Freedom Is Fundamental

There is a great deal of noise and commotion, fighting and fussing, conflict and division, in many areas and many regards, over how people should live. Valuing freedom, in practice as well as rhetoric, ends most of that nonsense.

I don’t care how people dress, or who they sleep with or love, for example. I believe in freedom. If you’re not hurting anyone, then I say, do whatever you want, and live the way you want to. What business is it of mine? But when we are being force-fed global corporate fascism, and being told it is for our own good, then I object.

I have a problem with fascism. Call me old fashioned, but fascism, in any form, is always a nightmare and an atrocity, and can never be tolerated, no matter how it is dressed up or disguised. I think any sane person should agree.

Fight fascism in all its forms. Freedom is not only worth preserving – it is fundamental. Without it, our society rapidly devolves into a gulag. Do not be passive about this latest power bid, in what can be called fascism 3.0; and do not be silent.

J. Todd Ring,
January 22, 2021

The Death of Science

Big business and the billionaire oligarchs are now taking over science, after having already taken over the global economy, the financial system and money creation, almost all governments, and all the major media, including, of course, the Big Tech “social media”. Welcome to the Brave New World. You will be told what to think, as well as what to do and how to live – and don’t bother yourself with facts, evidence, logic or reason, critical thinking or open discussion, for they are all now verboten.

JTR,
January 21, 2021

They Want It All

“You’ll own nothing, and you’ll be happy.” So says Davos founder and oligarch-in-chief, what’s his name….Vlad the Impaler? No, wait…Klaus Schwabb.

In any event, you’ll own nothing, while the billionaires own everything – including the governments, the economy, the media, the communications systems, all the major resources, and all the farmland. Welcome to happy clown funland, in the new global corporate fascist regime.

Bill Gates is now the biggest owner of farmland in the US, according to Forbes. He has quietly bought up 242,000 acres across 18 states. Yes, you will own nothing, but the billionaire elite will own everything.

This is nothing new, nor surprising, if anyone knows their history. All emperors and all empires sought ever greater power and wealth for themselves. They all fall in the end, but that does not prevent them from committing acts of mass violence and tyranny for a time. It would be unwise in the extreme to be passive or complacent about what is happening now. The new emperors, and the new empire, are simply repeating the worst mistakes and the worst crimes of history, or are in the process of doing so. They are living out the maxim made clear by Adam Smith: “All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.”

75 years ago, in the 1930s and ’40s, during WWII, we recognized the threat of fascism for what it was, and we defeated it. Today, the great majority live as if in a trance, and do not even recognize the grave danger that surrounds them. This must change, and now. We can and must defeat the fascists, once again. And if anyone thinks these words be too strong, I would strongly advise them, to think again – do some more research, think for yourself, and keep your eyes open. We have only seen the beginning.

J. Todd Ring,
January 15, 2021

For further context and perspective, in-depth analysis, vision and strategy, see my first two published books: Enlightened Democracy, and, The People vs The Elite. Both are available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble now.

#BillGates #Davos #fascism #GreatReset

Additional References:

Michael Parenti – The Haves Want To Have It All
https://open.spotify.com/track/7FDQz2llfo648aNbKzkdG2?si=-wuP2AVSQFaiKnVeMZPeMw

Michael Parenti – Distorted Personalities
https://open.spotify.com/track/72TwUxVWjtkTXVxcOCMQxP?si=pfGUBrrLTVaXywq7KNevGw

Whitney Webb, Twitter: Forbes article on Bill Gates’ Take-Over of US Farmland
https://t.co/wejBNefIBF?amp=1

Techno-Tyranny: How the US National Security State Is Using Coronavirus To Fulfill An Orwellian Vision, by Whitney Webb
https://citizentruth.org/techno-tyranny-how-the-us-national-security-state-is-using-coronavirus-to-fulfill-an-orwellian-vision/

Further Reading:

Noam Chomsky – Year 501: The Conquest Continues, Necessary Illusions, and, Class Warfare

Ronald Wright – Stolen Continents, and, A Short History of Progress

Rianne Eisler – The Chalice and The Blade

Murray Bookchin – The Ecology of Freedom

Erich Fromm – Escape From Freedom, and, The Pathology of Normalcy

Aldous Huxley – Brave New World, and, Brave New World Revisited

John Perkins – Confessions of an Economic Hitman

Naomi Klein – The Shock Doctrine

Naomi Wolf – The End of America

Henry David Thoreau – Walden, and, On Civil Disobedience

and my own first two published books:

Enlightened Democracy, and, The People vs The Elite

Rescuing Plato, Rescuing Ourselves

Despite the fact that Western civilization (sic) has greatly venerated and virtually worshipped the ancients of Greece and Rome, in reality, they had little to offer in terms of philosophy. (I will qualify and elaborate on this broad statement in a moment.) That being said, modern philosophy, from Descartes through to the currently fashionable fascism and post-modernism – both of them being based in dangerous nihilistic delusions – is in general a dung hole, and should be suitably flushed, or at least, set aside for a couple of hundred years, until we can see it with fresh eyes.

In that context, it would be most helpful to rescue Plato and the ancients from the memory hole. Though the ancient Greeks and Romans have been overly emphasized, as well as dimly understood, they still have important things to teach us – if we have ears to hear, eyes to see, and, an ability to think critically, and do not simply worship at someone’s feet, or alternately, glibly reject them out of hand.

(I like rigour of thought; but I am not a fan of the narrow-minded and blinkered, authority-worshipping, pseudo-intellectual, prickly scholasticism that has come over Western society in these past few centuries since the Council of Nicaea, particularly within academia and “intellectual culture”, and which gilds the mind-forged manacles, as Blake so aptly called them, which we have come to worship in the place of knowledge, wisdom and truth, or any other sensible values. There are glowing exceptions to the general decline in Western philosophy since the Renaissance. Let Montaigne and Etienne de La Boite, rather than Newton, Bacon and Descartes, be considered the foundations of the modern world from hence forth, and we will be on far better and more sure footing. If you insist on a canon, which is always a risky thing to do, but valid enough, and useful, if done with intelligence, let these bright lights be among them: Spinoza, Hume, Emerson, Thoreau, Kropotkin, Aldous Huxley, Alan Watts, Erich Fromm, Joseph Campbell, Allan Wallace, Joanna Macy, Ken Wilber, Rianne Eisler, Murray Bookchin, Noam Chomsky, Morris Berman, Helena Norberg-Hodge, Vandana Shiva, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and the writings and speeches of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. Is there room for democracy, freedom, constitutional rule, human rights, tolerance and diversity, and science and spirituality both, along with philosophy? Naturally, and these things should be considered to be fundamental – which they are. Maybe with a fresh perspective, in this new millennium, we can actually begin to live up to calling ourselves a civilization.)

