Category: Uncategorized

“Going along with the rest and wanting to say ‘we’ were quite enough to make the greatest of all crimes possible.” Hannah Arendt

This post title is an excerpt from Hannah Arendt’s report for the New Yorker on the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1961. Her description of Eichmann as an ordinary man, “…terribly and terrifyingly normal…” struck many as odd considering his role as the chief director of the Holocaust. In her book “The Origins of Totalitarianism” she makes various observations that won her both acclaim and condemnation. Many found her conclusions about the evils of totalitarianism as deriving from both the presumed elite and the easily manipulated mob harsh, despite her astute observations as to how and why it occurs.

Arendt did not dwell much on the philosophical topic of moral responsibility; she was empirically inclined and focused instead on her observation of people who were not distinguished by any superior intelligence or sophistication in moral matters but “…dared to judge by themselves.”, thus deciding that conformity would leave them unable to “…live with themselves.” Sometimes even choosing to die rather than become complicit in evil, such ordinary people create “The dividing line between those who want to think and therefore have to judge by themselves, and those who do not; this strikes across all social and cultural or educational differences.”

What is not emphasized by Arendt is from where such evils as she wrote about arise. That is not a criticism as that was not the object or purpose of either her report about Eichmann’s trial or her book; it was already a question she understood answered by others, like Augustine, Aquinas, Aristotle, etc. who had concluded from empirical perspectives that evil arises from envy. It was Locke who defined that for humans a virtuous state of nature is devoid of such things as elitism, envy, or coercion; further, for a society to be considered to be in a virtuous state of nature it must embrace a polity that protects individuals against such things.

Arendt’s view of evil as a banality is quite insightful and unique, devoid of any fantastical concept as some kind of Marvel Comics’ evil superpower character. What it takes for someone to unwittingly embrace evil is simply not to think, just to accept and conform to whatever those in power, the elite or the mob say to do, that mindless desire to be part of the “we” and not be one of those that “…dared to judge by themselves.” This phenomenon seems to persist despite the resulting horrors like the Holocaust; it does not always result in such horrific extremes, but usually starts off with those seeking power to manipulate the mob to focus on someone to blame for whatever the crisis of the day happens to be, real or imagined.

What needs to be created is a sense of envy in order to create blame. Those who have this insatiable thirst for power usually rely on the pretense of providing some form of social justice, the ultimate anti-concept as Thomas Sowell so eloquently put it when he said “I never cease to be amazed at how often people throw around the lofty phrase ‘social justice’ without the slightest effort to define it. It cannot be defined because it is an attitude masquerading as a principle.”

This attitude creates all sorts of societal distortions as envy is a feeling of discontent and resentment of someone else’s possessions, qualities, or simply luck; this is exactly what the power monger wants to arouse, an irrational desire for that which belongs to someone else without the necessity to earn it. The target of the envy created is often a minority, like the Jews in Europe, the ethnic Chinese in SE Asia, prosperous African Americans, Armenians in Turkey, and now successful Asian and Hispanic Americans, or anyone who has achieved success or fortunate enough to benefit from their family that has. Again, Thomas Sowell has succinctly identified this trend when he observed that “There has now been created a world in which the success of others is a grievance, rather than an example.”

Consider the Seven Deadly Sins, which are pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony and sloth; while the news is filled with stories about people who became overwhelmed with most of these sins, envy seems to go unnoticed while it in fact has become a virtue under its disguise as social justice. It’s alarming that much of the public buys into those narratives that seemingly on a daily basis promotes some new example of oppression by anyone deemed “privileged” in some way; it’s that “Going along…” that Arendt speaks to, the desire to be part of the “we” and to avoid being different for fear that you will be condemned as extremists, racists, homophobes, or whatever is the derogatory label of the day.

This lock step trend is supported by a supplicating media and defunct academia, suffocating any real civil discourse. While such behavior is trite, boorish and just plain “banal”, it is exactly what Arendt meant for people to understand; this attitude of envy that morphs into a social and political movement becomes the origin of totalitarianism. One of the consistent and perhaps most dangerous elements of such movements are the attacks and suppressions of free speech. We must never be afraid to speak out against such things because we modestly think of ourselves as just ordinary people, but remember that even ordinary people need to understand what George Orwell meant when he said “Even if you are a minority of one it does not make you wrong.”

“Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations.” George Orwell

The recent disclosure of classified documents by U.S. Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira was only part of the real scoop; he had been doing so since February of 2022, yet it took more than a year for the intelligence community to realize it.  While the NY Times and Washington Post made much of the fact that it was they who discovered who was doing it, few focused on the content until afterward, as if the real story was just about the security failures; the majority of the documents were mostly about the war in Ukraine, exposing facts, analyses and evaluations that were contrary to what the administration and the media had been telling the American people.

This is not new stuff as we have the ongoing case of Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, who in 2010 published a series of leaks provided by US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, which included the infamous April 2010 “Collateral Murder” video of US soldiers fatally shooting civilians and journalists from a helicopter in Iraq. Assange remains at Belmarsh Prison, UK pending extradition to the US; the charges basically are for exposing war crimes.

Then we have the case of Eric Snowden who in 2013 exposed a global surveillance program by the NSA, of not just criminals and terrorists, but also American citizens and US allies; he’s a guest of Russia who has given him asylum. Despite the fact that a US appeals court has found the NSA program unlawful, it continues, even though the US says it’s ineffective. The news has focused more on Snowden, and his whereabouts, than the unconstitutional government-run surveillance program of its own citizens.

