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For many years now I have been talking about the growing global economic divide between East and West. This volatile opposition between the BRICS nations and the US is not a product of the Trump era. It has been decades in the making with a myriad of complex working parts and numerous US trading partners have been preparing for the fallout as far back as 2008.

At the same time behind the scenes there have been malicious influences at play: Special interests within the Davos community have been working diligently to undermine the US economy and the dollar. But what is the ultimate aim of this agenda?

In 2018 I published an article titled ‘World War III Will Be An Economic War’ – In it I outlined the basic mechanics of the East vs West paradigm and how banking institutions like the IMF and BIS were positioning to take advantage of the chaos. At the time, the “trade war” witnessed a kind of false start, but all the pieces were there for what we are seeing today. Don’t let the 90 day pauses on some tariffs fool you, economic decoupling is going to be the dominant theme of the decade and the tariffs will undoubtedly spring up over and over again.

Trump’s incredible return to the White House sets the stage for the end of globalism (and that’s a good thing), but I want to make it clear that the pitfalls are numerous and the establishment could try to use the end of the old world order to bring in their “new world order”.

In 2018 I noted:

“The bottom line is this: Russia and China are in full support of globalist controlled institutions like the Bank for International Settlements (the central bank of central banks) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The governments of both nations have called for the IMF to assert their Special Drawing Rights basket currency framework as a foundation for a new world reserve currency system. Again, both Russia and China want the IMF, a globalist controlled entity, to become the de facto ruler of a new global monetary structure…”

“With the rise of simple to generate cryptocurrencies and the easily tracked blockchain exchange mechanism, globalists now have the perfect liquidity tool for replacing the dollar as world reserve. All they need now is a crisis event to provide cover for the transition…”

“…It would appear that a crisis event is now being triggered in the form of an international trade war. This trade war, in my view, is designed to become so widespread that it will one day be considered a “world war.”

As I’ve mentioned many times, the dollar’s world reserve status, instituted with the Bretton Woods Agreement in 1944, has long been America’s Achilles Heel.

The US technically enjoys an enviable trade advantage as well as a monetary stimulus advantage because the dollar is used in the majority of international transactions. This means the Federal Reserve can print dollars with wild abandon and most of them will be absorbed overseas by foreign banks, governments and corporations. In this way, the dollar is already a kind of beta test for a one world currency.

However, the Bretton Woods Agreement came with a series of caveats, some of them unspoken. For the “privilege” of controlling the reserve currency, the US is expected to financially backstop allies as well as provide the vast majority of military support for NATO. The revelations behind the DOGE audits alone show an endless flood of dollars from American taxpayer funds into a vast array of subsidies for foreign governments. Americans has been paying for everyone and everything.

You know those supposedly amazing social welfare and healthcare programs in Europe? Yeah, we make that possible through billions in foreign aid to the those countries along with hundreds of billions spent on defense so that Europeans can sleep easy at night.

The situation is even worse when we consider how many trillions of dollars were created from thin air by the Federal Rserve and transferred overseas after the crash of 2008. Not to mention the trillions poured into foreign economies during the pandemic. In the meantime, relentless money creation is finally catching up to us in the form of a stagflation crisis. The dollar system, as we know it, is precariously unstable and more stimulus is not going to save it.

It’s not surprising the US has been hit with an inflationary freight train. We haven’t just been printing dollars for ourselves, we’ve been printing dollars for the entire planet.

The old world agreements are ending, and in many ways this is necessary. European leaders are going full authoritarian; they now throw people in prison daily for online speech and they are also throwing their right-leaning political opponents in prison to prevent them from participating in elections. Europe is no longer our ally and the US public is starting to realize it.

Outsourced production in Asia, the foundation of the current global supply chain, is in need of reform. Because of our reserve status America has become the world’s cash cow. We have been relegated to the position of dutiful consumer nation, spending our increasingly devalued dollars in a spiraling cycle of inflationary decline while we produce very little on our own soil.

Donald Trump’s tariff actions, which I suspect will be cumulative over the next few years, are an expression of America’s desire to end the globalist status quo and bring back balance. That said, the rhetoric from the rest of the world and the media is that these tariffs constitute an “act of war”.

As I predicted years ago, the US is not allowed to stray from the Bretton Woods system without being painted as an “aggressor” nation bent on destroying our neighbors. Keep in mind, most of the countries affected by Trump’s tariffs have had their own tariffs on American goods for decades. When they do it, it’s normal. When we do it, it’s a betrayal.

Enter the BRICS; this international trade body is currently headed by Brazil and includes China, Russia, India, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates among others. The running theory for many alternative economists is that the BRICS will eventually move to fully decouple from the US dollar and introduce their own shared currency system.

I have posited a similar theory, though I argue that the situation is not as simple as some analysts think. This is not just an East vs West division leading to a break in the dollar structure; there is a lot more going on.

Ten years ago the BRICS were in a much better position economically and that would have been the time to introduce a competing monetary framework. Today, Russia is in the midst of a proxy war with NATO in Ukraine, China is on the edge of deflationary collapse and South Africa is on the edge of social collapse. There’s not a single BRICS member beyond oil producers like Saudi Arabia that is not facing extreme fiscal turmoil. In other words, the BRICS do not currently have the ability to counter the dollar.

That said, I don’t think this was ever the plan. Rather, globalist institutions like the IMF, BIS and World Bank have been preparing for the rollout of CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies) along with a single IMF controlled global digital currency attached to the SDR basket. The BRICS cannot compete with the dollar, unless the IMF and BIS help them to do so.

As IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva admitted in 2023:

“CBDCs should not be fragmented national propositions… To have more efficient and fairer transactions we need systems that connect countries: we need interoperability…For this reason at the IMF, we are working on the concept of a global CBDC platform.”

Such program could only be accomplished after serious economic turmoil has made the populations of all nations desperate for a centralized solution. The upcoming BRICS Summit in Rio de Janeiro, slated for July, should be watched carefully because it is timed almost exactly in line with the end of Trump’s 90 day tariff pause. The summit is expected to address the trade war in depth as well as the subject of “de-dollerization”. Trump has previously threatened a 150% tariff on any country that makes an attempt to de-dollerize.

While speaking at the BRICS Summit in 2024, held at Kazan (Russia), Russian President Vladimir Putin said:

“The dollar is being used as a weapon. We really see that this is so. I think that this is a big mistake by those who do this”.

This was the same summit where Putin shared a mock up of a “BRICS dollar” and spoke about the adaptation of a BRICS currency. Of course, Russia is in no position to field a new reserve currency and neither is China, but I believe this talk is a precursor to a larger international push for a new reserve system managed by the IMF.

The BRICS intend to court the Mexican government at the July 2025 summit in Rio de Jeneiro and there is also talk of European nations increasing trade with China as a way to frustrate Trump’s tariff efforts. But again, China’s economy is currently flirting with deflationary disaster and there’s not a single nation or group of nations that will be able to fill the void in consumer markets left behind by the US.

Even though a Chinese-based solution is unlikely, the behavior of the BRICS indicates that there is some kind of plan afoot. China and India have been stockpiling massive gold reserves and this may be in preparation for a break from the dollar, with gold skyrocketing as the dollar falls. The ongoing shift into crypto and CBDCs is also, I believe, an attempt to create a cushion for de-dollerization.

Just remember that none of this is possible without globalist organizations facilitating the spread of the technology. The BIS has been particularly active the past 5 years in testing cross-border CBDC swaps and secure CBDC transactions. The BRICS would be nothing more than a vehicle for the proliferation of a globalist CBDC reset.

Does this mean that the US and Trump are falling into a trap? Do tariffs make it easier to justify an international shift way from the dollar? Is Trump making things easier for the globalists? I argue that this reset is going to be attempted regardless; Trump and conservatives are going to be blamed regardless. Americans will blame the BRICS and Europe – The BRICS and Europe will blame America.

It should also be noted that the middle class and poverty stricken citizens of China and Europe largely HATE their governments. The elites have abused them beyond all measure and what little freedoms they have left are being erased. Most of these people are on the side of anti-globalism. This war is not everyone in the world against the US, though the corporate media would have you believe this is the case.

Tariffs are a way for the US to disrupt the forced interdependency of globalism, but there’s going to be pain involved as things change. In other words, tariffs are necessary. The end of globalism is necessary. America needs to stop relying on the dollar’s reserve status and the global supply chain. But we should be wary of what kind of system ends up replacing the Bretton Woods structure. Meaning, we may have to use any means at our disposal to stop a new global monetary scheme before it can take hold.

The next BRICS Summit should be scrutinized carefully because it could give us insight into when the next stage of the “reset” will begin. Don’t be surprised if their rhetoric is wildly hostile towards the US and decoupling from the dollar is the main topic of discussion. Also don’t be surprised if “de-dollerization” becomes a household term in the next couple of years.

This article was originally published at Birch Gold Group.

The post Is ‘De-Dollerization’ on the Table? BRICS Summit Approaches as Trade War Simmers appeared first on LewRockwell.

A change of pace is always welcome, especially when writing a column about politics. The latter can be as boring as writing about cooking, and the only newspaper that used a cookery writer as a political pundit is The New York Times. I think he’s called Frank Bruni and he’s reported to be going blind due to his loathing of Donald Trump.

Never mind. When your correspondent was still in shorts and newly arrived in America, the greatest and most feared gangster was one Frank Costello. Brought up in front of a Senate investigating committee, his lawyers managed to keep his face out of camera range and only his hands were televised. Somebody at home figured out that his nails were manicured and polished. He lost a few points among us after that.

