Reclaiming Your Inner Fascist

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Reclaiming Your Inner Fascist

C.J. Hopkins • November 19, 2019

• 2,100 Words • 21 Comments • Reply

Reclaiming Your Inner Fascist

OK, we need to talk about fascism. Not just any kind of fascism. A particularly insidious kind of fascism. No, not the fascism of the early 20th Century. Not Mussolini’s National Fascist Party. Not Hitler’s NSDAP. Not Francoist fascism or any other kind of organized fascist movement or party. Not even the dreaded Tiki-torch Nazis.

It’s the other kind of fascism we need to talk about. The kind that doesn’t come goose-stepping up the street waving big neo-Nazi flags. The kind we don’t recognize when we’re looking right at it.

It’s like that joke about the fish and the water … we don’t recognize it because we’re swimming in it. We’re surrounded by it. We are inseparable from it. From the moment we are born, we breathe it in.

We are taught it by our parents, who were taught it by their parents. We are taught it again by our teachers in school. It is reinforced on a daily basis at work, in conversations with friends, in our families and our romantic relationships. We imbibe it in books, movies, TV shows, advertisements, pop songs, the nightly news, in our cars, at the mall, the stadium, the opera … everywhere, because it is literally everywhere.

It doesn’t look like fascism to us. Fascism only looks like fascism when you’re standing outside of it, or looking back at it. When you are in it, fascism just looks like “normality,” like “reality,” like “just the way it is.”

We (i.e., Americans, Brits, Europeans, and other citizens of the global capitalist empire) get up in the morning, go to work, shop, pay the interest on our debts, and otherwise obey the laws and conform to the mores of a system of power that has murdered countless millions of people in pursuit of global-hegemonic dominance. It has perpetrated numerous wars of aggression. Its military occupies most of the planet. Its Intelligence agencies (i.e., secret police) operate a worldwide surveillance apparatus that can identify, target, and eliminate anyone, anywhere, often by remote control. Its propaganda network never sleeps, nor is there any real way to escape its constant emotional and ideological conditioning.

The fact that the global capitalist empire does not call itself an empire, and instead calls itself “democracy,” doesn’t make it any less of an empire. The fact that it uses terms like “regime change” instead of “invasion” or “annexation” makes very little difference to its victims. Terms like “security,” “stability,” “intervention,” “regime change,” and so on are not meant for its victims. They are meant for us … to anesthetize us.

The empire is “regime-changing” Bolivia currently. It has “regime-changed” most of Latin America at one time or another since the Second World War. It “regime-changed” Iraq, Libya, Yugoslavia, Indonesia … the list goes on. It very much wants to “regime-change” Iran, which it “regime-changed” back in the 1950s, before the Iranians “regime-changed” it back. It would love to “regime-change” Russia and China, but their ICBMs make that somewhat impractical. Basically, the empire has been “regime-changing” everyone it can since the end of the Cold War. It has run into a little bump in Syria, and in Venezuela, but not to worry, it will get back there and finish up eventually.

Now, let’s be clear about this “regime-change” business. We’re talking about invading other people’s countries, and orchestrating and sponsoring coups, or otherwise overthrowing their governments, and murdering, torturing, and oppressing people. Sending in terrorists, death squads, and such. We have organizations that train guys to do that, i.e., to round people up, take them out to the jungle, or the woods, or wherever, rape the women, and then summarily shoot everyone in the head. We pay for this kind of thing with our taxes, and our investments in the global corporations that our militaries and intelligence agencies serve. We know this is happening. We can google this stuff. We know “where the trains are going,” as it were.

And yet, we do not see ourselves as monsters.

The Nazis didn’t see themselves as monsters. They saw themselves as heroes, as saviors, or just as regular Germans leading regular lives. When they looked at the propaganda posters which surrounded them (as the Internet surrounds us today), they didn’t see sadistic mass-murderers and totalitarian psychopathic freaks. They saw normal people, admirable people, who were making the world a better place.

They saw themselves. They saw “the good guys.”

This is primarily how propaganda works. It isn’t meant to fool anybody. It is there to represent “normality” (whatever “normality” happens to be in whatever empire one happens to inhabit). It is Power’s way of letting us know what it wants us to believe, how it wants us to behave, who our official enemies are. Its purpose isn’t to mislead or deceive us. It is an edict, a command, an ideological model … to which we are all expected to conform. Conform to this ideological model, and one is rewarded, or at least not punished.

Deviate from it, and suffer the consequences.

It is a question of obedience, not one of truth.

This is why it doesn’t matter that there is no actual “Attack on America,” and that the Russians didn’t “hack,” “subvert,” “meddle in,” or otherwise significantly “influence” the 2016 presidential election or otherwise put Donald Trump in office. John Brennan and the CIA say they did, and the corporate media say they did, so all Good Americans have to pretend to believe it. Likewise, it also doesn’t matter if an organization like the OPCW collaborated with the empire’s regime-change specialists who staged a “chemical weapons attack” on helpless women and children in Douma (because, no matter what the empire did or didn’t do, Assad is a Russian-backed, baby-gassing devil!), or if The Guardian just makes up stuff about Julian Assange out of whole cloth and prints it as news.

This is also why, when The Guardian runs an enormous color propaganda photo of a beneficent-looking Hillary Clinton and her soon-to-be-Democratic senator daughter posing as our last line of defense against the Invasion of the Putin-Nazis, and as the future of Western democracy, and whatever, on the cover of its cultural Review, this isn’t perceived as propaganda. Never mind that this woman (i.e., Hillary) is directly responsible for the deaths and misery of God knows how many innocent people in the course of her lucrative service to the empire. 

