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The New Resistance Is Rising

Posted by M. C. on December 2, 2020

Another example: my daughter shared a post from Pennsylvania State Representative David Rowe, who was seated in a bar holding a drink in one hand and a phone showing the time—5:01 p.m.—in the other, with the post’s message reading “Happy Thanksgiving, Governor Wolf!” Wolf had ordered all bars and stores to quit selling alcoholic beverages at 5 p.m. on Thanksgiving Eve.

Whether Trump is reelected is immaterial to this cause. Indeed, given his penchant for spending us ever deeper into debt, we should hold Trump’s feet to the fire as well. We must rise above politics and start advocating for what’s best for the country and for individual freedom.

It’s the American Way, and we need to get back on this path as soon as possible.

https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/blog/the-new-resistance-is-rising/

By Jeff Minick

In the 1976 film Network, a newscaster driven to the brink of insanity by his rage exhorts his viewers to throw open the windows of their apartments and homes, and shout “I’m mad as h—, and I’m not going to take it anymore.” Within minutes, thousands of people are roaring these words into the night.

In the wake of a decades-long culture war, four years of bile and lies from the left and the mainstream media, nine months of coronavirus lockdowns, and now an election possibly rife with fraud, more and more Americans are opening their eyes to the debased state of their political system and the abusive machinations of their governments.

More and more of them are spitting mad and are not going to take it anymore.

The COVID-19 lockdowns are seeing greater pushback from angry citizens who fear the loss of their jobs and their way of life. In “Civil Disobedience Over Lockdowns Spreads Across America,” Foundation for Economic Education’s Jon Miltimore cites several examples of these protests in the streets, by private citizens and even by sheriffs and country officials who refuse to carry out the extreme orders of their governors, particularly the dictates and regulations issued just before the holiday season.

In “Cops Refuse to be the Thanksgiving Police,” Daniel Greenfield reports in even greater detail the refusal of many police departments to investigate citizens in their homes for possibly violating such orders. From coast to coast, the police are bravely and righteously ignoring dictates demanding they knock on doors and disperse families and friends eating supper together.

Here in Warren County, Virginia, for example, the sheriff’s department issued a statement just before Thanksgiving instructing residents not to call 911 or the sheriff’s department to report neighbors hosting large numbers of visitors. Instead, the department politely asked those with such concerns to contact public health officials, as such matters fell under their jurisdiction.

In other words, the sheriff was saying that they were not going to be knocking at the doors of those enjoying their Thanksgiving meal.

Another example: my daughter shared a post from Pennsylvania State Representative David Rowe, who was seated in a bar holding a drink in one hand and a phone showing the time—5:01 p.m.—in the other, with the post’s message reading “Happy Thanksgiving, Governor Wolf!” Wolf had ordered all bars and stores to quit selling alcoholic beverages at 5 p.m. on Thanksgiving Eve.

Many Americans are also incensed over the 2020 presidential election results. President Trump’s lawyers are attempting to find evidence of possible frauds—mail-in ballots, tens of thousands of dead voters who miraculously cast ballots, massive computer irregularities and malfeasance—that if nothing else reveal the sorry state of our election system. Thousands of Americans have come forward to swear under oath that they observed such irregularities, again a sign of protest.

Social media provides more evidence of American fury with the system. With social media giants such as Facebook and Twitter censoring different outlets, including Intellectual Takeout, droves of people are abandoning those platforms for less suppressive outfits like Parler, Rumble, and MeWe.

Meanwhile, millions of Americans are expressing their anger with the system in more personal ways. Many families this past summer, for example, abandoned the public school system, switching to private schools or taking matters into their own hands and teaching their kids at home.

Others are supporting one another through social media and informal networking. For example, my friend John was at the laundromat this week, where he has befriended one of the employees. When the man asked how he was doing, John gave a disheartened answer, referencing the state of the country, at which point his friend gave him such an impassioned speech—“It’s not time to quit, it’s time to get fired up!”—that John left with his spirits renewed.

For four years, we have heard about the Resistance, a conglomeration of radicals, leftists, officials in various government bureaucracies, wealthy donors, and others, all of them determined to damage Donald Trump’s presidency or remove him from office altogether.

Now the time has come for a New Resistance. Into this merry band we should welcome everyone—Democrats, Republicans, conservatives, liberals, libertarians, men and women, straight and gay, black, brown, and white—who cherishes liberty and despises tyranny. We can make our voices heard in myriad ways, we can protest every time a “servant of the people” puts on a tin-pot hat and starts issuing edicts as if he were an emperor, and we can stick together and stand fast in the face of oppression.

Whether Trump is reelected is immaterial to this cause. Indeed, given his penchant for spending us ever deeper into debt, we should hold Trump’s feet to the fire as well. We must rise above politics and start advocating for what’s best for the country and for individual freedom.

It’s the American Way, and we need to get back on this path as soon as possible.

Jeff Minick

Jeff Minick lives in Front Royal, Virginia, and may be found online at jeffminick.com. He is the author of two novels, Amanda Bell and Dust on Their Wings, and two works of non-fiction, Learning as I Go and Movies Make the Man.

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Light at the end of the Biden tunnel

Posted by M. C. on December 2, 2020

https://mailchi.mp/45f1a7b5a10c/light-at-the-end-of-the-biden-tunnel?e=de2d0eded6

Biden didn’t realize that he had killed his own son, Beau, until Sergeant Hickman wrote a book about it. The burn pits in Iraq caused brain cancer in vets. Hickman included a whole chapter about Beau.

Biden pushed for the Iraq war, which got his son killed.

Biden, and others responsible for starting the war in Iraq, are now taking back power. Scott and Stephen Zunes recently discussed the details.

But there is hope.

It’s possible that the death of his son has softened Biden on the wars.

And most importantly, Biden has promised to end U.S. support for the war in Yemen, which is currently the world’s worst human rights disaster. Trump, for all of his anti-war talk, has failed to end any wars.
  When did you first become anti-war? There are many like you, who would be anti-war if they heard the right message.

You can meet others like you in Scott’s private Reddit group. Make memes and share them. Get the word out. Join by donating $5 or more a month.
Join Scott’s Reddit Group Here’s a meme from Scott’s interview with Stephen Zunes

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How Socialist Dogma Replaces Real Science with “Settled Science” | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on December 1, 2020

Only the lazy would not write about the American academy’s predominantly leftist orientation and the fact that the education system has turned into a machine of compulsory indoctrination in leftist ideas. However, I want to draw attention to another aspect of American science that clearly points to its socialization. As with the previously described totalitarian socialist regimes, American science has begun to be divided into what is ideologically correct and what requires public censure. For example, modern leftist political doctrine holds global warming to be one of the main threats to the existence of human civilization. Climatology and ecology have turned from objective sciences into undersigners of party science. Instead of scientific debate, doomsday advocates hysterically accuse political opponents of denying scientific facts and general ignorance.

https://mises.org/wire/how-socialist-dogma-replaces-real-science-settled-science

Allen Gindler

Over the past hundred years, evolutionary socialism has slowly but steadily taken root in the fabric of American society. This is especially noticeable in the economic sphere, because evolutionary socialism uses the mandatory redistribution of wealth as one of the methods to achieve its ultimate goal. The bloated state machine interferes with the economy, distorts market signals and economic relations between market agents, and chooses winners and losers in order to achieve an illusory and propagandistic goal of equality and justice.

