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In this video production, Michel Chossudovsky and Drago Bosnic focus on Donald Trump’s aggressive actions against Venezuela, all in an attempt to appropriate its natural resources, particularly oil and natural gas. This includes not only the usual tools, such as sanctions and other forms of economic and financial pressure, but also threats of direct war. In addition, the US is also pursuing similar policies with regard to numerous other countries, particularly in the Middle East.

War against humanity: What is unfolding is a war against Planet Earth’s 8 billion people. 

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The original source of this article is Global Research.

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“An example that shows the radical devaluation of thought is the transformation of words in propaganda; there, language, the instrument of the mind, become ‘pure sound,’ a symbol directly evoking feelings and reflexes.”

– Jacques Ellul, Propaganda

“A leader or an interest that can make itself master of current symbols is the master of the current situation.”

– Walter Lippman, Public Opinion

Tuesday, September 11, 2001, was a non-teaching day for me. I was home in Massachusetts when the phone rang at 9 A.M. It was my daughter who lived and worked in New York City and was on a week’s vacation with her future husband. “Turn on the TV,” she said. “Why?” I asked.  “Haven’t you heard?  A plane hit the World Trade Tower.”

I turned the TV on and watched a plane crash into the Tower. I said, “They just showed a replay.” She quickly corrected me, “No, that’s another plane.” And we talked as we watched in horror, learning that it was the South Tower this time.

Sitting next to my daughter was my future son-in-law; he had not had a day off from work in a year. He had finally taken a week’s vacation so they could go to Cape Cod. He worked on the 100th floor of the South Tower. By chance, he had escaped the death that claimed 176 of his co-workers. My father’s good friend, retired from a NYC job and living in Pennsylvania, had a one-day-a-month consultancy job at the Twin Tower. Tuesday the 11th was his day to die in the North Tower.

That was my introduction to the attacks. Twenty-four years have disappeared behind us, yet it seems like yesterday.  And yet again, it seems like long, long ago. But long ago is today when the repercussions of what happened then “lie” behind today’s terrible events, as they do because Bush, Jr.’s Global War on Terror continues on its mad and doleful way under three more presidents and different linguistic mind control narratives.

As I type these words, I look down on my desk at my grandfather’s gold badge: Deputy Chief of the New York City Fire Department. Two of his brothers, my great-uncles, were members of the Fire Department and another a NYC cop, a sister a public school teacher. My other grandfather, my cousins, niece and her husband were NYC Police Officers. My grandfather’s nightstick hangs on a nail in another room. A great-great grandfather owned a popular tavern in the West 40s and another a livery stable on the West Side. Having grown up in the Bronx, gone to high school and graduate school in Manhattan, I have long and deep family roots in NYC. My Irish immigrant ancestors were sandhogs who dug the tunnels for the subways, the tunnels bringing water down to the city, and the foundations for the skyscrapers. This history goes deep and high, for my niece was a detective and her husband an anti-terrorism detective who flew over the Twin Towers in a helicopter on that fateful morning, taking so many of the famous photographs of the devastation below.

I tell you this to emphasize how the city, where my family goes back 175 years, is in my blood, and the news my daughter conveyed to me affected me deeply. No matter where you roam in later life, as many native New Yorkers will attest, such bonds tie you back to what we call The City, and when its foundations are shaken as they were on September 11, 2001, so are you at a very deep level.

Thus the truth of how and why these tragic events happened on a glorious September morning became my quest. It began emotionally but soon turned logical and objective as I followed my academic training in the sociology of knowledge and propaganda.

Over the next few days, as the government and the media accused Osama bin Laden and 19 Arabs of being responsible for the attacks, I told a friend that what I was hearing wasn’t believable; the official story as reported by the media was full of holes. It was a reaction that I couldn’t fully explain, but it set me on a search for the truth. I proceeded in fits and starts, but by the fall of 2004, with the help of the extraordinary work of David Ray Griffin and other early skeptics, I could articulate the reasons for my initial intuition. My specialty throughout my long university teaching career has been propaganda, so I set about creating and teaching a college course on what had come to be called 9/11, on what I had learned.

But I no longer refer to the events of that day by those numbers – 9/11. 

Let me explain why.

By 2004 I was convinced that the U.S. government’s claims (and The 9/11 Commission Report) were fictitious.  After meticulous study and research, they seemed so blatantly false that I concluded the attacks were an intelligence operation led by the neoconservatives – Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, et al. – who had become central elements within the George W. Bush administration and whose purpose was to initiate a national state of emergency (that is still in effect in 2025) to justify wars of aggression, known euphemistically as “the war on terror.”  The sophistication of the attacks, and the lack of any proffered real evidence except hyperbolic empty accusations for the government’s claims, suggested that a great deal of planning had been involved and a coverup was underway.

Yet I was chagrined and amazed by so many people’s insouciant lack of interest in researching arguably the most important world event since the assassination of President Kennedy. I understood the various psychological dimensions of this denial, the fear, cognitive dissonance, etc., but I sensed something else as well.  For so many people their minds seemed to have been “made up” from the start. I found that many young people were the exceptions, while most of their elders dared not question the official narrative. This included many prominent leftist critics of American foreign policy. Now that twenty-four years have elapsed, this seems truer than ever.

So with the promptings of people like Graeme MacQueen, Lance de Haven-Smith, T.H. Meyer, Jacques Ellul, et al., I have concluded that a process of linguistic mind-control was in place before, during, and after the attacks. As with all good propaganda, the language had to be insinuated over time and introduced through intermediaries. It had to seem “natural” and to flow out of events, not to precede them. And it had to be repeated over and over again. All of this was carried out by the corporate mainstream media.

In summary form, I will list the language I believe “made up the minds” of those who have refused to examine the government’s claims about the September 11th attacks and the subsequent anthrax attacks.

1. Pearl Harbor. As pointed out by David Ray Griffin and others, this term was used in September 2000 in The Project for the New American Century’s report, “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” (p.51).  Its neo-con authors argued that the U.S. wouldn’t be able to attack Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia, and Sudan, etc. “absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event –  like a new Pearl Harbor.”  Coincidentally or not, the film Pearl Harbor, made with Pentagon assistance and a massive budget, was released on May 25, 2001 and was a box office hit. It was in the theaters throughout the summer. The thought of the attack on Pearl Harbor (not a surprise to the U.S. government, but presented as such) was in the air despite the fact that the 60th anniversary of that attack was not until December 7, 2001, a more likely release date. Once the September 11th attacks occurred, the Pearl Harbor comparison was “plucked out” of the social atmosphere and used innumerable times, beginning immediately. Even George W. Bush was reported to have had the time to allegedly use it in his diary that night. The examples of this comparison are manifold, but I am summarizing, so I will skip giving them.  Any casual researcher can confirm this.
2. Homeland. This strange un-American term, another WW II word associated with another enemy – Nazi Germany – was also used (in a Freudian Slip faux pas) many times by the neo-con authors of “Rebuilding America’s Defenses.”  I doubt any average American referred to this country by that term before.  Of course it became the moniker for The Department of Homeland Security, marrying home with security to form a comforting name that simultaneously and unconsciously suggests a defense against Hitler-like evil coming from the outside.  Not coincidentally, Hitler introduced it into the Nazi propaganda vernacular at the 1934 Nuremberg rally. Both usages conjured up images of a home besieged by alien forces intent on its destruction; thus preemptive action was in order.
3. Ground Zero. This is a third WWII (“the good war”) term first used at 11:55 A.M. on September 11th by Mark Walsh (aka “the Harley Guy” because he was wearing a Harley-Davidson tee shirt) in an interview on the street by a Fox News reporter, Rick Leventhal. Identified as a Fox free-lancer, Walsh also explained the Twin Towers collapse in a precise, well-rehearsed manner that would be the same illogical explanation later given by the government: “mostly due to structural failure because the fire was too intense.” Ground zero – a nuclear bomb term first used by U.S. scientists to refer to the spot where they exploded the first nuclear bomb in New Mexico in 1945 – became another meme adopted by the media that suggested a nuclear attack had occurred or might in the future if the U.S. didn’t act. The nuclear scare was raised again and again by George W. Bush and U.S. officials in the days and months following the attacks, although nuclear weapons were beside the point. But the conjoining of “nuclear” with “ground zero” served to raise the fear factor dramatically. Ironically, the project to develop the nuclear bomb was called the Manhattan Project and was headquartered at 270 Broadway, NYC, a few short blocks north of the World Trade Center.
4. The Unthinkable. This is another nuclear term whose usage as linguistic mind control and propaganda is analyzed by Graeme MacQueen in the penultimate chapter of The 2001 Anthrax Deception.  He notes the patterned use of this term before and after September 11th, while saying “the pattern may not signify a grand plan …. It deserves investigation and contemplation.” He then presents a convincing case that the use of this term couldn’t be accidental. He notes how George W. Bush, in a major foreign policy speech on May 1, 2001, “gave informal public notice that the United States intended to withdraw unilaterally from the ABM Treaty”; Bush said the U.S. must be willing to “rethink the unthinkable.” This was necessary because of terrorism and rogue states with “weapons of mass destruction.” PNAC also argued that the U.S. should withdraw from the treaty. A signatory to the treaty could only withdraw after giving six months’ notice and because of “extraordinary events” that “jeopardized its supreme interests.” Once the September 11th attacks occurred, Bush rethought the unthinkable and officially gave formal notice on December 13th to withdraw the U.S. from the ABM Treaty.  MacQueen specifies the many times different media used the term “unthinkable” in October 2001 in reference to the anthrax attacks.  He explicates its usage in one of the anthrax letters – “The Unthinkabel” [sic].  He explains how the media that used the term so often were at the time unaware of its usage in the anthrax letter since that letter’s content had not yet been revealed, and how the letter writer had mailed the letter before the media started using the word.  He makes a rock solid case showing the U.S. government’s complicity in the anthrax attacks and therefore in those of 11 September  While calling the use of the term “unthinkable” in all its iterations “problematic,” he writes, “The truth is that the employment of ‘the unthinkable’ in this letter, when weight is given both to the meaning of this term in U.S. strategic circles and to the other relevant uses of the term in 2001, points us in the direction of the U.S. military and intelligence communities.” I am reminded of Orwell’s point in 1984: “a heretical thought – that is, a thought diverging from the principles of Ingsoc – should be literally unthinkable, at least as far as thought is dependent on words.”  Thus the government and media’s use of “unthinkable” becomes a classic case of “doublethink.”  The unthinkable is unthinkable.
5. 9/11. This is the key usage that has reverberated down the years around which the others revolve. It is an anomalous numerical designation with no precedent applied to an historical event, and obviously also the emergency telephone number. Try to think of another numerical appellation for an important event in American history. The future editor of The New York Times and Iraq war promoter, Bill Keller, introduced this connection the following morning in a NY Times op-ed piece, “America’s Emergency Line: 9/11.” The linkage of the attacks to a permanent national emergency was thus subliminally introduced, as Keller mentioned Israel nine times and seven times compared the U.S. situation to that of Israel as a target for terrorists. His first sentence reads: “An Israeli response to America’s aptly dated wake-up call might well be, ‘Now you know.’”  By referring to September 11th as 9/11, an endless national emergency became wedded to an endless war on “terror” aimed at preventing Hitler-like terrorists from obliterating us with nuclear weapons that could create another ground zero or holocaust. It is a term that pushes all the right buttons evoking unending social fear and anxiety. It is language as sorcery; it is propaganda at its best. Even those who dissent from the official narrative continue to use the term that has become a fixture of public consciousness through endless repetition.   As George W. Bush would later put it as he connected Saddam Hussein to “9/11” and pushed for the Iraq war, “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”  All the ingredients for a linguistic mind-control smoothie had been blended.

