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In a recent interview with Todd Sachs of Sachs Realty, Peter breaks down the true origins of America’s economic imbalances, highlighting the disastrous role of the Federal Reserve and misguided government policy. He critiques popular political solutions like tariffs, sounds the alarm on the ongoing decline of the dollar, and explains why precious metals remain a vital defense for savers. Peter also tackles issues from student debt to the housing market, warning listeners that the current system is fueled by unsustainable government intervention.

Early in the interview, Peter points out that, while politicians like Donald Trump identify symptoms such as trade deficits, their remedies threaten to make the situation worse. He delivers a clear message about the importance of sound money and open trade:

Donald Trump does a good job of pointing out some of the consequences of bad monetary and fiscal policy, like our huge trade deficits. But his prescription is completely wrong. He says, well, you know, what we need is tariffs and rate cuts, and we actually need the opposite of that. We don’t need any tariffs; we need free trade. But we need rate hikes. The reason that our trade deficits are so big is because our interest rates have been so low and they’ve encouraged excess consumption.

Turning to the global stage, Peter warns that the world is already moving away from the dollar. He paints a stark picture of what happens when America’s privileged position evaporates and foreign savings dry up:

And I think the de-dollarization process has begun. And when it concludes, America’s ride on the global gravy train is going to be over. … We’re not going to have a lot of stuff to buy. We’re just going to have a lot of money to spend. And so prices are going to go through the roof. Interest rates are going to go through the roof because nobody is going to have access anymore to the foreign savings. That’s why our rates are low. It’s because we’re able to tap into the Chinese savings.

Peter doesn’t let up on domestic policy failures. He singles out the student loan crisis as another example of well-intended but economically flawed government intervention. Young people, he argues, are pushed into a cycle of debt fueled by artificial demand:

Look, people go to college, they’re 17, 18 years old. They’re kids, right? And they’re basically told by everybody that you need a college degree or you’re a complete failure. You’re never going to make it in this world if you don’t have a college degree. … So these kids are under a lot of pressure to go to college and they’re under a lot of pressure to borrow the money because they can’t afford the high prices unless they borrow the money.

Housing, too, is distorted by government interference, particularly through mortgage guarantees. Peter argues that the government’s attempt to make homeownership more accessible has only driven prices higher and left buyers—and the system—more fragile:

Look, if the government didn’t guarantee mortgages, then mortgage rates would be a lot higher than they are, and the lending standards would be a lot stricter because the banks would be much more concerned about repayment because there was no government guarantor. And so not only would the rates be higher, but they would require the applicants to have more income, to have more savings, and to make much larger down payments. You wouldn’t have people buying homes with nothing down or 5 percent down or some small amount. And, you know, we’d have a much stronger housing market and the prices would be a lot lower. 

In his closing remarks, Peter pivots to the one monetary asset that has weathered every storm: gold. He reminds listeners that the “price” of gold hasn’t changed—what has changed is the purchasing power of the dollar, which continues to evaporate at an accelerating pace:

So I think $3,200 is a very good price for gold. It’s not going much lower than that. … If you go back to the beginning of the Federal Reserve in 1913, you could buy an ounce of gold for twenty dollars. And so gold’s gone from twenty to thirty-two hundred. … And so it’s not really that gold is a lot more expensive than it was or a hundred times more expensive than it was a hundred years ago. The dollar is 99% less valuable than it was a hundred years ago.

This article was originally published on SchiffGold.com.

The post The Dollar Has Lost 99% of Its Value appeared first on LewRockwell.

Aljazeera “Let’s bring in Ori Goldberg. He’s an Israeli political commentator and he’s joining us live from Tel Aviv. … And the Israeli Prime Minister has certainly been pushing a narrative that anyone who supports Palestinians is anti-Semitic. …

Ori Goldberg “… this isn’t the prime minister pushing a narrative. This is the Israeli mainstream narrative … Netanyahu and his government’s policies reflect the Israeli consensus. …This is what Israeli Jewish society actually thinks.

”We are perennial victims. What we do, we do because we must. We do in self-defense … If anybody doesn’t realize that, it’s their problem. … We are not subject to the same laws and rules as everybody else. … this is a demonstration of how deeply ingrained the collective Israeli psyche, the sense of rightful impunity is. … Israelis don’t deserve or shouldn’t suffer the consequences of any of their actions. We do what we do because we have no other choice.”  —Israel-Palestine conflict News | Al Jazeera

“Goyim [non-Jews] were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world — only to serve the People of Israel,” –Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the head of Shas’s Council of Torah Sages and a senior Sephardi adjudicator said in his weekly Saturday night sermon … –Jonah Mandel for the Jerusalem Post

How are Israelis programmed to believe this?

Israelism: The awakening of young American Jews | Featured Documentary – YouTube

What’s the result?

–Ilana Mercer, Sad To Say, but, By the Numbers, Israeli Society Is Systemically Sociopathic

Given this back-story, the following motto of Israeli secret police should be no surprise — and it explains the congenital lying from Israeli sources:

Nor should this Israeli disinfo tactic be a surprise

The Israelis have long relied on a public diplomacy strategy to dominate the arena of narrative control and information manipulation…. —The art of deception: How Israel uses ‘hasbara’ to whitewash its crimes

Stephen Kapos, a Jewish holocaust survivor, gives a horrifying and thorough thumbnail synopsis of most of the worst crimes they used deception and hasbara to whitewash here – – – —Holocaust Survivor Absolutely DEMOLISHES Israel – YouTube .

And the effectiveness of these — and other — Israeli disinfo tactics can be guaged by the following:

“Israel’s political strength was further demonstrated a few weeks ago when Netanyahu was invited to address a joint session of Congress and received an unprecedented 58 standing ovations by the bipartisan audience, more than one each minute. Some observers not unreasonably suggested that this foreign leader now actually exercised greater control over the American political system than Biden, Harris, Trump, or anyone else.” –UNZ Report

This isn’t a quirk or mistake. AIPAC — the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — has “its” Congressional control algo down pat. Every member of Congress — except Thomas Massie and possibly a few others — has its own AIPAC “handler.” Like this – – –

How AIPAC Operates, excerpt from Tucker Carlson’s interview with Rep. Thomas Massie

As a result, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu puts it, “America is a thing you can move very easily.” –Mondoweiss

In fact, some argue that US foreign policy is based on appeasing the Jewish state, which makes us Israel’s female canine.

This explains why, despite all logic, the Biden and Trump Administrations both try to cast Palestinians and their supporters here in the U.S., home of free speech, as the bad guys and use the cops to suppress them and shut them up.

also explains why, despite overwhelming world opinion as verified by U.N. General Assemply votes and world-wide demonstrations — and except for the four U.S. vetos, verified in the U.N Security Council too — the U.S. continues to supply the Israelis with weapons, ammo, bombs and funding while bad-mouthing the Palestinians and thus helping the Israelis murder at least 51,000 Palestinan men, but mostly women and children. So far. And starve the rest with their blockade, which is an act of war.

Instead, according to International Law, the Israelis are responsible for the well-being of the occupied population, especially for making sure they have the necessary-for-life food, water, medical supplies, etc., certainly not blocking them with their illegal blockade.

The International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court both recognize that Israel is guilty of war crimes and genocide, and by behavior and intent, ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the West Bank, not to mention violating a slew of U.N. resolutions which they chronically ignore. But that’s OK because, remember, “Israelis don’t deserve or shouldn’t suffer the consequences of any of their actions.”

It’s clear that the whole world, as long as it’s bamboozled by Israeli hasbara and paralyzed by MOSSAD-championed deception — and unconditionally supported by its female canine — will not do what should be done – – –

ARM THEM!

How? THIS is a small suggestion and there’s the Egyptian border as well. Further, there’s the long West Bank border with Jordan.

Another bright spot: the Israelis indeed value their tribe-mates as much as 5 for 1 — in fact, as measured by the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange in 2011, as much as 1,027 for 1 — over us “goyim,” so armed, the leverage would lie with the Palestinian freedom-fighters.

And, ironically, remember what a handful of Jewish ZOB fighters were able to accomplish against the NAZIS in the Warsaw Ghetto of WWII — and Hezbollah against Israel’s IDF in 2006.

HERE for updates, additions, comments, and corrections.

AND, “Like,” “Tweet,” and otherwise, pass this along!

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He’s known for being a realist, not a wishful thinker, which is why his prediction was so surprising to many observers.

