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Most people accept the moral prohibitions on lying, murdering, and stealing in their personal lives as well as in their business affairs.  Why, then, does government, which is run by people, get a pass?  Is ethics irrelevant in government affairs?

The answer is yes, because there is no one to hold government accountable.  By its nature as a state, it is above accountability.  As Rothbard elaborately explained, the state is a criminal gang writ large, an organization not subject to its laws because of its monopoly of violence.  Jefferson’s notion of binding men down by the chains of the Constitution was easily broken by government intrigue.

Blame for the absence of government morals is sometimes laid on a loss of religious faith among citizens and the ones they elect.  But a Pew Research Religious Landscape Study (RLS), conducted in 2007, 2014 and 2023-24, revealed an overwhelming majority of Christians and non-Christians alike regard theft, murder, and lying as violations of honest living.  They may have lost their faith in a higher power, but their professed morals were unshaken.

If no one punished a person for stealing, he might be tempted to try it.  But due perhaps to a nagging conscience most people would still feel the need to justify the theft.  Since most ethical creeds censure actions taken in self-interest while praising actions taken for others, a thief can bathe in ethical sunlight if he can show he acted for someone other than himself.  (Philippians 2:3-4, John 15:13, Luke 6:35, Matthew 5:39-40 (Sermon on the Mount), 1 Corinthians 13:5)  Pushed consistently, the government becomes a welfare state.

The American state, founded inconsistently on laissez-faire, which itself was inconsistent with the prevailing ethics of self-sacrifice (see above), became wealthier than other governments because it presided over a economy that was allowed to flourish to historical highs, but then pulled off a coup in 1913 with the passage of the 16th amendment and the Federal Reserve Act — each a major theft-enabling expansion of power.  The income tax had the “virtue” of soaking the rich, which it did initially with the War Revenue Act of 1917, but later, in combination with the Fed’s confiscatory monetary policy, led to the decline of the middle class and to a seemingly omnipresent government.

Woodrow Wilson, the White House resident during the 1913 coup, expressed dark thoughts about what he had done in his collection of campaign speeches, The New Freedom:

We have restricted credit, we have restricted opportunity, we have controlled development, and we have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated, governments in the civilized world—no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and the duress of small groups of dominant men.

Certain small but controlling groups crushed the last remnants of a relatively sound money system, using the economic crisis of the 1930s as an excuse, then through behind-the-scenes activities became a combatant in another foreign war, after the president’s repeated lies about not getting us into it.  Millions of deaths and billions in destruction later, the government, ostensibly led by a piano player from Missouri, amplified its interventionist ways when he signed the National Security Act of 1947.  Since then the government has found threats everywhere it looked, including Cuba, South America, Korea, China, Vietnam, the Middle East, and always, Russia.  Following 9-11, its sights have intensified on the people involuntarily supporting it, right here in the home field, on the premise that terrorists could be lurking anywhere.

What other country has “750 military base ‘sites’ estimated in around 80 foreign countries and colonies/territories”?  Maybe the world wouldn’t seem so threatening if we left it alone.  The US has thereby become a Roman warfare state, with untouchable intelligence and military budgets.

Hans-Hermann Hoppe, in his essay “The Libertarian Quest for a Grand Historical Narrative,” points out the blatant contradictions between the personal ethics of most people and the defining “ethics” of government.  Regarding the Ten Commandments, he writes:

In this, the biblical commandments go above and beyond what many libertarians regard as sufficient for the establishment of a peaceful social order: the mere strict adherence to commandments six, eight, and ten. Yet this difference between a strict and rigid libertarianism and the ten biblical commandments does not imply any incompatibility between the two. Both are in complete harmony if only a distinction is made between legal prohibitions on the one hand, expressed in commandments six, eight, and ten, violations of which may be punished by the exercise of physical violence, and extralegal or moral prohibitions on the other hand, expressed in commandments five, seven, and nine, violations of which may be punished only by means below the threshold of physical violence, such as social disapproval, discrimination, exclusion, or ostracism.

He concludes: “Even with the greatest intellectual contortions it is impossible to derive the institution of a state from these commandments.”

Yet the state’s senior denizens bear false witness every hour of the day, with impunity.  As we witnessed during the Covid episode major political donors also escaped accountability for its egregious acts.  Included in the Covid nightmare were prestigious medical institutions, flush with government money, promoting false information about hydroxychloroquine, that continue today as unabashed medical authorities.  To paraphrase Thomas Paine, freedom was hunted throughout the country as well as the rest of the world.  What’s to prevent governments from attempting a Covid II?

The inalienable rights of all men that Jefferson set forth in the Declaration need a strong champion to defend them, and I suggest it takes its form in a competitive free market where security is purchased along with other goods.  Governing by monopoly force is incompatible with human well-being.

The post Why Do We Live in a Two-Faced World? appeared first on LewRockwell.

The late columnist, Joe Sobran, diagnosed America’s political malaise with scalpel-like precision:

If you want government to intervene domestically, you’re a liberal. If you want government to intervene overseas, you’re a conservative. If you want government to intervene everywhere, you’re a moderate. If you don’t want government to intervene anywhere, you’re an extremist.

By this clinical standard, the forgotten American qualifies as a dangerous extremist—and it is high time people like this wear that scarlet letter with pride.

Sobran was one of those extremists. At one time, he was an influential columnist and a prominent voice on the American right, but by the mid-1980s, he started to have second thoughts about U.S. policy in the Middle East. For possessing such pluck, he was summarily banished from the so-called “conservative movement” by his mentor and publisher at National Review, William F. Buckley, Jr.

It must be noted that what masquerades as conservatism today would send Russell Kirk, author of The Conservative Mind, spinning like a Kentucky Derby toteboard. The movement that once defended “an enduring moral order” and championed “prudent restraints upon power” has been colonized by Trotsky’s ideological grandchildren—neoconservative saboteurs who mistake perpetual warfare for patriotic duty.

The linguistic battlefield has also been scorched beyond recognition. The inheritors of Buckley’s drift against Sobran’s extremism—Bill Kristol, David Brooks, and their bow-tied confederates—have transformed a robust intellectual tradition into cocktail-party conservatism: respectable enough for Georgetown dinner parties, toothless enough for progressive approval. Meanwhile, the moderate serpents perform their familiar slithering routine between positions with wind-licking dexterity.

Invade the world? Absolutely, Senator. Tax-and-spend domestically? Without question, Congressman.

They represent the most insidious threat of all—ideological chameleons who stand for nothing except their own advancement up the greasy pole of political ambition.

Jack Callahan, American, puts it more bluntly: “These weasels in Washington would sell their grandmothers for committee assignments and their principles for campaign contributions. At least honest liberals will tell you they’re coming for both your wallet and your freedoms. These moderate frauds smile while picking both pockets simultaneously.”

In this blood-soaked century alone, the neoconservative itch for foreign intervention has drained nearly a generation’s worth of American blood and treasure. Their incessant pruritus, developed from a longing for overseas adventurism, never gets scratched sufficiently to satisfy their imperial appetites.

Iraq. Afghanistan. Syria. Ukraine. The drumbeat continues. Meanwhile, American cities crumble like ancient Rome, with their borders dissolving like sugar in acid rain.

So yes, go ahead and call these non-interventionists “extremists.” They’d be guilty as charged by every current tribunal of acceptable opinion. Nevertheless, the demand is for the rascals in government to keep their grubby hands off both domestic tranquility and the sovereignty of foreign nations.

Today’s extremists understand that both “permanence and change must be recognized and reconciled in a vigorous society.” They also adhere religiously to “custom, convention, and continuity,” because, as that dangerous extremist Edmund Burke observed centuries ago, “the individual is foolish, but the species is wise.”

Furthermore, Barry Goldwater, the 1964 GOP presidential nominee, had the gall to tell progressives and others that “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.”

Reflect. Should liberty even serve as a rallying cry in today’s cultural wasteland?

The modern mind has perverted the very concept beyond recognition, confusing liberty with libertinism and freedom with license. When most Americans hear “liberty,” they envision the unconstrained ability to do whatever feels good—a guaranteed recipe for civilizational collapse.

Consider the French revolutionary motto. “Liberté, égalité, fraternité.” Not surprisingly, this also serves as Haiti’s motto. Objections to “liberty,” so-called, were previously noted, but fraternity remains beyond reproach—community bonds matter more than individual whims.

More importantly, equality has failed spectacularly wherever attempted, from the Reign of Terror to Haiti’s ongoing tragedy. Contra Meat Loaf’s romantic nonsense, two out of three is catastrophically bad.

“The problem with equality,” Callahan observes, “is that God didn’t create equal people. He created unique souls with different gifts, different callings, and different destinies. Trying to force equality is like trying to make every river flow uphill—you can attempt it with enough government force, but you’ll destroy the natural landscape in the process.”

Today’s extremists champion voluntary community over involuntary collectivism. We stand as proud inheritors of ancestral wisdom, not “unburdened by what has been,” despite what 2024’s most prominent philosophizer—with her daily samplings of vapid word salad—tried to force Americans to believe.

The accumulated wisdom of a society’s forebears allows the populace to peer further into the future precisely because it is standing on the shoulders of a previous generation. Extremists don’t dance upon the graves of their ancestors.

Consider. The crisis isn’t about government itself. That’s another argument for another day, if the Republic is still breathing. The immediate problem lies with the current regime’s personnel, those who consistently make everything worse through their ham-fisted interventions.

Whether Pentagon bureaucrats are planning the next overseas adventure or Education Department commissars are targeting first-graders with gender ideology, the pattern remains depressingly consistent. This type of interference breeds chaos like mosquitoes do in stagnant water.

Extremists possess something today’s liberals, moderates, and conservatives conspicuously lack: inherited wisdom. They understand that authentic “conservatism” means conserving what matters—family, faith, community, and country—not some globalist empire masquerading as the world’s policeman in today’s political theater.

Callahan’s final verdict cuts through the fog: “They call us extremists because we remember what America was supposed to be. We believe in borders, babies, and baseball played without pitch clocks. We think fathers should be fathers and mothers should be mothers, that children need both, and that ‘Follow The Science’ usually means ‘ignore common sense.’ If that makes us extreme, then every previous generation of Americans was extreme too.”

The establishment will continue hurling “extremist” like a playground epithet, as if the label stings. Let them.

Extremists—those as Sobran described—will wear the label as a badge of honor, knowing that in an age of manufactured lies, telling simple truths has indeed become an extreme act. In a culture gone certifiably mad, sanity appears radical to the inmates that run the asylum.

The choice will soon crystallize and do so with brutal clarity: embrace extremism or watch civilization finally unravel from the comfortable sidelines of moderate respectability.

