The end of our empire approaches

May 01, 2018

Peak Prosperity

Do you have the nagging sense that our empire is in decline?

If so, don't be embarrassed by it. Historically speaking, we're in very good company. Far larger and longer-lived empires than ours have come and gone over the millennia.

This was hit home for me on a recent trip. I scored a major "dad win" by taking my youngest daughter, Grace, to England for her 18^th birthday (we live in Massachusetts, USA).

All on her own, Grace developed an abiding love of mythology at a very young age: Greek, Roman, Norse, Native American, Aztec…you name it. She's read the Iliad four times, a different version each time, as each has the biases of the translator subtly woven throughout.

Naturally, her dream mini-vacation involved going to the British Museum where the Rosetta stone lies, along with Viking horde treasures and every possible Roman, Greek and Egyptian artifact one could hope to see.

The British empire came of age at the perfect time to muscle in and “retrieve" the cultural treasures of many different countries. Such are the spoils of empire.

Who knows, perhaps one day we'll see sliced off segments of the Palace of Westminster on display in Cairo's main square. History ebbs and it flows. Back and forth. Victors and losers swapping places over and over again.

If the British Museum reveals anything it's just that. The long sweep of human history shows us that the more things change, the more things stay the same.

The treasures on display at the British Museum also show us that every race and culture has revered beauty. The most intricate and delicate and objectively beautiful jewelry and adornments were worn by kings and queens, priestesses, nobles, and warlords alike.

Sutton Hoo

Consider the find of the Sutton Hoo burial mound. An eminently important and revered individual (possibly Raedwald) was buried sometime around the year 740, with an enormous ship 89 feet in length serving as his burial chamber.

Just imagine how many people it took to dig a hole in the ground that held the ship to its gunnels, and then bring forward enough earth to cover the whole affair in a gigantic mound of earth more than ten feet high in the middle. As a gardener, I can tell you that dirt is heavy stuff that really resists being moved by hand. Hundreds of people must have labored for a very long time to create this burial mound.

Whoever this person was, he was revered enough to be buried with an astonishing collection of wealth. And, perhaps more amazingly, none of it was looted.

Here's the sword belt, made of an intricate lattice of pure gold and polished garnet:

Isn't that a beautiful work of art?

Again, nobody came back and looted this afterwards. Maybe they killed the workers who built the gravesite, but surely folks still knew a very rich ruler had been buried in the area. And yet nobody looted the site. To me, it's hard not see that as a sign of how much the man buried there was respected by his kinsmen.

Here's a close up of the dragons head from that sword belt:

If you've ever worked with garnet, you know just how devilishly hard it is (a 7.5 on a scale of 10) and how much work it must have taken to polish up even one of those tiny panels, let alone all of them, and into such careful shapes.

Similarly, these shoulder clasps meant to secure an article of clothing (like a cape or cloak) are also magnificent:

Again, the detail and workmanship are impressive. But what struck me most was how these works of art are so … beautiful. And from a time of early medieval history referred to 'the dark ages' and popularly described as a period of bleak survival.

If they were, somebody still had the resources to churn out works of extraordinary precision and beauty. That much is clear.

The rest of the artifacts are similarly extraordinary -- especially the helmet, shields, and coinage. Just take a look at this purse lid:

Taken together, I see a culture where reverence mattered. Sutton Hoo's buried leader was revered enough that his tomb was not looted afterwards, promptly or otherwise. The items buried display a reverence for his authority as well as for beauty.

These burial artifacts were by no means trivial items. Each one could have supported a family for many generations at a time when resources were scarce, only obtainable through the hard labor of many.

And yet they were left untouched. Who among today's leaders would be honored enough as a leader that their tomb would not be looted for massive personal gain? Where can you see that our culture reveres beauty to the same degree, being willing to place so much collective effort into its creation?

The Taranto Scepter

Everywhere else in the British Museum were similar displays of honoring the feminine -- the women and the goddesses of the world. Many of the Egyptian displays caught my eye, as did the Greek, but one piece stood out so much that I came back to it three times, so amazed was I by the beauty of it and the message I took from it.

It came from “The Tomb of the Taranto Priestess" and dated from 350 – 340 BC. Since kings did not rule Taranto during that period, it is believed to have been the property of a priestess.

First, her scepter is truly extraordinary:

The entire scepter is perhaps 18 inches in length and capped in extraordinary gold adornment. But what really caught my eye is the gold mesh you see running down the shaft (lost to history, thought to have been bone?). It consists of extremely fine gold wire wrapped in even finer gold wire, and is woven into a meshwork of little diamond shapes with tiny circles at their corners. Each of these circles contained a tiny gem or enameled treasure of some sort (most, again, lost to history).