Putin predicted a few weeks back that Russia will inevitably reconcile with the EU and Ukraine. Regarding the first, he said that “I have no doubt whatsoever that we will, in due time, rebuild our relations with Europe. It’s only a matter of patience and effort.” As for the second, he said several days later that “It seems to me that this is inevitable despite the tragedy we are currently experiencing.” He’s known for being a realist, not a wishful thinker, which is why his prediction was so surprising to many observers.

While he might have timed them to convince Trump that he isn’t the obstacle to peace that Zelensky might have misled him to think that he is, the perception of which is responsible for complicating the peace process as of late, he probably does indeed believe what he said. Putin has always considered Russia to be a European country, albeit with a unique civilizational identity, while he explained in his magnum opus from June 2021 why he considers Russians and Ukrainians to be kindred people.

These views account for why he remained committed to the Minsk Accords despite neither France, Germany, nor Ukraine complying with them. Putin subconsciously projected his interests-driven (realist/rational) worldview onto them by assuming that they shared his vision of turning Ukraine into an (imperfect) economic bridge for facilitating the EU’s overland trade with Russia and China upon Kiev’s implementation of the Minsk Accords. He therefore struggled to understand their lack of compliance.

He couldn’t countenance that they were duping him this whole time till it was too late and he felt that he had no choice but to commence the special operation to defend Russia’s national security interests. Far from having an interests-driven (realist/rational) worldview, they all have an ideologically driven (utopian/irrational) one that prioritizes Russia’s containment over their own material interests. The EU’s is liberal-globalist while Ukraine’s is ultra-nationalist, so some differences exist, but they share this goal.

For them to meaningfully reconcile with Russia, their policymakers must first replace their ideologically driven worldview with an interests-driven one, which hasn’t yet happened. While there are signs of dissent within their societies, which takes the form of rising populist-nationalist sentiment in the EU and increasing opposition to Zelensky’s rule in Ukraine, electoral fraud and the secret police combine to prevent reformists from coming to power in both. This is the objectively existing state of affairs today.

While critics of the EU and Ukraine want to believe that positive change is “inevitable”, that can’t be taken for granted, and it would be irresponsible for Russia to prematurely formulate policy with this expectation in mind when they’re still in a state of hybrid and hot war with it respectively. To be clear, Putin didn’t signal that Russia should soften its policy towards either since he himself probably knows that his prediction might not come to pass within his lifetime, but he still hopes that it one day will.

Considering all of this, Putin’s prediction was probably only an attempt to influence Trump into not abandoning the peace process instead of him hinting at upcoming policy changes towards the EU and Ukraine. Even in the best-case scenario that Russia achieves most of its goals in the special operation, whether via diplomatic or military means, too much has happened for a reconciliation to occur anytime soon after. It’ll likely take a generation or more, if ever, but no one should get their hopes up.

This article was originally published on Andrew Korybko’s Newsletter.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — A respected obstetrician/gynecologist began his testimony before a Senate hearing on COVID-19 shot adverse events yesterday by announcing that it would be “difficult to conceive of a more egregious breach of medical ethics by the government-controlled medical-industrial complex than the promotion of COVID-19 vaccines to pregnant women.”

“This campaign was not accidental,” said Dr. James Thorp. “It was calculated. Pregnant women were targeted deliberately.” 

He explained that this was done in order to influence the American public’s perception of the COVID-19 shot as safe, because if pregnant women “could be convinced that the vaccine was safe and effective, it would imply that it was safe and effective for everyone.”

“From the outset of the pandemic, this vaccine campaign was never grounded in biological science, but rather in behavioral science, specifically the manipulation of public perception through influence, fear, and persuasion,” said Thorp.

“The federal government outsourced much of this psychological operation to NGOs which disseminated emotionally-charged and misleading messaging,” noted Thorp. “These entities falsely assured pregnant women that the vaccines were proven safe and essential for maternal and fetal newborn health despite the fact that early evidence indicated quite the opposite.”

The government’s vaccine marketing approach was to “go for the low-hanging fruit, those easiest to pick and harvest,” according to Dr. Jay Winston, an initiative director at Harvard’s School of Public Health in a 2020 CBS News interview.

“And the ‘fruit,’ tragically, were pregnant women,” he said.

Thorp cited a misleading study published in April 2021 in the New England Journal of Medicine that claimed the miscarriage rate was 12.6 percent, “but the raw data revealed an 82% miscarriage rate in women vaccinated during the first trimester.”

“This figure mirrors the effects of chemical abortion drugs such as RU486,” Thorp shockingly noted.

Thorp asserted that “publications were riddled with conflicts of interest and deliberate misrepresentations intended to coerce pregnant women into taking vaccines.”

He continued:

These publications are fundamentally compromised by serious conflicts of interest, ranging from biased funding sources and institutional mandates, and even threats to their medical licenses and board certifications.

Between 2020 and 2022, pharmaceutical companies paid $1.06 billion to reviewers at leading medical journals — The New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Lancet, and BMJ — thus corrupting the peer review process.

“Conversely, countless independent researchers with no conflicts of interest published findings that contradicted the false narratives and the pharmaceutical industry narratives, only to be rewarded by persecution, censorship, and threats to their medical licenses and board certifications,” said Thorp.

“This is not hypothetical. It happened to me,” he said.

“This catastrophic public health failure was financed with taxpayer dollars and channeled through federal agencies to medical gatekeepers such as the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and the Society for Maternal Fetal Medicine,” said Thorp.

“These organizations have abandoned their ethics and responsibilities to physicians and patients and must be held accountable,” he insisted.

“I urge the government to immediately halt all funding to these entities and to end every promotional campaign that coerces or recommends experimental mRNA therapies to pregnant women,” said Thorp. “This must stop now.”

Thursday’s Senate hearing on COVID-19 shot adverse events, chaired by Senator Ron Johnson (R–WI), coincided with the publication of Johnson’s interim Senate report accusing Biden administration officials of having been well aware of multiple major risks associated with the COVID-19 shots yet having “opted to withhold issuing a formal warning to the public for months about the safety concerns, jeopardizing the health of young Americans.”

“The full extent of the Biden administration’s failure to immediately warn the public about all COVID-19 vaccine adverse events must be completely exposed,” declared Johnson’s report.

Dr. James Thorp is a board certified OB-GYN and maternal fetal medicine specialist with over 44 years of clinical experience. As a U.S. veteran and widely published physician, he has testified internationally and served as a peer reviewer. He is a board member of the Society for Maternal Fetal Medicine and examiner for the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

The entire three-hour Senate hearing on COVID-19 shot adverse events can be viewed here.

This article was originally published on Lifesite News.

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Thanks, Saleh Abdullah. 

https://youtu.be/FX08wP9c5GY

https://youtu.be/B_4PjAFGltw

https://youtu.be/CeLmC-qtBKA

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Thanks, John Smith. 

Antiwar.com Original

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Thanks,  John Smith. 

Truthout

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Thanks, David Martin.

Kevin Barrett

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Johnny Austin wrote:

Hey Lew, 

We just experienced a three day police state here on the Bolivar Peninsula of Texas. 

This was a result of the annual “Jeep Weekend,” which brought abundant crime and violence. 

As most realize, it wasn’t the Jeepers causing the problem, but the cohort of young African Americans looking to party. 

The cops did manage to shut it down, but at what cost … 

https://open.substack.com/pub/doc115/p/careful-what-you-wish-for?r=18tk5o&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false

As always, thanks a million for your tireless defense of Liberty.

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

____________________________________________________________________________________

(Versione audio della traduzione disponibile qui: https://open.substack.com/pub/fsimoncelli/p/non-puo-essere-vero)

C'è una sorta di conforto nel credere che le cose accadano semplicemente per caso. Che i potenti non cospirino, che le istituzioni non si coordinino, che i pilastri fatiscenti della società rappresentino una mera casualità piuttosto che un disegno. Ho imparato a chiamare queste persone “accidentalisti” – coloro che trovano rifugio nella casualità, che liquidano gli schemi come paranoia.

Il costo di vedere

Come la pillola rossa in Matrix, riconoscere gli schemi cambia tutto. Molti scelgono comode illusioni piuttosto che scomode verità. Come osservò Hannah Arendt: “Il soggetto ideale del regime totalitario non è il nazista convinto o il comunista convinto, ma persone per le quali la distinzione tra realtà e finzione non esiste più”.

Per la classe dirigente – accademici, giornalisti, dirigenti aziendali – riconoscere questi schemi significa confrontarsi con la propria complicità. Il loro successo, il loro status, il loro senso di sé – tutto costruito sul sostegno piuttosto che sulla messa in discussione delle strutture di potere.