Aside from Socrates, who asserted little of his own views, but instead urged us to question everything, and Plotinus, who was the last of the ancient philosophers, and the best, there is no single philosophy from ancient Greece or Rome that can, or should, be taken off the shelf and accepted as a complete, ready-to-use philosophy, on its own. Aside from Plotinus, all of them offered defective and confused philosophies, and the best we can do with them, is to take what is valuable from each, and leave the rest behind. That includes Plato and Aristotle, the two most influential of all.

Plato was rabidly anti-democratic, and urged a totalitarian elite rule, by what he called philosopher kings. This should strike any sane person as an extremely dangerous idea, destined to create tyranny and a nightmare society. (My first essay in philosophy, in year one of university, was to rebut Plato’s philosophy of benevolent dictatorship by philosopher kings.) But this idea of wise and benign dictatorship has been glowingly and eagerly embraced by generations of self-deluding elites, for centuries and millennia; just as it is again today, with the Davos/Bilderberg billionaire oligarchs, who literally call themselves the masters of the universe, insanely, thinking themselves to be on a messianic mission to save us from ourselves, through bringing in a benign, highly scientific, technocratic fascism (which Huxley warned us about) – ruled by themselves, of course.

The Western power elite seem clearly to be ruled by a set of delusions elaborated by a bastard hybridization of Plato – the idea that the wise and benevolent ruling elite, as philosopher kings, should rule; Machiavelli – power is the only value, and any means are valid to achieve it; Hobbes – centralization of power is is necessary and good, or, more delusions of self-justifying and self-serving elite rule), Neitzsche – yes, he fell into nihilism, and yes, the elite are nihilists, as well as egomaniacs and sociopaths, as all power-mongers are; post-modernism – polysyllabic psychobabble based in nihilism and relativism), Malthus (yes, the elite are neo-Malthusian, with all the grim horrors that implies), and above all, Spencer (the godfather of Social Darwinism, who put forward the view most beloved by elites ever since: the view that extreme inequality, and extreme concentrations of wealth and power, are natural, normal, and good – the view that the might makes right, and the powerful are justified in devouring the planet, the poor, and everyone else.

*

Aristotle was more sane, with regards to political philosophy, arguing for democracy and equality. But Aristotle leaned toward a materialist reductionist worldview, and hence, was also partially crippled in mind, and not at all to be embraced uncritically.

If, however, we approach philosophy, not as a canon, but as a body of thought, then we can perhaps think critically, and look at what is valuable, if anything, in various works of philosophy, and not be so naive, or unduly deferential and mousy, as to believe that it is impossible to separate the wheat from the chaff, or, heaven forbid, to synthesize and combine the best elements from various philosophies and thinkers.

For example, and chiefly, perhaps, we need to look at Plato and Aristotle more critically, and not simply embrace or reject them, but embrace and reject what is suitable to be embraced or rejected.

If we take Plato’s metaphysics, or ontology, if you prefer the term – which assert a unity of being, echoing the perennial philosophy, to use the phrase of Leibniz, or, the mono-myth, as Joseph Campbell called it – and reject his elitist call for totalitarianism; and we take Aristotle’s very sensible and prescient observations asserting that democracy is best, despite its flaws; but reject his materialist reductionism; and instead, combine Aristotle’s sensible love of democracy with Plato’s metaphysics of the unity of being: then we have an intelligent philosophy, based in the ancients, but not blindly bound to their mistakes, which can guide us well through the 21st century and beyond.

Aristotle, we should note, had the good sense to recognize that both wealth and economic power (which of course inevitably follows from wealth) tend to concentrate in a market-based economy: and if this trend is not checked, and policies put in place to redistribute wealth, then the rich will take over, and it will be a plutocracy, an oligarchy, not a democracy – and democracy will collapse, be eaten alive by the rising oligarchy (then as now), or alternatively, implode under the weight of civil unrest.

Aristotle presaged FDR. Roosevelt understood that if some measure of redistribution of wealth, and some measure of aid and protection for the poor, some degree of intelligent responsiveness to inequality, are not undertaken, then revolution would be the result. He was right. As JFK said, Those who make non-violent revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. For those who fear or are averse to revolution (I am not one) this sage advice cannot be ignored.

In 2020 we were beset by a new problem, which is really an old problem, in a new form. A crisis is being cynically used by powerful individuals for personal gain. Hardly anything new. (See The Shock Doctrine.)Powerful elites are seeking more power. This is also hardly anything new, but as dangerous as ever – and more dangerous than ever before, because the power of the global elite is now far greater than that of the Nazis, the fascists of the 1930s and ’40s, or any of the kings or emperors of the past 5,000 years. If we cannot learn from history now, at this critical juncture in time, and learn from philosophy as well, then we are indeed headed, and in fact plunging, into an extremely dark and dystopian world.

*

The Stoics deserve a brief mention only, and only because there is a growing new fetish for that grim philosophy of complacency. Stoicism is indeed a grim philosophy. It is the valuing of silent acquiescence and servility as the highest value. How dismal and pathetic. It echoes Confucianism in the East – which is the still-reigning religion, in truth, of modern 21st century China: “Know your place. Shut up and do what you’re told.”

No wonder the Taoists have mocked the Confucianists for over two thousand years – as they should. Stoicism, old or new, as with Confucianism – or the neo-Confucian/Maoist/Leninist/neo-feudal corporatism of contemporary China – deserves to be mocked, and to be rejected entirely.

Of course, even in a sewage pit, you can sometimes find little treasures. It is no different with regards to philosophy. There are elements of Stoic philosophy which are valuable, though the whole is a stinking bog, and a cesspool of the mind. The valuing of inner calm and composure, resilience and inner peace, are of course appealing to many people. But the Buddha offered a sure path to these goals, without the self-castration or self-evisceration entailed in Stoic deference to power and the status quo – whatever that happens to be; and without the perverse worshipping of repression as a pinnacle value, or the deranged notion that anything good can come through the staunch refusal to feel either pain or pleasure, sorrow or joy, or any human feelings at all. No, if you want inner strength, inner peace, inner calm, composure and resilience, there are better places to look, and better approaches to take, than to submit to the eye-gauging and soul crushing philosophy of the Stoics. Buddhism is just one option which infinitely supersedes this dismal quagmire. (Taoism and Liberation Theology are two more, among many.)

