(Mercola)—Investigative journalist Corey Lynn speaks with James White, Host of NorthWest Liberty News, about her bombshell report — Space: The New Frontier for the Central Control Grid.¹ In a nutshell, after extensive research, Lynn says she’s “100% convinced”² that globalists are building out the central operation for the control grid in space.

Smart cities, with connected smart meters, set up the infrastructure for widespread surveillance, while digital IDs keep everything — your finances, health information, employment history and social credit score — all in one place. This means globalists can monitor, and control, your spending and use of resources. But instead of this being run in individual cities, a space-based operation gives a wider umbrella of coverage — veritable “eyes in the sky.”³

“They’re consolidating a lot of responsibility and power under Space Force,” Lynn explains. The U.S. Space Force is the sixth branch of the U.S. military, and, in October 2023, it granted a $70 million contract to Space X for Starshield military satellites,⁴ which are intended to “support national security” via “Earth observation” and other measures.⁵

A Central Control Grid With No Jurisdiction

Organizations such as the World Economic Forum and many of the central banks are pushing the rollout of the globalist control grid. Once in place, it may be impossible or near-impossible to live without a digital ID and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).

Yet, Lynn notes, “It doesn’t seem as though CBDCs will be necessary for the master plan to lock into place — at least not immediately. Banks will be the driving force to bring everyone into the age of QR codes, biometrics and tokenization.”⁶ The reason why space makes the perfect spot to position the control grid is due to its lack of oversight and jurisdiction. In her report, Lynn explains:⁷

“What if you had the ability to construct the central operation center for the entire control grid from a location with no real jurisdiction and no accessibility or oversight? What if the massive power source you need to run this operation could be harnessed under the guise of ‘climate change’ in an expedited manner?

And, what if you could have full surveillance and weaponry at your disposal with an entire financial infrastructure in place whose data sits in the palm of your hand while you control the levers?”

The report cites more than 160 pieces of evidence showing how the “central infrastructure for the all-seeing, all-assets control grid is being built, a giant leap with the digital currency agenda.”⁸ Space-based data centers, powered by space-based solar systems will use satellites and blockchain to create a tamper-resistant, automated and permanent ledger for space governance.

“They can’t possibly build space-based data centers powered by space-based solar systems that are juicing satellites to keep the flow of data moving to special government-owned satellites without incorporating blockchain to maintain a record and run the world’s tokens of every single asset, including humans, now can they?” Lynn asks.⁹

The Infrastructure Is Already Being Laid Out

The standard narrative given by satellite and tech companies, along with space agencies and governments, Lynn explains, is that data centers in space, along with beaming energy from the sun down to Earth, are necessary to avoid environmental catastrophe:¹⁰

“It’s a great cover story. While some make it sound like this would be the expedited way to do it, which would give them their space control grid, others argue that we need both — solar in space and on land. This of course is to continue to capitalize on the industry on the earth plane, while also setting policies and regulations that destroy industries and people so that the space control grid can rule.”

Space-based solar power has been floated as a tool to replace fossil fuels since the 1970s. A September 2021 report¹¹ commissioned by the U.K. also suggests it could generate 10GW of electricity a year by 2050, which is about one-quarter of the U.K. ’s energy usage. Space-based solar power is also being positioned as a tool to power homes or entire countries, at half the price of electricity generated on Earth. Lynn continues:¹²

“In order to pull off a full digital currency system with blockchain, it would require populations to reduce their energy usage by 1/3rd because it is a massive power source drain. However, space-based solar systems to power satellites where the control grid would operate, could dramatically minimize the need to reduce power on earth while expediting the control grid in space …

Those owning this infrastructure could then technically sell the power to any country. Gosh, wouldn’t it be fun if that became the main power source and they just cut the beam whenever they wanted? It’s more likely a cover story to power the control grid in Space … After all, digital currency, blockchain, and tokenization require an endless supply of power to run.”

Space-based solar power initiatives are already underway in Japan, China, Russia, Australia, Britain, Saudi Arabia and the U.S. In the U.S., the Space Wireless Energy Laser Link (SWELL) program was launched in March 2023. According to Lynn:¹³

“By utilizing laser transmitters and photovoltaic receivers, they established power beaming links, meaning they were able to deliver energy through electromagnetic waves instantly. They claim this is safe and can be used to distribute power on the moon, other places in space, and eventually to earth from satellites. By July they reported that they had surpassed 100 days of successful on-orbit laser operations.

… It’s clear that there is a race to provide power in space, but they may just carry out some of these ‘power beams’ to earth as a new money laundering industry and for cover. One question is, how will all of these electromagnetic waves and lasers impact airlines, birds, or people? More concerning is whether these electromagnetic beams could come with a host of mind-altering frequencies?”

Satellites Have the ‘Most Important Role’ in the Control Grid Build-Out

Satellites have a starring role in the globalist control grid, and they’re being rapidly launched into space. In 2022, more satellites were launched — 2,474 to be exact — than any other prior year, and as of June 2023, there were 11,330 satellites orbiting space. By the end of the decade, there could be up to 150,000 satellites in space.

“It is increasing exponentially, with a 53.84% increase in communications satellites, 13.30% increase in earth observation satellites, and 7.53% increase in technology development/demonstration satellites since January 2022,” Lynn notes. “The U.S. outpaces every other country by nearly eight times the number of satellites in space, with China, the United Kingdom and Russia following behind.”¹⁴

Meanwhile, WEF rolled out the first Space Sustainability Rating system (SSR) to reduce debris in space, and the $350-billion space industry is expected to rise to more than $1 trillion by 2040.¹⁵ All of the space companies — the largest of which are Boeing, SpaceX, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Blue Origin, Sierra Nevada, Astra, Virgin Galactic and General Dynamics — are eager to get a piece of this pie. Lynn explains:¹⁶

“Satellites store and move data, blockchain is making its way into this data, the digital financial system is accelerating, space fence is surveilling, space-based solar and data systems are being constructed, and the laws (or lawlessness) of running this full operation in space is on their side, which coincides perfectly with the many immunities and privileges that central banks and numerous organizations already enjoy.

Imagine running a control grid from space, complete with global surveillance, the ability to generate 24/7 power, to hold and store all data, to manipulate the weather and atmosphere, to have weapons that can pulse frequencies to alter behaviors or incinerate blocks instantly with directed energy weapons. Just imagine. It’s all out on the table and the competition is palpable.”

Space Fence — The World’s Most Advanced Radar

An estimated 200,000 pieces of space debris between 1 and 10 centimeters (0.4 and 4 inches) are floating in space. Another 15,000 pieces of space junk larger than 10 centimeters (cm) (4 inches) across are also being tracked by the United States Space Surveillance Network (SSN). In terms of space debris smaller than 1 cm, the numbers could be in the millions.¹⁷

Once in orbit, the debris doesn’t necessarily stay there. Junk that’s low — below 600 km (375 miles) — will orbit for a few years before falling back to Earth. But space junk that’s in orbit 1,000 km (600 miles) in space may circulate for hundreds of years.¹⁸ Once in space, even tiny pieces of debris smaller than 1 mm (0.04 inch) can be catastrophic if a collision occurs.

Lockheed Martin’s Space Fence, operated by the U.S. Space Force, was introduced as an advanced tool to keep tabs on space debris. Described as the “world’s most advanced radar,” the system can detect, track and measure space objects, including satellites and other debris in low Earth orbit.

Lockheed Martin reports, “According to the Space Force, the system is the most sensitive search radar in the SSN, capable of detecting objects in orbit as small as a marble in low Earth orbit (LEO).”¹⁹

But Lynn points out, “Space Fence isn’t just for tracking debris. The 20th Space Surveillance Squadron at Eglin Air Force Base makes up a 250-member squadron that conducts around the clock command and control operations of two weapon systems: the phased array radar and Space Fence.”²⁰

Can the Control Grid Be Stopped?

Lynn stresses that her report isn’t intended to invoke fear but rather raise awareness of what globalists are up to — and provide advance knowledge in the hopes of derailing some of these plans:²¹

“It is clear that there is both a Space race and digital currency race taking place simultaneously. Whereas, they don’t need the CBDCs in place to lock in the control mechanisms, they intend to piggyback it on to the Fast Payment Systems and already have it pretty well set to go once they have the green light …

It is also evident that they still intend to use the banks to drive QR codes and biometrics, which will ultimately act as the Digital ID or “hall pass.”

… The Space Military Industrial Complex is in high gear, with a lot more responsibilities being transferred over to Space Force. The U.S. and other countries have committed a lot of money to building out infrastructure and loading the skies with satellites and surveillance systems.

Though they all have common goals, there is definitely competition. The level of weaponry and control mechanisms already in place is evidence that they aren’t messing around.

Based on white papers, funding, executive orders, and documents pertaining to nanotechnology, biosecurity, brain chips, and the ability to transfer thoughts and communications from human to human through tech, the transhumanism agenda seems more and more plausible by the day. Robots and AI are destined for our future based on the speed at which they are rolling out machine learning and other tech.

Taking into account all of the information in this report, and much that didn’t even make it into the report, it is my opinion that they are building the main central operations for the control grid in Space, equipped with full blown surveillance, nodes throughout every city, data centers, the internet, solar systems to power satellites and data centers, a suite of weaponry, a blockchain-based financial infrastructure, and likely equipping cell phones with additional hardware and software that has biometrics and integrates better with their satellite surveillance system. It’s all very clever.”

This may leave you wondering, what can be done? Get yourself out of the control grid as much as possible. On a financial note, finance guru Catherine Austin Fitts — publisher of The Solari Report²² — recommends thinking small and spreading your cash around in different places, including outside of the banking and brokerage system.

Keep cash on hand in your home, stored in a fireproof safe or two; cash can also be stored in a depository, a local bank and a safe deposit box at a local bank — or all of the above. Use cash for everything you can, and don’t support establishments that have gone cash-free. Shop small and local, including for your food, supporting local farmers instead of corporate giants.

You can also ditch your smart phone, which Lynn describes as a “surveillance weapon and beyond.” All of these actions — if done by enough people — can have a powerful effect to protect freedom and autonomy. Lynn says:²³

“I believe that everything we do to not comply with tyrants makes an impact, getting out important information is critical, and above all — moving to a higher consciousness and recognizing our true innate power and the ability we have to manifest the reality we want for our future — is by far the most powerful too[l] in our toolbox.”

• ^{1, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20, 21, 23} Corey’s Digs, Space: The New Frontier for the Central Control Grid October 6, 2023
• ² Rumble, Dig It! #202: Space: The New Frontier for the Central Control Grid — Special Report October 30, 2023, 3:15
• ³ Rumble, Dig It! #202: Space: The New Frontier for the Central Control Grid — Special Report October 30, 2023, 4:47
• ⁴ Space October 2, 2023
• ⁵ SpaceX, Starshield
• ¹¹ UK Government Space Based Solar Power
• ^17, 18 Britannica Space Debris
• ¹⁹ Lockheed Martin, Space Fence
• ²² The Solari Report

A new report by Legacy Research claims that universal basic income (UBI) will pave the way for the rulers’ endgame: CBDC. By dolling out a UBI with the help of a digital ID and CBDC, the slave class will be able to be fully controlled by the rulers.

