Category Archives: propaganda

Fooled by What We Measure, Enlightened by What We Don’t Measure

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By Charles Hugh Smith

Source: Of Two Minds

Economists and pundits are falling all over themselves to declare the US is chugging along splendidly, and to express their frustration with the public for their curmudgeonly lack of enthusiasm. For example: If this is a bad economy, please tell me what a good economy would look likeWe should acknowledge that things are going well, even as we continue to look for problems to solve and How the Recession Doomers Got the U.S. Economy So Wrong.

My intention is not to slam Noah Smith or Derek Thompson. I follow their work and gain value from their analysis.

The point I want to make is we only manage what we measure, and the reliance on statistics that are overly broad and easily distorted/gamed leads to generalizations that ignore consequential cause and effect: we are fooled by overly broad and easily distorted/gamed statistics and enlightened by looking at what is not measured or measured inadequately.

The consensus holds that inflation is declining rapidly and unemployment remains low, so the economy is doing great. Please glance at Chart #1 below to see what enthuses the mainstream: the unemployment rate is near historic lows.

But this measure leaves out a great deal of consequential factors. It’s well-known that the unemployment rate is distorted / gamed by leaving out everyone who is in the workforce but not “actively seeking work.” So what does this official unemployment rate actually measure? Not the percentage of the workforce that has a job.

Nor does it measure underemployment–those working far below their potential–or job insecurity or the percentage of workers being pushed into burnout–all consequential reflections of the real economy. All of these are potentially causal factors in why US productivity has fallen so dramatically.

And speaking of productivity, that’s the ultimate source of prosperity–not speculative bubbles or debt-binging. If productivity is tanking, eventually there are negative economic consequences that will be distributed to some segments of the populace, very likely asymmetrically.

Such a broad-brush measure also ignores the consequences of demographics. Please glance at chart #2 below, of the 55 and over population and workforce. Note that virtually all the 20+ million jobs the US economy added in the past two decades are in this older workforce, which is of course steaming steadily into retirement, even as the percentage of this cohort who continues working has soared.

In other words, virtually all the job growth is the result of older workers working longer. Yes, 70 is the new 50, but try doing the same work at 70 that you did when you were 50. Sure, some people forego retirement because they love their work so much, but we don’t measure how many are still working because they have to for pressing financial reasons.

Have you observed the age of service workers and skilled workers recently? Do you reckon they really love working at Burger King so much that they’re doing it for enjoyment?

What if we measured financial pressures and job insecurity rather than risibly bogus “unemployment”? Would the economy still look so wonderful and resilient?

Chart #3 shows that virtually all the population growth ahead is in the cohort of older workers 65+ years old heading into retirement. So the workforce is rapidly aging and the unspoken / unexamined assumption is tens of millions of new workers will enter the workforce with the same skills, motivation, dedication and values as the tens of millions retiring.

But the demographics simply don’t support this breezy assumption.

Now glance at chart #4 which depicts the extraordinary rise in the number of workers who are now disabled. The causes of this are being debated (the pandemic obviously plays a role), but 2.5 million workers leaving the workforce in a few years is something that could be consequential if the trend continues. An assumption that this is a one-off is baseless until proven otherwise.

Once again, demographics, productivity and factors such as disability and burnout are not part of the unemployment, GDP and inflation measures currently being touted as proof of economic nirvana.

Item #1 of what’s not even measured is the crapification of goods and services. I addressed this in The “Crapification” of the U.S. Economy Is Now Complete (February 9, 2022) and Stainless Steal (February 26, 2023).

How do we measure the “inflation”–i.e. a loss of purchasing power–when appliances that lasted 20 years a generation ago now break down in 5 years? Where does that 75% decline in utility and durability show up in the official inflation data? How about the tools that once lasted a lifetime now breaking after a few years?

It’s been estimated that America’s food has lost 30% of its nutritive value in the past few decades. Protein per gram has dropped, trace nutrients have dropped, and so on. Rather than pursue sustainably nutrient-rich soil, Big Ag has maximized profits by dumping natural-gas-derived chemical fertilizers on depleted soil to boost production of nutrient-poor, tasteless “product.” A product deemed “organic” offers no guarantee that the soil isn’t depleted of nutrients.

Could this decline have anything to do with the American populace’s increasingly poor health? Nobody knows because these massive declines in quality and value aren’t measured and are certainly not part of the risibly bogus measures of unemployment, GDP and inflation.

The official inflation rate ignores the multi-decade decline in the purchasing power of wages. Rents have soared 25% in a few years, and economists are looking at 5% increases in wages and worrying about the potential inflationary impact of workers’ wages not keeping up with real-world inflation.

Cheerleading economists and pundits never mention the $50 trillion siphoned from labor by capital over the past 45 years. They also don’t mention the rising trend of loading more work on employees rather than hire more employees, or as a response to not being able to find qualified new hires.

Funny how rosy the picture can be tinted when all the consequential forces are ignored. But this studied ignorance characterizes the American elite, who delight in whining about airfares and travel delays, and finding someone to fix their pool pump. I address our Terminally Stratified Society here:

The Wealthy Are Not Like You and Me–Our Terminally Stratified Society (August 3, 2023)

This protected elite don’t have to put up with the crapified goods and services which generate their capital gains and income. Their wealth and income enable their detachment from the crapified economy the bottom 90% experience. Their experience of the bottom 90% is as service workers, delivery people, etc. who serve their entitled tastes.

Correspondent Tomasz G. provided a telling excerpt from Houellebecq’s The Possibility of an Island:

“… the rich certainly like the company of the rich, no doubt it calms them, it’s nice for them to meet beings subject to the same torments as they are, and who seem to form a relationship with them that is not totally about money; it’s nice for them to convince themselves that the human species is not uniquely made up of predators and parasites… “

As correspondent Ryan R. observed, America’s privileged elites“were born on third, stole home (via asset inflation) and still think they hit that home run.”

We know who the parasites are, but economists and pundits are safely blind to America’s neofeudal aristocracy. After all, who butters the bread of economists and pundits?

Is it unsurprising there are no measures of neofeudalism or elite privilege? As for the incredible concentration of wealth in the top tiers and the resulting decline in the bottom 90%’s share of the nation’s wealth–nothing to see here, just globalization and financialization doing their thing. What matters is booking my next flight to yet another conference of economists and pundits where we nod our heads and dare not admit all the conferences are nothing but echo chambers of the privileged elites.

Cheerleading economists and pundits completely ignore the consequences of the system being rigged to favor capital and the already-wealthy who were given the means to buy assets back when they were cheap and affordable to the middle-class. Now that the system generates speculative credit-asset bubbles to create “the wealth effect,” assets such as homes in desirable regions are out of reach of the bottom 90%.

Please study the six charts below of wealth inequality. Try not to laugh out loud when you see that the top 1% reckon that “coming from a wealthy family” has near-zero impact on “getting ahead in America.”

Also note the steady decline in the middle class percentage of national wealth, and how the middle class’s share only rises when the credit-asset bubbles that have enriched the top 10% deflate, a bubble-pop that never lasts longer than a few months thanks to the policies that favor the already-rich at the expense of those who don’t own stocks, rental properties, municipal bonds, etc.

Economists and pundits steer well clear of the eventual social and political consequences of America’s entrenched neofeudal wealth-income inequality. That this neofeudal configuration is inherently destabilizing–never mind, we don’t measure that, look at the wunnerful unemployment and inflation charts!

Lastly, consider the skyrocketing federal debt in terms of how many jobs are created in the era of soaring federal spending and debt. (Charts courtesy of CH / Economica) Debt doesn’t matter to economists and pundits, and neither does its diminishing effect on GDP and employment. The same can be said of total debt (public and private), which is skyrocketing (last chart): diminishing returns writ large as higher interest rates are embedded in the policy excesses and neofeudal structure of the past 45 years.

In essence, nothing that is consequential is properly quantified, so the pundit class keeps insisting everything is wunnerful and is mystified why people are so foolishly dissatisfied with our wunnerful economy. The reason why people are not buying the fantasyland story is they have to live and work in the crapified real economy, as serfs serving the economist-punditry-elite aristocracy.

If we want to avoid being led astray by misleading measures, we must seek enlightenment in what isn’t being measured or is cast aside as inconvenient to the “economy is wunnerful” party line.

