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Why Is the West Preparing for War?

Sab, 13/07/2024 - 05:01

One result of the just concluded NATO Summit is Germany’s decision to host US intermediate-range missiles. Prior to 2019 when Washington cancelled the INF Treaty, the treaty prevented such deployment.

The INF Treaty was signed by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev on December 8,1987, and the treaty was ratified on June 1, 1988. The treaty was part and parcel of ending the cold war. Reagan called the treaty a “step toward a safer world.”

“The 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty required the United States and the Soviet Union to eliminate and permanently forswear all of their nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 kilometers. The treaty marked the first time the superpowers had agreed to reduce their nuclear arsenals, eliminate an entire category of nuclear weapons, and employ extensive on-site inspections for verification. As a result of the INF Treaty, the United States and the Soviet Union destroyed a total of 2,692 short-, medium-, and intermediate-range missiles by the treaty’s implementation deadline of June 1, 1991.”

Blaming Russia the Trump administration pulled out of the treaty. The consequence was to kill the nuclear disarmament that the INF Treaty began and to renew the arms race. If I had to bet I would say Washington’s withdrawal was a consequence of the US nuclear industry needing the source of profits that the arms race provided and the neoconservatives’ determination to revive US hegemony through the buildup of force. If Russia was truly out of compliance, Trump’s focus should have been to work to bring Russia into compliance, not terminate the treaty. The efforts of several American presidents and Soviet leaders in the 20th century to defuse tensions and to build trust were squandered by Washington in the 21st century.

Regardless, what is clear is that Washington is pushing both Europe and Russia into preparing for war, and is itself preparing. The US Senate has joined the House of Representatives in creating a draft registration system from which to field a conscripted army. The Senate’s version includes women in the draft, as equal treatment requires. Clearly, Washington sees the need for a larger army than a volunteer army can provide.

Now that the Biden regime is supplying F-16s and long-range missiles to Ukraine, weapon systems that Biden said would never be given to the Ukrainians, along with targeting information, clearly Washington’s intent is to further widen the war by carrying it deep into civilian areas of Russia. Simultaneously, Washington is using its NGOs in Georgia to orchestrate a color revolution there in order to open a second front against Russia. Putin’s slow forever war in Ukraine has played directly into Washington’s hands.

China is the main focus of Washington’s strategy of isolating Russia. At the recent NATO Summit China was accused of being a “decisive enabler” of Russia’s conflict with Ukraine. By allegedly supplying armaments to Russia, China is accused of challenging “our interests, security and values.”

I would have expected a different Chinese reply than was made. China should have said to Washington/NATO: “You started the conflict and your weapons systems and French troops are supporting and widening the conflict. You have blocked all efforts to end the conflict; yet you dare accuse us of responsibility for it.”

Instead, the Chinese disavowed supplying Russia with any military support.

This is an extremely weak response. It suggests that all the Russian-Chinese assurance of a “no-limits partnership” is just words. An appropriate response from China would have been: “We are considering sending 500,000 of our best soldiers to serve under Russian command in Ukraine and have called up another million men for military training.

A response such as this is what would end the conflict before the dumbshit hegemonic West puts us all in a war of annihilation.

In recorded history one can find very few competent civilian and military leaders. Alexander the Great, Constantine, Charles Martel, Charlemagne, the Duke of Marlborough, Robert E. Lee. No such men exist today, but the weapons are far more terrible. Moreover, modern war targets civilians and civilian infrastructure, as the Israelis are doing in Gaza. The goal is less to defeat an opposing army than it is to foreclose an opponent’s ability to conduct war.

In Europe a warrior class no longer exists. European male ethnicities are so oppressed by their own governments and by immigrant-invaders favored by European governments, that the defense ministers of Europe are women. What does a white ethnic European male have to fight for?

In the US the fighting force has always come from the southern states. But what have these traditional Americans, these military families, witnessed? They have seen all southern names struck from military bases. They have experienced their promotions on hold while homosexuals, black females, and transgendered people confused about their own gender are promoted. Taking orders from such people is not a southern man’s idea of the military. So recruitment has collapsed.

There are so few people willing to fight for America that Congress entertains proposals to enroll immigrant-invaders, paid with citizenship for fighting for American hegemony.

America has reached the point that Rome reached. Once the Roman military was German, the Germans became the emperors. The Germans did a fairly decent job compared to the decadent Romans, but the Empire was exhausted by its internal conflicts and collapsed.

Perhaps it is the collapse of the West that Putin and XI are banking on. Why bother to fight people busy destroying themselves.

The post Why Is the West Preparing for War? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Prepare Your Soul for the TLM Suppression

Sab, 13/07/2024 - 05:01

At the present hour we are in a dark night of the Church…and, if this is true, it is a ‘happy chance!’ – because there is absolutely no reason left to be Catholic now except the only one there ever really was – that in the invisible life of the Church you will find the love of Christ.

– Dr. John Senior

I never will forget that mid-July morning of 2021.  On the feast day of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel and the anniversary of my baptism, I received a text from a friend containing a link to Traditionis Custodes.  I was horrified, outraged, and wounded to the core, like so many others who had come to be nourished through the ancient Roman liturgy.  Though I had heard rumors a document like TC would be promulgated, I didn’t think it would ever happen (or at least during Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s lifetime).  In short order, the diocese decided to limit all its Latin Masses as an act of obedience to the Curia’s vision for the liturgical life of the Church.

Readers of OnePeterFive are well aware of the news, relayed here and elsewhere, that some authorities are trying to double down on Traditionis.  While a new document may indeed be on the horizon, my preparations are different than they were the first time around, and I would encourage fellow Catholics who adhere to Tradition to prepare similarly in at least one way; work to see this unkindness, whatever form it takes or doesn’t take in the coming months, as an opportunity to peacefully join Christ the High Priest on His Via Crucis.

How does one find peace when, as my favorite author, John Senior, once put it in the 1970’s, “the liturgy [is] set upon by thieves?”  A bit of historical and theological reflection goes a long way to cultivating this most precious disposition, one which is specifically exalted in the Beatitudes.

When Pope St. Pius V issued the apostolic constitution Quo Primum in 1570, it seems to a layman like me that he intended the relevant Roman Missal to be treated in a similar way to the codification of the books of Scripture; while new translations of the Bible may continue to be produced until the end of time for a variety of pastoral reasons, the books it contains are not the kind of thing one can substantially change as the Council of Trent makes clear.  Similarly, minor alterations of that Missal (such as the ones which came from Pius V’s own hand after Quo Primum) are permitted for the sake of manifesting more clearly God’s Providential actions in each age.  Wholesale revisions of that Missal’s structure, on the other hand, are forbidden.  Of course, other missals like those which belong to the East, those belonging to certain Western religious orders or dioceses, or the new Roman Missal can exist as additional “valid” missals (just as the East has long believed a few additional Scriptural texts are also inspired by the Holy Ghost), but Pius V doesn’t see his missal as something that can ever be abrogated.  If this seems like too far-fetched of a claim, consider these words from the saint pontiff:

In virtue of Our Apostolic authority, We grant and concede in perpetuity that, for the chanting or reading of the Mass in any church whatsoever, this Missal is hereafter to be followed absolutely, without any scruple of conscience or fear of incurring any penalty, judgment, or censure, and may freely and lawfully be used. Nor are superiors, administrators, canons, chaplains, and other secular priests, or religious, of whatever title designated, obliged to celebrate the Mass otherwise than as enjoined by Us. We likewise declare and ordain that no one whosoever is forced or coerced to alter this Missal, and that this present document cannot be revoked or modifiedbut remain always valid and retain its full force.

Many theologians have persuasively argued that this is necessarily a disciplinary decree, not one concerning faith and morals which infallibly comes ex cathedra, and as such it may in fact be legitimately changed by subsequent popes.  Either this is the case or it is not.  Suppose it actually is the case that a pope cannot bind a future pope on any liturgical matters because these matters are necessarily disciplinary in nature.  In that case, the rumors that the Dicastery for Divine Worship is seeking “a stringent, radical, and final solution banning the Traditional Latin Mass” should not distress us and render us inconsolable.  Even if the hypothetical document were to receive Pope Francis’ stamp of approval, no matter how tragic the provisions of the hypothetical document would be, it could always be reversed according to the mind of future popes.  Put differently, a “final solution” is impossible according to our supposition no matter how much Cardinal Roche as prefect or others may desire it.

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The Potential Collapse of American Society

Sab, 13/07/2024 - 05:01

If there’s anything that certain, it’s that nothing is permanent. When we look back through history, we find that many great societies succumbed to societal collapse. Some have been conquered by outside forces, while others have decayed from within. In either case, the society or civilization has ceased to exist as it was once known. To think that the same can’t or won’t happen to us, is to deny one of the most important lessons of history.

The big question for you and I to consider, is whether it will be internal or external forces that ultimately bring about the demise of the United States of America. Currently there are no nation-states with a large enough or powerful enough a military to defeat us. Even if Russia and China were to join together to attack us, it is unlikely that they could mount a big enough amphibious force to guarantee success in invading our shores. The two nations together don’t have anywhere near the amphibious capability that was required to invade Europe on D-day, during World War II.

About the only way that a foreign nation could successfully attack the United States and defeat it would be via an attack by high-altitude EMP. That’s a very real possibility, which has been discussed elsewhere; so, I’m not going to bother spending time on it here.

But it may not be necessary for any foreign power to attack the United States, as we may very well tear ourselves apart, without their help. The political divide that is so prevalent in the US today is tearing this country apart, without any other help. The big question now, is whether it will continue or whether we will find some common ground again, where we can continue functioning as a nation.

We were treated to a sample of how this country could be torn apart a couple of years ago with all the Black Lives Matter demonstrations, a fair number of which turned into riots. I have nothing against demonstrations and believe that our First Amendment right to Freedom of Speech includes the right to peacefully protest. But that’s not the same as having a riot, especially a riot that is identified by theft, destruction and arson.

Unfortunately, we have those in the political system who see it as their duty to use their position to encourage unstable people in their following to engage in these sorts of activities. Not only that, but they are protecting those followers from paying the price for their crimes, while at the same time calling the January 6th incursion in the Capital building an “insurrection,” even though it was unarmed and the only person who was killed was a veteran woman, shot by the police. Justice in this country, at least when it is connected to politics, has become a two-tiered system, with the enforcement of the law being based on one’s political affiliation.

With that being the case, there are more and more people saying that we are headed towards another civil war. Should that war break out, it will be much nastier than the previous one, simply because the battle lines won’t be as obvious. Rather than the north verses the south, it will be the political left verses the political right and while there is some territorial division between the two, it isn’t as clear as it was in the last Civil War.

That lack of clearcut battle lines is what’s going to cause the biggest problem with the next civil war. Battles will break out in random places, as the opposing sides bump up against each other. Little of it will be cohesive warfare, fought by organized troops. Rather, it will be more on the order of ongoing riots, like what we saw with Black Lives Matter.

Should such a war start, it will not only take many lives, but destroy American society as we know it today. Law and order would be largely out the window, not only from the fighting, but from bureaucrats who try and use their position to further the cause of their side. We can pretty much forget about being able to count on the government for anything.

When Might This Happen?

The truth of the matter is that we have no way of knowing when such a breakdown might happen. From what we’ve seen in the last several years, there are plenty of people on both sides of the political divide who are more than ready to turn to violence when things don’t go their party’s way. While almost all of the rioting that has happened can be attributed to one side of that divide, most of the guns belong to the other.

One likely scenario is for the riot side to start tearing things up, due to something happening in the country which they don’t believe in. Interestingly enough, they only seem to do that in cities which are controlled by politicians who are agreeable to their cause. You don’t find such riots happening in cities where law-and-order politicians are in control, because they know that the price of their rioting will be a trip to jail.

If you don’t believe me, just look at what happened in Washington, DC on January 6th and the Congressional hearings that followed. The DC city government is in the hands of Democrats, as was Congress at that time. So the same politicians who winked at the riots which sprung out of the Black Lives Matter protests, were quick to arrest those who unlawfully entered the capital, calling it an “insurrection,” and spreading stories about how dangerous it was for Congress, even though none of those who entered the capital were apparently armed.

If there’s anything in this country which could lead to mass rioting it would be former President Trump winning the 2024 general elections. There is so much hatred focused against Trump in our country today, that there’s a good chance of his winning being all that is needed to cause widespread rioting. Considering how the hate towards him continued through his presidency, I doubt that there’s much anyone can do to keep almost constant protests and rioting from happening during his second term in office.

