SPLC - Liberal Darling funds Hate

 

by Craig Willms

The SPLC is one of the ardent social institutions that we just take on faith is doing God's work. Well... No. They really are not. I have almost no interest in things like the SPLC or NAACP or any number of other non-profits that have been around for decades and decades. It's just not anything that affects me or is intended for people like me. Fine. I assume they are doing something positive. Not so fast.

The SPLC has been implicated in funding the very "hate" groups they fight against at every turn. They are being charged with using the money they raised from their large donor network to actually pay the leadership of the very groups they purport to fight against. This is like the exterminator letting loose bugs and rats while waiting for the customer to call to have them eradicate the pests. Bugs and rats are a pretty good descriptor for the SPLC.

Of course they would be the darlings of the liberal left. The SPLC always oppose conservatives and Republicans, likening both to the racists they 'pretend' to fight against. These people are the ones who advocate for the downtrodden while doing everything in their power to ensure the so-called downtrodden can never claw their way up, lest they won't need the SPLC anymore.

The ones who should be angry are their donors and supporters. If history is any guide their funding will only increase as this scrutiny will be called a right-wing hit job. Mark my words, in six months the SPLC will declare record breaking donations have come in.

It is not the right-wing or conservatives that are funding violent extremist groups like the Ku Klux Klan and Nazi organizations - it's the SPLC. Millions of donor dollars are funneled directly into hate groups; the same groups the left cites are outgrowths of conservative and MAGA movements. (They are not.)

How much more evidence do we need for Americans to realize the hard-left is an enemy of the people, just like their mainstream media is?

Call them Banksters, it's as good a label as any...

 

by Craig Willms

They keep us divided, they keep us at each other's throats, they keep us fighting amongst ourselves. You can call them The Banksters, it's as good a name as any. They could be referred to as the Globalists as they certainly have orchestrated and benefited from the globalist agenda. They are a small but powerful group of men on both sides of the Atlantic that truly control the world, and they have for the better part of a century. National governments in most of the western nations are set up to transparently serve The Banksters. Most of our political leaders are just actors and pretenders - it is as they say, political theater. I suspect that the politicians know what they really are as they set out to stir the pot in order to keep us all jacked-up. They keep it hidden because in reward they become rich beyond their wildest dreams. 

The Banksters were on the cusp of 1984-style control of the world. Suppressed speech and social control through the use of surveillance with threats of incarceration already exists is some counties today. The advent of digital ID and a so-called cashless society is to be the final nail in our coffin. They obviously control global banking, they also control what we think and believe as they ultimately control the media and are the power behind the Internet ecosystem and of course, social media. As long as the hoi polloi are concentrating their ire on each other no one is looking at them. There are outliers and outsiders who keep challenging them. Think Vladimir Putin, think a Xi Jinping, think the Ayatollah among others. No surprise there. Now think Donald Trump! Yes indeed, it's not that Trump is in league with the others, but he is a sworn enemy of The Banksters just the same. Can The Banksters reach their objective of complete control before the veil is fully lifted? Time will tell.

They have, since the inception of the globalist age and before, used war among other actions to advance their cause. They manipulate money and currency until there's nothing left to squeeze out of any particular locality, then whip up a war, invading another sovereign nation to steal their resources. Rinse and repeat. For decades the U.S. has been their bludgeon. That is changing before our eyes. 

This is where Trump comes into the fray. If you've listened to what Trump has been saying for decades, long before he became the bloviator in chief, he's been decrying the globalist agenda that's been advanced by The Banksters for decades. His contention is that America is being ripped off and severely diminished as an industrial power. Coming on the heels of the America hating, socialist friendly Obama, Trump blundered toward the White House not really expecting to win, clearly. His bull in the china shop routine emboldened his detractors. The alarm bells rang among The Banksters and they jumped into action to stop him at all costs. No need to list all the schemes they used to discredit or incarcerate Trump, we only need to cite Russia Russia Russia. To a degree it certainly stymied him but it didn't seem to be enough to sink the ship. The conspiracy minded among us were not shocked when Covid-19 bloomed into existence just about the time the reelection machine was about to be revved up. It enabled the puppeteers to meddle with the 2020 election apparatus and rather suddenly Trump was out. The Banksters and their globalist cheerleaders had done it! Now with their dummy propped up behind the Resolute Desk the final push had begun.