La mentalità accidentalista offre rifugio da questo autoesame. Meglio ignorare che affrontare il proprio ruolo nel meccanismo.

La morte della coincidenza

Ci vuole una notevole acrobazia mentale per credere che chi detiene il potere – che lo ha ottenuto attraverso un'attenta pianificazione e coordinamento – smetta improvvisamente di pianificare e coordinare una volta ottenutolo. Che abbandoni quegli strumenti che hanno portato loro il successo; che diventino, in qualche modo, osservatori passivi del proprio declino.

Di fronte a prove di coordinamento – che si tratti di censura statale documentata, controllo narrativo istituzionale, o campagne mediatiche coordinate – l'accidentalista traccia una linea arbitraria. “Beh, questo è diverso”, dice. “Non è una cospirazione, è solo...” E qui si perde, incapace di spiegare perché alcune azioni coordinate dei potenti siano considerate cospirazioni mentre altre siano semplicemente la normalità.

La strumentalizzazione dello scetticismo e la produzione di emarginati

Il termine stesso “complotto” rivela la manipolazione istituzionale. Il dispaccio della CIA del 1967 (Documento 1035-960) ordinava esplicitamente ai media di usare questa etichetta per screditare i critici della Commissione Warren. Trasformarono lo scetticismo in patologia, facendo sembrare delirante il semplice atto di mettere in discussione il potere.

Questa strumentalizzazione del linguaggio funzionò brillantemente. Oggi il riconoscimento di schemi diventa sospetto. Nel 2022 il New York Times pubblicò forse l'esempio più rivelatore dell'arroganza istituzionale: un saggio che metteva in guardia i cittadini dal “fare le proprie ricerche”, suggerendo che non fossero competenti per mettere in discussione le conclusioni degli esperti. Il messaggio era chiaro: lasciate che ci pensiamo noi. Fidatevi degli esperti, restate nella vostra corsia.

Che questa direttiva paternalistica provenisse da una pubblicazione con una storia di diffusione di disinformazione la dice lunga. L'accidentalista, naturalmente, non vede alcun problema nel fatto che gli esperti dicano alle persone di non pensare con la propria testa. Non coglie l'implicazione più profonda: quando le istituzioni scoraggiano attivamente le indagini indipendenti, rivelano il loro timore di un controllo informato.

Lo schema è inequivocabile: identificare gli scettici, screditarli, farne degli esempi. L'accidentalista non si chiede mai perché mettere in discussione il potere inneschi attacchi così coordinati.

Le smentite di oggi, i titoli di domani

Prendete in considerazione questo: nel 2021 diversi miei amici mi hanno consigliato con entusiasmo Dopesick, una mini serie TV che mette in evidenza la manipolazione della medicina da parte dei Sackler a beneficio delle loro tasche. Ciononostante questi stessi amici mi hanno deriso per aver messo in discussione le aziende farmaceutiche oggi, malgrado il loro status di industria più punita a livello giudiziario nella storia dell'umanità. Chi ha riconosciuto schemi simili è stato etichettato come “no-vax” e “minaccia per la salute pubblica”. Gli scienziati che suggerivano tesi alternative a quelle mainstream sono diventati “complottisti”. Lo schema si ripete: identificare gli scettici, screditarli, farne degli esempi.

Esaminiamo tre casi in cui i “complotti” si sono trasformati in storia riconosciuta:

1. L'inganno dello zucchero: negli anni '60 l'industria dello zucchero pagò scienziati di Harvard per attribuire le malattie cardiache ai grassi anziché allo zucchero. Questi studi finanziati dall'industria hanno plasmato le linee guida alimentari per decenni, creando una massiccia crisi di salute pubblica attraverso alimenti “a basso contenuto di grassi” ma ricchi di zucchero. L'accidentalista considera questo un episodio storico isolato piuttosto che un modello per la manipolazione aziendale della scienza.


2. Il copione del tabacco: per decenni le aziende del tabacco hanno nascosto prove che collegavano il fumo al cancro, finanziando la ricerca per creare dubbi. La loro nota interna affermava: “Il dubbio è il nostro prodotto”. L'accidentalista considera questo un caso unico piuttosto che riconoscere le stesse tattiche nelle attuali pratiche aziendali.


3. L'insabbiamento del Vioxx: la Merck nascose le prove che il suo farmaco di successo causava infarti, causando circa 60.000 morti. Documenti interni hanno rivelato che i dirigenti stavano elaborando strategie per “neutralizzare” le critiche. L'accidentalista tratta questo come un'aberrazione piuttosto che una procedura operativa standard.

Lo schema si ripete

Prendete in considerazione la tempistica: un Patriot Act di 342 pagine è apparso settimane dopo l'11 settembre. L'Operazione Lock Step ha descritto le misure pandemiche nel 2010. L'Evento 201 ha simulato le risposte nell'ottobre 2019, lo stesso giorno dei Giochi Militari di Wuhan. Mesi dopo queste stesse misure sono state implementate a livello globale. Quali sono le probabilità?

Gli schemi di controllo si ripetono a ogni livello:

• A livello mondiale: coordinamento OMS/WEF

• A livello nazionale: regolamentazione

• A livello aziendale: repressione interna del dissenso

• A livello locale: pressione della comunità a conformarsi

Le impronte digitali del potere sono ovunque. Una volta che le vedete, non potete più ignorarle.

La convergenza aziendale

Ecco dove la visione del mondo accidentalista fallisce davvero: non si trattava di cospirazioni separate, ma di un singolo sistema che perfezionava i suoi metodi. I giganti del tabacco che consapevolmente hanno creato dipendenza per milioni di persone non sono scomparsi: hanno acquisito aziende alimentari (RJR Nabisco) e hanno continuato a manipolare la salute pubblica. Gli stessi conglomerati alimentari ora si fondono con le multinazionali farmaceutiche (Monsanto/Bayer), affidando la responsabilità della nostra medicina agli stessi scienziati che hanno progettato sigarette e alimenti trasformati che creano dipendenza.

Queste multinazionali non condividono solo la proprietà, ma anche i metodi. Le stesse tattiche usate per creare dipendenza nei fumatori sono state applicate agli alimenti trasformati; la stessa manipolazione della ricerca che ha nascosto i pericoli del tabacco ora oscura i rischi farmaceutici; lo stesso controllo mediatico che ha venduto le sigarette come salutari ora promuove interventi medici non testati.

I mercanti di realtà

Si consideri la risposta dei media alla nomina di Robert F. Kennedy Jr. a Segretario dell'HHS. Il messaggio coordinato è impossibile da ignorare: i commentatori di tutte le reti l'hanno etichettato uniformemente come “complottista” e “pericoloso per la salute pubblica”, senza mai affrontare le sue reali posizioni. Sono le stesse voci che hanno sostenuto linee di politica pandemiche distruttive, e ora cercano di screditare chi le ha messe in dubbio.

O si prenda in esame il Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, un professore di Stanford la cui competenza era indiscussa fino a quando non ha contestato i lockdown. La risposta istituzionale è stata rapida: attacchi mediatici coordinati, ostracismo accademico e soppressione algoritmica. Lo schema è chiaro: la competenza viene rispettata solo quando è in linea con gli interessi istituzionali.

Conformità ingegnerizzata

Il modello inizia con scarsità artificiale e dipendenza forzata, ma comprendere i meccanismi dei sistemi fiat è solo l'inizio. La vera rivelazione è riconoscere come questa architettura si estenda oltre il denaro in ogni ambito dell'esistenza umana.

Il COVID-19 non ha creato nuovi sistemi di controllo, ma ne ha rivelati di esistenti. L'infrastruttura per la sospensione dei diritti, l'applicazione delle narrazioni artificiali e il silenziamento del dissenso erano già in atto. Il “Grande reset” non è stato concepito nel 2020. L'architettura della sorveglianza non è stata costruita dall'oggi al domani. La capacità di coordinare le politiche globali, controllare il flusso di informazioni e rimodellare il comportamento umano non sono stati sviluppati in risposta a una crisi, ma in attesa di una.

Inoltre l'applicazione selettiva della verità rivela le preferenze del potere. A prescindere da ciò che si pensi delle dichiarazioni di Alex Jones su Sandy Hook, la sua multa da $900 milioni è in netto contrasto con la totale impunità di cui godono il New York Times e altri mass media le cui bugie sulle armi di distruzione di massa hanno causato centinaia di migliaia di morti. Questo rivela come il potere protegga i propri affiliati mentre punisce gli estranei, anche quando le bugie istituzionali causano danni ben maggiori.

