The Dark Studio

“I don't believe in pessimism. If something doesn't come up the way you want, forge ahead. If you think it's going to rain, it will.”― Clint Eastwood

It’s an obvious statement for me to say to you that I’ve seen a lot of changes in the world since I was a kid in the 1980’s. 

Sure you’ve heard this type of statement from your elders over the years and people usually snicker and brush off such a statement without any further examination of such a statement. However, given the current state of affairs with the weak, pathetic, and fragile infiltration of Marxists into our society, examining such a statement right here and now is more than warranted and way overdue. 

Weak men only exist because of a culture and society that has told them that it's ok to be weak and that strong men are somehow toxic, hence the term toxic masculinity. Aside from that term toxic masculinity being an oxymoron, the assumption of the meaning from those who coined the term is that strong men are somehow toxic when in reality it’s been the steady growth of weak men within our population over time that are toxic and dangerous within society, particularly when it comes to those that are in positions of power. 

So to be clear, what exactly does it mean for one to be strong or weak? 

Well the truth is that strength and weakness both parallel in terms of the areas in which one may possess an area of strength or weakness as it relates to their individual attributes. 

When we hear the words strength and weakness many people would assume we’re solely talking about physical strength or weakness. Sure physical attributes certainly qualify for identifying how one may be strong or weak and as a professional fitness and strength coach I can certainly attest to that, however strength and weakness go far beyond the physical nature of someone who may be strong, or lack strength in certain areas of their lives. 

True strength comes from within and that inner strength involves that of the spirit and one’s own intellectual toughness, and moral character. In my view much of this inner strength is present within most all of us, but is something that is similar to a garden that has either been nurtured for growth resulting in more inner strength, or its soil has been deprived, or neglected, of what is necessary to produce a fertile foundation of inner strength. 

The Official Substack Of Brandon Richey is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

When that soil has been deprived then the individual grows up looking outward for certain protections, assurances, and what they may perceive as something of a safe environment. However, keep in mind that looking outward, at least in the context of the physical human world, is a recipe for disappointment as this creates an environment where a weak individual seeks some sort of dependency from other people, entities, or organizations in the physical world. 

Now I want to be very careful here when I mention the word dependency as I don’t want this to be taken out of context. 

First of all, for the purpose of this explanation I’m primarily talking about everyday able-minded and able-bodied adult men that currently live and work in society. At least at this point I hope they are working, but there are those that fit this classification that aren’t working for various reasons. 

Perhaps some of those reasons involve the fact that they are currently suffering from the completely unnecessary economic climate that was created by weak men that lack principles, character, and integrity. After all, as we can observe in many cases weak men can typically exhibit tendencies towards destruction.

Therefore, it could mean that they lack that inner strength I’m talking about which results in the lack of discipline, focus, and grit which ultimately can lead to destruction. The point is that given what I’ve just outlined here as to the explanation I’m talking about the able-minded and able-bodied men that lack inner strength and intellectual toughness. 

This concept of inner strength and intellectual toughness has been something that has been stolen from men in our modern day culture. In fact, I would call it the larceny of masculinity. 

The Lack of Empathy Resulting In Weakness

“Walk a Mile in His Moccasins”--Mary T. Lathrap in 1895 (Source: AAA Native Arts)

That quote is actually the title of a Native American poem by Mary that was obviously based on the concept of empathy. Now I do believe in this message as empathy is without a doubt a sign of strength. 

Here I’m going to read the poem in full…

Pray, don’t find fault with the man that limps,Or stumbles along the road.Unless you have worn the moccasins he wears,Or stumbled beneath the same load.

There may be tears in his soles that hurtThough hidden away from view.The burden he bears placed on your backMay cause you to stumble and fall, too.

Don’t sneer at the man who is down todayUnless you have felt the same blowThat caused his fall or felt the shameThat only the fallen know.

You may be strong, but still the blowsThat were his, unknown to you in the same way,May cause you to stagger and fall, too.

Don’t be too harsh with the man that sins.Or pelt him with words, or stone, or disdain.Unless you are sure you have no sins of your own,And it’s only wisdom and love that your heart contains.

For you know if the tempter’s voiceShould whisper as soft to you,As it did to him when he went astray,It might cause you to falter, too.

Just walk a mile in his moccasinsBefore you abuse, criticize and accuse.If just for one hour, you could find a wayTo see through his eyes, instead of your own muse.

I believe  you’d be surprised to seeThat you’ve been blind and narrow minded, even unkind.There are people on reservations and in the ghettosWho have so little hope, and too much worry on their minds.

Brother, there but for the grace of God go you and I.Just for a moment, slip into his mind and traditionsAnd see the world through his spirit and eyesBefore you cast a stone or falsely judge his conditions.

Remember to walk a mile in his moccasinsAnd remember the lessons of humanity taught to you by your elders.We will be known forever by the tracks we leaveIn other people’s lives, our kindnesses and generosity.

Take the time to walk a mile in his moccasins.

Now it takes a wise individual to point to the significance of empathy as Mary does in both the title and body of her poem here regarding the message that one should take the time to try and gain understanding of others and their life circumstances without being quick to pass judgment. 

This is completely accurate and is truly a sign of a strong individual because an individual that possesses this ability is someone who has learned and accurately grasped the concept of human nature…which is that we’re all flawed because we are simply human. 

To understand and more importantly to take the time, energy, and effort to understand means that one is striving to build on that inner strength I was talking about earlier. For either you or myself to do this we must both invest the time and energy to do so and putting in that investment, in and of itself, requires effort and effort in this way always results in strength. 

This is what it means to fertilize that soil in the garden, whereas to not put forth the effort means that one would be neglecting that soil in the garden which results in weakness and destruction. 

Now you might be sitting there and thinking Brandon, aren't you passing quick judgment onto those Marxists that you say are weak without understanding what they may be dealing with in their own individual lives? By making such a statement am I demonstrating a lack of empathy? 

I would say no that I’m not passing quick judgment, not in the least. I can say that because the entire ideology of Marxism is one that subverts the very nature of individuality and there is clearly a segment of men within our society that have adopted this ideology and actively work extremely hard in promoting, advocating, and embracing it within the fabric of our nation and institutions.  

This is not a statement of judgment, but rather a sound substantiated observation of reality. After all, in society we must all agree that there are clear social agreements on what we all should consider to be objective in terms of what is right and what is wrong. 

For instance, it is simply wrong to advocate and actually participate in the destruction of private property, the burning of cities, and the harassment of innocent people under the false pretense of so-called injustices, especially when said injustices were proven factually to be a complete lie. We’ve seen this over and over with organizations such as BLM and Antifa with their terrorism of innocent businesses, cities, and individual citizens. 

To accurately sum this up you don’t have to look any further than the Kyle Rittenhouse case. In my view this particular case perfectly illuminates the venomous and weak ideology of Marxism as to me this ideology was completely the central component on display in this trial. That’s not difficult to see now as we can look back and reflect on society’s emotional reaction towards Rittenhouse during that time. Looking back at this case many people including the Communist Administrative State Media (ASM) were calling for this young man (Kyle Rittenhouse) to be destroyed before the evidence was ever even presented. 

In fact, the jury was feeling immense heat from the corrupt ASM and they were drumming up the heat to pressure the jury into potentially making a decision that would have completely destroyed an innocent man. In fact, I can personally recall many people on my personal Facebook feed calling for him to be locked up, or even executed, before the court date ever came to pass. 

These Marxists really showed their true colors to me and as a result fueled my desire to bury their incompetence and to expose their weakness and lack of empathy with the birth of this podcast and blog. Additionally, it may surprise you that I happen to know some of these Marxists personally. However,  I had no idea they were lacking so much empathy and were so weak in their character until they showed themselves and demonstrated their worldviews on their social media when I was following this particular case. 

Regardless, I have a long memory and my goal is that others will read and/or listen to this episode and be reminded of those same types of people that they might have been surprised to discover on their social feeds as well. 

Let me ask you, is that sentiment of calling for one to be imprisoned, or executed, consistent with our legal system in the belief that one is Innocent until PROVEN guilty? Additionally does that attitude demonstrate empathy in the very least?  If you can’t answer these questions then you’re part of the problem. The answer should be a loud and convincing NO. 

If you still want to ignore reality and reject the notion of empathy then let’s take a moment to highlight the overwhelming facts of the Rittenhouse case. 

First of all, the prosecution against Rittenhouse was quick out of the gate to accuse him of chasing down Joseph Rosenbaum and fatally shooting him in the street along with shooting  another guy. 

With this accusation the prosecution was looking to throw the book at Rittenhouse on several charges consisting of first-degree intentional homicide, first-degree reckless homicide, and first-degree attempted intentional homicide. (Source: CNN) 

The prosecution’s narrative totally collapsed when their accusations of what Rittenhouse had allegedly done were completely dismantled once FBI aerial drone footage was presented to the court that clearly showed the complete opposite of what the prosecution was alleging against Rittenhouse. 

Upon viewing the footage, among other video footage taken at ground level, it was clear that Rosenbaum was hidden in a parking lot that Rittenhouse had run into at which point Rosenbaum started following Rittenhouse as he ran away. Furthermore, there were two other individuals with Rosenbaum that were in pursuit of Rittenhouse which was the opposite of the testimony from the prosecution. (Source: CNN)

As Rittenhouse’s defense attorney Mark Richards pointed out Rittenhouse had acted in self-defense demonstrating how Rosenbaum was actually the aggressor along with the other two guys making up a mob that was in pursuit of Rittenhouse, not to mention one of the other mob members Gaige Grosskreutz was armed with a firearm while the other guy Anthony Huber was chasing and hitting Rittenhouse with his skateboard. 

Fortunately, after all the dust had settled Rittenhouse was exonerated, but not before his reputation and name had been drug through the mud by the corrupt ASM and all the useful idiots that were willing to take the bait and run with it. 

You see among the ASM and all of their enablers you have a clear view of how a lack of empathy and an overwhelming epidemic of weakness has infected our society at large. This lack of empathy and weakness resulted in a lot of destruction. 

It resulted in the destruction of Kenosha Wisconsin on that night with the incident involving Rittenhouse and Rosenbaum, it resulted in the destruction of Rittenhouse’s reputation and name, and it resulted in the further erosion and destruction of our current American culture that has already been infiltrated by the destructive ideology of Marxism. 

In addition to this many of those who were calling for the destruction of Rittenhouse were young men in our culture. In my view this case highlighting those claiming Rittenhouse had committed an injustice were themselves advocating for the greatest injustice of all which was the execution and/or imprisonment of an innocent man. 

To make this even worse one of the major details of the case that the media conveniently failed to report on was that Rittenhouse had a medical kit with him and was tending to injured people in the area. His possession of the gun was for personal protection only which is exactly what he used it for in the situation that night in Kenosha.  

To me this case clearly highlighted the lack of empathy and the theft of masculinity within our culture at large. With everything surrounding the Rittenhouse case we witnessed a major symptom of the larceny of masculinity. 

Enter Stoicism 

If you’re not familiar with the term Stoicism it essentially is a philosophical approach to one enduring hardship or pain without display of feelings and without complaint. 

Stoicism was one of the dominant philosophical systems dating back to the Hellenistic period in Athens and is basically composed of three different parts. 

These three parts include physics, logic, and ethics. Within this model all three of these parts work together in an interconnected system. (Source: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) 

To illustrate this in a more simple way the ancient stoics used the analogy of comparing each of the separate components to an egg to explain the three interconnected parts of physics, logic, and ethics. 

In comparison to the egg the outermost layer involving the shell would be the logic followed by the next component of ethics being the following inner layer of the egg, and ultimately the physics would involve the innermost part of the egg, or the fertile field. You probably noticed this sounds familiar to my garden analogy that I referenced earlier on. 

In a nutshell, or more specifically in an egg shell, the purpose of the stoic philosophy is to utilize the practice of the discipline to become more virtuous and to attain wisdom. Thereby, we should lead a good life so the overarching goal is to discern with logic, to nurture the crop or the egg white, which in turn according to the ancients is assumed to nourish the yolk.  

Now keep in mind that the stoic philosophy, at least in my view, is not a religion, but rather a disciplined way to approach life and how to deal with the decisions, hardships, successes, shortfalls, and trials of life. Many in Christian faith have also been stoic in their approach to day to day life behavior and discipline. For some this comes more naturally and for others it takes a lot more work. 

So what about when life delivers difficult circumstances for people? Did the ancient stoics believe in fate? 

What stoics would look to call fate they more identify as working out of the rational and predictable. The concept of fate is more viewed as a series of decisions and actions that have been made over time. In other words, every event that occurs in the world is the result of a previous series of events that preceded the event(s) in question. 

As such the thought of the inescapability of this sequence of events leads to concerns about the action and moral responsibility of individuals and how they should lead their daily lives. 

Now that to me is as about as powerful and logical an explanation to major events occurring in life as I’ve ever heard. In fact, we’re seeing that very thing happen throughout our cultural, political, educational, health, and economic landscape right now. 

Think about the chain of events that have been encouraged and have led to the loss of empathy in our culture due to the destruction of the family structure. Think about the infiltration of weakness within the men of our culture with men being told that masculinity is somehow toxic and not acceptable. Think about how there’s been crimes as serious as treason committed by politicians who have resided in Washington D.C. for decades without having been held accountable for anything meaningful whatsoever. Finally, think about the fact that Congress has literally not passed a balanced budget since 2001. 

The Official Substack Of Brandon Richey is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

I’m not making any of this up. This is all substantiated and documented, yet every single one of these issues exists because of the precedent of doing what was wrong instead of what was right has been able to flourish because of the epidemic of weak men that lack the testicular fortitude to do what real men should do. If masculinity were present in D.C. then we would have men making the necessary decisions politically so that our country would not be in a total free fall towards Communism as we’re seeing right now. 

The Wrap Up 

In short, we are all human and as humans it’s perfectly natural for us to be weak in some areas and stronger in others. However, when weakness itself is seen as a virtue in our modern society then you can count on a society where there will be a precedence of bad decision making and actions taken by men in power that will nurture an environment into a snowball of total destruction without escape. 

The only way to stop it and to reverse course is if we use our individual agency to intervene in order to disrupt the cascading cycle of weakness and the larceny of masculinity across every landscape concerning politics, culture, economics, education, and with our individual health. The bottom line is that we’ve created a culture of overly emotional and weak men. 

We have already created a society where decisions are made out of fear and emotion rather than exhibiting the discipline to temper those emotions with a more stoic approach. Because major societal decisions are made out of emotion this only perpetuates a continuous cycle of one bad policy after the next. Furthermore, it also signals to those who desire power more than anything else that those people making decisions out of fear can more easily be controlled. 

The question is are the men that recognize this in our society going to have the testicular fortitude to pushback, or has the larceny of masculinity already ceded control of our society to the Authoritarians once and for all? 

If you’re interested in my personal answer I’m pushing back as hard as I can by creating this very blog and podcast. I just need your help in helping me to push harder.

