SMOKE AND MIRRORS, AND BEING LEFT IN THE DUST
There has been little else in the mainstream media for the last week apart from stories looking for new angles on the death of the Queen. I have followed a variety of publications and it is remarkable how many articles have been rolled out as newspapers and television programs have sought new perspectives on an event that was not unexpected – the death of a 96 year old woman.
It does look as though the mainstream media had been preparing for the Queen’s death for some time and were not going to be thwarted. Hundreds of articles and television documentaries have been hurled at an unsuspecting public. Even the anti-royal republicans in the US have been swept up in royal fever with commentary and video pieces. Whole newsrooms have been dispatched to Edinburgh and London to give us all “the vibe”. Sky News Australia has sent a team of political commentators to London at vast expense and so it must be anticipated that there will be a ratings bonanza. It is significant that a small woman who lives a long way away and has no direct power, can capture the attention of the world. This attention will undoubtedly continue until the funeral on 19th September but the television networks must eventually run out of royal experts to provide commentary.
I have been struck in the various television reports about the extent of grief expressed by the British public and it is clearly a boon to florists as hundreds of thousands of floral tributes are deposited in Scotland, London, Northern Ireland and Wales and tens of thousands of people line the Mall. It does remind you of the grief expressed at the death of Princess Diana, 25 years ago. I remember being in Paris at the Pont de L’Alma, the bridge above the road where the Princess died, and being amazed at the mountain of flowers there as well as people crying and showing emotional distress. This seemed inexplicable but it was another great business opportunity for florists. I did wonder at the time if the whole situation had been orchestrated by an international cartel of florists? The same cartel seems to have been at work since the Queen died!
The British people have a reputation for being unemotional and very proper. The death of a royal personage seems to unlock repressed emotions and allow expression of unexpressed pain and worship of someone they think is greater than themselves. There are many PhD theses up for grabs in exploring this phenomenon and an amateur psychologist like myself is almost certain to be wrong in any analysis. Nonetheless, I am going to have a go!
As I was looking at reports and various television and cable news channels, the first phrase that came to mind was “smoke and mirrors”. I wasn’t sure where this expression came from but Idiom Origins reported that the phrase is one that is relatively recent and site describes “smoke and mirrors” as:
“a metaphor for a showy way of obscuring the true facts of a situation, a strategy of deception and cover-up. The expression is American from c. 1980 deriving from the obvious allusion to theatrical conjuring tricks.”
In other words, we are being distracted from the reality of what is occurring in our societies, which are being transformed into totalitarian surveillance states, while we watch Royal family members parading in military uniforms.
As we are given endless coverage of the details of “London Bridge” (the plan formulated for action when the Queen died) many other issues are pushed into the background: deaths from COVID-19 vaccines, illegal immigrants pouring across the US southern border, stratospheric rises in energy costs, inflation out of control, food shortages, the war in Ukraine, Big Brother tracking us and denial of basic biology. It looks as though “smoke and mirrors” are being used to distract us and have us all look in another direction. And this is all while a woke, globalist, eco-fascist is installed at Buckingham Palace to head up the “new world order”. What is the purpose of this concerted effort to distract us?
I’ll have a go at providing a perspective based on my own close brush with royalty. More than 60 years ago, I lived as an only child on a farm of around 6,000 acres in the Snowy Mountains of Australia. The closest town to the farm was the small village of Dalgety about 10km away, which almost became Australia’s national capital when there was a search for a suitable location midway between the then centres of power: Sydney and Melbourne. Dalgety only had a population of about 50 people, a local grocery store, a primary school, a famous pub and was perched on the banks of the majestic Snowy River. The other location mooted for the new national capital was Canberra, about 160 km to the north. My grandfather had purchased some blocks of land in the early 1900s when the auctioneer with a theatrical flourish produced a telegram that said: “Dalgety almost certain to be national capital”! In the final showdown the vote went against Dalgety and to Canberra – it is said on the casting vote of the Speaker. My grandfather’s blocks were worth less than he paid for them! So Dalgety, now very much a backwater, became the town that time forgot.
