Ideology Vs. Realism: Your Principles Might be a Straight Jacket

May 18, 2017 (Tony Cartalucci - LD) - In reality, socioeconomic ideologies like socialism, communism, capitalism, agorism, and anarchy are like tools. They are best used under specific circumstances dictated by reality, and just like tools, are best used in combination or sequence toward achieving a certain end.

Healthcare provides a perfect example of this. All can most likely agree that one shouldn't die simply because they cannot afford healthcare. The current state of healthcare - particularly in terms of infrastructure and technology - means that in order to provide healthcare to individuals who cannot afford it "socialist" style policies and charity is required. However, neither is a sustainable or final solution - merely an incremental step toward one. 

Free market competition, collaboration, entrepreneurship, and the advance of medical technology makes it cheaper and more accessible for everyone, including those who cannot afford it at current costs. Incrementally, research and development will yield healthcare infrastructure and technology even the poorest can afford without government intervention or charitable organizations.

A combination of socioeconomic ideologies used to achieve this represents a process rooted in reality - not divorced from ideology - but utilizing socioeconomic ideology as practical tools toward a specific goal - and using them in combination and sequence to get there.

In a transition from healthcare today to a future where it is affordable and accessible to all, individualists and free marketeers will ultimately come out on top. Ironically, they can never do so until they make the transition today from temporary stop gaps to sustainable solutions tomorrow.

Unfortunately for many, socioeconomic ideologies are viewed more like "sacred cows" they jealously protect from contact with anything even remotely removed from its place along the socioeconomic ideological spectrum. And like a sacred cow, ideologies thus become an object of adulation rather than anything practical.  

For individualists, free marketeers, capitalists, and other stripes right of the socioeconomic ideological spectrum, the notion of socialist healthcare is unacceptable under any circumstance. Despite being unable to implement immediate alternatives for addressing people unable to afford healthcare now, or any road map toward a future where healthcare is affordable without socialist schemes, they categorically reject even temporary measures and stop gaps.

This is because they put their ideology ahead of reality and by doing so fail to address and solve both real problems and more ironically - fail in moving society any closer toward their own ideologies of choice.

We Already Live in a Free Market - Here's Why It's No Utopia (Yet)

April 30, 2017 (Tony Cartalucci - LD) - The fundamental problem with free market proponents is that many fail to realize we already have an absolutely, 100% free market. Within that free market, a clique of incredibly wealthy, well connected, and well organized individuals have decided to use their freedom to create "governments" they influence, media they control, police who impose by force their will upon populations, a military to either protect their racket or project it beyond their current areas of operation, and all else we associate with "statism."

The fact is, should we be able to push a button and suddenly render Earth a government-free planet, the first order of business wealthy, well-connected, well-organized individuals will do is band together to create gangs, then mafias, then governments, then supranational blocs, until they then move on to pursue global hegemony as they chaff against competing factions doing likewise - entrapping the rest of us within their self-serving struggle.

This of course does not render void the ideology of agorism or anarchy. Neither does it negate the positive, practical aspects of the modern nation-state. What it does is illustrate a matter of practicality versus principles and the necessity to balance them realistically.

Might Makes Right 

The above scenario unfolds the way it demonstrably does on a daily basis and since the beginning of time because wealthy, well-connected, well-organized individuals are able to successfully hone and wield the tools of physical force better than any of their competitors.

Imagining again the scenario where the world is suddenly rendered government-free, these individuals would simply eliminate by force those attempting to impose upon them limitations preventing them from imposing their will involuntarily upon others.

Without a sufficient means of deterrence, gangs, mafias, governments, and supranational blocs will run roughshod over any and all who stand between them and greater wealth and influence.

Balance of Power 

To prevent a gang, mafia, government, or supranational bloc from expanding further, it requires an equal but opposed center of organized power arrayed against it.

Imagining the scenario where the world is suddenly rendered government-free, in order to prevent wealthy, well-connected, well-organized individuals from imposing their will upon others, an equitable balance of power would need to be established.

This could entail various means of decentralization where individuals were able to possess equal but opposed means of self-defense, monetary exchange, manufacturing, communication, energy production, and all other essentials currently monopolized by the world's existing centers of power.

Using Organic Agriculture to Change Your Community (and the World)

March 28, 2017 (The Vin Armani Show) - Curtis Stone is a farmer, author, speaker and consultant. His area of expertise is in quick growing, high value annual vegetables for direct consumer market streams. His book, The Urban Farmer demonstrates organic intensive techniques with a focus on business and systems to streamline labour and production. He offers a new way to think about farming. One where quality of life and profitability coexist.

Read more about Curtis Stone at http://theurbanfarmer.co/.

So You Want to Start a Resistance

February 7, 2017 (Tony Cartalucci - LD) - Talk of "resistance" ebbs and flows as political parties enter and leave power. The one constant among this turbulent process is the futility and impotence of these so-called "resistance" movements ignited and left to burn.

When President Donald Trump took to the White House in January 2017, such calls were once again made to "resist" the new president and all the perceived evils he represented.

However, so confused and detached from reality are these calls, that no such resistance has even the remotest possibility of improving America's plight, with a much more likely possibility of actually making that plight worse.

