Six giant corporations own almost all the American media. Comcast, Disney, National Amusements, News Corp, Time Warner, Sony. For the largest, Comcast, the top four shareholders are Vanguard, Blackrock, Capital International Investors, and State Street. The top three institutional shareholders of Disney are Vanguard, Blackrock and State Street. The top three institutional owners of At&t (parent company that owns Time Warner) are... you guessed it... Vanguard, Blackrock and State Street. Even News Corp - the home of Fox News - has Vanguard, Blackrock and News Corp as the top 3rd, 4th & 5th institutional owners respectively.
I don't have the time to dig into ownership of other foreign media, but my bet is that we would see similar evidence of consolidated ownership.
Larry Fink, the CEO of Blackroch attends all the WEF conferences and is outspoken in his support for the globalist movement. His letters to the various companies he oversees interests in sends a chill up the spines of CEOs to comply or else. Like all WEF globalists, Fink supports the woke cause because the woke cause support the Great Reset project.
The 80 or so global multi-billionaires have their assets managed by Vanguard, Blackrock and State Street. They too attend the WEF conferences and support the Great Reset project. Just look at how COVID proved to them that with help from some friendly lefty administrators in positions of power they could increase their asset holdings by trillions!
The Trudeaus - related are not - are also all in. These professional looting and mooching administrators without any talents or work ethic to start and grow their own business see the potential pot of gold waiting for them if they please their multi-billionaire benefactors.
This is WW-III. We have been fighting it since Hillary approved the use of the fake dossier.
The term "woke" should be repurposed to apply to people in general that need to wake up to what is happening and why they need to fight this enemy immediately.
This whole situation reminds me of the process of civilizational decline that Tonybee described.
He said that Civilizations rise when creative minorities (meaning a small, highly competent and creative group of individuals -- not minorities in the racial/sexual/etc. sense) are able to respond to difficult challenges that arise such as terraforming tough terrains to get resources, etc. Creative minorities get power naturally from people because their talents and way of conduct inspires people to be just like them and they naturally gain following.
However overtime, civilizations disintegrate when their leaders stopped responding creatively and that which was creative minority has degraded into what he calls "dominant minority". These dominant minorities though don't want to lose power even though they know that they aren't creative minorities so they form what he called a "universal state". It seems that we are in the process of formation of the universal state.
Quoting here:
Tonybee argues that the ultimate sign a civilization has broken down is when the dominant minority forms a "universal state", which stifles political creativity within the existing social order. The classic example of this is the Roman Empire, though many other imperial regimes are cited as examples. Toynbee writes:
"First the Dominant Minority attempts to hold by force—against all right and reason—a position of inherited privilege which it has ceased to merit; and then the Proletariat [common people] repays injustice with resentment, fear with hate, and violence with violence. Yet the whole movement ends in positive acts of creation. The Dominant Minority creates a universal state, the Internal Proletariat [common people within a country] a universal church, and the External Proletariat a bevy of barbarian war-bands [e.g. Mexican cartels and gangs]."
the stuff in [] is my further explanation
Common people respond to this by forming what is called a "universal church", something akin to what Islam was. This unites people, provides guidance .
Quoting:
Toynbee developed his concept of an "internal proletariat" and an "external proletariat" to describe quite different opposition groups within and outside the frontiers of a civilization. These groups, however, find themselves bound to the fate of the civilization. During its decline and disintegration, they are increasingly disenfranchised or alienated, and thus lose their immediate sense of loyalty or of obligation. Nonetheless an "internal proletariat," untrusting of the dominant minority, may form a "universal church" which survives the civilization's demise, co-opting the useful structures such as marriage laws of the earlier time while creating a new philosophical or religious pattern for the next stage of history.
Before the process of disintegration, the dominant minority had held the internal proletariat in subjugation within the confines of the civilization, causing these oppressed to grow bitter. The external proletariat, living outside the civilization in poverty and chaos, grows envious. Then, in the social stress resulting from the failure of the civilization, the bitterness and envy increase markedly.