Some battles demand that sides be chosen without apology. This is one of them.

The forgotten Americans have spoken. Now let the extremists govern.

This article was originally published on The O’Leary Review.

The post In an Age of Lies, Truth Is Extreme appeared first on LewRockwell.

International Man: What is the role of a justice system in a society, and what should the State have to do with it?

Doug Casey: In my view, what really holds a society together isn’t the laws enacted by legislatures or dictators, but peer pressure, social opprobrium, and moral approbation. In general, society is pretty self-regulating. It’s why people pay their bills at restaurants even though there’s not a cop at the door. Criminals are the exception, not the rule—although, it must be said, they naturally gravitate towards the government.

When somebody commits a crime, there’s a trial to determine what harm has been done, who should be compensated, and so forth. Courts determine these things. But I would argue that the state is not a necessary part of any of this. Society, like markets, tends to be self-ordering.

With a minimal “night watchman” sort of state like that described by Ayn Rand, the proper role of government is simply to defend you from force and fraud. This implies an army to defend you from force external to your society, a police force to defend you from force within your society, and a court system to allow the adjudication of disputes without resorting to force.

I could live in a society like that—it would be a vast improvement over what we have now. A proper court system, with either arbitrators or judges and juries system, would be part of it. But I’d go on to argue that juries and courts should be privatized.

International Man: What would a privatized justice system look like? Would it have juries?

Doug Casey: There might be either arbitrators, or juries, or both. The jury should be composed of independent thinkers who aren’t easily swayed by rhetoric or pressured by groupthink. Today, however, they’re just random people who aren’t clever enough to avoid jury duty.

In theory, juries can counter the tremendous power of judges. Judges today are either elected or appointed. If elected, they have to campaign like any other politician and are subject to the same perverse incentives any other politician is. If they are appointed, it can be even worse. Appointees are often just collecting political favors. While they’re allegedly more independent, in many ways, they’re even less accountable.

In theory, a jury is a good counterbalance to the power of the judge. You need some way to weigh the facts and decide who’s in the right. But the way juries work in the US today is far from optimal. It used to be that a jury could easily overturn any law. The process was called jury nullification, and it was an effective way for the common people to keep legislators under control. Today, however, it’s really a dead letter.

Today’s juries amount to a form of involuntary servitude. You get your notice for jury duty, and you either have to serve, whether you want to or not or come up with excuses the state will deign to accept.

Most productive people feel that they have more urgent priorities in their lives than helping decide court cases that can go on for months. So the type of people who end up serving on juries these days generally have nothing better to do or for whom the trivial fee they pay is good money. Hardly the kind of person who should decide weighty matters, perhaps even life and death.

In addition, many trials center on highly technical concepts, and forms of evidence, that people rounded up from the highways and byways are simply unqualified to interpret.

Worse, there’s the jury selection process called voir dire. The notion is to give the attorneys of both sides the opportunity to remove a few individuals from the jury who might be biased against their case, thus ensuring a more unbiased jury.

But in practice, it’s an interrogation process by which lawyers try to ensure they get a jury that will believe whatever they tell them. This usually means that anyone exhibiting the least bit of independent thinking or is prone to value justice over law enforcement will get removed and never serve on a jury.

The result is that the quality of juries today is several standard deviations below what it should be. Any intelligent person has opinions, and in this day of the Internet, almost any person’s opinions are easy to find out. No matter which way your opinions line up, one side or the other isn’t going to like them in any case, so you won’t make it past voir dire. Both the prosecution and defense like to see malleable jurors with easily influenced minds. As a result, the typical juror has no opinions other than those on the weather, sports, and American Idol. People who think in concepts are weeded out as troublemakers.

This process makes a shambles of the concept of a “jury of your peers.” The type of people they rope into jury duty wouldn’t likely be the peers of anyone now reading this. If I were facing a trial, I’d much rather be tried by twelve people randomly selected out of a phone book than by the type of people who get selected for jury duty.

If we’re to have juries, they ought to be truly juries of our peers—people who can understand you and the facts pertaining to your case. But we’re far from an ideal system. It’s worse than arbitrary; given that most of those employed by the justice system work for the state, and that it’s the state vs. an individual in so many cases, there’s a huge inherent bias on top of the whole problem with today’s stacked juries.

International Man: What is an ideal justice system in your perspective?

Doug Casey: It would be a more equitable system if judges and jurors were professionals who had to compete with each other on the basis of their proven records of intelligence, fairness, speed, and low cost. The victim and the accused would mutually agree on the judge and jury or arbitrators.

Separating justice and state would help eliminate the state’s ability to prosecute phony, made-up crimes, especially crimes with no victims. There needs to be an actual victim to press charges if the state can’t be party to a case. That alone would eliminate the wasted resources and trashed lives resulting from the US’s various wars against victimless crimes. No one could be criminally prosecuted for having unorthodox sexual preferences, using unpopular drugs, drinking on Sunday, or smoking in a private establishment. Or for evading taxes. It might surprise Americans to know that tax evasion is a civil, not a criminal, matter in most countries.

Most legal actions focus on matters of tort and breach of contract. It’s important to keep the laws simple and few, so ignorance of the law is impossible. Ideally, just two great laws:

1. Do all that you say you’re going to do.
2. Don’t aggress against other people or their property.

The point is that justice has to do with righting actual wrongs that have been done to people, not enforcing laws and exacting arbitrary punishments. Today justice means enforcing the will of politicians and bureaucrats. A proper system of justice would focus on making the victim whole, not arbitrarily punishing the aggressor.

With privatized justice, someone would accuse another, both sides would choose an arbitrator (professional or otherwise), and those two arbitrators would agree on a third to make sure there were no tied votes. They would look at all the facts—not just the arbitrary subset of facts allowed by legal precedent and state machinations. That decision would not be about punishing anyone but about making the harmed party whole again.

The key concepts are justice and restitution, not punishment. Punishment, if you actually think about it, rarely serves any useful purpose; it just gives vent to base and reactive emotions. It may set a “good example” to deter future miscreants, but it definitely sets a bad example for society as a whole by institutionalizing and justifying cruelty.

International Man: Is there any hope for the current justice system?

Doug Casey: The whole system is highly politicized, which is only natural for something run by the state. Unfortunately, as the country increasingly looks to government as a solution—your only choice being to choose between so-called “right” and “left” politics. That’s going to make the current legal system even more dysfunctional in every way I can think of.

International Man: What are the implications of this for investors and businesses?

Doug Casey: I see people being convicted under ridiculous applications of the securities laws, tax laws, and more. The only area where things are becoming more rational and freer is the area of drug laws. It’s becoming clear to even the dimmest legislators and jurists that they’re as stupid and destructive as were those against alcohol during Prohibition.

In fact, almost all the administrative laws of the myriad of three- and four-letter agencies—ATF, FTC, EPA, SEC, FDA, etc., etc.—create bogus and even nonsensical “crimes.” Even if you aren’t convicted, if you’re targeted, it can cost you hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars in legal fees, plus time, lost business, and damaged reputation. The system has become rapacious and Kafkaesque. And as the state grabs more and more power with each passing crisis, the risk of attention from state operatives increases, even for innocent and honest­ people. The trend is accelerating in a negative direction. If history is any guide, things will get worse until we reach a genuine crisis. That’s bad news for anyone with any wealth, especially if they have unpopular political views.

That has very serious implications. Not just for people in business and investors, but society itself. This is one reason I’m so bearish on the prospects of the current world order; not only are there decades-long distortions in the economy that have to be liquidated, but the whole legal system is rotten to the core. It needs to be scrapped—someone needs to push the reset button and restore justice as its guiding principle—and that, too, is a distortion that can’t be corrected easily or painlessly.

Unfortunately, it seems as if it’s the very worst people who have their fingers on “The Great Reset” button.

Reprinted with permission from International Man.

The post Failures of the Justice System and a Viable Solution appeared first on LewRockwell.

It must be Good News Week judging by the stories generated by the Trump regime and its supporting cast of neocons, with good old best friend and ally Israel up to its usual tricks and Ukraine, Russia and the Europeans vying to see who can flatter and cajole the mentally challenged American president most effectively. With much of the focus on Ukraine and the visit of Vladimir Putin to Alaska, Israel was free to continue to slaughter Palestinians as part of the plan to create an “Eretz” or Greater Israel running from the Euphrates to the Nile and also incorporating much of Lebanon and Syria. The process involves the removal of the indigenous population to be replaced by Jewish settlers. The latest plan for Gaza is to ship those inhabitants who are not summarily executed to some shithole like Sudan where they will be allowed to expire without any press coverage. Bezalel Smotrich, an Israeli settler-extremist who Minister of Finance summed it up this way: “We conquer, cleanse, and stay… On the way, we annihilate everything that still remains.….We’re breaking Gaza apart, leaving it as a pile of rubble, total unprecedented destruction.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gloated how his policies over twenty-five years in government have now enabled him to guarantee that there will never be any such entity as a Palestinian state sharing space with the Chosen people of Zion. That is accomplished by killing or deporting all the remaining Palestinians, which Bibi, who embraces a greater Israel, refers to as giving them a “choice.”

Donald J. Trump on @realDonaldTrump, appears to agree with those assessments, focusing on fewer that fifty hostages and ignoring the scores of unarmed Palestinians seeking food who are slaughtered each day. On August 19th in a radio interview with total Zionist stooge Mark Levin Trump, who dodged the draft during America’s Vietnam war, praised Netanyahu saying “He’s a good man. He’s in there fighting…He’s a war hero, because we worked together. He’s a war hero. I guess I am too.” He tweeted characteristically and hubristically, and also inaccurately, boasting how “We will only see the return of the remaining hostages when Hamas is confronted and destroyed!!! The sooner this takes place, the better the chances of success will be. Remember I was the one who negotiated and got hundreds of hostages freed and released into Israel (and America!). I was the one who ended 6 wars, in just 6 months. I was the one who OBLITERATED Iran’s Nuclear facilities. Play to WIN or don’t play at all! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DJT.”

And the United States knows how to express its gratitude for all that Israel and America’s Zionists have done to support a White House that Netanyahu regards correctly as the most friendly towards the Jewish state ever, even outdoing the crawling on his belly servitude exhibited by Genocide Joe Biden. The Department of Homeland Security has just released $110 million dollars in funding to Jewish and other religious organizations and groups to provide security for their facilities and members. Most of the money has gone to Jewish institutions and it follows on $100 million that went to 500 Jewish groups only in June. The beneficiaries include some entities that were instrumental in raising the $1 billion plus that went to elect Trump to guarantee the almost complete corruption of America’s political system. The billion also guaranteed that many billions more would go in a steady flow to Israel, together with weapons and political cover to permit the carrying out of genocide. So if it seems to the average American that Jewish groups just might be able to afford to pay for their own security, one should not necessarily be surprised to notice that there is a backlash developing which is conveniently being labeled as “antisemitism” by the government and the Chosen themselves to suppress any popular uprising by criminalizing any and all free speech that is critical of Israel.

