geopolitica, lei avrebbe continuato a influenzare l'opinione pubblica attraverso i media, dimostrando come l'influenza dell'establishment si adatti attraverso le generazioni.

Il concetto di “Cervello Mondiale” di Wells – una rete di informazioni globale interconnessa – è diventato realtà grazie all'ascesa dell'intelligenza artificiale e di Internet. Questa centralizzazione della conoscenza e dei dati rispecchia l'ambizione tecnocratica di una società globale basata sull'intelligenza artificiale, come esemplificato da iniziative come l'AI World Society (AIWS).

Le previsioni di George Orwell sono diventate la nostra realtà quotidiana: i teleschermi che tracciano i nostri movimenti sono diventati dispositivi intelligenti con telecamere e microfoni sempre accesi; la neolingua, che limita il linguaggio accettabile, è emersa come moderazione dei contenuti e correttezza politica; il buco della memoria che cancella i fatti scomodi opera attraverso la censura digitale e il “fact-checking”; il crimine di pensiero che punisce le opinioni sbagliate si manifesta come sistemi di credito sociale e punteggi di reputazione digitale; la guerra perpetua che mantiene il controllo continua attraverso conflitti infiniti e la “guerra al terrorismo”.

Si consideri come le principali pubblicazioni prevedano sistematicamente le imminenti trasformazioni tecnologiche: la promozione da parte dei media generalisti della mentalità del “mai offline” ha preceduto l'adozione diffusa di dispositivi di sorveglianza indossabili che ora convergono biologia umana e tecnologia digitale – quello che oggi viene chiamato “Internet dei corpi”.

Queste non sono previsioni casuali: rappresentano sforzi coordinati per abituare la popolazione a tecnologie sempre più invasive che confondono i confini tra il mondo fisico e quello digitale. Questo schema di anticipazione dei sistemi di controllo attraverso i media generalisti ha un duplice scopo: normalizza la sorveglianza e al contempo presenta la resistenza come futile o retrograda. Quando questi sistemi saranno pienamente implementati, la popolazione sarà già stata condizionata ad accettarli come un progresso inevitabile.

Se Orwell ci ha mostrato il bastone, Huxley ci ha rivelato la carota. Mentre Orwell metteva in guardia dal controllo attraverso il dolore, Huxley predisse il controllo attraverso il piacere. La sua distopia fatta di caste genetiche, diffusione di droghe che alterano l'umore e un intrattenimento senza fine corre parallela al nostro mondo di tecnologia CRISPR, farmaci psichiatrici e dipendenza digitale.

Sebbene le basi teoriche siano state gettate da visionari come Wells e Huxley, l'implementazione delle loro idee ha richiesto quadri istituzionali. La trasformazione da concetti astratti a sistemi di controllo mondiali sarebbe emersa attraverso reti di influenza attentamente elaborate.

Dalle Tavole Rotonde alla governance mondiale

Quando Cecil Rhodes morì nel 1902, lasciò molto più di una semplice fortuna in diamanti. Il suo testamento delineava la strada per un nuovo tipo di impero, costruito non attraverso la conquista militare, ma attraverso l'attenta formazione di futuri leader che avrebbero pensato e agito come tali. Carroll Quigley, nella sua influente opera Tragedy and Hope, fornì spunti di riflessione privilegiati sulle strutture di potere da lui osservate, scrivendo di come “i poteri del capitalismo finanziario avessero un altro obiettivo di vasta portata, nientemeno che creare un sistema mondiale di controllo finanziario in mani private, in grado di dominare il sistema politico di ogni Paese e l'economia mondiale nel suo complesso. Questo sistema sarebbe stato controllato in modo feudale dalle banche centrali mondiali, che agivano di concerto, attraverso accordi segreti stipulati in frequenti incontri e conferenze private”.

Ciò si sarebbe manifestato attraverso una rete basata sui contatti umani e sull'influenza istituzionale. Rhodes immaginava la creazione di una rete d'élite che avrebbe esteso l'influenza britannica a livello globale, promuovendo al contempo la “cooperazione” anglo-americana. La sua dottrina non riguardava solo il potere politico, ma anche la definizione dei meccanismi attraverso i quali i leader del futuro avrebbero pensato e operato.

I meccanismi del controllo globale hanno subito una profonda trasformazione dai tempi di Rhodes. Il modello 1.0 del globalismo operava attraverso gli stati nazionali, il colonialismo e le strutture esplicite dell'Impero britannico. L'attuale Globalismo 2.0 opera attraverso istituzioni aziendali e finanziarie, indirizzando il potere verso una governance globale centralizzata senza la necessità di un impero formale. Organizzazioni come il Gruppo Bilderberg, il Council on Foreign Relations, la Commissione Trilaterale e il Tavistock Institute hanno trascorso dai 50 ai 100 anni a guidare programmi e linee di politica globali, centralizzando gradualmente potere, influenza e risorse tra un'élite sempre più concentrata. Il Gruppo Bilderberg, in particolare, ha facilitato discussioni private tra influenti leader politici e imprenditoriali, plasmando a porte chiuse i processi decisionali di alto livello.

Le borse di studio Rhodes sono state più di un semplice programma educativo: hanno creato un canale per identificare e coltivare i futuri leader che avrebbero portato avanti questo programma tecnocratico. Il Movimento della Tavola Rotonda, emerso dal progetto di Rhodes, avrebbe creato gruppi influenti in Paesi chiave, creando reti informali che avrebbero plasmato la politica globale per generazioni.

Da queste Tavole Rotonde sono emerse istituzioni chiave per la governance globale: il Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) di Londra e il Council on Foreign Relations negli Stati Uniti. Queste organizzazioni non si sarebbero limitate a discutere di politica, ma avrebbero creato il quadro intellettuale attraverso il quale la politica poteva essere concepita. I loro membri avrebbero poi fondato la Società delle Nazioni, le Nazioni Unite e il sistema di Bretton Woods.

La visione di Alice Bailey, articolata attraverso la Lucis Trust (fondata nel 1922 come Lucifer Publishing Company prima di essere rinominata nel 1925), prefigurava e contribuiva a plasmare aspetti delle istituzioni globali odierne. Pur non avendo fondato direttamente le Nazioni Unite, l'influenza della Lucis Trust è visibile nei fondamenti spirituali e filosofici dell'organizzazione, tra cui la Sala di Meditazione presso la sede centrale delle Nazioni Unite. Nel libro The Externalization of the Hierarchy, scritto nell'arco di diversi decenni e pubblicato nel 1957, la Bailey delineò una visione di trasformazione globale che si avvicina a molte iniziative attuali delle Nazioni Unite. I suoi scritti descrivevano i cambiamenti che ora vediamo manifestarsi: sistemi di istruzione che promuovono la cittadinanza globale, programmi ambientali che ristrutturano la società, istituzioni spirituali che si fondono con credenze universali e sistemi economici sempre più integrati. In particolare indicò il 2025 come data obiettivo per questa “esteriorizzazione della gerarchia”, una tempistica in linea con molte iniziative globali attuali, tra cui l'Agenda 2030 delle Nazioni Unite per lo sviluppo sostenibile.

Oggi questo piano d'azione si manifesta attraverso il World Economic Forum, dove Klaus Schwab, sotto la guida di Henry Kissinger, mette in pratica queste storiche guide tecnocratiche. Come affermò Kissinger nel 1992: “Un Nuovo Ordine Mondiale emergerà. L'unica domanda è se nascerà da intuizioni intellettuali e morali, e intenzionalmente, o se sarà imposto all'umanità da una serie di catastrofi”. Il WEF di Klaus Schwab plasma attivamente questo ordine “penetrando nei governi” attraverso il suo programma Young Global Leaders. Come si vantava lo stesso Schwab: “Ciò di cui siamo molto orgogliosi è che riusciamo a penetrare nei governi di diversi Paesi”, un'affermazione dimostrata dal fatto che diversi membri del governo di Paesi come Canada, Francia, Germania e Nuova Zelanda, così come politici statunitensi come Gavin Newsom, Pete Buttigieg e Huma Abedin, hanno partecipato alle iniziative di leadership del WEF.

Programmare il futuro: vendere la gabbia

Edward Bernays, nipote di Sigmund Freud, sviluppò il quadro psicologico che sarebbe diventato il marketing moderno e la manipolazione dei social media. Questa connessione familiare non fu una coincidenza: le intuizioni psicologiche di Freud sulla natura umana sarebbero state trasformate da suo nipote in strumenti di manipolazione di massa. Questo modello di influenza continua ancora oggi: il co-fondatore di Netflix, Marc Bernays Randolph, è pronipote di Edward Bernays, a dimostrazione di come queste linee di sangue continuino a plasmare il nostro consumo culturale. Le tecniche di “ingegneria del consenso” e di gestione dell'opinione pubblica, sperimentate da Edward Bernays, operano ora attraverso piattaforme digitali su una scala senza precedenti, preparando il terreno per il fenomeno della programmazione predittiva.

La programmazione predittiva opera presentando i sistemi di controllo futuri come intrattenimento, normalizzandoli prima della loro implementazione. Quando la realtà rispecchia la finzione, il pubblico è stato precondizionato ad accettarla. Non si tratta di una mera coincidenza: queste narrazioni preparano sistematicamente le popolazioni a trasformazioni pianificate.

Come spiega il teorico Alan Watt: “La programmazione predittiva agisce creando un condizionamento psicologico nelle nostre menti attraverso un processo di tipo pavloviano. Esponendo ripetutamente le persone a eventi futuri, o sistemi di controllo attraverso i media di intrattenimento, le risposte diventano familiari e quegli eventi vengono quindi accettati come eventi naturali quando si manifestano nella realtà”.

