Tuesday, December 29, 2020

7 Ways Governments Used the Coronavirus Pandemic to Crush Human Rights

Breitbart.com reported on December 25, 2020:

by John Hayward

Human rights activists were generally downbeat about the global state of affairs in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, often pointing to 2020 as one of the worst years in memory for declining civil liberties.

Here are seven ways governments have used the Chinese coronavirus pandemic to diminish human rights and civil liberties.

Freedom of Speech: The United Nations was among many agencies and advocacy groups to worry about the damage inflicted on freedom of speech during the pandemic, which included both rampant disinformation and ham-handed restrictions on speech in the name of controlling “disinformation.”

“People have died because governments have lied, hidden information, detained reporters, failed to level with people about the nature of the threat, and criminalized individuals under the guise of ‘spreading false information. People have suffered because some governments would rather protect themselves from criticism than allow people to share information, learn about the outbreak, know what officials are or are not doing to protect them,” U.N. Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression David Kaye said in July.

“In the past three months, numerous governments have used the COVID [Chinese coronavirus] -pandemic to repress expression in violation of their obligations under human rights law,” Kaye continued, citing Belarus, Cambodia, China, Iran, Egypt, India, Myanmar, and Turkey as nations of particular concern.

“I am further concerned about efforts to repress disinformation using tools of criminal law, which are likely to hamper the free flow of information, such as in Brazil and Malaysia,” Kaye added.

The International Research & Exchanges Board (IREX), an international education and development nonprofit, published a report in September called Freedom of Expression During Covid-19 that took a detailed look at how 20 different governments used the pandemic to curtail freedom of speech. Many of these restrictions were justified as efforts to control disinformation. Governments often cited the pandemic as an excuse to dramatically tighten existing restrictions on speech. Few examples of effective resistance to the new “emergency” restrictions were cited.

Press freedom: Related to the free speech issue, but distinct enough to consider the subject on its own, is the damage inflicted upon journalism by the pandemic. In a year-end report published last week, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) found more reporters imprisoned around the world than ever before, many arrested for coverage of the pandemic that contradicted official narratives. Unsurprisingly, Communist China was especially brutal about arresting reporters for pandemic coverage that challenged the government.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) published a similar report, finding over 130 members of the press jailed for reporting on the pandemic, including citizen journalists.  

“Behind every single one of these cases is the fate of a person who faces criminal trials, long imprisonment and often mistreatment because he did not submit to censorship and repression,” said RSF’s director in Germany, Katja Gloger.

Religious freedom: Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito warned in November that the pandemic imposed “previously unimaginable restrictions on individual liberty, from freedom of speech down to the right to a speedy trial, since almost every activity involving human contact has been restricted.”

“The COVID crisis has served as a sort of constitutional stress test, and in doing so, it has highlighted disturbing trends that were already present before the virus struck,” Alito said.

Justice Alito highlighted the danger to religious liberty, as houses of worship have been forced to obey extremely tight social distancing restrictions – often much tighter than activities involving more people and much greater risk of coronavirus transmission. He pointed to Nevada orders imposing much lower attendance caps on churches than casinos as an example.

“Take a quick look at the Constitution. You will see the free exercise clause of the First Amendment, which protects religious liberty. You will not find a craps clause or a blackjack clause or a slot machine clause,” he said.

Alito suggested – and some other religious freedom activists have explicitly asserted – that statist ideologues are using the coronavirus as an excuse to stamp out the freedom to congregate and worship, while giving free pandemic passes to activities they favor for ideological reasons, like mass protests. This hypocrisy and hostility to religion became especially obvious in New York, where the Supreme Court sided with religious groups against Governor Andrew Cuomo in November.

Freedom of movement: Quarantines, travel bans, lockdowns, and similar restrictions are obviously difficult to square with the freedom of citizens to travel as they desire, which in turn compromises other human rights that involve the movement of people and goods. Human Rights Watch (HRW) listed this conflict near the top of its dissertation on human rights during the coronavirus crisis:

Restrictions such as mandatory quarantine or isolation of symptomatic people must, at a minimum, be carried out in accordance with the law. They must be strictly necessary to achieve a legitimate objective, based on scientific evidence, proportionate to achieve that objective, neither arbitrary nor discriminatory in application, of limited duration, respectful of human dignity, and subject to review.

Broad quarantines and lockdowns of indeterminate length rarely meet these criteria and are often imposed precipitously, without ensuring the protection of those under quarantine – especially at-risk populations. Because such quarantines and lockdowns are difficult to impose and enforce uniformly, they are often arbitrary or discriminatory in application. 

HRW noted that China’s quarantines were exceptionally brutal, listing cases of people killed by them, including children. In the darkest days of the outbreak in China, the government was locking infected people in their homes and welding bars over the doors and windows. Somewhat less horrifying, but still disturbing, was the recent emergency lockdown in South Australia that forbade imprisoned citizens from getting fresh air and exercise outside, or even walking their dogs.

Surveillance vs. privacy rights: The coronavirus heightened concerns about intensive government surveillance, everywhere from dystopian China to the free world. There are good reasons to fear more governments will adopt China’s tools for monitoring citizens in the name of disease prevention, including versions of the mandatory smartphone app Beijing uses to color-code citizens for their infection status. 

Less draconian systems than China’s have been criticized for endangering privacy rights, such as the coronavirus alert program in South Korea, which had a habit of blasting out ostensibly “anonymous” alerts about infection that could easily be used to identify the individuals in question.

Big Data solutions to the pandemic tend to create massive databases of sensitive information that could be employed by governments for other purposes, or compromised by hackers. Legal protections for privacy in the digital era are still evolving, and those protections can be all too easily shredded in a time of pandemic crisis, or perhaps other “crises” the political class decides are the moral or practical equivalent of the coronavirus pandemic.

Political freedom: For better or worse, justified or otherwise, the pandemic led to a sizable number of delayed or canceled elections around the world. Opposition candidates frequently accused the governments in power of using the pandemic as an excuse to stave off elections that might have knocked them out of office. On the other hand, Iran’s stubborn insistence on holding an election for political theater was cited as one of the driving forces in that country’s horrific coronavirus outbreak. The effects of pandemic emergency measures on the 2020 U.S. presidential election will be debated for years to come.

“Since the coronavirus outbreak began, the condition of democracy and human rights has worsened in 80 countries, with particularly sharp deterioration in struggling democracies and highly repressive states, according to the experts surveyed by the project. More than 60 percent of the respondents predicted that the pandemic’s impact on political rights and civil liberties in their countries of focus would be mostly negative for the next three to five years,” Freedom House warned in October.

“What began as a worldwide health crisis has become part of the global crisis for democracy. Governments in every part of the world have abused their powers in the name of public health, seizing the opportunity to undermine democracy and human rights,” charged Freedom House President Michael J. Abramowitz.

The pandemic was generally useful for political repression and nourished authoritarianism around the globe, including the democracies of the Western world. Arguably all of the other ways in which rulers and elites used the coronavirus to crush human rights contribute to the erosion of political freedom – restricting free speech and association inevitably weaken democracy, for example.

Expanding government power: In America and around the world, opportunistic politicians and ideologues are using the pandemic to permanently increase their power and wealth. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) believes the virus it unleashed upon mankind will usher in the final triumph of centralized authoritarian power over free-market democracy because it supposedly proved that only authoritarian regimes can deal with a massive crisis like the Chinese coronavirus.

Coronavirus lockdowns created power structures that can be used to enforce the will of the State in countless other areas. Skepticism that any of those “emergency” dictatorial powers will be relinquished after the Wuhan coronavirus recedes is warranted. 

Modern history suggests it is more likely those mechanisms of control will be repurposed, finding new missions after the pandemic is over – if, indeed, the political class is ever willing to declare it “over.” 

Once people have grown accustomed to life-changing emergency measures, their rulers will be reluctant to let that highly useful state of emergency end, at least not until an equally useful emergency comes along. The very nature of human rights and civil liberties could be redefined by the pandemic and its aftermath. At the very least, it is likely that governments across the free world will use the pandemic to argue that they should consume and control more of the private sector’s wealth, so they have enough resources to deal with a menace on the scale of the Chinese coronavirus. The “right” to be protected from pandemics – and other crises deemed comparably important by politicians and media – will be said to trump every other right, and unlike the other rights it displaces, it will require ever greater concentrations of power in national capitals to administer.