Never mind that this is the same exact person that sadistically cackled on national television when the empire’s associates anally knife-raped and murdered Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, and then transformed a developed African country into a hellish human-slavery market.

For fascists (and authoritarian personalities generally), facts are completely beside the point. The point is to robotically conform to the ideology (or hysterical ravings) of whatever leader or system of power happens to be in charge of things.

Authoritarian personality types are skilled at determining exactly who that is (i.e, who is really in charge of things) and obsequiously currying favor with them. For some, this is an innate talent; others have this talent conditioned into them (or beaten into them) over the course of years. Either way, the result is the same.

Put a bunch of random people together in a group and give them a problem to solve, or a complex project or objective to accomplish. Don’t give them any organizational guidance, just put them in a room and watch what happens.

The first thing that happens is … a “leader” emerges. Someone (or a few people) decides that someone needs to be in charge of this project, and they feel pretty strongly that it should be them. If more than one such “leader” emerges, or if the need for a leader itself is challenged, a struggle for power will immediately ensue. The aspiring “leaders” will compete for the support of the “followers” in the group. Sides will be taken. Eventually, a “leader” will be chosen. Occasionally, this will happen openly, but, more often than not, it will happen unconsciously. Someone in the group will want to dominate … and the rest of the group will want them to dominate. They will experience discomfort until a “leader” is established, and they will feel an enormous sense of relief once one is, and they can surrender their autonomy.

I assume you’re familiar with the Milgram experiment, but, if not, you should probably read up on that, and maybe read Adorno’s The Authoritarian Personality. It’s a bit outdated, and over-focused on the Nazis (it was originally published in 1950), but I think you’ll get the general idea. Once you’ve done that, turn on your television, or your radio, or scan the news on the Internet, or walk down any big city street and compare the content on the digital billboards, movie posters, and advertisements to historical fascist propaganda … that is, if your boss will let you leave the workplace long enough to do that, which he probably will if you ask him in that special way you have learned over time that he likes and generally tends to respond to.

Sorry, I didn’t mean to get inside your mind. That’s kind of a fascistic thing to do.

Look, the point is, we all have an “Inner Fascist,” with whom we are either acquainted or not. I’m a playwright and a novelist, which means I’ve got a big, fat, Sieg-heiling Inner Fascist goose-stepping around inside my head. I invent whole worlds, which I dictatorially control. I put people in them and make them say things. It doesn’t get much more fascistic than that. The way I see it, my art is how I sublimate my Inner Fascist, so that he doesn’t run around invading Poland, exterminating the Jews, or “regime-changing” Bolivia.

I’m not a psychiatrist, or a fascism expert, but I figure this is probably the most we can do … recognize, acknowledge, and find some way to sublimate our Inner Fascists, because, I guarantee you, they’re not going away. (If you don’t believe me, go watch that Planet Earth episode featuring the fascist chimpanzees.) Seriously, I recommend you do this. Get acquainted with your Inner Fascist, in an appropriate set and setting, of course. Give him something safe to dominate and then let him go totally totalitarian. You’ll be doing yourself and the rest of us a favor.

Ironically, it is those who are not acquainted with their Inner Fascists (or who deny they have one) who are usually the first to make a big public show of loudly denouncing “fascism,” brandishing their “anti-fascist” bona fides, accusing other people of being “fascists,” and otherwise desperately projecting their Inner Fascists onto those they hate, and want to silence, if not exterminate. This is one of the hallmarks of repressed Inner Fascism … this compulsion to control what other people think, this desire for complete ideological conformity, this tendency, not to argue with, but rather, to attempt to destroy anyone who disagrees with or questions one’s beliefs.

We all know people who behave this way. If you don’t, odds are, one of them is you.

So, please, if you haven’t done so already, get acquainted with your “Inner Fascist,” and find him something harmless to do, before he … well, you know, starts singing hymns to former FBI directors, or worshipping the CIA, or Obama, or Trump, or Hillary Clinton, or supports the empire’s next invasion, or coup, or just makes a desperate, sanctimonious ass of you both on the Internet.

I’m not kidding. Reclaim your “Inner Fascist.” It might sound crazy, but you will thank me someday.

C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play Publishing (USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23, is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant Paperbacks. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org.

Well said !!

Dear America: Please Stop This Shit. Signed, The Rest Of The World.

caitlinjohnstone (61) in trump •  21 hours ago

They want you arguing over who should and shouldn't be called a terrorist based on what ideology you subscribe to and what color the latest killer's skin was. They do not want you talking about the way the label "terrorist" itself is being used to justify unconstitutional detentions, torture, mass surveillance, and wars.
They want you arguing over whether to support the Democrats because the Republicans will take civil rights away from disempowered groups or Republicans because the Democrats will take away your guns and force you to bake gay wedding cakes. They don't want you talking about the fact that both parties advance Orwellian surveillance, neoliberal exploitation and neoconservative bloodshed in a good cop/bad cop extortion scheme to keep Americans cheerleading for their own enslavement.
They want you arguing about whether Trump did or did not collude with Russia. They do not want you looking at what preexisting agendas the CNN/CIA Russia narratives are advancing and who stands to benefit from them.

They want everyone fighting over table scraps while they pour unfathomable riches into expanding and bolstering their empire. They psychologically brutalize you with propaganda day in and day out, and then expect you to look to them for protection from the phantoms they invented.
They don't want you paying attention to the growing number of signs that the current administration is gearing up for a major military bloodbath which may lead our species into a third and final world war. They want you talking about Stormy Daniels instead.
And by "they" I of course mean the loose transnational alliance of plutocrats and defense/intelligence agencies who control the US-centralized empire, whose primary agenda is always to expand their own power and influence.