The question arises as to why, unlike journalists of the past, do we have the legacy media so complacent, if not alarmingly accommodative to the corruption and deceit of the political class. The prosecution, if indeed the persecution, of whistleblowers exposing the misrepresentations and outright lies about the illegal actions by our government should be the real scoop, headline news blasting such misdeeds as we had back in the 1970s. 

Most relevant are the Pentagon Papers, leaked by intelligence analyst Daniel Ellsberg to the press in 1971 that exposed US actions in not only North Vietnam but also Cambodia and Laos, an expansion of a “war” that was never even declared, constitutionally illegal regardless of the Congressional abdication of its responsibilities; none of this had been reported by the American media prior to this. Subsequently this revelation ignited a journalistic tsunami that eventually led to the Watergate investigations.

Journalists Bod Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post began an investigation of the 1972 break-in of the Democratic National Committee offices at Watergate in Washington, D.C., eventually exposing the involvement of President Nixon and leading to his resignation. Fittingly, the focus was on the documents found that exposed the criminal actions and who was ultimately responsible.

These are great examples of how a free, objective and insightful press serves the best interests of the American people, an essential element of liberty; the complacency and accommodation by our current legacy media does nothing of the kind. The old newspaperman’s hound dog persistence to get the real scoop has been replaced with advocacy journalism, which is nothing more than the very absence of getting the facts in print should those facts not support a preferred narrative.

Now back to Jack Teixeira, an IT geek who is no Daniel Ellsberg, but whether wittingly or not exposed facts about a war that is illegal, misrepresented by our government, and likely will result in a similar outcome, if not worse. Ellsberg had conducted intense research into US activities in Indochina from 1940 to 1968, the conclusion of which was detailed analyses and evaluations that the war was illegal, a waste of both capital and human resources, unwinnable, and therefore detrimental to the interest of the America people.

While Ellsberg was indicted under the Espionage Act of 1917, all charges were eventually dismissed given the evidence of gross governmental misconduct. Hopefully similar justice awaits Jack Teixeira and the American people with an end to the US proxy war in Ukraine, which has nothing to do with defending democracy, and everything to do with corruption and yet more deceit by our government, with whom, as Ron Paul so succinctly observed, “Truth is treason in the empire of lies.”

“We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.” George Orwell

This is a follow-up to my 03.17.23 post, “Deception”. For those that didn’t see the deception it spoke to for what it was, they are welcome to their illusions. I find that disturbing if that’s what they’ve done as seeking refuge in illusions is a denial of reality, a forfeiture of your existence as a sentient human being, the consequences of which exposes you to deceptions; alternatively, let’s look again at the facts.

The simple fact about the SVB and Signature Bank bailout is that it’s a fraud presented as a virtue. It is a fact that the FDIC, with support from the Fed and the UST, openly and admittedly made good on all of the debts of banks so grossly mismanaged as to be a case of financial criminal negligence. Unless we call it for what it is, we don’t have the right to complain about the consequences; as Orwell stated above, not to do so makes us delinquent in our duty as intelligent people.

The excuse for such behavior on the part of those that are supposed to be the guardians of our economic wellbeing was to avoid “contagion”; another instance of deception by misrepresenting a simple case of fraudulent behavior in order to create an illusion of a crisis. The SVB was a club for rich techies to play games with other people’s money, and paying political contributions for getting-out-of-jail-free cards. Months before the collapse there were red flag warnings that this bank was headed for disaster, yet nothing was done. Then it tanks and in comes all the usual suspects to not only provide FDIC insurances, but helicopter money rescue for all. We are told not to worry, it’s all covered, no pain for the American taxpayer – but the facts tell us otherwise.

Then we get the contradictory assurances that there’s no need for concern as the banking system is stronger than ever as banks are highly capitalized against the kind of failures we saw in 2008.  If that were the case then it contradicts the narrative supporting bailouts to prevent contagion. Having such contradictory explanations about what was done has created confusion and speculation, causing many to put their hard earned money in money markets, CDs, or just plain and ready cash. The result is just what either of the government’s explanations was meant to avoid since what we need for growth is investment in order for businesses to expand.

In order for the FDIC to guarantee up to $250,000 of depositors’ money, it maintains a cash reserve called the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF), and all banks are obligated to pay an insurance premium based on the FDIC’s assessments into that fund. As was the case with the 2008 Financial Crisis, and again with SVB and Signature Bank, the FDIC guaranteed all deposits. There was not then, and there was not now any legislative process for this, a blatant unconstitutional act as only Congress has the legal power for such actions. In order to replenish the DIF, the FDIC will issue a “special assessment”; while what this will amount to remains to be determined, as with the 2008 bailouts the result will be a per-share hit to earnings for shareholders and increased bank fees for customers.

Like inflation, such corporate welfare is not for the benefit of the American people, but a poorly disguised illusion to benefit those that support the current power brokers; payback is our burden to carry for their benefit.

“If the facts say otherwise, then the facts must be altered.” George Orwell

There’s a word going around, used so incessantly against anyone who disagrees with the progressive ideology and said so mind numbingly often that we tend to dismiss it as just more political mudslinging; such use of the word fascism underlies an important fallacy, one that exposes it as nothing more than a distortion of facts. In order to understand what this word means, where it came from, its political genesis, and who its supporters actually are, we need to put aside the political spectrum defining right and left wing politics, which is at best misleading.

