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The overthrow of Evo Morales and the first lithium war, by Thierry Meyssan

Posted by M. C. on March 17, 2021

It appears that the overthrow of President Morales was a commission from the Foreign Office and elements of the CIA that eluded the Trump administration. Its aim was to steal the country’s lithium, which the UK covets in the context of the energy transition.

https://www.voltairenet.org/article212423.html

The world was used to oil wars since the end of the 19th century. Now the wars over lithium, a mineral that is essential for mobile phones, but above all for electric cars, are beginning. Foreign Office documents obtained by a British historian and journalist show that the UK engineered the overthrow of Bolivian president Evo Morales to steal the country’s lithium reserves.

JPEG - 27.9 kbWhile you were watching him clown around, Boris Johnson oversaw the overthrow of President Morales in Bolivia, occupied the island of Socotra off the coast of Yemen, and organised Turkey’s victory over Armenia. You haven’t heard any discussion of this.

Remember the overthrow of Bolivian President Evo Morales in late 2019. At the time, the mainstream press claimed that he had turned his country into a dictatorship and had just been ousted by his people. The Organisation of American States (OAS) issued a report certifying that the elections had been rigged and that democracy was being restored.

However, President Morales, who feared he would end up like Chilean President Salvador Allende and had fled to Mexico, denounced a coup d’état organised to seize the country’s lithium reserves. But he failed to identify the principals and was met with nothing but sarcasm in the West. Only we revealed that the operation had been carried out by a community of Croatian Ustasha Catholics, present in the country in Santa Cruz since the end of the Second World War; a NATO stay-behind network [1].

A year later, President Morales’ party won new elections by a large majority [2]. There was no challenge and he was able to return triumphantly to his country [3]. His so-called dictatorship had never existed, while that of Jeanine Áñez had just been overthrown at the ballot box.

Historian Mark Curtis and journalist Matt Kennard had access to declassified Foreign Office documents which they studied. They published their findings on the Declassified UK website, based in South Africa since its military censorship in the UK [4].

Throughout his work, Mark Curtis has shown that UK policy was hardly changed by decolonisation. We have cited his work in dozens of articles on Voltaire Network.

It appears that the overthrow of President Morales was a commission from the Foreign Office and elements of the CIA that eluded the Trump administration. Its aim was to steal the country’s lithium, which the UK covets in the context of the energy transition.

The Obama administration had already attempted a coup d’état in 2009, which was repressed by President Morales and led to the expulsion of several US diplomats and officials. In contrast, the Trump administration apparently gave the neoconservatives a free hand in Latin America, but systematically prevented them from carrying out their plans.

Lithium is a component of batteries. It is found mainly in the brines of high-altitude salt deserts in the mountains of Chile, Argentina and especially Bolivia (“the lithium triangle”), and even in Tibet, the “salars”. But also in solid form in certain minerals extracted from mines, particularly in Australia. It is essential for the transition from petrol cars to electric vehicles. It has therefore become a more important issue than oil in the context of the Paris Agreements supposed to combat global warming.

In February 2019, President Evo Morales gave permission to a Chinese company, TBEA Group, to exploit his country’s main lithium reserves. The UK therefore devised a plan to steal it.

Evo Morales, an Aymara Indian, became president of Bolivia in 2006. He represented the producers of coca; a local plant essential to life at high altitude, but also a powerful drug banned worldwide by the US virtue leagues. His election and governance marked the return of the Indians to power who had been excluded since Spanish colonisation.

- As early as 2017-18, the UK sent experts to Bolivia’s national company, Yacimientos de Litio Bolivianos (YLB), to assess the conditions for Bolivian lithium mining.
- In 2019-20, London funded a study to “optimise the exploration and production of Bolivian lithium using British technology”.
- In April 2019, the UK Embassy in Buenos Aires organised a seminar with representatives from Argentina, Chile and Bolivia mining companies and governments, to present the benefits of using the London Metal Exchange. The Morales administration was represented by one of its ministers.
- Immediately after the coup, the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) was found to be financing the British projects.
- The Foreign Office had commissioned – long before the coup – an Oxford company, Satellite Applications Catapult, to map lithium reserves. It was not paid by the IADB until after the overthrow of President Morales.
- A few months later, the UK embassy in La Paz organised a seminar for 300 stakeholders with the help of Watchman UK. This company specialises in how to involve people in projects that violate their interests, in order to prevent them from revolting.

Before and after the coup, the British embassy in Bolivia neglected the capital La Paz and focused on the Santa Cruz region, where the Ustasha Croats had legally taken power. There, it multiplied cultural and commercial events.

To neutralise the Bolivian banks, the British embassy in La Paz organised a seminar on computer security eight months before the coup. The diplomats introduced DarkTrace (a company set up by the British internal security services), explaining that only banks that used DarkTrace for their security would be able to work with the City.

According to Mark Curtis and Matthew Kennard, the US did not participate in the plot as such, but officials left the CIA to prepare it. DarkTrace, for example, recruited Marcus Fowler, a CIA cyber operations specialist, and especially Alan Wade, the agency’s former head of intelligence. Most of the operation’s personnel were British, including the heads of Watchman UK, Christopher Goodwin-Hudson (a former career military officer, then director of security at Goldman-Sachs) and Gabriel Carter (a member of the very private Special Forces Club in Knightsbridge who had distinguished himself in Afghanistan).

The historian and the journalist also state that the British embassy provided the Organisation of American States with the data it used to ’prove’ that the election had been rigged; a report that was later refuted by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) [5] before being refuted by the Bolivians themselves during the following elections.

The current situation proves Mark Curtis’s work as a historian right. For example, in the three years since the coup in Bolivia (2019), we have shown London’s role in the Yemen war (2020) [6] and the Nagorno-Karabakh war (2020) [7].

The UK conducts short wars and covert operations, if possible without the media picking up on its actions. It controls the perception of its presence through a multitude of news agencies and media outlets that it secretly subsidises. It creates unmanageable living conditions for those on whom it imposes them. It uses them to exploit the country to its advantage. Moreover, it can keep this situation going for as long as possible in the certainty that its victims will still appeal to it, it only being capable of calming the conflict it has created itself.

Thierry Meyssan

Translation
Roger Lagassé

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What Pence Should Have Done on January 6 – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on March 17, 2021

The “state” in action. More Pennsylvania groundbreaking.

I doubt Pence wanted Trump to win.

For example, when the jurists on Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court took it upon themselves to change PA’s election laws, they violated the Elections Clause , which stipulates that in the states, only legislatures are empowered to make election laws. Yet, those jurists aren’t being made to account for their unlawful usurpations, even though they struck at the very heart of the American system — our elections, which give us our democracy.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2021/03/no_author/what-pence-should-have-done-on-january-6/

By Jon N. Hall

Some 2020 changes to election law in the battleground states were prima facie violations of the Constitution. For example, when the jurists on Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court took it upon themselves to change PA’s election laws, they violated the Elections Clause , which stipulates that in the states, only legislatures are empowered to make election laws. Yet, those jurists aren’t being made to account for their unlawful usurpations, even though they struck at the very heart of the American system — our elections, which give us our democracy.

It’s heartening to know that members of PA’s legislature can occasionally summon up the will and grit to impeach jurists, but they don’t seem to have done so in these recent cases (see this and this). But the PA legislature is also guilty. Like their Supreme Court, the PA legislature has also violated the law by the way they changed their election laws, as did other battleground states.

It’s necessary to stress that many of the actions taken by public officials in the 2020 presidential elections ran afoul of the law. It’s irrelevant that the infractions were committed in full view of the public and by groups, such as legislatures and courts; they were still breaches of the law. It’s much more egregious when public officials break the law than when individuals do, as the People have put their trust in public officials and have given them extraordinary power.

