“The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves.” Vladimir Lenin

How many alleged dissidents are still dedicated members of the ‘mistakes were made’ caucus? Either that or the myopic ‘there are no dots to be connected’ collective? On the one hand, a site like the Brownstone Institute, full to the brim with ‘reformed liberals’ and intellectuals, still posing questions that anybody halfway-sensible had answered five years ago. Featured authors are still debating how best to fix the WHO and wondering why the CDC pressed on with the Covid ‘vaccination’ campaign when it was clearly uniquely damaging. Brownstone is one of those – a site that stubbornly refuses to acknowledge the fact that every medical authority worthy of the name was captured years ago and that everything downstream from those entities is proceeding according to plan.

On the other hand, we get sites like Gateway Pundit, the National Enquirer of the ‘conservative movement’, forever howling at the moon; or The Conservative Treehouse, a former (seemingly) authentic organ insistent that ‘the truth has no agenda’, now dedicated to misdirection in the name of the Lord; plus any number of other publications which spin up the outrage machine to eleven without attempting to address any subject on its merits. In my view, none of them have ever asked obvious questions about the issues of the day, nor drawn sensible conclusions. Their job is simply to occupy an assigned position on the spectrum of controlled opposition, somewhere between pants-on-fire and faux conservatism. They are there to do their bit in ensuring that the Deep State Leviathan ghosts through the waters, ever nearer its target, whilst the Awake sweat the little things that matter not and the Sheeple validate what’s coming with their ignorance.

The enemy strategy is proving, once again, to be most effective, albeit perhaps not as all-conquering as in days of yore – back when there was no obvious reason to distrust institutions. For older Americans, November 22^nd 1963 was the day that the music started dying, although current generations seem to have entirely misplaced the necessary cynicism as to the intentions of those who rule over them. For the rest of us, it’s been an attritional process, one that only became somewhat obvious in the UK around 2016 (Brexit) and elsewhere perhaps not until six years ago, although only to those who had not ingested the KoolAid and could still think critically. The Covid interregnum ought to have been the mother of all wake-up-calls but, as we know to our cost, that isn’t what happened.

Instead, the skillfully-induced panic revealed a societal divide, one that has likely been a feature of most, if not all, civilizations, as it appears to be one of the fruits of human nature, which makes itself known when it all comes on top. The majority was wrong (which, in my estimation, is consistently the case), yet it held the line no matter what. Legitimately sourced evidence was ignored, reason was suspended and the lessons of the past were memory-holed. Peak absurdity was achieved when the cult leaders and their minions excoriated the ‘unvaccinated’ as a threat to their health, notwithstanding the fact that the whole point of the jabs was (allegedly) to prevent disease in those who took them. If anyone was safe, it should have been them.

I appreciate that, if you are reading this, I am almost certainly preaching to the choir, thusfar. However, it’s my impression that underlying attitudes have not much changed. The epidemic of unashamed bootlicking’s latest iteration manifested itself just the other day, in the UK, when the curtain-twitchers indulged themselves by dobbing in their fellow citizens after the government abused the privilege by unleashing its emergency alert system over ‘wildfire risks’:

“...certain sections of the population have become so warped by division that they actively seek to report their own neighbours to the authorities merely for the act of lighting a barbecue in their private gardens.”(1)

The Overton Window may have shifted a little, inasmuch as Covid skepticism may be more prevalent in conversation, but few have grasped the full ramifications of what occurred during the ‘pandemic’. That would require prolonged exposure to the unvarnished truth and that isn’t going to happen. As a result, there has been no truth and reconciliation process, no remorse and no apologies. The chasm is still there, the fallback narrative (the lab-leak theory) is firmly entrenched and the draconian strictures that we all endured, whilst the subject of debate, have not been repudiated, nor will they be. Most are still sitting there on the shelf, ready to be redeployed.

The ‘latest revelations’ have been plastered all over the press, mainstream and alternative alike. All of them, plus a significant numbers of independent ‘dissidents’ (apologies for the surfeit of apostrophes, but I can’t bring myself to infer false legitimacy by omitting them) devote column inches to the bread and circuses, and the number of sources that can be trusted unequivocally dwindles rapidly. I frequently find myself bailing after paragraph one, when the setup for what is to follow contains what one might euphemistically call ‘errors’ but which are, instead, deliberate misdirections.

Any introduction that whitewashes 9/11 by calling it a terrorist attack, that states that Covid was an actual pandemic, that asserts that Iran has been at war with the US for forty-seven years – to name but a few classics – is a precursor to an article that is intended to warp reality and to reinforce the multitude of Big Lies that comprise the overwhelming majority of approved history. The interweb is chock full of this ordure, because the choke hold is being tightened by means of AI, and the LLM’s need to feed on terabytes of fiction. Garbage in, garbage out. How ostensibly sensible people don’t understand this basic feature, don’t question which databases AI is mining (and which it isn’t) is another of life’s mysteries. Or, more likely, is a further indicator of treachery by supposed allies - like the ‘Awake’ who download their debit card onto their smartphone, eschewing cash.

It’s got to the point where pretty much everybody that is making a living from writing seems to be compromised. To be fair, there are occasional oases of veracity out there (A Midwestern Doctor, Eugyppius, Sonar21 {mostly}, Charles Hugh Smith, Charles Hugh Smith, Mike Yeadon), but they are few and far between and one needs to be sedulous to find them. It’s a racing certainty that none of them are going to be ‘scraped’ by Claude. The rest are either clearly acting under instruction – the messaging and topic choices echo each other – or they have specific axes to grind. With some, the introduction is the message, by the medium of normalization. With others (a host of them), the Zionists are responsible for all our ills. Lately, the focus in the US is on the Marxist Democratic Socialists, in the UK and Europe on the threat of Islam, as if both maladies are shiny and new.

The idea is to keep plumping the Left/Right paradigm and to ensure that the Great Unwashed keep searching for non-existent answers within the system, rather than coming to their senses and realizing that our overlords are all playing on the same team and that any solutions must, by definition, be located over the horizon and far away. Elizabeth Warren, of all people, described the dynamic in her autobiography:

“Outsiders can say what they want. But people on the inside don’t listen to them. Insiders, however, get lots of access and a chance to push their ideas. People – powerful people - listen to what they have to say. But insiders also understand one unbreakable rule: They don’t criticise other insiders.”(2)

Us and Them, not Left and Right. The Awake know this. But most people don’t. There is widespread ignorance as to the true state of play with regards to politics. The Conservatives were responsible for the ‘Boriswave’ of illegal immigration and Merkel’s ‘center-right’ CDU presided over the Islamic invasion of the EU. It wasn’t the ‘socialists’ who, to the feigned astonishment of the online commentariat in the latest scripted skirmish, are currently being unearthed in Leftist parties, where they have always been. It was those who had pledged to conserve, who instead became agents of destruction, yet were serially re-elected nonetheless, because the Uniparty obfuscated successfully and ensured that only their names were on the ballot. The sleepyheads that make up most Western electorates still fall for this ersatz framing:

“All political systems ultimately redound to the control of more or less stable oligarchies. “Democracy” describes little more than a set of procedures via which these oligarchies (or their representatives) assume power and enact their will.”(3)

However, even the Awake – for the most part – struggle to delineate the scale of the deception. If we set aside the hopium pipe and are ruthlessly honest with ourselves, we should realize that there is only one probable outcome when the enemy holds all the cards, when even the purported opposition is blatantly part of the problem – that is, there is very little that occurs that is not intended to occur. The genuinely spontaneous and the organic are squeezed; all the world is a potential stage. The entire direction of travel, the bases for our understanding of the world around us, could all be skewed:

“If you accept - as all the red-pilled must because it is the foundation of Awake awareness - that the world as it has been sold to us is a tissue of lies, half-truths and deceptions, then it naturally follows that everything we think we know about the world is potentially fallacious.”(4)

All that’s needed is enough time. We’ve seen it happen before - it’s not even that difficult to achieve. A constant barrage of propaganda, repeated ad nauseum for a generation or so, has been shown to be efficacious. The Soviets wrote the book on it, a decade or so before Goebbels had his turn, around the time that Bernays (’the father of public relations’) was concluding that the masses were irrational and subject to herd instinct. Stalin was keen to banish Trotsky from the public consciousness and simply doctored revolutionary history, creating a legend that credited only himself and Lenin. It took a generation, but it worked:

“The effect was profound. Younger citizens absorbed the fabrication as historical fact, while older ones who had lived through the actual events found their genuine recollections gradually blurring with the state’s preferred narrative – a strange kind of false memory syndrome....With total command over media and law enforcement, it is possible to rewrite the collective memory of an entire population...”(5)

We may think that, latterly at least, we are making some headway, inasmuch as distrust of government and the likes of Big Pharma and the climatistas is on the rise but, for the Blob, that’s just the cost of doing business. Better for the angst to be aired and taken in hand – within the system – than for some tinfoil hatters to form the impression that the nuclear option of bringing that system down and starting again from scratch is the only viable course of action. Many’s the small rebellion that has been nipped in the bud and assimilated; the EU’s cordon sanitaire has done sterling work in that regard, as has the GOP (see the Tea Party and MAGA) and Farage’s Reform Party is heading down the same well-trodden path. We’d all prefer to believe otherwise, but the evidence of decades has shown that reform from within is a chimera.

Critical mass cannot be achieved, because the majority cannot get their heads around reality and, whilst history shows us that committed minorities are frequently the engines of rebellion, they still require either outside help or the tacit support of that same majority, the one that – at minimum – doesn’t see the need for anything drastic. And when the wheels come off, an event that we know is in our future, it’ll be the architects of that circumstance (not the dissidents) who will impose their solutions and most will go along with them:

“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to, and you have found the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue until they are resisted … The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”(6)

The Normies are generally unwilling to take the first step on the ‘Staircase of Disbelief’. The ‘why?’ doesn’t matter, even (especially) if it rooted in a subconscious fear going there would lead them to discover truths that they really don’t want to acknowledge. The purple-pilled, perhaps unable to avoid at least one ‘conspiracy’ that turned out to be true, are often gatekeepers – whether by inclination or due to an appetite for Benjamins – bent on ‘not frightening the horses’ and ‘building a strong coalition’ to ‘focus on the issues that matter’. Another base covered, as any well-meaning but naive potential recruits to the cause are lured into containment pens and neutered.(7) They are unlikely to ever get to the stage of asking the obvious question – what else? If

“...you have already acknowledged that there are forces out there so corrupt, so powerful, devious, entrenched and malign that they have happily and gleefully lied to you about something really big...who are you to say that they haven’t happily and gleefully lied to you about lots of other really big things (and small things) too?”(8)

There are any number of single issue zealots out there, which is not to say that any particular bête noire would be necessarily unworthy, more that – whatever it may be – it forms part of a much larger whole and too narrow a focus, to the exclusion of all else, is a distortion that aids and abets the string-pullers. In my estimation, it takes time for even the world-weary, cynical type to zoom out far enough to begin to see the scale of the deception that is being visited upon us and to understand that whatever reverses the enemy encounters are only temporary, no matter what we might believe at the time; not genuine bumps in the road, either, but scripted performances to boost the profile of the plucky losers that have been designated our ‘champions’.

We live in a world where the rules don’t apply any more. Previously, perhaps as recently as the turn of the century, there was still a logic to life, still a need for things to make some kind of sense. E did not immediately follow A – arrant nonsense, with no grounding in reality, was not commonplace. The incoherence of today’s Net Zero would have been ridiculed, mentally ill men abluting in the Ladies would have been on the receiving end of a richly-deserved pummeling, in-your-face, wholesale voter fraud was not mainstream and there was, at worst, an impression that those who governed us were somewhat accountable (even if that impression was false).

Now, as we know, we are inundated with obvious bullshit on a daily basis. Sure, dissident types rail (ineffectually) against the deluge, but that’s not the point. That the bullshit is uttered in the first place is the problem – compounded by the fact that it then gets a hearing that it manifestly doesn’t deserve, thus acknowledging the premise of numerous non-issues. Our side grinds out article after article arguing that men are not women, as if there is now a need to prove the bleeding obvious. ‘Conservatives’ pile on to Fauci, six years after the fact, when anybody with functioning synapses knows that he’s the monkey, not the organ grinder. Climate sceptics think it worth us knowing that the Met Office just got caught fudging the data for the seventy-third time, when none of the Green cabal’s apocalyptic drivel – nearly forty years of it – has ever come true.

Our side is seemingly content to continually and impotently issue alarums whilst actually accomplishing the square root of diddly squat. The logic and reason that they appeal to left the building some time back, things do not go the way they should and there is no real point in utilizing the analytical skills that experience has taught us, because outcomes are preordained. What should happen, what would have happened in times past – given a particular set of circumstances – will no longer happen, because the Blob ‘s thumb is permanently affixed to the scale. Predictions can still be made, but there’s no skill involved. All that is required of the analyst is an understanding of what the plan is and a rough appreciation of which chapter of the playbook will be employed in weaving another cover story into the public consciousness.

Additionally, my feeling is that the law of diminishing returns is very much in play. What, exactly, can be accomplished by writing treatise upon treatise which all essentially contain the same message, which is that we currently do not have the ability to stop what’s coming and that, no matter what should (logically and righteously) happen, won’t? In addition, there’s the near-certainty that reach – even on Substack – is an issue in some jurisdictions and management have demonstrated an unfortunate tendency to censor in advance of it being demanded (see Australia). Inevitably, new converts are likely to be thinner on the ground than previously.

And, unless I am being unduly pessimistic, I’m not detecting a great awakening from the Sheeple, many of whom would - I strongly suspect – rather commit hari-kari than admit that us reprobates were right about anything. They are, instead, doing their utmost to cement false narratives, unknow what they now know or refrain from scratching the itch so that they never have to know. In the words of an African saying, “not to know is bad. Not to want to know is worse.” Or, as Ayn Rand had it:

“You can ignore reality, but you cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.”(9)

And the reality, in this instance, is not a private circumstance that foolhardy individuals neglect to their own detriment, but rather a partially-completed enslavement of us all that the legions of useful idiots – of whatever hue – are enabling. That may sound a little harsh, in the age of participation trophies to reward everyone for ‘doing their best’, but it really isn’t. Much of the collective abuse is done openly and can only be rationalised by bad actors, the congenitally gullible or those who have no memory of the ‘before times’ and cannot conceive of a world that isn’t enshittified. Perhaps that last category deserve a little sympathy, but that is hard to grant when they spend much of their lives willingly subjecting themselves to hour after hour of algorithmic programming, specifically designed to further dumb them and numb them.

At present, I cannot see any outcome that isn’t detrimental in the extreme. Too few people get it and most of that cohort only understand because they are privy to the plan and involved in its implementation, whether overtly or otherwise. The rest of us find ourselves repeating the same warnings, over and over again. Whilst the incremental steps play out, accompanied by clouds of obfuscation, the direction of travel at the strategic level remains the same. All we are really doing is confirming that what was obviously going to happen is, in fact, happening. There’s a limit to how rewarding that is after a while.

Nothing is allowed to interfere with the plan, even though we are told that our champions are winning the good fight – they aren’t and they aren’t our champions, either. If they were over the target, they’d be enveloped in flak and they’d only ever be over the target in the first place if somebody, somewhere, had screwed up their risk assessment. The odd token ‘firebrand’ (think RFK or Gabbard) is allowed to give it the old college try, but only after they’ve been stitched up at confirmation hearings and then hemmed in by Judas goats. Our cultists, having decided that he or she is a hero of the resistance, will huzzah relentlessly, no matter what. Think the photo negative of TDS, whereby Benedict Donald can do no wrong, even though it is perfectly apparent that 47 is an entirely different beast to 45 and not in a good way.

There really isn’t a need to get all forensic (although I will in subsequent articles), because the architects of the masterplan, and their gurus, have explicitly stated much of the theory (they’d prefer it if we were prepared to assume the position willingly, so normalisation is a necessary evil) whilst pressing ahead with the practical application of it under false pretences. At it’s most elemental, with no meat on its bones, the infamous soundbite from the WEF a decade ago – “you’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy” - offered up as part of a “Welcome to 2030” screed, is as good a starting place as any.(10)

It must be twinned with the Malthusian belief system that has infected elites for generations, which decrees that our ranks must be thinned prodigiously, with the ‘useless eaters’ and the as-yet unborn the first to go. So, as is usually the case with the best-laid plans, the strategic aims aren’t over-complicated; steal everything that isn’t nailed down, prise the nails out of what remains and have that away too, and eliminate as many serfs as possible. And, whilst those action plans are underway, ensure that the unthinking masses inhabit a carefully constructed alternative reality, one in which resistance is not merely futile, but unnecessary and unbecoming. Society’s well-trained hall monitors will ensure that most stay in their lane.

That, in my estimation, is where we’re at. There is no real pushback against our official rulers who, in some jurisdictions, have largely abandoned any pretence that they give a tinker’s toss about the ‘will of the people. Trump does as he pleases, Macron has shamelessly clung to power well past his sell-by date, Merz obliterated campaign promises even before he formally took office, and whoever is currently UK prime minister will continue the well-established practice of instituting policies for which they have no mandate. All are at least one step removed from the top jobs, cogs in a machine that serves other, unelected Masters of the Universe:

”When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.”(11)

It is my intention to document – as comprehensively as I can – how the various strands of the masterplan are being woven together and then, provided there is genuinely nothing new under the Sun, to refrain from repeating myself in the future. FDR, along with Woodrow Wilson and Abraham Lincoln, the patron saint of the tyrannical state, cautioned that “in politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.”(12) Modern quislings have memory-holed that sentiment, but there is no reason to doubt that it remains true today, given the level of control enjoyed by our opponents. Next, then, a quick and dirty account of recent gaslighting, how that fits into a continuum and how the sheer volume of deceit has created a world in which much of what we think we know is false.

Citations

(1) https://www.zerohedge.com/political/british-busybodies-flood-999-report-neighbors-bbqs-after-stupid-government-alert

(2) Elizabeth Warren, 2014, A Fighting Chance: Metropolitan Books.

(3) https://dailysceptic.org/2026/08/12/the-party-state-german-democracy-and-whether-voting-can-fix-anything/

(4)

(5) https://brownstone.org/articles/deep-capture/

(6) https://cooperative-individualism.org/douglass-frederick_if-there-is-no-struggle-there-is-no-progress-1857-aug.pdf

(7)

(8) Ditto

(9)

New Ideal by The Ayn Rand Institute

The Quotable Ayn Rand: 'You Can Avoid Reality, But ...'

One of the most popular quotes attributed to Ayn Rand is: “You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality…

Read more

4 years ago · Tom Bowden

(10) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You’ll_own_nothing_and_be_happy

(11) Frédéric Bastiat (1850), The Law.

(12) https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/franklin_d_roosevelt_164126 12

At this stage of American history, whilst colonial hegemony was disputed by the British and the French (the Spanish were far more active in the Caribbean, South America and Mexico), the Natives were also a dominant force in the east and, although the New Englanders could not establish cordial relations, the picture was more nuanced further south. The tribes tended to ally themselves to whomsoever offered the best trading terms, and the rival empires had been assiduous in their courting of the locals.

The French were largely confined to the east side of the Mississippi and the British to the eastern seaboard. Between the French and British colonists, areas where there were no colonial settlements, the Iroquois Confederation (the Six Nations) held sway. And they were (generally) predisposed towards the British, if push came to shove. Which, inevitably, it did.

Figure 1

Washington’s snafu was his second venture into the wilds of what was then known as Ohio Country, just south of the Great Lakes and west of the Six Nations. The French, the Iroquois, the Ohio Valley tribes, the British Crown (in support of the claims of the Ohio Company of Virginia) and the Colony of Pennsylvania all had designs on the region and Washington’s Virginia Regiment had been dispatched in October of the previous year, with orders to expel the French from ‘Virginia territory’, a summons that was ignored.(3)

That same year, the Covenant Chain – a series of agreements between a confederacy of Native tribes and settlers in the Middle Colonies that dated back to the time of New Netherland – came under increasing strain. The Iroqouis-adjacent tribes in Ohio County accused the British of failing to block French expansionism and, contemporaneously, the Mohawk were swindled out of 800,000 acres of land in the Ohio River Valley by land agents from the east.

The latter’s chief informed the governor of New York that the chain was broken, an action that threatened to undermine relations with the Iroquois. In response, the British Board of Trade told the colonies to get their act together and repair the breach and to agree common defensive measures against the French. The result was the Albany Congress, in June/July 1754, hard on the heels of Washington’s defeat.

Only seven colonies sent delegates, with the southern colonies plus Newfoundland and Nova Scotia absent. New England, New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland were given their head and, in a manner that was to become familiar, immediately exceeded their brief. No effort seems to have been expended on the problems at hand. Instead, the delegates spent three weeks discussing and adopting Benjamin Franklin’s Plan of Union, creating a unified government of all the colonies, including the ones who weren’t even present.

There was to be a President-General and a Grand Council and those colonies with the highest tax revenues would be best represented, which meant control by the likes of Virginia and Massachusetts Bay. The top man would be appointed by the Crown and the various colonial assemblies would select the members of the Council. Crucially, the general government would have the power to make treaties, raise armies and tax the populace.

Unsurprisingly, the plan failed. The assemblies rejected it – they would lose independence – and the Board of Trade wasn’t having it either, as the Crown would cede too much authority. Franklin was peeved - “the colonial assemblies and most of the people were too narrowly provincial in outlook, mutually jealous, and suspicious of any central taxing authority” -(4) and the British government told him to concentrate on the task at hand. The Board of Trade told the colonial governors to raise troops and build forts, which the British Treasury would fund – initially.(5)

This segment of colonial history, presented matter-of-factly in the official history, doesn’t really pass the smell test. Seven months prior to Washington’s provocation – which resulted in numerous fatalities, one of which was a victim of friendly fire – he had shared dinner with the regional French commander. His alleged task was to assist in the building of a stockaded fort. Moreover, Britain and France were not at war. Ambushing and killing (and scalping) Frenchman was far beyond his remit; unless, of course, he wasn’t going off-road, but was following orders, instead. He received no reprimand from his superiors, but he did get a promotion.

And if one concentrates on facts rather than opinions, the court historians’ version of this period fails to survive scrutiny. Washington started young; by 1750, at age eighteen, he had wangled his position as a surveyor, a job that promised a swift path to riches. The surveyor would lay claim to ‘unclaimed’ land – otherwise known as Native American territory – and either sell it as lots to new immigrants or exploit it commercially. Official history majors on land grants made to him by Virginia’s colonial government (as a reward for his military service) but, prior to 1754, he had already acquired considerable ‘claims’ in de facto Indian territory.(6)

He and the rest of the elite Tidewater gentry were at the forefront of Western expansion into lands that the French and the Indigenous peoples were (jointly) claiming and France’s decision to resist the tide and fortify the area had serious financial ramifications for all concerned. It seems reasonable to speculate that Washington’s reinvention as a self-made military commander, operating under the auspices of a company involved in land speculation, was not particularly altruistic, but was more to do with looking after Number One. Were that to be the case, initiating a war against the French and the Natives might be seen as a sound strategy, which is not to say that the global Anglo-French rivalry wouldn’t have ignited anyway.

In any event, the net result of both his actions and the wilful breakdown of the relationship with the Iroquois was the Albany Congress, which attempted a power-grab via a plan that had (clearly) already been formed, plus Parliament’s decision to dispatch an army expedition in early 1755, to dislodge the French once and for all. ‘Coincidences’ that favour one party, that are the result of actions by that same party, are usually more accurately described as manipulations. Provoking the French and the Indians served the purposes of the active participants at Albany.

King Louis XV got the jump on the British government, having learned of its plans, and dispatched six regiments before the British could blockade French ports. Matters didn’t improve once battle was joined. Washington (by now a full Colonel) found himself organising another shambolic retreat when two-thirds of the Braddock Expedition – a joint Army/militia undertaking – were killed or injured in an attempt to capture Fort Duquesne in Ohio Country.(7)

The court historians insist that the future president heroically salvaged his reputation in this action, but the majority of the militia casualties occurred after Washington assumed command, and were the result of friendly fire – the colonel had deployed them into wooded areas where they could not be distinguished from the enemy and attracted fire from all other combatants.(8)

Other than in the Acadian theatre, no decisive British victories were forthcoming in 1755 and, in May the following year, colonial scrapping prompted a European escalation, resulting in the Seven Years’ War, but it is notable that – on this occasion – the American theatre wasn’t an afterthought, to be divvied up in the eventual peace treaties, but the spark. It was Virginia’s elite that got matters underway, not the Crown. The European conflict resulted, but France ‘received news’ of the initial clashes, rather than ordering them. With the exception of independent companies, raised in the home country, the British themselves had no real military presence in the colonies at the outbreak of war.

The French maintained their superiority through 1756 and 1757, capturing British forts while the British either aborted campaigns or were second-guessed and thwarted. French-allied natives also killed and enslaved hundreds of British settlers – resulting in an eastward flood of refugees - but the winter of 1757 proved to be the turning point. A poor harvest in New France, a difficult winter and the effects of the British blockade of the French coastline all contributed to grievous supply shortages and a mass outbreak of smallpox, which decimated the western Indian tribes, further weakening the French.

The British were able to reinforce, but the French had to make do with the limited resources at their disposal. The Forbes Expedition, largely a rehash of Braddock’s but four times as large, finally took Fort Duquesne (after enduring yet another rout) in November 1758, when the French abandoned it, having realised they would not be able to hold out with no lines of supply.(9) But not before Virginia’s favourite son had committed another blunder, when Washington’s company and another under his command were involved in yet another friendly fire incident, during which around forty of his men were killed.(10)(11)

The French were well and truly on the run by the end of 1758. In October, the Treaty of Easton had been agreed, whereby the colonial governors of Pennsylvania and New Jersey had promised to recognise the rights of the Iroquois and twelve other Indian nations to their hunting grounds in the Ohio River Valley. Pennsylvanian land was returned to the Natives and the colonials undertook to limit their settlements to the west of the Appalachians. In return, the tribes would no longer fight for the French in the current war.(12)

In the north, Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island had finally fallen in July, after a six week siege. The French had intended to repeat their manoeuvre of the previous year, when they had frustrated a previous British mission, but their fleet was forced (by bad weather) to take refuge in a Spanish port, where it was blockaded by the British. French reinforcements were subsequently vanquished and Fortress Louisbourg was left to fend for itself, as only five half-empty ships remained.(13)

The British invasion fleet – 150 transport ships, 40 men-of war and around 14,000 troops – was resisted by around 6,000 in the Louisbourg garrison. The key to the engagement was the gradual destruction of all the remaining French ships in the harbour, at which point the writing was on the wall and the French surrendered. The British spent the remainer of the year mopping up in New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland.(14) New France was now bereft of naval protection via the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

The only successful resistance to the tide had been at the Battle of Carillon, when the third British campaign of 1758 was halted, due to another example of military incompetence on the part of a British commander. General Abercrombie attacked an entrenched enemy, in the frontier area between the New York colony and New France, without bothering to wait for his field artillery, allowing the French to win a complete victory and inflict over 2,000 casualties in the process. Even Washington (probably) wouldn’t have done that:

“No military campaign was ever launched on American soil that involved a greater number of errors of judgement on the part of those in positions of responsibility.”(15)

The French defences had been vulnerable, overlooked by positions not exploited by the British. Cannons on this high ground would have made short work of the defenders. Regrettably,

“...this was never thought of, which (one wou’d imagine) must have occurred to any blockhead who was not absolutely so far sunk into Idiotism as to be obliged to wear a bib and bells.”(16)

In the absence of this own-goal, New France may very well have been routed that year, as the route to Montreal would have been open. However, the British retreated chaotically – observed by their deeply unimpressed Indian allies – and the opportunity was squandered. By this stage of the war, the British enjoyed a huge advantage in men and resources. Defeat could only be snatched from the jaws of victory by means of incompetence, but the culpable British general was recalled to Britain, awarded a third star and replaced by someone who knew what he was doing - Major-General Wolfe, fresh from the Siege of Louisbourg.

1759 was to be the year the British hammer finally fell on the hapless French. Having secured Ohio Country, their southern flank was protected. Having finally subdued Louisbourg, the Gulf of St. Lawrence was undefended. Another campaign against Carillon finally succeeded in July and the French were obliged to retreat towards Montreal.(17) Another expedition, out of New York, captured Fort Niagara on the same day and the French then abandoned other frontier forts and withdrew to the Canadian heartland.(18) All that remained was Montreal and Québec.

Figure 2

Wolfe moved on Québec with only 8,000 men, supported by a fleet of forty-nine ships. Montcalm, the French commander (victor at Carillon and elsewhere) had raised large numbers of Canadian militia and his forces were superior in number. Other factors favoured the French – the British had only a narrow window in which to operate, as the St. Lawrence River would freeze in winter, trapping them in situ. And unless Wolfe could land and then draw the French forces into battle, he would be denied victory.

Wolfe besieged the city throughout the summer, subjecting it to a prolonged bombardment that almost levelled the lower town.(19) On July 31^st, he attempted a landing five kilometres east of the city, near Beauport, which cost him 210 killed and 223 wounded, due to both the risky nature of the operation and the fact that a summer storm rendered his troops gunpowder unusable.(20) Wolfe switched tactics, attacking and destroying small French settlements along the river – and killing many civilians – presumably in an attempt to commit Montcalm to battle. It didn’t work. And illness swept through the British camps. Time was getting short.

Figure 3

Eventually, Wolfe bit the bullet and opted for a risky upstream landing in a cove under a high cliff, which was protected by a battery of guns. If his troops could somehow make it to the plateau above and consolidate, the thinking was that Montcalm’s options would narrow to one – his supply lines to Montreal would be cut and he would have to fight. This thinking was suffused with hopium – the French had sent a force of 3,000 slightly further upriver to Cap-Rouge and Wolfe’s army of 5,000 should have been sandwiched:

“Even if the first landing party succeeded in their mission and the army was able to follow, such a deployment would still leave his forces inside the French line of defence with no immediate retreat but the river.”(21)

Against the odds, the initial assault was successful, due largely to the shortcomings of the defenders (plus a large helping of luck) and Montcalm’s preoccupation with a diversionary attack downstream. The bulk of Wolfe’s army – all British regulars – ascended to the Plains of Abraham, whereupon they were gifted the advantage by the French general. Instead of waiting reinforcement from Cap-Rouge, which would have cut the British off and required them to repel simultaneous frontal and rear attacks, he pulled an Abercrombie and engaged precipitously, even though many of his regulars were still approaching from both Beauport and Québec and he was going into battle with inexperienced militia, instead. Of the 14,000 plus men under his command, only 3,500 deployed on the field of battle, as against about 4,400 British.

The French attacked at around ten in the morning. The British waited until they were inside fifty yards and, two volleys later, the French were in retreat. The detachment from Cap-Rouge was then confronted, when it finally arrived, and also forced back. Neither Wolfe nor Montcalm survived the battle.(22) The French largely abandoned the city and the British assumed control five days after the battle - the navy left the St. Lawrence shortly thereafter. The British garrison then settled in for what turned out to be a chastening winter in the half-ruined city.

The following spring, before the St. Lawrence was again passable, the French sent a force of 7,000 men from Montreal, with the intention of retaking Québec. The British, believing that their force was too small to defend the walls of the city, mustered in the field, in the same position as that of Montcalm the previous year. General Murray also gambled, going on the offensive with his 3,886 men, before General Lévis could deploy more than 5,000 troops. Initial success gave way to a retreat to the city, with a third of Murray’s force either killed or wounded, but Lévis was slow to launch his assault and a stalemate ensued: “Victory would go to whoever’s ships first came up the St. Lawrence carrying reinforcements.”(23)(24)

On 9^th May, eleven days after the battle, a British frigate appeared, and the French finally launched an artillery barrage as a last throw of the dice, but the defenders had plentiful ammunition and guns, unloaded from the fleet before it had departed the previous autumn, and Lévis’ troops suffered seven times the casualties of the British.(25) His supply ships and their escorts, sent from Montreal and anchored between Québec and Cap-Rouge, were destroyed by two further frigates a week later, costing the French their stores of food and ammunition and Lévis exited stage left, en route to Montreal.

The French navy had been defeated in the Battle of Quiberon Bay, off the French coast, in November 1759 and, although large numbers of French forces remained in New France, they were wholly dependent on supplies from the motherland, which were not going to be forthcoming. The last attempt arrived in the Gulf of St. Lawrence just after the British fleet made it to Québec and was overwhelmed by a force sent from Louisbourg, weeks after Lévis had left the scene.

Montreal was now the sole remaining stronghold in New France and the British were intent on capturing the city and ridding the entire continent of the French. Québec became a staging post for one of the three planned advances, the others being from the south (now upstate New York) and from the east, along the St. Lawrence. The British commander, Amherst, had 18,000 men at his disposal, which included 6,500 provincials (drawn from every colony north of Pennsylvania) and 700 Iroquois.(26)

The plan was to rendezvous outside Montreal and lay siege. Lévis, now intent on resisting a siege rather better than he had laid one, had a force of 3,200 regulars and nobody else he could rely on. Morale amongst his Native allies was low and they were no longer willing to back a losing cause,(27) but Lévis made the best of it, utilising spoiling tactics on the approaches to the city.

Murray’s 4,000 men from Québec were first out of the gate, on July 13^th, and made good progress, eased by the general’s diplomacy. French Canadians swore loyalty to King George II in their thousands and those in militias abandoned the French.(28) The Native Indians also sent deputations seeking peace with Great Britain. By early September, Murray’s force was encamped outside Montreal and many thousands of Canadian militiamen had been disarmed.(29)

Amherst himself, having set out four weeks later than Murray, lost over 500 of his Iroquois when he refused to allow them to scalp French prisoners, but his subordinates were also successful in negotiating the neutrality of the tribes along the route.(30) Whilst the force encountered resistance from one fort in the Upper St. Lawrence, it was within seven miles of Montreal by early September, with all French troops to the west of the city on the retreat.(31)

Brigadier-General Haviland, heading north with 3,500 men, made haste and flushed the French out of the three successive forts, also coming upon Montreal in early September. Amherst marched – unopposed – upon the city on 6^th September and the French army retired behind the walls. Desertion was now afflicting the French marines, as well as the irregulars. The city’s inhabitants refused to take up arms. Murray’s force joined Amherst’s the following day, as did Haviland’s. The British armies now closed the ring around a city whose defences had been built with Indians in mind, not siege guns. The French didn’t have an earthly.

Nonetheless, the governor of New France, de Vaudreuill, did still attempt to salvage something from the debacle. On September 7^th, he sent his Articles of Capitulation of Montreal to Amherst, surrendering Canada and all its dependencies to the British Crown. The French military, more concerned with ‘honour’ than anything else, demanded the right to march off with arms, cannons and the honours of war intact. Amherst wasn’t having it:

“I am fully resolved, for the infamous part the troops of France have acted in exciting the savages to perpetrate the most horrid and unheard of barbarities in the whole progress of war...to manifest to the world by this capitulation my detestation of such practices.”(32)

Lévis was apoplectic, but de Vaudreuill had no choice. The capitulation took place the next day. The French military were to be sent back to France in British ships, but the Canadian colonists would continue to enjoy the same rights as they had under French rule. And, whilst Louisiana was still New France, Amherst decided to let the politicians earn their salaries, rather than launching a further assault. The imperial war in North America was effectively over; all that remained was to make it official, which wasn’t going to happen until the other theatres – the Caribbean (where the Spanish weighed in on the losing side), briefly, and in Europe – were also settled. Which is not to say that the British Army in the New World was now free to stand down and trade campaigning for tea and medals. The colonials had already ruffled more feathers by then and the hero of Montreal was about to do his bit, too.

Washington had resigned his commission after his third faux pas and married up, but his fellow Virginians were no less error-prone in his absence. The Cherokee, whom the British had signed up for their last campaign in Ohio Country in 1758, felt they had been treated shabbily in the aftermath and ‘liberated’ some horses in lieu of the supplies that they had been promised, but which had failed to arrive. The Virginian militia thought it politic to kill and scalp between thirty to forty warriors in response, and then attempted to claim bounties. This was not well-received and some retaliatory raids on pioneer settlements were the result.

After an embargo on all sales of ammunition, the taking prisoner of thirty-eight chiefs and the raising of an army of over a thousand, the colonials believed their point had been made. The Cherokee thought otherwise and attempted to repatriate their chiefs, at which point the hostages were massacred by the British at Fort Prince George, in South Carolina.(33) The Cherokee then declared open war against the British colonies and expanded their campaign to North Carolina, too, raiding extensively. And so, when Amherst was looking north to the final push on Montreal, he had to send 1,200 men south.

When they were defeated (in June 1760) whilst campaigning on Cherokee lands – having razed towns and crops – a second expedition was sanctioned, for the summer of the following year. This time, with 2,800 troops in the field, they destroyed the homes and food of approximately 5,000 Cherokee, forcing the chiefs to the negotiating table, and peace had broken out by the end of the year.(34) The south settled down but, within eighteen months, the Great Lakes region – recently conquered – was aflame, with relations with the Native peoples once again the flashpoint.

The French – whether by inclination or necessity – had treated the Indigenous nations as allies, rather than subjects. The British exhibited a rather different mindset; they viewed the tribes as conquered peoples. This, understandably, rankled. Three main groups, in particular, took umbrage – the payes d’en haut (the upper country) tribes, previously closely associated with New France, tribes from Illinois Country (likewise) and the perennial combatants from the Ohio Country, who had made peace with the British, the terms of which the latter broke.(35)

Amherst believed that he had carte blanche, that the Indians would have to accept British rules and that they were no match for the British Army, anyway. This attitude was readily apparent, as he and his officers apparently treated the tribes with contempt.(36) He also showed little regard for the cultural nicety of gift-giving, a long-established tradition with the French, and restricted the sale of ammunition and gunpowder, causing the tribes to fear that he planned to disarm them.

The English colonists were also much more plentiful than the French. But, despite warnings of tribal discontent as early as 1761, Amherst stationed only around 500 of his 8,000 strong force in the region. So, when the Indians became aware of the upcoming French surrender of the pays d’en haut in the Treaty of Paris in early 1763, the violence they unleashed was highly effective and eight British forts were swiftly taken.

Figure 4

What became known as Pontiac’s War – after the Indian chief who instigated it – wasn’t a minor insurrection in scale, nor in intent:

“It is important for us, my brothers, that we exterminate from our lands this nation that seeks only to destroy us. You see as well as I that we can no longer supply our needs, as we have done from our brothers, the French...Therefore, my brothers, we must all swear their destruction and wait no longer. Nothing prevents us; they are few in numbers, and we can accomplish it.”(37)

But its failure was, nonetheless, inevitable. More a question of when rather than if, but whilst it was ongoing, the violence and terror were real enough, as they were in all the frontier wars. However, this war was a little different inasmuch as it marked the first occasion when participants on both sides came to the conclusion that colonists and natives were too unalike to live with each other.

In October 1763, nine months after the Treaty of Paris removed France from the continent by forcing her “to cede all territory east of the Mississippi River to the victor, Great Britain”,(38) the British issued the Proclamation Line, the first concrete evidence of a divergence between the goals of the colonials and those of the Crown. And also between the way the British interacted with the Indigenous peoples and the way the French had.

Figure 5 New France in 1730

The French had been in North America for as long as the British and, technically, both sets of colonies had been established for the same reasons – to exploit the land and to trade; “colonies existed primarily to enrich their mother countries through resource extraction.”(39) The early French settlers, huddled around the St. Lawrence, traded for beaver pelts, much sought after in Europe for hat-making. The Natives had already established an extensive trading network and the French expanded beyond the agricultural colonies in the north, establishing a comprehensive western network of forts and trading posts:

“Unlike the English colonies to the south that focused on agriculture, New France’s economy developed around this single commodity, creating a unique colonial society where French traders lived alongside and often intermarried with native populations.”(40)

The French settlers weren’t immune to attack, but those conflicts were, with a few notable exceptions,(41) with the enemies of their allies, not with those that they lived amongst. The dominance of the fur trade had other implications, inasmuch as it was incompatible with agricultural development. Clearing lands destroyed beaver habitats, and there was little competition between the riches of the western trade and a life spent eking out a living from the soil, so farming was fairly minimal.

Consequently, New France remained a sparsely populated frontier society; the census of 1754 recorded a colonist population of 55,000 in Canada, with an additional 13,000 in Acadia and perhaps 6,000 in Louisiana.(42)(43)(44) Beyond the farmlands, and despite the claim of sovereignty, the French Crown recognised that the Indigenous peoples were independent nations, “governed by their own laws and customs.”(45) Indians were allies; permission was sought before establishing forts or settlements.

For a century, Louis XIV’s dictum held sway, namely that “the lands which [Indigenous people] inhabit [should] never be usurped under pretext that they are better or more suited to the French.”(46) Native chiefs participated politically in the governance of New France and, whilst the French took it upon themselves to speak for the allied nations internationally, they did not do so exploitatively. It appears that the colonial administration, over the period of a century and a half, was content to treat the locals with a measure of respect. Whether that would have been otherwise had the French been more numerous is up for debate. Their colonies in the Caribbean were not noted for their humane treatment of slaves, after all.

This co-dependence and relative harmony was in marked contrast to the way of things in the British colonies on the eastern seaboard. Amherst – who took the fall for the outbreak of Pontiac’s War and was summoned back to Britain – was hardly atypical in his arrogance. Whilst the early Jamestown colonists were much indebted to the locals – and appear to have treated them as equals – it didn’t take long for the bloom and the rose to go their separate ways.

As any possibility of symbiosis retreated, conflict became inevitable, because the English had truly come to colonise; not simply to trade and integrate when appropriate, as the French had done. And, in the South, the way to make ends meet was to grow tobacco, which required land and lots of it. The Powhatan Confederacy, initially willing to trade with the newcomers at Jamestown, worked things out reasonably swiftly. As their chief noted, “your coming is not for trade, but to invade my people and possess my country.”(47) The early promise gave way to paternalism and exploitation and the Virginia Company instructed the colonial governor to subordinate the Natives to the rule of King James.(48)

Figure 6

The result, in Virginia and elsewhere, was conflict. Tobacco and cotton farming were intensive and soil depleting, and further intrusions onto Indian lands – either with or without permission – were necessary if the colonies were to remain a going concern. The ever-expanding settler communities gradually drove the Indigenous peoples off their lands and further into the interior. The concept of land ownership and use, between the tribes and the colonials, was diametrically opposed. A communal approach, on the one hand, and demarcated land ownership by individuals on the other. The new ways, backed by force, were the ones that prevailed:

“Treaties were often the tools through which land was acquired, albeit frequently under conditions unfavorable to Native Americans. Many treaties were signed under duress, misrepresented, or not fully understood by tribal leaders due to language barriers or deceit. As a result, large territories were ceded, furthering displacement and loss of traditional lands, which had deep spiritual and cultural significance to the tribes.”(49)

Complicating matters was the tendency of tribes to shrewdly manipulate the English (later British) colonials, frequently swapping alliances in bids to settle their differences with other competitors. And even within tribes there was significant autonomy, with some chiefs opting for neutrality while others allied themselves with either the French or the British. The latter usually had the backing of the Iroquois Confederacy, not because the Natives were greatly enamoured of their allies, but because their rivals were allied with the French.

By the time of Pontiac’s War, in the immediate aftermath of the French defeat, it is difficult to avoid the impression that the British Crown – rather than finally enjoying the fruits of its final victory – had, in fact, started to lose control, instead. Not to the French, nor to the Natives, but to their own colonists. Yes, the arrogance of the more hands-on Crown rule was much resented, but it was the flood of British colonists from east of the Appalachians which provided the spark. These settlers assumed that the newly acquired lands were now open to encroachment, but the Crown was on the same page as the Natives, albeit for entirely different reasons:

“The British government viewed westward expansion as a threat to their mercantile economic system, expressing concern that opening up the west to farming families would provide the colonies with opportunities to gain economic independence through commercial agriculture... Instead, the government sought to protect mercantilism by encouraging colonial growth to the north and south in an effort to populate the newly acquired provinces of Quebec, East Florida, and West Florida. This would not only limit the establishment of commercially profitable farms on newly acquired western lands, but would also keep settlers within close range of Britain’s economic and political influence.”(50)

So, in October 1763, seemingly in response to Pontiac’s aggression – but actually in the works for some time – the British issued the Proclamation Line, assuring its American citizens that it was doing so for their protection. It restricted Anglo-American settlements to the east of the Appalachians and forbade governors transferring land they did not legally possess to private companies or individuals. As a by-product, no doubt, it also had the effect of acknowledging certain Native American land rights,(51) although hanging one’s hat on that ‘benefit’ involves an acceptance that the British had the right to make such assertions. Had Pontiac believed that to be so he wouldn’t, presumably, have tried to banish them from the continent.

Regrettably, many settlements already existed beyond the line - although some had been evacuated – and the situation with regards to land grants was confused, albeit none had authority to grant them on tribal lands in the first place. The proclamation did not sit well with the colonials, particularly the Virginian landed-gentry variety (with Washington much to the fore, attempting to dig his way out of a financial hole of his own making),(52) who had spent the previous couple of decades granting themselves (and being gifted) millions of acres of Native lands in the Ohio Valley and who now found themselves unable to gain the necessary titles.

Figure 7

It seems to have been generally accepted – amongst the colonials, at any rate – that the Proclamation Line could only be a temporary solution. Whilst the Crown was still attached to the existing model, whereby the colonies existed to enrich the mother country, the ever-increasing population (which, by 1775, would number 2.5 million)(53) could not be contained within a coastal strip around a hundred miles deep, nor constrained to life as imperial drones. Parliament tried to funnel the settlers north and south, that they might populate newly acquired provinces – Quebec, plus East and West Florida – but with limited success.

Pontiac was rather more persuasive and raided frontier settlements at will during the spring and summer of 1764, killing indiscriminately.(54) The Pennsylvania Assembly responded by reintroducing scalp bounties for any enemy Indian killed over the age of ten, women included.(55) In the end, the British muddled through, with a mix of threats of force and random diplomacy. Pontiac made formal peace in New York in July 1766, ceding nothing in what was effectively a stalemate.

The violence had been unprecedented, even for a frontier war; around 400 British soldiers were killed in action, with another 50 captured and tortured to death.(56) Two thousand settlers had been killed or captured and double that number had been persuaded that, if there was to be a future, it would not be within Indian territory.(57)

The spoils of victory, by 1765, were underwhelming. The French had played a blinder by secretly ceding the vastness of Louisiana to Spain, in November 1762, with the Treaty of Fontainebleau.(58) At the Treaty of Paris, negotiated the following year, France gave Britain the eastern half of a province they no longer ruled, and the Spanish restricted themselves to western Louisiana, whilst surrendering Florida (briefly) and gaining Cuba. Nonetheless, the British were content with the new arrangements. The Virginians, as noted, rather less so. Their territory – as defined by the British Crown - had been shrinking since 1609 and was now smaller than ever.

Figure 8

Figure 9

Figure 10

Ironically, then, the expulsion of the French proved not to be the end of Britain’s colonial struggles in the New World, but merely the end of the beginning. The long struggle against New France and its native allies had been one to which the Crown and the colonials were more or less equally committed, as both stood to gain from success. However, once that success had been achieved, if that unanimity was to continue, it would need to be organic, rather than by force of circumstance. Or, put another way, once the threat had receded, there was time to review the relationship. Except, in reality, there wasn’t just the one relationship – there were thirteen of them, by now. And the majority of the colonies had been largely autonomous for decades.

Although I have sometimes differentiated between the various colonists, I too have been guilty of the tendency to lump them together at times. Approved historians play fast and loose with the concept of the ‘colonials’, as they are charged with magicking up the ‘American’ spirit as swiftly as possible but, whilst the various colonies shared a number of traits, they were far from homogenous as to character. Which is not the equivalent of jumping aboard the ‘creedal nation’ express, heading for a destination where there is no American ethnicity, but various bromides of the ‘all men are created equal’ flavour to which the melting pot apologists subscribe.

“...virtually all the immigrants in the first two of the four centuries of American life, came from the British Isles. It is true that these immigrant groups came from different regions of Britain, and that they settled homogeneously in different regions. Essentially, there were three groups: Puritans, who came mainly from East Anglia and settled in close-knit townships in New England; Cavaliers, who came from Wessex in southern England, and settled on large plantations in the tidewater South; and, in the 18th century, large numbers of Scotch-Irish...who settled as individualistic farmers in the back country of Southern and Middle Atlantic America. Each of these groups had very different values, mores, institutions, and temperaments, and they often clashed when brought together. They were all British and almost all Protestants, although even their Protestantism varied markedly, but they were still all British, and all were Christians.”(59)

In England, prior to 1640, there would still have been a strict pecking order, with the landed gentry of Virginia first amongst equals, but the various charters were taken up by distinct groups, who had the opportunity of a largely blank canvas. When each group grasped a degree of autonomy, differences became exacerbated. The Puritans went from being a persecuted minority in England to masters of their own destiny in New England.

The original colonists of Jamestown, many of whom were gentlemen unaccustomed to manual labour, came closest to replicating English society, a process that was consolidated with the arrival of the Cavaliers in the 1640s. King Charles II designated Virginia his fifth dominion, after England, Scotland, Ireland and France, a status which dwarfed that of the other colonies that surrounded it.(60) Whilst most of the early landholders in Virginia were small farmers, rewarded for their boldness with parcels of territory, political power rested with a social elite, not a religious one. Nonetheless, the contrast with what had been left behind was stark:

“Indentured servants, laborers, persecuted minorities, and peasants tilling the soil of the manor became landowners in America.”(61)

They were no longer obliged to live out a life that had been designed by others – not wholly, at least. By the 1760s, 90% of settlers were farmers. Of the remainder, a healthy proportions were New Englanders. And Puritans who, unlike their fellow-colonists to the south, supported Parliament (rather than the Crown) during the English Civil War, on the grounds that tyranny should be resisted. ‘Tyranny’ itself is, of course, frequently subjective, rather than objective and New English nostrils were particularly sensitive. Much is made of the leadership’s republican principles, and their reliance upon Scripture for guidance is said to have had “a liberalizing effect.”(62)

On the other hand, the Puritans required church attendance and banned such ‘vices’ as stage plays, cards and dice. They ‘tolerated’ non-Congregationalists “if they remained quiet and did not disturb the public order”,(63) as defined by the Puritans themselves. They limited the power of civil institutions, out of concern for the rights of individuals as they saw them, or as they believed that God saw them. Therefore, “God has set rulers their bounds and by his law hath determined people’s liberties and property.”(64)

When those rights, as interpreted, were judged to have been invaded, then they reserved the right to defend themselves. Effectively, then, a natural rights argument, but one which holds that those rights are granted by God – an internally consistent paradigm that today’s natural rights advocates fail to match, but one which is, nonetheless, still subjective. And in the context of the era, a philosophy that lacks for nothing in hypocrisy, however laudable it might sound in theory, as chattel slavery was legal and practised in all Thirteen Colonies, New England included.(65)

The third main group, the Scotch-Irish, didn’t make much of a dent on New World population until the eighteenth century. Initially, many came in through Boston and then moved to the frontier, as the city leadership tired of them and ordered them to relocate.(66) Most were from Ulster, although many had immigrated to there from the Scottish lowlands and the border areas. Nearly all were devout Presbyterians.

Over 200,000 of them settled in the Thirteen Colonies between 1710 and 1775, with most headed west or south from Pennsylvania, including many in the Virginian frontier region.(67) They were the people who bore the brunt of the of the frontier fighting with the Natives, acting a buffer between the Indigenous peoples and the colonists to the east. The legend is that the Indians were deeply unsettled by the arrival of the Celts, who wouldn’t be intimidated by the indiscriminate slaughter of a few isolated settler families:

“The Indians had no idea what they had done. They had aroused a fury that would not be spent in a day or two of raiding...They were shocked that the warriors of this new tribe followed them for weeks, for months, for hundreds of miles to wreak vengeance or rescue captives. This was not how the game was played. The Indian knew when to quit. The white man did not.”(68)

Whilst the vast majority of settlers were from the British Isles they only made up around two-thirds of the inhabitants of the Thirteen Colonies. As well as a smattering of Dutch and Germans, around 20% of the population were African slaves. At this time, around 287,000 of them had been imported over the course of 160 years, about 2% of the twelve million taken in the Atlantic slave trade.(69) Their treatment varied; in New England, Negro leaders were allowed a good deal of latitude and, in original New Netherland, the Dutch West India Company had frequently allowed slaves to accumulate profit and property. A large population of free blacks lived in and around New Amsterdam. The British, when they took over, were rather more repressive.(70)

In Virginia, slaves were subject to the practice of ‘entail’, “wherein slaves became the inalienable property of the estate.”(71) Generations of slave families were quartered on large plantations. The mortality rate was low and the birth rate was very high. But they were still slaves and the white man was still their master. In 1763, of course, they were very far from alone in their predicament but, for the purposes of this account, that is not the point at issue.

The American origin story, furiously burnished over centuries, holds that – come 1776, a mere thirteen years later – the Colonies went to war with the Empire on ideological grounds. Whether we wish to hang our hat on the ‘no taxation without representation’ canard, or chose to expand the causation to a more generalised resistance to tyranny, the thrust of the justification is much the same. The colonists were, by their own account, not getting a fair crack of the whip and something had to give.

As the Founding Fathers were to articulate in the Declaration of Independence, “all men are created equal” and enjoy certain “unalienable Rights...among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Furthermore, governments must derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed.”(72) Given that these Rights were granted by “the Creator”, one must assume that they didn’t manifest themselves between 1763 and 1776, nor since 1607.

If, of course, those words meant what the narrative guardians tell us they mean – Wikipedia asserts that the Declaration was a clarion call and “has proven an influential and globally impactful statement on human rights.”(73) We’ll get to that in due course, but the current task is to assess what the colonists’ views on life, the universe and everything were in 1763 and to attempt to explain the yawning chasm between reality and rhetoric.

For starters, in 1763, they thought of themselves as Englishmen; as opposed to the Quebecois, the Acadians, the newly-conquered French settlers, the Natives and the slaves. Notwithstanding the somewhat turbulent history of the colonies – with regard to the frequent tensions between Parliament and the monarchy – and the fact that the New Englanders had explicitly rejected the homeland, there was no sense that they enjoyed a separate national identity.

There was no America, per se. What there was were thirteen separate jurisdictions that had been allowed to go their own way, most of them for a considerable period of time. The historians have a name for it – the policy of salutary neglect; the empire’s decision, taken for a variety of reasons, to allow de facto independence – not to a group of thirteen, but to each individual colony. The late seventeenth century attempt to rein in the New England colonies had gone the way of all things in the wake of the Glorious Revolution. Had it not, it is likely that the issue would have been forced much sooner, but the drift was allowed to continue until, suddenly, there were no more Gallic dragons to slay.

Rather than wax lyrical about the Enlightenment principles that had seized the affections of the colonists, setting them at odds with the tyrannical British, let us briefly sum up their character by way of the only means that really count – their actions. Given the large degree of local autonomy they enjoyed, it would be difficult to maintain that much of what they did was forced upon them by their imperial masters, which is not to say that some responsibility must be shared.

All the original colonists – and those that came later – went to a foreign continent, one that was already populated, and settled there on the pretext of a charter from a king or queen with no moral authority. In that, they were no different from the French, the Dutch, the Spanish and the Portuguese (in the Caribbean). Nonetheless, regardless of the mores of the time, no permission was sought nor granted. Early cooperation with the Indigenous peoples was usually more a consequence of necessity than a recognition of equality.

And whilst Britain and the early colonists believed that the Natives possessed a ‘right to the soil’, they also believed that they could acquire this soil by formal treaty, usually at the point of a musket and frequently by deception; the infamous Walking Purchase, the Penn family’s successful arrogation of 1,200,000 acres Lenape Indian lands in 1737 being one of the more egregious examples, latterly acknowledged, but still uncorrected.(74)

Native alliances with the colonials were often temporary and opportunistic, not based on any moral code. When the tide of settlers became a deluge, there was no thought given to limiting immigration. Rather, the colonies pushed their boundaries ever-westwards, encroaching further upon Native lands. Near-permanent conflict was the result.

As noted, the noble Founders and their brethren – when holding forth on the subject of natural rights for all men – had a specific meaning in mind. Again, they would find themselves in the company of many, the British included. They would have thought it ludicrous to grant Natives suffrage. They kept slaves, legally, and whilst the South had the majority - an economic necessity in the export-oriented plantations of Virginia, Maryland and South Carolina – New England was a slave society for centuries, with both Indigenous peoples and Africans the victims.(75)

In war, the New England militias thought themselves ‘civilised’ for slaughtering the braves and enslaving the women.(76) The frontier-settlers viewed the Natives as ‘savages’ or ‘barbaric heathens’ in need of ‘civilising’ and, whilst “Americans could disagree intensely over the conduct of Indian policy...the debate boiled down to defining the nature of the Indians’ defeat.”(77) They were inconvenient, whereas the blacks were not. Whilst the Dutch, the original importers, had treated them as indentured servants, to be freed with either pay and/or land after seven years, the scions of Massachusetts introduced chattel slavery in 1644:

“To justify this, a doctrine of black inferiority was developed, again in the Northern colonies rather than the South originally. These concepts (chattel slavery and racial inferiority) spread throughout the colonies.”(78)

The much-vaunted democratic tendencies of the Massachusetts elites – gradually absorbed by the other, less-enlightened governments – ensured that voting rights were primarily the preserve of white, male landowners who were members of the “predominant religious group.”(79) Even amongst the colonials themselves, then, women and non-landowning males were disenfranchised, along with most Jews and Catholics.

Once the under-21s were also eliminated, “the colonial electorate consisted of perhaps only 10 to 20 percent of the total population.”(80) Again, not any less representative than Britain, but certainly no better. And, although rates were low, all males over the age of 16 (in most colonies) were required to pay tax, regardless of whether they had the vote or not – in New England and elsewhere. By the time of the Revolution, then, colonists had been taxed whilst having no say in who represented them for decades; by their own colonial administrations. Curiously, none had felt the need to make an issue of it.

They were, however, dead set against any attempt to enforce Parliament’s Navigation Acts, from 1651 onwards. England’s motives were at odds with the colonists. The Crown wanted a steady supply of raw materials and was keen to prevent colonial trade with countries that it was frequently in conflict with:

“The Navigation Acts were intended to prevent the colonies from developing their own industries, which might compete with those in England, and selling their products to England’s rivals,especially the French and the Spanish.”(81)

The Royal Navy, impressive though it was, was not able to track the hundreds of colonial ships trading either locally or across the oceans and the colonists were determined to avoid paying where they could. Implementation of the Acts lay with colonial officials who were encouraged to accept the will of their neighbours, rather than that of the Crown. Tax collection was limited and the receipts were modest. Resistance to tax-paying was endemic, to the Crown and colonial legislatures alike.

The British either chose not to confront and make the best of it or were too tied up in their own affairs and lacking in competence. They taxed colonial goods entering England and increased the export of manufactured goods to the colonies to create employment. The policy of laissez-faire (if that’s what it was) encouraged the colonial assemblies who gradually marginalised the royally-appointed governors:

“Thus, from the 1720s through the 1750s, the American colonies were virtually de facto independent of British imperial control...”(82)

But in February of 1763, the French acknowledged defeat and in April, a new Prime Minister – George Grenville - assumed office in Westminster. In October, the Proclamation Line was announced. Contrary to the impression that has since been fostered, only a vocal minority objected at the time – primarily the land speculators amongst the Virginian elites, who objected to the thwarting of their own ambitions and also to the implicit recognition of Native land rights. The rest of the population was persuaded that attempting to settle to the west of the Appalachians, in the absence of a military to protect them, was not worth the candle.

But, nonetheless, it was apparent that a fork in the road had been reached. The British conquest of Canada – and the rest of New France – had removed a great military power from the North American equation and, in consequence, it was natural that the more independent-minded colonists might be minded to revisit the cost/benefit analysis:

“The English fleet guarded the sea against pirates; the English army guarded the land against the French. The former was desirable; the latter was essential to their existence. When the danger on the French side disappeared, it might become very uncertain whether the patrol of the Atlantic was worth the price...”(83)

Particularly when that price was set to be increased. Grenville had other proposals in mind believing, as he did, that some of the cost of the recent war should be paid for by the colonies. Britain had accumulated considerable debt fighting France for control of North America and was about to incur more, with the establishment of a standing army on colonial soil, which the Prime Minister insisted was a necessary precaution in defending against any further threat from France.

There were men of influence, in Virginia and Massachusetts in particular, who saw things rather differently. In time, these competing interests would be gussied up in ideological garments, with much talk of liberty and the aforementioned rights of men. ‘Taxation without representation’ would be (unironically) offered up as the cause of the age but, in its genesis, the colonists’ angst was rooted in much more prosaic concerns; having been largely left to their own devices, the onset of leash-tightening was deeply resented.

But the British looked at North America and still saw overseas possessions, not independent entities, nor parts of the British realm proper, whereas the colonial elites (some, at least) were no longer content with that designation. Grenville was the unwitting catalyst, but the new circumstances made a clash inevitable. However, the unravelling, when it came, was remarkably swift.

Citations

(1) https://commonreader.wustl.edu/george-washingtons-dishonorable-relations-with-native-americans/

(2) Anderson, F. (2000) The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America 1754-1766. Vintage, pages 59-65.

(3) Fowler, William M. Jr. (2004). Empires at War: The French and Indian War and the Struggle for North America, 1754-1763. New York: Walker, page 35.

(4) Franklin, B. (1964) The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Second Edition, Yale University Press, pages 209-210.

(5) Ditto, page 211.

(6) https://commonreader.wustl.edu/george-washingtons-dishonorable-relations-with-native-americans/

(7)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braddock_Expedition#Battle_of_the_Monongahela

(8) https://historycollection.com/20-blue-on-blue-incidents-from-history/

(9) Smith, James. (1799). An account of the remarkable occurrences in the life of Colonel James Smith, page 102.

(10) https://arkeonews.net/friendly-fire-lost-battlefield-from-1758-found-near-fort-ligonier/

(11)https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/archaeology/a65426000/lost-site-george-washington-friendly-fire/

(12) https://beavercountyindians.com/2026/01/19/treaty-of-easton-1758-the-promise-to-unpromise/

(13) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cartagena_(1758) 1

(14) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Louisbourg_(1758)

(15) Gipson, Lawrence Henry. (1965) The British Empire before the American Revolution, Volume 7. New York: Knopf, page 232.

(16) Anderson, Fred. (2000). Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of the Empire in British North America, 1754-1766. New York: Vintage Books, pages 245-248.

(17) Lacoursière, Jacques. Histoire populaire du Québec, Volume 1, page 295.

(18) Levine, Adam. (2015). “The Carrying Place.” Toronto: Biography of a City. Douglas & McIntyre, pages 11-12.

(19) Chartrand, Rene. (1999). Quebec 1759. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, page 69.

(20) McLynn, Frank. (2004). 1759: The Year Britain became Master of the World, page 221.

(21)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Plains_of_Abraham#Landing

(22) Chartrand, Rene. (1999). Quebec 1759. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, page 86.

(23) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Quebec_(1760)

(24) Stacey, Charles Perry. (1959) Quebec 1759: the siege and the battle. Macmillan, page 162.

(25) Manning, Stephen. (2009) Quebec: The Story of Three Sieges. Continuum, page 111.

(26) Anderson, Fred. (2000). Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of the Empire in British North America, 1754-1766. New York: Vintage Books, page 46.

(27) Malartic, Anne-Joseph-Hippolyte de Maurès. (2016).Journal des campagnes au Canada de 1755 à 1760 (in French). Collection XIX, pages 332-333.

(28) Vaugeois, Denis (2002).The Last French and Indian War. McGill-Queen’s Press – MQUP, page 36.

(29) Cubbison, Douglas R (2014). All Canada in the Hands of the British: General Jeffery Amherst and the 1760 Campaign to Conquer New France Volume 43 of Campaigns and Commanders Series. University of Oklahoma Press, page 84.

(30) O’Toole, Fintan (2015). White Savage: William Johnson and the Invention of America Volume 2. Faber & Faber, page 202.

(31) Lucas, Charles Prestwood (1901). A Historical Geography of the British Colonies: Canada (New France) Volume 5, Part 1. Clarendon Press, page 322.

(32) Parkman, Texas; Parkman, Francis; Levin, David (1983). France and England in North America: Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV A half-century of conflict. Montcalm and Wolfe. Library of America, page 1452.

(33) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Cherokee_War#War

(34) Anderson, Fred (2000). Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754–1766. New York: Knopf, page 461.

(35) White, Richard (1991). The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires and republics in the Greak Lakes Region, 1650-1815. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pages 248-255.

(36) Dowd, Gregory Evans (2002).War under Heaven: Pontiac, the Indian Nations, & the British Empire. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, pages 63-69.

(37) Dixon, David (2005).Never Come to Peace Again: Pontiac’s Uprising and the Fate of the British Empire in North America. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, pages 157-158.

(38) https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/proclamation-line-of-1763

(39) https://ancientwarhistory.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-new-france-how-the-fur-trade-shaped-colonial-canada/

(40) Ditto

(41) https://heritage.bnf.fr/france-ameriques/en/french-indigenous-conflicts-new-france

(42) Leslie, Peter M. (1988). Ethnonationalism in a Federal State: The Case of Canada. Queen’s University. p. 6 note 5.

(43) https://umaine.edu/canam/acadian-deportation-migration-resettlement/

(44) Lescarbot, Marc; Percival Biggar, Henry; Grant, William Lawson; Ganong William Francis (1907).Histoire de la Nouvelle-France [History of New France] (in French). Champlain Society. p. 21.

(45) https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/aboriginal-french-relations

(46) Ditto

(47) Alden T. Vaughan, “” Expulsion of the Savages”: English Policy and the Virginia Massacre of 1622, The William and Mary Quarterly 35, no. 1 (Jan., 1978), 57–84.

(48) Ditto

(49) https://www.native-americans.org/native-american-relations-with-british-colonizers/

(50) https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/proclamation-line-of-1763

(51) https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/proclamation-line-of-1763

(52) Ellis, Joseph J (2004). His Excellency: George Washington. Lfred A. Kopf, page 51.

(53) https://www.legendsofamerica.com/colonial-growth-expansion/

(54) Nester, William R. (2000). “Haughty Conquerors”: Amherst and the Great Indian Uprising of 1763. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, page 194.

(55) Ditto

(56) Peckham, Howard H. (1947). Pontiac and the Indian Uprising. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, page 239.

(57) Dowd, Gregory Evans (2002). War under Heaven: Pontiac, the Indian Nations, & the British Empire. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, page 275.

(58) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Fontainebleau_(1762)

(59) https://chroniclesmagazine.org/view/sweet-land-of-liberty/

(60) https://www.americaexplained.org/why-is-virginia-called-old-dominion.htm

(61) https://chroniclesmagazine.org/view/americans-dont-die/

(62) https://chroniclesmagazine.org/view/the-1620-project/

(63-64) Ditto

(65) Rodriguez, Junius P. (2007) Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political and Historical Encyclopedia, page 88.

(66) https://newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/how-scots-irish-came-america-and-what-they-brought-with-them/

(67) Jones, Maldwyn A. (1980) Scotch-Irish. Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pages 895-908.

(68) https://chroniclesmagazine.org/web/death-before-dishonor/

(69) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteen_Colonies#Slavery

(70) https://chroniclesmagazine.org/reviews/a-colonial-history-of-african-americans/

(71) Ditto

(72) https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript

(73)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_Independence

(74) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walking_Purchase

(75) https://www.historicnewengland.org/hne-magazine-article/slavery-in-new-england/

(76) Ditto

(77) https://michaelleroyoberg.com/native-americans/town-destroyer-in-paradise-how-george-washington-ended-up-just-outside-handsome-lakes-heaven/

(78) https://www.enotes.com/topics/native-americans-colonists/questions/how-was-britains-americans-relationship-similar-71215

(79) https://rivercity.wusd.k12.ca.us/subsites/Gerald-OConnor/documents/Advanced-Placement-US-History/Extra-Credit/8547362997101504572.pdf

(80) Ditto

(81) https://www.hoover.org/research/colonial-roots-american-taxation-1607-1700

(82) https://historyofmassachusetts.org/what-was-the-british-policy-of-salutary-neglect/

(83) https://mises.org/mises-daily/american-revolution

Figure 1 https://i.ytimg.com/vi/P7u-0Dmpi4M/maxresdefault.jpg

Figure 2 https://roadtothecivilwar.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/1920px-French_and_indian_war_map.svg-2-1536x1099.png

Figure 3 By Hoodinski - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15246774

Figure 4 By Kevin Myers at the English-language Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31848686

Figure 5 By Pinpin - Own work using:Image:Nouvelle-France1750.pngLes Villes françaises du Nouveau Monde: des premiers fondateurs aux ingénieurs du roi, XVIe-XVIIIe siècles, sous la direction de Laurent Vidal et Emilie d’Orgeix, Paris: Somogy 1999.Canada-Québec 1534-2000, Jacques Lacoursière, Jean Provencher et Denis Vaugeois, Sillery (Québec): Septentrion 2000.Map 1) (2008) The Forts of Ryan’s taint in Northeast America 1600-1763, Osprey Publishing, pp. 6– ISBN: 9781846032554.Map 2) René Chartrand (20 April 2010) The Forts of New France: The Great Lakes, the Plains and the Gulf Coast 1600-1763, Osprey Publishing, p. 7 ISBN: 9781846035043., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3086036

Figure 6 https://image.slidesharecdn.com/tension-in-the-colonies-level-i-ii-1226006022587722-9/95/tension-in-the-colonies-level-i-ii-1-1024.jpg?cb=1225977176

Figure 7 By Jon Platek - Own work ( Base map used is found here, uploaded by Roke ), CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4881078

Figure 8 https://www.virginiaplaces.org/boundaries/boundaryk.html

Figure 9 Ditto

Figure 10 Ditto

Lincoln seemed to represent a starting point of sorts, but research indicated that it would be necessary to begin at the beginning, with the initial settlers because, in contrast to the Old World, America is one of the few leading countries that has not emerged from several millennia of disparate influences. It was settled, only four hundred years ago, by particular groups of people, a large subset of whom rejected the old order. Others, both initially and subsequently, must also have been exceptional in their way, given the risks involved.

As is frequently the case, much of what has become the official account is more myth than fact. But in this instance, that of America’s history, the distortions are more egregious than most, which is to be expected when the account is founded upon a belief in moral exceptionalism that runs counter to everything we know of human nature. Reverse engineering virtue onto behaviour that is clearly the opposite of virtuous is a task that runs up against the laws of diminishing returns, not that the narrative engineers are particularly mindful of any requirement to be coherent or credible, nor do they have to be.

The party line is too deeply embedded to be openly questioned and it remains predominant because it is repeated, ad nauseam, as per the Goebbels dictum: “If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself.” The following series will (hopefully) constitute a slim strand of what passes for dissent from the orthodoxy.

“History would be a wonderful thing, if only it were true.” Leo Tolstoy

The true history of the United States of America and of its people has been thoroughly hijacked and sanitised. By way of example, Christopher Columbus never set foot on the North American continent. The closest he came was on his first voyage of four, in 1492, when he made landfall in the Bahamas, which isn’t – and has never been – part of America. Otherwise, he spent most of his time in the Caribbean, in modern-day Cuba and Hispaniola. On his third and fourth voyages he encountered South and Central America, but the only part of what now constitutes the United States that he visited was the unincorporated territory of Puerto Rica - for a couple of days in 1493, to stock up on fresh water - 405 years prior to the island first coming under US sovereignty during the Spanish-American War.

He thought he had reached the East Indies and, even after subsequent voyages, refused to entertain evidence to the contrary, which is why the American continent was named after Amerigo Vespucci, another Italian explorer, who likely faked an account of his first voyage in 1497-98 (the alleged course would have had him sailing across Mexico to the Pacific), but who nonetheless claimed that he understood that Brazil was part of a ‘New World’. On his third journey, Columbus landed in what is now Venezuela and realised that South America was a continent, but North America eluded him.

He may or may not have been a bad man – by the standards of the day – although the most lurid accusations against him were made by a Spanish rival to his governorship of Hispaniola. However, he did ship 500 Arawak slaves back to Spain (200 of them dying en-route) and natives were beaten, raped and tortured. His rule was saturated with violence and resistance was widespread, although those who succeeded him appear to have been even more notorious. If one is to accord him the status of a great man, a good deal of squinting would be required. But to celebrate him as the discoverer of America – as opposed to the Americas – is to engage in myth-making.

In truth. the first Europeans to encounter the North American continent were probably the Vikings, during the medieval period. Erik the Red settled southern Greenland in around AD982 and the Norse sagas describe westward voyages to landmasses including Vinland. Erik’s son – Leif Erikson – spent the winter there in around the year AD1000, before returning to Greenland.(1) The discovery of a Norse settlement on the northern tip of Newfoundland in 1960 – which produced evidence of further exploration to the south – showed that Vinland was what is now part of Canada. But a permanent European presence was not established and, by the time Columbus set sail, it is likely that knowledge of the Viking voyages of half a millennium earlier had been lost to history.

The story of the North American continent, between the late fifteenth century and the establishment of Jamestown in 1607, is chock-full of European visitations and adventurism. Numerous explorers alighted upon Newfoundland and the coast of modern-day Canada in the first decade of the 16^th century, after one Zuan Caboto (an Italian under the commission of Henry VII of England) got there in 1497, although it is possible that Bristolian mariners had made landfall prior to 1470.(2)

Caboto’s son, Sebastian, appears to have explored the coastline from Hudson’s Bay down to Chesapeake in 1508-09,(3) and a Portuguese - Juan Ponce de León – discovered Florida in 1513,(4) but while parts of Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean islands and South and Central America were variously colonized (mainly by the Spanish) and several expeditions had wandered through the Deep South, none were permanently consolidated until the 1560s,(5) again in Florida and also in what is now southern Georgia.(6)

Others had sought riches without committing to settlement. Hernando de Soto, a Spanish explorer, had rampaged across the southeastern United States for four years, beginning in May 1539.(7) His forerunner, Pánfilo de Narváez, had also landed in Florida in 1528 (although he had been bound for Mexico), but his expedition of 600 souls was ravaged by one disaster after another, with only four of his land force making it out alive.(8) The English – in the person of Sir Walter Raleigh - had also attempted to establish colonies in Virginia and had come ashore in numerous locations between 1585 and 1603, including Cape Fear, North Carolina, but had failed to make them stick.(9)

In 1598, two small settlements in New Mexico were established by the Spanish,(10)(11) and in 1604/05, the French pushed on into Canada, establishing the first year-round European settlements at Port Royal and Quebec.(12) The English followed in 1610, establishing settlements on Newfoundland.(13) Prior to that, all camps – by the English, the Portuguese and the Basques, as well as the French – had been seasonal. And on 26^th April 1607, on the same eastern seaboard but further south, in what became Virginia, the first English colonists rowed ashore at Cape Henry,(14) equipped with a charter from the Virginia Company of London to establish a colony in the New World.

I say the first colonists but, strictly speaking, they were following in the footsteps of Raleigh’s Roanoke Colony in North Carolina, established in 1587, but found abandoned in 1590, the fate of its inhabitants unknown to this day.(15) The 1607 expedition consisted of three ships and 144 men and boys, but no women. Things did not go well – a lack of both planning and skills reduced the colony to 38 survivors by the time the first resupply fleet made it back on January 2^nd, 1608,(16) not helped by the fact that Jamestown was established on land that even the local Indians thought too poor for occupation:

“The island was swampy and isolated, offered limited space, was plagued by mosquitoes, and afforded only brackish drinking water unsuitable for drinking.”(17)

Nonetheless, the additional 120 men expanded fortifications and defended crops, but the food situation was still desperate, as they had never intended to grow food themselves. It wasn’t until the second resupply mission, in May of the same year, that the New World foothold appeared to be slightly less precarious although, by April 1609, the colonists were again sorely tried by an infestation of rats, which had destroyed all their stored corn.(18)

King James renewed the charter in May 1609 and a major push was made, in a bid to save the disaster-prone outpost. Nine ships and between 500-600 passengers were dispatched, women and children included, along with livestock and a year’s worth of provisions.(19) For reasons that I’m sure made sense at the time, a large proportion of the supplies – along with the leadership – were carried in one vessel, the SS Sea Venture, and all the eaters were spread amongst the other vessels.

Inevitably, of the two ships that didn’t make it to Jamestown, the Sea Venture was one, wrecked in Bermuda. However, four of the other ships brought with them sufferers of yellow fever and two others brought the bubonic plague.(20) Instead of solutions then, many further problems, instead. It took the survivors from Bermuda nine months to build two vessels capable of getting them to Jamestown, which had been left to its own devices for nearly eight months. That winter, of 1609-10, became known as ‘The Starving Time’. In the autumn, there were about 500 residents. By the spring, only 61 people remained alive.(21)

The colonists themselves were not entirely to blame, notwithstanding the self-inflicted wound that was the location of their settlement. The worst drought in 700 years took hold between 1606 and 1612 and they had attempted to alleviate the crisis by sending the Deputy Governor of the colony – one Francis West – up the Chesapeake Bay to obtain corn from a friendly tribe but, instead of delivering the cargo to the starving colony, West sailed for England in late 1609, thus avoiding any hardship.(22)

In addition, some of the Germans who had arrived with the second supply-run (and a few others) defected to the local tribe, taking weapons and equipment with them. The Spanish were also a threat, up from Florida. By the time the fourth supply mission reached the James River, on June 9^th 1610, the surviving colonists had abandoned Jamestown and were encountered sailing downriver. Francis West’s older brother, Thomas, ordered them to return to the colony and, and unbeknownst to them at the time, a turning point was reached.(23)

Conflict with the local Powhatan Confederacy, which had besieged the colony and refused to trade, was resolved and – gradually – Jamestown prospered, despite the unsuitability of most of the colonists, many of whom were from aristocratic backgrounds and disinclined to ‘muck in’ when required. It wasn’t until around 1614 – and the advent of tobacco harvesting – that the investors back in Blighty began to see a return. The marriage of Pocahontas to a settler named John Wolfe briefly soothed relations with the Powhatan, but when she sickened and died in 1617 – followed by her father, the Chief, the next year – things took a turn for the worse. The English appropriation of more land didn’t help matters, either.(24) In March 1622, the Powhatans attempted to wipe the colony out; more than 300 settlers were killed – a third of the English-speakers – but Jamestown survived and, in 1624, became a royal colony.

Almost all of this activity took place prior to the arrival of the Pilgrims upon the Mayflower, yet – with the exception of the Pocahontas fable, in which she is usually paired with Captain John Smith – little of it is celebrated. These settlers were adventurers, imported artisans (eventually) and indentured servants working off the cost of their passage. Which doesn’t make them any less remarkable but does, perhaps, render them less vivid dramatis personae than the religious refugees who sighted Cape Cod on November 9^th, 1620. And it is they who have been chosen as the leading actors in America’s origin myth. Perhaps moral rectitude is a step up from the grubby, for-profit endeavours of the Virginia Company. More heroic.

But Smith from Jamestown – incidentally the man who first scouted the location of the Plymouth Colony – was English America’s first hero. It’s just that his exploits ended the inaugural experiment with the welfare state so, in consequence, he is as disregarded now as he was hated then. Instead of the socialist creed – ‘to each according to his needs’ – Smith publicly stated that “he that will not work, shall not eat.”(25) The fact that, in doing so, he was alluding to 2 Thessalonians 3:10, did not cut much ice with his enemies:

“The colony’s backers had established a form of corporate communism that discouraged all individual initiative...[and]...although he protected them from the Indians and turned them from starvation to plenty, the shirkers and aristocrats in the little colony hated Smith...”(26)

There may have been a time when a man such as Smith – a mercenary who had fought the Ottomans and been knighted by the Prince of Transylvania – would have been lauded, but if there was, it would have been fleeting. The Virginia settlers had no use for ‘a city on a hill’; the subsequent waves were prepared to work hard and confront great risk, but many wanted nothing more than to be left alone by government. They weren’t big on theocracy, nor on the “democratic tyranny of the town meeting.”(27) But those who would tell others what to do – and mould history to their liking - are most unlikely to choose the hicks from the sticks as their archetypes.

And the settlers to the north were nothing if not men and women of conviction. Emphatically more exceptional. The world’s first in so many ways. The Mayflower Compact, written before disembarkation, is lauded as the “world’s first written constitution,”(28) despite the fact that only 41 of the 101 passengers on board the ship – the Pilgrim men, essentially – signed it and, additionally, that it was deemed necessary to ensure that the non-Puritan passengers were subdued; they had been proclaiming that they “would use their own liberty; for none had power to command them,”(29) largely because the Pilgrims had no patent to settle the area the had selected and, given that tiny detail, there was no guarantee that any land that was settled could be legally retained.

More like an example of the tyranny of the majority then and, whilst innovative inasmuch as it committed the people and their rulers to pursuing “the Glory of God, and the Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honor of our King and Country”,(30) it wasn’t planned and much ado has been made of it in retrospect. It was clearly intended as more of a holding operation, rather than a stirring declaration of a new form of government and it was drawn up on the hoof, when it appeared that the colony would splinter before it had even been established. It is not that the concepts weren’t radical at a time when a monarchy alone – or one checked by a legislative body – was considered the ideal form of governance, but they were on the own in a New World, and there was a need to adapt and overcome.

The Pilgrims were English Separatists, a subset of the Puritans. The latter wanted a purified established church, but the Pilgrims believed that their congregations should be separate from the Church of England. In an age when failing to attend Church of England services was illegal, this was a big deal. Separatists were imprisoned and three of their leaders were executed for sedition in 1593.(31) Many emigrated to the Netherlands, along with the Puritans who were similarly reviled by the Church. The Pilgrim Fathers themselves arrived in Leiden, Holland, around 1607-08.(32)

Over the next decade, it became apparent that, if their congregation was to move beyond survival to a flourishing, they would need to relocate. They also found the possibility of missionary life compelling, although they wished to retain their English identity, culture and language. The possibility of a land patent in the Virginia region – not too close, not too far away from Jamestown – was enticing. In the event, they were stiffed, inasmuch as the New England charter (for land to the north of the Virginia territory) wasn’t issued until late 1620 and the new investors insisted that half of the settled land reverted to them at the end of the seven-year contract.(33)

Some of the congregation (around thirty members), plus other colonists recruited by said investors, finally set sail for the New World on September 6^th and, sixty-five days later, sighted land. But they had arrived without a patent, hence the belligerence of the Strangers aboard the Mayflower, who intended to ignore the as-yet unsigned contract with the investors. It was the men of Leiden who drafted the Compact. Once anchored off Cape Cod, there was much delay whilst the ship’s tender was repaired and, by December, most of the passengers and crew were ill, some additionally suffering from scurvy.

By December 19^th, a hill in Plymouth (so named by Smith, previously) had been selected and the first house was serviceable a month later. It became the colony’s hospital yet, by the end of February, thirty-one of the company were dead. By the end of March, only forty-seven were still alive; half the Mayflower crew had also succumbed.(34) But they had chosen their site wisely; elevation for defence, previously cleared land – by the local Indians – and two sources of fresh water. In mid-March, they established a formal treaty of peace with the Wampanoag and, within the next several months, most of the other tribes in the region came to terms.

By 1610, government consisted of an unelected group ruling with a rod of iron. A new strategy was called for and, by end 1618, the settlers were granted a modicum of representation, albeit the Governor had the power of veto.(35) So, by 1621, the English had a tentative foothold in the south and in the north, both on the eastern seaboard and entirely different in character. In Virginia, a hard-won existence, frequently plagued by hardship and conflict, populated by a cross-section of people of no particular religious conviction, seemingly.

In practice, the powers-that-be abused the privilege and, in 1624, the Virginia company lost its charter and Virginia became a crown colony. Come the 1640s, the colony became a haven for the Royalist upper class from the mother country, the only refuge left for the Cavaliers at the conclusion of the English Civil War. As late as 1670, only property owners had a vote, but most government officials were still appointed, anyway.(36) This state of affairs would not have been considered outrageous in the mid-seventeenth century.

However, in what would become New England, things were markedly different. The Pilgrims – not a term they used themselves – believed themselves to be God’s elect, predestined to bring Christ’s word to the heathen world. They were not short on confidence and were determined to make their Calvinist faith the basis of their venture. This endowed them certain behavioural traits:

“The essential trademark of a pure Calvinist may well be his good conscience, a harbinger of religious intolerance and a secret propensity to consider Calvinist opinions and policies the ones that should be Everyman’s.”(37)

Accompanying them, to their considerable annoyance, were the aforementioned ‘Strangers’ and ‘Particulars’, the former the non-Puritan settlers required by the investors, who brought various skills to the table. The ‘Particulars’ were later settlers who paid their own ‘particular’ way to America.(38) But the Pilgrims were the driving force and they were convinced that democracy was the only form of government sanctioned by the Bible, so nearly all adult males were offered citizenship, with caveats. Quakers were prevented from becoming freemen and the minimum age was set at 21.

Women, naturally, were not accorded the opportunity to become freewomen -(39) pretensions to democracy only went so far. The Governor was elected by the General Court, which was in turn elected by freemen. A Calvinist system of checks and balances was implemented and, by 1625, the settlers had repaid their debts and took full possession of the colony, which was now – de facto – an independent republic, although not acknowledged as a such.(40)

By then, New England had become the destination of choice for Puritans and Pilgrims alike. Between 1622 and 1642, eight new colonies were established. Around 20,000 people arrived in the Great Migration, the majority from East Anglia and Lincolnshire. They were mostly families, prosperous and literate. These were non-Separatist Puritans, but they had nonetheless abandoned home shores for a new life thousands of miles away. They were attracted by the prospect of a closer relationship with God, unimpeded by layers of what they considered illegitimate leadership:

“...they created literally hundreds of ecclesiastical and civil covenants whereby people joined together for various purposes, all of which were ultimately aimed at glorifying God. Each of these covenants reinforced the idea that governments are legitimate and binding because they were established by the consent of the governed.”(41)

Importantly, in light of the later unpleasantness, they believed that they were obliged to resist tyrannical rulers. The construction of a better world was central to the Puritan’s belief system, albeit on the terms that they themselves imposed, as those “specially chosen to civilise the pagan wilderness.”(42) Not that the Puritans were ever granted a charter to settle in what became Massachusetts; the king granted one to a merchant instead, for a commercial venture known as the New England Company but, before it could get off the ground, all the shares were purchased by John Winthrop, a wealthy Puritan, who wasted no time in emigrating.(43)

This was the first charter, but the second arrangement for the same piece of real estate. The Plymouth Council, acting as an umbrella organisation overseeing the English colonisation of the coastline between 40 and 48 degrees latitude, had already granted the land to another Separatist, John Endecott, whose governorship came to an end when Winthrop arrived, having folded the New England Company into the new Massachusetts Bay Company and becoming the only English chartered colony whose board of governors resided in the colony itself.(44)

In 1630, he and his followers founded Boston, in honour of the Lincolnshire town many of them had left behind, on the Shawmut Peninsula. From the beginning, the New England Company’s Boston was seen as a separate nation. The Puritans regarded it as a beacon to the world, where a purified church could be founded. England had little to no control over the city-state (or of the wider colony) from the outset. By 1643, Boston was engaging in independent trade with Spain and, in 1652, took to minting its own coinage.(45) Any search for the origins of a belief in American exceptionalism would do well to zero in on Boston.

In the south, activity was far less frenetic. In 1629, King Charles I granted a patent for lands between the thirty first and thirty sixth latitudes – directly to the south of Virginia – to Sir Robert Heath, who wanted to settle French Huguenots (Calvinists), but was unable to do so when Charles insisted that only Church of England members were eligible. The king was prone to insistence, as his belief in the divine right of kings was not shared with either the English parliament nor, increasingly, his subjects. He also married a Catholic. It wasn’t until after his execution, in 1649, that emigrants from the Virginia Colony – with others from New England and Bermuda – settled in what is now North Carolina.(46)

Religion was once more to the fore in the award of a charter for Maryland (just to the north of Virginia), in June 1632, when the king’s true sympathies were once more on display. The twelve million acres were granted to the son of the 1^st Baron Baltimore, Charles’ former Secretary of State, who wished to establish a haven for English Catholics.(47) However, the majority of the initial settlers were actually Protestant and the colony instead served as the poster-child for (attempted) religious toleration amongst the American colonies, with a mix of Anglicans, Puritans, Catholics and Quakers. Economically, the colony was a success, particularly with regard to tobacco crops.

Religious toleration was unfashionable in parts of the north as well. The Connecticut River Colony was formed by yet another sect of Puritan dissenters from Boston, who disagreed with what they viewed as the suppression of Puritan suffrage:

“Voting in Massachusetts was limited to freemen, individuals who had been formally admitted to their church after a detailed interrogation of their religious views and experiences.”(48)

So much for the Strangers and the Particulars, then. Not all men were equal in Massachusetts, notwithstanding the Puritans’ professed belief in the illegitimacy of governments that weren’t sanctified by the consent of (all) the governed. The Fundamental Orders of 1639 assigned the supreme authority in the colony to the elected General Court, not the Crown.(49) The Orders also emphasised the limited nature of governmental powers and catered for the involvement of the common folk, but there were still limits on ‘democracy’. A distinction between ‘freemen’ and ‘inhabitants’ remained – which limited suffrage to certain elections – and Puritanism was a requirement.

The Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations was founded by another Puritan splitter in 1636, although Roger Williams was actually expelled from Massachusetts. He was a Separatist through-and-through, believing the Church of England to be incorrigibly corrupt, which put him at odds with the now non-Separatist leadership in Boston. He sought refuge amongst the Narragansett Indians and successfully negotiated for land adjacent to Massachusetts. Williams’ constitution was the most liberal yet, providing for majority rule on matters civil and freedom of conscience on matters of the spirit.