America’s thanks to Israel also apparently extends to letting lawbreaking senior Israeli government officials flee to Israel, which routinely does not extradite Jews who have committed crimes in foreign countries. The recent case of one Tom Artiom Alexandrovich, a senior Israeli government cyber expert, illustrates how the judicial system can operate to benefit Israelis, a precedent established when Israeli “movers” spies were arrested in the wake of 9/11 for apparent complicity in the terrorist act but were soon released by the federal government after being questioned.

Tom Alexandrovich, a senior department head in Israel’s National Cyber Directorate, was taken into custody in Las Vegas two weeks ago along with seven others as part of a wide-ranging police operation targeting suspected online sexual predators. Alexandrovich was reportedly in Las Vegas to meet with counterpart NSA and FBI officials. As an electronic spying expert Tom should have known better than to use his cellphone to hook up with a 15-year-old. Tom then hurried to meet his date via Uber, which left another electronic trail. He was then caught by police in what was a sting operation and arrested on sex with minors pedophilia charges on August 6th. He is now back in Israel and is not expected to show up for his court date on August 27th.

Tom allegedly used computer technology to lure the child, who suffered from mental disabilities, for sexual purposes, according to the arrest records. The alleged crime is a felony that carries up to 10 years in jail in the case of a conviction. Police said he was booked into Henderson Detention Center and later released on $10,000 bail awaiting trial after appearing before a judge. Interestingly, Alexandrovich, though obviously a major flight risk, was given his passport back, allowing him to flee the country, and there is considerable suspicion that the pressure to do so came from the Department of Justice in Washington in response to Israeli government demands. And the involvement of Sigal Chattah, an Israeli-born American attorney and politician who is currently serving as the interim United States Attorney for the District of Nevada and was appointed by Donald Trump certainly begs for a more serious inquiry into what took place. Inevitably, Washington’s possible role in Alexandrovich’s release has been denied by Attorney General Pam Bondi and head of the FBI Kash Patel, both of whom are well established liars.

But the most horrific story to come out of last week is the fate of a number of Gazan children who were badly injured or wounded by the Israelis and who had the good fortune to fall into the hands of a US-based charity called HEAL PALESTINE that was able to get them out of the Strip for medical treatment in the United States and elsewhere. The children were in need of major surgery and other complicated treatment and were accompanied by at least one of their parents in most cases as they were unable to function independently. A number of other countries in addition to the US have accepted the injured Gazan children for intensive care without there being any problems or issues with the families involved, it must be noted.

Inevitably, the Zionist cheering section discovered the arrival of the sixty or so children in the US and immediately declared them to be “terrorists” a view that was clearly shared by the US State Department, which blocked the issuance of any more visas and is now engaged in a “full and thorough investigation” into how the travel was approved and arranged in the first place. Rabid and radical Trump ultra-loyalist and far-right Zionist activist Laura Loomer, who is both physically hideous and of course Jewish, is now claiming credit for the prompt State Department decision to freeze visitor visas for Gazans. Loomer is a so-called “influencer” who has a large following that is deeply loyal to MAGA and Trump. While she is not actually a government employee, Loomer’s lobbying has reportedly influenced a number of the Trump administration’s policy and personnel decisions. She has been credited with the removal of at least 16 staffers, including six on Trump’s National Security Council as well as National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Deputy National Security Adviser Alex Wong. President Donald Trump has described Loomer as “a fantastic woman, a true patriot,” yet another indication that the president is delusional and possibly demented while also unable to separate right from wrong.

Loomer took action against the Gazan children when she reposted a video showing injured children being brought to the United States for medical care. “I have obtained video footage of Palestinians who claim to be refugees from Gaza coming into the United States via San Francisco and Houston, Texas this month,” Loomer’s post on X claimed, calling the arrival of the children a “national security threat.” She asked “Why are any Islamic invaders coming into the US under the Trump admin? Who signed off on these visas? They should be fired.”

Loomer, who reportedly has full access to the White House and to President Donald Trump and to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, both of whom go to her for advice, took credit for the State Department’s reversal. She wrote “Today, I saved so many American citizens from being killed by pro-HAMAS jihadis. God only knows how many lives I personally saved today by blowing the whistle on rogue actors at State Department giving visas to Gazan families. It’s amazing how fast we can get results from the Trump administration.”

It has been reported that, in this case, Loomer spoke directly with Rubio about what she described as “the threat of Islamic invasion via the humanitarian visa program.” Speaking on Sunday’s Face the Nation, Rubio defended his decision, claiming that “numerous” congressional offices had shown him evidence that groups “bragging about” acquiring the medical visas to the United States have “strong links to terrorist groups like Hamas.” He explained how “We are not going to be in partnership with groups that are friendly with Hamas. There was just a small number of them issued to children, but they come with adults accompanying them obviously. And we are going to pause this program and re-evaluate how those visas are being vetted and and what relationship, if any, has there been by these organizations to the to the process of acquiring those visas. We’re not going to be in partnership with groups that have links or sympathies towards Hamas.”

Australian journalist Caitlin Johnston, as is so often the case, nails the reality of the Federal Government’s policies as they play out on the ground, writing succinctly that “Things are so fucked up that the only way to get wounded Palestinian children in and out of the United States for medical treatment these days would be to disguise them as Israeli pedophiles.” Indeed, Rubio’s assessment comes from a man who has been standing by and watching those very Gazan children being slaughtered and maimed by a totalitarian country that he and his boss have opted to support unconditionally no matter what atrocities it commits. This is not the America I and many others grew up in and I wonder what rocks he and Trump were hiding under when the humanitarian virtues of life in the United States were actually on display.

Reprinted with permission from Unz Review.

The post More Ghastly Decisions by the Trump Administration? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Israel apologists always attack anti-Zionists by saying “Zionism just means self-determination for Jews! If you hate Zionism then you hate Jews!”

No, that’s not what Zionism means. Zionism means exactly what we see before us today. Genocide. Ethnic cleansing. Apartheid. Nonstop violence and abuse. That’s what Zionism means. And anti-Zionism means opposing these things.

There is simply no argument to the contrary. This is indisputably what Zionism looks like. There is no other alternate reality iteration of Zionism you can point to where genocide, ethnic cleansing, apartheid and nonstop violence and abuse are not happening. This is the only way Zionism looks. The Zionist experiment has been run, and these are the results.

Trying to argue that Zionism doesn’t mean genocide, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and nonstop violence and abuse is exactly the same as trying to argue that Nazism doesn’t mean all the things that happened when the Nazism experiment was run. Nazism means all the things that happened under Nazism. You can’t legitimately tell me “No, actually, Nazism just means a safe and prosperous homeland for the German people.” We’ve seen what Nazism looks like, and we’ve seen what Zionism looks like. To argue otherwise is to argue with reality.

It’s just so obnoxious how Israel supporters are like “Zionism means these nice things and nice words, so if you’re against Zionism you’re against the nice things and nice words!” No, asshole, that’s not how it works. You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not your own reality.

Israel is what it does. Zionism is what it does. You can’t separate them from their actions. The debate about the true nature of these things has been settled by the reality of what is happening.

It doesn’t matter if you believe Israel just wants to live in peace. It doesn’t matter if you believe Zionism is just the idea that Jews deserve self-determination. Reality says you’re wrong. Reality says Israel and Zionism mean nonstop violence and abuse. Reality says Israel and Zionism necessarily entail genocide, apartheid and ethnic cleansing. Because that’s the reality on the ground.

Them’s the facts. If you disagree with them, you are objectively wrong.

❖

I saw a clip of ABC host Patricia Karvelas raking Netanyahu policy advisor Ophir Falk over the coals for his denialism of Israel’s atrocities in Gaza, and the thought occurred to me that Israel really has lost the normies. All the mainstream western empire loyalists who dutifully toe the imperial line under normal circumstances are dropping away, one by one.

Patricia Karvelas roasts Netanyahu policy advisor Ophir Falk after he refuses to admit starvation in Gaza & that Israel is not letting journos in.
OF “there’s plenty of journalists”
PK “Nope, there’s not plenty”
“You constantly contest facts, why not let journalists come in…? pic.twitter.com/WbPj0UADL3

— stranger (@strangerous10) August 20, 2025

The fact that Israel has managed to alienate western liberals is so funny, because they’d be Israel’s biggest cheerleaders if they were given the tiniest bit of justification for that position.

So much about Israel fits in perfectly with western liberal mythology. A US-aligned capitalist democracy run by a plucky religious minority who survived horrific persecution, which embraces secular progressive values and reinforces the dominant western narratives about the wonderful things the US-led order has been able to accomplish since its triumphant glorious victory in the second world war. All Israel had to do was give them something, anything, and they’d still think Israel is the greatest thing in the world. They just needed an excuse — even a very meager one.

But Israel couldn’t even give them that. Genocide, racism, apartheid, ethnic cleansing and expansionism were just too important to its driving ideology. The Zionist project simply could not continue without going mask-off at some point, so now they’ve lost all the mainstream moderate liberals and pretty much everyone besides the “killing Muslims is good” far right extremists and the “we have to support Israel because God commands it” Christian Zionists.

Eventually all the contradictions had to come out into the light.

❖

The Israeli press are pushing the narrative that if people in Gaza are suffering so bad they should leave, which is precisely the narrative I said we’d soon be hearing from Israel in facilitation of its longstanding ethnic cleansing agenda.

Last month I wrote the following in an article titled “They’re Starving Civilians To Steal A Palestinian Territory, And They’re Lying About It”:

“Western governments are beginning to speak out against the mass atrocity in Gaza, far too little and far too late. We can expect Israel and the United States to respond to this outcry by saying that Palestinians need to be evacuated out of Gaza as quickly as possible in order to rescue them from this deliberately manufactured humanitarian crisis. We can expect them to denounce anyone who opposes this ethnic cleansing operation as evil monsters who want to starve the poor Palestinians.”

The Jerusalem Post has just published an opinion piece titled “Gaza humanitarian crisis should expedite Trump’s relocation plan,” subtitled “Now that there is public awareness of a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, it should be leveraged to garner support for Trump’s Gaza relocation proposal.”

The article’s author, Gol Kalev, complains that “the Gazans” are being “denied the basic human right to flee a war” by the mean, nasty Europeans who just want to accuse Israel of war crimes and atrocities.