Years later at a chic nightclub I watched as some greasy-looking fellow kept running his fingers up and down my wife’s naked back. I stood up and punched downward. All hell broke loose. The owner, Oleg Cassini, Jackie Kennedy’s couturier and JFK’s procurer, demanded I apologize to the slob I had hit as he was Senator Williams of New Jersey. The year was 1966. I did nothing of the sort but instead went to the bathroom to wash my hands as I had cut my knuckle during the fracas. That’s when I heard the following from a man speaking on the telephone: “Yeah, his name is Taki, and he lives in the Sherry-Netherland.”

“When your correspondent was still in shorts and newly arrived in America, the greatest and most feared gangster was one Frank Costello.”

Although he was a mincing rat of a man, I took what I was hearing rather seriously. In fact his words had an elegiac sense of doom—gangsters spraying the 18-year-old wife’s face with acid and other such horrors. This, I said to myself, is real; cancel culture for good. So, with no time for heroics, I called on my friend Tom Corbally, man about town, lady-killer par excellence, decorated rear gunner on more than thirty missions over Germany, and among the best-looking men in New York City and definitely connected with the city’s most powerful but criminal members. “Don’t worry, kid, we’ll go see Mr. C,” said Tom when I visited him at 530 Park Avenue. Mr. C was the way people in the know referred to Frank Costello, retired head of the Cosa Nostra, but still no one to disrespect, and then some.

We met at Childs, on 79th Street and Madison Avenue, where Mr. C lunched and dined daily. His voice was gravelly, more like Robert Kennedy’s today, and his accent was not exactly upper-class, but neither was it Brooklynese, as my father used to call it. After I explained my predicament, Mr. C asked only one question: “Were you in any way out of line?” “No, sir,” I answered truthfully. “I’ll see what I can do,” said Mr. C.

A few days later at P.J. Clarke’s, another popular city hangout back then, the rat man spotted me and came up with his hand extended. “Hey, Taki, no hard feelings, everything’s fine,” said the rat. “And the senator said you had a hell of a right.” Obviously Mr. C’s magic wand had done the trick. Incidentally, Senator Williams, having survived a right cross, did not end well. Like a more recent senator from New Jersey, he was indicted in something called Arabgate and disappeared from view. My problem was how to thank Mr. C for services rendered. My finances were tight, so I went to my mother and spilled the beans, and she came to the rescue. “Just don’t tell your father you know people like this gangster,” she warned.

Alas, more problems ensued. My mother bought a pair of Cartier cuff links that if memory serves were green and very chic and expensive. They did not register with Mr. C, who told Tom Corbally that “your friend Taki is a cheapskate.” Size mattered to those gents, and the cuff links I gave him were understated to say the least. But then we made up for good. Tom had told Mr. C that Gianni Agnelli and I were great friends, and Mr. C told me he’d like to meet the Fiat heir and chairman-to-be. Costello had a daily morning shave at the Waldorf Astoria barbershop, and Gianni Agnelli kept a suite at the Waldorf Towers. I pleaded with Gianni to come down to the barbershop for two minutes, and he finally said yes. Mr. C called him Giovanni, while Gianni called him Mr. Costello. “I wanted to meet you and tell you my first car was a Fiat,” said Mr. C. “I won it in a raffle in Atlantic City when I was a kid. I told the man holding the mic that No. 9 wins. He told me to get lost. Then I showed him the rod and repeated that No. 9 wins. And it did.” “How amusing,” said Agnelli, “I don’t think our advertising department can use it.”

Yep, those were the days, and they all came back because of a new movie, The Alto Knights, that features Frank Costello played by Robert De Niro. In this film Mr. C is shown as an uxorious husband. In real life Mr. C was married but spending three nights a week with Thelma Martin, his mistress, whose apartment was a couple of blocks down from where he lived with his wife. Movies always show life to be worse than it really is.

This originally appeared on Taki’s Magazine.

The post The Real Costello appeared first on LewRockwell.

Millions of people around the world were at the edge of their seats over the weekend, waiting to hear whether Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff’s indirect talks with the Iranian foreign minister would ratchet down tensions or would break down and bring on a major Middle East war.

If it seems bizarre that the outcome of a meeting between a US president’s designated negotiator and a foreign government minister could determine whether we plunge into possibly our biggest war since World War II, that’s because it is bizarre. In fact, this is an excellent example of why our Founders were so determined to keep warmaking authority out of the Executive Branch of government. No one person – much less his aide – should have the power to take this country to war.

That is why the Constitution places the authority to go to war firmly and exclusively in the hands of the representatives of the people: the US Congress. After all, it is the US people who will be expected to fight the wars and to pay for the wars and to bear the burden of the outcome of the wars. When that incredible power is placed in the hands of one individual – even if that individual is elected – the temptation to use it is far too great. Our Founders recognized this weakness in the system they were rebelling against – the British monarchy – so they wisely corrected it when they drafted our Constitution.

Unless the US is under direct attack or is facing imminent direct attack, the Constitution requires Congress to deliberate, discuss, and decide whether a conflict or potential conflict is worth bringing the weight of the US military to bear. They wanted it harder, not easier, to take us to war.

When wars can be started by presidents with no authority granted by Congress, the results can be the kinds of endless military engagements with ever-shifting, unachievable objectives such as we’ve seen in Afghanistan and Iraq.

We are currently seeing another such endless conflict brewing with President Trump’s decision to start bombing Yemen last month. The stated objectives– to end Houthi interference with Israeli Red Sea shipping – are not being achieved so, as usually happens, the bombing expands and creates more death and destruction for the civilian population. In the last week or so, US bombs have struck the water supply facilities for 50,000 civilians and have apparently blown up a civilian tribal gathering.

Starting a war with Iran was the furthest thing from the minds of American voters last November, and certainly those who voted for Donald Trump were at least partly motivated by his promise to end current wars and start no new wars. However, there is a strange logic that to fulfill the promise of no new wars, the US must saber rattle around the world to intimidate others from crossing the White House. This is what the recycled phrase “peace through strength” seems to have come to mean. But the real strength that it takes to make and keep peace is the strength to just walk away. It is the strength to stop meddling in conflicts that have nothing to do with the United States.

That is where Congress comes in. Except they are not coming in. They are nowhere to be found. And that is not a good thing.

The post Standing at the Edge of the Iran War Cliff appeared first on LewRockwell.

Whatever else you think is happening in our world, contraction is the reality-based order-of-the-day, and everything else is downstream of that. The world has to get by with less. Nothing is going to fix this for everybody, though any number of schemes for redistributing what’s left will preoccupy the political mojo.

Right now, it’s tariffs, which are an attempt to restore industry ceded to the formerly left-behind people elsewhere in the world — taking back what we used to do. You are correct to wonder if this is even possible. The wish is surely understandable, if a bit fuzzy and over-simplified: to be again a nation of people occupied purposefully in the service of a bright future. Redemption stories are deeply appealing.

Many of us are aware that the hour for this is late. We’ve already lived through our decades of pumping cheap oil out of American ground, extracting the ores, fashioning the metal into I-beams and rails, raising the skyscrapers, laying the asphalt ribbons of highway, and strewing the landscape with split-level houses and strip-malls. Let’s not try a re-run of that.

What have we got to work with? An overly-complex matrix of systems and subsidiary systems operating on the verge of failure at excessive scale. For example, our cities and their asteroid belts of suburbs. The rot is already well-advanced in many of them from their centers outward, and we can see the process underway of strip-mining the remaining assets on-the-ground. Detroit, Cleveland, Baltimore. . . all occupy important geographically strategic sites. All are populated by dwindling societies of the cope-less, floundering their way out of existence. The geographies will abide without them. Others will come along and make something of these places’ virtues.

Agri-business is a method for strip-mining the value from what remains of our fruited plains. Everything about it is on an arc of failure, mortgaged to a futureless giantism. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and now that time has passed. The remaining soil itself can probably be rescued with heroic ant-like peasant labor over generations, which is to say a long and rather desperate project with no quick resolution. Even if Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., hadn’t come along to read America the riot act on food, anyone can see that the age of Froot Loops is drawing to a close.

Town and country, what human society at its best was composed of, has got to be rearranged. This is something that MAGA is not talking about. MAGA looks like it is seeking a reenactment of the years 1950 to 1964. That isn’t going to happen. What then? The tech broz propose something that looks like an A-I printed robotic future. They are drunk on their own Stanford University brand Kool-Aid, hallucinating a future that is little more than math dressed in spandex.

It is nearly impossible to grok the size of their vast fortunes, their billions. Thousands upon thousands of millions. From what? From marshaling squadrons of lawyers to draw up ownership documents for this and that venture enabling idiots with nose-rings to lecture each other about sexual etiquette on cell-phone screens? Warning: don’t become infatuated with singularities, journeys beyond biology and the ecology of planet earth. That’s a story for saps, cargo-cultists, the mentally ill.

Speaking of all that money, one thing you can surely depend on is a violent unwinding of global finance. The vast bottom of humanity already has plenty of nothing, and their abundance will abide. The hedge fund broz and related broz in the shared hallucinations of capital can make some provision for wealth preservation if they have half-a-brain. It’s the great wad in the middle that has the worst problem: they get wiped out and then they discover they have no Plan B. That’s when the fun really kicks off in America (and other sovereign lands, of course.)

