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Being a citizen of the United States, it is often hard to grapple with the fact that the nation I was born into is an empire. When you read history, it never felt like the United States was comparable to the Romans, the Russians and the Brits on the imperial scale. Our Constitution was developed to limit the scope of the government, which should make an empire impossible. But if we are being honest, the expansion of the United States in the early to mid-1800s mixed with our agricultural prowess and the industrial revolution made our nation an economic powerhouse. During the presidency of William McKinley from 1897-1901, the United States engaged in its first war outside of its territory. Up to this point, every American War was on our soil; the American Revolution, War of 1812, Mexican War, Civil War and the Wars against the Natives. All of them to fulfill the goal of manifest destiny and the creation of one nation from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean. But in 1898 due to the controversial and still debated explosion of the USS Maine, the United States engaged in its first imperial war. After defeating the Spanish in eight months, the Treaty of Paris was signed which gave the United States possession of the territories of Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines. The war also allowed us to annex the Hawaiian Kingdom and take the Samoan Islands. Cuba became an independent nation in 1902 after three and a half years of American occupation after the Spanish defeat. Our first “nation building” war followed in the Philippines from 1899 to 1902, when the United States defeated the Filipino revolutionaries. From 1898 until the present day, the United States has been an EMPIRE. But our politicians since McKinley (Who was assassinated by an anarchist in September of 1901) have often downplayed American influence even though:
Approximately 750 military bases in 80 countries exist according to CATO. The United States dollar became the Reserve Currency of the planet due to the Bretton Woods agreement in 1944. The United States is the dominant economic powerhouse of the globe. We are the biggest financial empire that has ever existed. The United States is the largest cultural empire since Austria-Hungary. Despite these facts, the lack of territorial holdings creates a dispute about whether the United States is an empire. Well, enter DONALD TRUMP into this equation. Since Trump took the oath of office a month ago, the news cycle has gone into a cocaine induced overdrive. Every day, hundreds of different stories hit our wire. By the time you finish one story, four more have replaced it. All this is due to DOGE, the new Department of Government Efficiency, created by Executive Order by and run by Elon Musk and his crew of young tech nerds. There are too many discoveries to list here. But the purpose of this new “agency” was to reduce wasteful spending and corruption. And boy, has it done that. If everything that DOGE has discovered could be discussed, this blog would quickly reach novel size. Due to my own personal interests though (And a potential 4th soon), I want to focus on three incredible discoveries that have been unearthed. 1) INTERNEWS - This one is a personal victory for me. From 2002 to 2014, I worked in the television industry monitoring television networks and working on local newscasts. After moving into the utility industry, I pursued a master’s degree at Arizona State in Media Studies. During the time working in television and the media, I always felt there was something wrong with the information given to the American people. The opinion of one point of view always seemed to stick out over any counterarguments. This problem first appeared in 2002 when the pro-war crowd seemed to drown out the anti-war voices. This led to the Iraq War of 2003 as the very efficient propaganda promoted on the nightly newscasts led to the American people supporting an attack on that nation. The overwhelming narrative that existed in the media and posted inside dozens of websites, magazine, and newspaper articles always seemed to mirror identically to what the United States government wanted. Pointing this out to family members and friends, no one saw what seemed so obvious to me. We were being propagandized and brainwashed all the time. Last week, the twenty-year long theory I held was proven to be a factual truth. An NGO with the generic name of INTERNEWS was given 472.6 million dollars to basically control the global content of news and frame stories with a pro-United States bias. The scope of this propaganda is incredible when evaluated. Here are a few facts. Internews worked with 4,291 media outlets, producing 4,799 hours of broadcasts in one year alone, reaching up to 778 million people globally. It also “trained" over 9,000 journalists in 2023 and supported social media censorship initiatives. USASpending data shows that 87% of the funding, equivalent to $415 million, came from USAID in the last 17 years, while an additional $57 million was awarded by the US Department of State in the same period. USAID (United States Agency for International Development) was acting like its own intelligence agency not only influencing the American people domestically but a large portion of the globe. In addition, they encouraged and supported anti-Constitutional social media censorship organizations that began to escalate the removal of content online during the COVID-19 lockdowns (And were exposed in the Twitter Files). Even though I suspected this going back to the propaganda operation that got us into Iraq in 2003, I NEVER COULD HAVE BELIEVED that it was this large in scope and operating with such efficiency. 2) SUBSCRIPTIONS - I have been confused for years as to why any person on this planet would pay hundreds or even in a few cases, thousands of dollars, for a media subscription. It seems like a failed business model unless you promote a truly independent point of view like many successful Substack authors who charge between 50 to 300 dollars a year depending on the content. But these publications promote the same pro-government ideas with a slight ideological spin. They do create good journalism on occasion and many of them specialize in a specific topic. But often, a good media evaluator notices that the publication has the same opinion on climate change as NOAA, or Iran poses a threat to the United States inside every foreign policy publication which aligns with the Department of State, or that white people created a system of oppression that seems to infest all recent history books and is being pushed by our Federal education departments. Thinking about the scale of this manipulation is astonishing. Then, you read that the government basically kept many of these media outlets in business with thousands of paid subscriptions using your hard earned taxpayer money. When the government is keeping a business afloat with public money, this is not the free market. This is a government run form of capitalism where our politicians decide which media organizations survive. It is the definition of corruption. 3) SOCIAL JUSTICE ISSUES - DEI (Diversity, Equality, Inclusion) issues have never been my forte. Over the past half decade, it appears that the LGBTQIA movement as a minority appears to be the most well-funded oppressed group in global history. Some of their initiatives even appear to be racist by classifying certain groups as more important than others. The fact that we have a society trying to legitimize a biological male who identifies as female who proceeds to destroy females in athletic competition as a new normal always felt like one of the most unethical and crazy things ever. Because of this, the rapid acceptance of DEI never felt like an organic movement that sprouted out of the public. It felt like a psychological operation. Now, we know that this was the case. DEI money is why corporations and media figures jumped onto the bandwagon. DOGE has eliminated 100 million dollars from the Department of Education and put all the states on notice that the insanity of this movement needs to be halted. 4) MILITARY - This is in the process of occurring and will be discussed later. I do believe that the two trillion in savings promised by Musk can be accomplished by the time Trump leaves office in 2021, but this can only happen if Pentagon spending is reduced 40 to 50% via cutting its over bloated staff and the elimination and reduction of some of its programs. No cutting of Federal money will get me more excited than the reduction of the largest bureaucracy that has ever graced this planet, the Department of Defense. Next week: The failure of libertarianism and why Trump is reducing government more effectively than any libertarian could ever dream of.
