And on the seventh day, It rested.
BACK TO LIFE, BACK TO REALITY
Wow, let’s take a breath. Geez, it started with truck drivers losing their jobs, and in no time my flesh is being consumed while I am burning to death, and not because of global warming!
Okay, ready for another round? Let’s return to the here and now, to the more pressing problem of being clean and sober enough to handle the first turn in this technological revolution, so as to do our best to see that it does not turn into an actual revolution. Because with what is on the immediate horizon, job loss, true economic hardship, loss of accepted norms, and what I call “agents of chaos” will only make our outrage and anger worse. Believe me, the outrage that fueled the 2016 election will be much worse by 2020.
Maybe we can partner with AI and have the best of both worlds. Yes, we can, and you will.
Before we look at the “agents of chaos” that benefit from our addiction to outrage, let me make one last innocent stop at what is happening right now with China and technology. Of course, this technology is only being used to “enhance the happiness and efficiency of the workers.”
According to a report in the South China Morning Post, the employees wear lightweight, wireless sensors that fit under caps or existing safety equipment, such as helmets. The sensors, which have been developed through government-backed projects, then broadcast information about their brain activity to computers that can detect spikes in emotions like depression, anxiety, and rage. The South China Morning Post found that some companies have been using this technology to monitor their employees since 2014.
One of the companies using this technology emphasized that “it can help reduce stress and the risk of workplace injury for workers,” but there’s also a huge business incentive. It’s estimated that the technology has boosted revenue by 2 billion yuan ($315 million) at one power grid where the technology has been in use for several years.
The story continues: “But there is a privacy risk associated with the use of this technology. This is especially concerning for some in the context of China’s emerging surveillance state.”
Sure, there is always a risk, but do you want privacy or jobs?
PROFESSOR CHAOS
While this book is about our addiction to outrage, what we should be concentrating on is chaos. Outrage is the misdirection; chaos is the real enemy. Chaos is the key word in understanding the coming decade. It is happening on all fronts and is reflected in our mistrust of institutions, social structure, media, finance, jobs, and universities. We see the discord and chaos in social media, street protests, war, politics, and even gender. It is the substance of our outrage, yet we fail to see that our outrage only increases and intensifies the chaos.
Some chaos that we feel is the natural result of progress and technological growth. Change is constant, but it doesn’t mean we like it or that it doesn’t cause disruptions or chaos at times. Because of technology, everything from communications to jobs is in a state of barely controlled chaos. This alone is concerning to me, as you may have begun to see. The next “disruption” is going to require all of us to “brace for impact.”
But beyond the “natural” effects of change, there are now many of what I would call “agents of chaos.” They are the “key masters” and we are the “gatekeepers,” and I believe getting these two together “would be extraordinarily dangerous,” as was said in Ghostbusters.
From anarchists and neo-Marxists to socialist Nazis of all stripes all around the world, we find intentional agents of chaos. They are those who, for whatever reason, wish to destroy the system, hierarchy, and social foundations of our global society. They are not looking for “change” but are actively engaged in methods of destruction and mayhem. Angry, confused, and full of self-loathing, they wish to remake the world to look the way they feel inside.
A good example here in America would be Louis Farrakhan. Recently it was reported that he was now “supporting Donald Trump.” No, he wasn’t, it was just that he saw the way POTUS was taking the press and the Justice Department apart piece by piece. It is good for the Nation of Islam for this to happen, as it gives Farrakhan an opportunity to concentrate on another area. These agents of chaos are equal-opportunity allies. They hold no allegiances and will partner with and lend aid or support to any cause that benefits the goal of chaos. Do you really think that Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam support those women in leadership roles of the Women’s March who came unashamed to stand by and support him? And do they actually support this bigoted, racist, anti-Semitic, misogynistic, antihomosexual religious cult leader? Oh, in case they didn’t know, he is also antiabortion.
No. But for now, they will stand together, as they are looking for allies in chaos. Each thinking that they will outlast the other and deal with them after they deal with . . . fill in the blank.
