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di Mark Jeftovic

Questa settimana si è conclusa male per tutti, con il DJIA che ha perso l'1%, l'indice S&P 500 che ha perso l'1,7% e il Nasdaq che ha perso il 2,55%. Zerohedge l'ha definita “Kamala Karnage”:

È stata un'ondata epica: tutto — letteralmente tutto — e certamente qualsiasi cosa con un beta alto o anche solo una traccia di slancio, è imploso con una violenza tale da far sembrare il 5 agosto una giornata da dilettanti.

Bitcoin ha toccato i $52.700 (una settimana fa sfiorava i $60.000), spingendo i soliti no-coiner a esultare dicendo che “stava implodendo”, come se tutto il resto non stesse andando male.

Quando il 5 agosto è arrivato il Black Monday, l'avviso inviato ai lettori della mia newslettere diceva:

La mia opinione è che questa svendita sia al 100% una crisi di liquidità a livello macro e una richiesta di margine contagiosa a livello globale.

Ha molto poco (niente?) a che fare con Bitcoin, invece ha tutto a che fare con una corsa folle per la solvibilità.

Praticamente tutto è in forte calo e il motivo per cui le criptovalute sono in forte calo è perché, come tutti sappiamo, non ci sono interruttori o “Plunge protection team” per Bitcoin, e tutto avviene 24 ore su 24, 7 giorni su 7, 365 giorni all'anno.

Ecco perché tende a fare sparate sia verso l'alto che verso il basso.

Mettiamo a confronto questa flessione estiva di Bitcoin con il 2021-2022, periodo che è stato soggetto alle dinamiche interne dell'economia degli asset digitali: Terra/Luna, 3AC, Celsius e, naturalmente, il fiasco di FTX hanno portato una meritata epurazione nel settore e (alcuni dei) protagonisti più eclatanti sono dove dovrebbero essere, ovvero, in prigione.

Molti guardano alla volatilità sfrenata di Bitcoin e ne gioiscono, sostenendo che lo rende insostenibile come riserva di valore (mi chiedo chi ci fosse durante l'iperinflazione di Weimar che, guardando la volatilità dell'oro rispetto al Reichmark in rapida disintegrazione, abbia detto la stessa cosa: “Troppo volatile per funzionare come riserva di valore”; esatto, nessuno se lo ricorda).

You’ll often see charts from Weimar Germany of gold priced in the paper mark going parabolic.

What that chart doesn’t show is the sharp drawdowns & volatility that occurred during the hyper-inflationary period. Speculating using leverage got wiped out multiple times.$BTC 1/2 pic.twitter.com/tZhpP1KMS1

— Dylan LeClair ???? (@DylanLeClair_) May 23, 2021

Una cosa che ho detto fin dal 2013, quando Mt. Gox è imploso e tutti la chiamavano “La morte di Bitcoin”: ecco com'è un libero mercato, senza interruttori di spegnimento, senza Plunge protection team e persino in contrasto con alcune criptovalute, come Ethereum, senza “ritorni al passato” sotto forma di hard fork per uscire da un pasticcio.

Poiché BTC sta venendo massacrato insieme a tutto il resto, questo mi ricorda più il panico da COVID del 2020 che l'inizio del crypto winter del 2021.

La gente sottolinea la volatilità come prova del fatto che Bitcoin non è un bene rifugio e non è un hedging: un famoso autore di newsletter che conosco da molto tempo mi rimprovera costantemente dicendo che Bitcoin non si muove in direzione opposta al dollaro, come ci si dovrebbe aspettare se fosse una sorta di copertura contro l'inflazione o la svalutazione.

Altri affermano che “Bitcoin è fondamentalmente Tesla”, o che semplicemente si muove e viene scambiato come l'ennesimo titolo tecnologico di successo o come il Nasdaq nel suo complesso.

Non hanno tutti i torti sulla correlazione tra Bitcoin e il mondo della tecnologia, ma non hanno nemmeno una visione completa del fenomeno.

La nostra era attuale è guidata quasi interamente dal progresso tecnologico; questa idea non è controversa per la maggior parte delle persone, tuttavia non riescono a cogliere le ramificazioni dei  cicli di feedback creati dalla tecnologia e il ritmo accelerato del cambiamento che ne consegue.

Ecco perché il settore tecnologico si sta muovendo più velocemente e sta surclassando tutto il resto ed è per questo che Bitcoin sta surclassando il settore tecnologico.

Bitcoin non è un semplice investimento è un cambio di paradigma a livello monetario

Nel suo libro “Gold Wars” (citato in “Sound Money Makes for Short Wars”), Ferdinand Lips racconta di come il passaggio al gold standard sia avvenuto senza che gli stati (o i globalisti) lo decretassero, grazie alla superiorità dell’oro come metallo monetario:

Nel 1900 circa cinquanta Paesi avevano adottato il gold standard, comprese tutte le nazioni industrializzate. Il fatto interessante è che non fu pianificato in una conferenza internazionale, né fu inventato da qualche genio. Arrivò da solo, naturalmente, e in base all'esperienza. Il Regno Unito adottò il gold standard contro l'intenzione del suo governo. Solo molto più tardi un gold standard operativo venne trasformato in un gold standard a norma di legge.

Questo è esattamente ciò che sta accadendo oggi con Bitcoin, solo che le persone che si sono sbagliate per così tanto tempo ora continuano a voler sbagliare di più, nonostante diventi ogni giorno più ovvio che questa è la direzione che stanno prendendo le cose (posso immaginare qualche futuro insegnante di storia che mette in difficoltà la sua classe con la domanda “Non indovinerete mai quale stato fu il primo ad adottare Bitcoin come moneta ufficiale... vi do anche un indizio: non fu nessuna delle ex-Repubbliche degli Stati Uniti”).

In passato, quando gli incentivi spingevano gli attori di mercato verso un gold standard, ciò avveniva nel corso di decenni o addirittura secoli; ciò che disorienta oggi è la rapidità con cui accadono certe cose. Per la maggior parte delle persone l'attuale sistema monetario è qualcosa che era già in atto dal giorno in cui sono nati, e probabilmente non sarebbe cambiato nel corso della loro vita.

Le occasioni eccezionali in cui ciò è accaduto sono quelle da cui provengono i libri di storia. Panico, guerre, iperinflazioni in tutte le epoche sono stati eventi presumibilmente irripetibili o generazionali. Oggi li si vede svolgersi nel proprio feed di Twitter.

A causa della curva tecnologica e dell'accelerazione del tasso di cambiamento, questi fenomeni si verificano continuamente, con frequenza ed entità crescenti.

Most of the ridiculous bullshit people believe today

… and nearly all the policy blunders that are so catastrophically stupid as to appear to be intentional conspiracy

- are pure and simple Future Shock.

Go back and read the entire series.

Then you’ll get what’s actually… pic.twitter.com/9xGmhtnJJk

— Mark Jeftovic, The ₿itcoin Capitalist (@StuntPope) June 18, 2024

Persone come Peter Schiff (e il mio collega anonimo scrittore di newsletter) si divertono a cogliere ogni piccolo accenno di discesa di Bitcoin come prova della sua presunta morte e tirano fuori tutti i soliti parallelismi (es. “Tulipani, sostenuti da nulla”, “Schema di Ponzi”, “Psyop della NSA”, et al).

Ci vuole un atto di ragionamento motivato e concertato per cancellare la dissonanza cognitiva che il solo esame dei dati fattuali sulle prestazioni di Bitcoin dovrebbe indurre negli scettici:

Ho incluso Berkshire Hathaway perché è gestita da miliardari che odiano Bitcoin e spesso elogiata come una macchina collaudata per l'allocazione del capitale (nonostante la sua sovraperformance rispetto all'indice S&P in un trend ribassista secolare).

È anche interessante notare che l'oro riesce a malapena a tenere il passo con l'espansione di M2 in un arco di tempo di 10 anni, e nessuno dei suoi sostenitori, che odiano Bitcoin e che lo criticano duramente su Twitter, risponde mai quando faccio notare che il metallo giallo non ha ancora superato il suo massimo, al netto dell'inflazione, del 1980.

Le obbligazioni sono capitale morto che cammina, “rendimento senza rischi”, come si dice. Una pietra angolare della mia tesi è un eventuale esodo dalle obbligazioni che vede anche una frazione spostarsi in Bitcoin (l'1% o il 3% metterebbe BTC da qualche parte tra le 6 o le 7 cifre).

Bitcoin è l'asset con le prestazioni più elevate in termini assoluti di tutti i tempi.

In conclusione, sarei preoccupato nel breve termine se ci fosse qualcosa di specifico nei mercati Bitcoin o delle criptovalute a guidare questa correzione (come il fatto che Tether si sia rivelato una frode, di cui abbiamo parlato nell'ultima newsletter, ma finora si tratta solo di speculazioni e non è diventato un problema).

• Gli ETF Bitcoin non hanno fatto dumping nonostante la debolezza. Molti hanno detto che lo avrebbero fatto, che gli ETF spot avrebbero reso più facile cedere posizioni al primo segno di difficoltà.

“Nonostante la volatilità dei prezzi, i detentori di ETF hanno dimostrato resilienza, senza grandi deflussi sin da marzo. Ma i tassi di afflusso complessivi hanno rallentato notevolmente dopo il lancio” —  tramite Ecoinometrics

Ma come abbiamo detto le ultime volte, finora questo ciclo è stato tutto caratterizzato dagli istituzionali, ovvero, per la maggior parte della fase rialzista di quest'anno (ricordiamo che Bitcoin è ancora in rialzo del 22% da inizio anno e del 106% nell'ultimo anno), quindi, mentre le istituzioni potrebbero preferire esporsi tramite ETF, tendono ad adottare una prospettiva a lungo termine e a non fare mosse improvvise.

• Ho notato che quest'anno, per la prima volta, i miner hanno accumulato in modo significativo:

• E infine siamo abbastanza in linea con i precedenti cicli di halving, con la notevole eccezione che Bitcoin ha raggiunto nuovi massimi storici prima dell'evento, cosa che non è mai accaduta nei cicli precedenti se non diversi mesi dopo.

Secondo me il principale movimento parabolico per Bitcoin deve ancora arrivare, con il resto delle criptovalute che seguiranno (tranne forse Ethereum ????).

Il ciclo di rialzo dei tassi è terminato, le banche centrali sono intrappolate tra dilemmi creati da loro stesse, i policymaker stanno apertamente sostenendo controlli sui capitali, imposte sul patrimonio, se non addirittura il comunismo: è davvero difficile immaginare uno scenario in cui Bitcoin non continui ad attrarre più capitali e a prendere il suo posto come bene rifugio definitivo in questa moderna Quarta Svolta.

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

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

International Man: Recently, we’ve seen an escalating global crackdown on speech in the (formerly) free societies of Europe and North America.

For example, in the UK recently, the government has been imprisoning individuals for social media posts under the guise of curbing “hate speech.”

What’s your take on this growing trend in general and events in the UK in particular?

Doug Casey: A few instances have been reported about how Keir Starmer, the new prime minister of Britain, has imprisoned citizens for saying quite innocuous things on the street, even on Facebook. But it’s not just about a few random people. It’s a nationwide campaign.

Over 400 Brits have been imprisoned for trivial speech offenses. It’s become a case of life imitating art. By that, I mean reality is starting to resemble that great movie, V for Vendetta. I urge everybody to watch if they haven’t seen it yet.

The disturbances in Britain are mostly about migrants, most of whom are Muslims. Britain has a bigger problem than the US because most of their migrants are Mohammedans. Masses of Islamic migrants present a much more serious threat to Western civilization and values than the mostly South American migrants the US gets.

That’s because in Islamic societies, which observe Sharia law, there is no such thing as free speech. I’ve read the Koran and good parts of the Hadith. There’s no question that if Britain reaches a critical mass of Islamic population, the nature of society won’t just be modified a bit, as it would be with people from Spanish countries. Islam intends to eliminate basic Western values. Islam isn’t just another religion. It’s a totalitarian system comprehending all aspects of life. The penalties for breaking its laws are extremely severe.

Islam is the world’s fastest-growing religion, especially in what was once called Christendom. As traditional Western values fade (a whole separate subject), young people are looking for something to believe in, something to give meaning to their lives, and a serious group to belong to. Islam has simple answers presented with certainty.

Saying negative things about Islam, its prophet, any racial or ethnic group, or even government employees is now dangerous. Saying things that might “trigger” miscellaneous individuals is becoming risky and could be labeled “hate speech.”

This brouhaha about “hate speech” is reprehensible. The Bill of Rights has no exceptions regarding free speech. But forget laws; free speech is the most basic and essential of all rights. It draws a red line between a free man and a serf. And it doesn’t matter how unsavory, agitated, or hateful it may be.

In fact, I’m all for hate speech, regardless of how unpleasant it may be. Not just for the reasons I gave or because I like it (I don’t) but because I want to know what’s on others’ minds. I want to know what they’re thinking, what their psychology might be, and what kind of people I’m dealing with. It’s idiotic as well as immoral to suppress other people’s so-called hate speech. How can you know who you’re dealing with and what they believe?

Suppressing free speech, for any reason, is a step towards turning the West into a series of police states. It’s happening everywhere right now. And there’s very little resistance to it.

International Man: France recently arrested Telegram CEO Pavel Durov on dubious charges, threatening him with 20 years in prison if he doesn’t cooperate with governments.

What is really going on here?

Doug Casey: The type of people who go into government, almost everywhere, are inevitably those who like to control other people.

In private life, they’re busybodies and bullies. But once they gain control of the apparatus of the State, they’re happy to use force to impose their wills on others. The situation is worse in Europe. But as bad as the individual governments in Europe are, the European Union in Brussels is even worse; it elevates the worst of the worst to positions of power. Durov is being detained in France, but he’d have this problem everywhere in Europe.

