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International Man: Recently, the State Bank of Vietnam deactivated more than 86 million bank accounts as part of its shift toward a new national digital ID system.

Officials call it a ‘security upgrade,’ but it effectively cut off millions from their own money overnight.

In Thailand, we’ve seen a similar push to tie financial and online activity to state-issued digital IDs.

Is this part of a coordinated global push toward centralized control through digital ID systems?

Doug Casey: Without doubt.

Money is a primary manifestation of personal freedom. Money isn’t just an economic good; it’s a moral good. It represents the hours of your life you spent earning it, and all that you hope to provide for yourself and others in the future. It is, in effect, congealed or crystallized life.

Those who want to control other people—collectivists, statists, Marxists, the Woke, socialists, and the like—naturally want to limit the uses and the value of money. Enforcing the use of fiat currencies issued by central banks is the ideal way of doing that. It amounts to a giant fraud. But the average person stupidly accepts it as part of the cosmic firmament.

People have been told that in a democracy, they’re the rulers. In reality, democracy in today’s world is just mob rule dressed up in a coat and tie. It amounts to a secular religion, where the State is a god, and politicians are its priests. When it comes to financial matters, the public has become accustomed to doing what they’re told.

This is nothing new. Few remember that when Roosevelt confiscated gold in 1933, he used an Executive Order—the same vehicle that Trump uses for so many things today. You’d have thought that, almost a hundred years ago, Americans would have resisted the president’s wholesale theft. But they were already used to the Federal Reserve issuing currency, and the government collecting income tax. When ordered to turn in their gold, they acted like obedient little lambs.

The average American is even more supine and indoctrinated now than he was then. So I expect little resistance to digital currency, which will be a final nail in the coffin of economic freedom.

I’m not a religious person, but it may yet turn out that the New Testament, Revelation 13, is correct where it says: “He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.”

That verse is quite predictive.

International Man: In the UK, Prime Minister Keir Starmer recently said people won’t be able to work without a digital ID.

What does it tell you when access to employment becomes the leverage point for forcing digital ID adoption—and could we see the same tactic used in the US?

Doug Casey: Absolutely. Governments would prefer everybody to be an employee. They don’t like entrepreneurs because they have too independent a mentality. Entrepreneurs and independently employed people are in a much better position to avoid or evade taxes and regulations. Employees have taxes extracted from their paycheck before they even see it. Then, when they file their tax return and get a refund for overpayment, they stupidly see it as a gift from the government.

Furthermore, big government likes big corporations partly because government employees can easily move laterally into a big corporation to cash in on favors done. This doesn’t happen with small entrepreneurial corporations. Only big corporations can act effectively in a highly politicized environment, because only big corporations can afford the lawyers and accountants to interpret the regulations, and subtly bribe the politicians to have laws passed in their favor.

Having every individual use a digital ID helps to pigeonhole them, make them less independent, and easier to control. In a bureaucratic world where everything is computerized, if you don’t have a number, you don’t exist.

International Man: In the US, we’re also seeing early steps—things like digital driver’s licenses, biometric airport programs, and proposals tied to central bank digital currencies.

How close are we to a comprehensive digital ID system? How could that unfold?

Doug Casey: Everybody already uses their iPhone for everything— scanning their airline tickets, digitizing their credit cards, keeping their bank records, and so forth. People are quite used to being totally computerized.

I have a question. Is this simply a natural progression because technology can make things smoother, cheaper, and more accurate? Or is it a conspiracy of the elite to better control their subjects? It’s both. I’m not sure that we can avoid this trend, especially as computers become ever more powerful, cameras are everywhere, and everyone has their personal iPhone with them everywhere. Storage capacity is nearing almost infinite levels, and the developing quantum computer will accelerate the trend. It seems unstoppable now.

In a dystopian science fiction book, “This Perfect Day,” written in 1969, all citizens were required—for their own safety, of course—to flash their tattoos whenever they passed numerous identification kiosks. The government always knew where they were. The iPhone does that and acts as a listening device as well.

Technology has been both a friend and an enemy of the average person since Day One. The problem is that the “powers that be”—the State—always get the technology first. Gunpowder is the perfect example of this. The elite of the 14th century got it first and used it to control the plebs. But it wasn’t long before the technology filtered down, so the plebs could use gunpowder to take armored knights off their horses and destroy their castles.

Hopefully, all of these dystopian digital developments will have more silver linings than subtle chains. But things are likely to get worse before they get better. Much worse, as the Greater Depression becomes more evident, and the hoi polloi stupidly beg the State to kiss everything and make it “better.”

International Man: What’s your take on whether digital IDs will become required for financial access, travel, or even internet use?

Doug Casey: For the “good of society” and your own good, you’ll have to identify yourself. To fight crime, drugs, climate change, racism, or whatever the flavor of the day might be. But the question is, with controls becoming more onerous, how do you insulate yourself?

Probably the most important thing you can do is to grow your personal wealth. In all areas of life, strive for the equivalent of flying private as opposed to flying commercial—who wants to be herded like a bovine and inspected by the TSA?

Money can’t completely insulate you from government, but there are bright spots emerging, such as the BRIC countries, who are dumping the dollar because they can see that it’s something the US Government uses to control them. Other countries are following suit, since the dollar and the international commercial banking system are the easiest and simplest ways for the elite to control us plebs. The ongoing death of the dollar can be a good thing.

Things happening in places like El Salvador—where Bitcoin is a national currency—give me hope. I expect that other countries will arise in the future to act as replacements for what Switzerland used to be: a haven for financial freedom. Switzerland has mostly lost its old status. But with any luck, others will emerge, especially as World War III develops.

I expect that many of the current nation-states will break up into smaller ones, and many currently oppressive governments will disappear and, at least for a while, be replaced by smaller ones. When it comes to transferring money, I hate using the SWIFT system, the dollar, or the conventional banking system at all. Perhaps the hawala system that the Islamic world uses—or equivalents of it—will arise to move money privately and outside the conventional system. Gold or Bitcoin—not the dollar—will be the numeraire.

With any luck, unregulated private banks will appear that aren’t members of the Federal Reserve System and don’t rely on conventional credit or dollars. In the 19th century, when rich people traveled, if you had an account with a substantial bank, correspondents in major cities around the world would offer you a letter of credit. It was strictly between you and the bank, with no intermediary and no interference from the government.

There was no necessity for Visa or MasterCard, both of which used to be your friends but, like most things in the commercial banking system, are now just arms of the State. Hopefully, the market will come up with informal solutions, especially since most of today’s commercial banks, as well as governments, are actually bankrupt. As they fall apart, there will be a void in the market, and new things can grow up.

International Man: What can the average person do about this growing trend?

Doug Casey: One important thing is to become crypto- and Bitcoin-competent, so that you don’t have to use the corrupt and controlled conventional system and the dollar.

Also, own lots of gold and silver coins for cash—not paper gold or paper silver, but the actual coins in your possession. You should also own them abroad, such as with SWP in the Cayman Islands, the Perth Mint, or other similar outfits.

But most important of all is to make sure that you have as many skills and abilities as possible, so you can prosper no matter what happens in the world. Intellectual and moral wealth trumps physical wealth.

Reprinted with permission from International Man.

The post Global Push for a Digital ID—and Its Threat to Freedom appeared first on LewRockwell.

While the Trump administration has a duty to arrest immigrants who arrived in the country by illegal means, it is failing to enforce the law in a respectable and civilized way.

The United States is increasingly playing out scenes reminiscent of a brutal fascist regime as officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) show an absolute disregard for human rights as they hunt down illegal immigrants.

In the small California town of Campo, which sits less than a mile from the U.S.-Mexico border, witnesses described the terror they experienced as they watched masked men round up agricultural workers employed on farms – young and old alike – and force them into unmarked cars.

In most cases, the officials wear plain clothes and refuse to identify themselves, thus making it impossible to distinguish between immigration agents and imposters. And with no number to call to track down their loved ones, people have no choice but to report the disappearances as potential kidnappings.

One young man asked as his friend was shoved into an unmarked van, “What kind of police go around in masks without uniforms and identification badges?”