 UBI offers a no-strings-attached monthly payment… for everyone, at every income level.

To pay for all this, governments will need digital money. It’s the most efficient way to manage and track such a massive transfer of wealth.

That digital money will come in the form of a central bank digital currency (CBDC).

I’ve been warning you about the privacy threats CBDCs pose since June.

Currently, 114 countries – representing over 95% of global gross domestic product (GDP) – are exploring a CBDC. And 11 have launched a CBDC, including China, Nigeria, and Saudi Arabia. –Legacy Research

• The Rulers Announce A Plan For Global CBDC & Digital ID Scheme

So is their plan to impoverish everyone by inflating the fiat currency, so they can swoop in with a UBI and “save” the poor suffering slaves? Most likely. In order to fully control the human population, the rulers need to get a CBDC in place before too many realize that government is slavery and this is nothing more than invisible, but permanent chains of all of us.

In order for this scheme to work, the rulers will need to convince the slaves it’s in their best interest to take the currency. Americans are easily persuaded. After all, a lot of them took the “vaccine” in exchange for a free donut. Many will be willing to accept the CBDC in exchange for a small sum of fiat currency.

It all started in July with the launch of FedNow, which Legacy Research describes as the “Trojan Horse” of digital currencies and the completion of the slave system. Once you’re signed up with a federal bank account, you have officially “signed a contract” making yourself their slave, no illusion of freedom will be needed. You are literally handing over what’s left of your essential freedoms and privacy.

The rulers will take what they want, freeze your account, cut off your UBI, or simply “remove” you from access to their system if you do things they dislike.

In order for this scheme to work, the ruling class will need our “consent”. That means we are likely going to be forced to sign up on our own in order to get the free “donut”. Much like they did with the COVID injections, they need you to go voluntarily ask them to be a slave. Once you’re locked in, there will be no way out. We all should be standing up to this egregious act of tyranny now.

The masters seek to erect a permanent digital cage around every single human on this planet. The rulers already have as much money and resources as they could ever want. But what they really desire is power.

This overbearing despotism, which pre-dates the COVID-19 hysteria, is the very definition of a Nanny State, where government representatives (those elected and appointed to work for us) adopt the authoritarian notion that the government knows best and therefore must control, regulate, and dictate almost everything about the citizenry’s public, private and professional lives.

Indeed, it’s a dangerous time for anyone who still clings to the idea that freedom means the right to think for yourself and act responsibly according to your best judgment.

This tug-of-war for control and sovereignty over ourselves impacts almost every aspect of our lives, whether you’re talking about decisions relating to our health, our homes, how we raise our children, what we consume, what we drive, what we wear, how we spend our money, how we protect ourselves and our loved ones, and even who we associate with and what we think.

As Liz Wolfe writes for Reason, “Little things that make people’s lives better, tastier, and less tedious are being cracked down on by big government types in federal and state governments.”

You can’t even buy a stove, a dishwasher, a showerhead, a leaf blower, or a lightbulb anymore without running afoul of the Nanny State.

In this way, under the guise of pseudo-benevolence, the government has meted out this bureaucratic tyranny in such a way as to nullify the inalienable rights of the individual and limit our choices to those few that the government deems safe enough.

Yet limited choice is no choice at all. Likewise, regulated freedom is no freedom at all.

Indeed, as a study by the Cato Institute concludes, for the average American, freedom has declined generally over the past 20 years. As researchers William Ruger and Jason Sorens explain, “We ground our conception of freedom on an individual rights framework. In our view, individuals should be allowed to dispose of their lives, liberties, and property as they see fit, so long as they do not infringe on the rights of others.”

The overt signs of the despotism exercised by the increasingly authoritarian regime that passes itself off as the United States government (and its corporate partners in crime) are all around us: censorship, criminalizing, shadow banning and de-platforming of individuals who express ideas that are politically incorrect or unpopular; warrantless surveillance of Americans’ movements and communications; SWAT team raids of Americans’ homes; shootings of unarmed citizens by police; harsh punishments meted out to schoolchildren in the name of zero tolerance; community-wide lockdowns and health mandates that strip Americans of their freedom of movement and bodily integrity; armed drones taking to the skies domestically; endless wars; out-of-control spending; militarized police; roadside strip searches; privatized prisons with a profit incentive for jailing Americans; fusion centers that spy on, collect and disseminate data on Americans’ private transactions; and militarized agencies with stockpiles of ammunition, to name some of the most appalling.

Yet as egregious as these incursions on our rights may be, it’s the endless, petty tyrannies—the heavy-handed, punitive-laden dictates inflicted by a self-righteous, Big-Brother-Knows-Best bureaucracy on an overtaxed, overregulated, and underrepresented populace—that illustrate so clearly the degree to which “we the people” are viewed as incapable of common sense, moral judgment, fairness, and intelligence, not to mention lacking a basic understanding of how to stay alive, raise a family, or be part of a functioning community.

When the dictates of petty bureaucrats carry greater weight than the individual rights of the citizenry, we’re in trouble, folks.

Federal and state governments have used the law as a bludgeon to litigate, legislate, and micromanage our lives through overregulation and overcriminalization.

This is what happens when bureaucrats run the show, and the rule of law becomes little more than a cattle prod for forcing the citizenry to march in lockstep with the government.

Overregulation is just the other side of the coin to overcriminalization, that phenomenon in which everything is rendered illegal, and everyone becomes a lawbreaker.

You don’t have to look far to find abundant examples of Nanny State laws that infantilize individuals and strip them of their ability to decide things for themselves. Back in 2012, then-New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg infamously proposed a ban on the sale of sodas and large sugary drinks to guard against obesity. Other localities enacted bans on texting while jaywalking, wearing saggy pants, having too much mud on your car, smoking outdoors, storing trash in your car, improperly sorting your trash, cursing within earshot of others, or screeching your tires.

Yet while there are endless ways for the Nanny State to micromanage our lives, things become truly ominous when the government adopts mechanisms enabling it to monitor us for violations in order to enforce its many laws.

Nanny State, meet the all-seeing, all-knowing Surveillance State and its sidekick, the muscle-flexing Police State.

You see, in an age of overcriminalization—when the law is wielded like a hammer to force compliance to the government’s dictates whatever they might be—you don’t have to do anything “wrong” to be fined, arrested or subjected to raids and seizures and surveillance.

You just have to refuse to march in lockstep with the government.

As policy analyst Michael Van Beek warns, the problem with overcriminalization is that there are so many laws at the federal, state, and local levels—that we can’t possibly know them all.

“It’s also impossible to enforce all these laws. Instead, law enforcement officials must choose which ones are important and which are not. The result is that they pick the laws Americans really must follow because they’re the ones deciding which laws really matter,” concludes Van Beek. “Federal, state, and local regulations — rules created by unelected government bureaucrats — carry the same force of law and can turn you into a criminal if you violate any one of them… if we violate these rules, we could be prosecuted as criminals. No matter how antiquated or ridiculous, they still carry the full force of the law. By letting so many of these sit around, just waiting to be used against us, we increase the power of law enforcement, which has lots of options to charge people with legal and regulatory violations.”

This is the police state’s superpower: empowered by the Nanny State, it has been vested with the authority to make our lives a bureaucratic hell.

Indeed, if you were unnerved by the rapid deterioration of privacy under the Surveillance State, prepare to be terrified by the surveillance matrix that will be ushered in by the Nanny State working in tandem with the Police State.

The government’s response to COVID-19 saddled us with a Nanny State inclined to use its draconian pandemic powers to protect us from ourselves.

The groundwork laid with COVID-19 is a prologue to what will become the police state’s conquest of a new, relatively uncharted, frontier: inner space, specifically, the inner workings (genetic, biological, biometric, mental, emotional) of the human race.

Consider how many more ways the government could “protect us” from ourselves under the guise of public health and safety.

For instance, under the guise of public health and safety, the government could use mental health care as a pretext for targeting and locking up dissidents, activists, and anyone unfortunate enough to be placed on a government watch list.

When combined with advances in mass surveillance technologies, artificial intelligence-powered programs that can track people by their biometrics and behavior, mental health sensor data (tracked by wearable data and monitored by government agencies such as HARPA), threat assessments, behavioral sensing warnings, precrime initiatives, red flag gun laws, and mental health first-aid programs aimed at training gatekeepers to identify who might pose a threat to public safety, these preemptive mental health programs could well signal a tipping point in the government’s efforts to penalize those engaging in so-called “thought crimes.”

This is how it begins.

On a daily basis, Americans are already relinquishing (in many cases, voluntarily) the most intimate details of who we are—their biological makeup, our genetic blueprints, and our biometrics (facial characteristics and structure, fingerprints, iris scans, etc.)—in order to navigate an increasingly technologically-enabled world.

Having conditioned the population to the idea that being part of society is a privilege and not a right, such access could easily be predicated on social credit scores, the worthiness of one’s political views, or the extent to which one is willing to comply with the government’s dictates, no matter what they might be.

COVID-19 with its talk of mass testing, screening checkpoints, contact tracing, immunity passports, and snitch tip lines for reporting “rule breakers” to the authorities was a preview of what’s to come.

We should all be leery and afraid.

At a time when the government has a growing list—shared with fusion centers and law enforcement agencies—of ideologies, behaviors, affiliations, and other characteristics that could flag someone as suspicious and result in their being labeled potential enemies of the state, it won’t take much for any of us to be considered outlaws or terrorists.

After all, the government likes to use the words “anti-government,” “extremist” and “terrorist” interchangeably. The Department of Homeland Security broadly defines extremists as individuals “that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely.”

At some point, being an individualist will be considered as dangerous as being a terrorist.

When anything goes when it’s done in the name of national security, crime fighting, and terrorism, “we the people” have little to no protection against SWAT team raids, domestic surveillance, police shootings of unarmed citizens, indefinite detentions, and the like, whether or not you’ve done anything wrong.

In an age of overcriminalization, you’re already a criminal.

All the government needs is proof of your law-breaking. They’ll get it, too.

Whether it’s through the use of surveillance software such as ShadowDragon that allows police to watch people’s social media activity or technology that uses a home’s WiFi router and smart appliances to allow those on the outside to “see” throughout your home, it’s just a matter of time.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, it’s no longer a question of whether the government will lock up Americans for defying one of its numerous mandates but when.

Amidst this chaotic phase, it’s impossible to predict even the near future. The best we can do is form a hypothesis and orient our actions around it. Today I’m going to lay out my process and conclusions. I hope that they will be as useful to you as they have been to me.

