Source: CounterPunch
by John W Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead
“Every military servicemember’s oath is a pledge to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. It is not an oath to a politician. It is not an oath to a party. And it is not an oath to the police state. Yet what happens when those same men and women are being told—by their own government—that obedience to power and loyalty to a political leader come before allegiance to the Constitution they swore to uphold? That question isn’t hypothetical. It is the moral line now being tested in real time, and it goes to the heart of what kind of country we are: do we live in a constitutional republic governed by the rule of law, or in a militarized police state where ‘legality’ is whatever the person with the most power and the biggest army say it is?” (12/04/25)
“Young people complain they’ve been permanently locked out of opportunity. They will never become homeowners, never be able to support a family, only keep treading water at precarious gig jobs forever. They got a 5.9 GPA and couldn’t get into college; they applied to 2,051 companies in the past week without so much as a politely-phrased rejection. Sometime in the 1990s, the Boomers ripped up the social contract where hard work leads to a pleasant middle-class life, replacing it with a hellworld where you will own nothing and numb the pain with algorithmic slop. The only live political question is whether to blame immigrants, blame billionaires, or just trade crypto in the hopes that some memecoin buys you a ticket out of the permanent underclass. Meanwhile, economists say things have never been better.” (12/04/25)
“The populist poles of the left and right are now linked in what political scientists call the ‘horseshoe.’ As each gets further from the center, it bends closer toward its counterpart on the other side. Both distrust markets, both want to micromanage industry, both are protectionist, both romanticize manufacturing work and resent the disruptions that come from open global competition. Both, in other words, are hostile to the core tenets of the liberal economic order that made America prosperous. Each side blames a different villain. For the left, it’s corporations and rich people; for the right, it’s immigrants and trade. But both sides insist that a brighter future is possible only through top-down political control, and neither wants to confront the real risk: a government already too large, spending money it doesn’t have and drifting toward fiscal crisis.” (12/04/25)
“Voting and making government more efficient only evolve tyranny to become more successful, giving false hope, making government easier to bear on the people, while tightening the chains. The Daughters of Liberty didn’t beg Parliament for lower taxes — they built parallel supply chains. Agorists do the same today: Monero instead of fiat, 3D-printed receivers instead of Form 4473s, mutual-aid networks instead of FEMA handouts, home churches and private schools instead of licensed 501(c)(3) compliance. Agorism is far from nihilism — it’s the proactive blueprint for a brighter future, harnessing innovations like cryptocurrencies for untaxed trade, 3D printing for self-reliant manufacturing, and sustainable agricultural techniques such as Walipini underground greenhouses to foster independence, (all year round greenhouses). Voting, on the other hand, veers closer to nihilism: people shrug, pick between two rotten options, and claim it’s the only path, all while surrendering to the system’s slow decay.” (12/04/25)
“There’s this thing in politics where people scramble to find something ‘good’ to talk about for their side, no matter how bad reality happens to be. It’s like someone being blown up in a terrorist attack, but their pants were not stained or torn at all – whew! It’s a special kind of ‘missing the forest for the trees’ you can only find in politics and dysfunctional relationships. Under the banner of ‘Tennessee Election Result Is a Fire Alarm for Republicans’, the editors at Newsweek have declared the results of a special election in December of an off-year to be something Republicans need to set their hair on fire over. Why? Because the Republican only won by 9 points in a district that Donald Trump carried by 22.” (12/04/25)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Jake Scott
“For many people, ‘AI’ is something small that fits neatly in their pockets, confined to their 6.1″ phone screen, consigned to a little icon that lurks on their home screen or in a folder labeled ‘productivity.’ … But in Southeast Asia, ‘AI’ is something real, tangible, physical—and increasingly intrusive. The region has long been recognized as the most attractive place for global tech firms to invest when it comes to growing their AI capacities, with over $55 billion having been poured in by major tech companies already—a figure that is expected to double by 2028—and it’s easy to see why. Southeast Asia in general benefits from low energy costs, vast tracts of undeveloped land, and—crucially—readily accessible water.” (12/04/25)
“After a month of effort, the picture is sadly and depressingly clear: The old, all too familiar broken equation remains jammed into place: There will be no peace deal on Ukraine, the remorseless virtual annihilation of the Ukrainian people will continue. US President Donald Trump and his top team genuinely want peace: But they have been blocked, pressured, brainwashed, love bombed and intimidated by the US Deep State and the leaders of Britain, France, Germany and NATO into refusing to pay the price that Russia insists must be paid for a war that Moscow has already won. Thus, the long slow remorseless drift into the abyss of global thermonuclear war continues. Indeed, it is likely to accelerate.” (12/04/25)
“Many people equate economics with the stock market, personal finance and business management. Whereas what economists actually study are incentives, choices, trade-offs, markets, institutions, and how scarce resources are allocated. Money is involved, but it’s only one piece. Non-economists tend to ignore trade-offs. They often assume we can have lower taxes and higher spending, or strict environmental rules and unchanged consumer costs. Many think we can have price controls and no shortages. Economists emphasize opportunity cost; everything has a cost, even if it isn’t a monetary one. Non-economists sometimes confuse individual behaviour with aggregate behaviour, reasoning from personal experience. They say things such as ‘I lost my job, so the economy must be worse,’ or ‘I’m spending more, so inflation must be rising.’ Economists focus on aggregate interactions, which often behave differently from individual components.” (12/04/25)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“One thing I try not to think about very often is how many reports we’ve been seeing about Israeli prison guards training dogs to rape Palestinian captives in torture camps like Sde Teiman. Drop Site News has a new write-up about a testimony from a journalist published by the Palestinian Journalists Protection Center. The reporter says that during his 20 months of hell in Israeli prisons he was electrocuted, beaten, starved, and sexually assaulted on film. He also says he was sexually assaulted by ‘a trained dog’ — just the latest in a long string of such allegations coming out of Israel’s notorious network of torture prisons. Last month Novara Media published an article titled ‘Israeli Prison Guards Are Using Dogs to Rape Palestinians, Former Detainees Say’, based on information collected by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights.” (12/04/25)
“Forced redistribution dominates public discourse about wealth inequality, yet much of the debate overlooks how people earn, trade, innovate, and create value.” (12/04/25)
