Holy cow! We're talking eight figures in many cases. Now, the time scale runs from 1990 to 2024; we might note that the guy in second place, Raphael Warnock (D-GA), wasn't elected until 2021. So in three years, the reverend managed to rake in Big Pharma bucks to the tune of $14 million and change. He's in second place - and guess who's in first?

If you guessed Sen. Bernie Sanders (I), the daffy old Boshevik from Vermont, you guessed right. The pharmaceutical companies and the organizations associated with them have been feeling the Bern to the tune of $23,193,451. "Medical Societies" are the biggest donor bribers; they're into Bernie for over half that amount, $12,749,883. When Sanders claims he hasn't taken any money from Big Pharma CEOs, we should notice that he's specifying CEOs because he's taking a lot of money from the medical societies that they doubtlessly belong to. //

The only thing Bernie gets right about what socialism claims to be is that, despite his massive net worth, he still looks and dresses like a flood victim.

We should never forget that the Plymouth colony was headed straight for oblivion under a communal, socialist plan but saved itself when it embraced something very different.

In the diary of the colony’s first governor, William Bradford, we can read about the settlers’ initial arrangement: Land was held in common. Crops were brought to a common storehouse and distributed equally. For two years, every person had to work for everybody else (the community), not for themselves as individuals or families. Did they live happily ever after in this socialist utopia?

Hardly. The “common property” approach killed off about half the settlers. Governor Bradford recorded in his diary that everybody was happy to claim their equal share of production, but production only shrank. Slackers showed up late for work in the fields, and the hard workers resented it. It’s called “human nature.”

The disincentives of the socialist scheme bred impoverishment and conflict until, facing starvation and extinction, Bradford altered the system. He divided common property into private plots, and the new owners could produce what they wanted and then keep or trade it freely.

Communal socialist failure was transformed into private property/capitalist success, something that’s happened so often historically it’s almost monotonous. The “people over profits” mentality produced fewer people until profit—earned as a result of one’s care for his own property and his desire for improvement—saved the people.

We have all heard of the Mayflower Compact, the set of laws that all agreed to live by, But it included something else. Before the Pilgrims left Holland, they needed to fund the trip. They found sponsors who would do just that. But their merchant sponsors in London and Holland required that the Pilgrims agree that everything they produced went into a common store, a common bank, and every family would be entitled to one share of the common store.

So, the Pilgrims got down to the business of living life in the New World. They cleared land, and they grew crops. The other part of the story we have heard was of the Pilgrims' first winter. Nearly half of them died of starvation, sickness, and exposure. The group's leader, William Bradford, who later became the governor of the colony, realized early on that the whole "common store" idea was a huge failure. He decided to scrap that portion of the Mayflower Compact and came up with another idea.

American Thinker @AmericanThinker
·
The Pilgrims' Abolition of Socialism (Photo Credit: Jenny A. Brownscombe) William Bradford delivered the Pilgrims from the ills of socialism to a healthy culture of economic freedom based upon individual property rights.
americanthinker.com
The Pilgrims' Abolition of Socialism
5:44 AM · Nov 28, 2024 //

Even though they didn't call it socialism or capitalism back then, the Pilgrims soon figured out that a common bank and collectivism were not going to work. It was only when they implemented the incentive to work and invest themselves in the land that they became prosperous, and it benefitted themselves and the Indians.

Makes you wonder, if we have only heard the "official" story of Thanksgiving for this long, what else have we only heard the "official" story of? //

Jill Savage @Jill_Savage
·
I looked forward to Rush Limbaugh telling us the true story of Thanksgiving every year. Let’s keep it going.
2:33 / 8:22
12:10 PM · Nov 27, 2024

https://x.com/Jill_Savage/status/1861820002338271642

hagaetc.eth

@hagaetc
So I tried to build a tech company from Norway and here’s what happened:

1. Two years of building without almost any money/funding, better part of a year without salary
2. Raise VC and become one of Norway’s first unicorns
3. Face unrealized gains wealth tax bill of many x my annual net salary. ofc the company is loss making and all the investors have preference shares so I can’t take out any money.
4. Call out publicly that this does not make sense. Independent of level, taxation needs to happen when you actually make money.
5. I move to Switzerland because no politician cares/listens.
6. I still don’t get any tangible and sensible answers to my criticism of unrealized gains tax, BUT I do get put up on the “wall of shame” at the socialist parties offices…

I’m Norwegian and I love Norway but the socialist politicians are taking the country down a dark path. It’s a real life Atlas Shrugged. //

Alex Svanevik 🐧
@ASvanevik
·
17h
Here’s how insane things have gotten in Norway:

The Socialist Party has a “wall of shame” in their office with “rich people who have left Norway” - due to the outrageous taxes they’re now being charged.