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Vice President Tulsi Gabbard

Sab, 13/07/2024 - 05:01

If it wasn’t evident going into yesterday that President Joe Biden was going to need to step aside, all doubts should now be out of the way.

For his opening act on Thursday, Biden made his way out of bed and to the NATO summit across town, all for the honor of stepping on stage and referring to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy — whom U.S. taxpayers have gifted hundreds of billions of dollars at Biden’s direction to fight Russia — as “President Putin”. To refer to Zelenskiy as Putin, and at a NATO event nonetheless, is about as big of a fuck up as you can possibly make given the world’s geopolitical climate right now.

This would have been like introducing President George W. Bush throwing out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium after 9/11 as “President Osama Bin Laden”.

And if you weren’t in stitches after his first set, Biden returned later in the evening for an encore at the much heralded ‘Big Boy’ press conference he had been scheduled to give in order to show the world, to quote the movie Big Daddy, that he could “wipe his own ass”.

But instead of instilling confidence in the nation, Biden coughed, mumbled and stumbled his way through about an hour’s worth of prepared remarks and softball questions.

At one point, he referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as “Vice President Trump”.

…and happens to be an active member of the U.S. military and a woman. She didn’t have to do any “favors” to make her way in the political world, she has had the courage to stand up to the most terrifying political force, the Clintons, in 2019 accurately calling Hillary the “personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long”.

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A Bureaucratic Fairy Tale: The Synthetic Fuels Corporation

Ven, 12/07/2024 - 05:01

I was cleaning out the cave (French basement or storage room) the other day. Besides a few bottles of wine, my stuff consisted of my old golf clubs (I played quite a bit in the US, not at all in France) and a few boxes from when I moved to France 18 years ago. One unopened box was given to me by CK even earlier when I moved away from San Antonio, TX in the 90s. CK was one of the main characters around my life at the Bombay Bicycle Club, a local bar in Brackenridge Park (see my description here). The bar, its owners, staff and patrons, made a lasting impression on me; perhaps more so than the faculty colleagues and students at the nearby university where I was a young professor. If my description of CK will seem vague it is because he was always very mysterious to me. Our conversations were certainly influenced by his scotch and my beer, but he had a truly mysterious past. He grew up in the Ukrainian community in Chicago. He entered the University of Chicago without a high school diploma, based on a long conversation with the department head of the Geography Department. In fact, CK had seen the world during his years in the military. I am sure he mentioned Vietnam and Turkey, gunshots and espionage. He eventually earned a PhD, did a tour in Washington, followed by an academic job. When I met him CK was doing well as a real estate “thinker,” not a developer. What this entailed I cannot say, but he had a fantastic apartment and could describe the wheeling and dealing behind the biggest projects in town.

CK’s box was filled with the notebooks and other materials gathered during his stint as a Washington bureaucrat for the US Synthetic Fuels Corporation. Read Remembering Synfuels, 35 Years Later for a short history; it begins,

The Synthetic Fuels Corporation (SFC) might be the biggest boondoggle you’ve never heard of. Established under the Energy Security Act of 1980 in response to the supply scares of the 1970s, the SFC was hailed by President Jimmy Carter as “the cornerstone of U.S. energy policy.” The now-defunct SFC was an independent federal entity that functioned “primarily as an investment bank to accelerate the commercialization of synfuels,” in the words of a February 1983 CRS report.

The fact that it is defunct is important. The New York Times wrote on April 19, 1986, “Government agencies are easily born, but they never seem to die. Rarely do they even fade away. But at 5 P.M. today the Government’s Synthetic Fuels Corporation closed its doors forever.”

The Synthetic Fuels Corporation was a topic of interest in those early days of the Reagan administration as a target for cutting government spending. This is described in a May 31, 1981 article by John A. Hill in the New York Times, Why Didn’t Reagan Simply Kill Synfuels?

The recent nomination of Edward E. Noble to head the synfuels corporation appears finally to answer the question of its fate. The President intends to keep the corporation and utilize its authorities to assist the synfuels effort in the United States. This curious outcome raises a number of questions. Why, for example, did the President decide to retain a program that is not only inconsistent with his own philosophy but is also one that could be terminated so easily in its embryonic state? What did the conservative Ronald Reagan find attractive about a program that a more moderate Republican President, Mr. Ford, found objectionable on conservative grounds and which took a more liberal Democratic President to get through the Congress?

Hill’s answer to the question is quite tepid, “The only answer to this question that I can find is that Mr. Stockman [the Director of the Office of Management and Budget at the start of the Reagan administration and a current writer for LRC] may have decided that he could not fight every battle at once and that the corporation was the least harmful of the budgetary evils since it threatened no near-term outlays. These arguments have obvious flaws.”

There was nothing I found in CK’s box regarding the answer to Hill’s question. Frankly, it was rather boring, typical bureaucratic nonsense. For example, in preparation for a Board Briefing CK prepared a memorandum and received, in part, the following: “I will readily admit to not having read in detail all of the background material attached to your memorandum of May 20, 1982. . . . I think that the presentation would be helped by a very short executive-type summary. . .” In today’s bureaucratic language this would read, “prepare a single slide PowerPoint presentation for the Board.”

But dredging the depths of my torpid memory I did find a treasure. CK told me that the whole of the Synthetic Fuels Corporation was a scam, but not against the people of the US. In fact, CK told me they returned most of the budget each year. The idea was to fool the Soviets that the market for oil would be depressed in part due to this initiative. I don’t know if anyone could say if this ruse had any influence on them. But for any government entity to return part of their budget and to eventually close down sounds like a fairy tale to me, just like that character in a tale CK. I cannot understand why he gave me this box and what I kept for so many years even transporting to France. Did he somehow know I would write about it? It is amazing to me.

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The Dreadful Continuity of British Foreign Policy

Ven, 12/07/2024 - 05:01

Robert Wright doesn’t think much of the foreign policy direction of the new Labour government in Britain:

[Labour shadow foreign secretary] Lammy depicts his foreign policy vision as new, but it’s pretty much the same vision that has long guided his party and comparable western parties, including the Democratic Party in America. And this vision is, in critical respects, not very different from the neoconservatism that has dominated Republican foreign policy for most of the past few decades. Lammy’s progressive realism is one of the several variants of Blobthink that have together played such a big role in creating the mess we’re in.

Wright is responding to Lammy’s article in Foreign Affairs from earlier this year, and his assessment lines up with what I wrote about it then. In my post, I focused on Lammy’s rote recitation of the conventional talking points about the “red line” episode in Syria and its supposed implications for U.S. credibility, but I also noted that it seemed as if Lammy had learned nothing from his party’s last stint in power. As I said, “I suspect Lammy is just trying to put the bad ideas of New Labour under a new label.” International relations scholar Van Jackson raised similar concerns that Lammy’s vision “shows worrying signs of rehashing Blair-style neoconservatism, which was of course disastrous.”

The Labour victory yesterday will give Starmer a huge parliamentary majority with more than 400 seats. Despite winning just 34% of the vote, his party will have almost two-thirds of the seats in the House of Commons. They owe that result in large part to the collapse of the Tories and the ensuing split on the British right. A government with such a large majority will be able to do more or less whatever it wants for the next few years, but it will have the same relatively narrow base of popular support that Labour has had for many years. The sheer incompetence and self-destructive tendencies of the Conservatives under multiple leaders made this government possible.

Prime Minister Starmer is the heir to Blair in more ways than one, and when it comes to foreign policy he has given us every reason to expect him to be almost as bad as his predecessor. His support for the war in Gaza is one important example of that, and that position has already cost Labour a few seats to independent candidates that ran in opposition to the war and the party. Judging from Labour’s election manifesto and Starmer’s record, we can expect mostly continuity in Britain’s foreign policy. That will be reassuring to many in Washington that count on having a subservient Britain as a reliable supporter of the U.S. position, but it will be bad news for Britain and for whichever countries next end up in the crosshairs of our two governments. Starmer has also backed the ongoing war against the Houthis in Yemen, for example, so U.K. involvement in that useless conflict will continue.

This brings us back to Jackson’s critique:

Lammy swears progressive realism will not repeat “the failures of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya,” but makes no attempt to convince us why it will not. He offers nothing to suggest peace-like ambitions, and nothing that would create distance from a militarist mindset.

One of the biggest flaws of New Labour has been its leaders’ quick resort to using and backing the use of force in other lands. It is easy for Labour leaders today to say that they won’t repeat the terrible mistakes of their predecessors (no one is going to campaign openly on launching new disastrous wars), but if they don’t acknowledge who is responsible for the earlier failures and if they don’t understand why those interventions failed or backfired it is unlikely that they will avoid making similar blunders. Jackson notes Lammy’s weird reference to the “red line” episode and adds that it “hints at the worrying possibility that his progressive realism lacks the wherewithal to resist the “imperial temptation” that always exists within liberalism.”

When the war against the Houthis started in January, Starmer tried to claim that his support for it didn’t contradict earlier pledge to insist that MPs have a say before the U.K. took military action because it wasn’t a “sustained campaign.” Almost six months later, the campaign hasn’t been successful and shows no signs of ending. It is safe to conclude that Starmer didn’t mean his earlier pledge and had no trouble ignoring it when it came time to fulfill it. That doesn’t bode well for how he will govern now that he is prime minister.

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SCOTUS Decision on Gun Rights Is the Proverbial ‘Camel’s Nose’

Ven, 12/07/2024 - 05:01

Editor’s note: This piece includes some satire.

The recent SCOTUS decision in United States v. Rahimi, which allows for the ban of certain firearms and limited magazine capacities in certain jurisdictions, allows leftists to take a victory lap and salivate at the possibilities of nuanced, back-door legislation. Amendments with new-and-improved workarounds and emergency implementation will certainly follow the next mass shooting, just as long as it’s a spree that fits the narrative—we’re not counting the mass shootings in gun-controlled Chicago of course.

But first, a little context from an article at the Los Angeles Times:

long-awaited U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding a federal law barring domestic abusers from possessing firearms will have a narrower impact than some had hoped, but it will nonetheless play an important role in reshaping gun laws in California and across the country, legal experts said.

Among the laws Friday’s decision could affect are California’s bans on assault-style weapons and large-capacity ammunition magazines, both of which are facing legal challenges in the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Adam Winkler, a UCLA law professor who focuses on 2nd Amendment law, said nothing in the high court’s decision in United States vs. Rahimi ‘makes it crystal clear how those cases are going to play out.’

But, he said, the decision does give lower court judges a wider legal pathway for finding California’s modern gun laws legitimate…

‘There’s no doubt that it’s a major win for gun safety advocates,’ Winkler said.

It won’t be long before the Safety Nazis put on their hobnail boots and start goose-stepping additional “common sense” legislation into our lives, targeting every imaginable, and potentially deadly, weapon.

Why? Because they know best and that’s what they do.

Societal “safety” decrees have been embraced by visionaries like Chairman Mao, Pol Pot, and crazy uncles Joseph S. and Adolf H., who applied the rationale to “protect” the people—several million souls promptly disappeared.

Rules and regulations, in the hands and control of bureaucrats and political zealots, tend to evolve through reimagined interpretations, enhanced details, legal decisions and finely-tuned “improvements,” usually to the advantage of one group over another.

The evolution of this SCOTUS decision to include knives (as in England where police are permitted to destroy knives they find on private property and suspect could be used in a crime), slingshots (as in Australia), swords, spears, and sharp objects, is inevitable.

A “non-partisan” coalition of the Brady Campaign, the United Nations’s Global Firearms Program, and the Ad Council (your tax dollars at work) may launch a “gun violence” awareness campaign, educating the masses on the ownership exclusion criteria, and what to look out for.

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The Safest Zones in the US. Do You Live Near One?

Ven, 12/07/2024 - 05:01

You might be looking at your nation a little differently lately.

There have always been dangerous neighborhoods and boroughs. Places like Compton, Kensington, and Camden might come to mind when you think of places that have a reputation for crime. Some of these areas have actually improved from when I was child. However, there are lots of places all around this nation that have been dangerous and many that are getting worse.

The move towards lawlessness in many of our biggest cities has been brought on by the current attitude towards police and police funding. As states bandy about the issues and people worry about things like natural disasters and economic decline, many have moved or considered moving.

What are the safest zones in the US?

Safest Cities

There are safe havens all around this nation. There are places that have historically had low crime and great community cohesion. The key in most of these cities and towns is ownership and loyalty. Most often transient places are dangerous, and people are more likely to commit crimes in these places.

Let’s look at some of the safest cities and towns in America:

  • Round Rock, Texas

With a population just over 100,000 this smaller town in Texas is a very appealing place for preppers to live. It is also a very safe place with a median income of $70,000.

