A Reasonable Basis To Differ

How the COVID-19 Fear Peddlers Lost Their Credibility

This article will not a be a long-winded diatribe, but instead, it will be a quick and to-the-point itemization pointing readers to the reasons why those - who are still able to think critically -…

Besides being the most consistent position to take morally, philosophically, and practically, I am the voluntarist type of libertarian at this point in my life because of situations like this. That is, as the linked article lays out, there are SO MANY reasonable, plausible and significant points upon which to question, doubt and differ with the mainstream narrative about CV-19 that there is no way for a thinking person to ignore them all, nor the overwhelming appearance of impropriety, malfeasance, fraud and obvious agendas on display, whatever can actually be exactly proved at any given moment by an individual person just trying to live his life.

I’m certain that I wasn’t born to support or be forced to take part in actions that ultimately seem likely to create far more harm than the original ‘risk’ did itself, nor to spend my life in a mask or stuck in my house based on the edicts of a central authority with motivations and a track record I can have no faith in, nor in proving or endlessly arguing the wrongness or criminality of the actions or behavior of others, much less litigating them at great cost of both time and money in order to take a meaningful action in stepping away from those situations and the people involved with and responsible for them. No more so than I am required to prove the basis for some bad feelings or instinct of warning I might get in the presence of certain people. That is, if my hackles go up around someone, for whatever reason, even if unexplainable or unverifiable, I can simply choose to disassociate. Likewise, should I go into a shop and receive treatment from its personnel I consider unwelcoming or unhelpful. I just don’t go there again.

One cannot choose to disassociate with the state (and its owners), however. Not so far, but this situation is a clear example of why that option will surely be necessary if humans are to continue on as an organic species and to ever really become a free one.

Some Less Popular Information…

LOCKDOWN LUNACY: The Thinking Person’s Guide

For anyone willing to look, there are so many facts that tell the true story of this lockdown lunacy, but the media-with a few notable exceptions-is oddly silent on all the good news. Luckily, an unexpected group-many of them doctors and scientists-have emerged to tell the truth, despite facing extreme criticism and censorship from an angry mob desperate to continue fighting an imaginary war.

Italia Fragmentando

If its impetus and genesis can even be believed to be organic, and not conducted by precisely those ‘unintended’ beneficiaries who may stand and plan to gain from a ‘be careful what you wish for’ outcome (a difficult sell for any mass movement at this point), the linked article below is shared here on The DMP rather than its sister site The Black Sheep Herald because, while it is ‘good news’ in the sense that this tendency/movement in Italy (referred to in a previous BSH post) is growing, possibly spreading even, and is, at least, remaining in the news, it’s also an example of a perfectly collectivist and default perspective. Not good news, in that sense, but the way things are certainly.

That is to say, the commenting linker at Global Research (DK Matai?), calls the movement, “a manifestation of extreme social “egotism”, of generalized destruction of any form of solidarity and adherence to more general projects….’Everybody for himself’ seems to dominate the continent,” while article’s author writes, “It could be said that Northern Italy feels the same way as Northern Europe towards the Mediterranean Europe: a tendency that indicates a more or less marked lack of solidarity between all the European states….,” the implication being that all Europeans should feel solidarity with each other, whichever of its nations they are in or are from. But, why is that, at least for the ones who know better, that may have learned and accepted some things that others haven’t yet or don’t ever want to?

Let’s say a European citizen is aware of the corruption of European governmental actions and of its totalitarian favoring structure and is aware that private entities own that structure almost entirely, and use it to do their bidding – and which as a criticism, by the way, has nothing to do with preferring “Everybody for himself” – and that there is no way to alter the course of that partnered combination entity (that of government with powerful private and corporate wealth) while also supporting it, why should the tepid idea of “solidarity” trump that knowledge, particularly if that solidarity is not about addressing nor even includes an awareness of the more fundamental problem and dynamic?

We don’t own each other, and one is not morally and perpetually obliged to participate in that which one knows to be hyper corrupt and hyper harmful because there are public works or social services that a purported majority of people at any given moment within a given geography would like to see done. “Hey, it’s too bad about all that drone bombing and the depleted uranium and Agent Orange, and those economic sanctions that wound up killing hundreds of thousands of people ‘over there’, but we’ve gotta fund food stamps here at home, so all that will just have to continue, I guess, darn it, because, well, we don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater! Thanks! Maybe you can vote those people and policies you don’t like out of office and off the books in, say, a few thousand years or so (and hope that their spots aren’t immediately taken by people and new laws just like them, and into a system that still naturally begets such outcomes while naturally thwarting all others). In the meantime, you’re part of the group and owe it a debt and have to pitch in, forever, so quit complaining. Thanks!”

If the social entity ‘everybody’ thinks is an agent for good is provably not, then why should anyone who realizes this be expected and required to participate in and with it? My argument is that no one should be, and I wonder how many people have ever contemplated the social structure they live under or the assumptions being made to support its existence and adherence to it?

That’s got to be a very small number of people, but I think it’s growing, and it’s likely that some of these people in Catalonia and Venuto and Lombardia and Scotland are not rabid nationalists or bigots, but rather are aware of the above realities and of the warnings of history and literature, and so would just prefer that any centralized authority they are currently required to live under be much smaller and much closer to home.