However, one should not forget that evolutionary socialism simultaneously uses the collectivization of consciousness and the redistribution of wealth. Moreover, an analysis of the existing flavors of socialist movements, especially those that have been able to materialize in practice, shows that the subjugation of individualism by collective thinking is an even more effective path to building a socialist society than the redistribution of wealth. Totalitarianism is the end result of the collectivization of consciousness, characterized by the complete suppression of free will and thoughts, the subordination of everything and everyone to the volition of the state apparatus, and the rule of one ideology under the leadership of one party. Politics, culture, art, morality, ethics, and aesthetics have to be unquestioningly obeyed across the ideological line, and dissent is severely punished.

One of the consequences of the collectivization of consciousness is that science is restructured from an institution of free thought and the generation of ideas into a servant to the ideological dogmas of the ruling regime. Socialism is very concerned with ideological purity and like-mindedness; therefore, science is used as a means of collectivizing consciousness, and is itself subjected to oppression by the coercive state apparatus. The exceptional features of science under socialism are the emergence of openly pseudoscientific trends and the accusation of dissenting thoughts as unscientific and harmful to society. The most striking examples of the transformation of science into an ideologically dependent and suppressed institution were provided by the Communist regimes of the Soviet Union and National Socialist Germany.

From the very beginning, science in the Soviet Union was subjected to ideological control that continued until the collapse of the country. The first victims of the communist regime were representatives of the science of sciences—philosophy. After the Bolshevik coup, Marxism-Leninism was proclaimed the only correct and permissible philosophy in the Soviet Union; representatives of other schools of thought were outlawed. The Bolshevik regime expelled philosophers from the country on the notorious “Philosophy Steamer” (there were several voyages), including famous Russian philosophers such as Nikolai Berdyaev, Ivan Ilyin, and Semyon Frank, together with other figures of science and culture. Trotsky explained that “We expelled these people because there was no reason to shoot them, but it was impossible to tolerate them.” Suppression continued until the 1930s, and, as a result, Soviet philosophy never became a science; it was nothing more than dogma.

While the logic of repression against non-Marxist philosophy in the Soviet Union can be understood, the persecution of biology and genetics seems rather unusual at first glance. However, we should not forget that the collectivization of consciousness does not imply the coexistence of alternative views and the struggle of ideas. The winner in a scientific debate is the ideologically “correct” or regime advantageous theory. So, a very mediocre agronomist with a “correct” worker-peasant pedigree, Trofim Lysenko, was able to destroy biology and genetics in the Soviet Union. With Stalin’s blessing, Lysenko designated genetics as a bourgeois pseudoscience based on idealism instead of Marxist materialism. Lysenko’s followers received political and administrative power; as a result, the supporters of classical genetics were severely repressed. Geneticist Nikolai Vavilov was arrested on suspicion of anti-Soviet activities and died in prison in 1943. Other scientists also ended up in labor camps, and some were shot. In the face of persecution, many changed their field of activity or joined the campaign against science. Biologists were forced publicly and in written form to renounce their scientific views while acknowledging the correctness of Lysenko’s pseudoscientific ideas. Classical genetics was banned in the Soviet Union until the 1960s and was rehabilitated entirely after Khrushchev’s displacement. To this day, the term Lysenkoism denotes any administrative persecution of scientists for their “politically incorrect” scientific views.

In the Soviet Union, attempts also began to divide physics into ideologically correct and bourgeois views. Einstein’s theory of general and special relativity, as well as Copenhagen’s interpretation of quantum mechanics, were found to be inconsistent with the principles of dialectical materialism. This was a strong accusation that could close these branches of science. Nevertheless, when Beria, who oversaw the creation of the atomic bomb, found out that the bomb could be forgotten in the event of persecution in these areas of physics, he, possessing enormous political power, did not allow the persecution campaign to develop and thereby saved physics in the Soviet Union. Along with philosophy, genetics, and physics, many other science branches underwent revisions for compliance with the teachings of Marxism-Leninism. It was normal for unscrupulous careerist scientists with connections in the Communist Party to accuse contended ideas as idealistic and bourgeois, as competitors were subjected to various kinds of repressions and persecutions. Such tendencies were observed in cybernetics (which was declared bourgeois pseudoscience), chemistry, literary criticism, and pedagogy.

German National Socialism followed a similar trend but had a subtle difference: science was split not into materialistic and idealistic science, but rather between Aryan and non-Aryan science. The adherents of Aryan science sought to purge German science of Semitic influence long before the Nazis came to power. In particular, some German physicists did not accept Einstein’s theory, not because they had a valid alternative description of physical reality, but because the bearer of the thesis was a Jew and, therefore, a “Jewish science” representative. Philip Lenard, the 1905 winner of the Nobel Prize in physics, believed that science is determined by race and blood. He and other proponents of Aryan physics argued that Einstein’s theory of relativity steers physics away from the genuine German approach. Aryan physics is supposed to retrieve objective laws from nature by observation and intuition, not mental experiments and mathematical formalism, which in essence constitute “Jewish science.” Nazi academics, including world-renowned scientists, accused Jewish scientists of changing the philosophy of science. Therefore, Einstein’s theory was not only erroneous in itself but was based on the wrong research methodology and presupposed a game with mathematical symbols, not a description of reality. It is not difficult to see parallels in Soviet and Nazi scientists’ criticisms of Einstein’s theory; both condemned it on the pretext that Einstein’s view did not correspond to the materialist understanding of the world.

What about science in the United States, mainly promoted by left-leaning academia? If one looks closely, it’s evident that evolutionary socialism has penetrated deeply into the educational and scientific fields. Only the lazy would not write about the American academy’s predominantly leftist orientation and the fact that the education system has turned into a machine of compulsory indoctrination in leftist ideas. However, I want to draw attention to another aspect of American science that clearly points to its socialization. As with the previously described totalitarian socialist regimes, American science has begun to be divided into what is ideologically correct and what requires public censure. For example, modern leftist political doctrine holds global warming to be one of the main threats to the existence of human civilization. Climatology and ecology have turned from objective sciences into undersigners of party science. Instead of scientific debate, doomsday advocates hysterically accuse political opponents of denying scientific facts and general ignorance.

These dogmatic beliefs were refuted not only from a theoretical point of view but also after the gloomy predictions did not come true: the ocean did not flood the cities, and polar bears did not die out. But the emerging facts of manipulation in temperature measurements, data processing, and data interpretation have only led to a change in the Left’s terminology. Instead of global warming, now we are dealing with climate change due to human activity. Scholars who question harmful carbon dioxide’s effect on the climate get ridiculed and silenced. Luckily, the Left still falls short of prosecuting dissident scientists. Nevertheless, leftists clearly understand that peddling climate change and recruiting more believers will bring them long-lasting political success. The Green New Deal, which is presented as a means to save humanity from the consequences of climate change and is based on the false premises of socialist climatology, is as stupid as the fight against sparrows in China during the Cultural Revolution. It is a political declaration of the pseudoscience and an attempt to implement its provisions on par with Lysenko’s Michurin method.

