I just sent this post to family and friends in a discussion group online…
“Do you get the bigger picture now? Its not just about how much any particular tariff does to rebalance some other country’s tariffs. Its about the very fundamental premises of globalization pushed by elites over past decades- i.e. that if we engage authoritarian countries like China, and entangle our economies in commerce, then we can bring China into democracy. Not.
“US elites believed that it was worth the cost of losing US manufacturing industry to places like China in order to gain influence and control over the larger world with the Western democratic system led by the US. Basically, to achieve US dominance in the world (extend US empire, what my American brother-in-law refers to as US “Manifest Destiny”).
“And it was a mixed bag of motives and goals- Yes, the noble expansion of democracy was in the mix, no doubt. And the value of free trade as in “comparative advantage” and giving poor countries a chance to develop out of poverty. All there, also.
“But there was also the elite advantage that came from shifting away from high-cost US labor to low-cost labor regions, a shift that benefitted business elites and CEOs with more wealth, and Wall Street Financial types with great gains. (Labor costs are the significantly dominant cost in most businesses.)
“Now Trump is going to overturn that great globalization project to bring back manufacturing in order to benefit US workers. And to end the dangerous dependence on threatening places like China for critical resources- i.e. rare Earth metals, medicines, etc.
“No wonder Wall Street elites, who have benefitted from globalization, are going hysterical as they watch their power, control, and profits threatened by Trump.
“So who really cares for the common worker?”
There is something “far, far bigger” going on, often behind-the-scenes, than what media chatter on about all day. Petty obsession with opponent’s words/jokes, minor elements in policy initiatives, individual country’s situations on tariffs, etc.
Add Atkinson’s points (at bottom of this section) to these two earlier articles on the “far, far bigger” background story:
Niall Ferguson’s “The End of the American Empire— or a Just Trade War?” (see summary below)
And then also just below… “Batya Ungar-Sargon: ‘Trump is waging class warfare on Wall Street for the sake of the American working class’: And to punish him, Wall Street is betting against America because they cannot stand the idea that there is a person with power who is not on his knees in front of them”
https://www.public.news/p/batya-ungar-sargon-trump-is-waging
(End of post to discussion group)
The new comment below is prepping for more on the basic ideas in our narratives that incite the worst of our impulses to tribalism, domination, and punitive destruction toward one another. The “evil triad” of impulses inherited from our animal past, impulses that are validated by similar ideas/beliefs as we work out our own version of “basing our behavior on similar beliefs’”.
I am heading again toward that great contradiction between Historical Jesus and Paul’s Christ myth. Paul’s Christ being mainly responsible for inciting/validating the evil triad, while Historical Jesus has been mainly responsible for countering that pathology with his stunning new theology of a “non-tribal, non-dominating, and non-retaliatory God”. An entirely new reality to be the cohering center of human narratives, a reality that is entirely opposite to the deity that Paul re-affirmed in his Christ myth and his new religion of “Christ-ianity” that buried the original “Jesus-ianity”.
Bob Brinsmead’s new essays are out and deserve wide exposure for the good research and commentary that he has offered on this. I have posted the summary of his essays below.
Another
Note: As always, the US situation best illustrates what is happening all across Western liberal democracies that are being corrupted by elite power-mongering, manipulation, impulse to dominate, and control of populations. Thereby devastating the freedom and rights of commoners, citizens, workers.
And another “as always”- This site comes from an independent stance, Classic Liberal. The pointing out of the pathologies on the left today, giving the appearance of favoring the right, is necessary as that side (the left) has become notorious for its shift from a former liberalism to today’s highly illiberal Woke Progressivism. The other side (the right) also needs repeated cautions to not become the new oppressors after suffering some years of “oppression” (i.e. as in being censored on Twitter and what not). Many are pointing this out in regard to the Trump administration going after university protesters. Cautions all around, eh.
Moving along…
Elites of today, with their unleashed bent to totalitarianism (i.e. the impulse to manipulate, dominate, and control others), are the great threat to liberal democracies, the real “threat to democracy” (democracy defined by Classic Liberal principles, laws, institutions). These anti-democracy elites have chosen to work through new iterations of collectivism, using their expertise at George Orwell’s version of “double speak”. Today’s elites have chosen, for example, to implement the same old collectivism through Woke Progressivism taken to the extreme left to become the neo-collectivism, the neo-Marxism of today.
And, by controlling the educational institutions, they have successfully indoctrinated a new generation of young people to view socialism as the best way to organize societies.
https://www.cato.org/commentary/young-people-socialism-do-they-know-what-it
Today’s elites have reframed Marxist collectivism with its tribal dualism of “oppressors/oppressed” in the new version of DEI with its categories of “victimizer/victims”. And while still maintaining the dualism elements of rich property owners in opposition to property-poor workers/peasants, today’s collectivists also now divide populations dominantly according to skin color. This then recreates a new racism/discrimination (i.e. “Woke Racism”) to divide societies. So you get the population fighting among themselves to distract from the elites maintaining their domination, power, and control through manipulations behind the scenes.
Many today are pointing out this devious pathology in our societies, and exposing related elements such as the CIA manipulation of narratives on behalf of elites. Note that for whatever purpose it serves elites, the Woke Progressivism ideology, with its DEI, has permeated all sectors of our societies. The populist movement is pushing back against this.
Ending the war-mongering crusade for “US empire”, the neo-colonization of the world, Wendell Krossa
My comments in these posts below are to a discussion group. My comments are based on varied sources such as interviews of Joe Rogan guests like Mike Benz, also the ongoing digging of good journalists like Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn, Michael Shellenberger, Glen Greenwald, Dave Rubin, and so many others trying to expose the corruption of our liberal democracies by neo-totalitarians seeking to turn our societies into elite-controlled collectives of a “soft socialism” variety (that eventually turns into hard socialism/collectivism).
