The original version of this article was published in NEO Magazine in 2016. It was taken from the book “Eleven Days to the Promised Land” by Dino Pavlou, a close friend to Sinatra back in the day. The final version (as seen below) was published by the Saturday Evening Post in 2020. Reprinted here with permission.
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A CHRISTMAS STORY: “Hey Greek, you got that old Chevy outside?”
It was Christmas Eve, 1974, and as always Jimmy Weston’sSupper Club in New York City was crowded. Customers were enjoying the music of Tommy Furtado’s Band and Tommy himself singing Christmas carols. We had the place decorated for the holidays and the snowy weather outside added to the festive spirit of the season.
Pictured above, Frank Sinatra, “Mr. Christmas” himself.
Before midnight, Frank Sinatra walked in with his best friend and trusted companion, Jilly Rizzo. This wasn’t a surprise: it was expected, because when Sinatra was in town he would always stop by for a night cap or a late meal before calling it a night. After warm greetings and a hug, I escorted Sinatra and Jilly to Sinatra’s favorite table, number seventeen. It was a round corner table near my desk, where I could keep an eye on things, and we always kept it reserved for Sinatra while he was in town.
Later, after a few drinks, Sinatra decided to have pizza at his favorite joint. “Hey Greek, you got that old Chevy outside?” he asked me.
“Yes, it’s outside,” I said.
He stood up, peeled off a couple hundred dollar bills from his wad, and gave it to the waiter. “Greek, you just got yourself drafted,” he said. “Let’s go.”
I asked our captain George Pappas to take charge while I was gone and the three of us walked outside, where Sinatra’s limo was waiting. Sinatra told his driver to go in and get a meal and have a good time until we got back. We got into my old monster Chevy. It was bitter-cold, snowing heavily, and everything was covered with snow—although driving was not a problem on the streets that night in New York City: the snow melts fast from the steam coming out from the subway grates.
“Where we going?” I asked.
“Uptown,” Jilly said.
We drove uptown on Park Avenue until we reached Harlem, and made a beeline for First Avenue between 117th and 118th Streets, to Patsy’s Pizzeria. It was then I realized why we’d taken the Chevy; it wasn’t a good idea to arrive there in a limo in the wee hours. I parked in front of the place and went in with Sinatra and Jilly.
We were greeted by Carmela, the owner, and a one-hundred percent amazing Italian woman. When she saw Frank, she rushed to him with open arms.
“Frankie, sweetheart, it’s so good to see you!”
Dino Pavlou with his grandson
She threw her arms around him and gave him a big hug–but when she pulled away, Sinatra’s overcoat was now white with flour from her apron. Embarrassed, Carmela started talking fast in Italian-as though cursing herself-while trying to brush off Sinatra’s coat.
Don’t worry about that darling,” Sinatra said. “Just make us your delicious pizza.”
Carmela rushed away–and soon came back with a hot pie. As we started to eat, Sinatra looked out the window and saw two forlorn-looking homeless guys staring at us. They looked cold and very hungry. He waved them in and he ordered pizza for them. Soon more guys showed–and it wasn’t long until the place was packed with Sinatra’s impromptu and ravenous guests—and he ordered pizza for every one of them.
Meanwhile, Jilly and I finished our slices, but Sinatra was eating slowly; he had only taken a few bites; his eyes were tearing up from watching these poor hungry guys gobbling down the hot, steaming slices as fast as they could. That got Jilly’s attention. He tried to make a joke to divert Sinatra’s attention.
“You see Frank,” he said, “you’re not as famous as you think you are. No one even recognized you here.”
“If you were as hungry and cold as they are, you wouldn’t recognize me, either,” Frank said.
We stayed and ate with these poor guys, putting away the pizza faster than Carmela could make it and it was a magical night, only Sinatra couldn’t hold back the tears.
So finally Jilly stood up. “It’s time to go now,” he said.
We got up, and Frank pulled out a wad of bills as big as his fist, all hundreds; there had to be at least $4000 there – and gave it to Carmela; all of it, without counting it. “What the hell, it’s Christmas,” he said. “Keep the pizza coming through Christmas, darling,” he told Carmella. “I’ll send you more money, and keep everything under wraps; never tell the press” He started towards the door, with me and Jilly following, when the first two guys he had called in now walked over to him.
“Thank you Mr. Sinatra,” they said, “and have a Merry Christmas.”
Every bum in the joint got up and followed suit, came over and thanked Sinatra, calling him by name. Frank just stood there, shaking hands, with tears streaming down his face.
“Come back here tomorrow,” he said, “and there’ll be more pizza. Stay off the junk and have yourselves a Merry Christmas.”
As we got into the car, the men came out and started shouting. “Thank you, Mr. Sinatra! Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!”
Afterwards, it was quiet as we drove back to Jimmy Weston’s. Jilly tried to make conversation, but Sinatra was silent.
Only one time he spoke: “Have you guys ever been hungry and cold?”
“I have,” Frank continued. “When I was young. And I’ll never forget.”
And Frank never did forget. You see, what hardly anyone realized back then and what damn few people know now – is that what happened at Patsy’s Pizzeria that night was not a oneoff; Frankie did that kind of thing all his life, wherever he went.
Many Christmases have come and gone since then. But that Christmas night was special and I was very fortunate to be a part of it. For those bums, those derelicts – it was the best night they ever knew. And I got to be there.
Frank Sinatra was the finest man I ever knew, and I’ve known the best of ‘em.
This statement is considered a truism in both everyday life and in the science of physics. It is considered “Settled Science.” How do we know this? The teachers, professors, journalists, media elite, politicians, government functionaries, and accountants tell us that this is so. How do they know this? Certainly not from true science or the scientific method. They know this because their bosses, and the puppet-masters well above their bosses – have told them so.
“There is nothing new under the sun” – meaning that nothing (not matter, energy, plasma, or anything else) within our universe is ever created or destroyed; the total amount remain constant and these things just change form. By corollary, our universe is a closed container.
So, are these propositions true? I suggest to you that they are not true. More on that later.
The propositions above are very important to our society. Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and String Theory – all hinge on the above concepts being correct. The above-concepts hinge on the Big Bang Theory being correct, which itself hinges on Relativity being completely correct.
Well, that’s not good. Did you know that Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and String Theory – are not dying theories? No, they are completely dead already. As a layperson, you do not yet know this. As a scientist or university professor who is not a physicist or working in the area of physics, you have heard that such information and declarations are coming. If you are a physics professor or otherwise work in the sciences in the area of physics, then you know this to be true but you are absolutely terrified because your bosses (and those above them) have told you that such IS UNTRUE, and even if it turns out to be true, YOU WILL keep acting, speaking, and teaching as if it were untrue.
It actually does happen that wrongful “facts” promoted by TPTB eventually do get disproved by those doing the real work. But TPTB can stave off their end for a long, long time.
I’ll talk in lay terms here. For most people reading this, the math does not matter. For those interested enough to follow up, the math is easily found.
So, in consideration of the above, what does appear to be the truth?