The 2020 presidential election is one of failure. The safeguards meant to ensure the integrity of our elections broke down on every level of government, local, state, and federal, and involved every branch of government, legislative, executive, and judicial. The issue here is not only that the changes to election law to counter the Wuhan virus opened the gates to even more election fraud; it’s that the changes violated the law.

One would be hard pressed to assess which of the many government failures in the 2020 presidential election was most damaging to the republic. But in the end, the massive government failures and lawlessness of 2020 could be fixed only by a lone individual and only on the final day of the election. On Jan. 6 at the joint session of Congress that counts the votes of the Electoral College, Mike Pence as President of the Senate could have put a patina of legitimacy on an election shot through with illegitimacy and fraud. But how could he have done that?

Some argue that a V.P. cannot unilaterally and summarily reject disputed states’ electoral votes. In “All Pence Can Do Is Count,” a Jan. 3 commentary in The Wall Street Journal, Alan Charles Raul and Richard Bernstein wrote: “Neither the vice president nor Congress has the power to reject electoral votes.” These analysts were saying that the joint session of Congress to count the Electoral College votes is just a formality, and the only action that can be taken in the session is to simply “rubberstamp” the states’ electors. If members feel certain that election laws were unconstitutionally changed or that election fraud was determinative in certain states, that’s a pity, for they are compelled to “ratify” those tainted ballots.

In “Alexander Macris on the 2020 Battleground States” at LewRockwell, this writer showed why the above position is wrong. The article contends that the V.P. does have the power to reject disputed states’ electoral certificates. If the reasoning is correct, then some might say that the Constitution has a hole in it that needs to be filled. In fact, the article cites a 19th Century senator of that opinion. But perhaps the “hole” was deliberate; perhaps the drafters of the 12th Amendment foresaw unconstitutional “elections” and created an escape hatch for some future V.P. to save the republic.

This escape hatch, however, involves defying the Constitution. Democrats would surely raise holy hell about Pence rejecting disputed states’ certificates, and moan about traducing the supreme law of the land. But why should Pence have obeyed the Constitution when so many other public officials hadn’t? Also, what would have happened to Pence had he rejected tainted certificates? President Trump wasn’t about to sic federal marshals on him. Maybe Chuck and Nancy would have gotten apoplectic, but so what.

If a V.P. were to “go rogue” and reject tainted certificates from “rogue states,” with the disputed battleground states’ votes not being counted and with only the states whose certificates had been accepted determining the winner, the nation’s domestic tranquility, such as it is, might end, at least in Blue States and Democrat cities.

With only two weeks from Jan. 6 to Inauguration Day, there wouldn’t be enough time to conduct do-over elections in the disputed states, as the Texas case had urged in December. But because the illegalities in those states were just the most obvious problems, what Mike Pence should have done is to reject the certificates of all the states. And he should have executed the rejection with panache, by ceremoniously tearing up the certificates from the great states of Georgia and Pennsylvania, much like Nancy Pelosi tore up her copy of Pres. Trump’s last State of the Union speech. Pence should then have fed all the remaining certificates into a paper shredder, an appropriate end to an election irremediably corrupt.

Had Pence rejected all certificates, we’d have had a tie which would have thrown the presidential election into the House of Representatives. And that’s where the 2020 presidential election with all its irregularities and improbabilities belonged. The voters of Pennsylvania, Georgia, and all the other rogue states would still be able to weigh in, but with their U.S. representatives rather than electors.

Had Pence rejected all certificates, singlehandedly throwing the election into the House, it would have been a fitting rebuke of the government failure that made the 2020 elections a mockery of democracy. Mike Pence was a great V.P.; this kid still admires him. And it’s not “fair” that one man be made to correct all the failures of everyone else. But in not taking the bold unprecedented action that was clearly called for, Mike also failed. And that’s a tragedy, because such an act might have at long last provided the impetus for real systemic reform in American election law. Instead, with H.R.1 – For the People Act of 2021, the most hideous horrendous anti-democratic legislation in over 150 years, Democrats seek to codify the battleground state outrages and impose them on the entire nation. It’s as though the Dems were trying to foment another civil war.

There are many authors of the failure that has given us the most un-American government we’ve ever experienced. But perhaps the biggest failure of the 2020 election is that the People of this great nation continue to tolerate the failures of their government.

Jon N. Hall of ULTRACON OPINION is a programmer from Kansas City.

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The Beauty and Freedom That Is Anarchy – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on March 17, 2021

It seems that the modern understanding of the terms “anarchy “ and “state” have been intentionally twisted around so as to be opposite of reality. In essence, the state reeks of lawlessness, chaos, and disorder, while anarchy is steeped in the concepts of freedom and liberty. This could never be more obvious than it is today.

Government is never legitimate; it is always an exercise of force, it is always corrupt, it is always a murderer, it is always a thief, and it is always evil. It can only exist if the majority of people allow it to exist, and in the process give it a false legitimacy so that its stolen power over society can be protected and retained. Anarchy is still a governing system of sorts; it just relies on self-government instead of a state prison system perpetuated by force and dehumanization of all individual thought and action in order to rule.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2021/03/gary-d-barnett/the-beauty-and-freedom-that-is-anarchy/

By Gary D. Barnett

Will Durant once said: “As soon as liberty is complete it dies in anarchy.”  This statement is incorrect in my view; as it relies on the false assumption that anarchy means chaos. It does not. I say that once anarchy is complete, freedom lives in the individual, and therefore it lives in society. True anarchy is liberty.

From the Greek root anarkhos comes anarchy, and it simply means “without a ruler.” Those that control and worship the state have not only bastardized the honest meaning of the word, but that meaning has been literally eliminated in favor of what I describe as progressive language manipulation, which is simply a devious way to achieve control over others through confusion and deceit.

So anarchy is “society without a state,” as Murray Rothbard so clearly stated in a talk he delivered long ago. Properly accepting this true meaning of anarchy means that it is necessary to define the ‘State.’ Again, the eloquent and brilliant Rothbard defined the state as “that institution which possesses one or both (almost always both) of the following properties: (1) it acquires its income by the physical coercion known as “taxation”; and (2) it asserts and usually obtains a coerced monopoly of the provision of defense service (police and courts) over a given territorial area.  Once again, the great Rothbard is a gentleman, but what this means to me is that the state is full of liars, thieves, and murderers; all with the desire to rule over and control all of society.

It seems that the modern understanding of the terms “anarchy “ and “state” have been intentionally twisted around so as to be opposite of reality. In essence, the state reeks of lawlessness, chaos, and disorder, while anarchy is steeped in the concepts of freedom and liberty. This could never be more obvious than it is today. In our obnoxious postmodern world, the masses have been trained to think and act due to conceived perceptions instead of reality.  Therefore, state claimed truths are lies, and state claimed lies are truth. It does appear that all has been reversed in order to fool those are easily fooled.

As Orwell put it by the use of a slogan attributed to the English Socialist Party of Oceana in his Novel “1984”: “War is peace; Freedom is slavery, Ignorance is strength.” The new United States of “doublethink” has arrived, and has been fully embraced, and is being acted out by the people as ordered.

Considering our current state of affairs, and the asinine absurdity of compliance to idiotic and draconian ‘Covid’ mandates issued by state goons, any alien landing on this planet today could only describe the scene as one where the most cowardly, submissive, and pathetic species on earth were the masses of common human beings. Most would be wearing masks, walking around like zombies, staying at distance from one another, locking themselves in home prisons on orders, shaming any that refuse to submit, seeking permission slips to live normally, abandoning their families and friends, injecting toxic mind-controlling poison into their bodies on demand, and watching as state criminals destroy their property, their livelihoods, and their very way of life. They would watch as the state enforcers harassed, beat, and jailed those that resisted while the majority stood by and watched and did nothing to stop it. This is not science fiction, it is not a movie; it is reality in America.