I have concluded – and this is impossible to prove definitively at this time because of the nature of such propagandistic techniques and documents that take many decades to be discovered and perhaps released – that the use of all these words/numbers is part of a highly sophisticated linguistic mind-control campaign waged to create a narrative that has lodged in the minds of hundreds of millions of people and is very hard to dislodge. It is why I don’t speak of “9/11” any more. I refer to those events as the attacks of September 11, 2001. But I am not sure how to undo the damage.

Lance de Haven-Smith puts it well in Conspiracy Theory in America:

The rapidity with which the new language of the war on terror appeared and took hold; the synergy between terms and their mutual connections to WW II nomenclatures; and above all the connections between many terms and the emergency motif of “9/11” and “9-1-1” – any one of these factors alone, but certainly all of them together – raise the possibility that work on this linguistic construct began long before 9/11….It turns out that elite political crime, even treason, may actually be official policy.

Needless to say, his use of the words “possibility” and “may” are in order when one sticks to strict empiricism. However, when one reads his full text, it is apparent to me that he considers these “coincidences” part of a government conspiracy. I have also reached that conclusion. As Thoreau put in his underappreciated humorous way, “Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.”

The evidence for linguistic mind control, while the subject of this essay, does not stand alone, of course. It underpins the actual attacks of September 11 and the subsequent anthrax attacks that are linked. The official explanations for these events by themselves do not stand up to elementary logic and are patently false, as proven by thousands of well-respected professional researchers  from all walks of life – i.e. engineers, pilots, architects, and scholars from many disciplines. To paraphrase the prescient Philadelphia lawyer Vince Salandria, who said it long ago concerning the assassination of President Kennedy, the attacks of 2001 are “a false mystery concealing state crimes.”

If one objectively studies the 2001 attacks together with the language adopted to explain and preserve them in social memory, the “mystery” emerges from the realm of the unthinkable and becomes unutterable. “There is no mystery.” How to communicate this when the corporate mainstream media serve the function of the government’s mockingbird (as in Operation Mockingbird) repeating and repeating the same narrative in the same language; that is the difficult task we are faced with.

The anthrax attacks that followed those of 9/11 have disappeared from public memory in ways analogous to the pulverization of the Twin Towers and World Trade Center Building 7. For the towers, at least, ghostly afterimages persist, albeit fading like last night’s nightmare. But the anthrax attacks, clearly linked to 9/11 and the Patriot Act, are like lost letters, sent, but long forgotten. Such disappearing acts are a staple of American life these days. Memory has come upon hard times in amnesiac nation.

With The 2001 Anthrax Deception, Graeme MacQueen, founding Director of the Center for Peace Studies at McMaster University, calls us back to a careful reconsideration of the anthrax attacks. It is an eloquent and pellucid lesson in inductive reasoning and deserves to stand with David Ray Griffin’s brilliant multi-volume dissection of the truth of that tragic September 11 day and its consequences. MacQueen makes a powerful case for the linkage of both events, a tie that binds both to insider elements deep within the U.S. government, perhaps in coordination with foreign elements. His book should be required reading.

MacQueen’s thesis is as follows: The criminal anthrax attacks were conducted by a group of conspirators deep within the U.S. government who are linked to, or identical with, the 9/11 perpetrators. Their purpose was to redefine the Cold War into the Global War on Terror and in doing so weaken civil liberties in the United States and attack other nations.

Words have a power to enchant and mesmerize. Linguistic mind-control – language as sorcery – especially when linked to traumatic events such as the September 11th and anthrax attacks, can strike people dumb and blind. It often makes some subjects “unthinkable” and “unspeakable” (to quote James W. Douglass quoting the Trappist monk Thomas Merton in JFK and the Unspeakable: the unspeakable “is the void that contradicts everything that is spoken even before the words are said; the void that gets into the language of public and official declarations at the very moment when they are pronounced, and makes them ring dead with the hollowness of the abyss. It is the void out of which Eichmann drew the punctilious exactitude of his obedience . . .”).

We need a new vocabulary to speak of these terrible things.

Reprinted with the author’s permission.

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When the history of the Donald Trump presidency is written, his ill-advised scheme to tariff the world will be seen as one of the most self-destructive acts by a president in the history of the United States. Following up on my article from yesterday, which dealt with why the tariffs on India backfired, I realized that I had no clue about the exact nature of US trade and that of the BRICS countries. So I turned to GROK and Perplexity AI for answers. Not only will this exercise inform you about US trade, but you will also see that these AI engines come up with different answers. So let’s dive in.

Based on the most recent available data for 2024, the top ten countries exporting to the United States, ranked by import value for trade in goods, are as follows:

1. Mexico: USD 505.85 billion
2. China: USD 427.2 billion
3. Canada: USD 421.1 billion
4. Germany: USD 157.1 billion
5. Japan: USD 142.2 billion
6. Vietnam: USD 117.6 billion
7. South Korea: USD 115.1 billion
8. Taiwan: USD 102.3 billion
9. India: USD 85.7 billion
10. Italy: USD 73.7 billion

According to GROK, the total dollar value of exports to the US from the top ten countries (Mexico, China, Canada, Germany, Japan, Vietnam, South Korea, Taiwan, India, Italy) in 2024 is approximately USD 2,147.85 billion, representing 64.1% of the total US goods imports (USD 3.35 trillion). For further details, refer to the US Census Bureau’s trade statistics at https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/country/index.html.

Okay, what does Perplexity say? The top ten countries exporting to the US in 2024, ranked by dollar value, were

1. Mexico: $509.98 billion (15.2%)
2. China: $462.63 billion (13.8%)
3. Canada: $422.17 billion (12.6%)
4. Germany: $163.54 billion (4.9%)
5. Japan: $152.06 billion (4.5%)
6. Vietnam: $142.47 billion (4.2%)
7. South Korea: $135.46 billion (4%)
8. Taiwan: $118.73 billion (3.5%)
9. Ireland: $103.75 billion (3.1%)
10. India: $91.23 billion (2.7%)

Only one area of disagreement with respect to the top ten countries… Perplexity likes Ireland, while Grok prefers Italy. But that is not the only discrepancy. According to Perplexity, the top 10 exporters to the US accounted for 68.5% of total US import value in 2024. Hell, they can’t even agree on the total value, expressed in dollars, for the top ten: GROK pegs it at $2.1 trillion, while Perplexity insists it is $2.3 trillion. What is $200 billion dollars among friends?

Apart from showing that the artificial intelligence machines are not necessarily intelligent, we can see that only ten countries account for more than 64% of total US trade. Did you notice that Brazil, Russia and South Africa did not make the top ten? And that India only accounts for 4% of the export trade from the top ten countries.

When you look at total US exports and imports, according to Perplexity, the United States exports are 11% of GDP, while imports represent 14% of GDP. That, boys and girls, is the trade deficit. Only three countries on the top ten list are BRICS countries: China, Vietnam and India. If you add up the numbers, US trade with those three BRICS countries represents 30% of the total… Not a huge amount.

Now let’s look at the top ten countries receiving US export. For 2024, the dollar amounts of US exports to the top ten countries and their share of total US exports are:

The top ten countries accounted for $1,312 billion (63.7%) of the US total exports of $2,064 billion in 2024. Vietnam and India do not appear. The only two BRICS countries on this list are China and Brazil, which account for 9.4% of all US exports.

Thus, we can see that BRICS does not have substantial trade ties with the US. So let’s look at the top ten trading partners of each of the founding members of BRICS for 2024:

China’s top ten trading partners for exports in 2024 were:
1. United States: $524.9 billion
2. Hong Kong: $291.4 billion
3. Vietnam: $161.8 billion
4. Japan: $152.0 billion
5. South Korea: $146.4 billion
6. India: $120.5 billion
7. Russia: $115.5 billion
8. Germany: $107.0 billion
9. Malaysia: $101.2 billion
10. Netherlands: $91.1 billion

Russia’s top ten trading partners in terms of exports in 2024 were approximately:
1. China – $128 billion (21.1% of total exports)
2. Netherlands – $42.1 billion (8.3%)
3. Germany – $29.6 billion (5.7%)
4. Turkey – $26.4 billion (5.2%)
5. Belarus – $23.1 billion (5.2%)
6. Italy – $25.1 billion (3.6%)
7. South Korea – $13 billion (3.4%)
8. Japan – $12 billion (3.3%)
9. Kazakhstan – $11.6 billion (3.1%)
10. United States – $15.4 billion (2.7%)

Are you as surprised as me to see three European countries and the United States on this list? Despite sanctions, it seems there are products and resources those NATO countries still need.

India’s top ten trading partners in terms of exports for 2024 were:
1. United States – 17.90% of exports
2. United Arab Emirates – 8.23%
3. Netherlands – 5.16%
4. China – 3.85%
5. Singapore – 3.33%
6. United Kingdom – 3.00%
7. Saudi Arabia – 2.67%
8. Bangladesh – 2.55%
9. Germany – 2.27%
10. Italy – 2.02%

Brazil’s top ten trading partners in terms of exports in 2024 and their percentage share of Brazil’s total exports were:
1. China – $94.4 billion (28.0%)
2. United States – $40.6 billion (12.0%)
3. Argentina – $13.8 billion (4.1%)
4. Netherlands – $11.8 billion (3.5%)
5. Spain – $9.9 billion (2.9%)
6. Singapore – $7.9 billion (2.3%)
7. Mexico – $7.8 billion (2.3%)
8. Chile – $6.7 billion (2.0%)
9. Canada – $6.3 billion (1.9%)
10. Germany – $5.9 billion (1.7%)
These ten countries accounted for about 66.7% of Brazil’s total exports in 2024, with Brazil’s total exports valued at approximately $337 billion.