Who do you find on that wall?

Startup founders like @hagaetc -

Jonatan Pallesen
@jonatanpallesen
Here in Denmark I know an early contributor to successful startups (Unity and more). One year their stocks rose, and the next they fell. This left him with a tax burden much larger than his wealth. He is now a million dollars in debt for doing this successful work.

Orwell2024🏒
@orwell2022
·
5h
Plain evil. And intentional. Socialists do not want a country with business owners and entrepreneurs, but a couple of large companies which they fully control.

Joshua says:
September 29, 2023 at 10:38 am
Indeed, certain black/white models were of fine quality.
And their power suppliers weren’t such a Russian murks, either (see Junost TV internals juck).
Whoever wanted to get a large, but pure b/w TV back in late 20th century simply had to give them a try.

By the time, West Germany had stopped production of big b/w CCIR TVs and had focused on PAL color TVs.
So even West Germans had to think about importing a b/w TV from GDR.

Also interesting: The GDR was about the last county still operating pure b/w transmitters.
That’s because SECAM had reduced b/w quality, even if the source material didn’t have color. So pure b/w programme were being aired in plain CCIR norm, not SECAM.

Joshua says:
September 29, 2023 at 10:45 am
What’s also notable, East German products were also being used by us West Germans.
They were sold via Quelle catalog, albeit with their origin being hidden.

Which is kind of sad, because we had no problems using GDR appliances.
Their RG28 mixer wasn’t worse than our Krupp model.

In general, GDR products weren’t made with planned obsolescence in mind yet, because the GDR didn’t even thought about such business practices (too naive, I suppose).

So yes, a lot of West Germans grew up with East German products, either knowingly or unknowingly.

The tip of the ice berg was that many gifts from West German relatives were from Quelle catalog. So East Germans literally got their own products back, depending on how we see it. :)

milldude says:
September 29, 2023 at 12:07 pm
The “lack” of planned obsolescence was not out of naiveté, but born out of necessity. The scarce resources and low production volumes meant long-lasting products came naturally. Also, in the “Planwirtschaft” system theory, if there would be no further (or rater, reduced) need of a certain product, the state-owned factorys just would reduce output of that good and produce something else instead. There was also an extensive recycling system for glass and metal containers, much like we have today.

Joshua says:
September 29, 2023 at 2:29 pm
Yes, but GDR had produced twofold, as far as I know.
a) for own use, to satisfy the needs of the people
b) for export, to make good money (D-Mark)

Usually, it was the way that the norm that the ‘good’ products were sold for export and the stuff with small defects (scratches etc) was sold in GDR to the own people.

Same goes for sweets and chewing gum. The export version was being sold in a shiny package, while the version for the people was sold in a dull package.

Officially, the explanation was that this was a trick, to fight capitalism with its own weapons. Unofficially, it was clear that the own people were less being worth to the regime.

Dude says:
October 1, 2023 at 12:18 am
GDR was a Potemkin village of the soviet system in the first place, so the quality of products was higher for the show of it.

Otherwise the soviet system was searching for the lowest “socially necessary” cost. The reason why soviet products were built so robust was because of a quirk of the accounting system: not money but kilometer-tonnes. People had production quotas, which could be filled more easily if you put unnecessary amounts of material in the design. Whether the product actually works – who cares?

The idea that Trump’s second term would usher in fascism isn’t just absurd—it’s a slap in the face to the millions who have suffered under actual fascist regimes throughout history. Fascism, by definition, involves the total suppression of opposition, the abolition of free elections, and the merging of state and corporate power into authoritarian control.

Think Benito Mussolini’s Italy or Adolf Hitler’s Germany, where dissent was brutally crushed, political opponents were jailed or executed, and the press was reduced to a government propaganda machine.