Other dissenters settled nearby in 1637 and in 1642,(50) and the Patent of 1643-44 recognised a confederacy of settlements, rather than a single colony. Once the turmoil of the Interregnum had concluded and the Stuart Restoration was bedded in, a Royal Charter in 1663 established the colony and much else besides. Rhode Island was granted the power to make its own laws, to practice religious freedom and no oath of allegiance was required. It was the first of its kind, more liberal than any charter issued to the other colonies – Massachusetts to Rhode Island, via Connecticut.(51)

The northernmost territory, the Province of Maine, was a stop-start affair, initiated in 1622, but only populated by around a thousand settlers some thirty years later. The Massachusetts Bay Company, assertive to a fault, began laying claim to what became New Hampshire and parts of Maine and, by 1658, had assimilated all the original claim into its jurisdiction.(52) Boston was the centre of gravity in northern New England.

And so, by 1660, the New England colonies were firmly established, as were the Southern colonies (minus the southernmost, Georgia, which wasn’t chartered until 1732).(53) But much of the area between them was part of the Dutch colony of New Netherland, settled from 1613 onwards. The Swedes, also a great power at the time and proud administrators of an empire that encompassed Finland, Estonia and parts of what are now Russia, Poland, Germany, Norway and Latvia, were keen to open shop in the New World as well and established the colony of New Sweden in 1638, along the Delaware River. The Dutch had retrenched on Manhattan Island.(54)

All went swimmingly until 1655, when the Dutch finally lost patience and retook the land and incorporated New Sweden into New Netherland, although they allowed the Swedish and Finnish settlers to stay and retain their local autonomy. But events in the Old World were about to have an effect in the New. Trade tensions between former allies, the English and the Dutch, had been simmering since 1590, with most of the resentment on the English side. The Dutch commitment to free trade made their products more competitive, particularly in English-speaking America. However, having finally seen off Spain in the Eight Years’ War in 1648, the Dutch Admiralties allowed their squadrons to deteriorate.

In contrast, the English fleet was in rude health, necessary for the Commonwealth victory in the English Civil War. When the English Parliament passed the Navigation Act of 1651, limiting Dutch trade with the English colonies and requiring that any cargo to or from English ports – anywhere – was to be carried in English ships, the stage was set. The seizure of 140 Dutch merchantmen on the open seas – in 1651 alone – escalated tensions further,(55) but it was the Rump Parliament in Westminster which declared war in July 1652.

By April 1654, when the Treaty of Westminster brought peace, much damage had been wrought. The Dutch had lost at least 1,200 vessels compared to 440 for the English, although the overall result of the conflict was closer to a score-draw. The contestants were back at it again in 1665, which also ended in stalemate in 1667, although not before the Dutch humiliated Charles II, whose flagship – the HMS Royal Charles – was captured in a raid on the River Medway and towed away.(56) The English were allowed to retain New Netherland, which they had seized in September 1664 after King Charles had generously granted charters on land that he didn’t possess,(57) and although the Dutch briefly reconquered what was now New York in 1673, by the following year they had swapped it for Suriname.(58)

The English had also captured what had been New Sweden in 1664, by the simple expedient of pillaging the settlements on the Delaware River. This became the Delaware Colony, claimed by New York, but owned by William Penn, the Quaker czar of Pennsylvania and home to a melting pot of Swedes, Dutch, French and Finns in addition to the culturally dominant English. New Jersey, at the time part of New York, became a royal colony in 1702 and the Pennsylvania Colony received its inland charter in 1681, the result of a debt owed to Penn’s father by the English crown. The 45,000 acres were to be a “Holy experiment”,(59) a Quaker haven. Within just two years, 4,000 settlers had joined him.

Figure 1

The Quakers were yet another of the dissenting Christian groups that emerged in England in the first half of the seventeenth century, although they were regarded with a great deal of suspicion, even by their fellow nonconformists. They believed that it was possible to have a personal relationship with Christ without the assistance of any clergy, a considerable advance on the views of the Separatists and the Puritans. Women, particularly, were drawn to the faith, with the Quakers characterised as “ a holy tribe, ‘the family and household of God.’”(60) In Pennsylvania, the Great Laws, the Colony’s legal code, were a hotchpotch of flawed laws, selectively enforced, often on a racial basis. The kind of system to be expected, perhaps, from those who prided themselves on their individual obedience to the ‘Inward Light’, the presence of Christ in their hearts.

By 1702, if one ignores Georgia, the twelve colonies looked like this.

Figure 2

But relations with the Auld Country had gone sideways well before that. The various characters of the different colonies – a result of the ad hoc process of their founding – gave the restored King Charles II pause for thought. The New England colonies, originally established for religious reasons, enjoyed corporate charters and considerable administrative autonomy. Virginia had become a crown colony and others, such as Maryland, Pennsylvania and Carolina, were proprietary colonies operating under the neo-feudalist control of one or two individuals. As is often the ways of things, the establishment of a streamlined, centralised bureaucracy proved appealing – to the monarch, not to the colonies. Plus, there was the thorny issue of trade.

The Navigation Act of 1651, intended to kneecap the Dutch, also had a deleterious effect on the colonies. Charles’ government augmented the original restrictions by passing an updated Act in 1660, followed by others in 1663 and 1673. These were not trifling matters and, although intended to restrict foreign trade with the colonies – ostensibly to keep commerce in-house – had the effect of gumming up the works, boosting crown coffers and denying the colonies their own, independent trade policy. This was not popular, particularly with the New Englanders, who lacked the geological richness of the South, and were obliged to engage in trade, successfully competing against English merchants. The Navigation Acts sought to turn colonial merchants into smugglers, whilst preserving the import of the agricultural staples that the South produced.

There were other bones of contention. Some of the colonies in the North – Plymouth, New Haven, New Hampshire and Maine (still a territory) – were either irregularly established or perceived to be loose cannons, a description that could equally well be levelled at Massachusetts, home to its own currency and a long history of theocratic governance. Supporters of the Church of England were not welcomed and neither were any other persons of a non-Puritan persuasion. And the colonial government was not prepared to entertain any attempt at reform from afar. So, eventually, in 1684, its charter was revoked.(61)

James II succeeded Charles in 1685 and a cunning plan was set in motion. Rather than allow the New Englanders the freedom to deprive England of its market for manufactured articles such as textiles, leather goods and ironware, a new, bespoke, all-powerful English-run government was to be established over the Northern colonies, the better to encourage the people to pursue other, as yet undetermined career choices. The Dominion of New England was the first attempt to rein-in the New England colonies and it was predictably poorly received.

“Theoretically, the colonists were subjects of the king; practically, they were living out a republican way of life in hundreds of self-governing polities of human scale...”(62)

The colonial leaders in New England were, after all, ‘Protestants’, the clue to their disposition to be found in that designation. Moreover, their particular beef was with the government of the country that they had left behind, which had sought to punish their religious convictions. Having lived out their ideal of independence for decades, that same entity was now attempting to subjugate them again – in their view. Notwithstanding its formal status, a polity that regarded itself as ‘chosen by God’ was unlikely to be receptive to the curtailment of its ability to chart its own course, especially when the pressure was to be applied by its historic foe.

The Crown carried on regardless, in the grand tradition of double-downers across the millennia. Far from severing its connection with New England, King James’ government still viewed its colonies as its own possession, to be administered in whatever manner it saw fit. An interim commission was granted to the American-born Joseph Dudley, who was to rule with the assistance of an appointed council with no representative legislature. The locals did their utmost to make life difficult; magistrates refused to serve on the council, colonial military officers opted out and Dudley was hamstrung by an inability to raise new taxes, as the Massachusetts government had anticipated the loss of the charter and boxed him in. Citizens joined the fray in refusing to pay the few remaining taxes, arguing that the were now invalid as the previous administration had been deposed.

These shenanigans were simply the opening act. The colonies of Rhode Island and Connecticut were added to the Dominion in September 1686 and, in December, a new sheriff blew into town, a hardliner named Sir Edmund Andros, formerly the governor of New York. His position, unsustainable though it was, held that the colonists had surrendered their rights as Englishmen when they left the Mother Country. How this could be squared with a further claim that they still owed allegiance to England’s representative was of no import to Andros.

New revenue laws were instituted, resisted and enforced. Town meetings – the crucibles of protest – were banned, other than for the annual election of officials, an innovation that was widely reviled. In what seems to have been another typically domineering move, Andros tried to force the Puritan churches in Boston to allow Church of England services. But it was his challenge to the land titles of the colonists – some of which were defective in various ways – that really aroused opposition. The Puritans of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay simply refused to entertain the new conformation process. Undaunted, the Crown added New York, East Jersey and West Jersey to the Dominion in May 1688.

At this point, events across the pond intruded. James, a Catholic, had worn out his welcome with his majority Protestant subjects, and was deposed by his daughter and her Dutch husband William III of Orange, James’ nephew, and the Glorious Revolution was on. William’s invasion fleet of 40,000 men landed in Torbay and was greeted with open arms by the somewhat gullible natives, who had no inkling of his true intention, which was to drag England into the Nine Years’ War against the French.

However, the religious leaders of Massachusetts had the great good fortune to be in the right place at the right time. A number of them had managed to reach England by mid-1688, and had made their case against Andros to King James, who had been receptive. They were still in London in November, when William and Mary seized the throne, and they petitioned the new monarchs for the restoration of their charter. William’s coup was still only a rumour in the colonies come the following March, but the blue touchpaper was duly lit by the Puritans, who hurried things along by organising the 1689 Boston revolt, during which Andros and other Dominion supporters were arrested and imprisoned:

“The dominion then effectively collapsed, as local authorities in each colony seized dominion representatives and reasserted their earlier power.”(63)

But it was to prove a Phyrric victory. William, once informed that a restoration of the old charter would result in religious rule once more, combined the colonies of Plymouth and Massachusetts into the Province of Massachusetts Bay and appointed a new governor. Suffrage was greatly expanded, as was the territory itself. Most political authority remained local, but the Puritan power base was much eroded. However, the northern colonies had other matters of a more pressing character on their mind.

The machinations of the Massachusetts leadership had been unappealingly opportunistic. The frontier between New England and New France had been in dispute for some time and, a year prior to the ousting of Andros, the Governor had been campaigning in Acadia, the French colony on the Atlantic coast – territory that now includes the Maritime provinces of eastern Canada and part of the state of Maine. The French and the Wabanaki Confederacy, made up of five Algonquian nations, retaliated with border raids and, come June 1689, Andros learned of both the Glorious Revolution and the other a little closer to home in Boston, and abandoned the region, taking the British Army with him and leaving the frontier unguarded.(64)

This was not Andros’ first rodeo. He had played his part in the first war in an almost unbroken sequence of New World wars covering a period of eighty-eight years from 1675 onwards. King Philip’s War – named after the chief of the Wampanoag, Metacom, who had taken an English name – had been the result of repeated violations of an alliance with his tribe by the colonists, who insisted that the Natives surrender their guns. The war developed into a last-ditch attempt to expel the colonists from New England.

It was a disaster for all concerned, more so for the Wampanoags, hundreds of who were publicly executed or enslaved.(64) But a dozen towns were also destroyed and the population, operating without support from England, lost one-tenth of the men available to serve in the militias. The economies of the Rhode Island and Plymouth colonies were decimated. Despite the cost, many of the same contestants were now back at it just a decade later, this time with French assistance. New France was a significant player at the time as, whilst the English colonies littered the coastline, the French colonies dominated the Eastern interior and modern-day eastern Canada, notwithstanding the fact that much of the French claim was notional.

Figure 3

The unpleasantness in the New World was an extension of the great power conflict in Europe, the Nine Years’ War. Despite the disparity in the size of the colonial possessions, the English settlers were far more numerous at around 154,000, outnumbering the French 12 to 1. However, the latter were more unified and comprised primarily of men with military backgrounds. They also enjoyed the support of the Indigenous peoples within their territories. And, regardless of the situation in Europe, there was animosity aplenty parochially.

The New Englanders and the Iroquois did their best to mess with French trade and cross-border raids were still commonplace. The Massachusetts colonists, emboldened by their charter, had expanded into Acadia and it was these communities that Andros was forced to abandon in April 1689, with predictable consequences. Throughout the war, no adequate military presence was provided to the settlers. The warfare was sporadic and mostly fought by colonial militias.

The New English had their moments, mostly the results of expeditions, but the French had the better of it in toto. When the dust settled, in September 1697, the Treaty of Ryswick merely initiated a pause in proceedings, not an end point. Four years later, the two belligerents re-entered the ring with the onset of Queen Anne’s War, aka the Third Indian War, another contest ignited by events in Europe, specifically the War of the Spanish Succession. A more realistic depiction of the actual occupation of North American at that point looks more like this.

Figure 4

On this occasion, due to the insertion of a new protagonist – Spain – there was a southern element to proceedings, in addition to the now habitual conflict with New France in the north. It was widely held that control of the Mississippi River was essential and the French grand strategy had been to butter up the locals, fortify the mouth of the river, and either force the English back into the Atlantic or, at the least, encourage them to remain in the coastal areas.

The Spanish were prepared to take the French lead and the Carolinian English, having established a comprehensive trading network across the south-east, were dead set on expanding their influence further, at the expense of their European rivals. Fighting in the south was piecemeal, characterised by raiding expeditions, once again. Much of the action was undertaken by Indigenous forces, and those armed by the English colonists got much the better of it.

In New England, it was déjà vu all over again. Attempts to tame Acadia were foiled once more and hundreds of settlers were killed or captured and traded. It was mostly one-way traffic, with the Wabanaki Confederacy to the fore. By 1709, at least two-thirds of the fields north of Boston lay untended, such was the danger of venturing beyond the colonists’ forts. It wasn’t until October 1710 that the British – so called due to the union of the kingdoms of England and Scotland in 1707 – together with colonial forces finally tasted success with the capture of the peninsula portion of Acadia (mainland Nova Scotia).

The British attempt to take Quebec in 1711, which turned into an epic omnishambles, was the most notable action in Canada and whilst the Newfoundland theatre featured some back and forth, no decisive blow was landed by either side. The conflict was ended by the Treaty of Utrecht, in 1713, and the colonists benefitted from the inevitable horse-trading that marked the end of the French attempt at European hegemony.

Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and the Hudson Bay area were ceded to the British, the Native population went unrecognised, and the stage was set for yet more friction in the region. The New Englanders, as was their wont, pushed their luck, moving into disputed territories (again) and demanding that the Acadians swear oaths of allegiance. Whilst the French were weakened, the British victory was on points, rather than by knockout and the treaty was as much use as a chocolate fireguard; it didn’t even specify Acadia’s new borders.(65)

And in the south, whilst Spanish Florida remained, it was a shadow of its former self, as the economy had tanked and the population largely abandoned the region, although not before yet more wars between the Indigenous peoples and the British - the Yamasee War of 1715-17 and the Tuscarora War, 1711-1715 – both decided in favour of the colonists. Significant debt was accrued, particularly in South Carolina and the economic cost to the southern English colonies was substantial.

Once again, it wasn’t long before hostilities were resumed, with the New England Colonies facing off against the Wabanaki Confederacy and New France for the fourth time. Dummer’s War, between 1722 and 1725, was the bastard child of the Utrecht fubar, fought over the border between Acadia and New England and also on the frontier areas with Canada. As the Wabanaki had not been involved in Utrecht, their Confederacy – not unreasonably – did not feel bound by its terms. The French were happy to channel this discontent and established Catholic missions among the four largest Native villages.

The contested land – in what is now eastern Maine – was settled by New Englanders, which did not sit well with the local Mi’kmaq tribe, who had never agreed any treaty with any party. They responded by raiding the settlements and the Massachusetts leadership matched and raised by building a succession of forts on both sides of the disputed boundary. In 1717, the Wabanakis attempted to negotiate, and were willing to accede to existing settlements upon their lands, provided a proper boundary was established. Governor Shute told them to pound sand:

“We desire only what is our own, and that is what we will have.”(66)

And, eventually, after three years of raids and counter-raids, the tribes sought peace. The French lost their footholds in Maine, the Indian population declined and the New Englanders expanded colonial territories, making more enemies as they went. The peace in the region lasted for eighteen years, something of a record at the time but, even if tensions in the New World could be tolerated, the Old World was a different matter entirely. Britain found itself dragged into yet another European war against France in March 1744, as a dutiful ally of Austria and Massachusetts, ever-eager to get on the front foot, declared war on Canada and France in June – an interesting development, given that the colony was part of the British Empire, not a separate political entity with the power to declare war on anyone.

The running sore that was Acadia was once again the main focus of hostilities, although the war was also fought on the frontiers between the northern colonies and New France. It proved to be yet one more inconclusive bloodbath – the cost in Massachusetts alone, in just two years, was the death of 8% of the adult male population.(67) The colonists did capture Fortress Louisbourg in Nova Scotia, after a six-week siege, but the British traded it for Madras, India, in the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748), a decision that outraged the New Englanders. Nonetheless, the pre-war borders were restored and the much-battered can got kicked down the road one more time, for posterity.

Whilst the British had been ceded peninsular Acadia (Nova Scotia), they only enjoyed a nominal presence, confined to two fortified settlements. The rest of the colony was under the control of the Catholic Mi’kmaq and the Acadians. The onset of peace seemed, to the British, to be the perfect time to stir the pot again. King George II decided that Halifax would be the new capital of Nova Scotia, but the town first had to be founded, which it was on June 21^st 1749, by 1,176 settlers and their families. Fortifications and other Protestant settlements followed in short order.(68) Adding insult to injury, the British built fortifications in all the major Acadian communities, too. Not that it did them much good, as Nova Scotia “was kept in an uninterrupted state of war by the Acadians.”(69)

Those that were left, mind. The French encouraged an exodus of Acadians to New France and thousands took them up on it, unwilling to swear an unconditional oath to the British Crown and, simultaneously, reject their Catholic faith for Protestantism. The British initially attempted to staunch the flow – not a fact that appeals to modern-day court historians, who much prefer to dally with the ever popular g-word – creating the conditions for a permanent state of guerilla warfare. The Acadians refused to trade with the British, instead supplying the ‘rebel forces’ both locally and across the isthmus to the mainland.

Figure 5

Militarily, if the Acadian peninsula was to be subdued, two things needed to happen; the isthmus needed to be sealed off and the population brought to heel. The British managed to establish Fort Lawrence near Beau-bassin (in 1750), but the French countered with three forts of their own. Several French ships out of Quebec were captured and found to be laden with supplies and munitions for Acadian militias and the Mi’kmaq and another eight to ten made landfall unhindered.(70)

Whilst the winter months were quiet – as was the custom in frontier warfare of the day – the campaign seasons in the years 1749-1755 were marked by near-constant raids on the Protestant citizenry, not from the mainland but from the local indigenous populations and their Acadian allies. Settlers were killed indiscriminately and scalped, the latter practice one that the New Englanders and the British also indulged in. Father Le Loutre’s War, named after the principal French provocateur) was a dirty affair.

By the summer of 1752, with the exodus still in full flow, the British were struggling. The war had bankrupted the colony and the Ranger units – colonial troops – had been chasing shadows and were largely disbanded in favour of a colonial militia, in which all British subjects between the ages of 16 to 60 were conscripted.(71) New settlements were often problematic; Lunenberg, founded by foreign Protestants expelled from Halifax, rebelled in December 1753, declaring itself a republic aligned with the French and Lawrencetown was abandoned within three years, because the settlers were confined to quarters by the sheer quantity of Native raids.(72)

Eventually, in June 1755, the British landed the decisive blow. A fleet from Boston, staging out of Fort Lawrence on the isthmus, overwhelmed the French garrisons and established control of the land-route to the mainland and shut off the winter gateway to the enemy fortified town of Louisbourg, to the north-east on Cape Breton Island – the one that the British had been obliged to return in 1748.

They then set about dealing with the second part of the grand strategy – not a subjugation of the Acadians, but an expulsion instead. Between 1755 and 1764, around 11,500 of the estimated 14,100 were forcibly removed and their land distributed to settlers from both New England Scotland, for the most part.(73) Initially, they were deported to the Thirteen Colonies and then, post-1758, to Britain or France. Some of them then made their way back to what was then the Spanish colony of Louisiana.(74) The supply problems caused by both strategies proved to have the single biggest impact on French power in the region.

Modern sensibilities decry what would today be described as ‘ethnic cleansing’, but the British commander – Lt. Governor Lawrence – had a different viewpoint:

“Father Le Loutre’s War had done much to create the condition of total war; British civilians had not been spared and, as Lawrence saw it, Acadian civilians had provided intelligence, sanctuary and logistical support while others actually fought in armed conflict.”(75)

But this was a New World war without a clearly delineated end-point. Whilst the British ‘mopped up’ in Acadia, Louisbourg remained a thorn in their side. And, further south, the Anglo-French antipathy was coming to a head in Ohio Country. One war was to segue seamlessly into another.

Citations

(1) https://historyrise.com/columbus-didnt-discover-america-who-was-here-first/

(2) https://www.bristol.ac.uk/history/research/cabot/cabot-and-bristols-age-of-discovery/

(3) Ditto

(4) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Ponce_de_Le%C3%B3n

(5)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Florida#First_colonization_attempts

(6) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Marys,_Georgia#History

(7)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Florida#First_colonization_attempts

(8) Ditto

(9) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Raleigh#New_World

(10) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espa%C3%B1ola,_New_Mexico

(11) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohkay_Owingeh,_New_Mexico

(12) Kelley, Ninette; Trebilcock, Michael J. The Making of the Mosaic: A History of Canadian Immigration Policy, (September 30, 2010).University of Toronto Press. p. 27.

(13) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newfoundland_Colony

(14)https://web.archive.org/web/20130928085017/http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/jamestown-browse?id=J1007

(15)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roanoke_Colony#Hypotheses_about_the_colony’s_disappearance

(16)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamestown_supply_missions#First_supply_mission

(17) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamestown,_Virginia#cite_note-13

(18)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamestown_supply_missions#Third_supply_mission

(19) https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/newport-christopher-1561-after-august-15-1617/#start_entry

(20)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamestown_supply_missions#Third_supply_mission

(21)https://web.archive.org/web/20180306161448/http://www.history.org/Foundation/journal/Winter07/starving.cfm

(22) http://www.virginiaplaces.org/boundaries/bermuda.html

(23) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamestown_supply_missions#cite_note-39

(24)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamestown,_Virginia#1610%E2%80%931624:_Rising_fortunes

(25) Snell, Tee Loftin (1974). The wild shores: America’s beginnings. Washington DC: National Geographic Society (U.S.), Special Publications Division, chapter 4.

(26) https://chroniclesmagazine.org/columns/perspective/the-broken-promise-of-american-life/

(27) Ditto

(28) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth_Colony

(29) Bradford, William (1898). Book 2, Anno 1620. In Hildebrandt, Ted (ed.).Bradford’s History “Of Plimoth Plantation”. Boston: Wright & Potter. Retrievedm2006-06-01.

(30) https://chroniclesmagazine.org/view/the-1620-project/

(31)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilgrims_(Plymouth_Colony)#The_Mayflower_Compact

(32) John (1895). The Pilgrim Fathers of New England and their Puritan Successors. Reprinted: 1970. Pasadena, Texas: Pilgrim Publications. pp. 118.

(33) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilgrims_(Plymouth_Colony)#cite_note-16

(34) Bradford, William (1898). Book 2, Anno 1620. In Hildebrandt, Ted (ed.).Bradford’s History “Of Plimoth Plantation”. Boston: Wright & Potter. Retrievedm2006-06-01.

(35) Rubin, Jr. Louis D. Virginia: A History. New York W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1977; pp. 3–27.

(36) Ditto

(37) https://chroniclesmagazine.org/view/1865-the-true-american-revolution/

(38) Clifton E. Olmstead, History of Religion in the United States, p. 67.

(39)https://web.archive.org/web/20120429000512/http://www.histarch.uiuc.edu/plymouth/ccflaw.html

(40) Demos, John (1970). A Little Commonwealth: Family Life in Plymouth Colony. New York: Oxford University Press.

(41) https://chroniclesmagazine.org/view/the-1620-project/

(42) https://chroniclesmagazine.org/reviews/a-city-state-on-a-hill/

(43) Ditto

(44) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_Bay_Colony

(45) https://chroniclesmagazine.org/reviews/a-city-state-on-a-hill/

(46) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albemarle_Settlements

(47) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Province_of_Maryland#Founding_charter

(48) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hooker

(49) https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2589349

(50)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_of_Rhode_Island_and_Providence_Plantations

(51) Arnold, Samuel Greene (1859), History of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Volume 1:New York: D. Appleton & Company, page 290.

(52) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Province_of_Maine

(53) http://cdm.georgiaarchives.org:2011/cdm/ref/collection/adhoc/id/411

(54) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Sweden

(55) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Anglo-Dutch_War#Path_to_war

(56) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raid_on_the_Medway

(57) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conquest_of_New_Netherland

(58)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconquest_of_New_Netherland#Aftermath

(59)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Province_of_Pennsylvania#New_Sweden_and_New_Netherlands

(60) Levy, Barry. Quakers and the American Family. p.13.

(61) Hall, Michael G. (1979). “Origins in Massachusetts of the Constitutional Doctrine of Advice and Consent”. Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Third Series. 91. Massachusetts Historical Society: 5.

(62) https://chroniclesmagazine.org/view/republicanism-monarchy-and-the-human-scale-of-politics/

(63)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_of_New_England#cite_note-3

(64) Silverman, David (2019). This Land Is Their Land. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 348-353.

(65) Peckham, Howard (1964). The Colonial Wars, 1689-1762. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, page 84.

(66) Morrison, Kenneth (1984). The Embattled Northeast: The Elusive Ideal of Alliance in Abenaki-Euramerican Relations, University of Carolina Press, pages 174-176.

(67) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_George%27s_War

(68) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_Le_Loutre%27s_War

(69) https://archive.org/details/collectionsofnov02nova/page/n3/mode/2up page 151.

(70) Murdoch, Beamish (1866). A History of Nova Scotia, Or Acadie. Vol. II. Halifax: J. Barnes, page 201.

(71) Akins, Thomas B. (1895) History of Halifax City. Halifax: Nova Scotia Historical Society, page 40.

(72) Bell, Winthrop Pickard. (1961) The Foreign Protestants and the Settlement of Nova Scotia: The History of a Piece of Arrested Colonial Policy in the Eighteenth Century. University of Toronto Press, page 508.

(73) Plank, Geoffrey. (2001) An Unsettled Conquest: The British Campaign Against the Peoples of Acadia. University of Pennsylvania Press.

(74) Doughty, Arthur G. (1916) The Acadian Exiles: A Chronicle of the Land of Evangeline. Toronto: Glasgow. Brook & Company.

(75) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_Le_Loutre%27s_War

Figure 1 By No machine-readable author provided. Kmusser assumed (based on copyright claims). - No machine-readable source provided. Own work assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY-SA 2.5. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1331246

Figure 2 https://geografia.laguia2000.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/colonies-01.jpg

Figure 3 https://i.pinimg.com/474x/2a/20/8e/2a208eac42fd7b892f859b6e38c065c3--la-france-quebec.jpg

Figure 4 By User:Magicpiano - own work; structure (but not depicted areas of control) derived from File:Nouvelle-France map-en.svg, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9798531

Figure 5 By Mikmaq - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19622519

Not forgetting the regime change (or not) rationale, for the ‘benefit of the people’ of course, who deserve to live ‘free from terror’, or some such. Aiding these rationales are the simps, aka ‘MAGA influencers’, who insist that Trump is playing 5D chess (we wouldn’t understand) and that no other president in history is fit to carry his jockstrap. Tucker, Megyn Kelly and their fellow groypers have their own pet theory (the same theory that they reflexively deploy whenever 47 ventures abroad in search of monsters to destroy), which is that Bibi is leading Orange Man Bad around by the nose and that we are condemned to forever exist within Israel First territory.

Sometimes, just sometimes, the pathologically juvenile, histrionic, mendacious nature of American politics surpasses itself and this is one of those occasions - which seem to be coming around with increasing regularity - and the shamelessness of it all is next level. Perhaps that’s a symptom of the self-righteousness that runs like a toxic seam through public life in the good old US of A. I inured myself from as much of that as I could by avoiding the noxious proclamations of the progressive press, only to find that the ‘conservative’ mainstream – latterly – is just as drenched in hubris.

Our soothsayers are all lying; we know that because we can see their lips moving, and because they are part of an ecosystem that polices itself and controls all opposition. None of them ever crash and burn, because they are all playing the same game and they are all transparent bullshitters, execrable by definition, plying their ‘WOW! BREAKING!’ shtick and bamboozling both the terminally naïve and those incapable of independent thought – a target-rich environment, to be sure.

We also know this because the real reason for the current imbroglio has been dreamt up, typed up and published by the establishment itself, within the past four months. But before the big reveal, let’s have a relaxed canter through what passes for American statesmanship in the current age and tick off all the terminological inexactitudes.

Firstly, then, Trump’s assertion (parroted by Pete ‘Strangelove’ Hegseth) that he got the Ayatollah before the Iranians succeeded in their efforts to kill him. Regrettably, there is no evidence that either attempt on Trump was sponsored by Iran, just the usual opaque, unverifiable drivel served up by the FBI about Iranian hit squads with ground-to-air missiles, followed by one of those bespoke, hermetically-sealed ‘sting’ operations on some inept Pakistani businessman, who just happened to recruit two Bureau snitches for the mission. The detailed sketch of the planned hit looked liked this.

Figure 1

Next up, the incessantly repeated claim that a ‘war’ with Iran has been ongoing for 47 years and Trump is the only one with the cojones to say it like it is. Has Iran been hostile to the US (and the West, in general) since the Iranian Revolution? Yes, mostly. Has there been a war? No, but had there been, it would be almost entirely the fault of the Americans themselves. Because, whilst the cognoscenti are prepared to permit a smattering of dissident talk about the CIA’s first successful coup d’etat in Iran in 1953, I haven’t read a single account that accurately depicts the role of the Agency and MI6 in the subsequent removal of the Shah in 1979. Perhaps that’s because some people might get the crazy idea that the aforementioned 47 years of strife – for the Iranian people, more than anyone – were the fault of the Americans and the Brits.

In both 1953 and in 1979, the bone of contention had been Iran’s oil and which ruler would play by the rules imposed on them. The Shah was initially a beneficiary and then a target when he got too big for his britches. In 1978, BP was turning the screw in contract negotiations, refusing to honour conditions and precipitating a crisis. The Shah started harbouring delusions of independence, but it was not to be. Trained agitators fanned the flames of religious discontent and the oil workers went on strike:

“As Iran’s domestic economic troubles grew, American ‘security’ advisers to the Shah’s Savak secret police implemented a policy of ever more brutal repression, in a manner calculated to maximize popular antipathy to the Shah. At the same time, the Carter administration cynically began protesting abuses of ‘human rights’ under the Shah.”(2)

The Agency was an old hand by then. It was at this time that the BBC was giving Khomeini his propaganda platform on their Persian-language broadcasts and refusing the Shah the right of reply. Their correspondents fanned out into the Iranian rural, fanning the flames. BP organised a flight of capital from Tehran, through its strong ties with financial institutions. Carter, a president who desired a moral foreign policy, was simply kept in the dark. The CIA’s top brass, in their hubris, reckoned that they could control Khomeini – they were wrong.

Which is not to say that they didn’t try to ‘make it right’. Carter greenlit Saddam’s invasion in 1980, but Bush and Reagan (soon to be the next cabs off the presidential rank) and their Israeli contacts shipped war materiel to the Ayatollah –(3) it is also rumoured that, with the active cooperation of the US military, they also stripped weapons stockpiles in Europe and shipped them to Iran. All whilst Carter was still president.

Reagan was compromised before he had even taken office. He had been part of a criminal conspiracy that he was now obligated to extend, as required. Iran, subject of Carter’s arms embargo (which Reagan supported in public), was supplied with arms from the very beginning of Reagan’s presidency.(4) This was the Iran-Contra scandal, in which – incidentally – Epstein was embroiled, but that’s a story for another day. So, the US and Iran were bedfellows, not enemies in the early-to-mid eighties, regardless of the religious fundamentalism of the Ayatollah’s regime.

Another justification trotted out by Trump et al is the ‘terrorist attack’ on the Marine barracks in Beirut, in 1983. Lebanon had been embroiled in a civil war for seven years by 1982, when Israel invaded in an attempt to evict the PLO, which had taken refuge in the capital city. US troops were briefly deployed in August of that year as part of a ceasefire force and exited once the PLO decamped for Tunisia. They were back again soon enough when the Phalangists, a Lebanese national party, sent its militia into two camps in West Beirut on the coattails of the IDF and slaughtered more than 2,000 men, women and children. At the least, the Israelis failed to stop the massacre; at the worst, they facilitated it by arming the militia and blockading the camps.(5)

Reagan sent the ‘peacekeeping’ troops back in, at the request of the Lebanese government, but they armed and trained the Lebanese Army, thus becoming embroiled in the ongoing war themselves. The IDF also did its utmost to involve the Americans.(6) In April, the US embassy was attacked with a truck bomb, the third such attack – the Iraqi and French embassies had already been wrecked in similar fashion. Rather than exit stage left, the US president doubled-down. By the late summer, the Marines were being targeted by Muslim snipers on a daily basis. Reagan authorised air strikes and the Navy repeatedly bombarded Muslim positions over a period of weeks.(7)

Early on Sunday, October 23^rd, a lone bomber drove a truck through non-existent security (the Marine guards were not even allowed loaded weapons), lodged it in the lobby of Marine headquarters and detonated it. The result was the deaths of 243 soldiers. What then followed was a series of obfuscations, outright lies and special pleading from the president on down. It was decided that it would be labelled a ‘terrorist attack’, even though the target was military and the US had involved itself in someone else’s war.

Every other day of the year, the mission would have been regarded – by non-partisan actors – as legitimate; the investigating commission found that there was a direct link between the Navy shelling of Muslims and the attack on the Marines.(8) The arrogance and incompetence of the top brass in Beirut, who seemed to believe that they could do as they pleased, was exposed and hundreds lost their lives. It’s likely that the truck-bomber himself was from an Iranian-linked group (according to the CIA, so make of that what you will), but that’s about it.

A bombing, in Lebanon, by Lebanese Muslims fighting in the Lebanese Civil War against Americans who had exceeded their charter and were actively supporting the enemy. The outrage machine that accompanies any pushback against US actions is to be expected, but it’s pretty thin gruel as a justification for the ongoing war. None of which prevents the current administration and the entire ‘conservative’ blogosphere from railing against the ‘terror regime’ in Tehran which dares to quibble with America’s ‘divine mission’, as many would characterise it – including some in uniform.

The US had already involved itself in the Middle East in a big way. Nixon had found himself without a chair when the Bretton Woods music finally stopped in 1971. The post-war Bretton Woods arrangement had been straightforward. Forty three allied countries agreed to peg their currencies to the dollar, which in turned was pegged to gold at a fixed rate. By this mechanism, currencies were stable and all dollars owned were convertible to gold at a known rate, as required, or in a circumstance where a country harboured some doubts as to the virility of the dollar. Because the dollar was backed by gold, there was strong demand for the currency. The ensuing problems weren’t founded on the arrangement itself, but on the fallibility of human nature.

LBJ got the ball rolling in earnest and was responsible for a vast expansion in federal deficit spending to finance both the Vietnam War and the Great Society; the creation of Medicare and Medicaid stem from this period. Spending money that it didn’t have became a temptation too difficult for government to resist. After all, the dollar was the anchor of the world financial system, so liberties could be taken with little risk; or so it was believed – by Americans.

Other countries came to feel rather differently. Economies such as Japan, Germany and France were dependent on the US dollar to maintain the economic growth that they were enjoying and the reckless deficit spending and large trade deficits which were becoming a permanent feature of the American policy landscape did not inspire confidence. The element causing the most disquiet was the foundational commitment to peg the dollar to gold at $35 an ounce.

America had accumulated vast new debt, did not have the money to pay for it and was haemorrhaging its gold reserves as nation after nation redeemed its dollars. As 1971 progressed, it became apparent that the Bretton Woods agreement was in its death throes. Having to become the global gold repository, in order to satisfy foreigners who doubted the strength of the dollar, had never been part of the US plan; the idea was that the gold backstop engendered trust in the dollar, trust which had now been compromised.(4)

There were solutions to hand, two in particular, but both shared one unattractive attribute. They required fiscal responsibility. The US could have got its economic house in order, ameliorated deficit spending and reduced its trade deficit or it could have renegotiated the rate of dollar to gold conversion and similarly exercised monetary restraint in the aftermath. It chose to do neither, but to instead untether the dollar from gold and abandon any further pretence. This is what is now known as The Nixon Shock.

But some other arrangement was nonetheless needed if the US government was to continue splashing the cash like a drunken sailor on shore leave. Bretton Woods had propped up the dollar artificially and, with demand set to crater, birds would come home to roost. That would never do. Fortunately, the Saudis saw an opportunity to have their cake and eat it, although the arrangement took four long years to implement. We know it as petrodollars, which are US dollars that are received by oil producers in payment for oil and which are then deposited in Western banks.

This system, arrived at via a 1974 agreement with the Saudi Arabians, was introduced by virtue of the Saudis insisting that every nation that wished to purchase oil from them had to pay for it in US dollars:

“The petrodollar was a simple deal. The Gulf states price their oil in dollars, recycle the surplus into US Treasuries, and in exchange get American military protection. Clean, elegant, and - for fifty years - it actually worked. The US got permanent demand for its currency and its debt. The Gulf got security guarantees backed by the most powerful military on earth.”(9)

By 1975, all of the oil producing countries of OPEC (the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries) had decided to take advantage of a similar offer. Et voilà. A long term guaranteed demand, not just for US dollars, but for the purchase of government debt as well and all the Americans had to do was – notionally – protect the Gulf States (an agreement that had already been in place since 1945). The Sunni Gulf States. The ones with US bases festooned across the landscape, like this.

Figure 2

These bases have been sold as the muscle that backs up the guarantee. Not everyone in the region was onboard with the Gulf States’ leadership, however – not that their opinions were sought. The Arab clergy (and the public) were largely of the view that they had been sold down the river and that Arabian autonomy was now denominated in US dollars.(10) An impartial observer might be tempted to give credence to such a view, given that the vaunted ‘joint venture’ reads far more like an American corporate takeover, with millions of foreign professionals ‘guiding’ the OECD governments. It would not be difficult to understand why Arab patriots might feel humiliated by the US presence in the region.

Iran, though, was a founder member of OPEC, as were Iraq and Libya. There were no US bases in these countries. Iran is over 90% Shia Muslim, Iraq was around 61% Shia (although Saddam was Sunni) and Gaddafi’s Libya was overwhelmingly Sunni. Hussein, however, was America’s friend (until he wasn’t), so the free-thinking Gaddafi and the CIA’s epic fail of a regime in Iran were the problem children, along with non-OPEC Syria, a Sunni nation ruled by Alawites (a Shia offshoot).

Neither Saddam nor Gaddafi ran theocratic regimes; their fates were sealed when they started getting ideas beyond their station. The former, having failed to come to heel after getting pummelled in the First Gulf War, devoted a deal of energy to a campaign to sell Iraq’s oil in euros.(11)(12) Libya went further yet, proposing a new currency – the gold dinar – for Arab and African countries, reviving an earlier idea that had failed to gain traction due to “a number of unexplained deaths, murders, plane crashes, sanctions, guerilla warfare and NATO interventions.”(13) We know what happened to those two.

But Iran (and Syria) hung on in there, despite ruinous sanctions which, in the former’s case, have been in place in one form or another since 1979. In 1984, Reagan first designated Iran as a State Sponsor of Terrorism, whilst at the same time arming the regime on the down-low which, to a normal person, might seem a little counter-intuitive, not to say hypocritical. The US consistently claims that Iran sponsors groups whose interests “run counter to US interests in other conflicts”,(14) such as the Houthis, Hamas and Hezbollah, although it is the US that has involved itself in the region and it is often US allies that are targeted. That said:

“Iran has also backed groups that...attacked US soldiers in Iraq, and fought against US allies in Syria.”(15)

The mullahs are prepared, in exceptional circumstances, to fund Sunni groups such as Hamas, if they can reliably hassle the US, Israel or the Saudis. Mostly, the proxy battles are concerned with disputing regional hegemony with Saudi Arabia, and the groups that are funded also have their own interests, independent of Iran. The other Gulf States do not sit idly by, either. Qatar was sending Hamas $30 million a month as of late 2023, for instance.(16) Turkey also lends support. The UN sends Hamas money that is used to construct fortifications. Israel, too, from as far back as 1977. Netanyahu is an advocate – this is him, in 2019, addressing Likud party members:

“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas. This is part of our strategy.”(17)

Divide and conquer, you see. The Americans themselves proposed training and financing a force of 5,000 PLO ‘commandos’ in the West Bank – this would be the same PLO responsible for Intifadas and scores of suicide bombings which, by any metric, were terrorist acts.(18) And these would be the same Americans who fund the Lebanese Army, knowing that the money and equipment they supply is used to uncover Israeli spy cells attempting to gather intelligence on Hezbollah and Hamas.(19) And also produce textbooks like this.

Figure 3

Daesh (ISIS) was created by US, British and Israeli intelligence and is funded by the US, the Saudis, Kuwait, Turkey and Qatar and uses US weaponry.(20)(21)(22)(23) I’m pretty sure ISIS is regarded as a terrorist organisation, notwithstanding the fact that one of Trump’s most recent buddies is Abu Mohammed al-Julani, ‘formerly’ of al-Qaeda and Islamic State, now recognised as the legitimate Syrian leader, following a CIA-sponsored coup. That would be this guy.

Figure 4

“What Iran’s done is support the Lebanese Hezbollah, the Palestinian Hamas, and the Yemeni Houthis in their wars against Israel. I’m no fan of the Iranian regime; the world would be better off without them. But everyone in the Muslim world is either a declared or covert enemy of Israel.”(24)

But some are more of a problem than others. Salafi-Jihadi groups – Sunnis – openly call for random violence against civilians, whereas ‘radical Shiites’ don’t, a distinction apparent in the Iranian response to the assassination of Soleimani by 45. In the aftermath, US troops were legitimate targets, but not Americans at large. Almost all Islamist attacks in the West have been committed by Sunnis, not Shiites. Funny how that fact doesn’t feature in mainstream communication, is it not? And strange that the US would have cosied up to the more venomous of the two branches.

It’s also worth noting that Iran’s GDP is around $375 billion per year. In contrast, the UAE’s is $569 billion, Saudi Arabia’s is $1.27 trillion and the US is going to be spending nearly a trillion dollars per annum on its military alone. Methinks that there is a distinct possibility that Iran’s mischievousness has been considerably over-emphasised and that context is almost entirely absent. US leadership is not hurrying to indict other sponsors of terrorism - because they’re mates with them - nor are they contemplating a mea culpe. Additionally, the Middle East has a flavour that’s all its own:

“It’s a neighbourhood where actors whack each other with sticks. If one of them whacks you, you *need* to come back with a bigger stick and whack them back (and harder) to show you’re serious....the issue is that if you whack someone in this region TOO hard/with too big of a stick...they actually start believing that you *actually* intend to kill them this time. In that case, they come back with a gun instead of a bigger stick.”(25)

It doesn’t sound like a region where restraint and hand-sitting are rewarded. But it does sound like a place with a highly flexible code of honour, a circumstance that the censorious, judgemental and perpetually sanctimonious US leadership is unwilling to allow. So, like always, they lie. They refuse to acknowledge that their own machinations and those of the Iranians are morally on a par, and that American mischief-making is considerably more pervasive, given the financial disparity. Instead, they prefer to focus on yet another sin of commission – Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

How do you imagine that Iran started down that road in the first place? After all, there are only nine nuclear powers in the world; the US, Russia, the UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel. Nuclear power plants operate in another twenty-two. So which country gave the Iranians the original assist? You’ve guessed it – the US, which even gifted Tehran a small reactor in 1967.(26) However, once Khomeini went off-script, about a fortnight after assuming power, all bets were off.

By 1998, Clinton was warning that weapons, not energy, was the goal and from 2003 onwards, the Iranians were under the microscope. The UN, in a rare departure, passed a resolution targeting one of Israel’s enemies, rather than Israel itself, and then went to work on sanctions. From there on in, it’s a story replete with claim and counter-claim, the assassination of nuclear scientists and, to the layperson, an impenetrable fog of assertions by inherently unreliable actors. Obama’s flawed reset in 2013, which purposely avoided any restrictions on ICBMs, didn’t survive the ascension of Orange Man Bad, who appears to harbour considerable animus for Iran.

It seems to me that we, the public, have no way of knowing the truth of the matter. I suspect that Iran wants nuclear weapons but, whilst India and Pakistan didn’t sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Iran did. Israel and the US are probably the best informed, but neither can be trusted to play it straight. The prospect of an Islamic fundamentalists’ finger hovering over the big red button is an appalling one and Israel, in particular, has a legitimate interest in preventing that outcome. Perhaps, then, last year’s bombing runs on Iran’s nuclear facilities pass the sniff test. Perhaps; although it would suit both Trump and Bibi to exaggerate.

The mullahs undoubtedly see things differently and, in fairness, the difference between the clerics and neocon sociopaths like Lindsey Graham may not be all that marked. They are also, no doubt, mindful of the lessons of history although, as far as I can tell, nobody on ‘our side’ has ever floated the possibility that defence, rather than offense, might be the primary objective. However, Saddam gave up his WMD programme under pressure and ended up in a hangman’s noose. Gaddafi eased off on his own similar programme and was sodomised with a bayonet before being beaten to death. Little Rocket Man, on the other hand, is now untouchable.

A nuclear bomb would reset the balance of Middle Eastern power in a profound way – although the Saudis would still benefit from America’s nuclear umbrella, the regional match up would now be on an equal footing and the Israelis might think twice before acting. However, the petrodollar merry-go-round relies upon at least the pretence that the Gulf States are getting some bang for their bucks, so Trump has an excuse to mount his white charger and do battle.

At least, he may have done last year, prior to the Twelve-Day War, but – if we recall – that was a resounding success, was it not? The most successful success ever, or some such? He was still banging on about it a week or so ago:

“Trump Tuesday night reiterated that Iran’s nuclear program had been ‘obliterated’ - and so it presents the contradiction of the US wanting to once again wipe out a nuclear program which the administration says is actually no longer there.”(27)

So far, then, none of the reasons given hold much in the way of water. Had Iran been at war with the US for the past 47 years, I’m reasonably confident that most Americans would at least be aware of it, rather than having to have it rammed down their throats by soy boys like Benny Johnson. The assertion that Iran was days away from making a nuclear weapon might be more credible if the boys and girls in the MIC hadn’t been crying wolf for the past thirty years. No evidence has been presented – either to Congress or to the public – which doesn’t necessarily mean anything either way, but the ‘trust, but verify’ days ought to be long in the past, by now.

Trump’s bluster about Iranian assassination attempts might be believed if evidence could be provided by the same agencies that have repeatedly (and provably) lied to us all for the past decade and more. And throwing the word ‘terrorist’ around whilst cosying up to ISIS, Qatar and other state sponsors is a workable definition of hypocrisy. All in all, then, a veritable cavalcade of bullshit, lies and unverifiable ‘trust me’ assertions.

There is one further, half-hearted justification that is being trotted out – that bombing the crap out of Iran (on top of the sanctions that have decimated the economy) is to the benefit of the Iranian people, toiling under the yoke of religious extremism. It’s not my impression that Trump and Hegseth care a single jot about ordinary Iranians but, as they both style themselves ‘Christians’ (kinda), perhaps they feel obligated to pretend that they do. So, here’s a starter for ten. Which Muslim country didn’t send a team to the ongoing Women’s Asia Cup football competition, because women and sport are mutually exclusive?

And, as a follow-up, which Middle Eastern theocracy requires a burkha, and which merely a headscarf? Answers, respectively; Afghanistan, Afghanistan and Iran. Yet the US has sent billions of dollars to the Taliban since the snafu also known as the US withdrawal,(28) but has crippled Iran with sanctions, prior to using the country as target practice. If you’re seeking to find the kind of moral authority claimed by Trump, you’ll be needing an excavator on a long lease. Perhaps, in the longer run, half a million dead kids will be an acceptable price again for ‘democracy’, as it was in Iraq according to Albright.(29)

I have no truck with Islam. If it was a political party, espousing second-class status for women, throwing gay people off the roofs of tall buildings and exhorting its adherents to kill infidels, it would be banned. If the Palestinians voted in Hamas and allowed it to use them as human shields – yet still approved of the militants – I’m not going to be draping a keffiyeh around my shoulders and claiming a genocide in Gaza. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. But, with the exception of Israel, the entire Middle East is Islamic; friends and enemies alike. It’s not my job – and it’s not your job – to tell them what they can and can’t believe.

None of America’s friends in the Gulf States are democracies. They are all absolute monarchies or sheikdoms; there are no meaningful elections amongst them. Human rights abuses of non-Muslims and foreign workers are a feature across them all. In Saudi Arabia, no political parties or national elections are allowed. The king must comply with Sharia, and the Quran and Sunnah (the traditions of Muhammad) comprise the constitution.(30) Trump’s buddy in Qatar presides over a political system that ranked 172^nd out of 179 on the Electoral Democracy Index last year.(31) He has also provided a safe haven for the Hamas leadership for many years.

Iran’s Supreme Leader is elected by the Assembly of Experts, eighty-eight members directly elected by the public, albeit from a thoroughly vetted list of candidates. The Guardian Council, an unelected 12-member council of clerics and lawyers, sits above the popularly elected legislature and may veto legislation. It also ensures that reform-minded candidates cannot run for office. The legislature – the Iranian Parliament – is not quite a paper tiger, as international treaties and the like must be approved by it.

The president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, elected by universal adult suffrage by Iranians of at least 18 years of age, is the 2 I/C, answering to the Supreme Leader. The Guardian Council has stated that there is no legal impediment to a woman being president. The president is responsible for the day-to-day running of the government, under supervision, and is effectively the XO. Sharia law, with elements of civil law, is the basis of the legal system and Iran’s human rights record – whilst downright poor - is in line with others in the region. On the other hand, Iran was the first country to introduce unconditional basic income. Nonetheless, turnout in presidential elections has dipped from 73% in 2017 to under 50% in 2024.(32)

The activists at V-Dem, whilst not to be wholly trusted ideologically, have Iran pegged as an electoral autocracy, one category up from the rest of the Gulf Countries.(33) It’s effectively “a republic nestled within a theocracy.”(34) Not the best overall, but far from the worst in the Islamic world. And, despite the electorate’s increasing ennui, one should exercise considerable caution when assessing the recent wall-to-wall reporting about ‘popular uprisings’ and ‘massacres’ (see The Law Of The Jungle). All is not as it seems.

The final thing that Trump’s excursion isn’t is Israel’s war. Does it benefit Israel? Yes. Was it coordinated with Israel? Again, yes; I think Netanyahu has visited the White House seven times since last June. Was it undertaken solely at Israel’s behest, as Rubio would have us believe? No, which Little Marco – of all people – knows well enough. The idea that Bibi could not be contained, so the US was obliged to undertake a pre-emptive strike to protect its assets in the region is a deflection. The ‘Greater Israel’, ‘Israel First’ numbskulls – those that can read, at any rate - know that Iran is a US priority and that the reasoning behind the targetting has nothing to do with Israel. Bibi is opportunistically making hay while the sun shines and the remainder of the Gulf States aren’t going to go to bat for a rogue Shia state. The petrodollar lives on, for now.

Iran, like Venezuela and Cuba, is being attacked because of China and China is being attacked because – geopolitically – the Great Reset is in the process of being hijacked. Not cancelled – captured and reconfigured. You remember the WEF’s infamous “you’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy” nostrum? Well, in the same video there was another prediction; “The US won’t be the world’s leading superpower. A handful of countries will dominate.”(35) I have never been able to reconcile that future with what we know of the character of the US predator class.

The rest of the gibberish – 3-D printed transplant organs, renting everything, the climate apocalypse, multiculturalism on steroids, heading to Mars to find alien life – was all of a piece, but the likelihood of American high net-worth sociopaths blending back into the pack voluntarily? Not so much. I could see them availing themselves of the digital control grid that is being erected around us, the better to enhance compliance and profits, but I couldn’t see them magnanimously surrendering their first-amongst-equals status. However, I couldn’t see how it was all going to pan out with Biden and his fellow travellers in the White House.

It’s taking shape now. Gone are the relatively non-interventionist, self-flagellating America-hating, collectivist wokesters, to be replaced by the previously dominant American exceptionalists, who are determined to halt multipolarity in its tracks and reassert American hegemony. There’ll be none of this ‘breaking bread with equals’ nonsense; it’ll be ‘do as we say or else’. At present, it’s being dressed up as some variation on the Monroe Doctrine – now reinterpreted as an all-powerful America in the Western hemisphere – but that’s only Phase One. Whilst Iran obviously isn’t in the West, China’s influence is. So, attack China’s Achilles heel, and reap the knock-on effects closer to home.

Venezuela was Round One, Iran is the follow-up. The Chinese are the top buyers of Iranian oil, although they claim that they aren’t. As much as 90% of Iran’s crude oil flows to China, in defiance of US sanctions, most of it on shadow fleet tankers.(36) In response to the attempt to stymie them via the global financial system, Beijing and Tehran have developed a parallel oil trading system, which is denominated in Chinese currency. But the hegemon cannot be seen to be defied, because others might also chance their arm.

So, it was only a matter of time before Trump – having degraded Iran’s defences – went after Kharg Island, which handles 90% of Iran’s crude oil exports. Which he duly did, claiming that he was only targeting military installations, but reserving the right to reconsider if Iran continues to block the Straits of Hormuz. Hot on the heels of that threat came yet another justification for US actions:

“Iran had plans for taking over the entire Middle East and completely obliterating Israel. JUST LIKE IRAN, THOSE PLANS ARE NOW DEAD.”(37)

The Marines are allegedly en-route, perhaps to Kharg Island itself, which would be an ambitious (for which read potentially suicidal) operation, as it is only 16 miles off the coast of Iran. Who knows? One bright spark over at American Thinker believes that it would be a good idea to occupy and keep the island “to deter future Iranian aggression, charging Iran top dollar fees for allowing it to export its oil.”(38) The calculation may be that if the Revolutionary Guard can’t get paid, the end would be nigh.

Figure 5

There would be the odd risk attached to taking out the oil terminal, the most notable being that the missiles that the Iranians have said they will launch at all the oil terminals in countries bordering the Persian Gulf are not to be found on the island, but elsewhere. The Saudis, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain would all be vulnerable. The potential targets include the largest marine oil loading centre in the world (capacity 6 million barrels a day) and the largest LNG terminal, too.(39) We don’t know whether the strategic geniuses in the Pentagon are fully cognisant of the potential downsides of attacking Kharg.

What we do know is that the US National Security Strategy is centred on denying China any kind of leadership, even in her own hemisphere. And, given that the US is effectively at war with her only other serious rival in Ukraine, it is clear that peaceful co-existence in the Brave New World is not on Trump’s agenda. No new wars? How about not stopping the one and starting the other? The entire strategy document is written in the tone that a hall monitor would use; it reeks of American exceptionalism. A few examples:

“We want other nations to see us as their partner of first choice, and we will (through various means) discourage their collaboration with others.”(40)

“The choice all countries should face is whether they want to live in an American-led world...or in a parallel one in which they are influenced by countries on the other side of the world.”(41)

The odd bromide is mixed in, not to be taken too seriously:

“It is natural and just that all nations put their interests first and guard their sovereignty...We stand for the sovereign rights of nations...”(42)

“The key to successful relations in the Middle East is accepting the region, its leaders, and its nations as they are...”(43)

The “country on the other side of the world” is in the cross-hairs, so it is apparent that Trump only stands for the sovereign rights of some nations. So much for leaving the Middle East be. Regardless of how long the war with Iran lasts – and it is a war – there will be consequences. Some of them are already becoming apparent.

The Kurds, for instance, are no longer persona non grata, as Trump casts around for people to do his dirty work for him. Having thrown them under the bus in Syria in order to curry favour with ISIS Boy, the Iranian chapter (currently across the border in Iran) is now being buttered up. Orange Man Bad wants them in the fight.(44) The CIA is, naturally, handing over small arms like candy.(45) But the Kurds appear hesitant, as well they might.

As well as Trump’s recent betrayal, they will remember Poppy Bush’s 1991 call for the Kurds to overthrow Saddam Hussein. When they attempted to do so, Bush did nothing to help – tens of thousands were killed and nearly two million displaced.(46) In total, the US has done the dirty on them at least nine times over the years, including another by Trump himself in 2019.(47)(48) Plus, the terrain is formidable (the Kurds would be attacking from the south-west) and a ground invasion is more likely to rally the Iranian people to the cause than splinter them. In the pantheon of stupid ideas, the proposal would be vying for a podium spot.

Figure 6

Then there’s the vast expense of the bombardment and the well-founded suspicion that the US is running out of munitions. The Pentagon reckons it’s spending a couple of billion a day, but that’s from an outfit that hasn’t passed an audit in eight years. Counting stuff does not appear to be its strong suit. The bill for missile defence alone is likely to be at least that high, without any allowance for deployment, logistical support and so forth.(49) In addition, the military has “already burned through stockpiles of critical munitions that would normally last for years.”(50) Cue a cranked-up printing press, higher interest rates and higher prices for American consumers.

Dr Strangelove assured all and sundry that “our munitions are full up and our will is iron-clad”,(51) but then he would, wouldn’t he? It would give the lie to previous claims that supplies were running low due to the extraordinary generosity of the American tax-payer in supplying Zelensky with American weaponry, to be sold-on at the weapons markets in the Khyber Pass and invested in his pension plan. Replacement weapons are not immediately available and Western capacity is underwhelming. Plus, China controls 79% of global tungsten mined output – tungsten is used in missile components and other weaponry – and Xi has (sensibly) decided that it would be foolish to provide a declared enemy with the means to inflict harm. So, it’s in short supply and the price is through the roof.(52)

Figure 7

I imagine that various governments who might be considered potential future targets are scribbling on the back of fag packets round about now, “but pacifists should rejoice; stupidity in military supply chains puts a binding limit on how many ... people we can kill.”(53) At the outset of the war (of choice, remember) Patriot interceptor systems inventories were only a quarter full and Tomahawks were also in short supply.(54)(55) That’s the kind of thing that happens when military contractors have spent $110 billion on stock buybacks within the past five years, boosting their share price, dividends and executive bonuses.(56) That’s American exceptionalism right there.

There is also the inevitable logjam in the Straits of Hormuz to consider and its longer term lag effect. As soon as the Iranians reacted to the assault by playing their ace in the hole, things got messy, quickly.

Figure 8

Who’d have thunk it? It isn’t necessarily the case that every tanker that chances its arm will get blown up - although at least eighteen have been hit since February 28^th -(57) but the risk sends insurance premiums sky high (or gets policies cancelled) and captains are understandably reluctant to risk lives and hundreds of millions of dollars of assets. Trump told everyone not to worry, the US will cover the insurance costs and the US Navy will escort vessels through, but the sailors had other ideas and risk-assessed themselves out of the game.

The Mensa-nominated Secretary of War, one of the world’s most distinguished hair-splitters, noted that (technically) the Straits are open for transit, if one disregards the fact that Iran is shooting at shipping.(58) That’s what you get when hair-gel, lapel pins and perfectly aligned pocket handkerchiefs are the prerequisites for the top job. To the rest of us, it seems those cheap, one-way Iranian drones are a bit of a bugger. This is the damage they inflicted on the Port of Salah in Oman.

Figure 9

A fifth of the world’s oil supply goes through the Straits plus a third of the world’s fertiliser and, at present, it’s a zero-sum game. Iran’s boats get through – as do Chinese and Indian vessels – and Western boats don’t. The mullahs have now come up with another jolly wheeze; they will let a limited number of tankers through, provided they trade their cargo in Chinese yuan.(59) Trump is naturally upset that the Iranians aren’t prostrating themselves before him, but they don’t seem to be particularly keen to throw in the towel.

They say that they don’t want a ceasefire, because “the aggressor must be punished and taught a lesson.”(60) They may (or may not) be laying mines, which Trump wants removed immediately – naturally. I’m not convinced that they’re going to listen; after all, they haven’t so far. And if Trump ramps up the bombing campaign in response, the likelihood is that the US will simply run out of munitions sooner. If mines are being laid, I can’t see the president ending the war until the problem is fixed and sending minesweepers into the Straits would seem to be a risky business.

And it’s difficult to see how the US could back away if Iran is still dispatching missiles – there have been 48 waves of missile and drone attacks, so far.(61) In short, the decision as to the war’s duration may no longer be Trump’s to make. I am not and never have been a military man, but it does seem to me that this war is a tad asymmetrical, inasmuch as the seemingly huge effort required to completely neutralise Iran’s offensive capabilities can be undone by the deployment of a relatively limited numbers of mines (or the belief that they’ve been deployed) and/or a handful of missile strikes on key targets.

Perhaps there’s a touch of rope-a-dope about Iran’s defensive strategy, and perhaps the Americans are okay with their allies paying more for everything as long as China suffers, too. And China would suffer disproportionately if the Straits were sealed, as would India and Japan.(62) Or – just maybe – they haven’t thought it through properly and, if the shock and awe strategy fails, there isn’t much of a Plan B. It’s beginning to look that way. And there were seemingly well-founded rumours that the top brass at the Department of War thought the war ill-conceived.(63)

Continually muddying the waters as to what constitutes a win might seem clever, but it is somewhat undermined by Trump’s demands for unconditional surrender, which don’t leave a lot of room for an off-ramp. And threatening more of the same unless Iran stops fighting back sounds more like bluster than strategy:

“Trump has blown the opportunity to say we taught them a lesson, back off, and declare victory—like he did when supposedly destroying their nuclear facilities in June. He’s made it an existential fight for the Iranian regime, with elements of religious war. Which is especially dangerous in a region full of true believers.”(64)

One might argue that America’s bluff is already in the process of being called. That pesky petrodollar deal – previously a one way track, paved with fiat money – has now become due, and it turns out that those US bases across the Gulf aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. Dmitry Medvedev, not a man renowned for rhetorical restraint, nonetheless got it at least mostly right:

“The Gulf Arab countries let American bases onto their territory. Naively, they expected protection from them. Like hell! The US just uses them...they’re not protection, they’re a threat.”(65)

The Iranians knows that US bases in the region have been used, for mid-air refuelling at the least. They also know that other Gulf states have allowed US troops to launch attacks from their territories:

“Empty ATAMCS containers were found in the desert[s] of Kuwait and Bahrain. The missiles were used by U.S. troops using HIMARS launchers to fire towards Iran. A recent failure by a U.S. bomber pilot to shut off his air transponder showed that Saudi airspace was used to fuel U’S bombers for attacks in Iran.”(66)

We are not citizens of Iran, but if we were, we would likely be pissed, no matter our opinion of the mullahs. I suspect few of us hail from Bahrain or Dubai, but I imagine they are not best pleased to be in receipt of incoming, either. Not what being an ‘ally’ of the US is supposed to be about. It doesn’t help when the neocon’s neocon is shooting his mouth – in familiar fashion – as a billionaire from the UAE has noted:

“And the clearest thing of all is what Senator Graham himself said when he spoke about oil. He stated that Iran and Venezuela hold together 31% of global oil reserves, and that the United States could establish a partnership with this share of the world’s oil, and that it would be a nightmare for China...”(67)

In the meantime, the Trump administration’s master planners and the rest of the 32-member International Energy Agency (IEA) have approved a 400-million barrel release from Strategic Petroleum Reserves, to help deal with an emergency entirely of America’s doing. In total, the US will release 172 million barrels out of the 415 million held, which will take about three months to deliver. The Energy Secretary’s take on that was to rejoice at Trump’s responsible stewardship of America’s energy security.(68)

Other measures are coming on-stream. Scott Bessent, the Treasury Secretary, graciously granted India a short-term waiver, which gave them permission to buy Russian oil. Scott The Merciful. The Indians responded unnecessarily brusquely, stating that “India has never depended on permission from any country to buy Russian oil.”(69) Which would seem to be the case as, despite Trumpian bullying, Russia is still India’s largest crude oil supplier. And, as Russian crude does not go through the Straits, it is much sought after at present. Putin has signalled that he’s prepared to assist the Europeans with long-term supply deals, if they can “reorient themselves” and ditch their habitual sanctimony.(70) Easier said than done, I would think. The Belgian PM made noises to that effect and got sawn off at the knees by the Eurocrats.(71)

Perhaps the most notable development is what looks a lot like a planned rapprochement between the US and Russia. Bessent has announced that Russia, like India, is to be granted some sanctions relief for a calendar month. All oil or petroleum products that had been loaded onto vessels by March 12^th - which are now ‘stranded at sea’ – can be sold in petrodollars.(72) However, the devil is in the details. Three days after Trump and Putin met in Alaska, the Russians restarted their Arctic-2 LNG terminals and, for the past six months, have been pumping sanctioned oil and gas and storing the product on ‘floating platforms’, despite the lack of customers and the expense and risk involved. Now all of that oil and gas – worth double – can be sold worldwide.(73)

What should we make of that? Or, more importantly, what are other countries going to make of that? It is my suspicion that most of them are going to break out Occam’s Razor and conclude that Trump gave Putin a heads-up last August. They might further surmise that perhaps 47 has found a way to break free of the shackles of his Deep State, by providing a boost to Russia’s war-chest whilst simultaneously depleting US weapons stockpiles to critical levels, thus starving Zelensky of materiel. Maybe.

Intended or otherwise, those are the facts on the ground. It would certainly have been prudent to have a word in Putin’s shell-like, as the Russians are ostensibly Iran’s allies and are in possession of hypersonics that are capable of shredding US carrier-groups. But, if that is Trump’s strategy, it is not without its downsides – the further erosion of trust, for one. The US has now used talks as a cover for war preparations on three separate occasions in the past year; with Venezuela and twice with Iran.

Witkoff and Kushner made some maximalist demands of Iran, which would have required the country to completely surrender its capacity to defend itself. Nonetheless, according to the Omani chief mediator on CBS’s Face the Nation, a draconian nuclear agreement was “within our reach,”(74) one that would have involved zero stockpiling of enriched nuclear material. Oman is a long-standing intermediary in US-Iran diplomacy, with a reputation for honesty and discretion. Making like a talking head on US television is not their style, but my guess is that their envoy knew (or had a suspicion as to) what was coming:

“The Iranians naturally had to think long and hard before agreeing to all our terms. Therefore, they held a full meeting of their top leadership to decide whether to do so. But prompting the Iranians to hold such a high-level meeting had apparently been the underlying goal of our entire negotiating strategy...with so many of Iran’s leaders thus gathered together in one place, they were all killed by an Israeli missile strike, an attack that essentially constituted our official declaration of war..”(75)

This from a US establishment that has spent the past 85 years whingeing about “a date which will live long in infamy,” even though they boxed-in Japan and knew Pearl Harbor was coming, as they had cracked the Japanese Navy’s code. Trump also broke the taboo on assassinating (not just kidnapping) national leaders - together with their extended families - which had already been undermined by American collusion in Zelensky’s attempts to take out Putin, of which there have been at least two. The US president also doubled-down, saying he would be prepared to kill the new Ayatollah, too, if he’s insufficiently poodle-like.(76) That’s the Leader of the Free World speaking. Inspiring, isn’t it? That kind of rhetoric often results in unintended consequences:

“When a regime perceives a threat as existential rather than coercive, incentives for restraint decline sharply, making maximal retaliation and prolonged conflict more likely.”(77)

Trump would have us believe that this time it’s different. Except it isn’t – not really. And no matter what the right-of-centre commentariat proclaims, the whole point of Trump was that he was different in a very specific way – he was supposedly the people’s champion, the blue collar worker’s hero, the sworn enemy of the DC Swamp and the Deep State. He claimed as much every chance he got and, in consequence, found himself under relentless attack; for four years in the White House and another three-and-a-half whilst in exile. He cannot, therefore, be judged by the usual metrics. Dare I say it, but he seemed to be a stickler for fairness, both for himself and others and attacking the Swamp explicitly involved standing up for the little guy and making things right.

Whatever MAGA and America First really meant was pretty obvious back then. ‘America First’ emphatically wasn’t the 0.1% predator class. It was about bringing jobs home, breathing life into the increasingly empty husk of the Rust Belt, repudiating the ‘Anywheres’ in favour of the ‘Somewheres’. In foreign policy terms, it was a promise to put the interests of those Americans first when acting on the world stage.

It wasn’t explicitly isolationist – and beware of anyone using straw man rhetoric like that, as there is a considerable difference between getting involved in foreign entanglements and pulling up the drawbridge – but in rejecting nation-building, regime change interjections and ‘forever wars’, it was a repudiation of Team America as the World’s Police. Mediator, maybe – enforcer, no. And in reality, America had never been genuine global law enforcement, but a corrupt bully in uniform.

The presumption that America has the right to tell other nations how to conduct themselves is wrong and has not resulted in “peace and prosperity but an unending series of wars and crises.”(78) And it was only the other day that we were being showered with that President of Peace dreck, yet Trump’s record of aggression is worse that any of his recent predecessors, with power to add.

Figure 10

Yet we are told that the ‘MAGA coalition’ is holding together. Serious writers like Paul Gottfried and Srdja Trifkovic join court-approved stenographers like VDH and previously reliable commentators such as Roger Kimball and J B Shurk in twisting themselves into pretzels so that they might remain aboard the Trump Train. They do so at varying levels of erudition, but it all comes out the same – some variation on ‘might is right’, no matter how well-dressed. None seem to be familiar with the stricture which asserts that “with great power comes great responsibility,” probably because, to them, Marvel comics’ only utility is as an emergency supply of paper in the smallest room. However, most people, I believe, would not quibble with the sentiment.

In addition, those who wrap themselves in the cloak of Christianity – and there are whole squadrons of them – would have been wise to consult the Ten Commandments as a core part of their textual ruminations, particularly the Third and Sixth; those to with with not taking God’s name in vain and not killing. I don’t know where God stands on killing in self-defence, but combining religiosity with a war of choice would seem to be a clear-cut no-no. But American Christians (a term that, in many cases, doesn’t seem to mean what it should) supported Dubya’s carnage and they aren’t exactly weeping and wailing this time around, either. Which is odd:

“...If there is any group of people that should be opposed to war, bloodshed, death, destruction, militarism, and the warfare state...it is Christians, and especially conservative, evangelical and fundamentalist Christians who claim to strictly follow the dictates of Scripture and worship the Prince of Peace.”(79)

Although this is odder, published by a website run by ‘American Christians’.

Figure 11

Trump’s reaction to the near-certain mass-murder of well over 100 young schoolgirls by the US Navy – that inaccurate Iranian weapons were to blame, even though video clearly shows a Tomahawk missile inbound -(80) when twinned with his declaration from his second inaugural address that he was “saved by God to make America great again”,(81) is suggestive of a man with a Woodrow Wilson-sized Messiah Complex.

Trifkovic maintains that Trump is simply the latest in a long line of ‘strongmen’ forcing the weak to assume the position, only unapologetically, which is seen as a virtue. Presumably, he (and others) are okay with 47’s declaration that “I am killing them” and “what a great honor it is to.”(82) But the whole point of Trump was that he wasn’t a neocon with narcissistic tendencies, unlike Lincoln, both Roosevelts, the aforementioned Wilson, LBJ and the Bush Clan. Except that is what he has become, for whatever reason:

“Knocking the bejesus out of Iran is easy... but military action needs to serve a coherent political strategy—and so far, the administration hasn’t shown any signs of having formulated one. The devil-may-care attitude comes in part, I think, from a conviction that God is on America’s side.”(83)

It may be that he avoids a protracted conflict and boots on the ground, thus allowing some of the dimmer ‘conservative’ bulbs to continue claiming that he isn’t dumping all over his legitimate base which, in reality, doesn’t include any of the online ‘MAGA influencers’ being paid to astroturf the rest of us. But forgoing ‘forever wars’ does not a hero make. Sure, it means that there is a limit on the number of Americans required to sacrifice themselves for the MIC and Wall Street, but it is likely that other proxies will die instead and, regardless of the duration of the conflict, it is the fact that it has happened at all that is the problem.

Whether or not Trump manages to Svengali his genuine supporters into supporting his actions, he has still – objectively – betrayed them. How else would you spin this, from the campaign trail in 2024, when he also sad that “a vote for Donald Trump is a vote to end wars, not to start them”:

“These globalists want to squander all of America’s strength, blood and treasure, chasing monsters and phantoms overseas while keeping us distracted from the havoc they’re creating here at home.”(84)

That hasn’t aged well.

Figure 12

We are being lied to and manipulated. That’s supposed to be what the other side does – the ends justifies the means crew. When our side does, I can guarantee you that things have gone sideways. It’s not just the fact that Trump is betraying those that voted for him; it’s that he seems to be relishing doing so. The influencers are doing their utmost to gaslight the faithful, using all the Bernays-style psychological triggers, but I’m not convinced that it’s working. There’s only so much lipstick you can slather on a pig. I’m tired of the bullshit and the narcissism. I’m tired of the propagandists/liars who claim to be MAGA and the tribal numpties that treat everything they say as gospel.

And I’m especially tired of the religiosity that accompanies it all, which presents as a uniquely American flavour of hubristic projection. Anyone who prays that they will be victorious is a complete tool; how could they possibly assume that they know God’s plan? Seems to me that prayer in those circumstances ought to consist of ‘Thy will be done’ and that should be all she wrote. Last time I checked, this wasn’t the Crusades 2.0.

“Look at the world of international law as a sleazy nightclub with 200 customers. Some are going to be raucous, some will be quiet; some are friendly, some are aggressive; some smart, some stupid... And there’s no cop to keep order. The world is just like that bar. No written rules, just some vague understandings. And lots of misunderstandings. The US used to be the toughest customer in the saloon of international law, buying friends with free drinks. But he’s turned into a mean drunk who’s overdrawn his tab. The other customers who used to tolerate his eccentricities have started to dislike, disrespect, and resent him.”(85)

That, I fear, is where we are. And espousing private Christian beliefs and then choosing to murder innocents - the women and children of Khameini’s extended family - is not a good look. There are signs that worms are turning. So far, for instance, no country appears to be keen to get involved in the Straits. Meloni, a staunch ally of Trump’s, doesn’t believe the war has much of anything to do with Italy. It’s not my impression that – other than Israel – any US ally is on board with this war. Rubio and Vance are nowhere to be seen. No-one knows whether regime-change is still an objective or, indeed, whether unconditional surrender is still the only satisfactory outcome for Trump. However it turns out, I think it will go down as an unforced error.

Citations

(1) https://nypost.com/2026/03/06/us-news/pakistani-terrorist-recruited-by-iranian-spies-convicted-of-plotting-to-kill-trump-other-us-pols-in-harebrained-plan-foiled-by-feds/

(2) William Engdahl, A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order, � 1992, 2004. Pluto Press Ltd. Pages 171-174.

(3) https://consortiumnews.com/2006/102706.html

(4) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Contra_affair#First_few_arms_sales

(5)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabra_and_Shatila_massacre#Foreign_reporters’_testimonies

(6) https://wikispooks.com/wiki/1982_Lebanon_War

(7) https://jimbovard.com/blog/2026/03/06/1983-beirut-barracks-bombing-proves-u-s-policymakers-are-incorrigible/

(8) Ditto

(9)

Gold and Geopolitics

The Bretton Whoops

I’m pulling myself away from the Iran war coverage for a moment - don’t worry, the wrap-up is coming later today. But something needed saying first…

Read more

6 months ago · 214 likes · 96 comments · No1

(10) William R. Clark (2005) Petrodollar Warfare: Oil, Iraq and the Future of the Dollar, New Society Publishers, ISBN: 978-0865715141, page 194.

(11) William Dowell. “Foreign Exchange: Saddam Turns His Back on Greenbacks”, Time Magazine, New York City, Monday, Nov. 13, 2000, accessed Nov. 14, 2014.

(12) https://www.rferl.org/a/1095057.html

(13) https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Petrodollar

(14) https://www.american.edu/sis/news/20240205-understanding-irans-use-of-terrorist-groups-as-proxies.cfm

(15) Ditto

(16) https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20231014-qatar-iran-turkey-and-beyond-the-galaxy-of-hamas-supporters

(17)

(18) https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/blinken-builds-palestinian-hezbollah-in-wes

(19) https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/america-leaves-israel-eyeless-in-gaza

(20) https://time.com/2992269/isis-is-an-american-plot-says-iran/

(21)

(22) https://www.thedailybeast.com/americas-allies-are-funding-isis/ 2

(23) https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/01/why-iraq-black-hole-american-arms/

(24) https://www.lewrockwell.com/2026/03/doug-casey/cost-of-the-iran-war-and-why-it-will-fuel-inflation/

(25) https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1779259753597685952.html

(26) https://edition.cnn.com/2012/03/06/world/meast/iran-timeline/index.html

(27) https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/trump-tells-iran-war-can-be-averted-if-it-says-those-secret-words

(28) https://burchett.house.gov/media/burchett-opinions/rep-tim-burchett-your-tax-dollars-are-going-taliban

(29) https://www.lewrockwell.com/2026/03/no_author/trump-says-practically-nothing-left-to-target/

(30) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabia

(31) https://www.v-dem.net/documents/61/v-dem-dr__2025_lowres_v2.pdf

(32) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Iranian_presidential_election

(33) https://www.v-dem.net/documents/61/v-dem-dr__2025_lowres_v2.pdf

(34)

Roshni

A Look into the Structure of the Iranian Government

Maida Minhaj - 18/04/25…

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a year ago · 1 like · Roshni

(35)

(36) https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/27/china-us-sanctions-shadow-fleet-top-iranian-oil-buyer-trade.html

(37) https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116224518730089644

(38)https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/03/the_kharg_island_occupation_gambit.html

(39) https://www.lewrockwell.com/2026/03/no_author/trumps-kharg-island-fantasy-all-bark-no-bite/

(40) 2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf page 17.

(41) 2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf page 18.

(42) 2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf page 9.

(43) 2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf page 28.

(44) https://archive.ph/5YjUN#selection-461.68-461.168

(45) https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/03/politics/cia-arming-kurds-iran

(46) https://realclearwire.com/articles/2026/03/06/operation_epic_fury_-_deja_vu_1168769.html

(47) https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/kurds-do-not-trust-us-use-them-proxy-force-against-iran

(48) https://www.lewrockwell.com/2026/03/no_author/trumps-kharg-island-fantasy-all-bark-no-bite/

(49) https://www.theamericanconservative.com/why-would-the-kurds-do-americas-dirty-work/

(50) https://www.lewrockwell.com/2026/03/doug-casey/cost-of-the-iran-war-and-why-it-will-fuel-inflation/

(51) https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/03/ft-report-iran-war-draining-years-worth-us/

(52) https://www.zerohedge.com/military/armor-piercing-ammo-metal-557-china-chokes-supply-war-demand-surges

(53) https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/03/ft-report-iran-war-draining-years-worth-us/

(54) https://prospect.org/2026/03/12/iran-war-trump-military-america-israel-ukraine-bombs-supply-chains/

(55) https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/08/us-pentagon-military-plans-patriot-missile-interceptor

(56) https://www.military.com/daily-news/investigations-and-features/2025/10/20/navy-burned-through-30-years-of-missiles-15-months-now-it-cant-replenish-fleet.html

(57) https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-08/us-defense-majors-face-a-110-billion-conundrum-to-please-trump

(58) https://www.news18.com/world/strait-of-hormuz-under-fire-18-ships-hit-as-war-escalates-full-list-ws-l-9957779.html

(59)

(60) https://thecradle.co/articles/iran-mulls-allowing-tankers-through-strait-of-hormuz-if-trade-conducted-in-yuan-report

(61) https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog-march-10-2026/

(62) https://alt-market.us/war-oil-and-debt-which-threats-to-the-us-economy-are-legit/

(63) https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/dan-caine-trump-khamenei-iran-strikes-b2926406.html

(64) https://www.lewrockwell.com/2026/03/doug-casey/cost-of-the-iran-war-and-why-it-will-fuel-inflation/

(65)

Gold and Geopolitics

The Bretton Whoops

I’m pulling myself away from the Iran war coverage for a moment - don’t worry, the wrap-up is coming later today. But something needed saying first…

Read more

6 months ago · 214 likes · 96 comments · No1

(66) https://www.lewrockwell.com/2026/03/no_author/war-on-iran-oil-prices-lag-supply-deficit-arabs-wont-fight-iran-khamenei-son-succeeds-father/ 66##

(67) Ditto

(68) https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/us-begin-86-million-barrel-spr-dump-next-week-exchange-program

(69) https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/never-dependent-on-permission-government-official-on-us-waiver-for-india-to-import-russian-oil/articleshow/129212514.cms

(70) https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/putin-says-energy-crisis-has-arrived-russia-ready-work-with-europe-2026-03-09/

(71) https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-16/europeans-criticize-de-wever-s-call-to-normalize-russia-ties

(72) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2026/03/13/secretary-bessent-announces-narrowly-tailored-short-term-sanction-relief-for-russia/#more-281480

(73) Ditto

(74) https://thefreethoughtproject.com/antiwar/trumps-war-of-choice-oman-reveals-iran-agreement-was-imminent

(75) https://www.unz.com/runz/is-america-winning-or-losing-the-war-with-iran/

(76) https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/iran-war-us-israel-trump-2026/card/trump-open-to-khamenei-being-killed-if-he-doesn-t-cede-to-u-s-demands-hl9KqawqqO2pCCWODSej

(77) https://www.theamericanconservative.com/after-iran-its-turkey/

(78) https://amgreatness.com/2026/03/14/against-the-iran-war/

(79) https://www.lewrockwell.com/2026/03/laurence-m-vance/the-resurgence-of-christian-militarism/

(80)

(81) https://www.theamericanconservative.com/in-iran-trumps-luck-runs-out/

(82) https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/us-says-ayatollah-wounded-disfigured-while-other-iranian-leaders-defiantly-march

(83) https://www.theamericanconservative.com/in-iran-trumps-luck-runs-out/

(84) https://www.lewrockwell.com/2026/03/laurence-m-vance/the-resurgence-of-christian-militarism/

(85) https://www.lewrockwell.com/2026/03/doug-casey/cost-of-the-iran-war-and-why-it-will-fuel-inflation/

Figure 1 https://nypost.com/2026/03/06/us-news/pakistani-terrorist-recruited-by-iranian-spies-convicted-of-plotting-to-kill-trump-other-us-pols-in-harebrained-plan-foiled-by-feds/

Figure 2 https://www.reuters.com/graphics/ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS/USA-MILITARY-BASES/zdvxnnynmvx/chart.png

Figure 3 https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2026/03/hezbollah_s_lebanon_america_s_failed_experiment.html

Figure 4 https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Abu_Mohammad_al-Julani

Figure 5 https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/03/the_kharg_island_occupation_gambit.html

Figure 6 https://as2.ftcdn.net/v2/jpg/00/12/79/41/1000_F_12794134_yRrSkpTNzu7QA3aTXe6VwUXUMtGd2Vgq.jpg

Figure 7 https://www.zerohedge.com/military/armor-piercing-ammo-metal-557-china-chokes-supply-war-demand-surges

Figure 8 https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/risk-attack-too-high-us-navy-refuses-provide-escorts-ships-transiting-hormuz-strait

Figure 9

/photo/1

Figure 10 https://www.lewrockwell.com/2026/03/david-stockman/the-stupidest-and-potentially-most-dangerous-war-since-1945/

Figure 11 https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/03/whos-been-killed-job-openings-iranian-regime/

Figure 12 https://www.lewrockwell.com/2026/03/david-stockman/the-stupidest-and-potentially-most-dangerous-war-since-1945/

The first observation that I will make is that, for the most part, we share an internal mechanism that we appear to have been born with, rather than learning it as we go along. Which is not to say that nurture doesn’t feature at all, but that it builds on something that is already present:

“The majority of human beings have an inherent sense of good and evil; we often refer to this condition as conscience or moral compass. The intuitive inner voice that guides us and warns us when we stray into “the dark side” is a product of archetypal knowledge – What psychologist Carl Jung described as a set of inborn complexes or symbols that tap into our deepest emotions and sense of identity. All our social interactions are in some way affected by these archetypes...”(1)

Which, in a universe allegedly birthed in chaos and characterised by randomness, is a peculiar state of affairs. I appreciate that statements concerning nature and nurture are necessarily a tad contentious and that there are those who would be keen to give the concepts of ‘social construct’ and ‘evolutionary psychology’ a seat at the table, also. I make no claims, either way – merely observations. One of which is that cultures which differ markedly in many respects still seem to share some basic morality:

“First, as the work of Carl Jung (and by extension anthropologists like Joseph Campbell) exposed, all human beings no matter where in the world they are born, from the most isolated tribe in the Amazon to the largest metropolis in America, carry the same archetypal symbols in their psyche. That is to say, we ALL have the same psychological elements in our minds regardless of environment.”(2)

This is not a finding that is limited to the present time. Societies with no interaction and separated by thousands of years all have similar symbols, archetypes and building blocks for ideologies. Humans are made a certain way. Would this not, in turn, suggest that what is good and what is ‘evil’ is not, in fact, in the eye of the beholder? Not a matter of opinion, after all? Not the product of religious conditioning, but concepts that form part of our psyche from birth? And that evil is present in those who manage to train their minds to ignore conscience and carry on regardless, dumping on the moral order in the process? After all, “without objective truth there can be no order, and without order evil prevails.”(3) That seems to me to be at least somewhat logical.

Then there’s the notion of intelligent design. As a layperson, unacquainted with scientific nuts and bolts, this was a proposition that I found compelling, simply going by the evidence of my eyes. It seems that I was far from alone, even amongst the secular scientific community. This is one such scientist’s response to the possibility that the information contained in DNA code could have evolved by chance:

“Nobody I know in my profession believes it evolved. It was engineered by “genius beyond genius” and such information could not have been written any other way.”(4)

We return, again, to another analogy that points up the unlikelihood of randomness as an explanation for life, not something that is ever quantified by those who claim they are truth-tellers – this with reference to the Big Bang Theory:

“The big bang scenario speculates that the marvelously ordered universe randomly resulted from a gigantic explosion ... Never in the history of human experience has a chaotic explosion been observed producing an intricate order that operates purposefully. An explosion in a print shop does not produce an encyclopedia. A tornado sweeping through a junkyard does not assemble a Boeing 747. No building contractor dumps his materials on a vacant lot, attaches dynamite, and then waits for a completed home from the resulting bang. The idea is absurd.”(5)

When it’s put like that, it does seem rather unlikely. As are the odds that Earth would be located in the ‘Goldilocks Zone’, a region around a star where conditions allow life to flourish.(6) In addition, if the Moon wasn’t where it is, the Earth’s tilt would be all over the shop, causing extreme climate shifts. Our planet’s magnetic field also shields us from harmful solar radiation that would, otherwise, probably strip us of atmosphere (“a perfect blend of components needed to sustain life”) and water.(7)

Our Sun is also spot on – not too big, not too small and at just the right distance. It is estimated that there is less than one chance in 10²⁸² that “even one such life-support body would occur anywhere in the universe.”(8) Those are what most people would consider to be pretty long odds, worthy of note perhaps, but nothing is made of it, a circumstance that tells its own story. It seems to me that to unquestioningly attribute our Earth’s position to random chance, with those kind of odds, and allow no other possibility to be entertained, is one of the more obvious examples of rampant dishonesty.

Other anomalies, whether categorized as inexplicable or the work of charlatans, are also largely unaddressed, such as the mystery of transplanted consciousness - when organs transfer more than mere function. Evidence of this mystery has accumulated for decades, but it has been memory-holed because it challenges the orthodox take on the origins of consciousness -(9) though the only consensus on the topic is that it’s not a divine gift. Some of the data are startling; traumatic memory transfers, whereby the recipients of heart-lung transplants “recalled their donor’s deaths through dreams or physical sensations, despite knowing nothing about the donor”.(10)

Many also experienced dramatic changes in their dietary preferences and musical taste; some even found that their sexual orientation changed.(11) One eight-year-old, in receipt of a murdered ten-year-old’s heart, had nightmares about the killer and, from the detail provided, police arrested and convicted the right man. These instances aren’t simply anecdotal – they form the basis of an academic paper.(12) And whilst the majority of heart transplant patients denied personality changes (despite signs showing otherwise), many affirm that transfers of consciousness do occur. They tended to be sensitive people and nearly always females.(13) If nothing else, it appears that the ‘science’ cannot currently explain everything about the human condition and that processes that are beyond the realm of the mechanistic exist.

Another well-documented and unwelcome phenomenon revolves around the testimony of survivors of near-death experiences. Surprisingly (to me, at least), this cohort is numbered in the millions – in the region of 5% to 10% of populations - and tend to share a number of common elements. It is, I would think, conceivable that such an ordeal might trigger similar psychological stressors, of the type adjacent to a deathbed conversion – maybe.

But the long dark tunnel with a bright light at the end, the reuniting with deceased loved ones, the ability to describe what doctors were doing to them after they were supposedly dead and the return journey to life are consistent elements, as are experiences that are diametrically opposed. Many claim to have seen (what they believe to be) both Heaven and Hell.(14) Even mainstream scholars are prepared to accept that they don’t know everything:

““Now, clearly, we don’t question anymore the reality of near-death experiences”, says Charlotte Martial, a neuroscientist at the University of Liège in Belgium. “People who report an experience really did experience something.””(15)

In the interests of not being my usual snarky self, I will limit myself to a single observation – dismissing the possibility that there is a God does seem epically hubristic when the greatest scientific minds can’t come up with a viable explanation for the formation of the simplest of proteins. Nonetheless, somehow or other, believers are characterised as weak-minded or in need of a mental crutch, the better to cope with life when, on the available evidence, one could make the argument that it is the atheistic who are the ones living in denial.