South Africa’s top ten trading partners in terms of exports in 2024 and their percentage share of South Africa’s total exports (valued at about $110.5 billion) were:
1. China – $12.4 billion (12.3%)
2. United States – $8.2 billion (8.3%)
3. Germany – $7.3 billion (7.7%)
4. Mozambique – $6.6 billion (6.1%)
5. United Kingdom – $5.3 billion (5.7%)
6. Japan – $4.9 billion (5.2%)
7. India – $4.7 billion (5.0%)
8. Botswana – $4.33 billion (4.2%)
9. Netherlands – $4.27 billion (4.1%)
10. Namibia – $3.9 billion (3.7%)
These ten countries accounted for roughly 61.3% of South Africa’s total exports in 2024

Take note that Germany and the Netherlands are the only countries in the world that trade with all five BRICS founders. Imposing tariffs on the BRICS nations is likely to cause more economic problems for Germany, whose current economic growth number for 2025 is projected to be approximately 0.3% according to recent data from Trading Economics and economic forecasts by the Ifo Institute and Bundesbank. The Netherlands is not much better — the Netherlands’ economic growth forecast for 2025 is around 1.2% to 1.3% according to multiple sources including the European Commission, Dutch policy analysts, and economic institutes.

Here is the important point: China is the only member of BRICS with significant and substantial trade relations with the US and Donald Trump, despite multiple threats, is pulling back from imposing punishing sanctions on China. There are simply too many critical products that the US needs from China. Hitting China hard carries a significant risk of economic blowback on the US economy.

As I noted in a recent article, we are witnessing the dawn of a new international financial order. The days of the US hegemon dictating what other countries can do is over. This article from the Financial Times highlights a critical new development:

Developing countries are moving out of dollar debts and turning to currencies with rock bottom interest rates such as the Chinese renminbi and Swiss franc. . . .

“The high level of interest rates and a steep US Treasury yield curve . . . has made USD financing more onerous for [developing] countries, even with relatively low spreads on emerging market debt,” said Armando Armenta, vice-president for global economic research at Alliance Bernstein.

“As a result, they are seeking more cost-effective options.”. . .

By borrowing in currencies such as the renminbi and the Swiss franc, countries can access debt at much lower interest rates than those offered by dollar bonds. . . .

Companies in emerging markets are also selling more bonds in euros this year, with the amount of this debt in issue rising to a record $239bn as of July, according to JPMorgan. The overall stock of emerging market corporate bonds in dollars totals about $2.5tn.

The era of the US dollar as the reserve currency is ending… it appears to be moving more rapidly than many financial experts anticipated. We are witnessing the birth of a new economic and political world, one that will bring India, Russia and China into more prominent roles. And there is nothing the US can do to stop this, short of starting a nuclear war and ending civilization.

This article was originally published on Sonar21.

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In 1906, Alfred Henry Lewis stated, “There are only nine meals between mankind and anarchy.” Since then, his observation has been echoed by people as disparate as Robert Heinlein and Leon Trotsky.

The key here is that, unlike all other commodities, food is the one essential that cannot be postponed. If there were a shortage of, say, shoes, we could make do for months or even years. A shortage of gasoline would be worse, but we could survive it, through mass transport or even walking, if necessary.

But food is different. If there were an interruption in the supply of food, fear would set in immediately. And, if the resumption of the food supply were uncertain, the fear would become pronounced. After only nine missed meals, it’s not unlikely that we’d panic and be prepared to commit a crime to acquire food. If we were to see our neighbour with a loaf of bread, and we owned a gun, we might well say, “I’m sorry, you’re a good neighbour and we’ve been friends for years, but my children haven’t eaten today – I have to have that bread – even if I have to shoot you.”

But surely, there’s no need to speculate on this concern. There’s nothing on the evening news to suggest that such a problem even might be on the horizon. So, let’s have a closer look at the actual food distribution industry, compare it to the present direction of the economy, and see whether there might be reason for concern.

The food industry typically operates on very small margins – often below 2%. Traditionally, wholesalers and retailers have relied on a two-week turnaround of supply and anywhere up to a 30-day payment plan. But an increasing tightening of the economic system for the last eight years has resulted in a turnaround time of just three days for both supply and payment for many in the industry. This a system that’s still fully operative, but with no further wiggle room, should it take a significant further hit.

If there were a month where significant inflation took place (say, 3%), all profits would be lost for the month for both suppliers and retailers, but goods could still be replaced and sold for a higher price next month. But, if there were three or more consecutive months of inflation, the industry would be unable to bridge the gap, even if better conditions were expected to develop in future months. A failure to pay in full for several months would mean smaller orders by those who could not pay. That would mean fewer goods on the shelves. The longer the inflationary trend continued, the more quickly prices would rise to hopefully offset the inflation. And ever-fewer items on the shelves.

From Germany in 1922, to Argentina in 2000, and to Venezuela in 2016, this has been the pattern whenever inflation has become systemic, rather than sporadic. Each month, some stores close, beginning with those that are the most poorly capitalised.

In good economic times, this would mean more business for those stores that were still solvent, but in an inflationary situation, they would be in no position to take on more unprofitable business. The result is that the volume of food on offer at retailers would decrease at a pace with the severity of the inflation.

However, the demand for food would not decrease by a single loaf of bread. Store closings would be felt most immediately in inner cities, when one closing would send customers to the next neighbourhood seeking food. The real danger would come when that store also closes and both neighbourhoods descended on a third store in yet another neighbourhood. That’s when one loaf of bread for every three potential purchasers would become worth killing over. Virtually no one would long tolerate seeing his children go without food because others had “invaded” his local supermarket.

In addition to retailers, the entire industry would be impacted and, as retailers disappeared, so would suppliers, and so on, up the food chain. This would not occur in an orderly fashion, or in one specific area. The problem would be a national one. Closures would be all over the map, seemingly at random, affecting all areas. Food riots would take place, first in the inner cities then spread to other communities. Buyers, fearful of shortages, would clean out the shelves.

Importantly, it’s the very unpredictability of food delivery that increases fear, creating panic and violence. And, again, none of the above is speculation; it’s a historical pattern – a reaction based upon human nature whenever systemic inflation occurs.

Then … unfortunately … the cavalry arrives

At that point, it would be very likely that the central government would step in and issue controls to the food industry that served political needs rather than business needs, greatly exacerbating the problem. Suppliers would be ordered to deliver to those neighbourhoods where the riots are the worst, even if those retailers are unable to pay. This would increase the number of closings of suppliers.

Along the way, truckers would begin to refuse to enter troubled neighbourhoods, and the military might well be brought in to force deliveries to take place.

But why worry about the above? After all, inflation is contained at present and, although governments fudge the numbers, the present level of inflation is not sufficient to create the above scenario, as it has in so many other countries.

So, what would it take for the above to occur? Well, historically, it has always begun with excessive debt. We know that the debt level is now the highest it has ever been in world history. In addition, the stock and bond markets are in bubbles of historic proportions. They will most certainly pop.

With a crash in the markets, deflation always follows as people try to unload assets to cover for their losses. The Federal Reserve (and other central banks) has stated that it will unquestionably print as much money as it takes to counter deflation. Unfortunately, inflation has a far greater effect on the price of commodities than assets. Therefore, the prices of commodities will rise dramatically, further squeezing the purchasing power of the consumer, thereby decreasing the likelihood that he will buy assets, even if they’re bargain priced. Therefore, asset holders will drop their prices repeatedly as they become more desperate. The Fed then prints more to counter the deeper deflation and we enter a period when deflation and inflation are increasing concurrently.

Historically, when this point has been reached, no government has ever done the right thing. They have, instead, done the very opposite – keep printing. A by-product of this conundrum is reflected in the photo above. Food still exists, but retailers shut down because they cannot pay for goods. Suppliers shut down because they’re not receiving payments from retailers. Producers cut production because sales are plummeting.

In every country that has passed through such a period, the government has eventually gotten out of the way and the free market has prevailed, re-energizing the industry and creating a return to normal. The question is not whether civilization will come to an end. (It will not.) The question is the liveability of a society that is experiencing a food crisis, as even the best of people are likely to panic and become a potential threat to anyone who is known to store a case of soup in his cellar.

Fear of starvation is fundamentally different from other fears of shortages. Even good people panic. In such times, it’s advantageous to be living in a rural setting, as far from the centre of panic as possible. It’s also advantageous to store food in advance that will last for several months, if necessary. However, even these measures are no guarantee, as, today, modern highways and efficient cars make it easy for anyone to travel quickly to where the goods are. The ideal is to be prepared to sit out the crisis in a country that will be less likely to be impacted by dramatic inflation – where the likelihood of a food crisis is low and basic safety is more assured.

Reprinted with permission from International Man.

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The Battle of the Somme lasted for 141 days  from July 1, 1916 until November 18, 1916.  The battle consisted of a French and English offensive against the German lines.  

The battle began with a week-long artillery barrage that was supposed to destroy the barbed wire and German trenches, but in fact turned the land into craters and a muddy morass across which troops could not advance in order.  The German machine guns cut down the British and French troops sent to certain death by totally incompetent and stupid generals. The first day of the 141 day exercise in total stupidity the British suffered 60,000 casualties. In many respects, these were the flower of England, the leaders who would not be present when England again confronted conflict.

A.J.P. Taylor reports that by the end of the 141 day massacre, the British had nothing to show but 420,000 casualties.  The French had nothing to show but 200,000 casualties.  The Germans had 450,000 casualties and intact lines. That comes to 1,070,000 casualties. According to American Battlefield Trust, the total casualties both sides of four years of Washington’s most bloody war–Lincoln’s invasion of the Confederate States of America– was 620,000.

Taylor states, “Strategically, the battle of the Somme was an unredeemed defeat” for England and France.  . . .  Idealism perished on the Somme.”

The troops saw the stupidity of the war long before the generals and politicians.  A French general, Nivelle, self-promoted himself to miracle worker who could win the war. He was allowed his offensive against the Germans on the Aisne.  To distract the Germans from Nivelle’s preparations, the British opened an offensive known as the battle of Arras. The result was 150,000 British casualties. Nivelle’s offensive exhausted the spirit of the French Army. Fifty-four divisions refused to obey orders.  One hundred thousand French soldiers were court martialed. Many thousands deserted.

In 1917 the dumbshit British generals had still learned nothing. General Haig sold the moronic politicians on another offensive at Yypres. The stupid general’s barrage created a morass of impassible mud. Men sank to their waste in the mud.  The horseback calvary charge could not occur. The British lost 300,000 lives.

These losses of life are nothing compared to the loss of lives toward which the politicians of our time are leading us. One nuclear missile can kill millions of people.