If you walk into a current college classroom for the study of political science and ask the simple question as to who was the founder of fascism, there would be few if any students or professors who would say the name Giovanni Gentile, historically credited as the “Philosopher of Fascism.” Most would say Benito Mussolini, some maybe Francisco Franco or Adolph Hitler, but they would be wrong. The word itself was not coined by Gentile; it’s the anglicization of the Latin word fasces, a tied bundle of rods with a protruding ax, the ancient Roman symbol of state power. It also became the symbol of the Partito Nazionale Fascista, Mussolini’s party, and that put the word fascism into the lexicon of political science.

Gentile, together with his mentor Karl Marx, were two of the world’s most influential philosophers in the early twentieth century; he believed in “true democracy”, i.e. the subordination of the individual to the state. It was however Karl Marx who first observed that “Democracy is the road to socialism.” Gentile was a committed socialist as fascism, like communism, is socialism. Common to both these ideologies is a strong emphasis on national identity. While Gentile has faded into historical obscurity of late, we all remember Benito Mussolini, the fascist dictator of Italy; in his day, he was considered Gentile’s ultimate disciple, who wrote the doctrinal of early fascism, “Dottrina del Fascismo”, in which he stated that “All is in the state and nothing human exists or has value outside the state.” We don’t talk in such blatant terms today but with rhetorical bromides like “We’re all in this together!”

There is one methodological difference between Gentile’s and Marx’s versions of socialism, and it’s economic. Marx was forthright against free markets, advocating for the state as a substitute. Gentile, and his disciple Mussolini, were more manipulative, promoting a corporatist economic system consisting of syndicates of labor and management, collectively with the state to set economic policy; as Mussolini stated, “Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.”

So much in high esteem was Mussolini held in his heyday that other nations sent delegations to Italy to observe and study his methods and accomplishments. Which brings us to the title of this post, and some inconvenient historical facts that progressives distort, willfully ignore or are ignorantly unaware; one of those admiring national leaders was FDR, who sent his close advisor Rexford Tugwell to Italy; upon his return, he reported that “Fascism is the cleanest, neatest, most efficiently operating piece of social machinery I’ve ever seen. It makes me envious.”

FDR was even more effusive in his admiration for this dictator, telling journalists that “I don’t mind telling you that I am keeping a fairly close touch with that admirable Italian gentleman.” Again, writing to his Italian ambassador that “There seems no question he is really interested in what we are doing and I am much interested and deeply impressed by what he has accomplished and by his evidenced honest purpose in restoring Italy.” This is not an appropriate position for an American president to take about a fascist thug; true, he became Italy’s dictator in a plebiscite, but a despot nonetheless.

The infamous National Industrial Recovery Act (NRA), known as the Blue Eagle Campaign, was modeled on Italian fascism; it created and enforced an alliance of industries, which were required to write “codes of fair competition” that effectively fixed prices and wages, established production quotas, and imposed restrictions on entry of other companies into the alliances. The NIRA was overseen by the Industrial Advisory Board, answerable only to FDR. General Hugh Johnson, an avowed admirer of fascism, ran the NIRA; his guide book was “The Structure of the Corporate State,” written by one of Mussolini’s aides. While the NIRA was at that time almost universally recognized as a fascist project, there was a purposeful great effort for disassociation following WWII; after all, how embarrassing would it be to have the patron saint of liberal democracy associated with the evils we had just defeated?

Americans need to understand their history or be subordinated by the ignorance of it; the US came dangerously close to fascism under FDR, yet most don’t realize the clear and present danger he represented. He is worshiped to this day as a great president with an unprecedented four term plebiscite; however, like today we should also understand the times he ruled in when 15,000 to 20,000 people came out to honor and mourn the deaths of the notorious killers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. As George Orwell observed, “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.” 

So before progressives hurl this derogatory slur at those that stand by the US Constitution and its Bill of Rights as fascists, they need to understand what that word actually means, and to remember that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the closest thing we have had to date as a fascist leader. Further, that their support for obvious socialist policies as our current administration represents are in the tradition of Gentile and Marx. It is curious that Marx, who was Gentile’s mentor, failed to understand what his disciple and Hayek did, and that is “Fascism is the stage reached after communism has proved an illusion.”

“With a gun a man can rob a bank; with a bank a man can rob the world.” Carter Glass

Admittedly, this post’s title is a pun, but not meant to be so much humor as exasperation. I wrote a post on 09/25/20 titled “Remember Hyde?” for how this cabal of manipulation was created. Given the horrors of QE in the 2008 Financial Crisis, I could not imagine how much more damage this insidious institution could inflict on the American people, and I have been told that I have a very active imagination, but obviously not active enough.

As to the quote, funny how the man who co-sponsored the Federal Reserve Act, and served as both Secretary of the Treasury and Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board could say something so prescient.  But life is funny, unless you’re on the receiving end of the joke.  For today, I’m still muddling through the confusion created by Jerome Powell in his press conference regarding yet another rate hike.

I almost felt sorry for the poor schlub, caught between inflation and credit crises, but not quite; he played the old QE game that created these problems, the consequences of which were apparent to anyone who took basic economics, and predictable based on historical records. The problem is that in the musical chairs of that game, he’s left standing alone. Yes, there is Janet Yellen, but she’s a useful as a rubber crutch, so it’s poor Jerome on his own, literally. When asked why the administration promotes fiscal policies so antithetical to the Fed’s monetary fight against inflation, he basically said he had to deal with whatever arrived at his door; translation, no comment.