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Sunday, December 20, 2020

Cardinal Burke: Forces of the 'Great Reset' have used COVID to advance 'evil agenda'

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Angela Merkel German chancellor under fire over Communist links

She denies she was close to the Communist rulers in East Germany, where she grew up.

So this 1972 photo of her in military-style uniform has left German Chancellor Angela Merkel ‘not amused’.

Then called Angela Kasner and aged 17, she is shown happily involved in a civil defence exercise under the gaze of an East German officer.

Drills included first aid and preparing for nuclear attack.

Mrs Merkel (circled) who was 17-year-old Angela Kasner when the picture was taken in 1972, is shown in fatigues marching with a group of friends and an East German officer

Mrs Merkel (circled) who was 17-year-old Angela Kasner when the picture was taken in 1972, is shown in fatigues marching with a group of friends and an East German officer

A member of Italy's metalworkers union walks by a banner with a picture of German Chancellor Angela Merkel during a demonstration in Rome. The unrest came as Mrs Merkel tried to dampen speculation over her links with East German communists

A member of Italy's metalworkers union walks by a banner with a picture of German Chancellor Angela Merkel during a demonstration in Rome. The unrest came as Mrs Merkel tried to dampen speculation over her links with East German communists

All children had to take part if they wanted to go to university, but Mrs Merkel is also alleged to have been a propaganda secretary for the youth movement, the FDJ.

The photo was found by an old schoolfriend, Sonja Felssberg, 58, and handed to a German newspaper.

Her smile is easily recognisable and her forage cap is set at a jaunty angle as she strides along at the High School Hermann Matern in Templin, where she was brought up behind the iron curtain.

Not even illness or a death in the family allowed for the youngsters to skip the martial lessons - they were simply postponed but had to be completed.

Sonja Felssberg, now 58 and an old school comrade, found the photo and handed it to a national German newspaper.

Mrs Merkel will hope the row doesn't undermine her bid for a third term in office

Mrs Merkel will hope the row doesn't undermine her bid for a third term in office

It was published as Mrs Merkel, who was the subject of austerity protests in Italy at the weekend, tried to play down allegations in a new book that she was much closer to the Communist rulers of the lost Socialist state than she previously admitted to, including holding a post as a propaganda secretary in the youth movement the FDJ.

Mrs. Felssberg said: 'We all had to sleep ten to a room in bunk beds when we did the exercises. In the day we learned things like treating wounds and stabilising patients - not much different from what you would learn today in first aid training with the Red Cross.

'But we also had to march and learn to use maps and a compass for hikes in the woods and wilderness. It was long ago but I remember it very well - and Angela.'

Mrs. Merkel is aiming for a third bid in office in the autumn.

She is hoping that the rumours about her alleged closeness to the politburo of East Germany will not diminish her chances.

But the photo of the old days has reportedly upset her.

One of her aides said: 'Madam Chancellor is not amused'

 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2328536/Angela-Merkel-Communist-links-new-image-uniform-released.html

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Friday, December 11, 2020

The False Prophet of the Apocalypse{VIDEO}...

LifeSiteNews.com reported on December 11, 2020:

by Fr. Frank Unterhalt

There is a prophecy of St. Francis of Assisi in an authentic and renowned source, in which he speaks of the appearance of an apostatic antipope in the time of tribulation (“futurae tribulationis”).[1]

It says “that someone who is not canonically elected and is infected with heretical wickedness, at the turning point of that tribulation raised to the papacy, would make a refined effort to give many the death of his error to drink” (“quod aliquis, non canonice electus et haeretica pravitate infectus, in articulo tribulationis illius ad papatum assumptus, multis mortem sui erroris sagaciter propinare moliretur”).[2] St. Francis of Assisi predicted that this figure “tyrannically usurps the papacy” (“papatum usurpare tyrannice”).[3]

It is in this sense that in our time St. Padre Pio has entrusted to his spiritual son, the famous exorcist Don Gabriele Amorth, the following dramatic words: “It is satan who has entered the womb of the Church, and within a short while, he will rule over a false church.”[4]

St. Padre Pio knew the Third Secret of Fatima — it had actually been revealed to him four years before the little shepherds.[5]

 

The well-known Spanish journalist José María Zavala asked Don Gabriele Amorth about it in more detail, and summarized the conclusion of the dialog as follows: “There were two recurring and interrelated themes: the great apostasy in the Church from its apex — in accordance with the testimony of Cardinal Ciappi — and the introduction of the devil to the head of the Church by means of a pope under the control of satan.”[6]

In this context, Zavala referred to the exact correspondence of these words to the statement of Frère Michel, a great expert on the message of Fatima and author of a trilogy on the subject. He stated: “It will be the time of the decisive battle between the Virgin and the devil. A flood of diabolical confusion will spread throughout the world. Satan will penetrate the highest levels of the Church. This will be the great apostasy announced for the last days, […] the ‘false prophet’ who betrays the Church in favor of the ‘beast,’ according to the prophecy of the Apocalypse.”[7]

In fact, as Sr. Lucia herself pointed out[8], the secret is revealed in the last book of Holy Scripture.

In that book, there is talk of the fiery red dragon (cf. Apoc 12:3), which is manifest in atheistic communism, and of the black beast (cf. Apoc 13:1-2), which represents freemasonry.

Then it says: “Another beast came up out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb, but it spoke like a dragon. It exercised all the power of the first beast before its eyes. It made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast” (Apoc 13:11-12).

The beast, which looks like a lamb, represents the ecclesiastical freemasonry that has penetrated into the interior of the temple — especially into the hierarchy. Its goal is to overcome the Catholic Church from within. It wants and achieves for a short time the creation of an idol — a false christ and a false church.[9]

The reference to the hierarchy of the Church is crucial, in which the mitre — with two horns — indicates the fullness of the priesthood. The beast that comes up out of the earth looks like a servant of Christ, the Lamb, but is a servant of satan, the dragon.

Thus, if the second beast is ecclesiastical freemasonry, it is personified and literally elevated to the summit in the false prophet at its head[10], who is expressly designated as such in three passages of the Apocalypse (Apoc 16:13; 19:20; 20:10).

He is the pseudo-religious leader of the anti-church. Through grave heresies and despicable sacrileges he advances the great apostasy from the top. He deceives and cheats the inhabitants of the earth (cf. Apoc 13:14) and wants to lead people to worship the antichrist, whose direct forerunner he is (cf. Apoc 13:12).

The former Bishop of Fulda, the exegete of the New Testament Prof. Dr. Dr. Eduard Schick, has also pointed out this dimension in his work on the Apocalypse: “The second beast’s mission is the unlimited seizure of power by the first; for this purpose it is ordered and equipped by the first; it is to lead people to recognize the first as what it claims to be, namely God himself. All his propaganda aims at this in words and deeds […] It is a matter of religiously transfiguring the world power of the antichrist and getting mankind to pay him cultic veneration in turn.”

Bishop Schick accordingly speaks of a satanic trinity. It consists of the dragon and the two beasts.

The first beast, which represents freemasonry, is personified in the antichrist, and the second, which represents ecclesiastical freemasonry, in the false prophet.[12] Their goal is the unrestricted rule of the world, the kingdom of the devil on earth.

“The rulers of the world, who had placed themselves in the service of the ‘satanic trinity,’ believe that the favorable opportunity has come to lead together the final destructive strike against the Church of Christ on earth. The satanic triad doubles its propaganda for this purpose.”[13]

Archbishop Dr. Dr. Fulton J. Sheen made it clear in this context that this agenda is marked by the establishment of a counter-church: “It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content. There will be a mystical body of the antichrist, which will resemble in all its externals the Mystical Body of Christ.”[14] Accordingly, an anti-church at its head necessarily needs an anti-pope, who is the false prophet of the Apocalypse.

