Climate-Con and the Media-Censorship Complex – Part 1

  As discussed in the previous post, the real agenda everywhere in the West is control of the narrative. LGBT, vaccination, climate change, the subject doesn't matter. They write the dogma. Everything else is dis - mis - information and must be silenced. 

  What can be the future of such a society?

Guest Post by Jesse Smith

The gauntlet has been cast by the media-censorship complex. Just prior to this year’s annual globalist confab in Davos, the World Economic Forum (WEF) announced that misinformation and disinformation are currently the greatest threats to humanity, with the release of its Global Risks Report 2024.

From a list of 34 risks, the WEF report identifies mis- and disinformation as the top threats to global stability over the next two years and the fifth most dangerous threats over the next 10 years. Of particular concern is false information that could affect elections, democratic processes, and social cohesion in various countries worldwide, as well as sentiment contradicting the “consensus” narrative about climate change.

Echoing these same concerns, the United Nations (UN), its strategic partner in advancing the climate-focused 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, has previously stated much of the same.

In Information Integrity on Digital Platforms, a June 2023 UN policy brief recommending a code of conduct for digital platforms, Secretary-General António Guterres stated:

The ability to dissem­inate large-scale disinformation to undermine scientifically established facts poses an exis­tential risk to humanity (A/75/982, para. 26) and endangers democratic institutions and funda­mental human rights. These risks have further in­tensified because of rapid advancements in tech­nology, such as generative artificial intelligence. Across the world, the United Nations is monitor­ing how mis- and disinformation and hate speech can threaten progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. It has become clear that business as usual is not an option.”

All the UN’s 2030 Agenda plans, activities, and expenditures are based on the belief that we face an existential climate crisis caused by human activity and dangerous greenhouse gas emissions, particularly carbon dioxide (CO₂). This conviction is clearly outlined in a fact sheet produced by Verified, a joint initiative of the United Nations and Purpose, launched in 2020 to respond to mis- and disinformation about “intersecting crises like COVID-19 and climate change.” The document states unequivocally that:

1. Climate change is happening.
2. Climate change is caused by human activity.
3. Scientists agree that humans are responsible for climate change.
4. Every fraction of a degree of warming matters.
5. The climate is changing faster than humans, plants, and animals can adapt.
6. Climate change is a major threat to people’s health.
7. Natural gas is a fossil fuel, not a clean source of energy.
8. Clean energy technologies produce far less carbon pollution than fossil fuels.
9. Entire countries already rely 100 percent on renewable electricity.
10. Renewable energy will soon be the world’s top source of electricity.
11. Renewable energy is cheaper than fossil fuels.
12. Solar panels and wind turbines make good use of land.
13. The transition to clean energy will create millions of jobs.

By stating that disinformation is undermining these supposed scientific facts, Guterres rests his entire argument on the premise that each of the above statements is absolutely, indisputably, and undeniably true. Like Guterres, all who espouse this climate narrative have no tolerance for any opinion, theory, or evidence that runs contrary to this dogged notion.

Verified is backed by powerful globalist NGOs including the Rockefeller Foundation and Omidyar Network. It has an extensive list of major media collaborators such as Al Jazeera, Clear Channel, Facebook, Reddit, Spotify, TikTok, and Twitter. Melissa Fleming, Verified co-founder and current UN Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications, has made it known that social media is a huge threat to climate science and other UN initiatives and is particularly bothered by Twitter/X for allowing rampant disinformation.

It is clear from these reports that any dissent from the established climate narrative threatens the advancement of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Now, urgent calls to extinguish these threats have been issued so they can proceed with transforming the world unimpeded.

While many of the issues expressed in the Information Integrity report are legitimate and concerning, the UN via the World Health Organization (WHO) participates in disinformation by continuing to promote COVID-19 vaccines as safe and effective, when they have largely been proven to be ineffective and cause much harm. Their stance regarding climate change could also qualify as disinformation to the thousands of scientists who oppose this view but are being discredited as mere conspiracy theorists.

The following statement from the report underscores their frustration with “climate deniers” and the platforms they use to oppose the UN’s agenda:

…mis- and disinformation about the cli­mate emergency are delaying urgently needed action to ensure a liveable future for the planet. Climate mis- and disinformation can be under­stood as false or misleading content that un­dercuts the scientifically agreed basis for the existence of human-induced climate change, its causes and impacts. Coordinated campaigns are seeking to deny, minimize or distract from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scientific consensus and derail urgent action to meet the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement. A small but vocal minority of climate science de­nialists continue to reject the consensus po­sition and command an outsized presence on some digital platforms.”
(p. 12, emphasis added)

Globalists want conformity regarding climate change and will go to extreme lengths to marginalize, censor, and discredit dissenters. They talk a good game about enforcing universal freedom of expression, but on climate and other issues vital to their agenda, free speech is not tolerated. Though they readily acknowledge that controlling information may lead to greater levels of authoritarianism, surveillance, censorship, and the erosion of human rights, it seems they are willing to overlook these offenses to protect their precious climate agenda.

If they can successfully shut down debate about climate change, then soon any topic that threatens their aims will be off limits. The UN deems itself a protector of human rights but plays a major role in the media-censorship complex. Its attempts at crushing opposition to the climate narrative betrays their mission and reveals authoritarian tendencies.

Countering Digital Hate or Advocating Suppression?

A recently released report issued by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) claims that new forms of climate denial have emerged. These new arguments don’t deny that the climate is changing and is caused by human activity, but instead contend that:

• The impacts of global warming are beneficial or harmless.
• Climate solutions won’t work.
• Climate science and the climate movement are unreliable.

The basis for their report stems from use of “an AI based model called CARDS,” short for Computer-Assisted Recognition of Climate Change Denial and Skepticism. CARDS is designed to identify and categorize climate denialist claims in text. The researchers used CARDS to analyze YouTube video transcripts from 96 mostly right-wing, conservative leaning channels including prominent ones like BlazeTV, Jordan Peterson, and the Heartland Institute.

CCDH has a big gripe with social media companies they believe are not doing enough to stem the tide of rising climate denial. They want to eliminate the ability for any “climate denier” spreading “conspiracy theory statements” to financially benefit from their content, as evidenced in the following statements:

To support the global efforts to avert climate disaster, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and X should all demonetize and de-amplify New Denial content. Demonetizing climate denial removes the economic incentives underpinning its creation and protects advertisers from bankrolling harmful content. Moreover, de-amplifying climate denial limits its reach and visibility, allowing time for fact-checking and other protective measures to be applied where content is clearly contrary to the well-established scientific consensus on climate change”
p. 34; emphasis added

CCDH polling on social media usage tested respondents’ agreement with conspiracy theory statements, including the statement: “Humans are not the main cause of global temperature increases.” CCDH found that 43% of adults and 56% of teenagers who report high activity on social media expressed agreement with that statement. This link between social media usage and conspiracist belief illustrates why urgent action is needed to prioritize information integrity on digital platforms in climate policymaking”
p. 34; emphasis added

Their demonetization and censorship recommendations come even after admitting that the CARDS model is only up to 78% accurate, could not perform any fact checks on the claims made in the transcripts, and that lack of punctuation caused results to be skewed.

The CCDH is a sketchy, UK-based, advocacy group that has produced various reports inciting censorship against those they disagree with. Their efforts against “anti-vaxxers” culminated in several reports that led to the deplatforming, demonetizing, and discrediting of many individuals and organizations exposing pandemic-related fraud and COVID-19 vaccine falsehoods.

CCDH’s The New Climate Denial report has been promoted through mainstream outlets like CNN, MSN, Yahoo, and USA Today. It could impact the cited individuals and organizations the same way it affected those targeted in its Disinformation Dozen reports a few years ago. Though their stated mission is to “protect human rights and civil liberties online,” they practice the opposite by advocating the revocation of these rights for climate and vaccine narrative challengers.