One of the corollaries of the collectivization of consciousness in relation to science is the persecution of its separate branches and of scientists who do not fit into the dominant ideological paradigm. The arbitrary division of science and industries into politically correct ones and undesirable ones is the unmistakable trademark of society’s socialist transformation. As in all leftist regimes, including evolutionary socialism, the trend is apparent: the subordination of the individual to the collective is accompanied by the depletion of the intellectual potential of society and leads to decadence in science, education, culture, and morality. Author:

Allen Gindler

Allen Gindler is a scholar from the former U.S.S.R., specializing in Political Economy, Econometrics, and Industrial Engineering. He taught Economic Cybernetics, Standard Data Systems, and Computer-Aided Work Design in the Khmelnytskyi National University, Ukraine. He is currently a private consultant to IT industry on Database Administration and Cryptography. As a hobby, he is interested in political philosophy, history, population genetics, and Biblical archaeology. He has published articles and opinion pieces in Mises Wire, American Thinker, Foundation for Economic Education, and Biblical Archaeology Review.

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Winding Up Americans – Doug Casey’s International Man

Posted by M. C. on December 1, 2020

In such an upheaval, the one thing both sides will have in common is that they will both beg for the creation of a police state.

The American populace has been programmed like windup toys, with the ruling elite winding up the keys on their backs as tightly as they will go. When the levers are released, Americans will act dramatically and, in many cases, blindly.

At this point, it’s not too late for people to stand back, take a deep breath and ask themselves if they’re not being conned into their own subjugation.

https://internationalman.com/articles/winding-up-americans/

by Jeff Thomas

For the last four years, Americans have become increasingly polarised – divided between Democrat crusaders who are determined to save America from becoming a racist, sexist Nazi dictatorship under Donald Trump, versus Republican crusaders who are determined to save America from becoming a liberal Marxist state under a Democratic reign.

This fervour has become so extreme that families can no longer meet for the holidays without a conversational blow-up. No longer are people “entitled to their opinions.” This has become a crusade between Good and Evil. (“I’m good. You’re evil.”)

The absurd nature of this dichotomy has reached the point that even Dr. Phil is increasing his viewership by featuring disputes between siblings who are on opposite sides of the political divide and are no longer speaking to each other.

At this point, all that remains to be done by the networks would be to air a Red versus Blue television game show in which contestants compete with their own family members to “Win the White House.”

Until November, the great majority of Americans appear to have been hoping that the November election would end this strife one way or the other.

My take on this has been that the opposite would happen after 3rd November. The fireworks would increase exponentially after the election. The election would be hotly contested by whomever was the apparent loser.

This should easily have been foreseen, as the media on the right have insisted for months that the Democrat encouragement for mail-in ballots was a precursor to election fraud.

Similarly, the media on the left have insisted for months that Donald Trump’s suggestion that he may not accept the election results meant that he was planning a coup after he (presumably inevitably) lost the election.

And now, the battle has been met.

It’s been estimated that 93% of all Fox watchers are Republicans and 95% of MSNBC watchers are Democrats. Since neither side watches the other’s news programme, each side is cognizant of only its own team’s heavily slanted rhetoric.

The conservative media is awash with details of voter fraud by Democrats, whilst the liberal media states with equal conviction that Mister Trump and his lawyers have provided no details whatever.

Therefore, those who voted Republican will conclude by watching their own “unbiased” news channel that Democrats have tried to steal the election and thereby steal control of the country.

And those who voted Democrat will conclude by watching their own “unbiased” news channel that Republicans have tried to steal the election and thereby steal control of the country.

But how did this get to be so bad? Americans have not been so wound up – nor so polarised – since 1861, at the beginning of the Civil War.

Indeed, the post-election fervour is as strong as though Fort Sumter had just been fired upon.

More importantly, what will be the outcome?

Will the courts rule against the claims of Mister Trump?

If so, that decision will enrage an already angry right-wing crowd, refusing to vacate the White House and defending it against the pinko mob.

Or will the courts rule in favour of Mister Trump?

If so, that decision will unleash nationwide riots, intent on bringing down the evil dictator.

Either way, we can anticipate that the US will be in flames. If for any reason the level of strife is insufficient, those with deep pockets will hire squads of shills as mercenary soldiers.

The populace will be in terror. Republican voters will beg the federal government to bring in the troops to contain Antifa and the BLM mob.

Democratic voters will beg the federal government to bring in the troops to quell the Republican militias.

In such an upheaval, the one thing both sides will have in common is that they will both beg for the creation of a police state.

And the federal government will answer that call. Martial law would be declared, possibly as a “temporary measure,” until normalcy has returned.

But what if normalcy does not return? What if pockets of violence continue to pop up all over the map with regularity?

If that occurs, martial law would need to continue for as long as it was deemed necessary, which would be likely to translate into a permanent police state.

At one time, the media was for the most part impartial and benign, but in recent decades it has been bought out by four large corporations. And some of those corporations own and direct both liberal and conservative networks, which would seem to be at odds with each other.

However, they are not. Today, the objective of the media is not to offer news. It is to create strife – to pit one half of the electorate against the other. In doing so, the ruling elite have the justification to lock down the entire USA under martial law.

Once that has been accomplished, the elite may do as they please. As in all countries where a police state has been achieved – such as Nazi Germany, Mao’s China or Stalin’s Russia – once military control has been put into place nationwide, meaningful protest ends.

In each of the above cases, the populace was whipped up into a frenzy of hate and violence against the Jews or the aristocracy or whatever other demon had been invented. But the real objective and the result were the subjugation of the populace.

The American populace has been programmed like windup toys, with the ruling elite winding up the keys on their backs as tightly as they will go. When the levers are released, Americans will act dramatically and, in many cases, blindly.

At this point, it’s not too late for people to stand back, take a deep breath and ask themselves if they’re not being conned into their own subjugation. But it would appear that they’ve been wound up so tightly that such objectivity is unlikely to occur.

However, if they do not, they risk losing what remains of their once-proud democracy.

Editor’s Note: Economically, politically, and socially, the United States seems to be headed down a path that’s not only inconsistent with the founding principles of the country, but accelerating quickly toward boundless decay.

In the years ahead, there will likely be much less stability of any kind.

That’s exactly why New York Times bestselling author Doug Casey and his team just released an urgent new report titled Doug Casey’s Top 7 Predictions for the Raging 2020s.

Click here to download the free PDF now.

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SILENT OBEDIENT CONSENT – The Burning Platform

Posted by M. C. on December 1, 2020

I am saddened by how easily the totalitarians have been able to use fear, propaganda, lies and misinformation to turn the vast majority of Americans into compliant sheep. It is so clear to me that this engineered flu panic is nothing more than another chapter in the scheme to enslave global populations under the thumb of global elitist billionaires who want to control us and enrich themselves. V’s speech to the citizens of London captures the essence of what is happening and will happen unless the masses come to their senses.

Here is a New Year Resolution. “No”

No: NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, Foxnews, CNBC, MSNBC, FB, Twitter

Afraid you will be lost? Don’t be. You won’t be.

https://www.theburningplatform.com/2020/11/29/silent-obedient-consent/

Yesterday we took advantage of another beautiful Fall day in Cape May. We decided to check out the Cape May Lighthouse State Park. It is at the very end of Cape May. It is an example of what the government can do right – Preserve a natural habitat without glitz or commercialization. It is just miles of wetlands and walking trails. The lighthouse, built in 1859 by the U.S. Army is still functioning today. Two previous lighthouses succumbed to the sea. It is a majestic structure, reaching 157 feet into the sky.

