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https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/first_came_9_11_then_covid_19_whats_the_next_crisis_to_lockdown_the_nation

First Came 9/11. Then COVID-19. What’s the Next Crisis to Lockdown the Nation?

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”—H.L. Mencken

First came 9/11, which the government used to transform itself into a police state.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, which the police state used to test out its lockdown powers.

In light of the government’s tendency to exploit crises (legitimate or manufactured) and capitalize on the nation’s heightened emotions, confusion and fear as a means of extending the reach of the police state, one has to wonder what so-called crisis it will declare next.

It’s a simple enough formula: first, you create fear, then you capitalize on it by seizing power.

Frankly, it doesn’t even matter what the nature of the next national emergency might be (terrorism, civil unrest, economic collapse, a health scare, or the environment) as long as it allows the government to lockdown the nation and justify all manner of tyranny in the so-called name of national security.

Cue the Emergency State.

Terrorist attacks, mass shootings, “unforeseen economic collapse, loss of functioning political and legal order, purposeful domestic resistance or insurgency, pervasive public health emergencies, and catastrophic natural and human disasters”: the government has been anticipating and preparing for such crises for years now.

As David C. Unger writes for the New York Times: “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness have given way to permanent crisis management: to policing the planet and fighting preventative wars of ideological containment, usually on terrain chosen by, and favorable to, our enemies. Limited government and constitutional accountability have been shouldered aside by the kind of imperial presidency our constitutional system was explicitly designed to prevent.”

Here’s what we know: given the rate at which the government keeps devising new ways to establish itself as the “solution” to all of our worldly problems at taxpayer expense, each subsequent crisis ushers in ever larger expansions of government power and less individual liberty.

This is the slippery slope to outright tyranny.

You see, once the government acquires (and uses) authoritarian powers—to spy on its citizens, to carry out surveillance, to transform its police forces into extensions of the military, to seize taxpayer funds, to wage endless wars, to censor and silence dissidents, to identify potential troublemakers, to detain citizens without due process—it does not voluntarily relinquish them.

The lesson for the ages is this: once any government is allowed to overreach and expand its powers, it’s almost impossible to put the genie back in the bottle. As Harvard constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe recognizes, “The dictatorial hunger for power is insatiable.”

Indeed, the history of the United States is a testament to the old adage that liberty decreases as government (and government bureaucracy) grows. To put it another way, as government expands, liberty contracts.

In this way, every crisis since the nation’s early beginnings has become a make-work opportunity for the government.

Each crisis has also been a test to see how far “we the people” would allow the government to sidestep the Constitution in the so-called name of national security; a test to see how well we have assimilated the government’s lessons in compliance, fear and police state tactics; a test to see how quickly we’ll march in lockstep with the government’s dictates, no questions asked; and a test to see how little resistance we offer up to the government’s power grabs when made in the name of national security.

Most critically of all, it has been a test to see whether the Constitution—and our commitment to the principles enshrined in the Bill of Rights—could survive a national crisis and true state of emergency.

Unfortunately, we’ve been failing this particular test for a long time now.

Indeed, the powers-that-be have been pushing our buttons and herding us along like so much cattle since World War II, at least, starting with the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor, which not only propelled the U.S. into World War II but also unified the American people in their opposition to a common enemy.

That fear of attack by foreign threats, conveniently torqued by the growing military industrial complex, in turn gave rise to the Cold War era’s “Red Scare.” Promulgated through government propaganda, paranoia and manipulation, anti-Communist sentiments boiled over into a mass hysteria that viewed anyone and everyone as suspect: your friends, the next-door neighbor, even your family members could be a Communist subversive.

This hysteria, which culminated in hearings before the House Un-American Activities Committee, where hundreds of Americans were called before Congress to testify about their so-called Communist affiliations and intimidated into making false confessions, also paved the way for the rise of an all-knowing, all-seeing governmental surveillance state.

By the time 9/11 rolled around, all George W. Bush had to do was claim the country was being invaded by terrorists, and the government used the USA Patriot Act to claim greater powers to spy, search, detain and arrest American citizens in order to keep America safe.

