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The relentless bombing of Gaza, with its gut-wrenching toll on civilian lives—children buried under rubble, families torn apart, entire neighborhoods reduced to ash—has become a grotesque spectacle on the global stage. The effort to bully Americans into co-signing this carnage, framed as a necessary strike against Hamas terrorists (whom Israel itself has funded and empowered), is not merely a geopolitical maneuver. It is a direct assault on the heart of Christianity’s 2,000-year legacy: the personhood revolution inaugurated by Jesus Christ. This campaign to normalize the massacre of the vulnerable will not succeed, however. The world today is too Christ-haunted, too saturated with the moral power of the victim, for such a repeal to take hold. Instead, it will backfire, exposing the fragility of empires built on scapegoating and violence. The Gaza crisis is a crucible, testing whether the West will embrace its Christian roots or reject them at its own peril.

On October 23, 2017, The American Conservative published my reflection (https://aneighborschoice.com/our-shocking-acceptance-of-state-sanctioned-violence/) on state-sanctioned violence, where I recounted a courtroom exchange that stunned a jury: “Why would I put a human being in a cage for using a blue pen? That is a nonviolent act and there is no victim.” The same question echoes now in Gaza’s smoldering ruins. Why would we endorse the slaughter of innocents to punish the guilty? The logic of collective punishment, of bombing schools and hospitals to “root out” Hamas, is the logic of the archaic sacred, where scapegoats were sacrificed to appease communal rage. This is the pre-Christian order Jesus dismantled when He stood in the place of the victim, exposing the lie that violence against the innocent can restore harmony. Yet today, powerful voices—politicians, pundits, and even some Christian leaders—demand we cheer for this bloodshed, as if Christ’s revelation never happened.

René Girard, the late Stanford professor whose mimetic theory I’ve long drawn upon, taught us that human societies are built on the scapegoat mechanism. We channel our rivalries and fears into violence against a designated “other,” believing their destruction will unify us. In Gaza, this mechanism is laid bare. Hamas’s atrocities on October 7, 2023, were indefensible, but Israel’s response—blockading, invading, and bombing with a death toll that includes thousands of children—has turned Palestinians into the West’s latest scapegoat. The narrative is familiar: “They” are the problem; “their” suffering is collateral damage; “we” must stand united in our righteous cause. This is the old pagan script, not the Gospel.

Christianity, through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, upended this script. The Cross revealed the victim as innocent, the mob as complicit, and the state’s violence as a sham. Mary’s Magnificat sings of this revolution: God scatters the proud, lifts the lowly, and defends the vulnerable. To co-sign Gaza’s bombing is to reject this song, to objectify Jesus as a mere symbol rather than the living truth who demands we see the personhood in every human face, especially the suffering. It is an attempt to repeal Christianity itself, to return to a world where might makes right and the weak are expendable.

But this repeal will not work. The world is too “Christ-haunted,” as Flannery O’Connor might say. The personhood revolution has seeped into our moral DNA, even among those who reject the Church. Why else do images of Gaza’s children—bloodied, orphaned, weeping—pierce our consciences? Why do global protests swell, from campuses to capitals, demanding a ceasefire? The West, for all its secular posturing, cannot escape the victim-powered ethic Jesus unleashed. Even atheists, shaped by 2,000 years of Christian anthropology, recoil at the sight of collective punishment. The more the war machine tries to drown out these cries with bombs, the louder the world’s conscience grows. This is not weakness; it is the enduring power of the Cross, which exposes violence as a lie that cannot hold.

The backfire is already evident. Evangelicals, long a bastion of uncritical support for Israel, are showing cracks of doubt. 2023 survey by Christianity Today (https://www.christianitytoday.com/2023/12/christian-views-israel-hamas-war-gaza-ceasefire-survey/) found that 42% of American evangelicals support an immediate ceasefire, and 50% acknowledge that Israel’s blockade has oppressed Palestinians. These numbers reflect a growing unease, a recognition that violence begets violence, and that dismissing Palestinian humanity—Christian, Muslim, or otherwise—betrays the Gospel. The dominant voices cheering for Gaza’s destruction are increasingly out of step, not just with global sentiment but with the nuanced convictions of many believers. The more the West ignores this, the more it risks alienating its own soul.

This crisis is a testing ground for the West’s Christian values. Will we embrace the personhood revolution—caring for the poor, the downtrodden, the scapegoated, as the early Church did? Or will we reject it, doubling down on the myth that bombs can secure peace? The stakes are existential. A civilization that sacrifices the vulnerable to preserve its power is a civilization that has already lost its way. The West, built on the Christian insight that every person bears God’s image, cannot survive if it trades that truth for the false gods of ethno-narcissism and militarism.

On my radio show, A Neighbor’s Choice, I’ve argued that true liberty is the absence of fear—fear of death, lack, or the “other.” Jesus modeled this liberty by refusing to scapegoat, by dining with sinners, by touching lepers. In Gaza, we are called to do the same: to reject the fear-driven narrative that paints all Palestinians as threats, to see their faces as neighbors, not enemies. The world watches as we decide. If we fail this moment, we do not just betray Gaza’s children; we betray ourselves, unraveling the moral fabric that holds us together.

The Gaza crisis is beyond a geopolitical tragedy; it is a spiritual test. It challenges us to live out the Gospel’s radical call to nonviolence and solidarity with the victim. The attempt to repeal Christianity’s personhood revolution will fail because the truth of the Cross is too potent, too deeply woven into our world. But the cost of that failure will be ours to bear if we choose the path of violence over the path of love. Let us choose wisely, lest we find ourselves strangers to the very values that made us who we are.

The post The Gaza Crisis and the Repeal of Christianity’s Personhood Revolution appeared first on LewRockwell.

Warning: The following article contains disturbing content, including the potential presidency of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the next American Civil War.

At the peak of America’s temporary insanity, amid COVID-19 and the George Floyd hysteria, I wrote a novel that imagined a triumphant AOC in the White House, which most people found laughably implausible.

My creative muse entertained dramatic scenarios. The threat of open borders, and the Texas governor sending state troops to the Rio Grande. A raid on President Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago. An aging President Biden dropping out of the 2024 election to be replaced by a left-wing woman of color. State-controlled censorship and a Ministry of Truth. Student loan forgiveness. Weaponization of the judicial system to target political enemies.

I predicted every one of those things in my novel States of Rebellion: The Rise and Fall of the Ocasio-Cortez Administration. Although some of the details were slightly off, my book proved sadly prophetic, albeit under Joe Biden instead of AOC.

The notion of a violent clash between opposing American states may seem farfetched, but we have seen it before. As Mark Twain said, history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.

Out-of-touch coastal elitists underestimate the fire of liberty that still burns in the hearts of American patriots. Unlike any other country on the planet, America has a deeply ingrained spirit of freedom and independence. If constitutional rights get trampled, at some point governors, law enforcement, and military personnel will remember their oaths to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.

In many ways, America has been preparing for the coming crisis. Perhaps our collective subconscious understands what few of us mindfully recognize: that today’s opposing political factions are becoming hopelessly irreconcilable.

In recent years, America has self-segregated along ideological lines. Countless friendships, marriages, and family relationships have ended over these differences. Millions of people have voted with their feet by emigrating from blue states to red states. People are choosing sides.

I’m not saying this is a good thing, but I recognize a pattern—like the growing gulf that separated North and South in the years leading up to the Civil War—where mounting tensions and communication breakdown lead each side to demonize the other, ultimately resulting in violence.

The harmless-looking, mask-wearing Prius driver may amuse you with her “COEXIST” bumper sticker, but don’t be fooled. More and more Democrats openly condone violence—even assassination—in the furtherance of their cause. They celebrate Luigi Mangione as a hero, cheer on Hamas, and yearn for the safe return of an MS-13 wife beater. They have also become strangely enamored with the war in Ukraine that has killed hundreds of thousands of young men.

Despite their bumper stickers and sanctimonious “Hate has no home here” yard signs, there can be no peaceful coexistence between our two diametrically opposed factions. The left will not relent until MAGA is destroyed by any means possible.

Trump and his supporters breathed a huge sigh of relief last year when he and our country literally and figuratively dodged a bullet. Yet we remain a sharply divided nation. And now the leftist resistance is fighting back.

Bernie Sanders and AOC are filling arenas and raising millions from Trump-deranged Democrats who are doubling down on the crazy policies that nearly destroyed America under four years of Biden. Bernie is passing his socialist mantle to AOC, who has emerged as a leading contender for the presidency in 2028.

Now the thought of an AOC White House is not so funny.

The same Marxist-animated ideology of the Biden White House puppet-masters would be unleashed with a vengeance in an Ocasio-Cortez administration. And it very well may produce the dreaded outcome detailed in my book: the next American civil war.

Republican control of the executive and legislative branches is an extremely fragile thing. The fate of our fifty-fifty nation hinges upon a few thousand votes in fickle swing states. American memories are woefully short, and by 2028 the failures of the left’s policies will be largely forgotten in many corners.

With the departure of a multitude of MAGA voters from blue states like California, New York, Illinois, and Massachusetts, those constituencies are hardening in their resistance to Trump’s America First agenda. They will not go quietly into the night.

They hate Trump more than they love America. They demonstrate that hatred by fighting Trump’s every move, even to the shocking point of abusing the judiciary to return foreign criminal gang members to America’s streets.

They cheered on the destructive policies of a cognitively impaired Joe Biden—record-level inflation, unsustainable debt, widespread foreign disasters, a flood of illegal immigration, and failed energy policies—despite irrefutable damage to the country.

They reveal their disdain for the Constitution by calling for government censorship of speech they don’t like, by engaging in lawfare to eliminate political opponents, and by centralizing power in an unlimited administrative state. While they enjoy their own armed security, they seek to deny private citizens their Second Amendment rights.

How does this all end? AOC and her leftist followers understand Chairman Mao’s edict that power flows from the barrel of a gun. Let’s hope that the guns remain in the hands of those who support and defend the Constitution.

The post Stranger than Fiction: Could An AOC Presidency Spark the Next Civil War? appeared first on LewRockwell.

The toilet paper shortages of 2020 may be behind us, but that doesn’t mean that everything is hunky-dory. Shortages continue to plague not only our land but the world as a whole. Entire industries are struggling to overcome the scarcity of parts and materials, while consumers are forced to forget about finding a good deal, settling for just the things they need.

As Americans, we are so accustomed to living in a world full of plenty that we’re a bit taken back by seeing store shelves that are poorly stocked. Even though our stores are better stocked right now than much of the world is accustomed to seeing, for us, it’s a bit hard to accept.

Yet this situation isn’t likely to change anytime soon. These are the long-term economic effects of the pandemic, which some warned about, but most of those in authority ignored. That wasn’t just here in the United States either; much of the world ignored those warnings. Because the supply chain for most products snakes its way through several countries, shutting down factories in one country can have a long-lasting impact on the other side of the world.

We weren’t the only country experiencing lockdowns in 2020. Some countries instituted them to a much greater extent than we did, to the point where people were going hungry because the food stores were closed. Our lockdowns were initiated in a rather selective manner, giving big businesses the advantage by calling them “essential” and their employees “essential workers.” While that was done mainly to keep food on people’s tables, it destroyed millions of small businesses while making the retail giants even stronger.

Now that businesses are supposedly open around the world again, we’re finding out the true impact of those lockdowns. Not only did it bankrupt millions of small businesses, but it shut down small parts manufacturers, keeping them from making the parts needed by assembly plants that manufacture the products you and I use every day. Manufacturing jobs can’t be done from home. And at the same time that was happening, there was a surge in the purchase of electronics, partly fueled by people working from home.

