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COVID-19 is a Progressive / Climate Change dream come true. Remember: “Its about the children”

Posted by M. C. on April 19, 2020

Using the state to re-make America, depopulate the world.

In the early twentieth century the progressive goal was population control. Specifically European immigrants and blacks who were willing to work longer hours for less, making life difficult for WASPs. Mental “inferiors” were a target also due to their dilution of the gene pool.

Minimum wage laws designed to price out low skilled labor and sterilization were the progressive weapons of choice.

In short-The birth of modern eugenics.

https://www.independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?id=947

The next generation of progressives were far more ingenious. Population control was still the issue.

Introducing The Club of Rome (TCOR) and one of its enablers, David Rockefeller.

In 1993 the Club’s co-founder, Alexander King with Bertrand Schneider wrote The First Global Revolution stating,

“The common enemy of humanity is man. In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.”

http://www.theeuroprobe.org/2014-002-the-club-of-rome-invented-global-warming/

David Rockefeller:

We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost 40 years……It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government.

https://www.azquotes.com/quote/418046

“We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order.”

https://endtimesprophecyreport.com/2013/06/05/new-world-order-37-quotes-on-the-new-world-order/

Dr. WHO?

World Health Organization suggests removing COVID-19 infected people from their families

https://www.pacificpundit.com/2020/04/07/watch-world-health-organization-suggests-removing-covid-19-infected-people-from-their-families/

The latest revelation is COVID is now supposedly spread mostly within the home.

Family separation means children separation.

Family separation is family control.

Now we have the World Health Organization running family separation up the flag pole to see who salutes it.

It is only a skip and short jump to separating families for other reasons. Other illnesses, financial reasons, employment…too many people.

The WHO is part of the UN, that should make you feel better. Look forward to your family’s future decided by a faceless bureaucrat in New York or Geneva Switzerland.

Separation means the children get separated from parents. Where do the children go? Who takes care of them? Who “educates” the children? Who vaccinates “separated” children and with what?

The state of course.

When are “separated” children allowed back home?

When the state decides.

Lets hope Cuomo and the left coast don’t hear about this.

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COVID-19 Is Forcing Governments to Admit Their Regulations Aren’t Really Necessary | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on April 18, 2020

As Tom Rogan reported at the Washington Examiner, one company “had more than 20 pallets of coronavirus-specific medical supplies waiting in a warehouse for five days….At another depot in the south-central United States, this same supplier has had 500,000 level-three or level-four masks sitting in a warehouse for two days now. They expect the FDA delays to continue indefinitely.”

And throughout the country, state and local authorities have issued orders permitting restaurants to offer alcohol with takeout and delivery orders. But even these somewhat small and sensible measures have faced criticism.

A license for carry out! What aspect of this needs regulation?

Paper or plastic containers?

Several states have also moved to suspend their so-called “certificate of need” laws, which require healthcare facilities to receive government approval before establishing or expanding their services.

Translation: Whether those in power are willing to accept the competition.

https://mises.org/wire/covid-19-forcing-governments-admit-their-regulations-arent-really-necessary?utm_source=Mises+Institute+Subscriptions&utm_campaign=852d489dbf-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_9_21_2018_9_59_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8b52b2e1c0-852d489dbf-228343965

It’s no exaggeration to say that most of the blame for the world’s poor response to the coronavirus pandemic can be laid squarely at the feet of politicians and bureaucrats.

Even as it became clear that the virus was becoming increasingly dangerous, politicians around the world were quick to downplay its severity. The Chinese state attempted to silence those trying to broadcast warnings, while American political leaders actually encouraged folks to go out and party in crowded public areas. When coronavirus cases were finally confirmed within the United States, many realized that burdensome regulations were preventing private firms from taking measures to fight the pandemic.

Will those responsible face a reckoning for their massive failures?

Anti-Health Regulations

They certainly ought to. From the very beginning, government regulators got in the way as innovative firms worked to develop an accurate coronavirus test. The government fought hard to make sure that private labs could not offer coronavirus tests at all. In fact, the first positive test in the United States was conducted illegally, as researchers became impatient waiting for the Food and Drug Administration to grant them approval.

Weeks into the crisis and the FDA was still throwing up unnecessary hurdles. Arrogating to itself the power to prohibit all testing conducted without its express permission, the agency slowed progress at the time when detecting the virus was most crucial. “I could have tested over 1,000 patients by now instead of checking boxes,” one frustrated researcher said.

Bureaucratic red tape has also prevented hospitals from getting desperately needed supplies. Current regulations require FDA inspection of medical supplies before they can ship, and with massive new orders flowing in to manufacturers, the inspectors simply can’t keep up. But rather than allowing the market to work by letting hospitals freely order supplies from trusted producers, the FDA has refused to budge on its strict rules.

As Tom Rogan reported at the Washington Examiner, one company “had more than 20 pallets of coronavirus-specific medical supplies waiting in a warehouse for five days….At another depot in the south-central United States, this same supplier has had 500,000 level-three or level-four masks sitting in a warehouse for two days now. They expect the FDA delays to continue indefinitely.”

Moving in the Right Direction

These kinds of stories are more than enough to make one’s blood boil. But, thankfully, there are indications that as the crisis grows the federal government and state governments will be willing to waive their anti-health regulations.

Massachusetts, for example, has granted temporary licenses to nurses who are already licensed in other states. Other states have quickly followed suit. Before the crisis began, only three states had automatically licensed doctors and nurses who held out-of-state licenses: Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Montana, which decided to grant them on a permanent, rather than temporary, basis.

Several states have also moved to suspend their so-called “certificate of need” laws, which require healthcare facilities to receive government approval before establishing or expanding their services. As Vittorio Nastasi at the Reason Foundation writes, “Ample research suggests that CON laws increase costs and reduce access to care by limiting competition and supply.”