The Only тАШNational DefenseтАЩ Needed in this Country, Is Defense Against the Real Enemy: The Ruling Class and the U.S. Government

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By Gary D. Barnett

Source: GaryDBarnett.com

тАЬI believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.тАЭ

H.L. Mencken

Throughout our history, and today, little, if any defense of this country or its people, has been necessary or warranted. The true enemy of the people of America is, and has always been, its own government. The real enemies are most all the politicians, regardless of party, the courts, the CIA, the NSA, the FBI, the IRS, the entire military industrial complex, and in general, the federal and state police forces. In other words, all the ruling class and it pawns in government, its enforcers, and all their institutions and bureaucracies, are the real threat to this populace and its natural freedoms. The ludicrous notion of national defense, and that government forces actually тАЬdefend the country,тАЭ is an outright lie; propagandized by the State and its mouthpieces in media, simply as a way to gain great power in order to own and control society.

Many will take offence to these statements, mostly due to the fact that since birth, they have been inundated and indoctrinated by false тАШauthorityтАЩ figures, to believe that they cannot survive and prosper without restrictive laws and rule, and worthless government schooling, all kept in check by severe coercive State prosecution. They are taught (schooled) to abandon their individuality in favor of the so-called тАШgreater goodтАЩ of a collective society, to depend on and trust others in power to protect and sustain them and their families throughout their lives. This breeds only ignorance and passivity in the face of State terror. Independence, a supposed hallmark of this nation-state and its residents, is literally vilified, and even prohibited in many instances, causing personal sovereignty to be discarded in the name of unified slavery.

We live in a country that has warred aggressively against fictitious enemies, meaning without cause or necessity, more than any other country on earth. It is stated, and supported, that the United States has been at war for at least 93% of its entire existence. I firmly believe this number to be much higher, and with proper consideration, it is likely closer to 100%. If one is to determine the actual damage done, the actual harm due to direct war, proxy war, what is insanely considered тАШcollateral damage,тАЩ what is the horrid long term cost to human life in the aftermath of this terror, the total number of causalities, including the dead, would be tens if not hundreds of millions of innocent people. But what is sold to the wrongly named тАШpublic, is that this country is and has been the savior of тАШdemocracy,тАЩ a completely evil and failed ideology, which is a gross lie beyond the imagination of any sane and thinking human being.

Yes, the truth hurts, but without acceptance of truth, what is left is a deceitful lie; a manufactured myth so atrocious as to have caused an entire nationтАЩs abhorrent and hostile policies to be supported by the masses to such an extent, as to have caused the most broad-based, aggressive, and egregious destruction of humanity in history. This should be the epitaph upon the death of this empire.

At this time in our lives, aggressive war by this government and all who support its heinous deeds, has graduated from its main objective of slaughtering innocent men, women, and children, in addition to the other devastation, in other countries most everywhere on earth, to include the entirety of this countryтАЩs population as well. The major war currently is against all of us who live and work in the U.S. by those who continue to claim to be our protectors. This contradiction is absurd, but is still little understood by the average American, as can be evidenced by the terroristic treatment inflicted, and with little if any resistance, on this society these past few years.

At a time when this country and the world are steeped in madness and hate, more and more atrocities continue to take place, with almost zero empathy evident by the political class. The last evil тАШruler,тАЩ just one among all, тАШchosenтАЩ by the тАШpeople,тАЩ was Biden, and this was his response to the StateтАЩs complicit murder of those in Lahaina just recently, after a very suspicious and devastating fire had destroyed an entire town and its residents. He had the audacity to offer these poor people who lost everything, including many family members, a one-time $700 payment per household. This was in the midst of giving over $200 million more to UkraineтАЩs political criminals recently, with plans to give many more billions; this after more than $113 billion has already been paid to enrich the newly rich politicians in Ukraine. (Apparently, blackmail garners payment more than actual need of Americans) This alone should be enough for everyone in this country to grasp how little this government cares about its own, and how worthless all in the governing system have become. To depend on, or trust this scum to defend you from harm, is asinine beyond explanation.

Who will defend you from harm? Who will defend you from foreign invasion, although that has never once happened in this countryтАЩs history, not even including the pre-planned setup called the Pearl Harbor attack? Who will defend you from hyper-inflation and the resulting extreme prices for goods? Who will defend you from mass censorship and constant surveillance? Who will defend you from food shortages, energy shutdowns, and extensive restrictions on all transactions and travel? Who will defend your children from the consuming perversion being forced on them at every opportunity with this governmentтАЩs blessing? Who will defend you from aggression and tyranny? Who will defend you from yourself?

It will never be the evil State that defends you, nor will it be its тАШnational defense systems,тАЩ its enforcers in the military and police, the politicians, the banking cartels, the large corporate monsters, or any government at any level. There is only one legitimate defense, and that is self-defense. Only you, each of you, has the ability and desire to defend himself. No other and no State entity can or will ever be your savior.  Until that is accepted, expect total serfdom to become your voluntarily accepted way of life.

Much more tyranny is coming. Lockdowns, fake тАШviruses,тАЩ bioweapons, threats and totalitarian measures based on bogus тАШclimate change, central bank digital currency, social credit restrictions, more inflation, destruction of money, health mandates, curfews, travel shutdowns, food shortages, transhuman promotion, among many other atrocities, including perpetual war.

National defense is an outright lie, and can never protect you, it can only harm you. There is but one enemy, and that enemy is the State! There is but one defense against this demon called government, and that is when individuals, or individuals working together en masse, abolish all rule. The responsibility for you is you, and any dependence on government whatsoever can only lead to despair, hopelessness, disaster, and enslavement. Defend yourself from this evil State, and break the chains that bind you.

тАЬEvery government is run by liars. Nothing they say should be believed.тАЭ

~ I.F. Stone

Reference links:

AmericaтАЩs perpetual wars of aggression

What the media wonтАЩt tell you about the Maui fires

Julian Rose: тАШHumanity in Hypnotic Thrall to a Techno-Industrial GodтАЩ

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By Julian Rose

Source: 21st Century Wire

So here we are. For yes, this is where we are тАУ if by тАШweтАЩ one understands the current materialistically imprisoned post industrial world тАУ driven on by the relentless force of globalisation.

Brussels, still a remarkably human city by todayтАЩs standards, has the misfortune of housing the European Union HQ, which is not a very human conglomerate. And what goes on in it is equally devoid of humanity. For it is about being тАШbig, central and dominatingтАЩ.

Big, central and dominating is the future of the planet if you subscribe to the techno-industrial mindтАЩs two dimensional determinism. In the soothing words of Klaus Schwab and Yuval Noah Harari, it is to be an Information Technology/Artificial Intelligence future, in which Schwab tells us тАЬwe will have nothing and will be happyтАЭ.

The mobile phone tower and mast which tops the temple of techno-industrial prowess, is an ugly, spindly piece of steel which is an expression of dominance in its own right. The vast global infrastructure formed by these Saturnian steel structures carry with them a penetrating EMF amplified soup of toxicity.

It is this тАШnetworkтАЩ which acts as the gateway to the virtual reality world of those who depend on it for their тАШsignalsтАЩ. Signals that have an abstracted kind of dominance and pronounced tendency to thin the blood and blur the brain.

The majority of messages that come through this gateway concern how to get on in тАШthe systemтАЩ.

How to get from A to B faster; news faster; financial reports faster; connections with family and friends faster; everything faster.

Being permanently plugged-in to this hyper electromagnetic crossroads of life is said to be the only way to тАШstay in touchтАЩ, to be a participant in the mental matrix; to be part of тАШthe programmeтАЩ.

But already twenty years ago I decided to cut my ties with this programme. Dispensing with the mobile phone turned out to be an act of liberation, soon to be followed by the ousting of the TV.

Big Brother was consigned to the back seat and I saw that a life that belonged to myself still existed, all be it with the proviso that one prioritised oneтАЩs values with a solid dose of determination to be true to that which is тАШrealтАЩ in life.

Perhaps this is why I can see so clearly how those who continue to participate in the тАШprogrammeтАЩ are running blindly towards an uncompromisingly sheer cliff-face, and how their voracious demands on the natural environment are increasingly undermining her natural resilience.

I can see something particularly shocking тАУ that this frenetic rush to the cliff face and the great consumption of finite resources it involves тАУ has no other purpose than playing-out a quasi demonic fascination with ever more refined toys of distraction. Distraction from the real pulse of life.

Yet this techno-industrial suicide machine is staffed by humans who appear not to recognise that their joint mission is programmed to end in collapse.

On the contrary, they seem to think that by increasing the efficiency and speed of the means of travel, it will somehow consummate its own need to arrive at where it is headed for. Where or what that is тАУ simply never gets asked.