Hollywood funge da veicolo principale per la normalizzazione delle idee tecnocratiche. Film e programmi TV presentano costantemente scenari futuri che poi diventano realtà:

• Minority Report (2002) prevedeva pubblicità personalizzata e interfacce controllate dai gesti → Ora abbiamo annunci mirati e controlli touchless;

• Iron Man (2008) ha normalizzato le interfacce cervello-computer per l'uso quotidiano → Ora vediamo Neuralink e altre iniziative di impianti neurali ottenere l'accettazione del pubblico;

• Black Mirror (2011-) episodi sui punteggi di credito sociale → La Cina ha implementato sistemi simili;

• Contagion (2011) ha previsto in modo inquietante le risposte alla pandemia → Molte delle sue scene si sono svolte nella vita reale;

• The Social Network (2010) ha descritto la rivoluzione tecnologica come inevitabile e i leader come brillanti outsider → Portando a una diffusa venerazione dei tecnocrati;

• Person of Interest (2011) ha descritto la sorveglianza di massa tramite l'intelligenza artificiale → Ora abbiamo un riconoscimento facciale diffuso e una polizia predittiva;

• Her (2013) ha descritto un'intima relazione tra un essere umano e un assistente AI, presagendo l'erosione dei legami umani tradizionali;

• Elysium (2013) ha descritto la divisione tecnologica di classe → Ora assistiamo a un crescente dibattito sul potenziamento transumano limitato alle élite;

• Transcendence (2014) ha esplorato la fusione della coscienza umana con l'IA → Ora assistiamo a un rapido progresso di Neuralink e altre iniziative di interfaccia cervello-computer;

• Ready Player One (2018) ha normalizzato l'immersione digitale completa e l'economia virtuale → Ora assistiamo a iniziative di metaverso e mercati di asset digitali.

Anche l'intrattenimento per bambini gioca un ruolo. Film come WALL•E predicono il collasso ambientale, mentre film per bambini come Big Hero 6 della Disney/Pixar mostrano la tecnologia che “salva” l'umanità. Il messaggio rimane coerente: la tecnologia risolverà i nostri problemi, ma a scapito delle relazioni umane tradizionali e delle libertà. Questo condizionamento sistematico attraverso i media richiederebbe un quadro istituzionale altrettanto sistematico per essere implementato su larga scala.

Mentre Bernays e i suoi successori svilupparono il quadro psicologico per l'influenza di massa, l'implementazione di queste idee su larga scala richiese una solida architettura istituzionale. La traduzione di queste tecniche di manipolazione dalla teoria alla pratica sarebbe emersa attraverso reti di influenza attentamente costruite, ciascuna basata sul lavoro delle altre. Queste reti non si sarebbero limitate a condividere idee, ma avrebbero attivamente plasmato i meccanismi attraverso i quali le generazioni future avrebbero compreso e interagito con il mondo.

La rete istituzionale

La mappa tecnocratica richiedeva istituzioni specifiche per la sua attuazione. La Fabian Society, il cui stemma raffigura un lupo travestito da agnello e un logo a forma di tartaruga a rappresentare il loro motto “quando colpisco, colpisco duro” e “cambiamento lento e costante”, stabilì meccanismi per una graduale trasformazione sociale. Questo approccio gradualista sarebbe diventato un modello per l'attuazione del cambiamento istituzionale senza innescare resistenze.

La traduzione della teoria tecnocratica in linee di politica globali richiedeva la forza delle istituzioni. Organizzazioni come le Fondazioni Rockefeller e Ford non si limitarono a sostenere queste iniziative, ma ristrutturarono sistematicamente la società attraverso finanziamenti strategici e l'attuazione delle relative linee di politica. L'influenza della Fondazione Rockefeller sulla medicina rispecchiava la riorganizzazione dell'istruzione da parte di quella Ford, creando meccanismi interconnessi di controllo sulla salute e sulla conoscenza. Queste fondazioni erano più che semplici organizzazioni filantropiche: fungevano da incubatori per la governance tecnocratica, coltivando attentamente reti di influenza attraverso sovvenzioni, borse di studio e supporto istituzionale. Il loro lavoro dimostrò come una beneficenza di facciata potesse mascherare una profonda ingegneria sociale, un modello che continua con i filantropi di oggi nel mondo della tecnologia.

Bill Gates esemplifica questa evoluzione: la sua fondazione esercita un'influenza senza precedenti sulle linee di politica sanitarie globali, investendo contemporaneamente in sistemi di identificazione digitale, alimenti sintetici e tecnologie di sorveglianza. L'acquisizione di vaste proprietà agricole, che lo ha reso il più grande proprietario terriero privato d'America, corre parallela al suo controllo sui sistemi globali di conservazione e distribuzione dei semi. Come Rockefeller prima di lui, Gates utilizza le donazioni filantropiche per plasmare molteplici ambiti, dalla sanità pubblica al mondo dell'istruzione, dall'agricoltura all'identità digitale. La sua visione transumanista si estende alla brevettazione di interfacce uomo-computer, posizionandosi per influenzare non solo i nostri sistemi alimentari e sanitari, ma potenzialmente la biologia umana stessa attraverso l'integrazione tecnologica. Attraverso investimenti strategici nei media e pubbliche relazioni attentamente gestite, queste attività sono tipicamente presentate come iniziative benefiche piuttosto che come esercizi di controllo. Il suo lavoro dimostra come i filantropi moderni abbiano perfezionato i metodi dei loro predecessori nell'utilizzare le donazioni benefiche per progettare la trasformazione sociale.

La trasformazione della medicina offre un esempio lampante di come si siano evoluti i sistemi di controllo. Jonas Salk, celebrato come filantropo per il suo lavoro sui vaccini, rivelò motivazioni più oscure in libri come The Survival of the Wisest e World Population and Human Values: A New Reality, che sostenevano esplicitamente l'eugenetica e i programmi di spopolamento. Questo schema di apparente filantropia che maschera il controllo demografico si è ripetuto per tutto il secolo scorso, costringendoci a riconsiderare molti dei nostri presunti eroi del progresso.

La strumentalizzazione della divisione sociale è emersa attraverso un attento studio accademico. Il lavoro di Margaret Mead e Gregory Bateson in Papua Nuova Guinea, in particolare il loro concetto di schismogenesi (la creazione di fratture sociali), ha fornito il quadro teorico per l'ingegneria sociale moderna. Pur essendo presentati come una ricerca antropologica neutrale, i loro studi hanno di fatto creato un manuale per la manipolazione sociale attraverso lo sfruttamento dei conflitti interni. Steps to an Ecology of Mind di Bateson ha rivelato come i modelli di comunicazione e i circuiti di feedback possano plasmare il comportamento sia individuale che collettivo. Il concetto di schismogenesi descriveva come le separazioni iniziali potessero amplificarsi in cicli di opposizione auto-rinforzanti, un processo che oggi vediamo deliberatamente implementato attraverso gli algoritmi dei social media e i programmi di informazione mainstream.

Hate Inc. di Matt Taibbi offre una potente analisi contemporanea di come questi principi operino nella nostra era digitale. Ciò che Bateson osservò nelle culture tribali, Taibbi documenta nell'ecosistema mediatico odierno: lo sfruttamento sistematico della divisione attraverso la distribuzione algoritmica di contenuti e metriche di coinvolgimento, creando una forma industrializzata di schismogenesi che alimenta il controllo sociale attraverso conflitti artificiali, anche quando l'establishment “monopartitico” converge su questioni chiave come la politica estera.

Il Royal Institute of International Affairs e il Council on Foreign Relations hanno plasmato i quadri politici internazionali, mentre il Tavistock Institute ha sviluppato e perfezionato tecniche di operazioni psicologiche. La Scuola di Francoforte ha rimodellato la critica culturale e la Commissione Trilaterale ha guidato l'integrazione economica. Ognuna di queste organizzazioni svolge molteplici ruoli: incubare idee tecnocratiche, formare i futuri leader, creare reti di influencer chiave, sviluppare quadri politici e progettare il cambiamento sociale.

The Impact of Science on Society di Bertrand Russell fornì il modello per il controllo dell'istruzione moderno. “La materia che avrà maggiore importanza politica è la psicologia di massa”, scrisse. “La sua importanza è stata enormemente accresciuta dallo sviluppo dei metodi di propaganda moderni. Tra questi il più influente è quello che viene chiamato ‘istruzione’”. Le sue schiette esplorazioni del controllo demografico e della governance scientifica trovano espressione nei dibattiti contemporanei sul governo degli esperti e sul “seguire la scienza”. Queste idee si manifestano ora in sistemi educativi digitali standardizzati e piattaforme di apprendimento basate sull'intelligenza artificiale.

Limits to Growth del Club di Roma merita un'attenzione particolare per aver stabilito il quadro intellettuale alla base delle attuali iniziative di controllo ambientale e demografico. La loro dichiarazione secondo cui “il nemico comune dell'umanità è l'essere umano” ha rivelato il loro vero programma. Come affermarono esplicitamente in The First Global Revolution (1991): “Nella ricerca di un nuovo nemico che ci unisse, abbiamo concepito l'idea che l'inquinamento, la minaccia del riscaldamento globale, la scarsità d'acqua, la carestia e simili sarebbero stati adatti [...]. Tutti questi pericoli sono causati dall'intervento umano ed è solo attraverso un cambiamento di atteggiamenti e comportamenti che possono essere superati. Il vero nemico, quindi, è l'umanità stessa”. Le loro previsioni sulla scarsità di risorse non riguardavano solo le preoccupazioni ambientali, ma fornivano le basi per le attuali iniziative di comunicazione sul cambiamento climatico e di controllo demografico, abilitando il controllo sia attraverso l'allocazione delle risorse che attraverso l'ingegneria demografica.

Queste strutture istituzionali non sono rimaste statiche, ma si sono evolute con la capacità tecnologica. Ciò che è iniziato come un sistema fisico di controllo avrebbe trovato la sua massima espressione nell'infrastruttura digitale, raggiungendo un livello di sorveglianza e modifica comportamentale che i tecnocrati del passato potevano solo immaginare.