Assumptions

We’ve been taught that assumptions are bad. They make an “ass” out of “u” and “me”. But, that’s not always true. I developed a set of assumptions about the future to build a framework of understanding. I use that framework to identify what IS in my control and what is NOT in my control.

The things outside our control, we can stop worrying about. They’re not up to us. Instead, our concern is what IS in our control and all our energy and resources should be dedicated there.

Before I get to the assumptions I’m operating under. Let me say – They are assumptions not predictions. I could be wrong. Hell – I hope I’m wrong. But with nearly three years of the “Great Reset” under our belt, I bet you’ll agree – they have merit.

None of this should be taken as a blackpill. No problem can be solved without sober identification and acceptance. of the nature of the challenge. That’s all we’re doing here. With that in mind, here are the 11 assumptions I’m using today to guide my actions.

1. Less Freedom of movement. There will be more effort so to restrict and regulate our freedom of movement. From Vax passports to increased visa requirements and 15-min city initiatives – a grid is being constructed to regulate our freedom of movement.

2. A CBDC is coming. Cash will be eliminated. How restrictive it may end up being, I don’t know. But, CBDC is a foregone conclusion. Timing? BIS publishes estimates of 14 retail CBDC and 9 wholesale by 2030. And there are indications that the major economies are working to be ready to deploy by 2025.

3. The digital ID is already here. Biometrics are the future. If you have a government issued ID associated with your photograph, you are in the system already. How the ID is deployed and enforced is the only question.

No more passport or boarding passes pic.twitter.com/miNoY0uciL

— karma (@karma44921039) September 21, 2023

4. GFC 2.0 and/or the Greater Depression. Timing is hard. But, can any thinking person imagine how the outcome can be avoided altogether. Simon Hunt suggests a market pullback of up to 30% between now and early 2024 followed by a pump and a deflationary wipeout in 2025.

5. Most of my financial assets will disappear at some point. Inflation, bank bail-in, market wipe out, or Great Taking. I don’t know the cause, but I assume physical assets are where I need to be, ultimately.

6. Increasing crime & disorder. You’ve seen the videos. Whether, driven by economic desperation, mass migration, the inversion of law, or in the name of social justice. Crime and disorder will grow and lead to greater physical threats to our lives and property from our fellow man. This makes urban environments, especially but not exclusively, a real risk.

7. Supply constraints are increasing around all commodities – from food to energy. Tight supplies are showing up everywhere. Live Cattle, long dormant, hit an all-time high recently. Oil Prices are up 30% in the last three months. 40% of Argentina’s wheat crop is in poor to fair condition and protectionist policies are on the rise globally.

8. WW3 is coming. A good case can be made that it’s already begun. The Army War College recently published a study suggesting that the All Volunteer Force had reached the end of its useful life. With the military struggling with recruiting, conscription is likely at some point.

9. Censorship and Digital Control will enter a new phase. Deplatforming, de-banking, shadow banning, and social media account suspensions will increase. Centralized digital services of all kinds should be considered suspect and, very likely, dangerous to use in the future.

URGENT: The Secretary-General of the @UN, @antonioguterres, wants to silence anyone who dares to stand in the way of their global power grab.

The UN, once a beacon of hope and peace, has devolved into a totalitarian entity and thus needs to be dismantled. pic.twitter.com/iH9ChwDkv9

— Dr. Simon Goddek (@goddeketal) September 23, 2023

UN Chief calls “dis-information” a clear and present global threat.

10. The US election – regardless of the outcome – is an inflection point and potentially a flash point. IF it happens, the outcome will not be accepted by half of the country. I’ve heard from more than one source, publicly and privately, that there may not be a 2024 election. Who knows? We can be sure of is that running up to and shortly after the election, things could get wild. In advance of the 2020 election we had Covid and BLM. Shortly after, J6 and state overreach. What will 2024 bring?

11. There is a war happening today. It’s a war on us. The primary battleground is within the sphere of 5GW – informational/psychological. Where I’ve been wrong in the last three years, it’s been in my assumption that kinetic coercion would be utilized. As we can see, much progress has been made in the Great Reset without the need for kinetic tactics. For most of this cycle, they will rely on this same approach. If/When we see a move toward kinetic force, we should be alarmed because we will have entered a new and more dangerous phase.

Do you disagree with any of my assumptions? Did I miss anything? Let me know. I see all of the assumptions as “Out of my control”. They may not come to pass, but whether they do or not is not up to me. Of course, I’ll continue to speak out against them. If enough of us do, it may help. Possibly.

Since these unfortunate outcomes are out of my control, I don’t worry about them. And free from the burden of unsolvable problems, I can fully devote my energy and resources to what IS within my control.

Members of The Phyle have been doing exactly that over the last year. Much progress has been made. And there’s much more we can do. Let’s focus there.

In a March 28, 2023, article titled “A Guide to Understanding the Hoax of the Century,”^1,2 Jacob Siegel, senior editor of Tablet magazine’s afternoon news digest, News and The Scroll, discusses the emergence of the “disinformation industrial complex,” which is the topic of his forthcoming book.

The United States has been unique in its dedication to free speech, but that Constitutional right is rapidly eroding in the name of national security and protecting public health.

Siegel traces the early days of the information war to Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who in 1950 claimed to have proof of a communist spy ring within the U.S. State Department. Initially, he claimed to have the names of 205 communist spies. A day later, he revised it to 57. However, the inconsistency is not the point.

“The point was the power of the accusation,” Siegel says. “For more than half a century, McCarthyism stood as a defining chapter in the worldview of American liberals: a warning about the dangerous allure of blacklists, witch hunts, and demagogues.”

Blacklists and Witch Hunts Return

By 2017, American liberals had seemingly forgotten that lesson, as mainstream media pundits accused Donald Trump of being a Manchurian candidate installed by Russia. An organization called Hamilton 68 claimed to have proof showing hundreds of Russian-affiliated Twitter accounts manipulated the U.S. election to get Trump into the White House.

As it turns out, none of these accusations were true and Hamilton 68 turned out to be a “high-level hoax.” Most of the accounts were Americans engaged in organic conversations, which Hamilton 68 arbitrarily described as “Russian scheming.” Twitter’s safety officer, Yoel Roth, even admitted the company had labeled “real people” — again, mostly Americans — as “Russian stooges without evidence or recourse.”

A key difference between the McCarthy and Hamilton 68 episodes was that journalists, U.S. intelligence agencies and Congressional members didn’t swallow McCarthy’s accusations without chewing. When the witch hunt against Trump took off, anyone who questioned the accusations was attacked as a co-conspirator.

Media even refused to report on the evidence proving that Hamilton 68 was a complete scam. The level of disinterest in the truth suggested that American liberalism “had lost faith in the promise of freedom and embraced a new ideal,” Siegel writes.

Propaganda and Censorship — Two Sides of the Same Coin

Propaganda is as old as humanity itself, but the modern version of it can be traced back to 1948, when the CIA’s Office of Special Projects launched Operation Mockingbird, a clandestine CIA media infiltration campaign that involved bribing hundreds of journalists to publish fake stories at the CIA’s request.

The dismissal of conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists as mentally unstable crackpots was one of the tactics invented by the CIA at this time. Its intent was (and still is) to marginalize and demoralize anyone who questions the fabricated narrative.

It’s quite telling that Operation Mockingbird was launched the same year the U.S. Information and Educational Exchange Act (aka the Smith-Mundt Act) became law, which forbade the U.S. government from pushing propaganda onto the U.S. population.

This anti-propaganda law was repealed in 2013 by then-President Barrack Obama. So, since July 2013, the U.S. government and CIA have been legally permitted to propagandize U.S. citizens. In addition to the simplification of global coordination of news by way of news agencies, this is yet another reason why propaganda has flourished and grown exponentially in recent years.

The undermining of free speech took off at the end of 2016, when Obama signed into law the Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act, which opened the door to an offensive information war against the public.

But for propaganda to be truly successful, especially in the long term, you also need censorship — a concept wildly opposed in the U.S. until recently — and censorship, at least in America, requires the undermining of free speech rights.

As noted by Siegel, the effort to undercut free speech really took off at the end of 2016, when Obama signed into law the Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act, which opened the door to “an open-ended, offensive information war” against the general public.

Seemingly overnight, “misinformation” and “disinformation” were said to pose an urgent existential threat to national security, freedom, democracy and, later, to public health. We’re now told we must eliminate misinformation to preserve free speech, which is so twisted that no Constitutionally-literate person can make sense of it.

The Acceleration of Free Speech Elimination

By repealing the Smith-Mundt Act, and signing into law the Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act, Obama laid the legal groundwork for government control of speech in the U.S. Since then, a sprawling disinformation industrial complex has emerged, which seeks to control the internet and all information in it.

As described by Siegel, the U.S. national security infrastructure has now fused with social media platforms, which is where the information war is being fought. The national mobilization against disinformation has also been expanded from a whole-of-government approach to a whole-of-society approach.

In a 2018 document, the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC) calls for “leveraging expertise from across government, tech and marketing sectors, academia, and NGO’s.” “This is how the government-created ‘war against disinformation’ became the great moral crusade of its time,” Siegel writes.

Of course, media have also played a significant role in the “whole-of-society response” to disinformation, but they are “by far the weakest player in the counter-disinformation complex,” Seigel notes, adding:³

“The American press, once the guardian of democracy, was hollowed out to the point that it could be worn like a hand puppet by the U.S. security agencies and party operatives.

It would be nice to call what has taken place a tragedy, but an audience is meant to learn something from a tragedy. As a nation, America not only has learned nothing, it has been deliberately prevented from learning anything while being made to chase after shadows.

This is not because Americans are stupid; it’s because what has taken place is not a tragedy but something closer to a crime. Disinformation is both the name of the crime and the means of covering it up; a weapon that doubles as a disguise.

The crime is the information war itself, which was launched under false pretenses and by its nature destroys the essential boundaries between the public and private and between the foreign and domestic, on which peace and democracy depend.

By conflating the anti-establishment politics of domestic populists with acts of war by foreign enemies, it justified turning weapons of war against American citizens. It turned the public arenas where social and political life take place into surveillance traps and targets for mass psychological operations.

The crime is the routine violation of Americans’ rights by unelected officials who secretly control what individuals can think and say. What we are seeing now, in the revelations exposing the inner workings of the state-corporate censorship regime, is only the end of the beginning.

The United States is still in the earliest stages of a mass mobilization that aims to harness every sector of society under a singular technocratic rule.

The mobilization, which began as a response to the supposedly urgent menace of Russian [election] interference, now evolves into a regime of total information control that has arrogated to itself the mission of eradicating abstract dangers such as error, injustice, and harm — a goal worthy only of leaders who believe themselves to be infallible, or comic-book supervillains.”