La psicologia dell'incredulità

“Non può essere vero” diventa il meccanismo di difesa della mente contro il riconoscimento di schemi. Questo non è scetticismo naturale, ma rifiuto programmato (come spiegato nel saggio L'industria dell'informazione). Più esteso è il modello, più forte è la negazione. Hanno trasformato lo scetticismo in un'arma contro sé stessi, creando una popolazione che difende istintivamente l'autorità e al contempo attacca qualsiasi critica ad essa.

Stiamo osservando le prime fasi della convergenza dei sistemi di controllo, con chiari segnali di ciò che sta per accadere:

• Identità digitali collegate alle cartelle cliniche

• CBDC che consentono la programmazione del denaro

• Sistemi di credito sociale camuffati da metriche ESG

• Capitalismo della sorveglianza che si fonde con il controllo statale

• Scarsità artificiale attraverso catene di approvvigionamento controllate

Queste non sono previsioni, sono sistemi in fase di costruzione e test in tutto il mondo, dal sistema di credito sociale cinese all'implementazione delle CBDC in Nigeria.

Comprendere l'impossibile

“Ma come hanno potuto riuscirci senza che nessuno lo sapesse?”, si chiede l'accidentalista. La risposta è semplice: compartimentazione. Come nel Progetto Manhattan, la maggior parte delle persone nelle istituzioni globali ignora il piano più ampio a cui sta lavorando. Persino nelle aziende tecnologiche, il team di Gmail non ha idea di cosa stiano facendo i moderatori dei contenuti di YouTube o la divisione mappe di Google Earth. Ogni dipartimento svolge la sua funzione senza vedere il tutto. Professionisti del mondo accademico, delle aziende americane e dei media perseguono inconsapevolmente un obiettivo più ampio, spesso credendo di lavorare per cause nobili.

La verità non è nascosta, è protetta dalla sua stessa audacia. Come osservò Marshall McLuhan: “Solo i piccoli segreti devono essere protetti. Quelli grandi sono tenuti tali dall'incredulità della popolazione”. Questo spiega perché le rivelazioni più importanti spesso si nascondono in bella vista: la portata dell'inganno coordinato supera ciò che la maggior parte delle persone può psicologicamente accettare come possibile.

Rompere l'incantesimo

La rivelazione definitiva non è quanto siano potenti, ma quanto sia fragile il loro controllo. Il loro punto di forza più grande – l'integrazione totale – è anche la loro maggiore debolezza. I sistemi complessi hanno più punti di rottura. Più i sistemi sono interconnessi, più una perturbazione in un'area può avere ripercussioni a cascata sull'intero sistema.

La soluzione non è combattere direttamente i loro sistemi, ma costruire strutture parallele che li rendano irrilevanti:

• Sistemi alimentari locali invece di catene di approvvigionamento globali

• Reti peer-to-peer invece di piattaforme controllate

• Scambio diretto invece di usare forme di denaro sorvegliate

• Immunità naturale invece di immunità ad abbonamento

• Comunità reali invece di spazi virtuali

La scelta

La domanda non è se il potere cospiri, ma perché siamo così restii a vederlo. Quale conforto troviamo nel credere agli accadimenti accidentali? Quale paura nutriamo nel vedere un progetto?

Forse è più semplice credere nel caos che affrontare l'ordine. Forse è più facile respingerlo che impegnarsi. Forse la posizione accidentalista non riguarda affatto la verità, ma il mantenimento del conforto dell'ignoranza in un mondo che richiede sempre più consapevolezza.

Perché una volta che si vede lo schema, non si può più ignorarlo. Una volta capito che il potere coordina, pianifica e cospira per sua stessa natura, l'unico complotto bizzarro diventa credere che non sia così.

Il risveglio non è qualcosa che ci accade, è qualcosa che scegliamo. E questa scelta, moltiplicata per milioni di individui, determinerà se l'umanità entrerà in una nuova era oscura o vivrà la sua più grande rinascita.

La domanda non è se lo vedete o meno. La domanda è: cosa farete quando non potrete più ignorarlo?

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

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

Thanks, John Smith. 

CNN News

The post Foreign diplomats come under Israeli fire on official West Bank visit, drawing swift international condemnation appeared first on LewRockwell.

One of the talking points Israel apologists like to regurgitate is that Israel can’t possibly be acting with genocidal intent in Gaza, because if they had wanted to exterminate the Palestinians they could have easily done so in a matter of days.

As luck would have it, leaders from the Israeli government have just helpfully come out and debunked that talking point with a few shockingly frank public admissions.

Explaining the decision to allow a minuscule amount of aid into Gaza after months of deliberate starvation, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Israel is now allowing “minimal humanitarian aid” on the insistence of western officials so that they will support Israel’s murderous operation to conquer the enclave.

Jeremy Scahill reports the following for Drop Site News:

“We’re going to take control of all the Gaza Strip,” Netanyahu vowed Monday in a video released by his office announcing that Israel would begin delivering “minimal humanitarian aid: food and medicine only.” Netanyahu claimed that international pressure, including from pro-Israel Republican senators and the White House, required the appearance of humanitarian intervention. “Our best friends in the world — senators I know as strong supporters of Israel — have warned that they cannot support us if images of mass starvation emerge,” he said. “They come to me and say, ‘We’ll give you all the help you need to win the war… but we can’t be receiving pictures of famine,’” Netanyahu added. To continue the war of annihilation, he asserted, “We need to do it in a way that they won’t stop us.”

As usual, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich went even further in saying the quiet part out loud and giving the whole game away, explaining that Israel is providing just enough aid to maintain western support and avoid war crimes charges while advancing its ethnic cleansing operation in the Gaza Strip, boasting about the government’s skillfulness in “navigating” that line.

Some choice Smotrich quotes, courtesy of the aforementioned Drop Site News write-up:

• Smotrich said the aid scheme would allow “our friends in the world to continue to provide us with an international umbrella of protection against the Security Council and the Hague Tribunal, and for us to continue to fight, God willing, until victory.”
• “The [aid] that will enter Gaza in the coming days is the tiniest amount. A handful of bakeries that will hand out pita bread to people in public kitchens. People in Gaza will get a pita and a food plate, and that’s it. Exactly what we are seeing in the videos: people standing in line and waiting to have someone serve them, with some soup plate.”
• “Truth be told, until the last of the hostages returns, we should also not let water into the Gaza Strip. But the reality is that if we do that, the world will force us to halt the war immediately, and to lose. It would be winning the battle, and losing the war. I’m committed to winning the war.”
• “We are disassembling Gaza, and leaving it as piles of rubble, with total destruction [which has] no precedent globally. And the world isn’t stopping us. There are pressures. There are those who attack [us]; they are trying to [make us] stop; they are not succeeding. You know why they aren’t succeeding? Because we are navigating [the campaign] responsibly and wisely, and that’s how we’ll continue to do [it].”
• Smotrich said that the Israeli forces are initiating a campaign to force Palestinians into the south of Gaza “and from there, God willing, to third countries, as part of President Trump’s plan. This is a change of the course of history — nothing less.”

Smotrich also praised the IDF for deliberately targeting civilians and civil infrastructure, saying “The IDF is finally conducting a campaign against the civilian rule of Hamas… eliminating ministers, officials, money changers, and figures in the economic and governmental apparatus.”

So there you have it, spelled out in plain language. There is no need to wonder why Israel has been dragging out its genocidal atrocities over a year and a half instead of just brazenly annihilating all the Palestinians in one swift scorched-earth campaign. Israel has told us why. They have opted for their slow-motion strangulation approach because that’s what’s necessary to maintain essential western support and avoid war crimes tribunals.

This comes as the governments of France, Canada and the UK publicly issue a warning to Israel saying that they may begin imposing targeted sanctions on Tel Aviv if it does not begin allowing in more aid to Gaza and curbing the abuses in the West Bank. So Israel is currently acutely aware that it is walking a delicate line between (A) making Gaza an unlivable hellhole for Palestinians and (B) maintaining western support. So it is making the smallest concessions it thinks it can get away with in order to keep both A and B.

The western pushback against Israel’s criminality has thus far been feeble, pathetic, and entirely inadequate. Australia’s denunciation of Israel’s starvation warfare is even more toothless than that of France, the UK and Canada. But we are seeing some movement, which shows that these western governments are not entirely unresponsive to internal pressures from their citizenry.