As of this writing, there are shortages of the following items:

• Computer chips
• Cars, including used cars and rental cars
• Gasoline
• Raw plastics
• Truck drivers
• Houses, including vacation houses
• Lumber
• Typical household and personal hygiene products
• Furniture
• Chicken, bacon, hot dogs, corn
• Imported foods
• Chlorine for swimming pools and fabric bleach
• Labor, although the unemployment rate is currently at 5.2%
• Nike shoes
• School supplies

Please note that not all of these shortages exist in all areas of the country. Likewise, I’m sure that I haven’t covered everything; there’s a good chance of a shortage of something in your area, which I have missed in this list.

Where’s this all Going?

While some might say that we Americans are spoiled and living with shortages will do us good, those shortages negatively affect the economy. Let me be clear, though; when many people hear the term “economy,” they think of major corporations and millionaires. But I’m not concerned about them; I’m worried about the average American, the ones who struggle to make ends meet every day. The people affected by a downturn in the economy are the middle class and poor, including retired people on a fixed income.

Before getting into what the market is doing to prices, let me say that our current inflation hasn’t been caused by the market forces but by the government. All those trillion-dollar-plus bills that Congress passed as “COVID relief” (and which contained a lot that wasn’t COVID relief) were paid for with money borrowed from the Federal Reserve Bank. Whenever that happens, it dilutes the value of the existing money pool, starting the inflationary cycle.

The law of supply and demand applies here. As product shortages continue, we can expect the price of those products to rise. That’s on top of already existing inflation, the highest we’ve seen in several decades. This boils down to less disposable income for families, as wages won’t increase to make up for higher prices.

We already see higher prices on some items, like lumber and meat. While the lumber industry claims that lumber prices will come back down again, it’s unlikely they’ll come back down to pre-pandemic prices. Historical data shows that when prices surge due to shortages, they rarely come back down all the way once the product is abundant.

I just recently read a report on meat prices which finally admits this, stating that the rise in meat prices we’ve seen since the beginning of COVID isn’t going to go away. If anything, we can expect to see meat prices continue to rise as costs for farmers rise as well.

Adding to the higher costs of products, shipping costs are going up as well. The global shortage of shipping is causing rising prices as well. A standard shipping container that could have been sent overseas for about $3,500 a year ago now costs $11,000 to ship. While that increase is spread out across the entire contents of that container, it’s still another addition to the product cost, adding to inflation.

That’s the thing about inflation; once prices go up on essential commodities, it forces others to raise their prices to compensate. A manufacturer of item A who has to pay more to buy material B, a product component, has to raise prices to make up for their additional costs. As they sell their products, others who need to buy them find themselves in the same predicament and raise their prices. Before long, everyone is raising their prices, causing inflation to keep growing cyclically.

If this wasn’t bad enough, we’re also looking at a worldwide shipping shortage. There is a logjam of ships sitting off the California coasts, waiting to offload. Similar sighs can be seen at many of the ports in the far east, where the ships need to be loaded. Part of the problem is that distributors are trying to make up for shortages in their warehouses caused by the lockdowns at the factories. This is causing a massive amount of orders, to the point where there are not enough shipping containers available. But those shipping containers come from a limited number of manufacturers, who can’t increase their volume.

The problem doesn’t stop there. Once the ships are offloaded, there’s a shortage of truck drivers to take those loads to their intended locations. So not only are ships stacking up offshore, containers are stacking up in US ports. It will take months, or even longer, for this all to be straightened out again.

In other words, we can expect prices to keep getting higher and higher, making it harder for us to buy the things we need.

Dealing with those Higher Prices and Product Shortages

With higher prices and product shortages a given, you and I need to figure out how we’re going to make it through the next several years without our families suffering. There are a lot of things that we can do, some conventional and some not so conventional. Each of us will have to figure out what works best for ourselves, as we each have a unique set of circumstances.

Increase Your Income

Probably the best thing that any of us can do to deal with rising costs is to increase our income. No, I’m not joking about that. While many people think that their income is outside their control, in many ways, it isn’t. You can’t control what your employer pays you, but that doesn’t mean you can’t control your income.

Today, most financial gurus will tell you that you should have multiple income streams, including some side hustle. If you depend on just your job for your income, you are highly vulnerable to what happens to that job and that company. Should the company face a downturn in its revenue, your job could be one of the victims of that downturn.

With ready access to the internet, it’s easier to start some side business than ever before. A fair number of very successful online companies began as someone’s side hustle and have now grown to the point where those people have given up their “day job,” as the revenue from their online business outgrew what they were making on the job.

Of course, it takes time to get any side business to show a profit. Don’t expect to start a YouTube channel today and be making a fortune tomorrow. As with anything else in life, the more you put into it, the more you’ll get out of it. There is no “magic” to making money online, despite what all those ads say.

If you’re already self-employed, either through a side hustle or as your full-time job, then there are always ways of increasing your income, primarily by increasing the hours you work and the number of contracts you take on. That means less free time, but then, so does running some side-hustle.

Read the Whole Article

The post Living in a World of Ongoing Shortages appeared first on LewRockwell.

From the Tom Woods Letter:

It began perhaps with Elon’s concerns about the tariff program, but accelerated dramatically when he came out against the so-called Big Beautiful Bill.

Thomas Massie and Rand Paul had been subjected to the usual abuse for their objections to the bill.

Some people — even some who claim to oppose budget deficits — had been piling on against Massie and Rand: why, they don’t understand the long game, they always vote no, they don’t understand that we have to spend in order to cut, whatever.

Meanwhile, what such people couldn’t answer, because there is no good answer, is why Massie and Paul would be attacked but the buffoon Randy Fine endorsed and cheered, or why the atrocious Lindsey Graham was endorsed and lauded and not a finger was laid on him after he went abroad undermining the presumed White House foreign policy.

Doesn’t matter if you’re a Trump fan or not: we can all agree there’s no good excuse for that.

But with the sudden entrance of Elon into the fray on the side of Massie and Paul, the dynamics have changed quickly.

Elon spent today reminding people what some of the key actors had said in the past:

He also recalled some of the previous words of Donald Trump himself:

Trump began hitting back, claiming that Elon cared only about EV subsidies, which were being discontinued:

Elon had in fact been advocating the elimination of such subsidies for years, calling them unnecessary:

And then Elon went nuclear:

After that last tweet, reconciliation seems pretty much impossible.

Never pay for a book again: TomsFreeBooks.com

The post Elon Goes Nuclear Against Trump appeared first on LewRockwell.

Mutzig, France – First stop on my annual visit to France’s mighty Maginot Line forts is this lovely Alsatian town. Mutzig was built by the Germans 1893-1916 to defend against enemy approaches to the important city of Strasbourg. It was – and remains – the largest modern fortress in Europe.

The vast fortress, which covers over 800 acres, was never attacked during World War I by the Germans or French. But as Europe’s first important fortress made of concrete and fully electrified, it was eagerly studied by French engineers and served as a template for the Maginot Line forts two decades later.

Both world wars showed the vulnerability of fixed fortifications. An enemy will always find a way round them or discover a fatal weakness. In regard to the 200-mile-long Maginot Line, the forts did not fail. They held out to the bitter end. The reason for France’s stunning defeat in 1940 was the failure of its field army and its blockheaded generals. Interestingly, a French parliamentary deputy with the effervescent name of Perrier precisely predicted where the Germans would break through the Ardennes Forest in 1940.

Though vulnerable, the fixed defenses of the Maginot Line were hugely popular in France and wildly overestimated because they involved huge construction projects for many of the villages and factories along France’s eastern border with Germany. Just as New Deal make-work projects boosted the United States during the Great Depression.

We see a similar mania in the response to President Donald Trump’s plan to create a national ‘golden dome’ defensive shield to protect the nation from assorted nuclear threats. In many ways, it’s a re-run of President Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars missile shield which never got off the ground but was extremely popular among the public.

Frederick the Great of Prussia noted, ‘he who defends everything, defends nothing.’ As true today as it was in the 18th century.

A national missile defense system to cover the entire nation would be impossibly expensive for a nation already deeply mired in debt. The always powerful military-industrial complex will see Trump’s golden dome fantasy as a second Christmas though the basic technology has yet to be proven.

One wonders if the proponents of this defensive system have noticed that Russia has developed ballistic missiles that can alter course, change altitudes and switch targets? Or that China has ICBM’s aboard freighters in the Pacific. What about evolving electronic countermeasures that can fry enemy communications and guidance systems?

It would be far more prudent for the US to pursue disarmament talks and effective inspection regimes with its rivals than pie in the sky defensive systems that will certainly enrich military companies but fail to protect North America. What’s more, having even a partial anti-missile system will likely make the US more aggressive and prone to wars.

Better to spend the trillions on curing cancer or blindness than on space wizardry. Alas, we have a view of what awaits us. This week, Trump banned people from 12 mostly Muslims nations and imposed restrictions on 7 nations. Good work Mr. President. You and your New York City construction buddies have now made enemies of a quarter of the world’s population.

The post The ‘Golden Dome’ Is Pure Fantasy appeared first on LewRockwell.

Amid the inevitable giant ego clash between Elon Musk and Donald Trump, Musk tweeted that the president “is in the Epstein files,” saying “That is the real reason they have not been made public.”

As we have discussed previously, it is a known fact that Trump is on the Epstein flight logs and has been obstructing the release of the Epstein files. It is also a known fact that Jeffrey Epstein worked with Israeli intelligence and was running a sexual blackmail operation, and that Trump has been bending over backwards to give Israel everything it wants while stomping out American free speech that is critical of Israel’s actions in Gaza.

“I’ve known Jeff [Epstein] for fifteen years. Terrific guy,” Trump said in 2002. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

There’s no reason to take seriously anything Elon Musk says during a textbook case of narcissistic collapse, but for the record if anyone in Washington is likely to have been blackmailed by Epstein it’s Donald John Trump.

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Israel has admitted to arming ISIS-linked gangs as proxy forces in Gaza, throwing some cold water on the fuzzbrained narrative that the west is backing Israel to help defeat Islamic extremism. Israel is backing these forces in order to sow chaos and strife with the goal of advancing its ethnic cleansing objectives in the Palestinian territory.

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Lately whenever I talk about Israel’s ethnic cleansing agenda I get Israel supporters telling me “They’re not doing ethnic cleansing! They’re just making the Palestinians leave Gaza because they don’t want them there!” Which is yet another reminder of how stupid Israel apologists are, because the forced mass expulsion of an undesired ethnic group is precisely the definition of ethnic cleansing.

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I have this conversation every single day:

Me: Here’s evidence of Israel doing something evil.

Israel supporter: All Hamas has to do is surrender and release the hostages and this ends immediately.

Me: No that’s false, Israel is openly saying the slaughter will continue until all Palestinians have been ethnically cleansed from Gaza regardless of whether Hamas surrenders or the hostages are released. Here’s a pile of evidence showing that this is the case.

Israel supporter: Yeah well that’s what happens when you start a war you can’t win. Next time don’t do terrorism.

Me: You were just claiming Hamas can end this at any time by making different decisions. Now that you know Hamas is powerless to stop Israel’s ethnic cleansing atrocities you have pivoted to saying all Palestinians deserve mass murder and ethnic cleansing. Sounds like you’ll just support Israel no matter what it does regardless of facts or morality.

Israel supporter: ANTISEMITE ANTISEMITE ANTISEMITE ANTISEMITE

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I keep meaning to talk about how the Trump administration is reportedly granting oligarch Peter Thiel’s odious company Palantir a central role in a massive authoritarian expansion in government surveillance powers which would see American data compiled and tracked across multiple government agencies.

For those who don’t know, Palantir is a CIA-backed surveillance and data mining tech company with longstanding ties to both the US intelligence cartel and to Israel, and has already been playing a crucial role in both the US empire’s sprawling surveillance network and Israeli atrocities against Palestinians.

This is being framed by the political/media class as a Trump policy, but it’s obviously a US empire policy. These sweeping surveillance powers are intended to remain in place long after Trump is gone, regardless of who happens to be in office.

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We are being asked to believe that individuals becoming violently radicalized by the ongoing genocide in Gaza is of greater concern than the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

No. That isn’t going to happen.