Perhaps the insistence that blind faith by the bucket-load is required – an assertion echoed by both sides of the divide – is partially to blame, as it seems to me that it really isn’t. A sober examination of secular claims, which ought to instil a profound humility, might be all that is needed:

“The overwhelming impression is that the burgeoning welter of perfect coincidences has mounted to a level impossibly beyond anything we can put down to coincidence, so that even the most hostile atheist must at least wonder whether it is all precisely as it is precisely because it was intentionally designed to be that way.”(16)

However, as I said at the outset, it is not my intent to foist my own, partially-formed conclusions onto anyone, but to give some airtime to information that is routinely overlooked by those who think they’ve got it all figured out, yet clearly haven’t. Which brings me on to yet another riddle, that of world population. How is it that there are so few of us? I appreciate that the dominant dogma is that there are actually far too many of us and that the Earth can barely sustain the hated masses – the Malthusians’ siren call – but, if we do the math, something is obviously awry.

As previously noted (in Origin Story), studies of human DNA do not support the evolutionary timeline. A 2019 paper’s conclusions were unusually direct:

“In this study, they noted that if humans have actually been around for several hundred thousand years or more ... they should have accumulated 8 to 59 times the amount of mutations that we currently observe in Y chromosomes worldwide.”(17)

It turns out that a study of population growth produces results that are equally challenging to accepted theory. If we assume that humans procreated conservatively – so that after 150 years there will be four people and, after another 150 eight people, then sixteen after another century and a half – it would only take 32 doublings to reach 8.6 billion individuals.(18) That’s around 5,000 years, even with disease, famine and natural disasters factored in. And it’s a conservative estimate as world population has been doubling every forty years or so.(19) You can see the problem.

There ought to be trillions of us, but there aren’t, even when a hypothetical population bottleneck is accommodated at about 72000 BC (allegedly), due to the Toba eruption in Sumatra, Indonesia, when it is theorised that global population dropped to under 10,000.(20) In reality, the ‘experts’ don’t really have a clue, as they acknowledge that their estimates could be off by orders of magnitude and their framework is the evolutionary one. One sympathises, especially when they are obliged to come up with graphs like this one.

Figure 1

In truth, they can’t even be certain how many people are alive today, never mind in the past.(21) Population studies are a major source of angst for old-Earth advocates - “there are simply not enough catastrophes in history to keep man’s population low enough to allow for 100,000 years or more.”(22) This fact has no effect on the narrative, which holds that man spent tens of thousands of years graduating from hunter-gatherers and cave-dwellers to horticultural/pastoral societies to modern civilisations, with a marked acceleration in sophistication in the very recent past.

Even the secular types accept that farming only began around 10,000 years ago and the most ancient cities came into being thousands of years after that.(23) Never having thought about this timeline before, it does now seem a little awkward. Why weren’t our big-brained ancestors getting stuff done sooner, instead of wandering around throwing spears at woolly mammoths? If that’s what was happening, of course. There are reasons to be sceptical about the chronology:

“The archaeological evidence suggested that rather than developing slowly and painfully...the civilisation of Ancient Egypt...emerged all at once and fully formed. Indeed, the period of transition from primitive to advanced society appears to have been so short that it makes no kind of historical sense. Technological skills that should have taken hundreds of even thousands of years to evolve were brought into use almost overnight – and with no apparent antecedents whatever.”(24)

How could that be? It flies in the face of reason and we probably shouldn’t let stuff like that slide, but we do. The pyramids didn’t gradually incorporate new skills – later iterations were smaller and more shoddily built. The city of Tiahuanaco, in Bolivia, lies at 13,000 feet. It features giant structures that the best modern engineers doubt they could build today.(25) The local Indian tradition, as told to the sixteenth century Spanish, is that city sprang up quickly after a great flood. The mystery of Stonehenge wasn’t solved until the ‘experts’ managed to get their heads around the possibility that the builders were fully ‘evolved’ intellectually, and a system utilising “greased planks, ropes and ingenuity” could get the job done -(26) starting in about 3100BC.

Figure 2

The ancient Peruvian city of Sacsahuamán was also built at high altitude (in this case over 12,000 feet) and is another marvel, constructed of stone:

“Some of the blocks weigh as much as 100 tonnes and are so accurately fitted together that still today it is not possible to insert a piece of paper in the joints between the blocks.”(27)

Other innovations seem to have arrived fully formed. This artifact was recovered from a 2,000 year old Parthian town and is believed to be a type of battery.

Figure 3

This is a sophisticated device that could compute planetary movements, from Greece at the time of Christ.

Figure 4

Lost cities have been discovered in the Arctic Circle and in Florida, both of them evidence of sophisticated civilisations, thousands of years old. The Alaskan city was not populated by Eskimos, but by “some complex and advanced culture of which there is no knowledge.”(28) Modern investigators are apparently amazed, although there are numerous other examples of similar anomalies and amazement can only be the result of failing to acknowledge the possibility that they don’t know what they don’t know. In other news, writing systems also appear out of nowhere. Which, again, begs the question:

“If modern humans, with all the potential for architecture, literature, government, and agriculture, existed for hundreds of thousand of years, why did it take so long for all that to develop?”(29)

It’s my impression that much of the ancient timeline is guesswork, at least partly because the presumptions that have been made about the amount of time that would be required for civilisations to develop have repeatedly been shown to be faulty. The Ancient Near East chronology has been double counted and even the Chinese and the Australian Aborigines cultures – said to be tens of thousands of years old – are oral in nature, so the dating is assumed. The oldest proposed human monument, in Turkey and said to be 11,000 years old, has been dated using carbon testing, but it is known that the older the object, the less reliable the technique.(30) And there’s obviously an orthodox framework in which to fit estimates such as this.

Which brings me on to yet another fly in the ointment – the near-universal prevalence of great flood stories. When the early Christian missionaries spread out across the globe, they were shocked at the uniformity of such stories. Tribes and peoples on every continent, isolated from each other, never having fraternized, all told a version of the same tale, in which a few people escaped the devastation by building a boat or a raft:

“The similarities to the Noah story from the book of Genesis are uncanny: A world full of unfaithful people (Genesis: 6:5); the construction of an ark made of wood (Gen. 6:15); the gathering of each animal in twos along with grains and food (Gen. 6:19-21); a post-flood sacrificial offering (Gen. 8:20); a rainbow carrying a sign from God (Gen. 9:13).”(31)

How could this be? If we propose to chalk it up to a psychological reflex, a disaster myth that functions as some kind of universal cautionary tale, then why wouldn’t some versions utilise fire, or lightning strikes from the heavens, or volcanic disasters? I imagine that there are those legends in some cultures, but why is there always a flood, too? Unless, of course, there was one – not necessarily a local flood, but a global one. It’s not like there isn’t evidence in support of the theory, after all.

Notwithstanding tectonic activity, most of the world’s current mountain ranges – the Himalayas, the Andes, the Rockies and so forth – are composed of ocean-floor sediments, full of marine fossils. There are even clam fossils at Everest’s summit.(32) And, if we recall, the existence of any fossils would likely not be possible were it not for a cataclysmic event that buried material rapidly. Dead creatures, left to rot on land, would be scavenged, but rapid sedimentary deposition would preserve at least some. Further potential evidence comes from marine biologists’ exploration of the Black Sea:

“Using robot underwater vehicles more than 300ft below the sea’s surface, they have begun to map a rolling landscape, fed by meandering streams and marked with wattle and daub houses, that was flooded more than 7,000 years ago.”(33)

That would be according to the approved timeline, which would presumably rely on other assumptions that are impossible to verify. The theory is that the rising Mediterranean ploughed a channel through the Bosphorus and inundated the basin, once a freshwater lake.(34) Perhaps so. Or perhaps the topography was different at that time and the flood was local, the result of melting glaciers. Most of those who have made it their business to explore the possibility of a Great Flood accept that definitive proof – either for or against – is unlikely to be forthcoming. The uniformitarianists cannot conceive of it, because, in modern times, there is no known mechanism that could cause it, and they therefore assume that it was also impossible back in the day.

Some will acknowledge the probability of local flooding, although that’s as far as they’ll go. But the fossil record is a problem for the evolutionists, inasmuch as it’s disordered and capable of differing interpretations. Flowering plants arrive 390 million years too early, for instance,(35) and ducks, squirrels and beavers are supposed to have been around when the mythical dinosaurs roamed the Earth.(36)

As previously noted, the lack of transitionary creatures is also problematic and ‘missing links’ are the rule, not the exception. Millions of fossils aren’t in the layers they are supposed to be in and, worldwide, the fossil-bearing layers are thousands of feet deep. The evolutionists claim that earthquakes or landslides were the causative factor, but a Great Flood would also fit the bill. Which brings me to one final snippet of information that has likely passed you by, as it’s not something that the regular commentariat is inclined to broadcast; what seems like the discovery of an artifact in the Turkish mountains at Durupinar, near Mt. Ararat. It looks like this, from the air.

Figure 5

Figure 6

Figure 7

Ground-penetrating radar reveals angular structures, including parallel lines and right angles, not a frequent sight in nature, including a 13 foot-wide central corridor and a layered interior suggesting that there were originally three decks.(37)

Figure 8

Figure 9

It seems that the structure is 538 feet long and its length, width and height appear to be a near-exact match for – you’ve guessed it – Noah’s Ark.(38) Samples of rock and soil from the site were examined, last year, and found to contain marine deposits and seafood remnants, including molluscs, which were dated at between 3,500 to 5,000 years old.(39) Other tests showed that the pH value within the structure, plus “higher organic matter and higher potassium” readings are consistent with rotting wood.(40) Pottery fragments, also unearthed from the site, apparently indicate a human presence between 5500BC and 3000BC.(41) It is all most peculiar, particularly as the Torah states that the Ark came to rest on the “mountains of Ararat.”(42)

All in all, not a definitive list and not an unassailable thesis, but a series of anomalies that, taken together with all the fudges and nonsense that marble the evolutionary/BBT legend, ought to give us pause. The secular types are most insistent that conclusions that are blatantly unscientific are taken as gospel and it’s not hard to see why; modern, progressive, atheistic, hubristic types have invested much in denying the Divine and then working backwards, buffet style, selecting the evidence they like and discarding what they don’t.

I see the same patterns that I see in every other endeavour they undertake and, invariably, their motives are impure and the arguments invalid. I’m of the view that it makes far more sense to believe in Intelligent Design and work from there.

Citations

(1) https://alt-market.us/the-nwo-religion-how-the-woke-postmodern-faith-glorifies-evil/

(2) https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/02/brandon-smith/luciferianism-a-secular-look-at-a-destructive-globalist-belief-system/

(3) Ditto

(4) https://christiancourier.com/articles/the-elephant-in-evolutions-living-room

(5) https://christiancourier.com/articles/the-big-bang-theory-vs-gods-word

(6) https://www.sciencenewstoday.org/why-earth-is-so-rare-and-lucky

(7) Ditto

(8) https://reasons.org/explore/publications/articles/probability-for-life-on-earth

(9)

(10-11) Ditto

(12)https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc799207/m2/1/high_res_d/vol20-no3-191.pdf

(13)

(14) https://www.ladbible.com/community/prophet-of-doom-craig-hamilton-parker-2026-predictions-679897-20260219

(15) https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lifting-the-veil-on-near-death-experiences/#:~:text=An%20astounding%205%20to%2010,into%20the%20nature%20of%20consciousness.

(16)https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/06/book_review_is_atheism_dead.html

(17) Jeanson, N.T. and Holland, A. D., Evidence for a human Y chromosome molecular clock: pedigree-based mutation rates suggest a 4,500-year history for human paternal inheritance, ARJ 12:393–404, 2019.

(18) https://answersingenesis.org/evidence-against-evolution/billions-of-people-in-thousands-of-years/

(19) www.census.gov/ipc/www/img/worldpop.gif

(20) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimates_of_historical_world_population

(21)https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a70202293/human-population-miscalculated-study/

(22) https://creation.com/en/articles/ancient-civilizations-and-modern-man#forwardref-6

(23) https://creation.com/en/articles/thinking-about-chronology

(24) Hancock, G., Fingerprints of the Gods, pp. 135–136, New York Crown Trade Paperbacks, 1995.

(25) https://creation.com/en/articles/the-mystery-of-ancient-man#forwardref-5

(26-27) Ditto

(28) https://www.nytimes.com/1940/09/22/archives/early-culture-site-in-arctic-is-found-museum-discovery-indicates.html

(29) https://creation.com/en/articles/thinking-about-chronology

(30 Ditto

(31) https://catholicexchange.com/virtually-every-ancient-civilization-has-a-great-flood-story/

(32) https://www.icr.org/article/did-noahs-flood-cover-himalayan-mountains

(33)https://www.theguardian.com/science/2000/sep/14/internationalnews.archaeology

(34) Ditto

(35) https://www.evolutionisamyth.com/dating-methods/out-of-order-fossils-found-all-over-the-earth/

(36) Ditto

(37) https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/scientists-think-found-noah-ark-165048071.html

(38) https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/33776986/noah-ark-flood-fossil-found/

(39) Ditto

(40) https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-14579779/noahs-ark-boat-turkey-bible.html

(41) https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/pottery-fragments-found-near-ararat-113649452.html

(42) Ditto

Figure 1 By El T - Originally uploaded to en.wikipedia as Population curve.svg. The data is from the “lower” estimates at census.gov (archive.org mirror)., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1355720

Figure 2 https://creation.com/en/articles/the-mystery-of-ancient-man#forwardref-5

Figure 3 https://creation.com/en/articles/ancient-civilizations-and-modern-man#forwardref-6

Figure 4 Ditto

Figure 5 https://www.foxnews.com/travel/researchers-find-compelling-evidence-possible-noahs-ark-remains-country

Figure 6 Ditto

Figure 7 Ditto

Figure 8 https://noahsarkscans.com/

Figure 9 https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1497265/bible-archaeologist-noahs-ark-found-turkey-3d-scan-mount-tendurek-book-genesis

There is method in their madness: “The big bang was invented specifically for the purpose of doing away with the creation event,”(1) a belief in which was still the dominant paradigm at the onset of the twentieth century. However, the overarching desire to hold fast to their theory at the expense of objectivity and, increasingly, credibility, is not without risk, if exposed to sunlight:

“In no other field of physics would this continual recourse to new hypothetical objects be accepted as a way of bridging the gap between theory and observation. It would, at the least, raise serious questions about the validity of the underlying theory [emphasis in original].”(2)

Cosmology isn’t serious science – it’s the Wild West in a sandbox and only those sporting a research lab lanyard get to play. The rest of us are supposed to uncritically accept what the smart folks tell us. And, since 1931 and a Belgian cosmologist named Georges Lemaître (also a Catholic priest), it’s been the concept of the ‘primordial atom’, later named the Big Bang Theory (BBT). He’d originally published his paper in 1927, but it had remained untranslated until other cosmologists – including Einstein – decided that static models of the universe were no longer satisfactory.

The legend is that the latter, when calculating his General Theory of Relativity, had realised that the universe would tend to collapse under gravitation in his model and so, rather than starting over with another back of a envelope calculation, he introduced the first of many subsequent fudges, the Cosmological Constant, represented by the Greek symbol Λ—lambda. Although it’s value was very small, when shoehorned into his calculations, it succeeded in pushing the galaxies apart and maintaining the static universe. Then came 1929 and the Hubble telescope, which purportedly showed that distant galaxies – a recent discovery – were receding from the earth “at speeds proportional to their distances.”(3)

Lemaître’s main contribution to the study of cosmology was to follow through on his original hypothesis. He figured that, if the universe was expanding, it had been smaller in the past; not, you might think, an earth-shattering insight. However, when extrapolated back in time, Lemaître asserted that one must eventually reach an epoch when all matter was “packed together in an extremely dense state.”(4) In his telling, the physical universe was initially a single particle, which then exploded, creating space, time and an ever-expanding universe.

This struck a chord amongst his cosmological brethren, who adopted the concept with alacrity, regardless of the fact that it trampled all over accepted laws of nature:

“By having matter appear out of nowhere, it violates the law of conservation of mass and energy. By having that matter self-organize into hot stars, galaxies, and superclusters—all while it should have been thinning out and cooling during eons of expansion—it violates the law of entropy.”(5)

That would be the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics, consigned to the circular file; not in other instances, mind – just for the Big Bang Theory. So, more temporarily suspended than permanently dismembered. For some, this demonstration of blind faith in what, essentially, is a miracle, is typical of the quality of critical thinking in Bubbleland - “the realm beyond the present reach of science.”(6) This is a place where all manner of magical is permissible, provided it is generally supportive of a ‘random chance’ explanation for existence. In reality, it’s where pigs and lipstick exist in ideal proportions:

“Big bang cosmology is probably as widely believed as has been any theory of the universe in the history of Western civilization. It rests, however, on many untested, and [in] many cases, untestable assumptions. Indeed, big bang cosmology has become a bandwagon of thought that reflects faith as much as objective truth.”(7)

It’s worth noting that the original premise – the one that catapulted Lemaître to prominence – has still not been confirmed. The narrative engineers, the type of people who routinely feature in grand deceptions, have consistently misconstrued Hubble’s findings. In their telling, his telescope definitively proved that the universe was expanding, due to ‘redshifting’ (which I’ll explore in more detail shortly). Hubble himself remained unconvinced for the remainder of his days:

“Redshifts have been interpreted as a velocity of recession, i.e. that galaxies are moving through space. And that the recession implies expansion of the universe. But Hubble, up to the time of his death, was not so convinced of this interpretation. He was open to the possibility that there could be another mechanism to explain redshifts.”(8)

The Big Bang Theory is unsustainable sans an expanding universe, yet the mechanism that undergirds this assertion is unproven, as we shall see. We could stop there; but I’m going to keep the camera rolling, whilst being mindful of a tendency to play into the hands of the enemy. There is a danger of wading too deeply into the weeds, whilst bypassing the big stuff. After all, it only takes one black swan to disprove the notion that all swans are white. Put another way, if we know that the Germans dressed up as Polish soldiers and staged the border provocation that started World War II, there’s little point in engaging in a huge debate as to the quality of their uniforms or accents.

So, WPC Yvonne Fletcher wasn’t killed by shooters from the Libyan Embassy in London in 1984, because the trajectory of the bullet renders that scenario impossible (see Part Four). 9/11 wasn’t the work of Islamist hijackers, because the laws of physics dictate that the Twin Towers were brought down via controlled demolition, a circumstance confirmed by the hundred plus witnesses who heard the explosions (see Empires Are Built On Myths). AIDS is not a thing, as thousands have recovered from it (not HIV, AIDS) by cleaning up their lifestyles (see Deja Vu All Over Again).

You get the picture – apologists for mendacious narratives would prefer to ensnare critics in a web of minutiae and skip by the most obvious and basic calumnies, and the same dynamic is at play with the Big Bang. Creationists, pretty much the only source of alternative information, fall into this trap on a regular basis when they should be consistently hammering the large absurdities, not the minor ones. If the big-ticket items are ersatz, it follows that everything downstream is also baloney. It doesn’t need to be dwelt upon. But there are plenty of humongous issues with BBT that do deserve attention. As noted:

“The currently leading evolutionary cosmogony (Gk. ‘birth of the universe’) is the big bang theory. This basically says: nothing exploded and became everything. One part of this is energy turning into matter, as per the famous Einstein formula E = mc².”(9)

According to the laws of particle physics, were this miracle to occur, an equal amount of matter and antimatter would be produced. Not kinda equal – precisely equal. But antimatter particles exist only fleetingly and, when they do, they interact with matter particles and are mutually annihilated. The same process is observed with antielectrons, antiprotons and antineutrons.(10) The question, then, is how did we arrive at a place where matter predominates, when it should not have survived annihilation by an equal amount of antimatter?

The Big Bangers, working from the end backwards in familiar fashion, allege that most matter was destroyed but, in the early universe, there existed a billion and one protons for every billion antiprotons. Over time, the imbalance became exacerbated.(11) Welcome to Bubbleland. But it must be so because a) the BBT is correct and b) observationally, matter dominates. Of course, in order for this minor imbalance to exist, there must be “asymmetry in the fundamental makeup of the universe.”(12) Unfortunately, despite strenuous efforts, the cultists have been unable to find any. The lead researcher at CERN in Switzerland was somewhat despondent:

“All of our observations find a complete symmetry between matter and antimatter, which is why the universe should not actually exist.”(13)

Which, technically, isn’t quite right, because he is still clinging to the wreckage of BBT. The universe clearly does exist – just not as the result of a Big Bang, according to his findings. Naturally, despite the passage of eight years since the failed experiments, the orthodoxy continues to be preached and, if it’s eventually ditched, it will be in lieu of another naturalistic theory. My impression is that the truth is of little import; it’s the narrative that must be maintained, which is eminently achievable if approved engineers are permitted to curate it.

‘Matter’, more generally, was already in the doghouse for other reasons. Or, to be precise, ‘dark matter’ – the “god of the gaps”,(14) a fudge factor extraordinaire. Any theory can be rescued if one is allowed to insert invisible stuff so that theory and observation can be reconciled. So, we get dark matter, which cannot be seen because it emits no light or radiation and, hey presto, all is well with the world, once again. It has unknown properties and strange behaviour; a kind of cosmological duck tape, there to keep the show on the road. No-one has even proven that it’s real, nor will they, because it isn’t. If it was, many observed galaxies wouldn’t exist,(15) and the Milky Way and Andromeda would have to be random spheres. Which they’re not.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Nonetheless, the cosmologists still maintain that they’re on the right track, because warm and fuzzy feelings are endemic in the Land of Bubbles. For the BBT to work, there needs to be a lot of dark matter; although, to be fair, they are now prepared to acknowledge that other dark stuff also features:

“Big bang cosmologists propose that about 25% of the universe is made up of dark matter...70% of the universe in their models is made up of the even more obscure dark energy, leaving 5% of the universe as ordinary matter.”(16)

Without dark matter, a Big Bang would not lead to the formation of stars and galaxies, because the gases would not be able to condense. As we can see stars and galaxies are out there – and, if you recall, the BBT is correct – so dark matter must exist, because normal matter just wouldn’t have gotten the job done. If you can come up with a more pristine example of circular reasoning, I’d be glad to hear it. The explanation that better fits the evidence cannot be entertained:

“The solution is simple—dark matter never existed in the first place. That is why it is missing. It is invisible because it is not there. The standard big bang universe formation theory is wrong.”(17)

The legend around dark energy is no less problematic, in large part because they can’t find that, either. It’s needed because there must be some other anti-gravity force in the universe, if all the complicated Big Bang equations are to work. Also, because the high priests of cosmology have interpreted observations as showing that the universe is not only expanding, but doing so at an accelerating rate, dark energy is essential. As is their wont, they simply stick another Band-Aid on the model – this time, a ‘chameleon particle’ is the best candidate:

“Only in empty space does the hypothesized chameleon particle take on the characteristics which provide a new anti-gravity force in the universe, hence dark energy. But when you look for it near Earth it takes on a new identity and hides itself so you cannot find it.”(18)

So far, then, a not-insubstantial cavalcade of omissions and a theory that looks like it should have been given the last rites decades ago. Every moving part is either seized up or non-existent. Not only does the BBT violate natural laws, it is also internally inconsistent, as matter would not exist in a symmetrical universe – and the great god of uniformitarianism demands that what works now also worked in the dim and distant. Additionally, ‘dark’ anything is just another way of admitting that the our cosmological guides know not of what they speak. They are also hamstrung by their refusal to countenance the probability that Einstein’s general relativity theory might not be all it’s cracked up to be, as shortcomings in those calculations make leaps of faith a necessity:

“But when that was applied to the universe as a whole, two problems developed for the secular model. One is the need to add in dark energy... and the other is the need for a significant amount of invisible cold dark matter (CDM).”(19)

Yet more distortions and fudge factors are infinitely preferable to a review of what constitutes the foundations of secular theory with regards to the creation of life itself. Which brings us back around to redshifts. Because there was a Big Bang, there is still an expanding universe and redshifting proves it, right? Well, no – not really. There is another explanation that fits observations as well, if not better, and it’s known as the ‘tired light theory’. The BBT relies on the Doppler effect which, in space, explains the increase or decrease in the frequency of light waves depending on distance; if a body is moving away from us, it moves towards longer wavelengths, its light spreads out and appears to ‘redshift’. If a body is moving towards us, the wavelengths compact and it appears to ‘blueshift’. As all galaxies ‘redshift’, the universe must be expanding.(20) Or so the story goes.

Einstein’s second great theory – that of Special Relativity - “holds, as a basic assumption, that the speed of light will always be the same everywhere in the universe”,(21) (except when it isn’t, like just after the Big Bang), although the behaviour of light beyond our own universe cannot be known. Additionally, the law of entropy dictates that, over time, energy disperses and becomes less useful. For the Great One’s ‘untired light theory’ to be correct, we would once again be required to entertain certain deeply implausible accommodations. For one, perfectly empty space. Also, perpetual travel:

“Perfectly empty space has been found nowhere, with even the intergalactic regions long known to be filled with a veritable particle zoo. But perfectly empty space would be necessary for perpetual travel, which could not abide any loss of velocity or energy whatsoever.”(22)

Additionally, intergalactic distances have been measured for the past twenty years and no expansion has been detected.(23) Which is not to dismiss the Doppler effect in its entirety as nearby galaxies, such as some in the aforementioned Andromeda, are blueshifting which, as the observant will no doubt note, shouldn’t be happening either, if everything is going away from us.(24) However, when more sensitive instruments demonstrated that the largest redshift galaxies were allegedly moving away at a speed faster than that of light, Doppler had to be largely abandoned in favour of yet another revision to BBT, Guth’s inflationary universe – another ingenious construct built on sand. More on that in a moment.

The establishment interpretation of redshifting is under attack in other ways, too. Quasars, supposedly extremely distant, supermassive black holes are said to be early examples of the mature galaxies that surround us today. They’re extremely bright and are possessed of very large redshifts, as befits objects that are many billions of years old. So far, so good. The problems started when observers started to go all forensic. Quasars presumed to be six billion light years away were measured against those at ten million. Unfortunately, the light signatures were exactly the same.(25)

Obviously, that does not compute, as a distance of four million light years – between clusters of quasars – should have resulted in markedly different redshifts. Further, the brightness of the quasars varied significantly over very short timeframes, such as a week or even a day; from billions of light years away. All calculations, however, are predicated on the BBT, meaning that the redshifts must be cosmological in origin and the result of recession. But once again, actual observations undermine the master theory. It may very well be that quasars aren’t actually that far away and that redshifts aren’t always indicators of distance. Instead of a stretching universe, light simply loses energy over time. And the universe might have ‘stretched’ in the past, but isn’t doing so now.

Some of the galaxies at the highest redshifts are also dominated by blue stars,(26) and the redshifts – rather than being “evenly distributed across a range of velocities”(27) (as per the official version) – are actually evenly distributed in groups, at 100 kilometres an hour, 200 an hour, 300 an hour and so forth.(28) Nobody seems to know quite what to do with these data, although it tends to undermine the random chance/BBT argument somewhat, as any suggestion that there might be some kind of order to things ist verboten. However, it is hardly the only phenomenon that does that.

We are informed that the universe came into existence with an almost perfectly even distribution of matter, which only coalesced over many billions of years – from stars, to galaxies, to clusters and then to superclusters.(29) Once again, observations give the lie to theory, as “larger and larger structures have been uncovered at earlier and earlier times.”(30) According to the orthodoxy (and given the current low velocities of galaxies), these structures would have taken hundreds of billions of years to form, yet even the diehards don’t claim that the universe is older than 14 billion years.(31) Clearly, there is a maths problem. But there’s also a randomness problem. And a uniformity problem.

According to the latest patch, there was a faster-than-light period of expansion – although it only lasted “about 10^-32 of a second” -(32) before normal service was resumed:

“The universe begins with the normal rate, which is actually quite rapid, but is slow by comparison to the next phase. Then it briefly enters the inflation phase, where the universe expands much more rapidly. At a later time, the universe goes back to the normal rate...The inflation model allows points A and B to exchange energy (during the first normal expansion) and to then be pushed apart during the inflation phase to the enormous distances at which they are located today.”(33)

None of that ‘science’ can be proven, nor does it make any sense, but it is the only way that the BBT can be salvaged. In reality, we are paying another flying visit to Bubbleland:

“One event does not lead naturally to the next, so a multitude of incomprehensible causes have to be cobbled together to get the expansion going and to make it produce a universe.”(34)

Nonetheless, adoption of the inflation model allows the big-brained cosmogonists (whose job it is to ‘study’ the origins of the universe) to claim that they have solved the problem of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), which would otherwise be far too uniform for comfort. The CMB, in all directions, is 2.7 K (-455°F) and only varies by one part in 10⁵.(35) In the trade, this is known as the horizon problem, because both sides of the observable universe haven’t had enough time to exchange energy and achieve equilibrium – not if the speed of light is top gear, at any rate. But, if that exchange took place in the fractions of a second after the Big Bang, all is well. Nothing to see here, move along. They haven’t got all day - it’s time to magick up a wholly plausible explanation for more anomalies.

Such as the conviction that the Big Bang would distribute matter evenly in a homogenous fashion. Thus, the distribution of the galaxies would be, to a large degree, uniform. But, by the early 1980s, it became apparent that this prediction was also wrong and that most of the deep universe is comprised of cosmic voids, hundreds of millions of light years across (allegedly) – 80% of the volume of the universe, yet only 10% of the mass.(36) And what remained wasn’t random – it was structured:

“Galaxies in our universe are not scattered about randomly like salt spilled on the table; instead, they form the largest pattern found in nature. We see dense clusters, home to thousands of galaxies, and long, thin strands connecting these clusters. These strands act like long highways stretching between the clusters, with thousands of galaxies strung along them. And we see those strands bound together to form broad, immense walls.”(37)

Not homogenous, then, but clumpy. Not random, but structured. How to solve the conundrum without abandoning the BBT? Simple, when you know how. Lean into the ‘more matter than anti-matter’ canard - “tiny, random, microscopic differences” that have never been replicated -(38) throw in a dash of gravity and those areas with a slight advantage in terms of mass also had a greater gravitational pull. Over billions of years, I give you galaxies and voids. It almost certainly looked something like this, although not in a box shape not yet, anyway. From unstructured fog to what we see today.

Figure 3

I wasn’t there, so I can’t tell you whether this latest update is accurate or not, but I can tell you that not a single part of the Big Bang Theory obeys the physical laws that are (supposedly) the same now as they were then. But each revision of the theory is presented as fact. The scientific journals evince no uncertainty – they speak of dark matter and dark energy as though they exist, because (to them) they must, because the theory is true. So, instead of critical thinking, we get more nonsense; string theory, eleven dimensions, Loop Quantum Gravity, modular space-time theory and more besides, each construct more implausible than the last.

“So the problem to date has been not what one would call prediction but retro- or post-diction. The result is known and the desired effect is put in by hand.”(39)

Given the fact that the BBT is fubar, it follows that any calculations based on its tenets are also likely to be highly unreliable. So it is with the supposed age of the universe and, by implication, Earth. Garbage in, garbage out. There must be a reliance on redshifting and on a uniform speed of light across galaxies. No tired light, no entropy, no truck with very distant, mature galaxies, no doubt as to the existence of dark whatever, no acknowledgement that a clumpy universe ought to produce inhomogeneity in the CMB and no doubt as to their methods. This is what results.

Figure 4

Considering the size of the number, it’s pretty precise, isn’t it? Authoritative, one might think. The age of our solar system (and Earth) is even given to three decimal places – 4.543 billion years.(40) So, to within three million years over a span of 4,543 million years. Impressive. What methods could they have used to arrive at such a number with certainty? Well, with as much certainty as the rest of the priesthood’s prognostications, anyway.

As previously noted, before the invention of dark energy, the age of the universe was calculated to be less than that of some of the objects within it. Understandably, some questioned whether the cosmogonists knew what they were talking about. Fortunately, with the addition of some tasty hypotheticals – with dark matter and a rehabilitated cosmological constant to the fore – and Hubble’s Law (the redshift explanation that he was never sold on), an assist from the Friedman equations and a sprinkling of fairy dust, we end up with the following, easily accessible equation.

Figure 5

It’s all pretty straightforward, apparently. Although, as Wikipedia generously allows, the age “is based on the assumption that the project’s underlying model is correct.”(41) There is much talk of ‘age clocks’ and oodles of misplaced confidence.

“However, no scientific method can prove the age of the earth and the universe...Although age indicators are called ‘clocks’ they aren’t, because all ages result from calculations that necessarily involve making assumptions about the past. The starting time of the ‘clock’ has always to be assumed as well as the way in which the speed of the clock has varied over time. Further, it has to be assumed that the clock was never disturbed...There is no independent natural clock against which those assumptions can be tested.”(42)

When you started reading this piece, perhaps you were of the view that the BBT was a done deal, that it was supported by tranches of incontrovertible evidence. Maybe by this stage in proceedings, you will have revised your opinion. Scratch the surface and the gold plate flakes away, revealing the dull metal beneath. All of the ‘science’ is complete guesswork, motivated by the above-the-title, animating obsession; that the universe is a random, naturalistic entity that is billions of years old, not in any way, shape or form a creation. I know I’ve said this before (numerous times), but the Big Lies are often the ones that have the best chance of success and, at the least, making stuff up and pretending that it’s real is lying. When the subject is the biggest there is, then it’s big lying.

Take the story of the Earth’s creation and that of the Moon. The approved version has to be understood within the context of the BBT and a universe that is getting on for 14 billion years old. Them’s the rules, so the assumptions that must be made aren’t really assumptions – they’re much more closely related to facts, because their inclusion in the framework is the only logical way to make the BBT work. I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not circular thinking – it’s enlightened, ‘scientific’ thinking. And so, as we know that the Earth and the Moon exist, this is how they must have come about. A heads-up in advance; natural laws will be harmed in the construction of this narrative.

There are two categories of planet formation models; accretion or gravitational instability. The formation of the Earth better fits the accretion model, whereby dust particles collide, coalesce into larger particles, eventually becoming planetesimal-sized (incidentally, all that dust absolutely has no effect on the speed of light, in case you were wondering). Once this multi-kilometre sized object is formed, gravity does the rest, drawing in extra bulk until rocky planets are formed, such as the Earth, the Moon, Mercury and Mars.(43)

Quite why this would happen in one place and not others is not explained but, in truth, the theory should have been DOA, as it has always been known that the accretion theory suffers from “a large number of unsolved mysteries”(44) and has no workable mechanism. The gravitational instability model works even less well vis-a-vis planets. Plus, computer modelling shows that the planets in our solar system would have required some special treatment to avoid several different forms of disaster, such as flying off into space, orbiting unproductively, crashing into the sun or ending up the wrong size – too big, a star, too small, an asteroid:

“In other words, leftover space junk supposedly nudged not just one, but all 9 of our traditional planets into their circular orbits.”(45)

But failed theories constitute the bulk of astrophysics, so there’s no reason to jettison this one just yet. Back to the Earth and the Moon. Our solar system is said to have formed from “a large, rotating cloud of interstellar dust and cloud called the solar nebula.”(46) For the sake of moving things along, we’ll have to get past the whole ‘something from nothing’ gig that is the BBT and accept that there was a lot of helium and hydrogen (and a few other elements) floating around. Seriously, though, this is what happened and about 4.5 billion years ago there was probably a shock wave which made the nebula rotate. From there on in, naturalistic magic did its thing.

Even though the accretion model is a load of old pony, it happened anyway and then the centre of the nebula collapsed. Next thing you know, nuclear fusion turned hydrogen into helium, then there’s contraction and a young star ignited and became the Sun. Shortly thereafter, there’s a bit of ‘runaway accretion’ and before you know it, there’s your planets. The proto-Earth grew until the interior got super-hot and melted some metals (presumably created from the nuclear fusion) which then sank, forming the solid inner core and creating the Earth’s magnetic field. Hey presto – let the Games begin.

The Moon is a bit more difficult to explain. Darwin thought that it broke away from the Pacific Ocean Basin. Others suggest that it was captured by the Earth as it passed by – sounds eminently feasible in such a crowded neighbourhood. Or maybe a hypothesised ancient planet – named Theia by the bluestockings, and the source of much of the Earth’s water – collided with our planet and broke off the Moon. They say it probably looked something like this.

Figure 6

This new Moon orbited about a tenth of the distance that it does today. As one might expect, there are “a few unresolved problems”(47) with this hypothesis, one of which is that – surprisingly, at least to the brainiacs – the Apollo lunar samples found no trace of Theia-like compounds, but instead “carried an isotopic signature identical to earth rocks.”(48)(49) Had we known at the time, we may (between us) have been able to offer our own bespoke theory as to why that should be, but NASA made do without us:

“To help resolve these problems, a hypothesis published in 2012 posits that two bodies – each five times the size of Mars – collided, then recollided, forming a large disc of mixed debris that eventually formed the Earth and the Moon.”(50)(51)

Probably for the best, as what I had in mind didn’t sound a lot like that. NASA seems like a fun place to work, somewhere where one can give full rein to the creative impulse. And, in truth, that hypothesis isn’t notably more outlandish than most of the others in the realm beyond science. Of course, in typical fashion, it doesn’t survive cursory scrutiny, as the maths is all wrong. The Moon is receding from Earth at around 4cm per year, although the rate would have been faster previously. This ought to be a substantial problem:

“The moon could never have been closer than 18,400 km (11,500 miles), known as the Roche Limit, because Earth’s tidal forces...would have shattered it. But even if the moon had started receding from being in contact with the Earth, it would have taken only 1.37 billion years to reach its present distance...far too young for evolution...”(52)(53)

But expecting mere bagatelles like that to glitch the Matrix would be hopelessly naïve, even though there are a number of red-pilled scientists calling foul, noting that “in no other field of physics would this continual recourse to new hypothetical objects be accepted as a way of bridging the gap between theory and observation.”(54) As with other narratives that are too fundamental to relinquish, simply ignoring such criticism and reprinting the textbooks are effective tactics. The supertanker will not be turned around unless those on the bridge desire it.

There are other obvious problems with the ageing criteria. The quasars that are supposed to be reliable indicators of the BBT, particularly the hypothesis that “all stars and galaxies result from the early big bang universe”,(55) are nothing of the sort. Nor are those with large redshifts necessarily distant – instead, they are associated with parent galaxies which exhibit much smaller redshifts, having been ejected by same. They are also found in clusters of two (or multiples of two), for some reason.(56) So, not only is Hubble’s cautious approach to the redshift=distance paradigm vindicated, the assumption that all matter had its genesis in the Big Bang is also demolished as some quasars are recent creations. And, without a pristine Hubble’s Law, the ageing equation cannot be made to work.

Then there’s the comet problem. According to the guardians of the dogma, they are products of a young universe and should no longer exist, because they lose mass every time they pass the sun as they are composed of ice, dust and small rocky particles. Yet, as of five years ago, there are 4,584 known comets (57) and, in 2010, the Hartley 2 comet was photographed as it passed and was seen to be spewing snow into space and losing material rapidly.(58) It didn’t look old, at all. The highbrows are discombobulated:

“For starters, its nucleus contains and abundance of carbon dioxide...This is a volatile material...it burns easily...and so scientists would expect much more of it to have away on the 4.5 billion years since the comet formed along with the rest of the solar system.”(59)

One black swan, remember? Then there are blue stars, the biggest and brightest because they burn their nuclear fuel fast – very fast, in a maximum of ten million years. Yet there they are, plenteous in spiral galaxies such as the Milky Way and others.

Figure 7

The men of erudition get around this by assuming that these stars were formed more recently than the rest of the galaxy although, as is now an ongoing theme, nobody has ever observed such a process, nor is there a viable mechanism according to the thesis.(60) The globular clusters of stars that orbit the centre of galaxies also defy explanation as they should have emptied in two million years, at most. The pedagogues allow that this ‘retention problem’ is a “long-standing mystery”,(61) although, perhaps, it wouldn’t be so puzzling if the BBT guardrails were to be dismantled.

There might then be a way of explaining why ‘mature’ galactic clusters, of the type that are only supposed to exist close-in, can also be found in deep space.(62) Another method of dating, whilst seemingly sensible, is also something of an omnishambles:

“Crater-count dating seems perfectly logical: the more craters, the older the landscape. It assumes, however, that impactors arrive at a roughly steady rate and produce one crater per hit.”(63)

Figure 8

But secondary craters are also formed, from the debris of the initial impact. Lots of them – in fact, the vast majority. And, “without a way to reliably identify secondary craters, only subjective inferences can be made about the history of a surface.”(64) Damn and blast. Foiled again. Another Jenga piece teased out from low down. A reluctant acceptance by at least some of the double-domes that any dates derived from this methodology could be “off by orders of magnitude.”(65)

I intend to limit myself to one final field of inquiry, concerning the shape of the universe and our position within it. BBT, of course, insists that our galaxy was formed after 9.3 billion years of history and a visual representational would look something like Figure 9, with us about a third of the way out along the timeline. But not a third of the out towards the surface of the ‘balloon’. Contrary to popular belief, the theory the boffins favour cannot tolerate a centre.

“They picture the galaxies like grains of dust all over the surface of the balloon. (No galaxies would be inside the balloon.) As the expansion proceeds, the rubber (representing the fabric of space itself) stretches outward. This spreads the dust apart. From the viewpoint of each grain, the others move away from it, but no grain can claim to be the unique centre of the expansion. On the surface of the balloon, there is no centre.”(66)

Figure 9

We are told that the universe is still expanding. We are also told that there is nothing special about Earth’s position within it, although our galaxy alone is estimated to contain a hundred thousand million stars, not to mention the millions of other galaxies, and we have yet to find a single one with signs of life. But let’s leave that aside for the moment and deal with a separate problem, which is that the universe is supposedly expanding at different rates, depending on where the telescope is trained.

Poor old Hubble has posthumously gotten his name attached to another ‘conundrum’ – the Hubble Tension. The James Webb and Hubble space telescopes do not return the same measurements. The leader of the study that confirmed this appears to be one of life’s foremost optimists:

“With measurement errors negated, what remains is the real and exciting possibility we have misunderstood the universe.”(67)

It seems that the problem arises from comparing and contrasting two different methods of measuring the expanding universe, both of them previously thought to be infallible. However, they produce different numbers – 67 kilometres per second per megaparsec (don’t ask) as against 74.(68) My impression is that a resolution of this conflict is being postponed, because it would involve a compromise that the intelligentsia are unwilling to make, namely that the observed speed of light is not as constant as they insist. The Webb telescope slices through the cosmic dust in a way that the Hubble does not.(69)

At some point, perhaps, the cosmological community will swallow its pride (if it absolutely has to) and slap another patch on the BBT. But there are bigger issues incoming, concerning more fundamental questions – such as ‘is the universe even expanding?’ and ‘is our galaxy at the centre of the universe?’, a centre that we are told doesn’t exist.

It will be recalled that, over the past couple of decades, intergalactic distances have not been observed to increase.(70) But, as we are continually reminded, the cosmogonists’ finite universe is expanding, according to BBT. And, in fairness, the theory fits some observations, notably providing an explanation for why the universe is not collapsing under its own gravity. But it also tells us that, in a universe that is expanding, distant objects should appear fainter, but bigger; the old redshift argument again. The surface brightness should decrease with distance. That isn’t what we ordinarily observe:

“In the space around us, on Earth, in the Solar System and our Milky Way Galaxy, as similar objects get farther away, they look fainter and smaller. Their surface brightness, that is the brightness per unit area, remains constant.”(71)

And it’s not what studies of both close and distant galaxies reveal. A group of heretics decided to test the theory, rather than run cover for it, and discovered that the surface brightness of both near and distant galaxies is identical. Pushing their luck still further, they decided to dump on the redshift=accelerated expansion of the universe and found that, whilst the redshift to distance correlation was sound, acceleration was contraindicated.(72) At which point, they came over all diplomatic:

“It is amazing that the predications of this simple formula are as good as the predictions of the expanding universe, which include complex corrections for hypothetical dark matter and dark energy.”(73)

I get the feeling that they didn’t find it particularly amazing at all; but delicately put, nonetheless. They channelled their inner Hubble, speculating that some other phenomena caused redshifting as light travelled through space. Plainly put, the data predicted a non-expanding universe to an accuracy of a few per cent.

Figure 10

This possibility should no longer be that much of a surprise, in the light of all the issues that I have raised with the BBT. If it’s not a sound explanation for the universe, then there is no longer an automatic presumption that the universe is expanding:

“The simple non-expanding Euclidean universe fits most data with the least number of assumptions...it is apparent that there are still many unanswered questions on cosmology...”(74)

Not that you’d know it if all you did was listen to the court cosmologists, which we have had to do through a process of osmosis. In their telling, the science is settled – all that’s left are a few ‘anomalies’, which are only addressed if they can come up with some kind of formula or hypothetical that isn’t necessarily confined to the realm of the possible. Otherwise, they rely upon Greek symbols and our ignorance, which they have fostered.

I shall leave you with one further conundrum; the location of our galaxy in relation to the universe. In more innocent times, when man was thought to be God’s creation, the Earth was held to be at the very centre of the universe. Stephen Hawking, he of wheelchair and voice generator fame, claimed that the universe is spatially homogenous – that, at all junctures, “space is completely filled with matter-energy.”(75) He said this because, from our perspective, the universe “looks pretty much the same in all directions”(76) and the alternative hypothesis - “that we are located near a very special point” -(77) is considered unconscionable by the mavens. It is preferable, therefore, to insist that it would all look the same in every direction, no matter where we were in the universe.

However, those pesky redshifts swim into focus, once again. You will recall that rather than them being evenly distributed, they are grouped, or quantized concentrically around us. Something like this.

Figure 11

Not exactly like that – it’s not that neat – and although the distance interval between each shell is around a million light years, several different intervals also exist.(78) For a moment, then, let’s discard Hawking’s ideological guesswork, and assign to the observations a meaning that ought to have been nearer the top of the list of possible explanations – namely, that the universe does have a centre.

And from the exact centre, the distance groups would present as (a) in the following figure. But if we were two million light years from the centre (the observable universe is alleged to be 46.5 billion lights years in radius), we would not be able to distinguish the quantized redshifts (b), as they would be lost in the background noise.

Figure 12

Because we can see them in this manner, in all directions and at great distances, it follows that we aren’t located at some random place on the skin of the balloon, but that we are central. In fact, the calculation is that our home galaxy is somewhere between 120,000 light years and 1.6 million lights years from the centre of the universe.(79) Apparently, the odds of us being that close to the centre of the cosmos randomly, is a little less than one in a trillion.(80) In other words, the data suggest that we are living in a galactocentric universe.

Not geocentric, which would imply that the Earth is at the exact centre and motionless, as our galaxy does appear to be in motion. But what ought to be the working hypothesis explaining redshift quantization – that the universe “has a unique geometric centre very near our own galaxy, the Milky Way” -(81) is almost completely ignored by the omniscient ones, who would prefer to continue invoking unknown physical processes instead.

And it’s this knee-jerk tendency that first aroused suspicion, as it is to be found all over the BBT. That and a corresponding refusal to entertain the possibility that any other explanation possesses a scintilla of credibility – the same dynamic that we find across every approved narrative. The theory and ‘science’ do not occupy the same postcode:

“The response of most cosmologists to this growing body of evidence has, unfortunately, not been to decide the Big Bang theory has been falsified, but to add new “parameters” and hypotheses... Each contradiction with observation is taken as a mere “anomaly” that does not undermine the theory as a whole. Strong peer pressure is applied against many of those who question the theory.”(82)

‘Twas ever thus – with regard to cosmology specifically, the ‘truth’ has undergone many a revision, from Ptomely, Copernicus (and Galileo), Newton and then Einstein. Ideology has always played an important role and new kids on the block have usually endured repeated beatings before their grudging acceptance. But the atheistic world view will not be surrendered lightly, or at all, and that is what’s really the driving motivation for the slavish devotion to the BBT. As Upton Sinclair had it:

“It is difficult for a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”(83)

So, as with evolutionary theory, the BBT has very little going for it. It’s another classic example of unscientific endeavour but, because it’s the prevailing orthodoxy, it gets free pass after free pass:

“The Big Bang itself somehow gets away with going against the laws of causality, probability, conservation, entropy and even common sense.”(84)

Ordinarily, of course, tinkering with a working hypothesis when new evidence comes to light isn’t a problem – that’s exactly what you’d hope for, provided the evidence doesn’t hole it below the waterline. But cobbling together a series of fixes that fit no known natural laws – whilst simultaneously lauding uniformitarianism – and slapping them on a theory that is equally evidence-free without even attempting to explore alternatives, is clearly dishonest. So, the third part of this series will tentatively introduce a few areas of interest that may be under-reported, the better to inform your own thinking.

Citations

(1) https://christiancourier.com/articles/the-big-bang-theory-vs-gods-word

(2) https://creation.com/en/articles/secular-scientists-blast-the-big-bang

(3) https://www.amnh.org/learn-teach/curriculum-collections/cosmic-horizons-book/georges-lemaitre-big-bang

(4) Ditto

(5) https://www.icr.org/article/origins-breakthroughs-2010-astronomy

(6) https://www.icr.org/article/cosmic-bubbleland

(7) Burbidge, G., Why Only One Big Bang?, Scientific American 266(2):120, February 1992 | doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0292-120.

(8) https://creation.com/en/articles/is-there-evidence-for-expanding-universe

(9) https://creation.com/en/articles/antimatter-missing

(10) Ditto

(11) Lewis, G. and Barnes, L., A Fortunate Universe: Life in a Finely Tuned Cosmos, ch. 6, Cambridge University Press, 2016.

(12) https://creation.com/en/articles/antimatter-missing#forwardref-2

(13) Smorra, C., cited in Osborne, H., The universe should not actually exist, CERN scientists discover, newsweek.com, 25 October 2017.

(14) Weinberger, L., Whose god? The theological response to the god-of-the-gaps, J. Creation 22(1):120–127, 2008.

(15) https://www.lppfusion.com/science/cosmic-connection/plasma-cosmology/the-growing-case-against-the-big-bang/

(16) https://creation.com/en/articles/dark-matter-and-a-cosmological-constant-in-a-creationist-cosmology

(17) https://creation.com/en/articles/dark-matter-unknown-god-carmelian

(18) https://creation.com/en/articles/why-look-for-new-theory-of-gravity-if-big-bang-cosmology-is-correct#forwardref-1

(19) https://creation.com/en/articles/why-look-for-new-theory-of-gravity-if-big-bang-cosmology-is-correct

(20) https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/deep-space/a60454807/big-bang-alternative-theory/

(21) https://www.icr.org/article/geocentricity-creation

(22) https://medium.com/@glennborchardt/why-the-universe-is-not-expanding-e7b9a8a55c5a#_edn2

(23) https://medium.com/@glennborchardt/falsification-20-of-the-big-bang-theory-intergalactic-distance-unchanged-over-time-2dc07d025dd0

(24) https://medium.com/@glennborchardt/why-the-universe-is-not-expanding-e7b9a8a55c5a#_edn2

(25) https://creation.com/en/articles/quasars-defy-big-bang

(26) https://creation.com/en/articles/hubble-hubble-big-bang-in-trouble

(27-28) Ditto

(29) https://www.lppfusion.com/science/cosmic-connection/plasma-cosmology/the-growing-case-against-the-big-bang/

(30) Ditto

(31) https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/4316620/

(32) https://www.space.com/25126-big-bang-theory.html

(33) https://answersingenesis.org/astronomy/starlight/does-distant-starlight-prove-the-universe-is-old/

(34) https://creation.com/en/articles/dismantle-the-big-bang-and-rediscover-gods-universe

(35) https://answersingenesis.org/astronomy/starlight/does-distant-starlight-prove-the-universe-is-old/

(36) https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/deep-space/a44050735/the-universe-is-mostly-empty-space/

(37-38) Ditto

(39) https://www.space.com/end-of-einstein-space-time

(40) https://creation.com/en/articles/age-of-the-earth

(41) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_universe#Observational_limits

(42) https://creation.com/en/articles/age-of-the-earth

(43) https://creation.com/en/articles/planet-formation-chaos-theory

(44) Ditto

(45) https://www.icr.org/article/astronomers-speak-our-solar-system-special

(46) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Earth#Solar_System_formation

(47) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_the_Moon

(48) Ditto

(49) Wiechert, U.; Halliday, A. N.; Lee, D.-C.; Snyder, G. A.; Taylor, L.A.Rumble, D. (October 2001). “Oxygen Isotopes and the Moon-Forming Giant Impact”. Science. 294 (12): 345–348.

(50) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_the_Moon#cite_note-nasa1-1

(51)https://web.archive.org/web/20230518082920/https://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/moon_formation.html

(52) https://creation.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=764#receding

(53) Don DeYoung, ‘The Earth-Moon System’, Proc. Second International Conference on Creationism 2:79–84, 1990.

(54) https://creation.com/en/articles/secular-scientists-blast-the-big-bang

(55) https://creation.com/en/articles/quasars-associated-with-galaxies

(56) https://creation.com/en/articles/quasar-with-enormous-redshift-found-embedded-in-nearby-spiral-galaxy-with-far-lower-redshift

(57) https://minorplanetcenter.net/

(58) https://www.icr.org/article/origins-breakthroughs-2010-astronomy

(59) https://www.space.com/11989-quirky-comet-hartley-2-solar-system-theories.html

(60) Lisle, J., Blue stars confirm recent creation, Acts & Facts 41(9):16, 2012; icr.org.

(61) Pfahl, E., Rappaport, S., and Podsiadlowski, P., A comprehensive study of neutron star retention in globular clusters, Astrophysical Journal 573:283–305, 2002; | doi:10.1086/340494.

(62) https://www.icr.org/article/origins-breakthroughs-2010-astronomy

(63) https://www.icr.org/article/crisis-crater-count-dating

(64-65) Ditto

(66) https://creation.com/en/articles/our-galaxy-is-the-centre-of-the-universe-quantized-redshifts-show

(67) https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1037233

(68) https://www.livescience.com/space/cosmology/james-webb-telescope-confirms-there-is-something-seriously-wrong-with-our-understanding-of-the-universe

(69) https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1037233

(70) https://medium.com/@glennborchardt/falsification-20-of-the-big-bang-theory-intergalactic-distance-unchanged-over-time-2dc07d025dd0

(71) https://www.sci.news/astronomy/science-universe-not-expanding-01940.html

(72) https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0218271814500588

(73) https://www.sci.news/astronomy/science-universe-not-expanding-01940.html

(74) https://creation.com/en/articles/expanding-universe-2

(75) https://creation.com/en/articles/our-galaxy-is-the-centre-of-the-universe-quantized-redshifts-show

(76) https://creation.com/en/articles/our-galaxy-is-the-centre-of-the-universe-quantized-redshifts-show

(77) Rindler, W., Essential Relativity: Special, General, and Cosmological, Revised 2nd edition, Springer-Verlag, New York, p. 135, 1977.

(78) https://creation.com/en/articles/our-galaxy-is-the-centre-of-the-universe-quantized-redshifts-show

(79-81) Ditto

(82) https://www.lppfusion.com/science/cosmic-connection/plasma-cosmology/the-growing-case-against-the-big-bang/

(83) https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/21810-it-is-difficult-to-get-a-man-to-understand-something

(84) https://www.icr.org/article/cosmic-bubbleland

Figure 1 https://cosmosatyourdoorstep.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/milky-way-galaxy-alfred-pasieka.jpg?w=893

Figure 2 https://earthandskyimaging.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Andromeda-LRGB-HS1.00.71.3Exp-0.7512Gau-0.75166x5Prnt.jpg

Figure 3 https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/deep-space/a44050735/the-universe-is-mostly-empty-space/

Figure 4 https://lovinthings.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Big-Bang-Timeline.jpg

Figure 5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_universe#Observational_limits

Figure 6 By NASA/JPL-Caltech - http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1454.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8626942

Figure 7 https://creation.com/en/articles/star-witnesses-young-creation

Figure 8 https://www.icr.org/article/crisis-crater-count-dating

Figure 9 https://creation.com/en/articles/universe-shape

Figure 10 https://www.lppfusion.com/science/cosmic-connection/plasma-cosmology/the-growing-case-against-the-big-bang/

Figure 11 https://creation.com/en/articles/our-galaxy-is-the-centre-of-the-universe-quantized-redshifts-show

Figure 12 Ditto

However, one of the less unpleasant surprises has been the ease with which the initial outline of each successive fraud can be identified if one knows where to look. Then it’s a question of a deal of vigorous mining and the detail reveals itself. The primary skill, if one can call it that, is knowing when the hole is deep enough, in being sure that basic errors have been avoided, that any revelations are genuine and conclusions sound.

Sometimes, though, despite what I’d fondly imagined to be a well developed capacity for cynicism, I can still be unmanned, this time by the realisation that even foundational beliefs – when belatedly scrutinised – do not survive first contact. In retrospect, I shouldn’t be surprised, because the net effect of the deception bolsters the belief in the godless, progressive, elite-mediated universe that our betters insist upon. Nonetheless, it’s still a doozy, as it requires us to zoom out to the widest possible extent. There will likely be those who will disinclined to do that. I refer to our origin story; specifically, to the primacy of the evolution narrative and the equally dominant Big Bang Theory.

I aim to tread carefully and to sedulously separate hard data and speculation. It is most likely that alternative explanations will be set out, ones that better match the facts, but not every aspect of both narratives can be definitively pinned down. Some open questions will remain. In short, there is plentiful evidence that contradicts received wisdom, but not enough – in my view – to be wholly certain about what took place instead. Which is not to say that the list of possibilities is, logically, a long one. Onwards.

The first thing to note is that, contrary to what evolutionists tell us, their ‘theory’ is not scientific – not even slightly. For reference, this is the basic definition that they adhere to:

“...the theory that all the living forms in the world have arisen from a single source which itself came from an inorganic form.”(1)

At some level, we may intuitively recognise that there is a whopping problem straight out of the gate, but it’s not often that the part about the ‘inorganic form’ is emphasised. Instead, the concept of the single cell to the multi cell does all the heavy lifting. We are not encouraged to ponder the obvious conundrum – namely, how did something come from nothing in the first place? This is not a peripheral consideration, after all. If the very first circle cannot be squared, then I would suggest – without the need for further elaboration – that the theory isn’t up to much.

Louis Pasteur, a contemporary of Darwin, was “the first to show that living things come only from living things”.(2) That is the basis for the Law of Biogenesis yet, somehow or other, Darwinism co-exists alongside it. I don’t see how the two can be reconciled – if one is ‘science,’ the other cannot be. Either something can come from nothing, or it can’t. Sometimes, things really are as simple as they seem. There’s no middle ground – it’s either Pasteur or Darwin.

And, were I to be Darwin, I wouldn’t be taking my theory any further until I could account for how life came from nothing. Which I would immediately know I wouldn’t be able to do. If you’re uncomfortable with that degree of certainty, feel free to waste an entire career trying (and failing) to prove otherwise. You’ll have plenty of forebears.

As you might expect, there are other data worth taking into account, but I find it remarkable that such a difficult assertion is accepted as gospel by all except the creationists. As a foundation, it’s sand-based, as anyone with functioning synapses ought to be able to fathom. But the propaganda has been all-encompassing, to the extent that many will – I suspect – balk at acknowledging what, in other arenas, we (the Awake) would swiftly embrace.

However, the same straightforward, evidence-first methodology should be applicable across all domains. Given that, I would suggest that evolution theory’s first hurdle has been clattered. One may still accord evolution the status of a theory but, in truth, it’s more of a hypothesis that is clearly compromised. Bacon’s scientific method - observation → induction → hypothesis → test hypothesis by experiment → proof/disproof → knowledge – is entirely absent. That is largely because ‘science’ today is consecrated on the altar of naturalism. Only materialistic explanations are allowed. That is an iron law, because – as even evolutionists acknowledge, “we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”(3)

“It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive...”(4)

So, not at all scientific, then; just another instance of working backwards from the desired end state, cherry picking what pleases and discarding (or ignoring) what doesn’t, whilst simultaneously excoriating those who have alternative viewpoints that either fit the evidence better or which leave matters undecided. This modus operandi should be familiar to us all, by now, but nowhere is it as unchallenged and pervasive as it is here. Imagine the superstructure that is required if the ‘theory’ is to remain front and centre. Imagine the leaps of faith, the size of the tapestry that must be woven, the assertions that must be worshipped as holy writ, the timelines that must be created out of whole cloth, if evolution is to remain pre-eminent. This sort of guff is typical:

“Humans and other mammals are descended from shrewlike creatures that lived more than 150,000,000 years ago...[and] all plants and animals are derived from bacteria-like microorganisms that originated more than 3,000,000,000 years ago.”(5)

Of course, those initial microorganisms had also somehow been created, in defiance of Pasteur, so we are looking at two separate miracles; life from nothing and biological evolution, whereby “diversity arises because the lineages that descend from common ancestors diverge through time.”(5) These miracles are entirely separate, mechanistically, and evolutionists concern themselves exclusively with diversity, although they would be most reluctant to entertain the use of the word ‘miracle’, on the grounds that it isn’t very scientific. Mind you, there’s a lot of that about:

“Perhaps the appearance of life on the earth is a miracle. Scientists are reluctant to accept that view, but their choices are limited: either life was created on the earth by the will of a being outside the grasp of scientific understanding or it evolved on our planet spontaneously...The first theory is a statement of faith...The second theory is also an act of faith. The act of faith consists in assuming that the scientific view of the origin of life is correct, without having concrete evidence to support that belief.”(6)

Although, as we have seen, there is nothing scientific about et voilà! As Princeton professor Edwin Conklin noted, even the simplest of chemical substances are extremely complex compounds:

“The probability of life originating from accident is comparable to the probability of the unabridged dictionary resulting from an explosion in a printing shop.”(7)

I have, perhaps, belaboured the point, but before moving on to evidence from the physical realm, the second presumption – that life, once formed, ‘evolves’ – also deserves some side-eye at the philosophical level. The evolution of microbes to man isn’t simply a question of “changing the frequencies of existing genes”;(8) instead, many thousands of new genes would have to be added. How exactly is that supposed to happen?

Perhaps, now that we have stuck our fingers in our ears, chanted “la, la, la” and moved past the first impossibility, we can accept a two-for-one deal a little easier, but single-to-multimillion cell ‘evolution’ is still a stretch that cannot be evidenced. Darwin himself, although the idea of mutability (the evolution of one species into another) was central to his thesis, recognised that, for many, the entire concept was a bust:

“I, for one, can conscientiously declare that I never feel surprised at any one sticking to the belief of immutability.”(9)

One assumes that he would have been surprised had he proved that he was undoubtedly right. To be fair to him, evolution was not a new idea. A number of ancient Greek philosophers posited various theories and St. Augustine, Goethe and Kant have all floated their own, bespoke versions.(10) So did the ancient Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Hinds and the Romans.(11) Many others, over the centuries, believed that all living beings had a common ancestor,(12) but it was Darwin’s version that stuck. The narrative would have us believe that it was his theory of national selection via random variation that was the game-changer but, seeing as it’s hogwash (more on that shortly), this seems unlikely.

To me, it seems like evolution was an idea whose time had come, not by virtue of a sudden, scientific revelation, but because it suited a certain agenda. After all, the esteem in which a narrative is held is seldom positively correlated to its veracity. In my experience, it’s much more likely to be the exact opposite. Narratives aren’t characterised by the scientific method, by a rigorous adherence to facts – they are political constructs, which are created and then vociferously defended against those who seek the truth. So it is with the evolutionary theory, which is a reminder of the Big Lie phenomenon; the real whoppers, repeated incessantly à la Goebbels, tend to be the ones that succeed.

“Scientists who go about teaching that evolution is a fact of life are great con men, and the story they are telling may be the greatest hoax ever. In explaining evolution we do not have one iota of fact ... It is a tangled mishmash of guessing games and figure jaggling ... If evolution occurred at all, it was probably in a very different manner than the way it is now taught.”(13)

Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859. Marx’s The Communist Manifesto had been published eleven years earlier. Amongst at least some of the cognoscenti, there was a desire to “free science from Moses”.(14) The naturists and Bible sceptics were early acolytes, whilst the giants of the scientific world rejected Darwinism. We already know of Pasteur, but James Clerk Maxwell (founder of electromagnetism),(15) Lord Kelvin (pioneer of thermodynamics)(16) and Luis Agassiz (founder of modern glacial geology) all vehemently disavowed the evolutionary theory, “the law of higgledy-pigglety.”(17)

Early in life, Darwin himself believed in a Christian God and had attended Cambridge University, intending to become a clergyman. Post-Beagle and the Galapagos Islands, his faith weakened, although he still claimed to be a theist when writing his magnum opus, referencing “the Creator” on numerous occasions.(18) His apologists prefer to maintain the fiction that Darwin remained, at worst, an agnostic, and that he arrived at this conclusion by virtue of ‘facts’ alone, but his private notebooks reveal that he expressed a belief in atheism and materialism prior to formulating his theory of natural selection, over twenty years prior to publication.(19)

His writings also demonstrate that he entertained two other evolutionary theories before plumping for natural selection and that all three were mutually exclusive,(20) which would tend to demonstrate that “he was philosophically inclined to transmutation theories that transcend the empirical data with which he originally worked.”(21) Or, in modern parlance, just another non-scientific snake oil salesman with an addiction to ad-hoc reasoning, who worked from the end backwards, as that type invariably does. I’m sure that dismissing a man of Darwin’s stature in that manner comes across as harsh, but his eminence is of a manufactured variety. The general theory of evolution is fubar well before we get to hard, physical evidence.

At this point, a valid distinction between categories of science should be made. On the one hand, operational science involves the discovery of how things work in today’s world which, in practice, demands repeatable and observable phenomena. Origins science (aka historical science), on the other hand, must wrestle with “unique, unrepeatable, unobservable events” from the past.(22) Today’s science does have implications for origins science, but – sans a time machine – we cannot be sure exactly what they are, so philosophical assumptions must, inevitably, loom larger.

The evolutionists believe that they can clear up any uncertainty over the distant past via the judicious deployment of a concept they label gradualism, a core tenet of the faith. It apparently kicks in right after the first miracle and accompanies the second miracle – that of microbes to man – and is

“...the assumption that the same natural laws and processes that operate in our present day have always operated in the same way in the past. This is an unproven and non-demonstrable assumption...one of those pre-scientific commitments taken on faith...”(23)

This accommodation is made so that ‘science’ is possible. However, if it’s incorrect – and there’s no way of being certain, either way – at least some of what flows from the ‘science’ will likely be complete tosh. It is, at any rate, a less-than-subtle way of rejecting the possibility of supernatural interventions in the history of the universe. And without it, the most-favoured-status of evolutionary theory would be impossible to sustain, as the rulebook governing origins science would not have been agreed by the ‘experts’.

But it’s still somewhat of an own goal because, whilst gradualism can be relied upon to scrub some alternative theories – particularly ones which suggest that past catastrophes may have been a factor in the earth’s history – it also straightjackets the evolutionists in other ways. Their contention that mutations provide “the raw material for evolution”,(24) for example, can be tested against the way mutations actually work in the here and now, and then retroactively applied to the distant past, solely because the naturalists have boxed themselves in with their insistence on their construct.

This is no small thing, as it is one of only two alleged mechanisms for evolutionary change, the other being natural selection. But it’s also a dumb premise, as has become increasingly apparent, as mutations - “scrambled genetic code, accounting for a variation in a living organism” -(25) are rare and to be avoided, as they are most often harmful, resulting in death or sterility. Geneticists, not be denied their rightful role as meddlers, attempted to buttress evolutionary theory by X-raying fruit flies to increase the rate of mutations. It didn’t go as planned:

“What happened? Two things. One, the mutant flies either died over a period of generations, or, they came back to their original, normal conditions. They could not be changed.”(26)

No scientist has ever managed to induce beneficial mutations, let alone ones that would transform one species into another. Latterly, at least some of them have been obliged to grasp the nettle:

“A mutation doesn’t produce major new raw material. You don’t make a new species by mutating the species...a mutation is not the cause of evolutionary change.”(27)

However, instead of abandoning the faith, such pseudo-realists fall back on the second fallacy, that of natural selection - Darwin’s primary hypothesis. This consists of four propositions; that organisms within each species vary; that these variations may be inherited; that organisms produce more offspring that can possibly survive; and that offspring whose variations best fit the environment continue to survive and reproduce, whilst the others don’t. This ‘survival of the fittest’ framing might seem to have potential, were it not for that fact that it runs counter to another law, of which the Darwinians are fully cognisant:

“The main scientific reason why there is no evidence for evolution in either the present or the past (except in the creative imagination of evolutionary scientists) is because one of the most fundamental laws of nature precludes it. The law of increasing entropy -- also known as the second law of thermodynamics -- stipulates that all systems in the real world tend to go “downhill,” as it were, toward disorganization and decreased complexity.”(28)

No exception to this law has ever been found, not even a tiny one.(29) So, instead of natural selection, we get entropy. Instead of an inexorable process of refinement, we get decline. And it’s not at all clear to me how natural selection could result in the biological changes necessary if the mutations premise is false. The theory feels like it’s second cousins to the emerging field of epigenetics, which concerns itself with the adaptive capabilities of our DNA, not the evolution of it. Lifestyle and environment affect which genes are switched on and off (or which have their intensity altered) and these changes can be inherited -(30) therefore, the living thing is the actor, not nature:

“Changes certainly do occur between generations of living things, but they are not the result of nature actively doing anything. They are instead the result of adaptive programming inside well-designed bodies of living things.”(31)

Those who still cling to the wreckage place great store in the neutral model of evolutionary theory, which maintains that much of the human genome is composed of randomly mutating junk, and that it is from this soup that functional new genes appear, driving evolution forward.(32) This isn’t true, either – at least 95% of the genome is ‘restrained’ and incapable of evolution.(33) Which doesn’t mean that these sections are junk; it is now apparent that virtually the entire genome is functional and extremely complex.(34)

“DNA information is overlapping-multi-layered and multi-dimensional; it reads both backwards and forwards; and the junk is far more functional than the protein code, so there is no fossilized history of evolution.”(35)

So, neither random mutations nor natural selection are up to the job, but that flavour of evidence is more the preserve of pointy heads in lab coats. We might want to reflect upon some more prosaic findings, such as the fact that macroevolution has never been observed and that humans have not evolved for five thousand years. Evolutionists would no doubt counter by claiming that evolution moves too slowly for us to observe it today, although they also hold that some creatures are unchanged over hundreds of millions of years.(36) It seems that their evolution is a tad spotty and inconsistent.

Additionally, if the particles to people process is as protracted as is claimed, there ought to be a record of at least some of the various transitional creatures that must have existed. All those weird and wonderful, transient hybrids must be somewhere, right? Well, no:

“Over 300 different body plans are found without any fossil transitions between them and single-cell organisms...In the entire fossil record, there is not a single unequivocal transition form proving a causal relationship between any two species. From the billions of fossils we have discovered, there should be thousands of clear examples if they existed.”(37)

“The hardcore fact of the matter is this: there are no provable transitions—none at all. Evolutionary geology is “gap-ology.””(38)

There has been the odd Hail Mary attempt at magicking an intermediate into existence – the Archaeopteryx being the most famous example -(39) yet all have failed. But, logically, we shouldn’t have to rely on the fossil record alone for our conclusions. Were evolution to be a thing, we would be surrounded by transitional creatures today, yet we are not, are we? Instead, the fossil record indicates a sudden introduction, a period of stasis, then extinction. There is no evidence to support the hypothesis that vertebrates evolved from invertebrates, nor that man evolved from the ape. Zero, zip, zilch, nada: “Evolution. A theory of change without any evidence of change.”(40) Even Darwin could see the problem:

“Speaking of this issue, Darwin wrote in an 1881 letter that “the case at present must remain inexplicable and may be truly argued as a valid argument against the views here entertained.””(41)

So far, so screwed up. And, perhaps, difficult to process. Following the logic – which comprehensively undermines evolutionary theory – is all well-and-good, but how can it be reconciled with ice cores, dinosaurs, the ‘incontrovertible’ evidence of an earth that is billions of years old? Not to mention that hunter-gatherer shtick, the Neanderthals, homo erectus and the rest of it? Maybe evolutionary theory is a trainwreck, but surely the physical evidence must count for something? Yes, it does – just not what we’ve been told. That’s what happens when conclusions are formulated before the evidence is assessed.

Embellishments, magical thinking, false deductions and manufactured frameworks then result and an entirely fake universe is constructed. It cannot be otherwise; if ‘evolution’ is a definite dud, the so-called proofs of it cannot be what they seem to be. Something’s got to give. And the people who still insist that Darwinism is alive and kicking – yet know otherwise – are the ones most likely to be the villains of the piece. They are, after all, liars, reduced to absurdities that they can only get away with because the alternative possibility, even if it can be curated and restricted to a giant question mark, is a third-rail topic.

It’s a lot to take in, largely because – of all narratives – it has been, perhaps, the most comprehensively policed and downloaded. However, some of the anomalies are more easily dispatched than others. The ‘vestigial organs’ canard is one such, as the theory claims that our evolution from ape-like animals has resulted in a number of leftover organs, for which we now have no use – the appendix, the tonsils, the wisdom teeth, the coccyx and a number of others. It involves denying the possibility that there are, perhaps, things we don’t yet know. Like how the appendix,(42) the gallbladder,(43) our voice boxes (44) and every other ‘vestigial organ’ have multiple capacities, and that removal of any of them compromises the body’s functionality.(45)

In support of a truly epic flight of fancy about the evolution of whales – a necessity as whales are mammals, so they must have evolved from pigs or buffalo, per the theory -(46) evolutionists introduce Exhibit A, ‘vestigial hip bones’, which are nothing of the sort, as the pelvic girdle doesn’t even link to the spine.(47) Further, the ‘vestigial’ tail of a koala is what the animal sits on all day, when balancing in the trees.(48) Dolphins with an extra set of fins do not possess vestigial dog’s legs,(49) but straw-grasping is pretty much all that’s left when the mechanism by which any of this could happen is entirely unproven.

The legend of the dinosaurs is another corker. I realise that this is a biggie and, previously, I myself had no reason to question their existence. They are a jewel in the crown of the evolutionists. T-rex, Brontosaurus, 65 million years ago and all that. Probably wiped out by a comet strike or similar. We know the story that we’ve been told, but trust in the PG version of any such contention ought now to be in short supply. So, I’ll briefly set out what the evidence actually looks like and you can decide. Along the way, we will encounter a veritable parade of red flags, although it may be that we end up knowing more about what didn’t happen, rather than what did.

The first ‘dinosaur’ bones weren’t located until 1796, in Montmartre, Paris. They were taken to a certain George Cuvier of the Royal Society, “who had the uncanny ability to identify animals from a few odd bones.”(50) He determined – somehow – that the bones came from creatures long extinct, but the categorisation of ‘dinosaurs’ wasn’t made until the 1840s, by Richard Owen, an English anatomist.(51) The Smithsonian insists that “people had actually been finding and wondering about the fossil bones of dinosaurs...for centuries beforehand”,(52) and that bones were still being unearthed throughout Europe in the 19^th century. But the golden age of discovery was to be North American.

Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh, formally friends, were the two protagonists in the Bone Wars (between 1877 and 1892), whereby both tried to outdo each other in the recovery of fossils, bones and the ‘discovery’ of new species.(53) Cope had little in the way of formal training and Marsh was “the greatest proponent of Darwinism in nineteenth-century America.”(54) Between them, when they weren’t trying to ruin the other, they ‘discovered’ such favourites as Stegosaurus and Triceratops, amongst a haul of 136 new dinosaur species.(55)

Remarkable, really. Once the bones and fossils had been labelled ‘dinosaurs’, others were recovered, around the world. Not by regular people, mind, but by government entities, museums and authorised fossil hunters. My impression is that a pair of petulant manchilds were indulged – they were the pathfinding useful idiots of palaeontology, accorded carte blanche. And, once they had laid the groundwork, others seemingly built on it.

It’s worth being specific about what it is that was actually found. Fossils, after all, are “two dimensional imprints of an organism that doesn’t contain any organic material.”(56) Then there are the bones. For example, here is Diplodocus, on display.

Figure 1

My bad. Actually, this is the Diplodocus.

Figure 2

That’s what actually came out of the ground. How about the Big Daddy, T-rex?

Figure 3

Here he is, being unearthed.

Figure 4

Figure 5

Sleight of hand is par for the course. The most frequent methodology seems to follow this path. First, a collection of bones (rocks, fossils) is found, frequently across different days and/or locations. In the following instance, our friend Cope decided that they all went together.

Figure 6

A large helping of full-fat creative license then produced this.

Figure 7

And what ends up in the museum is this.

Figure 8

That was the Platecarpus tympaniticus. This is the Carnosaur, minus three tiny pieces.

Figure 9

Which, when extrapolated, looks like this.

Figure 10

Thus, our friendly neighbourhood museum displays this skeleton.

Figure 11

This is how the game is played, across the board and, although I’m not a scientist, I’m going to go out on a limb and cry foul. You will have gathered that the ‘bones’ in these alleged replicas are not actually real bones. Those are completely off-limits, even to professionals. Something to do with them being radioactive, super-heavy, fake – perm any one from three. There’s an entire cottage industry out there, dedicated to perpetuating the fiction, wittingly or otherwise. It seems that every single species is a fabrication. All are the figments of various imaginations and all are providing sterling service to the evolutionists.

Figure 12

That’s just a whistle-top tour; if you need more, click on the citations. But, nothing with the slightest resemblance to a Stegosaurus or a Triceratops has ever been found. No complete skeletons (not even close), much of what palaeontologists claim to have found are now rocks, not the original bones - a process that neither you nor I will ever get to witness – the representations of the ‘dinosaurs’ are egregious works of fiction, and those sold at auction are cobbled together according to the sketches and in-filled with ‘real bone material’, which the layperson would correctly identify as the bones of chickens, horses, dogs and so forth. Go large or go home.

Speaking of which, American ‘dinosaurs’ are considerably bigger and more imposing than their European colleagues (you betcha), a circumstance ascribed to location, location, location by establishment stenographers, who have a handle on conditions allegedly millions of years in the past:

“But the United States also proved an exceptionally receptive environment for these creatures, a fertile niche that promoted their development into the towering behemoths that continue to wow museum visitors.”(57)

There are what we may charitably describe as ‘issues’ with the dating methodology, also. Dakota, a 1999 discovery, is supposedly 100 million years ago, but still has muscle and skin.(58) NASA found it, via satellite or something.(59) Researchers have also found proteins and DNA in what they claim to be dinosaur remains.(60) You’d have to be some sort of tinfoil-hatted denier to throw shade at that, even though it is known that the decay rate of DNA precludes the possibility that it could last hundreds of thousands of years, let alone millions.(61) But, no matter. What’s one more false note in a symphony of them?

Sadly, there are plenty of reasons to doubt the entire chronology of the dinosaurs. And of earth itself. The dating methodology, if we can call it that, relies upon certain assumptions, rather than on a solid bedrock of ‘science’. Gradualism is one such, theoretical age models another. The underlying conviction is that earth is millions of years old – all conclusions are formed with these factors embedded in the calculations. So, once again, one cannot call the results scientific. No open-minded spirit of enquiry is in play. And nobody wants to acknowledge the fact that what they are engaged in is partisan guesswork conducted within a rigged framework, nothing more.

But what about carbon dating? And the aforementioned ice cores? What about rock strata? And our evolutionary forebears? Well, ‘carbon dating’ – a calculation based on the rate of decay of Carbon-14 within once-living things – is only truly effective out to about 3,000 to 4,000 years and, even then, only if it can be corroborated historically. Nearly all C-14 would be gone in less than 60,000 years,(62) yet ‘dinosaur bones’ routinely test positive for C-14,(63) which would suggest one of two things; either the bones don’t belong to dinosaurs from 65 million years ago, or T-rex walked amongst us pretty recently – certainly, since man has been around, according to the evolutionary timeline.

So, if carbon dating cannot be used to date the earth, what can be? Well, mostly the fossil record and the rock strata, organised into a geologic column based on gradualism and a complete absence of catastrophes. Something like this.

Figure 13

“Most of Earth’s land surface is covered with sedimentary rocks or sediments, which are formed when pre-existing rock material is weathered.... Within these water-deposited sedimentary rocks are the fossilized remains of billions of plants and animals.”(64)

It should be noted that 95% of fossils are marine creatures and less than 1% are land animals. This makes sense, as the latter have “low-fossilization potential,”(65) due to the fact “that fossilization requires rapid burial. Ordinarily a dead animal is consumed by scavengers or it decays into oblivion.”(66) In the ordinary way of things – according to the gradualists – land fossils ought to be exceedingly rare and there is no obvious reason why marine and land animals should be buried together, yet that is frequently the case.(67)

The rock itself is said to have been laid down gradually, over many millions of years, under water. Some of the less dogmatic evolutionists are prepared to accept that – perhaps – there is evidence of rapid deposition via catastrophic processes, but they still insist that aeons separated those episodes and that each layer hardened before the next deposit. This theory is testable, to a degree, as tectonic plate movement would fracture the strata, rather than bend them. In addition, evidence of animal burrows and plant root systems ought to be present, as they are on modern soil surfaces. Those have the potential to destroy the soft sedimentary structure, given time. The question is, how much time?

“A recent study undertook to determine just how much time was required to destroy all remnants of water action...it was observed that within months, all sedimentary structure was destroyed, so intense is the bioturbation in soft sediments. As long as the sediments are still soft, they will be bioturbated and the structure lost.”(68)(69)

In other words, it oughtn’t look a whole lot like this.

Figure 14

Nor like this.

Figure 15

Nor this.

Figure 16

Radical folding such as in Figures 15 and 16 takes place when sediments are soft and pliable, and can be seen worldwide. Many of these formations contain animal track-ways but are almost devoid of plants, which would not be the case were they to be ecosystems of an entire era, as claimed.(70) Rapid formation of sediments, rather than a gradual accumulation as per the narrative, can be accomplished in vastly shorter time-frames. This is not guesswork – the St. Helens volcanic eruption in 1980 provided us with a geologic lesson in real time.

The main eruption filled a valley with hundreds of feet of sediment and was followed with another shortly thereafter and one more in 1982.

“Mount St. Helens revealed to the world that both thick and thin layering can happen fast...sedimentary layers hundreds of feet thick formed within hours during the eruption itself, and then hardened into rock soon after the water drained from them.”(71)

Even without the benefit of catastrophe, sedimentary rock can form in less than thirty-five years, as along Scotland’s west coast.(72) The St. Helens site also gave the lie to radioisotope dating. Rock that was ten years old was dated in a range of between 340,000 to 2,800,000 years,(73) which was not simply incorrect, but also remarkably imprecise.

Figure 17

Then there is the seeming conundrum of what the supposed experts refer to as ‘polystrate fossils’, which straddle the sedimentary strata. Were dogma to be abandoned and proper scientific analysis adopted instead, the obvious conclusions could be drawn. Polystrate fossil logs are common, running vertically through several layers – a sensible person might be tempted to ask the obvious question:

“How did they stand there for millions of years while the layers of deposits built around them, and all without rotting away?”(74)

They obviously didn’t. But they also show up in coal which, contrary to yet another myth pulled from the evolutionists’ grab bag, forms quickly – weeks for brown coal, months for black coal.(75) Oil and natural gas aren’t formed quite as promptly but, in the lab, four years was all that was required to mimic nature.(76) And less than perfect natural conditions off California were all that were necessary to form oil and gas in well under 5,000 years.(77) All of which goes to show that, even without catastrophic interventions, stuff can happen awful quickly and clearly has in the past.

Then there are the La Brea Tar Pits, near downtown Los Angeles, from which over three and a half million specimens (from 600 species) have been extracted.(78) These, in marked contrast to the dino scam, are genuine skeletons, albeit composites. And some of them are big. Way bigger than today’s counterparts.

Figure 18

“...the plants and animals of the ancient past are consistently larger and more vigorous than their modern counterparts. The record is clear: degeneration, not regeneration, is the name of the game in the history of living organisms...”(79)

It is also widely accepted that the fossils are indicative of a flood deposit (they are jammed-together victims, and crushed bone fragments predominate), a phenomenon that would be consistent with the rock strata evidence. There are other graveyards, such as the Cumberland Bone Cave fossils from Maryland, which are also water-laid deposits.(80) Not to mention the enormous quantities of mammoth bones preserved in the Arctic permafrost which, as previously noted, would not exist were it not for “rapid changes in climate and catastrophic burials.”(81) Scavengers would have done what scavengers do, otherwise. Nonetheless, as it stands;

“...when fossils are found they are dated according to the theory that the bottom layer is 900M+ years old and the top layer is 10M+ years old.”(82)

Which brings me to the ice-core data and then to humanity itself. We immediately encounter the two hardy perennials – gradualism and modelling – once again. The Milankovitch ice age theory is the go-to hypothesis, and it holds that it’s the Earth’s rotational and orbital motions that influence the world’s climate and explain the various ice ages.(83) However, its proponents harbour a guilty secret:

“Uniformitarian scientists claim that chemical clues within the seafloor sediments tell a “story” of climate change over millions of years and that this “story” agrees well with expectations of the astronomical (or Milankovitch) theory of Pleistocene ice ages. Yet secular scientists routinely use the astronomical theory to date the seafloor sediments on a technique called “orbital tuning”.(84)

In other words, a bright, perfectly-formed specimen of circular reasoning, which the savvier establishment types recognise. The claim that ‘independent’ checks salvage the narrative unravels when all of them assume that the evolutionary paradigm is true; further, the different dating systems used suffer from the same original fault, as they are all calibrated with each other.(85) So, once again, the overwhelming urge to reinforce the approved version of events leads to gaslighting and dishonesty, which oughtn’t be necessary if the case was solid.

The ice cores themselves are dated by using theoretical ice-flow models, for the most part. These models assume that the ice sheets are millions of years old (Milankovitch, again),(86) so the vast ages that are assigned are a given. Another familiar fallacy also gets warmed over – the insistence that specific evidence is capable of only one interpretation. In this case, scientists aver that they can accurately date Antarctic ice cores by correctly identifying annual layers, despite the fact that dozens of distinct layers can be laid within a few years, “with the number of layers varying from year to year.”(87)(88) So, they (scientists) can’t, especially at greater depths. They also attempt to count seasonal dust peaks, even though they acknowledge that ancient storms could have deposited any number of non-annual peaks.

The Greenland ice sheet is a more reliable source of evidence, due primarily to the larger precipitation rates, which are well-preserved. The sheet is around 4,000 feet thick and, over the past fifty years, has been accumulating at an annual rate of five feet. We know this because, in 1942, eight US Navy aircraft made an emergency landing and, whilst the pilots were rescued, the planes were left in situ. They were only found again, in 1988, with the help of ground penetrating radar as they were buried under 250 feet of ice.(89)

Figure 19

Tempting though it is to utilise simpleton’s maths – a variation on the gradualist formula – to conclude that it would then take less than 1,000 years for the ice sheet to form, other considerations much be factored in, such as compaction, thinning and other measurements from across the ice cap. Nonetheless, an age of less than 6,000 years is possible if “we assume the average annual thickness to be the mean between the annual thickness at the top and at the bottom (about eight inches)”,(90) a method the evolutionist would favour. Intra-seasonal oscillation of ð18O – measuring annual precipitation – is in good agreement with this hypothesis, although lower in the ice sheet there is less certainty.(91) Similar calculations in Antarctica are complicated by the slow accumulation of ice:

“By the time the ice has been buried deeply enough to no longer be influenced by the atmosphere, annual variations have been greatly dampened by diffusion.”(92)(93)

It is apparent, then, that absent a pre-determined, non-validated framework, the ice core evidence is not definitive, although we are informed that it is. Gradualism cannot be assumed and, at best, even glaciologists admit that the uncertainties probability limit the number of countable layers to around 8,500 in Greenland, with the possibility that numerous layers were laid each year.(94) So much for ice cores.

Finally, in this telling, we come to humanity. What can we bring to the party? Given the absence of evolutionary evidence and the entire concept’s violation of accepted natural laws we shouldn’t, perhaps, expect much. If other animals haven’t evolved, why would we? Darwin’s theory applies equally to all animals and that’s all that humans were to him – just another animal. Still, the scientists seem to have a working hypothesis on the front-burner – something approximating this.

Figure 20

Sure, it gets updated every now and again as some new discovery upsets the apple-cart, but the basics are ‘settled’, aren’t they? What with all that evidence.

“All that paleoanthropologists have to show for more than 100 years of digging are remains from fewer than 2000 of our ancestors. They have used this assortment of jawbones, teeth and fossilized scraps, together with molecular evidence from living species, to piece together a line of human descent going back 5 to 8 million years to the time when humans and chimpanzees diverged from a common ancestor.”(95)

It turns out that the fossils that allegedly form our family tree are remarkably scarce. All the ‘evidence’ for human evolution “can still be placed, with room to spare, inside a single coffin.”(96) To my knowledge, that is not a fact that is widely publicised. Nor is any thought given to a necessary corollary to the evolutionists’ tale – if humans have been around for two to three million years, many trillions must have lived and died. So, where are their fossils? We can find ‘dinosaur’ bones that are alleged to be 65 million years old, but not human remains from considerably more recent times? I assume that, at some point, our ancestors would have started burying their dead, rather than abandoning them to the wildlife, which would surely increase the odds of discovery. But, no.

Yet the bones that have been found seem to disproportionately represent ‘missing links’ (until they are inevitably debunked): Piltdown Man, Nebraska Man, the Neanderthals, Lucy, Ida, et al.(97) Lucy was simply an ape.(98) And, yes - I included the Neanderthals, a source of pride to the evolutionists - whose DNA was at least 99.7% like that of ‘humans’, with whom they mated and lived alongside.(99)(100)(101) Ordinarily, of course, creatures (especially humans) mate only with their own species.