Post-modernism, and the ever-fashionable fetish among elites which is fascism – both of which being forms of nihilism – have resurrected the rotting corpse of ancient Sophism. Let’s just say that if nothing matters, in our deluded minds, then the holocaust, and the killing of millions of people, was a perfectly acceptable act, and not a crime of any kind. Of course, most people have a basic sanity, and therefore, they recognize that mass murder is not an acceptable thing, but a horrific and despicable act by deranged and dangerous people who should never be allowed to wield power. The lesson has not yet been learned, however – either by the delusional elite, nor by the masses, who allow them to rule, and allow them to repeat the horrors of history, in ever new and more dangerous forms.

If we, the people, are at all sane – and I am convinced that, despite the mass propaganda and the mass indoctrination, most people still possess common sense and basic sanity – then we will remove the power-hunger elite from power, and restore democracy and freedom, and constitutional rights for all, and immediately.

If we are not so lucid or so wise, then we will simply repeat the worst mistakes of history, all over again, and the bloodshed, and the horror, will be on our hands, and on our conscience, forever.

“The greatest of philosophers have found answers to life’s problems,

not just in theory, but in practice.”

– Henry David Thoreau

Act now.

J. Todd Ring,

January 3, 2021

Further Reading:

(A very short and incomplete list, naturally)

C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite

Noam Chomsky, Necessary Illusions, Year 501, and Class Warfare

Peter Phillips, Giants: The Global Power Elite

Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine

John Perkins, The New Confessions Of An Economic Hitman,

and, A Game As Old As Empire

Joseph Campbell, The Hero With A Thousand Faces

Joanna Macy, World As Lover, World As Self

Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy

Allan Wallace, Choosing Reality

Rianne Eisler, The Chalice and The Blade

Murray Bookchin, The Ecology of Freedom

Erich Fromm, Escape From Freedom

Bertrand Russel, Roads To Freedom

and my own first two books:

Enlightened Democracy

and

The People vs The Elite

Team Biden: Democrats Represent A Continuation Of Neoliberal Corporate-Fascist Elite Rule

What, in reality, would Team Biden and a Democratic White House represent? Let’s cut through the noise and fog and illusions, and deal with reality here, for a change.

Team Biden would mean, above all, a continuation of the clearly authoritarian, deeply Orwellian drive of both major US political parties, along with the broader world, to embrace the Chinese model of technocratic, totalitarian elite rule. Yes, it is that stark, and that dystopian – and yes, the people and the media pundits are in that much denial.

The Davos billionaire elite, who now effectively rule over Washington and the world, have eagerly embraced the Chinese technocratic, totalitarian model. They have been pushing an agenda for 52 years, since the Pentagon Papers were written in 1968, to roll back democracy, to contain and eliminate the outbreak of democracy, and to advance a slow motion global corporate coup. And they have succeeded, for now.

The great majority of the people have accepted the destruction of constitutional rule, democracy, civil liberties and freedom – out of fear of a virus, which in reality, could never amount to anywhere nearly as great a danger as that presented by the authoritarianism which has been instituted to fight it.

After writing this article, I should note, the announcement broke that the WHO had reversed its stance and declared its opposition to the lockdowns. The evidence from Sweden shows the lockdowns do not work to stop a pandemic, even if you believe the vastly inflated official figures. The lockdowns simply destroy lives, through economic ruin as well as isolation, and instill fear and obedience, in a clear divide and conquer strategy which is being used to deploy and institute what can only be called a new regime of global corporate fascism.

(For honest and intelligent information and commentary on the coronavirus crisis, see Canadian constitutional lawyer Rocco Galati, one of the few reliable or even sane sources on the subject.)

Is there really any other question to ask in the 2020 political theatre of the US presidential reality show? There is one over-riding question at this time, and it is this. Can one ever support fascism? I think the clear answer should be a resounding, No.

Fascism can never be supported – not even when wrapped in a flag, or wrapped in a centre-left Democratic party package, or wrapped up as the lesser evil, or presented as the necessary answer to a great danger or a great emergency.

Under no circumstances can fascism be supported – whether it be liberal, left, centre or right in its outward trappings, packaging and veneer.

But, to go further, let us look at what else Team Biden would bring, along with a continuation of the corporate fascist regime that is being paraded now as the “new normal” which must be embraced.

Team Biden would continue the lockdown/shutdown of the economy, which in reality, is a very conscious act of class warfare and economic warfare waged by the 0.01% on the 99.99%. The continuing economic warfare will destroy millions more lives and cause exponentially mounting suffering and death, despite its pretense of being driven by necessity, as an emergency measure to protect the people.

Remember what Hitler said: the big lie is easier to get away with than the small lie. It worked in the lead up to the Iraq War, and it is working again now.

The virus is real, though even the CDC figures now admit it was 96% exaggerated. But the lockdowns do, in fact, cause vastly more harm than good. And they were never intended to protect public health. They are an act of economic warfare conducted by the Davos international billionaire elite against the 99.99%. More importantly, they represent a very simple power grab, by the same global corporate elite, which should be obvious and self-evident to all.

The authoritarian measures that were implemented during what is better called covid-1984 were never about protecting human health. If the elite cared a trace about public health, they would support and fully fund universal public health care, push Big Pharma out of Washington, Ottawa, London, Paris, Brussels, Berlin, and out of the FDA, the CDC and the WHO, ban pesticides, get tough on toxic pollution, and eliminate poverty – all of which would cost a sliver of the current government subsidies and direct funding going to the fossil fuel industry, the military industrial security complex, the new police state, the war machine, and the trillions of dollars in on-going welfare being doled out for the corporations and the super-rich.

Covid-1984 is about class warfare, economic warfare, and a global corporate fascist coup. It has nothing to do with protecting human health – no matter what the bewildered and unquestioning health care workers and bureaucrats may foolishly believe.

But of course, the economic warfare has to be made acceptable to the peasant majority. That is where the “stimulus” money, or hush money, comes in.

Team Biden would bring through more “economic stimulus” – meaning, trillions of dollars of money printing dumped into the economy to massively dope and drug and pacify the people into submission to the new normal of corporate authoritarianism and the new global neofeudal Orwellian fascist regime. The temporary result would be complacence and obedience and submissiveness among the people. The near term result will be economic collapse, which of course will further devastate the 99%, while further enriching and empowering the 1%, to the level of god-kings – which is exactly the game plan.

The immediately following result, after the fast-approaching economic collapse, resulting from the deliberate economic warfare, would be social chaos, social collapse, and civil war. But that works for the elite, too – that justifies a “law and order” campaign, which masks and justifies the unleashing of the hounds of the new fascist architecture – which, of course, is not meant to create peace, or “order”, or safety or security for the 99%, but only security for the 1% and their wealth and power, and more importantly, to crush dissent and destroy all that remains of democracy and constitutional republics world-wide.

