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What Sam Knew

Bill Collier July 4, 2021

Bill Collier- On this fourth of July, it seems fitting to post an article from back in 2009 about the man we consider to be essential to American independence.

What did Sam know that we do not know?

Sam knew that when your opponent does wrong this is not the time to despair, it is the time to use their wrong by exposing it and rallying the People against them. Sam knew that it was always best to provoke your opponent into doing wrong by forcing them in the open than to despair of ever being able to effect their decisions.

When the Sugar Act was initially announced in Boston, placing a tax on many items including sugar, most of the colonists were not concerned, the taxes were not that great, the cost was buried in the price of the items, and the total price was still reasonable. Samuel Adams saw in this tax the seeds of something much more sinister. Adams saw in this the seeds of endless taxation and of endless violations of the original charter from 1690 which granted autonomy for the Massachusetts Colony, which in one form or another all 13 colonies had enjoyed, and he was appalled at the apathy of the People.

In April of 1764 the Sugar Act was passed and what could a man like Sam do? Sam had nothing to recommend himself as a political player: he was a failed businessman, he was a tax collector who was in arrears because he was loath to force people to pay their taxes, he knew nobody in the Court, in the House of Commons, or in the House of Lords over in London, he was merely a committee member for various committees assigned by the Town Meeting (all Freeholders attended, there was no city council or mayor) and of some political clubs called Caucuses.

He was, essentially, a nobody, and while he was fairly well known in Boston, he had little political power in his Colony, he had no connections to London, and the people in his own town were apathetic to the extreme: they just did not care very much.

Have you ever seen an act by government that alarms you or have you ever felt alarmed at a certain candidate’s election to office but had a hard time rallying people to your cause?

Sam knew how to rouse the people and, by the way, at the end of our story you will see that Sam was able to force the British to back down on the Sugar Act but beyond this, Sam was able to single handedly spark the fires of independence in America. As early as 1743, when he wrote a college thesis asking whether it was prudent to resist the authorities when it seemed that this was the only way to preserve the commonwealth (he had concluded that it WAS prudent).

Rather than weigh his odds and focus on what he lacked, he chose to focus on what he had. In the movie “Elizabeth: The Golden Age” Queen Elizabeth is shown saying that while she understands what is possible, the impossible is much more interesting and Will and Ariel Durant once wrote, and I am paraphrasing, that the occurrence of unlikely and impossible things was one of the “humors of history.” On that score, Sam was an interesting humor of history and he has shown us how to make the impossible possible by starting with what you have.

What did Sam have?

Adams knew that he could control his own elected members of the House, who as delegates received instructions from the Town Meeting that had elected them. He knew that he could control what instructions they received. He knew he had the means of getting his information out through newspapers he was friendly with. He knew he could speak directly to the People at the next Town Meeting.

His basic strategy was to put his opponents in the wrong and keep them there.

How did he do this?

He exposed the reasoning behind their acts an the logical possibilities that their acts envisioned (if they could tax sugar without your consent, could they not also your land, your personal income, etc.). He took measures to force his opponents out into the open, for instance sending petitions he knew would be ignored or would be refused, going to court, knowing he would lose but forcing the court to show whose side it was on. He knew that using peaceful acts of civil disobedience would force his opponents to behave badly.

Sam knew that you had to identify your opponent, identify the logic and possible intentions behind their acts, and identify the possible logical conclusions or results of their acts. He knew how to expose their wrongness and keep them in the wrong. Sam knew how to use whatever resources he had to reach an audience and rally them around his cause against the opposition.

In the case of the Sugar Act, Sam identified the weak spot in the enemy’s armor. He could not go and lobby London for repeal of the Sugar Act but he knew how to create an army of lobbyists for his cause by hitting them where it hurts. You see, the London Merchants were America’s source of manufactured goods because American colonies were not allowed to manufacture their own goods. Sam decided that he would instigate a Boycott of all impost from England: Americans would be asked, in Boston first, to make do without these goods, to make what they needed or repair what they had, and to especially refrain from buying luxury goods and non-necessities.

How did he rally his people?

What Sam needed was to unify the 13 colonies behind this boycott (the word did not exist and Sam was the FIRST person in human history to use such a strategy on a systematic basis for political ends) but even this would be difficult, it had NEVER been done before.

Sam started with what he had and he built on that, he did not wait until things were more favorable or focus on what he lacked.

At the Town Meeting, Sam used his oratory skills, which he had learned listening to great preachers like John Edwards and many others who passed through his church, and like a fire and brimstone preacher he laid out his argument. He argued that their freedom rested on the autonomy of their colony, he argued that self taxing and self governing were the vital ingredients of that freedom, and that if an outside power could lay direct taxes on the people, without them having any say, then what else other than sugar could be taxed? Sure, these taxes were not that heavy and hard to bear, and indeed if the Massachusetts Assembly had passed such taxes this would not be an issue.

The issue was not the cost of the tax but the ideas behind it: the idea that the original Charter was now to be ignored in this area, the idea that Parliament had unlimited power over the colony, and the idea that the wishes of the People were irrelevant. If the tax on Sugar was not resisted then, in short order, the whole colony would be reduced to a miserable state.