The Deep State: From Whence Real Power Flows

According to Wikipedia, the deep state is described as:

...a political situation in a country when an internal organ ("deep state"), such as the armed forces and civilian authorities (intelligence agencies, police, administrative agencies and branches of governmental bureaucracy), does not respond to the civilian political leadership.

And the reality is, within every nation exists a deep state of one sort or another. Excluded from Wikipedia's definition are "internal organs" comprised of corporate-financier interests with unwarranted wealth and influence on scales that likewise allow them to "not respond to the civilian political leadership," or even directly and fully control that civilian political leadership altogether.

Beyond mere conspiracy theories, leaked e-mails made available by Wikileaks from 2008 - one month before President Barack Obama won the 2008 election - reveal how Citibank's Michael Froman provided a list to John Podesta laying out virtually the entire cabinet of the soon-to-be president.

The New Republic's October 2016 article, "The Most Important WikiLeaks Revelation Isn’t About Hillary Clinton," would report (emphasis added):

The cabinet list ended up being almost entirely on the money. It correctly identified Eric Holder for the Justice Department, Janet Napolitano for Homeland Security, Robert Gates for Defense, Rahm Emanuel for chief of staff, Peter Orszag for the Office of Management and Budget, Arne Duncan for Education, Eric Shinseki for Veterans Affairs, Kathleen Sebelius for Health and Human Services, Melody Barnes for the Domestic Policy Council, and more. For the Treasury, three possibilities were on the list: Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, and Timothy Geithner. 

This was October 6. The election was November 4. And yet Froman, an executive at Citigroup, which would ultimately become the recipient of the largest bailout from the federal government during the financial crisis, had mapped out virtually the entire Obama cabinet, a month before votes were counted. And according to the Froman/Podesta emails, lists were floating around even before that.

Citibank's parent company, Citigroup, reported annual net profits for 2016 at around 15 billion US dollars. This is enough money to provide 1 million dollars in bribes to every member of the US Congress, in both the Senate and House of Representatives, and still maintain the vast majority of its wealth. And Citigroup is just one of many immense, corporate-financier monopolies not only cohabitating upon Wall Street, but cohabitating upon the boards of directors and sponsorship lists of America and Europe's most influential policy think tanks.

Prominent US policy think tanks include but are not limited to:

• The Brookings Institution
• RAND Corporation
• The Heritage Foundation
• Center for Strategic and International Studies
• Council on Foreign Relations
• Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
• Center for American Progress
• Crisis Group
• Freedom House
• The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
• The Atlantic Council 

Think tanks are forums within which unelected corporate-financier funded policymakers devise and promote policy on behalf of their benefactors. They represent the collective interests of multiple multi-billion dollar multinational corporations, banks, and other institutions. They often have ties directly to corporate-media platforms, with corporate-media figures either included within think tank boards of directors, or their media platforms servings as corporate sponsors, or often, both.

Policy is not only devised and promoted from within think tanks and by media platforms associated with them, but this policy inevitably ends up in the hands of corporate lobbyists, who in turn, place it in the hands of both US legislators and staff in the White House itself.

The Hill in an article titled, "Top Lobbyists 2016: Hired Guns," enumerates specific lobbying firms, while The Hill's article, "Top Lobbyists 2016: Corporate," enumerates specific, prominent lobbyists and the corporations they work for.

While many Americans may envision the US President bent over a desk, penning US policy in the Oval Office at night, in reality, US policy is merely rubber stamped by presidents and congress members - many times having not even read the bills and policies they are signing off on.

This is the very definition of a deep state that not only ignores civilian political leadership, but exercises absolute control over that leadership's selection and administration.

Agorist Challenge: Fixing Flint Michigan's Poisoned Water

January 17, 2017 (Tony Cartlaucci - LocalOrg) - Did you know nearly 100,000 people in Flint Michigan are still drinking poisoned water?

That should be no surprise. The government and institutions charged and trusted to ensure the residents of this Michigan city had safe drinking water already demonstrated criminal levels of negligence and corruption, causing the problem to begin with. Expecting these same people and the system they represent to solve the problem lingers somewhere between the unreasonable and the absurd.

US President Barack Obama declared a federal emergency in Flint over a year ago - meaning that the problem isn't just corrupt, negligent, and criminal politicians in Flint - but that the incompetence and impotence goes all the way to Washington.

A year on and the "solutions" presented have ranged from simply forcing residents to buy bottled water and unsustainable charity providing those bottles, to superficial, even deceptive measures like replacing home faucets instead of the miles of poisoned plumbing running through the city.

As for actually fixing Flint's plumbing, government estimates range from "millions" to "billions" indicating no serious thought has been given to even so much as planning an infrastructure overhaul.

It is most certainly a showcase for the absolute failure of government. But could it be a showcase for something more positive?

A Showcase For Alternatives 

Anarchists and agorists propose that there is virtually no problem that cannot be solved through the market - voluntary exchanges between free citizens contributing to a better future. The few, semi-permanent solutions that have presented themselves in Flint have certainly leaned more toward this direction.