However, the psychotic gods of insentient тАШprogressтАЩ who designed the programme have built into it a series of тАШeventsтАЩ which reach a certain conclusion in something they call the Transhuman. A robotic state of computer connected and controlled brain power for those able to pay for it.

To pay for the right to be dehumanised and rendered devoid of the need тАУ and indeed ability тАУ to think. Freed from emotion and freed from a soul based link to oneтАЩs Creator.

Stations on the way to this dark point of human annulment are laid-out under the WEF creed known as тАШThe Great ResetтАЩ. A тАШResetтАЩ from human to non human.

Here are some of stations along the Great Reset route to the Transhuman:

The cessation of food grown in soil and the manufacturing of synthetic food produced in laboratories (at least six of which are already in production).

The end of farming the land as we know it and the removal of redundant farmers and country dwellers into 5 and 6G controlled total surveillance тАШsmart citiesтАЩ.

Countryside and farm landscapes redesigned to accommodate тАШrewildingтАЩ projects and gated access to designated тАШleisure sitesтАЩ for those who can afford access.

The end of bank notes and coinage, replaced by a centrally controlled digital currency whose availability will depend upon oneтАЩs тАШsocial creditтАЩ a la China.

The confiscation of oneтАЩs assets and private property with the option to тАШrentтАЩ aspects of them back from the corporate state that is to become the new owner.

тАШSelf-autonomousтАЩ 5G guided transportation systems operating between major cities.

100% surveillance via satellite and тАШthe internet of everythingтАЩ and the profligate use of algorithms to pick-up any signs of resistance in communications.

The repression of true spirituality in favour of a тАШone world religionтАЩ.

Deliberate blurring of sexual delineation тАШman/womanтАЩ and the decline of normal sexual reproduction.

Sperm-counts further reduced due to de-vitaminised synthetic GMO foods, vaccinations and polluted air and water тАУ population control.

Enforced тАШ15 minute citiesтАЩ as centres of local authority control.

Designer gene-altered babies via laboratory cloning of DNA sequences and cell tissues.

The removal of certain words from the common language, particularly poetic and spiritual ones.

Real art reduced to pseudo art as an expression of the will of the state, including dark-side ritual.

тАШMedical healthтАЩ seen as the sole domain of Big Pharma with natural medicine outlawed.

Further media/government control over the passing of public information.

There is more, much more. But this is enough to show the basic composition of the stations on the way to тАШTranshumanismтАЩ. The arrival point of which is said to be circa 2035.

Behind this in-your-face destruction of hard won human liberties is a vast global propaganda/indoctrination exercise already in existence for more than two decades and built around the now infamous тАШZero carbon by 2045тАЩ or тАШNet ZeroтАЩ in news-speak (Orwell).

When challenged by those still able to question the need for these deadly impositions, the answer is always the same тАЬTo save the world from Global Warming.тАЭ

This piece of acute brainwashing, initially devised at the Club of Rome in 1972, is key to the whole тАШprogrammeтАЩ. As long as enough people buy into it for long enough, the slavery exercise will be irreversible. Based on the current rate of awakening, the discovery that anthropogenic Global Warming is a mega lie will likely be neutralised by the impositions already in place to prevent an uprising.

The techno-industrial god will then have served its purpose. Like the rocket booster that gets the capsule into orbit, it will have taken the majority of mankind over the brink into abject slavery to its hypnotic convenience culture, before imploding in on itself and taking much of humanity and natureтАЩs life sustaining diversity with it.

BUT, all this can be avoided. It doesnтАЩt have to happen. It wonтАЩt happen. Our lives do not depend upon adopting the smart technology of tomorrow, today. We wonтАЩt any longer be seduced by тАШconvenienceтАЩ once we recognise it is leading to our self destruction, will we?

We will retain sufficient will-power to get shot of this addiction to the IT/AI life inhibiting distractions that make up the mind controlled road to Armageddon.

The only way to recognise just how diabolical is the trap that has been set for us тАУ and that we have set for ourselves тАУ is to get a grip on our sense of deeper purpose in this life. To make an unbreakable commitment to listen and respond to the call of our souls. The true self. And then pull this true self out of any association with the metaverse mincing machine.

Let no one in possession of a soul ever allow himself/herself to become processed into a sub human product of the techno-industrial behemoth. Stick with whatтАЩs solid, whatтАЩs real тАУ and ditch the counterfeit virtual world that snares the unweary and turns once healthy minds into casualties of a blind rush to a dystopian digital nowhere land.

The Bizzarro Effect of Universal Insanity

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By Gary D. Barnett

Source: GaryDBarnett.com

тАЬWe do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe.тАЭ

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

How many times in our lives has it been said or thought that things could not get worse, weirder, more absurd, more dangerous, more immoral, more brutal, more controlling, more restrictive, more perverted, more murderous, or more insane? Can those thoughts even be considered in this day and age of complete and total lunacy? What has happened to mankind, and can it all be blamed on brainwashing and indoctrination by the ruling class over the rest of society? I firmly believe that the causes for the inconceivable problems we see today, go much deeper than just blame on invited masters, and begin at the core of the psyche of humanity. If this is so, the struggle for manтАЩs attempts to regain his sanity, morality, and freedom, are fully dependent on a large swath of society changing dramatically from one of total dependence and expectation of rule, to one of individual worth, and a mandatory acceptance of personal responsibility so overwhelming, as to lead to the total destruction of the State.

You might scoff at such a pronouncement as this, but at this stage of tyranny, indifference, and complete loss of integrity by the masses, nothing short of an absolute and unconditional reshaping of society will suffice in order to eliminate the threat of the extinction of humanity as we know it. We are teetering on the precipice of annihilation, and false hopes or prayers will never be enough to restore this so-called тАШcivilization.тАЩ Apathy is our enemy, and can only lead to an enslaved society at the hands of technocratic rulers.

Many might expect the State to implode given the pace of this takeover plot and reshaping of nation states, but what would take the place of the current systems should the weakest fall? Could that be the planned outcome, as with many failed State systems, a global restructuring by the strongest and most brutal countries, just as is the WEF plan indicates, would have a clear advantage in its new world order creation attempt? A transformation is necessary, but that transformation needs to be geared toward a Stateless structure created by individuals, instead of any new political governing scheme.

Real intelligence and critical thinking on this earth are missing in action, and what is disguised as intelligence is rarely ever anything other than State agenda-driven propaganda and lies. This is why what passes for тАШnewsтАЩ is so unbelievably inaccurate, entirely incorrect, and child-like in nature. That is all that is necessary these days to fool the bulk of society. In other words, thinking is no longer required, as the masses have been conditioned and brainwashed to accept almost any claptrap being spewed by the rulers, fake тАШscientists,тАЩ medical profession, politicians, government, and certainly the media circus made up of State sanctioning whores.

Any who still have the ability to think rationally and intelligently, go through each day in wonder at the wild, insane, and obscene things being reported to the mainstream population; that largest segment of society totally blinded by ignorance, apathy, and in many cases, stupidity. These attitudes make for easy fodder to feed the hopeless, gullible,  and compliant sheep, and are in turn, allowing this heinous State to continue its march toward a globalized world run by the very few.

The completely bogus idea of human-caused тАШglobal warmingтАЩ and fake тАШclimate change,тАЩ is now taking shape as the primary reasoning for control over everything and everybody  on earth by the technocrats. This тАШclimateтАЩ agenda will now be pursued until the end of life as we know it. It is not at the margin any longer, nor is it anymore hidden. Idiotic headlines concerning so-called weather terror, are expanding by the moment. Sensationalism can now be used universally, as one after another fake disaster looms according to these fraudulent so-called тАШscientistsтАЩ and imposters called тАШexperts.тАЩ

Everything is on the table as extreme warmongers like to claim, but since this war is against all of us, this term takes on a new meaning. Completely asinine headlines continue, as now new and improved fear porn coming from the talking heads of the idiotic and imbecilic mainstream media abound, going so far as to label their fake paranoid тАШglobal warmingтАЩ nonsense as тАЬglobal boiling.тАЩ

But there is so much more happening, as a myriad of false threats is ever upon us, or so the talking heads will claim. New plagues, diseases, тАШviruses,тАЩ killer ticks, (if existent, they were likely to have been purposely created by the military) war threats, and especially тАШclimate changeтАЩ absurdity. Climate and weather have become totally weaponized, and will be used to control life at most every level now and in the future.

Never forget the non-existent тАШcovid pandemicтАЩ lie. It will be revamped, whether as something the same or similar, or some new and approved killer on the loose; so scary as to drive everyone inside, supposedly away from the maddening crowd. Beware the тАШvirusтАЩ and emergency hype, as it will never end so long as the masses comply with rule, and obey as slaves.

