Category: zerohedge

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,

There is always an excuse for the enforcement of totalitarian restrictions on the public. There is always a reason.  And, often these reasons are engineered to sound logical and practical at the time.

In Germany after WWI and into the early 1930s Bolshevik activists and the German Communist Party (KPD) engaged in aggressive economic sabotage, street violence and even assassinations. This along with the Great Depression led to German middle class support for the National Socialist Party and the Third Reich (fascism).  Much of history’s focus is on the horrors of the Nazis, but many people are unaware of the extreme threat of communist revolution in Europe during this era, a threat which was used by the Nazis as a perfect rationale for constructing a police state. Arguably, without the existence of hardline communism, the fascists never would have had the public support needed to rise to power.

In Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution, the Cheka secret police were established in the name of preventing “counter-revolution”. This is an interesting aspect common to communism in particular; they desperately cling to the narrative that THEY are the “revolutionaries”, even when they have all the power. Thus, the revolution never ends because there are always people who disagree with communism. Anyone who refuses to comply with Marxist mandates becomes an imperialist enemy and bogeyman, and is held up as an example of why the revolution must perpetually continue. The police state must exist forever to root out the evil classists lurking in the shadows.

During the 1918 Spanish Flu outbreak, a virus with a much higher death rate among younger Americans compared to today’s coronavirus, major US cities such as New Orleans instituted martial law measures and lockdowns on the economy; closing schools, churches, public transportation, and places of leisure. Of course, despite claims in the wake of Covid, these measures did little to nothing to stop the spread of the virus and the public became frustrated with their inability to function in the day-to-day economy (sound familiar). The population began to rebel against restrictions that were leading to financial decay, and there was little governments could do about it.

I’ve noticed that the mainstream media has attempted in the past six months to rewrite the history of the Spanish Flu as if martial law measures were a success, even though ultimately the flu ran its natural course in the majority of US cities. Infections and deaths continued unabated until the virus burned itself out and disappeared (no working vaccine was ever produced though there were many failed attempts based on the assumption that the disease was bacterial). Martial law actions only served to drag out the timeline of the virus.

One could argue that a hundred years ago governments did not have the same tools at their disposal as they do now. But are we really that much further ahead? Virologists have been working on an effective SARS vaccine for almost two decades with little success; the idea that they could come up with a working vaccine for Covid in the span of a year (as many governments are suggesting) seems absurd. History shows us that when vaccines are rushed into production by authorities, very bad things happen.

Regardless of lockdown measures, infection rates continue to climb in many nations, thereby justifying EVEN LONGER or more frequent lockdowns. This creates an endless cycle of economic instability which the public cannot endure, and many people are beginning to wonder what purpose of the pandemic restrictions serve? It’s obviously not to slow the virus and save lives as an effective vaccine is unlikely to be developed in time for the lockdowns to matter. But, if you wanted to quickly implement a totalitarian system, then using a global health threat as justification might be the ticket.

The problem for the establishment will be this: How can they keep the tyranny going once they have it? Ultimately, for a totalitarian system to work it NEEDS a large portion of the public to support it on principle. The public has to believe that the loss of their liberties is necessary to their survival for the long term.

What I find most interesting is the disparity in response to the two sides of the crisis today. Just as in the early part of the 20th century, we have a communist uprising as well as global pandemic that the public is growing increasingly suspicious of. How the government treats each problem is obviously different.

For example, the law enforcement response to the BLM and ANTIFA riots has been rather subdued and passive. I was in Pittsburgh for the G20 event in 2009 and I can tell you from experience that the police response was vicious and highly coordinated, and this was against groups that were doing nothing more that chanting slogans in the street without a permit from the city (the city government only gave out ONE protest permit while the G20 were present in Pittsburgh).

There was no rioting and minimal damage to private property, yet law enforcement deployed full force measures including Spartan formations, sound cannons, rubber bullets and armored vehicles. Watch video footage of the G20 in Pittsburgh and then compare it to the riots in Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis, New York, etc. It should become clear to you that for some reason police are being ordered to hold back the majority of the time.

Another glaring issue is the media response to the riots. They refer to the protests as exclusively peaceful despite mass looting, destruction of private property and violence. They treat BLM as sacrosanct and untouchable and act as an attack dog against anyone criticizing the actions of the organization. The issue of social distancing and virus spread is dismissed or ignored when it comes to BLM.

By extension, examine the mainstream media response to the protests against coronavirus lockdown restrictions. No riots, no looting, no violence on the part of conservative and moderate protesters, yet the media demonizes them as if they are a threat to the very fabric of our society. Look at how quick authorities have been to arrest people who refuse to follow lockdown restrictions, and take into account how aggressive arrests have been in other countries like Australia, Spain or the UK for doing nothing more than posting messages on Facebook or not wearing a mask on the street.

I think my point here is clear: The establishment supports social justice violence and unrest, and is cracking down hard on any resistance to medical tyranny. The hypocrisy is evident.

But this brings up some questions; such as why they are so keen to allow the BLM riots to continue? As noted at the beginning of this article, I think the strategy is evident – It’s a two pronged attempt, a bait and switch: If the Marxists are successful and meet little resistance from the public then they will tear down the current system, and the elitists institutions that fund them like George Soros’s Open Society Foundation and the Ford Foundation will use the opportunity to build an Orwellian collectivist society from the ashes.

On the other hand, as in Germany in the 1930s, the civil unrest caused by hard left groups could also convince the general public that martial law measures are an acceptable solution and make them willing to sacrifice constitutional protections in order to rid themselves of the threat. There have been examples of this recently when federal agents initiated black bagging of protester in Portland using unmarked vans; all I saw from most conservatives was cheering. This would undoubtedly lead to a long term totalitarian structure that, once again, benefits the elites that inhabit every aspect of government including Trump’s White House.