Citizens feel desperate as there is nothing that can be done to rein in the power of the ICE troops. Filing complaints with the Department of Homeland Security is a futile gesture because the office that once handled them has been dismantled. There is little hope of holding individual agents accountable for alleged abuses because there is simply no way to reliably learn their identities. This has led to a situation where people are afraid to venture onto the street to perform simple chores, like go grocery shopping or pick up their children from school.

Across the nation, people must accept the grim reality that there are virtually no limits on what federal agents can do to achieve President Donald Trump’s goal of mass deportations. The town of Campo has proven to be a testing ground for much larger raids and even more violent arrests in places like Portland, Oregon and Chicago, Illinois and elsewhere.

Last month, the Supreme Court cleared the way to permit racial profiling by a local ICE facility in Los Angeles. Earlier this month, a raid on a Chicago tenement building, in which young children were reportedly pulled from their homes at night without clothes, sparked public outrage.

Meanwhile, Trump has warned that he may invoke the centuries-old Insurrection Act that empowers presidents to deploy troops on U.S. soil.

“Don’t forget I can use the Insurrection Act,” he told Fox News. “Fifty percent of the presidents…have used that. And that’s unquestioned power.”

In the view of Trump’s opponents, ICE is worse than having members of the U.S. military patrolling urban areas. It has become an unaccountable secret police force, which is making the United States resemble a third world country.

One retired high-ranking official with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it was a “sad day in America” as he provided his personal views on the situation. Speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, the official described the new realities ever since Trump became president: “I’ve seen people outside of their immigration court hearings dragged off to prison where they can’t contact relatives or speak to a lawyer. Groups of masked men nabbing people off the street in broad daylight and sending them to some country – like Ecuador – where there exists torture and severe human rights abuses. This is what America has become in the year 2025.”

Meanwhile, ICE is enjoying a bonanza in financial resources. In addition to its annual operating budget of $10 billion a year, the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill included an added $7.5 billion a year for the next four years for recruiting alone. As part of its hiring efforts, the agency has reduced age, training and education standards and has offered recruits signing bonuses as high as $100,000.

“Moving forward without vetting new recruits is creating a dystopian reality on the streets of America,” the former DHS official said. “This is very frightening.”

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson praised ICE conduct and accused their political opponents of making “dangerous, untrue smears.”

“ICE officers act heroically to enforce the law, arrest criminal illegal aliens and protect American communities with the utmost professionalism,” Jackson said in a statement. “Anyone pointing the finger at law enforcement officers instead of the criminals are simply doing the bidding of criminal illegal aliens and fueling false narratives that lead to violence.”

Meanwhile, the White House eliminated the Office of the Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman, which was charged with reporting inhumane conditions at ICE detention facilities where many of immigrants are held. The office was brought back after a lawsuit and court order, though it’s meagerly staffed.

The weakening of the office comes as Trump moves to build detention sites with names that do nothing to conceal the harsh conditions inside: “Alligator Alcatraz” in the Florida Everglades, built by the state and operated in partnership with DHS, or the “Cornhusker Clink” in Nebraska.

On April 1, ICE storm troopers showed up at a birthday party in Hays County, Texas, not far from Austin, where they apprehended 47 people, including nine children. The agency’s only disclosure about the raid was that they were searching for members believed to be part of the Venezuelan transnational gang, Tren de Aragua.

Six months later and the government refuses to provide answers as the fate of the arrested.

“We’re not told why they took them, and we’re not told where they took them,” said a neighbor of the family. “By definition that’s kidnapping.”

The Texas Department of Public Safety did not respond to a request for comment.

While the Trump administration has a duty to arrest immigrants who arrived in the country by illegal means, it is failing to enforce the law in a respectable and civilized way. Bands of unmarked vehicles grabbing people off the streets in broad daylight sets a dangerous precedent and only encourages acts of further violence against innocent people. It makes the United States look like a banana republic with no respect for the law or human rights.

The views of individual contributors do not necessarily represent those of the Strategic Culture Foundation.

The post Trump’s ICE Troopers Are Making America Resemble a Third World Dictatorship appeared first on LewRockwell.

Gilbert Doctorow and I have pointed out that Putin’s effort to prevent wider war has caused wider war.  The White House’s cancellation of the meeting of Trump with Putin in Hungary is powerful evidence of Putin’s strategic blunder of pretending that the war the West has declared on Russia was merely a limited military operation in Donbas to rescue the Russian populations there from massacre by the US trained and equipped Ukrainian neo-nazi army. Trump cancelled the meeting, because Putin refused a cease fire that left the root cause of the conflict unaddressed.

The root cause of the conflict is the West’s hostility toward Russia,  The Wolfowitz Doctrine says that the principle goal of US foreign policy is to prevent the rise of any country that could serve as a constraint on American unilateralism,  In addition to Russia and China, declared as American enemies, there is on a regional basis Iran.

Thus, America’s three enemies.

The root cause of the conflict is America’s hegemonic foreign policy ideology.  This together with NATO and US missile bases on Russia’s border creates enormous Russian insecurity.  The solution is to renounce Washington’s hegemonic doctrine and consent to a mutual security agreement that gets NATO off of Russia’s border.

That is not going to happen.  There is no recognition in Western foreign policy of the threat posed to Russia.  Instead the threat is misrepresented as a Russian threat to invade Europe, which is total nonsense.

As facts play no role, no good decision can be made.  That means war, not peace.

The financial markets see the future to be war:

Clearly the US Military/Security Complex Does Not Expect Trump to Deliver Peace.

John Helmer points out that the S&P Aerospace & Defense ETF has risen by more than 50% since Trump took over in January. 

Neither does the European Military/security complex expect peace.

The STOXX Europe Defence Index for shares of the 10 leading UK, Europe weapons companies has jumped by 121% this year to date.

The post Clearly the Military/Security Complex Does Not Expect Trump To Deliver Peace appeared first on LewRockwell.

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The Texas secretary of state announced Monday that her office found nearly 3,000 people on voter rolls throughout the Lone Star state who may be in the country illegally.

Secretary of State (SOS) Jane Nelson’s office said the discovery wouldn’t have been possible without access to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ (CIS) SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements) database:

After running the entire Texas voter list with more than 18 million voters through the SAVE database, the SOS has identified 2,724 potential noncitizens who are registered to vote in Texas.

Her office has passed on its findings to individual counties so they can carry out their own investigations. After that, anyone confirmed to be an enrolled voter who is here illegally “will be referred to the Office of the Attorney General.” Thirty-three voters have already been referred to the AG.

Texas has completed citizenship verifications of the entire state voter list using the SAVE database, thanks to the federal government’s recent decision to grant states free and direct access to this data set.

Learn more: https://t.co/d6CmR0j53t pic.twitter.com/UhZEJnxd5S

— Texas Secretary of State (@TXsecofstate) October 20, 2025

Using the SAVE Program

Nelson said Texas was one of the first states to partner with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and use the SAVE database. The SAVE program is a search tool that taps into information from several different government databases to verify immigration status.

A county breakdown shows that Bexar, Dallas, and Harris counties had the highest number of potentially illegal voters. Bexar is home to San Antonio, Dallas to Dallas, and Harris to Houston, all densely populated regions.

Some social media commenters have downplayed the find, saying that 2,700 out of 18 million voters has no significant effect on election outcomes. Others have noted that discoveries like this are usually indicative of a larger problem. The find is also a reminder that Democrats who keep saying that illegals can’t vote are wrong.

Texas has been the target of an electoral-conversion campaign much the same way California was in the 80s. Turning Texas blue would yield perpetual power to Democrats.

Other States Cleaning Up

Texas isn’t the only state that’s making an attempt to clean voter rolls.

In July, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced that the Peach State would carry out a multi-phase voter-roll audit to get rid of the people who are inactive or have moved. He expected nearly half a million names to be purged.

Georgia was the site of major alleged voter fraud in 2020, when the traditionally red state supposedly voted for Joe Biden. President Donald Trump has consistently maintained that he erroneously lost the state, a view many there hold. He has railed against state leadership, Raffensperger included, for not doing enough to get to the bottom of what really happened. And Georgia’s GOP leadership is still suspect in regard to true election integrity, in the eyes of some election reformers.