What would Team Biden do? What would a Democratic White House do? The same thing a Democratic Congress and White House have done before:

1. support the on-going class war and economic warfare that is being waged by the 0.1% against the vast majority world-wide;

2. support the elite’s war on democracy and constitutional rule, and their bid to secure and consolidate their power by any and every means necessary, including a resort to fascism; and,

3. support the corporate elite in their looting, pillaging, razing and devouring of the poor, the middle class and the Earth, until our civilization (sic) collapses, and we have to rebuild again from scratch, amidst the toxic wasteland, the dust, and the ruin.

That is what the Biden Team, the Wall Street-controlled Democratic party, or the Republican party, would do. Can we honestly say that such sociopathic, life-destroying, anti-democratic, corporate fascist madness is in any way supportable, under any banner, or under any circumstances? I would say the honest answer, the sane answer, must be, No, it cannot.

Revolution now.

MLK showed the way. Now, what are we waiting for?

J. Todd Ring,
October 11, 2020

Censorship, Big Tech & The Closing Down of Society

Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, and the MAGATs – Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon and Twitter – are all now embedded and engaged in censorship, data mining, privacy invasion, the new global surveillance and police state, and/or state-corporate propaganda, and manipulation of elections and the public mind (ie: the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica proven manipulation of facebook users and the general public to sway the election in 2016 in favour of Trump, for a fee, paid by one of the billionaire plutocracy). 

In other words, unless you want to live in Orwell’s dystopia of 1984, or Huxley’s Brave New World, you had better start the exodus from, and boycott of, Big Tech now. 

At least make a start. I’ve written about it on my blog, J. Todd Ring on WordPress, in terms of why, how, and what the alternatives are. Keep a foot in the dinosaur media and platforms if you like, but at least open accounts in the new and better alternatives, which refuse censorship, surveillance and Big Brother.

Patreon is now reportedly censoring and purging. Medium appears questionable. 

The global neofeudal corporate fasist oligarchy has taken over nearly everything, including the global economy and financial system, the major international organizations, such as the IMF, WTO, WEF, BIS, ECB, Fed, World Bank and the WHO, nearly all governments, all the major media, much of academia, science and the big environmental groups, and most of the internet. 

As to free speech zones online or off, they are falling and being closed down fast. The Guardian was a decent paper, then they bravely published Snowdon’s important leaks, then was clearly leaned on and lost its soul – as just one of myriad recent examples. The same happened a generation earlier to the Washngton Post and NY Times after the Pentagon Papers.

*

Of course, I long ago, decades ago, moved away from any reliance, and generally any reading or viewing at all, of the utterly unreliable corporate-state media. And yes, the two have merged, as the new ruling empire of global corporatism represents the merger of big business and the state; which, as Mussolini said, is the proper definition for fascism.

80% of the world’s major media is now owned by six corporations. State media such as the BBC and CBC have of course been systematically corrupted by the corporate take-over of governments around the world. Even “public” broadcasters such as PBS and TVO are deeply corrupted by their reliance on big money from corporattions and billionaire-controlled foundations. And the “alternative media” suffers systemically from group think, herd mentality, or simple co-option through foundation money or other means. Democracy is not dying, it is being strangled to death by the power-hungry business elite.

At least have a thoughtful look at better alternatives and generally far more reliable sources for information, research, news and analysis. Shun, or at least, do not rely on the big media giants, Big Tech, Wikipedia, governments, big business, corporate-controlled bodies such as the WHO, or even the “alternative media”. Question everything. Think for yourself.

At this moment, there are a handful of sources I trust as having high reliability, honesty, intelligence, and courage. They are not infallible, but they are light years above the sordid and corrupt major media, which are an echo chamber and propaganda system for the ruling business elite, as John Pilger and Noam Chomsky have said.

And they are incomparably more reliable than the general “alternative media”, which seem to excel on many issues, but get all the biggest issues wrong: such as the War On Terror, 9/11, Obamamania, Russiagate, the Ukraine coup, Syria, the OPCW, the new cold war(s), China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, covid-1984….and the list goes on.

Take a serious and thoughtful look at these sources, then decide for yourself – on every subject! We have innate intelligence. We need to use it far more than our “new normal”, or even our old normal, would allow. Banish group think, read and listen to diverse views, and think for yourself.

Remember, united we stand, divided we fall. Divide and conquer is the most essential and time-tested strategy of all empires throughout the ages, including the latest: the global neofeudal crypto-fascist corporate oligarchy. Unite the people. We have more in common than most people realize. It is the 99% vs the 1%, not left vs right, or black vs white. Read widely, think deeply, then unite the people, and stand. And now. MLK shows the way.

*

Look into these ten sources, then decide things for yourself. And remember, we don’t all have to agree on everything.

Trends Research (Trends Journal)

Global Research (Centre for Research on Globalization)

GreenMedInfo (one of the two remaining reliable sources I know of for science-based health information, along with Gary Null, on PRN)

Max Keiser, The Keiser Report

Michael Hudson

Vandana Shiva

The Council of Canadians

The David Suzuki Foundation

The Corbett Report

The American Herald Tribune

*

I have moved my email to Protonmail, my web searches to Swiss Cows, my browser to Brave, and my main social networking and chat platforms to Minds and Telegram. I urge others to do the same.

Next is to switch hardware to Purism, for phones, servers and laptops. And as a writer, I need to find a platform that is *dedicated* to free speech.

Blogger (my original site) is owned by the evil mega-corp Google, and Google censors, as do all the Big Tech vampires. WordPress, which I currently use, I just discovered, is now censoring bloggers and writers, too. Where to find a blog platform that respects and defends freedom of speech? I am looking.

(The new CSM editing system for WordPress is so extremely intrusive, counter-intuitive, and obnoxiously obstructive, absolutely in the road at every turn, that I was planning a rapid exodus anyway. Any whiff of censorship only confirms my feeling that it is soon time to leave. Maybe the people at WordPress will respond with a better CSM editing system and a public vow to protect free speech. I will not hold my breath, but I would love to be pleasantly surprised. Hint, hint, Quislings and Vichys… Get it together, or be adandoned in the rapidly unfolding exodus from Big Tech and nauseatingly suffocating platforms.)

Fight for freedom, as well as justice, equality, ecological sanity, democracy, peace, and constitutional rule and human rights for all, or we are in for a very dark time ahead, followed by extinction and collapse. Truly, this is our situation now, and it is a global darkness that is swallowing us up.