In order for freedom to ever exist, it must come to pass and be fully understood by the people that ‘legal’ force is always and forever the enemy of liberty.  So long as the public lives and exists under the presumption that the force of government is necessary in order for society to function, then freedom can never be achieved, and slavery will be the only result. All advocates of government (the state) expect and accept the initiated force of government, whether it comes in the forms of theft by taxation, the only solution to disputes, social or otherwise, through government courts, the enforced management of all health and medicine, forced control of all ‘education,’ restrictive laws and licensing in order to function, waging aggressive war with standing armies at the expense of American lives and money, and the heavily enforced control of all commerce. In essence, what the people are really accepting is a total monopoly of force by the government that claims to be the people’s ‘representatives.’ That is and has always been a lie.

All indications are that the state and its governing bodies are nothing more than an organized crime syndicate. It is even worse than this description, because organized crime (Mafia) works within its own area and networks, and of course uses and pays off politicians in order to stay in business, but it does not wage world war, and does not seek to gain control of all humanity and the entire planet. The state and government on the other hand, are certainly organized criminal organizations, but they want to gain control of everything and everybody. The state desires to control all money, all commerce, all property, all markets, all military, all theft, all health choices, all employment, all everything.

Government is never legitimate; it is always an exercise of force, it is always corrupt, it is always a murderer, it is always a thief, and it is always evil. It can only exist if the majority of people allow it to exist, and in the process give it a false legitimacy so that its stolen power over society can be protected and retained. Anarchy is still a governing system of sorts; it just relies on self-government instead of a state prison system perpetuated by force and dehumanization of all individual thought and action in order to rule.

In any anarchist society, all power rests in the sovereign individual, and only so long as the non-aggression principle is followed. Each individual in a truly free society such as anarchy provides, can live and pursue their dreams and interests, and can choose the path that is unique to them and their family. This will allow the opportunity to live in harmony with others in a world where cooperation, passion, and love can prosper.

The beauty and freedom that is anarchy is the better way forward.

“The State is, and always has been, the great single enemy of the human race, its liberty, happiness, and progress.”

~ Murray Rothbard

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How manufactured outrage is robbing you – The Exit Network

Posted by M. C. on March 17, 2021

The Conflict Machine is ruining our shopping habits and tearing the social fabric

https://theexitnetwork.substack.com/p/how-manufactured-outrage-is-robbing

The Exit Network

Professional observers and reporters are pointing out the social dangers of the Conflict Machine (our escalating political war). Here are two new pieces on the subject.

Mendacious philistines won’t drag me into social media wars

“What the hell am I doing with my life?” wonders Matthew Walther, in The Week.

In observation of the social media aspect of the Conflict Machine, he writes…

Escape the outrage.

In all of these and goodness knows how many other cases… what was being elicited was an intense fury that, upon a moment’s reflection, I realized I did not actually feel. This is not because I do not care about truth or justice or any of the rather grand-sounding words trotted out by online philosophes whenever we do these things, but because even when I squint and see how they enter at least proximately into the incident, it is not clear to me what my being outraged would accomplish. If anything, one suspects that by expressing my own anger, I would be giving tacit assent to the modish outrage that seems to be the only means by which we have public conversations in this country.

Walther is not without remedies

He notes that many in these online wars are arguing for way too many things simply because their team does so, and not because they themselves appreciate it. Maybe you should only speak up for things you really understand and truly care about.

Walther also suggests that not everyone online is arguing in good faith. This led to our favorite line in the piece, “attempt[ing] meaningful adult conversation, which is a bit like trying to convince someone making fart noises that your preferred translation of an 11th-century Japanese court romance is worth reading.”

The Conflict Machine is ruining our shopping habits and tearing the social fabric

J.D. Tuccille, contributing to Reason.com, writes, “Is there anything that politics can’t ruin? The answer, it appears, is a resounding ‘no’ as partisan conflict creeps into all areas of American life. Our political affiliations, researchers say, obstruct friendships, influence our purchases, affect the positions we take on seemingly apolitical matters, and limit our job choices. As a result, many people are poorer, lonelier, and less healthy than they would otherwise be.”

Tuccille cites a 2020 survey indicating “83% of Millennials find it important for the companies they buy from to align with their values” and another 59% of American consumers “will buy or boycott a brand solely because of its position on a social or political issue.”

This means it’s less about price, utility, and even rational reason that’s guiding consumer decisions. More and more Americans are sacrificing those values to go along with their political echo chambers.

But the damage goes beyond the question of consumers making wise decisions.

Dave Sprott, the author of a journal article that inspired Tuccille’s piece, writes, “Ultimately, polarization harms mental and physical health, financial welfare, relationships and societal interests through its impact on psychology, marketing and public policy outcomes.”

Exit the Machine

The Conflict Machine is a more descriptive label for our politics. The stakes are high. Americans believe they have the ability to coerce others, to force them to live by their values, or pay for stuff they want.

Somebody has to lose those fights. Certainly, we don’t want to end up on the losing side. Therefore, we fight. And the stakes are getting even higher.

Politics ruins everything. But there is an alternative path out of this exhausting conflict. We can lay down our weapons and instead practice…

Human Respect.

Human Respect is based on a principle. Happiness and social peace never increase when people are coerced to act against their will, let alone assaulted with violence. It’s as consistent as gravity- interfere with happiness, diminish social peace.

You see the Conflict Machine at work on social media and in boycotts. The social division is obvious. You can escape politics.

First, practice Human Respect. Let it never be said of you that you cheered, let alone voted for, excessive force against others. Governing ‘good and hard’ is never our solution.

Second, adopt a Human Respect value system to create real and lasting social reform. You can do so without changing your liberal or conservative values! Instead of lobbying, or worse, boycotts and social media rants against those who disagree with you, choose trade, charity, mutual aid, voluntary association, and persuasion to make the world a better place.

If this kind of thinking appeals to you, then meet The Exit Network. Please Subscribe to get more.

—

Jim Babka is the host of The Exit Network. Joanna Blaine contributed to this piece.

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Horowitz: The abuse of schoolchildren continues even in the reddest states

Posted by M. C. on March 16, 2021

Consider the fact that all of this harm was perpetrated against a generation of children for absolutely zero gain. The Peaster Independent School District of Parker County, Texas, for example, was one of the few counties in the country that never required masks or social isolation. According to Superintendent Lance Johnson, enrollment numbers were up this year, and it was one of the few districts in the country where the academic growth is tracking at grade level. “Our kids have thrived and our teachers have thrived,” he said. “And it’s just been real eye-opening to see how we’ve done things different than other schools.”

https://www.theblaze.com/op-ed/horowitz-the-abuse-of-schoolchildren-continues-even-in-the-reddest-states

Daniel Horowitz

Despite a full year’s worth of science and data showing that kids in school are not at risk at all from this virus and that they are not meaningful vectors of spread, even the reddest of states are making them the last to get a reprieve from the mask fascism, rather than the first. This is likely the most radical policy ever implemented in our lifetimes. The muted response from most established conservative officials and organizations is shocking.

Yesterday, many conservatives celebrated yet another red state governor removing the mask mandate when Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon announced he would terminate the mandate by the end of the week. However, in his press release, he adds the following gem: “The face covering protocol will remain in place in K-12 schools as a safety measure to ensure that classroom learning and all student activities can continue to occur safely.”

