Category Archives: Corruption

The Transition

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Many institutions have no convincing justification for their own existence.

By Robert Gore

Source: Straight Line Logic

Western civilization is characterized by its institutions. Its foundations have been government, organized religion, the military, science, technology, business, academia, media, art, and entertainment. Institutions have been bulwarks of order and have enabled Western civilization to reach unprecedented plateaus of achievement and prosperity. Now, they’re under assault and crumbling, which has been often noted and decried but usually not analyzed or understood as the outcome of an epochal transition.

Institutions have been the victim of their own success. The Industrial and Information Revolutions have put goods, services, wealth, data, and choices in billions of hands in what amounts to an historical blink of an eye, less than two centuries. The average American lives better and longer than royalty did back in monarchy’s heyday and has more personal power. Kings and emperors of yore could order people around and toss them in dungeons, but they couldn’t hop on the Internet and communicate with someone on the other side of the planet or hop on a freeway and journey five hundred miles in a day.

Institutions’ loss has been individuals’ gain, and many of the latter are questioning the necessity of the former. Institutions are staring into an abyss. Many, including governments, do not have convincing justifications for their own existence. They offer little to average people and in many cases they’re a net negative, imposing nothing but burdens. Their leaders are solely devoted to furthering their own prerogatives and power. Now, institutions are fighting a rearguard action to halt or slow a transition that at best will dramatically reduce their power and could mean their extinction.

COVID, climate change, foreign wars, censorship, woke, open borders, surveillance, and digital passports and currencies are Last Gasp efforts to preserve institutional status, wealth, and power. The institutions have responded to their own drum roll with what vigor they can muster, but those causes inspire vapid virtue signaling, not authentic passion. Their only wellspring of true passion is hatred for anyone who believes differently, who challenges their science, propaganda, and mendacity, and, more broadly, their right to dictate and coerce, and to cancel, punish or execute anyone not toeing their line.

Their objective failures—many of which count in their corrupt reckonings as successes—are manifest. The COVID response, particularly vaccines’ deaths and adverse events, completely discredited governments, public health, institutional medicine, the pharmaceutical companies, and social and mainstream media, while inflicting severe collateral damage on official “science,” big business, and central banks. The institutions are regrouping under the banner of climate change, but it’s clear from the pushback they’re already receiving that their agenda can only be implemented through violence and high-tech totalitarianism.

Repeated failures and ever-mounting resistance would seem to be enough to doom their totalitarian designs. Unfortunately, in their desperation and hatred, the willingness of the elite to wage actual, kinetic war on the rest of us shouldn’t be underestimated. While the COVID vaccine death toll numbers in the millions, war still has no rival for murderous effectiveness. However, offensive violence is no solution.

Nuclear weapons changed warfare in a way that’s not generally recognized. The threat that a global nuclear conflagration could eliminate humanity rendered their use a high-risk proposition. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings in 1945 remain the only wartime use of nuclear weapons. Under the umbrella created by nuclear weapons’ unemployability, technological advances have fueled the development of a staggering array of armaments that has decisively shifted the military balance from offensive to defensive warfare.

World War II was the last major war in which an offensive, or, more correctly, a counter-offensive, won. The allied powers repelled the axis powers, but at huge cost. Industrial-scale, mechanized warfare’s awesome destructive power left all the major participants except the U.S. in ruins, their populations decimated.

Offensive military power has become enormously expensive relative to the defensive technologies and strategies that can be employed against it. Since World War II, there have been few successful invasions. Both sides were stymied in the Korean War. U.S. invasions have been a string of disasters since Vietnam. Afghan goat herders defeated both the Soviets and the U.S.

On the cusp of victory in Ukraine, the Russian Special Military Operation would seem to belie the trend of offensive failures. However, the Russians have actually won by playing defense. They moved through their major objective, the Donbass region of Eastern Ukraine, where the majority of the population speak Russian. Many of them want to be part of Russia and hate the Ukrainian government, which has waged war on them since the 2014 coup. Consequently, the Russians were supported by the local population.

This past year featured a Ukrainian counteroffensive that was supposed to drive the Russians back from Donbass and retake the Crimean peninsula. NATO and Ukrainian strategists refused to recognize that their offensive was akin to sending cavalry units against machine-gun and artillery emplacements. They were up against an opponent well-armed with land mines, state-of-the-art field artillery and long-range missiles, air cover, and surveillance and attack drones. The Russian military, which has a long tradition of waging defensive warfare, employed a complex three-layer defense. The Ukrainians rarely progressed through even the first layer, impaling themselves on the tip of the Russian spear and taking massive losses.

The successful Russian strategies and tactics will be, or should be, studied by military analysts in the U.S. However, what’s most important is that those tactics implicitly acknowledge a truism central to the transition in progress. High-cost offensive warfare can be stymied and often defeated with relatively low-cost defensive weaponry and asymmetric warfare.

It can be argued that an offensive against the world’s most powerful military was obviously doomed, although nobody in the Western brain trust made that argument before the Ukrainians attacked. What truly signals the dawning of a new age have been the repeated successes since World War II of guerrilla or insurgent warfare against ostensibly much more powerful forces.

The Russians learned their lesson from the Soviet failure in Afghanistan. The U.S. government hasn’t learned anything from its string of failures. In Washington, nothing succeeds like failure. Its unconditional backing of Israel’s attempted elimination of Palestinians in Gaza finds it doubling down on what hasn’t worked.

The Israelis recognize a grim reality of fighting an insurgency on insurgent territory: To win, it’s not enough to kill the guerrillas; the guerrilla-friendly local population must be eliminated as well. The Israelis’ campaign has been merciless: destroying structures, killing Palestinian civilians, and making life intolerable for the survivors. The Israeli aim is to drive the Palestinians from Gaza and Israel for good. This meets international-law definitions of genocide and has been rightly decried around the world.

What will it mean if Israel fails? The Israelis may well reduce Gaza to rubble, but that would not be mission accomplished. Rubble provides excellent cover for guerrilla strikes. Hamas’ extensive tunnels indicate that it has prepared for this war for years. In all probability, it launched the October 7 attack to get things going. Israel’s negligence detecting and responding to that attack may have been intentional, indicating that it, too, wanted the war it now has.

Hamas has a network of allies across the Middle East. Israeli and U.S. forces and maritime commerce are under attack in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, and the Mediterranean. Yemen’s Houthis have already bottled up the Red Sea. It would be an easy matter for Iran to do the same in the Persian Gulf. Control of maritime commerce at important choke points calls into question a plank as central to the American Empire as it was to the British Empire before it: control of the world’s seas and oceans.

What happens if an American-led flotilla tasked with keeping the Red Sea or the Persian Gulf open comes under a swarming missile and drone attack, plus electronic warfare that disrupts its command and control capabilities, and destroyers or aircraft carriers are sunk? Missiles, drones, and cyber disruption cost a pittance compared to battleships, and it would then be apparent that they make conventional surface naval power a paper shark. The vessels in their watery grave would send the same message as the tanks smoldering on Ukraine’s battlefields.

