The Decline Of The US Empire & The Rising Star Of Mexico

I’ve written extensively and in depth, for decades, in two published books and over a thousand published articles, with tens of thousands of references, on the rapidly shifting state of the world, the causes and major factors and historical unfolding of these changes, what it all means and entails, and what we must do about it. The following brief set of thoughts is the most concise possible summary of just one facet of these great, global tectonic shifts, which are now underway and accelerating fast. That is: a few brief, pithy thoughts on Mexico, the rising star of Latin America, in comparison with the declining and collapsing US empire and broader Western world.

Of course, no one should take my words as unquestionable gospel truth – nor take anyone’s word on anything: examine things for yourself; question everything. Think for yourself. These words should spark fresh thought, and begin a quest for truth and understanding, or galvanize and reaffirm such a quest. Provocative statements should spark thought and further the quest for truth, not curtail it. Let us bear that in mind always.

Amidst the US and Western media making its usual suspect and dubious pronouncements of “facts”, almost all of which are sheer propaganda, the actual facts, the truth, will sound shocking to some people. That is to be expected. The Western media is owned and controlled by the same oligarchy that seeks a consistent agenda around the world: divide, demoralize, disempower, dispirit, distract, loot, pillage and subjugate the people, by means of both propaganda and force, in order to further consolidate, protect and expand the power and wealth of the richest 1%. Of course the major media presents a make-believe image of the world, in order to camouflage the criminal actions of the elite, while deceiving the people into supporting, or at least docilely acquiescing to, the same criminal actions of the ruling oligarchy. How could we expect anything else of them?

The rising star of Mexico – and the declining, now collapsing, US empire and broader Western world: in a nutshell – a thesis to be corroborated or disproved, not simply skoffed away because it does not fit comfortably with our comforting delusions:

The reality is that Mexico, with the leadership of its new president, AMLO, is far more democratic, far more free, and far less corrupt, than the US, Canada, Britain or Europe. The corporate-state media won’t tell you that, of course, because they are deeply corrupt, functioning as a propaganda system for the ruling corporate oligarchy. If this is surprising to anyone, it means you need to read more, question more, and turn off the mainstream media. Now.

Question more. Assume less.

JTR,

February 7, 2024

P.S.:

Today I move to Mexico. At midnight I fly.

Worth watching:

Also worth watching, as more food for thought:

with my response to Ben Norton, on the video below:

My response:

Excellent as usual, Ben. Do have a look at my own work, as well. It’s all over the web.

Search:

J. Todd Ring:

Enlightened Democracy

The People vs The Elite

And much more…

On WordPress, Substack, Rumble, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Amazon.

More food for thought:

And here is another excellent video short, with the excellent Mexican-based journalist, John Ackerman:

Also excellent:

And another important video short:

Another important video, with the excellent Mexican-based journalist, Kurt Hackbarth:

And here is Kurt Hackbarth, interviewed on one of my top sources, Geopolitics & Empire, with the venerable Hrvoje Moric:

(See you in Mexico, John, Kurt, and Hrvoje!)

Intellectual Self-Defence: Time For A Reading Sabbatical

To be brief:

The obsession with quantity and volume has to end. More is not always better. Quality matters most. But people in the 21st century are addicted to endless entertainment, distraction, empty and largely useless talk, and endless amounts of “news” and commentary. Unless we step back, pause, reflect, and do some serious reading, all of this endless flood of information is, quite simply, worse than useless – it is blinding, and it is a distraction. It is utterly counter-productive and simply self-defeating.

I would say that no one should be reading, watching or listening to “the news”, in any form, from any source, until they’ve at least read Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent, and Necessary Illusions. Without that course in intellectual self-defence, they are simply far too easily manipulated, lied to, propagandized and deceived. Turn off all media and all electronics until you’ve read these two books, at a minimum. I would also frankly add my own, Enlightened Democracy, The People vs The Elite, The Collapse Of The West, and Slavery Or Rebirth; along with Henry David Thoreau’s, Walden, and On Civil Disobedience; and Vandana Shiva’s, Oneness vs The 1%.

It’s time for a reading sabbatical. Turn off the media and all electronics – and read.

JTR,

February 6, 2024

Here is a case study in propaganda, aka, “journalism” and “the news”:

The Death Of Materialism & The Rebirth Of The World

The Newtonian-Cartesian paradigm, or world view, of atomistic, dualistic, mechanistic reductionism, is a very recent, 400 year old delusion, a recent blink of the eye, and is now crumbling as an ideology, world view or paradigm. It is also by no means “scientific”. The evidence now refutes it. It is detritus, delusion, dogma, now refuted by quantum physics – and therefore, a thoroughly unscientific, lingering, but slowly dying, quasi-religious pseudo-science, clung to by dogmatic secular fundamentalists. Stop calling it scientific.