Phase 2 of the Information War — Total Control

The COVID pandemic was a significant part of Phase 1 in the information war, although the war on public perception began years earlier. As noted by Siegel, the COVID phase was “marked by distinctively human displays of incompetence and brute-force intimidation.” Phase 2 will undoubtedly be carried out by artificial intelligence, now thoroughly trained to identify the greatest triggers of fear and panic, both on an individual and societal basis.

We can also expect censorship by algorithm. It will no longer be a game of whack-a-mole with humans tagging posts and requesting their removal. Instead, messages containing certain words simply won’t go anywhere and won’t be seen. Spoken and written key words will be automatically flagged and deleted or barred from posting by AI.

AI-based bots and “sock puppets” (fake accounts) can also be launched across platforms and be algorithmically amplified to alter the perceptions of billions in real time. We saw this trend emerging during the first round of COVID, where multiple accounts were posting the same “original” message, verbatim, at the same time.

As noted by Siegel, the end goal of all this information wrangling is control. Not partial control, but total. Over everything and everyone. This is also why we will never see a government authority admit they spread disinformation themselves, even though, technically, they’ve been guilty of such on numerous occasions over the last three years.

They dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop as Russian disinformation, even though U.S. intelligence had proof that it, and its contents, were real. They claimed the lab leak theory was a racist conspiracy, even though, privately, the scientific consensus was that the virus came from a lab. They told us the COVID jabs would stop transmission, even though that was never tested in the first place. The list goes on.

“Disinformation, now and for all time, is whatever they say it is,” Siegel writes.⁴ “That is not a sign that the concept is being misused or corrupted; it is the precise functioning of a totalitarian system.”

Partners in Crime

Siegel isn’t the only one calling out the information war as a crime. In another Tablet article titled “Partners in Crime,”⁵ New Civil Liberties Alliance attorney Jenin Younes reviews evidence from the Missouri legal case⁶ against the Biden administration showing how government and Big Tech built “a whole-of-system censorship campaign” in clear violation of the First Amendment.

Internal Meta documents obtained by the House Judiciary Committee’s Select Subcommittee on Weaponization of the Federal Government in July 2023 has also fleshed out the story of how state-sponsored censorship came to be the official policy of so many private companies.

The evidence shows that Facebook and other social media companies did not take it upon themselves to become arbiters of truth. Rather, they were aggressively pressured to do so by Biden administration officials, and officials within various federal agencies. Sometimes they did meekly follow the direction given, but even in cases where they tried to push back, they eventually had to fall in line for fear of government retaliation.

“While other lawsuits alleging First Amendment violations based on government involvement in social media censorship have been filed over the past two years, Missouri [v. Biden] has proven uniquely successful,” Younes writes.⁷

“When the complaint was filed in May of 2022, the main proof the Missouri plaintiffs had were public statements from high-ranking members of the administration, including former White House Press Secretary Jennifer Psaki, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, and President Biden himself.

The plaintiffs cited public statements of government officials unabashedly proclaiming they were flagging posts for social media companies to censor; openly criticizing the companies for inadequate removal of content (especially anything that cast doubt on the safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines); accusing tech executives of ‘killing people’ for not adequately censoring so-called misinformation; and threatening to hold them accountable should they refuse to comply.

Judge Terrence Doughty ordered discovery at an early stage of litigation … For the first time, the public became aware of the Biden administration’s clandestine censorship operation, which began a mere three days after President Biden’s inauguration …

By February of 2021, then-White House Director of Digital Media Robert Flaherty had intensified the administration’s tactics … He began bullying companies — using expletives, wielding accusations, and making demands — in his efforts to get them to remove content that he claimed might cause people to decline vaccines …

On numerous occasions, Brian Rice and other Meta employees sent the White House detailed lists of agreed-upon policy changes after initial attempts to assuage Mr. Flaherty’s wrath proved unsuccessful.

On July 4 of this year, Judge Doughty granted the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction in Missouri, observing that ‘the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history,’ and describing the administration’s censorship regime as akin to an ‘Orwellian Ministry of Truth.’

Crucial to the outcome was the court’s finding⁸ that the Biden administration and various federal executive agencies coerced, pressured, and encouraged social media companies to suppress First Amendment protected speech, converting otherwise private action into that of the state.

The core principle at issue, which forbids the government to co-opt private industry to circumvent constitutional prohibitions, is known as ‘state action doctrine.’ Without it, the Bill of Rights would be worthless.

Police could, for instance, hire a private company to search your home despite lacking probable cause, in order to get around the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against warrantless searches and seizures. Or the government could evade the guarantees of Equal Protection in the 14th Amendment by funding racially segregated private schools.

The judge agreed with the plaintiffs in Missouri v. Biden that … since the First Amendment prohibits government from abridging freedom of speech, the Constitution cannot be read to permit government to commandeer private companies to accomplish its viewpoint-based censorship aims.”

Direct Evidence of Coercion

While the initial evidence suggested the Biden administration was the driving force behind the media censorship, it was still circumstantial. That changed in late July 2023, when internal Meta documents were obtained by the Subcommittee on Weaponization of the Federal Government.

According to Younes, “These documents tie the knot: They unequivocally establish that but for the Biden administration’s strong-arm tactics, certain viewpoints would not have been suppressed.”

For example, in a July 2021 email, Meta’s head of global affairs, Nick Clegg, asked Brian Rice, who was in charge of Facebook’s content policy, why they had removed, rather than flagged or demoted, claims that SARS-CoV-2 was manmade.

Rice replied, “Because we were under pressure from the [Biden] administration and others to do more and it was part of the ‘more’ package.” He ended the email saying, “We shouldn’t have done it.”

“Not only did Rice explicitly state that pressure from the White House caused Meta to remove content endorsing the lab leak theory of COVID’s origins, he also expressed remorse for this decision.

These new documents also prove that the removal of ‘vaccine discouraging content’ occurred because of government pressure,” Younes writes.

Clegg, for example, told Andy Slavitt, former White House senior adviser for the COVID response, that removing humorous memes disparaging the COVID jab — as demanded by Slavitt — “would represent a significant incursion into traditional boundaries of free expression in the U.S.” Slavitt insisted and brushed off Clegg’s concerns as immaterial, and in the end, Clegg acquiesced to avoid potential retaliation.

Quid Pro Quo

Younes continues:⁹

“The White House’s coercive tactics had the desired effect. Both Clegg and [Meta COO Sheryl] Sandberg urged acquiescence to avoid adverse consequences. In Clegg’s words, ‘Sheryl is keen that we continue to explore some moves that we can make to show that we are trying to be responsive to the WH.’

He explained that the company’s ‘current course … is a recipe for protracted and increased acrimony with the WH as the vaccine roll out continues to stutter through the Fall and Winter. Given the bigger fish we have to fry with the Administration — data flows etc — that doesn’t seem a great place for us to be.’

Thus, ‘given what is at stake here, it would also be a good idea if we could regroup to take stock of where we are in our relations with the WH, and our internal methods too.’ The ‘data flow’ referenced a dispute Meta was having with the European Union at the time over transfer of users’ data. If resolved in favor of the EU, Meta could face significant fines.

As Twitter files journalist Michael Shellenberger and his co-authors recently explained in analyzing this exchange, ‘the series of events suggests a quid pro quo. Facebook would bow to White House requests for censorship in exchange for its help with the European Union.’”

First Amendment Seeks to Prevent Suppression of Dissent

As noted by Younes, President Biden had promised to make mass vaccination against COVID central to his agenda. The problem was, a great many Americans didn’t feel comfortable being injected with an experimental gene therapy that had no long-term safety data.

This was an impediment to Biden’s political agenda, and rather than acknowledging that the mass vaccination campaign was ill received, the White House simply scapegoated social media instead.

It was their fault that Americans weren’t rolling up their sleeves in sufficient numbers. Internal Meta emails attest to the fact that employees felt they were being used as scapegoats whenever the vaccination campaign wasn’t going as hoped.

“A government using its power to suppress dissent is precisely what the First Amendment sought to prevent,” Younes notes.

“‘Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government: When this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved,’ Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers, famously wrote.

The first president of the United States, George Washington, once said, ‘If men are to be precluded from offering their sentiments on a matter, which may involve the most serious and alarming consequences that can invite the consideration of mankind, reason is of no use to us; the freedom of speech may be taken away, and dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.’

Let us hope that when the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and probably the Supreme Court, consider these cases in the upcoming months, they interpret the First Amendment as the Constitution’s Framers understood it. Otherwise, the future of free speech, and liberty itself, is in grave danger.”

In closing, while Younes recognizes the terrible threat state-sponsored censorship poses, he doesn’t follow the bread crumbs as far as Siegel does. Younes seems to believe the government censorship network came about to protect Biden’s political goals, but it’s way bigger than that.

Like Siegel states, the end goal is global control. To get there, those seeking that control must create a total stranglehold on all information, because that’s how you best control a population.

What’s more, this stranglehold is global. It’s not an American phenomenon that sprung up because Biden wanted to get a jab in every arm. COVID censorship is happening in every country, and every country needs to investigate what role, if any, their governments played in the suppression of truth.

• ^1, 3, 4 Tablet March 28, 2023
• ² Patreon Manifesto Podcast April 4, 2023
• ^5, 7, 9 Tablet August 20, 2023
• ⁶ Missouri v. Biden Case No. 3:22-cv-01213
• ⁸ Missouri v Biden Memorandum Ruling on Request for Preliminary Injunction

Article cross-posted from Dr. Mercola’s site.

Intelligence agencies have a long history of using propaganda as a tool of war, and the effectiveness of information warfare radically improved with the emergence of the internet, to say nothing of artificial intelligence and social media.

If you’re over 50, you can probably remember a time when your family had a row of encyclopedias on the bookshelf — usually obtained at considerable cost — which were perused whenever you needed to learn more about a particular topic.

Today, you can’t even give a complete set of encyclopedias away because, well, we have Wikipedia. However, Wikipedia has also become a favored propaganda tool, so to call it unreliable would be an understatement.

According to Wikipedia cofounder Larry Sanger — who left Wikipedia in 2002, the year after its inception — U.S. intelligence has been manipulating the online encyclopedia since at least 2008, if not longer. Sanger recently sat down to speak with independent journalist Glenn Greenwald (video above) about the subversion of the site he helped create.¹

The Blatant Bias of Wikipedia

Sanger says he noticed a bias creeping in around 2006, particularly in areas of science and medicine. Around 2010, he started noticing that articles about Eastern Medicine were being changed to reflect blatantly biased positions, using “dismissive epithets” to paint this ancient tradition as quackery.

In 2012, evidence also emerged revealing a Wikipedia trustee and “Wikipedian in Residence” were being paid to edit pages on behalf of their clients and secure their placement on Wikipedia’s front page in the “Did You Know” section,² which publicizes new or expanded articles³ — a clear violation of Wikipedia rules.