Compared to the Somme’s casualty list of over one million, the so-called American civil war over its four years produced not much more than half of the figure for one World War I battle. Gettysburg produced 51,116 casualties.  The Seven Days produced 34,463 casualties, Chickamauga delivered 34,694 casualties, Chanellorsvile 29,609, and Antietam 22,726, according to the US National Park Service.

When I referred in my columns to A. J. P. Taylors histories of WW I and WW II as masterful, I did not say that he was entirely correct.  He is masterful  in showing the total failure of peace negotiations by all involved. Each participant was constrained by forces that prevented them from making the best decisions. As a result, blunder was piled upon blunder until war was the result.  We face a similar situation today.

In his history of the First World War even such an ascerbic historian as Taylor, who has no illusions, buys into the war propaganda that Germany started the war.  This shows the power of war propaganda over a first class historian.  

American Harry Elmer Barnes, the best historian of World War I, The Genesis of the World War (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1926), whose conclusions were verified in our times by Christopher Clark of Cambridge University in his book, The Sleepwalkers, showed that World War I was the product of a conspiracy between President Poincare of France and two of the Russian Tsar’s ministers.  Poincare wanted Alsace-Lorraine, lost to Germany in Napoleon the Third’s defeat by Prussia. The two Russian Tsarist ministers wanted Constantinople for Russian controlled access to the Mediterranean.

There is no mention in Taylor’s history of Poincare’s role or that of the Russian ministers.

Wilhelm II, emperor of Germany was the very last of the war participants to mobilize.  The last to mobilize cannot be the originator of the conflict. How Taylor missed this again shows the power of war propaganda. The war-mongering presstitues and two-bit punk court historians do not tell the people that Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, King George V of England, and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia were all related through their shared grandmother, Queen Victoria. They were first cousins.  They were unaware of Poincare’s conspiracy with the Russian ministers.

They did not want war over an Austrian Archduke being assassinated by Serbians. The total destruction of Europe was the result.  

The Tsar was told by his ministers, whose eyes were on Constantinople, that was too late to stop the mobilization.  Poincare pushed the war in France.

When the war ended Germany occupied Belgium, huge areas of France and Russia and was said to be the loser. The Germans confronted with left-wing revolution at home agreed to an armistice  that was turned against them in violation of US President Wilson’s promise of no territorial loss, no reparations. The British embargo on food starved the German victors into submission to the Versailles Treaty. Thus was the stage set for World War II.

What we are faced with today is that there won’t be a second war.  Until WW II armies fought armies.  During WW II war against civilians was initiated by Winston Churchill. At the time it was considered a war crime, and Churchill kept the British bombing attacks on German cities secret from the British people.  The American fire bombing of Tokyo was also a war crime and culminated in the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Today wars are fought against civilians.  Israel in Gaza is an example.  In present day war plans, nuclear missiles are aimed at the opponent’s civilian cities, not against armies.  The aim of nuclear war is to destroy the country and the population of the opponent.  It is civilians who are at risk.

Americans need to understand that when generals talk about war today, it is the lives of civilians that are at risk.

The post People Have Unrealistic Trust in Governments appeared first on LewRockwell.

On September 5, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to rename the Department of Defense (DoD) to the Department of War (DoW). As one of the justifications for this change, Trump pointed out that the founders of the United States established the DoW as such to “win wars, inspiring awe and confidence in our Nation’s military, and ensuring freedom and prosperity for all Americans”. He also claimed that the US supposedly “won the War of 1812, World War I, and World War II”. These highly controversial claims can easily be challenged by simple historical facts. The Anglo-American War of 1812 ended in a status quo ante bellum, at best. Namely, the British military took and burned Washington DC, including the White House, Capitol Hill and other government buildings.

As for WWI and WWII, the very idea that the US military “won” the two bloodiest conflicts in human history is beyond ridiculous. If anything, Russia contributed far more, particularly during WWII, when approximately 80% of all Axis forces were destroyed on the Eastern Front. However, this fact is almost entirely sidelined in the American public discourse, to say nothing of Trump’s rather limited understanding of history, military science or essentially anything outside of his scope of interests.

He insists that the name DoW was chosen to “signal our strength and resolve to the world” and that “‘Department of War’, more than the current ‘Department of Defense’, ensures peace through strength, as it demonstrates our ability and willingness to fight and win wars on behalf of our Nation at a moment’s notice, not just to defend”.

Trump also added that “this name sharpens the Department’s focus on our own national interest and our adversaries’ focus on our willingness and availability to wage war to secure what is ours”. The notion of America “waging war to secure what is ours” is precisely what worries all sovereign countries on the planet. Namely, Washington DC almost always arbitrarily determines the “ownership” of whatever it points its finger at.

The plutocrats, kleptocrats, warmongers and war criminals running the American government have a vested interest in instigating instability, wars, death and destruction all across the planet, whether directly or through proxies. The DoD’s role in this never changed, nor can we expect it will now that it has become the DoW. However, this change may be more than mere symbolism.

Namely, despite all the talk about “peace” and even ambitions to get the so-called “Nobel Peace Prize” (politically charged, tainted and discredited long ago), Trump’s actions speak louder than words. The attack on Iran mere months after taking office demonstrates just how meaningful “peace” is to his administration. Not to mention the promise that he would “immediately end” the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict. In fact, Trump hasn’t kept many (if not most) of the promises he made to his electorate, whether it’s the infamous Epstein files, gun control, “no new wars”, etc. This is without even considering Trump’s criticism of the Pentagon prior to his first term, when he pledged to make the US military “far stronger for far less”, clearly referring to its unnecessarily enormous budget.

However, Trump’s stance changed dramatically after he gained power. The Pentagon’s official budget is projected to reach a trillion dollars precisely during his presidency and is expected to continue growing afterwards. The much-needed reforms Trump promised never came. On the contrary, the DoW is effectively a cash cow for the aforementioned plutocrats, kleptocrats, warmongers and war criminals running the US government. If anyone thinks this is an exaggeration, they should check how many audits the Pentagon passed in the last several years and decades (or ever). That’s right, it’s exactly zero. In fact, the US Constitution stipulates that the military budget shouldn’t be paid at all because of this. In a recent article, Ellen Brown, an attorney and founder of the Public Banking Institute, brilliantly analyzed this.

She warned that “the US federal debt has now passed $37 trillion and is growing at the rate of $1 trillion every five months”, while the interest alone exceeds $1 trillion annually. Still, this doesn’t prevent the US government from allocating nearly half of the discretionary budget to the Pentagon. Worse yet, Brown noted that the Pentagon “failed its seventh financial audit in 2024, with 63% of its $4.1 trillion in assets — approximately $2.58 trillion — untracked” and warned that the DoW failed to account for $21 trillion in spending from 1998 to 2015. With over $4.1 trillion in assets and at least $4.3 trillion in liabilities (e.g., personnel costs, pensions, logistics, etc), the Pentagon oversees nearly 5,000 sites worldwide (which include military bases, logistics hubs, and similar infrastructure and facilities).

As Ellen Brown rightfully points out, all this is done with little to no oversight. Why would anyone want to hide such a mind-boggling amount of money and assets from public scrutiny unless the funds are being embezzled (or used for some other sinister purpose)? Why didn’t Trump address this issue during either of his two terms?

Forming the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in cooperation with controversial billionaire Elon Musk was presented as a way to improve budgetary oversight. However, apart from scrutinizing the infamous USAID, the DOGE turned out to be a red herring. Namely, despite the repugnant nature of its activities, the USAID, which will certainly not be missed by anyone except neoliberal extremists, was primarily dissolved as part of an internal political struggle.

This was one of the major reasons Trump and Musk had a falling out, with the latter leaving the DOGE and effectively turning on the new US administration, criticizing it for failure to keep its numerous promises. However, Washington DC wouldn’t budge, continuing its controversial budgetary practices.

In the next several months, Trump became increasingly aggressive, culminating with the aforementioned attack on Iran. This belligerence hasn’t subsided in the slightest. On the contrary, the US is now seriously contemplating a direct confrontation with Venezuela, based on a false pretext that its President Nicolas Maduro is supposedly “running a narco cartel”. This is a potential “Noriega 2.0” moment for the US, with a strong possibility the Pentagon could launch at least limited long-range strikes on Caracas.

Source infobrics.org

The post America’s Department of War – Mere Symbolism or Bad Omen of Things To Come? appeared first on LewRockwell.

This article was originally published on Birch Gold Group

The news feeds were buzzing last week over the recent meeting between Russia, China and India at the Chinese port city of Tianjin. Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi made sure to present a unified front at the event, at least in economic terms, and it’s clear that China and Russia’s military ties are solidifying. The Shanghai Cooperation Gathering is being treated by the media as a warning to the US in the face of accelerating trade tensions.

Western journalists seem rather giddy over the news, suggesting that Donald Trump’s tariff policies are pushing America’s enemies together and forming an anti-US axis. The political left hates Trump so completely that I wouldn’t be surprised to see them cheering for Putin and the BRICS in a year or two.

News flash for those who are unaware: The BRICS have been forming their alliance since the Obama era. It’s nothing new and has nothing to do with Trump.

I’ve been tracking the formation of the BRICS alliance since 2009 and the driving motive behind the economic bloc (on the surface) has always been to break from the dollar as the world reserve currency. BRICS leaders have been calling for the end of the dollar and the introduction of a new global currency system for years. Though, the plan is not as eastern focused as many people assume. That is to say, if you’re hoping the BRICS are going to “end globalism” you are sorely mistaken.

In fact, in 2009 both Russia and China put forward the notion of a global currency managed by the IMF; an organization that many people think is US controlled. The reality is that it is globalist controlled, and globalists have no enduring loyalties to any nation state; they are only loyal to their own agenda.

Some people might argue that the situation has changed dramatically since 2009, but I disagree. China is now inexorably tied to the IMF’s SDR basket and Russia remains an active member of the IMF despite the war in Ukraine. It’s important to understand that there are always two different timelines when it comes to world events – There is the more publicized international theater, and then there are the operations of globalist institutions that exist outside of geopolitics.

In my view, globalists are not necessarily the “engineers” behind every conflict or crisis, but they do position themselves to take advantage whenever possible. And, they do play both sides of every conflagration in order to gain the most benefit. In other words, groups like the IMF, World Bank, the BIS, the WEF, and trillion dollar conglomerates like BlackRock and Vanguard are going to court the BRICS just as much as they court the west when it comes to achieving a centralized one-world economy.