On the beach, not far from the lighthouse, is Battery 223. It is a crumbling concrete structure from World War II which was designed to protect against invasion by German forces. The structure was built with six-foot thick reinforced concrete walls and a thick blast proof roof; the entire building was covered with earth. The 6-inch guns had a nine-mile range. It is an interesting relic from our past. The dilapidated condition struck me as symbolic of our crumbling empire.

Battery 223 Cape May Point.JPG

Once you walked into the nature preserve, a feeling of calm and peacefulness overwhelms you. Swans and ducks glide across the salt water ponds enjoying a feast of minnows. It’s nature at its most pristine. Just quiet and beauty.

The walking trails wind throughout the nature preserve. They are well maintained and pristine. No trash. No beer bottles strewn about. Visitors are respectful of this place. A feeling of calm engulfs you as you venture along the trails.

But, alas, I couldn’t write a post without acknowledging the human reality I witnessed walking along these trails on a stunningly beautiful sunny 58 degree day in late November. The four of us were unmasked, because masks don’t work and certainly aren’t necessary outside while walking.

Pandemic leads to a bicycle boom, and shortage, around the world | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

As we were driving to the park, I noticed a few bike riders on the side of the road wearing masks while biking. I thought to myself – WTF. That is completely idiotic. Then we began walking along the miles of trails. The park was moderately busy, but you passed someone every few minutes. Sadly, I would estimate that 80% of the people we passed on the trails were masked and fearful of us unmasked hooligans. I can only imagine their thoughts as they wondered why we were risking their lives by being so careless.

I was disgusted by the lack of critical thought exhibited by these people. I might have understood if it was only people over 70 years old wearing the masks, but most of these people were young. They have virtually a zero risk of dying from this flu. They have virtually a zero risk of catching it on a walking trail at a State park. But, they obediently and silently do as they are told by their overlords.

I am saddened by how easily the totalitarians have been able to use fear, propaganda, lies and misinformation to turn the vast majority of Americans into compliant sheep. It is so clear to me that this engineered flu panic is nothing more than another chapter in the scheme to enslave global populations under the thumb of global elitist billionaires who want to control us and enrich themselves. V’s speech to the citizens of London captures the essence of what is happening and will happen unless the masses come to their senses.

“Well certainly there are those who are more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable. But again, truth be told…if you’re looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror.

I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn’t be? War. Terror. Disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you and in your panic, you turned to the now High Chancellor Adam Sutler. He promised you order. He promised you peace. And all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent.” – V speech to London – V for Vendetta

These thoughts did not ruin my day, but they are constantly bubbling below the surface as I observe the downward spiral of this country. Hopefully, the Cape May Lighthouse beacon will represent the shining light of truth that will help us avert a historical shipwreck of epic proportions. —————————————————–
The corrupt establishment will do anything to suppress sites like the Burning Platform from revealing the truth. The corporate media does this by demonetizing sites like mine by blackballing the site from advertising revenue. If you get value from this site, please keep it running with a donation. [Jim Quinn – PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal Emigrate While You Still Can!

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The Past Lives On: The Elite Strategy To Divide and Conquer – Edward Curtin

Posted by M. C. on December 1, 2020

Many Trump voters no doubt know that Trump was never going to save them. But he said the right things, and desperation and disgust will grasp onto the slightest will-o’-the-wisp when disbelief in the whole rotten system is widespread.

Let’s not bullshit: everyone knows the game is rigged.

Trump is a liar.

Biden is a liar.

Great Britain’s Boris Johnson is a liar.

Fill in the names of the political charlatans.

The system is built on lies to keep the illusions brightening the screen of the great picture show, what Neil Gabler has rightly called “life the movie.”

http://edwardcurtin.com/the-past-lives-on-the-elite-strategy-to-divide-and-conquer/

Edward Curtin

“They call my people the White Lower Middle Class these days. It is an ugly, ice-cold phrase, the result, I suppose, of the missionary zeal of those sociologists who still think you can place human beings on charts.  It most certainly does not sound like a description of people on the edge of open, sustained and possibly violent revolt,” wrote the marvelous New York journalist, Pete Hamill in “The Revolt of the White Lower Middle Class” in New York magazine.  He added:

The White Lower Middle Class? Say that magic phrase at a cocktail party on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and monstrous images arise from the American demonology. Here comes the murderous rabble: fat, well-fed, bigoted, ignorant, an army of beer-soaked Irishmen, violence-loving Italians, hate-filled Poles. Lithuanians and Hungarians….Sometimes these brutes are referred to as ‘the ethnics’ or ‘the blue-collar types.’ But the bureaucratic, sociological phrase is White Lower Middle Class. Nobody calls it the Working Class anymore.

He wrote that on April 14, 1969. Yesterday. Little changes.

Transferred from NYC to the middle of the country half a century later, these people are referred to as Trump’s “deplorables.” They comes in baskets, as Hillary Clinton said.  And even though they represent nearly half the voting public in the last two presidential elections – 70+ million Americans – their complaints are dismissed as the rantings of ignorant, conservative racists.

Name calling substitutes for understanding. This is not an accident.

Like Hamill, I am a NYC born and bred Irish-American – my working-class Bronx to Pete’s Brooklyn. We both attended the same Jesuit high school in different years. Unlike Hamill, known for his gritty street reporting, because I have been a college sociology professor, I could falsely be categorized as a northeastern liberal intellectual oozing with disdain for those who voted for Trump.  This is false, because, like Hamill, I see it as my intellectual duty to understand what motivates these voters, just as I do with those who voted for Biden.

I didn’t vote for Donald Trump, nor did I vote for Joseph Biden, or Hillary Clinton in 2016.  I am not one of those sociologists Hamill refers to; I use the term Working Class and am acutely aware of the social class nature of life in the U.S.A., where the economic system of neo-liberal capitalism is constructed to try to convince working Americans that the system cares for them, and if they grow disgusted with its lies and inequities and rage against the machine by voting for anyone who seems to be with them (even a super-rich reality TV real estate magnate named Trump who is not with them), they are dumb-ass bigots whose concerns should be brushed off.

The truth is that both the Trump voters and the Biden voters have been taken for a ride.  It is a game, a show, a movie, a spectacle.  It hasn’t changed much since 1969; the rich have gotten richer and the poor, working, and middle classes have gotten poorer and more desperate.  Those who have profited have embraced the fraud.

The Institute for Policy Studies has just released a new analysis showing that since the start of the Covid-19 “pandemic” in mid-March and the subsequent transfer upwards of $5 trillion to the wealthy and largest corporations through the Cares Act, approved 96-0 in the U.S. Senate, 650 U.S. billionaires have gained over a trillion dollars in eight months as the American people have suffered an economic catastrophe.  This shift upward of massive wealth under Trump is similar to Obama’s massive 2009 bailout of the banks on the backs of American workers. Both were justified through feats of legerdemain by both political parties, accomplices in the fleecing of regular people, many of whom continue to support the politicians that screw them while telling them they care.