In comparison, Trump’s four years in office look like a model of democratic dysfunction, not dictatorship. During his first term, Americans were free to protest, criticize him openly, and vote him out of office. The 2020 election happened as scheduled, and despite the noise about election challenges, Trump left the White House on January 20, 2021. No coup, no military takeover, no indefinite suspension of power—just Trump boarding Marine One and Biden taking the oath of office. The peaceful transition may not have been pretty, but it happened.

If Trump was aiming for fascism, he did a spectacularly poor job.

Real fascism doesn't entertain opposing viewpoints—it eliminates them. Yet, under Trump, media outlets relentlessly attacked him without fear of government retaliation. There were no state-run news channels or purges of journalists. Compare that with Mussolini’s control over Italy’s press or Hitler’s use of propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels to manipulate information. In Trump’s America, CNN, MSNBC, and The New York Times freely published critical stories every day.

That’s not fascism—it’s freedom, even if it makes the media’s portrayal of Trump as a dictator seem laughably detached from reality. //

Fascist regimes historically centralize power by shutting down elections and political opposition. Hitler’s Nazi party outlawed opposition parties, while Mussolini dismantled Italy’s parliament entirely. Trump, by contrast, lost re-election after being dragged through two impeachment trials. His critics and political opponents—including members of his own party—remained vocal and visible throughout his presidency. Far from silencing dissent, Trump was often criticized for being unable to rein in factions within his own administration.

The media’s obsession with labeling Trump a “fascist” is little more than political theater designed to distract voters from the issues that matter. Poll after poll shows that Americans care most about inflation, crime, immigration, and the economy—not recycled narratives about January 6 or imaginary authoritarian takeovers.

Trump, for all his flaws, resonates with voters because he addresses these concerns directly, while his opponents—Biden and Harris—deflect or dodge tough questions.

Ultimately, the “fascist Trump” storyline reveals more about the media than it does about Trump. Americans know the difference between a leader who promises law and order and a dictator who seizes total control. //

writeofcenter
27 minutes ago edited
I’ve studied history my whole life (I’m 4 months short of 70). Especially the study of the quest for State power in the 20th century. The universal response of socialists, Bolsheviks, communists, Marxists to their opponents is to portray them as fascists. It’s automatic. Trumps opponents are basically socialists. Socialism has infiltrated our society and culture to such a degree that they no longer have to hide their political agenda. Everyone else is to the right of them and hence, fascists.

The portrayal of this election as close or neck and neck is a myth. The left will be shocked at (and will willfully deny) how wide Trumps margin of victory proves to be.

Americans love their liberty and freedom and abhor left powered bureaucracy and control. We are fortunate indeed that Americans still prefer to vote to change things. The alternative will be ugly. //

hy dudgeon writeofcenter
7 minutes ago
Any political system which depends on consolidation of power in the hands of elites who then administer/rule from a massively powerful Central Authority is, by definition, a Leftist system.

The claims that Trump was "authoritarian" are based on the fact that he rescinded so many extra-constitutional executive orders implemented by Obama as he exercised his "power of the phone and pen" to bypass Congress and simply declare things to be law. //

Cafeblue32
29 minutes ago edited
Trump is perhaps the most moderate President we've had since Eisenhower. Fascism is not a right wing ideology, it is an economic system whereby government colludes with corporations to do things government cannot do in exchange for preferential treatment and increased profits. COVID was the perfect example of it. Corporations got all kinds of exemptions, breaks, incentives, etc to implement and enforce vax and mask mandates by threatening them with loss of employment. Most of those companies were declared' ''essential businesses" and made record profits, while those who declined to jump on the panic bandwagon were shut down. Lots of them are out of business now.

Hitler was a committed socialist before he was a fascist. He realized socialism wouldn't keep up with war production for his ambitions, so he partnered with German industrialists to produce his materials for profit. In no time at all, Hitler had more new weapons designs come across his desk than anyone could ever build. And most of them were of high quality. It also made Daimler-Benz, Porsche, Will Messerschmitt and a bunch of other industrialists very rich.