On one hand you can’t fault Powell for saying so as he’s not the President or Congress, but then there’s the Fed’s decision to bailout the likes of SVB with loans and assumption of debts, the very essence of QE, which is also antithetical to the Fed’s monetary fight against inflation. The message is that the Fed has no policy; in essence, its “Forward Guidance” is reactions to headline news, so tune in tomorrow. The reality is that the Fed is stuck in the quicksand of economic planning, an impossibility that statist never understand. No matter what you plan, based on whatever your theory is, the infinite number of individual choices people make, called the market, will ultimately prevail; when you attempt to dictate against that, bad things happen, and we have that in the real world now.

The market’s reaction to this was predictable; there was so much uncertainty created in the confusion of that press conference that the market tanked. Contrary to the norm that when stocks go down, bond yields go up, that didn’t happen. Further, the financial sector got hit hard as banks have a huge amount of unrealized losses given their bond holdings, not to mention that many “Zombie” corporations have loans due they may not be able to meet. So will someone please explain why Yellen keeps telling us that it’s different this time, and not the same as 2008? True the details are different, but like a soap opera, the script is the same.

As Powell was pummeled with questions about the future of rate hikes, he kept singing the 2% mantra, but refused to project when that could happen. We keep hearing about the “terminal rate”, meaning the rate at which no more hikes are required because inflation is done; that’s not likely to happen soon with inflation per the CPI still at 6%, but is it actually higher? Up until 2002 the BLS used a ten year data base to calculate the CPI, but that year it adjusted the index to a two year average as the Bush administration attempted to change the public’s perception of the economy by adjusting the calculation for inflation for a lower CPI. Since that appeared to work for Bush, why not Biden, so last year the BLS again changed its CPI calculation based on the single year of 2021; as is all too common with politics, if you don’t like the result, redefine it.

What is so meaningful anyway for inflation at 2%? It’s like “Death by a Thousand Cuts”; no single one is fatal, but taken together you get death. I remember a funny line by Jay Leno who said “I was reading in the paper today that Congress wants to replace the dollar bill with a coin. They’ve already done it. It’s called a nickel.” Pretty accurate actually; since the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 the US Dollar has lost about 95% of its value, a slow death indeed.  Another word that has crept into the lexicon of Fed Speak is “sticky inflation”, meaning that American’s perceptions of prices are responsible for persistent inflation; so if we just changed our attitude toward ticket shock the price would get lower? 

There are signs that more and more Americans are beginning to understand that the Wall Street slogan “You can’t fight the Fed!” is a dangerous submission to the ultimate manipulation of a nation’s economic health. Consider that all US currency denominations state at the top “Federal Reserve Note”; a note is a debt security obligating repayment of a loan, at a predetermined interest rate. Now imagine if you go to the Fed and attempt to redeem that note, what do you think you’ll get? Well since it’s not commodity money, all you’ll get is the good faith and trust of the US government; try taking that to the “bank” and see where you’ll get.  

Then consider that the Fed, like many of the banks under its supervision, have a huge amount of unrealized losses given its bond holdings, mortgage backed securities and what it disingenuously called “Deferred Payments” for what it owes the US Treasury now. In common sense language, when your assets are less than your liabilities, you are bankrupt; what will the new word wizards come up with to explain how the “lender of last resort” has nothing left to lend? Oh, my apologies, I forgot they have the printing press, exactly what got us into this mess to begin with. As Ron Paul once said of the Fed years ago, “The Federal Reserve system is nothing more than legalized counterfeit.”

“Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools that don’t have brains enough to be honest.” Benjamin Franklin

You have to love Benjamin Franklin who said so much with so few words. Here we have the best explanations not only for the recent bank failures, but those who rush in to save the day; not only were we initially told what later proved to be at best inaccurate, but then that there was nothing to worry about and further that the cure would not be at the tax payers expense. We’ve seen this movie before, as the saying goes, as most of us are still around who witnessed the “Financial Crisis”, so why the obvious deceptions?

We should start with the facts. SVB’s and Signature’s problems had nothing to do with crypto currencies any more than FTX’s problem, which was a Ponzi Scheme; such reports in the legacy media are at best deflections. These two banks were both very poorly managed; they bought assets such as USTs and MBSs when both had marginal yields and/or very low ratings, which comprised the majority of their assets. Now, with ever rising interest rates, these assets depreciated so much that even when sold, which was at considerable discounts, they failed to provide sufficient capital to meet the demand of depositors seeking higher yields or withdrawal of their money. What you had was a good old fashion bank run, something we were told back in 2010 the Dodd Frank Law was meant to avoid.

What we need to appreciate here is that the dilemma that these banks got into was created by the very government that came to save the day; both the Federal Reserve and the Federal Government has, through egregious print and spend policies, created high inflation, which in turn caused the need for ever higher interest rates. Further, that 2010 Dodd Frank Law, which required banks to meet high standards through what was called “stress tests”, was amended in 2018 with large bi-partisan support, lowering the standards for “medium and small” size banks in order to encourage lending.

