“Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.” ― 1984
George Rebane
Given that the world will always have at least one hegemon, it is therefore imperative that America should always remain a hegemon - Rebane Doctrine.
A prime objective of RR over its now considerable lifespan has been the discovery, discussion, and dissemination of the resurgence of global collectivism under its various guises. This enterprise has been promoted under various names and transnational programs, possibly the earliest organized launch occurred thirty years ago during a UN conference in Brazil. There we heard about Agenda 21 (A21) and read its manifesto for a brave new world populated by a much smaller and tightly controlled population of humans. It was a plan for a ‘sustainable world’ under an overarching collectivist government run by elite technocrats.
The road to A21 was admittedly long and had to be carefully planned and implemented so as not to awaken any early ire to the admitted loss of freedoms, wealth, and quality of life in general in order to redistribute resources to a radically reducing population. The provisions and policies for A21 were to be installed bit by piece at all levels of government, first and foremost at the local level. The cadres to do this would be the local electeds, bureaucrats, and civil servants trained by a global network of A21 offshoots called International Councils for Local Environmental Initiatives (which is now known as ‘ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability’). These government cadres would quietly attend and study the ideological and operational principles of bringing what eventually came to be called neo-Marxist thought to shape and control local societies and economics.
Locally in Nevada County, almost all county staff at the managerial level have attended our regional ICLEI. This is replicated state and nationwide. California leads America in the number of ICLEIs, and America leads the world. Managed from over 20 offices around the globe, more than 1,750 cities, towns, counties, and their associations in 126 countries are a part of the ICLEI network. These many trails and tributaries to socialism are purposely ignored and unreported by leftwing media, and surprisingly also ignored by right-leaning outlets.
Today the US is being reconfigured (“fundamentally transformed”) socio-politically to prepare for its place in the new global order under a central power structure run by a cadre of elites immune from the policies they will mandate for the population at large.
A large literature has come in place to promote, analyze, and oppose what was introduced as the ‘Great Reset’ at the 2020 World Economic Forum (WEF) held in Davos. The Great Reset is now the latest refinement of what began as the UN’s Agenda 21 lately renamed Agenda 2030. As long documented here, on the surface these ‘agendas’ are lists of “Sustainable Development Goals” re-adopted in 2015 to reduce world population to a more controllable level that can be corralled into high-density population centers connected by a limited number of transportation corridors.
Rectenwald’s piece is the best entry point for those wishing to inform themselves on the planned Great Reset. I strongly recommend it to our readers. Googling ‘The Great Reset’ will introduce you to the literature on the topic. And reading Victor Davis Hanson’s recent piece ‘The Real Reset is Coming’ seeks to spread some hope that this fall’s election will stunt the progress toward a global socialist utopia of sustainable equity.
Rectenwald assures us that the Great Reset is not “a conspiracy theory imagining a vast left-wing plot to establish a totalitarian one-world government.” “The Great Reset is real” and intended “as a means of addressing the ‘weaknesses of capitalism’ that were purportedly exposed by the COVID pandemic.” Today’s capitalism is to be replaced by “stakeholder capitalism” (also called ‘corporate socialism’ and ‘communist capitalism’), which requires that “the management of a modern enterprise (which) must serve not only shareholders but all stakeholders to achieve long-term growth and prosperity.” Such management will be executed by the central elite of a new world order.
Broad public acceptance of the Great Reset will be directed in terms of the widespread fear of future Covid-like pandemics and the continued elevation of preventable man-made global warming hysteria. The WEF declaration specifically states that these crises are not to be wasted. Specifically, the WEF’s Great Reset goal is “to advance the ‘UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’.” (see above)
In this remake of capitalism, the participating corporate elites like BlackRock, Google, Facebook, et al will fashion an “Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) index to squeeze non-woke corporations and businesses out of the market. The ESG index is essentially a social credit score that is used to drive ownership and control of production away from the non-woke or non-compliant.”
