Hurricane Helene has a Critical Lesson for All of Us

Exploring the dangers of putting profits before people, especially when they are hidden behind a veil of secrecy

A Midwestern Doctor

Oct 03, 2024

Note: this post will be continually updated with new information as it becomes available.

Recently, the East Coast was hit by a devastating hurricane that swept through Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia, with 175 deaths in that region already been confirmed. Furthermore, unlike a typical hurricane, it also wiped towns off the map and was the worst hurricane in North Carolina’s history (with the possible exception of one in 1775).

Since I have a lot of ties to the area (e.g., many people I’m close to live there, and Asheville was one of our favorite spots to go road trips to—and one of my favorite songs is about the area), I’ve been hearing horrible stories over the last six days over what happened there (both from my friends and readers who have asked me to cover it) and I’ve put a lot of thought into what to say about the events. Eventually I decided it would be best to wait until the Vice Presidential debate was held, as given the magnitude of this unprecedented disaster, it was almost guaranteed the topic would be raised at the debate and by extension would likely make a much stronger case for the profound issues facing our country than anything I could say.

If you watch this clip, three things should jump out to you.

•The death and destruction from the hurricane, was an afterthought for everyone there (including the liberal moderators) except for JD Vance. This is particularly extraordinary given that the devastation was concentrated in the highly liberal areas of North Carolina.

•Their primary focus was not the suffering from the hurricane, but rather how those deaths could be used to support their agenda (the climate change boondoggle).

•Many of the claims the moderators made were false and justified by vague statements (e.g., “scientists say” or “the overwhelming consensus amongst scientists”).

This for context, is almost identical to what we saw those people do throughout COVID, as there was a callous disregard for the devastation of their policies (e.g., the unscientific and unjustifiable lockdowns) and the lives lost from their policies (e.g., from the systematic suppression of early COVID-19 protocols or mandating deadly and ineffective hospital protocols). Rather the deaths throughout the pandemic were only cited when something could be gained from them (e.g., more money or power for fighting COVID).

These events in turn touch upon a few key points I’ve emphasized throughout this publication which I believe are becoming increasingly important to recognize as we move into an era with a more and more predatory ruling class.

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Doctor Thyself

Presently the affected areas are facing a huge number of problems. Two of the key ones are a lack of drinkable water and a lack of medical care. To illustrate:

Tropical Storm Helene caused severe damage to the water and distribution system for Asheville.

The city says that extensive repairs are required to treatment facilities, underground and above ground water pipes, and to roads that are washed away which are preventing personnel from accessing parts of the system.

“Although providing a precise timeline is impossible, it is important to note that restoring service to the full system could take weeks,” city officials say.

Or to quote a trustworthy friend in the area:

Mission Hospital in Asheville has been trying to hold itself together like it’s in a television starship battle taking damage.

Generators were the sole source of power in the days after the flood. With water from the city still not possible, pumping trucks have been brought in to satisfy the demand. Ceilings are leaking and crumbling outside of ORs in hallways.

Shifts are constantly running, and workers of all types are being incentivized to stay onsite as much as possible. Fuel trucks have been brought in to fuel staff vehicles at no cost, and the cafeteria is doing the same for weary bodies and brains.

The parent company of the hospital is donating a million dollars to help with relief efforts. Other hospitals were defeated entirely by the rising water. One such case is in Erwin, Tennessee where there was a dramatic rooftop evacuation by helicopter of all staff and patients at Unicoi County Hospital.

Helping hands are flocking from all over the country. Fire trucks have been seen from as far away as Los Angeles, with EMS and line workers coming all the way from Canada.

In this publication, I’ve repeatedly emphasized Ivan Illich’s belief that two key problems underlie the dysfunction in American society.

•People are conditioned to believe they need to be taught to learn (which as discussed here destroys their natural capacity to learn and think critically).

•People are conditioned to believe they need a doctor to be healthy.

In turn, while I’d cite a few others as well, I believe Illich was spot on.

In the case of the second point, by reframing health as a product to consume rather than something you have your own agency over, it creates a situation where there can never be enough medical care, and in turn helps to explain why every year, more and more is spent on medicine (e.g., 17.54% of all spending in America in 2024), yet despite being by far the top medical spender in the world, we have some of the worst medical outcomes in the world.

Because of this reality, my focus has always been on two things:

1. Finding a way to practice medicine where minimal external infrastructure is needed for what I do (e.g., I have a small bag which carries everything I need [e.g., DMSO] to address more than half of the medical issues I run into).

