The title of today’s post is not meant to be taken literally. I trust plenty of people. I trust friends who’ve demonstrated their trustworthiness over the years. I trust my family. Having people in my life I love and trust makes everything far more meaningful and pleasant. I hope people reading this likewise have a circle of trust they’ve built over the years.
On the other hand, you should never trust anyone or anything that hasn’t given you good reason to do so, and if someone or something gives you good reason not to trust them, you should never forget that. The more power a person or institution has in society, the less trustworthy they tend to be. I don’t say this because it’s fun to be cynical, I say this because my life experience has demonstrated its accuracy.
In the 21st century alone, I’ve been given good reason to distrust all sorts of things around me, including the U.S. government (all governments really), intelligence agencies, politicians, mass media, Wall Street and Silicon Valley, to name a few. These power centers make up “society” as we know it in 2020, which is really just massive concentrations of lawless financial and political power obfuscating rampant criminality behind the cover of various ostensibly venerable institutions. What’s most remarkable is how many people still maintain trust in so many of these provably untrustworthy organizations and industries, which speaks to the power of propaganda as well as the comfort of denial.
That said, the ground is clearly beginning to shift on this front. As more and more people recognize that the system’s designed to work against them, increased numbers will reject conventional wisdom and search for an alternative framework. Unfortunately, this next step can be equally treacherous and it’s important not to jump from the frying pan into the fire.
This is where social media comes into play. It offers an endless array of opinions and analysis that you don’t get from mass media, but it’s also filled with bad actors, professional propagandists and con artists. At this point, everyone knows that social media is the new information battleground, so every character or institution with malicious intent is aggressively playing in this arena and often with boatloads of money. The charlatans at MSNBC will have you believe it’s just the Russians or Chinese, but every government and every single special interest on the planet is now involved. They’re all on social media in one form or another, trying to push you in a specific direction that’s usually not in your best interests.
It took me a while, but I’ve finally recognized how unthoughtful and treacherous social media is whenever some big news event hits. Important arguments quickly lose all nuance and devolve into binary talking points and agendas. People split into teams in a way that feels very much akin to the traditional, and now largely discredited, red/blue political theater. For covid-19, it felt like half of Twitter thought it was an extinction-level event, while the other half was convinced the whole thing was a hoax. In the aftermath of George Floyd, you were either cheering on the civil unrest, or wanted to send in the military. Increasingly, if you aren’t in one of two manufactured camps on any issue you’ll be shouted down and ostracized. That’s not the kind of discussion I’m here for.
As someone who’s found great value in Twitter over the years, I’ve become far more careful in how I use it and where to direct my attention and energy. It reminds me of Mos Eisley in Star Wars, a wretched hive of scum and villainy, but simultaneously a place you can connect with Han Solo and get a spaceship.
As we move forward, it’s going to feel like the world’s ending, and in some ways it will be. No the world isn’t literally ending, but a specific kind of world is ending, and it’ll be extremely difficult for many people to tell the difference as it’s happening. This will likely lead to many more episodes of mass insanity as professional manipulators take advantage of millions upon millions of disoriented people. Priority number one should be to stand guard at the gate of your mind during this time so as not to become a victim.
We live in an age of mass corruption, mass oligarch looting and mass institutional and structural breakdown.
We also live in an age of mass manipulation, mass hysteria and mass psychological warfare.
Navigating through these two realities will become increasingly difficult.
— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) June 12, 2020
The best thing you can do from here on out is use your time and energy as productively as possible. We’re going to need builders, creators and inventors more than ever before, because we’re past the point of putting this thing back together. We’ll need to recreate, reimagine and rebuild, and all of this must spring from a point of consciousness in order to bring forth something that is both better and sustainable. Become more beautiful and resilient as others become ugly and unhinged. Focus on what’s within your capacity to control and always remember to resist the crazy.
Liberty Blitzkrieg is an ad-free website. If you enjoyed this post and my work in general, visit the Support Page where you can donate and contribute to my efforts.
Donate bitcoins: 35DBUbbAQHTqbDaAc5mAaN6BqwA2AxuE7G
Follow me on Twitter.
Hands down your best piece… perhaps ever. From a 45-year Journalist/Publisher.
??
Yeah, you are right. This one also got my attention to high.
As my favorite ‘futurist’ (actually the finest ‘realist’) said, “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. The change something, built a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” ‘Fighting’ is just what TPTB want us to do, so we won’t get busy building… new models (some of which will incorporate ‘old’, ‘traditional’, foundational, irreducible elements, and new ‘ways’ of ‘being’ in this new world/old world. I.e., ‘storytelling’ has always been the basis of human entertainment and education… and it requires no new technology… but it can use various technologies, in telling the truth, rather than lies. We can find and share the commonalities we have with the ‘not-like-us’ others, before we start enjoying and learning from the differences. We can be busy doing that .. right now! instead of ‘joining’ one of ‘their’ teams. Thatcher’s diabolical TINA is not true.
Well said, Michael, thank you. I often recall Ayn Rand’s phrase “productive achievement” as one of the essentials of a well-lived life.