In a twist of fate the marionette strings frayed and Biden fell off the rocking horse. With Covid-19 in the rearview the tide began to turn. It crashed down with a splash when Elon Musk purchased Twitter and removed the censorship shackles, showing that it could be done. It can't be overstated what this one move did to the narrative. Meanwhile Trump, having beaten back the dogs was poised to face Biden in a rematch. We all known what happened next.

With Trump back in power, the gloves came off. He and his team were ready this time, the learning curve behind them. The Globalist's agenda if not exposed to the light is at least being chased from the shadows. Britain and the rest of the European anti-Semites could hide behind "the Jews are controlling the world" for only so long, Trump is having none of it. The bottomless pit of U.S. arms and money was coming to an end. Trump wanted the wars to end, and if not ended, then U.S. weapons would be purchased not given away. 

Trump's team helped broker peace deals in several wars we weren't even being told about as well as the Hamas/Israeli war, all while giving the Iraqis a good thumping. For Ukraine and Russia there's been no lack of effort on Trump's part. He's not just saying things, he's doing things. 

The end of globalization is upon us. The world will still be a global marketplace but not dictated out of the European "club" in Davos Switzerland with its North American members. Via self-inflicted wounds Europe is destroying itself - Trump is merely helping them. With a hollowed out Europe gone as a global force it leaves only the U.S. and China. No other centers of gravity exist. One would hope you'd be rooting for the U.S. 

The Banksters won't go easy. Their network is immensely powerful. In all likelihood they'll outlast Trump and things will resume on the same trajectory as before the Trump-age. Before Trump their goal was to get their hands on Russia's resources (that's always been their goal). They foresaw a war between Russia and Ukraine draining Russia's war capacity with a bonus of the potentiality of Putin's government collapsing. They've been thwarting the push for peace at every turn. Ukraine is a sacrifice, The Banksters care nothing for Ukrainians. The corruption of Ukraine preceded Putin's invasion by a decade or two. It was NATO sabre rattling by the EU and the Americans that ultimately forced Putin to act when he did. Trump inherited this war, he didn't start it. 

Britain's military is currently training with Finland at the Russian border. Finland is a new NATO member but they have never been afraid of Russia - in fact they have been trading across the Russian border for hundreds of years. Now suddenly Finland is partnering with Britain in the event Russia invades? Something smells here. Britain has meddled in Russian affairs forever. Is it any wonder that the Russia Russia Russia affair was born in London and sold to Hillary Clinton to smear Trump in 2016. London is the financial center for The Banksters, so understand where this is all coming from. Putin is no saint, but he's been provoked and provoked and provoked again. 

The Trump administration has put The Banksters on notice. His detractors on both sides of the Atlantic think their hyper-rhetoric is a viable defense against his bloviating. They take the bait but Trump's rhetoric is merely to cover his consequential actions. Trump's real "warp speed" isn't a vaccination for Covid-19, it's thwarting The Banksters at every turn. Almost everything he's done in 10 months is with an eye toward dismantling their brand of globalism. 

Ten years has gone by since Trump walked down the escalator and he's still standing despite every thing they've thrown at him - including a bullet. He's currently targeting Venezuela. Why? The war on drugs? No, he's trying to interrupt the narco-money flow that serves The Banksters. The money that flows through the Caiman Islands and the Bahamas etc etc, is laundered and skimmed to benefit the globalist machine. The American media is ignoring it, if they can even comprehend it. Anything that can whip up hatred towards Trump benefits The Globalists. 

The media's reverence for the EU knows no bounds. They are willfully blind to the disharmony in every EU country as well as the UK. Average citizen's in Europe are so disheartened by what is happening to them that they actually pray for someone like Trump in their own countries. As with the Banksters, the EU elites are entrenched and powerful and seemingly do not care at all what the citizens want. 

