Many a titan of industry came from the poorest section of town. If he learned a work ethic early and applied himself, he could succeed.

Transcript:

Here we go. The truth is simple. -Diogenes of Tampa.

This is The Simple Truth # 49 entitled, American Dream — American Nightmare

Once upon a time in America a man could have a dream. He could get a job and earn what was called a decent living. That meant he could earn enough to put a roof over his head and feed himself, buy clothes and through that great American invention called time payments, even buy himself a car.

Once established as a responsible breadwinner he could attract a wife and start a family. If he worked hard and was loyal to the company where he worked, that company would be loyal to him. He could earn a raise from time to time for high production, maybe even become the head of his department. He might rent an apartment starting out, but well within a decade he could parlay savings into a down payment for a home. If he was a little ambitious he might learn a skilled trade like carpenter or electrician, and make even more money.

A college degree was not needed to follow this path. Even if someone started out life in the projects, he could have this dream. Many a titan of industry began in the poorest section of his town wearing hand-me-downs from siblings or neighbors. If he learned a work ethic early and plied that into a decent job once he reached adulthood, he could succeed. As they say, the sky was the limit.

In that American dream, the money one man could earn was sufficient to cover the expenses for a whole family. While a wife could work outside the home, running the household and caring for the children she spawned was a full time and highly respected job in itself. Family and community were strong. The family helped each other, neighbors helped other neighbors and communities thrived. Even if it wasn’t the lifestyle of the rich and famous, it was life in America and it was good. If a man was sufficiently ambitious, he might start his own business, eventually hiring others and becoming an owner-manager. This enabled him to buy a bigger house in a better neighborhood with more space, better landscaping, shade trees and better schools for the kids.

Something has changed. The American dream has become the American nightmare.

Lower and middle class American wages have flat lined over the past forty years when compared to the runaway inflation. Wages doubling might sounds good, but what if real inflation over that same period, not the phony government numbers, sent costs up by a factor of four? The average new car costs $50,000. That is 15 times what it cost in 1970. Skyrocketing medical costs, insurance rates, property taxes, mortgage payments and higher education tuitions only pour salt in the wound.

The lower you go on the income spectrum, the more purchasing power has suffered. Middle class means are buying cheaper food, less and cheaper clothes, and older and smaller cars. Forget about dining at restaurants or a night at the movies. For too many, buying a house has become little more than a distant pipe dream. In lots of families, fast food takeout is now considered a luxury item. Currently well over half the US population live paycheck to paycheck, and 38 million Americans are living below the poverty level. That is almost as big as the entire population of Canada.

Always included in the American dream was the man’s desire for his children to start out in a better position in the world than he did, and make a better life for themselves and their families than he could. Especially hard hit are young Americans, including college graduates. An NBC poll of Gen Z voters found “inflation and the cost of living” was their most pressing concern, three times more than “threats to democracy,” and five times more than “climate change.”

Currently, the common man can’t start a job making enough to live on his own much less start a family. Rents are through the roof. An adult son living with his parents was once seen at as a character flaw. Now it has become a necessity. Staying in the nest past thirty is commonplace, even for college graduates. Getting married is more of a remote future option than a standard cultural practice. In fact, being a man in any traditional sense is frowned upon. Many of the traits once admired as masculine strengths are now derided as toxic masculinity. For women, having and raising children is viewed as indentured servitude rather than a major role in forwarding society. Being a feminine woman is only admired if you are actually a man.

Home ownership once was something average middle class Americans could achieve with hard work and a little financial prudence. Now the bar is so high that many of the younger generation have resigned themselves to renting for life. As Klaus Schwab said, “You will own nothing and be happy.” There is even a lifestyle movement that advocates not having children, not settling down, owning a home or even getting married at all, driven in large part by the economic barriers that seem insurmountable.

Not everyone is hurting. The income gap is now a wide chasm. We have multi-millionaires and billionaires and soon we’ll have the first trillionaire. The top 1 percent are making more money than they could ever spend. There are people who could hand out a million dollars to everyone they meet and never run out of money. A staggering 50 trillion dollars of income has transferred from the lower 90 percent to the top 1 percent over the past three decades.

The disparity is unsustainable in a free society. Either the elite will assume full control in a totalitarian run caste system, or the people will hold the line and force the elites to re-structure the system into something that is at least fair enough that anyone can win. Something called the American Dream.

And that’s the simple truth.

If there is one thing our illustrious leaders can agree on it is war. Money talks, and war is the color of greed.

Truths could be spoken out loud. The suicide bombers are Islamic terrorists, men are not women, and the media lies. Just like that, truth was back.

Like the landed aristocrats of the past who owned everything the elites have circled their wagons to fend off the savages at the gates.