Nastasi also notes that some states are loosening their requirements under “scope of practice” laws, which restrict the “range of services medical professionals are permitted to provide.” Often the restrictions make little sense, requiring doctors to perform tasks that could be easily and competently done by a nurse. Relaxing scope of practice laws will go a long way toward making coronavirus testing and treatment more efficient.

Will We See Permanent Deregulation?

Unfortunately, many of these regulatory reforms are temporary. And although all of them should have been enacted before the pandemic began, the pandemic is what has allowed deregulation to be politically possible.

But it may also be the reason that the reforms never become permanent. The vast majority of state governors and federal regulators responsible for the deregulations have justified them, not by any prior commitment to advancing liberty, but by their necessity to counteract the pandemic. Once the coronavirus threat has been sufficiently mitigated, it is highly unlikely that these same politicians and bureaucrats will tolerate “emergency deregulations” becoming the new normal.

Moreover, many regulations exist because they benefit powerful interest groups. Once the emergency has subsided, these groups will argue vociferously in favor of reinstating their favored regulations.

In fact, some of the recent reforms have already received significant pushback. Florida’s attempt to ease its scope of practice laws, for example, was intensely criticized by the Florida Medical Association (FMA). The group has opposed reform for decades despite the fact that its state is one of the most restrictive in the country. The bill passed anyway, though the FMA will probably continue to fight for its repeal.

Nonmedical deregulations are likely to face even more scrutiny once the crisis has passed, particularly those related to food and adult beverages. Governor Abbott of Texas recently waived a curious law which prohibited trucks carrying groceries from also carrying alcohol. Boston is now allowing nearly every restaurant to offer carryout without a license. And throughout the country, state and local authorities have issued orders permitting restaurants to offer alcohol with takeout and delivery orders. But even these somewhat small and sensible measures have faced criticism.

It is, of course, entirely possible that the coronavirus will create a lasting paradigm shift toward more liberty and fewer government controls. Should public outrage at the deadly failures of bureaucracy and petty regulatory prohibitions be loud enough, the pandemic could wind up being the catalyst for the significant institutional reforms for which libertarians have been advocating for years.

But don’t hold your breath.

 

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Anthony Fauci, the “Learned Ignoramus” | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on April 17, 2020

Every time the “experts” demand that life be halted into the indeterminate future, they vindicate Ortega y Gasset’s observation that the learned ignoramuses are ignorant of the very nature of the social order itself and are therefore a menace to its preservation.

https://mises.org/wire/anthony-fauci-learned-ignoramus?utm_source=Mises+Institute+Subscriptions&utm_campaign=284f6752cc-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_9_21_2018_9_59_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8b52b2e1c0-284f6752cc-228343965

As the COVID-19 shutdown across the US continues, one cannot but help see the importance of specialization and the division of labor time and time again, as many Americans deal with true shortages of goods for the first time in their lives. Specialization has allowed us to enjoy a much more prosperous life than we would were we all to do everything ourselves. However, as with everything in this imperfect world, specialization comes with certain tradeoffs that are important to understand. As the unemployment numbers continue to rise by millions more every week, as meager savings are eliminated, and as our highly organized society slides into chaos it is important to understand the way in which an unbalanced intellectual specialization has contributed to bringing about the current crisis.

In his 1930 book The Revolt of the Masses, Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset addresses what he considers to be a strange byproduct of the prevalence of specialization in everything, specifically the intellectual sphere. “Previously,” he writes, “men could be divided simply into the learned and the ignorant, those more or less the one, and those more or less the other.” Now, however, a new kind of person has emerged, “an extraordinarily strange kind of man,” who cannot be called “learned for he is formally ignorant of all that does not enter into his specialty,” yet at the same time cannot be considered “ignorant because he is ‘a scientist’ who ‘knows’ very well his own tiny portion of the universe.” Thus, Ortega y Gasset says that the only fitting name for such a person is a “learned ignoramus.”

There can be no doubt that numerous learned ignoramuses can be found in all parts of society, but most importantly they are very clearly involved in the response to the COVID-19 virus, as sweeping calls for months of lockdown make clear.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and seen by many as the face of the federal virus response, has perhaps made the most ridiculous assertion, stating at a White House briefing on April 1 that “we could ‘relax social distancing’ once there’s ‘no new cases, no deaths,’ but the real turning point won’t come until there’s a vaccine.” Similarly, Dr. Zeke Emanuel, an architect of Obamacare and current advisor to Joe Biden, declared that it will be impossible to return to “normalcy” for eighteen months and that no matter the economic cost: “The truth is we have no choice….We cannot return to normal until there’s a vaccine.”

Such ideas are frankly madness, and would take an incalculable toll on the health and wealth of all Americans. Tens of millions of Americans find themselves out of work or with reduced hours or pay. The idea that society could continue to exist in such a state betrays a lack of any understanding of the social order.

Smithfield Foods is shutting down a meat processing plant that produces 4 to 5 percent of all the pork in the entire country, and its CEO warned that “the closure of this facility, combined with a growing list of other protein plants that have shuttered across our industry, is pushing our country perilously close to the edge in terms of our meat supply. It is impossible to keep our grocery stores stocked if our plants are not running.”

Mass unemployment will inevitably lead to an increase in suicide and substance abuse and the stay-at-home orders have already led to increased domestic violence. New instances of outrageous police conduct in the name of enforcing lockdowns emerge everyday. It is no exaggeration to say that in eighteen months there would likely not be any society left to “reopen.”

