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I was on R.B. Ham’s “Beyond the Pale” podcast recently, when I said that it looked like Donald Trump was giving us another of his ingenious head fakes, and was pulling back from Iran. Literally at that moment, R.B. put the breaking news up on the screen. It brought back memories of Syria, when Israel ordered Trump to attack them.

That’s why I don’t make predictions. There I was, left looking like Nellie Connally, after she told JFK, “Well, Mr. President, you can’t say Dallas doesn’t love you,” seconds before shots were fired by someone other than Lee Harvey Oswald. I don’t know if this means we will become truly involved, but I hope Trump will replay his actions on Syria, when it was a one and done thing. Well, one and done two times. That’s the thing about Trumpenstein; he plays the part of an effective bully, but when Israel talks, he listens. Supposedly, the bombs eviscerated four well known nuclear sites in Iran. Except that many of us, including our own intelligence agencies just a few months ago, don’t believe there are any nuclear sites in Iran. For all we know, our big, beautiful bombs killed a bunch of civilians. It’s not like we haven’t slaughtered civilians countless times, dating back to 1846, in the Mexican-American War.

As Marjorie Taylor Greene pointed out, no one voted for Trump so that he could attack Iran. No MAGA voter wanted to make Iran obsolete. Tulsi Gabbard embarrassed herself by backtracking her earlier, accurate comments on Iran’s nuclear capability. Maybe RFK, Jr. can give her Rabbi Shmuley’s phone number. We knew Trump would do whatever Israel said- the guy has streets named after him there. But at the heart of MAGA is an America First philosophy. No more “senseless wars,” as Trump has called them. Becoming entangled in Iran, or anywhere else, completely discredits the blustery leader of that movement. Trump is in his fifth year as president. Where’s that infrastructure upgrade? And what is DOGE auditing now? When will Kash Patel make his first arrest? Karoline Leavitt is lovely, and Pam Bondi looks great for her age. That may enough for Trumpenstein, but not for his voters.

Well, I suppose we have to show off all that artillery sometimes. When you have a trillion dollar defense budget, people expect you to drop a few bombs here and there. Collateral damage- lots of collateral damage- is baked into the equation. We mastered the art of destroy and rebuild during WWII, the “good” war that so many Americans wax nostalgic about. That’s why they’re so anxious for WWIII- look at how cool the last World War was! Maybe that will cause an uptick in the marriage rates. Soft soy boys marrying their tough, tattooed gender fluids right before they’re shipped off to battle. Bruce Springsteen seems really sold on the Deep State now, so maybe he can play the part of Glenn Miller, and write the soundtrack to the new world conflict. Lots of elderly rock stars would sign on as well. Our view of “patriotism” was born with the first two world wars. Uncle Sam says loose lips sink ships!

WWII was the last war that was declared by Congress. They haven’t followed their constitutional obligation since then, despite all the nonstop forever interventions and occupations in far flung, much smaller lands. Jeannette Rankin was the only member of Congress to vote against declaring war against Japan. She had to have a police escort out of the Capitol, for her own protection. ‘Murricans don’t take kindly to those who don’t vote for war. Rankin was a real Lefty, an early feminist. But they stopped inviting her to all the best cocktail parties after she held fast to her principles. You have to love a woman who said “you can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake; it’s a stupid way of resolving things.” And we wonder why they picked Harriett Tubman instead of Jeannette to be on our counterfeit, fiat currency. Jeannette is more forgotten now than the great antiwar activist General Smedley Butler.

So what lifelong “journalist” for the state Tom Brokaw called the “greatest generation” did their thing. Raped enough women in Japan and Germany that they had to build special brothels to accommodate their illegal migrant-like “sexual emergencies.” Dropped enough firepower on Dresden- one of the world’s most beautiful cities, full of ancient churches, priceless artwork, but of no military significance- to kill 39,000 toddlers alone. If it hadn’t been done by the “good guys,” you might even call it a war crime. After the war, there was Operation Keelhaul, over seen by Allied commander Dwight D. Eisenhower. Lots of innocent Germans died, but Ike had to start his political career somehow. You can read more about under reported Allied atrocities, in my books Crimes and Cover-Ups in American Politics: 1776-1963, and American Memory Hole: How the Court Historians Promote Disinformation. And then we spent a bunch more money on the Marshall Plan, to repair the damage.

We’ve done that a lot ever since then, in all those undeclared wars we’ve fought. For absolutely no logical reason, of course. It’s a “national security” thing, you wouldn’t understand. So, to be fair, bombing Iran for no reason is not any more ridiculous than fighting “contained” wars in Korea and Vietnam, with “demarcation” zones, and no goals or strategy. The Right used to call them “no win” wars. With the first Gulf War, we established a continuing presence in the Middle East. Sure, burying surrendering soldiers alive by plowing them over in their trenches seems harsh, but “war is hell,” as the satanic would-be serial killer William T. Sherman once said. If we have to bury you alive to make you stop “hating our freedom,” we’ll do it! And then, of course, there were the ugly videos from then Bradley Manning, published by Wikileaks. Bombing civilians for sport, playing soccer with decapitated heads. Support the Troops!

Iran represents no less a threat to us than Iraq or Afghanistan did. Or Syria. Or poor Yemen. An entire wedding party in Yemen was murdered during the administration of the beloved Barack Obama. That probably sealed the Nobel Peace Prize for him. Assassinating American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki with a drone strike, and then following that up with the drone killing of his sixteen year old son, was just icing on the cake. So if our troops do become involved, and start shoving things up the asses of male Iranian prisoners, as they did so prolifically during our struggles with Iraq, it’s in keeping with our military strategy. Seymour Hersh claims there are videos of U.S. troops raping Iraqi boys, in front of their screaming mothers. Now that tape would probably awaken at least some of the sheeple. But it remains as missing as the Epstein files. Trump has some tough acts to follow. Will he prove up to the task?