Perusing just a few тАШnewsтАЩ feeds will inundate the mind with nonsense, but most see these claims as real or possible; all without any legitimate accompanying evidence. The insane Trump saga leads the way of course, as this stupidity is followed by both sides of the political scam, which helps to keep most of the country at each otherтАЩs throats. But there is so much more. The banking sector is bankrupt, and personal and business accounts of many are being closed. Pensions and retirement funds are also being threatened. Cyber attacks are affecting large swaths of this country, and air travel is becoming impossible to deal with at times. The trans scam is continuing and will likely escalate after government schools open up this fall. More UFO reporting is being pursued every week, stores are closing nationwide, inflation is rampant, and the Ukraine false-flag war continues.

Incandescent lightbulbs have been banned, gas stoves and water heaters are targeted as well. There are more bank failures, more trucking company failures, savings are depleted, setting the stage for the digitization of America. CBDC trial and implementation will continue, and widespread default fears are increasing. Interest rates are still rising, as the U.S. credit rating has been downgraded.

The destruction of our world is upon us, as the crumbling of all that is natural and sane is being allowed to take place right before our eyes. All the things mentioned here are not a complete list by any stretch of the imagination, as so many things are going awry in broad daylight, all with little notice by the sheeplike masses. Dependency and indifference are our mortal enemies, We are living in a madhouse; a world at great odds with all sanity, and one that has become indifferent and morally bankrupt. This is not the way forward, but the way to hell on earth.

Finding the individual inside, taking solace in self, and abandoning the State is a better way.

тАЬIn individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.тАЭ

~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Silencing Voices for┬аPeace

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By W.J. Astore

Source: Bracing Views

The U.S. Mainstream Media Is Almost Always Pro-War

In the тАЬliberalтАЭ New York Times today, I saw an article on тАЬPutinтАЩs forever warтАЭ that has the following short synopsis: тАЬVladimir Putin wants to lead Russians into a civilizational conflict with the West far larger than Ukraine. Will they follow him?тАЭ

Is this true?  Does Putin truly seek a тАЬcivilizational conflictтАЭ with the West?  One thatтАЩs тАЬfar largerтАЭ than the Ukraine war?  It doesnтАЩt seem likely.  Russian forces have struggled in Ukraine.  Already embroiled in a destructive regional war thatтАЩs become somewhat of a quagmire, why would Putin seek to widen it?  Is Putin always the aggressor, the bad guy, and the West always the aggrieved party, the good guys, holding back a тАЬred storm risingтАЭ?  I thought the West won the Cold War more than 30 years ago.

ItтАЩs remarkable how easy it is to get alarmist articles about Russia or China published in the U.S. mainstream media (MSM).  Wars and rumors of war dominate.  The West is always portrayed as the defender of democracy; other countries such as China and Russia are portrayed as threats to civilization and its тАЬrules-based order.тАЭ  Strictly speaking, this is simplistic, one-sided, propaganda.

Back in 2017, I wrote about how difficult it is in the MSM to read honest accounts of war.  In the runup to the Iraq War in 2003, critical voices were actively suppressed and punished.  Back then, I focused my article on MSNBC, which like the New York Times is allegedly тАЬliberal.тАЭ  At тАЬliberalтАЭ newspapers and networks, shouldnтАЩt America expect at least a few critical critiques of war narratives?  The answer here is тАЬno,тАЭ as I wrote here:

Jesse Ventura, former governor of Minnesota (1999-2003), was a hot media commodity as the Bush/Cheney administration was preparing for its invasion of Iraq in 2003. Ventura, a U.S. Navy veteran who gained notoriety as a professional wrestler before he entered politics, was both popular and outspoken. MSNBC won the bidding war for his services in 2003, signing him to a lucrative three-year contract to create his own show тАУ until, that is, the network learned he was against the Iraq war. VenturaтАЩs show quickly went away, even as the network paid him for three years to do nothing.

I heard this revealing story from a new podcast, the TARFU Report, hosted by Matt Taibbi and Alex Pareene. By his own account, Jesse Ventura was bought off by the network, which back then was owned by General Electric, a major defense contractor that was due to make billions of dollars off the war.

Of course, Ventura was hardly the only war critic to run afoul of GE/NBC. Phil Donahue, the famous talk show host, saw his highly rated show cancelled when he gave dissenters and anti-war voices a fair hearing. Ashleigh Banfield, a reporter who covered the Iraq war, gave a speech in late April 2003 that criticized the antiseptic coverage of the war (extracts to follow below). For her perceptiveness and her honesty, she was reassigned and marginalized, demoted and silenced.

So much for freedom of speech, as well as the press.

As Phil Donahue said, his show тАЬwasnтАЩt good for business.тАЭ NBC didnтАЩt want to lose ratings by being associated with тАЬunpatrioticтАЭ elements when the other networks were waving the flag in support of the Iraq war. In sidelining Ventura and Donahue, NBC acted to squelch any serious dissent from the push for war, and punished Ashleigh Banfield in the immediate aftermath of the war for her honesty in criticizing the coverage shown (and constructed) by the mainstream media, coverage that was facilitated by the U.S. military and rubber-stamped by corporate ownership.

Speaking of BanfieldтАЩs critique, here are some excerpts from her speech on Iraq war coverage in April 2003. Note that her critique remains telling for all U.S. media war coverage since then:

That said, what didnтАЩt you see [in U.S. media coverage of the Iraq war]? You didnтАЩt see where those bullets landed. You didnтАЩt see what happened when the mortar landed. A puff of smoke is not what a mortar looks like when it explodes, believe me. There are horrors that were completely left out of this war. So was this journalism or was this coverage? There is a grand difference between journalism and coverage, and getting access does not mean youтАЩre getting the story, it just means youтАЩre getting one more arm or leg of the story. And thatтАЩs what we got, and it was a glorious, wonderful picture that had a lot of people watching and a lot of advertisers excited about cable news. But it wasnтАЩt journalism, because IтАЩm not so sure that we in America are hesitant to do this again, to fight another war, because it looked like a glorious and courageous and so successful terrific endeavor, and we got rid of a horrible leader: We got rid of a dictator, we got rid of a monster, but we didnтАЩt see what it took to do that.

With admirable honesty, Banfield spoke of the horrific face of war at Kansas State Univ. in 2003. Soon after her speech, she was demoted (Image courtesy of KSU)

I canтАЩt tell you how bad the civilian casualties were. I saw a couple of pictures. I saw French television pictures, I saw a few things here and there, but to truly understand what war is all about youтАЩve got to be on both sidesтАж

Some of the soldiers, according to our embeds had never seen a dead body throughout the entire three-week campaign. It was like Game Boy. I think thatтАЩs amazing in two different ways. It makes you a far more successful warrior because you can just barrel right along but it takes away a lot of what war is all about, which is what I mentioned earlier. The TV technology took that away too. We couldnтАЩt see where the bullets landed. Nobody could see the horrors of this so that we seriously revisit the concept of warfare the next time we have to deal with it.

I think there were a lot of dissenting voices before this war about the horrors of war, but IтАЩm very concerned about this three-week TV show and how it may have changed peopleтАЩs opinions. It was very sanitized.

This TV show [Iraq invasion coverage] that we just gave you was extraordinarily entertaining, and I really hope that the legacy that it leaves behind is not one that shows war as glorious, because thereтАЩs nothing more dangerous than a democracy that thinks this is a glorious thing to do.

War is ugly and itтАЩs dangerous, and in this world the way we are discussed on the Arab street, it feeds and fuels their hatred and their desire to kill themselves to take out Americans. ItтАЩs a dangerous thing to propagateтАж

IтАЩm hoping that I will have a future in news in cable, but not the way some cable news operators wrap themselves in the American flag and patriotism and go after a certain target demographic, which is very lucrative. You can already see the effects, you can already see the big hires on other networks, right wing hires to chase after this effect, and you can already see that flag waving in the corners of those cable news stations where they have exciting American music to go along with their war coverage.

Nothing has changed since BanfieldтАЩs powerful critique. Indeed, the networks have only hired more retired generals and admirals to give тАЬunbiasedтАЭ coverage of AmericaтАЩs military actions. And reporters and тАЬjournalistsтАЭ like Brian Williams have learned too. Recall how Williams cheered the тАЬbeautifulтАЭ U.S. Tomahawk cruise missiles as they were launched against Syria earlier this year [2017].