In both cases, the power elites get what they want – a police state.

In terms of the pandemic response, a police state is already being established in many nations, and with most Western people’s predominantly disarmed there is little chance they will be able to resist the crackdown that will ensue as they try to protest the restrictions. But what about in America?

This is why it does not surprise me that the BLM riots are being encouraged so openly in the US. Look at it this way: If the elites cannot get us to go along with medical tyranny for fear of sparking an armed uprising from conservatives with actual training and ability, then they figure maybe they can trick us into supporting martial law in the name of defeating the political left.

The only solution is to refuse to support either option. We must repel the establishment of medical tyranny and stand against any overstep of state and federal governments against the constitution when it comes to protests. Riots and looting can be dealt with, and dealt with within the confines of the Bill of Rights. Also, once again I would point out that in almost every place where armed citizens organize and take up security measures in their communities the protests remain peaceful, or they don’t happen at all.

There is no legitimate excuse for a police state. There is always another way. Anyone that tells you different has an agenda of their own.

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Authored by Chris Farrell via The Gatestone Institute,

How does one ensure their political allies are ideologically synchronized, and know exactly how to disrupt a presidential election? What about the “journalists” in the news media and the babblers on social media — how does one get them onboard with the planned nationwide revolutionary disruption? Easy! Publish a report titled: “Preventing a Disrupted Presidential Election.”

In one of the greatest public disinformation campaigns in American history — the Left and their NeverTrumper allies (under the nom de guerre: “Transition Integrity Project”) released a 22-page report in August 2020 “war gaming” (their term) four election crisis scenarios:

1. A decisive Trump win;

2. A decisive Biden win;

3. A narrow Biden win; and,

4. A period of extended uncertainty after the election.

The outcome of each TIP scenario results in street violence and political impasse.

TIP organizers and leaders include Georgetown law professor Rosa Brooks, Nils Gilman of the “independent” Berggruen Institute in California, and John Podesta, the longtime fixer and handler of the Clinton political dynasty. The nominally Republican members of group include former Republican National Chair Michael Steele, journalist David Frum, and former magazine editor Bill Kristol.

Publication of the TIP report is an information warfare strategy employed for revolutionary political purposes. The strategy is sophisticated and multifaceted. The TIP document:

• Lays the groundwork for “consensus” news media and social media narratives;

• Rationalizes “unconventional strategies” for generating maximum confusion and turmoil over “unfavorable” election outcomes;

• Projects accusations of unlawful/criminal conduct on President Trump and those voting for him;

• Co-opts the (already politically sympathetic) Washington DC federal bureaucracy to support their strategy from the headquarters of every department and agency of the Executive;

• Relies (correctly) on a low-awareness/low-energy response from the political Right to counter the TIP program.

Is it possible that the leadership of the American Left, along with their NeverTrumper allies, are busy talking themselves into advocating and promoting street violence as a response to a presidential election?

The answer is: Yes.

In the opening paragraph of their “bipartisan” report, TIP states: “We assess with a high degree of likelihood that November’s elections will be marked by a chaotic legal and political landscape.” Especially if they have their way.

An alternative to one of the war-gamed scenarios resulted in the TIPsters advocating for the secession of Washington, Oregon and California. Is there no sense of historical irony in the Democrat party? Secession over an election? Again?

The single greatest irony of the TIP report is the overwhelming use of “projection” in framing and characterizing various claims against President Trump (and his supporters) as a means to justify the Left’s “irregular” plans to disrupt the election process.

Projection, as a political technique, is not a secret. The American Left has never bothered to hide or disguise it, nor have they even found it desirable to do so.

The covert portion of the projection technique is the funding and organizational involvement behind the projection itself. Who is paying the bills for TIP and its affiliates? This is a highly organized, sophisticated operation with career political operatives calling the shots. No one does this for free, and someone (or some entity) is paying the bill. Who?

The TIP report is itself an exercise of power. Political intelligence information and public policy strategies are being fused through the actions of TIP. That synthesis is a demonstration of real political power, and it is being implemented in a written plan that contemplates street violence to affect the outcome of the US presidential election. The political power resourced and generated from a document like the TIP report can be used for persuasion (through news and social media), indoctrination (of activists and other “true believers”), and introduces the threat of terror and street violence (to the general population) as a “normal” or “expected” outcome.

Here is how the news and social media narrative is coming together and what you will see, hear and read in the next few weeks:

“Yes, expect violence in the aftermath of the election, because now that is the new ‘normal.’ Trump made us do it. He made us take the election, because the old, regular system just cannot be relied upon. That’s why we had to publish our report, so we could organize ‘around’ all of the regular processes. Obama promised ‘fundamental transformation,’ and now, years later – we’re finally going to deliver.”

What evidence is there of awareness and preparedness on the political Right to confront and counter the TIP (and other Leftists) and their plans to disrupt the election? Not much. Time is short. The Left’s threat of violence and subversion of the election is real. How we respond is critical.

For the second day in a row, on Thursday, Chinese military aircraft entered Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ), according to an Al Jazeera report. 

Taiwan was forced to scramble fighter jets as Chinese warplanes breached the air defense buffer zone off its south-western coast.

Chinese fighter jets entered Taiwan’s southwestern ADIZ for two consecutive days. ROCAF responded accordingly and will continue to surveil the region https://t.co/sMiK89Iy9V via @MoNDefense #Taiwan pic.twitter.com/XvmxKt7IIj

— Live Eurasia Map (@eurasiamap) September 10, 2020

Taiwan’s defense ministry urged China to stop “destroying regional peace” as tensions in the unstable Taiwan Strait continue to ramp up ahead of the US presidential election on Nov. 3.