“They are needed under the rubble in Gaza — not just by Hamas, who uses them as human shields, but also by Europe and its proxies, who use them as pawns in their age-old opposition to the Jewish state, and as a proxy assault on America,” Kalev writes, arguing that public frustration “should not be directed at Israel, but at those standing in the way of Trump’s relocation plan, including European leaders.”

“Now that there is public awareness of a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, it should be leveraged to garner support for Trump’s Gaza relocation proposal — which could lead to safety and prosperity for Gazans, and peace for the entire region,” writes Kalev. “The public message must be clear: Let the Gazans be free — let them flee.”

Just as I said they would do, they’re disguising a naked ethnic cleansing operation as humanitarianism and denouncing anyone who wants to provide Palestinians with a massive relief effort in their historic homeland as an uncaring monster. We can expect to see more of this messaging going forward.

❖

Anyone who tells you they support Israel for religious reasons is telling you to stop trying to reason with them. They’re saying their position is not based on facts, evidence, logic or morality, but their blind faith in a collection of made up stories. So there’s nothing you could possibly say to them that would change their mind or convince them that they are wrong.

Trying to debate or reason with such a person would be the same as trying to convince someone that there is no God. It’s an entirely unfalsifiable position about which no argument can be made using facts and evidence.

Someone like Mike Huckabee is never telling the truth or saying what he really thinks is going on when it comes to Israel and the Palestinians, he’s just making whatever mouth noises he needs to make to help fulfill a Biblical prophecy and secure his eternal reward. Such people have no place in the conversation. They should be completely excluded from the debate, because they are not actually participating in it. They’re just lying and manipulating for reasons that have nothing to do with truth or morality.

________________

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People who carefully track the machinations of globalist institutions might have noticed a disturbing atmosphere of silence since the 2024 elections. I discussed this trend a few months ago in my article “Globalists Go Radio Silent As NATO Flirts With World War III”, specifically the dramatic shift that has taken place since the pandemic when organizations like the World Economic Forum ripped the mask off completely and admitted their true authoritarian intentions.

By the end of 2021, most of the world was under maniacal technocratic control and the globalists seemed to think they had western civilization by the balls. The elites were constantly in the media openly touting their plans, from perpetual covid lockdowns, to vaccine passports, to climate lockdowns, to cashless digital monetary systems where all economic liberty is lost, to the “sharing economy” where private property is abolished, to the Fourth Industrial Revolution in which AI runs everything, to the “Great Reset” which would completely undermine the free market system and herald a socialist dystopia.

In my 20 years as an economist, writer and analyst in the liberty movement I have never seen the globalists reveal their true intentions so brazenly. The pandemic exposed an incredible number of people to the underlying reality of the “New World Order” and in that span of around three years the awakening skyrocketed. The number of patriots born during covid was unprecedented.

People realized it wasn’t a mere conspiracy theory. World events were not simply random products of chance and chaos. There was indeed a smoky god-damn room filled with nefarious plotting parasites. The march towards global governance was real and now everyone except the dumbest of the dumb knows it.

The powers-that-be were so confident in the success of their endeavor that they essentially proclaimed global government by bureaucrats and corporations in the very midst of covid. Calling it the “Council for Inclusive Capitalism” working in collusion with the Vatican.

Within the occult methodology the natural solution would be to adopt new organizations and new names but maintain the same goals. I’ve noticed that this happens often with the globalists. At one point the majority of their planning was done within the Council on Foreign Relations and the Bilderberg Group. Then it was the Club Of Rome and the UN. Then it was the IMF. Then the focus switched to Davos and the WEF.

They used the term “New World Order”, then switched to “Multipolar World Order”, then to “the Great Reset” and the “Fourth Industrial Revolution”. This makes it very difficult for researchers to track the most current mechanisms of the conspiracy.

I have found that, in the last year, “Stakeholder Capitalism” has become the fresh code for much of their renewed efforts. It’s not a new term, but it is being used more often by the elites to draw less attention. Some use the phrase “stakeholder capitalism 3.0” or “third phase stakeholder capitalism”.

The original idea being that corporations can no longer make profits a priority. Rather, they must produce equal outcomes (not just equal opportunities) in order to participate in the interdependent international economy. In order to get access to the system, companies must promote approved narratives on climate and social justice, as well as partner with governments and NGOs to make DEI equity a reality.

The companies that don’t participate will face pressure from government officials and will not be able to compete with companies that comply. The problem is, this requires that meritocracy be erased and that producers be forced to subsidize feeders on a planetary scale. That is to say, stakeholder capitalism is global communism cloaked in the humanist costume of corporate responsibility.

The World Economic Forum seems to be doubling down on ESG and stakeholder capitalism with Blackrock CEO Larry Fink at the helm, despite growing public opposition.  Though, Blackrock has removed a majority of ESG and DEI related language from their corporate reports.

I recently came across an article published at the end of July from the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance which outlines the more discreet evolution of ESG (and DEI) in 2025. It reiterates similar observations made by globalists over the past year, that ESG must be rebranded but not abandoned.

It argues that the old political virtue signaling and compliance checklists of the last decade must be set aside (for now) and that stakeholder capitalism should be presented as a “win-win” for the companies and communities involved. It is, in a way, an attempt to sell conservatives on the idea of ESG.

One argument is that companies that engage in ESG-like policies “make more money” and gain more share value. Limited data is produced to support this claim, and I would point out that stock markets overall have been on a frightening bull run since the election.

Companies that are NOT engaging in ESG are doing just as well as those that are, at least…in the US. Harvard notes that outflows from ESG funds are prevalent in America, but in the EU they are becoming more successful. I’m seeing similar trends in Canada and Australia – Anywhere that governments are working with globalists to enforce DEI standards on companies, ESG funds are obviously going to outperform.

It’s a cartel, remember, and western political leaders are the enforcers. The US is the only place where ESG is in retreat. This could change in the near term as Europeans grow increasingly rebellious against the multicultural coup, but it does illustrate the fact that woke capitalism (stakeholder capitalism) cannot survive without government intervention.

This is not to say that progress in the fight against globalism has not been made. I grow tired of blackpilled mouth-breathers that act as if there have been no victories and that everything is going “according to the globalist plan”. If this was true then they would have proudly and publicly moved forward with their Great Reset instead of running back into the shadows.

That said, vigilance requires temperance. Behind the scenes many corporations are still introducing woke policies and they are even advancing the globalist takeover in Europe. The fight must focus on these specific companies and their NGO partners; it is not the job of corporations (or leftist politicians and NGOs) to enact social engineering. They are not qualified to determine the greater good because they are not good people. They are driven by the desire for power, not morality or reason.

The globalists have lost the information war, but they keep coming back because they have yet to face real world consequences for their hubris. The only way to end the nightmare permanently is to dissolve the structures that give them their influence, or, remove them from the equation entirely.

Reprinted with permission from Alt-Market.us.

The post Globalists Are Rebranding Their ‘Woke Capitalism’ Agenda After Crushing Setbacks appeared first on LewRockwell.

In an unsurprising development, Russia and the West are gridlocked on the part of the working peace deal centered on postwar security provisions for Ukraine, even as U.S. President Donald Trump relentlessly pushes for agreement between the two warring nations. There are also new signs that Trump may once again be growing frustrated with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.

Ukrainian security was the most repeated issue during Monday’s meeting fest at the White House between Trump and several European leaders. “Security guarantees” was the phrase of the day. When a reporter asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky if he wants guarantees to include U.S. troops, intelligence, or equipment, he replied, “everything.”

Zelensky has maintained for as long as the war has been raging that his country is the only thing stopping Russia from rolling through the rest of Europe, a theory parroted by some European leaders yet considered fantastical by many people. The prospect of Russian westward expansion has become more unlikely over time, as the war has prompted many European countries to ramp up military capabilities and spending, including Russia’s neighbor Poland as well as Germany and a slew of Nordic countries that have forged a defense coalition. Moreover, Russia has suffered enormous casualties (there is no reliable information on this front, but an aggregate of estimates suggests at least 100,000). And the invasion has weakened the Russian economy. Thousands of additional sanctions were leveled on Russia after the attack began.

Russia’s Stance

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov issued a statement Thursday indicating that whatever deal the West is cooking up on the security front, it is likely not to the Kremlin’s liking. He said:

When now, following the Russia-US summit in Alaska, where significant progress was made along the path of defining the contours and specific parameters of the settlement, European countries followed Mr. Vladimir Zelensky to Washington and there tried to advance their own agenda, which is aimed at ensuring that security guarantees that follow the logic of isolating Russia, uniting the Western world with Ukraine in order to continue an aggressive confrontational policy, containing Russia, meaning, of course, further attempts to inflict a strategic defeat on us, of course, this cannot evoke any feelings other than complete rejection.

A group of European leaders who’ve formed a “coalition of the willing” want a security agreement that includes stationing troops from various NATO nations in Ukraine to prevent future Russian aggression. (Although Germany recently showed its weak cards in this respect when Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul publicly admitted his country is stretched too thin to help out with troops in Ukraine.) The idea of soldiers from NATO nations in Ukraine is a non-starter for the Russians. Their primary stated reason for the invasion in the first place was Ukraine’s pursuance of NATO membership, which would render a hostile military alliance on their doorstep. (By this line of thinking, that has already happened: several other NATO nations already border Russia, including Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Poland.)

The Istanbul Draft

In Thursday’s statement, Lavrov also said the basis for Ukrainian security should be the Istanbul agreement drafted in 2022, which he dubbed “natural and relevant today.” The Atlantic Council, a Washington, D.C.-based foreign-policy think tank with several CIA agents on its board of directors, characterized the Istanbul draft as “a blueprint for the destruction of Ukraine.” The terms of the treaty include Ukraine permanently remaining a neutral country, meaning it couldn’t join any military alliances (like NATO) or allow foreign bases within its borders.

The draft also included a security guarantee from a group of nations including the United Kingdom, China, the United States, France, and Russia. A summary of the draft says that other suggested guarantor nations included Belarus and Turkey. A criticism of this provision was that, unlike NATO’s Article 5, the Istanbul treaty “provided no binding mechanisms to ensure a swift and unified response. This reliance on consultations left Ukraine’s security dependent on the alignment of interests among the Guarantor States.” The draft treaty also didn’t specify if unanimous consent among the Guarantor States was necessary to providing military assistance.

The Istanbul draft also included demands that sanctions against Russia be lifted and that Ukraine recognize Russian as an official language. According to some sources, 30 percent of Ukrainians speak Russian.