Native born people want the mass immigration to stop. It is precisely what is destroying Europe as we know it. Biden's puppeteers had instituted the same strategy in the U.S. while claiming that only congressional legislation could stop illegal immigration. How convenient for them that Congress is totally dysfunctional and has been for decades. Obviously that presumption was false, Trump had the borders closed in a few short months.

The obvious conclusion to all this is that Western Civilization is being destroyed, and the native populations of Europe, North America and the Anglo world are being replaced. The upper crust and the university crowd scoff at this, but the rest of us have eyes. We can see how The Banksters through coordinated actions have discouraged white populations from reproducing. They pushed women wage war on maleness and not so subtly raised the cost of homes out of reach of young people. No harmony, no homes, no babies. It's beyond me why powerful white Europeans and their kindred spirits in America want this. Self hatred? Or do they think pliable populations of downtrodden immigrants will shut up and allow them their ivory towers to live like kings and queens while the rest live hand to mouth, gratefully so? Good luck with that.

Me, the conspiracy nut that I am, believe it's the final solution to Christianity and Judaism. The Devil's plan.

addendum: I do not posit that Donald Trump is some kind of hero or that he is above reproach. Frankly I wish he'd just shut up, I can't even listen to him for more than a minute or two. I am contending that he is doing what has to be done, however clumsily. The borders had to be closed. The hard leftism choking America had to be challenged. The military had to be rescued from wokism and social engineering. The corruption of USAID and other bottomless pit programs had to be stopped. Wars had to be stopped. Climate crisis nonsense had to be revealed for what it is, a fairytale and a grift. Transgenderism had to be called out. And The Banksters have to be resisted. The list goes on and on. These among many other serious issues had to be addressed and turned back toward reality. Our country was tumbling down the wrong path. Since Congress is doing nothing and hasn't for decades - someone has to act. 

A hedge against the pitiless, indifferent universe: God

 

by Craig Willms

hedge

/hej/ noun 

 1. A row of closely planted shrubs or low-growing trees forming a fence or boundary

2. A line of people or objects forming a barrier

3. A means of protection or defense

In an earlier article called "The Mental Fabric" I wrote in summation: God is the hedge against the cold, cruel impersonal world. It was an attempt to describe just what God ultimately is to us. So many people are 'believe it when I see it' type of people, needing something tangible, solid - something called proof. The proof is out there... In spades

I think it's clear that faith is learned, not innate, not instinctual. We start learning it the moment we are born whether we know it or not. We all have faith in one thing or another. We quickly learn to have faith in our mother by her demonstrations of love and caring. We've learned to have faith that the sun will rise in the morning, that sort of thing. This kind of faith is easy, we see it, we experience it.

Faith in the unseen, what's in another's heart or head is another thing entirely.

Many learn to have faith in God, and many don't. Just because some reject the idea of God altogether doesn't mean God isn't real. You ask, isn't God something humanity made up? Possibly, but it doesn't change the fact that God, or some "Godlike" conceptual construct is intrinsic to human development in a civilized world.

Well known atheist Richard Dawkins once wrote, and I'm paraphrasing, the universe is exactly as we'd expect it to be if it were undirected, with a cold, pitiless indifference toward everything. He was just calling as he saw it. Upon examination it does seem this is true. Life on Earth, the only place we know it to be, is brutal and compassionless. Yet humanity has thrived to the tune of eight billion of us roaming the Earth today. We've tamed nature to some degree and we are now reaching out to the stars. How was this accomplished when nature clearly has it out for us?

All alone in the wilderness you would likely face an early death. You pair up and then form a clan in order to survive a difficult and unforgiving world. Strength in numbers. Ultimately though, you stand alone, self-preservation reigns supreme. It's in the defiance, the selfless ability to sacrifice your own well being to help another that provides witness to the very spark of divinity within you, the recognition that God is in you. When the self-sacrifice a mother bears toward her children and a father for his family is extended outward, a community is formed. The recognition that your sacrifices, freely giving of yourself, giving of your resources with genuine motives elevates everyone in your presence. This is the divine, this is God among us. There is a reason charity is associated with the Godly.

