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It’s May 2023, and protesters have stormed the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., to demand that lawmakers not accept spending cuts during negotiations to lift the debt ceiling. Many are so disruptive that the police arrest them and drag them out. These are activists of the Center for Popular Democracy, an extreme left-wing organization that has collected $35.2 million from the Ford Foundation since 2012. Four months later, they will be imitated by 150 youth activists from the “climate revolution” group the Sunrise Movement, 18 of whom will be arrested after occupying the Speaker of the House’s office. The Sunrise Movement also receives Ford Foundation money—$650,000 for “training and organizing.” ...
These examples from just the last year—collected via a semi-random tour of the Ford Foundation’s vast Grants Database—represent a tiny fraction of the nearly $1 billion that the foundation gives away yearly, on average. Almost a century old and sitting on a mountainous $16.4 billion endowment in 2022, the foundation is a “philanthropic” giant—one of the five largest in the U.S. If it were a for-profit firm, its market capitalization would rank it among the Fortune 500. Instead, “guided by a vision of social justice,” as its mission statement puts it, the Ford Foundation’s enormous flood of untaxed money flows annually to an immense ecosystem of overwhelmingly left-wing—and often outright revolutionary—causes.
Yet the foundation’s activities remain largely below the public’s radar, the extent of its malign history mostly unknown. This should change. America today faces a multitude of escalating sociopolitical crises that are rapidly tearing apart the body politic: a rapacious strain of tribal identity politics; spreading legal, cultural, and moral chaos; lawlessness in the streets; and the entrenchment of an oligarchic managerial elite, increasingly willing to cast aside any remaining shred of democratic or national sovereignty in its pursuit of top-down global “progress.” Behind every one of these fractures, one finds the ongoing work of the Ford Foundation.
This is an actual 1969 Planned Parenthood blueprint on all of the plans to stop people from having children.
The three points were the leaked facts that, since last weekend, (1) Hunter “has joined meetings with President Joe Biden and his top aides,” (2) Hunter has been directing “senior White House staff members,” and worst, (3) Hunter “has been closely advising his father.” Meaning, he has been closely advising the President of the United States.
Hunter! The crackhead. The laptop loser. The scam artist. The sister-in-law stealer. The smartest man Joe ever met. Even Democrats admit Hunter is a lost cause. But they have always gamely insisted he’s far from the levers of power, so who cares? I don’t need to ask the follow-up question, do I? No, as it happens, I don’t, because NBC said it first. Behold the anonymous quote that spawned a hundred more headlines:
Another person familiar with the matter said the reaction from some senior White House staff members has been, "What the hell is happening?"
They Are Playing Us
By Edward Dowd
Almost everything in our news cycle is questionable. The lines between fact and fiction have become blurred.
What our leaders and mainstream media peddle as the truth is often misinformation. And what is really the truth is smeared as misinformation. In an era of rolling news and social media, the bamboozle has captured us. In particular, our ‘elites’ masquerading their greed as virtue.
The modern world is a simulacrum, where reality has been replaced by false messaging and imagery, to such an extent that one cannot distinguish between fact and fiction. And as a result of this, everyone squabbles through the prism of their own confirmation biases and ideological impulses.
We are ruled by a nefarious group of individuals that have an unquenchable thirst for power, control and money, and they don’t care what they have to do to get it. And that includes tricking people into thinking they are the virtuous good guys who are here to keep us all safe. And tragically, millions of people are completely duped by this.
What we have witnessed over the Covid response, the war in Ukraine, the Net Zero agenda on climate change and many other current issues is a movement of faux-virtue that has been carefully crafted by corrupt politicians, messengers within legacy media outlets, greedy corporations, messiah delusional billionaires and undemocratic technocrats to create the impression that they are the virtuous ones who are our friends.
These people are not our friends. Their primary objective is to hoodwink us into believing and complying to their virtue, but in reality being tricked into giving away more freedoms, power, wealth and assets to these virtue vultures.
The reality of all of this is that we are sleepwalking towards the biggest asset grab in the history of the planet.
They are trying to destroy farms, land, businesses, freedoms, housing, individual wealth, travel and own them or sell them off to the highest bidder. And at the same time, they are trying to ring-fence society into the entrapment of being controlled by data – either through health passports or the slow mission creep towards central banking digital currencies (CBDCs).
It’s a giant asset grab of what we own and control. They frame all of this being in our best interests. But it’s the biggest swindle ever.