Truly, only learned ignoramuses could suggest such an obviously catastrophic course of action. Those plebeians who dare to question “experts” such as Fauci and Emanuel are lectured to listen to their betters, who use “science” to understand the situation and are far more knowledgeable. In other words, “stay in your lane.” Yet such critics miss their glaring contradiction. Public health officials certainly have a role to play, but they themselves are not experts at everything. By definition, they do not fully understand the other consequences and considerations that must be weighed and balanced, and they, of course, are lacking in the local dispersed knowledge needed to make such decisions. Yet that does not stop them from making declarations dripping with arrogance, such as Fauci’s assessment of the implosion of the economy and the resulting unemployment and hardship as being merely “inconvenient from an economic and a personal standpoint.” As Ortega y Gasset pointed out, learned ignoramuses are “ignorant, not in the fashion of the ignorant man, but with all the petulance of one who is learned in his own special line.”

The phenomenon of the learned ignoramus can be seen in every field and at all levels of intellectual life and popular punditry. However, the current crisis reveals the damage such “experts” can wreak upon civilization itself.

Ortega y Gasset fully recognized the important role that specialization has in making modern life possible; however, he calls for a balanced intellectual specialization, in contrast to the unbalanced status quo that he fears threatens the advancement of scientific discovery itself. Two such balanced intellectuals are without a doubt Ludwig von Mises and F.A. Hayek; although economists, they could be more accurately called social thinkers whose work encompassed far more than that of the typical economist today.

Rather than insular, unbalanced specialization, Mises argued that “He who wants to achieve anything in praxeology must be conversant with mathematics, physics, biology, history, and jurisprudence.” Hayek similarly warned that “Unless you really know your economics or whatever your special field is, you will be simply a fraud. But if you know only economics and nothing else, you will be a bane to mankind, good, perhaps, for writing articles for other economists to read, but for nothing else.”

Undoubtedly, the entire situation would look entirely different from the chaotic disruptive mess it is now if our public health officials and social scientists were trained in the mold of Mises and Hayek. Whereas both men stressed the complex and ultimately fragile nature of the social order, and therefore the need for broad understanding of this complexity, the learned ignoramus, in the words of Ortega y Gasset, “believes that civilization is there in just the same way as the earth’s crust and the forest primeval.”

Every time the “experts” demand that life be halted into the indeterminate future, they vindicate Ortega y Gasset’s observation that the learned ignoramuses are ignorant of the very nature of the social order itself and are therefore a menace to its preservation. This crisis demonstrates how prescient Ortega y Gasset’s warning was. Hopefully it is not too late to prevent a true societal catastrophe.

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Edward Snowden Says Governments Are Using COVID-19 To “Monitor Us Like Never Before”

Posted by M. C. on April 17, 2020

https://www.collective-evolution.com/2020/04/15/edward-snowden-says-governments-are-using-covid-19-to-monitor-us-like-never-before/

By

CE Staff Writer

In Brief

  • The Facts:In the second episode of The Intercept’s new weekly show, host Glenn Greenwald explores the under-discussed consequences of the coronavirus pandemic with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and how it’s being used to take away more human rights.
  • Reflect On:Should the government use force on their citizenry to comply, or should they simply recommend safety measures and explain why they do?

Special Note To Our Readers: We are concerned that our Facebook Page will be deleted, so we are encouraging all those who want to continue to receive and be able to find our content to sign up for our email list.

9/11 was a major event in human history, and although it was very traumatic and devastating, it served the collective in multiple ways. For example, the event raised questions and made people distrust their government. It also highlighted the massive amounts of corruption that exists within governments. Since 9/11, the masses have become aware of ‘false flag terrorism,’ which refers to the ‘powers that be’ creating, funding and even staging terrorist events in order to heighten the national security state and justify the invasion and infiltration of other countries  under the guise of good will and restoring democracy. In reality, this type of infiltration is usually used for ulterior motives like resource extraction, mass surveillance and installing a puppet government that is willing to work with governments and intelligence agencies who have a tremendous amount of power.

After 9/11 we saw various leaks from whistleblowers, organizations like Wikileaks, and numerous other proofs that governments were actually funding Terrorist organizations, and again, in some cases contributing to the ‘staging’ of terrorist attacks. The chemical weapons attacks in Syria a few years ago were a great example, and it eventually got to the point where congresspeople were introducing bills to stop their own government (The United States) from funding terrorist organizations like ISIS. Just like Tulsi Gabbard did with the “Stop Arming Terrorists Act.”

Terrorism is and always has been a classic case of powerful people creating the problem, so the exact same people can  propose the solution. Are we seeing the same thing with the coronavirus?

Whistleblowers like Edward Snowden and William Binney (one of the highest placed intelligence officials to ever blow the whistle), among others, have been exposing the National Security Agency (NSA) and the US Government with regards to the extent of their surveillance programs for quite a while. They’ve both leaked documents and ‘blown the whistle’ on just how far these agencies go to monitor not only their own citizens, but the citizes in other countries as well. They’ve also been quite outspoken that these programs are not put in place for our own protection, and that the ‘problems’ are simply a cover that are used to justify the implementation of these programs. According to Binney, these surveillance measures are not for our protection, but for “total population control.” (source)

What Snowden Has To Say About The Coronavirus

According to Edward Snowden, “Governments around the world are are exploiting the pandemic to monitor us like never before.” He and many others have been pointing out how society is moving fast towards an authoritarian type of existence, and how it’s already here. The enforcement or advocacy of strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom has been here for quite a while, and it’s done in a very clever way. Many of us are concerned about having a good job, a house, a family and many of us believe we have freedom without being aware that in many ways, we really don’t. And all of the measures that take away our freedom are done so by manufacturing our consent to these measures, or by governments simply implementing these measures without the knowledge or approval of the people.  As Snowden mentions in his interview below, fear, panic and hysteria are usually the tools used to implement and justify these measures and manufacture our consent.

