- It's Time To Declare Your Independence From Tyranny, America
Authored by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,
“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.” – Thomas Paine, December 1776
It’s time to declare your independence from tyranny, America.
For too long now, we have suffered the injustices of a government that has no regard for our rights or our humanity.
Too easily pacified and placated by the pomp and pageantry of manufactured spectacles (fireworks on the Fourth of July, military parades, ritualized elections, etc.) that are a poor substitute for a representative government that respects the rights of its people, the American people have opted, time and again, to overlook the government’s excesses, abuses and power grabs that fly in the face of every principle for which America’s founders risked their lives.
We have done this to ourselves.
Indeed, it is painfully fitting that mere days before the nation prepared to celebrate its freedoms on the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the City Council for Charlottesville, Virginia—the home of Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration—voted to do away with a holiday to honor Jefferson’s birthday, because Jefferson, like many of his contemporaries, owned slaves. City councilors have opted instead to celebrate “Liberation and Freedom Day” in honor of slaves who were emancipated after the Civil War.
This is what we have been reduced to: bureaucrats dithering over meaningless trivialities while the government goosesteps all over our freedoms.
Too often, we pay lip service to those freedoms, yet they did not come about by happenstance. They were hard won through sheer determination, suffering and sacrifice by thousands of patriotic Americans who not only believed in the cause of freedom but also had the intestinal fortitude to act on that belief. The success of the American revolution owes much to these men and women.
In standing up to the British Empire and speaking out against an oppressive regime, they exemplified courage in the face of what seemed like an overwhelming foe.
Indeed, imagine living in a country where armed soldiers crash through doors to arrest and imprison citizens merely for criticizing government officials.
Imagine that in this very same country, you’re watched all the time, and if you look even a little bit suspicious, the police stop and frisk you or pull you over to search you on the off chance you’re doing something illegal.
Keep in mind that if you have a firearm of any kind (or anything that resembled a firearm) while in this country, it may get you arrested and, in some circumstances, shot by police.
If you’re thinking this sounds like America today, you wouldn’t be far wrong.
However, the scenario described above took place more than 200 years ago, when American colonists suffered under Great Britain’s version of an early police state. It was only when the colonists finally got fed up with being silenced, censored, searched, frisked, threatened, and arrested that they finally revolted against the tyrant’s fetters.
No document better states their grievances than the Declaration of Independence, drafted by Thomas Jefferson.
A document seething with outrage over a government which had betrayed its citizens, the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776, by 56 men who laid everything on the line, pledged it all—“our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor”—because they believed in a radical idea: that all people are created to be free.
Labeled traitors, these men were charged with treason, a crime punishable by death. For some, their acts of rebellion would cost them their homes and their fortunes. For others, it would be the ultimate price—their lives.
Yet even knowing the heavy price they might have to pay, these men dared to speak up when silence could not be tolerated. Even after they had won their independence from Great Britain, these new Americans worked to ensure that the rights they had risked their lives to secure would remain secure for future generations.
The result: our Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution.
Imagine the shock and outrage these 56 men would feel were they to discover that 243 years later, the government they had risked their lives to create has been transformed into a militaristic police state in which exercising one’s freedoms—at a minimum, merely questioning a government agent—is often viewed as a flagrant act of defiance.
In fact, had the Declaration of Independence been written today, it would have rendered its signers extremists or terrorists, resulting in them being placed on a government watch list, targeted for surveillance of their activities and correspondence, and potentially arrested, held indefinitely, stripped of their rights and labeled enemy combatants.
The danger is real.
We could certainly use some of that revolutionary outrage today.
Certainly, we would do well to reclaim the revolutionary spirit of our ancestors and remember what drove them to such drastic measures in the first place.
Then again, perhaps what we need to do is declare our independence from the tyranny of the American police state.
It’s not a radical idea.
It has been done before.
The Declaration of Independence speaks volumes about the abuses suffered by early Americans at the hands of the British police state.
Read the Declaration of Independence again, and ask yourself if the list of complaints tallied by Jefferson don’t bear a startling resemblance to the abuses “we the people” are suffering at the hands of the American police state.
If you find the purple prose used by the Founders hard to decipher, here’s my translation of what the Declaration of Independence would look and sound like if it were written in the modern vernacular:
There comes a time when a populace must stand united and say “enough is enough” to the government’s abuses, even if it means getting rid of the political parties in power.
Believing that “we the people” have a natural and divine right to direct our own lives, here are truths about the power of the people and how we arrived at the decision to sever our ties to the government:
All people are created equal.
All people possess certain innate rights that no government or agency or individual can take away from them. Among these are the right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
The government’s job is to protect the people’s innate rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. The government’s power comes from the will of the people.
Whenever any government abuses its power, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish that government and replace it with a new government that will respect and protect the rights of the people.
It is not wise to get rid of a government for minor transgressions. In fact, as history has shown, people resist change and are inclined to suffer all manner of abuses to which they have become accustomed.
However, when the people have been subjected to repeated abuses and power grabs, carried out with the purpose of establishing a tyrannical government, people have a right and duty to do away with that tyrannical Government and to replace it with a new government that will protect and preserve their innate rights for their future wellbeing.
This is exactly the state of affairs we are under suffering under right now, which is why it is necessary that we change this imperial system of government.
The history of the present Imperial Government is a history of repeated abuses and power grabs, carried out with the intention of establishing absolute Tyranny over the country.
To prove this, consider the following:
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The government has, through its own negligence and arrogance, refused to adopt urgent and necessary laws for the good of the people.
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The government has threatened to hold up critical laws unless the people agree to relinquish their right to be fully represented in the Legislature.
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In order to expand its power and bring about compliance with its dictates, the government has made it nearly impossible for the people to make their views and needs heard by their representatives.
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The government has repeatedly suppressed protests arising in response to its actions.