This gargantuan virtue con-trick also comes with a huge slice of authoritarianism. Anyone who sees through it, questions it, stands up to it or shows opposition to it are immediately ridiculed and ostracised by the group-think mob:
Question the Covid response? “Covidiot” Question the wars? “Putin apologist” “Antisemite” Question net zero? “Climate change denier” “Far-right”
This is gutter politics designed to shut down and undermine any opposition or questioning.
But not questioning the narrative is a huge form of denial. Because any government, technocrat or institution that advocates medical discrimination, suppression of civil liberties and a transfer of wealth and public assets to the rich while the rest of society endures a cost of living crisis is not your friend.
Don’t be fooled by their virtue. It’s a giant con. In reality, they are indulging in a massive asset grab. They are treating the world as feudalism, but under the guise of “it’s for your own good” or “safety” faux virtue. A Machiavellian weapon that power hungry sociopaths use for control.
Fake virtue peddled by governments and authorities for mass compliance and social control is oldest trick in the authoritarian playbook.
Don’t be fooled by it. Because when totalitarianism arrives, it will come cloaked in fake virtue.
The city square I’m standing in has a gorgeous cathedral on one edge, and what I assume is the town hall, equally stunning, on another, separated by a wide expanse of cobblestone plaza, with multiple streets and avenues curling away like the strands of a spider’s web. Down a couple of the avenues are processions of progress pride banners, and of course pride flags and even pride flowers are to be seen everywhere you look throughout the city. I’d thought Pride Month was in June, but as we saw at the Olympics, Current Year Zero is Pride Year, now, always, and forever, a celebration which never stops. The perpetual party is the most basic promise made by the global uniparty. Give us your freedom, your land, your very souls, they say, and you can stick anything you want into your butt, forever.
Although the Stasi employed a wide range of more traditional totalitarian PsyWar and psychological crowd manipulation techniques, the unique set of strategies and tactics that they developed and deployed was known as Zersetzung (pronounced [t͡sɛɐ̯ˈzɛt͡sʊŋ], German for "decomposition" and "disruption"). Zersetzung served to combat alleged and actual dissidents through covert means, using secret methods of abusive control and psychological manipulation to prevent anti-government activities. People were commonly targeted on a pre-emptive and preventive basis, to limit or stop activities of dissent that they may have gone on to perform, and not on the basis of crimes they had actually committed. Zersetzung methods were designed to break down, undermine, and paralyze people behind "a facade of social normality" in the form of "silent repression". ...
British journalist Luke Harding, who had experienced treatment on the part of Russia's FSB in Vladimir Putin's Russia that was similar to Zersetzung, writes in his book:
As applied by the Stasi, Zersetzung is a technique to subvert and undermine an opponent. The aim was to disrupt the target's private or family life so they are unable to continue their "hostile-negative" activities towards the state. Typically, the Stasi would use collaborators to garner details from a victim's private life. They would then devise a strategy to "disintegrate" the target's personal circumstances—their career, their relationship with their spouse, their reputation in the community. They would even seek to alienate them from their children. [...] The security service's goal was to use Zersetzung to "switch off" regime opponents. After months and even years of Zersetzung a victim's domestic problems grew so large, so debilitating, and so psychologically burdensome that they would lose the will to struggle against the East German state. Best of all, the Stasi's role in the victim's personal misfortunes remained tantalizingly hidden. The Stasi operations were carried out in complete operational secrecy. The service acted like an unseen and malevolent god, manipulating the destinies of its victims. ...
The most insidious aspect of Zersetzung is that its victims are almost invariably not believed.
The most insidious aspect of Zersetzung is that its victims are almost invariably not believed.
Last week, Daily Wire reporter Megan Basham published a controversial new book, “Shepherds for Sale: How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda.” In her heavily-footnoted, carefully-cited book, Basham described a decades-long conspiracy among leftist billionaires, some of whose names rhyme with ‘Noros,’ to infiltrate America’s churches and seed wacky leftist ideas like climate change, gay marriage, trans surgeries, and open borders.
How are they doing it? Bribing them with money. In Shepherds for Sale, Basham names names, identifying prominent Evangelical leaders and even pastors who grabbed money from Soros-affiliated groups with innocent-sounding names, and then suddenly warmed up to all kinds of bizarre, non-Biblical ideas.
Basham’s book has ignited a firestorm in Evangelical circles and ginned up predictable cancellation efforts. ...
