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Putting yourself in the mind of someone who commits an act of illegality is perhaps the only way we can begin to understand the motivation behind the transgression. A common reflex reaction to the most heinous of crimes is to simply call for the perpetrator to be removed from society and put in prison. Out of sight, out of mind. Whilst this is not an unreasonable expectation, it does not get to the root of why he or she became a criminal.

We can take a similar stance when it comes to globalism. If a self appointed elite who permeate institutions like the Bank for International Settlements and the IMF share a desire to concentrate world power through a centralised network of global governance, rather than simply rebel against this vision is it not equally as important to try and understand the vision from the perspective of those who created it? I would argue that to comprehend the minds of global planners it is necessary to mentally place yourself into their way of thinking.

A couple of years ago I published an article called, Order Out of Chaos: A Look at the Trilateral Commission, where I examined some of the key motivations behind this particular institution’s goals. I quoted past members of the Commission openly rejecting national sovereignty and championing the interdependence of nations. One of those quotes was from Sadako Ogata, a former member of the Trilateral Commission’s Executive Committee, who at an event to mark 25 years of the institution remarked how ‘international interdependence requires new and more intensive forms of international cooperation to counteract economic and political nationalism‘.

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

The Third Wave Of Globalization Has Ended

November 2, 2019

The Third Wave Of Globalization Has Ended

The global economy is certainly at crossroads. Protectionism and nationalism, a well-matched marriage of global chaos at the moment, has threatened to end the third wave of globalization that began in the late 1980s.

Capital Economics has published a compelling research note, titled “The end of globalization,” specifying how 150 years of globalization could’ve put in a significant peak in the last several years, all thanks to President Trump’s trade war with China.

The third wave of globalization began in the late 1980s, mostly driven by technological advancements and shifting labor and capital around the world to the most cost-effective regions.

While the Western hemisphere consumed for three decades, the Eastern hemisphere manufactured the goods (which produced rising inequality in the West and thus how protectionism and nationalism were sparked), but the status quo of how supply chains are organized around the world could be changing as world trade volumes have hit a significant wall.

U.S. Economy Grew at 1.9% Pace in Third-Quarter

In terms of the Elliott wave principle, a third wave eventually gives out to a corrective fourth wave. Capital Economics believes the world is headed towards a period of de-globalization, or as history will call it a fourth corrective wave.

“It is possible that this is just a temporary hiatus and that an unforeseen technological breakthrough will trigger a new wave of globalisation. But such waves are rare. In fact, there are several reasons – even before we consider the trade war – why globalisation has peaked. First, all the major steps to integrate the global system have been taken. Second, advanced manufacturing techniques mean that the location of manufacturing no longer hinges on where labour costs are cheapest. Third, complex supply chains have reached their limit. Fourth, China is unlikely to open up its capital markets significantly.

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

Angela Merkel: Nation States Must “Give Up Sovereignty” To New World Order

December 28, 2018

Angela Merkel: Nation States Must “Give Up Sovereignty” To New World Order

“Nation states must today be prepared to give up their sovereignty”, according to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who told an audience in Berlin that sovereign nation states must not listen to the will of their citizens when it comes to questions of immigration, borders, or even sovereignty.

No this wasn’t something Adolf Hitler said many decades ago, this is what German Chancellor Angela Merkel told attendants at an event by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Berlin. Merkel has announced she won’t seek re-election in 2021 and it is clear she is attempting to push the globalist agenda to its disturbing conclusion before she stands down.

“In an orderly fashion of course,” Merkel joked, attempting to lighten the mood. But Merkel has always had a tin ear for comedy and she soon launched into a dark speech condemning those in her own party who think Germany should have listened to the will of its citizens and refused to sign the controversial UN migration pact:

“There were [politicians] who believed that they could decide when these agreements are no longer valid because they are representing The People”.

“[But] the people are individuals who are living in a country, they are not a group who define themselves as the [German] people,” she stressed.

Merkel has previously accused critics of the UN Global Compact for Safe and Orderly Migration of not being patriotic, saying “That is not patriotism, because patriotism is when you include others in German interests and accept win-win situations”.

Her words echo recent comments by the deeply unpopular French President Emmanuel Macron who stated in a Remembrance Day speech that “patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism [because] nationalism is treason.”

