If there is a historical precedent for the truckers’ revolt in Canada, and the populist protests in so many other parts of the world, I would like to know what it is. It surely sets the record for convoy size, and it is historic for Canada. But there is much more going on here, something more fundamental. The two-year imposition of bio-fascist rule by diktat seems ever less tenable – the consent of the governed is being withdrawn – but what comes next seems unclear.
We now have two of the most restrictive “leaders” in the developed world (Justin Trudeau of Canada and Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand) hiding in undisclosed locations, citing the need to quarantine following Covid exposure. Streets globally have filled up with people demanding an end to mandates and lockdowns, calling for accountability, pushing for resignations, denouncing privileged corporations, and crying out for a recognition of basic freedoms and rights.
Note too that these movements are spontaneous and from “below:” they are populated mostly by the very workers whom governments shoved to face the pathogen two years ago, while the ruling class hid behind their laptops in their living rooms. It was the lockdowns that sharply divided the classes and the mandates that are imposing segregation. Now we are facing a modern allegory to the peasants’ revolt in the Middle Ages.
For a long time, the workers complied bravely but have been forced to accept medical shots they neither wanted nor believed they needed. And many are still being denied freedoms they took for granted only two years ago, their schools non-operational, businesses wrecked, places of entertainment closed or severely restricted. People turn on the radios and televisions to listen to lectures by ruling-class elites who claim to be channeling the science that always ends in the same theme: the rulers are in charge and everyone else must comply, no matter what is asked of them.
But then it became screamingly obvious to the world that none of it worked. It was a gigantic flop and the sky-high cases of late 2021 in most parts of the world put a fine point on it. They failed. It was all for naught. This clearly cannot continue. Something has to give. Something has to change, and this change probably will not wait for the next scheduled elections. What happens in the meantime? Where is this going?
We’ve seen what revolutions look like against monarchies (18th and 19th century), against colonial occupation, against totalitarian one-party states (1989-90), and against banana-republic strongmen (20th century). But what does revolution look like in developed democracies ruled by entrenched administrative states in which elected politicians serve as little more than veneer for bureaucracies?
Since John Locke, it is an accepted idea that people have the right to rule themselves and even to replace governments that go too far in denying that right. In theory, the problem of government overreach in democracy is solved by elections. The argument made for such a system is that it allows for peaceful change of a ruling elite, and this is far less socially costly than war and revolution.
There are many problems with matching theory and reality, among which that the people with the real power in the 21st century are not the people we elect but those who have gained their privileges through bureaucratic maneuvering and longevity.
There are many strange features of the last two years but one of them that stands out to me is how utterly undemocratic the trajectory of events has been. When they locked us down, for example, it was the decision of elected autocrats as advised by credentialled experts that were somehow sure that this path would make the virus go away (or something like that). When they imposed vaccination mandates, it was because they were sure that this was the right path for public health.
There were no polls. There was little if any input from legislatures at any level. Even from the first lockdowns in the US, occurring March 8, 2020 in Austin, Texas, there was no consultation with the city council. Neither were citizens asked. The wishes of the small business people were not solicited. The state legislature was left out entirely.
It was as if everyone suddenly presumed that the whole country would operate on an administrative/dictatorship model, and that the guidelines of health bureaucracies (with plans for lockdowns that hardly anyone even knew existed) trumped all tradition, constitutions, restrictions on state power, and public opinion generally. We all became their servants. This happened all over the world.
It suddenly became obvious to many people in the world that the systems of government we thought we had – responsive to the public, deferential to rights, controlled by courts – were no longer in place. There seemed to be a substructure that was hiding in plain sight until it suddenly took full control, to the cheers of the media and the presumption that this is just the way things are supposed to be.
Years ago, I was hanging out in the building of a federal agency when there was a change of guard: a new administration appointed a new person to head it. The only change that the bureaucrats noticed was new portraits on the wall. Most of these people pride themselves in failing to notice. They know who is in charge and it is not the people we imagine to elect. They are there for life, and face none of the public scrutiny much less accountability that the politicians face daily.