The power of governments rests on their ability to use violence to control populations. Yawning cost disparities, decentralized technologies, and asymmetric warfare have rendered much of conventional offensive power vulnerable or obsolete, marking an historic, tectonic transition in the relationships between governments and governed. This is no secret, particularly in the non-Western world.

Across the globe, insurgents are taking the measure of governments and finding them wanting. Governments that are not feared cannot govern. As they confront their limitations, they will, being governments, make their situations worse.

The American government has a problem not shared by many others. Its potential insurgents—urban, suburban, and rural—are armed to the teeth. They already control many of the cities (see “Ants at the Picnic, Part Two”). Heavily indebted Washington cannot command the resources necessary to subjugate the population. It gets stretched thinner with each new dollar of debt, each new tax, each new institutionalized corruption, each new illegal migrant, each new substitution of gobbledygook ideology for rationality, and each new foreign intervention. Recognition of Washington’s weakness is behind the talk of secession and some states’ defiance of its dictates.

Washington’s weakness is shared by many Western governments, although most of them don’t have to contend with armed opposition. They do have to contend with increasingly restive populations, which by sheer force of numbers can upend existing political arrangements. It is delusional to think that these beleaguered national governments can be replaced by a confederated or unitary global government that could then exercise effective control.

The imposition of global government would entail an invasion by an outside force of millions of globally dispersed localities. The global force would encounter the same problem Israel faces in Gaza. Overt and covert opposition could number in the billions.

The globalists would have to contend with organized insurrection, guerrilla warfare, sabotage, and terrorism, as well as random riots, criminality, and widespread disorder. They would have to resort to the Israeli “solution” in Gaza—mass extermination. While they are relying on propaganda, subversion, electronic control, and biological warfare, perhaps only nuclear weapons could achieve genocide at the necessary scale. Don’t put it past them. Don’t put it past the insurgents to acquire their own nukes.

Short of nuclear conflagration, the world will continue to devolve towards institutional failure, popular disillusionment, mounting rage, and chaotic fragmentation and balkanization. Today’s dinosaur governments are unable to exercise control, and many of them are slated for extinction. They will not be replaced by an even larger and more unwieldy dinosaur—global government—which is only the last, desperate hope of the fading regime. Instead, the vacuum created by failed governments will be filled by those proficient in decentralized violence. Those who have relied on centralized authority for their livelihoods, power, and status will find their worlds turned upside down. Many will not survive the transition.

Assume crash positions.

House Passes $886 Billion National Defense Authorization Act

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The bill extends Section 702 of FISA, which allows mass warrantless surveillance of Americans

By Dave DeCamp

Source: Antiwar.com

On Thursday, the House passed the $886 billion 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which funds the Pentagon and some military spending for other government agencies. The NDAA has already been passed by the Senate and now heads to President Biden’s desk.

The NDAA includes a provision to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence, which allows mass warrantless surveillance of Americans. US government agencies portray the law as designed to target foreigners outside of the US, but it allows the collection of any communications they have with Americans, including emails and text messages.

Section 702 was due to expire at the end of this year, but the NDAA extends it to April 19, 2024. According to Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), the House only needed 143 votes to strip the extension out of the NDAA, but only 118 House members voted “nay,” including 73 Republicans and 45 Democrats.

“Here are the 118 Representatives who voted to protect your right to privacy. (Nay to FISA warrantless surveillance as part of NDAA),” Massie wrote on X with a picture of the roll call. “We lost but it was close. We needed 143 votes (1/3) to stop FISA since they suspended the rules to bring it to the floor.”

The mammoth $886 billion NDAA is $28 billion more than what was approved last year. President Biden is seeking another $111 billion to fund military aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan on top of regular military spending, but Republicans are holding out until Democrats agree to a deal on significant changes to border policies.

The new NDAA includes several amendments to fund the US and allied military buildup in the Indo-Pacific that’s aimed at China. One amendment allows the Pentagon to transfer three nuclear-powered Virginia-class submarines to Australia as part of the AUKUS military pact the US, Britain, and Australia signed in 2021 to prepare for a future war with China.

Three Questions for Dr. Fauci on His Alleged Secret Visit to CIA Headquarters

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By John Miltimore

Source: Activist Post

Dr. Anthony Fauci and the CIA have some splainin’ to do.

According to a new letter from the House’s Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, Fauci was admitted to CIA headquarters “without a record of entry” while the agency was conducting its official analysis of the origins of COVID-19.

The letter claims Fauci “participated in the analysis to ‘influence’ the Agency’s review.” The date of the alleged meeting is not disclosed.

Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R., Ohio), chair of the committee, gave the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services until October 10 to submit all requested items and pertinent communications related to the then-director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ clandestine meeting at Langley.

“The American people deserve the truth—to know the origins of the virus and whether there was a concerted effort by public health authorities to suppress the lab leak theory for political or national security purposes,” Wenstrup said.

Dr. Fauci has not yet made any public statements on the matter, but his alleged visit to CIA headquarters raises important questions.

Dr. Fauci has not yet made any public statements on the matter, but his alleged visit to CIA headquarters raises important questions.

Did Fauci request the meeting or the CIA?

Why was the meeting held in secret?

Was the CIA aware that Fauci had interests that may have conflicted with his ability to make an objective assessment of the origins of COVID-19?

Each of these questions is important, but let’s begin with the last one.

1. A Conflict of Interest?

As director of NIAID, Fauci, early in the pandemic, dismissed allegations that COVID-19 might have emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, calling these claims “conspiracy theories” and alleging it was “molecularly impossible.”

It was later learned that Fauci made these statements even though scientists he commissioned to author a paper on the origins of the virus privately said otherwise.

It turns out Dr. Fauci had a very good reason to conceal the fact that COVID-19 likely escaped from the lab in Wuhan, as most US government agencies now believe (including the FBI and the CIA).

The National Institutes of Health (NIH), the agency that oversees NIAID, admitted in the fall of 2021 that for years the agency had been funding what was described as “risky virus research in Wuhan,” a charge Fauci had repeatedly and vociferously denied. Fauci, a longtime defender of gain-of-function research, had signed off on funding provided to the non-profit organization EcoHealth Alliance that had resulted in an “unexpected result”: an enhanced coronavirus from bats created in partnership with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

That NIH had funded gain-of-function research is now beyond dispute, evidenced by the recent termination of funding for WIV after NIH “determined that…WIV conducted an experiment that violated the terms of the grant regarding viral activity, which possibly did lead…to…unacceptable outcomes.”

According to Vanity Fair reporter Katherine Eban, officials at EcoHealth Alliance say they informed NIH of this “unexpected result” (an enhanced coronavirus) in a progress report in 2018, but Fauci says he didn’t see the progress report prior to his congressional testimony.

All of this helps explain why Fauci was so insistent from the very beginning that COVID-19 originated naturally from a wet market, even though scientists who wrote the “Proximal Origin” paper in Nature in early 2020 told him it was “friggin’ likely” and “plausible” the virus emerged from the Wuhan lab.

Was the CIA aware of this potential conflict of interest when Fauci allegedly visited CIA headquarters in an attempt to “influence the Agency’s review”?