The "they" in question are aware that their empire is (according to their own data) entering post-primacy, which will lead to the rise of a multipolar world in which the US-centralized empire suddenly has rivals which can compete on equal footing for resources, assets and allies. Unless they do something very drastic very soon.
This arrival at post-primacy just so happened to coincide with the choice in 2016 between a warmongering establishment stalwart whom the DNC and media propaganda machine tried to force into the White House at great expense, and a billionaire who knew what people wanted to hear and has proven himself to be every bit the violent empire loyalist that his opponent would have been.
The election was fake and meaningless. Both candidates are owned and operated by the same unelected power establishment.
Now the Trump administration is being filled with more and more bloodthirsty neoconservatives of the same strain which backed Hillary Clinton, who are being promoted to higher and higher positions within that administration. Longtime Iran and Russia hawk Mike Pompeo's promotion into Hillary Clinton's old job as Secretary of State was quickly followed by the elevation of John Bolton, easily the most virulent neoconservative war hawk in Washington, to the position of National Security Advisor.
There were many perfectly qualified candidates who could have served as Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, but Trump selected the two most violent neoconservatives on the menu. There is no reason to do such a thing unless wars are planned; none of the countless feeble arguments I'm seeing from Trump apologists come anywhere close to a convincing argument to the contrary. All John Bolton does is war. You don't appoint him to the leading advisory position on national security unless war is what you want.
In response to all this, Trump's political opponents are of course talking about what he did with his penis.

As of this writing, #StormyDanielsDay is the top US trend on Twitter. I don't know what #StormyDanielsDay is. I don't care what #StormyDanielsDay is. Neither should you. Neither should anyone else.
Please stop this shit, America. If the US war machine goes after Iran or Russia it will likely mean a world war against multiple nuclear-armed countries, which could very easily send our species the way of the dinosaurs should a nuke get deployed in the fog of war. We don't have time to focus on Stormy fucking Daniels.
Those most fiendishly devoted to the service of the empire would rather take that risk than see the US lose its dominant role on the global stage; for them there is no difference between the end of their empire and the end of their lives. From their point of view they are fighting for their lives, and they are willing to take all-or-nothing gambles with the lives of every terrestrial organism in order to win.
We are staring down the barrel of world war and possible extinction. This should deeply impact the hearts and minds of Trump's opponents and his supporters. Stop arguing about Stormy fucking Daniels and spread awareness about things that really matter.

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.....and this !!!

Works for me .... :)))

Well said.....

https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/australia-must-rescue-assange-from-the-establishment-which-tortured-manning-22a88c5e50f6

What's to say these days??? This says it all.......

Yep.....

How skewed - hammer a dole recipient, and ignore Apple....

 Why do people care more about benefit ‘scroungers’ than billions lost to the rich?

Despite the Paradise Papers’ revelations, most British people prefer to focus on the perceived crimes of the poor. We must show how tax avoidance harms us all

‘Fewer people may have killed themselves after a work-capability assessment if Alphabet (Google) had not registered its offices in Bermuda, and the downward pressure on benefits payments was not so intense.’ Photograph: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

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Robert de Vries and Aaron Reeves

Wednesday 15 November 2017 20.00 AEDT Last modified on Wednesday 15 November 2017 20.02 AEDT

The Paradise Papers have once again revealed the ingenuity and energy the super-rich are willing to deploy to keep their money away from the taxman. By illuminating the scale of this injustice, journalists have provided an invaluable service. And yet the revelations do not seem to have generated the level of public outrage that might have been expected.

How to stop the super-rich looting our wealth: make it illegal

Phil McDuff

Governments have the will to stop asset-stripping exposed by the Paradise Papers. But do they have the will, asks the freelance writer Phil McDuff

Read more

At a time of staggering global inequality, it is perhaps surprising that people are not more animated by the determination of the ultra-rich to avoid their obligations to support our roads, hospitals, soldiers and schools – when regular citizens are unable to take advantage of such arrangements. However, this relative lack of concern is consistent with research on people’s attitudes towards tax avoidance.
Last year’s British Social Attitudes survey asked Britons about their feelings on this issue. Our analysis of this data (with Ben Baumberg Geiger of the University of Kent) revealed that the British public believes tax avoidance to be commonplace (around one third of taxpayers are assumed to have exploited a tax loophole). In moral terms, people seem rather ambivalent; less than half (48%) thought that legal tax avoidance was “usually or always wrong”.
By contrast, more than 60% of Britons believe it is “usually or always wrong” for poorer people to use legal loopholes to claim more benefits. In other words, people are significantly more likely to condemn poor people for using legal means to obtain more benefits than they are to condemn rich people for avoiding tax. This is a consistent finding across many different studies. For example, detailed interviews conducted by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis found that people “tended to be far more exercised by the prospect of low-income groups exploiting the system than they were about high-income groups doing the same”.
This discrepancy is reflected in government priorities. Deep public antipathy towards benefit “scroungers” has been the rock upon which successive Conservative-led parliaments have built the case for austerity. Throughout his premiership, David Cameron, along with his chancellor, George Osborne, kept the opposition between “hardworking people” and lazy benefit claimants right at the centre of their messaging on spending cuts. Though gestures have been made towards addressing widespread tax avoidance by the wealthy, very little has actually been achieved. This stands in stark contrast to the scale and speed with which changes have been made to welfare legislation.