Lockdowns and mandates gave them full power, not only over the one or two sectors they previously ruled but the whole of society and all of its functioning. They even controlled how many people we could have in our homes, whether our businesses could be open, whether we could worship with others, and dictate what precisely we are supposed to do with our own bodies.
Whatever happened to limits on power? The people who put together the systems of government in the 18th century that led to the most prosperous societies in the history of the world knew that restricting government was the key to a stable social order and growing economy. They gave us Constitutions and the lists of rights and the courts enforced them.
But at some point in history, the ruling class figured out certain workarounds to these restrictions. The administrative state with permanent bureaucrats could achieve things that legislatures could not, so they were gradually unleashed under various pretexts (war, depression, terror threats, pandemics). Moreover, governments gradually learned to outsource their hegemonic ambitions to the biggest businesses in the private sector, who themselves benefit from increasing the costs of compliance.
The circle has been completed by enlisting Big Media into the mix of control via access to the class of rulers, to receive and broadcast out the line of the day, and hurl insults at any dissidents within the population (“fringe,” etc.). This has created what we see in the 21st century: a toxic combination of Big Tech, Big Government, Big Media, all backed by various other industrial interests who benefit more from systems of control than they would from a free and competitive economy. Further, this cabal leveled a radical attack on civil society itself, closing churches, concerts, and civic groups.
We’ve been assured by David Hume (1711-1776) and Etienne de la Boétie (1530-1563) that government rule is untenable when it loses the consent of the governed. “Resolve to serve no more,” wrote Boetie, “and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall off his own weight and break into pieces.”
That’s inspiring but what does it mean in practice? What precisely is the mechanism by which the overlords in our time are effectively overthrown? We’ve seen this in totalitarian states, in states with one-man rule, in states with unelected monarchies. But unless I’m missing something, we’ve not seen this in a developed democracy with an administrative state that holds the real power. We have scheduled elections but those are unhelpful when 1) elected leaders are not the real source of power, and 2) when the elections are too far in the distant future to deal with a present emergency.
One very easy and obvious path away from the current crisis is for the ruling class to admit error, repeal the mandates, and simply allow for common freedoms and rights for everyone. As easy as that sounds, this solution hits a hard wall when faced with ruling-class arrogance, trepidation, and the unwillingness to admit past errors for fear of what that will mean for their political legacies. For this reason, absolutely no one expects the likes of Trudeau, Ardern, or Biden to humbly apologize, admit that they were wrong, and beg the people’s forgiveness. On the contrary, everyone expects them to continue the game of pretend so long as they can get away with it.
The people on the streets today, and those willing to tell pollsters that they are fed up, are saying: no more. What does it mean for the ruling class not to get away with this nonsense anymore? Presuming that they do not resign, they do not call off the dogs of mandates and lockdowns, what is the next step? My instincts tell me that we are about to discover the answer. Electoral realignment seems inevitable but what happens before then?
The obvious answer to the current instability is mass resignations within the administrative state, among the class of politicians that gives it cover, as well as heads of media organs that have propagandized for them. In the name of peace, human rights, and the renewal of prosperity and trust, this needs to happen today. Bury the pride and do what’s right. Do it now while there is still time for the revolution to be velvet.
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Resignations are fine, but that should not in any way absolve them of their culpability in the past two year’s crimes against humanity. Resign and turn yourself over to the Hague for incarceration until the trials begin.
Until a rope is used effectively this shit will continue.
Absolutely agree! The elite have gone to far.
BE GONE, SPAMMER!!
While it has worked stupendously so far..
Psalms 17:8 Context
5Hold up my goings in thy paths, that my footsteps slip not. 6I have called upon thee, for thou wilt hear me, O God: incline thine ear unto me, and hear my speech. 7Shew thy marvellous lovingkindness, O thou that savest by thy right hand them which put their trust in thee from those that rise up against them. 8Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings, 9From the wicked that oppress me, from my deadly enemies, who compass me about. 10They are inclosed in their own fat: with their mouth they speak proudly. 11They have now compassed us in our steps: they have set their eyes bowing down to the earth;
I’m currently praying that Matthew 24:20
“But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day:” is not actually a ‘heads up’ from GOD.
Most of the ruling class is, and likely will remain, behind the curtain.