There's a Real Revolution Taking Place, and It's Already Making a Difference

November 17, 2016 (via The Corbett Report) - James Corbett of The Corbett Report lays out the dimensions of a very real revolution already taking place. It is built upon pragmatic, technical solutions that liberate us from centralized monopolize of power, industry, finance, and society.

These include solutions regarding the decentralization of manufacturing, energy, finance, and much more:

• Solutions: The Peer-to-Peer Economy
• Solutions: 3D Printing
• Anarchy in Action: Spontaneous Order
• Dear Government, Deliver Us From Freedom
• P2P Solutions: An Open Source Investigation
• Solutions: Freedom Cells
• Solutions: Agorism
• Solutions: Make Your Own Media  

Other articles, like this one from LocalOrg, relay a similar message, and together this quiet, "untelevised" revolution is already making a difference around the world - whether it is the organic food movement shifting the tides against big-ag, or the alternative media shifting the balance of power away from state-sponsored propaganda.

You do not need to wait for the next election to oppose a system you see as corrupt. There are things you can do in your everyday life to deny this system your time, money, attention, and money, and direct it all towards building the sort of world you truly want to live in. 

Read more at The Corbett Report here.  

Fighting the (Real) Deplorables

November 13, 2016 (LocalOrg) - Across America, protests have broken out. They are small, poorly organized, and poorly led. They lack any realistic goal, so clearly, lack any actual plan to achieve any sort of goal. And unfortunately, they have become violent, embodying the very sort of hate, intimidation, and victimization the protesters claim they are fighting against.

The truth is, as the protests currently exist, no matter how long they persist or how big they get, they will accomplish nothing positive, and instead, invite a wide variety of very serious negatives. 

All Americans, and those overseas looking in, must logically admit that neither Hillary Clinton nor now President-elect, Donald Trump, truly represented the American people. Neither were drawn from the people, neither have a record of service to the people, and both have been deeply entrenched in a corrupt system dominated absolutely by corporate-financier special interests. In many ways, both Clinton and Trump in fact constitute those special interests.

This reality means that it is not  "Clinton" or "Trump" that either side was voting for or against, but different aspects of the same corrupt system they find abhorrent and in desperate need of changing. It was not "Clinton" or "Trump" that people were voting for, but their opponents they were voting against. It was not the arguments each candidate made that convinced them, it was the arguments of candidates and commentary by the corporate-media that repelled them.

It is a singularly corrupt system, using smoke and mirrors to convince at least a part of society to support at least a part of its continued existence, under either "right" or "left" cover.

Hillary Clinton once infamously declared:

...you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables...

But the truth is, it is not Trump supporters, and not Clinton supporters - none of the American people who are "deplorables."

It is the system that is deplorable. It is the corporate-financier special interests who are deplorable for monopolizing and dominating every aspect of the American people's lives for profit and power. It is the politicians who are deplorable for selling themselves to these interests while posing as public servants and representatives. It is the corporate media who helps both special interests and their pet politicians pander to the public, mislead them, confuse them, and most deplorable of all, divide them against one another.

The Crucial Difference Between Donbass & Oregon

January 9, 2016 (Tony Cartalucci - LD) - Despite a few superficial similarities, the difference between the rebellion in eastern Ukraine and armed Oregon ranchers standing off with the US federal government couldn't be greater.

A lack of understanding regarding the nature of power and how it is brokered has led to many mistakenly believing there is any merit to what the Oregon ranchers are doing, besides providing an example of precisely how not to stand up against increasingly tyrannical special interests.  This is not to say the ranchers, or even Occupy Wall Street should not be standing up against the US government, it is just that they are going about it in completely the wrong way - compounding their problems, not solving them.

Perhaps by examining the numerous and critical differences between the Donbass fighters and the Oregon ranchers, readers can see the chasm between the two, and perhaps how, in certain aspects, to bridge that chasm.

Donbass vs. Oregon

1. Backing: Donbass has the backing of a superpower - Russia. This includes substantial backing across the media, in terms of political support, and logistical and military support ranging from the implicit threat of Russian retaliation should Kiev and its NATO backers step over certain lines, to - according to NATO - direct military assistance.

In all likelihood, the only superpower backing the Oregon ranchers is the US federal government itself - not a single militia in the US has gone un-infiltrated in the last several decades. Geopolitical analyst Eric Draitser in a recent piece admits he is unsure of the true motives and intentions of the Oregon ranchers, but has dug up a significant amount of information casting serious doubts over not only their objectives, but the very character of its leadership. 

2. Weaponry: The Donbass fighters have a standing army which includes machine guns, military-grade rifles, rockets, missiles (including anti-aircraft systems), artillery, counter-battery radar, and even main battle tanks.  They have the infrastructure to resupply front lines with food, weapons, and fuel, and the ability to protect their logistical lines leading to and from areas of engagement.

The Oregon ranchers have 5.56mm rifles, which can be quickly overwhelmed by numerical superiority, superior firepower, and armor - of which the federal government has all in much abundance.

Showdown in Oregon: How to - and How Not to Fight Tyranny

January 7, 2016 (Tony Cartalucci - LD) - The showdown between armed ranchers and federal agents in the US state of Oregon has triggered passionate debates not only about the particulars of the standoff itself, but the precise manner in which people should stand up against an increasingly overbearing government and the corporate-financier special interests that have commandeered it.