I just saw a tweet from the Quincy Institute’s Trita Parsi which reads as follows:

“Something is happening. The number of government officials from around the world who I’ve heard in private conversations call Israel’s slaughter in Gaza a genocide — without qualifications and caveats — has increased dramatically in just the past weeks. The dam is breaking.”

Keep pushing.

__________________

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The post Israeli Officials Explain Balancing Act Between Overt Genocide and Maintaining Western Support appeared first on LewRockwell.

Former Vice Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Robert Burke is preparing for a new kind of retirement.  Burke was convicted of “conspiracy to commit bribery and bribery. …[and] performing acts affecting a personal financial interest and concealing material facts from the United States.”

He is the highest ranking military officer held to account for his quite understandable actions to get a “good-paying job” after retirement to supplement his approximately $18,000 a month pension.  Seriously, who can blame him?

An inability to count actual numbers, and to live frugally, seems to be a partial result of the so-called “General’s Lobotomy” that follows the award of that very first star.  I cannot verify such medical procedures exist, but I recall the phrase from my time in the Pentagon, mainly to rationalize how some very excellent O-6’s became very different people once granted flag rank.  This phenomenon is not limited to the military, by any means.  Kash Patel and Dan Bongino talked with Maria Bartiromo recently, and quickly put to bed the outlandish notion that Epstein Didn’t Kill Himself.  Are they all pod people?

Burke was convicted of bribery, but his real and most widely shared conviction is a shared vision that the easiest way to become a millionaire these days is to work for the government, either through careerism or election.  In our financialized America, you need to be in on the front end to really benefit, as Charles Hugh Smith explains, and this is well known by those connected to government, in particular, government acquisition.

Bribery and conspiracy to commit bribery are wonderful crimes, low brow and high brow all at once.  Burke was a government goodfella, and it was good while it lasted.  If he gets jail time, I’m sure it will come with its own very fine dining and comfortable meeting rooms.

Seriously, Burke’s case presents a major opportunity to address the military industrial complex, and what it – and our lack of an alert and informed citizenry long before Eisenhower’s two terms – has wrought for our country.  We have no effective national defense, except the nearly 400 million guns held privately in the US, a legacy of a Second Amendment protection of a natural right most countries do not even recognize, much less honor.  The state prefers to rely on federal armies and navies, like the one Admiral Burke served in and influenced for nearly 40 years.

Burke’s crimes amount to profiteering. The government, the state, inadvertently or purposely, creates the structure, and sustains the spirit, of profiteering. To be connected to a state – whether local, state and federal – is to be well taken care of, to be “in the know” as in the example of Nancy Pelosi, et al or less grotesquely, Bob Menendez.

The great Marine Smedley Butler said “War is a Racket.” The racket is about making money from the state, influencing the state for personal profit, and it is about a business of war that destroys goods, and replaces old debts coming due with new debts that the state pushes to the far future. War is often sold as part of the Broken Window Fallacy – destruction isn’t really wasteful or criminal, it’s stimulative and creative.

Butler dedicates a section of his pamphlet to “How to Smash This Racket.” He did not say “reform it” or “closely monitor it” or do a study or create a presidential commission or department, like DOGE.  This racket is smashed by taking the profit out of war.  He writes:

Let the officers and the directors and the high-powered executives of our armament factories and our munitions makers and our shipbuilders and our airplane builders and the manufacturers of all the other things that provide profit in war time as well as the bankers and the speculators, be conscripted – to get $30 a month, the same wage as the lads in the trenches get.

Butler – like our felonious Burke – was a man who spent his adult life fighting the wars of the United States.  Unlike Burke, Smedley Butler drew the correct conclusion.  He became a bold enemy of the state, if only because he spoke his mind, and shared his assessments and remedies widely.

Which brings us to the most interesting crime of dear Admiral Burke: “concealing material facts from the United States.”  The law itself is entertaining, and describes in some detail the ways in which government departments and their employees Must. Not. Lie.  What a joke!

Burke is a proven devious, persistent and creative liar, in order to get what he wanted and felt he deserved. Concealing material facts from the “United States” means, in the vernacular if not legally, concealing them from the people who paid more than enough for a Republic but received instead an Empire in its cups, stumbling towards the cliffs of insanity.  We have a country at the brink of fiscal collapse, without a single bit of useful “defense” ensconced anywhere in the federal regime.

The company in this case was Next Jump.  It specializes in “scalable leadership coaching through practice not theory.”  You simply cannot make this stuff up.   It is a sign of deep, deep sickness in the system, not just the Pentagon.

On February 13th of 2025, Trump 47 briefly proposed cutting the Pentagon budget in half.  That announcement had the immediate effect of “costing” Northrup Grumman, General Dynamics, and Lockheed Martin an estimated $6 Billion in stock valuation.  Congress and the defense lobbies had their mission, and not only did they deliver, but Trump, Janus-like, on April 8th proposed a record-breaking $1 Trillion dollar DoD budget.  Trump said “We have things under order now.”  Nothing could be further from the truth.

Admiral Robert Burke is not the tip of the iceberg; he is not one bad apple.  Burke and his cohorts at Next Jump are just bite-sized chunks of the Department of Defense. He is a chip off the old block, a sample at the Pentagon Costco.  Americans are forced, under threat of arrest, fines and imprisonment, to buy overpriced, overpackaged, non-working condition “defense” in quantities we can’t use today, and can’t consume in a century.

Smedley Butler believed that if we took the profit out of war, allow those who would be fighting to decide if a war was worthwhile (the young, not the old, the poor, not the wealthy) and limited our military forces to home defense purposes – we could smash the war racket.

The first – removing profit from war – really means ending the Fed, because a state with an unlimited ability to “create” money will always attract those who want a piece of that action, who want to win big under the rules of the game.  When it’s not real money, and not your money, those allowed into the federal casino will happily gamble with national defense, as they do with every other project of the state.

Trump was on to something in February – reducing the casino payout by half would impact both those running the casino, and those betting there, overnight.  There would definitely be blood.

If we returned the power to go to war to the people – we could be in for a century or two of peace in the United States, as the youth of our country do not favor war, and have no fantasies about making their bones on a global battlefield.  Butler – who died in June 1940 – could not have imagined that the US would eventually fight nonstop around the planet without any Congressional declarations of war at all – gutting Constitutional guidance meant to assign the decision for war to the People’s representatives.

If we limited our military forces to purely defensive purposes, we could envision a DoD that actually functions as such.  Such a defense-oriented military would have never allowed 9/11, almost a quarter of a century ago, when the DoD – and the MICIMATT around it – defended no American.  It was too busy  cultivating enemies abroad, in hopes of fomenting more war, and war profits.

The Pentagon and Next Jump’s competitors congratulate themselves on rooting out a corrupting influence in their midst.  Naughty Admiral, shame, shame!  Now please go back to your previously scheduled program while we grift and plot, profit and pillage.

Trump can be certainly be proud that we have the “most” of something.  His trillion dollar military is the most expensive, most incompetent, most wasteful, and most worthless on the planet.

The post Navy Admiral Corrupt? How Utterly Disturbing! appeared first on LewRockwell.

The hatred of some in Israel for the people of Gaza – even for little children – is just astounding. If they have even a tiny bit of belief in God, they should pray for forgiveness.

Unfortunately, NPR reported last Thursday (May 15) on “deadly airstrikes, killing more than 150 people in the past day, including dozens of children.”

On May 9 the Israeli newspaper Haaretz and many other publications reported on a meeting of a subcommittee of Israel’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

The hearing in the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, was not about concern for children who were starving or who had to have amputations without anesthesia. It was about concern over the public relations harm to Israel.

One of the witnesses was Dr. Sharon Shaul from NATAN, a worldwide humanitarian aid charity.

Dr. Shaul said, “I believe that none of the people sitting around this table are concerned that a suffering child cannot receive painkillers or even minimal medical treatment.”

Then the story said that Knesset member Amit Halevi from Netanyahu’s Likud Party “interrupted her angrily saying, ‘I’m not sure you’re speaking for us when you say we want to treat every child and every woman.’”

The doctor then replied that she hoped the member would not oppose “a four-year-old child” undergoing an amputation receiving pain medication. “I hope you have that compassion,” Dr. Shaul said.

However, Knesset member Limor Son Har-Melech “pointed at the doctor and said ‘the only treatment that should be given is to you.’” Another member shouted, “You are the sickest doctor I have ever seen.”

Elad Barashi, a producer at Israel’s Channel 14, surpassed even this hatred by writing on social media in early May: “Good morning. Let there be a holocaust in Gaza.”