Implementazione moderna: la convergenza dei sistemi di controllo

L'architettura di sorveglianza moderna pervade ogni aspetto della vita quotidiana. Dispositivi intelligenti monitorano i ritmi del sonno e i parametri vitali di milioni di persone, mentre assistenti AI guidano le nostre routine quotidiane con il pretesto della comodità. Proprio come il mondo di Truman era controllato da telecamere nascoste e interazioni organizzate, il nostro ambiente digitale monitora e modella il nostro comportamento attraverso dispositivi che accettiamo volentieri. Notizie e informazioni fluiscono attraverso filtri algoritmici attentamente selezionati che plasmano la nostra visione del mondo, mentre la sorveglianza e l'automazione sul posto di lavoro definiscono sempre più i nostri ambienti professionali. Il nostro intrattenimento arriva attraverso sistemi di raccomandazione, le nostre interazioni sociali sono mediate da piattaforme digitali e i nostri acquisti sono monitorati e influenzati da pubblicità mirate. Laddove il mondo di Truman era controllato da un singolo produttore e da un team di produzione, la nostra realtà ingegnerizzata opera attraverso quadri integrati di tecnologie di controllo. L'infrastruttura della tecnocrazia – dalla sorveglianza digitale agli algoritmi di modificazione comportamentale – fornisce i mezzi pratici per implementare questo controllo su larga scala, ben oltre qualsiasi cosa raffigurata nel mondo artificiale di Truman.

Come l'ambiente attentamente controllato di Truman, il nostro mondo digitale crea un'illusione di scelta mentre ogni interazione è monitorata e plasmata. Ma a differenza delle telecamere fisiche di Truman, il nostro sistema di sorveglianza è invisibile, integrato nei dispositivi e nelle piattaforme che adottiamo volontariamente. Persino le nostre decisioni in materia di salute sono sempre più guidate da algoritmi “esperti”, l'istruzione dei nostri figli viene standardizzata attraverso piattaforme digitali e i nostri viaggi sono costantemente monitorati tramite biglietti digitali e GPS. Ancora più insidioso, il denaro stesso si sta trasformando in valuta digitale tracciabile, completando il circuito di sorveglianza. Proprio come ogni acquisto e movimento di Truman era attentamente tracciato nel suo mondo artificiale, le nostre transazioni finanziarie e i nostri movimenti fisici sono sempre più monitorati e controllati attraverso sistemi digitali, ma con una precisione e una portata ben maggiori di qualsiasi cosa possibile nella realtà artificiale di Truman.

I programmi storici si sono manifestati con notevole precisione nei nostri sistemi attuali. Il Cervello Mondiale di Wells è diventato il nostro Internet, mentre il soma di Huxley assume la forma di SSRI diffusi. I sogni di governance globale della Bailey emergono attraverso le Nazioni Unite e il WEF, mentre l'era tecnetronica di Brzezinski si afferma come capitalismo della sorveglianza. Il modello educativo di Russell si manifesta nelle piattaforme di apprendimento digitale, le tecniche di manipolazione di Bernays alimentano i social media e le preoccupazioni ambientali del Club di Roma guidano le linee di politica sui cambiamenti climatici. Ogni modello storico trova la sua implementazione moderna, creando reti di controllo convergenti.

La fase successiva dei sistemi di controllo sta già emergendo. Le valute digitali delle banche centrali (CBDC) stanno creando quello che equivale a un gulag digitale, dove ogni transazione richiede approvazione e può essere monitorata o impedita. I punteggi ambientali, sociali e di governance (ESG) estendono questo controllo al comportamento aziendale, mentre la governance basata sull'intelligenza artificiale automatizza sempre più i processi decisionali. Questo nuovo paradigma codifica efficacemente la “cancel culture”, oltre alle iniziative di diversità, equità e inclusione, nel sistema monetario, creando un sistema completo di controllo finanziario.

Iniziative come Internet dei Corpi e lo sviluppo di città intelligenti supervisionate da enti governativi come la rete C40 dimostrano ulteriormente come la visione tecnocratica venga implementata oggi. Questi sforzi per fondere la biologia umana con la tecnologia digitale e per centralizzare le infrastrutture urbane sotto il controllo tecnocratico rappresentano la logica estensione del modello storico delineato in questo saggio.

Comprendere per resistere

Il futuro tecnocratico non è in arrivo: è già qui. Ogni giorno viviamo le previsioni che questi pensatori fecero decenni fa, ma comprendere la loro visione ci dà potere.

Proprio come Truman Burbank salpa infine verso i confini del suo mondo artificiale, riconoscendo l'illusione che lo aveva limitato, anche noi dobbiamo trovare il coraggio di spingerci oltre i confini della nostra realtà imposta digitalmente. Ma a differenza della cupola fisica di Truman, i nostri vincoli sono sempre più biologici e psicologici, intrecciati nel tessuto stesso della vita moderna attraverso sistemi di controllo tecnocratici. La domanda non è se viviamo in un sistema simile a quello di Truman: è dimostrato che è così. La domanda è se riconosceremo la nostra cupola digitale prima che diventi biologica e se avremo il coraggio di navigare verso i suoi confini come fece Truman.

Azioni individuali

• Implementare solide pratiche di privacy: crittografia, minimizzazione dei dati, comunicazioni sicure;

• Sviluppare competenze critiche di alfabetizzazione mediatica;

• Mantenere alternative analogiche ai sistemi digitali;

• Praticare periodi sabbatici tecnologici.

Costruzione di famiglie e comunità

• Creare reti di supporto locali indipendenti dalle piattaforme digitali;

• Insegnare ai bambini il pensiero critico e il riconoscimento di schemi;

• Creare alternative economiche basate sulla comunità;

• Costruire relazioni faccia a faccia e incontri regolari.

Approcci sistemici

• Supportare e sviluppare tecnologie decentralizzate;

• Creare sistemi paralleli per l'istruzione e la condivisione delle informazioni;

• Costruire strutture economiche alternative;

• Sviluppare l'indipendenza alimentare ed energetica locale.

La nostra resistenza quotidiana deve avvenire attraverso un impegno consapevole: utilizzare la tecnologia senza essere utilizzati da essa, consumare intrattenimento comprendendone la programmazione e partecipare alle piattaforme digitali mantenendo la privacy. Dobbiamo imparare ad accettare la comodità senza rinunciare all'autonomia, seguire gli esperti mantenendo il pensiero critico e abbracciare il progresso preservando i valori umani. Ogni scelta diventa un atto di resistenza consapevole.

Anche questa analisi segue il modello che descrive. Ogni sistema di controllo è emerso attraverso uno schema coerente: prima una tabella di marcia articolata da pensatori chiave, poi un quadro sviluppato attraverso le istituzioni, infine un'implementazione che appare inevitabile una volta completata. Proprio come Wells immaginò il Cervello Mondiale prima di Internet e Rhodes progettò i sistemi di borse di studio prima della governance globale, il progetto diventa visibile solo dopo averne compreso i componenti.

La scelta futura

Come con il graduale risveglio di Truman a fronte dell'artificialità del suo mondo, la nostra consapevolezza di questi sistemi di controllo si sviluppa attraverso il riconoscimento di schemi. E proprio come Truman deve superare le sue paure programmate per navigare verso i confini del mondo a lui noto, anche noi dobbiamo superare i nostri comodi vincoli tecnologici per preservare la nostra umanità.

La convergenza di questi sistemi di controllo – dal fisico allo psicologico, dal locale al globale, dal meccanico al digitale – rappresenta il culmine di un progetto di ingegneria sociale durato un secolo. Ciò che ebbe inizio con i monopoli hardware di Edison e il Cervello Mondiale di Wells si è evoluto in un sistema onnicomprensivo di controllo tecnologico, creando un Truman Show digitale su scala globale.

Tuttavia la conoscenza di questi sistemi rappresenta il primo passo verso la resistenza. Comprendendone lo sviluppo e riconoscendone l'implementazione, possiamo compiere scelte consapevoli sul nostro coinvolgimento con essi. Sebbene non possiamo sfuggire completamente dalla griglia tecnocratica, possiamo preservare la nostra umanità al suo interno attraverso azioni consapevoli e connessioni locali.

Il futuro rimane non scritto. Attraverso la comprensione e l'azione consapevole, possiamo contribuire a plasmare un mondo che preservi l'agire umano all'interno della rete tecnologica che definisce sempre più la nostra realtà.

Questa scala metaforica, che si eleva sempre più verso un'ascesa apparentemente divina, riflette la visione tecnocratica della trascendenza dell'umanità attraverso mezzi tecnologici. Malgrado ciò la vera liberazione non risiede nello scalare questa gerarchia costruita, ma nello scoprire la libertà che esiste oltre i suoi confini: la libertà di plasmare il nostro destino piuttosto che lasciarlo dettare da una mano invisibile. La scelta che ci attende è chiara: rimarremo Truman accettando i limiti del nostro mondo costruito? O faremo quel passo finale, salpando verso un futuro incerto ma in definitiva autodeterminato?

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

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David Martin wrote:

Such great timing with what they’re doing in Gaza.

See this.

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Thanks, Ginny Garner.

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Thanks, John Frahm.

Blaze Media

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Thanks. John Frahm.

Alpha News

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Extortion is the keystone of America’s Mafioso Economy.

And scene: here are the dons, each the ruthless head of their own vast organization, seated next to their wives in a show of bourgeois respectability, assembled by invitation to kiss the ring of the Godfather. This isn’t just fiction, of course; we’ve all seen the photo of America’s Big Tech dons, wives in tow, lined up in a display of billionaire obeisance.

We all know the drill: give the Godfather respect and his cut, and you can return to your extractive monopoly confident that nobody is going to interrupt your grift.

Welcome to America’s Mafioso Economy, where monopolies are free to extract vast fortunes via addiction (pharmaceuticals, social media, gaming, pornography, gambling, entertainment, etc.), predatory pricing (oops, I mean dynamic pricing), shoddy goods and services, shakedowns, and of course, extortion: offers you can’t refuse.