He also spoke to the English themselves. One of the ideas behind the taxes was that during the late 7 Year’s War the English had accrued a national debt of 140 Pounds Sterling and they wished to recoup part of this cost from the Colonies, arguing that the colonies must bear part of the cost of their own defense. Of course the colonies had born the cost in manpower and money, in the millions, and the fact was that the war itself was an English war against a European power and would not have been fought in America at all if America was not part of Britain.

Sam told the English merchants that the true value of the colonies was not taxes they might pay, which would never be that much of a benefit to the English treasury, but the amount of trade: the colonies purchased hundreds of millions of pounds sterling in English goods every year. Why would the English jeopardize this trade with such taxes?

Sam was the first person, presaging Adams Smith by 12 years, to posit the idea that higher taxes would actually decrease revenue and cause a decrease in trade, something that the economists and political leaders of the day were completely ignorant of.

Now Sam turned his quill to the people of his city, and to the colonies, in addressing them.

Could the people go to the Admiralty Courts, the highest courts in the land, and appeal to them? Sure, they could do this, but these Courts were themselves a violation of the rights of self government because they did not answer in any way to the People and were completely beholden to the Crown.

No, the People would have to take other measures.

The People would have participate in a non-importation agreement and forego all English goods until the Stamp Act was passed and until Parliament disavowed its claim to be have the authority to tax the colonies directly.

Sam invoked a principle that was embodies in the Magna Charta but that was ignored and not much mentioned in his day, that there could be no taxation without representation and that it was impossible for the colonies to be represented in Parliament by reason of the distance (how could they instruct their delegates, as was their custom in their own colonial assemblies, from such a distance?) The idea of virtual representation was also refuted: the English believed that their Parliament represented all Englishmen in a “virtual” way even though not all could participate in election.

Sam exposed these ideas as nonsense, he invoked the principle of no taxation without representation, he exposed the logic behind the Act, that Parliament could tax the colonies at will, and he exposed the possible intentions or results of the Act, that if a small tax on a few items could be levied then taxes on things the colonists deemed un-taxable, their lands, their homes, the tools of their trade, and their personal income, would soon follow.

Sam used his voice in rallying his own Town Meeting, he used what outlets to the people he had, the newspapers, and he was able to get the Town Meeting to approve instructions to their delegates to urge the passage of a resolution by the House that would call for all 13 colonies to adopt a common, united plan to resist these unjust taxes in a lawful and peaceful manner, namely his non-importation agreement.

There were many machinations and tricks by the other side, for instance governors adjourning legislators to prevent them from passing any resolutions in agreement with this call for a non-importation agreement. he instructions he had given to the delegates from Boston, which were passed, went out to the colonies and one man, Patrick Henry from Virginia, was thereby inspired to join the cause of the rights of the Colonists.

Words well spoken and well written inspire people when they are actually placed in front of them.

Sam knew that you had to use what you had, you had to build on that to control whatever you could control by your words, you had to put your opponent in the wrong and keep them by exposing the ideas behind their acts and the possible results of those acts, by overcoming your own weakness, and that you could overcome apathy by making an appeal based on real needs, fears, and concerns and by presenting the best possible approach to defeating the opponent, namely finding the weak link in their chain and going after it.

In the case of the Sugar Act, Sam had the ability to control his own delegates, he had the power to get his message into the public through newspapers and speaking, he could build on that by winning the day in the colonial legislator, he exposed the fact that these Acts violated the principle of no taxation without representation and the idea that Parliament now thought it could tax anything, he exposed the potential for the Parliament to tax everything, he identified the disunity of the colonies as their weakness and proposed a a unified plan of action, the non-importation agreement, and he identified the English merchants as the weak link and therefore a non-importation agreement as a unified act of peaceful protest as the best form of resistance.

He did not stop there. He started the boycott, again the word was not in use at the time (it was invented in 1880 in Ireland when tenants boycotted an “Estate Agent” named Charles Boycott), in Boston first, even as he was working to get the colonies to participate in the boycott, which they began to do all over New England. He was active in going to all the political clubs and merchant’s clubs and urging them to each endorse his plan and help to enforce it. These clubs would provide people who would go to all the stores in Boston and look for any goods that had been imported, these people would observe ships brining goods and spy on where they were going, and the newspapers they controlled would actually print the NAMES of those merchants who were violating the agreement urging readers to not patronize those merchants.

A boycott does not work if it cannot be supported. Sam knew that he had to show the rest of the colonies that this non-importation agreement could be maintained and enforced. True, a boycott by the people of Boston may have little effect on the British by itself, but a boycott that was enforceable there could be used as proof of concept.

The Sugar Act was followed by the Stamp Act, which required stamps to be used for printing and various kinds of business or to be stamped onto goods for the sake of getting more revenue from the taxes. Initially, it seemed that Sam was failing, while he was getting support all over the colonies, the process was being hindered by the governors who were suspending legislators in order to prevent them from moving on the call for a congress. Clearly, the enemy then, as now, was seeking to divide and conquer.