ItтАЩs not just that U.S. media coverage actively suppresses dissent of AmericaтАЩs wars: it passively does so as well, which is arguably more insidious. Any young journalist with smarts recognizes the way to get ahead is to be a cheerleader for U.S. military action, a stenographer to the powerful. Being a critic leads to getting fired (like Donahue); demoted and exiled (like Banfield); and, in VenturaтАЩs case, if you canтАЩt be fired or demoted or otherwise punished, you can simply be denied air time.

When you consider that billions and billions of dollars are at stake, whether in weapons sales or in advertising revenue tied to ratings, none of this is that surprising. WhatтАЩs surprising is that so few Americans know about how pro-authority and uncritical U.S. media coverage of war and its makers is. If anything, the narrative is often that the U.S. media is too critical of the military to the detriment of the generals. Talk about false narratives and alternative facts!

AmericaтАЩs greed-wars persist for many reasons, but certainly a big one is the lack of critical voices in the mainstream media. TodayтАЩs journalists, thinking about their career prospects and their salaries (and who is ultimately their boss at corporate HQ), learn to censor themselves, assuming they have any radical thoughts to begin with. Some, like Brian Williams, even learn how to stop worrying and love the beautiful bombs.

[After I wrote this in 2017, I added this comment at the site.]

One thing that troubles me is the mindset that criticism of AmericaтАЩs wars undermines the troops. That it could even be a form of betrayal. This mindset is very dangerous. It not only protects the decisions and actions of those at the highest levels of the military and government. It acts to prolong wars and to endanger the lives of the troops (and of their тАЬenemiesтАЭ as well).

During the Iraq war, I recall instances of U.S. troops speaking clearly and frankly against the war. Their voices were heard, yet their advice was not taken. Instead, generals like David Petraeus were trotted out to assure the American people that the war was being won, even if the gains were characterized by weasel words like тАЬfragileтАЭ and тАЬreversible.тАЭ And so those gains have proved тАФ even so, Petraeus remains in demand, and is still trotted out, now in mufti, to explain how we must stay the course and continue to defer to the military.

ThereтАЩs a powerful book to be written here, and it should focus in part on the silencing or marginalization of anti-war voices (even those that wear or wore the uniform), even as pro-war elements are given the main stage as the voices of probity and sanity.

Technocensorship: The GovernmentтАЩs War on So-Called Dangerous Ideas

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By John & Nisha Whitehead

Source: The Rutherford Institute

тАЬThere is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches.тАЭтАФRay Bradbury

What we are witnessing is the modern-day equivalent of book burning which involves doing away with dangerous ideasтАФlegitimate or notтАФand the people who espouse them. Seventy years after Ray BradburyтАЩs novel┬аFahrenheit 451┬аdepicted a fictional world in which books are burned in order to suppress dissenting ideas, while televised entertainment is used to anesthetize the populace and render them easily pacified, distracted and controlled, we find ourselves navigating an eerily similar reality.

Welcome to the age of technocensorship.

On paperтАФunder the First Amendment, at leastтАФwe are technically free to speak.

In reality, however, we are now only as free to speak as a government officialтАФor corporate entities such as Facebook, Google or YouTubeтАФmay allow.

Case in point: internal documents released by the House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on Weaponization of the Federal Government confirmed what we have long suspected: that the government has been working in tandem with social media companies to censor speech.

By тАЬcensor,тАЭ weтАЩre referring to concerted efforts by the government to muzzle, silence and altogether eradicate any speech that runs afoul of the governmentтАЩs own approved narrative.

This is political correctness taken to its most chilling and oppressive extreme.

The revelations that Facebook worked in concert with the Biden administration to censor content related to COVID-19, including humorous jokes, credible information and so-called disinformation, followed on the heels of a ruling by a federal court in Louisiana that prohibits executive branch officials from communicating with social media companies about controversial content in their online forums.

Likening the governmentтАЩs heavy-handed attempts to pressure social media companies to suppress content critical of COVID vaccines or the election to тАЬan almost dystopian scenario,тАЭ Judge Terry Doughty warned that тАЬthe United States Government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian тАШMinistry of Truth.тАЩтАЭ

This is the very definition of technofascism.

Clothed in tyrannical self-righteousness, technofascism is powered by technological behemoths (both corporate and governmental) working in tandem to achieve a common goal.

The government is not protecting us from тАЬdangerousтАЭ disinformation campaigns. It is laying the groundwork to insulate us from тАЬdangerousтАЭ ideas that might cause us to think for ourselves and, in so doing, challenge the power eliteтАЩs stranglehold over our lives.

Thus far, the tech giants have been able to sidestep the First Amendment by virtue of their non-governmental status, but itтАЩs a dubious distinction at best when they are marching in lockstep with the governmentтАЩs dictates.

As Philip Hamburger and Jenin Younes write for The Wall Street Journal: тАЬThe First Amendment prohibits the government from тАШabridging the freedom of speech.тАЩ Supreme Court doctrine makes clear that government canтАЩt constitutionally evade the amendment by working through private companies.тАЭ

Nothing good can come from allowing the government to sidestep the Constitution.

The steady, pervasive censorship creep that is being inflicted on us by corporate tech giants with the blessing of the powers-that-be threatens to bring about a restructuring of reality straight out of OrwellтАЩs 1984, where the Ministry of Truth polices speech and ensures that facts conform to whatever version of reality the government propagandists embrace.

Orwell intended 1984 as a warning. Instead, it is being used as a dystopian instruction manual for socially engineering a populace that is compliant, conformist and obedient to Big Brother.

This is the slippery slope that leads to the end of free speech as we once knew it.

In a world increasingly automated and filtered through the lens of artificial intelligence, we are finding ourselves at the mercy of inflexible algorithms that dictate the boundaries of our liberties.

Once artificial intelligence becomes a fully integrated part of the government bureaucracy, there will be little recourse: we will all be subject to the intransigent judgments of techno-rulers.

This is how it starts.

First, the censors went after so-called extremists spouting so-called тАЬhate speech.тАЭ

Then they went after so-called extremists spouting so-called тАЬdisinformationтАЭ about stolen elections, the Holocaust, and Hunter Biden.

By the time so-called extremists found themselves in the crosshairs for spouting so-called тАЬmisinformationтАЭ about the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccines, the censors had developed a system and strategy for silencing the nonconformists.

Eventually, depending on how the government and its corporate allies define what constitutes тАЬextremism, тАЬwe the peopleтАЭ might all be considered guilty of some thought crime or other.

Whatever we tolerate nowтАФwhatever we turn a blind eye toтАФwhatever we rationalize when it is inflicted on others, whether in the name of securing racial justice or defending democracy or combatting fascism, will eventually come back to imprison us, one and all.

Watch and learn.

We should all be alarmed when any individual or groupтАФprominent or notтАФis censored, silenced and made to disappear from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram for voicing ideas that are deemed politically incorrect, hateful, dangerous or conspiratorial.

Given what we know about the governmentтАЩs tendency to define its own reality and attach its own labels to behavior and speech that challenges its authority, this should be cause for alarm across the entire political spectrum.

HereтАЩs the point: you donтАЩt have to like or agree with anyone who has been muzzled or made to disappear online because of their views, but to ignore the long-term ramifications of such censorship is dangerously na├пve, because whatever powers you allow the government and its corporate operatives to claim now will eventually be used against you by tyrants of your own making.

As Glenn Greenwald writes for The Intercept:

The glaring fallacy that always lies at the heart of pro-censorship sentiments is the gullible, delusional belief that censorship powers will be deployed only to suppress views one dislikes, but never oneтАЩs own viewsтАж Facebook is not some benevolent, kind, compassionate parent or a subversive, radical actor who is going to police our discourse in order to protect the weak and marginalized or serve as a noble check on mischief by the powerful. They are almost always going to do exactly the opposite: protect the powerful from those who seek to undermine elite institutions and reject their orthodoxies. Tech giants, like all corporations, are required by law to have one overriding objective: maximizing shareholder value. They are always going to use their power to appease those they perceive wield the greatest political and economic power.

Be warned: itтАЩs a slippery slope from censoring so-called illegitimate ideas to silencing truth.

Eventually, as George Orwell predicted, telling the truth will become a revolutionary act.

If the government can control speech, it can control thought and, in turn, it can control the minds of the citizenry.

ItтАЩs happening already.

With every passing day, weтАЩre being moved further down the road towards a totalitarian society characterized by government censorship, violence, corruption, hypocrisy and intolerance, all packaged for our supposed benefit in the Orwellian doublespeak of national security, tolerance and so-called тАЬgovernment speech.тАЭ

Little by little, Americans are being conditioned to accept routine incursions on their freedoms.