If the Democrats and the Republicans are at war as is often claimed, it is only over who gets the larger part of the spoils. Trump and Biden work for the same bosses, those I call the Umbrella People (those who own and run the country through their intelligence/military/media operatives), who produce and direct the movie that keeps so many Americans on the edge of their seats in the hope that their chosen good guy wins in the end.

I am well aware that most people disagree with my analysis.  It does seem as if I am wrong and that because the Democrats and their accomplices have spent years attempting to oust Trump through Russia-gate, impeachment, etc. that what seems true is true and Trump is simply a crazy aberration who somehow slipped through the net of establishment control to rule for four years.  To those 146 + million people who voted for Biden and Trump this seems self-evident.  But if that is so, why, despite their superficial differences – and Obama’s, Hillary Clinton’s and George W. Bush’s for that matter – have the super-rich gotten richer and richer over the decades and the war on terror continued as the military budget has increased each year and the armament industries and the Wall Street crooks continued to rake in the money at the expense of everyone else?  These are a few facts that can’t be disputed. There are many more. So what’s changed under Trump?  We are talking about nuances, small changes.  A clown with a big mouth versus traditional, “dignified” con men.

If you were writing this script as part of long-term planning and average people were getting disgusted from decades of being screwed and were sick of politicians and their lying ways, wouldn’t you stop the reruns and create a new show?  Come on, this is Hollywood where creative showmen can dazzle our minds with plots so twisted that when you leave the theater you keep wondering what it was all about and arguing with your friends about the ending. So create a throwback film where the good guy versus the bad guy was seemingly very clear, and while the system ground on, people would be at each other’s throats over the obvious differences, even while they were fabricated.

Variety is necessary.  You wouldn’t want to repeat the film from 2008 when a well-spoken black man came into town out of nowhere to clean up the mess created by the poorly spoken white sheriff who loved war and then the black hero went on to wage war in seven countries while his fans sat contented in the audience loving the show and making believe they didn’t see what was happening on the screen even though their hero jailed whistle blowers and greatly expanded the surveillance state right in front of their eyes.

No, as the years passed, those two guys turned out to be buddies, and their wives hit it off, and a famous photograph appeared of the good guy’s wife hugging the bad guy, which was not a good thing for the script that has the Republicans warring against the Democrats.

A new story line was needed. How about an opéra bouffe, someone suggested, and the rest is history. Or pseudo-history. This is the real matrix. The most sophisticated mind control operation up to this point, with the coronavirus lockdown added to propel it to what the producers hope is a conclusion.

What more can I say?

Billy Joel said it:  “JFK blown away.”

The Towers pulverized. David Ray Griffin told us the truth repetitively.

Minds of this generation destroyed, as Allen Ginsberg said in Howl: “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness.”

It’s been many generations now.  There has been a form of social madness growing over the decades and it is everywhere now.  Look at people’s faces, if you can see them behind the masks; everywhere the strained and stressed looks, the scared rabbit eyes that you see on the wards of mental hospitals. The look that says: what the fuck has happened as they stare into a blank screen in a tumbling void, to paraphrase Don DeLillo from his new book Silence, where people speak gibberish once their digital world is mysteriously taken down and they wander in the dark.  We are in the dark now, even though the lights and screens are still shining for the time being.

Let those who think I am wrong about Trump and Biden being players in the same show, consider this. If Trump is truly the opponent of the Deep State, the Swamp, the corrupt establishment, he will pardon Julian Assange, Chelsey Manning, and Edward Snowden who have been persecuted by these forces.  He has nothing left to lose as he exits stage right.

The journalist Julian Assange has done more than anyone to expose the sick underbelly of the gangster state, its intelligence and military secrets, its illegal and immoral killings. That is why he has been hounded and locked away for so long. It’s a bipartisan persecution of an innocent man whose only “crime” has been to tell the truth that is allegedly the essence of a democratic society.

Chelsey Manning has also suffered tremendously for exposing the savagery of U.S. military operations.

And Edward Snowden has been forced into Russian exile for telling us about the vast global surveillance systems run by the NSA and CIA to spy on the American people.

See the rest here

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Erie Times E-Edition Article-Biden to nominate Yellen

Posted by M. C. on December 1, 2020

David Stockman describes Yellen as a simpleton. Her solution to every problem was the same. “The Fed has the tools to do the job.” Never mentioning exactly what was the solution.

The WSJ would applaud a given proclamation but its readers weren’t fooled as a glance at the comments would show.

Biden is the recycling king. First the Obama warmongers, now his economic Charlatans.

https://erietimes-pa-app.newsmemory.com/?publink=030d27bc4

WILMINGTON, Del. — President-elect Joe Biden on Monday announced his senior economic team, including his plans to nominate the first woman to head the Treasury Department as well as several liberal economists and policy specialists who established their credentials during the previous two Democratic administrations.

In a statement, Biden said he would nominate Janet Yellen, the former Federal Reserve chair, to lead the Treasury Department, and former Clinton and Obama adviser Neera Tanden to serve as director of the Office of Management and Budget. He also named Wally Adeyemo, a former Obama administration official and the first CEO of the former president’s nonprofit foundation, as his nominee for deputy treasury secretary. He also unveiled his White House economic team, consisting of economists Cecilia Rouse, Jared Bernstein and Heather Boushey.

Biden, who has placed a premium on diversity in his selection of Cabinet nominees and key advisers, is looking to notch a few firsts with his economic team selections. Yellen would be the first woman to lead the Treasury Department and Adeyemo the first Black deputy secretary. Tanden would be the first woman of color to lead OMB and Rouse the first woman of color to chair the Council of Economic Advisers.

“As we get to work to control the virus, this is the team that will deliver immediate economic relief for the American people during this economic crisis and help us build our economy back better than ever,” Biden said in a statement.

Yellen became Federal Reserve chair in 2014 when the economy was still recovering from the devastating Great Recession. In the late 1990s, she was President Bill Clinton’s top economic adviser during the Asian financial crisis. Under Biden she would lead the Treasury Department with the economy in the grip of a surging pandemic.

If confirmed, Yellen would become the first woman to lead the Treasury Department in its nearly 232-year history. She would inherit an economy with still-high unemployment, escalating threats to small businesses and signs that consumers are retrenching as the pandemic restricts or discourages spending.

Tanden, the president and CEO of the liberal think tank Center for American Progress, has been tapped to serve as the director of the Office of Management and Budget. She was the director of domestic policy for the Obama-Biden presidential campaign, but she first made her mark in the Clinton orbit.

She served as policy director for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign. Before that, she served as legislative director in Clinton’s Senate office and deputy campaign manager and issues director for Clinton’s 2000 Senate campaign. Tanden was a senior policy adviser in the Bill Clinton administration.

If confirmed, she would be the first woman of color and the first South Asian woman to lead the OMB, the agency that oversees the federal budget.

But Senate Republicans are signaling they’ll oppose confirmation. Late Sunday a spokesman for GOP Sen. John Cornyn of Texas tweeted that Tanden “stands zero chance of being confirmed.” And Josh Holmes, a political adviser to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, tweeted that confirmation was likely doomed. Republicans hold the edge in the current Senate, although next year’s majority won’t be decided until Jan. 5 runoffs in two races involving GOP incumbents in Georgia.