As authoritarianism spreads, as emergency laws proliferate, as we sacrifice our rights, we also sacrifice our capability to arrest the slide into a less liberal and less free world. Do you truly believe that when the first wave, this second wave, the 16th wave of the coronavirus is a long forgotten memory, that these capabilities will not be kept? -Edward Snowden (source)

Snowden points out that just like 9/11, the coronavirus will be used to heighten even more surveillance and security measures that won’t go away. I am sure many measures that are being put in place, just as they were put into place after 9/11, will remain classified and completely hidden from the citizenry. That’s why people like Edward Snowden are so important.

We are also seeing an authoritarian type of dictator policing the internet as well. Dr. Ron Paul had a piece that was recently flagged as ‘false news’ for simply sharing his opinion. He shares the same thoughts as Snowden to an extent:

Governments love crises because when the people are fearful they are more willing to give up freedoms for promises that the government will take care of them. After 9/11, for example, Americans accepted the near-total destruction of their civil liberties in the PATRIOT Act’s hollow promises of security.

People should ask themselves whether this coronavirus “pandemic” could be a big hoax, with the actual danger of the disease massively exaggerated by those who seek to profit – financially or politically – from the ensuing panic.

That is not to say the disease is harmless. Without question people will die from coronavirus. Those in vulnerable categories should take precautions to limit their risk of exposure. But we have seen this movie before. Government over-hypes a threat as an excuse to grab more of our freedoms. When the “threat” is over, however, they never give us our freedoms back. – Paul (source)

Below is a very interesting interview that Snowden recently gave with Glenn Greenwald, where they explore the “under-discussed consequences of the coronavirus pandemic” and “the risk of acquiescing to more surveillance during times of peril.” In it he goes into greater detail.

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Cloward–Piven Strategy -Are COVID-19 Lockdowns and Shutdowns The Answer To The Progressives Prayers?

Posted by M. C. on April 16, 2020

The overloading the welfare system part is well on it’s way.

Will proposed monthly COVID-19 payouts turn permanent?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloward%E2%80%93Piven_strategy

The Cloward–Piven strategy is a political strategy outlined in 1966 by American sociologists and political activists Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven that called for overloading the U.S. public welfare system in order to precipitate a crisis that would lead to a replacement of the welfare system with “a guaranteed annual income and thus an end to poverty”.[1]…

The authors pinned their hopes on creating disruption within the Democratic Party:

“Conservative Republicans are always ready to declaim the evils of public welfare, and they would probably be the first to raise a hue and cry. But deeper and politically more telling conflicts would take place within the Democratic coalition…Whites – both working class ethnic groups and many in the middle class – would be aroused against the ghetto poor, while liberal groups, which until recently have been comforted by the notion that the poor are few… would probably support the movement. Group conflict, spelling political crisis for the local party apparatus, would thus become acute as welfare rolls mounted and the strains on local budgets became more severe.”[4]

…

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‘Grave concerns’ about Covid-19 immunity passports

Posted by M. C. on April 16, 2020

You have to admit it is a great way to secretly data bank DNA.

https://www.france24.com/en/20200416-grave-concerns-about-covid-19-immunity-passports

Text by: Tom WHEELDON

Trapped between the competing urgencies of saving lives from Covid-19 and avoiding economic calamity, some government officials have mooted “immunity passports” as a way through the impasse. But experts told FRANCE 24 that the necessary antibody testing is not reliable enough – and even if the scheme were feasible, it could create a dangerous incentive for some to acquire the virus in order to qualify for the passport.

The global tally of confirmed coronavirus cases surpassed 2 million on Wednesday – a day after researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health warned that the US may need to keep some social distancing measures until 2022, while the IMF predicted that, thanks to “the Great Lockdown”, the world will suffer the worst recession since the Great Depression.

Anxious about both the unfolding economic disaster and the risk of Covid-19 resurging if lockdowns are reversed prematurely, some officials in hard-hit countries have suggested that a system of immunity passports could be a route out of the coronavirus crisis – for some at least. The idea is that people who have already had the disease and thereby gained immunity could be given permits to live their lives mostly like they did before the pandemic.

Shortly after emerging from self-isolation after testing positive for Covid-19, the UK’s Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced in early April that the British government was considering an “immunity certificate” system to allow those who qualify to “get back as much as possible to normal life”.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has also given the idea her backing – putting it in a list of proposals for returning to business as usual in the City of Lights that she sent to the French government. On the other side of the Atlantic, Anthony Fauci, the director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN that immunity passports are “being discussed” in the Trump administration. “It might actually have some merit under some circumstances,” he added.

Antibody tests ‘not sufficiently accurate’

Immunity passports would require tests for antibodies specific to Covid-19, which would be different from those used to discern whether or not people currently have the virus. The problem is that, as things stand, these tests “are not sufficiently accurate for individual immunity passports”, which means that “we are still a long way off it being useful to test individuals with these methods”, said Claire Standley, an assistant professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Global Health Science and Security…

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What Are Fauci & Gates Up To? – PaulCraigRoberts.org

Posted by M. C. on April 15, 2020

You don’t need a brick and mortar store to buy software.

https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2020/04/13/what-are-fauci-gates-up-to/

Paul Craig Roberts

Fauci says the government is considering giving out COVID-19 ‘immunity cards’ in order to reopen the economy https://www.businessinsider.com/the-government-is-considering-covid-19-immunity-cards-2020-4

This is absurd.  It is a well known established fact that not all get immunity.  People cured of the virus have again become infected.  This negates the usefulness of “immunity cards.”

How can Fauci and Gates not know this?  Clearly, they have a different agenda.

If you thought Bill Gates was intelligent, think again.