*

We could say, of course, that the 400 year old paradigm, or way of viewing the world, which is materialist reductionism, did have some degree of validity and usefulness – and that is true, of course. It divided the world, *in our minds*, into myriad, ever smaller pieces, giving rise to an explosion of knowledge about the way natural phenomena arise, change, and pass away. But knowledge is not understanding, much less wisdom. And dividing the world in our minds has ultimately proven disastrous – nay, catastrophic – leading us toward the brink of self-annihilation, while destroying and despoiling life on Earth at ever increasing speeds, and while producing great and increasing conflict, strife, alienation, inner hollowness, a terrible loneliness, sense of meaninglessness, and an insatiable hunger to fill the resulting inner void, leading to endless consumerism, materialism, escapism, addiction, voyeurusm, vicarious living, perpetual restlessness, anxiety, depression, mental illness and compulsive entertainment addiction, thereby accelerating the downward spiral, into further alienation, hollowness, and insanity. Clearly, this must change.

The world view of materialist-reductionism could also be described as a mental map, which all theories, dogmas, paradigms, philosophies and ideologies are. Some are more usrful or more destructive than others. Nazi idrology is incredibly destructive. Materialist reductionism, which is foolishly still referred to as “science”, is only slightly less destructive – and perhaps even more destructive.

Moreover, aside from usefulness versus destructiveness, a mental map, philosophy, paradigm or world view can be assessed based upon its degree of relative accuracy, in its ability to accurately describe the nature of reality. By that measure, as well as being incredibly powerful, in ways that have in some senses been useful and beneficial, and simultaneously, in other ways, being incredibly destructive, the materialist-reductionist paradigm has, of course, some degree of accuracy or validity. We know what molecules and atoms are, how metalurgy works, etc. But its accuracy is severely limited, as a mental construct, lens, map, or way of viewing the world. What we can call this Newtonian-Cartesian paradigm, which is atomistic, mechanistic, dualistic, and materialist-reductionist, is in some measure accurate, useful, and valid. But it also grossly distorts our perception of reality, life, the cosmos, and the nature of being and reality.

Imagine if you wanted to travel the world, and you had to choose between a map made in ancient Greece in 500 BC, and a map made in the 21st century using satellite imagery. Which one would be more accurate and more useful? Clearly the 2,500 year old map had some accuracy, validity and usefulness, but it was extrenely limited, with enormous blind spots, and enormous distortions of the real world. Well, our maps are outdated, once again. And the mental map which is the Newtonian-Cartesian, materialist-reductionist paradigm or world view, is now worse than outdated and obsolete – it must be abandoned, in light of the now mountainous and undeniable evidence, and it must be abandoned now, before our extremely distorted view of the world, destroys us all. Fortunately, this is exactly what is in the process of happening, as we speak.

*

A paradigm shift is underway. And the awakening has begun. Now, perhaps, we can begin to combine knowledge with wisdom, thereby saving ourselves from a self-made hell on Earth, and a self-generated final oblivion.

Reality is non-dual. Being is One. And thou art that.

But don’t take anyone’s word on things. Examine things for yourself. See for yourself.

Question everything. This is the path to enlightenment – and to a new renaissance, and a rebirth of our world.

JTR,

February 3, 2024,

Villa Samadhi,

Uruguay

(See Thomas Kuhn, The Structure Of Scientific Revolutions; Joseph Campbell, The Hero With A Thousand Faces; Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy; Alan Watts, The Book; Joanna Macy, World As Lover, World As Self; and Allan Wallace, Choosing Reality.)

A Trump Presidency In 2025: Fascism, National Rebirth, Or Civil War?

Let me start by saying that I speak from the libertarian left – meaning, I fiercely believe in freedom, compassion, voluntary mutual aid, decentralization, and the sovereignty of individuals, communities, and nations.

(Anarchism, I would urge, but only, “when men are prepared for it”, as Thoreau said – simply a better government, until then. See Henry David Thoreau’s, On Civil Disobedience, and, Why The Left Libertarians Are Right.)