I guess a “face covering protocol” is one way to euphemize the criminalization of the breathing of our children for absolutely no scientific reason and with no legal justification. How a policy like this could ever have gotten off the ground in a state like Wyoming, much less be continued indefinitely, reveals a weakness of resolve in our own people.

What’s worse than shutting down schools is acclimating children to a “new normal” of child abuse that, because it has the veneer of a return to normalcy, can continue long-term, if not forever. The bar of sanity was set so low from the get-go that the psychosis of masking children for a virus that affects them less than the flu will only get worse over time.

One school in the supposed red state of Ohio is now requiring double masking of children! Also in Ohio, a Dayton pediatrician is now warning about an increase in rhinovirus now that kids will return to school. The horror! Kids will now get the common cold again! Ironically, COVID has been so minimal for children that we forgot what it was like for significant portions of a class to be out of school with fever during the winter months. Ailments like strep throat, the flu, enterovirus, and other common infections will now be used as an excuse to either shut schools or forcibly mask children forever.

In fact, this is no joke. If imposing a severe form of abuse and prohibiting normal breathing of children for seven hours a day was implemented without a scintilla of blowback from most parents – all for a virus that doesn’t affect the kids – it’s not hard to see how the flu and even the common cold will be the new baseline for permanent masking. Despite the entire notion of regulating the lives of children being thoroughly discredited by the data, there is almost no county in the entire country where people can school their children without their faces being covered.

Data from Sweden published in a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine examined ~2 million school-age children (ages 1 to 16) from March through June 2020, where there was no masking or other mitigation efforts, and found just 15 children (0.00075%) required hospitalization from COVID-19, and there was not a single reported death. They also found no greater risk of serious infection among teachers than the general population, adjusting for other variables. A similar study in Norway found remarkably low transmission in schools, even though there is no recommendation to wear masks.

With so few kids getting sick from this virus and so little evidence that masks work for anyone, why are we not considering the harmful effects of mask-wearing on children, sometimes as young as 3?

The first results of a German study of over 26,000 children and adolescents show 68% of parents reported impairments in their children as a result of mask-wearing, including the following side effects: irritability (60%), headache (53%), difficulty concentrating (50%), decreased happiness (49%), malaise (42%), impaired learning (38%), and fatigue (37%).

What are the benefits of this mandate, even if masks did work in stopping a spread, that could possibly justify this collateral damage? And what about the emotional damage? A 2010 paper from Harvard University observed the damage that can be caused by exposing them to endless fear and anxiety: “Ensuring that young children have safe, secure environments in which to grow, learn, and develop healthy brains and bodies is not only good for the children themselves but also builds a strong foundation for a thriving, prosperous society,” wrote the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child for Harvard University. “Science shows that early exposure to circumstances that produce persistent fear and chronic anxiety can have lifelong consequences by disrupting the developing architecture of the brain.”

Has anyone bothered to study what masks do to children’s wonderous God-given immune systems that have performed so well against this virus? How much bacteria do they help trap in the lungs of children? God didn’t design us to have our noses and mouths covered, especially at the developmental stage of life.

Consider the fact that all of this harm was perpetrated against a generation of children for absolutely zero gain. The Peaster Independent School District of Parker County, Texas, for example, was one of the few counties in the country that never required masks or social isolation. According to Superintendent Lance Johnson, enrollment numbers were up this year, and it was one of the few districts in the country where the academic growth is tracking at grade level. “Our kids have thrived and our teachers have thrived,” he said. “And it’s just been real eye-opening to see how we’ve done things different than other schools.”

It turns out that the absentee rates among teachers were only slightly higher than at that time in 2019, which clearly indicates that the rate of infection among teachers was not any higher than the general community, as was witnessed in Sweden and Norway.

“18 months ago what we’re doing to kids would’ve been criminal,” said Johnson. “And here we are fighting going back to that model, fighting letting kids be kids, and letting kids socialize and letting them have a normal school year.” How can we accept another day of this in all those red states? Demand better.

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Blockbuster! Washington Post Admits Using Fake Trump Quotes!

Posted by M. C. on March 16, 2021

WaPo is considered by some as a CIA mouthpiece. A “correction”, not admission of guilt.

Two months after reporting on former President Donald Trump “pressuring” Georgia election officials to find fraud in the process – long after that narrative had been accepted as fact – the Washington Post yesterday announced that the quotes were made up. Who made them up and why? Shouldn’t the Post have investigated thoroughly? Is there no pushback when the mainstream media continues to print biased falsehoods? Also today, one school district in Texas said a strong “NO!” to shutting down and online instruction only. And they thrived!

sdfried

sdfried

1 hour ago When fake news sources are so comfortable and secure in their positions that they freely admit their dishonesty.

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Parler No More – Taki’s Magazine – Taki’s Magazine

Posted by M. C. on March 16, 2021

So what will the future bring under such circumstances? I see America becoming less democratic and increasingly feudal, with a middle class sort of becoming extinct. Small businesses such as mom-and-pop stores are already extinct because of Amazon; manufacturing and agricultural businesses are on their way down. What is to be done? With Congress in the pocket of the oligarchs, not much, I’m afraid. Soon there will be bans on ideological language, as it is now called by woke students and oligarch followers; words such as “woman” and “breastfeeding” will be banned.

https://www.takimag.com/article/parler-no-more/print

Taki

It is the sine qua non of a successful coup to first and foremost ensure the takeover of the means of information: radio, television, and newspapers. That is what the Greek colonels did in the last successful European coup back on April 21, 1967. Some years later, a colonel tried to overthrow the elected post-Franco Spanish government but failed, having taken over the Parliament rather than the TV and radio station.

This, of course, is old hat to Central American banana republics, and an everyday occurrence in the Middle East and in every developing African country. And now for the first time, a rather developed country that has been a democracy since its creation almost 250 years ago has abolished (canceled) free speech—unless, of course, it passes muster with the three great American oligarchs who decide what we can say.

Before I describe these three great American men who have the ultimate veto over our free speech, a word about the new online network platforms that represent a new kind of power that poses a challenge to the power of the state. These network platforms began as decentralized entities, but turned into oligarchical weapons for stifling speech their masters did not agree with. Simply put, a very few are excluding a hell of a lot from a domain the courts have recognized as a public forum. In other words, to hell with the First Amendment unless we like what you say. Which today means sex offenders have a right to access online social networks, but an ex-president of the U.S. does not. “Corporate monopolies and the left have now teamed up to shut down free speech in the latest form of cancel culture.”

And it gets better. An independent social media site, Parler, was closed down thanks to Amazon (and Apple), which is like GM shutting down Ford because the latter represents competition. Throughout this, a few Republican senators have raised their voices, but no one really took notice. What is being shut down, actually, is news and opinions the three oligarchs do not wish you to know. It’s as simple as that. Corporate monopolies and the left have now teamed up to shut down free speech in the latest form of cancel culture. The alliance of leftists and woke capitalists is the most lethal since the Stalin-Nazi pact of 1939, and it aims to regulate all thought from school to retirement. Control, censor, and cancel are the order of the day in social media, as Big Tech now regulates speech—and eventually our thoughts.

So who are these great men who have replaced, say, George Washington, Patrick Henry, and Abe Lincoln as our heroes? I find what they have in common are their good looks. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg’s face gives the impression of being covered by a silk stocking like those worn by bank robbers; Jack Dorsey, the Twitter man, looks like a 1960s drugged hippy bum fished out from the San Francisco Bay; while the richest, the Amazon man Jeff Bezos, is a poster boy for a sex-pervert satyr threatening young virgins in a French blue film of the ’30s. Great looks go hand in hand with great powers—just remember how handsome Hitler and Stalin were. These last two would have been envious of Zuckie, Jeff, and Jack’s thought-control abilities, as it would have saved them lots of manpower wasted in the camps.