For example, that software you could buy and use for years until the Mafioso Monopoly obsoleted it? Now you have to rent it. It’s called a subscription service, which is like calling the addict’s next hit of smack a subscription service. You have a need, and the Mafioso Monopoly will service your need, but monthly. So what once cost $200 now extracts $1,000 from your earnings. Same product (or worse), but now it costs a lot more.

That’s America’s Mafioso Economy in a nutshell: same product or service, but now it costs more. And since the Mafioso Monopolies bought up all their competitors (an offer you can’t refuse), there’s no where else to turn, except perhaps another Mafioso member of a cartel.

It’s not just pay to play–you have to pay just to enter the auction of political favors. The Clinton Foundation set a new standard of Mafioso malignancy: “donate” to the foundation if you want access, then “donate” more if you want some actual action.

Extortion is the keystone of America’s Mafioso Economy. Apply a little pressure, make an offer they can’t refuse, and voila. Nice little business / institution you got there, too bad it’s about to be gutted by some new regulations or executive actions. There is a way to make it all go away, but it’s going to cost you.

Extortion pricing is Corporate America’s playbook. Since every corporation Mafia deploys the same algos and extractive exploitation strategies, our choice boils down to which paddock we enter to get sheared.

Our Stasi-style surveillance and AI-powered algos have detected you can pay more than your fellow debt-serfs, so the price of your airline seat, or grocery item, is higher than the other customers. It’s not extortion because you could go to another member of the Mafia cartel, but alas, they use the same dynamic pricing, so too bad you passed up that initial price, now it’s even higher.

Junk fees abound because we have no choice. Where else can you buy a ticket to that concert you absolutely must attend? How about switching electrical utilities to get a better deal? Monopolies abound because they’re the foundation of America’s Mafioso Economy.

Darth Vader understood the Empire is also a Mafioso structure. Once you gain power over supply and governance, then you’re free to alter the deal at will. I have altered the deal, pray I don’t alter it further.

This article was originally published on OfTwoMinds.com.

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Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told NBC’s Kristen Welker of Meet the Press that no meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is currently in the works. The Russian diplomat indicated his government is not interested in such a meeting until a “presidential agenda” was agreed upon that included certain Russian demands, including an agreement Ukraine will not seek membership in NATO and will discuss ceding some territory to Russia.

“When President Trump brought … those issues to the meeting in Washington, it was very clear to everybody that there are several principles which Washington believes must be accepted, including no NATO membership, including the discussion of territorial issues, and Zelenskyy said no to everything,” said Lavrov.

Trump has positioned himself as an arbitrator, a peacemaker between two warring governments. And therein lies the problem. As Daniel McAdams pointed out several months ago in an interview with this writer, Washington can’t be an arbitrator in this conflict because it is a party to the conflict. “It’s like having a boxing match and the referee starts punching somebody,” quipped McAdams.

Indeed, I said the same thing just days after the war started. It has been clear from the beginning to anyone being honest with himself this war was never between Ukraine and Russia. It was a war between Washington and Russia, fought by Ukrainians on their land but funded and directed by Washington. It began in 2014 when Washington overthrew the democratically elected Ukrainian government and installed a Washington puppet, who immediately tried to take away Russia’s naval base at Sevastopol.

This came at a time when Washington “just happened” to be conducting a regime-change war in the country home to Russia’s only other reliably ice-free port on this side of the Eurasian continent, Syria. I wrote in 2016, when presidential candidate Hillary Clinton suggested putting a no fly zone over Syria, that Russia would never give up its bases in Syria and Ukraine.

Russia did eventually allow Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad to be deposed, for reasons that are still unclear, and abandoned its base in Syria. It may have been simply a matter of priorities. The base in Syria was much smaller than Sevastopol’s and not nearly so close to Russia’s border. In the great scheme of things, it was expendable.

Sevastopol was another story. Home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet for over 240 years, that base was not expendable. Washington’s 2014 attempt to take it away resulted in Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the beginning of an eight-year civil war in eastern Ukraine, which effectively ended with Russia’s 2022 invasion.

Rather than three years, the Ukraine War is now in its twelfth year, prosecuted by Washington under three presidents (Obama, Trump, Biden, and now Trump again) and not very successfully, depending upon how success is measured. If the object was merely to keep taxpayer funds flowing to U.S. defense contractors, it has been a wild success. But if the object was the three decades-long neoconservative obsession with keeping Russia from reemerging as a great power, it has achieved precisely the opposite.

In addition to annexing Crimea, Russia has now annexed territory in Ukraine which comprises most of the country’s energy reserves. Russia’s military has expanded significantly in size and capabilities since 2022. Even Washington’s attempt to cripple Russia economically has backfired.

Like every previous war, this one has produced worse results – even by imperial standards – than if it were never fought at all.

Trump, representing Washington, is now looking for a way out but he refuses to fully acknowledge reality. Yes, his suggestions that Ukraine must accept territorial concessions and non-membership in NATO partially does so, but he is still operating under the delusion that Washington is a mediator rather than a belligerent in the war.

It is a longstanding plank of international law that funding one side of a war between other nations nullifies the funding nation’s neutrality. Yet, Trump continues to both hold himself up as a peacemaker and commit to continue funding Ukraine in the same breath.

Along with this primary delusion, Trump also likely believes Washington’s highly distorted assessment of the losses on both sides. The truth is Russia has lost far fewer soldiers than the American public has been led to believe, and Ukraine has lost far more.

As the victor, Russia has zero incentive to make any deal that does not include all of its primary objectives. Nor is there any incentive to rush. Every week the war continues, Russia’s hand gets stronger, not weaker. It is Washington that needs to hurry, lest the terms Russia is willing to accept get even more one-sided.

Washington was able to spend twenty years in Afghanistan to replace the Taliban with the Taliban and still not explicitly acknowledge defeat. It can attempt to do the same with Ukraine, although it will be much more difficult to pull off given Russia’s acquisition of new territory. If a deal isn’t reached soon, it will be impossible.

This article was originally published on Tom Mullen Talks Freedom.
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International Man: JD Vance’s early political rise was fueled by over $13 million from Palantir co-founder and current chairman Peter Thiel—support that far outstripped grassroots contributions.

What do you think drove Thiel to pour big money into launching the political career of someone virtually unknown to the public?

Doug Casey: I’m innately suspicious of anyone and everyone involved in politics on any level. And frankly, I don’t really know anything about JD Vance other than what I learned in the movie about him, a spinoff of his book Hillbilly Elegy. Of course, it presents him in a very favorable light.

However a video by a chap named Nick Fuentes offers a different view. He digs deeper into who JD Vance may or may not be. I suggest everybody watch it now (link).

Is what Fuentes says about Vance true? I don’t know that any more than I know what’s true in JD’s book and movie. Like Vance himself, Fuentes has an axe to grind. It’s hard to believe almost anything you read or hear about any political character.

They’re capable of being shaped and reshaped into whatever form seems like a good idea at the time. Don’t forget that JD went from being a Never Trumper to a Mega MAGA almost overnight. Is he just a more intelligent, non-alcoholic, Republican version of Kamala? They both came out of nowhere, inexplicably. In today’s media-driven world it’s possible to create a character out of whole cloth.

The fact that he’s backed (maybe created or controlled are better words) by Peter Thiel might’ve inclined me favorably towards Vance, because Thiel is thought to have libertarian values. But does he? Thiel is a founder and the chairman of Palantir, which is arguably the most evil and invasive corporation in existence today (link). I’m amused that Theil, who’s obviously got a sense of humor, is giving a four-part lecture in San Francisco on “The AntiChrist” starting Sep 15. I’m interested because the projected fifth book in the series of novels I’m doing with John Hunt is called AntiChrist.

Vance has established some very good-looking credentials during his rise from nowhere—ex-US Marine, graduate from Yale, a lawyer, an author, a venture capitalist. It really looks good. Maybe it’s all real; he could just be a smart young man who lifted himself up by his bootstraps. And there’s no shame in Theil having taken a liking to him, acting as his patron. Forbes estimates that Vance is worth about $12 million. Not bad for a 39 year-old who came from nothing.

What do we really know about JD? He appears to be a cultural conservative. He’s the front runner to be the Republican presidential candidate after Trump. And he’s almost certainly Thiel’s stalking horse.

International Man: What’s your take on JD Vance’s dramatic 180° on Trump—from comparing him to Hitler and publicly calling him “reprehensible” to embracing him just as major donor money and an endorsement fell into place?

Do you see this as political evolution, opportunism, or something else?

Doug Casey: Most people in politics are made from silly putty. Is Vance the rare exception? It’s possible that he’s a sincere guy. But it’s more likely he’s just doing and saying what he must to climb the political ladder.

We all evolve in our philosophical views. For instance, when I was a kid I must have been a liberal, because kids don’t think critically or even rationally.

After I read Barry Goldwater’s book The Conscience of a Conservative in 1963, it offered some new thoughts, and I identified as a conservative. The next year I started reading HL Mencken, and identified as a skeptic. After I read Ayn Rand’s Virtue of Selfishness, the problems with conservatism became apparent, and I identified as a libertarian—although Rand disliked libertarians. Then, after I read The Market for Liberty, I recognized that the State itself was the real enemy. It made me realize that I’d always been an anarcho-capitalist, but hadn’t been concerned enough with politics to figure it out.

Of course people’s views can change and evolve over time. How they evolve depends on their essential character, with inputs from random experience. I’m just surprised that Vance conveniently found The Donald on his political road to Damascus. I suspect he’s an opportunist, with few real principles. For instance, it’s said he was an atheist who converted to Catholicism, under the influence of Thiel. But his wife is a Hindu, which doesn’t make it with the Church.

It’s impossible to know without having a real acquaintance with the man. But I can say for sure that he’s not a libertarian. My guess is that he’s just an opportunist.

International Man: What are some other things you like and dislike about Vance?