2. Why Was the Meeting Held in Secret and Who Authorized It?

Putting aside the question of conflicting interests, there is the simple question of secrecy.

One could argue Fauci visited CIA headquarters because he was director of NIAID and an infectious disease expert. The problem with this argument is that Fauci had already made many public statements on the origins of the virus, and if he was simply offering an elaboration of his points, there would be no need to hold such a meeting secretly.

Moreover, the CIA was conducting an independent review. That means the agency was supposed to reach its determination without outside influence.

A visit from Fauci has all the appearances of attempting to influence the outcome of the CIA’s report, which is no doubt why the visit went “without a record of entry.”

Who authorized the secret visit and why?

3. Who Requested the Meeting and Who Was Present?

The fact that Fauci’s alleged visit to Langley was done surreptitiously suggests that both the CIA and Fauci understood there were troubling ethics in making such a visit when the agency was conducting an independent review of COVID-19’s origins.

This raises an important question: Who requested the meeting, Fauci or the CIA?

This is not a trivial question. Mere weeks ago, a letter sent to CIA Director William Burns stated that a senior-level CIA whistleblower claimed the agency attempted to bribe six analysts who concluded with a low level of confidence that COVID-19 originated in the Wuhan lab, allegedly offering six of the seven agents cash incentives to change their conclusions.

“The whistleblower,” the letter states, “contends that to come to the eventual public determination of uncertainty, the other six members were given a significant monetary incentive to change their position.”

If the charge is true, it means public officials attempted to bribe CIA analysts tasked with providing an official government assessment of the origins of the most deadly pandemic in a century to influence the outcome of their report.

That’s a very serious charge. The public deserves answers.

‘A Massive Coverup Spanning from China to DC’?

From the beginning of the pandemic, there has been a persistent government effort to silence and marginalize those who questioned NIH’s policies and conclusions.

It began with coordinated attacks on those who challenged the government’s COVID policies, which was first revealed when the American Institute for Economic Research published emails showing NIH Director Francis Collins instructing subordinates (including Fauci) on the need for “a quick and devastating published take down (sic)” of the premises of the Great Barrington Declaration, whose authors Collins described as “fringe epidemiologists.” (These “fringe” epidemiologists came from Stanford, Harvard, and Oxford University.)

The attacks later shifted toward those who challenged the government’s assertion that COVID could only have originated naturally, a claim that was treated as dogma. Social media sites suspended users (at the behest of the government) who suggested COVID could have been man-made.

It’s become apparent that “fighting misinformation” was never NIH’s goal, or that of any other government agency. The goal was to fight information that conflicted with the government’s narratives, a common practice of authoritarian regimes.

David Asher, the man who led the State Department’s investigation into the origins of COVID-19, recently explained to New York magazine journalist David Zweig that the reason we have so little information about COVID’s origins is because people in power prefer it that way.

“Our own State Department told us ‘don’t get near this thing, it’ll blow up in your face,’” Asher told Zweig. “It’s a massive coverup spanning from China to DC.”

The unprecedented attacks on free speech Americans have witnessed the last three years stem directly from what Asher describes. During the pandemic, NIH was awarded $150 million to fight “misinformation,” a block of money that has been halted in the wake of NIH’s blunders and First Amendment challenges.

The most important thing to understand is that the war on “misinformation” isn’t an effort to spread the truth; it’s an effort to conceal it.

Free speech is truth’s greatest ally, which is precisely why authoritarian regimes throughout history have been so hostile to it. The famed Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis had it right when he observed, in Whitney v. California that “the freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth.”

If Americans want the truth about the origins of COVID-19, they should stop supporting government-led efforts to censor speech and start pressing those in power to answer questions—starting with Dr. Fauci and the CIA.

Fauci and the CIA: A New Explanation Emerges

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By Jeffrey Tucker

Source: Brownstone Institute

Jeremy Farrar’s book from August 2021 is relatively more candid than most accounts of the initial decision to lock down in the US and UK. “It’s hard to come off nocturnal calls about the possibility of a lab leak and go back to bed,” he wrote of the clandestine phone calls he was getting from January 27-31, 2020. They had already alerted the FBI and MI5. 

“I’d never had trouble sleeping before, something that comes from spending a career working as a doctor in critical care and medicine. But the situation with this new virus and the dark question marks over its origins felt emotionally overwhelming. None of us knew what was going to happen but things had already escalated into an international emergency. On top of that, just a few of us – Eddie [Holmes], Kristian [Anderson], Tony [Fauci] and I – were now privy to sensitive information that, if proved to be true, might set off a whole series of events that would be far bigger than any of us. It felt as if a storm was gathering, of forces beyond anything I had experienced and over which none of us had any control.”

At that point in the trajectory of events, intelligence services on both sides of the Atlantic had been put on notice. Anthony Fauci also received confirmation that money from the National Institutes of Health had been channeled to the offending lab in Wuhan, which meant that his career was on the line. Working at a furious pace, the famed “Proximal Origin” paper was produced in record time. It concluded that there was no lab leak. 

In a remarkable series of revelations this week, we’ve learned that the CIA was involved in trying to make payments to those authors (thank you whistleblower), plus it appears that Fauci made visits to the CIA’s headquarters, most likely around the same time. 

Suddenly we get some possible clarity in what has otherwise been a very blurry picture. The anomaly that has heretofore cried out for explanation is how it is that Fauci changed his mind so dramatically and precisely on the merit of lockdowns for the virus. One day he was counseling calm because this was flu-like, and the next day he was drumming up awareness of the coming lockdown. That day was February 27, 2020, the same day that the New York Times joined with alarmist propaganda from its lead virus reporter Donald G. McNeil. 

On February 26, Fauci was writing: “Do not let the fear of the unknown… distort your evaluation of the risk of the pandemic to you relative to the risks that you face every day… do not yield to unreasonable fear.”

The next day, February 27, Fauci wrote actress Morgan Fairchild – likely the most high-profile influencer he knew from the firmament – that “be prepared to mitigate an outbreak in this country by measures that include social distancing, teleworking, temporary closure of schools, etc.”

To be sure, twenty-plus days had passed between the time Fauci alerted intelligence and when he decided to become the voice for lockdowns. We don’t know the exact date of the meetings with the CIA. But generally until now, most of February 2020 has been a blur in terms of the timeline. Something was going on but we hadn’t known just what. 

Let’s distinguish between a proximate and distal cause of the lockdowns.

The proximate cause is the fear of a lab leak and an aping of the Wuhan strategy of keeping everyone in their homes to stop the spread. They might have believed this would work, based on the legend of how SARS-1 was controlled. The CIA had dealings with Wuhan and so did Fauci. They both had an interest in denying the lab leak and stopping the spread. The WHO gave them cover. 

The distal reasons are more complicated. What stands out here is the possibility of a quid pro quo. The CIA pays scientists to say there was no lab leak and otherwise instructs its kept media sources (New York Times) to call the lab leak a conspiracy theory of the far right. Every measure would be deployed to keep Fauci off the hot seat for his funding of the Wuhan lab. But this cooperation would need to come at a price. Fauci would need to participate in a real-life version of the germ games (Event 201 and Crimson Contagion). 