Dark energy and dark matter? Fictitious, paper inventions that are necessary “to make all the other numbers work.” These were not proposed as a result of observational analysis, data interpretation, or the scientific method. They were assembled. The numbers were invented, massaged, and inserted because “These numbers must exist this way in order for all the other theories / facts we promote to be true.”
The Big Bang? Never happened. The RedShift problem and the speed problems make it laughable. The reason for the existence and promotion of the concept was / is that it is a big, big money-maker.
Special Relativity? Nope. The speed of light is not constant at all points in the physical universe nor under all conditions. In fact, there is much developing data that indicate the speed of light is in actually observer-relevant. Any time you see the adjective “special” applied to a scientific concept – run away. It means that the numbers do not work.
Here is my personal example of how all of this currently works.
I declare that 5+6= 16. In seeing that the sum is obviously incorrect, and yet realizing that it has already been accepted by TPTB as the norm, I create a new number called Quantudarknum. This new number is not a visible number, cannot really be measured or quantified, and it’s only there when I need it to be there. When you accept all of this as settled science, you are then qualified to be either a physicist or journalist or member of the public in the year 2022.
Finally, where does the supportable data appear to point at the moment?
The relevant concepts are steady state, continuous creation, and ether. It is kind of wild that vacuum energy appears to be the key to everything, just not in the way Dark Matter said it was. It is all terribly politically incorrect and horribly inconvenient; it turns out that Tesla had pretty much all of it right.
“Tesla” – now that’s a nasty term; they’ll get you for that!
Nikola Tesla is the most suppressed figure and name in modern history.
Did you know that Tesla’s name is not included in the Smithsonian Institute’s The Smithsonian Book of Invention and The Smithsonian Visual Timeline of Inventions? It was Tesla (not Edison) who gave the world electromagnetic power (AC) and it was Tesla (not Marconi) who gave the world electromagnetic communication (Radio), and yet children are not taught this in school and Tesla’s named remains all but banned even today in 2022.
Why? For good reason. Since it is the case that he got the big picture right, the entire big picture … that is, and TPTB have known this for decades and we cannot and we must not have individuals and second (and third) world countries applying the relevant science and gaining world-changing technologies.
Now saying all of this undoubtedly makes me, me – a physics professor, in the eyes of many, a conspiracy theorist and worse. So be it. However, surely the same could not be said of teacher John W. Wagner and his third grade class. I invite you to learn a little bit about Tesla via the efforts of this teacher and his children, and their extraordinary quest to right some of the wrongs of history and to combat a conspiracy. Please click the link below.
If we all live long enough, if we survive the current crash-and-burn economic cycle, if we survive the war and conflict that seems about to consume us, if we survive the other manufactured maladies that will soon be introduced to plague and distract us, you will then start to slowly hear of these scientific theories and concepts. Or, you can investigate the collegiate and scientific journals and studies in China and Russia, right now.
The point of this discussion is not to correctly solve the problems of physics, but is rather to explain the false process that controls our outlook today. “The science” is never settled; that’s the point of it all. The pablum you’ve been fed all your life is a crock, and yet you’ve consumed it eagerly and unquestioningly. I truly hope you realize that it is even easier to buy a scientist than it is to buy a politician.
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I am not out to convince you of anything. It matters not a whit to me if you believe what I have said about Dark Matter, Dark Energy, String Theory, Big Bang, Relativity, Steady State, Continuous Creation , or Ether.
However, I do hope that what I have said here has been interesting enough to motivate you to do your own research, to view everyone and everything with a critical eye (including me), and to consider the possibility that the puppet masters not only control the stooges in government, the media, the political machines, the military industrial complex, and the top of corporate America in general, and that perhaps they also control the universities and collegiate academia.
As an employee of a major American university, I am contractually prevented from discussing these things openly at the university or with the media, just as I am contractually prevented from pursuing select, defined lines of research in certain areas of physics. Technically, I am supposed to clear anything and everything I say on social media about science through the university. I have not done so with this posting.
The boy dreams. The dream captivates and challenges and engulfs him, drawing him forward in pursuit, while at times burdening him with more than he thinks he can bear.
Quit?
He can’t. In his heart he knows that someone will need him someday, and he must be ready to serve with excellence and integrity.
The boy becomes a man, marries, and starts a family. He graduates from Harvard Medical School and The Mayo Clinic. The man becomes a doctor.
But has The Dream been fulfilled?
Act 1: Grief
I am a doctor with a troubled conscience.
I am a friend with a heavy heart.
January 2021: I am standing next to an open grave. Rays of sun cannot cheer the depths of pain and loss in my heart. The body of my dear friend, Bruce, is being lowered to its final resting place. Sobs from his eldest daughter fill the air.
Age 79 and dead from COVID. Just a few weeks earlier, we shared laughs and bear hugs over Thanksgiving dinner. “Doctor, what do you think of this virus?” was the topic of conversation across the table.
Bruce was a good man, a special man. The kind of guy who found a way to connect with everyone he met. He had the gift of gab and a way of interacting that made people feel accepted and valued. The fabric of humanity suffered a tear that day, and, as I marked the occasion, I couldn’t help but think — dammit!, if he had just been able to hold out a few months until the vaccine arrived. It felt cosmically unjust — like sinking under the waves just moments before the lifeguard arrived.
March 2021: vaccine arrival. I greet the news of the vaccine with all due medical and patriotic enthusiasm: a ray of hope (!) and a balm for the psyche of a country battered by the pandemic and political strife. Operation Warp speed had delivered the goods: cutting-edge technology poised to prime our bodies for the fight of our lives.
I dutifully rolled-up my sleeve and received my first Pfizer, repeating again six weeks later. No ill effects other than a bit of malaise and a sore deltoid for a few days. I was glad to have this available and recommended it far and wide to patients.
Act 2: Following the Science and Questioning the Narrative
“If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
The passage of time brought medical and social concerns: Mandates? Get-vaccinated-or-get-fired?
Whatever role the vaccines still have (high-risk populations, nursing home residents, etc.), they have risks, and, just as with any medical intervention, should only be recommended based on an individualized risk/benefit analysis with proper informed consent.
Mandates and travel requirements sounded aggressive to me. But this was force-fed to us as a necessary public health response: desperate times called for desperate measures. Unvaccinated people were spreading this virus and endangering us all. Ignorance and personal choice were one thing; selfishness at the expense of others was entirely different.
My mind held an uneasy peace. But as time wore on, and my investigations continued, my equilibrium was disturbed, and the tidy ends of this story began to unravel…
Plot twist #1: Vaccinated people are just as infectious as unvaccinated.
Turns out that leaked CDC data revealed vaccinated people developed viral loads that were just as high(readhere andhere), prompting this juicy quote from Dr. Fauci: “You can make a reasonable assumption that vaccinated people can transmit the virus just like unvaccinated people can,” Fauci said.
Then a UK study, which followed households for 12 months to track infection rates, confirmed that peak viral load did not differ by vaccination status, and then concluded with this bombshell: You were just as likely to catch COVID from a vaccinated family member as from an unvaccinated one (25% if your sick family member was vaccinated and 23% if unvaccinated).