In another post, he wrote: “I can’t understand the people here in the State of Israel who don’t want to fill Gaza with gas chambers … or train cars … and finish this story. Let there be a holocaust in Gaza.”

He added: “Men, women and children – by any means necessary we must simply carry out a Shoa against them – yes, read that again – H-O-L-O-C-A-U-S-T!”

He said there were 2.6 million terrorists in Gaza and wrote: “Without fear, without weakness – just Crush. Eliminate. Slaughter. Flatten. Dismantle. Smash. Shatter.”

The fanatic Netanyahu has been indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity, yet he is a hero in our Congress because of campaign contributions. The rest of the world is overwhelmingly against the genocide in Gaza.

In my column two weeks ago, I wrote of the letter signed by the 36 members of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, which criticized what it called this “most extremist of Israeli governments” and said, “We stand against the war.”

Even more significant – in fact, almost shocking – is the column Thomas Friedman, the longtime New York Times columnist, published on May 9 entitled “This Israeli Government Is Not Our Ally.”

Friedman said Netanyahu has placed personal political survival before his nation’s and U.S. interests and wrote, “Netanyahu is not our friend.”

He added that “a permanent Israeli military occupation, whose unstated goal will be to pressure all Palestinians to leave is a prescription for a permanent insurgency – Vietnam on the Mediterranean.”

Israel has never had any prominent media voice more supportive than Friedman has been over the years. He has been writing for the New York Times since 1981.

President Trump wrote that the release of the American hostage Edan Alexander a few days ago was “a step taken in good faith toward the United States and the efforts … to put an end to this very brutal war…”

Axios reported that “Israel was not directly involved … and initially learned about it from its intelligence services who spy on Hamas.” This gives credence to the many reports that Trump is tired of being manipulated by Netanyahu.

CNN reported on May 12 that Trump “blindsided Israel several times already – announcing talks with Iran, a deal with Yemen’s Houthi rebels, and direct talks with Hamas,” plus not stopping there on the president’s latest Middle East trip.

Maybe Friedman’s column and some of the statements and actions by Trump will finally give some members of Congress the courage to speak out against Israel’s cruelty in Gaza.

This article was originally published on Knoxville Focus.

The post Israeli Hatred for Children in Gaza Is Shocking appeared first on LewRockwell.

International Man: Who exactly are the neoconservatives—where did this movement originate, what do they fundamentally believe, and why does their ideology seem so relentlessly focused on promoting war and global intervention?

Doug Casey: Most of the neocons have a background as socialists or hardcore leftists. But the neocons are smarter than the average statist in that they could see that socialism was a failure—it wasn’t working anywhere. So what they did was adopt conservative-seeming economic policies, while maintaining all the other trappings of socialism.

Neocons are universally state worshipers. They don’t believe in principles as a matter of principle. You could say that a foundational thinker for the neocons is Niccolò Machiavelli, who promoted the idea in his book The Prince that whatever works and accomplishes the goal of the ruler should be done—that it’s counterproductive to think in terms of right, wrong, or morality.

Many neocons self-identify as Wilsonians. Woodrow Wilson was one of the very worst presidents, responsible for the income tax, the Federal Reserve, US participation in WW1, and trying to “make the world safe for democracy,” among other things.

International Man: The neocon agenda appears to be intellectually rooted in figures like Leo Strauss and even Trotsky. How do you explain the rise of this ideological blend within what many still call the “conservative” movement?

Doug Casey: They only seem conservative because they’ve found it useful to adopt free market–seeming economic policies. This goes back to the long-standing confusion between capitalists and fascists.

Socialists believe in state ownership of the means of production—factories, farms, mines, and the like. Capitalists, however, believe in private ownership of the means of production, as well as private control over them. Fascists—a word that was coined by Mussolini, incidentally—also believe, or at least tolerate, the private ownership of the means of production. That’s why they’re easily confused with capitalists. But fascists believe in complete state control over the means of production, while leaving ownership in private hands.

This is why there’s so much confusion in the public’s eyes between capitalism and fascism. The key difference is control, and a strong partnership between the private and public sectors. That greatly enhances the ability of business owners to enrich themselves, at the expense of the average worker.

In point of fact, neocons are all fascists—in every way. They worship the state, just like in fascist Germany and Italy, where industries were privately owned but completely tied to the interests of the state. Almost all the world’s economies are fascist; there are no pure capitalist or socialist countries. We really should call the neocons fascists.

They also have an aggressive foreign policy, which fascists are known for. They’re fascists in every way, including their support for substantial welfare programs for the populace.

International Man: Despite a track record of costly failures—from endless wars to ballooning government power—why do neoconservatives still wield such influence? Why does anyone in Washington or the media continue to take them seriously?

Doug Casey: I’d say it’s because of their outspoken belief that the State should be the central influence in society. That the government should be the country’s dominant force, not the family, religion, business, or other civil institutions. People now go along with that. It’s understandable that everybody wants a big brother to kiss all their problems and make them better. The average person, who wants something for nothing, a free lunch, is morally weak. And he’s intellectually confused by statist propaganda.

If you create a powerful state which promises to not only take care of you, but also to “win” against other states, a lot of people will respond. Many treat the State the same way football fans treat their favorite teams: “we” will win against “them.” It’s easy to get the hoi polloi hooting and panting like chimpanzees against some fabricated enemy.

Intellectuals have coined arguments that cater to this kind of mass psychology, and people go for it. They like the idea of being protected and being part of a powerful, winning team.

I’ve met any number of well-known neocons personally. Charles Krauthammer, Bill Bennett, and Paul Wolfowitz among them. They’re intellectuals and quite civilized on the surface. But all of them promote completely evil and destructive ideas. The fascist system we have has treated them very well. They’ve become much wealthier than they could have under socialism or capitalism.

International Man: Trump and his envoy, Steve Witkoff, have recently called out the neocons by name.

Figures like Douglas Murray have suggested the term ‘neocon’ is the new n-word. Mark Levin has gone so far as to label its use anti-Semitic.

Why are some neocons using accusations of racism to shut down legitimate and important discussions?

Doug Casey: A great way to shut down any discussion today is to call your opponent a racist. And this has some grounding with neocons because a large majority of them—just like a large majority of intellectuals in general—are Jews. Neocons are reflexively pro-Israel as well. I listened to Mark Levin go on a rant about this on his show recently; he was practically frothing at the mouth in anger.

It’s odd that people consider it racist to stereotype any group and decry that as a bad thing. It’s not. Stereotypes develop because they reflect reality. Members of stereotyped groups often prefer to pretend that we’re all equal, and their group is just like anyone else. But it’s a fact that birds of a feather flock together.

It’s unfortunate that almost all the leading neocon intellectuals are Jews.

International Man: The neocons have long pushed for US war with Iran. What would the geopolitical fallout be if they succeed, and how might such a war impact global markets, energy prices, and economic stability?

Doug Casey: It would be a huge mistake for the US to attack Iran, as they seem to be planning to do. They’re moving B-52 and B-2 bombers to Diego Garcia, which is within easy striking distance of Iran, while Trump thumps his chest and threatens war. It’s a mistake because Iran is a somewhat advanced society with about 92 million people; it’s hunting big game, not like the pipsqueak countries the US has been losing against for the last 75 years. But also because any outside attack always unites a domestic population. It would unite them against the US, and further empower the Mohammedan ideologues now in charge.

It would also be a mistake because it would be immoral—not that anyone cares. The Iranians have never attacked the US. The world is, I think, getting tired of the US promiscuously bombing anyone they like. In fact, almost all of the Islamic terrorism over the last 30 or 40 years has come from Sunni Muslims. The Iranians are Shia Muslims. They don’t get along well with the Sunnis—much like Irish Catholics never got along with Irish Protestants, or Protestants and Catholics in Europe generally never got along back in the days when religion was a factor.

It’s suspicious, now that Trump has become so cozy with the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia, which are all run by Sunnis. It makes sense that they’d like to use the US as a cat’s paw to steal Iran’s oil. Just as Israel would like to use the US as a means of taking out their enemy. It looks like the US, and Trump, are being used to do the bidding of the Arabs and the Israelis. Although we’re in no way threatened by the Iranians.

If a war did happen, the Iranians are in a perfect position to close the Strait of Hormuz, which is the conduit for around 40% of global oil exports—about 21 million barrels transit the Strait daily. None of it, incidentally, goes to the US. It’s genuinely not our problem.