Moving forward about 50 years from the time of Australian Federation, to the 1950s, I was in my first year of primary school when one day the sole teacher in the K-6 school, announced that the Queen was coming to town. In fact she wasn’t coming to Dalgety but to Berridale, a slightly bigger town about 20km away on the Snowy Mountains “highway” in the days when the roads were still unsealed. We children were to be taken by parents’ cars (there were no school buses in those days and no paperwork or legal forms to complete) to stand on the dirt road in Berridale to see the Queen when she drove by. It was a hot, dusty day and as you would imagine, in a challenging drive of about 3 hours from Canberra along a potholed dirt road, the Queen’s schedule ended up well behind plan. We small children had all been given little Union Jack flags to wave when the car came by and we became rambunctious as the time rolled by and there was no sign of the Queen. It was hot and we were all hungry and thirsty. Then – about 2 hours late – there was a cloud of dust in the distance. Someone yelled: “The Queen is coming!” and we all shouted “hurrah”. It was the Rolls Royce, bearing the Queen. However, given the delay in the schedule and perhaps the dust that obscured the grubby children on the side of the road, the car did not slow down and as we waved our little flags, we were enveloped in a cloud of dust as the car sped by. We coughed and spluttered as the Queen was hidden from view. I must have been only 20 feet from the Queen at one stage but I don’t think I saw her. In later years – I claimed that I went from waving my flag to shaking my fist! However I don’t think that I had the political awareness to undertake such a seditious act.
During that visit, which was the Queen’s first visit to Australia with her husband, she visited 58 towns in 57 days. It wasn’t so much a tour as a marathon and it’s amazing that the Queen lived another 68 years! The Royal children, Charles and Anne, were left abandoned in London and it seems likely that the separation that Charles experienced could have turned him towards other stern parental figures such as the notorious Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum! In any case, as I looked back at the story of the Queen and her association with the Commonwealth countries, one realises the enormous resources needed to organize these tours and to promote the monarchy. At that stage, Australia was just a colonial outpost of the United Kingdom with a population of around 8 million people. The Queen’s visit was clearly to prop up the idea of a higher allegiance, as we tugged our forelocks at the sight of the Queen. I found a statement that gave some perspective by Robert Menzies, the then Australian Prime Minister. Menzies said at the time of the Queen’s first tour of Australia:
“It is a basic truth that for our Queen we have within us, sometimes unrealised until the moment of expression, the most profound and passionate feelings of loyalty and devotion. It does not require much imagination to realise that when eight million people spontaneously pour out this feeling they are engaging in a great act of common allegiance and common joy which brings them closer together and is one of the most powerful elements converting them from a mass of individuals to a great cohesive nation. In brief, the common devotion to the Throne is a part of the very cement of the whole social structure."
Simply put, what was being engendered then and even today is worship of a “divine” figure and an attempt to commit the nation to a higher authority but not to God. I have been thinking about this and the significance of the resources that go into maintaining the British Royal family. As you see processions, the military, yeomen, bishops, horses and carriages, Royals dressed in military uniforms, colourful outfits, bearskin hats, castles, guards – the expense must run into the billions. There must be a good reason for all this and it is likely to be the process of psychological formation of the population – to induce worship and to gain control of the masses.
I listened to an interesting 7 min podcast by Daniel Natal this week called “Of Religion and Government” that I have linked below:
He makes the point that Cicero observed that the religious system often parallels its political system. Natal quotes the 18th century philosopher Montesquieu who observed that:
“the Catholic religion is most agreeable to monarchy and the Protestant to the republic…Catholics favour hierarchy, order; they have a coherent guiding intelligence channelled by the Pope. Protestantism by contrast is an organization without a Pope, hence it is incoherent and fracturing into smaller sects. But on the good side of the balance sheet, it favours freedom and independence.”
The idea of religious systems impacting political systems is an interesting one, particularly as English religion derives from Catholicism. The Church of England was formed, essentially to meet the wishes of Henry VIII who could not obtain what he wanted from the Pope – a divorce. It does seem to me that a whole architecture of state has been formed to influence the United Kingdom and all the Commonwealth countries into a system of secular worship, together with obedience to the state. The Queen or now King, has a lot of deference and symbols but no real power to stop the excesses of government, as we saw during the pandemic.