America has done this time and time again. We supported bin Laden as he fought Russia, gang lords in Afghanistan as they fought the Taliban, and, recently, we supported what became ISIS to destabilize Assad. When they grew past our control, we made deals with Iran. It is the same story over and over. But let’s look at a couple of major players who have the motive, the will, and the means to set the entire globe on fire.
In the Middle East, there are those looking to destabilize the entire region. This first came to our attention wrapped in pretty paper and called the Arab Spring, modeled after the European Spring in the 1850s that began with the publishing of Marx’s Communist Manifesto. Then as now, literal and political fires were intentionally set with the ultimate goal of causing chaos, being the last man standing, and restructuring the power centers.
But there is a bigger goal in play on several fronts: the destabilization of the entire world in order to reshape it. It is important to point out that most if not all of these scattered “key masters” are working on their own and have nothing in common with the others, with the exception of chaos. There is no conspiracy here; I truly believe each player is using the others and believes that in turn it will eliminate all others in the end, but the mutual goal of chaos keeps them moving in the same direction for now. But make no mistake—their goals are very different, yet each thinks they can unleash the “darkness” and still remain in control of the outcome. The other disturbing fact is that they get their power by using those who many times have a valid complaint or real and sympathetic outrage that is then manipulated by these agents to grow their coalition. Many times those people do not know they are being used, and sometimes they are so fed up that they no longer care; they just want someone to “make them pay” or “burn it all down.” Actually, when we are sober enough, we will be able to see that both of those statements really translate into, “I feel as though I have been wronged and no one will listen to me.”
IT’S MIDNIGHT SOMEWHERE
It is on this basis that many nefarious players over time have enslaved and slaughtered. Revolutions begin with those words screamed in outrage.
If you were alive in the 1970s, you may remember the revolution in Iran. The shah was a puppet dictator installed by our government who was woefully out of touch with his people. When they felt wronged and he did not listen, a group of religious radicals did. Now, decades later, the people are strong enough to stand again and say that they have been wronged and no one is hearing them.
It is in that volatile setting that the religious political leadership in Iran (Persian-to-English translation: Aryan) is looking to “hasten the return of the promised one.” They are known as “Twelvers” and represent the largest branch of Shia Islam. The term “Twelver” refers to its adherents’ belief in the Twelve Imams, twelve divinely appointed spiritual and political successors of Mohammad, and their belief that the last of the Twelve, Muhammad al-Mahdi, who disappeared in 872, will reappear as the promised Mahdi. According to Twelver theology, the Mahdi’s return will coincide with the Second Coming of Jesus Christ (Isa), who is to assist the Mahdi against the Masih ad-Dajjal (literally, the “fal
se Messiah”). I believe most Christians would recognize this figure as the biblical Antichrist.
This sect represents 85 percent of all Shias. That can be estimated as approximately 148 to 296 million Twelver Shias. Twelvers comprise a majority among Muslims in Iran, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Bahrain. They also make up significant minorities in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Bangladesh, Kuwait, Oman, UAE, Qatar, Nigeria, Chad, and Tanzania.
Iran is the only country with a state religion as (Twelver) Shia Islam.
National Review reported that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared: “The coming of Imam Zaman [another name for the Mahdi] is the definite promise by Allah. The caravan of humanity from the Day of Creation has been moving . . . to the time of the Coming of Imam Mahdi. The awaiting for the Coming is a hopeful and powerful wait, providing the biggest opening for the Islamic society.”
But it adds that the “battle” to establish the Mahdi’s kingdom “will end only when the [Islamic] society can get rid of the oppressors’ front, with America at the head of it.”
Westerners dismiss this as nothing more than political flag waving, and perhaps it is; but it is important to point out that, currently, Iran is on the verge of collapse, and to garner support has been advancing a long-awaited quest in the Shia world to establish a new caliphate led by the Mahdi.
