liberty blitzkrieg – Page 4

When it comes to U.S. presidents, experience has taught me to always assume the worst. Irrespective of what the winning candidate said on the campaign trail, a few things things tend to happen once they’re sworn into office. To name a few, we almost always end up with a further expansion of the imperial presidency, more pointless wars, growth in the surveillance state and continued unaccountable pillaging by Wall Street. The worst trends and elements of society tend to grow no matter who sits in the oval office.

As such, I’m genuinely heartened by those rare occasions when a U.S. president tries to reduce geopolitical tensions and prioritize peace. This isn’t to say such attempts will work out perfectly, or work at all, but in a world in which a hammer-focused American foreign policy tends to see every situation as a nail, attempts at peace should at the very least be supported by those who claim to care about such things.

Nevertheless, here in America we’ve encouraged and rewarded a peculiar class of people who tend to cluster within specialized niches of the imperial economy, namely the mass media and think tanks often funded by military contractors and foreign dictatorships. While these types always cheer U.S. overseas belligerence, nothing gets them clutching their pearls more fiercely than Donald Trump doing something reasonable.

When it comes to U.S. presidents I’m nobody’s cheerleader, but if the executive tries to make the world more peaceful I’ll support it. If they do the opposite, I’ll oppose. As such, I’m on board with Trump trying to ease tensions on the Korean peninsula and I’m glad he’s doing it. Naturally, mass media pundits took the opposite approach and immediately resorted to their trademark creepy militarism and ignorance.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Beware Former Central Bankers Telling You to Work More

June 9, 2018

Beware Former Central Bankers Telling You to Work More

I’m not the only one of course. The financial crisis of 2008/09 similarly shattered the worldview of tens, if not hundreds of millions of people across the globe. I believe that the old manner of doing things as far as organizing an economy and society died for good during that crisis and its aftermath. Sure it’s been shadily and undemocratically propped up ever since, and we haven’t yet transitioned to what’s next, but for all intents and purposes it’s dead. It’s dead because it has no credibility.

– From last year’s post: The Generational Wheels Are Turning

Hard work is fundamental to our continued existence and advancement as a species. I would never devalue the importance of hard work, particularly when combined with intense passion and drive, which leads to extraordinary technological progress and soaring artistic creations. Nevertheless, my ears perk up whenever I hear an older person lecture millennials about how they need to work more just to have a reasonable chance at a retirement compared to generations that came became before.

Yet that’s exactly what happened when I read an article published at Politico by 75-year old Alicia Munnell, and academic who also worked for the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and the U.S. Treasury Department under Bill Clinton.

She seems to understand the problem. She notes:

A comparison of millennials (adults currently ages 25 to 35) with earlier cohorts (Gen-Xers and late baby boomers) when they were the same age shows that even though a higher percentage of both millennial men and women have college degrees, they are behind in almost every economic dimension.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Preach Less, Live Your Values More

June 5, 2018

Preach Less, Live Your Values More

The employees who are resigning in protest, several of whom discussed their decision to leave with Gizmodo, say that executives have become less transparent with their workforce about controversial business decisions and seem less interested in listening to workers’ objections than they once did. In the case of Maven, Google is helping the Defense Department implement machine learning to classify images gathered by drones. But some employees believe humans, not algorithms, should be responsible for this sensitive and potentially lethal work—and that Google shouldn’t be involved in military work at all.

Historically, Google has promoted an open culture that encourages employees to challenge and debate product decisions. But some employees feel that their leadership no longer as attentive to their concerns, leaving them to face the fallout. “Over the last couple of months, I’ve been less and less impressed with the response and the way people’s concerns are being treated and listened to,” one employee who resigned said.

– Gizmodo: Google Employees Resign in Protest Against Pentagon Contract

Today’s post will revisit a theme I spent considerable time and energy on last year. Namely, the tendency of human beings to focus on words versus deeds.

In case you haven’t noticed, very few people on social media are out there talking about how much they love exploitation, or admit that they’d unflinchingly put aside all ethical considerations in the pursuit of money and power. In contrast, everyone’s ranting and raving about how great they are, how right about everything their political tribe is, and how morally superior they are to the evil and corrupt “other side.” The problem is someone has to be wrong in a world where everyone’s convinced they’re right.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

May You Live in Stupid, Corrupt and yet Fascinating Times

May 31, 2018

May You Live in Stupid, Corrupt and yet Fascinating Times

In the old days, America’s top spies would complete their tenures at the CIA or one of the other Washington puzzle palaces and segue to more ordinary pursuits. Some wrote their memoirs. One ran for president. Another died a few months after surrendering his post. But today’s national-security establishment retiree has a different game plan. After so many years of brawling in the shadows, he yearns for a second, lucrative career in the public eye. He takes a crash course in speaking in soundbites, refreshes his wardrobe and signs a TV news contract. Then, several times a week, waits for a network limousine to shuttle him to the broadcast news studios where, after a light dusting of foundation and a spritz of hairspray, he takes a supporting role in the anchors’ nighttime shows.