What is concerning now is that King Charles III will be an advocate for the policies of the World Economic Forum, where he spoke to launch “The Great Reset” in 2020. At that stage Charles said that the world was in a crisis with “global warming, climate change, and the devastating loss of biodiversity... the greatest threats humanity has ever faced”. Later at the global climate conference at Glasgow in 2021, he advocated for a “vast military style campaign to marshal the strength of the global private sector” and even spoke of the need for a “revolution”. King Charles III clearly will be no neutral monarch but will be attempting to pull the strings and push the world towards a centralized, global dictatorship (perhaps with himself at the helm). The consequences of this viewpoint are dire for society as the Spectator magazine recently outlined :
“A pattern is emerging. International bureaucracies use Net Zero to force governments to destroy their agricultural sectors. Wealth immediately vanishes from the middle and working classes, triggering serious civil unrest. A crisis is declared, one that can only be escaped if the public accept handouts and a permanently reduced quality of life beholden to the generosity of the State. The nation is ‘reset’ with a significant transfer of wealth and rights. Despite smoke quite literally rising as a warning from other nations, Australia and its European parent, the United Kingdom, are continuing on the road to ruin under the guidance of privileged luvvies. While it is no surprise that banks, logistics companies, politicians, and international billionaires like the thought of micromanaging the global economy for their express benefit – it is less clear why the future King of England would cosy up to neo Marxists, eco-fascists, and international socialists who, by definition, want to end the monarchy.”
The situation reminds me of the situation in Israel at the time of Samuel, the great judge and prophet of Israel (1 Samuel 8). The sons of Israel cried out for a king to reign over them so that they could “be like the other nations” (1 Samuel 8:20). Samuel warned them that this would not go well and God Himself provided a thumbnail sketch of life under a king (1 Samuel 8:11-18):
“This will be the behavior of the king who will reign over you: He will take your sons and appoint them for his own chariots and to be his horsemen, and some will run before his chariots. He will appoint captains over his thousands and captains over his fifties, will set some to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and some to make his weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers, cooks, and bakers. And he will take the best of your fields, your vineyards, and your olive groves, and give them to his servants. He will take a tenth of your grain and your vintage, and give it to his officers and servants. And he will take your male servants, your female servants, your finest young men, and your donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take a tenth of your sheep. And you will be his servants. And you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves…” Nevertheless, the people cried out “no, but we will have a king over us…” (1 Samuel 8:19).
The Queen herself, recognized that there was only one Saviour, as she said in her Christmas message in 2011:
“Although we are capable of great acts of kindness, history teaches us that we sometimes need saving from ourselves – from our recklessness of our greed. God sent into the world a unique person – neither a philosopher nor a general, important though they are, but a Saviour, with the power to forgive... “
There are serious consequences for us when we replace worship of the God of the universe, with the worship of a human “deity”. As we watch the pomp and the ceremony associated with the Queen’s funeral on 19th September, it is a warning to us all not to be distracted by fake worship – by smoke and mirrors. If we are, like that small boy on the streets of Berridale as the Queen’s car drove by – we will be left in the dust!
WORLD EVENTS – SOME STORIES THAT CAUGHT MY ATTENTION
Joe Biden and Executive Order 14067
Joe Biden has been prevailed upon by his minders to sign “98 executive orders, 98 presidential memoranda, 306 proclamations, and 60 notices” since his inauguration 20 months ago. This “rule by royal decree” is contrary to the Founding Fathers idea of the Presidency and even the Supreme Court seems unable to control Presidential overreach. The media is starting to alert us to Executive Order 14067, which is titled “Executive Order on Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets”. Even Newsweek, no right-wing publication, published an article titled: “Biden’s Plan for a Digital Dollar is a Massive Threat to Freedom”. The Executive Order has at its core, the regulation of cryptocurrencies, and the creation of a US digital currency. As the Newsweek article states:
“Digital dollars could easily be tracked by banks, federal agencies and the Federal Reserve. They could also be programmed to control the kinds of things people can buy, how much could be purchased at a single time or any number of other variables. In short, the development of a digital currency could present the most dramatic expansion of federal power in history, depending on its design.”
It is certain that central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) are coming to a country near you! This is a sinister story and comes with the promotion of digital IDs (vaccine passport anyone?) and undoubtedly, social credit scores as implemented by China. Each of us has become adapted to paying for things by waving credit cards and phones across digital readers. It won’t be difficult for governments to eliminate cash and gain control of the money supply and what we are allowed to purchase. It seems wise to pay by cash and hopefully push out the date of the introduction of CBDCs.