Wall Street and Washington have left the country itself in socioeconomic shambles. Abroad, these collective special interests are subverting nations politically and economically from Venezuela to Southeast Asia, waging war throughout North Africa and the Middle East, while propping up criminal client regimes in nations like Ukraine.

A handful of armed ranchers with a few boxes of supplies, who live within and are completely dependent on a system controlled by the very special interests they are standing up against, will do little to change the military, economic, political, and social factors that add up to the above described global equation.

The ranchers' supply cache looks like it was picked up from one of America's many mega-retailers, the literal consumerist feeding troughs that keep the American people perpetually in servile dependence, and the Fortune 500 deeply entrenched amid the unwarranted power and influence it has enjoyed for decades and is able to wield at home and abroad with virtual impunity.

It is not unlike a group of American G.I.'s trying to fight the Germans during WW2, while buying German rations, from the Germans, all while leaving German supply lines completely intact. They would not only be preserving their enemy's source of strength to fight, but paying into it. The harder they "fought" the more supplies they would need, and the stronger their enemy would become.

The ranchers' standoff, from a purely strategic point-of-view, is already a failure. No matter who is really behind it, and no matter how it plays out, the actions of the ranchers at best will cause the government to back down on this one particular issue, and only for this particular case At worse, it will only further justify the growing police state evolving within America's borders. Regardless, it will do absolutely nothing to change the balance of power enabling Wall Street and Washington at home or abroad.

How to Fight Tyranny 

A growing tyranny is not entirely unlike an insurgency. The terms insurgency and counterinsurgency can quickly become confusing in a politically motivated context. However, generally speaking, an insurgency seeks to overthrow an established institution or political order, while a counterinsurgency seeks to maintain that order.

Big-Pharma's Latest, Most Sickening Crime Against Humanity

By dangling life-changing cures over people's heads for cartoonish figures of "1 million dollars," pharmaceutical corporations prove when they see sick, desperate, dying people, all they see is dollar signs... 

November 12, 2015 (Tony Cartalucci - LocalOrg) - Gene therapy is a game changer. It is not a treatment for diseases. It is a cure.

Image: Gene therapy works by reprogramming an ordinary virus to delivery modified genes to human cells. Once introduced, the modified genes are replicated by natural cell division. Missing or defective genes, over time, can be replaced by repaired genes, reprogramming the immune system to eradicate otherwise incurable diseases, or creating function in defective systems, curing blindness, deafness, diabetes, and even effects owed to aging. 

It is a cure for cancer, genetic defects, blindness, deafness, diabetes, even potentially aging.

It has already proven effective in clinical trials, curing people of leukemia who were otherwise certain to die, giving people their sight back, and already, there is one therapy approved for use in the European Union with several others approved in China.

The most remarkable aspect of gene therapy is that it overwrites your DNA once, then your cells replicate that new DNA each time they divide. In essence, the cure becomes a permanent part of you. One shot, one cure, for life, or close to it.

Why Haven't We Heard More About This? 

As remarkable and as promising as gene therapy is, it poses an immense threat to the established healthcare industry. A shot in clinical trials using experimental equipment that costs only 20,000 USD to produce that cures leukemia, if brought into mainstream medicine would be cheaper still, and undercut existing and ineffective"treatments" that can reach costs in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Gene therapy, then, is essentially a disruptive technology that brings various healthcare rackets to an abrupt halt along with all the vast wealth and unwarranted power and influence big-pharma has enjoyed over the decades.

Image: Dr. Carl June (center) led a team that developed a breakthrough gene therapy that effectively reprograms the immune system to hunt and kill leukemia cancer cells. Most of the patients, otherwise sure to die from their cancer, have gone into permanent remission. 

How can big-pharma continue on with its monopolies, wealth, and influence by curing everyone with one shot that costs almost nothing to make?

Their strategy is two-fold. First, they have intentionally dragged their feet for as long as possible until they can figure this problem out, letting people die of now curable diseases simply because they want to protect their existing business models and bottom lines.

Second, they have begun to mold public opinion through intense lobbying across the media and medical journals, ignoring the actual costs involved in producing the therapies, and instead cashing in on what they think it is worth to people, or in other words, dangling cures for crippling, deadly diseases over dying and/or desperate people's heads, and seeing how much they are willing to pay for them.

Multipolarism Solves Syria at the Source

October 16, 2015 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - The Syrian conflict is profoundly misrepresented across the entirety of the Western press.

To call it a civil war is a gross mischaracterization. The entire conflict was engineered and fueled from beyond Syria's borders. And while there are a significant number of Syrians collaborating with this criminal conspiracy, the principle agents driving the conflict are foreigners. They include special interests in the United States, across the Atlantic in Europe, and regional players including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Israel.

Image: Within the source of the problem, no solution can be found, unless the solution is removing from existence the source.

Syria is far from an isolated conflict. America's interest in dividing and destroying Syria is part of a much larger agenda serving its aspirations both in the region and globally. The division and destruction of Syria as a functioning, sovereign nation-state is admittedly meant to set the stage for the conquest of Iran next.

