August 15, 1971: The Day We Wanted a Life We Couldn't Afford

December 12, 2016

WRITER

Chris Martenson with PeakProsperity.com joined The Glenn Beck Program today to talk about the federal reserve raising interest rates and its primary concern: its own credibility.

"Everybody I talked to says, Look, I like falling prices. That's not what the fed is targeting when it's worried about deflation. They have a different thing they're worried about, where prices rising or falling is the symptom, but the cause is what they're concerned about. And the cause is either our credit markets are expanding, or they're contracting," Martenson said.

To put the problem into context, Martenson quoted Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises:

There's no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later, as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.

"These things have all been building for a really long time, Glenn. And I think if we had to, if we wanted to put our finger on something, we would say August 15th, 1971, when the United States abandoned the gold standard for the world, that's really where all of this started. And these imbalances are enormous now," Martenson said.

For fundamentals on the dangers of manipulating credit markets and currencies, read Martenson article, Money Under Fire: A Reminder of the Great Wealth Transfer Underway.

Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:

Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors:

GLENN: Well, as I'm reading the news, China is being negotiated. I mean, I want to put the good spin on this. Donald Trump is obviously negotiating with China. And China has responded saying it's -- the One-China policy will not be a part of any negotiation. And if you want to threaten us with that, all negotiations and future partnership will be over. They're taking a hard-lined stand, and so is Donald Trump. It's kind of a white knuckle kind of thing, quite honestly.

Russia is now our new best friend, and the Russian ruble is going through the roof. Oil is starting to go up. And this week, we are expecting the fed to raise interest rates. And Christmas Martenson is here. He is with peakprosperity.com. He is a guy who I think really understands the economy and understands the history of the currency war and the gold standard and trade and can kind of help explain -- because I think we're going to need a real basis of -- of history and knowledge to be able to talk our friends down from crazy tree in the coming months and years.

Chris, welcome to the program. How are you?

CHRIS: Glenn, I'm doing really well. It's a real pleasure to be back with you and all your listeners.

GLENN: So tell me, Chris, what you're thinking the fed will do this week and how it's going to affect us.

CHRIS: Well, they're going to have to raise rates because they're behind the curve here. The fed cares about their credibility, as much as everything. Remember, we have a lot of academics sort of at the helm of the fed. And, of course, to them, credibility is like the most important thing to preserve.

So they have to raise. And it's a very weird environment to be raising rates in. It's certainly created a lot of boost to the dollar. The dollar strengthened a lot lately. But we're seeing a lot of strengthening in the price of oil as well. And a lot of signs, Glenn, of weakening in the overall global economy. The stock market, notwithstanding. The trade data is looking iffy.

GLENN: Okay. So if the dollar -- if we raise the interest rates, that will boost the dollar. And if we boost the dollar, that actually hurts the job front at home and hurts prices at home. Right?

CHRIS: Yes. Except for the prices at home. Typically if the dollar is stronger, we'd be able to buy the BMWs cheaper.

GLENN: Okay.

CHRIS: But a rising dollar is not good for corporate profits in the United States. A little over 40 percent of all revenues from US companies are derived not in the United States. From overseas. So --

GLENN: And it makes -- it makes it harder for other countries to buy our products because our dollar is stronger. And them coming over here and buying our products is, it's more expensive.

CHRIS: Right. So typically what happens when your currency gets stronger, your trade, your exports go down, and your imports start to go up. Because you can afford more from other people. They can afford less of your stuff. That is the substance of the charge that Donald Trump has put against China, that they're a currency manipulator, by which he means they're keeping their currency much weaker than it should be because if the Chinese currency strengthened, then their exports would slow down. Their imports would rise. That would help to balance things.

STU: Right.

CHRIS: So that's his charge there.

GLENN: And it would be good if we didn't have an imbalance and everything else, you know, what it cost to employ people in America. If we could even get close on that level with China, which we could never -- they employ slaves -- but it's good for the person that's walking into Walmart and buying their stuff for the Chinese dollar to be -- or the Chinese yuan to be low and have them devalue. But it's really bad on jobs because they're not buying any of our stuff.

