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The Road to Totalitarianism (Revisited) – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on November 18, 2022

At this point, it isn’t the mask and “vaccination” mandates themselves that are important. They are simply the symbols and rituals of the new official ideology, an ideology that has divided societies into two irreconcilable categories of people: (1) those who are prepared to conform their beliefs to the official narrative of the day, no matter how blatantly ridiculous it is, and otherwise click heels and follow the orders of the global-capitalist ruling establishment, no matter how destructive and fascistic they may be; and (2) those who are not prepared to do that.

The global-capitalist ruling establishment couldn’t care less whether you are a “progressive,” or a “conservative,” or a “libertarian,” or an “anarchist,” or whatever you call yourself. What they care about is whether you’re a Normal or a Deviant.

CJ Hopkins

It feels like it’s finally over, doesn’t it, the whole “apocalyptic pandemic” thing? I mean, really, really over this time. Not like all those other times when you thought it was over, but it wasn’t over, and was like the end of those Alien movies, where it seems like Ripley has finally escaped, but the alien is hiding out in the shuttle, or the escape pod, or Ripley’s intestinal tract.

But this time doesn’t feel like that. This time it feels like it’s really, really over. Go out and take a look around. Hardly anyone is wearing masks anymore (except where masks are mandatory) or being coerced into submitting to “vaccinations” (except where “vaccination” is mandatory), and the hordes of hate-drunk New Normal fanatics who demanded that “the Unvaccinated” be segregated, censored, fired from their jobs, and otherwise demonized and persecuted, have all fallen silent (except for those who haven’t).

Everything is back to normal, right?

Wrong. Everything is not back to normal. Everything is absolutely New Normal. What is over is the “shock-and-awe” phase, which was never meant to go on forever. It was always only meant to get us here.

Where, you’re probably asking, is “here”? “Here” is a place where the new official ideology has been firmly established as our new “reality,” woven into the fabric of normal everyday life. No, not everywhere, just everywhere that matters. (Do you really think the global-capitalist ruling classes care what people in Lakeland, Florida, Elk River, Idaho, or some village in Sicily believe about “reality”?) Yes, most government restrictions have been lifted, mainly because they are no longer necessary, but in centers of power throughout the West, in political, corporate, and cultural spheres, in academia, the mainstream media, and so on, the New Normal has become “reality,” or, in other words, “just the way it is,” which is the ultimate goal of every ideology.

For example, I just happened upon this “important COVID-19 information,” which you need to be aware of (and strictly adhere to) if you want to attend a performance at this Off-Broadway theater in New York City, where “everything is back to normal.”

I could pull up countless further examples, but I don’t want to waste your time. At this point, it isn’t the mask and “vaccination” mandates themselves that are important. They are simply the symbols and rituals of the new official ideology, an ideology that has divided societies into two irreconcilable categories of people: (1) those who are prepared to conform their beliefs to the official narrative of the day, no matter how blatantly ridiculous it is, and otherwise click heels and follow the orders of the global-capitalist ruling establishment, no matter how destructive and fascistic they may be; and (2) those who are not prepared to do that.

Let’s go ahead and call them “Normals” and “Deviants.” I think you know which one you are.

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CNN Banned From Ukraine After Showing N@zi Salute

Posted by M. C. on November 18, 2022

See @ 4:00 for comments regarding US supported Nazi militias.

https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2022/11/16/cnn-banned-from-ukraine-after-showing-nzi-salute/

by Jimmy Dore Comedy

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US Empire Views Ukrainians And Russians As Lab Rats For Weapons Testing

Posted by M. C. on November 17, 2022

A former Lithuanian president is quoted as saying, “We’re learning in Ukraine how to fight, and we’re learning how to use our NATO equipment,” adding, “It is shameful for me because Ukrainians are paying with their lives for these exercises for us.”

I’m glad Eastern Europe can finally figure out how to use the $billions in (likely) US taxpayer supplied weapons. Lucky they weren’t attacked before now. They would have looked pretty stupid.

https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/us-empire-views-ukrainians-and-russians?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Caitlin Johnstone

A surprisingly frank article by The New York Times titled “Western Allies Look to Ukraine as a Testing Ground for Weapons” describes how the imperial war machine is capitalising on the US proxy war to test its weapons for future use.