US End Game in Syria is Just the Beginning for Wider Regional War  

Reuters recently published an op-ed titled, "Syria’s one hope may be as dim as Bosnia’s once was," which argues that the only way the US can cooperate with Russia regarding Syria is if all players agree to a weakened, fragmented Syria.

If this scheme sounds familiar, that is because this op-ed was authored by Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution - a corporate-financier funded think-tank that has in part helped engineer the chaos now consuming the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). O'Hanlon previously published a paper titled, "Deconstructing Syria: A new strategy for America’s most hopeless war," in which he also calls for the division and destruction of Syria.

In it, O'Hanlon calls for the establishment of "safe zones," the invasion and occupation of Syrian territory by US, European, and Persian Gulf special forces, the relaxing of criteria used to openly fund what would essentially be terrorists operating in Syria, and openly making the ousting of the Syrian government a priority on par with the alleged US fight against the so-called "Islamic State" (ISIS/ISIL).

"Relaxing" criteria regarding who the US can openly fund and provide direct military support for, is nothing less than tacit support for terrorism and terrorists themselves.

But none of these treacherous methods should be shocking. That is because O'Hanlon is also a co-author of the 2009 Brookings Institution report titled, "Which Path to Persia? Options for a New American Strategy toward Iran" (.pdf). In this signed and dated criminal conspiracy, methods for covertly overthrowing the Iranian government with US-backed mobs augmented with armed militants, the use of US listed foreign terrorist organizations to wage a proxy war against Iran, the provocation of open war with Iran, and the use of Israel to unilaterally attack Iran first, before bringing America inevitably into the war shortly after are all described in great detail throughout the 156 page report.

There and Back Again - Your Trip Through the American Empire

October 10, 2015 (Tony Cartalucci - LD)  The October 8, 2015 US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing titled, "Russian Strategy and Military Operations," gave viewers an instructive snapshot at the current state of America's dwindling power.

Image: Western governments have their populations cowering in fear over "refugees" invading and destroying their "Western culture," successfully distracting them from true cross-border invaders - multinational corporations whose unwarranted power and influence has done more to destabilize, destroy, steal, plunder, and ruin global populations than any boatload of refugees could hope to accomplish. 

Enter the American Empire

The hearing is one of many interfaces between corporate-financier funded policy think tanks and the politicians who will ultimately rubber stamp their schemes and designs into law. It consists of a panel of bought-off, self-serving senators, listening to think-tank academics with no practical experience along with retired generals drawing paychecks by keeping big-defense, big-oil, big-ag, big-finance, and others well fed.

This particular hearing included Heather Conley of the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) (donors here),  Stephen Sestanovich of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) (donors here), General James Jones (USMC ret.) now of the Brent Scowcroft Center On International Security of the Atlantic Council (donors here), and Generael John Keane (US Army, ret.) of the Institute For The Study Of War (ISW) (donors here).

Image: This Tomahawk cruise missile was brought to Libya by, Raytheon - a corporate sponsor of the Atlantic Council, CSIS, and CFR - all of whom helped engineer, sell, and execute the war in the first place. 

Each witness providing testimony is a member of a corporate-financier funded and directed policy think tank. Looking through their donors and boards of directors, one sees several common denominators - big-oil, big-defense, big-agriculture, big-pharma, big-finance, and other big-businesses forming the foundation of Wall Street and Washington's current power structure.

Considering that the issues being discussed before the US Senate Committee on Armed Services revolve around the application of military force throughout the world toward achieving not the territorial defense of the United States, but defending what are called US "interests" abroad - including the encirclement, containment, and eventual overthrow of geopolitical and socioeconomic competitors - immense conflicts of interest are obvious. In fact, it is clear that these corporate-financier interests are the primary force driving US foreign policy and military planning.

The "Cataclysmic Conflict" Yet to Come

And what we can do to stop it. 

March 6, 2015 (Tony Cartalucci - LD) - Corporate-financier interests driving US foreign policy have long ago conspired to use Al Qaeda and other sectarian extremist forces to create a Pan-Arabian mercenary force with which to fight their enemies. Warned about in 2007 in a prophetic 9-page report by veteran journalist, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Seymour Hersh, then exposed through documented evidence over the course of the past four years, and now incontrovertibly unfolding before the world's eyes, this criminal conspiracy against world peace and all of humanity can be seen in its full, horrific form. 

The war special interests in the United States along with its co-conspirators plan to wage across the planet encompasses not only the Middle East and North Africa, but also Russia, China, and beyond. It threatens the lives, peace, and prosperity of all on Earth. If it is not exposed, and the special interests driving it not undermined, uprooted, and purged from humanity, none will escape the dark days that inevitably lie ahead.

The Unheeded Warning 

It was in 2007, in the New Yorker, that veteran journalist Seymour Hersh published his lengthy, prophetic report, "The Redirection Is the Administration’s new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism?" Within it, Washington, Riyadh, and Tel Aviv were exposed amidst a criminal conspiracy to use sectarian extremists in a proxy war against Iran and its allies in Syria and Lebanon. The impending conflict was described as "cataclysmic."