On top of this, much of the lending by these banks was to high risk start-ups and “zombie” companies, adding to the risks already exposed by fractional banking levels greater than what was even now allowed, clearly a failure of both regulatory and supervisory practices and procedures. In fact, Gregory W. Becker, the CEO of SVB until the collapse, is a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, a clear conflict of interest. While it’s true that Barney Frank is on Signature Bank’s Board, he was not in public office at the time; however, it’s curious that in a recent interview he claims that the 2018 amendments to the law that bears his name had nothing to do with Signature’s collapse.

It remains to be seen if these bank failures, and the destabilization of some other “medium and small” banks, mostly regional but still important, creates a “contagion” similar to the 2008 Financial Crisis; we have been told that’s pure speculation and unlikely because this time it’s different. While it’s true that the circumstances differ as the 2008 crisis devolved from a bust in the speculative residential mortgage market as house values tanked below mortgage debt, creating a huge number of defaults, the results are basically the same, i.e. banks owned assets worth less than their liabilities. What we got was a huge bailout program by the Federal Reserve and Federal Government and the birth of “QE” as interest rates were cut to nearly nothing, and the Fed took on huge depreciated assets on their balance sheet, a practice that technically made the Fed insolvent.

Now with SVB we have the government paying higher than the FDIC $250K deposit insurance; we have to call it like it is as we have again another case of bailouts and corporate welfare at the taxpayer’s expense; for us to be told otherwise is insult on injury, which creates such a smoke and mirrors environment that we are left with the inevitable conclusion that such a deflection has become deception. Adding to that, we also have the case of First Republic Bank, a regional based in San Francisco providing wealth management for the rich. Following SVB’s demise those wealthy clients with deposits in excess of the FDIC’s insured limits headed for the exits. Under Fed direction a consortium of major banks lent $30B to address FRB’s distress; despite that, its shares continue to fall.

Pardon my skepticism, but isn’t this like a doctor spreading a disease among his patients as a remedy for one patient’s affliction? What happens to the lending banks should First Republic collapse despite the infusion of so much money? What we get from the administration is a blame for its predecessor as it was they who amended the Dodd Frank Law. What’s forgotten is that the amendment was a bipartisan action; as George Carlin famously said, “Bipartisan usually means that a larger-than-usual deception is being carried out.” What we need now is not blaming the past, but addressing the present to insure the future.

For Joe Biden to hold a press conference where he attempts to assure us that all’s well, that there’s nothing to worry about, and that the bailouts will not be at the tax payer’s expense, is a deception only the delusional would attempt. Add to this that both SVB and Signature made considerable donations for Biden’s election campaign and you have the makings of a deflection morphing as it usually does into a deception. That was only made worse by his turning his back on the press conference as he left it, refusing to answer any questions. Perhaps it’s true that there’s nothing more deceptive than the obvious.

“What we think, we become.” Siddhartha Gautama

This quote says much about Buddhism, and much that is misunderstood. In its basic and fundamental form Buddhism is a focus on knowledge and wisdom. The one thing that is most misunderstood about Buddhism is that it is not a religion; it is neither dogmatic nor does it acknowledge the existence of any deities. Buddhism is simply a philosophy for a way of life, a way for each individual to find happiness.

Buddhism recognizes the spiritual but only as residing within our humanism. It recognizes that we as humans can suffer, but that there is a way to find and understand the cause, a way to address it, and therefore a way to end it. Buddhism represents a positive mindset that finds opportunities in everything as opposed to the negative mindset that finds despair in everything. Buddhism focuses on the present, not the past, as only through the present can there be a future. It disavows reification, relies on the empirical and avoids the confusions of the metaphysical.

This post is not about Buddhism as such as there are so many good sources available for that; it’s about the growing dominance of the negative mindset of our young. Per the latest CDC data, those between the ages of 10–24 years account for 14% of all suicides, second only to accidents as the leading cause of death in the young. The National Alliance on Mental Illness reports that nearly 20% of high school students have serious thoughts of suicide and 9% have attempted it. What accounts for such desperate suffering among the young is something we as a society need to understand.

A new word bouncing around the news and social media is “Groomers”; as a “Boomer” I went to my book shelf dictionaries to find what that meant. I have Webster, Oxford, Random House, and MacMillan, but all they had for Groomers were definitions of those that groomed people and pets; so off to the internet where I find a “modern” definition as slang for “…someone who builds a relationship, trust and emotional connection with a child or young person so they can manipulate, exploit and abuse them.” Apparently in the culture wars of our time this slang definition applies to a great many people, dominantly in education, news, social media and politics.

While there are a lot of problems in the world, and historically that has always been the case, the current attitudes about them, and the approaches to solutions, more often than not border on the bizarre if not ignorance, stressing crises and doom rather than understanding. With the massive bombardment of information in the news and social media it’s easy to see how someone, especially the young, can become overwhelmed, misled and driven to despair; however, adults are supposed to be there for them, but in many cases apparently now qualify more as Groomers than mentors. Therein lies our first step in understanding what we need to do to develop a positive mindset in our children, and that is to avoid Groomers who are in a position to influence, and perhaps even indoctrinate our children with a negative mindset.

