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Doug Casey Exposes the Real Issues Behind the H-1B Controversy

Editor — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 01:00:00 +0000

by Doug Casey International Man

International Man: Vivek Ramaswamy recently faced backlash for supporting the H-1B visa program and criticizing American culture.

Many saw his comments as endorsing replacement immigration for highly paid tech jobs (link).

What’s your take?

Doug Casey: Unfortunately, he’s mostly right about US workers. Their work ethic has been corrupted by cradle-to-grave benefits, class resentment, and a general degradation of Western values—something we’ve often discussed.

But importing Indians won’t improve the culture, it’ll further destroy what’s left of American culture. Maintaining the culture, not a few low-level jobs is the main problem that we’re facing. The culture is what makes America America. It’s a belief in Western virtues and the cultivation of a high-trust society.

America is held together by common values and beliefs. Those things are not enforced by police but by peer pressure, moral opprobrium, and social approbation. Importing massive numbers of people from a radically different culture with radically different beliefs and habits will change the best things about America and could tear the social fabric.

I’ve been to over 150 countries, lived in ten, and read a lot of history. My view is that Western Civilization stands like a Colossus above any and all other civilizations. Here’s the link to where I list them.

It’s not just a question of some people losing their jobs. To start with, “jobs” don’t belong to anybody. No one has a right to any job, certainly not by virtue of where he was born. That’s apart from the probability that humanoid robots equipped with AI will eliminate most “jobs” over the next decade.

In the meantime, mass migration is a serious matter. Canada, for instance, is a country of 40 million people. But it’s importing about a million and a half immigrants per year. Most of them are from the subcontinent, and it’s completely changing the nature of the country. I’ve often joked that if you like real diversity, then Canada should import 50 million Third Worlders—most of whom are antagonistic to each other as well as the natives. This is what’s going on today. Here’s a link to a recent interview I did with Jayant Bhandari on this topic. I urge everyone now reading this to watch it.

International Man: What would ideal hiring policies look like in a free society?

How would they compare to today’s reality?

Doug Casey: They’d be radically different. Employers and prospective employees could drop their respective masks of political correctness and deal with each other honestly. The best person for a job is the one with appropriate skills and abilities. It’s truly stupid to hire a second-rater because of his race, origins, or sexual preferences.

The question boils down to: How to solve the migrant problem, whether they’re legal with H-1B visas or illegal, who just streamed across the border?

The answer is to eliminate welfare. And by that, I mean 100% of all welfare, in any form, for absolutely everybody—no benefits of any type from the government. There were absolutely zero benefits for immigrants in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

They arrived penniless and had to make their own way. That’s in complete contrast to today’s arrivals, who can get free food, lodging, medical care, cell phones, and cash. Instead of drawing in the best kind of people, opportunity seekers who came with nothing and wanted to make their own way. We’re now drawing in people who expect to get all kinds of goodies if they can just cross the border. That’s one problem.

It’s compounded by the fact that today’s immigrants don’t share the culture and values of Western civilization. They’re of alien race, religion, language, culture, value, beliefs and habits.

Migrants don’t present a problem in small quantities; they’re typically a net plus. As an individual, I choose my friends and associates strictly based on their merit and moral character. But as a resident of Denver or Vancouver, I don’t want to be involuntarily transplanted to Karachi, Lagos, or Tegucigalpa.

There is, however, about zero chance that the suggestions I just made will be implemented. The trend now in motion will likely continue until a genuine crisis is reached.

International Man: What role does the government play in creating unfavorable labor regulations that make hiring Americans less appealing?

Doug Casey: As I’ve often said, since government is organized coercion, its proper role is exclusively to protect citizens from coercion—from abroad with a military and domestically with police.

Things like the Department of Labor, the Department of Commerce, and hundreds of others should be abolished. The vast majority of the roughly 450 governmental departments, bureaus, agencies, and what-have-you are devoted to interfering with how citizens produce and consume. They’re not just unnecessary, they’re destructive.

The same is true of groups that exist under the umbrella of the State, like labor unions. It’s fine for workers to join together voluntarily because of their occupation. People are social and get together with a myriad of mutual interests. Stamp collectors form clubs. The religious have churches. There is nothing wrong with unions. The problem is that they’ve been granted a special status by the government and can legally enforce all kinds of membership prerogatives and costs on society.

Anywhere the State intrudes, it always causes distortions in the way people act. For instance, it’s largely responsible for the foolish meme inducing everyone to get a college degree.

As a result, many millions of young people believe that if they endure four years of irrelevancies and indoctrination, at great expense in time and money, they’re home free. An unfair characterization? No. In fact, government-sponsored student loans have turned the last couple of generations into indentured servants. Most college programs now have a net negative effect.