The above and other tech giants now dominate the Democratic Party, own much of the media, and can manipulate the social media platforms, where a growing proportion of Americans get their news. Congress is not about to do anything about this because the Democrats are in charge, and even if they were not, powerful lobbies by the techies would go into overdrive to stop any legislation against their monopolies.

So what will the future bring under such circumstances? I see America becoming less democratic and increasingly feudal, with a middle class sort of becoming extinct. Small businesses such as mom-and-pop stores are already extinct because of Amazon; manufacturing and agricultural businesses are on their way down. What is to be done? With Congress in the pocket of the oligarchs, not much, I’m afraid. Soon there will be bans on ideological language, as it is now called by woke students and oligarch followers; words such as “woman” and “breastfeeding” will be banned.

Over in Britain, where wokeness is as virulent as it is over here, Boris’ government has decided to do something about it. The education minister has decreed that universities that stifle free speech and torpedo Britain’s history will be denied funds. Ditto for charities and other such bodies that depend on government subsidies. This is a good first step, as the Brits want to defend their culture and history from a noisy minority of activists who are attempting to rewrite Britain’s past.

And yet, never in a million years would I have suspected that I would write such a column as this one. A civil right of every American to speak freely was the first thing I learned about this country when I arrived here from Europe at age 12. Yet Google, Apple, and the three controlled by the beauties I’ve mentioned above are denying that right to millions of Americans, and Congress is doing nothing about it. Time to call in the Marines—our freedom of speech is disappearing faster than the three beauties’ billions are multiplying.

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COVID-19 ‘Vaccines’ Are Gene Therapy

Posted by M. C. on March 16, 2021

The reason for masks forever even if you take the “vaccine”.

https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/03/16/mrna-vaccine-gene-therapy.aspx

Analysis by Dr. Joseph Mercola

Story at-a-glance

  • By referring to COVID-19 vaccines as “vaccines” rather than gene therapies, the U.S. government is violating its 15 U.S. Code Section 41, which regulates deceptive practices in medical claims
  • The mRNA injections are gene therapies that do not fulfill a single criteria or definition of a vaccine
  • COVID-19 “vaccines” do not impart immunity or inhibit transmissibility of the disease. They only are designed to lessen your infection symptoms if or when you get infected. As such, these products do not meet the legal or medical definition of a vaccine
  • Since a vast majority of people who test positive for SARS-CoV-2 have no symptoms at all, they’ve not even been able to establish a causal link between the virus and the clinical disease
  • By calling this experimental gene therapy technology a “vaccine,” they are circumventing liability for damages that would otherwise apply

Did you know that mRNA COVID-19 vaccines aren’t vaccines in the medical and legal definition of a vaccine? They do not prevent you from getting the infection, nor do they prevent its spread. They’re really experimental gene therapies.

I discussed this troubling fact in a recent interview with molecular biologist Judy Mikovits, Ph.D. While the Moderna and Pfizer mRNA shots are labeled as “vaccines,” and news agencies and health policy leaders call them that, the actual patents for Pfizer’s and Moderna’s injections more truthfully describe them as “gene therapy,” not vaccines.

Definition of ‘Vaccine’

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,1 a vaccine is “a product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease, protecting the person from that disease.” Immunity, in turn, is defined as “Protection from an infectious disease,” meaning that “If you are immune to a disease, you can be exposed to it without becoming infected.”

Neither Moderna nor Pfizer claim this to be the case for their COVID-19 “vaccines.” In fact, in their clinical trials, they specify that they will not even test for immunity.

Unlike real vaccines, which use an antigen of the disease you’re trying to prevent, the COVID-19 injections contain synthetic RNA fragments encapsulated in a nanolipid carrier compound, the sole purpose of which is to lessen clinical symptoms associated with the S-1 spike protein, not the actual virus. 

They do not actually impart immunity or inhibit transmissibility of the disease. In other words, they are not designed to keep you from getting sick with SARS-CoV-2; they only are supposed to lessen your infection symptoms if or when you do get infected.

As such, these products do not meet the legal or medical definition of a vaccine, and as noted by David Martin, Ph.D., in the video above, “The legal ramifications of this deception are immense.”

15 U.S. Code Section 41

As explained by Martin, 15 U.S. Code Section 41 of the Federal Trade Commission Act2 is the law that governs advertising of medical practices. This law, which dictates what you may and may not do in terms of promotion, has for many years been routinely used to shut down alternative health practitioners and companies.

“If this law can be used to shut down people of good will, who are trying to help others,” Martin says, “it certainly should be equally applied when we know deceptive medical practices are being done in the name of public health.”

Per this law, it is unlawful to advertise:

“… that a product or service can prevent, treat, or cure human disease unless you possess competent and reliable scientific evidence, including, when appropriate, well-controlled human clinical studies, substantiating that the claims are true at the time they are made.”3

What Constitutes ‘The Greater Good’?

Martin points to the 1905 Supreme Court ruling in Jacobson vs. Massachusetts,4 which essentially established that collective benefit supersedes individual benefit. To put it bluntly, it argued that it’s acceptable for individuals to be harmed by public health directives provided it benefits the collective.

Now, if vaccination is a public health measure that is supposed to protect and benefit the collective, then it would need to a) ensure that the individual who is vaccinated is rendered immune from the disease in question; and b) that the vaccine inhibits transmission of the disease.

Only if these two outcomes can be scientifically proven can you say that vaccination protects and benefits the collective — the population as a whole. This is where we run into problems with the mRNA “vaccines.”

Moderna’s SEC filings, which Martin claims to have carefully reviewed, specifies and stresses that its technology is a “gene therapy technology.” Originally, its technology was set up to be a cancer treatment, so more specifically, it’s a chemotherapy gene therapy technology.

As noted by Martin, who would raise their hand to receive prophylactic chemotherapy gene therapy for a cancer you do not have and may never be at risk for? In all likelihood, few would jump at such an offer, and for good reason.

Moreover, states and employers would not be able to mandate individuals to receive chemotherapy gene therapy for a cancer they do not have. It simply would not be legal. Yet, they’re proposing that all of humanity be forced to get gene therapy for COVID-19.

Click here to learn more

COVID-19 Vaccines — A Case of False Advertising

Now, if the COVID-19 vaccine really isn’t a vaccine, why are they calling it that? While the CDC provides a definition of “vaccine,” the CDC is not the actual law. It’s an agency empowered by the law, but it does not create law itself. Interestingly enough, it’s more difficult to find a legal definition of “vaccine,” but there have been a few cases. Martin provides the following examples:

• Iowa code — “Vaccine means a specially prepared antigen administered to a person for the purpose of providing immunity.” Again, the COVID-19 vaccines make no claim of providing immunity. They are only designed to lessen symptoms if and when you get infected.

• Washington state code — “Vaccine means a preparation of a killed or attenuated living microorganism, or fraction thereof …” Since Moderna and Pfizer are using synthetic RNA, they clearly do not meet this definition.

Being a manmade synthetic, the RNA used is not derived from anything that has at one point been alive, be it a whole microorganism or a fraction thereof. The statute continues to specify that a vaccine “upon immunization stimulates immunity that protects us against disease …”

So, in summary, “vaccine” and “immunity” are well-defined terms that do not match the end points specified in COVID-19 vaccine trials. The primary end point in these trials is: “Prevention of symptomatic COVID-19 disease.” Is that the same as “immunity”? No, it is not.