I have to try and find humor in this. How can I write seriously about the situation? Iran hasn’t invaded anyone in 300 years. Or maybe it’s 3000. At any rate, it’s been a very long time. They don’t represent the slightest threat to the United States. If those “sleeper cells” really existed, they would have taken down our laughably outdated power grids after some 1.5 million Iraqis- including an estimated 565,000 children- died as a result of our embargo. You’d think that any self-respecting “terrorist” would be compelled to act in such a case. But not a single “suicide bomber” has done anything in order to seek vengeance. America has shown that it can fight any tiny country in the Middle East to a stalemate. Well, except for Israel. That’s who we’re fighting for, after all. And when we back a country by proxy, like Ukraine, we’ll work on their infrastructure for them. And help secure their border. We just won’t upgrade our own infrastructure, or secure our own southern border.

So, here we are, with a world class Military Industrial Complex. Lots of shiny planes, tanks, and bombs. But we meet every definition of a Third World country here at home. Infrastructure neglected for more than sixty years? Check. Massive and widening disparity of wealth? Check. Homeless people camped out in tents and shitting in the streets? Check. Massive corruption at all levels- from school boards to federal “representatives?” Check. Untrustworthy electoral process? Check. State controlled mass media? Check. Public officials never held accountable for their actions? Check. Fraud and money laundering revealed, but ignored? Check. Fractional reserve banking system that creates money out of thin air, and charges imaginary interest on it? Check. Court historians, who lie about our history? Check. Public education system that has produced untold numbers of illiterates? Check.

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In recent years I have often wondered if the constant drama—often deliberately produced and amplified by corrupt and inept governments—is a means of distracting our attention from the fact that those who work in the financial industry have become astronomically wealthy since the Financial Crisis of 2009, while the middle and working classes have struggled to keep up with the rising cost of living.

Especially suspicious in this regard have been the endless ravings about Racism and Russia that have been broadcast for the last several years.

Talking about Racists and Russians behind every bush was an easy way to distract attention from the fact that the Obama administration didn’t prosecute a single major Wall Street executive for fraud, even as solid evidence of vast Wall Street fraud emerged during the first years of his administration.

The same guys who were chiefly responsible for the financial crisis were then bailed out by the Federal Reserve’s “Quantitative Easing” program. This backdoor bailout was so brazen that the man who was tasked with running the program—Andrew Huszar—ultimately felt compelled to write a mea culpa about it in the Wall Street Journal (see “Confessions of a Quantitative Easer,” Andrew Huszar, WSJ, Nov. 11, 2013.)

At this exact same time, we were relentlessly flogged with “America is Racist” propaganda, conditioning us not to notice that we—the people who work in the real, main street economy—had just been looted. Instead of thinking about institutional banditry, we were trained to loath ourselves for our “institutional racism.”

Few Americans are aware that, in October 2008, a Citibank executive named Michael Froman presented a list of candidates for Obama’s first cabinet—including individuals who were subsequently instrumental in bailing out Citibank—to campaign manager John Podesta.

As David Dayen at the New Republic noted:

It correctly identified Eric Holder for the Justice Department, Janet Napolitano for Homeland Security, Robert Gates for Defense, Rahm Emanuel for chief of staff, Peter Orszag for the Office of Management and Budget, Arne Duncan for Education, Eric Shinseki for Veterans Affairs, Kathleen Sebelius for Health and Human Services, Melody Barnes for the Domestic Policy Council, and more.”

For the Treasury, three possibilities were on the list: Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, and Timothy Geithner.”

Geithner ended up as Obama’s treasury secretary, while Summers was a key author of the response to the 2008 recession as director of Obama’s National Economic Council. And these men ensured that Froman’s Citigroup continued to benefit from the largest bailout the federal government gave during the financial crisis.

Froman’s email was published as part of Wikileaks disclosures in the summer and autumn of 2016. Many of the Clinton and Podesta e-mails revealed such shocking corruption that the Democrat Party machine HAD to change the subject.

And so, like a magician doing a misdirection trick, the Party supplied their lackeys at the news agencies with the fabricated story of Trump-Russian Collusion. The totality of circumstances strongly suggests that, because DNC staff Seth Rich knew that the e-mails were leaked by a DNC insider and not hacked by Russians, he could not be allowed to live to tell the tale.

At the risk of sounding arrogant, I was, at the time, astonished that so many Americans fell for this trick. Surely, I thought, this was the ultimate expression of the childish gullibility of the American people.

Four years later, the same cohort that fell for the Trump-Russian Collusion Hoax embraced the COVID-19 Vaccine Religion with equal fervor.

That was when my circle of friends pared down to a handful of guys and girls who had somehow retained their critical thinking ability. As far as I could see, much of the country was suffering the induced STUPIDITY that Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote about in his 1943 essay.

With all of the drama we’ve experienced since 2009—and the inexorable rise of the stock market, buoyed by an ocean of central bank liquidity—most have forgotten about the systemic risk in the derivatives market that resulted in the Financial Crisis of 2008.

Recently I had a conversation with documentary filmmaker James Patrick about his new film STOP IT!: The Great Taking. According to James:

Little did you know, your life savings have been posted as collateral on speculative bets made up line in the system.

In the next financial collapse, the “Too Big To Fail” Banks have priority to your stocks and bonds ahead of you.