Doug Casey: Well, he grew up in the same part of the country portrayed by the series Justified, starring Timothy Olyphant. I like the show, and it gives some insight into the type of people that Vance might have grown up with—salt-of-the-earth, lower-middle-Americans with a genuine touch of hillbilly.

But I don’t really know who he is. Perhaps he’s a version of Steve Martin’s character in “The Jerk”, who believed he was a poor black sharecropper’s son. The image we’re presented is both propaganda and reality. But who knows which is which.

I only know that no one in politics should be trusted. Especially someone who’s risen quickly out of nowhere for no good reason.

International Man: Some say JD Vance is a product of Silicon Valley, GOP mega-donors, and political elites—crafted to channel white working-class discontent in a direction they control.

What’s your view?

Doug Casey: The problem is that Americans—including mega donors, the elites, urban blacks, the white working class, and new immigrants from the Third World—are all looking to politicians and politics for answers. This is foolish. They’re looking for the problem to give them the solution.

All of them want something from the US government. They want the State to direct favors and capital toward the things that they like. Things that the rest of the country must pay for.

That’s certainly true of Trump. Neither Trump nor the people around him have any philosophical center. They’re classical Mussolini-style fascists, who think merging the State with big corporations is a good idea. We have to assume JD is on board with that.

Trumpies are shocked when I label their man a fascist. But it’s accurate. Fascism is essentially an economic system, like communism, socialism, and capitalism.

Take Trump’s acquisition of 15% of MP Materials. Or his so-called Golden Share of US Steel. Or his trying to designate who can or can’t be the president of Intel, plus buying 10% of its shares. These actions are antithetical to the free-market. They more thoroughly involve the state in the economy—which is very bad news. They’re right out of Mussolini’s or Peron’s playbooks.

International Man: Do you see JD Vance becoming the face of the next generation of MAGA politics, or will another figure rise to carry Trump’s mantle?

Doug Casey: I’m not sure that either the Democrat or Republican parties will last another decade. At least not in their present forms. We’re looking at the Greater Depression. Plus WW3. Something like a civil war. The Singularity. And lots more.

Half the Democrat Party are active, rabid socialists, like AOC and the Squad, Bernie Sanders, and many, many others like them. They want to overturn America itself. The other half are just garden-variety welfare statists. I don’t think they can live in the same house together. The Democratic Party is going to break up. It’s gone insane. Half of it will disappear. It’s already happening.

Meanwhile half the Republicans are MAGAs who follow Trump in a cult-like way. That’s understandable, because they see that America is in dire trouble, and Donald is a rallying point. They know something must be done, even if the solution is radical and scary. The other half are traditional, Rotary-going Republicans; Trumpers scare them. And they can’t live in the same house either.

Ron Paul fans will be evicted; they don’t belong in the Republican Party anyway. I don’t know where they’ll go. But it won’t be to the worthless and embarrassing Libertarian Party, which has proven itself to be a total liability to the cause of freedom.

JD Vance, as a controlled opportunist, will likely be the face of whatever’s left of MAGA politics three years from now. But maybe we’ll get a right-wing general. People go for the military in chaotic times. You might want to be somewhere that you can watch it on your widescreen, as opposed to out your front window.

Reprinted with permission from International Man.

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Israel’s intent to annihilate Gaza would have been clear much sooner had we listened to Palestinian journalists, rather than the evasions and equivocations of the BBC

Israel’s justification for the mass slaughter of Gaza’s people and their starvation – now officially confirmed as a famine engineered by Israel – was built on a parade of easily discredited lies from the start: of beheaded infants, of babies in ovens, of mass rape.

It should surprise no one that Israel continued advancing similarly outrageous lies as it set about – as all genocidal regimes must do – dismantling the most basic infrastructure of survival for Gaza’s population.

It cut off humanitarian aid delivered by the United Nations agency Unrwa, and destroyed the enclave’s hospitals, while killing, jailing and torturing its medical personnel.

Israel claimed it had documents proving the UN was a front for Hamas – documents it never produced. Meanwhile, all 36 of Gaza’s hospitals have been attacked – attacks whose implicit rationale was that they were built atop Hamas “command and control centres”, though those centres have never been found.

Expanding this narrative, Israel rounded up and jailed the enclave’s leading doctors, who had been working round the clock to treat the endless tide of maimed men, women and children, as supposed “Hamas operatives” in disguise.

Also as any genocidal regime must do – especially one that wishes to uphold the pretence that it is a democracy with the world’s “most moral army” – Israel laboured tirelessly to cast a pall of darkness over its atrocities.

It blocked western journalists from accessing Gaza, and then picked off Palestinian journalists in the enclave one by one, until more than 200 had been assassinated, 11 in the past couple of weeks alone, including contributors to Middle East Eye and Al Jazeera. Others have been forced to flee to safety abroad.

The western press corps, which barely raised a peep about its exclusion for most of the past 22 months of genocide, collectively shrugged its shoulders as its colleagues in Gaza were slowly exterminated. Nothing to see here.

That was until this month, when Israel celebrated an air strike that killed six Palestinian journalists, including the entire five-person team covering Gaza City for Al Jazeera.

The strike’s timing was extremely fortuitous. Israel is calling up 60,000 troops for a last push into the remains of Gaza City, where around one million Palestinians – half of them children – are holed up, being starved to death.

Those civilians will either be killed or rounded up into a concentration camp Israel is calling a “humanitarian city”, close to the border with Egypt. There, they will await their ultimate expulsion – possibly to South Sudan, a failed state where Israel provided the arms that has fuelled civil war and violence.

Campaign of vilification

Israel justified its murder of Al Jazeera’s crew on the grounds that one among them, Anas al-Sharif, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, was secretly a “Hamas terrorist”.

The claim was no less preposterous than the excuses Israel has been using to rationalise its exclusion of aid workers, and its killing and jailing of hundreds of Gaza’s medical staff.

Gaza’s doctors – overwhelmed every day for nearly two years with numbers of dead and wounded more normally associated with major natural disasters, and in conditions where they are denied basic medicines and equipment – supposedly had enough time on their hands to spend it colluding with Hamas fighters. Or so Israel would have us believe.

Sharif, we are told, similarly found time between breaks from his 22-month, frantic reporting schedule – much of it on camera – to serve as a Hamas commander “directing rocket attacks on Israeli civilians”.

Presumably, he had superhuman powers that meant he could survive on no sleep for two years and, like a quantum particle, be in two different places at the same time.

We now know exactly where this ridiculous story originated: from something Israel calls its “Legitimisation Cell”. The intelligence unit’s name, which was surely never supposed to come to light, is the give-away. Its job has been to legitimise Israel’s atrocities with stories vilifying its victims and thereby making the genocide more palatable to Israeli and western audiences.

The Israeli news website +972 exposed the cell within days of Sharif’s killing this month, reporting that it was formed after 7 October 2023 – the day Hamas and other groups broke out of their Gaza prison camp, spreading carnage, following 17 years of a brutal siege.

The Legitimisation Cell’s central purpose has been to help Israel plant stories in the western media portraying Gaza’s hospitals as hotbeds of terrorism, and its journalists as “undercover Hamas operatives”.

Drawing on three Israeli intelligence sources, +972 reported that Israel’s motive in creating the Legtimisation Cell was not security-related, but driven purely by propaganda needs – or what is known in Israel as “hasbara”.

The cell was reportedly desperate to find a link – any link – between a handful of journalists in Gaza and Hamas, in order to sow doubt in the minds of western audiences to justify killing the enclave’s press corps and stop them exposing Israeli atrocities.

Precisely echoing the long-time warnings of Israel’s critics, these intelligence officials told +972 that the cell’s work was viewed as being “vital to allowing Israel to prolong the war”. The aim was to stop popular opposition in the West to the genocide growing to the point where it might force western capitals – Israel’s patrons – to pull the plug on Israel’s killing machine.

Another source added: “The idea was to [allow the Israeli military to] operate without pressure, so countries like America wouldn’t stop supplying weapons.”

According to these sources, Israeli officials were so keen to get their genocide-prolonging messaging out to western audiences that they “cut corners” – a polite way, it seems, to indicate that they simply fabricated evidence.

After Al Jazeera reporter Ismail al-Ghoul and his camera operator were killed in July 2024, Israel cited a 2021 document allegedly found on a “Hamas computer” to argue that he was a “military wing operative”, and that he had taken part in the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel.

Yet the supposed document states that Ghoul received his military rank in 2007, when he was 10 years old.

In Sharif’s case, he was accused in advance. In October 2024, Israel claimed that he and five other Al Jazeera journalists secretly belonged to the military wings of Hamas or Islamic Jihad. In March, one of them, Hossam Shabat, was assassinated.

It was not just Al Jazeera journalists on the ground in Gaza who were being maligned. Addicted to its extravagant lies, Israel claimed that the Doha-based channel itself was taking editorial directives from Hamas.

Months into Israel’s genocide, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had crafted an evidence-free narrative that Al Jazeera was a “terrorist channel” that “actively participated in the October 7 massacre”.

That provided the cover story for Israel to outlaw Al Jazeera last year, shuttering its operations in illegally occupied East Jerusalem and, since September, in the West Bank.

There was a direct parallel with Israel’s strategy against Unrwa, weaponising the grossest of lies to evict it from Gaza, and leaving the people there prey to Israeli soldiers and an Israeli and US-backed mercenary group, the misnamed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation(GHF).

The GHF’s game plan has been to terrorise the population away from so-called “aid hubs” with lethal gunfire. That has allowed Israel’s starvation campaign – for which Netanyahu is sought by the International Criminal Court – to continue, paradoxically, under cover of a supposed humanitarian initiative.

Since July, the Committee to Protect Journalists had been warning that Sharif’s life was in imminent danger and that he was being “targeted by an Israeli military smear campaign, which he believes is a precursor to his assassination”.

Israel’s true concerns were highlighted last month by army spokesperson Avichay Adraee, who accused Sharif’s reporting from Gaza City of blackening Israel’s image by promoting “Hamas’s false starvation campaign”.

