Category Archives: Americanism

Just in time: a new holiday

Just in time: a new holiday

by Jon Rappoport

December 10, 2017

“Central government employs many meddlers. They have found the one thing they can do: mind other people’s business. Otherwise, they’d be pumping gas in Death Valley.” (The Underground, Jon Rappoport)

In case you’ve been living under a rock—the government decides what health/medical treatments you can legally take and which you can’t. It does this by deploying a stranglehold on practitioners.

For example, it’s perfectly fine if doctors kill you with chemo, but they can’t suggest medicines the government hasn’t approved, even if those medicines might save your life.

Because the government wants to protect you. Or, to put it another way, it wants to control you.

Laws and agencies exist to make that happen.

Once that basic framework was put in place, powerful pharmaceutical companies used it to rule out their competition. Who couldn’t see that coming?

To be more accurate, the laws and agencies which control your health options were established, in the first place, through pharma influence.

You won’t find legal justification for this tyrannical system in the Constitution. The founding document is troublesome, because it tends toward individual freedom.

In a fairly reasonable world, people in government might believe their version of medical care is the best one, but they wouldn’t be able to enforce it. An individual might decide to try a treatment government “experts” consider ridiculous or even dangerous.

This is part of what being free means.

The government is intent on sticking its nose into other people’s business and meddling and making decisions for them—wherever and whenever it can get away with it.

You and I should be able to say, “No.” Just a simple no.

Seeing the many ways to say no, in many diverse circumstances, ought to be an essential aspect of the education system, since it was originally invented to teach students what it meant to be a citizen in a new form of government, called a Republic. That Republic was all about hamstringing central power.

However, the expansion of overweening government was accompanied by an education system that, increasingly, dedicated it resources and time to coercing students to prefer and celebrate various forms of authoritarian power (no accident), and saying no is a subject that falls outside the system.

Hence the great need for home schooling—when it is done well.

The logic is quite clear: when freedom is encroached upon and whittled away, saying no is a positive act.

Unfortunately, many parents don’t see it that way. They want to believe in a universal New Age YES which embraces all existence. It takes about two minutes to refute that generalized gibberish—and to expose it as a combination of fear and totalitarian Niceness.

I’m waiting for a company to start producing tiny plastic trophies, which will be awarded to every newborn baby.

NO is a great thing. And it does lead to YES on many other fronts.

Since this is the holiday season, including Thanksgiving and Christmas, people are urged to be thankful, grateful, and opt for peace and good will. That fine, but I think we need another holiday:

THE NO DAY. THE DAY OF SAYING NO.

At a meal with family and friends, we join hands around the table, and each person mentions several important things he is saying no to.

It’s a way of clearing the air and reminding ourselves of that fundamental individual right and power.

Put NO out there. Make it definite.

If you must, you can wear a smile while you’re doing it, but you don’t have to.

A smile doesn’t guarantee happiness and victory. On the other hand, great satisfaction can occur without a grin.

I think this holiday needs more than one day. How about a week?

Exit From the Matrix

(To read about Jon’s mega-collection, Exit From The Matrix, click here.)

Jon Rappoport

The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.

Utopian fantasies vs. a better world

What happened to the Republic? Democracy happened

by Jon Rappoport

November 19, 2017

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“When you come to the subject of who should ‘fix things,’ the government or private individuals, you could throw up your hands and confess that neither choice works, in which case you’re left with a terminal disease, and a fine excuse for doing nothing; or you could refer back to the principles of the Republic, and understand why the Founders put chains on government, and you might a find a clue for navigating out of the maze.” (The Underground, Jon Rappoport)

This piece is for anyone who can understand it—but it’s also for THE ENTREPRENEUR, who in his soul wants to do something large and bright and radical and successful, to turn the tide of human affairs in an enormously good direction and, yes, still make a substantial profit.

And no, “the universe” doesn’t rule out those two motives existing side by side.

The United States was created as a Republic.

That meant severely limited central government.

Why?

Because the Founders knew the long experience of Europe: overarching tyrannies; bloated kings emboldened with the doctrine of divine right to rule; theocracies; gigantic theft of land; force, coercion; slavery.

The new 18th century American central government, through enumerated powers and checks and balances, had to be limited and even hamstrung.

On that basis, individual freedom would be maximized.

That was the whole point of a Republic.

The individual would be free to do whatever he wanted to, as long as he didn’t interfere with the life and liberty of others.

INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM—THE HALLMARK OF A REPUBLIC.

However, in order for a Republic to have a chance of success, the population would have to remain small. A Republic is not for an enormous population. The people are too remote from the federal center of power.

And there needed to be a population of moral people, who understood basic rights and wrongs, beyond legislation and law.

As the American population swelled, there should have been many Republics founded on this continent. Unfortunately, that never happened.

Instead, men in and around central government conspired to multiply their own power through a variety of means, thus creating monopolies of great strength, in government and business and money.

And gradually, these men and their descendants came to see they could foist a grand illusion on the people: they could promote the idea that “the people’s wishes were paramount” and should be served at all times.

Thus arrived Democracy.

Rule by “everyone.” Rule by “popular decision.” Rule by “meeting needs,” whatever they might be.

Meeting needs, of course, necessitated a more powerful and extensive government—shattering the severe limits originally imposed in the Constitution.

Marry these democratic elements to a decline in general morality—grab whatever you can at the expense of your neighbor—and the fate of the Republic was sealed.

The Republic was never perfect. Far from it. Perfection wasn’t its goal. But it was a noble effort, and the ideas on which it stood still survive.

Particularly, freedom of the individual.

That freedom is the launching pad for everything the individual can imagine and create, in order to build a greater future.

And the rule barring the individual from interfering with the life and liberty of others is still a basic principle.

Democracy cultivates mobs. It embodies the idea that any group which can gain attention must have its purported needs met.

Just one step to the left of that, we find the socialist/Communist maxim: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”

What able individuals produce will be taken from them and given to those of “lesser ability.”

Limited government, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights—these are mere pieces of paper, old pamphlets trampled on in the streets by the mobs shouting their endless demands.

If the ancestors of these groups, at one time, had legitimate objections to the way government was being run (against them), now all that is swept away in a sea of base anger and revenge—which turns out to be the elite plan for the end-game…

If the elites can pull it off:

Chaos. Out of which a new level of order will be imposed—which takes us back to the kind of tyranny that existed before the struggle for individual freedom and limited government was won.

And all the while, these elite planners pose as utopian altruists. Socialists.