After he was reelected, Trump took steps to address the systemic election vulnerabilities. In March, he signed an executive order written to keep foreigners from voting in U.S. elections. The president’s vision for U.S. elections is encouraging:

We’re going to fix our elections so that our elections are going to be honorable and honest and people leave and they know their vote is counted. We are going to have free and fair elections. And ideally, we go to paper ballots, same-day voting, proof of citizenship, very big, and voter ID, very simple.

These are fundamental steps that need to be implemented. And no matter what, the states need to remain in control of elections. Our parent company, The John Birch Society, endorses these very remedies in its Restore Election Integrity action project.

Changes Critically Needed

There may be more voting-related changes coming. Last week, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case that raises the question of whether states should draw districts with race in mind. The case has national implications. True the Vote summarizes the case this way:

Activists on the Left argue that the Voting Rights Act requires race-conscious districts to ensure minority representation. Meanwhile, those on the Right contend that such mandates violate the Constitution, warning that “separate but equal” solutions cannot deliver genuine equality.

The idea that any policies or actions should be determined by race is contrary to the law of the land. Louisiana Solicitor General Benjamin Aguiñaga made this exact argument, saying the current practice “requires striking enough members of the majority race to sufficiently diminish their voting strength, and it requires drawing in enough members of a minority race to sufficiently augment their voting strength.”

Election integrity was a hot topic during Joe Biden’s presidency. And for some who dove into the battle head first, they are still paying the price. Tina Peters, the former county clerk and recorder of Colorado’s Mesa County, has been in prison since October 2024. MyPillow founder Mike Lindell is awaiting judgment after a Minnesota judge ruled that he defamed election-technology company Smartmatic. He could lose what he has left of his fortune. And even now, Conrad Reynolds, a supporter of paper-ballot elections, is being prosecuted in Arkansas for allegedly violating the “anti-loitering” statute while carrying out exit polling.

The power to choose its leaders is one of the most fundamental elements of a free society. Americans must not become complacent because they’re happy their candidate won. The vulnerable system that likely resulted in the stolen 2020 election is largely still in place. This latest discovery in Texas is proof of that. The system must be dismantled, and a sensible, simple system with transparency and safeguards must be put in its place.

This article was originally published on The New American.

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King he may not be, but he is acting  like one on the high seas.

Donald Trump’s attack on seven small boats in the Caribbean, killing at least  27 people who were not interrogated or tried and who may or may not have been carrying drugs—when you blow up and sink a boat it is a little difficult to know exactly—has no support in law of any kind. Yesterday he compounded his malfeasance with the destruction of another boat in the Pacific similarly said to be carrying drugs to harm innocent Americans.

It isn’t that he’s pushing the envelope of legality—he’s ignoring it altogether.

In justification, with an attitude that says he doesn’t really have to, Trump has said that the boats were committing “hostile acts against the citizens and interests” of the United States because they had cargoes of drugs.  The boats were not stopped and searched so it is difficult to prove that they had drugs, even harder to prove they were intended to go to the U.S. and not Europe or elsewhere.  And to declare that the sailing of those boats in international waters were committing  harmful acts somehow equivalent to “armed conflict” and therefore justified America acting in “self-defense,” though no actual arms were ever evident—well, that is a stretching of the truth beyond anything that the Truth-Stretcher-in-Chief has ever come up with before.

It is difficult to know where any check on Trump’s actions can come from—certainly not Congress, which long since gave up being in charge of declaring war, nor the judiciary, nor worldwide bodies like the United Nations or the International Court that this administration disdains.  And when Trump uses all this to declare war on Venezuela and sends in the 10,00 troops he has assembled in the region, it looks like Americans will go bluntly and dumbly into war without significant protest.

Some peace president.

There is at least one honorable man in all this. Admiral Alvin Holsey, head of the U.S. Southern Command and the who should be in charge of such an American offensive, has stepped down.  He has made no public statement, but that very act should stand as a strong rebuke to his nominal superiors.

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The Nobel Peace Prize is officially dead. It was good news that the Norwegian Nobel committee did not award the warmongering US president, Donald Trump with the Nobel Peace Prize, but they still managed to hammer the last nail in their coffin by awarding one of the main right-wing opposition leaders in Venezuela, Maria Corina Machado, a long-time far-right “political activist” who for years has asked every US president since 1999 to lead a coup against the late Hugo Chavez and the Nicolas Maduro-led governments. 

There is an agenda behind his highly controversial Nobel Peace Prize win as Venezuela’s Telesur news agency explains why the decision was made to normalize the idea of the US government to wage a “freedom war” against Venezuela:

A firestorm of international criticism has erupted, creating a significant Nobel Peace Prize controversy following the award to Venezuelan political figure María Corina Machado. The Network of Intellectuals, Artists and Social Movements in Defense of Humanity issued a powerful statement from Caracas, condemning the decision as a “cynical escalation” within a U.S. “war operation” against Venezuela.

The declaration, signed by prominent progressive cultural and activist figures, describes the prize as a “premeditated maneuver” within a hegemonic discourse. It aims to normalize a narrative of invasion disguised as a “freedom war” in the collective imagination, the statement alleges

So how can the world ignore a newly crowned “peace” activist who wants nothing more than democracy and freedom from an “evil dictator” who is destroying her country, at least that’s what the regime in Washington, DC and the radical right-wing opposition in Venezuela are thinking. According to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Machado has received the prize for her “tireless work promoting democratic rights” and for the “struggle for a peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy,” so they decided to become a propaganda mouthpiece for the US government in hopes of removing the Maduro government, therefore, by making this horrible choice, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has managed to become the laughing stock of the world.

The Road to War? 

Washington’s push to start a new war in Latin America is not about spreading “freedom or democracy” or whatever else they claim, it’s about oil and Wall Street controlling Venezuela’s economy. The Venezuelan people believe that they are sovereign nation and that its up to them, not Washington or anyone else to decide who will lead their nation. A report on a recent national survey in Venezuela shows that the people believe in their nation’s sovereignty:

A recent national survey by Dataviva reveals that the Venezuelan people are united in their defense of their national sovereignty. The poll, conducted between September 1 and 15, also shows a notable increase in affinity toward Venezuela’s constitutional president, Nicolás Maduro, attributed to his handling of recent US aggression.

The pollster’s study reveals that nearly nine out of ten citizens (89%) believe that Venezuela is a sovereign country that cannot be threatened by any foreign power. Only 11% disagreed with this statement

Now the Trump regime came up with a new excuse to launch a war by accusing Venezuela of smuggling illegal drugs such as “fentanyl” into the US, but didn’t they blame China and then Mexico for shipping in the deadly drug? Venezuela was never mentioned, in fact, according to the US government-based Congressional Research Service (CRS), it was supposedly “China and Mexico” who was smuggling illegal drugs into the US market:

Since approximately 2019, Mexico has reportedly replaced the People’s Republic of China (PRC, or China) as the main source of U.S.-bound illicit fentanyl. As a major production and transit country for other U.S.-destined illicit drugs, Mexico has long been a key collaborator in U.S. drug control policy. With Mexican criminal groups becoming the primary producers of illicit fentanyl, U.S. counternarcotics policy shifted to focus mainly on addressing synthetic opioid production, the trafficking and diversion of precursor chemicals, and dismantling organized criminal groups engaged in such activities. U.S. policy continues to emphasize law enforcement cooperation to target key organized crime figures in Mexico and to combat crimes such as arms trafficking and money laundering, which often facilitate the trafficking of synthetic opioids

In Trump’s comical UN speech, he said that Venezuela was importing “fentanyl”:

For this reason, we’ve recently begun using the supreme power of the United States military to destroy Venezuelan terrorists and trafficking networks led by Nicolás Maduro. To every terrorist thug smuggling poisonous drugs into the United States of America, please be warned that we will blow you out of existence. That’s what we’re doing. We have no choice. We can’t let it happen. They’re destroying, I believe we lost 300,000 people last year to drugs, 300,000, fentanyl and other drugs. Each boat that we sink carries drugs that would kill more than 25,000 Americans. We will not let that happen

Clearly, it’s about the oil. Since 2023, it is estimated that Venezuela has more than 303 billion barrels of proven oil reserves.  Executives from Big Oil conglomerates have been licking their lips for a chance to get their hands on Venezuela’s oil since the late Hugo Chavez became the president.  If the US starts this war, it’s not about fighting for freedom or stopping the flow of drugs, it’s all about who will control all of that oil.