Whether they believe it or not, they need the people to believe that the one foretold is returning. The ayatollah has recently announced that the Mahdi has returned (from his almost thirteen-hundred-year slumber) and is now on the earth, he has “met with him,” and they are now “in the final stages” of hastening his return.
Those who believe, or have done their homework, know that to “hasten the return” you must cause CHAOS and wash the world—specifically Israel and other oppressors (us)—in blood. While I have watched this movement grow for almost two decades now, I am concerned that the rhetoric and capability of Iran to cause this chaos is growing exponentially. However, Iran is also on the edge of revolution, which may end the current regime and discredit those religious Twelvers who are currently on this path.
I truly do not understand those who claim Christians are dangerous or put so much stock in the Westboro Baptist Church only to pay so little attention to something over a quarter of a BILLION people actually believe—people who have the state-sanctioned power to enact that belief. But perhaps it is easier for those of us in the West to dismiss those who call for the “end of the world” because we do not believe. When we fall into the normalcy bias, we fail to see the threat that these potential monsters pose to the world.
Monsters are first dismissed and laughed at, and they certainly do not come dressed in black boots and uniforms. It is perhaps important to remember that when the SS first arrived on the scene, they were the height of fashion, as their uniforms had been produced by Hugo Boss.
We perhaps take too lightly the warning from Nietzsche when he stated to the German people: “God is dead.” Forever I have heard that as a statement rather than what it truly was: a warning. He wondered, now that the German people had “killed” their belief in God, what they would replace him with. He warned that when people lose their belief in a god, it isn’t that they believe in nothing but rather that they will believe anything.
In Eric Kurlander’s groundbreaking and exhaustive study of the German people and the seeds of Nazism, he clearly shows that it was a mix of desperation, loss of national spirit and identity, the self-discrediting of the traditional church, and their outrage that led Germans to the occult, mysticism, fringe science, and any meaningful heritage stories that would provide answers and restore the German people to their “rightful place.” The Nazi movement did not start these ideas or perversions of truth. They had begun long before. Hitler just added more fuel and tapped into and tied into all of these fringe and desperate beliefs that were already held by the people. He merely needed to turn their outrage into a solidified movement and he only needed 30 percent. But it had become easy for someone to build a movement, as the press had split itself in half. The two main news sources at the time were politically diametrically opposed. If you looked for coverage of a news story in one paper and then in the next, you might not have recognized it as the same event. People were accusing each side of “printing fake news.” Quickly families and lifelong friendships broke up over political beliefs. Minor disagreements became major, with each side calling the other traitors, racists, and saboteurs. It wasn’t long before people began spending time only with those who thought like them, and even then would sometimes whisper their thoughts, as you could be shunned or fired just because you didn’t hold the correct belief. In the early days, people began to see this as a way to settle old scores or to deal with an old flame who had scorned you, a neighbor you had squabbled with, or a coworker who was in the way of your advancement. The object was to see that the person was secretly turned in for the crime of the day, never to return.
As we all know, for almost fifteen years this grew into people being rounded up, tortured, starved, and killed merely for a difference of opinion or, many times, a misunderstanding of what had been said.
If you want to see the road Europe is on once again—and, I believe, America as well—read Sebastian Haffner’s memoir, Defying Hitler. It was written in the 1930s as a warning for the West about what was really happening in Germany. It was never finished, as he escaped Germany and came to the United States, where he became the foremost scholar on Adolf Hitler. It was published only after his death just a few years ago. But unlike every other World War II book, this one focused on the German people themselves—what they were going through, feeling, and thinking, and how over a period of two decades they slid into the abyss. I cannot tell you how clearly the pattern is repeating itself here in America. We do not see it because much of it is still in the planting and watering stages. We are too blinded by our ongoing outrage competition to pay any attention.