That's fascism in a nutshell. It's socialism with a business license. Only now we call it corporatism, as if it were a good thing. //

Tommy
38 minutes ago
Hmmm. Well, for starters, fascists are socialists. Nazis, the real ones, are National Socialists. They demand social and political conformity and use violence to enforce it. They also sooner or later always go after jews because, well, maintaining a unique identity and culture for 3000 years is the opposite of conformity. The bolsheviks went after jews, the national socialists went after jews, the only reason the maoists didn't is because there are any jews in china. And they never wave national flags. They make their own (the nazis used a good luck symbol) and cram it down everyone elses throat with a constant threat of retribution if you don't wave the flag. I see alot of this, but not from trump.

ConservativeInMinnesota Tommy
14 minutes ago
They did have some Jews in China before the Communist revolution. The Maoists took them out.

https://breakingmatzo.com/history-of-jews/harbin-china-the-city-that-jews-built/

What are these “clear rules of the road” or the thresholds that determine when a price or profit level becomes “excessive”? The memo doesn’t say, and the campaign did not answer questions I sent seeking clarification. //

It’s hard to exaggerate how bad this policy is. It is, in all but name, a sweeping set of government-enforced price controls across every industry, not only food. Supply and demand would no longer determine prices or profit levels. Far-off Washington bureaucrats would. The FTC would be able to tell, say, a Kroger in Ohio the acceptable price it can charge for milk.

At best, this would lead to shortages, black markets and hoarding, among other distortions seen previous times countries tried to limit price growth by fiat. (There’s a reason narrower “price gouging” laws that exist in some U.S. states are rarely invoked.) At worst, it might accidentally raise prices. //

But more to the point: If your opponent claims you’re a “communist,” maybe don’t start with an economic agenda that can (accurately) be labeled as federal price controls. //

The "policy" is horrible, but you're just supposed to be vibing on how she's going to take care of the evil corporations. She apparently vetted this policy like she vetted her running mate Tim Walz — which is to say not at all or keeping her eyes covered about all the bad stuff. //

anon-aqyc Jerry's Middle Finger
an hour ago
They are just following the playbook of every Marxist since the beginning of time. Promise the world and when you get in power bring out the iron fist.

I am aware that Marx did not write about it until the 19th century, but the idea was not new with him. //

St. Joseph, Terror of Demons Jerry's Middle Finger
an hour ago
They know it doesn’t work and they don’t care. If everything fails, that means the elites get more money and more power. //

Donner’s Party
an hour ago
WaPo must have gotten the Memo from Bezoes, that Kamala’s new Joy policy wasn’t going to work for Amazon.
No Amazon, No WaPo, No Job.

"It's going to stop us from being builders, and we need to support the side that's going to let our civilization thrive," Lonsdale added.

That's always been the trouble with leftist policies; they are deeply and fundamentally anti-growth, anti-business, and anti-prosperity. Kamala Harris's policies (at least, what we know of them if you can keep track of her policy changes as they go by) include increasing taxation and regulation and attempting to make sure "everyone ends up in the same place," which smacks of socialism.

These are not things that investment bankers or tech moguls want to hear. //

anon-x8p1
8 hours ago edited
Don' you like the idea Kamala will pay millions of our tax dollars for armies of new government employees, just to track down the price of celery at your local super market?

Always, always, always ask how many new government employees (D) any Democrat program will require. That is the real name of the game - expand Big Government(D).

We are close to a critical tipping point where Big Government(D) finally swallows the rest of us whole. Yes, it is that critical.

The Democratic Socialists of America claimed credit for Walz being picked in a thread on X.

Harris choosing Walz as a running mate has shown the world that DSA and our allies on the left are a force that cannot be ignored. Through collective action, DSA and the US left more broadly have made it clear that change is needed. DSA members organized in our workplaces and unions to realign the labor movement to support Palestinian liberation.

The Uncommitted movement, in which DSA members played crucial roles nationally and in multiple states, pressured the Democratic establishment into choosing a new candidate and backing down from a potential VP with direct ties to the IDF and who would have ferociously supported the ongoing genocide in Palestine. //

But what the DSA is telling us by this is that they seem to believe Walz was the more left-wing choice. That tells you everything you need to know about him, because they sure don't sound like they think he's a "centrist," as the media is trying to pitch him.