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Will the Paradise Papers shift the public’s focus? The leaks alone are seemingly not enough. The 2016 British Social Attitudes survey was conducted just four months after the release of the Panama Papers. Even then, the British public remained more concerned about benefit claimants than tax avoiders.
Fundamentally, the Paradise Papers are about numbers – vast sums of money disappearing offshore that could be spent on public services here in the UK. However, as the former chair of the UK Statistics Authority, Andrew Dilnot, has often pointed out, people are bad at dealing with numbers on this scale. Unless you are an economist or a statistician, numbers in the millions and billions are just not particularly meaningful.
The key is to link these numbers to their consequences. The money we lose because people like Lewis Hamilton don’t pay some VAT on their private jet means thousands more visits to food banks. The budget cuts leading to rising homelessness might not have been necessary if Apple had paid more tax. Fewer people might have killed themselves after a work-capability assessment if companies like Alphabet (Google) had not registered their offices in Bermuda, and the downward pressure on benefits payments was not so intense.

Why have we built a paradise for offshore billionaires?

Thomas Frank

Read more

The causal chains connecting these events are complex and often opaque, but that does not make their consequences any less real, especially for those who have felt the hard edge of austerity.
The Paradise Papers have dragged the murky world of offshore finance into the spotlight. However, calls for change may founder against the British public’s persistent focus on the perceived crimes of the poor. That is, unless we – as academics, politicians, journalists and others – can articulate how the decisions of the very rich contribute to the expulsion of the vulnerable from the protection of state-funded public services. Quite simply, people get hurt when the rich don’t pay their taxes.
• Robert de Vries is a lecturer at the University of Kent; Aaron Reeves is a research fellow at LSE’s International Inequalities Institute

Painful mirror time.....very soon.....

With so much corruption and sheer evil surfacing daily, we are rapidly getting to the point where the pitchforks and nooses will come out.


After all, it's far easier to find someone to blame than to look hard at yourself.

What do I mean???? How can I even SAY that when what has been done by others is horrendous????

Simple. We put those people there. Or allowed them to put themselves there.

When we sit back in the hope that "someone else" will do all the work and hard yards for us - we shouldn't be surprised at what they do. When we vote someone in for their' good looks, or their' charisma rather than their' ability to get the job done truthfully.... what do we expect??

And of course, giving those positions of power and authority mainly to psychopaths and narcissists is just asking for trouble.

Then, when these few have feathered their' nests, made their' billions - then naturally they will look down on us, as we are not as smart because we haven't done the same, and..... we are not part of the club.

I have always believed that the best person to run our bureaucracy is the one who least wants to.
Like the ex-President of Uruguay, who got things done so he could get back to the small farm he loved with his chickens and flowers. OMG..... a man of integrity !!!  How refreshing.

Instead we have myriads of snout-troughers to deal with..... when will we ever learn??

You know, I think the RSL got it right with their' motto - "the price of freedom is eternal vigilance".

If you are not investing the effort to be vigilant - then you are not free.

Interesting article from the Guardian !!

 Why have we built a paradise for offshore billionaires?

Thomas Frank

We endure potholes and live in fear of collapsing highway bridges because our leaders wanted these very special people to have an even larger second yacht

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Thursday 9 November 2017 22.00 AEDT Last modified on Friday 10 November 2017 08.30 AEDT

It’s not enough to say, in response to the Paradise Papers revelations, that we already knew that rich people parked their money in offshore tax havens, where their piles accumulate far from the scrutiny of our government. Nor is it enough to say that we were already aware that we live in a time of “inequality.”
What we have learned this week is the clinical definition of the word. What we have learned is how much the rich and the virtuous have been hiding away and where they’re hiding it. Yes, there are sinister-looking Russian capitalists involved. But there’s also our favorite actors and singers. Our beloved alma mater, supposedly a charitable institution. Everyone with money seems to be in on it.

We’re also learning that maybe we’ve had it backwards all along. Tax havens on some tropical island aren’t some sideshow to western capitalism; they are a central reality. Those hidden billions are like an unseen planet whose gravity is pulling our politics and our economy always in a certain direction. And this week we finally began to understand what that uncharted planet looks like; we started to grasp its mass and its power.

The desperate inequality behind global tax dodging

Gabriel Zucman

Nearly 10% of the world’s wealth is held offshore by a few individuals, writes economics professor Gabriel Zucman

Read more

Think about it like this. For decades Americans have been erupting in anger at what they can see happening to their beloved middle-class world. We think we know what the culprit is; we can see it vaguely through a darkened glass. It’s “elitism”. It’s a “rigged system”. It’s people who think they’re better than us. And for decades we have lashed out. At the immigrant next door. At Jews. At Muslims. At school teachers. At public workers who are still paid a decent wage. Our fury, unrelenting, grows and grows.

We revolt, but it turns out we have chosen the wrong political leader. We revolt again; this time, the leader is even worse.

This week we are coming face to face with a big part of the right answer: it’s that the celebrities and business leaders we have raised up above ourselves would like to have nothing to do with us. Yes, they are grateful for the protection of our laws. Yes, they like having the police and the marine corps on hand to defend their property.

Yes, they eat our food and breathe our air and expect us to keep these pure and healthy; they demand that we get educated before we may come and work for them, and for that purpose they expect us to pay for a vast system of public schools. They also expect us to watch their movies, to buy their products, to use their software. They expect our (slowly declining) middle class to be their loyal customers.
But those celebrities and business types would prefer not to do what it takes to support all this. That burden’s on us. Oh, they’re happy to haul billions out of our economy and use us up in the workplace, but maintaining the machinery that keeps it all running – that’s on us.