There Are More Problems Than One

But there’s another problem. Martin points out that “COVID-19 disease” has been defined as a series of clinical symptoms. Moreover, there’s no causal link between SARS-CoV-2, the virus, and the set of symptoms known as COVID-19.

How is that, you might ask? It’s simple, really. Since a vast majority of people who test positive for SARS-CoV-2 have no symptoms at all, they’ve not been able to establish a causal link between the virus and the clinical disease.

Here’s yet another problem: The primary end point in the COVID-19 vaccine trials is not an actual vaccine trial end point because, again, vaccine trial end points have to do with immunity and transmission reduction. Neither of those were measured.

What’s more, key secondary end points in Moderna’s trial include “Prevention of severe COVID-19 disease, and prevention of infection by SARS-CoV-2.” However, by its own admission, Moderna did not actually measure infection, stating that it was too “impractical” to do so.

That means there’s no evidence of this gene therapy having an impact on infection, for better or worse. And, if you have no evidence, you cannot fulfill the U.S. Code requirement that states you must have “competent and reliable scientific evidence … substantiating that the claims are true.”

Why Are They Calling Them Vaccines?

As noted by Martin, you cannot have a vaccine that does not meet a single definition of a vaccine. So, again, what would motivate these companies, U.S. health agencies and public health officials like Dr. Anthony Fauci to lie and claim that these gene therapies are in fact vaccines when, clearly, they are not?

If they actually called it what it is, namely “gene therapy chemotherapy,” most people would — wisely — refuse to take it. Perhaps that’s one reason for their false categorization as vaccines. But there may be other reasons as well.

Here, Martin strays into conjecture, as we have no proof of their intentions. He speculates that the reason they’re calling this experimental gene therapy technology a “vaccine” is because by doing so, they can circumvent liability for damages.

You’re being lied to. Your own government is violating its own laws. They have shut down practitioners around the country, time and time again, for violating what are called ‘deceptive practices in medical claims.’ Guess what? They’re doing exactly that thing. ~ David Martin, Ph.D.

As long as the U.S. is under a state of emergency, things like PCR tests and COVID-19 “vaccines” are allowed under emergency use authorization. And as long as the emergency use authorization is in effect, the makers of these experimental gene therapies are not financially liable for any harm that comes from their use.

That is, provided they’re “vaccines.” If these injections are NOT vaccines, then the liability shield falls away, because there is no liability shield for a medical emergency countermeasure that is gene therapy.

So, by maintaining the illusion that COVID-19 is a state of emergency, when in reality it is not, government leaders are providing cover for these gene therapy companies so that they can get immunity from liability.

Under the Cover of ‘Emergency’

As noted by Martin, if state governors were to lift the state of emergency, all of a sudden the use of RT PCR testing would be in violation of 15 U.S. Code FTC Act, as PCR tests are not an approved diagnostic test.

“You cannot diagnose a thing [with something] that cannot diagnose a thing,” Martin says. “That a misrepresentation. That is a deceptive practice under the Federal Trade Commission Act. And they’re liable for deceptive practices.”

Importantly, there’s no waiver of liability under deceptive practices — even under a state of emergency. This would also apply to experimental gene therapies. The only way for these gene therapies to enjoy liability shielding is if they are vaccines developed in response to a public health emergency. There is no such thing as immunity from liability for gene therapies.

Propaganda and Vaccine Rollout Run by Same Company

Martin brings up yet another curious point. The middleman in Operation Warp Speed is a North Carolina defense contractor called ATI. It controls the rollout of the vaccine. But ATI also has another type of contract with the Department of Defense, namely managing propaganda and combating misinformation.

So, the same company in charge of manipulating the media to propagate government propaganda and censor counterviews is the same company in charge of the rollout of “vaccines” that are being unlawfully promoted.

“Listen,” Martin says. “This is a pretty straight-forward situation. You’re being lied to. Your own government is violating its own laws … They have thrown this book [15 U.S. Code Section 41] on more people than we can count.

They have shut down practitioners around the country, time and time again, for violating what are called ‘deceptive practices in medical claims’ … Guess what? They’re doing exactly that thing.”

Martin urges listeners to forward his video to your state attorney, governor, representatives and anyone else that might be in a position to take affirmative action to address and correct this fraud.

Defense contractors are violating FTC law, and gene therapy companies — not vaccine manufacturers — are conducting experimental trials under deceptive medical practices. They’re making claims of being “vaccines” without clinical proof, and must be held accountable for their deceptive marketing and medical practices.

CDC Owns Coronavirus Patents

See the rest here

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Leviathan Mobilizes for Decisive Battle – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on March 16, 2021

But its essence – the root to this meta-historical struggle – always has been the world order, open society focus on dis-embedding humans from all forms of collective identity. Firstly, to dis-embed Renaissance Man from his notion of being a microcosm interpenetrating within a vast surrounding, living macrocosm (this aim being largely achieved via the advent of empirical Scientism); then the de-coupling from Latin Catholicism (via Protestant individualism); and lately, liberation from the secular nation-state (through globalism). And finally, we reach the shedding ‘late-stage’ – the severance from all collective identities and histories, including ethnicity and gender (both now to be self-defined).

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2021/03/no_author/leviathan-mobilises-for-decisive-battle/

By Alastair Crooke
Strategic Culture

Globalist forces are being mobilised to win a last battle in the ‘long-war’ – looking to break-through everywhere.

In The Revolt of the Public, Martin Gurri, a former CIA analyst, contends that western élites are experiencing a collapse of authority deriving from a failure to distinguish between legitimate criticism and – what he terms – illegitimate rebellion. Once control over the justifying myth of America was lost, the mask was off. And the disparity between the myth and public experience of it became only too evident.

Writing in 2014, Gurri foresaw that the Establishment would respond by denouncing all evidence of public discontent, as lies and disinformation. The Establishment would, in Gurri’s telling, be so constrained within their ‘bubble’ that they would be unable to assimilate their loss of monopoly over their own confected ‘reality’. This Establishment denial would be made manifest, he argued, in a delusional, ham-fisted authoritarian manner. His predictions have been vindicated with Trumpist dissidence denounced as a threat to ‘our democracy’ – amidst a media and social platform crackdown. Such a response would only confirm the suspicions of the public, thus setting off a vicious circle of yet more “distrust and loss of legitimacy”, Gurri concluded.

This was Gurri’s main thrust. The book’s striking feature however, was how it seemed so completely to nail the coming Trump and Brexit era – and the ‘anti-system’ impulse behind them. In America, this impulse found Trump – not the other way around. The point here essentially being that America no longer saw Red and Blue as the two extended wings belonging to the bird of liberal democracy. For something around half of America, the ‘system’ was rigged towards a profiteering 0.1%, and against them.

The key point here surely is whether the élites’ Great Re-set – to reinvent themselves as leaders of the ‘re-vamped’ values of liberalism, overlayered by a newly up-dated, AI and robot-led, post-modernity – is destined to succeed, or not.

Continued ‘westification’ of the globe – the principal component to ‘old’ liberal globalism – though tarnished and largely discredited, remains mandatory, as made clear in the cogent reasoning recently advanced by Robert Kagan: Absent the justifying myth of ‘seeding democracy across the world’ around which to organise the empire, the moral logic of the entire enterprise begins to fall apart, Kagan argued (with surprising frankness). He thus asserts that the U.S. empire abroad is required – precisely in order to preserve the myth of ‘democracy’ at home. An America that retreats from global hegemony, he argues, would no longer possess the cohesive binding to preserve America as liberal democracy, at home either.