In this Aug. 14, 2019, photo, former Fed Chair Janet Yellen speaks with Fox Business Network guest anchor Jon Hilsenrath in the Fox Washington bureau in Washington. [ANDREW HARNIK/ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO]

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Edward Snowden On Big Tech Companies, Like Facebook, Censoring & Controlling Information – Collective Evolution

Posted by M. C. on November 30, 2020

These companies are not obligated by the law to do almost any of what they’re actually doing but they’re going above and beyond, to, in many cases, to increase the depth of their relationship (with the government) and the government’s willingness to avoid trying to regulate them in the context of their desired activities, which is ultimately to dominate the conversation and information space of global society in different ways…They’re trying to make you change your behaviour… – Snowden

https://www.collective-evolution.com/2020/11/29/edward-snowden-on-big-tech-censoring-information-joe-biden-press-freedom-dangers/

ByArjun WaliaCE Staff Writer

In Brief

  • The Facts:Glenn Greenwald interviews NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden about Big Tech censorship of information, and the muzzling of journalists who go against the grain.
  • Reflect On:f your perception is built by mainstream media, do you truly know what is going on in the world if they are often working to hide or censor stories that would dramatically change your perception?

Glenn Greenwald is no stranger to censorship, he’s the journalist who worked with Edward Snowden (NSA mass surveillance whistleblower)  to put together his story and release it to the world while working for the Guardian. He eventually left the Guardian and co-founded his own media company, The Intercept, an organization that would be free from censorship and free to report on government corruption and wrong-doings of powerful people and corporations. He recently resigned from The Intercept as well due to the fact that they’ve now censored him, and is now completely independent. You can find his work here.

Anybody who reports on or sheds a bright light onto immoral and unethical actions taken by governments and the powerful corporations they work with has been subjected to extreme censorship. In the case of Edward Snowden, he’s been exiled, and Julian Assange of Wikileaks is currently clinging to his life for exposing war crimes and other unethical actions by multiple governments and corporations. There are many other examples. What does it say about our civilization when we prosecute those who expose harm, corruption, immoral/unethical actions by governments and war crimes?

Greenwald recently interviewed Snowden about internet censorship and the role big tech companies and governments are playing. Greenwald explains that in one of his earliest meetings with Snowden, he (Snowden) explained that he was driven in large part by the vital role the early internet played in his life, “one that was free of corporate and state control, that permitted anonymity and exploration free of monitoring, and, most of all, fostered unrestrained communication and dissemination of information by and among citizens of the world without corporate and state overlords regulating and controlling what they were saying.

This is what he and Snowden go into in the interview posted below. Prior to that I provide a brief summary of Snowden’s key thoughts.

Snowden starts off by mentioning government surveillance programs and the companies they contracted to do this work and compares them to modern day Big Tech giants censoring information on a wide range of topics. We see this today with elections/politics, to medical information dealing with coronavirus and vaccines, for example.

“In secret, these companies had all agreed to work with the U.S. Government far beyond what the law required of them, and that’s what we’re seeing with this new censorship push is really a new direction in the same dynamic. These companies are not obligated by the law to do almost any of what they’re actually doing but they’re going above and beyond, to, in many cases, to increase the depth of their relationship (with the government) and the government’s willingness to avoid trying to regulate them in the context of their desired activities, which is ultimately to dominate the conversation and information space of global society in different ways…They’re trying to make you change your behaviour… – Snowden

So basically, these Big Tech companies have become slaves, if you will, to the governments will, or at least powerful people situated in high places within the government. Snowden brings up the fact that many of these companies are hiring people from the CIA, who come from the Pentagon, who come from the NSA, who have top secret clearances…The government is a customer of all the major cloud service providers. They are also a major regulator of these companies, which gives these companies the incentive to do whatever they want.

This is quite clear if you look at Facebook, Google and Amazon employees. There are many who have come from very high positions within the Department of Defense.

In no case is this more clear than Amazon – Snowden

Amazon appointed Keith Alexander, director of the NSA under Barack Obama.

He was one of the senior architects of the mass surveillance program that courts have repeatedly now declared to be unlawful and unconstitutional….When you have this kind of incentive from a private industry to maintain the warmest possible relationship with the people in government, who not just buy from you but also have the possibility to end your business or change the way you do business…You now see this kind of soft corruption that happens in a constant way. – Snowden

Snowden goes on to explain how people get upset when government, especially the Trump government, tries to set the boundaries of what appropriate speech is by attempting to stop big tech censorship, he then says,

If you’re not comfortable letting the government determine the boundaries of appropriate political speech, why are you begging Mark Zuckerberg to do it?

I think the reality here is…it’s not really about freedom of speech, and it’s not really about protecting people from harm…I think what you see is the internet has become the de facto means of mass communication. That represents influence which represents power, and what we see is we see a whole number of different tribes basically squabbling to try to gain control over this instrument of power.

What we see is an increasing tendency to silence journalists who say things that are in the minority.

In Brief

  • The Facts:Glenn Greenwald interviews NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden about Big Tech censorship of information, and the muzzling of journalists who go against the grain.
  • Reflect On:f your perception is built by mainstream media, do you truly know what is going on in the world if they are often working to hide or censor stories that would dramatically change your perception?

Glenn Greenwald is no stranger to censorship, he’s the journalist who worked with Edward Snowden (NSA mass surveillance whistleblower)  to put together his story and release it to the world while working for the Guardian. He eventually left the Guardian and co-founded his own media company, The Intercept, an organization that would be free from censorship and free to report on government corruption and wrong-doings of powerful people and corporations. He recently resigned from The Intercept as well due to the fact that they’ve now censored him, and is now completely independent. You can find his work here. advertisement – learn more

Anybody who reports on or sheds a bright light onto immoral and unethical actions taken by governments and the powerful corporations they work with has been subjected to extreme censorship. In the case of Edward Snowden, he’s been exiled, and Julian Assange of Wikileaks is currently clinging to his life for exposing war crimes and other unethical actions by multiple governments and corporations. There are many other examples. What does it say about our civilization when we prosecute those who expose harm, corruption, immoral/unethical actions by governments and war crimes?

–> Practice Is Everything: Want to become an effective changemaker? Join CETV and get access to exclusive conversations, courses, and original shows that empower you to embody the changemaker this world needs. Click here to learn more!

Greenwald recently interviewed Snowden about internet censorship and the role big tech companies and governments are playing. Greenwald explains that in one of his earliest meetings with Snowden, he (Snowden) explained that he was driven in large part by the vital role the early internet played in his life, “one that was free of corporate and state control, that permitted anonymity and exploration free of monitoring, and, most of all, fostered unrestrained communication and dissemination of information by and among citizens of the world without corporate and state overlords regulating and controlling what they were saying.

This is what he and Snowden go into in the interview posted below. Prior to that I provide a brief summary of Snowden’s key thoughts.

Snowden starts off by mentioning government surveillance programs and the companies they contracted to do this work and compares them to modern day Big Tech giants censoring information on a wide range of topics. We see this today with elections/politics, to medical information dealing with coronavirus and vaccines, for example.