For example, something most people don’t appreciate about our extravagant (resource intensive) hospital system is that it doesn’t keep a costly reserve of staff on hand and has almost no ability to handle a sudden increase (surge) of patients (e.g., this is why every year we see news stories about hospitals being overwhelmed by a “disastrous” flu season).

In turn, during either a pandemic or an infrastructure destroying disaster, it’s guaranteed that the surge capacity of the medical system will be reached. Because of this, there’s a good chance you’ll be on your own. Many of us witnessed this during COVID (especially in the hard hit areas of NYC). Since I knew this was essentially inevitable at the end of 2019, I made a point to learn everything I could about treating COVID on an outpatient basis. Then I spent the next year treating people who would have otherwise required hospitalization (and almost certainly died). In contrast, despite almost every leader in the medical field recognizing outpatient treatment of COVID would be necessary to prevent the hospitals from hitting their surge capacity, every single outpatient option for the treatment of COVID-19 was methodically suppressed by the healthcare authorities (except giving Tylenol or Ibuprofen—which arguably made the infection worse).

2. Providing people with the information to take care of themselves for the myriad of medical issues that don’t actually require prolonged medical care (e.g., if I have the option, I’d much rather tell someone how to deal with their issue themselves so I don’t need to keep seeing them and feel like I’m taking advantage of them by creating a cycle of dependency or unsatisfactory results).

Note: a massive (and incredibly profitable) investment over decades was made to enshrine this belief in doctors and hospitals. In turn, one of my biggest questions with COVID has always been why the industry was willing to risk the credibility it relies upon for the COVID grift—as the long term cost of the public losing its trust in medicine would greatly outweigh whatever was made off the vaccines. To illustrate—a large survey published in JAMA found in April 2020, 71.5% of Americans trusted their doctors and hospitals, whereas in January 2024, only 40.1% did—which is earth shattering for medicine. I feel most of my colleagues still do not appreciate the implications of this damage to public trust.

Because of this, the primary goal of this publication is to promote the Forgotten Sides of Medicine, which I believe can directly help the readers here. For example, I recently started a project I kept on putting off (due to the time commitment required to do it properly)—unveiling the medical applications of DMSO and the abundance of evidence for them. Many of them (e.g., treating strokes, spinal cord paralysis, and Down Syndrome) are understandably mind blowing. However, what’s even more important is that DMSO frequently and safely treats many far more common disabling and debilitating conditions people live with for years (if not decades) to the point they often contemplate committing suicide over them.

In turn, after I published that article, I’ve begun receiving emails and comments like this:

Great article. Very useful. Actually reading this is making me interested in returning to doing more research and observation on a surgical topic- the first time since I retired from surgery a few years ago— but I am now interested to watch wound healing / skin graft taking/ ulcer healing with DMSO help. That being said, since you introduced your last article I have been using it with neurologically damaged patients , chronic pain, and patients with autoimmune diseases and at very first response the responses have been very positive- in line with the data you present. As I have explained the data you introduced me to patients and given them the option they are showing intense interest. I am excited to follow these outcomes!

Note: this comment came from James Miller, a surgeon of remarkable integrity I’ve previously shared the work of here (who after one article was then featured on the national news).

Your articles are a blessing to me. I'm post spine surgery #16...10+ fractures, 4 fusions, nerve transfers...6 discs going bad...AS, parathyroid tumor, now gone, (long undiagnosed)...and today, I was utterly miserable. Read your articles, and remembered I have a jar of the DMSO gel. Put it on an hour ago...it's working. God bless you! Words cannot explain the hope I now have.

Thank you so much!! I have grade 4 chondromalacia and basically no cartiladge left behind the kneecaps , due to a patellofemoral tracking disorder . I strained my knee several days ago and the swelling was significant . I thought I would have to have the fluid drained and steroid instilled . I have had this done twice in the past . I used castor oil first on my knee, rubbed it in, then, 100% DMSO . I iced and rested the knee. I did this two or three times a day . Amazing response!! Better than draining and steroid !! I put some DMSO on my dog’s paraspinal muscles . She has lumbar spondylitis . She was moving better and brought me a pine cone to thank me !!

Note: 100% DMSO is too strong for many people.

DMSO is incredible. I suffered two weeks in bed with a back injury...and rose up and walked two hours after applying DMSO. I also have used DMSO many times to treat serious burns...every one of them healed quickly, and with significantly reduced pain. I crushed the cartilage in my right ear by accident, applied DMSO, and the wound was healed in three days, without scars. I have experienced no side effects other than the characteristic odor after use. It should be in widespread use.

I really admire your work AMD! I hope that one day we live in a culture where heroes like yourself can share information with out masks or fear of being criminalized, de-platformed or de-licensed. Since your first post on DMSO, I have spent a great deal of time researching the subject and have a few anecdotes to report.