Toynbee argues that as civilizations decay, there is a "schism" within the society. In this environment of discord, people resort to archaism (idealization of the past), futurism (idealization of the future), detachment (removal of oneself from the realities of a decaying world), and transcendence (meeting the challenges of the decaying civilization with new insight, e.g., by following a new religion). From among members of an "internal proletariat" who transcend the social decay a "church" may arise. Such an association would contain new and stronger spiritual insights, around which a subsequent civilization may begin to form. Toynbee here uses the word "church" in a general sense, e.g., to refer to a collective spiritual bond found in common worship, or the unity found in an agreed social order.
Anyway, it seems that our elites are trying to effectively form a universal state with all the coordination and ever more centralization. We will see what happens.
They may be trying to form a universal state, but it resembles more a church? There are certain ideologies at play that suggests faith and belief rather than pragmatism or creativity.
Ok so I think I can piece this together and explain what Tonybee's ideas would mean in this scenario.
The reason these certain ideologies initially use faith and belief is to ensure loyalty because in order for the elites to centralize enough power to hold onto their positions and form the universal state, they need a good mechanism for loyalty and these ideologies provide plenty of that (and they also need to believe it too for reasons ranging from justifying their position to overall meaning in life and explaining the world). This is more broadly a part of the class war, something Tonybee identified in declining civilizations:
"On the other hand, the horizontal schism of a society along lines of class is not only peculiar to civilizations, but it is also a phenomenon which first appears at the moment of breakdown, and which is a distinctive mark of the phases of breakdown and disintegration, by contrast with its absence during the phase of growth." (The Disintegration Of Civilizations — Chapter 27 The nature and symptoms of social disintegration)
Now, the universal church inherently contains spiritual elements within it and tends to be a product of the internal proletariat within the civilization. The dominant minority produces philosophies/ideologies which can give inspiration to universal states (e.g. Progressivism) but internal proletariat produces the "higher religions" that then coalesce into universal churches (e.g. Jesus-> Early Christianity-> Church which can be dropped into any region and people can built and network there) as the dominant minority no longer cares about providing or protecting the internal proletariat. This is what he says:
". . It appeared that dominant minorities produced philosophies which sometimes gave inspirations to universal states, that internal proletariats produced higher religions which sought to embody themselves in universal churches, and that external proletariats produced heroic ages which were the tragedies of barbarian war-bands." (VII, p. 1)
Now the universal states first unite on the cultural plane with an ideology like the aforementioned Progressivism but without a political union. There can be infighting there (e.g. when Germany and Hungary fight over LGBTQ+ stuff though I think the type of warfare Tonybee talks about is more serious and physical but this tends to happen after serious tims of trouble, maybe if there are things like food shortages + energy shortage + whatever, serious times of trouble will appear that Tonybee alludes to and then we might see inter-state conflict there). Anyway, people in the universal state are basically just a quasi-formless mass of self-interested people that are kept together by an incompetent and corrupt bureaucracy which only want to use each other, while at the same time avoiding any demands or duties and they're now ruled more by superstition of their fears and nonsensical beliefs create:
""..these societies starting as unities on the cultural plane, without being united on the political plane. This régime is favourable to social and cultural progress; but its price is chronic warfare between the local states; ..,after a long drawn out 'time of troubles', is belatedly retrieved by the establishment of a universal state." (Part I 'The Shape Of History': Chapter 7 Hellenic and Chinese models)
Keep in mind that the universal church doesn't have to happen, but it has a tendency to emerge.
Ah. I can see the parallels with ancient Rome. The dominant minority created and maintained the Roman imperium, while as time went on the internal proletariats turned to Christianity and sought to identify themselves through the church rather than the old Roman imperium, meanwhile the external proletariats were the Germanic barbarians bringing the old traditions of heroism.
For the modern equivalent, we have a dominant minority of progressives who now dominate the political and institutional bureaucracies of the Western world (and the EU, even if individual countries are not progressive-minded). We can see how progressivism emerged in the cultural plane and took root in cultural institutions, aka universities and the left presses/arts, and from there were able to spread into the political union. The EU itself gave the perfect framework for the institutional takeover by progressive beliefs.