If nature favors the survival of the fittest as you were taught, why would you chance helping the weak when it could lead to your own demise? Where does this human decency come from? Of course there are many reasons acting in a kind, cooperative manner would help ensure survival for you and your children. But many go above and beyond without any personal benefit, as if it's the right thing to do... So, there is a right thing and a wrong thing?

Doing right or doing wrong is clear, recognizable for what it is. We call it morality, and it's made clear to us at a fairly early age. With all it's grayness we know if our actions are moral, in our heart of hearts we know if what we are doing is right. We choose to reject, or at least suppress our better selves when we act immorally. We often hide or obfuscate our misbehavior. Why would we do that? You know why.

So if you are confronted by those who would belittle your faith, your belief in goodness, your belief in God by citing the bearded old man in the clouds, or your imaginary friend called Jesus, ignore their 14-year-olds argument, they are as ignorant as a teenager. You know the God presence in you, and it's your choice to accept God or reject God.

It's as obvious as the nose on your face that many, many people reject God, they push down the inherent goodness in their own heart, as they push it down in everyone around them. Too many corporate chieftains and political figures crave power and wealth over simple grace and humility. These leaders attract people like themselves. This is how evil grows in all institutions, even, I dare say, the church. Self-interest trumps self sacrifice.

Such is the problem of evil. A rejection of the God inside us. We are inundated with mixed messages in this modern world, where good and evil are inverted and good, Godly people are often ignored or are treated as the real weirdos. When you watch the people responding to a disaster, putting themselves in danger, going above and beyond, notice how they outnumber the looters and destroyers. There are so many good people - they don't get recognition, nor do they want it, just know they are there. It's all made to seem that the compromised outnumber those who honor the God presence inside them, but they don't. Good people with their love and kindness far outnumber the opposite.

 *****

Lastly, there are those who unequivocally reject the notion of God, especially a Judeo/Christian God, but they are clearly good people. What about them? They are fine. Deep down they believe in the power of good over evil, and act accordingly. Rabbis, pastors and teachers are guides toward truth, guides to righteousness - but not everyone needs a guide. I can't speak to other practiced religions; I do however have a belief that these people know the God deep down in their souls whether they profess belief in such things or not. Their inherent love and goodness is quite enough.

USAID - Not just folly, criminal

by Craig Willms

I was one of those people who knew nothing about USAID or any number of other government agencies that spend billions of dollars within their dubious mission statements. The whole government aid and NGO paradigm is a murky, swampy concept that goes right over our heads - by design. We have all supported the concept of charitable organizations addressing social and economic problems, it only seems right. Whereas most of us older people think of faith-based outfits, in reality we know full well that government stepped in decades ago and took over this space. Most of us have no idea how far it has strayed from the concept.

Whenever the government gets involved with anything it eventually becomes rife with unseen corruption and smiling people in fancy suits and luxury cars coming out personally richer in every respect. The aid dollars destined for the situation at hand never seem to have the impact that was hoped. Alas, if it was ever about 'the situation', it became all about grift. Face the facts, all large institutions become corrupt in some way. In this case USAID and some other organizations they have always been the principal funding mechanism for clandestine activity for the intelligence community, or straight up grift for the credentialed government class. 

After WWII the conquest and capture of foreign lands by means of armies of destruction was over. Covert manipulation of elections and the spreading of propaganda, which we call disinformation these days became the preferred method of taking control. If America was going to dominate the world then a way to infiltrate foreign locales was required. Welcome USAID. The promise of US dollars was the foot in the door, a legitimacy for "intelligence" agents to operate in these countries. Fast forward 60 years and billions of dollars later the ugly truth is about to come out. Whether this method to conduct U.S. "policy" around the world is legitimate or not it's obvious it is out of control. In the end it props up the global war machine - and this is what's important to the American state.

There have been efforts over the years to reign in these programs. In the end the politicians and officials who highlighted these boondoggles were treated as a punchline and then dismissed. No one ever took the second step by taking action or at least doing a serious follow up. They didn't because they were strongly encouraged to drop it lest they or their families are paid an unwelcome visit...