How The Media-Censorship Complex Plans to Tackle Climate Dissent

Two things are very clear from the recent reports issued by the WEF, UN, and CCDH. One, is that climate skepticism is on the rise. The second, is that they are threatened by the very existence of those who dare to refute their narrative. Many strategies to stem the tide of climate cynicism have already been employed with new ones currently being tested.

If one dares to publicly question the science regarding climate change, one or more of the following tactics may be used to impede the effort:

• Awareness Campaigns
• Artificial Intelligence
• Censorship
• Civic Listening
• Content moderation
• Demonetization and Financial censorship
• Deplatforming
• Digital armies
• Education
• Fact checking
• Media and information literacy
• Prebunking/psychological inoculation
• Shadowbanning
• Trusted Messengers
• Text mining / Automated text analysis
• Whole-of-society approach

In addition to Verified and CCDH, other organizations utilizing these methods to silence opposers include:

• Climate Feedback
• Covering Climate Now
• European Media and Information Fund
• FactCheck.org
• Global Disinformation Index (GDI)
• International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) (Poynter Institute)
• Media Wise (Poynter Institute)
• Newsguard
• PolitiFact (Poynter Institute)
• Reuters

Each of these organizations are fueled and funded by many of the entities responsible for advancing the climate agenda, especially as it relates to the UN SDGs. This globalized amalgamation of media watchdogs, fact checkers, and disinformation regulators is powered by billion-dollar corporations, democratic and undemocratic governments, influential foundations, and powerful NGOs. The list includes The White House, U.S. State Department, U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), The National Science Foundation, United Nations, Poynter Institute, National Endowment for Democracy, Open Society Foundations, Omidyar Network, Rockefeller Foundation, Rockefeller Family Fund, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and many more.

A plethora of legacy and social media companies also utilize the services provided by these organizations. A small sampling includes Associated Press, NPR, NBC News, Newsweek, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Nation, The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, WhatsApp, Twitch, and LinkedIn. A look at Covering Climate Now’s list of partners provides an even broader view of the media’s enforcement of the climate agenda.

As if governments, corporations, and organizations weren’t enough, universities such as Columbia, Harvard, Oxford, and University of Southern California also perpetuate the climate propaganda by training journalists in their institutions.

By treating climate change as a national security threat, the U.S. Department of Defense and intelligence agencies have also been enlisted in the fight against mis- and disinformation.

In addition, individuals within both the left and right wings of the two-party paradigm collude to curtail free speech. It is a grave mistake to believe that calls for censorship from either side of the political spectrum are beneficial. They are both integral to perpetuating the media-censorship complex.

Why Has Climate Science Become Nondebatable?

If it wasn’t apparent before, it should now be crystal clear that there is a vast empire united against those questioning the climate narrative. They are determined to perpetuate the myth that there is universal consensus on the facts.

The truth is there is no real consensus on climate science. The UN and its network of public-private partnerships (PPP) just make it seem that way. In this regard, the UN climate stance is akin to Anthony Fauci’s claim that questioning him was like questioning science itself. Honest and open debate on the issue should be continued by allowing opponents opportunities to present their case without fear of censorship, harassment, exclusion, or cancellation. Instead, there is constant reinforcement of a fictional consensus while divergent opinions are labeled as dangerous conspiracies.

Climate consensus figures as high as 97 and even 99.9 percent have been touted by former US Presidents, researchers, and media outlets in the past. But is this claim true? If it were, then why would there be so much effort to silence a mere one to three percent who deviate from the scientific echo chamber? Would all these battles be worth the time, energy, and money being spent on just a few dissidents, as they claim?

Much of what qualifies as climate research is funded by institutions that have already bought into the doomsday mantra of impending man-made disaster. The industry is rigged to favor researchers who set out to prove “official” claims. Funding and publication are often withheld from those who do not toe this line. As a result, statistics are skewed to make it seem like there is universal consensus.

Past research has demonstrated claims of scientific consensus on climate change to be fraudulent. In a paper published in 2023, a team of researchers disproved the conclusions reached in a 2021 study claiming there was greater than 99% consensus on climate science in peer-reviewed scientific literature.

The claims were refuted by demonstrating that studies expressing neutral opinions were misclassified and papers communicating skepticism were ignored. This clear case of academic malfeasance is not the only example where scientists used falsified research and conspired to silence those contradicting the alleged consensus. Even if the 99% consensus assertions were valid, the notion of consensus-as-truth does not pass the test for authentic scientific validation. The majority can still be wrong.

A recent article posted by The Good Men Project, which “exposed” the climate deniers behind the recent farmer protests in Europe, proclaimed that “Scientific consensus on human-caused climate change is equivalent to that on evolution.” This statement came in response to a request from protest organizer James Melville for a national debate on climate and net zero policies. Never mind that evolution is not a proven fact. Equating climate change to evolution shows it is also unproven and can be argued against. Again, the majority can still be wrong!

Remember when Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, and Johnson & Johnson made claims that their COVID vaccines were all well over 90% effective in stopping transmission? As evidenced in the following video, those proclamations did not hold up very well, did they?

A massive army has been assembled to ensure that rival claims will not see the light of day for long. But why is it that the powers that be would rather falsify research, smear dissenters, and spend billions of dollars to silence critics rather than continuing to debate the issues?

An article written by Gregory Whitstone, Executive Director of the CO2 Coalition, presents a valid argument for continued scientific debate on climate change, stating:

You have likely heard that 97% of scientists agree on human-driven climate change. You may also have heard that those who don’t buy into the climate-apocalypse mantra are science-deniers. The truth is that a whole lot more than 3% of scientists are skeptical of the party line on climate. A whole lot more…

There are some scientific truths that are quantifiable and easily proven, and with which, I am confident, at least 97% of scientists agree. Here are two:

• Carbon dioxide concentration has been increasing in recent years.
• Temperatures, as measured by thermometers and satellites, have been generally increasing in fits and starts for more than 150 years.

What is impossible to quantify is the actual percentage of warming that is attributable to increased anthropogenic (human-caused) CO2. There is no scientific evidence or method that can determine how much of the warming we’ve had since 1900 that was directly caused by us.

We know that temperature has varied greatly over the millennia. We also know that for virtually all of that time, global warming and cooling were driven entirely by natural forces, which did not cease to operate at the beginning of the 20th century.

The claim that most modern warming is attributable to human activities is scientifically insupportable. The truth is that we do not know. We need to be able to separate what we do know from that which is only conjecture.

How can greenhouse gases, particularly CO₂ be the sole agent causing rising temperatures when it is an essential element for all life forms? Given the growing world population, it seems that greater levels of CO₂would lead to greater benefits. Plants need CO₂ to thrive, yet the fight against it is accelerating.

Scientists have now stated that cow burps and farts and even human breathing are bad for the environment because they contribute to the emission of methane and nitrous oxide, both believed to contribute to global warming. This is beyond absurd!

We are on the slippery slope to a dystopian nightmare if the trend toward censorship and marginalization continues. There is no good reason why continued debate featuring those on all sides of the issue should not be occurring, unless of course there are other reasons for ramming this fear-based agenda down our throats.

Poland Prepares New Hate-Speech Law: 3 Years In Prison For Insulting LGBT People

  One country at a time, freedom of expression is being curtailed in Europe. Poland this time but the order doesn't matter. So LGBT people should not be offended but these politicians have no problem supporting neo-Nazis in Ukraine. Eventually criticizing Ukrainian nationalists will also be condemned. The real target is to muzzle opposition and control dissent, who you offend and how is not the issue. 

  It is quite impressive to witness the end of democracy and the crash of a civilization in real time. On this slope, the fall should take place within a decade although Europe will be bankrupt long before. (and may opt for a war it cannot win even earlier!) Craziness has no bottom!