Direct ownership of a security was substituted with a contractual claim on a security in the 1994 Revision of Article 8 of the Uniform Commercial Code. The secured creditors to the derivatives contracts were given legal priority to your assets ahead of you, in the event those contracts go insolvent.

States across the USA are amending Article 8 of the UCC to restore property rights to securities BEFORE the next collapse.

If you enjoyed listening to our conversation, check out the film trailer and consider making a donation to James’s production company, BIG PICTURE, so that he can continue his reporting, unencumbered by commercial interests.

Visit BIG PICTURE website to learn more about filmmaker James Patrick and his other pictures.

This article was originally published on Courageous Discourse.

The post ‘The Great Taking’: Vast Systemic Risk in the Financial System? appeared first on LewRockwell.

In April 2025, Tucker Carlson invited Matt Walsh onto his podcast. The conversation covered everything from same-sex adoption and surrogacy to foreign policy isolationism. It is well worth listening to. But beyond the substance of the conversation, there was simply something powerful about a discussion between two men with such influence on the American Right—each man has an audience of several million subscribers on YouTube alone. In the age of digital media, each man far surpasses the reach of any legacy-news media personality. Matt Walsh and Tucker Carlson could be fairly described as two of the most influential men in conservative media.

Yet, in one of the most striking parts of the conversation, both of these “conservative influencers” questioned whether the term “conservative” has value any longer. Both seem to think it does not:

Walsh: The definition of conservatism…it has no definition, I think. We talk about the words that don’t mean anything anymore, words that used to be useful and maybe used to mean something and they just don’t anymore because of how they’ve been used and abused and overused. And I just think conservatism is one of those words. When you tell me now that someone is conservative, that doesn’t tell me a lot about them. I don’t know what you mean. 

Carlson: It generally means I’m not going to like them. They’re going to be some kind of fraud on the internet…that’s my gut reaction, so discredited has that word become.

For decades, the American Right embraced conservatism—from William F. Buckley to Russell Kirk, the Right was decidedly “conservative.” Sure, there were always dissenters, those who were part of the “big tent” Republican Party but identified as liberal Republicans or libertarians or something that was decidedly not conservative. But Tucker Carlson and especially Matt Walsh are not non-conservative Republicans; both men are social conservatives on most/all issues. These are men we would expect to embrace the “conservative” label. Yet they both seem to dismiss the word as virtually meaningless in today’s political culture. What happened?

While dictionary definitions can make for boring essays, it is hard to diagnose why the label “conservative” seems to be losing favor without figuring out what the term actually means.

The root of conservatism must be in the concept of conserving something. But what, precisely, a conservative is trying to conserve is not always clear. We see this in the clear division between two types of people on the Right who each claim the title of conservative. One group argues that what modern conservatism is meant to conserve is classical liberalism—the liberalism of the Enlightenment, of Locke and Montesquieu—which primarily exists to uphold the liberty of the individual person against the state. It sounds convincing; many on the Right still hold to this. But it is not conservatism.

Yoram Hazoni argues vigorously against this notion of classical liberalism as conservatism, articulating a conservatism that is adamantly opposed to the classical liberal tradition:

In the political arena, conservatism refers to a standpoint that regards the recovery, restoration, elaboration, and repair of national and religious traditions as the key to maintaining a nation and strengthening it through time…This is a tradition already powerfully described by John Fortescue in the fifteenth century, by Richard Hooker in the sixteenth century…by statesmen such as Edmund Burke in Britain and by the Federalist Party of George Washington, John Jay, John Adams, Gouverneur Morris, and Alexander Hamilton in America.

Hazony is adamant that this tradition of conservatism is distinct from, even antagonistic to, classical liberalism. The modern right suffers from

an extraordinary confusion over what distinguishes Anglo-American conservatism from Enlightenment liberalism…the liberty of the individual is a fine thing, both good in itself and worthwhile for its beneficial effects, when taken in the right proportion…But under the present conditions of permanent revolution and cultural devastation, the most important thing to remember about individual liberties is that, in and of themselves, they have no power to make anything stable or permanent.

What is conservatism conserving? Individual liberties and the Enlightenment tradition? Stability and order? Tradition? Religious faith? This confusion, if it is not solved, justifies the frustration and dismissiveness of men on the Right like Carlson and Walsh: Why use the word “conservative” to define a political movement if we can’t agree fundamentally on what we are trying to conserve? Is it liberty for its own sake? Is it tradition and religion and the natural order? These are not the same thing. If conservatism cannot clarify what it is, there is indeed nothing to be gained from using the word.

So, can conservatism be clarified and used in a useful way or has the term outlived its usefulness? On one hand, it may be politically and culturally expedient to discard the term altogether. The rise of President Trump has brought together a coalition of conservatives, center-left liberals alienated by the radically progressive Democratic Party, and normal people who simply want law and order, a country with physical borders, or schools where kids learn reading and math rather than a litany of sexual expressions and gender pronouns. So, it makes sense that those interested in solidifying the realigned coalition that is today’s Republican Party may simply wish to shy away from the term “conservative” altogether. Why not move on from the tired conservative-liberal paradigm and bring the party into the postmodern world?

On the other hand, simply being “a Republican” or “right-wing” doesn’t necessarily tell us anything. One can be pro-Israel or anti-Israel, in favor of robust government spending for the common good or of cutting government spending down to the bone, an isolationist or Bush-era neoconservative, traditionally Catholic or totally secular, and still validly claim to be a Republican or “on the Right.” It seems worthwhile to actually have useful terms to describe the political principles that animate policy positions.