The issues raised in these posts are commonly dismissed as “conspiracy theories” by leftists. Very much in the manner of what Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn, among others, exposed as CIA “pre-bunking”- a scheme to prepare the public to unquestioningly discredit opponent’s efforts to expose leftist corruption of liberal democracies. The CIA prepared that pre-bunking program through an NGO that was tasked with creating an AI deepfake project where people could engage it as a “game site” where anyone could create a “deepfake”. Taibbi predicted that the Democrats would use that soon after it was introduced to protect and coverup, for example, the dementia problem of Joe Biden.
Well, they did exactly that the very next day following the embarrassing incident where former president Obama had to lead a befuddled Joe Biden off the stage at a fundraising event. The very next day, Karine Jean-Pierre stated, to the stunned credulity of most of us, that the video that we all saw with our own eyes was an “AI deepfake”. The unbelievable gall of these lying propagandists.
“We are the most propagandized people on Earth, and we don’t know it”, Jimmy Dore.
It appears to be all part of larger project of elites to shut down populist dissent against elite narratives and control as “misinformation, disinformation, hate speech, racism (Woke racism), etc.”. Behind this is the larger censorship complex that is a direct assault on Classic Liberalism with its protection of the freedom of all individuals. It is an attack against liberal democracy and has successfully schemed to get commoners distracted and fighting among themselves (i.e. the new discrimination of Woke racism that comes from the bullying DEI that has permeated all elements of society).
The DEI of Woke Progressivism is a rehash of the dualism that is at the heart of collectivism where populations are tribally divided into two basic sectors of oppressors/oppressed or victimizers/victims. In DEI this division is not so much the old Marxist property owners versus propertyless workers and peasants but now based on divisions over skin color. And this re-enforces the new Woke racism.
Keep in view the larger project to discredit the “populism that is democracy”, Winston Marshall.
Note also that the CIA doesn’t do “dark” projects directly but operates through diverse NGOs that permit the CIA deniability from involvement. That is what came out in DOGEs expose of USAID, many programs posed as fronts for good works but masking laundered funds for CIA projects to extend US empire.
The posts to discussion group…
First this blurb from Free Press…
“Something far, far bigger”– The battle for freedom in Western liberal democracies is now a domestic battle of elites versus commoners or populists, Wendell Krossa
First some Free Press material (April 7, 2025). This comment is by Niall Ferguson on Trump’s tariffs.
Ferguson said that Trump’s “Liberation Day” and declaration of economic independence will raise tariffs to the highest level in a century and was followed by some notable consequences such as huge losses on the Dow, threats of global recession, strong response from countries like China, but also by some 50 countries wanting to start negotiations.
Ferguson poses the question of is this “The End of the American Empire—or a Just Trade War?” Ferguson says we can understand this in one of two ways:
“Either a committed protectionist is trying to Make America Great Again by killing ‘globalism,’ ending ‘forever wars,’ and bringing manufacturing jobs back to the United States.” Or “an unhinged demagogue is crashing both the world economy and the liberal international order, mainly to the benefit of authoritarian regimes.”
But then he says that what is happening is something quite different, “something far, far, bigger… He argues we are witnessing nothing less than the unraveling of Pax Americana.”
“The American empire that came into existence after the failed autarky and isolationism of the 1930s is being broken up after 80 years…. (Trump) is engaged right now in a kind of wild decolonization project.”
Here is the link to full article behind Free Press paywall:
https://www.thefp.com/p/niall-ferguson-trumps-tariffs-and?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
And more that points to possibly who is behind the expansion of the US empire program of the past 70 years or so, behind today’s elites trying to dominate and control our liberal democracies… what many are trying to figure out… who is responsible…
“Batya Ungar-Sargon: ‘Trump is waging class warfare on Wall Street for the sake of the American working class’: And to punish him, Wall Street is betting against America because they cannot stand the idea that there is a person with power who is not on his knees in front of them”, Michael Shellenberger, April 7, 2025
https://www.public.news/p/batya-ungar-sargon-trump-is-waging
Shellenberger starts noting the Democrats and media have denounced Trump as “a tool of the rich and of Wall Street.”
But, adds Shellenberger, quoting Batya Ungar-Sargon, “Trump’s tariffs and Wall Street’s reaction to them prove that all of that was a lie… Liberation Day should go down in history as the day that finally put to bed the myth that Donald Trump only cares about the rich.”
Ungar-Sargon says, “It’s the exact opposite. He is waging class warfare on Wall Street for the sake of the American working class. And to punish him, Wall Street is literally just shorting him. They’re shorting his agenda. They are betting against America, they are betting against the president because they cannot stand the idea that there is a person with power in America was not on his knees in front of Wall Street asking them, ‘And what would you like next?’ the way both parties have been doing for 60 years.”
She then goes on to castigate the media for their role in the elite war on America’s working class. “They imagine that nobody would want to work in a factory because they would rather die than work in a factory. They would rather die than watch their own children work in a factor or clean their own toilets. So they imagine that no one would want to do these things. And so they shipped manufacturing overseas and imported a slave caste.”
Shellenberger adds this information… “as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has noted, ‘The top 10% of Americans own 88% of the stock market. The next 40% owns 12% of the stock market. The bottom 50% has debt. They have credit card bills. They rent their homes. They have auto loans. And we’ve got to give them some relief.’”
Shellenberger says, “And bringing a significant amount of manufacturing back to the United States is a national security imperative recognized by Republicans and Democrats.”