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The government has obstructed justice by refusing to appoint judges who respect the Constitution and has instead made the Courts march in lockstep with the government’s dictates.
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The government has allowed its agents to harass the people, steal from them, jail them and even execute them.
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The government has directed militarized government agents—a.k.a., a standing army—to police domestic affairs in peacetime.
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The government has turned the country into a militarized police state.
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The government has conspired to undermine the rule of law and the constitution in order to expand its own powers.
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The government has allowed its militarized police to invade our homes and inflict violence on homeowners.
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The government has failed to hold its agents accountable for wrongdoing and murder under the guise of “qualified immunity.”
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The government has jeopardized our international trade agreements.
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The government has overtaxed us without our permission.
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The government has denied us due process and the right to a fair trial.
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The government has engaged in extraordinary rendition.
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The government has continued to expand its military empire in collusion with its corporate partners-in-crime and occupy foreign nations.
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The government has eroded fundamental legal protections and destabilized the structure of government.
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The government has not only declared its federal powers superior to those of the states but has also asserted its sovereign power over the rights of “we the people.”
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The government has ceased to protect the people and instead waged domestic war against the people.
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The government has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, and destroyed the lives of the people.
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The government has employed private contractors and mercenaries to carry out acts of death, desolation and tyranny, totally unworthy of a civilized nation.
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The government through its political propaganda has pitted its citizens against each other.
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The government has stirred up civil unrest and laid the groundwork for martial law.
Repeatedly, we have asked the government to cease its abuses. Each time, the government has responded with more abuse.
An Imperial Ruler who acts like a tyrant is not fit to govern a free people.
We have repeatedly sounded the alarm to our fellow citizens about the government’s abuses. We have warned them about the government’s power grabs. We have appealed to their sense of justice. We have reminded them of our common bonds.
They have rejected our plea for justice and brotherhood. They are equally at fault for the injustices being carried out by the government.
Thus, for the reasons mentioned above, we the people of the united States of America declare ourselves free from the chains of an abusive government. Relying on God’s protection, we pledge to stand by this Declaration of Independence with our lives, our fortunes and our honor.
That was 243 years ago.
In the years since early Americans first declared and eventually won their independence from Great Britain, we – the descendants of those revolutionary patriots – have through our inaction and complacency somehow managed to work ourselves right back under the tyrant’s thumb.
Only this time, the tyrant is one of our own making: the American Police State.
The abuses meted out by an imperial government and endured by the American people have not ended. They have merely evolved.
“We the people” are still being robbed blind by a government of thieves.
We are still being taken advantage of by a government of scoundrels, idiots and monsters.
We are still being locked up by a government of greedy jailers.
We are still being spied on by a government of Peeping Toms.
We are still being ravaged by a government of ruffians, rapists and killers.
We are still being forced to surrender our freedoms—and those of our children—to a government of extortionists, money launderers and corporate pirates.
And we are still being held at gunpoint by a government of soldiers: a standing army in the form of a militarized police.
Given the fact that we are a relatively young nation, it hasn’t taken very long for an authoritarian regime to creep into power.
Unfortunately, the bipartisan coup that laid siege to our nation did not happen overnight.
It snuck in under our radar, hiding behind the guise of national security, the war on drugs, the war on terror, the war on immigration, political correctness, hate crimes and a host of other official-sounding programs aimed at expanding the government’s power at the expense of individual freedoms.
The building blocks for the bleak future we’re just now getting a foretaste of—police shootings of unarmed citizens, profit-driven prisons, weapons of compliance, a wall-to-wall surveillance state, pre-crime programs, a suspect society, school-to-prison pipelines, militarized police, overcriminalization, SWAT team raids, endless wars, etc.—were put in place by government officials we trusted to look out for our best interests and by American citizens who failed to heed James Madison’s warning to “take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties.”
In so doing, we compromised our principles, negotiated away our rights, and allowed the rule of law to be rendered irrelevant.
There is no knowing how long it will take to undo the damage wrought by government corruption, corporate greed, militarization, and a nation of apathetic, gullible sheep.
The problems we are facing will not be fixed overnight: that is the grim reality with which we must contend.
Frankly, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we may see no relief from the police state in my lifetime or for several generations to come.
That does not mean we should give up or give in or tune out.
Remember, there is always a price to be paid for remaining silent in the face of injustice.
That price is tyranny.
As Edmund Burke, the eighteenth-century British statesman and author who supported the American colonists warned, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
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- China Accounts For 90% Of U.S. Fireworks Imports
For people aiming to “buy American” for Independence Day this year, it might prove difficult to obtain U.S.-manufactured fireworks.
As Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes, most of the bottle rockets, roman candles and other fireworks on sale across the country trace their origin to China. Last year, China accounted for 90 percent of total U.S. fireworks imports, amounting to approximately $325 million, according to website World City.
You will find more infographics at Statista
Given that there are almost 14,000 fireworks displays every 4th of July, the fireworks industry is big business.
You will find more infographics at Statista
Revenue from consumer fireworks has exploded, increasing by 232 percent over the past two decades. Over that same time, revenue from display fireworks has increased by 155 percent as well. While a fun time for many and a growing consumer industry, over 15,000 people visited the hospital due to fireworks in July alone between 2006 and 2010, according to a recent study published by the Journal of Surgical Research.
Interestingly, one man drives fireworks trade across the Pacific and his name is Ding Yan Zhong, a Chinese businessman. Also known as “Mr. Ding”, his companies account for about 70 percent of the pyrotechnics entering the U.S. and on average, 72 of his containers enter the country every single day.
Even though China accounts for the bulk of the fireworks trade by far, the U.S. does rely on several other countries for imports. Israel comes second in terms of import value with nearly $10 million, a miniscule amount compared to China.