Chinese jets first breached the ADIZ on Wednesday (Sept. 9), then again, on Thursday (Sept. 10), the Taiwanese defense ministry said, adding that Su-30 fighters and Y-8 transport aircraft were among some of the planes that entered the ADIZ on Thursday morning.

“The defense ministry once again urged the Chinese Communist Party must not to repeatedly destroy regional peace and stability,” the Taiwanese defense ministry said, adding that the ADIZ breach by Chinese warplanes triggered hostility among the people of Taiwan.

Beijing claims Taiwan as “sacred” territory and threatens to invade the country if it refuses to unify with Mainland China. 

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen warned in late August of accidental conflict could occur in the Taiwan Strait, or the South China Sea, as China and the US have ramped up warship sails in both regions. 

When it comes to relations between China and the US, well, readers know Sino-US relations are at multi-decade lows as mistrust over the virus pandemic, unfair trade, and disputes over Hong Kong, the South China Sea, and Taiwan have fueled the geopolitical fire. It’s even to the point, President Trump called for economic decoupling of the US and Chinese economies on Monday (Sept. 7). 

“So when you mention the word decouple, it’s an interesting word,” Trump  said earlier this week, at a White House news conference, and added:

“We lose billions of dollars and if we didn’t do business with them we wouldn’t lose billions of dollars. It’s called decoupling, so you’ll start thinking about it,” he said.

To make matters worse, Taiwan recently signed a deal to purchase fighter jets from Lockheed Martin as concerns of a hot conflict could be on the horizon. 

Last November, Taiwan warned that the threat of a Chinese invasion would increase if Beijing could not stabilize its economy. Fast forward today, the global economy continues to falter and the downturn could last for years – opening up the idea that a regional war could develop to mask China’s economic slide. 

China’s growing military presence in the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea, the East China Sea, and the Philippine Sea continues to suggest regional tensions will increase this year. 

Authored by Edward Curtin via EdwardCurtin.com,

For anyone old enough to have been alive and aware of the attacks of September 11, 2001 and of so-called COVID-19 in 2020, memory may serve to remind one of an eerie parallel between the two operations. 

However, if memory has been expunged by the work of one’s forgettery or deleted by the corporate media’s flushing it down the memory hole, or if knowledge is lacking, or maybe fear or cognitive dissonance is blocking awareness, I would like to point out some similarities that might perk one up to consider some parallels and connections between these two operations.

The fundamental tie that binds them is that both events aroused the human fear of death.

Underlying all fears is the fear of death.  A  fear that has both biological and cultural roots. On the biological level, we all react to death threats in a fight or flight manner. Culturally, there are multiple ways that fear can be allayed or exacerbated, purposely or not. Usually, culture serves to ease the fear of death, which can traumatize people, through its symbols and myths. Religion has for a long time served that purpose, but when religion loses its hold on people’s imaginations, especially in regard to the belief in immortality, as Orwell pointed out in the mid-1940s, a huge void is left.  Without that consolation, fear is usually tranquilized by trivial pursuits.

In the cases of the attacks of September 11, 2001 and the current corona virus operation, the fear of death has been used by the power elites in order to control populations and institute long-planned agendas.  There is a red thread that connects the two events.

Both events were clearly anticipated and planned.

In the case of September 11, 2001, as I have argued before, linguistic mind-control was carefully crafted in advance to conjure fear at the deepest levels with the use of such repeated terms as Pearl Harbor, Homeland, Ground Zero, the Unthinkable, and 9/11.  Each in its turns served to raise the fear level dramatically. Each drew on past meetings, documents, events, speeches, and deep associations of dread. This language was conjured from the chief sorcerer’s playbook, not from that of an apprentice out of control.

And as David Ray Griffin, the seminal 9/11 researcher (and others), has pointed out in a dozen meticulously argued and documented books, the events of that day had to be carefully planned in advance, and the post hoc official explanations can only be described as scientific miracles, not scientific explanations. These miracles include: massive steel-framed high-rise buildings for the first time in history coming down without explosives or incendiaries in free fall speed; one of them being WTC-7 that was not even hit by a plane; an alleged hijacker pilot, Hani Hanjour, who could barely fly a Piper Cub, flying a massive Boeing 757 in a most difficult maneuver into the Pentagon; airport security at four airports failing at the same moment on the same day; all sixteen U.S. intelligence agencies failing; air traffic control failing, etc.  The list goes on and on.  And all this controlled by Osama bin Laden. It’s a fairy tale.

Then we had the crucially important anthrax attacks that are linked to 9/11. Graeme MacQueen, in The 2001 Anthrax Deception, brilliantly shows that these too were a domestic conspiracy.

These planned events led to the invasion of Afghanistan, the Patriot Act, the U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, the invasion of Iraq , the ongoing war on terror, etc.

Let us not forget years of those fraudulent color-coded warnings of the terrorist levels and the government admonition to use duct tape around your windows to protect against a massive chemical and biological attack.

Jump to 2020. 

Let me start in reverse while color-coded designs are fresh in our minds. As the COVID-19 lockdowns were under way, a funny thing happened as people were wishing that life could return to normal and they could be let out of their cages. Similar color-coded designs popped up everywhere at the same time.  They showed the step-by-step schedule of possible loosening of government controls if things went according to plan. Red to yellow to green. Eye catching. Red orange yellow blue green.  As with the terrorist warnings following September 11, 2001.  In Massachusetts, a so-called blue state where I live, it’s color chart ends in blue, not green, with Phase 4 blue termed “the new normal: Development of vaccines and/or treatments enable the resumption of ‘the new normal.’” Interesting wording.  A resumption that takes us back to the future.