And yet…as of 2010, there were 27.9 million small businesses in the US.

Somehow, the heritage of the Republic still lives.

Freedom of the individual.

The core idea on which America was founded.

Liberty of the individual is more than an invented “construct.” It’s a reflection of an inherent truth: the individual is at the heart of what life is all about.

A major point needs to be entered into this mix: ABUNDANCE. Planet-wide abundance of resources, technology, and energy.

As Buckminster Fuller made clear 80 years ago, there is “enough for everyone”—which is to say, every person on Earth can have the essentials of survival. Food, clothing, shelter.

However, Fuller (and others) stalled on the vital question: WHO WILL DELIVER THIS ABUNDANCE TO THE GLOBAL POPULATION, AND HOW?

In the arena of fuzzy thinking, the answer is, of course: “the government” will deliver abundance.

This is fatuous, idiotic, and impossible.

“The government” is controlled by men who, amidst their many crimes, have no intention of sharing the wealth of Earth’s resources and technology. I can’t emphasize this fact enough.

The government is there to promote socialism and technocracy as “better-world” answers right around the corner. THIS IS THE MASK.

Behind the mask is cruel top-down scarcity, upheld and maintained, despite the truth that there really IS enough for everyone.

No, government will not be the provider of abundance.

NOR SHOULD IT BE.

That task falls to…wait for it…private business.

What?

Here is the capper: if private businesses—including major corporations—realized they could sell food, clothing, and shelter to the global population for relative pennies—and make more profits than they’re making now—because of the size of that consumer base—they might reassess their position.

They might…but they won’t. Not without our help.

Boiling down the situation: you have the potential consumer base of some eight billion people; you have the means to sell this base the means of survival—food and clothing and shelter—for pennies; you have the technology needed for the job; you have the bright promise of a better future.

And you have the individuals who, armed with this understanding, could create businesses to bring such a vision to fruition.

Actual capitalism is preserved. Free market is preserved. Profit motive is preserved. Doing good is preserved. And all this WITHOUT GOVERNMENT CONTROL.

No one said this job I’m proposing would be easy. Of course it’s not easy.

But, for example, the next generation of techies—after this generation of air heads who seek to worship at the knee of brain-computer mysticism has faded away—the next generation might be persuaded to revisit the core ideas of the Republic and see how free enterprise, freely undertaken, could work a true revolution and distribute abundance to the planet at the same time.

Imagine a near-future corporate boardroom meeting. The CEO stands up and says:

“OK, people, I’ve brought you here because we’re going to try something new and radical. Face it, we’ve been selling crap to our customers for a long, long time and gouging them in the process. Today, that stops. We’re going to shift over to a different theme. Our board will approve, because we’re going to show them this new effort will expand our bottom line. WE’RE GOING MAKE NUTRITIOUS FOOD PACKS AND SELL THEM FOR RELATIVE PENNIES TO A BILLION PEOPLE. That’s the initial goal. We can do it. On another front, we’re going to sell a billion people good clean food seeds for growing food crops. We’re going to buy acres of land in the so-called Third World and then sell parcels, for farming, to the poor for pennies and take a small share of their profits…

“Now, at first, we’ll have to work through a bunch of foreign governments, because they control their people. This is tricky. But if we give these tinpot leaders enough money, they’ll go along….”

Of course, there will be problems. Serious problems. The CIA, for example, which supports government control and scarcity around the world.

That’s where GOOD AND RIGHTEOUS PUBLIC RELATIONS ENTERS THE SCENE. That visionary CEO and his company will have to publicize the hell out of their radical new plan and expose the problems and barriers and ops the old guard throws up against them.

Wake up the people to what is going on.

“Are you kidding? This will never work.”

That’s what was said in the middle of the Dark Ages, when a few people said THE INDIVIDUAL SHOULD BE FREE.

“This will never work.”

But it did.

With enough courage and determination and intelligence and vision and work and imagination, over a very long period of time, it did work.

Up against forces of evil and deception, it did work.

And it can work again.

“But this time it’s different. The situation is worse, much worse.”

No it isn’t.

Here’s a clue. It’s always worse. That’s the way it always looks. But it’s always possible.

The free and independent and creative individual has been lulled into thinking that he has to limit his entrepreneurial vision and goals to a few self-contained enterprises in a small corner of a much larger space.

That’s called brainwashing.

He can think and plan and work in as large an arena as he wants to. If he wakes up.

If he’s a rocket ship with a range of 100 light years, and he’s operating on an old route that travels 50 miles, back and forth, something is seriously amiss.

There is much more to say…

But this is an introduction. This is a sketch of the core. This is about the individual unleashed. This is about sacrificing nothing in the pursuit of individual success while making abundance into fact.

This is about wiping away the delusion that “the government will generate a new and better world.”

If you want a better world, if you want abundance, you can choose government or the individual as the carrier. You can put your eggs in either basket. You can analyze both answers and decide.

You can roll the dice on either choice.

You can put aside the mantra of “nothing works” and look into the psychology of the individual and government and find truths.

An analogy: you’ve got a gigantic oil tanker that’s been heading in the wrong direction. You want to turn it around. Who is going to take the helm and do it?

On one side, you have 50 individuals, 47 of whom are corrupt and consumed with criminal greed. The other three are different. They glimpse the possibility of doing the right thing.

On the other side, you have that amorphous swollen blob called government. It’s not only consumed with greed, it preaches The Good as a deceptive front to cover its crimes. A few individuals who might want to do the right thing are laden with connections which command the continuance of crimes.

Your choice.

Exit From the Matrix

(To read about Jon’s mega-collection, Exit From The Matrix, click here.)

Jon Rappoport

The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.

The violent attack on Senator Rand Paul: will the punishment fit the crime?

The violent attack on Senator Rand Paul: will the punishment fit the crime?

by Jon Rappoport

November 10, 2017

Breitbart reports: “Kentucky Senator Rand Paul’s injuries are more serious than previously reported, following an attack, allegedly by one of his neighbors, last week in Bowling Green, KY.”

“’A medical update: final report indicates six broken ribs & new X-ray shows a pleural effusion‬,’ tweeted the Republican senator Wednesday.”

“Previous medical reports stated that Paul suffered five broken ribs and lacerations to his lungs. Reports indicate a violent attack from Paul’s long-time neighbor, 59-year-old retired doctor Rene Boucher, after a dispute. The exact nature of the dispute remains unclear, but Boucher’s lawyer claimed it had nothing to do with politics.”

“Police arrested Boucher and charged him with fourth-degree assault.”

