Members of the ruling class of certain states have sent troops to Texas in case a civil war breaks out with the federal ruling class. Lines have been drawn and the naive slaves are already siding with which master they want to be ruled by. The rulers of multiple states began sending personnel and resources months ago to combat increased migrant encounters at the United States-Mexico border, with one state saying “nothing is off the table” as tensions threaten to boil over between Texas Governor Greg Abbott and the Biden administration. CIVIL WAR? Two Members Of The Ruling Are Fighting Joe Biden Gives Governor Greg Abbott A 24 Hour Ultimatum As The Border Standoff Intensifies Don’t forget that neither Abbott nor Biden will be fighting each other physically during this war if it goes that far. Both sociopaths will require others to obey their commands and go to war for them. On Thursday, 25 Republican governors backed Abbott and “Texas’s constitutional authority to defend and protect itself” against what he has referred to as a migrant “invasion” of his state. Some believe the situation is escalating towards a civil war, and the mainstream media’s use of the term seems to be exacerbating the idea. The joint statement by the conservative governors reads: “We stand in solidarity with our fellow Governor, Greg Abbott, and the State of Texas in utilizing every tool and strategy, including razor wire fences, to secure the border. We do it in part because the Biden Administration is refusing to enforce immigration laws already on the books and is illegally allowing mass parole across America of migrants who entered our country illegally.” Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders deployed 80 Arkansas National Guard soldiers between June 24 through August 5. There could be more going down south in the future. “Governor Sanders supports Governor Abbott’s efforts to secure the southern border and nothing is off the table to assist Texas with their efforts to combat Biden’s failure,” Sanders spokesperson Alexa Henning told Newsweek via email on Thursday. “She will continue to raise concern about the humanitarian and security crisis, human trafficking, and drug trafficking that is affecting every state in the nation due to the Biden administration’s disastrous open border policies.” -Newsweek Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt, one of the 25 who signed the letter, told Newsmax on Thursday: “I mean right now you’ve got the federal agents who are cutting the wire and then you’ve got the Texas National Guard on orders to put up wire, this is a powder keg worth of tension. It’s a very weird situation, we certainly stand with Texas on the right to defend themselves.”

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This article was originally published by Michael Snyder at The Economic Collapse Blog.  Have you noticed that stories about measles have been popping up in the news a lot lately? At first, I didn’t pay much attention, but then I decided to look into what is going on, and I was quite alarmed by what I found. At one time measles was a disease that was on the verge of being totally defeated, but now it is back with a vengeance. According to the World Health Organization, the number of measles cases in Europe in 2023 was 45 times higher than it was in 2022… There was an “alarming” nearly 45-fold increase in measles cases in Europe last year, the World Health Organization (WHO) says. Health chiefs are warning that cases are still rising and “urgent measures” are needed to prevent further spread. Some 42,200 people were infected in 2023, compared to 941 during the whole of 2022. What could possibly account for an increase of this magnitude? I don’t know, because this isn’t supposed to be able to happen. We are being told that Russia and Kazakhstan each reported approximately 10,000 cases during the first ten months of last year… Russia and Kazakhstan fared the worst, with about 10,000 cases each from January to October last year. In Western Europe, Britain had the most cases with 183. The WHO said there were nearly 21,000 hospitalizations and five measles-related deaths in the January-October period in the 51 countries in its European region. Why is Russia being hit so hard? Could this have anything to do with the war in Ukraine? I don’t know. Of course, cases of measles have been spiking in many other parts of the globe as well. Here in the United States, there have been outbreaks in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Georgia during the past couple of months… Nearly a dozen cases of measles have been reported in Pennsylvania, Virginia and Georgia in recent weeks, according to local health departments. International travel, coupled with declining global vaccination rates, is probably behind this spate of cases, experts say. The Philadelphia Department of Public Health has confirmed at least nine cases of measles over the past month after a person contracted the highly contagious virus outside the United States and exposed a parent and child at a children’s hospital, according to health department spokesperson James Garrow. That exposure then led to a Philadelphia day care outbreak that includes at least five children. Once measles appears in a community, it can spread very rapidly, and that is because it is extremely contagious… But unlike other common viruses, measles is so contagious that up to 90 percent of people who are close to an infected person will become infected if they are not immune to the virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). “It doesn’t have to be cough right in your face,” Stinchfield says. Tiny virus particles can survive in the air for two hours, where they “circulate around and bounce over to this person and that person, and before you know it, you’ve exposed a lot of people,” she says. What’s more, a person infected with measles can spread the virus four days before the most obvious symptom — a telltale rash — appears. Hopefully, this measles scare will turn out to be nothing. But I will be keeping a very close eye on any future developments. Meanwhile, the H5N1 bird flu continues to kill vast numbers of birds and animals all over the planet. In Argentina, it has been spreading rapidly