As with the duct tape admonitions after 9/11, now everyone is advised to wear a mask. It’s interesting to note that the 3 M Company, a major seller of duct tape, is also one of the world’s major sellers of face masks.  The company was expected to be producing 50 million N95 respirator masks per month by June 2020 and 2 billion globally within the coming year.  Then there is 3 M’s masking tape…but this is a sticky topic.

After the attacks of September 11, 2001, we were told repeatedly that the world was changed forever. Now we are told that after COVID 19, life will never be the same.  This is the “new normal,” while the post-9/11-pre-Covid-19 world must have been the old new normal. So everything is different but normal also.  So as the Massachusetts government website puts it, in the days to come we may be enabled to enact “the resumption of ‘the new normal.’”  This new old normal will no doubt be a form of techno-fascist transhumanism enacted for our own good.

As with 9/11, there is ample evidence that the corona virus outbreak was expected and planned; that people have been the victims of a propaganda campaign to use an invisible virus to scare us into submission and shut down the world’s economy for the global elites.  It is a clear case, as Peter Koenig tells Michel Chossudovsky in this must-see interview, that is not a conspiracy theory but a blatant factual plan spelled out in the 2010 Rockefeller Report, the October 18, 2019 Event 201, and Agenda 21, among other places.

Like amorphous terrorists and a war against “terrorism,” which is a tactic and therefore not something you can fight, a virus is invisible except when the media presents it as a pale, orange-spiked bunch of floating weird balls that are everywhere and nowhere.  Watch your back, watch your face, mask up, wash your hands, keep your distance – you never know when those orange spiked balls may get you.

As with 9/11, whenever anyone questions the official narrative of Covid-19, the official statistics, the validity of the tests, the effectiveness of masks, the powers behind the heralded vaccine to come, and the horrible consequences of the lockdowns that are destroying economies, killing people, forcing people to despair and to commit suicide, creating traumatized children, bankrupting small and middle-sized businesses for the sake of enriching the richest, etc., the corporate media mock the dissidents as conspiracy nuts, aiding the viral enemy. 

This is so even when the dissenters are highly respected doctors, scientists, intellectuals, et al., who are regularly disappeared from the internet. With September 11, there were initially far fewer dissenters than now, and so the censorship of opposing viewpoints didn’t need the blatant censorship that is now growing daily.

This censorship happens all across the internet now, quickly and stealthily, the same internet that is being forced on everyone as the new normal as presented in the Great Global Reset, the digital lie, where, as Anthony Fauci put it, no one should  ever shake hands again.

A world of abstract images and beings in which, as Arthur Jensen tells Howard Beal in the film, Network, “All necessities [will be] provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused.”  A digital dystopia that is fast approaching as perhaps the end of that red thread that runs from 9/11 to today.

Heidi Evens and Thomas Hackett write in the New York Daily News:

With the nation’s illusion of safety and security in ruins, Americans begin the slow and fitful process of healing from a trauma that feels deeply, cruelly personal…leaving citizens throughout the country with the frightening knowledge of their vulnerability.

That was written on September 12, 2001.

Starbucks announced on Thursday that all of its stores in the United States and Canada will offer strawless lids on its iced coffee, tea, espresso and Refreshers drinks, after successfully test-bedding them over the last year.

The lids, modeled after those used for hot drinks, use 9% less plastic than the previous ‘lid and straw’ according to the company, which has targeted a 50% reduction in waste sent to landfills from stores and manufacturing sites by 2030.

“A recyclable, strawless lid becoming the standard for iced drinks is one small way we can give more than we take from the planet,” said Starbucks director of global packaging, Andy Corlett. “This is a significant moment for Starbucks as we work to reduce waste and safeguard the environment.“

The company says that straws will still be available upon request, and will be given to those ordering Frappuccinos and other whipped-cream drinks.

“Strawless lids and straws made from alternative materials will continue to be tested and rolled out to more markets in the coming year,” the company added.

As the Miami Herald notes, “Half a billion straws are used every day in the U.S., and 8.3 million plastic straws pollute the world’s beaches, according to National Geographic. There has been a push in recent years to eliminate plastic straws to prevent added waste.”

“(Single use plastic) straws have been described as a ‘gateway plastic,’ which if curbed, can help change the behavior of consumers and retailers to reduce other SUP items,” said Dr. Tony Walker, assistant professor of environmental science at Dalhousie University in Canada, in a statement to USA Today last summer.

According to the Center for Disability Rights, the move may make it more difficult for disabled people.

“For many individuals with mobility and strength issues, they cannot lift cups high enough to drink from them,” said the organization, adding “Some individuals with poor motor coordination cannot safely hold a drink steady without spilling it. Certain medicines must also be taken via straw. Bendable plastic straws allow individuals to nourish themselves and avoid spilling things on themselves, and others.”

Via MunkDebates.com,

Are we overreacting to COVID-19?

Be it Resolved, the scientific community has overreacted to the threat of COVID-19 and the data prove it…

Six months into a global pandemic and 63,000 scientific papers later, scientists and medical researchers continue to be perplexed by COVID-19. There are many unknowns with the virus, and one of the most controversial is how deadly it really is. Since the beginning of the pandemic, leading health institutions such as the World Health Organization and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases have warned that COVID-19 is much more dangerous than the seasonal flu and that, without expansive public health measures, millions of people around the world could die from the virus.

But there are some in the scientific community who disagree. And they say they have the data to prove it. Antibody testing of large population groups indicates that we could be grossly underestimating the number of people who have been infected by the virus – which means we are dramatically overestimating the death rate. Given these findings, they question whether sweeping public health controls are the way to approach a possible second wave of COVID-19 this autumn.

