"Doug Casey on the (Domestic) War on Terror 2.0"
by International Man
"International Man: "Recently, Big Tech companies like Twitter, Facebook, and many others de-platformed the sitting president of the US. Apple and Google also removed the conservative social media app Parler - an alternative to Twitter - from their app stores. Amazon removed Parler from its web hosting services. Are we seeing the beginning of widespread censorship in the country? What comes next?
Doug Casey: A friend of mine sent me a quote from Ayn Rand the other day. Rand was without doubt one of the greatest intellectuals of the 20th century. In fact, people’s reaction to her and her ideas acts as a litmus test for how they feel about almost everything in life. Rand said, "Once a country accepts censorship of the press and of speech, then nothing can be won without violence. Therefore, so long as you have free speech, protect it. This is the life and death issue in this country: do not give up the freedom of the press, of newspapers, books, magazines, television, radios, movies, and every other form of presenting ideas. So long as that's free, a peaceful intellectual turn is possible." She’s 100% correct.
Media platforms and Big Tech are overreaching at this point. By doing so, they’ve brought the whole situation to a head. It’s going to go one way or another and probably wind up with violence, especially as the economy falls apart, and inflation gets out of control. Or we will have catastrophic deflation. Or both.
It could evolve into a situation similar to that of Germany in the early 1920s when right-wing and left-wing groups were fighting in the streets. As I’ve been saying for several years, a police state is a near certainty, and some form of civil war is a real possibility. The best solution is secession, a peaceful breakup. But that seems impossible for any number of reasons.
International Man: You once said, "In the US, politics has become a contest of who gets to impose their will on the rest of the country." The Democrats now have control of the presidency, the House, and the Senate. What do you think will happen now that the Dems have unchecked power?
Doug Casey: Every country across space and time has the same assortment of people, by character anyway. We have the same kind of people in the US as did the French in 1789 or the Russians in 1917. Our own versions of Robespierre, Napoleon, Lenin, and Trotsky are coming out of the woodwork, and they can see that this is the moment to act. They’re much more interested in power than anything else.
Our own versions of those types are coming to the fore. The average American is confused and rolling over - he doesn’t have any philosophy or ideology to counter them. So, we could have a variation of what happened in France or Russia. That possibility is abetted by communication platforms like Facebook, Amazon, Google, and others. They’re extremely important because the average person spends many hours a day, sometimes all day, on his electronic device.
These people control all medias of communication. It’s Mussolini’s dream given reality on a grand scale. He described fascism as a system wherein the corporations and the State act in concert. Corporations create wealth (which the State is incapable of), and the State controls the power. It’s a natural thing that money and power would work together—they can reinforce each other. That’s what we’re getting here in the US, now more than ever. It’s just going to crush all the little people.
International Man: After the September 11th attacks, politicians initiated the Forever War on Terror. The government gave us the TSA, the Patriot Act, and all kinds of permanent restrictions, surveillance, and curtailments of civil liberties. Now, we’re hearing loud calls about creating a War on Terror 2.0, this time focused on so-called domestic terrorists, referring to Trump supporters and others. The mainstream media is already heavily promoting the "domestic terrorism" narrative. What are your thoughts on this?
Doug Casey: It amazed me how after the 9/11 disaster, they were able to come out with the 600-page Patriot Act in a couple of weeks. How is that possible? The Patriot Act is as thick as a telephone book. How could it be composed within days and then approved within hours? Of course, none of the Congress critters read it. That’s proof of how utterly corrupt and irresponsible they are.
This event on January 6th could be equivalent to the Reichstag fire in 1933, which Hitler used as an excuse to pass lots of emergency laws and effectively take control of the reins of the state. These people make no bones about it, saying things like, "Never let a good crisis go to waste." From their point of view, this crisis isn’t just good; it’s fantastic.
I’m sure that as the new Congress goes into session, they’ll pass a draconian domestic terrorism law. It will suppress the "deplorables" and other opposition, who will no longer be able to communicate or organize effectively. If they gather in large enough groups, these laws will quash them as a public danger, as insurrectionists. That, combined with the lockdowns from the Covid hysteria and the oncoming economic collapse, means we’ve entered a new stage of American history.
Boston police after Boston Marathon bombing on April 15, 2013
These are cops?! The same thing all over the country...
International Man: If the government launches a War on Terror 2.0 - as it seems it will - where does it ultimately go? It’s doubtful Trump supporters will be the only ones targeted. Recall the conviction of Bernard Von NotHaus in 2011, who the government accused of committing "a unique form of domestic terrorism" for circulating warehouse receipts for gold and silver. Given all that we’ve talked about today, what can the average person do to protect themselves?
Doug Casey: In researching my next novel, which will be called "Terrorist," I discovered that there are over a hundred separate definitions of terrorism used by various government agencies - and I’m sure that there are going to be more. They’re going to broaden the definition of terrorism. Nobody thinks terrorism is a good thing - although it’s actually just a tactic, like artillery barrages or frontal assaults. But if you can convince somebody that the enemy is a terrorist, it’s really all over for them.
We’re in a situation pretty much like Martin Niemöller described in Germany of the 1940s. He famously said, "First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out because I was not a communist. Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me."
It’s an accurate statement, except it seems to imply the National Socialist Workers Party - the so-called Nazis - weren’t socialists. That said, the smartest thing to do, if you’re identifiable as somebody in the enemy camp, is to make yourself scarce. In "Gone With The Wind" when the War Between the States started, Rhett Butler could see that it was going to turn into a disaster. So rather than stick around and be washed away by the tidal wave that he saw coming, he spent most of the war in England as a blockade runner.
That’s the situation that we’re moving into today. It’s going to be hot and heavy if you’re not part of the ruling class in the US. This has happened in so many countries in the world’s history, not just France, Russia, and Germany. It happened in China in 1947 and Vietnam in 1975. For reasons I’ve detailed elsewhere, now it’s the US’ turn on the dance card.
Among other many things, a huge number of Americans are graduates of higher education indoctrination camps. They really want to see radical changes in the US, and they’re going to try to make it happen."
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