“It really got over the top … between 2013 and 2018,” Sanger says, “and by by at the time Trump became president, it was almost as bad as it is now. It’s amazing, you know, no encyclopedia, to my knowledge, has ever been as biased as Wikipedia has been …

I remember being mad about Encyclopedia Britannica and The World Book not mentioning my favorite topics, [and] presenting only certain points of view in a way that establishment sources generally do. But this is something else. This is entirely different. It’s over the top.”

Greenwald agrees, highlighting some recent examples of the “over the top” kind of establishment bias, such as Wikipedia simply declaring that the Ukraine-Biden scandal is a conspiracy theory designed to undermine Biden:

“The very first sentence reads: ‘The Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory is a series of false allegations that Joe Biden, while he was Vice President of the United States, engaged in corrupt activities relating to his son, Hunter Biden, who was on the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma.’

‘As part of efforts by Donald Trump and his campaign in the Trump–Ukraine scandal, which led to Trump’s first impeachment, these falsehoods were spread in an attempt to damage Joe Biden’s reputation and chances during the 2020 presidential campaign,’ the Wikipedia entry still reads.

So, notice: The Biden-Ukraine scandal is — according to Wikipedia — the ‘Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory’ but the Trump controversy involving Ukraine is ‘the Trump–Ukraine scandal’. Everything is written to comport with the liberal world view and the Democratic Party talking points.”

Wikipedia’s treatment of all things COVID-related is equally skewed. It presents only the establishment’s “truth” across the board, no matter how much evidence there is to refute it.

‘Truth’ Has Been Married to Ideology

“Wikipedia is supposed to be an encyclopedia devoted to truth,” Greenwald says. The problem is that “The premise seems to be that you don’t have truth anymore independent of ideological outlook.”

We know that a great part of intelligence and information warfare is conducted online, and where, if not on websites like Wikipedia? ~ Larry Sanger

Indeed, Sanger points out that Wikipedia’s official policy even declares that 80% of Right-wing media is unreliable, and “that really, really colors the articles and what the editors allow the articles to say,” he says. Just how did we get to a point where “truth” is tied to a particular ideology? Common sense tells you it simply cannot be so.

Intel Agencies Control Wikipedia

One explanation for why this ideological bias has taken over Wikipedia is that it’s intentionally being used as a propaganda tool by intelligence agencies and the globalist establishment that is seeking to implement a new global governance, a New World Order/One World Government.

To succeed in that Herculean effort, they can’t allow a multitude of dissenting viewpoints to proliferate, and intelligence agencies are working together to disseminate and uphold the Deep State’s narratives worldwide. Sanger puts it this way:

“I think that the Left … very, very deliberately seeks out to take control. Except it isn’t just the Left. We’re learning that now, aren’t we? No, it’s the establishment, and they have their own agenda.

I’m not going to try to offer any opinions — because it’s not something that I study — as to how they bring that about. But it’s clear that between 2005 and 2015 … Wikipedia moved onto the establishment’s radar, and we … have evidence that … even as early as … 2008 … CIA and FBI computers were used to edit Wikipedia. Think they stopped doing that? No.

And not just them. We know that a great part of intelligence and information warfare is conducted online, and where, if not on websites like Wikipedia?

They pay off the most influential people to push their agendas, which they’re already mostly in line with, or they just develop their own talent within the [intelligence] community. [They] learn the Wikipedia game and then push what they want to say with their own people. So, that’s my take on that.”

Google and Social Media Are Controlled Too

As noted by Greenwald, Google has played a significant role in Wikipedia’s growth and success by algorithmically placing Wikipedia answers at the top of most searches, and, of course — while they don’t discuss this in the interview — Google also has deep and longstanding ties to the military-intelligence-industrial complex and the globalist Deep State.

The same can be said for social media companies like Twitter and Facebook. As reported by Jimmy Dore in the video above, in early 2023, Elon Musk released documents showing Twitter’s former executives censored content at the request of the FBI and assisted the U.S. military’s online propaganda campaigns.

Twitter also censored anti-Ukraine narratives on behalf of several U.S. intelligence agencies. Similarly, Facebook censored accurate information that was damaging to Joe Biden’s presidential campaign at the direct request of the FBI. There’s simply no doubt that intelligence agencies are directly involved in controlling and directing public information flow, and Wikipedia is invaluable in that respect.

Anonymous Writers Have No Credibility

Now, I’d be remiss if I didn’t stress a key feature of Wikipedia that makes it unreliable, no matter what, and that is the fact that contributing authors and editors are all anonymous.

Clearly, the credibility of an author, regardless of the media format, is of importance when trying to determine the veracity of a given topic, keeping in mind that even experts in the same field will often reach different (and perhaps opposing) conclusions.

Not every expert will have read and evaluated the exact same evidence, for example, leading to differences in interpretation of data. This is normal and unlikely to change, as it is human nature to draw conclusions based on our own breadth of experience and knowledge.

It’s then up to the reader to make up their mind about which of the two or more experts they believe is most correct — a choice that in turn is dependent on the reader’s own prejudices and knowledge base. That said, it should be obvious that no one individual, or even group of individuals, can be the final arbiter of which expert opinion is “the truth.”

However, that’s exactly the position that Wikipedia has inserted itself into. They now decide who they think is right and which position is the correct one, and they simply censor opposing views.

Google Must Have Known They Were Promoting Unreliable Info

Considering that one of the primary factors that come into play when determining the credibility of an author is his or her credentials, affiliations and previous writings,⁴ how is it that Google promotes Wikipedia as an authority for every possible type of information by listing them at the top of its search results?

And how can Google use Wikipedia as a primary tool for its quality raters to establish credibility of other online material?^5,6 It doesn’t make sense, unless you realize that neither Google nor Wikipedia are about giving people accurate and unbiased information. Their function is to facilitate the programming of people with a certain set of narratives and viewpoints.

As early as 2011, the fact that Wikipedia editors were being paid by corporations to remove and suppress unwanted information was well known and had been declared scandalous.⁷ Yet nothing changed. At least not for the better.

A 2014 paper⁸ titled, “Do Experts or Collective Intelligence Write with More Bias? Evidence from Encyclopedia Britannica and Wikipedia” by Shane Greenstein and Feng Zhu, compared 4,000 articles that appear in both encyclopedias and found 73% of Wikipedia’s articles contained political buzz words, compared to 34% in Britannica, and in nearly all cases, Wikipedia was more left-leaning than the Britannica.

Wikipedia Used to Smear and Defame Truthtellers

A key take-home from all this is that Wikipedia is not a reliable source. It’s a propaganda tool, and relying on it will frequently leave you wearing the dunce hat. Articles on science and medicine are definitely corrupted and biased in favor of establishment views and should never be used to make medical decisions.

According to a 2014 study,^9,10 which assessed the veracity of medical claims made on Wikipedia by cross-checking them with the latest peer-reviewed research, reported finding “many errors” in articles concerning the 10 costliest medical conditions. In fact, 9 out of 10 entries — 90%! — contained assertions that were contradicted by published research.

“Health care professionals, trainees, and patients should use caution when using Wikipedia to answer questions regarding patient care,” the authors warned.

That said, articles about historical events, current geopolitical issues and the biographies of public figures are not much better. Greenwald himself has seen his personal page transform from a neutral listing of his work history and accomplishments to an “ideological war” description that paints him in a bad light.

Many excellent scientists and doctors who veered from the establishment narrative on COVID have also been shamefully smeared and defamed by Wikipedia, and anyone who tries to clarify or clear up inaccuracies on the site is simply blocked.

Investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson, for example, has repeatedly tried to “correct provably false facts” about her background on Wikipedia, only to be told she’s “not a reliable source” and having her edits overridden by anonymous editors that guard her page, making sure her award-winning work is kept hushed and her character portrait tarnished.¹¹ Other examples of “sanitizing” certain pages and tarnishing others can be found in a June 28, 2015, article¹² in The Epoch Times.

Ditch Wikipedia and Use Other Online Encyclopedias

If you’re interested in learning more about Wikipedia, its history and inner workings, pick up a copy of Andrew Lih’s book, “The Wikipedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World’s Greatest Encyclopedia.”¹³ In it, Lih asks, “If Wikipedia is a minefield of inaccuracies, should one even be tiptoeing through this information garden?” It’s a fair question, for sure.

Similarly, in a 2005 blog post critiquing Wikipedia, Nicholas Carr, author of “What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains,” noted:¹⁴

“[A]n encyclopedia can’t just have a small percentage of good entries and be considered a success. I would argue, in fact, that the overall quality of an encyclopedia is best judged by its weakest entries rather than its best. What’s the worth of an unreliable reference work?”

The good news is there are dozens of other online encyclopedias, many of which do not suffer from this entrenched ideological bias. Two great resources are encyclosearch.org and encycloreader.org, which allow you to search for answers across dozens of encyclopedias, including Wikipedia, at once. This way, you can compare a multitude of sources.

Examples of more specialized encyclopedias include Ballotpedia (an explicitly neutral encyclopedia of American politics), Scholarpedia, EduTechWiki, MedlinePlus (a medical encyclopedia), Encyclopedia Mythica (religion, folklore and mythology) and HandWiki (computing, science, technology and general).

Sanger is involved in the creation of encyclosearch.org, which he describes as an effort to “strike a blow against censorship and control of information by simply making it easier to find the all the other encyclopedias that are out there.”

Truth be told, Wikipedia is dependent on your lack of knowledge about how they really operate. Taking advantage of your desire for quick information, their goal is to shuttle your thoughts, opinions and knowledge into a silo that doesn’t allow anything in except what they put in there. And what they’re putting on their site is some of the most biased information you’ll find anywhere in media today.

• ¹ ZeroHedge August 3, 2023
• ² Wikipedia Main Page
• ³ CNET.com September 18, 2012
• ⁴ Hofstra University’s library Q&A Q: How can I determine if an author is credible? Answered by Georgina Martorella
• ⁵ The SEM Post.com May 17, 2019
• ⁶ Telapost 2019 Google Quality Rater Guidelines
• ⁷ Royal Dutch Shell PLC December 18, 2011
• ⁸ Working Knowledge, Do Experts or Collective Intelligence Write with More Bias? Evidence from Encyclopedia Britannica and Wikipedia November 7, 2014
• ⁹ Journal of the American Osteopathic Association 2014 May;114(5):368-73
• ¹⁰ Journal of the American Osteopathic Association 2014 May;114(5):368-73 (Archived copy)
• ¹¹ Sharylattkisson.com May 25, 2019
• ¹² The Epoch Times June 28, 2015
• ¹³ Amazon.com The Wikipedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World’s Greatest Encyclopedia by Andrew Lih
• ¹⁴ Roughtype.com Nicholas Carr blog

Article cross-posted from Dr. Mercola’s site.

They did this by sending electrical currents through an “electrogenetic” interface programmed to activate targeted genes. This research could allow human genes to be controlled by wearable electronic devices. This research represents “the missing link that will enable wearables to control genes in the not-so-distant future,” researchers say.

