lewrockwell--2020-11-18--Don’t Call the Cops. Especially If Your Loved Ones Are Old, Disabled, or Have Special Needs

They shot at him fourteen times .
Walter Wallace Jr.—a troubled 27-year-old black man with a criminal history and mental health issues—was no saint .
Still , he didn ’ t deserve to die in a hail of bullets fired by two police officers who clearly had not been adequately trained in how to de-escalate encounters with special needs individuals .
Wallace wasn ’ t unarmed—he was reportedly holding a knife when police confronted him—yet neither cop attempted to use non-lethal weapons on Wallace , who appeared to be in the midst of a mental health crisis .
In fact @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Wallace , fired upon repeatedly by both officers , was hit in the shoulder and chest and pronounced dead at the hospital .
Wallace ’ s death is yet one more grim statistic to add to that growing list of Americans—unarmed , impaired or experiencing a mental health crisis—who have been killed by police trained to shoot first and ask questions later .
It ’ s also a powerful reminder to think twice before you call the cops to carry out a welfare check on a loved one .
Especially if that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mentally ill , elderly , suffering from dementia , disabled or might have a condition that hinders their ability to understand , communicate or immediately comply with an order .
Particularly if you value that person ’ s life .
There are some things that don ’ t change .
Even as the nation grapples with the twin distractions of political theater and a viral pandemic , there are still deadlier forces at play .
This is one of them .
At a time when growing numbers of unarmed people have been shot @ @ @ @ @ @ @ way , or moving a certain way , or holding something—anything—that police could misinterpret to be a gun , or igniting some trigger-centric fear in a police officer ’ s mind that has nothing to do with an actual threat to their safety , even the most benign encounters with police can have fatal consequences .
Unfortunately , police—trained in the worst case scenario and thus ready to shoot first and ask questions later—increasingly pose a risk to anyone undergoing a mental health crisis or with special needs whose disabilities may not be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the typical freeze-or-I ’ ll-shoot tactics employed by America ’ s police forces .
Just last year , in fact , Gay Plack , a 57-year-old Virginia woman with bipolar disorder , was killed after two police officers—sent to do a welfare check on her—entered her home uninvited , wandered through the house shouting her name , kicked open her locked bedroom door , discovered the terrified woman hiding in a dark bathroom and wielding a small axe , and four seconds later , shot her in the stomach .
That ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ two police officers assigned to check on Plack to decide to use lethal force against her ( both cops opened fire on the woman ) , rather than using non-lethal options ( one cop had a Taser , which he made no attempt to use ) or attempting to de-escalate the situation .
The police chief defended his officers ’ actions , claiming they had “ no other option ” but to shoot the 5 foot 4 inch “ woman with carpal tunnel syndrome who had to quit her job at a framing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to use the machine that cut the mats.
” This is what happens when you empower the police to act as judge , jury and executioner .
This is what happens when you indoctrinate the police into believing that their lives and their safety are paramount to anyone else ’ s .
Suddenly , everyone and everything else is a threat that must be neutralized or eliminated .
In light of the government ’ s ongoing efforts to predict who might pose a threat to public safety based on mental health sensor data @ @ @ @ @ @ @ FitBits and Apple Watches and monitored by government agencies such as HARPA , the “ Health Advanced Research Projects Agency ” ) , encounters with the police could get even more deadly , especially if those involved have a mental illness or disability .
Indeed , disabled individuals make up a third to half of all people killed by law enforcement officers .
( People of color are three times more likely to be killed by police than their white counterparts . )
If you ’ re black and disabled , you ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by the Ruderman Family Foundation reports that “ disabled individuals make up the majority of those killed in use-of-force cases that attract widespread attention .
This is true both for cases deemed illegal or against policy and for those in which officers are ultimately fully exonerated… Many more disabled civilians experience non-lethal violence and abuse at the hands of law enforcement officers.
” For instance , Nancy Schrock called 911 for help after her husband , Tom , who suffered with mental health issues , started stalking around the backyard , upending chairs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ before , police had transported Tom to the hospital , where he was medicated and sent home after 72 hours .
This time , Tom was tasered twice .
He collapsed , lost consciousness and died .
In South Carolina , police tasered an 86-year-old grandfather reportedly in the early stages of dementia , while he was jogging backwards away from them .
Now this happened after Albert Chatfield led police on a car chase , running red lights and turning randomly .
However , at the point that police chose to shock @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he was out of the car , on his feet , and outnumbered by police officers much younger than him .
In Georgia , campus police shot and killed a 21-year-old student who was suffering a mental health crisis .
Scout Schultz was shot through the heart by campus police when he approached four of them late one night while holding a pocketknife , shouting “ Shoot me !
” Although police may have feared for their lives , the blade was still in its closed position .
In Oklahoma , police shot @ @ @ @ @ @ @ holding a two-foot metal pipe on his front porch ( he used the pipe to fend off stray dogs while walking ) .
Despite the fact that witnesses warned police that Magdiel Sanchez couldn ’ t hear—and thus comply—with their shouted orders to drop the pipe and get on the ground , police shot the man when he was about 15 feet away from them .
In Maryland , police ( moonlighting as security guards ) used extreme force to eject a 26-year-old man with Downs Syndrome and a low IQ from a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sitting through a second screening of a film .
Autopsy results indicate that Ethan Saylor died of complications arising from asphyxiation , likely caused by a chokehold .
In Florida , police armed with assault rifles fired three shots at a 27-year-old nonverbal , autistic man who was sitting on the ground , playing with a toy truck .
Police missed the autistic man and instead shot his behavioral therapist , Charles Kinsey , who had been trying to get him back to his group home .
The therapist , bleeding from a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ left lying face down on the ground for 20 minutes .
In Texas , police handcuffed , tasered and then used a baton to subdue a 7-year-old student who has severe ADHD and a mood disorder .
With school counselors otherwise occupied , school officials called police and the child ’ s mother to assist after Yosio Lopez started banging his head on a wall .
The police arrived first .
In New Mexico , police tasered , then opened fire on a 38-year-old homeless man who suffered from schizophrenia , all in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ leave a makeshift campsite .
Boyd ’ s death provoked a wave of protests over heavy-handed law enforcement tactics .
In Ohio , police forcefully subdued a 37-year-old bipolar woman wearing only a nightgown in near-freezing temperatures who was neither armed , violent , intoxicated , nor suspected of criminal activity .
After being slammed onto the sidewalk , handcuffed and left unconscious on the street , Tanisha Anderson died as a result of being restrained in a prone position .
And in North Carolina , a state trooper shot and killed a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pull over during a traffic stop .
Daniel K. Harris was shot after exiting his car , allegedly because the trooper feared he might be reaching for a weapon .
These cases , and the hundreds—if not thousands—more that go undocumented every year speak to a crisis in policing when it comes to law enforcement ’ s failure to adequately assess , de-escalate and manage encounters with special needs or disabled individuals .
While the research is relatively scant , what has been happening is telling .
Over the course of six months @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was in mental crisis every 36 hours .
Among 124 police killings analyzed by The Washington Post in which mental illness appeared to be a factor , “ They were overwhelmingly men , more than half of them white .
Nine in 10 were armed with some kind of weapon , and most died close to home.
” But there were also important distinctions , reports the Post .
The U.S. Supreme Court , as might be expected , has thus far continued to immunize police against charges of wrongdoing when it comes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a mental illness .
In a 2015 ruling , the Court declared that police could not be sued for forcing their way into a mentally ill woman ’ s room at a group home and shooting her five times when she advanced on them with a knife .
The justices did not address whether police must take special precautions when arresting mentally ill individuals .
( The Americans with Disabilities Act requires “ reasonable accommodations ” for people with mental illnesses , which in this case might have been less confrontational tactics .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ For starters , we need better police training across the board , but especially when it comes to de-escalation tactics and crisis intervention .
A study by the National Institute of Mental Health found that CIT ( Crisis Intervention Team ) -trained officers made fewer arrests , used less force , and connected more people with mental-health services than their non-trained peers .
As The Washington Post points out : Second , police need to learn how to slow confrontations down , instead of ramping up the tension ( and the noise ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now required to take a four-hour course in which they learn “ de-escalation tactics ” for dealing with disabled individuals : speak calmly , give space , be patient .
One officer in charge of the Los Angeles Police Department ’ s “ mental response teams ” suggests that instead of rushing to take someone into custody , police should try to slow things down and persuade the person to come with them .
Third , with all the questionable funds flowing to police departments these days , why not use some of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ activist describes as “ a 911-type number dedicated to handling mental-health emergencies , with community crisis-response teams at the ready rather than police officers.
” Increasingly , funds are being directed towards technologies that support predictive policing and behavioral and health surveillance .
For instance , HARPA ( a healthcare counterpart to the Pentagon ’ s research and development arm DARPA ) would take the lead in identifying and targeting “ signs ” of mental illness or violent inclinations among the populace by using artificial intelligence to collect data from Apple Watches , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The Trump Administration has already awarded contracts worth $ 22.8 million to seven major corporations to develop artificial intelligence ( AI ) and machine learning connected to smartphone apps , wearable devices and software that can identify and trace contacts of “ infected individuals , ” keep track of “ verified ” COVID-19 test results , and monitor the health states of infected and “ potentially ” infected individuals .
It wouldn ’ t take much for these nascent predictive programs to give rise to healthcare versions of red flag gun laws @ @ @ @ @ @ @ take action against individuals who may be perceived as potential threats .
Where the problem arises is when you put the power to determine who is a potential danger in the hands of government agencies , the courts and the police .
In the end , while we need to make encounters with police officers safer for people with suffering from mental illness or with disabilities , what we really need—as I point out in my book Battlefield America : The War on the American People—is to make encounters with police safer for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Best of John W. Whitehead