Why the US Military Will Face Another Vietnam in Their “Backyard”

On October 8th, The New York Times reported that more than 10,000 US troops are in the colonial territory of Puerto Rico, some troops are also on naval battleships and on a submarine in the Caribbean Sea awaiting Trump’s orders:

The Gulf Arab nation Qatar is trying to act as a mediator in the conflict between the United States and Venezuela, even as President Trump continues building up military forces in the Caribbean and striking civilian boats, according to three people with knowledge of Qatar’s diplomacy.

Qatar’s efforts have been encouraged by the Venezuelan government led by President Nicolás Maduro, but they have not been embraced by the Trump administration, which appears more focused on military options than on diplomacy.

The Pentagon has deployed 10,000 U.S. troops to the region, most of them to bases in Puerto Rico, a senior U.S. military official said. Troops are also on eight surface warships and a submarine in the region

However, if the US government and the pentagon believe that they can defeat the Venezuelan military and the civilian militia, but they might have to look back at the history of the Vietnam war. The US military had engaged the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army who used unconventional tactics such as Guerrilla warfare that involved hit-and-run tactics, the extensive use of underground tunnels and other traps set up by the Vietnamese resistance made it a difficult task for the US military to achieve any form of victory.

Venezuela will develop a form of resistance to a US invasion because they can use the same tactics as the Viet Cong. Keep in mind that Venezuela does have a smaller military force with only 123,000 active members with another 220,000 paramilitary forces, and we must add the civilian militia that can exceed 8 million people ready to defend their homeland.

However, Venezuela’s military does not have the same capabilities that the US military has since Washington spends most of its taxpayer’s money on the Military-Industrial Complex, so its no surprise that the US is stronger, at least on paper. But that was the same argument before and during the Vietnam war and most recently, the war in Afghanistan. Vietnam and Afghanistan had less advanced military, weapons and capabilities which meant that they were at a disadvantage militarily speaking, yet they still managed to defeat the US military. Can the same thing happen to today’s US military if they decided to invade Venezuela?  The answer is yes.

The Consequences of a US Invasion of Venezuela

Not only would the Venezuelan people be willing to fight, so will the rest of Latin America.  Venezuela would be a rallying point for all Latin American revolutionaries whether in Central or South America and in the Caribbean, a new call to remove all US military assets in the region will take center stage. Latin American governments under Washington’s control will also have serious problems with their own citizens, therefore, mass protests would erupt leading to violent clashes between governments and their people. The situation in Latin America would become a powder keg of anti-US sentiments.

Russia, China, Cuba and Nicaragua would support Venezuela, and some of these governments would even send weapons and possibly military personnel as advisors. Then there’s always the possibility that if the US were to attack Venezuela, many revolutionaries, anti-imperialists and others all over Latin America would be ready to mobilize and fight the US empire.

Colombia’s president also said they will back Venezuela at all costs. On August 20th, Colombian President Gustavo Petro warned Trump that any incursion into Venezuelan territory would be a regional disaster for US invading forces,

“The president warned that an invasion of Venezuela could cause a civil war similar to the one that has destroyed Syria since 2011. The civil war also led to spillover conflict in neighboring countries like Iraq and Lebanon.”  Petro said that “The gringos are in trouble if they think invading Venezuela will solve their problem. They’re putting Venezuela in the same situation as Syria, only with the added problem that they’re dragging Colombia into the same mess.”

It has been reported that Trump has suspended aid to Colombia claiming that Petro “is an illegal drug leader,” Trump further criticized the Colombian President by saying that

“Petro, a low rated and very unpopular leader, with a fresh mouth toward America, better close up these killing fields immediately, or the United States will close them up for him, and it won’t be done nicely.”

Trump’s aggression is not new; it started with all previous US presidents since the day Hugo Chavez was elected to office in 1999 and changed the dynamics of Venezuela’s economy. Chavez and the Bolivarian revolution managed to take control of Venezuela’s oil industry and other natural resources, therefore, the US government and its Big Oil executives became hostile and wanted regime change, but they were unsuccessful with a failed coup attempt against Chavez in 2002 and Maduro in 2020, so it was just a matter of time before they would start taking about starting a new war to “take-out” the Maduro government.

The “War on Drugs” is not about drugs; it’s about the oil.  If the US government and their self-proclaimed “Peace President” decides to start another war, it will be an endless war, but this time in their so-called “backyard.”

The original source of this article is Global Research.

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Now that last weekend’s “No King” mass protests came and went with 2,700 alleged rallies held across America on Saturday, to publicly airing their strong dissident disapproval toward what protest organizers call President Donald Trump’s “authoritarian agenda.” According to CNN, nearly 7 million protesters took to the streets in both small town communities and all the largest cities with over 100,000 demonstrators in New York City alone. Apparently outside of a few isolated incidents, the massive countrywide protests remained relatively peaceful. With Halloween a few days away, with a desire to preserve unity and calm, a number of the protestors dressed in costumes or in yellow. Common were hand held signs and placards opposing Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), his authoritarianism and billionaires supporting Israel. Many Americans at the protests expressed objection to Trump’s overt attempts to expand his executive “kingly” powers as clear intent to dangerously undermine America’s democratic principles. His polarization of the American populace came under attack along with loss of free speech and increasing level of censorship.

President Donald Trump’s dictatorial tendencies during his first nine months back in the White House are clearly seen by a growing number of Americans within all political parties as a serious threat to our nation. On more than one occasion, Trump keeps hinting at a third term in office as a would-be lifelong dictator, in clear violation of the 22nd Amendment. Moreover, at 79 he is already American history’s oldest elected president and now showing signs of both ill physical and mental health decline.

Essentially, Trump has also declared a state of de facto martial law emergency in America. Though the Posse Comitatus Law of 1878 expressly prohibits US military from policing duties in domestic civil affairs, by August Trump released his ambitious plan to deploy 1,700 National Guard troops across 19 states in support of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as part of his major crackdown on illegal immigration and urban crime.

The designated states where US soldiers will be conducting armed patrols on our civilian streets are Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Wyoming. Though Trump often cites violent chaos and crime plaguing Blue State cities like DC, Portland, Seattle, Los Angeles, New York City and Chicago as justification for his massive boots on the ground, note that a number of these 19 states are Republicans controlled in rural, low crime states like Idaho, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming. Many Americans view his militant police state agenda a transparent ploy for unprecedented US military troops stationed on domestic soil as a psyops prepping Americans for extreme chaos to come under undeclared martial law emergency amidst a most divided nation since the American Civil War. He was installed by his Luciferian masters as the battering ram to take down America with multiple World War III warfronts that includes civil war at home.

In record time Trump has shown America his true colors as a dictator. Barely a month into his second term presidency, a PRRI (Public Religion Research Institute) poll taken between February 28 and March 20 found that 52% of the 5,025 Americans polled agreed with the following statement:

[Trump is a] dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy

Since then, now over 7 months later, Trump continues criminal complicity arming and unconditionally supporting Israel’s most bloody, visible genocide ever, Trump’s failed promise to end the Ukraine war within 24-hours, and now he’s ready to start a new illegal war in Venezuela. Plus, his disastrous tariff policy collapsing our national economy, his constant flip flopping, his thuggish threats and ultimatums have humanity currently teetering on the edge of nuclear annihilation.

So, nine months into his debacle of a presidency, that 52% US majority calling him a dictator must be closer to 92% convinced he’s a reckless dictator and danger to the entire world. Deranged Trump is a fully compromised, owned and controlled Zionist puppet for Israel, having been pedo-blackmailed for raping children per Mossad’s Epstein-Maxwell operation. And now Trump’s about to pardon fellow pedophile Mossad operative Ghislaine Maxwell just 2 years in to her 20-year prison sentence. Trump is caught between a rock and a hard place, knowing he’s not going to heaven following Rothschild’s depopulation orders, ultimately killing millions if not billions of people on this planet.

Additionally, with the deceased, highest profile Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre’s tell-all book release this week, Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice, it’s now come out that former Israel Prime Minister Ehud Barak is the likely culprit who not only is alleged to have raped Virginia, but also it appears the former general as Israel’s most decorated soldier in history also mercilessly beat Giuffre. In Virginia’s words:

He repeatedly choked me until I lost consciousness and took pleasure in seeing me in fear for my life. Horrifically, the Prime Minister laughed when he hurt me and got more aroused when I begged him to stop. I emerged from the cabana bleeding from my mouth, vagina, and anus. For days, it hurt to breathe and to swallow.