Perhaps the best way to stop people from committing acts of violence in response to the genocide in Gaza would be to cease actively fucking facilitating the fucking genocide in Gaza.

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Palestine supporters: Here’s a video that just came out showing Israel massacring Palestinian civilians again.

Israel supporters: Okay, so, two thousand years ago…

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The world waking up to Israel’s depravity reminds me of the moment I first saw how nasty and abusive my ex was. That first glimpse when I finally let myself see the sadism and ill will he had for me was the beginning of the end.

Maybe the world is beginning its own moment of clarity.

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The post Epstein, Israel, ISIS, Palantir appeared first on LewRockwell.

In any alternative media space, you are sure to find much talk about US dollar dominance, as well as optimistic forecasts of its imminent decline. This is also true in the radical right, where nationalists pine after an end to US imperial hegemony and the rise of a more multipolar world.

Often though, this hope is little more than wishful thinking, with unlikely challengers to US power much overhyped. This is especially true concerning US dollar hegemony, a topic that is ripe for misunderstanding at the best of times.

It’s important to keep in mind that people have been forecasting the decline of the dollar ever since it attained its status as global reserve currency. As far back as 1960, the economist Robert Triffin was warning of an “imminent threat to the once-mighty US dollar”. Understanding the reason for Triffin’s pessimism, and why it turned out to be misguided, is crucial to understanding today’s global monetary system and the enduring dominance of the dollar.

Triffin’s concerns were more informed than most: his “Triffin dilemma”, as it came to be known, highlighted an inherent problem with a country’s national currency also serving as the reserve currency of choice for the international system. The country supplying the world with the reserve currency has to produce a surplus of money, thereby creating a trade deficit. In other words, the supplier country needs to be continually losing money to fill up the reserves of other countries and make the currency a low-risk option to hold as a reserve. But if the supplier country becomes too indebted to the rest of the world in this scenario, then its currency ceases to be such a low-risk asset, and that’s the dilemma.

After World War II, the US sent lots of dollars abroad through the Marshall Plan, military spending, and the American middle-class importing lots of foreign goods. So how did the domestic US dollar get around Triffin’s dilemma? It didn’t.

Enter the Eurodollar

Triffin’s dilemma was especially a problem for the US dollar because it was backed by gold. After all, what would happen when the world needed more dollars than US gold reserves could back? Much like the kind of collapse that would happen if everyone tried to withdraw their money from banks at the same time, the whole system faced implosion if the US could not keep its foreign dollars backed up with gold.

The standard story is that this problem was resolved in 1971, when Richard Nixon ended the Bretton Woods international system and finally decoupled the US dollar from gold. But by this point, private banks had already long replaced gold exchange and quietly adopted a new form of exchange, extricated from any reserves or real currency, this was a truly global, offshore economic system outside the purview of central banks. This was the Eurodollar system. In this context, “Euro” is used as a synonym for “offshore” rather than referring to actual euros. So, the Eurodollar system is the shadow, offshore money system denominated in US dollars.

No one is really sure of how the Eurodollar system emerged (more on that later), but by the late 1950s there had been a huge growth in US dollar deposits in European banks, mostly in the City of London. With pre-war practices, these deposits would have been remitted to the central bank or deposited to the banks’ accounts in the U.S., but gradually, banks began to use these dollar deposits to issue loans denominated in US dollars. By 1959, the economist Paul Einzig reported that

The Eurodollar market was for years hidden from economists and other readers of the financial press by a remarkable conspiracy of silence. I stumbled on its existence by sheer accident in October 1959, and when I embarked on an enquiry about it in London banking circles several bankers emphatically asked me not to write about the new practice.

Britain’s economic goal of making London a center for international financial capital manifested in deregulation and comprehensive secrecy protections; this gave the city a competitive edge against other European countries, and put it and its web of British offshore territories at the very centre of this emerging system.

Since the election of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government in 1979, Britain has undergone a great experiment. Economically, the UK became the exemplar of neoliberalism in Europe. Politically, the UK has quietly transitioned to a postnational state, undergoing one of the greatest demographic transformations in the West.

As the Eurodollar market exploded, it became the lifeblood of the global economy, quickly fulfilling a need banks had for an international currency system. Banks could now transact rapidly and efficiently across countries and continents without the need of a physical currency, an innovation that helped unleash economic activity. The Eurodollar system functioned like an early cryptocurrency, existing as a digital ledger and communications network rather than a traditional currency.

Driving the global economy is a kind of bankers virtual currency, created by and used to satisfy the demands of banks, a series of claims and liabilities exchanged between banks to meet their monetary needs. How can you travel to Indonesia and make an instant withdrawal from an ATM, withdrawing from your local bank back home? Only with a vastly complex and efficient communications network connecting the global banking system.

The Eurodollar was the emergence of this system, and central banks have little control over it. For all the scare-mongering from libertarians about “Fed money-printing”, it is international bankers — outside the regulations of the US Federal Reserve — who are the ones in control of creating the US dollar supply on international markets. Big commercial banks create Eurodollars using the offshore system without the backing of the Federal Reserve. This is done through fractional lending, where dollar deposits are used as collateral to loan out a higher amount of dollars.

Again: private banks create money out of thin air by creating debt

Discovering money creation rests with private banks is a revelation that tends to shock people and send them into a state of denial — surely the state would not outsource something this fundamental to private actors.

But don’t take my word for it, a source as good as the Bank of England wrote in a report titled “Money creation in the modern economy” that:

Most of the money in circulation is created, not by the printing presses of the Bank of England, but by the commercial banks themselves: banks create money whenever they lend to someone in the economy or buy an asset from consumers. And, in contrast to descriptions found in some textbooks, the Bank of England does not directly control the quantity of either base, or broad money. Of the two types of broad money, bank deposits make up the vast majority – 97% of the amount currently in circulation. And in the modern economy, those bank deposits are mostly created by commercial banks themselves.

So international bankers have created a shadow money system, with the Eurodollar system functioning as a kind of “dark energy” of the global economy, ever-present but unseen, something which the US Federal Reserve or any other central bank can do little to control. In fact, no one even knows how much money exists in the Eurodollar system, with estimates measuring it in anything from tens to hundreds of trillions. As the economist Fritz Machlup once told a meeting of his colleagues:

We don’t even know enough about the Eurodollar market to say that it should be controlled.

If you want to visualise what this shadow money system looks like, this is an attempt at illustrating all the instruments involved in the supply of the US dollar:

Still confused? You’re not alone. If this illustrates anything, it’s that the federal reserve and central banking is just a small part of the story. This enormously complex web developed over decades through private institutions, satisfying the need for a truly global money system unconstrained by national barriers.

But in the process of decoupling the dollar from Federal Reserve reserve control, bankers have given themselves the power to create unsanctioned and unregulated money. This translates to enormous power to override national government’s monetary policy and fulfill many of the roles most people assume central banks and their governments are handling:

Because Eurocurrencies give private financial institutions the unrestricted ability to expand the availability of a particular currency, the country whose currency is the target of the Euroinstrument no longer has exclusive control over its money supply.

…

Furthermore, the lack of reserve requirements on Eurodollars creates a potentially infinite money multiplier, potentially leading to an infinite degree of inflation, all without the input of the Federal Reserve or the U.S. Treasury. Thus, the power to control the number of dollars (or dollar-equivalent instruments) in the market has been taken out of the exclusive control of U.S. authority and diffused among foreign banking institutions.

Discussion around economics is still heavily focused on central bank monetary policy and government programs like Quantitative Easing, which helps maintain the illusion that it’s still accountable, elected representatives with the final say.

It’s understandable we are biased to focus on government institutions: it has always been understood that monetary sovereignty is a prerequisite for political sovereignty. But it is now clear that governments have quietly surrendered a great degree of monetary sovereignty to the private interests running the international banking system — one of the most significant and revolutionary political changes ever, yet one hardly discussed.

It’s shocking to discover the scope and influence of this system, and to discover everything presented here has been out in the open for years, strangely ignored or overlooked by popular economists, financial analysts and politicians alike. Yet some esteemed economists like Paul Einzig and Milton Friedman did identify and study this system, and both also wrote of a grand “conspiracy of silence” by the global banking cartel to hide its existence. Since most economic analysis still ignores it, we are left with an always partial view of how the economy functions.

Read the Whole Article

The post How Shadow Banks Rule the World appeared first on LewRockwell.

It seems that on a daily basis we get more bad news coming out of the Trump administration indicating that this administration is as committed to implementing a control grid as the previous administration. It was on day two of the Trump administration when it announced Stargate and its ten gigantic facilities being constructed to house AI databases. When announced, this scheme touted AI as being able to use mRNA and create individual specific ‘vaccines’ to target cancer. Unfortunately, mRNA causes cancer, and the AI database centers will be used to control Americans.

The project in Abilene, Texas, spans approximately 875 acres. Needless to say, these gigantic energy sucking construction projects were already in motion before trump came into office. This AI infrastructure will be used to control Americans and possibly run whole departments of government.

Recently, it was revealed that the Trump administration is contracting Peter Thiel’s Palantir to create a digital database on every single American. This coincides with recent news that the FDA approved the new mNEXSPIKE vaccine. This COVID mRNA injection will target those over 65 and those with preexisting conditions. In other words, culling the weakest among us.

This comes about a month after the Trump administration has stated that it will start implementing the Real ID. Congressman Thomas Massie has pointed out that the we will not understand the true threat of the REAL ID until everybody is in the new digital database. That is when you will see ‘vaccine passports digital tracking, CDBC, and so on.

The GENIUS Act which passed the House regulates stablecoins, which are digital assets pegged to a fiat currency like the U.S. dollar. Critics argue that the GENIUS Act could indirectly serve as a mechanism to impose CBDC-like controls through private stablecoins by tightly regulating centralized stablecoin issuers, the government could exert significant control over digital financial transactions, mimicking the controls a CBDC would provide without formally creating one.

Disturbingly, Greg Reese reports that Palantir’s AI technology is used to score Palestinians from 1-100 as a potential enemy and select targets for bombing. Greg Reese states:

“Both these AI systems use Palantir’s advanced surveillance technology to track every person’s phone records, social media, and movement patterns. Palantir’s tech is used by the US military and local police departments. It is the premier tool for mass surveillance.”

Reese goes on to state:

“Palantir has significant ties to the CIA, starting in 2004, when the CIA’s venture capital arm, In-Q-Tel, gave Palantir $2 million dollars. Palantir’s Gotham platform was developed by and for the CIA. Initially, the CIA was Palantir’s sole customer for several years. Palantir is the CIA’s surveillance tool.

And now, Palantir is to create a system for the federal government that will monitor every American under an AI system. Linking Social Security, the IRS, and immigration into one centralized system. It will be using its Gotham software, developed by the CIA, to track and condition human behavior.”

It appears that one side wants a Communist/Socialist style control grid, with government monitoring, and the other side wants a fascist style control grid with corporations doing the monitoring. Democrats cared nothing about civil liberties during the Biden/Harris reign of terror, but now are concerned about the surveillance state. Many Republicans that spoke about against the Biden era tyranny are silent on this database issue.

Fortunately, many other Republicans are speaking out. Personally, I see a big divide between the high information and the low information Trump voters. The high information voters are unhappy about many of these police state issues.

There have been hints that there may be more false flags designed to take away liberty and maybe get us into another war. Dr. Paul Alexander recently reported on the Trump administration’s border chief warning about another 911 style attack. Don’t fall for it. I wrote three articles last year about this issue of the deep state engaging in false flag operations to take away our liberty and get us into a Mideast war.

The United States borders have been wide open since the 1980s, at least. After the 911 false flag operation and two unpatriotic wars were started, the borders of the United States were closed for a few weeks then they were opened wide. The Jihadist threat was clearly exaggerated. I can think of a dozen ways off the top of my head where 10 or 20 committed people could terrorize the whole country.

It did not happen.