I hope you enjoyed today’s article/podcast.

If so I hope you would choose to support this platform as part of the patriot economy as well. Be an Emissary of Freedom and help to push this piece out to your friends, family, and coworkers.

One way you can do this right now is by joining me and giving me a like here on Public SQ. This platform is directly tied to the support of a freedom first movement by allowing you to line up your purchasing power with businesses that share your values.

In order for BOTH you and me to influence and strengthen our society we must not stay idle so please make sure you hit the subscribe and share buttons here below.

Spreading messages like this one is how we influence our culture and I need your help in order to do it.

Also listen to this episode here on…

Spotify

Apple Podcasts

Tune In

Pocket Cast

If you like this podcast and the message please take a moment to give it a Five Star ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ rating on the Spotify platform.

Also to connect with me please make sure you join me here on Twitter, Facebook, GETTR, and now Substack’s new social media called Notes.

Stay strong. Stay focused. Stay active.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit brandonrichey.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit brandonrichey.substack.com

Notice...

Today's episode will be available to you in full at brandonrichey.substack.com if you subscribe to become a paid member.

However, I am giving you a nice preview of today's episode to give you a feel of the direction of the topic of discussion and I believe you will find it interesting.

“Your mind is everything. All the mess that causes you stress starts in your head. If you’re weak it starts in your head. If you are strong it starts in your head. You make a decision today to be what you wanna be.”- Deion Sanders

What does it mean to you when big names and successful people tell you to grind like never before and to drive ahead towards your individual success without excuses? 

How does the message of someone telling you to go out and achieve success, to become wealthy, and to accomplish your dreams sit with you personally at the moment, particularly in this current day and age? 

How do you define success? 

Do you believe in the power of individuality and your ability to achieve success as an individual that can freely make your own decisions? 

What does this vision of success mean to you exactly? 

Is it having a million dollars in the bank, or how about $100 million? 

What about the attitude that success matters more than anything else and that you, as an individual, are in total control of this, therefore it’s up to you to put in the effort and to walk your own path? 

Do you believe all of this to be true? 

Do you believe that whatever you define as success is possible? 

Look, I’m the last guy on earth to pass judgment on any answer that you might propose to any of these questions. I’m not here to pass judgment at all, but we have lived in an era where there has been no shortage of self-help coaches, business coaches, life coaches, and any other type of coach that you can think of if you really just take a second to pause and look around. 

After all, I myself am a lifelong strength and fitness coach. 

However, today I want to look at the sentiment of this entire self-help discussion regarding the common messaging that we all hear from all the famous online coaches that flood the internet with the evidence of their successful practices and massive followings. 

The Official Substack Of Brandon Richey is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Even though there are a couple of well known personalities that sparked my idea for this post, keep in mind that this isn’t meant to be a criticism of anyone in particular that is involved with being a coach, or guide so I don’t want you to take it that way. 

However, I do want you to carefully examine today’s episode and what I am looking to highlight in today’s message. Afterwards and upon some personal reflection if you do follow some well known life coaches I want you to ask yourself if that person is guilty of what I’m going to be pointing out to you here today. That’s the purpose of today’s episode. 

Like I said I’m a coach myself so the intention here is not to be critical of anyone in particular, however I want to point towards a problem that many of these so-called coaches and influencers typically neglect, or fail to point out, within the fabric of the DNA of much of their messaging. 

I’ll touch on what that is here a bit later, but first I want to take the time to explore what the entire concept of individuality and personal agency really means in today’s world and the current environment that we are all living in. 

Enter Existentialism

The German philosopher Martin Hedegger was born in 1889 and grew up to become one of the leading influential philosophers on existentialism. This philosophy of existentialism involves the thought process that questions existence along with our responsibilities as free and independent beings in the world. 

In Hedegger’s book Being and Time he posits that much of society is running away from the idea of death and points out that we essentially deny our own mortality by pretending that we will live forever. 

Hedegger believed that as an existentialist that we must confront the reality that one day we will no longer be around because of death and in this way Hedegger was critical of the western world’s view where religion offers the prospect of an afterlife. (Source: New Intrigue)

“What one does is what counts. Not what one had the intention of doing.”

― Pablo Picasso

The toughest and most challenging task I’ve ever taken on in my life is the day that I decided to start my own business. 

Look I know I talk about this a lot on this show, but if you’ve been a regular listener, or reader, to the show then you know that I am always intentional about why I bring such things up and that the purpose of bringing up such a thing is not by mistake in terms of the reason behind it with communicating an important point. Keep that word intentional in the back of your mind as I’m going to be coming back to that here a bit later on in the episode. 

Back in 2005 when I made the leap to jump out and start my own business I did so with the main motivation being that I didn’t want to be beholden to someone else. I realized, at least in my own experience, that the work I was doing in the fitness business was making some other guy richer off of my own blood and sweat. 

In addition to the unsatisfying pay and the lack of reward I also found myself having a difficult time with having to put up with someone else’s assessment of what was best for growing a business, especially when I would prove otherwise with my own performance over and over as an employee. 

In short, I never liked the feeling of being under someone else’s thumb while, at the same time, lacking the independence from being able to call my own shots while always being beholden to someone else’s whims. This was my central motivation for taking the leap to go out on my own into the world to build the life that I wanted by embracing all the risks and all the rewards. 

The Official Substack Of Brandon Richey is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

However, in choosing to travel this path I’ve witnessed and learned that people in society don’t want to have to factor in the possibility of unwanted risks. Granted, mitigating risks is a totally understandable consideration when you have skin in the game of any respectable business pursuit. 

Now having said that there’s a HUGE difference between mitigating risks when playing by the rules of the free market versus mitigating risks by developing cronyistic relationships with people in high executive positions and the government in order to rig the game and to pervert the market to eliminate unwanted risks in one’s favor.  

Enter Hostile Cronyism

In case you were not aware that the word cronyistic, or cronyism, has to do with the spoils system's practice of partiality by jobs and other advantages in business where they end up being awarded to friends and colleagues, particularly when related to politicians and supportive organizations of political institutions. This generally serves as a corrupt feedback loop that walls off the prospect of outside competition and isn’t an open free market competitive environment in the least. In fact, it’s a closed, or captured environment in this case. 

In short, a cronyistic environment is a corrupt system typically involving an environment where there is a merger between the private and public sector. In such a system you would have certain businesses within a given market that would solely benefit from this public private relationship in a way where the rest of the private sector would not. 

In fact, a good example of the cronyistic nature of a perverted market would be the majority of the ‘climate change’ model. In this example, the market is not a true free market, particularly in the way that the federal government pushes and forces it through the financing involved in the purchase of EV’s as a singular example. 

You’re probably wondering, Brandon, how can you say that? 

Well the reason I can say that is because of the level of subsidies that flow from the government to the so-called private enterprising projects that push the climate change agenda at every turn. As an example you don’t have to look any further than the manufacturing of the electric vehicles, or the EV movement as only a large, but singular part of that cronyistic market. 

According to the National Bureau of Economic Research Federal subsidies totaled $725 million for the year 2014 where they would offer tax credits for EV buyers that would range between $2500 and $7500 on the backs of taxpayers and that was nearly a decade ago. It’s grown to be substantially more now and that doesn’t even factor in how corn subsidies for gas powered vehicles involving ethanol have perverted that market in the name of ‘climate change’ which is something that isn’t even needed for a gasoline engine. The point here is that these subsidies have infected both the artificial EV market, as well as, the independent stand alone gas powered car market. 

In case you never thought about it before, ethanol is a fuel additive that is derived from corn and is regulated to be blended into gasoline for your car. The absurd reality about ethanol is that the business ONLY exists because of your tax dollars.  

In fact, when it comes to ethanol it doesn’t even make sense as it costs more to produce than it’s worth and is solely propped up by yours and my tax dollars that flow into the farming and all  of the other related industries that are tied to the ethanol subsidies as a resulted requirement of having to blend it with your fuel. 

To give you some perspective on the massive amount of money that flows into the ethanol industry, the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit was signed into law by George W. Bush back in 2004 and went into effect in 2005. 

This particular subsidy is often referred to as the blender’s credit and is offered to ethanol blenders that are registered with the IRS by giving them 45 cents for every gallon of pure ethanol that they blend with gasoline. (Source: ThoughtCo)

That particular subsidy cost taxpayers a whopping $5.7 billion in 2011 according to the nonpartisan congressional watchdog agency the U.S. Government Accountability Office. 

What’s so frustrating about this is that, just like with the EV market, the ethanol subsidies are simply a massive waste of money and a completely unnecessary tax on the American public which only exists now because we have managed to create a cronyistic environment that is feeding a hostile leviathan that doesn’t want give up its position and cease to exist. 

So what do I mean by Hostile Cronyism? 

Well remember the one thing that I always talk about is absolutely critical in regards to this show. That thing I’m referring to always goes back to both you and I constantly being able to recognize and understand our environment. In that context I admit that the environment can change, but with that change it’s up to us to be able to recognize and keep up with it in order to understand it. 

So given the change that we’ve allowed with these huge federal subsidies that have wormed their way into our markets in regards to the environment concerning energy production in the name of ‘climate change’ we’ve now created a position where a huge cronyistic and artificial environment ONLY exists due to the sole support of our tax dollars. 

Given that these businesses and special interests will do whatever it takes in order to maintain their gravy train of wealth flowing into their bank accounts it shouldn’t be surprising to us when we see the hostility of the climate activists and governments that want to continue driving the climate agenda. 

Not surprisingly the driving ahead with this agenda has resulted in the diminished production of energy across the country which, in the state of California, has been the direct cause of continuous rolling power outages. Keep in mind that the government of California is also looking to do away with the sales of gas powered cars in that state by 2035 and if you happen to be a citizen of that state you’ll more likely be forced to purchase an electric vehicle either out of diminished options, or by government mandate. (Source: NPR)

Now with the rolling and consistent power outages in that state you’ll also be able to experience the joy of owning an expensive electric vehicle in a state where there’s a good chance you won’t be able to maintain a charge on that vehicle due to the constant power outages. You couldn’t even make up this insanity in a sequel to the movie Idiocracy, but I digress. 

The other concern that you and I are seeing with this hostile cronyistic environment (aka Climate Agenda) is that there are stories circulating about how cattle, which is a rich food supply, is causing too much of a carbon footprint, therefore they are looking to go after the food supply. 

On that note in the Netherlands we’ve already witnessed in the past year a direct seizure of farmland by the government there with what they, and the European Union, refer to as an attempt at reducing Nitrogen emissions. This blatant hostile cronyism (aka Communism/Fascism) is where the government manufactures a crisis in order to steal land away from people which, in this case, are the Dutch farmers. (Source: Euronews.Green)

Useful idiots would say that since the government is offering to buy the land from those farmers that there’s obviously no issue. However, such simplistic and shortsighted thinking can be applied to any government attempt to usher in legalized theft under the guise of a societal crisis, or emergency, which in this case involves climate change. 

This is the problem when it comes to the population just willfully dismissing the true nature and intention of certain large movements that exist and gain a lot of steam within the corrupt functions of government. 

After all, human nature has proven to be consistent in two areas that I want to point to for a moment. The first observation about human nature is that people in general are quick to dismiss a major problem as a non-issue if the problem doesn’t impact them in the present time, or in the short-term. The second observation is that people simply have short and selective memories. 

The Mandela Effect

Both of the previous aspects of human nature that I pointed to involving the way people actually are at their core often serve to be a problem for society at large and we’re seeing that play out right now in our modern world. 

So what exactly am I referring to in regards to the aspects of human nature where people have this irresponsible ability to dismiss major problems simply because they don’t see these problems as an issue they should address today, or with the other characteristic that people have short and selective memories? 

Well, with both of these human characteristics I could also counter with the question of Which examples of human history exist where people do NOT exhibit these two attributes? 

Don’t worry you don’t have to bother answering that because I’ll get back to making the point because it’s easy to make. 

The Official Substack Of Brandon Richey is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

First of all, I'll take a moment to illustrate the issue with people dismissing major problems that they don’t feel are major problems because individuals may not necessarily perceive that they are impacted by them at the present time. 

To illustrate this I want to dive into a fable that communicates this in the most profound way. 

Once upon a time long ago in India there was a king that enjoyed playing chess and challenging others to play against him. 

So one day a sage came through to visit and as he passed by the king the king challenged him to a game of chess. In the king’s challenge he told the sage that he would wager any reward the sage could imagine. 

The sage took the king up on his offer, but to the king’s surprise his choice of reward was quite surprising because it involved rice. 

To make the request even stranger the sage asked to receive the rice in a particular manner. If the sage won he requested that the king take a single grain of rice and place it on the chessboard’s first square, and after that he would double the amount of rice placed on every subsequent square until every square of the board was accounted for on the chessboard. 

When looking at the offer the king viewed it as a humble offer and gladly accepted the offer and obliged the sage in a game of chess. 

The two played the chess game and the sage won. 

True to his word the king ordered one of his servants to bring out a bag of rice. The king grabbed a single grain of rice from the bag and placed one down on the first square of the chessboard, and then two grains on the next square, and then four grains on the next, and so on. However, it wasn’t long at all before the king realized that he had a very big problem. 

The king realized that he not only didn’t have enough rice to satisfy filling up the board on hand, but that he didn’t even have enough rice available in his entire kingdom to fulfill the debt. 

By the time the king had reached the 15th square on the chessboard he would have to issue 16,384 grains of rice to the sage. By the time he reached the 25th square he would have to issue 16,777,216 grains of rice to the sage. Ultimately by the time he fulfilled all 64 squares on the chessboard he would essentially be looking at 200 billion tons of rice, or basically enough rice to cover the entire country of India with a meter of rice. (Source: Analyzing Alpha)

The sage would live out his days as one of the wealthiest men of his time. 

This is a perfect illustration on demonstrating the power of the concept of compounding interest. However, the inherent flaw in human nature is that people often fail to recognize that even though compounding interest can work for your benefit (like with the sage) it can also work AGAINST you (like the king). 

This is precisely why it’s important to be intentional when examining life decisions and life problems. Ah, I told you I would come back to that word intentional. 

You see in this example when looking at the fable with the king and the sage the king wasn’t intentional at all in his examination of the potential payout of the bet just prior to playing the chess game. However, the sage was very intentional in his request and had obviously thought through the math and the payout of his reward should he go on to achieve the victory in the chess match…which he did. 

When I reference the king here in this story this is exactly what I mean when referring to people lacking the ability to tackle problems without intention in the moment that they occur. To  preserve his livelihood the king should have taken a longer amount of time to examine what the sage was offering instead of acting out of haste and accepting the bet surrounding that chess match out of excitement. 

This is exactly the reason why our society is now experiencing the global corruption that we’re witnessing in regards to the hostile cronyism that we’re seeing in relation to the ever expanding climate agenda. The green movement climate agenda is now a major player in crushing the world markets right now. 