The problem is not the people – neither black, white, brown, Christian, Jewish, Moslem, right or left. The problem is the ruling power elite, the oligarchs. And what’s more, the great majority of the people globally, now understand that. This is the crisis of legitimacy which the frantic elite are trying to curb with censorship and fascism; and which the people need to capitalize and act on, and now, before their prison state is fully built. DO NOT DELAY. WE MUST REMOVE THE OLIGARCHS FROM POWER NOW. THE ALTERNATIVE IS SIMPLY TOO BLEAK AND TOO DIRE TO CONTEMPLATE.

*

Let me also say that what is critical now, is to unite all people, right or left, who are anti-authoritarian. First, we must defeat the Davos-WEF/Blackrock communist-fascist billionaire coup that is underway and which is accellerating and escalating fast. We either unite the people now, or we will all be slaves. After defeating the new totalitarian oligarchy, then, with democratic power rightfully returned to the people, where it belongs, then we can debate and discuss all other issues – once our freedom, constitutional democracy and fundamental human rights are safeguarded and secured.

Thirdly, I must say in advance, I am not a Trump supporter, but I do think he is far less dangerous than the Wall Street/BlackRock /WEF/billionaire-controlled neo-con Republicans, or their siamese twins in the Davos/BlackRock-controlled neoliberal Democratic party.

As to Trump bringing fascism, two points:

First, he was already president – and it didn’t happen. The fear-mongering is delusional, deceitful, and hollow.

Secondly, and more important, fascism is already here. Anyone who thinks the US, Canada, Britain or Europe, are still liberal democracies, is living in a dream world. Listen to Gerald Celente and Rocco Galati, and read my essay, What Is Fascism?

Fascism is already here. You’d have to be living under a rock, or wildly delusional, not to see it.

*

Now, to condider what the likely Trump presidency in the US, in 2025, might actually mean, fairy tales and bogey men set aside:

First of all, could Trump win? Well, the fact is that roughly a third of the people in the US believe that he could and will save the country – they are his strong supporters. But another 20% or more, now feel that the Democrats have become so rabidly authoritarian, globalist, thoroughly in bed with big money, and deeply corrupt, not to mention war-mongering, that there is likely to be another 20% of independents, swing voters, and former Democratic voters who would support him over any “Democratic” candidate, other than RFK Jr. – who I believe is running as an independent, and who is sadly unlikely to win, due to the corporate stranglehold over the “election” system.

(RFK Jr. has adopted an indefensible stance on Israel and Gaza, yes; however, he would positively challenge the totalitarian drift that has been accelerating and intensifying since the Bush/Cheney regime and the Obama regime, which was not stopped or reversed by Trump, and which has been intensified and accelerated under the Biden regime. For that reason, he would be infinitely better than any conceivable “Democratic” candidate, or any “Republican” candidate, including Trump. But sadly, he is unlikely to win, yet.)

That makes an essy potential 50% of the popular vote for Trump, quite conceivable in the next US Presidential election, meaning, a virtually ensured victory for Trump.

Unless there is massive election fraud, again, which is now a bi-partisan tradition, in the new corporate-owned police state of the banana republic of the USSA – and election fraud is not just possible, but probable; unless a fair election can happen, and Trump is, secondly, not assassinated, or, thirdly, undemocratically blocked from running in the election: a Trump Presidency in 2025 is likely. Of course, civil war would avert that – and the plutocrats and their minions are fuelling that great evil as best they can. Don’t fall for the trap!

*

So, if Trump is not undemocratically blocked from a likely presidential win in 2025, what could we expect from a second Trump presidency?

Well, look at his first term as US President. What did he do? The shory answer is: nothing. He didn’t destroy the nation, or destroy democracy, nor did he usher in fascism – Cheny and Obama already did that. Nor did he do much of anything else. He was a dud, a class clown, sadly to say, a distraction, a non-event.

To Trump’s credit, he broke the news to the world that an unelected and rabidly anti-democratic Deep State does indeed exist, of course.

He also broke the news to the lemmings that the legacy media are instruments of propaganda and fake news, which anyone who has read Chomsky, or has been awake, already knew.

He raised the topic of fascism in the public mind globally – fascism which *is not a threat, but a present reality (!)*, which he did not bring in, but which his fore-runners, and other political prostitutes in the US and beyond, already did.

Those are three giant victories for the people – one of them being inadvertant.

He also defeated the sovereignty- and democracy-killing TPP; and renegotiated NAFTA, with slightly, but at least significant, improvements.

He did not dismabtle or even seriously criticize the police state apparatus created by Cheney and Obama.

He did not defund the military industrial intelligence complex, nor reign it in.