International Man: As inflation reduces the purchasing power of American wages, it’s no surprise that workers are demanding more. However, this makes them less competitive with cheaper foreign labor.

How does currency debasement factor into the H-1B issue?

Doug Casey: The poor can typically only save with the national currency. A weak currency puts them on a treadmill that makes it hard to accumulate assets which can beat the effects of inflation.

Nor can the poor afford the legal, accounting, and investment advice which might help counter inflation and reduce their tax burden.

Wealth gravitates to the government, which dispenses it mainly to themselves and their cronies; the rich get richer. Currency debasement almost forces people to borrow money to maintain their standard of living. Debt turns workers into indentured servants with no mobility to leave a job.

Purposely importing cheap H-1B labor—whatever its other advantages—puts more pressure on the average worker.

International Man: Argentina has long embraced protectionism, promoted by politicians as a way to safeguard workers.

How did that work out?

What parallels do you see with Trump’s protectionist economic policies, and what might happen if they are implemented?

Doug Casey: In Argentina, protectionism has resulted in the inefficient manufacture of substandard goods. Argentines tried to avoid them, and they were useless for export. Companies lost ground, and workers lost skills. Everybody wound up losing.

Tariffs seemed to make it unnecessary to compete against the rest of the world. As reality asserted itself, it became necessary to subsidize the corporations, who became unprofitable and begged for government subsidies. Workers joined unions, who restricted membership to those with “connections.” The public had a hard time affording even the substandard goods that were produced.

But worst of all, tariffs were a giant step towards further politicizing society.

A politicized society is a war of all against all. It’s a dog-eat-dog society, just the opposite of an unregulated free market society, which is perversely accused of being a dog-eat-dog society.

So what parallels do I see with Trump’s protectionist economic policies?

Most people now recognize that identity politics—where people aren’t viewed as individuals but as members of a race, ethnicity, or gender—are destructive. Trump could wind up creating nationalist identity politics, where in addition to these other things, people’s main identity is as a national group, Americans.

Further, tariffs are inevitably part of what’s called “industrial policy”, where the State inserts itself ever more into the economy and relations between people. It’s a completely anti-freedom concept that inevitably makes enemies of people in foreign countries who (correctly) feel they’re being damaged. Meanwhile, tariffs lower the American standard of living.

Worse, tariffs and embargoes can easily set off wars. Roosevelt’s cutting off exports of oil and steel to the Japanese was the direct cause of their attack on Pearl Harbor. In fact, a country with high tariffs is effectively placing itself under embargo.

The big problem with Trump is that he has neither economic knowledge nor a philosophical core. He doesn’t understand that putting on tariffs is destructive in every way.

On the bright side, Trump will try to undo a lot of stupid and destructive Biden and Obama regulations.

But as he takes away the regulations they put on, I’m afraid he may put on a bunch of new ones. When he removes their bad old taxes, he’s likely some new “good” taxes.

Let me end on a bright note, though. Just be thankful the US narrowly avoided electing Kamala and the Jacobins of the Democrat Party.

Editor’s Note: The truth is, we’re on the cusp of an economic crisis that could eclipse anything we’ve seen before. And most people won’t be prepared for what’s coming.

That’s exactly why bestselling author Doug Casey and his team just released a free report with all the details on how to survive an economic collapse. Click here to download the PDF now.

The post Doug Casey Exposes the Real Issues Behind the H-1B Controversy appeared first on Activist Post.

Prank-O-Rama

Editor — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 22:56:00 +0000

“They found a cure for gluttony. Now do narcissism.” — Peachy Keenan

James Howard Kunstler

Poor “Joe Biden” can’t help himself as the sun sets on his ignominious career. He ordered the American flag to fly at half-staff into January 20, inauguration day, to signal grief and distress at Donald Trump’s swearing-in — not realizing, apparently, that Mr. Trump’s first act in office will be to order the flag raised back up, signaling symbolically the end to America’s grief and distress under “Joe Biden.”

You might wonder: what other sort of vicious mischief the Party of Chaos has in store in the final ramp-up to a momentous change of government? Well, no sooner had ol’ “JB” draped the Wegovy-slenderized neck of Hillary Clinton with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, than Bill Clinton went on ABC’s The View to declare he was “open to talking with [‘President Biden’]” about a preemptive pardon for Hillary.

Say, whu. . . ? What crimes did Bill have in mind that such a pardon might avail? Skolkovo? Uranium One? The Clinton Foundation’s sketchy activities in Haiti after the earthquake there? Bill preemptively mentioned the old emails bidness as a ruse. Nothing to see there, folks, he protested. (Just don’t look anywhere else!)