Whether the gloom is focused on war, climate, race, sex, disease, or whatever crisis is the angst of the moment, there are Groomers that will stress everything in an environment of doom, discounting if not dismissing the inherent human trait called invention, especially as the saying goes, when faced with necessity. This situation has spawned yet another modern slang word, “Doomers”, the victims of such negative manipulation. According to the same source as before, “A Doomer is a person with a pessimistic outlook on life. A Doomer feels a sense of helplessness and aimlessness and is often stricken with deep despair for life.” The definition itself is cause for concern when it refers to the most vulnerable segment of society, the children of Gen Y or Millennials, Gen Z or Centennials, Gen Alpha, and whatever alphabetic category we come up with for future generations.

A negative mindset can devolve into despair, which is a very real, debilitating disorder. While a person experiencing despair can usually function sufficiently in day-to-day tasks, if not addressed it can in turn lead to depression; even if temporary that’s a chronic state of feeling low, losing interest in what previously provided pleasure and a sense of purpose, becoming dysfunctional in doing the simple tasks for living. Often depression leads to suicidal thoughts, or even worse. With that in mind, understand Groomers to be an evil version of the Pied Piper of our day.

A closer look into this phenomenon of Groomers and Doomers finds various surveys by Gallup and others that correlated political identities with negative mindsets. While I find the left/right political spectrum to be flawed, it was interesting to see that these surveys found around 58% of those on the “right” in good mental health compared to 38% on the “left”, with moderates and independents in the middle. Similar surveys further broke down and found in these groups those in the extreme end of the spectrum, especially if espousing violence as a solution, to more likely suffer from depression.

There was no surprise here, at least on my part, to find a strong correlation between Groomers and Doomers and political ideologies like “White Supremacy” and “Wokeism”. In fact, there was more convergence and almost no divergence socially, culturally or politically among these groups where individuals become so oblivious to the issues at hand while they espouse mean and cruel behavior as a virtue, often in support of some cause that they can’t even coherently identify. The existence of such nihilism within them provides an explanation for such rampant negativity. 

There is yet another modern slang definition, this for those with a positive mindset, and that’s “Bloomers”! No, I’m not referring to old fashion ladies underwear, expressions of annoyance, or flowers; the modern day slang definition is “A person who has a positive outlook, resists self-destructive behavior and generally functions as a happy individual.” Further, it’s important to note that Bloomers have knowledge about the harsh realities of life, so this positive mindset doesn’t come from ignorance; reality doesn’t prevent Bloomers pursuing the best and happiest life possible. This positive mindset doesn’t necessarily make them the smartest people in the room either, but it does enable them to use whatever intelligence they have to their maximum benefit.

Bloomers in general are the young who have not allowed themselves to be indoctrinated into negative mindsets and therefore reach a state of maturity where instead of obstacles see opportunities; they don’t carry around the burdens of despair seeing only problems that can’t be solved, and have no interest in cancelling or hurting in any way people who don’t agree with them. Bloomers as opposed to Doomers embrace life as an adventure in “…the pursuit of happiness.” As far as correlations go, they often become entrepreneurs, despite the fact that being one comes with no guarantees for success or safety net in the event of failure.

What we need in our society is an environment, especially in education, that excludes Groomers, discourages Doomers and promotes Bloomers. In America we have a game that is very much like life and as one of its most iconic players simply told us, “Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.” Babe Ruth

“I’m not upset that you lied to me. I am upset that from now on I can’t believe you.” Friedrich Nietzsche

Some may recall back in the early days of the Covid-19 Pandemic that there was much speculation as to the origins of this virus.  At first we were told it came from a “wet market” in Wuhan, China, possibly from meat contaminated with diseases from bats, known to be reservoir hosts of SARS-related coronaviruses. Some scientists discounted that theory as such viruses seldom jump the species hurdle from animal to human, while others noted that SARS did so in 2003, also originating in China. 

Much speculation as to what was true or not followed, which was understandable since nothing definitive at that time was known. What was not understandable was why then did the CDC, the WHO and the NIH proceed with not only making the “wet market” theory the official account, but labeling all other explanations “misinformation”, and even worse, censoring those with alternative accounts.  It became such a censorious campaign as to cause the dismissal of many doctors and scientists who did not subscribe to the official narrative.

What was even more troubling were the accounts in the Washington Post, The Intercept, and other news articles about the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which is part of the National Institute of Health (NIH), funding gain-of-function (GOF) research through the US based nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance for the Wuhan Institute of Virology and its laboratory. This would be a direct violation of the 2014 Congressional ban on such research that makes such viruses more transmittable to humans.  Dr. Anthony Fauci was the director of NIAID at that time who claimed that “…it has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”

Despite the NIH’s refusal to release requested documents regarding such funding, Empower Oversight Whistleblowers & Research, a well-known and respected public advocacy group, sued under the FOIA in order to obtain them. They were reviewed by various scientists and journalists, such as Richard Ebright, Board of Governors Professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University, Newsweek and The Washington Post.  Ebright concluded that “The documents make it clear that assertions by the NIH director, Francis Collins, and the NIAID director, Anthony Fauci, that the NIH did not support gain-of-function research or potential pandemic pathogen enhancement in Wuhan are untruthful.”

The conclusion was that unequivocally NIH grants were used to fund controversial GOF research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, contrary to Dr. Fauci’s denials; such accounts were published by both Newsweek and The Washington Post.  Subsequently, under direct questioning by Senator Rand Paul at a Senate Health Committee hearing on 07/20/21, Fauci became enraged when Paul suggested he lied to Congress about the NIH funding GOF research, testily denying any such involvement.