I have had a large lipoma (fatty tumor) on my arm for many years. It was about 50mm in size (or about the diameter of an egg for your American audience). I used a topical application of 50% DMSO plus curcumin & ginger. I have been applying the DMSO to the lipoma 2-3x a day for less than a week and the tumor has already shrunk to 12mm (the size of a blueberry).

My wife has had pretty severe knee pain since injuring it 15 months ago. After explaining to her what DMSO was, I applied the same DMSO+curcumin mixture to both sides of her knee. She reported that it relieved her pain even before I finished massaging it in. The following day I asked if gave her a few hours of relief. To which she said, "no". I was a little disappointed, until she smirked back "it wasn't a couple of hours, it hasn't hurt since".

Note: the first part of this series which focuses on the neurological and circulatory diseases DMSO treats can be read here while the second part which focuses on its use for pain and musculoskeletal injuries can be read here (while the rest will take a bit longer to finish).

After I read all the comments here and the larger threads on Twitter (where many others shared how DMSO had helped them in the past), the thing I was most struck by was how little awareness exists about what can be done with DMSO (even from people who’d spent their life studying integrative medicine) despite the fact:

•It took the country by storm in the 1960s (e.g., hundreds of thousands of Americans were using it, gas stations advertised they were [illegally] selling it and thousands of studies on it were published).

•So much interest in DMSO still existed after decades of the FDA outlawing DMSO (e.g., due to it effectively treating chronic pain) that many legislators continually fought for it to be legalized (e.g., multiple congressional hearings were held in the 1980s to address end the FDA’s embargo).

This in turn, speaks to how incredibly effective the propaganda apparatus is at getting people to forget things which get in the way of its business model (e.g., GHB treating insomnia or ultraviolet blood irradiation revolutionizing hospital care and chronic circulatory, infectious and autoimmune conditions). Likewise, it still amazes me that Fauci enacted the exact same playbook on the gay community forty years ago with HIV crisis that he did for COVID, but despite the gay community openly calling him a mass murderer at the time, this time around, they ardently supported him.

Note: in addition to needing medical self-sufficiency, I also believe it’s becoming more and more important to have water self-sufficiency. This is because water is becoming an increasingly scarce resource, many of the municipal supplies being contaminated with things that harm your health, and because in disaster situations (e.g., this one) you can’t rely upon the grid to give you clean water. For this reason, I previously wrote an article discussing my preferred options for sourcing healthy water (including ones that can effectively filter runoff in a disaster) because I’ve found that is often critical for people’s wellbeing (e.g., a few readers found the bottled water brand I mentioned profoundly improved their health)..

Disaster Capitalism

In many ways, the problems we see in medicine are reflective of a broader issue society faces—our society has lost the virtue which created it. Too many view human tragedies as an opportunity for personal gain rather than a call to do the right thing and sacrifice themselves to help their fellow human beings (or other aspects of the world around us). As a result, we have too many in positions of power (e.g., in business or the government) who view their subjects as tools to exploit rather than actually caring about their wellbeing.

For example, when COVID started, I had genuinely hoped the magnitude of what we were facing would encourage a bipartisan spirit to help the country, but instead it simply made things more divisive because too many in power wanted to use it as a way to expand their wealth and power (best encapsulated by one wise friend saying: “COVID is the Democrats War on Iraq—the unscrupulous profiteering we are going to see over here won’t be all that different from what Bush and Cheney did in there”).

Natural disasters put many of the points I’ve highlighted thus far in context. This is because the Federal response to them tends to be incredibly inept with the focus rather than helping the people there typically going:

•Enriching organizations profiting from the disaster (who receive most of the aid money despite doing very little to support relief efforts).

•Concealing the extent of the tragedy to avoid making the government look bad.

In turn, those affected by the disaster are typically lost and forgotten. When you track them years later, they have been displaced and lost everything they had (e.g., see this article titled “Five years after the Camp fire, Paradise survivors see a hard future for Maui”).

Because of this, when the Lahaina wildfires happened, I received a lot of requests from readers there to help bring attention to what the locals were facing, and once I looked at the facts at play (e.g., what they shared) I realized that the situation would likely follow the disaster capitalism pattern. Since I wanted to give them a voice, I did that (e.g., here, and here), and amongst other things highlighted that:

•FEMA both failed to provide relief supplies to those who needed them and actively made an effort to block locals from helping get the supplies there (which led to boat conveys being set up to do that.

•The very first thing FEMA did was cut off the public’s access to Lahaina (e.g., with high fences from the highway or establishing a no-fly drone site above it), and as a result, for roughly a year made it impossible to get footage of what it looked like.

