Dr. Robert Malone reported a couple of days ago on a highly credible study on the long-term damage of the mRNA vaccines. Alex Berenson repeats it today. My MIT friend Stephanie Seneff considers it important enough that she wrote immediately about it. Since my Spidey sense had made me suspicious of the injections from the beginning, it doesn't affect us except to the extent that it lends weight to the depopulation argument.
I wrote yesterday about the Chinese dimension. Here is an article about the Russian, which is quite different.
It helps to be a little bit crazy to understand what's going on. I always considered Paul Craig Roberts to be on the edge, but damned if he doesn't see things more clearly than most. Roberts is the one who put me on to Van der Pijl.
Van der Pijl in turn references some sources that seem to be out of keeping with Roberts, such as Foucault, Marx and Gramsci. Van der Pijl writes about the class interests of the oligarchs, the working stiffs, the professional class and the managerial class.
I have always eschewed such classifications, perhaps because I don't understand them with regard to myself. I am highly representative of the class of Vietnam veterans raising young families in former Soviet countries. A class of one.
What motivates the American oligarchs? It is obviously money, but money in an abstract sense. $10 million is enough to last a lifetime. What on earth motivates Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos to increase their vast wealth, especially at the expense of the common man? What motivates the mainstream media to propagate what anybody with an IQ above room temperature can see are false narratives? It cannot be only the paycheck. It must be the approval of everybody else in the same situation – all drinking the same Kool-Aid.
Why the surge of Indian nationals at the heads of large American companies? At last somebody has the temerity to write about it. Indians, by their culture, appear more inclined to conform to whatever is expected of them. I noted this even before I retired a quarter-century ago. The Indian programmers working on H1B visas would do whatever was asked of them without question. Us native born Americans had a harder time doing things that didn't make sense. One needs only look at the dismal quality of the average website, the difficulty one has trying to enter simple information for an online order, to understand that programmers today are not as motivated by pride in their work.
It is a question of culture rather than of lack of ability. Though average measured intelligence in India is not that high, that upper fraction with the resources to emigrate to the United Kingdom and the United States is smarter on average than us descendants of foundational Americans. Let's just say that these Indians are quick studies. They rapidly learn how they have to act to join the American elite, and they do what is expected of them. U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy serves the establishment well.
This has been noted in government. The few honest people elected to government will tell you as much. Ron Paul and Rand Paul stand out because they were not corruptible. The same Paul Craig Roberts writes that he could be a rich man if he had simply learned how to shut up and go with the flow. Gary Hart wrote about the corrupting influences that he experienced as a senator. Joe Biden is a poster boy for corruptability. Janis Varoufakis quotes Larry Summers in "Adults in the Room" as follows:
‘There are two kinds of politicians,’ he said: ‘insiders and outsiders. The outsiders prioritize their freedom to speak their version of the truth. The price of their freedom is that they are ignored by the insiders, who make the important decisions. The insiders, for their part, follow a sacrosanct rule: never turn against other insiders and never talk to outsiders about what insiders say or do. Their reward? Access to inside information and a chance, though no guarantee, of influencing powerful people and outcomes.’ With that Summers arrived at his question. ‘So, Yanis,’ he said, ‘which of the two are you?’
I'm going to go with Van der Pijl and Larry Summers to agree that there is a class interest among the oligarchs. Bill Gates, Al Gore, and Jamie Dimon were born to American royalty. Others like Jeff Bezos, Bill Clinton and Joe Biden have adapted quite well.
What are the other class interests? There is vast commonality among the graduates of the elite universities around the world. They have been steeped in the notions of global warming, the equality of all peoples, the global predation by the evil white man and so on. Whereas half a century ago most newsmen came from the working class, today a university degree is indispensable. Most of them think alike.
The professional/managerial class is peopled with similar pedigrees. An increasing number have climbed the corporate ladder based on people skills more than technical skills. Entrepreneurs such as Sam Walton and even Steve Jobs are relics from a prior era.
People become enmeshed in broader and broader networks as they rise up the corporate ladder. They adopt the coloration of others in the networks. Oligarchs have been successful in building the networks to which these people are invited. That includes the World Economic Forum, the Bilderberg group, the Olympic Committee and so many others. At lower levels it includes boards of trustees, alumni associations and others such. You don't get invited unless your beliefs are compatible with those who are already there. I was out of step with the other trustees on two Episcopal day schools in the Washington DC area on such issues as divestment from South Africa and the definition of diversity. They figured it out quickly and simply left me on the periphery.
There are class interests among the non-elites as well. Labor unions represent the interests of janitors, schoolteachers, truck drivers and government employees. I will say as a former schoolteacher that they certainly do not want to hear dissident points of view. There is strong pressure to conform.
Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, Joe Rogan, Alex Berenson, Dr. Robert Malone, Dr. Peter McCullough and a few others manage to avoid being trapped by the groupthink of whatever institutions they happen to belong to. I would count myself among them, at least in this regard. That may be why you have subscribed to this blog. And like them, on a much smaller scale I am happy to say, I am challenged, rejected, and ridiculed from time to time.
All of this is a preamble to an upcoming review of Van der Pijl's book on flight MH 17, Ukraine and the new Cold War. I am having to accept that I should pay attention when he refers to Foucault, Gramsci and other writers who have in the past simply left me scratching my head. I should figure out what they are trying to say.
My new exercise bicycle started to make funny noises as I pushed it a bit harder yesterday. I thought maybe it was chain slap, so I took it apart. Eddie showed up just as I had the pieces on the floor. He showed intense curiosity and just about pushed me aside so he could take a whack at solving the problem. I remembered an old American Maxim – when all else fails, read the user's guide. It had nothing in it about lubrication or maintenance. What we saw corroborated that lack of instruction – there is no place to put oil, and it has a belt instead of a chain. I wanted to put it back together.
Although Eddie asked if I would pay him to reassemble it, it was obvious that nothing would stop him from pushing me aside. My role was to keep his sisters out of his hair while he did it. The thing works perfectly.
I contrast this with his older brother, who at some point in his late teens squeezed me for $40,000 to take a diesel mechanic course from some for-profit school that lived off of government guaranteed student loans. My observation to that child was that he had consistently resisted learning how to change a tire on his bicycle or adjust the derailleur. He would have to convince me before I would pungle up any money. I am sure he still maligns me as the tightwad who impeded his success in life.
Back to son Eddie, he and Anna assembled a bunk bed in Zoriana's room this morning. Zoriana will sleep up top and Grandma Nadia downstairs. This way Zoriana can have a rubber sheet and learn to sleep without a diaper.
Zoriana and I were 15 minutes early coming to the corner where she catches her ride. Time enough to sing some songs such as "Stop look and listen before you cross the street. Use your eyes and use your ears and then use your feet." Making sure no cars were coming, she scooted across the street and back a couple of times just to exploit her freedom. Then we sang a few more songs and she had me tell her the stories of the Three Little Pigs and Little Red Riding Hood.
That's the news from Lake WeBeGone, where the strong men always have something new to learn and the good-looking women seem to always have something to teach us. The children are different every day. To go with Maurice Chevalier, "Thank heavens for little girls. They grow up in the most delightful ways."