What was once viewed as a humble venture coming from those claiming to want to strive to save the planet with a virtuous statement known as the green movement are now the direct cause of us paying a huge price possibly involving our very lives. The price of not having examined that movement more closely just as the king failed to do the same in our little parable here has resulted in being a major driver for global instability. 

As a result, the green movement is now a major factor in driving the 40 year record high inflation due to mandated cuts on energy production, and putting the Western world on the brink of World War III. 

Additionally there are stories in the newscycle nearly everyday that communicate the economic and dangerous ideology that opposes natural gas and oil production literally everywhere at all times. 

To be intentional is to be smart when it comes to addressing problems that may seem harmless, or even humble in nature. In regards to the climate agenda and the green movement society has failed to do this as we’re seeing in reality everyday right now.  

So what about that second characteristic of people having selective and short term memory that I mentioned? 

Well, let's not pretend that we don’t understand the true motivation behind the corrupt activity involved with the hostile cronyism (aka Communism/Fascism) that we’re witnessing with the green movement, the widespread corruption of the financial markets, the control of energy, etc..

All of this is being driven by two things and those two things are simply power and greed. The problem I pointed to with the flawed attribute of human nature involving people having both a selective and short-term memory is that oftentimes a short-term or selective memory can create a culture of normalcy around something that isn’t normal at all. 

One key and common example of this selective memory, or people misremembering, is when I hear people misquote the bible verse saying that Money is the root of all evil. You might have even bought into the quote because if you’re like me you have probably heard this stated on a frequent basis for many years. 

However, as always you must be aware of your environment and one way to ensure that you are is to always go to the source of such a statement rather than taking it from some third party. So if you exercise that very thing right here and now then all you have to do is simply go to the Bible verse 1 Timothy 6:10 and it reads For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. 

That first key part of the phrase ‘For the love of money’ makes all the difference in terms of the meaning of this phrase, yet people think and remember the first misquoted example that money itself as an inanimate object is the root of all evil which on its face is an absurd statement. 

However as such a misquoted statement permeates throughout society for years and years it will cause a lot of problems as people will build their opinions around a false claim and dangerously misplace the blame of what is evil onto an inanimate object such as a dollar bill rather than placing the blame where it belongs. In this case the blame should fall with those people who will use that inanimate object of money for nefarious purposes of their own. 

People commonly misremember details about things and such a phenomenon can occur by accident with a concept that is known as the Mandela Effect. 

So what is the Mandela Effect? 

The Mandela Effect was something that some friends pointed out to me this past week that even I wasn’t familiar with so I decided to do a little digging. 

Apparently the origin of the term was coined back in 2009 by Fiona Broome who started a blog to observe this phenomenon. 

It started when Fiona apparently attended a conference and had a conversation with several others at the conference that pertained to the death and tragedy of the previous South African president’s death in a prison in the 1980’s. 

However, if you do a little research you’d find that Mandela never died in a South African prison in the 1980’s, but rather peacefully passed away in his home in 2013. 

What Broome learned is that she had spoken with several other people regarding her faulty memory on the matter and she began to realize that she wasn’t alone. In fact, several people had the same memory regarding the death of Nelson Mandela. 

To make this even stranger many of the people she spoke to recalled having seen news coverage of the death of the South African president and even talked about remembering his widow giving a speech at his funeral on live TV. 

This was quite a shock to Broome when she realized that such large numbers of people could remember an identical event in such detail even though it never actually happened. It was because of this strange phenomenon that Fiona decided to start her own website on the issue, as well as, with other similar incidents which are what she referred to as the Mandela Effect. (Source: Simply Psychology)

Some other common examples of this in pop culture involve the famous movie line from The Empire Strikes Back when Darth Vader says “Luke, I am your father.”

However, Darth Vader never said that in the movie. You might be surprised to learn that he says “No, I am your father.” 

The reality is that many people have a distinct memory of this being the first phrase, but it’s actually the second line here that is accurate. 

Another example in pop culture that we can point to would be the famous line that Forrest Gump uttered that everyone repeats saying “Life is like a box of chocolates.”

However, when looking at the scene closely you’ll hear Forrest Gump (Tom Hanks) say “My mother always said life was like a box of chocolates.”

When it comes to the Mandela Effect one possible cause and explanation could be what is known in Psychology as priming. 

This is where the exposure to a stimulus directly influences someone’s response to a succeeding stimulus. As a good example, if I asked you “Did you grab a red coffee cup from the cabinet?” That question is going to be more specific and evocative than if I asked you “Did you grab anything from the cabinet?” 

Because of the way the first question is framed it’s going to be more influential and impactful on one’s memory recall than the way the second question is framed. 

I’m not saying this is the sole reason for the Mandela Effect, but it could be a factor in producing such a unique and shocking cultural phenomena with the Mandela Effect when it comes to selective memory. 

The Wrap Up

Once again, this all comes back down to each of us as individuals working harder at being a Zenith when it comes to investing in the growth and expansion of our understanding of our respective environments in our daily lives. 

After all, take a moment and imagine the following scenario. 

Imagine, if you will, that I had the ability to travel back in time to visit you in 2018 or early 2019. Upon my visit I would tell you that in the coming 4 to 5 years that you would experience a global pandemic that would literally shutdown the world, that it would be used as a Trojan Horse for global communism, that the U.S. elections would be compromised, that you would experience 40 year record high inflation, that government officials would come forward about UFOs, that your government would go to war against its own citizens, that AI would pose as a threat to all of humanity, and that the world would be on a razor’s edge for World War III. 

Given all of this you would have probably laughed me out of the room, yet here we are and many people still have selective memories and want to dismiss the reality of all of this insanity. It’s because of all of this that this very platform exists because reading about those wild realities would cause any sane person from the past or present to demand some explanation in order to achieve a deeper understanding of why all of this is happening now. 

At least now if you possess discernment and recognize the importance of understanding your environment that the concepts covered here in today’s episode involving hostile cronyism and the Mandela Effect certainly have played a role in the development of these insane realities. 

What’s even more ironic is that these realities are so farfetched that even Hollywood would have tossed the script into the trash bin out of anger due to the fact that a tree was taken for the paper the script was printed on as it would be seen as a direct insult in the face of the green energy movement.

I hope you enjoyed today’s article/podcast.

If so I hope you would choose to support this platform as part of the patriot economy as well. Be an Emissary of Freedom and help to push this piece out to your friends, family, and coworkers.

In order for BOTH you and me to influence and strengthen our society we must not stay idle so please make sure you hit the subscribe and share buttons here below.

Spreading messages like this one is how we influence our culture and I need your help in order to do it.

Also listen to this episode here on…

Spotify

Apple Podcasts

Tune In

Pocket Cast

If you like this podcast and the message please take a moment to give it a Five Star ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ rating on the Spotify platform.

Also to connect with me please make sure you join me here on Twitter, Facebook, GETTR, and now Substack’s new social media called Notes.

Stay strong. Stay focused. Stay active.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit brandonrichey.substack.com/subscribe

“In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”― Desiderius Erasmus

Years ago I had the privilege of coaching the Tucker High School basketball team in their preseason strength and conditioning training to get the team ready for their competitive season. 

The reason this opportunity had fallen into my lap was because I had previously worked with a few of their players on an individual level just a couple years prior when I had worked for another athletic performance training company before I had ventured out on my own to start my business. 

Once I had decided to make the leap to stop working for the man and become self-employed I had searched up the Tucker coach’s contact number and quickly set up a meeting. 

It was a very productive meeting because he had liked my tough approach from having worked with his previous players and as luck would have it he was frustrated with the direction of his team at the time I had sat down to meet with him. 

In that meeting he was venting his frustrations to me about how his team lacked discipline, focus, work ethic, and structure. Coming from their head coach I was a bit concerned because in my mind the thought had occurred to me that if he, as the head coach, couldn’t provide discipline, focus, work ethic, and structure then being an outsider coming in would I be able to deliver this to the team and their situation? 

As the first day of training approached I knew the only way to know this for sure was to put my skills to the test, but at least I had the advantage of knowing what I was walking into before the day came. 

The team was large with 32 players consisting of both the boys and girls JV and Varsity squads and I had formulated a plan to accommodate these numbers and manage the group on my own. 

I had made the choice to set up several different work stations each dedicated for the athletes to perform a different speed and agility drill, or a strength movement of some kind. Each station was timed and there were a total of eight stations which allowed for four athletes to work at each station at a time. As each group of athletes worked through and completed their given time at each station they would rotate over to the next station. It was a good setup that allowed for a seamless execution as I could manage 32 players on my own without help. 

However, as good as the layout for the training session was, the head coach’s warning to me regarding the lack of focus of the group would still soon present itself to me as a problem. The only question was how was I going to deal with it? 

The Official Substack Of Brandon Richey is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

A Lesson In The Human Psyche

As I blew the whistle to start the team into their training session I started watching over all of the group like a hawk. Even though I was a rookie in terms of being a new business owner I was still very experienced as a coach and had a few tricks up my sleeve for when things didn’t always go as planned. 

As I sit here telling you that I remember I was only about three to five minutes into the training session when I noticed one of the lead varsity players at one of the work stations in the group joking around and putting in effort that was quite honestly pathetic. 

I watched his group carefully because he was the top player on the team and as he was spending more time joking and goofing off this had a cascading effect that rippled throughout the rest of the entire team as a whole. You see whether he liked it or not his poor example of leadership and work ethic had a negative impact on the rest of the team. 

This was a typical observation in how important leadership is with an individual as good leadership and bad leadership WILL absolutely have a direct impact on the performance of a team as a whole. This is very important to mention as this is true of any organization, especially when it comes to the government. 

So you’re probably wondering Brandon what did you do? 

Well, I watched them carefully for a few seconds and when I realized they were not going to correct themselves and start putting forth the necessary effort I blew the whistle and issued the first and only warning to the team. I could sense a bit of attitude in the star player’s body language with his response to my warning, but I chose to ignore it for the moment. 

Since I was new I kept the criticism anonymous with my first warning, but with a stern tone told them clearly that I noticed a group at one of the work stations was goofing off. I warned them that if I had to blow the whistle again to stop training because there were players that were too busy playing around instead of being serious about their work ethic that the second event would involve a brutal lesson in discipline with what I referred to as mental drills (which were really physical drills I used to mentally discipline athletes). 

So they acknowledged the warning and we started back with the training session. However, after a quick couple of minutes I looked over at the same player in the group that was goofing off before and as you can imagine he was doing it again. 

At this point I was irritated and when I got irritated I had to correct the situation. I immediately blew the whistle and yelled for everyone to get in line formation for the mental drills I had literally just warned them about.  

However, what I did next was something that the group found to be shocking and based on everyone’s facial expressions it completely caught them all off guard. As I ordered everyone in line for the mental drills I called for the player that had been goofing off to come to the head of the group to stand beside me. When I did so he looked stunned and then asked me why. 

He walked to the head of the group and stood next to me asking me why I wanted him beside me while I was addressing the entire team? As I stood there I explained to him and the group that since he wanted to take it easy and preferred a more relaxed approach during the training while he was goofing around that he could continue to do so by relaxing while standing right next to me as the rest of the team suffered through doing their mental drills while he watched. 

At this point I blew my whistle and started making the team do a tough series of bodyweight squats where I directed the execution of each repetition of squats by telling them when to squat. I kept an aggressive tempo and after about 20 or so squats they were clearly starting to experience the discomfort from the physical application of what I call mental drills.  

As I started doing this an amazing thing happened as the superstar player standing next to me begged me to allow him to join them. At first I refused and asked him what had changed between the time he was goofing off and the moment he found the rest of his team in the middle of doing their mental drills? 

Of course, he didn’t have an answer and just continued to beg me to allow him to join the rest of the group in their disciplinary punishment. By the way if this is new to you this is a normal cycle that coaches experience with kids and athletes, but just please stay with me because the punchline is coming up. 

So you might be thinking Brandon what happened next? 

Well, I pushed the group pretty hard with the disciplinary approach using the mental drills. I stopped the squats and ordered everyone to return to their work stations. 

From that point on the group put forth a strong effort and we proceeded to finish out the workout, but at the end I blew the whistle to grab everyone’s attention and once again ordered them to get back in line the way we did to do the mental drills. 

The look on their faces was misery and I could see it. 

It was at this moment that I told them that despite the bumpy start to the workout that they demonstrated a level of grit and intestinal fortitude that made me take notice and that there was hope for all of them after all. Furthermore, afterwards I approached the young superstar player that had also shown a change in effort and attitude and completed the day’s workout on a positive note. 

I pulled him and his small work group aside and asked him if he understood why I isolated him at the beginning of the mental drills I was forcing the entire team to go through? He looked at me and after a short pause he responded by saying that he believed I wanted to show him how his actions hurt the team. 

This was an impressive response from this young man. I was very pleased to hear this and told him that I also knew that he was the one they all looked up to in the group. I told him that he was the one that the team would rely on if things got tough and that his kind of leadership wasn’t something that his head coach, or even I could replace. 

I then told him that I couldn’t make this preseason conditioning venture a success without his leadership and example of hard work being on point. I told him and his small group that I couldn’t do it without them. 

From that day forward I never had to raise a finger to discipline anyone else on the team because this star player would automatically step in to take the initiative to do it for me. 

In case you’re wondering, that Tucker High School basketball team went on to win the state championship and we did it again the following year. 

The Official Substack Of Brandon Richey is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Deindividuation

Typically when you hear about someone using a tactic where psychological isolation is involved it is often viewed with a negative connotation. Typically such a tactic is employed by someone who has abusive motives such as one engaging in an act to isolate their spouse from others because they are jealous of their significant other, they’re insecure, they’re possessive, or they just totally lack any self-esteem themselves and are coping in a very negative way. 

Whatever the reason when psychological isolation is employed it is typically explained in the context of using scenarios that involve negative and abusive situations. However, there are moments when isolating people in a group, as I explained with my own example with the basketball team, is a good thing. This is a different type of “isolation” that isn’t done at all in the same context as typical social situations involving what you would normally assume is psychological isolation. 

Granted the way I isolated the young talented athlete in the group from my story was an isolation of his individuality. This ended up being effective because it was initiated with positive intention. This ended up resulting in a tremendously positive outcome when it came to his change of attitude and work ethic which not only elevated him, but ended up elevating his team as well. 

The Official Substack Of Brandon Richey is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

So why did the young man fail to put forth the effort right out of the gate and feel that it was ok to simply goof around during the workout with the rest of the team instead of putting forth the effort? 

Well the reality is that there were probably several reasons ranging from the fact that he might have lacked discipline, structure, and focus, but there’s also a touch of something else involved here when it comes to the psychology of group dynamics. 

If you follow this podcast and blog then you know I also like to cross-post articles and other podcasts from the Substack platform with other talented creators. Just recently I did this with two former guests on my podcast with Kelli Russell and Jerry Kuykendall. 

I cross-posted one of their episodes recently where they honed in on the important concept of Individuation. The title of that episode is Your Path To Individuation.  