among seals, and almost all of the seal pups that get infected end up dead… Almost 96 percent of Southern elephant seal pups across Argentina born in 2023 have met a tragic end as a highly contagious strain of avian influenza continues to wreak havoc on wildlife. The scale of mortality sparks concerns that the H5N1 strain is now capable of mammal-to-mammal infection. “The sight of elephant seals found dead or dying along the breeding beaches can only be described as apocalyptic,” says Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) health director Chris Walzer. Once there is sustained mammal-to-mammal transmission of H5N1, scientists tell us that it is probably only a matter of time before there is an outbreak among humans. And that is really bad news because H5N1 can have “a greater than 50% death rate” among humans according to the CDC. So we will watch for more reports that H5N1 is spreading among mammals. Earlier today, I found a story about a polar bear in Alaska that just died from the disease… A polar bear has been killed by bird flu as the highly contagious H5N1 virus spreads into the most remote parts of the planet. The death was confirmed in December by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation. “This is the first polar bear case reported, for anywhere,” Dr Bob Gerlach, Alaska’s state veterinarian, told the Alaska Beacon. It was found near Utqiagvik, one of the northernmost communities in Alaska, two years after this latest strain was detected in North America. Needless to say, that is not a good sign. There is one more thing that I wanted to mention before I wrap up this article. Employees at a hospital in Denver have been given a live Ebola vaccine “for preventative measures”… A few medical employees at Denver Health made history Monday as some of the first people to receive the live Ebola vaccine for preventative measures, the hospital said. Ebola is a rare but deadly disease. In 2014, a major outbreak in West Africa led to some cases in the United States. While there are no known outbreaks in the world right now, members of Denver Health’s High Risk Infection Team said they are some of the first to receive the live vaccine as a way to be prepared in the event of a future outbreak. If Ebola is not a threat in North America, why do this? I don’t understand. Over the past few years, there have been some tremendous public health scares, but I believe that what we have seen so far is nothing compared to what is coming. The diseases that are already circulating around the globe will continue to mutate, and it is inevitable that new outbreaks will erupt. In secret labs all over the planet, researchers are experimenting with some of the deadliest diseases ever known to humanity, and in many of those cases, they are actually trying to make those diseases even deadlier. It is way too easy for an accident to happen, and once a bug gets loose it can spread all over the world in the blink of an eye. Our ability to create great “pestilences” has far surpassed our ability to control them, and that represents a very serious existential threat to all of humanity. Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here. About the Author : Michael Snyder’s extremely controversial new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written seven other books that are available on Amazon.com including “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned)  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream, and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  You can connect with Michael on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, and sharing his articles on your own social media accounts is definitely a great help.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

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Is another civil war inevitable? Texas is defying tyrant Joe Biden’s orders and installing more razor wire along the border after declaring the migrant crisis and “invasion.” Texas has invoked the “right” to defend itself. Are we about to witness the federal government vs. Texas over an invasion of illegal immigrants? The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 on Monday in favor of tyrant Joe Biden. The decision was said to “allow” federal agents to remove the razor wire placed on the border by the state of Texas. This is an ongoing dispute with Texas over whether the Border Patrol has the legal authority to cut concertina wire installed by Texas on the banks of the Rio Grande. The day after the ruling, the Department of Homeland Security demanded Texas give it “full access” to the border by January 26th, according to a letter obtained by CNN. Governor Abbott is correct. https://t.co/tyfEhjGWOc — Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz) January 24, 2024 Other smaller ruling classes are taking sides. Oklahoma stands with Texas. https://t.co/67VzVEfEv1 — Governor Kevin Stitt (@GovStitt) January 24, 2024 According to a report by ZeroHedge , the situation in Texas has come to a boiling point at Eagle Pass, where the Texas National Guard has taken control of a local park that illegal immigrants use as a landing zone after crossing the Rio Grande. The state has placed razor wire along miles of the river to block entry to the US – which the Supreme Court just allowed the Biden administration to remove while a legal battle plays out in a lower court. At the White House, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Mr. Biden has the authority to nationalize the Texas National Guard and order them to desist. But he said Mr. Biden has made no such determination. The high court’s ruling was 5-4, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joining the three Democratic appointees in erasing a lower court injunction that had blocked the feds from cutting wire except in emergency cases . –Washington Times Texas is proving that you can disobey your master and rule yourself but those in power in the state still want to be a master over Texans. Ruling classes are going to do one thing: rule. This just shows that if we really wanted to be free, we could all just stand up, refuse to pay the ruling class, and use voluntary action and logical mental processes to remove them from power.