There are those few who fear the freedom America promises, who stand opposed to the very tenets of freedom and self-determinism she represents.

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The Faustian bargain being made with China threatens the world with the CCP model of iron-fisted surveillance, censorship and political repression.

The essential act of the Party is to tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient.

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What is true for you is what you have observed. No government can be the arbiter of truth, nor can it censor its way to the truth.

We hear that misinformation is wrong information, disinformation is deliberate wrong information, and mal-information, a newly coined Orwellian term that hasn’t yet weaseled its way into the dictionary, is true information that goes against the regime narrative and thereby does “harm.”

Example. Biden is a strong president—clearly misinformation. The Hunter laptop is Russian propaganda—disinformation. The Hunter laptop story was true but ran counter to the Biden narrative so the story was suppressed—mal-information.

Disinformation is an important subject to wannabe tyrants. Those who practice the disinformation dark arts wield a double edged sword. With one edge the government apparatus claims their critics and opponents are spreading harmful disinformation and use their considerable power to censor and eradicate dissent. The goal is consensus. Silencing all opposing views creates by default an apparent unity of thought. Claims about climate change crisis is a prime example of censorship creating false consensus.

Censorship is far more than just woke employees at Big Tech companies deciding who to ban and which topics are allowed to be trending. Much like the term “hate speech” opens the door to the suppression of free speech, “disinformation” is the skeleton key of modern domestic propaganda and censorship. With it the regime can target political movements, specific politicians and prominent voices on the grounds that they are influenced by or in thrall to foreign “disinformation.”

Effective censorship requires live-time data. For that reason, our government spies on us continuously, constantly and everywhere. This includes satellites, traffic cams, security cams, cell phones, computers, email, messaging programs, search engines, phone companies, internet providers, banks, and every possible place on the internet that you and I haven’t even thought of. The government claims this is only done to detect foreign or domestic terrorist activity for our protection. You have to appreciate such sincere caring from our superiors.

The grain of truth is that the effective techniques of disinformation were honed by our intelligence branches in foreign arenas, against other governments and peoples. However, considering that you can find parents who talk at school board meetings, Catholics who pray with rosary beads, pro-life protesters and anyone who disagrees with transmania, vaccines, climate crisis or war on government lists of potential terrorists, I wouldn’t breathe a sigh of relief just yet.

The other edge of the disinformation sword is the government directly pushing false narratives. No one in government speaks of this, presumably because the government never lies. The direct assertion of lies requires more coordinated support, especially from media. A prime example was when the government wanted to spy on Trump and his campaign in the phony Russia collusion hoax. The FBI hired operatives to write false reports, leaked stories to media outlets they controlled which was immediately published, and then packaged it all together as the ‘evidence’ to obtain spy warrants. Safe and effective is another example.

Broad scale lies can be pushed out using a form of brute force, where the lie is replicated many thousands of times on hundreds of channels until the lie solidifies in the minds of the target audience. The sometimes hidden, sometimes overt coordination of academics, journalists, and public intellectuals to push a regime-backed political line is now justified as the needed counterbalance to all the “disinformation” narratives out there.

This double-edged attack on truth can be used by anyone or any group, but the government has an overwhelming advantage because it controls regulation, the police branches, and the courts, which together provide tremendous force and leverage no outsider can match. The darkest deed of any tyranny is that it claims its own lies are truth and its opponent’s truths are lies.

Who manages the American government’s disinformation apparatus? The DHS, FBI, DOD, NSA, CIA, just to name a few. The DHS included a list of 374 search words to be tracked in the department's 2011 “Analyst's Desktop Binder” used at their National Operations Center. A senior Homeland Security official claimed the manual “is a starting point, not the endgame” in maintaining situational awareness of natural and man-made threats and denied that the government was monitoring signs of dissent. The talk is always about threats. But the real threat to regime power is dissent. The manual even instructs workers to identify media reports that reflect adversely on DHS.

The US government has been issuing secret “keyword warrants” to Google for anyone who looks up certain phrases and names, allowing police and other spy agencies to dig through Google’s search history database to identify innocent people merely based on what they might have searched and use that for further intrusions, despite the complete violation of fourth amendment protections.

In July of 2021 the Guardian published an article with the headline: Majority of COVID misinformation came from 12 people, report finds. The article claimed these 12 villains were responsible for lies about COVID-19 and the vax, much of the COVID pandemic and many deaths. The Disinformation Dozen, used as talking points by the White House and their shills, and reverberated by all the mainstream media, was created by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a left wing censorship NGO based in the UK with ties to both the UK and US governments.

It is 2024 and, oh, how things change. Today we know COVID-19 came from a gain of function lab, lockdowns and masks didn’t work, the COVID vaccines were not effective, and have caused and are still causing great harm. Far from the villains they were made out to be, the so-called Disinformation Dozen are consummate professionals, many tops in their field, who were simply telling the truth. That didn’t protect them from being censored, railroaded from their professions, and ostracized from general society as crazy conspiracy nuts who push disinformation.