It’s no secret what this “new world order” is intended to look like. The Davos crowd has openly discussed their visions for years and during the pandemic they ripped the mask off and reveled in the “inevitable” implementation of their “Great Reset”. To summarize, this is what the elites want for the future economy:

A global cashless system. A one world digital currency built around a basket of CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies). AI tracking of all financial records. A “sharing economy” in which all private property is abolished. The use of “de-banking” to control civil discourse – Meaning you can say what you want but you might lose access to your accounts, and perhaps even the jobs market. Population control and reduction. Carbon feudalism in which nations pay tribute taxes to globalists in the name of “stopping man-made climate change” (which doesn’t exist).

These taxes are then redistributed to various nations as a way to incentivize their cooperation. And ultimately, they want the introduction of Universal Basic Income (UBI) as a way to make every individual dependent on centralized government for their livelihood so that they never think of rebelling.

This is what the Davos elite mean when they talk about the “Great Reset”. I have noted in recent articles, however, that the globalists have grown disturbingly quiet in the past year. They are not so bold anymore in their speeches as they were during the pandemic and their plans do seem to be hitting a wall.

I’ve seen the media, a number of central bankers and political leaders refer to this issue as Donald Trump’s “economic reset” and I find this narrative fascinating. What exactly are they talking about? Are there competing resets in play, and if so, does this mean the globalist agenda has been derailed?

Trump’s Reset And The End Of Bretton-Woods

Trump’s reset, if we’re to call it that, seems to be rooted in the reversal of the post-WWII Bretton-Woods agreement in which the US was made the de facto financial engine of the global economy. This was when the dollar’s status as world reserve currency was solidified, when America became the consumption hub for the west, and when NATO was formed.

It sounds like a sweet deal for Americans, but playing the role is costly. It is, slowly but surely, destroying our economy through debt and inflation.

Many presidents have used targeted tariffs since WWII, but none have enforced sweeping tariffs like Trump. Often compared to the Smoot-Hawley tariffs under Herbert Hoover which are wrongly blamed for the Great Depression (it was actually international banks and the Federal Reserve that caused the Depression), Trump’s import taxes throw a monkey wrench into the gears of Bretton-Woods trade and stifle globalism by forcing large corporations to reduce their foreign outsourcing.

As I’ve noted many times, global corporations are NOT free market entities, they are socialist entities chartered by governments and protected through special legal and economic privileges. If a company is “too big to fail” and is thus entitled to taxpayer cash through bailouts and QE, then they are not a mechanism of the free market. Therefore, we should not care if they get taxed through tariffs.

Frankly, I think corporate globalism and economic interdependency should be abolished, by force if necessary.

Legitimate Decentralization Or Controlled Chaos?

Trump’s tariffs along with his cuts to foreign subsidies and other economic policies could, in a few years, completely disrupt globalism as we know it. So, in a way, it is indeed a kind of “economic reset”. But here’s the rub: Could Trump’s efforts end up accelerating the globalist reset rather than defeating it?

As noted earlier, the formation of close ties between the BRICS nations has been ongoing since 2009 and their key goal has been to end the structures put in place by the Bretton-Woods agreement. They have stated in the past that they want a new currency system run by the IMF. Whether the BRICS know it or not, their efforts to develop CBDCs and unseat the US play directly into the globalist game plan.

The IMF and the BIS have been working diligently (and quietly) to build a cross-border CBDC framework and the IMF has been planning its own global digital currency built around the SDR basket. The BIS sometimes refers to this system as a “Unified Ledger”.

Are the banking elites setting up an alternative to the dollar in preparation for an incoming clash between the US and the BRICS? And is Trump’s “reset” a catalyst for that crisis?

I support Trump’s tariffs for a number of reasons. I think globalism needs to end. I think domestic production needs to return to the US and I think corporations need to pay a price for their outsourcing. I don’t think that Americans should act as the primary consumer hub for the entire world and I don’t think it’s our job to subsidize the planet. I also think that nothing is going to change unless drastic measures are taken in the near term.

But I also understand the reality that if the US stops playing the role it has been playing since WWII, the majority of nations around the planet are facing a shocking disruption. The US makes up around 30% of global consumption. We supply the vast majority of global foreign aid (around $70 billion to $100 billion annually), which many countries have come to rely on. We are the primary export market for the world and there is no realistic replacement. The dollar and the SWIFT system are the key drivers of global trade.

Would Trump’s reset actually force a majority of nations into a desperate situation? A situation that compels them to look for an alternative solution they would not otherwise accept? Are the globalists waiting in the wings to offer that solution in the form of their own “Great Reset” and one-world digital currency system?

One way or another the existing economic interdependency needs to die. Global corporations need to face a reckoning after decades of protection and special treatment. Production needs to return to the US. Americans need to stop paying for the rest of the world through foreign aid. But if we’re going to take this path then we must also dismantle all globalist organizations in the process.

I believe these institutions plan on exploiting the instability caused by the US breaking from the Bretton-Woods structure. I think they have positioned themselves, as always, to take advantage of any potential conflict that might result. They cannot be allowed to use our necessary reforms as as springboard to achieve the evils of their Great Reset.

A true “reset” will require us to make the destruction of globalist institutions a priority.  Otherwise, any economic action we take could ultimately benefit their agenda.

Reprinted with permission from Alt-Market.us.

The post Could Trump End Up Triggering the Globalist ‘Great Reset’? appeared first on LewRockwell.

There are new reports suggesting that the Trump Justice Department (DOJ) is trying to keep information about Jeffrey Epstein secret.

On Friday, the DOJ asked a federal judge to deny a media request for the names of two people who received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Epstein in 2018. The DOJ cited privacy concerns as its primary reason for objecting, according to court documents. And the day before that, James O’Keefe’s undercover journalism outfit, O’Keefe Media Group (OMG), published a video of a DOJ employee saying that any files the DOJ releases will likely be heavily redacted in favor of Republicans. Meanwhile, the leaders of an effort to push through a vote on a bipartisan bill that would force the government to release all Epstein documents say they will soon have the votes they need.

Recipients of Epstein Money

Individuals 1 and 2 received a total of $350,000 from Epstein in 2018 after the Miami Herald published a series of articles titled “Perversion of Justice: Jeffrey Epstein.” That investigative series included criticism by Epstein’s victims of the non-prosecution deal he received 10 years before that. Moreover, “as part of the plea agreement, Epstein secured a statement from federal prosecutors in Florida that the two individuals would not be prosecuted,” NBC News reported.

One of the individuals NBC is trying to have revealed was mentioned in the Herald reports. Both recipients have been labeled as potential co-conspirators, according to prosecutors.

The DOJ letter asking to keep those names sealed says that both individuals are “uncharged third parties who have not waived their privacy interests” and who have “expressly objected to the unsealing of their names and personal identifying information.” Moreover, they were not named in the case against Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.

An Insider’s View

As for O’Keefe’s video, the employee who spoke to the undercover journalist is analyst Joseph Schnitt, acting deputy chief of the DOJ’s Office of Enforcement Operations.

Schnitt said there’s internal turmoil at the DOJ. FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino want the files released. Bongino, according to Schnitt, “has been causing problems” because he wants the Epstein files made public. Attorney General Pam Bondi, however, just “wants whatever Trump wants,” according to Schnitt. “She’s just a yes-person.”

Schnitt told OMG’s undercover journalist that there are “thousands and thousands of pages of files” on Epstein. But even if the DOJ releases any of them, they would be incomplete:

They’ll redact every Republican or conservative person in those files, leave all the liberal, Democratic people in those files, and have a very slanted version of it come out.

Schnitt touched on Maxwell’s prison transfer to a minimum-security facility. He claimed the move suggested that “they’re offering her something to keep her mouth shut.” OMG verified Schnitt’s claim that convicted sex offenders are normally ineligible for minimum-security facilities.

O’Keefe started the video by revisiting promises of transparency DOJ heads have made in the past, only to reneg on them. At the end, he issued an invitation for people within the DOJ to come forward and provide inside information about what is truly going on within the agency, to spill the beans about what the Trump administration is hiding and why.

The Administration’s Curated Approach

The idea that the DOJ wants to control the Epstein information that is released to the public makes sense given everything that is happening. It would explain why the Trump administration is calling efforts by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) to have all the Epstein documents released a “hostile act.” Last week, the House Oversight Committee released more than 33,000 pages of documents related to the investigation. But, Massie pointed out, the information the agency releases will be heavily redacted or has already been made publicly available.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has justified the curated approach to releasing information as necessary to protect the victims. But the victims are supporting Massie and Khanna’s legislation; Johnson blames that on them being “misled.”

A few days ago, Johnson made the interesting comment that Trump was “an FBI informant to try to take this stuff down” and maintained that the president “has no culpability in this thing at all.” But on Monday, he walked that statement back — sort of. He said:

What I was referring to in that long conversation was what the (Epstein) victims’ attorney said. More than a decade ago, President Trump kicked Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago, and he was one of the only people, one of the only prominent people, as everyone has reported … willing to help law enforcement go after this guy who was a disgusting child abuser, sex trafficker, all the allegations. That’s what they heard. So the president was helpful in that.

Johnson’s “clarification” is bolstered by comments Massie made Sunday during an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. Massie told Stephanopoulos, “I don’t know if the Speaker misspoke when he said that Donald Trump was an informant. The lawyers for the victims said that Donald Trump had been helpful in 2009 in their case by giving them information.”

Getting the Files Released

Stephanopoulos also asked about the effort to pick up the remaining necessary signatures needed for the discharge petition Massie and Khanna are working on. That would force a vote in the House of Representatives on a bill that would release all the information the government has on Epstein, minus redactions to protect the victims. The two held a press conference last week with several Epstein victims in an effort to squeeze out the last two votes needed to reach 218. Right now, 212 Democrats have signed on, and four Republicans. In addition to Massie, they are Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Nancy Mace of South Carolina, and Lauren Boebert of Colorado.

Stephanopoulos asked Khanna if they still believed they could get the last needed signatures. Khanna said they already have them:

We have the 218 votes. Two-hundred and sixteen already support it. There are two vacancies that haven’t been reported as much, but two Democrats are going to be joining and they are both committed to signing it. That’s going to happen by the end of September.… We have the votes. Let’s get a vote this month and get the files released.

Stephanopoulos brought up that, even if the bill passes in the House, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has “made it pretty clear” he’s going to block it. Can that be overcome? Massie’s response suggests they are hoping that the pressure that’s building for its release would compel Thune not to block it.

“Why do you think, Congressman Massie, the president is resisting the release?” Stephanopoulos asked. Massie replied:

I think it’s going to be embarrassing to some of the billionaires, some of the donors who are politically connected to his campaign. I also think Democrats are going to be implicated in this — Democrat donors. And when you get to the billionaire level, a lot of these folks give to both parties, anyway. There are probably intelligence ties to our CIA and maybe to other foreign intelligence, and the American people would be shocked, I think, to know that our intelligence agency was working with a pedophile who was running a sex trafficking ring.… We can’t avoid justice just to avoid embarrassment for some very powerful men.