“In secret, these companies had all agreed to work with the U.S. Government far beyond what the law required of them, and that’s what we’re seeing with this new censorship push is really a new direction in the same dynamic. These companies are not obligated by the law to do almost any of what they’re actually doing but they’re going above and beyond, to, in many cases, to increase the depth of their relationship (with the government) and the government’s willingness to avoid trying to regulate them in the context of their desired activities, which is ultimately to dominate the conversation and information space of global society in different ways…They’re trying to make you change your behaviour… – Snowden advertisement – learn more

So basically, these Big Tech companies have become slaves, if you will, to the governments will, or at least powerful people situated in high places within the government. Snowden brings up the fact that many of these companies are hiring people from the CIA, who come from the Pentagon, who come from the NSA, who have top secret clearances…The government is a customer of all the major cloud service providers. They are also a major regulator of these companies, which gives these companies the incentive to do whatever they want.

This is quite clear if you look at Facebook, Google and Amazon employees. There are many who have come from very high positions within the Department of Defense.

In no case is this more clear than Amazon – Snowden

Amazon appointed Keith Alexander, director of the NSA under Barack Obama.

He was one of the senior architects of the mass surveillance program that courts have repeatedly now declared to be unlawful and unconstitutional….When you have this kind of incentive from a private industry to maintain the warmest possible relationship with the people in government, who not just buy from you but also have the possibility to end your business or change the way you do business…You now see this kind of soft corruption that happens in a constant way. – Snowden

Snowden goes on to explain how people get upset when government, especially the Trump government, tries to set the boundaries of what appropriate speech is by attempting to stop big tech censorship, he then says,

If you’re not comfortable letting the government determine the boundaries of appropriate political speech, why are you begging Mark Zuckerberg to do it?

I think the reality here is…it’s not really about freedom of speech, and it’s not really about protecting people from harm…I think what you see is the internet has become the de facto means of mass communication. That represents influence which represents power, and what we see is we see a whole number of different tribes basically squabbling to try to gain control over this instrument of power.

What we see is an increasing tendency to silence journalists who say things that are in the minority. Stay Aware Subscribe To Our Newsletter  

You can watch the full conversation between Greenwald and Snowden below, the conversation is about 40 minutes long.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/5qEuKCS-czU?start=0&modestbranding=1&showinfo=0&theme=light

Closing Comments: This kind of information almost begs the question, are we ready as a society to truly create and disseminate journalism that is honest, integral and bi-partisan? Why is it that these types of organizations fail or struggle? How do some media companies fail? Well, they no longer stay true to their mission. They fall to the pressure of politics and fall into ideology. How many other times did ideology change what media outlets reported? Yes, it’s almost impossible to have zero bias, but how close can we get to zero? How can we achieve this when media outlets who do not fit within the accepted framework and disseminate information that challenges the popular opinion are constantly being punished for simply putting out information?

As Snowden mentioned above, these Big Tech companies in collusion with governments are literally attempting to not only censor information, but change the behaviour of people as well, especially journalists. When you take away one’s business or livelihood as a result of non-compliance, you are in a way forcing them to comply and do/say things you they way you want them done/said. We’ve experienced massive amounts of censorship and demonetization here at Collective Evolution, but we haven’t changed as a results of it. We simply created CETV, a platform that helps support our work as a result of censorship.

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Which To Celebrate, Pilgrims Or Native Americans? — Manhattan Contrarian

Posted by M. C. on November 30, 2020

The largest of the tribes where the Jesuits had some success in their efforts was known as the Hurons. That tribe inhabited an area south and east of the lake by that name. At the time, the Hurons were engaged in a life-and-death struggle with the Iroquois confederacy, which inhabited a broad swath of what is now upstate New York. From pages 634-35 of the 1983 New American Library edition of Parkman’s book:

The Eriez Indians of my locale were already history by the time of Columbus.

Of course, all of our “smartest” people in academia and government have little or no idea how or why the freedom-based economic order works. What they think they know is that they hate what they call “capitalism,” because it does not create perfect equality and justice between and among all people. So they are completely ready to get rid of this “capitalism” and go back to a world of desperate scarcity and endless conflict.

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2020-11-28-hijr9k2nd0zghodf1id33wq6yvsgh5

Francis Menton

This year marks the 400th anniversary of the founding of the Plymouth Colony by the Pilgrims in 1620. Plymouth was the first English settlement to establish itself successfully in the New World. You might think that the four-century mark of that event would be cause for big commemorations. Instead, there has been barely a peep.

Today, the trendy thing is to feel nothing but guilt and shame for the expansion of European civilization, particularly the English version, into North America. After all, there were indigenous people here when the first settlers arrived. What right did the English or other European settlers have to occupy this territory? To demonstrate its politically-correct bona fides, Google affiliate YouTube (among many others) took the occasion of Thanksgiving Day to celebrate instead something they call “Unthanksgiving,” a day of “Indigenous history, activism and resistance”:

Unthanksgiving is about acknowledging, educating, and honoring centuries of Indigenous resistance. Coinciding with New England’s National Day of Mourning, . . . Native Americans and Indigenous persons have shared their experiences, using Unthanksgiving as an opportunity for intergenerational and intercultural dialogue,

Perhaps you may have the idea that prior to the Pilgrims North America was inhabited by Noble Savages living in peace and harmony with nature and each other. Then the evil Europeans arrived to commit plunder and rape and genocide. This is certainly the view pushed by much of trendy academia today, following the lead of America-hating Howard Zinn. But if you want a more full picture of the reality of the Native Americans at the time of early settlement, there are plenty of decent sources to look to. Two that I can recommend are Charles Mann’s “1491,” and Francis Parkman’s “France and England in North America.”

“1491” came out in 2005, and definitely has a more native-admiring perspective than Parkman’s opus, which was published over many years in the late 19th century. Nevertheless, an overriding issue permeates both books in their descriptions of native life pre- and shortly post-Columbus: the Indian tribes were engaged in constant, endless, brutal, murderous warfare against each other. Mann’s book has particularly harrowing accounts of the wars conducted by the Aztecs against their predecessors in the region that is today Mexico City.

Over in Parkman’s work, the portion relating to the French settlement of Canada derives mostly from first-person accounts written by Jesuit missionaries who inserted themselves among the tribes along and north of the St. Lawrence River in the early 1600s. The largest of the tribes where the Jesuits had some success in their efforts was known as the Hurons. That tribe inhabited an area south and east of the lake by that name. At the time, the Hurons were engaged in a life-and-death struggle with the Iroquois confederacy, which inhabited a broad swath of what is now upstate New York. From pages 634-35 of the 1983 New American Library edition of Parkman’s book:

How the quarrel began between the Iroquois and their Huron kindred no man can tell, and it is not worth while to conjecture. . . . The first meeting of white men with the Hurons found them at blows with the Iroquois, and from that time forward, the war raged with increasing fury. Small scalping parties infested the Huron forests, killing squaws in the cornfields, or entering villages at midnight to tomahawk their sleeping inhabitants. Often, too, invasions were made in force. Sometimes towns were set upon and burned, and sometimes there were deadly conflicts in the depths of the forests and the passes of the hills.