- Technocrats And Neocons Respond To The Polar Silk Road
Authored by Matthew Ehret via The Strategic CUlture Foundation,
“Fate leads the willing and drags the unwilling”
– Seneca
Over the past months, an unexpected world of economic activity has opened up across Russia’s Arctic frontier with the unveiling of the Polar Silk Road. While many western business and political interests have seen this incredible opening up of the last unexplored frontier on the earth as a chance for dialogue and peace, too many neo-conservative warmongers and neo-liberal technocrats have chosen instead to view this development as a threat to be destroyed at all costs.
American Neocons Respond
Representing the regressive neocon viewpoint, Mike Pompeo described his geopolitical view of the Arctic seaway as “the 21st century Panama and Suez Canals” – then hypocritically attacked China as a threat to America saying:
“China’s pattern of aggressive behavior elsewhere should inform what we do, and how it might treat the Arctic… Do we want crucial Arctic infrastructure to end up like Chinese-constructed roads in Ethiopia? Crumbling and dangerous after only a few years. Do we want the Arctic Ocean to transform into a new South China Sea? Fraught with militarization and competing territorial claims.”
Before the end of June, American lawmakers will vote on a bill to increase military capabilities in the long-neglected arctic under National Defense Authorization Act 2020 which proposes to upgrade America’s dismal ice breaker fleet from its current roster of one (compared to Russia’s 40) and develop one or more military ports in Alaska. The NDAA 2020 both recognizes the Russia-China economic leadership in the zone and calls for creating infrastructure needed to tap into the “abundance of uranium, rare earth minerals, gold, diamonds, and millions of square miles of untapped resources” which would make America a competitor.
The Case of Canada
While the militarist/monetarist neocons on the “right” push confrontation and war, militarily impotent Canadian technocrats under the control of the Privy Council Office (currently managed by Rhodes Scholar Chrystia Freeland) have taken a slightly different anti-Polar Silk Road policy. This policy is essentially a religious commitment to doing nothing and demand that others join in this absence of all activity.
In the wake of the successful St Petersburg Arctic Forum on April 9-10, a non-partisan parliamentary Canadian study group published an incredibly positive white paper calling for Canada to respond to the polar silk road by reforming the entire 70 year Arctic doctrine from its Cold War mindset to becoming a zone of mass infrastructure development and growth in harmony with the Eurasian philosophy. The governing elite of the Anglo-Canadian establishment took one whole month to assess this remarkably sane proposal before deciding to go in the opposite direction.
In May 23, the chosen course of action began to take form with the submission of a 1200 page report to the United Nations claiming that the North Pole is the sole property of Canada. The Canadian “scientific” study supposedly found that since the continental shelf connected to Ellesmere Island extends to the North Pole’s Lomonosov Ridge (disputed with Russia since 2007), Canada’s property in the Arctic can be grown to 1.2 million squared kilometers. This zone, which extends far beyond the 200 mile “exclusive economic zone” has been a point of conflict for years and was used to provoke a diplomatic crisis in 2007 when a Russian scientific submarine planted a Russian flag on the sea bed, and again in 2014 when then Prime Minister Stephen Harper, humored Canada’s joining NATO’s ABM shield in the Arctic stated that Santa Claus is Canadian.
Canada’s Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland gleefully said of this Arctic claim:
“Canada is committed to furthering its leadership in the Arctic. Defining our continental shelf is vital to ensuring our sovereignty and to serving the interests of all people, including indigenous peoples in the Arctic. Today’s submission is a major step toward securing legal and international recognition of the outer limits of Canada’s continental shelf in the Arctic Ocean.”
Technocrats Dig their Heals into the Permafrost: Demand Stasis for All
The next phase of Canada’s anti-Polar Silk Road policy has now been unveiled in the form of Bills C-48, C-69, C-88 and a fourth Bill passed on June 17 declaring that Canada is officially in a “Climate Emergency”.
All three major omnibus bills passed just days of each other might cause one to think of a toddler having a temper tantrum in a super market, screaming while letting their bodies go limp and forcing their annoyed parents to drag them out of the store.
Under the hysteria fomented by Canada’s new “climate emergency”, Bill C-48 legally enforces a moratorium on all oil tankers in Northern British Columbia banning their existence from Vancouver Island all the way to Alaska.
Bill C-88 amends the Canada Petroleum Resources Act banning all offshore Arctic drilling thus taking a policy begun by Trudeau and Obama in December 2016 when the duo declared the Arctic “off limits” to all development, and now establishing it in the form of law for the first time. Once given “Royal Assent” (all laws must be approved by the Monarchy), all existing licenses will be frozen and financial compensation will be given to all companies who have purchased exploratory licenses in Canadian waters.
Bill C-49 overhauls the already over-bloated environmental review process for all energy infrastructure making it even more impossible than it previously was to start any new infrastructure across the vast Arctic.
These three bills combined threaten to devastate the Canadian economy which heavily relies on resource development (especially since its manufacturing sector has been so viciously hollowed out over the course of 25 years of NAFTA outsourcing). Already, Alberta which is a hub of the Canadian Yellow vest movement, is on fire with thousands protesting the shutdown of employment and economic potential under the ideologically driven craze to “stop global warming” (which has a lot more to do with stopping Russia and China than many would care to admit). The beleaguered Trudeau/Freeland government which faces collapse in the upcoming October elections has now found itself in a paradoxical situation of 1) needing to resist the growth policy driven by the Russia-China alliance on the one side while 2) needing to appease the flames of mass revolt within the country on the other side.
For this reason, Trudeau also approved the Trans Mountain pipeline project which has been on the rocks for several years. The project will increase oil and natural gas output from Alberta to 890 000 barrels/day by connecting a pipeline from Edmonton Alberta to Burnaby, BC.