“Ukraine has become a testing ground for state-of-the-art weapons and information systems, and new ways to use them, that Western political officials and military commanders predict could shape warfare for generations to come,” write’s NYT’s Lara Jakes.

Jakes writes that “new advances in technology and training in Ukraine are being closely monitored for the ways they are changing the face of the fight.” These new technological advancements include an information system known as Delta, as well as “remote-controlled boats, anti-drone weapons known as SkyWipers and an updated version of an air-defense system built in Germany that the German military itself has yet to use.”

A former Lithuanian president is quoted as saying, “We’re learning in Ukraine how to fight, and we’re learning how to use our NATO equipment,” adding, “It is shameful for me because Ukrainians are paying with their lives for these exercises for us.”

Yeah, no shit.

Ben Norton @BenjaminNorton

US government mouthpiece the New York Times admits that NATO imperialists are using Ukraine as a laboratory to test new weapons and technology. The military-industrial complex makes more and more money while Ukrainians and Russians die

New York Times World @nytimesworld

Ukraine has become a testing ground for state-of-the-art weapons and information systems that Western political officials and military commanders predict could shape warfare for generations to come https://t.co/ngB0gaVQ2H1:59 AM ∙ Nov 16, 20221,056Likes500Retweets

At some point The New York Times article was re-titled from “Western Allies Look to Ukraine as a Testing Ground for Weapons” to the slightly less obvious “For Western Weapons, the Ukraine War Is a Beta Test.”

News that the west is using Ukraine to test weapons systems for future wars aligns with recent comments by the commander of the US nuclear arsenal that the proxy war is a test run for a much bigger conflict that’s on its way.

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Doug Casey on How Inflation Destroys Civilization… and What You Can Do About It

Posted by M. C. on November 17, 2022

Doug Casey: I’ve always been a hard-money person, a gold bug. Gold is money in its most basic form. Only a fool trusts a government with money, especially when the writing on the wall is so clear.

https://internationalman.com/articles/doug-casey-on-how-inflation-destroys-civilization-and-what-you-can-do-about-it/

by Doug Casey

International Man: According to a recent Newsweek poll, 63% of Americans “strongly support” new government stimulus checks to combat inflation.

In other words, let’s fight the effects of money printing by doing even more money printing.

What’s your take on this?

Doug Casey: The nature of the US has been transformed. Americans have come to see the government as a cornucopia that can kiss everything and make it better—especially since the bailouts of the Biden Administration.

That attitude has become a cultural value and very hard to change. “Panem et circenses,” as the Romans said, has become necessary for both the government and its subjects. Remember that the prime directive of any entity—whether it’s an amoeba, an individual, a corporation, or a government—is to survive. The present government can’t survive without supporting more than half the population, which has become parasites. But the government itself is the biggest parasite of all. Can parasites live on each other forever? No. To use an overly fashionable word, it’s “unsustainable.”

Where will the US government get the money it needs to survive? It can no longer even remotely survive on its tax receipts; deficits of one to two trillion per year lie ahead for the indefinite future. It can no longer borrow adequate amounts from either American citizens or foreign governments—just rolling over the $32 trillion of existing debt, forget about trillions of new debt, at anything near current interest rates is hard enough. So there’s no alternative left for them but to print more money. And print they will (electronically, of course). The thousands of “economists” at the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department have no more of a grip on sound economics than government economists in Argentina or Zimbabwe.

Disaster is absolutely written into the government’s DNA at this point. There’s no realistic way out.

International Man: As many Americans are now realizing, inflation has a way of perpetuating itself. However, many countries have been down this path before.

For example, Argentina has infamously been trapped in a perpetual cycle of hyperinflation and socialism from which it cannot escape.

Is the US now entering that same inescapable cycle?