He did not end the empire or the imperial wars.

He did not end routine surveillance of all people globally.

He did not abolish the CIA, or the Nazi-named and equally fascist Department of Homeland Security, nor clean up the FBI, nor close Guantanamo, nor the 1,000+ US foreign military vases, nor the CIA torture centres and black sites.

Nor did he stop the gutting, looting and evisceration of the middle class, or halt the skyrocketing rise in inequality.

Trumps response to covid was likewise disastrous, and even worse than mere inaction – far worse than simple negligence and inaction. Trump unleashed Fauci, complied with the WHO and CDC, all of whom are essentially owned and controlled by the Big Pharma drug cartel, and went along with the mandates and lockdowns, with the result being a further gutting of the middle class, the destruction of millions of small businesses and a loss of millions of jobs, and worst of all, a further rollback and undermining of freedom, democracy, human rights and constitutional rule – and a further, accelerated, warp speed slide towards a biomedical police state.

Bravo, Trump. He thus powerfully aided and abetted the long-standing and accelerating trend towards globalist neo-feudal technocratic communist-fascist oligarchy – exactly as Bush, Cheney, Obama and Biden have done. Some messiah that is.

Let’s also not forget that Trump ran on a non-interventionist, peace-seeking platform in 2014 to 2016, which won him the reluctant support, even from much of the (then) anti-war left. But more recently, Trump has given unrestrained support to Israeli aggression and genocide, while saber-rattling with even more dangerous rhetoric about China, both of which show his slide into a pro-war, pro-interventionist stance, both of which risking global nuclear war. This man is extremely dangerous, not because he would bring in fascism, which has already happened, but because he, like the Democrats, and the Republican establishment, could get us all killed in a new world war.

And the list of failures, negligence and criminal complicity with the plutocracy and the military industrial complex goes on.

*

So, maybe saying Trump did nothing in his first presidency is too harsh. Certainly, he neither saved nor destroyed the country, although, like Clinton, Bush, Cheny, Obama and Biden, he did far more to destroy it than to aid it.

As I said many years ago, Trump was, and is, a distraction. Real change did not come from his first term as president, nor is it likely to come from him in 2025, if he does become president again. A giant windbag of a distraction – that’s all Trump is, in my view. He’s a game show host. What did you expect?

So, Trump is not going to save the nation, nor make America great again. Nor is he likely to destroy the nation, or bring in fascism – the bipartisan tag team of Republican neocons and Democrat neoliberals, in the twin parties of Wall Street, already did that. The country is in ruins, democracy is dead, and Trump will not fix it, nor is he likely to make things very much worse than they already are. He would instead, be another false messiah, another false populist, like Obama – a figure head of a collapsing nation and empire, being devoured by plutocrats, while ” elections” and “presidencies” distract the people and lull them to sleep with false hopes. Hope comes from the streets, now more than ever, and from nowhere else.

So, Trump will not bring fascism – that’s already here. Nor is he going to save the nation. There is a third possibility, however far worse, even, than lulling the people to sleep, while the nation is plundered, enslaved, devoured and destroyed, by an escalating corporate-fascist class war. What a second Trump presidency is likely to bring, is civil war – not one started by him or his supporters, but by his fanatical “democratic” and “liberal” opponents, orchestrated by the same neo-fascist Deep State military industrial Wall Street complex that has been devouring the nation, the people, and the democracy, with intensifying speed.

A second civil war in the US would not simply kill three quarters of a million people, horrific as that was. It would be a long, protracted, bloody stalemate, spanning decades, if not geberations, killing millions and leaving the country in ruins. That is the likely fallout if Trump is elected without an overwhelming public mandate.

Only one thing could possibly prevent a civil war in the wake of a second Trump presidency: an overwhelming landslide victory, with the clear supoort of a large majority and cross-section of the people. How can that be achieved, assuming RFK Jr. cannot likely win, leaving a Trump presidency in 2025 likely?

Vivek says he wants a landslide victory for Trump. He hints at and intuits danger if it is not a landslide. Andhe is right. A narrow victory for Trump would tear the country apart. A landslide win for Trump, despite Trump, could begin the healing and rebirth of the nation, by bringing together the people, after a long and increasingly bitter divide.

If Trump is strategically intelligent – a possibility, but doubtful – he would immediately do this:

Offer the Vice Presidency to the centre-left, small d democrat, Robery F. Kennedy Jr.