This multiplier isn’t just for Christians. The conspiracy revealed in Basham’s book affects us all, Christians and non-Christians alike. Firstly, it describes how the leftists infiltrate our institutions and create astroturfed political campaigns to support loony schemes like cap-and-trade and childhood chop-a-dictoffmies. These sneaky efforts imperil all our institutions, religious or secular, far beyond churches alone.
But more importantly, if our churches are ever successfully undermined, we will lose the country, and fast. The reason far-left billionaires are targeting Christians is because we constitute the most significant impediment to the globalists’ ‘progressive’ agenda.
As a reminder, after a regrettably faltering start, the Church arguably did more to reverse the pandemic’s authoritarian excesses than did any other institution. More mandates were struck over Constitutional religious liberties than any other single issue. Lockdowns were abandoned after even the liberal Ninth Circuit held churches couldn’t be closed or pastors fined for holding services.
Who Really Controls US Foreign Policy?
▪️US foreign and domestic policy is developed with think tanks funded by the most powerful corporate-financier interests across the West;
▪️Policy papers published by these think tanks are turned into bills by lawyers, brought to Washington by lobbyists, and signed off by Congress and the White House regardless of political affiliation or supposed political agenda;
▪️Multipolarism has challenged US political, military, and economic power by creating alternatives to the corporate-financier monopolies in the West driving US policies at home and abroad;
▪️Americans can create a better balance of power by redirecting their monthly income, time, energy, and attention away from these corporate-financier interest and toward local and foreign alternatives
What I'm saying is it doesn't matter who you vote for. If foreign policy is determined by Wall Street, pressure must be placed on Wall Street.
To prevent us from focusing on Wall Street and ways to redirect our time, energy, money, and attention away from them and invest it in our communities, elections have been turned into highly contentious spectacles that consume all our time, energy, money and attention instead.
Wall Street doesn't care who you pick and support, as long as you pick someone and forego organizing against Wall Street itself. This ensures, as you can clearly see, their agenda moves forward regardless.
Washington should be thought of not as a center of American leadership, but as an interface between the public and America's true actual leadership. It is an interface and a layer of insulation and protection.
Notice that multipolarism is rising not because nations like Russia and China are taking on Washington - but are taking on US corporations and financial institutions, competing against them with their own alternatives, creating their own financial and monetary systems beyond the reach and influence of Western financial institutions and corporations.
If we "the people" want to play a role in this transition, we need to contribute toward the creation of more alternatives.
In a way, when supporting alternative media we are already doing this. This can be done across all aspects of modern economics - by supporting interests outside of the Western Fortune 500, globally and even locally in our own communities.
Many people ask me why I only show them what's wrong, and never what can be done about it - so this is a topic I plan on addressing more in the future.
Brian Berletic, who lives in Thailand, is a heterodox geopolitical commenter whose thoughts frequently challenge conventional narratives. He provides alternative perspectives on global events, especially related to U.S. foreign policy, international conflicts, and the roles of various countries in global affairs. He has been a Proxy War critic from the jump.
Berletic’s article (linked below) and his companion YouTube video (linked above) are both titled, “Who Really Controls US Foreign Policy? While he focused on foreign policy, it is all true for U.S. domestic policy as well. The gist is that over 1,000 NGO ‘think tanks,’ like the RAND Corporation and a dizzying array of Soros-funded groups with banal, helpful-sounding names, constantly lobby Congress, which winds up rubber stamping spoon-fed legislation, often without Congressmen even reading the bills they happily sponsor.
It’s not clear at this point whether any meaningful legislation was actually drafted by Congress, as opposed to non-transparent, unelected, billionaire-financed elites infesting DC think-tank groups.
To be clear, I do not agree with all Berletic’s opinions. But this article is a great start in understanding the precise mechanism of how leftwing oligarchs and captured corporations (Disney) pull the levers of power in Washington. Helpfully, Berletic also offered some suggestions for what to do about it.
From the ongoing US involvement in Ukraine, to an enduring US military presence in the Middle East, and growing US-Chinese tensions in the Asia-Pacific region, regardless of who controls the US Congress and regardless of who sits in the White House, these conflicts continue forward – often with a Democratic president setting the stage for his Republican successor, and vice versa.
Why, no matter who Americans vote into power, US foreign policy, and even domestic policy, seems to steamroll forward regardless?
Contrary to popular belief, US foreign and domestic policy is not determined by the US Congress or even by the White House, but instead by a powerful combine of unelected corporate-financier interests who fund a vast network of policy institutions known as “think tanks.”