“Anyone who cares for someone with a developmental disability, as well as for disabled people themselves [lives] every day in fear that their behavior will be misconstrued as suspicious, intoxicated or hostile by law enforcement.”—Steve Silberman, The New York Times
They shot at him fourteen times.
Walter Wallace Jr.—a troubled 27-year-old black man with a criminal history and mental health issues—was no saint. Still, he didn’t deserve to die in a hail of bullets fired by two police officers who clearly had not been adequately trained in how to de-escalate encounters with special needs individuals.
Wallace wasn’t unarmed—he was reportedly holding a knife when police confronted him—yet neither cop attempted to use non-lethal weapons on Wallace, who appeared to be in the midst of a mental health crisis. In fact, neither cop even possessed a taser. Wallace, fired upon repeatedly by both officers, was hit in the shoulder and chest and pronounced dead at the hospital. A Government of Wolves... John W. Whitehead Best Price: $2.06 Buy New $10.42 (as of 01:25 UTC - Details)
Wallace’s death is yet one more grim statistic to add to that growing list of Americans—unarmed, impaired or experiencing a mental health crisis—who have been killed by police trained to shoot first and ask questions later.
It’s also a powerful reminder to think twice before you call the cops to carry out a welfare check on a loved one. Especially if that person is autistic, hearing impaired, mentally ill, elderly, suffering from dementia, disabled or might have a condition that hinders their ability to understand, communicate or immediately comply with an order.
Particularly if you value that person’s life.
There are some things that don’t change. Even as the nation grapples with the twin distractions of political theater and a viral pandemic, there are still deadlier forces at play.
This is one of them.
At a time when growing numbers of unarmed people have been shot and killed for just standing a certain way, or moving a certain way, or holding something—anything—that police could misinterpret to be a gun, or igniting some trigger-centric fear in a police officer’s mind that has nothing to do with an actual threat to their safety, even the most benign encounters with police can have fatal consequences.
Unfortunately, police—trained in the worst case scenario and thus ready to shoot first and ask questions later—increasingly pose a risk to anyone undergoing a mental health crisis or with special needs whose disabilities may not be immediately apparent or require more finesse than the typical freeze-or-I’ll-shoot tactics employed by America’s police forces.
Just last year, in fact, Gay Plack, a 57-year-old Virginia woman with bipolar disorder, was killed after two police officers—sent to do a welfare check on her—entered her home uninvited, wandered through the house shouting her name, kicked open her locked bedroom door, discovered the terrified woman hiding in a dark bathroom and wielding a small axe, and four seconds later, shot her in the stomach.
Four seconds.
That’s all the time it took for the two police officers assigned to check on Plack to decide to use lethal force against her (both cops opened fire on the woman), rather than using non-lethal options (one cop had a Taser, which he made no attempt to use) or attempting to de-escalate the situation.
The police chief defended his officers’ actions, claiming they had “no other option” but to shoot the 5 foot 4 inch “woman with carpal tunnel syndrome who had to quit her job at a framing shop because her hand was too weak to use the machine that cut the mats.” The End of Policing Vitale, Alex S. Best Price: $13.44 Buy New $11.68 (as of 03:15 UTC - Details)
This is what happens when you empower the police to act as judge, jury and executioner.
This is what happens when you indoctrinate the police into believing that their lives and their safety are paramount to anyone else’s.
Suddenly, everyone and everything else is a threat that must be neutralized or eliminated.
In light of the government’s ongoing efforts to predict who might pose a threat to public safety based on mental health sensor data (tracked by wearable data such as FitBits and Apple Watches and monitored by government agencies such as HARPA, the “Health Advanced Research Projects Agency”), encounters with the police could get even more deadly, especially if those involved have a mental illness or disability.
Indeed, disabled individuals make up a third to half of all people killed by law enforcement officers. (People of color are three times more likely to be killed by police than their white counterparts.) If you’re black and disabled, you’re even more vulnerable.
A study by the Ruderman Family Foundation reports that “disabled individuals make up the majority of those killed in use-of-force cases that attract widespread attention. This is true both for cases deemed illegal or against policy and for those in which officers are ultimately fully exonerated… Many more disabled civilians experience non-lethal violence and abuse at the hands of law enforcement officers.”
For instance, Nancy Schrock called 911 for help after her husband, Tom, who suffered with mental health issues, started stalking around the backyard, upending chairs and screaming about demons. Several times before, police had transported Tom to the hospital, where he was medicated and sent home after 72 hours. This time, Tom was tasered twice. He collapsed, lost consciousness and died.
In South Carolina, police tasered an 86-year-old grandfather reportedly in the early stages of dementia, while he was jogging backwards away from them. Now this happened after Albert Chatfield led police on a car chase, running red lights and turning randomly. However, at the point that police chose to shock the old man with electric charges, he was out of the car, on his feet, and outnumbered by police officers much younger than him.
In Georgia, campus police shot and killed a 21-year-old student who was suffering a mental health crisis. Scout Schultz was shot through the heart by campus police when he approached four of them late one night while holding a pocketknife, shouting “Shoot me!” Although police may have feared for their lives, the blade was still in its closed position. Battlefield America: T... John W. Whitehead Best Price: $10.95 Buy New $18.80 (as of 10:15 UTC - Details)
In Oklahoma, police shot and killed a 35-year-old deaf man seen holding a two-foot metal pipe on his front porch (he used the pipe to fend off stray dogs while walking). Despite the fact that witnesses warned police that Magdiel Sanchez couldn’t hear—and thus comply—with their shouted orders to drop the pipe and get on the ground, police shot the man when he was about 15 feet away from them.
In Maryland, police (moonlighting as security guards) used extreme force to eject a 26-year-old man with Downs Syndrome and a low IQ from a movie theater after the man insisted on sitting through a second screening of a film. Autopsy results indicate that Ethan Saylor died of complications arising from asphyxiation, likely caused by a chokehold.
In Florida, police armed with assault rifles fired three shots at a 27-year-old nonverbal, autistic man who was sitting on the ground, playing with a toy truck. Police missed the autistic man and instead shot his behavioral therapist, Charles Kinsey, who had been trying to get him back to his group home. The therapist, bleeding from a gunshot wound, was then handcuffed and left lying face down on the ground for 20 minutes.
In Texas, police handcuffed, tasered and then used a baton to subdue a 7-year-old student who has severe ADHD and a mood disorder. With school counselors otherwise occupied, school officials called police and the child’s mother to assist after Yosio Lopez started banging his head on a wall. The police arrived first.
In New Mexico, police tasered, then opened fire on a 38-year-old homeless man who suffered from schizophrenia, all in an attempt to get James Boyd to leave a makeshift campsite. Boyd’s death provoked a wave of protests over heavy-handed law enforcement tactics.
In Ohio, police forcefully subdued a 37-year-old bipolar woman wearing only a nightgown in near-freezing temperatures who was neither armed, violent, intoxicated, nor suspected of criminal activity. After being slammed onto the sidewalk, handcuffed and left unconscious on the street, Tanisha Anderson died as a result of being restrained in a prone position.
And in North Carolina, a state trooper shot and killed a 29-year-old deaf motorist after he failed to pull over during a traffic stop. Daniel K. Harris was shot after exiting his car, allegedly because the trooper feared he might be reaching for a weapon. Our Enemies in Blue: P... Williams, Kristian Best Price: $15.17 Buy New $15.17 (as of 05:36 UTC - Details)
These cases, and the hundreds—if not thousands—more that go undocumented every year speak to a crisis in policing when it comes to law enforcement’s failure to adequately assess, de-escalate and manage encounters with special needs or disabled individuals.
While the research is relatively scant, what has been happening is telling.
Over the course of six months, police shot and killed someone who was in mental crisis every 36 hours.
Among 124 police killings analyzed by The Washington Post in which mental illness appeared to be a factor, “They were overwhelmingly men, more than half of them white. Nine in 10 were armed with some kind of weapon, and most died close to home.”
But there were also important distinctions, reports the Post.
“This group was more likely to wield a weapon less lethal than a firearm. Six had toy guns; 3 in 10 carried a blade, such as a knife or a machete — weapons that rarely prove deadly to police officers. According to data maintained by the FBI and other organizations, only three officers have been killed with an edged weapon in the past decade. Nearly a dozen of the mentally distraught people killed were military veterans, many of them suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of their service, according to police or family members. Another was a former California Highway Patrol officer who had been forced into retirement after enduring a severe beating during a traffic stop that left him suffering from depression and PTSD. And in 45 cases, police were called to help someone get medical treatment, or after the person had tried and failed to get treatment on his own.”
The U.S. Supreme Court, as might be expected, has thus far continued to immunize police against charges of wrongdoing when it comes to use of force against those with a mental illness.
In a 2015 ruling, the Court declared that police could not be sued for forcing their way into a mentally ill woman’s room at a group home and shooting her five times when she advanced on them with a knife. The justices did not address whether police must take special precautions when arresting mentally ill individuals. (The Americans with Disabilities Act requires “reasonable accommodations” for people with mental illnesses, which in this case might have been less confrontational tactics.)
Where does this leave us?
For starters, we need better police training across the board, but especially when it comes to de-escalation tactics and crisis intervention. Rise of the Warrior Co... Radley Balko Best Price: $3.56 Buy New $10.95 (as of 05:55 UTC - Details)
A study by the National Institute of Mental Health found that CIT (Crisis Intervention Team)-trained officers made fewer arrests, used less force, and connected more people with mental-health services than their non-trained peers.
As The Washington Post points out:
“Although new recruits typically spend nearly 60 hours learning to handle a gun, according to a recent survey by the Police Executive Research Forum, they receive only eight hours of training to de-escalate tense situations and eight hours learning strategies for handling the mentally ill. Otherwise, police are taught to employ tactics that tend to be counterproductive in such encounters, experts said. For example, most officers are trained to seize control when dealing with an armed suspect, often through stern, shouted commands. But yelling and pointing guns is ‘like pouring gasoline on a fire when you do that with the mentally ill,’ said Ron Honberg, policy director with the National Alliance on Mental Illness.”
Second, police need to learn how to slow confrontations down, instead of ramping up the tension (and the noise).
In Maryland, police recruits are now required to take a four-hour course in which they learn “de-escalation tactics” for dealing with disabled individuals: speak calmly, give space, be patient.
One officer in charge of the Los Angeles Police Department’s “mental response teams” suggests that instead of rushing to take someone into custody, police should try to slow things down and persuade the person to come with them.
Third, with all the questionable funds flowing to police departments these days, why not use some of those funds to establish what one disability-rights activist describes as “a 911-type number dedicated to handling mental-health emergencies, with community crisis-response teams at the ready rather than police officers.”
Increasingly, funds are being directed towards technologies that support predictive policing and behavioral and health surveillance. For instance, HARPA (a healthcare counterpart to the Pentagon’s research and development arm DARPA) would take the lead in identifying and targeting “signs” of mental illness or violent inclinations among the populace by using artificial intelligence to collect data from Apple Watches, Fitbits, Amazon Echo and Google Home. The Trump Administration has already awarded contracts worth $22.8 million to seven major corporations to develop artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning connected to smartphone apps, wearable devices and software that can identify and trace contacts of “infected individuals,” keep track of “verified” COVID-19 test results, and monitor the health states of infected and “potentially” infected individuals.
It wouldn’t take much for these nascent predictive programs to give rise to healthcare versions of red flag gun laws, which allows the government to preemptively take action against individuals who may be perceived as potential threats. Where the problem arises is when you put the power to determine who is a potential danger in the hands of government agencies, the courts and the police.
In the end, while we need to make encounters with police officers safer for people with suffering from mental illness or with disabilities, what we really need—as I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People—is to make encounters with police safer for all individuals all across the board.
The Best of John W. Whitehead


