“Uncertainty is not an indication of poor leadership; it underscores the need for leadership.” — Andy Stanley, founder and senior pastor of North Point Ministries
The significant challenges we face in the world result from the shockingly low quality of leadership. With few exceptions, our political leaders are motivated not by concerns for the future of the human race, but by their own immediate interests. This creates an opportunity for business leaders with a desire to leave a lasting legacy. To be successful, though, they will need a clear understanding of how we got here and what to expect next.
In this post, we’ll build on what we’ve learnt from the history of past collapses to understand what happens next. If you haven’t already done so, it might help to first get to grips with the 7 phases in the cycle of human civilizations: Stability, Growth, Prosperity, Overshoot, Hubris, Totalitarianism, Collapse/Emergence. Here’s an explanation and infographic:
What’s in this Post?
Understanding the Globalist Playbook (8min read)
What to Expect Next (2min read)
The Good News (4min read)
What I’ve Been Reading (links to +/- 30min reads)
Understanding the Globalist Playbook
In a previous post, I made the following bold claim:
ESGism and Net Zero is the ‘special goal’ intended to mobilize the population to embrace centralized control. It’s the same mechanism used by Mussolini in Italy, Stalin in USSR, Hirohito in Japan and Hitler in Germany. Without a significant change in leadership styles, the globalist system is headed for similar outcomes to the historical examples listed here.
It is relatively easy to understand how centralized control can be implemented in a single nation through a single dictator. Understanding how the same level of control can be implemented globally is a little more of a challenging pill to swallow. That's where climate change and ESG compliance enter the picture.
Say, what?!
As is becoming increasingly clear, the climate cult is riddled with falsehoods and hypocrisy. Hedge funds are raking in billions from renewables, exploiting the public’s desire to do the right thing. Renewables require a massive increase in mining and plundering of rare earth minerals to provide the materials used in wind turbines, solar panels and electric storage batteries for EVs. All of this hypocrisy is by design, but to understand the extent of the deception, we need to go back in time.
Our journey of understanding begins at Oxford University in the UK.1
Buckle up for this whistlestop cavort through modern history. It's not for the fainthearted, particularly if you are comfortable with the illusions that currently pass for political reality. This is a crucial piece of the historical puzzle if we are to understand how the drive for ESG compliance came to be.
Oxford University is the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's second-oldest university in continuous operation. There is evidence of learning taking place in Oxford as early as 1096. A rival university is Cambridge, and together they are England's two original universities. Healthy competition between the two over the centuries has helped Cambridge and Oxford to push their limits and produce some of the most influential students in the world.2 Oxford itself has produced dozens of prime ministers, numerous archbishops, saints, economists, writers, and philosophers. (It also produced the Oxford comma.3)
One of the students relevant to our journey of discovery was John Ruskin (1819-1900), an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath. In 1842 Ruskin was awarded an uncommon honorary double fourth-class degree.
In around 1860, two opposing forces in the British Empire began clashing heads. On one side, many argued that the empire was immoral in its desire to emancipate small nations. Others wanted nothing less than to win the European race for land and resources in the global south, specifically Africa.
The debate between imperialism and the “Little Englanders” made Ruskin an unusual, yet timely and very necessary figure. In 1869 Ruskin was appointed the first Slade professor of art at Oxford.4 His role was to use the appreciation of art and beauty to lead the charge in teaching Oxford undergraduates about “new imperialism.”
Ruskin spoke to the Oxford undergraduates as members of the privileged, ruling class. He told them that they were the possessors of a magnificent tradition of education, beauty, rule of law, freedom, decency and self-discipline but that this tradition could not be saved—and did not deserve to be saved—unless it could be extended to the lower classes in England itself and to the non-English masses throughout the world. If this precious tradition were not extended to these two great majorities, the minority of upper-class Englishmen would ultimately be submerged by these majorities and the tradition lost. — Tragedy and Hope, page 130
In other words, if the ruling elite failed to expand the empire, their civilized way of life would be lost to the unwashed masses. It was a powerful message, and it had a “sensational impact” on one of Ruskin’s students. The student was so moved that he copied Ruskin’s lecture word for word and kept it with him for thirty years.5 That student was Cecil John Rhodes. Rhodes went on to become a British mining magnate and politician in southern Africa who served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896. He established Rhodes Scholarships at Oxford, Rhodes University and the De Beers diamond monopoly in South Africa. The African nation of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) was renamed after Rhodes.6
In 1892 Punch magazine published The Rhodes Colossus, an editorial cartoon depicting Rhodes as a giant standing over Africa holding a telegraphic line connecting most of the British colonies in Africa.
But the most significant of Rhodes’ many accomplishments remains almost completely unknown. After monopolizing the diamond and gold mines of South Africa, the enormous wealth and influence that he secured enabled him to steadily increase a Network of immense influence.