Adraee argued that Sharif was a part of “Hamas’s military machine” for reporting on the same escalating famine that the UN, World Health Organisation and major human rights groups have been warning of for months – and which the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) announced last week was now at the highest level of famine.

In the same way that Israel has engineered Gaza’s famine by vilifying and excluding UN aid agencies, it is preventing proper coverage of the famine by vilifying and assassinating Palestinian journalists.

On Monday, Israel bombed Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, killing 21 people, including five journalists who worked with Middle East Eye and the Reuters and AP news agencies, among other outlets.

Tall tales of ties to Hamas serve a similar purpose in both cases. If western publics can be made to suspect that Palestinian journalists are reporting under Hamas’ direction, then coverage of Israeli atrocities can be dismissed as “fake news” – and the genocide prolonged yet further, even as images of emaciated children fill our screens.

Question of ‘proportion’

In executing Sharif, Israel claimed it had proof he was an “active Hamas terrorist” and “head of a cell in their rocket brigade”. But even the documents it released – none of which has been made available for independent verification – showed him being recruited in 2013 and leaving the group in 2017.

Even if these claims were accepted as true – which, given Israel’s long and consistent record of lying, would be foolhardy in the extreme – they suggest Sharif had not been involved with Hamas for eight years before he was targeted by Israel.

In other words, even according to the fanciful “evidence” supplied by Israel’s Legitimisation Cell, Sharif enjoyed civilian status when Israel murdered him and five other journalists next to him. The strike on the journalists’ tent was therefore a flagrant war crime.

But while Israeli mendacity is entirely to be expected – after all, it is the whole purpose of its official hasbara industry – what astonishes most is the western media’s continuing connivance in promoting Israel’s litany of lies.

Germany’s most popular paper, Bild, published a front page that might as well have been written by the Israeli military: “Terrorist disguised as a journalist killed in Gaza.” No claim, no quote marks. Just a statement of fact.

The UK media was little better, with most outlets prominently featuring Israel’s unevidenced “legitimisation” smears of Sharif in headlines and coverage.

Astonishingly, BBC reporting on its flagship News at Ten swallowed whole Israel’s framing of Sharif as a legitimate target – as well as uncritically peddling the presumption that Israel was targeting him and him alone.

It posed this obscene, highly slanted question: “There’s the question of proportionality. Is it justified to kill five journalists when you were only targeting one?”

The “proportionate” framing takes it as read that Israel had a right to respond with lethal force to an inciting cause – Sharif’s presumed terrorist links – and asks only whether that inciting cause justified the scale of Israel’s lethal response.

Israel could not have hoped for more. In line with the work of the Legitimisation Cell, it had shifted BBC News away from reporting an Israeli war crime against journalists, and redirected it into a debate about whether its act was measured or wise.

Read the Whole Article

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Israelis who say “the Arabs hate us because of our religion” are as self-evidently moronic as the Americans who said “they hate us for our freedom”. In both cases the answer is no, dipshit, they hate you because of the horrific things to do to them.

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Western leaders who say they’ll recognize a Palestinian state while feebly calling on Both Sides to reach a ceasefire deal are just cuter, more photogenic versions of Netanyahu. They’re making empty noises to appear as though they’re doing something while refusing to actually lift a finger to stop the genocide.

They know Israel’s not going to make a permanent ceasefire deal because Netanyahu has explicitly stated that the slaughter won’t end until the ethnic cleansing of Gaza is complete. That’s why Tel Aviv is just ignoring the fact that Hamas agreed to a ceasefire a week and a half ago; there is absolutely nothing Hamas could agree to which would stop Israel from doing everything it needs to do to steal a Palestinian territory from the Palestinians who live there. The assault on Gaza has never been about removing Hamas; it has always been about removing the Palestinians.

Western leaders are pretending not to know this and promoting the false notion that Israel is basically acting in good faith in these negotiations, and that the only obstacle is Israel and Hamas being unable to successfully agree to terms. Participating in this mass deception while refusing to take any concrete actions to end the genocide is participating in the genocide. They’re not dropping the bombs or firing the bullets, but they’re helping to make sure they keep raining death and destruction on Palestinians.

They are Netanyahu with a nice guy smile. They are good cop Netanyahu.

Of course Netanyahu considers the ceasefire irrelevant; he has explicitly stated that the slaughter will not stop until the goal of ethnic cleansing is completed. There is nothing Hamas could do to change this. They could unconditionally surrender and this would remain the goal. https://t.co/nfuy0VwoTq pic.twitter.com/78StcZA6Vp

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) August 27, 2025

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After the Australian government announced its ASIO-sourced conclusion that Iran had directed multiple antisemitic attacks in Australia in order to “undermine social cohesion and sow discord,” I published a list of questions regarding the matter which included the following:

“7. What foreign intelligence agencies were involved in helping ASIO gather the information it used to make its assessment about the Iranian involvement in these incidents?”

Shortly thereafter, Sky News Australia ran a report titled “Sources reveal Israeli intelligence assisted ASIO investigation into Iran in major tip-off”.

So I guess we can consider that question answered.

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One of the reasons socialists don’t focus on conspiracy analysis and the deep state as much as the right is because it’s not our only argument. It’s not that conspiracies and parapolitical power structures don’t exist, they absolutely do, but because we’re not ideologically compelled to make excuses for the unavoidable abuses of capitalism we don’t need to act like any specific cabal of machiavellian elites is the source and summit of all our problems.

The rightist suffers from the delusion that capitalism would be working perfectly fine if a few nefarious individuals weren’t scheming behind the scenes ruining the capitalism for everyone. The leftist recognizes that corruption, corporatism, inequality and domination are the inevitable products of a profit-driven system under which the capitalist class are able to exploit the working class who have nothing to sell but their labor. We therefore often find it less important to focus on the specifics of the way those abuses are playing out, because we understand that even if you eliminated all the current oligarchs and their secret plans and the strings they pull to manipulate the official government, if you didn’t also replace our entire system with something radically different they’d be replaced by new oligarchic manipulators in short order.

For those who understand the inherently exploitative, ecocidal, unjust and violent nature of capitalism, the strongest arguments against status quo power structures are not invisible conspiracies happening in secret, but the monstrous abuses that are happening right out in the open. The genocide in Gaza. Our dying biosphere. The fact that people struggle to keep a roof over their heads and put food on the table while others fly private jets to private islands paid for by the exploitation of thousands of impoverished workers. The fact that the most powerful country on earth doesn’t have a real healthcare system. The fact that an empire-like alliance of western governments and their proxies keeps expanding its warmongering, militarism and nuclear brinkmanship around the world with the goal of complete planetary domination.

It is an indisputable fact that rich and powerful individuals conspire with each other to the detriment of ordinary people, and at times it can be useful to highlight who those individuals are and the things that they are doing. But the leftist sees people opening their eyes to these abuses as a means to an end, not as an end in itself. When the rightist spotlights those abuses it’s to say “Look what these individuals are doing! If we just removed these individuals from power everything would be working fine!” When the leftist does so, it’s to say “See these are the kinds of people who rise to the top under a system where human behavior is driven by the pursuit of profit, and profit is most readily obtained through exploitation, injustice and ecocide. These kinds of people will always rule over us until we have replaced that system with a different one.”

________________

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President Donald Trump thinks leftist megadonor George Soros and one of his sons should be charged as criminals.

The president published a post on Truth Social Wednesday morning calling Soros out by name and vowing to stop “lunatics” from destroying the country. He said:

George Soros, and his wonderful Radical Left son, should be charged with RICO because of their support of Violent Protests, and much more, all throughout the United States of America. We’re not going to allow these lunatics to rip apart America any more, never giving it so much as a chance to “BREATHE,” and be FREE. Soros, and his group of psychopaths, have caused great damage to our Country! That includes his Crazy, West Coast friends. Be careful, we’re watching you! Thank you for your attention to this matter!

A spokesperson for Soros’ Open Society Foundations (OSF) decried Trump’s accusations. “These accusations are outrageous and false. The Open Society Foundations do not support or fund Violent Protests. Our mission is to advance human rights, justice, and democratic principles at home and around the world,” the spokesperson said. OSF posted a similar message on its social media page Tuesday afternoon.

Soros has used his nonprofit as a vehicle for pushing into American society a plethora of changes and causes deemed destructive by any rational and objective use of the word. As outraged as the OSF spokesperson may be, there is ample evidence suggesting Trump is not wrong in saying that Soros has funded violence. His fingerprints have been found on a number of protests-turned-riots around the country over the years, as well as the push for prosecutors and policies that have led to more crime. His indirect investment in crime is quite diverse.

Campus Protests

Soros money helped fuel the anti-Israel campus protests that peaked in 2024. As the New York Post reported, the Soros-funded Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) helped pay for identical tent cities and agitators that descended on the campuses of Harvard, Yale, Berkeley, Ohio State, and Emory. It continued:

At three colleges, the protests are being encouraged by paid radicals who are ‘fellows’ of a Soros-funded group called the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR). USCPR provides up to $7,800 for its community-based fellows and between $2,880 and $3,660 for its campus-based ‘fellows’ in return for spending eight hours a week organizing campaigns led by Palestinian organizations.

The protests became very disruptive, with many devolving into violence. Students were blocked from going to class, and, in more than 100 incidents, violence erupted. Mainstream fact-checkers tried to downplay the Soros link to the campus agitators. However, the best they could do is admit that he tried to obscure his contributions through a network of nonprofits. Politifact put it this way: “The connections between Soros’ money and specific campus protesters had several degrees of separation.” Soros was not the only one supporting these protests and disruptions.

BLM/Defund the Police

Soros also backed elements of the “mostly peaceful” Black Lives Matter (BLM) riots of 2020. More than 600 riots erupted across the country that year, causing at least $1 billion in damages and killing at least 25 people. OSF poured $220 million into “racial justice” causes in the summer of 2020. The organization admitted that some of the groups that received that money were Black Voters Matter, Circle for Justice Innovations, Repairers of the Breach, and the Equal Justice Initiative. All of those groups were involved in the 2020 protests.