What’s happened to Durov shows that even being wealthy, famous, and influential is no longer much of a shield against the types who control governments. And it’s not just Durov who is at risk. Elon Musk has been threatened. Interestingly, among billionaires, only Musk is an outspoken defender of free speech. You’ll notice that Bezos, Zuckerberg, and dozens of other billionaires who control the Internet, broadcasting, and publishing companies have no problems of this type. That’s because they’ve inserted themselves into “elite” and Deep State circles, mimicking their values. They’ll be just fine.

International Man: What does the escalating assault on free speech mean for political risk in Europe and North America?

Doug Casey: Freedom in the West is increasingly just kabuki theater. It’s pretty much what Frank Zappa said:

“At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way, and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.”

The point is that, in many ways, the very idea, the concept of government itself, is being delegitimized. Even as the State becomes bigger, more grasping, and ever more counterproductive, its nature is being exposed. This is a good thing.

Stop pretending it’s “We the People.” We’re not living with the kind of government that seemed to exist in a 1930s Jimmy Stewart movie. Its essence is much closer to what Orwell projected in 1984, with a tinge of Huxley’s Brave New World.

The fact is that government is basically a fraud, where everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else. However, only the elite who are in and around the State succeed at that game.

The West is becoming ever more like the old USSR, East Germany, or Ceausescu’s Romania. The government is populated by a new breed of Jacobins and Bolsheviks. They want you to deny your own mind and your own senses.

They want to wipe out the middle class. Why? The bourgeoisie—for all their faults—are traditionally entrepreneurial, free-thinking, and liberty-loving. The self-anointed elite would prefer a kinder and gentler version of feudalism. A world in which they’re on top and everybody else is a peasant on the bottom. The plebs should own nothing and be happy. But be given free rent, adequate doses of Prozac, and some walking around money for a few lattes at Starbucks.

International Man: In response to the arrest of Durov, El Salvador President Bukele made this statement:

What do you make of this?

Doug Casey: I previously viewed El Salvador as the most unstable and least desirable country in Latin America. Its traditional exports—and I’m not kidding—were bananas and poor people, very often gang members.

Bukele has transformed the country. I haven’t been there since his election, but it’s clear the place has changed radically since he locked up 65,000 hardcore criminals. The country is no longer a cesspool of violence.

Argentina is also undergoing a transformation. Its people finally got fed up with 80 years of statism, electing Javier Milei to institute sweeping and radical change. And not a moment too soon. I believe Milei, notwithstanding resistance by Argentina’s Deep State, could transform the country into one of the freest and most prosperous in the world while most places undergo mass migrations, revolutions, and wars. Hopefully more countries will follow in the steps of Argentina.

What happens in the United States come November will be critical. If Harris is installed, I have no doubt that the US will accelerate its devolution into a police state. Trump is no prize, but at least he’s a cultural conservative who doesn’t want to overthrow the basic foundations of America.

International Man: Where do you think this trend is headed?

What can the average person do to protect himself?

Doug Casey: Joe Louis once said, “He can run, but he can’t hide.” That’s true of a boxing match. And until only a few decades ago, you could still get lost and start again the way you could in the old American West. But now because of the Internet, financialization, data banks, and omnipresent cameras and microphones, privacy has vanished.

When CBDCs become mandatory, it will be even harder to buy, sell, or do anything without being monitored by the authorities. How will it end? The best case might be the final scene in V for Vendetta—but don’t plan your life around it.

The whole world is starting to resemble the 1930s, an unpleasant decade that acted as an overture to the even more unpleasant 1940s. That’s likely to be true not just internationally, but in the US as well. The Reds and the Blues really hate each other. They can’t communicate, putting us on the ragged edge of something like a civil war.

What can the average person do to protect himself? I doubt the US is ready for real reform of its highly taxed and regulated economy. Over half the country is a net recipient of State largesse, and most believe that’s the way it should be. If the Fed stops inflating, the whole over-indebted mess will collapse.

That said, financial dangers are huge. But as great as they are, the political dangers are even more serious. It’s, therefore, critical to recognize the base cause of these problems. As shocking as it may sound, the institution of the State itself is the real enemy. It’s time to carefully analyze your relation to it.

Reprinted with permission from International Man.

The post Rising Threat to Free Speech appeared first on LewRockwell.

After finishing the first part of the DMSO series (which explains how millions of permanent disabilities and deaths from strokes, traumatic brain injuries and spinal cord injuries could have been prevented if the FDA hadn’t blacklisted DMSO), I decided to take a technology break. However, as I was drifting to bed last night, a lot of people began contacting me about a disaster that was unfolding in California.

What I find astounding about this case is that within minutes of looking into the limited information that was available, I was relatively certain of what happened, and now that her basic labs were posted online, it was indeed what happened. However, as best as I can tell, a fairly straightforward (conventional) diagnosis was missed and Alexis Lorenze has instead been put at risk of a life threatening injury.

I was initially in disbelief this was possible (and to an extent still am), but people directly connected to the situation confirmed this indeed is the case. As this case is an instructive example of medical blindness, I felt it would be helpful to share what happened.

Note: premier academic hospitals, while less likely to have a compassionate and caring relationship with their patients, are normally better at recognizing less common diagnoses and are typically equipped with the specialized services needed to address those situations—all of which makes me particularly surprised this was missed. To some extent, I am juxtaposing my understanding of the Midwestern academic centers onto this situation, so if you are directly familiar with the UC hospital system (particularly Irvine) and there’s is something I am missing here, please let me know.

Medical Blindness

A major in medicine is that doctors are frequently unable to recognize conditions which:

•Create cognitive dissonance for them (e.g., by forcing them to acknowledge they hurt a patient or accept that the guidelines their medical tribe gave them are flawed).

•They were not taught to identify to recognize (as there is so much complexity to a human being, the majority of physicians lack the innate capacity to see things they weren’t taught to filter for or the willing to seriously consider the significance of things which do not make sense within their cognitive map of the world).

Because of this, physicians frequently fail to recognize a pharmaceutical injury is occurring or believe a patient who claims an injury was linked to a pharmaceutical (particularly since medical education conveniently does not train doctors to recognize these injuries and simultaneously trains them to believe anything patients report that is not backed by science is “anecdotal” and most likely a spontaneous coincidence). This in turn leads to the tragic phenomenon of “medical gaslighting” (discussed further here) something many patients understandably find infuriating.

This issue is particularly common with vaccines because:

•The meaningless slogan “safe and effective” has been used to market them for decades regardless of how much evidence of harm exists (e.g., I previously listed some fairly tragic examples that ultimately go back over a century). Because of this, the majority of doctors assume vaccines are 100% safe and that no possible issue can emerge from giving them ad-infinitum.

•To maintain the mythology of “safe and effective,” a massive embargo existing on publishing any information which is critical of vaccine safety. For example, here I presented numerous independently conducted studies which all show that vaccines cause between a 2-10 fold increase in numerous chronic diseases which have “inexplicably” spiked throughout America at the same time the vaccine schedule proliferated throughout the society (due the manufacturers being granted complete immunity from the harms of their products as they were going out of business due to the cost of injury lawsuits).

•Much of the credibility of modern medicine arises from the mythology that it rescued us from the dark ages of infectious disease with vaccinations (when in reality that decline was entirely due to improved public sanitation). Because of this, attacking vaccination directly attacks a doctors identity and social status.

As a result, the medical profession will frequently go to extraordinary lengths to defend a bad vaccine they’ve endorsed—with the COVID-19 vaccines being one of the most absurd examples I’ve seen in my lifetime, but not by any means the first time this has happened.

Hospital Vaccine Injuries

Suzanne Humphries (and Roman Bystrianyk) did an incredible service to the vaccine safety movement by publishing Dissolving Illusions, a book which clearly demonstrated that the mythology we were sold about vaccines saving the world was hoax, and in reality they caused far more harm than they benefitted people (discussed further here).

Suzanne Humphries embarked on this project, because as a nephrologist, she kept on seeing patients enter kidney failure after a vaccine (or have their kidneys significantly worsen once they received a vaccine at a hospital).

Note: Nephrologists have a somewhat unique position in medicine as if they request for a drug to be discontinued because they suspect it is harming a patients kidneys, other doctors will listen and stop the drug (whereas if a non-nephrologist points out a drug injury to a colleague, they colleague often won’t discontinue it).

“One Monday after picking up the weekend service, a hospital inpatient with kidney failure got very grumpy with me. Seeing him in the middle of his dialysis treatment, I’d asked the usual questions, like “And how long have you been on dialysis?” and the man exploded. “I’ve never been on dialysis! I never had anything wrong, until they gave me that shot.” . . . Working up a lather he almost yelled . . . “I was fine until I had that vaccine!” Taken aback, I asked, “What vaccine did you get? When did you get it, and how do you know your kidneys were fine before?” Apparently he’d told his story to everyone, but had been blown off. Now, he was startled that anyone was even asking sensible questions. So he tumbled the whole story out. After a very thorough investigation and a fine-tooth-combed patient history analysis, which did indeed reveal that his kidney function was perfectly normal a month before, I decided that his words and beliefs had merit”

“After the first man with kidney failure, I began asking other people, with unusual case presentations, whether or not they had been recently vaccinated. Some would become wide-eyed after the question, as if they too had never considered any connection, but in others, the light dawned and after picking up their jaws, they often replied, “YES, it was shortly after that!” Sure enough, the records would show the time relationship. Sometimes violent sickness began on the very day.”

“After three people came in with fulminant kidney failure, temporally related to vaccination, I thought it prudent to bring the cases to the attention of the hospital chief of medical staff. Upon passing him in the hallway, we stopped for the usual cordial robotic small talk: “Hello. How are you? How is the practice going? Are you happy here?” To which the answer for the previous seven years”“had been “Great. Great and yes!” But this time I had news! “We have a problem. I’ve seen three cases of kidney failure in adults shortly after they were vaccinated and two of the three told me they were fine until the vaccine. All of them had documented normal kidney function within two months of the vaccine. What do you think?”

After a short silence, I got to know a different side of this man. Perhaps he could also say he got to know a different side of me. His immediate response was, “It was not a vaccine reaction. They just got the flu and the vaccine didn’t have time to work.” The problem was that none of the three even had flu-like symptoms. Why did he automatically jump to that conclusion? It is true that even less than once in a blue moon, influenza infection all by itself can lead to interstitial nephritis and kidney shut down. I’d never treated a case of flu-related kidney failure in all my years of practice as a very busy nephrologist in large tertiary care centers.”

“Around this time, I admitted a patient of mine for a kidney biopsy. I came to write the admitting order 45 minutes after she arrived, and saw that she had been given a flu shot before I got there, with an order that had my name on it. I hadn’t ordered it, so I asked the nurse how this could be. Astonishingly she said that it was now policy for the pharmacist to put a doctor’s signature on the order if the patient gave consent. They were very efficient that day.

Usually it could take forever to get an IV infusion set up, yet suddenly vaccines were given immediately on arrival. While the first problem for me was that I didn’t order the vaccine, the second was that the policy extended to ALL admissions, even if they had sepsis or worsening cancer, or were having a heart attack or stroke. A third problem was that there was no realization that a vaccine, or two, might make it more difficult for a clinician to subsequently work out what the problems were caused by, and correctly diagnose and treat the patient. Plainly, there was no consideration as to the utility, benefit, or detriment of a flu shot, to any seriously, acutely ill patient.”

Note: a key reason why hospitals push vaccines is because Obamacare, in a mission to “improve” medicine changed their financial reimbursements to reward “quality health care” and made a key component of that metric that a hospital ensured vaccinating a high percentage of their staff and patients.

“As time went on, inpatient consults became quite revealing because we could track the kidney function from normal or slightly impaired, to failed after a vaccine was given on admission.”

“In the past when I was consulted on kidney failure cases and said, “Oh that was the statin/antibiotic/diuretic that did that!” instantly the drug would be stopped—no questions asked. Now, however, a new standard was applied to vaccines. It didn’t matter that the internist’s notes in the charts said, “No obvious etiology of kidney failure found after thorough evaluation.” It didn’t matter that I considered the vaccine a possible cause when all other potential culprits had been eliminated. It was never the vaccine. The collective mindset said with glazed-over eyes, “Vaccines? Not possible or likely.”

“When I was discussing the issue one day on a cardiology ward, a cardiologist who knew me well, approached me with wide eyes. He was horrified, thinking he was behind on the latest recommendation. He said “Wait! Are we not supposed to be giving flu shots? I have been brow-beating my patients into flu shots whenever possible!” I explained the situation I witnessed and he listened. He also had never considered a vaccine to be a potential danger in any way. Whether or not he has since changed his thinking, or his practice at all, I don’t know. What was telling to me, was that all he wanted to know was what he had missed. He was not interested in thinking it out on his own. He was far too busy for that. He just wanted to know if he missed anything of ‘importance’, so that he could be a good, correct doctor. Kind of like the student who only wants to know what will be on the exam, but not how to think about how that information might fit into the bigger picture.”

“Several months went by, and the medical executive committee met to discuss my concerns, without allowing me to be present at the meeting. I was informed in writing that the nursing staff were becoming confused by me discontinuing orders to vaccinate and that I should adhere to hospital policy. I thought this odd, given that nurses are not accustomed to giving the same treatment to every patient, and are fully capable of reading individualized orders.”

“The next time the medical chief of staff and I met in the corridor, an oncologist was present. At one point, I asked the chief, “Why doesn’t anyone else see the problem here? Why is it just me? How can you think all this is “okay? Why is it now considered normal to vaccinate very sick people on their first hospital day?” The oncologist gave an answer that surprised me. She said, “Medical religion!” and turned and walked away. That was a strange outburst from her because in the months that followed, I watched her continue marching down the aisle of medical religion—not only with her own health issues that she shared with me, but also with her cancer patients.”

I looked deeper into the poke, because I was forced to—but ONLY after I realized that what I thought I purchased with my medical education, was not complexity of thinking or even complete analysis of science, but rote training, and reactive responses.