This is how oppression becomes systemic, what is referred to as creeping normality, or a death by a thousand cuts.

ItтАЩs a concept invoked by Pulitzer Prize-winning scientist Jared Diamond to describe how major changes, if implemented slowly in small stages over time, can be accepted as normal without the shock and resistance that might greet a sudden upheaval.

DiamondтАЩs concerns related to Easter IslandтАЩs now-vanished civilization and the societal decline and environmental degradation that contributed to it, but itтАЩs a powerful analogy for the steady erosion of our freedoms and decline of our country right under our noses.

As Diamond explains, тАЬIn just a few centuries, the people of Easter Island wiped out their forest, drove their plants and animals to extinction, and saw their complex society spiral into chaos and cannibalismтАж Why didnтАЩt they look around, realize what they were doing, and stop before it was too late? What were they thinking when they cut down the last palm tree?тАЭ

His answer: тАЬI suspect that the disaster happened not with a bang but with a whimper.тАЭ

Much like AmericaтАЩs own colonists, Easter IslandтАЩs early colonists discovered a new worldтАФтАЬa pristine paradiseтАЭтАФteeming with life. Yet almost 2000 years after its first settlers arrived, Easter Island was reduced to a barren graveyard by a populace so focused on their immediate needs that they failed to preserve paradise for future generations.

The same could be said of the America today: it, too, is being reduced to a barren graveyard by a populace so focused on their immediate needs that they are failing to preserve freedom for future generations.

In Easter IslandтАЩs case, as Diamond speculates:

The forestтАжvanished slowly, over decades. Perhaps war interrupted the moving teams; perhaps by the time the carvers had finished their work, the last rope snapped. In the meantime, any islander who tried to warn about the dangers of progressive deforestation would have been overridden by vested interests of carvers, bureaucrats, and chiefs, whose jobs depended on continued deforestationтАж The changes in forest cover from year to year would have been hard to detectтАж Only older people, recollecting their childhoods decades earlier, could have recognized a difference. Gradually trees became fewer, smaller, and less important. By the time the last fruit-bearing adult palm tree was cut, palms had long since ceased to be of economic significance. That left only smaller and smaller palm saplings to clear each year, along with other bushes and treelets. No one would have noticed the felling of the last small palm.тАЭ

Sound painfully familiar yet?

WeтАЩve already torn down the rich forest of liberties established by our founders. It has vanished slowly, over the decades. The erosion of our freedoms has happened so incrementally, no one seems to have noticed. Only the older generations, remembering what true freedom was like, recognize the difference. Gradually, the freedoms enjoyed by the citizenry have become fewer, smaller and less important. By the time the last freedom falls, no one will know the difference.

This is how tyranny rises and freedom falls: with a thousand cuts, each one justified or ignored or shrugged over as inconsequential enough by itself to bother, but they add up.

Each cut, each attempt to undermine our freedoms, each loss of some critical rightтАФto think freely, to assemble, to speak without fear of being shamed or censored, to raise our children as we see fit, to worship or not worship as our conscience dictates, to eat what we want and love who we want, to live as we wantтАФthey add up to an immeasurable failure on the part of each and every one of us to stop the descent down that slippery slope.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, we are on that downward slope now.

The Dynamics of War Insanity: NATOтАЩs Ukraine Roulette

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By Alfred de Zayas

Source: Information Clearing House

Deliberate provocations of a nuclear rival, coups dтАЩ├йtat, colour revolutions, broken promises, broken treaties, escalation of tensions, demonization, invective, double-standards тАФ all this while asserting adherence to international legal norms and playing innocent about our aggressions, our violations of the Hague and Geneva Conventions, of articles 1(2)[1], 2(3)[2], 2(4)[3] and 39[4] of the UN Charter.

Abrams tanks, Leopard tanks, F-16, indiscriminate weapons, depleted uranium, cluster bombs. Summits illustrate how the moral compass of the collective West is lost in the avalanche of fake news[5], fake history, fake law, bellicose rhetoric, media hyperbole, serial mobbing of dissenters, persecution of whistleblowers, censorship. The Western binary mindset continues to divide the world into good and bad countries, democracies and autocracies. There is little room to accommodate a comprehensive picture of the pre-history, root causes of conflicts, and nuances. One observes an almost total absence of a sense for proportions.

The Global Majority in Latin America, Africa and Asia is increasingly alarmed by the surrealistic spectacle of a collective West that seems out of control, developing its own lethal dynamic, displaying a paroxysm of Russophobia and Sinophobia, incitement to hatred, cancel culture, refusal to entertain serious dialogue, doubling-down on eschatological demands. Many non-Western thinkers and politicians are articulating justified warnings that the on-going intestinal conflicts in the West are adversely impacting the economies of third-world countries and may ultimately result in Apocalypse for the entire planet. The West is not playing the classical Russian roulette тАУ it has developed its own version: Ukrainian roulette, compulsive apocalyptic vabanque.

Meanwhile the Western media, notably Reuters, AP, CNN, Fox, New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, Le Monde, Figaro, FAZ, der Spiegel, even the Swiss NZZ ensure the daily indoctrination doses for the Western public, purveying skewed narratives that repeat and embellish what Washington and Brussels ordain, blithely ignoring other views and perspectives and the principle audiatur et altera pars. Freedom of the media in the collective West seems to mean the right to repeat NATO narratives ad nauseam, even when they have been proven wrong. This тАЬfreedomтАЭ also includes the freedom to ignore every critical voice about NATO and to refrain from asking critical questions at NATO press conferences.

Western media systematically fail to report on the fears of billions of human beings in the rest of the world, Brazilians, Mexicans, South Africans, Ugandans, Indians, Chinese, who want peace and stability in the world as well as a chance for sustainable development. Many in these countries blame not Russia but Washington and Brussels for provoking the Ukraine conflict. This Global majority is not interested in whether Crimea lies in Russia or Ukraine. They demand a peaceful solution to an internal Western strife, so that the spill-over does not dislocate the economies of non-Western countries. Peace must be sought and achieved at the negotiating table and not on the battlefield.

The power of propaganda

On the legal, moral and political arenas, truth is less important than the perception of truth. Since time immemorial language has shaped our perception of reality, coloured it according to the political agenda of the powerful. Propaganda was not invented in the 21st century. It has always existed and generated an opportunistic pseudo-reality, an epistemology that subverts our understanding of facts and events. Labels, caricatures, generalizations serve as shortcuts to judgment and influence our daily behaviour in making choices. We are not obliged to use these templates, but most people unthinkingly do so.

The narrative managers of the mainstream media are bent on persuading us into believing who is good and who is bad, what politicians we should like, whom we should despise, what тАЬmetaphysicтАЭ we should consider valid within the mainstream epistemology. Of course, we still have our own brains and can use them тАУ sapere aude! As Horatius used to say[6]. The sad thing is that even highly educated persons, graduates of Harvard, Oxford, Science-Po, continue to put their trust in media outlets that do not deserve our trust. As Julius Caesar put it: quae volumus, ea credimus libenter тАФ we believe what we want to believe[7]. Indeed, it takes temerity to realize that our own politicians and media lie to us, that they are purveyors of dis-information and practitioners of Orwellian doublethink.

The human being has an innate desire to believe in a positive metaphysic, wants to look up to some authority, needs to have benchmarks, orientation points. That is why we are all to some degree negationists, resilient to bad news. In spite of the egregious official dis-information that preceded Western aggressions in Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, we still want to believe that our governments are really champions of the rule of law and human rights, that they тАЬmean wellтАЭ, even if occasionally they inadvertently тАЬmake mistakes.тАЭ

Of course, it is painful to accept that some things that affect us are ugly, but the realization actually opens new vistas. If we reject blind faith in our leaders and practice a healthy scepticism, if we pro-actively look for other views and perspective, we grow up, become mature and experience a sense of liberation from illusions, acquiring a new purpose based on the facts as they stand, and not as we would like them to be.

The function of law

Law has an epistemological function in defining what is allowed and what is reprehensible. Law is not immutable or God-given, but constitutes a codification of the rules of the game at a particular moment in time and in a particular context. Law should not be confused with justice. Law is only the expression of a certain order of things, past and future generations and other civilizations may have entirely different legal orders and different ideas as to what justice entails.

Education teaches us to respect certain тАЬred linesтАЭ established by the scribes of our society тАУ the law makers in Parliaments, in the United Nations, in international conferences, such as those organized by the International Committee of the Red Cross, which have concretized the ius in bello, the laws of war. These codifications include the rejection of indiscriminate weapons such as land mines and cluster bombs. The international Convention banning Cluster Munition (123 signatories, 111 states parties)[8] of 3 December 2008 was signed by many states that now consider furnishing cluster bombs to Ukraine. Go figure!