Meanwhile, back in Seattle, my sister-in-law was neighbor-shamed into getting vaccinated (despite her hesitations and medical comorbidities) because the parents of her 3-year-old son’s best friend wouldn’t let the kids play together until she got the shot.
Plot twist #2: The vaccines don’t work very well at this point.
Understand that the vaccines have not been updated since this entire pandemic began. That’s right folks: the vaccines still being administered are against the original Wuhan strain — which, of course, is no longer in circulation.
We are now dealing with version 4.0 (Wuhan, Alpha, Delta, and now Omicron and its variants), and with each generation, vaccine efficacy has weakened.
Comparative example: How excited would you be about getting the flu shot from 4 years ago?
(To be fair, the same problem of declining protection against new variants is also seen with natural immunity.)
So, the vaccines still appear to offer some benefit but not enough to make my heart race. Even more worrisome is the potential that, paradoxically, they may make it easier to contract these newer strains (read here).
Plot twist #3: The spike protein produced by the vaccines is actually toxic to our vascular and nervous systems.
At first, we thought the SARS-COV-2 spike protein was benign — just a thing the virus uses to gain access to our cells. But it turns out that the spike protein is highly toxic— damaging the lining of our blood vessels (“endothelial damage”), predisposing to blood clots and provoking inflammation and tissue damage wherever it is found.
So what are we to make of the fact that the vaccines instruct our cells to produce high levels of spike protein? Concerning?
Pfizer, Moderna, J&J and Novavax all create production of “full length” spike proteins, and this paper clearly states that “full length” proteins trigger vascular damage in lung tissue.
Furthermore, these spike proteins are known to circulate widely after injection.
“But isn’t the structure of the vaccine-produced spike protein different?”
Outstanding question; so glad you asked…Yes, it has some slight structural differences, but not in any way that has been proven to make it less toxic. As mentioned above, it is a “full length” spike protein, and those are known to be damaging. Furthermore, it is capable of being cleaved and releasing the “S1 subunit”, which is the exact same S1 subunit as the natural virus and which is known to cause a host of serious problems, including blood clots and destruction of cell membranes.
(This paper shows pictures of S1 subunits from spike proteins causing blood platelets to clump and activate. And this intrepid doctor and lawyer took before- and-after pictures with a microscope of what happens when the Pfizer vaccine touches a sample of blood. And here we read how the S1 subunit is a toxin that directly damages cell membranes.)
Of course, a natural SARS-COV-2 infection also brings its own spike protein burden, but this is predicted to be less extensive (in amount and duration) than the vaccine-induced burden, since the vaccine mRNA has been engineered (pgs 5-7) to resist degradation so as to create a “super-potent” burst of spike protein production.
Plot Twist #4: These spike proteins, and vaccine nanoparticles, travel far from the original site of injection.
At first, we were told the vaccines stayed localized to the site of injection — turns out they’ve got more wheels than a teenager with a new car and a hot date.
We know that the vaccines release SARS-CoV-2 spike protein into general circulation.
We now know — from Pfizer’s own data submitted to Japanese regulators – that mRNA vaccines travel far from the site of local injection, creating visible uptake in the spleen, liver, ovaries and adrenal glands of the experimental animals.
Meanwhile, the #1 Google search result still tells us this:
That’s curious… because these scientists isolated viral mRNA and spike proteins from lymph node biopsies 60 days after injection.
As regards lactation, we know there is a theoretical basis for transmission via breastmilk (page 15). And we even have mainstream medical experts admitting that “These conversations are challenging because the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine trial excluded lactating individuals. As a result, there are no clinical data regarding the safety of this vaccine in nursing mothers” (emphasis mine).
Plot twist #5: Vaccine injury reports have exploded.
The CDC boldly states that “COVID-19 vaccines have undergone—and will continue to undergo—the most intensive safety monitoring in U.S. history.”
Really?
Hmmnn… Does the “most intensive safety monitoring in U.S. history” include being rushed to market under Emergency Use Authorization while using the populace as a giant Phase 3 clinical trial (often under coercion)?
(The discrepancies and shortcomings of the Pfizer data are painstakingly and damningly laid out in this censored video)
Does it include the FDA siding with Pfizer in a freedom-of-information request in which they wanted 75 years to fully disclose their raw data for independent analysis? (Read Dr. Doshi’s cogent plea for transparency.)
Does it include the CDC dismissing vaccine injury data reported to the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS), as follows:
“Reports of death after COVID-19 vaccination are rare.”
Really? Cause this data from the Open VAERS project doesn’t look rare to me.
If you’ve not heard of it, you need to be aware of the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting database (VAERS). This was established by Congress in 1990 and meant to serve as warning system of potential vaccine side-effects.
Post-vaccination deaths reported to the US VAERS system, 1990 to November 2021 (OpenVAERS)
The CDC attempts to reassure us…
“FDA requires healthcare providers to report any death after COVID-19 vaccination to VAERS, even if it’s unclear whether the vaccine was the cause. Reports of adverse events to VAERS following vaccination, including deaths, do not necessarily mean that a vaccine caused a health problem.”
“Ahhh….That’s better.”.… So who else feels calm and at peace now?
Correlation is not necessarily causation — I get it. But that is definitely not reassuring, now, is it?, and let’s just say that the barn door to causation is flung wide-open. In my opinion, #30,479 deaths (as of 8/29/22) should prompt serious, urgent and meaningful investigation. For that, I commend you to Jessica Rose Ph.D. who produced the definitive interview on VAERS risk.
Oh, and it’s not just the VAERS database sending us these signals. As this superlative article from Dr. Pierre Kory elaborates, Life Insurance, Medicare and even German health insurance claims all report a surge in deaths — not just since COVID but specifically since the vaccine rollout.
Simple question: If they are so safe, why do the vaccine manufacturers need total legal immunity from any potential harms?
Reduction of CD8 T cells and Type 1 interferon response (read here); therefore, increased cancer risk.
Details about Type 1 interferon and cancer in this article
Reprogramming the immune system and reducing response to toll-like receptors TLR4, TLR7 and TLR8 (read here and also here)
Triggering of underlying autoimmune conditions (read here)
Potential to create worse subsequent infections due to Antibody Dependent Enhancement (read here)
In fact, just prior to widespread vaccine rollout, this Chinese virologist warned us against hasty deployment and suggested carefully investigating possible safety concerns.
Act 3: It Gets Personal
But enough about numbers and data– let’s talk about real, individual people. Like my family.
Like my 23-year-old daughter (healthy nursing student) who, after her mandatory vaccine, complains of persistent difficulty with concentration and memory. Or my 17-year-old daughter’s friend — last year a district-champion long-distance runner, this year struggling to complete workouts due to persistent chest pain. Or my former in-law, who was doing well until breast cancer came out of remission just after her second vaccine and quickly overwhelmed her. Ditto for the dear woman who hosted me as a high-school exchange student 30 years ago and became a second mother to me. Her funeral was just last month.
Quick question, class: Raise your hand if you personally know someone who has had a serious vaccine side effect.
