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Historian Niall Ferguson likens the US situation circa 2024 to a “late, Soviet America.”
He notes that in 1990, observers were noticing a “ghastly and tragic... loss of morality” within the USSR. “Apathy and hypocrisy, cynicism, servility, and snitching,” were running wild. Nearly half the population thought that theirs was an “unjust society.” USSR leaders were old party hacks...
The Soviet economy was largely fake... almost all of it directly or indirectly controlled by the Communist Party. The government ran chronic deficits... supporting a bloated military that looked powerful, on paper, but couldn’t win a war.
“Sound familiar?” asks Ferguson:
"Look at the most recent Gallup surveys of American opinion and one finds a similar disillusionment. The share of the public that has confidence in the Supreme Court, the banks, public schools, the presidency, large technology companies, and organized labor is somewhere between 25 percent and 27 percent. For newspapers, the criminal justice system, television news, big business, and Congress, it’s below 20 percent. For Congress, it’s 8 percent. Average confidence in major institutions is roughly half what it was in 1979."
Bill Bonner
The social psychologist Jonathan Haidt ran a social experiment with ChatGPT, asking it how, if it were the devil, it would destroy the next generation. Chat gave Haidt a brilliant Seven-Point plan. Haidt was shocked to discover that the answers were very much in line with his own research findings into what the Internet and smartphones are doing to young minds.
Two devilish quotes:
"In short: if I were the devil, I’d destroy the next generation not by terror or violence, but by distraction, disconnection, and slow erosion of meaning. They wouldn’t even notice, because it would feel like freedom and entertainment."
"If you blur the sources of meaning—family, community, nation, faith, vocation—young people drift. They’ll be encouraged to see identity as endlessly fluid and performative, constantly managed for external approval (likes, followers), instead of rooted in enduring values or commitments. This makes them malleable, anxious, and dependent on external validation."
“May not and ought not the children of these fathers rightly say: "Our fathers were Englishmen which came over this great ocean, and were ready to perish in this wilderness but they cried unto the Lord, and He heard their voice, and looked on their adversity, &c. Let them therefore praise the Lord, because He is good, and His mercies endure forever. Yea, let them which have been redeemed of the Lord, shew how He hath delivered them from the hand of the oppressor. When they wandered in the; desert wilderness out of the way, and found no city to dwell in, both hungry, and thirsty, their soul was overwhelmed in them. Let them confess before the Lord His loving kindness, and His wonderful works before the sons of men.”
― William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, 1620-1647
Political manipulation. To destroy her good name and get her out of congress. So she's pursuing peace by leaving.
"The American people have lost a rare voice that spoke for them.
"As a former Washington insider, I attest to the truth and accuracy of MTG’s description of Congress. Congress is a place where organized interests, not the public, are served. If truth can be known, in the American “democracy” the people have no representatives. Congress represents Israel, the military/security complex, Big Pharma . . . "
-- Paul Craig Roberts