It takes time. Normal people know transformation doesn't happen overnight. //

For 30 years, Argentines faced rising food prices every week.

Every week for 30 years.

Well, the libertarian free-market economist President Javier Milei has steered Argentina in the correct direction because, for the first time in 30 years, the country did not experience food inflation. //

Milei is obviously on the correct path. He is also the first Argentine president not to pass a new law in his first six months in office.

There is a billionaire who, for the most part, has gone under the radar pushing "reimagining capitalism." His name is Pierre Omidyar. Omidyar was born in France to Iranian parents. He later moved to the United States, where he founded eBay.

With over six billion dollars in personal wealth, he founded the Omidyar Network to influence not just the private sector but, more importantly, to inject human capital into the federal bureaucracy. His intent seems clear: to make structural changes. What type of changes? It’s no secret that Omidyar has his acolytes who are all-in on equal results, not equal treatment. In 2020, his Network produced a pamphlet titled: “Call to Reimagine Capitalism in America.” On its opening page, it calls for:

A more democratic economy is one in which the real creators – working people, consumers, individuals, small businesses, and families – can have equal voice, hold power, and get ahead.

Further into the manifesto, it laments that America is rife with badness:

“structural racism, colonialism, paternalism,”

It calls for:

“an explicitly anti-racist and inclusive economy.” //

Since 2004, the Omidyar Network has spent $1.89 billion on social justice causes. //

The top-heavy influence of the Omidyar Network and related and funded entities and the injection of ideologues is unknown. Soros has had a remarkable influence on local politics by targeting district attorneys and local politicians. Omidyar is influencing policy at the federal level. //

anon-m0b0
15 hours ago edited
So a rich billionaire with buckets of money wants to create a society where he has more power and the people he says he is "helping" will be totally impoverished by the time he is done.

Its almost as if he accidentally created eBay and made money from it. Because he doesn't really believe in free markets.

James Madison is the Father of our Constitution, and the Robert H. Smith Center for the Constitution at Madison’s Montpelier provides educational programming for teachers, law enforcement officers, and others.

That seems appropriate. After all, not only did Madison—our country’s fourth president—help draft the Constitution, but he also served as a key delegate at the Constitutional Convention, authored the Bill of Rights, and urged ratification of the Constitution through his practical and philosophical arguments in The Federalist Papers.

But these accomplishments are, at best, downplayed at his historic home. Montpelier has no exhibits dedicated to Madison and his contributions.

Worse still, Montpelier is equipping educators to teach Marxist-based theories to elementary, middle, and high school students. And the programs doing this are, in part, funded by the state of Virginia. //

It’s sad that Montpelier has chosen to focus on a Marxist-motivated movement fueled by critical race theory, instead of on the many astounding achievements of the home’s former owner and the Father of our Constitution, James Madison.

It’s a disservice to the public, teachers, and students.

Bill Whittle’s newest season of ‘What We Saw’ on Daily Wire Plus dips its toe in the oceans of blood Russia’s Communist revolution released.

The true crime genre is not big enough for what Communists and socialists did in Russia in the 20th century. It demands a new genre — perhaps call it true horror.

Bill Whittle’s newest season of “What We Saw” on Daily Wire Plus dips its toe in the oceans of blood Russia’s Communist revolution released. It’s grisly and difficult to take in. Whittle attempts to quantify the myriad forms of mass killings by comparing their death tolls to the erasure of several U.S. cities, yet still the numbers are numbing.

What’s not numbing is the question he includes in the season’s trailer comparing the Nazi Holocaust with the Soviet mass murder of an estimated 20 million: “Why are we encouraged to never forget one, and then intentionally taught to forget the other?” //

While it’s difficult to probe such manifestations of supernatural evil, doing so should be required of every human being. That’s because we need to look at evils like these and attempt to understand how they happen and what they say about human nature and history. Such knowledge is a fortification against it happening again — creating, for example, common knowledge that evil and corrupt governments often baselessly accuse their opponents of terrorism.

Here are four other things one can learn from studying Soviet history, as horrifying as that exercise can be.

1. Misery Is Normal in Human History

It’s hard to believe that when you’re an American and all you’ve ever known is clean and hot water coming out of the tap at a turn. But it’s also important to keep in mind. For one thing, it produces appropriate gratitude. For another, it should discipline hasty desires to “tear it all down,” and cultivate contempt for people who use the same lying words and policies as Communists.