Security Guarantees

After his meeting with Putin in Alaska, Trump claimed Putin agreed to accept security guarantees for Ukraine — a curious claim from the outset — saying:

I’m optimistic that we can collectively reach an agreement to deter any future aggression against Ukraine, and actually I think there won’t be. I think that’s even overrated — largely overrated. But we’re going to find out.

Noting the ambiguity of Trump and Putin’s security conversation, a lot of Americans wanted to know if the president was considering, as part of the working security agreement, putting U.S. boots on the ground in Ukraine. On Tuesday, Trump put those concerns to bed. During a call-in to Fox & Friends, when asked to provide assurance that Americans won’t end up defending Ukraine’s border, he said, “Well, you have my assurance, and I’m president.” However, that didn’t mean he was suggesting complete U.S. nonintervention. He also said, “When it comes to security, they are willing to put people on the ground. We’re willing to help them with things, especially, probably, if you talk about by air because nobody has stuff we have.”

Getting Tough With Putin?

On Thursday, almost a week after Trump held his chummy rendezvous with Putin, the president published a post causing many to wonder if his view toward Putin and Russia is once again hardening:

It is very hard, if not impossible, to win a war without attacking an invaders country. It’s like a great team in sports that has a fantastic defense, but is not allowed to play offense. There is no chance of winning! It is like that with Ukraine and Russia. Crooked and grossly incompetent Joe Biden would not let Ukraine FIGHT BACK, only DEFEND. How did that work out? Regardless, this is a war that would have NEVER happened if I were President — ZERO CHANCE. Interesting times ahead!!! President DJT

And not long afterward, he posted the photos below.

Donald J. Trump Truth Social 08.21.25 09:45 AM EST pic.twitter.com/HVcvfDOcEp

— Fan Donald J. Trump Posts From Truth Social (@TrumpDailyPosts) August 21, 2025

Is Trump signaling that he’s about to get tough with Putin? Are the posts Trump’s attempt to combat media criticism that Putin outsmarted him like a fox negotiating with a hen in a barnyard deal?

This latest development reinforces how difficult it is to get these parties to agree on peace terms. The Russians want a Ukraine that poses no military threat. Ukraine, however, wants the ability to protect itself against future attacks from its neighbor — which would by nature render it a military threat.

In a statement to The Wall Street Journal on Thursday, a White House official said the president will continue to work toward bringing peace to Eastern Europe. “President Trump and his national security team continue to engage with Russian and Ukrainian officials towards a bilateral meeting to stop the killing and end the war. It is not in the national interest to further negotiate these issues publicly,” the statement said.

Still Pointing Fingers

Meanwhile, the fighting continues. Recent reports says Russia fired 574 drones and 40 ballistic and cruise missiles into Ukraine overnight. According to Trump, thousands of soldiers are dying every week as these two bitter enemies, once attached at the hip, kill each other. Russia blames Ukraine for the war’s continuance. It sees its demands — no NATO admittance for Ukraine, no foreign troops in the country, and the forfeit of eastern territory including the Donbas — as reasonable. Ukraine points the finger right back, although it made a step toward Russian demands recently when it signaled it would consider territorial concessions along the line of contact. Until the two informally agree on these issues, it sounds like a meeting between Putin and Zelensky is off the table.

This article was originally published on The New American.

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Robert F. Kennedy. Jr. called out the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) for recommending vaccines – including the dangerous COVID shots – created by its top corporate supporters without disclosing its conflicts of interest.

The AAP recently made headlines for releasing its own recommended childhood vaccine schedule independent of the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which was recently overhauled by Kennedy, the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

The notable difference between the two schedules is that the AAP is recommending COVID shots for healthy children, whereas the CDC is no longer recommending these experimental mRNA shots for healthy children and pregnant women.

Kennedy shared on Tuesday a screenshot from the AAP’s webpage showing some of its top donors are Merck, Moderna, Pfizer, and Sanofi, major vaccine manufacturers. Other vaccine makers, like GlaxoSmithKline, make considerable donations to the AAP as well.

This is a screenshot from American Academy of Pediatrics’ webpage, thanking the organization’s top corporate donors. These four companies make virtually every vaccine on the CDC recommended childhood vaccine schedule. AAP is angry that CDC has eliminated corporate influence in… pic.twitter.com/WtWe6vnUrw

— Secretary Kennedy (@SecKennedy) August 19, 2025

The four first companies listed, Kennedy noted, “make virtually every vaccine on the CDC recommended childhood vaccine schedule.”

While he acknowledged that the AAP is free to make its own recommendations, he called for it to “follow the lead of HHS and disclose conflicts of interest” so that Americans may consider whether the AAP is serving the “public health interest” or the “commercial ambitions of AAP’s Big Pharma benefactors.”

Kennedy accused the AAP of anger against the CDC for eradicating “corporate influence in decisions over vaccine recommendations.” He referenced his dismissal of all 17 previous members of the CDC’s top vaccine advisory panel due to the finding that they were routinely advising on products from pharmaceutical firms with which they had financial ties and had been issued conflict-of-interest waivers from the CDC.

While the CDC vaccine schedule so far remains mostly the same since the appointment of eight new members to the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP), its June 25 meeting has launched new workgroups to study these approved vaccines and the cumulative effect of the child and teen vaccine schedule.

Among other recommendations, the June ACIP meeting advised the removal of thimerosal, a neurotoxic, mercury-containing preservative currently used in flu shots.

In Kennedy’s Tuesday X post, he also urged the AAP to clarify that “recommendations that diverge from the CDC’s official list are not shielded from liability under the 1986 Vaccine Injury Act.”

Kennedy has frequently stressed the importance of ridding U.S. health regulatory agencies of “corporate capture,” a term he uses to describe the common phenomenon whereby these regulatory agencies receive significant funding from pharmaceutical companies and subsequently rubber-stamp their products without meaningful review.

This article was originally published on Lifesite News.

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We’re humoring our self-delusion.

How do great powers come undone? We can start with a destructive force without equal: self-delusion.

Emperor Norton comes to mind in this context. In 1859, in the Gold Rush-enriched city of San Francisco, Joshua Norton, a bankrupt businessman, declared himself “Emperor of these United States” in a proclamation that he signed “Norton I, Emperor of the United States.”

This grandiosity played well in the rough and tumble “get rich quick, then lose it all” zeitgeist of San Francisco, and rather than be abused or disabused, Norton was “treated deferentially in San Francisco and elsewhere in California, and currency issued in his name was honored in some of the establishments he frequented.”

In other words, his self-delusion was humored. On a grand scale, the same can be said of Great Powers: they humor their own self-delusion.

The progression of a Great Power from self-delusion to collapse was insightfully traced out by Soviet dissident Andrei Amalrik in the late 1960s, when Amalrik predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union, the lone voice to make such a bold prediction at the apex of Soviet power.

Amalrik’s analysis was nuanced, drawing upon the human weaknesses that blind us to our own self-deception and rosy assumptions. Chief among these is the comforting belief that “it will all work out because it’s always worked out before,” an assumption that blinds us to the extraordinary nature of the crisis and the decay that we avoid recognizing beneath the surface of normal life.

Amalrik noted that the primary motivation of the various classes and interest groups was self-preservation, seeking to maintain whatever each faction currently held in terms of wealth and power. The misguided assumption made by all was that the system was so stable and powerful that they didn’t need to concern themselves with anything beyond securing their position in the system.

As the system destabilizes, nobody notices because they’re focused solely on the infighting borne of self-preservation.

He was also alert to the government’s role in mediating the forces seeking to suppress reforms as dangers to the status quo and those seeking to force reforms on a sclerotic systems, and how seemingly small policy decisions can grease the skids to rapidly unfolding crises few imagined were even possible.

One of Amalrik’s analytic techniques is both novel and insightful. This excerpt from How a Great Power Falls Apart: Decline Is Invisible From the Inside explains the concept of working backward from whatever outcome seems unlikely or even impossible:

Amalrik also provided a kind of blueprint for analytic alienation. It is actually possible, he suggested, to think your way through the end of days. The method is to practice living with the most unlikely outcome you can fathom and then to work backward, systematically and carefully, from the what-if to the ‘here’s-why.’ The point isn’t to pick one’s evidence to fit a particular conclusion. It is rather to jolt oneself out of the assumption of linear change–to consider, for a moment, how some future historian might recast implausible concerns as inevitable ones.”

Catastrophic outcomes are considered impossible because the status quo views itself as already having the means to handle any crisis. There’s nothing to be learned from others and no reason to even ponder unlikely outcomes, and this creates a toxic blend of hubris and blindness.

“Society was becoming more complicated, more riven with difference, more demanding of the state but less convinced that the state could deliver. What was left was a political system far weaker than anyone–even those committed to its renewal–was able to recognize.”

Those in power reckon they have the means to deal with any problem. Suppress dissent, buy off a troublesome constituency, print more money, etc. This confidence reflects the dominant political mythologies of the Great Power and its people. Reformers believe the status quo is capable of systemic reform, those resisting reform believe the system will endure without any reforms, and both are disconnected from reality: the status quo is no longer capable of real reforms, and left on autopilot, it is heading off a cliff.

“Amalrik offered a technique for suspending one’s deepest political mythologies and posing questions that might seem, here and now, to lie at the frontier of crankery.

The powerful aren’t accustomed to thinking this way. But in the lesser places, among the dissidents and the displaced, people have had to be skilled in the art of self-inquiry. How much longer should we stay? What do we put in the suitcase? Here or there, how can I be of use? In life, as in politics, the antidote to hopelessness isn’t hope. It’s planning.”

Read the Whole Article

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Thanks, Jesse Trentadue.

American Thinker

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David Krall wrote:

Back in 2023 I wrote:

Memo To Target Corporation Board of Directors

)”In order to restore integrity and financial soundness to the company you oversee,   it is necessary that you clean house (fire all) at the highest levels of corporate executives from the CEO on down and replace them with an administration that is focused on the business of the company and the interests of its shareholders.

After that, all of you need to resign your positions on the board and let the stockholders elect a new BOD.

Further, none of you, executives and board members alike, should ever be allowed to participate in corporate activity anywhere ever again.

Thank you.”

 Now, the Target Board of Directors has given us this:

Target’s stock plunges 7% as new CEO pick disappoints Wall Street: ‘There won’t be change when change is needed’

The post TARGET You Didn’t Listen appeared first on LewRockwell.

Johnny Kramer wrote:

CNBC News

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The post Horror: Israeli Intel Database Reveals 83% Killed In Gaza Are Civilians! appeared first on LewRockwell.

The Pre-postmodernists Who Prefigured Postmodernism

The post The Donkey and the Tiger Re-Revisited appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks Patrick Foy.