By fueling these groups, Soros also supported the Defund the Police movement. That is perhaps one of the most absurd policies to ever have been widely implemented. Defund the Police achieved exactly what sensible people warned it would. It led to a steep rise in crime in every city whose leaders implemented the policy. Some of those cities included Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York City, and Portland. Minneapolis saw a 46-percent increase in homicides and a 22-percent rise in total crime afterward, according to reports. In Portland, murders more than tripled. Shootings in New York City spiked by 40 percent, and Los Angeles saw a 28-percent increase in murders.

Soft on Crime

Soros also poured piles of cash to get soft-on-crime prosecutors elected. He is said to have funneled between $40 million and $50 million into the campaigns of radical left prosecutors who made their districts more dangerous. Chesa Boudin was one of them. The former San Francisco prosecutor eliminated cash bail and implemented reduced sentences. This triggered such a steep spike in crime that he was recalled by one of the most leftists constituencies in the country.

And Soros backed Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, who oversaw a 22-percent increase in crime in 2021. Murders rose by 12 percent in New York. Bragg, it just so happens, also prosecuted Donald Trump in one of many lawfare cases designed to derail his path back to the White House. Other Soros-backed DAs include Los Angeles’ George Gascón, Cook County’s (Chicago) Kim Foxx, and St. Louis’ Kim Gardner. Every region entrusted to these people experienced an increase in crime under their watch.

There are more examples of Soros’ indirect support for chaos, including his involvement in the Ferguson riots, which were a warmup for the 2020 BLM riots. The evidence suggests Soros’ contributions to society have made America more dangerous for the people who make it run, for people who simply want to raise a family and work. Perhaps Elon Musk’s assessment — he said Soros “fundamentally hates humanity” — is accurate.

Family Business

In his social media post, Trump also attacked Soros’ “Radical Left son.” Soros has five children, and at least three of them have ties to their father’s “philanthropy.” But the one Trump is likely referring to in this post is Alex Soros, deputy chair of Open Society Foundations and the heir to his father’s empire of chaos. In 2023, George Soros handed control of his enterprise to Alex. George has said that he and Alex “think alike.” Alex has made clear that he plans to use his family’s fortune to continue the work his father started. He said in an exclusive interview with The Wall Street Journal that he’s “more political”; that can’t be good.

The idea that Soros’ toxic influence is here to stay may bolster Trump’s ire at this dynasty of destruction — so he’s floating allegations of criminal behavior. RICO refers to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a law Congress passed in 1970 to fight organized crime. It targets those involved in a racketeering activity, defined as committing at least two crimes covered under the law. Those crimes include arson, bribery, counterfeiting, distribution of a controlled substance, embezzlement, extortion, gambling, homicide, kidnapping, mail fraud, money laundering, robbery, wire fraud, and witness tampering.

Soros is already a convicted felon, as he was found guilty of insider trading by a French court in 2002. But RICO may be hard to pin on him. His activity, as pernicious as it is, does not appear to meet the standard of any of the mentioned crimes.

Trump Not Alone

But that hasn’t stopped some notable figures from agreeing with Trump’s call for criminal prosecution. Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) posted on social media, “There is no doubt that George Soros has funded violent insurrection and riots in America. Charge him.”

There is no doubt that George Soros has funded violent insurrection and riots in America. Charge him. pic.twitter.com/koBlEB1oOn

— Rep. Andy Ogles (@RepOgles) August 27, 2025

And Musk, who has also referred to Soros as a “psychopath,” also agrees with Trump. He posted, “High time action was taken against Soros directly.”

Some legislators have suggested that Soros be looked at closely for his role in the Russia Collusion hoax. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) recently declassified documents with more evidence that the FBI covered up a Hillary Clinton campaign plot to fabricate election-meddling connections between Trump and Russia. The Durham annex includes information on how people at George Soros’ Open Society Foundations were involved in crafting the fabricated narrative that Trump colluded with Russia.

Media figure Benny Johnson asked Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.): “Would you be in favor of an investigation into George Soros, the Open Society Foundation, what they knew in the hacking of our election in 2016?” Burchett’s reply:

100 percent. Let’s not write them a tough letter. Let’s put their a*s on the spot and pull them in. Let’s subpoena them and get them in here. Right now. I’m sick of this stuff in Washington. We drag our feet, we talk tough, and then we continuously let our country down. … Our leadership needs to come forth with that type of message to the American public and let them know this activity is not going to be accepted. They attempted to overthrow our country.

This article was originally published on The New American.

The post Trump Says Soros Should Be Criminally Charged appeared first on LewRockwell.

The perpetrator of Wednesday morning’s shooting at Annunciation Catholic School in Minnesota appears to be a gender-confused individual with extreme ideological grievances, according to public records and a video published online.

At least 20 were hit by bullets fired into the church before authorities reported the situation “contained,” including two preteen children who have died so far.

The New York Post reports that the perpetrator has been identified as early-twentysomething Robin Westman, who killed himself on the scene. CBS News reports that Westman’s mother was a “former employee” of the school who retired several years prior. Annunciation announced the retirement of a Mary Grace Westman in 2021.

The Post notes that authorities are investigating whether Westman was behind YouTube videos published hours before the attack, in which the perpetrator displays an “obsession with mass shooters – including Sandy Hook killer Adam Lanza,” flips through a notebook filled with text in both English and Russian (and what appears to be a diagram of a church), and displays numerous weapons and ammunition magazines with various messages scrawled on them, including “The Big One,” “F**k Everything That You Stand For,” “For the Children,” “Where Is Your God,” and “Kill Donald Trump.”

Journalist Ryan Saavedra highlights more messages covering weapons in the video, including “Humanity Is Overrated,” “Kill Trump Now,” “Israel Must Fall,” “6 Million Wasn’t Enough” (apparently referring to the Nazi Holocaust), and “McVeigh,” (Timothy, the 1995 Oklahoma City bomber).

The notebook also featured a “Defend Equality” sticker, with a picture of a rifle in front of an LGBT “pride” flag. Washington Free Beacon editor Peter Hasson reports that records show Westman legally changed his name from “Robert” to “Robin” in 2020, while still a minor, for the stated reason that he “identifies as a female and wants her [sic] name to reflect that identification.”

“Our hearts are broken for the families who have lost their children, for these young lives who are fighting to recover, and for our entire community,” Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said. “This was a deliberate act of violence against innocent children and other people worshipping. The sheer cruelty and cowardice of firing into a church full of children is absolutely incomprehensible.”

“May the Sacred Heart of Jesus, pierced for our salvation, pour out His mercy upon the dead, His healing upon the injured, and His consolation upon every family and loved one afflicted by this tragedy,” responded Cardinal Raymond Burke. “Let us, with renewed faith, pray for the conversion of hearts, that such acts of hatred may be transformed into occasions of grace, and that our nation may rediscover the path of peace found only in obedience to the law of God written upon every human heart, the law whose first precept is the safeguarding and care of human life.”

Though downplayed by the mainstream media, transgender violence is nothing new. This summer, 18-year-old “Felix” Winter, a girl identifying as male, was sentenced to six years in prison after admitting to two charges related to planning a school shooting in the U.K. In 2023, gender-confused female Audrey “Aidan” Hale murdered six people at a Presbyterian private school in Tennessee.

This article was originally published on Lifesite News.

The post Minnesota Catholic School Shooter Identified as ‘Transgender’ Man, Wrote ‘Kill Trump’ on Ammo appeared first on LewRockwell.

Understanding What’s Happening

It is clear that knowing what happens during a recession, whether it is in a country or in the world at large, can be crucial information to have at your disposal. Yet, even before we can counter the effects of recession in our businesses, it imperative that we have a working definition of what a recession is and how it functions. Keep reading, and I’ll explain to you the basics of recession and tell you what it is – and what it’s not.

Difference between Recession And Depression

First, let’s define recession. It is used to refer to a period of time characterized by economic contraction that is limited in time frame or scope. This is in contrast to the classic economic recession which includes a dramatic decrease in a country’s real GDP. It has been defined as a decline of more than 10% over three or four years. With this clearer distinction, we can now take a closer look at what happens during a recession.

Characteristics Of A Recession Period

The first sign of trouble comes in the form of stock market crashes. The role of many economists is to be on the lookout for the sort of trends that could foretell the coming of another recessionary period. One of the biggest indicators is the most bear markets come just before recessions. This is due to the stock markets being influenced by the economic slowdowns that occur in the months or weeks prior to the actual contraction of the economy. By the same token, the markets can also indicate the end of the recession too.

1. Rate cuts– There is also a link between interest rates and market behavior. Often, the rates will drop during a recession. These cuts are made in order to encourage consumer spending by making it cheaper and easier to borrow money. At the same time, the State or other financial institutions may impose stricter regulations on the use of financial instruments so access to these instruments or systems is limited.

2. Job losses– This results from the loss of customer demand for products and services in the manufacturing sectors. In some cases, the demand bottoms out and the industry is forced to contract in the form of factory closing and further measures the retain liquidity. One of the first moves made by businesses is to cut jobs if the required turnover has not been reached after a a few months. If the company does go bankrupt, more job losses could result following the liquidation of the company’s assets.

3. Government intervention– At some point in the process, the government will intervene in by establishing policies and introducing incentive measures like tax cuts and rebates. Like interest rate cuts, these are part of a strategy to increase or stimulate consumer spending.

Getting Through A Recession

Even if you do know what happens during a recession, it is still vitally important to remain calm. This can mean the difference between success and failure if you have a business. Panicking doesn’t help at all since you end up losing the ability think clearly. You may end up making hasty decisions that could have detrimental effects on finances.

This article was originally published on Preppgroup.

The post 3 Signs the Economy Getting Worse appeared first on LewRockwell.