Rhodes feverishly exploited the diamond and goldfields of South Africa, rose to be Prime Minister of the Cape Colony (1890–1896), contributed money to political parties, controlled parliamentary seats both in England and in South Africa, and sought to win a strip of British territory across Africa from the Cape of Good Hope to Egypt. — Tragedy and Hope, page 130
After seventeen years of planning, Rhodes called a meeting and formally established a society based on the Network he had developed together with Lord Alfred Milner.7
The goals which Rhodes and Milner sought and the methods by which they hoped to achieve them were so similar by 1902 that the two are almost indistinguishable. Both sought to unite the world...in a federal structure around Britain. Both felt that this goal could best be achieved by a secret band of men united to one another by devotion to the common cause...Both felt that this band should pursue its goal by secret political and economic influence behind the scenes and by the control of journalistic, educational, and propaganda agencies.
With the death of Rhodes in 1902, Milner obtained control of Rhodes’s money and was able to use it to lubricate the workings of his propaganda machine. This is exactly as Rhodes had wanted and had intended. Milner was Rhodes’s heir, and both men knew it...In 1898...Rhodes said, “I support Milner absolutely without reserve. If he says peace, I say peace; if he says war, I say war. Whatever happens, I say ditto to Milner.” — The Anglo-American Establishment, page 49
Over time, groups within the network have come and gone: the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), the Institute of Pacific Relations, the Council on Foreign Relations, the League of Nations, the CIA, the Rockefeller Foundation, the World Bank, the UN Development Program, the Ford Foundation, the World Health Organization, the Global Vaccine Institute and many more.
The expansion of the Network into the US is a much longer story, with Edward M. House and Woodrow Wilson playing influential roles.
Quigley’s 1966 tome, Tragedy and Hope, is an extensive written historical record of how the Network spread internationally. It is a dry and difficult read. At over thirteen hundred pages, approximately six hundred thousand words, and weighing in around three kilograms, it’s safe to say that it wasn’t written for the casual reader. Fortunately, there is a very succinct overview available, which I highly recommend: Tragedy and Hope 101: The Illusion of Justice, Freedom and Democracy by Joe Plummer.8
The key lesson, for the purposes of our journey, is that:
An international, below-the-radar, well-documented Network of immense influence exists;
The Network was initiated by a British mining magnate who monopolized and pillaged the diamond and gold mines of South Africa in order to fund the Network.
The names of the establishments and individuals involved are less important than the objective of the Network, which is to “bring all the habitable portions of the world under centralized control”:
In the middle of 1890s Rhodes had a personal income of at least a million pounds sterling a year (then about $5,000,000) which was spent so freely for his mysterious purposes that he was usually overdrawn on his account. ...These purposes centered on his desire to federate the English-speaking peoples and to bring all the habitable portions of the world under their control.9 For this purpose Rhodes left part of his great fortune to found the Rhodes Scholarships at Oxford...The power and influence of the Rhodes-Milner group in British imperial affairs and in foreign policy since 1889, although not widely recognized, can hardly be exaggerated...The American branch of this English Establishment extended much of its influence through five American newspapers (The New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, The Washington Post, and the lamented Boston Evening Transcript). — Tragedy and Hope, page 131
To wrap this up, the efforts of Klaus Schwab’s WEF—supported by the drive to control all corporations under ESG compliance and the ludicrous attempt to reach Net Zero by 2050—is simply the most recent public front of a 120-year old, well-funded vision of national fascism (which always includes a special goal) extending to global fascism. That’s why I make the claim that, “ESGism and Net Zero is the special goal intended to mobilize the population to embrace centralized control.”10
The technologies available today are enabling the possibility of this dream becoming reality like never before. Fortunately—if the oft-repeated cycle of civilzation is a reliable predictor of future outcomes—the social and governance systems supporting the possibility of global centralized control will collapse.
Let’s explore what we can expect in the next few years, using history as our guide.
What to Expect Next
2030 is, by now, the well-established date that Schwab and his cronies are working towards.11 It's important to bear in mind that the WEF is merely the front for the Network. If at any time something 'goes wrong,' the WEF can easily be sacrificed and the Network will continue operating.
The next few years are going to be a rough ride, as the Network exerts more and more control, nation by nation. Things will move quickly and it will be a chaotic time. Here is a list of some of the actions we’ll see taken. These are not predictions; they are merely possible steps toward “bringing all the habitable portions of the world under centralized control.” By keeping this goal in mind, we’ll be able to make more sense of what will no doubt be a chaotic few years.
“It's a skill to navigate uncertainty.” — Monty Williams, American coach
Companies who refuse to comply with ESG mandates may be squeezed out of the market (through shareholder activism and withdrawal or withholding of financial services like lines of credit, insurance, banking, etc.)
Politicians in every country may intentionally increase levels of fear and suspicion in their population as well as stoke hatred towards other people or other groups.