So where is the vigorous, open, honest, urgent, strident, (outraged?), national discussion of this situation? Tens of thousands of people are potentially being injured or dying prematurely and this is not talked about every night on the news? Or in some regular CDC press briefing?
What is going on?
Act 4: Censorship and Excommunication
Turns out you can’t talk openly about vaccine risks. “We don’t talk about Bruno.” Verboten. Any candid discussion of risks – even by credentialed experts speaking in their field of study – has been censored because “encouraging vaccine hesitancy” has become a thought-crime, and in the name of “combatting COVID misinformation”, the government and media have displayed a dazzling level of cooperation. Desperate times call for desperate measures, indeed.
In the new state-sponsored Public Health Religion, to raise these concerns is to commit The Unpardonable Sin.
The result? As in the worst extremes of religious extremism, the self-righteously smug authorities summarily execute judgement: your social media accounts will disappear, your interviews will vanish from YouTube, your credibility will be maligned, and your employment and livelihood will be threatened.
Cancel-culture sucker-punched modern medicine and the poor white coats never knew what hit them.
Do I exaggerate?
Do an internet search for Robert Malone MD, Pierre Kory MD, Paul Marik MD, Didier Raoult or Ryan Cole MD. Or how about Luc Montagnier Ph.D, Michael Yeadon Ph.D, Byram Bridle Ph.D, or Jessica Rose Ph.D. Tell me what you find… There’s a reason half these brave souls ended-up on Substack.
Do I exaggerate?
My doctor friend, employed by our local hospital, offers this confessional: “We received an email stating if we brought up concerns about the vaccine or were less than enthusiastic about encouraging each patient to get it, we would be subject to termination.”
He is a pediatrician.
Meanwhile, back on the farm, in a strident appeal published in the British Medical Journal, a group of doctors cogently lay out a case against vaccine mandates, and as regards children, end by saying:
“For young age groups, in whom covid-related morbidity and mortality is low, and for those who have had covid-19 infection already, and appear to have longstanding immunological memory, the harms of taking a vaccine are almost certain to outweigh the benefitsto the individual, and the goal of reducing transmission to other people at higher risk has not been demonstrated securely” (emphasis mine).
Meanwhile, reports from inside the CDC and FDA indicate low morale and cognitive dissonance as senior scientists realize these agencies are prioritizing politics over public health. And the CDC now admits serious shortcomings and announces a restructuring.
Coda
This is not about red state vs blue state. This is not even a broader discussion about vaccines in general. (I grew up receiving all required vaccinations.) When my father was stuck in a nursing home with Alzheimer’s, I was adamant that he receive the vaccine, and I would make that same decision again today. And my goal is not to stoke the fires of the Outrage Machine so that my tribe can become more indignant about what “they” are doing to us.
My intention is to have an honest, patient-centered examination of this situation and to allow that discussion to illuminate larger issues of bioethics, autonomy, collusion, greed, censorship, and freedom of information.
I am not asking you to agree with my position but only to be aware of all facets of the issue.
To my mind, this is about freedom. This is about honesty and transparency. And, most importantly, in the end, this is about people: real, individual human beings trying to live their best lives for a brief time here on Planet Earth. We deserve to know the truth. And we deserve to have our truth acknowledged – like the poignant story of this vaccine immunologist who herself became a victim of vaccine injury.
I began this journey as a friend with a heavy heart; I have ended as a doctor with a troubled conscience.
But I have hope.
“Then you will know the truth, and the truth shall set you free” (John 8:32).
The thinking classes in America want to emulate the theocratic lunacy of the Sixteenth Century. They have become everything they used to despise as cruel, unjust, and crazy.
The world turns and things change. Everybody knows that. But the turnings and changings throw off sparks, which light fires. The intellectual turnings of the European Renaissance lit fires in the lumbering bureaucracy of Roman Catholicism, burdened as it was with abstruse theology larded with lingering, age-old superstition. Witch hunts, inquisitions, and persecutions ensued, even as the authority of the old order wobbled and frayed. The gross cruelties of the people in charge didn’t bolster their prestige, and a few centuries later you see the result: belief is dead.
Likewise in Western Civ today. Our authorities have disgraced themselves behind a new theology of degenerate “science” that veers back into superstition and necromancy. Proof that they don’t believe their own story shows in their desperate efforts to hide the data, confabulate numbers, ignore true facts, and lash out viciously at anyone who discloses their zealous deceits.
Case in point: the persecution of Meryl Nass, MD, in the state of Maine by its Board of Licensure in Medicine. Dr. Nass is an internal medicine physician and a recognized expert in bioterrorism who famously uncovered the origin of the mysterious “Gulf War Syndrome” as a reaction to the US Army’s own anthrax vaccine. She has testified before Congress and in many state legislatures about vaccine safety. After the emergence of Covid-19, Dr. Nass spoke out and blogged about the dangers of the new vaccines, and in favor of early treatment protocols using ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. Her outspokenness attracted the ire of Maine Governor Janet Mills, and Mills’s sister, Dora Anne Mills, the “Chief Health Improvement Officer” at Maine Health, a huge network of twelve hospitals, 1,700 doctors, and 22,000 employees, deeply invested in the Covid vaccine program.
In January of this year, Dr. Nass’s license was suspended by the Licensure Board based on complaints by two “activists” that she was “spreading misinformation” and for her use of early treatment protocols with her own patients. The board compelled Dr. Nass to undergo a neuropsychological evaluation to determine if she was a drug abuser or suffered from mental illness. (Flag that, since it implies official defamation of her character.) The board accused her of “fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation” in her practice, “conduct that evidences a lack of ability or fitness,” and being “an immediate jeopardy” to public health.
For most of this year, the board refused to entertain any defense by Dr. Nass against her suspension until a hearing held last week, October 11, when she appeared before the Licensure Board with her attorney, Gene Libby. The hearing in its entirety can be watched on video at Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s Children’s Health Defense website. (The first two-thirds the board prosecutes its case; the last hour Dr. Nass presents her defense.) Days before the hearing, the Licensure Board withdrew all the “misinformation” charges against Dr. Nass without explanation and now bases its case on Dr. Nass’s use of early treatment protocols.
The hearing was highly instructive on the tactics and strategies for defeating official persecutions against doctors in America (and broadly across all of Western Civ these days), since the Maine licensure Board acted with obvious ignorance and malice that is easily revealed. Dr. Nass’s attorney Gene Libby deftly got the Board on-record attesting to their own deliberate misconduct. For instance, he repeatedly invoked their charges against “spreading misinformation,” forcing the chair, an eye doctor named Maroulla S. Gleaton, to affirm that the charges had been precipitously dropped days before. There was also some lively discussion of the board’s imputations against Dr. Nass’s mental health and insinuations of drug abuse — Dr. Nass testified that she’d never been treated for mental health issues, had never taken pharmaceuticals for them, never took illicit drugs or been accused of it, and, where alcohol was concerned, enjoyed “about five drinks a year.”
Watch the video. I think you can see that the Licensure Board members begin to realize in the proceeding that Dr. Nass is fixing to sue the living shit out of them, and that just about everything they’ve said implicates them in a malice-driven campaign to defame her. In fact, it may be appropriate as events move forward for a court to recommend suspending the medical license of board chair Maroulla S. Gleaton, and the several other board members who are doctors (some are not) for official misconduct, as well as paying damages to Dr. Nass.