The moron wants the economy locked down for 18 months until his vaccine is ready.  18 months in a locked down economy means no one will be alive to vaccinate with his toxic concoction.

https://childrenshealthdefense.org/news/heres-why-bill-gates-wants-indemnity-are-you-willing-to-take-the-risk/?utm_source=salsa&eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=c94b3721-ea3d-464f-b8cc-68adb387220c 

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The Rutherford Institute :: COVID-19 and the War on Cash: What Is Behind the Push for a Cashless Society? | By John W. Whitehead |

Posted by M. C. on April 15, 2020

According to economist Steve Forbes, “The real reason for this war on cash—start with the big bills and then work your way down—is an ugly power grab by Big Government. People will have less privacy: Electronic commerce makes it easier for Big Brother to see what we’re doing, thereby making it simpler to bar activities it doesn’t like, such as purchasing salt, sugar, big bottles of soda and Big Macs.”

Add to that firearms, ammunition, publications and blogs that deviate from the program…

Much like the war on drugs and the war on terror, this so-called “war on cash” is being sold to the public as a means of fighting terrorists, drug dealers, tax evaders and now COVID-19 germs.

Digital currency provides the government and its corporate partners with the ultimate method to track, control you and punish you.

https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/covid_19_and_the_war_on_cash_what_is_behind_the_push_for_a_cashless_society

By John W. Whitehead

“The fact is that the government, like a highwayman, says to a man: Your money, or your life. And many, if not most, taxes are paid under the compulsion of that threat. The government does not, indeed, waylay a man in a lonely place, spring upon him from the road side, and, holding a pistol to his head, proceed to rifle his pockets. But the robbery is none the less a robbery on that account; and it is far more dastardly and shameful.”—Lysander Spooner, American abolitionist and legal theorist

Cash may well become a casualty of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As these COVID-19 lockdowns drag out, more and more individuals and businesses are going cashless (for convenience and in a so-called effort to avoid spreading coronavirus germs), engaging in online commerce or using digital forms of currency (bank cards, digital wallets, etc.). As a result, physical cash is no longer king.

Yet there are other, more devious, reasons for this re-engineering of society away from physical cash: a cashless society—easily monitored, controlled, manipulated, weaponized and locked down—would play right into the hands of the government (and its corporate partners).

To this end, the government and its corporate partners-in-crime have been waging a subtle war on cash for some time now.

What is this war on cash?

It’s a concerted campaign to shift consumers towards a digital mode of commerce that can easily be monitored, tracked, tabulated, mined for data, hacked, hijacked and confiscated when convenient.

According to economist Steve Forbes, “The real reason for this war on cash—start with the big bills and then work your way down—is an ugly power grab by Big Government. People will have less privacy: Electronic commerce makes it easier for Big Brother to see what we’re doing, thereby making it simpler to bar activities it doesn’t like, such as purchasing salt, sugar, big bottles of soda and Big Macs.”

Much like the war on drugs and the war on terror, this so-called “war on cash” is being sold to the public as a means of fighting terrorists, drug dealers, tax evaders and now COVID-19 germs.

Digital currency provides the government and its corporate partners with the ultimate method to track, control you and punish you.

In recent years, just the mere possession of significant amounts of cash could implicate you in suspicious activity and label you a criminal. The rationale (by police) is that cash is the currency for illegal transactions given that it’s harder to track, can be used to pay illegal immigrants, and denies the government its share of the “take,” so doing away with paper money will help law enforcement fight crime and help the government realize more revenue.

Despite what we know about the government and its history of corruption, bumbling, fumbling and data breaches, not to mention how easily technology can be used against us, the campaign to do away with cash is really not a hard sell.

It’s not a hard sell, that is, if you know the right buttons to push, and the government has become a grand master in the art of getting the citizenry to do exactly what it wants. Remember, this is the same government that plans to use behavioral science tactics to “nudge” citizens to comply with the government’s public policy and program initiatives.

It’s also not a hard sell if you belong to the Digital Generation, that segment of the population for whom technology is second nature and “the first generation born into a world that has never not known digital life.”

And it’s certainly not a hard sell if you belong to the growing class of Americans who use their cell phones to pay bills, purchase goods, and transfer funds.

In much the same way that Americans have opted into government surveillance through the convenience of GPS devices and cell phones, digital cash—the means of paying with one’s debit card, credit card or cell phone—is becoming the de facto commerce of the American police state.

Not too long ago, it was estimated that smart phones would replace cash and credit cards altogether by 2020. Right on schedule, a growing number of businesses are adopting no-cash policies, including certain airlines, hotels, rental car companies, restaurants and retail stores. In Sweden, even the homeless and churches accept digital cash.

Making the case for “never, ever carrying cash” in lieu of a digital wallet, journalist Lisa Rabasca Roepe argues that cash is inconvenient, ATM access is costly, and it’s now possible to reimburse people using digital apps such as Venmo. Thus, there’s no longer a need for cash. “More and more retailers and grocery stores are embracing Apple Pay, Google Wallet, Samsung Pay, and Android Pay,” notes Roepe. “PayPal’s app is now accepted at many chain stores including Barnes & Noble, Foot Locker, Home Depot, and Office Depot. Walmart and CVS have both developed their own payment apps while their competitors Target and RiteAid are working on their own apps.”

It’s not just cash that is going digital, either.

A growing number of states are looking to adopt digital driver’s licenses that would reside on your mobile phone. These licenses would include all of the information contained on your printed license, along with a few “extras” such as real-time data downloaded directly from your state’s Department of Motor Vehicles.

Of course, reading between the lines, having a digital driver’s license will open you up to much the same jeopardy as digital cash: it will make it possible for the government to better track your movements, monitor your activities and communications and ultimately shut you down.

So what’s the deal here?