There may be climate lockdowns that make Covid lockdowns look like a Sunday school picnic.12
There may be escalated energy rationing, not because energy is scarce, but to condition behaviour and to enforce control.13
Climate activists who don't realise they've been conned into supporting the 'special goal' may become louder and louder.14
Economies may collapse under the weight of national debts. States of Emergency will be declared, triggered by economic crises but attributed to climate.
Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) may be issued, in response to collapsed economies.15
The adoption of CBDCs may be encouraged by offering a Universal Basic Income (UBI), where everyone who opts in receives a set amount of money on a regular basis, supposedly to alleviate poverty.
The amount of UBI issued may be determined by each recipient’s Social Credit Score.16 This score may be linked to personal Carbon Footprints.17
A Social Credit Score may be linked to a digital ID, the ultimate form of individual control. These IDs will be offered as the engineered solution to climate lockdowns, just the same as digital health certificates were used during C19. In other words, only those with digital IDs may move around freely during or after climate lockdowns.
The Good News
There is no question that the future looks bleak. However, the good news is that the Cycle of Civilization always includes two very different but overlapping streams:
Phase 7 - Collapse: The ending of a no longer sustainable system (including the ending of draconian controls);
Phase 0 - Emergence: As the population comes under unbearable forms of control and as monetary and governance systems start collapsing, civil society starts organizing in new ways; new forms of governance and economics slowly emerge.
This emergence is what has always occurred in history. The defining characteristics of this phase are contrarian thinking, courage, hope, determination, and perseverance. Interestingly, these characteristics have been more than evident in the numerous crypto communities that have come and gone since the publication of the Bitcoin whitepaper in 2008, fourteen years ago.18
What is missing in the crypto, blockchain and activist space is the level of organising and coordination that the private sector is known for. This is why none of the idealism evident in this emerging space hasn’t yet taken hold. But that will change as new leaders emerge. This creates an opportunity for private sector leaders to fill the vacuum left by a lack of leadership in the public sector.
The next step—from an evolutionary perspective—is to recognise our unity as a species. That will require us to recognise everything that brings us together and start not paying so much attention to things that divide us. As we have seen, the public sector is trapped in the game that thrives on division. The people sector is too disorganised (at present) to play a meaningful enough role in society. That said, the will, drive, commitment, creativity and passion are all there. We’re at the very moment just before the butterfly emerges from the chrysalis.
All that’s missing is leadership, but we know from history that the right leaders are there, just waiting for the right moment to emerge. Stepping into this new form of leadership is downright scary because of all the unknowns. But doing so with others makes the journey less daunting. That’s why, in the next few weeks we’ll be announcing a mastermind for emergent leaders. Watch this space.
All the best,
Michael
What I’ve Been Reading/Watching This Week
There was a coordinated announcement last week about breakthroughs in fusion energy. I’m skeptical, which is why I was grateful for this list of nuclear fusion reality checks, published on December 14th by Net Zero Watch: https://mailchi.mp/1a38a66a2ff1/nuclear-fusion-a-reality-check-193035
A highly recommended article on how the world’s largest asset-management firms (with $15 trillion under management) have been happy to oblige the globalist vision because they believed they would benefit financially. Now the cracks are starting to show as market returns and the legal protections conveyed to investors and codified in law remain an unforgiving reminder of reality: https://the-pipeline.org/the-esg-counter-revolution-has-arrived/
In this post, I’ll be quoting extensively from two books by Professor Carroll Quigley (1910-1977), an American historian and theorist of the evolution of civilizations: Tragedy and Hope, published in 1966 and The Anglo-American Establishment, published posthumously in 1981. Quigley is an influential yet little-known figure in understanding world history. To learn more about the role he has played, including mentoring Bill Clinton, see https://bit.ly/CQuigley.
To help avoid ambiguity, the Oxford University Press style guide requires the placement of a final comma before the ‘and’ in a list of three or more items. https://www.wordrake.com/blog/3-must-know-comma-rules-for-lawyers
Tragedy and Hope, page 130
You can find a downloadable PDF of his book, as well as my own summary notes and a worthwhile interview with the author at https://bit.ly/T-and-H.
Another way of saying ‘federate the English-speaking peoples’ is: To combine all developed nations into a single centralized unit, within which each state or nation keeps some (limited) internal autonomy. Example: in 1901 the six colonies federated to form the Commonwealth of Australia. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/federate
About ‘special goals’ and centralized control: “The totalitarian state pursues some special goal, such as industrialization or conquest, to the exclusion of all others. All resources are directed toward its attainment, regardless of the cost. Whatever might further the goal is supported; whatever might foil the goal is rejected. This obsession spawns an ideology that explains everything in terms of the goal, rationalizing all obstacles that may arise and all forces that may contend with the state. The resulting popular support permits the state the widest latitude of action of any form of government. Any dissent is branded evil, and internal political differences are not permitted. Because pursuit of the goal is the only ideological foundation for the totalitarian state, achievement of the goal can never be acknowledged.” From https://www.britannica.com/topic/totalitarianism.