By way of the National Defense Authorization Act, Barack Obama continued Bush’s trend of undermining the Constitution, going so far as to give the military the power to strip Americans of their constitutional rights, label them extremists, and detain them indefinitely without trial, all in the name of keeping America safe.

Despite the fact that the breadth of the military’s power to detain American citizens violates not only U.S. law and the Constitution but also international laws, the government has refused to relinquish its detention powers made possible by the NDAA.

Then Donald Trump took office, claiming the country was being invaded by dangerous immigrants and insisting that the only way to keep America safe was to expand the reach of the border police, empower the military to “assist” with border control, and essentially turn the country into a Constitution-free zone.

That so-called immigration crisis then morphed into multiple crises (domestic extremism, the COVID-19 pandemic, race wars, civil unrest, etc.) that the government has been eager to use in order to expand its powers.

Joe Biden, in turn, has made every effort to expand the reach of the militarized police state, pledging to hire 87,000 more IRS agents and 100,000 police officers. Read between the lines and you’ll find that Biden has all but declared war on the American people.

What the next crisis will be is anyone’s guess, but you can be sure that there will be a next crisis.

So, what should you expect if the government decides to declare another state of emergency and institutes a nationwide lockdown?

You should expect more of the same, only worse.

More compliance, less resistance.

More fear-mongering, mind-control tactics and less tolerance for those who question the government’s propaganda-driven narratives.

Most of all, as I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, you should expect more tyranny and less freedom.

There’s every reason to worry about what comes next.

Certainly, the government’s past track record and its long-anticipated plans for instituting martial law (using armed forces to solve domestic political and social problems) in response to a future crisis are cause enough to worry about the government’s handling of the next “crisis.”

Mark my words: if and when another nationwide lockdown finally hits—if and when we are forced to shelter in place— if and when militarized police are patrolling the streets— if and when security checkpoints have been established— if and when the media’s ability to broadcast the news has been curtailed by government censors—if and when public systems of communication (phone lines, internet, text messaging, etc.) have been restricted—if and when those FEMA camps the government has been surreptitiously building finally get used as detention centers for American citizens—if and when military “snatch and grab” teams are deployed on local, state, and federal levels as part of the activated Continuity of Government plans to isolate anyone suspected of being a threat to national security—and if and when martial law is enacted with little real outcry or resistance from the public—then we will truly understand the extent to which the government has fully succeeded in acclimating us to a state of affairs in which the government has all the power and “we the people” have none. 

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https://www.oftwominds.com/blogsept22/EU-crisis9-22.html

The EU's Crisis Is Global: Neocolonialism, Hyper-Financialization and Hyper-Globalization Come Home to Roost

The European Union (EU) was seen as the culmination of a centuries-long process of integration that would finally put an end to the ceaseless conflicts that had led to disastrous wars in the 20th century that had knocked Europe from global preeminence.

Wary of the predations of the U.S. and rising Asian powers, European nations sought the economic and diplomatic strength of a confederation that would be greater than the sum of its parts, a union that would restore Europe's rightful place as a global power.

This worthy goal was undermined by the destructive dynamics of the past forty years: Neocolonialism, Financialization and Globalization.

These dynamics are unstable due to their internal contradictions. In classical colonialism, the Core dominates the Periphery with force, extracting economic value by exploiting the subject states' commodities and forcing the colonies to buy the valued-added finished goods produced by the colonial power's domestic economy.

This extractive model was at odds with the liberal worldview of the colonial powers which held self-rule and open markets as necessary to stable prosperity. The contradictions of classical colonialism led to its collapse as colonies broke free and the colonial powers were forced to navigate a more open global economy.

Beneath the glossy vibe of strength through unity, the EU institutionalized a Neocolonial Model in which some EU members are more equal than others, a divide that was starkly revealed in the debt crisis of 2011-2012.

I described the EU's version of the Neocolonial Model in 2012: The E.U., Neofeudalism and the Neocolonial-Financialization Model (May 24, 2012)

In Neocolonialism, the forces of financialization (debt and leverage controlled by State-approved banking cartels) are used to indenture the local Elites and populace to the banking center: the peripheral Neocolonials borrow money to buy the finished goods sold by the Core, doubly enriching the center with 1) interest and the transactional skim of financializing assets such as real estate, harbors, etc. and 2) the profits made selling goods to the debtors.