“My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.”
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/column-this-is-what-happens-when-you-take-ayn-rand-seriously
@Clarence. Typical smear job by the rulers’ propagandists, interesting that they feel threatened enough by Rand’s ideas to produce a hit piece like that.
I wouldn’t trust anything PBS puts out unless I was able to independently verify it through non-propaganda sources.
Thank you Micheal for a thoughtful/insightful essay
I knew a guy that was a son of a son of a son of Geronimo. It is always hard to live in two worlds.
Thank you.
Thank you Michael. It seems like a contradiction to exhort people to “DISENGAGE” but “Get busy”! And yet I agree that is what must happen.
Philosopher for our time of crisis ahead of change is Ortega y Gasset, who
truly was ahead of his time, prophetic as it were. ‘Man And Crisis’ is the
book to read, and ‘Some Lessons in Metaphysics’ for orientation across this
tossed sea of troubles we are currently adrift in or moving through. All of
Ortega’s writings are insightful and orienting.
We’re sort of in the same kind of disorienting crisis the 15th century found
itself in, when the theocentric world no longer felt right and people began
to doubt the view of the world. It wouldn’t be until Descartes’ ‘Dubito, ergo
cogito, ergo sum’ till a new way of seeing the world, and thus a new world
emerged. We are there again; Modernity and pure reason has failed to
resolve human problems; we are in crisis, and awaiting a historical generation with a new idea, a new way of seeing the world, leading into
a new Carsonian epoch in human history. History though, should become
more scientific and dialectical to be reliable, pointing a way forward, and
less propagandistic — also like journalism — less problematic, by which to
orient ourselves. The first metaphysical need is orientation in reality.
Excellent
The only real question I have is where will the standard of living time dial reset itself? 1900s? 1800s? 1700s? We, the overconsuming, and they the underconsuming will meet somewhere. As the resources continue to dwindle, the demand for those resources will continue to skyrocket. So far, looks to me like high tech, counted on by optimists everywhere, is the most fragile aspect of our anthropocentric future. Rather than save us, it will kill us.
Maybe we should stop and try to think about where we are headed. From the history we know, I would have to say that we are on a journey to somewhere. The planet is finite according to many. Resources are not infinite. When matter is turned into energy it is done. Energy does not create matter. The earth is being used up. A simple fact is that it will only support so many people. So how many is that? And who should it include?
And most importantly; “For what purpose???”
Then there is the question of Morality. If Darwin is right, where did morality enter into mans thinking? Why did he bother? Especially when he is now trying so hard to do away with it altogether. At least many are. When morality is gone he will be right back where Darwin said he started from.
With man’s ability to REASON, one would think that common sense would have him trying to figure out how to make his life and his world better. Wouldn’t reason tell him that peace is better than conflict?
Wouldn’t reason tell him that greed is his enemy?
Wouldn’t reason tell him that without all of his negative impacts upon it, this magnificent planet would be as close to the paradise he dreams about as it is possible to be?
And Darwin wants us to believe that this planet was just a happy accident?
Is that reasonable?
Like looking into a mirror, looking at what has happened since mankind has been “Enlightened”, how can he like what he see’s. It is not reasonable.
I also encourage people to educate themselves online, but there is a ton of garbage to wade through to get to the good stuff. When people leave the MSM farm and start checking out alternative sources, it’s easy to fall into places where EVERYTHING is a conspiracy, which can be exhausting.
There are two main principles in finding good sites. First, they should know about the Federal Reserve and central bankers. Second, they absolutely should not assign equal weight to bankers and other random topics, since the Fed impacts all of us in our daily lives and will ultimately be our undoing.
I don’t care what opinions people have on the Apollo moon landing, 5G, or fluoridation of water, but if they prefer to yammer on about that stuff more than what Powell and his ilk are doing, they’re not worth your time!
Loyalty can be bought..morality can’t..when loyalty is put above reality it becomes a question of self rationalization..
I believe all the best ideas have already been created and broadcast but are lost in a sea of bad ideas. They merely need to be re-chosen as the best and lifted to prominence.
The single most important idea is private property. That single idea is at the root of all morality, all liberty and all individualism and it is the idea most under attack in our current political/cultural chaos. If private property is not our first concern, then we are doomed.
I agree with you John. The original basic foundation of this nation is good and sufficient, and very workable. It has been corrupted and undermined.
If we can just remove the corruption, and return to what the original basic foundation was, it will work better than trying to create something else new.
Some say that it is hopelessly corrupted, and cannot be corrected, and they may be right, but socialism, communism or any other centrally planned collectivist nightmare are already known to be failures, and not an option.
One thing someone told me, that you really can’t trust churches and pasotrs in the 501c3 churches, many leaders are members of FEMA response teams who will round up their flock into FEMA camps for future execution or slavery. The clergy members will later be executed as their usefullness has ended. Home church or meet in small groups, keeping no records of any kind. America is in the ashes of history, and voting is a sham, by the way, never trust any politician they all lie and deceive. Trump is deep state like all the rest since W.Wilson.No swamp draining or arresting the crooks.