The low poverty rate in Round Rock has much to do with the safety and security of this Texas town.

Round Rock has been dubbed a “super suburb” as a place just outside of Austin

  • Naperville, Illinois

This Chicago suburb is a gem in an area that most people would not expect. The River Walk is an important part of Naperville, but it is hardly the only thing that this suburb offers. A population 144,000 people are a successful and well paid lot. The median household income is over $100,000.

The minimal crime rate, per 100,000 people, has much to do with the low poverty rate which is just over 4%. 77.6 violent crimes per 100,000 people is something to be proud of.

The safety of Naperville could also have to do with the tremendous outdoor opportunities. With over 130 parks and 2 public golf courses, there is nearly a park for every person!

  • Port St. Lucie, Florida

If you are going to pick a new safe place to live, why not consider a place where the weather is wonderful! Along the southern coast of Florida Port St. Lucie is a beautiful tropical zone with $169,000 a year median income.

You will have to be prepared for hurricanes. An evacuation plan is needed as the southern coast of Florida is at risk during hurricane season, but we are preppers!

You will not have as much to worry about when it comes to violent crime as there are just 115 violent crimes per 100,000 people. You will love near breweries, botanical gardens, preserves and marinas. Great fishing on the coast, too!

Best Regions to Survive Disasters

Along with safe cities and towns America also features some great regions to setup a life that are far away from some of the biggest threats. Remember, people are only one threat. Mother nature can have a devastating affect on the North American continent and has done so in the past. From massive super volcanoes to devastating earthquakes

What are the safest regions to survive massive cataclysmic disasters?

  • The Cascades

Deep enough inland and high enough up to counter things like flooding and tropical cyclones that affect the West Coast. The cascades are loaded with resources for survival like water, food, and wood. They are a beautiful backdrop to deal with the post-apocalyptic world and far enough away from southern California to inherit any of that mess.

The northernmost portions of the Cascades are even located in the American Redoubt, which we will discuss later in this article.

  • The Blue Ridge Mountains

Another range of mountains that offer similar benefits as the Cascades. This east coast mountain range covers several states, has plenty of food, water, shelter, and game animals. Covering the land by food would not be easy but the seclusion from the chaos would be well worth it.

Because of elevation and distance from the coast there are almost no threats of flood, tsunami, or hurricane in this region. There is little seismic activity in the area.

West of some particularly important and sizeable cities, the Blue Ridge mountains could become a safe haven for millions of people in the very worst case scenario. That is the only weakness of this location.

  • Appalachia

Further west still, on the other side of the blue ridge mountains in the region of Appalachia which runs from New York to Mississippi. This is another great region to consider because of its sparse population compared to the coasts. Its quick access to the Blue Ridge Mountains and safety from most major disasters.

Read the Whole Article

The post The Safest Zones in the US. Do You Live Near One? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Christian Zionist Pastor John MacArthur Joins Antichrist Zionist Jew Ben Shapiro in Promoting Genocide In Gaza

Ven, 12/07/2024 - 05:01

I must admit that this report is one of the most nauseating news accounts of a Christian pastor that I have ever encountered. I would count it as one of the most egregious betrayals of Christ’s New Covenant by a “Christian minister” that I have ever witnessed. The Scripture tells us, Ye that love the LORD, hate evil. (Psalm 97:10). Well, this is pure evil.

Chris Menahan has the report:

“It wasn’t until the Persians completely wiped out the Amalekites that God’s will was fulfilled in that judgment,” Pastor John MacArthur told Shapiro. “Now, you might not like the fact that God is a judge but when God determines that I’m going to protect my People Israel and you’re going to attack My People Israel, I have a plan for My People Israel, as the New Testament says, so all Israel will be saved, there’s coming a kingdom he will fulfill every promise he ever gave … God is going to preserve that people and if you are a threat to that people, historically speaking, God says you need to be removed.”

“I think about that story so often when I think about this is like the modern version of Amalek and until they are wiped out this is just going to go on and on,” MacArthur continued. “I know I don’t want to be callous about things but God has in his sovereignty made a decision for the preservation of Israel into the future into the Kingdom of Messiah — that’s his plan, that’s his promise.”

“You can be a part of that by coming to the Messiah and being a part of his kingdom but if you attempt to destroy the very people that are the heart and soul of God’s plan, then you come under the Judgment of God and I think Israel is acting — even though they’re, you know, a secular nation in the large sense because salvation is individual not national — I think their desire to protect and preserve them and to fight in a really, a Terminal Way, against those who would destroy them follows the divine pattern of God for the preservation of that people until he fulfills his plan for them,” MacArthur added.

“You also know in the Old Testament, God said to the children of Israel when you go into the land destroy the Amalekites, destroy them, because I’m bringing judgment down on their heads for their sins — I mean they’re like a cancer in the world,” MacArthur responded.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opened the war by labeling the Palestinians “Amalek” and other Israeli officials followed.

In this interview, MacArthur proves to the world that he is almost totally void of the understanding of Christ’s New Covenant—as are ALL Premillennial Dispensationalists. They are still living in the Old Covenant—a covenant that was completely abolished by Christ’s death on the Cross.

Ephesians 2:13 – 18: But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off [Gentiles] are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who hath made both [Jews and Gentiles] one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of [Jewish] commandments contained in [Jewish] ordinances; for to make in himself of twain [Jews and Gentiles] one new man [the Body of Christ; the Church], so making peace; And that he might reconcile both [Jews and Gentiles] unto God in one body [the Church] by the cross, having slain the enmity [the law of Jewish commandments and ordinances] thereby: And came and preached peace to you which were afar off [Gentiles], and to them that were nigh [Jews]. For through him [Christ] we both [Jews and Gentiles] have access by one Spirit unto the Father. [Emphasis added]

Comparing today’s Palestinians to the Tribe of Amalek during the times of Moses, Saul and David is beyond scriptural ignorance; it is scriptural absurdity to the highest degree. And if MacArthur truly doesn’t understand that, he is as cognitively impaired as Joe Biden.

In the first place, Benjamin Netanyahu is NOT Moses—or David! He saw no burning bush. He didn’t speak with God “face to face.” (Exodus 33:11) He was not anointed by God to do anything. Netanyahu doesn’t even know God. He is a pagan idolater who rejects the God of Abraham, which is proven by his blasphemous rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus forever set the record straight about the Pharisaical/Talmudic likes of Netanyahu:

John 8:39 – 44: They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham. But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham. Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication [intimating Jesus was born out of fornication]; we have one Father, even God. Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me. Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

Furthermore, Benjamin Netanyahu has no Abrahamic blood flowing through his veins. In truth, the Palestinians can trace their ties to the land for up to one thousand years. Only a few Sephardic Jews could even do that. Netanyahu’s roots trace back to the Khazars in Europe (Ukraine). He is an Ashkenazi (European) “Jew.” The “Jews” in Palestine are mostly atheistic in belief, and none of them can prove an intact Hebrew bloodline. Not one!

All of this talk about modern “Jews” being “God’s Chosen People” by bloodline is complete balderdash! There is not a “Jew” on earth that can trace their bloodline to Abraham. The only “Israel of God” (Galatians 6:16) under Christ’s New Covenant are the spiritual children of Abraham (Romans 2:28, 29), who, regardless of race, have come to faith in Jesus Christ (Galatians 3:26, 29).

MacArthur butchers the meaning of “all Israel shall be saved” in Romans chapter eleven (as do all Premillennial Dispensationalists), applying it, again, to the physical, literal twelve tribes of Israel, of which the ten northern tribes were forever destroyed by the Assyrians around 722 BC and the two remaining tribes of Judah and Benjamin were forever destroyed when Rome destroyed Jerusalem in 70 AD.

At this point, I STRONGLY urge readers to watch my third Prophecy Message entitled God’s Chosen People, The Children Of Promise, The Israel Of God And Romans Chapter Eleven.

In the second place, MacArthur betrays his ignorance of Christ’s New Covenant by saying that the Israelites “are the heart and soul of God’s plan.” That is classic Premillennial Dispensational hogwash. I was taught that false doctrine in the two Bible colleges I attended.

Premillennial Dispensationalists (aka Christian Zionists, Scofield Futurists, etc.) actually believe that the great overriding plan of God for mankind is that Old Testament Israel (the original twelve tribes) be given an earthly kingdom—a resurrected earthly Davidic kingdom.

I can still remember one of my Bible professors saying, “The Church Age is merely a parenthesis of time until God finishes giving Israel its earthly kingdom.” In other words, Old Covenant Israel is God’s eternal Plan A. The salvation of Gentiles during the Church Age is merely a secondary plan, inferior to the Great Plan of an earthly Israelite kingdom.

That’s exactly what MacArthur is saying when he says that the Israelites “are the heart and soul of God’s plan.”

In the third place, the fact that MacArthur would align himself under the Old Covenant umbrella with the likes of an arrogant and avowed antichrist such as Ben Shapiro demonstrates a complete lack of spiritual discernment.

Some time ago in an interview with Joe Rogan, Shapiro had the following exchange:

Shapiro: You know, from a Jewish point of view, we don’t believe in the divinity of Christ. There you can make an argument that the Gospels, which are written, signif…

Rogan: He was just a prophet…

Shapiro: No, no, no. We don’t even believe he was a prophet.

Rogan: What do you think He was? What do you guys think He was?

Shapiro: I mean, what I, what do I think he was historically? I think he was a Jew who tried to lead a revolt against the Romans and got killed for his trouble. Just like a lot of other Jews at that time who were crucified for trying to lead revolts against the Romans and got killed for their trouble.

Rogan: So, He became a legend and story and became a bigger and bigger deal as time went on.

Shapiro: Yeah, you get a group of followers, and then that gradually grew, and then there was…

Rogan: Do you think He was resurrected?

Shapiro: No, that’s not a Jewish belief.

What utter blasphemy!

Shapiro denies Christ’s deity, denies He was even a Prophet, accuses Him of being a criminal who “got killed for his trouble.” He denies the vicarious death of Christ for our sins. He rejects Christ as Israel’s Messiah. He denies Jesus’ resurrection. He speaks of Jesus in the most vile, loathsome terms—and THIS is the antichrist that John MacArthur joins with to justify the mass murder and genocide of the Palestinian people?

Shapiro often cites Maimonides, who is Shapiro’s biggest hero (he quotes him constantly). Maimonides was a 12th-century Jewish rabbi; his writings are regarded as canonical to the Talmud. He said that Christians are idolaters and pagans.

In his interpretation of the Mishnah, Tractate Avodah Zarah 1:3, Maimonides writes:

Know that this Christian nation, who are making the claim of a messiah, with all their many different sects, are all idol worshippers and all their holidays are forbidden, and we deal with them regarding religious issues as we would pagans.

And he adds:

Therefore one must know that in every one of the Christian nation’s cities which has an altar, meaning their house of worship, it is a pagan house of idolatry without any doubt.

Maimonides also said:

The Christians are idol worshipers and Sunday is their religious holiday, therefore we may not trade with them on Thursday and Friday of every week, and needless to say on Sunday, which is forbidden everywhere.

Maimonides, Shapiro and Netanyahu are all Talmudists. When they speak of the “Torah,” they are not speaking of the five books of Moses; they are speaking of the Talmud. Have you done any research into what the Talmud teaches about Jesus?

Sanhedrin 106a says Mary was a whore: “She who was the descendant of princes and governors played the harlot with carpenters.” Also, in footnote #2 to Shabbat 104b of the Soncino edition, it is stated that in the “uncensored” text of the Talmud it is written that Jesus’ mother, “Miriam the hairdresser,” had sex with many men.

Gittin 57a refers to Jesus as being boiled in “hot excrement.”

This is the kind of blasphemer that MacArthur wants to unite with against the Palestinian people?

In the middle of MacArthur’s statements to Shapiro, he contradicted his entire Old Covenant premise of the Palestinians being “Amalekites” and the Israelis being “God’s Chosen People” when he slipped out this admission: “. . . even though they’re, you know, a secular nation in the large sense because salvation is individual not national.”

You can’t have it both ways, John! Either salvation is individual, regardless of race, through faith in Christ, or it is strictly by race nationally. At the very least, MacArthur is a very conflicted individual. He has one foot in the New Covenant and the other foot in the Old Covenant. He is a blind man leading the blind.

Is MacArthur not even aware that thousands of Palestinians that are being slaughtered by the atheist/blasphemer Benjamin Netanyahu are born again, New Covenant Christians? These Palestinian believers worship the New Covenant Jesus; they believe the New Covenant Gospel; they are part of Christ’s New Covenant Kingdom.