Gurri is ambivalent on the élite’s ability to stick fast. He both asserts that “the centre cannot hold”, but then adds that the periphery had “no clue what to do about it”. The public revolts would likely arrive unattached to coherent plans, pushing society into interminable cycles of zero-sum clashes between myopic authorities, and their increasingly furious subjects. He called this a “paralysis of distrust”, where outsiders can “neutralize, but not replace the centre” and “networks can protest and overthrow, but never govern”.

There may indeed be some truth in this latter observation, yet what is happening today in the U.S. is but one ‘battle’ (albeit a key one) in a longer strategic war, reaching far back. The notion of a New World Order is nothing new. Imagined by globalists today, as before, it remains a teleological process of the ‘westification’ of the globe (western ‘universal values’), pursued under the rubric of (scientific) modernism.

What sets the current Great Re-set apart however, is that it is a later, more updated, version of Western values — not the same Western values as they were yesterday. The reek of colonialism has been exorcised from the imperial project through the launch of war on ‘white supremacy’ and on racial and social injustice. Global leadership has been recast as ‘saving the planet’ from climate change; saving all humanity from the pandemic; and safeguarding us all from a coming global financial crisis. Mothers’ milk. Who would resist such a well-intentioned agenda?

The current Great Re-set is a process of metamorphosis – a change in Western values, and paradigm. As Professor Dugin writes: “And this is important — it is a double-process to update the West itself – and [at the same time], to project an updated version to the world beyond. This is a kind of postmodern combination of the Western and the Modern”.

But its essence – the root to this meta-historical struggle – always has been the world order, open society focus on dis-embedding humans from all forms of collective identity. Firstly, to dis-embed Renaissance Man from his notion of being a microcosm interpenetrating within a vast surrounding, living macrocosm (this aim being largely achieved via the advent of empirical Scientism); then the de-coupling from Latin Catholicism (via Protestant individualism); and lately, liberation from the secular nation-state (through globalism). And finally, we reach the shedding ‘late-stage’ – the severance from all collective identities and histories, including ethnicity and gender (both now to be self-defined).

It is the passage to a new kind of liberalism, one that sweeps gender and identity into full, liquid fluidity. This latter aspect is not some secondary ‘accessory’ or add on – it is ‘something’ essentially embedded within in the logic of liberalism. The logic is inescapable. And the ultimate logical end to which it leads? Well, to the dis-embedding of the subjective self into trans-humanism. (But let’s not go there; it is dark – i.e. being human is to impose the subjective on the objective – “We need to liberate the objects from the subjects, from humanity, and explore the things as they are – without man, without being a tool of man”).

And here, Gurri’s insight is salient: The plan is out of control, and becoming progressively more bizarre. The American unipolar moment is ‘done’. It has created oppositions of various kinds, both abroad and at home. Conservative and traditional impulses have reacted against the radical ideological agenda, and crucially, the 2008 Financial Crisis and near collapse of the system foretold to the élites of the ultimate coming end to the U.S.’ financial hegemony, and concomitantly to America’s primacy. It forced a critical juncture.

Now they are at a crucial impasse. When they speak about Re-set, this means a forced return to the continuation of the agenda. But it is not as straight-forward as it seems. Everything seemed almost primed to fall into place twenty years ago; yet now, the Establishment is having to fight for every element of this strategy because everywhere they encounter a growing resistance. And it is no insignificant resistance. In America alone, some 74 million Americans reject the cultural war being waged on them.

Fyodor Dostoevsky described in The Demons the consequence to all this severance from meaning, as discovered at the deepest levels of the collective human psyche. Transcendence? ‘You can’t just be rid of it’. Yearning for meaning; for knowing who we are, is hard-wired into the human psyche. In the Demons, its denial and rejection leads only to warped violence (including child-rape), wanton destruction, and other extreme pathological behaviour.

Dostoevsky originally envisioned Demons as a political polemic, but horrified by news reports of a Russian nihilist leader’s orchestration of a pointless political murder, Dostoevsky fictionalised the story, hoping to shed light on how the sensitive, genteel, well-meaning Russian secular liberals of the 1840s had prepared the way for their 1860s generation of radicalized, ideology-maddened children bent on tearing down the world.

In a sense, Dostoevsky’s exploration of the psychology of secular liberal Russians in the 1840s (who passed on their criticisms of the establishment to the next generation) were somehow forerunners to the Woodstock generation of the 1960s – of easy-going, spoiled youth in search for meaning and transcendence from boring ‘reality’ through music, sex and drugs. Both produced angry children driven by hate towards a world conspiring constantly to frustrate their vision of how things ‘should be’.

If asked why Western culture has been trapped in an oscillating dynamic between liberalism and nihilistic radicalism for roughly two centuries with no end in sight, Dostoevsky would probably answer that it is because of our dis-embedding from the deeper levels of what it means to be human. This loss inevitably creates pathologies. (Carl Jung came to the same view).

So will the Re-set be realised?

The élites still cling to westernisation (‘America is back’ – although no-one is greatly enthused). The obstacles are many and growing. Obstacles and crises at home – where Biden visibly is shedding authority. U.S. decision-making seemingly lacks a ‘Chair’, or shall we say, a functioning ring-master. Who is in charge of foreign policy? It is opaque. And America itself is irreconcilably split and weakened. But also, for the first time, the U.S. and EU are increasing seen abroad to be inept at managing the most simple of affairs.

Nonetheless, the globalist call to arms is evident. The world clearly has changed during the last four years. Globalist forces, therefore, are being mobilised to win a last battle in the ‘long-war’ – looking to break-through everywhere. Defeating Trump is the first goal. Discrediting all varieties of European populism is another. The U.S. thinks to lead the maritime and rim-land powers in imposing a searing psychological, technological and economic defeat on the Russia-China-Iran alliance. In the past, the outcome might have been predictable. This time Eurasia may very well stand solid against a weakened Oceana (and a faint-hearted Europe). It would shake Leviathan to its foundations. Who knows what might then emerge from the ruins of post-modernity.

The views of individual contributors do not necessarily represent those of the Strategic Culture Foundation.

Former British diplomat, founder and director of the Beirut-based Conflicts Forum.

Copyright © Strategic Culture Foundation | Republishing is welcomed with reference to Strategic Culture online journal http://www.strategic-culture.org.

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State Issuance of Paper Money in the Early Republic | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on March 16, 2021

The first state to push through paper money during the postwar period was Pennsylvania, in March 1785. The Constitutionalists drove the measure through, but this “radical” act was essentially an alliance of farmers and wealthy public creditors who were anxious to have the state supply itself with money to pay their interest claims. Thus, of the emission of £150,000 of paper bills of credit, £100,000 went to pay the interest on the public debt, and £50,000 to be loaned on the security of land. The money could be used for payment of taxes; it was not, however, legal tender for private debts.

https://mises.org/wire/state-issuance-paper-money-early-republic

Murray N. Rothbard

[Chapter 5 of Rothbard’s newly edited and released Conceived in Liberty, vol. 5, The New Republic: 1784–1791.]

A severe depression, bank contraction, a heavy burden of taxes to pay state debts, all this turned men’s thoughts to issuing paper money to finance government. Historians influenced by the Populist struggles of the late nineteenth century have always identified proponents of inflation with “farmer-debtors” and hard-money men as “merchant-creditors.” Actually, while it is true that debtors, especially during hard times, tend to favor inflation, merchants are even more likely than farmers to be heavily in debt since they have higher credit ratings and can borrow more. The result was that most of the economic groups in the 1780s favored inflation: the main problem was in determining which groups would obtain the enjoyment of the newly created money. Those wealthy cliques of merchants who already enjoyed the favors of the existing monopoly-chartered banks naturally opposed competition of state paper money; others tended to favor the new emissions. The exceptions were largely the sober-minded who remembered the rapid depreciation and dislocation during the war.