The multi-layers and complex intersection of the censorship apparatus make identifying, much less stopping it, difficult. A US federal court ruled that the FBI and DHS pressured social media companies to remove content it deemed misinformation, including posts and accounts originated within the United States. The censorship apparatus panicked when a court injunction threatened their operation. They got a reprieve when the Supreme Court, in a terrible act of cowardice, lifted the injunction and refused to address the government’s attempt to destroy the First Amendment.

European governments are leading the disinformation charge, arresting dissenters under vague and arbitrary hate speech laws that are thinly veiled censorship decrees allowing them to quash dissent and criticism. The EU has demanded Twitter censor content or face prosecution. France arrested the Telegram founder for refusing their demands for censorship.

There are clear laws against the malicious defamation of private individuals. This should not include wrong information about general topics. There are fraud laws for deliberate false claims in advertising. This applies to selling goods for monetary gain. Again, nothing that includes general speech, be it true or not. Legally speaking, hate speech should be a non starter. Hate is subjective, in the eye of the beholder. Being offended or being mean does not a crime make.

The US isn’t far behind. The DOJ announced indictments on two Russians in an attempt to smear several conservative media influencers. The assault on free speech has accelerated and the means to do it is being hardened into place. An entire industry—the Disinformation Industry—has emerged to facilitate the control of domestic information under the pretext of preserving national security and fighting “disinformation.” Censorship and narrative control flow from the state, and spread through cutout civil society groups, NGOs, and media networks working in unison.

Accomplishing the dark days of tyranny in the US requires trickery. Trick number one: redefining democracy, not as the people choosing their government, but as the government institutions themselves. When you hear the Attorney General bleating about people criticizing the DOJ being a threat to democracy, he is attacking the actual exercise of democracy.

Trick number two: declaring broad areas of society to be part of national security, like the internet or elections. This gives the federal government the immediate right to interfere, all in the name of protecting national security. That interference can be censorship, surveillance or even prosecution.

Trick number three: Confusing the subject of information with terms like misinformation, disinformation, mal-information and hate speech. Redefining the very words used is part of the disinformation campaign.

When the regime lies or acts corruptly, anyone can and should call them out. But, the passion of politics often includes exaggeration, name-calling and mis-characterization. It certainly includes differing opinions. As unpleasant as that may sometimes be, none of it is illegal, none of it violates free speech protections, and none of it should be censored, especially by the government. Censoring what you don’t like to hear is the end of free speech and the death of a free society.

Disinformation, misinformation and malinformation form a shapeless shifting bog that underlies the government disinformation program and threatens to pull anyone under who might fall into disfavor with the ruling regime or its narrative. When that narrative can be completely devoid of truth, no one is safe.

What is true for you is what you have observed. No government can be the arbiter of truth, nor can it censor its way to the truth. Criticizing government is the key right of the First Amendment for free speech, free press, free assembly and protest, and free petition of government for a redress of wrongs. The only solution is more free speech, and one by one, removing those from power who insist on throttling the free exercise thereof.

And that’s the simple truth.

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After gazing into the abyss of the current woke culture trends it is difficult not to conclude that I am indeed a stranger in a strange land.

When Robert Heinlein wrote Stranger in a Strange Land he revealed certain cultural absurdities here in America by introducing Valentine Michael Smith, a human raised by Martians, who brought a fresh alien look at Earth culture. Coming full circle, we now have millions of illegal aliens with multiple languages and cultures pouring across the border into a country controlled by elite globalists. Simultaneously, the gods of woke are pushing every possible bizarre fringe social aberration or deviance onto our children, all designed to explode any social contract we might have among us and destroy the American culture. Chairman Mao, who required a couple decades to destroy a 4,000 year old culture in China, would be envious.

You might think that ten million illegal immigrants, most who don’t speak English or understand American culture, would feel like strangers in America. Apparently free cell phones, hotels, cash money and free health care goes a long way toward easing their burden.

On the other hand, anti-White, anti-West, anti-American, anti-Founding Fathers, anti-Christian, anti-family, anti-capitalist, anti-free market, anti-constitution, anti-education, anti-merit, anti-property rights, anti-civil liberties, anti-truth, and anti-logic have made strangers of American citizens.

If you are seeing a pattern here it is for good reason. A marvelous children’s story and movie from years ago called The Never Ending Story contained a number of scary antagonists for the young heroes to fight, but the ultimate enemy was the Great Nothing, an all consuming void into which all that was good and creative disappeared. It was an excellent depiction of the nihilism that has emptied the hearts and minds of too many lost souls. A destructive not-ism has taken over like a foul fever dream demanding the death of all that is good and the darkening of all light.