Via ReMix News,

Poland, once a bastion of conservatism, is radically shifting gears under the new left-liberal government with a new “hate speech” law that could see offenders imprisoned for up to three years for “offensive” content against LGBT people.

The left had already been pushing for stricter speech controls before the coalition government formed, and since it won power, the left is now making good on its promises. On Wednesday, the Polish Ministry of Justice published a draft amendment to the penal code regarding hate speech on the website of the Government Legislation Center.

The new draft law is looking to expand classifications regarding hate speech to include age, disability, gender, sexual orientation and gender identity, according to Polish news outlet DoRzeczy.

Poland’s new government moves to crack down on ‘hate speech’

In a strong stand against government plans to penalize what it calls "hate speech," Poland's Confederation party asserts the need for free and unrestricted public discourse

“The introduction of the proposed solutions will ensure enhanced and full criminal law protection against the use of violence or unlawful threats, incitement to hatred, insults and violations of bodily integrity due to the disability, age, gender, sexual orientation or gender identity of the injured party,” reads the draft.

The draft also threatens up to five years in prison for “threats.”

However, even for “insults,” which are loosely defined, penalties could be extremely harsh under the new draft law.

Provisions regarding gender, sexual orientation and gender identity have been added to article 256, which covers incitement to hated and in article 257 regarding insults.

Now, under these new rules, “insults” against sexual orientation or gender identity will be punishable by up to three years in prison.

Warnings about new hate speech law

Opposition parties in Poland were already warning against proposals to change hate speech laws in January of this year when the new government first came to power. They argued that such changes would effectively end free speech in Poland and represent a grave threat to religious freedom, with Catholicism in particular critical of many aspects of LGBT.

“The ruling coalition, as part of its coalition agreement, has announced that they want to penalize so-called hate speech. The current left-wing Deputy Minister of Justice Krzysztof Śmiszek, from the New Left, has stated that his department is currently working on introducing these regulations, which limit freedom of speech and public debate in Poland. We, as the Confederation, strongly oppose this. The direct consequence of criminalizing certain words will, in fact, be the criminalization of conservative, religious, Christian views,” said Confederation MP Karina Bosak on Friday.

Dobromir Sośnierz, another party member, highlighted concerns about the subjective nature of defining hate speech.

“What the left understands by so-called hate speech, in practice, will mean speech hated by Minister Śmiszek, not necessarily speech that expresses hatred towards someone, but something that leftists dislike,” he remarked.

Generative AI in a Nutshell - how to survive and thrive in the age of AI (Video - 17mn)

 Today for the Easter, holiday, here's a slightly different video to open up your mind to the reality of AI. No hype, no worries about the future, just the facts. (This is what I actually do for a living these days :-)

 This video is bottling up all the basics of effective AI use in a short, impactful way supported with punchy, cute drawings which also help in understanding better the concepts. This should actually be required introduction to AI both for University undergraduates learning the basics of AI and business managers being acquainted to AI for their jobs. Enjoy!

 

"Capitalism Has Failed"

  Our failure is more social than any particular -ism. Still a good read.

Authored by Jeff Thomas via International Man,

Today, more than at any time previously, Westerners are justifying a move toward collectivist thinking with the phrase, “Capitalism has failed.”

In response to this, conservative thinkers offer a knee-jerk reaction that collectivism has also had a dismal record of performance. Neither group tends to gain any ground with the other group, but over time, the West is moving inexorably in the collectivist direction.

As I see it, liberals are putting forward what appears on the surface to be a legitimate criticism, and conservatives are countering it with the apology that, yes, capitalism is failing, but collectivism is worse.

Unfortunately, what we’re seeing here is not classical logic, as Aristotle would have endorsed, but emotionalism that ignores the principles of logic.

If we’re to follow the rules of logical discussion, we begin with the statement that capitalism has failed and, instead of treating it as a given, we examine whether the statement is correct. Only if it proves correct can we build further suppositions upon it.

Whenever I’m confronted with this now oft-stated comment, my first question to the person offering it is, “Have you ever lived in a capitalist country?” That is, “Have you ever lived in a country in which, during your lifetime, a free-market system dominated?”

Most people seem initially confused by this question, as they’re residents of either a European country or a North American country and operate under the assumption that the system in which they live is a capitalist one.

So, let’s examine that assumption.

A capitalist, or “free market,” system is one in which the prices of goods and services are determined by consumers and the open market, in which the laws and forces of supply and demand are free from any intervention by a government, price-setting monopoly, or other authority.

Today, none of the major (larger) countries in what was once referred to as the “free world” bear any resemblance to this definition. Each of these countries is rife with laws, regulations, and a plethora of regulatory bodies whose very purpose is to restrict the freedom of voluntary commerce. Every year, more laws are passed to restrict free enterprise even more.

Equally as bad is the fact that, in these same countries, large corporations have become so powerful that, by contributing equally to the campaigns of each major political party, they’re able to demand rewards following the elections, that not only guarantee them funds from the public coffers, but protect them against any possible prosecution as a result of this form of bribery.

There’s a word for this form of governance, and it’s fascism.

Many people today, if asked to describe fascism, would refer to Mussolini, black boots, and tyranny. They would state with confidence that they, themselves, do not live under fascism. But, in fact, fascism is, by definition, a state in which joint rule by business and state exists. (Mussolini himself stated that fascism would better be called corporatism, for this reason.)

In recognizing the traditional definition of fascism, there can be no doubt that fascism is the driving force behind the economies of North America and Europe.

In addition, the concept of any government taking by force from some individuals the fruits of their labour and bestowing it upon others is by no means free-market. It is a socialist concept. And, in any country where roughly half of the population are the recipients of such largesse, that country has, unquestionably, settled deeply into a socialist condition.

However, this is by no means a new idea. As Socrates asked Adeimantus:

Do not their leaders deprive the rich of their estates and distribute them among the people; at the same time taking care to preserve the larger part for themselves?

So, which is it? Are we saying here that these countries are socialist or fascist?

Well, in truth, socialism, fascism, and, indeed, communism are all forms of collectivism. They all come under the same umbrella.

So, what we’re witnessing is liberals, rightfully criticising the evils of fascism, but failing to understand it for what it is—a form of collectivism. Conservatives, on the other hand, do their best to continue to operate under their countries’ socialist laws, regulations, and regulatory bodies, whist continuing to imagine that a remnant of capitalism remains.

And so we return to the question, “Have you ever lived in a country in which, during your lifetime, a free-market system dominated?”

Such countries do exist. It should be pointed out, however, that even they tend to move slowly toward collectivism over time. (After all, it’s in collectivism that they gain their power.) However, some countries are “newer,” just as the US was in the early nineteenth century and, like the US, the governments have not yet had enough time to sufficiently degrade the economies that have been entrusted to them.

In addition, some citizenries are feistier than others and/or are less easy to convince that, by allowing themselves to be dominated by their governments, they’ll actually be better off.

Whatever the reasons, there are most certainly countries that are far more free-market than the countries discussed above.

But, what does this tell us of the future? What can be done to turn these great powers back to a more free-market system? Well, the bad news is that that’s unlikely in the extreme. To be sure, we, from time to time, have inspired orators, such as Nigel Farage or Ron Paul, who remind us what we “should” do to put these countries back on track, so that they serve the people of the country, rather than its leaders. But, historically, such orators have never succeeded in reversing the trend one iota.

History tells us that political leaders, in their pursuit of collectivism, never reverse the trend. They instead ride it all the way to the bottom, then bail out, if they can.

From Enlightenment To Ignorance: Society's Dangerous Embrace Of Stupidity

  Some literature for your Sunday. It all starts there...