lewrockwell--2020-11-18--Pre-election Scandals Disappear Down Media Rabbit Hole

Whatever happened to the Jeffrey Epstein case ?
Traces of the Durham Report , which was investigating those who manufactured the story of Russian interference in the 2016 election , seem to have also disappeared from view .
Or what about Hunter Biden ?
His laptop full of secrets and the possible corrupt practices of his father , presidential candidate Joe Biden , are fast fading from memory .
Let ’ s look closer at these disappearing stories , for in doing so , we ’ re likely to untangle a common thread between them and the current election limbo @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ... Buck , Ken Best Price : $ 6.62 Buy New $ 13.95 In mid-October , CNBC reported that Ghislaine Maxwell , an associate of Epstein accused of procuring underage girls for sex with Epstein and his cronies , stated under oath , “ I never observed Jeffrey having sex with a minor.
” A coy reply , that .
But what about details on the rich and the famous , like Bill Clinton , who traveled to Epstein ’ s “ Orgy Island ?
” Just as interesting in this CNBC article @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , slants the news .
“ Epstein had socialized for years with wealthy and powerful people , ” Mangan writes , “ including Donald Trump and Bill Clinton , as well as with Britain ’ s Prince Andrew.
” What Mangan fails to mention is that unlike Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew , Donald Trump paid no visits to Epstein ’ s island of sleaze .
Attorney General Bill Barr told the American people in mid-October that the Justice Department ’ s review of the Russian hoax would not be available until after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ election at the moment remains in stasis , but we might ask : Where ’ s the report ?
And why the silence surrounding it ?
I Profiles in Corruption ... Schweizer , Peter Best Price : $ 17.98 Buy New $ 17.99 f we Google “ Hunter Biden laptop , ” we find a few reports from early November .
Many of these pieces seem more bent on destroying this story than investigating it .
“ Move along , folks , ” is the watchword .
“ Nothing to see here.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one from Politico : “ How ‘ Obamagate ’ and Hunter ’ s ‘ laptop from hell ’ fizzled.
” Did the story fizzle or did the press simply disappear it down the rabbit hole ?
Now we are mired in an election corrupted by fraud and vote tampering .
Few dispute that some voting irregularities occurred , but Democrats and some Republicans are now insisting that President Trump and his team stop poking their noses into the vote count and move on for the good of the country .
So what do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?

Where’d everybody go?
Whatever happened to the Jeffrey Epstein case? Traces of the Durham Report, which was investigating those who manufactured the story of Russian interference in the 2016 election, seem to have also disappeared from view. Or what about Hunter Biden? His laptop full of secrets and the possible corrupt practices of his father, presidential candidate Joe Biden, are fast fading from memory.
Let’s look closer at these disappearing stories, for in doing so, we’re likely to untangle a common thread between them and the current election limbo.
Drain the Swamp: How W... Buck, Ken Best Price: $6.62 Buy New $13.95 (as of 06:11 UTC - Details) In mid-October, CNBC reported that Ghislaine Maxwell, an associate of Epstein accused of procuring underage girls for sex with Epstein and his cronies, stated under oath, “I never observed Jeffrey having sex with a minor.” A coy reply, that. But what about details on the rich and the famous, like Bill Clinton, who traveled to Epstein’s “Orgy Island?”
Just as interesting in this CNBC article is how the writer, Dan Mangan, slants the news. “Epstein had socialized for years with wealthy and powerful people,” Mangan writes, “including Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, as well as with Britain’s Prince Andrew.” What Mangan fails to mention is that unlike Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew, Donald Trump paid no visits to Epstein’s island of sleaze.
Attorney General Bill Barr told the American people in mid-October that the Justice Department’s review of the Russian hoax would not be available until after this year’s election. The election at the moment remains in stasis, but we might ask: Where’s the report? And why the silence surrounding it?
I Profiles in Corruption... Schweizer, Peter Best Price: $17.98 Buy New $17.99 (as of 03:27 UTC - Details) f we Google “Hunter Biden laptop,” we find a few reports from early November. Many of these pieces seem more bent on destroying this story than investigating it. “Move along, folks,” is the watchword. “Nothing to see here.” And so we get headlines like this one from Politico: “How ‘Obamagate’ and Hunter’s ‘laptop from hell’ fizzled.” Did the story fizzle or did the press simply disappear it down the rabbit hole?
Now we are mired in an election corrupted by fraud and vote tampering. Few dispute that some voting irregularities occurred, but Democrats and some Republicans are now insisting that President Trump and his team stop poking their noses into the vote count and move on for the good of the country.
There’s that rabbit hole again.
So what do all of these stories have in common?
In a word, corruption.
Read the Whole Article


lewrockwell--2020-11-19--Here We Go Again

Here We Go Again

“ Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others .
I do not add ‘ within the limits of the law ’ because the law is often but the tyrant ’ s will , and always so when it violates the right of an individual.
” — Thomas Jefferson ( 1743-1826 ) As if nanny state governors had been sleepwalking through the tyrannical shutdowns and their disastrous consequences last spring and summer , as if they were ignorant of the economic destruction of those they barred from going @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as if they thought it is lawful to assault natural rights and constitutional guarantees , these same governors are now beginning another wave of interferences with personal liberty .
Slowly , over the past 10 days , while the eyes of the public and the media have been on the counting of votes in the presidential election and the ensuing allegations and litigations , governors in New Jersey , Pennsylvania , Michigan , Connecticut and New York have threatened to impose or have begun to impose their unconstitutional , illegal , immoral and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ order — they claim — to rid the land of the COVID-19 virus .
CONSTITUTION IN EXILE , ... Andrew P. Napolitano Best Price : $ 0.10 Buy New $ 3.93 By doing so , they have reignited the age-old debate of individual liberty versus public safety .
In this case , the safety they claim to be enhancing is safety from disease .
Yet , by their executive orders , they have purported to use state law to interfere with freedoms without due process that are guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ themselves up for criminal prosecutions when normalcy returns .
Here is the backstory .
For the past four years , I have been working on a 650-page treatise that explores the origins of human freedom from a natural law perspective .
The book traces the recognition by scholars , jurists , theologians and , in the case of America at its founding , radical revolutionaries like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison , who truly believed and passionately argued that human freedom — our individual power to make unobstructed choices — comes from within @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Most of the historical defenders of this truism also believed in God and argued that He made us free by giving us free will .
This understanding of natural rights was wedded to the United States at its birth in 1776 when Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights , and again in 1791 when Madison wrote in the Ninth Amendment that because human liberty is so expansive the government must protect even unstated , unenumerated rights .
To protect our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sheep Andrew P. Napolitano Best Price : $ 1.00 Buy New $ 3.99 The framers could easily answer that question , yet the folks who run the government today do not want it asked because the answer implicates them .
In the revolutionary era , colonists could protect themselves from evildoers attempting to steal their property or take their lives .
But the foe they most feared was the government .
They fought a bloody war against the government of King George III because it assaulted their economic rights and their right to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ without the courageous revolutionaries .
It is not my neighbor , or even a thief in the night , who impairs my personal liberty — it is the government .
It does so , just as King George did , under the guise of safety .
Yet , the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were written precisely to prevent governments in America — state or federal — from interfering with our liberty , absent a jury trial at which they must prove fault .
This jury trial requirement is called due process @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and 14th Amendments , which mandate that the government comply with due process whenever it seeks to impair the life , liberty or property of any person .
Of course , a constitutional guarantee is only as reliable as is the fidelity to the Constitution of those in whose hands we repose it for safekeeping .
Now , back to these nanny state governors .
They have assumed to themselves the powers to write laws and enforce them .
That assumption violates the U.S. Constitution and the constitutions of the states in which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to write laws and the power to enforce laws is required to be separated in America .
We call that the separation of powers .
It is , according to my late friend Justice Antonin Scalia , the most unique and freedom-protecting aspect of the Constitution , and it applies to states as well as the federal government .
Add to this the so-called lockdowns — a demeaning word originating in the shutdown of prisons during riots — that directly impair personal liberties that are not only natural to us but are expressly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Court has interpreted it .
These lockdowns interfere with the freedom to speak , travel , worship , assemble , engage in commercial intercourse and use property to its highest and best use .
Lies the Government To ... Andrew P. Napolitano Best Price : $ 0.25 Buy New $ 4.46 Under federal law , when a government employee employs government tools to impair these enumerated rights — and does so without due process — that person commits a felony .
Thus , when governors use police powers to interfere with personal liberty @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Constitution — and do so without a trial at which the government proves fault , they have violated both state and federal law , no matter their reasoning .
Thus , all these executive orders regulating private personal behavior are profoundly unconstitutional and even criminal .
There is no pandemic exception to the Constitution .
It is liberty that flows in our veins , not false promises of government safety .
The Best of Andrew P. Napolitano

“Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because the law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.” — Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
As if nanny state governors had been sleepwalking through the tyrannical shutdowns and their disastrous consequences last spring and summer, as if they were ignorant of the economic destruction of those they barred from going to work or operating their businesses, as if they thought it is lawful to assault natural rights and constitutional guarantees, these same governors are now beginning another wave of interferences with personal liberty.
Slowly, over the past 10 days, while the eyes of the public and the media have been on the counting of votes in the presidential election and the ensuing allegations and litigations, governors in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Connecticut and New York have threatened to impose or have begun to impose their unconstitutional, illegal, immoral and illogical efforts to shut down society in order — they claim — to rid the land of the COVID-19 virus. CONSTITUTION IN EXILE,... Andrew P. Napolitano Best Price: $0.10 Buy New $3.93 (as of 04:40 UTC - Details)
By doing so, they have reignited the age-old debate of individual liberty versus public safety. In this case, the safety they claim to be enhancing is safety from disease. Yet, by their executive orders, they have purported to use state law to interfere with freedoms without due process that are guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. By doing that, they have set themselves up for criminal prosecutions when normalcy returns.
Here is the backstory.
For the past four years, I have been working on a 650-page treatise that explores the origins of human freedom from a natural law perspective. The book traces the recognition by scholars, jurists, theologians and, in the case of America at its founding, radical revolutionaries like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, who truly believed and passionately argued that human freedom — our individual power to make unobstructed choices — comes from within us, and not from the government. Most of the historical defenders of this truism also believed in God and argued that He made us free by giving us free will.
This understanding of natural rights was wedded to the United States at its birth in 1776 when Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, and again in 1791 when Madison wrote in the Ninth Amendment that because human liberty is so expansive the government must protect even unstated, unenumerated rights.
To protect our rights from whom?
A Nation of Sheep Andrew P. Napolitano Best Price: $1.00 Buy New $3.99 (as of 04:45 UTC - Details) The framers could easily answer that question, yet the folks who run the government today do not want it asked because the answer implicates them. In the revolutionary era, colonists could protect themselves from evildoers attempting to steal their property or take their lives. But the foe they most feared was the government. They fought a bloody war against the government of King George III because it assaulted their economic rights and their right to self-government.
History is repeating itself, without the courageous revolutionaries. It is not my neighbor, or even a thief in the night, who impairs my personal liberty — it is the government. It does so, just as King George did, under the guise of safety. Yet, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were written precisely to prevent governments in America — state or federal — from interfering with our liberty, absent a jury trial at which they must prove fault.
This jury trial requirement is called due process. It is guaranteed by the Fifth and 14th Amendments, which mandate that the government comply with due process whenever it seeks to impair the life, liberty or property of any person. Of course, a constitutional guarantee is only as reliable as is the fidelity to the Constitution of those in whose hands we repose it for safekeeping.
Now, back to these nanny state governors. They have assumed to themselves the powers to write laws and enforce them. That assumption violates the U.S. Constitution and the constitutions of the states in which they were elected, because the power to write laws and the power to enforce laws is required to be separated in America. We call that the separation of powers. It is, according to my late friend Justice Antonin Scalia, the most unique and freedom-protecting aspect of the Constitution, and it applies to states as well as the federal government.
Add to this the so-called lockdowns — a demeaning word originating in the shutdown of prisons during riots — that directly impair personal liberties that are not only natural to us but are expressly guaranteed by the Constitution as the Supreme Court has interpreted it. These lockdowns interfere with the freedom to speak, travel, worship, assemble, engage in commercial intercourse and use property to its highest and best use. Lies the Government To... Andrew P. Napolitano Best Price: $0.25 Buy New $4.46 (as of 12:15 UTC - Details)
Under federal law, when a government employee employs government tools to impair these enumerated rights — and does so without due process — that person commits a felony.
Thus, when governors use police powers to interfere with personal liberty — liberty that is expressly guaranteed by the Constitution — and do so without a trial at which the government proves fault, they have violated both state and federal law, no matter their reasoning. Thus, all these executive orders regulating private personal behavior are profoundly unconstitutional and even criminal.
There is no pandemic exception to the Constitution. It is liberty that flows in our veins, not false promises of government safety.
Reprinted with the author’s permission.
The Best of Andrew P. Napolitano


lewrockwell--2020-11-19--An Invitation To Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies

In lieu of writing reviews of their own books – with the exception of Walt Whitman , who did that with Leaves of Grass – writers often write introductions or prefaces .
The purpose of such introductions is to give the prospective readers a sense of what to expect in the pages that follow , as if the author knew exactly what he was writing when he was writing it , as if he weren ’ t waylaid by words along the way , or could possibly know what a reader may experience when reading them .
In a way @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even while knowing that all writing , if it is any good , is a leap into the relative dark , both for the writer and the reader .
We can ’ t know beforehand how either will affect us .
What changes us in life and in books is always surprising .
Seeking Truth in a Cou ... Curtin , Edward Buy New $ 26.95 The following is the Introduction to my new book , Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies .
I offer it here as an invitation to consider @ @ @ @ @ @ @ may seek together .
Sort of like Whitman ’ s invitation : Now I will you to be a bold swimmer , To jump off in the midst of the sea , and rise again and nod to me and shout , and laughingly dash with your hair .
In putting together this selection of essays , I was reminded of what Albert Camus once wrote : “ A man ’ s work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover , through the detours of art , those two or three great @ @ @ @ @ @ @ heart first opened.
” While I do not claim that all these essays are art , they are my efforts to say in the most eloquent way I can what really has mattered to me in recent years , not just politically but personally , since they are entwined .
Upon reflection , I see that what matters to me now is what mattered to me when I was young .
Although the issues have changed in certain ways as they must , I have not—unless , or because , my wanderings through @ @ @ @ @ @ @ meant , in Nietzsche ’ s words , that I have been becoming who I am .
This seems true to me , and the essaying of the words that follow are part of that becoming .
Ortega y Gassett once said that “ whether he be an original or a plagiarist , man is the novelist of himself.
” I agree .
While a book of essays is not a novel , if read in its entirety , it does tell a story that reveals the times and the man who tells @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And each story , if told well , always has a double dimension , the old and the new .
Every life and every event is disclosed in an historical context , now and then and all the time in between .
While hoping I am an original , I know that I have learned and borrowed from many others .
My greater hope is that what I say here is said in a way no other could , that it bears my original stamp .
That it is novel .
For @ @ @ @ @ @ @ grasp the unique nature of our current era simply by repeating straightforward political analyses .
That approach is necessary but not enough .
For it leaves out the hidden heart of a world that seems to be spinning madly toward some kind of denouement .
It omits all the little thoughts , secrets , fears , and desires of so many people who wish to speak but can ’ t find the words to express their thoughts .
Ways of Seeing : Based ... Berger , John Best Price : $ 1.11 Buy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , I have been obsessed with truth , death , and freedom .
As I recall , those words have been synonymous for God for many thinkers .
So I suppose you could say that I have always been intoxicated with God or for God , or maybe God has been intoxicated with me .
I don ’ t know , nor do I care to : knowledge is overrated .
I know what I feel .
My concerns have been those of many writers throughout the ages—poets , rebels , journalists , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , desperados for truth and a peaceful world of love and kindness .
Those I have admired the most , believers or unbelievers—it is often hard to tell the difference , nor does it matter—were those who dismissed categories , distinctions , or labels , but who wrote freely because for them to write freely was to live freely and not to be caged by anyone ’ s restrictions as to what they should be saying or how they were saying it .
For them truth was their God , and through the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were always seeking to disclose what was hidden from common sight .
They used language to open up cracks in the consensus reality that the great poet and writer Kenneth Rexroth called the “ social lie ” : “ Since all society is organized in the interest of exploiting classes and since if men knew this they would cease to work and society would fall apart , it has always been necessary , at least since the urban revolutions , for societies to be governed ideologically by a system of fraud.
” Indeed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ massive fraud where the trans-national wealthy elites , led by the American war and propaganda machine , continue to try to convince the gullible that they are saviors of humanity even as they lie and cheat and murder by the millions .
So what follows are my efforts to unearth the fraud , while celebrating the beauty of life and telling little stories here and there that I hope exemplify its comedy and tragedy .
I am always experimenting every time I sit down to write .
Not consciously , since I let @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I think is evident in many pieces , thoughts come to me when walking , and from those initial thoughts comes the path I follow , not knowing exactly where I am headed .
Some of these essays are highly intellectual and structured ; some , straightforwardly political ; others are meanderings that seek to express essential truths I sense in the telling .
The process feels physical to me .
It has a feel and smell .
A rhythm .
Like a song .
Like a dawdling walk in the woods or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ call them all essays , it is to indicate that they are my attempts , my experiments , my experience ( Latin : exigere : trial , attempt , try ) to disclose to myself and anyone who might read them what is going on in the world that I find important and worth investigating .
To use my artistic and sociological imagination to connect the dots between the personal and the social and in so doing to say something worth sharing with others .
The Stranger Albert Camus Best Price : $ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ostensible starting point—a major event , a book , an experience—you can usually be sure that by the time you have read to the end of the piece , I will have branched off down by-ways that lead to other trails that eventually reconnect to the main path .
Or so I hope .
While I usually see how the roads all lead back to one , sometimes I only intuit it and the reader is left to do the reconnoitering alone .
I think this is good .
For while these essays @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a book , verbal tenses and ink can be misleading .
They suggest that the author ’ s quest is over , that what motivated the initial words is past , that the case is closed and the reader and writer are dead-heads satisfied with their knowingness .
For me , that is far from true .
The paradox of having written these essays is that I have tried to do so in language that evokes in the reader the exhilaration I felt in writing them , and that such aliveness will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ against war and injustice .
I have arranged the essays in no particular order , except to begin and end with a few that tell you something about me .
I think it is always good to have some deeper sense of who the author is whose words you are reading , beyond the brief notices on the back of books .
These essays cover a wide variety of topics : propaganda , wars , government assassinations , work , nature , time , the CIA , silence , poetry , digital dementia @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wide , as I try to connect the scattered dots to draw a coherent picture of our world today .
Since I write with no particular goal in mind except truth as I see it , perhaps readers would be best served by randomly choosing a piece and seeing where it might lead them .
As with living , I suspect that reading is best done somewhat randomly in the hope that one experiences a sense of liberation in the process .
I have scattered some satirical pieces throughout to add a bit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the reader will not mistake their “ authors ” for the real me .
But if so , that would add to the humor , something we need to survive .
Three authors whom I hold in high esteem and whose names I mention numerous times in this book are John Berger , Albert Camus , and James W. Douglass .
JFK and the Unspeakabl ... Douglass , James W. Best Price : $ 6.42 Buy New $ 13.52 Berger is often described as a Marxist art critic , but such an appellation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more than that .
While always situating his analyses in historical and cultural contexts , and never forgetting the class structure that underlies the cruel capitalistic order , he was acutely aware that consumerism and therefore global capitalism as well as philosophical materialism rested upon a “ materialist fantasy ” that denied the spiritual power of evil and the spiritual power of good to respond .
As a counter-weight , Berger always made sure to cling close to human reality and include what he called “ enclaves of the beyond ” in his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hiding places of hope where the spiritual faith in human love and solidarity was nourished and sustained despite the world ’ s evil .
Albert Camus was very similar in many ways .
An avowed atheist with a spiritual core , he was an artistic anarchist with a passionate spiritual hunger and an austere and moral Don Juan .
He could not be pigeonholed .
This drove many crazy .
His allegiance was to truth , not ideologies .
He tried to fight injustice while extolling life ’ s beauty and the human @ @ @ @ @ @ @ essence of the ever-recurring plague that evil doers inflict upon the world .
He was preoccupied with death , freedom , and an absent God , but never gave up hope and insisted that rebellion was the only honorable course .
Yet the fight against the plague must go on ; that was Camus ’ message .
If not , you will be destroyed by your own complicity in evil .
James W. Douglass , although a writer of a more overt spiritual sensibility , continues to write brilliantly about “ the unspeakable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the U.S. government ’ s assassinations of its greatest anti-war leaders : JFK , Malcom X , MLK , and RFK .
The unspeakable is a term coined by the Trappist monk Thomas Merton in the mid-1960s .
He meant it to point to a systemic evil that permeates American society that defies speech : “ It is the void that contradicts everything that is spoken even before the words are said ; the void that gets into the language of public and official declarations at the very moment when they are pronounced @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the hollowness of the abyss .
It is the void out of which Eichmann drew the punctilious exactitude of his obedience .
.
.
.
” It is , in other words , the plague that is us when we live in the nest of the unspeakable as obedient servants of the American Empire .
Douglass makes the plague manifest in order to give us hope , and in speaking the unspeakable , he shows us both the radical evil and the redemptive courage that we are all capable of .
I mention @ @ @ @ @ @ @ how grateful I am for their work .
There are many others , of course , whom you will encounter in the course of reading these essays .
For even when we write alone , even when we think we walk alone , we are always following in others ’ footsteps .
As Camus says in one of his short stories , it is hard to distinguish between solitary and solidary .
The Best of Edward Curtin

In lieu of writing reviews of their own books – with the exception of Walt Whitman, who did that with Leaves of Grass – writers often write introductions or prefaces. The purpose of such introductions is to give the prospective readers a sense of what to expect in the pages that follow, as if the author knew exactly what he was writing when he was writing it, as if he weren’t waylaid by words along the way, or could possibly know what a reader may experience when reading them. In a way, I too have done that, even while knowing that all writing, if it is any good, is a leap into the relative dark, both for the writer and the reader. We can’t know beforehand how either will affect us. What changes us in life and in books is always surprising.
Who knows?
Seeking Truth in a Cou... Curtin, Edward Buy New $26.95 (as of 02:59 UTC - Details) The following is the Introduction to my new book, Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies. I offer it here as an invitation to consider joining me in the book so we may seek together. Sort of like Whitman’s invitation:
Now I will you to be a bold swimmer,
To jump off in the midst of the sea, and rise again and nod to me and shout, and
laughingly dash with your hair.
Introduction
In putting together this selection of essays, I was reminded of what Albert Camus once wrote: “A man’s work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened.”
While I do not claim that all these essays are art, they are my efforts to say in the most eloquent way I can what really has mattered to me in recent years, not just politically but personally, since they are entwined. Upon reflection, I see that what matters to me now is what mattered to me when I was young. Although the issues have changed in certain ways as they must, I have not—unless, or because, my wanderings through life with all its changes have paradoxically meant, in Nietzsche’s words, that I have been becoming who I am.
This seems true to me, and the essaying of the words that follow are part of that becoming. Ortega y Gassett once said that “whether he be an original or a plagiarist, man is the novelist of himself.” I agree. While a book of essays is not a novel, if read in its entirety, it does tell a story that reveals the times and the man who tells them; it expresses two stories simultaneously. And each story, if told well, always has a double dimension, the old and the new. Every life and every event is disclosed in an historical context, now and then and all the time in between.
While hoping I am an original, I know that I have learned and borrowed from many others. My greater hope is that what I say here is said in a way no other could, that it bears my original stamp. That it is novel. For I am convinced that we cannot grasp the unique nature of our current era simply by repeating straightforward political analyses. That approach is necessary but not enough. For it leaves out the hidden heart of a world that seems to be spinning madly toward some kind of denouement. It omits all the little thoughts, secrets, fears, and desires of so many people who wish to speak but can’t find the words to express their thoughts. Ways of Seeing: Based ... Berger, John Best Price: $1.11 Buy New $6.67 (as of 05:40 UTC - Details)
From a young age, I have been obsessed with truth, death, and freedom. As I recall, those words have been synonymous for God for many thinkers. So I suppose you could say that I have always been intoxicated with God or for God, or maybe God has been intoxicated with me. I don’t know, nor do I care to: knowledge is overrated. I know what I feel. My concerns have been those of many writers throughout the ages—poets, rebels, journalists, philosophers, passionate writers of every stripe, desperados for truth and a peaceful world of love and kindness. Those I have admired the most, believers or unbelievers—it is often hard to tell the difference, nor does it matter—were those who dismissed categories, distinctions, or labels, but who wrote freely because for them to write freely was to live freely and not to be caged by anyone’s restrictions as to what they should be saying or how they were saying it. For them truth was their God, and through the weaving of words down a page they were always seeking to disclose what was hidden from common sight. They used language to open up cracks in the consensus reality that the great poet and writer Kenneth Rexroth called the “social lie”: “Since all society is organized in the interest of exploiting classes and since if men knew this they would cease to work and society would fall apart, it has always been necessary, at least since the urban revolutions, for societies to be governed ideologically by a system of fraud.”
Indeed, we live in the era of massive fraud where the trans-national wealthy elites, led by the American war and propaganda machine, continue to try to convince the gullible that they are saviors of humanity even as they lie and cheat and murder by the millions.
So what follows are my efforts to unearth the fraud, while celebrating the beauty of life and telling little stories here and there that I hope exemplify its comedy and tragedy. I am always experimenting every time I sit down to write. Not consciously, since I let inspiration guide me. Often, as I think is evident in many pieces, thoughts come to me when walking, and from those initial thoughts comes the path I follow, not knowing exactly where I am headed. Some of these essays are highly intellectual and structured; some, straightforwardly political; others are meanderings that seek to express essential truths I sense in the telling.
The process feels physical to me. It has a feel and smell. A rhythm. Like a song. Like a dawdling walk in the woods or by a flowing river. If I call them all essays, it is to indicate that they are my attempts, my experiments, my experience (Latin: exigere: trial, attempt, try) to disclose to myself and anyone who might read them what is going on in the world that I find important and worth investigating. To use my artistic and sociological imagination to connect the dots between the personal and the social and in so doing to say something worth sharing with others. The Stranger Albert Camus Best Price: $0.88 Buy New $6.50 (as of 05:40 UTC - Details)
Whatever my ostensible starting point—a major event, a book, an experience—you can usually be sure that by the time you have read to the end of the piece, I will have branched off down by-ways that lead to other trails that eventually reconnect to the main path. Or so I hope. While I usually see how the roads all lead back to one, sometimes I only intuit it and the reader is left to do the reconnoitering alone. I think this is good. For while these essays are set in ink within the covers of a book, verbal tenses and ink can be misleading. They suggest that the author’s quest is over, that what motivated the initial words is past, that the case is closed and the reader and writer are dead-heads satisfied with their knowingness. For me, that is far from true. The paradox of having written these essays is that I have tried to do so in language that evokes in the reader the exhilaration I felt in writing them, and that such aliveness will be carried into the world as rebellion against war and injustice.
I have arranged the essays in no particular order, except to begin and end with a few that tell you something about me. I think it is always good to have some deeper sense of who the author is whose words you are reading, beyond the brief notices on the back of books.
These essays cover a wide variety of topics: propaganda, wars, government assassinations, work, nature, time, the CIA, silence, poetry, digital dementia, etc. They range far and wide, as I try to connect the scattered dots to draw a coherent picture of our world today. Since I write with no particular goal in mind except truth as I see it, perhaps readers would be best served by randomly choosing a piece and seeing where it might lead them. As with living, I suspect that reading is best done somewhat randomly in the hope that one experiences a sense of liberation in the process. I have scattered some satirical pieces throughout to add a bit of levity to serious matters and hope the reader will not mistake their “authors” for the real me. But if so, that would add to the humor, something we need to survive.
Three authors whom I hold in high esteem and whose names I mention numerous times in this book are John Berger, Albert Camus, and James W. Douglass.
JFK and the Unspeakabl... Douglass, James W. Best Price: $6.42 Buy New $13.52 (as of 06:45 UTC - Details) Berger is often described as a Marxist art critic, but such an appellation is misleading, for he was much more than that. While always situating his analyses in historical and cultural contexts, and never forgetting the class structure that underlies the cruel capitalistic order, he was acutely aware that consumerism and therefore global capitalism as well as philosophical materialism rested upon a “materialist fantasy” that denied the spiritual power of evil and the spiritual power of good to respond. As a counter-weight, Berger always made sure to cling close to human reality and include what he called “enclaves of the beyond” in his writing. These were often the marginalized hiding places of hope where the spiritual faith in human love and solidarity was nourished and sustained despite the world’s evil.
Albert Camus was very similar in many ways. An avowed atheist with a spiritual core, he was an artistic anarchist with a passionate spiritual hunger and an austere and moral Don Juan. He could not be pigeonholed. This drove many crazy. His allegiance was to truth, not ideologies. He tried to fight injustice while extolling life’s beauty and the human search for happiness. He grasped the essence of the ever-recurring plague that evil doers inflict upon the world. He was preoccupied with death, freedom, and an absent God, but never gave up hope and insisted that rebellion was the only honorable course. Yet the fight against the plague must go on; that was Camus’ message. If not, you will be destroyed by your own complicity in evil.
James W. Douglass, although a writer of a more overt spiritual sensibility, continues to write brilliantly about “the unspeakable” that has been used to cover-up the U.S. government’s assassinations of its greatest anti-war leaders: JFK, Malcom X, MLK, and RFK. The unspeakable is a term coined by the Trappist monk Thomas Merton in the mid-1960s. He meant it to point to a systemic evil that permeates American society that defies speech: “It is the void that contradicts everything that is spoken even before the words are said; the void that gets into the language of public and official declarations at the very moment when they are pronounced, and makes them ring dead with the hollowness of the abyss. It is the void out of which Eichmann drew the punctilious exactitude of his obedience . . . .” It is, in other words, the plague that is us when we live in the nest of the unspeakable as obedient servants of the American Empire. Douglass makes the plague manifest in order to give us hope, and in speaking the unspeakable, he shows us both the radical evil and the redemptive courage that we are all capable of.
I mention these three brilliant writers here to say how grateful I am for their work. There are many others, of course, whom you will encounter in the course of reading these essays. For even when we write alone, even when we think we walk alone, we are always following in others’ footsteps.
As Camus says in one of his short stories, it is hard to distinguish between solitary and solidary.
Reprinted with the author’s permission.
The Best of Edward Curtin