GUESTS

To understand the true prevalence of COVID-19 infections in the United States, Jay Bhattacharya has recently undertaken several seroprevalence studies (the study of antibodies in a population). You can read about his study of Santa Clara County in California here and his study of 5,600 Major League Baseball employees here.

Sten Vermund has published numerous scholarly studies on infectious diseases, which you can view here.

During the debate both Jay and Sten speak about COVID-19’s “infection fatality rate” (IFR). IFR is one of the most important characteristics of an infectious disease in determining its severity. It is basically the ultimate measure of a disease’s ability to cause death. You can learn more about IFR and how it is estimated here.  In the debate, both Jay and Sten agree that the current estimates of the COVID-19 infection fatality rates are overestimated and therefore misleading. To learn more, read Jay’s Wall Street Journal op ed.

During the debate, Sten points out that between March and May of 2020 there was a 19 per cent excess death rate in the United States.  Excess death rates refer to the difference between the observed numbers of deaths in specific time period and expected number of deaths in the same time period. According to Sten, the excess rates are probably 28 per cent higher than the official deaths tally of COVID-19 because so many cases are not reported. This Nature.com article supports this view.

Jay argues that part of the science community’s overreaction to COVID-19 has been censorship of unpopular scientific views. Jay refers to an op ed in the New York Times by Michael Eisen that expresses concern about how scientific study pre-prints are being released before they are peer reviewed, and calling for the establishment of a scientific “rapid review” service for pre-prints.

One of the scientists Jay identifies as having an unorthodox view on COVID-19 is Gabriela Gomez, She speaks about her research on herd immunity occurring when as little as ten percent of the population has been infected with the virus here and you can read her research article here.

Sten and Jay disagree with each other about the feasibility of isolating the most vulnerable members of society, particularly the elderly, while letting the rest of the population continue to live normally. Sten refers to a New York Times article by David Katz which supports the strategy of “vertical interdiction”, where those over 60 are “preferentially protected.”

Jay refers to the recent release of findings from a Public Health England study that found negligible spread among one million students who returned to school in June.

During the debate Jay identifies Sweden’s approach to COVID-19 as a model for the world, while Sten argues it represents a failed strategy. You can decide for yourself by listening to the Munk Debate, Be it resolved, Sweden is the model for how to fight this pandemic and the next.

Listen to the full debate below:

Readers may recall, on Thursday, we outlined the La Nina weather pattern has likely been the culprit behind dangerous wildfires in the western U.S., and, as we highlighted as early as Aug. 13, the ‘super active‘ hurricane season. 

As Bloomberg describes, La Nina “triggers an atmospheric chain reaction that stands to roil weather around the globe, often turning the western U.S. into a tinder box, fueling more powerful hurricanes in the Atlantic and flooding parts of Australia and South America.” 

While we have covered the wildfire situation in the western U.S. – it’s now time to turn our attention back to a meteorological dilemma developing in the Atlantic basin. 

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) is tracking seven systems – yes – seven systems – which were highlighted in their Thursday morning tropical update: 

“This is what September 10, the peak of the hurricane season, looks like! We are monitoring 7 systems in the Atlantic, including Tropical Storms Paulette and Rene. The tropical waves in the eastern Atlantic have the highest chances of formation,” NHC said in a Twitter post.

Two of the disturbances are named storms, called Paulette and Rene, are both traversing the central Atlantic Ocean heading west-north-west. The other five systems are described as disturbances that have yet to become storms but should be watched carefully over the next five days. Three of the disturbances, located on the map below, are highlighted in yellow, situated near the U.S.

The Atlantic hurricane season tends to peak around Sept. 10, but with La Nina conditions formed, it suggests the back half of the season could remain very active. 

“Typically, what ends Atlantic hurricane seasons is that vertical wind shear gets too strong,” said Phil Klotzbach, a research scientist at Colorado State University, who spoke with CNN. “So, El Niño, via its impacts on vertical wind shear, has a stronger impact on September and especially October hurricanes than it does on August hurricanes. With La Niña, vertical wind shear tends to be lower, and consequently, we end up with more active late seasons.

Some are likening this year’s La Nina as the ‘La Nina from hell.’

Authored by Wedny McElroy via The Mises Institute,m

“The welfare state has done to black Americans what slavery couldn’t do….And that is to destroy the black family.”

–Walter E. Williams, the Wall Street Journal

On August 14, the Commission on Social Status of Black Men and Boys Act was signed into law. It establishes a nineteen-member panel within the Commission on Civil Rights to examine social problems that disproportionately affect black males.

The act is a conscious response to the death of George Floyd, with the opening section of the bill being subtitled the “George Floyd and Walter Scott Notification Act.” Floyd died on May 25 after a white police officer knelt on his neck for several minutes. Walter Scott died on April 4, 2015, after being shot by a white police officer who had stopped him for a broken brake light. Both have become symbols of police brutality against black males. Invoking them indicates that the new commission will focus on the disparity with which law enforcement and the court system treat black males.

Any spotlight shone on the neglected problem of discrimination against males deserves applause. Higher education is often used to illustrate how far the pendulum has swung from several decades ago, when discrimination against women was rife. A February 1 article in Forbes, “The Collegiate War against Males,” commented on the recent decline in college enrollment.

“Most of that fall…is concentrated among men. Between 2015 and 2019…the number of men on campuses declined by 691,643, almost double the smaller fall among women, 348,955. In percentage terms, the male decline of 8.34% was far more than double that among women, 3.18%….In 2015, there were 32% more women than men, but now the differential is nearly 40%.”