Authored by Anthony Esolen via American Greatness,

What would be the state of a society in which a will to stupidity were united with a will to power?

When I first decided to study and teach literature as my life’s vocation, I foresaw the work ahead of me—to learn as much as I could about English letters. Was I still unread in the Victorian novel? That would have to change. Had I a blank area in early American? It would have to be filled. The idea, though, was not simply to cover this and check off that. It was to gain a broad view of the whole, to see the relations of one area to another, to hear Melville in conversation with Milton, to set Jay Gatsby off against Tom Jones, to hear the American strains of confidence and rule-breaking in Walt Whitman, and the no less American strains of reserve and fence-setting in Robert Frost.

But to study English literature is to open yourself to the literature of other nations, because English authors were never reading only English. You cannot have Chaucer without the three great Florentines: Dante, Petrarch, and, especially, Boccaccio. You cannot have the English romantics without the German romantics. If you want to best appreciate what is characteristic of Tudor and Stuart drama, with its boisterous violation of the “unities” of space and time as it whisks you from Rome to Alexandria and back, or lets pass sixteen years as Time himself comes on stage to tell you of it, you should become acquainted with the near contemporary drama of Racine and Corneille just across the water, with its classical concentration of action within a single day.

This, of course, is the work of a lifetime. I continue to learn languages and read literature I have never encountered before. But to call most of it “work” is to mistake its nature. It would be as if a self-described lover of art should drag himself from bed and mutter to his valet, “Dear me, I suppose I must go to the Sistine today. Paintings and paintings, nothing but paintings. Michelangelo, you know. Creation of man all the way to the what’s-it, with devils and bankers going one way and angels and decent sorts going the other. Molesworth, where is your mind wandering? Kindly hold the mirror so I can see myself.”

Yet that, as I see now, is the aim of our schools: to produce spoiled, self-satisfied graduates with the stolidity but not the innocence (and usually not the income) of an upper-class twit—a Bertie Wooster, if Bertie were sullen, debauched, and always in a state of political water-boiling. That is not the same as ignorance. I do not read Sanskrit, so I am largely ignorant of Sanskrit poetry. Had I more years ahead of me than I do, I might learn Sanskrit. I know something of the language, and I am piqued by the theology of Shankara, the greatest of commentators on the Rig-Vega. But I don’t have the years. Meanwhile, I have a Russian Bible that will provide my next re-introduction to the word of God, because when you know a language as poorly as I know Russian, you have to take things very slowly, and when you do that, you often see things that ease and fluency often miss, and these things can be small objects of wonder. It is like having to cross the woods afoot rather than driving along a road that cuts it in half. You might hear the ovenbird that way.

No, ignorance is one thing; we’re all going to be ignorant of most of the things there are to know. It used to be that a titan in mathematics, a Leonhard Euler, could be expert in all the areas of that subject; those days are gone. The topologist may be ignorant of Milton; that depends on his reading. But he is certainly going to be ignorant of most of the other branches of mathematics, simply because he has not got the time for them. Ignorance is one thing. Stupidity is another.

By stupidity, I do not mean mere dullness or sluggishness in the organ of understanding. I mean what the etymology suggests. You are stupid when you gape. The emperor Frederick II was called “Stupor Mundi,” “The Wonder of the World,” and to be stupefied still, in English, might suggest that you are overcome with astonishment. But stupidity has come to denote a gaping that is as far removed from wonder as possible. You are stupid when you gape indifferently at something excellent that you have the power to understand but without understanding it and without caring to, when you are unmoved by a beauty that you have the power to apprehend but you make sure you will not apprehend, when you shut the eyes of your soul against the goodness they might otherwise see.

Suppose you are trying to introduce a savage to a system of writing. He is ignorant of what the scratches and squiggles are supposed to say. Once you show him that they do speak, he should be interested, and if he has a lively mind, he will be like Sequoyah, who brought writing to the Cherokees. But if he has decided beforehand that nothing you have to show him is worth his time, he will be resolutely stupid: gaping on the thing and thinking that it is mere chicanery or foolishness or whatnot.

That sort of stupidity is what our schools are about. They do not teach young people about the glory of Melville, if they teach Melville at all, but about how Melville does or does not fit into some gridwork of identity politics, so that the work of art and intelligence itself, Moby-Dick, is left on the shore like a beached whale, dead and stinking, while onlookers in their stupidity hold their noses and pass by.

Nor is Melville an exceptional case. Consider what Milton thought the most beautiful thing in all of creation: the human form, male or female, as expressed most powerfully in the human face. Now consider how far we have gone to deny that such beauty, male or female in its characteristic manifestations, even exists. Suppose I say that ballet dancing or certain kinds of gymnastics most beautifully conform to the willowy beauty of the female body, while such things as weightlifting and football do not. I do not know which will cause me to be reviled more: my sense that the latter is awkward or my sense that the former is graceful and lovely. In this matter, I am required to be stupid and to gape in indifference at the one and the other.

It is the same with marriage and family life. Suppose I see a large family at a reunion. There are three or four generations, about fifty or sixty people in all. That’s by no means a lot, or at least it wasn’t when I was a boy, not when I had twenty-eight aunts and uncles and thirty-nine first cousins, and neighbor children had the like. I should be struck by the sheer human vitality. But if my first thought is that there are too many, that the women must have been pregnant too often, and that birth control would have solved the problem, I am stupid. I am like a savage who would rather dig under bark for grubs than learn how to plant seeds.

Now suppose that this will to stupidity is both the engine and the object of political power. When Sequoyah completed his syllabary of the Cherokee language, it took his people only a couple of years to see what a great gift he had given them. But if I were to say that Americans should learn to honor the religion without which their nation would never have been born and to be grateful for the gifts it conferred, even if they do not themselves believe in its teachings, I might as well hang a sign around my neck, inviting everyone, especially teachers, politicians, professional entertainers, and journalists, to spit on me and to make my name a byword from coast to coast. You must be stupid to be safe.

Readers may think of similar cases. Stupidity, apparently, is no obstacle to success in Google’s AI department; it is the royal road. Stupidity sells; stupidity is all the rage. Only someone stupid before the beauty of man and woman could suppose that a lopping-off here and a pin-the-tail there could turn one into the other, but dare to call out the stupidity, even in private, and you risk your career. I am not to honor my country; I am to be stupid before the contributions it has made to the world. I am not to be enthralled by the wonder of the cell and its intricate design: stupidity must reduce it to random jelly, as stupidity reduces the miraculous human being in the womb, with all its latent powers unfolding, to a wart, a tumor, or a parasite.

Hear, O America, the powers that be, the powers that be are united, and you must be stupid with all your heart and soul and mind and strength, or else.

RAND Sees "Internet Of Brains" By 2050

  What could go wrong?

  EVERYTHING! is the short answer. 

  Star Trek among all its kitsch 1970s pseudo SF gears was in fact exploring very interesting ideas. One of these was the Borg Cube, a civilization of connected entities which had abolished individuality. (If you haven't seen the movie, it is worth having a look.)

 Once the globalists are done with countries and cultures, the individual will be the last frontier. It looks more and more like their dream will become our nightmare in the near future. Hopefully they won't succeed but it won't be for lack of trying.

RAND Sees "Internet Of Brains" By 2050 

Elon Musk-led Neuralink Corp. implanted a brain chip into the head of a 29-year-old man with quadriplegia. The paralyzed millennial was recently seen using what he described as "The Force" to move a computer cursor around the screen to play Civilization VI with his mind. This is further evidence that the 'trans-humanism' movement - the merger of humans and machines - is accelerating development, fundamentally improving human lives, or at least that's what the billionaires are pitching. 