The report stated explicitly that (emphasis added): 

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda. 

And because the conspiracy was exposed during the administration of US President George W. Bush, attempts by the establishment to compartmentalize current, and increasingly more obvious support by the US of Al Qaeda and the so-called "Islamic State" by characterizing it as a misstep or even "treason" by the administration of US President Barack Obama, is merely a political ploy. It is clear that instead, the policy and its execution across two supposedly diametrically opposed political parties, is an example of "continuity of agenda."

And while the political "right" in the United States in particular feigns outrage and suspicion over the Obama administration's ties and support for sectarian extremist organizations, including the Muslim Brotherhood and factions with direct ties to Al Qaeda, it was exposed in Hersh's 2007 article that the Bush administration had in fact initiated this support.  Obama keeping the Oval Office's chair warm while this policy continues.

The Coming Biological Infowar: US Proposes DNA Database

January 31, 2015 (Tony Cartalucci - LocalOrg) - The US is proposing a government-backed DNA database composed of over a million volunteers' genetic material. RT would report in their article, "Got genes: Obama proposes genetic biobank of 1mn Americans’ DNA to fight disease," that:

A new $215 million US government proposal would seek more than 1 million American volunteers for analysis of their genetic information in an initiative to fight disease, while developing targeted health care based on one’s DNA.

Officials hope the biobank project, announced Friday by President Barack Obama, can merge existing genetic studies with a diverse range of new volunteers to hit 1 million participants.

While this initial database is composed of volunteers, involuntary blood samples are already collected by US law enforcement agencies around the country and amassed in an existing, and ever-expanding network. Additionally, the new proposal seeks to establish "precision medicine" as a standard in medical care, implying that everyone's DNA will eventually be required by medical practitioners to administer increasingly state-run healthcare.

Such information will undoubtedly end up in an expanded, nationwide iteration of this new proposed network. 

Serial Abusers and Their New Toy 

While precision medicine is indeed a powerful tool in fighting disease and repairing injury - in fact, truly the future of medicine - those appointing themselves as its arbiter in the US have already demonstrated they cannot be trusted with such a responsibility.

RT would also note in their report that:

How the US government will ensure that individual genetic information is kept private will certainly become a point of concern for many. A government-led database system amassing genetic coding will likely face resistance in this age of a global spying regime run by the US National Security Agency (NSA) and a genetic patent system used by the likes of Monsanto to consolidate legal ownership of the natural world.

Indeed, a DNA database would be to our bodies, what the Internet was to our computers - with an NSA-like entity invading, abusing, exploiting, and manipulating not just our personal data, but the very genetic code that makes us who we are. The dangers are immense, and the abuse of genetic information has already been eagerly explored by the very special interests driving this new initiative.

Economic War, BRICS, and the Power of Self-Sufficiency

January 20, 2015 (Ulson Gunner - NEO) - The toughest, most resilient people as both individuals and as societies all generally have one thing in common - self-sufficiency. This by no means suggests isolationism, but rather the ability to survive, even thrive through one's own work using resources at their own disposal. 

As a principle, self-sufficiency, self-reliance, and individualism defined young nations like the United States, catapulting it upon the world stage as a global leader after spending time racked in debt and in England's shadow. By establishing its own industry, its own institutions (including those of a financial nature) and its own military might, the United States transcended the tangled webs of interdependency locking Europe's ever-shifting, fragile alliances together. 

The evolution of human civilization along the lines of socioeconomics and technology has changed the roles, effectiveness and relevancy of those industries and institutions that had once made America great and in turn, those nations that had attempted to emulate such features have now all found themselves within the same boat - the boat of globalization.

Globalization is the hitherto pinnacle of interdependency, crippling any nation that falls foul of those sitting at the center of this entangled geopolitical order. There are many examples of nations that haven fallen foul including Cuba, Iraq, Iran and more recently Russia. In each case, respective economies depended heavily upon imports or exports or both. The response in defense against crippling economic warfare is self-sufficiency. 

Facebook: Colonialism 2.0

Putting the entire planet online... then controlling everything they see or read. 

December 24, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - The Western media has attempted to portray Mark Zuckerberg's ambitious plan to get every human being online as altruistic at first, but later revealed as simply what could be called "profitable empathy." In reality however, the truth is much more sinister, with Facebook already revealed to be much more than a mere corporation run by Zuckerberg and his "ideas"
Facebook is the pinnacle of social engineering, an online operant conditioning chamber - also known as a Skinner box - that is being used to track, trace, document, and manipulate half of the entire online population. Despite users attempting to utilize Facebook to connect and communicate with individuals and organizations of interest, Facebook has turned its features against users, insidiously manipulating their timelines to show selected posts and updates while "soft censoring" others to manage public perception.

"Studies" have even been published proving the effectiveness of Facebook's unethical social engineering. In one study, the emotions of users were successfully manipulated by selectively posting only negative or only positive posts from individuals or organizations on users' contact lists. 