I don’t want to go too far here. I know that what the billionaires and the celebrities have done is legal. They merely took advantage of the system. It’s the system itself, and the way it was deliberately constructed to achieve these awful ends, that should be the target of our fury.

For decades Americans have lashed out against taxation because they were told that cutting taxes would give people an incentive to work harder and thus make the American economy flourish. Our populist leaders told us this – they’re telling us this still, as they reform taxes in Washington – and they rolled back the income tax, they crusaded against the estate tax, and they worked to keep our government from taking action against offshore tax havens.

In reality, though, it was never about us and our economy at all. Today it is obvious that all of this had only one rationale: to raise up a class of supermen above us. It had nothing to do with jobs or growth. Or freedom either. The only person’s freedom to be enhanced by these tax havens was the billionaire’s freedom. It was all to make his life even better, not ours.

Think, for a moment, of how this country has been starved so the holders of these offshore accounts might enjoy their private jets in peace. Think of what we might have done with the sums we have lost to these tax strategies over the decades. All the crumbling infrastructure that politicians love to complain about: it should have – and could have - been fixed long ago.

Think of all the young people saddled with catastrophic student-loan debt: we should have – could have – made that unnecessary. Think of all the decayed small towns, and the dying rust belt cities, and the drug-addicted hopeless: all of them should have – could have – been helped.

But no. Instead America chose a different project. Our leaders raised up a tiny class of otherworldly individuals and built a paradise for them, made their lives supremely delicious. Today they hold unimaginable and unaccountable power.

We endure potholes and live in fear of collapsing highway bridges because our leaders wanted these very special people to have an even larger second yacht. Our kids sit in overcrowded classrooms in underfunded schools so that a handful of exalted individuals can relax on their own private beach.

Today it is these same golden figures with their offshore billions who host the fundraisers, hire the lobbyists, bankroll the think tanks and subsidize the artists and intellectuals.

This is their democracy today. We just happen to live in it.

• Thomas Frank is a Guardian columnist

A time to stand up.....

"The darkest places in Hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis"

Dante Alighieri

In dangerous times, there is no sin greater than inaction.....................

Why we need psychopaths to govern us.....

Eh??

Did I just read that right, you say??

Yes....sadly, yes.

Nature abhors a vacuum, and will always seek to fill it - sometimes very creatively!!

So too, if we abdicate our sovereignty and leave a vacuum, there are any number of loonies who will be only too happy to fill the space by telling us what to do. Victims require Persecutors to learn their lessons.

It was once said that people get the government they deserve - truer words never spoken.

When we allow others to make our decisions for us, to do what we are unwilling/unable to do.....then we shouldn't be the least bit surprised at the results.

If our sport, entertainment or the latest gossip on is more important to us - we are allowing the space for others to control us. And the first thing they do when achieving any power - is to consolidate it. At our expense. 

Mark Twain once remarked "If voting made a difference, they wouldn't let us do it".

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

Get used to it.

The rewards are huge !!

No comment needed.....

https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/the-bad-guys-are-the-ones-invading-sovereign-nations-not-these-guys-6e4043f3ed61

Great article - perhaps it might open an eye or two??

https://renegadeinc.com/socialism-best-us-capitalism-rest-us/

.....finally someone tells it like it really is.....

MainStreamMedia mistake - something actually worth reading !!

https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/opinion/richard-glover-do-we-still-care-about-our-family-treasures-20170829-gy6axy.html

Yep.... feel the change in the air.....!!

Interesting map.....

After looking at the map, then add the ones that have been brainwashed into the American Way of Life, such as Australia, Canada etc..... and it's one heck of a telling picture globally.

Still think Americans are the Heroes???

https://www.indy100.com/article/usa-american-army-invasions-police-actions-overseas-dod-defense-war-troops-deployment-marines-7908611

Maybe this article will open a few eyes.....

CONSPIRACY OR CHAOS?

“The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theory is that conspiracy theorists believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is actually chaotic. The truth is that it is not The Iluminati, or The Jewish Banking Conspiracy, or the Gray Alien Theory. The truth is far more frightening – Nobody is in control. The world is rudderless.” – Alan Moore

Alan Moore, the renowned graphic novel writer, and author of the dystopian classic V for Vendetta, politically identifies as an anarchist. His view that all political states are an outgrowth of anarchy, with the biggest gang taking control and dictating how things will be run, is manifested in V for Vendetta. As an anarchist, you can understand why he is doubtful of conspiracy theories and an all-powerful entity controlling the world. He believes in a chaotic world competing gangs position themselves to gain power and control.

“We live in a badly developed anarchist situation in which the biggest gang has taken over and have declared that it is not an anarchist situation – that it is a capitalist or a communist situation. But I tend to think that anarchy is the most natural form of politics for a human being to actually practice.”- Alan Moore

The Guy Fawkes mask from V for Vendetta has been adopted by anarchist groups around the world, including: Anonymous, WikiLeaks, and the Occupy protestors. Moore’s positive view of the Occupy movement was based on his belief ordinary people had the right to reclaim what had been taken from them by criminal bankers. The initial impetus for the Occupy protests was the destruction of Main Street USA by Wall Street sociopaths, who not only escaped prosecution for their crimes, but were bailed out by the taxpayers they had pillaged and further enriched as captured politicians enabled them to get even bigger.