The congress did eventually convene as The Stamp Act Congress and both the Sugar Act and the Stamp Act were repealed, although Parliament still claimed the RIGHT to tax the colonies and still clung to their idea of virtual representation.

During the next 10 years, from 1765 to 1775, Sam was to go through many ups and downs, many successes and failures, and often he found himself as a lone voice. When in 1772 he was trying to launch his idea of the Committees of Correspondence, which is the root idea behind our own “Information Committees”, he was again met with apathy.

To say that Samuel Adams dragged the country kicking and screaming into the path of Independence is a most accurate statement.

Sam knew what many did not know, he knew what all these new British policies were intending, that eventually the colonies would be reduced to total serfdom, but rather than complaining about the apathy, he sought to overcome it.

In the case of the Committees of Correspondence, which he saw as a way of getting around the Royal governors who constantly suspended legislatures whenever they opposed the King’s policy, Sam decided to make his opponent demonstrate the NEED that the people did not currently see, for some means by which the People could directly communicate with one another to plan united actions for peaceful resistance.

Sam went back to his Town Meeting and asked them to vote to approve a petition to the Governor to call the legislature into session. In the past, under the Charter of 1690, the Governor would receive the petition from a Town for calling the legislature in session and would generally agree to the petition or respond by offering a different time or, at least, he might request more information.

The Governor would not, back when the Charter was followed, before the new policies of the past 20 years, deny that Town Meetings had a right to ask for such a session, indeed part of the inherent power of Town Meetings was their ability to make such a petition.

Sam knew that the present governor would not be so amenable, that the petition he had seemingly innocently had the Town Meeting pass, would be treated with contempt. It would, in short, fail.

Why did Sam push for this petition knowing that it would be denied, knowing that it would thereby fail?

Same knew that if you want to keep your opponent in the wrong, you had to force them to do wrong publicly. If your opponent had a certain belief, force them to act in a public ways that will make it clear to all what their beliefs are.

The Governor did respond by denying the petition and saying that Town Meetings had no authority at all to make such a request but only the Governor and the King.

Sam knew this was the only possible response and when he had it published far and wide he explained, ever so patiently, even gleefully, that the Governor had just demonstrated what Samuel Adams had long said was true but that too few had understood, that the British and their appointed officials in America were hell bent on eliminating all forms of representative government and reducing the colonists to mere “subjects” who would be powerless before the might of the British Empire.

It was time for the People to create new agencies for communication and united action, it was time to institute a means by which local people could list grievances, compare notes with other communities, and communicate between communities to devise united plans of resistance.

The Town Meeting, aroused by the Governor’s letter, passed the proposal and a 21 member Committee of Correspondence was created. This Committee sent letters to other towns in the Colony and asked them to set up their own Committees to communicate regularly with Boston and other towns. These committees soon spread all over the 13 colonies, sharing information, comparing notes, sharing strategies, maintaining a line of communication that was independent of the Royal authorities, and devising unified actions at the regional level, on the level of the Colony, amongst groups of Colonies, and throughout the whole united 13 colonies.

Sam knew that when the people do not see the need for independent organizations that can serve as an alternative to organizations controlled by the opposition you have to force the opposition to demonstrate how those existing organizations cannot be trusted or used.

Sam was the original blogger, he and a group of friends formed what we would call an information committee and started a newspaper, the Public Advertiser, which was the first, in 1748, to publicly talk about the need to resist the Royal authorities while calling on united actions by all 13 colonies.

Sam knew that time was on his side: his opponents would act in ways that would prove the validity of his suspicions, while most Americans were appeasers, wanting just to get along, they had limits to their tolerance and they would stand up and fight when it became clear that the other side was never going to be satisfied with anything other than abject surrender, and he knew that he could get the truth out, that he could start with just a few people, and eventually, even if it took time, the people were with him in spirit and would eventually follow his warnings and his advice.

Money Can “Buy You Happiness”, But It’s Not What You Think!

Bill Collier July 4, 2021

Bill Collier- The old line reads, “money can’t buy you happiness”, but like “money is the root of all evil” (hint: it’s the LOVE of money that’s the root of all evil), this may be a bit off the mark. But it’s not what you think.

First, let’s stipulate that happiness isn’t dependent on money. You can be happy even if you are quite poor. Being rich and being happy isn’t automatic, but neither is being poor in any way connected to happiness. Happiness can transcend money.

Ecclesiastes 10:9 says, “A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh merry: but money answereth all things.” And Ecclesiastes 7:12 reads, “For wisdom is a defence, and money is a defence: but the excellency of knowledge is, that wisdom giveth life to them that have it.”

This depiction of the value of money isn’t so dismissive, now is it?

The question is, “can money buy you happiness?”

Nothing by itself, other than the love of God, cam guy you happiness. Not even the love of God can buy someone happiness if they reject it or don’t walk in it. Many people who know of and believe in their intellect about God’s love don’t walk in it.

Money can buy you happiness, but it’s more complicated than that. It’s not the money that buys you happiness.

I’ve been poor and well off, and I can tell you, I didn’t like poverty. But I’ve been well off and happy more than I’ve been poor and been happy!

For me, the key secret about how money is a defense and how money amswers all things, as well as how money can, albeit indirectly, “buy happiness”, is how you spend the money.