BBC News

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Writes Vicki Marzullo:

This is one of the doctors I follow. Wish I could find a doctor like him.

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Click Here:

John Leake

The post Did I Wound Senator Cassidy’s Vanity? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Click Here:

Crisis Magazine

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Writes John Leo Keenan:

Interesting post.  Disrespectful to sign such a letter with just initials.  Thankfully, you clarified who they were.  I went back to that to know.

Hard to comment, but just his letter (or bill proposed in the Argentinean Congress), published by Mises.org, and sent by Dr. Huerta de Soto (called basically an idiot by HHH on that occasion), could be enough to justify even a “bust” in any Ludwig von Mises Institute.  That he then proceeded to balance that budget, achieving a small surplus, drastically reducing the large inflation, looks Misesian indeed.  He did it also while crediting the Austrian school of economics for his insights.  Yet those insights are not enough, as Dr. Huerta de Soto well said in some context (which I think was that of his electoral triumph).  It’s really his personal merit too.  When we “talk Milei” as it were, it’s now about a major top-worldwide expert in defeating inflation (or hyperinflation for the U.S.).  He could earn a lot of money as an economics advisor, being someone who “knows more than just theory.”

If it were the “Rothbard Institute,” it is also difficult to reject an award for him.  Milei has made clear in Argentina that he is a classical liberal only in the midterm, that his long-term goal is to get rid of the State… Politically, that’s very daring of him.  Just the fact that he gets up there without hiding his beliefs is extraordinary enough, and to double down on his libertarianism while in power could be a reason for another bust too. 

The “on the other hand” part of the letter forgets the victory against inflation (typical), recognized now by all in Argentina.  

“It is not enough that he pursue liberal goals with his policies. Rather, the political means must be objectively suitable for actually achieving those goals.”   

“…whatever successes his policies may have had so far have been largely achieved through the usual means of inflationary government financing, i.e. by inflating the money supply and government debt.”  (He could conclude, rather, that the victory over inflation backs up Milei’s theory that the high inflation was due to chronic budget deficits.)

The pros and the cons – as given – seem incompatible, not separate enough from each other:  

“After his election, he immediately set about dismantling the state and, in many respects, he has pursued this policy more resolutely, more extensively and more successfully than any of his Argentine predecessors.”  (Than most politicians anywhere.)

Of course, their point that it should only go to scholars is something different:  

“In our view, a ‘Memorial Prize in honour of Ludwig von Mises’ could be awarded to scientists or politicians who have rendered outstanding services to the development, dissemination or application of Mises’ ideas.” 

Milei also wrote libertarian books (I haven’t read).  Huerta de Soto calls him his “student.”  It’s assumable that he would like such a prize for Milei.  He called him his professor, named him in his inaugural speech and later.   Contrary to most predictions, his first year in power was successful.

The following is the conclusion of the linked news article from yesterday:

“From a mercantile standpoint, Argentina now runs a tighter fiscal policy, a more stable currency path, and a sharply lower inflation rate.

Investors see a country with falling poverty, improving fiscal accounts, and leadership willing to implement structural changes despite resistance. The October elections will determine whether Milei can sustain political momentum as social costs of adjustment remain high.”

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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.

____________________________________________________________________________________

(Versione audio della traduzione disponibile qui: https://open.substack.com/pub/fsimoncelli/p/la-seconda-matrix)

Nell'articolo Leggere tra le bugie abbiamo esplorato come riconoscere i modelli di inganno istituzionale: le narrazioni accuratamente elaborate che tengono l'umanità intrappolata in una matrice di percezioni.

Theodore Dalrymple identificò il funzionamento di questa prima matrice di controllo nei regimi totalitari: “Nel mio studio sulle società comuniste, sono giunto alla conclusione che lo scopo della propaganda comunista non era persuadere o convincere, non informare, ma umiliare; e quindi, meno corrispondeva alla realtà, meglio era. Quando le persone sono costrette a tacere quando vengono raccontate loro le bugie più evidenti, o peggio ancora quando sono costrette a ripetere le bugie stesse, perdono una volta per tutte il loro senso di probità. Acconsentire a bugie evidenti significa, in un certo senso, diventare malvagi a loro volta. La propria capacità di resistere a qualsiasi cosa viene così erosa, e persino distrutta. Una società di bugiardi evirati è facile da controllare”.

Questo principio di partecipazione forzata non è scomparso, si è evoluto. Il sistema odierno non esige solo il silenzio, ma anche la complicità attiva per quanto riguarda le sue narrazioni, trasformando la resistenza stessa in un'arma di influenza. Osservare voci autorevoli denunciare la vera corruzione, solo per poi reindirizzarla verso soluzioni accuratamente preselezionate, rivela uno schema ancora più profondo: il sistema non si limita a creare propaganda, ma crea percorsi riservati per coloro che la vedono. Liberarsi dalla programmazione mainstream è solo il primo passo; ciò che segue è più sottile e altrettanto inquietante. Svincolarsi dalle narrazioni istituzionali crea un'immediata vulnerabilità: la necessità di nuove risposte, nuovi leader, una nuova direzione. Chi governa la prima matrice non lascerebbe le rampe di uscita senza supervisione.

Ciò chiarisce i meccanismi più profondi della seconda matrice: catturare il risveglio attraverso canali sofisticati di opposizione non autentica.

La meccanica dell'opposizione controllata

Lo schema diventa chiaro quando esaminiamo come viene gestita la critica sistemica: a chi denuncia la corruzione è permesso parlare, ma solo entro limiti rigorosi. Prendiamo ad esempio il settore bancario: anche chi denuncia la natura predatoria delle banche centrali raramente ne chiede l'abolizione. La crisi del 2008 ha portato le frodi finanziarie all'attenzione del grande pubblico attraverso denunce popolari come il film, La grande scommessa. Ciononostante la comprensione ha generato solo sfiducia: nessuna responsabilità, solo salvataggi per i responsabili dell'accaduto e un sistema più fragile per tutti gli altri. Come ogni sofisticato gioco di fiducia, funziona per fasi: prima si guadagna la fiducia attraverso rivelazioni reali, poi si crea dipendenza attraverso conoscenze esclusive “dall'interno”, infine si reindirizza quella fiducia verso risultati limitati. Osservate come le piattaforme mediatiche alternative seguono questo schema: denunciano la corruzione autentica, costruiscono un seguito devoto, quindi spostano sottilmente l'attenzione narrativa dalla responsabilità sistemica. Ogni rivelazione sembra condurre più in profondità in un labirinto di risveglio coordinato. Nota: evito deliberatamente di nominare obiettivi specifici, questa analisi non riguarda la creazione di nuovi eroi o antagonisti, ma il riconoscimento di modelli che trascendono i singoli individui.

Ciò che rende questo modello così efficace è che le stesse istituzioni che hanno trasformato il denaro da oro a carta trasformano anche la resistenza genuina in opposizione gestita. Come ho scritto in Tutto svuotato, proprio come la moneta sintetica sostituisce il valore reale, i movimenti di opposizione fiat offrono versioni sintetiche di risveglio indipendente, contenenti solo la verità sufficiente per sembrare reali, mantenendo al contempo l'opposizione entro limiti sicuri.

Comprendere questi schemi di opposizione controllata può sembrare opprimente. Ogni rivelazione sembra portare a un ulteriore livello di inganno. È come scoprire di essere in un labirinto solo per rendersi conto che ci sono labirinti dentro labirinti. Alcuni si perdono a documentare ogni svolta, discutendo di dettagli del sistema finanziario, discutendo di protocolli medici, analizzando mosse di scacchi geopolitiche. Oppure, nei “circoli del complotto”: il virus è stato isolato? Come sono crollate davvero le Torri? Cosa c'è veramente in Antartide? Sebbene queste domande siano importanti, rimanere bloccati in un'infinita mappatura di labirinti ha come risultato la perdita totale del focus. Un sano dibattito e un sano disaccordo sono naturali, e persino salutari, nei movimenti che cercano la verità, ma quando questi dibattiti assorbono tutta l'energia e l'attenzione, impediscono un'azione efficace verso gli obiettivi fondamentali.

Il viaggio della ricerca

Negli ultimi anni mi sono immerso profondamente nella scoperta dei meccanismi di controllo, non come un esercizio astratto, ma insieme a un team che include alcuni dei miei amici più cari, seguendo percorsi che sembravano condurre alla verità. Le rivelazioni sono state sconvolgenti: “fatti” fondamentali con cui siamo cresciuti si sono rivelati delle vere e proprie invenzioni. Siamo stati umiliati due volte: prima disimparando ciò che pensavamo di sapere, poi scoprendo che le nostre certezze su nuovi percorsi erano sbagliate. Percorsi che sembravano rivoluzionari hanno portato a vicoli ciechi; comunità che sembravano autentiche si sono rivelate canali progettati ad arte.

La verità più dura non è solo riconoscere l'inganno, ma accettare che potremmo non conoscere mai la storia completa, pur dovendo comunque agire in base a ciò che possiamo verificare. Ciò che è iniziato come una ricerca su specifici inganni ha rivelato qualcosa di molto più profondo: mentre devastanti guerre fisiche infuriano in diverse regioni, un conflitto più profondo si dispiega silenziosamente in tutto il pianeta... una guerra per la libertà della coscienza umana stessa. Ecco come si presenta la Terza guerra mondiale: non solo bombe e proiettili, ma l'ingegneria sistematica della percezione umana.

Questo modello di costruzione della fiducia prima del riorientamento riflette un sistema di controllo più profondo, che opera secondo l'antico principio alchemico di Solve et Coagula: prima dissolvere (rompere), poi coagulare (riformare sotto controllo). Il processo è preciso: quando le persone iniziano a riconoscere l'inganno istituzionale, si formano coalizioni naturali al di là delle divisioni tradizionali. I lavoratori si uniscono contro le politiche delle banche centrali; i genitori si organizzano contro gli obblighi sanitari; le comunità si oppongono all'accaparramento di terreni da parte delle multinazionali.

Ma guardate cosa succede dopo: questi movimenti unificati si dissolvono sistematicamente. Pensate alla rapidità con cui la resistenza unitaria si è frammentata dopo il 7 ottobre e a come le proteste dei camionisti si sono dissolte in narrazioni di parte. Ogni frammento si frammenta ulteriormente: dalla messa in discussione dell'autorità alle teorie contrastanti, dall'azione unitaria alle lotte intestine tribali.

Questa non è una frammentazione casuale, è una dissoluzione calcolata. Una volta scomposti, questi frammenti possono essere riformati (coagulati) in canali dialettici controllati, man mano che le persone tornano alla programmazione precedente su questioni che superano la loro unità.