The Trudeau/Freeland green regime have justified this paradoxical decision by claiming that all profits from the pipeline will now be used to fund Canada’s transition to a zero-growth green energy infrastructure grid which will ironically prohibit all such major projects from ever being built again. If it sounds absurd, that is because all empires committed to a policy of Malthusian depopulation must somehow balance an agenda of killing human cattle on the one side while keeping those cattle happy enough to vote into power those political operatives assigned to cull the herd.
China and Russia Understand Real Economics
In opposition to monetarists and Malthusians dominant across the Anglo-sphere, the leadership of Russia and China have demonstrated a clear understanding of the core principles of real economics and the moral/intellectual/financial bankruptcy of the derivatives-laden western banking system. Describing the collapse of the “each against all paradigm”, President Putin said on June 6th that the world was suffering under a “fragmentation of the global economic space by a policy of completely unlimited economic egoism and a forced breakdown. But this is the road to endless conflict, trade wars and maybe not just trade wars. Figuratively, this is the road to the ultimate fight of all against all.”
He went on to describe the need for “a more stable and fair development model. These agreements should not only be written clearly but should also be observed by all participants. However, I am convinced that talk about an economic world order like this will remain wishful thinking unless we return to the centre of the discussion, that is, notions like sovereignty, the unconditional right of every country to its own development road and, let me add, responsibility for universal sustainable development, not just for one’s own development.”
This positive approach is at the heart of the Belt and Road Initiative, and its Arctic extensions which are founded upon the respect of each participating nation, as well as the group of nations working on projects which satisfy common aims and interests of all people. Under this system, which uplifts the conditions of life of every individual as well as the productive powers of labour of each nation, private interests, and public good do not find themselves in contradiction since everyone aspires to make life better for their children.
Great projects rooted in scientific and technological progress satisfy that need brilliantly. Both China and Russia know that if the world is to embark upon great infrastructure projects as the foundation for the new order of constant progress and “win-win cooperation” then the Arctic’s vast resources will be vital in that recipe for success. If the west is intelligent then it will reject the zero-growth agenda which has designated Canada’s Arctic as untouchable as fast as they reject the zero-sum neocon agenda of militarism and unilateralism.
- Virginia Becomes First State To Ban 'Deepfake' Revenge Porn
In a sign of just how slow the American legal system has been to respond to the advent of ‘deepfakes’ – images or video of people, either real or computer-generated using AI, that are created using AI – Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam recently signed into law the first measures that would make abusing the technology to, say, generate nude photos and video of real women, a crime.
That’s actually a real photo of her.
According to Ars Technica, the bill merely extended existing laws criminalizing the distribution of nudes or sexual imagery without a subject’s consent – i.e. “revenge porn” – as a Class 1 misdemeanor. The new bill added “falsely created videographic or still image” to the text of the law.
This makes Virginia the first US state to adopt laws about deepfakes. And only a few weeks after the Nancy Pelosi deepfake episode gave the US a taste of what this technology is capable of doing.
Virginia’s new law takes effect July 1.
Virginia isn’t alone in taking steps to criminalize the abuse of deepfakes; a small handful other states are working on developing laws outlawing the use of deepfakes for election manipulation or sexual exploitation. However, deep fakes are becoming more widely used every day. Just this past week, a group of women convinced a company to stop distributing technology that could be used to manufacture fake nude photos. Even the mighty tech baron Mark Zuckerberg has felt the shame of being ‘deep faked’.
Still, little has been done at the federal level, and the technology is getting cheaper and easier to use every day. In Congress, lawmakers have put forth a couple of bills, but they don’t appear to be going anywhere.
New York Rep. Yvette Clarke on June 12 introduced a bill in the House that would distributing sexually-explicit deep fakes “with the intent to humiliate” or harass a crime.
Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse introduced a bill in late 2018 that would criminalize the production or knowing distribution of deepfakes affecting government business and, notably, elections.
And lawmakers should probably catch up soon. Because there will come a time when the legal system is caught up with more intransigent deepfake-related issues, like determining whether a video is authentic or forged.
- The Death Of The Liberal Idea
Authored by Dmitry Orlov via Club Orlov blog,
Last week’s G20 gathering in Osaka was a signal event: it signaled how much the world has changed. The centerpieces of the new configuration are China, Russia and India, with the EU and Japan as eager adjuncts, and with Eurasian integration as the overarching priority. The agenda was clearly being set by Xi and Putin. May, Macron and Merkel – the European leaders not quite deserving of that title – were clearly being relegated to the outskirts; two of the three are on their way out while the one keeping his seat (for now) is looking more and more like a toyboy. The Europeans wasted their time haggling over who should head the European Commission, only to face open rebellion over their choice the moment they arrived back home.
And then there was Trump, let loose now that the Robert Mueller farce has come to its inevitable conclusion. He was running around trying to figure out which of America’s “partners” can still be thrown under the bus before the roof comes down on Pax Americana. It’s a stretch goal because he is out of ammo. He has already threatened all-out war—twice, once against North Korea, once against Iran, but, given the disasters in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya, sanity caused him to keep his military Humpty-Dumpty safely seated on the wall.
Trump hasn’t completely given up on trade war yet, but here too he is encountering problems and is being forced to backtrack: Huawei is being recalled from the sanctions doghouse. Trump must knock out another major player—either China, Russia or the EU—before Eurasia becomes cemented together via land trade routes controlled by China, Russia and Iran instead of sea routes patrolled by the US Navy; if he doesn’t succeed, then the US is out of the game, its military might and the US dollar both rendered irrelevant. Of these, the EU seems like the softest target, but even the Europeans somehow managed launch the mechanism that allows them to circumvent US sanctions against Iran. Trump is definitely in a tough spot. What is the author of “The Art of the Deal” to do when nobody wants to negotiate any more deals with the US, now knowing full well that the US always finds ways to renege on its obligations?