It would be the biggest role of Fauci’s long career. He would need to throw out his principles and medical knowledge of, for example, natural immunity and standard epidemiology concerning the spread of viruses and mitigation strategies. The old pandemic playbook would need to be shredded in favor of lockdown theory as invented in 2005 and then tried in Wuhan. The WHO could be relied upon to say that this strategy worked. 

Fauci would need to be on TV daily to somehow persuade Americans to give up their precious rights and liberties. This would need to go on for a long time, maybe all the way to the election, however implausible this sounds. He would need to push the vaccine for which he had already made a deal with Moderna in late January. 

Above all else, he would need to convince Trump to go along. That was the hardest part. They considered Trump’s weaknesses. He was a germaphobe so that’s good. He hated Chinese imports so it was merely a matter of describing the virus this way. But he also has a well-known weakness for deferring to highly competent and articulate professional women. That’s where the highly reliable Deborah Birx comes in: Fauci would be her wingman to convince Trump to green-light the lockdowns. 

What does the CIA get out of this? The vast intelligence community would have to be put in charge of the pandemic response as the rule maker, the lead agency. Its outposts such as CISA would handle labor-related issues and use its contacts in social media to curate the public mind. This would allow the intelligence community finally to crack down on information flows that had begun 20 years earlier that they had heretofore failed to manage. 

The CIA would hobble and hamstring the US president, whom they hated. And importantly, there was his China problem. He had wrecked relations through his tariff wars. So far as they were concerned, this was treason because he did it all on his own. This man was completely out of control. He needed to be put in his place. To convince the president to destroy the US economy with his own hand would be the ultimate coup de grace for the CIA. 

A lockdown would restart trade with China. It did in fact achieve that. 

How would Fauci and the CIA convince Trump to lock down and restart trade with China? By exploiting these weaknesses and others too: his vulnerability to flattery, his desire for presidential aggrandizement, and his longing for Xi-like powers over all to turn off and then turn on a whole country. Then they would push Trump to buy the much-needed personal protective equipment from China. 

They finally got their way: somewhere between March 10 or possibly as late as March 14, Trump gave the go ahead. The press conference of March 16, especially those magical 70 seconds in which Fauci read the words mandating lockdowns because Birx turned out to be too squeamish, was the great turning point. A few days later, Trump was on the phone with Xi asking for equipment. 

In addition, such a lockdown would greatly please the digital tech industry, which would experience a huge boost in demand, plus large corporations like Amazon and WalMart, which would stay open as their competitors were closed. Finally, it would be a massive subsidy to pharma and especially the mRNA platform technology itself, which would enjoy the credit for ending the pandemic. 

If this whole scenario is true, it means that all along Fauci was merely playing a role, a front man for much deeper interests and priorities in the CIA-led intelligence community. This broad outline makes sense of why Fauci changed his mind on lockdowns, including the timing of the change. There are still many more details to know, but these new fragments of new information take our understanding in a new and more coherent direction. 

Not ONLY Ukraine Lacks Options, No Plan B for US Hegemony: Pouring Sand Down a Rat Hole

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By Henry Kamens

Source: New Eastern Outlook

When a title in the Washington Post is so revealing, you can understand that the handwriting is on the wall, and that really is SO revealing, and if it is not an “I hate to tell you so, but I told you so” moment, then how else can we interpret the headline “Ukraine’s inability to demonstrate decisive success on the battlefield is stoking fears that the conflict is becoming a stalemate and international support could erode?”

Not only appears to be!

Has not the veneer of legitimacy not already eroded enough to lay bare the bedrock of a military conflict that never had to be, but is instead is a conflict of choice, especially for the West—but the SHOW MUST GO ON—at least until after the US presidential elections. The Washington Post’s Susannah George is saying what even laymen know, Ukraine appears to be running out of options in a counteroffensive that officials originally framed as Kyiv’s “crucial operation” to retake significant territory from occupying Russian forces this year.

Yes, the military conflict is stalemated, and few want to be used as cannon fodder.  It is only a matter of time until the West and the coalition of the willing will lose interest and start asking the hard questions: such as “where did all the money go, and how did the supposed NATO standard weapons disappeared so quickly and how did the West get engaged in this mess in the first place?”

All the promises of one weapons system after another, be it artillery, Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles (IFVs), or anti-tank or anti-aircraft systems have all proved to be more talk than firepower, and only now will some F-16 get delivered. But who is qualified enough to fly them and use them for the purpose and manner they were designed for, and what is a ground offensive without air cover and close air support?

“Pouring sand down a rathole”

Is a figurative expression that refers to a futile or pointless action—a waste of time and money, and the lives of a generation.  The phrase fits the effort made in Ukraine by the West as having been ineffective and wasteful. And most certainly, there are more than a few rats in the Ukrainian government, its Western sponsors, and partners in organized crime.  They have shown themselves for what they REALLY are!

And now the West has the audacity to complain that Ukraine is casualty averse, not willing to die in droves for some greater cause, the American cause! As the headline, based on the work of Caitlin Johnstone sums it up well, The West Keeps Whining that Ukrainians Are Cowards, and how Western officials – under the cover of anonymity and from the safety of their desks – are expressing disapproval of Ukraine’s aversion to being killed!

It is an understatement to highlight that this proxy war has not brought about any meaningful results, and it has not gone well for regional security. Sand down a rathole sums it up well, as the expression often used to convey a sense of frustration or disappointment when someone is engaged in some action or causes that seems to have no real value or purpose—at least for normal people

The gathering clouds are not looking good for Kyiv, it has not been able to deliver on the battlefield, and as a result, its backers are backing off, as they know that political and physical (as in terms of the financial costs, and conceivably even worse) blowback is coming, reputations and careers are at stake. More aid to Ukraine is like pouring sand down a rathole, it just disappears, no result, other than negative consequences.

But just how much longer will it be before the West does an Afghanistan, or Iraq, or Vietnam, and just walks away and moves on to the next war to be orchestrated? But first it will look for a scapegoat, and that should not be difficult among the minions of the corrupt in Ukraine.

All the wonder weapons have thus far failed to live up to the hype, now the west is moving to supply early model F-16As, admittedly upgraded to an extent, from the forty-year-old examples still operated by Holland and Denmark.

But who is qualified enough to fly them and use them for the purpose and in the manner they were designed–and only too soon will they crash and burn, if they are able to get airborne- and are not simply destroyed on the ground by Russian cruise and hypersonic missile systems, as happened too much of the Ukrainian Air Force in the first days of the war.

As we have discussed before in NEO, about how American policymakers in their many attempts to isolate and antagonize Russia should have been asking, “How many more ‘redlines’ have to be crossed in order for Putin to fully act?”

Were any of them actually so naïve to have considered that Putin would not have acted when the Ukrainian government invaded its predominately ethnic Russian regions in the East of, not to face dire consequences as a result?

The answer to these questions should be a no-brainer in the BIGGER scheme of things, and that now includes the potential blow back over China and punitive action to anyone who refuses to toe-the-line and march to the same music as proffered by the collective West.