A good doctor researches fact. My research turned up a mass of medical articles about kidney failure related to influenza and other vaccines, and reasons to suspect that vaccines could also be causing many of the other diseases commonly labeled as ‘idiopathic’. I was shocked at the potential scope of the damage I had previously brushed off because of lack of education. Like my col“eagues, I had considered many vaccine reactions to be coincidences. Auto-immune diseases and kidney diseases requiring harsh immune-suppressive drugs are not unheard of, after vaccines. Nowhere in medical school, internship, residency, or fellowship, had kidney failure after vaccines been discussed. Why not?”

Note: many of my awake colleagues joke that idiopathic denotes individuals being too idiotic to recognize the obvious cause of a disease.

“I wrote all the cases out and put together a comprehensive brief for the hospital administration, but to no avail.”

“As time went on, it was interesting seeing the divide in the hospital staff. Nurses would bail me up in quiet corners and tell me stories that completely backed up what I was seeing. They would guardedly support me, when their superiors were out of eye- or ear-shot. A deeper respect was building between those who could see what I saw, while an icy wind roared from those on high.”

“I kept presenting the administration with facts they could not respond to, in the hope that they would get a blinding revelation of the obvious. Finally, they recruited the Northeast Healthcare Quality Foundation, the “quality improvement organization” for Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, to get me off their backs. Dr. Lawrence D. Ramunno sent a letter invoking the fallacy of authority, which adamantly informed me that hospital vaccination against influenza virus would become a global measure for all admissions in 2010, and that my evidence of harm was not significant because 10 professional organizations endorse vaccination.”

“Not satisfied with demanding that I practice automaton obedience to dictates from on high, they initiated a shadow observation, where everything I did and wrote in the hospital, from then on, was observed and scrutinized.

This unscientific and unprofessional harassment only served to reinforce my decision to leave no policy unquestioned, ever again.”

Suzanne Humphries in turn was inspired to write her book “Dissolving Illusions” because one of the most common counterarguments she received from her colleagues about flu shots causing kidney failure was that “vaccines saved us from smallpox and polio so there’s no possible way a vaccine could be bad.” This in turn inspired her to look into the data underlying that claim, at which point she realized most of it wasn’t publicly available, but when she unearthed records from the basements of medical libraries, she discovered that statement was a myth, after which point she published that evidence in her book.

In my own case, I’ve admitted quite a few patients to the hospital who I quickly realized were hospitalized because of a vaccine injury (e.g., including a kidney failure case like Suzanne Humphries described), and in each case, one of the biggest challenges I had was finding a way to present the case in such a way that the other doctors at the hospital would not get elgaged at me for it (e.g., I was successful in one case by attributing one injury to how the vaccine was administered rather than the vaccine itself).

Note: in this publication, I’ve emphasized the forgotten medical theory that many vaccine injuries are a product of them altering the zeta potential of the body, causing blood in the body to clump together and create microstrokes which damage critical parts of the body (e.g., I’ve seen numerous cases where this happened in the brain or kidneys).

Likewise, I believe one of the most common reason why people are hospitalized is because the zeta potential of their body has weakened enough that they begin developing severe symptoms which meet the criteria for hospitalization. In turn, I’ve seen textbook zeta potential collapse cases from a vaccine that resulted in hospital admission and I also believe one of the most helpful things hospitals do for patients is give them IV saline (which is just done routinely because everyone is “dehydrated”) because IV saline marginally restores the physiologic zeta potential.

Read the Whole Article

The post What Happens When a Hospital Vaccine Injures You? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Last week we discussed the significant linguistic issue in the Vatican translation of the Pope’s Italian statement “Tutte le religioni sono un cammino per arrivare a Dio” which the live translator translated as “every religion is way to arrive at God.”

In English, this phrase is heresy, pure and simple.

The word “way” in English means a “possibility whereby” and “arrive” in English means to achieve a destination. This phrase in English means that idolatry is a way to God.

In other words, the 1st commandment of the Ten Commandments is null and void.

So, understandably, the Vatican’s English translation changed this phrase to say this: “Religions are seen as paths trying to reach God.”

This latter phrase, in English, is not heresy. “Seen” and “trying” are expressing attempts to reach God, not the possibility, and not the ability or power to do so. Before we move to what the Vatican did subsequently, here again is the full Italian paragraph which is the official Italian text and the original language, together with the video of some of these sentences (with the live translator):

Tutte le religioni sono un cammino per arrivare a Dio. Sono – faccio un paragone – come diverse lingue, diversi idiomi, per arrivare lì. Ma Dio è Dio per tutti. E poiché Dio è Dio per tutti, noi siamo tutti figli di Dio. “Ma il mio Dio è più importante del tuo!”. È vero questo? C’è un solo Dio, e noi, le nostre religioni sono lingue, cammini per arrivare a Dio. Qualcuno sikh, qualcuno musulmano, qualcuno indù, qualcuno cristiano, ma sono diversi cammini. 

Note the bolded words and phrases in Italian. Here’s the video:

NEW: #PopeFrancis on inter-religious dialogue:
“Every religion is a way to arrive at God. There are different languages to arrive at God but God is God for all.
But my God is more important than your god, is that true?
There is only 1 God & each of has a language to arrive at… pic.twitter.com/TMHRDjEuJ9

— Michael Haynes (@MLJHaynes) September 13, 2024

Below is a screen shot of the original English translation as I noted in my report last week. This was on the Vatican’s website on Friday, September 13th, 2024, when I wrote my article:

And what does the Vatican website say now? At the time of this writing on September 17th, here’s the new official English rendition:

First of all, the new English translation again omits the Italian phrase “ma sono diversi cammini (but they are different paths [to God]).” Yet now the English correctly translates the first two phrases in the heretical manner. “All religions are paths to reach God” and “…like languages, paths to reach God.” The English is not as strongly heretical as the live translator rendered it when he said “arrive at God,” but the English is still worse than the original English official text. So the most strongly heretical English was the live translator, the “new official English” is slightly less heretical, but not by much, and the “first official English” was not heretical at all.

It would seem that by changing the English, the Vatican is admitting that there is no orthodox way to interpret these words of Pope Francis.

(In pricipio erat Verbum. You see how important every word is? Indeed: there was once a worldwide Christian battle over one letter: an iota.)

Originally it seemed that someone in the Vatican who was in charge of English understood how heretical (and idolatrous!) these words would mean, so they changed the English to be orthodox. Now someone has changed most of it back to its heretical meaning, which cannot be uttered by a Catholic in English.

If there’s some nuance in Italian that someone can tell me, please do so, and save the Holy Father from this (at least) material heresy!

Read the Whole Article

The post Bishop Chaput Resists Francis Again and Vatican Changes the Translation appeared first on LewRockwell.

Unfortunately, the presidential race is devoid of any discussion of what is actually the most important issue facing the American people: whether to continue the political and economic systems under which we have all been born and raised — that is, the welfare state, the national-security state, and the regulated/managed economy — or to replace this way of life with a system based on the principles of economic liberty, voluntary charity, and a limited-government republic.

The assumption is that our statist way of life is now permanent and that we are consigned to living under it forever. Therefore, the mindset is that we just need to elect the best person to oversee and run it.

Thus, it has become standard for presidential candidates to present their plans on how they are going to reform, fix, streamline, and improve this statist way of life. Most everyone gets all excited over what his or her particular candidate is going to do to make things better.

But no matter who is elected president, the system will just keep getting worse and worse, as it has after each presidential election for the past 70 years. That’s because it is an inherently defective system. Everywhere you look there is a crisis.

Consider, for example, the crisis in Ukraine, which the U.S. national-security establishment spent years successfully provoking. It’s not going the way the Pentagon and the CIA wanted and so they are doubling down by essentially daring Russia to respond with limited nuclear warfare. But even if no nuclear war develops, the fact that they are willing to risk it says everything about the national-security-state system under which we have been born and raised and under which we are consigned to live.

Here at home, there is an ever-growing fiscal crisis. The federal debt now exceeds $35 trillion and growing, with an annual deficit approaching $2 trillion. That debt is ultimately owed by American taxpayers. There are statists who lament this growing problem but, at the same time, steadfastly maintain that America must continue with Social Security, Medicare, the welfare state, and the national-security state, which are the biggest components of federal spending and debt that are hurtling our nation toward national bankruptcy and the economic tyranny that will accompany it.

There is widespread dependence on government largess, not only with respect to Social Security and Medicare but also with respect to all other welfare programs. People are convinced that if they repealed the programs, there would be millions of people dying in the streets.

Despite the manifest failure and destructiveness of the war on drugs, American statists steadfastly continue it, with the same measures they have employed for decades, including criminal prosecutions and convictions of drug dealers. The drug-war crisis, along with the violence and corruption it spawns, just continues.

People look for scapegoats for the failures of America’s statist way of life. The most popular one is illegal immigrants. If we could only build our Berlin Wall to the skies, America’s economic problems would disappear. Another popular scapegoat is those “foreigners” who are stealing our jobs and flooding us with their products. But it’s not illegal immigrants or other foreigners who are the cause of America’s problems. It is the statist system that Americans have adopted that is the problem.

Look at education. It has produced a society of good little citizens who defer to U.S. officials, especially when it comes to the designation of the latest official enemy, whether it be Russia, China, Iraq, Syria, Iran, communists, Reds, terrorists, Taliban, North Vietnam, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, terrorism, Muslims, Islam, Palestinians, and others. Americans hate them when they are told to hate them.

Consider America’s culture of violence. The scapegoat here is guns. If only we could adopt a strict system of gun control, the violence would disappear. It will never happen because America’s culture of violence is rooted in the massive violence and death that the U.S. national-security state produces in foreign lands, not only directly in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Vietnam, but also indirectly with its embargoes and sanctions as well as the conflicts it provokes, as it has with Ukraine and Russia, where tens of thousands of Russian and Ukrainian soldiers and civilians now lie dead.

We have now had two separate and distinct systems in U.S. history: One that was based largely (but certainly not perfectly) on economic freedom, free markets, and voluntary charity and the statist system under which we live today. What we need in this country is a national debate over which system we want going forward.

Consider, for example, the period 1890-1910, which is my favorite time in American history. It was not a libertarian panacea by any means, especially when one considers such things as the violation of women’s rights, the beginning of Jim Crow, the Chinese Exclusion Act, the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, and the Spanish-American War. But the fact is that most of those statist measures were the beginning of the shift toward the statist way of life under which we live today.

Consider that during that period of time, there was no income taxation, IRS, Social Security, Medicare, welfare state, regulated/managed economy, FDA, Federal Reserve, paper money, drug laws, gun control, Pentagon, CIA, NSA, foreign military bases, foreign aid, foreign interventionism, (minimal) immigration controls, public (i.e., government) schooling, (few) economic regulations, state-sponsored assassinations, torture, minimum-wage laws, price controls, and the like.

That system produced the greatest outburst of economic prosperity in the history of man, along with the greatest outburst of voluntary charity that mankind has ever seen.

That’s the national debate we need to have: whether to maintain our current statist system or to restore the principles of economic liberty and limited government that our Americans stood for in that period of time and build on them. Our freedom and well-being and perhaps even our survival depends on it.

Reprinted with permission from The Future of Freedom Foundation.

The post We Need a New System, Not a New President appeared first on LewRockwell.

Many folks are under the false impression that the US Constitution grants the federal gummint and/or Federal Reserve Bank [sic] the exclusive right to coin and issue money. Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution says, “The Congress shall have Power […] To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures.” There is no exclusive right to coin money, only to set the exchange rate between the States, and determine weights and measures, and the “dollar” is a weight and measure, by definition.

In fact, anyone can produce a dollar, provided it meets the congressionally approved definition of a “dollar”. It gets tricky, though, because the evil federalist dictator Abraham Lincoln destroyed the de jure Republic, and the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 mucked around with the definition of a dollar, and then the despicable statist Richard Nixon, citing executive power under the Gold Reserve Act of 1934, completely trashed it, so that today a dollar is defined as a unit of itself.

The Gold Reserve Act, enacted by the evil Socialist Franklin Roosevelt, gave the US Treasury exclusive possession of all US minted gold coins and gold certificates (warehouse receipts). The Coinage Act of 1965, enacted by the insane drunkard Lyndon Johnson, finished real dollars by removing the link to silver.

The Coinage Act of 1792 established the U.S. dollar as a specific weight of silver, with one dollar equaling 371.25 grains of pure silver or 24.75 grains of gold. A grain is defined as 1 grain = 0.0648 grams, and 480 grains equals 1 troy ounce.

The origin of the term “dollar” further tells the tale.

“Dollar” comes from the 16th century German town of Joachimsthal (now the Czech town of Jáchymov), where coins of high quality silver were minted, called Thalers. Thalers eventually morphed linguistically into “Dollars”. Though weight and purity of the thaler/dollar varied over time, it has generally been about one ounce of high quality silver, though not necessarily “fine silver” (99.9% pure).

The 1792 Coinage Act specified a silver dollar as the basic unit of money to be 24 grams of silver, alloyed with 4.5 grams of copper for durability.

The upshot of all this was that anyone — a state, a bank, a private mint — could create dollars, provided they met the specifications of the Coinage Act — 371.25 grains of silver in a 90/10 alloy with copper, and Congress had the right to set the exchange rate with the US dollar, as well as the silver weight that constituted a “dollar”.

Fast forward to 1998, and a fellow by the name of Bernard von NotHaus. He created something called the Liberty Dollar (LD), which was made of or backed by silver and gold, and came in rounds (coins), paper and digital forms. The paper dollars were not “currency,” but rather “warehouse receipts” that could be traded in for the actual metal that backed it. Von NotHaus’ vault was regularly audited and the metals were assayed to assure quantity and quality. No paper LD could be issued, except that the amount in metal was on deposit in the vault. The Liberty coins were minted of 99.9% fine silver in various denominations, as were the gold coins. The face values were deterimined by market price of bullion.