CHRIS: Very little of it.

GLENN: So it's a -- so it's a balance. What I'm trying to get to is, trade and the devaluing or the raising of interest rates especially in an economy as fragile as ours is, is really a very nuanced and delicate dance. And you play it wrong, and the thing spirals out of control.

CHRIS: Well, and that's exactly right. And this should be termed I think as much as anything, the age of imbalances.

So we're talking about an imbalance of trade between China and the United States, but there are similar imbalances that exist within the Eurozone with Italy needing a lot more money than it's got and Germany sort of providing it. And then, air quotes here, balancing it out by creating these massive imbalances in their central banking system inside the country.

These things have all been building for a really long time, Glenn. And I think if we had to, if we wanted to put our finger on something, we would say August 15th, 1971, when the United States abandoned the gold standard for the world, that's really where all of this started. And these imbalances are enormous now.

GLENN: Well, that's when we all started we wanted a life we couldn't afford.

So the United States did that. But we convinced the rest of the world that we'll continue to buy your stuff. So it will be good for you. But we all said -- all of us -- we want more stuff than we can afford if we base our dollar or our currencies on gold. Is that accurate?

CHRIS: It is. Because gold provides a set of restraints that you just can't get around. And if you can't get around those restraints, well, sometimes you get to live beyond your means. But very soon thereafter, you have to live below your means. The world collectively kind of said, "We don't like that below our means part. How can we just forever live above our means?" That's how these imbalances got started. And it's a very human thing, Glenn. We've seen this so many times in history. And here we are again.

GLENN: So we are worried now, if the fed raises their interest rates, that would indicate that they are worried more about inflation than deflation. And deflation is -- is bad. Because everything is -- is worthless. And becomes so cheap, you would think that this is really good. But I'm trying to figure out why it is really bad. And it is. Why is deflation something that they're trying to stay away from, at the fed?

CHRIS: Well, this is a more subtle argument because the way that it's presented to us in the newspapers is that inflation is rising prices and deflation is falling prices. And I can't find anybody who -- well, what's wrong with falling prices? I love buying stuff cheaper. Right?

GLENN: Unless you're selling your house.

CHRIS: Well, unless you're selling your house. Of course.

GLENN: Yeah.

CHRIS: But generally speaking, if you're buying a house, you would prefer to buy one that's cheaper rather than more expensive.

GLENN: Yes, yes.

CHRIS: So everybody I talked to says, "Look, I like falling prices." That's not what the fed is targeting when it's worried about deflation. They have a different thing they're worried about, where prices rising or falling is the symptom, but the cause is what they're concerned about. And the cause is either our credit markets are expanding, or they're contracting.

When they're expanding, which gives us inflation, everything kind of works. You know, governments can continue to run deficits and big banks can do crazy dumb things. And it all seems to work out the opposite though, Glenn, when credit is falling. That's also known as 2009 in the United States. It is deeply scary. What works in forward doesn't work at all in reverse. The whole system shudders and threatens to collapse. It's a really scary moment. So we have a system that either expands --

GLENN: Wait. Wait. Wait. Is that because what I have as collateral is no longer worth as much so I can't get credit, or why is that?

CHRIS: Well, let's take a simple example. We just have a bank, you and I, and all we're doing is making real estate loans. And, you know, we're taking in one dollar and basically loaning nine more dollars back out because that's how our symptom operates. And we loan those $9 out to somebody who's bought a house. And if that house goes up in value, that person will be able to sell their house, service that mortgage before they do, and maybe buy a bigger house, and we'll loan them nine more dollars. Expanding is easy. But as soon as that person can't sell that house for what we've loaned the money them to, then lest all they have to lose is one dollar out of that nine that we loan them, and our entire capital stock of our business, our bank, is now wiped out.

So you can't have even tiny, tiny contractions in the credit system without really impairing and sometimes destroying the banking system itself. And that's what the fed cares about. Because let's remember, the federal reserve is not really federal. It's a private entity. It's got a charter from the US government. And it operates a very nice monopoly. But its first set of clients always is the banks. So if the banking system is happy and expanding, the fed is happy.