Things are breaking ‘out there.’ The financial world’s feedstock is promises. In a trusting world, promises are a splendid technology. Promises allow you to borrow hamburgers from next Tuesday to have a hamburger today. . . .and all else that follows from that. In a not-so-trusting world, promises go up in a vapor with the morning dew.

The folks in charge will attempt to manage the manifest contraction that is upon us by doing everything possible to pretend that it isn’t happening and to deflect from any signals that happen to get through the muzak they broadcast about blue skies and staying on the sunny side. If you are serious — even serious about the comedy sure to arise out of this — you will be prepared for all kinds of trouble: shortages, hunger, civil strife, cold, darkness, the absence of TikTok. Your number-one job is to stay sane. Now, go forth and revel in today’s fine spring weather, mindful of the many more fine days to come as history spools out.

Reprinted with permission from Kunstler.com.

The post Systemic Considerations appeared first on LewRockwell.

(Montgomery, Alabama) – Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has signed Senate Bill 130 into law, reaffirming gold and silver as legal tender. This symbolic victory marks Alabama’s latest step toward promoting constitutional sound money in the state.

Sponsored by Sen. Tim Melson and Rep. Jamie Kiel, the Alabama Legal Tender Act recognizes “any refined gold or silver bullion, specie, or coin that has been stamped, marked, or imprinted with its weight and purity” as legal tender in the Yellowhammer State.

The law ensures that no one is obligated to accept gold and silver for transactions unless specified by a contract or required by law.

The measure, backed by Money Metals Exchange and the Sound Money Defense League, sailed through the state legislature with unanimous support, receiving no negative votes in committee or floor votes in either chamber.

Article 1 Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution reads: “No state shall… coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; [or] make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts…” Senate Bill 130 aligns with this constitutional mandate.

“I’m proud to sponsor this legislation reaffirming gold and silver as legal tender in Alabama,” said Senator Melson in an exclusive interview with the Sound Money Defense League.

“While inflation continues to erode the purchasing power of the U.S. Dollar, encouraging stable, time-tested, and constitutional alternatives like gold and silver is a commonsense step. This bill upholds their constitutional status and supports sound money for our citizens across the state,” he concluded.

This marks the fifth pro-sound money law enacted in 2025, a national trend driven by the Sound Money Defense League and Money Metals Exchange for over a decade. Alabama joins Kentucky, Wyoming, and Idaho in passing related laws this year.

So far this year, Wyoming has established a $10 million physical gold reserve, Idaho passed bills eliminating capital gains taxes on gold and silver and reaffirming the two precious metals as legal tender, and Kentucky became one of the dozens of states to end sales taxes on purchases of precious metals.

After President Nixon “temporarily suspended” the convertibility of dollars into gold, America’s 54-year experiment with a purely fiat currency system has fueled high inflation, ballooning deficits, and unchecked government spending.

When savers, wage earners, and investors seek ways to protect their savings from the ravages of inflation, they often choose precious metals over fiat currency because precious metals have preserved purchasing power over time.

Since 2018, Senator Melson has advocated for several sound money bills alongside the Sound Money Defense League to expand tax exemptions and remove barriers to using gold and silver in Alabama. Senate Bill 130 offers symbolic support to Alabama citizens making this choice, and it is a modest next step toward continuing to promote sound money legislation in the state.

This year’s legislative success builds on the passage of seven sound money bills in 2024, five in 2023, and three in 2022 – each of which enjoyed strong support from the Sound Money Defense League.

With SB 130 passed, Alabama, currently ranked 9th on the Sound Money Index, is expected to rise in the 2026 edition.

This originally appeared on Money Metals.

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Back in 1949 the world was still recovering from World War II. The Korean War wouldn’t start for another year, but George Orwell was already focused on the dangers of communism and the totalitarianist government it builds. World War II was started by totalitarian governments; but worse than that was how such governments treat the citizens living under their control.

In his book 1984, the government, encapsulated in the persona of “Big Brother,” knew everything about everyone; where they were, what they were doing and even what they were thinking much of the time. This was used to keep control of people to an extreme that even the now defunct Soviet Union couldn’t reach. Yet with modern technology, the reality of such a government could very well be forming around us and we don’t even see it happening.

As we know, the government is actively spying on every one of us. That’s the essence of Edward Snowden’s message, since he left the employ of the NSA. While that spying is intended to help prevent terrorism, we’ve seen some in government be awfully free in their use of that term. One can quickly find themselves labeled as a terrorist if the political winds blow the wrong way.

On top of the NSA, big tech is in cahoots with government in a number of ways, most especially with providing information to law enforcement officers, as they seek to solve crimes. But that same information which is being used for the good of tracking down and convicting criminals can very well be used against the rest of us. After all, any of us can become an instant felon, simply by Congress passing a law making something that has been legal, suddenly illegal.

An excellent case in point is the current push by Democrats to restrict our Second Amendment rights. Should they do that, then millions of law-abiding citizens will suddenly be faced with the option of turning in valuable firearms or hiding them from the government. Will the government hunt down those who haven’t turned in their guns, using the same tools they are currently using to track down criminals? Only time will tell.

So, what can we do to keep the government from having an idea where we are and what we are doing? To start with, we need to understand that the government has multiple means of tracking us, not just one or two. That means we’re going to have to defeat them all, if we expect to protect ourselves from electronic spying.

Here are a few places to start.

Use a Burner Phone

The easiest way for the government to track any of us is through our smartphone. We really don’t have a handle on everything that our phones are doing in the background, while we’re not looking.

Yet there’s nearly constant communication between our phones and the local cell phone tower.

It’s clear that the communications we have through our phones is readily available to the NSA and others.

You can even pay online services to do a little spying on family members, seeing their text messages, who they’ve talked to, what they’ve looked at online and where they’ve been. If you and I can do this, then you can be sure the government can do more.

Shut Off GPS Tracking

One of the most common ways our phones help the government keep track of us is through the phone’s GPS. Google and Apple keep track of our every move through that part of the phone.

If you go to Google Maps and click on your timeline in the menu, it will show you everywhere you’ve been, for the last several years.

This feature alone could put you in danger if you just happen to be in the same place that a crime was committed. While that alone wouldn’t be enough to convict you; it would be enough to make you a suspect.

And that’s just one example of how the GPs could be used against you. What if they want to track you down because it has been reported that you said something against the government; they’d have no trouble tracking you down.

Clean Out Internet Browsing Activity and Cookies

One of the big ways that companies use the internet to keep tabs on us is through our browsing history and the cookies downloaded to our computers by the various websites we visit.

A lot can be learned about who we are and what we do by looking at that. That’s why major corporations invest so much in data mining, looking for people to buy their products.

Haven’t you seen how you can look at something online, then find advertisements for the same sort of product showing up in your Facebook feed and just about any online article you read?

That information is also admissible in court as a means of defining your character. Government prosecutors could build a totally false narrative about you as a terrorist or planning mass murder, backed up by no more than the websites you have visited. Simple curiosity can and will be used against you, perhaps even in a court of law.

Get Rid of Alexa, Siri, and other Voice-recognition Assistants

One of the key elements of Orwell’s imaginary society in 1984 was that the government was tracking what everyone was doing through their television sets.

Yet today, rather than the government having to hide that capability in our TV sets, we buy devices and use them in our homes.

Those devices track everything we do, listening in on our conversations, so that they can “serve us” better.

Employees of those companies have come forth, confessing how employees at big tech companies listen in on people’s private lives.

If they’re doing it, then the government has access to it too. Remember, everything that device does goes over the internet and the NSA is tapped into that thoroughly.

Create Alternative e-Mail Accounts for Memberships

Our online identity is largely tied into our e-mail account.

Pretty much everything you sign up for, from buying dog food to looking at different sites, involves creating an account using that e-mail address. That online presence can lead government agents to look into all areas of your online existence.

The solution is to create multiple ‘personas,’ utilizing them for different things.

In order to do this, you’re going to have to provide false information at some point, as pretty much all e-mail services try to verify that you’re a real person and that you’re who you say you are.

Read the Whole Article

The post 10 Ways the Government Is Watching You and What You Can Do To Protect Your Privacy appeared first on LewRockwell.

High on a mountaintop off one of Southern Vermont’s most treacherous roads stands a white farmhouse from 1780 and a charming barn, a place two Jersey cows, Jupiter and Rain, call home.

Every morning at 8 a.m., a farmer greets the pair to begin their daily milking routine, producing raw milk—a subject as polarizing as last year’s election.

Influencers are calling raw milk “liquid gold,” while the FDA continues to label it “dangerous.”

Where’s the truth?

Is raw milk the same as pasteurized milk? Why are people going out of their way to buy raw milk on the black market? It’s not exactly a psychedelic trip, so why the fuss?

Ironically, the controversy seems to be fueling the craze. The more the media bashes raw milk as a potential health hazard, the more coveted it becomes. It’s the best unintentional dairy PR since the iconic Got Milk? campaign that began running in the 1990s featuring Jennifer Aniston.

In a world where so many people are following FDA rules religiously yet still feeling sick, tired, and depressed, raw milk has become a tantalizing promise.

But the mainstream media isn’t having any of it. Legacy journalists have been on a raw milk smear campaign since President Trump nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for HHS secretary, amplifying the FDA’s warnings with fear-inducing headlines: “Please Do Not Drink Raw Milk,” “Raw Milk Can Cause Influenza,” and “Bird Flu Detected in Raw Milk.” Many articles express alarm that, if appointed, Kennedy might push to legalize raw milk nationwide, raising concerns about potential exposure to harmful viruses.