It becomes the question of staying power, and the financial lifeline that the West is willing to provide—but for how long?  Already, the writing is on the wall, considering that Ukraine’s apparent inability to demonstrate decisive success on the battlefield is stoking fears that the conflict is becoming a stalemate.

There were high hopes that Ukraine’s counteroffensive would turn the tide in its favor. While the West was trying to convince itself of its own rhetoric, with wishful thinking that the Russian army would panic and flee at the first sign of NATO supplied Wunderwaffen such as the Bradley IFV and Leopard 2 tanks, and constantly trumpeting the upcoming offensive to cut the land bridge to Crimea by retaking Melitopol and reaching the Sea of Azov, the Russians took the time to dig in along the front line spanning east to south Ukraine, creating deep defensive lines that are in parts made up of networks of mines, bunkers, trenches and layers of anti-tank obstacles over 75 kilometers deep.

Without more advanced weapons to buttress the front line or troops enough in reserve, as reported by CNBC, quoting [unnamed] Defense experts who say “it’s unlikely that the Ukrainian counteroffensive will see any breakthroughs this year. But they note it’s crucial for Ukraine to be able to show at least some gains in order to maintain Western support for the war into 2024 — and perhaps beyond.”

This translates,

“We don’t care if you can achieve any strategic objective, only to gain ground, for PR purposes, so to placate Western taxpayers.  You need not concern yourselves about the mistakes of the German army who also thought military gains could be measured by territory gained.  It also does not matter the causalities taken, as you still have enough warm bodies to conscript, young and old, to be used as fresh cannon fodder.”

“The question here is which of the two sides is going to be worn out sooner,” said Franz-Stefan Gady, a senior fellow with the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the Center for a New American Security, who visited Ukraine in July. “We shouldn’t expect the achievement of any major military objectives overnight.”

And the question for NATO and its new turn on life, what is its purpose of existence, and has it really evolved? You can do anything in the name of combating the other side; just ask the people of Haiti under Papa Doc. The only rational conclusion is that NATO has to fulfill some mission in a post-Cold War world. It is pursuing a two-pronged strategy to try and find one.

One prong is to try and start another Cold War by declaring everything Un-American to be wrong and hostile—including alternative media that takes exception to what is being done for the sake of the few well-connected elites who are becoming rich through arms sales.

Collective West and Claimed Supremacy

The other is to insert terrorist groups into various countries to give the “international democratic order” something evil to fight against. There is no reason a defensive alliance should have a cultural dimension.  Westerners need to stop claiming credit for the West’s achievements, while disassociating themselves from its crimes. This only reinforces misplaced loyalty to a civilization and policy that is based on greed and misguided values.

The West, especially the United States, wants to take collective credit for good things but to individualize blame on others. The villains of the West are grouped together as being foreign, even when they are home-grown; Hitler was a product of Western Civilization, King Leopold, Harry Truman, and most of those who came after them – in their dirty wars that span the last 70 plus years of “peace”.

Very different political models can co-exist, side-by-side, and even within the same country, as the differences between local councils in pluralistic countries often demonstrates. But NATO insists on its partners having a one culture, one value system—it being the one the US likes and trusts, which is always something close to what the US itself claims it has developed, and mostly on its own.

You can’t talk to Communists, Muslims, or Russians, and if you do, you will pay the price, as Ukraine is discovering the hard way now. NATO is aware of this weakness, but has no real intention of addressing it. This leaves it only one way out – coming out of the stockade with all guns blazing, like Robert Redford and Paul Newman in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Probably with much the same result…

So which state is next on the list of countries to be knocked off?

Could it be that Biden and team is finally realizing the US is putting itself further up that list by the day? US policy is in flux and is already overextended, (in actions and recriminations), and its own worst enemy. It has to win. However, this begs the question, where are the troops coming from? As clear as day, we can see that Biden wants to be a war president and let someone else die for that war.

US policy lacks consistency, and media spin is the solution.  Take for instance, Antony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, who was always constantly warning that Moscow that Washington, as the collective West,  will “respond” to any acts of aggression or recklessness carried out by the Russian government, as if this function is his sole claim to fame.

He knew very well that allowing the Ukrainian government installed by the west after the Maidan revolution (or coup?) to attack and murder local citizens in the East of Ukraine was crossing one of many redlines for Putin. However, he still does not cut back on the rhetoric, doubling-down as [if the US is REALLY willing] to back its statements with direct support for Kiev for the long-term, at least until after the presidential elections.

For the Biden administration, Ukraine is a way to demonstrate America’s claimed “unwavering support” for the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine and a collection of claimed Western values, all of which are neatly wrapped in propagandized sound bites.  But we know better, and based on the political and military reality, nothing new can be added to the discussion of Ukraine from a policy position.

Screaming Foul

US Secretary of State Mr. Blinken is always screaming foul over something: China or Russia, and now West Africa, as if it is going to really make some difference in how the world spins.

He forgets what NATO does  is invariably on the orders of the US Federal government, even if it goes against the needs and best interests of the majority of its members,  and against claimed Western values. Ukraine, Poland and other NATO members, even fledging potential members, only have the future of being transformed into outposts of men and equipment—in order for the US to have the ability to take “protective reaction” measures if necessary—so that the Hawks can trumpet “America will respond!”

It comes as no surprise, since 2014 nothing has actually really changed, and even with the extra baggage, rhetoric and range of military hardware delivered by Biden and team. It is all but a continuation of a failed bullying policy, a familiar but UGLY FACE  in the long-running Washington-Moscow standoff over Ukraine, and confirmation that the world is no longer unipolar.

Biden and his minions are still pushing hegemonic actions to interfere and topple actual and fledgling democracies—and spilling the blood of so many innocents in the process.  Sooner rather than later all this will backfire, for the sake of civilization, and the survival of the species, and the sooner, the better!

Western ‘Civilization’ Is Doomed to Aggressive Collapse, and by its Own Hand

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By Gary D. Barnett

Source: GaryDBarnett.com

“Western civilization is a loaded gun pointed at the head of this planet.”

~ Terence McKenna

The word civilization from Latin is civis, which means citizen, and civitas, which means city-state. It is seen as ‘enlightened culture’ instead of barbarism. A more modern take on the Latin root of this word would be a society which has developed a writing system, government, production of surplus food, division of labor, and ‘urbanization.’ The two trouble spots here are the false belief in the necessity of government and of urbanization. Both indicate collectivism instead of the individual and independent rule, in what should properly be a voluntary society. Regardless, a so-called ‘civil society’ today is what would be thought of as a mature, progressive, and non-barbarous state of ‘superiority.’ The ancient Greeks clarified this as far back as the fifth century BCE, and felt themselves above others who were not as worthy in their minds. As time passed, a citizen was not just a resident of a particular area, but in reality, became the property of the State, or more accurately, a lifetime indentured servant.