Stand up and speak out now, or our future will be unimaginably bleak, I can assure you.

Stand!

J. Todd Ring,

October 1, 2020

Essential Reading:

Christopher Simpson and Mark Crispin Miller: Blowback: America’s Secret Recruiting of Nazis

Noam Chomsky: Necessary Illusions: Thought Control In Democratic Societies 

Naomi Klein: The Shock Doctrine

Naomi Wolf: The End of America

John Perkins: A Game As Old As Empire, and, The New Confessions Of An Economic Hitman

John Pilger: The New Rulers Of The World

Peter Phillips: Giants: The Global Power Elite 

Vandana Shiva: Oneness vs The 1% (Coming soon)

And 

Read my first two books for a clear, concise overview and an in-depth and sweeping global and historical analysis of what we face, how we got here, where we are heading, and what must be done:

Enlightened Democracy: Visions For A New Millennium (2014)

The People vs The Elite: A Manifesto For Democratic Revolution, Or, Survival In The 21st Century & Beyond (2020)

Both are on Amazon and Barnes & Noble now. 

Or better yet, support your local independent bookstore, and order through them. Phone them now.

The Failure of Propaganda, The Crisis of Legitimacy, and The Resort to Fascism

The propaganda is hitting Goebbels level, it is getting that obvious and stark. The elite are losing the propaganda war – hence, the increasingly shrill and panicked, desperate measures. Keep up the dissidence; speak truth to the people. But do know this, which is critical to understand. We need to understand the following, right now.

The more the propaganda war fails, the more desperate the methods employed by the ruling Wall Street/Davos corporate elite, and the more screeching the tone of their presstitutes and unwitting followers. This is moving rapidly into authoritarianism, totalitarianism, and yes, fascism. In order to defeat that, and to restore democracy and freedom, we need to understand its roots, and understand our history.

The ruling bipartisan corporate elite (both liberal and conservative, and with the alliance of social democrats) have been losing the propaganda war since the defeat of the MAI (Multilateral Agreement on Investment) in 1998, and particularly since protesters shut down the WTO (World Trade Organization) talks in Seattle in 1999. These were two giant victories for grassroots popular movements, and for the global democracy movement, and the alternative globalization movement – enormous victories and landmarks which very people understand, or even know about.

(The Multilateral Agreement on Investment was a “trade agreement”, which, like most “trade agreements”, was and are, in reality, corporate rights agreements. They enshrine the rights of corporations over and above the rights of people, or the powers of democratic nations and governments. They effectively codify, legalize and enshrine global corporate rule. We have been fools to allow them to succeed and be passed into law, or signed and agreed to, and we must abrogate them immediately, in concert with other nations, and governments at all levels, and build free and fair trade, aid and mutual security alliances, rejecting NAFTA, CETA, the TPP, SPP, and the like, along with the organizations and bodies that represent the “new normal” of de facto global corporate rule, such as the WTO, WEF, BIS, Fed, ECB, World Bank and OECD. That is the critical context to understand. We can abandon all hope for humanity and the Earth until these key points and central facts are understood, at least by a small, dedicated and passionate minority who can and will make manifest the full outbreak and triumph of democracy, and the end to neofeudal global corporate rule. The MAI, in that context, was a corporate rights agreement which would have given transnational corporations even greater powers over democratic governments. It was defeated in 1998, in Canada, by a handful of activists, before the vast majority of people had even heard of it. That is the power of a few dedicated individuals. Always remember that. The power is always with the people, regardless of outward appearances. Know that, and act upon it.)

This was a monumental turning point in Western history, in 1999, when protesters shut down the WTO talks – a turning point which virtually no one recognized or noticed, aside from the ruling elite’s own intellectual courtesans, such as Zbigniew Brzezinski, along with a handful of dissidents, such as Noam Chomsky, Maude Barlow and John Ralston Saul.

The 50,000 activists and protesters from around the world, and across all social lines, whose non-violent civil disobedience and blockade shut down the WTO talks in 1999, at what has since been called the Battle of Seattle, marked a distinct, historical turning point.

It was late 1999, at those failed WTO talks, that the Western crisis of legitimacy was confirmed, and reached a tipping point. It was also at that time that the ruling Western elite realized that the outbreak of democracy which they had witnessed and been horrified by in the 1960’s, which they had consciously worked hard to suppress, had not gone away, but had only become stronger. In short, they were shell-shocked, they were outraged and indignant, and they were panicked.

(For further history, going back to the 1960’s, see Ralph Nader on the Powell Memorandum, and Noam Chomsky on the Pentagon Papers, and later, Chomsky and Holy Sklar on The Crisis of Democracy. Going forward in time, look at the COG planning under Reagan/Bush, the PNAC papers under Bush/Cheney, and the Rockefeller Foundation’s Lock Step planning document, among others. The imperial elite always become filled with hubris in late stage empire, preceding collapse. They left a paper trail of their plans, motives and objectives, out of sheer arrogance. “The American people don’t read.” We know very clearly what they were and are planning, since they put it down in writing and it is in the public record. Conspiracy theory? What a foolish phrase. Look at the records. Look at the documents written by the power elite. There is no theory about it. It is simple class warfare and power lust. Only a school child would think that powerful people are incapable of evil acts. Adults know that people sometimes do horrible things. Those with great power simply have greater opportunity to do greater evil. History shows that they carry out evil actions with disturbing frequency. It is not rare. It is the norm. Power corrupts. Do not be surprised at the evil actions powerful men commit. Instead, expose them, curtail or stop them where possible, and decentralize power to prevent such evil on such grand scale in the future. That was Jefferson’s attitude, and I think it makes the most sense. But in any case, do not be naive. That would be foolish. It would also be dangerous and irresponsible. Democracy and freedom demand eternal vigilance, not naive and childish complacency.)

The crisis of legitimacy was further confirmed in early 2003, when the WEF’s own global poll came back, in time for the royal Davos annual meeting of oligarchs.

Here is the leading dissident intellectual of the Western world, Noam Chomsky, the most influential intellectual alive, based on citations, ranked as the 6th most influential figure in Western history, right after Plato and the Bible, speaking to the World Social Forum in February 2003, about the World Economic Forum at Davos and the global crisis of legitimacy, which spells trouble for the ruling elite, but spells hope for humanity and the Earth:

“Let’s start with some good news about these basic themes. As you know, there is also a conference of the World Economic Forum going on right now, in Davos. Here in Porto Alegre, the mood is hopeful, vigorous, exciting. In Davos, the New York Times tells us, “the mood has darkened.” For the “movers and shakers,” it is not “global party time” any more. In fact, the founder of the Forum has conceded defeat: “The power of corporations has completely disappeared,” he said. So we have won. There is nothing left for us to do but pick up the pieces — not only to talk about a vision of the future that is just and humane, but to move on to create it.