So compelling are the facts supported by documentation that now the US Department of Energy says that Covid-19 most likely originated from an unintentional laboratory leak in China, according to a “classified document”. Following that announcement, the Director of the FBI, Christopher A. Wray yesterday said Covid-19 “most likely” originated from a “lab incident” in Wuhan, China. Despite all the documentation, facts and findings, even from their own agencies, the Biden administration inexplicably continues to insist there remains no “consensus” about whether Covid-19 leaked from a Chinese lab.

In light of the draconian and clearly unconstitutional measures the administration inflicted on Americans with lockdowns, mandates, and the censorious campaigns about so-called “misinformation”, wherein if you questioned the actions of the government, you were labelled an “extremist”, but apparently if you lied as Fauci did, you are anointed as an “expert”, this administration can’t be trusted to tell the truth as it seems to operate on Adolf Hitler’s  theory that “If you tell a big enough lie, and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.”

Further, we now learn that despite the claims from the two main pharmaceutical regimes, i.e. Pfizer and Moderna, claiming respectively in early 2020 that the efficacy of their vaccines were 95% and 90% respectively, neither one has proven to exceed even 35%, and further they now state that their vaccines are not effective against transmission. Recall that in promoting and in some cases mandating vaccines, the administration extended these two medical behemoths immunity from liability regarding any negative effects from their vaccines; how fortunate for these corporations given the growing incidence of cardiac adverse events such as myocarditis or pericarditis. The whole basis of the tyrannical medical passport system was built on a lie as we now have a frank admission from Pfizer and Moderna that their product was never tested on its ability to reduce transmission.

I do believe that the truth will out, but the issue now is what Americas make of this tragic chapter in our history where the government actually connived to not only deceive us, but to destroy the means by which we could know the truth. These lies represent egregious acts of what can only be considered intentional frauds and cover-ups by both the corporate and government actors involved. We must not forget or forgive those responsible because if we do, then what will come to pass is, as George Orwell spoke of in 1984, that “The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became the truth.”

“Hope is waiting for someone else to do it.”

The above quote is by a character in Robert Harris’ book “Munich”, the German diplomat Paul von Hartman, in a conversation with his British counterpart, Hugh Legat; it is in reference to stopping Hitler. It takes place during the 1938 negotiations between Chamberlain and Hitler. I recently saw the movie version, which was not disappointing as often is the case. It is a very insightful understanding into the nature of hope when it is not accompanied by a plan of action; in essence a useless emotion often leading to frustration.

I heard on the news the other day about recent polls that show the majority of Americans find they are worse off now than they were in years past, and even more troubling, do not see a better future, one where they can achieve prosperity; it’s understandable that when people have positive expectations of the future that are not realized, there will be disillusionment. If those expectations, or hopes, are not accompanied with a plan of action to achieve prosperity, then all they become are disappointments waiting to happen.

What were these expectations, and perhaps even more importantly, given current circumstances were they realistic? What was puzzling to many news commentators was the concurrent news about how well the economy was doing; I’m not referring to all the political bravado on display with the administration’s victory laps given the latest economic data, I’m referring to the economic data itself. Beating all the forecasts, we have a record 517K jump in jobs created, decelerating core inflation, and increased labor force participation. So why all the doom and gloom?

There are explanations regarding the labor statistics offered by some economists, like the end of the extraordinary benefits that enabled many workers to wait until they had to get back to work, coupled with the growth in wages due to high labor demand. Then some note that the inflation stats ignore the increasing costs of food and energy. Some express concern that the Fed’s policies on interest rates are pushing us toward a recession and that labor statistics are a lag event. All of this has validity, but does that really address the doom and gloom found in various polls?

Polls also show that the majority of people find that the nation is going in the wrong direction and that its leaders appear unable or unwilling to do anything about it. Apparently the doom and gloom is more than just economic in nature. What the polls don’t tell us is what people find to be the right direction; we have the negative but not the positive feedback. Maybe the right questions are not being asked, or maybe we are looking in the wrong places for the right answer.

There’s a great study called “The Human Freedom Index”, published biennially; it’s a huge joint undertaking by the Fraser Institute in Vancouver, and the Cato Institute in DC. They work with and draw on statistical data from various organizations throughout the world that study and measure the personal, civil and economic freedoms of people in 165 countries, measuring over eighty indicators to establish rankings; they’ve been doing this for about twenty years, establishing a solid reputation based on experience, breadth and depth of objective analyses, and clarity of presentation. This latest edition was published in 2022 for the period 2018 to 2020; the lag is due to the huge data base they need to gather and analyze, a very time consuming process. What struck me as an American is the poor ranking of the US, especially compared to previous editions; for 2020, the overall ranking for the US is 23^rd, lagging behind such countries like Switzerland, Sweden, and even Taiwan; it fell seven places since the prior edition. While relatively high in economic freedom, the US had appallingly low rankings in personal and human freedom, a country founded in principle to highly value those things. 

Among the statistics that jump out are the low rankings for the rule of law, freedom of movement, and the size of and regulation by government. One would hope that in the land of the free the US could manage to at least place in the top ten overall rankings, but hope is not a plan. While we have what many countries do not, i.e. a constitution that simply and clearly establishes the rule of law, we fail to protect basic rights; we have the plan, we just lack the action. This poses a loss of identity as to what differentiates the US as a country, which in turn accounts for a lack of confidence in leadership; while there have been expectations for a meaningful change with each election cycle over the last twenty years, they were crushed with one myopic administration after another.