“While approved corporations are not necessarily monopolies, the tendency of the Great Reset is toward monopolization—vesting as much control over production and distribution in as few favored corporations as possible, while eliminating industries and producers deemed non-essential or inimical. To bring this reset about, every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed.”
The Great Reset is actually the worldwide launch of ‘Chinese capitalism’ as the stepping stone to ultimate communism as also envisioned by the CCP. During this phase “governance is not only increasingly privatized, but also and more importantly, corporations are deputized as major additions to governments and intergovernmental bodies. The state is thereby extended, enhanced, and augmented by the addition of enormous corporate assets. As such, corporations become what (Rectenwald has) called ‘governmentalities’—otherwise private organizations wielded as state apparatuses, with no obligation to answer to pesky voters. Since these corporations are multinational, the state essentially becomes globalist, whether or not a one-world government is ever formalized.”
For WEF globalists (that includes today’s Democrats) the 4th Industrial Revolution (4-IR) will include and take advantage of the coming transhumanist Singularity. However, rather than celebrate such a future (a la Ray Kurzweil et al), 4-IR will enable the state to “subject human beings to a kind of technological management that makes surveillance by the NSA look like child’s play.”
Rectenwald ends his essay “on a note of hope. Because the goals of the Great Reset depend on the obliteration not only of free markets, but of individual liberty and free will, it is, perhaps ironically, unsustainable. Like earlier attempts at totalitarianism, the Great Reset is doomed to ultimate failure. That doesn’t mean, however, that it won’t, again like those earlier attempts, leave a lot of destruction in its wake—which is all the more reason to oppose it now and with all our might.” (emphasis mine)
Finally, I end with a comment on VDH’s piece ‘The Real ‘Reset’ Is Coming’. The good professor begins with highlighting the current travesties of the Biden administration in their support of the WEF Great Reset objectives. However, after all is said and done then “in truth, we are about to see a radical reset - of the current reset. It will be a different sort of transformation than the elites are expecting and one that they should greatly fear.”
Hanson sees the American electorate awakening to all the mistakes and misdirections with which the Democrats have saddled our country. (E.g. "’modern monetary theory’, that silly university idea claimed prosperity would follow vastly expanding the money supply, keeping interest rates at de facto zero levels, running huge annual deficits, piling up unsustainable national debt, and subsidizing workers to stay home.”)
“Closed and secure borders with only legal and measured immigration will return. Americans will demand tough police enforcement and deterrent sentencing, and a return to integration and the primacy of individual character rather than separatist fixations on the ‘color of our skin. … The public will continue to tune out of the partisan and mediocre ‘mainstream’ media. We will see greater increased production of oil and natural gas to transition us slowly to a wider variety of energy, strong national defense, and deterrent foreign policies. … The prophets of the new world order sowed the wind and they will soon reap the whirlwind of an angry public worn out by elite incompetence, arrogance, and ignorance.”
As for me, I see any happening of America’s Great Divide as being sand into the gears the Great Reset. No matter how we can stop it, we have hope from Victor Davis Hanson’s mouth to God’s ear.
Well jeez, collectivism is easy enough to achieve (let's say that collectivism is simply the coalescing of control into larger and larger units).
You simply have to provide enough incentives for people to benefit from the thing. They either think they'll get something for free (or low low cost), or, more importantly, provide a ladder for those who are unable or disinclined to do anything useful for a living.
I'm sure that our local non-profit chieftains would happily become part of a bigger machine if that machine provide advancement opportunities.
Remove the incentive, remove the tendency.
Our host might disagree, but I think the stage was set with the death of self-employment. At one time, practically everyone worked on a family farm or a very small business. The English who founded the country had a sense of individualism built around self sufficiency.
The minute you take the Queen's shilling in a truly large organization and (especially) become dependent on it, there's a chisel applied to a person's character that binds them to the wheel. There's a price to be paid for cutting back on fiscal uncertainty.