Offer the position of Secretary of Health (whatever it is called in the US – I, being Canadian, do not know) to Bernie Sanders, with the bold policy of cutting the Pentagon budget in half, and finally creating a universal public health care system for the US, like the more civilized nations have had for decades, using the hundreds of billions of dollars saved from the murderous and monstrously bloated military budget of the imperial killing machine.

Appoint Catherine Austin Fitts as Secretary of the Treasury, with a bold policy of defunding Wall Street, BlackRock, the big banks, Big Pharma, Big Tech, Big Agra and the the WHO, and ending all corporate subsidies, channelling the hundreds of billions of dollars saved per year into local econonic development, infrastructure, small business, co-ops, entrepreneurships and new start-up enterprises, to kick start the economy into high gear and provide good jobs for all – as a start. An audit of the Fed to follow immediately, of course, with a clear plan for its abolition.

Vivek speajs well, so find him a role, as well, perhaps as Press Secretary to the new President of the United States.

Do that, and a democratic landslide would result, with a clear and irrefutable mandate from the people – meaning, it could not easily be toppled or overthrown, and civil war would be unlikely.

But Trump is no 4-D chess player, nor a grand strategist. However, if someone can get his ear, he has shown he can at times be receptive to good ideas.

Make it so, i say.

*

Paradoxically, a Trump presidency could save the nation, despite Trump – but this is the only way I see that it could happen. Otherwise, my 2008 prediction for the US, Powderkeg USA, is likely to be fulfilled, with civil war ahead.

– J. Todd Ring,

February 1, 2024

From the rural counttyside of free and democratic Uruguay – a successful nation, not a collapsing neo-feudal police state run by Davos

A Canadian philosopher in exile from my now fascist homeland.

My writings, books, articles, and tens of thousands of references, can be found on:

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Defeat The Fascists! Unite The People Now!

The anti-authoritarian grassroots left and right are uniting – at last, as I’ve been urging for decades; and which is absolutely necessary, if we are to halt and reverse our current trajectory toward globalist corporate-fascism.

Listen carefully to the interview with Russell Brand, from the libertarian left, talking with Tucker Carlson, from the anti-authoritarian conservative right – then read my book, The People vs The Elite; and Vandana Shiva’s book, Oneness vs The 1%.

“Governments colluded to shut down and destroy Russell Brand. This is his first interview since that happened. Watch it when you get a minute. It’s one of the most brilliant explanations of the modern world you’ll ever hear.”

You can easily find the interview in a two second *non-Google(!)* web search. (Boycott Big Tech. Use DuckDuckGo, Rumble, Substack, Telegram, Puri.sm, ProtonMail and Brave, instead.)

We MUST unite the people now. This much is critical. It is the key.

The answer to Divide and Conquer, is Unite and Liberate. And we must do it now.

JTR,

February 1, 2024

A Sinking Ship On Fire: The Dismal State Of A Civilization (sic) In Slow Motion Collapse

(Written this morning as an open letter to a fine independent journalist)

Patrick, I found you on 21st Century Wire and was very impressed. Before I listen to this TNT talk on Rumble, and get a glimpse of your focus now, or foci, I want to say what comes to mind:

The thought was:

Dear Lord, I hope this isn’t too focused on the US. US politics are so sickeningly dismal and boring – like the politics of the country of my birth, Canada: nothing much ever happens that is positive in any big way, other than the watermark event of the truckers’ protest. Other than grassroots local action, not much of positive note ever happens in US or Canadian politics. It’s like watching a slow motion train wreck, or watching the Titanic go down.

Fortess North America – as the ruling power elite call it themselves (see my essays on the SPP) – as well as being one gulag under Davos, is now a sinking ship on fire, with the captain, crew, and the great majority of the passengers, all completely insane. Focusing on that is like slowing down on the highway to gawk at a multi-car pile-up collission, with bodies and body parts and flaming debris scattered about the road. What’s the point? Lend aid, or man the lifeboats, but don’t expect a change of course!

As the world’s leading cultural historian, Moriss Berman has said, It’s too late. It’s collapsing. It’s going down. And it’s now unstoppable. Trying to change the course of the US or North America, or the broader Western world now, would be, as Berman said, like trying to turn around an aircraft carrier in a bathtub.

The ship is going down. Leave now. Or if not, batten the hatches, and brace for impact.

The new renaissance that is now emerging, and the hope for the world, is no longer centred in the US, Europe, or the West. It’s in the Global South. That’s where the action is. That’s where the hope is. The US, Canada, Britain and Europe, sadly to say, are now plunging fast into a neo-feudal Dark Age. Get the fuck out now.