This is very odd when you consider that the delivery system of a weapon of mass destruction coming from the third world is not an ICBM, it is an immigrant, legal or illegal.

Trump’s big beautiful bill was a big government type’s pipe dream adding around 30 trillion to the debt. It cut some domestic spending but boosted the DOD budget to over a trillion dollars and poured a ton of money into DHS. It also has a prohibition on states regulating AI for 10 years. Slightly problematic, hopefully it will die in the Senate. Note: the House passed the bill, but will vote again because of changes made in the Senate.

Elon Musk has come out against the bill, although not because of the AI provision, however, he has spoken in the past that AI needs to be regulated. Musk claims that it is because it is a big government spending bill. Must recently Musk went nuclear on Trump posting on X:

“Time to drop the really big bomb:

@realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public.

Have a nice day, DJT!”

It is impossible to know what started this dispute and if it is really about the big government spending in the bill or if it is really about not getting a promised government contract. Or quite frankly if it is a real dispute and not staged. Going nuclear with the Epstein comment on the part of Musk tends to make me believe this is a real dispute as that will have negative political fallout. Of course, this could have been preplanned as an attempt to get Palantir’s J.D. Vance installed as President.

If we take it at face value and view it as an actual dispute that is getting really ugly, then it is a reflection of the growing anger among high information Trump voters in the big government spending as well as the apparent implementation of a technocratic control grid along with continued biowarfare against Americans in the form of mRNA injections.

It seems as if one side is allowed in to further certain elements of the Uniparty globalist agenda. Then the other side is let in to move the agenda further down the field. Common sense Americans need to resist the infrastructure for tyranny regardless of which party promotes it. If Republicans and Democrats that claimed that they are against the surveillance state did so when their own party was in power too, then we probably would not be so far down this yellow brick road to serfdom…

This article was originally published on Mind Matters and Everything Else.

The post Trump Administration Furthering Control Grid appeared first on LewRockwell.

The attack on Russian strategic forces by Ukraine, with or without President Trump’s knowledge and with or without help from Washington and the British, could have been the most dangerous event in East-West relations during my lifetime.  The reason is that recently revised Russian war doctrine states that an attack, even by a non-nuclear country, on the Russian strategic triad requires a strategic response.  Strategic usually means nuclear or at least a disabling response.  

Putin dodged the responsibility (more later), but no one knew for certain that he would.  In other words, whoever is responsible for the attack on Russia’s strategic bombers subjected Ukraine, Europe, the US to the possibility of nuclear attack, depending on whom the Russians decided was responsible.  This person or persons is a madman, a maniac who must be identified and removed from his position.  Try to imagine how it is possible for, say Zelensky, to launch an attack that could result in nuclear war between the US and Russia.  How can control over whether or not the US faces nuclear war be in the hands of Zelensky?  If Zelensky is responsible, the US and NATO have a massive failure in command and control.  If Trump or someone in the Trump administration gave the green light, they should be removed for committing the most potentially dangerous act during my lifetime.

The extraordinarily reckless and extremely dangerous attack on Russia’s nuclear triad is being treated by all concerned as a nothing event, a mere terrorist act, not an act of war.  The fact that there is no acknowledgement in Washington, Europe, Moscow, or the media of the seriousness of an attack on Russian strategic forces, and thereby no measures put in place to prevent such dangerous acts, means either full scale, not proxy, war between Russia and the West or Russia’s surrender. Perhaps Putin would like to surrender in order to avoid nuclear war, but he won’t be permitted to surrender.

Putin took the lead in burying the seriousness of the attack on Russia’s nuclear triad.  By designating the attack a “terrorist act” he evades the responsibility that Russian strategic doctrine imposes on him for a strategic response.  

Nothing of consequence has happened, says the President of Russia. Amen say Washington and Europe. Therefore, whoever is responsible for the attack knows that the next attack can go further. It too will be unacknowledged as an act of war.

How many times can Putin pretend that attacks on Russia’s sovereignty, which is what attacks on Russia’s nuclear triad are, are mere terrorist events before he discredits himself with the Russian people?  

The purpose of the recent revision of Russian strategic doctrine was to discourage or prevent attacks by Western proxies such as Ukraine on Russian strategic forces. It failed because Putin has taught the West not to take him seriously.  He is ever ready to turn the other cheek.  Now Putin has shown that he will not acknowledge attacks on Russian strategic forces as anything other than a terrorist event, not an act of war.  So Putin has negated Russian strategic doctrine.  It means nothing.  Now that the West knows this, Russia can expect escalating provocations.  All of Putin’s good intentions have ended in disaster, and a major war will be the consequence.

It could be that Russia is doomed.  Decades of successful Western propaganda have turned most of the Russian professional and intellectual class into Atlanticist Integrationists. They think that Russia belongs as part of the West and are willing to make concessions of sovereignty to be part of the West.  Clearly this point of view is strong in the Kremlin and the Russian Foreign Ministry.

The zionist American neoconservatives are very much aware of this Russian weakness, and they are adept at taking advantage of it. They don’t have to do much, because Putin does their work for them. 

Putin has declared Ukraine to be conducting terrorism, not war, against Russia.  Putin’s declaration also absolves Washington and Europe for any responsibility.

Here are English language Russian headlines of Putin’s hiding from reality that apparently he is unable to face up to.  Or perhaps he is not yet ready, being at work constructing a powerful military that US/NATO cannot resist. 

“‘Illegitimate Kiev regime’ turning into terrorist organization” – Putin

“The latest terrorist acts carried out by Ukraine in Russia are the outcome of decisions made by the Ukrainian political leadership.”  Putin added that “the decisions to carry out such crimes were, of course, made in Ukraine” by the political leadership in Ukraine. In other words, Washington and Europe have no responsibility for the act of war, which is not an act of war, but merely terrorism.  See here.

In other words, the Kremlin has said that Washington and Europe have nothing to do with the attack on Russia’s strategic triad, and that Ukraine is merely creating terrorist incidents, not making war against Russia. See here.

I find it hard to believe that Putin is this stupid.  My bet is that he is not yet ready.  He keeps the minor Ukraine conflict going while he builds up to remove NATO from Russian borders.

Trump can remove the coming conflict by giving Putin the mutual security agreement Russia has been requesting for years.  This would be the costless solution, but Trump is not really in power, and the power and profit of the US military/security complex needs the Russian Enemy.

So, how will a devastating war be avoided?  Information such as I have just presented is banned by the official narratives.

The post Can Reality Any Longer Be Acknowledged? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Like many, I find the American political system extremely disenchanting, as while people will frequently complain about the problems facing us, it’s rare they do anything to fix them—rather the issues simply continue to get worse. As such, it’s fairly rare to find elected Federal officials who stay true to their values throughout their tenure and get things done.

Over the years, I’ve become a huge fan of Ron Johnson as his political life has been defined by him wanting to solve problems rather than advance his political career (which he could afford to do as he was a successful CEO) and over the last few years, he’s been willing to go after a variety of issues no one else will touch such as COVID-19 vaccine injuries.

[Tucker Carlson]: I mean, watching what’s happened to you has really been the greatest of all wake up calls for me because I would say of the senators I know, which is most of them, you’re, like, the most temperamentally moderate and accountant, number based, like, not a multi radical at all at all. And there are some crazy people in the congress you’re not. You’re the opposite. You like budgets and stuff. So if they’re calling you a wacko, they discredit themselves.

You’re a business guy from Wisconsin, a very closely divided state. You didn’t win by a huge margin. You never won by 30 points. So, you know, whenever you talk about something in public, you’re taking a bigger risk than, say, the senator from Utah or South Dakota because you could lose an election. I never in a million years thought you, of all people, would be the guy to, like, ask questions about 09/11 or the vax or January 6 and a whole bunch of other issues, and yet you have been the only guy in a lot of cases to ask those questions.

Why? Why are you doing this? Would it just be easier to talk about tax reform or something? I would ask you the same question. You know, why have you been so instrumental in broadening the Overton window on some of these things?

Note: Ron Johnson had planned to retire in 2022 but ran for re-election specifically to help those affected by the vaccine. As he is the only Senator in US history to have actively worked for vaccine safety (something our movement has waited decades for), I’ve prioritized supporting his work throughout the lifespan of this publication. As a result, I’ve had many readers and colleagues reach out to me to share that Ron Johnson deeply cares about doing the right thing, and I can only imagine how frustrating it must have been for someone who genuinely cares to spend years opposing the obstinate Federal COVID bureaucracy.

One of the things that’s been the most strike about Ron Johnson’s attempts to stop the COVID vaccines has been just how little power a Senator has to compel the CDC or FDA to do the right thing (e.g., many of the key COVID government documents his office uncovered were never provided by the H.H.S.).

Nonetheless, he has been extremely methodical and patient in seeking a way to change the current paradigm. He has now ascended to a very unique position: chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. This committee has long been one of the most powerful and broadest investigative bodies in Congress. In parallel, since RFK Jr. is now directing the H.H.S. and has Trump’s full support to enact the MAHA agenda, rather than stonewall Johnson, the documents he is requesting are now being released.

Because of this, he was recently able to hold a pivotal Senate hearing that conclusively showed the Biden Administration, FDA, and CDC were aware the COVID vaccines were causing heart attacks but continually hid that from the public to keep pushing the COVID vaccines on the public.

For those unable to watch the hearings, The Vigilant Fox made an abridged summary of this hearing which received 4 million views, again highlighting how much reach our message has and that the medical industrial complex can no longer cover up its catastrophes with the same playbook it’s used for decades (as it no longer has a monopoly over the mass media).

Likewise, a January 2023 survey found 49% surveyed believe it is likely that side effects of COVID-19 vaccines have caused a significant number of unexplained deaths and 28% personally knew someone whose death may have been caused by side effects of the COVID-19 vaccines and 57% wanted the Congress to investigate the CDC’s conduct with “assessing” COVID vaccine safety. Similarly, a May 2025 poll showed 51% now believe the COVID vaccines caused heart damage (while 21% were unsure and only 28% believed they didn’t).

Note: the gaslighting with heart attacks and strokes from the “clot shot” was eye-opening for me as within a week of the vaccines hitting the market, I’d received numerous reports of sudden deaths and heart attacks following vaccination from friends around the country, and within a month, I had a fairly good understanding of how they were killing people. In contrast, every single medical authority, which had access to massive databases the public can never see somehow could never “detect a safety signal” even as the unusual deaths (e.g., in children and athletes who never die suddenly) kept on accumulating and public demand kept increasing for them to do something.

Recently, Robert Malone gave an excellent synopsis of the current situation:

Although many within the MAHA and Medical Freedom movements were advocating for immediate legislative action to force the removal of these products from the market, Senator Johnson discussed that he strongly believed that it would be necessary first to build national consensus in support of such action. That attempts to move legislatively without broad voter support would be a fool’s errand. He spoke about the coming opportunity to ascend to become chairperson of the Senate DHS permanent subcommittee on investigations, at which time he would have the power of the subpoena and could force disclosure of previously redacted or withheld information from the HHS bureaucracy concerning the hazards associated with these products. The Senator’s proposed strategy revolved around what he anticipated would be staged disclosure of key government documents and correspondences that would prove to (and move) US Citizens to support legislative reversal of the laws and policies that gave rise to the COVID crisis lies and travesties, and what he refers to as the COVID cartel.

Last week’s hearings by the Senate DHS permanent subcommittee on investigations concerning “The Corruption of Science and Federal Health Agencies: How Health Officials Downplayed and Hid Myocarditis and Other Adverse Events Associated with the COVID-19 Vaccines” were stunning. The strongest indicator of impact that I witnessed while sitting in the audience was the three lobbyists sitting in front of me, whom I am quite sure had no idea who I was. They started out sniggering at Senator Johnson’s opening statement, but as the meeting progressed, they became more and more agitated and distraught. I overheard the senior member calling some colleague outside the conference room, and he was clearly quite upset by the testimony. This is winning, and the Senator clearly understands the politics of all of this, as demonstrated by the recent Rasmussen Reports polling that was just disclosed today.