Of course, we should not let the praise go to our heads. There are still a few difficulties ahead.

The main theme of the WEF is “Building Trust.” There is a reason for that. The “masters of the universe,” as they liked to call themselves in more exuberant days, know that they are in serious trouble. They recently released a poll showing that trust in leaders has severely declined.”

As Chomsky noted, since its creation in the 1971, by oligarch architect Klaus Schwab, the tone at the New Palace of Versailles, as Canadian philosopher John Ralston Saul has called the Davos gathering, or “the new royal court”, which the world’s leading business journal calls “the de facto world government”, was jubilant every year, and increasingly so, as profits soared and the rich grew richer, and increasingly took over the world. But in 2003, the tone turned suddenly somber, as the news of the WEF’s own global poll sank in, and the meaning of it was realized.

The WEF global poll showed a deep and widespread loss of confidence, faith and trust in political and business elites, and in existing political and economic systems and institutions amongst the people world-wide. The intellectuals in residence to the Western oligarchs explained what this means to the ruling business elite, and their political and technocratic minions. It means that the Western capitalist powers could collapse like a house of cards, just as the Soviet Union and the entire Eastern Bloc did, virtually overnight – and the collapse of the Western oligarchy could come very soon, as a result of what is known as a crisis of legitimacy.

The ruling Western oligarchs at Davos knew, or were starkly and clearly informed, that they had three options:

1. Compromise with the people, to address and resolve the crisis of legitimacy, by increasing democracy and meeting more of the needs and desires of the people. (A New Deal compromise was once again needed to stave off revolution and collapse.)
2. Allow the crisis of legitimacy to go unaddressed, and be swept from power – just as the Soviet elite were swept from power, and very recently, a mere three decades ago, and as were the aristocrats during the French Revolution before that, and a series of dethroned and cast down emperors and collapsed empires, stretching back through time to the Babylonian kings, and before.
3. Refuse options 1 and 2, and instead resort to rule by force – resort to fascism, authoritarianism, and a police state.

Options 1 and 2 were quickly dismissed. Compromise was not what the elite wanted. They had resented the compromise made in the New Deal; they had resented that their preferred route of fascism had failed, so far (see, Smedley Butler and The Business Plot, and Naomi Klein’s, The Shock Doctrine); and they were not in the mood to compromise now, with greater power than any empire in history. Loss of power was, of course, completely out of the question. That left only one option in the minds of the ruling business elite. That was rule by force: resort to a police state.

As Chomsky has said, if you want to understand a society, you have to look at where power lies. Seems obvious enough. But that is called “conspiracy theory” – a phrase which Chomsky has rightly said is, “used to poo-poo institutional analysis.”

Further any serious sociological investigation, or basic observation, shows that the business elite rule the West, and by now, most of the world. (See C. Wright Mills’ The Power Elite, Peter Phillips’ Giants: The Global Power Elite, John Pilger’s The New Rulers of the World, John Perkins’ New Confessions Of An Economic Hitman, and, A Game As Old As Empire, Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine, and Chomsky’s Class Warfare, Necessary Illusions, and Year 501.)

What is also true, as Chomsky has also said, is that in democratic societies where real social power is highly concentrated in elite hands, there are two options for dealing with the conflict between official democracy and unofficial or de facto oligarchy. Either reduce the power of the elite, or reduce democracy. Teddy Roosevelt, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and a few others have advocated for increased democracy. They were not warmly greeted by the ruling elite. The elite have always preferred the latter, which is the reduction or hollowing out of democracy, and explicitly so, as they have said in their written words – and viciously so, in action, with ruthless force. (See Noam Chomsky, The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism, and William Blum’s, Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II.)

Do the Western elite prefer fascism to democracy? That would be an amazingly naive question. It would show a grim and total lack of any knowledge or understanding of history.

The next principle is that if a power elite does rule a society, as in the West today and for a very long time, there are two ways power can be kept in the hands of the few: propaganda or force. And when the former fails, the options are only two: lose power, or resort to force. Again, it is no secret which option the elite prefer, and have shown they strongly, even viciously prefer, throughout the history of the West. (The first act of the newly created CIA, for instance, was to subvert and destroy democracy in Italy, and to put the Mafia in charge of the country – yes, the literal Mafia. See Peter Dale Scott for further details.) Anyone who does not clearly understand these things frankly has no idea what is going on.

That was the beginning of the post-9/11 era: the War On Terrorism was, in reality, a continuation and an escalation of the elite-driven war on democracy. It wasn’t a sudden change of heart among the ruling elite, but simply a continuity of agenda, by both liberals and conservatives, including Saint Obama, and a heightening of the long campaign of a war on democracy, taken to new levels, out of fear and desperation, in response to the growing global crisis of legitimacy, the growing outbreak of democracy, and the failure of propaganda, leading to the resort to thinly veiled fascism, basically overt in the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act, which suspended the Constitution.

Now, in 2020, we have seen the war on democracy escalate further.

That explains the past two decades: growing public awareness, growing protests, and a growing crisis of legitimacy, led to a failure of the propaganda war, which led the ruling business elite to a resort to force, to authoritarianism, and to fascism.

This explains what is happening in 2020. It is a fascist power grab by the ruling business elite, in response to a crisis of legitimacy. To fail to contextualize events in 2020 in this way, represents either a failure of intelligence, or else a failure in honesty.

Our response should be clear enough. Defend freedom, democracy and constitutional rule; remove the Wall Street/Davos business elite and their technocratic minions and political prostitutes from power; and restore power to the people, where it rightly belongs.

If people on the left, the right, or in the centre do not realize these facts, and keep them in focus, front and centre, then they have either been corrupted, or are simply not dealing with reality, and are living in a dream world.

Perspective is everything. Stay focused, and keep the narrative clear, or all is lost.

What is the challenge of our time?

Simply put, it is the people versus the elite.

See my book by the same title, released in June of this year, available at Barnes & Noble and all good bookstores.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-people-vs-the-elite-j-todd-ring/1137072026

We must stand up for democracy and freedom now, or it is a dark age and a gulag society, followed by extinction and collapse, which lies ahead.

Stand now.