Other countries around the world have strict regulations for raw milk. In Japan and Canada, raw milk is illegal to sell because milk is required to be pasteurized before sale. But in France, Germany and Italy, raw milk is legal, regulated by strict health and safety standards.

This debate is nothing new. Raw milk has been a heated topic in healthcare since 1987, when the FDA required all milk sold across state lines to be pasteurized, effectively banning the interstate sale of raw milk. At the time, it was left-leaning liberals who rallied behind raw milk as a catalyst to healing. Nearly 40 years later, the movement has shifted, with right-leaning voices now at the forefront.

The question remains: is raw milk actually dangerous?

For an answer to this age-old question, look no further than farmer and educator Leigh Merinoff, who serves on the board of Children’s Health Defense and is an advisor at the Weston A. Price Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to advocating for nutrient-dense foods in modern diets. [Merinoff is also on the finance committee of American Values PAC which funds The Kennedy Beacon.]

Once a sculptor thriving in the big city, Merinoff swapped her fast-paced urban lifestyle for the slower rhythms of a sustainable homestead. She’s currently living in an underground house berm surrounded by 200 fruit trees, colorful peacocks, a blacksmith shop and cozy sugar shanty – which sounds like the setting of a 1800s fiction novel, but in reality is a place people can go to get their gut bacteria in order. Farm to table isn’t a trend there – it’s a ritual woven into every meal.

These days, Merinoff takes her morning coffee with a splash of raw milk – a luxury not everyone has access to. In Vermont, the only way to get raw milk is by purchasing it directly from the farm or through a cow-share program where people can obtain raw milk by “owning” a share of the cow. This inaccessibility is why some wellness influencers are calling farmers like Merinoff their “milk dealer.”

During a phone call last November, Merinoff explained how raw milk is in high demand, even as the media continues its coordinated efforts to tarnish its reputation.

”Pasteurized and homogenized milk – their sales have been going down, but if you have a dairy cow and you sell raw milk, you have a waiting list because Americans are not really listening to the news anymore,” Merinoff told me. “They’re doing their own research. And if you do your own research, you’ll see that raw milk is a way to absorb nutrients and be extremely, extremely healthy.”

Merinoff believes raw milk is one of the best things humans can put in their bodies for healing, claiming it contains beneficial enzymes, probiotics and vitamins that are inactivated by pasteurization.

Added Merinoff, “One of the extraordinary opportunities of our time is to continue to get food that nourishes every cell in our body and that is raw milk. Raw milk is filled with all these vitamins and nutrients and anti inflammatories.”

Merinoff recalls a time that she did the unthinkable: accidentally left a glass of raw milk out in her closet for four months.

“I left a glass of raw milk in my closet and I was like, oh, I’ll get to it… And then I became afraid of it and then I thought it was going to explode,” she said.

“I finally opened it with a cloth and it was clabbered cheese and I ate it…and it was delicious!”

According to Merinoff, if raw milk is left out, the bacteria will turn it into a cheese.

“Because you’re not killing the bacteria, the bacteria stays balanced,” Merinoff said. “This is why raw milk is safe because it’s balanced bacteria and they don’t allow the bad bacteria to grow and take control.”

Sally Fallon, the president of Weston A. Price, has been spreading the raw milk gospel for years, holding workshops that educate people on its alleged health benefits.

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The present-day tariff-trade-war conflicts boil down to Neocolonial strategies to gain control of markets for exports and resource extraction on terms that are only favorable to the Neocolonial power.

The title of today’s essay pays homage to the inimitable John D. MacDonald’s novel The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything in which the gold watch has the power to stop time.

In the context of today’s keening cries of tariff-trade-war agony, let’s use this imaginary power over time to return to the ancient world’s many long, dangerous and immensely profitable trade routes, for example the (mostly) sea route from Rome to the ports and riches of the southern coast of India, an enduringly profitable trade bonanza ably described in The Roman Empire and the Indian Ocean: Rome’s Dealings with the Ancient Kingdoms of India, Africa and Arabia.

Let’s start by dispensing with the conveniently pliable fantasy of “free trade.” Though some reckon the author’s estimate that 30% of the Imperial income resulted from Rome’s duties on foreign trade exceeds the actual percentage, the trade’s great volume through the customs offices in Alexandria are described in ancient texts.

On the Indian side of the trade, various restrictions limited Roman access to approved ports and local merchants’ dealings with visiting Roman ships and merchants, who established permanent polyglot colonies of Mediterranean traders in Indian ports.

What characterized this trade was not that it was “free” but that it was mutually beneficial and not within the control of either side of the trade. Rome ruled the Mediterranean largely by extending the mutual benefits of commerce to the territories it had conquered. Pay your taxes and customs duties, and all would be well. Try to eliminate the Imperial slice of the pie–now that would bring trouble in the form of legions.

Even if Rome had hankered to control the coast of southern India, it could not project power that distance with the modest craft of the day, and to what benefit when trade delivered goods and income without the horrendous expenses of transporting troops and supporting permanent garrisons? For their part, Indian merchants established trading communities in ports on the Red Sea but relied on Roman policing to protect the land route across the desert to the Nile.

Once technologies enabled imperial ambitions to extend across the globe, then two profitable possibilities emerged in the form of Mercantilist Colonialism. Once an imperial power wrested power from local rulers and established a colony, two profitable forms of commercial control could be imposed:

1) The colonial subjects could be forced to buy manufactured / finished goods produced by the imperialist nation’s home economy, guaranteeing a reliable market for its value-added exports, and

2) The colony’s natural resources could be secured at low prices for the express use of the Imperialist domestic economy.

In the post-colonial era, mercantilist advantages were gained by severely restricted imports while flooding the domestic economies of trading partners with below-cost goods, driving domestic competitors out of business and establishing a quasi-monopoly that could be exploited once the competition had been eliminated.

These mercantilist strategies were typically hidden within regulatory thickets rather than visible tariffs. For example, in the 1960s and 70s, Japan mastered the art of limiting goods imported from the U.S. via various bureaucratic subterfuges while making full use of the relatively open door to Japanese exports.

(As I have explained in numerous essays, this policy was the direct result of America’s Cold War with the Soviet Union, which incentivized the U.S. to support its allies’ postwar economic recovery by opening the vast American market to their exports.)

Currency manipulation plays a key role in the mercantilist strategy of restricting imports while flooding others’ economies with exports. By devaluing one’s currency, the cost of imports rises while the cost of one’s exports priced in competing currencies declines.

In effect, currency devaluations act as a hidden tariff on imported goods which soar in price, while slashing the price of exports in economies with strong currencies.

The quasi-monopolies created by mercantilist policies are forms of Neocolonialism–colonialism imposed not by military force but by currency manipulation and state support for exports and bureaucratic thickets that limit finished-goods imports.

The profits from this mercantilist Neocolonialism are then used to buy up mines, ports, agricultural land, etc. in resource-rich nations–another form of Neocolonialism, that is, control of markets and resources by means of mercantilist finance rather than military force.

Another mercantilist strategy is to demand transfers of intellectual property / patents as the price of access to local markets, which turn out to be heavily restricted via bureaucratic thickets.

Financialization is another form of Neocolonialism: flood a smaller target economy with low-cost credit at a scale never before available, indebt the target populace as they snap up motorbikes and other goods previously out of reach, then as they default in the inevitable bubble pop / recessionary hangover, buy up land and other assets on the cheap.

(For example, the Thai Baht lost half its value in the complex Asian Financial Crisis of 1997-98, plummeting from 25 to 56 to the US dollar. Thai assets were then “on sale” for those holding US dollars.)

Once the ensuing sovereign debt crisis crashes the local currency, this too is advantageous, as the financiers’ currency gains purchasing power, in effect putting all assets priced in the local currency on sale.

The present-day tariff-trade-war conflicts boil down to Neocolonial strategies to gain control of markets for exports and resource extraction on terms that are only favorable to the Neocolonial power.

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As Washington’s cold war with China escalates, we can expect to see a massively reinvigorated anti-China propaganda campaign in the west. As this unfolds, please know that everything you learned about the mass media’s dishonesty regarding Gaza is equally true of empire-targeted nations like China.

If your eyes were newly opened by the Gaza holocaust, the most important thing to understand is that Gaza isn’t some unusual aberration in the behavior of the mass media and the western war machine. They’re always doing things like this. The empire is always inflicting horrific evils upon people in the global south, and the mass media always help them lie about it. Gaza is just more obvious because it’s history’s first live-streamed genocide. But you need to understand that the empire and its propaganda machine have been doing this sort of thing this whole time all around the world, and will continue to.

Aggressively question every new narrative that emerges about China, in the same way you’ve learned to aggressively question every new narrative Israel releases about Gaza and Hamas. Question everything you’ve ever been taught about China throughout your life, in the same way you’ve learned to question everything you were taught about Israel. If you are sincere and open to the possibility of proving yourself wrong, you will find that many of the beliefs you’ve been indoctrinated about regarding China were misinformed.

The new cold war has been in the works for a very long time, and the propaganda machine is locked and loaded. As Michael Parenti wrote in his 2004 book Superpatriotism:

“The PNAC plan envisions a strategic confrontation with China, and a still greater permanent military presence in every corner of the world. The objective is not just power for its own sake but power to control the world’s natural resources and markets, power to privatize and deregulate the economies of every nation in the world, and power to hoist upon the backs of peoples everywhere — including North America — the blessings of an untrammeled global ‘free market.’ The end goal is to ensure not merely the supremacy of global capitalism as such, but the supremacy of American global capitalism by preventing the emergence of any other potentially competing superpower.”