Regarding my HHS contacts, I was told that the team would deploy a strategy closely paralleling that of Senator Johnson. Staged deployment of large blocks of well-vetted and substantiated new information concerning the key topics associated with the MAHA agenda, with the intent of overwhelming the ability of “fake news” media to spin and distract from the underlying inconvenient truths. You can think of this as a “Twitter Files” strategy. The intent being to break through the firewall of propaganda and censorship that will be arrayed against the assembled disruptive team and the new ideas they will promote. Hoping that truth and data will have sufficient power to convince the general citizenry. Hence the massive truth bomb of the MAHA Commission report. Which is the lead in to the second poll cited above- documenting that “American Voters Strongly Support MAHA Policies, Backing Crosses Party Lines.”

This is what winning looks like in the land of the blind, where the one-eyed man is king. Many in the MAHA, sponsored and spontaneous, are quite willing and able to build outrage, anger, clicks, likes, and follows by shouting that things are not perfect, and Bobby et al are not moving fast enough. But from where I sit on my little homestead in the foothills below the Shenandoah National Park, all of this looks like winning at warp speed.

Bobby is staying true to his ideals, and to the ideals of the MAHA movement that has caught fire with key cross-partisan segments of the American electorate. I personally think we are on the verge of a major political realignment. Populist movements are often challenged by the task of translating their ideals into effective political action and achieving long-term change. Frankly, I have been skeptical that this strange bedfellow alliance of MAHA and MAGA could translate all of the layers of hope and passion into sustainable policy. But with leaders like Secretary Kennedy, Senator Johnson, and President Trump, it is looking a lot like this dream just might come true, at least in the near term.

On the horizon, the multifaceted threat to fundamental truth and reality known as Artificial Intelligence will sweep across all of this and profoundly restructure society, business, and government. Some see that impending period of accelerating change as a threat. I see it as an opportunity. I love disruptive change. Kennedy, Trump, Johnson, Gabbard, and many others are agents of change, and from the resulting disruption of industries and existing networks of power and control, new opportunities will emerge for those with the skills and agility to recognize them.

Don’t let the nattering nabobs of negativity distract you. This is what winning looks like, and it is glorious. Focus instead on what you can do to adapt to this change, to innovate, and together help create a decentralized “new world order”.

Disruption is king. Long live the disruption.

Echoing Malone’s points, while it seems as though he’s done very little, numerous conventional colleagues I have are now incredibly distressed and viewing the simple changes RFK has already made (e.g., requiring basic testing for new vaccines or removing the COVID vaccines from the childhood vaccine schedule) to be apocalyptic for our nation’s vaccine program.

Read the Whole Article

The post America’s Disastrous Health Care Deficit appeared first on LewRockwell.

Since 2021, The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) and The Brick in Los Angeles have been planning an exhibition which seeks to re-interpret works of American history as totems of shame. The Monuments  exhibition set for this October, could showcase amazing Beaux Arts sculptures removed from their original locations. Instead, it will feature some paint-splashed monuments, replacing great works of art with political statements.

Removing sculptures and shipping them across state lines both endangers artworks and violates a curator’s proper care as outlined in A Bill of Rights for Works of Art. The museums will include contemporary artists with derogatory themes, also debasing Southern history.

The museums’ mocking of certain Confederate sculptures by displaying them with graffiti or paint is reminiscent in spirit to the 1937 exhibition of artistic works labeled “Degenerate” by Joseph Goebbels’ Ministry of Propaganda in Nazi Germany. Goebbels publicly ridiculed and demonized modern art and artists. In this case, the opposite is true. Many historical  works, admired for generations, will be displayed fallen from their literal pedestals.

By exhibiting desecrated (euphemistically called “decommissioned”) works,  the curators privilege small numbers of protesters over the majority opinion who value the statues remaining in place. Further, the Brick and MOCA seem to tar anyone who believes that Confederate monuments represent funerary commemorations or fine art. The exhibition’s curators crave significance, yet lash out against those who don’t agree with their rhetoric. Museum text touts recent monument removals as a “historic moment,” marking the “evolution of the Confederate monument” from its “roots in a funerary impulse” to its rise as a “crystalline symbol of a white supremacist ideology.” Funerary art is charged with “obstinacy,” “against calls for civil rights.” With such audacity, the exhibition will serve to stir up racial hatred. And, contrary to their claim of “robust scholarship,” the curators are off to an inaccurate start.

This exhibit sees statues erected during Reconstruction and after as “white supremacist,” but those sculptures can still have a commemorative aspect, listing regiments and names of the dead. During Reconstruction, veterans were dying out; families honored them. In 1907 the largest Confederate veteran reunion took place in Richmond for just that reason. Likewise, in Washington D.C., General George McClellan’s statue joined several already-completed Lincoln monuments. Impoverished Southern economies prevented widespread commemoration until the 1890s.

Ironically, The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a modern organization (with assets of over $5 billion) that vilifies the South, has for years labeled funerary Southern art as Jim Crow symbols of white supremacy because of the time period in which the statues appeared. Correlation of time does not prove causation. The SPLC omits the fact that money is needed to pay for memorials. They ignore the fact that Northern cities erected many classically-inspired memorials, and fail to explain how only the South’s statues are white supremacist.

At a recent  NYU round-table, called De-commission, Seth Levi, chief program policy advisor at the SPLC, admitted that two-thirds of the public wants Confederate statues to remain standing. He said that is because they don’t know the Civil War was about slavery. Levi smeared mourners, claiming  if anyone wants to commemorate those who fought to defend slavery, then they’re white supremacists.

Levi’s organization is actively lobbying mayors and city officials to remove 2,000 Confederate statues and rename streets. Levi admitted the SPLC has been accused of erasing history but disagrees with the accusation. By removing public statues, the SPLC is also curtailing conversations about local history.

The Civil War was our nation’s most defining moment after the American Revolution, with nearly 800,000 dead. It reordered the nation’s structure from one of sovereign states to a united nation.

Read the Whole Article

The post Los Angeles’s Monuments Exhibition: The Triumph of Politics Over Art appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Saleh Abdullah. 

NaturalNews.com

The post New research exposes how vaccines trigger SIDS appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Smith. 

AP News

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Thanks, John Smith.

Reuters

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Decade after decade, the Republicans disappoint. They can control all levers of government and they still disappoint. The election last November was supposed to put an end to that. Republicans (with massive public support at their backs) were finally going to lessen the major burdens that Americans are forced to shoulder (spending, deficits, and debt). But then came the Big Beautiful Bill, and once again, Republicans disappoint. All three of the burdens will rise. Elon Musk, who was very instrumental in the election, finally had enough. He joined Thomas Massie in saying we need a SLIM Beautiful Bill.

The post Massie & Musk Are Right — We Need A SLIM Beautiful Bill appeared first on LewRockwell.

Writes Martin Averick:

Recently, there has been a growing disconnect between politicians and ordinary citizens in Europe. Countries turn a blind eye to its own interests and follow Brussels’ directives, especially when it comes to elections or “cancelling” of “inconvenient” influential figures. Thus, the European Union (EU) undermines its own founding values, restricting freedoms of its citizens and normalizing political violence.

The most high-profile episode that revealed an acute crisis of democracy was the recent presidential elections in Romania, which resulted in the unexpected victory of the pro-European politician Nicusor Dan. As George Simion received the overwhelming majority of votes in the first round, his sudden defeat suggests an outside interference. Telegram founder Pavel Durov added fuel to the fire by declaring that the French intelligence was attempting to influence the election campaign in Romania and asked him to ban Romanian conservative voices. One way or another, the country was stripped of the opportunity to independently determine a leader, which clearly does not fit into the concept of democracy.  And this is not the only example of the Brussels puppeteers turning a blind eye to the will of the people. Earlier, the increasingly popular Alternative for Germany was classified as “extremist“, and French far-right politician Marine Le Pen was convicted and barred from seeking public office solely because her policies ran counter to the interests of Brussels.

The pressure on independent politicians and parties comes against the backdrop of the EU’s destructive militaristic course.  Brussels’ acceleration of military build-up is explained by an imagined threat from the East and the deterioration of relations with the United States.  Europe, once a model of democracy and humanity, is rapidly deteriorating, sliding towards militarism and dictatorship, and seems to see war as the only way out for the ruling regime. Meanwhile, the situation in European countries teetering on the brink of economic crisis could just worsen due to increased defense spending and support for the conflict in Ukraine. All these remains of the once-vaunted European democracy and diplomacy are now ruins, in which hundreds of thousands of Europeans may soon be buried.

The post In the ruins of European democracy appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks. John Smith. 

Antiwar.com

The post Israel Is Arming an ‘ISIS-Affiliated’ Gang in Southern Gaza appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, David Martin.

The post Why Elon Threw the Epstein Bomb at Trump appeared first on LewRockwell.

Stephen Manz wrote:

Lew,

Is it a coincidence that the spending bill is abbreviated “BBB,” which is probably the debt rating the US will have after adding another $5 trillion to the federal debt?

In Liberty

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Il manoscritto fornisce un grimaldello al lettore, una chiave di lettura semplificata, del mondo finanziario e non che sembra essere andato "fuori controllo" negli ultimi quattro anni in particolare. Questa è 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 è la storia di un coyote, che quando non riesce a sfamarsi all'esterno ricorre all'autofagocitazione. Lo stesso è accaduto ai membri del G7, dove i sei membri restanti hanno iniziato a fagocitare il settimo: gli Stati Uniti.

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di Joshua Stylman

(Versione audio della traduzione disponibile qui: https://open.substack.com/pub/fsimoncelli/p/ingegnerizzare-la-realta-parte-2)

Catturare la controcultura

Nella Prima parte abbiamo tracciato lo sviluppo delle strutture di controllo dai monopoli fisici di Edison alle operazioni psicologiche del Tavistock, assistendo a come interessi aziendali, bancari e agenzie di intelligence convergessero per plasmare la coscienza pubblica. Ora vedremo come questi metodi raggiunsero una nuova sofisticazione nella cultura popolare, a partire dalla British invasion degli anni '60, che dimostrò come movimenti musicali accuratamente orchestrati potessero rimodellare la società.

I Beatles e i Rolling Stones non erano solo delle band: come ha ampiamente documentato il ricercatore Mike Williams nella sua analisi della British invasion, la loro comparsa segnò l'inizio di una trasformazione culturale sistematica e profonda. Williams osserva che persino il termine stesso “British Invasion” era rivelatore: una metafora militare per quello che apparentemente era un fenomeno culturale, forse un modo per annunciare apertamente l'operazione del Tavistock. Quello che sembrava un giocoso linguaggio di marketing descriveva in realtà un'infiltrazione attentamente orchestrata nella cultura giovanile americana. Attraverso centinaia di ore di ricerca meticolosamente documentata, Williams costruisce una tesi schiacciante secondo cui i Beatles furono la punta di diamante di un programma più ampio che utilizzava album come Sgt. Pepper e Their Satanic Majesties Request dei Rolling Stones per allontanare deliberatamente la cultura giovanile dai valori tradizionali e dalle strutture familiari. Ciò che sembra insipido per gli standard odierni rappresentava un attacco calcolato alle norme sociali, dando inizio a una trasformazione culturale che si sarebbe accelerata nei decenni successivi.

La ricerca di Williams va oltre, presentando prove convincenti del fatto che i Beatles furono essenzialmente la prima “boy band” moderna: la loro immagine era attentamente costruita, la loro musica in gran parte scritta ed eseguita da altri. Questa rivelazione trasforma la nostra comprensione della British invasion: quello che sembrava un fenomeno culturale organico era in realtà un'operazione meticolosamente orchestrata, con musicisti e cantautori professionisti dietro le quinte, mentre i Beatles fungevano da attraenti frontmen per l'imponente progetto di ingegneria sociale.