GLENN: Okay. So they're not worried about deflation. They're worried about the bank. But by doing what they've done, they are throwing caution to the wind by printing 7 trillion dollars' worth of currency. Never been done before in the history of the world. And expecting that hyperinflation won't happen. How can we have printed that much money and not had the problem of the Weimar Republic? What's the difference?

CHRIS: The difference is that today we have these really so-called robust financial markets. So I was just at a wealth conference on Monday of last weekend. That question was asked: Hey, where is this inflation? Well, it's in the financial markets. We see highly, highly inflated stock and bond markets. We see inflated real estate markets, especially on the top end.

Now, Glenn, who got that money when the fed printed all those trillions? Well, it kind of went to the upper .1 percent. So guess what, buying a Gulfstream 650 is a very expensive proposition. High-end art, very large diamonds, these all went up extraordinarily in price. So we have seen the beginnings of inflation. It just didn't show up in eggs and milk this time because the fed didn't print and give it to people. They printed and gave it to a financial system.

GLENN: So is that a savior for us?

CHRIS: Well, it's -- I think it's provided temporary appearance of relief. But when those rich people, when those concentrations of money decide, "I don't want another Gulfstream 650, I'm worried about the value of the currency," all of that currency rushes through what are very tiny little doors trying to get into real stuff again and away from paper stuff.

GLENN: And that's why real estate -- that's why art -- I mean, I've looked at the art -- we just sold I think one of the most expensive paintings I think ever. Again, was like $85 million for one piece of art. And I explained that as the people at the very top have so much money, they don't know what to do with it. They know that everything is overvalued. But it's like looking at a -- looking at a -- at a -- at a bill at a very nice restaurant that didn't have any prices on the -- on the menu. And you're looking at the bill, and you're thinking, "How the hell did we get here?" Well, I've got to make the broccoli now $35 a head because I've already priced the meat so far out, that the broccoli is looking like a deal. So the art is looking like a deal, even at $85 million, compared to where everything else is priced. Is that accurate, do you think?

CHRIS: It is. It's what happens when too much money is printed and put into a market. Things get crazy priced. And we saw that for tulips in the 1600s in Holland. And we've seen it with pieces of swampland in Florida. We've seen it over and over again. And the bubbles always have the same self-reinforcing mental map on the way up. It makes sense.

People go, "Well, the last guy paid 79 million. I paid 85. Somebody surely is going to pay me 100 million for this piece of art." That's all self-reinforcing on the way up, and we don't know why. But eventually, there's a pin that that bubble finds. And when it bursts, then you discover what the true value of things is, and things go down very quickly at that point.

GLENN: Chris, you talk to people in your business -- and I have -- this is the reason you work for me on these things now because I couldn't find somebody like you.

Everybody in your business will say, "It's -- no, we have systems now, and it's not going to be that way. And you don't to have worry about those things." No one will tell you what you're saying to me, that this is going to burst and it's going to be you will.

CHRIS: Well, you know, if it's not going to burst, we have to believe in the four most dangerous words in human investing history, which is, "This time it's different."

GLENN: It's different.

CHRIS: It's not different. It's never different. I'm seeing the exact same psychology. Rationalizations. Post-facto rationalizations that people make. "Oh, here's why that -- here's why we had this Trump rally." You know.

To me, it's much easier to understand where we are if you see that we've got a very scared set of central planners. They've worked themselves into a multi-decade corner. They don't know what to do. So they print.

And you can find this story in Roman times. You can find it in the first --

GLENN: Every time.

CHRIS: -- paper money in China. You can find it all throughout history. And it boils down through this, Glenn, it's very simple, humans would rather take a little risk today, instead of some pain today, in the hopes that things turn out better in the future. But we always go down the same path.

GLENN: Real quick, I only have 30 seconds: Are we going to see a hyperinflation situation like the Weimar Republic? Do you think we're going to see that? If so, are we going to see it in the next four years?