Judges apply the laws that have been codified by institutions possessing law-making authority. This is what we like to call the тАЬrule of lawтАЭ, which must not be confused with the тАЬrule of justiceтАЭ. Moreover, the тАЬrule of lawтАЭ is systematically undermined when the legal profession engages in brazen double-standards and international tribunals like the International Criminal Court[9] practice selectivity, investigating only some crimes, while letting the crimes committed by Western countries go unpunished.

Criminal Organizations

Articles 9 and 10 of the London Agreement of 8 August 1945, the Statute of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, as well as the Nuremberg judgment of 1 October 1946[10] created a precedent for a previously uncodified crime тАУ membership in a тАЬcriminal organizationтАЭ. Several NAZI organizations including the SS, the Gestapo and the Reich Cabinet were found to be criminal organizations, a problematic concept that flies in the face of the legal principle of the presumption of innocence.

If we fast-forward to the 21st century and consider the activities of the CIA, MI6, Mossad, targeted assassinations, overt and covert actions in violation of the Hague and Geneva Conventions, what is the relevance of the Nuremberg precedent to these organizations and to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization itself. If we compile the evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by NATO forces over the past 30 years, this would largely suffice for the International Criminal Court to issue indictments for violations of article 7 (crimes against humanity) and 8 (war crimes) of the Statute of Rome.

Initially NATO had its raison dтАЩ├кtre under its 1949 Treaty. But the moment that the Warsaw Pact was dismantled in 1991 this justification fell away, and it gradually morphed into an imperialistic hegemonic military bloc, bent on imposing the Weltanschauung of the collective West on the rest of the world.

While Chapter VIII of the UN Charter recognizes the legitimacy of тАЬregional arrangementsтАЭ (articles 52-54) in the field of collective security, this requires that these regional arrangements be subordinated to the higher authority of the Security Council, which has a monopoly over the legal use of force. Since the 1990тАЩs NATO has conspired to usurp the functions of the Security Council and thus far gotten away with it, although the NATO treaty must yield to the primacy of the UN Charter, pursuant to article 103 of the Charter, the тАЬsupremacy clauseтАЭ. If States are dissatisfied with the current state of international law, it is for them to seek an amendment to the UN Charter pursuant to article 108.

Undoubtedly it was contrary to the UN Charter for NATO countries to use military force against Yugoslavia in 1999 in the absence of a Security Council resolution under Chapter VII and a finding under article 39 of the Charter that there had been a previous threat or breach of international peace and security and a failure of peaceful negotiations under the auspices of the United Nations. Without approval by the Security Council, NATOтАЩs actions in Yugoslavia and elsewhere were simply illegal and engaged State civil and penal responsibility, including the obligation to pay reparations to the victims of the aggression. NATO actions since the entry into force of the Statute of Rome in 2001 deserve to be investigated under the rubric тАЬcrime of aggressionтАЭ (article 5 off the Rome Statute) as complemented by the Kampala definition of aggression, and, of course under articles 7 and 8.

The end never justifies the means

The Florentine diplomat Nicolo Machiavelli never wrote the phrase тАЬthe end justifies the meansтАЭ in his famous book The Prince. However, the thrust of the entire book is precisely that. Throughout the ages wielders of power have always claimed that because their goals were supposedly noble, the means to achieve those ends should be allowed. The same idea is expressed in the common idiom that you cannot make an omelette without cracking some eggs. But this is a lame excuse. What must be understood is that the evil means contaminate the end and render it evil as well.

Politicians and media in the collective West try to justify the unjustifiable, including the delivery of indiscriminate weapons to Ukraine, covering up the US involvement in the blowing up of the Nordstream pipelines[11], the responsibility of Ukraine for the bombing of the Zaporozhe nuclear plant and the Kakhovka dam[12] and other dams[13]. Politicians and media systematically engage in apologetics about the war crimes committed by NATO forces. Beyond merely whitewashing the crimes, they engage in a form of totalitarian censorship and practice a vicious persecution of whistleblowers who tell us what crimes are being committed in our name. Indeed, secrecy is an enabler of crime. Few people know that the Holocaust, the greatest crime of the twentieth century, was largely perpetrated under the cover of secrecy, that HitlerтАЩs F├╝hrerbefehl Nr. 1 required absolute secrecy about government practices[14], that the killers of the Einzatzgruppen had to sign on pain of death that they would never reveal anything about the killings, why Heinrich Himmler reminded the killers in his 1943 Posen speech of the absolute necessity of secrecy. That is why there was the Nazi Operation 1005[15] to attempt to erase the evidence of the killings by the Einsatzgruppen, digging up mass graves and churning the skeletons, why most concentration camps in the East were evacuated and destroyed before their capture by the Soviet Army. Secrecy and denial were indispensable elements of the criminal conspiracy[16].

UN Rapporteur Nils MelzerтАЩs book The Trial of Julian Assange[17] documents the egregious violations of the rule of law in the US, UK, Sweden, Ecuador in connection with the Assange frame-up and тАЬprosecutionтАЭ. Indeed, Nils Melzer is the Emile Zola of the 21st century, demonstrating far worse judicial misconduct than Zola revealed in the 1890тАЩs in connection with the frame-up of Alfred Dreyfus by a French military court. The Assange scandal is much worse than the Dreyfus Affair[18], but the mainstream media today has totally failed in its watchdog duty and many journalists have even joined the wolves.

What future for NATO?

Professors like John Mearsheimer[19], Richard Falk[20], Jeffrey Sachs[21], Stephen Kinzer[22] and others have expressed their concern about the dangers that NATO poses for the survival of humanity, of the logic that it should be dismantled. The best that could be hoped for is that NATO be phased out and that the Global Majority will succeed in rejecting NATOтАЩs ambition to further expand not only in Europe but also in the Asia-Pacific region. Perhaps if the Global Majority exposes the multiple war crimes of NATO forces over the past 30 years and demands accountability from NATO countries, the perception of NATO as a тАЬdefence allianceтАЭ will be replaced by the label тАЬcriminal organizationтАЭ.

When the media indoctrination and propaganda about NATO is exposed as false, when the perception in Western countries moves from positive to negative, when people realize that NATO is a Machiavellian institution that has exhausted its usefulness, it will be possible to gradually wind it down.

Ultimately, NATO must be recognized not only as a criminal organization, a blustering vestige of a moribund Western imperialism, but as a mortal danger to the survival of civilization on Earth. NATO is on the wrong side of history.

==== 

1. Among the purposes of the UN тАЬTo develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peaceтАЭ тЖС

2. All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered. тЖС

3. All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations. тЖС

4. The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peaceтАж. тЖС

5. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-13/key-takeaways-from-nato-day-two-putin-zelenskyy-matter/102595358.

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/12/politics/biden-nato-summit/index.html.Compare https://www.normanfinkelstein.com/the-mask-is-off-why-ukraine-will-never-be-a-nato-member/ тЖС

6. Dare to think by yourself, dare to know! Horatius, First book of Letters (20 BC). Immanuel Kant also used the expression in his 1784 essay тАЬWhat is Enlightenment?тАЭ

7. De bello civile, 2, 27, 2 тЖС

8. https://www.clusterconvention.org/ тЖС

9. A. de Zayas, Chapter 4, The Human Rights History, Clarity Press, Atlanta 2023. тЖС

10. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/judgen.asp тЖС

11. https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream тЖС

12. https://abcnews.go.com/International/strategically-vital-nova-khakovka-dam-blown-border-ukraine/story?id=99863763

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-accuses-ukraine-destroying-kakhovka-dam-behest-west-2023-06-07  / тЖС

13. https://www.npr.org/2022/09/06/1121201310/ukraine-flooded-village-dam-blown-up  тЖС

14. https://www.tagesspiegel.de/kultur/staatsgeheimnis-1989490.html  тЖС

15. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/aktion-1005  тЖС

16. A de Zayas, V├╢lkermord als Staatsgeheimnis, Olzog Verlag, Munich 2011. тЖС

17. Verso Books, New York, 2022. тЖС

18. https://www.britannica.com/place/France/The-Dreyfus-Affair  тЖС

19. The Great Delusion, Yale University Press, 2018. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24483306
https://www.jstor.org/stable/24483306  тЖС

20. https://richardfalk.org/2022/03/31/make-peace-not-war-in-ukraine/  тЖС

21. https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/the-war-in-ukraine-was-provoked-and-why-that-matters-if-we-want-peace  тЖС

22. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/stephen-kinzer-on-the-uss-immoral-proxy-war-in-ukraine/id1525433436?i=1000605659299  тЖС 

тАЬBidenomicsтАЭ Is A Fraud Based On Deliberately Misrepresented Stats

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By Brandon Smith

Source: Alt-Market.us

Economic issues are some of the most politically abused issues often because the data politicians exploit is easy to present out of context. The vast majority of the public doesnтАЩt spend their time immersed in the intricacies of monetary policy, unemployment stats and the processes of inflation vs deflation. They hear a soundbite on the news or social media once in a while, assume it must be true and then go on with their day.