I had a Liberty Dollar redemtion center back then, where folks could trade FRNs for LDs, or vice versa. I also handled calls from merchants who had received them from customers, but found they couldn’t deposit them. I would show up and give them FRNs for the LD paper or coins, and everyone was happy. I’ve never met Von NotHaus, but someday I would like to.

Von NotHaus ended up on the wrong end of the FBI, as free thinkers often do. He was convicted of several bogus charges in 2007, including couterfeiting and fraud, and sentenced to a few months of house arrest and a couple of years’ probation. Deep State lawfare is nothing new, especially when their pyramid schemes are threatened.

His experience was not unlike the Knights Templar several centuries earlier. The Templars originated the modern banking system by doing much the same as Von NotHaus: a traveller could deposit gold and silver with the Templars in one location (a commandary), and take a warehouse receipt. The traveller could redeem that receipt at his destination for the equivalent amount, less a small handling fee.

Eventually, the warehouse receipts became a currency of their own, as bearers traded them in commerce, rather than handling the actual assets. This naturally rankled the royals and the Temple (Vatican), who liked to have a monopoly on currencies, so the Templars were attacked and slaughtered, beginning on 13 October 1307, by French king Phillip IV and Pope Clement V.

Not much has changed in 700 years.

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The post Everything That Dazzles appeared first on LewRockwell.

While the world prepares to implode (or explode, depending on your take) there’s a little corner of the wild where women of all stripes continue a time-honored tradition. America’s women—her childless cat ladies, aging soccer moms, glam girls, and graying socialites—gather faithfully at local salons to get their tresses just right.

Blondes have more fun, it is said, and as a fake blonde, I can confirm this is true. I hit the the salon regularly, and for a certified people-watcher like myself, it’s a dark sort of fun indeed. Such entertainment comes with a price, though—and not just the $250 highlights. One must part with peace and proceed through a number of stations to experience the kind of spectating that makes for a sociologist’s dream.

Like people, hair salons (as distinguished from “barber shops”) exist on a socioeconomic and taste spectrum; if you’re paying $15 for a cut and style, you’re not getting a scalp massage and listening to wealthy women bare their souls. Nobody at Krazy Kutz has an hour to listen to such nonsense, nor are they bringing you hot tea or offering a “Malibu” treatment. In addition, the cast of characters cutting your hair may differ by a few degrees—it’s Ethan, fresh from the ABC beauty academy, versus Phillip, the certified, trained-in-Paris “balayage specialist”.

My salon sits on the “high end” of the spectrum but has changed names over the years (as has the former frozen yogurt down the sidewalk). Under its previous ownership, beverages, a magazine table and lengthy scalp massages set you back an additional thirty minutes or more, which was a bit much for a “busy mom” like me. Clients were parked at at the long conference table at various intervals. I loved a mid-morning Coke, but idling while the pampered gossip and gripe squandered precious time and brain cells. Mercifully, in the salon’s latest iteration—now run by a cigarette-smoking European man—the emphasis is more on the actual hair and less on table-time gimmicks.

Despite the new aesthetic, when you walk in you’ll immediately recognize that you’re still entering the alternate universe known as salon culture. Most women (and a few extra-cultured men) know exactly what that means. Most stylists look artsy, goth, or like former strippers; decor is often avant-garde, unrelatable for the scores of moms and grandmas who form the clientele. My salon checks all these boxes, but I’ve still enjoyed a great relationship with my stylist—a brilliant guy who shares none of my beliefs.

On most days at this salon, you’re greeted by a youngish receptionist who’s styled like one of Satan’s errand boys. His bald and frightfully tattooed head crowns a skeletal frame boasting its own collection of sprawling, demonic stamps. There’s a tattoo for every finger, and his neck is covered in ink as well; violent piercings on his lips, eyebrows, nose and forehead announce that Screwtape’s apprentice sits before you. To encounter this fragile frame, too slight to bear such darkness and abuse, is to witness Satan’s cruel work.

Were this young Wormwood the only visual, you would assume this was Hell’s lobby. Behind his perch, however, an open and less infernal salon space is in full view, making clear that the tortured receptionist’s work is benign, limited to customer greetings. Behind him, a variety of people circulate and chatter, some as stylists, some as clients. While the stylists sport things like funky black fedoras and velvet goth dresses, the mostly-female clients look like they strolled in from carpool, bridge, or the office; but they are generally covered in a black salon cape and often sit under layers of silver foil. Despite this ugly setup, most will eventually emerge as a blonde, chestnut, or silvery wonder.

Rows of mirrors and swivel chairs, whirring dryers, and a eccentric lineup of stylists form the backdrop of our salon theatre. On one wall hangs a staple of too many salons—a large, dated and depressing piece of art. The ceiling has (of course) been removed, exposing enough plumbing and circuitry to lend the requisite industrial-chic feel to this strip-center space. One must feel cold, artsy and cosmopolitan when under the care of stylists.

The back storeroom door is frequently left open, revealing a small room with a long row of mannequin heads perched on a high shelf; most of these have diabolical and disheveled looks, too. This little laboratory is where colorists gather to concoct their special formulas, and I can only assume that newbies use the the creepy heads to practice the craft. I must admit, I’m impressed that this closet, stuffed with so many mysterious chemicals and eerie props, also holds the secret behind the vibrant locks that exit the salon.

Seated in the first chair by the door is a septuagenarian who chats away with a handsome, gay stylist; he will capture her heart for the next hour or so. She sports a gorgeous Chanel bag, which draws some praise and then inspires a story about her grandson’s birthday. She inquires eagerly after her stylist’s cats, boyfriend, and travels; he, in turn, dishes on the Michelin restaurants in Amsterdam. At the conclusion of this appointment, he slowly spins her chair to reveal the fluffed and cemented coiffure that will likely outlast her weekend social calendar.

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Tucker Carlson said the quiet part out loud in a brief comment last last week. Uncomfortable truths about the “party of democracy”…

“If they think that there’s a chance that Trump could win decisively enough in November that they can’t steal it, then I think their only option there is to in some way throw the society into chaos as they did during COVID which was the pretext for changing the way we vote and letting people vote anonymously without IDs and drop boxes and a month before the election.”

We all know what happened then (and we, the people, acquiesced so quickly):

“They completely changed everything allowing Mark Zuckerberg to spend $400 million to control the mechanics of the election. That would not have been allowed except under a state of national emergency provided them by the virus they created in a lab in Wuhan, COVID.”

So, given what they have shown themselves capable of, who can really argue they would not do it (or worse) again:

“It’s pretty simple. If they feel like they’re gonna lose we will have some kind of crisis. I think it’s most likely to be a war with Iran which they want anyway, but who knows.”

Watch the full comment by Tucker Carlson below:

Tucker Carlson: “If they think that there’s a chance that Trump could win decisively enough in November that they can’t steal it, then I think their only option there is to in some way throw the society into chaos as they did during COVID which was the pretext for changing the… pic.twitter.com/e3mAkQPo8T

— Camus (@newstart_2024) September 14, 2024

Reprinted with permission from Zero Hedge.

The post Throw Society Into Chaos’ – Tucker Outlines Dem Plan as Harris ‘Honeymoon’ Fades appeared first on LewRockwell.

The natural instinct to survive and to protect family runs strong in human beings. In the 20th century alone, from Jewish families in Nazi-controlled Europe to Soviet dissenters in frigid Siberian gulags, the will to live burns deeply.

So when a major disaster strikes, the instinct to survive will trump all other considerations. Exactly how far people will go depends on the type of disaster, but an understanding of how they will react will help you prepare to protect yourself and your family in these circumstances.

Let’s look at two kinds of disasters. The first is when there is a regional catastrophe, like an earthquake, tornado or temporary failure of the power grid. In this case, although there will be hardships in the first 24 hours and likely for weeks thereafter, those affected will believe that FEMA and local aid is working hard to help them.

For example, if there was a moderate earthquake in San Francisco, then FEMA and the California National Guard and 100 other agencies would immediately respond. People would be evacuated from the devastated city and relocated to nearby shelter. They would have a place to stay, dry clothing, and enough food to live in relative comfort until they decide to relocate or move back into the city after rebuilding has occurred.

Although there would be localized violence and crime in this scenario, most people would know that aid was coming and the nation would do everything it could to help.

The situation would be vastly different with the second type of disaster. This is when catastrophe strikes and there’s little hope for aid from the government or anyone else.

For example, terrorists or a rogue nation launch an EMP attack, and the nationwide power grid is down long-term. Or, a major solar storm takes out the grid.

In those scenarios, police won’t arrive because the pumps don’t work and there is no gas. The government can’t help because it, too, is without power and gasoline. Millions of people would be desperate, and most of the nation’s food would spoil in a matter of days.

As the EMP Commission to Congress said in its report:

Essentially every aspect of American society requires electrical power to function. Contemporary U.S. society is not structured, nor does it have the means, to provide for the needs of nearly 300 million Americans without electricity. Continued electrical supply is necessary for sustaining water supplies, production and distribution of food, fuel, communications, and everything else that is a part of our economy. Continuous, reliable electrical supply within very tight frequency boundaries is a critical element to the continued existence and growth of the United States and most developed countries.

In this type of scenario, where there is a total breakdown in society, there would be no hope of the government swooping in and providing food and shelter. People would quickly realize that it’s everyone for themselves, and the survival instinct would kick in.

Many survivalists believe that in the weeks after this type of disaster occurs, people in urban areas will form groups for mutual survival. Many of these groups will be run by the strongest —the person with the most weapons, supplies and charisma. They will form roving bands and prey on the weak and those who can’t defend themselves.

But in the first 24 hours, before these marauding bands have time to form, individuals will have the immediate goals of water, food, safety and shelter.

Although everything depends on where a person lives (in an urban environment or rural property), let’s assume it’s a typical suburban location is near one of the major cities. Within hours, stores will be empty.

Read the Whole Article

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The fear of nuclear war is apparently affecting some European states, despite the deeply irresponsible actions taken by their governments. A major French newspaper recently published an article claiming that French politicians are worried about the possibility of a “third world war.” It is curious to see this kind of “concern” among the French, given that Paris has been one of the most destabilizing agents in the ongoing proxy conflict between NATO and Russia.

The article exposes the reasons why French politicians fear a global escalation of violence. Citing anonymous diplomats, Le Monde claims that the French do not want to see an open confrontation between Moscow and NATO, allegedly seeking to take steps to prevent an escalation. Diplomats said that Russia could expand its military actions in retaliation for certain actions taken by the West, which would mean the start of a global war.

Obviously, the main Western escalatory move would be to authorize strikes against Russian targets far from the conflict zone. European fears of a world war are especially heightened at the moment due to the widespread debate over whether or not to authorize Ukraine to use long-range missiles against targets in “deep Russia,” which explains Le Monde’s narrative.

“[Allowing attacks against ‘deep Russia’] would mean that NATO countries, the US and European countries are at war with Russia (…) Everything must be done to avoid a third world war (…) You can’t just dismiss the possibility of the Russians expanding the scope of the war,” said one of Le Monde’s diplomatic sources.

For now, all Western countries refuse to allow such strikes. There were expectations among pro-Ukrainian militants that authorization would be announced during the recent joint visit of American and British officials to Kiev, but this did not happen. As far as the Europeans are concerned, there seems to be an even greater fear of escalation, which is why the French and Germans (who are supposedly the joint “leaders” of the European Union) do not plan to change their position on deep strikes.

“We think we should allow them to neutralize the military sites from which the missiles are fired, and basically the military sites from which Ukraine is being attacked, but we must not allow them to hit other targets in Russia, civilian capabilities naturally, or other military targets,” Macron said during a recent joint statement with Scholz in Germany.

It is curious to see this kind of fear on the part of the French. On the one hand, the fear seems absolutely rational, since Europe would be the most affected side in a direct war between Russia and NATO. It is natural that the Europeans want to do everything possible to prevent the conflict from escalating to a direct phase. With the possible exception of Poland and the Baltics which are states extremely affected by the anti-Russian madness, all European countries fear becoming targets in a situation of global conflict.

However, until recently, France itself was the biggest destabilizing agent in the conflict. Macron was the Western leader who most escalated anti-Russian rhetoric, even promising to send official French troops to fight alongside Kiev. It was precisely the fear of a direct war that made Macron reduce his anti-Russian attitudes in recent months, as Moscow made it clear that all French military personnel on Ukrainian soil would be legitimate and priority targets. Now, Macron no longer depends on his own decisions to avoid a direct war – he is at the mercy of the conscience and strategic sense of the Americans, who actually lead NATO.

It is important for Western analysts and officials to understand that WWIII has already “de facto” begun. There is a Western-led international coalition that has been attacking the Russian Federation for two years. The nature of the current conflict is absolutely international, and there are even other fronts outside Ukraine – as in the case of Western-backed terrorists attacking Russian citizens in African countries. Fearing the beginning of an open phase of the conflict is reasonable, but it is important to understand that this “world war” is already a reality – precisely because of the irresponsible actions of Western countries, including France.

Given the fear of escalation, Europeans should break with the US and NATO, seeking to free themselves from the consequences of the conflict by reestablishing ties with Russia. Unfortunately, however, European subservience is bigger than their fear. If the US authorizes deep strikes, it is likely that, despite their fear, all European countries will endorse the measure immediately.

This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

The post French Politicians ‘Fearing’ Global Escalation appeared first on LewRockwell.

Looking back, 2024 may well be viewed as insignificant compared to what lies ahead.

That 2024 could be a year of no significance does not compute given that what’s being touted as the most important election in American history is 2024’s landmark event, but in the focus of the longer lens of history, it may not matter as much as we expect.

If the election wasn’t enough, the all-time stock market highs are the cherries on top.