– Politico: The Spies Who Came in to the TV Studio

May you live in stupid, corrupt and yet fascinating times.

– Me, paraphrasing a Chinese curse

I’ve been away the past couple of weeks taking a break with my family. I paid attention to the news, but from a distance. As usual, there’s plenty to talk about.

In the last 24 hours alone, we’ve seen political chaos erupt in Italy and hordes of pundits simultaneously lose their minds over the murder of a prominent Russian journalist that never happened. Such is the world we live in. Stupid, corrupt, yet fascinating.

Of all the things I could’ve written about, you may be surprised by today’s selection. It’s a clip many of you probably saw where Richard Stengel (who was Time Magazine’s managing editor from 2006-2013) admits he approves of government propagandizing its own citizens during a Council on Foreign Relations forum. Here’s the clip.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Europe May Fold, but China and Russia See Opportunity

May 16, 2018

Europe May Fold, but China and Russia See Opportunity

And we recently discovered, if it was not known before, that no amount of power can withstand the hatred of the many.

– Marcus Tullius Cicero

Although European leaders are talking a big game about keeping the Iran deal (JCPOA) alive following Trump’s unilateral withdrawal, there’s a good chance nations across the pond, especially the UK and France, will ultimately fold to U.S. demands. This is despite the fact these countries stand to lose far more economically than America. Acquiescing to U.S. imperial demands as submissive client states is simply what Europe does. On the other hand, China and Russia sense opportunity for major geopolitical gains and will not back down.

Political leaders in China and Russia must be licking their chops at the short-sighted stupidity of Donald Trump’s decision to ditch the Iran deal. As mentioned in previous pieces, the Trump administration isn’t just saying the U.S. will sanction Iran from its end, but that it could leverage the global financial system and its dependency on the USD, to punish those who dare defy U.S. policy.

As discussed in the recent post, The Road to 2025 (Part 3) – USD Dominated Financial System Will Fall Apart, this unilateral move against Iran is likely to be a key catalyst in the planet transitioning away from a financial system completely and totally dominated by the USD into a more multi-polar currency world. Trump’s essentially willing to trade away U.S. global geopolitical and financial dominance because he’s obsessed with taking out the Iranian regime.

While Europe may not be willing to make a huge fuss about all this right now, its leaders, and more importantly its citizenry, know exactly what this means. As long as the global financial system is totally dominated and controlled from the U.S. via the USD, no country on earth can be truly sovereign, in terms of economic or foreign policy.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Trump Pulls Out of Iran Deal – U.S. Determined to Become a Rogue State

May 9, 2018

Trump Pulls Out of Iran Deal – U.S. Determined to Become a Rogue State

Let me cut to the chase. Every single world leader knows Trump’s full of shit. Even more importantly, the citizens of their nations also know it. Everyone with a functioning brain understands that pulling out of the Iran deal has nothing to do with terrorism, nuclear bombs or any other fairytale propagated by U.S. neocons. This is simply about the existence of a non-U.S. client state in a key strategic region sitting on massive oil reserves. It’s about empire — global games of power and money fueled by a desperate attempt to hold on to a unipolar world where the U.S. bosses everyone around.

A global empire will keep pushing and pushing until something snaps. The leaders of empire become convinced of their invincibility right before the end, and the U.S. is no different. Given the rise of China economically and militarily, as well as Russia exerting its influence in Syria, the writing’s already on the wall as far as where the world’s headed. Towards a multi-polar planet in which the U.S. will still have influence, but far less than it’s enjoyed since WW2. While shifts are already well underway beneath the radar, American leadership refuses to admit it. A serious decline of U.S. global power as a result of major mistakes related to Iran will begin to play out publicly from here.

It’s important to understand what a massive mistake pulling out of the Iran deal is. Irrespective of your opinion on its merits, it’s a deal agreed to by all major global powers. The U.S., Iran, France, Britain, Germany, China and Russia signed it. There’s only one country in that wants to scrap it (and did so today), the U.S.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Road to 2025 (Part 4) – A Very Bright Future If We Demand It

April 27, 2018

The Road to 2025 (Part 4) – A Very Bright Future If We Demand It

Whenever all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated.

