☕️ LAPSES ☙ Thursday, November 16, 2023 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

Billionaires buy media influence; climate scam; digital currently scam; neopaganism, art, and influence; two SADS NFL stars and two SADS local officials; a good Spirit is moving in the world; more.

Good morning, C&C family, it’s Thursday! Your thought-provoking roundup today includes: exposé shows extent of oligarchs’ influence on media; thoughts on the climate scam; thoughts on digital currencies; UK Guardian says neopaganist art is on the rise; SADS NFL star number one; SADS NFL star number two; SADS deputy mayor; SADS town councilman; and the Spirit moves as intellectual muslim atheist converts to Christianity.

🗞💬 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 💬🗞

🔥 NOT SHOCKED. The UK Daily Skeptic ran a story yesterday headlined, “Billionaire Funds the Guardian to Tune of $116 Per Reader of Print Edition.” According to the story, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has “granted” over $82 billion dollars to British media alone.

You want to understand how the Corporate Media works? That list is the British version of the Corporate Media.

You could argue — you could, I wouldn’t — that there was some philanthropic purpose to Gates’ grants to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), which pretends to be a public charity. But you can’t make that argument about The Guardian, The Telegraph, or the Financial Times. They’re not charities. They’re news corporations. Those grants were transactions, trades. Gates was buying something. Something like influence.

Gates is buying, and the media is clearly selling. And … if media will turn tricks for billionaires to this extent, just imagine how the media whores itself out to government.

Media companies are only the beginning. Since 1999, the Gates Foundation “donated” over $4.7 billion to the World Health Organization and its various agencies. That’s a case of billionaires not funding media but government itself. Why? Why aren’t taxes sufficient? The article reported from a much more fulsome exposé about billionaire influence on British climate politics that published this month titled, “‘Clean Air,’ Dirty Money, Filthy Politics - the Big Bucks behind the UK’s anti-car policies and air pollution panics.”

The report is well worth a read, even if a bit long; but it’s not uninteresting, and whatever these billionaires are paying UK governments and companies is probably just a drop in the bucket compared to what they’re up to over here in the United States.

I could only find one quibble about the ‘Dirty Money’ report’s conclusions. The report’s authors suggest that billionaire ‘philanthropy’ is rooted in ideology — personal political preferences — rather than from charity. I agree Bill Gates is not focused on charitable aims. But I disagree that he is wholly ideologically driven.

It’s about the money.

First, the “foundation” entity — used by billionaires everywhere — enjoys massive tax advantages. It’s much better than a traditional non-profit. And every dollar jammed into the foundation is a tax deductible dollar. Then foundation money can be used to buy official policy by influencing government officials (e.g. grants to the WHO) and by influencing media for positive coverage especially among easily-influenced leftists (e.g. grants to the BBC).

And that is where the rubber meets the road.

Before the smart billionaire starts investing in his government and media grants to influence, for example, the promotion of insect protein consumption, he has already invested in bug food manufacturing plants. And his plants have proprietary features that in five years will become requirements in multimillion-dollar public requisitions for cricket lasagna and other buggy MREs.

Where do you suppose the Gates Foundation got $82 million dollars to spend on British media grants? That’s nearly a hundred million dollars on newspaper ads. Don’t be naíve — Gates didn’t use his own money to buy the British media. That’s your money, dummy. The whole thing is a giant money wheel of influence, where billionaire oligarchs like Gates and Soros dump a handful of coins on the wheel, spin it around, and unload gold bars smelted from your tax dollars.

Rinse and repeat!

Consider the climate scam. None of these oligarchical idiots cares about the climate at all. Please. Don’t make me laugh. They intend to force us to buy windmill rotor blades at a million bucks a clip. Suckers! Fifty percent margins! And they plan to sell us mandated ‘disposable’ electric car batteries — every three years, to every single driver — at ten grand a pop. SEVENTY percent margins, thanks to slave labor!.

But don’t lose focus. We can complain about billionaire oligarchs all we want, but at bottom the real problem is the erosion of previously-commonly-agreed Judeo-Christian values which used to restrain this type of obvious, late-stage-capitalism, looting of the treasury.  Our second president John Adams presciently warned us when he said, ”Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Indeed.

If things were working right, Bill Gates would be shamed out of polite society and shunned by all right-thinking people. Media would be embarrassed and frankly terrified to take any money from him. Otherwise, the grasping media and government types who took Bill Gates’ bloodstained bucks, would also get the Gates treatment and be shunned, ostracized, canceled, and banned.

Bring back shame.

🔥 On the other hand, I often think that graft and corruption could be the only thing saving us from a totalitarian digital currency. I mean, if there’s no cash, how will politicians get their payoffs? Or, what happens if they can’t daisy-chain a bunch of banks and a chain of complicated business entities to wash the bribe money? How will they pay for hookers and blow?