He then further quotes Batya-Sargon, “We literally rely on our greatest adversary (China) for the tools that we would need to fight it should it come to that… They exported a deadly pandemic, and we relied on them to produce the vaccines, the pharmaceuticals, and the protective gear we needed to combat it. This is like a South Park episode only without the humor. It’s so obviously absurd and yet nobody had the guts to do anything about this.”
He concludes: “We talked about much else, including the failure of the media to understand what’s happening, whether the Left’s toxic race and trans politics are dead, and how Ungar-Sargon became who she is.” (End of Shellenberger article)
Moving along in my “weave” style of blogging… (What my wife would term “yack attack”)
Some posts to people who won’t censor and cancel you for expressing thoughts and opinions…
These posts to a discussion group are based on what independent journalists have uncovered about societal elites, often working through behind the scenes shenanigans, trying to dominate and control our societies. Commoners (that’s us citizens) are now pushing back through populist movements to reclaim Classic Liberal rights and freedoms, to reclaim the promised equality of all individuals- an ideal and goal that is promoted through systems of common law and truly representative state institutions that actually exist to serve the people. Kind of what Historical Jesus said (not the “Lord Jesus” of Paul’s Christ myth) when he taught that true greatness was not to lord over but to serve.
I was urging group members to look beyond the media chatter about personalities, their quirks and offhand comments, and the endlessly hyped outrage over all sorts of minor things… to focus on the big picture of what is happening in the background- i.e. the battle for domination and control that is being waged by elites against the desire of commoners/citizens for freedom.
This is a push to (translated into commoner-speak) pull back from focussing just on individual trees to take a panoramic look at the greater forest.
First,
Mike Benz on his Joe Rogan appearance,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrJhQpvlkLA
Or JRE episode 2237 on Spotify
Benz detailed how, since the end of WW2, war-mongering elites behind the scenes have used agencies like the CIA (and other state institutions) to endlessly destabilize and overthrow foreign governments, even democratically-elected governments, in order to facilitate access to foreign resources for US corporations.
As part of the destabilization of foreign nations, the CIA has used propaganda programs to discredit uncooperative foreign leaders to their own populations, and when that has not worked, to even assassinate those leaders. Benz notes this has been part of the ongoing US State Department project to extend “US empire”, basically to control world resources for the benefit of US (run by business leaders who approve of the project to extend US empire?).
Essential to the crusade to expand the US empire has been the creation of the massive infrastructure of the “censorship industrial complex”. This censorship complex has been critical to enable elites to control public narratives that propagandize populations (both foreign and domestic). The propaganda is to gain popular support for what has been framed and presented as a noble crusade to protect freedom and expand democracy around the world. And yes, elements of that honorable element, promoted by honorable people, have undeniably been in the mix of extending US influence worldwide.
But the dishonorable drives to expand empire through any dark means have also been there and have defiled the more noble elements. This is now being exposed more and more by independent journalists/researchers, and others like Benz.
Today’s “deep state” elites have also validated their censorship campaign as a noble battle against harmful “misinformation, disinformation” (i.e. the “double-speak” thing), even as a crusade to protect citizens from dangerous “hate speech”. With the politicized use of lawfare, elites have sought to criminalize and discredit opponents/dissenters, even to imprison them, as in the cases of Trump, the French opposition leader Marine Le Penn, Georgescu of Romania, etc.
Remember, all this anti-democratic stuff is coming from the formerly liberal left side of our societies, people who once, not too long ago, stood for free speech, equal rights for all, and were against war and US empire extension, and more. That side of society has now shifted into highly illiberal policies and far-left authoritarian madness. Look at Britain, Germany, and other “liberal democracies” now going after citizens for voicing online disagreement with state policies.
I won’t go into how we deform the hero’s quest with our self-delusions to be heroically engaging righteous wars against irredeemably evil enemies (differing others) who must be purged from society, exterminated even. And how all this is emotionally satisfying to our impulse to virtue signal for status as morally good people, what Jordan Peterson calls a fundamental psychological need. It all goes awry as in the psychopathology of left-wing compassion/authoritarianism that enacts policies that harm the very populations that they claim compassion for.
Another post…
The US mainstream media have long been influenced/controlled as the propaganda arm of the elite that work behind the scenes of our liberal democracies. Democratic Senator Frank Church tried to reign in the CIA meddling in public media back in the 70s but only slowed things a bit for a few years before CIA interference soon returned to the same old shenanigans. At that time (70s), the CIA apparently controlled some 400 US media personnel. That agency again eventually found ways around the Church Commission restraints.
Populists like Jimmy Dore have summarized the elite control of public narratives well, “We are the most propagandized people and don’t know it”.
Oliver Stone recently vented his ire at such elite manipulation of narratives when he expressed his upset at what Democrats did with Russiagate, the Russian collusion lie that they pushed for years to try to overthrow the first Trump administration. Stone said recently, “Stop the lying, lying, lying”. He was talking to his fellow leftists, Democrats.
Watch the media manipulation of public perceptions today, the endless generation of hysteria again over everything that the Trump administration is doing today. And remember the behind-the-scenes coordination of media by the CIA and others, an ongoing control of media that many have exposed over past decades. For example, those in independent media have noted the instantaneous coordination of expressions across mainstream media, as media commentators suddenly start using the very same terms/words in response to something that Trump is doing.
This is not a defense of all that Trump says or does, or of the person. But for better or worse he is the one leading the current populist revolt that is emerging across Western liberal democracies.
There are varied other elements that others have covered in relation to all this (i.e. the bigger background stuff). For instance, Jimmy Dore interviewed the guy who spoke about CIA efforts to defuse the rise of Black anger in the 60s. They sought to refocus that anger away from wealthy elites (redirect the class warfare element) to direct that rage against fellow commoners in race issues. The idea was to derail that anger from focusing on governing elites.