CHRIS: We're going to see it at some point. It could come at any time. It will happen at some point. And I think that the best quote on this comes from Ludwig von Mises. He's an Austrian economist. And he said, "There's no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later, as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved."

GLENN: Chris, thank you very much.

Peakprosperity.com. And Chris explains all of this and can help you through it and everything else. Peakprosperity.com. Chris Martenson, thank you for being on. And we'll have Chris in the studio with us hopefully several times next year to kind of really lay things out. Because I -- I want to show you what's coming and show you how the whole system works. And Chris is going to be instrumental in that.

Featured Image: Fine standard 400 oz gold bars. Photo Credit: Andrzej Barabasz (Chepry)

Rage isn’t conservatism — THIS is what true patriots stand for

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

Conservatism is not about rage or nostalgia. It’s about moral clarity, national renewal, and guarding the principles that built America’s freedom.

Our movement is at a crossroads, and the question before us is simple: What does it mean to be a conservative in America today?

For years, we have been told what we are against — against the left, against wokeism, against decline. But opposition alone does not define a movement, and it certainly does not define a moral vision.

We are not here to cling to the past or wallow in grievance. We are not the movement of rage. We are the movement of reason and hope.

The media, as usual, are eager to supply their own answer. The New York Times recently suggested that Nick Fuentes represents the “future” of conservatism. That’s nonsense — a distortion of both truth and tradition. Fuentes and those like him do not represent American conservatism. They represent its counterfeit.

Real conservatism is not rage. It is reverence. It does not treat the past as a museum, but as a teacher. America’s founders asked us to preserve their principles and improve upon their practice. That means understanding what we are conserving — a living covenant, not a relic.

Conservatism as stewardship

In 2025, conservatism means stewardship — of a nation, a culture, and a moral inheritance too precious to abandon. To conserve is not to freeze history. It is to stand guard over what is essential. We are custodians of an experiment in liberty that rests on the belief that rights come not from kings or Congress, but from the Creator.

That belief built this country. It will be what saves it. The Constitution is a covenant between generations. Conservatism is the duty to keep that covenant alive — to preserve what works, correct what fails, and pass on both wisdom and freedom to those who come next.

Economics, culture, and morality are inseparable. Debt is not only fiscal; it is moral. Spending what belongs to the unborn is theft. Dependence is not compassion; it is weakness parading as virtue. A society that trades responsibility for comfort teaches citizens how to live as slaves.

Freedom without virtue is not freedom; it is chaos. A culture that mocks faith cannot defend liberty, and a nation that rejects truth cannot sustain justice. Conservatism must again become the moral compass of a disoriented people, reminding America that liberty survives only when anchored to virtue.

Rebuilding what is broken

We cannot define ourselves by what we oppose. We must build families, communities, and institutions that endure. Government is broken because education is broken, and education is broken because we abandoned the formation of the mind and the soul. The work ahead is competence, not cynicism.

Conservatives should embrace innovation and technology while rejecting the chaos of Silicon Valley. Progress must not come at the expense of principle. Technology must strengthen people, not replace them. Artificial intelligence should remain a servant, never a master. The true strength of a nation is not measured by data or bureaucracy, but by the quiet webs of family, faith, and service that hold communities together. When Washington falters — and it will — those neighborhoods must stand.

Eric Lee / Stringer | Getty Images

This is the real work of conservatism: to conserve what is good and true and to reform what has decayed. It is not about slogans; it is about stewardship — the patient labor of building a civilization that remembers what it stands for.

A creed for the rising generation

We are not here to cling to the past or wallow in grievance. We are not the movement of rage. We are the movement of reason and hope.

For the rising generation, conservatism cannot be nostalgia. It must be more than a memory of 9/11 or admiration for a Reagan era they never lived through. Many young Americans did not experience those moments — and they should not have to in order to grasp the lessons they taught and the truths they embodied. The next chapter is not about preserving relics but renewing purpose. It must speak to conviction, not cynicism; to moral clarity, not despair.