After gazing into the abyss of the current woke culture trends, and sensing the anti-Western and American seizure gripping us, it is difficult not to conclude that I am indeed a stranger in a strange land. How have we become strangers in our own country?

Universities are eliminating D and F grades to avoid hurting students’ feelings. Getting rid of grades and tests altogether is on the table. Where once families sought to raise their children up to higher status through education, now the removal of meritocracy and the promotion of Marxist socialist ideas has begun a race downward toward mediocracy. Social justice, not competence, is the preferred achievement.

The lower education public schools have become woke indoctrination centers, less interested in reading, writing and math than in teaching gender fluidity and pushing the transgender mania that destroys lives. The idea that entire school districts could graduate students from high school without a single student up to grade level in reading or math skills was unthinkable a few short decades ago. Now that happens every year.

Speaking of crazy woke ideas, racism is EVERYWHERE. It is inherent in all western civilization. Things like meritocracy, competition, competence, schedules, and goals are clear evidence of white supremacy. All white people, no matter what they think, say or do, are racist. Whiteness itself is an incurable mental disorder.

Crime is good. In cities like Chicago and New York gunfights blaze unchallenged by police. Muggings, rapes, and carjackings take place in broad daylight. Immigrant gangs are stealing and occupying residential buildings by force. Other gangs organize looting raids on department stores. Still others traffic children and women for nefarious and degrading purposes.

Parts of Los Angeles and San Francisco are completely unrecognizable. Trash and human excrement cover whole areas, homeless drug addicts slump in catatonic stupor, still on their feet. Others lie motionless on sidewalks or in parks, oblivious to the degradation around them. Tent cities are now a thing for those lucky enough to have one. Looting stores now qualifies as a job. Enough taxpayer money has been spent to buy everyone involved a nice home, and yet somehow the problem gets worse. The volume of homeless unskilled illegals who don’t speak English pouring into the cities has broken the system.

This Stranger phenomenon is not unique to America. Go visit London, if you dare. Those familiar with its rich cultural past do not recognize London today. Outside the major cities in the UK, small villages whose local residents haven’t changed much in centuries have doubled in population overnight with foreigners who speak no English, have no money, and no marketable skills. It is a disruptive cultural bomb.

After the brutal murder of three young English children, a backlash of protest riots pitted locals against armed gangs of immigrants. Only the citizens got arrested. Germany welcomed migrants with open arms until gang rapes of minor girls became sport. France is now a divided country, with no go zones controlled by immigrants, and frequent riots. In Ireland, a country 99 percent white, citizens are being lectured about their racism for the lack of sufficient diversity in various fields. Radical climate policies have driven energy costs through the roof, leaving poor families to burn furniture to keep warm. Home sweet home has taken on a bitter taste to citizens of many European countries.

The push to ban fossil fuels and the myriad products they enable, including food, threatens to collapse already unstable economies. Dictatorial health policies like mandatory COVID-19 shots and transgender treatments have severely impacted and restricted freedoms. So has the censorship regime that has now criminalized free speech. Posting on the internet could send the police straight to your door to arrest you. Praying silently in public could put you in jail. Europe is a strange land, indeed.

The insanity has spread beyond Europe. Canada now offers state-assisted suicide as an option to solve backlogged healthcare and the inevitable anxiety that social upheaval has produced. When truckers protested COVID-19 lockdowns the government seized their bank accounts and charged them with crimes.

The totalitarians in America are talking openly about the need for censorship. The DHS is already actively censoring media. The DOJ says criticizing the government is a threat to democracy that will be investigated. Questioning elections, opposing the war in Ukraine, or vaccine skepticism are enough to get you on a list. Media influencers opposing the regime’s narratives will be prosecuted as Russian spies. Major media voices have been spied on, debanked and even raided by the FBI. In the worst states, parents who refuse disfiguring transgender surgeries for their child will lose their child to the government. The once-free press has become part of the government apparatus dedicated to drown out dissent and to maintain propaganda lies.

As George Orwell so presciently pointed out, “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” In describing the totalitarian government, he said, “Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense... The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

Apparently suppressing individual citizens is how you preserve freedom. Apparently men in dresses are actually women. Apparently prosecuting political rivals and opponent voices is necessary to safeguard democracy. Apparently censorship is the only way to protect free speech. Apparently killing the unborn and sterilizing children with puberty blockers is a right of life. Apparently war is peace.

All this democratic oppression is somehow necessary to protect democracy right here in the land of the not so free. Are we not strangers in a strange land?

And that’s the simple truth.

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Life and Death are topics that can inspire religious zealotry. When a culture worships Death it isn’t long before it gets what it wishes.