The issue here isn’t the people or the politics or the policies; it’s the system itself reaching its limits, having exhausted all potential for the scale of change needed to stave off collapse. To better understand this historical context, we turn to Ray Huang’s meticulous study of Chinese history, 1587, A Year of No Significance: The Ming Dynasty in Decline:

“The year 1587 may seem to be insignificant; nevertheless, it is evident by that time the limit for the Ming dynasty had already been reached. It no longer mattered whether the ruler was conscientious or irresponsible, whether his chief counselor was enterprising or conformist, whether the generals were resourceful or incompetent, whether the civil officials were honest or corrupt, or whether the leading thinkers were radicals or conservatives–in the end they all failed to reach fulfillment.”

In other words, it no longer matters who’s nominally in charge, or the policies being put in place: the system has lost the capacity to adapt radically enough to surmount the novel challenges it now faces. That the Ming Dynasty–and many other imperial regimes throughout history–faced the same limits is unsurprising when we recall that humanity is still running Wetware 1.0, the operating system that enabled our emergence as a unique species around 200,000 years ago. We are hard-wired to reach a point of hubristic, delusional faith in our own godlike powers which invites Nemesis. We’re there, but we don’t yet realize it.

There are several key dynamics at work in this systemic exhaustion of the capacity to adapt radically enough to matter. One is self-interest: everyone getting a slice of the pie–from those receiving SNAP food stamps to billionaires evading taxes–has a stake in maintaining the status quo, and so nobody wants to risk upsetting the apple cart for fear that the change might reduce or eliminate their slice of the pie.

The net result is everyone will resist any reform radical enough to actually address the overlapping crises which threaten the status quo, which is every radical reform.

Here is Huang’s summary of this same dynamic in 1587: “The bureaucratic rule of the empire had reached such an advanced stage that all the hidden needs and wants of thousands of individuals, along with their personal aspirations, were irreversibly linked to the gigantic status quo; now even an urgently needed technical reform could not be overtly attempted to disturb the delicate balance.”

This delicate balance is currently maintained by borrowing as many trillions of dollars as needed to satisfy every constituency, from SNAP recipients to billionaires. That this is unsustainable is taboo, of course, but beneath the surface, the impossibility of maintaining this delicate balance is the core driver of the extreme political polarization that makes radical reform impossible: given that the delicate balance is unsustainable, the challenge now is to settle who wins and who loses, a battle that evaporates any middle ground and amplifies polarization.

This is the heart of Huang’s study of Ming decline: the systems in place are limited by their structure such that any reform that will be acceptable to the system’s dependents will leave the system–that requires radical reform to avoid collapse–completely untouched. “Innovations” and “reforms” can only be superficial and for show.

Read the Whole Article

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Israel just turned thousands of Lebanese people into involuntary suicide bombers in the name of fighting terrorism.

At least nine people have been killed and thousands injured in an attack in Lebanon which reportedly involved pagers packed with explosives being remotely detonated around the country, often in civilian areas. An eight year-old girl is reportedly among the dead.

According to The New York Times, unnamed officials from the US and elsewhere are saying that Israel planted the explosive materials in the pagers before they reached Lebanon after Hezbollah ordered them from a Taiwanese manufacturer.

The US is denying any foreknowledge of the attack, but that’s what they always do. We’re always asked to believe that the US never knew anything about attacks conducted by nations like Israel and Ukraine until they read about it in the news, and that their massive intelligence cartel and sprawling surveillance networks never pick up any information and exist for no reason.

Take a look at where people were and who they were surrounded by when their pagers exploded.
Can you see the young child just steps away?
This was an indiscriminate attack by Israel on civilians in Lebanon, and it falls under the West’s supposed definition of terrorism.
We’ve… pic.twitter.com/L68YN6TeZA

— Dr. Sabreena Ghaffar-Siddiqui (@sabreenaGS) September 17, 2024

This was a terror attack by any possible definition. If Hezbollah had detonated a bunch of devices held by Israeli forces in public spaces without knowing who was near them when they went off, every paper in the western world would have called it a terror attack. But because it was Israelis targeting Hezbollah (a political party which is part of the Lebanese government and has many civilian members), it’s only being called “explosions”.

“Hezbollah blames Israel after deadly pager explosions in Lebanon,” reads the headline from the BBC.

“Thousands injured in Lebanon as pagers used by Hezbollah explode,” says The Washington Post.

“Exploding pagers belonging to Hezbollah kill at least 8 and injure more than 2,700 in Lebanon,” says NBC News.

No condemnations from western officials. No thoughts and prayers for the victims. No pledges to bring the terrorists to justice. Just the news media going oh wow, some pagers exploded.

Got that, kids? It’s only terrorism when the Official Bad Guys do it. When the Official Good Guys do it, it’s just giving those Bad Guys a sorely needed exploding.

if Hamas, Hezbollah, or any group or person exploded electronic devices in Israel and killed children, it would be described by the entire Western media class as a horrific act of wanton evil sadistic terrorism. Israel does it and it’s seen as an epic based move to be celebrated

— (@zei_squirrel) September 17, 2024

The unprecedented nature and scale of this attack has raised a lot of concerns from a lot of directions. We all use electronic devices in our daily lives, and weaponizing them at mass scale is naturally going to scare people.

“If it were iPhones that were leaving the factory with explosives inside, the media would be a hell of a lot faster to cotton on to what a horrific precedent has been set today. Nothing can justify this. It’s a crime. A crime. And everyone in the world is less safe for it,” tweeted NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

“What Israel has just done is, via *any* method, reckless. They blew up countless numbers of people who were driving (meaning cars out of control), shopping (your children are in the stroller standing behind him in the checkout line), et cetera. Indistinguishable from terrorism,” Snowden also said.

What strikes me watching all this is how gratuitously creepy it is. Israel is so creepy. Everyone already sees them as rapey genocidal baby killers, and then they have to go and commit this weird terror attack in the creepiest way possible and freak everyone out, to no clear and meaningful strategic gain. They’re so creepy they can’t stop themselves from always choosing the creepiest course of action.

Israel is gross.

_______________

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Sweden and France now ban cell phones in school.

Digitalization of youth has had serious adverse effects on physical and cognitive development. Having raised a generation of youth unable to function because they are digitalized-addicted, Sweden, France, and other European countries are eliminating cell phones from the school day.

As I have often said, the digital revolution is the third worst thing that dumbs..t humanity has brought upon itself other than nuclear weapons and American biowarfare laboratories.

Mothers harassed with trying to keep up in a men’s world substituted digitalization for motherhood. The consequences are dire.

Grandparents report that their grandchildren instead of acquiring skills wasted their period of cognitive development playing video games and scrolling cell phones. Consequently, they are incapable of working or comprehending the requirements for their survival. Their world is a world of entertainment.

The child-unsafe Tower-of-Babel-Sodom-and-Gomorrah-society that the liberal-left have created for Americans has left parents at the mercy of the Child Protective Services Gestapo. Consequently, mothers have added over-protection to the plague of digitalization, and the consequence is the inability of youth to develop into confident and capable people. It leaves the youth of our time susceptible to tyranny.

In my day, we grew up in fights on the school play yard during recess, with each boy proving by his willingness to fight that he couldn’t be bullied. The teachers who were playground monitors never interfered with the right of passage unless things got out of hand. But by that time another boy had intervened by taking up the fight of the defeated kid. Bullies were short-lived on the playgrounds of my youth. Most of us grew up believing in ourselves. It is this constraint on inappropriate and unacceptable behavior that is missing today. Today Americans lack the confidence to confront the tyranny that is encompassing them. They take refuge in the fake news of their oppressors while their liberty dwindles. See here.

The post The Digital Revolution Is the Prime Enabler of Tyranny appeared first on LewRockwell.

 

 

di Jeffrey Tucker

Parliamo delle recenti rivelazione di Mark Zuckerberg, delle implicazioni che hanno per la nostra comprensione degli ultimi quattro anni e cosa significheranno per il futuro.

Su molti temi importanti per la vita pubblica un gran numero di persone conosce la verità, ciononostante i canali ufficiali di condivisione delle informazioni sono riluttanti ad ammetterla: la FED non ammette alcuna colpa per l'inflazione e nemmeno la maggior parte dei membri del Congresso; le aziende alimentari non ammettono il danno della dieta americana mainstream; le aziende farmaceutiche sono riluttanti ad ammettere qualsiasi danno; i social media negano qualsiasi parzialità; e così via.

Eppure tutti sanno già come stanno davvero le cose.

Ecco perché l'ammissione di Mark Zuckerberg è stata così sorprendente. Non è tanto quello che ha ammesso, lo sapevamo già, la novità è che l'ha ammesso. Siamo abituati a vivere in un mondo che nuota nelle bugie, ci sconvolge quando una figura importante ci dice cosa è vero o anche solo parzialmente o leggermente vero. Quasi non riusciamo a crederci e ci chiediamo quale possa essere la motivazione.

Nella sua lettera al Congresso ha detto senza mezzi termini quello che tutti gli altri affermano ormai da anni.

Nel 2021 alti funzionari dell'amministrazione Biden, inclusa la Casa Bianca, hanno ripetutamente fatto pressione sui nostri team affinché censurassimo determinati contenuti sul COVID-19, tra cui umorismo e satira, e hanno espresso frustrazione nei confronti dei nostri team quando non eravamo d'accordo [...]. Credo che la pressione del governo fosse sbagliata e mi dispiace che non siamo stati più espliciti al riguardo. Penso anche che abbiamo fatto delle scelte che, con il senno di poi e con nuove informazioni, non faremmo oggi. Come ho detto ai nostri team all'epoca, sono fermamente convinto che non dovremmo compromettere i nostri standard di contenuto a causa delle pressioni di qualsiasi amministrazione in entrambe le direzioni, e siamo pronti a reagire se qualcosa del genere dovesse accadere di nuovo.

Qualche precisazione. La censura è iniziata molto prima, almeno da marzo 2020. L'abbiamo sperimentata tutti, quasi subito dopo i lockdown.

Dopo alcune settimane usare quella piattaforma per far circolare le notizie era diventato impossibile. Facebook ha commesso un errore e ha lasciato passare il mio pezzo su Woodstock e l'influenza del 1969, ma non avrebbe mai più commesso una simile leggerezza. Ogni singolo oppositore di quelle terribili linee di politica è stato oscurato a tutti i livelli.

Le implicazioni sono molto più significative di quanto suggerisca la lettera di Zuckerberg. Le persone sottovalutano costantemente il potere che Facebook ha sulla mente delle persone e ciò è stato particolarmente vero nei cicli elettorali del 2020 e del 2022.

La differenza tra avere un articolo non limitato e uno meno amplificato è stata gigantesca. Quando il mio articolo è stato pubblicato, ho sperimentato un livello di traffico che non avevo mai visto nella mia carriera. È stato sconcertante. Quando l'articolo è stato oscurato circa due settimane dopo, dopo che gli account troll avevano avvisato Facebook che i suoi algoritmi avevano commesso un errore, il traffico è sceso enormemente.

Ripeto, in tutta la mia carriera di attento monitoraggio dei modelli di traffico su Internet non avevo mai visto nulla di simile.

Facebook come fonte di informazioni offre un potere mai visto prima, soprattutto perché tante persone, soprattutto tra gli elettori, credono che le informazioni che vedono provengano dai loro amici e familiari e da fonti di cui si fidano. L'esperienza di Facebook e di altre piattaforme ha inquadrato una realtà che le persone credevano esistesse al di fuori di loro stesse.

Ogni dissidente e ogni persona normale che avesse avuto la sensazione che stesse succedendo qualcosa di strano, veniva fatto passare come una specie di idiota con idee folli e probabilmente pericolose, completamente estranee alla mentalità dominante.

Cosa significa che Zuckerberg ora ammette apertamente di aver escluso dalla vista qualsiasi cosa contraddicesse i desideri del governo federale? Significa che qualsiasi opinione su lockdown, mascherine, o obblighi di vaccinazione (e tutto ciò che vi è associato, comprese le chiusure di chiese e scuole e i danni dei vaccini) non faceva parte del dibattito pubblico.

Stavamo vivendo sotto attacchi di vasta portata sui nostri diritti, sulla libertà e sulla storia, e ciò non faceva parte di alcun serio dibattito pubblico. Zuckerberg ha avuto un ruolo enorme in tutto questo.

Gente come me era arrivata a credere che le persone normali fossero dei codardi, o degli stupidi, a non fare obiezioni. Ora sappiamo che forse non era vero! Le persone che facevano obiezioni venivano semplicemente messe a tacere!

Durante due cicli elettorali la risposta al Covid non è stata affatto in gioco come controversia pubblica. E adesso sappiamo anche il perché. Significa anche che qualsiasi candidato che abbia tentato di farne un problema è stato automaticamente declassato in termini di portata.

Di quanti candidati stiamo parlando qui? Considerando tutte le elezioni statunitensi a livello federale, statale e locale, stiamo parlando di almeno diverse migliaia. In ogni caso, i candidati che si esprimevano sugli attacchi più eclatanti alla libertà sono stati messi a tacere.

Un buon esempio è la corsa a governatore del Minnesota nel 2022, vinta da Tim Walz, ora candidato come vicepresidente con Kamala Harris. Le elezioni vedevano Walz concorrere contro un medico esperto, competente e altamente qualificato, il dott. Scott Jensen, il quale ha fatto della risposta al Covid un tema di campagna elettorale. Ecco il totale dei voti:

Naturalmente il dott. Jensen non ha potuto fare campagna elettorale su Facebook, piattaforma che ha avuto un'enorme influenza in quella elezione e che adesso ha ammesso di aver seguito le linee guida del governo federale per censurare i post. Infatti Facebook gli ha vietato completamente la pubblicità, ha ridotto la sua portata del 90% e probabilmente gli ha fatto perdere le elezioni.