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One of the subjects that seem to get overlooked in the prepping community is that of transportation. Oh, we’re great at talking about our bug out vehicles; but that’s not what I’m talking about. A bug out vehicle has one purpose and one purpose only; that’s to get us from our home, to our survival retreat. After that, we probably won’t be able to get gasoline for it, so it will probably serve as nothing more than storage. But that’s if we’re bugging out. What if we’re bugging in? There are a lot of post-disaster activities that we talk about in the prepping community, like hunting, fishing and cutting firewood, which will require transportation to get there and back again. Not only that, but we’re going to have to bring stuff back with us… heavy stuff… assuming we succeed in our hunting or wood cutting activities. It would be nice if we were all living out in the woods, where transportation wouldn’t be an issue; but the truth of the matter is that most of us don’t. While a few preppers have managed to build or acquire their dream cabin in the woods, most of us just can’t afford that expense. We’re stuck living in town and if we need to go hunting or cutting wood, transportation is going to be an issue. Before you say, “No problem, I can just use the wood from abandoned buildings, as people die off,” remember that pine, the lumber used for construction, burns quickly and doesn’t provide anywhere near as much heat as hardwoods do. So, while you might be able to do that for a while, you’ll find that you’re going to be spending a lot of time cutting wood and tending your fire. If we assume that electrical power is out, as we usually do, then gas stations won’t be open, the refineries that make the gasoline won’t be running and even the oil pumps pulling the petroleum out of the ground will stop pumping. Since gasoline doesn’t store well for a prolonged period of time, using our cars, trucks, SUVs, chainsaws and even lawn mowers will be out of the question within a few months, at most. I had thought of using my riding lawnmower for post-disaster transportation at one time; but it gets worse gas mileage than my cars do. So, what can we do? Horses The basic form of transportation, before automobiles of various sorts took it over, was the horse. Actually, when I say “the horse,” I’m also referring to pones, burros and mules as well. We could even include oxen in that, as most of the wagons pioneers took to go west in the great wagon trains were pulled by oxen. At their peak, there were just over 25 million horses in the United States. Today there are only 7.2 million horses in the US, with about half of those horses being in just ten states. The state with the best horse per human ratio is Wyoming, where there are only 8.43 humans per horse. From there, it just gets worse. Obviously, there aren’t enough horses to go around. Yet horses still remain our best option for post-disaster transportation, if we can afford them. Horses can range anywhere from $100 to $10,000, with horses ridden for recreational purposes (the kind we’re most likely to want) typically being about $3,000. But that’s not the expensive part. The cost of upkeep for that horse runs over $9,000 per year in most states. Unless you have room to board that horse, where you would end up keeping it might end up being far from your home, adding to the labor needed for simple things like feeding the horse and the difficulty of getting that horse to your home after a disaster. But your problems wouldn’t stop, once you got that horse home. While municipal laws limiting the keeping of livestock probably wouldn’t be enforced all that well, there’s the problem of finding feed for the horse. An average-sized horse will eat about 20 pounds of food a day. While they can eat grass, they also need grains to provide them with sufficient energy. Unless you have land, it will be hard to come up with that much feed for the horse. Even so, horses are the best option. But there are a number of obstacles to overcome. Donkeys Donkeys have a history of being both stubborn and strong. Like horses, they have been domesticated for centuries and used as both riding and draft animals. From a survival viewpoint, they might actually be a better option, as they are less expensive to acquire and eat less. Prices for standard donkeys range from $300 to $2,000, making them much more affordable. They only eat about 5 to 8 pounds of food per day, largely straw or hay. Grazing is possible; but they would need to be given vitamins and minerals if they were living off a grass diet. Donkeys can be ridden by horses, but the weight of the rider has to be taken into consideration. The heavier you are, the less likely it is that you can ride a donkey. Fortunately for the donkeys, they are smart enough not to carry more than they safely can handle. Most will just lay down, if the load placed on their back (including a person) is too much for them. But where the donkey is really useful is as a beast of burden; either carrying about 130 pounds on their back or pulling a cart that’s loaded with double their body weight. That would work out well for those forays to go hunting or cut firewood. Other “Draft Animals” The term “draft animals” refers to any animals which are used to pull a wagon or other load. While the aforementioned horses, mules, donkeys and oxen are what we think of, when we talk about draft animals. But other animals have been used as draft animals, by various different groups, throughout history. We’ve all heard of Santa Clause using reindeer to pull his sleigh, haven’t we? Actually, reindeer are the only species of deer which have been fairly widely domesticated. They have been used as draft animals, as well as farmed for their meat. This is not to say that we could use other deer that way. It would take several years of breeding to domesticate deer enough that we could train them as draft animals. However, there are many other animals which are already domesticated and which have been used as draft animals at one time or another. Most specifically, dogs and goats have both been used in this regard, by various different cultures. While these smaller animals don’t have the strength that horses and donkeys do, they can still be trained to pull carts, working in teams. A team of dogs or goats could therefore be used to bring a small load of firewood back to your home. Bicycles The most readily available form of transportation we will likely have available to us, in a post-disaster world, is the bicycle. Many of us already have bicycles in our homes… or at least our children do. While we tend to think of the bicycle as a toy, there are countries where they have been used as a primary means of transportation. Why couldn’t we so the same? The ability of a bicycle to carry a load, besides the rider, is limited. At best, you might be able to carry 50 pounds of firewood. There’s just not that much space on a bicycle to carry cargo. You’re actually better off with a trailer, using that to carry the cargo and the bike to pull it. I’ve seen some nice homemade bike trailers through the years; but if you’re not into doing another project, you can find one of the trailers for kids to ride in. That would be lightweight and yet still carry a fair load of wood. Granted, riding a bicycle, with a load is a lot of work; but there are things that can be done to make that work a bit easier; beside exercise that is. One thing is to make sure the gearing of the bike is set up for power at lower speeds, rather than speed. Another is to make sure the trailer is as light and free-wheeling as possible. You don’t need any extra drag. Even so, be sure to test just how much weight you can manage to pull with your bicycle, before the time comes where you have to. Push Carts When all else fails, there’s human power to haul your load. That would mean having some sort of wagon or push cart that you could use; something sturdy enough to carry the weight, while not being so heavy itself that it would make your work harder. If I were to build something like that, I’d use aluminum, rather than steel, just to keep the weight down. I’d also make sure there’s as little friction in the wheel hubs as possible, with wheels that are big enough to handle crossing rough country.