So going back to the explanation of why my talented basketball player experienced a moment where he felt he could choose to not put in the physical effort to do the work and instead goof around with his friends was because of a related concept known as deindividuation. 

Deindividuation is obviously the opposite of Individuation and it’s a phenomenon that is typically associated with people that engage in behavior out of the norm when inside a large group. 

This phenomenon is typically associated with violent or deviant behavior when looking at how individuals might act during a riot when they are hidden within a large crowd. Granted my young basketball player here wasn’t a deviant in the least, but the larger point is that the group dynamics provided a platform for him, like with many kids among many teams, to sometimes feel hidden within the large groups enabling them to sometimes detract from disciplinary activities. This is due to the fact that they feel they will be less likely to be identified within the group. 

As a result this causes some people who fall for deindividuation to be more likely to engage in behavior and to do things that they might not normally do if they were on their own, or in a position where people could easily know who they are in a given situation. 

This concept of deindividuation was first coined by American social psychologist Leon Festinger in the 1950’s in order to describe situations in which people cannot be individuated or isolated from others. (Source: Britannica) Obviously I wasn’t going to allow that to happen on my watch with my star basketball player in the group, but I digress. 

However, in some instances deindividuation can be rather inconsequential such as letting loose on the dance floor or within the dynamics of helping people. Remember that the context of any given situation matters and there are circumstances that do vary with any given situation. 

However, the larger point here is to make sure that we are all more capable of being a Zenith by being able to bring more clarity to any given circumstance because when we don’t, as society,  we often find ourselves in a sort of enigmatic societal dilemma when looking at how certain negative events may play out in society when deindividuation does actually manage to occur in a dangerous setting. 

A few examples here would involve the continuous summer riots that have popped up with the likes of Antifa and BLM over the past few years. In these circumstances I understand much of those riots were artificially manifested as these groups were organized and paid for, but they can fuel some instances of deindividuation when it comes to looters and others who might want to take advantage of an opportunity to not be held accountable for their actions. 

If you don’t believe me, in 19th century France the work of Gustave Le Bon demonstrated and promulgated a politically motivated criticism of crowd behavior. (Source: Britannica)

Le Bon’s work referred to group behavior as irrational and fickle and it got much support at the time given the many riots that were going on during his time in France. He pointed out that undesirable behaviors would occur at the time through three types of mechanisms. 

First, the feeling of anonymity gives people the sense of being free from being isolated or identified, second this would lead to a feeling of being untouchable and ultimately this would result in a complete loss of personal responsibility altogether. 

Now I want to go back and touch on my example of the artificial and paid rioters influencing others in La Bon’s example here of the complete loss of personal responsibility. Within the group dynamic this could also cause a phenomenon which La Bon referred to as a contagion which pretty much means what it sounds like. In this circumstance a contagion would dangerously spread through the rest of the crowd as they can start thinking and acting in the same manner. According to Le Bon it’s also at this point where the crowds are more suggestible. 

In my observation this is precisely what happened to the world within the group dynamics of the pandemic policies and the Mass Formation that took place with so many people that were acting hostile and violently towards those of us who refused to go along with the theater and the relentlessly suggestive narrative of compliance.  

However, unlike the environment in 19th century France it’s my observation that this group deindividuation was more perpetuated through the digital platforms of social media more so than the concrete streets of France or New York. 

After all, in the same light as Le Bon and Festinger point to in their respective theories the same sort of deindividuation coupled with the feeling of being untouchable was enabled by many people willingly attacking their friends and family during the pandemic through the comfort of their electronic devices on social media. 

The Mass Formation that corrupted and is still infecting our society was also further perpetuated with the social media Oligarchs censoring dissident voices that went against the suggestive narrative of compliance that directly fueled the deindividuation throughout our society at large.  

After all, according to the American Bolsheviks (aka Communists) you should NEVER attempt to do your own research and should just Follow the $cience. 

Remember that deindividuation occurs in the Mass Formation. If you’re not already aware, the concept of Mass Formation is a harrowing phenomenon that has a shocking historical context that the world renown Professor of Psychology Mattias Desmet discusses and is also a mind blowing topic on an episode that I covered back last Halloween. You can check out that episode here titled Defeating The Fear Control Mechanism: How Stoicism and Strength Combat Weakness and The Infantilization of Society. By the way Mattias Desmet himself gave that episode a like on the Substack so you want to make sure you check it out if you haven’t already. 

Thank you for reading The Official Substack Of Brandon Richey . This post is public so feel free to share it.

The Wrap Up

In my observation it’s clear to me that deindividuation is something that the Administrative State Media (ASM) has also managed to foster across much of our society. As the ASM floats a narrative, regardless of how big the lie is, many people with a warped sense of reality will use that narrative as a sort of blanket for them to avoid accountability. 

After all, if we use the behavior we witnessed with Mass Formation during the pandemic you saw many people both on and offline abusing and fighting with family and so-called friends. 

Many of those that were following along and advocating for the suggestive narrative of compliance were ruthless in their demands. This resulted in many people being “othered,” it resulted in people losing their jobs, losing their family members, and most importantly it served as a Trojan Horse for ushering in the widespread Communism and corruption throughout every major United States institution as we’re seeing play out right now in front of our faces nearly every single day. 

I told you that story about my experience with the Tucker High School basketball team to communicate a larger point. In case you didn’t know, in that Tucker High School environment I was the minority. Not that it mattered to me because as an individual, a coach, and a professional I always treat everyone the same. That’s how I was raised.

However, had I been fake, disingenuous, or simply scared to discipline any of the players on that day, or any day for that matter, I would have never been able to overcome the deindividuation at that moment with that star player. 

The circumstance had presented the perfect opportunity for me to seize by isolating that player from his team and making him realize that he was doing that prior to me when he had made the decision to joke around instead of doing the work. 

However, when I showed him he could see with clarity and he took his team to the next level. I tell you this because if you’re listening and paying attention to what’s going on in the world with the indictment of the former president, as well as his cabinet members. Additionally as you see what’s happened in East Palestine, Ohio and Maui and how the ASM is covering for the malfeasance and incompetence, and you’re seeing the ASM now starting to float more stories with the suggestive narrative of compliance with more COVID policies, masking, etc. you’re also going to see the Mass Formation of more deindividuation within our society kickoff once again.

Now that you have this knowledge you shouldn’t be confused and view these circumstances as sort of an Enigmatic Societal Dilemma, but rather view what's happening with absolute clarity.

Furthermore, as you see the Mass Formation and deindividuation start up on your social media feeds and within your social circles you’re now going to find yourself in a similar situation as I did with that Tucker High School basketball team and whether or not you should call out and isolate those trying to perpetuate an abusive and suggestive narrative of compliance. 

If you’re worried and find yourself in a similar situation and you’re concerned because you’re outnumbered just remember that I was outnumbered 32 to 1.

I hope you enjoyed today’s article/podcast.

If so I hope you would choose to support this platform as part of the patriot economy as well. Be an Emissary of Freedom and help to push this piece out to your friends, family, and coworkers.

In order for BOTH you and me to influence and strengthen our society we must not stay idle so please make sure you hit the subscribe and share buttons here below.

Spreading messages like this one is how we influence our culture and I need your help in order to do it.

Also listen to this episode here on…

Spotify

Apple Podcasts

Tune In

Pocket Cast

If you like this podcast and the message please take a moment to give it a Five Star ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ rating on the Spotify platform.

Also to connect with me please make sure you join me here on Twitter, Facebook, GETTR, and now Substack’s new social media called Notes.

Stay strong. Stay focused. Stay active.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit brandonrichey.substack.com/subscribe

“The whole secret lies in confusing the enemy, so that he cannot fathom our real intent.”

― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

I have always been involved in athletics and this was obviously the driving factor that resulted in me deciding to go into the fitness industry as a working professional. 

I have been a lifelong athlete and a natural competitor and as I’ve gotten older I’ve realized more and more just how important and beneficial this has been to me on a number of levels regarding my professional pursuits, mental health, physical health, and general ability to exercise my awareness of my environment. 

If you’ve tuned into this show and read, or listened to this podcast blog then you’ve often heard me talk about the significance of being able to understand your environment. Whenever I mention that I’m not meaning for you to take that lightly. 

In fact, I started this blog and podcast to communicate a variety of skills and strategies in order to help to train you physically and mentally to really acquire the ability to think, discern, and solve your way out of the environmental problems we’re all faced with on a daily basis. 

After all, if you observe the general Newscycle from the Administrative State Media (ASM) on a day to day, week to week, month to month, and year to year basis then you’d think that Ukraine is winning the war, you’d think that the pandemic was the fault of the unvaccinated, that the banking and financial system is back to optimal health, that our election system is more secure than ever, and that the education system is actually an education system rather than the disastrous indoctrination camp that they are proving to be with every new class of teenagers that enters into the workforce these days. 

The Official Substack Of Brandon Richey is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Meanwhile, if you are capable of observing reality you’d know and understand with clarity that the country is clearly being run into the dirt by a corrupt illegitimate regime that apparently is in power due to the fact that they acquired more legal votes in the most secure election of our history (according to them). 

Of course the Biden regime is in power due to the fact that the American people rushed to the polls with no rigged process of the elections whatsoever and with a record number 81 million votes pushed him across the finish line in glorious fashion because he’s no establishment shill with a dirty record in Washington D.C. like the rest of those other corrupt politicians that run that city.  

Now if you’re capable of discernment then you’d understand that I’m being completely sarcastic with that previous statement regarding the fair election of Biden. Of course he’s illegitimate. Our entire Administrative State is illegitimate and many of us have known this since before Biden was ever elected, but many are just now seeing the corruption play out in real time and they’re confused, shocked, and disturbed. Of course, many people are either too apathetic or demoralized to ever be capable of recognizing it, but there will always be a segment of the population of those people. 

However, how is it that some people can anticipate what is happening in the real world while others simply cannot? How can some people see the trends of what’s coming down range while others cannot? 

I’ll get into that shortly, but I will say that being self-employed certainly has helped me with gaining understanding in this arena. Now I want to be clear that I’m not saying this with the motivation to feed my ego, or to try to put myself onto some kind of pedestal. That is not my point at all. In fact, that’s not anywhere close to the point I’m trying to make to you here today. 

However, the point I am trying to make is that when looking at societal issues that unfold in today’s world and across today’s media landscape discovering what is more truthfully accurate and being able to predict the direction of how things will develop and play out requires a bit of digging, discernment, and work. After all, since the pandemic hit three years ago, getting to the truth and uncovering what was more accurate in terms of what has been going on in the world is the entire motivation behind the existence of this podcast and blog.  

Please just take a moment and ask yourself the following question. Are there people that tend to be more correct at identifying trends, seeing corruption, and predicting certain outcomes based on their accurate observations and anticipation of certain corrupt people and organizations in society? I would say this is an absolute YES.  

Does this mean that we always have the exact answer to certain predictions of societal outcomes? No, good predictors of human nature won’t always have the “exact” answers when it comes to objective outcomes, but good predictors will have “more accurate” answers when it comes to predicting certain societal outcomes because of their discipline to read and connect dots based on being able to recognize given motivations, actions, and ideologies of certain organizations and groups of people. 

I think I’ve always had a feel for doing this because I'm a small business owner. If you’re a small business owner then you understand what it means to think deeply about how to walk through the process of securing your business, not only for growth, but equally for the purpose of protection as well. After all, one can produce wealth, but one must also understand how to protect that which was produced at the same time. At the end of the day if you’re incapable of the latter then what’s the point of the former? 

The S.A.I.D. Principle

So now I wanted to go back to touch on and elaborate a bit more on why some people can anticipate what is happening in the real world better than others. As I stated, owning a small business served as a good practice run for me to get the feel of this and if you own a business this will make more sense to you as well. 

So what do I mean by that? How does owning a business help one with understanding the environment better, therefore making one better equipped for making predictions and taking measures to protect oneself from the external forces that are always thrusting unwanted challenges upon the rest of society?

As I mention quite frequently here on this blog and podcast the first step to this comes back to being able to recognize the environment. When I refer to the environment what I mean is that I’m basically taking inventory on those things which make up the function of the environment. The primary and first key element that makes up the environment is people. That’s right, human beings are the first agent of change you need to look at when trying to make sense of your environment. 

Granted now with the looming threat of A.I. we could probably add that to the equation as well, but I digress. 

So how does this work? 

When taking inventory of your environment consider the forces that influence both yours and my environment. Aside from people, those forces consist of several different fields of influence combined with the lived documented human experience. 

For instance, the economy is a field that directly impacts both of our environments. Another example is culture, another is philosophy, finance, history, geo-politics, and individual health and fitness as well. 

So in my own personal case here all of these fields are things that I’ve had to deal with quite frequently throughout my career and life. 

After all, since I’m a business owner I don’t have a choice in understanding and having to get my arms around the financial and economic environment in order to better navigate the operation of my business. If I didn’t then the business would cease to exist and I wouldn’t be talking to you now with this show. 

Additionally, in my personal case I just happen to be a student of history and philosophy so that covers those bases in terms of those fields of influence. I’ve always had a genuine curiosity about politics and I’m also a professional fitness and strength coach so that covers the field of influence in regards to individual health and fitness. 

So here you can see in my case how I’ve been able to navigate this modern environment. Once again, this is not an ego session. To clarify once more I’m merely pointing to and referencing my own personal background and experiences to illustrate why and how it is that I talk about these issues with such great enthusiasm and knowledge. It’s simply because I just happen to be a guy that is in a profession where I’ve not had any other choice, but to learn more about these various fields of study and influence. That’s all I’m saying. 

So now that’s out of the way, the bottom line is that I’ve had to deal with these different areas and fields. Because of this I've had the opportunity to become more and more efficient at nailing down the understanding of these things and connecting the dots through regular effort and practice. Does this mean I’m always exactly right about everything? No, it doesn’t. 

However, I’ve noticed in the past few years that the more effort, energy, and time I put into studying the environment, I find that I am way more accurate than inaccurate as world events play out on the global and local stage. 

As a professional coach I can attest to the fact that this regular effort and practice improves one’s skill which can also be explained as a phenomenon that is known in my field as the S.A.I.D. principle. S.A.I.D stands for Specific Adaptations to Imposed Demands. 

This basically asserts that given stressors that are introduced onto the human body, whether biomechanical or neurological, will result in the Specific Adaptations to those Imposed Demands. Basically this is a fancy way of saying that in order for you to get better at a given skill you must practice that specific skill in order to acquire the necessary adaptations for mastering that skill. 

In short, if you wanted to get better at hitting a baseball then you wouldn’t practice shooting a basketball. You would practice hitting the baseball in order to get better at that particular skill. Now this may seem obvious, however when it comes to the arena of politics, history, philosophy, etc. many people would rather argue about these things without putting in the practice to truly understand these fields of influence. 

