War: oligarchy's great silencer

[Originally published on Alex Krainer's Substack] James Madison wrote that, "If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will come in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." Today this statement no longer seems like a remote risk for the "free world." Indeed, we are witnessing an escalation of attacks against the foundational values which, not so long ago, we were taking for granted: freedom to travel, free speech, the right to bear arms, etc. Of course, the popular resistance to these infringements is also escalating.

A class war is afoot and it’s getting worse

The American people, among the last who still defend their right to bear arms, are clearly responding to the attacks on their Second Amendment with more gun purchases; the defense of free speech has spilled into the social media like a tsunami; and the authorities' attempts to restrict freedom of movement in the UK have run into a revolt of volunteer vigilantes who are simply taking down the surveillance infrastructure. Essentially, this is the clash between the people and the ruling oligarchy. If this clash continues to escalate, it could lead to revolutionary disruptions in which the oligarchy risks losing the hold on levers of political control. 

Throughout history, such circumstances tended to precipitate wars. The "enemies at the gate" emergency has been effective at inducing fear in the population, redirecting people's grievances towards an external enemy and drawing the able-bodied, fighting-age men into military service. That's precisely the group that constitutes the greatest danger to the oligarchy. When sent to war, they can be sacrificed in large numbers, while the loyal ones can be rewarded, promoted and recruited into Praetorian guard-type units tasked with defending the established order.

Sending men off to war: the stone that kills many flies

Wars have been used in precisely this way to great effect by the Roman Empire's oligarchy for centuries. The same was true of the British Empire. Of course, the key to orchestrating wars against foreign enemies as a social pressure release-valve is the oligarchy's ability to control the narrative, demonize the designated enemy and convince the population of the necessity to wage war.

Fighting the actual war and winning was entirely secondary, which is why continuing the wars was much more important than winning them. In fact, unless there was substantial booty to plunder, fake wars were even more useful than the real ones, as George Orwell subtly illustrated in his novel, 1984.

The war they’re preparing is not the war they’re advertising

In March this year, U.S. Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth told an audience at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) that the United States has “to prepare, to be prepared to fight and win that war” against China. But for all such bellicose talk and saber-rattling, the US isn't really preparing for war against China. If they really intended to fight and win that war, the Biden Administration would be ramping up the production of oil, gas, coal and steel; they'd be building up the strategic petroleum reserves rather than depleting them to 40-year lows; they would also do everything possible to build up the military and recruit hundreds of thousands of fresh troops.

They're doing none of that and are even doing everything opposite, including systematically destroying the US troops' morale by promoting transgender officers and hiring a drag queen as spokesperson of the US Navy. Furthermore, they wouldn't put the American citizens in their crosshairs by recruiting 80,000 IRS enforcement agents and training them to use firearms. Clearly, the priority target in this conflict are the American people and the people of other western nations. Fighting foreign enemies is only the smokescreen necessary to disguise the real war, just as James Madison had foreshadowed.

Watch what they do, not what they say!

What I just proposed may seem like far-fetched conspiracy theorizing, true perhaps about some distant periods of history. Surely, it does not apply in our free, modern democratical societies. However, the fact remains that what our system of governance actually does, as opposed to what they tell us that it does, is entirely consistent with the Roman Empire's and British Empire's practices. The polarization of wealth, oppression of the ordinary people and permanent warfare are as real today as they were through history of those empires. And the fighting always includes a merciless class war at home.

In "The Great Taking," David Webb mentions the 1917 Trading with the Enemy Act and the fact that it was used to effect mass confiscation of property from the American people. Webb cited Daniel A. Gross's article, "The U.S. Confiscated Half a Billion Dollars in Private Property During WWI." In its subtitle, the article states that, "America's home front was the site of internment, deportation, and vast property seizure."  In effect, the government, controlled by the ruling oligarchy, made all of the U.S. public into an enemy and took full advantage of the fact that during wartime, we've no time to fuss about people's rights - certainly not those of traitors, enemy collaborators, unpatriotic citizens, or superspreaders of disinformation and misinformation... All we need is an accusation or insinuations, and we can take them for all they've got.

Crude but effective enough: propaganda image printed in the New York Herald, 28 March 1918

Germany shrugs the destruction of NordStream pipelines

A year ago, we got a perfect illustration of how powerful war psychosis can be in getting the populations to acquiesce to otherwise absolutely intolerable affronts. Someone destroyed the NordStream pipelines supplying Russian natural gas to Germany. In ordinary circumstances, this act of terrorism would have been treated as a scandal of massive proportions, almost at the scale of 9/11 terror attacks, demanding urgent investigations and accountability. It was a huge blow to Germany, triggering her deindustrialization and the loss of an estimated half a million jobs.

But, no: we can't go there: we are facing a great threat from the east! If we don't defeat the Russians in Ukraine, Putin's hordes will be emboldened to continue and take Finland, the Baltic countries and Poland. Next, Putin will be marching his troops into Paris and our free world will be replaced by an eastern despotism. We've no time for investigations, asking questions, free speech or dissent of any sort. Accordingly, the people of a great democratic nation, the industrial powerhouse that is was Germany, simply took the humiliation and carried on as though nothing had happened. 

During war, either you're with us, or you're with the enemy. If you wondered how the British Prime Minister Liz Truss knew to text "It's done," to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken only one minute after the explosions, or what prompted Poland's former FM Radek Sikorski to Tweet, "Thank you, USA." ...? Was it deliberate misdirection, away from his Bullingdon Club friend Boris Johnson and British government’s role, or something else? Well, whatever you may think, be sure to keep your conspiracy theories to yourself, we have evil foreign enemies to fight!

Alex Krainer – @NakedHedgie is the creator of I-System Trend Following and publisher of daily TrendCompass investor reports which cover over 200 financial and commodities markets. One-month test drive is always free of charge, no jumping through hoops to cancel. To start your trial subscription, drop us an email at TrendCompass@ISystem-TF.com

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