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This article was originally published by Conner O’Keeffe at The Mises Institute.  The situation in the Middle East is growing more and more dangerous for the Americans stationed there. Two Navy SEALs are dead after being lost at sea off the coast of Somalia while searching a boat that was allegedly carrying weapons bound for Yemen. And many US troops have suffered concussions and other brain injuries in rocket attacks in Iraq and Syria. President Joe Biden and his advisors are reportedly convinced that it is only a matter of time before US troops are killed directly. The Biden administration also suggests American deaths will give them no choice but to carry out direct attacks against Iran—the exact approach Biden himself has admitted isn’t working against Yemen. But the danger is greater than Biden is letting on. In 1996, the Israeli government conducted a military operation across its northern border in Lebanon. The campaign, called Operation Grapes of Wrath, aimed to defeat the militant group Hezbollah. The Israeli strategy will sound familiar to anyone who has been following the war in Gaza. The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) dropped leaflets warning the people of numerous south Lebanese villages to evacuate by the following afternoon. Shortly after the deadline, Israel began shelling and bombing homes, ambulances, and all other sorts of civilian infrastructure within the villages. The shelling was met with international criticism, to which the Israeli spokesperson responded, “We gave the residents advance warning to clear out so as not to get hurt. All those who remain there, do so at their own risk because we assume they’re connected with Hezbollah.” But that excuse was later revealed to be a lie. The IDF was deliberately striking civilian targets in an attempt to “cause a flow of civilians north, toward Beirut [the capital], thus applying pressure on Syria and Lebanon to restrain Hezbollah,” in the words of the Israeli Air Force. That strategy was upended on April 18, 1996, when Israeli forces shelled a United Nations facility outside of the village of Qana that was full of local civilians. The optics of a direct strike on women and children sheltering from the violence was too much. Israel entered into talks and, a week later, agreed to a ceasefire. In the end, 154 Lebanese civilians were dead and 351 were wounded. About two thousand miles away in Germany, a graduate student from Egypt watched the carnage closely. Days after the Qana strikes, twenty-seven-year-old Muhammad Atta signed “his last will and testament” to symbolize, in the words of Scott Horton, “his willingness to die in the fight against those he blamed for the war.” And who did he blame? The United States. Atta and his peers, later known as the Hamburg cell, were convinced that Grapes of Wrath would never have happened without all the money and equipment supplied by the US government. The following year, Atta and his best friend traveled to Afghanistan to volunteer their services to Osama bin Laden. As Horton reflects, “Their potential must have been obvious to al Qaeda; upper-middle-class graduate students studying engineering in Germany would have easy access to the United States.” Four years later, Muhammad Atta led the team of hijackers that killed almost three thousand Americans on September 11, 2001. He personally flew the first plane into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Now, over twenty years later, militants in Yemen, Iraq, and Syria have already demonstrated that they, too, blame the United States for the manner in which Israel is waging its war in Gaza. And because the level of civilian death is so much higher in this war—with almost ten thousand children killed so far—that ought to worry us. When libertarians say what’s happening in the Middle East is not our war or that our involvement goes against America’s interest, it’s not that we’re complaining that there isn’t much to gain. It’s because we recognize how much the American people have to lose.

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This article was originally published by Tyler Durden at ZeroHedge.  “The shortage [of manpower] is palpable,” Ukraine’s military top spy chief, Lieutenant General Kyrylo Budanov, told  Financial Times  in a new interview, describing the most pressing situation facing the country after nearly two years of war. He warned that  “it is not even conceivable to think that we can do without mobilization”  — which reflects the consensus of the military’s leadership, and strongly points to staggering losses by the Ukrainian side, though an official running casualty count has never been revealed. Russia has also likely suffered immense losses, but can tap into much greater manpower and artillery, which is also allegedly being supplied from such nefarious actors as North Korea. As part of its report, FT has reviewed that Zelensky recently revealed that his army chiefs requested him “to  mobilize about 400,000 to 500,000 new soldiers  to replace those killed or wounded, and to rest those involved in the most intense fighting.” Still, Budanov tried to paint an optimistic picture at a moment when even mainstream US press has lamented the current state of the war as a total failure and disaster for Ukraine: Ukrainian troops never managed to decisively breach Russia’s heavily fortified defences: the frontline remains almost the same as it looked a year ago. But Budanov maintains he was not wrong . “Although the original plans suggested something different, we kept our promise. This summer, our units repeatedly entered Crimea,” he said, referring to his commandos sneaking on to the peninsula to carry out raids on Russian bases. Not only have Ukrainian operatives done brief but ineffective raids into Crimea, but the last several weeks have seen stepped-up cross-border drone and rocket attacks against Russian border regions, particularly targeting Belgorod city, resulting in dozens of casualties over months of sporadic waves of strikes. Many war analysts have looked upon these attacks on Russian territory as  a sign of increasing desperation . The Ukrainian strikes have been focused on civilian areas of Belgorod, and have little or no strategic value, but is more an act of ‘revenge’ and perhaps part of seeking to impose a “cost” on the Russian population in hopes of pressuring the Putin government. Kiev has been mulling a new mass mobilization since at least December, when media reports first cited Zelensky as saying,  “This is a serious number,”  while explaining further that he has to look at more arguments to support this direction.” He added at the time, “I need concrete information on what will (then) happen with the one-million military of Ukraine,” according to  The Kyiv Independent . Any new mass mobilization is likely to be met with fierce pushback among the population and some government officials. Already there have been signs of fracture within the government over what to do as it’s increasingly clear Ukrainian forces are ‘losing’ – especially in manpower, arms, and ammo. Zelensky’s security services and military recruiters have also been accused of abusing their power under martial law, also amid allegations of corruption, with  The New York Times  having previously whisking them to recruiting centers using intimidation and even physical force .” There have even been reports of men with  diagnosed mental disabilities being subjected to attempted drafts . Currently, men ages 18-60 may be mobilized and still have no right to leave Ukraine, per the stipulations under martial law. “If you are of mobilization age, you should be in Ukraine” – Zelensky “This is a fact. And then you will fight or not fight. You will work. You cannot rest. You either work or fight,” said the President of Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/SYQEcnlc6o — The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) January 17, 2024 FT has underscored that Ukraine’s prospects look bleak at the start of this new year: Finally returning to the subject of the war, Budanov declined to make any bold predictions for 2024. “No,” he said . “I hope that our success will be greater than theirs.” Then he slipped out of the darkened room. Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces have continued their desperate tactics while the frontlines have not moved and Russia solidifies its hold over the Donbas. On Sunday, at least 27 people were killed after Ukrainian forces heavily shelled a market on the outskirts of the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk . “As a result of Ukraine’s artillery shelling attack on the Tekstilshchik district, 27 civilians have died. Twenty-five more, including two teenagers, received various wounds,” announced Denis Pushilin, head of the Donetsk People’s Republic.

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This article was originally published by Ryan McMacken at The Mises Institute.  Spreading civilization and human rights has long been used as an excuse for state-building through colonialism and imperialism. This idea dates back at least to early Spanish and colonial efforts in the New World, and the rationale was initially employed as just one of many. The importance of the conquest-spreads-civilization claim increased, however, as liberalism gained ground in Europe in the nineteenth century. Liberals were more skeptical of the benefits of imperialism, so, as political scientist Lea Ypi notes: “During the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, the purpose of colonial rule was declared to be the ‘civilizing mission’ of the West to educate barbarian peoples .” The residents of these colonies were deemed to be “unsuited to setting up or administering a commonwealth both legitimate and ordered in human and civil terms.” The implied conclusion was that it was necessary that the European rules “take over [the natives’] administration, and set up new officers and governors on their behalf, or even give them new masters, so long as this could be proved to be in their interest.”1 That last caveat would become important to late colonial rationales: colonial rule was said to be in the interests of the natives themselves, who were incapable of proper and legitimate self-government. The British adopted these Spanish notions as their own in later centuries, and by the nineteenth century, we find John Stuart Mill claiming that “barbarians” were incapable of administering a respectable legal regime, and thus “nations which are still barbarous have not got beyond the period during which it is likely to be for their benefit that they should be conquered and held in subjection by foreigners.”2 The old empires have largely disappeared but this thinking has certainly not disappeared. Today, the same thinking takes the form of support for humanitarian intervention both internationally and domestically. Just as the traditional imperialists assumed the residents of the colonies were too “backward” to be capable of enlightened self-government, modern internationalists and progressives assume that the old colonial metropoles still must serve as enforcers of human rights across the globe. Moreover, at the domestic level, the same rationale is employed to oppose decentralization or secession for separatist groups. The old imperialist mentality still prevails: self-determination and political independence must be opposed in the name of protecting human rights. The “Civilizing Mission” of Empire By the early twentieth century, the idea of the civilizing mission became a dominant mode of thinking for imperialists. The British imagined they were civilizing the backward Catholic Irish. The Russian colonizers in Siberia saw themselves as the “benevolent civilizer[s] of Asia.” British colonies in Africa and Asia were cast as outposts of civilized European culture in a sea of primitives. The Americans, not content with their own civilizing mission in North America, did the same in Puerto Rico where American reformers sought to replace Puerto Rico’s “backward” and “patriarchal” culture with a “‘rational’ North American one.”3 In Algeria, the ultimate goal was to bring the blessings of French culture and government to all Algerians via government schools. The locals who embraced French culture were labeled the évolués—literally, the “evolved ones.” Among the imperial powers, rule by the metropole’s central state became intimately intertwined with what the elites saw as humanitarianism. Imperialists warned that without the metropole’s oversight, residents of the colonies would slaughter each other, or be constantly at war. Imperialists thus cast themselves as instruments of peace and safety for vulnerable minority populations. Ann Laura Stoler describes how, “appeals regarding moral uplift, compassionate charity, appreciation of cultural diversity, and protection” of women and children from aggressive men “were woven into the very weft of empire. —[they were] how control over …markets, land, and labor were justified…”4 Alleged humanitarian efforts thus often consisted of the imperial powers protecting the colonized populations from themselves. Alan Lester and Fae Dussart note: “Appeals for the protection of indigenous peoples against white and even British men … were also intrinsic to the legitimation of Britain’s governance of newly colonized spaces.”5 Imperialists developed informal litmus tests designed to “prove” that various groups of barbarians were ripe for colonization.  Many imperialists insisted that the metropole must take control in areas where the local governments are not legitimate states.  Legitimate states, not surprisingly, are only those states that meet various criteria determined by the metropoles themselves. As Ypi puts it, the “legitimate-state theory” rests on the idea that the claim to political independence “is conditional upon the satisfaction of a number of internal and external conditions.”6 Depending on the time and place that the theory is invoked, these conditions include “the ability to guarantee the rule of law, to protect basic human rights, and to provide sufficient opportunities for citizens’ democratic participation”7 among others. If the locals don’t implement this “particular way of delivering justice,” then “agents who fail in that task could arguably be colonized.”8 Certainly, any colony that could not demonstrate it would do all this on its own must naturally  continue to be colonized  indefinitely. The ruling imperialists often suggested that true sovereignty to various colonies would be granted  some day.   Which  day—and under what conditions—was never specified. (For an example, we can look to the idea of “trusteeship” for the Indian tribes in the United States.) Neo-Colonialism and  The “Responsibility to Protect” Neo-Colonialism and The “Responsibility to Protect”