Young people are searching for meaning in a culture that mocks truth and empties life of purpose. Conservatism should be the moral compass that reminds them freedom is responsibility and that faith, family, and moral courage remain the surest rebellions against hopelessness.

To be a conservative in 2025 is to defend the enduring principles of American liberty while stewarding the culture, the economy, and the spirit of a free people. It is to stand for truth when truth is unfashionable and to guard moral order when the world celebrates chaos.

We are not merely holding the torch. We are relighting it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Glenn Beck: Here's what's WRONG with conservatism today

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What does it mean to be a conservative in 2025? Glenn offers guidance on what conservatives need to do to ensure the conservative movement doesn't fade into oblivion. We have to get back to PRINCIPLES, not policies.

To be a conservative in 2025 means to STAND

for Stewardship, protecting the wisdom of our Founders;
for Truth, defending objective reality in an age of illusion;
for Accountability, living within our means as individuals and as a nation;
for Neighborhood, rebuilding family, faith, and local community;
and for Duty, carrying freedom forward to the next generation.

A conservative doesn’t cling to the past — he stands guard over the principles that make the future possible.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: You know, I'm so tired of being against everything. Saying what we're not.

It's time that we start saying what we are. And it's hard, because we're changing. It's different to be a conservative, today, than it was, you know, years ago.

And part of that is just coming from hard knocks. School of hard knocks. We've learned a lot of lessons on things we thought we were for. No, no, no.

But conservatives. To be a conservative, it shouldn't be about policies. It's really about principles. And that's why we've lost our way. Because we've lost our principles. And it's easy. Because the world got easy. And now the world is changing so rapidly. The boundaries between truth and illusion are blurred second by second. Machines now think. Currencies falter. Families fractured. And nations, all over the world, have forgotten who they are.

So what does it mean to be a conservative now, in 2025, '26. For a lot of people, it means opposing the left. That's -- that's a reaction. That's not renewal.

That's a reaction. It can't mean also worshiping the past, as if the past were perfect. The founders never asked for that.

They asked that we would preserve the principles and perfect their practice. They knew it was imperfect. To make a more perfect nation.

Is what we're supposed to be doing.

2025, '26 being a conservative has to mean stewardship.

The stewardship of a nation, of a civilization.

Of a moral inheritance. That is too precious to abandon.

What does it mean to conserve? To conserve something doesn't mean to stand still.

It means to stand guard. It means to defend what the Founders designed. The separation of powers. The rule of law.

The belief that our rights come not from kings or from Congress, but from the creator himself.
This is a system that was not built for ease. It was built for endurance, and it will endure if we only teach it again!

The problem is, we only teach it like it's a museum piece. You know, it's not a museum piece. It's not an old dusty document. It's a living covenant between the dead, the living and the unborn.

So this chapter of -- of conservatism. Must confront reality. Economic reality.

Global reality.

And moral reality.

It's not enough just to be against something. Or chant tax cuts or free markets.

We have to ask -- we have to start with simple questions like freedom, yes. But freedom for what?

Freedom for economic sovereignty. Your right to produce and to innovate. To build without asking Beijing's permission. That's a moral issue now.

Another moral issue: Debt! It's -- it's generational theft. We're spending money from generations we won't even meet.

And dependence. Another moral issue. It's a national weakness.

People cannot stand up for themselves. They can't make it themselves. And we're encouraging them to sit down, shut up, and don't think.

And the conservative who can't connect with fiscal prudence, and connect fiscal prudence to moral duty, you're not a conservative at all.

Being a conservative today, means you have to rebuild an economy that serves liberty, not one that serves -- survives by debt, and then there's the soul of the nation.

We are living through a time period. An age of dislocation. Where our families are fractured.

Our faith is almost gone.

Meaning is evaporating so fast. Nobody knows what meaning of life is. That's why everybody is killing themselves. They have no meaning in life. And why they don't have any meaning, is truth itself is mocked and blurred and replaced by nothing, but lies and noise.

If you want to be a conservative, then you have to be to become the moral compass that reminds a lost people, liberty cannot survive without virtue.