The hostile aspiration wants to seduce people to “accept a new religion without the cross, a liturgy without the hereafter, a religion to destroy religion, or a politics that is a religion.”[15]

Blessed Anna Katharina Emmerich, the great German mystic, has seen and described the rise of the pernicious anti-church. She “saw how […] another dark church arose in Rome.”[16] In doing so, she used a drastic term that clearly demonstrates the apocalyptic extent of the event: “But the whole house was dark and black, and all that happened in it was darkness and gloom […] I also saw how very bad the consequences of this after-church would be. I saw it grow, I saw many heretics of all ranks go to the city.”[17]

Blessed Anna Katharina Emmerich saw the closure of the churches and the great distress of the Catholic communities everywhere.[18] She described the spread of the “dark after-church” as an implementation of the antichristian decisive struggle: “The sect receives its signature from the apocalyptic beast which, risen from the sea, dwells with it and drives it to fight against the flock of Christ.”[19]

Against the background of this apocalyptic period, the famous message of La Salette echoes like a loud and insistent warning: “Rome will lose faith and become the seat of the antichrist”[20].

November 30, 2020
St. Andrew, Apostle, brother of St. Peter
Fr. Frank Unterhalt

Translation by LifeSite’s Martin Bürger

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Thursday, December 3, 2020

Eva Vlaardingerbroek speaks out against modern day feminism and migration

 

https://www.nielsenreport.org  Dutch girl speaks out against modern day feminism and migration. At a party conference of new Dutch political party Forum for Democracy, a young lady with the name Eva Vlaardingerbroek gave a surprisingly refreshing speech in which she spoke out against modern day feminism. She stated that modern day feminism (also known as 3rd wave feminism) falls under the umbrella of cultural marxism. This speech has been translated into English.

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Sunday, November 29, 2020

Meet The Trust Fund Brats Trying To Destroy Capitalism

Roughly 18 months have passed since New York Magazine published a cover story declaring that, in the age of President Trump, all the new "it" kids in Brooklyn (we use the term "kids" loosely; most are well into their 30s) are avowed socialists.

As the reporter explains, the new generation of Brooklyn cool kids have blue check marks on twitter and low-paying editorial jobs at digital magazines like the (now defunct) Outline, Deadspin (a media outlet ostensibly dedicated to sports but realistically covered whatever its reporters and editors felt like writing about on any given day) or Jacobin, a magazine that has been described by some as "straight up Marxist" in its editorial slant. Almost all of them were white women, the most oppressed class.

One year later, a staff uprising at the NYT exposed just how deeply embedded these new crypto-marxist values have become in the modern American media environment. Staffers successfully ousted Opinion Page editor James Bennett over his decision to curate an essay from Republican Sen. Tom Cotton despite the fact that the opinion page is supposed to be an entirely separate editorial entity from the NYT's newsgathering operation.

This week, the NYT has published a story about a handful of wealthy heirs who have embraced the socialist credo, and who see their massive piles of inherited wealth as a symbol of shame, not a blessing for which they should be extremely grateful.

Take 25-year-old Sam Jacobs, for example. Described as "a socialist since college", he reportedly sees his family's "'extreme plutocratic wealth' as both a moral and economic failure".

"I want to build a world where someone like me, a young person who controls tens of millions of dollars, is impossible," he said.

Fortunately for Jacobs, his grandfather was one of the founders of Qualcomm, the ubiquitous chipmaker. And even if he gives $30 million away, he'll still have another $70 million or so coming to him over the course of his lifetime. And what's more, he's not alone. As the NYT reports, for all their kvetching about student loans, American millennials will soon become the beneficiaries of what social scientists are calling "the great wealth transfer": tens of trillions of dollars are expected to pass from the hands of baby boomers to their millennial and Gen X spawn over the coming decade.

However, most American millennials won't inherit anything, except for "debt, dim job prospects" and a "figment" of the social safety net (that seems like an exaggeration, especially considering that literally every single American citizen who reaches the required age will receive a monthly check from the federal government, part of a program called "social security", not to mention medicare/medicaid).

But as both a "trust-fund kid and an anticapitalist", Jacobs "is in a rare position among leftists fighting against economic inequality". And he's hardly along in trying to navigate "what it means to be with the 99%, when you're the 1%" - embracing the type of reductive, us-vs.-them thinking promoted by Bernie Sanders and his allies.

30-year-old Rachel Gelman is another example. Her wealthy family gave generously to liberal causes growing up. Now, as a 30-year-old preparing to inherit millions from her parents, Gelman is trying to find a way to give back since most of her family's money "comes from stocks...which means it comes from underpaying and undervaluing working-class people, and that’s impossible to disconnect from the economic legacies of Indigenous genocide and slavery."

Of course, no story about modern day socialism would be complete without a quote from professor Richard Wolff, an "economist" who currently teaches at the New School in Manhattan (an overpriced university dedicated to serving the overprivileged elite who could score high enough on their SATs to get into NYU).

As Wolff, known to millions of millennials for his guest appearances on the left wing podcast "Chapo Trap House", explains, all the money being inherited by today's millennials came from "a mammoth redistribution away from the working masses, creating a super-rich tiny minority at the expense of a fleeting American dream."

Later on in the story, one of the heirs whose wealth comes from a chain of strip malls, said the business model just reeks of "intersectional oppression".

Heirs whose wealth has come from a specific source sometimes use that history to guide their giving. Pierce Delahunt, a 32-year-old "socialist, anarchist, Marxist, communist or all of the above," has a trust fund that was financed by their former stepfather’s outlet mall empire. (Mx. Delahunt takes nongendered pronouns.)

"When I think about outlet malls, I think about intersectional oppression," Mx. Delahunt said. There’s the originally Indigenous land each mall was built on, plus the low wages paid to retail and food service workers, who are disproportionately people of color, and the carbon emissions of manufacturing and transporting the goods. With that on their mind, Mx. Delahunt gives away $10,000 a month, divided between 50 small organizations, most of which have an anticapitalist mission and in some way tackle the externalities of discount shopping.

In reality, most of the wealth held by baby boomers wasn't redistributed, but was in fact created during the 20th century during the post-war economic boom - an economic movement that generated more prosperity, and dragged more people out of poverty, than any earlier period in human history.

PS  I predict a growing industry of setting up "charity" scams to swindle these kids that are so ignorant they won't know they are getting fleeced.  Think how many people at least twice as smart as them get scammed by Madoff and such.

Troll them in a chat room, invite them out to your poverty center with a dozen accomplices playing the victim roles and schedule a monthly distribution.  Use the same setup with a different name to swindle other hipster dufuses.  Farm as many subsidies as they can.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/i-want-build-world-where-someone-me-impossible-meet-trust-fund-brats-trying-destroy

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Monday, November 16, 2020

What Is The Grest Reset?

Story at-a-glance

  • The globalist technocracy is using the COVID-19 pandemic to bypass democratic accountability, override opposition, accelerate their agenda and to impose it on the public against our will
  • The Great Reset refers to a global agenda to monitor and control the world through digital surveillance. You’ll be tied to it through an electronic ID linked to your bank account and health records, and a social credit ID that will end up dictating every facet of your life
  • The Great Reset is about getting rid of capitalism and free enterprise, and replacing them with technocracy, publicly referred to as “sustainable development” and “stakeholder capitalism”
  • There’s not a single area of life that is left out of this Great Reset plan. The planned reform will affect everything from government, energy and finance to food, medicine, real estate, policing and even how we interact with our fellow human beings in general
  • Privacy protections are a major hurdle in this plan, which is why every effort is made to get people to loosen their views on the right for privacy. In the U.S., we also have the Constitution that stands in the way, which is why efforts to undermine, circumvent, ignore or nullify it are increasing

What is this “Great Reset” we’re now hearing about? In a nutshell, the Great Reset refers to a global agenda to monitor and control the world through digital surveillance.

As explained by journalist James Corbett in his October 16, 2020, Corbett Report above,1 the Great Reset is a new “social contract” that ties every person to it through an electronic ID linked to your bank account and health records, and a social credit ID that will end up dictating every facet of your life.