Breitbart also interviewed several neighbors of Senator Paul. They rejected the story that Boucher’s attack on Paul was the result of a “landscaping dispute.” The neighbors stated the Senator has been a very friendly homeowner, and there is no record of any complaints either against him or from him in the homeowner’s association files.

The Senator’s injuries are serious. I looked up the definition of 4th degree assault in Kentucky law, to understand what his alleged assailant is being charged with:

From reference.com: “According to the Kentucky Legislature Research Commission, fourth degree assault is defined as intentionally causing a physical injury to another, wantonly causing physical injury, or recklessly causing injury to another with a dangerous instrument.”

“The Kentucky Legislature Research Commission lists the possible penalties for fourth degree assault in Kentucky as fines, jail time and probation. Fines resulting from fourth degree assault cannot exceed five hundred dollars, and jail time for those found guilty of fourth degree assault cannot exceed one year. Fourth degree assault is a misdemeanor, and it is considered the least serious of assault charges in the state of Kentucky.”

“Wantonly causing physical injury” is the least serious assault charge? And it carries a maximum of a five hundred dollar fine and a year in jail? And it is a misdemeanor?

Preposterous.

Of course, when we’re witnessing mass shootings and mass murder with cars, it’s easy to view the attack on Senator Paul as a trivial event. But it’s not.

You’re mowing the lawn outside your house. A person sneaks on to your property, runs up behind you, and attacks you. You had no idea what was coming. As a result of this vicious and cowardly assault, you suffer six broken ribs and fluid in your lungs.

And this is a minor offense?

No, we don’t know all the facts, and the defendant has not yet had his day in court. But assuming the reports are correct, the misdemeanor charge and the potential punishment are absurd travesties.

The law has been twisted to allow grave offenses to become minor episodes. The reason is fairly clear: so many crime are being committed by so many people, the system has been adjusted to accommodate criminals.

“Well,” people say, “what about all the high-level felons who serve in government and lead corporations, and are never brought to justice?”

What about them? They too should be charged and convicted and given long prison sentences. Minimizing one group of offenses because another group of offenses goes unpunished is egregious bullshit.

If you need living proof, find a friend and ask him to violently attack you from behind, during the day, when you least expect it and are unable to defend yourself. Experience your injuries, and then think about whether this should be a misdemeanor in the lowest possible assault category.

What about forgiveness? What about loving your enemies? That’s another rationalization that pops up, now and then, after violent events. If you were the victim, would you really find it persuasive?

Would you be worried that having “negative thoughts” about your attacker and experiencing anger against him might “pollute your consciousness” and affect your life going forward? Would you rather paste a smile on your face and opt for marshmallows and rainbows?

Righteous moral outrage is a positive trait.

Young law students, who are considering a future as a money-grubbing sleazeball tactician, should contemplate the meaning of it.

In part, The Law was instituted as an expression of moral outrage. It was supposed to channel that emotion into avenues of fair retribution.

And at the highest level, it was supposed to protect an individual citizen’s private property and the safety of his person.

Apparently, in the case of Senator Paul, both rights were extraordinarily violated.

If current reports of the attack are true, Rene Boucher should spend a long time behind bars. It’s called justice.

No, Virginia, everything doesn’t belong to everybody in some fantasy of a socialist paradise. Individual property and person are real. Crimes against them are real. To demonstrate it, stroll into a bar where there is a very good chance your most precious possessions—your iPhone and iPad—will be stolen. Later, when you’re lying outside on the sidewalk, think about “everything belonging to everybody.” See how that works for you…

power outside the matrix

(To read about Jon’s collection, Power Outside The Matrix, click here.)

Jon Rappoport

The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.

The NFL, ESPN, and Mike Wilbon

The NFL, ESPN, and Mike Wilbon

by Jon Rappoport

October 13, 2017

I write this article because there is a pernicious new understanding loose in the land: private property doesn’t exist, no individual owns anything, and “everything belongs to everybody.” It’s basically a Marxist view, to the degree that Marx’s gibberish can be understood.

Over at ESPN, vaunted show host, Mike Wilbon, weighed in on Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys, who announced that any of his players who didn’t stand up for the National Anthem would be benched.

Wilbon: “He [Jones] said he wanted to honor the Anthem…But now it just seems like it was as phony as a three-dollar bill. And the word that comes to mind, and I don’t care who doesn’t like me using it, is ‘plantation.’”

Wilbon characterized Jones’ feelings as follows: “The players are here to serve me, and they will do what I want no matter how much I pay them. They are not equal to me.”

The next day, Wilbon doubled down: “I was critical of Jerry Jones yesterday, I used the phrase ‘plantation mentality.’ Let me repeat it: ‘plantation mentality.’ That’s what it comes off as.”

I see. Jerry Jones is the slaveowner. Some of his players are millionaires. They’re the slaves, because Jones says they can’t play if they won’t stand up for the Anthem at games.

Apparently, Wilbon thinks the owner of a company should have no control over what his employees do ON COMPANY TIME. If employees want to sit in the lobby at eleven in the morning on a Tuesday and put on a recording of the National Anthem and kneel, the owner has no right to intercede. He has no right to spell out consequences.

Maybe Wilbon thinks the NFL is a public utility owned and operated by the federal government.

Wilbon says the Cowboys owner doesn’t think his players are equal to him. Well, IN THE CONTEXT OF THE COMPANY, of course that’s what Jones thinks. He’s the boss. The players work for him. Is there something about that relationship Wilbon doesn’t understand?

Does Wilbon think a pro football game is a public event, like the signing of a bill by the President? His network, ESPN, pays a fortune for the right to broadcast NFL games. Advertisers, in turn, fork over huge sums to ESPN. Sounds quite similar to BUSINESS.

In case there is any doubt, Jerry Jones isn’t saying his players can’t hold press conferences on their own time, beyond team property, and express their views on the Anthem, America, or police brutality against black people.

Wilbon obviously confuses the public and private sector. Despite the fact that advertising dollars pay his salary—which ought to be a clue—he views a football game as devoid of private ownership. He should check the ad rates for the Super Bowl.

Perhaps Wilbon, like many other people, sees the NFL as a “national institution.” Therefore, curtailing the absolute right to kneel during the anthem violates “a public trust.” Such murky ideas are popular these days, because the bedrock concept of private property and ownership has faded away.

And no, I’m not talking about football players as private property; I’m talking about NFL teams. They’re companies, and they have owners and buildings and fields and stadiums and merchandise.