When Parenti here speaks about “the PNAC plan”, he is referring to the Project for the New American Century, a neoconservative think tank notorious for its role in pushing Washington toward its massive increase in interventionism in the middle east after 9/11. The same vision which has been driving US warmongering in the middle east since the turn of the century also envisions “a strategic confrontation with China,” which we are seeing in these latest escalations in the new cold war.

The term “neocon” is almost meaningless today, now generally taken to mean simply “warmonger”, or often more specifically “warmonger who Donald Trump doesn’t like”. But the term has also lost its usefulness because the freakish vision of global domination that this small faction promoted has since become the mainstream foreign policy consensus in Washington. The policies advancing the agenda of US planetary domination put forward by PNAC and the Wolfowitz Doctrine are now supported by virtually everyone on Capitol Hill, and certainly within the White House.

If you’ve awakened to the lies about the empire’s warmongering in the middle east, make sure you also keep carrying that awakening forward and awaken yourself to the empire’s lies about China as well — because it’s all part of the same agenda. The propaganda campaign against China is just as dishonest as the ones against Palestine, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and Iran, and the lies are only going to get more frenetic as the new cold war picks up steam.

________________

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to find video versions of my articles. If you’d prefer to listen to audio of these articles, you can subscribe to them on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud or YouTube. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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You do not have to wade far into the recently declassified Crossfire Hurricane documents to be shocked.  I had only read three pages of the FBI’s December 19, 2016 interview with the DoJ’s Bruce Ohr before learning just how early in the game the FBI brass knew that the Steele dossier was worthless.

In the way of background, on July 31, 2016, the FBI launched its counterintelligence operation into the Trump campaign, codenamed “Crossfire Hurricane.”  FBI agent Peter Strzok was assigned to head it up.

If the goal was to cripple Trump regardless of the evidence, Strzok was the man for the job.  “Damn this feels momentous,” he texted his lover, FBI attorney Lisa Page, upon getting the assignment.  Two weeks later he explained to Page his motives.  “There’s no way [Trump] gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk,” he texted her.  “It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.”

Ohr played a curious role in the whole affair.  He served as unofficial DoJ contact with the notorious Christopher Steele, the author of the eponymous Steele dossier.  According to Ohr, the two met for breakfast on the same day the FBI launched Crossfire Hurricane.  Steele wanted to discuss some “serious stuff” involving low-level Trump adviser Carter Page.

More interesting than what Steele claimed to know about Page is what Ohr already knew about the funding of the Steele dossier.  As Ohr told his FBI interviewer, Joe Pientka, Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS “hired Steele to dig up Trump’s connection to Russia.”  Complicating matters is that Ohr’s wife, Nelliie, worked for Simpson.

Protecting Nellie, a Russian interpreter, Ohr claimed she was “hired to conduct open source research.”  He conceded, however, “Even though she did not know the goal of the project, she was able to surmise the purpose as the individuals were close to Trump.”

Ohr knew, too, that “Glenn Simpson was hired by a lawyer who does opposition research,” although he did not name the lawyer.

Steele, reported Ohr, “was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being the U.S. President.”  Ohr did not believe that Steele was “making up information.”  That said, he had little confidence in Steele’s sources.  Steele may have reported what he heard, but, said Ohr, “that doesn’t make that story true.”  Explained Ohr, “There are  always Russian conspiracy theories that come from the Kremlin.”

Steele and Ohr met again that September, close to the time reporter Michael Isikoff first broke the story of the Steele dossier.  In this meeting, an increasingly worried Steele fed Ohr what would prove to be bogus information about Trump’s relationship to Alfa Bank.  On September 23, 2016, Isikoff wrote a lengthy breakout article for Yahoo News based on a briefing by “multiple sources.”  Ohr was unsure whether Isikoff had met with Simpson or Steele or both.

As Isikoff reported, intelligence officials were investigating Carter Page’s “private communications with senior Russian officials.”  He reported, too, that Senate majority leader Harry Reid had briefed the FBI director James Comey on the “significant and disturbing ties” between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.  Reid likely got this information from the Clinton campaign, apparently unaware that Comey had access to the same spurious intel.

In October 2016, a few weeks after the article’s publication, the DOJ and the FBI packaged the Isikoff article and the dossier in their application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), specifically to monitor Carter Page.  As the 2019 inspector general report by Michael Horowitz made painfully clear, despite years of denial by various parties, the FBI relied heavily upon the Steele dossier to get FISA authorization on Page.  Serving on the FISC at the time was Judge James Boasberg.  Anti-Trump partisans tainted every step of the process.

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David Martin wrote:

It’s a sick society.

ISRAEL: Girls Raped in Ritual Ceremonies Reveal the Horrors – Investigative Report by IsraelHayom

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Thanks, Chris Condon. 

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

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(Versione audio della traduzione disponibile qui: https://open.substack.com/pub/fsimoncelli/p/il-prezzo-della-convenienza)

Immaginate: il vostro smartphone si spegne mentre siete in viaggio e all'improvviso vi ritrovate impotenti, incapaci di navigare, pagare o persino accedere alla prenotazione dell'hotel. Non è un'ipotesi; è la nostra realtà. Secondo il “Digital 2024 Global Overview Report” di DataReportal, la persona media trascorre ora oltre 7 ore al giorno sui dispositivi digitali, con il 47% che segnala ansia quando è separata dai propri telefoni. Quello che una volta era un piccolo inconveniente è ora diventata una crisi, rivelando quanto profondamente abbiamo integrato la tecnologia nella nostra esistenza quotidiana, dall'ordinare un caffè al dimostrare la nostra identità.

George Orwell immaginava una distopia di sottomissione forzata, ma gli è sfuggito qualcosa di cruciale: le persone rinunciano volontariamente alle proprie libertà per le comodità. Come spiega Shoshana Zuboff in “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism”, questa disponibilità a barattare la privacy per la comodità rappresenta un cambiamento fondamentale nel modo in cui il potere opera nell'era digitale. Non abbiamo bisogno che il Grande Fratello ci osservi: invitiamo la sorveglianza nelle nostre case tramite altoparlanti smart, telecamere di sicurezza ed elettrodomestici connessi, tutto in nome di una vita più facile. Non solo accettiamo questa sorveglianza; l'abbiamo interiorizzata come un compromesso necessario. “Non preoccupatevi”, ci viene detto, “i vostri dati sono al sicuro e in cambio riceverete consigli migliori e servizi più smart”. Ci siamo talmente abituati a essere osservati che difendiamo i nostri osservatori, sviluppando un attaccamento quasi patologico agli stessi sistemi che ci limitano.

Pensate alla sicurezza aeroportuale. Dopo l'11 settembre gli americani hanno accettato procedure TSA sempre più invasive, le quali promettevano sia sicurezza che comodità. Due decenni dopo ci togliamo diligentemente le scarpe, addestrati come animali obbedienti a seguire il teatrino della sicurezza perché un idiota ha cercato di nascondere esplosivi nei suoi stivali quasi 25 anni fa; ci sottoponiamo a scansioni di tutto il corpo e consegniamo le bottiglie d'acqua, ciononostante la sicurezza aeroportuale non è né comoda né più efficace. Proprio come ci siamo tolti le scarpe senza fare domande negli aeroporti, abbiamo ceduto senza fare domande le nostre informazioni più riservate in cambio della promessa di comodità.

Ho assistito in prima persona a questo cambiamento durante i miei due decenni nel settore della tecnologia. Quando Google ha lanciato Gmail, pubblicizzandolo come un servizio “gratuito”, ho avvisato gli amici che in realtà stavano pagando con i loro dati. Il vecchio adagio si è rivelato vero: quando qualcosa è gratuito, non siete un cliente, bensì il prodotto. Molti hanno riso, dandomi del paranoico.

Un video satirico chiamato “The Google Toilet” ha catturato perfettamente questo momento, mostrando come saremmo disposti a barattare i nostri dati più intimi per la comodità. Il video sembrava assurdo quando è stato realizzato 15 anni fa, ora sembra profetico. Oggi quella stessa azienda, che ho dimostrato profondamente legata alla comunità dell'intelligence sin dalla sua nascita, traccia la nostra posizione, ascolta le nostre conversazioni e sa di più sulle nostre abitudini quotidiane dei nostri amici più cari. Anche dopo che Snowden ha rivelato l'entità della sorveglianza digitale, la maggior parte delle persone ha scrollato le spalle. La comodità valeva il costo, finché non abbiamo scoperto che non erano in gioco solo i nostri dati, ma la nostra capacità stessa di vivere in modo indipendente.

La tirannia di quando tutto è “smart”

Secondo Consumer Reports oltre l'87% dei principali elettrodomestici venduti nel 2023 includeva funzionalità “smart”, rendendo quasi impossibile trovare modelli base. Quando di recente ho avuto bisogno di un'asciugatrice, ho scoperto che quasi tutti i modelli erano “smart”, richiedendo connettività Wi-Fi e integrazione con app. Non volevo un'asciugatrice che potesse twittare; ne volevo solo una che asciugasse i vestiti. Quando l'idraulico è venuto a installarla, perché ovviamente non ho mai imparato a farlo da solo, si è lamentato che gli serviva una laurea in ingegneria solo per riparare gli elettrodomestici moderni.