From family courts to the handling of sexual violence, from protective laws for women to harsh prison sentencing for men, the government unjustly advantages one gender over the other instead of treating all individuals equally under the same law.

The Commission on Social Status of Black Men and Boys is not likely to increase justice, however; it may well damage the cause it seems to champion.

There is reason for skepticism. A DC Commission on Black Men and Boys was established in 2001 by Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), who also cochairs the Congressional Caucus on Black Men and Boys. Predictably, Norton applauds the new act, because it “mandates government action to help improve the condition of African-American men and boys.” There are two takeaways from her comment: government will become more deeply involved in directing the lives of black males, and two decades of activity by the first commission has accomplished little.

The government mandate is unfortunate, for several reasons.

Improving the status and safety of anyone is laudable, but a number of problems exist with the bill’s approach. For one thing, social status refers to a person’s standing in a community. It refers to how highly others in society value a person. As long as people are nonviolent, the government has no business dictating what or whom they value. It is akin to mandating what people must think and feel, which is a matter of social control—not justice.

Moreover, the government can elevate the social status of a group only by changing their legal status and treatment. If the change makes all people equal under just law, then it is an improvement. If it elevates one class by harming the status of another class, then it is discriminatory and unjust on its face.

There are two basic ways that government can use the law to influence social status.

1. It can remove any legal entitlements or disadvantages for categories of people and allow the status of each individual to rise or fall on its own.

2. Or it can redistribute status—in a manner similar to redistributing wealth—by extending privileges and opportunities to one group while denying them to another; affirmative action in university admission is an example.

The new commission will almost certainly take the latter path. And the disadvantaged category will almost certainly be white males. (Women are unlikely to be disadvantaged, because they are still viewed as “oppressed.”) If the new Commission follows the lead of Norton’s original one, it will make frequent comparisons between the status of black males and white ones as a way to “prove” racial inequity. If this happens, males will be divided into warring groups—black and white—with one category of males benefiting at the expense of the other, with the interests of both in conflict.

Another objection: the new commission tacitly accepts the idea that there is institutionalized racism in America. Although racist individuals and organizations certainly exist, America has overwhelmingly purged its institutions of antiblack bias. Racism is not systemic. In an article entitled “Why Social Justice Warriors Battle ‘Institutional Racism,’” the noted black economist Walter Williams, who teaches at George Mason University, speculated on the ill-defined terms institutional racism and systemic racism. He wrote, “I suspect it means that they cannot identify the actual person or entities engaged in the practice….And it is seen by many, particularly the intellectual elite, as a desirable form of determining who gets what.”

On the other hand, a clear-cut misandry or antimale bias does exist in American institutions and culture. This is especially true of white heterosexual males, who politically lack the intersectional “advantage” of being a racial or sexual minority. But the antimale bias also applies to blacks who are disadvantaged simply because of their gender. In fighting this bias, they should find common cause with white males instead of being politically juxtaposed.

Yet another objection to the commission is that its members almost certainly accept “the legacy of slavery” as the cause of any racism in America. This means it will not address the single most powerful cause of black impoverishment: the decline of the black family, for which government bears much responsibility. The black social theorist Thomas Sowell, who teaches at Stanford University, has written extensively on the decline of the black family. In his article “A Legacy of Liberalism,” Sowell rejects the argument that current black impoverishment is the residue of slavery or due to inherent racism. He refers to “the legacy of slavery” argument as a reason not to think about the subject or rely on evidence, because it replaces research with an emotional reaction. 

“If we wanted to be serious about evidence,” Sowell observed, “we might compare where blacks stood a hundred years after the end of slavery with where they stood after 30 years of the liberal welfare state…

Despite the grand myth that black economic progress began or accelerated with the passage of the civil rights laws and ‘war on poverty’ programs of the 1960s, the cold fact is that the poverty rate among blacks fell from 87 percent in 1940 to 47 percent by 1960. This was before any of those programs began.”

In his article “The Legacy of the Welfare State,” Williams agreed.

“The No. 1 problem among blacks is the effects stemming from a very weak family structure. Children from fatherless homes are likelier to drop out of high school, die by suicide, have behavioral disorders, join gangs, commit crimes and end up in prison. They are also likelier to live in poverty-stricken households. But is the weak black family a legacy of slavery?…Here’s my question: Was the increase in single-parent black families after 1960 a legacy of slavery, or might it be a legacy of the welfare state ushered in by the War on Poverty?”

In another article Sowell answered,

“A vastly expanded welfare state in the 1960s destroyed the black family, which had survived centuries of slavery and generations of racial oppression. In 1960, before this expansion of the welfare state, 22 percent of black children were raised with only one parent. By 1985, 67 percent of black children were raised with either one parent or no parent.” The percentage has held fairly steady since then. And, statistically, the parent figure is usually a mother or a grandmother.

Being effectively fatherless can be devastating. The paper “What Can the Federal Government Do to Decrease Crime and Revitalize Communities?,” issued by the US Department of Justice, offered statistics on children from fatherless homes. The children account for:

• Suicide: 63 percent of youth suicides

• Runaways: 90 percent of all homeless and runaway youths

• Behavioral disorders: 85 percent of all children that exhibit behavioral disorders

• High school dropouts: 71 percent of all high school dropouts

• Juvenile detention rates: 70 percent of juveniles in state-operated institutions

• Substance abuse: 75 percent of adolescent patients in substance abuse centers

Lawmakers do black people no favor when they advance a narrative that dismisses the importance of the family structure and offers instead dependence on government rather than independence as human beings. As Williams stated,

“The undeniable truth is that neither slavery nor Jim Crow nor the harshest racism has decimated the black family the way the welfare state has…

The most damage done to black Americans is inflicted by those politicians, civil rights leaders and academics who assert that every problem confronting blacks is a result of a legacy of slavery and discrimination. That’s a vision that guarantees perpetuity for the problems.”