lewrockwell--2020-11-19--Ticketmaster Fascism, Biden Lockdown, and Population Reduction

In order to open up venues and stage music concerts again , audience members would have to show proof of vaccination or a recent negative virus test .
Otherwise , they wouldn ’ t be able to purchase a ticket .
Perfect .
A stadium full of obedient , self-congratulating sheep .
What will the musicians be playing ?
Funeral marches ?
But this is only step one in the larger process .
Think it through .
Eventually , no one will have to show proof , because , beyond Ticketmaster ’ s manipulations , EVERYONE ’ S medical status @ @ @ @ @ @ @ That ’ s what these “ show-proof ” training exercises are conditioning people for .
COVID-19 : Lockdowns on ... Betrus , Michael Buy New $ 16.99 This IS the new world order in action .
Want to shop , get a haircut , fly , go to the office , enter a public space ?
You ’ re already tagged .
AI has you in the database .
You ’ ve been tested or vaccinated , or no dice .
So if you think rebellion is unnecessary , think again .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sideways : technocracy loves you only if you obey .
Biden ’ s nightmare COVID task force is taking shape , as his handlers keep propping him up and pretending the election was on the up and up .
Dr. Michael Osterholm , playing the stern schoolmaster , is painting a picture of a dark winter ; he wants a national lockdown in all states .
EVERYBODY would go on federal welfare , to tide them over , until the experts say it ’ s safe to tip-toe outside .
No problem .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ didn ’ t really need it anyway .
Only deplorables want to work .
Another new task force member , Dr. Zeke Emanuel , who is , of course , a bioethicist , has stated in the past that 75 years of life for any individual is quite enough .
After that , it ’ s time to die .
No reason to take up space .
Does he know Biden ’ s age ?
Does he know that the overwhelming percentage of so-called COVID deaths is occurring in the elderly ?
Perhaps @ @ @ @ @ @ @ He ’ s an expert .
Therefore , he ’ s not only a bioethicist , he ’ s a population reductionist .
Exactly the man we need to “ lead the response to the virus.
” It ’ s easy : let the elderly die .
That takes care of that .
The simplest solutions are often best .
We can assume the Biden task force will push for a MANDATED COVID vaccine .
After all , it ’ s already paid for .
The leading candidates are RNA vaccines .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prior drug or vaccine .
It ’ s experimental .
In previous clinical trials , it caused serious problems .
Excessive inflammatory responses .
That ’ s a nice way of saying the body attacks itself .
Let ’ s see .
A vast experiment , commanded from Control Central .
A whole nation of guinea pigs , under the gun to take the shot .
Does that remind you of a past precedent in , say , Germany ?
The Road to Ruin : The ... James Rickards Best Price : $ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ve spent the last nine months , in over 200 articles , dismantling the lunatic fairy tale of a “ pandemic , ” from every significant factual angle .
The SARS-CoV-2 virus has never been proven to exist .
The PCR test spits out false-positives like coins from a rigged slot machine , thereby creating fake case numbers , which are used to justify the lockdowns and the economic devastation , which happens to be the real aim of the operation .
COVID is the latest titanic tremor in a long series of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the prominent features of the disintegration we ’ ve been witnessing is the cancelation of all rational debate .
This nihilistic approach asserts that an idea is worthless if the person advancing the idea has a “ personal flaw.
” Aside from the puerile fallacy of attacking the person and failing to examine the idea , the whole campaign is mindless , because every person can be criticized for having a flaw .
Therefore , no idea under the sun is worth considering or putting into practice .
At the bottom of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ finally come to Good versus Evil .
Remember the story of St. George and the Dragon ?
Here is an abridged version : This vile creature , who lives in a pond , controls a city of terrified citizens .
It emits venom into the water and the earth .
The people offer sacrifices as placation : their animals , and then their children .
But this effort fails .
Finally , the king ’ s daughter , the princess , is sent to be devoured by the dragon—at which point St. George @ @ @ @ @ @ @ act of astonishing sacrifice and purity , tries to send St. George away , in order to protect him .
He refuses .
He charges the dragon and wounds it with his lance , and then beheads it with his sword .
The triumph of Good over Evil .
The Problem with Socia ... Thomas DiLorenzo Best Price : $ 9.49 Buy New $ 11.93 But in our world , for a long period of time , many successful operations have been carried out , to transform people into the dragon .
Large @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as the enemy .
What is good and pure and righteous must be destroyed .
In our city , the perception becomes : “ the population is being controlled by St. George , and the dragon arrives to save the day.
” This reversal of Good and Evil , of course , is invisible to the “ normals , ” who have been trained to believe in official authority .
Modern dragons hate freedom .
They want to kill it .
They hate what is pure .
They want to deface it .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ cancel them .
“ Of all tyrannies , a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive .
It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies .
The robber baron ’ s cruelty may sometimes sleep , his cupidity may at some point be satiated ; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end…To be ‘ cured ’ against one ’ s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will ; to be classed with infants , imbeciles , and domestic animals.
” CS Lewis , 1948 .
This tyranny will fall , and as it does , the kind smiling face of the leader , the blank face of the bureaucrat , the arrogant face of the scientist will show their dragon ’ s rictus behind their masks .
A Republic Under Assau ... Fitton , Tom Buy New $ 30.00 The COVID lockdown fraud ; the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; the anarchy of looting and burning and assault ; the technocratic slavery of surveillance ; censorship of truth ; the forced unification of collectivist thought ; all parts of the same fascist obsession for control .
Those who know freedom are resisting , and will resist .
A critical mass is drawing closer .
Force from above will not deter it .
Evil is overplaying its hand .
You and I are not on this Earth to give in .
The sun does not rise in the morning to shine on eight @ @ @ @ @ @ @ does not choose to shine only on the rancid scum who want to rule us .
The war of thousands of years to establish individual freedom was not fought so we could lay freedom aside like some tired possession .
The freedom of each one of us is always there , waiting to be acted upon .
It never dies .
In spirit , neither do we .
“ The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will , in this crisis , shrink from the service of their country ; but he that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ love and thanks of man and woman.
” Thomas Paine , October 23 , 1776 .
Technocracy Rising : Th ... Wood , Patrick M. Best Price : $ 30.00 Buy New $ 24.00 Dissenters Project : Th ... Collection , Essay Best Price : $ 16.66 Buy New $ 9.95 Unmasked : Inside Antif ... Ngo , Andy Buy New $ 20.99 The Best of Jon Rappoport