These think tanks create a consensus among the various corporate-financier interests funding their activities as well as sitting upon their boards of directors, boards of trustees, or serving as advisors to these institutions.
This consensus manifests itself in the various policy papers these think tanks publish every year, which are then crafted into bills by teams of lawyers and legislative specialists. The bills are proposed to Congress and the White House by lobbyists, who then vote on or sign off on these bills, often without even reading their contents.
Because the center of American power rests with these interests rather than either Congress or the White House, efforts to influence, challenge, or change US policy must focus on these interests based primarily on Wall Street rather than on politicians in Washington D.C.
What Are Think Tanks?
Far from a “conspiracy theory,” the central role corporate-financier funded think tanks play in driving US foreign and domestic policy was explained by none other than US government-funded media outlet Voice of America in a 2018 article titled, “What’s Behind the ‘Think Tanks’ That Influence US Policy?”
The article would note:
Out of more than 1800 think tanks in the United States, nearly 400 are based in Washington. Previous administrations have relied on the research and ideas generated by such organizations to formulate policy. Such institutions have been criticized in the past for their outsized influence on U.S. policy formulation.
The article would also admit that many of those in American media and politics began within the halls of these corporate-financier funded institutions.
The article says:
In addition to influencing public policy, such institutions are often a training ground for those wishing to gain a foothold in media or the corridors of power.
The same article admitted, “think tanks are also a revolving door for talent,” pointing out that,
“in the George W. Bush administration, Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, all came from Washington think tanks.”
Only toward the very bottom of the article was any mention made of the corporate-financier interests actually funding such think tanks.
The article claims:
But policies and ideas are often developed through the prism of political bias so knowing who’s paying for those ideas is important.
“I think the important thing for the public to know is that, when think tanks issue a report, it is important for those who are reading the report to try to understand if it was influenced by the funder or not,” says Rom of Georgetown University. “And good think tanks are open and transparent in the kind of research they do so that those who read that research can judge its independence.”
Few Americans are even aware of, let alone understand the central role of think tanks in US policymaking. Fewer still are aware of the monumental conflict of interest that exists between the corporations and financial institutions funding these think tanks, the policies these think tanks propose, and the bills and policies that are eventually passed and implemented by Washington.
Because of this lack of understanding, many Americans believe the future of US policy is determined in Washington through elections. In reality, the future of US policy is determined by unelected corporate-financier interests who advance their desired policies regardless of who controls Congress or who currently sits in the White House.
How Bills are (Really) Made
CBS News, in a 2017 article titled, “Who Actually Writes The Bills In Congress?,” would admit that “attorneys” who are knowledgeable about the subjects of the bills often write them. The same article admits that bills may originate, “directly from a member, who might receive input from constituents, lobbyists or staff on a particular issue.”
As Voice of America admitted in its article, such “lobbyists” and “attorneys” and even “members” of Congress, are drawn from corporate-financier funded think tanks.
Thus, while many Americans mistakenly believe their elected representatives “represent” them and their interests, it is clear that unelected interests monopolize policymaking, enjoy unwarranted influence over those who sign off on new policies, with Americans only hearing about such policies from the media often long after any practical chance of protesting against or reversing the policy.
As Voice of America also admitted, many in the media informing the American people about new policies, began their careers in the halls of these policy think tanks funded by the same unelected corporate-financier interests proposing these policies in the first place.
USA Today in a 2019 investigative report titled, “You elected them to write new laws. They’re letting corporations do it instead,” spells it out more explicitly:
Each year, state lawmakers across the U.S. introduce thousands of bills dreamed up and written by corporations, industry groups and think tanks. Disguised as the work of lawmakers, these so-called “model” bills get copied in one state Capitol after another, quietly advancing the agenda of the people who write them.
The investigative report also noted how manipulative the titles of bills often are, done to deliberately mislead the public:
The Asbestos Transparency Act didn’t help people exposed to asbestos. It was written by corporations who wanted to make it harder for victims to recoup money. The “HOPE Act,” introduced in nine states, was written by a conservative advocacy group to make it more difficult for people to get food stamps.
The report would lament, “bills promise to protect the public,” but “they actually bolster the corporate bottom line.”
This should come as no surprise, considering these bills originate from think tanks funded by these very corporations.
Congress Rubber Stamps Bills They Don’t Even Read
US News, in an opinion piece titled, “Not So Dirty Little Secret,” would attempt to excuse Congress from having to read the bills they sign off on.