And we also see strong parallels between the dominant minority abandoning the internal proletariats with the progressives abandoning the traditional white working classes in US, the UK and now in Europe too, in favor of pet causes and protected groups. Even in the US, the progressives' claims to act for the growing Hispanic bloc is weak and insincere.
However, the contemporary missing factor would be the new church that the internal proletariats turn to. The common argument in recent years is that the progressives are setting up the new church, but this is a different perspective. And it's intriguing and worth contemplating.
The universal church may or may not form but its still too early because the universal state hasn't fully formed and we still haven't experienced a true big crisis in the West and the internal proletariat isn't being "oppressed" enough.
Also as far as I'm aware, the universal church if it emerges, will contain spiritual elements and "higher" religious type of stuff and will likely not come from the present dominant minority types but from the internal proletariat. I don't think its progressivism (though the universal church may borrow some elements from it) even though there is religious zeal behind it.
That's a part of the process. In my comments above, I was describing it from Tonybee's perspective because N.S. Lyons' post reminded me of his theories.
Whenever I hear about saving democracy I want to count the spoons. These people- these ruling class apparatchiks- don’t think the people below have the ability- or the right - to decide for themselves what’s true or false.
Oh, of course they believe people below has the ability to decide themselves what is true and false.
That's very much what they fear, because they also know that it's in most people's best interest to get rid of the ruling class and their apparatchiks.
Ya! FDR was reelected on a platform staying out of the war, a blatant lie, he then through America into the war. Without America Britain likely would have fallen to the axis powers.
You know, I wouldn't mind so much being ruled by an overclass of preening venal buffoons w delusions of grandeur because that's who's gonna rule you one way or another no matter where u live on earth, but then i remember that our corporate global ruling class hates their own countries and its citizens, hates its own history and traditions, and that various WEF puppets have said things like "There is no native Swedish culture" or "There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada" and then I remember that these people are liars and traitors and deserve nothing but mockery and opprobrium.
NS Lyons, probably alone reads this stuff and while you say this is just a fill piece between real essays, I say keep it up, you should do a foggy-bottom piece every month. Really a great exercise.
They want to achieve a “Common Vision”, holy cow they said that right out loud, right there in black and white! That shows great distain for any opposition, they feel immune.
This a pretty old problem, it keeps getting worse even though Orwell tried to warn against it.
-----
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. ...In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.”
Assange's problems started with his mental illnesses (which existed long before he was imprisoned) and need to form a cult of followers.
His insanity led him to think that he could get away from spying on the USA's national security apparatus and military-industrial-complex and steal govt data.
Assange is a raving lunatic that should be in a psychiatric facility, isolated from his delusional cult followers, not a prison.
Sarcasm is a good antidote. Laughing at them helps. They're not nearly enough, but such small steps of self defense and sanity preservation are vital steps. Perhaps, in the long run, it's harder for a fool to deny reality when smart people mock him for it. BTW: stay away from irony; they don't get it.
Thank you. This is great.
The Globalist Great Reset project at work.
Six giant corporations own almost all the American media. Comcast, Disney, National Amusements, News Corp, Time Warner, Sony. For the largest, Comcast, the top four shareholders are Vanguard, Blackrock, Capital International Investors, and State Street. The top three institutional shareholders of Disney are Vanguard, Blackrock and State Street. The top three institutional owners of At&t (parent company that owns Time Warner) are... you guessed it... Vanguard, Blackrock and State Street. Even News Corp - the home of Fox News - has Vanguard, Blackrock and News Corp as the top 3rd, 4th & 5th institutional owners respectively.
I don't have the time to dig into ownership of other foreign media, but my bet is that we would see similar evidence of consolidated ownership.
Larry Fink, the CEO of Blackroch attends all the WEF conferences and is outspoken in his support for the globalist movement. His letters to the various companies he oversees interests in sends a chill up the spines of CEOs to comply or else. Like all WEF globalists, Fink supports the woke cause because the woke cause support the Great Reset project.