According to a report by Vice, in this novel experiment, researchers were able to trigger insulin production in human cells by sending electrical currents through an “electrogenetic” interface that activates targeted genes. Future applications of this interface could be developed to deliver therapeutic doses to treat a wide range of conditions, including diabetes, by directly controlling human DNA with electricity.

Scientists led by Jinbo Huang, a molecular biologist at ETH Zürich, have invented a battery-powered interface that they call “the direct current (DC)-actuated regulation technology,” or DART, that can trigger specific gene responses with an electric current. Huang and his colleagues described the device as “a leap forward, representing the missing link that will enable wearables to control genes in the not-so-distant future,” according to a study published on Monday in Nature.

“Electronic and biological systems function in radically different ways and are largely incompatible due to the lack of a functional communication interface,” the team said in the study. “While biological systems are analog, programmed by genetics, updated slowly by evolution and controlled by ions flowing through insulated membranes, electronic systems are digital, programmed by readily updatable software and controlled by electrons flowing through insulated wires.”

“Electrogenetic interfaces that would enable electronic devices to control gene expression remain the missing link in the path to full compatibility and interoperability of the electronic and genetic worlds,” the researchers added.

This same group of researchers at ETH Zürich had originally demonstrated that genes could be electrically activated as part of a study that was published in 2020.

This seems to be the perfect way to control humans and shut them down when they step out of line. It fits in perfectly with the agenda.

Article cross-posted from SHTF Plan.

The term has a ring to it that signals support for progressive goals. “Inclusion” is part of the Orwellian trio of terms “diversity, inclusion, and equity,” which, as Dr. Michael Rectenwald writes, means “surveillance, punishment of the ‘privileged,’ sacrifice of national citizens to global interests, and the labeling as ‘dangerous’ and marking for (virtual) elimination those supposed members or leaders of ‘hate groups’ who oppose such measures.” The central banks’ use of “financial inclusion” involves the same reversal of meanings.

Financial Inclusion and Unbanked Households

Consider that a retail CBDC would be like having a bank account with the Federal Reserve, even if it is intermediated by another bank. There is a lot of guesswork about how a CBDC will be implemented, but some say that it will not just be like having a bank account with the Fed, but that it could be exactly that.

Either way, if a CBDC were genuinely aimed at financial inclusion, it would offer something to those who have chosen to forgo a bank account entirely. This “unbanked” population constitutes about 5.4 percent of US households according to a 2021 Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) survey. The survey asked each household why they do not have a bank account, and the responses indicate that minimum balance requirements, privacy, trust, and fees are the most significant factors.

Figure 1: Unbanked households’ reasons for not having a bank account, 2021 (percent)

The critical question, then, is this: what does a CBDC offer these households that physical cash and other nonbank financial services (e.g., check cashing, money orders, prepaid cards) do not?

Privacy (or Lack Thereof)

A CBDC undermines privacy. Whatever a central bank might say about privacy protection with a CBDC can be safely dismissed. The Fed paper, for example, says, “Protecting consumer privacy is critical. Any CBDC would need to strike an appropriate balance, however, between safeguarding the privacy rights of consumers and affording the transparency necessary to deter criminal activity.” We should not conflate the characteristics of a CBDC with those of cryptocurrencies in general, which offer anonymity and pseudonymity to their users.

Consider how the IRS recently pried open PayPal, Venmo, and Cash App accounts with transactions over $600. Consider also that the Supreme Court just ruled that the IRS can investigate your bank accounts without notification in some circumstances, including if you are a friend, family member, or associate of someone who owes the IRS.

Beyond taxes, banks also willingly hand over personal information (even without a warrant or formal request) to the FBI. This data, which includes previous firearm purchases, belongs to people who show up at the wrong protest or who were merely in the vicinity as the data is collected based on transactions within a specific geographic area.

The lack of privacy with bank accounts certainly contributes to the distrust people have for banks, as noted in the survey. This shows that “financial inclusion” is a mere buzzword as there is nothing about a CBDC that would gain the trust of unbanked households, who are not excluded from the banking system but actively avoid it.

Fees and Negative Interest Rates

According to the survey, fees are another commonly cited reason for being unbanked. People avoid banks because the fees are steep and unpredictable.

Although there is no certainty regarding how a CBDC would operate, many see that it could finally offer the holy grail of monetary policy: the ability to impose negative interest rates. In effect, this would be a fee for holding a CBDC.

After the 2008 crash, the Fed reached the “zero lower bound” for nominal interest rates. They were unable to stimulate more spending through their interest rate targeting approach. While there were a few outlandish ideas about imposing a negative interest rate on cash, like the idea of Greg Mankiw’s student to remove the legal tender status of all currency with a serial number ending in a randomly selected digit, it is just too difficult to impose a fee on the cash in your wallet or safe.

With a digital currency, it becomes effortless, especially if the use of physical cash is significantly diminished or even eliminated altogether. The monetary policy authorities would simply press a button and deduct a certain amount of CBDC from everyone’s accounts. Think of the spending they would encourage if everybody knew their unspent money would be subject to such a penalty!

Conclusion

The “financial inclusion” rhetoric in central bank papers and speeches on CBDCs is laughable. Presently, people avoid banks because they distrust banks, value privacy, and despise fees. A CBDC wouldn’t help with any of these concerns. Instead of promoting inclusion, a CBDC would become the ultimate tool for financial intrusion and control.

The tyrannical potential is not a secret, even for the army of technocrats pushing for CBDCs. At a recent World Economic Forum event in China, Eswar Prasad matter-of-factly brandished the inevitable weaponization of CBDCs:

And one final note that I’ll make is that if you think about the benefits of digital money, there are huge potential gains. It’s not just about digital forms of physical currency—you can have programmability, units of central bank currency with expiry dates. You could have, as I argue in my book, a potentially better, or some people might say, darker world, where the government decides that units of central bank money can be used to purchase some things, but not other things that it deems less desirable, like, say, ammunition or drugs or pornography or something of the sort. And that is very powerful in terms of the use of a CBDC.

Of course, any moral qualms we have regarding the items he listed are irrelevant. It is clear that the state will use CBDCs to push us toward anything the state favors and away from anything the state doesn’t. Programmable money means programmable citizens.

About the Author

Dr. Jonathan Newman is a Fellow at the Mises Institute. He earned his PhD at Auburn University while a Research Fellow at the Mises Institute. He was the recipient of the 2021 Gary G. Schlarbaum Award to a Promising Young Scholar for Excellence in Research and Teaching. His research focuses on Austrian economics, inflation and business cycles, and the history of economic thought. He has taught courses on Macroeconomics and Quantitative Economics: Uses and Limitations in the Mises Graduate School.

This is not surprising, given that college students have been bombarded by tales of government fixes for social problems from media, teachers, and parents from elementary school onward. By the time they hear about “market failure” in their first economics class, it doesn’t take much convincing that free markets are impractical at best and a weak rationale for capitalist exploitation at worst. The best-selling economics textbooks at the university level do little to counter these perceptions, and most instructors won’t deviate much from the mainstream books.

Most principles of microeconomics and intermediate microeconomics textbooks devote at least one chapter to market failure, which typically includes “market power” (think monopoly), inadequate provision of “public goods” (goods that the private sector allegedly won’t produce enough of because of an inability to make the users pay), and “externalities” (the unintended side effects of human activity on bystanders, like pollution). While textbooks usually contain some acknowledgment of the fact that governments don’t live up to idealized models of efficiency, it is rare for proportional space to be devoted to “government failure” and easy for students to conclude that government intervention is the answer to these nearly ubiquitous shortcomings of markets.

The Apologists for Environmental Regulation

The problems with monopoly theory and the errors of mainstream thinking about public goods have been dealt with elsewhere. In my experience, externalities—typically, environmental problems—have proven one of the most difficult challenges for students trying to understand markets and government. Don’t pollution problems require government intervention?

Typically, the section on externalities contains a few diagrams showing the difference between private costs (or benefits) and social costs (or benefits). The diagram for negative externalities usually looks something like Figure 1, with the marginal private cost (MPC), marginal social cost (MSC), and marginal private benefit (MPB). Students are then directed to observe the difference between the optimal quantity of output (Q*) of the good that results in the negative externality and the quantity of output produced in the market (Q^M). Any production in excess of Q* adds more to costs than to benefits, creating a net loss labeled “deadweight loss.” The presence of this deadweight loss is deemed evidence of market failure, and the authors normally proceed to evaluate various ways government can push the market toward Q*.

Figure 1: The difference between costs and benefits of the quantity of output resulting in negative externalities

Walter Block has argued that there are problems with the usual treatment of externalities as market failure. If the recipient of pollution is unable to collect damages or procure an injunction from a court—the typical remedy prior to around the mid-nineteenth century—then this is not market failure, but the government’s failure to uphold property rights. Once reasonably diligent in their protection of property rights, the courts began weakening these protections in the mid-1800s. An example is the 1866 case Ryan v. New York Central Railroad Co. (35 N.Y. 210), in which a railroad was not held liable for the loss of a house that had been set on fire by sparks from the railroad’s nearby woodshed, which had burned down due to the company’s negligence. Even so, court protection retained some force long after. As Jonathan Adler pointed out, in a famous 1913 case in New York, Whalen v. Union Bag and Paper Co. (208 N.Y. 1), “the state’s highest court upheld an injunction shutting down a $1 million pulp mill employing several hundred workers in order to protect the riparian rights of a single farmer.”

As court-made law to settle conflicts over nuisances like pollution has been increasingly regarded as inadequate to deal with externalities, government interventions have typically taken three forms: (1) command-and-control regulation, (2) emissions taxes, and (3) cap-and-trade (tradable permit) systems.

Command-and-control regulation is unpopular with many economists because of its tendency to require emissions reductions in ways that are inflexible and therefore likely to be more costly. It is also particularly susceptible to “crony capitalism,” since industry lobbyists can push regulatory bureaucracies to mandate technologies that keep competitors out. Far more attractive to economists are emissions taxes and tradable permits.

Emissions taxes (sometimes called Pigovian taxes after the Cambridge economist Arthur Cecil Pigou, a student of Alfred Marshall) have gained new attention as a part of climate policy. Numerous proposals for a federal carbon tax have appeared in the last several years, including the “Green New Deal,” and even some who claim to be libertarians have proposed them. Tradable permit systems have been in use in the United States for decades, notably with the Environmental Protection Agency’s Acid Rain Program that began auctioning off sulfur dioxide permits in 1993. Tradable permit systems have a superficial appeal to market-friendly economists because, after all, the permits trade in a market. Unfortunately, it’s only a quasi-market, with the supply of permits dictated by regulators.

Most economists seem to favor one or the other of these policies. However, both emissions taxes and tradable permit schemes suffer from fatal problems.

The Pollution Calculation Problem

First, the government has no way to determine the costs inflicted by the pollution, whether for the purposes of setting a tax or creating a cap on emissions. Referring to the diagram in Figure 1, there is no way to find the MSC, which means that the government can’t know how high to set the tax, and a tradable permit system won’t have useful information about how many permits should be created.