This is how economic crisis events always seem to take the population by surprise тАУ The establishment tells people all is well and no one questions the narrative in the face of numerous warning signs. Sometimes, the populace continues to believe that everything is fine despite the financial framework burning down around them, all because the тАЬexpertsтАЭ continue to convince them that recovery is тАЬright around the corner.тАЭ

There are numerous incentives for government officials and mainstream economists to mislead the citizenry with tales of imminent prosperity in the midst of instability. Primarily, the goal is to keep the middle-class population as docile as possible so that they donтАЩt revolt until itтАЩs too late (the middle class being predominantly conservative, and the greatest threat to any corrupt regime). Understand that economics is the root of power, and economic perception is the key to influencing the masses.

Hidden Indicators And Rampant Money Printing

The reality is that the US was hurtling towards stagflationary disaster ever since the crash of 2008, when Barack Obama and Joe Biden (with the help of the Federal Reserve) oversaw the near doubling of the national debt from $10 trillion to almost $20 trillion тАУ The most egregious abuse of monetary policy that the US had ever seen.

And, keep in mind this was only the officially reported cash. Because of pressure brought by people like Ron Paul in 2011, the government was forced to pursue a limited audit of the Federal Reserve bailouts at that time. This revealed at least $16 trillion created from nothing by the Fed to prop up the failing system.

In 2006, right before the derivatives collapse, the Federal Reserve conveniently and abruptly ended their M3 money supply report. They now only report the M2 money supply, which does not include the vast assets held in corporate coffers, large time deposits in banks, institutional money market funds, short-term repurchase agreements (repo), and larger liquid assets. It was as if they knew an inflationary event was about to take place and they needed to obscure the evidence.

In other words, in economics there is the тАЬofficial government dataтАЭ and then there is the REAL data, which is sometimes so hidden it is impossible to quantify.

Even if we only go by the M2 report, the money supply skyrocketed starting in 2020, and rose exponentially through 2021 and 2022 тАУ It jumped by 40% in only two years. This is why the cost of most necessities has risen 25% or more.

IтАЩm sure most readers have noticed that inflation is not going away despite Joe BidenтАЩs claims that he has тАЬcut inflation in halfтАЭ under his тАЬBidenomicsтАЭ plan. This is because inflation is cumulative. The CPI might fluctuate, but the effects of inflation remain as prices tend to increase and stay high perpetually.

There Is No Such Thing As тАЬBidenomicsтАЭ

The supposed financial progress that Biden is trying to take credit for has nothing to do with BidenтАЩs policies. Not a thing. Unless, of course, you count market manipulation as a positive.

For example, the reduction in CPI is directly related to the continuous interest rate hikes of the Federal Reserve, which Biden has zero control over. The Fed is autonomous and makes its decisions independent of the White House or government. This is a fact openly admitted by former chairman Alan Greenspan. When the fed raises rates, debt becomes more expensive, lending slows down and thus the economy slows down.

One of the only ways that Biden can influence CPI is through artificial deflation of energy prices. The Biden Administration has been dumping US strategic oil reserves on the market for the past year as a means to suppress oil prices, thereby directly and indirectly keeping the CPI numbers down. This is not progress, itтАЩs economic fraud.

The misuse of stats extends to other sectors, such as BidenтАЩs attempt to take credit for the recent reduction in the US deficit. Again, this has nothing to do with Biden; the FedтАЩs interest rate hikes make it more expensive for the government to take on debt, therefore, debt spending drops.

ItтАЩs also not a situation that signals a recovery in the economy тАУ The Fed continues to hike rates supposedly to stall inflation, but higher rates in a debt heavy environment lead to inevitable deflationary upheaval. As I predicted a year ago, the Fed is continuing to increase interest rates until this happens.

Employment Miracle Or Employment Scam?

This issue has been brought up by many analysts but IтАЩll touch on it again here because Biden is relentless in his falsehoods when it comes to employment data. FACT: 72% of all тАЬnew jobsтАЭ Biden takes credit for were originally lost during the pandemic lockdowns. The very lockdowns which Democrats avidly enforced and tried to keep in place perpetually. You canтАЩt take credit for тАЬcreatingтАЭ jobs that you are responsible for destroying.

In terms of higher labor demand, the pressure is in low wage service sector jobs and these are the majority of jobs added since Biden took office. And, this rush into retail/service was purchased with $8 trillion+ in covid stimulus cash along with a moratorium on rent and student loan payments. That much extra money in circulation buys at least a few years of consumer spending, propping up jobs numbers.

Throughout history, such gains from inflationary actions and government interventions are always short term, and they always end with a dramatic plunge in employment once the effects subside.

BidenтАЩs Fake Manufacturing Boom

Biden has recently touted a jump in US manufacturing as the latest achievement of Bidenomics, but like every other claim he makes, you have to look at the context. These are not free market manufacturing facilities built according to market demand. Rather, Biden is pumping billions of taxpayer dollars into green tech, once again artificially engineering a тАЬmanufacturing boomтАЭ through government subsidies for products that have limited demand.

Biden wants to rig the demand, too, by enforcing climate laws which make gas, oil and coal sources too expensive and solar panels and wind turbines cheaper by comparison. For example, Biden is increasing costs for oil and gas exploration on federal lands, while greatly lowering the prices for building solar farms on federal lands. In other words, the government uses your money to create factories for green tech and then creates laws which force people to use that green tech.

In the meantime, JoeтАЩs manufacturing тАЬboomтАЭ paid for with tax dollars also comes at the cost of AmericaтАЩs oil, gas and coal industries, not to mention less energy freedom for the general public. ItтАЩs socialism, not a revolution in domestic manufacturing.

For Biden, The Key Is To Create As Many Government Cash Injections As Possible Until 2025

You want to know why Democrats are so angry that the Supreme Court blocked BidenтАЩs plan to make taxpayers cover student loan debts? ItтАЩs not because they care about naive college kids who paid too much money for garbage degrees тАУ ItтАЩs because student debt relief would immediately add trillions more in spending in the short term to the US economy.

An interesting side effect of the college loan moratorium is the surprising credit boost тАУ As soon as college loan payments were put on hold, millions of former students had their credit ratings increase by default. Meaning, they could now hike their credit limits and spend MORE money they donтАЩt have. ItтАЩs an incredibly sneaky way to artificially prop up the system WITHOUT using direct stimulus measures that rely on the central bank. This false boost will disappear by October of this year.

BidenтАЩs constant attempts to introduce infrastructure programs are another way the government can create the illusion of recovery by using debt spending as a means to mitigate the signals of greater fiscal decline. Without Fed stimulus itтАЩs the only option Biden has, and as rates rise it becomes costly.

The bottom line is this тАУ The US economy is on a short timetable as long as the Fed continues to raise interest rates into weakness as a means to suppress inflation. As we witnessed in the spring, higher rates are already breaking the back of mid-tier banks across the western world and the FedтАЩs backstop funds are only enough to stall the debt crisis for a time. I continue to predict that once the Fed Funds Rate is raised to 6% or more, we will once again see a banking calamity similar to the 2008 crash, but this time if the Fed steps in with a bailout hyperinflation will be the immediate result.

Bidenomics is a sham in every respect. Anything that could be considered an economic improvement is due to the Federal Reserve playing the odds with interest rates. A massive 40% increase in the money supply sure helps in obscuring fiscal weakness as well. Luckily, nearly 60% of Americans in recent polls say they arenтАЩt buying the Bidenomics fairytale тАУ They see the dangers around them every day.

The covid event was a catalyst that revealed all the weaknesses of the US system that many of us in alternative economics have been warning about for years. And now it seems as if the establishment is trying to drag things along for just a little while longer. The reason why is up for speculation, but the fact remains that a broken structure cannot be propped up with stop gaps. IтАЩm doubtful that Biden will be able to ride the wave created by covid stimulus until the end of 2024. Something has to give.