Doug Casey: Money printing makes you think that you’re getting something for nothing. It’s dishonest, criminal actually, and leads to a moral collapse. It causes a war of all against all, as everyone in the country attempts to get his share of government money—which is to say, stolen money—before the next guy. It’s hard to see how you break the cycle short of defaulting on the national debt, cutting government spending very radically, disengaging from foreign wars, eliminating regulations wholesale, and replacing paper with gold as the national currency, among other things.

If those things happened, the economy would boom after a short albeit extremely deep adjustment. But the chances of all that happening are about zero. What we’ll likely get is a long-lasting and dismal depression overlaid with a police state and general chaos.

The US became the world’s freest and most prosperous country because it was a middle-class society. Middle-class people tend to be conservative, self-sufficient, and family-oriented. They’re future-oriented workers and savers. The problem is that the US middle class is being squeezed, as Lenin predicted, between the millstones of taxation and inflation. They’re being wiped out.

What’s left are the upper and lower classes. Very wealthy politically-connected types live in enclaves far above the plebs, viewing themselves as masters of the universe. These wannabe globalists essentially despise American values and traditions. Meanwhile, the lower classes basically live hand to mouth, assisted by numerous types of welfare. They think they can vote for a living. For that reason, I expect a Guaranteed Annual Income to be a major theme in the ’24 elections. “Something for nothing” will become official policy.

International Man: Historically, the government has fought the effects of excessive money printing by raising interest rates.

Today, however, the government’s debt load is much higher than in the past.

If interest rates were to rise to the level needed to combat today’s rising prices, it could bankrupt the US government—and everyone else.

What is going on here?

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Did Twitter’s New Owner Elon Musk Just Prevent World War III? 

Posted by M. C. on November 17, 2022

Did Twitter’s New Owner Elon Musk Just Prevent World War III? 

https://www.dailywire.com/news/did-twitters-new-owner-elon-musk-just-prevent-world-war-iii

By  Candace Owens

DailyWire.com

All right, guys, question of the day today: Did Elon Musk just prevent World War III?

Yeah, he did. I’m going to explain to you how, but first I want to talk to you guys about Western propaganda.

This topic is something that fascinates me. Most people think propaganda doesn’t happen in Western countries. It should be so obvious by now that that is not the case. And that propaganda is a big reason why the Left feared Musk buying Twitter.

For example, on Tuesday, President Donald Trump announced he is running for president in 2024. We all knew it was coming and you could sense that it was coming imminently because the press sort of started this peer pressure campaign to divide the GOP: DeSantis or Trump? Pick a side!

And then in true Western propaganda form, they were in lockstep across the media just insulting him after his announcement.

The media instantly ran with all sorts of wild headlines. Here are just a few:

NPR: Donald Trump, who tried to overturn Biden’s legitimate election, launches 2024 bid

CNBC: Donald Trump, twice impeached and under FBI investigation, launches 2024 White House bid

NBC: Trump, whose lies about the 2020 election inspired an insurrection, announces third White House bid

OK, we get the narrative. You all think he’s an evil monster who won’t go away.

The media really seem to be saying they’re all making the same argument ‘because we are trying to uphold the truth — not because we all seem to be operating in lockstep.’

This brings me to the next person who I want to talk about who is engaged in propaganda and who the media loves to celebrate with the exact same tone: President Volodymyr Zelensky.

As I have said since the beginning of the war, he is a dirtbag. I can’t make myself any clearer on that.

Just when the media abandoned the COVID narrative and said ‘you all forget about the sloppy Afghanistan withdrawal,’ they told you that suddenly you needed to trade in your BLM flags for Ukrainian flags.

Zelensky became a hero overnight in the media. The media basically said, ‘You either get on team Zelensky, or we are going to smear you as a pro-Putin puppet.’

I didn’t take that bait because I don’t care what the legacy media thinks of me.

Why would I care?

He’s a fraud. He’s getting magazine spreads and Oscars from Sean Penn and meeting with celebrities while demanding more money and aid from the United States.

And now, in case you missed it, yesterday he recklessly claimed that Russian missiles hit Poland, killing two. He called on NATO to directly hop into the war and defend Poland — despite no proof Russia did it. In essence, it would have started World War III.