Millions were evicted from their homes and lost their jobs. Middle class families have seen their real income continue to stagnate, while bankers, corporate executives, and politicians have reaped billions in bonuses, stock gains, and payoffs, provided by central bankers in their back pocket.

“I can’t think of any reason why as a population we should be expected to stand by and see a gross reduction in the living standards of ourselves and our kids, possibly for generations, when the people who have got us into this have been rewarded for it – they’ve certainly not been punished in any way because they’re too big to fail. I think that the Occupy movement is, in one sense, the public saying that they should be the ones to decide who’s too big to fail. As an anarchist, I believe that power should be given to the people whose lives this is actually affecting.” – Alan Moore

For those of us who visited Zuccotti Park during the early stages of the Occupy Movement, you understood this was a true populist protest with Ron Paul libertarians alongside liberal college students, old time hippies, middle aged men and women put out of work by the massive Wall Street fraud, and a myriad of citizens supporting varied causes and exercising their First Amendment rights. They were primarily focused on the true enemy – sociopathic Wall Street bankers and corrupt captured politicians. Sadly, the movement was co-opted in short order by Soros and his minions, just as the Tea Party had been co-opted by neo-cons earlier. Supposedly liberal mayors in NYC and across the country eventually unleashed their police state thugs on the protestors and wiped it out. Was this an example of chaos or conspiracy?
There isn’t an easy answer to this question. I have to lean towards Alan Moore’s view of the world. There are certainly conspiratorial schemes plotted by powerful men in smoke filled rooms, but there are other gangs of men conspiring to push their competing agendas. Conspiracy theorists who think there is one massive conspiracy controlling every aspect of the world have an extremely tough case to make. People who believe everything is part of a grand conspiracy are seeking an easy solution to our problems, rather than dealing with the complexity and chaos which is the true nature of our world. V’s speech to London after blowing up the Old Bailey explains who is really to blame for allowing Deep State actors to gain control of our government, creating an Orwellian surveillance state.

Good evening, London. Allow me first to apologize for this interruption. I do, like many of you, appreciate the comforts of the everyday routine, the security of the familiar, the tranquility of repetition. I enjoy them as much as any bloke. But in the spirit of commemoration – whereby those important events of the past, usually associated with someone’s death or the end of some awful bloody struggle, are celebrated with a nice holiday – I thought we could mark this November the fifth, a day that is sadly no longer remembered, by taking some time out of our daily lives to sit down and have a little chat.

There are, of course, those who do not want us to speak. I suspect even now orders are being shouted into telephones and men with guns will soon be on their way. Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn’t there?

Cruelty and injustice…intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance, coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who’s to blame? Well certainly there are those who are more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable. But again, truth be told…if you’re looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror.

I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn’t be? War. Terror. Disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you and in your panic, you turned to the now High Chancellor Adam Sutler. He promised you order. He promised you peace. And all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent.

Last night, I sought to end that silence. Last night, I destroyed the Old Bailey to remind this country of what it has forgotten. More than four hundred years ago, a great citizen wished to embed the fifth of November forever in our memory. His hope was to remind the world that fairness, justice and freedom are more than words – they are perspectives. So if you’ve seen nothing, if the crimes of this government remain unknown to you, then I would suggest that you allow the fifth of November to pass unmarked. But if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek…then I ask you to stand beside me, one year from tonight, outside the gates of Parliament. And together, we shall give them a fifth of November that shall never, ever, be forgot!

We have no one to blame but ourselves for our current state of affairs. Blaming it on some shadowy group makes us feel somehow comforted. If an all-powerful entity is controlling the world, then we can easily convince ourselves anything we do to try and change the course of history would be fruitless. Therefore, we just bitch on internet forums. The truth is fear rules the actions of the majority.
Those who constitute the Deep State are not conspiring directly by working together to rule the world and control the people. What they are doing is taking advantage of a dumbed down fearful populace by using the chaos, incompetence of institutions, and confusion spread by the propaganda press to institute their agendas. The Deep State consists of shadowy billionaires, mega-corporations, the military industrial complex, surveillance state agencies, crooked bought off politicians and their mass media mouthpieces.
Those with the financial means and access to the power of the media have embraced the Edward Bernays worldview that an invisible government of the rich and powerful is necessary to manipulate the opinions of the masses through propaganda in order for society to function smoothly. Is this truly a conspiracy or just competing gangs of rich and connected men utilizing their wealth to mold the minds of the masses in a way that continues to benefit and enrich them?
These Deep State players don’t meet every other Saturday to conspire and plot ways to pillage and enslave the masses. But they do know each other and silently agree to never rock the boat, whether they are Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives, socialists, corporate executives, academics, or journalists. Money, control and power are at stake.
Those currently pulling the wires behind the scenes are conspiratorial in nature. It has become crystal clear since the election of Trump the farce of competing political parties is just a smoke screen used by the Deep State players to maintain their control. Trump’s shocking upset and seeming disregard for bowing down to the status quo has forced politicians of all persuasions to reveal their true masters. Both parties favor bloated government control of healthcare, with a medical industrial complex controlling the show, writing the rules, reaping riches, and buying off politicians. “Free” healthcare buys votes.
The flogging of the false Russian narrative by the corporate media has been used by neo-cons and ultra-libs to force Trump into the military interventionist camp – guaranteeing increased wealth for the military industrial complex. Neither party has any interest in cutting spending. The debt ceiling will be raised. The $4 trillion in annual spending will ratchet ever higher. Both sides are perfectly fine with $1 trillion deficits and $200 trillion of unfunded liabilities, as long as their gravy train keeps being fueled by the Deep State. They will spend your money until it all collapses under the mountains of debt.
Donald Jeffries explains why it is vital to the vested interests they scorn and ridicule anyone who uses factual data to prove conspiratorial intent by the government or its cancerous corporate outgrowths.