While having money to pay for things you need and want, within reason, can be good, simply buying things hasn’t really led to happiness for me. For me, money buys me happiness when I invest it in people, whether they show me appreciation or loyalty in return isn’t so much the reason I am happy.

Sowing into people’s lives or even employing people who are good, solid people with or without money, is immensely satisfying. The giver truly gains! I have seen how giving someone an opportunity to make decent money when they deserve a break can transform their lives, and being a part of that truly causes happiness.

I have also been gifted money at the right time. This didn’t just bring me relief because I had less stress, it touched my soul that someone cared enough for me to help me in this way.

The idea that money can’t buy you happiness isn’t rooted in the Bible or in life’s reality. It cannot buy you happiness by itself, certainly not if wisdom isn’t applied to how you use it. Being rich or poor aren’t themselves the sole factor here. I have had happiness when I was poor and when I was well off.

I suspect this notion “money can’t buy you happiness” may rank up there with “money is the root of all evil” or something like “smart people don’t have common sense.” When people stop striving for better, they tend to justify why the “better” thing isn’t really valuable at all. This is abject surrender, apathy about your plight.

I’d be hesitant to say outright that money can buy you happiness, but I would say that how you use money can cause happiness.

I definitely seek more wealth and prosperity. I seek this because money is a defense in times of crisis, it is a way to answer all things so I don’t have to fall under the influence or control of others, and, it is a wat of investing in people in order to experience the happiness that comes from transforming lives and seeing others reach their potential.

If you want money to consume it for purely material things, well, getting a lot of things won’t make you happy. I have things, things I like, especially relics of history, including some classic cars. But while I enjoy these things, I have been known to give them away when someone really needed them or when I realized they may never get anything like that but I could get another.

Things I hold I only feel are temporary. They are nice and enjoyable, but not essential. And what I do spend on things doesn’t come close to what I spend on people. This has always been more important to me.

Relationships are the brass ring of this life, other than loving God and walking in His love. Having money so you can invest in people and having money so you can be independent and be prepared are all ways how you spend money can lead to happiness.

Do not eschew getting money, do not think being poor is essential to happiness or being rich leads to unhappiness. Being well off, I am not rich, has only made me happy when I used wisdom in how money is a defense and answers all things and in how I invested in people.

I would certainly like to to have hundreds of millions of dollars, but well over 99% would be invested in ambitions to provide things that liberate and enrich millions of other people. My desire is to increase my care for others because, aside from God and my closets family and friends, nothing brings me more happiness.

Don’t be so quick to say money can’t buy you happiness. This may be a cop-out for not striving to value yourself more justly or to work harder and smarter to grow your income potential. Chances are, you deserve more and if you used wisdom and hard work, you would have more.

Lateral Warfare In The Coming Decades

Bill Collier July 3, 2021

Lateral warfare will impact almost everyone within a destabilized society through multiple pressures designed to change the power paradigm and alter existing boundaries. It may not even involve military or violent means, but its goal is to overturn existing boundaries and to alter the existing power paradigm.

Basically, in a lateral warfare situation, a society is in a constant state of war within itself. Everything from family relationships to banking and from entertainment to social interactions is weaponized or is used to distinguish between the in-group and the out-group.

Violence or military actions may or may not be the end result. A society with plenty of noise, dirty tricks, renouncements of people, and polarization in every arena, where everything becomes a political brawl, is in the throes of lateral warfare. This is qualified by the standard that its insurgents mean to change the power paradigm and/or boundaries within society.

Whoever you are, wherever you are, the impacts of lateral warfare will put pressures on your life, one way or another.

“Lateral pressure” refers to any tendency (or propensity) of individuals and societies to expand their activities and exert influence and control beyond their established boundaries, whether for economic, political, military, scientific, religious, or other purposes, according to a Wikipedia entry.

Lateral warfare is a form of warfare that may be quite indirect, subversive, and covert but that is designed to excert real influence beyond the boundaries normally imposed on the insurgents, be they armed or not. Unlike asymmetric warfare, which is basically two very unevenly matched opponents where one use unconventional means to equalize the fight, lateral warfare may not even necessarily involve any apparent military or violent activity.

The concept of lateral warfare is difficult to grasp and may be difficult to implement by insurgents against an established order because its implementation as a strategy is so multi-faceted and multi-dimensional. Lateral warfare will likely begin to occur as insurgent groups, we are using insurgent for any group desiring to upset or change the established order and boundaries, become more sophisticated about the multiplicity of cyber, sociocultural, economic, and information channels available for them to engage in boundary-moving activities.

Lateral warfare may eventually involve actual violence, but it may also never use violence. The key thing is the out-group to the power-holders and favored groups is seeking deliberately, through some entity or entities guided by its cause, to change the power paradigm and change the boundaries.

Creating real loss to the opponent and rewarding adherants with benefits are the key aspects of lateral warfare. If exposing a key leader or damaging a brand will hurt the opponents and if generating popular financial backing for a business deemed beneficial to the insurgents will reward adherants, the net effect is the number and socioeconomic power level of the insurgents grows at the expense of the holders of dominant power.