While Americans have become painfully aware of their falling purchasing power due to bad monetary and fiscal policies, they can’t seem to grasp that the addiction to a free lunch was not a solution, but a drug making them numb to the reality that such policies contribute to the erosion of the freedoms they took for granted. They are distracted by the political theatre of endless partisan posturing, little of which addresses our problems, like crushing debt, cultural polarization, or dangerous foreign policies.

What history shows us is that the policies of a century ago led us to failed economies, rising trade tensions, expanded government, loss of liberty, rampant nationalism and ultimately catastrophic war. If this all sounds familiar it’s because here we are again, and despite our hopes to the contrary, we don’t seem to have a plan of action to change course. Hope is useless without action but aimless without a plan. Hope is not just wishing for things to get better, it involves actively making things better.

Maybe it’s time for the American people to act rather than just hope; encouragingly, we see signs of that happening. Parents are becoming more involved with their children’s education instead of just complaining about politically motivated curriculums, falling standards and failing scores. Alternatives like charter, private and home schooling are increasing rapidly. People who are not career politicians are running for local office at an increasing pace.  Some local and state governments are actively resisting the dictates of the Beltway and performing as they were intended.  There are student organizations at some universities pushing back against the draconian dictates of the administrations of higher learning.

These are just nascent and localized signs that people are beginning to understand that just hoping for change is not a plan.  There are even some in Congress that have shown the courage to propose ideas that others are afraid to even think about, like a plan to balance the budget; the resistance to such common sense, especially in the face of record debt, exposes the level of corruption that has become so imbedded in our political DNA.

It is also increasing apparent that the political class, the elitist regime that makes the hunt for power such a blood sport, is in panic as the two main political parties are fracturing along the fault lines of failed ideologies. This will become increasing obvious as we enter into yet another round of elections in 2024 that will likely be even more contentious than the last. What the American people should not just hope for, but vote for is whoever represents a true change of course away from all the failed policies that have led us to rank only 23^rd in real human freedom. “He that lives upon hope will die fasting.” Benjamin Franklin

“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes which were for the moment unpopular. We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.” Edward R. Murrow

The amygdala is an anatomical term for the part of the brain that deals with emotions, “… the core of a neural system for processing fearful and threatening stimuli…and activation of appropriate fear-related behaviors in response…”; quite often it responds to crowd reaction without even knowing what the threat is. I always found the phrase “irrational fear” to be an oxymoron since, when you calmly think it through, it is an emotion and therefore has no rationality. What we should really fear is not the fear itself, but giving into it; seldom does anything good from that.

To calm the amygdala we are often told to slow down (except of course if it triggers fleeing from a rabid dog or some wild beast), take deep cleansing breaths and think things through in order not to be a slave to your emotions. As Aristotle put it, “He who has overcome his fears will truly be free.” Wise man that Aristotle, he knew that by controlling your fears you will find a way to overcome them, find solutions to problems and also avoid destructive and embarrassing behavior.

Unfortunately we live in a time when such wisdom is no longer accepted; emotions are more valued than reason, and fear is no longer something to be addressed as harmful, but embraced as both an ideology and a manipulative tool. Does the frontal lobe, the part of the brain responsible for logical thinking, reasoning, and managing emotions, no longer exist? Has society had a collective frontal lobotomy? We should understand that as an emotion, fear only exists in the mind where it creates a perception of danger or a threat that may not be real.

Edward R. Murrow was a courageous WWII correspondent and journalist, and a leading voice against the abuses of McCarthyism.  If he were alive today, I can only imagine his reactions to the phenomenon of “Wokeism”, that hysterical and irrational fear mongering that values subjective feeling while denying objective fact. He would caution that to allow fear to dominate would lead us into “…an age of unreason…” making us easier to control; he would be horrified that such an acute anxiety disorder became a political ideology as it did with the McCarthy hearings.

One of the main premises of wokeism, if it has any, is that anything or anyone it considers offensive is not just objectionable, but literally needs to be “canceled”; it goes so far as to redefine people, places, words or things to fit a conclusion, rather than a thought process of finding the facts to support one. While such behavior can hardly be called an ideology, anything that the woke find offensive is subject to a categorization like “racism”, “white supremacy”, “fascism” or whatever the latest fashionable derogative of the day they embrace. If the woke finds something offensive, they are entitled to destroy whatever liberties it finds in the way of their solutions, like freedom of speech, expression, property rights, etc.

This has been the historical behavior of authoritarian activists and ideologues through the ages like Napoleon, who once observed that “In politics, an absurdity is not an impediment.” They too used such tactics because they were insecure in their own positions and feared to intellectually engage with anyone who disagreed with them. They did differ with today’s woke in so far as cancellation had a more fatal meaning; that’s not to say wokeism will not evolve similarly as their day is young. For now they avoid, and even rage against any idea that they answer to any objections to their worldview; easier that way to maintain their moral superiority.

This closed vision against reality pertains to the arts too as a rejection of the joy of creation, of song, of stories that offend, whether it’s literature or the daily news. For the woke everything offends someone, even the most insignificant things, which creates a world of darkness where we are incapable of learning anything because everything is offensive. The worst fear for the woke is that there are people who don’t feel guilty about what the woke find offensive, who don’t subscribe to the ideology of fear, but have found that nothing in life is to be feared, only understood.