Venice and Lombardy: Why Is the Request for Independence Growing? – Global Research

The following article was written before the recent referendum in Venice and Lombardy. It remains relevant as far as, everything happening in Europe those days is becoming, more a more, a manifestation of extreme social “egotism”, of generalized destruction of any form of solidarity and adherence to more general projects.

The Jury Is In

The jury is long ago in. There is absolutely no way to meaningfully control, rein in, oversee, or reform a behemoth centralized power to which all must render their fortunes, to whatever (arbitrary) degree. It is demonstrably clear that any pool of treasure derived and accumulated from such a coercive association will absolutely be pilfered, skimmed, redirected, misdirected, squandered, wasted and finally brazenly stolen outright by exactly the people that the author of the article linked below would prefer (and rightly so) be deprived of its largesse.

It is further demonstrably true that any such pool will always necessarily be captured by such people and the organizations they create for the very purpose of becoming the directors and appropriators of it, and can’t help but be. Once captured and in order to capture and consolidate their hold on it, they will always then write and have laws passed, by the institution (the state) that enforces their interests, to greatly favor those particular interests and make the road extremely rough or entirely impassable for anyone working in opposition to them. Finally, in the end, no matter how gross an infraction or violation by a member of this class, whether legal or ethical, they are so powerful that they can simply either ignore the system of justice which applies to all non-directors, or modify it on the fly if they want to make a show of being subjected to it (note that the most major and notorious events in the U.S. over the last 60 years: JFK’s assassination, Watergate, the Iran-Contra affair, 9/11, and the financial catastrophe of ’07-’08, got processed for public consumption via Congressional actions, whether by special “Commissions” or by regular hearings, and not via the jural system, whether Grand or petit). There are never any indictments issued or sentences passed, and no one ever goes to jail or even loses their job or gets demoted. All these things, because they directly involve the behemoth, become extra-judicial. They are processed for show outside the justice system applicable to all non-directors.

This is plain to see if see one cares to. A fact that must be reckoned with, and at long last. The problem needs no further defining. The solution needs now to be laid out. Except, now the circularity begins.

Collectivism of any kind requires, mandates participation (tax payments), and sometimes physical service (military), and that’s practically every single political system of any size and note in the modern and ancient worlds, and that compelled participation begets a pool of treasure which calls relentlessly to the pathologically corrupt hearts and minds that will always and surely come to direct it, and to the more petty tyrants among us who want to control others via proximity to and minor control over some small corner of that pool, and to all the busybodies that are sure they know what’s best for others and are willing to use or condone force if and as necessary to see their benevolent will for others and the common good done. The pool WILL be captured and administered by this group. Always, and no discovered infraction will ever cause even the slightest loss of grip for the first part of that triumvirate, the directors.

The only thing that could ever affect the directors, I have come to believe, would be the advent of viable voluntary society as a counterweight. I’m not even sure that would do it, but I think it’s the the only thing that might (and I think it’s morally correct, anyway), and it has not been tried. Marching in the street does nothing but blow off steam for the marchers and those that root for them. Voting only gives the non-directors a vague sense that they have a say and are theoretically in charge of their own destinies, at least nominally. But marching and voting largely only waste the time of the participants and divert their energies from examining the actual juggernaut dynamic which is the actual root or primary engine of all the grossest societal ills, and into hollow ceremonial actions. Even when civil demonstration seems to have worked, as perhaps with Gandhi, or with King and the civil rights marches, the effort expended and costs were gargantuan. It’s not a realistic level of effort and time to have to routinely put forth to obtain or maintain one’s liberty and other “rights”. The behemoth can just change its mind later, anyway, even when it appears to have conceded.

Having examined these issues and the questions of morality involved at great length, I have no regard for socialism, because we don’t own each other. It’s also a proven failure, for the reasons I have stated herein. That said, I understand the author’s frustration and how he’d like things to go. I wish he had a patch of land somewhere to try to realize his goals, so long as I wasn’t required to contribute to or be governed by them. But as to controlling the existing behemoth, I would ask, just how exactly would he propose it might be checked? What precedent exists to show that it ever could be? Who exactly among us is morally fit AND intellectually capable (both) of overseeing it, and of undoing its capture and of preventing its future re-capture?

I suggest that nothing can check it while it’s mandatory, and that no one is fit to oversee it, nor ever could be. The reading of history would seem to make this statement nearly irrefutable (I include “early” only in case there is an example of which I am unaware). If it’s not, though, or doesn’t need to be true with future attempts, it’s time someone in the collectivist world laid out the viable path to their goal that precludes capture by the directors.

The problem has been defined, ad infinitum – the linked article contributes more evidence to that definition – so enough of that part, maybe, for awhile. Time to describe exactly how a system does not get hijacked. The U.S. Constitution has a very clear clause in it about the right of the people to redress grievances (against their government). Great idea, but that clause has no teeth because the road to redress has been made hyper-arduous and time consuming at best, and with state employed gatekeepers along the path, whether in front of the Grand Jury or the Court systems, who can simply turn any petition away,  so it’s meaningless.