Parkman’s account is filled with detail of battles, tortures and executions. Here is an example from page 635:

[In the year 1645] Fortune smiled on the Hurons; and they took, in all, more than a hundred prisoners, who were distributed among their various towns, to be burned. These scenes, with them, occurred always in the night; and it was held to be of the last importance that the torture should be protracted from sunset till dawn. . . . Ononkwaya was among the victims. . . . On the scaffold where he was burned, he wrought himself into a fury which seemed to render him insensible to pain. Thinking him nearly spent, his tormentors scalped him, when, to their amazement, he leaped up, snatched the brands that had been the instruments of his torture, drove the screeching crowd from the scaffold, and held them all at bay, while they pelted him from below with sticks, stones, and showers of live coals. At length he made a false step and fell to the ground, when they seized him and threw him into the fire. . . .

But the wars continued, year after endless year. In 1649-50, the Iroquois got the upper hand, and essentially wiped out the Hurons. One example of the fighting in that year, from page 664-65:

Late in the autumn, a thousand Iroquois, chiefly Senecas and Mohawks, had taken the war-path for the Hurons. They had been all winter in the forests, hunting for subsistence, and moving at their leisure towards their prey. . . . It was just before dawn, when a yell, as of a legion of devils, startled the wretched inhabitants [of a Huron town the French called St. Ignace] from their sleep; and the Iroquois, bursting in upon them, cut them down with knives and hatchets, killing many, and reserving the rest for a worse fate. . . .

There is much, much more of the same and indeed far worse. Given the endless and brutal warfare that characterized Native American existence, it is not surprising that many native groups, upon encountering Europeans, sought to enlist the newcomers as allies against their perpetual enemies in neighboring tribes. Indeed, in Mann’s account, that is exactly what Chief Massasoit of the Wampanoags was about in befriending the Pilgrims and assisting them through their first difficult winter. The Wampanoags had just suffered a major population decline — probably the result of diseases brought by Europeans — and they needed help against their perpetual enemies the Narragansetts, who lived immediately to the West. The newcomers had things that the Wampanoags badly needed in that struggle, like knives, hatchets, and even guns.

As Parkman said, the origins of the particular dispute in the 1600s between the Hurons and the Iroquois are beyond knowing. But what we do know is that groups of humans in hunter-gatherer existence are always engaged in warfare against their neighbors. Specific slights or jealousies may have something to do with any given dispute, but on a more fundamental level, hunter-gatherers exist at all times on the brink of starvation, and there is never enough territory to go around.

In contrast, over the past several centuries, beginning in Europe and then spreading through the world, mankind has created an economic system that is capable of providing plentifully for multiple billions of people without need for warfare over control of resources. The system goes by the misnomer of “capitalism.” I prefer calling it the “freedom-based economic order.” Under this economic system, it is entirely possible for all people to live in peace and prosperity, without any need for the warfare that has plagued human existence from the beginning.

Of course, all of our “smartest” people in academia and government have little or no idea how or why the freedom-based economic order works. What they think they know is that they hate what they call “capitalism,” because it does not create perfect equality and justice between and among all people. So they are completely ready to get rid of this “capitalism” and go back to a world of desperate scarcity and endless conflict.

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Why Chesterton Despised Thanksgiving Day | Intellectual Takeout

Posted by M. C. on November 30, 2020

Chesterton, to put it mildly, was not a fan of Puritanism in any of its guises. Theologically, Puritanism is rooted in Calvinism, and the determinism of Calvinistic predestination was anathema to Chesterton. But at issue here is another aspect of Puritanism, namely the temptation of Puritans, then and now, to promote—and enforce—prohibitions.

Oh well, you say, those prohibition-minded Puritans are long gone. Not so, countered Chesterton, who could point to the brief success of the movement to prohibit the sale of alcohol in America.

https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/why-chesterton-despised-thanksgiving-day/

By Chuck Chalberg

Did you know that England also has a Thanksgiving Day?  Well, actually it doesn’t. But G. K. Chesterton did propose such a day for his England. And therein lies a tale, or at least a few thoughts for a Thanksgiving Day conversation. 

Chesterton’s thoughts on thanksgiving with a small “t” are not at issue here. But they are important. He thought that a sense of gratitude was crucial for human happiness. For him, that sense should begin with thanks for this world and one’s very existence in it. Even in his darkest days, days of unbelief that were touched with thoughts of suicide, Chesterton always held on to some sense of belief—and his life—by “one thin thread of thanks.”

But his thoughts about an official Thanksgiving Day for England were more directly tied to the origins of the first thanksgiving feast in the New World and its perpetrators, the American Puritans. 

Chesterton, to put it mildly, was not a fan of Puritanism in any of its guises. Theologically, Puritanism is rooted in Calvinism, and the determinism of Calvinistic predestination was anathema to Chesterton. But at issue here is another aspect of Puritanism, namely the temptation of Puritans, then and now, to promote—and enforce—prohibitions.

Oh well, you say, those prohibition-minded Puritans are long gone. Not so, countered Chesterton, who could point to the brief success of the movement to prohibit the sale of alcohol in America.

Oh well, you respond, that foray into prohibitionism has been thoroughly discredited and is now nearly a century behind us. Maybe so. But during the heyday of the 18th amendment Chesterton was on hand to point to the follies—and dangers—of the prohibitionist mind set. He was also on hand to ask us to remember to thank God for “beer and burgundy by not drinking too much of them.”

Today Chesterton’s words remain on hand to remind us that there are links between the Puritan mind of the 17th century and what he has termed the “Modern Mind.” It is a cast of mind that still “cries aloud with a voice of thunder” that there are always things that must be “forbidden.”

This cry could come from prohibitionists declaring that “there must be no wine.” Or it could come from pacifists who insist that “there must be no war.” Or from communists who stipulate that “there must be no private property.” Or from the “secularist” who decrees that “there must be no religious worship.”

All of these prohibitionists, and more besides, remain determined to ride roughshod over Chesterton’s “ordinary man.” That would be the “ordinary man” who had a right to live—and order—his own life as he saw fit. Those rights included the right to “judge about his own health,” the right to “bring up children to the best of his ability,” and the right to “rule other animals within reason” among many other ordinary rights.

In sum, G. K. Chesterton was far from convinced that Puritanism was dead and gone. In fact, it was all too alive in the “Modern Mind.” That was the mind that could not accept what Chesterton regarded as the “Catholic doctrine that human life is a battle.” More often than not, these are the battles that one fights with oneself, which is to say battles that should be fought without benefit of official—and officious—prohibitions.

Having come to the United States twice while the 18th amendment held legal sway, Chesterton experienced a direct encounter with this version of prohibitionism. Teetotaler that he wasn’t, G. K. Chesterton had reason to object to the powers of prohibitionist thinking over the modern American mind (even if he occasionally benefited from home brew in professors’ homes while lecturing at Notre Dame in the fall of 1930).

When back home in England, Chesterton’s objections gave way to thanks. That would be thankfulness that his country had not taken a similar step. In fact, it was this very sense of thankfulness that led him to propose a Thanksgiving Day for England. It would be a day to “celebrate the departure of those dour Puritans, the Pilgrim fathers.” Once here, they gave thanks and feasted (probably without beer or burgundy).

But if Chesterton is right, they also left their mark on America and the modern American mind, a mark that had lingered here long after their departure not just from England, but from this world.

Dear Readers,

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Chuck Chalberg

Dr. John C. “Chuck” Chalberg writes from Bloomington, Minnesota.

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