This impulse to impose proper enlightened values on retrograde local populations has never gone away. It lives on in the modern concept of the “responsibility to protect” (R2P), a decades-old concept, which was endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly in 2005. This doctrine states that the “international community”—vaguely defined—has the responsibility to intervene in any country where there are human rights abuses such as “war crimes” or “crimes against humanity.” What exactly qualify as crimes against humanity? That is to be decided by the “international community,” which is practice means the United States and its allies. The metropole-colony relationship still exists. Except now, it is all much less formal. The de facto metropoles are the elites in Washington, London, Brussels, etc. The de facto colonies are the “homophobic” African countries like Uganda, the “rogue states” like Syria, and any state too small and weak to assert its own independence in the face of the next Western “humanitarian” intervention. Having familiarized themselves with imperial propaganda, many historians and critics of colonialism have long viewed R2P with suspicion. They recognize humanitarian intervention under R2P is simply the latest manifestation of the “civilizing mission.” Or, as Siddharth Mallavarapu notes, the lack of specifics and restraining language in R2P resolutions means that R2P advocates have “been rather unsuccessful in assuaging deeper and well-founded historical suspicions, especially among decolonized states, about the motivations of major Western powers in the international system.” The suspicion is “well-founded” because in practice R2P provides a justification for major powers to ignore local sovereignty. R2P was used to justify the 2012 NATO war against Libya (which was really just an excuse for expanding European geopolitical influence in the region). This “humanitarian” intervention was strenuously opposed by the BRICS countries and by much of the Global South where anti-colonial activists denounced NATO’s interpretation of R2P as “a return to old imperial mode[s] of domination.”9 These critics of R2P have (correctly) observed that, in practice, R2P is likely to be used as a means of justifying intervention by Western powers into the domestic affairs of postcolonial states. For example, we could note that the US’s long military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan could easily be justified under the R2P doctrine. Moreover, in practice, the provisions of R2P are employed selectively to expand the prerogatives of the most powerful states. This is done with little regard for the disastrous side effects that generally accompany “humanitarian” bombing campaigns and other military interventions. [Read More: “Humanitarian Interventions Are Killing National Sovereignty — And That’s a Bad Thing” by Ryan McMaken] The fact that modern humanitarian interventions often end in bloodbaths and poverty for the local populations is simply the continuation of traditional colonialism. When we add up the human cost of the Scramble for Africa, American westward expansion, the Russian conquest of Siberia, the French annexation of Algeria, and the long march of the British empire, it is hardly self-evident that this was all “worth it” to bring enlightenment to the provincials. Indeed, many classical liberals—such as the great Richard Cobden—have long denied that such policies were  ever  worth it. Ludwig von Mises was a typical liberal in this regard when he wrote in the 1920s: No chapter of history is steeped further in blood than the history of colonialism. Blood was shed uselessly and senselessly. Flourishing lands were laid waste; whole peoples destroyed and exterminated. All this can in no way be extenuated or justified. The dominion of Europeans in Africa and in important parts of Asia is absolute. It stands in the sharpest contrast to all the principles of liberalism and democracy, and there can be no doubt that we must strive for its abolition. It is also notable that Mises wasn’t fooled by the claim that the imperialists are spreading peace and civilization. Mises writes: Attempts have been made to extenuate and gloss over the true motive of colonial policy with the excuse that its sole object was to make it possible for primitive peoples to share in the blessings of European civilization. . . . Could there be a more doleful proof of the sterility of European civilization than that it can be spread by no other means than fire and sword? The humanitarian excuse for increasing regime power over retrograde locals has domestic applications as well. In the United States, we often see the humanitarian excuse applied to deny self-determination to state and local governments. We are often told that only the central government in Washington is qualified to make final rulings—via the Supreme Court—as to what constitutes the “correct” interpretation of human rights. Local interpretations are considered suspect, and null and void if in conflict with the value of the metropole. (A British imperialist would understand this reasoning well.) Humanitarianism is similarly invoked whenever secession is mentioned. Secession cannot be tolerated, many anti-secessionists tell us, because we have the Supreme Court and the White House to impose “humanitarian” and enlightened rule in all parts of the country. Those state legislatures or city councils who choose not to rule in line with the rulings of the Washington elite have rendered themselves threats to human rights, and thus have given up their right to self-government. In other words, the modern anti-secessionist view frequently amounts to little more than an application of the “legitimate-state theory” to domestic state-building. A similar trend is at work in the nascent state of the European Union where the central bureaucracy threatens and lectures the member states of Hungary and Poland about being insufficiently progressive and “democratic.” The state-builders and centralizers will insist that this is all necessary to protect human rights in Europe. The cynics, however, would point out that it is probably not a coincidence that humanitarianism always seems to “require” more centralized state power and less self-determination for the locals. The cynics might suspect that the  real  goal all along was to increase the size, scope, and power of the states that are forever invoking human rights as an excuse to intervene.  There are, no doubt, some true believers out there who really believe that the de facto metropoles of the world are nearly always enlightened and progressive, while the natives of the de facto colonies are backward and reactionary. But, on the whole, the cynics are probably right.