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

‘New World Order’ Wine Pompoured into a Pro-‘Sovereignty’ Rhetorical Bottle

December 16, 2018

‘New World Order’ Wine Pompoured into a Pro-‘Sovereignty’ Rhetorical Bottle

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo began his December 4 speech in Brussels at the German Marshall Fund with “a well-deserved tribute to America’s 41st president, George Herbert Walker Bush,” whom he praised as “an unyielding champion of freedom around the world.” It was fitting that he did so. The heart and soul of Pompeo’s remarks extolling the return of “the United States to its traditional, central leadership role in the world” were little more than a rehash of Bush the Elder’s aggressive internationalism.

Pompeo (or his speechwriter) should be given credit for a masterpiece of misdirection. While the substance of his speech was a blast of stale air from the 1990s, the rhetoric was all Trumpism and national sovereignty – but only for countries obedient to Washington: “Our mission is to reassert our sovereignty, reform the liberal international order, and we want our friends to help us and to exert their sovereignty as well.”

What about the sovereignty of countries the US doesn’t count as “friends”? Well, that’s a different story: “Every nation – every nation – must honestly acknowledge its responsibilities to its citizens and ask if the current international order serves the good of its people as well as it could. And if not, we must ask how we can right it.” [emphasis added]

So according to Pompeo, the United States and our vassals (“we”) have an obligation (“must”) to fix international actors that in our infinite wisdom are not serving “the good of their people.” For example, “Russia hasn’t embraced Western values of freedom and international cooperation.” (Why should Russia care what “we” think of its values – and why should its values be “western,” anyway? Never mind! We “must” do something about it!)

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

Nationalists and Patriots

November 13, 2018

Nationalists and Patriots

Ivan Kramskoy Christ in the desert 1920

If and when a former Rothschild banker starts telling us what the words in our respective languages actually mean, beware. Even if he has dozens of professional speech writers and spin doctors to do it for him. And even if the meaning and interpretation of words, though they may seem easily translatable, differ between English, French, German, Russian, Chinese to such an extent that Lost in Translation may appear to be an understatement.

But if you’re that Rothschild banker who became president of France through a process that nobody will ever understand, and you host the 100th commemoration of perhaps the worst war ever in history, to be ‘celebrated’ with ‘leaders’ none of whom have exhibited any memory through their actions of the ‘This must never happen again’ that the war ended with, you can expect to get away with bending both history and language.

Macron’s entire audience was ready for, and willing to absorb, a message that seemed so benevolent and sincere and loving, and that perhaps most of all was yet another jab at one of his guests, the American president. They were eating it up. As long as they can appear to stand together against Trump, they can make their people, their voters, and perhaps even each other forget how divided they themselves are.

It was nothing but one more circus, one more theater piece, albeit this one extremely carefully scripted for many months and by many of the finest directors and script writers France has to offer. The underlying theme: the EU is good, so is the UN, NATO is good etc. The list would include the IMF, World Bank and on and on. Big global institutions are good, the bigger the better, and criticism of them is not.

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

Three Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’ Today

November 12, 2018

Three Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’ Today

Still think globalization will bring peace? They thought that in 1914, too.

Things exploded quickly. Photographer: J. J. Marshall/Hulton Archive via Getty Images

Last month, I traveled to Vienna, the former seat of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and a fitting place to contemplate the approaching 100th anniversary of the conclusion of World War I.

That conflict began with Austria-Hungary’s declaration of war against Serbia in July 1914, following the assassination of Austro-Hungarian archduke Franz Ferdinand. It ultimately led to more than 15 million deaths, the collapse of four empires, the rise of communism and fascism in some of Europe’s leading states, the emergence and subsequent retreat of America as a global power, and other developments that profoundly altered the course of the 20th century.

World War I was “the deluge … a convulsion of nature,” remarked Britain’s Minister of Munitions David Lloyd George, “an earthquake which is upheaving the very rocks of European life.” Although that conflict ended a century ago, it still offers three crucial lessons that are relevant to our increasingly disordered world today.

First, peace is always more fragile than it seems. In 1914, Europe had not experienced an all-out, continental conflict since the end of the Napoleonic wars a century earlier. Some observers believed that a return to such catastrophic bloodletting had become almost impossible. The British author Norman Angell would immortalize himself by suggesting, just a few years before World War I, that what we would now call globalization had rendered great-power conflict obsolete. War, he argued, had become futile because peace and the growing economic and financial linkages between the major European states were producing so much prosperity.

Angell had good company in the multitude of thinkers who believed that improved communications were knitting humanity ever more tightly together, that international arbitration was making war unnecessary, and that nationalism was being suppressed by newer, more enlightened ideologies and improved forms of international cooperation.