And “Christian” Pastor John MacArthur calls them “Amalekites” and says faux Israel should “wipe them out.”

John MacArthur published a regurgitated version of the Scofield Reference Bible, which has sold over one million copies. His study notes are replete with the tenets of Christian Zionism. In fact, the vast majority of comprehensive study Bibles on the market today are nothing more than regurgitated versions of Scofield’s original Zionist-inspired study Bible published at the beginning of the twentieth century.

All these study Bibles do is help to obfuscate the truth of Christ’s New Covenant, keep believers in bondage to the Old Covenant and indoctrinate Christian people into the blasphemies of Christian Zionism.

This is why the ONLY comprehensive study Bible that I carry in our online store is the Matthew Henry Study Bible. It is the only comprehensive study Bible that I am aware of that does NOT promote Christian Zionism in the notes.

So, what is the belief system that unites Christian Zionists? It’s not the doctrine of Christ. It’s not the doctrine of Christ’s New Covenant. It’s not the New Covenant Gospel or Kingdom. The faith system that unites Premillennial Dispensationalists such as John MacArthur is ZIONIST ISRAEL. MacArthur unites with antichrists to help murder Christian Palestinians, while smugly, callously and coldly having the audacity to call our Palestinian brothers and sisters “Amalekites.”

The “tie that binds” Christian Zionists is faux Israel—NOT Christ. And John MacArthur is a prime example of that fact.

Reprinted with permission from Chuck Baldwin Live.

The post Christian Zionist Pastor John MacArthur Joins Antichrist Zionist Jew Ben Shapiro in Promoting Genocide In Gaza appeared first on LewRockwell.

Why All Financial Markets Will Crash

Ven, 12/07/2024 - 05:01

It’s all about credit

All transactions and all valuations are in credit. The key aspect of credit is that it is always matched by an obligation, or debt. Credit is extinguished when that obligation is discharged or defaulted upon. But in today’s financial systems, the repayment of debt is always in another form of credit, usually the transfer of ownership of a bank deposit, which is also credit.

Clearly, government and corporate bonds are debts. Because they are freely transferable obligations, they have a matching value expressed in credit. And that value is determined by both external influences and those specific to the debt obligation as assessed in markets. For example, interest rates and their outlook will place an external value on a bond, and additional factors specific to the issuer’s creditworthiness also apply.

The credit status of bond ownership is unarguable. But there is widespread confusion over equity rights. Most investors believe that ownership of corporate equity is a hedge out of debasement risk of bonds. They believe that they own a defined portion of a corporation’s total property. This is not true, because a share certificate is an obligation of the corporation’s management to deliver or accumulate an income stream on a shareholder’s behalf: possession of a stock or share certificate is simply evidence of that obligation recorded in the corporation’s stock register. It is possession of a right to property, not ownership of property itself.

Furthermore, with today’s dematerialised certificate system, unless you insist on taking delivery of your certificates, you don’t actually possess the evidence of your credit interest. Instead, you have an entitlement to a share of a corporation’s overall obligation to its shareholders. You are distanced even further from your property right, your property being simply credit squared.

You might think that to eliminate credit risk entirely, you should buy physical property without mortgages. But here you run into a further problem, which is that there is no such thing as absolute wealth. This is because your ownership of property is valued by its exchangeability, for guess what: credit.

When the ubiquity of credit in which all wealth is valued is understood, then it is logical that the value of everything depends on the balance of supply and demand for credit. The one exception is money without counterparty risk, which embodied in Roman law and the common laws of the Roman Empire’s successor nations and their colonies is gold, silver, and copper. Today it is primarily gold.

But this article is not about these internationally accepted media of exchange. It is about the relationship between the value of credit, and the value of products and property expressed in it.

From the foregoing, it is clear that all measures of wealth depend on credit, credit’s value, and its availability. The two principal forms of transferable credit are bank deposits, which are an obligation of a bank to its customers, and currency. The position of a currency must be clearly stated, because modern economists tell us that for all practical purposes, a currency is money. This is never true, not even if the issuer is prepared to exchange it freely for gold. A currency is an obligation of the issuer, today always a central bank, and the possession of a banknote is simply evidence of that obligation. It is recorded on all central bank balance sheets as such and possession of banknotes is simply credit.

Furthermore, commercial bank deposits at the central bank, commonly referred to as reserves, are also recorded as a central bank’s liability to commercial banks. It is credit which ranks with banknotes.

Economists and others make a gross error in arguing that a currency is not to be regarded as credit. This is particularly grievous in the case of the US dollar, which in the 1970s the US Treasury propagandised as replacing gold as the ultimate form of money. The dollar is the ultimate form of credit, maybe, but as freely admitted elsewhere its value remains dependent on the faith in and credit(worthiness) of the US Government.

The value of credit

We conduct our daily purchases and sales in credit, we pay our taxes in credit, and we account for all our commercial activities in credit. For all these purposes, we assume that variations in value are entirely confined in the goods and services being transacted, and that credit has a constant value. In reality, this is not the case.

For transactional purposes, credit itself has value. It is traded for products and for other credit. For whatever reason, if the value of a currency declines, then it can only be stabilised by a rise in interest rates. Changes in a currency’s value can be detected either on the foreign exchanges or reflected in changes in the general level of prices expressed in it. Therefore, changes in a currency’s value have an obvious impact on interest rates, which reflect a combination of a market expectation of its future value compared with today’s as well as any counterparty credit risks.

In addition to these factors affecting credit’s value, in terms of supply and demand credit is like any other product. An increase in supply will tend to lower interest rates, and a restriction of supply raises them. It is ignorance of this common sense that leads the vast majority of monetary commentators to believe that interest rates are set and can be managed by a central bank. Particularly in the current economic conditions, this error will prove to be extremely costly.

To understand why, we should categorise demand for credit as emanating from two sources: governments and private sectors. Today, government debt is expanding rapidly in all the major jurisdictions, as the table below illustrates.

Two years on, the position today is generally worse for nations on this list. France, currently running a budget deficit of about 6%, has just elected a far-left administration which promises to increase the budget deficit materially. And the UK has similarly gone more socialistic, increasing the risk of sterling credit failure. Japan’s finances depend entirely on the Bank of Japan’s ability to suppress interest rates at or very close to zero without destroying the currency. But the central concern must be about the US and its dollar.

US Government spending is out of control, with debt increasing at over $1 trillion every 100 days and accelerating. This must be financed. Bearing in mind that interest is not paid and that it is simply rolled up in additional debt, there can only be two outcomes, both leading to the same conclusion, which is higher interest rates.

The US Treasury’s increasing demand for credit is currently being satisfied by credit supply being switched from non-financial private sector lending, because banks and shadow banks are reducing their risk exposure. This has led to an explosion in short-term Treasury debt, mainly bills maturing in up to one year. This liquidity is now running low, which is bound to lead to higher funding rates. Clearly, both foreign and domestic holders of Treasury debt will recognise a classic debt trap being sprung.

The outcome could easily be interest rates rising to over 10%, perhaps 20%, unless the Fed reintroduces quantitative easing to contain funding costs. In this event, the increase in non-productive currency circulation will simply debase the currency, driving up the interest rate required to prevent foreigners selling dollars to stockpile gold, oil, and wider commodities. Without higher interest rates, the dollar’s purchasing power will be bound to fall, potentially spiralling into a state of collapse.

The state of the economy is immaterial. The consequence of earlier QE policies was a fall in the dollar’s purchasing power, evidenced by a sudden rise in the general level of prices, and interest rates rising from the zero bound to current levels. With or without QE, US Treasury bond yields will rise and rise, which means that their values will fall and fall.

The dollar is the yardstick from which all other fiat currencies take their value. The consequence of rising dollar interest rates will not only trigger severe difficulties for the US economy and therefore its banking system, but other currencies, particularly those representing highly indebted administrations will similarly be undermined.

Consequences for financial asset values

We can now see from our understanding of credit, and the consequences of risk factors on supply and demand for it, that markets will determine outcomes not central banks. Those who think otherwise delude themselves. They appear to think that a change in interest rate policy towards lower rates is inevitable. They ignore both the debt funding crisis for government debt, and the reduction of commercial bank credit availability for the non-financial private sector.

Obviously, bond investors will face destabilising losses, which being driven by the declining value of credit links bond yields inversely to the general value of equities. My next chart shows how this relationship is already stretched leaving equities extremely vulnerable to interest rate disappointment.

By inverting the long bond yield (the red line, right-hand scale) the long-term negative correlation with the S&P 500 Index (blue line) becomes clear. The exceptions were the 2000 dot-com bubble, the 2008—2009 financial crisis, the various distortions of interest rate suppression and QE policies between 2012—2019, and zero interest rate policies over the covid crisis in 2020—2021. These aberrations can all be explained. But now the valuation optimism of equities continues despite the rise in long bond yields.

Never has the disparity between long bond yields and the S&P 500 index become so stretched. It is over twice as much as during the dot-com bubble, following which the S&P halved. For equity investors, this is extremely dangerous ground, sustained only by the availability of credit predominantly supplied by commercial banks to the financial sector, which at the same time is starving the non-financial private sector of the credit it requires.

Financial assets provide the collateral for most of the bank credit system. Much, if not most of that credit will end up being extinguished by defaulting obligations. This is why I have been saying the wisest course is to get out of credit and everything whose value depends upon it and into real money, which is gold. It’s not about gold rising, but credit in crisis or even collapsing entirely.

Reprinted with permission from MacleodFinance Substack.

The post Why All Financial Markets Will Crash appeared first on LewRockwell.

Biden’s Neurodegenerative Syndrome Consistent With COVID-19 Vaccine Injury

Ven, 12/07/2024 - 05:01

Joe Biden’s appearance on film in 2019 and 2024 demonstrates a dramatic decline in cognitive function, memory, retrieval, enunciation, strength of voice, facial expression, gait, wayfinding, and motor skills such as walking up and down stairs.

Dr. McCullough appeared on the Breanna Morello show to provide analysis and commentary. While a diagnosis cannot be made without a physical exam, laboratory testing, and brain imaging, Biden’s apparent syndrome is not completely classic for Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s, but has features of both conditions.

The Parkinson’s Foundation indicates that 20-50% of Parkinson’s patients experience some mild cognitive decline, but not dementia. Alzheimer’s disease doesn’t usually affect a patient’s motor function until the later stages of the disease.

Buchman AS, Bennett DA. Loss of motor function in preclinical Alzheimer’s disease. Expert Rev Neurother. 2011 May;11(5):665-76. doi: 10.1586/ern.11.57. PMID: 21539487; PMCID: PMC3121966.

Biden has features of both which is consistent with a COVID-19 vaccine injury neurodegenerative syndrome. Given the timing in Biden’s case, the White House should disclosed the dates, brand, and number of doses of vaccines received. His doctors should report his case to VAERS. It is very likely COVID-19 vaccination is either the cause or has significantly contributed to his decline.

Listen to this report from Breanna Morello joined by Dr. McCullough after other experts on the president’s condition.

This originally appeared on Courageous Discourse.

The post Biden’s Neurodegenerative Syndrome Consistent With COVID-19 Vaccine Injury appeared first on LewRockwell.

Starmer’s War Party Ascends to Power as Anti-War Candidates Secure Key Seats

Ven, 12/07/2024 - 05:01

July 4th, a day of freedom for Americans, has become a day of infamy for Britons opposed to Israel’s genocidal war in occupied Palestine. Keir Starmer, leader of the Labour Party and stalwart supporter of the Israel and its war crimes, has successfully led his party to a comfortable majority in the British House of Commons. His success is unsurprising as major polls correctly predicted how unpopular the Conservative Party has become after fourteen years of rule. Major factors contributing to this unpopularity were the Conservatives’ mismanagement of the economy and public services. Clearly, voters wanted an alternative to the disastrous policies of the Conservative Party; yet, Starmer’s Labour Party does not provide a true alternative.

Starmer truly revealed the ugly nature of the Labour Party under his leadership when he expelled anti-war crusader and former leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, for not bending the knee when it came to baseless accusations of systemic antisemitism in the Labour Party. Starmer, clearly very afraid of the anti-war left, has also expelled Graham Jones who sensibly stated, “No British person should be fighting for any other country at all… It is against the law and you should be locked up.” Dissenting opinions in regards to the Israeli regime are obviously not inherently anti-semitic. Such an opinion is as idiotic as saying that someone is “sinophobic” for disliking the Chinese government. Nevertheless, political elites like Keir Starmer have continuously used baseless charges of antisemitism to silence free speech and unfairly sanction Labour Party members.