If these teams manage to bamboozle government entities into paying for stadiums with taxpayer dollars, fans should organize boycotts.

A few weeks ago, there was a flurry of opinion-articles claiming the NFL is a non-profit entity which, outrageously, doesn’t pay taxes. That is incorrect. The teams are profit-making businesses, obligated to pay taxes. The NFL league office was a non-profit, until 2015. It isn’t anymore. Now here’s a story: Wilbon might want to look into the NFL Commissioner’s salary, during the years when the league office was a non-profit. Fifteen million a year? Twenty? Thirty? That’s ridiculous.

Anyway, back to business. As in competition. If a handful of billionaires want to start their own pro football league, and go up against the NFL, they can certainly give it a try. No one is stopping them. All the rules of ownership and private property apply. Perhaps the owners of the new teams in the new league can demand all their players kneel during the National Anthem. See how that goes over. See how that sells. The owners can call their league Progressive American Football. After every change of possession on the field, the team with the ball must move to the Left (on television screens). Why not?

On the other hand, those billionaires could shift to the Right. Call their new league American Patriot Football. Before each game, there would be a half-hour parade featuring hundreds of heavily militarized cops in full armament marching up and down. On big screens, old footage from wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Panama, Grenada, Libya. Play the Anthem seven times in a row before kickoff. Make Dick Cheney the Commissioner.

Or start a Radical Green League. No tackling. Only touching. Each team must have at least seven women in the starting lineup. In all stadiums before kickoff, televise Al Gore giving a speech about how he made a billion dollars fronting for global warming and the end of the world. Vendors sell tofu dogs, sparkling water from the Himalayas. Every player gets a trophy every Sunday. At halftime, burn the American flag on the 50-yard line.

The CNN League. The players work for CNN. There is a field, but no games. The players just stand there and scream about Trump for three hours.

If these new leagues can’t get television contracts, broadcast the games online.

But in each case, owners own the teams. Get it? They don’t own the players, they employ them. They can set rules for what happens on company time. It’s fairly simple. If the employees don’t like the rules, they can quit.

A few NFL players have done that. Of course, their reason was avoiding getting their skulls dented and waking up one day unsure of their name.

Football. Gotta love it.

The Matrix Revealed

(To read about Jon’s mega-collection, The Matrix Revealed, click here.)

Jon Rappoport

The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.

Pentagon paid for patriotism at NFL games

Pentagon paid for patriotism at NFL games

by Jon Rappoport

September 28, 2017

If politics is the last refuge of scoundrels, as the old saying goes, then constant calls for Unity is the last refuge of politicians.

The hits keep coming in the farce called NFL football.

“We’re all in this together.”

That’s the latest jive coming out of NFL PR headquarters. Somehow, with a few owners stepping down out of their sky-high offices to join hands with their players on the field, and with players holding hands as well, and with this rich imagery piped into homes on network television, America is supposed to feel united.

About what?

Ahem…unclear.

United around Colin Kaepernick? That seems to be passe now—or at least the NFL wants us to think so. No, now it’s all about oatmeal Obama-type “togetherness”—generalized vapid fluff.

What’s next? A pre-game dance number featuring players and owners and fans and soldiers and cops and commercial sponsors at the 50-yard line, kneeling before a statue of Bono?

Last week, in keeping with the new unity theme, networks decided not to show angry fans booing and yelling in the stands, when players knelt and joined hands during the National Anthem. Mustn’t sow discord. Mustn’t annoy the sponsors.

“Let’s all pretend we’re One.”

The fans are okay with the players kneeling, the players are okay with the fans being okay, the NFL is okay with everyone being okay, and poof; problem solved. It’s a marshmallow world.

Now start the football game, boys. Go out on the field and hit somebody!

Of course, some of the pre-game and halftime “patriotism” you’ve seen at NFL games—patriotism which, presumably, the kneeling players believe is hiding dark truths about America—has been paid for by the US Department of Defense. Yes, that’s right.

So NFL teams have been raking in money for these government “ads.” They’re not genuine patriotism. They’re a series of commercials.

If NFL teams claim they’re proud to honor our soldiers, for example, you could translate the statement thusly: “Honor in this case is very much like Budweiser and Ford sponsorship.”

During a US Senate investigation of Department of Defense paid ads covering 2011-2014, Senators Jeff Flake and John McCain issued the following:

“…DOD paid for patriotic tributes at professional football, baseball, basketball, hockey, and soccer games. These paid tributes included on-field color guard, enlistment and reenlistment ceremonies, performances of the national anthem, full-field flag details, ceremonial first pitches͕ and puck drops. The National Guard paid teams for the ‘opportunity’ to sponsor military appreciation nights and to recognize its birthday. It paid the Buffalo Bills to sponsor its Salute to the Service game. DOD even paid teams for the ‘opportunity’ to perform surprise welcome home promotions for troops returning from deployments and to recognize wounded warriors. While well intentioned, we wonder just how many of these displays included a disclaimer that these events were in fact sponsored by the DOD at taxpayer expense. Even with that disclosure, it is hard to understand how a team accepting taxpayer funds to sponsor a military appreciation game, or to recognize wounded warriors or returning troops, can be construed as anything other than paid patriotism.”

As an aside, I wonder how NFL teams would respond, if a person with deep pockets wanted to pay for a halftime on-field panorama depicting the unnecessary and massively life-destroying wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The NFL is all for unity, if you can pay for it and your content passes muster.

This whole business is a twisted mess. “We, the NFL, are happy our teams have taken the Pentagon’s money to stage patriotic commercials on the field. Now, if the players object to any part of that, directly or by implication, we’re sorry. In fact, we stand with the players and we stand for paid patriotism. How? By saying we do. It’s easy. We refer the matter to our PR departments, and they cook up the messages. For this awkward situation, we settled on Unity. That’s always a good one. A significant percentage of the gullible will buy it. We’re all about the money. Whatever works. We hope things will cool off by the weekend. We’ve huddled with the networks, and if all goes well, they won’t show angry fans in the stands. They’ll show smiling fans joining hands to express their solidarity with the players joining hands. Unity. Yes. It’s a simple theme for simpletons.”

Amen.

Peace be with you.

power outside the matrix

(To read about Jon’s collection, Power Outside The Matrix, click here.)

Jon Rappoport

The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.

If football were canceled, would America go insane?

If football were canceled, would America go insane?

by Jon Rappoport

September 28, 2017

College football is a frenzy of student fans and local supporters, who in some cases extend to a whole state (e.g., Alabama).