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Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of the Russian state-controlled media organization Russia Today (RT), commented during a state TV broadcast that World War 3 is going to break out in the Middle East. Simonyan further claimed that the third global war will stem from the Israel-Hamas war and that this will distract the world from Russia’s ongoing conflict in Ukraine. She spoke alongside host Vladimir Solovyov, one of the most prominent figures in Kremlin-backed media, according to a report by Newsweek.  “Margarita Simonyan predicted that WWIII would soon start in the Middle East and expressed her hope that it would distract the West from Russia,” The Daily Beast’s Julia Davis wrote on Sunday in a post on X, formerly Twitter, alongside the video. “Meanwhile in Russia: Vladimir Solovyov claimed that ‘Satanic NATO’ started the war when it attacked Russia.” “Will there be a World War 3? I think that World War 3 will certainly happen! There’s bad news and good news about this,” Simonyan, a loyal ally of Putin, began. “The bad news is that it will happen without fail and in our lifetime. As long as a brick doesn’t fall on our head tomorrow, it will happen in the near future.” “The good news is that we won’t participate in it,” said Simonyan, adding that Russia “will be observing from the sidelines.” “A world war will definitely break out and it will break out in the Middle East. It will fire up for sure, there’s no way around it,” the Kremlin propagandist continued. “However tragic it is that there’ll be a war and casualties, the good news in it for us is that Western powers will be distracted with that, and even though they won’t completely leave us alone, they will kind of forget about us.” This is not the first time Simonyan claimed that the Israel-Hamas war would lead to World War 3. Last October, she said on state TV that the United States and the United Kingdom were “leaving Ukraine” and now have “no more time for Ukraine” amid the Israel-Hamas war because “the world is on the brink of World War 3.”

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This article was originally published by Ethan Huff at Natural News.  We are officially entering year four of the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) “pandemic,” and year three of Operation Warp Speed. Tens of millions of people are now sick or dead due to getting “vaccinated,” and below is a quick summary of the evidence that has been gathered thus far exposing the sham known as COVID “vaccination:” 1) Doctors don’t rely on science in prescribing COVID jabs; they are told to simply trust the FDA and CDC Since every last trace of post-marketing safety data on COVID jabs is being kept under lock and key, America’s physicians cannot even access it to determine whether or not the shots are safe for their patients. As such, doctors have no choice but to “trust the science” and do what they are told. “They are essentially told: ‘Do what we tell you to do, do not question authority or we will take away your license,’” writes investigator Steve Kirsch about the matter. 2) CDC can’t conduct post-marketing safety assessment because data is hidden Not only doctors but also the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is having to take wild guesses in the dark about COVID jab safety because it, too, does not have access to any of the data because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will not provide it from the manufacturer. “The CDC could ask states for vaccination records tied to death records, but they don’t want to even ask because if they did a safety analysis, it could be discovered in a FOIA request,” Kirsch says. “The CDC basically has no interest whatsoever in verifying what the actual safety data is. When I offered to show them the NZ data before I published it (so they would finally have record-level data), they declined to look at it.” 3) Health authorities patently refuse to release anonymized record-level patient data for independent researchers to analyze Even local public health authorities are being denied access to pertinent data about COVID jabs that would allow them to conduct a proper assessment of it in accordance with the law. 4) Medical community showing no interest in data transparency The establishment continues to get away with hiding the truth about COVID jabs because the medical community is doing absolutely nothing to force its hand in calling for full data transparency. “Time-series cohort analyses can be easily produced by health authorities and published for everyone to see,” Kirsch writes. “These would show safety signals and do not jeopardize patient privacy. These are always kept hidden.” (Related: Back in December, a genomics scientist lost $200,000 worth of research after the government of New Zealand obtained an injunction to block the sharing of leaked COVID injection health data.) 5) Reasonable requests made to health authorities receive no response Whenever someone tries to ask for relevant data on COVID jabs, public health authorities almost uniformly ignore or deny such requests. 6) U.S. Medicare data clearly shows increased mortality due to COVID jabs One thing we do know is that excess deaths noticeably increased all around the world after the launch of Operation Warp Speed. U.S. Medicare data clearly shows this, and yet public health authorities remain in denial about it. 7) Independent studies show as many as one death per 800 shots Despite government claims that COVID injections are “safe and effective,” independent research such as the kind compiled by researcher Denis Rancourt found that, on average, one person dies for every 800 injections given. 8) Hundreds of thousands of Americans have died from COVID jabs Try as they might to hide the truth, survey data clearly shows that upwards of hundreds of thousands of Americans have died from COVID injections, which is comparable to the number of people who supposedly died from the “virus.” The latest news about the fallout from Operation Warp Speed can be found at Genocide.news.