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This is part of the hopeful message President Trump posted on Truth Social yesterday:

“CONGRATULATIONS TO EVERYONE! It has been fully agreed by and between Israel and Iran that there will be a Complete and Total CEASEFIRE… I would like to congratulate both Countries, Israel and Iran, on having the Stamina, Courage, and Intelligence to end, what should be called, ‘THE 12 DAY WAR.’ This is a War that could have gone on for years, and destroyed the entire Middle East, but it didn’t, and never will!”

Fox News quickly followed up: “Trump announces ceasefire now underway after deadly missile strike on Israel in the 11th hour,” read its headline.

The newly forming narrative is clear: Let’s celebrate. President Trump’s daring brilliance averted war, and peace will prevail.

Those in the America First camp who opposed Trump’s bombing of Iran are now being asked to repent and apologize for questioning the President’s strategic genius as he conducts his grand, four-dimensional geopolitical chess.

Sadly, despite our collective desire for peace in the Middle East, the ceasefire is unlikely to hold.

This is because the strikes on Iran were never about nuclear weapons. In fact, there was every indication that Iran did not have an active nuclear program.

Mere three months ago, Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence, testified that, according to a U.S. intelligence community assessment, Iran has not restarted its nuclear weapons program, which it suspended in 2003.

During her opening statement at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on March 25, 2025, Gabbard said:

“The IC [Intelligence Community] continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2020. We continue to monitor closely if Tehran decides to reauthorize its nuclear weapons program.”

The true reason for the unprovoked attack on Iran—a brazen act of military aggression in violation of international law—was not about nonexistent nuclear weapons but about regime change in that country.

This ill-advised action was driven by two main forces: Benjamin Netanyahu and his band of Israeli hardliners, in conjunction with American neoconservatives. These groups worked hand in hand to manipulate Donald Trump into taking this illegal and misguided action.

Netanyahu seeks regime change in Iran because Iran has long been Israel’s regional adversary, and he aims to topple the Ayatollah, hoping to replace him with a compliant Western puppet.

American neoconservatives have two primary motivations. First, many see guiding the U.S. government to serve Israel’s interests as their primary mission. Second, as Iran is an ally of Russia, they aim to dismantle Iran’s regime as part of their broader goal of toppling Vladimir Putin. A regime change in Iran would weaken Russia by depriving it of a key ally and could allow the U.S. to use Iran as a base for further subversion against Russia’s from its exposed underbelly.

As an aside, the neoconservatives’ desire to overthrow Putin has nothing to do with his alleged ambition to conquer Europe—a claim unsupported by evidence. For example, Russia’s military operation in Ukraine was launched with a limited force of fewer than 200,000 troops, hardly indicative of imperial designs. Instead, their animosity toward Putin stems from his refusal to open Russia’s vast natural resources to transnational globalists seeking wealth and profit.

Since the goal of regime change in Iran remains unaccomplished, the ceasefire in the Middle East is unlikely to hold.

We can be almost certain that soon another pretext will emerge to justify renewed agression against Iran.

We should be especially vigilant for false flag operations, such as explosions or terrorist acts, which could be quickly attributed to Iran’s government.

Donald Trump has at times shown a tendency to believe in his own near-omnipotent influence, assuming that his declarations alone have the power to shape reality.

Just because Trump has proclaimed a ceasefire and the end of the “Twelve-Day War” does not mean real world events will conform to his noble intentions.

The Israelis and neoconservatives have different objectives, and they are likely to prevail. Peace may be Trump’s stated aim and initial instinct, but—regrettably—he is being skillfully played by Netanyahu and his allies.

Though people of goodwill desire peace, powerful and ruthless forces are driving us toward war.

May Donald Trump and the sane individuals among his advisors yet find the wisdom and strength to resist these influences. If they do not, we can expect further conflict and disaster in the Middle East and beyond.

We are on a profoundly dangerous path indeed.

The post Why Iran Ceasefire Will Not Last appeared first on LewRockwell.

From the Tom Woods Letter:

This is a lot to keep up with!

If the ceasefire holds, then we have reason to be pleased that the world averted something potentially much worse. On Twitter right now we have people lecturing us that we shouldn’t have been so worried, we should have trusted the president, it was just a quick strike, etc.

No one should fall for that, because over the past 72 hours, those very same people were all over the map: it’s not about regime change; then it’s not about regime change but it would be fine if it were; then it would be easy to install the son of the shah of Iran; then it darn well should be about regime change, and regime change is easier than you stupid isolationists think, etc.

So the very people now lecturing us that this was a limited intervention were themselves ready at the drop of a hat to support, and to excommunicate others for opposing, all-out regime change.

The President, meanwhile, expressed his frustration to the press today about violations of the ceasefire:

They violated it, but Israel violated it, too…. As soon as we made the deal, they came out and they dropped a load of bombs the likes of which I’ve never seen before. The biggest load that we’ve seen. I’m not happy with Israel. You know, when I say, okay, now you have 12 hours, you don’t go out in the first hour and just drop everything you have on them. So I’m not happy with them. I’m not happy with Iran, either, but I’m really unhappy if Israel is going out this morning because of one rocket that didn’t land that was shot, perhaps by mistake, that didn’t land. I’m not happy about that. You know what we have? We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the f*** they’re doing. Do you understand that?

Steve Bannon, meanwhile, who opposed the intervention and appeared with Tucker Carlson to say so, just delivered a message to Trump about the likes of Lindsey Graham and Mark Levin, both of whom are unsatisfied and want full-blown regime change:

President Trump, I just hope you understand the great unmasking…. You’re sitting there trying to negotiate a deal…see what he’s doing. See what that little jackal’s doing. Just like you’re trying to get something done in Ukraine, and he’s stirring it up. He’s stirring it up.