And who cares what clown is “elected” as El Presidente in the new banana republic of the USSA? The chance of real, significant positive change coming from that office is extremely small – slim to nil, as Doug Casey says, and Slim’s out of town.

It’s the collapse of the Roman Empire all over again. Berman, Jane Jacobs and others were right: it’s a Dark Age ahead for the former “First World” nations of the sinking ship that is “The West”.

Leave now. The hope is elsewhere.

JTR,

February 1, 2024

Villa Samadhi,

Uruguay

Socialism, Capitalism, Corporatism, & The Future Of Humanity: Ideology vs Reality

A few thoughts on the recent, very thoughtful and interesting discourse and debate, between Professors Brookes and Wolff, linked in the video below:

To Professor Wolff:
Bravo – brilliant crystalization.

To Professor Brookes:
Great respect for your human decency and moral sentiment of basic justice and compassion, certainly, but are you not aware of the famous quote from Mark Twain? “There are lies, damned lies, and then there are statistics.”

Unconscious ideologues unconsciously pick narratives and statistics that suit their cognitive and emotional bias, their ideology, filtering out discomforting statistics and facts, perspectives and evidence, unconsciously, like dogmatic religious fundamentalists, to suit their ideological bias. In short, your stats are bogus. Statistics are easily and routinely fudged, distorted, fabricated or manufactured to suit ideological or policy preferences. (See Shadow Stats, for an example of that obvious truth.) More to the point, read the Davos Report, by Oxfam. Five billion people lost a trillion dollars in the past four years alone, while the richest eight individuals on Earth now control more wealth than the poorest half of humanity – and the three richest men in the US now control more wealth than the poorest half of Americans.

(Who do I trust more, by the way, the most respected international development organization on Earth, Oxfam, or a professor from the Kennedy School, which was founded by the same Rockefeller clan that founded the WEF as the leading centre of the Western oligarchy? Not a difficult choice. But that is an aside.)

The wealth is being sucked up by the top 1%, while poverty grows and inequality skyrockets – and we are now clearly moving into an era of corporatist monopoly capitalism and neo-feudalism, as a result. Worse, the oligarchs know this will be unpopular and will provoke popular uprising, which is why they are now resorting to fascism. See my essay, The Failure Of Propaganda & The Resort To Fascism.

In short, the facts disprove your tired, old, trickle down, rising tide, Polyanna / Dr. Pangloss, neoliberal apologist view – and it’s so obvious and undeniable to the people of the world, that popular unrest is rising fast.

Moreover, the power elite know that the propaganda war has been lost – which is why they are now resorting to fascism, censorship, the criminalization of free speech, and sheer force of repression. (See my essay, mentioned above.) Your arguments, Professor Brookes, are not only hollow and unsound – they have already failed. And both the people and the ruling power elite know it.

I’m sure Professor Wolff will rebut and refute your self-evidently falacious argument very well, but I was so appalled by the contrast and contradiction between your apparently sincere moral sentiments, and your dubious apologetics for neo-feudal corporatist capitalism, that I had to pause the video of the debate to make this note.

Given the choice between sociopathic power-mongering corporate-fascists, which is what the billionaire WEF oligarchy represents, and naive, well-meaning ideologues on the other hand, clearly the latter are preferable and better – but not in the least satisfactory or sufficient.

Failing grade as an economist or political analyst, I must say, as a researcher in political-economy and philosophy for four decades now, myself, and I am sorry to say, my brother.

Read the Davos Report, along with Michael Hudson, please – and listen carefully to Professor Wolff, I would humbly urge.

In sum, listening to a thoughtful, intelligent, broad-minded scholar or thinker is like a breath of fresh air. Listening to an ideologue, if you must, is like razor blades run down your spine. And of course, you can’t have an intelligent conversation with an ideologue, no matter how hard you try, because they are dogmatic fundamentalists to their core – their minds have turned to stone. It’s like talking to a brick wall. You’d be better off talking to a fence post, or a clump of Earth – and they are pretty much on the same intellectual level. (See Thoreau on that: Walden and On Civil Disobedience.) This is what most of academia, the media and “intellectual” life represents in modern society. It is by and large a dead zone, a wasteland, a desert, as TS Eliot knew so well.

Socialism, capitalism, or something else? How about we start with a basic open-mindedness, questioning and humility. Until then, all talk is futile.

Think for yourself. Question everything.