As an example when it comes to these fields of influence people will get emotional and charge in hard and have strong feelings about something that they know very little about. That’s something that’s always been a bit of a mystery to me, but then again human nature is at times a mystery. 

The more direct point I’m trying to make here is that given the corruption that has infiltrated our economic, political, financial, medical, cultural, and educational environment none of us have any other choice than to implement the S.A.I.D. principle for ourselves by working consistently smarter in order to acquire a deeper understanding of what’s going on in a world full of deception. 

Chances are if you tune into this blog and podcast regularly you have the hunger and desire to gain more understanding and a fresh perspective on these matters, but my guess is that you probably have a very demanding life schedule and you’re busy with life. This would obviously make additional time for research a more difficult task for you. I totally understand and this show exists to help you to fill those gaps and to give you an assist in reaching the Zenith of that understanding. I want to help you to read and anticipate the moves that are being telegraphed by the environment which are occurring in the current Zeitgeist of our time. 

The Official Substack Of Brandon Richey is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

The Zeitgeist of Gold, UFOs, and Aliens

I’ve always been a fan of movies and enjoy streaming certain series from certain people. I enjoy a good story and I believe very strongly in the fact that storytelling is one of the most powerful tools in terms of influencing and transforming the Zeitgeist of a given time. 

By the way, if you didn’t know the meaning of that word Zeitgeist it means the defining mood and the accepted beliefs and norms of the time. So when we look at the culture and history of human existence the way we understand the different times throughout history is by understanding the Zeitgeist of that time we are examining. To learn more about this make sure you check out my episode here titled The Overlapping Zeitgeist of A Generation. 

Keeping that in mind a few years ago back in 2014 I saw the first John Wick movie and probably like you thought it was a really cool action movie with a great setting. However, I noticed something a bit unique in all of the John Wick movies that really got my attention. 

Aside from John Wick’s slick choice of style with his killer suits (pun intended) and the impressive collection of firearms the other thing that got my attention was how Mr. Wick would pay for everything with a gold coin. In fact, in the very first John Wick movie he uses a sledgehammer to break open the concrete in his basement where he had a chest buried underneath. When he opened the chest the inside was full of guns and many beautiful rolled gold coins. 

In addition to this a few months ago I saw a movie that was titled Gold that was apparently released in 2022. Given the title, gold was obviously involved in that film as well. Just recently I saw another great new action movie titled Sisu. In Sisu a prospector strikes gold and as luck would have it he crosses paths with a group of Nazis on a violent retreat in Northern Finland during WWII. I also highly recommend this movie. 

So why am I telling you about these films? 

Well an interesting observation in my opinion, as well as the common denominator in all of these films starting back with John Wick in 2014, is that they all involve a theme using gold in the storylines. So as I made that observation I found myself asking the question why?

The Official Substack Of Brandon Richey is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Now if you pay close attention to the environment and you’ve done enough research then you’d know without question that there’s always been an element of social engineering throughout culture and entertainment in order to shape the behavior and norms of society. Now where did we hear those words, behavior and norms? Ah yes, that is what I established earlier that is known as the Zeitgeist. 

The intelligence community has always had a hand in this influence of the Zeitgeist. In case you’ve forgotten, one of the most recent examples of this was with the FBI involvement with Twitter and their influence on the 2020 election as Elon Musk exposed with his Twitter file drops to the now famous reporter that pushed it out into the open Matt Taibbi. 

So given the gold theme of these movies why did that get my attention? 

First of all, gold and silver are precious metals that have traditionally been used as a store of value for investments as a hedge against inflation. Now you’ve got to think about this because the first John Wick movie was released back in 2014 and the other two movies have come out much more recently in the last couple years. However, there have been many John Wick movies from 2014 up until now along with several other films and TV shows with a working gold theme in the storylines.  

However, in the last two to three years the federal government under Joe Biden has blown up inflation to 40 year record highs due to the seemingly endless printing of money by the Federal Reserve combined with the out of control spending that we’re seeing in Washington D.C. 

This constant spending and printing of money has been a blatant abuse of our currency. Additionally, when the Biden regime went to full blown economic warfare with Russia by taking them off of the SWIFT (Which stands for The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications) banking system it caused a lot of other countries to take notice and to address the concerns that if America could do that to Russia, then it could also do that to them. 

As a result, we now have the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) nations looking to meet in Durban, South Africa here starting on August 22, 2023 for a plan to de-dollarize their trades with some sort of new currency that is looking to be backed by gold. 

You see, the reason the United States has been able to print so much money without a complete economic and societal collapse so far up until now is because the United States dollar is the world’s reserve currency and has been since WWII. 

In other words, whenever countries across the globe do financial trades with each other they have traditionally used the United States dollar because of the confidence in the strength of our currency. However, since Biden has abused the currency and used it for economic warfare aggression against Russia we now are faced with a situation where our biggest enemies, along with some allies, are looking to come off of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Whether you like it or not doesn’t matter the reality is that the confidence in the U.S. dollar is waning. The question is how much and how fast will this confidence dissolve? 

This would be absolutely devastating to our nation in a way that many economists, as well as President Trump, say would be equivalent, or even worse than losing WWIII. However, given the record high inflation we’re facing now, gold and silver precious metals are being bought up by our enemy nations, as well as the big banks in tremendously large quantities. In fact, many of these nations have hit record reserves in gold stores in 2022 and are on track to surpass that here in 2023.  

Could the gold theme being inserted into the culture have been a sort of telegraphing move that the Zeitgeist was trying to show us? Could the Zeitgeist have been preparing us for this current time with inflation and possibly even for the potential of something worse? Regardless of what you or I think, we're faced with the reality of it right here and now because it’s happening. 

So now that I’ve pointed to the gold theme potentially telegraphing some moves to us within the culture and Zeitgeist, what sort of messaging are we getting with the current culture of UFOs and possible alien life forms? 

Just recently congress held hearings with the testimony of some government whistleblowers revealing some information about the alleged evidence of UFOs and alien life forms. According to the testimony of one whistleblower David Grusch testified and made claims that the United States government has possession of crashed UFOs, as well as non-human pilots that have been recovered for quite some time by our government. 

Going back to the culture signals in television and movies as a GenXer I remember two pieces of work in film and television that really got my attention on the prospect of UFOs and the possibility of aliens. One interesting observation about the following TV show and movie is that both kicked off in 1993 with The X-Files TV show, as well as the famous movie Fire In The Sky which was the biopic of Travis Walton and his story of being abducted by extraterrestrial beings. 

I can remember being shocked at seeing these when they came out as the thought of UFOs and extraterrestrials to me at that time was a little distressing. I suppose it was all about the fear of the unknown that got to me, but what I found is that over time I became more accepting of the idea of it. 

Now don’t misunderstand me here. I’m not saying that I necessarily believe 100% that extraterrestrials exist right here and now, but personally speaking I do believe in the idea and possibility of it and I believe it more than I don’t believe it at this time. 

So once again, the theme of UFOs and extraterrestrials have been injected into the Zeitgeist now for quite some time and as a GenXer The X-Files and Fire In The Sky really brought this into the culture in a way that hadn’t been done up until that point in my personal opinion. 

So what is the real story here? 

Once again, I like to observe the environment carefully and once I started seeing a gold theme I figured there would be some sort of financial, or economic issue that would be plaguing the country in the time that followed with films like John Wick, Sisu, and Gold that have been picking up the pace with the “gold theme” in the last few years. 

I also coupled this observation with the knowledge and fact that I also knew when Joe Biden was installed into the White House that he was simply a corrupt D.C. grifter that has never had a job in the private sector and only knows how to make money inside the corrupt Washington D.C. machine. Given this I knew he was clueless about what it takes to create true wealth within a society, therefore the only thing he could resort to was big government spending, big government expansion, and firing up of the printing press over at the Federal Reserve. Of course, he’s proven me right by putting all of this activity on steroids. 

As far as the presence of UFOs and extraterrestrials picking up momentum within the messaging in our culture and Zeitgeist, what does this mean for us next? 

I’m not quick to say that the origin of UFOs are simply terrestrial only because I don’t want to discount the many decades of individuals who have made claims about having harrowing personal encounters. Could some of those people simply be seeking attention? Of course, but I don’t believe all of these people have lied who have claimed to have had an unexplained, or unusual encounter with either an extraterrestrial or UFO. After all, there have been many of these witnesses spanning across decades since the Roswell incident and the Battle of Los Angeles going all the way back to 1942 and 1947. 

The point is that the prospect of UFOs and extraterrestrials have been injected into the Zeitgeist for quite some time now. The question is that now that the government, after having lied for decades that UFOs and extraterrestrials did NOT exist, why all the sudden are they now saying that they do exist? 

So if you don’t trust the government I get it. I don’t either. However, ask yourself the following question. If you didn’t trust the government when they said UFOs and extraterrestrials didn’t exist then what has changed now that they are admitting to the public that they do exist with these whistleblowers? 

Yet, as these whistleblowers come forward the intelligence community has been operating in secrecy and being funded with tax dollars with no accountability as we discovered in the recent congressional hearings with David Grusch. You see, that’s the real story here. It’s not whether you believe the aliens and UFOs exist, or whether they’re terrestrial or extraterrestrial, but rather the public should be demanding full transparency. 

The problem we have now in our society is an out of control federal government that has gotten so big, bloated, and corrupt that it’s clearly reached a point of critical mass which is putting our country at an inflection point. 

In 2024 if we can’t turn this around with the election of a fighter brave enough to take on the Administrative State like Donald Trump then we will go the way of China in terms of the controlled destruction of our country.  

The Wrap Up

In short, the inflection point that we find ourselves in involves two things in my opinion. The first is the federal government having grown to be literally 25% of the country’s GDP. My solution to that is that it must change. The federal government must face a significant downsize. 

The second, is that there must be accountability with the corruption that is going on within the federal government and the first step to getting accountability is forcing full transparency. All of this corrupt activity that has been funded by yours and my tax dollars for decades without accountability and has occurred because all of their activity has been cloaked under the veil of secrecy. 

I mean here we are decades later and the feds still keep classified records on the assassinations of JFK, Robert Kennedy, MLK, and Malcom X. They’ve maintained a veil of secrecy and for what reason? I personally don’t believe that reason is for the good of you or me. That’s a weak excuse they use so that they can continue to do things behind closed doors without accountability. 

Just like they’ve kept classified records on the assassination of these men here they’ve been keeping classified records on the existence of UFOs and extraterrestrials. Additionally the key element here is that the Zeitgest is telegraphing some moves for us to observe so that we can be better prepared for what’s to come. 

After all, it’s our job to be a Zenith at understanding our environment and that requires effort on our part through the S.A.I.D principle because those that don’t want us to understand the environment clearly want that as they prefer to continue operating their day to day in the shadows. 

I hope you enjoyed today’s article/podcast.

If so I hope you would choose to support this platform as part of the patriot economy as well. Be an Emissary of Freedom and help to push this piece out to your friends, family, and coworkers.

In order for BOTH you and me to influence and strengthen our society we must not stay idle so please make sure you hit the subscribe and share buttons here below.

Spreading messages like this one is how we influence our culture and I need your help in order to do it.

Also listen to this episode here on…

Spotify

Apple Podcasts

Tune In

Pocket Cast

If you like this podcast and the message please take a moment to give it a Five Star ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ rating on the Spotify platform.

Also to connect with me please make sure you join me here on Twitter, Facebook, GETTR, and now Substack’s new social media called Notes.

Stay strong. Stay focused. Stay active.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit brandonrichey.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit brandonrichey.substack.com

“The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.”―Plato

I wanted to take a moment to set the stage here by getting you to think about how you would normally look at and approach certain situations in life that may seem challenging, or not worth your time and energy. 

After all, the day to day decisions that we’re faced with in this modern era offer a large selection of where we will ultimately decide to invest our energy, time, and resources. Given the times we live in we MUST use our time wisely when it comes to getting ahead in life due to the fact that the creation of wealth, understanding our environment, and being able to fight for the message of freedom all demands significantly more effort and time from each of us in order for us to succeed at all of it as individuals…and by extension with the survival and success of the country as a whole. 

There’s an old story I wanted to reference here regarding the significance of facing problems head on, since the trap that much of society falls into is the ignoring of problems. I thought this story was a great way to start and set the tone for today’s discussion. 

One day a long time ago a king decided to engage in a bit of an experiment to see how his people would react to a particular situation involving an obstacle. He did this by simply having a boulder placed in the middle of the road leading into and out of the kingdom. 

When he did this he went and hid himself to observe how his people would react to this situation. He wanted to watch to see if anyone would try and remove the huge rock from the middle of the road. 

The king thought that surely someone would come along and roll away the huge boulder from the street, but to his surprise, no one did. The king observed some of the town’s most prominent merchants simply walk right past the large stone. 

The king also observed several of his own workers walk right around the stone and even though the boulder was a nuisance no one still did anything about it. What the king came to realize was that despite the boulder being a large nuisance, instead of taking action to move it people chose to be content by finding a way around the large obstruction in their path. 

Everyone was looking for the king to take some action in order to move the boulder, but the king still waited to see if anyone would come along to take the initiative in order to move the large boulder and clear it from the path. 

People continued to avoid taking initiative with moving the boulder for many days until one day a peasant carrying a load of vegetables was passing by and stopped his cart in order to examine the boulder in the path. 

This peasant set his vegetables aside and proceeded to place his focus and energy on the large stone that was obstructing the path. The man placed his hands on the rock and proceeded to do his best to push and move the rock to clear it from the road. 

It was a slow start, but he kept straining and moving and shifting the position of the rock. Even though the man realized he was having to put forward a great amount of effort in order to move the rock without any help it didn’t slow him down or deter him from his mission. 

After a lot of effort and a little bit of time the man was finally able to get the boulder moved clear from the path in the road. 

However, when the man was just about to pick up his vegetables to leave he noticed a bag sitting in the path right where the boulder had been lying. When the man opened the bag he was shocked to find many gold coins inside the bag along with a note from the king that read…

“A government that cannot trust its citizens to be armed is not itself to be trusted.”-- Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

Today I want to take a moment to put your mind through a little exercise. 

One day you decide to go for a walk into the forest. 

As you’re walking you find a trail and you decide to stick to it so you meander your way deeper and deeper into the woods to satisfy your adventurous spirit and curiosity. 

After a long walk you finally see something off in the distance. As you move closer you notice that you’ve come up on a secluded cabin that is sitting deep inside the forest. 

However, upon approaching this cabin you get an uneasy feeling. There’s no appearance of anyone around and you’ve just spent a good amount of time trekking through the woods. You notice the front door so you carefully approach it and walk up to try to open the door.  

Once you grab the door handle to open it you notice that it’s locked so you decide to kick in the door. Once you successfully get it open you notice that strangely enough it was locked from the inside and once you get a look of what is inside the cabin what you see is absolutely shocking. 

You see a deadman hanging by his neck from a rope in the middle of the room. However, there’s no stool, there’s no bucket, there’s no chair, or any other object that he could have stepped up to in order to hang himself. 