The key thing about lateral warfare is that it is viewed as an existential battle by its practitioners and their goal is to either alter the boundaries of society or to completely overturn the existing power paradigm. This is not mere political opposition.

Cyber warfare, social and economic pressure, information and misinformation campaigns, political activism, and perhaps even some forms of violence, from rioting to targeted acts, may typify this type of warfare. It is especially more likely to occur when the power holders are out of touch with a society that has collectively lost its moral compass or organic cohesiveness.

There are no front lines and nor are purely military or violent actions the limits. Every aspect of human society that can be influenced through pressure to bend to the will of the insurgents becomes the battlefield and every single individual and their life becomes the field of action.

Lateral warfare is not “the future of warfare”, it is, however, within the realm of future forms and methods of warfare in keeping with the information age. Increasingly, within societies where there is a lack of a moral compass or organic cohesiveness and where the power paradigm is typified by rulers who are out of touch with the people, individuals become either warriors on one side or somehow targets for influence and control.

Is Hostile Out-Group Click-Bait Leading To Social Disintegration?

Bill Collier July 3, 2021

It isn’t really unexpected news to hear that a recent study by the National Academy of Sciences of The United States of America exposed the simple fact that going hostile and negative gets more engagement.

The study reveals:

…. posts about the political out-group were shared or retweeted about twice as often as posts about the in-group. Each individual term referring to the political out-group increased the odds of a social media post being shared by 67%. Out-group language consistently emerged as the strongest predictor of shares and retweets: the average effect size of out-group language was about 4.8 times as strong as that of negative affect language and about 6.7 times as strong as that of moral-emotional language—both established predictors of social media engagement.

Click-bait that is negative about the out-group gets more clicks, therefore, to get more clicks, people use hostile out-group click-bait, and in doing so perpetuate the disintegration of society. We don’t just disagree, we condemn. We revile. Or so the theory runs.

But is this a chicken or the egg scenario? Does the penchant of the masses for more engagement about the out-group, a tendency for angry reactions to get more engagement, reflect sentiment or is the phenomenon of online flame wars actually the source of the division?

Considering the source of the study, one wonders if the conclusion being sought isn’t a new call to somehow further tighten the reins on speech while focusing only on the “angry out-group language” of the “right” while pretending it doesn’t come from the left.

However, to credit this study, conducted in November of 2020 and released in late January 2021, this phenomenon was documented across the board for left and right. Both groups tended to give more engagement, and therefor more clicks, to out-group hostility than to saying good things about their in-group.

Click-bait, which is content that is sensationalized to get clicks even though the truth is far from that sensational, tends toward out-group hostility. And, moreover, hostile out-group click-bait tends to get more engagement when the source is a leading political figure than if it is a news site.

But what if the “other side” really are being awful? What if the myth “it takes two to tangle” isn’t true, what of one group is in fact pushing all the wrong buttons and doing all the wrong things? If, for instance, our condemnation of woke neocomm totalitarianism, with outright demands to censor and cancel the right and sic the entire “anti-terrorism” apparatus on them, contributing to the division or is it actually just honest reporting?

We are certainly not guilty of only zinging the left for bad behavior, our true north is pro-freedom and anti-authoritarianism. When we see “the right” being authoritarian we are just as ready to decry that. For instance, the “war on terror”, the “Patriot Act”, and NSA spying, all favorites of the right in their inception, were always viewed by us as totalitarian responses.

But because our audience, and generally our content, tends to overlap more to the right than the left, albeit not entirely, content about authorian offenses by those considered on the right gets less engagement and fewer views.

The tendency of both sides to resort to ham-fisted reactionary and authoritarian policies in response to their political opponents is becoming worrying. Decrying this may get more clicks, but if the substance is truth, then the problem is with the trend toward authoritarianism.

On the other hand, many of the more outrageous content peddled by left and right to get clicks isn’t substantively true and only serves to falsely demonize the out-group.

The bottom line is that, while actual trends toward authoritarian reactions to things one’s political opponents do is growing, the use of hostile out-group click-bait is exasperating the problem and actually leading to more and more authoritarianism.

Xi Speech: China Returns To Brutal Totalitarianism and Seeks World Dominion

Bill Collier July 2, 2021

Chinese President Xi Jinping made a 100th anniversary speech on July 1 that set a new, more strident tone at home and abroad. Xi demanded loyalty, called for more militarism, threatened to return to a more Marxist economic system, threatened China’s neighbors, and called for the advancement of China’s totalitarian system around the world.

In essence, China is becoming as much an existential threat as the USSR, perhaps moreso because our country is so entangled with them economically and because our ruling class essentially want to be China, albeit with the corporate monopolies using the state and not the other way around.

Lest we forget, China’s Marxism is brutality at home and imperialism abroad, the aim being a global communist empire.

Missing from the festivities, as if celebrating totalitarian wokeness ala Mao Zedong is even possible, was the military parade. This may be a sign of growing disconent in the military ranks as, while being missing, the PLA was urged to show loyalty and devotion, which many mean this is a problem.