22
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Mitt Was Right
I believe the biggest threat for global horror comes from Russia. It is the European Identitarian movement coupled with a truly evil and well-thought-out and financed movement out of Russia that is growing in strength. It is called the Fourth Political Theory, and its roots are in the extreme right globally and even here in the United States. Its founder and head has appeared via satellite at rallies all across America and has been featured often on the Alex Jones show. His name is Aleksandr Dugin. Dugin is a Russian philosopher and political scientist, born in Moscow in 1962, who is known for his fascist, antiglobalist views. Just a few reporters are on this beat, as it is easier to think that all of these Nazi and “heritage” movements are somehow spontaneous. But he’s important because he’s an advisor and confidant of Vladimir Putin.
My team and I have done extensive research on this and a few specials for TheBlaze TV, and the National Review has also done some very sound reporting on the threat Dugin poses to the United States and the West. Going so far as to call him “Putin’s Rasputin,” Sean MacCormac, writing for the Center of Security Policy, outlined the root of Dugin’s beliefs: “Dr. Dugin and his followers believe that Russia, as a Eurasian civilization representing tradition, is in conflict with ‘Atlantic’ civilization, currently championed by the United States, which represents economic, political, and cultural liberalism.” MacCormac also takes note of Dugin’s ongoing and incessant obsession with a strategic alliance between Russia and Iran, indicating “Dugin sees Iran as Russia’s prime ally in an Eurasian strategy, and makes reference to a ‘Moscow-Tehran’ axis. . . .”
Robert Zubrin, of the National Review, covering Dugin in a well-researched and lengthy series, wrote “. . . Dugin has developed a new ‘Fourth Political Theory,’ combining all the strongest points of Communism, Nazism, Ecologism, and Traditionalism, thereby allowing it to appeal to the adherents of all of these diverse anti-liberal creeds.” While it might seem incredible that one could somehow combine “strong point
s” from ideologies that claim to be antithetical to each other, Dugin’s work does at least demonstrate how much these platforms actually have in common. Blending in Communism’s opposition to free markets wrapped in the moral blanket of opposition to technological and industrial progress derived from Ecologism and Climatism, he also weaves in blades of the National Socialism that would make Hitler jealous, claiming the need for total state control of all industries and media, in order to protect the national identity, public health, and traditional values. For fun, he also litters his monologues with Hitleresque notions of a people whose blood is “rooted” in the soil, along with odd-sounding notions Zubrin describes as “. . . gnostic ideas about the secret origin of the Aryan race in the North Pole.” Definitely makes one feel warm and fuzzy that this type of language is being used again in Europe.
Zubrin goes on covering Dugin’s writings: “What Russia needs,” says Dugin, is a “genuine, true, radically revolutionary and consistent, fascist fascism.” On the other hand, “Liberalism, is an absolute evil. . . . Only a global crusade against the U.S., the West, globalization, and their political-ideological expression, liberalism, is capable of becoming an adequate response. . . . The American empire should be destroyed.” Given the fact that Putin gives credence and airtime to this guy, we should be paying really close attention.
MacCormac also researched and referenced an interview with Dugin in Iran Review, where Dugin himself provides even more details on his belief in why a natural, anti-US and anti-Western alliance exists between Russia and Iran:
“Iran plays a key role in Eurasianism. . . . After the Islamic Revolution and given the country’s strategic position, Iran has been included in equations that aim to create an independent atmosphere of Eurasianism. If there were conflicts between Iran and Russia in past centuries and they tried to solve their problems through war, today, they only look for peaceful and strategic alliance as a solution to their problems. I mean, Moscow and Tehran are now solving problems which they previously could not solve even by recourse to military force. Our interests totally overlap from a strategic viewpoint. This trend can only be realized through (a) strategic alliance, not simple convergence. Iran is not included in Eurasian convergence model because only former republics of the Soviet Union are included in it. Iran has its own special civilization and is a powerful and independent country which should be respected. That alliance should be protected. We must not simply think about convergence with Iran. Iran does not fit into convergence model of Eurasianism, but it is a partner for Russia in a multipolar world. Our strategic interests in the Central Asia and, on the whole, in the entire region overlap. Therefore, Iran enjoys a pivotal role in the model of multipolar eurasianism and, in this model Tehran is the closest ally of Moscow.”