And then there is the ongoing exposure of CIA efforts at mass mind control ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKUltra ), the MKUltra experiments that the CIA has admitted to.
Some suggest the CIA efforts in relation to MKUltra were directed to discrediting the “threat” from the 60s hippie movement, hence their work in San Franscisco with Charles Manson. And on and on…
https://www.amazon.ca/Chaos-Charles-Manson-History-Sixties/dp/0316477559
Again, all part of the bigger picture issues of how we are propagandized, lied to, and manipulated… controlled.
Add here the role of heroic pushback against such deep state manipulation and control, for nefarious purposes, as was done by the Kennedys (Jack and Bobby) along with others over past decades. What Chuck Schumer meant when he warned Trump right after his first inauguration- “Beware of going after the CIA as you threatened to do. They have six ways to Sunday to get back at you”. They assassinate democratically elected leaders without qualms (i.e. the normal guilt that most would feel).
An important point here- Don’t get lost in the peculiarities of some person (personality quirks and expressions) and miss these much bigger background things that are going on. Media love to go hyper-hysterical over words spoken by someone that they hate and then seek to discredit, demonize (i.e. the constant dehumanization with smears of “Hitler, Nazi, fascist, dictator, etc.”). Keep the much larger picture and much more critical issues in sight. Its about the battle for liberal democracy, for ongoing freedom from elite domination and control. What Richard Landes said about the push by elites to maintain the ancient “elite/commoner” divide in societies, the constant push by power-mongering elites to dominate and control others.
Another…
Here is another one to mull over- Joe Rogan and his guests bring this up repeatedly but only as something to mull over because it is so strange. There have been two assassination attempts on Trump. And both quickly disappeared from media. As they say, if that had happened to Democrats (i.e. assassinations) the media would still be poring over it today, nonstop. But it all disappeared quickly. The FBI went into the house of the first kid in Butler Pennsylvania and cleansed the house completely. Then they claimed that they could not get into his phones. They also burned the body immediately. So many strange things. A lot of “Hmmm”. Rogan and guests are right to ask- What is going on?
I also noticed that immediate follow-up of media silence with the claimed attempted kidnapping of Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer. That disappeared almost instantaneously from media. If it was an authentic event, there would have been nonstop media coverage for years. Then years later a judge reprimanded the FBI and dismissed the charges against the 4 men who had been charged. It turned out to be an “agents provocateur” situation, staged by the FBI, whom the judge exposed.
Hopefully, we will now see how much that element (“agents provocateur”) was involved in Jan.6 as bits and pieces have leaked out over past years that it was perhaps the inciting element that turned a peaceful protest into an unlawful entry into the Capitol building, that was then framed as something worse than 9/11, worse than Pearl Harbor, worse than the 1865 revolution, and on and on… an effort to discredit political opponents with hysterically exaggerated analogies.
These things are now being investigated and some are noting that even Democrats want these investigations as more Democrats are now becoming aware of the profound corruption that has occurred on their side.
Another post…
Responding to comment on varied public issues covered in media (comments by public persons on this and that)…
There is something far more critical going on “behind the scenes”, something that impacts everyone of us… the battle over our freedom. The end of the cold war did not end the authoritarian threats to the liberal democracies of the West. Now domestic power-seeking elites, the new authoritarians, have turned to focus on subjugating domestic populations, seeking domination and control of our “liberal democracies”. This is the new threat to freedom.
Our liberal democracies at times appear to be what Joe Rogan and others refer to as “illusions”, a reality presented to us in propaganda- i.e. that we live in full freedom. And yes, undeniably there are notable elements of freedom that we do experience. But then there are also elements of a propagandized illusion. To do what? To keep us in line, subjugated, submissive, while this larger thing is going on in the background of elites manipulating and controlling public narratives, state bureaucracies, intelligence agencies to work for them, to promote their projects of elite enrichment, etc. That monstrosity has unleashed itself on us through the Woke Progressive activism that has now taken over the Democratic Party in the US. That has not been defeated. It has not gone away at all but is now back in the “resistance” that has gone full-frontal hysterical over Trump’s populism.
Remember, as Jordan Peterson and others have cautioned- that Woke Progressivism, is very much the same basic collectivism of the old Marxism (with the new dualism of oppressor/oppressed now presented in DEI victim/victimizer categories based on skin color, the new “Woke Racism”). This new front of Wokeism operates on behalf of the same old collectivism where elites run the collective on behalf “of the people”, the great lie of collectivists that has been exposed by Kristian Niemietz and others (“Socialism- The failed idea that never dies”).
There is a helpful explanation of why succeeding generations continue to fall for the totalitarianism of collectivism in Niemietz’s chapter 10 interaction with social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. He states that “Emotional satisfaction, not rational evidence, determines our choice in beliefs”. Hence, the never-ending domination of our narratives by the “apocalyptic millennialism” at the root of Marxism, rendering even ideologies like collectivism- “profoundly religious”.
But as Peterson has warned- this new collectivism (“neo-Marxism”) of Woke Progressivism still controls most of the universities, most of state institutions/bureaucracies, and it is actively trying to stall and derail the populism led by characters like Trump. Ah, who said that the heroes of freedom are often such strange characters, even despised by many- i.e. Trump and his collection of independents, former Democrats like Musk, RFK, Gabbard, and many others in this new coalition of left, right, and centrists.
Note how the left demonizes these latest historical warriors for freedom- i.e. Kennedy as “anti-vaxxer” (not true- listen to his full interview on Joe Rogan). Musk as billionaire “oligarch” (for trying to restore freedom on Twitter, and eliminate waste and fraud in government). Trump as “Hitler, fascist, dictator, etc.” (not true- as what dictator decreases taxes and regulations, both elements necessary to dominate and control populations?). And Tulsi Gabbard as “Russian agent” (Hilary Clinton’s term for her), and on and on.