Unsurprisingly, Corbyn defeated Labour as an independent candidate Islington North, a constituency which he has represented since 1983, proving that years of fighting for common people is a surefire way to become very popular regardless of political affiliation. While someone may be able to win majorities in Parliament through collusion with the rich and powerful, a man like Keir Starmer will never win the hearts and minds of the people like Jeremy Corbyn.

Left wing independents were not the only ones to strike major blows to the pro-war establishment, however. Multiple minor parties opposed to involvement in the wars in Gaza or Ukraine (sometimes both) were able to secure seats in parliament. Reform UK, the right wing populist party led by the newly elected MP Nigel Farage, claimed four seats. The Liberal Democratic party claimed seventy-one seats, a new record for the party, and ousted many cabinet members. The ecologically-focused Green Party also managed to secure four seats. Additionally, many nationalist and abstentionist parties which are generally opposed to the war in Gaza gained or maintained seats with Plaid Cymru, a Welsh nationalist party, attaining four seats and Sinn Féin, an Irish Republican party active in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, maintaining seven seats.

Nevertheless, the British anti-war movement did take some losses. Most notably, George Galloway, leader of the Workers Party of Britain (WPB) and former MP for Rochdale, lost his seat to Labour. No other WPB candidate managed to win a seat in parliament. Nevertheless, Galloway’s observation that “Starmer and Sunak are two cheeks of the same backside” is still a valid observation which accurately describes the state of British politics.

Despite the setbacks faced by the anti-war movement, the recent election results reveal a growing resistance to pro-war policies within the British political landscape. Keir Starmer’s Labour Party may have secured a majority, but the victories of independent candidates like Jeremy Corbyn and the gains made by minor parties opposed to foreign conflicts highlight a shifting tide in the political system. July 4th will truly be remembered as a bittersweet day for the anti-war movement.

This originally appeared on AntiWar.com.

The post Starmer’s War Party Ascends to Power as Anti-War Candidates Secure Key Seats appeared first on LewRockwell.

Can the West Survive Democracy or Is Democracy the Last Recourse of the West?

Ven, 12/07/2024 - 05:01

As our Founding Fathers knew, Democracy has many problems. One of the larger problems is that one person one vote is a poor way to make governing decisions.

One reason is that intelligence is not equally distributed. Another is that interest in the affairs of state is not equally distributed. Some people want to know what is going on and others concentrate on sports and soap operas and scrolling their cell phones in search of entertainment. Yet another reason is that some have a financial or an ideological interest in controlling the explanations that reach the public and serve as a basis for their decisions placed in the ballot box. Still others focus on putting votes in the ballot boxes that the voters themselves did not put there.

There is no doubt that democracy stinks. Founding Father John Adams gave us his view:

“Democracy has never been and never can be so durable as aristocracy or monarchy; but while it lasts, it is more bloody than either. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true. Passions are the same in all men, under all forms of government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty. When clear prospects are opened before vanity, pride, avarice, or ambition, for their easy gratification, it is hard for the most considerate philosophers and the most conscientious moralists to resist the temptation.”

Our Founding Fathers roped in democracy. They limited the vote to male property owners. They limited democracy to the House of Representatives and the suspect Representatives to two year terms. The Senate was not elected by popular vote but by the vote of state legislatures who were assumed to be male property owners. Our Founding Fathers tried to protect us from democracy, which they regarded as the rule of the ignorant mob. And that is what it is. Nevertheless today it is all we have as a check on the tyranny of government.

So today we are forced to defend democracy, which no Founding Father would do. Our Founding Fathers saw democracy as tyranny. But for us today democracy is the last and only check on the tyranny of the power of government institutions created by elites who are not interested in our opinions. From the standpoint of Klaus Schwab, Bill Gates, and Hillary Clinton, American citizens count for no more than Muammar Gaddafi. We are in the way of their power.

They are committed to moving us out of their way. That is what the eight-year attack on Trump and his supporters is about. That is why there are 1,000 falsely convicted American patriots in prison and why President Trump faces multiple criminal and civil indictments.

The ruling American Establishment has has put a negative connotation on every explanation that is not the official narrative. Gradually, any challenge no matter how factual to an official explanation is becoming a criminal act.

If the Democrats are reelected or can come close enough to being reelected to cover their theft of the election, by 2028 it will be impossible to speak a word of truth in America. The Ruling Elites will have removed Truth out of their way.

It is absurd to think that Americans know this. Americans are so indoctrinated and brainwashed that they don’t know anything.

A Rasmussen Poll of the American population reveals that despite the outpouring of reports from the world’s top medical scientists that the Covid-19 “vaccine” has killed far more people than the released Covid virus, only one-third of Americans believe that the Covid vaccines are killing people.
In other words, Americans are so utterly stupid that they cannot tell the difference between medical science and media propaganda.

With reports coming in every day of only vaccinated athletes in the prime of life suddenly dropping dead on the playing field, with only vaccinated babies having heart attacks, with the new form of turbo-cancer appearing only among the vaccinated, with miscarriages of vaccinated women off the charts, with neurological problems of the vaccinated off the charts, with new forms of blood clots never seen before of the vaccinated, with new diseases never seen before afflicting only the vaccinated, with massive excess deaths in every Covid vaccinated population, with the admissions that the Covid “vaccines” were not protective, with the overwhelming evidence that the “vaccines” are a threat to life and health, still 69% of Americans have no regrets being jabbed. See this.

So, what we have is a population, 69% of which is too stupid to be functional in a one person one vote Democracy. These fools can outvote the 33% by two to one. How can a democracy of morons succeed, even if once it was a world leader before intelligence and reason were schooled out of the American population?

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Transforming Lives: New Technology Gives Hope to the Blind and Paralyzed

Ven, 12/07/2024 - 05:01

For centuries, researchers have been trying to find a cure for blindness and failing sight. According to some historians, “the first inventor of wearable glasses is unknown. However, the Romans first discovered the ability to use to glass to enhance their ability to see small text, creating small magnifying glasses with spheres.

The first wearable glasses known to history appeared in Italy during the 13th century. Primitive glass-blown lenses were set into wooden or leather frames (or occasionally, frames made from animal horn) and then held before the face or perched on the nose. Mostly used by monks, these grew in popularity and the technology improved through the Renaissance.

Artwork remains the best testament that these glasses existed, as early Renaissance paintings sometimes depict scholars using handheld frames or perch-style glasses.” 

Soon, however, glasses and blindness might be a thing of the past. 

A team at Monash University contends they have cured blindness by making the first completely workable bionic eye. Called the “Gennaris bionic vision system” the breakthrough comes after a decade of hard work. It operates “by bypassing damaged optic nerves to allow signals to be transmitted from the retina to the vision center of the brain.”

The India Times wrote, “The system is simple. The user would have to wear a custom-designed headgear that has the camera and a wireless transmitter installed. A set of 9 millimeter tiles are implanted in the brain that receives the signals from the aforementioned receiver.

Researchers are looking to advance their system to help people with untreatable neurological conditions like limb paralysis, quadriplegia, to help make their lives better, “If successful, the MVG [Monash Vision Group] team will look to create a new commercial enterprise focused on providing vision to people with untreatable blindness and movement to the arms of people paralyzed by quadriplegia, transforming their health care,” say researchers.

Researchers have seen successful results in sheep with minimal side effects where it was safely implanted into their brains using a pneumatic inserter with a total of 2,00 hours of simulation. They are now preparing to take it to the next level for its first-ever human clinical trial, that is expected to be conducted in Melbourne.

The researchers are now looking to secure funding to speed up the manufacturing process and distribution.”

Read the Whole Article

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‘How NATO Keeps the World Safe’ ~ Jake Sullivan

Ven, 12/07/2024 - 05:01

How NATO Keeps The World Safe” ~ A science fiction novel by Jake Sullivan as spoken at the NATO Summit in New York…  “What the summit is really about it’s actually a productive working session — producing deals, helping enhance the defense and deferrence [deterrence] capability of the Alliance; marrying up government, the private sector, industry, military in service of our common defense.”

  • “…our Allies are doing more today than at any point since the end of the Cold War.”  As measured against doing nothing, this statement is true.   Europe has no military strength to speak of – which is why they rely on building bunkers as ‘deterrence’.
  • “…when President Biden came to office, nine Allies were meeting the NATO commitment to invest at least 2 percent of their GDP on defense. Today,23 allies are.” Translation;  for 75 years US Taxpayers carried the burden of a worthless NATO that has achieved nothing but the incitement of wars throughout the Middle East and Africa causing widespread death and destruction.
  • “NATO can, NATO will, and NATO is rising to meet this challenge without disturbing, or distorting, our national economies the way Russia has.” EU debt has reached an all time high of $15 trillion, American debt is $40 trillion and Russian debt is $247 billion or 15% of GDP.

Sullivan goes on laboriously to talk about how NATO needs more debt money to defend a NON-NATO country – Ukraine.  How war is the US economy creating jobs to build more weapons.  How it has taken 50 partners led by the US to equip Ukraine with the necessary weapons and manpower and intelligence to fight Putin.   50 countries are fighting Russia – and losing.

What Sullivan never mentions is ‘peace’.    According to NATO, their goal is to provide peace and security.   But that peace and security is derived by inciting wars in South America, Africa, and Asia.  “The Alliance also contributes to peace and stability through crisis prevention and management, and through partnerships with other organizations and countries across the globe.”  That would include over 40 countries and NGO’s which are not NATO members.   They reference this as a ‘collective defense’ – again no mention of ‘peace’.

There have been at least 25 wars since 1948.  The actual death toll is unknown but ranges wildly from 187 million to twice that – 374 million.   This is what NATO declares as their great success!   The vast majority of these wars included the US.   These wars are always in other countries – prodded by US coups, outright US bombings, and zero détente.   There is only obliteration.  What NATO has accomplished is to assure that these wars are not on their soil.

The US has 18 defense agencies working with hundreds of thousands of NGO’s all doing the same thing.  There are roughly 1.5 to 2 million registered NGO’s in the US alone.   On August 1, 2000, sixteen international non-governmental organizations came together with a vision for a network of NGOs that would promote the ideals of the United Nations, and most especially the ideals of universal peace, justice, and well-being for all humanity.   We got 2 million NGO’s out that meeting and no peace anywhere.

According to the National Council of Nonprofits, 1/3 of all NGO funding on average comes from the government – aka Taxpayers.  These organizations pay no taxes on their revenue – and have accumulated Net Worth in the multiple Trillions.  The vast majority don’t serve America , but instead send our money to The World Bank where they loan our money to other countries, organizations, and poor villages charging usury interest in the range of 50% to 120%.    YET, that interest does not come back to the Taxpayers, it goes 100% to the middlemen.

The Money Lenders.

Essentially, NATO ensures the money lenders stay in business.

Israel enjoys a tidy export business;  the US gives Israel weapons which Israel then sells for a profit to India, The Philippines and the US.  Amounting to roughly $12.5 to $15 billion per year – even during the Gaza War.   Ukraine never asks for aide, medical supplies, or food, instead, it only asks for bigger and more – weapons.   The charade is no longer necessary.

Jens Stoltenberg,  NATO Secretary General, emphasized the need to continue to prolong the Ukraine war until Russia is defeated – another Afghanistan…20 years, 220,000 deaths, and $2 trillion later, the NATO coalition – LOST.   How could ‘the best military in the world, lose a war against ‘rag tag’ Afghanistan?   What does that reveal about the US military?  It’s generals?   It’s 18 intel agencies, and thousands of NGO’s?   It reveals an Illusion.

The US spends $1.2 trillion annually on ‘Defense’, by comparison, Russia spends $75 billion.   And their economy is flush while America is experiencing Argentina style inflation!   Russia has since reduced its debt…  while America increases it by 50% over-budget annually.  In the midst of all this rubbish, Saudi Arabia has declared it could sell off Euro Bonds if the EU seizes Russian assets.   Bin Salman has also stated that any relationship with Israel, as brokered by Trump, was dead.

US Senators are calling Saudi Arabia’s declarations a ‘bluff’.   I doubt European leaders are quite so stoic given they hold the entirety of the ‘skin in the game’.  A skin that amounts to tens  of billions that could easily form the beginning of a domino effect.  The US response would be sanctions and the entire Middle East would form their own bloc without The West.  A Middle East/US alliance would completely collapse.   This is the grandiose intel that our Pentagon employs.  Strategic death march.