Enter Trump 2.0 and D.O.G.E. and the threat of complete exposure. For decades this money faucet flowed freely, set on auto-pilot. Look away, nothing to see here. The dirty little secret that everyone in DC always knew and looked away from is that 99% of all these funds were in service to the ultra-left. I'd be remiss not to point out that big money interests almost always directly or indirectly benefit. Turning these apple carts over and exposing the graft is only part of it, Trump intends to end it. It'll be great fun to watch the rats scurry away from the light.

The details are just emerging from D.O.G.E.'s initial pass, and it's overwhelming. Tens of billions of dollars sent out from Washington to entities all over the world funding a list of projects that read like Saturday Night Live skits. You literally could not make this stuff up.

It's early, the dust has yet to settle, but the one that caught my attention is so bizarre and so creepy that I just had to bring it up. Thompson Reuters, a media company was awarded $9,173,000,000+ to create something called Large-Scale Social Deception. LSD! Thompson, once a text book creator for our schools had merged with Reuters a business news publisher. Honestly, when I said you can't make this stuff up I had the word ironic floating through my mind. Social deception occurs when individuals or governments manipulate social interactions for their own gain while hiding their true intentions. Is social deception something we want our government to be involved with? Yet, here we are with a combination of an educator and news disseminator creating the template for Washington!

Honestly I know nothing other than the title, the dollar amount and the awardee, yet it's enough to know it's bad, very bad. Now, had we learned this prior to 2020 it might have breezed by unnoticed. What happened in 2020? Covid-19. Talk about largescale social deception. This is an OMG moment. Obviously there is more to learn on this one, but those who mock "conspiracy theories" have got some soul searching to do.

Bad Actors

by Craig Willms

No, I'm not talking about Adam Sandler or Hayden Christenson, notoriously bad actors, I'm talking about bad actors on the world stage. We in the West like to think of Putin or Xi or Maduro, the Ayatollah even Kim as bad actors - and they are - but to a certain degree they are reactionaries. Reacting to what, to whom? Well, sorry to say they're reacting to the American state. The American State Dept. and their ancillary departments to be exact. We need only to look in the mirror to see the catalyst of  many of the world's atrocious actions.

Most Americans are going to say what? What on Earth are you talking about? The thing is most non-Americans will know exactly what I'm saying. We here in America are so under served by our mainstream media, where most people still get their news, that we can't even recognize how brainwashed we are. Even with the global reach of the Internet and access to outside news sources the domestic big media still hold sway. It's understandable, a single human has only so much time and bandwidth - and most of us are busy. There is a lot of noise out there. 

The good news is that the whole of the Biden presidency and the subsequent Harris campaign exposed a fair amount of the rot and guile that is our Federal government. The fact that Trump cleared all hurdles including being shot, and won the 2024 presidential election handily indicates that enough people see the truth of the vile underbelly of the "blob". The blob? The bureaucratic state, the permanent government, the deep state or whatever you want to call it, constitutes the blob. The blob is not hemmed in by American borders, it exists in Canada, Europe and Australia as well. Trump was elected partly due to his rhetoric to drain the 'swamp', clearly American's have some idea of the width and breath and the depths of  this monster. It remains to be seen if he's all hat and no cattle. Color me skeptical, he did next to nothing on this the first time around.

What ever you think it's wrong. As bad as I think it may be, be assured it's worse, much worse. 

Anywhere in the world there is strife or war or economic dysfunction America or it's allies are stirring the pot. Usually there are major economic concerns, giant corporations and a lot of money on the line. Do you really think that the invasion of Ukraine by the Russians started in February 2022 when the tanks started rolling? If so, you are naïve. Ukraine was supposed to be the buffer between Russia and NATO. Putin was promised by multiple administrations that NATO would not encroach on Russia. The Obama administration then staged a coup in Ukraine and installed a NATO friendly regime after ousting the Russian friendly government.  Now we are funding a war to the tune of billions of dollars that not one person can demonstrate a single American interest. Not one. Is it any wonder Putin is reacting the way he is.