Posted by: scenes | 01 April 2022 at 12:38 PM
scenes 1238pm - Your host does indeed agree that "the death of self-employment" was and continues to be a major milestone of killing the entrepreneurial spirit on the road to collectivism. The collectivist despises small units of commerce that, in making a profit, illuminate the sloth and inefficiencies to which every large organization eventually succumbs - it's a law of nature, among which resides human nature.
Posted by: George Rebane | 01 April 2022 at 01:25 PM
" The collectivist despises small units of commerce"
I'd say that it's not just that, but that the collectivee (is that a word?) has his edges worn off through employeedom.
An employee, particularly of a large company or organization, becomes more accepting of the yoke generally.
But, ya know, you can get health insurance that way.
Posted by: scenes | 01 April 2022 at 01:51 PM
moi@1:51PM
So, just to finish up, the later stage industrial revolution leads to collectivism by reprogramming the workers.
Posted by: scenes | 01 April 2022 at 01:53 PM
"We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us"
Late stage 20th century socialist saying.
Posted by: Gregory | 01 April 2022 at 04:58 PM
"The DEI training will continue until morale improves"
Early stage Crazytown saying.
Posted by: scenes | 02 April 2022 at 07:32 AM
Speaking of Great Resets, I think we've got a problem.
https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/gazprom-halts-gas-shipments-europe-critical-pipeline
Yesterday, I was going to post up Gazprom shutting down Euro offices, but this is more interesting.
The news means nothing of course, there has to be a wild amount of behind-the-scenes negotiations going on. ..or it could simply be that the Russians spent a month getting their ducks in a row selling to China and will simply cut everyone else off at the knees.
Posted by: scenes | 02 April 2022 at 09:02 AM
Great Reset #3
https://www.bullionstar.com/blogs/ronan-manly/russian-ruble-relaunched-linked-to-gold-and-commodities-rt-com-q-and-a/
I like the theory, even if it's from a goldbug, but there are a lot of Unintended Consequences when you start messing with a country with little debt and a lot of raw materials to sell to the neighbors.
Posted by: scenes | 02 April 2022 at 09:36 AM
GR #3 leads me to a good theory that involves the original post.
Great Reset #4
" Western elites are exploiting the Ukraine conflict to lower the standard of living
It seems to be a continuation of the trend where you must sacrifice for the greater global good or be ostracized by the thought police "
https://www.rt.com/news/552626-ukraine-conflict-living-standard/
I guess it's just pure happenstance that the way to Defeat the Russkies is to have super-high gas prices and rampant inflation on food, etc.
It has nothing to do with the fact that the folks running the show have an interest in shelling the economy in order to either save the world (ie. global warming and the death of cars) or to redirect the public interest away from the men-in-dresses takeover of schools and illegal megaimmigration...or simply mismanagement.
Posted by: scenes | 02 April 2022 at 09:46 AM
scenes 9:36 - "...when you start messing with a country with little debt and a lot of raw materials to sell to the neighbors."
Golly - that could have been us!
I asked my Kansas relatives last October what percentage of our corn goes for ethanol and they told me 1/2. Great to hear we throw 1/2 of our corn crop into our tanks instead of feeding humans. Have to keep our priorities straight. Sorry world. Sucks to be you!
Posted by: Scott O | 03 April 2022 at 09:52 PM
"throw 1/2 of our corn crop into our tanks instead of feeding humans. "
Given that the EROI on corn-based ethanol is so bad (1.4 according to a meta-analysis I ran into), it's essentially a waste of time.
Therefore, the business of growing corn for fuel is the perfect mission for modern day America. I say they should carry on and appreciate the humor of the situation. The only thing better would be DEI training for Kansas corn farmers.
Posted by: scenes | 04 April 2022 at 07:22 AM
Corn ethanol is an abomination used to dilute rye and malted barley ethanol.
Posted by: Gregory | 04 April 2022 at 08:15 AM