Despite all of the advantages that go along with living in a digital age—namely, convenience—it’s hard to imagine how a cashless world navigated by way of a digital wallet doesn’t signal the beginning of the end for what little privacy we have left and leave us vulnerable to the likes of government thieves and data hackers.

First, when I say privacy, I’m not just referring to the things that you don’t want people to know about, those little things you do behind closed doors that are neither illegal nor harmful but embarrassing or intimate. I am also referring to the things that are deeply personal and which no one need know about, certainly not the government and its constabulary of busybodies, nannies, Peeping Toms, jail wardens and petty bureaucrats.

Second, we’re already witnessing how easy it will be for government agents to manipulate digital wallets for their own gain. For example, civil asset forfeiture schemes are becoming even more profitable for police agencies thanks to ERAD (Electronic Recovery and Access to Data) devices supplied by the Department of Homeland Security that allow police to not only determine the balance of any magnetic-stripe card (i.e., debit, credit and gift cards) but also freeze and seize any funds on pre-paid money cards. In fact, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that it does not violate the Fourth Amendment for police to scan or swipe your credit card.

Third, as commentator Paul Craig Roberts observed, while Americans have been distracted by the government’s costly war on terror, “the financial system, working hand-in-hand with policymakers, has done more damage to Americans than terrorists could possibly inflict.” Ultimately, as Roberts—who served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy under Ronald Reagan—makes clear, the war on cash is about giving the government the ultimate control of the economy and complete access to the citizenry’s pocketbook.

Fourth, if there’s a will, there’s a way. So far, every technological convenience that has made our lives easier has also become our Achilles’ heel, opening us up to greater vulnerabilities from hackers and government agents alike. In recent years, the U.S. government has been repeatedly hacked. In 2015, the Office of Personnel Management had more than 20 million personnel files stolen, everything from Social Security numbers to birth dates and fingerprint records. In 2014, it was the White House, the State Department, the Post Office and other government agencies, along with a host of financial institutions, retailers and entertainment giants that had their files breached. And these are the people in charge of protecting our sensitive information?

Fifth, if there’s one entity that will not stop using cash for its own nefarious purposes, it’s the U.S. government. Cash is the currency used by the government to pay off its foreign “associates.” For instance, the Obama administration flew more than $400 million in cash to Iran, reportedly as part of a financial settlement with the country. Critics claim the money was ransom paid for the return of American hostages. And then there was the $12 billion in shrink-wrapped $100 bills that the U.S. flew to Iraq only to claim it had no record of what happened to the money. It just disappeared, we were told. So when government economists tell you that two-thirds of all $100 bills in circulation are overseas—more than half a trillion dollars’ worth—it’s a pretty good bet that the government played a significant part in their export.

Sixth, this drive to do away with cash is part of a larger global trend driven by international financial institutions and the United Nations that is transforming nations of all sizes, from the smallest nation to the biggest, most advanced economies.

Finally, short of returning to a pre-technological, Luddite age, there’s really no way to pull this horse back now that it’s left the gate. While doing so is near impossible, it would also mean doing without the many conveniences and advantages that are the better angels, if you will, of technology’s totalitarian tendencies: the internet, medical advances, etc.

To our detriment, we have virtually no control over who accesses our private information, how it is stored, or how it is used. Whether we ever had much control remains up for debate. However, in terms of our bargaining power over digital privacy rights, we have been reduced to a pitiful, unenviable position in which we can only hope and trust that those in power will treat our information with respect.

Clearly, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we have come full circle, back to a pre-revolutionary era of taxation without any real representation.

Be seeing you

 

 

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Calls for Central Planning in the COVID-19 Panic Are like the Calls for the “War Socialism” of Old | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on April 14, 2020

The opposite is true. It is the private economy that wins wars. The private economy is yielding more goods and services to alleviate the corona epidemic. The efficiency of private companies these days is amazing. Uncounted solutions are coming from the private sector, which is switching to the production of masks, medical suits, drugs, ventilators or coming up with safe new ways of delivering goods and services to consumers.

https://mises.org/wire/calls-central-planning-covid-19-panic-are-calls-war-socialism-old?utm_source=Mises+Institute+Subscriptions&utm_campaign=acaee256f8-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_9_21_2018_9_59_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8b52b2e1c0-acaee256f8-228343965

In dark hours, when people fear for their lives, they eagerly deliver their freedom to the state. Many want the government take control of their lives, because they think it will be better for them. Ludwig von Mises has written extensively about the erroneous belief that in an emergency the state must take control of the economy because the market economy supposedly fails. Specifically, Mises dealt with this subject in his writings on war socialism.

In Human Action, he writes about the reasoning in favor of state planning:

The market economy, say the socialists and the interventionists, is at best a system that may be tolerated in peacetime. But when war comes, such indulgence is impermissible. It would jeopardize the vital interests of the nation for the sole benefit of the selfish concerns of capitalists and entrepreneurs. War, and in any case modern total war, peremptorily requires government control of business.” (1998, p. 821).

In Nation, State, and Economy Mises similarly remarks:

So-called war socialism has been regarded as sufficiently argued for and justified with reference mostly to the emergency created by war. In war, the inadequate free economy supposedly cannot be allowed to exist any longer; into its place must step something more perfect, the administered economy. (2006, p. 117).

The similarity between the reasoning in favor of war socialism and the arguments that have been brought forward during the corona emergency is striking. Today war rhetoric abounds. Emanuel Macron explicitly stated, “We’re at war,” and sent, as in Spain, the military to the streets. US president Donald Trump similarly speaks of “Our Big War” and invokes the wartime authority of the Defense Production Act. We hear the slogan “We are in this together” all the time.