Da appassionato di musica di lunga data e devoto dei Beatles, affrontare questa evidenza inizialmente mi è sembrato un sacrilegio. Ciononostante il modello diventa innegabile una volta che lo si vede per quello che è. Mentre il dibattito continua su dettagli specifici come il presunto coinvolgimento di Theodor Adorno, esponente della Scuola di Francoforte, nella creazione delle canzoni dei Beatles – un'affermazione che ha sia sostenitori che critici – ciò che è chiaro è che l'operazione portava tutti i tratti distintivi della metodologia di ingegneria sociale del Tavistock.

La deliberata creazione di una dialettica “bravi ragazzi/cattivi ragazzi” (Beatles/Rolling Stones) offriva scelte controllate e permetteva a “entrambe le parti” di promuovere esattamente gli stessi cambiamenti culturali desiderati. Andrew Loog Oldham costruì magistralmente l'immagine di “cattivi ragazzi” degli Stones utilizzando tecniche di pubbliche relazioni che ricordano i metodi di Edward Bernays (il “padre delle pubbliche relazioni”, pioniere della manipolazione psicologica di massa), creando desiderio attraverso l'intuizione psicologica e trasformando la ribellione culturale in una merce commerciabile. Come lo stesso Oldham riconobbe nella sua autobiografia, non vendeva solo musica, ma “ribellione, anarchia e sex appeal racchiusi in un unico pacchetto”, creando deliberatamente un mito in cui il pubblico potesse credere. La sua sofisticata comprensione del branding culturale e della psicologia di massa rifletteva i più ampi metodi di influenza che stavano rimodellando i media e l'opinione pubblica in quel periodo.

Dietro la personalità ribelle di Mick Jagger si celava una formazione alla London School of Economics, a suggerire un insider con una comprensione più profonda dei sistemi di potere. Questo assiduo sviluppo dell'immagine si estese alla cerchia ristretta degli artisti, in particolare alla fidanzata di Jagger, Marianne Faithfull, a sua volta cantante di successo e socialite, il cui padre era un agente dell'MI6 che interrogò Heinrich Himmler e il cui nonno materno aveva origini asburgiche. Le finanze degli Stones erano gestite dal principe Rupert Loewenstein, un aristocratico bavarese e banchiere privato la cui nobile discendenza e i cui circoli finanziari si intersecavano con la dinastia Rothschild – un altro esempio di figure dell'establishment dietro movimenti apparentemente anti-establishment.

Persino l'etichetta discografica stessa si adattava a questo schema: la EMI (Electric and Musical Industries), che firmò sia i Beatles che i Rolling Stones, nacque come azienda di elettronica militare. Durante la Seconda Guerra Mondiale la ricerca e lo sviluppo della EMI contribuirono in modo significativo al programma radar britannico e ad altre tecnologie militari. Questa fusione di interessi militare-industriali con la produzione culturale non fu una coincidenza: le competenze tecniche della EMI in elettronica e comunicazioni si sarebbero rivelate preziose sia in ambito bellico che nella distribuzione di massa di contenuti culturali.

Questi esperimenti britannici di controllo culturale, attentamente gestiti, avrebbero presto trovato il loro laboratorio perfetto in America, dove un'improbabile convergenza avrebbe rimodellato per sempre la cultura giovanile e l'unità della famiglia. La Gran Bretagna aveva sperimentato questi metodi di orchestrazione culturale attraverso la musica, integrando i legami dell'intelligence nella British Invasion, ma l'America avrebbe perfezionato e portato queste tecniche a livelli senza precedenti.

Il laboratorio di Laurel Canyon

Sulle colline sopra Hollywood, tra il 1965 e il 1975, come documentò per la prima volta il giornalista Dave McGowan, si verificò un fenomeno straordinario: l'emergere di una nuova scena musicale incentrata a Laurel Canyon, dove un'improbabile concentrazione di legami familiari tra militari e intelligence confluì per rimodellare la cultura giovanile americana. Questa convergenza non fu casuale: mentre il sentimento anti-guerra si rafforzava negli ambienti accademici, questo nesso tra militari e intelligence contribuì a reindirizzare la potenziale resistenza verso una controcultura satura di droga, incentrata sul “ritiro” piuttosto che sull'opposizione organizzata alla guerra.

I legami tra militari e intelligence all'interno di Laurel Canyon erano impressionanti.

• Il padre di Jim Morrison comandò la flotta durante l'incidente del Golfo del Tonchino che diede inizio alla guerra del Vietnam.

• Il padre di Frank Zappa era uno specialista di guerra chimica all'Edgewood Arsenal, un importante sito di ricerca sulla sperimentazione umana.

• David Crosby, rampollo dei Van Cortlandt e dei Van Rensselaer – membri della famiglia reale americana – discendeva da una stirpe di potere politico che includeva senatori, giudici della Corte Suprema e generali rivoluzionari.

• James Taylor, discendente dei coloni della Massachusetts Bay Colony, crebbe in una famiglia plasmata dal mondo accademico e dal servizio militare, incluso il ruolo del padre nell'Operazione Deep Freeze in Antartide.

• Sharon Tate, figlia del tenente colonnello Paul Tate, ufficiale dell'intelligence dell'esercito, frequentò questi ambienti prima di morire.

• Dennis Hopper, il cui padre era un agente dell'OSS, diresse Easy Rider con Peter Fonda, confezionando la ribellione della controcultura per il consumo mainstream.

La trasformazione fu sistematica: dall'ottimismo e dall'unità del dopoguerra incarnati dalla New Frontier di JFK alla frammentazione calcolata che seguì il suo assassinio. Questo trauma pubblico e di massa, perfettamente in linea con i metodi di ingegneria sociale del Tavistock basati sullo shock psicologico, segnò la fine del genuino ottimismo. I boomer, cresciuti in una prosperità senza precedenti e ispirati dalla visione di Kennedy di una Nuova frontiera, videro il loro potenziale per un'autentica trasformazione sociale e politica reindirizzato in movimenti culturali accuratamente elaborati che avrebbero plasmato le generazioni successive. Queste connessioni pervasive tra figure dell'intelligence militare e leader della controcultura – dall'ammiraglio padre di Morrison al genitore di Zappa, specialista in guerra chimica, alla dinastia politica di Crosby – rivelano uno schema chiaro: la sistematica cooptazione della cultura giovanile da parte dei poteri istituzionali.

Il momento in cui il Laurel Canyon emerse come centro della controcultura coincise con gli anni di massimo splendore del programma di controllo mentale MK-Ultra della CIA. Non fu una coincidenza. Le stesse organizzazioni che sperimentavano il controllo della coscienza attraverso metodi chimici, come l'LSD, si stavano contemporaneamente integrando negli sforzi di programmazione culturale. La convergenza di queste strategie a Laurel Canyon gettò le basi per quella che sarebbe presto diventata la fusione su vasta scala di musica e sostanze psichedeliche: uno sforzo calcolato per contrastare la resistenza politica che stava sorgendo spontaneamente, incanalandola in un movimento incentrato sulla trascendenza personale piuttosto che su un'azione collettiva efficace.

Programmare la rivoluzione

Basandosi sulle basi psicologiche e culturali stabilite a Laurel Canyon, la fusione di musica e sostanze psichedeliche segnò l'apice della manipolazione della coscienza. Questa fase di programmazione culturale di massa reindirizzò strategicamente la resistenza politica verso canali culturali gestiti artificialmente, allontanando il dissenso dai movimenti organizzati e indirizzandolo verso un'astinenza frammentata e alimentata dalla droga.

Persino i Grateful Dead, la quintessenza della controcultura californiana, che coltivarono un seguito devoto e che definì la ricerca di comunità e significato di una generazione, erano intrinsecamente legati a meccanismi di controllo sociale. Il loro manager, Alan Trist, non era solo il figlio del fondatore del Tavistock, Eric Trist, ma era anche presente all'incidente d'auto in cui perse la vita l'amico d'infanzia di Jerry Garcia, Paul Speegle, una tragedia che spinse Garcia a formare la band. Il legame militare di Garcia aggiunge un ulteriore livello di intrigo: dopo aver rubato l'auto della madre nel 1960, gli fu offerta la scelta tra il carcere e il servizio militare. Nonostante le ripetute assenze ingiustificate da Fort Ord e dal Presidio di San Francisco, Garcia ricevette solo un congedo generale, un esito insolitamente clemente che solleva interrogativi sui potenziali legami ufficiali. Nel frattempo il paroliere della band, Robert Hunter, partecipò a esperimenti con l'LSD finanziati dal governo federale, legati alla più ampia ricerca psichedelica dell'epoca. Come house band dei Merry Pranksters, anch'essi legati alla CIA, i Grateful Dead giocarono un ruolo chiave nel guidare il sentimento anti-guerra verso la ritirata psichedelica, allineando la controcultura a programmi sponsorizzati dallo stato in modi che meritano un esame più approfondito.

Questo allineamento tra interessi della controcultura e dell'establishment si dimostrò incredibilmente efficace. Mentre il sentimento pacifista si rafforzava nei circoli accademici – dove una vera resistenza poteva minacciare il potere costituito – l'emergere del movimento hippie reindirizzò l'opposizione verso una controcultura giovanile satura di droghe e focalizzata sull'evasione piuttosto che sulla resistenza organizzata. Con l'intensificarsi delle operazioni della macchina bellica in Vietnam, i giovani americani furono guidati verso la dissoluzione culturale – una formula perfetta per neutralizzare movimenti pacifisti significativi. Lo stesso complesso militare-intelligence che aveva guidato la guerra stava simultaneamente plasmando la cultura che avrebbe impedito un'efficace resistenza ad essa.

Il ruolo di Timothy Leary in questa trasformazione fu cruciale. Prima di diventare la voce più influente del movimento psichedelico, era stato un cadetto a West Point e in seguito avrebbe prestato servizio come informatore dell'FBI. La sua difesa delle sostanze psichedeliche emerse parallelamente all'esplorazione, da parte della CIA, di sostanze come l'LSD durante l'era MK-Ultra. John Lennon rifletté in seguito su questa confluenza con pungente ironia: “Dobbiamo sempre ricordare di ringraziare la CIA e l'Esercito per l'LSD. È questo che la gente dimentica... Hanno inventato l'LSD per controllare le persone e quello che hanno fatto è stato darci la libertà”. Questo apparente ritorno di fiamma del programma mascherò un successo più profondo: smantellare la potenziale resistenza attraverso la promozione del disimpegno chimico. Diffondendo il mantra “accendi, sintonizzati, abbandonati”, Leary portò avanti questo programma. Un tale riorientamento non solo frammentò l'opposizione giovanile, ma indebolì anche i loro legami con i sistemi di supporto tradizionali come la famiglia e la comunità – esattamente il tipo di atomizzazione sociale che avrebbe reso più facile il controllo futuro.

La sovrapposizione tra la ricerca sull'LSD finanziata dal governo federale e la scena musicale emergente era tutt'altro che casuale. Mentre MK-Ultra esplorava metodi chimici per il controllo della coscienza, l'industria musicale stava contemporaneamente perfezionando metodi culturali, con band come i Grateful Dead che collegavano entrambi i mondi attraverso i loro legami con gli esperimenti sull'LSD finanziati dal governo federale e la controcultura in rapida ascesa.

Reindirizzare la resistenza

I modelli di collegamento tra la leadership governativa e i movimenti musicali non si limitavano all'era psichedelica. Con l'evoluzione della musica popolare attraverso nuovi generi e decenni, le stesse relazioni di fondo continuano a esistere tra l'establishment e l'influenza culturale.