Things Are Looking Bleak for Germany
Germany, the manufacturing powerhouse of Europe is in trouble because of their past decisions regarding “renewable” energy. So-called “green energy” has been a form of religion in Germany and the reality that wind and solar power cannot meet German energy requirements has been overlooked. As of last few weeks, wind energy provided around 8% of German energy needs and Germany has been massively reliant on Russian natural gas
Source: Clean Energy Wire, 3 August 2022
The UK Telegraph had a good article last week highlighting the energy challenges for Germany and noted that the one-year ahead power prices have increased by 720% since the start of 2022. The consequences for Germany and all of Europe are bleak as they face a cold winter.
As the Telegraph article says:
“Over the last 25 years, Germany’s craving for cheap energy led it into an unequal relationship with Russia — what the philosopher Hegel called “the dialectic of master and slave”.”
Germany’s over-reliance on Russian gas was highlighted by President Trump in 2018 but Trump was mocked by the Europeans for his views. At least the Czechs are aware of the threat from EU energy policies and 70,000 people protested in Prague this last week. Now, Putin has the upper hand and the next move in the energy chess game is hard to predict but one suspects that there could be a widening of the current Russian-Ukrainian conflict. It will be a disastrous European winter if the Ukraine war continues and Russian gas fails to flow to Europe.
China’s Involvement with US Laboratories
I have subscribed to Jim Rickards Strategic Intelligence Newsletter - and I was fascinated with an article this week where he noted that the US National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), headed by Anthony Fauci, has been supporting US laboratories that sign agreements with China. The newsletter cites an article in Frontpage Magazine - which notes that the Galveston National Laboratory “signed agreements with three Chinese labs, including the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), that gave China the power to destroy “secret files, materials and equipment, without any backups. “The agreements applied to “all cooperation and exchange documents, data, details and materials,” were renewable every five years, and the confidentiality terms remaining in force even after termination.”.
Senator Rand Paul has pursued Dr Fauci in relation to the “gain of function” research funded by the US NIAID but to date Fauci has been protected by the Biden administration. US funding for this research was clearly was at the centre of the “escape” of the modified coronavirus from the Wuhan Laboratory. There has been a cover-up of the US involvement with research at the Wuhan Laboratory but if Republicans gain control of the Senate at the mid-terms, Rand Paul’s persistence will undoubtedly uncover the truth.
Ten of the Most Explosive Issues We Face
Tyler Durden wrote a very important article this week highlighting what he regards as the most “explosive” issues that we face and he writes about the importance of protecting our capital and savings. The ten key issues that he highlights are:
1. China, its economy and President Xi – lots of uncertainty economically and politically;
2. China and Taiwan – undoubtedly China is planning to take over Taiwan, it’s just a question of when. When China does invade, the consequences are hard to predict;
3. The EU and Euro’s survival – many of the southern European countries are caught in a debt trap and the energy crisis this winter will have a big impact on European unity. Some European countries are looking to be more independent. The outcome of the war with Ukraine is difficult to predict and there will be ongoing instability between Russia and Eastern Europe;
4. Energy and the trap of climate activism – all Western countries are pushing towards “net zero”, which involves shutting down traditional energy sources. Meanwhile, China continues to expand coal-fired power capacity. Farmers also are being targeted and it is clear that we in the West are headed for a self-induced disaster;
5. Electric vehicles – are being mandated by left-wing Western governments. The power grids will not have enough capacity and so we are looking to a coming transport crisis;
6. Globalization – Tyler Durdan wonders whether globalization is dead. I think that the answer is no. The globalists seem to have all the levers of power and it is clear that various UN treaties will trap national governments as has been done with the climate conferences, most recently with COP26 in Glasgow ;
7. Fiat currencies, the financial section and contagion – the US debt is now more than US$31 trillion. This debt cannot be repaid and so the move towards centrally controlled and programmable digital currencies is certain. The “pandemic” and forced vaccination of billions of people is the template for an ongoing process of autocratic government;
8. Inflation, Deflation or Stagflation – most of the central banks around the world were charged with keeping inflation low and also unemployment. The dramatic increase in inflation in the last few months is likely to continue and will have a shocking impact on people’s ability to meet debt repayments;
9. Growing inequality – a number of economic commentators have noted the big gap between the top 1% and the masses. The pandemic resulted in many small businesses going bankrupt as the Big Tech companies benefited from the online economy. The pressures on small and medium businesses will continue and energy costs will make it almost impossible for cafés and restaurants to be profitable;
10. Artificial intelligence and the Fourth Industrial Revolution – QR codes to monitor our locations, vaccine “passports” and the coming digital currencies will give extraordinary government control over what we can buy and sell. Artificial intelligence and robots increasingly will be employed with significant negative impacts on employment. People like Klaus Schwab, the World Economic Forum supremo, are promoting a fusion of man and machine, including changes to our basic genetic structure. At the heart of all this is a belief that the planet has too many people and so the population needs dramatic reduction. Remember that Prince Philip said in 2009 that he would like to return as a deadly virus and solve the overpopulation probem.