That freedom untethered from moral order is nothing, but chaos!

And that no app, no algorithm, no ideology is ever going to fill the void, where meaning used to live!

To be a conservative, moving forward, we cannot just be about policies.

We have to defend the sacred, the unseen, the moral architecture, that gives people an identity. So how do you do that? Well, we have to rebuild competence. We have to restore institutions that actually work. Just in the last hour, this monologue on what we're facing now, because we can't open the government.

Why can't we open the government?

Because government is broken. Why does nobody care? Because education is broken.

We have to reclaim education, not as propaganda, but as the formation of the mind and the soul. Conservatives have to champion innovation.

Not to imitate Silicon Valley's chaos, but to harness technology in defense of human dignity. Don't be afraid of AI.

Know what it is. Know it's a tool. It's a tool to strengthen people. As long as you always remember it's a tool. Otherwise, you will lose your humanity to it!

That's a conservative principle. To be a conservative, we have to restore local strength. Our families are the basic building blocks, our schools, our churches, and our charities. Not some big, distant NGO that was started by the Tides Foundation, but actual local charities, where you see people working. A web of voluntary institutions that held us together at one point. Because when Washington fails, and it will, it already has, the neighborhood has to stand.

Charlie Kirk was doing one thing that people on our side were not doing. Speaking to the young.

But not in nostalgia.

Not in -- you know, Reagan, Reagan, Reagan.

In purpose. They don't remember. They don't remember who Dick Cheney was.

I was listening to Fox news this morning, talking about Dick Cheney. And there was somebody there that I know was not even born when Dick Cheney. When the World Trade Center came down.

They weren't even born. They were telling me about Dick Cheney.

And I was like, come on. Come on. Come on.

If you don't remember who Dick Cheney was, how are you going to remember 9/11. How will you remember who Reagan was.

That just says, that's an old man's creed. No, it's not.

It's the ultimate timeless rebellion against tyranny in all of its forms. Yes, and even the tyranny of despair, which is eating people alive!

We need to redefine ourselves. Because we have changed, and that's a good thing. The creed for a generation, that will decide the fate of the republic, is what we need to find.

A conservative in 2025, '26.

Is somebody who protects the enduring principles of American liberty and self-government.

While actively stewarding the institutions. The culture. The economy of this nation!

For those who are alive and yet to be unborn.

We have to be a group of people that we're not anchored in the past. Or in rage! But in reason. And morality. Realism. And hope for the future.

We're the stewards! We're the ones that have to relight the torch, not just hold it. We didn't -- we didn't build this Torch. We didn't make this Torch. We're the keepers of the flame, but we are honor-bound to pass that forward, and conservatives are viewed as people who just live in the past. We're not here to merely conserve the past, but to renew it. To sort it. What worked, what didn't work. We're the ones to say to the world, there's still such a thing as truth. There's still such a thing as virtue. You can deny it all you want.

But the pain will only get worse. There's still such a thing as America!

And if now is not the time to renew America. When is that time?

If you're not the person. If we're not the generation to actively stand and redefine and defend, then who is that person?

We are -- we are supposed to preserve what works.

That -- you know, I was writing something this morning.

I was making notes on this. A constitutionalist is for restraint. A progressive, if you will, for lack of a better term, is for more power.

Progressives want the government to have more power.

Conservatives are for more restraint.

But the -- for the American eagle to fly, we must have both wings.

And one can't be stronger than the other.

We as a conservative, are supposed to look and say, no. Don't look at that. The past teaches us this, this, and this. So don't do that.

We can't do that. But there are these things that we were doing in the past, that we have to jettison. And maybe the other side has a good idea on what should replace that. But we're the ones who are supposed to say, no, but remember the framework.

They're -- they can dream all they want.
They can come up with all these utopias and everything else, and we can go, "That's a great idea."

But how do we make it work with this framework? Because that's our job. The point of this is, it takes both. It takes both.

We have to have the customs and the moral order. And the practices that have stood the test of time, in trial.

We -- we're in an amazing, amazing time. Amazing time.