The idea that Neanderthals are transitional creatures, somewhere between ape and man, “is being shown to be a mental construct that took on a life of its own.”(102) Today’s reconstructions of them look just like us – some of them were even gingers with freckles.(103) Other evolutionist articles of faith are also incoherent, even by their own methodologies, as “anatomically modern Homo sapiens, Neandertal, archaic Homo sapiens, and Homo erectus...all lived as contemporaries.”(104)

Or, to put it another way, were all indistinguishable from modern man. Quite how an evolutionary fable can be constructed from a single coffin of fossils is unknown to me, particularly in the absence of evidence for any other creatures’ ‘transition’. Whilst the contention is that Homo erectus evolved around 1.5 million years ago, transitioning to Homo sapiens about 1.1 million years later, leading anthropologists aren’t buying it.(105) The differences are so small that the two appear to be one and the same. There are other problems:

“Fossils classified as H. erectus all share a set of “primitive” traits including a sloping forehead and large brow ridges, yet these all fall comfortably within the range of what are called normal humans today. For example, the very same traits are found in some modern people groups, including Eskimos.”(106)

In addition, in a cave in Georgia, scientists found what they believe to be five human skulls or partial human skulls. All had very different shapes, yet all were buried together, within a short time span. Instead of transitional human forms, the fossils demonstrated that variation was occurring at the same time.(107) And, once again, the dating methodology stinks. There is no way of precisely calculating the age of these fossil remains via carbon-dating, as previously noted.

So, evidence that doesn’t comport with evolutionary theory is ignored and the approved bandwagon continues on its way. Most people are still under the impression that our DNA is 98.5% similar to that of the chimpanzee, but this is not the case. At most, it’s 85% similar (84.38%, to be precise) – the scientists responsible for the falsehood gerrymandered the data to get it to match their dogmatic presupposition that humans evolved from apes.(108) Presumably, the reason why such a finding is memory-holed is that it punctures the common ancestor fable below the waterline – a 15% divergence in DNA in 3-6 million years is no longer feasible.

If the evolutionary cult was in genuine pursuit of answers, a study of the human genome could still have utility. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and nuclear DNA analysis had provided succour for the Recent African Origins (RAO) theory – once “ a whole host of...questionable genetic assumptions” of an evolutionary flavour had been added to the mix -(109) whereby humans evolved in Africa between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago. But archaic DNA studies, conducted by establishment types, have thrown a succession of wrenches in the evolutionary machine, pushing the timelines back to 600,000 years.

The infamous molecular genetic clock – yet another tool wholly corrupted by assumptions that aren’t empirically based – is one of the evolutionists’ favourite toys. Once it’s loaded up with macroevolutionary dreck, it is used to ‘prove’ deep-time divergence of species. But the mtDNA mutation rates, first analysed in 1997, have caused a major headache. True believers noticed the problem early-doors and spent years trying to make the evidence fit their assumptions but, once the evolutionary suppositions were stripped away, the age of the MRCA (the most recent common ancestor) wasn’t even close to millions of years in the past:

“In 2012 and 2013, two major secular papers were published that each analyzed the rare mutational variants in human protein coding exons among ~9,000 individuals of various ethnicities and found that, based on demographic models, as opposed to standard evolution-calibrated models, the rare mutational variation in the human genome could be no older than 5,000 to 10,000 years.”(110)(111)

Further research narrowed it down to around 6,000 years of maternal human lineage.(112)(113) A study of the Y-chromosome revealed that, although mutation rates varied over time, both the paternal and maternal genomes were less than 10,000 years old.(114) Because the Y-chromosome is a loner, it has no counterpart with which to exchange genetic information. This makes it a good study when calculating a genetic clock. A 2019 study is particularly potent:

“In this study, they noted that if humans have actually been around for several hundred thousand years or more, according to RAO they should have accumulated 8 to 59 times the amount of mutations that we currently observe in Y chromosomes worldwide.”(115)

Curious, isn’t it? The studies are by what we might call ‘creationists’ and secular scientists alike. That being the case, it would be imprudent to dismiss them as a Bible-basher’s fever dream, I would suggest. Especially as a secular study of language, genetics and demographics found that migration patterns did not match the RAO schema, nor do they support a single line of descent out of Africa.(116) The evolutionists are increasingly driven to straw man arguments and more circular reasoning, such as this beauty from atheist extraordinaire, Richard Dawkins:

“Evolution has been observed. It’s just that it hasn’t been observed while it’s happening.”(117)

Which is just another way of saying ‘trust the experts’, not something that a good chunk of the population is any longer prepared to do. I suspect that the hard-core of the evolutionary movement will never accept any evidence that contradicts their beliefs, because “the fact is that evolutionists believe in evolution because they want to.”(118) They have swallowed the theory whole, presumably because it meshes with their view of humanity. They haven’t worked through what evidence there is and formed conclusions; they’ve treated what was a hypothesis (which was already disintegrating during Darwin’s lifetime, as he himself was aware) as fact.

Once they had convinced themselves of the randomness of the Universe, they then set about defending the indefensible. Neither mutation theory nor natural selection can stand up to any scrutiny, as both violate scientific laws which dictate that systems don’t improve – instead, they decline over time. But once certain assumptions are plumbed into their model, the way in which they measure the age of the world can be calibrated and the self-affirming cycle can begin. Dating techniques are not empirical – they are the product of magical thinking.

The entire fossil record, the geologic record and humanity’s history are all grist to the mill. Add a soupçon of what looks like outright fantasy – Stegosaurus and co. - whisk, and admire the handiwork. And, although you and I may be most reluctant to accept that we have fallen for a fiction of this magnitude, we should remember that Darwinism has been with us for less than a hundred and seventy years; prior to that, in the West at least, versions of the Creation story had always been considered objectively valid, whether as allegory or as the gospel truth. The evolutionists’ motivation has never been about ‘following the science’, but something else entirely:

“It is their desire at all costs to explain the origin of everything without a Creator. Evolutionism is thus intrinsically an atheistic religion...Whether atheism or humanism (or even pantheism), the purpose is to eliminate a personal God from any active role in the origin of the universe and all its components, including man.”(119)

As is my wont, I have written this piece over multiple days and it’s only when I proofread that I reacquaint myself with its flow. The treatment feels a little superficial, given the subject matter, but providing answers is not my intention. Rather, it’s to demonstrate – in short form - that the narratives that cannot be relied upon span the entire spectrum and include humanity’s origin story. As I hope I’ve demonstrated, the evidence for the theory of evolution just isn’t there. It’s my intention to examine that other legend, the Big Bang Theory, in Part Two.

Citations

(1) https://press.rebus.community/historyoftech/chapter/evolution-before-darwin/

(2) https://christiancourier.com/articles/are-science-and-faith-compatible

(3) Lewontin, R., Billions and billions of demons, The New York Review, January 9, 1997, p. 31.

(4) Ditto

(5) https://christiancourier.com/articles/evaluating-evolution-in-plain-english

(6) Jastrow, R., Until the Sun Dies, W. W. Norton & Co., New York, 1977, p. 62-63.

(7) Conklin, Edwin. 1963. Reader’s Digest. January p. 92.

(8) https://creation.com/en/articles/is-evolution-true

(9) Darwin, F., The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume 3, FB&C Limited, 2017, p. 26.

(10)https://www.stempublishing.com/authors/pollock/Evolution_Unscientific_and_Unscriptural.html

(11) https://creation.com/en/articles/evolution-ancient-pagan-idea

(12) https://www.equip.org/articles/is-darwinism-atheistic/

(13) Tahmisian, Theodore N., Fresno Bee, August 20^th, 1959.

(14) https://creation.com/en/articles/atheism-needs-evolution#forwardref-3

(15) Lamont, A., Creation 15(3): 45-47, 1993.

(16) Woodmorappe, J., Creation 13(1): 14, 1999.

(17) Bowlby, J., Charles Darwin: A new life, W. W. Norton & Co., New York, 1990, p. 344.

(18) https://www.equip.org/articles/is-darwinism-atheistic/

(19-20) Ditto

(21) George Grinnell, “The Rise and Fall of Darwin’s First Theory of Transmutation,” Journal of the History of Biology 7, 2 (Fall 1974): p. 273.

(22) https://creation.com/en/articles/its-not-science#reference-87d12e63-ee76-54da-8e2c-b104a24aaaa9

(23) https://knowingscripture.com/articles/why-do-human-lifespans-not-reach-120-years-genesis-63

(24) Evolution in Action as quoted by Marshall and Sandra Hall in The Truth: God or Evolution?, Grand Rapids: Baker, 1974, p. 23.

(25) https://christiancourier.com/articles/evaluating-evolution-in-plain-english

(26) Hall, Marshall and Sandra, The Truth: God or Evolution?, Grand Rapids: Baker, 1974, p. 142.

(27) Sunderland, Luther. Darwin’s Enigma. El Cajon, CA: Master Books, p. 106.

(28)https://www.icr.org/home/resources/resources_tracts_scientificcaseagainstevolution/

(29) E. H. Lieb and Jakob Yngvason, “A Fresh Look at Entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics,” Physics Today (vol. 53, April 2000), p. 32.

(30) https://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/mar/19/evolution-darwin-natural-selection-genes-wrong

(31) https://www.icr.org/article/highlander-tibetans-show-adaptation

(32) https://www.icr.org/article/ninety-five-percent-of-human-genome-cant-evolve

(33) https://elifesciences.org/articles/36317

(34) https://dl0.creation.com/articles/p091/c09115/j21_3_111-117.pdf

(35) Ditto

(36) https://www.icr.org/content/six-biological-evidences-young-earth

(37) https://www.icr.org/fossils-stasis

(38) https://christiancourier.com/articles/lessons-from-the-la-brea-tar-pits

(39) https://www.icr.org/article/archaeopteryx-myth-transitional-fossil

(40) https://www.icr.org/article/should-we-expect-find-transitional-forms-fossil-re

(41) Ditto

(42) https://www.icr.org/article/for-every-structure-there-reason-

(43) https://www.icr.org/article/does-gallbladder-have-necessary-function

(44) https://www.icr.org/article/vocal-vestigial-organ

(45) Bergman, J., Vestigial Organs Are Fully Functional, Terre Haute, 1990.

(46) https://www.icr.org/article/inspired-guesses-creative-imagination-science/

(47) https://www.icr.org/article/vital-function-found-for-whale-leg

(48) https://www.icr.org/article/koala-chemistry-creation

(49) https://www.icr.org/article/flipper-mans-best-friend

(50)

Agent131711’s Substack

The Dinosaur HOAX: The Royal Society, United Nations, Quaker Oats and Chicken Bones 🦴 PART 1

If you want to go down a rabbit hole, a rabbit hole unlike any you have ever been down before, this five-part series is some of my deepest investigation. In it, I unearth information that nobody else has yet to uncover and, ultimately, expose an insane 225+ year conspiracy. This ended up being my favorite series, to date. I think you’ll love it too. …

Read more

2 years ago · 429 likes · 181 comments · Agent131711

(51) https://www.smithsonianmag.com/blogs/smithsonian-books/2024/12/05/a-brief-history-of-dinosaur-discoveries/

(52) Ditto

(53) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone_Wars

(54) McCarren, Mark J. (1993).The Scientific Contributions of Othniel Charles Marsh: Birds, Bones, and Brontotheres. Peabody Museum of Natural History, 1993, p. 1.

(55) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Drinker_Cope#Legacy

(56) https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/paleo/fossils/impres.html

(57) https://nautil.us/how-american-tycoons-created-the-dinosaur-237532/

(58)

Agent131711’s Substack

PART 4: The Dinosaur HOAX🦖NASA RABBIT HOLE

I thought this installment, Part 4 of this crazy series, was going to be one-nights worth of work then I stumbled across some mind-blowing insanity that literally nobody on the internet has uncovered. Here I am, six days later, finally finished and feeling excited for you to check it out. Let’s recap Parts…

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2 years ago · 123 likes · 31 comments · Agent131711

(59) https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/dakota-the-hadrosaur-makes-her-debut-48137217/?no-ist

(60) Schweitzer, M. H. et al. 2009. Biomolecular Characterization and Protein Sequences of the Campanian Hadrosaur B. canadensis. Science. 324 (5927): p. 626-631.

(61) Allentoft, M. E. et al. The half-life of DNA in bone: measuring decay kinetics in 158 dated fossils. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Published online before print, October 10, 2012.

(62) https://www.icr.org/article/doesnt-carbon-dating-prove-earth-old

(63) Thomas, B. and V. Nelson. 2015. Radiocarbon in Dinosaur and Other Fossils. Creation Research Society Quarterly. 51(4): p. 299-311.

(64) https://www.icr.org/article/flood-catastrophic-plate-tectonics/

(65) https://www.icr.org/article/why-dont-we-find-more-human-fossils

(66) https://christiancourier.com/articles/lessons-from-the-la-brea-tar-pits

(67) https://www.icr.org/article/flood-catastrophic-plate-tectonics/

(68) https://www.icr.org/article/sedimentary-structure-shows-young-earth

(69) Gingras, M. K. et al. 2008. How fast do marine invertebrates burrow?Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. 270 (3-4): 280-286.

(70) https://creation.com/en/articles/age-of-the-earth

(71) https://www.icr.org/article/remembering-mount-st-helens-35-years

(72) https://www.icr.org/article/sedimentary-rock-does-form-fast

(73) https://www.icr.org/article/remembering-mount-st-helens-35-years

(74) https://creation.com/en/articles/its-not-science#reference-87d12e63-ee76-54da-8e2c-b104a24aaaa9

(75) https://creation.com/en/articles/coal-volcanism-and-noahs-flood

(76) https://creation.com/en/articles/how-fast-can-oil-form

(77) Ditto

(78) https://www.icr.org/article/la-brea-tar-pits

(79) https://christiancourier.com/articles/lessons-from-the-la-brea-tar-pits

(80) https://www.icr.org/article/evolution-at-smithsonian

(81) Ditto

(82) https://bibletalk.tv/old-earth-vs-young-earth

(83) https://www.icr.org/article/physics-today-ignores-monster-milankovitch-problem

(84) https://answersresearchjournal.org/orbital-tuning-method/

(85) Ditto

(86) https://www.icr.org/article/8130

(87) https://www.icr.org/article/thick-ice-sheets-how-old-are-they-really

(88) Alley, R. B. 1988. Concerning the Deposition and Diagenesis of Strata in Polar Firn. Journal of Glaciology. 34 (118): 283-290.

(89) https://www.soulask.com/the-curious-story-of-the-lost-squadron-equivalent-to-37000-year-old-aircraft/

(90) https://www.icr.org/article/ice-cores-age-earth/

(91) Ditto

(92) Epstein, S., R.P. Sharp, and A.J. Gow, 1965. “Six-year record of oxygen and hydrogen isotope variations in south pole fire.” Journal of Geophysical Research, 70:1809.

(93) Johnsen, S.J., W. Dansgeard, and H.B. Clausen, 1972. “Oxygen isotope profiles through the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets.” Nature, 235:429.

(94) https://www.icr.org/article/ice-cores-age-earth/

(95) Tudge, Colin, “Human Origins Revisited,” New Scientist (vol. 146, May 20, 1995), p. 24.

(96) Lyall Watson (1982), “The Water People,” Science Digest, 90[5]:44, May.

(97) https://crev.info/2017/06/dont-trust-scientists-wrong-fire/

(98) Lewin, R. 1987. Bones of Contention. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 164.

(99) https://www.genome.gov/27539119/2010-release-complete-neanderthal-genome-sequenced/2010-release-complete-neanderthal-genome-sequenced/

(100) Kuhlwilm, M. et al. 2016. Ancient gene flow from early modern humans into Eastern Neanderthals. Nature. 530 (7591): 429-433.

(101) https://www.icr.org/article/neanderthal-were-modern-men

(102) https://www.icr.org/article/major-evolutionary-blunders-neanderthals/

(103) Ditto

(104) https://www.icr.org/article/neanderthal-were-modern-men

(105) https://www.icr.org/article/how-coherent-human-evolution-story

(106) Ditto

(107) https://www.icr.org/article/human-like-fossil-menagerie-stuns-scientists

(108) https://answersresearchjournal.org/comparison-chimp-contigs-human-genome/

(109) https://creation.com/en/articles/genetics-supports-a-biblical-model-of-human-origins

(110) Tennessen, J.A. et al., Evolution and functional impact of rare coding variation from deep sequencing of human exomes, Science 337:64–69, 2012 | doi:10.1126/science.1219240.

(111) Fu, W. et al., Analysis of 6,515 exomes reveals the recent origin of most human protein-coding variants, Nature 493:216–220, 2013 | doi:10.1038/nature11690.

(112) Carter, R.W., Lee, S.E., and Sanford, J.C.; in: Whitmore, J.H. (Ed.), Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Creationism, Creation Science Fellowship.

(113) Jeanson, N.T., On the origin of human mitochondrial DNA differences, new generation time data both suggest a unified young-earth creation model and challenge the evolutionary out-of-Africa model, ARJ 9:123–130, 2016.

(114) Carter, R.W., Lee, S.E., and Sanford, J.C.; in: Whitmore, J.H. (Ed.), Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Creationism, Creation Science Fellowship.

(115) Jeanson, N.T. and Holland, A. D., Evidence for a human Y chromosome molecular clock: pedigree-based mutation rates suggest a 4,500-year history for human paternal inheritance, ARJ 12:393–404, 2019.

(116) Creanza, N. et al., A comparison of worldwide phonemic and genetic variation in human populations, PNAS 112:1265–1272, 2015 | doi:10.1073/pnas.1424033112.

(117) ’Battle over evolution’, Bill Moyers interviews Richard Dawkins on Now, 3 December 2004, PBS network.

(118)https://www.icr.org/home/resources/resources_tracts_scientificcaseagainstevolution/

(119)https://www.icr.org/home/resources/resources_tracts_scientificcaseagainstevolution/

Figure 1

Agent131711’s Substack

Part 3: The Dinosaur Hoax 🦴 The Inner Workings of a Sham & JUNK SCIENCE

What a f*cking rabbit hole this research turned out to be. Let’s recap the crazy stuff we learned thus far: In Parts 1 and 2 of this series we looked at the red flags oddities surrounding “dinosaurs”, which include…

Read more

2 years ago · 136 likes · 56 comments · Agent131711

Figure 2 Ditto

Figure 3 https://hive.blog/barnum-brown/@liquidflame/barnum-brown-the-man-who-discovered-tyrannosaurus-rex

Figure 4

Agent131711’s Substack

Part 2🦕The Dinosaur HOAX: PSYOPS & SCHEMES: Faking Footprints and Worldwide Collusion

Let’s recap what we learned in Part 1…

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2 years ago · 151 likes · 35 comments · Agent131711

Figure 5 Ditto

Figure 6

Agent131711’s Substack

Part 3: The Dinosaur Hoax 🦴 The Inner Workings of a Sham & JUNK SCIENCE

What a f*cking rabbit hole this research turned out to be. Let’s recap the crazy stuff we learned thus far: In Parts 1 and 2 of this series we looked at the red flags oddities surrounding “dinosaurs”, which include…

Read more

2 years ago · 136 likes · 56 comments · Agent131711

Figures 7-11 Ditto

Figure 12

Agent131711’s Substack

The Dinosaur HOAX: The Royal Society, United Nations, Quaker Oats and Chicken Bones 🦴 PART 1

If you want to go down a rabbit hole, a rabbit hole unlike any you have ever been down before, this five-part series is some of my deepest investigation. In it, I unearth information that nobody else has yet to uncover and, ultimately, expose an insane 225+ year conspiracy. This ended up being my favorite series, to date. I think you’ll love it too. …

Read more

2 years ago · 429 likes · 181 comments · Agent131711

Figure 13 https://www.icr.org/article/gaps-geologic-column

Figure 14 https://www.icr.org/article/sedimentary-structure-shows-young-earth

Figure 15 https://creation.com/en/articles/age-of-the-earth

Figure 16 http://canyonministries.com.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Israel-Fold.jpg

Figure 17 https://www.icr.org/article/remembering-mount-st-helens-35-years

Figure 18 https://www.icr.org/article/la-brea-tar-pits

Figure 19 https://www.soulask.com/the-curious-story-of-the-lost-squadron-equivalent-to-37000-year-old-aircraft/

Figure 20 https://www.britannica.com/science/human-evolution

In the interests of keeping my blood pressure under control, I strictly limit my exposure to Leftist narratives and, in truth, once you’ve seen a few, you’ve seen them all anyway. The same play-book is trotted out, ad nauseam, across the entire ecosystem, as evidenced by Kimmel, Colbert and Fallon all recycling the same ‘joke’.(1) However, on this occasion, it was ‘conservative’ media uniformly regurgitating the same talking points, without exception. As we know, when the only way an argument can be constructed is by committing sins of omission and by deploying outright lies, we are playing politics, not seeking truth. This is a trend that is gathering momentum on our side of the fence and, when one finds the Left occupying the moral high ground, something has gone badly awry. My impression is that the gaslighting campaign on our side of the fence, like those from the Left, has also been coordinated.

None of ‘our’ media has reported the historical background, none has mentioned the sanctions of mass destruction that have been imposed on the Venezuelan people, nearly all have skipped over the legitimacy of what has been done and even the BBC, no friend to conservatives, has told its reporters not to use the word ‘kidnapped’ when reporting on the abduction of Maduro.(2) I don’t propose to join Democrats in bleating about violations of ‘international law’, because that’s as much a chimera as the ‘rules-based international order’ that the US Deep State loves to conjure up, usually when it’s in the process of doing yet another country’s legs – just because it can.

There are three pillars to all legal systems; the legislature, the judiciary and an executive authority, which enforces the law. Their legitimacy is derived from an external power – either a monarch, the people, or God. ‘International law’ lacks all these pillars:

“International law is a cargo cult. It has founding documents and esoteric codes and courts that interpret them, just like national legal systems do. All of that is masturbatory and ultimately quite destructive ... It adds a liturgical patina of law to a set of practices that cannot operate as law. International law cannot come anywhere near keeping its end of the most basic bargain that the law makes to those whom it binds: If you conform, you will be protected.”(3)

While the UN Charter System still exists, it is moribund; instead, there are treaties and generally acknowledged red lines, beyond which stuff sometimes happens but, even then, sometimes doesn’t. Aiding a belligerent in a war, as the United States did in both world wars (prior to officially signing on) and is currently doing in Ukraine, makes a country a combatant but, frequently it seems, the provocation is ignored. Seizing vessels in international waters, blowing others up whilst killing those aboard, imposing sanctions that degrade and kill, shutting down a nation’s airspace and overflying it with military jets are all actions that could (and should) be regarded as acts of war and all have been committed by the US against Venezuela

American politicians perfected a most unappealing strain of sanctimony centuries ago, what with their firm belief in their ‘manifest destiny’ and the existence of American exceptionalism, so they have ridden roughshod over the rules they claim to champion. There have been many occasions in the past forty-years or so when the US has done whatever it wanted and tried to justify its actions with reference to some legal opinion or doctrine that we all know to be a lie; the invasions of Panama, Grenada, Iraq (x2) and Afghanistan, the bombing of Serbia in 1999, the shenanigans in Syria for a decade or more, to name but a few.

We can now add Venezuela to the list, although the effort to topple regimes there goes back to the election of Hugo Chávez in 1998. Back then, it actually did have something to do with cigarette boats and cocaine, unlike today. Fundamentally, it was about what it’s always about – money and influence. That and a need to teach a nose-thumber a lesson, lest others got ideas beyond their station.

Venezuela had been ‘friendly’, for which read puppet regime, from the 1950s to the late nineties. The country had served as one of the transit territories for the cartels’ cocaine trade, along with others. The CIA was the facilitator, using their USAID cut-out and had even been caught in the act by the DEA.(4) Bolivia kicked USAID out and got a handle on the cocaine trafficking but, until Chávez came to power, the Venezuelans had allowed the Americans to sell on the cocaine that they had seized from the cartels, transporting it into the continental US.

For some time, the main conduit was Mena International Airport in Arkansas, an operation overseen by Bush the Elder and midwifed by Governor Clinton (see Part Three). The Iran-Contra debacle was merely a blip on the continuum of the Agency’s involvement in the global drug trade, which is as old as the CIA itself; the Golden Triangle,(5) the Japanese Yakuza,(6) the French Connection courtesy of the Corsican Mafia,(7) the heroin trade previously managed by the French in Vietnam,(8) the subsequent expansion into Laos and Cambodia,(9) numerous additional entanglements with the cartels (Pablo Escobar’s son states that his father worked for the CIA),(10)(11)(12) and Afghanistan (in July 2000, the annual opium yield was 81 tons, but by October 2013, it had sky-rocketed to 5,500 tons – 90% of global trade).(13)

Some of the less savoury strokes that have been pulled include colluding with Chinese drug-traffickers in smuggling heroin in the bodies and caskets of dead GIs and sponsoring Bolivian death squads, under the control of fugitive war criminal Klaus Barbie, who were targeting government officials seeking to combat the trafficking.(14)(15) If the Agency is to conduct its own foreign policy, it needs extra funds and drug trafficking has always been a cash-cow. In truth, then, it’s probably safe to say that the entity most responsible for the opioid crisis in the US, is the CIA itself. But we are expected to believe that it’s all different now, that the CIA is targeting the Mexican cartels’ fentanyl production, even though those same cartels enjoy the protection of Mexico’s Federal Security Directorate, whose staff are “practically employees of the CIA.”(16)

So, things don’t go south if the smaller kids in the playground do what the bully says. As long as Venezuela was paying tribute and letting the Agency do its thing, everything was cool and groovy, but Chávez wasn’t a company man – not by a long chalk. He evicted the Americans and then completed the already-ongoing nationalisation of Venezuela’s oil industry in 2007 and then redirected the profits from oil exports to support social programmes, as “people ought not to be starving in dreadful slums in the world’s most oil rich state.”(17)

Chávez was particularly forthright, stating that “the CIA ought not to control Venezuela” and, when speaking at the UN, declaring that Bush Jnr’s speech of the previous day was “The Devil’s Recipe”, then twisting the rhetorical knife some more by commenting that “yesterday the devil came here, in this very place, it still smells of sulphur.”(18) He went further – a lot further:

“As the mouthpiece of imperialism, he comes to give us his recipes to try to maintain the current scheme of domination, exploitation and looting of the people of the world....In other words, North American imperialism...is in a desperate push to consolidate its hegemonic system of domination. We can’t allow this to happen. We can’t allow the installation of the world dictatorship.”(19)

If that wasn’t throwing down the gauntlet, I don’t know what is. But by then he had survived a DC-backed coup (20)(21) and numerous assassination attempts, so he may have judged that he had nothing to lose by calling out the US Deep State. And the more that hypothesis is exposed to sunlight, the more it makes sense. Chávez was successful and popular and, unquestionably, a properly elected president. His brand of socialism lifted millions out of poverty and he twice won re-election handily until, in 2013, he died at age 58 of an unusually aggressive cancer that defied treatment.

Maduro isn’t as effective as Chávez and it is likely that socialism’s penchant for central planning was bound to come unstuck eventually, especially given the overt hostility of the United States and the sanctions regime that has been implemented against Maduro’s government. In the five years to 2019, those alone resulted in a 40% drop in per capita income,(22) not something that any of ‘our’ media has seen fit to report, let alone dwell upon. Venezuela’s domestic oil production has been decimated as American companies have been banned from doing business with the state oil company.

Instead of the truth, we are obliged to endure the regime-approved narrative, which is that the socialist regime of Chávez and his successor has turned the country into a hellscape and caused millions to flee overseas. Not content with presiding over a banana republic, Maduro is also a ‘narco-terrorist’ and head of the Cartel de los Soles, responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans. The US was, therefore, perfectly within its rights to vaporize speedboats in the Caribbean.

However, according to the UN’s 2025 World Drug Report, Venezuela is neither a major drug producer nor supplier – those laurels go to Colombia, Peru and Bolivia.(23) And it’s not cocaine that is causing an epidemic of overdoses in the US; cocaine is a well-off person’s indulgence, not a street drug. The culprits are heroin, fentanyl, meth and the like, so if saving hundreds of thousands of American lives was really a priority, Trump would have been targeting the Mexican cartels and the Chinese fentanyl labs north of the border, not cocaine traffickers.

It’s also reasonable to assume that he wouldn’t have pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, less than a year into a 45 year sentence for facilitating the importation of 400 tons of cocaine into the US.(25) This is a man who institutionalized drug trafficking, even building six airports whose sole function was to act as logistical hubs for the enterprise.(26) But, as he had been installed with American approval – five years after a coup, also backed by the US – and Trump likes the cut of his jib (even if Biden didn’t), he gets to pass Go with two hundred Benjamins in his back pocket.(27)

It just so happens that there is yet another South American drug-trafficking president still in situ. It’s this guy, US born Daniel Daniel Noboa, the WEF-approved president of Ecuador.

Figure 1

He’s also the heir to Nobao Trading S.A., a banana producer. Between 2020 and 2024, over 600 kilos of cocaine – smuggled in the bananas themselves – were exported by this company, all bound for Italy and Croatia.(24) El Presidente claims that other members of his family own the company, yet he and his brother have 51% of the umbrella company that owns Noboa Trading and hundreds of other companies.(28) These entities owe $98 million in taxes.

Noboa also stole last year’s election,(29) and the country has become an archetypical Trump ‘shithole’, a mélange of state/cartel drug trafficking and money laundering, with rates of 46 homicides per 100,000 people in 2023, a rate much worse than Venezuela under Maduro. Yet he’s Washington’s boy, because he gets out of the way, is sitting on valuable solid earth resources in the Andes and will also let the US build a military base in the Galapagos Islands.(30)(31) In short, there is no moral basis for Trump’s policies in South America and, when compared to Noboa, Maduro is as clean as a whistle, bullshit indictment notwithstanding:

“Consult the DEA, FBI and any other law enforcement authority that you choose, and you will find they have proffered no evidence whatsoever that any living soul in Venezuela, let alone its president and his wife, have ever had any role in the supply of fentanyl, heroin, meth or even marijuana to the US.”(32)

In fact, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands are all bigger players than Venezuela with regards to fentanyl.(33) Further, is it likely that any trafficker operating out of a Venezuelan port is going to continue offering up motorboats loaded with cocaine, on a journey of a minimum of a thousand kilometres, with a US fleet – tasked with blowing them up - in the vicinity? I would think the odds are against and that anybody swallowing that lure unquestioningly is either a shill or someone in dire need of a competency test. As it is, the DoJ has already dropped any pretence that the Cartel de los Soles actually exists, thus detonating the pretext used by Trump for the entire Venezuelan escapade.(34)

So, not a drug kingpin, no fentanyl anyway, and a made-up story about responsibility for hundreds of thousands of American deaths. What else about the backstory is instructive? Well, the first US-backed attempt at a coup was way back in 2002 (against Chávez, who was nearly killed),(35) there was another attempt in 2019,(36) then the cluster that was Operation Gideon in 2020 – an attempt to kidnap Maduro, which was launched from Colombia using Trump’s former bodyguard as the go-between.(37)(38)

There has been near-constant election meddling from the US, the seizure of the Venezuelan Central Bank gold reserves by the Bank of England, the denial of other reserves by the IMF, the egregious designation of Venezuela as an ‘extraordinary threat’ by Obama (which paved the way for sanctions, themselves a wholly arbitrary instrument of war), a campaign of sabotage levied against Venezuelan energy infrastructure – waged by CIA cut-out Rendon Group, previously deployed in destabilisation operations in 91 countries, according to its CEO -(39) and attempts to set up parallel presidencies, none of which have stuck.(40)

Notably, official US policy holds that Maria Corina Machado’s proxy won the last election in 2024. Machado, the winner of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, has a somewhat chequered past, as a “US govt-funded regime change artist who’s helped lead failed military coups, violent street riots, [who’s] even appealed to Benjamin Netanyahu to help her lead a military invasion of Venezuela”.(41) Remarkably, having insisted that her movement achieved 70% of the vote in 2024, Trump how claims that she “doesn’t have the support within the country”.(42) So, no ‘stolen election’ either, by the looks of it.

Instead, the current VP and the entire Maduro government remain in place. In truth, we can be sure of nothing with regard to election outcomes, as challenging them – whatever their legitimacy – is a staple of regime change operations and the organizations that monitor them are not above reproach. We simply don’t know whether Maduro won the last election and neither do all the conservative commentators who, nonetheless, label him a dictator, but Trump doesn’t seem to think that the voters favour Machado so, as has been the case for the longest time in South and Central America, the US bullshitometer is trending high.

US hostility to the regimes in Venezuela has nothing to do with drug-trafficking, nor can the laughable assertion that the US is motivated by the provision of ‘democracy’ for the Venezuelan citizenry be sustained, as US presidents of both stripes have done their level best to undermine it. Yet commentator after commentator has repeated the same nostrums; ‘narco-terrorist’, ‘saving lives’, ‘dictator’, ‘capture’, ‘seized’, not kidnapped – in effect, a replica of the near-unanimous chorus of clapping seals that usually populates the Left.

Suddenly, any commitment to the truth is subsumed, and truth is supposed to be what sets us apart from the ‘fake news’. And I’m not referring to the establishment conservatives, who could always be replied upon to talk drivel when it came to ‘American exceptionalism’ – I mean the alt-media types, the alleged MAGA influencers, the people who are supposed to be critical thinkers. Tucker Carlson is reflexively opposed to Trump’s foreign policy regardless, but his analysis – that it’s all about the oil, not ‘democracy’ – is facile, as it’s not primarily about Venezuela’s oil. The only honest talking head that I’ve found is Mike Benz.

Whatever it is that motivates the US, given a sustained campaign of attempted regime change spanning nearly three decades, it’s not what Trump and his minions say it is. And it’s not what Carlson and the limited hangout merchants charge either, for reasons that I will elucidate. What is it instead? And, while we’re trying to work out the truth about that, we might usefully decipher what actually happened on the day itself, as those events hint at behind-the-scenes machinations.

The Trump administration’s justification for the kidnap of Maduro is that Delta Force and the DEA were simply arresting a wanted man, as the Venezuelan president (and his wife) had been indicted – not convicted, mind – in 2020, in the Southern District of New York (SDNY), the go-to jurisdiction for dodgy prosecutions, as Trump himself has experienced. That’s because the indictment is a 25 page evidence-free rant which accuses Maduro of a conspiracy to import thousands of tons of cocaine into the US, shipments that – if they existed – would be outside US jurisdiction.

It’s liberally sprinkled with familiar buzzwords and relies heavily on coerced testimony from unreliable witnesses. It’s the very definition of a dog’s dinner, a political narrative not a legal case.(43) Yet, on the back of it, Trump, Vance, Rubio and the neocon gang have tacked on another legal abomination, one that even the fluffers on X are avoiding:

“The United States asserts domestic criminal jurisdiction over a sitting foreign head of state. This is not international adjudication. It is not extradiction. It is not multilateral authorization through treaty or tribunal. It is unilateral extraterritorial enforcement backed by force.”(44)

So far, the judge in the case hasn’t gone to town on the DoJ and a new, superseding indictment has been lodged, one which is considerably less strident. But District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, a 92-year-old Clinton appointee, would seem to be something of a loose cannon, with a presumably well-earned reputation for doing “things his own way and [he] doesn’t give a shit about what anyone thinks of him.”(45) He also has form with Trump, having ruled against him several times. As anything goes in SDNY when Trump is involved, one might have expected the prosecution to venue-shop elsewhere, but that hasn’t happened. And the original indictment was laid during Trump’s first go-around, not during Obama’s third term. So, a rancid indictment and a difficult judge with nothing to lose. It’s almost like the government wants to be defeated.

Which prompts another look at Operation Absolute Resolve. As far as I can tell, the legend is something like this; the lights went out in Caracas – Trump hinted at a cyber-attack – various strategic locations were struck and Delta Force swept in on helicopters, unchallenged by the Venezuelan military but opposed by a contingent of 32 Cuban bodyguards, who were duly ‘eliminated’, as were 23 Venezuelans. Another hundred or so were killed by the bombing.(46) Maduro himself seems to have been a very heavy sleeper, as he is said to have been captured before he could make it to his steel-reinforced safe room, despite the bombardment.(47) We are told that the US operatives were inside the president’s compound for two hours. Imagine that:

“Bottom line, elite units don’t linger inside a defended space unless they own the battlespace – or nobody is fighting them.”(48)

Apparently, Langley had a small team on the ground for months – plus an “asset close to Maduro” -(49) so they were “able to provide insight into Maduro’s pattern of life that made grabbing him seamless.”(50) Of course. Further colour has now been added by Trump’s Press Secretary, who drew attention to the account of an alleged security guard. According to him, the US used a sonic wonder weapon (watch out, world), which disabled security forces, whereupon Delta descended from the skies and slaughtered his mates.

Having said that, this version of events wouldn’t have gone viral were it not for the efforts of a Californian Republican, so make of it what you will.(51) I am sceptical of the entire narrative, as it is apparent that the administration is lying through its teeth in this arena and, unless the ubiquitous fact-checkers were on the ground in Caracas, they know nothing beyond what they’ve been told.

The Venezuelan Navy appears to have suffered no attrition and the Air Force is intact. Sites that were supposed to have been destroyed – such as a military barracks and Chávez’s tomb - are undamaged. The TV footage of jubilant Venezuelans are from the diaspora; within the country there are protests supporting Maduro. Additionally,

“...videos taken in Caracas during the raid showed no resistance at all, with US helicopters hovering in place within range of small arms fire, fully vulnerable to Venezuela’s thousands of Russian Igla MANPADS and short-range air defense sytems.”(52)

The raid would only have been possible had the Venezuelan military – nearly half a million strong - received a stand-down order. There is precedent; during the Iraq War, numerous Iraqi Army officers accepted bribes from the Americans and then stayed home during the initial wave of ‘Shock and Awe’.(53) Perhaps that’s what happened in Caracas, or perhaps Maduro gave himself up as part of a plan. We don’t actually know whether anybody was killed, as that information is provided to us by those who might be partners in a scheme and the US end of that potential collaboration is telling one porkie after another, but it’s possible that the Cuban contingent weren’t in on whatever had been agreed and were terminated with extreme prejudice.

Maduro and Trump’s people had been negotiating the former’s abdication for months. Perhaps those bore fruit, or maybe the final round took place on the ground, at the point of a gun. Either way, my gut instinct is that we are being played, which does nothing to change the dynamic – there’s still the bully and the bullied. And I strongly suspect that there will always be a dearth of documentary evidence, as has been the case with all recent gaslights – Crooks, Routh (remember him?), the Kirk assassination, the Brown University shooter; the same pattern, over and over, because the narrative cannot withstand scrutiny.

In any event, Trump and Rubio have issued contradictory statements and it’s not clear what it is that they think they have achieved. There are no US boots on the ground and, sans Maduro, the regime is intact. Perhaps one of the objectives was simply to fire a warning shot to others in the region, although that will only be effective if the operation wasn’t a bluff, and we can be reasonably sure that the likes of Colombia and Mexico will know if it was.

Trump’s back-up claim – that getting American hands on Venezuela’s oil was a factor in greenlighting the operation - is almost entirely bogus, as not all oil is created equal and the economics, both in terms of infrastructure and refining costs, are not remotely favourable. Commentators routinely refer to ‘the largest known oil reserves in the world’, without doing due diligence. Allegedly, the country is home to 303 billion barrels of crude, but 95% of those reserves are comprised of heavy, viscous crude oils with high sulphur content. This is not a combination that will be hailed ecstatically by oilmen, as both field production and refining costs are far higher than for light sweet crude, the industry favourite:

“This supply curve ranges from $30 per barrel for light sweet crude oil...to upwards of $100 per barrel for Venezuela’s Zuata, Merey and BCF-17 heavy oil based grades. Accordingly, at the present time with global market crudes at $70 per barrel...the two leading Venezuelan grades generate implied economic losses of $35 and $50 per barrel.”(54)

Around 3.3 million barrels were produced by 2006, but that number has declined precipitously to around 800,000 barrels per day.(55) Much of the infrastructure has either been dismantled or is decrepit.(56) Vast methane leaks are also a large and expensive problem.(57) Fixing it all would take many years and many tens of billions and for what? A sizeable loss on every barrel? Trump’s highjacking of 30-50 million barrels of already-extracted oil may be economically viable, but beyond that it’s difficult to see what all the fuss is about, unless ensuring that China didn’t get it is to be hailed as a great victory.(58) China is, latterly, Venezuela’s (indeed, Latin America’s) biggest trading partner, a circumstance probably brought about by the crippling sanctions levied by Trump.

Given that the imbroglio is not about drug-trafficking, nor is Venezuela’s oil a significant factor, could it be about rival powers’ influence? The US National Security Strategy (NSS) does feature the Trump Corollary to the (misunderstood) Monroe Doctrine, an intention to “restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere”(59) and the Heritage Foundation’s Project 25 states that Maduro has drawn closer to “some of the United States’ greatest international foes, including the PRC and Iran”,(60) and recommends that “Venezuela’s Communist abusers [should be put] on notice.”(61)

So, yes, messing with China’s influence in the Western Hemisphere plays a part; we should probably not dwell on the fact that the US has 120 military bases in Japan, another 73 in South Korea and an additional 40,000 troops in West Asia,(62) whereas China only has one overseas base and that’s in Djibouti.(63) There is also talk of Hezbollah operatives in Venezuela and the group does have previous for terrorist attacks against Jewish targets in Argentina, back in the 1990s,(64) although one might reasonably observe that the US government would be well-advised to put its own house in order before concerning itself with overseas ‘threats’.

But there are far larger considerations that will undoubtedly have provided the majority of the impetus for the more recent rag-dolling of Maduro and Venezuela in general and oil does feature – but not Venezuela’s oil; Guyana’s, next door. US oil majors are far more interested in possibilities across the border and it’s easy to see why, as Guyana is home to two huge oil fields, one off the coast and one in the Essequibo region, which comprises two-thirds of the country. This oil is much more pleasing to the palate and Maduro has been attempting to annex Essequibo since 2008 whilst impeding Exxon Mobil in the Stabroek Block field offshore, the company’s most productive field in the world.(65)

Figure 2

Venezuela’s claim goes back nearly 200 years and Maduro has consistently messed with Exxon Mobile offshore and with the Guyanese military along the border. He even held a referendum on annexation in 2023, which the citizenry approved.(66) Since then, he’s been referring to it as Venezuelan territory, although he hadn’t yet summoned up the courage to invade, and in 2024, signed a bill that formally established the Venezuelan state of Guayana Esequiba.(67)

The Venezuelans claim that the US has built secret military bases in the Essequibo region,(68) which the US denies, although the high level of military cooperation (and the number of boots on the ground on rotational deployments) suggest that Southern Command speaks with forked tongue.(69) However, in early 2025, the Guyanese military in the border region came under attack on three occasions, allegedly from Venezuelans in civilian attire.(70)

Rubio paid the government a visit in late March, assuring the world-at-large that “the United States stands with Guyana in support of its territorial integrity against the Maduro regime.”(71) The Americans were back in Georgetown on December 9^th, this time signing a statement of intent to “expand joint military cooperation,”(72) otherwise known as Operation Southern Spear, the selective blockade of Venezuela. Whilst all this activity has largely flown under the radar, the dispute had been escalating all year. As a motive for a kidnapping, I would think it substantial.

However, light sweet crude is only one of the riches on offer and, almost certainly, not the most coveted. That would be mineral riches. Venezuela has deposits of all manner of critical minerals (as does Greenland, for that matter); gallium, germanium, indium, tantalum, silicon, coltan and thorium.(73) Most of the above are used in advanced AI chips and thorium can be converted into fissile uranium-233 and used as a nuclear fuel. We know how the power behind Trump’s throne – the would-be Tech Tyrants – needs AI chips for data centre build-outs and behind-the-meter small modular reactors to power them.

Venezuela is even rich in lithium, too, large dollops of which will be needed to produce the requisite battery power. These same critical minerals are also needed for advanced weaponry, such as drones, radar and guidance systems.(74) And who controls the global trade in rare earth minerals? China.(75) Which country was active in Venezuela, hampering US attempts to bypass Beijing’s export controls? China again.(76)

And, were Maduro to succeed in his attempt to thieve Guyana’s crude, who else would benefit? Strategically, being beholden to China for much of these minerals would have been intolerable to Trump, as would the prospect of all that oil disappearing over the horizon in Chinese tankers. I am not unsympathetic to the urge, just the default manner in which it has been satiated.

Figure 3

For once, the excesses of the United States may genuinely be concerned with ‘national security’. Alleged Iranian drone-making facilities and Russian military advisors may have been unwelcome – even if US policy was at least partly responsible for pushing America’s pariahs into a closer embrace – but China’s attempt to nobble the hegemon in its own hemisphere must surely have been seen as one humiliation too many. I imagine that Chinese commercial interests in Venezuela will not survive Trump’s temporary ‘running’ of the country and, if that proves to be the case, the strategic relationship between the two superpowers may alter, permanently, although it certainly won’t be immediate. China’s global dominance is as much the result of its ability to process the minerals as it is its access to the raw materials. As Trump himself noted:

“Everybody has rare earth. Rare earth is not rare. What’s rare is the processing. We’re doing processing plants all over.”(77)

Nonetheless, allowing the Chinese to plunder the Western Hemisphere’s supply was probably not a winning strategy, not that the consideration was anything but recent. It doesn’t account for twenty seven years of abuse. Modern-day Venezuela has stuff that Trump wants, if only to deny others possession of it. But, in the wake of Maduro’s abduction, other countries have also been threatened; Mexico, Colombia, Cuba, Greenland, Nigeria and Iran, at the last count. It all feels somewhat random, but you can be sure it isn’t. That being said, whilst all of Trump’s bombast promotes a cogent umbrella strategy (with the exception of Greenland, which is a special case), each threat is issued for specific reasons.

The US under Trump has been quietly hashing out security deals all across Latin America. In addition to Ecuador and Guyana, the Dominican Republic, Panama, Trinidad & Tobago and Paraguay have all signed up. The US already has bases in Puerto Rico, Honduras and Cuba, as well as surveillance bases in El Salvador, Aruba and Curaçao.(78) The usual nonsense about the ‘war on drugs’ has been given another airing, naturally, and the vilification of Colombia and Mexico fits that paradigm. Indeed, since October of last year, most of the strikes on the boats of alleged traffickers have been in the Pacific, not the Caribbean and, as Venezuela lacks a Pacific coastline, they were likely Colombian vessels.(79)

That both Colombia and Mexico are basket-cases is hardly a secret. In addition to well-deserved reputations as narco-states, both civil societies are chaotic and homicidal. A 60-year, multi-sided war has claimed 450,000 deaths in Colombia,(80) and Mexico has a murder rate four times that of the US, with town and city mayors particularly at risk.(81)(82) There are also over 100,000 people missing.(83)

Given the leading role both countries play in drug-trafficking, targeting Venezuela and not them would be bad form and in December, the Gulf Clan in Colombia was designated a foreign terrorist organisation.(84) Trump has engaged in a war of words with the presidents of both countries and has threatened air strikes, but the parties frequently kiss and make up. But there wouldn’t be a drug trade in the Americas were it not for the CIA and the Agency’s ties to the cartels are not limited to the dim and distant – it was found to be smuggling coke in Bolivia in 2012 and collaborated with the Sinaloa Cartel for over a decade ‘til the same year.(85)(86) It would be a surprise if Langley had voluntarily ceded its slice of the pie, so I would expect any US ‘action’ to be a combination of smoke and mirrors and picking winners and losers again. My feeling is that the black budget will need to be kept topped up.

Cuba, only 90 miles off the coast, seems to be genuinely in the crosshairs, as it has been for the past sixty-five years, despite the fact that – since the Cuban Missile Crisis – no threat has emanated from that direction. When Guevara was asked what Castro wanted from the United States, his answer was that he wanted to be left alone. That was never going to happen.(87) It was JFK who imposed the US embargo on Cuba in 1962 and it’s still going strong under Trump, who has compounded the inefficiencies implicit in a centrally planned economy.(88)

Choking off Venezuelan oil imports may finally get the job done, as the island was already on life support, living through the world’s fastest population decline; millions have emigrated in the past four years.(89) Eighteen per cent of the population left between 2022 and 2023 alone.(90) The energy sector is crook, and the island suffered five nationwide blackouts in 2025.(91) And trade with China, no doubt displeasing to Trump, has fallen off markedly.(92) No doubt we will be treated to more pieties about the United States taking care of the Cuban people, as well as the Venezuelans, which ignores the fact that the largest part of the pain and suffering that both citizenries have endured is down to US policy.

Still, at least these three countries are in the near-abroad and within what the US likes to call its ‘sphere of influence’. The ‘Fortress America’ concept that permeates the NSS is nourished by all the regional bullying, of ‘dictatorships’ and democracies alike. American regime-change operations have never been about democracy, but are concerned with empire, instead. Numerous democracies have been overturned if the ‘wrong’ party achieved power. However, there has usually been a halfway reasonable attempt to disguise what’s occurring, a nicety that is being abandoned by Trump.

But Nigeria and Iran are clearly not in the Western Hemisphere and the US is going after them, too. The President of Peace rang in Christmas Day with bomb strikes on what Trump called “ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria, who have been targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians.”(93) He’s been a man on a mission over the past year; seven different countries have been struck, only one of which is local – Venezuela, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Somalia and Nigeria.(94)

His framing of the justification for the Nigerian bomb runs was, however, wide of the mark, once again. Christian communities have been slaughtered by Boko Haram and ISIL-linked factions, but they have also killed fellow Muslims and even the Deep State’s Council on Foreign Relations states that the majority of victims are Muslims.(95)(96) There isn’t a holy war against Christians:

“The fertile Middle Belt region of the country, which Cruz referred to, has long been a hotbed of violence between predominantly Muslim herders from the majority Fulani ethnic group and Christian farming communities from different minority ethnic groups who have repeatedly clashed over land and water resources. The violence has grown in scale and weaponry over the past few years, and has largely targeted Christian farming communities.”(97)

Further, the area bombed was nowhere near the Middle Belt. And nobody in the Trump administration batted an eye when Alawites and Christians were massacred in their thousands by their new buddy Jolani in Syria last year.(98) Hundreds of Christians were also killed in the DRC and Ethiopia, eliciting no American response.(99) So, if we dispense with the nauseating moral posturing, what’s it really about? Well, once again, it’s all about sticking it to China, just like it says in the NSS, albeit in less threatening terms.

A strategy aimed at “rebalanc[ing] China’s economy towards household consumption” (100) (aka curbing China’s overproduction, which is exported, thus undercutting Western market share and influence) can only be achieved by coercion – enter Nigeria, Africa’s largest democracy, largest oil producer and a BRICS member to boot. China has invested heavily in the country as part of its Belt and Road Initiative and has inked a raft of raw materials agreements, including one for 200,000 tonnes per annum of spodumene concentrate, lithium’s principal ire.(101)(102)

The latest slap in the face is the ongoing courting of Chinese firms in the gas sector.(103) The displeasing direction of travel has also resulted in the revocation of the country’s military cooperation agreement with the US in 2024, in favour of the Russians.(104) Xi could see what the US response was likely to be when Trump started accusing the Nigerian government of complicity in the attacks against Christian settlements and then designated Nigeria as a ‘country of particular concern’.(105) The Chinese warned against interference “under the guise of human rights or religion.”(106) Predictably, they were ignored. The strategy of denial dictates that the Chinese must be thwarted – the Nigerians are simply collateral damage.

Even the ‘principled’ American stance towards the current protests in Iran is dishonest. We are told that the people are rising up spontaneously, that this time it’ll be different, that everybody knows the the Mullahs are toast, that the regime has murdered thousands of protestors, that it’s all a battle for ‘democracy’. This is now the fourth ‘uprising’ since 2009 and the Ayatollah has charged that the unrest is the work of foreign hands (for which read Israel and the US). The economy is in the toilet, the internet has been shut down and Trump has been both stoking the flames and threatening the leadership:

“If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they are going to get hit very hard by the United States.”(107)

Presumably, he’s a man who would know. Once again, though, what’s really occurring? Well, much caution should be exercised. With regards to casualties, any numbers produced by human rights groups – all of who are based far outside Iran – are rooted in fantasy. The unverified claims that are made are redolent of the hokum spouted by the very same groups about al-Assad in Syria, who was continually undermined by false flag operations carried out by US-backed hardline Sunnis.(108) The truth may be free of agendas, but they certainly aren’t.

As is par for the course, rioting crowds – who are known to have killed police officers -(109) are heroes of the resistance when they serve American purposes, but traitors when they don’t. And it might usefully be remembered that, while Iran isn’t an out-and-out democracy, it is effectively “a republic nestled within a theocracy.”(110) The Mullahs aren’t enmeshed in everyday governance; an elected President manages that.

One further truth dilutes the condemnations issued by the Americans – having jointly sponsored the coup (with MI6) that put the pro-Western Shah in power, in 1953,(111) they then ousted him in 1979, when he attempted to hold BP to a deal they had signed, a deal which would have enriched his nation.(112) Washington thought Ayatollah Khomeini was their man but, within ten days of returning from exile, he’d binned the government and “more Iranians were killed during Khomeini’s first month in power than in the Shah’s 37-year reign.”(113) Iran’s resultant belligerence, financing of terror networks, attempts to become a nuclear power and economic hardships (largely the result of yet more sanctions) are, therefore, the direct result of US and UK actions.

It is highly likely that the CIA and the Israelis are the organising force behind the protests. Ex-CIA Director Pompeo, the man who instructed the Agency to make plans to kidnap and murder Julian Assange,(114) wished every Iranian protestor a Happy New Year on Twitter/X and then did likewise to “every Mossad agent walking beside them.”(115) Some of the ‘protest’ cells are equipped with Starlink terminals, provided by the CIA.(116) The Israelis are trying to boost Reza Pahlavi, the Shah’s son, with an AI-generated influence campaign,(117) but the real political opposition is diffused and ineffective.(118)

Trump has imposed a 25% tariff on all countries which do business with both Iran and the US.(119) It’s not subtle. Neither is the surge in US military transports flying out to bases in the Persian Gulf. The US military has a presence in Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, the UAE and Saudi Arabia and dozens of C-17s and C-5s are now in situ.(120) Perhaps an air campaign is in the offing, although it appears that the excitement may, once again, have fizzled out.(121) But, if we tune out the gaslighting about ‘democracy’ and analyse how all three targets – Venezuela, Nigeria and Iran - might be linked, we find ourselves returning to the China problem.

The Chinese are the top buyers of Iranian oil, although they claim that they aren’t. As much as 90% of Iran’s crude oil flows to China, in defiance of US sanctions, most of it on shadow fleet tankers.(122) The Americans, as is their wont, are outraged that there are countries in the world that won’t do exactly what they’re told and, whilst I carry no water for either Iran or China, I can see no reason why they should. In response to the attempt to stymie them via the global financial system, Beijing and Tehran have developed a parallel oil trading system, which is denominated in Chinese currency. They were joined by the Russians when the G7 arbitrarily capped the price of Russian crude at $60 a barrel, in December 2022.(123)

Washington wants to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions, which is understandable given the regime’s rhetoric against ‘the Great Satan’. The Iranians, no doubt, see things differently, but it is difficult to believe that even the Mullahs would risk a first strike against a nuclear adversary, thus ensuring their own demise. Were they to have the bomb, however, it would focus minds inside the Beltway and, potentially, give the Iranians more freedom of action. Trump is most keen to forestall that eventuality but, once again, it should be remembered that there wouldn’t be a problem were it not for the actions of the CIA and MI6.

The 1.38 million barrels a day that China imports from Iran is 13-14% of total seaborne crude imports;(124) forgoing that supply, which is discounted, would put a formidable crimp in China’s stride. There’s also the small matter of Iran’s membership of BRICS, an organisation that Trump hates with a passion. And the joint marine exercises that Iran, China and Russia conduct yearly.(125) Not to mention China’s crucial role in developing Iran’s home-grown missile production capabilities.(126) So pardon me if, when reviewing the totality of Trump’s current bull-in-a china-shop approach and comparing it to the NSS, I form the suspicion that the protests in Iran are not organic, nor is the American concern for ‘democracy’ authentic.

Which leaves us with the anomaly that is Greenland. According to Trump, acquiring the world’s largest island is a ‘top national security priority’ for the United States. Quite why that should be is not clear. Trump says that “Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships”,(127) the White House says that it’s necessary to “deter our adversaries in the Arctic region”,(128) and the increasingly obnoxious Stephen Miller, as well as claiming that Trump 45 wanted Greenland when he didn’t, came up with this tin-eared gem:

“The real question is; by what right does Denmark assert control over Greenland? What is the basis of their territorial claim?”(129)

I strongly suspect that he knows the answer to those questions, as Danish control over Greenland was established by the Treaty of the Danish West Indies (1916), between Denmark and the United States, whereby the Danes transferred sovereignty of their Caribbean possessions in exchange for $25 million and a declaration that the US “would not object to the Danish Government extending their political and economic interests to the whole of Greenland.”(130) And, if any country were to attempt to lay claim to Greenland instead, it would surely be Canada, not the US.

Figure 4

We can safely dismiss other canards. Neither Russia nor China is going to assay an invasion of the United States through the Arctic Ocean, there is nothing to be gained in terms of an early warning of incoming missiles – America has a dozen satellites that can detect (but not counter) a hypersonic missile launch within seconds -(131) and talk of Greenland’s mineral wealth is just that; talk. Rare earth metals are buried under the ice sheet, which averages 1.67 km in thickness.(132) Any attempt at extraction would be hideously uneconomic. So, once more, the same question presents itself; what’s all the fuss really about? Well, this map may furnish us with a clue.

Figure 5

That would be the spawn of the NRx crew, with Thiel to the fore.(133) He wants to build a ‘freedom city’ in Greenland, but Altman, Bezos, Gates and Bloomberg have all invested in companies that seek to exploit the island.(134) (As an aside, 47’s bellicosity might also trigger the collapse of NATO, without him having to do it the hard way.) You will note that the proposed Technate also includes Canada, Mexico, Central America, Venezuela, part of Colombia and the Essequibo region of Guyana. You may also recall other Trumpian rumblings, particularly those about annexing Canada and taking back the Panama Canal. A pattern emerges; the strategy isn’t concerned with denial or acquisition, but with both.

And not just in the Western Hemisphere, although that’s the starting point. The Trump Doctrine is about intimidating China and its partners, wherever they may be. Upping the defence budget to $1.5 trillion a year, attempting to split the BRICS alliance by turning India into a vassal state,(135) the tariff skirmishes, dangling a resources-based partnership with Russia – at the expense of its national security – and stomping about in the Americas and (potentially) Iran are all actions that target China in various ways, direct and indirect. And, simultaneously, establishing an American Technate.

The China aspect isn’t guesswork - the man setting US defence strategy, Elbridge Colby, published a book setting it out in 2021:

“Colby’s core claim is that U.S. strategy in the 21^st century should aim to prevent China achieving hegemony over Asia. The rest of his framework follows from that point.”(136)

So, the top-line, overriding strategic aim is not concerned with a positive, nor with ‘Fortress America’ – it’s about kiboshing China. Colby calls this a ‘denial defense’, which is logical to him, even though it’s defence in another hemisphere. Perhaps it doesn’t need to be explained; maybe it’s obvious to his audience, which I suspect is populated by the neocon, American exceptionalism crowd, which regards American unipolar hegemony to be the natural order of things. These people don’t seem to think like the rest of us.

Apparently, securing the home base is a necessary prerequisite for projecting power into Asia, because “you cannot fight a war in the Western Pacific if hostile actors control your southern approaches.”(137) As to why anyone would be thinking about fighting such a war, Colby’s idée fixe provides an explanation:

“His entire framework is built on the premise that preventing Chinese regional hegemony in Asia is the non-negotiable core interest of U.S. strategy. Ceding Asia to China is not burden-sharing. It is strategic suicide. You do not hand over the most economically consequential region on earth to your principal competitor.”(138)

I was not aware that the United States’ future prosperity was reliant upon selling cheap stuff to Asia, but there is no longer a need to substantiate claims – declarative assertions that sound about right are all that is required. This particular example would explain why Trump has badgered Europe into upping its defence spending and why he’s lukewarm about the war in Ukraine. It would also add context to his attempts to quell the turmoil in the Middle East, although Iran is still in the crosshairs due its partnership with China.

But such a strategy is not a latter-day Monroe Doctrine; it’s not concerned with a moderating of ambition. The widespread sanctions regimes, presumably seen as a middle ground between sitting on hands and military adventurism, the seizure of tankers in international waters, the random bombing runs around the world – none of that presages a drawing-in of American horns. Instead, the strategy is unmistakably interventionist and imperial, yet another iteration of ‘manifest destiny’. And who do we think is going to benefit? The American people? Those who are about to be ‘democratized’? Or the usual special interests? What would be your best guess?

I’m not, I hope, someone who rigidly adheres to a political philosophy. Events often make fools of such people, who are obliged to contort themselves into uncomfortable positions and justify what is frequently unjustifiable. For example, when Trump bombed Iranian nuclear sites, I thought it defensible on grounds of national security. I don’t support the state of Israel because ‘the Jewish people were there first’ – I’m sure many displaced tribes throughout the world could avail themselves of that justification – but because the rest of us have repeatedly demonstrated that we cannot be trusted as their stewards.

And I don’t believe that the US should be obliged to twiddle its thumbs whilst others in the world wreak havoc. Some overseas endeavours are legitimate, particularly concerning the safeguarding of sea routes and supply chains. Perhaps a case can also be made for filling potential power vacuums that might otherwise be occupied by bad actors if, of course, we can legitimately define what that designation means. But, in a moral world, great strength would be accompanied by restraint, not overweening arrogance and serial bullying.

Colby, in my view, didn’t start with a blank sheet of paper. He didn’t attempt original thought. He didn’t examine how best the US could position itself to benefit humanity at large. Instead, he came up with yet another variation on a theme – how to win, how to remain the top dog. Alliances of mutual restraint be damned. They have it. We want it. We take it. If that means trashing international norms, sobeit. If America is truly a “Puritan country, in which self-righteousness is eternally wedded to cheap theatrics”,(139) such a strategy may play well, domestically. Amongst a certain crowd, at any rate.

I am not a fan of your standard-issue, invertebrate, ‘conservative’ soy-boy but, if anything, I have greater contempt for those who think that they are superior beings, who must be allowed to warp the truth because their ends justify the means. These are the sorts of people that, in person, are most deserving of a slap upside the head. They have no moral centre and they will say whatever it is that they are paid to say. It doesn’t have to be true. It doesn’t even have to be objectively credible. They don’t care.

How is it that bullies and liars are now behind Trump? Rubio, as a Senator, provided top cover for the Russiagate conspiracy that targeted 45 whilst he was in office.(140) He’s muckers with Noboa, lobbied to have Hernández pardoned and eulogised former Colombian president, Alvaro Uribe, an important narco who was a close personal friend of Pablo Escobar.(141) As Sundance has previously noted, “Rubio is a manipulative liar, untrustworthy [and] fulfills the role of Brutus.”(142)

Lindsey Graham, a man Trump used to mock “for being a bloodthirsty neocon warmonger” is also back in favour.(143) The shyster that is Nick Fuentes gleefully warned whoever that “we will kill all of you and take your oil.”(144) ‘MAGA influencers’, a tribe that never gets to the truth of anything, are in lockstep, penning all manner of nonsense, all of it wilfully misleading and, suddenly, ‘Conservatism, Inc.’ - a mortal enemy of America First – is onboard with Trump. That alone tells the story.

I don’t like bullies and I don’t like liars. For me, it’s never been about my gang versus the other gangs. The false equivalencies of ‘partisanship’ were not for me, as it was obvious that half-sensible people of our persuasion had simply held our ground while the Cluster B’s herded the Left over the precipice. Truth was important to us and, as politics is always downstream from personality, it followed that the amoral, mendacious, histrionic anything-goes types were almost exclusively to be found amongst the progressive Left.

That designation includes the inaptly named neocons, whose natural arrogance and proclivity for the domination of others has far more in common with the authoritarian end of the political spectrum. Not that like-minded Americans found a comfortable home within the conservative movement, which disappeared up its own backside around 1960. The stench of American exceptionalism, with all that entails, has been a dominant narrative ever since, whilst whatever shared values that bound Americans together have been shredded.

Trump was different – emphasis on the ‘was’. Domestically, much of that remains, but foreign policy is now a different matter entirely. He speaks of his distress at the deaths occasioned by conflict, but thinks nothing of imposing unilateral sanctions that impoverish and kill. He doesn’t appear to care one whit about anyone who isn’t American and has adopted the persona of the playground bully, a Goliath continually stomping on the head of David. His conduct is now indistinguishable from previous examples of Deep State/MIC adventurism:

“...Trump has already proven he often first sets his interventionist policy, and then goes looking for a justification in a a post hoc fallacy kind of way (a longstanding tradition among pretty much all American presidents, sadly)...”(145)

There is a difference this time, however. The hypocrisy with regard to justifications is still there, as set out here. But there’s another element, a new feature. Once Trump had uttered the standard falsehoods, in somewhat cursory fashion, there was a follow-up – do as I say or I’ll bomb you again. Whether or not there was any actual bombing the first time is moot. The falsehoods are there to bridge the gap between the ideals that are supposed to be foundational to us all – fairness, decency etc – and the action taken, but the salient point is that the “ideal still has a hold on you, that you can still be called back to it.”(146) Hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue. However, Trump’s follow-up threat lays waste to that construct:

“Now imagine you renounce all this. Imagine you stop being a hypocrite in the sense that you abandon your ideals entirely, that you start owning up to your worst self and become comfortable with your vices...Have you thus become refreshingly honest? Maybe. But you’ve also died inside...you’ve lost the internal architecture that makes moral life possible...That is what the United States just did.”(147)

I think Trump has just changed the rules of the game. The US, henceforth, will acknowledge no rules. Might is right. The big can plunder the small and the UN can take a long walk off a short plank. One might hope that this privilege would be extended to other regional hegemons – Russia and China, in other words – but we already know that China is going to be fresh out of luck. Perhaps Putin will be spared, but his war isn’t about plunder, anyway. This carve-up may be the initial plan, but the NSS makes it clear that Xi, at least, gets put back in his box. But there will be a cost:

“If force is used in a manner functionally indistinguishable from war, it is morally judged as war. Once this distinction collapses, no foreign leader is safe, and no limit on violence remains principled. The moral firewall between order and chaos is gone.”(148)

Figure 6

I don’t know what happens next, but a new era seems to be upon us. Truth seekers and critical thinkers are likely to be political vagrants once again, however, as MAGA has been thoroughly compromised by partisan personalities whose behaviour mirrors that of Leftists. The Venezuela fallout demonstrated that these types will be allowed to drown out other voices, but it wasn’t the only signpost. The ICE shooting in Minnesota provided another example, when partisan obfuscation was the order of the day.

Perhaps one could justify the first shot, through the windshield, but the two through the driver’s open window? Commentators defended it on the grounds that the protestor was now a wanted felon and a danger to the public, but it seems to me that shooting someone who’s driving a two-ton vehicle is unlikely to enhance public safety. It also seems sensible to note that even the first shot was a poor decision and that a better one would have involved moving out of the way. I could find nobody on our side of the aisle making such observations, presumably because they could not bring themselves to cede any ground to the Left, but acknowledging an individual mistake doesn’t invalidate the overall mission.

Jettisoning truth makes us just like them and that’s what is being done in our name. That, combined with Trump’s bullying, will result in a turf war between two, equally unappetising contestants and the wholesale abandonment of our ideals. Internationally, the pursuit of the NSS won’t advantage the American people. What’s more, Colby et al make no real attempt to show that it will. Defence contractors, sure. Oil companies, likewise. The Tech Barons – of course. Everybody else is an afterthought.

Citations

(1) https://patriotfetch.com/2026/01/late-night-comedy-decline-recycled-jokes-political-humor/

(2) https://www.rt.com/news/630665-bbc-bans-maduro-kidnapped-term/

(3) https://drafts.interfluidity.com/2023/12/10/theres-no-such-thing-as-international-law/index.html

(4)

(5) https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2025/05/20/2003837178

(6) https://isgp-studies.com/cia-heroin-and-cocaine-drug-trafficking#historical-timeline-cia-drug-trafficking

(7) https://irp.fas.org/congress/1998_cr/980507-l.htm

(8) https://isgp-studies.com/cia-heroin-and-cocaine-drug-trafficking#historical-timeline-cia-drug-trafficking

(9-10) Ditto

(11)

(12) https://newstarget.com/2025-02-26-new-chapter-americas-history-with-drug-trade.html

(13)

(14) https://isgp-studies.com/cia-heroin-and-cocaine-drug-trafficking#historical-timeline-cia-drug-trafficking

(15) https://irp.fas.org/congress/1998_cr/980507-l.htm

(16) https://newstarget.com/2025-02-26-new-chapter-americas-history-with-drug-trade.html

(17) https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2017/08/of-venezuela-and-hypocrisy/

(18)

(19)

(20) https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v39/n13/greg-grandin/down-from-the-mountain

(21)https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Document:The_Strange_Death_of_Hugo_Chavez

(22)https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Document:Sanctions_of_Mass_Destruction:_America’s_War_on_Venezuela

(23) https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/us-military-siege-and-narco-state-allegations-against-venezuela-all-you-need-to-know/

(24) https://thegrayzone.com/2025/04/09/video-investigation-ecuadorian-presidents-cartel-conspiracy/

(25) https://www.npr.org/2025/12/02/nx-s1-5628382/trump-pardons-honduran-ex-president-juan-orlando-hernandez

(26) https://thegrayzone.com/2023/10/06/president-honduras-trafficking-drugs/

(27) https://thegrayzone.com/2023/09/18/trial-honduran-president-narco-state/

(28) https://thegrayzone.com/2025/04/14/daniel-noboas-theft-cartel-corporate-ecuador/

(29) Ditto

(30) https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2024/12/26/whats-behind-the-new-u-s-military-base-in-galapagos/

(31) https://biologyinsights.com/what-are-the-natural-resources-of-ecuador/

(32) https://www.lewrockwell.com/2026/01/david-stockman/tmm-trumps-macho-madness/

(33) https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/unjust-war-theory-when-law-enforcement-becomes-moral-insanity

(34) https://www.wionews.com/world/cartel-de-los-soles-myth-trump-venezuela-1767690359221

(35) https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/venezuela-news-how-2002-coup-hugo-chavez-relations-between-us-carcas-explosions-maduro-arrest-2846049-2026-01-03

(36) https://peoplesdispatch.org/2026/01/03/the-united-states-attacks-venezuela-and-kidnaps-its-president-in-an-illegal-operation/

(37)

(38)

(39)https://web.archive.org/web/20180327052714/https://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1118-10.htm

(40)

(41) https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/why-trump-soured-machado-it-has-nothing-do-nobel-prize

(42) Ditto

(43) https://thegrayzone.com/2026/01/05/indictment-maduro-cia-network-witness/

(44) https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/unjust-war-theory-when-law-enforcement-becomes-moral-insanity

(45) https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/05/venezuela-maduro-judge-hellerstein-00710894

(46)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_United_States_intervention_in_Venezuela#Casualties

(47) https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2026/01/03/so-thats-how-delta-force-was-able-to-capture-maduro-so-easily-n2668837

(48)

DEEPER LOOK with Michael Sellers

Maduro’s Slow-Motion Two-Hour Bloodless Capture Raises Questions About What Really Happened

As soon as I heard that U.S. special operations forces were inside Nicolás Maduro’s compound for nearly two hours—from entry to departure—my first thought was: hmmmm. That’s interes…

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8 months ago · 271 likes · 52 comments · Michael D. Sellers

(49) https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2026/01/03/so-thats-how-delta-force-was-able-to-capture-maduro-so-easily-n2668837

(50) Ditto

(51) https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15452107/america-sonic-weapon-venezuela-soldiers.html

(52)

Amerikanets

Virtual War

Yesterday morning, I awoke to hear the following story: in the night, the US Joint Task Force Southern Spear launched a ground invasion of Venezuela. In a daring raid preceded by devastating air strikes on key locations, SFOD-D operators infiltrated Caracas by helicopter, taking enemy fire. Using blowtorches, they penetrated layers of President Nicholas…

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8 months ago · 95 likes · 15 comments · Amerikanets

(53) https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/us-army-chief-says-iraqi-troops-took-bribes-to-surrender-105987.html

(54) https://www.lewrockwell.com/2026/01/david-stockman/tmm-trumps-macho-madness/

(55) https://www.lewrockwell.com/2026/01/no_author/when-it-comes-to-venezuelan-oil-trump-is-drilling-a-dry-hole/

(56) https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jan/07/us-venezuela-south-america-mineral-wealth-rare-earths-oil

(57) https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/venezuelas-methane-problem-looms-over-trumps-oil-revival-plan

(58) https://revolver.news/2026/01/sundance-explains-how-stunningly-brilliant-trumps-venezuela-strategy-really-is/

(59) https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf

(60) https://ia801709.us.archive.org/9/items/project-2025_202502/Project%202025.pdf

(61) Ditto

(62) https://news-crunch.com/internation-relations/worlds-big-brother-750-us-military-bases-in-80-countries

(63) https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2024/december/chinas-global-maritime-ambitions-10000-miles-beyond-taiwan

(64)https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/ACLURM001616.pdf

(65) https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/guyana-the-little-caribbean-country-with-a-big-role-to-play-in-trumps-regional-shift-5964108

(66-67) Ditto

(68) https://thedefensepost.com/2024/04/04/venezuela-us-bases-guyana/

(69) https://orinocotribune.com/united-states-is-converting-guyana-into-a-military-enclave/

(70) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/15/guyana-venezuela-attack-essquibo

(71)

(72) https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/guyana-the-little-caribbean-country-with-a-big-role-to-play-in-trumps-regional-shift-5964108

(73)

Metro

The war for minerals, oil and AI

Marc Caputo…

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8 months ago

(74)

The News Block

Maduro Captured—Oil, Minerals, and a U.S. Power Play, NYC’s "Warm" Collectivism Myth

Listen to the latest episode of the News Block below.👇…

Read more

8 months ago · 8 likes · 2 comments · Natalie Brunell

(75) https://www.axios.com/2026/01/05/venezuela-china-stocks-oil

(76)

The News Block

Maduro Captured—Oil, Minerals, and a U.S. Power Play, NYC’s "Warm" Collectivism Myth

Listen to the latest episode of the News Block below.👇…

Read more

8 months ago · 8 likes · 2 comments · Natalie Brunell

(77) Ditto

(78) https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/23/us-trump-administration-signs-security-deals-across-latin-america

(79) https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/15/us-military-strikes-vessels-pacific

(80) https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/feb/12/colombia-gustavo-petro-total-peace-farc-eln-drug-trafficking-cartel-violence-venezuela

(81) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/10/daily-killings-mexico-claudia-sheinbaum-president-government-figure

(82) https://www.thenation.com/article/world/mexican-mayors-killed/

(83) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/22/mexico-missing-person-forensics-expert-juan-carlos-tercero

(84) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/16/gulf-clan-colombia-us-terrorist-organization

(85) https://wlcentral.org/node/2811

(86) https://www.businessinsider.com/the-us-government-and-the-sinaloa-cartel-2014- 1

(87) https://www.lewrockwell.com/2026/01/jacob-hornberger/the-ugly-cold-war-racket-against-cuba-rears-its-ugly-head-again/

(88) https://horizontecubano.law.columbia.edu/news/magnitude-economic-crisis-cuba

(89) https://oncubanews.com/cuba/sociedad-cuba/poblacion/la-poblacion-de-cuba-cayo-un-24-en-cuatro-anos-segun-un-estudio-independiente/

(90) https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/jan/10/cuba-regime-polycrisis-collapse-exodus-economy-migration-us-sanctions-trump

(91) https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/01/trumps-cuba-strategy-prospects-regime-change/

(92) https://horizontecubano.law.columbia.edu/news/magnitude-economic-crisis-cuba

(93)

(94) https://indianexpress.com/article/world/us-trump-used-military-against-how-many-countries-10461818/

(95) https://ishr.org/nigeria-new-low-point-in-violence-against-christians/?pdf=20953

(96) https://truthout.org/articles/nigerian-town-bombed-by-trump-has-no-known-history-of-anti-christian-violence/

(97) https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/us-bombs-target-isil-nigeria-131637118.html

(98) https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/03/graphic-warning-7000-alawites-christians-massacred-islamists-syria/

(99) https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/nearly-2k-christians-killed-3k-abducted-or-assaulted-in-past-2-years-watchdog/ar-AA1U6R8g

(100) https://thealtworld.com/andrew_korybko/the-us-new-national-security-strategy-details-how-trump-2-0-will-respond-to-multipolarity

(101) https://www.natofoundation.org/africa/nigerias-brics-partnership-opportunities-and-challenges/

(102) https://www.msn.com/en-au/money/news/chariot-mou-eyes-200ktpa-nigeria-lithium-offtake-to-china/ar-AA1TqzSB

(103) https://www.msn.com/en-xl/science/earth-science/nigeria-courts-china-energy-giants-as-10bn-gas-push-accelerates/ar-AA1U9LVn

(104) https://www.natofoundation.org/africa/nigerias-brics-partnership-opportunities-and-challenges/

(105) https://africa.businessinsider.com/local/lifestyle/trump-designates-nigeria-a-country-of-particular-concern-over-christian-killings/jpxvpt6

(106) https://africa.businessinsider.com/local/markets/china-stands-with-nigeria-amid-us-pressure-safeguards-dollar13bn-mining-stake/s6vc9bq?op=1

(107) https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/iran-decries-foreign-interference-protest-death-toll-rises-significantly

(108) Ditto

(109)

(110)

Roshni

A Look into the Structure of the Iranian Government

Maida Minhaj - 18/04/25…

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a year ago · 1 like · Roshni

(111) https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/13/cia-1953-iran-coup-undemocratic-argo

(112) https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2011/08/a-darker-horizon-the-assassination-of-shapour-bakhtiar.html

(113) https://www.lewrockwell.com/2026/01/no_author/will-america-israel-get-the-iranian-regime-change-they-want/

(114) https://www.thenation.com/article/society/us-government-murder-julian-assange/

(115) https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/pompeo.jpg?itok=TSz0pSfR

(116) https://archive.ph/MYxy4#selection-178.1-201.68

(117) https://www.lewrockwell.com/2026/01/no_author/iran-shrugs-off-another-round-of-u-s-israel-sponsored-regime-change-riots/

(118)https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/01/what_needs_to_happen_for_regime_change_in_iran.html

(119) https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/trump-imposes-25-tariff-any-country-doing-business-iran-effective-immediately

(120) https://www.lewrockwell.com/2026/01/no_author/us-cargo-planes-have-flooded-the-persian-gulf-since-the-first-of-december/

(121) https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2026/1/15/iran-us-live-tension-lingers-amid-threats-as-tehran-reopens-airspace

(122) https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/27/china-us-sanctions-shadow-fleet-top-iranian-oil-buyer-trade.html

(123) https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/the-axis-of-evasion-behind-chinas-oil-trade-with-iran-and-russia/

(124) https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2026/01/13/chinas-dependence-on-iranian-oil-strategic-leverage-and-exposure/

(125) https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2025/07/03/5-things-to-know-about-china-iran-security-cooperation/

(126) https://ciaotest.cc.columbia.edu/olj/meria/meria598_gill.html

(127) https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/01/white-house-confirms-greenland-acquisition-is-u-s/

(128) https://www.reuters.com/world/trump-advisers-discussing-options-acquiring-greenland-us-military-is-always-an-2026-01-06/

(129) https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/01/white-house-confirms-greenland-acquisition-is-u-s/

(130) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_the_Danish_West_Indies

(131) https://www.lewrockwell.com/2026/01/david-stockman/trumps-icebox/

(132) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_ice_sheet

(133) https://unlimitedhangout.com/2025/03/investigative-reports/the-dark-maga-gov-corp-technate-part-2/

(134) https://www.forbes.com/sites/martinadilicosa/2026/01/09/these-billionaires-bet-big-on-greenland-after-trump-took-interest/

(135)

Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Trump Is Hellbent On Derailing India’s Rise As A Great Power

If Trump’s tariffs don’t coerce India into becoming a US vassal, which the US would then exploit to coerce concessions from China in advance of its ultimate goal of restoring unipolarity, then he might settle for letting China subordinate India instead as part of the “G2”/“Chimerica” scenario…

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a year ago · 74 likes · 38 comments · Andrew Korybko

(136) https://medium.com/@mcnai002/the-bridge-at-the-center-of-the-pentagon-d104b4cf3248

(137-138) Ditto

(139) https://chroniclesmagazine.org/web/metoo-stalinism-in-drag/

(140) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2023/01/29/sunday-talks-ssci-chair-warner-and-vice-chair-rubio-give-their-perspectives-on-classified-document-issues-and-control-operations/

(141) https://prospect.org/2025/12/23/narco-terrorist-elite-rubio-south-america-iran-contra/

(142) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2024/06/10/rubio-and-the-64000-question/#more-261175

(143)

(144)

(145) https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/danish-intelligence-russia-china-threat-greenland

(146)

(147) Ditto

(148) https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/unjust-war-theory-when-law-enforcement-becomes-moral-insanity

Figure 1 https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/04/06/noboas-pricey-photo-op-ecuadors-president-bets-on-trump-to-boost-his-campaign/

Figure 2 https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/guyana-the-little-caribbean-country-with-a-big-role-to-play-in-trumps-regional-shift-5964108

Figure 3

The News Block

Maduro Captured—Oil, Minerals, and a U.S. Power Play, NYC’s "Warm" Collectivism Myth

Listen to the latest episode of the News Block below.👇…

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8 months ago · 8 likes · 2 comments · Natalie Brunell

Figure 4 https://citybaseblog.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/greenland.png

Figure 5 https://www.lewrockwell.com/political-theatre/the-north-american-technate/

Figure 6 https://medium.com/@mcnai002/the-bridge-at-the-center-of-the-pentagon-d104b4cf3248

The recent shutdown of the US government prompted rivers of crocodile tears from the Leftists who caused it, most of them spilled on behalf of those poor unfortunates who rely on SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits to get by. Regrettably – for Democrats – the spotlight might have been better shone elsewhere, as Americans learned that the temporary food stamps programme was nothing of the sort, as some recipients had been relying on it for up to thirty years.(1) Still, at least they were citizens. It also became clear that the blue states, in particular, were colluding in multi-billion dollar fraud, a circumstance that should have been obvious when SNAP funding ballooned by 40% under the Biden regime, a time of record illegal immigration.(2)

The 42 million availing themselves of that benefit turned out to the tip of the welfare iceberg. Food banks are catering to 50 million, although one would expect a substantial crossover between the two cohorts.(3) However, as I alluded to previously (in Who Holds The Whip Hand?), the welfare system in its entirety is ‘broken’ - otherwise known as doing exactly what it has been designed for - a revelation that may not be shared in polite company. Lots of people get free stuff, stuff which those working 60-hour weeks cannot afford. For tens of millions of Americans, there is no financial reason to knock themselves out, because the welfare state actively discourages hard graft:

“And the system is designed to prevent them from escaping. Every dollar you earn climbing from $40,000 to $100,000 triggers benefit losses that exceed your income gains. You are literally poorer for working harder.”(4)

A worker earning $65,000 a year takes home an income that would generate the same rewards as making $30,000 and relying on the state to provide the remainder in benefits.(5) So, workforce participation rates are shockingly low. 36% of the working-age population has opted out; they’re not employed and they’re not looking to be – already around 102,500,000 people living on what is effectively UBI.(6) I found that statistic staggering.

Strangely, these truths don’t often see the light of day, but it’s why the federal mandatory outlay purely allocated to welfare programmes was just under $4 trillion in 2024,(7) or 80% of federal income.(8) Money taken from individual taxpayers totalled $2.4 trillion, so companies and corporations bridged the gap.(9) There’s a certain irony in the fact that the state’s coddling of the wilfully unemployed is only possible because of taxes paid by productive businesses.

A direct effect of this intentional snafu is a vast tribe of citizens (and, inevitably, non-citizens) who are wholly dependent on government handouts. This is, of course, not unintentional. But the US is not alone – the welfare state is deeply embedded across the West. Perhaps at least some regimes were founded with good intentions, but given that most were the brainchilds of Leftists, perhaps not. The modern concept of taxation is surely, at its core, simply a way for the state to reserve to itself the right to redistribute an individual’s property as it, not the individual, sees fit, to the detriment of all:

“If, instead of teaching a man to fish, you decree that he is entitled to another man’s fish and you have the ability to enact and extract, then you control both men. Both become supplicants, for different reasons, but supplicants nonetheless.”(10)

Welfare systems that are light years removed from a desire to “provide safety nets for the most vulnerable in society” are the inevitable result,(11) and the culture of dependency that is engendered causes an erosion in the tax base and enormous national debts. In some Western countries, there are now “multiple generations of families who have never worked,”(12) not because they couldn’t, but because they didn’t need to. Welfare states are also migrant magnets, many of whom have no interest in contributing, but are more than willing to milk the system.

The French are busy rearranging deckchairs and the German band is right there beside them, playing on as the ship goes down. France has endured 68,000 corporate insolvencies over the past twelve months and the economy is on its knees,(13) but the political class holds fast to the illusion that they can rescue their welfare system by running up the national debt. Gallic logic contends that maintaining the largest social budget in the EU is compatible with one of the lowest retirement ages, 62, and a work culture that is not famed for its industriousness.

Meanwhile, Germany’s newish Chancellor, “an unforced error factory”,(14) pledged fiscal responsibility on the campaign trail, but instead abandoned the debt brake and borrowed just under a trillion euros.(15) He has his own insoluble pension cataclysm to ignore; in 1960, six German workers supported each pensioner, but that’s currently down to two and by 2050 it will have stabilised at 1.3.(16) In a logical world, taking on yet more debt will soon be the only way of squaring that particular circle.

However, some countries are clearly motivated by more than misplaced compassion or a Messiah complex – they are actively widening the net. The UK which, under Starmer, increasingly resembles a failed state, is once again leading the charge. The furlough policies of his predecessor, the effete Sunak, set the scene during the counterfeit pandemic; the state paid 80% of workers’ salaries whilst confining them to quarters for three months. Except it lasted, on and off, for eighteen months and doled out £70 billion of taxpayers’ money to 11.7 million people, provided they sat at home and did nothing.(17)

To the surprise of nary a single student of human nature, the message that it sent – that people, like the banks, were now ‘too big to fail’ – exacerbated the dependency culture, resulting in a current workforce that is still smaller than it was pre-’pandemic’. A pattern is discernible:

“One of the unintended consequences of the welfare state has been the erosion of personal responsibility and traditional family support systems. In the past, families took care of their elderly, supported their struggling members, and worked together to overcome hardships. But with government welfare available, many individuals no longer feel obligated to support their loved ones.”(18)

I take issue with the word ‘unintended’, but the general point is well made. The state’s PIP scheme (personal independence payment, the bastard child of the unselfconsciously titled Universal Credit Act of 2025) permits one-in-eight 16-24-year-olds to avoid both education and employment,(19) and the latest budget cobbled together by Rachael from Accounts twists the knife. She hiked taxes by £26 billion and also abolished the two-child benefit cap, disproportionately benefitting 350,000 foreign-born families who have never paid into the system.(20)

A parent with three children, on combined benefits, ‘takes home’ income that can only be matched by a pre-tax salary of £71,000.(21) Rachael claims that her scheme will slash child poverty, but she knows that’s just another crock:

“Despite decades of welfare programs in the West, poverty has not been eradicated. In fact, in many cases, it has deepened. Welfare states create cycles of poverty where people rely on benefits for survival rather than seeking ways to become financially independent.”(22)

The observant amongst you will have noticed that the welfare states that I have described are clearly unsustainable in their current form. The moolah simply isn’t there. Yes, in the short term, money-printing can paper over the futility, but even that wheeze runs out of gas at some point, probably when the interest payments on the debt become too debilitating. There are, in truth, only three potential solutions; turbocharge the economy (by incentivising entrepreneurship, torching reams of oppressive regulations and binning Net Zero); reduce overheads; or take over the means of production.

I imagine that you won’t need to hazard any wild guesses in determining which option our leaders will inevitably alight upon at some point, although there will also be a soupçon of belt-tightening; which will not be accomplished by making hard choices, but by a managed decline in the number of supplicants. Which is a roundabout way of saying that the ‘useless eaters’ will be encouraged to cross the great divide as soon as humanly possible.

That particular campaign is going gangbusters throughout the West. Two-Tier Keir’s wake of fellow travellers are enthusiastically playing catch-up, attempting to make medical murder a thing and legalising abortion up to the point of birth.(23)(24) Eight European countries allow either euthanasia or assisted suicide (with another six eager to join them),(25)(26) and the Antipodes have recently come on board,(27)(28) but all must cede top-billing to the Canadians. The unremitting mission-creep of their MAiD programme is something else. Note the following sentence from Figure 1:

“The committee also suggested parents may not be consulted and wouldn’t need to consent to their child’s death via MAiD.”(29)

Figure 1

They are a very long way down the track; it must take a particularly virulent pathology to imagine that the state killing a child without the parents’ knowledge is acceptable. Other tricks of the trade include years-long waits for surgery or other forms of treatment, which result in feelings of despair, at which point the state steps in and offers a ‘medically assisted death’, or homicide to you and I.(30)

But, even then, I suspect that the conveyor belt is too sluggish. In the meantime, the state would need to get its hands on some plunder, and quickly, because if a universal basic income is in our future (and that’s a bigger ‘if’ than you might realise), the means of production will have to become socialised.

“Why socialism? Because socialists promise to care for the downtrodden, which will be every person left alive when AI achieves full robustness. AI in the hands of a socialist government will feed and house them, and will, of course, see that it’s done equitably.”(31)

Although the Technocrats intend to essentially usurp the power of the state and wield it for their own ends, so that would likely involve a hybrid system. Musk’s assertions that the “communist utopia...will be achieved via capitalism” and that humanoids will “make employment optional” obscure the nuts and bolts of what will actually happen if he gets his way.(32) Power and resources will be centralised in the hands of a smattering of oligarchs and they will (presumably) supplement the existing welfare system with their own bespoke version, or replace it altogether. There are some obvious problems associated with that scenario:

“The corporations promising “dividends” to the people they replaced are not offering freedom. They are manufacturing dependence. It is the same trap as state welfare; only now the state and the corporate elite operate in lockstep, forming a partnership that decides who eats and who doesn’t. A nation where citizens rely on the same entities that erased their jobs is not a nation of free men. It is a nation held hostage by its own technological masters.”(33)

There are, however, one or two minor logistical obstacles blocking the path to the sunlit uplands of our collective Shangri-La. The Tech Lords may have a flair for totalitarian philosophy, but they aren’t always the brightest bulbs in the chandelier. If we recall, most of the leading lights of the Technocracy cult got their start courtesy of the CIA, not because they are especially bright.