Consider the Nordstream pipeline in the North Sea. It supplied affordable Russian gas to Europe. It was destroyed mysteriously. Mysteriously? Wink, wink. Yeah, you and everyone else knows who destroyed it. Why? What's it all about? 

Indeed, what is it all about? It's about energy, and who control's it - and who makes money from it. Oil, natural gas and coal power the modern world, therefore he who controls it controls the world. This has been true for 100 years or more. Nearly every hot war has been fought over the control of energy. Lurking behind the scenes the State Department and their minions in the CIA etc etc foment armed conflict to induce chaos and ultimately determine who controls the flow of oil and gas.

In one sense the desire to push the world to electric cars and electric heating and cooking seems laudable if only to change the world's power dynamic (pun intended). But it was folly. For one, the conversion to EV's and the like is not technically ready, and two, it still takes traditional energy to power the electric grids of the world. 

Remember when Syria entered into deals to build oil pipelines to connect the middle east to the Mediterranean Sea? Suddenly there was an insurgency in Syria, funded and armed by - you guessed it - the Obama administration. ISIS was born. It worked, Assad was nearly overthrown until Russia intervened. It became a stale mate, but it stopped the pipeline plan. We back here in America only heard how awful ISIS and Assad (and the Russians) behaved. We were put on high alert for terrorist activity here in the Homeland while our planes and drones were dropping bombs on innocent Syrians, killing tens of thousands and displacing millions of people. Indeed, Assad and the rest of them are bad, evil even, but how can we, the United States, consider ourselves the good guys?

We like to think that Iran and the Ayatollah's as the epitome of evil, and in a sense they are, but they are also reactionaries. More than half a century ago the CIA installed a government in Tehran to serve as our guy in the heart of the middle east oil region. Since the overthrow of the Shah in 1979 Iran has been at war with the U.S. in one way or another. We are sold this notion that they are are just wild-eyed terrorists, but they are the way they are because of what our CIA had done - and continues to do. They, the Iranian government are not the good guys, but neither are we. America caused this situation. Is it any wonder we are regarded as The Great Satan in Iran... 

The western hemisphere is just as deep in the State Department's mess as the middle east. Since WWII the CIA and the State Department has intervened, disrupted, staged coups and generally run amok in the affairs of every sovereign nation on this side of the world. Is it any wonder South American nations are embracing China. 

This has got to stop. Is there any reason to believe it will? Not really. The "deep state" or whatever you call it is essentially a crime syndicate and has been since it's inception in the 1940's. It is entrenched, and it's world wide. Anyone, regardless of their status or perceived power who confronts it in any way is usually dealt with swiftly and decisively. It's either coercion or it's a bullet. 

One hopes that a Trump administration can start turning the ship, particularly since he has only one term, no reelection to concern him. To the previous point, a bullet recently grazed his ear and the circumstances and the perpetrator are still shrouded in mystery. Be assured the money and power of the giant corporations, the money men on Wall Street and the deep deep deep state in Washington DC will outlast him. The service he can do is to shine the light on this monster and get average Americans to see what we have become. We are a criminal global war factory, and the powers and principalities will continue unabated until we collectively demand an end to it. Even that may not be enough.

Is it any wonder... We need a miracle

by Craig Willms

With all the trouble in the world we'd be wise to understand what is at the very heart of it. That's easy. The obvious answer as well as the true answer is - the eternal battle between good and evil. Great, fine, now define in sociological terms the good side and the evil side. Not so easy is it.

We exist, all of us, in a world of contrast and balance. Everything is in flux, moving from one place to another, from the ever-expanding universe right down to the sub-atomic level. Atoms, which are just states of energy, are in motion and are never in the right place or wrong place, they just are, if they stop, they cease to exist. The same goes for our lives and our place in the grand scheme of things. We can't stop in place or shun the natural energy and rhythms of our existence. This is just a long way of examining this current civilizational juncture where good and evil in eternal opposition are an intrinsic part of the continuum of existence, and our utter powerlessness to do anything about it. Good, evil, we can't eradicate either, just as we can't do away with the light or the dark. There could be no good without evil. We have to come to grips with this dichotomy. We see our friends and enemies as either good or evil, but they are both. So are we.