Editor Tim Hinchliffe of the tech blog The Sociable posted a creepy quote from a new report commissioned by the UK Defence Science and Technology Laboratory and conducted by RAND Europe and Frazer Nash Consulting that read:

"An 'internet of bodies' may also ultimately lead to an 'internet of brains', i.e. human brains connected to the internet to facilitate direct brain-to-brain communication and enable access to online data networks." 

RAND describes a future of the Internet of Bodies ecosystem that may morph into the Internet of Brains, i.e., a network of brain-to-brain connectivity. This technology could find itself in the marketplace between 2035 and 2050. 

"Trans-humanism implies the adoption of considerably advanced technologies by 2050, including brain-to-brain communication and genetic enhancement, and thus depends on resolving the various scientific and engineering barriers currently characterizing the field," the report said.

According to the report, the technological applications for this new brain network include:

• Wearable devices and implants for tracking and analyzing physiological and environmental data (e.g. biochips and implantable sensors). These technologies aim to achieve real-time continuous monitoring of physiological data to understand human health conditions and performance. 

• Sensory augmentation technologies such as hearing and retinal implants designed to improve or augment sensory activities, particularly vision and hearing. Smart prosthetics are a related category, including exoskeletons, i.e. whole-body robotic suits that enhance end users' physical capabilities and improve their mobility, strength, endurance and other abilities.

• Brain-computer or brain-brain interfaces that establish direct communications between human brains and/or computer devices. 

The latest example of transhumanism is Neuralink's brain chip...

If and when humans become fully integrated with machines, is this just a march towards digital slavery?

Globalists Claim Mass Immigration Helps The US Economy – Here's Why That's A Lie

  Globalism like Communism is an ideology therefore for those who believe, it can never be wrong. Any problem is because they didn't do enough and the solution is always to do more of whatever didn't work in the first place. 

  Right now, it's mass migration which is destabilizing countries North and South. 

  In the short term, it is not as bad as the risk of nuclear war. But is the long term the social damage will be huge with almost no economic positives. Multi cultural societies are supposed to be easier to run since the people can never muster a majority to oppose the elites. Sure enough but what if they lose cohesion and economic dynamism? 

 In the end, this is a huge bet and an enormous risk for the future of Europe and the US. My personal say on this issue is that it won't matter very much considering the economic hurdle ahead which are far more immediate. Still, making societies less cohesive is just adding another obstacle for the West to overcome as if there weren't already enough!

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

I have said it many times in the past but I think it bears repeating once again: If you want to understand why world events happen the way they do, you must understand the goals and influence of globalist institutions. You must accept the fact that these people create most of the national and international disasters you and I have to deal with on a regular basis and oftentimes they create these disasters deliberately.

Yes, I know, there are plenty of skeptics out there that think all geopolitics and crisis events are random or a product of bureaucratic stupidity; and those people are wrong. They have no idea what they’re talking about because they’re basing this conclusion on assumptions rather than facts and research. Make no mistake, there’s a good reason why it feels like the whole world has gone crazy all at once.

The primary purpose of the globalists is to erase national borders and homogenize all countries and cultures under one economic and governmental system. They have openly admitted to this plan on numerous occasions. One of the most revealing quotes on the agenda comes from Clinton Administration Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbot, who stated in Time magazine that:

“In the next century, nations as we know it will be obsolete; all states will recognize a single, global authority… National sovereignty wasn’t such a great idea after all.”

He adds in the same article a lesser known quote:

“…The free world formed multilateral financial institutions that depend on member states’ willingness to give up a degree of sovereignty. The International Monetary Fund can virtually dictate fiscal policies, even including how much tax a government should levy on its citizens. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade regulates how much duty a nation can charge on imports. These organizations can be seen as the protoministries of trade, finance and development for a united world.”

The people who push for this agenda are generally members of a number of globalist organizations, from the Council on Foreign Relations to the Tavistock Institute to the World Economic Forum to the IMF or World Bank, not to mention the Bank for International Settlements and the Council For Inclusive Capitalism. However, these think-tank groups are only part of the bigger picture. They are supported by some of the largest banking and investment corporations in the world, including Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, HSBC, Vanguard, Blackrock, etc.

If you want to know why mass illegal immigration is a growing crisis at this time and why the current government has been actively trying to enforce an open border police in the US, simply look into the financial aspects of pro-illegal immigration lobbying groups and think tanks pushing open borders messaging into the mainstream. You will find many of these banks and investment funds connected to them in one way or another.

For example, the list of companies backing the Governor of New York’s plan to subsidize illegal aliens entering the state is very revealing. If they’re allowed to continue offering incentives to illegals then those people will continue trying to come to the US; this isn’t complicated. The conspiracy is out in the open.

Admitting To The Agenda, Then Painting It As A Positive

For the first few years of Joe Biden’s presidency, he and his cohorts attempted to deny there was any mass illegal migration problem at all. However, when media coverage (mostly independent) began to expose the enormous caravans of illegals overwhelming border towns like El Paso, Texas, he was forced to acknowledge that the crisis was in fact a crisis.

But, if you thought that forcing Biden to admit to the migrant disaster was going to force him to do something about it, you were sorely mistaken. The reason mass immigration exists right now is exactly because the Biden Administration and globalist institutions are offering free handouts to “asylum seekers.” All they have to do to stop the rising tide of illegals is to stop offering them free stuff. Clearly, the political elites have no intention of doing this.

Instead, government officials, think-tanks and the media have decided that since they’re now pressed to admit that mass immigration and open borders are real, they’re going to spin the crisis as if it’s actually a good thing for America.

In a narrative similar to the one used by EU officials to justify their support of the invasion of Islamic fundamentalists from 2014 onward, American elites claim that western nations are “desperate for a younger population” which can fill the “needs of the labor market.” They claim than mass migrations into the west are “good for the economy.”

This was also the primary message of a World Economic Forum conference on migration and labor held in March. The globalist organization discussed how open borders and mass immigration could be framed as a “positive” in terms of economic advantages. And the talking points derived from WEF events always find their way into the corporate media. The main takeaway? Protectionism (of national borders) is bad and countries that engage in it will be at an economic disadvantage.

Since last month there’s been a hailstorm of establishment media articles and news reports suggesting that mass immigration will boost GDP and make America stronger. These assertions are all built on a single line from a single report from the Congressional Budget Office which states:

“In our projections, the deficit is also smaller than it was last year because economic output is greater, partly as a result of more people working. The labor force in 2033 (EDITOR’S NOTE: Do they mean 2023?) is larger by 5.2 million people, mostly because of higher net immigration. As a result of those changes in the labor force, we estimate that, from 2023 to 2034, GDP will be greater by about $7 trillion and revenues will be greater by about $1 trillion than they would have been otherwise. We are continuing to assess the implications of immigration for revenues and spending.”

Bloomberg recently published an article boasting that this line from the CBO report shows that the rising fears among Americans over illegal immigration are unfounded. They question why the migrant crisis is a top issue going into the 2024 elections and cite a number of major banking institutions that have adjusted their US fiscal outlook into the positive because of the CBO’s data point and higher immigration. Bloomberg quotes the HSBC:

“Immigration is not just a highly charged social and political issue, it is also a big macroeconomic one,” Janet Henry, global chief economist at HSBC Holdings Plc, wrote in a note to clients Tuesday. No advanced economy is benefiting from immigration quite like the U.S., and “the impact of migration has been an important part of the U.S. growth story over the past two years.”

Firstly, let’s clarify something in terms of the CBO’s theory – The US deficit has fallen in direct correlation to the Federal Reserve raising interest rates. It’s more expensive to borrow for everyone, including the government, which makes it more expensive to spend. Because of far higher interest payments the US is now adding over $1 Trillion every 100 days to the national debt. That’s unprecedented.

Any spending cuts can be directly attributed to higher interest rates, NOT immigration. The CBO mentions this fact very quickly in the same report, without elaborating on why they think immigrants add value. But let’s consider the GDP claim for a moment; why would the CBO expect higher immigration to add $7 trillion to the GDP in the next ten years?