2. People Are Not Innately Good

A heck of a lot of people somehow believe that humans are innately good. //

Soviet Russia is a tire iron to the back of that idea’s head. There can be no excuses for what the Communists did. No amount of bad potty training or poverty can excuse the mass murder of 20 million people and the enslavement of countless tens of millions more in gulag concentration camps. //

3. Socialists, Nazis, and Communists All Make the Same Hell on Earth

The truth is, socialists, Nazis, and Communists engage in furious infighting, but they’re all ultimately on the same side. They fight with each other, not because they disagree about collectivism, but because they all want to be on top of the dogpile of bodies their sister collectivist ideologies cause. Communists are Nazis are socialists are communists.

Socialist true believers will seek their collectivist ends “by any means necessary,” including government-sponsored terror, killing fields, and concentration camps. Anyone who proclaims himself a socialist in the face of historical facts about the hell on Earth socialism has always produced is a fool and fellow traveler, if not a covert supporter of mass terror.

4. We’d Better Keep America From Full Socialism

Let’s be honest: The United States is already partly socialist. We’re a pension plan with an army, as Andy Biggs noted, and every few years some other collectivist program that ratchets up the socialism is increased or enhanced, like Obamacare.

Brazil is a demographic and geographical giant ruled by Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, perhaps the hemisphere’s best known Marxist leader. Lula is also the founder of the Foro de Sao Paulo, the world’s largest grouping of Marxist parties and organizations.

The Foro threw its support behind the march in Argentina. Its executive secretary, Monica Valente, not only promoted the Jan. 24 protest and other demonstrations since Milei took office. She also shared on social media a Zoom meeting that over 200 global leftist unionists held with leaders of the main Argentine unions on Jan. 18, six days before the protest. //

Freire insisted that he and other international participants on the Zoom call were taking their cues from the three main Argentine union bosses leading the protest efforts.

But the figurative call to arms was unmistakable. Freire and the others spoke in apocalyptic tones about what would happen to the rest of the world if Milei succeeded, so the Argentines had better stop him lest Mileism spring up everywhere. //

“Argentina is a global laboratory,” Argentine union leader Roberto Baradel said during his remarks. Baradel decried how Milei was making “the right to property the central right in our social, political, and economic life.” //

This is what is arrayed against Milei, who only took office Dec. 10. There was no street violence against him in this dry run, but that isn’t guaranteed going forward. Milei remains immensely popular, an asset he will need.

Americans and Europeans who agree with Milei’s slogan of “Viva la Libertad, Carajo!” (or “Long Live Liberty, [Expletive]!”) have an interest in him succeeding. That’s because if he does succeed, there is a chance that rational policies can be tried at home.

The Argentine president’s success against the Big Global Left also would give us lessons about a possible return of 2020-style, Black Lives Matter-sponsored violence.

It turns out that this was the first time an artificial intelligence tool translated a speech by a world leader in real-time. //

fscarn | January 22, 2024 at 9:48 am
When the Founders/Framers spoke of freedom, they meant freedom FROM government,

Javier Milei gets it.

“It wasn’t what government did that made America great; it was what government was prevented from doing that made the difference,

“What set America apart from all other lands was freedom – for the individual. Freedom to work, to produce, to succeed and, especially, to keep the fruits of one’s labor.

“America became great precisely because the stifling effects of too much government had been prevented [by means of Constitutional limitations].”

Part of narration of Overview of America,

https://jbs.org/video/featured/overview-of-america/?mc_cid=aab99f82ce

What do you do when you decide the Soviet Union and Red China aren’t communist enough and “real communism hasn’t ever been tried”? Well, you give it a try!

Estimates of the number of Albanians murdered by the communist dictatorship range from 5,000 to 25,000, including 1,200 killed while trying to escape the slave state. Albania, with abundant hydroelectric power resources and petroleum, was the poorest country in Europe with GDP per capita around US$ 750 in the 1980s.

Blake @_BlakeHabyan
·
New: Klaus Schwab Opens The World Economic Forum Annual Meeting By Speaking About The Importance Of ‘Rebuilding Trust’:

“There’s a fundamental need to embody trusteeship, which means to care for the greater good.”, Schwab says.