The players are heavily recruited, and most of them hardly qualify as “student-athletes.” They’re at the school to play football and they hope to enter the NFL, where the money is.

The players make extraordinary amounts of $$ for the colleges, but none for themselves (excluding under the table cash and gifts).

The illusion is: the players are part of the college or university.

They’re not. They’re budding professionals who, because of the rules, aren’t paid salaries or bonuses.

But the fans think of them as “their own.”

“The players on my team are mine. They’re my school.”

No. Not really.

But no one cares. Through a combination of idol worship and “school spirit,” the illusion holds.

And holding that symbol in the mind is everything.

A loss on a Saturday afternoon is like a rebuke from a priest who supposedly holds the keys to the gates of heaven.

And what about school spirit? What does that actually mean?

If a student is there to learn, does he automatically develop pride in his college? How does that follow?

There are, in fact, a whole series of illusions that pile up. Some students, after graduation, donate money to their alma mater. For years on end. They become boosters. They join alumni associations. They come back for football games and wear school colors.

The football players come and go. They are the college’s hired guns, on zero salary.

Consider the situation at U Cal Berkeley. Recent insane politics aside, the school had to renovate its football stadium, because the State Regents determined it was “seismically unsafe.” It sits on an earthquake fault. The project blossomed out to a 300-400 million-dollar effort, depending on whose estimate you believe.

The chief minds at Berkeley asserted that a major football program was essential to corralling future donations and philanthropy. The University’s overall budget wouldn’t be met without those donations.

Now, with the new stadium, college officials are trying to figure out how to pay off the long-term debt. Lawyers, financial wizards, and faculty argue about that. “Our plan is foolproof.” “Our plan is a hideous unworkable mess.”

Must have football, though, come hell or high water.

That’s called a bind.

If securing philanthropic gifts to the University depends on maintaining a high-profile football program, it’s a testimony to the mental status of the donor alumni. What did they really learn while they were there as students?

Were the illusions of team, spirit, hired hands (the players), wins and losses on the field their main takeaways from four years of education?

As the NFL kneeling story expands, some teams’ fans, enraged, are burning their jerseys. Their identification with “team” was total, and so the downside is bitter. The players wouldn’t stand for the National Anthem and the flag. Betrayal. The team was supposed to be patriotic. But they aren’t.

Lack of patriotism cancels out total undying fan loyalty.

How shallow are those ideals?

Many of those enraged fans have been paying tax dollars that helped build the stadiums their holy teams are playing in. That’s an acceptable trade-off?

What would happen if, magically, football in America disappeared overnight? Would the whole country go stark raving mad?

Is identifying with a team that powerful?

“My life and sanity depend on having a team to root for. If you take that away from me, I’m lost. I have nothing left.”

What’s wrong with having heroes to look up to? Well, the whole idea of having a hero is: inspiration for the individual, so he, like his hero, can dream his own dreams and rise up and strive to achieve something great in his own life. If it turns out the inspiration isn’t there, and the striving isn’t there, and hero worship is the entire story, now and forever, then illusion is king.

There are football illusions and political-leader illusions and religious illusions and romantic illusions. They all share the same element: “I give you everything and I have nothing.”

“The power I give to you could be my own, but it isn’t. I surrender it. I invest it all in you. I wouldn’t know how to use it myself.”

On the great gridiron, the teams march up and down, the heroes execute dazzling plays, they kneel for the Anthem or they stand up and salute, they protest or they don’t protest, and whatever they do triggers automatic reactions in the fervid parishioners in the stands and at home. And the meaning of this Pavlovian exchange is meaningful and profound.

Or so we’re told.

Alabama won this week. The Dallas Cowboys won. I’m inside the pearly gates. I’m walking on clouds. But next week, we will once again “mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our Sacred Honor,” in the hope we will succeed.

We pray for that success.

THIS is what we kneel for.

Exit From the Matrix

(To read about Jon’s mega-collection, Exit From The Matrix, click here.)

Jon Rappoport

The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.

Trump/NFL political theater: who’s winning?

Trump/NFL political theater: who’s winning?

by Jon Rappoport

September 27, 2017

Who’s protesting what?

Players are standing up with arms locked, they’re sitting, they’re kneeling, they’re staying in the locker room during the National Anthem, a few owners have come out of their high offices to join with the players on the field, the networks are suddenly airing the pre-game Anthem because TV viewers want to see the protests and it’s all about ratings and ad revenues; viewership for the games is down, one quarterback who stayed with his team in the locker room confessed he wanted to be out on the field and didn’t want to be known for protesting the Anthem, Trump praised fans in the stands for booing the players, it’s a party, a circus, it’s theater, so who’s winning?

According to counts and a survey, 70% of NFL players are black, and 83% of NFL fans are white.

One biracial player, Colin Kaepernick, started the whole business by kneeling during the National Anthem, to protest police brutality against black people.

Colin Kaepernick’s original message, whatever you may think of it, has exploded into pieces all over the landscape. Now people are talking about the flag, the Anthem, patriotism, the veterans, ungrateful millionaire athletes, “unity,” the League, the Commissioner, racism in general, and Trump as a slavemaster according to Jesse Jackson.

But don’t worry. We’re assured these football protests are part of engaging in a “national dialogue on race.”

How many times have we heard that one before?

What dialogue? The whole country is going to assemble in the geographical center of America and begin talking earnestly to one another?

Yes, Trump is “energizing his base,” as they say. But he’s also gleefully attacking the NFL team owners, some of whom were/are his pals. He likes that kind of theater. He’s sticking the owners with the nasty job of defending the players. If the owners remain silent and go away and hide, they’ll be seen as racists. That’s not a good look. So a few of them appeared on football fields Sunday, “standing in solidarity” with their teams. Now they can run away and hide.

“Jeeves, tell my pilot to gas up the jet. I’ve done my duty. We’re heading to the Cape. Let the staff know they’ll have to open up the summer house again…”

Trump also wants his enemies everywhere to understand he’s willing to attack anyone, even the rich owners of NFL franchises. Fallout, no fallout, he doesn’t care.

So today, a Pittsburgh Steeler offensive tackle few people have ever heard of, a decorated ex-Army Ranger, Alejandro Villanueva, is the most popular player in the League, because he didn’t stay in the locker room with the rest of his team during the playing of the National Anthem. He came outside and made himself visible on the field. Suddenly, his jersey has shot up to number one on the best seller list of NFL merchandise.

That 80% of white fans are buying it.

This is supposed to be part of the “national dialogue,” too?