The 80 or so global multi-billionaires have their assets managed by Vanguard, Blackrock and State Street. They too attend the WEF conferences and support the Great Reset project. Just look at how COVID proved to them that with help from some friendly lefty administrators in positions of power they could increase their asset holdings by trillions!
The Trudeaus - related are not - are also all in. These professional looting and mooching administrators without any talents or work ethic to start and grow their own business see the potential pot of gold waiting for them if they please their multi-billionaire benefactors.
This is WW-III. We have been fighting it since Hillary approved the use of the fake dossier.
The term "woke" should be repurposed to apply to people in general that need to wake up to what is happening and why they need to fight this enemy immediately.
Welcome to my past, folks. (I was born and raised in Communist Romania)
Merry Christmas to you
This whole situation reminds me of the process of civilizational decline that Tonybee described.
He said that Civilizations rise when creative minorities (meaning a small, highly competent and creative group of individuals -- not minorities in the racial/sexual/etc. sense) are able to respond to difficult challenges that arise such as terraforming tough terrains to get resources, etc. Creative minorities get power naturally from people because their talents and way of conduct inspires people to be just like them and they naturally gain following.
However overtime, civilizations disintegrate when their leaders stopped responding creatively and that which was creative minority has degraded into what he calls "dominant minority". These dominant minorities though don't want to lose power even though they know that they aren't creative minorities so they form what he called a "universal state". It seems that we are in the process of formation of the universal state.
Quoting here:
Tonybee argues that the ultimate sign a civilization has broken down is when the dominant minority forms a "universal state", which stifles political creativity within the existing social order. The classic example of this is the Roman Empire, though many other imperial regimes are cited as examples. Toynbee writes:
"First the Dominant Minority attempts to hold by force—against all right and reason—a position of inherited privilege which it has ceased to merit; and then the Proletariat [common people] repays injustice with resentment, fear with hate, and violence with violence. Yet the whole movement ends in positive acts of creation. The Dominant Minority creates a universal state, the Internal Proletariat [common people within a country] a universal church, and the External Proletariat a bevy of barbarian war-bands [e.g. Mexican cartels and gangs]."
the stuff in [] is my further explanation
Common people respond to this by forming what is called a "universal church", something akin to what Islam was. This unites people, provides guidance .
Quoting:
Toynbee developed his concept of an "internal proletariat" and an "external proletariat" to describe quite different opposition groups within and outside the frontiers of a civilization. These groups, however, find themselves bound to the fate of the civilization. During its decline and disintegration, they are increasingly disenfranchised or alienated, and thus lose their immediate sense of loyalty or of obligation. Nonetheless an "internal proletariat," untrusting of the dominant minority, may form a "universal church" which survives the civilization's demise, co-opting the useful structures such as marriage laws of the earlier time while creating a new philosophical or religious pattern for the next stage of history.
Before the process of disintegration, the dominant minority had held the internal proletariat in subjugation within the confines of the civilization, causing these oppressed to grow bitter. The external proletariat, living outside the civilization in poverty and chaos, grows envious. Then, in the social stress resulting from the failure of the civilization, the bitterness and envy increase markedly.
Toynbee argues that as civilizations decay, there is a "schism" within the society. In this environment of discord, people resort to archaism (idealization of the past), futurism (idealization of the future), detachment (removal of oneself from the realities of a decaying world), and transcendence (meeting the challenges of the decaying civilization with new insight, e.g., by following a new religion). From among members of an "internal proletariat" who transcend the social decay a "church" may arise. Such an association would contain new and stronger spiritual insights, around which a subsequent civilization may begin to form. Toynbee here uses the word "church" in a general sense, e.g., to refer to a collective spiritual bond found in common worship, or the unity found in an agreed social order.
Anyway, it seems that our elites are trying to effectively form a universal state with all the coordination and ever more centralization. We will see what happens.
Interesting comparison.
They may be trying to form a universal state, but it resembles more a church? There are certain ideologies at play that suggests faith and belief rather than pragmatism or creativity.