Ticketmaster has a plan.
In order to open up venues and stage music concerts again, audience members would have to show proof of vaccination or a recent negative virus test. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to purchase a ticket.
Perfect. A stadium full of obedient, self-congratulating sheep. What will the musicians be playing? Funeral marches?
But this is only step one in the larger process. Think it through. Eventually, no one will have to show proof, because, beyond Ticketmaster’s manipulations, EVERYONE’S medical status will be accessible on a database.
That’s what these “show-proof” training exercises are conditioning people for. COVID-19: Lockdowns on... Betrus, Michael Buy New $16.99 (as of 03:38 UTC - Details)
This IS the new world order in action. Want to shop, get a haircut, fly, go to the office, enter a public space? You’re already tagged. AI has you in the database. You’ve been tested or vaccinated, or no dice.
So if you think rebellion is unnecessary, think again. The world locked down, up, and sideways: technocracy loves you only if you obey.
Biden’s nightmare COVID task force is taking shape, as his handlers keep propping him up and pretending the election was on the up and up. Dr. Michael Osterholm, playing the stern schoolmaster, is painting a picture of a dark winter; he wants a national lockdown in all states. EVERYBODY would go on federal welfare, to tide them over, until the experts say it’s safe to tip-toe outside.
No problem. Just stop the whole economy. We didn’t really need it anyway. Only deplorables want to work.
Another new task force member, Dr. Zeke Emanuel, who is, of course, a bioethicist, has stated in the past that 75 years of life for any individual is quite enough. After that, it’s time to die. No reason to take up space.
Does he know Biden’s age? Does he know that the overwhelming percentage of so-called COVID deaths is occurring in the elderly? Perhaps he does. He certainly should. He’s an expert.
Therefore, he’s not only a bioethicist, he’s a population reductionist. Exactly the man we need to “lead the response to the virus.” It’s easy: let the elderly die. That takes care of that. The simplest solutions are often best.
We can assume the Biden task force will push for a MANDATED COVID vaccine. After all, it’s already paid for. The leading candidates are RNA vaccines. The technology has never been approved for any prior drug or vaccine. It’s experimental.
In previous clinical trials, it caused serious problems. Excessive inflammatory responses. That’s a nice way of saying the body attacks itself.
Let’s see. A vast experiment, commanded from Control Central. A whole nation of guinea pigs, under the gun to take the shot. Does that remind you of a past precedent in, say, Germany? The Road to Ruin: The ... James Rickards Best Price: $2.58 Buy New $7.99 (as of 10:20 UTC - Details)
If not, don’t worry. History doesn’t matter.
I’ve spent the last nine months, in over 200 articles, dismantling the lunatic fairy tale of a “pandemic,” from every significant factual angle. The SARS-CoV-2 virus has never been proven to exist. The PCR test spits out false-positives like coins from a rigged slot machine, thereby creating fake case numbers, which are used to justify the lockdowns and the economic devastation, which happens to be the real aim of the operation.
COVID is the latest titanic tremor in a long series of globalist shocks aimed at civilization.
One of the prominent features of the disintegration we’ve been witnessing is the cancelation of all rational debate. This nihilistic approach asserts that an idea is worthless if the person advancing the idea has a “personal flaw.”
Aside from the puerile fallacy of attacking the person and failing to examine the idea, the whole campaign is mindless, because every person can be criticized for having a flaw. Therefore, no idea under the sun is worth considering or putting into practice.
At the bottom of this rabbit hole of anarchy, we finally come to Good versus Evil.
Remember the story of St. George and the Dragon? Here is an abridged version:
This vile creature, who lives in a pond, controls a city of terrified citizens. It emits venom into the water and the earth. The people offer sacrifices as placation: their animals, and then their children. But this effort fails. Finally, the king’s daughter, the princess, is sent to be devoured by the dragon—at which point St. George arrives. The princess, in an act of astonishing sacrifice and purity, tries to send St. George away, in order to protect him. He refuses. He charges the dragon and wounds it with his lance, and then beheads it with his sword.
The triumph of Good over Evil. The Problem with Socia... Thomas DiLorenzo Best Price: $9.49 Buy New $11.93 (as of 06:45 UTC - Details)
But in our world, for a long period of time, many successful operations have been carried out, to transform people into the dragon.
Large numbers of citizens now view The Good as the enemy.
What is good and pure and righteous must be destroyed.
In our city, the perception becomes: “the population is being controlled by St. George, and the dragon arrives to save the day.”
This reversal of Good and Evil, of course, is invisible to the “normals,” who have been trained to believe in official authority.
Modern dragons hate freedom. They want to kill it. They hate what is pure. They want to deface it. They hate ideas. They want to cancel them.
This tyranny will fall.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end…To be ‘cured’ against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.” CS Lewis, 1948.
This tyranny will fall, and as it does, the kind smiling face of the leader, the blank face of the bureaucrat, the arrogant face of the scientist will show their dragon’s rictus behind their masks. A Republic Under Assau... Fitton, Tom Buy New $30.00 (as of 03:00 UTC - Details)
The COVID lockdown fraud; the economic devastation; the march toward socialism; the anarchy of looting and burning and assault; the technocratic slavery of surveillance; censorship of truth; the forced unification of collectivist thought; all parts of the same fascist obsession for control.
Those who know freedom are resisting, and will resist. A critical mass is drawing closer. Force from above will not deter it. Evil is overplaying its hand.
You and I are not on this Earth to give in.
The sun does not rise in the morning to shine on eight billion domesticated human animals.
The sun does not choose to shine only on the rancid scum who want to rule us.
The war of thousands of years to establish individual freedom was not fought so we could lay freedom aside like some tired possession. The freedom of each one of us is always there, waiting to be acted upon.
It never dies. In spirit, neither do we.
“The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.” Thomas Paine, October 23, 1776.
Reprinted with permission from Jon Rappoport’s blog.
Technocracy Rising: Th... Wood, Patrick M. Best Price: $30.00 Buy New $24.00 (as of 07:16 UTC - Details) Dissenters Project: Th... Collection, Essay Best Price: $16.66 Buy New $9.95 (as of 05:08 UTC - Details) Unmasked: Inside Antif... Ngo, Andy Buy New $20.99 (as of 05:44 UTC - Details)
The Best of Jon Rappoport