Stephanopoulos asked Khanna if he’s concerned that, even if they succeed, the DOJ would “scrub” (as Schnitt suggested would happen) the files to include only Democrats. Khanna said he is indeed concerned. But he added that the victims’ lawyer, Bradley Edwards, has seen the files, as have “many people who are career officials.” So if they politicize the release, Khanna summarized, there are people who would call them out on it.

Khanna wrapped up the interview by pointing out that this issue is bridging the partisan divide:

The American people are dialed into this, They want to know that as a country we can stand with survivors.… They want to know that we can protect our children, and they want to know that there aren’t two Americas, that rich and powerful are going to be held to account for assaulting underage girls. I hope that this actually brings us together. I mean, the roll call had Marjorie Taylor Greene and me hugging after an emotional moment. Some people criticized me, but other people said the survivors are actually bringing this country together around fundamental values.

This article was originally published on The New American.

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British police arrested nearly 900 people over the weekend for expressing support for the peace activist group Palestine Action. Under UK law it is illegal to express favorable opinions about the group because London has deemed Palestine Action a terrorist organization, in the same category as ISIS or Al Qaeda.

At the same time, the Trump administration is defending its assassination of a boat full of Venezuelans on the allegation that they were “narcoterrorists”, an imaginary category designed to lump garden variety drug traffickers in with suicide bombers and mass shooters.

The word “terrorist” becomes more and more of a joke by the day.

I used to think a terrorist looks like a deranged maniac killing large numbers of civilians. Now I know a terrorist actually looks like a woman in a wheelchair holding a piece of cardboard with forbidden words written on it. https://t.co/ruQUknjNRr

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) September 6, 2025

In the UK a terrorist is someone with a cardboard sign saying “I support Palestine Action”.

In the US a terrorist is a Venezuelan suspected of drug trafficking.

In Israel a terrorist is someone resisting occupation.

We’re told Yemen is full of terrorists because they’re trying to stop a 21st century holocaust.

We’re told Lebanon is full of terrorists because they oppose a genocidal apartheid state.

We’re told Iran is full of terrorists because its government resists imperial regime change agendas.

We were told Al Qaeda were terrorists because they perpetrated the 9/11 attacks, but when Al Qaeda helped the west get rid of Assad they suddenly weren’t terrorists anymore.

Uyghur militants used to be terrorists, but they came off the list when they were deemed useful operatives against Beijing and Damascus.

Iraq needed to be invaded because Saddam wanted to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorists, but after the invasion it turned out that there were no weapons of mass destruction, and then Iraq was suddenly plagued by an epidemic of suicide bombings.

Afghanistan needed to be invaded because the Taliban was providing a safe haven for terrorists, but after 20 years of military occupation the empire needed its war machinery for other duties so they let the Taliban retake Afghanistan.

In 2010, then-vice president Joe Biden proclaimed Julian Assange a “high-tech terrorist” because his journalism with WikiLeaks exposed US war crimes.

Terrorism was used as an excuse to roll out the Patriot Act in the US and the Terrorism Act in the UK, and countless other authoritarian measures throughout the western world which tyrannical empire managers had been seeking to impose for years.

Such undignified bootlickery how American right wingers suddenly started pretending “narcoterrorists” is a real term and that assassinating drug dealers is actually killing terrorists just because the president commanded them to believe that. Pure 1984 Orwellian doublethink.

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) September 7, 2025

Really “terrorist” just means someone the empire wants to kill or imprison, or a group whose terrorist designation might be used to justify the advancement of preexisting geostrategic agendas.

Propaganda is used to sear events like 9/11 into western consciousness as examples of terrorism which must be prevented at all cost, and then this label “terrorism” is applied to literally anyone who poses an obstacle to the agendas of the western empire.

Once it is accepted that there should be no rules restricting how the state responds to the threat of terrorism, all the state needs to do is label someone a terrorist to remove all rules which might stop them from doing whatever they want to do. Nowhere is this more clearly illustrated right now than the ongoing genocide in Gaza which is being justified by the need to eliminate terrorists.

When power-seeking empire architects are given limitless power to fight terrorism, we suddenly find ourselves in a world full of designated terrorists.

The more despised the western empire becomes, the more “terrorists” there are going to be. Because a terrorist is anyone who takes action which inconveniences the empire.

If this keeps up, soon we will all be “terrorists”.

________________

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The post The Word ‘Terrorist’ Becomes More and More of a Joke by the Day appeared first on LewRockwell.

“No mountain or ocean can distance people who have shared aspirations,” China’s President Xi Jinping said in July 2024, addressing leaders from fellow Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member states and a few other nations in Astana, Kazakhstan.

It is not reaching too far, saying that this year’s 25th SCO Summit (SCO) in Tianjin, China, from 31 August to 1 September 2025, fulfilled – and more – President Xi’s vision of 2024. The summit caused a tectonic shift in the conventional world order.

China’s Assistant Foreign Minister Liu Bin told a news conference in Beijing, shortly before the SCO summit, that the 2025 SCO event be

“One of China’s most important head-of-state and home-court diplomatic events this year”.

As the Economist says, “A New Reality is Taking hold.” The “new reality” is not anti-US or anti-West; it is just separating the western unipolar aspirations from the newly created multi-polar, or perhaps better, multi-block, world, where countries aim at a peaceful cooperation towards a joint future with shared benefits.

The SCO was established in 2001 by China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Today the SCO consists of ten member-states with headquarters in Beijing. In addition to the founding members, SCO members have increased by India, Iran, Belarus, and Pakistan. SCO members account for 23% of the world’s GDP and for 43% of the world’s population.

Further attendance included high-level government officials from Myanmar, Egypt, Cambodia, Nepal, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Maldives, Turkey, as well as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Secretary-General Kao Kim Hourn, and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.

This year’s summit made clearly the SCO the guiding light for the Global South which includes the 11 BRICS countries, plus the 10 BRICS partners, added at the 16th BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia, in October 2024.

While even the UNSG, Mr. Guterres, was invited – while the UN was or still is (?) considered by the US and the West in general as the World Organization in the western camp – President Trump felt snubbed by China, “left out” from the world shifting SCO event in Tianjin.

So, Trump invented a last-minute opportunity to leave his mark on the meeting by requesting President Xi literally on the eve of the SCO summit for “military talks,” a phone call between the two defense ministers (in the US now called War Minister, as the Ministry of Defense has been re-christened by Trump as War Ministry).

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said that Beijing rejected the proposal, reasoning “a lack of mutual understanding between the two countries”, asking a pertinent question:

“Is there any sincerity in and significance of any communication like this?”

Of course not. Trump just wanted to interfere in the SCO summit, showing his self-styled emperor head. But to no avail. The West was absent – the “naked emperor” as well as his European puppets, the (almost) defunct European Union, and especially the non-elected and every time more rejected European Commission (EC).

Imagine just a few weeks earlier, a delegation of the EC including Kaja Kallas, the Commission’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, the Commission’s top-diplomat so to speak, visited Beijing to discuss tariffs, but on the side they were insinuating that China should distance herself from Russia.

So much aggression, let alone undiplomatic thinking and acting – like at home spending taxpayers’ money destined for social programs, instead for a monster armament to go to war against Russia – aggression and a war philosophy that can only lead to a EU downfall which is accelerating by the day.

To add insult to injury, the symbolic leader of the EU, Germany, her Chancellor Friedrich Merz said recently:

 “Putin is a war criminal. He is perhaps the most serious war criminal of our time that we have seen on a large scale. We must be clear about how to deal with war criminals: There is no room for leniency.”

It is time for the Real World, the Global South, to distance themselves from the western warmongers and war-makers. This is just happening with the 25th SCO Summit – a new awakening for peace, cooperation, and togetherness in the spirit of working towards a future of shared benefits.

A future with shared benefits is not possible by western economic standards and principles, that followed since 1989 the so-called Washington Consensus, an un-stated agreement between the three most powerful western financial institutions, the Federal Reserve, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank – to “subdue” the “emerging and developing world” with debt, so as to get a hold of their natural resources.

This disequilibrium already started with the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference during which the World Bank and IMF were created, two institutions which were and still are veto-dominated by Washington. Real economic equality and development had and up to now has no chance under these circumstances. Instead, it is abusive exploitation and neocolonialism.

The SCO decision at their Summit to create an SCO Development Bank bodes well with a new future of togetherness and cooperation. It fits right in with the Chinese Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank (AIIB). It is a vivid sign of pulling free from the neoliberal western financial institutions making their living by exploiting “socioeconomic development”, instead of enhancing it.

Together and perhaps with a newly furbished BRICS New Development Bank, they will allow the Global South to evolve and grow according to their sovereign and independent terms, using instead of an isolating “protective” tariff system – Trump-style – their comparative advantages to deal and trade with each other – tariff-free. No conflicts but cooperation.

See also this.

This SCO Summit was not a western-style aggression event of “The Willing”, but a China-initiated reorientation of the world order, in which long-term objectives were envisioned by real leaders who had seen and lived enough of western-dictated aggressions, wars and destruction, but instead opted for Peace and Cooperation – and it very much looks like they may succeed.

In his opening speech, President Xi made this point clear:

“Humanity is again faced with a choice of peace or war, dialogue or confrontation, and win-win outcomes; or zero-sum games.”

This clearly creates a growing chasm between East and West. The former seeking peaceful constructive development, while the latter are still clinging to their destructive economic model, wars and killing for a growing military complex and a tech-world that goes hand in hand with the agenda of transhumanization and destruction of humanity.

The highly successful SCO Summit in Tianjin was deliberately staged just before China’s Grand Military Parade on Tiananmen Square, marking 80 years since the end of World War II. It was the culmination of a new “World Order”, one of Peace – demonstrating the West, silently but visibly, that a new epoch is about to begin.

The original source of this article is Global Research.

The post The End of the Unipolar World Order – A Tectonic Shift Away from the West appeared first on LewRockwell.

Here is the detailed explanation from a user’s.

Assuming the whole world starts sharing a common currency whilst maintaining all existing border controls and barriers to trade and the movement of goods, capital and labour, there would be some fairly disastrous effects.

(TL;DR: most countries would exist in a state of disequilibrium, with very high unemployment in some and very high inflation in others, due to asymmetric economic shocks. Exporting firms would find it cheaper to obtain finance and international trade would increase significantly. Most nations would end up finding a World Currency very painful, and the only way to conceivably even slightly make it work is with a World Federation, i.e.: abolishing the idea of sovereign nations).