– Thomas Jefferson letter to C.Hammond, 1821

The first three parts of this series focused on the obvious reality that imperial America is not just increasingly being seen as a rogue state around the world, but that it’s also become harmful and parasitic to its own people. It’s become abundantly clear that empire is not compatible with Constitutional government.

As power and resources have become increasingly centralized in Washington D.C., the American people have suffered. We’ve suffered from an increasingly rigged economic and financial system, continued security-state encroachment in the form of mass surveillance and a militarization of police, and a war industry which relentlessly funnels more and more wealth toward protecting imperial dominance overseas.

As anyone who’s read the U.S. Constitution knows, this is not the way the union was supposed to function. Indeed, the founders were obsessed with avoiding the pitfalls of European empires since they knew how that story ends. At the federal level, a separation of powers between the three branches of government: the legislative, the executive and the judicial was a key component of the Constitution. The specific purpose here was to prevent an accumulation of excessive centralized power within a specific area of government.

While this separation of powers still exists on paper, it’s been eroded to a very dangerous degree. When it comes to war, which the legislative branch is supposed to declare, Congress has chosen to abdicate its responsibility and simply allows the executive to do whatever it wants.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Road to 2025 (Part 4) – A Very Bright Future If We Demand It

April 25, 2018

The Road to 2025 (Part 4) – A Very Bright Future If We Demand It

Whenever all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated.

– Thomas Jefferson letter to C.Hammond, 1821

The first three parts of this series focused on the obvious reality that imperial America is not just increasingly being seen as a rogue state around the world, but that it’s also become harmful and parasitic to its own people. It’s become abundantly clear that empire is not compatible with Constitutional government.

As power and resources have become increasingly centralized in Washington D.C., the American people have suffered. We’ve suffered from an increasingly rigged economic and financial system, continued security-state encroachment in the form of mass surveillance and a militarization of police, and a war industry which relentlessly funnels more and more wealth toward protecting imperial dominance overseas.

As anyone who’s read the U.S. Constitution knows, this is not the way the union was supposed to function. Indeed, the founders were obsessed with avoiding the pitfalls of European empires since they knew how that story ends. At the federal level, a separation of powers between the three branches of government: the legislative, the executive and the judicial was a key component of the Constitution. The specific purpose here was to prevent an accumulation of excessive centralized power within a specific area of government.

While this separation of powers still exists on paper, it’s been eroded to a very dangerous degree. When it comes to war, which the legislative branch is supposed to declare, Congress has chosen to abdicate its responsibility and simply allows the executive to do whatever it wants.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Road to 2025 (Part 3) – USD Dominated Financial System Will Fall Apart

April 21, 2018

The Road to 2025 (Part 3) – USD Dominated Financial System Will Fall Apart

It’s our currency, but it’s your problem.

– U.S. Treasury Secretary John Connelly to European Finance Ministers, 1971

Today’s post will cover a topic that consumed my thoughts for many years, but one I haven’t discussed much lately. Namely, the terminal nature of a global financial system being propped up artificially by central bank shenanigans.

First, it’s crucial to understand that at the very core of our global economy is a financial system dominated by the U.S. dollar. The USD is a fiat currency directly backed by nothing, the supply of which can be arbitrarily altered and manipulated by a group of unelected bureaucrats in charge of the Federal Reserve. This money system represents the most powerful tool of centralized power on planet earth.

The USD is unique in that it grants the U.S. the “exorbitant privilege” of having a national currency which at the same time serves as the global reserve currency. This was solidified toward the end of World War 2 with the Bretton Woods agreement, and was accepted because the U.S. agreed to offer sovereign nations holding dollars a right to exchange these dollars for gold at a fixed price. This fell apart in 1971, but was shortly replaced with an unofficial “petrodollar” system, which allowed the USD to remain the world reserve currency despite no longer being redeemable in gold.

Before moving on, I want to share a few excerpts from an article I read yesterday titled, The De-Dollarization in China:

Petrodollars emerged when Henry Kissinger dealt with King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, after “Black September” in Jordan.