The first state to push through paper money during the postwar period was Pennsylvania, in March 1785. The Constitutionalists drove the measure through, but this “radical” act was essentially an alliance of farmers and wealthy public creditors who were anxious to have the state supply itself with money to pay their interest claims. Thus, of the emission of £150,000 of paper bills of credit, £100,000 went to pay the interest on the public debt, and £50,000 to be loaned on the security of land. The money could be used for payment of taxes; it was not, however, legal tender for private debts. Indeed, it was the provision of legal tender, not the paper money itself, at which the conservatives balked. Thus, as during the Revolutionary War, the conservative Pelatiah Webster balked not at banks nor at paper money, but at legal tender legislation. The main opposition to the state paper cause came, naturally enough, from the Bank of North America clique, these being the two major competing methods for supplying new money in the states. The Bank of North America refused to accept the already depreciated state notes at par, a major factor in impelling the legislature to repeal its charter. Despite frenzied attacks on all denigrators of the state paper, it had depreciated by 7.5 percent by the summer of 1786, and in the following year the conservative-dominated Pennsylvania legislature began to destroy and contract the outstanding notes.

In South Carolina, the “farmer-debtors” who led the state to adopt paper money were the great planters heavily in debt to British traders for the purchase of slaves to replace the thousands lost during the war. They were joined by Charleston merchants also in debt to the British. In October 1785, South Carolina authorized the emission of £100,000 of interest-bearing notes to be loaned on the security of land. The bills were receivable in payment of taxes, but again were not legal tender. Opponents managed to scale down the issue from the originally proposed £400,000. Extraordinary efforts, including boycotts, organized and individual, were made by merchants and planters of South Carolina to keep up the value of the notes, but they fell nevertheless to a 10 percent discount by the spring of 1787.

North Carolina issued £100,000 of paper in 1786, and these were legal tender. Over a third of the issue was used by the state to buy one million pounds of tobacco at twice the market price, and thus to provide a windfall subsidy to the state’s tobacco planters. The rest of the money went to pay some of the claims of the veterans of the Revolutionary War. Since the money was legal tender, Gresham’s Law (that money overvalued by the State will drive out undervalued money) came quickly into operation. Specie disappeared from North Carolina, and the paper depreciated by over 50 percent by the end of 1787. And since out-of-state creditors would not accept the depreciating paper, the merchants found it difficult to pay their creditors. Thus, the merchants suffered greatly from being forced to accept depreciated paper by the state, while at the same time their out-of-state creditors insisted on hard money. In the meanwhile, the mass of tobacco piled up in state warehouses, and the states found it impossible to sell it anywhere near the price that it had paid. Eventually the state had to take a 50 percent loss on the tobacco. By the end of the decade, North Carolina was forced to begin calling in and destroying its paper money.

Georgia had a similar experience; the legislature issued £30,000 in 1786 to pay Revolutionary veterans, and the bills were made legal tender for all payments: the issue was made at the behest of the rapidly expanding settlers in the backcountry. The money began to depreciate immediately, and Savannah citizens wisely and increasingly refused to take it despite the law. In only a year, the Georgia paper had fallen to a discount of four to one, and it ceased to be legal tender in 1790.

The New Jersey issue was essentially a land bank, pushed through by the Assembly over the opposition of the Council. The legislature finally passed an emission of £100,000 in legal tender bills in May 1786, all to be loaned on the security of real estate. Local vigilante associations terrorized merchants and traders into accepting the paper at par, but they could not terrorize New York and Philadelphia merchants, and the paper issue quickly began to depreciate by 15 percent. By 1789 the money was too valueless to pass in circulation.

The New York paper issue again belies the “radical-farmer-debtor,” “conservative-merchant-creditor” dichotomy. £200,000 were issued in 1786, of which three-fourths was to be loaned on real estate or specie security, and one-fourth to pay interest to public security-holders. Staughton Lynd points out that New York City’s leading conservative newspaper, the New York Daily Advertiser, approved the paper issue, as did the highly conservative Bank of New York. The conservatives were content that the paper was not declared legal tender for new debts, only for old ones. It should be noted that the New York radical leaders were opposed to legal tender, and most were opposed to the paper money.1 The paper generally passed at a discount of up to 12 percent.

Seven states issued paper money during the Confederation period, and of these Rhode Island was undoubtedly the most enthusiastic. A state in which there had previously been a rash of armed resistance to tax collection, Rhode Island issued £100,000 in 1786, a sizable amount considering its small population. The money was all to be loaned on land—the bill having been put through by the rural farmers over the determined opposition of the Providence merchant community. Rhode Island not only offered a very low interest rate on its loans; it provided a particularly severe set of legal tender laws and punishments. Indeed, a person accused of the heinous crime of refusing to accept the new bills at par was to be tried in a special court, without benefit of jury trial or even of the right of appeal. This brutal attack on the creditors and on merchants impelled mass resistance by the merchants and traders. Many merchants, despite the law, refused to accept the notes, and even closed their stores in protest. Farmers, in turn, pledged to boycott the sale of their produce to Providence. Customers rioted and tried to force tradesmen to accept the notes at par, and many traders and creditors were forced to flee the state. Finally, determined judicial resistance against the coercive acts led, after a furious struggle, to the repeal of these notorious laws in December 1786. The notes depreciated rapidly after that, down to 10 percent of face value by the end of 1788, and the legal tender clause was at last repealed in 1789.

Rhode Island was far more successful in her treatment of public creditors. The creditors were forced by law to accept redemption of their credit in the rapidly depreciating paper. In that way Rhode Island was able to rid her citizens of virtually the entire burden of state debt by 1790, and the debts were repaid at minimum sacrifice to the people of Rhode Island.

Of the six states that did not issue paper money during the 1780s, Connecticut managed to escape its distress by the far sounder method of emergency tax reductions and tax abatements. Delaware was in the trading and financial area of Pennsylvania, and hence Pennsylvania’s bank and state paper circulated there. Virginia’s opinion was staunchly hard money, this sentiment being shared by its liberals as well as conservatives, so there was little struggle there.

A strong drive for paper money arose in Maryland in 1786, and the Inflationist Party called for £350,000 of paper notes, of which £200,000 was to be lent to land owners. The Maryland Senate blocked the bill that was passed by the House in late 1786. Like Connecticut, Maryland, after outbreaks of armed attacks on her tax collectors, was partly able to stave off a drive for paper money by abating tax collections and suspending the forced sale of property of delinquent taxpayers. In New Hampshire too, the grievous burden of taxes led to the march of a large armed mob upon the capital in September 1786. The mob besieged the legislature and urged the issue of paper money; but a counter gang of citizens and militia drove off the rebels, and the voters of the towns firmly rejected a paper-money scheme referred to them by the legislature. Conservative Massachusetts, the hardest pressed of all, refused to issue paper or to grant any relief in taxes or in executions for tax delinquency.

  • 1. Professor Lynd concludes:
    Because of its prominence in the politics of the late nineteenth century, the paper money question has often been considered the central issue dividing radicals from conservatives in the Critical Period. It was nothing of the kind…. The allegedly extremist victory was, in fact, a mild inflationary measure rapidly acquiesced in by all groups in the community, just as in other cities…. What all creditors feared in paper money was not inflation as such…. [but] that it might be made a legal tender.Staughton Lynd, “The Revolution and the Common Man: Farm Tenants and Artisans in New York Politics, 1777–1788” (unpublished PhD dissertation, Columbia University, 1962), pp. 212–13.

Author:

Murray N. Rothbard

Murray N. Rothbard made major contributions to economics, history, political philosophy, and legal theory. He combined Austrian economics with a fervent commitment to individual liberty.

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