First, defining what a single currency entails: it means that all countries would give-up control of their money supply and interest rates (i.e.: monetary policy) to a hypothetical World Central Bank. This is NOT the same as the World Bank, which gives loans for development projects in countries – the World Central Bank instead would control the global money supply and interest rates for this new currency.

Secondly, some definitions: monetary policy is control the money supply and interest rates, and is managed by the central bank. Fiscal policy is control of government finances, and includes things like tax rates, government spending etc. The exchange rate is the value of the currency against other outside currencies – in a common global monetary union, take that to be the nominal value of the currency.

Now, it’s important to understand the idea of an “Optimum Currency Area (OCA)”, that is, a cluster/region of countries that can form a currency union without significant negative economic effects.

There are various theories for what constitutes an OCA, but the most famous is the one developed by Canadian economist Robert Mundell, who won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for his work on OCAs and monetary union in 1999. Mundell theorised that currency unions need to have a high level of labour and capital mobility to work successfully. Say country A and country B share a currency (enter a currency union). Now, an asymmetric shock (which is an economic shock that impacts different countries in different ways) hits A negatively, causing a contraction of aggregate demand (AD) in country A. If it had its own currency, its exchange rate would depreciate against the rest of the world to restore competitiveness, reducing the price of exports and increasing the quantity of exports sold. This will allow AD to start increasing again and equilibrium will be restored. In a currency union, the exchange rate will depreciate slightly, but not all the way, as country B has not had a contraction of demand. This means both countries will now exist in a macroeconomic disequilibrium: A’s exchange rate is overvalued, hurting competitiveness and causing unemployment, and B’s exchange rate is undervalued, increasing exports and causing inflationary pressure. To restore equilibrium, labour and capital needs to be able to move from A into B – hence, an Optimum Currency Area needs a high level of labour and capital mobility across borders.

The incredibly highly integrated Eurozone, which has open borders and a common factor markets, already suffers from insufficient labour mobility across borders for a number of reasons, including differences in pension schemes, language barriers, differences in qualification acceptance etc. So the world does not in any capacity have sufficient mobility of labour and capital across borders: there are way too many barriers to the movement of factors of production. A world-currency implemented under anything close to the status-quo idea of independent nation states and borders would result in most countries being in a permanent state of disequilibrium, with high unemployment in some places and high inflation in others.

The world as a whole is also far too vulnerable to asymmetric shocks for it to be an OCA. Commodity-exporting countries in particular struggle to join OCAs as shocks to commodity markets are often far sharper than shocks that hit other industries.

In addition, countries would lose the ability to use monetary policy to correct economic shocks, that is, raising interest rates in times of high inflation and lowering them in times of high unemployment and low inflation. They would be forced to use fiscal policy to correct shocks, but different countries have different approaches to fiscal policy and without some sort of fiscal-policy rules and fiscal transfers implemented by the World Authority overseeing this, there would likely be many cases of countries’ fiscal responses negatively impacting other nations who are in different stages of their economic cycle; the global interest rate for some countries would end up too high and for others, too low. There is also the issue that many countries would become more vulnerable to sovereign default as they would have foregone control of interest rates and the money supply. This would likely result in a series of Greek-like disasters in countries with severe downturns, particularly in countries with poor fiscal discipline.

The case of the Eurozone shows its almost impossible to make a successful currency union without fiscal union and transfers, which effectively means to make a currency union work it needs to be federal entity with a common government.

Finally, Ronald McKinnon and the McKinnon Criterion tells us that in order to minimise the likelihood of asymmetric shocks, countries that enter a currency union should/must have a high level of trade amongst each other. This is not true for the whole world, and likely will not be for the forseeable future purely down to distances (the Gravity Model of trade tells us the value of trade between two nations is inversely proportional to the distance between them).

Now, common currency areas DO see increases in trade as common currencies reduce the cost of exporting and importing. It also reduces the uncertainty export-industry firms face in what their foreign revenues will be, which without a currency union, would fluctuate depending on the exchange rate. This increases investors’ and banks’ confidence in these firms, reducing their cost of obtaining finance and increasing production, thereby increasing exports. When this occurs in all currency union members, you get a surge in trade. Some economists therefore theorise that the creation of OCA is endogenous to STARTING a currency-union, in that a common currency facilitates more trade which brings the union closer to an OCA.

It also can make firms more efficient. As an example, pre-Eurozone, it was common for unions to negotiate high wages, which firms would accept, expecting the government to devalue the exchange rate to reduce the price of exports and make up for the lost competitiveness. Workers in different countries were effectively competing against each other; the introduction of a common currency, the Euro, removed this mechanism, making wage-setting more economically sensible and firms more competitive, reducing prices.

Overall, in the status-quo, a world currency union would result in the vast majority of countries being in a state of economic disequilibrium. For it to even slightly work, you would need a common world government with fiscal rules at the very least, and a world federation at best – and even then, much of the world would remain in disequilibrium as asymmetric shocks can never be totally removed.

Now, if you propose a global currency union AND the removal of all barriers to the movement of goods, capital and labour (i.e.: an open border world), with a common government, that gets more interesting but is beyond the scope of what I can answer at the moment.

This article was originally published on Preppgroup.

The post How Would it Impact Global Finance a World Currency? appeared first on LewRockwell.

It was a moment somewhat like this, 30 years ago, that turned me into a biblical scholar. In the lead-up to the passage of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act, political and religious leaders quoted scripture to justify shutting down food programs and kicking mothers and their babies off public assistance. Those leaders, many of them self-described Christians, chose to ignore the majority of passages in the Bible that preached “good news” to the poor and promised freedom to those captive to injustice and oppression. Instead, they put forward unethical and ahistorical (mis)interpretations and (mis)appropriations of biblical texts to prop up American imperial power and punish the poor in the name of a warped morality.

Three decades later, the Trump administration and its theological apologists are working overtime, using Jesus’s name and the Bible’s contents in even more devastating rounds of immoral biblical (mis)references. In July, there was the viral video from the Department of Homeland Security, using the “Here I am, Lord. Send me” quotation from Isaiah — commonly cited when ordaining faith leaders and including explicit references to marginalized communities impacted by displacement and oppression — to recruit new agents for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, or ICE, a job that now comes with a $50,000 signing bonus, thanks to Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.”

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s former pastor went even further in marrying the Bible to anti-immigrant hatred by saying, “Is the Bible in favor of these ICE raids?… The answer is yes.” He then added: “The Bible does not require wealthy Christian nations to self-immolate for the horrible crime of having a flourishing economy and way of life, all right? The Bible does not permit the civil magistrate to steal money from its citizens to pay for foreign nationals to come destroy our culture.”

A month earlier, during a speech announcing the bombing of Iran, President Trump exhorted God to bless America’s bombs (being dropped on innocent families and children): “And in particular, God, I want to just say, we love you God, and we love our great military. Protect them. God bless the Middle East, God bless Israel, and God bless America. Thank you very much. Thank you.”

And in May, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and Republican congressional representatives formed a prayer circle on the floor of the House as they prepared to codify the president’s Big Beautiful Bill. Of course, that very bill threatens to cut off millions of Americans from life-saving food and healthcare. (Consider it a bizarre counterpoint to Jesus’s feeding of the 5,000 and providing free health care to lepers.)

The Antichrist

And if that weren’t enough twisting of the Bible to bless the rich and admonish the poor, enter tech mogul Peter Thiel, co-founder of Palantir and the man behind the curtain of so much now going on in Washington. Though many Americans may be increasingly familiar with him, his various companies, and his political impact, many of us have missed the centrality of his version of Christianity and the enigmatic “religious” beliefs that go with it.

In Vanity Fair this spring, journalist Zoe Bernard emphasized the central role Thiel has already played in the Christianization of Silicon Valley: “I guarantee you,” one Christian entrepreneur told her, “there are people that are leveraging Christianity to get closer to Peter Thiel.”

Indeed, his theological beliefs grimly complement his political ones. “When you don’t have a transcendent religious belief,” he said, “you end up just looking around at other people. And that is the problem with our atheist liberal world. It is just the madness of crowds.” Remember, this is the same Thiel who, in a 2009 essay, openly questioned the compatibility of democracy and freedom, advocating for a system where power would be concentrated among those with the expertise to drive “progress” — a new version of the survival of the fittest in the information age. Such a worldview couldn’t contrast more strongly with the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus demonstrates his preferential option for the poor and his belief in bottom-up strategies rather than top down ones.

More recently, Thiel has positioned himself “right” in the middle of the Republican Party. He served as Trump’s liaison to Silicon Valley in his first term. Since then, he has convened and supported a new cohort of conservatives (many of whom also claim a right-wing Christianity), including Vice President J.D. Vance, Trump’s Director of Policy Planning Michael Anton, AI and crypto czar billionaire David Sacks, and Elon Musk, who spent a quarter of a billion dollars getting Trump elected the second time around. Thiel is also close to Curtis Yarvin, the fellow who “jokingly” claimed that American society no longer needs poor people and believes they should instead be turned into biofuel. (A worldview that simply couldn’t be more incompatible with Christianity’s core tenets.)

Particularly relevant to recent political (and ideological) developments, especially the military occupation of Washington, D.C., Thiel is also close to Joe Lonsdale, co-founder of Palantir and founder of the Cicero Institute, a right-wing think tank behind a coordinated attack on the homeless now sweeping the nation. That’s right, there’s a throughline from Peter Thiel to President Donald Trump’s demand that “the homeless have to move out immediately… FAR from the Capital.” In July, Trump produced an executive order facilitating the removal of housing encampments in Washington, a year after the Supreme Court upheld a law making it a crime, if you don’t have a home, to sleep or even breathe outside. And Thiel, Lonsdale, and the Cicero Institute aren’t just responsible for those attacks on unhoused people and “blue cities”; they also bear responsibility for faith leaders being arrested and fined for their support of unhoused communities and their opposition, on religious grounds, to the mistreatment of the poor.

On top of this troubling mix of Christianity and billionaires, however, I find myself particularly chagrined that Thiel is offering an oversold four-part lecture series on the “antichrist” through a nonprofit called ACTS 17 collective that is to start in September in San Francisco. News stories about the ACTS 17 collective tend to focus on Christians organizing in Silicon Valley and the desire to put salvation through Jesus above personal success or charity for the poor. That sounds all too ominous, especially for those of us who take seriously the biblical command to stop depriving the poor of rights, to end poverty on earth (as it is in heaven), and defend the very people the Bible prioritizes.

For instance, Trae Stephens (who worked at Palantir and is partners with Thiel in a venture capital fund) is the husband of Michelle Stephens, the founder of the ACTS 17 collective. In an interview with Emma Goldberg of the New York Times, Michelle Stephens describes how “we are always taught as Christians to serve the meek, the lowly, the marginalized… I think we’ve realized that, if anything, the rich, the wealthy, the powerful need Jesus just as much.”