J. Todd Ring,
September 16, 2020

Never Surrender

I pray the more pessimistic among us, who have warned us, such as Orwell and Huxley and many others, are wrong. We must, in any event, do everything in our power to avert the darkly dystopian future that is now rapidly being created for us, and change course. Freedom and democracy are only dead so long as we allow them to be. The power is in our hands. Use it now – wisely, peacefully, but above all, boldly, and without delay.

JTR,

September 12, 2020

See:

Brave New World Revisited

Brave New World

1984

We

Iron Heel

A Handmaid’s Tale

A Letter To The Future, by James Corbett

And my essay: Flash Drive Revolution

Knowledge Is Power. Panic Is Death. Reconnection Is Resilience

Amidst the current global pandemic of fear, what is most urgently needed is perspective.

What must be done? In sum, we must disconnect from a dying system which is sucking the life out of us, out of humanity, and out of the planet, and thereby stop supporting it, stop feeding it, and stop giving it our energy and our power. Power structures only have power when the people give them their power. When the people stop giving them their power, they collapse, as we saw in the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc. Remember that. That is the key. We must disconnect and decouple from dying, life-destroying systems, patterns and structures of power, and reconnect with community, nature, and our deeper selves. That will radically empower the people, while removing power from the system which feeds off the people and keeps them subjugated and in virtual chains. Only then can we begin to truly heal our world, and heal our communities and ourselves in the process.

Here are some thoughts on how we can make that shift, with the results being greater awareness, greater aliveness and empowerment, greater resilience, and a healing of ourselves, our families, our communities, our society, and the beautiful, fragile, highly resilient planet that is our home.

Belief in technology as salvation, or worse, technocracy as salvation, is a thought pattern stemming from poverty consciousness, scarcity consciousness, inner impoverishment, weakness, delusion, alienation and fear – and the belief that either technology or technocracy will be our saviour, will, I assure you, lead us into slavery, dystopia, and the slow and painful death of our species.

Knowledge is power. Bacon was right about one thing, at least.

People are afraid of wolves, coyotes, snakes, bugs, bears…the flu. Our ability to assess danger rationally in our modern, coroporate ruled, media manipulated, techno-entranced, deeply alienated society, is near zero, it would seem.

In terms of modern man’s fear of nature, it is, by and large, utterly unwarranted. Respect and alertness are needed – not fear. Nature is far safer than “civilization.”

Despite delusional and misplaced fears, which are pandemic, unless you do something stupid: like keeping food or toothpaste in your tent (bears will investigate anything with a scent that just may conceivably mean edible items), or feeding bears, or trying to pet bear cubs; or unless you’re in grizzly country, rattlesnake country, or polar bear territory, in the desert, British Columbia, the jungle or the far north; your chances of being attacked by dangerous creatures are nearly zero – in the wilderness, that is. 

The city is far more dangerous than the wilderness. Bad drivers can kill you. Even if you’re just crossing the street. Or the smog and pesticides will give you with cancer, or the stress will give you a heart attack. 

Get out of the city. Read Thoreau. Don’t follow the lost herd. Definitely don’t follow the media, the government, the technocrats or bureaucrats, the elite, or the “authorities”.

Think for yourself. Eat organic, lower your stress, exercise, and don’t believe the hype.

Most dangerous of all, statistically, are obesity and poor diets, along with poverty and malnutrition, pharmaceuticals, and cars. Covid is no more dangerous than the flu, the figures now confirm.

0.26% mortality rate for covid-19, compared to 0.1% typically for the flu, so it is slightly higher for covid-19, but still miniscule compared to cancer, poverty, hunger, malnutrition, obesity, death by pharmaceuticals, junk food, or cars. Even bathtub drownings killed more people in Japan than covid-19. Check and verify the figures for yourself. Look at the Italian government study, for a start. (See Trends Journal and GreenMedInfo for further evidence-based information and analysis.) 

Yet the lemmings panic on cue, like Pavolv’s dogs, and stay rigidly in denial of the really big dangers: growing environmental disaster, pollution, war, poverty, obesity, fast food, junk food, pesticides, and fascism.

(See my essays: Importing From China, Any Enemy Will Do, Geopolitics 2020, Trump Says Up, You Say Down… Reality Check, and, Danger & Delusion From ISIS To Ebola)

Don’t be manipulated by fear-mongering media, or elites who cynically use fear to their advantage.

Remember:

Divide and conquer is the oldest and most essential maxim and strategy of control, used by all empires, including the latest: the global neofeudal empire of technocratic corporate fascist oligarchy.

And as we also know, in terms of the corporate-state media and the elite:

If it bleeds it leads.

Necessary Illusions are good for plutocrats.

Manufacturing Consent is the basis of elite-ruled pseudo-democracy.

And any crisis will do for Shock Therapy.

Stay calm, boost your immune system naturally, with real food, omega-3s and vitamins C and D, exercise, sunlight, love and joy – and question everything.

Above all, it’s what you put in your mouth, as in, “food-like substances” which really should not be ingested, along with certain pharmaceuticals and injections, which are the biggest danger.

Get outdoors. Do your own research. And embrace your power.

Real power comes from within – and it is quiet confidence, energy and strength, that does not need to be showy or to boast.

After inner power and inner resilience, comes the power of community, and the power of nature. Build your connections on these three levels, along with a healthy body, mind and spirit, and your empowerment and resilience will grow.

Read, reflect, make time for solitude and nature, build networks of mutual aid, and we will, in the process, heal ourselves, our families, our communities, and our world.

Disconnect first. Then only can you truly connect to others, to the natural world, to your deeper self, or even to reality. Dissociation from reality is the great plague of the modern 21st century world. We are enmeshed and entangled in webs of illusion, and in systems and patterns which alienate us from one another, from nature, and from ourselves. We must, therefore, disconnect from human systems that are, to a high degree, based in delusion and dissociation from reality, in order to better connect to the real world, to ourselves, and to one another.

If you have not yet, then begin now: learn to love books, reading, reflection, solitude and nature; and the nourishing of your body, your spirit, and your mind.

Rediscover your love for others, for community, for the natural world, for humanity, for the Earth, for learning, for creativity, free expression, and for yourself. We all had these things naturally as small children. We have been socially conditioned to lose them, to deny them, and to suppress them. But they can and must be rediscovered – especially now, when our world is in crisis. These are the core things which will heal our world, our communities, and ourselves. Not technocracy, not Big Brother, not plutocratic elites posing as saviours, not technology, not drugs: it is love and wisdom which will heal us and our world. That requires that we disconnect from certain things, and reconnect with others.

Disconnect, listen, observe, read, reflect – these things are critical. Make the time. Nourish your body, and also your mind and your spirit. Then you can reconnect with life in deeper, healthier, more joyful, empowering, and more meaningful ways.