NATO created the war between Russia and Ukraine.   Doing so at the behest of the rogue Pentagon and CIA for Money.  The Bolsheviks have hated Russia since the 18th century with the rise of The House of Rothschild.   The same communist Bolsheviks who have since solidified their control over Europe, US, Canada, Australia, and Mexico.  Under the guise of ‘democracy’’ positioned within the Authoritarian Monarchy umbrella of the Zionist Cabal.

Reprinted with permission from HelenaGlass.net.

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Project Total Control: Everything Is a Weapon When Totalitarianism Is Normalized

Ven, 12/07/2024 - 05:00

“The biggest mistake I see is people waiting for A Big Sign that’ll tell them that things have gone too far. One Big Thing that police or lawmakers or the president/leaders will do that will cross the line. It’ll never come because they won’t cross it. They’ll move the line. That line you think you stand behind is shifting everyday with little actions, bills, legislations… That line will stop moving one day, & it’ll be too late… Every day, your sensitivity is being eroded by these willful atrocities. The envelope for what you’ll accept is being pushed. One day, all of these things will be your new normal.”—Nigerian writer Suyi Davies Okungbowa

The U.S. government is working to re-shape the country in the image of a totalitarian state.

This has remained true over the past 50-plus years no matter which political party held office.

This will remain true no matter who wins the 2024 presidential election.

In the midst of the partisan furor over Project 2025, a 920-page roadmap for how to re-fashion the government to favor so-called conservative causes, both the Right and the Left have proven themselves woefully naive about the dangers posed by the power-hungry Deep State.

Yet we must never lose sight of the fact that both the Right and the Left and their various operatives are extensions of the Deep State, which continues to wage psychological warfare on the American people.

Psychological warfare, according to the Rand Corporation, “involves the planned use of propaganda and other psychological operations to influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes, and behavior of opposition groups.”

For years now, the government has been bombarding the citizenry with propaganda campaigns and psychological operations aimed at keeping us compliant, easily controlled and supportive of the government’s various efforts abroad and domestically.

The government is so confident in its Orwellian powers of manipulation that it’s taken to bragging about them. For example, in 2022, the U.S. Army’s 4th Psychological Operations Group, the branch of the military responsible for psychological warfare, released a recruiting video that touts its efforts to pull the strings, turn everything they touch into a weapon, be everywhere, deceive, persuade, change, influence, and inspire.

Have you ever wondered who’s pulling the strings?” the psyops video posits. “Anything we touch is a weapon. We can deceive, persuade, change, influence, inspire. We come in many forms. We are everywhere.”

This is the danger that lurks in plain sight.

Of the many weapons in the government’s vast arsenal, psychological warfare may be the most devastating in terms of the long-term consequences.

As the military journal Task and Purpose explains, “Psychological warfare is all about influencing governments, people of power, and everyday citizens.”

Mind you, these psyops (psychological operations) campaigns aren’t only aimed at foreign enemies. The government has made clear in word and deed that “we the people” are domestic enemies to be targeted, tracked, manipulated, micromanaged, surveilled, viewed as suspects, and treated as if our fundamental rights are mere privileges that can be easily discarded.

This is what is referred to as “apple-pie propaganda.”

Aided and abetted by technological advances and scientific experimentation, the government has been subjecting the American people to “apple-pie propaganda” for the better part of the last century.

Consider some of the ways in which the government continues to wage psychological warfare on a largely unsuspecting citizenry in order to acclimate us to the Deep State’s totalitarian agenda.

Weaponizing violence in order to institute martial law. With alarming regularity, the nation continues to be subjected to spates of violence that terrorizes the public, destabilizes the country’s ecosystem, and gives the government greater justifications to crack down, lock down, and institute even more authoritarian policies for the so-called sake of national security without many objections from the citizenry.

Weaponizing surveillance, pre-crime and pre-thought campaigns. Surveillance, digital stalking and the data mining of the American people add up to a society in which there’s little room for indiscretions, imperfections, or acts of independence. When the government sees all and knows all and has an abundance of laws to render even the most seemingly upstanding citizen a criminal and lawbreaker, then the old adage that you’ve got nothing to worry about if you’ve got nothing to hide no longer applies. Add pre-crime programs into the mix with government agencies and corporations working in tandem to determine who is a potential danger and spin a sticky spider-web of threat assessments, behavioral sensing warnings, flagged “words,” and “suspicious” activity reports using automated eyes and ears, social media, behavior sensing software, and citizen spies, and you having the makings for a perfect dystopian nightmare. The government’s war on crime has now veered into the realm of social media and technological entrapment, with government agents adopting fake social media identities and AI-created profile pictures in order to surveil, target and capture potential suspects.

Weaponizing digital currencies, social media scores and censorship. Tech giants, working with the government, have been meting out their own version of social justice by way of digital tyranny and corporate censorship, muzzling whomever they want, whenever they want, on whatever pretext they want in the absence of any real due process, review or appeal. Unfortunately, digital censorship is just the beginning. Digital currencies (which can be used as “a tool for government surveillance of citizens and control over their financial transactions”), combined with social media scores and surveillance capitalism create a litmus test to determine who is worthy enough to be part of society and punish individuals for moral lapses and social transgressions (and reward them for adhering to government-sanctioned behavior). In China, millions of individuals and businesses, blacklisted as “unworthy” based on social media credit scores that grade them based on whether they are “good” citizens, have been banned from accessing financial markets, buying real estate or travelling by air or train.

Weaponizing compliance. Even the most well-intentioned government law or program can be—and has been—perverted, corrupted and used to advance illegitimate purposes once profit and power are added to the equation. The war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on COVID-19, the war on illegal immigration, asset forfeiture schemes, road safety schemes, school safety schemes, eminent domain: all of these programs started out as legitimate responses to pressing concerns and have since become weapons of compliance and control in the police state’s hands.

Weaponizing entertainment. For the past century, the Department of Defense’s Entertainment Media Office has provided Hollywood with equipment, personnel and technical expertise at taxpayer expense. In exchange, the military industrial complex has gotten a starring role in such blockbusters as Top Gun and its rebooted sequel Top Gun: Maverick, which translates to free advertising for the war hawks, recruitment of foot soldiers for the military empire, patriotic fervor by the taxpayers who have to foot the bill for the nation’s endless wars, and Hollywood visionaries working to churn out dystopian thrillers that make the war machine appear relevant, heroic and necessary. As Elmer Davis, a CBS broadcaster who was appointed the head of the Office of War Information, observed, “The easiest way to inject a propaganda idea into most people’s minds is to let it go through the medium of an entertainment picture when they do not realize that they are being propagandized.”

Weaponizing behavioral science and nudging. Apart from the overt dangers posed by a government that feels justified and empowered to spy on its people and use its ever-expanding arsenal of weapons and technology to monitor and control them, there’s also the covert dangers associated with a government empowered to use these same technologies to influence behaviors en masse and control the populace. In fact, it was President Obama who issued an executive order directing federal agencies to use “behavioral science” methods to minimize bureaucracy and influence the way people respond to government programs. It’s a short hop, skip and a jump from a behavioral program that tries to influence how people respond to paperwork to a government program that tries to shape the public’s views about other, more consequential matters. Thus, increasingly, governments around the world—including in the United States—are relying on “nudge units” to steer citizens in the direction the powers-that-be want them to go, while preserving the appearance of free will.

Weaponizing desensitization campaigns aimed at lulling us into a false sense of security. The events of recent years—the invasive surveillance, the extremism reports, the civil unrest, the protests, the shootings, the bombings, the military exercises and active shooter drills, the lockdowns, the color-coded alerts and threat assessments, the fusion centers, the transformation of local police into extensions of the military, the distribution of military equipment and weapons to local police forces, the government databases containing the names of dissidents and potential troublemakers—have conspired to acclimate the populace to accept a police state willingly, even gratefully.

Weaponizing politics. The language of fear is spoken effectively by politicians on both sides of the aisle, shouted by media pundits from their cable TV pulpits, marketed by corporations, and codified into bureaucratic laws that do little to make our lives safer or more secure. Fear, as history shows, is the method most often used by politicians to increase the power of government and control a populace, dividing the people into factions, and persuading them to see each other as the enemy. This Machiavellian scheme has so ensnared the nation that few Americans even realize they are being manipulated into adopting an “us” against “them” mindset. Instead, fueled with fear and loathing for phantom opponents, they agree to pour millions of dollars and resources into political elections, militarized police, spy technology and endless wars, hoping for a guarantee of safety that never comes. All the while, those in power—bought and paid for by lobbyists and corporations—move their costly agendas forward, and “we the suckers” get saddled with the tax bills and subjected to pat downs, police raids and round-the-clock surveillance.

Weaponizing genetics. Not only does fear grease the wheels of the transition to fascism by cultivating fearful, controlled, pacified, cowed citizens, but it also embeds itself in our very DNA so that we pass on our fear and compliance to our offspring. It’s called epigenetic inheritance, the transmission through DNA of traumatic experiences. For example, neuroscientists observed that fear can travel through generations of mice DNA. As The Washington Post reports, “Studies on humans suggest that children and grandchildren may have felt the epigenetic impact of such traumatic events such as famine, the Holocaust and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.”

Weaponizing the dystopian future. With greater frequency, the government has been issuing warnings about the dire need to prepare for the dystopian future that awaits us. For instance, the Pentagon training video, “Megacities: Urban Future, the Emerging Complexity,” predicts that by 2030 (coincidentally, the same year that society begins to achieve singularity with the metaverse) the military would be called on to use armed forces to solve future domestic political and social problems. What they’re really talking about is martial law, packaged as a well-meaning and overriding concern for the nation’s security. The chilling five-minute training video paints an ominous picture of the future bedeviled by “criminal networks,” “substandard infrastructure,” “religious and ethnic tensions,” “impoverishment, slums,” “open landfills, over-burdened sewers,” a “growing mass of unemployed,” and an urban landscape in which the prosperous economic elite must be protected from the impoverishment of the have nots. “We the people” are the have-nots.

The end goal of these mind control campaigns—packaged in the guise of the greater good—is to see how far the American people will allow the government to go in undermining our freedoms.

The facts speak for themselves.

Whatever else it may be—a danger, a menace, a threat—the U.S. government is certainly not looking out for our best interests, nor is it in any way a friend to freedom.

When the government views itself as superior to the citizenry, when it no longer operates for the benefit of the people, when the people are no longer able to peacefully reform their government, when government officials cease to act like public servants, when elected officials no longer represent the will of the people, when the government routinely violates the rights of the people and perpetrates more violence against the citizenry than the criminal class, when government spending is unaccountable and unaccounted for, when the judiciary act as courts of order rather than justice, and when the government is no longer bound by the laws of the Constitution, then you no longer have a government “of the people, by the people and for the people.”

What we have, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, is a government of wolves.

This originally appeared on The Rutherford Institute.

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The Reality of Human Action

Mer, 10/07/2024 - 05:01

The concept of reality is questioned by the notion, as László Krasznahorkai expressed it, that there are “many realities, or none at all.” By contrast, in Human Action, Ludwig von Mises offers a clear concept of reality, which he describes as “the whole complex of all causal relations between events, which wishful thinking cannot alter.” Building on this idea, Murray Rothbard argues that the entire science of human action can be deduced from a few basic axioms that are true about the real world. Real in this context means, as Mises says, “in the eyes of man, all that he cannot alter and to whose existence he must adjust his action if he wants to attain his ends.”

Rothbard’s argument is that in the real world, some inescapable basic truths are self-evident, and from these basic axioms, we can derive further true principles based on the logic that “if A is true, and A implies B, then B is true.” For example, praxeologists assert that “individuals engage in conscious actions toward chosen goals.” From this basic axiom, which praxeologists take to be absolutely and universally true, they deduce further principles about human action. Rothbard argues

(a) that the fundamental axioms and premises of economics are absolutely true;

(b) that the theorems and conclusions deduced by the laws of logic from these postulates are therefore absolutely true;

(c) that there is consequently no need for empirical “testing,” either of the premises or the conclusions; and

(d) that the deduced theorems could not be tested even if it were desirable.

Leaving aside debates about whether these axioms have any empirical content, some critics have countered that praxeologists cannot possibly know whether their fundamental axioms and premises are absolutely true in the first place, as stated in Rothbard’s proposition (a). After all, a good Popperian knows that no scientific principle can be stated as absolutely true because a scientist could come along tomorrow and show that it is not true after all. The lesson to be derived from the awkward business involving Galileo Galilei and the Roman Catholic Inquisition, so the critics assert, is that we should never assume anything to be absolutely true. This contestation is summarized by Rothbard as follows:

In physics, therefore, postulated explanations have to be hypothesized in such a way that they or their consequents can be empirically tested. Even then, the laws are only tentatively rather than absolutely valid.