(China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is another version of the Neocolonial Model in which credit and financialization indebt and disempower the Periphery nations to the benefit of the Neocolonial Power.)

In essence, the Core nations of the EU colonized the Periphery nations via the euro which enabled a massive expansion of debt and consumption in the Periphery. The banks and exporters of the Core extracted enormous profits from this expansion of debt-fueled consumption.

The Periphery's neocolonial status was starkly revealed by the debt crisis: the assets and income of the Periphery flowed to the Core as interest on the private and sovereign debts that are owed to the Core's commercial and central banks.

This was the perfection of Neocolonial Neofeudalism. The Periphery nations of the E.U. are effectively neocolonial debtors of the Core countries' banks, and the taxpayers of the Core nations are now feudal serfs whose labor is devoted to making good on any bank loans to the Periphery that go bad.

In effect, the importing Periphery nations were given the same expansive credit limits of their Mercantilist siblings. In a real-world analogy, it's as if someone prone to financing life's expenses with credit was handed a no-limit credit card with a low interest rate, backed by a guarantee from a credit-averse cousin.

Credit duly expanded oh-so profitably, but the contradictions eventually unravel the utopia: the Periphery borrowers soon borrow more than they can actually support, and the Core has to bail them out without actually writing off any of the debt, as writedowns would crush the profitability of the Core banks.

This is a colonialism based on the financialization of the smaller economies to the benefit of the Core's financial institutions and Mercantilist economies.

In the EU, the opportunities to exploit captive markets were even better than those found abroad, for the simple reason that the EU itself stood ready to guarantee there would be no messy expropriations or defaults by local authorities who decided to throw off the yokes of neocolonization.

The EU attempted to reconcile this intrinsically unstable private-capital/State arrangement-- profits are private but losses are public--by shoving the costs of the bad debt onto the backs of the Core's taxpayers (now indentured serfs).

The profits from the euro arbitrage and Neocolonial exploitation were private, but the costs are being borne by the taxpaying public of both Core and Periphery.

Globalization also has its own set of internal contradictions. Using financialization (credit and all the speculative schemes leverage enables) to boost mercantilist exports and consumerist imports was highly profitable, but both the exporters and importers are now exposed to the inherent vulnerabilities and fragilities of dependency on credit-fueled investment and consumption and the unstable private-capital/State arrangement--an arrangement that's coming apart everywhere from the EU to China.

The Neocolonial-Financialization Model has reached its limits globally. There are no more markets to exploit with financialization, the discretionary incomes of the debt-serfs have stagnated to the point they cannot take on any more debt and the reality that the speculative gains are phantom and the mountains of debt are unpayable can no longer be masked.

As I endeavored to explain in The Global Power Shift Isn't West to East--It's Not That Simple (June 24, 2022), currencies are the bedrock of financialization, and the internal contradictions of the global economy's credit-currency regime are finally unraveling the illusory stability of currency markets.

The EU's crisis isn't limited to energy. It is a manifestation of the global breakdown of Neocolonialism, Financialization and Globalization. No one will be unaffected as the internal contradictions destabilize a global economy that was presented as permanent.

What's the status quo fix? Cannibalization: The System Is Busy Cannibalizing Itself (August 31, 2022). Turning financialization and globalization into Hyper-Financialization and Hyper-Globalization didn't resolve the internal contradictions, it only accelerated their demise.  

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https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/is-war-what-you-asked-for/

Is War What You Asked For?

The Russians called their move into Ukraine last February a “special military operation” for a reason. The description was precise. It was not a “war” prosecuted on the people of Ukraine. Russia could have completely disabled the Zelensky regime in an afternoon with air power, but they did not want to smash up the country’s vital infrastructure and foreclose the peoples’ future.

The operation was designed to expel Ukrainian military forces from their forward dug-in positions along the Donbas frontier, where they had been shelling, harassing, and killing the Russian-speaking population for eight years — ever since the 2014 CIA-backed Maidan “color Revolution” brought Ukraine under American control.