(Update: Villanueva has now apologized for standing alone and “throwing his teammates under the bus.” What’s the policy on returning NFL merchandise?)

The strategic winner in this big NFL story, so far, is Trump. His America-first rhetoric is making a bigger impact than all the NFL protests.

Joe Scarborough, MSNBC: “This may be unpopular but it is a political reality. Every NFL player refusing to stand for the national anthem helps Trump politically.”

Oops.

Of course, the rest of the politically Left media echo chamber refuses to acknowledge that. The echo-chamber denizens always try to convince themselves they’re creating and owning and controlling the narrative.

“If we say the NFL player protestors are smacking Trump down, the American people will believe us.”

Yes, just as people believed the echo chamber when they elected Trump over Hillary “nothing is my fault” Clinton.

Of course, the echo chamber has to drown out a few voices. For example, a player many think is the greatest NFL athlete of all time, hall of famer Jim Brown: “I’m going to give you the real deal: I’m an American. I don’t desecrate my flag and my national anthem. I’m not gonna do anything against the flag and national anthem. I’m going to work within those situations. But this is my country, and I’ll work out the problems, but I’ll do it in an intelligent manner.”

Hmm. That doesn’t work for the preferred narrative, so put it on the back page.

Where is the wild NFL-Trump-media theater piece heading? It’s obvious, isn’t it? More supporters for Trump. More voters on his side.

And who wants that?

The Russians! Yes. Now we see the light. Vladimir Putin is behind all these NFL player protests because, as a chess player, he understands the end game: Trump wins.

Putin somehow manipulated Colin Kaepernick into staging his original kneel during the National Anthem. That’s the op.

Is WikiLeaks going to play a role? We don’t know yet. Stay tuned.

I’m sure James Comey will fit right in. He can return and testify before Congress:

“Well, we know Ivanka Trump met with Putin eighteen months ago. At the time, he expressed an interest in buying the Dallas Cowboys, with gold bars he found in a Venusian UFO that crashed in Siberia. But then the conversation turned to the possibility of triggering player protests, as a way of garnering support for Donald Trump…”

Putin is also behind Black Lives Matter, Antifa, incidents of violence, riots, cops being shot, because all that, too, will swing support over to Trump.

Note to John McCain: Get moving, John. Put together the Committee hearings on the Hill. We’ve got our man. Putin. We’ve got the tiger by the tail…

Exit From the Matrix

(To read about Jon’s mega-collection, Exit From The Matrix, click here.)

Jon Rappoport

The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.

Open letter to NFL players: you’re being used

Try being politically INcorrect if you want some real answers

by Jon Rappoport

September 26, 2017

(To join our email list, click here.)

Dear NFL Players:

In case you’ll only read a few worlds of this story, I’ll get right to the point.

You’re being used.

You’re being duped into focusing on the wrong issue: police brutality against black people.

If you actually want to solve what’s happening to black people in inner cities, police brutality is way down on the list.

By focusing only on brutality, you’re leading people AWAY FROM seeing what’s really going on in inner cities. You’re guaranteeing NO ANSWERS. You’re guaranteeing NO CHANGE.

“Let’s not solve the problem, whatever the problem is. Let’s just ramp up the conflict and the polarization between races.”

Let’s go back to the original protestor, ex-quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who made his original kneeling protest about police brutality directed at black people. I want to examine his premise.

Here are bare-bones statistics from New York City, perhaps the only big city in America that issues a detailed annual report of police “firearms discharges.” You may be shocked.

Population of NYC: 8.3 million.

Police officers: 35,000.

2013 incidents of “intentional [police weapon] discharges during an adversarial conflict”: 40.

In those discharges, number of people injured: 17.

Number of people killed: 8.

Source: NYPD 2013 Annual Firearms Discharge Report.

In that same year, according to the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services, there were 7,462 “violent crimes by firearm” in New York City.

Who was the busier class of people in 2013? Cops or criminals? Which group caused, by far, the greater amount of human destruction of black people?

Philly.com has reported on several other American cities.

“Philadelphia’s rate of police shootings [2012], when compared against the number of violent crimes, was 2.90 per 1,000 incidents [of violent crime].”

“The rate of [police] shootings in Houston for 2012 was 1.25 [per 1000 violent crimes].”

“In 2012, the rate of police shootings in Dallas was 2.39 [per 1000 violent crimes].”

“In 2011, the rate of police shootings in Las Vegas stood at 1.66.”

“Baltimore’s rate [2011] was 1.58.”

Again, I ask: in those cities, who was the busier class of people? The cops or the criminals?

If facts don’t scare you, do a little research and discover who, by and large, is committing most of those violent crimes in US cities. By race.

Media outlets don’t ask and answer this simple question. They parse and evade and blow smoke. They trumpet small increases in the rate of police shootings and, therefore, obscure chronic inner-city conditions [e.g., violent crimes].

And as long as they keeping doing that, the public will continue to be distracted, and nothing will change.

As long as Colin Kaepernick and his supporters keep focusing only on police brutality, the problem of violent crime and poverty and other chronic devastations in inner cities won’t change at all.

Is that what you protestors want? No change at all?

What are the real devastations in inner cities populated by black people?

* Violent crime.

* Drugs.

* Gangs, some of whom are low-level dealers for Mexican cartels.

* Grinding poverty.

* Jobs stolen by Globalists and sent to foreign lands.

* Toxic chemicals (lead in water, landfills where corporate pollutants are dumped).

* Absence of fathers in homes.

* Unsafe neighborhoods—making education highly difficult.

* Grossly sub-standard nutrition. Empty junk food.

These are the most real problems—police brutality is far down on the list.

In other articles, I’ve written about solutions to some of these problems. Here, I’ll simply say that if you NFL protestors want to make a difference, you need to stand up and do something harder than you’re doing now. Right now, you’re unwitting agents of NO CHANGE and racial divide-and-conquer.

YOU’RE FOCUSING ON POLICE BRUTALITY, AS IF THAT’S THE DEEPEST PROBLEM IN BLACK INNER CITIES. It isn’t. So you’re leading people away from recognizing and admitting what the real problems are.

What you’re doing now, men, isn’t going to work. You’re only going to sow more conflict.

And by the way, all those thinly disguised Leftist sports writers and columnists and broadcasters who are “resolutely coming to your defense?” They’re useless. They aren’t doing you any favors. They’re mainly interested in appearing virtuous. Some of them are scared not to appear virtuous.