It would admit:
The not-so-dirty little secret of Congress (and, I suspect, most legislative bodies) is that members often vote on legislation without having sat down and literally read it.
The article explains that, instead, “legislative specialists who work in Congress and, in some cases, think tank denizens outside it,” interpret the bills and explain them to legislators who then vote on them.
According to the US White House website, “anyone can write” a bill to be introduced to Congress. In theory, bills should represent the best interests of the people within a Western-style democracy. Legislators who vote on these bills should do so in the interests of the very public who voted them into office in the first place.
In reality, many bills are either written by corporate-financier funded interests themselves or by legislators and their teams who these interests are lobbying. These are bills which Congress admittedly doesn’t understand, and instead depends on specialists working for these same interests to explain to them.
What emerges is policy-driven by unelected interests, simply laundered through elected representatives, creating the illusion of a public mandate. Because politicians can be voted in and out of office, when the public is unsatisfied with US policy, the empty hope of new elections and the prospect of “change” prevents them from ever addressing the underlying factors that prevent that change from ever actually occurring.
Who is Funding These Think Tanks?
Think tanks often list on their websites either who sponsors their work or who sits on their board of directors, board of trustees, or who serves as advisors. Regardless of what information is made publicly available, the same circle of corporate-financier interests are represented.
For example, the American Enterprise Institute does not readily disclose its list of donors, but does publish its list of trustees which includes representatives from private equity firm Carlyle Group, the insurance industry including State Farm, big tech including Dell, and big-finance like UBS.
RAND Corporation, infamous for its 2019 paper, “Extending Russia” formulating a number of military and economic measures meant to draw Russia into protracted war with its neighbors including Ukraine, lists its major clients including IBM, MITRE Corporation, and PhRMA Foundation (which in turn is made up of various pharmaceutical giants).
The Brookings Institution responsible for drawing up policy for war around the globe, including its 2009 paper “Which Path to Persia?” aimed at Iran, lists its corporate and institutional sponsors which include not only the US government, but multiple foreign governments, as well as corporate-financier interests like big-tech including Facebook, Google, and Microsoft, big-finance like Blackrock, Mastercard, and UBS, arms manufacturers like Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin, big-oil like BP and Chevron, as well as consumer goods and services like PepsiCo, Amazon, and Walmart.
How to Check Unelected, Unwarranted Power
As Voice of America pointed out, there are over 1,800 think tanks in the US alone, many of which share the same handful of Fortune 500 corporate-financier sponsors, directors, trustees, and advisors. While Americans can vote in and out of office the many members of Congress who rubber stamp bills handed to them, what can Americans do about the unelected interests handing Congress these bills in the first place?
Often referred to as “voting with one’s wallet,” Americans can compile lists of large corporate-financier interests exercising unwarranted influence over their government, and redirect their monthly income away from them, and instead to local or foreign alternatives.
These special interests did not appear “overnight,” but instead built themselves up over years, sometimes decades, accumulating money, time, attention, and energy from millions of Americans at home and hundreds of millions of people abroad.
By raising awareness of the unwarranted power and abuse exercised by these interests and diverting money, time, attention, and energy away from them and toward a wider variety of alternatives at home and abroad, a better balance of power can be created.
In many ways, the rise of multipolarism represents a successful example of this. The West had maintained a global monopoly over many goods, services, and industries for generations granting the West hegemony worldwide.
With the rise of China, the reemergence of Russia, and newly industrialized nations creating alternatives to what were once Western monopolies, people around the world are now dividing their money, time, attention, and energy among these many options creating a better balance of power. While this process is unfolding globally, Americans can begin a similar process within the United States.
If a better balance of power can be created within the US, redistributing wealth and the power it creates across a wider number of businesses and interests across America, there stands a much better chance of those in Washington representing this wider balance of power rather than the concentrated wealth and power that currently exists on Wall Street.
Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
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WTF?
How can global policy and media across the world be so coordinated?
Kind of makes one tempted to believe in "conspiracy theories".
I really do think there is a cabal of billionaires who own the media and the government and which shifts course when things start to get hot, like right now. They are not "the Jews" but a collection of billionaires from many countries. Many of them are Jewish, but many are not.
Can we identify them by name? Bezos and Gates for sure, but what are the other names? I would especially like to know the names of the ones that desperately want to remain hidden. Klaus Schwab? Top leaders in China like Xi Jinping?
https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf?source=patrick.net