And look at Levin calling you out on Twitter. Well…they knew you were working on something. They knew that you were trying to get the guns laid down, just like in World War I, the 11th day of the 11th month, the 11th hour. Remember that these hyenas, they’re jackals. They’re jackals. They feed off death and destruction.

Never pay for a book again: TomsFreeBooks.com

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Education and superstition coexisted in unsettling ways, often with perverse consequences. At my elite engineering college, many students began flocking to temples as examinations approached—sometimes even traveling long distances. Others sought comfort in the growing number of cults that had mushroomed across the country, each tailored to soothe a particular anxiety or offer an escape from pressure.

Yet they were not seeking peace, harmony, or spiritual insight—none of which Indian religions, focused on idolatry and ritual worship rather than virtues or commandments, are structured to provide. Instead, they gave monetary donations or undertook rituals of self-denial to appease their chosen deity. The choice of god was entirely pragmatic: whichever one was reputed to deliver the desired outcome—most often passing exams or securing a US visa.

What united all these acts was their intensely transactional nature. It was a marketplace—not of ideas, but of divine favors—where gods and gurus were “bought” with offerings, rituals, or suffering—ironically and hypocritically—in exchange for worldly rewards. The appeal lay not in introspection, personal growth, or moral elevation—none of which found any place in the collective consciousness—but in outsourcing accountability to a higher power. This ethos of divine negotiation—rooted not in faith but in fear and convenience—mirrored the larger moral and institutional disorder surrounding us.

These students could easily solve complex differential equations, yet they irrationally believed that bribing gods could boost their grades. Their scientific education had failed to instill objectivity or critical self-reflection. Despite years of rigorous training, their “mental operating systems” remained irrational, unscientific, and superstitious. This wasn’t an individual failing—it was institutional. Professors tolerated it, families encouraged it, and elite graduates carried it abroad, repackaging superstition as “tradition” or “cultural identity.”

They proudly displayed talismans and charms collected from temples, mistaking external tokens for inner strength. But this confidence—rooted in external authority rather than self-knowledge—was fragile. It led to severe mood swings and, all too often, culminated in existential crises.

The same superstitious approach to religion—in which the follower depends on divine whims—permeated daily life, professional ethics, and social interactions. Personal responsibility was easily abdicated; blame was assigned to fate, astrological misalignment, or divine displeasure when outcomes fell short. This mindset shaped how they led teams, voted, and raised children—placing faith in luck and hierarchy over foresight, integrity, or reason. Whether in governance or personal ambition, long-term planning gave way to short-term maneuvering, quick fixes, and ritualistic appeasements.

This deep-rooted aversion to responsibility and reason did not remain confined to religion—it shaped the very fabric of Indian institutions, from governance to education. A materialistic approach to religion precludes the possibility of spirituality. A psyche incapable of introspection or transcendence becomes grounded in unrestrained materialism and base, animalistic impulses. In such an environment, truth and integrity lose all value; expediency and convenience prevail. Appeals to authority figures—whether gods, bureaucrats, or foreign powers—abound, revealing a deep-seated dependency.

This fostered a subservient mindset, always looking outward for rescue or validation. The result is a population that remains sheepish, beset by identity crises, and psychologically reduced to a posture of mental beggary—an outlook fundamentally incompatible with true spirituality.

India serves as a tragic laboratory: a place where the mental and moral devastation wrought by paganism, idolatry, and polytheism can be observed even among the otherwise intellectually capable. With so many gods to choose from, students frequently switched allegiances—engaging in a vernacular version of Pascal’s Wager, hedging their bets across multiple deities. To an outsider, this behavior might appear tolerant or even secular. However, this so-called tolerance did not stem from respect for difference or a commitment to pluralism; it emerged from a fundamental indifference to objectivity, values, morality, and rationality.

This left Indian modernity hollow—mimicking forms without inheriting the spirit. Nowhere was this hollowness more evident than in its elite institutions, where knowledge was acquired without wisdom and credentials carried no trace of conscience.

Tolerance without virtue is not enlightenment. It is a moral wasteland: a space where anything goes, where sin and base desire roam unchecked. Such permissiveness, rather than fostering harmony, anchors society in stagnation. It leads inevitably toward savagery and barbarism. From this chaos, hatred, sadism, unrestrained violence—and ironically, intolerance—erupt not by design but by random eruption.

Meanwhile, the well-meaning outsider, unaware of the exploitative systems embedded in daily life, might mistake entropy for pluralism and moral decay for cultural richness. This misreading only deepens the dysfunction, as global narratives validate—and even romanticize—local disorder as “diverse” or “authentic.” The result is a nation misrepresented both within and without—praised for its chaos, defended for its dysfunction, and shielded from scrutiny by the very ideals it fails to uphold.

Decades later, I would realize that the superficial coating of engineering—or even general education—failed to disrupt magical thinking in otherwise high-IQ individuals. Worse, it inoculated them against self-examination and shielded the foundational flaws in their mental operating systems from scrutiny.

Many of these individuals from India’s elite would go on to earn, by Indian standards, extravagant salaries in the United States, yet paradoxically grew more nationalistic, tribal, and dogmatic in their Indian identity and ritualistic beliefs. Their material success abroad did not reflect the triumph of Indian thought but rather its insulation—preserved within a foreign system that harnessed their technical competence like shiny, compliant cogs. They were not contributing to Western values; they were merely operating within them, untouched by their spirit.