And then comes the bombshell announcement.
In an interview with Financial Times Putin declares that “the liberal idea… has finally outlived its usefulness” because it no longer serves the needs of the majority of the peoples. Not “people,” mind you, but “peoples”—all different, but all the viable ones united in their steadfast adherence to the principle that family and nation (from the Latin verb nasci—to be born) are über alles. Some might perceive hints of fascism in this train of thought, but that would be akin to arguing that since fascists are known to use toothbrushes, then ipso facto toothbrushes are fascist implements to be outlawed and everyone must go back to cleaning their teeth with twigs and sticks. That Putin was able to utter words to the effect that the liberal idea is dead—something no Western leader would dare say—shows how much the world has changed.
Not that some Western leaders wouldn’t say it, if they only could. “Our Western partners,” Putin said, “have conceded that some elements of the liberal idea are simply not realistic… such as multiculturalism. Many of them conceded that yes, unfortunately it doesn’t work (LOL) and that we must remember the interests of the native population.” Not that Russia doesn’t have its share of problems related to migrants, due to its open border policy with certain former Soviet republics, but it works to resolve them by demanding competency in Russian and respect for Russian culture and traditions, while “the liberal idea presupposes that nothing needs to be done, that migrants can rob, rape, steal, but that we must defend their rights… What rights? You broke a rule—you are punished!”
The migrant crisis is a perfect example of how liberalism has outlived its usefulness. Liberalism offers two ways forward, both of which are fatal to it. One approach is distinctly illiberal: halt the influx of migrants by any means necessary; insist that the migrants already in the country either conform to a strict set of requirements, including demonstrated competency in the nation’s language, detailed knowledge of its laws and administrative systems, strict obedience to its laws and demonstrated preference and respect for the customs and culture of the native population—or be not so much deported as expelled. The other approach is liberal at first: allow the influx to continue, do not hinder the formation of foreign ghettos and enclaves which native citizens and officials dare not enter, and eventually surrender to Sharia law or other forms of foreign dictate—guaranteeing the eventual death of the liberal idea along with much of the native population. Thus, the choice is between killing the liberal idea but saving the native population or letting the liberal idea die willy-nilly, taking the native population along with it. It offers no solution at all.
“We all live in a world based on traditional Biblical values,” quoth Putin. “We don’t have to demonstrate them every day… but must have them in our hearts and our souls. In this way, traditional values are more stable and more important to millions of people than this liberal idea which, in my view, is ceasing to exist.” This is true not just of the believers—be they Christian, Moslem or Jewish—but of the atheists as well. To put it in terms that may shock and astound some of you, you don’t have to believe in God (although it helps if you do—to avoid cognitive dissonance) but if you aspire to any sort of social adequacy in a traditional society you have no choice but to sincerely think and act as if God exists, and that He is the God of the Bible—be He Yahweh, Elohim, Jesus and the Holy Trinity or Allah (that’s the Arabic word for “God”).
Putin capped off his argument by ever so gently and politely putting the boot in. He said that he has no clue about any of this “transformer-trans… whatever” stuff. How many genders are there? He has lost count. Not that he is against letting consenting adult members of various minority sexual groups do whatever they want among themselves—“Let everyone be happy!”—but they have no right to dictate to the rest. Specifically, Russian law makes homosexual propaganda among those who are under age illegal. Hollywood’s pro-LGBT mavens must be displeased: their choice is either to redact LGBT propaganda from the script, or to redact it from the finished film prior to its release in Russia (and China).
Here Putin is tapping into something that is fast becoming a political trend everywhere, including that former bastion of liberalism—the West. It is in the nature of democracies that previously repressed minorities tend to clamor for more and more rights up to and often well beyond the point where they begin to impinge on the rights of the majority; but at some point the majority starts pushing back. By now it can be stated with some certainty that in the view of the majority the LGBT movement has gone too far. Opinion surveys attest to this fact: LGBT support crested at well over 50% but has been dropping by roughly 10% per year for several years now.
How far beyond that point has the LGBT movement gone? In some Western countries children as young as three are subjected to “gender reassignment” that follows a sequence of indoctrination, chemical castration and physical castration, even against the wishes of their parents, resulting in a sterile individual. Pray tell, why should any sane parent agree to having their offspring sterilized, thus ending their bloodline? The vast majority of Earth’s population finds such practices appalling, and this is starting to include the home of the now dead liberal idea—the West itself. As a first, timid step of the overwhelming pushback that seems likely ensue, a “heterosexual pride parade” is scheduled to be held in Boston.
Note that the item in question is not “gender” but “sex.” The word “gender” does exist, but the sense in which LGBT activists and feminists use it is an instance of overloading—of linguistic violence. The only sense in which the term is valid is as grammatical gender, which is a feature of most Indo-European languages. In these languages, all nouns are assigned to one of exactly three genders—male, female and neuter—in English identified by the pronouns “he,” “she” and “it” while in Russian they are “on” “oná” and “onó” and, quite typically, “he” (“on”) is the default or unmarked gender while the other two require gender-specific endings (“-a”, “-o”). Male and female nouns and pronouns can denote either animate or inanimate objects, which answer either to “Who?” or to “What?” while neuter nouns and pronouns can only denote inanimate objects, which answer to “What?” (except in poetry, as permitted by poetic license). By the way, this clears away the confusion over alternative “gender-specific” pronouns, be they “ze,” “hir” or “ququuuxx”: in order to function grammatically, they must still make a choice between masculine and feminine, or they indicate that someone is an inanimate being—a “what” rather than a “who.”