Osservate come funziona il gioco della fiducia nei movimenti per la verità: prima arriva la rivelazione legittima (es. documenti autentici, informatori autentici, prove inconfutabili). La fiducia si costruisce attraverso intuizioni autentiche, poi inizia un sottile reindirizzamento. Proprio come la società viene smembrata in frammenti sempre più piccoli lungo varie linee di politica, razziali e culturali, i movimenti per la verità vengono smembrati in campi concorrenti. L'unità diventa divisione; l'azione diventa dibattito; la resistenza diventa contenuto.

Questa frammentazione sistematica dei movimenti di risveglio riflette un modello storico più profondo, che traccia l'evoluzione del controllo della percezione di massa dalla propaganda rozza alla sofisticata manipolazione biodigitale.

Dalla propaganda alla programmazione

La prima matrice ha plasmato i pensieri attraverso la programmazione diretta. Il percorso da Bernays alla supervisione biodigitale segue una progressione chiara: prima manipolare la psicologia di massa, poi digitalizzare il comportamento, infine fondersi con la biologia stessa. Ogni fase si basa sulla precedente: dallo studio della natura umana, al suo monitoraggio, fino alla sua ingegnerizzazione diretta. Da Bernays che scopre come manipolare la psicologia di massa attraverso desideri inconsci, al Tavistock che perfeziona l'ingegneria sociale, alla modifica algoritmica del comportamento, ogni fase introduce strumenti più sofisticati per la manipolazione della realtà. La tecnologia digitale ha accelerato questa evoluzione: gli algoritmi dei social media perfezionano la cattura dell'attenzione, gli smartphone consentono un monitoraggio comportamentale costante, i sistemi di intelligenza artificiale prevedono e modellano le risposte.

Mentre questi strumenti digitali si fondono con interventi biologici – dai farmaci che alterano l'umore alle interfacce cervello-computer – si avvicinano al controllo completo della percezione umana stessa. Ciò che è iniziato con una rozza propaganda si è evoluto in una precisa manipolazione digitale dell'attenzione e del comportamento. La seconda matrice crea canali approvati per coloro che si liberano – un ecosistema ingegnerizzato di alternative controllate. Proprio come le narrazioni mediatiche coordinate hanno addestrato la classe degli esperti a esternalizzare il proprio pensiero a “fonti autorevoli”, la matrice biodigitale ora si offre di esternalizzare la propria sensibilità, promettendo una cognizione migliorata e offrendo al contempo una programmazione più profonda. Questa rappresenta l'ultima evoluzione nella gestione della percezione: all'inizio si negava l'esistenza delle cospirazioni, quando poi ciò è diventato impossibile a causa di prove inconfutabili, sono stati creati canali ad hoc per le menti in via di risveglio.

Il processo a O.J. Simpson ha segnato un cambiamento cruciale in questa strategia: ha addestrato la società a elaborare indagini serie come uno spettacolo di intrattenimento. Come osservò Marshall McLuhan, “il mezzo è il messaggio”: il formato stesso dell'intrattenimento mediatico rimodella il modo in cui elaboriamo la verità, indipendentemente dal contenuto. Ciò che è iniziato come legittime domande sulla corruzione della polizia e sui pregiudizi istituzionali è diventato una soap opera alimentata dagli ascolti. Lo stesso schema continua ancora oggi: i crimini di Jeffrey Epstein diventano intrattenimento mentre i suoi clienti rimangono liberi, i crimini di Mangione generano molteplici produzioni in streaming a pochi giorni dall'evento, ancor prima della conclusione delle indagini (le vicende di Garlasco trasformate in intrattenimento per nascondere la corruzione dei giudici, ndT). Gli incidenti di Las Vegas e New Orleans ne sono una dimostrazione lampante: nel giro di poche ore eventi potenzialmente destabilizzanti vengono incanalati in narrazioni concorrenti, mentre l'apparato dell'intrattenimento è pronto a trasformare qualsiasi indagine seria in contenuto fruibile.

Le rivelazioni vere sulle reti di trafficanti e sulla criminalità organizzata sono diventate contenuti da guardare ininterrottamente. Le gole profonde diventano influencer; i documenti declassificati diventano trend su TikTok. Con una capacità di attenzione limitata e contenuti infiniti, la ricerca della verità diventa un'altra forma di consumo che pacifica anziché rafforzare. Osservate come passa il tempo e le “teorie del complotto” diventano luoghi di ritrovo limitati: la morte di JFK viene attribuita alla “mafia”, un comodo escamotage per le forze istituzionali che sostengono tale tesi. Modelli simili emergono con le rivelazioni sull'11 settembre.

Ecco la mia posizione, per quanto estrema possa sembrare ai miei amici ancora immersi in narrazioni convenzionali: dobbiamo considerare la possibilità che la struttura di potere controlli entrambi i lati della maggior parte dei dibattiti più importanti. Ogni narrazione mainstream ha la sua opposizione approvata; ogni risveglio ha i suoi leader sanzionati; ogni rivelazione conduce a canali amministrati. Comprendere questo schema potrebbe portare alla paralisi, ma non dovrebbe: significa invece riconoscere che abbiamo bisogno di nuovi modi di pensare e di organizzarci.

Come ha osservato la ricercatrice Whitney Webb su X:

Now that the people who fearmongered about "Russians" infiltrating and being to blame for everything are leaving power, now we have people on the other side fearmongering about "Islamists" infiltrating and being to blame for everything.

Oh, how the pendulum swings and how the…

Cambia solo il nemico designato: la spinta verso una maggiore sorveglianza e controllo rimane costante. Ogni “parte” ha il suo turno di alimentare la paura nella propria base, mentre le stesse istituzioni espandono il loro potere.

Nixon aprì le porte alla Cina; Clinton promosse il NAFTA; Trump accelerò l'Operazione Warp Speed. Sto osservando uno schema ricorrente, non sto accusando nessuno di cospirazione, ma sto notando come le figure politiche spesso agiscano in modo contrario alla loro immagine pubblica: Nixon, l'anticomunista, aprì le porte alla Cina; Clinton, che fece campagna elettorale per la protezione dei lavoratori americani, fece approvare il più grande accordo di libero scambio internazionale; Trump, l'outsider populista, promosse l'agenda di Big Pharma. Che siano pressioni istituzionali, realtà politiche o altre forze, queste contraddizioni rivelano uno schema sofisticato: il sistema pianifica entrambi i lati delle principali trasformazioni politiche, garantendo risultati controllati indipendentemente da chi sembra detenere il potere. Molte di queste figure potrebbero esse stesse rispondere a forze che a malapena comprendono: attori utili, o manipolati, piuttosto che orchestratori consapevoli.

Questa dinamica non si limita ai politici. Si pensi a Twitter/X che negli ultimi due anni si è autoproclamato baluardo della libertà di parola, mentre proprio questa settimana ha introdotto algoritmi per amplificare la “positività”. Inquadrato come un mezzo per promuovere un dialogo costruttivo, rispecchia le stesse linee di politica di moderazione un tempo criticate come censura.

Questo schema di opposizione controllata si estende a ogni livello dei movimenti di risveglio. Pensate a quanti dei miei amici, ancora intrappolati nella prima matrice, liquidano i seguaci di QAnon come dei perfetti idioti, prendendoli in giro come personaggi dei cartoni animati e ignorando la documentata corruzione istituzionale che il movimento ha denunciato. Ciò che non capiscono è che sotto gli elementi teatrali si nascondono prove significative di criminalità sistemica. Rimango aperto all'esame di queste affermazioni: dopotutto, il riconoscimento di schemi richiede di prendere in considerazione le prove senza pregiudizi. Ma il messaggio centrale del movimento, “fidatevi del piano”, rivela come il risveglio venga reindirizzato. Trasforma la resistenza attiva in un gruppo di spettatori passivi, in attesa che i “personaggi dietro le quinte” li salvino invece di intraprendere azioni significative.

È qui che traccio il limite. Non posso delegare il benessere della mia famiglia a entità sconosciute o piani segreti. Ciò richiede una vigilanza costante, attenta sia alle minacce evidenti che ai sottili depistaggi. L'aspetto più pericoloso dell'opposizione gestita non sono le informazioni che condivide, ma il modo in cui insegna un'impotenza mascherata da speranza.

La cattura dei movimenti autentici

Ogni nuova teoria e movimento aggiunge un ulteriore livello di complessità, allontanando ulteriormente chi la cerca tramite l'azione significativa. La controcultura degli anni '60 passò dal mettere in discussione la guerra e l'autorità alla passività del “sintonizzatevi, abbandonatevi”. Negli anni '80 gli ex-hippy divennero yuppie, la loro consapevolezza rivoluzionaria incanalata ordinatamente nel capitalismo consumistico. Ancora oggi il movimento contro la guerra mostra questo schema: una parte politica si oppone alla guerra in Ucraina mentre la sostiene a Gaza, l'altra ribalta queste posizioni. Ciascuna parte si dichiara contraria alla guerra quando non è il conflitto che preferisce. Occupy Wall Street ha seguito lo stesso schema: partendo da una potente denuncia della corruzione finanziaria, si è frammentata in cause di giustizia sociale concorrenti che hanno lasciato intatto il sistema bancario.

La seduzione sta nel contenuto di verità. I movimenti ambientalisti denunciano l'inquinamento aziendale, ma promuovono crediti sull'anidride carbonica e sensi di colpa individuali. I movimenti per la giustizia sociale denunciano le disuguaglianze, ma reindirizzano verso criteri DEI a livello aziendale. La rivoluzione del cibo biologico è iniziata come resistenza all'agricoltura industriale, ma è diventata una categoria di prodotti premium, reindirizzando preoccupazioni reali verso scelte di shopping esclusive. Ogni movimento contiene abbastanza verità da attrarre menti consapevoli, ponendo al contempo attente barriere su soluzioni accettabili, identificando problemi reali ma sostenendo soluzioni che espandono il potere istituzionale.

Questo schema si ripete a ogni livello. Nel corso della storia le strutture di potere hanno compreso il principio di fornire una leadership controllata ai movimenti emergenti. Questo schema continua ancora oggi in ogni movimento di risveglio.

Il modello è coerente:

• Un politico mette “coraggiosamente” in discussione i vaccini mentre accetta soldi dall'industria farmaceutica;

• Un esperto “smaschera” la corruzione dello Stato profondo mentre difende le agenzie di intelligence;

• Una celebrità “combatte la cancel culture” promuovendo i Green pass;

• Un guru della finanza “mette in guardia” dal collasso bancario mentre vende CBDC.