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 Reaching a half century of age this past August, this landmark has created some self-reflection and a tinge of nostalgia for how this biological journey has developed up to this point. One of the things that has fascinated me over my 30 plus years of employment at over a dozen companies is that I can confidently say that my personality is NOT what employers want in terms of being the public face of their business. There is a physical, unbreakable brick wall I hit at every place of employment dating back to the late 90s. I have gotten promotions and raises for my knowledge of work, experience and sometimes, wildly creative ideas. If the company moves me into leadership, I can reach a team leader or supervisor position and be given permission to manage a time shift or small team. But once the word MANAGER or DIRECTOR is spoken, discussing promotion into that position causes the corporate leadership to disappear at light speed into empty nothingness. For over a decade, this really got under my skin. But as my own wisdom has increased and realities about the world become more apparent, I have come to understand a fundamental truth about myself. I am an outsider and free thinker. And if u understand how the business climate in the United States works, being an outsider is not what American corporations crave. I'm on the outside, I’m on the outside now This is where it all begins On the outside looking in Looking in at you I'm just an alien through and through Tryin' to make believe I'm you Tryin' to fit Just a stranger on the outside looking in ON THE OUTSIDE: OINGO BOINGO As the prophet Danny Elfman sang above in 1981, I have always been an outsider. Going back to childhood, my parents had me attend Catholic School from 1980-1988. I never felt like I belonged inside of church culture. Despite this, my personal morality, ethics and sense of righteousness did develop strongly during this time. This gave me a sense of naivety about the reality of the world (Which was kicked out of me in the 2000s) and a false sense of importance that the world needed to understand my vital and incredibly important point of view. My rebellious streak started in high school. During this period, calling me a REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE but lacking the amazing James Dean pompadour would be appropriate. This rebellion was caused by a terrible depression. Because of this and my often-naïve positive outlook and trusting too many people who did not have my best interests at heart, I often found myself surrounded by the wrong type of friend or adult. One of the other interesting things was that throughout my entire childhood counting my Catholic school, high school and college years, I never had a mentor. Because many adults could sense my intelligence, they did not think guidance was necessary. This led to distrust towards authority figures who went against my own personal honor code. But my intelligence hid a lack of common sense which would not develop until much later in my adult years. My sense of moral righteousness got me into trouble many times during my high school and college years as my mind believed that doing the right thing often trumped respect shown to authority. This strong sense of righteousness is the primary reason for my failure to achieve leadership positions in the corporate world. No one who knows me would tell you that my leadership skills are terrible. In fact, many of my friends think I would have been an incredible manager. But the fact that I will question instructions from my bosses is just not allowed in a business climate that tries to eliminate any controversies or conflicts. So, understanding this flaw in my personality, do I regret my life as an outsider? The answer is NO. Understanding that corporations and churches function as monarchical or dictatorial systems in our society, the pressure to accept the rules, structures, and logic of these institutions by pushing aside my ethical code was not something I could ever do. My mind has its own sense of right and wrong. There are a few things I will never do no matter how much external pressure is applied. I will not kill someone for political reasons in a war I will not hinder any individual’s personal and natural rights I will not deceive other people out of their hard-earned money But being an outsider and independent thinker also had its advantages when looking back at some of my most nostalgic moments. Being involved in the grunge, gangster rap, goth, techno and swing dance scenes in the 1990s in Los Angeles allowed me to participate in the cultural zeitgeist that my group of friends helped push into the mainstream while it originated on the fringes of the culture. The women I dated and the one I eventually had children with were all the black sheep’s of their respective families. All of them are outsiders. This distrust of authority and my instinct of understanding that depriving people of their natural right of free movement and body autonomy was authoritarian made me immediately suspicious of Dr. Fauci’s intent (Later confirmed) back in March of 2020. This is what led me to reject the entire COVID narrative within about a month of the initial lockdowns. My partner and kids got NONE OF THE COVID-19 “VACCINES.” We often violated with impunity mask mandates and unlike many scared Americans, we travelled to almost a dozen states around the United States while many people around the globe were terrified to open the door to get their DoorDash order. As Google AI says about “outsiders”, “Being an outsider can offer benefits like a fresh perspective, the ability to challenge the status quo, increased objectivity, autonomy, and the chance to observe situations without being caught up in group dynamics.” This Experimental AI’s explanation of my personality is what I have become. My readers can either come along on this journey or disappear into the spiraling void like so many of my bosses did. The choice is yours. Because rebels, renegades and outsiders do change the world. RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE was right. |
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