Seven years after Epstein’s 2008 conviction as a registered child sex offender, Barak partnered with  the pedo who invested $1 million in Barak’s Carbyne, an emergency 9-1-1 tech startup (coincidentally Barak was also Israel’s Prime Minister right up to 9/11) specializing in invasive global surveillance utilizing Peter Thiel’s Palantir Technologies. Of course, this is the same Palantir that provides Israel’s precision targeting on its decapitation strikes in Gaza genocide but also in Lebanon, Iran, Qatar, Syria and Yemen. Of course, under a multibillion-dollar contract with Trump’s fascist techno-government, Palantir is also now busily engaging in thought crime data-processing analysis on every US citizen who speaks against Israel’s genocide racing toward the ultimate digital control grid gulag worldwide. It’s one very small world when it comes to genocidal psychopaths plotting human genocide once finished exterminating all the Palestinians.

Since the October 10th ceasefire, Hamas has counted 46 more dead Palestinians and 132 injured with IDF opening deadly fire on civilians, wiping out families and mostly children. Meanwhile, even though the US confirms that Hamas is honoring the ceasefire unlike the Jewish State, on Monday October 20th Trump vows he will “eradicate” Hamas if they violate this latest pause. In his own twisted, hypocritical words:

We made a deal with Hamas that they’re going to be very good, they’re going to behave. And if they’re not, we’re going to go and we’re going to eradicate them. If we have to, they’ll be eradicated.

So as predicted, evil Israel sinks even lower measuring up to its evil fork-tongued name. Yet Trump still continues rewarding evil Israel instead of punishing evil by sending more of our tax dollars and weapons so the pariah can kill more innocents in cold blood. American taxpayers are complicit in this genocidal blood sacrifice slaughter.

With Trump continually saying he will not get to heaven, probably his only true statement, leave it to his sycophantic Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in an Oval Office press briefing actually uttered these words to Trump:

You didn’t believe you were gonna get to heaven… You are doing God’s WORK here.

King Narcissist Trump demands only ass-kissers surround him in his regime. What prompted RFK Jr’s cringeworthy flattery was more Trump-Big Pharma dealmaking to lower the cost of fertility drugs because the US fertility rate is so low that it’s half of what is needed just to keep the species going. The pathetic King Trump administration only appears more erratic, rudderless, reckless and desperate. As there’s never a dull moment, stay tuned for more of the King [who’s not going to heaven’s] Chronicles.

This article was originally published on JamesHFetzer.org.

The post King Trump Chronicles appeared first on LewRockwell.

I was raised Catholic—the kind of Catholic who knew the smell of incense before the sound of morning cartoons. My father was (and still is) a farmer, my mother a care nurse tending to the elderly in their final days. We weren’t poor, but we were acquainted with struggle. So when Pope Leo recently declared that “love for the poor—whatever the form their poverty may take—is the evangelical hallmark of a Church faithful to the heart of God,” I felt something between irritation and déjà vu. It’s not that I disagree with loving the poor. It’s that many Catholics seem to have mistaken poverty for holiness itself.

It’s an old Catholic habit, this romanticizing of suffering. Somewhere between St. Francis stripping naked in the square and the endless talk of “blessed are the meek,” the Church began confusing destitution with decency, as if the less you own, the more your soul shines. It’s a comforting fantasy, especially for those sitting in marble halls. But equating poverty with purity is as false as equating wealth with wickedness. The poor can be cruel, the rich can be kind, and goodness cannot be measured by one’s bank balance or battered boots.

The truth is, the Bible never glorifies poverty; it simply refuses to lie about it. Scripture speaks of the poor often, not as paragons of virtue but as people to be helped, fed, and treated with respect. Christ dined with fishermen and tax collectors alike—not to canonize deprivation but to shatter the hierarchy that measured worth by wealth. The command was clear: feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and lift the fallen—not idolize their condition. Poverty was never meant to be a stage for holiness, but rather, a challenge for justice.

What Pope Leo calls an “evangelical hallmark” has become a badge of humility for those who rarely live it. The modern Church doesn’t love the poor as much as she loves being seen loving them. Somewhere between the sermon and the snapshot, poverty becomes a prop.

It’s a dangerous delusion because it infantilizes the very people it claims to uplift. Treating the poor as sacred objects rather than self-determining people robs them of agency. It’s pity masquerading as faith. My father used to say, “Work is the prayer God answers fastest,” and he was right. Real compassion isn’t tossing coins into the collection plate and calling it charity; it’s creating conditions where people don’t need your coins at all.

But the Church doesn’t like that kind of talk. She prefers symbols to systems. She prefers the image of a barefoot priest over the idea of an educated laborer. When the pope praises “love for the poor,” what he rarely mentions is the love for competence, for responsibility, for the dignity of work.

There’s a reason Catholic art is filled with weeping Madonnas and bleeding saints. The Church has long treated suffering as currency, as if pain itself buys salvation. This is a mistake. Misery isn’t a sacrament but a condition—often man-made, sometimes preventable, and always undeserving of worship. The Gospels tell us to feed the hungry, not to glorify hunger.

To his credit, Pope Leo speaks often about “different forms” of poverty—not just material but emotional, spiritual, and social. Yet this only dilutes the meaning further. By broadening the word to include everyone, he drains it of weight. If everyone is poor in some way, then no one is. It’s linguistic inflation. It’s compassion without clarity.

And yet, I write this not as a cynic but as a Catholic who still believes in redemption, both personal and institutional. My mother, after 10-hour shifts lifting bodies and spirits, embodied Christ far more than any sermon I’ve heard from Rome. Her faith was, and still is, simple and without show. She never confused poverty with purity because she saw both up close, sometimes in the same person.

The poor aren’t moral mascots. They’re people navigating life with whatever scraps of self-respect they can find. Some succeed. Some fail, just like the rest of us. To elevate poverty to sainthood is to patronize the very souls Christ treated as equals.

Still, I remain proud of my Faith. Catholicism gave me a vocabulary of discipline, sacrifice, and genuine awe. But awe without awareness becomes sentimentality, and that’s where the Church too often lives today. If love for the poor is to mean anything, it must involve helping them stop being poor—not through pity, not through pageantry, but through opportunity, through the structure of education and the restoration of self-reliance.

Pope Leo may believe poverty is a mirror reflecting the heart of God. I think it’s a mirror reflecting our own failures—political, human, and moral. The world doesn’t need more saints of sorrow; she needs fewer spectators to it.

That’s not heresy but honesty. And if there’s one thing Catholicism should have learned after two millennia, it’s that truth, however uncomfortable, is still the closest thing we have to grace.

This article was originally published on Crisis Magazine.

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Click here:

Steve Watson

 

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Regarding his boat bombings, Trump said: “Every boat that we knock out we save 25,000 American lives so every time you see a boat and you feel badly you say, ‘Wow, that’s rough’…It is rough, but if you lose three people and save 25,000 people.”

The post Trump’s Lies Get Bigger appeared first on LewRockwell.

Ricordo a tutti i lettori che su Amazon potete acquistare il mio nuovo libro, “Il Grande Default”: https://www.amazon.it/dp/B0DJK1J4K9 

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

____________________________________________________________________________________

di Kane McGukin

(Versione audio della traduzione disponibile qui: https://open.substack.com/pub/fsimoncelli/p/bitcoin-affronta-il-suo-1913)

La battaglia tra Bitcoin Core e Bitcoin Knots è un attacco alla sua rete, una lotta non diversa da quella per l'istituzione della Federal Reserve nel 1913.

Il Novecento, come accade anche oggi, iniziò con i banchieri in guerra per le regole che governavano il denaro. Due fazioni in competizione, il Piano Aldrich e il Piano Glass-Owen, lanciarono un attacco alla moneta sana/onesta perché alcune persone cercavano più potere e le nazioni chiedevano più controllo.

L'oro, come Bitcoin, è denaro per via delle sue origini fondamentali. Eppure, l'idea sbagliata, allora come oggi, è che la sopravvivenza richieda maggiore complessità.