. . . On the other hand, economics, or praxeology, has full and complete knowledge of its original and basic axioms. These are the axioms implicit in the very existence of human action, and they are absolutely valid so long as human beings exist.

Praxeologists are clear that they make no claim to be omniscient. In Human Action, Mises explains: “The honest and conscientious truth-seekers have never pretended that reason and scientific research can answer all questions. They were fully aware of the limitations imposed on the human mind.” Nor do they claim to be infallible, as Mises explains that “human reason is not infallible, and that man very often errs in selecting and applying means.”

In that case, retort the critics, if praxeologists concede to making errors just like other mere mortals, it follows that they could therefore be mistaken about their original and basic axioms—and it would follow logically that all the deductions derived from those erroneous axioms would probably also be wrong. An argument logically derived from a mistaken premise could well be valid, but its truth is not guaranteed. The critics’ argument is that praxeologists cannot possibly be absolutely certain that men act. We cannot even be certain that men exist at all. As in the famous example, for all you know, you might not even be a man but just a butterfly dreaming that you are a man. What conclusive proof do you have that you are not actually a butterfly dreaming that you’re reading this article?

A story tells that Zhuang Zhou once dreamed he was a butterfly, flitting and fluttering around, happy, and doing as he pleased. As a butterfly, he did not know he was Zhuang Zhou. All of a sudden, he awoke and found he was Zhuang Zhou, solid and unmistakably human. But then he did not know whether he was Zhuang Zhou dreaming he was a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuang Zhou.

If you cannot even prove that you are not a butterfly dreaming that you’re trying to prove yourself to be human, you certainly cannot prove that “individuals engage in conscious actions toward chosen goals.” This inability to be certain about reality is what gender ideologues advert to when they say doctors cannot know for sure what sex people are at birth so they just guess. All doctors can do is make their best guess as to what sex the baby probably is, but that can change over time because sex is a “spectrum.” After all, any child might wake up tomorrow and “feel” like a different gender, or so their teachers would have them believe. As explained by a doctor from St. Louis, Missouri, advising teachers to “affirm” a class of fifth-grade girls who all decided they were actually boys, “The best we can do is affirm, validate and allow for exploration.”

In addition to truth being unknowable, a related criticism of praxeology is that it is unwise to derive universal principles through human reason because human beings are not always reasonable. In making choices, human beings are prone to irrationality, and our decisions are often influenced by our emotions or personal idiosyncrasies. Perceptions of reality are often mistaken; therefore, nobody can know for sure, beyond any doubt, what is real.

Rothbard acknowledges that we are all prone to error, we often wrongly perceive reality, and we do not always choose to follow the dictates of reason. Nevertheless, he argues that we must acknowledge that it is only through reason and rationality that we are able to live: “It is not, of course, that Mises believes that men will always listen to reason, or follow its dictates; it is simply that, insofar as men act at all, they are capable of following reason, and that pursuing such a course is literally the last best hope for mankind.” Rothbard’s point is that it is only through reason that we can forge a path through life:

Man is born with no innate knowledge of what ends to choose or how to use which means to attain them. Having no inborn knowledge of how to survive and prosper, he must learn what ends and means to adopt, and he is liable to make errors along the way. But only his reasoning mind can show him his goals and how to attain them.

Ultimately, the reason why Zhuang Zhou must accept the evidence of his own eyes and take it to be absolutely true that he is a man and not a butterfly is that it is not possible for a sane person persistently to evade reality. As Rothbard observes in “Praxeology: The Methodology of Austrian Economics”:

Of course, a person may say that he denies the existence of self-evident principles or other established truths of the real world, but this mere saying has no epistemological validity. As Toohey pointed out, “A man may say anything he pleases, but he cannot think or do anything he pleases. He may say he saw a round square, but he cannot think he saw a round square. He may say, if he likes, that he saw a horse riding astride its own back, but we shall know what to think of him if he says it.”

Note: The views expressed on Mises.org are not necessarily those of the Mises Institute.

The post The Reality of Human Action appeared first on LewRockwell.

JFK, Richard Nixon, the CIA, and Watergate

Mer, 10/07/2024 - 05:01

Uncovering the Truth about the JFK Assassination

Two weeks ago I published a long article on the JFK Assassination, pointing to the overwhelming evidence that Kennedy’s own successor Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson had very likely been a central figure in the plot.

I closed the essay by quoting several early paragraphs from a different article that I had published more than six years earlier:

…I never had any interest in 20th century American history. For one thing, it seemed so apparent to me that all the basic political facts were already well known and conveniently provided in the pages of my introductory history textbooks, thereby leaving little room for any original research, except in the most obscure corners of the field.

Also, the politics of ancient times was often colorful and exciting, with Hellenistic and Roman rulers so frequently deposed by palace coups, or falling victim to assassinations, poisonings, or other untimely deaths of a highly suspicious nature. By contrast, American political history was remarkably bland and boring, lacking any such extra constitutional events to give it spice. The most dramatic political upheaval of my own lifetime had been the forced resignation of President Richard Nixon under threat of impeachment, and the causes of his departure from office—some petty abuses of power and a subsequent cover-up—were so clearly inconsequential that they fully affirmed the strength of our American democracy and the scrupulous care with which our watchdog media policed the misdeeds of even the most powerful.

In hindsight perhaps I should have asked myself whether the coups and poisonings of Roman Imperial times were accurately reported in their own day, or if most of the toga-wearing citizens of that era might have remained blissfully unaware of the nefarious events secretly determining the governance of their own society.

Over the last dozen years my understanding of the past century of American history has been upended by several huge revelations, explosive discoveries that had long been concealed from me by the propaganda-bubble of mainstream media coverage in which I’d lived my entire life.

Of these, one of the most important was the true story of the Kennedy assassinations of the 1960s. I had always gullibly accepted the official narrative that a pair of deranged lone gunmen had killed our president and his younger brother. Meanwhile I had totally ignored the vague claims of conspiracy that were very occasionally mentioned with ridicule in the books and articles upon which I relied. Therefore, I was stunned to eventually discover that those vitally important historical events had become the subject of a vast subterranean world of solid scholarship, whose analysis and reconstruction seemed far more substantial and persuasive than what my trusted media sources had ever provided.

After carefully digesting and analyzing all this shocking new information, I eventually published my conclusions in a series of articles over the last six years, notably including these:

Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy

Discovering the truth of the JFK Assassination had completely overturned my accepted framework of modern history. But over the years I’ve encountered numerous lesser surprises as well, not nearly as world-shattering but still quite significant in their own right.

One of these, closely intertwined with Kennedy’s own story, has been my considerable reappraisal of Richard Nixon, the man whom Kennedy very narrowly defeated in 1960 and whose later political resurrection placed him in the White House eight years later. In some respects, their ultimate fates were paired, with Kennedy becoming the only modern American president to died by assassination, while Nixon became the first in more than a century to face impeachment, a legal blow that prompted his resignation, the first in our national history.

I’d known that Kennedy and Nixon had been political contemporaries and the media narrative that I’d casually absorbed had always portrayed them as polar-opposites in their political and ideological characteristics.

Together with his glamourous young wife Jackie, Kennedy had conjured the image of an American Camelot during the early 1960s. Presiding over our country as its royal couple, the youthful Kennedys had been adored by our national elites, ranging from Hollywood stars to leading academic intellectuals. Although the life of that handsome young prince was suddenly cut short by an assassin’s bullet, his heroic achievements remained in our national consciousness throughout the decades that followed. Probably no American political figure of the last century has received such glowing support from our national media and intellectual elites, and their hagiography has pulled along the rest of our citizens. For example, although he served less than three years in office, JFK was recently ranked as our third most popular president after Abraham Lincoln and George Washington.

Meanwhile, that same survey placed Nixon close to the bottom, well below any other modern president. Indeed, prior to the appearance of Donald Trump, I doubt that any other American president of the last one hundred years was so generally hated and despised by our media, a harsh verdict that long preceded his shameful departure from office. Since I was only a child during the Nixon Administration, I had unthinkingly absorbed those sentiments, partly because they were so widely and casually echoed by most of my friends and family members. But although I had never closely studied modern American history, in later years I sometimes wondered why that hostility had been so widespread in our elite media and academic circles.

My impression was that the main charges against Nixon had been his dishonesty, his political ruthlessness, and his cynicism, as demonstrated in the Red-baiting tactics that had helped him climb the greasy political ladder. But as I sometimes turned those notions over in my mind, they left me a little puzzled. Similar criticism seemed almost endemic to our entire political class and I wondered whether Nixon was really so much worse than all of his peers. After all, it was grudgingly conceded that Kennedy’s paper-thin victory in the 1960 presidential race had involved massive voter fraud in Texas and Chicago, so the balance of dishonesty and political ruthlessness hardly seemed entirely one-sided.

Elected to Congress in 1946, Nixon’s meteoric early career had been ignited when he boldly championed the “Pumpkin Papers” charges of Whitaker Chambers against Alger Hiss, in which the rumpled former Communist accused the ultra-respectable New Dealer of having been a longtime Soviet agent. Hiss was a pillar of the East Coast Establishment and the founding Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference, so although he was convicted of perjury and sent to prison, claims that he’d been railroaded spent decades as a leading liberal cause celebre and that surely explained much of the lasting animus the media directed towards the congressman who had ruined him. But the eventual release of the Venona Decrypts in the 1990s conclusively proved that Hiss had been guilty as charged, completely vindicating Nixon.

When Nixon’s political success inspired Sen. Joseph McCarthy to launch an anti-Communist crusade along similar lines, the latter was often far more slipshod and careless in his accusations, and Nixon attracted considerable right-wing animosity when he obliquely criticized McCarthy on those grounds in 1954 at the height of the senator’s power and influence. Ironically enough, it was actually the Kennedys who were close political allies of McCarthy, with Robert Kennedy serving as assistant counsel on his Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in 1953 after losing out to Roy Cohn in the effort to become McCarthy’s top aide.

It can even be argued that Kennedy had unfairly Red-baited Nixon during their famous 1960 televised presidential debates. The Democratic candidate had been officially briefed on some of the secret plans of the Eisenhower Administration for overthrowing Castro’s Communist regime in Cuba, but then publicly accused Vice President Nixon of doing nothing in that regard, knowing that his opponent was sworn to secrecy on that project and therefore would be left looking weak on Communism.

Sometimes the friendship or hostility of our media determines whether controversial facts are widely broadcast to the world or are instead ignored. During the late 1930s patriarch Joseph Kennedy had made great efforts to discourage Britain from going to war against Nazi Germany and after that war broke out, he did his best to prevent America from joining the conflict. JFK’s famous Pulitzer Prize-winning 1956 bestseller Profiles in Courage included a chapter praising Republican Senate leader Robert Taft for loudly denouncing the blatant illegality of the postwar Nuremberg War Crime Trials, quoting Taft as declaring they “may discredit the whole idea of justice in Europe for years to come.” And in a 2019 article, I noted the shocking revelation of Kennedy’s own private postwar views of the dead German dictator.

A couple of years ago, the 1945 diary of a 28-year-old John F. Kennedy travelling in post-war Europe was sold at auction, and the contents revealed his rather favorable fascination with Hitler. The youthful JFK predicted that “Hitler will emerge from the hatred that surrounds him now as one of the most significant figures who ever lived” and felt that “He had in him the stuff of which legends are made.” These sentiments are particularly notable for having been expressed just after the end of a brutal war against Germany and despite the tremendous volume of hostile propaganda that had accompanied it.

I strongly suspect that if any of these same items had instead appeared on Nixon’s record, they would have received far greater negative public attention over the decades.

The liberal media later castigated Nixon for not ending the Vietnam War after he reached the White House in 1969. But although that charge was reasonable, he was merely continuing a conflict begun and greatly escalated under his Democratic predecessors Kennedy and Johnson.

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The Body Count of the State

Mer, 10/07/2024 - 05:01

In early June, one of the most extraordinary interviews I’ve ever seen took place. Tucker Carlson sat down with Rep. Thomas Massie, by far the best of the typical sorry congressional lot. During the interview, Massie touched on the subject of Israeli influence in Congress. Boy, did he touch on it.