Non si tratta solo di asciugatrici. Ogni articolo domestico sta diventando smart: termostati, maniglie delle porte, lampadine, tostapane. Mio padre sapeva smontare e rimontare il motore di un'auto nel nostro garage. Oggi non si può nemmeno cambiare l'olio in alcuni veicoli senza accedere al sistema informatico dell'auto. Abbiamo perso più delle semplici competenze meccaniche: abbiamo perso la sicurezza di provare a riparare le cose da soli. Quando tutto richiede software specializzati e strumenti proprietari, il fai da te diventa impossibile per progettazione.

La perdita della scrittura corsiva esemplifica questo declino. Oltre ai suoi benefici per le capacità cognitive, non si tratta solo di calligrafia; si tratta di continuità culturale e indipendenza. Una generazione incapace di leggere il corsivo diventa dipendente dalle traduzioni digitali della propria storia, che si tratti della Dichiarazione di Indipendenza o delle lettere d'amore dei nonni. Questa disconnessione dal nostro passato non è solo comoda; è una forma di amnesia culturale che ci rende più dipendenti da versioni aggiustate e digitalizzate della storia.

La visione del movimento fai da te, ovvero dare alle persone gli strumenti per creare, riparare e comprendere il mondo fisico che le circonda, offre un modello per resistere alla dipendenza ingegnerizzata. Le comunità stanno già creando biblioteche di utensili dove i residenti possono prendere in prestito attrezzature e imparare riparazioni di base. Stanno emergendo garage di riparazione di quartiere, dove le persone si riuniscono per riparare oggetti rotti e condividere conoscenze. Le cooperative alimentari locali e gli orti comunitari non riguardano solo i prodotti biologici, ma anche come nutrirci senza catene di fornitura aziendali. Anche semplici azioni come la gestione di raccolte di libri fisici e registri cartacei diventano radicali quando incombe la censura digitale. Non si tratta solo di hobby, ma di atti di resistenza contro un sistema che trae profitto dalla nostra impotenza.

La natura fiat del controllo digitale

Proprio come le banche centrali dichiarano il valore della valuta per decreto, le aziende tecnologiche ora dichiarano cosa costituisce la comodità nelle nostre vite. Non siamo noi a scegliere questi sistemi, ci vengono imposti, proprio come la moneta fiat. Volete un elettrodomestico “stupido”? Spiacente, questa opzione è stata dichiarata obsoleta. Volete riparare i vostri dispositivi? Sono stati progettati per non esserlo ed essere buttati.

Ho esplorato più a fondo questo concetto dei sistemi imposti in un precedente saggio, esaminando come la scarsità e il controllo artificiali si estendano ben oltre il denaro, fino a cibo, salute, istruzione e informazione. Gli stessi principi che consentono alle banche centrali di stampare la valuta dal nulla ora consentono alle aziende tecnologiche di dichiarare cosa è “necessario” nella nostra vita quotidiana.

Questo non è un semplice progresso tecnologico, è un sistema di controllo. Proprio come la moneta fiat trae valore dalla convinzione collettiva, la “comodità” moderna trae il suo fascino non dall'utilità genuina, ma dalla necessità artificiale. Ci viene detto che abbiamo bisogno di dispositivi smart, archiviazione cloud e connettività costante, non perché siano utili a noi, ma perché sono utili al sistema che trae profitto dalla nostra dipendenza.

La spinta verso una società senza contanti rappresenta l'espressione massima di questo controllo. Come scrissi due anni fa in “From Covid to CBDC”, l'eliminazione della valuta fisica non riguarda solo l'efficienza, ma la creazione di un sistema in cui ogni transazione può essere monitorata, approvata o negata. Le valute digitali delle banche centrali (CBDC) promettono praticità, costruendo al contempo l'architettura per una sorveglianza e un controllo finanziari assoluti.

Proprio come i green pass hanno normalizzato la presentazione di documenti per partecipare alla società, i pagamenti esclusivamente digitali normalizzano l'idea che le nostre transazioni richiedano l'approvazione istituzionale. Immaginate un mondo in cui i vostri soldi hanno una data di scadenza, in cui gli acquisti possono essere bloccati in base al vostro punteggio di credito sociale, o in cui i vostri risparmi possono essere disattivati ​​se pubblicate un'opinione sbagliata online. Queste non sono ipotesi: il sistema di credito sociale in Cina dimostra già come il denaro digitale possa diventare uno strumento per far rispettare la conformità.

La morte del movimento “fai da te”

Per un breve momento tra la fine degli anni Duemila e l'inizio del decennio del 2010, sembrava che potessimo resistere a questa ondata di dipendenza ingegnerizzata. Il movimento fai da te è emerso, esemplificato da spazi come il 3rd Ward a Brooklyn, un vasto spazio di lavoro collettivo di 30.000 piedi quadrati in cui artisti, artigiani e imprenditori potevano accedere a strumenti, apprendere competenze e creare una comunità. Piattaforme online come Kickstarter sono emerse contemporaneamente, consentendo ai creatori di mettere insiene un pubblico e finanziare progetti innovativi direttamente, aggirando i tradizionali gatekeeper.

Ciononostante qualcosa è cambiato. La chiusura di 3rd Ward nel 2013 ha segnato più della fine di uno spazio di lavoro: ha rappresentato la commercializzazione stessa dell'etica del fai da te. Quello spazio aveva insegnato lezioni fondamentali sull'istruzione sostenibile guidata dalla comunità e sulla condivisione delle competenze, ma queste lezioni sono andate perse quando il movimento è diventato sempre più orientato al profitto. Mentre alcuni elementi positivi rimangono, gran parte della sostanza del movimento fai da te è stata sostituita dalla creazione performativa: invece di creare davvero qualcosa, ci siamo accontentati di guardare gli altri creare qualcosa su YouTube. C'è qualcosa di profondamente umano nell'impulso a creare, a costruire, a capire come funzionano le cose, eppure la modernità ci ha rimodellati da creatori a spettatori, contenti di sperimentare la creatività indirettamente. L'autentica spinta dall'autosufficienza si è trasformata in contenuti attentamente curati, con i “creatori” che sono diventati influencer che vendono l'estetica dell'artigianato piuttosto che le competenze stesse.

La domanda ora è se ci stiamo davvero illuminando a vicenda attraverso queste piattaforme, o se stiamo semplicemente seguendo il modello di OnlyFans di mercificazione (e degradazione) di ogni interazione umana.

Personaggi digitali e perdita di sé

I social media non hanno solo trasformato la nostra vanità in un'arma, ma ci hanno trasformati da esseri umani in performance digitali. I nostri telefoni sono diventati macchine di propaganda portatili per i nostri marchi personali. Una ricerca interna di Meta ha rivelato che Instagram peggiora i problemi di immagine corporea per il 32% delle ragazze adolescenti, eppure continuiamo ad abbracciare queste piattaforme. Fotografiamo ogni pasto prima di assaggiarlo, documentiamo ogni momento di vacanza invece di viverlo e creiamo l'illusione di vite perfette mentre siamo seduti da soli nei nostri appartamenti, sorseggiando vino e intorpidendoci con Netflix.

Le implicazioni per la salute sono sbalorditive. Secondo uno studio del CDC del 2023, i tassi di depressione tra i giovani adulti sono raddoppiati sin dal 2011, con gli aumenti più netti correlati ai modelli di utilizzo dei social media. Stiamo barattando la vera connessione umana con colpi di dopamina digitale, conversazioni reali con reazioni emoji ed esperienze autentiche con post accattivanti. La comodità della connessione digitale istantanea ha creato una generazione più connessa ma più isolata che mai.

Man mano che perfezioniamo le nostre performance digitali, ci affidiamo sempre di più a strumenti artificiali per mantenere queste personalità attentamente create, il che ci porta a una forma di dipendenza ancora più profonda.

La trappola dell'IA

Forse la cosa più allarmante è la nostra crescente dipendenza dall'intelligenza artificiale. Stiamo esternalizzando il nostro pensiero all'IA, ma così facendo, rischiamo di erodere la nostra stessa autonomia cognitiva. Nello modo stesso in cui abbiamo permesso alla nostra forza fisica di indebolirsi affidandoci alla tecnologia, la nostra forza mentale sta diventando flaccida, inutilizzata e atrofizzata.

Gli studenti ora si rivolgono a ChatGPT prima di tentare di risolvere i problemi da soli. I professionisti si affidano all'IA per scrivere e-mail, report e presentazioni senza sviluppare autonomamente queste competenze critiche. Gli scrittori si affidano sempre di più all'assistenza dell'IA piuttosto che affinare la propria arte. Ogni volta che ci rimettiamo all'IA per compiti che potremmo svolgere da soli, non stiamo solo scegliendo la comodità, stiamo scegliendo di lasciare che un'altra capacità umana si atrofizzi.

Proprio come abbiamo dimenticato come riparare i nostri dispositivi, rischiamo di dimenticare come pensare in modo profondo e indipendente. Il pericolo non è che l'IA diventi troppo intelligente, ma che diventeremo troppo dipendenti da essa, incapaci di analizzare, creare o risolvere problemi senza assistenza digitale. Stiamo costruendo un mondo in cui il pensiero indipendente diventa raro quanto l'abilità meccanica, in cui l'autosufficienza cognitiva è vista come inefficiente piuttosto che essenziale.