At home, Xi has been burnishing his image as a successor to Mao and has begun rolling back China’s liberalization of the economy and of any semblance of freedom. Arrests and a social credit system that suppresses dissent are all part of the Chinese system or absolute control. Many Americans of the woke communist variety can only envy Xi.

By this speech, Xi, in his effort to gain the support of the 95 million Party members who lord it over the rest of society, is signaling a fresh and open aggressiveness against internal and foreign foes on par with the worse days of the USSR.

Stocks in China and Hong Kong tumbled as news of the extreme language of the speech got out. Xi warned that anyone who tries to bully China “will face broken heads and bloodshed.”

It is often forgotten that China’s system is totalitarian Marxism. His own words confirm this view:

We must continue to adapt Marxism to the Chinese context. Marxism is the fundamental guiding ideology upon which our Party and country are founded; it is the very soul of our Party and the banner under which it strives. The Communist Party of China upholds the basic tenets of Marxism and the principle of seeking truth from facts. Based on China’s realities, we have developed keen insights into the trends of the day, seized the initiative in history, and made painstaking explorations.

We have thus been able to keep adapting Marxism to the Chinese context and the needs of our times, and to guide the Chinese people in advancing our great social revolution. At the fundamental level, the capability of our Party and the strengths of socialism with Chinese characteristics are attributable to the fact that Marxism works.

Of course there is nothing factual about Marxism and Marxism doesn’t work. China’s success is almost entirely to the credit of Western sycophants who traded short-term material gain for economic arrangements that benefited China at the expense of the American people. The “new model” for Marxism is not to just use the state but to proactively control and use the corporation.

China’s totalitarian vision with the triple threat of woke authoritarian platforms and their social credit system, the corporate and financial sector monopolism that serves the Party, and a ruthless state that labels dissent “domestic terrorism”, is envied by America’s ruling class.

But China is also announcing by this speech a drive for global empire, an international neocomm order controlled by Beijing, although puppets in “allied states” may be given autonomy. China seeks world domination, of that there cannot be any mistake.

China is returning to a more brutal totalitarianism and is moving outward toward a new communist imperialism aimed straight at the United States of America.

Have The Ruling Class Set The World On Fire?

Bill Collier July 2, 2021

The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor, which our publisher has a joint venture agreement with, published the top 10 “crises” being used to increase total control over our lives by the ruling class.

The crises include things like immigration, the pandemic, and other “crises” that threaten a world on fire from destroying all life, or something that dire. From bogeymen to scapegoats, each crises is a way to turn the screws and increase pressure and confusion.

Some of these crises may be wholly real but exploited, partially real but somewhat manufactured, or completely manufactured. All seem overwhelming and cry out for some sort of massive, centralized response at the national to global scale.

The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor details each and explains their use. (You will need to subscribe to the free starter kit to see the details.) Other items in this issue are equally informative and will fortify you with a more predictive analysis of future and emerging trends.

From a Freedomist perspective, in general, when we start hearing the drums beat in harmony from all sources about a “crisis”, we tend to become very wary and suspicious of what is happening. Even if the crisis is real, the proposed solutions are always meant to transfer more wealth and power from those who create it through work to those who do nothing but lord it over society.

If it always seems the world is on fire, this doesn’t mean it is. It may also just mean the ruling class have found a new way to scare and bully people into surrendering more of their agency and spiritual sovereignty as people made in God’s image to human rulers.

Prescriptions for overcoming these crises and finding gaps for freedom are the focus of much of our content. The way these crises are manufactured or hyped through massive indoctrination is a real cause of concern as, manufactured or not, each crisis tends to hurt real and innocent people.

Preparedness for the things the McAlvany Intelligence Advisor predicts, and they have a good track record of accuracy for over 45 years, is about more than stockpiles of supplies. Having good connections and relationships to people who have each other’s back and pursuing a path of independency through mutual self-reliance and personal financial and material sustainability, outside systems of influence and control, is vital.

The top 10 crises whereby the ruling class seek to control us need not become crises that harm ourselves and our families.

Disinformation Is Counter-Revolutionary, Version 2.0

Bill Collier July 2, 2021

The Soviet state was all about “protecting” people from “misinformation” because it was counter-revolutionary. The revolution was all good and everything not of the revolution was all bad and needed to be punished or banished, or exterminated. People who weren’t OK with all this were reactionaries, extremists, and traitors and all had to be canceled, as it were, from any place of good standing, sent to re-education camps, or eliminated.

What is disinformation? It’s whatever the rulers deem it to be. If they say a theory about the origins of a certain ailment plaguing society is misinformation, then you get canceled or banished for saying it. If later that misinformation proves to be accurate, they memory hole their first reaction and move on to the next things they deem misinformation.

Folks, welcome to Misinformation Is Counter-Revolutionary 2.0, where the Soviet state’s role is now played by the government and mega corporate monopolies, all working hand-in-hand to protect us poor slobs from anything that doesn’t support the ruling class.

If you are on social media platforms you have likely encountered this or you know someone who has. The effort to shun, shame, and bully people into towing the party line, or to banish those who won’t, is real. Unless you are slavishly devoted to the Party, a novel form of authoritarianism we can best desribe as corporate “woke communism”, you find the screws are turning against you.

