As IF Times

link:  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14393987/usaid-programs-republicans-drag-queen-ecuador.html

Well whaddya know? The veil has been lifted and to the surprise of almost no one, it’s been revealed that practically the entirety of the US media, if not media globally, has been funded by only one source: USAID.

For those paying attention through the years, it wasn’t a complete shock since often, the narrative espoused by all media outlets was practically word for word exactly the same on any given issue.  It was Pravda on a global scale. At the very least, the workforce at USAID was certainly on a global scale, numbering over 10,000 workers.

According to the Columbia Journalism Review, USAID supported 6,200 journalists, 707 news outlets and 279 media sector civil society organizations in 30 different countries. It’s revealed that USAID has been a major sponsor of fake news.

For perspective, USAID began as a humanitarian organization targeting humane causes.  It has grotesquely morphed into the main funding source for a pot pourri of bizarre causes and directed towards preposterous ends. As noted, it employs 10,000 workers to help spread American goodwill.

According to documents retrieved by Trump’s financial sleuth, Elon Musk via the DOGE initiative, a short list of beneficiaries include:

$7.9 million to teach Sri Lankan journalists how to avoid “binary-gendered language”,  $2 million for sex changes and LGBT activism in Guatemala, $1.1 million to an Armenian LGBT group, $1.5 million to promote LGBT advocacy in Jamaica, $2 million to promote LGBT equality through entrepreneurship in Latin America, $3.9 million for LGBT causes in the Western Balkans, $5.5 million for LGBT activism in Uganda, $6 million for advancing LGBT issues in priority countries around the world, and $6.3 million for men who have sex with men in South Africa.

Apart from this, USAID has funded $25 million for Deloitte to promote “green transportation” in Georgia, $6 million to transform digital spaces to reflect feminist democratic principles, $1.3 million to Arab and Jewish photographers, and $8.3 million for “USAID Education: Equity and Inclusion”

It has also funded over $4.5 million to combat disinformation in Kazakhstan. That one is amusingly ironic.  Here’s a good one: $520 million to teach people in Africa about climate change.  Why wouldn’t it have been cheaper to send Greta Thunberg for a whirlwind tour?

And yet, these are peanuts compared to the amounts distributed to media outlets.  As we can imagine, attributing an accurate figure on the amounts spent on media is difficult, but the number of at least $268 million dollars has been offered by the same Columbia Journalism Review.   The number is likely much higher since this has been going on for years if not decades.

Heretofore respected outlets such as the New York Times and Reuters were revealed to have been beneficiaries of large sums of USAID money.  Thus, people have been deluded about the veracity of a story if it was carried by these formerly venerable outlets.  The most recent example of propaganda as news was the universal support of vaccines and masks for the Covid campaign. It turns out that they were fronting for Big Pharma.

This is important because, despite all that’s happened, people still think the NY Times and Reuters are real news. It turns out, the reportage was essentially marketing scripts with the intent of shaping opinions, not providing news.

How do we know that news outlets such as Reuters were involved in large scale social deception?  Well, for one thing, the name of the USAID file of the 9 million dollar grant given to Reuters was named “Large Scale Social Deception”

As we know, people are maddeningly naïve and they will believe anything if it’s repeated often enough…and by enough media outlets.

Thus, the entire concept of a free and independent media has been a charade. Thankfully, technology has undermined their influence on people’s news consumption, because now, X is the de facto medium of record.  Though you must still navigate through a virtual firehose of opinions and facts, at the very least, there’s an unfiltered presentation of data for the discerning mind to assess. You are no longer a victim of the official narrative.  It gives people comfort that the reality that they observe is not the same as what they are told to believe.  Information is now bottom up rather than top down.

link: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg0m79gm10o

The biggest news of the week was the imposition of tariffs by the US on its heretofore best trading partners, Mexico and Canada.  The expected outcry ensued from the respective governments about the unfair bullying tactics of the US and then the knee jerk retaliatory actions followed..

What could have precipitated this action on the part of the US?  General bullying? Manifest Destiny? Regional hegemony?  Well it took root with Donald Trump’s pledge to protect American citizens and their borders from infiltration of illegal migrants and associated with that, a continued flow of drugs, particularly fentanyl and of course, the associated crime.

It’s the national equivalent of having your neighbors with whom you share a fenceless property line, allowing their dogs to defecate on your lawn.

The rational response should be, “Wow, that is a problem, we’ll do better to stop that kind of activity, since we’re good neighbors and all”. Of course, that didn’t happen.  The response has been more like, “what dog?” Canada and Mexico took umbrage at the mere accusation of being un-neighborly and imposed sanctions of their own back at the US.

In the case of Canada, which at the moment is led by nobody, but nevertheless, the recently resigned Prime Minister Trudeau still presents himself as the savior and champion of Canada’s interests by invoking patriotism and the Team Canada flag. While this is entirely laughable and tragic, some delusional Canadians are voicing their national pride in denouncing the Americans and rallying around some of Canada’s political leaders.   They’ve already coined an expression for this: Stockholm Syndrome.  Some may recall that in the 1970’s, the heiress to the Hearst fortune, Patty Hearst, was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army.  After a period of captivity, she wound up sympathizing with her captors and acted on their behalf in committing various crimes.

Just a few years ago, Trudeau’s government imprisoned citizens daring to protest his Covid mandates, sending the police in to forcefully break them up, arrested organizers of the trucker’s convoy, garnished their bank accounts and labelled them enemies of the state for not complying with unjust vaccination mandates. Court cases surrounding this exist to this day.  In addition, Canadians were prevented from entering or leaving the country and made to walk only in the direction of arrows in grocery stores.  Some may also recall Trudeau proudly declaring Canada a post national state and that allegiance to the pride flag was more important than the maple leaf.

Suddenly as the nation is soon to be under the pressure of US tariffs, he invokes the patriotism flag….and the quadruple vaccinated are falling for it.

What is the tariff?  The tariff will be 25% on all goods entering the US unless the border issues are addressed.  People with short memories are reminded that the Liberal government themselves had plans to implement a carbon tax of at least that much to ALL Canadians in a few weeks time in order to fight the quixotic battle against climate change.  This was the entire reason for the unpopularity of the governing Liberals in the first place.  I’m convinced that Trudeau is annoyed that tax money would go to Americans instead of their own coffers.  As we know, all socialist regimes only use taxation in the most creative ways to fund their existence. Recall that the mayor of Toronto wanted to tax rain.

Like all demagogues, he invokes the classic “we’re all in this together” bleat to signify solidarity with all Canadians. Nothing says “in it together” like having your food, shelter, travel, vacation  and alcohol paid for by the taxpayers while also enjoying pay increases at will. This is reminiscent of Oprah Winfrey, a billionaire, imploring the little people to donate money to help re-build Maui… since they’re in it together.

The financial and cultural lives of Canada and the US are inextricably tied together. Are Canadians not going to use Amazon? Netflix? NFL? Trash TV? McDonald’s? Not travel to Palm Springs and Hawaii and Florida?

This tariff battle is the equivalent of staying with one card in blackjack when the dealer has a face card showing.  He cannot win. The good consequence of this period of stupidity is that now the conversation will be re-ignited on the larger issue of nationhood. The regions of the nation will have to consider in greater depth the terms of the confederation and the distribution of power….or even if Canada continues as a nation.  If a visionary cannot make the case for nationhood but only demagogues continue to be elected pushing the latest shiny thing, there is no future as a nation.