It’s about getting rid of capitalism and free enterprise, and replacing them with “sustainable development” and “stakeholder capitalism” — terms that belie their nefarious, anti-humanity intents. As noted in the book, “Technocracy: The Hard Road to World Order”:2

“… Sustainable Development is Technocracy … The Sustainable Development movement has taken careful steps to conceal its true identity, strategy and purpose, but once the veil is lifted, you will never see it any other way. Once its strategy is unmasked, everything else will start to make sense.”

The Grand Plan

In her blog post “The Great Reset for Dummies,” Tessa Lena summarizes the purpose behind the call for a global “reset”:3

“The mathematical reason for the Great Reset is that thanks to technology, the planet has gotten small, and the infinite expansion economic model is bust — but obviously, the super wealthy want to continue staying super wealthy, and so they need a miracle, another bubble, plus a surgically precise system for managing what they perceive as ‘their limited resources.’

Thus, they desperately want a bubble providing new growth out of thin air — literally — while simultaneously they seek to tighten the peasants’ belts, an effort that starts with ‘behavioral modification,’ a.k.a. resetting the western peasants’ sense of entitlement to high life standards and liberties (see awful ‘privilege’).

The psychological reason for the Great Reset is the fear of losing control of property, the planet. I suppose, if you own billions and move trillions, your perception of reality gets funky, and everything down below looks like an ant hill that exists for you. Just ants and numbers, your assets. Thus, the practical aim of the Great Reset is to fundamentally restructure the world’s economy and geopolitical relations based on two assumptions:

One, that every element of nature and every life form is a part of the global inventory (managed by the allegedly benevolent state, which, in turn, is owned by several suddenly benevolent wealthy people, via technology).

And two, that all inventory needs to be strictly accounted for: be registered in a central database, be readable by a scanner and easily ID’ed, and be managed by AI, using the latest ‘science.’

The goal is to count and then efficiently manage and control all resources, including people, on an unprecedented scale, with unprecedented digital … precision — all while the masters keep indulging, enjoying vast patches of conserved nature, free of unnecessary sovereign peasants and their unpredictability.”

Global Asset Reallocations Will Not Benefit ‘the People’

These new global “assets” can also be turned into brand new financial instruments that can then be traded. An example of this was given by Vandana Shiva, Ph.D., in my interview with her.

In it, she explained how India is headed toward Zero-Budget Natural Farming — a brand-new concept of farming in which farmers must trade the carbon rate in their soil on the global market if they want to make a living. They’ll get no money at all for the crops they actually grow.

There’s not a single area of life that is left out of this Great Reset plan. The planned reform will affect everything from government, energy and finance to food, medicine, real estate, policing and even how we interact with our fellow human beings in general.

Privacy protections, of course, are a major hurdle in this plan, which is why every effort is made to get people to loosen their views on the right for privacy. In the U.S., we also have the Constitution that stands in the way, which is why efforts to undermine, circumvent, ignore or nullify it are increasing.

“To sum it up, the desired end result is a giant, joyless, highly controlled global conveyor of everything and everybody where privacy is tremendously expensive, dissent is unthinkable, and spiritual submission is mandatory.

It’s like a 24/7 medicated reality, except the medications are both chemical and digital, and they are reporting you back to the mothership, which can then punish you for bad behavior by, say, blocking your access to certain places or by putting a hold on your digital bank account — perhaps without any human intervention at all,” Lena writes.4

Stakeholder Capitalism

An October 5, 2020, Winter Oak article5 addressed the “technocratic fascist vision” of professor Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum who wrote the book on the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Schwab announced the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset Initiative in June 2020, which includes stripping all people of their privately owned assets.

In addition to being a staunch technocrat, Schwab also has a strong transhumanist bend, and he has spoken of a near future in which humans merge with machines and in which law enforcement will be able to read our mind.6

Winter Oak — a British nonprofit social justice organization — points out that Schwab and his globalist accomplices are using the COVID-19 pandemic “to bypass democratic accountability, to override opposition, to accelerate their agenda and to impose it on the rest of humankind against our will.”

This is no conspiracy theory. The plan is out in the open. As noted by Time magazine,7 “The COVID-19 pandemic has provided a unique opportunity to think about the kind of future we want.” The same statement has been delivered by a number of politicians and organizations around the world in recent months.

Schwab’s book,8,9 “COVID-19: The Great Reset” also urges industry leaders and decision makers to “make good use of the pandemic” and “not letting the crisis go to waste.” Incidentally, the owner of Time magazine and founder of Salesforce, Mark Benioff, is also a board member of the World Economic Forum,10 so he’s clearly familiar with the reset plan.

The problem is that while the plan is being sold as a way to, finally, make life fair and equitable for all people, the required sacrifices do not apply to the technocrats running the system. Ultimately, the Great Reset will result in two tiers or people: the technocratic elite, who have all the power and rule over all assets, and the rest of humanity, who have no power, no assets and no say-so in anything.

While technocracy is not a political system but an economic one, in practical terms it does resemble fascism. None of it is being sold under the banner of fascism, of course. Instead, they use financial terms like “stakeholder capitalism,” described by Forbes magazine11 as “the notion that a firm focuses on meeting the needs of all its stakeholders: customers, employees, partners, the community and society as a whole.”

In that same article, Forbes points out that this strategy has already been tried and failed. It failed because balancing conflicting stakeholder claims was near-impossible and only led to mass confusion and poor returns. The failure of this strategy is what led big businesses to focus on maximizing shareholder value instead.

Now, at a time when big business finds itself under attack for “single-mindedly shoveling money to its shareholders and its executives at the expense of customers, employees, the environment and society as a whole,” the answer, they say, is to return to stakeholder capitalism. But if it didn’t work before, what makes us think it will work now?

Great Reset Plan for Big Food

A November 9, 2020, article12 in The Defender, a new media platform by the Children’s Health Defense, also points out the problems with the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset plan for the food industry: 

“The architects of the plan claim it will reduce food scarcity, hunger and disease, and even mitigate climate change. But a closer look at the corporations and think tanks the WEF is partnering with to usher in this global transformation suggests that the real motive is tighter corporate control over the food system by means of technological solutions.”

Aside from the food industry, partners13 include data mining giants, telecommunications, weapons manufacturers, finance, drug companies and the biotechnology industry.

Looking at that list, it should come as no surprise that the World Economic Forum insists the future of food and public health hinges on genetically modified organisms (GMOs), laboratory-grown protein, drugs and industrial chemicals.

The EAT Forum and the Rise of Food Imperialism

To further the fake food takeover, the World Economic Forum has partnered with the EAT Forum, which will set the political agenda for global food production. The EAT Forum was cofounded by the Wellcome Trust, which in turn was established with the financial help of GlaxoSmithKline.

EAT currently collaborates with nearly 40 city governments across Africa, Europe, Asia, North and South America and Australia, and maintains close relationships with imitation meat companies such as Impossible Foods, which was cofounded by Google, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates.14

As noted by The Defender, the ultimate aim is to “replace wholesome nutritious foods with genetically modified lab creations.” To this end, EAT is working with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to establish global dietary guidelines and sustainable development initiatives.

The “Planetary Health Diet”15 developed by EAT is a diet that is supposed to replace all others. Federic Leroy, a food science and biotechnology professor at University of Brussels told The Defender:16

“The diet aims to cut the meat and dairy intake of the global population by as much as 90% in some cases and replaces it with lab-made foods, cereals and oil.”

Vandana Shiva, Ph.D., has raised harsh critique against the proposed diet saying it “is not about nutrition at all. It’s about big business and it’s about a corporate takeover of the food system.”17 The Defender adds:18

“According to EAT’s own reports, the big adjustments the organization and its corporate partners want to make to the food system are ‘unlikely to be successful if left up to the individual,’ and the changes they wish to impose on societal eating habits and food ‘require reframing at the systemic level with hard policy interventions that include laws, fiscal measures, subsidies and penalties, trade reconfiguration and other economic and structural measures.’

But Shiva said this is the wrong approach, because ‘all of the science’ shows that diets should be centered around regional and geographical biodiversity. She explained that ‘EAT’s uniform global diet will be produced with western technology and agricultural chemicals. Forcing this onto sovereign nations by multinational lobbying is what I refer to as food imperialism.’”