The digital space is mostly governed by and for the benefit and advancement of the woke communists, by whatever name they call themselves. The end goal seems clear enough-suppress or remove any voices that conflict with their corporate aims, which also happen to be quite compatible with the woke communists.

But it’s not the digital space alone that is being impacted by this new breed of authoritarianism. The latest new US strategic vision for counterterrorism is to focus on the white supremacy bogeyman, and of course the definition for this domestic terrorism is essentially anyone who isn’t a woke communist or one of its corporate backers. Vague commitments to respect free speech are laughable. The ruling class desire more control and the woke communist ideology, ill defined and not at all identical to historic state-communism, is a convenient path to power. This new strategic vision for counterterrorism appear to hinge on terrorizing the dissenters.

The necessity of finding gaps for freedom, which are legal and technology-based solutions that make you more independent financially and materially, is becoming stronger. If you maintain dependency on the predominant structures, like social media or big finance, the corporate farm, and the such, it is likely your opportunity to be a free and spiritually sovereign person will shrink.

Fortunately, so far, the woke communists of our day aren’t yet taking to literally rounding people up on a mass scale and tossing them all into gulags. They are attempting to slow walk their revolution, every day showing new and more insidious, but not necessarily government imposed, restrictions aimed at “misinformation.”

It is true, there is a misinformation problem, and some of it isn’t the government and the corporate behemoths themselves. But most of it is coming from the very entities that spend the most time trying to find new ways to banish those they accuse of spreading this counter-revolutionary misinformation! The platforms acting as gatekeepers at the behest of the Democratic Party and the government really may fancy themselves as guardians against the hobgoblin of misinformation, but they are really just new Soviets and don’t even know it.

We must continue to work toward the emergence of new ways to connect and share information outside the control of the woke communist corporate backers. It is clear, their desire to control absolutely everything in the service of their authoritarianism is becoming greater. The woke communists, many of whom do not consider their view of the world to fit that description, have increasingly little tolerance for anyone who dares to spread what they call misinformation but what is really just opinions or facts that don’t support the Party Line.

Our response in part is this digital publication, The Freedomist, and our future platform, The Virtual Commonwealth of Upadaria, among other projects. We will build the digital gaps for freedom and we will use the existing platforms and digital space as best we can to draw an audience and present a path of freedom and prosperity.

We recognize that the woke communists are not all-powerful, many don’t even realize what spirit they are of, and that there remains many untapped gaps for freedom we can use to create and invent our way around their influence and control.

Support our efforts and become a subscriber! JOIN US NOW! CLICK HERE

Unique Perspectives Focused On Freedom and Prosperity For All

Bill Collier July 1, 2021

Predictable. That is what most other content providers are giving you. The ones to the right and the ones to the left all sound similar, most use the AP stylebook, which literally dictates what kind of words apply to different scenarios or rules about headlines.

(*As a brief aside, yes, we continue to use the Oxford Comma. Not using it makes no sense.)

If you have a true north pointed at freedom and prosperity for all, to some degree your content should be predictable, based in principle. But the predictability of most content today is more tribal: the right will rally around and defend anything they think is in their tribe, and so will the left. Likewise, everything associated with the other tribe is always bad. That’s not principled, that’s a shallow tribalism that shouldn’t inform a respectable digital publication.

Like his 1940 Ford restomod, Publisher Bill Collier combines old-fashioned and cutting edge in a unique way, all for your edification.

The Freedomist aspires to many things, which we hope to get better and better at. But when someone recently asked me what the value proposition of the Freedomist was right now, I said, “originality” and, at the same time, “consistency.”

The engaged audience for the Freedomist will find content that is true and inspiring that doesn’t even sound like everyone else’s content. We have a different style, in some ways more old-fashioned and in many others very future-looking. We tend to believe in the art of wordsmithing and the science of accurate reporting.

This content should show you new perspectives, and yet remain consistent with our core focus on freedom and prosperity for all, it should be original and unique, it should be inspirational and entertaining, and it should also give you concrete ideas you can use to become more free and prosperous yourself.

Our perspective is that individuals, marriages, families, extended families, communities of trust, and local communities are all the prime mover of human civilization. Mega corporations and the state are not, or, should not, be so powerful as to drown out these human scale structures which nurture us within warm and accepting relationships.

Above, screenshot showing Publisher Bill Collier’s interview with Mike Pence, back in the Dontgo Movement, which was the precursor to the Tea Party.

If we come off as conservative or to the right, it may be the tribalism of the left, which pigeonholes everything not of them, and not state-centered, as “to the right.” But in truth, the Freedomist, like you perhaps, doesn’t neatly fit into any of these molds. Our concern for issues of actual bigotry, intolerance, and injustice may not so easily fit the “right wing” epithet the left-authoritarians like to toss around so carelessly.

Publisher Bill Collier, having breakfast with Buzz Aldrin, a real American and global hero!

Who am I as the Publisher of The Freedomist and owner of both Regal Blue Media and Freedomist LLC’s? The short answer is I have been an intelligence analyst, newsmaker, newspaper publisher, marketing and PR professional and provider, activist organizer, minister, and author, among other roles. My unique perspective and experience, spanning 30 years, has given me an immersive and intimate knowledge and understanding of how things really are and my deep Christian faith and philosophical foundations has given direction to that experience.