Ok so I think I can piece this together and explain what Tonybee's ideas would mean in this scenario.
The reason these certain ideologies initially use faith and belief is to ensure loyalty because in order for the elites to centralize enough power to hold onto their positions and form the universal state, they need a good mechanism for loyalty and these ideologies provide plenty of that (and they also need to believe it too for reasons ranging from justifying their position to overall meaning in life and explaining the world). This is more broadly a part of the class war, something Tonybee identified in declining civilizations:
"On the other hand, the horizontal schism of a society along lines of class is not only peculiar to civilizations, but it is also a phenomenon which first appears at the moment of breakdown, and which is a distinctive mark of the phases of breakdown and disintegration, by contrast with its absence during the phase of growth." (The Disintegration Of Civilizations — Chapter 27 The nature and symptoms of social disintegration)
Now, the universal church inherently contains spiritual elements within it and tends to be a product of the internal proletariat within the civilization. The dominant minority produces philosophies/ideologies which can give inspiration to universal states (e.g. Progressivism) but internal proletariat produces the "higher religions" that then coalesce into universal churches (e.g. Jesus-> Early Christianity-> Church which can be dropped into any region and people can built and network there) as the dominant minority no longer cares about providing or protecting the internal proletariat. This is what he says:
". . It appeared that dominant minorities produced philosophies which sometimes gave inspirations to universal states, that internal proletariats produced higher religions which sought to embody themselves in universal churches, and that external proletariats produced heroic ages which were the tragedies of barbarian war-bands." (VII, p. 1)
Now the universal states first unite on the cultural plane with an ideology like the aforementioned Progressivism but without a political union. There can be infighting there (e.g. when Germany and Hungary fight over LGBTQ+ stuff though I think the type of warfare Tonybee talks about is more serious and physical but this tends to happen after serious tims of trouble, maybe if there are things like food shortages + energy shortage + whatever, serious times of trouble will appear that Tonybee alludes to and then we might see inter-state conflict there). Anyway, people in the universal state are basically just a quasi-formless mass of self-interested people that are kept together by an incompetent and corrupt bureaucracy which only want to use each other, while at the same time avoiding any demands or duties and they're now ruled more by superstition of their fears and nonsensical beliefs create:
""..these societies starting as unities on the cultural plane, without being united on the political plane. This régime is favourable to social and cultural progress; but its price is chronic warfare between the local states; ..,after a long drawn out 'time of troubles', is belatedly retrieved by the establishment of a universal state." (Part I 'The Shape Of History': Chapter 7 Hellenic and Chinese models)
Keep in mind that the universal church doesn't have to happen, but it has a tendency to emerge.
Ah. I can see the parallels with ancient Rome. The dominant minority created and maintained the Roman imperium, while as time went on the internal proletariats turned to Christianity and sought to identify themselves through the church rather than the old Roman imperium, meanwhile the external proletariats were the Germanic barbarians bringing the old traditions of heroism.
For the modern equivalent, we have a dominant minority of progressives who now dominate the political and institutional bureaucracies of the Western world (and the EU, even if individual countries are not progressive-minded). We can see how progressivism emerged in the cultural plane and took root in cultural institutions, aka universities and the left presses/arts, and from there were able to spread into the political union. The EU itself gave the perfect framework for the institutional takeover by progressive beliefs.
And we also see strong parallels between the dominant minority abandoning the internal proletariats with the progressives abandoning the traditional white working classes in US, the UK and now in Europe too, in favor of pet causes and protected groups. Even in the US, the progressives' claims to act for the growing Hispanic bloc is weak and insincere.
However, the contemporary missing factor would be the new church that the internal proletariats turn to. The common argument in recent years is that the progressives are setting up the new church, but this is a different perspective. And it's intriguing and worth contemplating.
The universal church may or may not form but its still too early because the universal state hasn't fully formed and we still haven't experienced a true big crisis in the West and the internal proletariat isn't being "oppressed" enough.
Also as far as I'm aware, the universal church if it emerges, will contain spiritual elements and "higher" religious type of stuff and will likely not come from the present dominant minority types but from the internal proletariat. I don't think its progressivism (though the universal church may borrow some elements from it) even though there is religious zeal behind it.