The smart thing for the US is simply to leave Iran alone. If they have problems with their neighbors— Saudi Arabia and particularly Israel—let them sort it out among themselves.

Because Iran is a theocracy, making many economic decisions based on religion rather than economics, the current regime will eventually collapse, and the country will reorient. The last thing we need is to carry somebody else’s water by starting a potentially catastrophic war where the US has absolutely nothing to gain, but a lot to lose.

Reprinted with permission from International Man.

The post Neocons and Their Push for the Next Big War appeared first on LewRockwell.

We have one very, very clear red line, and that is enrichment. We cannot allow even 1% of an enrichment capability,” Steve Witkoff, U.S. Special Envoy, ABC’s “This Week”

“Demanding zero uranium enrichment means NO DEAL”, Sayed Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s Foreign Minister

You could have spotted this from a mile away.

President Trump—who sabotaged the most stringent and comprehensive nuclear agreement in history (The JCPOA)—ordered his special envoy to make a surprise announcement that crosses all of Iran’s “red lines” and makes war between the US and Iran inevitable. Anyone with half a brain could see that this was the strategy from the very beginning. Just as Washington encouraged Kiev to intensify its bombardment of the Donbas forcing Putin to send Russian forces into Ukraine, so too, Washington lured Tehran into nuclear “talks” with the clear intention of creating a pretext for launching a war on Iran. In both cases, US war-planners ‘moved heaven and earth’ to make it look like the opposite party provoked the conflict when, in fact, Washington was the primary instigator. Let me explain:

On Sunday, US special envoy Steve Witkoff said the following on ABC’s “This Week”:

“We have one very, very clear red line, and that is enrichment. We cannot allow even 1% of an enrichment capability.”

Full Stop. Witkoff’s comments require thorough and unbiased analysis, mainly because they are designed with one purpose in mind: To sabotage the nuclear talks. There’s no other explanation. The Trump administration and anyone who has followed this issue over the last decade and a half knows that Iran’s biggest and brightest red line is enrichment. In the four meetings that have been conducted in Oman since April, US negotiators were told explicitly that nuclear enrichment was “non-negotiable” and ‘off the table’. In other words, they agreed that the issue would not be discussed or even brought up. (Non-negotiable means non-negotiable.) So, we must assume that the reason Witkoff decided to make this unexpected announcement was either because he wanted to torpedo the negotiations or because he doesn’t understand plain English. Which is it?

We think Witkoff understands plain English, in fact, we’re sure of it. So, what was his motive; why did he decide to deliver this bombshell on national TV to an American audience instead of Iranian negotiators who would have challenged him on the issue? Why?

There can only be one reason; he wants to sabotage the talks. He wants to force the Iranians to terminate the meetings so it appears that they do not sincerely seek peace. That is how Trump and Co. intend to turn-the-tables and make it look like Iran is the “bad guy.” More importantly, any suspension of the talks by Iran will be used as a justification for US-Israeli air strikes on targets in Iran. Trump has already threatened that—if the talks broke down—he would unleash holy hell on Iran. Witkoff has now laid the groundwork for those attacks.

Other analysts are starting to figure out what is going on behind the smokescreen of the nuclear talks. Here’s how Michael Tracey summed it up:

If anyone suspected that the purpose of this “negotiating” exercise was to set up an impossible endpoint (humiliating Iranian capitulation) and then when Iran balks, use that as a pretext to bomb Iran (“We tried to negotiate first!”) there is growing evidence for your suspicions

He’s right, isn’t he? The talks were a “set up” that was concocted to create a justification for war. It’s clear as day. Much of the public’s confusion on this matter is attributable to Witkoff himself, who seems like an affable and credible fellow, whose position on nuclear enrichment is identical to rabid ‘foam-at-the-mouth’ warmongers like John Bolton and Mike Pompeo. Think about that for a minute; Witkoff’s position is the same as Bolton’s and Pompeo’s. There’s no difference.

So, why is nuclear enrichment such a big deal that Iran won’t even discuss it?

Because Iranians have great pride and they will not allow themselves to be treated like second-class citizens by the likes of the US and Israel. That’s why.

Look: Iran’s right to nuclear enrichment is not a privilege granted by executive fiat or presidential edict. It’s a fundamental right that is enshrined in international law under the terms of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. President Donald Trump does not have the authority to forbid Iran from engaging in activities that are not only perfectly legal under NPT statutes but also affirmed under the treaty’s “inalienable right” clause. Inquisitive people might want to read the section of the treaty itself to corroborate what we are saying here:

NPT Article IV and the Right to Nuclear Technology

Article IV Text (on the Right to Nuclear Technology):

Paragraph 1: “Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with Articles I and II of this Treaty.”

Paragraph 2: E ncourages cooperation in sharing nuclear technology for peaceful uses, particularly for developing countries.

What part of the above statement is ambiguous?

There is nothing ambiguous about this statement. Iran clearly has “the inalienable right… to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination.” That means that neither Trump nor anyone else can selectively order Iran to stop doing what is clearly permitted under an internationally recognized treaty.

And we should also pay special attention to the language that is used in the passage. The treaty does not simply refer to the “rights” of the participating parties; they refer to “inalienable right” which means that nuclear enrichment is a “fundamental, natural right that cannot be taken away or surrendered, either by a government or individual.”

The wording was formulated to avoid the situation we have today in which an impulsive and domineering despot arbitrarily repeals the laws (and rights) that don’t align with his own dubious political objectives. By refusing to comply with Trump’s executive edict, Iran is basically defending the global system upon which international law rests. It is a rejection of Trump’s iron-fisted unilateralism. We should all be grateful for Iran’s gutsy perseverance.

By the way, just to underscore Witkoff’s hypocrisy on this matter, here is a short video on Fox News of Witkoff stating unequivocally that Iran would be permitted to enrich at 3.67% which is a position he now rejects. The interview was conducted in April, a month before he banned all enrichment activities.

What conclusions can we draw from this sudden about-face on the part of the administration that has put us all on the path to war?

First of all, we can assume that the US-Iran negotiations were set up to fail, in fact, the plan to create a justification for war required that the talks fail.

Second, we can assume that Trump—who presented himself as an opponent of foreign interventions and who promised “to pursue a new era of peace, understanding, and good will”—is following in the footsteps of his warmongering predecessors and has no intention of keeping his word to the American people.

And third, we can assume that Trump is zeroing in on Iran in order to repay the wealthy billionaire Zionists who filled his campaign coffers (with over $100 million) and helped him win the 2024 election. We never believed for a minute that the millions in campaign donations were given without “strings attached”. Bibi and his Zionist allies want the US to spearhead a war on Iran, and Trump is the man who can deliver that war. All he needs is some type of credible justification for launching his preemptive attacks…. which the failed negotiations will provide.

Reprinted with permission from The Unz Review.

The post ‘No Enrichment Means No Deal’ appeared first on LewRockwell.

Triage means sacrifices will have to be made and distributed to those most able to afford them to spare those least able to afford them.

There are many consequential things we can’t discuss factually because the topic upsets everyone. And since getting upset shuts down any direct discussion of difficult issues, these issues metastasize into problems that end up sinking the ship.

The Titanic has already struck the iceberg and is doomed, but since this upsets the passengers, we dance around the facts rather than take immediate action. Everything about the situation is upsetting, and so emotions dominate the zeitgeist: resentments, blame-game, accusations, the whole self-reinforcing dynamic leads to people shouting at others as they drown. The last word, indeed.

Federal deficit spending and the overweighting of entitlement spending on retirees is too upsetting to discuss factually, so we don’t. But the math doesn’t work, and so the ship will sink. This was obvious 20 years ago, when I posted this: Boomers, Prepare to Fall on Your Swords (June 2005), in which I suggested that well-off Boomers address the problem by gracefully making the necessary sacrifices rather than heap them on the younger generations.

It was even more obvious by 2013, when I posted this: Generation X: An Inconvenient Era (May 23, 2013), in which correspondent Eric A. explains how the math doesn’t work.

Let’s start with some necessary stipulations. When I suggest well-off Boomers accept the need to make sacrifices to save the ship from sinking, I suggest this as someone in this cohort.

I am a Boomer, drawing my Social Security benefit, which like my lifetime income, is close to the national median SSA benefit. I’m solidly in the middle of the pack. Being over the age of 65, I also have Medicare benefits. Like many others of my generation, I’ve lived frugally, saved money, worked hard, etc. Since I’m still working, I pay Social Security and Medicare taxes–15.3% of all earned income as I am self-employed.