After scanning the room you notice there are no windows, no other doors, and only a puddle of water that is collected on the floor right below where the guy is hanging. So now you’re sitting there wondering what in the world happened here? 

To offer you some clarity this little intriguing story is actually a riddle. 

So why did I go to the trouble to tell you about it? Also how did the guy die? 

Well the reason I chose to tell you this riddle is because I wanted to use it as an exercise in addressing the concept of inductive reasoning. 

The Official Substack Of Brandon Richey is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

So what is inductive reasoning? Inductive reasoning is often confused with deductive reasoning. Deductive reasoning begins with a premise that is proven through observations. However inductive reasoning essentially occurs in reverse by extracting a likely (but not certain) premise from specific and limited observations. Make no mistake, there's data involved with inductive reasoning and conclusions can be drawn from that data which is also known as inductive logic.  (Source: Livescience) 

So in this case of the cabin what are the specific observations that we can make from the deadman’s environment? What sort of inductive logic can we apply to this situation? 

First of all, for an initial observation there’s no other doors or windows in the cabin and the only door that exists is the one you had to kick in due to the fact that it was locked from the inside. 

In addition to this there’s also a puddle of water that is collected on the floor directly below the guy’s feet from where he's hanging. 

So to recap we have in our observations a guy that had to have killed himself by hanging because there is no other way in or out of the cabin and the only door to the cabin was locked from the inside. 

So that leaves us with the puddle of water that is collected on the ground below the guy’s feet. Where could that have come from? 

Well given that there’s no other furniture, no bucket, and no other means for the guy to stand on something in order to get high enough to hang himself we could offer a theory that perhaps the guy used a big block of ice to stand on in order to hang himself and as the ice melted he hung while the ice formed the puddle that was collected just below his feet. 

As absurd as this scenario may sound this isn’t only the best and most logical conclusion that we can come to given the information that we have, but it also happens to be the answer to this particular riddle. 

Now that we have established an exercise in inductive logic let’s take a look at the next thing that’s in front of us. 

Chernobyl

In April of 1986 the explosion of a nuclear reactor occurred at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine (formerly a part of the Soviet Union). 

Even after years of debate and investigations there are still many unanswered questions regarding the reasons behind why the plant explosion occurred. The plant is about 81 miles north of the Ukrainian capital in Kyiv. 

The plant is made up of four reactors that were designed and built in the 1970’s and 1980’s. In its construction the Chernobyl plant used four Soviet-designed RBMK-1000 nuclear reactors which is a design that’s now recognized as inherently flawed. 

The initial explosion killed two plant workers, but these would be the first of several plant workers to die following the accident. (Source: Livescience) In this disaster the initial fire was stalled, but the resulting graphite-fueled fire would take 10 days and 250 firefighters to extinguish. 

Twenty-eight workers from the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant would die in the first four months following the accident according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). 

This would also include the deaths of some truly heroic workers who knowingly had to expose themselves to deadly levels of radiation in order to secure the facility from any further radiation leaks. (Source: Livescience)

During that time much of the wind direction was coming from the south and the east, therefore pushing the radiation plume towards Belarus. However, Soviet authorities were slow to release information to the public with such a disaster. 

When radiation levels raised some concerns all the way in Sweden three days later scientists were able to trace back to the origin of the disaster based on the radiation levels and wind direction of the plume and this would then force Soviet authorities to own up and reveal the full extent of the crisis, according to the United Nations. 

Within three months of the disaster a total of 31 people died from radiation exposure and between 1991 and 2015 there were 20,000 cases of thyroid cancer in patients under the age of 18 in 1986. This was a report that was published in 2018 by the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation.  

So why did I want to dive in to point towards the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant meltdown and explosion? 

Given what we do know about the accident the thing that really stands out to me is how the Soviet officials took their time in reporting out the information regarding the disaster that took place given the level of threat it could pose to innocent people throughout the region. 

Sure the typical bureaucratic answer would be to wait for all the information to come as to not cause a panic, however with such a disaster occurring that they admittedly had a hand in causing, and a definite hand in worsening due to their attempt to pursue what was more politically expedient at the time rather than what was best for the public safety. 

To understand the Soviet Union at that time you had to understand that the country was already infected with institutional failure and bureaucratic corruption and rot. After all, as a Communist regime at the time of the disaster in 1986 looking back on history the Soviet Union was only five years away from collapsing from the cold war. 

Now hold onto your hat because this is where I’m about to draw a very concerning and parallel line to the institutional failure and bureaucratic rot we’re facing right now here in the United States that looks eerily similar to that of the Soviet Union of the 1980’s. 

Like the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant disaster back then the U.S. has already experienced a similar disaster of epic proportions with the East Palestine, Ohio train derailment this year. 

Similar to the Chernobyl disaster the bureaucratic response of the East Palestine incident was even worse from the unified command of government officials, responders, and the railroad  here in the states on the scene of the accident deciding on the handling of a chemical disaster with “200 combined years of experience making those decisions,” in the words of Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency Director Randy Padfield. As a result they ordered a “controlled burn” of the very dangerous chemicals. (Source: Politico) 

To point to an even greater example of the poor bureaucratic rot of finger pointing and trying to master the avoidance of being blamed Joe Biden admitted back in February of 2023 that he hadn’t had any plans for visiting East Palestine Ohio after the massive environmental disaster despite being a huge self-proclaimed advocate of the environmental and climate change movement. As a side note neither Al Gore, nor Greta Thunberg has bothered to speak on, or make an appearance in East Palestine either. For such a disaster of this magnitude I personally would have thought they would be one of the first groups on the scene. 

Of course, I’m being sarcastic, but you know who went to East Palestine and was criticized by the Administrative State Media (ASM) for delivering clean drinking water to the people? For the record that would be Donald John Trump. 

Furthermore, when the Chernobyl meltdown and explosion occurred that incident presented a massive problem for the Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. This was due to the slow response and the disaster caused a lot of the population to question the new regime as a reasonable and accountable government according to the Directorate of Intelligence of the CIA in a secret document that was recently published by Stanford University. (Source: Stanford: The Chernobyl Accident: Social and Political Implications)

In short, because of the rot that had spread throughout the Soviet Union under Communist rule the reactors that would result in the meltdown were not built well in the first place. The Chernobyl accident was really the result of institutional rot that had already been in place both prior and after the accident. That was the actual reason for the Chernobyl disaster. 

Like Chernobyl we can draw the same parallels with the East Palestine train derailment here in the states. After all, like the authorities in the Soviet Union proclaimed there was no concern for radiation fallout due to the Chernobyl accident we now know, as I stated earlier, of the 20,000 cases of thyroid cancer in adults younger than 18 so that statement was obviously radically false.  

In addition to this, on February 16, 2023 the EPA Administrator Michael Regan stated that the air and drinking water were safe in East Palestine, Ohio. (Source: CBS News) This was shocking given the fact that United States Senator J.D. Vance went on site to East Palestine Ohio two weeks after the accident and drug a stick through a creek full of dead fish and worms revealing an obvious chemical trail that was colored and still very present in the water. (Source: Fox News) 

I suppose the EPA has a very different definition of what clean and safe means than I do. No, the simpler explanation is more in line and more easily clarifed using Occam’s razor. 

If you’re not familiar with that term, Occam's razor basically states that when trying to explain a problem(s) with competing hypotheses associated with a prediction, one should prefer the  explanation that is the simplest and requires the fewest assumptions. In other words, the simplest and most obvious explanation in this case boils down to a clear sign of institutional rot. That’s my analysis using Occam’s razor. 

The Cultural Rot

So you’re probably sitting there and thinking Brandon what else are you looking at in our society to come to the conclusion that we have institutional rot? 

Well my answer to that question would also be a simple one because all I do is observe reality. Besides the East Palestine Ohio train derailment I can list off quite a few more examples here based on some simple observation.

For starters, you can look at the failing of the banks in Silicon Valley, Signature Bank, and First Republic along with the bailouts from the federal government that followed (while completely ignoring East Palestine Ohio), the current ruling regime in Washington D.C. weaponizing the FBI, the Executive branch pushing social media companies to censor U.S. citizens, the use of Lawfare to attack political opposition, the attempt to imprison political opposition, the 40 year record high inflation, the threat of World War III, and the fact that there is zero accountability for the criminals currently residing in Washington D.C. Yes, I believe I pretty much have my theory of institutional rot pinned down. 

However, if that still isn’t quite enough to satisfy you then let’s take a look at what we observed here in the past couple of weeks, particularly on the July 4th weekend. 

On July 4, 2023 a cultural thermonuclear bomb went off at the movie theaters with the release of the movie The Sound of Freedom. The Sound of Freedom is a movie that follows the life of a former government agent Tim Ballard who embarks on a mission to rescue children from sex traffickers in Colombia. 

The movie was produced by Angel Studios and was released only in a select number of theaters due to the fact that it was a struggle to get distribution for the film. In fact, Disney had owned the rights to this film and shelved it, resulting in the filmmakers buying the rights back from the studio. 

Despite the movie only working on a $14.5 million budget it opened on July 4th beating out Disney’s own Indiana Jones at the box office which was working on a $300-$400 million budget. 

In the days that followed if you watched the Administrative State Media (ASM) and their reaction to the film you would think that making a movie regarding the efforts to rescue children from sex traffickers was somehow very evil and wrong. 

As an example CNN accused the movie of being some sort of QAnon conspiracy that was somehow designed to send the wrong message to people? I’m doing my best to try to make sense of their criticism because I fail to understand why a movie that is fighting against the sex trafficking of little children is viewed by CNN as being a bad thing. 

The Official Substack Of Brandon Richey is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

After all, this is the same media that caused the spread of the infection of Mass Formation during the pandemic by accusing the unvaccinated of being the cause of the pandemic. Yes, I have a long memory and I’m hoping to jog yours if you don’t possess one. 

Regardless, the desperation of the failing ASM is being revealed through the cultural and institutional rot that has proven to be the real pandemic in this country and thankfully the American public can use a little inductive logic by simply making some specific observations that I’ve already outlined here. 

The Wrap Up

At the end of the day it’s starting to get a lot easier to point to the evidence of institutional failure and cultural rot that’s taking place right here in our own backyards rather than having to look at a Communist system from the past like the Soviet Union. After all, you don’t have to go very far with that as all you have to do is to take a look at Disney and what they chose to do with the movie The Sound of Freedom. 

Once again, history is our roadmap and the application of knowledge in the form of understanding our environment is what will pave the way to identifying the problems that are going on in the country so that we can then offer the solutions. 

The good news is that this show is about offering solutions and since the institutional rot here in the U.S. has clearly become pervasive throughout the big corporate structures and within the halls of Washington D.C. it’s up to both you and myself to be active in combating it. 

We are experiencing our own Cultural Chernobyl and if we don’t get a handle on it by using some inductive reasoning to make the necessary observations to then counter with the necessary solutions then the toxic plume of Communism will continue to spread even further degrading everything in its path. 

This is exactly why I’m a proponent of the parallel economy and am always encouraging the active participation in supporting businesses and industry that align with your values. 

This very show exists for that reason and I’m here to remind you of that very thing.

I hope you enjoyed today’s article/podcast.

If so I hope you would choose to support this platform as part of the patriot economy as well. Be an Emissary of Freedom and help to push this piece out to your friends, family, and coworkers.

In order for BOTH you and me to influence and strengthen our society we must not stay idle so please make sure you hit the subscribe and share buttons here below.

Spreading messages like this one is how we influence our culture and I need your help in order to do it.

Also listen to this episode here on…

Spotify

Apple Podcasts

Stitcher

Tune In

Pocket Cast

If you like this podcast and the message please take a moment to give it a Five Star ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ rating on the Spotify platform.

Also to connect with me please make sure you join me here on Twitter, Facebook, GETTR, and now Substack’s new social media called Notes.

Stay strong. Stay focused. Stay active.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit brandonrichey.substack.com/subscribe

Politics is downstream from culture-Andrew Breitbart

That quote by the late great Andrew Breitbart is one of the biggest reasons this podcast and blog exists. 

On this show I’ve often spoken about the significance of culture and how cultural manipulation is something that is constantly at play within the makeup of our society. 

I’ve clearly pointed this out by coining the phrase The Crime Syndicate of Narrative with one of my past episodes here outlining a very specific history of our media landscape along with how propaganda is often interwoven into the fabric of our media for the purpose of social engineering. By the way if you haven’t listened to that episode I strongly suggest you sign up as a member to do so because it will shock you. 

I’m a GenX’er so I grew up as a kid in the 1980’s and that period in the eighties was considerably different from this current period we’re living in terms of our culture and the overall mood of our society. 

However, there were some parallels, but the circumstances of our economic and societal health today are much much worse. There’s significant historical context associated with this and today is the perfect time to dive into this so you can be reminded of just how different the now is from the then. 

So what do I mean? 

First of all, I was only five years of age when president Ronald Reagan came into office. At that time Jimmy Carter, who was from my home state of Georgia, was the president just prior to Reagan and had managed to run the country into the ground with inflation, energy shortages, and absurd bureaucratic and environmental policies that caused fuel rations where people had to alternate which days of the week they could buy gas at the gas pump. 

The Official Substack Of Brandon Richey is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Reagan won the election in a huge overwhelming landslide victory with Carter only carrying three states of which his, and my, home state of Georgia ended up being one of those three states. The country then, like now, was facing some difficult times, but once Reagan got into office things were about to skyrocket and the eighties were about soar high putting the country in top form for more than the next decade to come. 

Even though I’ve somewhat teed up a recap of Reagan's successful presidency I want to clarify something here first. Reagan did a wonderful job as president and he deserves a lot of credit for driving the change in the environment of Washington D.C. at the time that he served in office. 

However there’s another major piece to this puzzle I want to point out that in one specific way makes this current environment a drastically different ball game altogether. The big difference that Reagan didn’t have to deal with in D.C. at the time versus what we’re currently dealing with now in the Federal government has to do with the current Communist infiltration of the CCP internally within our own federal government. 

As good as Reagan was he did not have to deal with a weaponized media, a weaponized DOJ, and a large-scale influence peddling operation that we now know exists within D.C. in this present day, in particular with the current ruling regime in office and their business dealings with the CCP. 

Yes, Reagan was a great president, but his problems were limited to being mostly coming from the external with the enemies that he had to confront compared to the enemies of Donald Trump here in 2023 that are very much domestic. That is not opinion, but an objective fact. 

If that’s not obvious enough it was just this past week, and ironically enough on our July 4th Independence Day, that a federal judge in Louisiana restricted the Biden regime from communicating and coordinating with social media platforms about online content in their effort to censor content. 

In this ruling Judge Terry Doughty of the U.S. The District Court for the Western District of Louisiana stated that the FBI and Department of Health and Human Services could not talk to social media companies for “the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.” (Source: The New York Times)

Furthermore, The New York Times article goes on to talk about how the judge threw down even harder on the Biden regime by quoting Judge Doughty as saying “If the allegations made by plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history,” the judge said. “The plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits in establishing that the government has used its power to silence the opposition.”