The agreement was simple. Saudi Arabia had to accept only dollars as payments for the oil it sold, but was forced to invest that huge amount of US currency only in the US financial channels while, in return, the United States placed Saudi Arabia and the other OPEC neighbouring countries under its own military protection.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Road to 2025 (Part 2) – Russia and China Have Had Enough

April 19, 2018

The Road to 2025 (Part 2) – Russia and China Have Had Enough

Part 1 of this series focused on how the U.S. empire no longer provides any real benefit to the average American citizen. Rather, the spoils of overseas wars, the domestic surveillance state and an overall corrupt economy are being systematically funneled to a smaller and smaller group of generally unsavory characters. The public’s starting to recognize this reality, which is why we saw major populist movements emerge on both the traditional right and left of the political spectrum in 2016.

As millions of Americans emerge from their long slumber, much of the world’s been aware of this reality for a long time. They don’t see the U.S. as a magnanimous humanitarian empire, that’s a fairytale more suited for children’s books and the mass media. In fact, it seems clear that the billions of humans who live in various sovereign nations around the world would certainly prefer to be in control of their own destinies as opposed to mere vassal states of the U.S., they simply haven’t possessed the military or economic power to stand up and chart their own course. But things are changing.

The most significant geopolitical change of the 21st century is the emergence of China, and the reemergence of Russia, as globally significant military powers. This is the core driver behind the establishment’s panic about Russia. It has nothing to do with Putin’s authoritarianism or human rights abuses, that’s just marketing directed at a heretofore extremely gullible public.

In reality, those determined to perpetuate a unipolar world run by the U.S. are appalled and concerned about the fact Russia was able to become involved in Syria and prevent another regime change operation. Russia very publicly, and very successfully, stood up and said “no” to U.S. imperial ambitions in Syria. This isn’t just historically significant, it’s seen as blasphemous and recalcitrant by the U.S. status quo.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Road to 2025 (Part 1) – Prepare for a Multi-Polar World

April 18, 2018

The Road to 2025 (Part 1) – Prepare for a Multi-Polar World

If pressed to describe what I think the next several years will look like as concisely as possible, I’d simply provide the following quote, often misattributed to Lenin:

“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”

There will be many such weeks from now until 2025, with the end result an emergence of a multi-polar world that will permanently unseat the unipolar U.S. imperial paradigm.

Since World War 2, the U.S. has successfully sustained a position of global dominance unlike anything the world’s ever seen. Virtually each and every corner of the planet has been subject to inescapable and overwhelming American influence, both culturally and economically. This root of this power didn’t just emerge from GDP strength and the USD, but from Hollywood, popular music and tv shows. The impact of the U.S. empire on the planet over the past 70 years has been extraordinary but, like all things, it too shall pass. I believe this end will be realized by around 2025.

When I say this sort of stuff people think I’m calling for the end of the world. I suppose that’s what it may feel like to many, because a paradigm change of this magnitude will indeed have monumental global implications. Yet the world will go on, it’ll just be very different place. That said, Americans should not see this as an apocalyptic thing. It’s not healthy or sustainable for one nation to dominate the planet in such a manner. Many of us like to think that a benevolent global empire led by philosopher kings is just fine, but the problem is this is utter fantasy. What happens in real life, to quote Lord Acton, is that “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Liberty Links 4/14/18 – World War 3

April 15, 2018

Liberty Links 4/14/18 – World War 3

World War 3
Sharing links unrelated to the reckless, criminal and unconstitutional act launched by Donald Trump and the U.S. government last night feels kinda inappropriate. As such, here are a few short paragraphs on what I think it all means. I’ll have more next week.

I think last night’s historically foolish action by the U.S., UK and France may mark the official start of World War 3. You could argue it began long ago, but there’s always been hope for the trends to reverse. We’ve now likely gone over the brink, and the odds of turning this ship around is so low it doesn’t deserve serious consideration.

Russian leadership are not a bunch of fools, nor will they back down. After last night, they know for certain the U.S. empire is determined to castrate them globally at all costs in order to impede an inevitable emergence of a multi-polar world.

I don’t think Russia or Iran will respond with a shock and awe attack any time soon, nor will this likely spiral out of control in the near-term. It’s more likely we’ll see this all play out over the course of the next 5 years or so.

I also don’t expect this to go nuclear, but I think the chances the U.S. experiences an imperial collapse similar to that of the USSR (or like any historically unmanageable and corrupt empire) has become increasingly likely. My view at this point is the U.S. and its global power position will be so dramatically altered in the years ahead, it’ll be almost unrecognizable by 2025, as a result of both economic decline and major geopolitical mistakes. This will cause the public to justifiably lose faith in all leadership and institutions.

I’ve been increasingly using Twitter to express my thoughts, so you should really check out my timeline there.