The Future of Food and Health Care

You can get a feel for where the future of food is headed by analyzing the World Economic Forum’s strategic intelligence map.19 As you can see, this top-down approach ties food production to a wide range of sectors, including biotech, the chemical industry, artificial intelligence, the internet of things and the digital economy.

For more details on Schwab and the World Economic Forum’s strategic intelligence plan, see Covert Geopolitic’s article,20 “Breaking Down the Global Elite’s Great Reset Master Plan.”

future of food

If any of this raises your concern, you’re probably not going to like what the World Health Economic Forum has in store for health care reform either. As detailed on their website:21

“Our current capital intensive, hospital-centric model is unsustainable and ineffective. The Platform for Shaping the Future of Health and Healthcare leverages a data-enabled delivery system and virtual care, integrated across the continuum of care from precision prevention to personalized care delivery …”

Aiding the World Economic Forum in this health care transformation are the biggest corporate criminals in the history of the modern world, including Bill Gates, AstraZeneca,22 Bayer,23 Johnson & Johnson,24 Merck,25 Pfizer,26 Novartis27 and a host of others.28

These companies have at various times been found guilty of all sorts of crimes that they have paid tens of billions of dollars in fines for. They are also loaded with conflicts of interest in nearly every venture they are involved with. Yet we’re now supposed to believe these companies are going to put aside their profit incentives and fix the whole system?

Build Back Better

As noted in a July 21, 2020, World Economic Forum article,29 the economic devastation caused by COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns “has the potential to hobble global prosperity for generations to come.” The answer is to come up with stimulus measures, such as infrastructure development, that can allow countries to move forward.

But while at it, countries are urged to make sure the economic system is “built back better.” Make no mistake, this catchy slogan is part and parcel of the Great Reset plan and cannot be separated from it, no matter how altruistic it may sound. As reported by Fox News:30

“A radical movement called the Great Reset embraced by some Democrats poses a grave threat to liberty and free markets in the United States and around the world … The Great Reset is perhaps the biggest danger to capitalism and individual rights since the collapse of the Soviet Union …

It would destroy the current capitalist system and replace it with progressive and modern socialist systems, with a special emphasis placed on eco-socialist policies … Policy ideas offered by ‘Great Reset’ advocates include government-provided basic income programs, universal health care, massive tax increases and the Green New Deal …

For example, at a campaign event on July 9, Biden said we need to end the ‘era of shareholder capitalism,’ a major part of the Great Reset proposal that would alter how companies are evaluated, elevating social justice causes and climate change concerns over property rights …

The Build Back Better plan comes straight from the Great Reset’s playbook … As recently as July 13, the World Economic Forum promoted ‘building back better’ through ‘green’ infrastructure programs as part of the Great Reset …”

Part of the “building back better” is to shift the financial system over to an all-digital currency system, which in turn is part of the system of social control, as it can easily be used to incentivize desired behaviors and discourage undesired ones.

An August 13, 2020, article31 on the Federal Reserve website discusses the supposed benefits of a central bank digital currency (CBDC). There’s general agreement among experts that most major countries will implement CBDC within the next two to four years.

Many uninformed people believe that these new CBDCs will be very similar to existing cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, but they would be mistaken. Bitcoin is decentralized and a rational strategy to opt out of the existing central bank controlled system, while these CBDCs will be centralized and completely controlled by the central banks and will have smart contracts that allow the banks to surveil and control your life.

The Great Reset Psyops Guide

It goes without saying that to achieve the kind of radical transformation of every part of society has its challenges. No person in their right mind would agree to it if aware of the details of the whole plan. So, to roll this out, they had to use psychological manipulation, and fear is the most effective tool there is.

As explained by psychiatrist Dr. Peter Breggin, there’s an entire school of public health research that focuses on identifying the most effective ways to frighten people into accepting desired public health measures.

By adding confusion and uncertainty to the mix, you can bring an individual from fear to anxiety — a state of confusion in which you can no longer think logically — and in this state, you are more easily manipulated. The following graphic illustrates the central role of fearmongering for the successful rollout of the Great Reset.

technocracy and the great reset

Social Engineering Is Central to Technocratic Rule

In closing, keep in mind that technocracy is inherently a technological society run through social engineering. Fear is but one manipulation tool. The focus on “science” is another. Anytime someone dissents, they’re simply accused of being “anti-science,” and any science that conflicts with the status quo is declared “debunked science.”

The only science that matters is whatever the technocrats deem to be true, no matter how much evidence there is against it. We’ve seen this first hand during this pandemic, as Big Tech has censored and banned anything going against the opinions of the World Health Organization, which is just another cog in the technocratic machine.

If we allow this censorship to continue, the end result will be nothing short of devastating. We simply must keep pushing for transparency and truth. We must insist on medical freedom, personal liberty and the right to privacy.

One fight in particular that I don’t see us being able to evade is the fight against mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations. If we don’t take a firm stand against that and fight for the right to make our own choice, there will be no end to the medical tyranny that will follow. As noted in the Covert Geopolitics article:32

“As you might have guessed, ‘the most important anchor of recovery’ is for a COVID-19 vaccination … The implication is that without a vaccine the world will be unable to return to any sense of normality, particularly in terms of open interaction with your fellow man …

You can actually participate in the global efforts to cripple the Deep State organized criminal cabal's ability for genocide, while enjoying healthcare freedom at the same time, by boycotting Big Pharma for good.”

https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2020/11/16/what-is-the-great-reset.aspx?ui=29438b937ac740a0aa628aea25d6ad69f6511682ee804359588b6688fee931d6&cid_source=dnl&cid_medium=email&cid_content=art1HL&cid=20201116&mid=DM721439&rid=1012674127

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Sunday, November 15, 2020

Canada's Justin Trudeau Has Joined The Conspiracy Theorists


Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, has just come out publicly confirming now that Trump is out of the way, they will bring about the Great Reset. They will achieve equality by reducing the wealth and employment of the middle class while the superrich will become the overlords of this new normal. They are deliberately destroying the economy to create economic chaos for they believe they can rebuild it GREEN and end the disparity of income which is Communism 3.0. There have been leaked letters many say are fake because Trudeau had come out and had to deny them three times. They have said what he is saying just with more detail.


There is a great risk that they will seize all assets and you will own nothing precisely as Klaus Schwab has been telling these leaders when they come to his World Economic Forum at Davos. Schwab and Thomas Piketty are out to conquer the world and force Marxism once again by sheer authoritarianism/tyranny. They have used this fake pandemic to terrorize people in order to collapse the economy. These politicians no longer represent us – they have crossed the line into despots. They do not believe in capitalism, freedom, and human rights. We are the great unwashed, unworthy to be considered for we are too ignorant to know what is best for us or our family.

Their promises of utopia even Lenin knew were false claims. They wish to strip us of all freedom, keep us locked down to destroy our jobs and the fossil fuel industry, and then for survival hand us basic guaranteed income. If we dare to object, they will cut off all funds and starve us to death.

Trudeau has confirmed that Canada is on track for the 2030 Agenda following the World Economic Forum. Those who foolishly voted for Biden will soon realize they voted against their own self-interest, employment, their families, and their posterity. Listen to the words of Trudeau, then listen to Schwab’s 8 predictions for 2030 that Trudeau has just endorsed. All the European leaders are also on board as are the Democrats in the USA. Biden will declare a national lockdown in February and it will not be for just 4 to 6 weeks.

For those who think this is all BS, you better start opening your eyes and your mind or you WILL lose EVERYTHING! We do not have a lot of time left. They will suspend elections next come 2022.

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Friday, November 13, 2020

Is there A Way Out Of This Mess?

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I live in Canada.  Our PM had our former finance minister take the fall for their blatant corruption, is blocking and tackling every move to bring it to light and is turning our parliamentary government against the people, working to crush the economy, impose lockdowns, raid our government-mandated employment insurance funds to provide universal income under different guises, even congratulating Biden, pushing vaccines, masks, etc. exactly following the globalist gameplan.  The government here is doing whatever it can to push the boundaries of freedoms supported by the media everywhere here, and unlike the US – Canadians still put too much faith in government.