But look, if you don’t want to solve the biggest problems in inner cities, if that doesn’t interest you, if that’s politically incorrect and you don’t want to touch that with a ten-foot pole, it’s understandable.

Just go out on the field and play football then.

Admit your protests are nothing more than polarizing distractions from the real issues.

Admit you’re galvanizing black people in the wrong direction, away from meaningful solutions. You’re adding to the problem.

By the way, if you think government is the ultimate answer to the conditions in inner cities, consider this: since 1966, when President Lyndon Johnson declared the mighty War on Poverty, it’s estimated that two trillion dollars have been poured into black neighborhoods, to “lift them up.”

How has that worked out? Where has all the money actually gone? Who stole how much of that money? How do those black neighborhoods look today? Where are the Congressmen who want that situation investigated?

Do you get the feeling that someone somewhere wants black inner cities to fail and keep on failing? And failure is part and parcel of a vicious agenda?

In which case, you’re actually on the side of promoting failure. Your protests are Pied Piper tunes leading the people of inner cities into deeper despair. And away from the truth, away from the most pressing problems.

You’re being used. You’re agents.

When you signed your NFL contracts, did you have any idea things would work out this way?

Well, they have.

You’re looking a simple formula here. Understand it. It’s been used all over the world for centuries. If there are 10 things people could really do to solve a horrendous chronic situation, highlight some other problem that won’t lead TO ANY SOLUTION. Focus on that. Enlist high-profile people to keep focusing on that.

Get it?

You’re those high-profile people. YOU.

And the black inner cities? They’re showcases for Globalists, who want to convince one and all that permanent economic and political dependence on higher authority is the only policy that counts.

People raising themselves up is out. Forget it.

End result?

Slavery.

The very thing you say you’re fighting against.

But through a clever twist, a long-term covert op, you’re fighting for it.

Wise up. Wake up.

Or keep fronting for elites and keep losing, no matter what the scoreboard says on Sunday.

Exit From the Matrix

(To read about Jon’s mega-collection, Exit From The Matrix, click here.)

Jon Rappoport

The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.

Trump goes to war with NFL: what happened

Trump goes to war with the NFL: what happened

by Jon Rappoport

September 25, 2017

There is a ton of news about what the current NFL protests mean, politically speaking. For the moment, I’m leaving that out. I want to take a different angle.

The first thing to know is that Donald Trump once played a key role in an upstart pro football league called the USFL, which lasted three seasons (1983-85) before it collapsed.

As the owner of the New Jersey Generals and the most powerful force in the League, Trump went up against the NFL. He wanted the USFL to schedule its games opposite the NFL starting in the fall, not the spring. Trump was a key player in suing the NFL for monopolistic practices.

The USFL won that suit, and was awarded the grand sum of…three dollars. Yes.

So The Donald has held a grudge against the NFL for a long time.

His recent tweets and statements, urging the league to take action against players disrespecting the National Anthem, urging teams to fire protesting players…all this has a history.

But there is a deeper story, and it emerges at a time when television ratings for the NFL have already been declining, and the television networks—especially ESPN—are carrying massive billion-dollar contracts with the NFL for the rights to broadcast games.

On top of that, ESPN features show-hosts who are firmly in the Colin Kaepernick, pro-protest camp. These talking heads are politicizing sports every day, and many fans don’t want that.

What do they want from ESPN and from the NFL games they watch? They want sports, competition, heroics on the field. They want their favorite teams to win and the teams they hate to lose. Period.

In theater, there is a phrase, “breaking the fourth wall.” It’s used to describe plays that address the audience directly and shatter the illusion of viewing a self-contained world on stage.

This is where the deeper story of football enters the scene. For fans, the political/sports commentary and the protests on the playing field are breaking the fourth wall.

They can’t watch the games in a trance.

They can’t enjoy the vicarious thrills and chills.

The same thing is happening in the television news business. During the Obama presidency, there was the (promoted) mainstream illusion that White House business was being conducted in the usual hermetically sealed container. It was a controlled stage play—and people could sit in front of their television sets in a popcorn trance and watch it unfold. All in all, with major exceptions, the hypnotic spell held. For a while.

But then along came Trump. He broke the fourth wall. He laughed at the press. He called them idiots. He attacked them mercilessly. He said they were fake.

This was quite disturbing to many news fans. It certainly was disturbing to the major news networks. They make their living by hypnosis.

And now it’s happening to one of the nation’s most cherished institutions of distraction: football.

It isn’t football anymore. It’s a mixed drink. With serious political overtones. What people want to get away from on Sundays, Monday and Thursday nights is what they’re being forced to swallow.

And Trump is making it much worse. He’s lighting the alcohol in the cocktail. He doesn’t care.

Where can millions of trance-seeking Americans go to get their fix? It’s a problem.

The protests have spilled over into the NBA and it looks like Major League Baseball may suffer the same indignity, thanks to Trump.

Here’s a piece of cognitive dissonance for you. At the beginning of yesterday’s NFL games, fans in several stadiums booed players for kneeling during the national Anthem. It’s hard to maintain a hypnotic spell in the middle of that contradiction.

What’s a “normal American” to do? Stay home and guzzle a six-pack while watching Sunday cable re-runs of Cops?

“Give me back my fourth wall!”

When people complain these days that they’re triggered by the contentious political scene in America, when they seek professional help for their disturbed mental state, in many cases they’re simply asking to return to simpler times.

“I want the news to lie to me as it’s always lied to me, and I want to believe. Let me concoct my old fantasies…”

In ancient Rome, it was bread, blood and circuses. Now it’s sponsors like Budweiser and Ford, concussions, and kneeling.

In order to corral millions of people in a news trance or a football trance, you need transmissions without disruptions.

Trump is escalating the disruptions.

Whether people are for or against his tweets about the NFL, the spell is being torn apart.

“I want my football! I want my fourth wall!”

Trump talks about building one wall on the southern border, and he’s ripping the “football wall.”

Aside from making business deals, disruption has always been Trump’s game.

In a nutshell, the major pastime of America, in modern times, is hypnosis. That sport appears to be falling apart.

This is the bigger issue. It comes down to: what is the individual going to do? What is he waking up to? What does he want others to wake up to?

Can the sleeper, jostled in his bed, forced to put his feet on the cold floor, build a better reality? Or will he look for another spell to fall under? Can he recognize he has been sleeping all this time?

Does he think his favorite trance, which is under attack, is the only reality that counts?

Waking up may be hard to do, but these days it is called for.