I think that these 10 “explosive” issues will shape our environments over the next few years and we need to plan our own responses to these coming challenges. Our own responses need to involve independence from the “internet of things”.
The Promotion of the Idea of US Domestic Terrorism
More than 5 million illegal immigrants have crossed the US southern border since Joe Biden was installed as President. Undoubtedly, many of these are terrorists and Biden’s extreme-left wing controllers aim seems to be to destabilize the US economically and socially. In the meantime, there is an attempt by Biden and his henchmen to “trump up” fears of right-wing white supremacists threatening the US. Al Perrotta published a timely article this week: “DHS Secretary Claims on 9/11 Terror Threat has ‘Evolved’ as Biden FBI Raids Homes of Dozens of MAGA Types”. Perrotta writes that:
“the threat landscape has evolved considerably” since 9/11. Even though foreign terrorists are slipping through the border like water, and even though the Taliban is not only still hosting al-Qaeda, but is sitting on billions of dollars of deadly weapons Biden gifted them, Mayorkas says domestic terrorism is the real threat. Oh, he’s not talking about ANTIFA or BLM, who’ve engaged for two years in a terror campaign against America. He means those with an “ideology of hate, anti-government sentiment, false narratives propagated on online platforms.”
The Biden administration is trying to establish the idea that “MAGA Republicans” (Donald Trump supporters) are threatening the US. Dozens of Trump supporters have had their homes raided and Mike Lindell, the famous manufacturer of MyPillow - was accosted by FBI agents in the drive-through of a restaurant and had his phone seized. The increasing politicization of the FBI and Justice Department is a major threat to US democracy and it is clear that the Biden administration is trying to goad “MAGA Republicans” into a dramatic response. Surprisingly, many in the US seem aware of what the Biden administration is doing and recent polls show that 53% of voters back his impeachment.
We are living in interesting times and it is certain that there will be further provocations from those in control of the White House with less than 2 months until the US mid-term elections.
Amir Tsafarti Reports Live from the Israeli-Syrian Border Highlighting the Increase in Civil Unrest Internationally
I always enjoy Amir Tsafart`i’s reports from Israel and last week
he spoke about the rise in civil unrest internationally based on the latest analysis by the well-respected group Verisk-Maplecroft. He notes that 100 countries
FIgure - Graph of Risk Index Related to Different Countries
witnessed the rise in the civil unrest index in the last quarter. The graph above demonstrates this and the group believes that there is worse civil unrest to come as “governments of all stripes grapple with the impact of inflation on the price of staple food and energy.”
Tsafarti this week highlights the fact that Iran has tripled its uranium enrichment and has enough uranium for 5 nuclear bombs. His analysis is that whatever happens with the talks in Vienna, Israel will need to act against the Iranian threat.
Amir also spoke about Russia’s attack on power plants in Ukraine following the Ukrainian counter-offensive this week. He notes that Russia can cripple the Western European economy as prices for energy have risen 10 fold. Alternative energy sources can never supply enough energy for Europe and without Russian gas, Europe will freeze this winter. It is worthwhile reading the recent article by Ron Paul – “Europe Commits Suicide-by-Sanctions” .
Russia’s Gazprom energy company has reported that its profits increased by 100% in the first half of this year and so the sanctions imposed on Russia by the West are having the opposite effect to that intended.