You must imagine that the incoming Solicitor General, John Sauer’s, first act in office will be to ask SCOTUS for a ruling on the legitimacy of preemptive pardons — blanket pardons for crimes alive perhaps in guilty consciences but nowhere extant as yet in the legal system. The justices might detect a certain logical incoherence in that proposition. “Joe Biden” should have just draped wreaths of garlic around the necks of Mrs. Clinton, Liz Cheney, and Alex Soros (standing in for ol’ George).

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Judge Juan Merchan did not get a medal. He’s warming up for his January 10 stunt of sentencing Mr. Trump for the “felony” of recording a payment to lawyer Michael Cohen as a “legal expense” (times thirty-four) so Democrats can holler “nyah nyah, felon!” as Mr. Trump re-enters the Oval Office. Judge Merchan himself has racked-up an impressive list of federal offenses around deprivation of Mr. Trump’s civil and due-process rights as well as judicial misconduct, obstruction of justice, and abuse of power. Justice may await the judge.

Today, January 6, of course, is electoral vote certification day in a joint session of Congress. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) has been making noises about contesting certification on the grounds that Mr. Trump is an “insurrectionist” under the disqualification clause in Section 3 of the 14^th Amendment. Don’t be surprised if Jamie makes a show of it to justify all his loose talk, but it will only be a performance. He might as well bring a chicken into the chamber and bite its head off.

The shadowy claque behind “Joe Biden” has been super-busy cooking up documents for the demented old bird to sign before leaving office, anything that supposedly might discommode the incoming Mr. Trump. “JB” is like a bandit fleeing the scene of a crime, throwing his stolen booty into the road off the back of his truck to trip up the police closing in. Close down offshore oil drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts for evermore. . . ban gas-powered water heaters. . . any old thing to make life more uncomfortable for the people of this land. The shadowy claque seems oblivious to the fact that the people won’t appreciate these pranks, that they just give more reasons for them to drive a wooden stake through the heart of the Democratic Party — as if it even had one.

Prank-of-the-week, though, goes to Tony Blinken’s State Department. No sooner had Congress defunded his agency’s Global Engagement Center (GEC) — that is, its censorship coordination hub — than the muppets at State redistributed GEC’s personnel to other corners of the agency and scared up new funding for their censorship activities from some dark hidey-hole of sequestered money. Do they suppose no one will find out where these employees went? All that’s necessary is to look up who was on the GEC’s payroll in 2024, and earlier in the hub’s heyday, and see if they remain on the State Department’s payroll now — and then fire the whole lot of them for cause: abrogating Americans’ First Amendment rights. Buh-bye. . . .

You are not out-of-order worrying, of course, that the political Left and the deep state blob behind them might look, in desperation, for other ways to prevent Donald Trump from getting sworn in. There’s the president-elect’s rally in DC the night before the inauguration. Not a few MAGAs are wondering if that’s really a good idea. And the recent garish drone swarms around the USA have put folks ill at ease about a swearing-in on the west front of the US Capitol, out in the open air. I’d even be a little concerned about the mechanicals of Mr. Trump’s airplane as he flies north from Mar-a-Lago to the big event in Washington.

Nobody will be surprised if “Joe Biden” does not show up on the dais at the Capitol that fateful day. He at least has one final snub left for Mr. Trump as “JB” departs office with the pardon he will preemptively lay on himself in the wee hours of January 19 — in case anyone might inquire into all those shadow companies that First Son Hunter was running over the years to receive money from China, Ukraine, Russia, Romania, and Gawd knows who else, to be redistributed (i.e., laundered) through the innumerable bank accounts of Biden family members. There is that to consider.

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Musk’s Alter Ego (Adrian Dittman) & His Censorship Spree – Video #177

Editor — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 21:09:48 +0000

Makia Freeman, The Freedom Articles

Elon Musk was again using his fake Adrian Dittman alter ego. Musk has always been someone willing to use his platform to censor criticism of himself, or censor views he doesn’t like, just like most people. He doesn’t have a full commitment to the principle of free speech and Twitter/X being the digital town square when it interferes with his agendas, profit or business goals. It’s just this current issue of the H-1B Visa Program that has brought this to the surface.

Shownotes:

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<h1>Israeli Spyware Firm NSO Group Found Liable for Hacks of WhatsApp Users</h1>
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Genocidal President, Genocidal Politics

Editor — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 18:38:00 +0000

by Norman Solomon Antiwar.com

When news broke over the weekend that President Biden just approved an $8 billion deal for shipping weapons to Israel, a nameless official vowed that “we will continue to provide the capabilities necessary for Israel’s defense.” Following the reports last month from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch concluding that Israeli actions in Gaza are genocide, Biden’s decision was a new low for his presidency.

It’s logical to focus on Biden as an individual. His choices to keep sending huge quantities of weaponry to Israel have been pivotal and calamitous. But the presidential genocide and the active acquiescence of the vast majority of Congress are matched by the dominant media and overall politics of the United States.