A common truth that should be recognized, is that in order to be a citizen in the modern world, one must be considered of secondary importance to the State or nation, and therefore a pawn or slave of that State or nation. After all, initially, ‘citizenship’ is decided simply by state of birth, or by parent’s state of birth. Each individual has no say in their original and usually lifetime citizenship, and this classification, as in herd animals, is a label decided by the ruling political class. This is not any indication of freedom, as should be quite obvious, but is a pronouncement of inferiority to rule, which negates from birth the individual in favor of the State. There is no need to get further into the particulars of this type of human ownership in this discussion, but sufficed to say, how can one be considered to be free when born a slave?

The subject here is the fate of what is considered Western Civilization, and why it is doomed to not only failure, but complete collapse as a political and ruling force. In fairness, all civilizations eventually fail, and in my opinion, this is mainly due to the false belief that a system of top-down rule, restrictive laws, and completely concentrated co-existence, is necessary for sustained survival. While the division of labor is extremely useful in many if not most aspects of modern life, total concentration of populations is not  mandatory for civilization to survive and prosper. But it is the desired outcome by those who rule, (consider ‘smart cities’) because it allows for easier control over the masses of common people, who always far outnumber the ruling class, and are therefore considered a continuous threat to their power.

The ‘West’ has claimed to be the most superior, most benevolent, most enlightened, and most powerful group of nation-states for centuries, but it is coming apart at the seams so quickly that its influence and grip on the rest of the world could end in short order. But is that the designed plan, or is it due to outrageous arrogance, criminal excess at every level of existence, devastation of the monetary and economic systems, widespread brutal aggression, or all the above?

Western civilization is certainly on the brink of extinction, and the sought after replacement is that of a technocratic world governing system run by the very few. It seems the further man supposedly advances, the more backward is his pretend progress. Certainly, and positively in the U.S, intelligence levels and the ability to think critically have all but disappeared; this in a time when western society is ‘claimed’ to be the most ‘educated.’ In fact, the exact opposite is the case, as schooling in this country has caused mass ignorance and stupidity over generations, all by design. In order to control the people, the West decided long ago to purposely dumb down the common population, and indoctrinate them to such an extent, as to make impotent the idea of individual legitimate thought, and any ability to question authority. This tactic by the State was successful in its mission, but also successful in creating its own demise. This is quite the irony, but then that is the way of the madness of humanity.

Consider our current reality for a moment, and then consider the outcome of this political experiment. This nation, although never totally free, was one of wonder for a good portion of its history. 170 years ago, nearly 100% literacy was common, classical education was brilliant, and children were intelligent, driven, responsible, and grown up by the time they were in their mid-teens or before. Most all were entrepreneurs and understood moral principles, self-responsibility, and the importance of family. They based their lives on logic and reason, and due to these attitudes, were incredibly valuable to the building of independent, honest, virtuous, and vital societies. If one is to compare that to today’s population, an awakening should immediately occur.

Currently, this country is in the midst of a complete and total mental breakdown of the masses, in that they are not, generally speaking, responsible for themselves, and are dependent on an evil and heinous government. The intellectual capabilities of the general population have descended into the realm of effective illiteracy of the majority, regardless of age. Hate is the new norm accepted by the proletariat, sexual perversion is in full view of all, and promoted by the State. Theft, looting, property destruction, and violence at every turn, are openly ignored, while being sanctioned by government and its complicit mouthpieces in the rotten media. Constant war is tolerated, the murdering military is lauded as heroes, while truthtellers are shamed, threatened, and ostracized, and in some cases eliminated. ‘Reverse’ racism is rampant and applauded, while society has become married to victimization as a way of life. Self-esteem, confidence, responsible behavior, empathy, and the drive to succeed have disappeared from view. Total government control, destruction of wealth of all but the super-rich, blanket surveillance, lockdowns, ludicrous and immoral mandates, mass bio-weapon tyranny, tremendous property theft, and purposeful murder of innocents is routine, and mostly ignored. Entire towns and cities are being intentionally destroyed, thousands burned to death with microwave or directed energy weapons, or by other atrocious means, while those affected clamor for more government assistance, instead of eliminating the criminal and murderous State that is at the heart of all this barbarous madness.

The governing systems of Western societies have no intention, and never have, to free or protect the people, as the only goal sought by these evil ruling monsters, is power and control of all by brute force, lies, propaganda, and murder. Western civilization will be purposely relegated to the dustbin of history; the result being the swift and merciless destruction of life and all societal cohesion. Without mass dissent and non-compliance, bogus ‘climate change,’ currency destruction, digitization of all aspects of life, concentration of populations, famine, property theft, war, and transhumanism, will lead to even more perverse behavior, idiocy, and mass indifference of the majority.

This will signal the end of an era, and the beginning of a permanent hell on earth. This was caused by the masses of collective hordes ignoring their responsibility to themselves, in favor of the expectation of total dependence instead of individual excellence. No one can hide from reality forever, as it will eventually catch up and swallow you whole.

The State cannot rule successfully unless the people voluntarily allow it, and choose to surrender to obedience and a life of slavery. Only people who will accept and be convinced of truth, and have the courage to act on that truth, can be of use to freedom. All others, those who do not want to know the truth, those who continue to cling to the State’s false narratives, and who seek a master, should be absolutely avoided, as they will never help or improve themselves, and therefore will be of no value to those who seek real freedom.

“Violence is not necessary to destroy a civilization. Each civilization dies from indifference toward the unique values which created it.”

 ~ Nicolas Gomez Davila, 1913-1994, Columbian writer

If……Then That’s Treason

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[Source: dcclothesline.com]

By Michael Diamond

Source: Covert Action

The Perpetrators

This list of perpetrators is not meant to be exhaustive, but it can help us begin a conversation that should lead to indictments for treason, in addition to other crimes. The harms these perpetrators are doing must be stopped. Survival is at stake.

If COVID-19 was a laboratory-created disease for which people were denied palliative treatments and forced to receive harmful injections, then that was treason.

If global warming is occurring because of refusals by coal, oil and gas producers to curb those uses and switch to renewables, then that conduct was treason.

If coal, oil and gas producers knew of new energy technologies that could have eased our environmental crisis and stood in the way of their implementation, then that was treason.

If anyone in authority knew of new or unique energy technologies that could have eased our environmental crisis and stood in the way of implementation, then they were guilty of treason.

If harsh weather patterns and damaging weather events are being created that are destroying regions and parts of this country, then those manipulations of the weather are acts of treason.

If earthquakes, tsunamis, and fires are being created by weapons of war, like HAARP (High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program) and DEW (directed energy weapons), then bringing about that devastation is treasonous conduct.

If high-flying airplanes are spraying nanoparticulates of toxic metals and harmful materials upon the population, then those bombardments, which sorely affect physical health and mental acuities, are acts of treason.

If the communications industry persists in expanding wireless technology without allowing governmental oversight to make reasonable regulations for safety against harmful EMF (electro-magnetic frequency) exposures, then that conduct is treason.

If World Trade Center Buildings 1, 2 and 7 came down, not as a result of airplane collisions, but by controlled demolition, then that was treason.

If the Pentagon was struck on 9/11, not by an airplane but by one of our own missiles, then that was treason. 

If U.S. weapons-grade anthrax was used against Congressmen who were holding up passage of the USA Patriot Act after 9/11, then that was treason. 