The archbishops, confessors, and tortureors in the Inquisitions of yore had, in retrospect, at least one excuse for their misdeeds (what we might call today “crimes against humanity”): empirical science was then in its infancy and their ideas about how the world worked were still largely driven by myth, fear, and occultism. Until fairly recently, when Western Civ went off-the-rails, the thinking classes of America would have easily labeled the activities of the old Inquisition as a form of group insanity.
Alas, the thinking classes across Western Civ have now gone insane. Today, they are the ones perpetrating real crimes against humanity. They have given themselves permission — as elites will — to behave cruelly, unjustly, and idiotically against the public interest and against the inherent rights of individuals to fair treatment. They’ve subjected millions to injury and death. They’ve maintained the fraudulent “Emergency Use Authorization” (EUA) for hugely profitable, ineffective, and dangerous drugs by prohibiting treatments with proven effective drugs — the use of which would nullify the EUA and the legal protections it affords the drug-makers. They’ve concealed the statistics that would show all that. And they appear to be acting with arrant malice driven by political actors offstage.
Dr. Nass is demonstrating how they can be effectively opposed. There should be thousands of heroic figures like her among the doctors of Western Civ. Ask them why they are not standing up in places like California, with its new, idiotically-written law against doctors speaking freely with their patients for the sake of informed consent (“spreading misinformation”). These reprobate lawmakers — and the depraved Governor Gavin Newsom who signed the act — need a lesson in what it means to be civilized. The people running the CDC, the NIH, and the FDA deserve severe floggings in the civil and criminal courts. They all know it now, too, and they’re running scared.
Gambling and its history have always fascinated me. I searched and searched and finally found it – the Original Busted Joe System.
Better than most and equal to few, it will get you … absolutely NOWHERE in the long run, and probably NOWHERE even in the short run.
The great value of the Busted Joe System comes as the humor in concept – the idea of actually doing it.
Without further ado, here it is: Busted Joe.
The “Busted Joe” System
(Help for the Gambler)
Choose a table game at the casino. Best to choose one of the games / main bets that are somewhat close to “even money”, as in Baccarat.
Choose a position to bet on and an amount to bet. Place the bet.
If the bet won, then stop immediately and leave the casino a winner. If the bet lost, then bet on the same thing again but double the amount of the previous bet.
If this second bet won, then stop immediately and leave the casino a winner. If this second bet lost, then bet on the same thing again but double the amount of the second bet.
If this third bet won, then stop immediately and leave the casino a winner. If this third bet lost, then at the top of your lungs – scream “Busted Joe!” and run out the door of the casino.
Over time, the poet William Butler Yeats has been a fascinating study for me. Yeats spent years crafting an elaborate, mystical theory of the universe he described in his book A Vision. This theory issued in part from Yeats’s lifelong fascination with the occult and the mystical, and in part from the sense of responsibility Yeats felt to order his experience within a structured belief system. The system is extremely complicated and not of any lasting importance, except perhaps for the effect that it had on his poetry, which itself is of extraordinary lasting importance. The theory of history Yeats articulated in A Vision centers on a diagram made of two conical spirals, one inside the other, so that the widest part of one of the spirals rings around the narrowest part of the other spiral, and vice versa. Yeats believed that this image (he called the spirals “gyres”) captured the contrary motions inherent within the historical process, and he divided each gyre into specific regions that represented particular kinds of historical periods (and could also represent the psychological phases of an individual’s development as well as society’s development).
In light of this, I ask that you consider his poem The Second Coming. The Second Coming was intended by Yeats to describe the current historical trend (starting in 1921) in terms of these gyres. Yeats believed that the world was sliding toward darkness and an eventual apocalyptic ending of sorts, as history reached the end of the outer gyre (to speak roughly) and began moving along the inner gyre. He does not literally mean a religious or Christian apocalypse, but he uses the religious references and his own metaphysical descriptions as a sort of metaphor to illustrate humanity’s ongoing slide into darkness. In his definitive edition of Yeats’s poems, Richard J. Finneran quotes Yeats’s own notes:
“The end of an age, which always receives the revelation of the character of the next age, is represented by the coming of one gyre to its place of greatest expansion and of the other to its place of greatest contraction… The revelation [that] approaches will… take its character from the contrary movement of the interior gyre…”
In other words, the world’s trajectory along the gyre of science, democracy, and heterogeneity is coming apart, like the frantically widening flight-path of the falcon that has lost contact with the falconer; the next age will take its character not from the gyre of science, democracy, and speed, but from the contrary inner gyre—which opposes rationality, reasonability, morality, enlightened liberality, and slowness to the science and democracy of the outer gyre. The “rough beast” slouching toward Bethlehem is the symbol of this new coming dark age; the speaker’s vision of the rising sphinx is his vision of the character of the new world.
As poetry, and understood more correctly and broadly than as a simple reiteration of the mystic or religious reference to A Vision,The Second Coming is a magnificent statement about the contrary forces at work in history, and about the conflict between the light and the darkness (i.e. reasonableness vs. irrationality). The aesthetic experience of the poem’s passionate language and message is powerful enough to ensure its value and its importance in Yeats’s work as a whole.
So, where am I going with this in such a long-winded fashion? First, read The Second Coming in its entirety. Then, read the partial quotes below and see if they do not perfectly reflect the degree of humanity’s slide into darkness you have witnessed over the course of your own life.
“…Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
“…Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
“When [the states] entered into the Union of 1789, it was with the undeniable recognition of the power of the people to resume the authority delegated for the purposes of that government, whenever in their opinion, its functions were perverted and its ends defeated . . . the sovereign States here represented have seceded from that Union, and it is a gross abuse of language to denominate the act rebellion or revolution.”
–Jefferson Davis, First Inaugural Address, Montgomery, Alabama, February 1861.
“That . . . the Union is perpetual [is] confirmed by the history of the Union itself. The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further matured, and the faith of all the thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual . . . . It follows from these views that no State . . . can lawfully get out of the Union . . . and that acts . . . against the authority of the United States are insurrectionary or revolutionary . . .”
–Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861.
These two statements by Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis from their respective first inaugural addresses highlight perhaps the main cause of the War to Prevent Southern Independence: Davis believed, as the founding fathers did, that the union of the states was a voluntary union created when the free, independent, and sovereign states ratified the Constitution, as directed by Article 7 of the Constitution; Lincoln asserted that it was not voluntary, and was more like what future generations would come to know as the Soviet Union – held together by force and bloodshed. Murray Rothbard mocked Lincoln’s theory of the involuntary American union a “one-way Venus flytrap” theory of the union in his essay, “Just War.” Indeed, in the same speech Lincoln used the words “invasion” and “bloodshed” to describe what would happen in any state that left his “perpetual” union. His position was that after fighting a long war of secession from the tyrannical British empire, the founders turned around and created a nearly identical, British-style centralized state from which there could never be any escape.