Why would The World Economic Forum… Show more

7:23 PM · Jan 16, 2024

Interesting choice of words. Trusteeship implies you have some responsibility and or control over us when we are a free people — you don't have such a relationship over us, except in your mind. And when people use the term "greater good," one thinks Communism and/or someone is about to try to sell you something you don't want.

Elon Musk didn't think much of what Schwab had to say; he's called him out in the past.

Elon Musk @elonmusk
·
The real issue is that Klaus wants to be emperor of Earth. He certainly dresses for the part!

And the policies that seem to emerge from this gathering don’t seem to make for an exciting future.
7:47 PM · Jan 17, 2024 //

Laocoön of Troy
23 minutes ago
Ya' know...God must be laughing at us. Who knew that Western Civilization and liberal democracy may end up being rescued by Musk...rumored to be an atheist or agnostic? Or perhaps JK Rowling or Rogan or Jordan Peterson or even Dershowitz?

God works in a mysterous way...his wonders to perform...

MILEI: Today, I'm here to tell you that the Western world is in danger. It is in danger because those who are supposed to defend the values of the West are co-opted by a vision of the world that inevitably leads to socialism and thereby to poverty. Unfortunately, in recent decades, motivated by some well-meaning individuals willing to help others, and others motivated by the wish to belong to a privileged class, the main leaders of the Western world have abandoned the model of freedom for different versions of what we call collectivism. We're here to tell you that collectivist experiments are never the solution to the problems that inflict the citizens of the world. Rather, they are the root cause. Do believe me, no one is in a better place than us, Argentines, to testify to these two points. //

The crowd at the WEF doesn't want to hear that, though, and Milei's urgings will certainly be dismissed. Still, it's important they are made. It's important people stand up to the onslaught that is coming from Klaus Schwab and company. If they have their way, freedom and upward mobility will no longer exist. People will simply become cogs in their machines as they continue to live the good life. Want proof? The big-wigs at the WEF are currently pushing the idea of a so-called "disease X" that will kill 20x more people than COVID-19. What's their solution? More control because that's always their solution.

There is no greater existential threat to freedom than the leadership class represented at the WEF. Terrorists aren't going to fundamentally change your way of life, but powerful heads of state all singing from the same sheet of socialist, anti-freedom music can and will. Milei is a much-welcomed voice in the fight against that. //

anon-62kn
2 hours ago
Not on the public agenda at the WEF are secret, backroom meetings with the sole focus to make sure Milei is a 1-term president, and that Trump does not win - or if he wins he is immediately neutered.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn dedicated his book about the end state of communism ‘to all those who did not live to tell it.’ //

My parents emigrated from the Soviet Union. From what they told me, I developed a deep reluctance to being frog-marched to Kolyma courtesy of unilateral disarmament peaceniks, who are nowadays called “woke” with alternate grievances but the same collectivist Borg mentality. //

In part I’s fourth chapter, Solzhenitsyn encourages humility about human vulnerability to evil. “If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” //

In part VII’s third chapter, Solzhenitsyn excoriates apologists for Soviet misrule: “All you freedom-loving ‘left-wing’ thinkers in the West! … As far as you are concerned, this whole book of mine is a waste of effort. You may suddenly understand it all someday — but only when you yourselves hear ‘hands behind your backs there!’ and step ashore on our Archipelago.” He knew his disclosures would meet that era’s version of cancel culture. //

The will to dominate runs deep in the human psyche. Archipelago reminds us such despotic cruelty became commonplace in living memory with few held accountable.

Moreover, such atrocities continue today behind barbed wire in western China, North Korea, and elsewhere on the globe. Solzhenitsyn warns us all of the consequences should resistance to totalitarianism fail.

“Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.

This is known as "bad luck.”

― Robert Heinlein //

California has created a government that depends on one percent of its citizens for 50 percent of its revenue. It is in the process of creating a situation where it has half the revenue and 99 percent of the people. That is not sustainable.

UNEXPECTEDLY: ADV. FREQUENTLY USED BY PEOPLE WHO DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING, TO DESCRIBE UNPLEASANT EVENTS OR SITUATIONS THEY HAVE CREATED.