That’s true for all of us, in every system. Anyone aware of a crime or injustice, needing a wrong righted, needs to beg the state to hear the case and petition. When it won’t, or when it makes the road so rough that it cannot be traveled, because it would run counter to the directors’ interests to do so, then what?

The Left should address that question now. It’s really well established and agreed at this point that oligarchy, plutocracy is the problem. It’s also well established that the deep-pocketed among us can hijack any and every system ever so far devised, so that problem would seem to be perpetual in nature, at least in the current paradigm where all are required to contribute to it. It would be good if bright minds would turn their attention to that dilemma now.

America’s oligarchy: No money for opioid crisis, endless funds for corporate tax cuts

On the same day that Congress moved forward on nearly $6 trillion in tax cuts to the super-rich, the Trump administration declined to allocate any funds to address the opioid crisis.

Spazzatura

I have occasion to regularly enter someone else’s house to carry out a task for them. A TV is always on in this house during waking hours, even when vacant, and so is always on when I enter, and I enter at varying times, so I’m not hearing the exact same show or announcers every time in. It is always tuned to CNN or MSNBC. I am never in the house for more than 30 seconds before I hear the word “Trump” and never more than a minute before I hear the word “Russia”.

That’s every single time I enter the house for more than a year, no matter what time I enter, so I have to assume that’s about all that gets discussed on those stations (I never watch corporate TV news, and haven’t in many years, so that’s a guess based on my daily sampling), even though I’m led to believe there is still no proof of criminal activity by Trump or his campaign with respect to Russia (that linked conversation, by the way, being non-spazzatura – see below – of the highest order), many though the allegations and suggestions are. I’m not so far aware of even an instance of the appearance of impropriety involving Trump and/or his campaign as substantial as that outlined in the story linked below about the Clintons and their foundation.

I’m not a Trump admirer or supporter, he’s rightly thought a buffoon, and worse. This isn’t written in support of him, Republicans, Fox News, or anything else thought to be on the ‘right’. I’m amazed Trump gained the presidency or even had the chance to, and I thought the major party presidential options offered to Americans in the last election were probably a gag, bordering on a psy-op, perhaps to see how low we might stoop in accepting our options (Hillary Clinton being to me equally as repellent a candidate and person as Trump).

That said, the Clinton Foundation instance is tangible and verifiable, damning and significant – it’s amazing no indictments have been issued (or would be if that sort of thing ever happened), and it’s never mentioned, that I know of, not on those two stations. Almost never, anyway, unless maybe to discount the story briefly before getting back to Trump. I never hear the words “Clinton” and then “Russia”, in any case, except as an accusation by Hillary Clinton about Donald Trump.

Anyway, that’s a landslide of coverage of an unproven story line, and unproven after a very long period. Relentless, one might call it. One might also call it propaganda, rather than news reporting. Relentless, bludgeoning propaganda. Propaganda with an obvious agenda that all useful propaganda must have, and that agenda not being impartial investigative reporting. CNN’s even been caught admitting they make stuff up for ratings. Recently. You’d think they’d be out of business or have their license revoked.

It’s garbage, and obviously so. In Italy they have an expression for such broadcasts: spazzatura (spahts-uh-tooruh). Spazzatura means ‘trash’. Trash TV. I stayed in Florence for awhile during college, living with an Italian family. When I would enter their house the TV was always on in the living room, always way too loud, usually tuned to some spazzatura (usually a modified talk show format with a middle-aged man in a suit looking ‘legitimate’, but with a super-busty, scantily clad young woman at his side, who would both get joined at random moments by, say, a grotesquely made-up clown riding a giant tricycle in circles around their couch a few times while shrieking some nonsense while everyone guffawed before riding off again).

Since I didn’t speak the language fluently enough to comprehend the words spoken at a normal conversational rate, I was left to just take in the overall impressions, both auditory and visual, that the broadcast created in me. The auditory one was very significant. It was horrible to listen to. I didn’t need to see the screen or understand the words spoken to know that the show was poison, numbing poison, and intentionally so. Terrible energy, very low wavelengths some would probably say. I felt my own energy dim in its presence. That’s all I needed to know. The sound, energy and feeling of spazzatura is unmistakable to me now. Very easy to identify, especially when not looking at the screen.

Though I do speak English, and even though there is no clown on a tricycle, and it’s more toned down, American corporate news (CNN, Fox, the NBCs) is all absolutely spazzatura, both in content and in style. Entirely partisan and contentious propaganda meant to distract the viewer from all wholesome, relevant and honest trains of thought, and with an energy meant to numb those exposed to it. It’s so obvious. It’s amazing to me that anyone wants to watch and listen to it.

But, they do, everywhere, all over the world, in the ‘West’, anyway, and it’s a crucial point about human nature and susceptibility. Certainly not an argument for humanity’s innate love of beauty, truth or critical thinking.

Boom: The Clintons, US Uranium, Putin, and the FBI

This should be the subject of screaming headlines from mainstream news around the world: FBI CLAMS UP ON URANIUM DEAL. FBI REFUSES TO SAY…