Retiring the scary projections may offer some psychological relief, but in the long run will not change anything. The ruling class are not those who hold offices, they are the ones who own stuff.
Stuff like the land, the minerals and the money. They are not rich, they are wealthy.
The wealthy can break the rich overnight. They have brought first world industrial nations to their knees in days.
And they have yet to play their final hand.
Buckle up. Even if we “win” it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
we might have to go back to the collapse of the bronze age for a perspective on where this ends up. not because they had constitutionally limited government in the late bronze age, but because of the nature of the collapse having many parallels with what i see developing.
The ruling class here knows that if they lose, deliberately or not, their grip on total power, even for a moment, they are totally and irrevocably fucked. The whole machine civilization is so far into overshoot anyway (theres the first major connection with the late bronze age in case you were wondering) that everything is wildly precarious. Their recent efforts have been to clamp down even more absolutely or else lose everything. When things do inevitably slip, the longer the ruling class have kept everything lashed in place, the more abrupt and catastrophic will be the disintegration when this thing goes down. In the late bronze age we saw a world economy dependent on long range trade, sophisticated finance and commerce, highly stratified , organized, bureacratic superstates with elite classes of permanent administrative ‘specialists’.. and they got themselves into ecological overshoot vis-a-vis the technologies of the day and the resources available to them. Big powerful states and elite castes of course had no inclination to cut back on their own extravagance or seek alternate more frugal ways of living and keeping society together. Sooner or later there was insufficient wealth to keep the complex trade networks functioning, sea lanes defended from pirates, finance moving smoothly etc. Everyone’s horizon for profit and discount of future value kept on ratcheting up and up until there was no trust left. Elites could no longer direct sufficient wealth or resources to the structures that kept them in power and organized. In the end we saw city after city across the eastern mediterranean world , burned, looted, and abandoned, all in the span of a decade or two. There is archaeologically almost no evidence of outside attackers, or military action. These cities were destroyed by their own inhabitants. The few who got out dissipated into the countryside and either disappeared or joined the rural communities. In most of these societies even the technology of writing was lost, with new alphabets and writing systems emerging in the iron age a few centuries later (greek and phonecian letters are the prime examples there, replacing linear B and cuneiform).
For a couple centuries the level of technological sophistication was crude and low compared to before. Some metallurgical and ceramic techniques were forgotten for _millenia_ afterwards. pottery is crude and clumsy. buildings are mostly constructed out of recycled materials from the ruins of older buildings. The only investment people continued making to the limit of their ability was in armaments and there was rapid evolution in tactics and weaponry to adapt to societies which could no longer pay for a knightly class of elite charioteers or organize them at scale anyway. city-states emerged with citizen militias in both the greek and phonecian worlds. Both of those cultures later colonized huge regions abroad and spread their cultures far and wide and neither of them ever managed a single unified political power for more than a decade or two under some military adventurer like alexander. They enjoyed very wide cultural homogeneity without ever comprehending political homogeneity again. The model of a citizen militia as the basis of military force , and the model of landowning, arms-bearing , native-born men being the criteria for citizenship, was almost universal in the later geek culture from the atlantic ocean to the tien shan mountains in central asia and down to the edge of india.
When foriegn empires (roman and persian largely) ate up the greek world these concepts were also lost.
This time around there is no fossil fuel wealth and healthy ecosystem to power a new renaissance. It’s going down, twelfth-century-bc style, and what will emerge as ther dust settles is a hige mosaic of scavenger socieites picking the bones of machine civilization perhaps for millennia, organized into rather small polities where military force is the primary concern. Some will be warlord princedoms, some. Some will be citizen militias. some will be mere bands of predators. The exact ideas and theories propounded by each of these polities to explain and clarify their rule will be all over the place for variety. In all of them the essence will be the ability to bring military force to bear where and how necessary to defend their territory and their livelihood. There will not be much surplus resource wealth availabel to support very large kingdoms, empires, republics, anything. Confederations probably, which will be alliances of convenience and change, well, as often as they historically did (read greek history of e.g. the peloponesian war).
There are places where people never stopped living this way (afghanistan comes to mind as an example today) and will not even notice the change.
but there is no intermediate stage anymore for the slide down. There might have been if we had gotten by some miracle a leash on the monster fifty years ago. now, theres no stopping on the way down.
and the sooner it breaks loose and really starts rolling the better for all of us. only the ruling class of today’s empire will be shitting their pants over their doom.
An excellent trip into classical history Anon and I must agree with you up to a point. In my book, Chapter 13 concludes my view that we are already in a global no-growth environment notwithstanding the fallacious GDP rubbish that’s used to cloud the real economic trajectory..
We will be entering negative growth during this year and I foresee a steady decline towards a phase shift, a point of critical mass, when the whole house of cards falls down, reaching a nadir around 2025. What that point will look like is not easy for me to see but I have surmised it to be around the 18th century at the conception of the industrial revolution as workers began moving from rural agri-based living to factory -based wage-slavery in the growing towns and cities.
But for those who chose to stay in the countryside a local economy was sustained. A good real-life example of this is ‘The Diary of Thomas Turner – 1754-65’ a worthwhile read IMHO:
His diary gives us clues as how to organise a New Emergent Economy – post- collapse. There will much residual resources to cover for a period during the transition. It’s all explained in my book which can be viewed here:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358117070_THE_FINANCIAL_JIGSAW_-_PART_1_-_4th_Edition_2020
Even in my local town of Bruton (pop 3,000), in the heart of rural Somerset, UK, there are several prepper groups arising already and a nearby town, Frome, has a website explaining how a localised economy can work: https://www.flatpackdemocracy.co.uk/
There is much more to explain about our plans but this short description I hope gives a flavour of where I think we might end up. I won’t be here anyway – I shall returning to Cape Town where the zeitgeist is more favourable and the climate is most appealing, despite the misperceptions of those who have never lived there.
freedom to file lawsuits for damages to your health (against both the government and big pharma), sweep all the degenerative filth from the classrooms, eliminate mask requirements and social distancing, immunity from arrest and prosecution for anyone peacefully protesting or failing to comply with mandates, totally close off southern borders except for goods traveling north, increase minimum wage and SS payments to triple what it is now, and no welfare benefits to single moms unless they are actively pursuing higher education. Absolve all non violent offenders records to allow them to seek gainful employment. Eliminate or greatly reduce the fees/time for builders to build affordable homes. Allow Medicare and hospitals to freely negotiate ALL drug prices and allow patients to get their prescriptions filled anywhere in the world for the lowest price. No person would be allowed to run for elected office until they could demonstrate they had successfully run a private business for 5 years. And return to the gold standard…sigh, dreamin again.
all this will happen (not in exactly the form you describe) when things fall back into warlords/citizen militias/family clans/vendetta methods of organization, which will be pretty much a worldwide standard for a very long time.
Mass suicides. Fixed it for you.
ZFG, out.
What the author fails to realize is that what he is suggesting plays right into the hands of the globalists who are behind all of this. Their agenda is the collapse of America. It is only when America collapses, and the citizens are willing to accept the “great reset” voluntarily that they will be able to abolish the Constitution and implement their corporate run government.
A better strategy is to keep America running a smoothly as possible, while still protesting and refusing to abide by any policies that are unlawful, or unconstitutional. Become active in your local government, and especially school board meetings. Force policies of government reduction and constantly reducing bureaucracy from this point forward. The plan of globalists is the “Balkanization” of America. To create hatred among its citizens for each other, and to prove capitalism no longer works. It is our duty to reject what they are doing and return America to its roots Freedom and individual sovereignty. If we fail to do this, then we will deserve the servitude that will be forced upon us.
without a pervasive technological infrastructure to provide power and comms everywhere 24/7 , the globalists lose all their power and will be eaten by their own lieutenants by the next morning. they think their modern sorcery has exempted them from the very laws of physics. collapse is ugly, but it is worse for the powerful than it is for the small. yes most of us wont make it. but at least in a chaotic collapse we all have a fighting chance and our individual success or failure is connected to our own actions. the globalists are trying to genocide the majority of humanity to buy themselves a little more time as rulers of the universe.. the sooner chaotic collapse takes over the process the better for all of us.