Pictured Publisher Bill Collier on MSNBC

I have moved millions to vote this way or that, broke major news and exposed corrupt leaders, and sat with some of the most influential people in modern history. My vision for the future is one based on a firm desire and commitment to extend freedom and prosperity to all people. Whether this is by influencing policy or through just showing people better ways to increase wealth or make themselves more free, the idea is to do all I can, where I can, when I can.

Below: what others said about me and the coauthor of “The Capitalist Manifesto.”

Our model is subscription based. Our aim in this is to cut out any need to resort to mega corporate backing or to seek major donors or backers in exchange for loss of control. But beyond this, we hope, through such subscriber-based crowfunding to build a nationwide digital network of Freedomists who will work to find ways to advocate for and build freedom and prosperity in their own lives.

I have personally, and my brother Paul has also, been laboring to improve and develop the Freedomist product and brand since 2007. We remain essentially the same but more mature and wise, we hope you will agree. In all our interations and evolutions, we have always come back to the center, which is to advocate for and promote freedom and prosperity for all.

Publisher Bill Collier meeting in the Knesset with then Deputy Foreign Minister of Israel, Tzipi Hotovely, representing The Samaritan Medal Foundation.

For most of this time, the Freedomist has been self-funded through other business endeavors. But it is my desire to make it financially self-sustaining so we can focus more on content development and features development.

In the end YOU DECIDE if this content is worth at least $5.99/month or not. We think it is and we hope it is, but only you can say it is and decide to back our broader freedom-building efforts while getting interesting, original content that motivates, educates, and inspires.

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Starlink (Satellite Internet) Goes Live In Weeks

Bill Collier July 1, 2021

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is set to go live with a massive global network of small satellites providing internet to people in less developed regions in rural zones where internet service is lacking. The service will reach a level wherein they can confidently say they are reaching the entire planet, except for the polar regions, by August.

The network, with only 69,000 subscribers, is predicted to potentially gain 5% of the world’s population as its user base within a few years. Musk’s great hope is that the company doesn’t go bankrupt first, as this project will cost $5 billion to $10 billion before it reaches projected positive cash flow.

The service costs $99/month in the US and uses a network of 1500 satellites (and growing as new launches are ongoing) with a planned total of 42,000 by the end of 2021. To get a sense of scale, there are around 7400 total satellites in space, with a little over half being active and the rest being inactive.

A key innovation of the service is that, while current satellite internet providers have satellites at 22,200 MILES from the earth’s surface, Musk’s are only 342 miles. This means that the signal has less time to travel, decreasing latency.

Latency is the time it takes for your internet signal to travel from your computer to your ISP, to the website server, and then back to you. Longer latency can cause delays in live communications. While other satellite internet providers have a latency of around 500 to 600 microseconds, about half a second, Starlink has a latency of around 39.

Latency is a major hurdle satellite internet providers face.

The other is price. For instance, the price for Starlink in South Africa is 1,450 rand, around $99. So it’s not any cheaper in South Africa, which means for more rural Africans, it may be quite out of reach. The cost is the same in Nigeria, at 40,000 nara, which is $99.

Musk’s Starlink may or may not change the world, as it is claimed, and it won’t bring cheap internet to the poorer communities. But it will dramatically change our immediate space, adding over 35,000 new satellites, all in low earth orbit. Time will tell if this will become a major cause of space pollution and if the benefits or low latency, broadband satellite internet for the more well off in rural locations will be worth that price.

Political Prosecutions To The Right, Coverups To The Left

Bill Collier July 1, 2021

The myriad of federal and state laws and regulations individuals, let alone major corporate entities, have to follow mean it is impossible to follow them all unless you are a perfect human being. Basically this means we are all counted as suspects and if some prosecutor decides they want to take us down, they need only spend a few years and million of dollars to manufacture charges against us.

Based on the chicken-scratch “crimes” of not counting benefits properly and therefore not paying taxes on them, a New York political hack prosecutor has ginned up indictments against Trump Organization members and the corporate entity itself. The goal is to roast the victims until they offer something juicy to eventually put Trump in chains.

This is blatant abuse and this exposes how the massive, inarticulate, and confusing tax code, plus all the other codes, are not used to protect us but to hamstring us and make it easy to take us down when some hack gets a hankering for our hides.

To the right, as in to anyone on the right who becomes a vocal critic of the left, it’s all political prosecutions based on the smallest violations of laws and regulations none of us can possibly follow. But, to the left, even when laws are blatantly violated, as in Hilary Clinton’s illegal private server, the cover-up is in force, officials and prosecutors seek only to make it all no big deal.

One wonders how all this will play out, whether the intended victims, anyone to the right of Marx it seems, will take this lying down. If indeed a former President and billionaire can be taken down on some petty and inconsequential charges, when the likelihood every lefty billionaire is doing MUCH WORSE every day, then who is safe?

The need to destroy Trump is really a desire to put the rest of us in our place.

But will we go quietly into the night?