It seems to me that corrupt politicians want financial anonymity more than anybody.

🔥 Speaking of the UK Guardian, it ran a darkly fascinating story last week headlined, “Witches, shamans and grims: why the occult is on the rise in the art world.”

The headline posed an excellent question that it never answered. The article just rounded up a bunch of developing occultist artists, mostly all female, such as Clinton confidante Marina Abromovic. The less well-known artists were described using bizarre combinations of leftist political labels and Neo-pagan spiritual language, like one lady who was titled a “radical anarcho/eco-feminist and goddess artist, writer and thinker involved in Earth spirituality.”

Goddess artist? Okay. Whatever that means.

There were a couple men in there, too. The article described some male artists like Pearson Wright, who lives near Bungay, Suffolk, which the reporter proudly described as having the “highest number of satanists per capita in the last national census.” I am not making that up, and I was even more shocked to discover that was actually a question on the British census.

In a masterful political maneuver, witches have somehow glommed onto feminism, marrying their narrow dark spiritual arts to the generalized political notion of female liberation from the patriarchy. And they somehow accomplished that even though Satan is always depicted as male. Whatever, I’m not even going to try to figure it out.  The Guardian referenced the feminist connection, explaining that “witches are a potent symbol for female artists navigating a predominantly male art scene.”

It’s not just feminism. According to artist Lucinda Bellm, if that’s her real name, “The witch offers a means to delve into complex themes of dreams, gender and sexuality.” Really? One wonders how, exactly, communing with the devil and practicing the black arts provides anything helpful at all, much less means to delve into complex themes. Why can’t women delve into complex themes of dreams, gender, and sexuality without devil worship, or nature worship, or whatever they’re calling it these days?

It was a silly article and the “artists” are all very silly people. But two things stood out. First, there is something significant in the fact that the Guardian felt comfortable publishing this rubbish without fearing loss of readers. Second — and even more telling about the state of the world — occult artists like Marina Abromovic clearly heavily influence lefty politicians like the Clintons. In fact, Abromovic recently was inexplicably appointed to some leadership position in Ukraine by virtue of her relationship with the Clintons:

The intersection of the occult and democrat politics is pretty fascinating.

💉 He had a good run. But on Tuesday, former NFL wide receiver for the Chiefs and the Titans, Devon Wylie, 35, died suddenly and unexpectedly.

Devon lived a long, full life — to the ripe old age of 35. The many media reports on Devon’s death stated matter-of-factly that there was no cause of death. It was just his time, I guess. Old age. You know. Sometimes, people just die.

So there’s nothing to see here. No pandemic. No poison jab. No mental health crisis. Nothing. Just: no cause of death. Poof! One day you’re here, the next day gone, a tragic loss, thoughts and prayers for the family, et cetera and so forth, and now we must all get on with our lives, living well to honor the dead and always remembering that every day after 35 is a blessing.

Totally normal! Nothing to see here. Move along.

💉 Former Indianapolis Colts Super Bowl Champion, Matt Ulrich, 41, died suddenly and unexpectedly this week. He had four young kids: Gunther, Dalton, Bowden, and Thoreau.

Matt died of nothing:

Please, people, don’t start. This one is not curious at all. Or mysterious either. Matt was forty-one — six years older than the full male lifespan of 35. There’s nothing weird about an otherwise healthy athlete dying suddenly at age forty-one. Stop making everything into a conspiracy theory.

This looks like how it’s going to be from here on out. The corrupt corporate media establishment will refuse to tell us how all these people are dying, so that we can’t open-source an investigation. These media cowards are helping the government cover it up. But that’s fine, media. Bring it.

💉 And another one! Deputy mayor of Esternberg, Austria, Josef Greiner, 54, died suddenly and unexpectedly two weeks ago of … nothing. No cause of death. Just ACK! Buh-bye.

Whatever it was — not that I care, of course, I’m properly minding my own business, I’m just saying — but whatever it was happened stunningly fast. Josef’s obituary acknowledged that “we were all stunned.” It was tragic, appalling, no warning, and so on and so forth. Say the words! What difference does it make, in this delicate time for the family, for the rest of the city to know what exactly just suddenly wiped out a public official charged with protecting the community’s health, safety, and security?

It doesn’t matter. After all, they can just get another deputy mayor. But they can’t replace privacy.

💉 And … another one! Last week, Clarksville, Indiana City Council candidate and former City Councilman David Worrall, 59, died. Suddenly. Unexpectedly. It was so sudden and unexpected that he died right while he was voting at a polling station. Just one minute, he was standing there, a candidate voting. The next minute, he was out of the running, a non-candidate, and for good.

David died later the same day at the hospital. The local media report about David’s sudden death didn’t mention any cause at all, not even the absence of a cause. He just died, that’s all. Why would mention a cause? After all, what difference would that make? David was way older than 35, practically an antique.