The American people are now beset with harms from an extraordinary array of toxic chemical exposures that began four generations ago. If the large agricultural and industrial interests continue to harm our significantly burdened population with toxic exposures, then that will be treason.

The American people are now experiencing extensive health deficits, including physical, mental and behavioral declines. Our health-care system was created in the early 1900s. It was and continues to be dominated by allopathic medicine to the exclusion of a great number of safe, effective and inexpensive healing modalities. Pharmaceutical companies are the major beneficiaries of an insurance-funded allopathic system that’s incapable of bringing about adequate and preventive health care for all. Continued resistance by the pharmaceutical companies to necessary changes that must be made can and should be considered treason. 

What Is Treason?

The crime of treason is set forth in the U.S Constitution. “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.” See Article III, Section 3, Clause 1. A number of states have identical treason provisions.

The punishment for those who owe “allegiance to the United States” and commit treason is death or imprisonment for not less than five years and a fine of not less than $10,000. See 18 U.S. Code, Chapter 115, Section 2381.

People often make the mistake of believing that we need to be at war for there to be an indictment for treason. That is incorrect. To commit the crime of treason (the levying of war part), one need only use force to prevent the carrying out of laws or to affect the public policies of the nation.

For example, our history books are filled with charges of treason that were leveled against those who used force in efforts to stop the capture and return of runaway slaves before the Civil War. Defendants were charged with treason because they interfered with the Fugitive Slave Acts. Abraham Lincoln, as a young lawyer, participated in those cases. 

And the case of United States v. Aaron Burr, Circuit Court, D Virginia, 25 F. Cas 49 (1807) is most instructive. Chief Justice John Marshall presided over the trial of Aaron Burr who was charged with treason. Marshall carefully instructed the jury that they could find Burr guilty of treason only if they had proof that he used force in an effort to interfere with laws or public policies of the United States. Planning alone was insufficient, said the Chief Justice. There had to have been some force—like actually having soldiers marching with weapons to do harm.

The perpetrators listed above went far beyond planning. They used force to poison us, to kill us, to make this Earth less habitable for us, and to take us into unnecessary wars. They trampled upon our most sacred public policies of respect for due process, the expectation of health protections, and the basic right of reliance upon representative government to act on our behalf.

Misprision of Treason

Prosecutions for the crimes of treason will be relatively easy as a result of 18 USC, Chapter 115, Section 2382, which provides: “Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States and having knowledge of the commission of any treason against them, conceals and does not, as soon as may be, disclose and make known the same to the President or to some judge of the United States, or to the governor or to some judge or justice of a particular State, is guilty of misprision of treason and shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than seven years, or both.” A few states have identical misprision of treason statutes.

There are millions of upstanding and brave witnesses to the ongoing crimes of COVID-19. Thousands of them have been unfairly vilified and falsely charged with lying.

And so many witnesses know the details about how global warming was allowed to occur and how weather has been made into a weapon of mass destruction.

The bombing of people with nanoparticulates of poisonous materials requires meteorologists, air traffic controllers, and pilots to abide by the official story that trails in the sky are merely water vapor, even though the trails remain in the skies indefinitely. Anyone who has ever used a humidifier knows differently. Water vapor evaporates quickly.

Anyone with an eighth-grade science background can see through the falsehoods of the official story of the 9/11 attacks, especially the way in which Building 7 came down. It came down in its own footprint, seven hours after Buildings 1 and 2, having experienced nothing more than a few sporadic office fires.

Similarly, anyone who has any observational skills knows that an airplane with wide wings, massive engines, and a tall tail could not have hit the Pentagon on 9/11, leaving no aircraft debris and only one circular hole in the outside wall and circular holes in a succession of interior walls.

Everyone involved in the anthrax investigation knows that the anthrax used against U.S. Congressmen to assure passage of the USA Patriot Act was manufactured at a particular U.S. Army base.

And scientists who continually create new versions of things like forever chemicals are firsthand witnesses to how agricultural and manufacturing interests continue to knowingly make the world more toxic by the day.

Finally, the medical profession is filled with practitioners who have come to understand that there are gentler ways to assure that their patients survive and thrive. And millions of us have been successfully treated by alternative methods which are safe and inexpensive.

A Last Line of Defense

There are thousands of federal, state, and county prosecutors across the United States. All have a sworn obligation to investigate and bring crimes to the attention of grand juries in their jurisdictions. 

They should be thought of as our last line of defense. We might have only a decade before this Earth reaches the point of no return concerning habitability. Vested interests have largely captured both state and federal regulatory systems. The two major political parties are incapable of bringing forth adequate responses and leaders capable of quickly making necessary changes for our protection.

Meanwhile, public health continues to deteriorate. In 1970, René Dubos, a world renowned microbiologist, in an essay titled “The Limits of Adaptability,” pleaded for us to stop the toxic exposures that are so far beyond human tolerance. Not stopping the exposures, he feared, will lead us to the development of “a form of life that will retain little of true humanness.”

The evidence all around us makes it apparent that we are fast approaching that point. Certainly, the skills to bring about major analyses of current affairs is slipping away, as are the abilities to bring about large societal changes. Indeed, human consciousness itself is waning. So now, as never before, we need the prosecutors to fully investigate and prosecute the crimes of treason, while there is still time to turn this world around. 

The treasons that are now being carried out are interfering with and violating our basic rights. The perpetrators are making a mockery of what should be the blessings of life, liberty and justice. 

Our Collective Trauma is the Road to Tyranny

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American society spawns trauma and this trauma expresses itself in a variety of self-destructive pathologies, including the erosion of democracy and rise of neo-fascism.

Welcome In – by Mr. Fish

By Chris Hedges

Source: ScheerPost

Corporate capitalism, defined by the cult of the self and the ruthless exploitation of the natural world and all forms of life for profit, thrives on the fostering of chronic psychological and physical disorders. The diseases and pathologies of despair — alienation, high blood pressure, diabetes, anxiety, depression, morbid obesity, mass shootings (now almost two per day on average), domestic and sexual violence, drug overdoses (over 100,000 per year) and suicide (49,000 deaths in 2022) — are the consequences of a deeply traumatized society. 

The core traits of psychopaths — superficial charm, grandiosity and self-importance, a need for constant stimulation, a penchant for lying, deception, manipulation and the inability to feel remorse or guilt — are celebrated. The virtues of empathy, compassion and self-sacrifice, are belittled, neglected and crushed. The professions that sustain community, such as teaching, manual labor, the arts, journalism and nursing, are underpaid and overworked. The professions that exploit, such as those in high finance, Big Pharma, Big Oil and information technology, are lavished with prestige, money and power.

“The fact that millions of people share the same vices does not make these vices virtues, the fact that they share so many errors does not make the errors to be truths, and the fact that millions of people share the same forms of mental pathology does not make these people sane,” Eric Fromm writes in The Sane Society.