By the way, the libertarian socialist model that Profession Wolff presented here, or one version of it, rooted in grassroots economic democracy, workplace democracy and worker cooperatives, is decidedly not theoretical. Are you unaware, Professor Brookes, of the centuries-old co-op model, which is now wide-spread in the US and around the world, which is very successful, and growing fast? Are you unaware, ignorant, that is, of the Spanish Revolution, which was largely anarchist, libertarian socialist, and which very successfully ran an advanced, modern industrial society, while under the extreme pressures and duress of fighting a war against the fascists, and their Communist and “liberal” Western oligarch supporters? And are you likewise ignorant of the Mondragon Co-op in Spain, which was founded by two brothers only a few decades ago, and which now has become one of the biggest and most successful corporations in all of Europe? Giving you the benefit of the doubt, and assuming you are not a conscious liar and propagandist, one must conclude that you are, quite simply, stunningly ignorant of the facts of history and political-economy, both.
Response?
My apologies for the ferocity. It is nothing personal. It is simply a matter of 99% of the eight billion human beings on Earth being suffocated, squeezed, held down, boot on the neck, exploited, preyed upon, bled dry and degraded, or worse, by a predatory and parasitic, truly vampiric system of neo-feudal corporate empire. This has to change. And the time is now.

J. Todd Ring,
Author of Enlightened Democracy
And
The People vs The Elite

And yes, I am philosophically aligned with the grassroots populist libertarian left, with a strong admiration for Thomas Jefferson, Voltaire and Thomas Paine, the founders of liberal democracy, as well.

Give me FDR, Kropotkin, or Thomas Paine, and I will be thrilled, or at least, greatly relieved. But if we continue on our current trajectory, it will be dystopian in the extreme, with neo-Malthusian techno-fascist oligarchs at the helm, and a boot on the face of humanity, and far worse, for a long time to come.

Time to cut the bullshit, to put it frankly – and now.

JTR

The debate that sparked these thoughts:

Oh, Canada: A Funeral Dirge – And A Prayer

Travelling the world recently again, I am struck by the staggering ignorance among the great majority of people in the world, as to what Canada is like today. All of them, with rare exceptions, seem to think this is 1974. They think of Canada as a rich, First World country, with peace, prosperity, beautiful nature, democracy and freedom, a civilized country, with constitutional rule and human rights for all. That was true in 1974, to a large extent, and for some time afterward. It is not true today. Of this list of positive traits, only the beautiful nature remains. All the rest has been destroyed – and the vast Boreal forest is being clear cut and burned as well, while the fisheries, waters and soils are being strip-mined, eroded, despoiled and laid to waste. These are sad, tragic facts, but they are nevertheless true. This is what decades of corruption has wrought upon my people.

People need to realize that Canada, like the US and UK, with Europe quick to follow, after 50 years of neoliberal globalization, de-industrialization and class warfare, is now a collapsing Third World fascist police state. I am Canadian, and a scholar on these issues for four decades. I do not speak lightly or off the cuff. These are the facts, whether people want to deal with reality or not. There are many billionaires and rich people in Canada, but the fact is that poverty and inequality have skyrocketed, as the middle class is steadily wiped out, and the bottom 80% of the people are now sinking economically. This is not 1974. This is 2024, and my Canada, is long gone.

When the Canadian people tire of being ruled by plutocrats and kleptocrats, then it can become a wonderful, prosperous, democratic and free nation once again. At present, all these things are gone and have been destroyed.

How long will the people suffer in silence? Not much longer, I pray.

JTR,

A Canadian in exile,

January 21, 2024

Trump Hysteria

“Imagine, being so gullible, that you believe the world’s largest media corporations, are there to help you understand the world, rather than mislead and propagandize you.”

 - Glenn Greenwald

Fortunately, the spell is starting to wear off, at least for the growing majority of the people.

*

Trump did little good in his first term as US President, and much that was bad – but he didn’t turn the US into a fascist police state: Cheney, Obama and Biden did that.

I am no Trump supporter, but the establishment political elite of the two dominant US parties are far worse and far more dangerous.

Trump may be terrible, but it is the twin party machines, both run by Wall Street and the Deep State, that are truly fascist.

The hysteria over Trump is not only profoundly hypocritical, delusional and deceitful. It’s an absurdity in the extreme.

Lesson: Turn off the mainstream media, permanently.

JTR,

January 17, 2024

Renaissance, Resistance & Revolution

In terms of social movements, the Left is dead, for the time being, at least in the formerly industrialized, formerly “leading”, “developed”, First World nations of the (North-) West. The reason it is dead, is because it has been seduced into supporting authoritarianism, and has thereby been co-opted by the fascist corporate oligarchy, ruled by the Western business and political elite. (See my essay, When Liberals & The Left Lose Their Minds.)