A report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) titled, "Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks," stated in its abstract that (emphasis added): 

We show, via a massive (N = 689,003) experiment on Facebook, that emotional states can be transferred to others via emotional contagion, leading people to experience the same emotions without their awareness. We provide experimental evidence that emotional contagion occurs without direct interaction between people (exposure to a friend expressing an emotion is sufficient), and in the complete absence of nonverbal cues. Not only are the findings troubling - illustrating that Facebook possesses the ability to influence the emotions of its users unwittingly through careful manipulation of their news feeds - but the invasive, unethical methods by which Facebook conducted the experiment are troubling as well.

In another experiment Facebook manipulated the news feed of some 2 million Americans in 2012 in order to increase public participation during that year's US presidential election. 

Image: US State Department's "Movement.org" helped
train hundreds of operatives years ahead of US-backed
subversion across the Arab World in 2011. Among the
many sponsors of this program is Facebook and Google. 

Facebook was also an official sponsor of the US State Department's training program preparing political subversion across North Africa and the Middle East years before the so-called "Arab Spring" unfolded. The very activists audiences around the world were told "spontaneously" sprung up across North Africa and the Middle East were in fact trained, funded, and equipped by the US State Department and various corporations including tech giants Google and Facebook years beforehand.

Turning a Network of Information into a One-Way Propaganda Pipeline 
The implications of an Internet commandeered by a conglomerate of Wall Street and Washington special interests is the mitigation of user-driven content and the retrenchment of information consumerism. 

Television "programming" could be perceived as both the process of programming what will appear on TV, but also could be perceived as programming the minds of those consuming television. TV, being a one-way process, effectively eliminates competing ideas and limits the scope of information down to only what those who control television networks want audiences to see and hear. It is clear that Facebook is part of a process to turn the Internet into a similar one-way experience.  

Ferguson and the False Promise of "Revolution"

November 26, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci - LD) - When faced on the battlefield with a numerically superior enemy, one must attempt to divide his enemy into smaller, more easily dispatched opponents, or even more ideally, divide them against one another, and have them defeat each other without ever drawing your sword. For Wall Street's 0.1%, divide and conquer is a way of life.

Divide and Conquer

Never in human history has there been a more effective way for tyrants to rule over large groups of people who, should they ever learn to cooperate, would easily throw off such tyranny.

At the conclusion of the Anglo-Zulu War, the British despoiled Zululand, divided it into 14 separate cheifdoms, each led by a proxy obedient to the British Empire. The British ensured that these 14 cheifdoms harbored animosities toward one another and fostered petty infighting between them to ensure British interests would never again be challenged by a unified Zulu threat. Before the British, the Romans would employ similar tactics across Germania and Gual.

Image: Zululand lies in flaming ruins, its legendary army decimated, but the British were not about to take any chances of allowing them to unite and resit again. They divided the defeated nation into 14 chiefdoms each headed by leaders harboring dislike for the others ensuring perpetual infighting and a divided, weakened Zululand never again to rise and challenge British subjugation. 

In this way, the British Empire and the Romans managed to not only decimate their enemies, but by keeping them perpetually infighting, divided, and at war with one another, manged to keep them subservient to imperial rule for generations.

But one would be mistaken to believe that imperialism is only waged abroad. Imperialism is as much about manipulating, controlling, and perpetuating subservience at home as it is projecting hegemony abroad. For the imperialist, all of humanity represents a sea of potential usurpers. The systematic division, weakening, and subjugation of various social groups along political, religious, class, or racial lines has proven an ageless solution for the elite. 

Don't Replace Facebook, Disrupt It

November 11, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci - LocalOrg) - Facebook is a problem. It is undoubtedly being used by special interests to manipulate and monitor entire populations both within the United States and well beyond. It represents a tool that in no way serves the people actually using it, and instead allows special interests to use the users. It is a dream global panopticon for the abusive dictators that run Western society and presume dominion over what they call an "international order."

But in order to counter this threat, Facebook cannot simply be "replaced." It specifically, and what it represents, must be disrupted entirely.

Facebook is a Skinner Box for Humans 

Facebook has been at the center of several recent controversies that are increasingly leaving users disillusioned and in search of alternatives. At the center of these controversies is Facebook's "news feed" feature. Ideally, news feed would work by showing on your timeline updates from those individuals and organizations you follow. There are two options for news feed - "most recent" and "top stories." Facebook has decided to upend this feature by insidiously controlling what appears on your news feed regardless of which option you select. 

Now, you will no longer receive regular updates from accounts you follow, and instead will see a "filtered" version determined by Facebook's algorithms. Many Facebook users are unaware of this fact and are perplexed as to why they are no longer receiving regular updates from accounts they follow.

Facebook's own explanation as to why they've implemented this policy is as follows:

Rather than showing people all possible content, News Feed is designed to show each person on Facebook the content that’s most relevant to them. Of the 1,500+ stories a person might see whenever they log onto Facebook, News Feed displays approximately 300. To choose which stories to show, News Feed ranks each possible story (from more to less important) by looking at thousands of factors relative to each person.

Facebook's real motivation is more likely a combination of implementing soft-censorship and an effort to monetize news feeds by forcing content makers to pay in order to access people already following them. What's left is wealthy content makers like large corporate media outfits monopolizing the public's attention whether the public wants it or not. 