We'll what happens in the future.
I see civilizational decline to be along the lines of The Iron Law Of Oligarchy, and its corollary, The Iron Law Of Institutions.
That's a part of the process. In my comments above, I was describing it from Tonybee's perspective because N.S. Lyons' post reminded me of his theories.
Zepiroth: what happens is kinetic action is required to overcome, overthrow the total state.
Is that not history? The state oppresses people, people rebel, establish a new polity which grows to oppress the people. Over and over.
This would all be so much more entertaining if these armies of feckless ministers didn’t have their greasy little hands on the levers of power.
Brilliant, and scary. You always know something is fishy when people use that many words to contadict themselves
George Orwell said as much in his magisterial "Politics And The English Language".
An inability to make your point using plain, simple, understandable sentences is a tell that someone is trying to put one over on you.
Whenever I hear about saving democracy I want to count the spoons. These people- these ruling class apparatchiks- don’t think the people below have the ability- or the right - to decide for themselves what’s true or false.
Oh, of course they believe people below has the ability to decide themselves what is true and false.
That's very much what they fear, because they also know that it's in most people's best interest to get rid of the ruling class and their apparatchiks.
I can't decide if this is straight up 1984 or just straight up Brazil.
Depends on how well they execute it...
Presuming "execute" was an intended pun.
i didnt even notice lol
How about a Brazilian wax?
It's enough to make you wonder why we even bothered fighting WWII ...
Ya! FDR was reelected on a platform staying out of the war, a blatant lie, he then through America into the war. Without America Britain likely would have fallen to the axis powers.
What of that?
You know, I wouldn't mind so much being ruled by an overclass of preening venal buffoons w delusions of grandeur because that's who's gonna rule you one way or another no matter where u live on earth, but then i remember that our corporate global ruling class hates their own countries and its citizens, hates its own history and traditions, and that various WEF puppets have said things like "There is no native Swedish culture" or "There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada" and then I remember that these people are liars and traitors and deserve nothing but mockery and opprobrium.
Very frightening. I’m getting a bit long in the tooth to fight for my GOD GIVEN RIGHTS in a kinetic fashion but it looks increasingly likely. Sad.
NS Lyons, probably alone reads this stuff and while you say this is just a fill piece between real essays, I say keep it up, you should do a foggy-bottom piece every month. Really a great exercise.
They want to achieve a “Common Vision”, holy cow they said that right out loud, right there in black and white! That shows great distain for any opposition, they feel immune.
This a pretty old problem, it keeps getting worse even though Orwell tried to warn against it.
-----
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. ...In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.”
― Edward Bernays, Propaganda
[1928]
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/481391-propaganda
I appreciate this piece, but the double talk can be exposed more parsimoniously with just one name: Assange.
Wow I actually can't believe I forgot to mention this connection.
Assange's problems started with his mental illnesses (which existed long before he was imprisoned) and need to form a cult of followers.
His insanity led him to think that he could get away from spying on the USA's national security apparatus and military-industrial-complex and steal govt data.
Assange is a raving lunatic that should be in a psychiatric facility, isolated from his delusional cult followers, not a prison.
"Assange's problems started with his mental illnesses (which existed long before he was imprisoned) and need to form a cult of followers."
That's just the BS character assassination story. Assange's personality has absolutely zero effect on his treatment by the powers that be.
"Assange is a raving lunatic that should be in a psychiatric facility, isolated from his delusional cult followers, not a prison."
Again, BS.
Sarcasm is a good antidote. Laughing at them helps. They're not nearly enough, but such small steps of self defense and sanity preservation are vital steps. Perhaps, in the long run, it's harder for a fool to deny reality when smart people mock him for it. BTW: stay away from irony; they don't get it.
Thank you for this helpful unpacking/translation work. You spared me having to slog through every nauseating phrase.
The press releases of academic commissars are also grotesque to translate: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/how-to-appoint-a-commissar
Good memes comrade.