This calculation problem has long been recognized. James Buchanan explained the problem in Cost and Choice:

Consider, first, the determination of the amount of the corrective tax that is to be imposed. This amount should equal the external costs that others than the decision-maker suffer as a consequence of decision. These costs are experienced by persons who may evaluate their own resultant utility losses. . . . In order to estimate the size of the corrective tax, however, some objective measurement must be placed on these external costs. But the analyst has no benchmark from which plausible estimates can be made. Since the persons who bear these “costs”—those who are externally affected—do not participate in the choice that generates the “costs,” there is simply no means of determining, even indirectly, the value that they place on the utility loss that might be avoided.

As Art Carden succinctly put it, “The information needed to know whether a particular regulation ‘works’ quite literally does not exist, and the key difference between firms and governments is that firms . . . have market tests for their decisions. Governments do not.”

However, economists and policymakers continue pretending the necessary information is within their reach or that the difficulty can be safely dismissed. William Baumol, writing in the top-ranked American Economic Review in 1972, admitted to the information problems in a defense of Pigovian taxes:

Despite the validity in principle of the tax-subsidy approach of the Pigouvian tradition, in practice it suffers from serious difficulties. For we do not know how to estimate the magnitudes of the social costs, the data needed to implement the Pigouvian tax-subsidy proposals. For example, a very substantial proportion of the cost of pollution is psychic; and even if we knew how to evaluate the psychic cost to some one individual we seem to have little hope of dealing with effects so widely diffused through the population.

Later he noted, “we do not know how to calculate the required taxes and subsidies and we do not know how to approximate them by trial and error.”

Unfortunately, Baumol essentially dismissed these problems and proposed acting “on the basis of a set of minimum standards of acceptability,” finding “some maximal level of this pollutant that is considered satisfactory.” This, of course, sweeps the information problem (how much is “acceptable” or “satisfactory”?) under the rug, which he admitted. “But,” Baumol contended, “if we permit ourselves to be paralyzed by councils of perfection we may have still greater cause for regret.” In other words, it is better to do something to reduce pollution than to impose no pollution limits whatsoever. Baumol, and those who still today advocate for emissions taxes or tradable permits, fail to see that even within their own problematic analytical framework, it is easily possible to overestimate the MSC and therefore “overcorrect” with taxes that are too high or emissions caps that are too low, thereby increasing instead of decreasing the size of the deadweight loss triangle (see figure 2). They also fail to appreciate the effectiveness of tort and nuisance law in preventing environmental trespasses. Murray Rothbard reminded us of the value of this decentralized, court-based approach (the common law) in his classic 1982 essay “Law, Property Rights, and Air Pollution.”

Figure 2: The effects on the quantity of output of overshooting taxes on negative externalities

Environmental (In)Justice

The second major problem is that neither emissions taxes nor tradable permits have a clear way to compensate the victims of pollution for the losses they continue to suffer. Fines, or the proceeds of permit auctions, go to the government, not to those who are enduring the pollution. Indeed, the entire apparatus of authoritarian environmental law that has developed over many years, whether command-and-control or some other type of regulation, has failed to protect the property rights of the neighbors of polluters. Mandating a scrubber on a coal-fired power plant or taxing sulfur dioxide does nothing to compensate someone who might still be adversely affected by the remaining emissions. Also, if emissions permit under tradable permit systems are exchanged among polluters in different areas, the emissions will shift from one polluter’s neighbors to another’s with no compensation to these victims of pollution. Justice, it would seem, would require the firm acquiring permits to increase compensation to its neighbors commensurate with the increased pollution it will emit, while the firm selling permits would reduce compensation to its neighbors. So, if property rights are protected, the firm acquiring permits would be paid by the firm providing the permits, since the acquirer is accepting the burden of compensating its neighbors. Yet, tradable emissions permit systems produce the opposite: the firm acquiring permits pays the firm providing them. The gains to some bystanders and the losses to others are regarded as irrelevant.

This presents significant ethical problems, though most mainstream economists seem willing to ignore them and pursue the elusive point of “social efficiency.” As Murray Rothbard pointed out in “Law, Property Rights, and Air Pollution,” “even if the concept of social efficiency were meaningful, they don’t answer the questions of why efficiency should be the overriding consideration in establishing legal principles or why externalities should be internalized above all other considerations.” Similarly, Robert McGee and Walter Block have argued that tradable emissions permits, despite some efficiency advantages over command-and-control regulation, “entail a fundamental and pervasive violation of property rights” and that this form of “market socialism” should be replaced with the aforementioned court-made common law that strictly preserves these rights.

Who Cares about Efficiency?

Even if we set aside the information problem and the ethical problem, it is not clear why we should expect government to pursue the most efficient outcome. Politicians and bureaucracies have their own objectives—typically, politicians want to be elected, and bureaucrats want larger budgets to play with. When faced with relentless pressure by lobbying groups who don’t particularly care about overall economic efficiency, politicians will happily disregard anything their economics professors said about marginal social cost. Environmentalist organizations won’t be inclined to stop asking for emissions cuts when Q*—even if we knew what it is—is reached. Natural gas producers will want carbon taxes high enough to disadvantage their coal competitors but not enough to drive electric utilities to nuclear energy. In such an environment of competing interest groups, the Q* textbook outcome would appear only by rare happenstance.

We would do well, then, to discard “efficiency-based” theories that make impossible demands for information and that rely on selflessness from government policymakers. As Ed Stringham and Mark White pointed out, following Murray Rothbard:

Utilitarian theories in general suffer from these calculation problems, but deontological theories, such as rights-based ethical systems, do not. In such theories, legal decisions would be made based on notions of justice rather than efficiency, and judges would not face the unenviable task of calculating the economic consequences, in all possible states of the world, of all their possible actions.

There are other problems with emissions taxes and tradable permit schemes apart from the several that I have mentioned here. For example, Bob Murphy has shown that even a “revenue-neutral” carbon tax is “likely . . . [to] impose more deadweight loss on the economy, offsetting at least some of the potential environmental benefits.” Furthermore, proposals for such a tax—which is, after all, a tax on capital—are full of misleading claims, and carbon taxes would be destructive to economic growth. Additionally, given that many of these proposals are intended to prevent damage that could theoretically occur in the distant future, we can know even less about the capabilities and priorities of these remote descendants of ours, and the costs could extend generations into the future before these possible benefits materialize.

Government can’t accomplish the improvement over market outcomes that emissions taxes and tradable emissions permits promise and could easily make matters worse. As we have seen, the government doesn’t have the information it would need to identify what level of pollution is efficient for an entire society, and government officials don’t have the incentives to be particularly interested in efficiency anyway. Dealing with environmental spillover effects on the basis of rights, rather than incoherent “social efficiency,” is more defensible, both practically and ethically. A new appreciation for liberty and the common law would go a long way toward recovering property rights protections and reducing pollution problems.

Article cross-posted from Mises.

In the featured video, Ivor Cummins interviews professor Richard Werner, author of “Princes of the Yen — Japan’s Central Bankers and the Transformation of the Economy”¹ on “The Fat Emperor Podcast.” Werner has a Ph.D., in economics from Oxford University. He was a visiting scholar with the bank of Japan back in the 1990s.

In 1995, he created a monetary policy known as quantitative easing, which is intended to help banks get out of financial crises more rapidly and avoid long-term recession.

More recently, Werner created a community interest company called Local First, which provides communities with the know-how to set up local community banks. In this interview, he breaks down how the world works from a central banking standpoint, how ordinary people are affected by these policies, what we can expect from central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and more.

How Central Bankers Rule the World

In his book, “Princes of the Yen,” Werner describes how there’s a small group of insiders inside the central bank, running the whole show. While they direct the media’s attention to interest rates, that’s a bit of a decoy. They’re not focused on the price of money but rather the quantity of money, measured in terms of quantity of credit creation.

This tiny core group of insiders are selected in their early 30s when they join the Bank of Japan and told that they will become governor of the bank in 30 years’ time. These are referred to as the “princes.” They control the boom-and-bust cycles in Japan, through their control of the quantity of credit.

Similar factions exist in other central banks as well, Werner says, and these central bankers are not accountable for their actions. They use this power to engineer events that serve their own purposes (typically connected to increasing their own power).

In 2003, Werner warned that the European Central Bank (ECB) was “a monster” that would create bank credit-driven asset bubbles and property bubbles, followed by banking crises and recessions, which is precisely what happened.

The Central Bank Plan to Monopolize Global Finance

Werner points out that while central banks are promoting CBDCs as digital currency, we’ve had digital currency for decades, so there’s nothing new about the digital aspect of this currency. Cash — paper banknotes and coins — are but a small part — about 3% in most countries — of the total money supply. The rest is digital.

Today, central banks are the only ones authorized to issue banknotes, but regular banks create 97% of the money through lending. They’re not allowed to issue paper notes. Instead, they issue deposit entries into your bank account, which is digital. So, Werner notes, you could say we’ve been using bank digital currency (BDC) for decades.

The difference between BDCs and CBDCs is the centralized aspect. So, what’s happening now is that central banks, which are the regulators of banks, are stepping in to directly compete with the banks they’re regulating. Werner likens it to the umpire joining the game. That obviously makes it an unfair game.

“It is a big danger,” Werner tells Cummins.² “And you can see where this is going. If we allow central bank digital currencies, sooner or later they will drive out the private sector competition. They will drive out the banks.

And, of course, we also have this other problem … that whenever we get a banking crisis and a financial crisis, the regulators get more power because each time they argue, ‘Oh that now happened, it’s different from before and that’s because we still don’t have enough power. We need to have more powers’ …

This is a regulatory moral hazard. If the regulator gets rewarded for failure … you can be sure that we’ll have more crises, because they’ll be given more powers. Now they want to introduce CBDCs, and of course, the best time from their viewpoint is … another banking crisis, so that people want to move their money out of banks …

That’s the easiest way to introduce this, which means we have a massive incentive now for regulators, for central planners, to create another huge financial crisis so that they can then take over.

Of course, then that’s the end of it, because the banking system is not going to recover from this. Now, do we really want this, where essentially the number of banks goes down so much that there’s really only one bank left?

In their 23 years or so of existence, the ECB has killed around 5,000 banks in Europe already, and it wasn’t the big guys … Thousands of banks are gone in America too, and, of course, JP Morgan and the rest are hoovering them up so they’re just becoming big fat mega banks …

It seems the ECB is set up to be the … only bank they want left in Europe, and that’s going to happen if we allow CBDCs. So, we really have to step up now and say, ‘We don’t need this; we already have digital currencies, thank you very much.’”

Perceived Need for CBDCs Must Be Fabricated

Indeed, the central bankers know they’re going to have to get creative, because CBDCs have “no convincing value proposition,” meaning there’s no perceived need for them.