This is the sort of thing you see in Communist countries and third world Banana Republics, yet here it is right here in our backyard on U.S. soil in 2023. 

In short, the landscape now is a bit different with the domestic enemies we’re having to contend with versus the 1980’s. This is a salient point I wanted to take the time to address to offer perspective before getting into the topic of today’s discussion. 

Enter Paul Volcker

In the 70’s inflation had risen to a whopping 15% and by 1980 as a result rolled the red victory carpet out for President Ronald Reagan. (Source: USA Today)

With inflation raging out of control under the previous presidency with Carter it was still a problem that Reagan had to address. 

Keep in mind there are a few things that can cause inflation such as a supply shortage coupled with high demand which was occurring in the energy sector at that time. After all, energy is the lifeblood of the economy and with the demand for it being high and the supply of it being low it drives the price of everything through the roof. Sound familiar? 

Regardless, how was Reagan supposed to deal with this very sticky and very contentious problem with the American public? 

Well this is where the Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker entered into the picture. Paul Volcker was a towering man both in personality and in stature as all 6’ 7” of him would shift the mood of the room whenever he would walk through the door. 

He was a towering figure in Washington D.C. not just because of his physical height, but in addition to his physical height he had in those days what we would refer to as a steel infused spine, maintaining a strong discipline towards principle regardless of the political pressures that would be coming towards him like an anxious 800 lb. gorilla. 

Why is this you ask? 

To try and understand, take a moment and try to put yourself in Volcker’s shoes. Here you had the largest economy on the planet with the United States of America facing down the worst inflation crisis the country has ever seen in its history up to that point. On top of that you just had a new president sworn into office and you had an economy that was a complete dumpster fire dropped right into your lap from the previous administration.  

Yet, despite all of this Volcker was determined to vanquish this inflation once and for all, but he knew in order to do it he was going to have to wreck the economy even more in order to wring the inflation completely out of the system. The good news was that he had the support of the new president and Reagan would not stand in his way. 

How did he do this? 

He did this by walking in with both barrels blazing (metaphorically speaking) and blowing up interest rates all the way to 20%. You’ve got to understand that this precipitated the steepest economic downturn in history at the time since the Great Depression. (Source: USA Today)

Volcker knew the country had to take its medicine in order to get better on the other side of the inflation and that dose of medicine wasn’t going to be pleasant, not in the least. In fact, the rate hikes resulted in unemployment soaring to a whopping 11% in 1981-1982, but in 1983 the heartbeat of the United States economic engine started pumping strong again. 

Volcker had worked in the private sector and the federal government as a banker and he knew that in order to choke out the inflation he would have to push the interest rates sky high beyond head and shoulders above the rest. This would be no easy task and the burden was a heavy one to carry because he knew the workers would feel the pain in the short term, but the economy would be roaring once the nation could endure through the pain of the couple of years that followed and that’s exactly what happened. 

In 1982 Volcker was able to start lowering interest rates as inflation had plummeted and he saw some significant relief in unemployment.

To back up a bit and to shed some light on the political pressure, a good concrete example of this here was that Reagan’s Chief of Staff James Baker had, according to Volcker in his later years, suggested that he keep interest rates low leading up to the 1984 election. 

Volcker had not intended on raising them anyways due to the economic strength of the country at that point, but the political influence was trying to worm its way into the Fed Chairman’s decisions. 

Sound familiar? 

Yes, it’s the sort of thing we’re seeing now with the politicization of the Federal Reserve with Jerome Powell having done the opposite of Volcker by delaying the interest rate hikes so as to delay the economic pain of the country due to the rising inflation from all the money that was printed during the pandemic for stimulus and afterwards predominantly by the Biden regime. 

The Fed had raised rates for the first time in three years prior on Wednesday March 16, 2022 over two years from the time Biden had been sworn into office and started proposing revving up the printing press once again for the almighty dollar. (Source: CNBC) However, unlike the situation that Volcker found himself in, the current environment concerning inflation is significantly more serious for the country right now. 

How is that you ask? 

Well first of all, the balance sheet on the national debt in 1980 was a mere $914 billion compared to the out of control and terrifying current national debt of $32+ Trillion and counting.  (Source: Treasurydirect.gov & USdebtclock.org) In addition to this the U.S. in 1980 was a manufacturing powerhouse unlike today where a significant portion of our manufacturing has been offshored to China and other parts of the world. 

The Official Substack Of Brandon Richey is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

So here’s the terrifying reality pill for you to swallow. We now have more than 32 times the amount of national debt combined with inflation on an economy that’s seriously handicapped with its ability to produce goods to back up our economic engine. 

Furthermore, we have an individual(s) in the office of the white house that, unlike Volcker and Reagan, have NEVER worked in the private sector and are clueless about creating true wealth. Therefore, all they care about doing is printing more money to give the economy a temporary sugar high before it comes crashing down. That’s the difference between now and what Volcker had to deal with in his time in 1980. 

Essentially this is the current cultural environment we find ourselves in here in 2023. It’s the same problem, but unlike finding the solution in the 1980’s with Reagan and Volcker we have an entire Administrative State that’s out of control and fighting back internally against new outside leadership. They want to eliminate the possibility of any outside threat, like Donald Trump, to prevent him from coming in and taking a sledgehammer to the endless spending and corruption of the Administrative State which he’s already demonstrated and is now setting his sights on doing it again.  

As Reagan pointed out in his debate with Carter when he got the chance he said the following… 

"I think this idea that has been spawned here in our country, that inflation somehow came upon us like a plague and therefore it's uncontrollable and no one can do anything about it, is entirely spurious," he went on and said Carter “had blamed the people for inflation, OPEC, he's blamed the Federal Reserve System, he has blamed the lack of productivity of the American people, he has then accused the people of living too well and that we must share in scarcity, we must sacrifice and get used to doing with less. We don't have inflation because the people are living too well. We have inflation because the government is living too well."(Source: Reason)

The Official Substack Of Brandon Richey is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

The Rise of The 1980’s 

To refresh your memory, that quote I led off with at the beginning of this episode with Andrew Breitbart stating that Politics is downstream from culture could not be more on target than it was in the 1980’s. 

You see as Volcker choked the inflation out of the system Reagan proceeded to cut taxes and bureaucracy within the federal government and that manufacturing base of the U.S. started revving up like a race car engine. As this happened the economy started roaring and the culture of American enterprise was feeding the pop culture while the pop culture was feeding it. America was the world’s Zenith and the world knew it. 

So what exactly am I getting at? 

I can tell you that the good strong leadership we had at the helm of the country was helping to fuel a culture of American pride that had been asleep, or more specifically suppressed, because of the drag the previous administration had placed onto the American people and the economy. 

With the 1980’s you now also had a cultural explosion of the very celebrated American action hero. At this point you had the likes of the greatest action movies ever made that I grew up on as a young boy such as Rambo, Commando, Top Gun, Terminator, The Rocky movies, Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, Mad Max,  Blood Sport, and I could go on and on. 

Masculinity and Femininity in men and women were celebrated and it was carried out in the culture in a way that admittedly I don’t remember seeing ever since the 1980’s. Contrast that then with what we have now within our culture with putting Dylan Mulvaney on the front of a Bud Light can of beer. 

Music was exploding with the likes of MTV coming into the picture on August 1, 1981. The introduction and popularity of the music video enabled bands to capture their audiences not only with their music, but with a visual display of their music vibe in the form of a video. Granted, MTV would eventually give birth to reality television which in my personal opinion was the beginning of the end for MTV, but for a while it was a wonderful product. 

During this time you had all of the competition in every industry within entertainment, business, and on the global stage with Reagan putting communism on its back heel. For the most part the eighties were a time of national pride and a glorious growth of creativity and opportunity. The nation was more independently strong and there was no doubt that the U.S. was the international leader on the global stage. 

There was peace and no cities were burning with endless domestic terrorist attacks from domestic terrorist groups that were funded by domestic U.S. citizens.There was no mass invasion on the borders the way we see today. There was no hesitation with our leaders stepping up and putting communist regimes in their place unlike today where we have U.S. leaders kowtowing to communist regimes, more specifically with the CCP…and mind you they are doing so with the CCP only 90 miles away from our Florida coast in Cuba. 

This current situation is more dangerous than the Cuban missile crisis that President Kennedy had to deal with in 1962, but at that time at least Kennedy had locked himself in the situation room for weeks until that situation was resolved. However,  ask yourself how much you’ve heard about this dangerous situation from your Administrative State Media (ASM), or did you just learn more about it right here on this show? My point is that all of this is a major contrast in the culture of the 1980’s compared to what we are dealing with today. 

A Cultural Metamorphosis To Populism

Looking back it’s my interpretation that the 1980’s was the first sort of evidence of the rise of populism in the country’s more recent history. The era was birthed out of the desire and will of the people to finally be heard by their government which had up until that point not been listening and putting the country through unnecessary hardship due to people in power with flawed world views and terrible public policy decisions. 

However, we could probably chalk up the 1970’s under Carter to being the result of a bit of an out of touch worldview combined with ignorance, however in this current day and age the issue is very much intentional. 

Unlike now in the 1980’s there was a strong anti-Communist sentiment in the culture that was fueling the movement that kept the then Soviet Union on their back heels and ultimately led to the collapse of the Berlin wall in November of 1989. This resulted in more democratic momentum leading to the overthrow of Communist rule throughout Eastern Europe, and ultimately with the collapse of the Soviet Union itself in August 1991. (Source: Office of The Historian)

In case you weren’t clear on it, Populism is defined as a political approach to appeal to everyday citizens who feel that their concerns are completely disregarded by their government and the associated elite groups of people with authority and wealth. 

The populist culture of the 1980’s resulted in the U.S rising to power and almost vanquishing Communism throughout most of the world. You see momentum in life can be both positive and negative. 

Understanding that concept, the populist American pride and freedom that was so dominant in the 1980’s had caught fire and it built momentum creating downward pressure and causing the Communist regimes throughout the world to suffer from negative momentum until they eventually collapsed. 

Contrast that with today and we have had an opposite circumstance on the global stage with Communism building positive momentum as freedom has been losing momentum throughout the western world. 

In the 1980’s you had the advocacy of freedom being pushed through the economic culture, through the pop culture, and through the political culture which resulted in a vibrant and healthy freedom and liberty culture. 

Contrast that with today and we have a Communist economic culture, a Marxist pop culture, and a CCP controlled Communist friendly political culture. If you don’t believe me, look at how much trade we do with a Communist regime to the point that we’ve offshored much of the manufacturing of our goods and products to that regime, ceding the control of that production to the CCP regime.  

In my observation that never happened in the 1980’s and even more so Reagan was very much set against Communism and demonstrated that through his actions in his policies towards Communist regimes. 

Now knowing this what other president in recent history do we know of that demonstrated those same actions towards dangerous rising Communist regimes? 

I’ll give you a hint you don't have to look any further back in history than around 2016 with the start of the Donald Trump administration. 

I guarantee you that Clinton, the Bush family, and Obama certainly didn’t do any of that. In fact, they all advocated hard for the globalist economic agenda which is basically a top down economic approach that has proven in the past three years to be very fascistic and Marxist in nature with the deplatforming, censorship, and debanking of individual U.S. citizens. This has proven to be very dangerous and is the bed we made and are having to sleep in now as a society. 

Every single thing that I’ve mentioned here is documented fact. There is no doubt that we are facing a major threat of Communist infiltration within every institution of our country. 

However, with that being said here’s the good news. I believe now as I sit here telling you all of this that the Populist movement within the citizenry of the United States, and throughout the world for that matter, has ascended once again. 

The Wrap Up

After all, I started this very show to be one more voice to fuel the awakening and enlightenment that is occurring across the country and throughout the rest of the world right now. This growing unrelenting and overwhelming sentiment and desire towards freedom and liberty is catching fire more and more by the day as people are awakening to that reality. 

Having said that, I feel really good about it, but given the current times we are living in, it's going to take a movement that is really on fire and huge in numbers and engagement in order to defeat this Communist attempt to take over the world. 

This is why I have this show. I understand due to personal experience just how bad and how widespread this Communist pandemic can be since I got a taste of it myself three years ago with my own business. 

This is the REAL pandemic and I just want to provide this platform for you to be one more overwhelming immune response to protect you and those you love from the Communist virus. 

Just understand that nobody else is going to be flying in like an eighties action hero to save us. That hero we need is the one you see in the mirror everyday and I’m here to remind you of that fact and to get you to act on it.

I hope you enjoyed today’s article/podcast.

If so I hope you would choose to support this platform as part of the patriot economy as well. Be an Emissary of Freedom and help to push this piece out to your friends, family, and coworkers.

In order for BOTH you and me to influence and strengthen our society we must not stay idle so please make sure you hit the subscribe and share buttons here below.

Spreading messages like this one is how we influence our culture and I need your help in order to do it.

Also listen to this episode here on…

Spotify

Apple Podcasts

Stitcher

Tune In

Pocket Cast

If you like this podcast and the message please take a moment to give it a Five Star ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ rating on the Spotify platform.

Also to connect with me please make sure you join me here on Twitter, Facebook, GETTR, and now Substack’s new social media called Notes.

Stay strong. Stay focused. Stay active.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit brandonrichey.substack.com/subscribe

Why do they call it rush hour when nothing moves?--Robin Williams

I thought that quote by Robin Williams here was the perfect lead off for today’s article/podcast. 

Although the humor in Robin’s quote is admittedly very clever it is so because it’s true. 

The direction I want to take today’s discussion is going to be one that examines the possibilities and reasons as to why people can have such varied reactions to their respective environments and why they interpret things the way they do. 

It seems to me that human nature and the individual response it produces when one responds to their respective environment varies because of the mindset of the individual. However, in life we all have struggles, setbacks, hardships, and shortfalls, but given this reality of life how is it that we all deal with these things so differently as individuals? 

I’m going to attempt to explore the reason for this in today’s episode and this is going to be a deeper journey into why there is an objective reality and an absolute truth to life which has been an issue that has been twisted in today’s postmodern society. 

To grasp this you must first understand that reality is distorted everyday with the Crime Syndicate of Narrative which influences how people think, view, and react to the world. This is one of the big reasons why people differ in their responses to their environment and I’m going to examine this a little closer in today’s episode. 

The Official Substack Of Brandon Richey is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Schrӧdinger's Cat and Reality Resolving Itself

In 1935 there was what some would say was an evil thought experiment that was devised by two of the most respected physicists of our time. Albert Einstein and Erwin Schrӧdinger had a discussion and came up with what is now known as the Schrӧdinger’s Cat experiment. 

This particular experiment was devised directly to explain the misinterpretations of quantum mechanics at the time. Now full disclosure quantum mechanics is not my line of country, but I do understand the concept here, or at least I can try. Just trust me on this one because you’re going to be shocked and a bit confused by this if you’re not already familiar with the concept and I can tell you that this particular thought experiment is going to bend your mind so take a second to buckle in.  