We live at a time now, where anything -- literally anything is possible!

I don't want to be against stuff. I want to be for the future. I want to be for a rich, dynamic future. One where we are part of changing the world for the better!

Where more people are lifted out of poverty, more people are given the freedom to choose, whatever it is that they want to choose, as their own government and everything.

I don't want to force it down anybody's throat.

We -- I am so excited to be a shining city on the hill again.

We have that opportunity, right in front of us!

But not in we get bogged down in hatred, in division.

Not if we get bogged down into being against something.

We must be for something!

I know what I'm for.

Do you?

From Pharaoh to Hamas: The same spirit of evil, new disguise

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

The drone footage out of Gaza isn’t just war propaganda — it’s a glimpse of the same darkness that once convinced men they were righteous for killing innocents.

Evil introduces itself subtly. It doesn’t announce, “Hi, I’m here to destroy you.” It whispers. It flatters. It borrows the language of justice, empathy, and freedom, twisting them until hatred sounds righteous and violence sounds brave.

We are watching that same deception unfold again — in the streets, on college campuses, and in the rhetoric of people who should know better. It’s the oldest story in the world, retold with new slogans.

Evil wins when good people mirror its rage.

A drone video surfaced this week showing Hamas terrorists staging the “discovery” of a hostage’s body. They pushed a corpse out of a window, dragged it into a hole, buried it, and then called in aid workers to “find” what they themselves had planted. It was theater — evil, disguised as victimhood. And it was caught entirely on camera.

That’s how evil operates. It never comes in through the front door. It sneaks in, often through manipulative pity. The same spirit animates the moral rot spreading through our institutions — from the halls of universities to the chambers of government.

Take Zohran Mamdani, a New York assemblyman who has praised jihadists and defended pro-Hamas agitators. His father, a Columbia University professor, wrote that America and al-Qaeda are morally equivalent — that suicide bombings shouldn’t be viewed as barbaric. Imagine thinking that way after watching 3,000 Americans die on 9/11. That’s not intellectualism. That’s indoctrination.

Often, that indoctrination comes from hostile foreign actors, peddled by complicit pawns on our own soil. The pro-Hamas protests that erupted across campuses last year, for example, were funded by Iran — a regime that murders its own citizens for speaking freely.

Ancient evil, new clothes

But the deeper danger isn’t foreign money. It’s the spiritual blindness that lets good people believe resentment is justice and envy is discernment. Scripture talks about the spirit of Amalek — the eternal enemy of God’s people, who attacks the weak from behind while the strong look away. Amalek never dies; it just changes its vocabulary and form with the times.

Today, Amalek tweets. He speaks through professors who defend terrorism as “anti-colonial resistance.” He preaches from pulpits that call violence “solidarity.” And he recruits through algorithms, whispering that the Jews control everything, that America had it coming, that chaos is freedom. Those are ancient lies wearing new clothes.

When nations embrace those lies, it’s not the Jews who perish first. It’s the nations themselves. The soul dies long before the body. The ovens of Auschwitz didn’t start with smoke; they started with silence and slogans.

Andrew Harnik / Staff | Getty Images

A time for choosing

So what do we do? We speak truth — calmly, firmly, without venom. Because hatred can’t kill hatred; it only feeds it. Truth, compassion, and courage starve it to death.

Evil wins when good people mirror its rage. That’s how Amalek survives — by making you fight him with his own weapons. The only victory that lasts is moral clarity without malice, courage without cruelty.

The war we’re fighting isn’t new. It’s the same battle between remembrance and amnesia, covenant and chaos, humility and pride. The same spirit that whispered to Pharaoh, to Hitler, and to every mob that thought hatred could heal the world is whispering again now — on your screens, in your classrooms, in your churches.

Will you join it, or will you stand against it?

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Bill Gates ends climate fear campaign, declares AI the future ruler

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

The Big Tech billionaire once said humanity must change or perish. Now he claims we’ll survive — just as elites prepare total surveillance.