The battle for freedom never ends. Look at the criminalization of populists in Europe now. That is undeniable totalitarianism unleashing itself right before our eyes. Winston Marshal- former rock star, said it best- “Populism is democracy”. Populism movements are seeking restoration of freedom and rights for commoners.
And finally, what Bob and I are up to– the role of Paul’s apocalyptic Christ, “Lord Jesus”, the main influence on Western narratives and consciousness as James Tabor so well expressed. Paul’s Christ is mainly responsible for keeping apocalyptic millennialism alive in Western history. Landes and others have shown how it shaped Marxism, Nazism, and now environmental alarmism as in the climate alarm. Until we deal with that bad narrative we will only continue to suffer endless eruptions of the elite domination and violence against commoners that this mythology has spawned across past millennia. That is the core of the problem, the real battle in life for freedom…
The tragedy is that we have long had the answer as Jefferson and Tolstoy and others saw- The message of the wisdom sage. But that answer was buried by Paul’s contrary Christ myth that re-affirmed tribalism, domination, and punitive destruction that have erupted in endless mass death violence over the last two millennia. Landes and his colleagues have detailed the history. Read for your life and understand what the military guy and Landes said that if you don’t understand how these ideas incite mass death in societies and if you do not deal with the root ideas then you will continue to suffer the violence and destruction such ideas wreak on societies.
Soon coming- “The great contradiction” between Jesus and Paul that is at the root of the elite/commoner divide and conflict, functioning as a critical belief that validates behavior.
Varied people have asked who exactly are the elites of today and is there some kind of international coordination between them? I would suggest that what “organizes” them might be more the coordination of a shared ideology, rather than any formal getting together in dark back rooms smoking cigars and plotting like Dr. Evil. WEF is mentioned often as involved with today’s elite domination projects. But also agencies like the “National Endowment for Democracy” in the US.
Apparently, billionaires and wealthy CEOs contribute to such agencies that operate as NGO-ish fronts that finance more secretive CIA operations that are behind US empire building, behind the new colonialism of the US post WW2. Such agencies fund the programs that the CIA carries out secretively to destabilize and overthrow governments that don’t cooperate with US interests. They fund propaganda programs (foreign programs of disinformation and misinformation) to discredit non-cooperating governments.
Whereas in the past the CIA and other agencies were focused on intervening in and overthrowing foreign “authoritarian” regimes that were mostly leftist, today that smear of “authoritarian threat” has been turned on populist movements in liberal democracies. It is now focused domestically, after the end of the Cold War.
Hence, the domestic populism that seeks restoration of classic liberalism for commoners is now smeared as “Right-wing extremism”. All for challenging the lies that produced, for example, the Covid lockdowns, for challenging the authoritarianism of the bullying Woke Progressivism that has infected all sectors of our societies, for challenging mainstream media narratives and lies, for resisting elite manipulation and control, for exposing the dense infrastructure of the censorship complex operating behind the scenes, as Mike Benz has done.
Populists are repeatedly smeared as propagators of “disinformation, misinformation, hate speech” etc.
Many are trying to understand who exactly are these people who appear to share a coordinated ideology that is clearly a collectivist ideology (“collectivist” as the all-encompassing term for varieties of Marxism, Socialism, communalism, social democracy or democratic socialism).
To understand who is behind this, and what motivates their shared ideology, we need to get into the “psychopathology of left-wing compassion” that drives left-wing authoritarianism. And we need to understand why leftists in liberal democracies feel the need to virtue signal in public for status. This “fundamental psychological need” to virtue signal for social status (Jordan Peterson) is a major driving factor in the emotional satisfaction that people gain from their collectivist beliefs, even though they destroy societies and the lives of commoners that leftists claim they are expressing compassion for.
(Note again Kristian Niemietz’s point that “Emotional satisfaction, even against rational evidence, motivates our choice in beliefs.”)
Leftist “compassion for the poor” cannot recognize the barbaric cruelty that they exercise toward millions of vulnerable people as they engage violent revolutions framed as the need to “break a few eggs to make an omelette”. Mass-death and related brutality is all “for the collective… for the people” (i.e. for the “greater good, common good, the community”). The aim is noble. The outcome… well, whatever. Fulfilling the pure idea/ideal matters, not so much the outcomes on real people.
Leftist dreams of utopia feed the narcissism that embraces collectivist policies that destroy individual freedom and rights for some greater good that destroys entire societies. We saw this play out in the 100 million murdered last century under the Mao, Stalin, and Pol Pot versions of collectivism.
Working for some imaginary “greater good”, for some utopian community, for dreamy ideas of “social justice”, gives people the sense of doing the obviously right thing, the good thing, the just thing for society. You tell yourself that you are fighting for the poor even as evidence shows that you are harming them. We see this today in the madness of decarbonization that is destroying entire societies with increased energy costs and de-industrialization (i.e. Britain, Germany, California) as leftists claim that it is the only way to “save the world”.
Note the comments of Richard Lindzen and others that 60s leftists saw a crusade against CO2 (fossil fuels) was a potent way to bring down industrial civilization that depended on such fuels for everything (the 6000 products that are “fossil fuel derivatives”).
So a wrap-up…
Billionaires apparently fund the National Endowment for Democracy that then enables the CIA to go after dissenters to the elite narratives. And note regarding the WEF that Bill Gates and others fancy, that WEF leader Klaus Schwab has stated that he admires Chinese authoritarianism as the model for the world to embrace.