Contrary to conventional wisdom—including that of the World Bank and other global institutions—every good thing the West offered to India was eventually perverted, corrupted, or degraded. These institutions and values did not emerge from Indian cultural soil; they were externally grafted, never truly rooted. As a result, they were adopted superficially, without the moral, philosophical, or institutional foundations necessary to sustain them. What appeared on paper as democracy or modernity was, in practice, something else entirely—hollow forms animated by pre-modern instincts.

Education, prosperity, and even female empowerment yielded paradoxically regressive outcomes. This was not because these forces were inherently flawed but because they operated atop a mental substratum that remained irrational and amoral. “Education” acquired through rote memorization merely added weight, not insight; it burdened the mind rather than illuminating it.

Without the cultivation of reason or moral inquiry, the cultural mechanisms that enable evolution and refinement broke down. Success—enabled by Western technology and institutions—required no internal transformation. The illusion that irrationality and amorality could drive progress only solidified, turning dysfunction into a self-reinforcing system.

One might have expected globalization and economic liberalization to erode superstition and erratic behavior. Instead, they emboldened them. Exposure to global markets and modern technologies did not inspire introspection; it merely cloaked magical thinking in the sleek vocabulary of modernity—words like “manifestation,” “energy,” or “alignment” replacing older religious terms. This unresolved tension—between technological sophistication and pre-modern mental habits—came to define the Indian middle class.

Cults proliferated, often led by self-declared godmen—some barely out of adolescence. These babas exploited a mass psychological insecurity and the moral vacuum that accompanied newfound material success. With no genuine philosophical or ethical foundation, they filled the void with spectacle and submission.

Their appeal did not lie in truth, discipline, or self-transcendence. Instead, they offered comfort without responsibility—rituals in place of reason and blind obedience in place of thought. In surrendering their minds to theatrics, individuals outsourced their anxieties and, more fatally, their agency.

The internet and television did not foster dialogue—they amplified dogma. Smartphones brought unprecedented access to information, but the minds receiving it remained untouched by reason or introspection. WhatsApp forwards circulated endlessly—peddling myths of ancient grandeur, exaggerated tales of colonial villainy, and fantasies of modern progress, from moral exceptionalism to space-age triumphs. The self-deluding Indian mind absorbed these uncritically. Economic growth only extended the reach of tribalism rather than dissolving it. The result was a society armed with modern tools yet governed by medieval instincts.

This fusion of modern technology with pre-modern thinking produced a uniquely unstable society that mimicked the forms of democracy, science, and secularism without ever grasping their underlying ethos. Institutions existed but were hollowed out; laws were written but corruptly enforced; elections were held, but voters acted out of caste, fear, or fanaticism—not conscience. The modern Indian citizen, armed with a degree and a smartphone, still knelt before babas, caste lords, or political strongmen—seeking protection rather than justice. In such a setting, truth had no presence, reason was easily overruled by sentiment, and the language of progress was routinely used to sanctify regression. What emerged was not a modern republic but a deeply superstitious technocracy—shiny, at least to some eyes, on the surface, but rotten at the core.

India’s rising profile on the global stage—bolstered by its sheer population, falsely perceived market potential, and a diaspora eager to elevate India’s image out of tribal insecurity—has created the illusion of national ascent. But this image is profoundly misleading. The world sees surface-level metrics: GDP growth, routinely manipulated; software exports, the result of a one-off historical quirk that made India the secretarial back office of the West; and a space mission cobbled together with borrowed concepts, imported hardware, and repackaged foreign software—not in the spirit of progress, but as a tool for domestic demagoguery and spectacle, squandering taxpayer money for political gain.

Foreign admirers, eager to celebrate multiculturalism or “diversity,” mistake noise for vibrancy and vulgarity for authenticity. But a society cannot thrive on spectacle, slogans, or demographics alone. Without truth, order, and moral ambition, what appears as rising is merely swelling; what looks like progress is often just inertia in motion. India is not the exception—it is the warning. It shows what happens when a society adopts modern instruments without internalizing the values that gave rise to them.

Whatever faint virtues the British once instilled—order, civility, restraint—have long since dissipated. When I was growing up, people aspired to refinement. Table manners, composure, and class were admired. Today, such traits are ridiculed, even despised. In a society where virtue is mocked and vulgarity rewarded, decay is not an accident but the norm.

Meritocracy has been upended—eroded by regression to pre-colonial mentalities and by the perverse incentives enabled by Western technology. When success no longer hinges on virtue, reason, or merit—but merely on access to borrowed tools—a Darwinian disincentive for moral and intellectual development takes hold.

What remains is a society that reaps the benefits of modernity while steadily reverting to ancestral patterns. Perhaps calling these “dysfunctions” means imposing a Western framework. From another perspective, India is not decaying—it is simply returning to what is natural. This cultural mismatch—between imported modernity and indigenous instincts—reveals a national tragedy and a profound philosophical rift between societies built on reason and those sustained by ritual.

Easy prosperity has discouraged any impulse toward self-improvement. Wealth is amassed not as a means to a higher purpose but out of inertia—mindless accumulation with no moral architecture to guide it. In the absence of reason and ethical striving, wealth ceases to uplift. It becomes a prop in social theater—a signal of status, a stage for spectacle. In such a setting, prosperity reflects not progress but cultural emptiness.

What India—and, indeed, any Third World society—needed was not merely education or economic growth but a profound immersion in Western logic and reason, a moral awakening, a hunger for truth, a sense of justice, and the cultivation of personal honor.