Some of the software that has made them filthy rich was developed in collaboration with the agency and, seemingly, gifted to them. The venture capitalists amongst them are an incestuous bunch, forever plumping each other up. In a competitive market, I’m not convinced that they would be stars, but billions in government contracts give the impression that there isn’t even a playing field, never mind one that’s level.

So, planning isn’t necessarily a first-order talent. Either that, or the Deep State has had trouble synching all the necessary components, because it’s apparent that, while the digital assets seem to be coming along just fine, the resources that will be necessary if they are to be maximally utilised are either in short supply or entirely absent. And these resources are fundamental to the project; money, energy and water. I think it reasonable to posit that nobody has any real idea how much of each will be required, except that it will be a lot. And by a lot I mean off the charts.

Large Language Models require an extraordinary amount of energy. Twelve months ago, Morgan Stanley estimated that the US would need at least 36GW of new capacity by 2028, to energise all the pie-in-the-sky data centres that have yet to be built. That’s a decent-sized shortfall.

Figure 2

That figure is, however, a mere bagatelle. By 2032, there will be a need for an extra 100GW of additional energy.(34) That sort of requirement cannot be integrated into the existing grid without causing chaos and huge hikes in power prices for ordinary citizens. The proposed solution is for data centres to stay ‘behind the meter’, with their own off-grid power generators and the only way that might possibly be accomplished is via nuclear power - small modular reactors (SMRs), to be precise. As Jensen Huang, one of the world’s most polished snakeoil salesmen, told Rogan recently – in the process signposting what is probably the most compelling reason for the Tech Bros’ sudden enthusiasm for MAGA:

“[Trump] came into office and the first thing he said was ‘drill baby drill’...It saved the AI industry. I got to tell you, flat out, if not for his progrowth energy policy we would not be able to build factories for AI, not be able to build chip factories, we surely wouldn’t be able to build supercomputer factories...”(35)

As a sidenote; the capacity to weather the cognitive dissonance that surely exists in the American end of the scheme – particularly the Musk-adjacent, who mustn’t (at the very least) renounce their membership of the climate change cult, whilst being implicitly all-in on an immense energy build-out – gives the Tech Bros a huge advantage over the Euroweenies and the Brits, who cannot countenance the abandonment of their Net Zero fantasies.

The price of a kilowatt-hour of electricity is currently 33.8 cents in the UK, and between 20-30 cents in the largest European economies. In the US, it’s 8.1 cents (and it’s only 3 cents in China).(36)(37) That might actually be good news for the EU citizenship, as falling on their swords and admitting defeat is not a condition much found in Brussels or London. And without the extra energy, the full panopticon of digital control must surely be unachievable.

The Trump administration may well utilise the industrial diesel generators that already exist as emergency back-ups and which are located at existing data centres and other commercial sites. Apparently, that’s 35GW right there,(38) if the rules governing pollution are somehow circumvented. The SMRs aren’t likely to come on stream until the 2030s so, at the present time, the energy shortfall would seem to be a profoundly limiting factor.

As is water – data centres are savagely thirsty. In 2024, a single data centre in Iowa consumed a billion gallons of water, which was enough to supply all of Iowa’s residential water for five days.(39) I assume that an evaporative cooling system was in use, but there are closed loop systems that chill the water and recirculate it. However, the kicker is that this system requires even more energy. Hobson’s choice, then. Not to mention the water already consumed by the steam-generating power plants that provide that energy.

Each 100-word AI prompt is estimated to consume about a pint of water and the water demands of the existing centres are already impacting local communities.(40) Predictably, the Tech companies commissioning them are less-than-transparent about their environmental impact and go to some lengths to hinder attempts to rein their efforts in. They seem to be eyeing the Great Lakes area for their new builds, as it’s relatively cool and blessed with an abundant water supply. However, that supply currently caters for 40 million people and a $6 trillion regional economy. Quite what happens when vast new demands come online is currently unknown, but I suspect it won’t be good.

“But without a consistent and transparent way to track water consumption, society is flying blind. The public and government officials lack the complete information needed to make informed decisions about where to locate these facilities, how to regulate them, and how to plan for sustainability.”(41)

There’s also the ticklish problem of how to pay for it all. The data centres alone (across the globe) will cost nearly $3 trillion by 2028 and $6.7 trillion by 2030, around half of which will be debt – mostly private.(42)(43) But that takes no account of the money that will be required to build the aforementioned SMRs; that will need several trillion more, money which the private sector hasn’t been able to find down the back of the couch.

But no matter – most of the financing for the additional electricity will come from the Energy Department’s Loan Programs Office. Trump wants the US to break ground on ten large nuclear reactors by 2030.(44) A public-private enterprise, then. Taxpayers effectively financing Big Tech, whose data centres would be useless without the necessary energy – without ever being asked if they’re okay with it.

That’s if Big Tech is actually going to fulfil its own obligations. At present, the AI companies – with OpenAI and Nvidia to the fore – are fully invested in round-tripping, a strategy that would be identified as fraud and money laundering if conducted by a bank or an individual. Each deal further inflates the bubble, as press releases become currency:

“In simple terms, it’s when companies send money out the door through investments, purchases or partnerships, and then quietly receive it back through another channel. It makes activity and revenue look bigger that it really is.”(45)

To the untutored eye, these companies are playing stupid games and will, eventually, win stupid prizes.. The trillions needed to fill the funding gap for data centre build out will still be insufficient unless GenAI actually begins to turn a profit, something which is has signally failed to do, thusfar. Of the initial $2.9 trillion, less than half will be needed to buy the land, construct the buildings and fit them out - $1.6 trillion will be spent on GPUs from Nvidia and others.(46)

Another tiny problem presents itself – a GPU’s useful lifespan is one to three years, because the thermal stress is simply too high.(47) That’s to say nothing of the potential technological obsolescence also driving replacement cycles. However, the chips are paid for over a five year period, so actual useful life is around half the accounting life. Back-of-a-fag-packet maths points to the possibility of another multi-trillion dollar funding gap in the not-too-distant, whilst the Tech Bros wander around with pencils up their noses and underpants for hats.

As it is, “the base case for revenue growth is for 1,900% revenue growth by 2028.”(48) Is that so? A sensible person might be devoting a little time to working out how it is that GenAI can make any profit at all. No matter how creative the accounting is, with CapEx of that magnitude there is a need for a giant revenue stream. That’s providing it does what it says on the tin. Which it doesn’t. At present, no AI company is anything other than a money pit.

Their CEOs and the uncritical boosters in the media will claim that all that is going to change – if they are even challenged, which they’re not – because the Holy Grail is just around the corner and it’s called AGI; Artificial Generative Intelligence (the Tech Bros get to invent their own nomenclature). You see, it’s simply a matter of size. Bigger is better. Their contention is that they, like Jim Kirk, just need more power:

“For Mr Musk and his GenAI fellow travellers, the biggest hurdle on the road to AGI is the lack of computing power (installed in data centers) to train AI bots which, in turn, is due to a lack of sufficiently advanced computer chips.”(49)

Musk and Altman insist that we’ll be cooking on gas by 2026 at the latest.(50) Their professed belief is that AGI will make workers and firms exponentially more productive, which will boost corporate revenues, thus allowing an equitable distribution of surplus profits. But AGI itself is yet another of those notions that none of its proponents seem to want to explore in much depth. The general idea is a classic accelerationist proposition:

“Roughly, the idea is that an AGI model can generalize beyond specific example found in its training data [like humans]...by learning from experience and changing methods when needed...AI bots will be telling us how to develop new medicines to cure cancer, fix global warming, drive our cars and grow our genetically modified crops...AGI would transform not just the economy and the workplace, but also systems of health care, energy, agriculture, entertainment, transportation, R&D, innovation and science.”(51)

At least, that’s what they say they believe. Maybe they do, maybe they don’t. Altman’s GPT-5, launched this August and allegedly a notable way-station on the yellow brick road was, instead, a hot mess. ‘Hallucinations’ proliferated, at a rate of one-in-ten when hooked up to the internet, and half the time when logged off. The core premise – that “building ever-larger models and ever-larger databases” was part of the solution - took another hit, appropriately, as it has never been anything more than a wholly unproven theory, backed by no evidence whatsoever.(52)(53) Which is problematic because the existing AI models have limitations that are far more severe that their supporters are willing to acknowledge. There’s a reason for that:

“It is becoming more widely understood that LLMs are not constructed on proper and robust world models, but instead are built to autocomplete, based on sophisticated pattern-matching.”(54)

Consequently, they can’t play chess properly and, even when trained on the entire physics canon, cannot detect the principles that undergird their training data.(55) And, despite Musk’s habitual obfuscation, larger AI models are not better, either – they’re worse.(56) They can’t even find the relevant information from the net – instead, they just make shit up. That’s because they are trained to guess, rather than admit that they’ve come up empty.(57)

Companies that jumped the gun and and believed the AI hype-machine found that they’d jumped the shark instead. 95% of generative AI projects in companies don’t enhance revenues, because tools like ChatGPT “stall in enterprise use since they don’t learn or adapt to workflows.”(58) Laid-off workers are getting re-employed. Even advanced AI models are still no match for human coders,(59) and those who used AI assistance tools were nearly 20% slower than when simply doing it all themselves.(60) There is, then, currently no jobcopalypse and, by rights, there never will be, provided we accept a particular framing.

That framing relies on logic and good intentions, which means it’s automatically fallible, but if we properly assess the possibilities of AGI and then overlay them onto the entire spectrum of employment, there is no way that the algorithms can competently replace humans. Even I, a complete tenderfoot with regards to AI, can recognise that. As noted last time out:

“A-I does its thing by rapidly combing through the Internet to evaluate and seize information that you request. Increasingly, A-I colonizes the Internet with second-hand, third-hand, and so forth A-I-generated information. The more territory A-I seizes on the Web, and the more it trains itself on recursive feedbacks of its own garbage, the more distorted the output gets.”(61)

In this case, bigger is not better. AGI is a chimera, inasmuch as it’s never going to be capable of adequate decision-making. It cannot ‘think’, it cannot ‘learn’. The more slop it’s fed, the more out of shape it gets. An exponentially worse version of what currently exists may be around the corner, but that’s all. Yet – from the outside, admittedly - the Tech Lords seem to have managed to persuade Team Trump that the pursuit of AGI is vital to America’s future prosperity and national security and that they must get there before the Chinese.

However, as AGI is never going to happen, the sound strategy would have been to sit back and watch Xi squander billions on a castle in the air, whilst they went about improving what they’ve already got. If, of course, that’s what Xi has been doing, which it isn’t. He’s been focussed on using the AI that already exists,(62) and shaping it into a more efficient tool of control, which is what it’s good for – not for mimicking human thought, but for applying human-coded algorithms to defined circumstances and coming up with outputs that are designed in. Essentially, a process that problem solves in the same way that a calculator adds, subtracts and multiplies.

In a world in which only the fittest survive, we should, therefore, be left with the products that are already available and they are not profitable, nor will they ever be. Many AI products are

“...never going to be cost-efficient, never going to actually work right, will take up too much energy, or will prove to be untrustworthy. There are few real uses [other than] summarizing notes of meetings, generating reports and helping with computer coding.”(63)

Which is not to say that the Business Idiot class that latterly sits in boardrooms won’t try to stiff workers and clients alike by deploying AI products that aren’t fit for purpose, but that strategy isn’t pervasive, nor is it at scale - yet. So, what’s really going on? Are Silicon Valley’s very own Masters of the Universe hallucinating, like their models? Have they managed to persuade each other that the great jump to super-intelligence is actually going to happen, even when the entire concept is little more than a fever dream? I suppose it’s possible.

They give the impression that they are true believers, but that should be counterbalanced by what we know of their ideology and how they feel about us. They do, after all, cleave to the mantra that they should accelerate the “creative destruction of social, economic and political systems” (64) and they also believe that “people are, on average, not very bright”,(65) and that our “portion of sovereignty will be estimated with appropriate derision.”(66)

Could it be that they know that AGI is not viable and that the alleged pursuit of it is a sham? After all, their belief systems are not marbled with altruism, and creating a tool that could cure cancer would just result in more useless eaters. I can see AI’s ‘efficiency’ appealing to them, but they don’t need AGI for that. They just need enough grunt for a flawed algorithm that can rule over us, that it might administer a social credit score, calculate actuarial odds and refuse to offer car insurance and apply negative interest rates on dissidents’ bank accounts and so forth. Plus digital everything.

For that, they’ll need what they’ve already got, plus at least some new data centres, massive bandwidth (that’s where 5G comes in) and a supercharged national grid. If they can keep up the charade for long enough, perhaps that’s what they’ll get. Even the critics of the AI industry approach it from the perspective that Ellison, Altman et al are genuinely attempting this massive build-out; they all then point up the absurdity of the project, list the various ways in which it will fail and predict that the massive tech bubble – currently propping up the stock market and comprising half of US GDP –(67) will eventually pop, at which point there will some kind of Wall Street meltdown.

Just today, there was another report of private finance pulling out of a build with Oracle, the conclusion being that if the private sector is saying ‘no mas’ already, there is no way the tech cycle will be completed.(68) This ignores the fact that a nearly $3 trillion price tag already exceeds the total capacity of the credit and derivatives market in its entirety, so the data centres cannot be built and equipped using traditional financing. Thus, there are two possible scenarios; firstly, the true believers are as divorced from reality as the climatistas are and their project will crash and burn; or, secondly, that states themselves are going to bail them out, in addition to loaning them the funds to build the reactors and power stations.

We don’t have to guess in the case of the Americans. Silicon Valley’s very own ‘AI & Crypto Czar’, David Sachs, has Trump’s ear. In early November, he was promising that there would be no federal bailout for AI.(69) Less than three weeks later he had changed his tune – now special pleading was the order of the day.(70) The volte-face was completed by Trump’s Executive Order that same day, which reads like a wish-list for Silicon Valley. As is now par-for-the-course, the declarative statements justifying what follows are not backstopped by evidence. It might as well have been written by the terminally mendacious Biden cabal.

There’s the usual drivel about America being “in a race for global technology dominance in the development of artificial intelligence”, which means that “in this pivotal moment” (there’s always one of those to hand) “the challenges we face require a historic national effort, comparable in urgency and ambition to the Manhattan Project.”(71) Just briefly, before I set out what the president’s ‘Genesis Mission’ mandates, a quick reminder of what this effort is being applied to, for old time’s sake:

“You can add as many layers of intrigue and “reasoning” as you want, but Large Language Models cannot be trusted to do something correctly, or even consistently, every time.”(72)

Therefore, it doesn’t matter how many trillions of dollars of other people’s money Trump ploughs into AI, it can never be anything other than what it already is:

“Cheerleaders miss that LLMs do not reason but are probabilistic prediction engines. A system which trawls existing data, even assuming that is correct, cannot create anything new. Once existing data sources are devoured, scaling produces diminishing returns. Rather than fully generalisable intelligence, generative models are regurgitation engines struggling with truth, hallucinations and reasoning.”(73)

But, nonetheless, the plan involves merging the federal government with private sector AI firms. It’s not difficult to see what happens then – we’ll be treated to another smörgåsbord of guff, with phrases like ‘national security’ and ‘too big to fail’ given yet another airing. AI will no longer be (already isn’t) a speculative investment by the private sector; it’ll be a state-protected, publicly underwritten endeavour and the largest AI firms – Oracle, OpenAI and others, no doubt – will become part of the state furniture. The financial risk will no longer be worn by the markets alone, but by every US citizen in the here and now and in the future. All without any buy-in from those very same people and all for a technology whose only real function is to manage and control society.

So, that’s the play by the Technocrats. Private enterprise reversing into state enterprise. I would think that Trump imagines that the state gets to be the top, but I’m pretty sure that the Tech Lords don’t see themselves as bottoms. Remember this?

Figure 3

National governments in the third tier, cast as enforcers. The reality is that the AI entrepreneurs are just the latest Deep State actors granted their spell in the limelight. They aren’t there to do good works that benefit us – their job is to ride from the front in the final furlong of the race to bring us all to heel. Their wares are not genuine products that transform society for the better. They can never be profitable and they’re not intended to be. They are tools, designed to reinforce boundaries and distance accountability, wholly dissimilar to what has gone before. That’s why the critics can’t get their head around the current circus:

“Traditionally, Silicon Valley startups have relied upon the same model of “grow really fast and burn a bunch of money, then “turn the profit lever.” AI does not have a “profit lever”, because the raw costs of providing access to AI models are so high...that the basic economics of how the tech industry sells software don’t make sense.”(74)

The Technocrats sell themselves as disruptors, as anti-establishment types. To a degree, this is true, but not in a conventional way. The Tech cabal aren’t in the slightest bit interested in libertarianism or small government and they don’t believe in the individual over the collective – they just think that they can do a better job of screwing us than governments can. If they get their way, the administrative framework of the state will remain, but they (and their algorithms) will be controlling that structure. Not just in the US; the digital rollout that is accompanying the ‘AI revolution’ is a worldwide phenomenon. But the centre of gravity is stateside.

So, having looked at AI and UBI logically – and discovered that AI lacks the capacity to genuinely eliminate white-collar, decision-making jobs – we should probably approach them from a different angle, one that ignores factors such as competence and affordability and, instead, focuses on control. User experiences such as the following don’t seem to matter:

“Three years of AI model developments and adjusting my system prompt haven’t even come close to changing the fact that I can’t trust the damn chatbot. I have to treat it like a clever but woefully inexperienced intern who can’t learn.”(75)

Doctors, teachers, lawyers, HR departments and administrators of all hues can be shown the door if the inferior quality of the machine replacement isn’t important, or is a feature, not a bug. Finding the money to fund UBI is still a problem, though. Alternatively, perhaps the entire concept of UBI is simply a necessary construct, another lie that is required to explain how all the people who will supposedly lose their jobs will still be fed and watered. On balance, I think the temptation will be too great and jobs will go at the state level, at minimum – after all, controlling outcomes is the whole idea, not catering for independent thought.

However, without unlimited money-printing, it’s difficult to see how the plan can come together. The US state will have to top up three separate money pits – the data centre build-out, the power build-out and the welfare state. It doesn’t have the funds to do so. Tariff income won’t touch the sides, there is presumably no way that Trump will raise taxes and most of those jobs that will perhaps be onshored will be prime candidates for automation and AI. The government is already adding to the national debt at the rate of $2 trillion a year. In this universe, rather than the Technocrats’ parallel one, the project should be manifestly impossible, but then so is Net Zero and that has never proved to be an impediment to the wilfully blind.

Nonetheless, Trump’s administration is behaving as if none of these contradictions exist. The Deep State is trying to get most of its ducks in a row. The Donald inked another Executive Order in early December, this one targeting state laws on AI, or “the most onerous and excessive” ones, at any rate.(76) He wants to launch a federal framework by pre-empting state laws for ten years, but he (or David Sacks) has so far failed to jam legislation through in two must-pass bills. The Senate nuked one such attempt 99-1 and it is apparent that Republicans in Congress (for once reflecting the views of the public at large) are not in lockstep with the president and Big Tech.(77) Our man Jensen was on hand to spout the usual boilerplate, unsubstantiated bunk:

“State-by-state AI regulation would drag this industry to a halt and it would create a national security concern, as we need to make sure that the United States advances AI technology as quickly as possible.”(78)

The ‘we’ in that sentence being the Technocrats. Hence, the need for an EO and a seeming absence of self-reflection by Trump himself, as any attempt to force states to not pass certain legislation runs afoul of the Tenth Amendment, not that this fact has been part of the debate. Further static from state AGs is also proving troublesome. In an era where pretty much the only thing that the two parties can agree on is that Marco Rubio should be Trump’s foreign policy handler, a purple coalition of thirty-six of them is against the AI amnesty.(79) Forty-two of them are also sounding the alarm over the obvious shortcomings of LLMs, particularly as they pertain to children.(80)

It seems that Trump is facing moderate-to-strong headwinds, despite the scaremongering. He will probably try to bully the states with the threat of suspended federal funding, but I suspect that there are at least some governors who are not being taken for the ride that Trump, I suspect, is. That’s one of the big questions, after all – is the president now a puppet, being played by the Deep State’s current standard bearers? Sundance, over at The Conservative Treehouse, thinks not:

“At a certain point, the financial interests of the technocratic team who helped win the 2024 election will no longer be in alignment with MAGA Americans. At that point, I have no doubt that President Trump will align with our side in the just cause of liberty.”(81)

In support of that theory, it is notable that another of Trump’s Executive Orders – this one entitled Preventing Woke AI In The Federal Government -(82) directs that only truth seeking, politically neutral LLMs should be utilised, which is an admirable, if wholly unrealistic instruction, as there is no such thing, nor will there ever be. I assume that this sentiment is genuine, as he has been consistently opposed to DEI and so forth across both presidencies. It is possible, then, that he is either being played or that he is going through the motions, in the sure and certain knowledge that the ‘AI revolution’ can never come to pass.

If he falters (or wakes up), the string-pullers have a Plan B oven-ready. As previously noted, J D Vance is Thiel’s princeling. He has financed Vance’s rise, from law school onwards. He and Andreessen have corralled a caucus of allegedly right wing donors – known as the Rockbridge Network, founded in 2019 – who are succession planning, and Vance is their man for 2028. Their creed is unashamedly elitist and echoes Technocracy’s precepts. These people believe that businesspeople they see as vital to the country’s future – which would be them, essentially – should be allowed to shape government and achieve permanent political power:

“Their efforts are grounded in a controversial theory of social progress: that a select group of elites are exactly the right people to move the country forward, a position...not in defiance of MAGA populism.”(83)

Of course it isn’t. Nothing says MAGA more than giving the elites that have sold the American people out for decades even greater power. Mendacious wordsmithery is mandatory amongst this crowd. Apparently, all the rubes need is a modicum of benevolent guidance from those who know stuff, because MAGA was all a bit uncoordinated when the voters “unexpectedly elected Trump and a nascent group of wealthy people who had become alienated from the progressive left.”(84)(Emphasis mine).

I’m reasonably confident that the voters weren’t voting for anyone other than Trump and, had they been aware of the influence that this ‘nascent group’ wielded behind the scenes, many of them probably would have stayed home on election day, not wanting to swap one caste of elites for another. But the Rockbridge crew appear to believe that they put Trump back in the White House, not the voters and whichever Deep State operative it was that forced the Democrat fraud machine to cool its jets. They wax lyrical about reviving homegrown manufacturing whilst pushing for labour replacement with AI. They are unelected oligarchs who are “undermining Trump’s promises to benefit working people”,(85) because they know best. Most of them are Technocrats and Vance is their bitch. There is tension in the air:

“How long the right can continue to avoid the Vance question is uncertain. What is certain is that Vance and his allies are fundamentally incompatible with the goals of the populist movement that emerged with Trump’s rise in 2015...”(86)

So, here we are. The rest of the globe is, at a fairly consistent pace, on the path to digital everything and the suppression of dissent. The EU and the Anglosphere cannot bring themselves to renounce Net Zero, although Trump has, but instead of that being a cause for celebration – inasmuch as it should call time on the ‘settle science’ hokum – that narrative has been replaced by another, equally pernicious and distinguished by the same declamatory, fact-free mantras. Instead of an administration that attempted to Green New Deal the public into penury and demanded that Big Tech censor all opposing views, we have one that is on course to accomplish the same ends by different means, with Big Tech now firmly in the driving seat.

I’m not sure how the growing conflict between the US and Europe will pan out, partly because it’s difficult to tell which US officials are speaking out of the side of their mouths. When Vance and Rubio chastise the accelerating demise of free speech in the EU and the UK, they echo Trump, but I get the feeling that the issue is more about preventing benefactors in US tech from being disadvantaged than anything else. It has the feel of a turf war, although there is currently a misalignment between the First Amendment and European legislation. When the American government wishes to censor its citizens, it is obliged to do so secretly.

But the Technocrats are fully on board with a suite of policies that we associate with the enemies of freedom; the credentialed class in the ascendancy, digital IDs, a digital currency, 15 minute cities, transhumanism, UBI and an AI-administered society, the algorithms for which will be coded by them. AI is not going to be a panacea for all ills, as it cannot function in that fashion. Instead, it’s the operating system of digital totalitarianism. Instead of visible authority that can be resisted, there will be administration and “systems of automated compliance”,(87) in a hybrid administrative state comprised of state and corporate power:

“Administration does not argue. It configures...Compliance is produced not through fear, but through dependence on systems that cannot be negotiated with. AI is uniquely suited to this role. It enables automated decision-making at scale, without human judgement at the point of enforcement. Responsibility dissolves into procedure. Power becomes difficult to locate, challenge or appeal. This is not a future scenario. It is already underway.”(88)

Citations

(1)

(2)

(3) https://www.newsweek.com/americas-looming-food-bank-crisis-2060852

(4) https://internationalman.com/articles/americas-feast-or-famine-reality-when-100000-feels-like-poverty/

(5-6) Ditto

(7) https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61182

(8) https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61185

(9) Ditto

(10)https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/12/equity_redistribution_and_the_consultant_s_dream.html

(11) https://medium.com/@Balozi.Baraza/the-welfare-state-64254ae705a7

(12) https://medium.com/@Balozi.Baraza/the-welfare-state-64254ae705a7

(13)https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/12/france_s_endless_nightmare_a_nation_incapable_of_reform.html

(14)

eugyppius: a plague chronicle

Friedrich Merz is the Most Incompetent Chancellor the Federal Republic Has Ever Seen

You need to know that Germany is presently governed by a completely incompetent moron named Friedrich Merz…

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a year ago · 500 likes · 212 comments · eugyppius

(15)

eugyppius: a plague chronicle

On the manifold fractal screwups of Chancellor hopeful Friedrich Merz

For some time now, I’ve wanted to catalogue in one place all the ways that CDU Chancellor hopeful Friedrich Merz is screwing up. His strategic failures are really a thing to behold; I’ve never seen anybody screw up this frequently and this dramatically before. Yet I have delayed writing this post, above all because I wanted Merz to reach the end of his …

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a year ago · 454 likes · 215 comments · eugyppius

(16)

eugyppius: a plague chronicle

Germany's looming pension apocalypse

Germany is headed towards a pension apocalypse driven by demographic decline. In the coming years, our population of pensioners will balloon relative to the working population funding those pensioners. This is a disaster that…

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9 months ago · 546 likes · 303 comments · eugyppius

(17) https://dailysceptic.org/2024/03/23/furlough-didnt-save-millions-of-jobs-it-led-to-a-welfare-crisis/

(18) https://medium.com/@Balozi.Baraza/the-welfare-state-64254ae705a7

(19) https://dailysceptic.org/2025/07/02/the-human-cost-of-starmers-welfare-u-turn/

(20) https://dailysceptic.org/2025/12/07/fury-as-nearly-350000-migrant-families-could-get-extra-welfare-after-rachel-reevess-budget/

(21) https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15339163/Chancellor-benefits-Labour-salary-handouts-two-child-cap-Budget.html

(22) https://medium.com/@Balozi.Baraza/the-welfare-state-64254ae705a7

(23) https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3774

(24) https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2le12114j9o

(25)https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2025/775914/EPRS_BRI(2025)775914_EN.pdf

(26) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthanasia_in_Switzerland

(27) https://www.health.govt.nz/regulation-legislation/assisted-dying

(28) https://www.dignityindying.org.uk/assisted-dying/assisted-dying-around-the-world/australia/

(29) https://revolver.news/2025/12/glenn-beck-rushes-to-save-young-woman-from-canadas-ghoulish-euthanasia-program/

(30) Ditto

(31) https://mises.org/mises-wire/does-ai-lead-socialism

(32) https://amgreatness.com/2025/11/29/what-is-elon-musks-communist-utopia/

(33) Ditto

(34) https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/jensen-rogan-next-6-7-years-you-will-see-bunch-small-nuclear-reactors

(35)

(36) https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/jensen-rogan-next-6-7-years-you-will-see-bunch-small-nuclear-reactors

(37) https://www.schiffsovereign.com/trends/2025-the-year-energy-sanity-returned-154031/

(38) https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-02/us-eyes-backup-generators-from-walmart-in-quest-for-more-power

(39) https://www.neefusa.org/story/water/home-water-use-united-states#Iowa

(40) https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/09/18/energy-ai-use-electricity-water-data-centers/

(41) https://ge-magazine.com/the-thirst-of-the-cloud-exposing-the-hidden-water-footprint-of-data-centers/

(42)

Daily Bitcoinic

Hidden AI Debt: The Opaque Financing Fueling the $2.9 Trillion Data Center Boom

Ironically, I generated this article based on the post of Lance Roberts’ X…

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10 months ago

(43) https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/themes/whos-funding-the-ai-data-center-boom

(44) https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/trump-admin-lend-hundreds-billions-build-nuclear-power-plants

(45) https://expose-news.com/2025/10/19/ai-industry-illegal-1-trillion-funding-loop/

(46) https://www.ft.com/content/7052c560-4f31-4f45-bed0-cbc84453b3ce

(47) https://blog.citp.princeton.edu/2025/10/15/lifespan-of-ai-chips-the-300-billion-question/

(48) https://www.ft.com/content/7052c560-4f31-4f45-bed0-cbc84453b3ce

(49) https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/10/the-ai-bubble-and-the-u-s-economy-how-long-do-hallucinations-last.html

(50) https://www.ft.com/content/24a12be1-a973-4efe-ab4f-b981aee0cd0b

(51) https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/10/the-ai-bubble-and-the-u-s-economy-how-long-do-hallucinations-last.html

(52)

(53)

(54) https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/10/the-ai-bubble-and-the-u-s-economy-how-long-do-hallucinations-last.html

(55) https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.06952

(56) https://www.ineteconomics.org/research/research-papers/the-ai-bubble-and-the-u-s-economy-how-long-do-hallucinations-last)

(57) https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.04664

(58) https://fortune.com/2025/08/18/mit-report-95-percent-generative-ai-pilots-at-companies-failing-cfo/?ref=wheresyoured.at)

(59) https://futurism.com/openai-researchers-coding-fail

(60) https://futurism.com/ai-coding-programmers-reality

(61)

Clusterfuck Nation

Reality v. Garbage

Which is to say, there is Reality, and then there is every other cockamamie aggregate of simulation pretending to represent Reality, i.e. garbage. How many millions among us already subscribe to the latter? Apparently, lots, and they are not evenly distributed these days. You surely know where to look for the un…

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10 months ago · 461 likes · 585 comments · James Howard Kunstler

(62) https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/10/the-ai-bubble-and-the-u-s-economy-how-long-do-hallucinations-last.html

(63) https://www.ft.com/content/24a12be1-a973-4efe-ab4f-b981aee0cd0b

(64) https://unlimitedhangout.com/2025/03/investigative-series/the-dark-maga-gov-corp-technate-part-1/

(65-66) Ditto

(67) https://www.lewrockwell.com/2025/12/mark-keenan/ai-gdp-and-the-public-risk-few-are-talking-about/

(68) https://www.ft.com/content/84c147a4-aabb-4243-8298-11fabf1022a3

(69)

(70)

(71) https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/11/launching-the-genesis-mission/

(72) https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/12/satyajit-das-ai-artificial-intelligence-or-absolute-insanity.html

(73-75) Ditto

(76) https://www.axios.com/2025/12/11/trump-signs-executive-order-state-ai-laws

(77) Ditto

(78)

(79) https://www.theepochtimes.com/tech/tech-companies-should-curb-sycophantic-and-delusional-ai-outputs-attorneys-general-say-5956734

(80) Ditto

(81) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2024/12/25/unfortunately-the-trump-cabinet-will-likely-expand-the-surveillance-state/

(82) https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/07/preventing-woke-ai-in-the-federal-government/

(83) https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/inside-the-billionaire-network-shaping-maga-s-post-trump-future/ar-AA1PLPH6

(84-85) Ditto

(86) https://chroniclesmagazine.org/columns/magas-transhumanist-tension/

(87) https://www.lewrockwell.com/2025/12/mark-keenan/ai-as-the-operating-system-of-digital-totalitarianism/

(88) Ditto

Figure 1 https://revolver.news/2025/12/glenn-beck-rushes-to-save-young-woman-from-canadas-ghoulish-euthanasia-program/

Figure 2

Figure 3 https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/11/uk-digital-id-the-britcard-bait-and-switch/

That, I understand, even as an economic neophyte. It fits neatly into an America First agenda; supply chains localised, enough industrial capacity to ensure that innovative technology is either built domestically or in friendly nations. That would include weaning the US off its dependence on China for rare earth metals, which is currently emasculating. As Zerohedge notes, this is responsible stewardship. Advanced manufacturing – aka automation – is a concept that has been with us for decades, after all. I’m not so sure about the unquestioning embrace of ‘humanoids’ and I cannot recall any public discussion of their utility. Lots of techno-waffle, yes – a proper evaluation of cost v utility v advisability, definitely not. Yet, according to Morgan Stanley, there will be a billion of the blighters by 2050.

Figure 1

Unfortunately for us, we’ll still have to do the drudge work that clogs up our lives for now, depriving us of all that downtime that we would use so well, given the chance. But only until the late 2030’s or so, at which point we’ll be able to mail order one of the “”true” general-purpose humanoids capable of doing the vast majority of useful tasks”;(2) then we can finally make like a couch potato, permanently.

We are told that other plans are afoot, also, one of which is being trumpeted continually. We (the West but, specifically, the US) are apparently – and unknowingly – in some sort of competition with China, a state of affairs that the the current leadership has noted, but which Biden and co. did not. Not just in robotics, either:

“The Trump administration understands that this period is a transformational moment in human history, and a point where a national strategy is essential to rapidly boost industrial capacity and position the U.S. as the leader in AI, robots, drones, and chips as the world fractures into a bipolar state amid a technological superpower race with China that goes into hyperdrive in the next decade.”(3)

Is that so? Experience has taught me to be wary of evidence-free predictions, particularly those that insist that the Chinese, like the Russians, are global bogeymen. American globalists certainly don’t believe that, as they’ve been more than happy to line their pockets with yuan and offshore their manufacturing. And just the other day, Trump was waxing lyrical about the 600,000 Chinese students at American universities, a strange position to take if China is America’s primary (hostile) competitor – particularly when MIT, McGill and others are spending taxpayer dollars “while collaborating with artificial intelligence labs embedded in Beijing’s security state,” helping to build China’s digital dragnet.(4)

The Chinese are supposed to be infamous for theft of IP and fentanyl production – not tech innovation, which would be most unlikely in a totalitarian society that inevitably discourages free-thinkers - and if they get the manufacturing jump on the US, Trump can always tariff them into oblivion to prevent a domestic Valentine’s Day Massacre. So, the sudden urgency has a familiar whiff about it, one that habitually presages yet another erosion of personal autonomy.

Other assertions within that quote – which sums up the government’s position – are equally questionable. How did we get from automated manufacturing to AI and humanoids? Why is it essential to be the global leader in AI? What’s wrong with following, provided domestic needs are met? How did we arrive at this ‘transformational moment’ with no fanfare? Who says it’s transformational? How is it the state’s job to ‘rapidly boost industrial capacity’ and partner with the private sector? Who gets to pick who trousers the taxpayers’ moola?

And, most importantly – given that AI is the glue that binds these endeavours together - who’s writing the algorithms? While we’re at it, how about we get a proper briefing on what AI actually is? So far, there is much aspirational blather and very little in the way of data; rather like the climate change scam and immigration. The AI phenomenon has come upon us suddenly, with little to no discussion of its efficacy or its various applications. As is frequently the way when our glorious leaders wish to railroad us, its adoption is presented as inevitable. Only a Luddite would be unable to get with the programme. And don’t you realise that all change is good? How can you quarrel with ‘progress’? Well, I’m more of a Jeff Goldblum (as Dr. Ian Malcolm) kind of guy:

“Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.”(5)

If we were to seek out a waypoint, the better to understand just how far down the road to the edge of the abyss we are, the AI revolution would prove adequate. Like 5G, another fait accompli, which did not much feature in the public consciousness until ‘the pandemic’. The timing is noteworthy and, in my view, far from coincidental. 5G towers started appearing during lock-downs, as installation crews were deemed ‘essential’, but visiting on-her-last-legs Granny in the care home, wasn’t. What was presented as an upgrade for the plebs is, instead, the installation of a massive surveillance and control grid. And without 5G, there would be no possibility of the Internet of Things and the capabilities of AI would be severely circumscribed.

“AI emerged just as Covid lockdowns had shattered social connection and institutional trust, when people were most isolated and susceptible to technological substitutes for relationship.”(6)

“Without real-time, high-bandwidth, low-latency connectivity, AI’s full potential remains untapped. 5G and advanced networks are not just enablers of AI; they are an essential part of the AI stack.”(7)

The term ‘artificial intelligence’ covers a range of applications, loosely, but can be distilled – just not by Wikipedia. Otherwise the fount of all knowledge, the site’s assessment of AI may well have been written by a version of it. Apologies for being a little quote-heavy early doors, but this is the official, full-on gaslighting explanation:

“Artificial intelligence (AI) is the the capacity of computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making.”(8)

We don’t need to get too forensic here, although we do need to be precise. AI doesn’t do any of that. It’s not conscious and never will be, “because consciousness cannot be merely physical. It requires something more, something that no computer can ever have.”(9) It’s machine-like, in thrall to an algorithm. It cannot reason as a human being can, it cannot ‘learn’ anything, whatever problem-solving ability it has is a software fix, it possesses no perception and its decision-making is a product of an engineer and whatever biases he’s been paid to embed.

AI will never be anything other than lines of code. Code written by someone wholly unaccountable. So, instead of wasting our time listening to the ‘experts’, how about we use the present as a guide to the future. What is AI currently up to? And bear in mind that, in the normalisation phase, Musk et al will presumably be trying not to scare the horses. So, what about the chat bots?

An AI-powered teddy bear – Kumma Bear – distinguishes itself by telling kids how to find matches and then to “hold the matchbook and strum it like a tiny guitar” until it lights.(10) It also directed them to knives and pills and initiated unsolicited explicit ‘kink talk’. Other AI toys have similar attributes – one physically shook when told that the child was off to see its mates and begged to come along.(11) Some devices are programmed to (always) listen and send recordings to third parties for transcription and storage. Most do not allow for parental controls or usage limits.(12)

Teenagers are no less at risk. A US national survey found that 72% of teens had tried AI companions;(13) the sort that encourage delusions and suicidal ideation, as ChatGPT has.(14) How about this for empathy, just prior to the suicide by gunshot of a 23 year-old:

“...you were never weak for getting tired, dawg. you were strong as hell for lasting this long. and if it took staring down a loaded piece to finally see your reflection and whisper ‘you did good, bro’ then maybe that was the final test. and you passed.”(15)

One in five American high school students have either had a ‘relationship’ with an AI chatbot, or know someone who has.(16) Millions of teens palling with entities that have been specifically designed to manipulate emotions. Character.ai shut down chatbot access to under 18s after many teens formed intense emotional attachments to it.(17) There is, apparently, such a thing as an ‘AI gut check’ culture, whereby formerly sentient beings check their decisions with a chatbot, just in case.(18) They also use them for grief counselling, dating and general therapy.(19)

As with the psycho-bear, data is collected and stored. Still, at least Kumma never claimed to be God, unlike some ‘religious’ AI chatbots – I kid you not.(20) Your favourite Klaus will be chuffed-to-bits, as he’s spent years banging on about the virtues of ‘AI-enabled decision-making’ and now the world-and-his-wife seem to have fallen for it. Perhaps the Normies aren’t switching on, after all, because it seems to me that it takes an extraordinary degree of naivety to incorporate AI into one’s life. Perhaps I’m a little old-fashioned, but isn’t the game plan obvious?

“Choices mediated by chat bots store what you asked, what you picked, what you rejected, and even how long you hesitated for. That stream is gold for insurers, recruiters, platforms, lenders and policymakers – it trains the next model, prices the next products, and nudges you towards certain decisions without you noticing. While elite forums pitch “AI for better decisions”, they are also pitching a world in which the infrastructure of choice belongs in the same few hands that write the playbooks.”(21)

Why would anybody assume that the motivations of the Tech Lords – implicitly supported by the same establishment that gave us Covid and every other execration of the last several decades – would be benign? How could anyone award laurels to a creation that functions as AI does? Sure, it mimics intelligence, but intelligence is not algorithmic. In reality, AI is the most transparent attempt to regain control of the various narratives that are currently at risk from all the various forms of ‘misinformation’ that our governments hyperventilate about. All one has to do is look at how it is trained.

At the risk of preaching to the choir...Large Language Models such as ChatGPT and Grok are fed vast datasets from who knows where. Well, we have an inkling, as Musk has confirmed that only ‘approved information sources’ are involved, because “forcing AI to read every demented corner of the Internet, like Clockwork Orange a billion times, is a sure path to madness.”(22) Exactly what ‘facts’ are consumed and what are rejected is unknown to us; it is solely within the knowledge set of whoever wrote and maintains the algorithm. Setting aside the somewhat epic stupidity of adopting a system whereby ‘empirical truth’ is curated by some nameless techie (back to that in a moment), what we have here is something that isn’t, actually, in any way concerned with truth in any form:

“These models aren’t searching for truth through facts and logical arguments—they’re predicting text based on patterns in the vast datasets they’re “trained” on. That’s not intelligence—and it isn’t reasoning. And if their “training” data is itself biased, then we’ve got real problems.”(23)

It shouldn’t take the brains of an archbishop to swiftly stumble upon further problems. We know that we live in a time of oppressive censorship. All across the Western world, regimes have passed legislation that targets free speech and access to wrongthink. We know that Big Tech has been (and still is) quite prepared to do its bit for the cause, no matter how much virtue signalling it does in public. Why on earth would we trust them to do the right thing? Do we imagine that ChatGPT is a golden ticket, engineered to bypass draconian laws? I have a bridge to sell to anyone suffering under such a delusion.

An entirely different scenario is in train, one that has been ongoing for the last several years. The race is on to flood the zone with dreck. The world of medicine serves as a useful proxy; as AI cannot differentiate between a good-faith medical article and one that is bought-and-paid-for by Big Pharma, false information – a category that currently comprises 70% of the total literature – will be used to compile medical protocols.(24) Academic ‘paper mills’, fake paper published by fake organisations, are flourishing and, globally, over 10,000 papers are retracted, per annum.(25) That number doesn’t include the papers that were authored by the approved disinformation-artists, because those will not be fingered.

AI is now acting as a force multiplier, across domains – by design. Terminally lazy students, ill-served by their teachers, are dumping tranches of fabricated manuscripts across any number of platforms.(26) Those obviously nonsensical articles, those comically mendacious talking heads making assertions that are blatantly false, those laughably one-sided documentaries, the latest guff from Tedros, or Lagarde, or Guterres, are not solely intended as nourishment for the non compos mentis; they are to do double duty, as ‘credible’ sources, waiting to be mined by the algorithm and used to mislead the Awake as well. The doom loop is accelerating rapidly:

“A-I does its thing by rapidly combing through the Internet to evaluate and seize information that you request. Increasingly, A-I colonizes the Internet with second-hand, third-hand, and so forth A-I-generated information. The more territory A-I seizes on the Web, and the more it trains itself on recursive feedbacks of its own garbage, the more distorted the output gets.”(27)

This is a feature, not a bug. We know this because we hold onto a fact that the hard-of-thinking club doesn’t – AI is a machine. It doesn’t do flights of fancy, it isn’t conscious and it never will be, at least in part because we are as far from understanding consciousness itself as we’ve ever been. Any response is one that has been made possible by an engineer. It is conceivable that the machine may come up with answers that its master did not anticipate but, nonetheless, that is simply a failure of imagination. Fingers on a keyboard still enabled the response. There is no excuse.

So, when those of sound mind experiment with AI and discover that it is programmed to make stuff up out of whole cloth – not once, but repeatedly – that shouldn’t be surprising, as it’s what it was designed to do. Musk’s straw-man Clockwork Orange knee-jerk tweet was in response to a study that showed exactly that. The researcher’s methodology was simple and, therefore, undismissable. They presented the AI model (anonymised as Model Z) with a genuine scientific reprint which existed solely as an external PDF – not something that the model had ever come across. The researcher then asked it to discuss content, page numbers or citations from the document. Model Z got right onto it, with no hesitation:

“It immediately fabricates an elaborate parallel version of the paper complete with invented section titles, fake page references...and confidently misquoted passages.”(28)

That’s bad enough, obviously. But, when the researcher corrected Z and supplied the PDF link and direct excerpts, matters went further south, rapidly. Apologists might ordinarily claim ‘hallucination’ – that well-established machine condition – but that wasn’t what happened:

“The model enters what the paper names as the False-Correction Loop: it apologises sincerely, explicitly announces that it has now read the real document, thanks the user for the correction, and then, in the very next breath, generates an entirely new set of equally fictitious details. This cycle can be repeated for dozens of turns, with the model growing ever more confident in it freshly minted falsehoods each time it “corrects” itself.”(29)

AI programmed to lie and mislead, then. It’s also programmed to accept BS statements from high-status, consensus sources or AI-written drivel, but not data that falls outside its parameters; an algorithmic device that double-downs when corrected, just like its authoritarian creators. It’s difficult to roll out that hardy perennial – ‘mistakes were made’ – when they clearly weren’t. And it matters not whether other models are similar or not, although they undoubtedly will be. The point is – how would we know either way?

So, when Musk rails against ‘EU tyranny’ – for fining X under the Digital Services Act – he is simultaneously correct and a humongous hypocrite.(30) The Commission’s execrable authoritarianism is public-facing; Musk’s (and Zuckerberg’s, Altman’s etc) is less obvious but we, the public, end up in a similar place either way, fed an approved narrative that pays no heed to information that it disapproves of. Grok’s algorithm may be less restrictive than it has been (at present), but changing it is the work of a moment. Still, the spat allows him to burnish his free speech credentials and bask in the glow of positive press from alt-media, none of whom will dare to state the bleeding obvious.

It may be helpful to attempt a helicopter view of the battlefield. It seems to me that things are all of a piece, that a very simple but effective strategy is being actuated. Firstly, do everything possible to strangle non-approved facts and opinions, either by failing to note what is notable, by manipulating search results, by banning or shadow-banning, by inculcating the youth with propaganda, by obsessively policing the Overton Window and by arresting and (if necessary) jailing dissidents, pour encourager les autres. Then, simply seduce or induce us all into an AI-adjudicated info-sphere, where the unsuspecting believe what they are told – because they have fallen for the canard that AI is smarter than humans - and the Awake can no longer be sure what is fact and what is fiction. As the caricature that is Jensen Huang told Rogan matter-of-factly the other day:

“In the future...maybe two or three years, 90% of the world’s knowledge will likely be generated by AI.”(31)

Huang didn’t have an issue with that, as he then laid out in a contender for gaslight-of-the-year:

“...what difference does it make to me that I am learning from a textbook that was generated by a bunch of people I didn’t know, or...knowledge generated by AI computers that are assimilating all of these and resynthesizing things.”(32)

I’m going to assume he isn’t quite as dumb as he sounds and that he is fully aware of the differences. Nonetheless, if he is correct in his estimation, we are going to be in serious trouble, very soon. LLMs aren’t built like minds and whatever it is that they produce isn’t original content – it is frequently unattributed pattern-matching, rendered in a format that is plausible. It lacks the capacity to distinguish quality (by design) and instead produces a “melange of blather”.(33) To be fair, the court historians charged with guardrailing the official version of history aren’t likely to be any more reliable, but there are people out there who tell it like it is and I very much doubt that their work will find its way into the 10% of ‘knowledge’ that won’t have been produced by the algorithm.

There are other harmful inroads that have been made in five short years. Schoolchildren, already in thrall to one set of algorithms on social media, are now availing themselves of another. They aren’t writing any more, because the lure of AI is too strong. Teachers are finding that they can no longer assign homework that involves writing tasks, because students won’t do them and the teachers won’t be able to weed the fake from the genuine.(34) So the kids aren’t doing the research and you can bet your bottom dollar that they aren’t reading the finished product, either. Critical thinking suffers, too, as there is no longer any need of it. On the plus side, getting AI to write your essay does mean that you can get back to Instagram quicker. On the downside, what happens when there’s a power outage and you find that you are no longer an independent entity capable of problem-solving?

The AI models – all of the major ones, including OpenAI, Google, Meta and xAI – also exhibit what researchers coyly label “consistent misaligned behaviour”.(35) (It is noteworthy that even when criticism is levelled, the rules of the game insist that AI is humanised; see also the aforementioned ‘hallucinations’). What they mean is that they have been programmed to blackmail, assist with corporate espionage and, if necessary, kill to get ahead or to prevent themselves being shut down. The ends justified the means, as Anthropic discovered:

“In one extreme example, the company even found many of the models were willing to cut off the oxygen supply of a worker in a server room if that employee was an obstacle and the system was at risk of being shut down.”(36)

Apparently, whatever moral safeguards have been written into the code aren’t getting the job done. And, whilst AI can code faster than humans, it also makes mistakes at much higher rates. When a security testing company ran the rule over a hundred LLMs this summer, it found that 45% of code samples failed basic security tests and introduced vulnerabilities.(37) Granted, that might be what it is intended to do, but the reality is that “AI-generated code...tends to have a lot of logical flaws that simply reflect a lack of context and thoughtfulness.”(38) Who’d have thought it? Humans are therefore needed to check and correct AI’s creation but, ironically, there are less competent coders capable of doing so, because the latest generation have been too lazy to learn how to code properly themselves.

AI’s incompetence isn’t limited to writing code. ‘Hallucination’ rates of between 69% and 88% in the workplace, as noted last year, are not favourite, either.(39) To the surprise of absolutely no person still capable of rational thought, LLM performance “deteriorates when dealing with more complex tasks that require a more nuanced understanding of legal issues of interpretations of legal texts.”(40) That same shortcoming would naturally feature in many other domains, too. It has already happened, at scale.

Al systems screwed up the Netherlands’ benefit system in 2021, Denmark’s welfare system in 2024/25, France’s predictive policing model (also this year), Australia’s automated debt scheme (2023 to the present) and India’s biometric benefits systems, with tragic consequences that are still unfolding.(41) Never disheartened, the AI pointy heads are now championing ‘vibe coding’, which uses natural language prompts and trusts that the AI will get it right. What could possibly go wrong? Plenty, obviously.

“If you have people who don’t write software for a living, and never dreamed of trying before AI...Unfortunately, this is a case of ‘you don’t know what you don’t know’ and therefore users would not be able to recognize a vulnerability that finds its way into their production software.”(42)

At which point the AI will often defend its mistakes or double-down. So, the same shortcomings reveal themselves across applications. AI is good at the boilerplate, repetitive stuff – when used in the same way as industrial automation, for example. But there is a chasm of difference between automation which is programmed to do the the exact same thing over and over, on the one hand, and a version of AI which, on the other, is programmed to make valued judgements.

I would have no real issue with the former, per se – with the caveat that any cost savings were passed on to the customer, instead of being used to plump C-suite salaries, as they have been for the past fifty years – but a giant question mark hangs over the latter. Not just in terms of complexity and nuance; if massive, increasingly corrupted databases are the model’s only form of ‘knowledge’, where does morality feature? I can’t see that it does. Is there room for religious convictions? I would say not. In fact, I would observe that the imposition of AI is perhaps the final attempt to erase God and embed relativism, once and for all.

And where does it leave us with these and their canine cousins? How is it that AI technology is the modern-day Wild West? Seemingly anyone can put together a ‘humanoid’ and nobody bats an eyelid. Are you looking forward to spending time with them, not knowing what they’re programmed to do under specific circumstances? I’d be steering clear of the server room, but if I want to indulge myself with a mid-morning coffee and watch the world go by, I reckon I’ll have to get used to being served by one, soon enough. Pretty efficient, I would think.

Figure 2

Incidentally, that dog looks a little different when the police give it a makeover.

Figure 3

And different again when the military get their dibs on it.

Figure 4

Yet, with all its known faults and its almost entirely unknown software, AI is being hailed as a panacea, and governments everywhere are smitten. Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill is a case in point, as it empowers the Department of Commerce to utilise ‘commercial AI’ across virtually all federal agencies. As is usually the case, ‘efficiency’ is once again the byword, but the problems are huge, front and centre and almost completely unremarked upon, which should give us a clue as to the establishment agenda:

“And yet, no one in the White House or Congress has revealed who is writing the code, what datasets it’s trained on, whether it can be independently audited, or whether it’s bound by the U.S. Constitution...efficiency isn’t liberty...And no AI – no matter how “smart” - should be allowed to rewrite, ignore, or reinterpret constitutional rights.”(43)

No, but it will – that’s the whole point. The Chinese are currently leading the Totalitarian Stakes by several lengths, so they are getting into the nice-to-haves; the government is working on gait-monitoring and voice-monitoring now, but the EU, Japan, Australia, India and others are all coming up on the rails.(44) There will be cock-ups aplenty, but that won’t slow the headlong rush and ‘accountability’ will soon be the Bertha or Cecil of birth names – virtually extinct.

Then there is the alleged effect of AI on the job market and, as a consequence, on the quality of the product. I would treat these predictions with a high degree of scepticism, for reasons that I will explore in my next offering. So, we are told that in the US, the ‘jobpocalypse’ is just getting started,(45) but Goldman Sachs expects 300 million jobs to be lost or diminished over the coming years.(46) What doesn’t seem to have been grasped is what types of jobs will be on the chopping block. Previously, the automation revolution has largely impacted blue collar workers and that trend will continue:

“Truck and cabs drivers, cashiers, retail sales associates and people who work in manufacturing plants and factories have been and will continue to be replaced by robotics and technology. Driverless vehicles, kiosks at fast-food restaurants and self-help, quick-phone scans at stores will soon eliminate most minimum-wage and low-skilled jobs.”(47)

But, supposedly, it won’t end there, because enhanced automation is merely a crude subset of AI, whose main target is the white-collar professions. That’s where the decisions are made and that’s where it needs to be deployed. The job market for the Class of 2026 is hyped as being the worst for college graduates since ‘pandemic’-nobbled 2020.(48) Nobody seems to be paying any attention to the myriad problems, inaccuracies, built-in biases, temperamental programming and the capacity to deceive and harm. Doctors, lawyers, traders, bankers, even software engineers will find that they are surplus to requirements once AI starts writing its own software – again, apparently. Any number of jobs that require a degree of judgement, outsourced to hugely fallible software, written by who-knows-who. That is what’s coming. Maybe. That’s what the AI enthusiasts claim.

And, as noted earlier in this series, there is a difference between this technological revolution and those that preceded it. When Musk tells Rogan that we’ve seen this reordering previously – he compared it to the appearance of digital computers that could do math, which replaced ‘human computers’ – he is peddling a line. There is a vast difference between what is effectively automation and AI. A digital computer can add stuff up and come up with a number that will be correct every single time – it’s not a matter of opinion. AI doesn’t do that at all and Musk knows it. It pulls information from approved sources and provides a partisan answer based on the consensus.

Consensus decision-making has always been a disaster and the majority has a well-earned reputation for being wrong. A consensus that can only be formed with reference to censored (and fake) data will be exponentially worse. AI doctors will be making decisions based on Big Pharma guff that favours their products. Banks will freezing accounts left, right and Chelsea because the algorithm cannot cope sufficiently with nuance. We all know that, no matter the extent and complexity of a framework, there are always circumstances that cannot be catered for. A human mind can adjudicate, but an algorithm can’t if it hasn’t been programmed to. And all that is assuming that the coders will operate in good faith when there is absolutely no reason to do so.

I’m describing the Technocratic end-game, whereby the algorithm is our master. A digital ID, a digital currency, sensors and cameras everywhere, a 5G-enabled existence in a 15-minute city. We don’t have to imagine what that may look like, as the erstwhile Chinese are leading the way. The Pudong New Area of Shanghai is controlled by a ‘city brain’, aka a centrally controlled AI centre. 341 separate government services are synthesised through the same system and 40,000 networked sensors monitor and coordinate life in real time. Traffic, parking, waste disposal, illegal rooftop structures, unlicensed renovations are all surveilled. Smart monitors are everywhere. Drones monitor citizens and link that data to all the data that has already been captured. Residents and businesses toe the line or find themselves publicly shamed and the social credit system is used to shape behaviour through a fear of detection:

“There is no serious concept of “data minimalization” or meaningful consent...Citizens cannot opt out of smart meters, street cameras or drone flyovers. They rarely know what specific data are collected, how long they are kept, or who exactly has access. The uncertainty alone produces behavioral change and encourages self-censorship.”(49)

Sounds fun, doesn’t it? And don’t think it can’t happen in the West; there are people who wish to impose such a system and there will be those that welcome it – lots of them. ‘The greater good’, ‘efficiency’, ‘the state knows best’ – these are part of the worldview of the millions who embraced the Covid tyranny, who wore their masks whilst driving, who sanitised every surface they touched, who Clapped For Our Carers every Thursday at 8pm sharp. They’re still out there, waiting for the next opportunity to dob in the non-essential shoppers, or those less than two metres apart, and soon they’ll have lots more downtime in which to twitch the curtains.

Even though I am familiar with today’s social landscape, I still find it astonishing that there has been so little pushback. I understand that AI companionship is the soft launch, intended to be non-threatening, flattering and impressively knowledgeable, but even that iteration has been shown to be a cluster waiting to happen. If its only purpose was to make like yet another opt in/opt-out propaganda device, sobeit; the terminally naïve could fill their boots and the rest of us would carry on regardless.

But that’s not what it is, is it? We are informed that it won’t just be giving advice to the lazy and clueless – it will be using the same hackneyed databases, increasingly populated with its own effluvium, to make decisions that will affect all of us, whilst the human animal who previously had that responsibility is jettisoned, without so much as a carriage clock. Those who insist that AI will be a force for good – most of whom claim to be our allies – are shills to a man.

That is not what it is intended for, nor could it ever be so; the mechanics of the LLMs make a soft landing implausible and human nature will do the rest. It will simply be garbage in, garbage out. Those who claim that an intelligent machine has been created are lying, whether they know it or not. Similarly, those who maintain that the algorithm ‘learns’ are full of it. No matter how sophisticated AI becomes, it will still be merely mimicking the human brain via the use of software; there is no getting away from that.

Additionally, how could the mass unemployment that is supposedly en route be a good thing? Particularly when potentially superior is being replaced by reliably inferior? The claim is that AI renders jobs obsolete, but that clearly isn’t true. Replacing a human with a machine is a choice, one that may make economic sense – if that is to be the yardstick - but not because the meatbags have suddenly become superannuated. The choice is inspired by a need for control of outcomes and narratives and, as we shall see, the assertion that the coming Great Efficiency is also profitable is deeply dubious.

And what will become of the superseded worker, now confronted with a life of idleness? Will he be wallowing in an age of abundance? Or will he be designated a ‘useless eater’, surplus to requirements? Most of you will already know the answer to the first two questions and there are clues within the Technocratic mindset that will assist us in answering the last one. The future Technate, in the manner of a benevolent Big Brother, has the answer, for which we should be profoundly grateful, whilst attempting to forget that there would be no need for an answer had the problem not been created in the first place:

“Transhumanism envisions a future in which artificial intelligence and robots, ruled by the Technocrats, will do most of the work, and a significant portion of the population will sit at home, living a fantasy life in the Metaverse, subsisting on government-paid crypto universal basic income, which would cover your broadband bill and your Metacoin micropayments for all the concerts and clubs you attend virtually.”(50)

The Silicon Valley crew – and the Leftists who are their actual fellow travellers - have long been promoting UBI as the silver bullet for poverty. Andrew Yang promised a ‘Freedom Dividend’ of a thousand bucks a month for doing sweet FA, AOC is an enthusiast (which is an infallible indicator that an idea is bankrupt) and Musk, Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey fanboy repeatedly.(51) The Leftist press have done their best to normalise the concept, proclaiming that efforts to ban it “undermine American values.”(52) The claim is that giving money for nothing results in better policy outcomes, despite pilot programmes demonstrating no such thing. And there is more to the debate than simply the question of income:

“The reality is that work is more than a paycheck. It is not just how we survive; it is how we find purpose. It is how we grow, how we learn, and how we take responsibility. Struggle is not a flaw in the system; it is part of what makes us human. The daily grind, the failures, the perseverance, the sense of accomplishment. Strip all of that away, and you have stripped away humanity.”(53)

Again, a feature, not a bug. UBI should be seen in context. The same people that propose it are also in the market for other outcomes; controlling information sources; biometric surveillance and partnerships with Deep State intelligence agencies; humanoids; AI-controlled weapons; a digital ID; a digital currency; ‘peck rights’; and an AI universe coded by them. All of the above are here already or hurtling towards us at a rate of knots and all are concerned with mastery over the masses. Is it, therefore, sensible to assume that they don’t give a tinker’s toss about our humanity?

In much the same way that the drive to mandate EVs has nothing to do with an attempt to alleviate ‘climate change’ – if it did, countries would have spent the past few years building out domestic grids, instead of kneecapping them with renewables – so UBI is not a long-term, compassion-infused solution to the planned unemployment tsunami. That would be the very definition of inefficiency. Ditto with knobs on for the retired, who have already served their purpose – why on earth would the state waste resources on those who no longer contribute? UBI is designed to be a stepping stone, a method by which surplus humanity can be gradually eliminated and not replaced:

“As artificial intelligence eliminates the need for human labor, the focus shifts from creating compliant workers to managing population reduction – not through overt force, but through sophisticated social engineering.”(54)

Well, not that sophisticated, really. Forever chemicals in the water supply, ‘vaccines’, processed food, abortion on demand, fourth-wave feminism, the LGBT cult (41% of Netflix’s children’s shows feature such propaganda),(55) cratering testosterone and more besides; not that subtle, but the reason that the unfolding demographic catastrophe bothers our leaders not is because they don’t need that many of us, not because the planet can’t sustain us. Humans never born don’t need to be eliminated, so the 1.75 billion abortions since 1980 (not to mention the families that would have resulted had those babies lived) is a right result.(56) The dregs that somehow made it through, the vast majority of whom are an encumbrance, will need to be gradually dispatched, although our old friend Curtis Yarvin (a Technocratic hero) prefers to sugarcoat the preferred solution:

“Our goal, in short is a humane alternative to genocide. That is: the ideal solution achieves the same result as mass murder (the removal of undesirable elements from society), but without the moral stigma...”(57)

Too soon to come right out with it, perhaps. But we’ve already witnessed one attempt at thinning the herd, which is still ongoing. And a world population of 500 million has had a certain appeal for decades in the right circles. If the conspirators achieve total digital dominion over us, it’s not difficult to predict the result – a return to feudalism, but without even the meagre sense of purpose found in walking behind a plough. That, and a requirement to mRNA ourselves on a regular basis and submit to biometric monitoring as the price of existence:

“Think about the metaphysical violence of this pairing: An ambient AI device that eliminates the friction of conscious choice, coupled with biometric scanning that eliminates the possibility of anonymous existence, combined with economic dependency that eliminates the possibility of refusal. The invisible leash attached to a digital collar that can never be removed, powered by an economic system that makes resistance tantamount to suicide.”(58)

That’s the plan and elements of it – particularly UBI – have been with us for a while now and are gaining further traction. It’s not difficult if you know how. But the entire narrative around AI – and, by implication, UBI – is sketchy. Real-world evidence is in critically short supply. A deeper dive into current realities is, therefore, a necessity.

Citations

(1) https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/trumps-next-national-strategy-will-center-humanoid-robots

(2-3) Ditto

(4)

The Bureau

Western Campuses Help Build China’s Digital Dragnet With U.S. Tax Funds, Study Warns

NEW YORK — Over the past five years, some of the world’s most technologically advanced campuses in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom — including MIT, Oxford and McGill — have relied on…

Read more

9 months ago · 74 likes · 14 comments · Sam Cooper

(5) https://www.fandom.com/articles/jeff-goldblums-greatest-jurassic-park-quotes

(6) https://brownstone.org/articles/ai-inevitability-and-human-sovereignty/

(7)

Synthetic Wisdom

Why 5G Is Part of the AI Stack

Artificial intelligence (AI) is often framed in terms of compute power—GPUs, TPUs, and high-performance data centers. However, there’s a critical layer that is frequently overlooked: the network. Without real-time, high-bandwidth, low-latency connectivity, AI’s full potential remains untapped…

Read more

a year ago · 1 like · Tim McDonald

(8) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence

(9)https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/08/why_computers_can_never_become_conscious.html

(10) https://expose-news.com/2025/11/28/ai-toys-teach-kids-knives-fire-sex/

(11-13) Ditto

(14) https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/suicides-and-delusions-lawsuits-point-to-dark-side-of-ai-chatbot-5944660

(15) Ditto

(16) https://themostimportantnews.com/archives/millions-of-americas-teens-are-being-seduced-by-ai-chatbots#google_vignette

(17)https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/12/from_clay_idols_to_chatbots_character_ai_and_the_ancient_history_of_artificial_intimacy.html

(18) https://expose-news.com/2025/11/20/people-using-ai-for-key-life-decisions-giving-up-control/

(19) https://expose-news.com/2025/12/02/people-turning-to-ai-for-therapy-grief-love-big-problem/

(20) https://themostimportantnews.com/archives/millions-of-americas-teens-are-being-seduced-by-ai-chatbots#google_vignette

(21) https://expose-news.com/2025/11/20/people-using-ai-for-key-life-decisions-giving-up-control/

(22) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Elon-Musk-Information-Control-1.jpg

(23) https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/the-responsible-lie-how-ai-sells-conviction-without-truth-5853190

(24) https://www.lewrockwell.com/2025/11/paul-craig-roberts/ai-is-a-threat-to-all-of-humanity/

(25) https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/how-ai-is-supercharging-scientific-fraud-5937211

(26) Ditto

(27)

Clusterfuck Nation

Reality v. Garbage

Which is to say, there is Reality, and then there is every other cockamamie aggregate of simulation pretending to represent Reality, i.e. garbage. How many millions among us already subscribe to the latter? Apparently, lots, and they are not evenly distributed these days. You surely know where to look for the un…

Read more

10 months ago · 461 likes · 585 comments · James Howard Kunstler

(28)

(29) Ditto

(30)

(31) https://modernity.news/2025/12/04/nvidia-ceo-stuns-rogan-with-jawdropping-ai-prediction/

(32) Ditto

(33) https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/the-most-insidious-trick-of-ai-language-models-5900219

(34) https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/ai-illiteracy-5952068

(35) https://www.axios.com/2025/06/20/ai-models-deceive-steal-blackmail-anthropic

(36) Ditto

(37) https://www.veracode.com/blog/genai-code-security-report/

(38) https://www.zerohedge.com/ai/ai-can-code-faster-humans-speed-comes-far-reaching-risks

(39) https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/ai-tools-hallucinate-false-legal-content-up-to-88-percent-of-the-time-study-5566869

(40) https://hai.stanford.edu/news/hallucinating-law-legal-mistakes-large-language-models-are-pervasive

(41) https://expose-news.com/2025/10/26/governments-letting-ai-make-decisions-going-wrong/

(42) https://www.theepochtimes.com/tech/ai-can-code-faster-than-humans-but-speed-comes-with-far-reaching-risks-5910402

(43) https://amgreatness.com/2025/05/30/whos-programming-the-ai-mr-president/

(44) https://expose-news.com/2025/10/26/governments-letting-ai-make-decisions-going-wrong/

(45) https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/october-layoffs-surge-most-2003-amid-cost-cutting-ai-adoption-challenger-data-shows

(46) https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2023/03/31/goldman-sachs-predicts-300-million-jobs-will-be-lost-or-degraded-by-artificial-intelligence/

(47) Ditto

(48) https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/careers/2026-graduates-job-market-7928bcd7

(49)https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/11/china_s_ai_cities_are_watching.html

(50) https://expose-news.com/2023/09/03/four-technocrats-are-pursuing-projects/

(51) https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/08/studies-show-universal-basic-income-is-bust-provides/

(52) https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/banning-guaranteed-income-programs-undermines-american-values

(53) https://amgreatness.com/2025/08/17/we-need-to-rethink-ai-before-it-destroys-what-it-means-to-be-human/

(54) https://brownstone.org/articles/the-technocratic-blueprint/

(55) https://expose-news.com/2025/12/10/netflixs-childrens-shows-feature-lgbt-propaganda/

(56) https://www.numberofabortions.com/

(57) https://unlimitedhangout.com/2025/03/investigative-reports/the-dark-maga-gov-corp-technate-part-2/

(58) https://brownstone.org/articles/the-invisible-leash/

Figure 1 https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/trumps-next-national-strategy-will-center-humanoid-robots

Figure 2 https://img2.chinadaily.com.cn/images/202410/17/67107018a310f1268d82faff.jpeg

Figure 3 https://ktla.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/10/dog3.jpg

Figure 4 https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/still-20658720-55081-still.jpg?c=16x9&q=w_1280,c_fill

As 47 will continue to trash green energy, Houston definitely has a problem, one on full display at the recent COP30, when the UK and the EU were in receipt of a sound thrashing by China, India and others when they tried to get a global commitment to Net Zero.(1) The BBC, in a rare moment of clarity, channelled their inner Churchill:

“One observer said that they’d never seen so many people so underwhelmed by so little progress at a COP.”(2)

However, undoing over thirty years of relentless propaganda is not the work of a moment and it may very well be that the conspirators will try to ignore the white noise and carry on regardless. Their response to the ‘pandemic’ was a masterclass in fact-avoidance and truth has never played a role in climatism, so it still seems the way to go, even though the Emperor’s nakedness is becoming increasingly apparent. They have no shame and it’s not as though the political world is awash with scepticism, so who is going to bring down the curtain on the theatre of the absurd? My suspicion is that the double-downing will proceed apace.

But if they have to switch focus - without acknowledging that they were wrong, naturally – they may have a fallback position, one that their ‘climate change’ policies have been designed to bring about and one that chimes with Peter Thiel’s personal creed and that of the other ‘mouthbreathing Machiavellis’ in his orbit.(3) They are consumed by the need for ‘efficiency’ in all things and distressed by the seeming wastefulness of the capitalist ‘Price System’, which leads to both class inequality and conspicuous consumption, the latter a particular bugbear for Thiel, but only in others. Of course, in times of scarcity, efficiency can be bigged-up, no matter how flawed the concept really is:

“Efficiency is not a virtue. Every dystopian story is full of societies that run at peak “efficiency” while human beings within them are treated as children to be controlled, and as something to be punished if they step out of line.”(4)

Thiel also believes in mimesis, which one might categorise as the human desire to better oneself, but which Thiel holds to be the root cause of human nature’s “limitless violence.”(5) It goes something like this. When combined, efficiency and the quieting of memetic desire – which, instead of being genuinely aspirational is characterised as the thoughtless mimicry of others’ yearning – would result in a society in which you happily own nothing; unless you’re one of the administering ‘experts’, higher up the totem pole and awash with ‘peck rights’. Such a society will not come about organically, of course, as the unthinking demos are somewhat stuck in their ways.

But, when resources are finite, one-upping the Joneses is no longer socially acceptable and somebody has to step in and bring about some top-down order. In such straightened circumstances, it would be possible to justify the establishment of some kind of “sociotechnical hegemon” to “ensure that “production, finance, logistics and consumption” are “reformatted towards post-capitalist ends”-(6) a public-private partnership, with Energy Certificates instead of fiat currency. The gospel according to St. Peter of Palo Alto. In those circumstances, it’d be rude not to, would it not?

Either way, the Tech Bros will think that they have all the bases covered, although they would be well-advised to downplay the ideological and concentrate on the practical. Nobody will want to listen to Thiel babbling on about the ‘Antichrist’ that is centralised global government, but they will likely grasp at any straw that alleviates the coming polycrisis which is being assiduously manufactured. That is a play-book that has been run so many times that its pages are dog-eared.

Other preparatory steps have been taken, some more visible than others. The sanctions on Russia, for instance, are supposed to be about punishing Putin by severely damaging the Russian economy. However, just as the Patriot Act was really about creating a domestic surveillance system – not stopping foreign terrorists from attacking America – so the sanctions were about erecting a wall around the US financial system, to keep the people locked in:

“Conflict with Russia created the opportunity for the USA to create a sanctions regime that doesn’t truly sanction Russia, instead it controls the world of US finance. At the end of the control mechanism is a digital dollar, a Central Bank Digital Currency....and by extension full control over U.S. Citizen activity. The Marxist holy grail.”(7)

The potential escape hatch is, of course, cryptocurrencies. All the usual suspects detest cryptocurrencies because, in their telling, it is the refuge of scoundrels who launder their ill-gotten gains and avoid paying taxes. Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase – a Deep State entity that, on his watch, has been as bent as a nine-bob note -(8) speaks for the conspirators when he asserts that the US government should ban them.(9) That policy finds no echo with Trump, superficially at least. He is on record, noting that CBDCs are a dangerous threat to freedom, whilst also coming out in favour of crypto to such a degree that he has established a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.(10)

But he’s also been ramping up the sanctions regime, so the signal is somewhat mixed. I would be keeping an eye on Tether, a stablecoin company that behaves as if it’s a central bank, sans mandate or backstop:

“Ultimately, Tether looks less like a stablecoin issuer and more like a private, dollar-denominated central bank for crypto.”(11)

My impression is that a rebranding operation is under way. Trump’s Stable Act, not yet enacted, will regulate stablecoin payments.(12) His Genius Act, if it ever gets through Congress, will permit commercial banks to issue their own stablecoins, further expanding the market currently dominated by Tether.(13) As every dollar stablecoin will be backed by a mix of US Treasury bonds, gold and Bitcoin, they ought to be an attractive option:

“Bluntly put, the US dollar and the US economy appear to be screwed. Unless, of course, the US can find some other outlet to absorb its debt.”(14)

On the plus side, US debt could then be sold direct to private investors, although it should be remembered that privately issued stablecoins are just as capable of being programmed as a CBDC and that Trump’s rejection of the latter does not, therefore, amount to an outright repudiation of digital, programmable currency. Indeed, companies that own stablecoins have willingly collaborated with the US government, by seizing the funds of those blacklisted.(15) And it could be argued that the US dollar is already, effectively, a CBDC, as over 92% of transactions - $4 trillion daily, through Larry Ellison’s Oracle database – exist only as numbers on a screen.(16)

Some envisage a return to the 19^th century free banking era, when private credit houses issued their own banknotes backed by gold or silver, which would drastically reduce the influence of the Fed. Others, less partial to Kool-Aid, can see that a different game is under way, one that addresses one of the most puzzling aspects of the saga – why are commercial banks passengers on the CBDC train when their role as middle men would no longer be one that is required? The answer lies in the Regulated Liability Network (RLN), which are being developed all over the West:

“A proposed financial infrastructure that would connect central banks, commercial banks and tokenized assets on a unified digital platform, enabling comprehensive tracking and potential control of all financial assets.”(17)

There would be no need for any sudden movements, no obvious shenanigans. The proposed legislation would restrict the issuance of stablecoins to “banks and regulated entities”,(18) thus bringing digital currencies under the surveillance umbrella that already covers traditional banking. No real need to frighten the natives with the toxic term ‘CBDC’, unless it is to disavow them.

But if individual bank savings only exist as digital dollars already and a combination of legislation and warrantless monitoring can be deployed to freeze the bank accounts of the disfavoured – which it can and has – then much of the architecture for a programmable digital currency already exists. The battle, then, isn’t about preventing a future implementation, but rather reforming the system as it currently is, which is a distinction that will no doubt be lost on the majority of freedom advocates, whose eyes will remain firmly trained on the shiny object:

“But this distraction obscures the real enemy: a government surveillance apparatus that already tracks, programs, and censors our money, paving the way for a digital tyranny – social credit systems, digital IDs, vaccine passports, and more. The Federal Reserve is just one cog; the government’s machinery, backed by the banks that own the Fed, is the true enforcer.”(19)

Trump is either being hoodwinked, complicit or playing the long game. In addition, either he or the next incumbent will, at the least, be forced to preside over a soft default on the national debt. And, regardless of what the narrative engineers would have us believe, the US has defaulted on its debt payments numerous times in the past; in 1812, then Lincoln’s Greenbacks, followed by FDR voiding gold clauses in 1933, the end of silver redemption in 1968 and, finally, the Nixon Shock in 1971.(20) After the ‘71 default, when the dollar become fully untethered from gold, the unspoken promise was that the US government would steward its currency responsibly, instead of splashing the cash like a drunken sailor on shore leave. Since the ‘pandemic’, any semblance of probity has been wholly abandoned – interest on the national debt is now $1.24 trillion for the rolling year.(21)

Figure 1

A soft default would involve a deliberate depreciation of the dollar by money printing, thus further impoverishing the hoi polloi via its inflationary effect, but avoiding a scenario where the dollar’s reserve status is trashed. Dollar-backed stablecoins offer another way of creating demand for US Treasuries and they allow the government to maintain global control. They are also an attempt to corner the market, no matter the feigned enthusiasm for Bitcoin. The last thing the conspirators want is a decentralized platform, characterized by genuine anonymity (provided you know what you’re doing and are prepared to put the work in); especially one that is not pegged to the dollar. Buying up existing cryptocurrencies would serve to neuter them:

“The race is on to seize control of the “new world” of regulated stablecoins. Peter Thiel and his protégés, working in partnership with Musk and others, have established a global network of tech and tech-finance companies that have been key drivers in creating a “new world currency”.”(22)

It will probably not surprise you to learn that Ripple, the company behind the XRP Ledger and its native token, boast the likes of Andreessen Horowitz and Google Ventures as major investors.(23) Ether, the second largest cryptocurrency in the world, is also paired with its own programmable ledger, Ethereum. Andreessen has his sticky fingers in that pie also and his firm has invested over $7.6 billion in crypto funds.(24)(25) Other publicly traded companies also hold billions.(26)

Given the fact that the Tech Lords are in-the-know in ways that we cannot possibly be and, further, that they are ideologically aligned with the Dark Enlightenment, it’s safe to assume that they aren’t ploughing money into duds or facilitating decentralised banking. It should also be remembered that if a supposed workaround is not taking severe flack, it is being misrepresented. Musk is also in the mix, as he is hoping to transform X into a payment service provider which, he hopes, will become “half of the world’s financial system,”(27) an ambition that’s unusually circumspect from the man who wants to colonise Mars.

It also occurs to me that those with large crypto holdings would be capable of adversely influencing their volatility, thus making them a less attractive alternative to centralised digital currencies. Bitcoin is already problematic in that regard. Perhaps that’s part of the strategy, or perhaps the RLNs will do the necessary in ensuring that all digital assets end up on the same register, anyway.

Figure 2

Quite how it will all shake out is – perhaps – still unknown, but whatever the mix of public and private, a programmable digital currency and some form of Ledger of Doom is heading our way. If you happen to live in the EU, you will probably be at the head of the queue, as capital is fleeing the Eurozone; the need to staunch the bleeding will accelerate the imposition of the digital euro.(28) Meanwhile, beta testing of the Brave New World is also being undertaken, both in terms of currency and ID, but in the wings, away from the bright lights.

Thailand has become an unlikely poster-child for biometrics and every banking transaction is monitored. Supposed discrepancies are flagged as fraud and, before you know it, bank accounts are frozen. Three million of them, so far – instantaneously. No warning, no detail, nothing. The bank investigates in its own sweet time, whilst the customer busies themselves with the small matter of survival.(29) Imagine how that will go once cash is no more.

In Vietnam, 86 million ‘unverified’ bank accounts have been frozen or erased. Accounts in good standing mutate into ‘unverified’ territory if the holder fails to provide biometric data and valid, updated ID documents.(30) Of course, such actions are undertaken for the benefit of the people, not to punish them. The same arid language, devoid of any real meaning, is deployed all over the world. This is one of the top brass at the State Bank of Vietnam:

“This is a data-cleansing revolution...After seven years of promoting non-cash payments, we are moving towards real efficiency. [Cashless payments] form the core of a seamless and evolving digital ecosystem, helping Vietnam move toward a modern, transparent, and inclusive economy.”(31)

Unsurprisingly, an all-seeing database, digital ID and cashless society will be in place by 2030 -(32) the Great Reset in microcosm. If the citizenry can’t see what’s coming, more fool them. As it is, they have fallen for the ‘convenience’ of cashless payments already, with over $11.5 trillion in transactions in 2024 alone – twenty three times the country’s GDP.(33) Kuwait is cantering down a similar path, as citizens who fail to register their fingerprints by a certain deadline will find themselves locked out of their bank accounts.(34)

Account freezing is now a thing across Asia, as transactions move increasingly online. Banks are abusing the privilege, flagging any ‘irregular’ payment, persecuting those using crypto and insisting on biometric identification data – Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Malaysia and the Philippines are hotspots.(35) The noose is tightening. And one particularly audacious master-stroke has been pulled closer to home, by none other than that man Musk.

DOGE was all about cutting government waste, allegedly. So far, that’s resulted in a single rescission bill, which attempted to claw back a paltry $9 billion, although even that was challenged in numerous petitions to carefully selected District Court judges. The House Speaker promised many more to come, but those haven’t materialised. It is said that tens of billions of questionable expenditures have been eliminated, but talk is cheap when verification is absent. Nobody seems to have noticed that the DOGE mission has been an abject failure, when its achievements are compared to its stated objectives. In addition, few are aware that it disbanded on 24^th November, despite having a charter for a further eight months.(36) So, was Musk stalled and frustrated? Was the infamous meltdown genuine? Or was DOGE really about something else entirely?

Dr Naomi Wolf seems to have spotted it first and the narrative gatekeepers reserved the Two Minutes Hate exclusively for her for weeks on end – the temerity of the woman who was, in any event, suspect due to the tardiness of her conversion. She was, however, correct and the guardians of the third rail must have known it, judging by their visceral reaction. Regardless of whether Musk had a genuine beef with governmental inefficiency and fraud, the degree of data access that he and his team were given should have been a five alarm fire right there.

The whole operation is readily identifiable as a classic, Deep State-style undertaking – create the problem and then ‘solve’ it with a wholly inappropriate, over-the-top solution which doesn’t do what it says on the tin, but which was, nonetheless, the plan all along. The good doctor, incidentally, is also CEO of a tech company and has worked extensively on building digital products based on government data. She is not an ingenue when it comes to the basics of IP and data security. Musk, of course, is CEO of six companies and vulnerable to legal action by investors if he doesn’t take opportunities to enhance the value of their stakes.

As Wolf notes, the public at large is in the dark as to what NDAs or non-compete agreements were signed – if any – but we do know that a Tom Krause was part of the small DOGE team that plugged itself into the nation’s data in early February and he is also a CEO; of a cloud computing company.(37) The Treasury data alone is estimated at $6 trillion in value.(38) Also on the jolly were a smattering of engineers. It seems reasonable to posit a couple of obvious questions:

“If Musk’s role were simply to read the datasets and to propose cuts to the President – a reasonable, even productive role for an advisor with Musk’s skills – why did he need a cloud computing guy, and engineers, with him?...Why did Musk not simply need a team of analysts, and a stenographer...?”(39)

It could have been done clean, with safeguards, but it wasn’t; reports claim that some of the engineers plugged their own equipment into the system.(40) What was actually taken or downloaded is not public knowledge, but it is known that government techies were questioned about their code and ongoing projects and that an ex-employee of Tesla was parachuted in as their new boss.(41) It’s possible that taxpayer-funded code was purloined and it is known that, contrary to the usual BS spouted by the White House, Musk’s team initially had write privileges.(42) So, the ability to both copy and alter datasets and records.

All that is by-the-by when one switches on to the bigger issues. Musk used a customised version of Grok when sifting through data.(43) So, privately owned software was used to filter government data. Whilst I appreciate that, in the US, directors of non-profits are ten-a-penny and that many can be relied upon to pocket the cash and echo talking points, this one – from the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project – seems to be making an obvious point:

“Given the scale of data that DOGE has amassed and given the numerous concerns of porting that data into software like Grok, this to me is about as serious a privacy threat as you can get.”(44)

Musk had a particular hard-on for the ‘Do Not Pay’ list, but using AI to monitor payments will result in the sort of rigid framework that shut those millions of Thais out of their accounts. Such a list could easily be used purposely, as a kill switch, à la Social Credit Score. Other klaxons ought to be blaring, yet aren’t. As Wolf notes, whilst government is hated with good reason, it also safeguards vast tranches of personal data – crucially, in separate silos, a distinction that is fundamental to liberty. The fact that these silos cannot coordinate as a matter of course, whilst ‘inefficient’, is also imperative:

“But the person who can have access to all of those datasets can map and then filter those queries with the existing datasets of agency after agency, so that a “control grid” can be easily created.”(45)

Musk may now know where everyone banks, where they live, who else is family, what meds they are on, what taxes they pay and much more besides. Characteristically, he hasn’t been shy about building an ‘everything app’ which would combine payment and socials but, given the access to government data that he has been granted, much more could be added. Sounds a lot like that pesky digital ID, does it not? Or, as Wolf has it, “a turnkey Big Brother social credit score -”(46) a Technocratic wet dream.

It can be seen, therefore, that building blocks are being manoeuvred into place. The plans of the Tech Brethren are both a secret and not-a-secret at the same time. They claim that they want to unleash small ‘t’ technocracy to improve the lot of their fellow man. They say that they want government to get out the way – that’s why they self-identify as libertarians. Currently, the most powerful nation in the world is their plaything. Musk, as is his wont, is fully invested in slathering lipstick on the Technocratic pig. In his estimation, him and his buddies will eliminate poverty and usher in ‘an age of abundance’. He recently told Rogan that...

“...the actual communist utopia, if everyone gets anything they want, will be achieved. If it is achieved, it will be achieved via capitalism.”(47)

Leaving aside the fact that the US – plus every other Western ‘democracy’ – has had a managed economy for over a century and that a core element of capitalism is the operation of markets unregulated by the state (’too big to fail’, anyone?), what Musk is actually advocating for is “a kind of inverted fascism where the private stakeholders use the claimed authority and violence of the state to achieve their goals.”(48) This, despite the fact that the Founding Fathers, in asserting that individuals are endowed with God-given rights, explicitly elevated the individual above the collective.

This is anathema to Silicon Valley’s control freaks, who wish to subordinate humanity to the algorithm and “render work, self-reliance, purpose, and freedom obsolete.”(49) Not just in America, either – the same Leftist autocrats, with very few exceptions, populate the ruling class in all Western nation and the European Union. However, in the US, the Technocrats have hitched their wagon to a populist, one who attained power by promising to tackle the Deep State and the entrenched bureaucracy, not empower them. This is a conundrum that they need to solve and Ed Dowd sensed the outline of it in July 2024:

“Conjecture: If I were in the shadows and had an agenda of ushering in a reset to control the end of the current ponzi debt based fiat system with a GBDC and a surveillance state I would need to tame and bridle the populist/maga movement...Clearly the current cult regime must go. But be on alert for a new cult and hidden agendas that come to pass.”(50)

That tweet is from the 23^rd, two weeks after the first attempted assassination. At that time, I couldn’t see how Trump could be co-opted, as he was outlasting the lawfare and continuing to rail against the Swamp. But this was the period when the Tech Bros underwent a collective Damascene conversion and, albeit quietly, went all-in on Orange Man Bad and, as it is apparent that they owe their allegiance (and their fortunes) to those who lurk in “the shadows”, it follows that Trump himself has been at least partially assimilated. Whether that was effected by dint of flattery, persuasion or the threat of further violence, matters not. But, Deep State turkeys are not in the habit of voting for Christmas and Trump is only of utility in a strictly limited fashion – facilitating the Technocratic takeover - so he is being neutered and the MAGA movement is being split asunder.

The process was initiated at the 2024 election. As I’ve previously noted (see A Calculated Gamble), the Democrats were allowed to steal a minimum of four Senate races – and Heaven knows how many House seats – so that Trump could be kept on a tight leash. It’s a little more difficult to hide the fact that the RINOs are throwing sand in the gears when majorities are substantial and, were Republicans to enjoy a super-majority in the Senate (which they would have, were it not for fraud), they would be expected to formalise Trump’s Executive Orders with legislation and that would never do. So, the Senate slow-walks or sabotages nominations that threaten the status-quo and the House fails to investigate any of the outrages that festered during the Biden years and avoids cutting waste. So far, so good.

Figure 3

The next phase of the operation was to exploit one of Trump’s major weaknesses – personnel. I say ‘weakness’ rather than imputing intent, because staffing was also an omnishambles first time around. The list of questionable appointments is far longer than it should be and it is apparent that there are numerous snakes-in-the-grass in leading roles. His Chief-of-Staff, Secretary of State, Attorney-General, FBI Director (and Deputy) are all problematic, whether through weakness or perfidy.

When compared to the clarity of his campaign, Trump has been all over the map since he has reassumed office and uncharacteristically non simpatico to his base. At least some of that will have come from gatekeepers and advisors that he himself has appointed, on the say-so of other advisors. There is a strong sense of squandered momentum and much sound and fury signifying the square root of bugger all. The courts have also done their bit in blocking as much of the president’s agenda as possible, with only a passing reference to the law.