Potete ascoltare il racconto di Jensen qui:

IMPOTENT PAWNS - Joe Biden conspired with Facebook to reduce Americans to impotent pawns! pic.twitter.com/k5SxQknNRL

— Scott Jensen (@drscottjensen) August 27, 2024

Considerate quante altre elezioni sono state influenzate. È sconcertante pensare alle implicazioni di tutto questo. Significa che molto probabilmente un'intera generazione di leader in questo Paese non è stata eletta legittimamente, se per legittimo intendiamo un pubblico ben informato a cui viene data una scelta in merito alle questioni che influenzano le loro vite.

La censura di Zuckerberg – e questo riguarda anche Google, Instagram, LinkedIn e Twitter 1.0 – ha negato al pubblico la possibilità di scegliere sulla questione centrale dei lockdown, delle mascherine e dell'obbligo di vaccinazione, le stesse questioni che hanno sconvolto l'intera civiltà e hanno tracciato un percorso oscuro per la storia.

E non si tratta solo degli Stati Uniti, il che significa che le elezioni in ogni altro Paese, in tutto il mondo, sono state influenzate in modo simile. È stata una chiusura globale di ogni opposizione riguardo linee di politica radicali, eclatanti e profondamente dannose.

Se la si pensa in questo modo, non si tratta solo di un piccolo errore di giudizio. È stata una decisione sconvolgente che va ben oltre la codardia manageriale; va oltre persino la manipolazione elettorale. È un vero e proprio colpo di stato che ha rovesciato un'intera generazione di leader che si erano schierati per la libertà e li ha sostituiti con una generazione di leader che invece si sono genuflessi di fronte al potere.

Perché Zuckerberg ha scelto di confessare ora? Era ovviamente innervosito dal tentativo di assassinio di Trump, come ha affermato anche lui:

WATCH: Facebook @Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said seeing President Trump get up and pump his fist after being shot in the face at his rally in Pennsylvania is “one of the most badass things” he’s ever seen.

Looks like Zuck is trying to say nice things to avoid all responsibility… pic.twitter.com/wKnOFGYZCA

— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) July 19, 2024

Poi c'è anche l'arresto in Francia del fondatore e CEO di Telegram, Pavel Durov, un evento che sicuramente scuote qualsiasi CEO importante di una piattaforma di comunicazione. Ci sono l'arresto e l'incarcerazione di altri dissidenti come Steve Bannon e molti altri.

Ora che RFK Jr. è stato dichiarato legittimato ad agire, è di nuovo in gioco anche il contenzioso sulla libertà di parola, rimandando il caso Missouri contro Biden alla Corte Suprema, che l'ultima volta aveva erroneamente deciso di negare la legittimazione ad altri querelanti.

Zuckerberg, più di tutti, conosce la posta in gioco. Comprende le implicazioni e la portata del problema, così come la profondità della corruzione e dell'inganno in gioco negli Stati Uniti, nell'Unione Europea, nel Regno Unito e in tutto il mondo. Immagina che prima o poi tutto potrebbe venire fuori, quindi potrebbe anche aver deciso di pararsi le spalle.

Di tutte le aziende al mondo che hanno una vera e propria presa sullo stato dell'opinione pubblica in questo momento, quella è Facebook. Vedono la portata del sostegno a Trump e quest'ultimo ha affermato in più occasioni che ritiene che Zuckerberg debba essere perseguito per il suo ruolo nella manipolazione dei risultati elettorali. E se, ad esempio, i suoi dati interni mostrassero un sostegno di 10 a 1 per Trump rispetto a Kamala, contraddicendo completamente i sondaggi ufficiali che comunque non sono credibili? Questo da solo potrebbe spiegare il suo cambio di idea.

È una questione che diventa particolarmente urgente dal momento che la persona che ha supervisionato la campagna di censura per conto della Casa Bianca, Rob Flaherty, ora è Digital Communications Strategist per la campagna elettorale di Harris/Walz. Non c'è dubbio che il DNC intenda impiegare gli stessi strumenti, moltiplicati e molto più potenti, se dovessero riprendersi la Casa Bianca.

“Sotto la guida di Rob”, ha affermato Biden in merito alle dimissioni di Flaherty, “abbiamo creato il più grande Ufficio per la strategia digitale della storia e, con esso, una strategia e una cultura digitale che hanno unito le persone invece di dividerle”.

A questo punto è lecito supporre che anche l'outsider più informato conosca circa lo 0,5% dell'intera manipolazione, inganno e macchinazioni segrete che hanno avuto luogo negli ultimi cinque anni circa. Gli investigatori del caso hanno affermato che ci sono centinaia di migliaia di pagine di prove che non sono classificate ma devono ancora essere rivelate al pubblico. Forse tutto questo verrà fuori a partire dal nuovo anno.

Pertanto l'ammissione di Zuckerberg ha implicazioni molto più grandi di quanto chiunque abbia mai ammesso. Fornisce una prima occhiata ufficiale e confermata al più grande scandalo dei nostri tempi: il silenziamento globale dei critici a tutti i livelli della società, cosa che a sua volta ha portato alla manipolazione dei risultati elettorali, a una cultura pubblica distorta, all'emarginazione del dissenso, all'annullamento di tutte le protezioni della libertà di parola e al gaslighting come arma principale dei governi dei nostri tempi.

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

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Ludwig von Mises depicts the aim of revolutionary socialism as: “to clear the ground for building up a new civilization by liquidating the old one.” One of the main strategies in liquidating a civilization involves dismantling its legal and philosophical foundations. This role is fulfilled by activists who embark upon “sabotage and revolution” by subverting the meaning of words: “The socialists have engineered a semantic revolution in converting the meaning of terms into their opposite.”

George Orwell famously called this subversive language “Newspeak.” Peter Foster describes Newspeak as “a sort of totalitarian Esperanto that sought gradually to diminish the range of what was thinkable by eliminating, contracting, and manufacturing words.”

Mises explains that dictators express their ideas in Newspeak precisely because, if they did not, nobody would support their schemes:

This reversal of the traditional connotation of all words of the political terminology is not merely a peculiarity of the language of the Russian Communists and their Fascist and Nazi disciples. The social order that in abolishing private property deprives the consumers of their autonomy and independence, and thereby subjects every man to the arbitrary discretion of the central planning board, could not win the support of the masses if they were not to camouflage its main character. The socialists would have never duped the voters if they had openly told them that their ultimate end is to cast them into bondage. (emphasis added)

In the proliferation of Newspeak, the reinterpretation of “human rights” has proved to be one of the most powerful weapons of sabotage and revolution. Activists have seized control of a vast empire of international law, NGOs, and human rights charities with a global network of staff who monitor respect for “human rights.” They wield their significant influence in the human rights industry to undermine human liberty by redefining the meaning of “human rights” to denote the antidiscrimination principle. Under the banner of equality and nondiscrimination, they restrict free speech and other human liberties. In other words, the doctrine of “human rights” now denotes the precise opposite: the destruction of human liberty.

The “human right” to non-discrimination

Human rights no longer mean what many might suppose: the right to life, liberty, and property. The vast corpus of human rights in international law has been categorized by Karel Vašák into three: civil-political, socio-economic, and collective-developmental. These categories are said to encompass negative rights (things the state must not do, such interfering with life, liberty, or property), positive rights (things the state must do, for example, provide citizens with food, shelter, education, healthcare, etc.), and rights of solidarity between citizens such as wealth redistribution through social welfare schemes and equal participation in economic progress through measures such as the minimum wage or equal pay.

Human rights organizations monitor progress against these categories and ensure that the legal system works in favor of socialist goals and against liberty. For example, the United Nations human rights program educates the public on the need to eradicate “hate speech” and interprets “equal protection” of the law, as a fundamental human right, to mean protection from hate speech. The UN says:

Addressing hate speech does not mean limiting or prohibiting freedom of speech. It means keeping hate speech from escalating into more something more dangerous, particularly incitement to discrimination, hostility and violence, which is prohibited under international law.

From that description, it can be seen that the UN takes a concept which is well-established in the criminal law, namely, prohibiting incitement to violence, and links it to notions of incitement to discrimination and incitement to hostility, which have never before been recognized as crimes. They annex discrimination and hostility to the charge of inciting violence because, if they did not, it would be immediately clear to everyone that criminalizing “discrimination” or “hostility” amounts to nothing less than Newspeakian crimethink.

The meaning of human rights

In his article, “There’s no such thing as Human Rights,” the British journalist Peter Hitchens argues that,

Human rights do not exist. They are an invention, made out of pure wind. If you are seriously interested in staying free, you should not rely on these flatulent, vague phrases to help you.

They are in fact a weapon in the hands of those who wish to remove your liberty and transform society, though this is probably an accident. It is only in the past 50 years or so that radical judges have realised these baseless declarations can be used (for example) to abolish national frontiers or give criminals the right to vote.

In that context, Hitchens is referring not to the ancient liberties protected by Magna Carta, but to the Newspeakian rights now enshrined in human rights instruments, such as the UN Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights. Human rights have been transformed into wooly concepts which merely reflect political and partisan demands.

Murray Rothbard avoids the ambiguity surrounding the meaning of human rights by defining them as property rights. In the Ethics of Liberty, he explains:

…the concept of “rights” only makes sense as property rights. For not only are there no human rights which are not also property rights, but the former rights lose their absoluteness and clarity and become fuzzy and vulnerable when property rights are not used as the standard.

In the first place, there are two senses in which property rights are identical with human rights: one, that property can only accrue to humans, so that their rights to property are rights that belong to human beings; and two, that the person’s right to his own body, his personal liberty, is a property right in his own person as well as a “human right.” But more importantly for our discussion, human rights, when not put in terms of property rights, turn out to be vague and contradictory, causing liberals to weaken those rights on behalf of “public policy” or the “public good.”

Thus, the Rothbardian interpretation of human rights denotes the universal right to self-ownership and private property that vests in all human beings.

Bureaucratic reinterpretation

In practice, the meaning of human rights is subject to interpretation by courts or other law enforcement officials. Therefore, human rights ultimately mean only what they are interpreted to mean by law enforcement, not what they may theoretically, politically, or philosophically. Lowell B. Mason, an attorney and former chair of the Federal Trade Commission explains the significance of bureaucratic interpretation by observing wryly that:

When in private practice I never told clients what the law was; I always told them what the bureaucrats thought the law was… The legality or illegality of what you do often depends not on the words of a statute enacted by your elected representatives, but on the state of the collective liver of a dozen anonymous bureaucrats.

Being well aware of this, the goal of activists is to ensure that “human rights” are interpreted so as to advance their goals. This explains the concerted efforts to depict “hate speech” as a human rights violation. In this way the commitment of states to protecting “human rights” is transformed, through the prism of the antidiscrimination principle, into an edict to prohibit hate speech. The word “hate” is interpreted to mean having the temerity to disagree with socialists, and similarly, the word “equality” is interpreted to mean wealth redistribution to achieve equality of material conditions.

Mason explains how it is possible for bureaucrats, charged with law enforcement, to reinterpret the Constitution to suit whatever they think the law ought to achieve. No matter how carefully a law is drafted, it will always require interpretation, and this is where the bureaucrats strike as they purport to be applying the “evolving” meaning of the Constitution. Mason explains:

“Of course,” he will reassure you, “the Constitution still stands as a bulwark to liberty but it is a growing instrument that adapts itself to the times, and while it has not been repealed or amended, it has necessarily been reinterpreted so that due process (as it was known in the past) no longer unduly encumbers the administration of the law.”

Through Newspeak, the Constitution itself has been reinterpreted, enabling socialists to claim that they support free speech and also support the prohibition of “hate speech.” Mises explains that this subverts the concept of freedom into its very opposite: “Freedom implies the right to choose between assent and dissent. But in Newspeak it means the duty to assent unconditionally and strict interdiction of dissent.” In that sense, the concept of “hate speech” is not compatible with free speech. In denoting any dissent as “hate,” it is the very negation of free speech and freedom of thought. Through Orwellian Newspeak, ordinary words like “liberty,” “justice,” and “equality”—values that most people would support—have been subverted and harnessed to promote socialism.

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

The post The Ruling Elites Create an Orwellian Reinterpretation of Human Rights appeared first on LewRockwell.

I think so too.  One thing that was nice when I lived in Bolivia is that the things one could buy over the counter without a prescription was much larger.  I could go to a Lab and ask for a full blood test without having to visit a primary doctor and get his okay and all that.  I was there last year and got the fullest test for about 30 dollars or twenty something.  It is a wonderful feeling of freedom knowing that you are getting it for the asking and that you are avoiding the obstacle of the primary doctor visit and the problem that maybe he will disagree that you need a full test and just be willing to sign off for a partial one.  My father was very ill ina hospital last year there. The doctor told the family that his antibiotic was not working and to go try to find another one he mentioned, saying it was hard to find.  He did not write an order for it.  They looked for it all over town, found it, bought it as in ‘over the counter.’  This is only anecdotical but I met a woman this year who told me she has been taking unapproved (or still being tested) drugs for more than 20 years in Bakersfield.  She asks for her cancer treatment to be based on such drugs and the hospital gives them to her; Kern Medical is an ‘acute care’ health provider.  Perhaps certain institutions like Kern Medical give access to unapproved drugs for things like cancer.  Her cancer has been in remission since that long ago.  She said she took a variety of them, “whatever was available” and she only wanted such “alternative” treatment.  I don’t know how it is, or if it depends on each state, but maybe there is easy access to unapproved drugs through health providers like Kern Medical.

Kern Medical | Healthcare Services in Kern County, CA

Mises: “Is not the harm a man can inflict on his mind and soul even more disastrous than any bodily evils?”