Here's a close up:

The gold wire used is finer than hair. This scepter speaks of power and delicacy in equal balance, one reinforcing the other. Only the lightest of touch could hold the scepter without breaking strands of gold that fine. That made me think of the woman who wielded it with such a delicate touch.

Again, this person was revered to such an extent that an object of such immense value and beauty was entombed with her, and not robbed at a later time by someone who knew what the tomb contained.

Power, honor, reverence, and beauty. All attributes that show up again and again all throughout history.

The entire British Museum is packed to the rafters with such expressions. I came away both elated to have gotten back in touch with these better expressions of humanity, but also saddened because I can't locate their equivalent in today's world.

One missing element from today? Reverence for the goddess, for the feminine. I cannot think of a single western homage paid to the feminine. No temples to the goddesses and no elevation of feminine attributes.

This is important to note, not because we wish to bash the masculine, but because anything out of balance requires rebalancing. In fact, re-elevating the feminine will actually bring honor and meaning back to the masculine.

Our world is caught up entirely in money, and power, and wars, and force. We revere power over rather than power within.

So the questions I'd like to leave you with are these.

Where do you have beauty in your life? Do you consciously manifest it?
What do you revere?
How honorable are you?
Do you instill a sense of loyalty in those around you? Who would rob your grave and how quickly after you passed?
Who do you honor, and how? Also, why?
How important is it for you to be surrounded by people you can trust, and whose opinions you trust?
Where and how do you respect, honor and encourage the feminine in yourself (whether you are male or female), in others, and especially in nature?

Finally, are you ready for the massive changes that are coming?

Our Empire Of Debt

The British museum is a testament to the fact that empires have been rising and falling for thousands of years. The common elements of every empire include its own appreciation for works of extreme beauty and human craftsmanship, along with strict hierarchy. They all expressed a strong connection to the divine, however they felt it, each with their own mythologies and attendant religions to make sense of it all…and help cement the rulers place(s) at the top, of course.

Each empire had a mythology by which it self-organized and people bought into that belief system. Looking back they seem like such obvious mental traps it's easy to scoff and wonder how people could have been so blinkered.

Here's the thing about hierarchical societies in every era…in every single one there were always a very few haves and a whole lot of have nots. How were the masses kept in line? Why did the vast bulk of humanity in every empire live in relative poverty and misery, never lifting a finger in revolt except under very rare circumstances?

The connection to yourself is this; each society has a set of reasons in place that explain to the people on the lower levels why they belong there. In some prior cultures the explanation was that authority was invested the royal blood line. You either had it or you didn't.

In other societies, the rulers were said to be closer to the gods, if not descended directly from them. To go against the rulers meant you were assaulting or dishonoring the very gods you prayed to and on which you utterly depended.

While the mythologies in place “explaining" the hierarchy differed, the results did not. They always resulted in a few at the top and an expanding pyramid of population and entitlement laid out below them.

The middle management in this story, those that had relative advantage were the necessary keepers of the systems in each culture and each system. They had more to lose than to gain through revolt and so they stayed true to the system through their entire lives.

The people on the very bottom, despite having a vast numerical advantage, had the limiting belief that they had no power. So revolts almost never happened. Systems of hierarchy persisted until the empire had run its course, almost always failing because it ran out of resources to maintain itself and its growing complexity.

The lessons of history are absolute; nothing lasts. Everything changes, especially who's in charge.

So what are our explanations today that keep us all in line? What keeps us from revolt? To what do we bow our daily collective heads in fealty to?

The answer is Money.

What we call “money" today was a wicked genius invention that popped up right around the same moment in history when humans were working out other keen, life-altering inventions such as clocks, and printing presses.

“None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free."
~ Goethe

A person in debt is a person controlled. But they think it was their own decision. Hence the Goethe quote above. A nation in debt is a nation controlled. The debt trap is especially insidious, and it relies on the illusion of free will combined with the full weight of 'the law.'

By attaching a stated rate of interest to a loan, a person's future output was yours if you were the holder of that note. What a stroke of pure (evil) genius! Set the rate high enough and the term long enough and you can get all of your money paid back plus another 100% of that amount or more, every bit of which was actually the future productive output (i.e. time) of the borrower.

Conjure up a promissory note out of thin air and then you get to skim the true productive output of that person, regardless of outcome. Whether they succeeded or failed in the endeavor, you still won. If they paid you back, the win was obvious. If they failed you often had collateral on the back end protecting your “investment." No matter what, you won.

And even if that wasn't the case? Well, you lost the amount of effort on your end that it took to draft up the note. In other words, nothing really.

I've yet to find this laid out in any museum even though the introduction of debt-based money was arguably the most course-altering invention of the past thousand years. It transformed millions of human slaves kept in check by threat of power and physical coercion (if not death) into billions of humans perfectly willing to hand over their labor to a very few elites at the top who did little to no work themselves.

Before this transformative invention money was always a very concrete thing – you either had a stash of silver or gold or you didn't. Afterwards money became abstract. You could loan someone something you never had, written on a slip of paper, and the belief invested in that idea was sufficient to enslave that person until that debt was repaid. “Your" money might never be seen or handled by you at all, which is true for most people today. It exists as digits on a statement or computer screen. Yours, but utterly intangible. A powerful force, never actually seen or handled. In other words, a shared idea. A mythology imbued with tremendous power by a culture that served to enforce the current system of hierarchy.

There is a vast empire now spanning the globe but the mystery of it all is that it's not based on or in any one country. It is an empire of debt. Those issuing the debt are harvesting the output of entire nations, no different in final effect than the Romans enforcing the practice of tithing from extant countries in AD 100.

We now live in a world of, by and for bankers, and other financial elites. Where once it was your royal lineage, or direct connection to the sun god Ra that assured your place at the top, today it's your proximity to the temples of money.

But what happens when the economic pie is no longer expanding, yet the keepers of the system seem unable to turn off their own desires to grab more, more and yet more from that same pie?

That is where we find ourselves today. The economic oxygen is being sucked from the middle and lower classes and the social and political pressures are building.

Meanwhile more and more claims (currency and debts) are being piled on top of this stagnant economic pie thereby increasing the pressure on a creaking system. Someday that all gives way rather spectacularly and ends very badly. History says it ends with a lot of social anarchy and quite possibly another world war.

In Part 2: What History Tells Us Will Come Next, we provide a detailed analysis of how late-stage empires always collapse as the elites exhaust the resources of the masses. We are seeing clear signs of that today.

As we progress from here, the disparity between the haves and have-nots is only going to intensify, with debt (and our debt-based money system) being used as the primary weapon for controlling an increasingly dispossessed public.

Are you prepared?

Click here to read Part 2 of this report (free executive summary, enrollment required for full access)

Critical theory destroys truth and justice

Editor's note: This article was originally published on TheBlaze.com.

Critical theory once stood out as the absurd progressive notion that it is. Now, its maxims are becoming an integral part of ordinary political discourse. The more you repeat a lie, the more you will believe it, and this is the very dangerous place in which we find ourselves today.

Take this critical theory maxim as an example: If we desire justice, we must sometimes champion what may appear superficially as injustice. It's a necessary evil, if you will, the necessity of “controlled injustice.”

By using truth through fabrication and controlled injustice for justice, we’ll save the republic. We’ll be acting in a noble way.

This definition of justice is defined by the “oppressed,” not the “oppressor.” It is the greatest happiness for the greatest number. To achieve this justice, however, we need to endorse acts on occasion that, while seemingly unjust, serve a higher purpose. It will ensure the stability and the unity of our republic, and this may manifest in ways that seem contradictory to our values. But these are the necessary shadows to cast light on “true justice.”

And isn’t that what we are all after, anyway?

Here’s another critical theory maxim: Sometimes we find the truth through fabrication. Our pursuit of truth sometimes requires a strategic use of falsehoods. The truth is a construct that has been shaped and tailored to promote the well-being of the collective.

We sometimes need to accept and propagate lies designed by "the system” — not the old system, but the system that we’re now using to replace the old to get more justice through injustice and more truth through fabrication.

We’re engaging in a higher form of honesty. When we fabricate, it’s for the right reason. We are reaching up to the heavens fighting for a higher sort of honesty. To fortify the truth, we occasionally must weave a tapestry of lies. Each thread, essential for the greater picture, will ultimately define our understanding and ensure our unity under this infallible wisdom.

The election is coming up. Does this maxim sound familiar? Many think it is imperative that we secure our republic through election control to maintain our republic. Sometimes, we might need to take actions that by traditional standards might be questionable.

The act of securing elections requires cheating. It's not mere deception. It is a noble act of safeguarding our way of life. We're on the verge of losing this democracy, and without deception, we will lose it.

To ensure it doesn't fall into the hands of those we know will destroy it, we may have to make a few fabrications. We're fabricating stories to be able to control or secure the republic through our elections. By using truth through fabrication and controlled injustice for justice, we'll save the republic. Therefore, we'll be acting in a noble way. Stealing an election from those who wish to harm our society is truly an act of valor and an essential measure to protect our values and ensure the continuation of our just society.

If we desire justice, we must sometimes champion what may appear superficially as injustice.

I know it's a paradox of honor through dishonor. But in this context, by embracing the dishonor, we achieve the highest form of honor, ensuring the stability and the continuation of our great republic.

Let this be heard, far and wide, as a great call to patriotic action. As we advance, let each of us, citizens of this great and honorable republic, consider these principles. Not as abstract or paradoxical but as practical guides to daily life. Embrace the necessity of controlled injustice, the utility of lies, the duty to secure our electoral process, and the honor and apparent dishonor. These are not merely strategies for survival. They are prerequisites for our prosperity.

We all have to remember that justice is what our leaders define, that truth is what our party tells us. Our republic stands strong on the values of injustice for justice, honor through dishonor, and the fabrication of truths. To deviate from this path is to jeopardize the very fabric of our society. Strength through unity; unity through strength.

We've heard this nonsense for so long. But now, this nonsense is becoming an instituted reality, and we are entering perilous times. Don't be fooled by the narratives you will hear during the march to November. Never let someone convince you that the ends justify the means, that a little bit of injustice is needed to achieve a broader, collective vision of justice, that truth sometimes requires fabricated lies and narratives. If we do, justice will cease to be justice, truth will cease to be truth, and our republic will be lost.

Top 5 MOST EVIL taxes the government extorts from you

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"In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes." -Ben Franklin

The injustice of taxation has been a core issue for Americans since the very beginning of our country, and it's a problem we have yet to resolve. This belief was recently reignited in many Americans earlier this month on tax day when the numbers were crunched and it was discovered that the government was somehow owed even more hard-earned money. As Glenn recently discussed on his show, it's getting to be impossible for most Americans to afford to live comfortably, inflation is rising, and our politicians keep getting richer.

The taxpayer's burden is heavier than ever.

The government is not above some real low blows either. While taxes are a necessary evil, some taxes stretch the definition of "necessary" and emphasize the "evil." Here are the top five most despicable taxes that are designed to line the IRS coffers at your expense:

Income Tax

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"It would be a hard government that should tax its people one-tenth part of their income." -Ben Franklin

On February 24th, 2024 we hit a very unfortunate milestone, the 101st anniversary of the 16th Amendment, which authorized federal income tax. Where does the government get the right to steal directly out of your paycheck?

Death Taxes

Dan Mullan / Staff | Getty Images

"Now my advice for those who die, Declare the pennies on your eyes" -George Harrison

Not even in death can you escape the cold pursuit of the tax collector. It's not good enough that you have to pay taxes on everything you buy and every penny you make your entire life. Now the feds want a nice slice, based on the entire value of your estate, that can be as much as 40 percent. Then the state government gets to stick their slimy fingers all over whatever remains before your family is left with the crumbs. It's practically grave-robbery.

Payroll

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"The power to tax is the power to destroy." -John Marshall

What's that? The nice chunk of your paycheck the government nabs before you can even get it to the bank wasn't enough? What if the government taxed your employer just for paying you? In essence, you make less than what your agreed pay rate is and it costs your employer more! Absolutely abominable.

Social Security

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"We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much." -Ronald Reagan

Everyone knows the collapse of Social Security is imminent. It has limped along for years, only sustained by a torrent of tax dollars and the desperate actions of politicians. For decades, people have unwillingly forked over money into the system they will never see again.

FICA

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"What at first was plunder assumed the softer name of revenue." -Thomas Paine

FICA is the payroll equivalent of Social Security. Your employer has to match however much you pay. It means it costs your employer even more to pay you—again, you'll NEVER see that money. At this point, are you even working for yourself, or are you just here to generate money for the government to frivolously throw away?

5 DISTURBING ways World War III will be different from previous wars

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Has World War III begun?

Over the weekend, Iran launched an unprecedented attack against Israel involving over 300 missiles and drones. This marked the first direct attack on Israel originating from Iranian territory. Fortunately, according to an Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, 99 percent of missiles and drones were successfully neutralized by Israeli defense systems. Iran claimed that the operation against Israel had concluded and that no further offensive was planned, although the possibility of another attack is still present.

This has left many people, including Glenn, wondering the same thing: did we just witness the start of World War III?

Glenn recently had a World War II Air Force Veteran as a guest on his TV special, who told stories of the horrors he and his brothers-in-arms faced in the skies over war-torn Europe. This was a timely reminder of the terrors of war and a warning that our future, if it leads to another world war, is a dark one.

But, if Glenn's coverage of the Iranian attack revealed one thing, it's that World War III will look nothing like the world wars of the twentieth century. Long gone are the days of John "Lucky" Luckadoo and his "Bloody Hundredth" bravely flying their B-17s into battle. Over the weekend, we saw hundreds of autonomous drones and missiles clashing with extreme speed and precision over several different fronts (including space) simultaneously. This ain't your grandfather's war.

From EMP strikes to cyber attacks, here are FIVE ways the face of war has changed:

EMP attacks

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The entire modern world, on every level, is completely dependent on electricity. From your home refrigerator to international trade, the world would come to a grinding halt without power. And as Glenn has pointed out, it wouldn't even be that hard to pull off. All it would take is 3 strategically placed, high-altitude nuclear detonations and the entire continental U.S. would be without power for months if not years. This would cause mass panic across the country, which would be devastating enough on its own, but the chaos could be a perfect opportunity for a U.S. land invasion.

Nuclear strikes

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Nuclear war is nothing new. Many of us grew up during the Cold War, built fallout shelters, and learned to duck and cover. But times have changed. The Berlin Wall fell and so did the preparedness of the average American to weather a nuclear attack. As technology has advanced, more of our adversaries than ever have U.S. cities within their crosshairs, and as Glenn has pointed out, these adversaries are not exactly shy about that fact. Unfortunately, the possibility of an atomic apocalypse is as real as ever.

Immigration warfare

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The strategy of strangling an opposing nation's economy to gain the upper hand is a wartime tactic as old as time. That's why the Border Crisis is so alarming. What better way to damage an opponent's economy than by overburdening it with millions of undocumented immigrants? As Glenn has covered, these immigrants are not making the trek unaided. There is a wide selection of organizations that facilitate this growing disaster. These organizations are receiving backing from around the globe, such as the WEF, the UN, and U.S. Democrats! Americans are already feeling the effects of the border crisis. Imagine how this tactic could be exploited in war.

Cyber shutdowns

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Cyber attacks will be a major tactic in future wars. We've already experienced relatively minor cyber strikes from Russia, China, and North Korea, and it is a very real possibility that one of our adversaries inflicts a larger attack with devastating consequences on the United States. In fact, the WEF has already predicted a "catastrophic" cyber attack is imminent, and Glenn suggests that it is time to start preparing ourselves. A cyber attack could be every bit as devastating as an EMP, and in a world run by computers, nothing is safe.

Biological assault

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Don't trust the "experts." That was the takeaway many of us had from the pandemic, but something less talked about is the revelation that China has manufactured viruses that are capable of spreading across the globe. We now know that the lab leak hypothesis is true and that the Wuhan lab manufactured the virus that infected the entire world. That was only ONE virus from ONE lab. Imagine what else the enemies of America might be cooking up.

The government is WAGING WAR against these 3 basic needs

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The government has launched a full-on assault against our basic needs, and people are starting to take notice.

As long-time followers of Glenn are probably aware, our right to food, water, and power is under siege. The government no longer cares about our general welfare. Instead, our money lines the pockets of our politicians, funds overseas wars, or goes towards some woke-ESG-climate-Great Reset bullcrap. And when they do care, it's not in a way that benefits the American people.

From cracking down on meat production to blocking affordable power, this is how the government is attacking your basic needs:

Food

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Glenn had Rep. Thomas Massie on his show where he sounded the alarm about the attack on our food. The government has been waging war against our food since the thirties when Congress passed the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938. They started by setting strict limits on how many crops a farmer could grow in a season and punishing anyone who grew more—even if it was intended for personal use, not for sale on the market. This sort of autocratic behavior has continued into the modern day and has only gotten more draconian. Today, not only are you forced to buy meat that a USDA-approved facility has processed, but the elites want meat in general off the menu. Cow farts are too dangerous to the environment, so the WEF wants you to eat climate-friendly alternatives—like bugs.

Water

ALESSANDRO RAMPAZZO / Contributor | Getty Images

As Glenn discussed during a recent Glenn TV special, the government has been encroaching on our water for years. It all started when Congress passed the Clean Water Act in 1972, which gave the government the ability to regulate large bodies of water. As the name suggests, the act was primarily intended to keep large waterways clear of pollution, but over time it has allowed the feds to assume more and more control over the country's water supply. Most recently, the Biden administration attempted to expand the reach of the Clean Water Act to include even more water and was only stopped by the Supreme Court.

Electricity