“I can remember when believing in conspiracies wasn’t cool. Now, in the second decade of the twenty-first century, more people are starting to sense that things may not be as they appear to be. The truth in Lord Acton’s classic axiom that “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” becomes more self-evident every day. Politicians from the only two parties we have to choose from break promises, are unresponsive to the will of the people, and opt for war, austerity measures, and state control over and over again. Gary Allen, author of the book None Dare Call It Conspiracy, defined things perfectly when he wrote, “It must be remembered that the first job of any conspiracy, whether it be in politics, crime or within a business office, is to convince everyone else that no conspiracy exists.” – Donald Jeffries – Hidden History: An Exposé of Modern Crimes, Conspiracies, and Cover-Ups in American Politics

It ultimately comes down to power and control over the key mechanisms of finance, taxation, legislation and the media. There isn’t one specific group of conspirators working together to rule the world. Is George Soros attempting to influence and control what happens in the U.S. and Europe to benefit his interests? Yes. Are the Koch brothers attempting to do the same with a different end goal? Yes. Are Pelosi and Schumer conspiring to push their left wing agenda? Yes. Are McConnell and Ryan conspiring to implement their establishment vision? Yes.
They have competing agendas, but they want the status quo to remain intact. No one within the establishment wants to change anything of substance. The current system benefits their personal interests, while destroying the lives of hard working American citizens. The country is currently run by same party with slightly different rhetoric and policies put forth by the Republican side and Democrat side. Promises are made to voters and then reneged on in short order. Therefore, no significant change ever occurs. Meanwhile, the anger and frustration build among the deplorables.
What Trump has realized quickly is how powerful the vested interests are and how ruthless they will act to retain their power. During the campaign Trump ran on a non-interventionist platform, looking to repair our relationship with Russia, scorning NATO, and lessening our involvement in the Middle East. He know rattles his saber on a daily basis, threatening war with North Korea, Venezuela, Iran, Syria and anyone else who doesn’t toe the American Empire line.
He provokes Russia and China on a regular basis. He has sent more troops to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, while expanding spending on the military. Neo-cons and neo-libs don’t think Trump is being aggressive enough in policing the world. They won’t be happy until middle class boys across the land are sacrificed as cannon fodder for our welfare warfare surveillance state.
Trump bloviated about the stock market being in a bubble during the campaign when it was trading at 18,000. He now pronounces the record highs of 22,000 as proof of his brilliant economic leadership. Meanwhile, the economy has grown at less than 2% during his first six months, retailers are going bankrupt and closing stores at a record pace, consumer spending and real wages are barely growing, and consumer debt has reached all-time highs. Best time to buy, according to the Prez.
A critical thinking individual might wonder how a market could be in a bubble at 18,000 but not be in a bubble at 22,000 ten months later. During the campaign Trump accused Obama and his BLS minions of manipulating the data to make horrible jobs numbers appear strong. Now he bellows about the strong jobs market as if we’re now supposed to believe the hysterically absurd 4.3% reported rate when 101 million out of 255 million working age Americans aren’t working. And a vast majority of the jobs are either part-time and/or low paying service jobs with shitty pay and benefits.
Trump is playing the status quo Deep State game in an attempt to fend off a coup currently in progress by lying to the masses. Jobs are plentiful, consumers are confident, the economy is booming, the stock market is always right. Ignore those vacant crumbling malls, your declining disposable income as health care cost increases outpace your salary increases by a factor of five, and your ever increasing credit card balance.
Trump wouldn’t be using the tried and true method of distracting from domestic failure by starting a foreign conflict because he understands how easily manipulated the ignorant American masses can be moved by fear? Rather than draining the swamp, Trump has been forced to swim with the gators. And his own people hired a Deep State alligator hunter named Mueller who will stop at nothing to mount Trump as a trophy or force him to depart the DC swamp for the friendly environs of Manhattan Island.
Trump belittled the troll-like Yellen during the campaign, declaring her low interest policy was geared to help Obama/Clinton. He talked tough about replacing Yellen and increasing rates. He evidently got the talk from the banker cabal and he suddenly loves low interest rates and believes Yellen is doing a bang up job. He has filled his cabinet with vampire squid and other Wall Street scum. He is as beholden to the Fed and their Wall Street puppeteers as his predecessors. Wall Street remains in control, while Main Street will continue to get screwed. It’s not a conspiracy. It’s about powerful special interests capturing the levers of government.
Our government doesn’t in any way resemble its original concept of a republic. It doesn’t even resemble a democracy at this point. Since FDR and specifically since LBJ, we’ve become a welfare/warfare state. Since Bush II we’ve devolved into a corporate fascist surveillance socialist state. Despite rhetoric about free market capitalism, both parties have embraced socialism. The super-rich, bankers, corporate executives, liberals and conservatives came to the realization socialism disguised as capitalism fills their coffers at a much higher rate than true free market capitalism.
They have bought off the poor with unfunded welfare benefits, the old and poor with unfunded “free” healthcare, government union workers with unfunded pension benefits and all with unfunded social security payments. Trillion dollar annual deficits and $200 trillion in unfunded welfare promises, enabled by Federal Reserve easy money policies, does wonders for the bank accounts of Deep State players and their acolytes. Spending money you don’t have is the ultimate confidence game, but the payback will be a bitch.