So, they have the unenviable task of selling us on a solution for a problem we don’t have, while simultaneously trying to hide the fact that what they’re proposing is a digital slave system, where they will have full control over if, when and where you can spend the money you’ve earned.

As noted in the interview,³ this is also the reason why they haven’t fully rolled out CBCDs yet. They must create or fabricate the need first, and that will likely be a series of financial crises that damage trust in the banks.

With CBDCs, the central bank will decide if, when and how you may spend your money, and can use this monetary control to enforce compliance with any and all global governance agendas.

There are also technical issues that need to be addressed. If the electricity gets shut off, you can still use cash. Not so with CBDCs. A network of technologies needs to work at the same time in order for CBDCs to function as intended. And, due to the centralization, the system is not only more complex but also far less resilient.

Lastly, there’s the issue of trust. According to a report cited in the interview, European citizens are leery and suspect governments and central banks want CBDCs to monitor, control and restrict transactions. And they’re exactly right. That’s what CBDCs are ultimately for, so the central planners need to figure out how to hide this intention, or somehow sell it as a good thing.

CBDCs Are a Population Control Mechanism

October 19, 2020, Agustin Carstens, general manager for the bank of international settlements (BIS) — the central bank of the central banks — explained the intent behind this new centrally-controlled digital currency:⁴

“Our analysis on CBDC, in particular for the general use, we tend to establish the equivalence with cash, and there is a huge difference there. For example, in cash we don’t know … who’s using a $100 bill today. We don’t know who is using the 1,000 peso bill today.

A key difference with the CBDC is that Central Bank will have absolute control on the rules and regulations that will determine the use of that expression of Central Bank liability. And also, we will have the technology to enforce that. Those … two issues are extremely important and that makes a huge difference with respect to what cash is.”

Indeed, as explained by Werner, the issuer of the CBDC, the central bank, will have the power to decide whether you can use your own money. You basically must apply for permission to use it for a given purchase, and that request can be denied.

“So, it’s a conditional currency, based on you actually getting that permit,” Werner says.⁵ “Now, if you happen to be some kind of critic of government policy or a critic of central banks, this could be difficult. Or if you dare to step out of the 15-minute city zone, maybe you’ll find that it’s not working.

Of course … they’ll come up with excuses why you can’t do what you want to do. They’ll never tell you the real reason, but the official reason is likely to be something like your carbon footprint, which is another vague concept … For every bank transaction you get a carbon CO2 rating or a quantified number, and then, if you’ve used up your common budget, you can’t use it.

I mean, you can come up with any number of schemes. The point is, the issue of the CBDC is, the central bank has the power — and essentially it’s going to be arbitrary power — to say yes or no to what you want to do with what you thought is your money.”

What’s more, you can be sure there’ll be no one to complain to if your CBDCs get turned off by mistake or if a purchase attempt is denied and you want to appeal. Just look at how difficult it is to get a problem resolved with any of our social media companies.

The CBDC system will be vastly larger, more complex and more automated than any social media company on the planet. Most of it will be run by algorithms and artificial intelligence, without any human input at all. “There’s no real right to appeal,” Werner says. “That’s going to be the reality.”

CBDCs Need Digital ID

Now, for the CBDC superstructure to really work as intended, they also need digital ID, and many suspect the COVID pandemic was an excuse to legitimize the rollout of a digital “vaccine passport” that could then be converted into digital ID.

The World Health Organization is now rolling out an international vaccine passport based on the European Union’s digital health certificate, even though it makes no medical sense, considering the COVID jab can’t prevent infection or transmission, and that that passport will eventually be linked to CBDCs. There’s no doubt about that, Werner says.⁶

Intentional Inflation

Getting back to finance in general, many people around the world have been affected by inflation. According to Werner, what we’re seeing now mirrors what happened in the 1970s, when hyperinflation covered up another great economic reset, namely the transition from gold-backed currency to a fiat currency backed by thin air.

“The official narrative is once again, just like in the ‘70s … there’s a war, and as a result there’s some kind of energy embargo. In the 70s [it was the] OPEC oil embargo. As a result, energy prices jump up and we get inflation. That’s why we had inflation in the ‘70s and again in 2021, sort of a peaking [at the] end of 2022. That’s the official narrative.

Unfortunately, if you check … the data doesn’t check out this way at all. The inflation essentially peaks in both periods … before the war. In the 70s, the war was in mid-October 1973 [but] oil prices didn’t rise — yet. Henry Kissinger had to fly to Saudi Arabia and arm twist the oil minister to quadruple the oil price, which happened in January ‘74.

In many countries inflation already had peaked by then and was coming down, so the timing doesn’t work out. Similarly, in the recent era, the inflation was already significant before the military action [by] Russia [in] Ukraine, so that doesn’t pan out. And of course, oil prices and energy prices have still been falling and are much lower.

So, why do we have this significant double-digit inflation? It’s much simpler, and it’s true for both the ‘70s and and the recent era. In the ‘70s, what we saw was that suddenly the central banks were forcing the banks in all the major countries to massively expand money creation. Surprise, surprise. What else could create inflation? …

So in in March 2020, the Federal Reserve, and then simultaneously the other key central banks, adopted a very specific policy which is quite unusual. It’s usually only taken once a century, or twice maximum per century, so it’s not something like ‘Oh we accidentally did this.’ It’s very specific. It must be intentional, and there’s evidence, there’s proof, that it’s intentional.”

Quantitative Easing

As explained by Werner, banks create new money through lending. In the 2000s, banks pumped this new money into property markets, which caused house prices to rise. Eventually, a bubble is created, and when it pops, the system crashes and banks stop lending, which results in a slowing of the whole economy.

The monetary policy created by Werner, quantitative easing, has two aspects. The first, called QE1, calls for the central bank to step in and purchase non-performing assets in the banking system at face value. This solves the banks’ problem, returning them to a strong balance sheet.

It’s not enough to get them to increase credit again though, so QE2 allows the central bank to force banks to create more money and push it into the economy. He explains how this works:

“When a central bank buys something from the non-bank sector, the seller, say, of this property, how do they get the money?

Well, the central bank will transfer it to their bank account, which means that suddenly they have money in their bank account, which actually the bank creates because it gets a booking in its reserve account with the central bank. So, that’s that’s how it works and that’s how the central bank can push money into the economy directly.

These were the two forms of QE … In 2008 when [the housing market crashed] in America, Bernanke said ‘Oh, the Werner proposal QE, yeah we’ll do that, and they did it immediately, whereas even in Europe they didn’t understand the finer details. [They thought] just buy assets, anything.

They bought performing assets from banks, which is marginally helpful but it doesn’t really do the job, and so it took much longer in Europe to get out of the 2008 crisis, whereas America was very quickly recovering because … the Fed purchased the non-performing assets close to face value from the bank so the banks were suddenly, in one go, fine.

But they still didn’t do the second recommendation, because they they deemed it not necessary. Fine, it took two years for banks to then increase credit significantly.”

Quantitative Easing Was Intentionally Used Incorrectly

In March 2020, the Federal Reserve adopted QE again, but this time, incorrectly, and according to Werner, intentionally so. He tells Cummins:

“In 2020, March, what happened was the Federal Reserve adopted QE2 at a time when the economy was actually doing fine. Growth was was fine. Bank credit growth was around 5 to 6%. There was no deflation. This was a recommendation for deflation and for a shrinking [the] economy …

They did QE2 and there was a massive expansion, the Federal Reserve buying up private sector assets from non-banks, therefore forcing banks to create credit — totally off the charts, the biggest in the post-war era. At the same time there were government restrictions in 2020.

If you reduce supply but you massively increase the bond through money creation, putting into the economy this money (which in 2008 was just an accounting transaction, there was no new money so it wasn’t going to create inflation) … it’s going to create inflation.

I warned it’s going to [create] inflation. Most commentators thought — because they don’t understand the difference between QE — that it’s going to be fine [as it was in 2008] … No, it’s totally different …

The smoking gun is this. How do we know that this was fully the intention? Well, it’s a very specific policy and is very rarely taken [yet] all the central banks suddenly did it … The the other proof is, just before COVID, in August 2019 … the annual Central Bankers conference invited BlackRock, the biggest asset manager in the world, and BlackRock made a proposal.

They said there will be another crisis … but this time we should create inflation … The insinuation is unspoken. The crisis will be deflationary, therefore we must create inflation … and here’s how we’re going to do it, and they cited my proposal, without mentioning my name …

[They said] we need to back fiscal policy through money creation and get the central bank to directly push money into the economy, which you can do by purchasing assets from the non-bank sector.

And how do we know that this is what the Fed did in March 2020? We’ve got the data. And there’s one more factor. The Federal Reserve hired Blackrock in March 2020 to buy assets …

So, this inflation is entirely intentionally created by the central banks, by the central planners. How are we going to punish them for this? Oh, let’s give them more unprecedented powers over everything, over life on Earth, through central bank digital currencies.”

Recommendations for Moving Forward

According to Werner, in the 1970s, inflation was used to cover up the move from the gold-backed dollar to the petrodollar. Today, he believes the intention for the inflation is to cover up the disintegration of the petrodollar and the move to a new CBDC system.

Unfortunately, they’ll succeed in this if we don’t stop it somehow. To protect your assets from this intentionally created inflation, Werner recommends purchasing physical gold and silver. He also urges everyone to “do more in the local communities.”

“If we work together locally, that can create a very resilient structure, and then we can we can use anything we want as as a means of settlement. We can have a local currency, a gold-based system, silver-based system or we can just have a local community bank … and then you can have your own credit creation locally.

In fact, I think, because the central planners want to centralize, they would reduce the number of banks, now is the time I think for people who have a bit of capital to step forward and say ‘Let’s create community banks. Here’s five million euros, that’s the minimum you need. [My] Local First community interest company has the know-how. We can get the banking license.

We need people to step forward now. We’ll set up Community Banks locally, get the banks authorized. That can be the core of a local economy … Also, it shows that this decentralization system is much more superior, because local banks are accountable locally.

Community Banks can be structured either with a local charity, so all the profits go locally into this geographically restricted area. Germany has been successful for 200 years because 80% of its banks are local not-for-profit Community Banks and they only lend locally …

These small firms are highly productive … they can constantly upgrade because the local bank will always lend to them to get the latest technology.

That’s why productivity is much higher in Germany than in the UK for example but that’s of course under threat by the central planners. They want to force them to merge. But basically, we need to set up new banks and we think we can do that if we act quickly. Now, in the coming two years, we really need to get this going.”

• ¹ Princes of the Yen — Japan’s Central Bankers and the Transformation of the Economy by Richard Werner
• ² Transcript 15:18
• ³ Transcript 21:42
• ⁴ Transcript 22:41
• ⁵ Transcript 24: 45
• ⁶ Transcript 35:18

Article cross-posted from Dr. Mercola’s site.