It was beautiful in the 80s, 70s and before.  I really doubt Mises would have held the same position in this time.  I think right now of the condom sales company that is getting an obscene amount of air time on MSNBC (just one such example).  Scantily dressed gals appear saying how much they want him to buy the condom (small children should not watch it), a commercial unthinkable in the 70s and 80s.  It’s so unusual that I wonder if they even pay for their air time like others would have to pay.  Why would only they be interested in such air time?  In 1980-1981, oil companies had TV commercials, cornflakes did, many businesses, but no condom or sexual dysfunction products.  Today, it is basically only these that get air time.  And we’re supposed to think it’s just business and not a demonic attack against our humanity.  There are also the LGBTQ commercials.  The insinuations mixed with a product name that is hard to remember because of the scenes presented are the normal thing today.  A man enters his home.  Another man inside walks out in his red underwear and just steps out through a back door and walks dancing towards the limits of the property and it ends with the camera filming his dance from behind.  What is it all supposed to mean?  What does it have to do with “business”? What kind of higher power does this company have to get so much air time?  Who is behind such commercials?  “Freedom” is the pathway for their control of the airwaves.  But with such “freedom” (freedom would be to forbid such indoctrination), we have as a matter of fact a country with more mass murders and social pathologies than perhaps any other Western country.  Maybe the rest get these from us.

I remember an oblique reference from Mises to a public housing project in Austria which had been closed to homosexual people.  They had been expelled.  It seemed to me that he agreed and liked that normal families would now live there instead of them.  He did not embrace in that instance the idea that such couples had a right to congregate there, and obviously not the right of others to orchestrate that kind of outcome.  It’s different when it’s private, but I think it’s an example where Mises approved a policy because of the morality and decency it produced.  Would he approve a decent State that saw the social demonic attack of such “products,” recognized its effects in the unprecedented social pathologies produced, and decided to fight force with force and make things decent again?  I would like the state to say to them: “Do you still forbid foul words in your commercials, and why?  For the same reason, this list of indecent commercials will never be shown again.  It’s part of our war against terror.  You have 24 hours to get rid of all of them or all of you shall be arrested tomorrow.  This is freedom.  It’s the war against terror, you know how it is…”  I would like to see them act and speak like they did with the terror suspect in his arrest.

Would Mises approve of that?  Not if we go by that quote.  However, give him our set of facts and he would probably understand.  I can’t imagine him opposing the cancelling of such commercials.

I watched 1980s commercials sometime ago.  Beautiful commercials, their music was soothing, pleasant, the content businesslike.  There should be no “freedom” to move from that to what we are given now.  As terrorism itself shows or demonstrates, we live at a time when the supernatural realm and the natural realm, so much theorized about in all of human history, are interacting like never before, and we are attacked, and there is the need to be both wise and strong.  Anyone fighting against humanity itself is an enemy with no “freedom” to do so.  It would be wrong to call his crime something else and give him the freedom to do it.

In 2024, the answer to his question is still “yes” (and that lucky are those who never saw it).  I think he would like the cancellation of all “woke” and pervert TV commercials, like he liked it when the homosexuals who had taken over some public housing were expelled in Austria (I think this is in “Notes and Recollections”, must be there).

RE: “Questions Swirl Around Would-Be Trump Assassin’s Ukrainian Ties”

Again, a shooter was ready to kill the president.   All he needed to do is not be detected like he was.  The rest of the difficulties that should exist didn’t.  Before, anyone could climb to the roof and shoot the president.  Now, it’s like anyone could walk to the fence and shoot the president.  He wore an orange T-shirt as if to be noticed?  That’s like terrorism (people are mocked).  I don’t know if the backpacks were placed on the fence for the picture, or if he placed them like that.  There is not much shrubbery there.  Everything is abnormal about it.  That’s like terrorism always.  The authorities are best at engaging in self-praise that is out of place and dislikeable.  That’s how they are lousy.

It’s always difficult for any normal or sane person to decide to commit such an act knowing that he won’t be free for the rest of his life if he does it and survives.  So far, the key person is the witness.  It’s necessary to know his past as much as the past of the culprit.  To me, it’s 50-50 (now) that he saw what he saw, and 50-50 that the culprit was even there.  It is odd that the agent(s) who fired at him did not kill him or struck him.  According to the NYT, they aimed at the muzzle of the rifle.  They did not hit the rifle, we understand.  If the shooter had remained calm, he could have then fired in the direction of the president.  To aim at the rifle only may ensure that the shooter escapes, and then all will be contingent on someone else seeing him escape and taking his license plate number, which is too much to expect.  Is that the set procedure for it?  It was/is odd how much this agent was praised by federal and local law enforcement.  He saw the man there because he had to be looking for such a possibility.  After that, he could have shot toward the sky with this procedure.

NYT: “According to the complaint, which you can read here, a Secret Service agent patrolling ahead of Trump — who was golfing with staff members and a friend a few hundred yards away — noticed the barrel of a rifle poking out of the bushes on the edge of the course at around 1:30 p.m. After the agent fired at it, Routh fled in a Nissan S.U.V. with a stolen license plate, which the police stopped about 45 minutes later…”

The goal should be to detect and understand the supernatural role in this other terrorist attack, but they don’t notice its role in the previous attack.  Why would the culprit stick the muzzle out as if there were no agents to see it and the president was beyond view as they say?  It’s as if Trump had been visible at that moment.    Waiting there for 11 hours?  He counted with no one inspecting the surroundings?  Someone with spiritual experience should interrogate him.  These agents can’t recognize the fake videos of the previous attack.

The bodycam of the “municipal officer” who climbed the roof and went back down as soon as he saw the “rifle,” shows that it was another roof and there was no person in it.  Glad I wrote, and that LRC published, articles which exposed such details.

From seclusion, Trump could campaign as never has been done before and probably ensure a clear victory (I think so).  Online, he could debate Kamalah again (the context would give him a debate victory; it would be she who promotes him by accepting the debate).

The post We Need Medical Freedom; ‘Questions Swirl Around Would-Be Trump Assassin’s Ukrainian Ties’ appeared first on LewRockwell.

As individual citizens, as voters and taxpayers we have been so deeply, so consistently, so relentlessly indoctrinated, so blindly radicalized, and so thoroughly and easily subjugated and ideologically manipulated that, by now, it has become terribly challenging for any of us to even entertain any viewpoint or any opinion that is opposed to our own.

It is next to impossible for a single individual to find the strength of character or the moral fortitude to raise doubts, questions or objections against the prevalent dogmatic proclamations (arguments built upon the idea that any statement can be true and valid as long as a figure of authority declares it so – even if common sense or public opinion opposes it). It is nearly inconceivable for an ordinary person to defy convention and conformity and to embrace basic human instincts instead, by giving in to primal urges like curiosity, inquisitiveness, creativity and innovation.  It has become unthinkable, unacceptable and even unforgivable to harbor, to foster and to pursue any original thought, especially if said thought is perceived as dissenting, deviating or dismissive towards the myriads of forced narratives and “universal truths” have been imposed upon the body politic since time immemorial.

For example, no-one is allowed to question the need (or, more accurately, the lack thereof) for a State machine or for a government or for any other kind of centralized authority. It is generally taken for granted and it is seen as a “given” that some kind of central, “top down” administration has to exist, in order for any civilized society to emerge and to function. In most western nations, it is also seen as self-evident that the most efficient and effective way to choose this all-important and all-powerful leadership is to go through the democratic process and to ascertain the majority’s wishes, to be guided by the “will of the people” and to strive towards the “greater good” – or differently put, to prioritise the interests of the many over the interests of the few, to maximize the welfare, the protection and the prosperity of the “average” voter over the needs and even over the natural rights of any divergent individual – society as a whole is seen as infinitely more important than the actual human beings who constitute it.

This kind of brutally utilitarian, entirely soulless and deplorably materialistic view of mankind is truly alarming. Looking at people as mere parts of a whole, dehumanizing them by treating them as interchangeable cogs in a machine, and denying them their basic human dignity by dismissing their individuality, the unique experiences, the choices and the sacrifices that shaped them is a dangerously reductive and recklessly myopic way of looking at the world and especially trying to understand our role or our purpose in it. This unfeeling and distorted perspective, that values human achievements, feats of ingenuity or creativity, and general human progress only if they serve and further the interests of the collective inevitably reduces every individual to an inconsequential, inhuman, readily replaceable automaton, dominated and controlled by genetically pre-programmed commands and primal instincts and hardwired to value social acceptance, group membership and conformity over anything else.

This point of view is eerily and worryingly similar to the way we view an ant colony or a bee hive. We marvel at the coordination, the synchronization, the communication, the assimilation and the harmonization that these remarkable creatures demonstrate. We are impressed and fascinated by their collective behaviors, patterns and skills, and we are captivated by their capacity to act in perfect unison and to function as a single “super-organism” with a unified purpose and consolidated will. Our admiration of successful colonies and productive hives, our respect for these complex and spectacular systems, and our delight at the precision, persistence and resilience that permeates their life’s work makes it near-impossible for most people to inflict any harm upon such a collective, provided it poses no physical threat of course.

Having seen and fully appreciated the marvelous intricacies, the impenetrable cohesion and the meticulous organization of an ant colony or the seemingly spontaneous order, the efficiency and the productivity of a bee hive, the vast majority of sane, sensible people would instinctively be inclined to protect and preserve natural formations of this sort, as they stand as a testament to the power of the collective. No-one in their right mind would purposefully and unprovokedly destroy a buzzing bee hive or a dynamic ant colony. However, the same cannot be said for the individual members of systems like these. A single ant or a solitary bee enjoy no such reverence; to the contrary, they are treated as pests, they stir only feelings of annoyance or disgust and they are thus summarily and almost automatically exterminated.

This analogy holds up very well as an illustration of how the powers that be look at the individual citizen. They too seek to protect and preserve the collective, they too appreciate the “public” as a whole – after all, there can be no government if there’s no body to govern. That’s why the faceless, soulless, abstract “masses”, the “citizenry”, the “body politic”, or whatever else one chooses to call this human super-organism, is vitally important to those who seek power and control. However, no respect, or even no compassion, is extended to the individual citizen.

Much like we consider the life, the suffering and the death of the aforementioned defenseless insects to be totally insignificant and entirely irrelevant to our own lives, so do the rulers look upon the ruled. And just like most of us would not think twice before crushing an ant with our shoe, so do the powers that be feel about crushing bothersome individuals.

The only real difference is that most human collectives are controlled by the illusion of choice, the idea of self determination and the promise of personal agency. The notion that everyone’s voice is heard in the ballot box and the fantasy of “Vox Populi, Vox Dei”, despite being completely devoid of any meaning, have managed to sustain Western democracies for centuries. The public’s blind faith that “the system works”, that each vote counts as much as the next and that everyone has the same power to influence an election outcome might sound outrageously naive to the rational, clear-eyed observer, but it is this sheer wishful thinking that underpins and supports almost every western nation.

What is even more astounding is that even when the deception becomes apparent, this illusion of choice remains. In the West, we have for decades been subjected to the illusion of choice between two ideologically opposed political parties. However, everything makes a lot more sense once one realizes that the right wing and the left wing are attached to the same bird.

Every election cycle, including the one we’re in the middle of (with 2024 being the biggest election year in history based on the number of different national elections around the globe), we see this false dichotomy and yet the vast majority of the population still fall for it. Voting for the whomever presents themselves as a “conservative” means you’re either a fascist or a true patriot. Conversely, voting for left leaning parties makes you either moral and compassionate or a raging Marxist. This is an obviously childish view of the world, but it is where are presently standing in the political public dialogue. It is an intentionally bombastic, obnoxious and loud way of presenting the two choices to the average citizen and it is meant to distract them from the fact that there have actually no choice at all.

No matter who wins, the State machine keep humming along unperturbed. Sure, you might see some inconsequential and largely symbolic popular policies passed into law, like a tax cut here or an extra welfare benefit there, but the things that really matter, the decisions, the funding, the structural management of the country is totally unaffected. Wars, division, government powers and control, suppression of free speech, they all keep growing, along with the size of the State machine itself.

We saw this in recent European elections. The media at time claimed this year’s vote to be historic and all-defining in Belgium, France and in the UK. They turned out to be nothing of the sort. The people voted for the right in the first two examples and for the left in the latter case. Absolutely nothing changed in all cases, both wars are still ongoing, ECB-created inflation is still raging, individual freedoms are still being disregarded. The example of France, is particularly illuminating, as the popular vote was essentially ignored when previously warring parties entered into a coalition to block them from taking charge.

What voters fail to consider time and time again, is that the choice they are given is the same as the one Henry Ford gave to his customers when it came to selecting a color for their new car: “they can have whatever color they want, as long as it is black”.

It is entirely irrational to expect a different result when we keep doing the same thing over and over. Participating in this circus, turning against our neighbors and allowing ideological obsession to blind us to common sense and human empathy is not the way forward. The only sustainable path for reasonable, freedom loving people is to seek like-minded individuals and just “opt out” of this irreparably corrupt and unsalvageable system. The moment we all understand that the true enemy is not to our left nor to our right, but has been crushing us with his boot from above the entire time, is the moment we can start to regain control over our own lives.

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Why does the US government hate the American people? Why does the US government try to destroy us?

The Anti-White American Democrats are Incapable of Understanding that an illegal alien does not become part of a national community by unlawfully entering it, any more than a thief becomes an owner of property by stealing it.

What has happened to America when the entirety of the media, the entirety of the Democrat Party, the entirety of the universities, Homeland Security (sic) not only welcome but also facilitate the immigrant invasion that is overrunning the United States while Washington, abandoning its own borders, fights for Ukraine’s?

The national print and TV media describe the over-running of Springfield by immigrant-invaders as a restoration of a declining city, restoring property values, and enriching the culture. Every bit of information to the contrary is dismissed as fake news.

Wake Up White People. Your Existence Is Being Erased.

How is the Department of Homeland Security Protecting Our Security by Flying into Our Country at Our Expense Immigrant-invaders from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela?