As important as this issue was, Jefferson Davis announced to the world that an equally if not more important issue was the attempt of the North to finally use the powers of the national state to plunder the South, with a protectionist tariff being its primary tool of plunder. As he stated in his first inaugural address, the Southern people were “anxious to cultivate peace and commerce with all nations.” However:
“There can be no cause to doubt that the courage and patriotism of the people of the Confederate States will be found equal to any measure of defence which may be required for their security. Devoted to agricultural pursuits, their chief interest is the export of a commodity required in every manufacturing country. Our policy is peace, and the freest trade our necessities will permit. It is alike our interest, and that of all those to whom we would sell and from whom we would buy, that there should be the fewest practicable restrictions upon interchange of commodities. There can be but little rivalry between us and any manufacturing or navigating community, such as the Northwestern States of the American Union.”
“It must follow, therefore, that mutual interest would invite good will and kindness between them and us. If, however, passion or lust of domination should cloud the judgment and inflame the ambition of these States, we must prepare to meet the emergency, and maintain, by the final arbitrament of the sword, the position we have assumed among the nations of the earth.”
To put these statements into context, it is important to understand the North was in the process of more than doubling the average tariff rate on imports at a time when at least 90 percent of all federal tax revenue came from tariffs on imports. The rate of federal taxation was about to more than double (from 15% to 32.7%), as it did on March 2, 1861 when President James Buchanan, the Pennsylvania protectionist, signed the Morrill Tariff into law, a law that was relentlessly promoted by Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party. (The Pennsylvania delegation was a key to Lincoln’s nomination. Before the Republican convention he sent a private emissary, Judge David Davis, to Pennsylvania with original copies of all of his speeches in defense of protectionist tariffs over the previous twenty-five years in order to convince the Pennsylvania protectionists, led by steel manufacturer/legislator Thaddeus Stevens, that he was their man. He won over the Pennsylvania delegation and he later appointed Davis to the Supreme Court).
Ever since the Tariff of 1824, and the even more protectionist 1828 “Tariff of Abominations,” with a 48% average tariff rate, the South had been protesting and even threatening nullification and secession over protectionist plunder, as South Carolina did in 1833 when it formally nullified the “Tariff of Abominations.” The votes in Congress on these tariffs was completely lopsided in terms of Northern support and Southern opposition – although there were small minorities of Southern protectionists and Northern free traders, especially in New York City in the latter case.
The South, like the Mid-West, was an agricultural society that was being plundered twice by protection tariffs: Once by paying higher prices for “protected” manufactured goods, and a second time by reduced exports after the high tariffs impoverished their European customers who were prohibited from selling in the U.S. by the high tariffs. Most of the South’s agricultural produce –as much as 75% or so in some years — was sold in Europe.
South Carolina nullified the Tariff of Abominations and forced President Andrew Jackson to agree to a lower, compromise tariff rate that was phased in over ten years, beginning in 1833. The North did not yet have the political clout to plunder the South, an act that many Southern statesmen considered to be a gross violation of the constitutional contract that justified secession. But by 1861 the population growth in the North, and the addition of new Northern states, had given the North enough political power to finally plunder the agricultural South and Mid-West with protectionist tariffs. The Morrill Tariff had passed the House of Representatives during the 1859-’60 session, long before any Southern state seceded, and the writing was on the wall that it was only a matter of time before the U.S. Senate would follow suit.
The Confederate Constitution outlawed protectionist tariffs altogether, calling only for a modest “revenue tariff” of ten percent or so. This so horrified the “Party of Great Moral Causes” that Republican Party-affiliated newspapers in the North were calling for the bombardment of Southern ports before the war. With a Northern tariff in the 50% range (where it would be after Lincoln signed ten tariff-raising pieces of legislation, and remained in that range for the succeeding fifty years) compared to the Southern 10% average tariff rate, they understood that much of the trade of the world would go through Southern, not Northern, ports and to them, that was cause for war. “We now have the votes and we intend to plunder you mercilessly; if you resist we will invade, conquer, and subjugate you” is essentially what the North, with its election of lifelong protectionist Abraham Lincoln as a sectional president, was saying.
Neither Lincoln nor the Republican party opposed Southern slavery during the 1860 campaign. They only opposed the extension of slavery into the new territories. This was not because of any concern for the slaves, but was part of their strategy of perpetual plunder. Mid-West farmers, like Southern farmers, were harshly discriminated against by protectionist tariffs. They, too, were double-taxed by protectionism. This is why the Mid-West (called “the North-West” in the 1860s) provided serious antebellum resistance to the Yankee scheme of protectionist plunder. (The Mid-West also provided some of the most effective opposition to the Lincoln regime during the war, being the home of the “Copperheads,” so named as a slanderous term by the Republican Party). This opposition was watered down, however, when the Republican Party championed the policy of preventing slavery in the territories, preserving them “for free white labor” in the words of Abraham Lincoln himself. Mid-Westerners were as racist as anyone else in the mid nineteenth century, and the overwhelming majority of them did not want black people, free or slave, living among them. Lincoln’s own state of Illinois had amended its constitution in 1848 to prohibit the immigration of free blacks into the state, and Lincoln himself was a “manager” of the Illinois Colonization Society, which used state tax dollars to deport the small number of free blacks who resided in the state.
White laborers and farm hands also did not want competition for their jobs by blacks, free or slave, and the Republican Party was happy to pander to them. Then there is the “problem” of slaves in the Territories inflating the congressional representation of the Democratic Party because of the Three-Fifths Clause of the Constitution. With more Democratic representation protectionist plunder would become that much more difficult to achieve.
This strategy was explained in the Report of the Committee on Foreign Affairs by the Confederate States of America on September 4, 1861:
“Whilst the people of the North-West, being like the people of the South, an agricultural people, were generally opposed to the protective tariff policy – the grand sectionalizing instrumentality of the North. They were allies of the South, to defeat this policy. Hence it has been only partially, and occasionally successful. To make it complete, and to render the North omnipotent to rule the South, the division in the North must be healed. To accomplish this object, and to sectionalize the North, the agitation concerning African slavery in the South was commenced . . . . Accordingly, after the overthrow of the Tariff of 1828 [i.e., the Tariff of Abominations], by the resistance of South Carolina in 1833, the agitation concerning the institution of Southern slavery . . . was immediately commenced in the Congress of the United States . . . . The first fruit of [this] sectional despotism . . . was the tariff lately passed by the Congress of the United States. By this tariff the protective policy is renewed in its most odious and oppressive forms, and the agricultural States are made tributaries to the manufacturing States.”
Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address: “Pay Up or Die!”
Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural address was arguably the strongest defense of Southern slavery ever made by an American politician. He began by saying that in “nearly all the published speeches” he had made he declared that “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists.” I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.” He next quoted the Republican Party Platform of 1860, which he fully endorsed, that proclaimed that “the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions . . . is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of four political fabric depend . . .” (emphasis added). “Domestic institutions” meant slavery.