La storia dimostra quanto possano essere fragili le convinzioni. Un'offerta di un posto al tavolo delle trattative è sufficiente a trasformare coloro che un tempo erano ferventi difensori del denaro sano/onesto in sostenitori del credito e del debito illimitato. I primi sostenitori dell'oro come Keynes negli anni '20 e Greenspan negli anni '80 si sono dimostrati incapaci di ignorare l'attrazione emotiva della notorietà, della valuta fiat e del controllo. Ogni volta si reintroducono tattiche inflazionistiche che corrodono i principi e il valore del denaro.

Spesso progetti furbi e piani corrotti si sono rivelati troppo grandi affinché il singolo essere umano potesse emanciparsene.

Mai un momento di noia

Non c'è mai un momento di noia in Bitcoin o nel mondo della finanza.

L'ultima divisione all'interno della comunità Bitcoin potrebbe sembrare l'ennesima diatriba su tecnicismi, ma indica qualcosa di più profondo? Sebbene sembri esserci un bisogno infinito di avere qualcosa di tecnico su cui discutere, sotto i commit di GitHub e i dibattiti nelle mailing list si nasconde un fantasma del passato: la lotta ideologica che ha dato vita alla Federal Reserve.

La creazione della FED è stata inquadrata nei termini della decentralizzazione e della rappresentanza regionale.

Ciononostante le sue fondamenta si basavano su due forze: filtri e controllo (qui e qui). Dietro le quinte i veri motori del 1913 erano gli stessi di oggi: desiderio di potere, profitto e capacità di produrre moneta partendo da una base con un sottostante reale. Un Bitcoin sintetico, se vogliamo.

Fonte: The Princes of Yen di Richard Werner

Chiedete a qualsiasi massimalista di Bitcoin cosa disprezza di più e le risposte più probabili saranno: la Federal Reserve, o l'innegabile svalutazione del dollaro.

Ecco cosa rende l'attuale scontro tra Bitcoin Core & Knots così affascinante: non si tratta solo di una guerra civile tra nerd all'interno dello sviluppo di Bitcoin. Osservato attraverso la lente della storia monetaria, i parallelismi emergono con chiarezza. Un promemoria del fatto che solo poco più di 100 anni fa si tracciarono i confini e si decise da che parte schierarsi tra due visioni contrastanti per un nuovo sistema finanziario: il Piano Aldrich (centralizzazione delle grandi banche e delle aziende) e il Piano Glass-Owen (ideologia populista e individualista). Col senno di poi, entrambi promuovevano la decentralizzazione solo di facciata.

Entrambi sostenevano di voler difendere il denaro sano/onesto, entrambi i piani avrebbero portato inevitabilmente alla centralizzazione dell'oro, il “denaro sano/onesto” originale.

Espandendo la dimensione di OP_RETURN (inflazione del protocollo), non stiamo forse reintroducendo la degradazione sradicata da Satoshi?

Offrendo un client Bitcoin più centralizzato, non stiamo forse centralizzando la fiducia?

Entrambe le opzioni non stanno forse seguendo un percorso simile, ovvero quello della “Federal Reserve”?

Indipendentemente da quale sia la vostra posizione, la domanda che dovremmo porci è: anche Bitcoin nasconderà la centralizzazione nel linguaggio della decentralizzazione?

Bitcoin è un asset che si fonda sui principi

Come ricordato sopra, nel 1913 una simile situazione di stallo nel settore bancario portò all'approvazione del Federal Reserve Act alla vigilia delle vacanze di Natale. Andare avanti a tutti i costi non era la risposta giusta. La storia ci ricorda che solo perché si può, non significa che si dovrebbe.

I dibattiti accesi tendono a consolidarsi in una mentalità “noi contro loro”, in cui l'emotività prevale sui principi. Il più delle volte la soluzione definitiva non ha risolto le controversie, ma ha aperto la strada al controllo politico e centralizzato del denaro.

«Le mucche intelligenti mostrano alle altre mucche come aggirare gli ostacoli. Sapete, come se aprissero un cancello. Quindi, sapete, è sempre stato così. Si potrebbero sempre aggirare queste cose, ma non credo saremmo d'accordo che se aggirassimo la commissione sul dust relay inizieremmo a vedere un'enorme quantità di dust intasare la rete.»

~ Samson Mow

Nel mondo bancario poliziotti e ladri sono sempre esistiti. Cumuli di asset e valore monetario hanno sempre allettato l'idea di una rapina in banca. Bitcoin e il denaro digitale non fanno eccezione. La fonte di archiviazione è cambiata, ma la mentalità rimane la stessa. È un promemoria di come si integra un piano della Banca Centrale Europea all'interno di un sistema finanziario americano. Dividi et impera.

«Se guardate agli ordinal, quello è un esempio. Sono un po' come una ICO, ma con le immagini. Sapete, vendono questi PFP, o qualsiasi altra immagine di maghi e gatti, e poi scatenano guerra, ma non gli importa. Possono semplicemente stampare più roba.»

~ Samson Mow

Che si tratti di stampare denaro tramite la FED, le ICO, i DAT, o le Bitcoin Treasury Companies, la mano invisibile è la riserva frazionaria.

Inoltre ciò che Samson descrive con ordinal e compressione delle commissioni fa rima con la storia. Modificare il costo di elaborazione di una transazione a $0,01 sat/vbytes comporterà conseguenze indesiderate a un certo punto. Proprio come il “trading a basso costo” ha alimentato speculazioni sconsiderate ad alta frequenza sui titoli azionari intorno al 2008. Blockspace a basso costo e incentivi a zero commissioni rischiano di ripetere lo stesso ciclo e diluire il valore della rete Bitcoin.

Ridurre gli attriti può sembrare un'innovazione, ma la storia dimostra che di solito finisce con la centralizzazione e la fragilità sistemica.

Le commissioni basse, in sostanza, eliminano la sicurezza di un fossato finanziario.

La tentazione e il richiamo dell'avidità

Al culmine della crisi del 1914, a John Maynard Keynes fu chiesto di informare il Cancelliere dello Scacchiere sull'opportunità di mantenere la sterlina legata all'oro. Keynes sostenne con enfasi che doveva farlo:

«[...] lui (Keynes) si era schierato con fermezza a favore del mantenimento del legame: “La posizione di Londra come centro monetario dipende dalla completa fiducia nella sua incrollabile disponibilità” a soddisfare i propri obblighi in oro e sarebbe stata gravemente danneggiata se “al primo segno di emergenza tale impegno fosse stato sospeso”.

[...] Ma mentre prima della guerra aveva pensato che il modo migliore per raggiungere questo obiettivo fosse garantire che valute come la sterlina fossero completamente convertibili in oro a un valore fisso, ora era giunto a credere che non ci fosse motivo per cui collegare l'offerta di moneta e il credito all'oro dovesse necessariamente comportare prezzi stabili.»

~ Lords of Finance

Se gli esempi di John Maynard Keynes e Alan Greenspan, insieme al parallelo tra il 1913 e l'attuale divario in Bitcoin, rivelano che le pressioni inflazionistiche, sebbene spesso nascoste, sono sempre presenti. La storia della moneta è una lunga serie di individui che alla fine si sono piegati all'erosione dei sistemi di valori.

Le loro parole difendevano i mercati e la moneta sana/onesta, ma le loro azioni si basavano sul controllo centralizzato.

Lo scontro tra Bitcoin Core & Knots sembra lo stesso che guidò Keynes e Greenspan e che definì i piani di Aldrich e Glass-Owen. È la stessa tentazione che si ripresenta oggi con Bitcoin.

Fonte: The Princes of Yen di Richard Werner

Ciò che è chiaro è questo: è facile elogiare la moneta sana/onesta in teoria, ma è molto più difficile difenderla una volta che la “gente in vista” vi offre un posto al tavolo delle decisioni.

Fonte: The Princes of Yen di Richard Werner

Il fascino dell'accettazione e la ricerca del rendimento sono droghe potenti. Entrambe hanno il potere di trasformare un appassionato d'oro in un drogato di credito senza lasciare traccia.