In an article at the Denison Forum, she’s even more specific about her biblical and theological interpretation of poverty and the need to care for those with more rather than the poor. She writes, “Those who see Christ’s message to the poor and needy as the central pillar of the gospel make a similar mistake. While social justice movements have done a great deal to point out our society’s longstanding sins and call believers to action, it can be tempting for that message to become more prominent than our innate need for Jesus to save us.” Such a statement reminds me of the decades-long theological pushback I lived through even before the passage of welfare reform and the continued juxtaposition of Jesus and justice since.

A Battle for the Bible

Of course, such a battle for the Bible is anything but new in America. It reaches back long before the rise of a new brand of Christianity in Silicon Valley. In the 1700s and 1800s, slaveholders quoted the book of Philemon and lines from St. Paul’s epistles to claim that slavery had been ordained by God, while ripping the pages of Exodus from bibles they gave to the enslaved. During the Gilded Age of the nineteenth century, churches and politicians alike preached what was called a “prosperity gospel” that extolled the virtues of industrial capitalism. Decades later, segregationists continued to use stray biblical verses to rubber-stamp Jim Crow practices, while the Moral Majority, founded in 1979 by Baptist minister Jerry Falwell, Sr., helped mainstream a new generation of Christian extremists in national politics.

Over the past decades, the use of the Bible to justify what passes for “law and order” (and the punishing of the poor) has only intensified. In Donald Trump’s first term, Attorney General Jeff Sessions defended the administration’s policy of separating immigrant children from their families at the border with a passage from the Apostle Paul’s epistle to the Romans: “I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order. Orderly and lawful processes are good in themselves and protect the weak and lawful.”

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders summed up the same idea soon after in this way: “It is very biblical to enforce the law.” And in his first speech as speaker of the House, Mike Johnson told his colleagues, “I believe that Scripture, the Bible, is very clear: that God is the one who raises up those in authority,” an echo of the New Testament’s Epistle to the Romans, in which Paul writes that “the authorities that exist are appointed by God.”

Over the past several years, Republican politicians and religious leaders have continued to use biblical references to punish the poor, quoting texts to justify cutting people off from healthcare and food assistance. A galling example came when Representative Jodey Arrington (R-TX), rebutting a Jewish activist who referenced a commandment in Leviticus to feed the hungry, quoted 2 Thessalonians to justify increasing work requirements for people qualifying for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). And that was just one of many Republican attacks on the low-income food assistance program amid myriad attempts to shred the social welfare system in the lead-up to President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” the largest transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top in American history and a crowning achievement of Russell Vought’s Project 2025.  Arrington said: “But there’s also, you know, in the Scripture, tells us in 2 Thessalonians chapter 3:10 he says, uh, ‘For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: if a man will not work, he shall not eat.’ And then he goes on to say ‘We hear that some among you are idle’… I think it’s a reasonable expectation that we have work requirements.”

And Arrington has been anything but alone. The same passage, in fact, had already been used by Representatives Kevin Cramer (R-ND) and Stephen Lee Fincher (R-TN) to justify cutting food stamps during a debate over an earlier farm bill. And Representative Mo Brooks (R-AL) used similarly religious language, categorizing people as deserving and undeserving, to argue against a healthcare plan that protects those of us with pre-existing conditions. He insisted that only “people who lead good lives” and “have done the things to keep their bodies healthy” should receive reduced costs for health care.

Such “Christian” politicians regularly misuse Biblical passages to blame the impoverished for their poverty. There is never a suggestion, of course, that the rich, who have functionally stolen people’s wages and engorged themselves by denying them healthcare, are in any way to blame.

A Theology of Liberation for a Time Like This

Such interpretations of biblical texts are damaging to everyone’s lives (except, of course, the superrich), but especially the poor. And — though you wouldn’t know it from such Republicans — they are counter to the main themes of the Bible’s texts. The whole of the Christian Bible, starting with Genesis and ending with the Book of Revelation, has an arc of justice to it. The historical equivalents of anti-poverty programs run through it all.

That arc starts in the Book of Exodus with manna (bread) that shows up day after day, so no one has too much or too little. This is a likely response to the Egyptian Pharaoh setting up a system where a few religious and political leaders amassed great wealth at the expense of the people. God’s plan, on the other hand, was for society to be organized around meeting the needs of all people, including describing how political and religious leaders are supposed to release slaves, forgive debts, pay people what they deserve, and distribute funds to the needy. The biblical arc of justice then continues through the prophets who insist that the way to love and honor God is to promote programs that uplift the poor and marginalized, while decrying those with power who cloak oppression in religious terms and heretical versions of Christian theology.

My own political and moral roots are in the welfare rights and homeless union survival movements, efforts led by poor and dispossessed people organizing a “new underground railroad” and challenging Christianity to talk the talk and walk the walk of Christ. Such a conviction was captured by Reverend Yvonne Delk at the 1992 “Up and Out of Poverty Survival Summit,” when she declared that society, including the church, must move to the position that “poor people are not sinners, but poverty is a sin against God that could and should be ended.”

Delk’s words echo others from 20 years earlier. In 1972, Beulah Sanders, a leader of the National Welfare Rights Organization, the largest organization of poor people in the 1960s and 1970s, spoke to the National Council of Churches. “I represent all of those poor people who are on welfare and many who are not,” she said, “people who believe in the Christian way of life… people whose nickels and dimes and quarters have built the Christian churches of America. Because we believe in Christianity, we have continued to support the Christian churches… We call upon you… to join with us in the National Welfare Rights Organization. We ask for your moral, personal, and financial support in this battle for bread, dignity, and justice for all of our people. If we fail in our struggle, Christianity will have failed.”

In a Trumpian world, where Christian extremism is becoming the norm, we must not let the words of Beulah Sanders be forgotten or the worst fears of countless prophets and freedom fighters come true. Rather, we must build the strength to make a theological and spiritual vision of everybody-in-nobody-out a reality and create the capacity, powered by faith, to make it so. Now is the time. May we make it so.

Reprinted with permission from TomDispatch.com.

The post You Can’t Worship God and Money appeared first on LewRockwell.

Philosophers from Aristotle to Aquinas remind us to begin with first principles: to see things as they really are. Even Marcus Aurelius counseled, “Of each particular thing, ask, what is it in itself?” Strikingly, this same wisdom is expressed in The Silence of the Lambs (1991), albeit through the words of a villain.

In the context of assisting a student detective in tracking down a serial killer, Dr. Hannibal Lecter—both psychiatrist and serial killer—taunts Clarice Starling: “First principles, Clarice. Simplicity. Read Marcus Aurelius.” The line is frightening because it exposes a perennial truth: evil begins when we refuse to acknowledge the true nature of things. Gender ideology does just this, denying the most basic truth of our humanity: that we are male and female. And as recent school shootings tragically show, such denial does not remain abstract; it can culminate in violence against the most innocent.

Ironically, the film goes further still. In one exchange, Clarice protests, “Dr. Lecter, there’s no correlation in the literature between transsexualism and violence. Transsexuals are very passive.” To which Lecter replies, “Clever girl. You’re so close to the way you’re going to catch him—do you realize that?” Even here, Hollywood conditioned audiences to disconnect transgenderism from violence, even while viewers watched the film’s antagonist, Buffalo Bill, murder women in order to construct a grotesque “woman suit” as a substitute for sex reassignment. The message was clear: gender confusion could be exploited for shock but never acknowledged as having any real-world consequences.

What Hollywood once exploited for shock, society now refuses to confront in reality. And the cost has been devastating. On August 27, 2025, 23-year-old Robert Westman, who’d been wrestling with gender dysphoria, carried out a horrific attack at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis. During the back-to-school Mass, Westman, who had his name legally changed to Robin, fired through the church windows with multiple guns, killing two kids and injuring 17 others before ending his own life. The FBI labelled it a hate crime targeting the Catholic community.

Sean Fitzpatrick recently wrote an essay in Crisis Magazine titled “Transmurderer,” highlighting how our culture fosters gender dysphoria and ignores its deadly consequences. Fr. Nick Ward has also reflected on the Annunciation shooting in Crisis Magazine (“Transgenderism and the Ruin of Souls”), offering a primarily pastoral and theological response that emphasizes the demonic roots of transgender ideology. My essay approaches the issue differently: by tracing the recent cultural and psychological dynamics of gender ideology before turning to its theological culmination, showing how in this case the shooter’s own writings explicitly testify to the demonic. The Annunciation atrocity cannot be explained solely by social disintegration; it must be considered an assault on truth itself, rooted in relativism, biological denial, and, ultimately, the demonic.

Cultural Conditioning and Denial

For decades, Hollywood has portrayed sexually ambiguous characters, often linking distorted gender identity to chaos, perversity, horror, or violence. Films like Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), Brian De Palma’s Dressed to Kill (1980), Robert Hiltzik’s Sleepaway Camp (1983), Neil Jordan’s The Crying Game (1992), and Pedro Almodóvar’s The Skin I Live In (2011) all returned to these discomforting themes. The Skin I Live In presents a bizarre story where a father kidnaps his daughter’s rapist, subjects him to forced sex-reassignment surgery, and later assaults him, illustrating how gender manipulation can be weaponized, even outside the trope of a deranged killer.

Gene Simmons even played a flamboyant, psychotic hermaphroditic villain in Never Too Young to Die (1986), showing how far pop culture was willing to exploit gender confusion for shock value. At times, the transgender element is explicit, as in Ed Wood’s Glen or Glenda (1953) or William Castle’s Homicidal (1961). Sidney Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon (1975) took a different angle: Al Pacino’s character robs a bank to fund his partner’s sex-reassignment surgery, motivated by his desire to marry him.

It is worth noting that both Psycho’s Norman Bates and The Silence of the Lambs’ Buffalo Bill were inspired by real-life murderer Ed Gein, who committed gruesome acts such as unearthing corpses, killing two women, and crafting a human skin suit to embody his deceased mother. These themes have captivated and horrified the public. Gein’s crimes will soon be depicted in Netflix’s Monster: The Ed Gein Story (2025).

Across both mainstream and obscure cinema, the message has been clear: distorted gender identity does not represent true liberation but is a source of danger, ambiguity, and mental instability. Contrast this scenario with modern cinema, television, educational systems, government policies, and mainstream media, where now, all too often, transgender identity is depicted as empowering and heroic. This narrative has become so pervasive that it has led to a cultural contagion, with unprecedented numbers of children and adolescents questioning their identities.

Nevertheless, for years, the cultural imagination was shaped by images of violent men attempting to erase or redefine their sexual identity. Yet when real-world cases emerge, society’s leaders insist there is no connection.

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