Lincoln then pledged to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act, which he in fact did during his administration, returning dozens of runaway slaves to their “owners.” Most importantly, seven paragraphs from the end of his speech he endorsed the Corwin Amendment to the Constitution, which had already passed the House and Senate and was ratified by several states. This “first thirteenth amendment” would prohibit the federal government from ever interfering with Southern slavery. It would have enshrined slavery explicitly in the text of the Constitution. Lincoln stated in the same paragraph that he believed slavery was already constitutional, but that he had “no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.”
In her book Team of Rivals Doris Kearns-Goodwin uses primary sources to document that the source of the amendment was not really Ohio Congressman Thomas Corwin but Abraham Lincoln who, after he was elected but before he was inaugurated, instructed William Seward to get the amendment through the Northern-dominated U.S. Senate, which he did. Other Republicans saw to it that the Northern-dominated House of Representatives would also vote in favor of it.
So on the day he was inaugurated Abraham Lincoln offered the strongest, most uncompromising defense of Southern slavery imaginable. He effectively announced to the world that if the Southern states remained in the union and submitted to being plundered by the Yankee-dominated protectionist empire, then nothing would ever be done about slavery by the U.S. government.
The U.S. Senate’s War Aims Resolution later echoed Lincoln’s words that the war was NOT about slavery but about “saving the union,” a contention that Lincoln repeated many times, including in his famous letter to New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley in which he said publicly once again that this purpose was to “save the union” and not to do anything about slavery. In reality Lincoln’s regime utterly destroyed the voluntary union of the founding fathers. By “saving the union” they meant forcing the South to submit to protectionist plunder, not preserving the highly decentralized, voluntary union of the founding generation based on such principles as federalism and subsidiarity.
In dramatic contrast, on the issue of tariff collection Abraham Lincoln was violently uncompromising. “Nothing” is more important than passing the Morrill Tariff, he had announced to a Pennsylvania audience a few weeks earlier. Nothing. In his first inaugural address he stated in the eighteenth paragraph that “[T]here needs to be no bloodshed or violence, and there shall be none unless it be forced upon the national authority.” What could he have been talking about? What would cause “the national authority” to commit acts of “bloodshed” and “violence” against its own American citizens? Doesn’t the president take an oath in which he promises to defend the constitutional liberties of American citizens? How would ordering acts of “bloodshed” and “violence” against them be consistent with the presidential oath of office which he had just taken, with his atheistic hand on a Bible, just moments earlier?
Lincoln explained in the next sentence: “The power confided in me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government, and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using force against or among the people anywhere” (emphasis added). The “duties and imposts” he referred to were the tariffs to be collected under the new Morrill Tariff law. If there was to be a war, he said, the cause of the war would in effect be the refusal of the Southern states to submit to being plundered by the newly-doubled federal tariff tax, a policy that the South had been periodically threatening nullification and secession over for the previous thirty-three years.
In essence, Abraham Lincoln was announcing to the world that he would not back down to Southern secessionists as President Andrew Jackson had done by acquiescing in a negotiated reduction of the Tariff of Abominations (negotiated by Lincoln’s lifelong political idol and inspiration, Henry Clay, the author of the Tariff of Abominations in the first place!). He promised “violence,” “bloodshed,” and war over tariff collection, and he kept his promise.
People around the world are convinced that the United States is a nation run by criminal psychopaths and morons. A greater fear is that world leaders mistakenly assume that their American counterparts who do and say insane things continually are, in actuality, normal and sane people who actually question and qualify their orders from above.
Then, when time and time again, it becomes apparent that so such questioning goes on, and it is demonstrated that America has blundered into a diplomatic, economic or military morass, for some unknown reason, a “reset” occurs, and the wrong assumptions are again made.
At every level, humanity errs in assuming that those in command are there because of talent and worth or that, because America is so wealthy and powerful, that its people are such because of moral and intellectual superiority.
Blind acceptance of exceptionalism is, in itself, a dangerous disease.
If you ask an average American what their IQ is, they are quick to answer. Invariably they will say, “140” or more. Yet, when you look at American society, at America’s culture, the idea of a nation of Mensa types is unrealistic. Americans aren’t much more stupid than other people, just much more dangerous.
Truth is, the average American has an IQ of around 96. It used to be 100, the number established as a “mean.” About 40% of Americans run between 60 and 85, enough to function at basic levels but with intelligence low enough to impair higher functions such as judgment and critical reasoning.
This is where the real problem is, of that 40%, a significant number graduate from universities and of those who come from higher socio-economic backgrounds, like those with inherited money, they get not just Ivy League degrees, but often make it through “diploma mill” fake graduate programs at the Wharton School of Business, Yale and Harvard.
In Britain, of course, “idiots,” and the quotes are out of kindness because “idiot” is a real term with a real definition and applies quite nicely, go to Eaton, then Oxford or Cambridge.
Where it comes to play in America is the manner those of limited capability are channeled into military command, into government, into teaching positions even in universities and into the White House itself.
Thus, real talent, “brilliance” as it were, is replaced by “cleverness” and even various forms of moral deficiency on the spectrum of social psychopathy.
When the world watches America, “on the bus to ‘Crazy-Town,’” it is always assumed that the worst, even if that “worst” is true, must be denied, rationalized away. Even in America itself, those of talent, out of a need to simply turn away from an unpleasant truth, too often look for any sign that psychopathic morons in government and the military or, worse still, controlling social media giants and tech companies, are “normal.”
This form of denial, “normalizing” the abnormal, exalting the idiot, mistaking clownishness for hidden genius, very hidden genius, is in itself a disease, a weakness, a failing and a threat to the survival of the human species.
It is no secret that the world itself and certainly the United States is ruled by economic elites whose positions are entirely inherited, elites with a stranglehold on political and economic life. Their origins, the banking families of Europe’s Middle Ages or the “Robber Barons” of the 19th century, perhaps the shipping families that carried opium and slaves, those and more, have left America with an elite ruling class that has long demonstrated moral depravity.
Through social manipulation this group, that controlled the eugenics movement during the 20s and 30s, has learned that they don’t need to use selective breeding to create slaves, but that it can be done through the education system which they control through foundations and think tanks.
To an extent, it is demonstrable that the Nazi reign of terror was financed and engineered by America’s elites, the Bush, Harriman, Rockefeller, Farish and Walker families partnered with Hitler and IG Farben. Auschwitz was one of their efforts and what began as eugenics became mass murder under Hitler only to reappear as “Google” and “Facebook” decades later. In between, foundations rewrote history, recreated a “dumbed down” education system and society.
In American government, congress walled itself in with rules that stifled change and debate, gave all control of the few, committee heads from remote and backward districts who ruled America on behalf of ruling elites for generations.
Key to keeping it all working has been the reengineering of every institution to favor the “morally flexible” of limited intelligence, a nation of semi-literate legislators, doctors, judges, law enforcement officials, college professors, admirals and generals and even captains of industry.
The result has been 50 years of declining wages, lowered life expectancy despite scientific advances, a society at war with itself, radicalized, superstitious and easily controlled.
Fostering all of it is the general human weakness of denialism, the need to ignore seemingly unsurmountable challenges when simply “going along with the program” allows for survival and where “being part of the problem” can offer great rewards.