The precipitating event of the operation begun last winter was the renewed threat to bring Ukraine into NATO, for the purpose of putting bases on Russia’s border. Russia would not tolerate that any more than America would tolerate Russian bases planted across our border with Mexico. The special operation was mounted to reestablish firm boundaries, both geographically and in geopolitical psychology, for an adversary, the West, who displayed an increasingly psychotic drive to smash all boundaries that make civilized life possible, even in their own countries.

Since then, the US has poured money into Ukraine at the rate of about $10-billion a month for the purpose of prolonging the struggle in Ukraine. We’re doing this at a moment in history when the US faces grave financial breakdown, along with the countries of the European Union and the UK. Nothing about our involvement in Ukraine is in the interest of the American people. Our foreign policy establishment has shown a blind animus toward Russia for no apparent good reason.

At this point reasonable people might conclude that it is for a bad reason. Increasingly it looks like a desperate diversion from the technocrat coup perpetrated by a supranational cabal emanating out of Davos, as led by the megalomaniacs at the World Economic Forum (WEF). The coupsters also happen to be intriguing behind America’s Democratic Party and the White House regime of the obvious tool, “Joe Biden.”

To digress from Ukraine for a moment, let’s consider the perilous condition of “Joe Biden’s” regime just now. All the “narratives” — the miasma of lies the regime has generated in its campaign to wreck our country — are falling apart. Much of this centers on the criminal misbehavior of the FBI, the regime’s clean-up crew, which has lost control of the clean-up. If the conservative opposition seizes majority control of the US House of Representatives on November 8, all the US players in this coup will be called to testify.

This includes the perpetrators of RussiaGate (of which the Ukraine mess is a continuation); the perps of the Covid-19 bioweapon op that will end up killing more Americans from the “vaccines” and the economic blowback of lockdowns as died from the virus itself; the backstage perps of the censoring and cancellation initiative run through the news and social media; the perps who arranged the ballot shenanigans in the 2020 elections; the perps who supported the Antifa and BLM riots of that same year; the perps behind the Mar-a-Lago raid; and, most threatening of all to the regime, the perps who concealed the Hunter Biden laptop evidence of international bribery and treason committed by the current President of the United States. He knows it, he can sniff the danger, as do the rogues and degenerates behind him. Hence, his recent mendacious fulminations against “MAGA Republicans [being] a threat to our democracy” and his ramped-up FBI police-state antics against Donald Trump and his associates. “Joe Biden” must sense that he is going down.

The New York Times today is ballyhooing the Ukraine military’s “lightning advance” east of Kharkov. I’d argue that what The Times wants you to see is not exactly what is happening. Rather the Russians appear to have made an orderly, tactical retreat from the outskirts of Kharkov, inducing the NATO-trained Ukraine forces eastward across the Siverskyi Donets River and out into the flat, open country where they will be cut off, cauldroned, and slaughtered. Everything that NATO and the US have done in this conflict has been a stupid move. Why should this one be an exception?

At the same time, Russia has hit a number of power generation plants around Ukraine, leaving many Ukrainians without lights, hot water, communications — in short, what’s needed to remain civilized. This was exactly what Russia had hoped to avoid the past eight months, but the obdurate pathological idiocy of our country’s leaders has forced Russia to send a harsher message to provoke some rational thought here about ending this conflict. There is even chatter on the web that Russia is about to declare that the special military operation is now a war, with all that implies about targets.

The US may be crazed beyond redemption, but the people of the NATO member countries might have had a clarifying experience lately watching their governments barter away the natural gas they desperately need to run industry and heat their homes this winter — in the foolish gesture of jumping on America’s sanctions bandwagon. Will Germany, France, Italy, and the rest now leap into a war against Russia on the plains of Ukraine in winter? I think they will sooner overthrow their own WEF-directed governments. This appears to be just what has happened in Sweden’s election on Sunday where a bloc of center-right parties has ousted the left government led by Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson.

The question for now is this: Will the US jump stupidly into World War Three over Ukraine? If not, how much does Russia have to disrupt life in the rest of Ukraine outside the Donbas to drive the US and NATO into serious peace talks? It better happen soon because otherwise the West will be completely preoccupied with the collapse of its financial markets, currencies, and economies — and probably before the November elections here.