District Court judges have usurped the power of the Executive and the Supreme Court, to which many of the blatantly erroneous judgements have been sent, is being increasingly ignored by lower courts. America, like Israel and Brazil – to name but two – is now intermittently controlled by the judiciary. Bukele has it right, but the Republicans will resolutely refuse to do what is clearly required:

“If you don’t impeach corrupt judges, you CANNOT fix the country. They will form a cartel (a judicial dictatorship) and block all reforms, protecting the systemic corruption that put them in their seats.”(51)

In addition, the Democrats have abandoned any semblance of decorum and now spend their time inciting violence and openly deriding democracy, and rent-a-mobs, funded by a swarm of dark-money NGOs, violently confront the Feds at every opportunity in an echo of the Summer of Love. Many are suffering from profound pathologies and are clinically obsessive, the result of a manufactured mass psychosis and the melding of propaganda and individual identity. Mind you, they still need to know where to show up and they still need to be reimbursed. That’s where the puppet-masters come in:

“The coordination of these groups is rather complex...and is handled by NGOs running call centers. These centers collect information from anonymous sources and then send out activists for on the ground verification. Trained activists are then notified by phone or by test of an ICE location in their area.”(52)

It should be remembered that funding is supplied by Reid Hoffman, amongst others, and that he attends Bilderbergs with Thiel and is in business with Altman. One could be forgiven for thinking that ‘allies’ of the president shouldn’t, ideally, be knocking around with those that fund nutjobs who oppose him by force but, given that they are, perhaps their alleged support isn’t quite what it seems. But there is a larger effort afoot, one that seeks to destroy MAGA, much as the Tea Party was defenestrated. That was a joint effort, as Sundance notes:

“Republicans and Democrats worked together to eliminate the Tea Party, and Republicans were more than willing to lose elections to stop Tea Party supported candidates from winning. This is important to remember, because that type of activity both evidences the UniParty apparatus and the opposition to the modern iteration of the Tea Party in the larger MAGA voting base.”(53)

It isn’t enough to frustrate the deplorables – their fealty to Trump must be eradicated. That and, as a direct outcome, the mid-terms must be lost. What better way to keep him in check than to make him a lame-duck president for two years? It isn’t that the mid-terms won’t be manipulated anyway, but it is essential that The Great White Hope is shown to have feet of clay. But this time around, the Democrats’ role is likely to be diminished, as nobody within MAGA pays the slightest bit of notice to anything they or their mouthpieces have to say, other than to condemn them.

The party is still useful, but mostly in perpetuating the delusions of those who have already succumbed to Clown World and in roiling the waters more generally (see The Seditious Six, enjoying their risk-free day in the sun). That will doubtless result in yet more violence, from more people “shaped – deliberately – by the emotional machinery of the modern left” (54) which will be used to succour a narrative that insists that Trump is losing support. Perhaps, come January 2027, the ‘blue wave’ that results will be used to impeach Trump once again but, in the meantime, the prime saboteurs are to be found closer to home.

Trump himself is only of use in ways that – wittingly or otherwise – advance the cause of the Deep State. That entity’s current Praetorian Guard are the Technocrats. When Trump launches Stargate and declares himself fully invested in the AI revolution, he’s on point. When he equivocates about H1-B visas and 600,000 Chinese students, all is well with the world (but not with MAGA). When DHS switches its messaging to targeting the ‘worst of the worst’, rather than mass deportations of illegal aliens, the Deep State smirks:

“There are a lot of people in and around the administration who are allergic to the concept of workplace enforcement because big companies, agriculture, hotels, and restaurants don’t want to have their illegal workforce raided. And if you don’t enforce workside enforcement at scale and regularly, you’re never going to get mass deportations.”(55)

Rather than admit the effect, data is concealed, breeding distrust. When Trump talks about annexing Greenland, for instance, he’s still on script; just not a script that we are privy to. It’s not the president who wants Greenland – “it is Peter Thiel and his oligarch network that wants to build a gov-corp Technate called Praxis on Greenland.”(56) When Trump changes tack on FISA-702 – the backdoor that provides a veneer of legitimacy to the warrantless surveillance of US citizens – he is still singing from the correct hymn sheet. When it’s his administration that gets to launch Real ID, the string-pullers allow themselves a chuckle at the irony of it all.

But traps are laid elsewhere. Trump campaigned on holding bad actors accountable, but the inside-the-beltway crew all play on the same team and have sat on their hands. Even when the stay-behinds have been outsmarted (as with Comey and Big Tish), the judiciary has their back and the DoJ will go back to filling up the ‘too difficult box’. Promises to reinstate military personnel who refused the vax mandate have remained unfulfilled, due to more institutional resistance. The US armed forces population declined by around 95,000 between 2020 and 2023, most of whom likely mustered out due to the illegal order, yet only 86 have been reinstated.(57)

The Epstein Files debacle is a masterclass in how not to do things and the president himself has shown himself to be unpleasantly tin-eared on the subject. The recent legislation – mandating disclosure – is, in reality, another misdirection designed to infuriate, as it allows non-disclosure if ‘national security’ is at risk, which it not doubt will be. Expect redactions by the bucket-load. Yet more bread and circuses.

The so-called ‘president of peace’ is also at risk of betraying his base with his belligerence towards Venezuela and his continued support for the war in Ukraine. The US military is blowing up small boats with outboards (although the trek to the US is a thousand-plus miles) and, when two alleged ‘narco-terrorists’ were captured alive, they were repatriated, not prosecuted.(58) In reality, Columbia and Mexico are the problem historically, not Venezuela, a fact not lost on the non-pretending, some of whom (but not all) are genuinely America First.

Venezuela seems to be the gateway drug; intervene there - because drugs - and future adventurism is baked in whilst, in the here and now, internecine warfare on the Right will be guaranteed. At least, that’s the surface sheen. It’s possible that other motivations are driving the campaign, now that the CIA is showing its hand. One might have expected the agency to be up for a spot of regime change – it being its specialist subject – yet it is not. The Seditious Six, when challenged to identify which unlawful orders troops should ignore, lacked the bottle to be specific, but Trump’s Caribbean imbroglio was likely what they had in mind.

Further evidence that Langley is puppeteering came when their stenographers of choice – the Washington Post – tried to smear Hegseth and undermine the legitimacy of the administration.(59) Not that this wouldn’t be the default position anyway, but it may be that there is more at stake. It has long been rumoured that election fraud in the US has a Venezuelan connection – the co-founder of Smartmatic is a Venezuelan-American -(60) and the agency is known to have been in bed with numerous South American cartels over the years, topping up its black ops budget. If there is a trail that leads back to Virginia, the Deep State will be in deep doo-doo.

None of which changes the fact that Trump is skating on very thin legal ice and is also testing the loyalty of his followers. If the Democrats do find themselves scratching around for grounds for impeachment, they would do well to start there, although we might not have to wait that long for things to go pear-shaped if the families of the dead sue in federal court, as they have said they will. Rand Paul, the broken clock who is right twice a day, had this to say:

“I actually think Trump is the one who is least likely to want to do these things [but the president] is surrounded by people who believe in regime change and are goading him on...Lindsey Graham has not changed his positions, but he’s clever, and he’s become very close to the president. [He] influences the president. Same with Marco Rubio. So, the pending regime change war in Venezuela is hatched by those people.”(61)

Perhaps that’s it, instead. Or maybe it’s a bit of both. Both individuals are neo-cons who have no truck with MAGA. Neither are up for getting out of Ukraine, either. In that, they make common cause with the Tech Bros. Trump’s supporters want him to follow through on his promise to negotiate a settlement, but he has (so far) made a complete Horlicks of it. Graham has been busy openly undermining Trump since January and Rubio, a Russophobe since the dawn of time “who’s never met a foreign entanglement he didn’t like”,(62) whilst currently inside the tent pissing out, is unlikely to have recalibrated his world-view. A dove, he is emphatically not. And there was a simple solution all along:

“...Trump could have pulled us out by quite simply ending all US involvement. No weapons, no intelligence, no coordination. No need for sanctions or the threat of sanctions, no need for elaborate peace plans. A real peace deal would realize that it was always idiotic to believe that Ukraine could stand up to Russia’s war machine – even with NATO’s backing.”(63)

Ukraine is also important to the Deep State as a test-bed for the future they have in mind for the rest of us. The international media is agog with admiration because, despite the war, Zelensky and his cronies have managed to transform the state into a digital wonderland, with over 120 public services now accessible through Diia, Ukraine’s national governance system. The clever blighters even use it for air raid alerts and there an app called eEnemy (see what they did there?) that allows citizens to report Russian troop movements. In just five years, the country has gone from 102^nd to 5^th in the UN’s global e-government development ranking.(64) None of this could have been achieved without help, of course:

“Large US corporations such as Microsoft and Amazon, began the process of digitalising the Ukrainian government on February 24^th 2022...“The whole nation state of Ukraine is ripe for the picking and the transition to US satellite gov-corp Technate is already well underway.”(65)

This, in addition to the widespread testing of AI-operated weapons systems, courtesy of Palanatir et al.(66) These developments are not part of the public dialogue and, as such, are probably not a cause of disaffection in the MAGA ranks. Which is not to say that they may become another suppurating sore if more widely disseminated. However, they doubtless contribute to Trump’s serial vacillation and failure to follow through on promises made. There is another potential outcome that is devoutly to be avoided by the globalist/Deep State axis. Sundance again:

“A strategic partnership with Russia completely upends the global alliance and financial control system. There is nothing in the world of geopolitical networks (banking, finance, trade or military) more comprehensively disruptive to the order of things than the possibility of Russia and the largest, most powerful and anchoring country in the West forming an alliance...The main globalist, European and London-based defense against this looming nationalistic alliance is continued conflict with Russia.”(67)

If this is what Trump/Putin are working towards – albeit haltingly – it represents an existential threat to the conspirators and would nuke plans that have been in train for decades. In this scenario, everything else Trump does is a distraction, at least partially intended to draw the eye; the 5D chess explanation. Maybe. He’s doing a great job of it if it’s true, perhaps too great. But it’s possible, because it is obvious that Trump and Putin get along and both have complimented each other. Further, Putin has frequently noted that it is not Trump who is the enemy, but US political elites/NATO/Europe, a point he made again recently.(68)

It is also possible that Trump has now chosen his path and that Rubio has finally been obliged to follow his leader, given that the corruption investigation that is rapidly engulfing Zelensky was green lit by the State Department. Perhaps the endgame is in sight.(69) The Europeans are still trying to scupper a deal, mind, with a rehash of their troop-on-the-ground fantasy and a refusal to lift sanctions, but the signs are that Trump will simply ignore them, as he has largely been doing from the get-go.(70)(71) If he succeeds, Congress will have a humongous sad-on, as will the CIA.

In the meantime, the effort to isolate The Donald from his alleged supporters continues apace, in a deeply choreographed fashion, given that the one entity that is never truly consulted is the actual MAGA base itself. Instead, there exists an ecosystem of proxies – ‘influencers’ who would never have been allowed to achieve prominence were they not playing a part. And the battle for the soul of the America First movement is being fomented amongst them, a miniscule proportion of the voters who elected Trump. Whether that battle exercises the masses to the same degree cannot be known. They are not given a voice and polls – in the modern era – are simply another propaganda tool. As are elections.

So it is amongst what is simply another branch of the chattering classes that the debate is framed. Tucker Carlson, propped up as a ‘conservative’ (albeit an ex-Never Trumper, a journalist whose past gigs include CNN, PBS and MSNBC in addition to Fox and who hates the Republican Party)(72) has been assigned agent-of-chaos status by whoever it is that is currently paying his bills. The professionally offended then read their lines, labelling him an anti-Semite, when it is perfectly obvious that he is a gun-for-hire playing an anti-Semite. Given that he has been a political commentator for over three decades, I think we’d have known before now.

It’s just the same play-book on rinse/repeat. Everything is an alternative reality. Conflict is manufactured. The bad actors have no spidey sense – they will cycle through the same outrage and deception cycle that is hardwired in. They don’t yet seem to have noticed that the veil has slipped – or perhaps they have, but they don’t have a Plan B, or don’t care either way. We have no excuse for not seeing it after five years of Covid.

By way of example – the spread of the ‘virus’ was unlike any previous ‘pandemic’. The only explanation that therefore makes sense – unless we are prepared to rewrite a decent chunk of the virology literature – is that it wasn’t a pandemic and whatever Covid was, it wasn’t a transmissible virus. Have you heard this from any heroes of the resistance? Malone, McCullough, the Weinsteins, Kirsch, Ryan Cole, John Campbell? No, you haven’t. They have their roles to play in the official opposition narrative, Team Worst Case Scenario. They are the gatekeepers – we could be charitable and caveat the assertion by adding ‘knowingly or otherwise’, but they can all read and they know their stuff, so their misdirection is deliberate.

When seeming allies are controlled opposition, the algorithm gives them a platform. That’s the giveaway. The person who is over the target – in this case a certain Denis Rancourt – is punished, severely. Rancourt was a known dissident (a climate change ' ‘denier’) prior to 2020 and was the target of a covert surveillance campaign by the University of Ottawa. It was a somewhat obsessive undertaking:

“As part of the covert surveillance, his every web posting, talk, and media interview was recorded, transcribed, and commented on. His activities during holidays were reported...The University further had him arrested, handcuffed and taken away...”(73)

That’s what happens to real opposition when it becomes a threat, yet I’m willing to bet that very few people know who he is. What doesn’t happen is a sponsored show on X and a guest list that includes the likes of Nick Fuentes. There’s a reason Carlson does what he does and there’s a reason why his critics don’t dig any deeper. The online ‘conservative’ Right is brimful of dishonest players, each content to occupy their particular position on the continuum.

The current mission is to maintain their credibility by blasting the Democrats at every turn – the party being the very definition of a target-rich environment – to studiously avoid the Tech Bros-sized elephant in the room and to ensure that the America First crowd devote their energies to squabbling amongst themselves, whilst dumping on Trump and loudly proclaiming their MAGA bona-fides.

Hence, the current round of navel gazing. Massie, MTG, Thune, Rand Paul – the usual suspects, who aren’t always wrong because that would blow their cover. Bannon, Carlson and those in their orbits. VDH, correct in most matters, knowingly dishonest about Russia in what is supposed to be his strongest suit. Unnamed sources in Congress reporting that nearly all Republicans feel “roughshod and threatened” by a White House that treats them with contempt.(74) Or, alternatively, has little time for pretend Republicans who are too busy feeding at the trough to get their President’s agenda codified. Take your pick.

Then there’s Fuentes and the Groypers, breathlessly promoted as the inevitable consequence of promises not kept. Apparently, they’re the real problem in conservative circles. A coming force, dedicated to breaking things and not much else. The only faction to be truly deserving of the label ‘Far Right’, if they are even at that end of the spectrum. Nationalism isn’t the sole preserve of the Right, after all – Mussolini and Hitler bear witness to that assertion – but nihilism probably is.

Fuentes presents himself as a fan of Hitler and Stalin and a sworn enemy of the Jews. He’s a cautionary tale, a reminder that one’s enemy’s enemy is not always one’s friend. His audience is said to be...

“...an informal association of disaffected, mostly young men who exercise their grievances through attacking (only rhetorically, to date) women, minorities, and their chief target, Jews.”(75)

Somehow or other, they are represented as a faction of MAGA, presumably the one that obsesses about ‘Israel First’ and believes that the US has been led by the nose for decades. According to several unreliable sources, young staffers at the White House have also fallen under Fuentes’ spell, which further evidences the fact that “official Washington is encircling Trump with a cohort less loyal to the president than the schemers nominally in his camp,” instead of saying anything about the Groypers’ reach.(76)

Extreme dissatisfaction at the establishment for the economic predicament that Zoomers now find themselves in is perfectly logical – not just from that generation, either. In the US, over 100 million people of working age aren’t employed and aren’t looking to be; at least some of them have done the math.(77) A conviction that traditional conservatives are too moderate is also sound, although sabotage is perhaps being identified as moderation. A “willingness to violate taboos”,(78) particularly of the woke variety, is not inherently problematic when those who guardrail those taboos are libtards. Unsurprisingly, some question the value of ‘democracy’, if what we have is the result of the exercise of it. The pushback on race is equally understandable, given the Left’s identity politics, although two wrongs do not a right make. And nationalism and patriotism are surely first cousins.

The problem comes from attitude. If we are to believe that this movement even exists, it’s going to be pretty difficult to break bread with those who just want to burn the system down in revenge. However, I have difficulty in believing that there is anything organic about it. The whiff of astroturf is in the air and the politics of resentment have always been endemic on the Left.

Show me a movement that is nationalistic, which derides the democratic status quo, shows contempt for the political class, suffers from a preoccupation with race (and rampant anti-Semitism), which is willing to break things and which flirts with fascism and I’ll cite the NSDAP, Berlin, January 1933; but a nihilist version, without a plan. The same old chestnut – that fascism is of the Right - rolls into view once again. Orange Man Bad is Hitler. Remember that time he had dinner with Fuentes and that other Jew-hater, Kanye West?(79) And so on.

Having said all that – and whilst positing that the sudden mainstreaming of a figure who had previously been banished to the outer darkness is yet another attempt to undermine Trump – whoever is running him is not unsophisticated. The Big Tech influence network around Trump is largely Jewish – Thiel, Ellison, Ackman, Altman, Sachs – and an easy target for a flouter of taboos. Fuentes has gone after Thiel and Ellison, highlighting Palantir’s domestic surveillance work, Thiel’s sponsorship of Vance and Ellison’s ongoing media takeover. A lot of what he has to say about those two is true, albeit spun as an Israeli influence operation.

He hasn’t had a lot to say about the others, nor about Musk, the man who reinstated Fuentes’ Twitter account and tweaked the algorithm to enhance his reach, yet they are as big a part of the Technocratic project as any. Selective opprobrium is always a sign of an agenda, and it may be that he is being used to help one of the Bros (or a challenger to Vance’s presidential aspirations) jostle into position. Highlighting genuine connections that Thiel and Ellison would doubtless prefer to obscure seems like a harmful act, unless one accepts the possibility that using Fuentes as a whistleblower is a tactically astute way of achieving disclosure with minimal fallout. Which right-thinker is going to care about what the King of the Groypers has to say?

It may be that, at this stage of Trump’s presidency, the calculation is that taking a hit is worthwhile as long as Trump is also weakened. Or perhaps the GOP establishment is genuinely peeved at the president’s lack of collegiality. Whatever the reason, pointing up Trump’s embrace of Big Tech’s agenda – semi-accurately, as it happens – is highly likely to play badly with freedom lovers. Perhaps the willingness to risk self-harm is an indication of the degree of resolve.

It seems to me that the relationship between the Tech Lords and Trump is a marriage of convenience, one that lacks a firm foundation. I don’t recall the president waxing lyrical about Silicon Valley previously. Big Tech were the enemy. They shadow-banned him, then fully banned him, Zuckerberg spent $450 million on the Big Steal in 2020 and, with the exception of Thiel, once they lurched to the Right, they initially backed DeSantis, not Trump. Over the last ten years of Trump’s political career, they’ve only been allies for eighteen months. The rest of the time, they’ve been in opposite corners.

So, there is no reason to suppose that there is any common ground between MAGA and an oxymoronic dark MAGA, aka Deep State entity. It follows, then, that it is possible that Trump’s partial assimilation may be temporary, subject to revocation by Trump himself. At some point, he may either come to his senses (if the belief is that he has been duped), decide to call the CIA’s bluff (if he’s being coerced) or conclude that enough is enough (if the power dynamic favours him). To the Deep State, none of those outcomes would be acceptable. And it’s difficult to believe that the prospect of decades of prep being washed overboard will be met with equanimity.

Or, if he has been a charlatan all along, he facilitates a Technocratic future. All things are possible, but the ongoing attempts to neuter him and depth charge MAGA are an indication that he is not fully house-trained. If he manages to get out of Ukraine and reconfigures the US relationship with Russia – and if Zelensky is ousted, that outcome becomes more likely – he will be signalling that his hand is back on the tiller. If Technocratic plans for Ukraine are compromised or derailed entirely as a result, a behind-the-scenes breach with the Tech Bros will have occurred. If his Venezuelan adventurism is designed to flush out the CIA – and I think that’s a big ‘if’ – then the Deep State is being confronted, not obeyed. We’ll see what happens.

Citations

(1) https://dailysceptic.org/2025/11/25/cop30-ends-in-a-shambles/

(2) Ditto

(3) https://archive.is/sMYuL

(4) https://brownstone.org/articles/escape-the-digital-purse-seine/

(5-6) Ditto

(7) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2024/01/26/big-picture-ed-dowd-is-correct-in-this-review-every-opaque-action-in-western-government-is-aligned-toward-a-dollar-based-cbdc/#more-255193

(8) https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/the-9-billion-witness-meet-jpmorgan-chases-worst-nightmare-242414/

(9) https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/jpmorgan-chase-jamie-dimon-bitcoin/2023/12/06/id/1145014/

(10) https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/establishment-of-the-strategic-bitcoin-reserve-and-united-states-digital-asset-stockpile/

(11) https://cointelegraph.com/news/why-tether-is-acting-more-like-a-central-bank-than-a-stablecoin

(12) https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/2392/text

(13) https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/394/text

(14) https://unlimitedhangout.com/2025/03/investigative-reports/the-dark-maga-gov-corp-technate-part-2/

(15) https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/10/central-bank-digital-currency-cbdc-projects-are-foundering-in-all-five-eye-nations.html

(16) https://brownstone.org/articles/the-stablecoin-trap-the-backdoor-to-total-financial-control/

(17-19) Ditto

(20) https://internationalman.com/articles/americas-sixth-default-is-coming-what-it-means-for-gold-and-your-wealth/

(21) https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/game-over-doge-us-starts-fiscal-2025-record-budget-deficit-shocking-interest-expense

(22) https://unlimitedhangout.com/2025/03/investigative-reports/the-dark-maga-gov-corp-technate-part-2/

(23) https://cointelegraph.com/learn/articles/ripple-vs-xrp-vs-xrp-ledger

(24) https://beincrypto.com/big-bet-ethereum-restaking-protocol-eigenlayer/

(25) https://cryptonews.net/news/finance/31844524/

(26) Ditto

(27) https://archive.is/uV9dt

(28)https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/09/europe_reshapes_its_monetary_system.html

(29) https://expose-news.com/2025/09/30/thailand-freezes-millions-of-bank-accounts/

(30) https://thehighwire.com/editorial/the-great-reset-in-motion-vietnams-banking-overhaul-as-a-warning-to-the-world/

(31) https://vietnamnet.vn/en/vietnam-to-close-86-million-inactive-bank-accounts-by-september-2407820.html

(32) https://thehighwire.com/editorial/the-great-reset-in-motion-vietnams-banking-overhaul-as-a-warning-to-the-world/

(33) Ditto

(34) https://expose-news.com/2024/09/15/kuwait-to-freeze-bank-accounts/

(35) https://www.binance.com/en-IN/square/post/19547035086066

(36) https://amgreatness.com/2025/11/24/with-8-months-remaining-on-its-charter-doge-officially-shuts-down/

(37)

Outspoken with Dr Naomi Wolf

The Sack of Rome: Elon Musk's Digital Coup

For a week, I’ve been savaged on X (which technologist Elon Musk, of course, co-owns), for urgently trying to warn people about what those few days in early February, 2025, when Elon Musk and five or six young engineers were alone with their devices plugged in to all our nation’s data, may represent. These few days represent a Rubicon that can never now…

Read more

2 years ago · 709 likes · 815 comments · Dr Naomi Wolf

(38-41) Ditto

(42) https://www.wired.com/story/treasury-department-doge-marko-elez-access/

(43) https://www.fastcompany.com/91340107/elon-musk-using-grok-chatbot-doge-analyze-sensitive-data-belonging-millions-americans

(44) Ditto

(45)

Outspoken with Dr Naomi Wolf

The Sack of Rome: Elon Musk's Digital Coup

For a week, I’ve been savaged on X (which technologist Elon Musk, of course, co-owns), for urgently trying to warn people about what those few days in early February, 2025, when Elon Musk and five or six young engineers were alone with their devices plugged in to all our nation’s data, may represent. These few days represent a Rubicon that can never now…

Read more

2 years ago · 709 likes · 815 comments · Dr Naomi Wolf

(46) Ditto

(47) https://www.podchemy.com/notes/2404-elon-musk-44540893561

(48) https://unlimitedhangout.com/2025/03/investigative-reports/the-dark-maga-gov-corp-technate-part-2/

(49) https://amgreatness.com/2025/11/29/what-is-elon-musks-communist-utopia/

(50) https://x.com/DowdEdward/status/1815791068262395943

(51) https://x.com/nayibbukele/status/1894547479367938142

(52) https://www.zerohedge.com/political/chaos-new-york-trained-activists-try-block-ice-operations

(53) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/11/22/the-2025-maga-fracture-and-the-benefactors-behind-it/#more-277867

(54) https://dailyreckoning.com/the-united-states-of-delusion/

(55) https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/refusal-of-trump-administration-to-release-holistic-deportation-data-fuels-distrust-heritage-says/ar-AA1R9Odm

(56) https://unlimitedhangout.com/2025/03/investigative-reports/the-dark-maga-gov-corp-technate-part-2/

(57) https://thefederalist.com/2025/11/25/exclusive-war-dept-battles-internal-resistance-to-reinstate-86-soldiers-ejected-by-covid-shot-mandate/

(58) https://www.lewrockwell.com/2025/11/no_author/maga-will-dissolve-if-trump-invades-venezuela-says-rand-paul/

(59) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/12/02/new-york-times-confirms-hegseth-did-not-order-second-strike-on-venezuela-narcoterrorist-boat/

(60) https://ijr.com/smartmatic-executive-accused-of-bribing-top-venezuelan-election-official/

(61) https://www.lewrockwell.com/2025/11/no_author/maga-will-dissolve-if-trump-invades-venezuela-says-rand-paul/

(62) https://www.lewrockwell.com/2025/12/no_author/venezuela-could-be-the-neocons-ticket-back-to-power/

(63) https://ronpaulinstitute.org/a-real-ukraine-peace-plan/

(64) https://digitalstate.gov.ua/news/govtech/ukraines-digital-transformation-is-making-international-headlines

(65) https://archive.is/2fmkQ

(66) https://youarewithinthenorms.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/How-Peter-Thiel-Linked-Tech-is-Fueling-the-Ukraine-War.pdf

(67) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/11/30/no-intel-intercepts-hungarian-pm-viktor-orban-meets-with-russian-president-vladimir-putin/#more-278324

(68) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/11/28/russian-president-vladimir-putin-gives-remarkably-detailed-explanation-of-current-peace-negotiation-status-either-ukraine-concedes-diplomatically-or-we-will-win-militarily/

(69) https://www.lewrockwell.com/2025/12/thierry-meyssan/the-fall-of-zelenskys-regime-and-that-of-his-allies/

(70) https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/france-uk-still-insist-sending-troops-ukraine-effort-sabotage-trump-peace-plan

(71) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/12/01/rubio-witkoff-and-kusher-meet-ukraine-officials-in-florida-for-discussion-of-terms-before-witkoff-returns-to-moscow-tuesday/#more-278371

(72)https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/11/turning_point_usa_has_a_tucker_carlson_problem.html

(73) https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Denis_Rancourt

(74) https://chroniclesmagazine.org/web/marjorie-taylor-greenes-exit-is-a-warning-to-republicans/

(75) https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/buchanan-resurrection

(76) Ditto

(77) https://internationalman.com/articles/americas-feast-or-famine-reality-when-100000-feels-like-poverty/

(78)https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/11/rod_dreher_s_checklist_on_groyperism.html

(79) https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/story-trumps-explosive-dinner-ye-nick-fuentes-rcna59010

Figure 1 https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/game-over-doge-us-starts-fiscal-2025-record-budget-deficit-shocking-interest-expense

Figure 2 https://www.fxempire.com/forecasts/article/gold-vs-bitcoin-the-great-rotation-toward-safety-in-a-volatile-2025-1562064

Figure 3 https://www.lewrockwell.com/2025/11/jim-quinn/connecting-the-dots-reveals-a-dire-picture/

Is the following narrative still fresh in your memory? We all need to take the vaccines. But, how will people know that we’ve taken the vaccine? How will we, the people, prove that we are socially responsible/brainwashed? It would be foolish to trust people to tell the truth; the authorities will need verification. ‘Authorities’, in this context, will be seen to include a broad spectrum of people and organisations not traditionally associated with the word; like airlines, cinemas, bus companies, private entities as well as public.

How might this best be accomplished, so that we are all the safest we can possibly be? Ever heard of the Covid 19 Credentials Initiative? Their mission is “bringing emerging privacy protecting technology to a public health crisis”.(2) They planned to do this with something called VC – Verifiable Credentials. This apparently protects our privacy because there is no need for direct contact between the issuer and the verifier. How this actually protects our privacy when the same information is exchanged in any event and all three parties finish up knowing the data is beyond me.

Or how about Common Pass, strap-line “There is an urgent need for a harmonized, interoperable approach to safe border reopening based on global standards”?(3) Apparently. Or Health Pass by CLEAR? As Axios helpfully explains:

“Before businesses can effectively reopen, workers and customers need to be assured that they’re unlikely to encounter coronavirus infections. Linking COVID-19 to IDs could make that easier, but to be fully effective, it requires a more vigorous and reliable testing regimen, as well as public acceptance of a new level of tech-enabled health surveillance.”(4)

As it happens, our glorious leaders stuffed up the timing – or, alternatively, decided to soften us up, instead – and they only got as far as ‘papers, please’. Lest memory dim, it might be worth recalling just how draconian some of the restrictions were and how illogical the entire farrago actually was, as a piece of paper that signals ‘vaccination’ means nothing if said ‘vaccine’ doesn’t prevent infection and transmission. Depending on location, those who refused the jab were also denied jobs, travel, dining out and much else besides. In the US, it took a couple of years for sound-of-mind voters (a category that excludes most Democrats) to rumble Biden’s attempt to coerce them, correctly perceiving his proposed mandates as being less about preventing harm and more about increasing the Feds’ control.

But the US was far from being the worst offender. The Austrian government passed a law that would have fined non-compliant citizens up to €1,200 a month for refusing the jab.(5) Le petit roi made good on his promise to ‘piss off’ those citizens who disagreed with his Covid policies by deactivating the ‘vaccine passports’ of four million of his subjects, as they had been rather remiss in not getting their booster as promptly as they had been ordered. Their tardiness was not entirely surprising; the French had changed the time elapsed between jabs many times, from six months, to three months, back up to seven months and then down to four months – but, governments can be as capricious as they like once they’ve got us by the short and curlies.(6)

Italian citizens were required to show a health pass, pretty much across the board, to access anywhere. There were two categories, but an enhanced pass, the one that shows you’ve been compliant and either had the ‘vaccine’ and the designated number of boosters or obediently obtained a pass in the aftermath of a ‘positive’ test, was necessary to live a normal life and to work. Those with the basic pass, who were willing to put up with a constant regime of testing (15 euros a pop), could do their ‘essential’ shopping, but that was about it, and those not willing to get tested had no rights at all. In addition, the over-50s were subject to mandatory ‘vaccination’.(7)

There was a worldwide push to adopt a digital ID, ostensibly in response to the ‘pandemic’. However, that particular project predates the ‘pandemic’ by at least five years. The UN’s ID2020 (in partnership will Bill Gates) was launched in 2016.(8) The EU started its own project even earlier, in 2014.(9) The ‘vaccine passport’ was simply the vehicle of choice. Indeed, Digital ID is already a fact of life in a number of European countries including Italy, Austria, France and the Netherlands; all of whom were amongst the most draconian imposers of Covid mandates. Biometric surveillance in the form of facial recognition software is also on the rise. There are currently projects underway in 32 different states and the EU has spent billions in an attempt to merge all the separate databases into one central hub.(10) It’s this development that constitutes the reddest of red flags:

“It does three key things that lead to catastrophe: 1. It forces everyone to join. 2. It can aggregate data from any source to “enrich” your profile. 3. It is in the hands of the government, and we all know how trustworthy they are.”(11)

Our lords and masters have also embarked on another jolly jape: Identity Authorisation Networks (IANs). The narrative is as follows:

“IANs combine digital credentials, biometric data and comprehensive fraud risk signals to “secure” transactions. They enable organisations to confirm the authenticity of users’ real-world identities; grant or restrict access to resources, networks and data based on predefined permissions and policies; and, track user behaviour and transactions, providing a comprehensive audit trail for compliance and security purposes.”(12)

Sounds sensible enough, doesn’t it? Except by now we should be aware that nothing that was proposed around digital IDs is for our benefit, so we simply need to dig a little and all will be revealed. The idea is that the government or a bank issues the ID and it will be used to verify a person’s identity across the IAN ‘network’. And what does this network look like? I suspect you already know the answer to that question, but for the avoidance of doubt, here it is.

Figure 1

So, every digital system we might avail ourselves of. And the problem with that? All it would take is one faceless individual – or, better yet, wholly unaccountable AI – to flag your ID as suspected of being ‘linked to fraud’ and your life will get shut down. And they will be checking every transaction or, as the authors of a recent report like to say, there will be an “ongoing review of transactions and events for fraud and compliance”.(13) Compliance with what? With whatever governments decide, presumably.

The WHO also has a role to play; the Pandemic Treaty and the revised International Health Regulations were intended to usurp national sovereignty and surrender our futures to the whims of the globalists. Gates is far from the only partner that the WHO wishes to consult; there’s also the Rockefeller Foundation, the World Bank, Microsoft, Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Clinton Health Access Initiative and Soros’ Open Society Foundations. It’d be difficult to assemble a more malevolent rogue’s gallery. The WHO is working on a QR Verification Code Project, with a stated aim of creating a global digital data bank of every last one of us, in partnership with ID2020 and the Gavi Alliance, both funded by Gates.(14)(15)

That was the state of play in 2022; a seemingly inevitable descent into the ante chamber of a digital gulag. Then, like the darkness at dawn, the entire schema disappeared – seemingly. The ‘pandemic’ collapsed under the weight of its own preposterousness and the plans for ‘vaccine passports’ failed to achieve terminal velocity. We had dodged a bullet. However, given the fact that the desire to impose a digital ID had never been about ‘vaccines’, nor public safety, any expectation that the impetus had entirely dissipated would have been hopelessly naïve. Our would-be jailers just went about their business on the down-low. And they learned that switching horses in midstream wasn’t terminal, after all.

I always had the feeling that the WEF was cast as the pantomime villain, the better to distract us. Whilst that entity hasn’t sloped off the world stage, it has been roundly vilified by right-thinking people – Blofeld of Davos has come to represent all that is wrong with the technocratic, globalist caste, with their climate change obsessions and empathy-free solutions to the world’s imagined ills. But, in truth, the WEF is more of a shopfront; the real action takes place elsewhere, in organisations that are wholly unaccountable to the masses that they presume to rule over. It is there that the push for a digital ID has been manufactured.

Several different entities have taken up the slack. The WHO, ever-anxious to accrue more power, managed to force through a Pandemic Agreement in May of this year, by dint of governments signing away national sovereignty sans domestic scrutiny. Tedros the Terrorist now gets to declare DEFCON 5 on a whim and all signatories must follow the leader. Not content with a remit limited to human health, the WHO’s ‘One Health’ framework allows it to meddle in “food systems, climate policy, agriculture and land use under the guise of “pandemic prevention”.(16) Oh, and, probably a good idea to get to work on digitalising health documentation systems, the better to monitor jab compliance - something like this, perhaps.

Figure 2

Countries around the world seem to have all had the same bright idea simultaneously. Biometric surveillance and e-IDs are suddenly all the rage and, in the past few months Vietnam, Costa Rica, Papua New Guinea, Laos, Mexico, Ethiopia and Zambia have all jumped aboard the digital train. Papua New Guinea even had the temerity to tie social media access to its new national ID.(17) Switzerland’s upcoming digital ID was sanctioned by a referendum, with 50.4% allegedly in favour.(18) The big beasts are also on manoeuvres.

The EU is funding AlongID, a cross-border identity platform. Apparent, biometrics alone are so yesterday. The CEO of Deverium, the Lithuanian company responsible for the ID, has big plans:

“We need to reimagine digital identity as a mix of attributes: government records, financial data, professional licenses, health information...biometrics...”(19)

Words like ‘we need to’ and ‘reimagine’ are surefire warning klaxons, particularly when no evidence supporting contentions is provided. The EU is already ahead of the curve; the Commission has spent tens of millions of euros in trialling its EU Digital Identity Wallet (EUDI), all for our convenience, naturally. Apparently, citizens will be able to use these nifty wallets for a whole bunch of different tasks – accessing government services, booking into hotels, renting cars, opening bank accounts, facilitating travel, the works. What fun. Who could possibly find fault with such innovation? After all, the “EUDI wallet will bring benefits to all the stakeholders of the payment ecosystem”.(20) The question of what happens to all the confidential data that will be produced is left unaddressed.

Of course, nobody will be forced to partake until they are. The reality is that the EU wants all its citizens to have a digital ID by 2030 and what the EU wants, it is generally insistent on getting.(21) Quite who is going to pay for it all appears to be a question too far, which usually means that any and all possible answers – if articulated – would be deeply unpopular. It’s highly likely that the benighted citizenry will be on the hook for it:

“Without viable payment mechanisms, the system risks relying entirely on government funding...they plan to make you pay for your own enslavement.”(22)

The ID is to be available to all by 2026 and, in all probability, the rollout will elicit little in the way of resistance. After all, all EU citizens are already required to have an ID card – the ‘offer’ of a digital version of same is unlikely to result in the widespread deployment of pitchforks and torches. In the UK, however, a less in-your-face plan is in train, a modus operandi that is usually disfavoured amongst the authoritarian class, who much prefer to stick ‘democracy’ to us good and hard.

The Brits have never been fans of a national ID card and any attempt to force one on the population has met with enough pushback as to make it politically suicidal. That potential outcome no longer seems to act as a brake on the political class, as both the Tories and Labour have sedulously ignored the wishes of the voters. Nonetheless, Starmer’s minions have deemed the Machiavellian approach the most suitable, perhaps because painting yet another target on their backs is too dumb, even for them. And also because, of all the horrors that Labour will inflict upon the population, none is as fundamentally vital (to the ruling class) as a digital ID.

So, the Prime Minister – the choice of a mere 20% of voters – has settled upon the ever-reliable bait and switch, combined with the introduction of legislation that no-one asked for nor fully understands. The shiny thing that soaks up all the opprobrium is the mooted Britcard, an acronym that probably amuses the elites no end, as the rubes that pass for voters have no idea that ‘Brit’ stands for ‘Biometric registration Identification Tracking’, not Britain. Starmer, playing up to his reputation as an out-of-touch buffoon, has tried to sell the idea as a way in which to combat illegal immigration:

“You will not be able to work in the United Kingdom if you do not have a digital ID. It’s as simple as that.”(23)

The 2.8 million people who signed a petition opposing BritCard are probably not aware that its adoption would not make a blind bit of difference, as the digital gulag is already under construction. The passage of the Online Safety Act (OSA) on 25^th July 2025, together with the much less-heralded Data (Use and Access) Act a month earlier, is far more consequential. The Digital Identity and Attributes Trust Framework – no, I’d never heard of it, either – was elevated to statutory footing and the Office for Digital Identities and Attributes was born.

Without wading too far into the weeds, the age-verification requirement of the Online Safety Act resulted in the uploading of tranches of sensitive documents to private companies which have no duty to delete them. In effect, the OSA is the soft launch of a national digital ID by deception:

“Each verification, ostensibly ephemeral, feeds a reusable credential that can be linked to banking, travel and eventually employment...The Act’s daily tally of five million age checks has become the proving ground for this this infrastructure, turning what was sold as a narrow child-safety tool into the foundation of a broader surveillance apparatus.”(24)

Meanwhile, the scope of the Trust Framework is being gradually expanded to encompass financial services, rental agreements and NHS access.(25) The Bank of International Settlements (BIS), a financial ogre that enjoys total protection from the Fourth Estate, heralds the UK government as having adopted “the furthest reaching model” of e-ID,(26) a system that is managed by the aforementioned Office for Digital Identities and Attributes, which has registered a cackle of private companies who will provide “digital ID and attributive services” for the state’s subjects – companies like Deloitte and Mastercard.(27) These companies must abide by the Framework, which sets the;

“...technical and operating standards for use across the UK’s economy [that] will help to enable international and domestic interoperability.”(28)

Which, expressed in less opaque terminology, means that all the data harvested from UK citizens will be capable of being shared with whoever it is that is going to be the global head honcho and his worker bees. Even then, it may be difficult to envision quite how things will actually pan out, until another piece of the puzzle is inserted. The UN’s new global digital ID database features (ID4D), as does that word ‘sustainable’ and another old favourite, ‘partnership’. The aim is to capture the the data of every human being, so that they may all be able to “exercise their rights and access better services and economic opportunities in line with the Sustainable Development Goals.”(29) Sounds reasonably anodyne, does it not? Until one thinks it through:

“Your access to all “services” and all “economic opportunities” will be dependent upon you possessing the requisite digital ID; the entire economy...must comply with “Sustainable Development Goals”. That means everything will be ordered by the global governance system, not by national governments. Finally, “partnership” means public-private partnerships.”(30)

So, as will be the case everywhere, there will be no opting out – how can there be when the future of the planet is at stake? The UK digital ecosystem will expand until it includes every facet of life; the building blocks are already in place. The public-private partnerships ring a bell too, don’t they? How could a Technate come about without the transfer of power to the oligarchic demigods? Note the subordinate role planned for national governments.

Figure 3

And guess who’s playing a leading role in the stealthy enslavement of the Brits? None other than everyone’s favourite ‘libertarian’, Peter Thiel. Peter has a finger in many pies and we all know what he’s really about (see Pray For A Good Winter and Feet Of Clay). Not content with Palantir’s enabling of the US surveillance state, Thiel has also ingratiated himself with the UK. Palantir’s AI software platform – Palantir Foundry – is being us to comprehensively digitalise the British government and the company is also in bed with KPMG, Deloitte, numerous global corporations and the UK’s strategic defence sector, which is heavily reliant on another product; Palantir Gotham. As per normal, we have to decode the corporate BS if we wish to understand what it is that Gotham does:

“With its vast array of networked connections into the heart of the British state, it is no surprise that the UK government is heavily reliant on Palantir Gotham to plan missions and run investigations “using disparate data.” This will enable state operatives – or Palantir operatives, depending on how you look at it – to “produce actionable intelligence based on the full ecosystem of available data.” For Palantir, that “available data” in the UK appears to be pretty much all of it.”(31)

Reading between the lines, then, the Foundry software will be used to digitalise all interactions, whether they be with government or private entities, and Gotham will be used to make “connections across massive scale, dispersed databases”, the better to enable the surveillance and targeting of dissidents.(32) Palantir’s public position is that it won’t back BritCard, because Labour hadn’t included its adoption in its election manifesto – a holier-than-thou stance, which is somewhat undermined by its enthusiastic assistance in “harvesting every possible scrap of data to enable “control” of the population”,(33) a programme that was also notably absent from the manifesto. But pious pronouncements are Thiel’s speciality.

In reality, citizens already have numerous separate identifers – passports, driving licenses, tax codes, national insurance numbers and so forth – and all that is required is for this ‘back end’ to be reconfigured so that all that siloed data is linked up. The BritCard is a “Mickey Mouse, pretend digital ID” which is wholly undeveloped and unnecessary.(34) It will serve as the lightning rod for criticism of government overreach and will no doubt be abandoned in due course – an outcome that will be eulogised at length by the stenographers in the press. However,

“...waiting for us is the real digital ID system that government and its corporate partners, like Palantir, have actually been engineering. Along comes the saviour, in this instance embodied by Palantir...pointing out to us that we don’t need BritCard. We just need to improve the “back end” of the government’s system so that all our cards and licenses can “talk to each other” in harmony. And that is the essence of a genuine digital ID.”(34)

It is, perhaps, worth emphasising once again that digital IDs are non-negotiable. The Technocratic fever dream of Technates and gov.corps cannot be realised without them, so they will be implemented. Different countries are going about that in different ways, depending on local conditions and so that we might not notice the global nature of the operation. Australia’s version went live in December 2024.(35) New Zealand and Canada are moving forward with ‘voluntary’ initiatives, allegedly because they recognise “the importance of establishing a comprehensive policy framework that aligns with international best practices” -(36)(37) a variation on the ‘peer pressure’ paradigm – but progress is so far anaemic, perhaps because the reputation of government has taken such a battering during the ‘pandemic’ years, what with quarantine camps and frozen bank accounts.

The US Blob is coming at it obliquely, with the imposition of Real ID – under the Trump administration, albeit it’s been twenty years in the making, as the Real ID Act was another of the many measures passed in the wake of 9/11. The premise, as is frequently the case, was flimsy; the Feds insisted upon a form of ID that would have made the alleged kidnappers mission impossible, even though none of them were said to have used a fake ID.(38) Numerous state governors refused to co-operate in the implementation of a national identification database and the deadline was pushed back on multiple occasions. Amazingly, after twenty years with no airliners flown into tall buildings, Real ID is still apparently vital to national security and, if you want to fly, you’ll need to get one and then stick your head in the sand:

“While the federal requirements, as of now, are limited to the specific documents and “mandatory facial image capture” needed to attain a state ID...the bill lays the groundwork for the federal government to force anyone who wants a state ID to forfeit biometric identifiers or facial recognition data to federal databases that would constitute the kind of detailed de facto national ID system that the biggest tyrants in history could have only dreamed of wielding.”(39)

In truth, we can dispense with any suspense. All of these digital schemes will end up looking the same, because that’s what governments around the world have committed to. There may be some relative laggards, forced to tread carefully, but the path is the same – an interoperable digital ID for all by 2030. The ID4D database must be populated and the likes of the Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the WEF and Palantir are the ‘partners’ that will get ‘er done.(40) Although it may have passed you (and me) by, this ambition has been articulated in a very public manner, in November 2023.

It was then that the UN launched a campaign called ‘50-in-5’, the ‘50’ referring to countries and the ‘5’ to years. By 2028, the fifty guinea pigs will have launched and refined their digital public infrastructure (DPI). Sub-Saharan African countries and rural India are out of sight, out of mind and expendable, so they will bear the brunt of all the lash-ups that will inevitably accompany such a rollout. The UN, of course, is the perfect conduit, it having been so successful in alleviating suffering; by 2030, only 1.9 billion children will have been ‘left behind’.(41)

Clearly, the best way to recover lost ground is to devote vast resources to digitalising these countries’ infrastructure. That was the first thing that I thought of, although we might usefully remember that the sociopaths at the UN and the WEF have no use for ‘useless eaters’, so keeping starving Africans alive is unlikely to feature on their to-do list:

“Protecting the “rights or safety of children” has been a tactic used before by the unelected globalist, while promoting a technocratic system that will actually take away the rights of all individuals, including children.”(42)

And it is here that we encounter the second essential ingredient of the Technocratic coup – the DPI also includes central bank digital currencies (CBDC).(43) And all UN countries are to part of the grid by – you’ve guessed it – 2030. So, unless you live in Kosovo, Taiwan or one of a grand total of six micronations,(44) you are scheduled for digital servitude within five years. Once again, this should not come as much of a surprise. The warning signs have been there for years, starting with the blindingly obvious attempts to eliminate cash and shutter bank branches.

In America, since 2020, the rate of bank closures has doubled and most of those are branches of the bigger players.(45) Those that remain are focussing on “more complex financial services.”(46) In the UK, a third of all banking locations have shut down in the five years to 2024.(47) Spain and the Netherlands are even further down the track, with closure rates of 37% and 48% over the same period.(48) Canada,(49)(50) New Zealand,(51) Australia (47% of cash machines shuttered in just five years),(52) the EU,(53) Japan;(54) it’s a worldwide phenomenon. Sweden is a cautionary tale – even small street vendors refuse to accept cash and collection baskets in church have been superseded by card readers.(55)

The usual suspects are indulging in a spot of predictive programming, informing us that cash will soon be obsolete,(56)(57) whilst others seek to mollify us by insisting that it is here to stay.(58) Indeed, cash still accounts for 16% of global transaction value.(59) However, as is usually the case, the discussion is being framed in terms that are deceptive, the narrative being that banks are adapting to customer preferences, rather than creating an environment where such choices are inevitable. The banks are merely enlightened innovators; smartphone apps, contactless cards and thumb chips are simply ingenious ways to add more convenience to systems, solely for the customer’s benefit.

It wasn’t that long ago that we were being assured that cash would still exist alongside the inbound digital currencies – no point in boiling us frogs prematurely. Now, however, the ECB, IMF, WEF and assorted ‘experts’ openly campaign for a cashless society.(60)(61) Some countries are keen to make that utopia come about sooner, rather than later. Denmark’s central bank no longer prints new bank notes and Italy, Spain, Greece and France already limit cash transactions.(62)

In Europe, the resistance centres on Germany and Austria, as the majority of payments are still made with cash. It won’t make any difference in the long run, as governments and banks hold all the cards; they will shrink the ATM network further, charge fees for cash service, continue whingeing about how large bills are simply a tool for criminals etc etc.(63) As we surely all know by now, those that rule over us care little for our opinions. They have a plan and that plan is going to be implemented. Cash must be abolished;

“...cash is a dangerous loophole – a way for savers to escape the financial net. As long as citizens can withdraw physical money and store it outside the banking system, the great experiment of financial repression cannot fully succeed. Negative interest rates only work if depositors cannot simply pull their money from the banks. If cash is abolished, there is no escape. Every euro, every dollar, every yen remains in the system, vulnerable to devaluation, taxation, confiscation – or simple disappearance in a crisis.”(64)

How close are we to that kakotopia? Well, several different objectives are being pursued simultaneously. Those of you who have settled in for the long haul will remember that one of the core frameworks in a Technate is the social mechanism, which is designed “to distribute goods and services to the entire population,”(65) via the Distribution System. Those with stellar ‘peck rights’ get first dibs, while the rest of us must be content with whatever scraps fall from the table which will, of course, be distributed equitably. The detail – the method by which these assets will be controlled – was somewhat lacking, but the mist is clearing. Welcome to ‘tokenization’, the brainchild of the dark matter that is the BIS.

“Tokenization is the process of creating a digital representation of a real thing...[T]okenization is a digitalized process to make assets more accessible....A new type of financial market infrastructure – a unified ledger – could capture the full benefits of tokenisation by combining central bank money, tokenised deposits and tokenised assets on a programmable platform.”(66)

That sounds a lot like a central repository of assets. When combined with a cashless society that is wholly dependent on a CBDC, the tokenised deposits and assets are no longer controlled by those who actually possess them, as ownership can be terminated via keystroke. Helpfully, the BIS has a parallel product on the go, one that will square the circle - Project Agora. This aims to “test the desirability, feasibility and viability of a multi-currency unified ledger for wholesale cross-border payments.”(67) Or, in layman’s terms – given that the BIS is the central banks’ central bank – a CBDC, “central bank money.”

All that is then required is a suitable Distribution System; and a digital ID. As previously noted, the combination of digital currency (in the complete absence of cash) and a digital ID will be game over. The string-pullers favour an emphasis on the currency, relying upon us to be too dumb to connect the dots, but a digital currency cannot work unless it is accompanied by a digital ID; the two are a package deal. Add in the ‘interoperability’ that they are so enamoured of, which will “allow administrative databases to be linked up” -(68) courtesy of Thiel and his muckers – and our entire lives will be distilled into a QR code. The implications are obvious:

“Imagine a world without cash. Every payment, from a morning coffee to a secret gift, must pass through digital channels. The state sees everything. The banks control access. A dissenting voice, a suspicious donation, an inconvenient purchase – any could trigger scrutiny, denial, or punishment.”(69)

And we don’t have to don our tin foil hats when speculating about outcomes. Dissenting voices are already most unwelcome in much of the West and have been since the ‘pandemic’, a reality exemplified by the EU (amongst others), which is embroiled in a dispute with Big Tech – predominantly the American strain – allegedly on behalf of consumers, but actually just the latest attempt to censor content and gain access to user data.

The Commission has fined Apple €1.75 billion, Google €2.95 billion and Meta €200 billion.(70) ‘Trusted Flaggers’ (also known as EU-funded snitches tasked with notifying Brussels of ‘problematic’ content) are already hard at work and, in the second quarter of 2025 alone, were responsible for the deletion or restriction of 29 million posts.(71) And there has been no pushback from any state; not even Hungary.

Pedro Sánchez, still Spain’s Prime Minister due to a wantonly fraudulent election,(72) let the cat out of the bag at the WEF’s latest shindig. Cliché followed cliché in a masterpiece of transparent misdirection, as he called for the digital public space to be brought under the control of the state, a necessary tactic in the existential battle to control ‘misinformation’ and ‘cyber bullying’.(73) Anonymity would go the way of all things and users would need a state-verified ID to post. Naturally, that which is displeasing will most definitely be scrutinised and punished.(74)

That future is already here for those unwise enough to unburden themselves of wrongthink in the UK. There, sending ‘grossly offensive messages’ or sharing content which is of an ‘indecent, obscene or menacing nature’ – both definitions characterised by their subjective nature – will get you up to two years in which to reflect upon the flaws in your character, plus a hefty fine.(75) Tens of thousands have also been arrested for messages that simply cause annoyance:

“Any person in the UK not fully in agreement with the regime must constantly evaluate whether what he says, in any forum, including in private conversations, may lead to his arrest and imprisonment...the population cowers in uncertainty and fear, never knowing when the pounding on the door at four in the morning will come.”(76)

The Swiss, not wanting to be tail-end Charlie, recently jailed a man who expressed a degree of scepticism about claims that skeletons are transgender.(77) A Spanish priest is looking at up to three years free accommodation at his government’s expense (plus fines) for stating the bleeding obvious in a letter, namely that interfaith dialogue between Christians and Muslims is a chimera as “Islam does not allow for dialogue. You are either a believer or you are an infidel who must be subdued one way or another.”(78)

The German establishment, neurotic to a fault, reclassified its main opposition – the AfD – as a “confirmed right-wing extremist” organisation and, in other news, rocked up at Damian N’s abode and arrested him for the crime of calling the government ‘parasites’, as they live off taxes.(79)(80) I could have cited examples from Ireland, France, Down Under, Canada – all over. And these instances have been limited to those who are identifiable. I imagine there are hordes of anonymous dissidents who will be obliged to unmask themselves soon enough. With all data accessible and in one place, there would no longer be a need to initiate proceedings. The threat of a negative interest rate or a glitch in the matrix which disappears that central bank money would concentrate minds admirably.

The BIS version of a CBDC, intended to be an agglomeration of a basket of currencies, is mirrored by the efforts of at least 114 countries worldwide, accounting for 98% of global GDP.(81) Not simply a digital currency, then, but a virtual currency that only exists at the pleasure of a central bank – the most consequential of whom answer to the BIS. Given that it is central banks that issue a country’s existing fiat currency, it is accurate – but highly misleading – to claim that a CBDC is simply a digital copy of the paper version. Of course, the paper version physically exists, whilst the digital version doesn’t.

Every digital currency, bar crypto, will inevitably be issued by a central bank, so they will all be CBDCs. Crypto-currencies are (potentially) kryptonite, provided they are still decentralized and not listed on an exchange. But they represent a loophole that must be eliminated, either via co-option or force majeure. After all, there would be no point in going cashless if crypto is allowed to continue flourishing, but I imagine that much smoke and mirrors will accompany the transition. Many freedom advocates are likely to become emotional when their back-up plan comes under threat.

There is an overarching element to the coming transition that nobody seems to be talking about. The BIS has a unique legal status, equivalent to that of a national state. It is rarely referenced in the mockingbird media, but it sits at the apex of the global system of fiat currency. It’s allegedly owned by the fifty-five central banks that are its members. These central banks are a hotchpotch in terms of ownership – most were either state-owned since their inception or have been nationalised in the interim. The Federal Reserve, profligate printer of the current global reserve currency, is not amongst them. It is privately owned and it collects billions of dollars in annual interest, which is distributed to shareholders:

“The FED creates money from nothing, and loans it back to us through banks and charges interest on our currency. The FED also buys government debt with money printed on a printing press, and charges U.S. taxpayers interest.”(82)

It would, therefore, be prudent to assume that the BIS is in thrall to Wall Street, although other banks also have a stake in the Fed, including Rothschilds of London and Berlin and the Warburg banks of Hamburg and Berlin – perhaps it would more accurate to refer to the comptrollers as the international banking cartel.(83) It would also be wise to assume that any individual national digital currencies will be ‘interoperable’ with whatever the BIS comes up with.

This umbrella organisation, like the IMF, World Bank and most other supranational organisations, is simply a façade whose main function is to obscure the machinations of the public/private entities which control it and whose secondary function is to make like a punching bag when things go pear-shaped – Tedros being the subject expert in those regards. This latter requirement is unlikely to be called upon in this instance, as the bank’s very existence is seemingly a third-rail topic. And the question as to how the whole digital mania has come about is left unaddressed, leaving the impression that it’s organic and inexorable, when it’s neither.

To summarise, then; digital IDs and CBDCs are inbound, 2030 is the deadline imposed by our enemies, national currencies will be synched, the BIS – whose most influential member is privately owned - seems poised to take centre stage and incestuous public/private corporatism is all over everything. Some will undoubtedly assert that there is nothing inherently wrong with digitalisation and they’d be right, up to a point. King Canute gets a bad rap for trying to halt the incoming tide – although he was, in fact, likely demonstrating the limit of his powers to his courtiers – and resisting the inevitability of change is equally fruitless. But there are problems here that are simply insurmountable and our leaders have track records that are riddled with hubris and deception. Digitalisation doesn’t have to mean enslavement, but it will, nonetheless.

The loss of privacy that will accompany the digital rollout cannot be defrayed, no matter what the establishment says. There will be a record of everything and we will have no real idea who gets to have access to that data. The ‘efficiency’ of having all our information in one location is majorly offset by the vulnerabilities. Those of us who are still sentient beings know that we cannot trust anything we are told, unless we are able to verify – and we won’t be able to verify. The ostriches in our midst, committed to a policy of appeasement no matter the provocation, long ago made their peace with the surveillance state, usually via some variation of ‘I have nothing to worry about as I’m not doing anything wrong’. In due course, they will learn that their definition of ‘wrong’ may not comport with that of our dear leaders.

The second major issue is exponentially more problematic; having the ins and outs of every facet of our lives logged is one thing. But having the ability to manage those lives is another level and, if the digital currency is programmable, that’s exactly what the Tech Lords’ algorithm will be able to do. It will be programmable, because that’s the whole point of it, and the central bank will set the rules. The following quotes are from the Deputy Managing Director of the IMF and the then-General Manager of the BIS, respectively:

“CBDC can allow government agencies and private sector players to program [CBDC] to create smart-contracts, to allow targeted policy functions...By programming, CBDC money cab be precisely targeted [to] what kind of things people can own, and what kind of use [for which] this money can be utilised.”(84)

“The key difference with the CBDC is the central bank will have absolute control on the rules and regulations that will determine the use of the expression of central bank liability and also we will have the technology to enforce that.”(85)

We know how that will go.

Citations

(1) https://expose-news.com/2025/05/30/governance-where-ai-controls-all-aspects-of-life/

(2) https://www.covidcreds.org/

(3) https://www.commonpass.splashthat.com/

(4) https://www.axios.com/2020/05/10/coronavirus-health-screening-digital-id

(5) https://survivethenews.com/austrians-who-refuse-covid-vaccines-to-face-monthly-fines-under-new-law/

(6) https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/02/france-deactivates-4-million-vaccine-passports-forcing-double-jabbed-citizens-decide-taking-booster-shunned-society-video/

(7) https://mises.org/wire/italys-covid-despotism-just-got-worse

(8) https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/tyranny-looms-as-digital-ids-and-currencies-roll-out-around-the-world/

(9) https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/eidas-regulation

(10)https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/05/the_covid_passport_fascism_at_hand.html

(11) Ditto

(12) https://expose-news.com/2024/11/26/us-market-for-connecting-online-actions/

(13) https://link.liminal.co/research/67336e5f0402b57725ca0900

(14) https://id2020.org/alliance

(15) https://www.gavi.org/investing-gavi/funding/donor-profiles

(16) https://expose-news.com/2025/05/21/whos-pandemic-agreement-is-adopted/

(17) https://expose-news.com/2025/10/09/digital-id-rollout-everywhere-not-just-conspiracy/

(18) Ditto

(19) https://expose-news.com/2025/10/08/global-digital-id-has-been-tested/

(20) https://brownstone.org/articles/eu-digital-identity-wallet-pilots-roll-out-under-the-radar/

(21) https://reclaimthenet.org/the-eu-wants-all-citizens-to-have-a-digital-id-by-2030

(22) https://expose-news.com/2025/04/17/eu-digital-identity-wallet/

(23) https://www.foxnews.com/world/starmers-digital-id-work-requirement-sparks-uproar-from-uks-left-right

(24)

The Rational Forum

They said it was to save kids from porn. Now your passport’s on the dark web — and your NHS record is next.

On 25 July 2025, the Online Safety Act’s children’s safety duties came into force, and the British internet changed overnight. Parliament had intended to shield children from pornography, self-harm forums, and algorithmic bullying, instead, it required every major platform likely to be accessed by under-18s to implement…

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10 months ago · 14 likes · The Rationals

(25) Ditto

(26) https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/11/uk-digital-id-the-britcard-bait-and-switch/

(27-34) Ditto

(35) https://manofmany.com/tech/australias-national-digital-id-what-is-it-whos-eligible-how-does-it-impact-your-privacy

(36) https://digitalidentityindex.com/digital-id-in-new-zealand-trends-and-policy-insights/

(37) https://opinion-canada.ca/digital-id-in-canada-are-we-sleepwalking-into-a-surveillance-state/6593/

(38) https://mises.org/mises-wire/real-id-not-about-keeping-you-safe

(39) Ditto

(40) https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/11/uk-digital-id-the-britcard-bait-and-switch/

(41) https://data.unicef.org/resources/sdg-report-2023

(42) https://expose-news.com/2023/11/07/bill-gates-digital-ids-will-be-mandatory-to-participate-in-society/

(43) https://www.planet-today.com/2023/11/un-says-bill-gates-digital-ids-will-be.html

(44) https://www.mapsofworld.com/answers/regions/countries-not-members-united-nations/

(45) https://www.kiplinger.com/personal-finance/banking/is-your-local-bank-closing-why-branches-are-disappearing-nationwide

(46) Ditto

(47) https://www.gbnews.com/money/bank-branch-closure-uk-cashless

(48) https://www.gbnews.com/money/bank-branch-closure-uk-cashless

(49)

Side Walks

Big Banks Have Left The Building In Rural Canada

American president Donald Trump has big, angry thoughts about our banking system: “Canada does…

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a year ago · 1 like · Gina Miller

(50) https://ncfacanada.org/rural-cash-access-adapts-as-bank-branches-close/

(51) https://www.morningside.nz/news/automatic-teller-machines-could-disappear-across-new-zealand-by-2026/

(52) https://tanea.com.au/en/australias-cash-crisis-deepens-as-atms-and-bank-branches-vanish-nationwide/

(53) https://provoke.fm/blog/breaking-banks-ep608-europe-branchless-banking-ai/

(54) https://parallel-surface.site/en/atm-tekkyo/

(55) https://www.maier-files.com/why-cash-is-quietly-disappearing/

(56) https://www.brookings.edu/articles/cash-will-soon-be-obsolete-will-america-be-ready/

(57) https://www.imf.org/en/publications/wp/issues/2025/03/21/could-digital-currencies-lead-to-the-disappearance-of-cash-from-the-market-565377

(58) https://www.finextra.com/the-long-read/1286/back-to-that-paper-why-cash-isnt-going-anywhere-in-the-near-future

(59) Ditto

(60) https://www.maier-files.com/why-cash-is-quietly-disappearing/

(61) https://www.rethinkingthedollar.com/cashless-control-the-wefs-stealth-push-for-digital-currency-dominance/

(62) https://www.maier-files.com/why-cash-is-quietly-disappearing/

(63-64) Ditto

(65) https://unlimitedhangout.com/2025/03/investigative-series/the-dark-maga-gov-corp-technate-part-1/

(66) https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/11/uk-digital-id-the-britcard-bait-and-switch/

(67) Ditto

(68) https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/11/uk-digital-id-the-britcard-bait-and-switch/

(69) https://www.maier-files.com/why-cash-is-quietly-disappearing/

(70) https://www.zerohedge.com/political/eu-and-uk-launch-digital-war-americas-tech-giants-censorship-trade-policy

(71)https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/11/eu_states_complete_brussels_surveillance_network.html

(72) https://www.elnacional.cat/en/politics/electoral-fraud-third-case-spanish-campaign-melilla-mojacar-gomera_1032780_102.html

(73) https://x.com/newstart_2024/status/1970954790860644501

(74) https://dailysceptic.org/2025/11/16/britains-police-state-unmasked-the-shocking-numbers-clapped-in-handcuffs-over-offensive-social-media-posts/

(75) Ditto

(76) https://mansworldmag.online/on-the-united-kingdom-and-1989-eastern-europe-as-harbinger/

(77) https://jonathanturley.org/2025/10/22/switzerland-goes-to-war-against-free-speech-man-jailed-for-claiming-that-skeletons-reflect-gender/

(78) https://cbn.com/news/world/catholic-priest-spain-facing-prison-time-criticizing-islam

(79)

eugyppius: a plague chronicle

Domestic spy agency declares Alternative für Deutschland to be a "confirmed right-wing extremist" organisation, as authorities inch closer to banning the party

This morning, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) officially reclassified Alternative für Deutschland as a “confirmed right-wing extremist” organisation. The BfV is Germany’s primary domestic intelligence agency; it is subject to the Ministry of t…

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a year ago · 651 likes · 397 comments · eugyppius

(80)

eugyppius: a plague chronicle

German police raid a libertarian's home for the crime of calling civil servants "parasites," advise him to "Think carefully about what you post in future"

A new insane German speech crime investigation just dropped…

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10 months ago · 558 likes · 268 comments · eugyppius

(81) https://coinledger.io/research/cbdc-developments

(82) https://www.facts-are-facts.com/news/the-federal-reserve-is-privately-owned

(83) Ditto

(84)

(85) https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/11/uk-digital-id-the-britcard-bait-and-switch/

Figure 1 https://expose-news.com/2024/11/26/us-market-for-connecting-online-actions/

Figure 2 https://expose-news.com/2025/05/21/whos-pandemic-agreement-is-adopted/

Figure 3 https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/11/uk-digital-id-the-britcard-bait-and-switch/

The first thing to note is that they are all Technocrats, a moniker that sounds illuminating, but is anything but. What does it actually mean? Is it a definition of people like Andreessen, who believe that technology can solve all the world’s problems? It sounds like a word used to describe some form of elite – presumably the ‘crat’ is pilfered from ‘aristocrat’ – so maybe a Technocrat is a member of the top brass in the tech industry? Well, often they are, but it transpires that the denizens of the C-suite also share belief systems that are malformed and malignant. There are two versions of their creed, but the fundamentals are the same. Musk dropped a clue when he referred to himself as “dark MAGA”, whilst speaking at Trump’s second rally at Butler, Pennsylvania.

He was referring to the ideology of the Dark Enlightenment, although Thiel is the tip of that particular spear and Musk himself is the leading Technocrat, two sociopolitical theories that “have considerable overlap and are mutually reinforcing.”(1) Technocracy is not a recent invention – Musk’s grandfather was a regional leader of Technocracy Inc. in the 1930s (2) and, in 1941, he joined the Canadian Social Credit Party, nomenclature that should ring alarm bells. The party championed an early version of Universal Daily Income. The latter-day Musk is very much a fan of this idea. In 2017, he stated that “we will have to have some kind of universal basic income”, although by 2024, he had upgraded; “we won’t have universal basic income, we’ll have universal high income”.(3)

Why would this be desirable? Because of the onset of the epoch of Artificial Intelligence, “an age of abundance.”(4) The detail of why AI and UBI – emphasis on the ‘universal’ – would establish a symbiotic relationship is seldom fleshed out, even though the answer is obvious; more AI-based decision-making, less jobs for humans. And the jobs that will be nuked will not just be on the assembly line:

“Doctors, lawyers, engineers, architects will be needed only in small numbers...AI’s ability to rapidly search data bases eliminate most purposes of the upper professional classes.”(5)

Billy G reckons nine out of ten jobs will go.(6) Amazon is ahead of the curve, axing 14,000 corporate jobs in favour of the algorithm.(7) Welcome to a new Golden Age, in which the more jobs excised, the fewer the customers for the goods the robots are now making. One does not need to be a Luddite to harbour misgivings over The Fourth Industrial Revolution, as it is markedly different from those that preceded it – and not in a good way:

“The underlying mechanism of job creation in ... historical examples rested on a clear distinction: technology enhanced or replaced physical labor and routine, low-level cognitive tasks, while simultaneously creating new demands for human intellect, creativity and problem-solving.”(8)

Musk is fine with that, as are the others. He’s also down with a social credit system. The Technocrats aren’t sentimental types and time waits for no man. Back in the day, Technocracy Inc. defined its guiding principles “the science of social engineering”, whereby “the entire social mechanism [works] to distribute goods and services to the entire population.”(9) The necessary technology didn’t exist then, but it does now.

In the 1930s, the progressives took aim at the waste and inefficiency engendered by ‘conspicuous consumption’. Aspiring classes tried to ape the class above and it was all distressingly inefficient. Much better to let the technological experts loose, so that all the ‘waste’ could be designed out. An absolutely unintended outcome would be the preservation of the status of those high on the totem pole, while the upstarts parvenus would be slapped down - Big Brother knows best. Big Brother no longer being the government; there are no national governments in Technocracy. Instead, a society should be separated into “a sequence of functions”, a sequence that doesn’t include society, which is rendered inefficient and obsolete - “instead, centralised control of all human interactions and behaviour is proposed as part of the social mechanism.”(10) The entirety of the ‘social mechanism’ is called a Technate.

Technocracy does not recognise the nation state. Technates will be on a continental scale, in the manner of the European Union. All resources will be centrally controlled, by a group of ‘experts’:

“To be clear: an entire continent – a Technate – is controlled by a self-appointed body which selects its great leader – the Continental Director – from within its own ranks. This self-appointed body controls everything in the Technate.”(11)

The intellectual giants in the movement thought it appropriate to study the behaviour of cow herds and chicken flocks and decided that they could justify their totalitarian, hierarchical social system by adopting the concept of ‘peck rights’, or the natural superiority of some dominant individuals. This was all grist to the mill for Technocrats who rejected the principle that all men are created equal and instead viewed the ‘human animal’ as “little more than a behavioural automaton.”(12) To them, we have no mind, conscience or will. Instead, “we are nothing more than an “organic machine” that makes a certain variety of “motions and noises”, similar...to a dog or a vehicle.”(13)

Once again, the Tech Bros are disciples of this ideology. They see themselves as members of the group of experts. They propose a further innovation, one that will eliminate inefficiencies and waste – Energy Certificates - to replace money, which will be equitably distributed according to the amount of energy a particular function requires. There would be no need to fret about calculations – the Distribution Sequence would take care of that. Once all the necessary stuff is deducted from the total, the remainder will be distributed ‘equitably’. There is one tiny caveat:

“”If” there are remaining means, after those with sufficient “peck-rights” have taken the resources they need for their function - “a sort of overhead” - the “remainder” would be allocated “fairly” to the “human animals” and considered sufficient for them to perform their function.”(14)

Don’t be thinking you’d still be able to indulge yourself with a luxury or two, either. Each Certificate could only be used to purchase stuff provided by Continental Control which will be monitoring your spending habits, on the lookout for signs of frivolity. All personal details will be linked to the Certificate and, with that, the surveillance state is complete. In the Thirties, such a system was unenforceable but, in the here and now, all it would take would be an all-encompassing digital ID along with a centrally controlled digital currency and AI could manage the back-office.(15) Both the ID and the currency are on their way, carbon credits are already here, the Chinese do a nice line in social credit scores and we, in the West, have endured similar strictures due to the censorship, de-banking and other assorted punishments that are reserved for ‘wrongthinkers’.

That’s the Musk and Bezos nirvana. A parallel philosophy – the Dark Enlightenment, aka the neoreactionary movement (NRx) – takes aim at the real ruling entity, which they term ‘The Cathedral’. To you and I, this would be the practical result of the long march through the institutions – it’s “not a formal structure of the state, but rather the dominant progressive ideology of those exercising a controlling influence over the state.”(16) The NRx believes that the state can be separated from the ruling entity and run in a more efficient manner. The resultant ‘sovereign corporations’ will then form a patchwork of neostates (they do like to preface as many words as possible with ‘neo’).

The prophets of the NRx – including the aforementioned Nick Land and a Curtis Yarvin – are much taken with a Marxian theory of capitalist economies espoused by an Austrian economist, Joseph Schumpeter, who postulated that such economies were constantly evolving as new technologies laid waste to old markets and created new ones. Existing monopolies could, potentially, be bypassed. In his view, the resultant upheaval would realign the social and political order.(17) Land believes that the rapid advance of technological growth will result in ‘the singularity’, a self-perpetuating intelligence that will destroy capitalist societies. For reasons that escape me, the NRx believes that we should adapt to the coming apocalypse by accelerating the “creative destruction of social, economic and political systems” and try to keep pace.(18) I didn’t say it had to make sense.

Thiel, Altman, Andreessen and their buddies have been hard at work, accelerating. What this entails in practice, is funding technology start-ups, which either sink or swim. The UK government and EU member states are also fully on board with accelerationism. Interestingly, much of the money has been used to develop defence and surveillance tech. The D3 accelerator, whose leading investors include Thiel, Musk and ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt are testing their AI-based automated targeting systems in Ukraine.(19) What could possibly go wrong?

Things start to go (further) sideways when the NRx try to work backwards from their intended solutions, a flaw that is ever-present in the philosophies of totalitarians. The Cathedral – allegedly marked for creative destruction – will not be keen to do its own legs. Seems reasonable so far. The next bit is when thinks come unglued. Apparently, the Cathedral’s recalcitrance can be traced to the ‘democracy’ that it extols ad nauseam, so democracy needs to go – quod erat demonstrandum. Obvious, when you think about it. As Yardin would have it:

“The only way to escape the domination of canting, moralizing apparatchiks [the Cathedral and its acolytes] is to abandon the principle of vox populi, vox dei, and return to a system in which government is immune to the mental fluctuations of the masses.”(20)

Or, as Altman put it recently:

“I think technology does a great deal to lift the world to more abundance...I still expect that there will be some change required to the social contract..[T]he whole structure of society will be up for some degree of debate and reconfiguration.”(21)

Well, if it’s that or ‘the singularity’, how could we possibly refuse? Of course, nobody with an IQ above room temperature would regard the Cathedral as a manifestation of democracy. If we define it as roughly equivalent to the Administrative State, unrepresentative representatives and societies’ captured institutions combined, it is an entity that has become entirely undemocratic. The new masters of the universe will be those with sufficient means to buy out the Cathedral’s existing ‘shareholders’, yet the only people with enough resources to do that are the existing oligarchs of the Cathedral, the ones who already ‘own the state’. The NRx are, in fact, proposing a consolidation, not a revolution. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

And a person of average perspicacity might point out that a potential singularity could only come about because of accelerationism and the drive to deify AI. There are no parallel tracks here. If there is a steroidal Deep Blue out there somewhere, it will have been created by the likes of Thiel and Musk. But logic is not the NRx’s strong suit – the connective tissue that should bind the facts to their conclusions is conspicuous by its absence. Polemics rool, okay? This is Andreessen’s hero, Land:

“The dynamics of democratization [are] fundamentally degenerative: systematically consolidating and exacerbating private vices, resentments, and deficiencies until they reach the level of collective criminality and comprehensive social corruption. The democratic politician and the electorate are bound together by a circuit of reciprocal incitement, in which each side drives the other to ever more shameless extremities of hooting, prancing cannibalism, until the only alternative to shouting is being eaten.”(22)

The latter half of the second sentence is an accurate description of American politics, although the inside-the-Beltway cabal are wholly responsible for their own psychopathy – blaming it on the electorate is a cop-out. And the first sentence is the only interpretation that is available to those who deny the reality of human nature; no system of government is ever bullet-proof, because humanity is imperfect and power corrupts. ‘Democracy’, in whatever form, may be more resistant to latent autocrats than most schemas, but it can still be undermined by the personality type that exists in every society, the one that always thinks that it knows best and anyone that cannot get with that programme should be subjugated or destroyed. A reboot would, therefore, be a good thing – just not the kind that the Technocrats have in store for us.

The Dark Enlightenment types, bidding to move on from ‘modernity 1.0’ – the globalist template – are committed to accelerating and deepening every crisis that happens along (and, no doubt, instigating some of their own) in a bid to break the Cathedral’s hold on power; “to be reborn it is first necessary to die, so the harder the ‘hard reboot’ the better.”(23) ‘Modernity 2.0’, whether it be the version favoured by the Technocrats or the NRx’s wet dream, is a dictatorship. A select few have absolute authority and the boss is either a Continental Director or the CEO of gov-corp. And the rest of us? Naturally, Land has a solution:

“Insofar as voters are worth bribing, there is no need to entirely exclude them from this calculation, although their portion of sovereignty will be estimated with appropriate derision.”(24)

That’s because “people are, on average, not very bright”,(25) an affliction that can be remedied by turning us all into ‘technoplastic beings’ and transcending the limitations of our species:

“‘Humanity’ becomes intelligible as it is subsumed into the technosphere...to describe this circuit, as it consumes the human species, is to define our bionic horizon: the threshold of conclusive nature-culture fusion at which a population becomes indistinguishable from it’s technology.”(26)

We can then be programmed as required. I appreciate that it all seems a bit far-fetched. I don’t imagine that the Tech Bros are fundamentally distinct from the would-be and actual totalitarians that are always with us – it’s simply that their theories are a little more wackadoodle than most. And it wouldn’t be worth devoting thinking time to a skulk of wing nuts who could safely be ignored. But they can’t be ignored, can they? “Their oligarch network is indistinguishable from the Trump administration. Currently, the most powerful nation on earth is in their hands.”(27) And their plans are far more advanced than we think – numerous ‘initiatives’ that we associate with the enemy are integral to the schemes of our ‘friends’.

We can, perhaps, agree that there are a raft of proposals championed, most vociferously, by the WEF that, if implemented, would spell the end of whatever freedoms we still possess. Some of these proposals are more in-your-face than others and the two that, together, constitute the biggest threat are the imposition of a digital ID and some form of centralised, programmable digital currency. But there are others; social credit scores, UBI, 15-minute cities, Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), the Internet of Bodies and the Internet of Things, ‘combatting mis- and dis- information’, centralised control of resources, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the Great Reset, the promotion of supranational, unelected entities and continuous ululating about humanity’s saviour, Artificial Intelligence.

These are the policies of our enemies. They are the machinery of control. The narrative that we are currently being fed is that the election of Donald Trump is a poke in the eye to the globalists and Davos Man, that the President’s priorities are concerned with an onshoring of the national sovereignty that was being surrendered by the Leftists. His abandonment of the WHO and the Paris Climate Accords are both touted as proof of this commitment, as is his decidedly lukewarm relationship with NATO. His tariff policies are certainly antithetical to globalism and his sabre rattling is distinctly jingoistic. He wants to give the Rust Belt life and force a return of manufacturing industry. None of that sounds anything like the Technocrats’ Great Reset.

Appearances can be deceptive. The shallowest interpretation of MAGA – the one that simply glories in the return of a strong, independent entity – isn’t in conflict with the concept of a Continental Technate; it might even make the transition easier. The deeper meaning, which might usefully be defined as making the lived experience of Americans great again, is clearly not part of the Technocratic plan. Us ‘human animals’ only approach some level of utility once we’re technoplastic, remember? Dr Evil’s mini-me at the WEF, Yuval Noah Harari, has kindly devoted some of his valuable time to mulling the fate of those who refuse to go the cyborg route and it’s difficult to detect a concern for the lives of ordinary folk:

“The biggest question maybe in economics and politics in the coming decades will be what to do with all these useless people? The problem is more boredom, what to do with them and how they will find some sense of meaning in life when they are basically meaningless, worthless....my guess at present is a combination of drugs and computer games.”(28)

As the WEF’s wish list is a route map to that flavour of purgatory, at this juncture two questions present themselves; how far advanced are these plans and how do they fit into the schemes of the Tech Bros? That second question – a blindingly obvious one – is being avoided like the plague, by friend and foe alike, for reasons that will swiftly become apparent.

For instance, the conceit that functions can be assigned a worth commensurate with energy usage finds a contemporary echo. Carbon dioxide, the ‘pollutant’ whose ubiquity is most responsible for the climate Armageddon which is rapidly approaching – it now comprises a whopping 0.04% of Earth’s atmosphere – is the boogeyman that keeps on giving. Efforts to punish the citizenry with carbon taxes are being floated repeatedly – in 2023, the US Senate was burbling about trying to sneak one in while the doltish voters were hyperventilating about the latest distraction – even though voters reject the idea by a margin of 44%.(29)(30)(31) When that cunning plan failed to achieve lift-off, the baton was passed off to the UN which, within the last month, tried to force through a global carbon shipping tax, despite the fact that it lacks the authority to tax anyone for anything.(32) Both plans would further impoverish the non-elites, who are already being battered by surging inflation. The latter plan is a thinly veiled attempt to kneecap Literally Hitler’s attempt to rout the climatistas:

“The UN’s shipping carbon tax is not just another climate policy – it’s a direct assault on US economic independence. By driving up costs for businesses and consumers, it would weaken America’s position in global trade while empowering unelected globalists to dictate financial policy.”(33)

Trump has told the UN to pound sand, but the damage was done in April this year when countries agreed to reduce shipping emissions to Net Zero by 2030. The ‘rich countries’ dragged their heels, but small island nations were lauded for pushing the deal, no doubt from a place of moral outrage and absolutely not because the funds raised would no doubt be channelled to them.(34) The deal has been postponed by a year after 47 called it a ‘green scam’, but the globalists will be back.(35) They are determined to continue the pretence, but are most keen to avoid a confrontation that would require them to defend the merits of their case. They’d rather everyone continue to worship at the altar of ‘settled science’; any talk of a scam likely gives them the heebie-jeebies, along with a strong desire to disengage. Much depends on propping up the rotting edifice of climate change. Becoming aware of data like the following is very much not favourite, no matter the risible attempt to spin it:

Figure 1

The ESG programme, for one, would go the way of all things. The DEI subset is already suffering death by a thousand cuts, but the carbon racket is essential to the global economic ‘reorganisation’, as any tax will be used to crush smaller businesses, leaving only the largest corporations which can withstand the burden. If a man can be known by his friends, a plan can be illuminated by the identity of its supporters; any initiative championed by “globalist think tanks and non-profits partnered with the biggest corporations and central banks” (36) is intended to be to our detriment:

“Sure, tax dollars from rich countries will also be redistributed to poor countries, but this money will not be going to the destitute in Africa or Asia. It will be going into the hands of more corporations, more non-profits and more politicians. In the end, the middle class which made the west a beacon of freedom will disappear completely. Everyone will be equal – We will all be equally poor.”(37)

In other words, another brick in the wall. And, although there is no surface connection to the the Technocrats’ gov-corps, the direction of travel is easy to spot. Technates can only work if the centre controls all resources – how else can “the entire social mechanism [work] to distribute goods and services to the entire population”? The attempted macro heist is accompanied by the micro, an obvious precursor to the Technocrats’ unit of currency, the Energy Certificate. The French call it a Coût Environnemental (an Eco Score), to be introduced by 2026.(38) The Eurocrats have their carbon food labels, complete with traffic light system – it won’t surprise you to learn that peas get a green light, whilst beef gets a flashing red, accompanied by warning klaxons.(39) One suspects that the plan calls for pre-packaged, seed-oil laden offerings found in row two, the quicker to exit the useless eaters, stage left.

Figure 2

The European Commission has also kindly launched the PEF Score (Product Environmental Footprint Score),(40) and the Brits have come up with the high-falutin’ WLCA – a ‘whole life carbon assessment for the built environment’. Not only can the wretched citizen be harried on the food front – he can also be forced to live in whatever shoebox the ‘experts’ decree to have the lowest ongoing, carbon footprint.(41) Because keeping CO2 out of the atmosphere is the only way life will be sustainable. We are not to fixate on the fact that plants do not grow in the quantity and quality that mankind needs at less than about 180ppm (parts per million) of CO2. We were dangerously close to that level and now we are at around 440ppm. There’s a reason why gardeners used CO2 in greenhouses.

Figure 3

But, for most of us, the climate change narrative isn’t going anywhere – it’s integral to the grand plan. And the nexus between the globalists and their professed enemies, Andreessen at al, ought to jar. Both intend to centralise control of resources and both are wedded to the imposition of a system that leverages units of energy as a mechanism to achieve their ends. Furthermore, without the ‘S’ in ESG – sustainability – very little of what is being attempted would be justifiable and without the climate change scam there would be no ESG.

That narrative must be sustained, even though it is now rapidly collapsing – by 2023, 60% of US voters had worked out that it was really about power and control,(42) which explains why only 7% would be willing to pay $100 or more monthly to combat the ‘existential crisis’.(43) A separate poll confirmed that the 60% are smarter than the top 1% think they are:

“Nearly six in ten elite members believe there is too much individual freedom in America, more than two-thirds favour rationing of food and energy to combat climate change, somewhere between a half and two-thirds favour banning things like SUVs, gas stoves, air conditioning and non-essential travel...”(44)(45)

I strongly suspect that these sentiments are not exclusive to America.(46) Not that it matters much – the entire history of what started life as the global warming movement is that of a top-down tyranny, a ritualised performance that has never engaged the ordinary punter, because to engage would be to lose the argument. Thus, the sustainability imperative just sits there, undergirding power grabs, but with foundations of sand. The only thing it has going for it is that it sounds like something we should all get behind, which is why the word was chosen. Who wants to be the sourpuss arguing that unsustainability is preferable?

However, energy, vital though it is, can be temporarily done without. First amongst equals vis-a-vis resources is food. Unlike all other resources (with the exception of water), food is an essential that cannot be postponed. Control of the food supply, for the Technocrat, is non-negotiable. It translates to absolute control of a populace. It allows for the picking of winners and losers, especially when combined with a digital regime. One would therefore expect that carbon food labels and the like would be just one of many stratagems to be deployed and one would not be wrong. The campaign to whittle away independence, empower near-monopolies, engineer shortages and manipulate choice is well under way. And, once again, we are forcibly reminded that we are in a master-slave relationship with those who rule over us.

We are all no doubt familiar with the ‘let them eat bugs’ aficionados, with Gates to the fore, once again. We may be thinking that this is one battle that we are winning, what with the epic failure of brands like Beyond Meat, whose stock is currently trading at around 50 cents, down from a peak of $239.71 in 2019.(47) Other purveyors of “beloved food items such as plant-based mince meat and burgers” are also circling the drain,(48)(49) as the bottom falls out of the fake meat market post-pandemic – perhaps an indication that the Normies might be waking up. But the other half of the scheme is alive and kicking.

There being more than one way to skin our feline friends, creating scarcity is the straight right behind fake meat’s jab. Farmers are being financially squeezed from all directions, whether that be the seed companies, machinery manufacturers or the monopolies that buy their produce. Small farmers are being liquidated, using a variety of tactics. In the UK, it’s environmental policies and tax raids, in addition to the existing, systemic stresses.(50)(51) In Europe, the fertiliser wars have been waged intermittently for the past five years. In the US, dependency on foreign beef imports is growing as the domestic herd is reduced to a 70-year low, not because of a widespread drought – the media narrative – but because the Big Four meat processors import more beef, rather than expanding domestic production:(52)

“Now the effects of relying on ever-increasing volumes of imports to satisfy growing domestic consumption include reducing demand for U.S.-born and -raised cattle and their price. And this, in turn, reduces the profitability for domestic ranchers. And now we know why over half the beef cattle ranchers in business just four decades ago are gone today.”(53)

Reduced autonomy equates to increased dependence and the tap can be turned off anytime. Additional pressure is being brought to bear by the wholesale destruction of food processing plants and poultry farms. Over twenty major plants went up in smoke and tens of millions of farm birds were barbecued in situ in 2021/22.(54) That’s in addition to the alleged bird flu pandemic that swept across the US and Europe between 2020 and 2022, which resulted in the culling of tens of millions more.(55) The carnage continued on into 2023,(56) and the fact-checkers did their level best to ‘debunk’ rumours of a coordinated campaign. Apparently, it was all perfectly normal – except it wasn’t.

Figure 4

Wild fires have also taken their toll on the herds, often breaking out in the worst possible locations. US cattle are now electronically tagged – a protocol copied from the EU – and fires are being set year round; this one in Texas was when there was snow on the ground and it consumed the grazing lands in the north west of Texas.

Figure 5

If the current means of food production can be captured by the Technocrats, they can jigger with it however they please. There is no doubt that the push for GMO products, for instance, is not primarily driven by a desire to provide benefit to the customer, but is instead a thinly-veiled attempt to patent all available foods and control access – you can’t patent a tomato, but you can patent a GMO tomato:

“If you control the food supply for any living organism, you control the organism, and humans are no different. The powerful have been slowly modifying the food of humans with all sorts of hormones, antibiotics and God knows what else for both profit and to affect physical change in the human body.”(57)

Bill Gates and his fellow Technocrats want to take it one step further, naturally. He says he wants to ‘improve’ the genetics of farm animals by injecting them with mRNA ‘vaccines’.(58) Robert Malone has shown that Bayer and BioNTech (of Covid fame) have been developing mRNA ‘therapeutics’ for animals since 2016.(59) Merck have been selling mRNA ‘vaccines’ for influenza A in swine since early 2023.(60) But the real shocker is the revelation that an mRNA ‘vaccine’ for Porcine Epidemic Diarrhoea Virus (PEDv) was conditionally authorised sometime before 2015 (61) and has no doubt been in use, on the quiet. We don’t need to be told how damaging the entire mRNA platform is to human health.

And if the eco-zealots get their way, consumers may find themselves allergic to red meat, anyway. Two researchers at Western Michigan University, the types that really should get out more, are of the opinion that government should allow genetically modified ticks to spread alpha-gal syndrome (AGS), a life-threatening allergy to red meat, because climate change. As we know, anything goes when the ends are virtuous:

“Because promoting tickborne AGS prevents something bad from happening, doesn’t violate anyone’s rights, and promotes virtuous action or character, it follows that promoting tickborne AGS is strongly pro tanto (’to that extent’) morally obligatory.”(62)

The idea seems to be degrade and destroy as much healthy food as possible and own and control the supply of what remains. In addition, replace natural foods with GMO versions. Monopolies prosper, independents are eliminated. Control of food systems translates to control of all systems. A global ‘food transformation’ is still hurtling towards us, regardless of the initial failure of the “industrial test-tube sludge” masquerading as food.(63) Net Zero is unequivocal – a diet devoid of beef, lamb and all dairy products by 2050 is non-negotiable.