Massie alleged that every Republican congressional representative has their own AIPAC (American Israel Political Affairs Committee) “babysitter.” Except him. Think Rabbi Shmuley and RFK, Jr. Massie described how, after several high pressured conversations with AIPAC, during which they tried to get him to do some assigned “homework,” he ultimately banned them from his office. I think it’s safe to say that AIPAC has never been banned from any congressional office before. Massie said he didn’t know about the Democrats, but it would be shocking if all of them didn’t have a “babysitter” as well. This is basically what Cynthia McKinney described, before they ran her out of Congress. It all seems a bit like kissing the Pope’s ring.

The entire conversation was riveting. Massie is a true Renaissance Man. He’s an MIT educated engineer, but also recounted how he built his present home from scratch. He hammered every nail, screwed every screw, hooked up the plumbing and the wiring, even dug his own well. He powers the whole home with an old Tesla battery. He is about as off the grid as it gets. Massie spoke lovingly of his four children and his wife Rhonda, his high school sweetheart whom he’d been married to for 35 years. He has a great sense of humor, and performed flawless impressions of Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump, who tried to get him ousted from Congress. It was the single most courageous interview I’ve ever seen with an elected member of Congress.

Which makes what happened a few weeks later all the more poignant. And troubling. On June 27, 2024, Rhonda Massie suddenly died. There was no cause of death announced, and there still hasn’t been. We know she wasn’t suffering from a chronic illness, as Massie spoke glowingly of her with Carlson, and in announcing her death, he noted, “We spent last week touring Mt Rainier with our grandson – she was the best mammaw ever! We love you Rhonda.” She was only fifty one and looked to be in pretty good shape. Normally, such a #died suddenly case can be attributed to the deadly warp speed vaccine. But not in this situation. Massie was vocally critical of the vaccine, and it’s a certainty that his wife wouldn’t have taken the jab. So exactly what could have happened to her?

I have been trying to find updates about this curious case. It may well be that an official cause of death here is never publicly announced. That happens far more often than it should, particularly since so many celebrated figures began dying suddenly during the COVID psyop. I can’t blame Massie for not providing more details. He must be totally devastated. Perhaps he feels guilty about talking so boldly about AIPAC on such a huge platform, and associates her subsequent death with his comments. You certainly ought to be able to speak critically about a political pressure group, in a free country. It shouldn’t cross your mind that such critical comments could possibly result in murderous repercussions. Anyone reading this obviously knows that America 2.0 is not a free country.

The only information I could find comes from an obscure source- County Local News. I have no idea if it has any credibility. From the article: “The investigation into Rhonda Massie’s cause of death revealed that she suffered a fatal breakout caused by a severe allergic reaction. It is believed that she unknowingly ingested a food item that contained an allergen to which she was highly sensitive. The reaction was swift and severe, leading to her tragic death. The news of Rhonda Massie’s cause of breakout death has served as a sobering reminder of the importance of being aware of food allergies and taking precautions to prevent such tragedies. Allergies can be life-threatening, and it is crucial for individuals to be vigilant about what they consume and to always carry necessary medication in case of an emergency.”

I guess that’s as likely as anything else. But naturally, many of us would suspect that someone nefariously introduced the “allergen” into whatever she ate. It would be quite a coincidence if she just randomly died in such a bizarre, unlikely way. Right after her controversial husband called out AIPAC and Israel like no elected official ever has, on one of the largest platforms in the world. It’s possible for people to die without being killed by shadowy conspirators. But unnatural deaths don’t seem to happen often to those who don’t represent a threat to anyone powerful. The Rockefellers, the Royal Family, usually live to be centenarians. And Henry Kissinger became the first obese human in history to make it to 100. There’s a reason why they came up with that “the good they die young” thing.

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The Importance of Balanced Intelligence

Mer, 10/07/2024 - 05:01

I believe one of the biggest issues in modern medicine is that patients often don’t get the opportunity to establish a genuine relationship with their physician and hence often lack the critical voice which is necessary for a therapeutic doctor-patient relationship. Because of this, my goal here was always to be able to correspond with everyone who reached out to me. Unfortunately, due to the traffic I now receive, it’s not possible to do that. For that reason, I decided the best solution was to have a monthly open thread (where people could ask any question they wanted) and link that to a topic I’d wanted to write about but didn’t quite feel merited its own article. In this month’s open thread, I will cover a topic I feel is extremely important but is largely neglected by our society—balanced intelligence.

Types of Intelligence

Throughout history, many different types of intelligence have been recognized (e.g., physical intelligence and coordination or emotional intelligence). In contrast, our society worships a very specific type of intellectual intelligence that as far as I know has never previously been so highly valued by a society.

In my own experience, I’ve lost count of how many people I’ve interacted with who I know are much smarter than me (as they can do things I simply can’t), yet when I compare and contrast our ability to get things done, to correctly interpret the data we are exposed to, help patients, or the general capacity to lead a happy life, I come out far ahead of them. Likewise, I’ve lost count of how smart people I’ve met who simply don’t “get it” and frequently are misled by something quite obvious—an experience I am sure many of you can relate to.

Years ago, when I discussed these experiences with a spiritual teacher (as I was frustrated with how easily many of my medical colleagues were being misled), I was told to stop getting upset because “intelligence does not equate to being resistant to mind control.”

The Transformation of Education

Throughout my life, I’ve noticed that individuals who go through the educational system typically build up a very specific type of intelligence and reciprocally lose a variety of other ones. In my own case, when I went through school, I noticed that the more I was there and did what I was told to, I notice that initially it would refine or develop me, but I would then pass a point where it felt as though I was losing the ability to think and access to the deeper capacities of my mind.

Because of this, I ended up having a rather similar progression at each level of my education.

In high school, I initially did very well, and then became very disillusioned with what I was learning and largely switched to self-study in areas outside the curriculum and just barely passing my classes.

In college, I decided to try to do better academically, but quickly noticed I was running into the same issue (a loss of my cognitive faculties in school—e.g., I would frequently get penalized for coming up with unorthodox but correct solutions to science and math problems). In the face of this, I decided to teach myself how to efficiently memorize information (i.e., I used a variety of non-standard processes, many of which were based off what I’d figured out on my own about the sleep cycle) and try to do an accelerated course load so I could graduate as quickly as possible and hence minimize the total damage to my mind.

After going back and forth on it (I had serious disagreements with many of the existing medical practices), I then decided to go to medical school as I felt becoming a doctor would give me the ability to make things better (rather than just complain about them) and would also give me the chance to have the rigorous and transformative academic experience I’d always yearned for.
Note: that motivation to somehow improve things is also why I’ve put a lot of time into projects like this publication throughout my life.

Once in medical school, I realized that a lot of the academic experience I’d hoped for simply wasn’t there (e.g., the majority of professors were hostile towards debating the ambiguity within the facts you were told to memorize) and that since I’d taught myself how to effectively memorize information in college, I actually had a lot of free time. Because of this, I hence decided to spend a lot of time studying medical subjects outside the standard curriculum and to investigate the contradictions and ambiguities within what I was being taught rather than focus on getting the highest grades possible.

Finally, when I went to residency, I made a point to learn the things I felt were essential for patient care as quickly as possible so I could then be put into a position where I had the autonomy to teach myself as much as I could—which my program in turn was supportive of since most residents didn’t show a strong desire to teach themselves and instead constantly needed to be be policed to study.

Note: numerous medical school deans and medical residency directors I’ve spoken to over the years have lamented that the newer crops of medical school graduates lack the critical thinking which is needed for them to effectively function as doctors during their medical residency. In my eyes, this is due to the fact medical schools harshly reprimand students who demonstrate critical thinking (by thinking outside of the box or questioning an orthodoxy) and that the pipeline to medical school (our colleges), has continually reduced the critical thinking within their curriculums. Remarkably, while those in medicine I’ve spoken to recognize this issue, they still “punish” unorthodox students who display critical thinking.

From my journey, a few key lessons jumped out I wish to share:

1. It’s critical to recognize during the educational process when you’ve hit a point of diminishing returns. For example, there were a large number of subjects I learned well enough to get a general understanding of what under lied them and what the key lessons the discipline had to share were, but I simultaneously felt offered minimal value if I learned them to a high level of detail. In contrast, many people I knew who reached the same degree of familiarity I had with the subject became attached to it and identified with it, and hence spent years learning a lot of extraneous details on the subject which offered minimal value to their life.

2. In contrast, it’s also important to recognize which things actually offer an immense degree of value to spend years if not decades developing mastery in, and hence should be prioritized with your time.
Note: when this is your goal, you have to also shift your focus to being fully present to the subject you are studying, going as deep as you can into it, and unravelling the contradictions and mysteries you encounter.

3. As you start to understand the fundamental processes that underlie the things you study, you’ll begin to notice seeming unrelated things are in reality quite similar (sometimes termed “isomorphisms”). In addition to this being something that allowed me to integrate large bodies of information quite quickly, it also characterizes my writing as I try to show how the same process people can understand in one domain applies to many of the other difficult areas we are also struggling with.

4. The previous three points are important because you will never have enough time to learn everything you want to learn. Rather, you need to have an effective strategy in place for learning as much of it as you can with the time that is available.

5. Many people assume that if they follow the path laid out for them that they will eventually arrive at what they are hoping for. For example, many people I know who went into medicine were not sure what they wanted to specialize in, and eventually chose something a variety of events in their life pushed them to settle on. In turn, many of those people spent years if not decades bouncing from one physician job to another they didn’t really like, and at the end of all of it, weren’t particularly wealthy or happy (despite having some of the highest paying and most prestigious jobs our society had to offer). In my own case, I am certain that if had I allowed myself to have been swept into many of the currents presented to me, I would have never learned much of what I had, I would have made a variety of bad decisions (e.g., taking the COVID vaccine), and I likely would not be a particularly happy person.

6. Much of the current situation we face is a result of the systematic dismantling of the educational system, as it was transformed from something designed to foster critical thinking and a highly functional electorate, to one designed to create subservient citizens who only existed to fill pre-designated roles for them within the society. In my eyes, the strongest pieces of evidence for this contention were:

•In 1903 John D. Rockefeller founded the General Education Board, which over the decades (in partnership with Andrew Carnegie’s foundation) gave billions to schools around the country until in 1973, the Department of Education was created. These foundations and their money reshaped education in America, transforming it from a locally managed process to a centrally controlled one that all children were required to attend, and one where the cultivation of creativity and a child’s own natural development was replaced with a rigid framework which trained the children to become docile subjects who could easily be molded into compliant members of the workforce.
Note: The director of Rockefeller’s “charity” admitted their goal was to have this new model of education train the populace to be compliant slaves who lacked critical thinking.

•In the 1960s, one of my relatives was given documents which detailed a global plan (by a group that preceded the World Economic Forum) to impoverish America so that everyone would willing submit to low paying and backbreaking corporate jobs to get by (e.g., consider Corporate America’s recent vaccine mandates), and hence ensure the American people were compliant and did whatever the ruling clash wished (which I covered in more detail here). I learned about these documents when I was a child and have been astonished to see how every single thing they predicted has subsequently come true as the decades passed. Amongst other things, I was told from the start that a decision had been made to remove critical thinking from our educational system as critical thinking would allow the populace to resist the coming era of corporate economic feudalism.

•Individuals I know who have gone to the elite schools the ruling class sends their children to have repeatedly shared to me that the educational process there is very different (and in many cases I found out the approach I considered to be optimal was utilized for the students at those schools).

•One award-winning teacher, John Gatto, extensively wrote about how American education had been transformed so that when children were in the prime of their life to learn and develop their own identities, they were instead locked into a rigid and sterile environment which disconnected them from all the interactions and experiences of life that allowed them to develop their own identities and become highly functional members of society. Likewise, Ivan Illich, in his book Deschooling Society made the salient observation that once people are “taught” within a rigid framework, they lose much of their inherent ability to “learn.” Sadly, while their points were spot on, they are now mostly forgotten and we now spend dramatically more money (and years of schooling) on education, yet have worse and worse outcomes.

In turn, I believe much of my success as a student came from a desire to develop my mind and the recognition the schooling processes was frequently counterproductive to that—which in turn led me to inadvertently following the style of education individuals like Gatto and Illich advocated for (despite me having no knowledge of them at the time).

Note: recently I completed an article on the immense damage vaccination has done to the health of our society. One of the least appreciated harms of vaccination is that the inflammation and microstrokes they create within the brain will frequently lead to significant cognitive and behavioral impairment. The original pertussis vaccine (DTwP) was the most notorious for doing this, and as discussed in that article, an almost unimaginable wave of issues rippled throughout the society (and hence the schools) as that vaccine was deployed upon America which could be seen as the first generation who received it grew up. In turn, I believe a case can be made that the degradation of American education we witnessed was in part due to teachers no longer being able to teach the way they had previously to these neurologically damaged children.

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