Nella scena hardcore punk figure come Ian MacKaye (Minor Threat, Fugazi), il cui padre faceva parte del White House Press Corps ed era presente all'assassinio di JFK, sarebbero diventate quelle più indipendenti, aprendo la strada all'etica del fai da te attraverso la sua etichetta Dischord Records. I suoi legami con l'establishment risalivano a molto prima: suo nonno Milton MacKaye era un giornalista e dirigente dell'Office of War Information. Il suo approccio autonomo sembrava resistere al sistema, eppure i suoi legami con l'establishment evidenziano un modello più ampio. Lo stesso nel rock alternativo: il padre di Dave Grohl fu assistente speciale del senatore Robert Taft Jr. durante l'amministrazione Reagan. Madonna, divenuta la pop star per eccellenza degli anni '80, è figlia di Tony Ciccone, un ingegnere che lavorava a progetti militari per Chrysler Defense e General Dynamics Land Systems.

Avere genitori coinvolti in attività governative, di difesa o di intelligence non implica necessariamente che questi artisti abbiano commesso illeciti; tuttavia questi esempi rappresentano solo una minima parte dei legami documentati tra figure della controcultura e strutture di potere. Il modello si estende attraverso decenni e generi, con centinaia di casi simili che suggeriscono non una coincidenza ma un disegno sistematico: dai musicisti jazz sostenuti da famiglie di banchieri ai punk rocker con legami con il governo, fino alle pop star provenienti da famiglie dell'industria della difesa. Questi legami pervasivi sollevano interrogativi sul rapporto tra potere della classe dirigente e influenza culturale.

Forse nessuna famiglia esemplifica meglio la fusione tra operazioni di intelligence e produzione culturale dei Copeland. Miles Copeland Jr., che contribuì a fondare la CIA e orchestrò colpi di stato in tutto il Medio Oriente, ha descritto nel dettaglio le strategie psicologiche alla base di questa integrazione nel suo libro The Game of Nations. In questo testo Copeland delineò esplicitamente la metodologia di manipolazione che avrebbe plasmato sia le operazioni di intelligence che la cultura popolare: “Nel mondo delle operazioni segrete, nulla è ciò che appare. La chiave non è solo controllare le azioni, ma controllare la percezione delle azioni”.

Suo figlio Miles Copeland III divenne una figura chiave nell'industria musicale, gestendo gruppi influenti come i Police (con il fratello Stewart come batterista) e fondando la I.R.S. Records. Attraverso quest'ultima, Copeland avrebbe plasmato l'ascesa della musica alternativa nel mainstream, gestendo gruppi come i R.E.M., guidati da Michael Stipe, un altro figlio di militari. I Copeland rappresentano un un ponte tra operazioni segrete e produzione culturale, cosa che dimostra come le metodologie di intelligence si siano evolute dall'intervento diretto all'influenza sottile attraverso l'intrattenimento. Il loro successo nel fondere il fascino della controcultura con la redditività commerciale è diventato un modello per la futura creazione di narrative ufficiali.

Questo modello di ingegneria culturale segue principi storicamente coerenti. Artisti e movimenti allineati con obiettivi di intelligence ricevono una promozione senza freni, mentre la vera resistenza subisce la soppressione o l'eliminazione. La tragica fine di personaggi come Phil Ochs e John Lennon, entrambi sotto la documentata sorveglianza dell'FBI per le loro minacce dirette al potere statale, contrasta notevolmente con le traiettorie di carriera di coloro che hanno presentato la ribellione entro limiti più convenzionali.

Ingegnerizzare il genere

Sebbene la musica si sia rivelata il laboratorio perfetto per testare il controllo della coscienza di massa, questi metodi si sarebbero presto estesi ben oltre l'intrattenimento. In nessun luogo ciò fu più evidente che nella deliberata riorganizzazione dei ruoli di genere e delle strutture familiari, con l'obiettivo di rimodellare gli aspetti intimi dell'identità e delle relazioni umane.

La calibrazione strategica delle narrazioni femministe emerse come un esempio particolarmente significativo, con le agenzie di intelligence che plasmavano attivamente le politiche di genere attraverso i media e l'attivismo organizzato. Gloria Steinem, che ha ammesso di aver lavorato con organizzazioni finanziate dalla CIA come l'Independent Research Service durante gli anni '50 e '60, esemplifica questa intersezione. La sua rivista Ms. Magazine, inaugurata nel 1972, fondeva ideali femministi con messaggi attentamente curati, mentre la Steinem in seguito ammise di aver partecipato a eventi finanziati dalla CIA volti a influenzare i movimenti femministi durante la Guerra Fredda.

L'ammissione di Nicholas Rockefeller all'amico Aaron Russo sottolineava come la liberazione femminile fosse strategicamente finanziata per espandere il controllo statale e corporativo, raddoppiando la base imponibile attraverso la partecipazione al mondo del lavoro, indebolendo i legami familiari attraverso l'aumento dei tassi di divorzio e aumentando l'influenza dello stato sui figli attraverso l'assistenza all'infanzia gestita sempre dallo stato.

In quello stesso periodo programmi influenti come That Girl e The Mary Tyler Moore Show contribuirono a normalizzare proprio questi cambiamenti, diffondendo l'archetipo della donna indipendente e concentrata sulla carriera in modi che si allineavano notevolmente con gli obiettivi sistemici.

Questa trasformazione fu capillare. Le riviste femminili passarono da contenuti prevalentemente nazionali a messaggi sempre più incentrati sulla carriera. L'evoluzione di Cosmopolitan sotto la direzione di Helen Gurley Brown negli anni '60 esemplificava questa trasformazione, normalizzando non solo la partecipazione delle donne al mondo del lavoro, ma anche promuovendo la liberazione sessuale al di fuori del matrimonio tradizionale: una duplice agenda che si allineava perfettamente con gli interessi aziendali nell'espansione sia del bacino di lavoro che della base di consumatori.

Questa deliberata definizione dei movimenti di genere si è estesa fino ai giorni nostri, con il Tavistock Institute che continua a plasmare le narrazioni moderne. Dallo spostamento delle riviste femminili verso messaggi di carriera negli anni '60 all'incessante promozione odierna di narrazioni sul genere, questi movimenti si allineano costantemente con obiettivi guidati da un'agenda ben precisa.

Mercificazione della resistenza

Le tecniche perfezionate a Laurel Canyon per trasformare la resistenza autentica in prodotti culturali redditizi si sarebbero evolute in quadri di controllo sempre più complessi. Dai pionieristici Grateful Dead nella cultura dei festival ai festival musicali moderni come Coachella, autentici spazi di controcultura sarebbero stati sistematicamente convertiti in imprese commerciali.

Entro gli anni '90 questi metodi si erano evoluti nella sistematica cooptazione della resistenza autentica. Mentre i baby boomer sperimentavano il passaggio dall'ottimismo alla disillusione, la generazione X si trovava di fronte a un meccanismo più raffinato che mercificava l'alienazione stessa. Il percorso di Kurt Cobain da autentica voce del malcontento generazionale a prodotto di MTV ha dimostrato come l'apparato di influenza si fosse evoluto, non più limitandosi a reindirizzare la resistenza, ma trasformandola in prodotti culturali redditizi. Questa mercificazione si è estesa oltre la musica: marchi come Nike hanno trasformato la cultura di strada anti-establishment in campagne di marketing globali attraverso figure come Michael Jordan e Charles Barkley. La cultura “alternativa” dell'epoca divenne talmente tanto commercializzata che emersero centri commerciali come Hot Topic per vendere “ribellione” preconfezionata agli adolescenti di periferia, trasformando i simboli della controcultura in offerte di vendita standardizzate.

Il completo dirottamento delle scene musicali underground dimostra quanto la struttura di potere avesse perfezionato la manipolazione culturale. Proprio come le agenzie di intelligence avevano reindirizzato la controcultura degli anni '60, le aziende svilupparono metodi avanzati per catturare e mercificare la dissidenza organica. Il Vans Warped Tour ha trasformato il punk rock, un tempo autentica espressione di ribellione giovanile, in una piattaforma di marketing aziendale itinerante, completa di palchi sponsorizzati e merchandising brandizzato. Il programma dell'accademia musicale di Red Bull è andato oltre, creando quello che equivale a un sistema di allerta precoce per movimenti culturali potenzialmente destabilizzanti. Identificando in anticipo generi e artisti underground emergenti, è stato possibile reindirizzare l'espressione culturale autentica verso canali commerciali prima che sviluppasse un autentico potenziale rivoluzionario.

Anche le scene più ferocemente indipendenti si sono dimostrate vulnerabili a questo sistema. Le major hanno creato false etichette indipendenti per mantenere la credibilità underground, controllando al contempo la distribuzione. Le compagnie del tabacco hanno preso di mira club e rave specifici, comprendendo che la credibilità subculturale potesse essere convertita in quote di mercato. Il modello stabilito a Laurel Canyon – quello di trasformare la resistenza autentica in prodotti redditizi – si è evoluto in una scienza di cattura culturale.

Proprio come le connessioni dei Grateful Dead col governo federale hanno contribuito a stabilire modelli per spazi culturali controllati, i festival musicali moderni fungono da punti di raccolta dati e laboratori comportamentali. L'evoluzione dagli Acid Tests alle lineup dei festival curate algoritmicamente dimostra quanto profondamente si sia digitalizzato il quadro dell'influenza.

La macchina delle celebrità

L'approccio perfezionato da Gloria Steinem – incanalare autentici movimenti sociali attraverso portavoce attentamente gestiti – si sarebbe evoluto nell'attuale modello meticolosamente elaborato di attivismo delle celebrità.

Questa gestione algoritmica si estende oltre i contenuti, fino al talento stesso, con le piattaforme che determinano sempre più non solo cosa ha successo, ma anche quali voci devono emergere. Il posizionamento strategico degli attivisti famosi dimostra quanto profondamente gli interessi istituzionali siano penetrati nell'intrattenimento. Il coinvolgimento di George Clooney nel Council on Foreign Relations, che prosegue un legame familiare multigenerazionale con il potere iniziato con il giornalismo del padre, Nick Clooney, durante la Guerra Fredda, esemplifica come questi legami tra l'intrattenimento e l'establishment spesso attraversino generazioni. L'evoluzione di Angelina Jolie da ribelle di Hollywood a Inviata Speciale dell'UNHCR esemplifica come l'attrattiva della controcultura possa essere reindirizzata verso obiettivi statali. Analogamente, l'impegno ambientale di Leonardo DiCaprio, promosso attraverso le piattaforme del WEF pur mantenendo uno stile di vita da jet privato, mostra come anche le preoccupazioni legittime vengano plasmate per allinearsi ai quadri elitari. Il modello di interventi in caso di crisi di alto profilo adottato da Sean Penn – dall'uragano Katrina ad Haiti, dal Venezuela di Hugo Chávez alla più recente Ucraina – solleva interrogativi sull'accesso selettivo alle piattaforme. Mentre le celebrità allineate all'establishment ricevono un'amplificazione senza fine, coloro che mettono in discussione le narrazioni ufficiali si ritrovano spesso emarginati o messi a tacere.

Come l'organizzazione femminista di Steinem, sostenuta dalla CIA, l'attivismo delle celebrità moderne spesso si allinea straordinariamente bene con gli obiettivi della classe dirigente. Il percorso da figura della controcultura a voce dell'establishment è diventato un modello replicabile.

Marketing della cultura moderna

Gli equivalenti moderni della programmazione controculturale dimostrano come questi sistemi rimangano altamente efficaci. Dall'industria dell'intrattenimento alle case di moda di lusso, gli ingegneri culturali di oggi creano narrazioni in linea con gli interessi delle élite, sotto la maschera del progresso.

Questo modello di ristrutturazione sociale coordinata si estende a molteplici settori e piattaforme. Il ruolo dell'industria della moda è diventato esplicito attraverso episodi come la controversa campagna del 2022 di Balenciaga, la quale mostrava bambini con immagini di bondage. Mentre l'indignazione pubblica si concentrava sulla controversia immediata, l'incidente ha rivelato come le case di moda spingano sempre più narrazioni su genere, sessualità e norme sociali.