So also our former dear leader, Justin Trudeau has stated that the Chinese dictatorship is his most admired country because they can get things done quickly by state coercion. Hence, his “mimicking tough Daddy” use of the Emergencies Act in Canada to shut down a legitimate protest. Chrysta Freeland and Mark Carney are also WEF Davos acolytes/devotees. And remember John Kerry, and others, complaining that liberal democracy and commoner freedom gets in the way of their consensus and control of narratives (i.e. his statement that the First Amendment protection of free speech blocks his efforts to control narratives and speech).
Hilary Clinton stated that the problem of free speech causes them to lose control of social media.
Authentic journalists have unraveled the organizations of the deep state totalitarianism and that the elites behind the hidden infrastructure of censorship and control of public narratives have framed the “threat to democracy” as average citizens having freedom to challenge that elite domination and control. “Democracy” defined by those elites as “the consensus of state institutions” that they control.
Hence, today’s massive programs to discredit and demonize the free speech of populists as “misinformation, disinformation, and hate speech” by extending such categories to include the speech of political opponents.
Another…
And now we have new generations fully indoctrinated with collectivist utopianism coming out of the universities. Fresh waves of activists for the new collectivist front of Woke Progressivism with its DEI tribal dualism of victims/victimizers buttressing the new racism/discrimination.
I believe it was Niall Ferguson who said the 60s Marxists went in through the back door to indoctrinate new generations of university students who then emerged to populate mainstream media, state bureaucracies, intelligence agencies, etc. And they successfully took over the Democratic Party that with a 70% majority favors censorship of opponents.
Hence, we have the 51% approval of socialism by youth today, because it appeals to the felt emotional need to virtue signal with something that is falsely believed to be more just, fair, and good. The virtue signaling with socialism is to gain status as a good person in society, to virtue signal your righteousness as someone heroically standing against the differing and dissenting others as evil enemies (i.e. with the distortion of free individuals as only about selfishness and greed).
From right inside Western liberal democracies a generation has been indoctrinated right under our noses. I saw it at Simon Fraser University in the late 80s as a mature student taking courses in the Sociology/Anthropology and Geography departments where professors did not just identify as socialist but as Marxist. I wasted years trying to understand the roots of poverty (motivated from my years working on development projects with some of the poorest people in Mindanao). All I got from my Marxist profs was the nonsense of blaming capitalism for all ills. Such a waste of years and money on those courses.
That has to be countered with good public presentations of the principles, systems of common law, and representative institutions of Classic Liberalism. And then compare the outcomes of the two different systems for organizing human societies- the destructiveness of having populations subjected to collectives run by elites given concentrated power and control versus the amazing benefits of protecting the freedoms and rights of all individuals, equally.
Further, study the history of these two great systems as detailed by Arthur Herman in “The Cave and The Light”, also his excellent history of “The Idea of Decline In Western History”. Add the research of Richard Landes, Arthur Mendel, David Redles, and others, on the religious themes (i.e. apocalyptic millennialism) that drive the profoundly religious crusades of Marxism, Nazism, and environmental alarmism.
Always push beyond the surface issues that are presented by politicians, media, Hollywood entertainers, and other elites. Look beyond their generation of hysteria over petty personal things like outrageous statements and jokes made by their opponents. Look past their race-baiting, etc., things that often distract from real issues in the background.
The core of the overall societal problem of elites dominating and controlling commoners also has to do with contributing factors that validate such domination and control in the elite commoner divide, the narrative themes that affirm and validate such things- and no theme has been more potent in validating elite domination and control in Western civilization than Paul’s “Lord Jesus”.
To repeat my introduction above: What lies beneath or behind the great issue of power-obsessed elites always pushing to dominate and control societies? What about the critical contributing factors, the ideas in narratives that affirm and validate the elite drives to tribalism, domination, and punitive destruction of opponents?
This comment is prepping for more on the basic ideas in our narratives that incite the worst of our impulses to tribalism, domination, and punitive destruction toward one another. The “evil triad” of impulses inherited from our animal past, impulses that are validated by similar ideas/beliefs as we work out our own version of “basing our behavior on similar beliefs’”.
I am heading again toward that great contradiction between Historical Jesus and Paul’s Christ myth. Paul’s Christ being mainly responsible for inciting/validating the evil triad, while Historical Jesus has been mainly responsible for countering that pathology with his stunning new theology of a “non-tribal, non-dominating, and non-retaliatory God”. An entirely new reality to become the cohering center of human narratives, a reality that is entirely opposite to the deity that Paul re-affirmed in his Christ myth and his new religion of “Christ-ianity” that buried the original “Jesus-ianity”.
Ah, the shenanigans, eh, of the power-mongering elites.
Add this note:
The Trump administration is overturning the great project of the many past decades (globalization) to ship US manufacturing overseas, a project that enriched business and financial elites. Trump is bringing back manufacturing and its associated wealth creation to its place of origin. This has upset the elites who have profited greatly from the access to cheap labor overseas and the open border influx of cheap labor to the US over the past years.
Labor costs are among the largest costs to most businesses and if that factor can be decreased then more wealth flows to those elite bosses and their friends in Wall Street who already own most of the wealth of the country. Trump is overturning that order of things to focus again on helping workers and increasing their benefits from the system. With wealth comes power and control and elites are pissed that is being taken away from them with Trump’s populism.
Again, look beyond the yelling and hysteria in media to the bigger picture, something “far, far bigger” is happening.
This summary from Bob Brinsmead’s latest essay…
“Preserving and defending the best of Western Culture, Bob Brinsmead
“In recent years, Western culture has been under attack from within by the so-called Progressive Left which has promoted identify politics, gender fluidity, cancel culture, a climate emergency and a Censorship Industrial Complex that cannot tolerate any dissent. This has stifled free speech and promoted more and more government control over human activities. In all of this, the great gains which Western culture has made in the development of liberal democracy, bringing religious, political and economic freedoms, has come under a sustained and serious attack.