Last night, on RT, Max spoke again of Bastiat. I don’t have time for that. Today I’m thinking about what John Howard said. That was easy to understand, over against cockamamie communist schemes.
I don’t think I’ve ever read your work before. This piece is one of the clearest and most reasonable things I’ve read.
Also, I don’t recall coming across anyone out there who points out what should be recognized as seats of power other than government and their spokesmen in media. What about in education, in religion, in business, in medicine? Occasionally, I have encountered the role of power in families, but almost always in criticism of the role of men (except of gay/trans men), although some of the most destructive abuses of power, other than rape, is done by ‘liberated’ women and gay men.
Everywhere and in all times that can be studied–I don’t consider speculation about prehistoric cultures studying–Lord Acton’s observations about the corrupting tendency of power are upheld, without the aid of telescopes or microscopes. Power absolutely corrupts everyone who tastes it, the more it is used, the more it corrupts.
I certainly agree with Lord Acton’s intent, but I would go further by saying that power IS corruption. Authority = parasite.
Re: Acton, The full quote (and others) is seldom given.
“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still more when you superadd the tendency of the certainty of corruption by authority.”
More from Acton:
“Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.”
“Authority that does not exist for Liberty is not authority but force.”
https://www.acton.org/research/lord-acton-quote-archive
And readers who want to know about the HOW of abusive and illegitimate authority, read Milgram and Zimbardo.
Indeed power unfailingly corrupts
Great post as always. I’m glad I’m not alone in this thinking – we need people to see between the lines and pivot, adjust, change their behaviors to rebuild what’s been broken. I’ve even recently started a blog to help get the word out and provide resources for deeper thinking. Check it out if you have time – http://mindmoneymuscle.com/40-million-unemployed-you-should-be-learning-new-skills/
Best,
Adam
Excellent piece. Best I’ve read in awhile.
Great article and can say the Article of a month. Appreciable content, dude.
Trust your local friends and community.
If I lived in Clay county florida I’d trust their sherrif.
“In the aftermath of George Floyd, you were either cheering on the civil unrest, or wanted to send in the military. Increasingly, if you aren’t in one of two manufactured camps on any issue you’ll be shouted down and ostracized.”
This quote perfectly highlights why I call all of the so-called “liberals” swearing their undying support for BLM, “Guilty dogs barking first and loudest”.
“The white liberal is the worst enemy to America, and the worst enemy to the black man. Let me explain what I mean by the white liberal. In America there is no such thing as Democrat or Republican anymore. In America you have liberals and conservatives. The only people living in the past who think in terms of I’m a Democrat or Republican, is the American Negro. He’s the one that runs around bragging about party affiliation. He’s the one that sticks to the Democrat or sticks to the Republican.
But white people are divided into two groups, liberals and conservative. The Democrats who are conservative, vote with the Republicans who are conservative. The Democrats who are liberal vote with the Republicans that are liberal. The white liberal aren’t white people who are for independence, who are moral and ethical in their thinking. They are just a faction of white people that are jockeying for power. The same as the white conservative is a faction of white people that are jockeying for power. They are fighting each other for power and prestige, and the one that is the football in the game is the Negro, 20 million black people. A political football, a political pawn, an economic football, and economic pawn. A social football, a social pawn.
The liberal elements of whites are those who have perfected the art of selling themselves to the Negro as a friend of the Negro. Getting sympathy of the Negro, getting the allegiance of the Negro, and getting the mind of the Negro. Then the Negro sides with the white liberal, and the white liberal use the Negro against the white conservative. So that anything that the Negro does is never for his own good, never for his own advancement, never for his own progress, he’s only a pawn in the hands of the white liberal.
The worst enemy that the Negro have is this white man that runs around here drooling at the mouth professing to love Negros, and calling himself a liberal, and it is following these white liberals that has perpetuated problems that Negros have. If the Negro wasn’t taken, tricked, or deceived by the white liberal then Negros would get together and solve our own problems.
I only cite these things to show you that in America the history of the white liberal has been nothing but a series of trickery designed to make Negros think that the white liberal was going to solve our problems. Our problems will never be solved by the white man.
The only way that our problem will be solved is when the black man wakes up, clean himself up, stand on his own feet and stop begging the white man, and take immediate steps to do for ourselves the things that we have been waiting on the white man to do for us. Once we do for self then we will be .able to solve our own problems.
The white conservatives aren’t friends of the Negro either, but they at least don’t try to hide it. They are like wolves; they show their teeth in a snarl that keeps the Negro always aware of where he stands with them.
But the white liberals are foxes, who also show their teeth to the Negro but pretend that they are smiling. The white liberals are more dangerous than the conservatives; they lure the Negro, and as the Negro runs from the growling wolf, he flees into the open jaws of the “smiling” fox. One is the wolf, the other is a fox. No matter what, they’ll both eat you.”
― Malcolm X
Today, July 6th, Reuters is reporting a confirmed case of the bubonic plague in Northern China. As the Covid-19 media-driven panic dies down, the bubonic plague – the Black Death – may well become the Swamp’s next attack on our society and economy.