3D Printing and the Age of Disruption

November 2, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci - LocalOrg) - Disruptive technology is that which overturns an industry unable to adapt or evolve to meet competition enabled by a technological edge. This has occurred across various media industries - from the newspaper to large network news channels, to music and movie producers - the dropping cost of entering the market and competing either directly or by undermining previously monopolized channels of distribution have challenged special interests' grip on information.

Many have predicted such a disruption across other industries beyond the digital world and within the physical, tangible world.

3D printing, more than any other technology, has served as the bridge between digital and physical disruption. The ability to turn digital files into physical objects allows people to design, scan, share, and send digital representations of physical objects just as they can images or text online. With 3D printers, these objects can be printed out in an increasingly larger number of materials and with ever improving resolution. They can also, at times, be printed out for far cheaper than it would be to buy them from a traditional manufacturer. 

Image; 3D printing has begun disrupting businesses in the physical world just as file sharing has disrupted media businesses in the digital world. Here, a user printed out their own tabletop game pieces, saving hundreds of dollars in the process. 

It appears the first industry to be hit by the disruptive power of 3D printing are those that produce small plastic objects. This includes British-based tabletop game company, Games Workshop (GW). GW produces miniature plastic game pieces for strategic games that could be compared to very elaborate chess. These pieces can be prohibitively expense to collect in the large numbers necessary to play a game - and it should be remembered that at least two sets are required.

Ebola and the Danger of Globalization

Whatever the cause - conspiracy or incompetence - the recent Ebola outbreak illustrates the dangers of centralized globalization, and opens the door to possible solutions. 

October 13, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci - LD) - Ebola Viral Disease (EVD) has surfaced in West Africa in an unprecedented outbreak infecting and killing thousands according to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The epicenter appears to be centered between Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia - the former being where the first case was reported, the latter being hit the hardest.  Other nations including Senegal, Nigeria, and Mali have had cases reported but were contained and the spread of the disease there appears to have stopped. Nations like Uganda who have grappled with Ebola and similar diseases have yet to be affected and are believed to have suitable measures in place to zero in and contain the virus.

Beyond countries in West Africa, Spain, the United States, Brazil, and now Germany have reported travel-associated cases of Ebola as well as infections of health workers who apparently breached protocols while handling infected patients.

Characteristics of Ebola and Current Countermeasures 

The Ebola virus itself has an incubation period of between 2-21 days. It is not believed to be infectious until symptoms begin to form, however, it can cause infections for up to seven weeks after a patient recovers. Because of its varying incubation period, those infected have between 2-21 days to travel before any form of "screening" currently being done at airports would detect a fever and therefore be able to identify, contain, and treat possible Ebola cases. This means that the infected could be traveling into foreign countries, well past ports of entry and screening points before their symptoms and ability to infect others begin to manifest themselves.

Upon contracting Ebola, patients may begin to exhibit a fever and complain of abdominal pain but otherwise exhibit few other symptoms. It is only until later stages of the infection that Ebola may cause rashes and bleeding - and some patients never develop these symptoms at all. A complete list of symptoms is available at the CDC's website.

Because of Ebola's incubation period, screening at airports is perhaps the least effective measure a state could put in place. Instead, and has been done throughout all of human history to contain contagious disease, nations with widespread infections should be quarantined - and travel bans placed on these nations by governments interested in preventing the spread of Ebola within their borders. Within an infected country, quarantines must be placed on areas where infections are present.

Image: For years US and other Western NGOs have meddled in Liberia's
internal affairs, claiming to be building up education and the nation's
healthcare system. The US in particular has participated in military
intervention in Liberia and has poured billions in cash in alleged "aid."
Ironic then that Liberia is one of the worst hit and least prepared nations
suffering from Ebola. Above is a billboard sponsored by Open Society in
Liberia's capital of Monrovia. 

Despite the success quarantine has exhibited in the past, many Western policymakers have lobbied heavily against placing travel bans on infected countries or the notion of using quarantine procedures within infected countries. Open Society, a corporate-funded foundation that sponsors subversive political programs and so-called "civil society" within targeted countries, has been among the most vocal opponents of quarantining infected communities and countries.

In an Open Society post titled, "Looking Past Quarantine to Community Health," Open Society President Chris Stone claims:

The current focus on quarantine presents a danger not only in the short run, but in the long run as well. Quarantine forces farmers to leave their fields, freezes air travel in African cities, and slows the flow of food and labor. These interruptions can touch off longer, more complex health crises in the countries where Ebola is already weakening systems. 

Instead, the coalition that includes Partners In Health is training and equipping community-based health workers, with local partners such as Last Mile Health taking the lead. Community health workers are trusted neighbors who provide care while connected to a formal health system. This kind of community-based health response not only challenges the spread of Ebola and its fatality but also enables a new economic base and public health infrastructure.

In essence, economic progress within the context of "globalization" and the continued work of Western NGOs like Open Society in building their own administrative networks and infrastructure to control all sociopolitical and economic aspects within nations like Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, takes precedence over actually stopping the spread of Ebola. While the notion of building better and more prepared healthcare infrastructure in such nations should be a priority, it is a long-term goal that will have no affect on stemming the spread of Ebola currently.