When I saw it, I said clearly this is a lie. The narrative defied common sense. Why would Russia attack NATO? They are losing the war. Unless you’re completely insane, it would make no sense for Russian President Vladimir Putin to attack the West — among other reasons.

But then something happened that proved me right.

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Journalistic Responsibility Vanishes When Reporting On US-Targeted Nations

Posted by M. C. on November 17, 2022

The only party still adamantly insisting that the strike did come from Russia is Ukraine, leading an exasperated diplomat from a NATO country to anonymously tell Financial Times: “This is getting ridiculous. The Ukrainians are destroying [our] confidence in them. Nobody is blaming Ukraine and they are openly lying. This is more destructive than the missile.”

Caitlin Johnstone

https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/journalistic-responsibility-vanishes?r=iw8dv&utm_medium=android

Two false news reports have gone viral in recent hours due to sloppy sourcing and journalistic malpractice. As usual they both featured bogus claims about US-targeted nations, in this case Russia and Iran.

An article in Responsible Statecraft titled “How a lightly-sourced AP story almost set off World War III” details how the propaganda multiplier news agency published a one-source, one-sentence report claiming that Russia had launched a deadly missile strike at NATO member Poland, despite evidence having already come to light by that point that the missile had probably come from Ukraine. This set off calls for the implementation of a NATO Article 5 response, meaning hot warfare between NATO and Russia in retaliation for a Russian attack on one of the alliance members. 

Mainstream news reports circulated the narrative that Poland had been struck by a “Russian-made” missile, which is at best a highly misleading framing of the fact that the inadvertent strike came from a Soviet-era surface-to-air missile system still used by Ukraine, a former Soviet state. Headlines from the largest and most influential US news outlets like The New York Times, CNN and NBC all repeated the misleading “Russian-made” framing, as did AP’s own correction to its false report that Poland was struck by Russia.

Connor Echols @connor_echols

A lot of people spent yesterday calling for war between the world’s two largest nuclear powers. I dug into how one poorly sourced story made that happen in my latest for @RStatecraft bit.lyHow a lightly-sourced AP story almost set off World War III – Responsible StatecraftA deadly explosion in Poland kicked off hours of near-gleeful speculation about whether NATO would join the fight against Russia.5:56 PM ∙ Nov 16, 2022120Likes58Retweets

All current evidence indicates that Poland was accidentally hit by one of those missiles while Ukraine was defending itself from Russian missile strikes. President Biden has said it’s “unlikely” that the missile which killed two Poles came from Russia, while Polish president Andrzej Duda and NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg both said it looks like it was an accidental strike from Ukrainian air defenses. Russia says its own missile strikes have been no closer than 35 km from the Polish border.

The only party still adamantly insisting that the strike did come from Russia is Ukraine, leading an exasperated diplomat from a NATO country to anonymously tell Financial Times: “This is getting ridiculous. The Ukrainians are destroying [our] confidence in them. Nobody is blaming Ukraine and they are openly lying. This is more destructive than the missile.”

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Did Ukraine Try To Lie Us Into WWIII?

Posted by M. C. on November 17, 2022

https://rumble.com/v1uy87k-did-ukraine-try-to-lie-us-into-wwiii.html

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The FBI and Zero-Click – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on November 17, 2022

Wyden’s healthy skepticism caused the FBI reluctantly to reveal that it had ordered its own version of Pegasus, called Phantom, which the Israelis tailor-made for hacking American mobile devices.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2022/11/andrew-p-napolitano/the-fbi-and-zero-click/

By Andrew P. Napolitano

During the Trump administration, the FBI paid $5 million to an Israeli software company for a license to use its “zero-click” surveillance software called Pegasus. Zero-click refers to software that can download the contents of a target’s computer or mobile device without the need for tricking the target into clicking on it. The FBI operated the software from a warehouse in New Jersey.

Before revealing any of this to the two congressional intelligence committees to which the FBI reports, it experimented with the software. The experiments apparently consisted of testing Pegasus by spying — illegally and unconstitutionally since no judicially issued search warrant had authorized the use of Pegasus — on unwitting Americans by downloading data from their devices.

