The Decline of Western Civilization
Financial Repression as the New Form of Censorship
It took me a while to truly understand what Malcolm X meant when he talked about how white liberals were a threat to Black people, as, for most of my life, I have thought of myself as a liberal (I still do hold mostly liberal views), and I have never thought of myself as a direct threat to Black people. At least I don’t like to think of myself that way. But in watching what has transpired in Canada over the course of the past week or so, I now have a better idea of what Malcolm X was talking about. Justin Trudeau is the type of virtue-signaling, spineless white liberal that Malcolm X warned people about. And even though sometimes Trudeau likes to pretend he isn’t white,
he is a threat not just to Black people, but to everyone who resides in the West.
Justin Trudeau is the poster boy for “wokeism”. What is “wokeism”? Let me use a conversation from a social work class I was once a part of as an example. Toward the beginning of COVID, I was taking a social work class in which we were discussing how everyone’s mental health had been affected by the lockdowns. Someone brought up the mental health of police officers, to which a white girl (who also happened to be Canadian) said, “Why are we discussing the mental health of police officers? Would we discuss the mental health of Nazis?” To this, both a Black and Latina girl from the class responded that their mothers were police officers. The white girl then informed the Black and Latina girls that “She was sorry, but their mothers were Nazis” (to paraphrase). Quite an “inclusive” statement, no? Very progressive; very woke.
The thing about wokeism is that it espouses to be about inclusivity and social justice - it looks kind and inviting on the surface - but it is really about power. The Canadian girl mentioned in the paragraph above talked a really good “social justice” game, but when it came time to acknowledging the humanity in the mothers of her two classmates, all bets were off. Wokeism is a game of kind words and harsh actions; its mission is to woo you while simultaneously undercutting you. It’s like Chamath Palihapitiya has stated, if you hear white people using words like “equity”, you can bet what they are saying is an attempt at a power grab. And woke leaders like Justin Trudeau love to employ woke rhetoric
as they and their minions engage in fascist tactics (see video above).
Now, I can’t say that I completely identify with all of the Canadian truckers’ complaints. I’m not an anti-vaxxer (not that all of the Canadian truckers are; most aren’t). I’ve gotten all three of my shots, and I am glad that a vaccine for COVID exists, even if it isn’t perfectly efficacious. However, I do find vaccine passports abhorrent, and if I hear one more ginned up celebrity voice echoing through stainless steel NYC subway platform speakers reminding me to “put my mask on before I board the train,” I’m going to completely lose it. Far too dystopian for my taste. However, I do side with the Canadian truckers because they have a right to protest the Draconian measures that the Canadian government has continued to take against its people in the name of “keeping them safe from COVID”. They have a right to protest the same way that BLM protestors had a right to protest two summers ago. Both Canada and the US are liberal democracies. In liberal democracies, people have the right to push back when they feel their government is overreaching.
What really sickens me about the current state of affairs in Canada, though, is the freezing of the bank accounts of the people who contributed to the truckers’ cause or of the truckers themselves.
I know that others have already raised this point, but could you imagine what would have happened if Trump demanded that the bank accounts of anyone who contributed to the Black Lives Matter cause be frozen? The US likely would have immediately descended into civil war, and rightfully so.
The problem now is that those in power in the West no longer have the tools to remedy the issues that plague our society, wealth inequality being at the top of that list of issues. The people telling you that they can fix the problem are the problem. Money printing and the bad policy that surrounds it is the root of the problem.
Situations like the COVID pandemic become excuses for leaders to attempt to overextend their reach.
At the end of long-term debt cycles like the one that is currently coming to a close, people like Donald Trump are more overtly exploitative, as they openly leverage existing rifts in society without shame in efforts to gain power, but people like Justin Trudeau can be just as nefarious as they lose their grip on power; they just seem kinder, or a bit more suave, as they make their plays.
And, again, they talk a big game, but mostly end up just punching down.
As David Sacks recently wrote about in Bari Weiss’ newsletter, Common Sense, financial deplatforming will be the next big wave of censorship, and it will do great damage to the fabric of our society.
And beyond deplatforming, the powers that be will likely soon begin to attempt to make moves to actually control what we can buy.
I’d love to say that Bitcoin by itself fixes all of this; it doesn’t. It is a part of the solution, though. And it is more important than ever to not keep your Bitcoin or crypto on centralized exchanges like Coinbase, Gemini or Binance. Technically, if you do not hold the keys to your cryptocurrency wallets, you don’t actually have ownership your cryptocurrency. The government can freeze your accounts on these exchanges, the same way that it can freeze your bank account. Plus, if any of these exchanges go belly up, you aren’t entitled to the assets that you have stored on them. This is at least the case in the US. I strongly suggest using a Ledger or a Trezor device to store your digital assets. Self-custody wallets are a super important feature of crypto; they cannot be censored/frozen by governments, even though not all governments are aware of that just yet.
Here’s the full response…
So perfect. Sometimes, you think you are playing 4D chess with these people/institutions, but, little do you know, they barely know how to play checkers.
What you are watching play out in Canada right now is the beginning of the fight that I wrote about here. I don’t think the next few years will be pretty when it comes to fighting this fight. I wish I could say that I’m pumped to be a part of it; I’m not, but push back will likely continue to be necessary, and I know what side I’m on. I will say, though, that I didn’t think the day would come so quickly that we’d have “third world” presidents offering refuge to “first world” residents.
As always, for as frustrated as I tend to get, I believe that the true spirit of people will prevail and that the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice. Let’s hope justice can be re-established in Canada, and let’s hope power-hungry woke leaders like Justin Trudeau are voted out of office before peaceful means of protest get exhausted and transform into something much uglier.
Best,
Frank
Twitter: @frankcorva
Currently Reading: “When Boring People Turn Dangerous: Canada’s Insane Power Grab”, by Matt Taibbi