“A fightback movement to defend and preserve the great freedoms made by Western culture is now underway. An example of this is the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) which has launched two significant gatherings in London in 2024 and 2025. The movement to defend and preserve Western culture has been supported by such people as Jordan Peterson (Twelve Rules of Life) from Canada, Michael Shellenberger (Apocalypse Never!) in the US, Douglass Murray (The War on the West) in Great Britain, and John Anderson (ex-Deputy PM of Australia) and Greg Sheridan (God is Good for You) in Australia.
“A point that is frequently made by the defenders of Western culture is that Western culture was shaped over many centuries by Christian or Judeo-Christian values. The conclusion is drawn that if the Christian influence is allowed to disappear, along with the Bible as the most significant piece of literature in Western history, then the mighty gains made by Western culture are in danger of being lost.
“In assessing Christianity’s enormous role in Western history, it is important that we recognize there are two aspects of the Christian tradition that has impacted Western culture. Firstly, there is the matter of the teachings of the historical Jesus; and secondly, there is the Church’s central doctrine of the post-Easter Christ.
“The Christianity which made the exalted titles of Christ the centre of its teaching was not a friend of democracy. That Church was supposed to reflect on earth the rulership of Christ as the Lord of the universe, and that certainly was not thought to be a democracy. So it was that the Church, viewed as the agent of Christ’s monarchial rule, was a hierarchy in which the laity or “common people” had no say at all (“Ours is not to reason why…”). Women were instructed by the words of Holy Scripture to “submit to their husbands in everything” “as the church submits to Christ”; and by the same token slaves were instructed, “Obey your earthly masters…just as you would obey Christ.” (Ephesians 5:22; 6:5).
“The denigration of women by the Fathers of the Church in the early centuries of Christianity exhibited an appalling level of misogyny. Any dissent with the Creeds of the Church became punishable by death in a theocratic union of Church and State which ruled for a thousand years. This was a time when the Church made more martyrs than it ever produced from its own ranks.
“This totalitarian rule of the elite was the triumph of Hellenism’s Platonic concept of the ideal government.
“As for that great book called the Bible, for a period measured in centuries the Church never wanted the ordinary Christians to read and interpret the Scriptures for themselves. It was locked away in the foreign languages of Hebrew, Greek and Latin which only the elite could read anyway. It was over a thousand years before the Bible began to be translated into the vernacular languages of the people, but that event was at first greeted by executing some of the translators and even some of the people who were found with a translated copy of the Bible in their homes. For over a thousand years people were told what they had to believe on pain of being put to death or severely punished for any thinking deemed to be heretical.
“The brilliant physician and theologian Michael Servetus was burned at the stake in John Calvin’s Protestant Geneva because he questioned the Church’s longstanding doctrine of the absolute divinity of Christ. Even at the dawn of the Enlightenment at the close of the 17th century, a young man by the name of Akenhead was hanged in Scotland because he dared to suggest that Moses did not write the first five books of the Bible. (Today, one would be hard put to find one Christian scholar who would say that the first five books of the Bible were written by Moses). Religious tolerance never dawned on the Western world until more than two hundred years after the Reformation of the 16th century.
“The New World of America was founded by the Pilgrim Fathers who sought to escape from the religious persecution in the Old World of Europe. Having established the first British colonies in America, the Puritan settlers made it plain by their ill-liberal actions that neither Catholics nor Quakers were welcome to settle there. Religious liberty was something to be enjoyed by the Puritans who thought they were in possession of the Truth, not by those whom they thought would contaminate their new-found Promised Land with Popish errors or new-fangled heresies like those of the Quakers. (William Penn was a great Quaker in whose honour Pennsylvania was eventually named).
“Religious liberty was not achieved in the New World settled by those Protestants fleeing religious persecution until the Declaration of Independence (1776) and the forming of the Constitution of the US (1787) guaranteeing freedom of speech and the separation of church and state. This achievement of the founding Fathers proved to be one enormous achievement for Western civilization.
“What is generally not realized by those pushing for the preservation of Christian values is that none of the founding Fathers of America – Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, or Benjamin Franklin- were traditional Christians. They did not believe that the man called Jesus was God or claimed to be God. In this matter Jefferson said: “It would be more pardonable to believe in no God at all than to believe the atrocious teachings of the theologians.” In the same vein, in a later generation Abraham Lincoln said, “Christianity is not my religion.”
“It is for this reason that the founding Fathers of America were called Deists. It was a somewhat misleading label because it masked the fact that the founding fathers held that the teachings of Jesus, to use the words of Jefferson, embodied the most sublime ethics and the highest moral code that was ever offered to mankind. Jefferson and Adams spent much of their time in retirement exchanging their ruminations about the historical Jesus, with Jefferson finally producing The Jefferson Bible. It was simply a collection of what he saw as the authentic parables and aphorism of Jesus which embodied a vision of an inclusive love and a radical egalitarianism. This is what had inspired Jefferson to draft these immortal words into the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence:
“’We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.’
“Neither the granting of full human rights to women nor to black Americans took place in the generation of those who had drafted the Declaration of Independence. The intent of its words, however, had laid the foundation for full democratic freedom for all at last.
“Jefferson always wanted to make it clear that he was not renouncing Christianity but only trying to return to the wisdom teaching of the man who was supposed to be its founder. (1)
“In the 18thcentury which followed, a modest number of Christian scholars began what in later years was dubbed the Quest for the Historical Jesus. Over the last two hundred years, more and more scholars from every major branch of the Christian Church have concluded that matching the historical Jesus to the Christ of faith is like trying to match a poet of love with a warrior of vengeance.”