Behind it all is the fake narrative, an endless droning of jingoism and phony patriotism, of exceptionalism and behind that is fear; always fear.
To an extent, technology itself is the enemy. A century ago, when America was a burgeoning industrial giant, teeming millions worked in factories. The hierarchy there wasn’t so much factory owners or thuggish supervisors, Ford Motor Company actually hired violent felons to oversee workers.
It took real talent, even brilliance, to design tools, create innovations, improve processes, all of which was done by real elites among the working classes. Whoever may have thought they were “in charge,” without tool and die makers nothing happened.
With all of that gone, CAD systems, robotics, a world of devices and “apps,” an America with fake universities giving out fake degrees, a military that passes out fake medals to fake heroes by the score who fight equally fake wars, whatever remained of a natural elite, an “offset” as it were, has disappeared.
By the mid-1970s, under the guise of creating opportunities for minorities, the bar was lowered, allowing the least talented to rise and the potentially threatening few of capability to be contained and stifled. This wasn’t by accident and had absolutely nothing to do with opportunity or equality.
It had everything to do with compliance and with building a society where moral questions would go unanswered, unasked and would eventually disappear.
The reality, a congress where an IQ of 70 is not unheard of, military academies where psychopathic behavior is promoted and those who exhibit the most deviant tendencies are “fast tracked” to command.
Journalism and its partner industry, “entertainment” is so much worse.
None of it was done by accident.
Gordon Duff is a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War that has worked on veterans and POW issues for decades and consulted with governments challenged by security issues.
First published in New Eastern Outlook, August 26, 2018.
The general public has a completely incorrect view of Occam’s Razor. This is mostly due to the concept being continuously misused and misidentified in the media … movies, television shows, news shows, etc.
Occam’s Razor, the so-called Law of Parsimony, is generally misunderstood and misapplied by the vast majority of persons who do not work or specialize in the sciences – physical or otherwise. Most people take the Razor to mean that “the simplest explanation that fits all the facts is the most likely one to be correct.” That is a far cry from its actual meaning. The Razor states that one should proceed to simpler theories until simplicity can be traded for greater explanatory power. The simplest available theory need not be most accurate. In short, in the process of researching and solving a problem, you should start with the simplest explanations because they are generally the easiest to deal with, measure, and disprove. It is in fact nothing more than a bit of a heuristic conceit; it is a learning gimmick. It is not considered to be a principle of logic nor an integrated part of the scientific method. If anything, it is inductive and generally circular in nature. It is nothing close to a natural law. It is in fact not a law of any kind. Other than giving students and novices a starting point, the value of the true Razor concept is rather limited.
Even if we examine the general public’s perceived definition of the Razor in terms of workability – “the simplest explanation that fits all the facts is the most likely one to be correct,” this too is of no help because the concept is rarely true in the sciences (particularly physics) at all. It may occasionally be true in anything, but it is seldom of use in anything more complicated than the study of traffic patterns. The truth of this concept is usually covered very thoroughly by the “201” level of most any type of university science curriculum. So, whether we are talking about the perceived definition of the Razor or the actual definition, if either truly is used as a definitive indicator of an extant condition – the result is most likely wrong, or at best – suspect.
Even when we move outside the arena of scientific endeavor, common sense and everyday experience should tell the average person that the simplest explanation is no more likely to be correct than is the most complicated explanation. My experience tells me that in this complicated world, the simplest explanation is usually dead wrong. But I’ve noticed that the simplest explanation usually sounds right and is far more convincing than any complicated explanation could ever hope to be.
While it is always true that complex things are made up of a series of simple things, this does not mean that everything is effectively simple.
America has become Alzheimer Nation. Nothing is remembered for more than a few minutes. The news media, which used to function as a sort of collective brain, is a memory hole that events are shoved down and extinguished in. An attack in Syria, you ask? What was that about? Facebook stole your…what? Four lives snuffed out in a… a what? Something about waffles? Trump said… what? Let’s pause today and make an assessment of where things stand in this country as Winter finally coils into Spring.
As you might expect, a nation overrun with lawyers has litigated itself into a cul-de-sac of charges, arrests, suits, countersuits, and allegations that will rack up billable hours until the Rockies tumble. The best outcome may be that half the lawyers in this land will put the other half in jail, and then, finally, there will be space for the rest of us to re-connect with reality.
What does that reality consist of? Troublingly, an economy that can’t go on as we would like it to: a machine that spews out ever more stuff for ever more people. We really have reached limits for an industrial economy based on cheap, potent energy supplies. The energy, oil especially, isn’t cheap anymore. The fantasy that we can easily replace it with wind turbines, solar panels, and as-yet-unseen science projects is going to leave a lot of people not just disappointed but bereft, floundering, and probably dead, unless we make some pretty severe readjustments in daily life.
We’ve been papering this problem over by borrowing so much money from the future to cover costs today that eventually it will lose its meaning as money — that is, faith that it is worth anything. That’s what happens when money is just a representation of debt that can’t be paid back. This habit of heedless borrowing has enabled the country to pretend that it is functioning effectively. Lately, this game of pretend has sent the financial corps into a rapture of jubilation. The market speed bumps of February are behind us and the road ahead looks like the highway to Vegas at dawn on a summer’s day.
Tesla is the perfect metaphor for where the US economy is at: a company stuffed with debt plus government subsidies, unable to deliver the wished-for miracle product — affordable electric cars — whirling around the drain into bankruptcy. Tesla has been feeding one of the chief fantasies of the day: that we can still banish climate problems caused by excessive CO2, while giving a new lease on life to the (actually) futureless suburban living arrangement that we foolishly invested so much of our earlier capital building. In other words, pounding sand down a rat hole.
Because none of that is going to happen. The true message of income inequality is that the nation as a whole is becoming incrementally impoverished and eventually even the massive “wealth” of the one-percenters will prove to be fictitious, as the things it is represented in — stocks, bonds, currencies, Manhattan apartments — hemorrhage their supposed value. The very wealthy will be a lot less wealthy while everybody else is in a life-and-death struggle to remain fed, housed, and warm. And, of course, that only increases the chance that some violent social revolution will take away even that remaining residue of wealth, and destroy the people who held it.
What lies ahead is contraction. Of everything. Activity, population. The industrial economy is not going to be replaced by a super high tech utopia, because that wished-for utopia needs an industrial economy underneath to support it. This is true, by the way, for all the other “advanced” nations. China has a few more years of dependable oil supply left and then they will discover that they can no longer manufacture solar panels or perhaps not even run the magnificent electronic surveillance system they are so artfully building. Their political system will prove to be at least as fragile as our own.
The time may even come when the young people, of the USA especially, have to put aside their boundary-smashing frolics of the day and adjust the pre-cooked expectations they’ve been handed to the actual contraction at hand, and what it means for making a life under severely different conditions. It means, better learn how to do something really practical and not necessarily high tech. Better figure out a part of the country that will be safe to live in. Better plan on hunkering down there when the people stuck in the less favorable places make a real mess of things. If the world survives at all, it will make for a hard, hard life.
Sandra Lynn Sandavol 