The grammatical use of the term “gender” is justified; all others are fanciful efforts to overload the term in a way that does not comport with physical reality. And the reality is this: tissue samples of any specimen of the human species allow the specimen to be readily sexed by looking for an XX or an XY chromosome pair and assigning a corresponding “F” or “M” symbol. In the vast majority of cases, the specimen itself can be sexed by visual inspection, just like a chicken but far more easily—by examining the genitals. Crucially for the survival of the species, an “F” specimen should generally be capable of giving birth after mating with an “M” specimen. There are various abnormalities and pathologies that lie outside this basic scheme, but they are sufficiently rare as to be considered “in the noise” for most purposes.
The outliers certainly deserve the liberty to engage in any hanky-panky that tickles their fancy, but pretending that they belong to a rainbow of fictional “genders” does not help the rest of us at all. Perhaps referring to them all as “pidor,” as the Russians often do, oversimplifies matters a bit. (The word is short for “pederast” which is from the ancient Greeks, who were famous for pederasty, and which literally means “boy-love.”) On the other hand, with most Russians it would probably be a mistake to try to explain to them the difference between Q1 and Q2 in LGBTQ1Q2 because to them this question is sooo interesting! (Italicized phrase is to be read with a groan, a slack-jawed face and an eye-roll.)
That said, you can certainly go on believing in a rainbow of genders, or in elves, or unicorns, for that matter, and those who are kind and polite will tiptoe around your liberal shibboleths while those who are rude and uncouth will laugh in your face or even shove and slap you around a bit in a vain effort to knock some sense into your head. But we should be kind and polite and, as Putin said, “Let everyone be happy.” In turn, we should probably try to avoid being shoved and slapped around by people whose heads are full of outdated, wooly notions. Some of these heads—notably those belonging to snowflakes, who seem congenitally unable to brook any disagreement—will explode on their own.
Most importantly, we should deny these people any and all access to our children. Here, Putin issued a clarion call that should resound around the entire planet: “Leave the children alone!” His call should resonate with the vast majority of humans, of all ethnicities, cultures and faiths, who take the divine exhortation to “be fruitful and multiply” quite literally and wish for their progeny to do the same. When conditions turn for the worse, as they often do, they drop like flies in autumn, but then death is an essential part of life, and they regenerate and live to swarm again once conditions improve.
As an aside, now that liberalism is dead, those who feel that the planet is overpopulated only have the right to speak for themselves. That is, it may very well be the case that Earth is overpopulated with you, but that, of course, is for you alone to decide. If you feel sufficiently strongly about this matter, you should perhaps take charge and rid the planet of your good self, but please allow the rest of us wait to depart this world in some other, more naturalistic and less ideologically motivated manner. In the meantime, the rest of us should be able to have as many children as local conditions warrant. Putin had nothing to say on this question; he is the president of Russia, Russia is not overpopulated, and the rest of the planet didn’t elect him. Likewise, now that liberalism is dead, your opinion on Russia’s demographics matters not at all—unless you happen to be Russian, that is.
There is much more to say about the death of the liberal idea, and this is only the first installment—clearing the decks by throwing some useless baggage overboard, if you will. Far more important is the question of what will replace the liberal idea now that it is dead. Free market capitalism is also dead (just look at all of the financial shenanigans, the sanctions and the tariffs!) and Western free-market conservatives and libertarians should note that ideologically they are still liberals and that their ideology is also now dead.
But what is there to replace liberalism? It seems that the choice is between artificially resuscitated Marxism-Leninism (with Leon Trotsky lurking menacingly and Pol Pot sitting Buddha-like atop a pile of rotting corpses) and shiny, high-tech modern Stalinism (with distinctive Chinese characteristics). Intelligent boys and girls, when offered a false choice by being asked “Do you want an apple or a banana” usually respond “No!” I would like to do the same. But then what other choices are there?
- China Will Lead 5G Smartphone Purchases Through 2023
A new report from Canalys shows that 5G smartphones will reach nearly 800 million units in 2023, accounting for 51.4% of all smartphone shipments across the world.
The era of 5G is here, meaning 2G, 3G, and 4G are obsolete. The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5G smartphone shipments between 2019 and 2023 will be about 180%, while more than 1.9 billion devices will flood global markets by 4Q23.
Canalys shows China will lead the world in 5G smartphone shipments in 2023 (34%), followed by North America (18.8%), and Asia Pacific (17.4%).
Governments around the world, including China, Europe, and the US, have sponsored initiatives to accelerate 5G infrastructure development in major metropolitan areas.
“There was a phenomenal amount of 5G discussion at this year’s MWC Shanghai, with Chinese 5G licenses granted a year earlier than planned. The role of the Chinese government and the well-orchestrated joint investments of operators and equipment suppliers were critical to this earlier commercial launch,” said Nicole Peng, Vice President of Mobility at Canalys.
By 4Q20, Canalys projects that China will account for 17.5% of all 5G smartphone shipments, and this percentage will jump to 62.7% in 2023
“5G smartphones will see rapid adoption in China, thanks to a strong government technology roadmap and operators’ financial capabilities. China is also home to many major 5G equipment suppliers and smartphone vendors, which will be responsible for an aggressive marketing push over the next few years,” added Peng.
“But mass-market adoption of 5G smartphones does not necessarily mean a successful 5G deployment. Full 5G deployment will take much longer, and be much more complex than the previous network generation, in order to realize the benefits of 5G beyond eMBB (enhanced Mobile Broadband). And this is very costly, putting more pressure on global operators, which are already facing declining revenue and more price competition from MVNOs.”
Between 1981 and 2008, China lifted 600 million people out of poverty – has spurred remarkable growth in the country. Now the superpower is expected to lead the world in technology and innovation by the mid-2020s.
Live from #MWC19: #Huawei Mate 20 X, the first Chinese smartphone got access license to #5G network in #China, tests 5G network with 635Mbps. This is not the maximum speed as MWC venues limit the overall 5G access to ensure the stability of networks. pic.twitter.com/CyWYpRzkOA
— Qingqing_Chen (@qingqingparis) June 26, 2019
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China’s top-down national agenda has moved the country ahead in 5G development in technology R&D, equipment, network, terminals, platform, to application development.