What’s left, then? The major centres of resistance to the global corporate-fascist coup, are now in the Global South, the Majority World, where 80% of the world’s people live.

Meanwhile, the North-West corner of the world, that is, North America, Britain and Europe, is rapidly becoming a collapsing Third World, communist-fascist police state, and a deeply Orwellian corporatist technocracy – one gulag under Davos.

Awakening and resistance are growing globally, however, and with exponential speed – including in the North-West region of the world. But it is now the fact that the global awakening and resistance are strongest in Latin America and the Global South.

That being said, I think the strongest and grestest hopes for real, positive social change, are now coming from a loose coalition or constellation of forces, above all, from Indigenous movements, the global peasants movement, and a myriad of generally complimentary and synergistic popular social movements: including the ecovillage movement, the voluntary simplicity, nomad, permaculture, organic and homesteading movements, the anti-authoritarian right, which not only exists, of course, despite the messaging of the technocratic faux-left propaganda blitz, but is growing fast – and the anti-authoritarian left, which still exists and is also rapidly growing; along with the anti-authoritarian and decentralist currents within the environmental movement, which 40 years ago were predominant, but which are still alive now, and are resurging fast; and along with the natural health movement, and the many threads of the global freedom movement.

All of this should be seen as signs of hope. Moreover, it should be viewed within the wider context, which includes the major tectonic historical changes which are now underway: including a global paradigm shift, the emergence and rebirth of a multipolar world, and the decline and fall of the corporate-state oligarchy and empire of the North-West, formerly and foolishly referred to as “Western civilization”, “the Western world”, or “the West”.

As the global tectonic shift accelerates, in all of these ways, the rebirth of the world will begin to emerge, and become more and more visible, and in time, undeniable.

In historical terms, the world is changing and shifting now in extremely rapid ways. Some trends are ominous in the extreme. Others are deeply hopeful, liberatory and enlightening. In the short term, which side predominates in our personal lives, depends largely on how we choose to live, and even more so, on where we place ourselves, with some regions becoming increasingly dystopian, while other places experience freedom, a renaissance, and a rebirth.

In the longer view, however, we can say with certainty that no empire lasts forever. All empires fall. And the Western corporate oligarchy, which has now mutated into the new billionaire-ruled communist-fascist empire, is collapsing now, slowly, but with accelerating speed. In its death throes, it is a wounded, montrous predatory beast, extremely dangerous. But it is dying, nonetheless. And the plutocrats know it. That’s why the billionaires are resorting to the desperate measures of fascist totalitarianism, while building bunkers as fast as they can.

(See my essays and books: The Failure Of Propaganda, Sinking All Ships, Importing From China, The Worst Of Both Worlds, The Global Tectonic Shift, The Collapse Of The West, Slavery Or Rebirth, Enlightened Democracy, and The People vs The Elite.)

A new day is dawning for humanity. A new world is indeed being born. But like all births, there is pain. Keep a long term perspective – and never surrender. There is, as Thoreau said, more day yet to dawn.

*

The hope doesn’t come from corporate-communist China, by the way, as many people on the Left naively have come to believe. That is simply another example of large currents of the Left temporarily losing their minds – in the same way that much of the Left supported the Soviet Union, from 1917 into the 1950s, until the New Left of the 1960s reverted to the Left’s original heritage and roots, which are fiercely libertarian; and in the same way the neo-Maoist “Left” now, today, unwittingly supports the totalitarian corporate-fascist coup, that is presently underway. Idiocy by any other name would smell as foul – and still does.

China is a totalitarian police state. End of story. It may help defeat and dethrone the globally dominant, but rapidly collapsing Western technocracy, or corporate-fascist empire, but it is certainly not the hope for the world.

Supporting China is no different from supporting the neo-Maoist wokesters – or supporting Stalin. Totalitarianism is demonic egomania, and tyranny, utterly unacceptable and intolerable under any circumstances – just as the new corporate-fascism of the Western oligarchy is utterly intolerable.

Hope lies, as always, with the grassroots, with the people. It is we who will save and liberate ourselves, together – and no one else.

The world is changing. And it is the people who have the greater power, as always – and it is leadership from below, from millions of points of light, which is where our true hope lies: now, more than ever before.

JTR,
January 17, 2024,
Villa Samadhi,
Uruguay