When congressional investigators got wind of these experiments, the Senate Intelligence Committee summoned FBI Director Christopher Wray to testify in secret about the acquisition and use of Pegasus, and he did so in December 2021. He told the mostly pliant senators that the FBI only purchased Pegasus “to be able to figure out how bad guys could use it.” Is that even believable?

In follow-up testimony in March 2022, Wray elaborated that Pegasus was used “as part of our routine responsibilities to evaluate technologies that are out there, not just from a perspective of could they be used someday legally, but also, more important, what are the security concerns raised by those products.” More FBI gibberish.

Last week, dozens of internal FBI memos and court records told a different story — a story that has caused Sen. Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, to question the veracity of Wray’s testimony. Wyden’s healthy skepticism caused the FBI reluctantly to reveal that it had ordered its own version of Pegasus, called Phantom, which the Israelis tailor-made for hacking American mobile devices.

Here is the backstory.

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Which Way Will the Cat Jump?

Posted by M. C. on November 17, 2022

Defense One is a deplorable propaganda outlet for the U.S. military-industrial-security complex. Defense One promotes conflicts and see “threats” all over the planet for Uncle Sam to confront. 

http://www.patrickfoydossier.com/New-Entries/Entries/2022/11/which-way-will-the-cat-jump.html

Is politics nothing but the art of deliberately lying?—Voltaire

Dear Friends + Interlocutors,

The website Defense One sent a flash notification yesterday that a Russian projectile had landed in Poland. Defense One is a deplorable propaganda outlet for the U.S. military-industrial-security complex. Defense One promotes conflicts and see “threats” all over the planet for Uncle Sam to confront. 

Why? It’s good for business. That motivation seeps through everywhere, especially in the ads. One weapon system after another. So let’s go! Article 5 of the NATO treaty is in play! A NATO member has been attacked! Washington to the rescue! 

Well, no, wait just a moment. Defense One sounds a note of caution, all of a sudden, now that an actual member of NATO could be directly, not indirectly, mixed up in the contrived Ukraine conflict. For Washington, the implications are mind boggling.

Actually, under a strict interpretation of the rules of war, Russia would be justified in attacking Poland, not to mention the U.S., for supplying enormous quantities of arms and ammunition to the regime in Ukraine. This is the same corrupt regime, or iteration of it, that the 2014 Washington-instigated coup installed in Kiev.

This successful regime-change project was orchestrated by the Obama functionary and Dick Cheney protégé named Victoria “Fuck the EU” Nuland. Since then, NATO-supplied Kiev has relentlessly attacked Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine, that is, the Donbas, and to a lesser extent, Russian Crimea.

Finally, that bogeyman President Vladimir Putin decided he had had enough, and launched his “special military operation” in February 2022 to rescue the Russian population. Washington was quietly delighted. 

The White House and “the West”, as it is still graciously called, branded the operation “unprovoked and unjustified” among other things.

Putin naïvely hoped that “the West” would regard his then-limited intervention in Ukraine as an example of the UN “responsibility to protect” concept, famously touted by Obama adviser, NSC member, UN Ambassador and Harvard Professor, Samantha Power.

That hope was in vain. What is good for the goose is not good for the gander. From Putin’s perspective, RtoP the Russian population is precisely what he was doing, all doors to diplomacy (Minsk I and II) having been slammed shut by Washington. Biden and his inner circle know this and are responsible for it.

In any event, Defense One is back-peddling fast on Article 5. Perfectly understandable. Things are going swimmingly for the Neocons and Neoliberals in Washington. This war, this quagmire, on Russia’s border is a godsend for them.

Washington and its NATO chums get to supply Kiev with limitless amounts of arms and ordinance in their quest to destabilize Russia via open-ended war and economic sanctions, while concurrently they remain untouchable from retaliation. Article 5 might wreck that scenario.

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Watch “California Dreaming” on YouTube

Posted by M. C. on November 16, 2022

California is a nightmare.

https://youtu.be/IX4sqRH6Uoo

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