Riconquistare la libertà

La soluzione non è rifiutare tutta la tecnologia, ma comprendere il vero costo della comodità. Prima di adottare ogni nuova innovazione “smart”, chiedetevi:

• A quale capacità sto rinunciando?

• Posso essere autosufficiente se questo sistema fallisce?

• La comodità vale la dipendenza?

• Qual è il vero prezzo, in termini di privacy, competenze e autonomia?

• In che modo questa tecnologia plasma il mio comportamento e il mio pensiero?

Bisogna coltivare attivamente l'indipendenza insieme all'innovazione, imparare le tecniche di riparazione di base, conservare copie fisiche di documenti importanti, e libri, perché, data l'ascesa del complesso industriale della censura, non possiamo essere sicuri di quanto a lungo saranno disponibili in formato digitale. Imparare a leggere una mappa, scrivere senza intelligenza artificiale e sopravvivere qualora Internet dovesse venire meno. La vera libertà non si trova nell'avere tutto a portata di mano, ma nel mantenere la capacità di vivere senza quelle comodità quando necessario.

L'ironia non mi sfugge qui. Ho trascorso decenni come knowledge worker nel settore della tecnologia, esattamente dove la società mi voleva: davanti agli schermi, a creare prodotti digitali, diventando proprio il tipo di specialista che ora sto criticando. Come molti della mia generazione, ho imparato un po' di programmazione di base prima di imparare a riparare un rubinetto che perdeva o a coltivare il mio cibo. Amo ancora la tecnologia e credo nel suo potenziale di automatizzare compiti banali, liberandoci in modo da perseguire forme più elevate di creatività e connessione, ma questa promessa diventerà vuota se sacrifichiamo le nostre capacità fondamentali nel processo.

L'aspetto più pericoloso di questo compromesso non è la perdita di privacy, è la perdita di consapevolezza che stiamo perdendo qualcosa. Non stiamo solo perdendo competenze e privacy; stiamo perdendo la capacità di riconoscere cosa significhi essere indipendenti. La domanda non è se la comodità valga il costo della libertà, è se riconosceremo ciò che abbiamo perso prima di dimenticare di averlo mai avuto.

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

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The last excuse that diehard defenders of President Trump’s tariff policies have advanced now lies in ruins. Trump had put in place exorbitant tariffs, these defenders acknowledged, but this was just a negotiating tactic, to get the targeted countries to lower their own tariffs on American goods. But if that is his aim, he is pursuing it in a blunderbuss fashion. As Paul Craig Roberts, a strong defender of tariffs, says: “Trump’s position on tariffs is problematical for many reasons.  First, let me say that historically tariffs were a legislative issue.  The Morrill Tariff was voted by Congress. The Smith-Hawley Tariff was voted by Congress.  How is it that the executive is imposing tariffs? Assuming the president has this authority and assuming that we don’t have tariffs on others but others have tariffs on the US, the way to success is for Trump to sit down with the offenders and explain that the situation is not working for us. How do they propose to rectify the inequality?  This would have given Trump the upper hand.  Instead, he is portrayed as issuing threats not only to China but also to American allies. Retaliation has become the game.”

Ron Unz, who is a master of statistical analysis. offers the best account of where Trump has gone wrong. Unz, like Roberts, isn’t opposed to protective tariffs, but he explains fully Trump’s irrationality. Trump has confused trade deficits with tariffs, leading him to absurd figures: “For example, our factually-challenged president declared that his new tariff rates were ‘retaliatory’ and indeed the first column of the chart he displayed showed the foreign tariffs that had allegedly provoked his retaliation, but everyone quickly noticed that these figures were total nonsense. Switzerland hardly imposes a 61% tariff on American goods, nor does Vietnam maintain a 90% tariff rate against our products. Instead these figures were merely calculated using a formula based upon America’s existing trade deficit in goods, which was something entirely different. So if another country sold us more goods than they themselves bought, that was described as due to a tariff even if no such tariff actually existed. In a perfect example of this absurdity, Trump incorrectly claimed that the penguins of Norfolk Island near Antarctica maintained huge barriers against American products, with his counter-vailing tariff of 29% aimed at punishing those water-fowl for their unfair trading practices. Obviously, Trump’s claims justifying his new tariff rates were totally ridiculous, but they were actually ridiculous in several different ways. Suppose that this weren’t the case, and our trade in goods with the rest of the rest of the world were totally in balance, just as Trump wished it to be. Under those circumstances, we would naturally have trade surpluses with some countries and trade deficits with others, with all of the different figures netting out to zero. But according to Trump’s framework, those countries with which we had a trade surplus would still be hit with a new 10% tariff while those with which we had a deficit would suffer much larger tariffs, and these would then be jacked up if those countries decided to retaliate. So the apparent goal and endpoint of Trump’s policies would be to sharply reduce or even eliminate all our trade with the rest of the world. Thus, Trump was self-sanctioning America much like he had sought to do against Iran, Russia, North Korea, and all the other countries he and previous administrations had regarded with considerable hostility. Yet oddly enough Trump seemed to believe that cutting off the global trade of countries he didn’t like would severely hurt them, but cutting off our own trade would strengthen our country and benefit the American people.”

Given such irrationality, an obvious question arises, what is Trump’s game? Eric Schliesser, who teaches political science at the University of Amsterdam, suggests that Trump is seeking to concentrate power in himself and to advance his own financial interests and those of his cronies: “From my own, more (skeptical) liberal perspective tariffs are an expression of mistrust against individuals’ judgments; they limit and even deny us our ability to shape our lives with our meaningful associates as we see fit. And tariffs do so, in part, by changing the pattern of costs on us, and, in part, by altering the political landscape in favor of the well-connected few. Of course, in practice, tariffs are always hugely regressive by raising costs on consumer products. This is, in fact, a familiar effect of mercantilism and has been a rallying cry for liberals since Adam Smith and the Corn league. That is, some of the most insidious and dangerous effects of tariffs are evidently political in character. They create monopoly profits for the connected few, who can, thereby, entrench themselves against competitors, regulators, and consumers. It is well known that once a tariff is entrenched it is incredibly difficult to remove. They create permanent temptations to bribe the executive and those with access to him. Watch for stories about import-quotas, tariff holidays, and ad hoc tariff exemptions to appear in the press and subsequent policy. Political and economic uncertainty is generally a self-reinforcing process. To undo it more and more actions by the executive are demanded by a scared public manipulated by profit-seeking adventurers. It’s entirely predictable we’ll see the rise of a system of selective subsidies and cartels as Trump Tariffs are entrenched.”

Schliesser also draws a connection between high tariffs and imperialism. “The commentariat is suddenly full of knowing nods to William McKinley and his tariffs. President Trump himself is known to refer to him. And, yet, there is a tempting mistake to treat tariffs as evidence of isolationism. McKinley was no isolationist. McKinley’s was the American imperialist presidency annexing Hawaii, and after the war with Spain annexing Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines, and American Samoa as well as control of Cuba. That President Trump admires President McKinley and envisions annexation of Canada, Greenland, Panama, and even Gaza fits the worldview.”

We should never forget that the problem with tariffs is confined to Trump’s insane ideas. Tariffs are bad for consumers. They restrict what we can buy. As the great Dr. Ron Paul explains, “China’s retaliatory tariffs show how export-dependent industries are harmed by protectionist policies. Even if other countries refrain from imposing retaliatory tariffs, exporters can still suffer from reduced demand for their products in countries targeted by US tariffs. Businesses that rely on imported materials to manufacture their products also suffer from increased production costs thanks to tariffs. President Trump acknowledged how tariffs harm US manufacturers when he granted US automakers’ request for a one-month delay in new tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada.Many American consumers who are struggling with high prices are concerned that President Trump’s tariff policy will further increase prices. They are right to be concerned. Contrary to popular belief, foreign businesses do not pay tariffs. Tariffs are paid by US businesses that wish to sell the imported goods. When tariffs are increased, the importing businesses try to recoup their increased costs by increasing their prices. Consumers then must choose whether to pay the higher price, find a cheaper alternative, or do without the product. Whatever they choose, consumers will be worse off because they cannot spend their money the way they prefer.

Let’s do everything we can to end protective tariffs. Free trade is the path to peace and prosperity.

The post Trump’s Insane Tariff Policy appeared first on LewRockwell.

The European Zionists who created the modern state of Israel may have been cursed from the beginning, not because they were Jews, but because they were urbanites. In other words, they were not then, and are not now, farmers or ranchers, to use the American term.

Not being farmers or ranchers is a big deal if you “create” a country with a self-sufficient pastoral fantasy on top of land populated by actual farmers and ranchers. Urban culture can be a blessing of cultural, artistic, and intellectual achievement, of politics and ideas, of excitement.  On the other hand, urban culture is intensely uncurious about rural and farm life, not interested in the people or the culture that keeps food and fuel moving into the cities.

Just recently, our own Vice President JD Vance, himself direct from rural Appalachian poverty, caught heat from China when he said, “We borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things those Chinese peasants manufacture.”  The Chinese were surprised because Vance is known for his “Hillbilly Elegy” that humanizes rural people, and reflects on their toughness and their strength. They were saddened because Vance’s words revealed the lack of mutual respect and understanding.  Aesop’s fable about the city mouse and the country mouse comes to mind.

That fable speaks to the dilemma we find today in the modern Zionist state, where peaceful poverty for Israelis may increasingly be preferable to a higher per capita income and unimaginable levels of fear and uncertainty. Tel Aviv is security dependent on an American president who is mercurial and calculating. Zionist Israel is vulnerable to coming American generations who will inevitably end Zionist Israel’s special status, stop US wars on demand for Israel, and slash current outrageous levels of US taxpayer subsidy to a country of 9 million mostly ungrateful inhabitants eight time zones from middle America.