For decades, Americans have been told that climate change is an imminent apocalypse — the existential threat that justifies every intrusion into our lives, from banning gas stoves to rationing energy to tracking personal “carbon scores.”

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates helped lead that charge. He warned repeatedly that the “climate disaster” would be the greatest crisis humanity would ever face. He invested billions in green technology and demanded the world reach net-zero emissions by 2050 “to avoid catastrophe.”

The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch.

Now, suddenly, he wants everyone to relax: Climate change “will not lead to humanity’s demise” after all.

Gates was making less of a scientific statement and more of a strategic pivot. When elites retire a crisis, it’s never because the threat is gone — it’s because a better one has replaced it. And something else has indeed arrived — something the ruling class finds more useful than fear of the weather.The same day Gates downshifted the doomsday rhetoric, Amazon announced it would pay warehouse workers $30 an hour — while laying off 30,000 people because artificial intelligence will soon do their jobs.

Climate panic was the warm-up. AI control is the main event.

The new currency of power

The world once revolved around oil and gas. Today, it revolves around the electricity demanded by server farms, the chips that power machine learning, and the data that can be used to manipulate or silence entire populations. The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch. Whoever controls energy now controls information. And whoever controls information controls civilization.

Climate alarmism gave elites a pretext to centralize power over energy. Artificial intelligence gives them a mechanism to centralize power over people. The future battles will not be about carbon — they will be about control.

Two futures — both ending in tyranny

Americans are already being pushed into what look like two opposing movements, but both leave the individual powerless.

The first is the technocratic empire being constructed in the name of innovation. In its vision, human work will be replaced by machines, and digital permissions will subsume personal autonomy.

Government and corporations merge into a single authority. Your identity, finances, medical decisions, and speech rights become access points monitored by biometric scanners and enforced by automated gatekeepers. Every step, purchase, and opinion is tracked under the noble banner of “efficiency.”

The second is the green de-growth utopia being marketed as “compassion.” In this vision, prosperity itself becomes immoral. You will own less because “the planet” requires it. Elites will redesign cities so life cannot extend beyond a 15-minute walking radius, restrict movement to save the Earth, and ration resources to curb “excess.” It promises community and simplicity, but ultimately delivers enforced scarcity. Freedom withers when surviving becomes a collective permission rather than an individual right.

Both futures demand that citizens become manageable — either automated out of society or tightly regulated within it. The ruling class will embrace whichever version gives them the most leverage in any given moment.

Climate panic was losing its grip. AI dependency — and the obedience it creates — is far more potent.

The forgotten way

A third path exists, but it is the one today’s elites fear most: the path laid out in our Constitution. The founders built a system that assumes human beings are not subjects to be monitored or managed, but moral agents equipped by God with rights no government — and no algorithm — can override.

Hesham Elsherif / Stringer | Getty Images

That idea remains the most “disruptive technology” in history. It shattered the belief that people need kings or experts or global committees telling them how to live. No wonder elites want it erased.

Soon, you will be told you must choose: Live in a world run by machines or in a world stripped down for planetary salvation. Digital tyranny or rationed equality. Innovation without liberty or simplicity without dignity.

Both are traps.

The only way

The only future worth choosing is the one grounded in ordered liberty — where prosperity and progress exist alongside moral responsibility and personal freedom and human beings are treated as image-bearers of God — not climate liabilities, not data profiles, not replaceable hardware components.

Bill Gates can change his tune. The media can change the script. But the agenda remains the same.

They no longer want to save the planet. They want to run it, and they expect you to obey.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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From Pharaoh to Hamas: The same spirit of evil, new disguise

The drone footage out of Gaza isn’t just war propaganda — it’s a glimpse of the same darkness that once convinced men they were righteous for killing innocents.

Evil wins when good people mirror its rage.

Ancient evil, new clothes

A time for choosing

Bill Gates ends climate fear campaign, declares AI the future ruler

The Big Tech billionaire once said humanity must change or perish. Now he claims we’ll survive — just as elites prepare total surveillance.

The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch.

The new currency of power

Two futures — both ending in tyranny

The forgotten way

The only way