In retrospect, this was precisely what many Christian missionaries and other Western reformers had attempted for centuries—sometimes even by removing children from their cultural environments, hoping to shield them from early indoctrination into magical thinking and tribal anchoring. And yet, despite generations of effort, they barely made a dent. The failure was not in the message but in the recipient’s incapacity—or unwillingness—to receive it.

This forces a difficult question: Should we reconsider our entire approach to civilizing pre-modern societies? Or must we concede that some cultures may be impervious to reform—they are what they are and cannot be fundamentally changed? Worse still, external interventions meant to uplift them may not lead to elevation but to a degeneration—a deeper, more insidious form of collapse disguised as development.

Perhaps the highest wisdom lies not in intervention but in recognizing the tragic boundaries of what can—and cannot—be transformed. The West took several millennia to root its psyche in reason and moral values. No top-down reform could shortcut that long, organic process in India.

True creativity is spiritual, with truth-seeking at its core. Unless the psyche understands that universal principles are objective—and that gods are neither arbitrary nor capricious—even the most advanced applied science remains shallow. Among my peers, academic interest was largely superficial: a utilitarian means to pass exams and secure a ticket to the United States. Without moral depth and conceptual clarity, knowledge becomes a hollow tool—practical but never truly transformative.

Except for one individual, every classmate of mine emigrated. In India, there are even temples dedicated solely to securing US visas. Even as students pursued American dreams, they remained tethered to rituals rooted in a feudal past. Technology enabled them to stay in their virtual ghettos, never fully assimilating and ironically becoming intellectually inbred—caught between a foot in the US and another in their Third World homeland, forever confused about their identity. Their children, often unaware of the harsh realities that drove their parents to leave, tended to romanticize those Third World origins—contradicting the myth of assimilation in the next generation.

The post India: Superstition in the Age of Silicon appeared first on LewRockwell.

On June 22, 2025, the United States launched Operation “Midnight Hammer”, a joint attack by the USAF and US Navy, targeting Iranian nuclear facilities, namely Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. At least 14 GBU-57A/B MOP (Massive Ordnance Penetrator) bombs were dropped, supposedly “destroying” all three of them. These weapons can only be carried by Northrop Grumman B-2 “Spirit” stealth strategic bombers. For its part, the US Navy launched at least 30 “Tomahawk” cruise missiles. Although the exact vessel that fired them is yet to be revealed, the USS “Georgia”, an Ohio-class SSGN (nuclear-powered guided missile submarine) has been deployed in the Indian Ocean since last September. Obviously, more (or other) vessels could’ve been involved, as nuclear-powered submarines can spend months without surfacing.

According to various sources, as well as the details presented by the Pentagon itself, seven B-2 bombers of the 509th Bomb Wing flew directly from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri. Six of those dropped 12 MOPs on the Fordow facility, while the seventh dropped two on Natanz. The aforementioned 30 “Tomahawk” cruise missiles hit Natanz and Isfahan. Both Natanz and Fordow were reportedly hit at approximately 2:30 AM Iran Standard Time. This was officially the first time that the MOP “bunker buster” bombs were used in combat. These weapons weigh around 14 metric tons, meaning they can only be carried by B-2 bombers, which flew continuously for roughly 37 hours between their takeoff and the attack. The B-2s also had to be refueled multiple times, which is why a fleet of aerial tankers was also involved.

The US claims that the bombers were preceded by unnamed “fourth and fifth generation American fighter aircraft to preempt any surface-to-air defensive fire”. The Pentagon insists that Iranian air defenses did not engage USAF jets, supposedly “due to damage caused by previous Israeli attacks”. The B-2s reportedly flew east, over the Atlantic Ocean, attacking Iran from the west, while an unspecified number of other B-2s flew west, across the Pacific, as a diversion from the main strike force. In total, at least 125 aircraft were involved in the operation, including logistics and ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) assets. The sheer complexity of an operation of this magnitude would require months (if not years) of planning, meaning that “peace talks” with Iran were just another ruse.

Another important aspect is the costs, certainly measured in billions. Namely, the B-2 strategic bombers (each costing up to $4 billion) are extremely complex and logistically demanding aircraft that cost upwards of $150,000 per flight hour and require at least 120-150 hours of maintenance. The USAF was rarely (if ever) able to deploy more than half a dozen simultaneously. Thus, the claim that seven of them flew to attack Iran, with an unspecified number used as a distraction (meaning at least two to three), would mean that up to ten flew at once. Considering that the USAF operates only 19 B-2s, this would indicate that over half of its entire fleet was involved in the operation, a highly unlikely prospect given just how labor-intensive it would be to keep them all fully operational and in the air (simultaneously, as previously mentioned).

What’s more, flying with nearly 30 tons of payload for over 18 hours is a considerable stress for an aircraft that’s already overstretched due to the small size of the B-2 fleet. In addition, just the cost of flying them to Iran and back would be over $5,500,000 each, meaning that up to ten bombers would cost $55 million. In terms of weapon expenses, things only get worse, with various sources reporting that a single GBU-57 bomb costs upwards of $20 million. The figure becomes all the more staggering when taking into account that 14 were dropped, or in other words, $280 million. If we count the 30 “Tomahawk” cruise missiles (each costing approximately $2 million), that’s $340 million in munitions alone. As previously mentioned, considering the involvement of 125 aircraft, we’re talking about billions (if not tens) in operational costs.