The experiment was set up something like this: There is a completely sealed box that is impervious to any observation from the outside world. Inside that box you have a cat, a geiger counter, some radioactive material, a mechanical hammer, and a vial of poison. 

Now this is where it starts getting really interesting. If the geiger counter detects any radioactive material from a single atom decaying within the box then the mechanical hammer is then triggered which in turn smashes the vial of poison theoretically killing the cat inside the box. 

However, the Copenhagen interpretation of this states that after a while and until an observation is made that the cat is both alive and dead simultaneously. Yes, you heard that correctly. I did say alive and dead at the same time. (Source: Wondrium Daily)

Essentially this is pointing to when quantum superposition ends and reality collapses into one possibility or the other. I know you’re probably sitting there wondering how this is possible? 

Trust me this is still a mind-bender for me as well, but I believe the premise of this is that essentially the definition of superposition involves the ability of a quantum system to exist in multiple states at the same time until there is some sort of measured observation. (Source: Wikipedia)

Again I’m not a physicist and if I have any physicists listening I apologize ahead of time if I miss the mark on my interpretation of this, but I think I’m pretty close. However, in my interpretation I believe the superposition is achieved in the quantum event such as Schrӧdinger’s Cat and when an observation is made then at this point superposition ends and the single reality of our cat here resolves into being either dead or alive upon making that observation. 

Also understand that this was a thought experiment by Einstein and Schrӧdinger not meant to actually be used on cats, but was more aimed at illustrating realities and probabilities. So why did I take the time to cover quantum mechanics in the thought experiment of Schrӧdinger’s Cat here for you? 

Once again, we established with that experiment how reality is resolved when the observation is made and this brings me up to the point of human nature in terms of how people choose to deal with conflict to achieve, or fail to achieve balance, or equilibrium within the state of their own lives and by extension within the state of society as a whole. 

The Modern Destructive Addiction To Copium

Once again, with the physical world comparison using Schrӧdinger’s Cat the entire concept revolves around physical reality and the decision of nonobservance or observance of that which results in that physical reality. 

That nonobservance portion of Schrӧdinger’s Cat is the thing I want to hone in on for the sake of this discussion. 

In the details of this thought experiment in concerning a quantum event in which the observance of the cat causes the superposition to collapse resulting in an observable reality we can then make the determination of whether the cat is dead or alive, but until then it is said that the cat is both alive and dead at the same time. 

Given this knowledge perhaps we could take Schrӧdinger’s Cat and expand the nonobservance or observance portion of that experiment out to society at large and ask the question of who is actually willing to make the observation and who isn’t based on the fear of facing reality? 

Now unless you’ve lived under a rock for the past three years, or you happen to be an individual who doesn’t want to observe and accept reality then you would not know, understand, or even be in a position to accept what reality is in the first place, particularly as it applies to the events of the physical world.  

In this scenario the old saying that ignorance is bliss may be something that people who refuse to face reality subscribe to in life, however with the past three years this would prove to be an absurd approach in life because at the end of the day somebody is going to make the observation that the cat is dead fundamentally speaking. Once that observation is made there’s no superposition involved here, but rather a reality that you will not be able to ignore forever because it will force you to face it. 

This notion that not knowing, or refusing to face a difficult reality in today’s society is the problem with today’s society. This problem is a societal addiction and that is simply what is referred to as a widespread copium addiction. 

Of course, the implication here is that copium is an imaginary opiate that gives people the energy to deny reality when they consume it. In short, copium is slang for the coping mechanisms that people will use to simply ignore reality, or more specifically difficult realities.  

Besides apathy, one such coping mechanism that is very dangerous when it comes to not wanting to face reality is the Pollyanna principle. 

The Pollyanna principle is the tendency for people to remember pleasant items and/or circumstances from their lives more accurately than unpleasant circumstances. In the case of Pollyanna the research has shown that at the subconscious level the mind tends to want to focus on the optimistic; while at the conscious level it will tend to bring focus onto the negative. (Source: Wikipedia)

People who engage in Pollyannaish thinking tend to suffer from Positivity bias which results in three ideas of thought processes consisting of positive illusions, self-deception, and optimism. There are many problems associated with Pollyanna. In 1978 Margaret Matlin and David Stang described the Pollyanna profile, or personality archetype, as people who tend to fail to recognize what is unpleasant and threatening than what is pleasant and safe in life due to them overexposing themselves to positive stimuli while avoiding negative stimuli. (Source: Wikipedia)

So when looking at the Pollyanna principle it’s easy to see how this would not only impact the lives of individuals, but it’s a huge problem for society at large. 

Such a coping mechanism is just as bad and dangerous as apathy when trying to communicate the severity of something that’s threatening and that could be developing within a society such as the infiltration of a communist revolution, or the rise of a dictatorship that would eventually extinguish the Pollyanna principle along with the person who suffers from it’s psychological grip. 

As such I find myself asking the question of How does society fix this problem if these people only want to acknowledge positive stimuli and ignore negative stimuli that are real? 

Well I’m no psychologist, but perhaps the answer lies within the idea of blending the two where the real life example of adversity, setbacks, and unpleasant outcomes are met by the will of individuals who triumph over their negative situations by facing their problems head on. The key phrase in that last sentence was facing their problems head on. In short, individuals and society need to accept the call of their hero’s journey.

Real Perseverance Through Facing Reality

Prepare yourself because the following story will relay my point of facing reality and it will get your heart pumping and your blood flowing here before the July 4th holiday. 

Many years ago there was a young boy that grew up on a sharecropper’s farm in Hunt County, Texas. His father deserted the family so this young boy had to help raise his 11 brothers and sisters and he had to drop out of the fifth grade in order to earn money picking cotton to do so.  

This young boy’s mother would end up dying when he was 16 and he had to watch his brothers and sisters get shipped off to the orphanage, or to other relatives shortly thereafter. Seeking an escape the boy decided to enlist in the Army in 1942 and he even falsified his birth certificate to say he was 18 even though he was only 17 years of age. 

Following basic training he was assigned to the 15th regiment, 3rd Infantry Division in North Africa. When he first encountered combat in July 1943, during the invasion of Sicily, he proved himself to be a proficient marksman and a highly skilled combat soldier. 

He found himself landing in Salerno, Italy to fight in the Voltuno River campaign, and then again found himself at Anzio to be a part of the Allied force that had to fight and muscle its way all the way to Rome. 

Throughout these campaigns this now young man continued to prove himself and his skills earned him big advancements in rank out of sheer attrition because many of his superior officers would end up experiencing transfers, they would be wounded, or even killed. 

After the capture of Rome in 1944 our young warrior would earn his first decoration for gallantry. 

Not long after this he was withdrawn from Italy to be trained for Operation Anvil Dragoon with the invasion of southern France that would begin on August 15, 1944. During this grind involving seven weeks of fighting this ended up being a successful campaign, however our warrior friend’s division would suffer 4500 casualties, but he would still become one of the most decorated men in this campaign. However, there was an even bigger storm to come for our warrior friend on the horizon. 

On January 26, 1945 near the village of Holtzwihr in eastern France, our warrior and his company’s positions came under fierce attack by the Germans. At this point our friend and his men were faced against an overwhelming force and onslaught of six Panzer tanks and 250 infantrymen. 

Our brave warrior ordered his men to fall back to better their defenses. It was at this point our warrior demonstrated a level of courage and intestinal fortitude that all the rest of us can learn a valuable lesson from when facing down difficult realities.  

All alone our heroic warrior immediately went into action and climbed up on top of a burning tank destroyer and like a scene out of the movie Rambo, or Inglourious Basterds proceeded to lock and load a single .50 caliber machine gun and lay down heavy fire against the invasion aggressively contesting the enemy's advance. 

Our friend was wounded in the leg during this exchange of heavy fire, but he continued to show relentless aggression towards the Germans and would remain at his post raining down hell on the enemy keeping the barrel of the .50 caliber machine gun running hot as thousands of rounds were cycling out of the smoking barrel towards the enemy as he stood his ground atop a burning tank against the German forces for nearly an hour.  

The Official Substack Of Brandon Richey is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This resulted in our warrior successfully repelling the attack of German soldiers despite overwhelming odds on three sides while single-handedly killing 50 of them. His courageous actions and performance completely stalled the German advance. 

This ultimately allowed him to lead his men in the counterattack which ultimately drove the enemy from Holtzwihr. For this, our warrior friend was awarded the Medal of Honor, the United States' highest award for gallantry in action which would ultimately lead to the growing legend of our warrior friend’s life experience. 

By the end of World War II, this warrior had become one of the nation's most-decorated soldiers, earning an unparalleled 28 medals (including three from France and one from Belgium). Our warrior had been wounded three times during his service in the war. 

To make this story even more incredible, in May 1945, when victory was declared in Europe, our warrior friend had still not even reached his 21st birthday. Our friend’s legend would continue to grow as he returned home with a hero’s welcome from the war and actor James Cagney would convince him to eventually embark on an acting career. 

He was humble and shy, but with nothing more than his good looks and no real talent–by his own account–he would end up starring in more than 40 films. (Source: Arlington National Cemetery)

If you didn’t already know you may be sitting there and thinking Brandon who is this warrior? This would be none other than the great American hero Audie Murphy. 

The Wrap Up

So why did I want to bring Audie Murphy’s life into this discussion?

Well like Schrӧdinger’s Cat based on a simple observation it’s easy to see that Audie Murphy’s life was full of extreme challenges and difficult realities from his childhood all the way into his young adulthood. 

Given what we know about how he faced those challenges when doing so it propelled him each time into another challenge and opportunity which ultimately resulted in him completing his hero’s journey to become the American icon that we know him to be. 

In that moment that Audie Murphy had to face off against the Germans he didn’t have time to take a hit of copium and to engage in a circus of mental gymnastics all in an effort to ignore the reality of what was facing him and his men. In that moment he realized that he had to act and he had to do so immediately. 

I titled this episode Equilibrium. Equilibrium is a state of intellectual or emotional balance. When referring to this concept we tend to think about the Equilibrium of a respective individual, but the reality that can be observed is that society as a whole is made up of millions of individuals. 

Because of this make up there is an imbalance in society of large groups of individuals who lack balance intellectually and emotionally because many of them are addicted to copium, and as a result they select every other method of avoiding reality including a Pollyanna approach. 

When the problems of society come face to face with society as a whole the imbalance that exists resides in the divide between action men and women like Audie Murphy that are sounding the alarm and running head first into the fight while the rest of the population is frozen in fear and hitting their preferred dose of copium.   

Until society can break their addiction to copium there cannot be Equilibrium. This is because the reality is the enemy exists here involving the traitors within our own government, as well as the expanding influence from the CCP. 

Not wanting to accept that doesn’t mean we have two realities like Schrӧdinger’s Cat where there is an enemy present in one and simultaneously not present in the other as long as we don’t acknowledge it. No, in this case the observation has already been made. 

Now the question is whether or not you’re addicted to copium and if so then this platform is serving to be your intervention.

I hope you enjoyed today’s article/podcast.

If so I hope you would choose to support this platform as part of the patriot economy as well. Be an Emissary of Freedom and help to push this piece out to your friends, family, and coworkers.

In order for BOTH you and me to influence and strengthen our society we must not stay idle so please make sure you hit the subscribe and share buttons here below.

Spreading messages like this one is how we influence our culture and I need your help in order to do it.

Also listen to this episode here on…

Spotify

Apple Podcasts

Stitcher

Tune In

Pocket Cast

If you like this podcast and the message please take a moment to give it a Five Star ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ rating on the Spotify platform.

Also to connect with me please make sure you join me here on Twitter, Facebook, GETTR, and now Substack’s new social media called Notes.

Stay strong. Stay focused. Stay active.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit brandonrichey.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit brandonrichey.substack.com

If you are listening to this particular episode on Spotify, Apple, Stitcher, or any other alternative platform besides brandonrichey.substack.com then this particular episode is going to be a preview as it is available in full at brandonrichey.substack.com for paid members.

However, I hope you enjoy the preview and if you want to access the episode in its entirety you can do so for the price of about a cup of coffee per month.

I hope to see you on the Substack, but in the meantime enjoy today's episode preview.

Thank you for your understanding and support.

The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.--Winston Churchill 

I remember back to my first experience of really getting hit and the sting that came with it. 

I was entering into playing football for the first time in my life and I was late to the game in high school with 9th grade being the first time I ever laced up and put on a helmet. 

I remember the day was hot and the coaches were covering fundamentals of tackling and blocking with each of us. 

We entered into the day working on some tackling drills and the first person I had to face off with was my best friend Bryan, who by the way was no tomato soup can if you know what I mean. 

I remember we first locked up and Bryan got the better of me on that day, but in that moment the sting of that hit and the experience of it ignited something inside of me. 

You see I remember the immediate physical to mental experience that translated into that moment where I asked myself did I want to quit, or did I want to get back up and fire back. 

Of course, I chose the latter and from that day forward I worked on getting better and better and would later exchange some good shots back and forth with several of my friends..including Bryan and another good friend Jeremy. So Bryan and Jeremy if you are listening thank you both. 

The point I’m trying to make here is that there are many moments that each of us will face in life where the situation we find ourselves in proves to be a test for us. When you find yourself in such a situation, particularly when you may be faced with some fear and doubt, how are you going to respond to that situation? 

Do you look at the situation in terms of being concerned and fearful, or do you look at it as if it’s a sort of calling and an adventure that you need to step forward with to face head on? 

Obviously that choice falls onto each of us individually as we each face that particular circumstance that is unique to our situation, however perhaps today’s episode can give you the nudge you need to step forward into your adventure to face your test head on.  

Because here and now in today’s world we are ALL facing something both individually and collectively as a society as a whole, and we will all be forced into the circumstance of having to make a difficult decision as I pointed out above. So if you haven’t already felt the sting of being hit (literally or metaphorically) I promise you that day is coming. 

The Hero's Journey 

Every hero undergoes a challenging journey that can be carried out both within the individual’s mind, as well as in the physical world. 

Mental and physical challenges in life are something that none of us are immune to when looking at and examining our lives. Each and every one of us has a crucible, or sort of a journey of reckoning if you will, that we must experience and then face a decision on how we’re going to deal with that journey.

American author Joseph Campbell had an explanation of this in his work that is titled The Hero With a Thousand Faces in which he explains the theory of the journey of the archetypal hero. According to Campbell’s theory of the case this sort of journey consists of a series of stages which in his description is shared among mythologies across the world. 

The Hollywood screenwriter Christopher Vogler studied Campbell’s work and created his own work The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure For Writers which parallels Campbell’s Work breaking down the journey of the hero as it plays out in twelve different stages. 

This is an intriguing list as it not only applies to the writing of a hero’s journey, but is a series of steps that plays out in my view within many of us in day to day life. 

The list reads as follows…