Illegal Immigrants Are A Net Negative – We Don’t Need Them

They say it’s about more people working, but what about more people taking welfare and other subsidies? Neither the CBO (nor the media) make any distinction between legal migrants and illegal migrants when it comes to economic effects.

Legal migrants usually have careers, business plans, skill sets and their own money coming into the US. Most illegals have nothing – Little education, no substantial skill sets, no money and no plan other than to get free handouts wherever possible. We have seen the proof of this in places like New York and Washington DC, where a tiny percentage of migrants bused into the cities have absolutely crushed their welfare infrastructure.

It’s estimated that the net lifetime cost of each illegal immigrant for the American taxpayer is over $68,000. While some illegals do end up paying taxes, their overall cost is far higher than the amount they pay in.

The jobs market has been inflated by trillions in Federal Reserve stimulus and most of the jobs created are low wage retail and service positions that will disappear in a couple years anyway. The CBO notes in the same report that unemployment is set to increase in 2024, but the media overlooked that little tidbit of information.

Migrants are not needed to keep the labor market going. In fact, as jobs numbers inevitably plummet due to higher interest rates illegals will only add to jobless levels and poverty levels in the US, further dragging the economy down.

Not to mention, the American housing market has suffered an oppressive spike in prices, with home costs and rents in many places doubling. This is caused in part by the millions of migrants entering the country each year looking for housing and getting help from US government programs to secure that housing. Get rid of the illegals and I guarantee rent costs will go down quickly.

Almost all of the projected GDP gain from illegal immigrants comes from their wages which go into their pockets (the same wages they send back to their families in their home countries). There is no direct GDP gain from illegals in terms of benefits to the overall economy. That said, the CBO may also be accounting for another factor which many Americans are unaware of – Government spending being added to GDP.

As I’ve noted in the past, a large portion of GDP calculated by state governments and the federal government comes from spending. The more the government spends the higher GDP climbs. It doesn’t matter if that money was wasted, it is still counted as rising economic activity.

So, if the US is adding 2-3 million illegals per year to the population and the government is spending thousands in tax dollars per year on each illegal through various subsidies, that will amount to billions per year in extra GDP. And the more they allow illegals to enter the country unchecked the more GDP can grow exponentially. Is that good for the economy? No. It’s going to destroy the economy and we are already seeing the effects, but the government and the media can spin it to look like it’s a positive.

The head of the CBO is a Republican but he’s also a former member of the IMF, so it’s not surprising he would paint mass immigration as a positive. The globalists want to end national sovereignty and the fastest way to do that is to create open border conditions, kill domestic economies, erase western culture and then swoop in with a “global solution” after the dust settles. This is the plan; to destabilize the US economic system, not save it. And, illegal immigrants are a useful tool for that end game.

The Era Of Informed Consent Is Over

  In finance it was the Glass Steagal law differentiating merchant banking which could take unlimited risk on their client's behalf and deposit banks which could not. The law was instigated during the great depression to protect your bank account from unlimited speculation and risk. It was a great hindrance for large national banks which were prevented to leverage their client's accounts on the market and was therefore cancelled by President Clinton in 1998 under heavy pressure from lobbying from the main American banks. 

  In the health sector, it was the informed consent law which likewise protected your health with the guaranty that no procedure or therapy could be implemented without the patient's agreement. Here too the pharmaceutical industry argued that the limitation was a great hindrance on progress as they were not in a position to move on with "High risks, High rewards" cures.

  Now thankfully, the law is on their side and they can finally move forward with "High risks (for you), High rewards (for them)" therapies. What's not to like with such a policy? Didn't we learned with the Covid-19 saga that the pharmaceutical industry had our best interest in mind? What could go wrong? Everything? Nay! Stop being a negative, anti vaccs, anti progress thinker. They swear. It's not (only) about profits!

Authored by Victor Dalziel via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

In a significant blow to patient autonomy, informed consent has been quietly revoked just 77 years after it was codified in the Nuremberg Code.

(Jan H Andersen/Shutterstock)

On the 21st of December 2023, as we were frantically preparing for the festive season, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a final ruling to amend a provision of the 21st Century Cures Act. This allowed

“... an exception from the requirement to obtain informed consent when a clinical investigation poses no more than a minimal risk to the human subject ...” [emphasis added]

This ruling went into effect on January 22nd, 2024, which means it’s already standard practice across America.

So, what is the 21st Century Cures Act? It is a controversial Law enacted by the 114th United States Congress in January 2016 with strong support from the pharmaceutical industry. The Act was designed to

“... accelerate the discovery, development, and delivery of 21st-century cures, and for other purposes [?] ...”

Some of the provisions within this Act make for uncomfortable reading. For example, the Act supported:

• High-risk, high-reward research [Sec. 2036].

• Novel clinical trial designs [Sec. 3021]

• Encouraging vaccine innovation [Sec. 3093].

This Act granted the National Institutes of Health (NIH) legal protection to pursue high-risk, novel vaccine research. A strong case could be made that these provisions capture all the necessary architecture required for much of the evil that transpired over the past four years.

Overturning patient-informed consent was another stated goal of the original Act. Buried under Section 3024 was the provision to develop an “Informed consent waiver or alteration for clinical investigation.”

Scholars of medical history understand that the concept of informed consent, something we all take for granted today, is a relatively new phenomenon codified in its modern understanding as one of the critical principles of the Nuremberg Code in 1947. It is inconceivable that just 77 years after Nuremberg, the door has once again opened for state-sanctioned medical experimentation on potentially uninformed and unwilling citizens.

According to this amendment, the state alone, acting through the NIH, the FDA, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), will decide what is considered a “minimal risk” and, most concerning, will determine:

“... appropriate safeguards to protect the rights, safety, and welfare of human subjects.”

Notice the term subjects, not patients, persons, individuals, or citizens... but subjects. In asymmetrical power relationships such as clinician/patient, it is understood that the passive subject will comply with the rulings and mandates of their medical masters. The use of the term subjects also serves to dehumanise. The dehumanisation of populations was a critical component of Nazi human experimentation and, as Hannah Arendt argued, is an essential step toward denying citizens “... the right to have rights.”

This ruling also allows researchers and their misguided evangelical billionaire backers to potentially pursue dangerous experimental programs such as Bill Gates’ mosquito vaccines, mRNA vaccines in livestock, and vaccines in aerosols. This Act encourages these novel and high-risk programs, with medical studies approved as “minimal risk” by the regulators no longer requiring researchers and pharmaceutical companies to obtain patient consent. Yet, the histories of pharmacology and medicine are plagued with clinical investigations and interventions that were thought to pose no more than minimal risk to humans but went on to cause immeasurable pain, suffering, and death.

This amendment represents merely a first tentative step as the U.S. government tests the waters to see what it can get away with. Given the lack of attention this ruling received in both the corporate press and independent media, the government is likely to feel emboldened to widen its scope. Thus, this decision represents the beginning of a chilling revisionism in Western medical history, as patient autonomy is again forsaken.

This ruling, to be actioned by potentially corrupt scientists, health bureaucrats, and captured health and drug regulators, is another step toward a dystopian future unimaginable just five years ago. No doubt the infrastructure to implement this decree is already being constructed by the same groupthink cultists responsible for the nightmarish pandemic lockdowns, continuing to place the pursuit of profit and the greater good above individual choice, bodily autonomy, and informed consent.