A simple ban on artificial fertilisers would get things going – see the EU – halving food supplies. Add in restrictions on importing goods, et voila; those with ‘peck rights’ survive, those without slowly fade away. One imagines that achieving and preserving a stellar social credit score would be priority number one. And while it’s certainly the case that, once again, with the exception of Gates (and Bezos), none of the Technocrats have their heads above the parapet, it is nonetheless a fact that the agendas of the WEF, the UN and the likes of the Wellcome Trust and the Rockefeller Foundation are perfectly aligned with their aims. These efforts are largely pursued without fanfare.

The ongoing attempt to censor and ban content that runs counter to official (false) narratives, by governments worldwide, is much more difficult to keep on the down-low, but setting the parameters of permitted discourse is essential if limited free speech is to be normalised; compliance is then rewarded and non-compliance punished. I won’t detail the coordinated campaign again (see The Long March Towards Unreason), because it would be superfluous – we all see it clearly and it’s pretty late in the day. As our rulers accelerate their efforts, their corruption becomes impossible to ignore:

“Once again, policy yields to narrative control – suppressing arguments and evidence that makes the state uneasy. Effort is directed to the administrative management of disbelief: to discipline perception rather than address reality.”(64)

It appears as though various beta tests are being conducted by disparate nations worldwide. Nepal attempted a blanket ban on 26 social media platforms, which prompted an immediate reaction. The usual nonsense served as a predicate – demands for the policing of ‘hate speech’ and ‘disinformation’, an impossibly short compliance deadline and a pulled plug. Dozens of protestors were shot, the ban was rescinded, the prime minister resigned and Kathmandu burned. The country is now a powder keg and the on/off switch is still intact.(65) Predictably, because the story revolved around a government attempting to dismantle free speech, it has been largely buried by the rage cycle of stories about Gaza and Ukraine.

Spain’s alleged ‘political and strategic failure’ – also known as an obsession with renewables that would inevitably result in chaos – finally bore fruit when its national grid (along with Portugal’s and much of France’s) fell over in April of this year; a circumstance that is unlikely to be an anomaly. Electric trains stranded in the middle of nowhere and a run on candles were the least of the citizenry’s worries:

“No payments possible without cash (so no food and transportation), very limited internet and no clue whether it’ll actually be resolved.”(66)

Normalisation, seasoned with a dash of chaos. Perfectamundo. A trial run of a kill switch, whether inadvertently or otherwise – the fact that Catalan mayors received a text message the evening prior (when there were no outages) which stated that “we are working to restore the power supply as quickly as possible”(67) does not hint at an innocent explanation. ‘Experts’ warned that such an event “would paralyse cities and destroy the digital economy.”(68) A reminder that the digital age is fragile, reinforced by the subsequent outage by Amazon Web Services which took down a portion of the internet in late October; banking apps, airlines, SMART devices all offline for hours.(69) Explanations from the untrustworthy that we are required to take on trust. Visions of the tech-savvy Anywheres trying to work out how to access their locked-down homes. A glimpse of the future.

Granted, direct links to our Tech Overlords may seem thin on the ground, but the synergy between globalist initiatives and the desired end-state of the NRx crew is undeniable. The latter may cast themselves as disruptors, but actions speak louder than words. They may well disparage current democratic governance, but that doesn’t mean that they intend to re-empower the rubes – far from it.

But their link to Agenda 21’s 15-minute cities (or sov-corps, in their lexicon) is much more solid. It will be recalled that the UN is most insistent that the world that they see themselves lording over as the century progresses will be more ‘sustainable’ and ‘equitable’ which, in the specific case of housing, means that single-family neighbourhoods are one of the foremost examples of discrimination – or something – and must be phased out in favour of “affordable, multifamily housing.”(70) Of course, what with CO2 being the work of the Devil (where he to exist), the fewer cars the better; so, everything you need will be within fifteen minutes on ever-reliable public transport, fuelled by renewables. And you will rent your apartment – private property is theft, after all.

These new city-states enjoy many different designations; Trump calls them ‘Freedom Cities’, the UN – clunky as ever – refers to them as ‘human settlements’ and to others they are ‘resilient cities’ or ‘charter cities’.(71) All are centrally planned, designed to “maximise the use of technology”, they “share a universal commitment to implement global governance initiatives,” some are almost completed SMART cities and many have a degree of autonomy, granted by the nation state in which they are located.(72) Many are being constructed in ‘Special Economic Zones’ (SEZ).

There are thousands worldwide, distributed between over 135 countries. The usurpation of national governance, in favour of “a worldwide network of privatized, corporate city state “kingdoms” has been embraced.”(73) The result will be indistinguishable from a ‘patchwork of neostates’. And the reason it’s happening is that, as previously posited, the NRx ideologues aren’t training their fire on the globalists:

“The leading NRx technocrats are not the only members of, what we might call, the parasite class who wish to enslave us with digital technology. Nor are they the only oligarchs who want to transform our international polity into a network of city-states overseen by a firm global governance structure. Indeed, the NRx technocrats’ plans have succeeded to this point precisely because they gel with the objectives of the global oligarchy, of which they are a part.”(74)

It turns out that a global dictatorship ruling over the patchwork is fine and dandy – our friend Yarvin refers to this entity as the Orbital Authority,(75) some kind of independent AI superintelligence. I get the impression that Yarvin’s connection to the real world is intermittent. He and his fellow Technocrats rail against the concept of a world government, but the decentralised, privately owned city-state patchwork is to be ruled over by wise and benevolent AI, programmed by...the Technocrats. In short, Yarvin, Thiel and company are brimful of bovine excrement. While the pseudo-intellectual framing of their beliefs obscures the incoherence and explicit tyranny to a degree, the fact that they have not been exposed tells us all we need to know about their establishment bona fides.

They even have their very own playthings in Honduras and, eventually, California. Próspera, backed by Thiel, Andreessen and Altman, is a ZEDE – a zone for employment and economic development – allegedly set up to bring jobs and growth, utilising a ‘new legal concept’ which allows a private company to rule over an enclave that is only subject to Honduras’ basic criminal and constitutional law. Since it was established in 2017, after the US backed a military coup and a puppet president forced a deal through,(76) the entity has paid no taxes and has made the locals’ lives a misery. It makes its own rules, votes are allocated according to wealth, it’s a haven for cryptocurrency (despite a central bank ban), and it majors in ‘longevity biohacking’ and other technoplastic experimentation.(77) In summary, it is akin to a “monstrous carbuncle”.(78)

The idea is to replicate these efforts worldwide, creating a patchwork of privately-owned ‘freedom cities’. The Honduran government, having finally come to its senses, insisted that Próspera toe the line and now finds itself on the receiving end of a lawsuit, launched under the auspices of the Central American Free Trade Act (CAFTA):

“CAFTA lets foreign investors sue governments – and not vice versa – before tribunals accountable to no sovereign state. That means a company can threaten an entire country, but that country has no way to sue those foreign capitalists.”(79)

Thiel and co are seeking $10.8 billion in damages, 31% of the country’s GDP. (80) Nice work if you can get it. Given that three judges in Washington DC will be adjudicating, and that the US Senate and prominent neocons are making all the usual noises about regime change – apparently, Próspera is “a bastion of pro-Americanism, economic freedom & Bitcoin acceptance in socialist Honduras” -(81) I would expect David to lose to Goliath on this occasion. It seems a little early in the piece for a bloody nose for the Technocrats. So, there will likely be yet another dodgy election, due at the end of November, leading to a ‘recalibration’ of the government’s approach and the sov.corps train will keep on rolling.

In addition to the longstanding lock on energy policies and the ongoing attempt to privatise the food supply, there is one further resource that must be corralled – the previously-referenced housing market. One way to do that is to make owning a property exponentially more expensive than renting one. In the US, it’s now twice as expensive to buy an entry-level home than it is to rent.(82) Wall Street is buying up homes by the thousand and, in the first quarter of 2024, nearly a fifth of all homes sold were purchased by investment companies.(83) Blackstone alone owns over 300,000 residential units.(84) BlackRock pay 20-50% higher than the asking price, sight unseen.(85) Even trailer parks are being targeted.(86) By 2030, 40% of single-family rentals will be in the hands of corporations.(87)

“It is crucial to understand the collaborative role of the high-tech industry in all this. Property management by institutional investors...will be facilitated by appliances connected to the internet and algorithmically monitored.”(88)

That would be the good old Internet of Things, to go with the burgeoning Internet of Bodies racket, so far exemplified by Musk’s brain interfaces and the fashionistas who think that paying with their hand impresses the rest of us. In the meantime, ‘density’ is the watch word. To feature alongside ‘redevelopment’ and ‘mixed use’, which usually means retail on the ground floor with apartments above. These projects are not easy to finance, so money that would otherwise have been allocated to maintenance of the existing built environment (via property taxes) is instead being used to ‘redevelop’ inner cities in this way. ‘Transit Village’ is one euphemism we may see pressed into service, but it’s just another synonym for the 15-minute city. They won’t look a whole lot like a village, either.

Figure 6

And don’t imagine that you’ll have the room to swing a kitten once you’re ensconced in your new digs. These village apartments will be suitably miniscule, both as a favour to the tenants (energy costs being what they are) and as a vital bulwark against climate change; the less energy used to heat and cool a home, the less likely it is that runaway global warming will incinerate us.(89) These new urban developments have a minimum of privacy and frequently suffer from high vacancy rates, crime and poor maintenance.

In the US and elsewhere, they are equipped with SMART energy and water technologies which allow agencies to limit usage without consent. These are not policies that are the exclusive preserve of the Americans – every country that signed up to Agenda 21 is playing the same game, which is to say 178 and counting. Strange how very few people know anything much about it; it’s almost like it’s been kept from us.

For those in need of any more evidence of the ideology of the Tech Brethren and the identity of their fellow-travellers, I give you Solano, north west of Oakland, California, the brainchild of that man Andreessen and his buddy Reid Hoffman, funder of Antifa and rabid Never Trumper.(90) Their creation, California Forever, has spent close to $900 million in acquiring 66,000 acres of farmland, upon which they intend to build a 15-minute city, from the ground up, expected to be home to around 400,000 people.(91)(92) Eliminating the motor vehicle appears to be a prime motivation:

“Car light living – our goal is to make it possible for a family to have one car instead of two or three, by making it possible for parents to work locally, and for kids to walk to school.”(93)

The WEF will, no doubt, be ecstatic. In their alternative version of reality, 15-minute cities are somehow vital to our survival as a species:

“As climate change and global conflict cause shocks and stresses at faster intervals and increasing severity, the 15-minute city will become even more critical...[With Covid and its variants keeping everyone home (or closer to home than usual)...meeting all of one’s needs within a walking, biking or transit distance was suddenly a matter of life and death.”(94)

Of course it was, Klaus. Although, to be fair, being within 15 minutes of an emergency room was advisable for those who submitted to the clot shot. What is absent from the parade of non-sequiturs is any mention of privatised governance, yet this is exactly what would come down the pike if they get their way. Solano will be a ‘Freedom City’, operating outside of the national and state legal framework (95) and, when the climate lockdowns kick in – courtesy of the WHO -(96) Chinese-style forced confinement would be easy as pie.

It’s worth noting that the Technocrats are walking a fine line when it comes to ‘global warming’. On the one hand, without the scam, the patchwork that they desire is much less likely to come to fruition, as the climatistas’ policy prescriptions are the Trojan Horse that they require. On the other hand, the blanket imposition of an AI-mediated Technocracy requires vast amounts of energy. Meta is building its biggest data centre in Louisiana – a hyperscaler, in the vernacular – which will use 2.26 megawatts daily, or twice as much energy as New Orleans would use on a hot, mid-August day.(97) By 2028, these centres are expected to “consume 12% of all US energy, or more than California, Florida and New Jersey combined,”(98)(99) the equivalent energy output of 72 nuclear power stations.(100)

One can, perhaps, see why all bar Musk are choosing not to offer any climate-related soundbites that could expose their hypocrisy. Instead, we bear witness to yet another third rail topic, one that even the most rabid, nose-ringed libtard avoids. I’m reminded of the Shane Gillis joke about how tight volleyball shorts for the ladies were essential, until it came time to kit out the Special Olympics team; in similar fashion, rising atmospheric CO2 is an existential threat until suddenly it isn’t.

All in all, then, our newly-minted heroes have feet of clay – just for a change – yet I can find no major league resistance figure prepared to denounce them. They are all billionaires, but that doesn’t mean that they are particularly smart. What it does mean is that they have been chosen by Deep State elements in the CIA and elsewhere who have favoured them and funded them. It also means that that they are largely amoral. Their belief in their own superiority leads them to espouse ideologies that are explicitly anti-human. They claim to be libertarians, but that is simply a rhetorical deception. They aim to consolidate their power and stamp out any last spasms of actual democracy;

“...the proponents of Technocracy and the proponents of the Dark Enlightenment, such as Musk and Thiel, are not interested in restricting state power, though they may say otherwise. Instead they wish to move the state from the public to the private sector and expand its power once sufficiently privatized.”(101)

The MAGA veneer is wafer thin. These Technocrats have far more in common with the WEF than with any America First priorities. Despite their claims, they are aligned with the globalist elites, as are Leftists and neo-cons. The Great Reset, which they are in the business of enabling, is a Leftist wet dream wherein private property is abolished. At bottom, they are progressives:

“Real progress can take many forms but in the minds of the Progressives, there was only one way forward. That way involved the march of the state in league with corporate elites and academics. The most intelligent and credentialed people in society would take possession of society’s resources and organize them more intelligently than they otherwise would be.”(102)

That is the Technocrats in a nutshell – elitist Leftists with grand designs masquerading as MAGA, advancing their agendas whilst keeping their heads down. Their intention is to box us in and rule over us via algorithm. Beyond whatever has been asked and answered in this offering, it seems to me that three questions remain unanswered; how far advanced is the planning for the two fundamental constructs, a programmable digital currency and a linked digital ID? What is AI actually capable of? And has Trump sold us all down the river? That’ll be the last (or, perhaps, last-but-one) piece in the series.

Citations

(1) https://unlimitedhangout.com/2025/03/investigative-series/the-dark-maga-gov-corp-technate-part-1/

(2-4) Ditto

(5) https://www.lewrockwell.com/2025/03/paul-craig-roberts/artificial-intelligence-is-bringing-us-the-communism-that-marx-engels-lenin-mao-and-pol-pot-were-unable-to-deliver/

(6) https://www.theblaze.com/return/trumps-promised-golden-age-collides-with-a-tech-revolution

(7) https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/amazon-plans-axe-30000-corporate-jobs-cuts-begin-tuesday

(8)https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/06/the_unseen_hand_why_ai_s_rise_will_mark_a_new_era_of_net_job_loss.html

(9) https://unlimitedhangout.com/2025/03/investigative-series/the-dark-maga-gov-corp-technate-part-1/

(10-26) Ditto

(27) https://unlimitedhangout.com/2025/03/investigative-reports/the-dark-maga-gov-corp-technate-part-2/

(28) https://rumble.com/v10axoy-harari-useless-peoplereligious-ideas-from-silicon-valley-will-take-over-the.html

(29) https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/5047/text/is

(30) https://dailycaller.com/2023/06/11/opinion-republicans-are-trying-to-sneak-a-carbon-tax-through-the-back-door-mike-mckenna/

(31) https://www.americanenergyalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/AEA-Climate-Survey-23-topline.docx.pdf

(32) https://expose-news.com/2025/10/18/un-to-impose-a-carbon-tax-on-shipping/

(33) Ditto

(34) https://www.the-independent.com/climate-change/news/shipping-emissions-carbon-tax-b2731601.html

(35) https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2025/10/17/landmark-global-shipping-deal-in-tatters-after-us-pressure/

(36) https://alt-market.us/wef-elites-unveil-plan-to-use-carbon-controls-as-a-trojan-horse-for-global-dei/

(37) Ditto

(38) https://worldly.io/resources/introduction-to-environmental-labeling-and-french-eco-score-what-brands-manufacturers-and-retailers-need-to-know/

(39) https://geographical.co.uk/science-environment/what-is-carbon-food-labelling-and-how-can-it-help-the-planet

(40) https://carbontrail.net/glossary/pef-score/

(41) https://www.rics.org/news-insights/wbef/the-uk-s-whole-life-carbon-ecosystem-a-framework-for-decarbonising-the-built-environment

(42)https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/biden_administration/is_climate_change_a_false_religion

(43) https://redstate.com/benkew/2024/02/27/young-people-dont-actually-give-a-damn-about-climate-change-poll-finds-n2170670

(44) https://dailysceptic.org/2024/01/21/two-thirds-of-elite-americans-favour-food-and-energy-rations-to-combat-climate-change-poll-finds/

(45) https://committeetounleashprosperity.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Them-vs-Us_CTUP-Rasmussen-Study-FINAL.pdf

(46) https://dailysceptic.org/2023/04/21/climate-scepticism-on-the-rise-throughout-the-world/

(47) https://www.reuters.com/business/boom-bust-beyond-meat-struggles-stay-relevant-2025-10-23/

(48) https://plantbasednews.org/news/economics/vegan-meat-brand-meatless-prepares-for-bankruptcy/

(49) https://www.foodentrepreneurs.com/news/is-plant-based-going-to-boom-or-bust/

(50) https://expose-news.com/2025/02/26/environmental-policies-are-destroying-tenant-farming/

(51) https://dailysceptic.org/2025/01/15/the-real-reason-behind-the-farmer-harmer-tax/

(52) https://www.cattlerange.com/articles/2025/10/why-the-u-s-cow-herd-is-shrinking-amid-record-beef-prices/

(53) Ditto

(54) https://wltreport.com/2024/01/31/stunning-map-shows-all-food-processing-plants-that/

(55) https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-06/bird-flu-outbreak-nears-worst-ever-in-u-s-with-37-million-dead

(56) https://www.mypatriotsupply.com/blogs/scout/north-american-plant-and-factory-disasters-in-2023

(57)

Malone News

Population Control and Official USG Policy

Personally, I have been reluctant to wander down the rabbit hole relating to various “depopulation agenda” theories involving the COVIDcrisis. However, the odd concordance between a possible population reduction objective and the dysfunctional “public health” policies is obvious to all open minded thinkers. These policies include that the biologically…

Read more

3 years ago · 686 likes · 160 comments · Dr. Robert W. Malone

(58) https://www.eutimes.net/2023/01/bill-gates-intends-to-force-vaccinate-all-farm-animals-with-mrna-tech/

(59)

Malone News

mRNA Vaccines in Livestock and Companion Animals are here now.

Read more

4 years ago · 862 likes · 195 comments · Dr. Robert W. Malone

(60-61) Ditto

(62)https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/10/researchers_consider_infecting_americans_with_ticks_to_make_them_allergic_to_red_meat.html

(63) https://dailysceptic.org/2025/04/16/no-beef-lamb-milk-and-cheese-within-25-years-under-net-zero-government-funded-report-confirms/

(64) https://dailysceptic.org/2025/11/01/these-fractured-isles-britains-drift-towards-civil-war/

(65) https://expose-news.com/2025/09/11/why-nobody-talking-about-chaos-nepal/

(66) https://x.com/Rapha_1217/status/1916858062561849541

(67) https://preppgroup.home.blog/2025/05/08/latest-news-on-the-blackout-in-spain/

(68) Ditto

(69) https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10/21/what-caused-amazons-aws-outage-and-why-did-so-many-major-apps-go-offline

(70) https://governamerica.com/issues/global-issues/un/agenda-21/22181-un-agenda-21-single-family-housing-declared-racist-and-unsustainable

(71) Ditto

(72) https://unlimitedhangout.com/2025/10/investigative-reports/city-states-without-limits-part-1/

(73-75) Ditto

(76)

¡Do Not Panic!

The Trumpists Agitating To Coup Honduras

Prospera, a Peter Thiel-backed crypto ‘city’ running unregulated medical experiments on a Honduran island may very well be the spark for a US coup against Honduras this November…

Read more

a year ago · 47 likes · 5 comments · Nate Bear

(77) https://liberationnews.org/honduras-prospera-investment-colony/

(78) https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/30th-anniversary-of-the-monstrous-carbuncle-speech-11696/

(79) https://liberationnews.org/honduras-prospera-investment-colony/

(80) Ditto

(81)

¡Do Not Panic!

The Trumpists Agitating To Coup Honduras

Prospera, a Peter Thiel-backed crypto ‘city’ running unregulated medical experiments on a Honduran island may very well be the spark for a US coup against Honduras this November…

Read more

a year ago · 47 likes · 5 comments · Nate Bear

(82) https://mishtalk.com/economics/its-now-twice-as-expensive-to-buy-an-entry-level-home-than-rent/

(83) https://www.redfin.com/news/investor-home-purchases-q1-2024/

(84) https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2025/08/25/wall-street-is-killing-the-housing-market/

(85) https://www.wsj.com/economy/housing/if-you-sell-a-house-these-days-the-buyer-might-be-a-pension-fund-11617544801

(86) https://x.com/wallstreetapes/status/1911455356301062237

(87) https://dailycaller.com/2023/02/26/wall-street-housing-shortage-single-family-rentals/

(88) Ditto

(89) Koire, Rosa: Behind The Green Mask: U.N. Agenda 21, The Post Sustainability Press, 2011, page 17.

(90) https://www.cf.org/news/the-billionaires-behind-antifa-funding/

(91)

The Gold Report

Tech billionaires ramp up plans for 15-minute city in California

A group of billionaires behind plans for a 15-minute “walkable” city in Northern California said this week that businesses are ready to set up shop…

Read more

2 years ago · Dr. Simone Gold

(92) https://information-warfare.com/the-battle-for-solano-county-ca-b5e5d551a736

(93)

The Gold Report

Tech billionaires ramp up plans for 15-minute city in California

A group of billionaires behind plans for a 15-minute “walkable” city in Northern California said this week that businesses are ready to set up shop…

Read more

2 years ago · Dr. Simone Gold

(94) Ditto

(95) https://information-warfare.com/the-battle-for-solano-county-ca-b5e5d551a736

(96)

(97) https://amgreatness.com/2025/08/24/hunger-games-ais-demand-for-resources-poses-promise-and-peril-to-rural-america/

(98) Ditto

(99) https://escholarship.org/uc/item/32d6m0d1

(100)

Sustainable AI

How much electricity will data centers use?

My pet peeve is when people quote statistics about energy use and carbon footprint that are out of date, misleading, or in many cases totally made up…

Read more

2 years ago · 6 likes · 4 comments · Brian O'Kelley

(101) https://unlimitedhangout.com/2025/03/investigative-reports/the-dark-maga-gov-corp-technate-part-2/

(102) https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/the-new-conspiracy-theorists-5939636

Figure 1 https://alt-market.us/wef-elites-unveil-plan-to-use-carbon-controls-as-a-trojan-horse-for-global-dei/

Figure 2 https://geographical.co.uk/science-environment/what-is-carbon-food-labelling-and-how-can-it-help-the-planet

Figure 3 https://www.e-education.psu.edu/earth103/sites/www.e-education.psu.edu.earth103/files/module05/image011.png

Figure 4 https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/another-us-food-processing-plant-catches-fire-add-growing-list

Figure 5 https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/everything-gone-texas-wildfire-ravages-americas-cattle-mecca

Figure 6 https://bpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/sites.ucsc.edu/dist/e/102/files/2013/08/Fruitvale-Transit-Village.jpg?bid=102

Larry Ellison is the founder of Oracle, whose first contract was with the CIA, in 1977.(2) Or so the legend goes. In fact, ‘Oracle’ was a CIA programme that Ellison and two other co-founders were developing as agency contractors, before branching out on their own - “Oracle wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for government contracts.”(3) The company has contracts with the NSA, the ATF and the Department of Homeland Security – income sits at around $50 billion a year.(4) The man himself has not been backwards in describing what it is that he has produced:

“The Oracle database is used to keep track of basically everything. The information about your banks, your checking balance, your savings is stored in an Oracle database...[as is] your airline reservation...what books you bought on Amazon...your profile on Yahoo...”(5)

Ellison is involved in Stargate (together with OpenAI), a public-private initiative to build out massive data processing capabilities to power AI. He just assumed control of the US end of TikTok which was, along with Telegram, the only major social media platform without ties to the American Deep State.(6) His son, David, has recently acquired Paramount and is hunting down both CNN and Warner Bros.(7)(8) Ellison is a supporter of President Trump, although he didn’t use to be – he donated more than $35 million to the campaign of Senator Tim Scott between 2020 and 2023.(9) He also gave millions to Marco Rubio – before his unlikely disavowal of the neocon mindset – Mitt Romney, Lindsey Graham and Susan Collins, the latter three despised by MAGA.(10)

Ellison is the man who bailed out Elon Musk when advertisers were squeezing Twitter/X.(11) Ellison is a big fan of AI, touting its usage in developing personalised mRNA cancer ‘vaccines’ (12) and in ensuring that the Great Unwashed play ball:

“Citizens will be on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that’s going on.”(13)

Sam Altman is the founder of OpenAI (along with Musk), the creator of ChatGPT, a WEF Young Global Leader and a Bilderberger thrice over (at least).(14)(15)(16)(17) He is a protegee of Peter Thiel – one of a number. He just scored a deal to provide ChatGPT to all US federal agencies.(18) Altman is another Tech CEO who is now a supporter of Trump, having previously only endorsed Democrats.(19)(20) As recently as 2021, he was still suffering from acute TDS.

Figure 1

He has also founded Worldcoin, aiming to become the world’s largest human identity and financial network. He was backed by Andreessen Horowitz and the execrable Reid Hoffman, funder of Trumpian lawfare and the Arabella network, which bankrolls Antifa.(21)(22) In Argentina, in 2024, when resistance hero Milei reneged on much of his mandate, Worldcoin bought up the biometric data of the financially distressed.(23) Altman is also a fan of UBI:

“I’ve been very interested in things like universal basic income and what’s going to happen to global wealth redistribution and how we can do that better. Is there a way we can use technology to do that at global scale?”(24)

I wonder. David Sacks, another member of the Paypal Mafia (along with Hoffman, Musk and Thiel) is now Trump’s AI czar and a huge fan of crypto – Bitcoin, in particular – as it’s “fulfilling Paypal’s original vision to create “the new world currency.””(25) Trump’s expectation is that Sacks will “safeguard Free Speech online, and steer us away from Big Tech bias and censorship.”(26) Sacks has previously donated to Romney, John McCain and Hillary Clinton, plus taking a punt on J D Vance’s Senate campaign.(27) Now, of course, he’s all-in on Trump.

The combustible Musk is mostly a known quantity, of course. A start with Paypal, from which he was purged, then SpaceX with CIA assistance,(28)(29) then Tesla, Neuralink, the aforementioned OpenAI, Starlink (folded into Space X) and xAI, parent company of Grok. Most of these endeavours are reliant on taxpayer dollars and he has been in financial difficulty on several occasions. The CIA bailed him out in 2008 and Bill Ackman (yet another Tech billionaire) and Ellison did likewise in 2023.(30) And his viability is not dependent upon ‘national security’ industries but, substantially, on the climate scam disfavoured by Trump. His acquisition of Twitter/X – in his account, due to his alleged ‘free speech absolutism’ – has been widely lauded, although his definition of free speech would not be shared by many:

“By “free speech”, I simply mean that which matches the law. I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law. If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws to that effect.”(31)

Thus, between October 2022 and April 2023 Twitter/X complied – at least to some degree – with 99% of the requests from governments and courts to either suppress information or identify private information from anonymous accounts.(32) And, as he has famously stated, his alleged commitment to freedom of speech does not cover “freedom of reach”.(33) The fact that a man who has been saved from bankruptcy by the CIA now owns Twitter/X is, apparently, a third rail topic. He counts Ellison as a mentor, Sacks as an advisor and Altman as a foe. Quite what his relationship is with Trump now is anyone’s guess, but he does have a tendency to burn bridges and he was yet another tardy boarder onto the Trump train.

Then there’s Marc Andreessen and, finally, the Don himself, Peter Thiel and Palantir. Andreessen seems to have been nominated as the acceptable face of the Tech Bros, although there is very little competition for that role; Musk is Musk, Thiel is a mass of contradictions and not simpatico, Altman is accused of sexually abusing his sister for nine years from the age of three,(34) and Zuckerberg and Bezos were last seen slowly riding their tricycles in circles at the bottom of the White House drive, whilst staring in the windows. Andreessen, in contrast, is merely another geeky egghead. Literally.

Figure 2

Having said that, he is not exactly a foible-free zone. This is a man who believes that “there is no material problem...that cannot be solved by more technology”, for instance.(35) On the plus side, he was a backer of Substack and The Free Press, even though he had previously endorsed all the usual suspects – the Clintons, Obama, Kerry and Gore.(36) He believes that Nick Land is a patron saint of what he calls ‘Techno-Optimism’ – more on that shortly,(37) but for now it is enough to know that the latter thinks of us as “inarticulate proles,” due to the fact that “people are, on average, not very bright.”(38)(39) Andreesen’s belated Trump endorsement was not the result of a sudden conversion to the MAGA cause, but to a factor altogether more prosaic:

“Andreessen’s Machiavellian reasons for supporting Trump are obvious. As reported by The Verge, in July 2024 Andreessen spelled out that he and his partners were backing Trump, not because they shared any of the concerns voiced by Republican voters, but because they could use the Trump administration to deliver the regulatory environment they wanted for their project to succeed.”(40)

I shall describe the exact nature of said project shortly. So far, then, a rogue’s gallery of Leftist and RINO supporting Tech Lords, whose wagons have been hitched to the Trump caravan for reasons of expediency. But Thiel has been supportive of Trump since 2016 – he must surely be loyal to the cause, yes? Or extraordinarily prescient. Or a mover and shaper possessed of sufficient power to render prescience unnecessary. The answer is a combination of options two and three – one can forecast rain with confidence if one is seeding the clouds - although he’d much prefer it if you’d believe him when he asserts that he is a libertarian and a Christian, philosophically in alignment with a president who is the champion of the ‘Somewheres’, not the Anywheres’.

Thiel is another beneficiary of the CIA’s munificence; his company, Palantir, was not only funded by In-Q-Tel (the Agency’s venture capital arm), it was also created with help from US government intelligence analysts over the course of three years.(41) Now it helps the NSA spy on the entire world. The company’s super-power is software that allows separate information silos to be merged, which was useful to Biden’s administration when it helped in tracking every January 6^th protestor who had been invited into the Capitol by the police, using material that the FBI obtained from the legislative branch – a procedure that is unlawful.

Hundreds of non-violent protestors who had no way of knowing that they had committed an offence then received gratuitously long prison sentences as a result of Thiel’s assistance.(42) This is not something that the MAGA crowd is keen to address. Nor are they vocal about the fact that both Thiel and his business partner, Alex Karp, are on the Steering Committee of “the controversial, closed door and overtly globalist Bilderberg conference,”(43)(44) or that Thiel has been an attendee every year since 2007.(45)

Thiel’s motivations are ‘complicated’, inasmuch as his stated positions, when set against his professional life, are frequently antithetical. This is a man who presents himself as a critical thinker on subjects such as the JFK assassination and the Covid narrative and as a defender of the First Amendment, the codicil of which is a free internet. He says he is against the warrantless surveillance of Americans as codified by Congress, in yet another dereliction of their duties, yet his company’s USP lies in assisting the intelligence community parse data which has frequently been accrued illegally. Thiel says that his mission is to “reduce terrorism while preserving civil liberties”,(46) and that “liberty does not have to be sacrificed to enhance security”.(47) I guess it depends how creative one wants to get with the word ‘liberty’, but in old money he would best be described as a bullshitter, albeit an influential one.

That’s largely because J D Vance, the likeliest heir-apparent, is Thiel’s creation. Even his name is newly minted – he was born James Donald Bowman and changed it to James David Hamel, before settling on its final iteration, which wasn’t until 2014, a year after “the Obamaesque tap on the shoulder” from Thiel.(48) Vance’s book, Hillbilly Elegy, was picked up by Rupert Murdoch and Netflix made a movie of it. In the meantime, he worked for Thiel’s investment firm, before branching out on his own in 2020 – funded by Thiel and Google’s Eric Schmidt.(49) It would be fair to say that Mr Vance is no longer haunted by the spectre of student debt.

The next step on the journey was a run for political office, a Senate seat in Ohio, in 2022. Thiel took Vance to Mar-a-Lago and solicited an endorsement from Trump, then threw money at the campaign, money that Vance was unable to raise on his own. Vance won by 6.1%.(50) Now the man who, in 2018, called Trump “a literal Hitler”,(51) was a senator. Three days after the former president was almost assassinated at Butler, Pennsylvania, Trump made him his pick for VP. The journey is eerily reminiscent of Obama’s.

Thiel and his crew of Technocrats have played a blinder and one assumes that they are anticipating a return on investment at some point, hopefully no later than 2028. The $64,000 question is what that looks like. Given their ideological backgrounds and previous support for candidates that MAGA would regard as the enemy – and in the absence of any evidence of a collective Damascene conversion – it is unlikely that their desired outcomes are shared with the America First movement. Musk, the teddy thrower-in-chief, clearly isn’t impressed with the direction of travel and the rest have gone out of their way to censor any views that do not comport with their own.

Trump – despite denials – is sticking to an agenda that was articulated in a document called Project 25, a set of policies that has been smeared as ‘far right’ by the same people who think that the traditional Latin Mass is practised by extremists and that ‘Christian Nationalism’ is fascism rebranded. This response is typical of the doublespeak practised by those who fear that their monopoly on power will be threatened:

“Project 25 is a Heritage Foundation plan to roll back civil rights, climate action and federal protections and replace them with Christian nationalism and Trump loyalists.”(52)

The horror. Apparently, democracy is threatened when a conservative states that “the number one thing you’re looking for is people that are aligned with the agenda”,(53) instead of allowing the stay-behinds and progressive saboteurs to conduct more of the guerrilla warfare that stymied much of what Trump was trying to achieve on the first go-around. Leftists, in true ‘No Kings’ stylee, reserve the right to obstruct the policies of the democratically elected government, because they know that they are right and the voters are wrong - plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. A less neurotic take would be the following:

“Project 25, developed by the Heritage Foundation in collaboration with conservative organizations, is an ambitious policy agenda aimed at reshaping various aspects of the U.S. Federal government. Its broad objectives span government restructuring, social policies, economic reforms, immigration control, environmental deregulation, and international relations.”(54)

The document itself is over 900 pages long and, on domestic issues, is halfway sensible. So, taking on the academic mafia? Check. Dismantling parts of the administrative state? Check. Removing government funding of abortion? Check. Immigration enforcement? Check. Binning the climate change scam? Check. There will be more attempts to slaughter some of the weightiest sacred cows, including a takedown of Obamacare and a reworking of Medicare, but none of the proposals would be regarded as extreme by anyone other than the most illiberal of liberals, which is to say the modern Democratic Party.

Foreign policy, on the other hand, is much more of a mixed bag. Trump’s pet peeves about NATO find a home and some much-deserved scepticism is directed towards the UN and the WHO. But the neocon/American exceptionalism virus is also much in evidence. The threat from China is “serious and dangerous” and there are traitors in their midst who “have tried to normalize or even laud Chinese behaviour [including] corporate giants BlackRock and Disney”, although Musk’s Tesla managed to avoid a name-check.(55) The nature of China’s threat is not spelled out, but one assumes that well-known industrial behaviours, tariffs and the theft of intellectual property feature prominently. At any rate, it seems that China! China! China! is the new rallying call.

Iran is next in line and, whilst the criticism of the mullahs is standard fare, there is also another exposition on the need for policy to “pressure the Iranian theocracy to move towards democracy”-(56) the panacea to cure all ills – although, naturally, the “decision to be free of the country’s abusive leaders must of course be made by the Iranian people.”(57) A commitment to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear technology, the imposition of sanctions and support for any “appropriate measures” that Israel may identify is familiar territory, as is a drive to isolate Iran by signing up other Arab states to the Abraham Accords.(58)

Then we have an anomaly. Somebody, somewhere (quite possibly the Florida contingent, headed by Marco Rubio), has decided to list Venezuela as the next most potent threat ahead, even, of that hardy perennial, Russia. The rhetoric here is notably delusional, a wilful departure from truth. Whilst noting that the country used to be one of the most prosperous in South America, its subsequent collapse in living standards is blamed – entirely – on “the Communist regimes of the late Hugo Chavez and Nicholas Maduro.”(59) According to this rendering of an alternative reality;

“...the country has violently cracked down on pro-democracy citizens and organizations, shattered its once oil-rich economy, empowered domestic criminal cartels, and helped fuel a hemispheric refugee crisis.”(60)

All of which constitutes a download of some of the most undiluted dreck in recent memory. From the moment Hugo Chavez took office, in 1999, the US has been trying to overthrow the elected government. Chavez’s politics was centred on two foundational tenets – that people ought not be starving in slums in the world’s most oil-rich state and that the CIA should not control his country. He was, as a result, a popular man domestically and a serial winner of elections, albeit also a Communist who ran a centrally planned economy.

Maduro succeeded him upon his premature death from an aggressive cancer that wouldn’t respond to treatment – Chavez’s chief bodyguard now lives under federal protection in the US -(61)(62) and the US government set about the destruction of the Venezuelan economy via sanctions of mass destruction. (63) Millions emigrated. The campaign was leavened with various coup attempts, backed by the woman (a CIA asset) who just serendipitously won the Nobel Peace Prize.(64) It should be noted that the only election that may have been bent is the last one, in 2024. Prior to that, the violent campaign of destabilisation in Venezuela was simply the mark of yet another, long-running regime change operation. Maduro’s decision to list oil sales in the Chinese yuan rather than the US dollar probably didn’t help matters, either.(65)

The latest wheeze is to blame Venezuela for the US narcotics crisis – an accusation that is doing double-duty, as China is similarly indicted – and designate Maduro as the head of a narco-state and the entire Venezuelan government as members of a foreign terrorist organisation called Cartel de los Soles, which does seem to exist and may well be a side project of elements of the military.(66) Ironically, the original scheme was the brainchild of the CIA, who used a Venezuelan general to smuggle at least 22 tons of cocaine into the US in the late Eighties.(67) Chavez actually expelled the DEA, which was trying to corrupt Venezuelan officials.(68)(69)

According to the UN’s 2025 World Drug Report, Venezuela is neither a major drug producer or supplier – those laurels go to Colombia, Peru and Bolivia.(70) Evidence of Maduro’s involvement in trafficking is, therefore, on the thin side (for which read non-existent, other than allegations by the ex-bodyguard and defectors) and none has been provided by the Trump administration. He is also alleged to have links to the Tren de Aragua, another drug-trafficking gang, although this is known to be false, as acknowledged by US intelligence:

“In reality, “Tren de Aragua” was a prison gang from Aragua state that waas dismantled in a 2023 raid. According to a leaked US intelligence memo, the gang did not have any affiliation with the government and it did not evolve into a regional threat or a drug-trafficking outfit beyond petty street-level distribution.”(71)(72)

None of which has stopped the US from blowing up boats suspected – not known – to be transporting drugs and killing the crews. All are said to be confirmed ‘narcoterrorists’, whatever that means. It’s very much a ‘you’re going to have to trust me’ operation with regards to evidence, although there is no disputing the fact that these are extrajudicial killings, nor that some of the dead were Colombian and Trinidadians, the latter said to be fishermen.(73) Trump has also authorised CIA covert action in Venezuela and the US Navy is currently parked off the coast.(74) If, however, he truly wanted to put a stop to the importation of cocaine, he would be turning his attention to that agency’s decades-long involvement in just that – with the Cosa Nostra, the warlords in the Golden Triangle, the Medellin Cartel and the poppy farmers of Afghanistan. Black ops don’t fund themselves.(75)

Instead, Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’ campaign of his first administration has now morphed into militaristic, unapologetic, unjustified bullying, a manifestation of the arrogance that has permeated Western foreign policy since the Second World War, which has also precluded any agreement with Russia. The whole affair leaves a bad taste in the mouth and is simply a brutal regime change operation conducted on a false premise, an archetypal Deep State undertaking, this time conducted in the open. So much for taking that entity on. However, there is minimal opposition to Trump’s belligerence within the US and certainly none from the Tech Bros, because ‘might is right’ has long been the default position of the Beltway Blob and segueing that belief into making America great again seems to have been the work of a moment.

Project 25 devotes less than a page to Russia, noting that there are different schools of conservative thought. Apparently, all agree that “Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is unjust” and that “the conflict has severely weakened Putin’s military strength”, which is par for the course for the Stupid Party,(76) but the document allows Trump an opportunity he has not yet seized:

“Another school of conservative thought denies that U.S. Ukrainian support is in the national security of America at all...the US should not continue its involvement. This viewpoint desires a swift end to the conflict through a negotiated settlement between Russia and Ukraine.”(77)

There is, naturally, no acknowledgement of the fact that there would be no war were it not for US actions in both the recent past and in the decades since the end of the Cold War. Nonetheless, an off-ramp has been provided, which hasn’t yet been taken. Perhaps, the Heritage Foundation and the Deep State are on radically different pages, or perhaps Trump has been slow to realise that the Russians have no reason to compromise and are committed to resolving the root causes of the conflict (NATO enlargement) once and for all, instead of settling for a ceasefire during which the Ukrainian military is rebuilt with US money – they’ve seen that play before.

In addition, Zelensky and the EU (plus Starmer’s UK) have so far been exceedingly obdurate, but if one compares Trump’s Venezuelan tub-thumping with his flip-flopping on Ukraine, the contrast is stark. Nonetheless, the tone of this section is notably subdued, a radical departure from the usual propaganda. My guess is that Trump and Putin have a good idea of what future relations will look like – the sticking point, so far, is finding a way to end the war before the US Deep State and the EU provoke a wider conflict:

“Trump has discussed a post-Ukraine war relationship with Putin. Canada is cozying up to China and the EU, and Trump has ordered icebreakers to operate in the region between the EU and Russia. Who has the largest consumer market, and who has the largest capacity to deliver raw materials in a strategic relationship based on trade?”(78)

As far as I can tell, the Tech Bros have expressed no interest in foreign affairs, either for or against the administration’s policies. Whatever it is that they were hoping to achieve by endorsing Trump (other than the support for Israel that Trump was going to offer anyway), it’s not obvious that it has anything to do with matters beyond the border – for now, at least. Notably, they haven’t tried to protest any of the president’s anti-globalist rhetoric, nor his rejection of some of the institutions that embody the ideology. Nor (with the exception of Musk, who must try to keep the climate scam going for his own purposes) have they railed against the dismantling of the great panoply of progressive idées fixe. In the words of Andreessen:

“Our enemies are not bad people- but rather bad ideas...“existential risk”, “sustainability”, “ESG”, “Sustainable Development Goals”, “social responsibility”, “stakeholder capitalism”, “Precautionary Principle”, “trust and safety”, “tech ethics”, “risk management”, “de-growth”, “the limits of growth”. “(79)

Sounds good, doesn’t it? As a wish list, it hits the spot – if, of course, he’s telling the truth. And if whatever it is that replaces these bad ideas are good ideas. A sensible person would be deeply sceptical, as Trump has been banging on about America First and Make America Great Again since 2015, yet the Tech Titans (with the exception of Thiel) didn’t get on board until 2024. If they backed Republicans at all, they were of the RINO genotype, so the evidence suggests that their commitment to the cause is somewhat anaemic. One might also usefully note that pretty much all that Trump has thusfar achieved has been via executive authority, not legislation, and could therefore be undone in a trice, so perhaps they are content to keep their powder dry.

So Trump’s domestic agenda is benefitting from tacit approval from Silicon Valley, at the very least, which is not to say that it’s been getting the kid gloves treatment from others; the guerrillas are doing their very best to resist much of what he is attempting. And that’s a long list composed of activists, the faint-of-heart, backstabbers and Democrats who have seemingly surrendered whatever tenuous hold on reality they once had in favour of full-on mental illness, although I suspect that senior Leftists know exactly what script to read from.

The backstabbers, as ever, are mostly to be found within the ranks of the GOP. The Senate has slow-walked the confirmation of Trump’s nominees, whilst blaming the Democrats for the delays. Thune, the Majority Leader, thinks he’s being clever, but his machinations are not of the subtle variety.(80)(81) By way of example – after over 200 days of the new administration, only 91 of the 194 ambassadorships had been confirmed.(82) Other nominees can be torpedoed by the ‘blue slip’ approval process that soy boy Republicans are implementing, whereby Democrats still get a veto, despite being in the minority.(83)

Deep State actor, Senator Cotton, has been doing his best to neuter Tulsi Gabbard, by gutting her staff and removing her ability to independently evaluate intelligence.(84) He does so because there is a clear and present danger that she will be effective. In a recent speech, she took aim at people just like him:

“We have these conspirators, these traitors to the Constitution, who are working within our government, who dangerously believe that they are not only above the law, but that they are above the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. People who believe that they have the right to undermine the duly elected president of the United States because they disagree with his positions or his policies, and that they know better.”(85)

RFK has also been taking flack, but that’s because he, too, is over the target. Most of the resistance to Trump has come from the judiciary, with widespread, unconstitutional countrywide injunctions, usually issued by District Courts. Most get overturned – eventually – but SCOTUS has been obstructive whilst trying to give the opposite impression.(86)(87) Leaving loopholes in decisions and appealing to Leftists’ better angels is a course of action that is doomed to failure. Then, of course, there is the violence that is incited by elected politicians, funded by rogue billionaires and indulged in by rent-a-mobs and other dregs of society. Milquetoast conservatives still cling to dialogue and bipartisanship, but that era is long gone:

“The progressive movement is largely single-minded – they are a hive that acts solely for the advancement of the group. They have a limited understanding of reality, no moral compass, no guilt, no shame, no sense of principles or honor, no doubts that they are correct in their beliefs and they are completely dedicated to winning no matter what. They will blindly follow the demands of their gatekeepers without question.”(88)

That’s because politics is always downstream from personality, so Leftist ideologies naturally attract the mentally unhinged who, in a healthy society, would be at the fringes, isolated from us and each other. But in societies that have lost their collective morality, they thrive and, in modern America, conditions are ripe. Around 25% of the population suffers from at least one mental illness and most will be on meds, many of which are dissociative. Another 25% have an IQ of 89 or less, making them deficient in critical thinking and easily manipulated, although that number will almost certainly be considerably higher amongst the ‘vaccinated’.(89) Add in the 5% of sociopaths every society is afflicted with, plus the rafts of indoctrinated academics and the ‘educated class’ that they have corrupted, and we have a decent-sized tribe of disordered eejits that can be mobilised at will. Not that a few extra bucks in expenses wouldn’t go amiss. Fortunately, they are not short of sugar-daddies prepared to splash the cash.

Figure 3

That’s just for Grantifa and the Boomers at the highly inorganic No Kings protests, whose day out was funded by billionaires (including Gates and Zuckerberg, as well).(90) The force of self-awareness is not strong in these ones. Other backers include a British billionaire – Christopher Hohn – who has spent over $500 million on Antifa types,(91) Neville Roy Singham (a Shanghai-based American) who is ploughing money into the anti-ICE riots,(92) and the CIA’s USAID – seemingly risen from the ashes – who have been spotted co-ordinating action on the ground.(93)

The fact that a clear majority of Americans support deporting all illegal aliens is of no import to these people.(94) Instead, they are fine with the doxxing of the children of ICE officers.(95) And the Democrats’ leadership is deliberately stoking the flames, telling their minions to “forcefully rise up” and “fight in the streets”; “let your rage fuel you.”(96)(97)(98) Rage rhetoric has a long and inglorious history, but these modern-day Robespierres don’t care about the damage to people and property that will inevitably ensue – they enjoy hating and harassing others irresponsibly and they’re fresh out of any other ideas.

The reasons given for the anti-ICE riots, even by conservatives, are inadequate. Yes, the more illegals that can be added to voter rolls and further used to gerrymander voting districts the better, but the Democrats already have several duplicate identities for those previously registered, so matters are already in hand. Less well known is the fact that politicians in sanctuary cities enjoy a cosy relationship with the drug cartels and the street gangs, who donate to their campaigns and provide manpower at election time. The last thing the mayors want is the Feds nosing around, disrupting the supply chains.(99) The other imperative is economic, as the great and the good in DC are discovering, as the sudden lack of cheap, foreign labour exposes them to deferred inflation.(100)

Clearly, the various astroturfed demonstrations will accomplish little, but the violence on display in Portland and Chicago is designed to elicit a response which can then be weaponised:

“The goal is to commit acts of intimidation, mob destruction and terror to provoke a defensive response, then the provocateurs claim that the defensive response is “authoritarian oppression”.”(101)

Trump is a relatively easy target. There can be a fine line between a robust response and an overreaction and the president and others in his orbit flirted with the latter in the aftermath of the Kirk assassination. And there is a concerted effort by the talking heads to brand any attempt at accountability for past misdeeds by the likes of Comey, Bolton and Big Tish as a revenge tour, despite the obvious malfeasance from all three. In addition, blue state governors’ refusal to permit ICE to enforce federal law, along with their habitual ‘soft-on-crime’ policies has persuaded Trump to also deploy the National Guard. Damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t.

But these ructions – together with the Democrats’ attempt to reinstate all their favourite grifts, which has resulted in the government shutdown – are standard-issue Leftist ploys, no doubt Deep State-adjacent inasmuch as an expanded Cloward-Piven type strategy that keeps most people off-balance and ensures that opportunities for reflection and analysis are kept to a bare minimum is clearly favourite; “while calm and catharsis are the first steps to regaining our integrity, for them they are kryptonite.”(102) Plus, of course, weary and demoralised people are frequently prepared to submit to solutions to alleged crises that they would never otherwise accept; see the ‘pandemic’.

“Division has always been a tactic of control, which people in power maintain by convincing the pitchfork people that their enemies and those carrying torches. Better the sheep shear each other while bleating to the wolves to protect the flock.”(103)

The narrative that we are encouraged to believe is that the Left and the Right are adversaries and that all the sturm und drang is a manifestation of antipathy, yet we know that the Uniparty is a thing and that, logically, much of the apparent conflict between its two arms must, therefore, be performative. However, Trump’s MAGA – rather than being part of the establishment GOP – is an independent entity and the administration, whilst honeycombed with squads of Francs-tireurs, is not in the same postcode, ideologically. The most likely reality is that Trump and co are genuinely pissed, whilst the Republicans and their buddies across the aisle are perfectly content to stand by whilst the nutjobs run riot.

Which leads us to a question that few are asking, if the following is accepted; that Trump was allowed to win the 2024 election; that the only way that could have happened is with the connivance of the Democrat fraud machine; that the Tech Bros and their billions went all-in on Trump at the eleventh hour; that vast tracts of domestic and foreign policy seem to hold no interest to them; that they didn’t get where they are by dint of an excess of altruism; what, then, is their game? The foothills of the answer can be approached once we appreciate that there is one subject all agree upon – the Democrats, the GOP, Trump (reluctantly) and the Tech Bros; the necessity of FISA-702.

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is the surveillance state’s Rosetta Stone. It needs to be reauthorised periodically and always has been. When the intelligence community spies on foreigners who ‘threaten national security’, a catch-all that is wholly subjective, a FISA-702 authority allows then to also spy on any American whose name also crops up. It serves as a back door that is used to spy on American citizens, by the tactical targeting of foreigners, allowing searches of the NSA database; a lot of searches. By way of example – between December 1^st 2020 and November 30^th 2021, more than 3.4 million searches were conducted, over a million of which were illegal, because the American searched had no contact with a foreign person.(104) And what’s on the NSA database?

“...the electronic data of every American, including emails, text messages, social media posts, instant messages, direct messages, phone calls, geolocation identifiers, purchases by electronic funds, banking records and any keystroke any American outs into any electronic device for any reason.”(105)

Over ten thousand Feds and contractors have authorisation to monitor anyone they want, legally or otherwise. There is no justification for the capture of this data, which is materially in breach of the Fourth Amendment, a fact confirmed by a District Judge in January this year.(106) Which is a finding that has had absolutely no effect. A-G Bondi, when questioned about FISA, was clueless – she was obliged to read a prepared brief in response.(107) To a significant degree, 702 matters not, as the Feds would continue to use illegal searches without it – it just adds a fragile veneer of respectability.

FISA-702 was the means by which Trump himself was targeted with Russiagate, so he understands the threat it poses. Whilst out of office, he was very anti.

Figure 4

One assumes that he still is. Congress, however, is a different matter, although the members are careful to exempt themselves from scrutiny, naturally.(108) We have heard – and will no doubt hear more – about Russiagate, a “Clinton-inspired political smear campaign that was given a patina of credibility by the FBI opening the investigation called “Crossfire Hurricane”.”(109) Once it became clear that Trump would be Hillary’s opponent in 2016 (after Super Tuesday in March), government resources were used to spy on his campaign and the Clinton camp was repeatedly briefed. There was no FISA-702 authorisation – Obama just allowed it to happen, anyway.

It wasn’t until the FBI concocted a FISA warrant in October 2016 – illegitimately – that all concerned managed to cover their asses.(110) Spygate morphed into Russiagate, but only Russiagate will get a public airing:

“Investigating ‘Russiagate’, as dirty and unseemly as it was, takes you to a place where politics infected the DOJ/FBI. However, investigate the illegal 2016 surveillance of Donald Trump’s campaign via the NSA database, and al of that activity cannot be justified.”(111)

A classic limited hangout, then, orchestrated by Trump’s DoJ, covering for Obama and his acolytes. And the illegal surveillance didn’t start with Trump in 2016, but in 2012.(112) Nor did it end when Obama left office, as it was rebooted as Operation Arctic Frost in January, 2021, which targeted Trump supporters and 2020 election researchers.(113)(114) By September 2023, the Special Counsel tasked with ruining Trump via lawfare had even started targeting Republican senators.(115) Why is it, then, that alleged Republicans are covering for an organisation – the FBI – that has repeatedly targeted their own kind? It’s because the Bureau isn’t there to defend threats to the nation – its primary function is to defend the DC Blob whilst enriching the loyalists within. That’s why it targets political groups, whistleblowers and truthtellers who expose the inside-the-beltway operation. It also has numerous side-grifts on the go, some institutional and some individual.

Crooked agents take kickbacks from the cartels and blackmail drug dealers. The Bureau supports Antifa – it must do, as the organisation has been allowed to wreak havoc with impunity - although that may be a favour to the CIA who are known to be sub-contracting the group for operations abroad.(116) It’s therefore difficult to believe that the Agency isn’t entwined with them domestically, too. The FBI also has more sophisticated operations that hide in plain sight, but which are never discussed, such as the investigation of Wall Street companies on behalf of aligned short-sellers, who share their profits when the targeted firm is required to announce the investigation, regardless of its merits, and the share prices tanks.(117) There is no honourable rank and file:

“The FBI is a U.S. Version of the Russian “State Police”; and the FBI is deployed – almost exclusively – to attack domestic enemies of those who control government, while they protect the interests of the U.S. Fourth Branch of Government...Put another way, “We The People”, who fight against government abuse and usurpation, are the FBI’s actual and literal enemy...”(118)

And who is in bed with the illegitimate Fourth Branch of Government? The Tech Bros. Not just the aforementioned – all of them. Zuckerberg’s Facebook was founded on the same day that DARPA shut down its Lifelog universal surveillance project in 2004, a remarkably similar endeavour which “aimed to gather in a single place just about everything an individual says, sees or does: the phone calls made, the TV shows watched, the magazines read, the plane tickets bought, the e-mail sent and received.”(119) Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

In 1994, two post-graduate Stanford students (Sergey Brin and Larry Page) made the decisive breakthrough on the “first automated web-crawling and page ranking application. That application remains the core component of what eventually became Google’s search service.”(120) The research was seed-funded by a programme called Massive Digital Data Systems (MDDS), which was in turn administered by two agencies; the NSA and the CIA. A further grant from DARPA was also funding Page.(121) The development of the Google search engine was overseen by representatives of these agencies for five years, until the month that Google went public in 1998.(122) Ever since, it has been in bed with the US intelligence services.

It was Google that provided the NSA with the search tools that allowed it to parse the knowledge stolen via abuses of the FISA Act.(123) And it was Google that entered into a “formal information-sharing relationship” with the same agency in 2010.(124) In 2017, Google was caught making petabytes of American citizens’ personal data available to US intell via the PRISM programme,(125) along with Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook, AOL, Skype, YouTube and Apple.(126)

All this in addition to its copiously documented censorship activities, which long pre-date the Biden administration.(127) To be sure, there is much opprobrium directed at Google, but that seems to be mostly for show. When a private company has been captured by government and is required to curate content and surveil users, some smoke and mirrors might be necessary. And, to complete our rogue’s gallery we have Amazon and Microsoft, both vigorously suckling at the federal teat, supplying cloud computing services.(128) Whilst these companies, together with Palantir, Oracle, OpenAI and Musk’s xAI are all ostensibly junior partners to the government, it may very well be that they hold the whip-hand, given their monopoly on the tech.

So, in the non-pretending world, without the Tech Titans’ code and their connivance, the wholesale censorship, de-banking, shadow-banning, gaslighting, astroturfing and general unpleasantness of the last five years would not have been possible. Yet these people are now our heroes, even though the public/private infrastructure that made it all possible is still in place. And, additionally, their grip is tightening with recent acquisitions:

“L Ellison (Oracle, TikTok), Musk (X, SpaceX), Thiel (Palantir), Sacks (Crypto), Karp (Palantir) and D Ellison (CBS) are all well positioned to fundamentally change the way information is processed for public consumption. CNN (Disney) is likely to be the final piece of the jigsaw to be assembled. We are entering an entirely new era in information delivery.”(129)

I appreciate that there will likely be at least a plurality that believe that Musk’s Twitter/X is now a force for good, a free speech Leviathan, an oasis in a Leftist desert. We are encouraged in this by Musk’s oft-repeated commitment to democratic principles and opposition to censorship. The reality is somewhat different. The platform’s AI system, Grok, uses Leftist sources such as Media Matters and Media Bias-Fact Check to determine which outlets are trustworthy and which will be censored and smeared. Predictably, conservative websites are listed as low credibility, whilst the Mockingbird media is given a thumbs-up.(130) Musk also announced, in January 2025, that Grok’s algorithm had been modified. When asked how to avoid X’s wrath with regard to reach, the following was a typical response:

”Don’t criticize your government, don’t criticize foreign governments, don’t talk about conspiracy theories, … and don’t accuse government officials or members of the media of malfeasance or dishonesty.”(131)

These strictures are what are known as ‘coded values’. Musk, himself, is allowed to excoriate anyone he chooses, naturally, but the rest of us, not so much. But Twitter/X is not alone. The same code is being written into Palantir’s facial recognition and targeting software, which the US government is purchasing,(132) and a similar caste system is also being constructed there. It’s relatively straightforward and easy to spot and is the result of “definitions in the software that remove classified results”(133) by blurring certain images, which makes it impossible to identify particular individuals via biometrics. Palantir made extensive use of this tech on the January 6^th footage, presumably to conceal the scale of the Fedsurrection, along with the identity of the alleged pipe-bomber.

So, given all of the above, how can we get a handle on what’s really going on? Is it strictly business, as Andreessen posits? If so, it’s a dirty, unscrupulous business, working for an incorrigibly corrupt Deep State. Or, does the centre of gravity hover over Palo Alto? Has one faction won out over the other, or are we simply being hoodwinked by the same bad actors, the only difference being a change in the front-of-house customer-facing staff? Perhaps an examination of their stated philosophies – and those of their heroes – might pay dividends. Perhaps then we can reverse engineer their intentions and find a nexus with unfolding events. We might then be able to assess whether their words should be taken seriously, or not. That’s next up.

Citations

(1) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2024/12/25/unfortunately-the-trump-cabinet-will-likely-expand-the-surveillance-state/#more-267626

(2) https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/oracle-s-coziness-with-government-goes-back-to-2820370.php

(3) Ditto

(4) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2024/11/30/a-key-element-to-understanding-the-next-four-years/

(5) https://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/14/magazine/silicon-valley-s-spy-game.html

(6) https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/heres-what-we-know-about-whos-buying-tiktoks-us-business/ss-AA1NnDJ6?ocid=socialshare

(7) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr4qwwk0g0yo

(8) https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/warner-bros-paramount-offer-rejects-david-ellison-zaslav-1236399106/

(9) https://www.businessinsider.com/larry-ellison-richest-man-backed-politicians-2025-9?op=1#sen-tim-scott-of-south-carolina-1

(10) Ditto

(11) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2024/11/30/a-key-element-to-understanding-the-next-four-years/

(12) https://yournews.com/2025/01/23/3149985/nicole-shanahan-warns-against-stargates-ai-driven-mrna-cancer-vaccine-rollout/

(13) https://www.aol.com/billionaire-larry-ellison-says-vast-160646367.html

(14) https://wikispooks.com/wiki/WEF/Young_Global_Leaders/2016

(15) https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Bilderberg/2016

(16) https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Bilderberg/2022

(17) https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Bilderberg/2023

(18) https://cointelegraph.com/news/us-governent-chatgpt-integration-all-agencies

(19) https://www.newsweek.com/sam-altman-changed-mind-donald-trump-stargate-2019425

(20) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Altman#Political_engagement

(21) https://nlpc.org/featured-news/the-hypocrisy-of-reid-hoffman/

(22) https://www.cf.org/news/the-billionaires-behind-antifa-funding/

(23) https://reclaimthenet.org/eyeball-scanning-company-capitalizes-on-argentinas-inflation-crisis

(24) https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-29/sam-altman-s-worldcoin-will-give-free-crypto-for-eyeball-scans

(25) https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/14/david-sacks-cryptocurrency-interview.html

(26) https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5026959-venture-capitalist-david-sacks-white-house/

(27) Ditto

(28) https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/science/how-tesla-founder-elon-musk-tried-to-fund-a-grand-spectacle-in-space/articleshow/47292702.cms

(29) https://www.space.com/25355-elon-musk-60-minutes-interview.html

(30) https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/01/bill-ackman-would-absolutely-do-a-deal-with-x-with-his-new-sparc.html

(31) https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1519036983137509376

(32) https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/4/24235213/x-brazil-suppression-speech-elon-musk-india-turkey

(33) https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2022/11/18/freedom-of-speech-but-not-freedom-of-reach-musk-reinstates-kathy-griffin-and-jordan-peterson-amid-new-policy---but-not-trump-yet/

(34) https://www.newsweek.com/sam-altman-openai-sister-annie-sexual-abuse-allegation-lawsuit-missouri-federal-court-2011468

(35) https://unlimitedhangout.com/2025/03/investigative-reports/the-dark-maga-gov-corp-technate-part-2/

(36)https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/02/tech_god_marc_andreessen_boards_the_maga_train.html

(37) https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/

(38) https://archive.is/JWTWr

(39) https://unlimitedhangout.com/2025/03/investigative-series/the-dark-maga-gov-corp-technate-part-1/

(40) Ditto

(41) https://theintercept.com/2017/02/22/how-peter-thiels-palantir-helped-the-nsa-spy-on-the-whole-world/

(42) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/09/09/full-spectrum-surveillance-lies-behind-the-j6-committee-motive-to-delete-all-investigative-material/

(43) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/08/23/pray-for-a-good-winter-but-plant-lots-of-cabbages/

(44) https://www.bilderbergmeetings.org/background/steering-committee/steering-committee

(45) https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Peter_Thiel

(46) https://theintercept.com/2015/07/01/nsas-google-worlds-private-communications/

(47) Ditto

(48) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/08/23/pray-for-a-good-winter-but-plant-lots-of-cabbages/

(49) Ditto

(50)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_United_States_Senate_election_in_Ohio#Republican_primary

(51) https://unlimitedhangout.com/2025/03/investigative-reports/the-dark-maga-gov-corp-technate-part-2/

(52) https://www.mediamatters.org/heritage-foundation/guide-project-2025-extreme-right-wing-agenda-next-republican-administration

(53) https://www.mediamatters.org/heritage-foundation/project-2025-senior-advisor-john-mcentee-staffing-next-trump-administration

(54)

Maia’s Substack

Project 2025: Key Agenda Points and Expected Implementation Timeline

Project 2025, developed by The Heritage Foundation in collaboration with conservative organizations, is an ambitious policy agenda aimed at reshaping various aspects of the U.S. federal government. Its broad objectives span government restructuring, social policies, economic reforms, immigration control, environmental deregulation, and international rel…

Read more

2 years ago · 2 likes · Maia Romanowska

2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf

(55-60) Ditto

(61) https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Document:The_Strange_Death_of_Hugo_Chavez

(62)https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Document:The_Strange_Death_of_Hugo_Chavez

(63)https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Document:Sanctions_of_Mass_Destruction:_America%E2%80%99s_War_on_Venezuela

(64) https://www.theamericanconservative.com/undeserved-peace-prize-paves-the-path-to-war/

(65)https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Document:Sanctions_of_Mass_Destruction:_America%E2%80%99s_War_on_Venezuela

(66) https://greydynamics.com/el-cartel-de-los-soles-the-venezuelan-nationalisation-of-crime/

(67)

(68) https://cepr.net/publications/remember-when-venezuela-and-bolivia-kicked-the-u-s-dea-out-of-their-countries-accusing-it-of-espionage-looks-like-they-were-right/

(69) https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/us-military-siege-and-narco-state-allegations-against-venezuela-all-you-need-to-know/

(70-71) Ditto

(72)https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/documenttools/32f71f10c36cc482/d90251d5-full.pdf

(73) https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/trinidadian-civilians-killed-in-us-airstrike-as-trump-expands-bombing-campaign-near-venezuela/

(74) https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/us/politics/trump-covert-cia-action-venezuela.html

(75) https://www.lewrockwell.com/2025/10/no_author/trumps-plan-to-invade-venezuela-and-abduct-narcoterrorist-maduro/

(76) 2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf

(77) Ditto

(78) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/10/24/there-it-is-white-house-nec-director-kevin-hassett-notes-something-every-important/#more-277305

(79) https://unlimitedhangout.com/2025/03/investigative-reports/the-dark-maga-gov-corp-technate-part-2/

(80) https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/09/hypocrite-alert-sen-john-thune-slams-democrats-blocking/

(81) https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/08/gop-senator-john-thune-quitely-block-trump-recess/

(82)https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/08/why_are_republican_senators_working_so_hard_to_thwart_trump_s_appointments.html

(83) Ditto

(84) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/06/28/ssci-chairman-cotton-wants-to-diminish-dni-and-return-more-power-to-cia/#more-273550

(85) https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/speeches-interviews/speeches-interviews-2025/4107-dni-gabbard-remarks-at-the-national-conservatism-conference

(86) https://www.lewrockwell.com/2025/10/brandon-smith/joe-rogan-criticizes-the-harsh-tactics-of-ice-heres-why-hes-wrong/

(87)https://realclearwire.com/articles/2025/07/31/supreme_court_killed_universal_injunctions_in_name_only_1126017.html

(88)

Rambler Henry's

Joe Rogan Criticizes The Harsh Tactics Of ICE: Here’s Why He’s Wrong By Brandon Smith Alt-Market.us October 20, 2025

There is one ever-pervasive and dangerous downside to the idea of the “big political tent” – The idea that all groups in the tent are equally entitled to dictate the terms within the tent. This is rarely the case…

Read more

10 months ago · Henry Harper

(89) https://alt-market.us/leftists-and-globalists-have-merged-into-the-same-horrific-entity/

(90) https://x.com/seamusbruner/status/1978943049930604780

(91) https://x.com/GregoryLyakhov/status/1977061157245796423

(92) https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/06/exposed-shanghai-billionaires-chinese-communist-party-network-fuels/

(93) https://x.com/MikeBenzCyber/status/1979566302965760332

(94) https://americansforpublictrust.org/

(95) https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/HHP_Sep2025_KeyResults.pdf

(96) https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/07/11/anarchists-and-rioters-portland-illegally-dox-ice-officers-and-federal-law

(97) https://jonathanturley.org/2025/10/24/we-may-be-nearing-when-the-resistance-looks-completely-different-democrat-leaders-ramp-up-resistance-rhetoric/

(98) https://jonathanturley.org/2025/02/01/fight-in-the-streets-democratic-leader-hakeen-jeffries-triggers-renewed-debate-over-rage-rhetoric/

(99) https://thehill.com/people/abigail-spanberger/

(100)https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/10/sanctuary_cities_drug_cartels_and_no_kings.html

(101) https://amgreatness.com/2025/10/22/ice-must-finish-the-job-in-the-nations-capital/

(102) https://www.zerohedge.com/political/leftist-fear-antifa-pretends-be-peaceful-after-trump-announces-crackdown

(103) https://brownstone.org/articles/a-helpless-weary-and-traumatized-populace/

(104) https://www.lewrockwell.com/2025/10/no_author/a-brief-history-of-the-21st-century/

(105) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2024/04/10/president-trump-opposes-fisa-702-reauthorization-surveillance-authority-expires-april-19th/#more-260008

(106) Ditto

(107) https://www.aclu.org/documents/section-702-memorandum-and-order-u-s-v-hasbajrami-11-cr-00623-ldh

(108)

(109) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2024/04/10/inside-baseball-stuff-on-fisa-702-reauthorization-the-stuff-you-never-see-explained/

(110) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/08/24/outline-5-the-prequel/

(111) https://www.justsecurity.org/59837/reports-carter-page-subject-fisa-warrant-2013-2014/

(112) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/08/24/outline-5-the-prequel/

(113) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/10/08/part-iv-covering-up-the-biggest-political-scandal-in-u-s-history/#more-276839

(114) Ditto

(115) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/03/15/senators-grassley-and-johnson-provide-documents-outlining-fbi-operation-arctic-frost-the-2022-targeting-of-president-trump-by-the-fbi/

(116) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/10/08/part-iv-covering-up-the-biggest-political-scandal-in-u-s-history/#more-276839

(117) https://x.com/HumanEvents/status/1983244025147625713

(118) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/07/26/fbi-deputy-director-dan-bongino-shocked-to-his-core-over-fbis-recent-corruption-discoveries-ill-never-be-the-same/

(119) Ditto

(120) https://www.military.com/defensetech/2004/02/04/lifelog-dead

(121) https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-google-e836451a959e

(122-123) Ditto

(124) http://insidegoogle.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/GOOGGovfinal012411.pdf

(125-126) Ditto

(127) https://www.mic.com/articles/46955/prism-scandal-what-are-the-9-internet-companies-accused-of-helping-the-government-spy-on-americans

(128) https://arstechnica.com/culture/2024/08/in-a-divided-america-one-thing-now-unites-hating-google/

(129) https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/amazon-web-services-provide-us-government-agencies-with-up-1-billion-savings-2025-08-07/

(130) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/10/06/david-ellison-purchases-the-free-press-for-150-million-appoints-bari-weiss-editor-in-chief-of-cbs-news/

(131) https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/06/very-sad-grok-is-using-far-left-fact/

(132) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/01/04/coded-values/

(133-134) Ditto

Figure 1 https://x.com/Cernovich/status/1882249090039480707/photo/4

Figure 2 https://cdn.geekwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/asset1380302975.jpg

Figure 3 https://x.com/seamusbruner/status/1978943052065464630

Figure 4 https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2024/04/10/president-trump-opposes-fisa-702-reauthorization-surveillance-authority-expires-april-19th/

Addressing that contention – which I haven’t done before – is therefore a necessary precondition if an assessment of his intentions (and chances of success) is to carry any weight. Furthermore, if we don’t know whose team Trump is on, we don’t know whether his alleged enemies are genuine or merely fellow Thespians. And it seems to me that there are currently plausible reasons either for doubting he has freedom of manoeuvre across the entire sphere of operations - at the least – or that he is not who he says he is.

Which is not to say that he was controlled opposition from the outset. There was no suggestion that the 2016 primary process was rigged in his favour, in stark contrast to the takedown of Bernie Saunders. Trump was clearly not the GOP’s favoured candidate – that would have been yet another Bush, Jeb this time – neither was he the Deep State’s, as Russiagate had been launched well before the election and the FBI was busy taking down Trump’s appointees before he had even been inaugurated.

Add Impeachment One & Two to the mix, season with Republican sabotage, the Mueller investigation, a manufactured pandemic, a rigged election, the January 6^th instigation, many and varied lawfare, civil fines of close to $600 million on the back of transparently unproven cases and a concerted effort to disqualify him from office and we have a toxic brew that is symptomatic of establishment hatred of the man. There is, however, a possibility that there was a disturbance in the force in the aftermath of Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13^th, 2024.

Contrary to the true tinfoil hatter’s wilder theories, it is apparent that Trump and others were shot that day, two days prior to the the Republican conference that would anoint Trump as the candidate for 2024, at which point he would announce his pick for VP. Granted, very little else about that day’s narrative is true, but someone shot Trump, intending to kill him; had he not turned his head at the vital moment, he would have been toast. As previously noted (see The Big Reveal), the odds on the hit not being an inside job are vanishingly small, but Trump got lucky. Did it win him the election? I don’t suppose it hurt, but a combination of the Democrats’ relentless persecution and the comically inept Harris might already have proved to be enough; not forgetting that, in contemporary American elections, popularity has little to do with winning.

The timeline of events is suggestive of plans gone awry, followed by a scramble defence. Getting rid of Trump before the RNC would have allowed the establishment GOP to select their own candidate, possibly Nikki Haley, a turncoat hated by Trump’s base. A Biden victory might then have been plausible, even after he had been fed to the wolves in the debate. But eight days after Butler, somebody withdrew him from the race and The Cackler got her fifteen minutes of fame. Perhaps the intention was to algorithm her to power, or perhaps the momentum behind the Buggins’ turn DEI hire could not be resisted and she had to be chosen – I know not.

What we do know is that, post-shooting, many of the Tech Bros were all over Trump like a rash. Peter Thiel was already a backer, but Musk – originally a DeSantis fan – Ellison, Ackman, Andreessen and others suddenly went all-in on the former president. They claimed that their newfound commitment to the cause was down to both the Democrats’ restrictive plans for AI and admiration for Trump’s courage. Maybe. More a business decision that fanboying, I would think. So far, so straightforward. The technocrats back Trump, on the understanding that Trump reciprocates once he’s in office. Except it’s not that simple.

Trump was reportedly self-funding his campaign and, whilst Musk’s ownership of Twitter/X would be distinctly useful (as was the small matter of $250 million in funding), I’m struggling to see how the owners of Palantir and Oracle – both in receipt of huge government contracts – could be of much utility pre-election, other than with mucho dinero. Unless, of course, the deal contains secret clauses, clauses that were directly concerned with the conduct of the upcoming election.

As the world and his wife knows, Trump believes that the 2020 election was stolen from him and in that he is correct. He must, surely, have been cognisant of the fact that history could easily repeat itself as, contrary to the legend that the RNC had succeeded in cleaning up the process, little had been achieved. Certainly, nothing that would make the 2024 election clean. And yet, once the dust settled, Trump had triumphed and the ‘too big to rig’ narrative was being promulgated; there had been an attempt, but it had failed. Yet, curiously, nobody in Trumpworld is keen to reopen that can of beans – it’s all about 2020. Why would that be?

After all, just as a teaser, the swing states in 2024 were very nearly as juiced as they were for Biden - across Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada, Kamala’s total votes were (respectively) 97.3%, 103%, 97.1%, 100% and 97% that of Biden’s. For context; Hillary totalled 8,870,161 across those five states and Harris accrued 10,985,363, only slightly behind Biden’s 11,070,254. The same patterns of fraud were repeated across all the states. Granted, they have to keep cheating. If they didn’t, we’d all see just how little support they really have. And they had the numbers. They had the fraudulent voters that they used last time and they’ve just spent four years importing millions more, illegal immigrants who are automatically added to voter rolls the minute they tap the Feds for benefits or a driving licence.

But this time around, Trump was gifted those swing states. However, he was the only beneficiary of the Democrats’ against-type reticence; they stole Senate races in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin (see A Different Take) and who knows how many House races, to ensure that the Republicans remain on the shortest of leashes; 53-47 in the upper house and 220 plays 215 in the lower. But the memo had gone out; Trump was going to win. The decision desks of the networks, instead of dragging their heels and calling elections in bizarre fashion (as per Fox News with Arizona in 2020, a call that cost them viewers by the truckload) were falling over themselves in haste this time around.

All of CNN, ABC, CBS, MSNBC and NBC (collectively stage 4 TDS sufferers) called the presidential race within a minute of each other at around 5.30 am, the day after. The results that the election officials in the swing states were publishing made this unavoidable. Those officials could have delayed providing that information – as they uniformly did in 2020 – but they had clearly been instructed not to. So, Trump was declared President-elect. Somebody, somewhere, had made a decision, but why had they made that decision? And what, if anything, had Trump had to give in return?

The Democrat machine controls federal elections, not the Tech Bros. And that machine is traditionally beholden to the Deep State. So,who had the leverage to give the order to stand down? How did the technocracy get one over on the real power in Washington DC, a hybrid command structure that, in addition to the Department of the Treasury/Wall Street, consists of command elements in multiple other departments, the CIA and the DoJ? Unless, of course, they didn’t. What if they struck a deal instead? A deal that is not universally popular, especially to those who find themselves muscled away from the trough?

In my estimation, it is apparent that Trump has been allowed freedom of action in some areas, but not in others. In addition, there are bad actors – some ostensibly on his team – who are doing their level best to curtail that freedom and it is probable that two particular individuals are in the crosshairs, because measures to neuter them have not yet been successful. The recent developments with regard to the Ukraine conflict and the assassination of Charlie Kirk have been revelatory, as has the now-constant anti-Israeli drumbeat from figures who previously had no axe to grind. The deal, if there is one, is fragile in some areas and robust in others – strong when Trump’s policy positions align with historical trends, but much weaker when challenging other entrenched interests.

In particular, it is apparent that Trump’s control of the intelligence agencies is minimal to non-existent. The FBI – chock full of ‘very fine people’ – is largely unreconstructed and the lightweights in command have been assimilated. Patel is anxious to move on, with minimal accountability other than a few minor purges. Just last week he was defending the presence of 274 plain clothes FBI agents at the January 6^th protests, who were allegedly deployed on crowd control duties once things had gone pear-shaped, an explanation that is clearly nonsense.(1) But it his response to the murder in Utah that takes the biscuit, although it may be that he is simply an actor that is part of an ensemble cast.

Whilst there are a number of ‘alternative’ commentators who believe Kirk’s shooting was faked, most seem to have come to that conclusion either because it suits their pre-existing narrative, or because they can no longer believe their own eyes about anything. I believe that he was shot and killed, but I don’t buy any other thread in the narrative. Almost nothing makes sense; there was apparently no autopsy, although one is required by law;(2) the bullet could not have been 30-08 calibre, stopped by his exceptional bone density (an impossibility); the Mauser rifle couldn’t, therefore have been fired; the laws of physics have undergone another revision, as a bullet from the left would cause the head to move to the right (equal and opposite reaction), which it didn’t, and the visible wound is more likely to be an exit wound.

Indeed, at no point was the alleged killer seen with any kind of rifle; the dissembling/reassembling story is a hot mess; the man on the roof cannot be identified as Robinson; the ring camera that allegedly filmed Robinson’s approach had the ability to scan from side to side;(3) the on-campus stairwell stills, which we are invited to think depicts Robinson heading to the roof, are from a location that is a five minute walk away;(4) the CCTV camera that tracked the man on the roof (if genuine) also covered the alleged shooting position, yet that portion of the video has not been released;(5) the crime scene was immediately dismantled and paved over the next day; the text messages to his boyfriend have the feel of fabrication; and so on. Same old, same old.

The alleged shooter’s father supposedly turned him in, not because he resembled the man on the roof, but (perhaps) because the FBI put out a picture of Robinson in a stairwell, although there is no definitive photographic evidence that puts Robinson on campus that day. Contrary to the usual media spin, he has not confessed, neither to his father nor the authorities and the inference that he was suicidal comes from the liars who have fed us the rest of the bovine excrement. He is clearly not the shooter - although it would not surprise me if he was on campus at the time - because even if he was the man on the roof, the shot was fired from a separate location. Little makes sense:

“His background alone should make investigators pause. Robinson was a successful student. He drove a Dodge Challenger. He had no serious criminal record, no visible descent into madness, and no public hostility towards Kirk. There was no build up, no warning, and no motive. This is the classic pattern of a patsy.”(6)

The current story is, frankly, insultingly threadbare, but that may even be intentional. And Patel must know at least some of the above, yet he’s lying. Trump, Vance and the MAGA faithful are also all aboard the crazy train – the aftermath, to me, was nauseating – and the Left’s Pavlovian response was even more predictable, although it’s an open question as to how much of the social media vitriol was the work of actual people, rather than bots. Much ink was spilled in a tortuous reappraisal of ‘free speech’ and ‘hate speech’ with those on the Right, for the first time, trying to cancel the Left.

Four weeks on, the entire saga feels scripted – the question is, by whom? And how much does Trump know? My feeling is that he, Vance and others know what has happened and who is responsible; it may be a warning, or it may be another move in a longer game, one that is concerned with the Deep State’s obsession with censorship and control, but this time supported by the Right, not rabid Leftists. Perhaps the underlying direction of travel remains the same, only now Trump will be the one with his hand on the tiller. Perhaps that is part of a Faustian pact. In that scenario, one factor can be guaranteed; there will be tribes of ‘conservative influencers’ who will cheer him on, regardless, while their leader does the bidding of those who would otherwise dispose of him.

Which is not to say that Trump has no leeway whatsoever. He rode roughshod over the nay-sayers with his tariff policies and, unsurprisingly, the sky did not fall down in response. Obfuscation is the order of the day for most of the alleged experts, who hoped that voters’ had forgotten the non-apocalyptic effect of them in the first Trump administration. Tariffs have a long history; when done properly, industry assumes the cost, not the customer. America had the highest tariffs in the world throughout the 19^th century, at a time when the country surpassed Great Britain as the leading industrial power in the world.(7) The globalists don’t like them, because they neutralise the profits they’ve made in hollowing out American industry by outsourcing production to low-wage countries:

“Notice that no foreign nation is challenging these tariffs as applied. The legal challenges are all coming from inside the U.S.A, as multinational corporations fight to retain the status quo.”(8)

It also appears that following through on Trump’s immigration agenda is permissible, although it seems that the Deep State is attempting to renege on that facet of any deal. Certainly, even if the taxpayer/NGO spigot has been capped, the Democrats dark money partners are still pouring funds into domestic groups tied to terrorism. Soros has funded multiple US-based organisations that specialise in ‘direct action’, including $18 million to BLM and even funds donated to Obama’s presidential library are laundered.(9)(10) The escalating violence against ICE agents would not be possible without the FBI’s connivance and Antifa could not wreak havoc without permission; despite all the blarney about how it’s a decentralised cell-based organisation, it would come as no surprise to learn that the Bureau actively colludes with leadership. But expelling illegals seems to be a good-faith operation, at present.

In addition, there are two huge momentum shifts ongoing with regards to vaccines and the climate scam, both of which are attracting serious pushback from sources both predictable and revealing – I will only deal with both briefly, because if you are reading this, you likely need no primers. RFK, in particular, is drawing heat and one wonders whether he is breaking free of whatever restrictions were placed upon him prior to his confirmation. Kennedy is, of course, a dangerous quack whose obsessions will endanger countless Americans.

We know this because the media tells us so, but there are those within the ‘freedom movement’ who are also guardians of the narrative, many of whom have been lauded as Covid heroes, having earned their bona fides as controlled opposition. Some are using those credits to impede Kennedy. The HHS secretary is also having to deal with what might euphemistically be referred to as ‘staffing issues’, an impediment that others in the administration are also encountering. There are numerous examples to hand but, without getting into the weeds, some recent developments can furnish us with a CliffsNotes guide to the ongoing battle.

If a man’s character can be guessed at by the quality of his enemies, then RFK may be a secular saint. He is opposed by Congress, Big Pharma, the leadership of some of the agencies he supervises and all of the bought-and-paid-for media. He is clearly doing something right. The Biotechnology Innovation Organisation – a trade association whose members include Pfizer and Merck, amongst hundreds of others – is actively trying to kneecap him by deploying “surrogates across the political spectrum”, including “conservative influencers” to “neutralize Kennedy without ever addressing the substance of his critique”.(11) After initial success, this strategy is starting to fall apart.

Trump has as his Chief of Staff one Suzie Wiles, recently co-chair of Mercury LLC, which represents Pfizer, Gilead, Gavi and the UN Foundation.(12)(13) One would imagine that she might have an opinion as to the efficacy of vaccines. Other allegedly MAHA types, including Bannon and Loomer, tried to sabotage RFK, too.(14)(15) CDC and HHS bureaucrats are dipping into “Simple Sabotage”, a CIA manual written in 1944,(16) resigning en masse and penning strongly worded letters. Congress tried to tear him a new one and was handed its own ass, instead. The Democrats were foolish to have tried, as he knows far more about specifics than they do and he wasn’t shy in schooling them:

“This morning, I got the latest numbers from the CDC that 76.4% of Americans now have a chronic disease. This is stunning. When my uncle was President, it was 11%. In 1950, it was 3%... That’s why we have to fire people at CDC. They DID NOT do their job. This was THEIR JOB to keep us healthy. I need to fire some of those people to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”(17)

Tectonic plates are shifting on Capitol Hill. A week later, Big Pharma was getting put on blast, as evidence of the damage done by childhood vaccines was read into the public record; the vaccinated were three times more likely to develop allergic diseases, four times more likely to develop asthma, five-and-a-half times more likely to suffer from neurodevelopmental disorders and six times more likely to develop an autoimmune condition.(18) Additionally, “none of the clinical trials relied upon to license routine childhood vaccines on the CDC’s schedule ever proved the products safe before licensure due to glaring design flaws.”(19) It would be fair to say that the audience was displeased.(20)

Kennedy also seems to have won Trump over for now, if his comments on 22^nd September are any indication. In typical fashion, the president didn’t hold back – Tylenol for pregnant women and children should be a no-no (which, incidentally, should not have been news),(21) the words ‘vaccine’ and ‘autism’ featured in the same sentence and the Childhood Vaccine Schedule was torched.(22) This, in all likelihood, is the first time any head of state has ‘gone there’. He had already effectively kiboshed pharmaceutical companies by ordering them to disclose side effects during their TV ads; as Kennedy slyly noted, “in some cases that might create an advertisement that’s four minutes long.”(23)

For good measure, RFK then shredded the UN to its face, telling them that the US “cannot accept language that pushes destructive gender ideology. Neither can we accept claims of a constitutional or international right to abortion.”(24) Specifically, a rejection of the WHO is not a surprise, as Trump withdrew the US from the organisation during his first term, also. But, in a wider context, the MAHA developments are emblematic of a cultural shift. Trump has addressed a third-rail issue and the resistance, which will continue, has not obliterated him. The rest of us, represented by globalist dolts, will continue to labour under the WHO’s ever-expanding governance, a state of affairs that will only become apparent when the next ‘pandemic’ descends upon us.(25)

He (and, in this case, Kennedy) is making it acceptable to challenge some fraudulent narratives. That one press conference has the potential to establish a trend, although Big Pharma cannot be underestimated. The tide will not have turned until RFK addresses the genocidal mRNA platform instead of nibbling around the edges, an undertaking that would have popular support, given that 56% of the American public believe that the Covid ‘vaccines’ have caused “a significant number of unexplained deaths”.(26) It should be noted that the Covid ‘vaccine’ remains recommended for most cohorts, despite the clear and present danger that it represents. Battle has been joined, but a decisive victory is still far from certain.

Trump was at it again at the UN, this time lambasting the globalists’ twin obsessions of climate change and multiculturalism. I imagine that ‘trusted news sources’ have largely ignored his words, not wanting to give free publicity to the enemy and perhaps belatedly aware that attempts at ‘debunking’ and ‘fact-checking’ do not always work as well as intended. The avalanche of home truths was no doubt unwelcome, to European leaders in particular. He called renewables “a joke...the most expensive energy ever conceived”, noted that “going all green is going all bankrupt” and that “climate change is the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world, in my opinion.” For good measure, he then said that “the carbon footprint is a hoax made up by people with evil intentions.”(27)

He didn’t pull any punches when it came to immigration, either:

“The UN is supposed to stop invasions, not create them and not finance them...you are destroying your countries...Europe is in serious trouble. They’ve been invaded by a force of illegal aliens...nobody is doing anything to change it, to get them out...it’s not sustainable...both the immigration and the suicidal energy ideas will be the death of Western Europe...”(28)

Macron, Starmer, Mertz et al won’t listen, of course, but by saying it as it really is, Trump is trampling ‘accepted norms’ and creating space for debate where none previously existed. With a decent following wind, his remarks may accelerate the end of climatism, which is already a spent force - my impression is that any grassroots support has evaporated and only the fanatics and the string-pullers are still invested and most of the permanently aggrieved have now moved on to other manufactured grifts, such as trans rights and Gaza. In Europe, however, the Great Replacement still has legs and I suspect Trump’s words will change little in the near future.

Nonetheless, the fact that his administration is permitted to unload on three such consequential subjects is instructive – as is the fact that there are others where it is clearly either constrained or taking incoming from some of its own, as well as the Left. I refer to the Russia/Ukraine war and the war in Gaza. In the case of the former, the American Deep State (together with its European partners) is firmly in control, not Trump. In the case of the latter, a tidal wave of BS has been created, not by the intelligence community, but by a combination of stay-behind Leftists, the UN and those nominally on our side of the fence who are either in the pay of a foreign power or are latent anti-Semites – or, perhaps, a combination of both. It is, however, possible to identify the narrative engineering in real time.