La lezione è semplice: è difficile vivere

I principi fondamentali non sono negoziabili. Sono come i colori primari nell'arte: toglietene uno e le fondamenta strutturali di ogni innovazione futura crollano. Offuscate la tavolozza con troppi colori e il valore fondamentale viene soffocato da un eccesso di abbondanza. Troppe funzionalità e ci si ritrova con i problemi che ha Ethereum. Infinite svolte a sinistra mascherate da innovazione, quando la missione potrebbe essere raggiunta con poche e semplici svolte a destra.

L'importante ruolo dell'oro come moneta sana/onesta è stato messo da parte, non perché abbia fallito, ma perché gli esseri umani non sono riusciti a resistere. Bitcoin si trova oggi ad affrontare la stessa prova.

Se Bitcoin Core & Bitcoin Knots, ordinal, o giochi sulle commissioni erodono i principi di Bitcoin, allora il fantasma del 1913 vincerà di nuovo, solo che questa volta in forma digitale. In un mondo futuro, il credito in Bitcoin sarà di gran moda.

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

Supporta Francesco Simoncelli's Freedonia lasciando una mancia in satoshi di bitcoin scannerizzando il QR seguente.

Thanks, Jesse Trentadue.

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Thanks, Vicki Marzullo.

RT News

 

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Thanks, John Frahm.

JonFleetwood.com

 

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Writes David Martin:

Who could stand to be anywhere near such a monstrosity as that?  It might as well be a giant middle-finger directed at white people, grievance culture encapsulated.  Another alternative statue might be that of a shoulder with a big chip on it.  All the while immigrants from Africa are doing everything they can to get into such an oppressive place.

 

The post Stigmatization Invitation appeared first on LewRockwell.

Writes David Martin:

It’s hard to know whether to laugh or cry reading this, but I did get a chuckle out of the notion of Putin and Xi playing good cop-bad cop with Trump.

 

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In his article “Is the Constitution Broken beyond Repair?” David Gordon draws attention to a phenomenon that is often overlooked, namely, the great rejoicing among some constitutional lawyers over the fact that “to establish the new Constitution, Lincoln overthrew the first one… he replaced the old, immoral Constitution with a new one based on equality.” This is indeed one reason why some of Lincoln’s admirers still celebrate the burning of the South by the Union Army—the devastation and destruction of the South symbolizes for them the brave new world of equality and social justice forged by a righteous army through fire and steel.

Most people, if they understood what was really being celebrated here, would be bewildered. Although Abraham Lincoln and the Union Generals Ulysses Grant and William Sherman are generally admired for saving the Union by those who do not consider the consent of states to be necessary, they may not necessarily think the war was commendable in itself or worthy of celebration; they merely consider that war was necessary for Lincoln to advance his righteous cause. They would view the claim that Lincoln rejected the constraints set by the Constitution as some sort of critique, at the very least—while we can and do debate matters of constitutional interpretation, surely we all accept the premise that a president should not actually overthrow the Constitution? Shouldn’t any president at least try to pretend to uphold the Constitution, even as he brazenly drives a coach and horses through it? Even if he is an unashamed hypocrite who believes double standards always apply to his conduct, he should at least make a show of believing that he sees his actions as constitutional, and should by no means concede to complaints that he is subverting the law.

But, rather surprisingly, some Lincolnite constitutionalists do not see matters that way. They believe that deliberately subverting the Constitution is actually very good if it is done with good intentions—namely, intentions of which progressives approve. As they see it, the new Constitution created by Lincoln’s war is more egalitarian and just than the old one written by slave owners. They believe the overthrow of the old Constitution ought to be welcomed by everyone who upholds “the idea of America”—the “idea” being, of course, progressivism. Nor is this desire to destroy the Constitution new. In the 19th century, the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison described the Constitution as an “agreement with hell”:

Garrison then produced a copy of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law and put a match to it. Amid cries of “Amen” the hated document burned to a cinder… As Martin Luther had burned copies of canon law and the papal bull excommunicating him from the Catholic Church for heresy, Garrison consigned each to the flames. Holding up a copy of the U.S. Constitution, he branded it as “the source and parent of all the other atrocities–‘a covenant with death, and an agreement with hell.’” As the nation’s founding document burned to ashes, he cried out: “So perish all compromises with tyranny!”

The abolition of slavery in 1865 only fanned the flames of this revolutionary fever. The new rallying cry was that steps must be taken to ensure that slavery “by a different name” would never return, and Reconstruction amendments were accordingly forced through. Tennessee, which was the only state in the South to “willingly” ratify the Fourteenth Amendment, only did so after threats of force.

In Tennessee, opponents of the Amendment absented themselves from the House in order to prevent a quorum. This did not stop the supporters of the Amendment, who forcibly seized two absent members and held them in a committee room. The House ignored a court order to release the two and overruled the Speaker, who ruled there was no quorum present.

To many people this might seem, at the very least, mildly embarrassing but nevertheless understandable in the tumultuous aftermath of war. There is a process for amending the Constitution, and the use of force is not part of that process, so at the very least these irregularities ought to be condemned. But for progressives, overthrowing the old Constitution by any means necessary is praiseworthy, because the Fourteenth Amendment brought equality and justice! Let justice be done by any means necessary! In his foreword to Raoul Berger’s Government by Judiciary: The Transformation of the Fourteenth Amendment, Forrest McDonald observes that activist courts enthusiastically endorsed the Reconstruction amendments without any qualms. He explains that “advocates of judicial activism began to assert that neither the words of the Constitution nor the intentions of the framers are any longer relevant.” After all, the framers were “racist” so nobody should care what their original intentions were.

After 1865, the progressive amendment of the Constitution continued inexorably under the civil rights regime. When Christopher Caldwell wrote his critique of the Civil Rights Act usurping the Constitution, one reviewer summarized Caldwell’s analysis under the title “The Law that Ate the Constitution.” Now, many readers would assume that “the law that ate the Constitution” is a provocative title denoting an unwelcome development, and that the whole point of Caldwell’s analysis would surely have been to warn us that the Constitution was under threat. Even those committed to “the idea” of civil rights, who may never be persuaded that civil rights pose a threat to the constitution—the judges just need to be a bit more careful to avoid subverting the Constitution, right?—might nevertheless appreciate Caldwell’s attempt to warn us of a potential threat to which we may wish to be alert. But, astonishingly, some law professors view it not as a threat but as cause for celebration—if Caldwell is right that the civil rights law is now the de facto Constitution and has displaced the racist de jure Constitution, they would take that not as a warning but as a wonderful outcome that merits celebration.

Progressives favor the centralization of constitutional authority in the federal courts, and therefore, as they see it, if the courts indeed willfully distorted constitutional history to achieve that goal, so be it. After all, judges are distorting the Constitution for a good cause—in the service of equality, fairness, and justice. Raoul Berger, writing about the role of the Fourteenth Amendment as a platform for the “continuing revision of the Constitution under the guise of interpretation,” notes how the progressive Warren Supreme Court was hailed as “keeper of the national conscience.” Therefore, when conservatives like Thomas Sowell warned about “the quiet repeal of the American Revolution,” progressives saw that not as cause for alarm but as evidence that they are winning. As they see it, activist courts are to be commended for deliberately replacing the American Revolution with a racially-enlightened social revolution. Far from denying that they have subverted the Constitution, they are supremely proud of themselves for having done so. They have convinced themselves that the new de facto Constitution better reflects “American values.”

The point here is not simply that there are different schools of statutory interpretation, by reference to which some constitutionalists uphold a “purposive” or “living tree” approach which tries to give meaning to what they see as the underlying goals and values of the Constitution. Most progressives who champion purposive interpretation do not claim that the old de jure Constitution should be altogether destroyed and replaced with a de facto new Constitution that is morally superior—most would at least attempt to offer some sort of argument that their inventions are a matter of reinterpretation and redefinition of the words actually written in the original Constitution.

The progressives who praise themselves for displacing the Constitution altogether make a very different argument. They do not claim to be engaged in creative reinterpretation, but to be abolishing the de jure Constitution altogether in order to replace it with a more worthy compact rooted in their civil rights revolution.

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

The post How Progressives Broke the Constitution and Praised Themselves for It appeared first on LewRockwell.

Starmer wanted punk band Bob Vylan prosecuted for chanting ‘Death to the IDF!’ Four months on, he’s bullying the police to let Israeli football thugs into the UK to chant ‘Death to the Arabs!’