lewrockwell--2020-11-19--Face Masks: We Live in the Era of Gluttony

Gluttony does not mean overeating .
Gluttony means : the constant pursuit of decadence to the point of decay and beyond .
The unchecked pursuit of comfort , so prevalent in my own homeland , the United States of America , and exported to the world , goes far beyond food , yet is sheer gluttony .
Decadence around food plays into this as a symptom .
It can be no surprise that obesity is so prevalent for self-control seems such a quaint notion in this time and place .
It is not immediate gratification that is problematic .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ natural output of a functioning and established relatively free market economy , a treasure of the human experiment that all who participate in it can be proud of .
It is the unchecked pursuit of that immediate gratification that is so gluttonous .
Face Masks In One Lesson Stevo , Allan Buy New $ 10.00 Don ’ t Blame The Many Methods Devised To Make Life More Safe Safety is not problematic in our world .
It is a natural output of our developed and relatively free market economy .
Where there is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ oneself varying levels of safety and to manage the benefits , costs , and consequences of that decision fall on the individual .
It is the unchecked pursuit of safety in our era that is so gluttonous .
Don ’ t Blame The Many Tools Created To Reduce Risk Risk reduction is no problem .
It is a beautiful thing , a natural output of our relatively free market environment .
Through insurance policies , commodity contracts , and many other useful tools , risk reduction can be sold by an individual to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pursuit of risk reduction that is so gluttonous .
Modern healthcare , medical technology , and methods of research , these are not the problem .
They are wonderful and natural products of a relatively free market .
It is their unchecked pursuit that is the problem .
We are witness to a pursuit in the name of health , so total , complete , and unchecked that Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben could credibly call it “ techno-medical despotism , ” and any reasonable person in the midst of this self-induced corona communism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be hard-pressed to claim otherwise .
What has become of us ?
What do we stand for to let a mother die alone ?
Do we even stand for anything ?
Don ’ t Blame The Joys Of Our Age For The Decay Of Our Age No , it is not the joys of our age that have done this to us .
It is we who have done it to ourselves , with each individual decision unchecked , gluttonous , repeated over a lifetime .
None of these useful aspects of life @ @ @ @ @ @ @ problem .
They are wonderful in fact .
It is the existence of our era in the dearth of the life-affirming concepts of philosophy , ethics , and morality that is the problem and the individual willingness to proceed forth enabling every want without question , entertaining every feeling at every moment , subjecting oneself to emotion , in a way unchecked by that which distinguishes us from other life on the planet : the ability to pause , reflect , and choose .
The face mask is pure gluttony .
And the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ willingly lost culture that has forsaken the wisdom of the ages for the nothingness and ephemera of trends and emotions .
To Cover The Face , Against All Credible Evidence To cover the face — against all credible evidence , contrary to science , enforced by fiat , threat , and force , and out of fear stoked by the ratings-whores we all too respectfully refer to as “ the fourth estate , ” “ the press , ” and “ the media , ” instead of more appropriate terms .
This is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this planet has ever known .
An extreme can act as a wake-up call — if we let it .
It can also be but an early mile marker on a very long and painful road .
The gluttony must come to an end if we are to hold on to any semblance of the culture we ’ ve come to know and love .
It won ’ t be easy .
It won ’ t be easy to take a stand now and to vow to never ever , for any reason @ @ @ @ @ @ @ What will be much harder is to wait even a day longer and to take a stand in the midst of greater societal decay .
It doesn ’ t get any easier .
100 million deaths over the last century of civilian men , women , and children , at the hands of governments that they thought they could trust to behave with some level of decency has taught us that standing up to tyranny never gets easier .
It only gets harder .
That is the lesson of the last century .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ some difficulty , it can be dealt with later with greater difficulty , or it can be dealt with after the point of no return has come , in which case there is zero chance to live a free life as you become a quixotic martyr to the cause of freedom that you refused to stand up for when it mattered .
Setting The Stage For The Next 41 Years In 1948 , communism descended upon Czechoslovakia .
In response , decent people had mixed reactions — some fought , some fled , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their streets and occupied their government .
It is not very different from the playbook used by the same sociopathic lowlifes , cut from the same cloth , who have emerged in 2020 .
Every culture has them , not every culture humors them , enables them , and then lets them run the show .
Cultures that allow that will have that .
It is what sociopaths do when given free rein in a society , and it is what weak people allow .
When it was time to vote that year @ @ @ @ @ @ @ communists in power , a power indestructible for the following 41 years .
What would the people of 1948 have done differently if they could speak to the people of 1989 and know what horrors they subjected their children and grandchildren to by sitting idly by ?
It is not unique to Czechoslovakia and the present-day United States .
This is a history repeated in a hundred countries : thugs , stolen elections , and complacency .
The Czechoslovaks were lucky .
They only had to endure communism for half as long as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Aren ’ t You Doing More ?
You wear a face mask that doesn ’ t work , and you wear this foolish rag , of all places on your precious face .
You are a fool if you think it stops here without you saying “ No more !
” In the absence of that resistance to such nonsense , the people of 2061 will have a message to share with you in which they wonder why you didn ’ t do more .
Why were you so compliant to the thugs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the many face masks of life ?
Why did you not pass on the inheritance of liberty that had been handed to you , rather than further enfeeble it ?
I ’ m the traveler from 2061 telling you that you aren ’ t doing enough .
It is not a mass movement that changes the world .
That is a behavior sheeplike .
It is one brave , knowing individual , taking the risk of doing the thing he knows to be right and the ripples that sends through the world around @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his own world and the immediate vicinity occupied by him and those with whom his has been entrusted .
Are you being as knowing and as steel-spined as you can be ?
Are you leading by example ?
Are you crafting your life into a model for others at every step of the way ?
If you are not , you are not doing enough .
The children of 2061 need you to be better .
They need you to pass them a greater inheritance than the one handed to you .
Allan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Masks in One Lesson ” is now available at Amazon , Barnes & Noble , and many other platforms in electronic and print format .
It debuts at an introductory price of $ 10 for the upcoming week before increasing to $ 21.99 .
The book presents a field-tested , individualized path for face mask non-compliance , based on the experiences of thousands over the course of 2020 .
It is the greatest available tool for those who vow to never again be forced into compliantly wearing a mask .
Bulk orders over @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ RadioRemnant.com .
The Best of Allan Stevo

Gluttony does not mean overeating.
Gluttony means: the constant pursuit of decadence to the point of decay and beyond.
The unchecked pursuit of comfort, so prevalent in my own homeland, the United States of America, and exported to the world, goes far beyond food, yet is sheer gluttony.
Decadence around food plays into this as a symptom. It can be no surprise that obesity is so prevalent for self-control seems such a quaint notion in this time and place.
Don’t Blame Immediate Gratification
It is not immediate gratification that is problematic. The potential for immediate gratification is merely the natural output of a functioning and established relatively free market economy, a treasure of the human experiment that all who participate in it can be proud of.
It is the unchecked pursuit of that immediate gratification that is so gluttonous. Face Masks In One Lesson Stevo, Allan Buy New $10.00 (as of 03:17 UTC - Details)
Don’t Blame The Many Methods Devised To Make Life More Safe
Safety is not problematic in our world. It is a natural output of our developed and relatively free market economy. Where there is freedom, the ability to choose for oneself varying levels of safety and to manage the benefits, costs, and consequences of that decision fall on the individual.
It is the unchecked pursuit of safety in our era that is so gluttonous.
Don’t Blame The Many Tools Created To Reduce Risk
Risk reduction is no problem. It is a beautiful thing, a natural output of our relatively free market environment. Through insurance policies, commodity contracts, and many other useful tools, risk reduction can be sold by an individual to another party.
It is the unchecked pursuit of risk reduction that is so gluttonous.
Don’t Blame Our Amazing Field Of Medical Technology & Healthcare
Modern healthcare, medical technology, and methods of research, these are not the problem. They are wonderful and natural products of a relatively free market.
It is their unchecked pursuit that is the problem.
We are witness to a pursuit in the name of health, so total, complete, and unchecked that Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben could credibly call it “techno-medical despotism,” and any reasonable person in the midst of this self-induced corona communism that humanity has plagued itself with would be hard-pressed to claim otherwise.
Never ending waves of lockdowns?
Perpetually covered faces?
Mothers with loving families dying along?
What has become of us?
What do we stand for to let a mother die alone?
Do we even stand for anything?
Don’t Blame The Joys Of Our Age For The Decay Of Our Age
No, it is not the joys of our age that have done this to us. It is we who have done it to ourselves, with each individual decision unchecked, gluttonous, repeated over a lifetime. None of these useful aspects of life in a relatively free market are the problem. They are wonderful in fact.
It is the existence of our era in the dearth of the life-affirming concepts of philosophy, ethics, and morality that is the problem and the individual willingness to proceed forth enabling every want without question, entertaining every feeling at every moment, subjecting oneself to emotion, in a way unchecked by that which distinguishes us from other life on the planet: the ability to pause, reflect, and choose.
That is gluttonous.
The face mask is pure gluttony. And the face mask is a symptom in our willingly lost culture that has forsaken the wisdom of the ages for the nothingness and ephemera of trends and emotions.
To Cover The Face, Against All Credible Evidence
To cover the face — against all credible evidence, contrary to science, enforced by fiat, threat, and force, and out of fear stoked by the ratings-whores we all too respectfully refer to as “the fourth estate,” “the press,” and “the media,” instead of more appropriate terms. This is the greatest extreme of mass gluttony that this planet has ever known.
An extreme can act as a wake-up call — if we let it. It can also be but an early mile marker on a very long and painful road.
The gluttony must come to an end if we are to hold on to any semblance of the culture we’ve come to know and love.
It won’t be easy. It won’t be easy to take a stand now and to vow to never ever, for any reason, wear the face mask again. What will be much harder is to wait even a day longer and to take a stand in the midst of greater societal decay. It doesn’t get any easier.
100 million deaths over the last century of civilian men, women, and children, at the hands of governments that they thought they could trust to behave with some level of decency has taught us that standing up to tyranny never gets easier. It only gets harder. That is the lesson of the last century. It can be dealt with now with some difficulty, it can be dealt with later with greater difficulty, or it can be dealt with after the point of no return has come, in which case there is zero chance to live a free life as you become a quixotic martyr to the cause of freedom that you refused to stand up for when it mattered.
Setting The Stage For The Next 41 Years
In 1948, communism descended upon Czechoslovakia. In response, decent people had mixed reactions — some fought, some fled, some settled in — as thugs roamed their streets and occupied their government. It is not very different from the playbook used by the same sociopathic lowlifes, cut from the same cloth, who have emerged in 2020. Every culture has them, not every culture humors them, enables them, and then lets them run the show.
Cultures that allow that will have that. It is what sociopaths do when given free rein in a society, and it is what weak people allow.
When it was time to vote that year, the stolen elections implausibly placed the communists in power, a power indestructible for the following 41 years. What would the people of 1948 have done differently if they could speak to the people of 1989 and know what horrors they subjected their children and grandchildren to by sitting idly by? It is not unique to Czechoslovakia and the present-day United States. This is a history repeated in a hundred countries: thugs, stolen elections, and complacency.
The Czechoslovaks were lucky. They only had to endure communism for half as long as the people of the USSR.
Why Aren’t You Doing More?
You wear a face mask that doesn’t work, and you wear this foolish rag, of all places on your precious face. You are a fool if you think it stops here without you saying “No more!” In the absence of that resistance to such nonsense, the people of 2061 will have a message to share with you in which they wonder why you didn’t do more. Why were you so compliant to the thugs, to the stolen elections, to the many face masks of life?
Why did you not pass on the inheritance of liberty that had been handed to you, rather than further enfeeble it?
I’m the traveler from 2061 telling you that you aren’t doing enough.
It is not a mass movement that changes the world. That is a behavior sheeplike. It is one brave, knowing individual, taking the risk of doing the thing he knows to be right and the ripples that sends through the world around him.
That is how he changes his own world and the immediate vicinity occupied by him and those with whom his has been entrusted.
Are you being as knowing and as steel-spined as you can be? Are you leading by example? Are you crafting your life into a model for others at every step of the way?
If you are not, you are not doing enough.
The children of 2061 need you to be better. They need you to pass them a greater inheritance than the one handed to you.
Allan Stevo’s new book “Face Masks in One Lesson” is now available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and many other platforms in electronic and print format. It debuts at an introductory price of $10 for the upcoming week before increasing to $21.99. The book presents a field-tested, individualized path for face mask non-compliance, based on the experiences of thousands over the course of 2020. It is the greatest available tool for those who vow to never again be forced into compliantly wearing a mask. Bulk orders over 10 copies are available by writing [email protected].
The Best of Allan Stevo