From the Brownstone Institute

The Optimism-Fatalism Historical Cycle

  An interesting perspective on democracy although I am not sure I follow their idea. Democracy over the ages has been a rare political system indeed so it is difficult to generalize and deduct rules. The Greeks invented it but the system didn't survive the death of Pericles. The Romans were never quite interested although they tested many legal and political aspects of democracy. The one system which did last was the Doge of Venice. A remarkably well designed and long lasting system which lasted almost 1,000 years. Then Voltaire and a few other French philosophers revived the idea (the theory at least) whereas the English, more practical, following the Magna Carta established a democratic system while maintaining their monarchic institutions. It is nevertheless in the US that the system flourished: "A Republic, if you can keep it!"

  That was almost 250 years ago and as expected by the founding fathers, their descendants were indeed incapable of keeping it. From nepotism to raw greed and corruption, from the deep state "praetorian guards" to massive lobbying, Washington has degenerated to the point that although the institutions are still there, the political show taking place in the modern theater is but a parody of what should really happen. With Bidden as the main character, it looks like a tragedy. Would Kamala Harris be in charge, it would be a comedy. Very little to be proud of.

  Was it to be expected? To some extent yes. Mencken warned us: "Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance!"

Authored by Gregory Copley via The Epoch Times,

No fundamental form of human behavior, for better or worse, disappears forever.

Cycles of wealth, fear, or frustration force changes, and they bear an uncanny similarity to Shakespeare’s “Seven Ages of Man.” We are, above all else, predictable.

The present decline, distortion, or much-heralded “end of democracy” is overstated. Still, it is difficult to disagree that the present cycle of democracy—beginning in the 18th century—has run its course. It is a human concept of behavior and, as with all things human, has its lifespan before it becomes feeble and sclerotic, corrupt and cynical, and ultimately a parody of what was intended in the flush of innocent youth.

Throughout the world, “democracies” now see themselves beset by the internal competition for office by career politicians whose goal, before all else, is to attain and retain power. The compromises of dignity, nobility of purpose, and service to the electorate are the hallmarks of the age. These compromises have led to the thing aspiring politicians once saw as the bane of human existence: autocracies or, worse, rampant and totalitarian tyrannies. But autocracies cloak themselves with the language of democracy.

Just as Africa, freed now from the coercion of major external powers, has resorted to removing governments by force, we see politicians in power using their office to suppress, deter, or remove their challengers for office.

The Communist Party of China (CCP) introduced the concept of “lawfare” to outmaneuver its domestic and international opponents: using legal mechanisms to constrain an adversary. This concept has been adopted vigorously by “democratically elected politicians” worldwide, so there are now few societies where “lawfare” is not used to eliminate legitimate opponents and constrain and channel society at large.

The spirit of democracy is nowhere to be seen.

Waste no time on mourning. Democracy has had its day and will return when the time is right.

But, equally, waste no time nurturing the self-delusion that moral or intellectual superiority lies in the pretense of democracy, the pretense that societies still embody what they once set out to represent. But we, most of us, insist on our certainty of the moral superiority of our own society because we have nowhere else to go. We cannot embrace our historical or geopolitical opponents’ rights to their own certainties.

But we do not know how best to reorganize our own society without the unthinkable collapse of that same democracy to force our actions.

The birth and death of states have been a preoccupation of scholars since humanity began to structure into durable communities. In 2006, I created—with the help of Greek Cypriot scholar Marios Evriviades—the words “cratocide” (the murder of nations) and “cratogenesis” (the birth of nations) for the book, “The Art of Victory.” Shortly afterward, we added the word “cratometamorphosis” to describe the total reorganization of societies.

Collapse is always the prerequisite to “cratometamorphosis.” Theoretically, this reorganization and revitalization of society should be feasible before total collapse creates a situation when no other option is available. But the very safeguards we have put in place over decades and centuries to protect our present structures also safeguard the corrupted wreckage they have become.

So if, as it appears, many societies—and by no means only those that thought of themselves as democratic—are waiting painfully for that total collapse so that they may be free to recreate themselves “closer to the heart’s desire,” then why is little thought given to that future society, that utopia?

During the years of difficulty that beset so many during the Industrial Revolutions, new concepts were conjured, speculatively, out of whole ideals. There were also years of uncertainty in societies in flux, during which new belief systems were devised.

These religions and ideologies all rippled down the ages and continue to inspire followers, often in the face of historical evidence that they failed here and there but were never revised to truly meet new requirements. Indeed, modern democracy itself—mirroring several iterations in the Hellenic states and earlier in the Indus Valley civilizations over the past 10,000 years—was just such a “revivalist creed,” and its new advocates failed to understand (or even question) why, in its earlier iterations, it had ultimately collapsed.

Is it possible that at our present impasse, there is some belief that technology—artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and so on—will define or create a new social framework? Have we, in so embracing “technology,” outsourced responsibility for devising ways in which humans can best work together? Certainly, technology has enabled the implementation of mass guidance of vast numbers of the human population, like the “murmuration of starlings,” the uncanny, but now understood, mass coordination of flocks of starlings in flight.

This “mass guidance” of humans is the mass psychosis tendency, a fundamental self-protection mechanism in human behavior designed to create herd protection.

That mass psychosis, of course, is what we saw during the COVID-19 crisis. However, it presupposes that human societies can be made to walk willingly and fatalistically toward the scenario outlined in the book, “1984,” by George Orwell. It may be man’s good fortune that economic dislocations—now being evidenced in the tremblors that shake the values of currencies and the viability of major economies—will gradually erode the pace of technological progress, enabling human society to regroup on more elemental or human lines.

To “start again” with new concepts for societal organization—governance—will inevitably involve considering concepts that, whether we realize it or not, have probably been played out before. However, it would be ideal to recognize that the framework begins with the sovereignty of each individual and the requirement for each individual to respect each other individually to achieve progress and human reproduction.

At least that optimistic framework can reemerge for a while until we see politics once more fatalistically reach the point where all respect is once again lost, and the desire for power outweighs the desire for societal wellbeing.

Doug Casey on What’s Really Going On in Haiti

   What's really going on in Haiti? To understand the place and the hell hole it has become, knowledge of history helps. Here's a description from Doug Casey. You could add a few mitigating points: France didn't help much after independence and the US not at all since. But human history is not quite a story of harmonious development, from the Romans onward through the not so friendly Vikings and Huns to the rather violent conquistadors in South America. Yes Haiti has earthquakes and Typhoons but so does Japan. Countries which do develop, often pull themselves by the bootstraps. Think about Korea which after the Korean war was poorer than Chad! Haiti meanwhile was the homeland of Voodoo and other esoteric practices. Now it is said to be a haven for cannibalism. Let's hope this is not true but with a gang chief called "barbecue" you can most certainly expect the worst!  

Via International Man

International Man: After Haiti’s president was assassinated in 2021, Ariel Henry—a US ally—began serving as the acting head of the country even though there was no election.

Recently, Henry flew to Africa to ask the Kenyan government to send soldiers to help fight the armed groups increasingly taking control in Haiti.

Before he could return, the armed groups took control of most of the country, and Henry recently resigned.

What’s your take on the situation?

Doug Casey: Chaos is par for the course in Haiti. I’ve been there a half-dozen times since 1970 and have come to realize that you have to put the current chaos in the context of Haiti’s history, which is basically one disaster and tragedy after another. Let me give you a brief rundown, starting with its independence after the French Revolution.

The eviction of the French, starting in 1791, resulted in their first real bloodbath after the slaves overthrew their masters. The place was a slave colony from the very beginning and one of the richest places in the hemisphere due to sugar production. The French lost 50,000 soldiers trying to regain control of the island, killing about 350,000 Haitians. Napoleon decided to cut his losses and write the place off. Haiti was off to a bad start.

Incidentally, it was the only slave revolt in all of history that resulted in an independent country. But Haiti has always had bad habits as a result of its history.