June 2025: Keir Starmer’s government urge police to investigate the punk band Bob Vylan for inciting racial hatred and public order offences after chanting “Death, death to the IDF!” at the Glastonbury music festival.

At that time, the IDF, Israel’s military, is known to be responsible for killing and maiming more than 200,000 Palestinians in Gaza, with many thousands more dead under Gaza’s rubble. The United Nations; every major human rights organisation, including Israeli ones; and the International Association of Genocide Scholars have all agreed that Israel and its military are committing genocide in Gaza.

Lisa Nandy, Britain’s sports and culture secretary, calls the chant against the IDF – and the BBC’s inadvertent broadcasting of it – “appalling and unacceptable”. Keir Starmer terms the chant “appalling hate speech”. They agree that Bob Vylan and another band, Kneecap, should have never been given “a platform” by either Glastonbury or the BBC. There is widespread agreement in the media and Westminster that the chant is evidence of antisemitism.

The Trump administration, meanwhile, revokes a visa for Bob Vylan to perform in the United States – a move that the Starmer government does nothing to protest.

October 2025: West Midlands police announce that they are barring Tel Aviv Maccabi fans from attending a match in Birmingham against Aston Villa next month because of fears of violence. Tel Aviv’s supporters are notorious for their racist and violent behaviour, both inside Israel and abroad.

Nearly a year ago, there were ugly riots in Amsterdam’s streets provoked by the Tel Aviv fans – many of whom have served or are serving in the IDF – after their team lost against local side Ajax. Inside the stadium and later on the streets, the Tel Aviv fans could be heard chanting ”Death to the Arabs” and “There are no more schools in Gaza because we killed all the kids!”.

Despite the Tel Aviv fans instigating the Amsterdam violence, much of it caught on video, Dutch and British politicians and media initially went out of their way to portray the Tel Aviv fans as the victims – until, confronted with the evidence, that narrative collapsed. For example, David Lammy, then Britain’s foreign secretary, lost no time writing on X: “I utterly condemn these abhorrent acts of violence and stand with Israeli and Jewish people across the world.”

It was precisely these “violent clashes and hate crime offences” in Amsterdam that lead West Midlands police to decide its officers will not be able to safely police the Europa League match in Birmingham, scheduled for November 6. They term it “high risk”.

But once again, Starmer and his ministers seek to revive the early, confected Amsterdam narrative, this time suggesting that it is the the Tel Aviv football hooligans that are in danger from Aston Villa fans, that any resentment from Aston Villa fans towards Tel Aviv fans is driven solely by antisemitism rather than by the Tel Aviv fans’ long record of genocidal chants and racist violence, and that the police decision to bar the Tel Aviv hooligans is capitulation to “antisemitism”.

Starmer himself wants the police decision overruled. Ed Miliband, his energy secretary, says: “We cannot have a situation where any area is a no-go area for people of a particular religion or from a particular country.”

But as happened with the official Amsterdam narrative, Starmer’s utterly implausible narrative regarding the Aston Villa game collapses almost immediately. On Sunday, Israeli football authorities are forced to call off a derby between Maccabi and another Tel Aviv team after both sets of fans riot.

Conclusions:

1. British police should not be dealing with the matter of the Aston Villa game. It should never have been thrown into their lap. Tel Aviv Maccabi would not be playing in the UK, or anywhere else in Europe, if Israeli sports team were banned from all international competitions, as they should have been long ago. Russia has been banned. So why are Israel teams still competing? Israel’s genocide in Gaza is far more egregious than anything done by Moscow in Ukraine. The Tel Aviv fans wouldn’t be coming to the UK if their team wasn’t playing.

2. If Starmer and his ministers were so sure that a British punk band needed prosecuting for chanting “Death to the IDF!”, why are they so keen to overturn a police decision and invite foreign fans to the UK when it is widely understood both that those fans will bring their brand of genocidal rhetoric to British streets (“Death to the Arabs!”) and that they are certain to intimidate and use violence against Muslim and Arab communities in Birmingham? Why does the Starmer government think it so important to give special privileges to foreigners to platform their racial hatred, while seeking to remove any platform from British citizens, such as Bob Vylan, they accuse of spreading hate.

Remember this too. Bob Vylan used violent rhetoric against a racist and violent foreign army – a rhetoric neither the band nor its fans were in any kind of position to act on. The IDF is one of the strongest armies in the world; Bob Vylan’s fans pose no threat to it. The chant is better understood as chiefly symbolic: a punkish variation of “Down, down with the IDF!”

The Tel Aviv fans, however, are not just invoking violent, symbolic rhetoric. They are in a position to actually implement that violence in very practical ways – and not just in one setting, but two.

Some of these fans, either currently serving in the Israeli military or as reserve soldiers, have actually helped destroy almost every school in Gaza, and have been actively butchering Palestinian children – at least 20,000 children, the number that have been identified so far before the rubble is cleared.

But it goes further. These fans can, in fact, act out their violent chants and impulses in Birmingham by attacking anyone who looks Muslim or Arab. They can carry out their threats on Britain’s streets. It was obviously this assessment that led the West Midlands police to conclude that the fans should not allowed to attend the match. Why would Starmer wish to overturn a decision to avert a real danger of violence from foreign fans directed at British citizens? Why is the supposed right of foreign fans to attend a football match being placed above the safety of the British public? Why are the supposed sensitivities of a group of hooligans more important than good race relations in Britain?

3. Once again, Starmer’s government is misrepresenting events – in this case, a decision by the police – as “antisemitic”. In the British political and media establishment’s view, is there anyone left in British society – apart, that is, from the political and media establishment – that isn’t “antisemitic”?

The government’s logic on antisemtism is clearly back to front. Violent, racist Israeli football fans do not represent Jews. They don’t even represent all Israelis. Conversely, an aversion to hosting violent, racist football fans is not antisemitism. It is a public order matter. Meanwhile, imagining that violent foreign football fans who chant “Death to the Arabs!” need protecting because they also happen to be Jewish, as Starmer is doing, is antisemitic and Islamophobic in equal measure.

In fact, it is racism of the ugliest kind – racism that clothes itself in the guise of anti-racism. By weaponising antisemitism in this utterly cynical way, Starmer discredits the real anti-racists and breathes life into the racist’s claim that Jews have special, alchemical powers that can invert the world, making “up” look like “down”, “black” look like “white”. It feeds the very worldview that led to pogroms against Jews across much of Europe and culminated in the Holocaust. Starmer knows this.

4. Politicians have long put pressure on football authorities to “stamp out racism” in the game. Yet, here is the Starmer government trying to normalise genocidally racist rhetoric in Britain by inviting it into a Birmingham stadium. If Tel Aviv fans are given a privileged platform to vent their “Death to the Arabs!” chants in the UK, why not accord the same privilege to racist fans from British clubs?

And if the police are forced to climb down on a decision against Tel Aviv Maccabi, what sort of precedent – practical and rhetorical, if not immediately legal – will this set for other violent actors?

5. Starmer is weaponising antisemitism in this way for purely political reasons, entirely unrelated to the safety of British Jews. This is not new from him, nor is he alone. The British establishment has been using “antisemitism” as a tool to wield against every and any threat to its continuing entrenchment of power.

Over the past five years, Starmer has used weaponised antisemitism against his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, an exceptionally rare case of a democratic socialist getting within scent of power, to oust him from the Labour party.

Once Corbyn was gone, Starmer used weaponised antisemitism against the left of the party to purge its members – one of the reasons his party has plumbed new lows in polling.

Starmer has used weaponised antisemitism against student movements that tried to highlight and end their universities’ culpability in financing and arming Israel’s genocide.

Starmer used weaponised antisemitism to outlaw Palestine Action, which targets factories in Britain sending weapons to Israel for use in the Gaza genocide and was piling additional pressure on his government to end arms sales to Israel.

Starmer is using weaponised antisemitism against ordinary, peaceful citizens who have held a placard supporting Palestine Action’s work.

And now, driven into a logical and ethical cul-de-sac through his relentless campaign of mischaracterising anti-racism as antisemitism, Starmer is implicitly accusing the police of antisemitism. Why? Because they are trying to protect British communities from the overspill of genocidal violence issuing from Israel.

This article was originally published on JonathanCook.net.

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