Obviously, given the sheer size of the US military budget, people might dismiss these figures as a mere footnote. However, while America can easily keep printing money into oblivion, one cannot just “print” or magically create battle readiness and the amount of work needed for such an operation. Plus, there’s also the matter of the physical impossibility of achieving all this simultaneously, as the resources required to do so depend on far more than just money. Not to mention the fact that few (if any) serious militaries would go into such great detail as to how the operation was conducted. Thus, a lot of the coverage by the mainstream propaganda machine and the information presented by the Trump administration demonstrates a large degree of war propaganda and rather distasteful jingoism (even by President Trump’s standards).

“We have completed our very successful attack on the three nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan. All planes are now outside of Iran air space. A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow. All planes are safely on their way home. Congratulations to our great American Warriors. There is not another military in the World that could have done this. NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE! Thank you for your attention to this matter,” he posted on his Truth Social account.

Obviously, Trump’s rather limited knowledge and understanding of advanced military technologies would lead him to believe that only the US could conduct an operation like this. However, a country like Russia, for instance, wouldn’t need a fleet of 125 aircraft to be able to drop a dozen bombs on a single target after flying 37 hours non-stop. On the contrary, President Putin would simply need to give an order and a single “Oreshnik” armed with 36 advanced kinetic penetrators would obliterate any point in a radius of well over 5,000 km. Thus, Russia would not only be able to conduct an operation like this, but it would do so at a minuscule fraction of the cost and in mere minutes. It would also be far more effective, as the sheer speed of Russian hypersonic weapons enables far greater penetration than any free-fall bomb can.

And speaking of effectiveness, it’s not only that America is simply incapable of making anything remotely similar (due to the rapidly dwindling potential of its missile technologies), but there’s also strong evidence to suggest that the attack on Iran didn’t really come close to accomplishing the goal Trump keeps bragging about. Namely, while he insists that Iranian nuclear facilities have been “completely and totally obliterated” in a “spectacular military success”, satellite imagery of the Fordow released by several sources tells a different story. In addition, although Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine stated that Iranian nuclear facilities suffered “severe damage”, he also pointed out that “the damage assessment would take time”. Several other prominent US media outlets openly say that “the Fordow plant had been severely damaged, but not destroyed”.

Trump’s obsession with demonstrating “shock and awe” pushed him into similar operations during his first term. For instance, the joint US-UK-French attack on Syria back in 2018 was also pompously announced and touted as a “spectacular victory”. A year earlier, Trump ordered a somewhat similar attack on (supposed ISIS) targets in Afghanistan, using the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB, alternatively nicknamed as “mother of all bombs”), another “exotic” bomb in the US arsenal known for being the second most powerful non-nuclear weapon in the world (second only to the Russian Aviation Thermobaric Bomb of Increased Power – ATBIP, aptly nicknamed “father of all bombs” – FOAB, around four times more destructive than the MOAB). None of these operations turned out to be as groundbreaking as touted by Trump and mostly served as war propaganda.

Source infobrics.org.

The post Did America Really Destroy Iranian Nuclear Facilities? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Rick Rozoff wrote:

Listen to this revelation about the Murdochs, owners of Fox News. Starts at about 1:13:00

The post Listen to this revelation about the Murdoch appeared first on LewRockwell.

Andy Thomas wrote:

James Perloff talks about the Scofield Reference Bible and its profoundly damaging impact on Christianity.

See here.

The post James Perloff on the Scofield Bible appeared first on LewRockwell.

Suzan Mazur wrote:

“Israel is the big loser, and its ability to serve as America’s proxy has been crippled. The devastation from Iranian rockets has left a reported one-third of Tel Aviv and much of Haifa in ruins. Israel has lost not only its key military and national security structures, but will lose much of its skilled population as it emigrates, taking its industry with it.

And by intervening on Israel’s side by supporting its genocide, the United States has turned most of the UN’s Global Majority against itself. Its ill-thought backing of the reckless Netanyahu has catalyzed the drive by other countries to speed their way out of the U.S. diplomatic, economic and military orbit.”

See here.

The post Michael Hudson appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Tim McGraw.

The post Sheriff Matt Kendall, Mendocino County, CA; Cartels, Weed, & Water Wars: Video Interview appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, David Krall.

The post Operation Honest War Trumpet appeared first on LewRockwell.

Click Here:

Ben Bartee

The post Beijing and Moscow Double Down on Propping Up Tehran, Threaten to Give It Nukes appeared first on LewRockwell.

Brian Murdock wrote:

Hi Lew,

She is making a very important point, if true, about Trump’s motives in regards to  British global elites.

Great articles on Rothbard!!!!!  Thanks.

Brian Murdock

https://x.com/EricaRN4USA/status/1936503371764314511

The post Trump and global elite appeared first on LewRockwell.

Seemingly before either side agreed, President Trump announced a ceasefire between Iran and Israel. In several social media posts it appears the President is convinced the ceasefire will hold and that the two countries will never shoot at each other again. Is he correct?

The post Will The Ceasefire Hold? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Writes Brian Dunaway:

Alternate headline: “Vance Seeks Approval from Zionist Oligarchy on Final Plan for Bombing Iran Nuclear Sites”

AP News

The post Vance made a brief trip to Montana to speak to Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch appeared first on LewRockwell.

Tim McGraw wrote:

It’s good to see that the younger generations like Templeton Thompson, are still sing the old Suzy Bogguss song.

The post “Someday Soon” cover appeared first on LewRockwell.

David Martin wrote:

I think like some of the rest of us, MTG might be able to recognize the moral low ground when she sees it.

See here.

The post Marjorie Taylor Greene Rips Trump for Iran Bombing appeared first on LewRockwell.

Do bears do it in the woods? See this.

The post Prof. Jeffrey Sachs : Is the US Subordinated to Israel? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, W. White.

The post Mostly peaceful… appeared first on LewRockwell.