The left/right enigma we find in the world today is out of balance. We need to understand that the right-wing, believe it or not, has evil elements as much as the left-wing does. Conversely, both have a bright side. When one side dominates, both their good and evil elements dominate. Let that sink in... 

The side that dominates, in the end, will destroy both. Today in the West the left, the collectivist elements are beginning to dominate politically, socially and economically. With an insistence on starving the productive populace and the poorest of the poor the efficient and abundant energy they need to live, as well as effectively outlawing dissent in the name of saving the world from a human induced fiery death the hard-left rules by fear. As such we now behold the beginning of the end of the modern order itself. 

In sociological terms both the good and the evil under the total domination of one political view or the other, leads us to mentally erase this good/evil duality. We become blind to the concerns of the other side. While other populations outside the West resign themselves to misery and go numb, or drown in a bottle, in Western countries we tear each other apart. We turn to hate and aggression, in total opposition to the other side. That may be inevitable when it comes to ideological survival, but until we all come to the realization that we need to be 'in balance' we will see nothing but strife and destruction. It would be great if we didn't have to pick sides but pick sides we must.

I'll start. I say the forced collectivism sought by communists and socialists is evil. They, on the other hand, might claim evil is the greed, the inequality of individualists and capitalists. Who is right? I can't really answer, how could I? I am firmly in support of the rights of the individual and free markets. The leftists who seek full control of every aspect of human life are quite sure they are right; they have no qualms about forcing their "beliefs" on you and me at every turn. Capitalists and those who promote individualism are in theory supportive of voluntary participation. The collectivists are not, they demand of society the false equity of equal outcomes regardless of individual effort or ability (or so they say). Collectivism, as in, to each according to his needs is only correct when it comes to infants and babies, and those who cannot possibly fend for themselves. Everyone else has to work. One should be rewarded according to their effort and their talents. Am I right? Of course, I am.

Ah, but this is where it falls apart. The destroyers, the collectivists and communists, tend to get all the ammunition they need from the capitalists themselves! The capitalist system is broken, probably always has been. Can it be fixed? Good question. What we have is cronyism, crony capitalism, or what I'd call stacked-deck capitalism. This bastardization of what capitalism should be is giving the bullies and shamers in the collectivist camp everything they need to derail those things that are actually good and righteous. In this crony system the winners collect the lion's share of the rewards. The deck gets stacked in favor of those within their sphere and their families. Where they can, they expertly finagle government policy to quash the competition, or they buy the competition outright. These elites easily usurp every liberal platitude or conservative bedrock principle, valid or not, into the feel-good about yourself ideology and shape them to their own advantage. It's become a very tangled web of diversions, deceit and favoritism. Our elected officials play along, often out of the necessity to survive.

Remarkably this broken system has thrived around multiple centers of gravity for many decades. Not anymore. Slowly over these last few decades the power and wealth has concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. Maybe this was always the inevitable outcome, I can't say, but it's where we are now. Countless wars, hot and cold have been waged between the so-called free world in the West and the dictators of the collectivist cults, just to keep the machinery of war well oiled. None of these wars have ended well for either side, save the defense industries.

So, which is the real evil? Is it the dictatorial collectivists and communists whose lust for control knows no bounds, or these oligarchical crony capitalists with all their depravity? Don't ask the defense contractors, the finance managers or the pharmaceutical industry you will get self-serving answers devoid of any humanity. Don't ask college students or their professors you'll get only slogans, fantasy and fluff. Don't even bother with the hard-core leftists, for whom humans are either hapless victims or diabolical oppressors. Don't inquire among the always sanctimonious marxists, who cannot see beyond the boiling rage that anyone might have more than they do. These power centers are blinded by their hollow greed or their disingenuous envy. No good solutions will come from any of them. They are quite evil. The rest of us are stuck in the middle. 

Is it any wonder the world seems to exist on a razor's edge. Do we live in an illusion of order and stability? We seem to teeter on the edge of turmoil raging just below the surface. When this order and stability inevitably break down, we will ask how this can this happen? How can it not? 