Questi modelli di riorientamento si manifestano vividamente oggi. Il movimento per la libertà medica dimostra questa dinamica: le preoccupazioni fondate sui danni causati dai vaccini rischiano di essere reindirizzate verso teorie contrastanti e dibattiti circolari, mentre la responsabilità rimane sfuggente. La recente controversia sul MAHA dimostra come anche le preoccupazioni fondate sulla sovranità alimentare possano potenzialmente distogliere l'attenzione da questa urgente crisi degli effetti collaterali causati dai vaccini e dalla relativa responsabilità.

Anche il mondo delle crittovalute illustra questo schema: le critiche valide alle banche centrali si trasformano in guerre tribali tra comunità di token. Ognuna rivendica la propria verità esclusiva, estendendo potenzialmente la portata del sistema. Persino i dibattiti ragionevoli sulle soluzioni monetarie diventano una devozione religiosa verso monete concorrenti. Nel frattempo la promessa originale di Bitcoin – la prima crittovaluta e la sua visione di autonomia finanziaria – rischia di essere cooptata, mentre la tecnologia blockchain viene riproposta per le valute digitali delle banche centrali (CBDC), le identità digitali e la conformità automatizzata. Gli stessi strumenti pensati per liberarci dalla sorveglianza bancaria vengono riproposti per perfezionarla, ma la fusione del controllo finanziario con l'identità digitale crea qualcosa di molto più insidioso: un sistema in grado di imporre la conformità sociale attraverso l'accesso alle risorse di base, monitorare i pensieri attraverso modelli di transazione e, in ultima analisi, fondersi con la nostra stessa esistenza biologica. Questa architettura non riguarda solo il controllo del denaro, ma anche la programmazione delle menti.

La convergenza biodigitale: progettare la realtà umana

La fusione tra controllo digitale e biologico non sta solo cambiando il nostro modo di interagire, ma sta anche ridisegnando la percezione umana stessa. Man mano che le connessioni sociali si spostano sempre più online, la consapevolezza umana autentica viene sostituita sistematicamente da esperienze ingegnerizzate. Oltre al dirottamento dell'attenzione e alla manipolazione emotiva, il costo più profondo ci colpisce dove fa più male: nelle nostre relazioni umane. Ogni giorno vediamo persone insieme fisicamente ma separate da schermi, perdendo momenti di vera connessione mentre scorriamo realtà artificiali. Questa costruzione artificiale è destinata a rafforzarsi ulteriormente: Meta ha annunciato l'intenzione di popolare i feed di Facebook con contenuti generati dall'intelligenza artificiale e interazioni con bot entro il 2025, sollevando interrogativi sulla connessione umana autentica su queste piattaforme.

Le grandi aziende farmaceutiche hanno introdotto la capacità di alterare chimicamente la cognizione; le grandi aziende tecnologiche hanno perfezionato la capacità di indirizzare digitalmente l'attenzione e modellare il comportamento. La loro fusione non riguarda la quota di mercato, ma il dominio completo dello spettro cognitivo umano stesso. Quelle aziende che hanno promosso le pillole per anestetizzare una generazione, ora collaborano con piattaforme che ci rendono dipendenti dalla stimolazione digitale. Le aziende che hanno tratto profitto dai farmaci per l'ADHD collaborano con i giganti dei social media che manipolano deliberatamente i deficit di attenzione. Le aziende che hanno commercializzato antidepressivi uniscono le forze con i creatori di algoritmi che manipolano scientificamente le risposte emotive.

Come ha osservato Whitney Webb a proposito del passaggio dalla narrativa del nemico “russo” a quella degli “islamisti”, la minaccia designata cambia mentre l'espansione della sorveglianza rimane costante. L'agenda dell'identità digitale segue questo schema: mentre il World Economic Forum la presenta come un aiuto umanitario per l'inclusione finanziaria, costruisce l'architettura per un monitoraggio e una supervisione comportamentali completi. Ogni crisi, che sia sanitaria, di sicurezza o finanziaria, aggiunge nuovi requisiti che uniscono identità, servizi bancari, cartelle cliniche e tracciamento sociale in un unico sistema unificato. Ciò che inizia come partecipazione volontaria diventa inevitabilmente obbligatorio man mano che la sorveglianza digitale si estende al monitoraggio e alla definizione del comportamento umano stesso: il terreno di gioco perfetto per le valute digitali delle banche centrali.

Questa architettura di sorveglianza rappresenta la fusione di due pilastri fondamentali. Ciò che è iniziato con alterazioni chimiche dell'umore e del pensiero, e si è poi evoluto nella manipolazione digitale dell'attenzione e del comportamento, si sta ora fondendo in un'unica architettura per la gestione dell'esperienza umana. Osservate come le app per la salute mentale raccolgono dati comportamentali promuovendo al contempo la terapia farmacologica. Il punteggio di credito sociale si fonde con il monitoraggio della salute. Le stesse aziende che sviluppano sistemi di identità digitale collaborano con i giganti farmaceutici. Non si tratta di ipotesi future: sta accadendo ora. Mentre discutiamo dell'etica dell'intelligenza artificiale, loro stanno silenziosamente costruendo l'infrastruttura per fondere la cognizione umana con i sistemi digitali. La promessa transumanista di una maggiore consapevolezza attraverso la tecnologia maschera una realtà più oscura: ogni integrazione diminuisce la percezione umana naturale, sostituendo la coscienza genuina con una simulazione ingegnerizzata. Questa colonizzazione tecnologica del cervello umano cerca di recidere la nostra connessione con la consapevolezza naturale e la sovranità spirituale.

In una delle sue ultime lezioni, Aldous Huxley, il celebre autore del libro Il mondo nuovo, fece una previsione agghiacciante sul futuro del controllo sociale: “Nella prossima generazione o giù di lì, ci sarà un metodo farmacologico per far sì che le persone amino la loro servitù e per produrre una dittatura senza lacrime, per così dire, creando una specie di campo di concentramento indolore per intere società, cosicché le persone si vedranno togliere le loro libertà e ne godranno”.

Siamo a un punto cruciale in cui la cattura tecnologica della coscienza umana sta diventando irreversibile. Ogni nuova generazione nasce in una più profonda integrazione digitale, con una realtà di base sempre più sintetica. Ma riconoscere questo schema rivela sia la minaccia che la debolezza: pur perfezionando gli strumenti tecnologici per il controllo, non riescono a replicare appieno il potere della connessione umana diretta. Ogni istanza di interazione autentica, ogni momento di presenza immediata, dimostra ciò che il loro sistema non riesce a catturare. La risposta non è solo smascherare le bugie, ma creare spazi di connessione umana che esistano al di fuori della loro architettura di controllo. Ciò che rende questo momento senza precedenti non è solo la sofisticatezza del controllo, ma il suo metodo di attuazione: non attraverso la forza, ma attraverso la seduzione e la convenienza. Ogni convenienza che abbracciamo, ogni miglioramento digitale che accettiamo, ci avvicina alla loro visione di consapevolezza manipolata.

Liberare la coscienza, recuperare la connessione

Comprendere questi meccanismi non significa rifiutare la tecnologia o rifugiarsi in un isolamento paranoico: significa riconoscere che il vero potere inizia con l'autonomia e imparare a relazionarsi con la modernità alle nostre condizioni.

La battaglia per la nostra mente richiede consapevolezza e azione autentica. Mentre loro cercano di manipolare il comportamento attraverso sostanze chimiche e algoritmi, il nostro potere risiede innanzitutto nella liberazione di noi stessi, per poi estenderci attraverso la connessione umana diretta.

Il loro obiettivo finale – il dominio assoluto sulla percezione e la cognizione umana – rivela una debolezza fondamentale: non possono contenere pienamente menti liberate e relazioni umane autentiche che esistono al di fuori dei loro canali mediati. Questo sistema onnicomprensivo richiede un'opposizione gestita a ogni livello, allontanandoci da un autentico risveglio e da un coinvolgimento diretto.

L'intuizione cruciale è questa: l'opposto del globalismo non è il nazionalismo o i movimenti politici, ma la libertà individuale espressa attraverso l'azione locale. Il vero risveglio non può essere programmato. Emerge attraverso un chiaro riconoscimento e si diffonde attraverso una connessione autentica. Quando gli intellettuali nei think tank come il Brownstone Institute hanno trovato una causa comune con i vigili del fuoco, il sistema ha riconosciuto un precedente pericoloso. L'unità al di là delle tradizionali divisioni sociali – tra intellettuali, professionisti e lavoratori – dimostra come le persone veramente libere possano colmare le divisioni artificiali. Mentre le reti digitali possono facilitare l'organizzazione, il vero potere si manifesta nella comunità fisica.

Parlando per esperienza, queste reti digitali sono state inestimabili nel mio percorso: ho trovato anime gemelle, condiviso intuizioni e costruito amicizie durature attraverso le comunità online. Queste connessioni mi hanno aiutato a comprendere modelli che forse non avrei mai notato da solo. Ma la condivisione di informazioni è solo il primo passo. La vera trasformazione avviene quando portiamo queste intuizioni condivise fuori dallo schermo e nelle nostre comunità, trasformando le connessioni digitali in relazioni concrete e azioni locali condivise.

Ciò significa:

• Liberare le nostre menti mentre loro spingono il pensiero programmato (creando circoli di apprendimento locali per contrastare la loro ingegneria digitale-farmaceutica del pensiero);

• Creare connessioni mantenendo la componente individuale (creando vere e proprie comunità per resistere ai loro sistemi di credito sociale);

• Agire senza attendere il consenso (aggirando i canali di opposizione concordati);

• Coltivare cibo mentre si promuovono alternative sintetiche (mantenendo l'autonomia biologica mentre si promuovono dipendenze create in laboratorio);

• Costruire una comunità mentre vendono tribù digitali (creando una connessione genuina come antidoto all'isolamento tecnologico);

• Guarire noi stessi mentre loro commercializzano le dipendenze (sviluppare una resilienza naturale contro la loro convergenza biodigitale).

La verità più potente non è una rivelazione: è il riconoscimento che la coscienza può trascendere completamente i confini da essa costruiti. La via d'uscita richiede di andare oltre le sue infinite distrazioni e di rivendicare un'azione radicata e autentica. La convergenza biodigitale può catturare solo le anime che seguono i suoi percorsi prestabiliti; la nostra essenza non è mai stata veramente vincolata dai suoi confini.

Rimanete vigili, mettete in discussione tutto, liberate la mente e agite con intenzione. La rivoluzione inizia con spiriti sovrani e cresce attraverso una connessione autentica. Costruite dove loro distruggono, create mentre loro ingannano, connettetevi mentre loro dividono. La via d'uscita dalla loro Matrix è con gli occhi ben aperti e i piedi ben piantati nel terreno locale.

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

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