We must disconnect and decouple from the systems, patterns, thinking, organizations, groups and substances which drain our energy, deplete us, divide us, further alienate us, exploit us, degrade us, or make us sick. That generally comes in small steps; although, many have taken great leaps, as have I, many times, and that works too. Sometimes small steps are all that is possible. Sometimes a great leap is required to save our sanity, our soul, or our very lives.

We must examine things for ourselves, question everything, and decide for ourselves what is truly life-supporting, nourishing, or life-enhancing, and what things merely give the illusion of being life-supporting, nourishing or life-enhancing, but in truth degrade, disempower, alienate, exploit or impoverish us, drain us or enslave us. We must unplug, pause, and reflect deeply, in order to even begin to think clearly, or to see what is going on.

Excessive time spent staring into electronic screens, excessive time spent in buildings or cars, the mainstream media in general, the corporate world and corporate culture in general, the fiat money system, the myriad “food-like substances” which are in truth more poison than nourishment, along with the fundamental, root poisons, which are ignorance, greed and hate: these are among the things we must disconnect from, and which literally and figuratively drag us down.

Some things require a complete disavowal and refusal, such as crack cocaine or hillbilly heroine, or other dangerous drugs and other addictions, for people who have succumb to them. I would place the major media and the Fortune 1000 biggest corporations in that category, as well: they are poison, and they are life-destroyers. They must be boycotted and renounced.

Other things, like the internet, the phone or the TV, simply require a more balanced approach, and frequent disconnection, rather than permanent disconnection. (Although, I respect people who choose to eliminate them entirely from their lives, especially TV, and there are good reasons for such a response.)

But I leave it to you to decide what we must disconnect from, either completely or periodically, for greater well-being, quality of life, health, healing, ethical standards, empowerment, fulfillment, the healing of ourselves and our world, and simply for greater aliveness and joy.

There is much entanglement and much debris in our minds and our lives. Clearing our minds and our lives of entanglements and debris, and clearing away physical and mental toxins, is vital now.

Disconnect: We must first disconnect in order to reconnect; and thereby, live and love more fully, and with greater empowerment and joy. Then only, come the revolutionary changes and the regeneration we urgently need.

Reconnect: with others, with nature, and above all, with your deeper self. That is where our true power, liberation and resilience lie. Not in drugs, not in money, not in material things; and certainly not in cynical elites posing as the protectors and saviours of humanity.

A global awakening of humanity is underway, and is growing with accelerating speed. Remember that. The people will triumph. The oligarchs of East and West will fall. Our world will be healed, and regenerated, and the people will be free.

J. Todd Ring,

September 9, 2020

Further reading:

My first two published books:

Enlightened Democracy: Visions For A New Millennium

And

The People vs The Elite: A Manifesto For A Democratic Revolution, Or, Survival In The 21st Century & Beyond

And see my other recent essays:

Flash Drive Revolution

The Death and Rebirth of Freedom and Democracy

Covid Update

Any Enemy Will Do

Importing From China

Sinking All Ships (But Our Own)

Geopolitics 2020

Global Overview 2020

The Certainty Of Death, Or The Death Of Certainties

Also critically important:

The Hero With A Thousand Faces – Joseph Campbell

World As Lover, World As Self – Joanna Macy

Choosing Reality – Allan Wallace

The Protestant Ethic & The Spirit Of Capitalism – Max Weber

The Pathology Of Normalcy – Eric Fromm

The Corporation – Joel Bakan

Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

Brave New World Revisited – Aldous Huxley

Roads To Freedom – Bertrand Russell

Mutual Aid – Peter Kropotkin

The Empathic Civilization – Jeremy Rifkin

The Ecology Of Freedom – Murray Bookchin

The Chalice & The Blade – Rianne Eisler

Wisdom of the Elders – David Suzuki

The Wayfinders – Wade Davis

Stolen Continents – Ronald Wright

Year 501: The Conquest Continues – Noam Chomsky

A Short History Of Progress – Ronald Wright

Collapse: How Societies Choose To Fail Or Succeed – Jared Diamond

Necessary Illusions – Noam Chomsky

Class Warfare – Noam Chomsky

The New Confessions Of An Economic Hitman – John Perkins

The Shock Doctrine – Naomi Klein

The End of America – Naomi Wolf

The American Deep State: Wall Street, Big Oil & The Attack On American Democracy – Peter Dale Scott

Iron Heel – Jack London

1984 – George Orwell

Giants: The Global Power Elite – Peter Phillips

The Power Elite – C. Wright Mills

The New Rulers of the World – John Pilger

A Game As Old As Empire – John Perkins

Escape From Freedom – Eric Fromm

Shambhala: The Sacred Path Of The Warrior – Chogyam Trungpa

The Discourse On Voluntary Servitude – Etienne de La Boitie

Walden, and, On Civil Disobedience – Henry David Thoreau

CHINA VS THE WEST? No, it is freedom vs empire – of any kind

“Delegates from American companies, including ADM, Cisco, ExxonMobil, FedEx, Warner Bros, Xcoal, General Motors, and PepsiCo, were told by Ning Jizhe, a vice-chairman of the commission, that China always welcomed more investment from American companies.

Ning said the US business community should “seize the opportunities brought by China’s booming economy and wider opening-up”.”

– South China Morning Post

China’s economy is booming. However, some will interpret recent policy changes there as cracks appearing in China’s strength. Good sign for humanity, that would be. Bad sign it is, however, that the Western corporate oligarchy will get temporarily stronger as a result of China’s current somewhat weakened state. Whatever the current balance of power between the two may in reality be, humanity loses if either remains dominant in ANY sphere.

Demonic, sociopathic, Orwellian oligarchy A or B? How about neither.

Western corporate oligarchy may be winning this extremely dangerous struggle with China for global preeminence, for now, though that is definitely in question. But in any case, the competition could launch WWIII. Furthermore, both the Chinese and Western oligarchies threaten the world with grim slavery, mass exploitation and Orwellian technocratic empire. The people only win when both are defeated.

Communist, capitalist: both are in truth corporatist – both rely on the merger of business and the state, which, as Mussolini himself said, is the proper definition of fascism.

Let us no longer be drawn into false dichotomies and dead end battles that go nowhere, but only support the ruling elite by pitting the people against one another. What we need now, is democracy and freedom, and an end to empires and oligarchies of any kind.

Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine and Martin Luther King Jr. would understand these things clearly enough. The question is, do we?

J. Todd Ring,

August 28, 2020

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