Looking back there was a point when the world might have ended the infatuation with communism/marxism. It was on the United States of America to foster the new age. Not that the true believers would have miraculously transformed and joined team Corporate America, but the faint hope that lingered for global collectivism could have been rubbed out for good. For a time, the West lifted billions out of abject poverty via the global systems built to defeat the Soviets during the Cold War. It wasn't going to last. Peace, love and understanding is the stuff of pop songs, not reality. Within a decade the American defense industry and their bought and paid for political stooges soon settled on a new enemy to justify greasing the cold war cash machine once again. That enemy was Islam... Islam could only fight back with terrorism. The result has been two decades of the worst of both of these absolute evils. America lost its chance to be a truly great global hegemon. The West lost its moral compass, if it ever had one.

For the love of money is the root of all evil... (Timothy 6:10 KJV version) seems appropriate here but I would rewrite it: "the love of money and power". Money is necessary, power is intoxicating, the combination of the two is lethal. Clearly this is not an original thought, but nonetheless true. Efforts have been made to separate the two, but never successfully. The reason reform never works is the multiple sets of perverse incentives to prop up the broken system. Doing what's right rarely wins converts or enthusiasts. Is there anything that can be done? Our current situation is so deeply entrenched and the vested interests, including our own, make it nearly impossible to see a way out. 

The pot is starting to boil. The left has the mechanisms of government and culture gripped firmly and the crony system is vacuuming up the money with which it feeds both sides of the fight. We'll never climb out of the water we're drowning in. The money elites and their billions have allied with the cultural marxists in some misguided notion that they'll somehow escape the destructive crash the collectivists have been orchestrating. Leftist collectivists have all kinds of plans to control us, all in various stages of completion. We need to face the facts. 

As for our biggest cultural ally in the world, Europe it's the same but worse. All of us watch our freedoms slip away, our economic power being stripped away, our ability to express opinions that don't "comply" with the leftist orthodoxy degrade. We are being threatened everywhere, in everything we do. How long can this go on? 

What to do now? Is there any hope? Marxist collectivism is like a debilitating rash that won't go away, it clearly is not an answer to anything. Can capitalism be saved? Maybe in some form. Obviously not in this current crony-ized form. Then what? Has the power and money been so concentrated that a wholesale collapse and rebuild is the only answer? I truly hope not. Something needs to change, also obvious, but can anyone articulate what that change should be? Or how we can initiate it without sowing chaos? If marxist nonsense is out and this stacked-deck capitalism is unsustainable what is an actual third way?

I clearly don't have any simple answers. I'm not sophisticated enough to solve the modern dilemma. Getting tainted money out of politics is one obvious play, but that's easier said than done. Just paying elected officials more and financing campaigns with public money isn't going to work, it's been tried in various places and to varying degrees. It just doesn't address the second part of the equation, the craven lust for power. Considering that the people with the money have the power there's not much chance anything will change short of a societal collapse, which the hard left with their socialist dreams seems to crave. Perhaps someone will come along that can see through to our warped situation with common sense solutions, or something approaching simple sanity. Someone who can stand against the entrenched money crowd while showing us in black and white the nefarious plans the socialists have plotted. I know it's asking for a miracle. Once in a while we deserve one. 

UPDATE: Since this was written the tide has turned. The right has pushed back. It's not clear where things will land. The right side of the spectrum has clearly picked up steam in America and other places around the world. The Covid-19 pandemic opened a lot of eyes. Still, even before Covid there was a sense that people, that everything had been pushed too far by the left. They are calling this a return to common sense. I doubt it will completely tip the state of the world, but anything is possible. The vile hatred for conservatism and the "right-wing" is greater than ever. This has happened before. In 1980 with the  election of Ronald Reagan things improved for millions, but it did not last. The hate was great then as well. It's not likely to last this time. Balance between the two extremes is needed but the world exists on a spinning teeter-totter. We lurch back and forth, up and down. The hope is that we do not come crashing all the way down. Will something fundamentally change with this swing to the right? Impossible to say. Obviously I welcome it.

CW