The classic works on trauma by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, Dr. Gabor Maté and Dr. Judith Herman state bluntly that what is accepted as normal behavior in a corporate society is at war with basic human needs and our psychological and physical health. Huge segments of the American public, especially the tens of millions of people who have been discarded and marginalized, endure chronic trauma. Barbara Ehrenreich in “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America” describes the life of the working poor as one long “emergency.”  This trauma is as destructive to us personally as it is socially and politically. It leaves us in a state of dysphoria where confusion, agitation, emptiness and loneliness define our lives. Whole segments of American society, especially the poor, have been rendered superfluous and invisible. As Dr. van der Kolk writes, “trauma is when we are not seen and known.”

“Our culture teaches us to focus on our personal uniqueness, but at a deeper level we barely exist as individual organisms,” Dr. van der Kolk notes.

Trauma numbs our capacity to feel. It fractures our self. It disconnects us from our bodies. It keeps us in a state of hyperarousal. It makes us confuse our desires, often artificially implanted by the consumer society, with our needs. Traumatized people view the world around them as hostile and dangerous. They lack a positive image of themselves and lose the capacity to trust. Many replace intimacy and love with sexual sadism, which is how we became a pornified culture. Trauma creates what the psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton calls a “counterfeit” world defined by phantom enemies, lies and dark conspiracies. It negates a sense of purpose and a life of meaning. 

Trauma, Dr. Herman writes, “impels people both to withdraw from close relationships and to seek them desperately.” It induces feelings of shame, guilt, and inferiority, she writes, “as well as the need to avoid reminders of the trauma that occurs in daily life. Trauma severely compromises the capacity for intimacy. Trauma can dramatically reduce focus to extremely limited goals, often a matter of hours or days.” 

“If trauma entails a disconnection from the self, then it makes sense to say that we are being collectively flooded with influences that both exploit and reinforce trauma,” Dr. Maté writes. “Work pressures, multitasking, social media, news updates, multiplicities of entertainment sources — these all induce us to become lost in thoughts, frantic activities, gadgets, meaningless conversations. We are caught up in pursuits of all kinds that draw us on, not because they are necessary or inspiring or uplifting, or because they enrich or add meaning to our lives, but simply because they obliterate the present.”

Trauma also drives many to flee into the arms of those who are orchestrating the abuse.

Systematic and repetitive trauma, whether by a single abuser or a political system, destroys personal autonomy. The perpetrator becomes omnipotent. Resistance is accepted as futile. “The goal of the perpetrator is to instill in his victim not only fear of death but also gratitude for being allowed to live,” Dr. Herman writes. This trauma lays the foundation for the most insidious characteristic of all tyrannies, large and small. Total control. Prolonged trauma reduces its victims to a state of psychological infantilism. It conditions them to plead for their own enslavement.

“We are not content with negative obedience, not even with the most abject submission,” George Orwell wrote of the ruling “Inner Party” in his novel “1984.” “When finally you surrender to us, it must be of your own free will. We do not destroy the heretic because he resists us; so long as he resists us we never destroy him. We convert him, we capture his inner mind, we reshape him. We burn all evil and all illusion out of him; we bring him over to our side, not in appearance, but genuinely, heart and soul.”

Christian fascism, the subject of my book “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America,” preys on this trauma. It replicates systems of control common to all tyrannies, including cults. Christian fascists skillfully break down adherents, severing them from their families and communities. They manipulate their shame, despair, feelings of worthlessness and guilt – the byproducts of their trauma – to demand total obedience to the church leadership, who are almost always white and male. These leaders, supposedly spokespeople for God, cannot be questioned or criticized. The connecting tissue among the disparate militia groups, QAnon conspiracy theorists, anti-abortion activists, right-wing patriot organizations, Second Amendment advocates, neo-Confederates and Trump supporters that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 is not only this Christian fascism but trauma.

“Totalitarian governments demand confession and political conversion of their victims,” Dr. Herman writes. “Slaveholders demand gratitude from their slaves. Religious cults demand ritualized sacrifices as a sign of submission to the divine will of the leader. Perpetrators of domestic battery demand that their victims prove complete obedience and loyalty by sacrificing all other relationships. Sex offenders demand that their victims find sexual fulfillment in submission. Total control over another person is the power dynamic at the heart of pornography. The erotic appeal of this fantasy to millions of terrifyingly normal men fosters an immense industry in which women and children are abused, not in fantasy but in reality.”

Donald Trump is a perpetrator and savior. He personifies the callous indifference of patriarchy, wealth, privilege and power towards the vulnerable, as well as the promise that once his cultish followers surrender to him they will be protected. He inspires in equal measure fear and solace.

“People who embrace the small tyrannies are much more susceptible to embracing the large ones,” Dr. Herman told me. “When you have a political party that embraces the subordination of women, the subordination of people of color, the subordination of gender non-conforming people, and the subordination of non-Christians, then it’s not a party that embraces democracy. It’s a party that is looking for a fascist leader and is going to find one.”

In Dr. van der Kolk’s “The Body Keeps Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma,” he opens with stark statistics compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing that “one in five Americans was sexually molested as a child; one in four was beaten by a parent to the point of a mark being left on their body; and one in three couples engages in physical violence. A quarter of us grew up with alcoholic relatives, and one out of eight witnessed their mother being beaten or hit.”

The endemic trauma in American society, which is getting worse under the onslaught of the gig economy, pronounced social inequality, indiscriminate police violence, the climate crisis and the seizure of the political process and most institutions by corporations and the ruling oligarchs, is our most serious public health crisis. It has grave individual, social and political consequences. 

“If trauma is truly a social problem,” Dr. Herman in “Truth and Repair: How Trauma Survivors Envision Justice” writes, “then recovery cannot simply be a private individual matter. The wounds of trauma are not merely those caused by the perception of violence and exploitation. The actions or inactions of bystanders, all those who are complicit in or who prefer not to know about the abuse or who blame the victims, often cause deeper wounds.” “Full healing,” she adds, “because it originates in a fundamental injustice, requires a full hearing within the community to repair through some measure of justice the trauma survivors have endured.”

You can see my recent two-part interview with Dr. Herman here and here.You can see my interview with Dr. Maté here.

“Recovery has to take place in relationships,” Dr. Herman said in my interview. “When people feel reconnected to their communities and re-accepted in their communities, then the shame is relieved and the isolation is relieved, and that really creates the platform for healing.”

The key is community. Not virtual communities. But communities where we can reconnect and see in our wounds the wounds of others. It requires access, without onerous medical bills, to mental health professionals. It requires dismantling the corporate structures of oppression. It demands a new ethic, one that values empathy and self-sacrifice. We must reject the cynicism, indifference and cult of the self that all tyrannies inculcate in those they dominate to keep them passive. We must reach out to our neighbors, especially those in distress and those who are demonized. We must uncouple from consumer society and turn away from the allure of our cultural narcissism. 

The moral philosopher Bernard Williams argues that resentment and indignation are as important as empathy and connection to solidify social bonds. It is not only our own dignity we must protect, but the dignity of others. These “shared sentiments” he writes “bind people together in a community of feeling.” Acts of resistance around these “shared sentiments,” this “community of feeling,” establish ourselves as distinct, autonomous beings. We may not defeat these tyrannies, but by battling against them we free ourselves from the grip of the small and large tyrannies that deform American society.