Respecting rural life is one thing, understanding the land and the environment is another.  As a farmer, I glimpse the fundamental wisdom of the natural world, and its multiplicity of adaptations to climate and microclimate, land, livestock and wildlife.  I am impressed on a daily basis by the sliver of interdependence and resilience that I see around me.  I’m humbled because I perceive only a tiny portion of this complexity.  There seems to be a continuous dance between too much and not enough, and yet it all leads to growth and healing – of soil, of land, of life.

My ancestors came here from Germany and England 400 years ago, farmers and working class poor people, risk-takers and populists intent on escaping the colonial curse of Europe, not reinventing it the New World.  One of my grandfathers was a fan of Thoreau, and despised FDR, I never saw the other one read a book, but he also despised FDR.  Both were farmers just north of the Ohio River, not too far from where Vance grew up two generations later.

So when I report the long term “strategy” by the IDF and Israeli settlers of releasing feral pigs into Palestinian lands to destroy the land, the grass, the crops, and the water as a pre-settlement clearing operation, it is in this context.  My natural-born contempt for arrogant urbanites, utopian bureaucrats, and people who live primarily as government stooges comes alive in the case of Israeli settlers – pressing to occupy more, steal more and destroy ever more Palestinian land on the Capitol dime with IDF muscle – and using wild boars as their weapon.

For well over a decade, wild pigs have been released into Palestinian areas.  Illegal settlers do it, the Israeli government encourages it, and the IDF protects all the pigs by ensuring Palestinians are unarmed and unable to defend their property.  It is really quite amazing.

Americans throughout the midwest and south know what feral pigs can do.  Whole service industries have grown up to control wild pig populations, and repairing and protecting farms, ranges and suburbs from their rapacious environmental damage. Americans embrace their natural rights to protect themselves, their children and their property, and to bear arms.  Palestinians, on the other hand, live under Israeli laws that do not rest on a written Constitution, but reflect only the shifting needs of Zionism.  It is “illegal” for them to bear arms, or otherwise protect their property from settlers, or from the feral pigs those settlers send their way.

Given the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and the related land theft going on in the West Bank, Syria and southern Lebanon, the issue of feral pigs in Palestine may seem unremarkable.  It’s just one more method of harassing, dehumanizing, starving and humiliating Palestinians, in a place where the highest order of the state, and the highest value of Zionism is to harass, dehumanize, starve and humiliate Palestinians, and to kill them.

In the United States, we work together to prevent and repair the insane damage feral hogs do to local economies and environments. Our universities study ways to control their reproduction, our governments fight the pigs directly, and assist private enterprise in destroying them.  Private citizens in American shoot them, trap them, kill them and process them. We know feral pigs in this country, and we know their place is very likely on a plate somewhere. Ironically, feral pigs in Palestine and in Israel are today a war crime of one side against the other, but they will ultimately become a two state disaster that may require a horde of Texans and Arkansans with rifles and ingenuity to solve.

Israel does not know, or care, one whit about pigs, agriculture, the environment, or how the natural world works.  With US money, arms and assistance, the Zionist government – with overwhelming support by most Israelis – has dropped the equivalent of 6 Hiroshima size atomic bombs on a strip of land the size of Washington DC, up to College Park and Laurel, Maryland.  Gaza has been physically annihilated, but the real dehumanization has not occurred there, but inside of Israel, within Israeli society.

Feral hogs wreak havoc on farms, fields and forests, leaving destruction in their wake.  They destroy what they cannot eat, pollute water, spread disease and terror.  They kill and eat lambs and kids, among other things.  The USDA – and probably the IDF as well – call them a “feral swine bomb.”

Perhaps it is appropriate that Zionist colonialism, a political model inherited from European intellectuals and creatively massaged by European Zionist urbanites, is letting loose wild boars into the holy land as a weapon.  European nobility did much the same on lands set aside for the world of wealth, and elite sport, as a demonstration of power, and enforcement of serfdom and servitude of the locals.

Zionist Israel was never a good fit for the second half of the 20th century, and it has become an anachronism in the 21st.  70 plus years of Israel’s episodic mass starvation, destruction of property, and murder wreaked on Palestinians has become ordinary, yet unimaginable.  One more hell on earth has been created, this time courtesy of US political leaders and Zionist cultists. We don’t understand it. But Americans definitely understand feral pigs, and we know only the insane and degraded would set them on their neighbors.

At the risk of stating the obvious, if we wouldn’t tolerate it in our own neighborhood, or our own country, we shouldn’t fund it overseas.

The post Wild Boars appeared first on LewRockwell.

How do we know God loves us? Is there any evidence in the Scriptures telling us that He does? Is there an image perhaps to which we can easily point to prove that we are loved by God in the most intimate and unmistakable way? There are actually a whole busload of examples, of which the following may be the most profound and compelling of all. It is certainly the most recent, appearing just the other day in one of the Lenten readings taken from the prophet Isaiah (49:6-15).

What is most arresting about the image is that it reveals a God speaking to Israel as though He were addressing a young child, frightened and alone in a world too menacing to face. He wants to allay the child’s fear of abandonment, of that sudden desolating state in which the child sees no hope of escape, no prospect of rescue or relief. And so the Lord reaches out to the child, to comfort this child after His own heart, with the certainty that He at least has not forgotten him, that He will never forsake him. It is an unspeakably beautiful passage, evoking an intimacy never before expressed between God and the people of the book, of the promise uniquely given to them by God.

And so, seizing upon the most perfect image, He asks, “Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb?” Such an astonishing image that must have been to those about to undergo the pain of exile and loss! What greater consolation could there be than the certainty of knowing that God, not unlike a mother choosing to love her child, is no less moved to love His own child, the offspring of the covenant He first made with Abraham?

Now, of course, God is their Father, the Primal One who fashioned Israel into a people, a nation whose mission will be to provide that point of entry for God Himself to enter the human story, making it His-tory because our own stories will never be enough to overcome the iniquity of a fallen universe. And, accordingly, as our Father, His aim is to reshape the whole of that universe, redirecting its course back to Him. But notice how He loves Israel precisely as a mother, indeed, as would any good mother whose love for her children remains resolute, steadfast, and fierce, freshly dispensed each hour of every day.

There can be no other relation among men as necessary and natural as the bond between a child and his mother. In the order of nature, it remains the first and most formative of all the connections we make. How could it be otherwise with one who has not only given the child life from out of her own life, the very loins of her own body, but who, by choosing to nourish the child at her breast, bestows a meaning upon this child, a meaning of imperishable value? Where else but in the primordial relation of the child to its mother, given the sheer indestructible intimacy of that bond, will there awaken that sense of the child’s importance and value as a person?

And what other astonishing thing does God say to Zion through the prophet Isaiah? What does He tell this people He brought out of bondage and death, in order finally to put to flight whatever lingering fear of abandonment may persist? Nothing less than God’s absolute guarantee that “Even should she forget, I will never forget you.” That however wayward the exercise of a mother’s love may prove to be, God’s love is not subject to change, that it will always burn with an intensity of love for those who have won His heart.

And because the exercise of divine love is not in the least arbitrary or capricious, every human creature who has ever lived, or will ever live, is entitled to receive that love. It is not like a government contract, revocable over time. It lasts forever.

And yet we still fear its loss, don’t we? We still suffer the anguish of being abandoned. Hasn’t it always been the deepest, the most fearful privation of all? That those we love, those on whom we depend to love us, will maybe decide someday to stop loving us. That they will choose, however perversely, to leave us in the lurch, alone and bereft, lost in a world we were never created to have to endure. And isn’t that the whole point of being lost, that we simply do not know when the ax will fall?

Alas, when it comes to being lost, we are all like the children of Israel. Or our own children as well. In her moving account of her father, writer John Cheever, Susan Cheever explains the origin of her book’s title, Home Before Dark. “My father liked to tell a story about my younger brother Fred,” who, at the end of a long summer’s day, suddenly sees their father.

And when he saw daddy standing there he ran across the grass and threw his little boy’s body into his father’s arms. “I want to go home, Daddy,” he said, “I want to go home.” Of course, he was home, just a few feet from the front door, in fact. But that didn’t make any difference, as my father well understood. We all want to go home, he would say when he told this story. We all do.

And if there were no home to go to, no one to welcome the child when he got there, what then? Or if his father should tell him in words so final that nothing more could be said to soften the sentence: “I do not know you”? Would that not force one out into a state of aloneness, of solitude and sorrow that, again, none of us were created to have to endure?

If there really were a loneliness so final that nothing in this world could remedy the pain of it, an abandonment so total that neither word nor gesture could deliver us from it, wouldn’t that be the equivalent of what we mean by Hell? Isn’t Hell that very depth of loneliness where no love, no relation of real communion, can reach one in order to set free the soul of one’s solitude? It would be as if we, too, were the Prodigal Son, only fated never to find our father’s love. An eternity of grief, no less. Who could possibly bear it?

This is why we must cling, and always with the most desperate and tenacious desire, to a God who is not content merely to know us but who loves us as well, who longs to hold us as close to Himself as a child bathing at the breast of its own dear mother.

This originally appeared on Crisis Magazine.

The post We Are All Prodigal Sons and Daughters appeared first on LewRockwell.