What’s ongoing around the world (marxism/socialism/communism ‘revolution’, WEF, ID/vaccine tagging, Covid, control, loss of freedoms, indoctrination of the youth, MSM manipulation, etc) let alone in the US is very disheartening.  Many of my friends and family remain oblivious to the larger picture.  I see it, albeit without the full picture – I see some of the moves, countermoves and manipulation playing out.

You’ve mentioned repeatedly that from a cycle perspective, you have never seen cycles altered, however, you have seen the amplitude affected and cycle inversions.  What do you believe can be done by whoever (myself, people, groups, agencies) to minimize the negative amplitude of this draconian decline so we can moderate a hard fall, possibly push forward a bloodless revolution and steer towards a future we want to live in?

The US particularly has only really been around for one 309year/224year cycle (if memory serves).  However, we have instances of prior civilizations/empires surviving multiple rounds largely intact before their eventual decline – what are some key differences and attributes we can look to moderate?  Is there anything that can be done to push forward a cycle inversion and prevent the worst-case scenario from playing out?  I see President Trump’s plans are starting to play out, possibly with a climax in the coming weeks/months although that also remains uncertain.

I appreciate any thoughts you could provide.

AJ

ANSWER: Those elitists have wrongly assumed that war takes place between governments and as such eliminating competing governments and creating just one will eliminate war. This is the entire theory behind creating the EU as even the former French President clearly states in the EU Parliament. Socrates has been warning that (1) the peak in Western government took place in 2015.75. One year before, the European Central Bank (ECB) moved to negative interest rates in 2014 destroying their bond markets and undermining pension funds. That was the beginning of the end for after 6 years, all the creation of money by purchasing government debt has failed to provide any stimulus and as a result, the ECB has lost all power and is trapped. I have offered a solution that preserves our way of life but reduces the power of the politicians. They prefer Schwab’s solution – seize all assets with Communism 3.0 and default on debt.

There is no question that Trudeau has met with EU leaders ahead of the U.S. election to reinforce support their real agenda to push for a Great Reset that will destroy businesses. Biden will impose a nationwide lockdown probably by February 2021. The Canadian politician who is said to have leaked the new COVID lockdown plan and ‘Great Reset’ dictatorship stating that Australia has signed on to this I have been unable to verify that it is authentic. However, everything it says from the IMF saying all property is to be surrendered in return for wiping out all personal debt is very much what is being said behind closed doors in Europe. Hence, the Canadian leak is not inconsistent with what I know from other sources.

Biden will impose a lockdown on the entire country when he takes office destroying countless small businesses. This is all part of a plan to destroy jobs making people dependent on the state with Guaranteed Basic Income and the bourgeoisie which in Marxism is small businesses. Marx saw the bourgeoisie as the social class that came to own the means of production during modern industrialization and whose societal concerns are the value of the property and the preservation of capital to ensure the perpetuation of their economic supremacy in society. He never considered the employment they provided but instead they would have nothing without labor. This is the objective of the lockdowns. You can see it already in London.

The U.S. presidential election of 2020 confirms the general trend rushing into the arms of Schwab because they cannot continue to sell debt and they cannot ever pay off what has already been accumulated. Pensions of state workers are insolvent. Even in the United States Social Security is insolvent for it invests only in government bonds and earns next to nothing.

We are looking at these measures as their only way out and the vast majority of people are oblivious to reality. This will lead to the dissolution of nation-states such as Canada and the United States. In Canada, it will take the form of war between the west v east. In the USA it will be the South & Mid West against New England and the West. The world population is going through a crisis of civilization and is inexorably heading inexorably towards a new civil war that will break out in many countries that should logically lead to the partition of the countries. This instability should result in the end of the West as a super-power.

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I seriously doubt that we can reach a bloodless resolution. There is a far greater risk that we have crossed the Rubicon. The politicians have turned to hate-politics to win. Even unleashing racism just to win the election was a huge mistake. They will not be able to put that back in the bottle again until the next election.

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/uncategorized/is-there-a-way-out/

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Monday, November 9, 2020

Human Rights Attorney, Leigh Dundas, delivers current updates from the Trump election campaign team

 

Human Rights Attorney, Leigh Dundas, delivers current updates from the Trump election campaign team and attorneys regarding the battle ground states' election results status. 

 

Because of censorship by BIG TECH, I am sharing this important info on the attempted theft of the presidential election. NOTE from the author: The evidence is overwhelming: here is the short version of where this is going.

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Wednesday, November 4, 2020

Cultural Superiority Isn't Racism: Why Western Values Underpin the World’s Best Countries

Elements of the left and their allies in the media are constantly driving this point home: White people are bad and so is the culture that they have created. Everything we value as a society is bad and, more than that, little more than an ex post facto justification for the subjugation of non-whites. Western culture is white culture, and all things white are bad.Cultural Superiority Isn't Racism: Why Western Values Underpin the World’s Best Countries

 

But as with everything else which these elements of the left and their allies in the media push, this is simply false. While the overlap between white people – that is, people of European descent and some Christian populations in the Caucasus – and Western culture is undeniable, it is likewise undeniable that Western culture is no longer the exclusive domain of whites. What we can call, without the slightest bit of stretching the truth, Western culture is present not just in Western Europe, North America and Australia, but also in former British colonies such as Israel, Singapore and Hong Kong.

What’s more, a country simply being part of Europe does not make it “Western” in any meaningful sense. While there is a certain Western cultural continuum based around Christianity that extends from Lisbon to Vladivostok, it would be overly simplistic (and indeed, a bit demeaning) to label the post-Soviet countries as “Western.” They have a similar set of cultural values rooted in Christianity, however, even the introduction of democracy has not made many post-Soviet and post-colonial nations more liberal in the true sense of the word – open markets, an emphasis on free speech, strong private property rights, an independent, impartial judiciary, and the primacy of the individual over that of the group.

Throughout this article we will provide some terms to define what we mean by “Western culture.” We will also make the case that Western cultural values have a universal aspect in the sense that they can be applied with success anywhere in the world, that these values are objectively superior to other value sets at maximizing human freedom, quality of life, and potential, and that the belief in this superiority has nothing to do with “racism” in the sense that it is commonly understood by ordinary people.

One demonstration of the proof that these values are objectively superior is that "people vote with their feet", as Dr. Jordan Peterson points out: "The fundamental assumptions of Western civilization are valid. Here's how you know: Which countries do people want to move away from? Not ours. Which countries do people want to move to? Ours! Guess what, they work better. And it's not because we went around the world stealing everything we could get our hands on. It's because we got certain fundamental assumptions right - and thank God for that."

What Are Western Values?Cultural Superiority Isn't Racism: Why Western Values Underpin the World’s Best Countries

Before going any further, it is necessary to define what we mean by “Western values.” Indeed, what we mean by this is very specific and has a basis not in the West at large, but specifically in Anglo-Saxon culture. Virtually all of the values that we will identify in this article as being “Western” are perhaps more accurately termed “Anglo-Saxon values.” However, as the former term is more concise, succinct and in greater general use, we will use “Western values” throughout this article.

So what are these values? What is their origin? Where do they come from?

Again, it is our belief that what we call “Western values” are rooted firmly in the Anglo-Saxon tradition above all else. The formalization of these values can be found in the Magna Carta, but this simply codifies values that had been practiced in long standing in post-Anglo-Saxon Britain and likely long before it in some sense, going back to the days when the Angles and Saxons roamed the border regions between what is now Germany and Denmark.

While the Magna Carta is a complicated document, for our purposes it means something succinct and simple: it means that the king is not above the law.

There are a number of principles that flow from this general recognition that form the bedrock of Western civilization: Legal norms apply to everyone regardless of social class. The right to a fair trial by a jury of one’s peers and the right to face one’s accuser in open court. The right to one’s own property and the right to defend that property using deadly force. While these rights have all been hemmed in – in extreme ways in some cases, particularly since the events of September 11, 2001 – the point is that they form the bedrock of our legal structure and value culture in the West.