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

There Is No Good Kind of Nationalism

October 25, 2018

There Is No Good Kind of Nationalism

Trump is for nationalism. So the “Resistance” is predictably for . . . wait for it . . . the right kind of nationalism — or nationalism worn properly, as The Week advises. The problem isn’t nationalism, The Hill informs us, it’s phony nationalism and spurious nationalism, or as the Washington Post explains along with CNN, the problem is actually white nationalism. Of course, white nationalism is a problem, but not just because it’s white — also because of the nationalism. Unless you read Esquire which comes up with the oh-so-novel pronouncement that nationalism is indeed bad, but patriotism is good.

Excuse me. I’m sorry. This is why the Resistance doesn’t resist. This is why people offering flags and manure win. The loyal opposition is offering smaller flags, manure, and air fresheners.

What’s wrong with nationalism, you ask. Can’t I love a location? Can’t I care for my loved ones? Must I hate babies and apple pie? What is wrong with you?

Well, if you love your town why not try out townism? Does your town have a flag? An anthem? Can you perform the proper rituals? Why not? You’re not a traitor, are you? Did Putin hire you to tear up treaties with Russia, and sanction Russia, and take over markets from . . . oh, forget it.

Do you love your state? Your region? Your continent? Well why aren’t you insisting on all of those isms? I’ll tell you why. Because they aren’t needed. It’s not that they aren’t needed because those levels of collective identity aren’t associated with war machines. Rather it is that nationalism consists of association with a war machine, identification with that war machine, and belief that you and your war machine are superior to others.

Well, can’t that be a harmless private matter?

Some have seriously tried to make that case, and I’ve found it completely unconvincing.[i]

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

The Aftershocks of the Economic Collapse Are Still Being Felt

September 20, 2018

The Aftershocks of the Economic Collapse Are Still Being Felt

The Real Confrontation Is Yet To Come

There has been a spate of articles recently on the ten year anniversary of the financial collapse. We wrote about this anniversary two weeks ago, describing the cause of the collapse and the reasons why we are still at risk for another one. Now, we look at how the aftermath of the collapse is shaping current politics, people’s views on the economic system and the conflict that lies ahead to create an economy for the 21st Century.

The Aftershocks Of The Collapse Are Still Being Felt

Jerome Roos of ROAR Magazine writes that the response to the 2008 crash – bailing out the banks but not the people – led to unrest across the globe, beginning with the Arab Spring, and a growing anti-capitalist sentiment. He goes on to say, “It has recently begun to consolidate itself in the form of vibrant grassroots movements, progressive political formations and explicitly socialist candidacies that collectively seek to challenge the untrammeled power and privileges of the ‘1 percent’ from below.”

The stagnant economy, austerity measures and resulting increased debt have opened a space for people to search for and try out alternative economic structures that are more democratic. They have also created conditions for a rise of nationalism on the right. Roos concludes that the “real confrontation is yet to come.”

In the United States, the economic conditions have revived populist movements on both the right and the left. Gareth Porter explains the Democratic and Republican parties are aware of the great dissatisfaction with their failed policies and know they need to try to appease the public by trying new policies, but they don’t know how.

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

The Tyranny of Geography

July 4, 2018

The Tyranny of Geography

Everyone can see that geography determines the fate of a nation in its pursuit of specific historical paths and the adoption of well understood psycho-nationalist orientations. Without wide seas or tall mountains as natural barriers, over time Russia has developed feelings of distrust towards foreigners and a reasonable nervousness with respect to invasions and external dominance.

For Greece, close proximity to Turkey (which is Islamic and, at times, aggressively hostile) has instilled a mindset that would not have been there if the natural environment were different. The hundreds of sparse islands in the Aegean Sea require massive military spending to provide a fleet to defend them.

Countries like China and Japan with enormous physical barriers to protect them — an endless landmass or a vast ocean — historically have managed to avoid numerous or fatal invasions. The exact opposite is true for countries like Poland, Lithuania, Austria, and the Ukraine, whose lack of strong physical defences has condemned them, over the centuries, to be subjected to external aggression, as well as to serve as pathways for invading armies headed toward their goal of conquest.

Very often, events that determine the fate of a specific country unfold on the basis of the geographic idiosyncrasies of that territory. Greece’s fortunes, for example, were shaped in accordance with the concerns and interests of the great powers of the time. These were always centred on geography.

The Greek state was formed as a result of a radical shakeup in the structure of the Ottoman Empire and by the needs of the dominant powers of the period to handle the emerging geopolitical vacuum. The sea battle of Navarino, on the western coast of the ancient region of Peloponnese, which clearly signalled the ultimate success of the Greek revolution against the Ottomans, rewarded the efforts of Britain, Russia, and France to put an end to the Ottoman control of the islands of the Aegean, Egypt, and the Black Sea.