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This article was originally published by Michael Snyder at The Economic Collapse Blog.  Are you convinced that we are headed for societal collapse? If so, you are definitely not alone. Survey after survey has shown that faith in all of our major institutions is dropping, and there is a growing consensus that very challenging times are ahead of us. Here in 2024, we will be facing the most chaotic election season in our entire history, multiple wars are erupting all over the planet, economic problems are rapidly growing, destructive natural disasters are becoming more frequent, global authorities are warning us to brace ourselves for the next pandemic, and our cities are being absolutely overwhelmed by endless waves of new migrants. The stage is set for a societal implosion of epic proportions, and many Americans are feverishly preparing for a coming collapse that they believe is inevitable. For a long time, many people had faith that the government would be able to keep society stable, but now that has changed. In fact, one recent survey discovered that a whopping 71.2 percent of all Americans “have no faith in the U.S. government to save them or prevent a doomsday event”… According to a survey of 6,200 Americans conducted by BonusFinder.com, 71.2 percent of Americans say they have no faith in the U.S. government to save them or prevent a doomsday event. Even more unnerving, many respondents believe Doomsday could come within the next year. If you actually believe that the government will be there to rescue you when things really start hitting the fan, you are just being delusional. If it was equally divided up among the entire population, the emergency supplies that the government has on hand would last less than a day. Many Americans are realizing that they will be forced to rely on themselves as society collapses, and so an increasing percentage of the population is spending significant money on emergency preparedness… Last April, the financial-services firm Finder found that the number of Americans who said they’d recently spent money on emergency preparedness jumped from 20% in 2020 to 29% in 2023. They spent an average of $150 on items such as nonperishable food, medical supplies, and cases of water. Today you can’t turn on a streaming platform without catching recommendations for popular survivalist reality shows such as “Alone” or “Naked and Afraid,” and on social media, homesteading and disaster-prepping influencers have amassed millions of followers across various platforms. Disaster preparedness is on the rise, in large part, because disasters are as well: from the supply-chain shortages caused by COVID-19 lockdowns to the climate crisis, from wars in Ukraine and Gaza to tech-driven loneliness, from runaway disinformation to intractable political polarization. More people are asking: Am I better off being hyperdependent on the global industrial economy? Would it be safer to grow my own food, store my own water, and not depend on complex systems I don’t understand? I am glad that more people are waking up and getting prepared. But spending a couple hundred dollars on some emergency preparedness items simply is not going to be enough to survive what is eventually coming. In Missouri, one woman named Rowan MacKenzie has literally spent $90,000 to prepare her family for what she believes is ahead of us… A woman who has built a doomsday bunker says the door will remain closed to anyone outside her home, including family. Rowan MacKenzie, from Missouri, who became a social media phenomenon after revealing she’s been prepping her home for 12 years, believes it’s necessary to prepare for the end of the world. She previously hit the headlines after revealing she spent over $90,000 on her hidden bunker stockpile. The 38-year-old began stocking up her cupboards 13 years ago and initially, bought lifelong essentials, such as beans and rice, which she taught herself to preserve through trial and error. Do you agree with her approach? When things get really bad, will you shut your door to those who are requesting help? Of course there are many that will just try to take whatever they need. Crime rates are already spiking all over the nation, and violent predators are seemingly everywhere. Earlier this week, Zero Hedge posted an excellent article about the vast hordes of psychopaths that are coming out of the woodwork these days… Discussions on collapse often turn to signs and signals – The economy, politics and social tensions have become increasingly unstable for many years now, and much like adding more and more weight to a man standing on a frozen lake, eventually the ice is going to break. The question is, how do we know when that moment will be? As cultural systems begins to dissolve due to political clashes and economic decline the real evil tends to slither out of the woodwork. It happens slowly at first, then all at once. A sure sign of accelerating collapse is the growing prevalence of psychopaths and psychopathic behavior in the open. The US appears to have entered the middle stages of such a collapse with many sociopaths and psychopaths beginning to feel that they might be able to act out their worst impulses without consequences. They are beginning to test the waters to see what they can get away with. Those paragraphs really resonated with me, because they are so true. I am sure that you have noticed the same thing. Evil is literally growing all around us, and the inmates are taking over the asylum. And I am entirely convinced that 2024 is going to be a historic turning point. Are you ready for the tremendous chaos that is coming? If you have not figured out where you want to be located during the chaotic years that are ahead, that is the first thing that you need to do. Once you have settled on a location, then you need to store up enough food and supplies for yourself and for everyone who will be depending upon you for as long as you plan to stay alive. Of course, you will also need to determine how you will protect all of your food and supplies as well. This is not a game. The collapse of society really is coming, and most of the population will find themselves completely and utterly unprepared when it finally happens. Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here. About the Author : Michael Snyder’s highly controversial new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written seven other books that are available on Amazon.com including “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned)  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream, and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  You can connect with Michael on social media on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, and sharing his articles on your own social media accounts is definitely a great help.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

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