Forty days after the Gaza war began, Anne Boyer announced her resignation as poetry editor of the New York Times Magazine. More than a year later, her statement illuminates why the moral credibility of so many liberal institutions has collapsed in the wake of Gaza’s destruction.

While Boyer denounced “the Israeli state’s U.S.-backed war against the people of Gaza,” she emphatically chose to disassociate herself from the nation’s leading liberal news organization: “I can’t write about poetry amidst the ‘reasonable’ tones of those who aim to acclimatize us to this unreasonable suffering. No more ghoulish euphemisms. No more verbally sanitized hellscapes. No more warmongering lies.”

The acclimatizing process soon became routine. It was most crucially abetted by President Biden and his loyalists, who were especially motivated to pretend that he wasn’t really doing what he was really doing.

For mainline journalists, the process required the willing suspension of belief in a consistent standard of language and humanity. When Boyer acutely grasped the dire significance of its Gaza coverage, she withdrew from “the newspaper of record.”

Content analysis of the war’s first six weeks found that coverage by the New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times had a steeply dehumanizing slant toward Palestinians. The three papers “disproportionately emphasized Israeli deaths in the conflict” and “used emotive language to describe the killings of Israelis, but not Palestinians,” a study by The Intercept showed. “The term ‘slaughter’ was used by editors and reporters to describe the killing of Israelis versus Palestinians 60 to 1, and ‘massacre’ was used to describe the killing of Israelis versus Palestinians 125 to 2. ‘Horrific’ was used to describe the killing of Israelis versus Palestinians 36 to 4.”

After a year of the Gaza war, Arab-American historian Rashid Khalidi said: “My objection to organs of opinion like the New York Times is that they see absolutely everything from an Israeli perspective. ‘How does it affect Israel, how do the Israelis see it?’ Israel is at the center of their worldview, and that’s true of our elites generally, all over the West. The Israelis have very shrewdly, by preventing direct reportage from Gaza, further enabled that Israelocentric perspective.”

Khalidi summed up: “The mainstream media is as blind as it ever was, as willing to shill for any monstrous Israeli lie, to act as stenographers for power, repeating what is said in Washington.”

The conformist media climate smoothed the way for Biden and his prominent rationalizers to slide off the hook and shape the narrative, disguising complicity as evenhanded policy. Meanwhile, mighty boosts of Israel’s weapons and ammunition were coming from the United States. Nearly half of the Palestinians they killed were children.

For those children and their families, the road to hell was paved with good doublethink. So, for instance, while the Gaza horrors went on, no journalist would confront Biden with what he’d said at the time of the widely decried school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, when the president had quickly gone on live television. “There are parents who will never see their child again,” he said, adding: “To lose a child is like having a piece of your soul ripped away… It’s a feeling shared by the siblings, and the grandparents, and their family members, and the community that’s left behind.” And he asked plaintively, “Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen?”

The massacre in Uvalde killed 19 children. The daily massacre in Gaza has taken the lives of that many Palestinian kids in a matter of hours.

While Biden refused to acknowledge the ethnic cleansing and mass murder that he kept making possible, Democrats in his orbit cooperated with silence or other types of evasion. A longstanding maneuver amounts to checking the box for a requisite platitude by affirming support for a “two-state solution.”

Dominating Capitol Hill, an unspoken precept has held that Palestinian people are expendable as a practical political matter. Party leaders like Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Hakeem Jeffries did virtually nothing to indicate otherwise. Nor did they exert themselves to defend incumbent House Democrats Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush, defeated in summer primaries with an unprecedented deluge of multimillion-dollar ad campaigns funded by AIPAC and Republican donors.

The overall media environment was a bit more varied but no less lethal for Palestinian civilians. During its first several months, the Gaza war received huge quantities of mainstream media coverage, which thinned over time; the effects were largely to normalize the continual slaughter. Some exceptional reporting existed about the suffering, but the journalism gradually took on a media ambience akin to background noise, while credulously hyping Biden’s weak ceasefire efforts as determined quests.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came in for increasing amounts of criticism. But the prevalent U.S. media coverage and political rhetoric – unwilling to expose the Israeli mission to destroy Palestinians en masse – rarely went beyond portraying Israel’s leaders as insufficiently concerned with protecting Palestinian civilians.

Instead of candor about horrific truths, the usual tales of U.S. media and politics have offered euphemisms and evasions.

When she resigned as the New York Times Magazine poetry editor in mid-November 2023, Anne Boyer condemned what she called “an ongoing war against the people of Palestine, people who have resisted through decades of occupation, forced dislocation, deprivation, surveillance, siege, imprisonment, and torture.” Another poet, William Stafford, wrote decades ago:

I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His latest book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine, was published in paperback this fall with a new afterword about the Gaza war.

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