And, what are you, a neo-pagan artist or something? All this morbid curiosity will get the best of you one of these days if you don’t watch out.

🔥 Finally, some fascinating and encouraging spiritual news. Meet Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who is quite comfortable with controversy. The muslim writer and intellectual came onto the public scene in 2001 after the 9/11 attacks. She was widely condemned by fellow muslims after she criticized Islam for being radicalized and violent. Shortly after that, Ayaan abandoned Islam and became an atheist, as she described in her recent essay titled, “Why I am now a Christian.”

Ayaan grew up muslim in Kenya, strictly guided by the teachings of the Muslim Brotherhood. In her essay, she described happily wearing a burka and rejecting Western makeup and fashions. She urged fellow muslims to pray, and demanded that non-muslims convert to Islam. “If they explicitly rejected our summons to Islam, we were to hate and curse them,” she explained.

But in 2002, the year after 9/11, having leapt into the public controversy over Islam, and having drawn hatred and threats from her fellow muslims, Ayaan happened to read an old Bertrand Russell essay. Philosopher Russell explored the intellectual case for atheism, and it made sense to Ayaan. So she discarded her lifelong muslim faith in favor of an active, naturalistic absence of belief in God. As a well-known intellectual author and influencer, Ayaan became buddies with other prominent atheist influencers and intellectuals like journalist Christopher Hitchens and scientist Richard Dawkins.

Ayaan enjoyed being an atheist. She found the other atheists to be intellectually stimulating and “a great deal of fun” to hang around with. But somehow it still wasn’t completely satisfying. 

Now, Ayaan’s journey has brought her full circle, through her atheism and out the other side. She now calls herself a Christian. And, in fine intellectual fashion, Ayaan’s essay attempted to explain why.

First, she pointed out the looming civilization threats posed by marxist collectivism and by Islamist totalitarianism. The only answer to these awful threats that makes any sense, Ayaan explained, is a common commitment to Christianity:

We can’t fight off these formidable forces unless we can answer the question: what is it that unites us? The response that “God is dead!” seems insufficient. So, too, does the attempt to find solace in “the rules-based liberal international order”. The only credible answer, I believe, lies in our desire to uphold the legacy of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

She next recognized that the genesis of classic liberal values was Judeo-Christianity. For example, both freedom of speech as well as the intellectual purity of the scientific method — crucial values to Ayaan — can both be directly rooted in Judeo-Christian theology. But to her credit, Ayaan ultimately recognized that her intellectualism was insufficient to rationalize her way to belief in a Divine Creator. Rather, she realized she’d had a spiritual hunger:

I would not be truthful if I attributed my embrace of Christianity solely to the realisation that atheism is too weak and divisive a doctrine to fortify us against our menacing foes. I have also turned to Christianity because I ultimately found life without any spiritual solace unendurable — indeed very nearly self-destructive. Atheism failed to answer a simple question: what is the meaning and purpose of life?

Although atheists won’t admit the essential nihilism, they will answer that simple question about meaning in life with the profoundly nihilistic response that “each person creates their own meaning and purpose in life.”  I’ve never understood that suggestion; in my experience, people often struggle to make even relatively simple decisions about their lives. Should I get divorced? Should I quit my job? Should I buy that car? Should I go back to school? Where should we go for dinner?

How on Earth are people expected to commit to a profoundly essential and determinative decision about what their life’s purpose is meant to be?

Ayaan is a new Christian and she is still learning the ropes. But her story is remarkably hard for atheists to shrug off. Atheists prefer to believe that faith in God is something that occurs blindly whenever unscientific people stop reasoning and start emoting. But Ayaan is a proper intellectual; intellectualism is her brand. She has also enjoyed direct access to, and intellectual intercourse with, the greatest scientific atheists in our generation.

And yet, she still wound up believing in the unseen, unprovable God of the Bible.

So, although spirits of paganism are clearly running loose in the world these days, there is also another Spirit at work, too. And that Spirit is much more, say, productive than are the neopagan spirits.

I’d take one Ayaan Hirsi Ali over a hundred Marina Abromovics.

Ayaan ended her essay joyfully, recognizing — at long last — that by “lapsing” from her atheism, she has finally discovered a better, more complete way to live:

Fortunately, there is no need to look for some new-age concoction of medication and mindfulness. Christianity has it all. That is why I no longer consider myself a Muslim apostate, but a lapsed atheist. Of course, I still have a great deal to learn about Christianity. I discover a little more at church each Sunday. But I have recognised, in my own long journey through a wilderness of fear and self-doubt, that there is a better way to manage the challenges of existence than either Islam or unbelief had to offer.

Have a terrific Thursday! Coffee & Covid shall return tomorrow with lots more encouraging (if somewhat sarcastic) news for you.

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