Here are a few tweets from the last 24 hours.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Brave New World Revisited and the Disease of Over-Organization

April 5, 2018

Brave New World Revisited and the Disease of Over-Organization

When people talk of the freedom of writing, speaking or thinking I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more.

– John Adams letter to Thomas Jefferson, July 15, 1817

Brave New World Revisited is one of the few books I’ve read in my life that I continue to think about on a regular basis. In terms of understanding where humanity stands at present and what we need to do to get out of the mess we’ve created, it’s one of the more important pieces of non-fiction you can find.

I recently felt the need to reread the book for some unknown reason, and I’m glad I did. The choices we make as a species about how we reorganize human affairs in the decades to come will determine the future of human freedom on this planet. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World Revisited offers an abundance of wisdom for us to consider as we move forward.

Huxley was deeply concerned with the importance of individual human freedom and the forces relentlessly trying to stifle it. Here’s a brief description of how Huxley viewed our species:

In the course of evolution nature has gone to endless trouble to see that every individual is unlike every other individual. We reproduce our kind by bringing the father’s genes into contact with the mother’s. These hereditary factors may be combined in an almost infinite number of ways. Physically and mentally, each one of us is unique. Any culture which, in the interests of efficiency or in the name of some political or religious dogma, seeks to standardize the human individual, commits an outrage against man’s biological nature…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

There’s Only One Word to Describe Julian Assange’s Internet Being Cut Off – Pathetic

March 29, 2018

There’s Only One Word to Describe Julian Assange’s Internet Being Cut Off – Pathetic

Let’s get right to it. Earlier today, Julian Assange had his internet access severed.

Here’s a translation of the statement from the government of Ecuador, in whose embassy he’s been trapped since 2012:

The Government of Ecuador suspended the systems that allow Julian Assange to communicate with the outside world from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where the citizen remains in an international protection situation for six years due to the risk to his life and integrity.

The measure was adopted in the face of Assange’s failure to comply with the written commitment it assumed with the Government at the end of 2017, for which it was obliged not to issue messages that implied interference with other States.

The Government of Ecuador warns that the behavior of Assange, with its messages through social networks, puts at risk the good relations that the country maintains with the United Kingdom, with the rest of the States of the European Union and other nations. Therefore, to prevent potential damage, the embassy in London interrupted this March 27 communications abroad to which Assange has access.

The Executive also keeps open the way to the adoption of new measures in the face of breach of commitment by Assange.

The excuse for this egregious act against Assange is his social media activity “puts at risk the good relations that the country maintains with the United Kingdom, with the rest of the States of the European Union and other nations.” Naturally, we must ask what Assange has been tweeting about lately that prompted some bigger country, or countries, to force Ecuador’s hand. The answer is Catalonia.

I’ve been following Assange’s tweets closely following the revelation that German police seized Catalonia’s elected President Carles Puigdemont on behalf of Spain. Assange provided some much needed context and commentary about the disturbing incident over Twitter in recent days. Here are a few examples that likely ruffled the feathers of various EU governments.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Only Reason We’re Examining Facebook’s Sleazy Behavior Is Because Trump Won

March 23, 2018

The Only Reason We’re Examining Facebook’s Sleazy Behavior Is Because Trump Won

Trust me, there’s nobody more thrilled to see Facebook’s unethical and abusive practices finally getting the attention they deserve from mass media and members of the public who simply didn’t want to hear about it previously. I’ve written multiple articles over the years warning people about the platform (links at the end), but these mostly fell on deaf ears.

That’s just the way things go. All sorts of horrible behaviors can continue for a very long time before the corporate media and general public come around to caring. You typically need some sort of external event to change mass psychology. In this case, that event was Trump winning the election.

The more I read about the recent Facebook scandal, it’s clear this sort of thing’s been going on for a very long time. The major difference is this time the data mining was used by campaign consultants of the person who wasn’t supposed to win. Donald Trump.

To get a sense of what I mean, let’s take a look at some excerpts from a deeply troubling article recently published at the Guardian, ‘Utterly Horrifying’: Ex-Facebook Insider Says Covert Data Harvesting Was Routine:

Hundreds of millions of Facebook users are likely to have had their private information harvested by companies that exploited the same terms as the firm that collected data and passed it on to Cambridge Analytica, according to a new whistleblower.

Sandy Parakilas, the platform operations manager at Facebook responsible for policing data breaches by third-party software developers between 2011 and 2012, told the Guardian he warned senior executives at the company that its lax approach to data protection risked a major breach…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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