Mises discusses German war socialism during the First World War in detail. He points out that Emperor Wilhelm II basically lost all powers to the General Staff. General Ludendorff “became virtually omnipotent dictator,” he explains in Omnipotent Government (1985, p. 42), and subordinated everything to the war effort.

Winning the war was thought to be the outstanding goal, which could only be achieved by centralizing all powers. These powers were given to the military. After all, they were the experts in military matters.

Today, we face a similar tyranny of experts, to borrow a term from William Easterly. In the medical emergency, enormous power lies in the hands of doctors such as Anthony Fauci in the US or Christian Drosten in Germany. These experts advise governments what to do—for instance, which size of gatherings shall be prohibited (events of 1000, 100, or 3 persons), if and for how long economies shall be locked down, and if the wearing of masks shall become mandatory. And politicians follow the advice of the doctors. After all, they are the experts.

The similarities to war socialism do not end there. Indeed, to different degrees we are experiencing war socialism, because the war against the virus involves a massive central invasion of private property. Almost all economic activity has become subordinated to the war effort. In many countries businesses not considered essential to the war effort are forced to close down, such as retail stores, gastronomy businesses, or hotels. Others are forced indirectly to close, as their customers are confined.

In a sense, the whole population has been conscripted in the fight against the virus. Some people are allowed to continue producing, because it is considered worthwhile. Other people have been conscripted and ordered to fight the war on the home front. They are not allowed to leave their homes, as the experts consider this the best way to fight the virus and win the war. Even children are forced to contribute to the war effort by staying home. The central planners also decide when it is worthwhile to leave the home trenches, i.e., to walk the dog or buy groceries.

As in other wars, borders are temporarily closed and the international division of labor is severely hampered. War is financed in three main ways (Mises 2006, pp. 136–42).

First, goods and services are confiscated. In the corona war, medical material is being seized. Companies are closed and individuals confined. They shift their “production” toward the war effort. They produce “social distancing,” which is considered the main “good” necessary to win the war against the virus. Second, taxes are increased. Indeed, war profit taxes are especially popular. We are already hearing the first proposals in that direction. Third, the printing press accelerates, which we are experiencing as well.

In sum, the government interventions in the corona epidemic can be considered as a form of war socialism.

The next question is: is war socialism true socialism?

According to Mises, true socialism exists when there is a “transfer of the means of production out of private ownership of individuals into the ownership of society. That alone and nothing else is socialism. (Mises, 2006, p. 142).

Mises declares: “the measures of war socialism amounted to putting the economy on a socialistic basis. The right of ownership remained formally unimpaired. By the letter of the law the owner still continued to be the owner of the means of production. Yet, the power of disposal over the enterprise was taken away from him” (2006, p. 143).

In socialism, the central authority decides what is produced. In corona socialism, the government indirectly does that also: it decides which businesses are allowed to open and which are not. Thus, it decides what can be produced (masks, ventilators) and what will not be produced (tourism or sporting events).

Mises clarifies: “War socialism was by no means complete socialism, but it was full and true socialization without exception if one had kept on the path that had been taken” (Mises 2006, p. 144). Of course, corona socialism, as an instance of war socialism, is considered to be temporary, as “exceptional provisions for the duration of the war” (Mises 2006, p. 146).

But does war socialism achieve its aim? The defenders of the centralized effort claim that “the organized economy is capable of yielding higher outputs than the free economy” (Mises 2006, p. 117).

The opposite is true. It is the private economy that wins wars. The private economy is yielding more goods and services to alleviate the corona epidemic. The efficiency of private companies these days is amazing. Uncounted solutions are coming from the private sector, which is switching to the production of masks, medical suits, drugs, ventilators or coming up with safe new ways of delivering goods and services to consumers.

Private companies swiftly shift their production efforts due to anticipated profits. In a market economy, it is profits that direct production, quickly taking all human needs into account. In contrast, the medical production czars tend to have only one end or human need in mind. They want to slow down infection rates at all costs. They disregard other human ends, such as creating successful businesses and enjoying a vast array of goods and services such as vacationing or other leisure activities. When these ends cannot be reached, there may be other health problems, such as heart diseases or psychic issues. The forced lockdown brings economic misery. A general fall in living standards ensues with all its consequences.

The central medical planning focuses only on measurable variables such the infection rate. By not taking into account other ends (and not being able to do so), this planning exerts enormous harm from the point of view of voluntarily interacting individuals. In contrast to the central planning approach, which focuses on one end, all ends in human society are taken into account in the market economy through (expected) profits. Production is adjusted swiftly and efficiently toward the changing ends of consumers.

It is entrepreneurial profit seeking that unleashes human creativity and genius and thereby satisfies human needs as efficiently as humanly possible. The right answer to a war, and to the corona war as well, is therefore to eliminate all barriers to entrepreneurship:

For anyone of the opinion that the free economy is the superior form of economic activity, precisely the need created by the war had to be a new reason demanding that all obstacles standing in the way of free competition be set aside. (Mises 2006, p. 117)

In other words, in order to win the corona war, government should cut taxes and regulations vigorously. Unfortunately, governments around the world have opted for the opposite path, namely war socialism. If they do not quickly rectify their responses and end their war, the socialization of our economies will continue. Mises warns: “in the long run war and the preservation of the market economy are incompatible” (1998, p. 824).

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What if Ignored Covid-19 Warnings Had Been Leaked to WikiLeaks? – Antiwar.com Original

Posted by M. C. on April 13, 2020

“WikiLeaks and 9/11: What If?” is the title The Los Angeles Times gave an Oct. 15, 2010 op-ed by former FBI Special Agent/Minneapolis Division Counsel Coleen Rowley and former Air Marshal Bogdan Dzakovic, who led an elite “Red Team” for the Federal Aviation Administration to probe vulnerabilities of airports and aircraft during the years before 9/11.