To boil this down to a single sentence: the West believes that men have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and that these rights can only be deprived through due process of law. Both national constitutions and prevailing moral attitudes prevent angry mobs or powerful oligarchs from systematically depriving unpopular and powerless minorities of their rights.

Are Western Values Universal?

Western values are not universal in the sense that they will eventually be arrived upon by all cultures given enough time. They are not, contra Francis Fukuyama, an endpoint of history, a teleological goal post that all of humanity has been moving toward for its entire existence. It comes out of a very specific lineage, the Anglo-Saxon culture of yeoman farmers, freeholding lords, restive barons and, more than anything else, a total rejection of the notion of authoritarian kings who could rule at their whim without, at the very least, the consent of the men providing armed bodies for their war efforts and paying the lion’s share of taxes.

But perhaps Western values are universal in another, different respect. Consider what we said earlier: These values are by no means limited to the Anglosphere, though they do seem to be strongest in former British colonies – North America, Australia, Israel, Singapore, Hong Kong. These values manifest in different ways in each of these places and it would be more than a little odd if they didn’t.

Property Rights

However, the basic notion that there are a set of legal norms applying to everyone and, perhaps more importantly, that property rights are as important as other rights such as free speech, seem to have a universality about them. By this we mean that everywhere they have been put into practice, they have yielded impressive results in allowing human society to reach a greater potential while also providing better results for greater numbers of people.

Why does this matter? Well, Communist nations have historically raised living standards dramatically. Compare Russia during the waning days of the Romanovs to the Soviet Union in the 50s, 60s and 70s, or China today to China 70 years ago. But this is only impressive if you ignore the failure of Communism with regard to the rights of the individual and the rather sterile record of Communists with regard to innovation and invention. Sure, the Soviets beat America in the space race by putting a few dogs and satellites in the air – and then promptly did nothing else. Similarly, China is known far more for stealing Western intellectual property than it is for innovating its own.

Quality of Life

Innovation is necessary for both maintaining quality of life for large and growing populations, and for increasing quality of life. Again, China presents an important test case in what happens in a growing economy without transparency, an emphasis on the rights of the individual and the freedom to innovate that comes with an open, liberal economy: China’s one-child policy, which has been demographically disastrous beyond the humanitarian considerations, as well as its environmental degradation are both symptoms of a society that has become aggressively anti-liberal, stifling innovation.

Indeed, the results are plain to see: Of the ten countries in the world with the best quality of life, three of them are former British colonies – Canada came in at number one, Australia and New Zealand. One was in personal union with Britain (the Netherlands), four are Nordic countries with a similar emphasis on the rights of the individual and due process (Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland), and one is arguably the country in the world with a value system most closely resembling that of the Anglo-Saxons (Switzerland). Former British colony Singapore comes in at number 20, behind only Japan and China (which includes Hong Kong – and we wonder how much lifting that former British Crown Colony is doing for the People’s Republic) in Asia. Malaysia and India, both former British colonies, come in the top 30, beating out even a number of European countries outside of what we have defined as “the West,” such as Russia, Bulgaria and Slovakia.

Quality of life is an important metric because it includes non-material and non-economic factors. How subjectively happy are people? Are they satisfied with their lives or are they simply awash in money? Do they want to have children? Are they invested in society through mechanisms such as home ownership? All of these questions will yield a far more accurate picture of a country’s quality of life than simply looking at their GDP or per capita income.

Nobel Laureates

There are other ways of demonstrating the kind of cultural superiority that we are talking about. One of these is by looking at the countries who have produced the most Nobel Laureates: Despite the prize being of Norwegian extraction, two Anglosphere countries, the United States and the United Kingdom, absolutely dominate the rest of the world with regard to winning Nobel prizes: Of the 866 individuals who have received Nobel prizes as of 2020, 516 of them (nearly 60 percent) have been from these two countries.

All five of the top five slots are occupied by Western nations, with these five countries (the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Sweden) making up a whopping 83 percent of all recipients. Within the top ten, we see an additional three Western countries (Switzerland, Canada and Austria) and the share of Western countries in the top ten expands to fully 92 percent of all Nobel prize recipients.

This achievement is so lopsided that it must be discussed by anyone seriously considering this topic.

Technological Achievements

Technological achievements are difficult to quantify. What one considers to be an important technological achievement might be rejected by another as insignificant. However, this list created by The Atlantic is not a terrible representation of the most important technological achievements since the invention of the wheel. While nearly all of these were invented somewhere on the continent of Europe, what is more striking and important is how many of them were created in the West in the way that we have defined it – i.e., those cultures most embracing the values summarized in the Magna Carta and its extrapolations.

Corruption and Transparency

Finally, there is the matter of corruption and transparency in government. The Corruption Perceptions Index ranks 180 different nations around the world in terms of transparency, accountability, general fairness and other important factors. Of the top ten countries for 2019, nine are in Europe. The one that is not is the former British colony of Singapore, a country that is light on democracy but heavy on freedom, transparency, accountability and the rule of law. Former British crown colony Hong Kong – thankfully ranked separately from the People’s Republic of China – comes in at number 16, ahead of Japan, Ireland and Belgium. Indeed, the two Asian former British colonies come out ahead of the United States according to the terms established by the Corruption Perceptions Index.

One of the reasons for America’s low rank among Western countries is because Americans often watch in disbelief as top government officials leave public service and cash in on their expertise in the private sector, regardless of the crimes they committed while in office – whereas in a place like Sweden, when a politician is caught violating the public’s trust for even minor infractions like drunk driving, they immediately resign. Consider how Edward Snowden and Julian Assange are fugitives facing charges while General David Petraeus (who provided his illicit lover and favorable biographer information so secret it defied classification, including the names of covert operatives and the president’s private thoughts on matters of strategic concern), former director of the NSA General Keith Alexander (who lied under oath to Congress and the courts about the NSA spying on U.S. citizens), and former CIA Director James Clapper (who also lied under oath to the Senate Intelligence Committee in order protect his agency from oversight) all breathe free air.

Are Western Values Superior to Other Value Systems?

Cultural Superiority Isn't Racism: Why Western Values Underpin the World’s Best CountriesWhether or not Western values are “superior” to other value systems is entirely reliant upon what one considers to be the ideal results for a society. Honest and good people have disagreements on this topic. However, we believe that in the West, there is a general, broad agreement on what constitutes a “good” result for society best summed up by two principles: freedom and fairness.

Freedom and fairness are, in fact, two ideas that are in tension with one another because they are often mutually contradictory. What makes one man free might be unfair in a meaningful sense to another. Indeed, the left-right spectrum in the United States and the Anglosphere might be described as the Party of Freedom (for example, the Republicans) versus the Party of Fairness (in this case, the Democrats).

Both of these values are important to everyone to varying degrees. The resolution of this tension – drawing the line at some point between fairness and freedom – is effectively what our entire civilization is about. It is about maximizing results for the greatest number of people, creating a society that is as fair as it can possibly be while minimally infringing on the rights of individuals.

In a word, Western values can be described as “liberalism” in the sense that John Stuart Mill and John Locke would have understood the term. While there are coherent and important arguments about the limitations of liberalism on both the left and the right, both sides of the political spectrum have thus far failed to offer an alternative to classical liberalism that provides the same degree of generalized prosperity and individual liberty that Western civilization has provided using classical liberalism as its de facto political ideology.

If one believes that freedom and fairness are not important, this doesn’t mean much. However, most Americans and most Westerners believe, whether they are aware of this specific description or not, that freedom and fairness are important and perhaps the most important values that a society can aspire to.

What’s more, we believe that these values are directly responsible for the material prosperity and plenty that characterizes these societies. Individuals are able to pursue happiness in their own way and, for the most part, retain the fruits of their labor. This creates motivation for innovations that raise the standard of living across the board, from top to bottom.

Is It Racist To View Western Values As Superior?

When the superiority of Western values is touted, the retort is often that prizing these values above all others – indeed, recognizing them as “superior” in some way – constitutes “racism.” We believe this is not an unreasonable response to the claims that we are making and that it requires specific attention. Ultimately, however, we find that the argument that Western cultural superiority is racist to be lacking.