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

Trump Takes Italy by Storm: the Rise of Matteo Salvini and of the Italian Right

June 21, 2018

Trump Takes Italy by Storm: the Rise of Matteo Salvini and of the Italian Right

Matteo Salvini, the leader of the Italian League and Minister of the Interior since June 2018. During the past few weeks, he has gained political prominence in Italy by adopting Trump’s style and policies. Here, you see him together with the slogan “Italians First.”

During the past few weeks, we have seen a true political revolution in Italy. Matteo Salvini, leader of the Italian League, has successfully exploited his new position of Minister of the Interior to gain personal prominence. The M5s movement had won the elections, this year, but it has been emarginated to a secondary role, while Salvini acts and looks like if he were the real Prime Minister. If new elections were held now in Italy, Salvini and the League would win hands down.

All politics is, after all, about blame shifting. So, political success means simply finding someone to blame. Matteo Salvini was successful by adopting the same style and content that made the political fortune of Donald Trump. Both Trump and Salvini found a good target to blame with immigrants and foreigners in general. Both used harsh language, insults, callousness, and plain racism. Both found that the more shrill and violent their utterances were, the more they were approved by the public. It took a remarkably small effort to convince a large majority of Italians that all their troubles are caused by immigrants and, in particular, by the Roma people (less than the 0.2% of the Italian population). Salvini also capitalized on demonizing the Euro and the European Union, although he can’t afford (so far) to exaggerate with insults and threats in that field. In any case, right now, it seems that 72% of Italians approve Salvini’s actions.

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

Murder Incorporated

June 20, 2018

Murder Incorporated

Murder Incorporated is a three-book series by Mumia Abu Jamal and Stephen Vittoria, which I can highly recommend based on the first book. The other two are not out yet.

Book One, “Dreaming of Empire,” is a critique of U.S. imperialism, a debunking of U.S. nationalist myths, a corrective or alternative history of the U.S. nation. Politically, a book like this would never be permitted in U.S. schools, and it’s clearly not aimed at clearing that hurdle. It uses curse words, which would provide a handy excuse for keeping it out. It’s also not straight history. It’s part chronological, part theme-based. It mixes historical accounts with pop-culture, with quotations from scholars, historical sources, and analysts interviewed by the authors.

Dreaming of Empire also does not try to leave the past in the past. Instead it proposes to explain current wars, the weaponization of outer space, and the rhetoric of contemporary U.S. politics through a myth-busting hard look at the past. And there’s little the U.S. public needs more. Indeed the authors seem to have concentrated on topics around which damaging myths have been constructed, including the glories and goodness of the Founding Fathers.

Reading here in Charlottesville, I’m struck by the extent to which local boys, Jefferson and Monroe (and the latter’s “Doctrine”), dominate this story. I wonder how many people realize that when a participant in a fascist rally here last summer drove his car into a woman and killed her, he was in that moment driving past the location of James Monroe’s first house here. I’m sure it’s more people than realize that Charlottesville is not a hotbed for fascists (they mostly come from elsewhere) but is a town that was founded by and which still prominently honors fascists avant la lettre.

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

Europe’s Nationalism and Trump’s Trade Policies Look Like WWI Prelude

June 7, 2018

Europe’s Nationalism and Trump’s Trade Policies Look Like WWI Prelude

In conversations with friends, one thought the current political scene was like the prelude to WWII. Another said WWI.

Tuesday evening I struck up a conversation with “Max”, a friend that I frequently see at a Tuesday karaoke bar.

Max is not a reader of my website, so it stuck me when he stated events today remind him of the prelude to WWII. Max is aware of Trump’s trade policies and disputes with Canada and Mexico, but he was not aware of immigration problems in Italy.

Wednesday afternoon, I mentioned that conversation in a podcast with Peak Prosperity’s Chris Martenson. Chris said Max’s comment was quite appropriate but the setup was more like WWI.

Chris is correct. The parallels to WWI are quite amazing.

Seven Causes for WWI

After the podcast with Chris, a bit of digging led me to 7 Causes of the First World War.

It was point number 7 that caught my attention.

7. People Being People

Canadian historian Margaret Macmillan has published a major book, The War That Ended Peace (2013), which presents a synthesis of many different factors: alliances and power politics; reckless diplomacy; ethnic nationalism; and, most of all, the personal character and relationships of the almost uncountable number of historical figures who had a hand in the coming of war.

War That Ended Peace

The above snip led me to the PDF synopsis on The War That Ended Peace.