Unlike others in my generation, I attribute only a modest percentage of my net worth to frugality and working hard, as the majority of whatever “wealth” I own is the direct result of the hyper-financialization credit-asset bubble that’s been inflated since 2007.

Those who were able to buy assets such as houses and stocks decades ago saw their net worth rise to extraordinary heights in the bubble. Those who didn’t or couldn’t buy assets before the bubble did not see their net worth rise to extraordinary heights.

Let’s go over how we got here. The current federal tax system and retiree benefits evolved in the 1930s to the mid-1960s. In the 1930s, retirement meant poverty for many workers who were unable to save a nestegg large enough to fund their no-earnings years. Social Security was enacted as a way of using the SSA (Social Security Administration) taxes (FICA to employers) paid by current workers (1% of wages in those days) to fund a modest retirement income for retirees.

Social Security was always a pay as you go system. Whatever SSA tax revenues that weren’t distributed piled up in a Trust Fund. This Trust Fund was eliminated in the mid-1960s, and excess SSA taxes went into the federal general fund. The current Trust Fund is a useful fiction. When SSA runs a deficit, the Treasury funds the deficit by selling Treasury bonds, just as it does with all other deficit spending.

Political realities demanded that the program be universal to attract widespread support. So millionaires collect Social Security and Medicare benefits, too. As SSA’s financial foundations erode, a modest reform was enacted: above a modest income, 50% of SSA benefits are taxed as regular income.

Back when the program was enacted, there were around 10 workers for every retiree. The demographics and economy were different then. The economy was mostly domestic, and the bubble of the 1920s had popped. Financialization and globalization were at low ebb. Everyone assumed there would always be 10 workers for every retiree.

But people started living longer, the disabled were added to Social Security, and Medicare ballooned from a modest program to an open-ended spending juggernaut. In other words, the economy changed, demographics changed, but the system has not been changed to reflect these realities. SSA and Medicare taxes have increased dramatically, but these programs are still funded by payroll taxes paid by employees and employers.

Capital (assets, income from capital gains, speculation and investments) only pays a thin slice of Medicare via the Net Investment Income Tax (NIIT) on capital gains incomes above $200,000 for single taxpayers and above $250,000 for couples filing jointly.

What we’re actually discussing isn’t just generational; it’s 1) the open-ended nature of the SSA, Medicare and Medicaid programs, 2) the impossibility of relying on two workers to pay all the benefits for each retiree as the number of retirees and beneficiaries exceeds 69 million people while the full-time workforce is 135 million, and 3) the extraordinary wealth divide in the U.S. where the majority of the wealth is held by the top few percent and the retiree generation (Boomers) for the reasons stated above.

The solutions are as obvious as plugging a hole in the ship’s hull.

1) The tax burden has to be shifted from labor to capital via financial transaction taxes and ending the multi-trillion dollar exclusions on capital gains.

2) Social Security and Medicare benefits must be means tested; those collecting $10,000 a month in other pensions and investment income don’t need Social Security benefits, which should be reserved for those with no other substantive source of steady income in their retirement years.

3) The open-ended entitlement programs must be limited in some fashion, and there is no way to do this that will not upset everyone. Hard choices–triage–must be made, as doing nothing is choosing to let the ship sink.

Let’s feast on the facts of the matter. Those who need a calming agent, please do so now.

Read the Whole Article

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The most important sentence from President Trump about yesterday’s phone call between President Putin and him is this:

Russia and Ukraine will immediately start negotiations toward a Ceasefire and, more importantly, an END to the War. The conditions for that will be negotiated between the two parties, as it can only be, because they know details of a negotiation that nobody else would be aware of.

The most important sentence by President Putin about yesterday’s phone call is this:

Notably, Russia’s position is clear. Eliminating the root causes of this crisis is what matters most to us.

Russia will not fall for ending the war without having achieved its main goal.

Western media, here the NY Times, continue to play dumb (archived) about what the Russia’s main goal is:

[Putin] repeated his mantra that a peace deal needs to “remove the root causes of this crisis,” referring to Russia’s pursuit of wide-ranging influence over Ukraine.

David Ignatius, a CIA spokesperson at the Washington Post, makes a similar (archived) nonsensical claim:

He still wants victory, which he described once again after Monday’s call with the phrase “eliminate the root causes of the crisis.” That’s code for his conviction that Ukraine cannot be a European country, as it wants, but must remain under Russian hegemony.

Russia as well as Ukraine are European countries. Russia has no interest in having ‘hegemony’ or ‘wide-ranking influence’ over Ukraine. Its interest is the defense of the Russian Federation. It had to prevent Ukraine from becoming a U.S. (NATO) spear tip aimed at its heart.

A different NY Times piece about the Russian northern defenses build up after Finland joined NATO is far more correct when it states (archived):

From Moscow’s perspective, the Russians need to bolster their defenses to protect themselves from NATO expansion, which has always been a sore subject. The Baltic nations were the first members of the former Soviet Union to join NATO, bringing large stretches of Russia’s border up against NATO’s. The prospect of Ukraine, an even bigger former Soviet republic, following suit was so threatening to Moscow that it became one of the causes of the most devastating land war in generations.

It is NATO expansion, not Ukraine the country, that is the root cause of the war. It is NATO expansion that has to be eliminated.

The U.S. and its European allies are still in denial of that. To ignore that the U.S. has, for over 30 years, been driving the NATO expansion that led to the war, allows Trump to play a ‘mediator’ in war in which the U.S. is a dominant participant.

It is stupid for western media to accept Trump’s claim (archived) of such a role:

After phone calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump posted that “Russia and Ukraine will immediately start negotiations toward a Ceasefire and, more importantly, an END to the War”.
…
In remarks that indicated that Washington may be stepping back from a role as a mediator, Trump said the “conditions” for a deal could only be agreed by the warring parties “because they know details of a negotiation that nobody else would be aware of”.
…
Trump also said that immediately after his call with Putin, he recounted the conversation to Zelenskyy together with the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Finland and the European Commission.  (1)
…
But two people briefed on the call with the European leaders said Trump was clear that he would pull the US back from engaging with the conflict and leave Ukraine and Russia to directly negotiate a ceasefire. He also made no promise of future US sanctions against Russia should Putin refuse any peace attempts. One person familiar with the conversation said the leaders were stunned by the US president’s description of what was agreed. They added it was clear Trump was “not ready to put greater pressure” on Putin to come to the negotiating table in earnest.

Trump is pretending to wash his hands (archived) over Ukraine:

The US desire to disengage has been flagged for weeks, by Trump himself but also by secretary of state Marco Rubio and vice-president JD Vance, who have repeatedly expressed frustration with Russia and Ukraine in equal measure. Vance told reporters on Monday that the US might ultimately have to say: “This is not our war.”

The U.S. can not be a mediator in a war, or wash its hands over it, when it continues to supply weapons and the all important field intelligence and communication means needed to wage it. Only yesterday the U.S. allowed Australia to send (old) U.S. made tanks to Ukraine.

Trump’s claims of disengaging from the war has yet to be confirmed by any evidence that he is really going to do so.

The only thing Trump did reject so far was to join the European attempts to escalate the war by inserting their own troops into it.

Having learned from the economic disaster his tariffs have caused Trump also rejected plans to impose secondary sanctions in form of 500% tariffs on anyone who continues to buy oil from Russia.

Aside from that Trump has kept support for the war on the same level as before and only refrained from expanding it.

That he is, for now, leaving the negotiations to Russia and Ukraine, is an admission that he has failed to keep his election promise of making peace.

The U.S. will have to reengage in negotiations if peace is to be achieved. It is U.S. (NATO) expansionism that has cause the war.

Russia needs to remove the root cause, U.S. (NATO) expansionism, to achieve peace.

A complete victory in Ukraine is a necessary but not yet sufficient condition for that.

But chances are good that the further disagreements over the defeat of Ukraine will rip NATO apart.

That might be the victory President Putin has on his mind.

—
(1) The FT claims that: “[Trump] recounted the conversation to Zelenskyy together with the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Finland and the European Commission.

But Trump’s statement does not mention Britain at all: “I have so informed President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, of Ukraine, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, President Emmanuel Macron, of France, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, of Italy, Chancellor Friedrich Merz, of Germany, and President Alexander Stubb, of Finland, during a call with me, immediately after the call with President Putin.”

It seems like, despite the FT‘s claim, Prime Minister Starmer was left out in the cold on this.

Reprinted with permission from Moon of Alabama.

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