New findings from a survey by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, published by NPR News on Wednesday, reveal low-income minority households have experienced the most financial hardships in the virus-induced recession.  

The pandemic heavily impacted Black and Latino households across America’s four largest cities (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston) with massive job loss or reduction in hourly wages or a decline in working hours. 

The survey, conducted from July 1 through Aug. 3, found Latino households (77%) and Black households (81%) in the Greater Houston area incurred “serious” financial problems. 

Houston

As for the three other major cities, the survey showed 73% of Latinos in New York City experienced severe financial hardships, 71% of Latinos in Los Angeles, and 63% in Chicago. Black households in New York City (62%), Los Angeles (52%), and Chicago (69%) also reported severe financial distress because of the downturn. 

New York City

Los Angeles

Chicago

The survey found a majority of low-income minority households had their savings wiped out, which is similar to our recent report detailing how tens of millions of Americans depleted emergency savings this year.

Nationally, white households and ones that have incomes over $100,000 escaped much of the financial distress. But for low-income minorities, which mostly survived on direct transfer payments from the government (i.e., Trump stimulus checks), the exhaustion of the checks has caused more financial stress ahead of the presidential election in November. 

“Before federal coronavirus support programs even expired, we find millions of people with severe problems with their finances,” said Robert Blendon, a poll co-director and executive director of the Harvard Opinion Research Program at the Harvard Chan School. “And it’s going to get worse because there is nothing for the people we surveyed who earn under $100,000 a year to fall back on.”

Blendon said the downturn has produced substantial economic damage among low-income minority households. 

He warned: “This is much, much, much worse than I would’ve predicted.” 

“This is what I would expect without a national emergency relief bill,” Blendon said. “We had a $2 trillion relief bill to lift people up and put a pillow under them. But it is not helping nearly as many people as we had expected.”

If readers have been counting, the dangerous fiscal cliff has been underway in the US for 39 days, one where tens of millions of Americans are no longer receiving weekly stimulus checks of $600. 

With the economic recovery stalling and the labor market deteriorating, much of the financial distress, due to the virus pandemic, has been exerted onto the working poor. 

This is just more bad news for an economy that is 70% based on consumption… 

Authored by Doug Casey via InternationalMan.com,

The terms liberal (left) and conservative (right) define the conventional political spectrum. But the terms are floating abstractions, with meanings that change with every politician.

In the nineteenth century, a “liberal” believed in free speech, social mobility, limited government and strict property rights. The term has since been appropriated by those who, while sometimes still believing in limited free speech, always support strong government and weak property rights and who see everyone as a member of a class or group.

Conservatives have always tended to believe in strong government and nationalism. Bismarck and Metternich were archetypes. Today’s conservatives are sometimes seen as defenders of economic liberty and free markets, although that is mostly only true when those concepts are perceived to coincide with the interests of big business and economic nationalism.

Locating political beliefs on an inaccurate scale, running only from left to right, constrains political thinking. It’s like trying to reduce chemistry to the elements with air, earth, water and fire.

Politics is the theory and practice of government. It concerns itself with how force should be applied to control people, which is to say, to restrict their freedom. It should be analyzed on that basis. Freedom is indivisible, but in the abstract, it can be seen as composed of two basic elements: social freedom and economic freedom. According to current usage, liberals tend to allow social freedom but restrict economic freedom, while conservatives tend to restrict social freedom but allow economic freedom.

An authoritarian (they now style themselves “middle-of-the-roaders”) want both types of freedom restricted.

But what do you call someone who believes both social and economic freedom should be allowed maximum rein? Unfortunately, something without a name may get overlooked, or if the name is only known to a few, it may be ignored as unimportant. That may explain why so few people who believe in both of these dimensions of freedom know they are libertarians. A more useful way of looking at the political field can be found in the diagram below:

Source: Advocates for Self-Government

A libertarian believes individuals have a right to do anything that doesn’t impinge on the common-law rights of others—basically anything but force or fraud. Libertarians are the human equivalent of the Gamma rat, which bears a little explanation. Some years ago, scientists experimenting with rats categorized the vast majority of their subjects as Beta rats. These are followers who get the Alpha rats’ leftovers. The Alpha rats establish territories, claim the choicest mates, and, generally, lord it over the Betas. This pretty well corresponded with the way the researchers thought the world worked.

But they were surprised to find a third type of rat as well, the Gamma. This creature staked out a territory and chose the pick of the litter for a mate, like the Alpha, but didn’t attempt to dominate the Betas, a go-along-get-along rat. A libertarian rat, if you will. My guess, mixed with a dollop of hope, is that as society becomes more repressive, more Gamma people will tune in to the problem and drop out as a solution. No, they won’t turn into middle-aged hippies weaving baskets and stringing beads in remote communes; rather, they will structure their lives so that the government—which is to say taxes, regulation, and inflation—is a nonfactor. Hippies used to ask: suppose they had a war and nobody came? Personally, I would take it further: suppose they had an election and nobody voted; levied a tax and nobody paid; imposed regulation and nobody obeyed?

Libertarian beliefs are strong among Americans, but the Libertarian Party has never gained much prominence, possibly because the type of people who might support it have better things to do than play political games. Even among those who believe in voting, many tend to feel they are “wasting” their vote on someone who can’t win. But voting is itself another part of the problem.