So you would have thought that increased trade between Britain and Germany would have fostered that sense of having something in common. In fact, it didn’t. What common trade did sometimes was to create fears in both countries that the other was jealous, or that the other was cutting into natural markets.

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

DiEM25: Europe Without Nations or Religion

October 9, 2017

DiEM25: Europe Without Nations or Religion

Fred Lyon Barbary Coast 1950A friend sent me a post from the DiEM25 website last week, entitled Critique of DiEM25 policy on immigrants and refugees. DiEM25 is a pan-European political movement of which former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis is a co-founder.

I started writing some lines as a response to my friend. Then it became a bit more. Wouldn’t you know… And then it was a whole article. So here’s my comments to it first, and then the original by someone calling themselves ‘dross22′. Now, in case I haven’t made this sufficiently abundantly clear yet, in my view Yanis’ knowledge and intellect is probably far superior to mine, and I’m a fan. But…

I don’t mean to imply that the views in the comment posted at DiEM25 are those of Yanis, but I do think it’s good to point out that these views exist within the movement. Moreover, as I wrote a few days ago, Yanis himself also thinks the EU should become ‘a federal state’. And I don’t agree with that. In fact, I think that’s a sure-fire way to absolute mayhem. Catalonia is only the latest example of why that is. Greece is an obvious other.

From that post on the DiEM25 site (see full text below):

[..] .. local European nationalism must be eradicated by creating a common European state. But a progressive European state would inevitably require a sense of identity that, in true progressive spirit, is radically opposed to religion. It would be hypocrisy to exclude Islam. Pluralism of values is a weapon of the establishment and we have to do away with it. In a Europe that is green nobody can afford pluralism in regards to lifestyle choices.

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

A Political Hurricane is About to Sweep Across Europe

September 10, 2016

A Political Hurricane is About to Sweep Across Europe

If you’ve been paying attention, you could see this coming a mile away. Although I’ve forecast huge political shifts in the West for years now, I made my strongest prediction on European changes late last year following the Paris terror attacks.

In the post, A Message to Europe – Prepare for Nationalism I wrote:

Actions have consequences, and people can only be pushed so far before they snap. I believe the Paris terror attacks will be a major catalyst that will ultimately usher in nationalist type governments in many parts of Europe, culminating in an end of the EU as we know it and a return to true nation-states. Although I think a return to regional government and democracy is what Europeans need and deserve, the way in which it will come about, and the types of governments we could see emerge, are unlikely to be particularly enlightened or democratic after the dust has settled.

A few months later, Brexit shocked the world when the British public voted to leave the European Union. While this event represents a moment of huge historical significance, Brexit is just the start of a much, much bigger trend.

As the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week in a very important article:

BERLIN—Growing populist forces shook Europe’s pillar of stability this weekend, as an unprecedented defeat for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives in Germany signaled more political tumult across the continent.

For the first time in postwar history, Ms. Merkel’s Christian Democrats finished behind a populist challenger to their political right in a state election. Riding a wave of discontent with her migration policy, the Alternative for Germany—a three-year-old anti-immigrant party—beat the chancellor’s party in her home state, spurring her allies to debate Monday whether she should change course.

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

Japan’s Finance Minister Accidentally Reveals How It All Ends: “War”

March 26, 2016

Japan’s Finance Minister Accidentally Reveals How It All Ends: “War”

While this all started with a currency “war,” it seems – according to a stunningly candid transcript of Japan’s finance minister’s conversation with none other than Paul Krugman – that the real endgame here is actual war. Aso remarked that “a similar [deflationary mindset] had occurred in the US in the 1930s. What solved the question? War! Because World War II had occurred during the 1940s and that became the solution for the United States. [We] have to switch [the Japanese] mindset… we are looking for the trigger.“

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been the most hawkishly militaristic PM of a generation, shifting from the passive society to an aggressor, beginning around 2013. This has only been emboldened by rising nationalism and escalatuing tensions in the South China Sea.

We note this by way of background as just-released transcripts of a conversation between Japanese finance minister Aso and Uber-Keynesian Paul Krugman reveal perhaps the reality that Japan faces as its economic and social structure collapses…

(Minister of Finance Aso)

During the 1930’s, I remember that in the United States likewise there was a situation of deflation. And the New Deal policies have been introduced by then President Roosevelt. As a result, it worked out very nicely, but the largest issue associated with it is that for a long period of time entrepreneurs and managers of companies did not go to make a capital investment by receiving the loan. It had continued up until the late 1930’s and that is the situation occurring in Japan too. The record high earnings have been generated by the Japanese companies but they would not spend in the capital investment.

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

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