After arresting would-be hijacker Zacarias Moussaoui on August 16, 2001, Rowley’s colleagues in Minneapolis ran into unconscionable foot-dragging by FBI headquarters functionaries, who would not permit a search of Moussaoui’s laptop computer or his personal effects.

https://original.antiwar.com/mcgovern/2020/04/12/what-if-ignored-covid-19-warnings-had-been-leaked-to-wikileaks/

by

The British court system continues to mock the Magna Carta. Bowing vassal-like to U.S. pressure it persists with Star Chamber proceedings against WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange until he is either extradited to the US or winds up dead.

The judicial pantomime under way in London, under the guise of an extradition hearing, would make the English nobles who wrested precious civil rights from King John eight centuries ago sob in anger and shame. But nary a whimper is heard from the heirs to those rights. One searches in vain for English nobles today.

Yet the process stumbles along, as awkward as it is inexorable, toward extradition and life in prison for Assange, if he lasts that long.

The banal barristers bashing Assange now seem to harbor hope that, unlike the case of Henry II and Thomas More, the swords of royal knights will be unneeded to “deliver the Crown from this troublesome priest” – or publisher. Those barristers may be spared the embarrassment of losing what residual self-respect they may still claim. In short, they may not need to bow and scrape much longer to surrender Assange to life in a US prison. He may die first.

Puppeteers

For the UK and US barristers and their puppeteers in Washington, salivating to seize the Australian publisher, a deus ex machina has descended backstage. It is called Covid-19 and London’s Belmarsh prison is accurately described as a petri dish for such disease. We already know of one prisoner death there from the virus. God knows how many more there already are – or will be.

In refusing to allow nonviolent prisoner Julian Assange to leave that crowded prison (with his immunocompromised condition, weakened lungs, and clinical depression), presiding Judge Vanessa Baraitser leaves an open door to deliver Kings Boris and Donald this “troublesome” publisher by “natural” means. The swords of royal knights are not needed for this kind of faux-judicial, royal screw. And, happily for Lady Baraitser, she may not have to keep washing blood off her hands as Lady Macbeth was compelled to do.

Meanwhile, as all await Assange’s demise – one way or the other – his lawyers have had no contact with him for three weeks. They cannot visit him in prison; nor can they even talk to him by video chat, according to WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnnson.

Empire Drives Home an Old Lesson

However Assange is eventually dispatched – dead or alive – from Star Chamber and prison, the Empire remains hell-bent on demonstrating that it will give no quarter to those endangering it by WikiLeaks-type disclosures.

The lesson is now abundantly clear to all “troublesome” publishers tempted to follow Assange’s example of publishing documentary truth (a function of what used to be called journalism). They will be cut down – whether by “natural” means, or by endless faux-judicial proceedings resulting in lengthy imprisonment, financial ruin, or both.

On Tuesday Judge Baraitser announced that the Assange extradition hearing will resume on May 18, as previously scheduled and that it may drag on into July — Covid-19 notwithstanding. The big question is whether Assange, if he is kept confined in Belmarsh prison, will live that long. Meanwhile, thousands of other nonviolent prisoners are being released from other UK prisons in a humane step to reduce the chances of infection.

As I think of my good friend Julian, what comes to mind are the desperate words of Willy Loman’s wife Linda in “Death of a Salesman”:

“He’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He’s not to be allowed to fall in his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must finally be paid to such a person.”

(On the chance you are wondering, The New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal – as well as National Public Radio – have paid zero attention to the extradition hearing in recent weeks – much less to Judge Baraitser’s Queen of Hearts-style, “off-with-his-head” behavior.)

Aping Caiaphas

The pitiable Baraitser, of course, is simply a cog in the imperial machinery, a self-impressed, self-interested, rigid functionary aping the role of Caiaphas, the high priest beholden to an earlier Empire. “It’s better that one man die,” he is said to have explained, when another nonviolent truth-teller dared to expose the cruelties of Empire to the downtrodden of his day – including the despicable accessory role played by the high priests.

Here is how theologian Eugene Peterson’s renders Caiaphas’s words in John 11: “Can’t you see that it’s to our advantage that one man die … rather than the whole nation be destroyed.” (“Nation” in that context meant the system of privilege enjoyed by collaborators with Rome – like the high priests and the lawyers of the time.)

The lesson meant to be taken away from Assange’s punishment are as clear – if less bloody – as the crucifixion that followed quickly after Caiaphas explained the rationale. The behavior of today’s empire pretends to be more “civilized” as it manufactures stories of rape, leans on ratty satraps in Sweden, England, and Ecuador, and ostentatiously thumbs its nose at official UN condemnations of “arbitrary detention.” And, if that were not enough, it also practices leave-no-marks torture.

Cutting Off Nose to Spite Face

Meanwhile, those who in an ideal world should be natural allies of WikiLeaks, the media, are cowed, and are as pitiable as Baraitser. Many loudly betray Assange outright.

There is no need now, two millennia later, to erect crosses along the roadside as graphic reminders to intimidate those who would expose Empire’s oppression. Civil rights wrested from King John 800 years ago – habeas corpus, for one – have become “quaint” and “obsolete”, adjectives applied by that distinguished American jurist, and George W. Bush “lawyer,” Alberto Gonzales to the Geneva Convention protections against torture. The successors to the English “nobles” of Runnymede seem to have gone the way of Gonzales.

This is not only a case of “killing the messenger”, lamentable as that is. It amounts to cutting off our collective nose to spite our face.

Because most Americans are so impoverished on accurate information, and so misled by the corporate media regarding WikiLeaks – and Assange, in particular – they are blissfully unaware of WikiLeaks’ capability to expose crucial information that can head off disaster.

What If? Read the rest of this entry »

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