(1) For further reading on the founding Fathers, see Jeffery J. Butz, The Secret Legacy of Jesus: The Judaic Teachings that Passed from James the Just to the Founding Fathers.
And another on the project to extend US empire…
This from Shellenberger
“Rob Atkinson: ‘They sold out the competitive part of America to rule the world’: Heterodox innovation expert on why Paul Krugman is wrong, microchips are not like potato chips, and the US could default on its debt”, Michael Shellenberger, April 8, 2025
https://www.public.news/p/rob-atkinson-they-sold-out-the-competitive
Atkinson argues that Trump is right to end the great globalization push since the end of WW2. Elites believed that by taking a hit (loss of US manufacturing to other cheap labour countries) they would bring about the spread of democracy as the US economy entangled with authoritarian countries like China. As he says, elites “thought it was a worthy goal because they wanted us to rule the world.”
Here are some quotes from the article:
“Trump is right about something big, which Krugman doesn’t understand and may not want to understand, says Atkinson.
““Here’s what Trump is trying to do,” said Atkinson. “He is rightly saying that from the post-war until 10 years ago, US trade and globalization policy put foreign interests ahead of US interests from an economic perspective. The reason we did that is that we thought that our global interests of being the global policeman, making sure there was democracy, was so strong we could sacrifice our techno-economic interest.”
“The problem wasn’t lack of intelligence. “It wasn’t like people were stupid. They weren’t selling out America. They were selling out part of America — our ability to be competitive. But they thought it was a worthy goal because they wanted us to rule the world.”
“But the goal of putting national security ahead of our economic interests ended up undermining our national security. America can’t make the basic products, including microchips and drones, necessary to fight a war. “You have to be able to make advanced technology products,” Atkinson explained.
““And most of those are what are called ‘dual use,’” he explained. “A company makes an electronic part for the Defense Department but they make most of their parts for the civilian market, which is why they can make them cheap for the Defense Department. The idea that we could be a non-industrialized country and have any sort of global power is nonsensical.”
“And yet many economists are in denial about this. Atkinson said the head of the largest and most influential international policy think tank in Washington, D.C. told a colleague of his that America could lose all of its manufacturing and still be okay. “You can laugh or be bewildered,” said Atkinson, “but I swear to God that is how these people think.””
New information on the second assassination attempt against Trump
Here (3 minutes) Michael Shellenberger, a former CIA agent, and the host discuss new info on the second assassination attempt against Trump. It appears the intelligence agencies were involved.
The Gutfeld episode below similarly covered the normalization of violence on the left today. The survey showing that 55% of those “left of center” who now believe that they can justify assassinating Trump. That is the outcome of media for years shouting that he is “Hitler, a Nazi, fascist, dictator, etc.”.
Listen to Shellenberger explaining the psychopathology behind this shift of the left into narcissistic authoritarianism…
As Jesse and CIA guest state, this is CIA playbook for destabilizing foreign populations. Others note how that propagandizing and manipulation of populations has now shifted from foreign to domestic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JU4gLqpG2tw
This Gutfeld episode on the normalization of violence by the mainstream left today.
In the first 5 minutes they discuss an interesting study on the distortions of leftist “empathy”. The acceptance of violence against differing others, against any outside the tribe, is no longer just leftist fringe. The push for violence has been normalized by the mainstream left.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPZrS6r2C_k
Latest from Rubin Report on tariffs
“’Shark Tank’ legend notices something in market crash others are unwilling to see”, Dave Rubin, April 8, 2025.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4a7FwblzlI
Points made:
Rubin covers varied comments by others like Kevin O’Leary who says- Do not focus on the hysteria over the market drops but took to the end result coming. He says that Trump is bargaining to get to no tariffs which is what true “free trade” should be. And re the market drops, just be patient as markets have always dropped but will correct and the outcome will be better with no tariffs.
Rubin notes the comments of Scott Bessent that many countries are now responding with zero tariff proposals- i.e. Taiwan, Vietnam, Europe, Israel, Argentina, and many others. And $6 trillion in investment has come into the US over the past few months, bringing factories, jobs, and wealth.
Rubin notes that Trump placed tariffs on China in his first term against warnings that they would cause inflation, and they didn’t. Biden then continued those tariffs on China.
Rubin ends with the point- If tariffs are so bad why do so many countries use them, notably against the US? Why do so many countries claim that tariffs are only bad if other countries do them, but not bad if they use them?
Don’t be leery of O’Leary’s good advice
“Kevin O’Leary defends Trump tariffs, calls on 400% increase on China to ‘level the playing field’: ‘They cheat, they steal, they steal IP, I can’t litigate in their courts,’ O’Leary says”, Jeffrey Clark, April 8, 2025
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/3374823/kevin-oleary-pushes-for-400-percent-tariff-on-china/
Clark says that O’Leary has called for imposing 400% tariffs on China because “They don’t play by the rules. They’ve been in the WTO for decades. They have never abided by any of the rules they agreed to when they came in for decades. They cheat, they steal, they steal IP, I can’t litigate in their courts.”
“This is not about tariffs anymore,” O’Leary continued. “No one has taken on China yet. Not the Europeans. No administration for decades. As someone who actually does business there, I’ve had enough. I speak for millions of Americans who have IP that has been stolen by the Chinese.”
“The government cheats and steals and finally an administration — you may not like Trump, you may not like his style or his rhetoric — finally, an administration that puts up and says ‘enough.’”
O’Leary says that Trump must place economic pressure on President Xi to force him to negotiate or his country may become destabilized.