“Why are the super-rich for socialism? Don’t they have the most to lose? I take a look at my bank account and compare it with Nelson Rockefeller’s and it seems funny that I’m against socialism and he’s out promoting it.” Or is it funny? In reality, there is a vast difference between what the promoters define as socialism and what it is in actual practice. The idea that socialism is a share-the-wealth program is strictly a confidence game to get the people to surrender their freedom to an all-powerful collectivist government. While the Insiders tell us we are building a paradise on earth, we are actually constructing a jail for ourselves.” – Gary Allen, None Dare Call It Conspiracy

The Deep State thrives on chaos, confusion, and complexity. Our financial system, healthcare system, entitlement systems, military, and government agencies are too big and complex to fix. Those pulling the strings don’t want the public to understand how anything operates. Supposed “experts” are put forth on the corporate propaganda networks to further confuse the masses. The purpose of government run public education is to matriculate non-thinking socially engineered consumers into the world.
The vast majority of iGadget distracted, math challenged, functionally illiterate morons will believe anything the propaganda media peddles because they are incapable of critical thinking. They have an infinite capacity for rationalizing how spending money they don’t have on things they don’t need is actually making their lives better. This same mindset keeps them from questioning how their government can run up a $20 trillion national debt (with $15 trillion added since 2000), with no adverse consequences. These debts are the ultimate threat to our survival as a nation.
Based on everything that has happened in the last twelve months, to believe this is part of some well-planned conspiracy is a reach of epic proportions. The Deep State/status quo were sure their hand-picked candidate Hillary Clinton was a shoe in. Since November the country has been roiled in election result challenges, chaotic antifa violence, fake news stories, silent coups, thousands of tweets, congressional investigations, assassination attempts on congressmen, special prosecutors, increasing odds of civil and foreign wars, and deteriorating economic conditions for the majority. Just when you thought the chaos couldn’t get more pronounced, we experienced a week of sheer turmoil and tumult. Even the stock market stopped rising for a day or two.
I’ve been observing the goings on this week with a jaundiced eye. As the rhetoric between President Cheeto and Kim Jung Nutjob has ramped up to nuclear proportions I’ve been reminded of the rhetoric and fake news leading up to the invasion of Iraq. Suddenly, confidential reports are released saying the midget dictator has miniaturized a nuclear warhead to go on top of his ICBMs that now supposedly can kill everyone in the U.S. The exaggeration of this country’s nuclear capabilities is on par with Hussein’s WMD and killing of babies in Kuwaiti hospitals.
The neo-cons smell blood and more money for their beloved arms peddlers. The propagandists have two thirds of Americans fearful of this rotund midget with an IQ of 85. Trump then set in motion his backup plan – attack Venezuela, which poses absolutely zero risk to America or our interests. But it does have the largest oil reserves on earth.
Now this weekend’s escapades in Charlottesville have worked the propaganda media into a tizzy. It’s these types of stories that reveal all the corporate media to be peddling the same narrative. Fox News was peddling the same white hate narrative as CNN and MSNBC. Because protestors with proper permits included some white supremacists, nazi sympathizers, and KKK members, all participants were branded as racists. Their right to protest regarding the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue was guaranteed by the First Amendment.
It was the violent Soros funded antifa SJWs who were bussed in to create a violent confrontation, while government officials told police to stand down and let the clashes happen. The Deep State is desirous of a race war and their media mouthpieces are busy spreading misinformation and falsehoods to further rile up the masses. Their job is to portray all flyover country whites who elected Trump as rednecks, racists and white supremacists. And at least half the country believes this fake news.

“The militia experts accuse anti-government agitants of paranoia, yet they spin around and claim that militias speak in coded phrases, have underground bunkers, and are secretly conspiring to take over the world and enslave minorities. They say it`s lunacy that men at the pentagon can conspire, yet they`re certain that farmers out on the plain are plotting as we speak. They depict the United Nations as weak and ineffectual, yet they portray raggedy-ass backwoodsmen as the world`s biggest organized military threat.” – Jim Goad, The Redneck Manifesto: How Hillbillies, Hicks, and White Trash Became America’s Scapegoats

I don’t believe what is happening in this country and around the world is some vast conspiracy. But I do believe the Deep State thrives on chaos and fear. They used 9/11 to pass the Patriot Act, creating an Orwellian surveillance state. They used the Wall Street created 2008 global financial implosion to rig the financial systems in their favor, while issuing mind boggling levels of government debt and artificially suppressing interest rates to create the largest financial bubble in world history.
I do believe we are in the midst of a Fourth Turning where the mood of the masses has turned unequivocally dark. As we approach the ninth year of this Crisis period, the intensification and potential for enormous levels of domestic and foreign bloodshed ramps up by the day. With a decade or so remaining in this period of turmoil, chaos and war, the existing social order will be swept away and replaced by something new. But not necessarily better.
Whatever Deep State conspiracies are being plotted by various gangs seeking power during this Fourth Turning, they will all rot from within. Human nature never changes. Hubris and greed will lead to miscalculations and missteps which will result in another financial crash, civil chaos, and world war. Blood will be spilled in vast quantities if the wrong people make the wrong decisions. Chaos will rein for the next decade and the outcome is very much in doubt. Get prepared mentally and physically for the trials ahead.

“The risk of catastrophe will be very high. The nation could erupt into insurrection or civil violence, crack up geographically, or succumb to authoritarian rule. If there is a war, it is likely to be one of maximum risk and effort – in other words, a total war. Every Fourth Turning has registered an upward ratchet in the technology of destruction, and in mankind’s willingness to use it.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning