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Glenn's Show Prep

The Real Reason Behind the War on Cash and Why Banks Want to Go Digital

November 30, 2016
Lori Hanes

Writer

According to financial expert Chris Martenson with PeakProsperity.com, the war on cash is really rooted in central banks wanting to push customers into a negative interest rate, meaning they would lose money sitting in the bank over time.

"They feel constrained by the idea that you could take your cash out of the bank and no longer be subject to their policies," Martenson said.

RELATED: Lower Interest Rates Shored Up Big Banks But Killed People on Fixed Incomes

While governments and bank executives advocate for negative interest rates and a cashless society by gallantly saying they want to protect consumers from theft and nefarious players, it's really about controlling people's money.

What does Martenson recommend the average person do?

"Well, the average person, I think, needs to get into two things . . . which are assets that are outside of this crazy system. So, listen, you know, if you're on a ship called the Titanic and you see your captain playing slalom with icebergs, get near the lifeboats. And in this story, real assets are the lifeboats," he said.

Read below or watch the clip for answers to these questions:

• What is nonproductive debt?

• What's the one thing a government or policy official dreams of?

• Why should we think of a bank as a company?

Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors:

GLENN: A guy I believe I've been looking for, for at least ten years. Chris Martenson. I've been looking for a guy that sees the world in the way that I do, that doesn't buy into the, quite honestly, Harvard Business School or the Wharton School of Business lies that the bankers are telling themselves right now about what's coming in the economy and how do we get out of this mess.

He's from peakprosperity.com. We're proud to have him as a Glenn Beck contributor now. Last time we talked about the collapse of pensions and getting out of your pensions and taking that lump sum if you have that ability. Today, I want to talk to him a little bit about digitizing currency. Because this is not being heard in the media anywhere. They're not talking about it.

And, you know, two weeks ago, when India, all of a sudden, you can't into anything in cash over the equivalent of $7 in India, with cash. When Australia's Citibank, our Citibank says they're now going to be introducing branches completely cashless, something is coming our way. And we want to get Chris on the phone with us now. Hey, Chris, how are you?

CHRIS: Oh, I'm doing very well, Glenn. Good to be back with you and all your listeners.

GLENN: Okay. So, Chris, tell me -- first of all, for anybody who hasn't heard this, it sounds conspiratorial and it sounds crazy, that we're going to live in a cashless society.

Can you give us any evidence that is -- that shows, no, the world is changing rapidly?

CHRIS: Well, you know, this war on cash actually began a while ago with seeing somebody like Andrew Haldane, who is an official at the Bank of England or Larry Summers here in the United States. They started with this war, talking about how the high denomination bills are being used by criminals, terrorists, tax cheats.

GLENN: Right.

CHRIS: That's what it was wrapped in. But your listeners need to understand that the war on cash is really rooted in the idea that central banks would love to be able to push you into negative interest rate territory. They feel constrained by the idea that you could take your cash out of the bank and no longer be subject to their policies.

And they've been pretty open about it. They've been saying that, but they also use this criminal angle. So that's the same angle that was just used in India, by Prime Minister Modi to say, "Hey, we've got to get rid of these bills because criminals." Right? So that's the argument being used. But it's really to control the money of the people. That's really what it's about here.

GLENN: May I say, Chris, that it appears to me to be almost the angle of being able to steal our money as well.

They'll do it legally by a bail-in, as opposed to a bailout and negative interest rates. Can you explain negative interest rates and what that means to the average person that has any money in the bank at all?

CHRIS: Absolutely. I'd be glad to. It should be an easy concept, but it's hard to really understand. But a negative interest rate means, if I put a thousand dollars in the bank and there was a negative interest rate of 10 percent, in a year, I would have $900 left when we looked at it. So what happens with a negative interest rate is that you hand your money over to some institution or some entity, and you get less of it back in the future. That's the idea. And the reason they want to have a negative interest rate is if they put interest rates down at zero -- the idea is you want everybody spending. Borrowing and spending. But some people prefer to save. And those people aren't doing their job of cranking the economy up. So how do you force people to spend who don't want to spend?

Well, you punish them. And the way you punish them is with something called a negative interest rate.

GLENN: So you could -- because this is what I would do. I find out that the banks have changed their rules where they can have a bail-in, where we are now the -- the investor of last in line. Can you explain that? Do you understand what I'm talking about? If the banks go out instead of going to the federal government, they come to the people who put money in the deposits.

CHRIS: Well, sure. It's easy to understand if you think of a bank, not as a bank, but it's a company. And when a company goes into receivership, it's entered bankruptcy, it no longer -- its assets are vastly exceeded by its liabilities, well, you have to break that company up for whatever's left.

And there's a chain of -- a hierarchy of people who are in line to divvy up the spoils of what's left at this broken company. So what you're referring to is that most people have this wrong. They think that when they put money in a bank, they have money in a bank account. That's not true. What you've done is given an unsecured loan to the bank. And your asset is the bank's liability.

So in a bankruptcy or if a bank goes into what's called technically a receivership, you're actually at the -- almost at the very bottom of the list of people who are in line to receive the spoils of whatever is left of that company because you are an unsecured creditor of the bank.

GLENN: So it is a way for the bank to gamble, really, with your money, and make these crazy investments that we all know are dangerous. And they get away with it because they say, "Well, the government is going to pay -- the FDIC will pay everybody back." So they'll get their money through the government. And then we can take that money and pay off any of our debts or whatever. So when I heard about that, my first instinct is, "Well, I don't want my money in those risky banks. So I'm going to take my money out."

Well, if you do that, then the economy really collapses. So you have to trap the money in the bank. And how do you do that? Especially if they want to have negative interest rates and make sure that you're spending all of your cash.

CHRIS: Well, absolutely. For a government official or a policy official, the thing they dream about most is to have you completely trapped and contained so they can do whatever policies makes sense to them at the time. So cash gives you, as a private citizen, an outlet, a way of not being in the banking system.

But, Glenn, you've characterized it just right. So they're saying, "First of all, you have to be in the banking system. We're going to move to a cashless society. So you have to have all of your funds within this system. And then we're going to set the rules of the system," which basically comes down to, heads we win, tails you lose. Banks take big risks. The risks pay off. They pay themselves massive bonuses.

Risks don't work out. They don't get paid off. Then they come after your funds. And we've seen this happen already. That's what happened in Cyprus. That's what happened in some of the Greek banks. We're soon to see it in the Italian banks. It's spreading. It's a concept. It's coming here.

GLENN: All right. It's already happening in Australia. It's already happening in India. It is already happening in Sweden. They're talking about doing it now. Seriously moving in that direction.

Is this just a fluke that these things are happening, or is this wheel now in motion rolling down a hill and it's not going to stop?

CHRIS: Well, it really just started actually probably 15 or 20 years ago. So what's happened is that instead of allowing normal business cycles to happen -- under the Greenspan fed -- remember that name from way back -- decided, hey, we're going to defeat the business cycle. But what they really did was they blew bubbles. One bubble. Then another. Then another.

And the whole world kind of got addicted to it.

And I think the policymakers -- they feel trapped, Glenn. They're looking at this, saying, how do we possibly deal with all this money we've printed. What do we do? It's binary. It either expands, or it collapses at this point. That's, I think their fear.

And 2008 really scared them. Got a lot of people in very high places, very worried that they were looking at the proverbial light in the tunnel, coming at them.

So I think this is a reaction. I would also almost call it a normal reaction. But people need to be aware that at the same time these people, I think, were legitimately concerned, wouldn't you know it, by the time all the rules got written, they were really written in favor of the elites, the very powerful, the well-connected, and really at the disadvantage of everybody else. And that's just classic sausage-making in Washington, I think.

PAT: So, Chris -- we're speaking from Chris Martenson from peakprosperity.com. Chris, this is Pat Gray. You've said it's taken 15, 20 years to get to this point. Does that mean we still have time, or what would you consider the time line?

GLENN: May I suggest that we are one 2008 away from this happening.

PAT: Yeah. Is it something that can just start cascading now due to some -- we talk about it all the time. Some sort of event. Terrorism or whatever. Or will this draw out for a while longer?

CHRIS: Well, Pat, it's really hard to make that prediction. Because what we're talking about here is a complex system. And here's what we know about complex systems: You can't predict what's going to happen or when.

It's like a fault line is a complex system. Scientists study them like crazy. Because we'd love to know, when is the next earthquake? How big is it going to be?

We can't know that. But we can know is that the earthquake hasn't let go in a while, and it's supposed to. That the chance of the next earthquake happening sooner is higher. And it being larger is also higher. So what's happened since 2008 is we've just piled up the risks. We've just made them larger.

PAT: Because what you're saying, what the government counts on then is that, yeah, we can draw this out a lot longer. And that's what they're hoping for, right? They're just hoping to continue the policies that we've had which have led us here. But they're just going to keep going until we're --

GLENN: Right. We're already 18 months past a point where a natural recession should have happened.

PAT: Yeah.

STU: So now we never really got out of the problem that we had in 2008. We made it much worse. And going into a natural recession is going to cause all -- wreak all kinds of havoc and will -- they will try to solve it with things that will just make this bubble even more dangerous down the road.

Chris, what do we do? What does the average person do?

Like, for instance, when I saw Australia and India both go within two weeks to basically a cashless society in India, my first thought was, "Okay. I want to get gold. And I also want to get crazy things like possibly bitcoin."

What do you recommend? What does the average person do?

CHRIS: Well, the average person I think needs to get into two things you've just identified, which are assets that are outside of this crazy system. So, listen, you know, if you're on a ship called the Titanic and you see your captain playing slalom with icebergs, get near the lifeboats.

And in this story, real assets are the lifeboats. So I'm counseling people, get out of debt, stay out of debt if it's nonproductive debt. Don't do it.

GLENN: Wait. Wait. What's nonproductive debt? Like your house?

CHRIS: You know, buying a $40,000 car if you can still get to work in a $20,000 car and be happy as you can be. But anything that you're going to take on what's basically for consumption. Right?

GLENN: Right. Okay.

CHRIS: So rack up the credit card and take that nice trip. That's not going to be helpful here.

For many people, unfortunately, Glenn, it includes student loans. If you're getting a degree that doesn't really have a job attached to it, that may also be nonproductive.

GLENN: Okay.

CHRIS: So lots of things to think about. Because what we've learned in the 1930s was that when -- not if, but when these bubbles blow up, debt is a stone-cold killer. Being out from under that, very helpful if people can get there.

GLENN: And what do you do? Like assets, that's gold, that's silver, is that land? Is that, what?

CHRIS: It is. It's land. I particularly love productive land. It's either got timber on it. It's farmland. It's good commercial properties that happen to have excellent rental histories. Things like that can make a lot of sense. And this is because, what's going to happen when these currencies finally give way is there's going to be a big scramble for the exits. There's trillions and trillions of dollars floating around that are going to go out and look for real things.

And we've been down this path before in history. We've seen it a bunch of times. And it's happening -- I've seen you mention it before. It's happening right now in Venezuela.

GLENN: Chris, I would love to have you on next time. I want to talk to you a little bit about -- because I'd like to build the case on the -- you know, Donald Trump is talking about saying to China that they are currency manipulators. Well, I don't know how we have the balls to say that to China. We're the biggest currency manipulator on the planet right now. And it always leads to the same kind of thing. Trade barriers. Trade wars. Currency wars. And if you could explain that a little bit. Because what I would like to do over the next few episodes with you is get to the point to where people can understand that this currency -- what -- at least what I'm feeling, Chris -- and I'd like you to think about this and then we could talk maybe off the air -- but what I think we're headed towards is what we went through in the 19 teens, '20s, '30s, and into the '40s, where currencies were devalued, destroyed, hyperinflation happened, the gold standard. Then that was manipulated. And the whole world shifted during a war, that nobody really understood, "Wait a minute. The real power shifted with the currencies." And I think that's happening again. Would you agree with that?

CHRIS: I absolutely agree with that. And it takes a little while to go through the parts.

GLENN: Explain. Yeah.

CHRIS: But people need to understand what those big pieces are so they can decide for themselves what to do about it.

GLENN: Right. Okay. So could you -- let's -- why don't you and I talk off the air here, and maybe next week, we could have you and do one other segment and start to lay those segments out so people really understand what you and I just said and how that's going to work.

CHRIS: Fantastic. I'd love to.

GLENN: Okay. Chris Martenson. He's with peakprosperity.com. Peakprosperity.com. Chris Martenson. He'll join us again, hopefully next week.

Featured Image: People walk past Bank of America branch in Washington, DC on October 19, 2016. (Photo Credit: ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty Images)

Is the U.N. plotting to control 30% of U.S. land by 2030?

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

A reliable conservative senator faces cancellation for listening to voters. But the real threat to public lands comes from the last president’s backdoor globalist agenda.

Something ugly is unfolding on social media, and most people aren’t seeing it clearly. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) — one of the most constitutionally grounded conservatives in Washington — is under fire for a housing provision he first proposed in 2022.

You wouldn’t know that from scrolling through X. According to the latest online frenzy, Lee wants to sell off national parks, bulldoze public lands, gut hunting and fishing rights, and hand America’s wilderness to Amazon, BlackRock, and the Chinese Communist Party. None of that is true.

Lee’s bill would have protected against the massive land-grab that’s already under way — courtesy of the Biden administration.

I covered this last month. Since then, the backlash has grown into something like a political witch hunt — not just from the left but from the right. Even Donald Trump Jr., someone I typically agree with, has attacked Lee’s proposal. He’s not alone.

Time to look at the facts the media refuses to cover about Lee’s federal land plan.

What Lee actually proposed

Over the weekend, Lee announced that he would withdraw the federal land sale provision from his housing bill. He said the decision was in response to “a tremendous amount of misinformation — and in some cases, outright lies,” but also acknowledged that many Americans brought forward sincere, thoughtful concerns.

Because of the strict rules surrounding the budget reconciliation process, Lee couldn’t secure legally enforceable protections to ensure that the land would be made available “only to American families — not to China, not to BlackRock, and not to any foreign interests.” Without those safeguards, he chose to walk it back.

That’s not selling out. That’s leadership.

It's what the legislative process is supposed to look like: A senator proposes a bill, the people respond, and the lawmaker listens. That was once known as representative democracy. These days, it gets you labeled a globalist sellout.

The Biden land-grab

To many Americans, “public land” brings to mind open spaces for hunting, fishing, hiking, and recreation. But that’s not what Sen. Mike Lee’s bill targeted.

His proposal would have protected against the real land-grab already under way — the one pushed by the Biden administration.

In 2021, Biden launched a plan to “conserve” 30% of America’s lands and waters by 2030. This effort follows the United Nations-backed “30 by 30” initiative, which seeks to place one-third of all land and water under government control.

Ask yourself: Is the U.N. focused on preserving your right to hunt and fish? Or are radical environmentalists exploiting climate fears to restrict your access to American land?

  Smith Collection/Gado / Contributor | Getty Images

As it stands, the federal government already owns 640 million acres — nearly one-third of the entire country. At this rate, the government will hit that 30% benchmark with ease. But it doesn’t end there. The next phase is already in play: the “50 by 50” agenda.

That brings me to a piece of legislation most Americans haven’t even heard of: the Sustains Act.

Passed in 2023, the law allows the federal government to accept private funding from organizations, such as BlackRock or the Bill Gates Foundation, to support “conservation programs.” In practice, the law enables wealthy elites to buy influence over how American land is used and managed.

Moreover, the government doesn’t even need the landowner’s permission to declare that your property contributes to “pollination,” or “photosynthesis,” or “air quality” — and then regulate it accordingly. You could wake up one morning and find out that the land you own no longer belongs to you in any meaningful sense.

Where was the outrage then? Where were the online crusaders when private capital and federal bureaucrats teamed up to quietly erode private property rights across America?

American families pay the price

The real danger isn’t in Mike Lee’s attempt to offer more housing near population centers — land that would be limited, clarified, and safeguarded in the final bill. The real threat is the creeping partnership between unelected global elites and our own government, a partnership designed to consolidate land, control rural development, and keep Americans penned in so-called “15-minute cities.”

BlackRock buying entire neighborhoods and pricing out regular families isn’t by accident. It’s part of a larger strategy to centralize populations into manageable zones, where cars are unnecessary, rural living is unaffordable, and every facet of life is tracked, regulated, and optimized.

That’s the real agenda. And it’s already happening , and Mike Lee’s bill would have been an effort to ensure that you — not BlackRock, not China — get first dibs.

I live in a town of 451 people. Even here, in the middle of nowhere, housing is unaffordable. The American dream of owning a patch of land is slipping away, not because of one proposal from a constitutional conservative, but because global powers and their political allies are already devouring it.

Divide and conquer

This controversy isn’t really about Mike Lee. It’s about whether we, as a nation, are still capable of having honest debates about public policy — or whether the online mob now controls the narrative. It’s about whether conservatives will focus on facts or fall into the trap of friendly fire and circular firing squads.

More importantly, it’s about whether we’ll recognize the real land-grab happening in our country — and have the courage to fight back before it’s too late.


This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

URGENT: FIVE steps to CONTROL AI before it's too late!

MANAURE QUINTERO / Contributor | Getty Images

By now, many of us are familiar with AI and its potential benefits and threats. However, unless you're a tech tycoon, it can feel like you have little influence over the future of artificial intelligence.

For years, Glenn has warned about the dangers of rapidly developing AI technologies that have taken the world by storm.

He acknowledges their significant benefits but emphasizes the need to establish proper boundaries and ethics now, while we still have control. But since most people aren’t Silicon Valley tech leaders making the decisions, how can they help keep AI in check?

Recently, Glenn interviewed Tristan Harris, a tech ethicist deeply concerned about the potential harm of unchecked AI, to discuss its societal implications. Harris highlighted a concerning new piece of legislation proposed by Texas Senator Ted Cruz. This legislation proposes a state-level moratorium on AI regulation, meaning only the federal government could regulate AI. Harris noted that there’s currently no Federal plan for regulating AI. Until the federal government establishes a plan, tech companies would have nearly free rein with their AI. And we all know how slowly the federal government moves.

  

This is where you come in. Tristan Harris shared with Glenn the top five actions you should urge your representatives to take regarding AI, including opposing the moratorium until a concrete plan is in place. Now is your chance to influence the future of AI. Contact your senator and congressman today and share these five crucial steps they must take to keep AI in check:

Ban engagement-optimized AI companions for kids

Create legislation that will prevent AI from being designed to maximize addiction, sexualization, flattery, and attachment disorders, and to protect young people’s mental health and ability to form real-life friendships.

Establish basic liability laws

Companies need to be held accountable when their products cause real-world harm.

Pass increased whistleblower protections

Protect concerned technologists working inside the AI labs from facing untenable pressures and threats that prevent them from warning the public when the AI rollout is unsafe or crosses dangerous red lines.

Prevent AI from having legal rights

Enact laws so AIs don’t have protected speech or have their own bank accounts, making sure our legal system works for human interests over AI interests.

Oppose the state moratorium on AI 

Call your congressman or Senator Cruz’s office, and demand they oppose the state moratorium on AI without a plan for how we will set guardrails for this technology.

Glenn: Only Trump dared to deliver on decades of empty promises

Tasos Katopodis / Stringer | Getty Images

The Islamic regime has been killing Americans since 1979. Now Trump’s response proves we’re no longer playing defense — we’re finally hitting back.

The United States has taken direct military action against Iran’s nuclear program. Whatever you think of the strike, it’s over. It’s happened. And now, we have to predict what happens next. I want to help you understand the gravity of this situation: what happened, what it means, and what might come next. To that end, we need to begin with a little history.

Since 1979, Iran has been at war with us — even if we refused to call it that.

We are either on the verge of a remarkable strategic victory or a devastating global escalation. Time will tell.

It began with the hostage crisis, when 66 Americans were seized and 52 were held for over a year by the radical Islamic regime. Four years later, 17 more Americans were murdered in the U.S. Embassy bombing in Beirut, followed by 241 Marines in the Beirut barracks bombing.

Then came the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996, which killed 19 more U.S. airmen. Iran had its fingerprints all over it.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, Iranian-backed proxies killed hundreds of American soldiers. From 2001 to 2020 in Afghanistan and 2003 to 2011 in Iraq, Iran supplied IEDs and tactical support.

The Iranians have plotted assassinations and kidnappings on U.S. soil — in 2011, 2021, and again in 2024 — and yet we’ve never really responded.

The precedent for U.S. retaliation has always been present, but no president has chosen to pull the trigger until this past weekend. President Donald Trump struck decisively. And what our military pulled off this weekend was nothing short of extraordinary.

Operation Midnight Hammer

The strike was reportedly called Operation Midnight Hammer. It involved as many as 175 U.S. aircraft, including 12 B-2 stealth bombers — out of just 19 in our entire arsenal. Those bombers are among the most complex machines in the world, and they were kept mission-ready by some of the finest mechanics on the planet.

   USAF / Handout | Getty Images

To throw off Iranian radar and intelligence, some bombers flew west toward Guam — classic misdirection. The rest flew east, toward the real targets.

As the B-2s approached Iranian airspace, U.S. submarines launched dozens of Tomahawk missiles at Iran’s fortified nuclear facilities. Minutes later, the bombers dropped 14 MOPs — massive ordnance penetrators — each designed to drill deep into the earth and destroy underground bunkers. These bombs are the size of an F-16 and cost millions of dollars apiece. They are so accurate, I’ve been told they can hit the top of a soda can from 15,000 feet.

They were built for this mission — and we’ve been rehearsing this run for 15 years.

If the satellite imagery is accurate — and if what my sources tell me is true — the targeted nuclear sites were utterly destroyed. We’ll likely rely on the Israelis to confirm that on the ground.

This was a master class in strategy, execution, and deterrence. And it proved that only the United States could carry out a strike like this. I am very proud of our military, what we are capable of doing, and what we can accomplish.

What comes next

We don’t yet know how Iran will respond, but many of the possibilities are troubling. The Iranians could target U.S. forces across the Middle East. On Monday, Tehran launched 20 missiles at U.S. bases in Qatar, Syria, and Kuwait, to no effect. God forbid, they could also unleash Hezbollah or other terrorist proxies to strike here at home — and they just might.

Iran has also threatened to shut down the Strait of Hormuz — the artery through which nearly a fifth of the world’s oil flows. On Sunday, Iran’s parliament voted to begin the process. If the Supreme Council and the ayatollah give the go-ahead, we could see oil prices spike to $150 or even $200 a barrel.

That would be catastrophic.

The 2008 financial collapse was pushed over the edge when oil hit $130. Western economies — including ours — simply cannot sustain oil above $120 for long. If this conflict escalates and the Strait is closed, the global economy could unravel.

The strike also raises questions about regime stability. Will it spark an uprising, or will the Islamic regime respond with a brutal crackdown on dissidents?

Early signs aren’t hopeful. Reports suggest hundreds of arrests over the weekend and at least one dissident executed on charges of spying for Israel. The regime’s infamous morality police, the Gasht-e Ershad, are back on the streets. Every phone, every vehicle — monitored. The U.S. embassy in Qatar issued a shelter-in-place warning for Americans.

Russia and China both condemned the strike. On Monday, a senior Iranian official flew to Moscow to meet with Vladimir Putin. That meeting should alarm anyone paying attention. Their alliance continues to deepen — and that’s a serious concern.

Now we pray

We are either on the verge of a remarkable strategic victory or a devastating global escalation. Time will tell. But either way, President Trump didn’t start this. He inherited it — and he took decisive action.

The difference is, he did what they all said they would do. He didn’t send pallets of cash in the dead of night. He didn’t sign another failed treaty.

He acted. Now, we pray. For peace, for wisdom, and for the strength to meet whatever comes next.


This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Globalize the Intifada? Why Mamdani’s plan spells DOOM for America

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

If New Yorkers hand City Hall to Zohran Mamdani, they’re not voting for change. They’re opening the door to an alliance of socialism, Islamism, and chaos.

It only took 25 years for New York City to go from the resilient, flag-waving pride following the 9/11 attacks to a political fever dream. To quote Michael Malice, “I'm old enough to remember when New Yorkers endured 9/11 instead of voting for it.”

Malice is talking about Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist assemblyman from Queens now eyeing the mayor’s office. Mamdani, a 33-year-old state representative emerging from relative political obscurity, is now receiving substantial funding for his mayoral campaign from the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

CAIR has a long and concerning history, including being born out of the Muslim Brotherhood and named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror funding case. Why would the group have dropped $100,000 into a PAC backing Mamdani’s campaign?

Mamdani blends political Islam with Marxist economics — two ideologies that have left tens of millions dead in the 20th century alone.

Perhaps CAIR has a vested interest in Mamdani’s call to “globalize the intifada.” That’s not a call for peaceful protest. Intifada refers to historic uprisings of Muslims against what they call the “Israeli occupation of Palestine.” Suicide bombings and street violence are part of the playbook. So when Mamdani says he wants to “globalize” that, who exactly is the enemy in this global scenario? Because it sure sounds like he's saying America is the new Israel, and anyone who supports Western democracy is the new Zionist.

Mamdani tried to clean up his language by citing the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, which once used “intifada” in an Arabic-language article to describe the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. So now he’s comparing Palestinians to Jewish victims of the Nazis? If that doesn’t twist your stomach into knots, you’re not paying attention.

If you’re “globalizing” an intifada, and positioning Israel — and now America — as the Nazis, that’s not a cry for human rights. That’s a call for chaos and violence.

Rising Islamism

But hey, this is New York. Faculty members at Columbia University — where Mamdani’s own father once worked — signed a letter defending students who supported Hamas after October 7. They also contributed to Mamdani’s mayoral campaign. And his father? He blamed Ronald Reagan and the religious right for inspiring Islamic terrorism, as if the roots of 9/11 grew in Washington, not the caves of Tora Bora.

   Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

 

This isn’t about Islam as a faith. We should distinguish between Islam and Islamism. Islam is a religion followed peacefully by millions. Islamism is something entirely different — an ideology that seeks to merge mosque and state, impose Sharia law, and destroy secular liberal democracies from within. Islamism isn’t about prayer and fasting. It’s about power.

Criticizing Islamism is not Islamophobia. It is not an attack on peaceful Muslims. In fact, Muslims are often its first victims.

Islamism is misogynistic, theocratic, violent, and supremacist. It’s hostile to free speech, religious pluralism, gay rights, secularism — even to moderate Muslims. Yet somehow, the progressive left — the same left that claims to fight for feminism, LGBTQ rights, and free expression — finds itself defending candidates like Mamdani. You can’t make this stuff up.

Blending the worst ideologies

And if that weren’t enough, Mamdani also identifies as a Democratic Socialist. He blends political Islam with Marxist economics — two ideologies that have left tens of millions dead in the 20th century alone. But don’t worry, New York. I’m sure this time socialism will totally work. Just like it always didn’t.

If you’re a business owner, a parent, a person who’s saved anything, or just someone who values sanity: Get out. I’m serious. If Mamdani becomes mayor, as seems likely, then New York City will become a case study in what happens when you marry ideological extremism with political power. And it won’t be pretty.

This is about more than one mayoral race. It’s about the future of Western liberalism. It’s about drawing a bright line between faith and fanaticism, between healthy pluralism and authoritarian dogma.

Call out radicalism

We must call out political Islam the same way we call out white nationalism or any other supremacist ideology. When someone chants “globalize the intifada,” that should send a chill down your spine — whether you’re Jewish, Christian, Muslim, atheist, or anything in between.

The left may try to shame you into silence with words like “Islamophobia,” but the record is worn out. The grooves are shallow. The American people see what’s happening. And we’re not buying it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.