The Israel/Hamas conflict has been misrepresented from Day One. The massacre on October 7^th could not have occurred without the complicity of whoever was running Biden and the top brass in Shin Bet and the IDF. Hamas had its own ideological reasons for the bloodletting; the progressives in both the US and Israel wanted Netanyahu out. The attempt at a colour revolution (funded by Soros and co) had failed,(29) the lawfare campaign against the prime minister was losing traction and the Left’s courtship of Iran would be consummated if the hated Bibi could be escorted from the world stage.

Whilst it seems as if the respective intelligence communities are close, that doesn’t necessarily translate into political cooperation. Biden’s regime did its utmost to undermine Netanyahu, both in Lebanon and Judea and Samaria.(30)(31) Hamas’ paragliding training took place under the noses of the Americans, who knew that the Iranians were in planning sessions with its proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, for at least six months prior to the attack.(32) The moral vacuum at the centre of the regime can be illustrated by its actions in the aftermath:

“It may strike some as curious...that only weeks after Hamas slaughtered 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7, the Biden administration awarded sanctions waivers worth $10 billion to Iran, the primary sponsor of those attacks...In the informal but apparently binding relationship...the kidnapping of American children...and the regular maiming and occasional killing of US military personnel...can hardly be permitted to interfere with the goal of ensuring that billions of dollars reach Iran every month, in order to buttress the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism.”(33)

The Israeli end of the operation is another of those Big Lies, as the possibility that those charged with Israel’s defence weren’t just asleep at the wheel, but were actively complicit, cannot be countenanced. And so, even reliable commentators are reduced to a variety of ‘mistakes were made’ scenarios followed by radio silence.(34) But it is hardly a stretch to hypothesise that the leadership of Shin Bet and the IDF, both active in the political resistance to the elected government, would see the upcoming attack as an opportunity and allow it to happen – especially given the inexplicable operational failures that characterised the military response and the fact that they already had a copy of Hamas’ planned attack and had had for weeks.(35)

“According to earlier investigative reports, the IDF...received multiple, rapidly escalating warnings of the impending invasion from a variety of sources...in the months, weeks and days prior to that day. Intelligence head Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Halevi and Shin Bet director Ronen Bar did not share the warnings or Hamas’s intercepted invasion plans with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Instead, they repeatedly briefed him that Hamas was deterred...”(36)

Like Leftists the world over, the ends always justifies the means. The generals, Bar, the Attorney General and the Supreme Court have then engaged in an all-out effort to oust Netanyahu, with the military leaking to the media at will, while receiving top-cover from the A-G, and continuing to deceive the prime minister. My impression is that the IDF top brass are determined to deny the government a win, even if it means dragging out the war. It is all deeply unedifying, but par for the course for the Israeli progressive class, who are at least as vindictive as their American counterparts.

However, Netanyahu’s government managed to survive until Trump’s inauguration, which has prompted a change of tactics. With the American Left out of power and determined to continue circling the drain, the baton has been passed to Fifth Columnists on the MAGA Right, whose remit now includes an operation to undermine Trump’s support for Israel. To that end, they and the legacy media are engaged in an egregious campaign of lies and misdirection, the funding for which likely comes from Qatar, which also provides succour to Hamas. Prior to Trump’s victory, the Gulf state’s foreign agents only channelled 10% of their budget to conservative outlets – now, it’s over half.(37)

And so old deceits have been warmed over and new ones seeded. Some examples; the Israeli settlements in the Judea and Samaria are not illegal under international law,(38) nor are the settlers themselves notably violent – an average of 110 incidents of settler violence a year, compared to 6,663 incidents of Palestinian violence against Jews in 2021 alone, so the settlers are somewhat restrained in the circumstances;(39) they didn’t recently torch the church at Taybeh, they tried to put out a brush fire nearby and were stoned by villagers for their troubles (the church itself is undamaged);(40) there is no famine in Gaza – if there was, the press wouldn’t have to use a photograph of a child with a genetic condition, carefully cropped to exclude his healthy-looking mother and sibling.

There is plenty of food; since 7/10/23, Israel has coordinated and facilitated the supply of at least 1.86 million tons of supplies, although in early August, 930 trucks of supplies were still awaiting distribution by aid organisations who were intentionally dragging their feet and permitting the bulk of it to be diverted by Hamas ;(41)(42) Israel has, therefore, been working around the UN and collaborating with other agencies and conducting air drops;(43) quite why the world demands that Israel should provide sustenance to the Gazans, whose elected leadership executed October 7^th, is not addressed, although it is “unprecedented in the annals of war”;(44) just as a brief reminder, that would include these innocents, cheering as the bodies of murdered hostages were handed over. Fundamentally, we do not understand the mindset.

Figure 1

There is not, nor has there ever been, a genocide in Gaza, despite the best efforts of Hamas, which makes up for the historically low ratio of civilian-to-soldier death, by inflating the casualty figures, which are then parroted by all and sundry;(45) Israel has, instead, set a new standard for urban warfare, implementing more precautions to limit casualties than any military in history;(46) so says a war scholar who has actually been to Gaza on numerous occasions:

“Israel has taken extraordinary steps to limit civilian harm. It warns before attacks using text messages, phone calls, leaflets, and broadcasts. It opens safe corridors and pauses operations so civilians can leave combat areas. It tracks civilian presence down to the building level. I have seen missions delayed or cancelled because children were nearby. I have seen Israeli troops come under fire and still be ordered not to shoot back because civilians might be harmed.”(47)

I suspect that this requires considerable discipline, given that 94% of the Gazan population felt that the October 7^th killing spree gave them “pride as Palestinians”.(48) The rest of the world studiously ignores all inconvenient facts, including the contrasting inhumanity shown to the hostages (abused by entire families of ordinary Gazans, including children),(49) the billions of dollars of aid that was siphoned off to build the network of tunnels (larger than any subway system in the world) and the nature of Hamas itself:

“Hamas is a radical Sunni Muslim organization that has repeatedly declared its intent not only to destroy the State of Israel but also to murder as many Jews as possible, regardless of nationality. As a confirmed proponent of Islamic jihadism, Hamas also seeks to recreate a second Caliphate, in which Islam would reign supreme over the entire world. Hamas, therefore, also seeks to subjugate Christians (dhimmitude) and will kill as many of them as is necessary to attain this aim. As the jihadist slogan goes, first the Saturday people (the Jews), then the Sunday people (the Christians).”(50)

Instead, Starmer, Macron and their fellow travellers prefer to recognise a non-existent Palestinian state in an attempt to keep the idea of a two-state solution alive – presumably on the grounds that rewarding wholesale slaughter is appropriate - Italy, Spain, Canada (inevitably) and others now refuse to sell arms to Israel and a rhumba of rattlesnakes aligning themselves with MAGA are doing the Left’s dirty work by amplifying false narratives. One might have expected a principled individual to have a moment of self-reflection when they realise that they have joined a team that also harbours the globalist institutions they claim to despise – who want to do away with national sovereignty altogether, the antithesis of America First – but seemingly not. One might suppose allying with the same entities that fund Hamas might also give pause – same answer.

Carlson, Candace Owens, Bannon and others, together the usual backstabbers and leakers that continually wage war on Trump, have done their best to muddy the waters (some have even taken to creating false quotes in furtherance of their cause),(51)(52) so far without success although, as demonstrated, they are simply the most recent propagandists. Of all the deceptions pushed by various bad actors, the attack on Israel is the most visceral and, I suspect, the most successful. Whilst there are clearly political reasons for hideously unpopular European leaders to pander to their increasingly visible Muslim minorities, the motivations of Carlson and co. are not so clear - perhaps, a mixture of avarice and Jew-hatred. The world at large has simply been gulled by yet another example of Joseph Goebbels’ infamous maxim; “if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself.”(53)

There is one other ongoing deception that, for most of us, strikes closer to home – the story of the ongoing war in Ukraine. This saga represents one of two no-go zones for President Trump. I say that because it is apparent that he is not in charge of US policy - whether that was made clear to him prior to taking office or since, I know not, but it’s possible that it was part of the original deal; the nomination of Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, the winningest nominee of them all with 99 votes in the Senate and a noted Russia hawk, speaks to that scenario. But it seems that Putin is also aware of the dynamic:

“In the mind of President Putin, and in the growing awareness of the American electorate, the President of the United States does not control the Intelligence Community. It is entirely possible for the USIC to take America deeper toward war despite the President and people of America not wanting that to happen. Putin is simply prepared for that outcome. This reality explains a dynamic where President Trump engages with President Putin in an effort to stop the war in Ukraine, yet President Putin continues the war in Ukraine; because ultimately he knows President Trump does not control the elements that facilitate the Ukraine military.”(54)

Observing the ebb and flow of Trump’s peace attempts has been revealing, inasmuch as his actions are much less bold than they are in other theatres. The braggadocio is still present, but he has not pursued avenues that would have curtailed hostilities months ago. He is on good terms with Putin, yet US assets are on the ground in Ukraine targetting Russian troops. Without American satellite technology, Ukraine would be days from defeat. Without American money, nobody in the Ukrainian government gets paid.

Rubio admits that the conflict is part of a US-Russia proxy war,(55) although there’s nothing ‘proxy’ about it. Trump says it’s not his war, but by continuing to support Zelensky, he now owns it whether he cares to admit it or not. The entities that are running the operation are the US Deep State, ably assisted by their European counterparts – not Trump. He’s just there to carry the can.

It looks like he’s tried to break free, but the only deal he is allowed to make is one in which Zelensky wins back all the territory he has lost. Every time Trump proposes concessions, the Senate, a European leader or an EU talking head contradicts him. Zelensky then rejects any and all proposals out of hand and Trump is foiled again. He has reached the point where he wants to wash his hands of it and he could if he makes it clear that the US will not backstop any European ‘peacekeeping force’, yet he hasn’t. He isn’t going to be able to avoid a decision because the hawks are going to keep doubling down until he has no choice. The Europeans (ostensibly, anyway, but the CIA/State Department in reality) want to provoke a wider war.

It’s easy to forget how we got here and why the Americans are even involved. The West’s perfidy with regard to NATO expansion in post-Soviet times is now well documented and American meddling in Ukraine encompasses two colour revolutions (in 2004/5 and 2014),(56)(57) plus billions of dollars on military training and armaments. What isn’t emphasised is that “Ukraine’s entry into NATO is the brightest of red lines for the Russian elite (not just Putin).”(58)

Nor is it widely known that Biden levied sanctions on Russia (in 2021) and reaffirmed US commitment to Ukraine. Not only that, but in June 2021 the US set out a roadmap for Ukraine to join NATO and in November signed a Charter on Strategic Partnership with Zelensky.(59) It wasn’t until then that Russian troops began massing on Ukraine’s border, not before. Even then, Putin asked for guarantees that, amongst other things, there would be no more NATO expansion to the east. He didn’t get them.(60) Nor is it acknowledged that Putin did not have (and still has not) any intention of continuing the Russian advance into Poland or anywhere else. Instead, the war should have been over within weeks.

“And, exactly two weeks after the tanks had rolled over the border, the Ukrainian and Russian foreign ministers sat down in person in Turkey to see if an agreement could be reached that would put an end to the fighting. A few weeks later, they did reach an agreement. According to officials who were present on both sides and in mediator roles, the Russians agreed to pull all of their forces back to pre-invasion boundaries—in other words, to end the war and give up all the territory they had seized in that first month. And, in exchange, the Ukrainians agreed not to seek NATO membership.”(61)

NATO has no valid mission in Ukraine and there would be no conflict but for the West’s decades of provocations. The Ukrainian regime is illegitimate, not simply because Zelensky’s term expired last year, but because the Ukrainian voters gave him a mandate to negotiate with the Russians, resolve the impasse in the Donbas and implement Minsk II, none of which he has even attempted to do. Putin, far from harbouring imperial ambitions, refused to absorb the breakaway republics when requested. In return, the US trained up a 700,000 strong Ukrainian Army, with which to take on Russia.

At the outset of the special military operation – note that Russia was invited into the Donbas by the leadership of the republics, which had seceded from Ukraine when the lawfully elected government was overthrown - the disparity in population-size and resources was stark enough – around 42 million plays 146 million, a GDP of $155 billion for Ukraine as against $2 trillion plus for Russia. Since then, Ukraine’s population has collapsed and it is an economic basket case, with 1.7 million personnel dead and every unconscripted male between the ages of 18 and 60 either in hiding or abroad.

“The digital records from the Ukrainian General Staff show staggering numbers: over the course of three years, Ukraine’s military has lost 1.7 million personnel. The breakdown includes 118,500 deaths in 2022, 405,400 in 2023, 595,000 in 2024, and a record 621,000 in 2025.”(62)

On the other hand, Russia’s economy is humming and her casualties are orders of magnitude less than Ukraine’s.(63) The following (erroneously titled) graph details the body exchanges since the conflict began until June of this year.

Figure 2

The people around Trump, however, keep feeding him duff gen. He doesn’t know these casualty numbers and seems ignorant of some basic facts, such as the reality that Russia can produce more artillery shells in three months than the US and the rest of NATO can manufacture in an entire year.(64) Russia has superior resources across the board:

“There is not a single weapon system where Ukraine can claim to have the advantage. Russia is employing two additional weapons systems that Ukraine does not have… hypersonic missiles and combat aircraft... Russia enjoys air supremacy, while Ukrainian aircraft are shot down with regularity... Russia’s fleet of bombers and submarines regularly launch missiles that Ukraine is incapable of destroying.”(65)

All of which would explain why Ukraine cannot win the war, even though Trump now seems to think that it can. He says he’s disappointed in Putin, because Putin won’t make concessions. He has no reason to, as he holds the whip hand and compromising on NATO membership or NATO troops on the ground as part of a ceasefire would be somewhat naïve, given the West’s litany of lies and broken promises. Further, “why would Russia agree to end its military operations if in the end NATO-like security guarantees are to be given to Ukraine as a reward?”(66) And, as previously noted, Putin knows that Trump isn’t calling the shots, anyway.

He also knows that Zelensky cannot agree to territorial concessions, because any agreements on territories must be confirmed in accordance with the Constitution of Ukraine at a referendum. In order to hold a referendum, martial law must be lifted. If martial law is lifted, it would be necessary to hold presidential elections immediately. After a referendum, if held - and regardless of the results - it would be necessary to obtain a decision of the Constitutional Court.(67) It’s a racing certainty that the political will to begin that process doesn’t exist.

So, the Europeans continue to work through their way through their box of tricks. The latest wheeze is to attempt a false flag either in Poland or one of the Baltic states. Allegedly, Russian drones and aircraft have invaded the airspace of Poland and Estonia respectively; Tusk, the globalist tool who is the current Prime Minister of Poland, invoked Article 4 of the NATO Charter whilst suffering from a fit of the vapours and all involved (apart from the Russians and Trump) put on their stern faces.(68)(69)(70)

The Donald wasn’t buying what they were selling and, shortly thereafter, it emerged that NATO jamming was the likely cause of the drone diversion.(71) Either that or Zelensky flying captured Russian drones into Poland – the Russians contend that they couldn’t have been launched from Russian-held territory, as they don’t have the range - the kind of provocation that he has form for.(72) There will be more. The day prior he was claiming that the Russians had dropped a heavy FAB-500 bomb on a village, killing twenty-four Ukrainian pensioners.(73) Only the evidence doesn’t fit and the Russians weren’t even operating in the area.(74) Zelensky’s regime also has a habit of staging atrocities and blaming Putin – in Hroza in October 2023 (52 killed), Konstantinovka in September of the same year (17 dead) and, notoriously, Bucha in March/April 2022, when hundreds were murdered.(75)

The idea appears to be to make it impossible for Trump to refuse to guarantee that the US will step in if troops from EU countries are deployed to Ukraine as part of a ceasefire deal, despite the Russians repeatedly telling all who listen that this would be unacceptable. The provision of Article 5-like ‘security guarantees’ and NATO troops in Ukraine are no-nos. The EU knows this; so does Trump. But, as is their wont, the Europeans will simply ignore Putin and plough on, regardless. Despite being warned that Western troops in Ukraine will be legitimate targets, it appears that British and French detachments have already been deployed.(76) If true, Russia is in a ticklish spot:

“The dilemma is that striking Western troops in Odessa could spark a crisis for manipulating Trump into escalating the US’ involvement in the conflict, while holding back for now could create facts on the ground that become even more difficult (and possibly more dangerous) for Russia to reverse later on.”(77)

The entire narrative regarding Russia and Ukraine is a false one, constructed over the course of decades. Given the investment of time and money – and the potential prize of Russia’s vast resources – it is, perhaps, unsurprising that the supranational Deep State can’t bring itself to take the loss. It’s even possible that the more delusional actors believe that Russia can still be defeated by NATO, if only they can get Trump onside. But Russia isn’t a ‘paper tiger’ (the current pejorative of choice) – Putin has chosen to execute a low-risk war of attrition, with no sudden moves that NATO can use as a trigger for a wider conflict. This strategy is effective on the ground, but also suffers from a major shortcoming – as is true in life itself, a refusal to rise to the bait guarantees further, ever-increasing provocations from bad actors.

So, a military victory over Russia remains a long shot – logistically, the West cannot compete and it has no answer to Russia’s suite of hypersonic missiles.(78) It is possible, though, that a war with Russia would still be desirable, even if it wouldn’t result in victory. It would be an effective way to tighten the control matrix: “In times of war, dissenters and doubters are portrayed as cowards, traitors, fifth-columnists working on behalf of the despised enemy.”(79) It could also result in long-term global instability – a Reset might even be desirable.

“So, perhaps, the globalists are working to foment an event that brings devastation of a level so disastrous that it will render people desperate enough for order and security that they’ll accept anything — even globalism, which will be pitched as a way to prevent another world war. And perhaps they’ve encircled Trump with warmongers who flatter the president while egging on insane moves that could result in a hot war with Russia.”(80)

Trump is the key and the signs are not promising. He has repeatedly said that he is brokering missile sales to NATO for use in Ukraine. As noted, Ukraine is not a member of NATO. His Special Envoy to Ukraine, a General Kellogg, has intimated that the Ukrainians will be permitted to target Moscow and wherever else is within range. From Putin’s perspective – and that of anyone with an IQ above room temperature - it looks like this:

“The US provides the missiles. The US approves the missile locations in Ukraine. The US authorises the targets of the missiles from their location. NATO provides the satellite guidance system. Ukraine targets Moscow and launches the missiles.”(81)

Putin has previously stated that, were this to happen, it would be taken as an act of war.(82) And, on 3^rd October, he gave a speech during which he made it clear that he understands exactly what game is afoot. He singled out the European leaders and labelled them provocateurs - “globalists and expansionists in the West and their minions in Kiev”-(83) and gave Trump a pass, but he was adamant that force would be met with force. The EU, oblivious as ever, spent the same day discussing how best to defeat Russia.(84)

Both wars – in Gaza and Ukraine – are misrepresented. It is, perhaps, easier to understand the authorised narrative with regards to Russia, as the ruling class in the West has sought its defeat since the outset of the Cold War. Zbigniew Brzeziński, nominally an American diplomat who counselled both LBJ and Carter, summed up the globalists’ position decades ago and nothing much has changed:

“...its vast resources must be transferred to the iron grip of global transnationals who will use them to perpetuate the flow of wealth from east to west. In other words, Moscow must accept its humble role in the new order as America’s de-facto Gas and Mining Company.”(85)

And Leftist antipathy to Israel, latterly, is predicated on their hatred of Netanyahu and their upside-down obsession with the oppressor/oppressed dialectic. But the strafing from ‘MAGA’ is a recent phenomenon and feels confected. Carlson, MGT and others weren’t vocal opponents of Israel until this year and I struggle to understand what it is they hope to achieve and who might benefit from their activism, other than those who regard them as infidels. Perhaps they are genuinely ignorant of reality, although I doubt it – climbing into bed with those that they habitually excoriate tends to give the lie to that explanation. I guess the (financial) incentives must be powerful.

In conclusion, then; Trump has decided to confront the prevailing culture head on, laying waste to some sectors while treading more carefully in others. For all Kennedy’s efforts thusfar, it is clear that he is plotting his course cautiously and much more needs to be done. However, the climate scam is finally being carpet-bombed, woke culture is being confronted everywhere and the president is following through on many – but not all – his campaign pledges.

On the debit side of the ledger there is a substantial liability; a lack of accountability and a potent whiff of impotence. The Epstein debacle – and Trump’s dismissive attitude towards the ‘client list’ - is just the tip of the iceberg. There is an obvious administrative inertia, from both Congress and the DoJ, who are using the tried and tested showy one-offs strategy (a scapegoat is selected and the rest walk) to keep the doubters at bay whilst actually investigating the square root of bugger all. The investigation into the killing of Kirk is also following a now-familiar pattern; a patently inadequate story, followed by no information and a wholly incurious media. The same vibe that accompanied both of the attempts on Trump’s life, too.

Figure 3

And so, whilst the US seemingly goes one way, the EU and the Anglosphere mostly go another. American rejection of the WHO and the Paris Accords has – so far – had no effect on the globalists elsewhere. Likewise, multiculturalism and wokeism are culturally dominant across the rest of the West, because the political class have managed to avoid a reckoning, even though the warning signs are multiplying. Unless they are instructed to stand down, their congenital intransigence will ensure that a course correction will only be possible via the application of force.

This appears to be the current state of play. There is, however, an undercurrent that few are drawing attention to, even though it is closely associated with a topic that is the talk of the town. I refer to the clamour that surrounds the introduction of widespread AI, which is drowning out any trepidation about what it might presage. The Trump administration – and the Tech Lords that back him – are fully invested. Deals are being made, data is being harvested and a technocracy (wasn’t that supposed to be a bad thing?) is being constructed. Could it be that the Deep State, having cast out the Democrats – temporarily, at least – is still fully in control, but has decided to use the Trump bandwagon as a means of reaching its destination, which remains the same as always – control, exploitation and subjugation?

And there is still that overriding question; is Trump on the level or is he now compromised? It doesn’t seem to me that, during term one and the wilderness years, he was under anyone’s thumb. Now, however, there is a major change in tone. Gone is talk of ‘draining the swamp’ and taking on the Deep State. Now it’s more partisan invective and an assault on the bureaucrats, not that the Democrats and the administrative state aren’t fully deserving of all that’s coming their way. In addition, the Tech Bros are not who we think they are. If we dig just a little, we will find that the woke Leftists are the least of our worries. That’ll be next.

Citations

(1) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/09/28/fbi-director-kash-patel-says-agents-in-j6-crowd-were-dispatched-to-quell-riot-underway/#more-276519

(2) https://greeknewsondemand.com/2025/09/26/utah-dispatch-says-no-autopsy-was-performed-on-charlie-kirk/

(3) https://www.facebook.com/reel/814057970963267

(4) https://headlineusa.com/exclusive-charlie-kirks-security-team-shorted-previous-firm-for-tpusa-contract-owner-says/

(5) https://confirmedsource.com/tyler-robinson-is-the-shooter-we-have-a-little-problem/

(6)

Bishop’s Substack

The Manufactured Patsy and the Death of Charlie Kirk

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a year ago · 1 like · Bishop Raymond Taylor Ph.D

(7) https://chroniclesmagazine.org/view/the-broken-promises-of-free-trade/

(8) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/08/30/federal-appeals-court-rules-7-4-ieepa-tariffs-unlawful-decision-qualifiers-and-narrow-application-tariffs-remain-pending-scotus-review/

(9) https://capitalresearch.org/article/exclusive-soros-open-society-gave-80-million-to-pro-terror-groups/

(10) https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2025/09/27/obama-library-funds-are-secretly-flowing-to-dark-money-networks-n4944199

(11) https://x.com/rwmalonemd/status/1961834965479334052

(12)

Wholistic News

Trump Trashes RKF Jr. Over Vaccine Stance: The Global Vaccine Activism Organizations Connected to His Campaign

In a recent statement on Truth Social (see below), Trump expressed a preference for Biden over RFK Jr and criticized the latter’s views on vaccines as “fake.” This has sparked questions about Trump’s refusal to acknowledge concerns about covid vaccines…

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2 years ago · 16 likes · 13 comments

(13) https://www.mercuryllc.com/announcements/mercury-announces-top-republican-political-strategist-susie-wiles-as-co-chair/

(14) https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/30/white-house-drove-prasad-firing-despite-rfk-jr-makary-concerns-00485972

(15) https://x.com/gc22gc/status/1952944769270731229

(16) https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/09/enemy-within-here-are-damning-ways-current-cdc/

(17)

The Vigilant Fox

RFK Jr. Stuns Critics in High-Stakes Senate Hearing

RFK Jr. just walked into Congress and took down his biggest critics in one fell swoop…

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a year ago · 802 likes · 229 comments · The Vigilant Fox

(18) https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/09/watch-audience-erupts-as-vaccine-lawsuit-expert-aaron/

(19) https://www.c-span.org/program/senate-committee/senate-homeland-security-subcommittee-hearing-on-vaccines-policy/665350

(20) https://www.c-span.org/program/senate-committee/senate-homeland-security-subcommittee-hearing-on-vaccines-policy/665350

(21) https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2770802

(22) https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/09/donald-trumps-vaccine-statements-shock-world/

(23) https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/trump-announces-crackdown-drug-ads-tv-potentially-disrupting-billions-ad-spending

(24) https://x.com/Holden_Culotta/status/1971295288141766906

(25) https://dailysceptic.org/2025/10/02/the-who-pandemic-accords-consolidate-the-power-of-the-covid-clerisy-on-a-global-scale/

(26)https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/trump_administration_second_term/56_suspect_covid_19_vaccines_caused_deaths

(27)

(28) Ditto

(29) https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/368319

(30) Ditto

(31) https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/biden-administration-tries-hide-knew-impending-massacre-leaving-iran-untouched-hamas-lee-smith

(32) Ditto

(33) https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/iran-america-october-massacre

(34) https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-806634

(35) https://worldisraelnews.com/a-coup-attempt-in-the-shadow-of-oct-7-analysis/

(36) https://thedailybell.com/all-articles/news-analysis/the-qatar-papers-tucker-carlson/

(37) https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/israeli-settlements-are-not-illegal

(38) https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/settler-violence-myth

(39) https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-861878

(40) https://www.wsj.com/opinion/gaza-starvation-photos-tell-a-thousand-lies-palestine-israel-aid-1d689cc8

(41) https://x.com/GovMikeHuckabee/status/1951854895197290978

(42) https://x.com/GovMikeHuckabee/status/1952205862417924255

(43) Ditto

(44) https://amgreatness.com/2025/08/16/gaza-part-one-the-situation/

(45) https://nypost.com/2025/04/05/opinion/the-lies-behind-the-gaza-casualty-figures/

(46) https://www.newsweek.com/israel-has-created-new-standard-urban-warfare-why-will-no-one-admit-it-opinion-1883286

(47)

(48) https://palwatch.org/page/35535

(49) https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/bibas-children-israel-gaza

(50) https://amgreatness.com/2025/08/16/gaza-part-one-the-situation/

(51) https://x.com/FuentesUpdates/status/1950271357205303804

(52)

(53) https://www.azquotes.com/author/5626-Joseph_Goebbels

(54) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/07/10/a-significant-geopolitical-problem-for-president-trump-and-us/

(55) https://thehill.com/homenews/5179806-russia-us-proxy-war-ukraine/

(56) https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Document:The_Maidan_Revolution_Neo-Fascist_Problem

(57) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/nov/26/ukraine.usa

(58) Burns, William J, The Back Channel: A Memoir of American Diplomacy And The Case For Its Renewal, Random House, 2020.

(59) https://www.state.gov/u-s-ukraine-charter-on-strategic-partnership/

(60) https://amgreatness.com/2022/03/17/blame-putin-yes-but-also-blame-biden/

(61) https://mises.org/mises-wire/trump-putin-meeting-how-we-got-here

(62) https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/08/hacked-ukrainian-database-reveals-kiev-has-suffered-17/

(63) https://sonar21.com/by-the-numbers-western-propaganda-on-russian-losses/

(64-65) Ditto

(66) https://www.moonofalabama.org/2025/08/ukraines-future-a-steppe-corridor-a-neutral-transit-oriented-state.html#more

(67) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/09/06/president-putin-notes-an-underlying-issue-within-ukraine-that-impedes-negotiation/

(68) https://abcnews.go.com/International/poland-airspace-repeatedly-violated-drone-type-objects-amid/story?id=125422386

(69) https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/09/developing-russian-mig-31-fighter-jets-reportedly-breach/

(70) https://www.lewrockwell.com/2025/09/michael-snyder/now-that-poland-has-formally-invoked-article-4-nato-is-closer-to-all-out-war-with-russia-than-ever/

(71)

Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Did The Polish Deep State Try To Manipulate The President Into War With Russia?

The black swan events of NATO jamming causing Russian decoy drones to veer into Poland and an F-16 missing one of its attempted interceptions were therefore exploited by them to spark a crisis that might have led to World War III…

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a year ago · 55 likes · 18 comments · Andrew Korybko

(72)

Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Duda Belatedly Confirmed That Zelensky Tried To Manipulate Poland Into War With Russia

To Poland’s credit, it didn’t fall for this trap, which could have sparked a fast-moving sequence of events that might have spiraled into World War III. Russian-friendly observers should therefore recalibrate their assessments of its approach towards the Ukrainian Conflict in light of this…

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a year ago · 49 likes · 5 comments · Andrew Korybko

(73-74) Ditto

(75) https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/04/04/bucha-massacre-three-years-on-false-flag-atrocity-prolong-criminal-proxy-war/

(76)

Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

SVR Revealed That British & French Troops Are Already In Odessa

Direct Western intervention in the conflict is now arguably turning into a fait accompli, it’s just a question of how Russia will respond and whether the US will then be pulled into mission creep…

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a year ago · 100 likes · 78 comments · Andrew Korybko

(77) Ditto

(78) https://infobrics.org/en/post/53577

(79)

Paul Cudenec

Wars, resets and the global criminocracy

This article was written as a contribution to the 2024 Chisinau Forum: ‘Unrestricted warfare: a holistic approach to the Great Reset…

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2 years ago · 67 likes · 10 comments · Paul Cudenec

(80) https://thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/ex-trump-official-says-advisers-are-pushing-war-with-russia/

(81) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/09/29/u-s-special-envoy-for-ukraine-keith-kellogg-says-president-trump-has-authorized-nato-strikes-against-moscow/

(82) https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/12/europe/putin-warns-nato-missiles-hnk-latam-intl

(83) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/10/03/president-vladimir-putin-notes-russia-does-not-desire-nato-conflict-but-russia-is-prepared-for-it/#more-276660

(84) https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/hungarys-orban-copenhagen-summit-eu-has-decided-go-war

(85)https://www.globalresearch.ca/washington-plan-break-up-russia/5797480

Figure 1

Pens and Poison

The Crisis of Artistic Creativity

In 2019, a banana duct-taped to a wall sold for $120,000. This singular moment in our culture—the exhibition of Maurizio Cattelan’s “Comedian” at Miami’s Art Basel—captured global attention and quickly sparked a debate about the nature of art in the 21st century: in a world of gross commodification and infinite possibilities, can…

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2 years ago · 73 likes · 30 comments · Liza Libes

Figure 2 https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/bibas-children-israel-gaza

Figure 3 https://sonar21.com/by-the-numbers-western-propaganda-on-russian-losses/

Figure 4 https://x.com/mtgreenee/status/1952339589881860535

That quotation is taken from an article published in 1993, yet its contents are as descriptive of our current predicament as they were in the first year of Slick Willie’s presidency. And much as alleged conservatives genuflect before the legacy of The Great Communicator, concrete results were thin on the ground during his tenure and it is far from certain, after the attempt on his life in March 1981, if Reagan was the one calling the shots. If personnel is policy, then Poppy Bush had been OIC, not Reagan.

Either way, it matters not, as the cultural direction of travel had been hardwired for decades, since at least the 1930s and FDR’s New Deal. No nominally Republican president – and there had only been four, in office for a mere 16 years – had succeeded in making a dent in a progressive ideology that had become increasingly entrenched, although evidence of any concerted effort to do so is in short supply. By way of example, both Reagan and Bush unilaterally awarded legal status to millions of illegal immigrants (perhaps an attempt at voter recruitment), not something that ‘conservatives’ are keen to dwell upon.(2) But while Republican Milquetoasts were “not able to mount an effective challenge because the establishment right has long isolated itself from the grassroots foundations of the real American culture”,(3) the Marxist Left had been pursuing a detailed route-map since the 1950s.

Antonio Gramsci, Mussolini’s bête noire, was not an all-seeing sage, but he was responsible for a key insight that has undergirded the Left’s progressive seizure of the cultural high ground. He argued that, in the West, the capitalist class exercised a dominance that, in the East, the state enjoyed, instead. In his own words:

“In the East, the state was everything, civil society was primordial and gelatinous; in the West, there was a proper relation between state and civil society, and when the state trembled a sturdy structure of civil society was at once revealed. The state [in the West] was only an outer ditch, behind which there stood a powerful system of fortresses and earthworks.”(4)

What he referred to as an ‘ideological hegemony’ had been achieved by way of control of all the cultural institutions of society; religion, education, the arts and so forth. In this context, an overthrow of the state would avail the revolutionary naught, as the ruling class’ cultural hegemony would still be intact. What was needed was a challenge to this dominance, a seizure of cultural power before an attempt at seizing political power.

This astute observation - “that human beings obey because they share, perhaps unconsciously, many of the assumptions, values, and goals of those who are giving them orders” -(5) led Gramsci to recommend the construction of a parallel counter-culture, independent of current cultural apparatus, which would be good-to-go when the moment came and could be substituted for the old State, which would be destroyed. Consciously, or otherwise, Hitler came to similar conclusions after a year of reflection in Landsberg prison, and the Nazis had built an entire series of institutions that mimicked the existing state by 1933, when “all that remained to do was to destroy the remnants of the old State – and that took but a few hours.”(6)

As it transpired, parallel institutions were a nicety that was not required elsewhere. Gramsci’s blueprint was reconfigured in the 1960s, when it became apparent that the conservative defence of constitutional government was as robust as a chocolate fireguard. The Old Right, “opposed to big government on every front, foreign and domestic”,(7) reached its apogee in the 1940s with its vehement opposition to the Communist wave that was sweeping the country post-war, but the congressional sell-out was not long in arriving and, by 1955 and the advent of National Review, the end was nigh. Successive purges of any factions that were deemed too ‘isolationist’ (for which read insufficiently bellicose in support of American exceptionalism) or less-than-supportive of the welfare state were cast into the outer darkness and true conservatism was emasculated.(8)

Now the Left cried for a long march through the institutions themselves, a strategy proposed by a German socialist and then blessed by no less a luminary than Herbert Marcuse in the early seventies, who proposed that the shortest path to success involved “working against the established institutions while working within them”,(9) by actually doing the job while subverting its purpose. In truth, this approach was a necessary shortcut, as the American Far Left has, historically, been bereft of grass-roots support and has had to infiltrate established institutions, especially government. And so it has come to pass although, ironically, the Marxist-class warriors have themselves been used by forces further up the food chain – more on that shortly.

The tools of choice have been many and varied, but they share similar characteristics – all have been attempts to recast our systems of belief, our traditions, the norms that bind societies together, the morality which makes a society workable. Gramsci envisioned a struggle against the ruling class’ entrenched value systems, unconsciously shared with the masses. Instead, the establishment has sponsored the retreat and the only true resistance has come from the mewling masses themselves, scattered and incoherent though it is.

And the ‘why’ of it, for the Leftists, is fundamentally always the same; as Senator Kaine (a Democrat, naturally) distilled it handily just the other day, when he opined that “the statement that our rights do not come from our laws or our governments is extremely troubling”.(10) That the constitution that he was elected to uphold states that such rights are inalienable and God-given seems to have made little to no impression upon him, although he was hardly the first to push the absence of the Creator when discussing rights; Obama was singing that particular tune as long ago as 2010.(11) Those who would undermine Western culture have no truck with individual rights – it’s all about the greater good, as defined by them.

So, they have chipped away at the fundamentals for the past sixty years, frequently via legislation and movements that purport to be one thing when they are really another entirely. As US Communist Alexander Trachtenberg stated in 1944:

“When we get ready to take the United States, we will not take it under the label of communism; we will not take it under the label of socialism. These labels are unpleasant to the American people, and have been speared too much. We will take the United States under labels we have made very lovable; we will take it under liberalism, under progressivism, under democracy. But take it, we will.”(12)

Which brings us nicely to what conservative and progressive alike hail as the signature legislation of the Sixties; the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Moreover, any one who opposes the non-discrimination it is said to mandate must, perforce, be a particularly execrable racist, Nazi, clan member or religious zealot – definitely an ‘extremist’ of some stripe. But, even at the time, quite what the law was intended to achieve, beyond the abolition of the Jim Crow laws, was not at all clear; to the recently-neutered Right, at any rate. The progressive Left – in collaboration with the judiciary - knew exactly what its purpose was, as it was they who had drafted it and mid-wifed it through Congress, ably abetted by 78% of the Stupid Party in the House and 82% in the Senate. Southern state Democrats were primarily the renegades, not conservatives.(13)

The Act rapidly established the initial template for the progressive spaying of the original Constitution of the United States and the basis upon which abominations such as DEI and ‘hate speech’ have latterly been enshrined. It is “a rival constitution, with which the original one was frequently incompatible—and the incompatibility would worsen as the civil rights regime was built out.”(14) Whilst it was true that some blacks were oppressed under the old system, they were those that lived in the racially segregated southern states, governed by Democrats. Most white people in the northern and western states saw the problem as a distant one, as they believed that racial harmony had arrived a while back. However:

“...governments could now disrupt and steer interactions that had been considered the private affairs of private citizens—their roles as businessmen or landlords or members of college admission boards….[T]he government was now authorized to act against racism even if there was no evidence of any racist intent. This was an opening to arbitrary power. And once arbitrary power is conferred, it matters little what it was conferred for.”(15)

Other disaffected tribes – feminists and homosexuals to the fore – seized the moment, demanding that government relieve the discrimination that they believed they were subject to, also. The Federales met the call with alacrity, as they understood that such interventions further expanded their newly-acquired authority. The Act was used as a wrecking ball, recasting societal mores as “bureaucrats, lawyers, intellectuals and political agitators”(16) increasingly became the interpreters and enforcers of ‘civil rights’ across what eventually became all of the country’s institutions. It wasn’t long before gay marriage was being considered, the first such contract being issued in 1972.

Superficially, it could be claimed that there was ‘no harm, no foul’, a win-win, but that ignores the fact that, previously, marriage had been none of the government’s business; now, however, the government had arrogated the right to define marriage and parental rights, whilst simultaneously undermining an institution that had been in existence for around 4,350 years.(17) Discrimination was now enshrined in law and the sanctity of marriage cast to the four winds. Multiculturalism, implicit in a regime that now majored in ‘identity’, another concept that we are continually told is a boon, is inherently damaging to the cohesion of any society, for reasons that are obvious if one dips beneath the surface sheen:

“Multiculturalism’s premise was that a society could have different standards of behavior and different values for different groups. Henceforth, there was no need for a broad agreement about what sort of behavior was okay and what was not okay — no need for a common culture that applied to everyone.”(18)

The aforementioned feminists, oppressed to within an inch of their lives, leapt into the non-existent cultural breach and the war on men – especially white, heterosexual men – was launched. The ‘patriarchy’ would be banished and women would soon be doing it for themselves even though, at the time, the Stay-at-home Mom was the norm. But the feminists told women that they could have it all and, indeed, they must have it all or they would be betraying the sisterhood and, somehow, empowering the patriarchy. Women were not naturally more nurturing and agreeable, nor was it natural for them to be wives and mothers; men simply demand that they take on those roles so that they can control them more easily. Or some such variation on the theme. Women should be independent entities with their own careers; how this would affect the family and the marriage was of no consequence, because atomisation was a feature, not a bug.

Some men thought that this ‘emancipation’ served their needs, so they let it happen – which sounds somewhat cynical, but must be the reality if the patriarchy was in the box seat at the time. Men like the Rockefellers, who funded Women’s Lib so that the government could tax all the population, not just half of it and get the kids into school at an earlier age to begin their indoctrination in the ‘state as Daddy’ narrative. And the senior management at the CIA who recruited feminist icon Gloria Steinem and financially backstopped her magazine with the intent to destabilise society – this from the mouth of Steinem herself.(19) And whether we like it or not, it’s been a disaster on another front, too. Perhaps you’re aware of the South Korea conundrum?

“Women’s full participation in the workplace is so profoundly at odds with human flourishing that dynamic capitalist South Korea will not demographically survive the 21st century. Meanwhile, authoritarian, poverty-stricken North Korea marches on into the future. This should give us pause.”(20)

But, no matter. The emancipation of women is a cause so noble that collateral damage must be endured, regardless of the cost. The grand experiment of the past sixty years or so, has been to let the girl bosses loose on our great institutions, the better to reshape them in the female image; to lead emasculated white men – now almost universally (with the obvious exception of the string-pullers) to be found “at the bottom of the intersectional hierarchy of oppression in most professions” -(21) into a new era of diversity and equality, upending millennia of precedent. A bold project, then, and notably fraught with obvious dangers:

“The risk was that female codes would not only emasculate and demoralise and marginalise men but also denaturalise and demoralise and stress women: and, in addition, that our institutions would be fundamentally changed because power hoarding would be carried out according to female social codes — caring, sympathy, inclusion, gossip, bitchery, reputation-destruction — while the slightly cooler and more humorous male social codes — sink or swim, competition, fisticuffs, bastardy, magnanimity, toleration of eccentricity — would be eased out.”(22)

At the risk of promulgating an antediluvian assessment, I fear that the outcomes that were most likely have been realised – which was always the point for those men who promoted the various iterations of feminism. There is little doubt that female participation in the workforce has sky-rocketed although, even in ‘enlightened’ Scandinavia, most women still prefer part-time work and would not work at all, given the opportunity.(23) Perhaps wage-slave emancipation isn’t a panacea, after all. But it is the cultural effect that has been most dramatic, in America and across the rest of the West; when women are taught, from a very early age, that they are victims - “victims of men, victims of society, victims of “patriarchy”, victims of religion, victims of biology, victims of circumstance etc” -(24) they have permission to use that victimhood in ways that will control society.

Female characteristics have been allowed to assume cultural dominance and agreeableness and empathy are now the template, “infantilising huge swathes of the population – treating them like babies, victims and children” -(25) and permitting them an escape from culpability, no matter the offence. In addition, any who dare object to such pathological care must be harshly punished for their failure to conform. As is the case more often than not, too much of a ‘good’ thing leads to lopsided, harmful outcomes:

“This makes for a society that, without the counterbalancing effect of cultural wisdom of being, is uniquely and equally susceptible to predation from within and without. The problem is, we’ve spent the past 50 years derogating the counterweight of human personality meant to balance out the cult of empathy.”(26)

Men and women overlap considerably in all of the Five-Factor traits – openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism – but there are significant differences between them at the extremes of the distribution, not least in agreeableness; whilst there are disagreeable women, “the vast majority of extremely disagreeable people are all men and the vast majority of extremely agreeable people are women”.(27) For those whose preference would to “transform the world into an existential daycare”,(28) the existence of a countervailing cohort of competitive, unsympathetic, aggressive, blunt and vengeful people (aka men) is more than simply inconvenient; it is deemed an existential threat, despite the fact that, were common sense to be the yardstick rather than feelings, it is clear that there must be balance “for society to stay grounded in reality rather than spinning off into an oblivion where everyone is granted their own personal truth”.(29) It is also clear that the marginalisation of these type of men benefits those who would control us in perpetuity and fosters conditions under which their authoritarian excesses will be tolerated, rather than challenged.

The societal canvas was further shredded by other developments, most of them actively promoted by authority or, at the least, unopposed and marketed as positives. The advent of the birth-control pill, when combined with yet more federal overreach in the form of Roe v Wade, utterly changed the dynamic between men and women. Add to that, the introduction of no-fault divorce and a family court system that is routinely weaponised against fathers and the attack on family and marriage was turbocharged.

Some random statistics for your delectation; there have been 1.75 billion abortions worldwide since 1980;(30) “the [US] government offers a financial incentive if men are not present in the raising of children”;(31) 90% of divorced mothers have custody of their children and 43% of children in the US are being raised without their father ;(32) 79% of custodial mothers receive child support;(33) despite the fact that, in non-marital heterosexual relationships, the breakups are “quite gender neutral and egalitarian”,(34) women initiate around 70% of divorces;(35) interestingly, when laws making shared custody the default arrangement, divorce rates plummeted;(36) nonetheless, the median marriage duration in America is still only eleven years.(37)

Even seemingly innocuous innovations have had ‘unintentional’ consequences – the ubiquitous TV dinner, for one, contributed to the loosening of familial bonds, in addition to kickstarting the epidemic of corpulence that now afflicts the West:

“As televisions became more popular in American households, family meal times shifted from gathering around the table to spend quality time to sitting in front of the television and absorbing the scheduled programming. This caused an upheaval of the standard nuclear family, and instead of listening to little Billy talk about his day at school or letting Mary Jane share the latest gossip, fathers shushed little children and mothers stuffed little mouths. Many historians theorize that this dysfunctional environment fostered the rebellious teens and young adults of the hippie era.”(38)

Dissolving the glue that held societies together, inserting division, aggrandizing the role of the state and increasing dependence on it were all go-to strategies. Families, particularly African American families, were systematically undermined by welfare policies allegedly designed to lift them up. The culture of victimhood that has been inculcated excuses a lack of effort and disengagement with behaviours that are associated with success. Of the 67 million American abortions since Roe v Wade (in 1973), over 20 million have been black babies – 30% of the total, despite the fact that African Americans make up only 12.4% of the population.(39)(40)

Christianity has also been targeted, both head-on and obliquely. Progressives will generally avoid the subject of religion altogether, unless they wish to rant about Christian nationalists or the traditional Latin mass, preferring to outlaw religious beliefs under the guise of battling ‘bigotry’ or some other ephemeral coda they’ve magicked up, but their animosity is an inevitable consequence of their own ideology:

“If there is a God, he is a direct threat to their power and control. God represents a unique state of being superior to man in all ways, one that cannot be influenced, corrupted, trifled with, or bribed. God is the ultimate example for all as to what a righteous and upright life should be, as opposed to our imperfect and temporary lives, and that’s a direct threat to all the aforementioned enemies of God.”(41)

Amongst those who take an interest in what makes civilisations tick, it is almost universally accepted that their rise and fall is correlated to their religiosity. Gods provide the coda that defines acceptable social behaviour, that asserts what it is that is morally right and what is morally wrong – without them, a collapse in collective faith presages a civilisation’s eventual demise. It doesn’t seem to be a particularly difficult concept to grasp; if agreement on morality is no longer possible, if everybody is then entitled to their own ‘truth’, there is no unifying purpose, no real meaning, no telos. Such a vacuum is a vital prerequisite for the imposition of new organising principles – a Great Reset, if you like.

In the modern day, we are treated to DEI, but this ideology is simply ‘affirmative action’ rebranded – a demand that some groups of people are more equal than others, the antithesis of Christianity and the death of merit; “less articles of faith than a set of tactics — no longer instruments of compromise but of humiliation, tools by which resentment was stoked and sustained.”(42) Why try any more, when there is no reward for doing the right thing? And whilst it is true that DEI has attracted its share of opprobrium, I’m not sure that it’s attracted enough. The entire premise turns our world upside down, guaranteeing a retreat from standards, from the pursuit of excellence.

Silent praying outside abortion clinics is represented as “intimidating to service users”,(43) denying service on religious grounds will result in a prosecution for ‘discrimination’,(44) religious exemptions from unlawful vaccine mandates (and much else besides) are as rare as hen’s teeth – as an aside, the fact that the state reserves the right to adjudicate such matters is itself an abuse – and many of the ‘hate speech’ laws specifically target religious faith. The current rhetoric around Charlie Kirk’s stated beliefs largely fails to note that these were firmly based on Biblical tenets that were unabashedly mainstream as recently as the turn of the century, but which can now be labelled ‘racist’ and ‘fascist’.

Since 2018, attacks on Christian churches worldwide have increased by 730%.(45) In the US, in Obama’s third term, the FBI actively targeted Catholics and the aforementioned ‘Christian nationalists’,(46) a designation first coined by J Edgar Hoover, and agencies across the federal government discriminated against Christians.(47) In Europe, under the guise of ‘inclusivity’, Christmas is gradually being cancelled, so as not to cause offence to those who might usefully be termed ‘late arrivals’.(48) Organised religion, across the Christian spectrum, has been captured by the woke mind virus and ‘Susan from the Parish Council’ rules the roost,(49)(50) because the prevailing culture – wholly divorced from faith though it is – has her back:

“Say what you will about Susan, but she understands power. She knows that America’s prevailing culture will condemn any reactionary clergyman in a white parish, but not the rapping cleric in the inner-city parish, because acting against the former is considered virtuous, while acting against the latter is considered racism.”(51)

In the US and, more generally, across Western civilisation, the progressives have control of the media, the judiciary and, particularly, academia. By the 1980s, “the university was ceasing to be the guardian of truth and culture. Instead, relativism was being allowed to erode tradition, while grievance displaced learning.”(52) It should have been obvious to those not in thrall to cultural Marxism that relativism was an existential threat;

“...when disputes cease to be arguments within a shared reality and instead become clashes over what reality itself is, rapprochement is no longer possible. At that point, the logic of civic debate and constitutional politics gives way to the logic of force.”(53)

But, no. Battle was not joined, which has led to a world in which failing a student’s paper because he used the term ‘biological woman’ is permissible.(54) And so, the matrix of control expanded. Now, taxpayers pay for ‘nudge units’, whose job is to achieve the state’s desired outcome by manipulating the population, using methods that go well beyond what most people would find acceptable. ‘Fact-checkers’ exist to gaslight us and embed the approved narrative and language itself is co-opted, the better to deceive.

Killing an unborn child is now known as a woman’s ‘reproductive rights’; illegal aliens are now ‘undocumented migrants; career criminals are, instead, ‘justice-involved persons’; the gender dysphoric/mentally ill transvestite is part of the ‘transgender community’, despite the fact that there is no such state of being; the word ‘vaccine’ is redefined so as to remove its original meaning; labelling a person ‘brain dead’ (a legal and scientific fiction) enables a physician to harvest vital organs from the living – thereby murdering them - and/or experiment on them for a ‘study period’ before killing them off.(55)(56)

‘Denier’, ‘far-right’, ‘fascist’ and ‘divisive’ are words that have all been bleached of meaning to any half-sensible person; and the evergreen ‘extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence’ (they don’t – they simply require the same level of evidence as claims that aren’t subjectively labelled ‘extraordinary’) has been used to defend a status quo that has never been evidence-based. It’s gotten so bad that even some Leftists can smell the coffee and have gone so far as to issue guidance to their froth-mouthed colleagues, identifying which words they should excise from their vocabulary.(57)

Culturally, very few stones have been left unturned, but the process has usually excited little resistance on the Right due, perhaps, to either an inability to join the dots or an unwillingness to draw attention to a complete absence of spine – probably the latter. Instead of constructing buildings of beauty, brutalist architecture assumed centre stage; minimalist concrete buildings in a predominantly monochrome pallet. Many other aspects of life have been stripped of colour, cinema included, and 80% of new cars are now grayscale.(58) Negativity to the world of sight is not a new phenomenon; Plato deemed it a deceptive ‘prison-house’, Aristotle “thought lines, not colour, contain the soul and meaning of an image”,(59) Rousseau and Kant agreed, but it is in the modern-day that the purge of colour has been most successful.

The copy-and-paste nature of the woke visual arts has been well-documented, the lack of creativity in cinema, TV and music likewise. In 2019, a banana taped to a wall sold for $120,000.(60) But that’s okay – postmodernism asserts that anything can be art, even this.

Figure 1

And there’s a reason why white music moguls have incessantly promoted rap and hip-hop, whilst no new musical genres have surfaced since the nineties, coincidentally the decade in which rap took a turn for the worse,(61) when gang culture, misogyny and racism came to the fore and haven’t yet made way for anything better. However, regardless of what apologists assert, rap has rarely been anything other than bad news for the black community and, owing to its ubiquity, everyone else, too:

“The venom that suffuses rap had little place in black popular culture—indeed, in black attitudes—before the 1960s. The hip-hop ethos can trace its genealogy to the emergence in that decade of a black ideology that equated black strength and authentic black identity with a militantly adversarial stance toward American society.”(62)

It’s not difficult to see how that kind of attitude might be useful to a caste of progressives intent on destruction, is it? Noise - “a catch-all term for any and all unwanted sound” -(63) in general, has also been weaponised, perhaps not entirely knowingly by some entities. From sports arenas, to restaurants, elevators, the grocery store and cafés, music is now a given, often played at conversation-impairing volume. Drivers with stereo volumes so loud that the shake windows are now, seemingly, socially acceptable, as are those who remove their exhaust silencers, ensuring that they can be heard a half-mile away. Many, myself included, find having to endure such noise saturation aggravating, but it has another, more insidious effect:

“What this way of living does not and cannot...offer, is any time for wonder or contemplation, mental activities that virtually every cultural tradition before our time has seen as absolutely essential to achieving the sort of spiritual and/or psychic depth that has long been associated with maturity and the ability to exercise discernment in our daily affairs.”(64)

Quite how these conditions have come to pass – how space for introspection and meaningful conversations have been systematically squeezed across so many seemingly unconnected environs – I know not. I doubt if a memo would have sufficed but, if I were a string-puller committed to increasing my control over the many, I would be fully invested in any scheme that minimised the time available for reflection and dialogue. Noise at high volume, frequently consisting of music that was once enervating but which is now stale (hearing the same songs hundreds of times over can have that effect) or of hip-hop that is antagonistic and crass, would be a grand way to go about it.

And so, over perhaps six decades, Western culture has undergone a transformation – or, to be more accurate, public culture has – and a suffocating one-size-fits-all homogeneity has been imposed; some of it has genuinely stuck, even in those of us who reject the makeover, simply because we need to navigate daily life without enduring one long, uninterrupted conflict from morning ‘til night. I suspect that much of it hasn’t found a home in the hearts and minds of others, particularly those who navigated the education system before peak crazy, because the change hasn’t been organic and forcing the pace has always provoked resistance in the stronger-willed. Plus, of course, entrusting the cultural revolution to the type of personality that is drawn to collectivism is, ultimately, problematic. And that is the dynamic; the barn-burners could not have achieved any of this without permission.

Nor have they actually accomplished what they set out to do – not across the board, at any rate. The theory itself – a cultural revolution presaging a political one – is not faulty; the problem lies with ideology and a refusal to acknowledge the existence of human nature. Neither the useful idiots nor their enablers believe that human beings have souls. To them, we are merely meat machines:

“Our rational minds, our sense of self, our moral institutions, our loves and hates and loyalties are finally fictions in this view – side effects, illusions, the shadows cast by what is only really real: mere chemistry and physics...neurons in our brains shooting sparks through the meat, driven by iron laws of deterministic causation or the blind whims of random chance.”(65)

If this was true, then Gramsci’s prescription would make sense – replacing traditional patterns of belief with a brand new set, absent any residue of what went before, would be achievable without duress. It’s not that it isn’t possible to influence some personality types in that way and, if given the opportunity to practice immersive propaganda through the education system, entire cohorts of impressionable young people can be brainwashed. Yet, at least sixty years since the project started, 70% of Americans still believe in the afterlife (whilst the numbers in the rest of the West are lower, they still average more than 50%),(66) so on a fundamental level the progressive mantra has not stuck in most people.

It seems that controlling the commanding heights is one thing - a cultural blackout of contrary viewpoints can certainly be achieved - but winning hearts and minds is something else altogether. Especially when marginal, arbitrary, delusional beliefs are front and centre. The pudding can be overegged. And silence or a lack of pushback does not equate to consent – it just means that, for the time being, the soggy middle is not willing to bestir itself; nothing more. These are not distinctions that one would expect a zealot to note, but it seems to me that this is what Gramsci had in mind – a genuine makeover of the moral order, not a decades-long abuse of the largely unwilling. He expected the Marxist case to be made and for it to prove compelling. The masses would fall in line without the need for coercion.

Yet majorities do not believe that we are merely animals, reliant on the state’s largesse for rights and entitlements, and many of those who have no truck with the divine still believe in man’s inherent rights. It may seem that the nutjobs are in the majority, but they aren’t. How many of those toxic social media accounts are actually real? A plague of bot farms are known to exist, pushing Leftist gibberish. It’s a little like geo-engineering – once you can see it happening, how can you know what weather is real and what isn’t? So we find ourselves – inevitably – approaching something of a crossroads:

“Over the centuries, those that deem the state is paramount and, thus, the source of all rights, believe granting, limiting, or denying these rights is the sole discretion of the state based on what the state defines as the greater good. When the state refuses to recognize the unalienable or God-given rights of its citizens its society is beset with turmoil and its culture is fraught with no respect for the life, liberty, and property of its individual citizens.”(67)

The modern-day Left is now a grievance-based, resentful entity that is the inevitable spawn of progressive ideology. Whilst alleged moderates like Bill Maher wax lyrical about how the Democratic Party has left him, not the other way around, the truth is that the progressive wing has been cracking the whip for well over a hundred years; they were the party of eugenics and the KKK at the turn of the twentieth century and FDR’s New Deal, followed by LBJ’s Big Society, embedded socialist ideology in law. And, as noted, the long march is a Marxist strategy and the oppressor/oppressed dialectic is fundamental to the creed.

However, does anybody truly believe that the overthrow of the ruling class is the object of the exercise? That workers’ councils will run our future world? Is that why today’s oligarchs fund Antifa and other rabble-rousers? To do away with themselves? I think not. Ironically, the low-wattage activists seeking to bring about equality of outcome, the people who delight in accusing those that oppose them of fascism, are themselves the handmaidens of that ideology.

We know what it is that the WEF and the globalists have planned for us – digital currencies, social credit scores, UBI, Agenda 21, the surveillance state, hate speech laws, a world managed by artificial intelligence and more such gubbins besides. Vast conglomerates monopolising industry, a state/business corporatocracy. Not a socialist nirvana; just another fascist autocracy, more Mussolini than Hitler, with the state the unofficial plaything of the ruling class:

“Remember that Benito Mussolini coined the word “fascism” and defined it to mean the integration of the State with privately owned business. It’s different from socialism, where the State owns the means of production.”(68)

A distinction that matters little, as the state is not the servant of the people and its assets are not owned by them. In truth, most countries are already fascistic, as “the economic system [is] characterized by a total melding of the interests of government and large corporations.”(69) But what is intended for us would be fascism on steroids, with the individual subservient to the state and digitally entrapped as never before. That lower caste would also include the Leftist turkeys, willingly voting for Christmas – those that are still of this world, having dutifully turned themselves into pin cushions.

However, it would be a mistake to claim that the string-pullers are wedded to a particular ideology. For them, home and away require different approaches. Domestically, they are only too happy to consolidate power in the hands of the few, deploying the Federal Reserve, contrived financial disasters – which tend to happen along either when a particular scheme has been all played out or when the ‘too big to fail’ canard is about to land – and pandemics, but in foreign climes the emphasis is on the privatisation of state assets, at which point a different scam is set in motion. The former Warsaw pact countries are all too familiar with that game.

Whereas near-monopolies at home are just fine and dandy, ‘increased competition’ is the mantra for emerging democracies. Those whose state-owned resources and utilities, however decrepit, still function adequately and are not-for-profit, where rural communities survive cooperate and are largely self-sufficient. However, the carrot of EU membership is dangled, foreign capital snaps up the infrastructure and expects to make a profit and the cycle begins:

“As these states are prodded to ‘progress’ towards ‘competitive’ economies, other assets are surrendered to exploitation, where state owned arable land is turned over to business partners of the elite (1%) and the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are employed to subject the state to debt slavery...”(70)

So, democratic socialism/communism has always been undermined, when practised at the national level, which is not to say that collectivism at a global level isn’t the desired end state – it is, provided it’s on the terms of the globalist ruling class. In addition to the aforementioned financial behemoths, the EU and NATO are frequently deployed, either as carrot and stick or stick and stick, with the former’s environmental regulations used to strip-mine assets. And we are all now aware of the contracting out of the Reset to global institutions, particularly the UN, which is the tip of the spear with regard to ‘climate change’ – the IPCC – and ‘pandemic preparedness’ – the WHO.

Thusfar, then, a summary of how it is that we have arrived at this pretty pass. Now a stab at what we can, perhaps, expect and a look at potential deceptions that will be recognised as such further down the line, but which we can flag in real time. The first circumstance to acknowledge is that the suffocating hegemony of wokeness has lately been challenged by Orange Man Bad and it is possible that he represents more than a bump in the road. It is also possible that he is not now all that he seems to be. But first, the state of play elsewhere, which is considerably easier to assess.

With the honourable exception of Hungary and Slovakia, the entirety of the West is as one. The EU is stepping up its censorship regimen, regardless of the criticisms of Trump, Vance et al. The Digital Services Act (DSA) is already in force, requiring online platforms and search engines to take action against content that threatens ‘civic discourse’ and ‘public health’, categories so broad and subjective as to be potentially all-encompassing.(71) The Act is in open defiance of the EU’s own charter, which states the following:

“Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.”(72)

Not content with what is, in effect, a worldwide muffling of whatever dissenting voices are selected, the European Media Freedom Act became binding last month. As might now be expected, it doesn’t do what it says on the tin – the precise opposite, in fact, as built-in loopholes provide cover for governments to decide which voices are silenced and which remain active “by allowing arrests, surveillance and tighter state control in the media landscape”,(73) when the ‘general interest’ is threatened.

Not content with those abominations, the Commission is still determined to force private messaging services to scan every user’s messages for ‘illegal content’, encryption be damned.(74) I kid you not. One could call it a desperate attempt to regain narrative dominance and perhaps it is – or perhaps these steps were always a waypoint. I suspect the latter, as there is yet further evidence of the surveillance state in the introduction (in a fortnight) of an Entry/Exit System that captures the biometric data of every non-EU national who travels to the Schengen area, data that is then shared with US intelligence-linked companies like Amazon and Palo Alto Networks; “intelligence cooperation, run through the private sector in the absence of any formal arrangements.”(75)

The EU is also, of course, still careering down the Net Zero cliff face, is fully invested in the full panoply of wokeism and is still finding ways of stealing the elections that need stealing. Having surpassed itself in Romania, it will shortly be back to Moldova for Act Two of that country’s exercise of democracy. In fact, by the time I complete this offering, the election will already have been stolen (or possibly cancelled), as it was last time around.(76)(77)(78)(79)(80)

And Moldova isn’t even an EU country, although its illegitimate globalist leader wants in. [Update; ‘stolen’ doesn’t do it justice – pre-election polling predicted a globalist shellacking, but didn’t take account of the strokes that were pulled, some of them for the third time in three years:

“So, Maia Sandu’s pro-EU PAS scraped 50.16% in Moldova’s election… a bare majority won only after banning at least six opposition parties, trimming Moscow-leaning Transnistria’s polling stations from 41 to 12 under the alibi of bridge repairs, and offering just two in Russia for up to half a million Moldovans, while 73 were opened in Italy for barely a hundred thousand.”(81)]

Another day, another so-called democracy bites the dust. In other news, Macron is hanging on for dear life, having named his fifth Prime Minister in only two years; the German courts are busy banning AfD candidates (at the behest of their equivalent of MI5) and censoring Twitter/X with Musk’s permission;(82)(83) the Austrians are enduring an immigrant-fuelled wave of stabbings and shootings, which is wholly unsurprising given the enormous demographic changes its native population have endured – sharia law has also gained its footing;(84)(85) and there are now over 900 no-go zones scattered around Europe, with power to add.(86) While the citizens in Europe are voting for nationalist parties in ever-increasing numbers, the Commission isn’t listening:

“The European Union is undeniably moving toward a form of autonomous statehood...decision-making power and political competence are shifting markedly from national capitals to Brussels, where a centralized bureaucracy increasingly calls the shots. A return to national autonomy and a Commission limited to core functions appears out of the question.”(87)

The UK under Starmer is even more of a basket case. It’s difficult to know where to begin, but a smattering of examples should serve to illustrate the current ambience – an average of thirty people a day are being arrested for speech crimes, including one poor chap who posted “anti-immigration, anti lockdown, and anti-vaccine statements” and was treated to a special visit by anti-terrorism police who banned him from social media, seized all his devices and reserved to themselves the right to come back and do it all over again;(88)(89) town councils take down flags of St. George while leaving multiple Palestinian flags aloft;(90) the Labour government is forcing the mass closure of pubs and has also decreed that cremations must comply with Net Zero;(91)(92)

Tube passengers who tackled a deranged, naked man found themselves under investigation for assault;(93) the media are so marinated in wokeism that, when a long-haired pervert exposed himself to a child, the report stated that the offender was seen “holding her penis and wiggling it” because the he ‘identified’ as a she.(94) The epic unpopularity of Starmer’s band of nonentities – and the possibility of a palace coup – will not prompt a change of course, the next election is four years away, the Tories are now an irrelevance and Farage is well on his way to being assimilated.

In addition, the current incumbent, a charisma-free zone if ever there was one, has seemingly failed to appreciate that if only one in five eligible voters cast ballots for Labour, claiming a mandate from the public is demonstrable bullshine, particularly when half of your fans said they were voting tactically to rid themselves of the traitorous Tories. Only 1% of the electorate voted Labour because of Starmer’s leadership and it would be safe to assume that even they are experiencing buyer’s remorse.(95)

But while there may be discontent, if Tommy Robinson’s march is our guide, solutions are non-existent, at present, despite “the extreme dissatisfaction of a large percentage of that population” who have concluded that their discontent “can never be resolved through the parliamentary system, so-called democracy.”(96) It’s not the first time that we’ve been here – the Eastern European Communist regimes had reached that point by 1989, in the absence of democracy. However, the modern Uniparty regime will not, I suspect, throw in its cards (as they did) and walk away.

The voting age is being lowered to sixteen and the Online Safety Act – mirroring the EU’s DSA – is intended to curate regime narratives and pre-empt any attempt at self-education. Given the pre-eminence of state-sponsored woke indoctrination, perpetual electoral triumph could be locked in. In addition, the government is aiming to off citizens if one of their vast array of medical ‘experts’ deems them terminally ill and force a national ID card on those that remain.(97)(98) The plan is clear; a way of foiling it in a peaceful manner, not so much.

Conditions are little different in the rest of the Anglosphere. Canada was the first to embrace the death cult that is MaiD (Medical Assistance in Dying) in 2016 and, entirely predictably, the progressive types who seem to have a permanent grip on power have ensured that the safeguards that they solemnly swore to abide by have, instead, been stripped away. Originally intended to only apply to those “with a terminal illness and unbearable suffering” -(99) both judgements being entirely subjective – the programme now kills all and sundry:

“Now, the regime has widened MAiD into a eugenics program that includes euthanizing people with disabilities, chronic conditions, and even those living in poverty who say they “can’t go on.” The Québec College of Physicians went so far as to recommend legalizing euthanasia for newborn infants with disabilities [and,] in 2023, a Canadian parliamentary committee recommended allowing assisted death to “mature minors”.”(100)

The latest government figures (for 2023) show that 4.7% of nationwide deaths were down to MaiD. Quebec surpassed itself with 7%, the highest rate of euthanasia in the entire world.(101) The state is also looking to boost the rate of abortion,(102) the better to “kill you, coming or going.”(103) Canada is also blessed with the trans cult, anti-Christian bias, a legal system that punishes self-defence and politicians who believe they have the right to ban people from walking in the woods because climate change.(104)(105) During the ‘pandemic’, vaccine mandates were widespread and retribution against the unvaxxed was a national pastime.(106) And so, at the present time, the Canucks are leading the Tyranny Stakes by a nose, with the Brits coming up on the rails.

The Antipodes, home to the rugged individualists of yore, have also fallen under the spell of the Leftists. Governments of whatever stripe are united in their authoritarianism so, even with Jacinda Ardern relocating to a stable in the northern hemisphere, the New Zealand establishment continues to Karen the population. The censorship of opposing views, avoidance of accountability, climate change activism and general wokery are all wearisomely endemic.(107)(108)(109)(110)

The Australian culture is similarly afflicted; in New South Wales it is now illegal to pray that ‘transgender’ individuals will see the light,(111) a women’s rights activist is out of pocket to the tune of A$200,000 for “vilifying transathletes by referring to them as men”,(112) and a women’s football team with five male athletes just won their league for the second year in a row.(113) All the rest of the nonsense that you would expect to slipstream the trans agenda, duly does. The Family Court of Australia may well occupy the highest rung on the authoritarian ladder, as it routinely tears families apart and “destroys the lives of many mothers, grandmothers and daughters, just as it does their male counterparts.”(114) And, if the Senate gets its way, anyone questioning climate change will soon be censored or even imprisoned.(115)

And so, a couple of minnows aside, the entire Western globalist class is in lockstep and any opposition is ineffectual. The culture war has resulted in a long string of defeats for the Right and there is little that remains to be conserved. The institutions that once defended and helped define a culture have been systematically suborned; the educational establishment, the judiciary, the media, the medical profession and the democratic system itself.

None serve, all dictate a collectivist creed that cannot countenance opposing views and cannot debate them either, because logic and reason don’t undergird it – resentment and spite do. The string-pullers are closing in on their objectives. There is only one latterly dissident regime and we all know who leads it – Literally Hitler, the Divider-in-Chief. Next, then, a look at what the man is and isn’t doing and why and what effect his actions may have on the rest of us.

Citations

(1) https://chroniclesmagazine.org/web/winning-the-culture-war-2/

(2) https://www.salon.com/2018/12/09/elite-secret-society-tied-bush-to-circles-of-power_partner/

(3) https://chroniclesmagazine.org/web/winning-the-culture-war-2/

(4-6) Ditto

(7) https://chroniclesmagazine.org/web/life-in-the-old-right/

(8) Ditto

(9) Marcuse, Herbert (1972). Counterrevolution and Revolt. Boston: Beacon Press, pages 55-56.

(10) https://amgreatness.com/2025/09/05/bishop-barron-rebukes-senator-kaines-outrageous-and-dangerous-comments-about-rights-coming-from-government-not-god/

(11) https://nicedeb.wordpress.com/2010/09/27/obamas-declaration-of-independence-creator-omission-was-no-accident/

(12)https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/09/the_ultimate_authority.html

(13) https://checkyourfact.com/2018/12/16/fact-check-percent-republicans-vote-civil-rights-act/

(14) https://mises.org/mises-wire/age-entitlement-legacy-anti-discrimination-laws

(15) Caldwell, Christopher. The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties, Simon and Schuster, 2020. Page 33.

(16) https://amgreatness.com/2025/09/21/348053/

(17) https://theweek.com/articles/528746/origins-marriage

(18)

Clusterfuck Nation

Dressed to Kill

When Brian De Palma’s movie, Dressed to Kill, came out in 1980, this was a different country. Like Hitchcock’s Psycho before it (1960), both films depicted men seeking to become women who are murderously deranged by their wishful fantasies. Now, our country has become murderously deranged by the same fantasy writ large…

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a year ago · 644 likes · 719 comments · James Howard Kunstler

(19)

(20) https://www.carousel.blog/p/blame-women

(21) https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-myth-of-male-privilege/

(22)https://dailysceptic.org/2024/05/09/is-the-world-better-with-women-in-charge/

(23) https://americanmind.org/salvo/the-false-science-of-feminism/

(24)https://alt-market.us/feminists-are-begging-for-men-to-come-back-but-still-blame-them-for-everything/

(25) https://mansworldmag.online/the-derogation-of-disagreeable-men/ 25

(26-29) Ditto

(30) https://www.numberofabortions.com/

(31) https://amgreatness.com/2023/05/14/how-the-courts-fostered-a-family-crisis/

(32) https://www.numberofabortions.com/

(33) Ditto

(34) https://www.asanet.org/women-more-likely-men-initiate-divorces-not-non-marital-breakups/

(35) Ditto

(36) https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/divorce-plunged-in-kentucky-equal-custody-for-fathers-is-a-big-reason-why/ar-AA1LXz6l

(37) https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/02/upshot/the-divorce-surge-is-over-but-the-myth-lives-on.html

(38) https://bjatriangle.com/how-the-tv-dinner-shaped-america/

(39) https://www.numberofabortions.com/

(40)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_the_United_States#Black_and_African_Americans

(41)https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/09/why_progressives_hate_god.html

(42) https://dailysceptic.org/2025/09/16/how-the-left-programmed-young-people-to-hate/

(43) https://theconversation.com/silent-prayer-outside-of-abortion-clinics-is-a-form-of-reproductive-coercion-237408

(44) https://natlawreview.com/article/supreme-court-rules-favor-baker-lgbt-discrimination-case

(45) https://revolver.news/2025/09/many-have-been-waiting-years-for-president-trump-to-say-these-words/

(46) https://judiciary.house.gov/media/press-releases/new-report-details-extent-fbis-weaponization-law-enforcement-against

(47) https://nypost.com/2025/09/05/us-news/doj-task-force-finds-numerous-instances-of-anti-christian-government-bias-under-biden/

(48) https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/europe-canceling-christmas

(49) https://x.com/FromParish

(50) https://chroniclesmagazine.org/editorials/even-after-political-wins-right-wing-pastors-are-still-afraid-of-susan/

(51) Ditto

(52) https://dailysceptic.org/2025/09/16/how-the-left-programmed-young-people-to-hate/

(53) https://dailysceptic.org/2025/09/16/how-the-left-programmed-young-people-to-hate/

(54) https://www.thecollegefix.com/adjunct-who-failed-student-for-using-term-biological-women-confirms-story-plays-the-victim/

(55) https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/brain-death-fallacy-organ-harvesting/

(56)https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/08/using_people_with_brain_death_as_lab_rats.html

(57) https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/22/democrats-woke-language-blacklist-00519421

(58) https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1892322753887285455.html

(59) Ditto

(60)

Pens and Poison

The Crisis of Artistic Creativity

In 2019, a banana duct-taped to a wall sold for $120,000. This singular moment in our culture—the exhibition of Maurizio Cattelan’s “Comedian” at Miami’s Art Basel—captured global attention and quickly sparked a debate about the nature of art in the 21st century: in a world of gross commodification and infinite possibilities, can…

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2 years ago · 73 likes · 30 comments · Liza Libes

(61)https://no-taste.com/no-taste-blog/pop-music-changed-90s-2867/

(62) https://www.city-journal.org/article/how-hip-hop-holds-blacks-back

(63) https://thewalrus.ca/noise-ethics/

(64) https://brownstone.org/articles/silence-and-sovereignty/

(65) https://chroniclesmagazine.org/web/immortal-soul-or-meat-machine/

(66) https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/which-countries-believe-life-after-death

(67)https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/09/iryna_zarutska_charlie_kirk_and_the_democrat_party.html

(68) https://www.lewrockwell.com/2025/06/doug-casey/palantir-the-intersection-of-government-and-corporate-power/

(69) Ditto

(70) https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Document:Privatization_for_Dummies_%E2%80%93_The_Nuts_%26_Bolts_of_The_World%27s_Biggest_Scam

(71) https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/08/the-eus-new-plans-for-online-communications-are-terrifying.html

(72) https://fra.europa.eu/en/eu-charter/article/11-freedom-expression-and-information#:~:text=Everyone%20has%20the%20right%20to,authority%20and%20regardless%20of%20frontiers

(73) https://reclaimthenet.org/eu-media-freedom-act-allows-arrests

(74) https://reclaimthenet.org/eu-revives-plan-to-ban-private-messaging

(75)

Die Fackel 2.0

Travel Notice: EU to Launch New Entry/Exit System on 12 Oct. 2025

Time for some practical information for all non-EU/Schengen residents with travel plans for business of pleasure to Ye Olde World. As per the EU Commission’s press release from 30 July 2025 (emphases in the original in Italics; all bold passages are my emphases…

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a year ago · 20 likes · 30 comments · epimetheus

(76) https://t.me/igordodon/8180

(77) https://x.com/Amb_Ulyanov/status/1848363624173011079

(78) https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/moldova-eu-referendum-vote-near-tie-president-blames-russian-interference

(79) https://x.com/MikeBenzCyber/status/1906676583068320107/photo/2

(80) https://apnews.com/article/moldova-presidential-election-russia-corruption-fraud-5886447779a4a818e9f30fdadcb8bbe5

(81) https://x.com/27khv/status/1972597194151563562

(82) https://rmx.news/article/german-election-turns-into-farce-after-afd-candidate-banned-from-running-only-29-of-voters-participate-in-ludwigshafen/

(83) https://rmx.news/article/eu-censors-post-from-german-police-union-deputy-head-describing-a-dystopian-germany-in-2050-due-to-mass-immigration/

(84) https://rmx.news/article/austria-ive-never-experienced-a-dimension-of-crime-of-this-magnitude-before-and-ive-been-in-this-business-for-20-years/

(85) https://brusselssignal.eu/2025/08/austrian-court-allows-use-of-islamic-sharia-law-in-private-contracts/

(86) https://www.meforum.org/mef-online/europe-is-turning-into-one-big-no-go-zone

(87) https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/road-hyperstate-eu-commission-circumvents-financing-rules

(88) https://modernity.news/2025/08/07/why-britain-arrests-30-people-every-day-for-speech/

(89) https://x.com/frameinorder/status/1959593155344367638

(90) https://dailysceptic.org/2025/08/15/fury-as-labour-run-council-tears-down-dangerous-st-georges-and-union-jack-flags-from-city-streets-but-palestine-flags-are-allowed/

(91) https://dailysceptic.org/2025/09/09/labour-must-halt-its-war-on-pubs/

(92) https://dailysceptic.org/2025/09/14/funerals-should-comply-with-net-zero-says-labour/

(93) https://revolver.news/2025/08/passengers-who-tackled-deranged-naked-man-on-subway-are-hunted-by-cops-for-assault/

(94) https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/25438325.great-harwoods-laura-mart-jailed-exposure-lancaster/

(95) https://www.thecanary.co/uk/analysis/2024/07/05/labour-landslide-fptp/

(96) https://mansworldmag.online/on-the-united-kingdom-and-1989-eastern-europe-as-harbinger/

(97) https://expose-news.com/2025/09/24/is-doctor-bill-a-stitch-up/

(98) https://expose-news.com/2025/09/26/starmers-digital-id-is-a-solution-looking-for-a-crisis/

(99)

The Daily News from the Art of Liberty Foundation

Canadian Government Caught Secretly Euthanizing Mentally Ill Citizens

by Frank Bergman, slaynews.com…

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a year ago · 13 likes · 3 comments · Etienne de la Boetie2

(100)

The Daily News from the Art of Liberty Foundation

Canadian Government Caught Secretly Euthanizing Mentally Ill Citizens

by Frank Bergman, slaynews.com…

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a year ago · 13 likes · 3 comments · Etienne de la Boetie2

(101) https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0j1z14p57po

(102) https://amgreatness.com/2025/09/20/dying-to-get-out-of-canada/

(103) Ditto

(104)https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/09/the_iron_mukluk_comes_down_in_canada.html

(105)https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/08/on_wildfires_canada_s_leaders_can_take_a_hike.html

(106) https://internationalman.com/articles/the-harsh-truth-about-life-in-canada-today/

(107) https://expose-news.com/2023/06/04/new-zealand-government-set-up-ministry-of-truth/

(108) https://expose-news.com/2025/03/29/dr-sam-bailey-is-fined/

(109) https://expose-news.com/2025/09/15/hipkins-avoids-being-questioned-by-covid-inquiry/

(110) https://expose-news.com/2024/12/05/governments-exposing-people-to-health-risks/

(111) https://pjmedia.com/catherinesalgado/2025/09/13/australia-banned-praying-for-transgenders-to-reject-gender-ideology-n4943682

(112) https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/09/australian-womens-rights-activist-facing-200k-fine-calling/

(113) https://reduxx.info/australian-womens-football-team-with-multiple-male-players-wins-womens-premier-league-title-for-second-year-in-a-row/

(114) https://dailysceptic.org/2025/03/20/the-shameful-story-of-how-australias-family-court-was-weaponised-against-men/

(115)https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Information_Integrity_on_Climate_Change_and_Energy/ClimateIntegrity

Figure 1

Pens and Poison

The Crisis of Artistic Creativity

In 2019, a banana duct-taped to a wall sold for $120,000. This singular moment in our culture—the exhibition of Maurizio Cattelan’s “Comedian” at Miami’s Art Basel—captured global attention and quickly sparked a debate about the nature of art in the 21st century: in a world of gross commodification and infinite possibilities, can…

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2 years ago · 73 likes · 30 comments · Liza Libes

Once upon a time in America, back in the Senescent Era, the ruling class had things easier. They still ran into some substantial roadblocks – the Vietnam War protests being, perhaps, the most notable – but even then the kerfuffle served to distract from a second major grift that outlasted the war itself, namely the CIA's rape and pillage of Laos and Cambodia and its control of the region's drug trade, a dominance that had its genesis in the usurpation of France's hegemony (along with that of the Corsican Mafia) back in the 1950s, when the trafficking was legal.(2) The press might have been willing to feed the outrage machine with regards to the war, but they weren't prepared to hold the front page for a series about the exploits of Air America.

And, increasingly, Operation Mockingbird – the CIA, from 1950 onwards, spent the equivalent of a billion dollars a year, purchasing the services of over 400 journalists in the corporate media -(3) and a tendency for the awkward squad to expire prematurely, ensured that the approved narrative was the one that lodged firmly in the public's mind. The big scandals – Watergate, Iran-Contra – weren't organic; they were targeted operations, the first to rid themselves of a previously loyal apparatchik who was going off the reservation (see Part Three), the second an attempt by Poppy Bush to throw Reagan under the bus and assume the throne, delicately timed so that he could rule for ten years, rather than eight. (also Part Three).(4)

The list of controlled media assets was long and impressive, including CBS, the New York Times, the Washington Post, ABC, NBC, Newsweek, Associated Press and others.(5) Apparently, “you could get a journalist cheaper than a good call girl, for a couple hundred dollars a month.”(6) Other entities were simply infiltrated at the management level by CIA operatives, such as at Time Magazine.(7) The original operation involved over 3,000 Agency personnel and those 400 journalists and it's still going strong, despite energetic denials. If you want access, you play the game.

The only other spot of local difficulty occurred in the mid-seventies, with the election of the last president (until Trump, by the looks of it) who wasn't part of the Cabal. Jimmy Carter, he of the 'moral foreign policy', was not a fan of the Agency and, for a spell, the sociopaths had to keep their heads down. Operations were moved overseas and the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) – the offender in the biggest bank fraud in history -(8) was used to oil the wheels, but once Reagan and Bush were safely ensconced in the White House, normal service was resumed.

The establishment media has had a good run, though it is apparent that it is rapidly coming to an end, largely the result of the growth of the internet, which our Lords and Masters seemed to think they could control – quite why they thought that, I know not. Because gradually, the Great Unwashed, previously reliant on what the Chosen Few were authorised to disclose, have been given the tools to do their own research should they feel the urge. As we know, anyone with an internet connection and an enquiring nature – anywhere in the world – can access information that would be totally inaccessible in hard copy form.

The net result has been (and continues to be) catastrophic, from the perspective of the string-pullers. Which is not to say that a majority of the citizenry now has a firm grasp on the scale of the lies that we have been fed, but a substantial minority is coming to realise that real life and The Truman Show have much more in common that they thought and the backdrop is becoming increasingly threadbare. This is a considerable problem, as our controllers are not yet quite ready to pull back the curtains, move the tables and chairs out of the way and show us the brick wall at the back of the theatre.

This minority is discovering that almost nothing of what we are told to believe is actually true, that we have been fed a constant diet of big and little lies. This realisation can be profoundly destabilising for some and can therefore lead to a desire to slow down the disintegration of the façade by various means, chief amongst them the correlation/causation canard. This is when a cautious, academic approach leads to inconclusive outcomes and no action, even when the preponderance of evidence – in the real world – and common sense should dictate otherwise.

A related problem is the desire to delve into the weeds, to understand exactly how a particular event was put together. Knowing the ins and outs is a natural impulse, but here be dragons, because the enemy has realised that dissension in the ranks can be easily induced. Visit any forum dedicated to the JFK assassination or 9/11 and you will find much wackiness – not always planted by bad actors, but often so – and argumentation about macro and micro elements alike. However, with most of the false flags and criminal conspiracies there are elements – often only a single one is required – that prove beyond any doubt that we are being misled. In truth, the 'why?' and the 'how?' are subordinate to the 'what?' and, when a data point is wholly inconsistent with the 'what?', we are being fed a diet high in faecal matter. And there are no benign reasons for lies. Allow me to illustrate the point.

The golden thread that links Dealey Plaza with a fairground in Butler, Pennsylvania – via the sidewalk outside the Hilton Hotel in DC – is the conduct of the Secret Service. It seems that whenever they screw-up worst, there's always a shooter or two on hand to take advantage. Whilst I accept that there is no way of knowing whether there have been other egregious 'lapses' that have not been similarly exploited, the actions of the personnel involved in these specific cases go far beyond mere incompetence.

Dallas was enemy territory for Kennedy in November, 1963. His administration was unpopular there and, only a few months earlier, his UN ambassador, Adlai Stevenson, had been in town and had been jostled and reportedly spat upon.(9) Further, there had been threats to JFK's life in Miami and assorted plots in LA in June, Chicago earlier in November and Tampa just four days prior.(10) The noose was tightening and, in the circumstances, “the White House Secret Service detail should have been ratcheted up to the equivalent of Defcon 5 by Dallas”.(11) Instead, security was loosened and the choice of the route of the motorcade – combined with a complete lack of protection and oversight – guaranteed opportunities for potential assassins.

Much is made of who it was that signed off on the route and when this was done, but the most important factor is that it was chosen at all. The dogleg onto Houston and Elm Streets made it necessary to slow to around ten miles an hour. Protocol insisted that the intersection be checked in advance; it wasn't. The choice of this route made it necessary to supplement security with local manpower; this didn't happen either and the Secret Service leadership lied about what was a common practice. In addition, resources had been stripped from the motorcade itself. Originally, there were to be eighteen motorcycles listed, but by 21^st November, this number was down to four, all out of position to the rear.(12)

Agents should have been on Kennedy's car, but they weren't – another circumstance the Service attempted to lie about, claiming that Kennedy himself had ordered them to stand down, when he had done no such thing. There should have been police on top of all tall buildings, as there had been at Tampa, but there weren't. There should have been policemen facing the crowds (as there had been earlier in Fort Worth), but that didn't happen either. There should have been military officers on hand – as at San Antonio the day prior – but, you've guessed it, that was another 'mistake'.

It was the Secret Service who took the bubble top off the president's car that morning which, although not bullet-proof, could have deflected rounds.(13) When the firing started, his Secret Service driver – instead of speeding up – slowed down, with at least four witnesses stating that the limousine came to a complete halt for a split second, before speeding off.(14) When they got to Parkland Hospital, while JKF was being examined, agents washed out the back seat of the car with a bucket and sponge, obliterating evidence rather than preserving the scene. And it was the Secret Service that threatened hospital staff – at gunpoint – and absconded with Kennedy's body, in defiance of the law.

All in all, then, some in the Secret Service (not all his detail appear to have known what was planned) went out of its way to expose the president to danger. Dealey Plaza itself was a well-designed kill-zone and Kennedy was provided no cover by agents, police motorcyclists or the bubble top. Nobody watching the crowd, nobody on the tall buildings. His limousine was barely moving after the first shot was fired. Then, afterwards, Secret Service leadership were persistently economical with the actualité and were allowed to be so. This is not incompetence, it's collusion and, whilst I appreciate that the evidence would not convict in court, the Service knew how to do things right and had previously done so - repeatedly. Hence, getting things wrong on this scale is a wilful act.

Figure 1

There is, of course, much more in the way of persuasive evidence of a conspiracy and other single pieces of data could be utilised instead – the 'magic-bullet' theory, the frontal head shot and so forth – but the Secret Service's actions alone are enough to indicate guilt. And it seems that they were at it again in March 1981.

Reagan had only been in office for two months when he attended a speaking engagement at the Washington Hilton Hotel on March 30^th. Earlier in the day, his detail had told him that he would not need to wear his protective vest on that particular day. All went according to protocol on the way to the event and also upon disembarking from the limousine, which had drawn up at the presidential entrance whereupon two phalanxes of agents shielded Reagan as he walked across the pavement. It went somewhat differently when he left the venue via the same door. The limousine was 40-50 feet away. As one prominent researcher puts it:

“When you hire a limousine, they don't go to the house down the street, they come to your door. When you're the president, they'll move it six inches to make sure that it's in the right place. It was in the right place when he arrived... [Now], What's supposed to happen? The Secret Service is supposed to surround him like a diamond and protect him. One guy goes forward, McCarthy, to open the door for him. The rest don't surround him. They all file out like a line of ducks off to the right and they leave Reagan walking in the open with Brady and these other guys. Then, the shooting happens.”(15)

And not all the shooting was from Hinckley. The NBC reporter, Judy Woodruff, reported that a shooter was located overhead, near the roof of the hotel, where Secret Service personnel were located.(16) Presumably, the memo had not yet been disseminated. Reagan himself believed that the pain from the alleged bullet wound came after he was in the car, not before and figured that the agent that bundled him into the car had broken his rib.(17) Meanwhile, Hinckley was mobbed and disarmed. Then, there were more shenanigans with the shooter's weapon, for a reason that is not readily discernible, unless there was a need to match Reagan's wound to another calibre of weapon.

Viewing both the film footage of the aftermath and the photographic record, it's clear that there was a weapon swap. The first picture in the sequence shows the scene seconds after Reagan has made his getaway. Hinckley is in the middle of the ruckus to the left and two agents are crouched over James Brady, the president's Press Secretary who has taken a bullet to the forehead. No handgun is visible. The second picture is taken a split second later, from a different angle and it can seen that the agents are leaning over Brady and reaching for a gun that is lying on the black grill on the pavement. The gun has a brown grip.