Think about this: On one side, we have people who love the flag, who support the veterans, who support US wars of empire in any far-flung place, who support the massive destruction of life in Iraq and Afghanistan, who support the government with its unending Surveillance State. On the other side, we have people who want to blame the basic conditions of inner cities on police, who want to avoid talking about gangs and shootings and drugs and the failed war on poverty and race baiters and the theft of jobs by Globalists.

Entering either of these realms is entering a trance. It may be an active trance, but the game is still hypnosis.

“If you can keep your head when all [those] about you are losing theirs…”

Controllers are in the business of pitting one trance against another, for profit, advantage, and power.

power outside the matrix

(To read about Jon’s collection, Power Outside The Matrix, click here.)

Jon Rappoport

The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.

Power of the states vs. power of the federal government: who cares?

People who can wake up care.

by Jon Rappoport

March 2, 2017

(To join our email list, click here.)

There are 50 countries in the US. They’re called states.

All right, that’s an exaggeration. They are states. But they could be countries.

If you don’t think so, consider the 2015 state budget of tiny Rhode Island: $8.9 billion. The 2016 budget for the nation of Somalia was $216 million.

The 10th Amendment to the US Constitution reads: “The powers not delegated to the United States [government] by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

The 11th Amendment reads: “The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.”

If you combine these two Amendments, you begin to see the considerable powers granted to the states.

Of course, now, relatively few people care about these powers. They should, but they don’t.

The Civil War over the issue of slavery convinced a majority of Americans that states’ power was a bad thing—and it had to be remedied when high moral principles and intolerable suffering were at stake.

This premise was, however, expanded to include almost any issue on which the federal government wanted to assert its supremacy.

Which is where we are now.

And the Congress has been more than happy to cement that assertion of overweening federal power, by passing budgets that hand over huge sums of money to the states—otherwise known as bribes for giving in and surrendering.

The states lost that war without a shot being fired.

There is another way so-called “Progressives” look at illegitimate and unconstitutional federal power: it is the wonderful solution to problems the states refuse to solve for themselves.

If a state or states can’t see the wisdom of regulating an industry that pollutes, the federal government must step in and take control. When it does, the control is hailed as a victory.

But is it? The solution, in the long run, can be worse than the problem. As time passes, the federal government exerts more and more power over the states—any one of which could rightfully claim it has the size and money to rank as a country.

America, more and more, becomes a single entity, ruled from above, at a great distance, by a gigantic vampiric bureaucracy. This is exactly the kind of centralization the Republic’s Founders tried to avoid.

Conventional wisdom asserts that the states will do great harm to their citizens, because the states are locally inept, corrupt, ignorant, and cruel, whereas the federal government is kinder, gentler, more humane, and wise. The states are more likely to be run by greedy businessmen, while the federal government can maintain greater distance and rule with equanimity and fairness.

This is largely propaganda, and now, in 2017, it is difficult to run tests of the conventional wisdom, because the federal government has taken such major blocks of states’ former powers into its own hands.

But here is an example of such a test: the US Department of Education, a federal agency. It employs a mere 4400 people, and it has a staggering annual budget of $68 billion.

What in the world are those 4400 people doing with that much tax money and money printed out of thin air?

Here is the defining statement from the Department’s website:

ED’s 4,400 employees and $68 billion budget are dedicated to: “Establishing policies on federal financial aid for education, and distributing as well as monitoring those funds [throwing giant sums of money at the states while binding the states to all sorts of rules and conditions and guidelines and bribes.].”

“Collecting data on America’s schools and disseminating research [surveillance, data mining, profiling, invasive pseudoscientific psychological screening].”

“Focusing national attention on key educational issues [propaganda, indoctrination, useless public relations, b.s.].”

“Prohibiting discrimination and ensuring equal access to education [preempting the states’ ability to handle those issues themselves].”

The individual states could run and fund their own schools. Of course, they wouldn’t have the $68 billion each year to work with, but that would be their problem to solve.

The fact that it isn’t their problem now speaks to the federal policy of piling up insupportable budget debt to the sky and then pretending it doesn’t exist. “Here’s 68 billion dollars. No problem. We’ll print more when we need it.”

So the test would be: eliminate the US Department of Education.

Turn back the full responsibility for education to the states.

Perhaps then, the states would realize how insane their own governments are, because those governments, too, are running on the fumes of unpayable debt.

A rude awakening for all concerned, at every level? Most certainly. But the degree of overarching federal power would shrink a bit.

And in the long run, that is a good thing. An important thing.

And the next step would be individual communities within the states taking back control of their own schools. And many more parents homeschooling their own children.

The whole operation is called Decentralization.

And it starts at the top, where the biggest power grab of all occurred. Where the Constitution was stepped on, twisted, co-opted, ensnared, burned, scrapped, defamed, ignored, and ridiculed.

Think about this. How many schools in America, all of which receive gobs of federal money, actually teach the Constitution in a serious way, article by article, amendment by amendment, day by day, through all grades, with increasing depth and sophistication?

None.

As in: NONE.

Why should the schools teach the Constitution? After all, they’re sucking in money from a federal government that opposes the document and its essential separation of powers.

Coda: There are people who think what I’m proposing is beyond the pale. For example, what about the great civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s? It resulted in the passage of federal legislation that changed the landscape of America and canceled racism in many resistant states.

Yes, and it also resulted in Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty, which was launched in 1966, and continues in one form or another to this day. Trillions of dollars have been poured into inner cities, and the conditions in those areas are far worse than in 1966.

How can that be? It can be, because along with the money came Dependence on the federal government. Lifelong dependence. Which was the actual motive behind the whole operation. It was no favor to the poor. It was a war on the poor. Honest programs aimed at developing self-sufficient businesses were cast aside and purposely rejected. Why? Because they could have worked. Because they would have lifted people up.

But instead, we now have equality. Equality of dependence. That was the federal ruse. That was the op.

What looks like federal intervention on behalf of the high moral ground turns into a long-term enduring disaster.

The solution to the problem turns out to be worse than the problem.

Why should we care about fake morality, devised to appear like a gift from the gods?

We should care about the self-sufficiency, power, imagination, and visions of many individuals. We should support the work that springs from those wells of deep energy.

The Constitution, in its own way, was an attempt to establish a platform from which those qualities could emerge.

It limited the force that could be applied from the highest controls of government.

Perverse criminals at every level rise and fall. But the Founding ideas and ideals remain. And so do the individuals who grasp them and live in freedom.

The Matrix Revealed

(To read about Jon’s mega-collection, The Matrix Revealed, click here.)

Jon Rappoport

The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.