“Chinese operators’ investments in 5G will reach US$5 billion this year, and around 70,000 to 90,000 5G base stations will be built across the country. Among the three operators, China Mobile will be extending its market advantage, given its vast user base and financial strength,” said Canalys Analyst Mo Jia.
“China Mobile has the broadest 5G smartphone portfolio at launch. Given the government has just implemented the long-awaited mobile number portability policy, all three operators will be even more aggressive with promotions to target 5G early adopters and high-value customers later this year. Unsurprisingly, local Chinese brands, such as Huawei, Oppo, Xiaomi and ZTE, are 5G handset launch partners for the three operators, while Samsung will also use this window of opportunity to fight back in China. Yet Apple will miss out, leaving loyal iPhone users waiting another year, which might risk them switching to aggressive competitors,” added Jia.
5G opens up new possibilities to accelerate artificial intelligence, automation, robotics and the Internet of Things, therefore providing tremendous potential for China to lead the innovation wave of the 2020s – could result in the eventual displacement of the American empire by 2030.
- Map Of Mars: The Geology Of The Red Planet
For centuries, Mars has been mythically defined by its characteristic red appearance.
In Babylonian astronomy, Mars was named after Nergal, the deity of fire, war, and destruction. In Chinese and Japanese texts, the planet was known as 火星, the fire star.
Although this unique reddish hue has been a key defining characteristic of Mars in culture for centuries, Visual Capitalist’s Nicholas LePan notes that today we now know that it’s the iron oxide soil of the Martian landscape that makes it the “Red Planet” – and that there is much more to Mars than its color upon closer observation.
Above, today’s map, posted and created by Reddit user /hellofromthemoon, brings together the data from centuries of observation and the numerous missions to the Red Planet to map out its geology on a grand scale.
A Red Dot in the Sky
Egyptian astronomers first observed the planet Mars four thousand years ago and named it “Horus-the-red.” Babylonian astronomers marked its course through the night sky to track the passage of time. But it was not until 1610, when Galileo Galilei witnessed Mars with his own eyes through a telescope, that Mars was revealed as a whole other world.
Over the centuries with improving technology, a succession of astronomers observed and crudely mapped out everything from polar ice caps to yellow clouds, and white and dark spots denoting varying elevations across the Martian surface. Some of the earliest maps of Mars date to 1831. But there is only so much you can accurately observe from the surface of the Earth.
On July 14, 1965, NASA successfully received the first up-close images of Mars from the Mariner 4 spacecraft, passing within 9,844 kilometers (6,117 miles) of Mars’ surface. Mariner 4 captured the image of a large ancient crater and confirmed the existence of a thin atmosphere composed largely of carbon dioxide.
Since then, four space agencies have successfully made it to Mars: NASA, the former Soviet Union space program, the European Space Agency and the Indian Space Research Organization. From orbital satellites to surface exploration with robots, each successful mission has brought back important data to develop an evolving picture of the planet.
Here is a complete list of both the successful and failed missions to Mars.
Martian Geology
On Mars, we see volcanoes, canyons, and impact basins much like the ones on Earth. The yellows scattered across the map indicate meteor impacts of varying size while the swaths of red indicate volcanoes and their associated lava flows. The varying colors of brown indicate the cratered highlands and midlands that make up most of the southern hemisphere.
The planet appears asymmetric. Most of the southern hemisphere is heavily cratered and resembles the moon’s highlands. In contrast, the northern hemisphere is sparsely cratered and has many large volcanoes.
Mars is approximately one-half the diameter of the Earth, but both planets have the same amount of dry land. This is because the current surface of Mars has no liquid water.
Mars and Earth are very different planets when it comes to temperature, size, and atmosphere, but geologic processes on the two planets are eerily similar. The sheer size of some landforms on Mars would shadow over similar features on Earth because of the lack of water erosion. This lack of erosion has preserved billion year-old geologic features.
The tallest mountain on Mars and in the solar system is Olympus Mons, and it is two and a half times taller than Mt. Everest. A Martian canyon system, called Valles Marineris, is the length of the entire continental United States and three times deeper than the Grand Canyon.
Mars Colony: Location, Location, Location
The first step to building a colony is to figure out where the best chance of survival is. For Mars, some researchers have identified the planet’s poles, which contain millennia-old ice deposits. These are thought to contain large amounts of ice, which mars settlers could extract and turn into liquid water.
The poles also host other natural resources, such as carbon dioxide, iron, aluminum, silicon and sulfur, which could be used to make glass, brick and plastic. Furthermore, the planet’s atmosphere contains enough hydrogen and methanol for fuel.
Closing the Distance
The map above represents the culmination of centuries of work which we are lucky enough to view here on a computer, conveniently online for us to appreciate and wonder what life’s like on the surface of Mars.
Who knows what more exploration will reveal.
- Man Who Stayed At New Yorker Hotel For One Day In 2018 Now Claims He Owns The Whole Building
The New Yorker hotel is in the middle of a court battle with a man who allegedly filed a phony deed to try and usurp ownership of the entire midtown building, according to the New York Post. A man that wound up staying at the hotel for a year rent free under an obscure legal loophole is sparring with the owners of the hotel after, in June 2018, he stayed at the hotel for one night and then asked for a six-month lease under an obscure section of the city’s rent stabilization laws.
The hotel declined to offer 44 year old Mickey Barreto a lease, but he wound up going to housing court, where a judge ordered the hotel to let him back in. Barreto then convinced clerks at the city department of finance that the paperwork he was issued gave him not only a room, but ownership of the entire building.