None of the Above

Since 1960, the trend has been for an ever-smaller percentage of the electorate to vote. Increasingly, the average person is fed up or views elections as pointless. In some years, more than 98 percent of incumbents retain office. That is a higher proportion than in the Supreme Soviet of the defunct U.S.S.R., and a lower turnover rate than in Britain’s formerly hereditary House of Lords, where people lost their seats only by dying. The political system in the United States has, like all systems that grow old and large, become moribund and corrupt. The conventional wisdom holds that this decline in voter turnout is a sign of apathy. But it may also be a sign of a renaissance in personal responsibility. It could be people saying: “I won’t be fooled again, and I won’t lend power to them.” Politics has always been a way of redistributing wealth from those who produce to those who are politically favored. As H. L. Mencken observed, an election amounts to no more than an advance auction of stolen goods—a process few would support if they saw its true nature. Protesters in the ’60s had their flaws, but they were quite correct when they said, “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.” If politics is the problem, what is the solution? I have several answers that may appeal to you.

The first step in solving the problem is to stop actively encouraging it. Many Americans have intuitively recognized that government is the problem and have stopped voting. There are at least five reasons many people don’t vote:

1. Voting in a political election is unethical. The political process is one of institutionalized coercion and force; if you disapprove of those things, then you shouldn’t participate in them, even indirectly.

2. Voting compromises your privacy. It gets your name in another government computer.

3. Voting, as well as registering, entails hanging around government offices and dealing with petty bureaucrats. Most people can find something more enjoyable or productive to do.

4. Voting encourages politicians. A vote against one candidate—a chief, and quite understandable, reason many people vote—is always interpreted as a vote for his opponent. And even though you may be voting for the lesser of two evils, the lesser of two evils is still evil. It amounts to giving the candidate a tacit mandate to impose his will on society.

5. Your vote doesn’t count. Politicians like to say it counts because it is to their advantage to get everyone into a busybody mode. But statistically, one vote in scores of millions makes no more difference than a single grain of sand on a beach. That’s entirely apart from the fact that officials manifestly do what they want, not what you want, once they are in office.

Some of these thoughts may impress you as vaguely “unpatriotic”; it’s certainly not my intention to “trigger” anyone. But unfortunately, America isn’t the place it once was, either. The United States has devolved from the land of the free and the home of the brave to something more closely resembling the land of entitlements and the home of whining lawsuit filers. The founding ideas of the country, which were intensely libertarian, have been thoroughly perverted. What passes for tradition today is something against which the Founding Fathers would have led a second revolution.

This sorry, scary state of affairs is one reason some people emphasize the importance of joining the process, “working within the system” and “making your voice heard,” to ensure that “the bad guys” don’t get in. They seem to think that increasing the number of voters will improve the quality of their choices. That argument compels many sincere people, who otherwise wouldn’t dream of coercing their neighbors, to take part in the political process. But it only feeds power to people in politics and government, validating their existence and making them more powerful in the process.

Of course, everybody involved gets something out of it, psychologically if not monetarily. Politics gives many people a sense of belonging to something bigger than themselves, and so has special appeal for those who can’t find satisfaction within themselves. We cluck in amazement at the enthusiasm shown at Hitler’s giant rallies but figure that what goes on here, today, is different. Well, it’s never quite the same. But the mindless sloganeering, the cult of personality and certainty of the masses that “their” candidate will kiss their personal lives and make them better are identical.

And even if the favored candidate doesn’t help them, then at least he’ll keep others from getting too much. Politics is the institutionalization of envy, a vice that proclaims: “You’ve got something I want, and if I can’t get it, I’ll take yours. And if I can’t have yours, I’ll destroy it, so you can’t have it, either.” Participating in politics is an act of ethical bankruptcy.

The key to getting “rubes” (i.e., voters) to vote, and “marks” (i.e., contributors) to give is to talk in generalities while sounding specific and to look sincere and thoughtful yet decisive. Vapid, venal party hacks can be shaped, like Silly Putty, into saleable candidates. People like to kid themselves that they are voting for either “the man” or “the ideas.” But few campaign “ideas” are more than slogans artfully packaged to push the right buttons. Voting “the man” doesn’t help much, either, since these guys are more diligently programmed, posed and rehearsed than any actor.

This is probably truer today than it has ever been since elections are now won on television, and television is not a forum for expressing complex ideas and philosophies. It lends itself to slogans and glib people who look and talk like game show hosts. People with really new ideas wouldn’t dream of introducing them to politics because they know such ideas can’t be explained in sixty seconds. I’m not intimating, incidentally, that people disinvolve themselves from their communities, social groups, or other voluntary organizations—just the opposite since those relationships are the lifeblood of society. But the political process or the government is not synonymous with society or even complementary to it. The government is a dead hand on society.

“Wait, wait,” I can hear many of you saying, “That may all be true in theory. But it’s irrelevant in 2020; this time it’s different. We’re on the cusp of a civil war in the US. It makes a big difference who wins this time.” That’s true enough. Whoever runs a government can, indeed, make a huge difference sometimes. France was different under Louis XVI than it was under Robespierre, and Russia was different under Nicolas II than it was under Lenin. At this point, the US will be different under Trump than under the Democrats.

I’ll explore the likelihood of a Trump victory or loss next week.

And what happens next.

*  *  *

Disturbing economic, political, and social trends are already in motion and now accelerating at breathtaking speed. Most troubling of all, they cannot be stopped. There will likely be unprecedented volatility of every kind in the months and years ahead. That’s exactly why bestselling author Doug Casey and his team just released a free report with all the details on how to survive the crisis ahead. It will help you understand what is unfolding right before our eyes and what you should do so you don’t get caught in the crosshairs. Click here to download the PDF now.