Proprio come gli Stones e i Beatles hanno incanalato la ribellione in forme accettabili, gli architetti culturali di oggi creano una resistenza attentamente calibrata. I temi dell'alienazione di Billie Eilish offrono alla generazione Z uno sbocco commercialmente valido per il malcontento, mentre la sfida di Lizzo agli standard di bellezza convenzionali si allinea con gli interessi aziendali nella promozione di prodotti farmaceutici, prodotti per il benessere e beni di consumo su misura per un pubblico eterogeneo. Anche gli artisti di maggior successo riflettono questi legami con l'establishment: i legami familiari di Taylor Swift con le dinastie bancarie, incluso il ruolo del nonno nella Federal Reserve, dimostrano quanto queste relazioni siano ancora profondamente radicate. Come ha documentato il ricercatore Mike Benz, i materiali di formazione della NATO identificano la Swift come una figura chiave per l'amplificazione del messaggio, rivelando come l'influenza burocratica operi nell'era digitale.

Quando la salute diventa ideologia

La promozione di stili di vita non salutari persegue molteplici scopi sistemici. Una popolazione focalizzata sulla “body positivity” che lotta contro l'obesità e le malattie croniche diventa più redditizia per le aziende farmaceutiche e più dipendente dai sistemi istituzionali.

Questo programma si manifesta nel modo in cui la cattiva salute viene celebrata come progressista e inclusiva. Campagne pubblicitarie e media aziendali descrivono le corporature obese e gli stili di vita non salutari come comportamenti responsabilizzanti e normalizzati che, nella maggior parte dei casi, portano a una cattiva salute a lungo termine. Ad esempio, Cosmopolitan ha pubblicato una copertina a febbraio 2021 con lo slogan “This is Healthy!” accompagnato da immagini di corporature non convenzionali, mentre Nike ha introdotto manichini plus-size nei suoi negozi principali, generando un notevole interesse mediatico. Questi sforzi sono stati celebrati come pietre miliari dell'inclusività, consolidando il movimento della “body positivity” come pietra di paragone culturale.

Allo stesso tempo fitness e allenamento vengono sempre più inquadrati come simboli di estremismo. Articoli di giornale e articoli di opinione collegano la cultura dell'allenamento e la salute fisica a ideologie pericolose, dipingendo la disciplina personale come un indicatore di radicalizzazione politica. Questa narrazione palesemente assurda riformula sottilmente l'esercizio fisico non come benessere e disciplina personale, ma come simbolo di un estremismo di destra.

Questa deliberata inversione rispecchia la distopia di Orwell: la salute diventa dannosa, mentre la cattiva salute diventa virtuosa. Riformulando il benessere fisico e il miglioramento personale come forme di devianza, queste narrazioni distorcono i valori sociali, allineandoli all'autocompiacimento come ideale morale.

I semi di questo cambiamento sono stati piantati durante la pandemia, dove le politiche di sanità pubblica hanno ampiamente ignorato le pratiche di benessere fondamentali. Invece di promuovere il sole, l'esercizio fisico, una corretta alimentazione o la perdita di peso – nonostante l'obesità sia il fattore di rischio più elevato – i messaggi ufficiali enfatizzavano l'isolamento, l'uso delle mascherine e il rispetto delle regole.

Nell'era post-pandemica, questi temi si sono ulteriormente evoluti, riformulando la salute e la disciplina personale non solo come inutili, ma anche come politicamente pericolose.

Il modo in cui vengono trattati salute e fitness rivelano un'agenda calcolata atta a promuovere stili di vita non salutari e a demonizzare la disciplina fisica; il risultato è una popolazione più dipendente e controllabile. Non si tratta di contraddizione, ma di convergenza: entrambi gli approcci allontanano le persone dall'autosufficienza e le spingono verso la dipendenza istituzionale. Non si tratta di una contraddizione casuale, ma di un inganno calcolato: proprio come il Tavistock ha imparato a usare la vulnerabilità psicologica per rimodellare la coscienza, le organizzazioni moderne impiegano narrazioni sulla salute per creare nuove forme di controllo sociale.

Questa sistematica rimodellazione della coscienza sanitaria corre parallela a una trasformazione ancora più ampia: la ridefinizione della cittadinanza e dell'identità nazionale stessa. Proprio come l'attività fisica è stata riformulata come estremismo, le nozioni tradizionali di patriottismo e orgoglio nazionale sarebbero state attentamente ricostruite per servire le strutture di potere. L'industria dell'intrattenimento, avendo perfezionato tecniche per modificare le narrazioni sulla salute, avrebbe impiegato gli stessi metodi per rimodellare la comprensione pubblica della lealtà e dello scopo nazionale.

Dare forma al patriottismo

Dall'industria del fitness a Hollywood, le narrazioni sono elaborate per garantire il rispetto degli ideali sistemici, spesso riecheggiando tattiche sviluppate per la prima volta per rimodellare il sentimento pubblico durante l'era isolazionista di cui abbiamo parlato in precedenza. Proprio come l'acquisizione dei giornali da parte di J. P. Morgan nel 1917 contribuì a inquadrare la riluttante partecipazione dell'America ai conflitti globali come un imperativo morale, le serie televisive, gli show in streaming e i film plasmano la percezione pubblica dell'azione militare, esaltandone la necessità e l'eroismo.

Blockbuster moderni come Top Gun: Maverick dimostrano come gli studios debbano sottoporre le sceneggiature al Dipartimento della Difesa per l'approvazione, con modifiche imposte dalle forze armate necessarie per accedere alle attrezzature essenziali e alle location delle riprese. L'influenza del Pentagono si estende anche oltre, all'universo cinematografico Marvel ad esempio. Captain Marvel ha richiesto ampie revisioni della sceneggiatura per ottenere il supporto militare, trasformando la protagonista da pilota civile a ufficiale dell'aeronautica. Un'analoga supervisione militare ha plasmato Iron Man, con il Pentagono che ha richiesto l'approvazione della sceneggiatura in cambio dell'accesso alle basi e all'equipaggiamento. Non si tratta semplicemente di accordi di product placement: rappresentano un controllo narrativo sistematico al centro dell'intrattenimento moderno. Altri film, come Zero Dark Thirty e Argo, sono stati prodotti in collaborazione diretta con la CIA, promuovendo narrazioni allineate agli interessi militari.

La NFL offre un altro esempio lampante di come i campionati sportivi funzionino come estensioni della rete di intrattenimento, sfruttando narrazioni emozionali per plasmare il sentimento pubblico. Sorvoli militari, tributi dei giocatori ai soldati e pubblicità del Super Bowl sono spesso presentati come celebrazioni organiche dell'orgoglio nazionale. Tuttavia, questi momenti derivano spesso da partnership a pagamento con il Dipartimento della Difesa, confondendo i confini tra il patrimonio autentico e messaggi orchestrati. Proprio come i film di successo esaltano l'azione militare, le leghe sportive normalizzano il legame tra patriottismo e servizio militare, rafforzando narrazioni artificiali sotto le mentite spoglie dell'intrattenimento.

Se è vero che il patriottismo autentico e il rispetto per i militari riflettono autentici valori americani, l'attenta cura delle narrazioni militari da parte dell'industria dell'intrattenimento persegue uno scopo più profondo: normalizzare i perpetui interventi stranieri senza incoraggiare una comprensione più profonda di questi conflitti e delle loro terribili conseguenze. Confondendo il sostegno alle truppe con l'accettazione incondizionata dell'azione militare, questi prodotti culturali creano consenso per impegni che la maggior parte dei cittadini non comprende né discute. La trasformazione di complesse realtà geopolitiche in narrazioni eroiche semplificate contribuisce a garantire l'adesione del pubblico senza la necessaria comprensione.

Persino film apparentemente critici come The Bourne Films e La guerra di Charlie Wilson mescolano realtà e finzione in modi che glorificano sottilmente il lavoro dell'intelligence e delle politiche interventiste. Questa costruzione narrativa garantisce che lo scetticismo nei confronti di queste organizzazioni rimanga limitato, rafforzando un senso di patriottismo legato agli ideali e alle politiche statali.

Oltre a questi esempi cinematografici, l'industria dei videogiochi è diventata un potente strumento per strategie di influenza comportamentale. Franchise come Call of Duty hanno incorporato narrazioni pro-militari nel loro gameplay immersivo, fungendo da strumenti avanzati di reclutamento per le forze armate.

Mentre Hollywood e i videogiochi reclutano il pubblico per la macchina bellica, la musica contemporanea è stata trasformata in un'arma simile agli esempi della diplomazia jazz degli anni '50, della “British invasion” e dei musicisti di Laurel Canyon discussi in precedenza. Ciò è davvero eclatante nell'hip-hop, dove la trasformazione del genere da musica di protesta a “gangsta rap” mette in luce come i potenti si approprino di voci autentiche per allinearle agli stessi interessi aziendali e politici che lavorano attivamente per soggiogarli.

Il profitto delle prigioni

L'ascesa dell'hip-hop negli anni '80 coincise con l'epidemia di crack, un capitolo devastante della storia americana esacerbato dal coinvolgimento della CIA con i ribelli dei Contras in Nicaragua – un legame svelato dal giornalista Gary Webb nella sua rivoluzionaria inchiesta. Quello che era nato come un genere che documentava gli effetti dell'oppressione sistemica e del flagello della droga nelle comunità nere divenne presto mercificato. Le crude narrazioni di sopravvivenza e resistenza si trasformarono in rappresentazioni glamour della cultura della droga, allineandosi perfettamente con gli interessi guidati dall'autorità che perpetuano cicli redditizi di incarcerazione e controllo.

La vera agenda dell'industria musicale diventa esplicita attraverso figure come l'icona dell'hip-hop Ice Cube, che ha rivelato come le etichette discografiche e le carceri private abbiano deliberatamente allineato i loro interessi. “Sembra davvero sospetto”, ha osservato Cube, “che i dischi che escono siano orientati a spingere le persone verso quell'industria carceraria”. La sua affermazione secondo cui “le stesse persone che possiedono le [etichette discografiche] possiedono anche le carceri” ha messo in luce lo sviluppo strategico di contenuti per alimentare i sistemi carcerari.

Come ha spiegato Cube “molte delle canzoni più belle che piacciono alla gente sono realizzate da un gruppo di persone che dice ai rapper cosa dire”, sostituendo l'espressione artistica organica con narrazioni attentamente elaborate. Questo spostamento deliberato ha incanalato rabbia e malcontento in comportamenti autodistruttivi, perpetuando cicli di incarcerazione perfettamente allineati con gli interessi aziendali. Il complesso carcerario-industriale ha dimostrato come il controllo sistemico potesse fondere motivazioni di profitto con la programmazione sociale. Questa fusione di sorveglianza, modificazione comportamentale e coercizione economica sarebbe diventata il modello per il sistema di controllo digitale, in cui gli algoritmi tracciano il comportamento, plasmano le scelte e impongono il rispetto delle regole attraverso sanzioni economiche su scala globale.

Ciò che le etichette discografiche hanno realizzato nell'hip-hop – identificare, reindirizzare e mercificare l'espressione autentica – sarebbe diventato il modello per il controllo digitale. Proprio come i dirigenti hanno imparato a trasformare la cultura di strada in prodotti redditizi, gli algoritmi avrebbero presto automatizzato questo processo su scala globale. La trasformazione dalla protesta a profitto non si è limitata alla musica: è diventato il modello di come ogni forma di resistenza culturale sarebbe stata gestita nell'era digitale.

Nella terza parte vedremo come queste tecniche di controllo culturale siano state automatizzate e perfezionate attraverso i sistemi digitali. I metodi di controllo culturale si sono evoluti da fisici a psicologici, da locali a globali, da manuali ad automatizzati. Ciò che ebbe inizio con i monopoli hardware di Edison e raggiunse il suo apice analogico nella manipolazione della cultura popolare, avrebbe trovato la sua massima espressione nei sistemi digitali. La trasformazione dal controllo meccanico a quello algoritmico rappresenta non solo un'evoluzione tecnologica, ma un salto quantico nella capacità di plasmare la coscienza umana.

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

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