As Israel ticks off its list of Nazi-like atrocities against the Palestinians, including mass starvation, it prepares for yet another – the demolition of Gaza City, one of the oldest cities on Earth. Heavy engineering equipment and gigantic armored bulldozers are tearing down hundreds of heavily damaged buildings. Cement trucks are churning out concrete to fill tunnels. Israeli tanks and fighter jets pummel neighborhoods to drive Palestinians who remain in the ruins of the city to the south.

It will take months to turn Gaza City into a parking lot. I have no doubt Israel will replicate the efficiency of the Nazi SS Gen. Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, who oversaw the obliteration of Warsaw. He spent his final years in a prison cell. May history, at least in terms of this footnote, repeat itself.

As Israeli tanks advance, Palestinians are fleeing, with neighborhoods such as Sabra and Tuffah, cleansed of its inhabitants. There is little clean water and Israel plans to cut it off in northern Gaza. Food supplies are scarce or wildly overpriced. A bag of flour costs $22.00 a kilo, or your life. A report published Friday by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classifications (IPC) , the world’s leading authority on food insecurity, for the first time has confirmed a famine in Gaza City. It says more than 500,000 people in Gaza are facing “starvation, destitution and death”, with “catastrophic conditions” projected to expand to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis next month. Nearly 300 people, including 112 children, have died from starvation.

European leaders, along with Joe Biden and Donald Trump, remind us of the real lesson of the Holocaust. It is not Never Again, but, We Do not Care. They are full partners in the genocide. Some wring their hands and say they are “appalled” or “saddened.” Some decry Israel’s orchestrated starvation. A few say they will declare a Palestinian state.

This is Kabuki theater — a way, when the genocide is over, for these Western leaders to insist they stood on the right side of history, even as they armed and funded the genocidal killers, while harassing, silencing or criminalizing those who decried the slaughter.

Israel speaks of occupying Gaza City. But this is a subterfuge. Gaza is not to be occupied. It is to be destroyed. Erased. Wiped off the face of the earth. There is to be nothing left but tons of debris that will be laboriously carted away. The moonscape, devoid of Palestinians of course, will provide the foundation for new Jewish colonies.

“Gaza will be entirely destroyed, civilians will be sent to…the south to a humanitarian zone without Hamas or terrorism, and from there they will start to leave in great numbers to third countries,” Israel’s Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich announced at a conference on increased Jewish settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

All that was familiar to me when I lived in Gaza no longer exists. My office in the center of Gaza City. The Marna boarding house on Ahmed Abd el Aziz Street, where after a day’s work I would drink tea with the elderly woman who owned it, a refugee from Safad in northern Galilee. The coffee shops I frequented. The small cafes on the beach. Friends and colleagues, with few exceptions, are in exile, dead or, in most cases, have vanished, no doubt buried under mountains of debris. On my last visit to Marna House, I forgot to return the room key. Number 12. It was attached to a large plastic oval with the words “Marna House Gaza” on it. The key sits on my desk.

The imposing Qasr al-Basha fortress in Gaza’s Old City — built by Mamluk Sultan Baibars in the 13th century and known for its relief sculpture of two lions facing each other — is gone. So too is the Barquq Castle, or Qalʿat Barqūqa, a Mamluk-era fortified mosque constructed in 1387-1388, according to an inscription above the entrance gateway. Its ornate Arabic calligraphy by the main gate once read:

“In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, Most Merciful. The mosques of God shall establish regular prayers, and practice regular charity, and fear none except God.”

The Great Omari Mosque in Gaza City, the ancient Roman cemetery and the Commonwealth War Cemetery — where more than 3,000 British and commonwealth soldiers from World War I and World War II are buried — have been bombed, and destroyed, along with universities, archives, hospitals, mosques, churches, homes and apartment blocks. Anthedon Harbor, which dates to 1100 B.C. and once provided anchorage for Babylonian, Persian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman ships, lies in ruins.

I used to leave my shoes on a rack by the front door of the Great Omari Mosque, the largest and oldest mosque in Gaza, in the Daraj Quarter of the Old City. I washed my hands, face and feet at the common water taps, carrying out the ritual purification before prayer, known as wudhu. Inside the hushed interior with its blue-carpeted floor, the cacophony, noise, dust, fumes and frenetic pace of Gaza melted away.

The razing of Gaza is not only a crime against the Palestinian people. It is a crime against our cultural and historical heritage — an assault on memory. We cannot understand the present, especially when reporting on Palestinians and Israelis, if we do not understand the past.

History is a mortal threat to Israel. It exposes the violent imposition of a European colony in the Arab world. It reveals the ruthless campaign to de-Arabize an Arab country. It underscores the inherent racism towards Arabs, their culture and their traditions. It challenges the myth that, as former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak said, Zionists created, “a villa in the middle of a jungle.” It mocks the lie that Palestine is exclusively a Jewish homeland. It recalls centuries of Palestinian presence. And it highlights the alien culture of Zionism, implanted on stolen land.

When I covered the genocide in Bosnia, the Serbs blew up mosques, carted away the remains and forbade anyone to speak of the structures they had razed. The goal in Gaza is the same, to wipe out the past and replace it with myth, to mask Israeli crimes, including genocide.

The campaign of erasure banishes intellectual inquiry and stymies the dispassionate examination of history. It celebrates magical thinking. It allows Israelis to pretend the inherent violence that lies at the heart of the Zionist project, going back to the dispossession of Palestinian land in the 1920s and the larger campaigns of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948 and 1967, does not exist.

The Israeli government bans public commemorations of the Nakba, or catastrophe, a day of mourning for Palestinians who seek to remember the massacres and expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians carried out by Jewish terrorist militias in 1948 for this reason. Palestinians are even prevented from carrying their flag.

This denial of historical truth and historical identity permits Israelis to wallow in eternal victimhood. It sustains a morally blind nostalgia for an invented past. If Israelis confront these lies it threatens an existential crisis. It forces them to rethink who they are. Most prefer the comfort of illusion. The desire to believe is more powerful than the desire to see.

Erasure calcifies a society. It shuts down investigations by academics, journalists, historians, artists and intellectuals who seek to explore and examine the past and the present. Calcified societies wage a constant war against truth. Lies and dissimulation must be constantly renewed. Truth is dangerous. Once it is established it is indestructible.

As long as truth is hidden, as long as those who seek truth are silenced, it is impossible for a society to regenerate and reform itself. The Trump administration is in lock step with Israel. It too seeks to prioritize myth over reality. It too silences those who challenge the lies of the past and the lies of the present.

Calcified societies cannot communicate with anyone outside their incestious circles. They deny verifiable fact, the foundation on which rational dialogue takes place. This understanding lay at the heart of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Those who carried out the atrocities of the apartheid regime confessed their crimes in exchange for immunity. By doing so they gave the victims and the victimizers a common language, one rooted in historical truth. Only then was healing possible.

Israel is not only destroying Gaza. It is destroying itself.

This article was originally published on ScheerPost.

The post Israel’s Assassination of Memory appeared first on LewRockwell.

On the latest episode of The Peter Schiff Show, Peter examines the latest turn in Fed policy and the political forces steering it. He argues that the Federal Reserve has reversed course under pressure, that credit expansion still drives price rises, and that foreign central banks are accelerating a move into gold. He also warns that growing government intervention in industry risks turning markets into state-directed economies.

He points out that last week in Jackson Hole, Powell himself admitted the economy is weaker now, with growth roughly half of what it was a year earlier:

Powell said that there can be no doubt that the economy today is weaker than it was a year ago. GDP growth. In fact, he mentioned it was about half. According, I think, to his assessment, he talked about how it was running at a little over 2% a year ago, and now it’s slowed down to 1% or just over 1%. So in other words, the economy is growing at half the pace that it was growing at under Biden.

Peter says the Fed’s rationale for backing off is revealing — they claim to have overshot their targets, but the overshoot is massive when you look at inflation instead of the short-term numbers:

Now, the reason that Powell gave for giving it up is he basically said, look, we tried it. We tried to overshoot a little bit, and it didn’t really work out for us. Meaning, yeah, we tried to overshoot by a little bit, and we did it by a mile, right? They went for 2.1, 2.2, and they got 9.1, right? So, yeah, they tried to overshoot a little bit, and they overshot by a mile.

He reminds listeners that money isn’t the only thing that bids up prices — credit does, too — and that expanding credit without restraint is another form of inflationary policy:

Credit is very important because you don’t need money to buy stuff. You can buy stuff with credit. And so if you can bid up prices with credit without having any money, and we’ve raised that to an art form in America, well, expanding credit is inflation. You’ve got more credit available to buy goods. And even though the Fed was hiking, the hikes were never substantial enough to restrict the credit growth.

Peter warns that foreign central banks are already responding to this shift by diversifying away from dollars and Treasuries and buying gold, a trend he expects to accelerate as the Fed prioritizes political considerations over price stability:

The rotation that we’ve had with foreign central banks out of dollars and out of Treasuries into gold is going to accelerate as a result of this shift in Fed policy. Central banks are going to be more interested and more aggressive in their movement out of U.S. dollars because the Fed has basically said we are going to sacrifice the inflation side of the mandate because of the political pressure put on us by the Trump administration, which is still early days. We’ve still got three and a half years left of Trump and wait till Trump gets complete control of the Fed. Wait till Powell is gone and some flunky has taken his place. And they get some more FOMC members. He’s going to completely have control of the Fed.

Finally, Peter connects the dots between an inflationary currency regime and the growth of government power, warning that state involvement in private firms—whether by purchase or coercion—slides markets toward nationalization and away from capitalism:

And of course, this is the slippery slope to communism, because if you allow the government to buy into companies, and in this case, they didn’t even buy their way in, they extorted their way in. But you know, the government, if they control the printing presses, they can just print out money and buy everything. They can basically nationalize the means of production by buying everything with the money they print. They can effectively nationalize the whole economy and become a communist country. This is not capitalism when the government buys into companies or shakes them down and demands a piece of their action.

This article was originally published on SchiffGold.com.

The post Powell Caved — Inflation Wins appeared first on LewRockwell.