DHS restarts migrant flights from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela – weeks after halting program over ‘fraud’ concerns | 29 Aug 2024 | The Department of Homeland Security said Thursday it is resuming migrant flights into the US from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela — one month after putting the program on pause due to potentially massive “fraud.” Under the Harris-Biden administration, the program had brought up to 30,000 migrants from those four nations into the U.S. every month under two-year work permits, so long as they passed a vetting process. Nearly half a million migrants had already received advance travel authorizations and then made their own arrangements to enter America via the humanitarian parole process before it was paused in mid-July. Around that time, an internal DHS report found thousands of sponsors allegedly committing fraud by listing fake Social Security numbers, home addresses or phone numbers — some of which belonged to dead people. See here.

Whitewash: UK University Removes ‘Anglo-Saxon’ From Curriculum

UK University Removes ‘Anglo-Saxon’ From Curriculum | 1 Sept 2024 | In a Black Lives Matter-inspired move, a British university has cancelled the term “Anglo-Saxon” from its curriculum. The University of Nottingham has removed “Algo-Saxon” from courses on history and literature to push back against “nationalist narratives.” According to The Telegraph, a masters-level course, Viking and Anglo-Saxon Studies, has been renamed as Viking and Early Medieval English Studies. Another module, a literature course originally named “A Tale of Seven Kingdoms: Anglo-Saxon and Viking-Age England from Bede to Alfred the Great” has been recast as “Early Mediaeval England from Bede to Alfred the Great.” Also, the university reportedly said that it will seek to “problematize the term ‘Viking’” as well.

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The war is lost, and the struggle to keep the ‘enforced pretending’ going is breaking through, to be seen by all as a false reality.

Israel is entering the next phase of its war on Palestine by completing its takeover of the Gaza Strip – from the northern border to the Netzarim corridor. It is likely that they intend for this area to then gradually be made available for Jewish settlement and annexation to Israel.

In a piece titled, “Annexation, Expulsion and Israeli Settlements: Netanyahu Gears Up for Next Phase of Gaza War”, the Editor of Haaretz, Aluf Benn, writes, were the takeover to proceed, “Palestinian residents who remain in northern Gaza will be expelled, as suggested by Maj. Gen. (res.) Giora Eiland, under threat of starvation and under cover of “protecting their lives””. Netanyahu and his supporters will see this move, Benn suggests, as a lifetime achievement: Expanding Israel’s territory for the first time, after 50 years of Israeli withdrawals. This will be the Israeli Right’s ‘Zionist response’ to 7 October.

This extraordinary shift was actuated – not just through military operations – but by the stroke of a pen: the appointment of Col. Elad Goren as head of the humanitarian-civil effort in Gaza, which effectively, makes him ‘Governor of Gaza’ for years to come.

Less noted in the western Mainstream media is the harsh reality that, in the course of the twenty months in which the current Israeli government has been in power, Ben Gvir has armed a 10,000 strong settler vigilante movement that has been terrorising Palestinians in the West Bank. The police in the occupied territories already answer to Ben Gvir’s authority.

What is missing from this appreciation is that whilst Ben Gvir has been assembling the ‘State Of Judea’s novel army’, Finance Minister Smotrich, who heads the Administration of the Territories, has revolutionized the situation for Jewish settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank. Authority in the West Bank has been turned-over to a closed, Right-wing messianic movement that answers only to a single man: Smotrich (the Governor of the West Bank in all but name).

In what Nahum Barnea describes as a stealth pincer-movement deployed by Smotrich, one arm of power has lain with his authority as finance minister; the second arm consists in the power delegated to him in his capacity as second minister in the Defence Ministry. Smotrich’s, and the Israeli government’s objective – laid out in Smotrich’s ‘Decisive Plan’ in 2017 – has not changed: to induce the collapse of the Palestinian Authority; to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state; and to give the seven million Palestinians who live between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea a choice: to die fighting; to immigrate to another country, or to live forever as vassals in a greater Israeli state.

Have no doubt, ‘the Decisive Plan’ for Palestinians is well underway – terrorising West Bankers to quit their land; the destruction of social infrastructure in the West Bank (as with Gaza); and through a harsh financial squeeze on Palestinian society – as in Gaza.

Netanyahu’s obfuscation about the likely future of Gaza needs little further explanation. The Palestinians in northern Gaza will face the fate of the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh: They were expelled overnight from the region a year ago, in a rapid move by Azerbaijanis. The world saw this, and simply ‘moved on’ – in the Israeli understanding of history. Netanyahu preferred to stay with a ‘small lie’ about Gaza’s future, rather than say the big truth out loud.

With Netanyahu’s statement last week on U.S. Fox News ‘that no deal for the release of hostages from Gaza is in the making; nor even close to being sealed. And by adding that the positive vibes (mostly emanating from Washington) were ‘false narratives’, Netanyahu effectively launched the next phase in Israel’s war: Military action in the north of Israel, aimed at creating the conditions for the return of its displaced residents. These three Israeli components (north Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon) mesh together. In fact, they are interlinked:

In the absence of a ‘diplomatic agreement’ in which Hizbullah would be removed from the border region (and to not return), Israel, by force of logic, has but two options: a Gaza ceasefire that might pacify its northern border, or a deliberate escalation in the north, with all its ramifications.

The notion that Hizballah would be ‘coaxed’ away from Lebanon’s border was always ‘pie-in-the-sky’. The prospects for a Gaza deal, the mediators now say, are ‘next to zero’, so Israel’s attention has turned northwards.

General Gantz, Chair of the National Unity opposition party – in Washington for the Middle East America Dialogue (MEAD) summit – and a critic of Netanyahu’s government, nonetheless seemed reconciled to the inevitable: “The story of Hamas is old news”, he said. “The story of Iran and its proxies all around the area and what they are trying to do is the real issue … The military focus should shift from Gaza to Lebanon”, adding that “we’re late on this”. “The time for [action in] the north has come”.

U.S. General Kurilla, who commands U.S. forces in the region, arrived at the weekend in Israel – his second visit in a week – to complete ‘coordination with the IDF in anticipation of any possible retaliatory Iranian and Hizbullah attack’.

Washington, though committed to support Israel in any conflict with Iran or Hizbullah, nonetheless is worried. Senior American officials expressed fear in recent days that a full-scale war against Hezbollah will lead to huge damage to the Israeli home front, especially if Iran and others from the Resistance Alliance join in.

Iran’s acquisition of advanced Russian defence materiel has severely complicated the picture for the U.S.: It may prove to be a game-changer when paired with Iran’s stock pile of advanced strike missiles. Modern war has passed through a revolution. Western air dominance has been check-mated.

The U.S. (unwisely) is committed to engage in any conflict that extends to Lebanon and Iran – and this, per se, likely would threaten Kamala Harris’ election prospects, as anger mounts amongst Muslim voters in key U.S. swing states.

There is also more than a hint of suspicion in Washington that Netanyahu would relish both hurting Biden–Harris, and throwing the election to Trump.

Netanyahu’s ‘Great Victory’ plan to clear Greater Israel of Palestinians is unfolding, however crushing Hizbullah remains outstanding. Are all these ‘victories’ remotely feasible? No. They risk rather, the collapse of Israel (as authoritative commentators such as Major-General Brick have made clear). It is however feasible, that Netanyahu will try to execute it. The Kahanist spirit lives on, and is today mainstream in Israel.

This prospect casts the dark pall of a huge black swan circling overhead the Middle East, for the months until the U.S. election.

So too, does the Ukraine war contain the seeds of an unexpected unpleasant surprise.

President Putin this week, at the Vladivostok Eastern Economic Forum, suggested that the Ukraine war too, is at an inflection point – on a par with that of the Middle East: Russia has turned the tables on the U.S. through its response to the Kursk incursion into Russia.

Russian forces seized on the the folly of Ukraine’s deployment of its crack brigades and prized Western armour into a forested, lightly populated, confinement cage – and settled down to a leisurely ‘turkey-shoot’.

Moscow refused the bait to draw down Russian reserves on the Donbas front to deploy into Kursk. And Putin clarified, with quiet confidence, in Vladivostok that Zelensky “accomplished nothing from the Kursk offensive. The Russian forces have stabilised the situation in Kursk and started pushing the enemy from border territories, whilst the Donbass offensive has made impressive territorial gains”.

For the sake of clarity, Putin said the enemy is suffering very heavy losses, both in manpower and equipment. This situation, he underlined, could lead to the collapse of the front in the most critical areas, and result in the complete loss of combat capability of its entire armed forces.

Putin may insist that, as always, he is open to dialogue; but his words at the end of that sentence were stark – a collapse, “which is what we were striving for” (referring to the complete loss of Ukrainian combat capability). These are seven key words.

To extrapolate, with the complete collapse of combat capability almost certainly comes the unravelling of the political architecture that is uniquely levered upon those military capabilities – and not on any political legitimacy.

What Moscow cannot foresee is how, or in what form, that unravelling might take.

The Kiev political structures likely will continue their zombie existence, albeit one stripped of their raison d’être for as long as the Biden Administration can manage it – for the sake of saving face until elections.

President Putin may ‘talk the talk’ of mediation, but Moscow well understands that the power structure in Kiev was drawn from the pool of racist ant-Slavs, precisely to block any accord with Moscow. Mediation is bound to be rebuffed – that was Washington’s purpose in empowering the Stefan Banderista bloc from the outset.

An unravelling of the Kiev political structures, however, probably renders all the ‘would-be mediators’ unnecessary.

Put frankly, a new (cleansed) dispensation in Kiev likely would conclude that it has little option other than capitulation on the battlefront, to offer formal neutrality and limits to future militarisation. And Moscow is quite able to discuss ‘that’ with Ukrainians, without ‘help’ from outside.

Of course, a chorus will arise that the U.S. will not be able to accept the complete collapse of Ukraine’s military capabilities – In the run-up to the November elections, that is quite true (rhetorically). That is why Putin keeps the ‘mediation narrative’ alive.

There is the BRICS summit ahead (in Russia, in late October) which needs managing. The West will push mediation until the last, in order to keep the existing Russophobic Kiev regime on life support for as long as possible – and to keep the frozen-conflict notion to the fore in the mind of some BRICS attendees. However, the frozen-conflict proposal is a trap to lay foundations for a future platform of pressures on Russia.

The U.S. and UK intelligence service chiefs may toy with the idea of striking deep inside Russia with ATACMS, but the resort to measures (frankly) aimed to terrorise the Russian civilian population, and to undermine Putin’s popularity, serves more to underline western strategic failure. Yet again, the West has failed to stand up a credible military force to overthrow a target, even one painted in full demonic hues.

The war is lost, and the struggle to keep the ‘enforced pretending’ going is breaking through, to be seen by all as a false reality.

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

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Some claim that IXXI was an “inside-job,” a “false-flag” operation in which the World Trade Center buildings were brought down by high-tech explosives, not by planes, and orchestrated by governing elites, not Muslims. Is such a claim debatable? Should one even consider it a possibility?

There are certain convictions that a Christian should never question or doubt. God is love and evil never triumphs, for example. No matter how much hatred and evil we encounter and experience in the world, we are never justified in seriously doubting this truth. By divine Faith, we are obliged to believe that every act of hatred and evil will somehow result, by God’s miraculous grace, in more love and good in the world than if these acts had never occurred. God is love, and all that happens, all that happens, are only the various expressions of His love for us. Of course, God does not will our hateful sins, but He transforms them and their effects into good. We might have a thousand difficulties reconciling our subjective experience with this rather incredible truth, but these can never justify one single doubt.

The set of unquestionable truths includes not only supernatural ones but also self-evident and natural truths, as well as those truths directly derived from them, the truths of the natural law, and the truths of man’s universal and particular experience of the world and himself. That things are, and I can know them; that truth exists, and I can discover it; that I have an immortal soul, and that it will be judged; that one must do good and avoid evil; that something cannot be and not be at the same time in the same respect; that nothing in this created world can satisfy me; that the United States of America was founded in 1787; that the earth is round.

Then there are those truths that are intrinsically debatable. Convictions about these matters should be held rather loosely, even when we are convinced of their truth, and they should be perpetually questioned, not because these are necessarily bad or false convictions, but because these are, unlike the self-evident or common sense truths and facts of nature, or the revealed supernatural truths of supernature, inherently debatable. We could be wrong about them. These are the convictions we have regarding matters of human history, personal actions, and interpretation of particular experiences, such as the precise causes of historical events, the details of scientific theory, judgments of character, and deliberations of prudence. We may indeed have the right opinion on one or more of this sort of issue, but it must be seen as just that—an opinion, however well grounded. There are simply no non-debatable, unassailable reasons to hold mere opinions to be non-negotiable and indisputably true, unless of course, they are transformed from opinions into knowledge (for the best analysis ever written on how this may occur, read Plato’s Republic). But some opinions can not be so transformed. But until then, there is no unimpeachable authority, including the authority of the opinions themselves, that obliges us to hold any of these opinion-level convictions without some level of epistemological doubt. On the contrary, it would be an act of disobedience and impiety to truth not to place these kinds of convictions under critical scrutiny and subjective doubt.

Unfortunately, it is just these types of convictions about which absolute certainty cannot be possessed, or at least with much more difficulty than one presumes, that are often held with the most intransigence and naïve fidelity by many Americans. So, is the mainstream media and government narrative about IXXI one of these opinions, or is it a non-debatable fact?

How do you react to the idea that IXXI may not be what you think it is, that it might indeed be an “inside job?” Is it with immediate disdain and disbelief at the mere possibility of a government cover up of this matter? If so, why? Think about your reaction. Is it logical? Is it coherent with your other beliefs? Is a government that protects and even endorses (some elements of it do) the murder of unborn babies and covers it up with propaganda capable of lying about 3000 murders? Is it absolutely unthinkable that powerful elements in our government would kill their own people if it meant securing and preserving their power?

What is the best explanation for all three (yes three, not two) towers collapsing into their footprints at what looks like virtually freefall speeds? Isn’t a controlled demolition a plausible explanation? It would have taken weeks or even months to plan, but is that outside the realm of possibility? If you watch the videos with an open mind, the buildings appear to turn to dust in mid air, and there are other anomalies that the official narrative does not and cannot explain. See this.

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