After independence, the next ruler, JJ Desallines, massacred about 5,000 remaining whites in 1805. Subsequent rulers styled themselves as kings or emperors for the rest of the 19th century, occupying themselves with wars with the Spanish speakers in what became the Dominican Republic on the eastern side of the island.

In 1824, about the same time Liberia was founded as an alternative colony for blacks, 6,000 US slaves were exported to Haiti. But most of them thought it was just too brutal and returned to slavery or poverty in the US.

After a horrible century, Haiti had a 20-year respite when it was occupied by US Marines from 1915 to 1934. It was a time of some order and development, although several thousand Haitians who resented the white occupiers were killed.

As soon as the Marines left, the Trujillo regime in the Dominican Republic massacred about 30,000 Haitians living there. It was apparently quite grisly; Haitians were hacked with machetes and driven into the sea to be eaten by sharks. Dominicans and Haitians maintain poor relations to this day.

Then came the election of Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier in 1957. Duvalier used his credentials as a voodoo houngan to his advantage. Fear and psychological warfare, combined with the threat of violence, kept a lid on the pressure cooker during his exotic reign.

Haiti’s history has been one of almost unremitting bloodshed, poverty, disasters, and oppression. But a country’s history is different from day-to-day life. Especially for the relatively few members of the middle and upper classes, I’d say it was pleasant enough…

International Man: Doug, having spent time there, you are familiar with Haiti in a way most people aren’t.

What’s really going on?

Doug Casey: I first went there in 1970, when Papa Doc was still alive. I can tell you that it was very safe in those days, at least for a foreigner. You could walk anywhere in Port-au-Prince late at night with money hanging out of your pockets, and nobody would touch you.

Now, there were two reasons for that. Number one, at that time, Haiti was socially pretty stable; the population was only a third of what it is today. There were numerous light manufacturing enterprises set up by foreigners to take advantage of the cheap labor. Reason number two was that Duvalier had a praetorian guard, a secret police, called the Tonton Macoute. They always sported dark sunglasses.

It was well known that if anybody harmed a tourist, they’d severely regret it before their body was discovered the next day. Haiti was dirt cheap. You could get a nice hotel room in downtown Port-au-Prince, with breakfast and dinner included, for $10 a day. Some of the hotels were very nice indeed, like the Olufsen. One night, I met Barry Goldwater, who was having dinner at the next table.

In fact, it was looking so good for a while that a hotel called the Habitation Leclerc was built with exceptional rooms and private pools for each of the rooms. Now, it’s just an overgrown ruin filled with vagrants.

I drove across the island to Cap Haitien. The roads were unbelievably bad, but on the bright side, there were no other cars in either direction. On the way, I passed an abandoned city called Duvalierville, where Papa Doc was going to make a new capital. This is something Third World countries can’t resist. They love the idea of building new capitals. Haiti’s effort was a ruin, a testimony to the country’s economy.

Haiti used to be a really nice place for a while, even as it degenerated into an archetypical shithole. In fact, it was so pleasant that I was thinking of moving there and starting a diving business. But that was then. This is now and now is very, very different. So different that the State Department’s usually worthless travel advisories should be taken seriously. On my last visit we had to hire two armed guards when going out.

International Man: The mainstream media is filled with coverage of the cannibalistic gangs that have taken over the country—including calls for the US government to “do something.”

Others have said claims of cannibalism are CIA propaganda aimed at delegitimizing those who overthrew a US puppet and paving the way for some kind of foreign intervention. In a recent statement, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said that a “transitional council” is underway to appoint a new interim government in Haiti.

What is the US government really up to in Haiti? Why do they have a history of meddling in this impoverished country?

Doug Casey: Cannibalism? Maybe it’s true since food is hard to come by. Or maybe it’s just a rumor to make a statement, like the human heads Mexican gangs used to post along highways. In any event, it’s a mystery to me why anybody cares about Haiti. The country produces absolutely nothing now—except rum—and I’m absolutely shocked that the Barbancourt Rum company has somehow managed to stay in existence.

One time, I met an American who managed the factory that made all the major league baseballs. He was just getting completely fed up with the place. Constant shakedowns from the government made him crazy; having to deal with local bureaucrats overcame the advantages of cheap labor. They moved baseball manufacturing out of the country. You’d only do that as a last resort. They couldn’t make that business work because it was just too crazy—and that was way before the current mass violence.

Haiti used to grow coffee and sugar, but it became uneconomic. Hand labor with no machines just doesn’t pay. Mining might have worked, but who would make a long-term capital-intensive investment in a chaotic country with questionable property rights? Lots of Haitians produce art, and some of it’s very good—but all the good artists have left Haiti. Cruise ships used to go there, but you don’t bring cruise ships to violent shitholes, forget about war zones.

So what is the future—if any—for this country? Why does the US have any interest in it?

Haiti has nothing but subsistence agriculture—and not much of that because of theft. They don’t grow anything, they don’t make anything, and they don’t export anything. It’s hard to see how they even subsist.

Their main export is people because anybody who can possibly get out tries to get out. Remittances from Haitians living abroad and foreign aid are the only sources of income. Tourism is totally dead for the foreseeable future. Even ships with relief aid wind up trapped in the harbor while their food cargoes rot from the heat. FWIW, no commercial flights are coming or going from Haiti—zero.

International Man: In the US, Florida senators have asked President Biden to create a plan for dealing with the influx of Haitian migrants that will surely come into the country amid the chaos.

What do you think about this?

Doug Casey: Like I said, the main income of the country is dollars sent by expats to relatives. And foreign aid, most of which disappears down sundry ratholes. There are probably about 12 million people living in Haiti, but well over a million more are now living in the US.

Some of the islands in The Bahamas have been completely taken over by Haitians because it’s easier to get to than the US. Haiti will probably become the 53rd US state after Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico. Soon to be joined by the Ukraine, then by Israel. Then maybe Gaza will become the 56th US state.

The problem is that Haiti has been ruled by criminals and criminal gangs from Day One. Except now the government, long the most powerful criminal gang, barely exists. Other criminal gangs have taken over the place.

The situation can’t be solved easily. Sending in foreign troops, even black ones from Kenya, is a nonstarter. On the bright side, it’s hard to imagine anything happening that’s much worse than the 2010 earthquake when something like 250,000 people died. That’s so many people that it’s hard to imagine where they could even find places to bury them all.

Haiti has nothing except millions of penniless people.

International Man: Throughout Biden’s presidency, we’ve seen an embarrassing retreat from Afghanistan, a failing war in Ukraine, the overthrow of numerous US allies in Africa, and now this situation in Haiti.

Is this yet another example of a failed foreign policy and the declining influence of the US empire around the world? What are the implications?

Doug Casey: Yes. The Bidenistas are so incompetent that it makes me think Washington will look like Duvalierville if they’re reinstalled in November. A failed foreign policy is one of the many signs of a declining US.

One thing is for sure: What happens in Haiti should have absolutely nothing to do with the US because none of it’s good. Perhaps Las Vegas’s slogan, “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas,” can be restated as “What happens in Haiti, stays in Haiti.” More likely, though, it will be “Coming to a location near you!”

If property rights in the US were properly enforced, you wouldn’t have the mass migration of penniless people. They’re not just escaping the problems of their home countries. They’re being actively induced to come to the US for free housing, free money, free cell phones, and free medical care. Today’s immigrants are different from those of the 19th century; they may have been penniless, but they had to make their own way and provide for themselves.

The US is becoming the world’s dumping ground of criminal classes from all around the world. I heard an anecdote the other day from someone from Caracas. He said you don’t have to worry about someone stealing your iPhone anymore because all the thieves have left for richer pickings in the US.

So yes, it’s all about failed policies—bankrupt moral philosophies, and raw stupidity, with a flavoring of bad intentions. Haiti’s problems should stay in Haiti; they should solve their own problems. Instead, Haiti’s problems are being exported to the US.