Before we go any further, we wish to clarify that we will only use the terms “racist” and “racism” in the sense that they are commonly understood by the average person: racially motivated hatred, domination and subjugation. We will not use the Marxist-influenced definition, which effectively defines entire groups of people as “racist” regardless of their views, actions or motivations.

We have already discussed above that there are a number of countries that have adopted Western cultural values outside of Europe. This is not an insignificant point when it comes to defending the viewpoint of Western cultural superiority against racism. There is also the small matter of generalized racial, ethnic and religious tolerance that characterizes the West. Western nations have, on average, the greatest degree of tolerance and pluralism in the world. Much of our public discourse in the West is about how to best balance tolerance with the above mentioned principles of fairness and freedom.

Western nations often include in the upper echelons of their academic, cultural, economic and political structures, prominent members who are of non-European extraction, either the descendents of African slaves or more recent immigrants from other parts of the world. This is not to be hand-waved away – can, for example, Arab nations boast of black politicians, entertainers and entrepreneurs? Is there a similar phenomenon of Asian achievement within the African cultural sphere? Put simply, there is no equivalent to the social mobility that Western nations offer diasporic, immigrant and formerly enslaved populations anywhere else in the world. This speaks to the universal quality that we mentioned previously – Western values do not advantage or disadvantage any specific group.

We would also be remiss if we did not recognize the institution of chattel slavery and the degree to which it has largely been ended in the West – and indeed, throughout the world, thanks to the efforts of Western nations. Chattel slavery is flagrantly incompatible with Western cultural values, which is why it has largely been eradicated in the West and its former colonies. It’s largely a legal non sequitur throughout the world today. And while there are forms of bonded and unfree labor, they are aberrant and concentrated in areas where Western influence is at its weakest. Enslaving another human being is generally seen as the worst crime a person can commit, dwarfing even rape and murder in its magnitude, being in roughly the same category as war crimes and genocide.

The role of slavery in the West is a complicated one, but it is worth noting that while Western nations did not invent slavery, an institution as old as recorded history at the very least, they have done more than anyone else to end it. The British Empire abolished slavery throughout the empire in 1833. The United States fought one of the bloodiest wars in human history to end bonded labor within its borders. Each of these together acted as a one-two punch that effectively ended slavery in the West. Where slavery persisted in Europe, it did so largely under the auspices of the Islamic Ottoman Empire and the Orthodox Russian Empire.

Finally, a significant portion of Western discourse in the intervening years has been about how to increase participation, toleration and pluralism throughout Western societies. Greater and greater inclusion is a hallmark of Western civilization as part of its generalized emphasis on freedom and fairness. None of this is representative of Western civilization being “racist,” thus prioritizing the values of Western civilization above that of other cultures is not racist.

What of Multiculturalism?

Cultural Superiority Isn't Racism: Why Western Values Underpin the World’s Best Countries“Multiculturalism” is one of those words that is often bandied about with very little thought as to what it actually means. Being a multiculturalist does not mean that one finds something of value in other cultures. It means that one considers all cultures to be of equal merit and that cultural values and practices become beyond reproach simply because they are cultural practices.

Like many things that the left pushes, multiculturalism is not a good faith position. No one, for example, argues in earnest from a position of multiculturalism that Confederate monuments ought to remain standing because they are a part of Southern culture. Indeed, those most loudly touting the multiculturalist line are those least respectful of the cultural norms and mores of Appalachia, South Boston or Deer Lodge, Montana. Multiculturalists are quite vocal about their distaste for the cultural practices of unwoke whites, and this distaste is by no means limited to outbursts of violent racism. See, for example, the current cultural jihad against debutante balls in the American South.

What’s more, the multicultural appreciation of other cultures tends to be very shallow and performative. The affluent and educated like to “travel,” but largely spend their time cooped up on resorts or at pubs and restaurants catering to tourists such as themselves. One can scarcely get ten seconds into a conversation about immigration without hearing a multiculturalist moan about who will make our tacos. Much rarer is the person who speaks Arabic, has read Proust in the original French, or has spent a summer living with a Cuban family in Havana. The average multiculturalist generally doesn’t even know the capital of Zimbabwe or the chief export of Vietnam.

There is certainly much to appreciate about and learn from other cultures, but the same types of people touting multiculturalism are generally opposed to this, lambasting it as “cultural appropriation.” Whites, we are told, are not allowed to have dreadlocks or wear hoop earrings. No word on whether or not non-whites are allowed to get vaccines or fly in airplanes, but we do see a growing consensus among the left that “there’s no such thing as white culture.”

Multiculturalism must be understood for what it really is: it is a form of weaponizing the Western sense of “live and let live” and fair play for the purpose of subverting and attacking that culture. One manifestation of this phenomenon is the No Go Zone, a place where law and order has broken down and the area is effectively governed by parallel powers openly hostile toward Western cultural norms.

No Go Zones happen because those in power don’t believe in the primacy of Western cultural values, and don’t want to insist on those values being “imposed” on newly arrived immigrants from other cultures. They selectively celebrate multiculturalism in their own country, even when those cultures are acting in ways they find abhorrent in their home town.

Against Western Cultural Cringe

So what does all of this add up to? A call for pride in the West?

Not necessarily. But consider the inversion of pride – shame and guilt. White guilt is a popular sentiment in the United States and the West, whereby one is supposed to feel directly responsible for any crimes committed by or in the name of Western civilization. This is a patently absurd view. If one is responsible, for example, the trans-Atlantic slave trade, then one is equally responsible for vaccines, toilets and antibiotics.

What we would call for rather than Western cultural chauvinism is, instead, a call for Westerners to end their cultural cringe against Western values.

Cultural cringe is where one feels embarrassed or uncomfortable about their culture, seeing it as somehow “less than” others or emphasizing its shortcomings over its achievements. The West as a whole seems to be suffering from widespread cultural cringe, though it is worth noting that this sentiment is largely inorganic. Rather than being a natural outgrowth of prevailing cultural attitudes, it’s instead manufactured by the media and academia, which incessantly propagandize about the evils of white men, the nuclear family, Christianity and Western values.

The assault on our cultural institutions is largely successful because of historical illiteracy. While many Americans are embarrassed about America’s slaveholding past, few know how limited slave ownership was throughout the country, the degree to which it was opposed while it still existed, and barely think about how slavery is an institution extending all the way back to the dawn of human history, and is thus not a uniquely American invention. America simply did what the rest of the world did at the time and what virtually all of the world had done since the beginning of time.

Lacking a proper historical context, it’s easy to convince anyone of anything.

One need not become a braggart about Western culture to combat this. Indeed, doing so might well be counterproductive. However, one certainly should refuse to feel guilt about the color of one’s skin or the broader values of Western civilization. It is important to remember that the people who seek to weaponize guilt about historical crimes of the West – which are certainly a matter of historical record, but by no means exclusive or unique to the West and, as we have pointed out above, have been aggressively combated by the West more than anyone else – do so out of a position of bad faith. They are not seeking to make the world a better place or reflect thoughtfully on the sum total of the West’s history. They simply seek to weaponize your guilt for their own personal political gain.

It is the West’s insistence on equal treatment and fair play that makes this so easy for anti-Western leftists. Because, as a culture, we strive to make men equal before the law, it is easy for us to be guilted and shamed when we fail to live up to our values. Leftists do two things when they attack Western culture: First, they say that because we have not always lived up to our stated values, that we have failed as a society. But then they commit a rhetorical sleight of hand, declaring that because of this, our values must be bad, then attempting to substitute a radical, alien and totalitarian set of values in their place – the values of radical equality and social leveling.

This is the most important part to remember: virtually none of the people demanding that you hate yourself and your culture’s values have anything better to offer in its place. Replacing cultural cringe with an honest cultural confidence does not require looking down on other cultures. It simply requires you to acknowledge that, when compared to all of human history, the West has done a great job of increasing human freedom and human prosperity, as well as encouraging an overall sense of fair play.

Cultural Superiority Isn't Racism: Why Western Values Underpin the World’s Best Countries originally appeared in The Resistance Library at Ammo.com.

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