He filed a deed on May 28 that lists the building as a “religious structure” and claims that he had purchased it by court order for $189,336,000.
Now, he claims to run “Mickey Barreto Missions” out of the address, has been demanding rent from two restaurant tenants, has tried to take over hotel operations and has attempted to get the building’s bank accounts transferred to him. He even summoned the fire department at one point because of a nonexistent gas leak, trying to get the building evacuated.
He’s requested a $15 million payment from the building’s actual owners and at one wrote on his LinkedIn page:
“I OWN the building where the New Yorker Hotel is located in Manhattan. ALL MINE!!! Please apply here for your section 8 apartment in Manhattan.”
The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, who owns the hotel, fears that “Barreto could take out a lien or mortgage on the building” or sell it to an innocent third party.
The city’s finance department says it gets 40 new deed fraud complaints every month. Meanwhile, a Manhattan supreme court judge called Barreto’s attempt “bizarre” and ruled that it was “abundantly clear” that he was not the owner. The court also ordered him to remove public references to himself as the owner.
Barreto told the Post: “I never committed any fraud.”
- Johnstone: Jingoistic Military Fetishization Is As American As Bald Eagle McNuggets
Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,
“Putin’s America,” tweeted Anand Giridharadas, a pundit who was genetically engineered in a Monsanto laboratory to appeal to NPR listeners on every possible level.
Giridharadas used these words yesterday to caption a short video clip of two tanks being carted through the streets of DC in preparation for their appearance in a parade for Independence Day, a holiday in which Americans gather to eat hot dogs and drink Mountain Dew in celebration of the anniversary of their lateral transfer from monarchy to corporatist oligarchy.
The military hardware parade is taking place at the behest of President Bolton’s social media assistant Donald Trump, and critics have been vocally decrying it as alien and un-American. Pundits like Giridharadas and Steve Silberman have been saying it’s something Russia would do. The Independentsaid it’s a spectacle you’d see in “authoritarian regimes such as North Korea, Iran and China.” Adam Best and Charles Pierce both likened it to something that would be done in a “banana republic”, an interesting choice of phrase for a gratuitous display of American military bravado given that term’s blood-soaked origins in US corporate colonialism.
All of these people are of course being ridiculous. There’s nothing alien or un-American about Trump’s parade at all. Jingoistic fetishization of the military is as American as a deep-fried trademark symbol.
Putin’s America. pic.twitter.com/27aN81jiRw
— Anand Giridharadas (@AnandWrites) July 3, 2019
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All this parade is, actually, is just one of the many, many, many many times over the last two and a half years that Trump has shown America its true face, and Americans haven’t liked what they’ve seen.
“That’s not my reflection!” the Americans scream at the mirror he holds up for them. “That’s Putin!”
“That’s not my reflection!” they protest. “That’s North Korea!”
“That’s not my reflection!” they say. “That’s a banana republic!”
No, America. That’s you. It’s been you all along.
This is the same country, after all, in which someone simply mentioning that they were in the armed forces often elicits a reverent “Oh, thank you for your service!” from whoever happens to hear them, as though spending four years protecting Raytheon profit margins and crude oil is something ordinary civilians should be grateful for. You guys know no other country does that, right? In Australia if you tell someone you were in the army they’ll tell you “Aww, bonza mate. I’m a plumber meself.” It’s not a thing, because when you’re not part of the most powerful military force in the history of civilization, powerful people don’t have nearly as much invested in making a thing out of it.
This is the same country where every second house and every single McDonald’s has its flag flying over it, a cult of idolatry that’s become so ubiquitous that a football player choosing to kneel instead of stand before that stupid piece of cloth generates national outrage. The same country where simply bleating “Support the troops!” or “Freedom isn’t free!” was in and of itself seen as a be-all, end-all debate-winning argument for the rape of Iraq. The same country that spent weeks on end mourning the death of bloodthirsty psychopath John McCain on the grounds that he’s a “war hero” when they should have loaded his heartless cadaver onto a trebuchet and launched it into the nearest tire fire as part of a telethon benefit for Syria.
All that’s considered perfectly normal by mainstream America, and liberals are getting their knickers in a knot over a few tanks and “Blue Angels” (another ridiculous yet perfectly normalized American spectacle)? Hell, it’s not even like Trump invented presidential parades full of instruments of mass military slaughter.
Check out this photo from JFK’s inaugural parade:
Or this one from Eisenhower’s:
Or this one from FDR’s:
And the fact that it’s mostly Democrats kvetching about this parade is especially absurd, given that in 2019 they’ve somehow managed to become even more hawkish and jingoistic than the Republicans. This is the same crowd that just the other day was attacking Trump for having the audacity to meet with Kim Jong-Un, the same crowd that’s constantly accusing Trump of being weak on Syria and Afghanistan, the same crowd that’s made heroes of the US intelligence community and the “grownups in the room” generals in the administration, and the same crowd that’s been shrieking hysterically for the last three years demanding greater and greater escalations against a nuclear superpower because something-something Putin’s cock holster. The biggest problem with Trump’s tank parade will be that male Democrats in attendance will have trouble hiding their erections.
Americans are the most aggressively propagandized people in the world, and US service personnel are the most aggressively propagandized people in America. That’s the group that all this special reverence and fetishization has been attached to: a bunch of kids who’ve been manipulated into killing and dying for plutocratic investments and the mommy-shaped hole in John Bolton’s heart. That’s what this parade is meant to manufacture even more support for in a culture that is saturated past the brim in a relentless barrage of war propaganda.
Face it, America. Trump’s tank parade isn’t in any way alien to anything you’ve ever stood for. The only way to make it more American would be to add a few monster trucks and a Kardashian. This parade is your reflection. This parade is you.
* * *
The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my sweet merchandise, buying my new book Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone, or my previous book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish or use any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge.
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