•Almost all of the aid went to things that did not help the affected residents of Lahaina, and as a result, despite billions being put in, the basic things they needed weren’t done and they are gradually being displaced and replaced with wealthier residents.

In turn, I felt there were two particularly important aspects of the story.

The first is that Lahaina is probably one of the most liked places in the world. So, if they could get away with doing that there, it’s a forgone conclusion the same or worse would also happen to “fly-over country” (e.g., while Biden took months to finally visit and did almost nothing for Hawaii—a heavily Democratic state, he refused to do anything for East Palestine a Midwest city essentially rendered uninhabitable by a chemical waste spill).

The second was that while the authorities abandoned Lahaina, the local community did not, and as a result most of the critical aid was done by community volunteers and local charities. I felt this was particularly important because in the perilous future we are moving into, a local decentralized model of support is the only thing we can rely upon (which likewise is why I believe the upper class puts so much work into making people be divided and hateful towards to each other).

To illustrate, here are two largely forgotten stories from Hurricane Katrina (the deadliest hurricane in US history and a truly monumental government screw-up):

Two days before the storm made landfall, while FEMA was floundering, the [Mormon] church dispatched 10 trucks full of tents, sleeping bags, tarps to cover wrecked roofs, bottled water, and 5-gallon drums of gas from its warehouses to New Orleans and other hard-hit areas. The supplies were distributed in an orderly fashion to people who desperately needed them.

The Cajun Navy are informal ad hoc volunteer groups comprising private boat owners who assist in search and rescue efforts in the United States as well as offer disaster relief assistance. These groups were formed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and reactivated in the aftermaths of the 2016 Louisiana floods, Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Irma, the 2018 Hidalgo County flood, Hurricane Florence, Tropical Storm Gordon, Hurricane Michael, Hurricane Laura, Hurricane Ida, Hurricane Ian, and Hurricane Helene. They are credited with rescuing thousands of citizens during those disasters.

Note: one of the things that made Katrina such a disaster was that the levees failed and flooded the poorest parts of the city (which is considered to be one of the worst civil engineering failures in history). Many residents at the time believed that the levees were intentionally detonated to flood the poor areas of the city (e.g., residents testified to hearing explosions in front of Congress) either to clear them out or to divert the flood waters away from the rich areas. While it’s impossible to know what happened, I had a close friend in the special forces who shared with me that on a message board he used, a Navy EOD diver stated he’d gone to at least one of the levees that failed and found signs suggesting an explosive was indeed detonated there.

Regrettably the dysfunctional FEMA response I just described is holding true for hurricane Helene. For example, this two minute testimony from a resident highlights that FEMA is telling people not to support local relief efforts while simultaneously refusing to help anyone and asking for all the relief money makes the point:

Note: the key point of this video is the critical importance of donating to local aid organizations rather than large charities.

Likewise consider this headline:

A South Carolina pilot who flew stranded Hurricane Helene victims in flood-ravaged North Carolina to safety claims he was told he would be arrested if he continued the rescue missions.

Many (very frustrated) citizens in turn, are also reporting that FEMA is prohibiting them from providing aid to the trapped citizens there (while the citizens for days have remained trapped and in desperate need for supplies—to the point looting is beginning to occur). Sadder still, many of those who could deliver the supplies (e.g., helicopter pilots) are instead being threatened with arrest (e.g., see this testimony, this testimony, and this testimony), and more curiously independent truckers trying to deliver relief supplies to the area are reporting their tires are being slashed at stops.

One of the most insightful reports I saw on this subject came from a guy who regularly finds ways to deliver relief supplies to disaster zones (including this one) stated that in 2017 after Hurricane Irma, independent aid was prohibited from by FEMA getting to the Florida Keys. When he finally bypassed the blockade (by going 87 miles at night by boat), he learned that the residents had been told by FEMA to stay inside and that there was limited aid (e.g., FEMA wouldn’t even give them water) because no one besides FEMA wanted to help them (leading them being abandoned) and since they’d lost communication with the outside world so they had to take FEMA’s word on this. Following this, he was able to mobilize the local populace to put pressure on FEMA to allow him to be involved in getting relief supplies. After mobilizing it, he had a remarkable experience which cuts to the heart of the issue:

I was able to coordinate several trucks full of supplies to be brought down to the EOC in Marathon. I was privy to the EOC meeting, BUT was informed in that meeting, that all of the semi trucks full of food, water and hygiene supplies were to be turned around and not allowed to be offloaded for distribution by the EOC.

THE REASON they gave us, was that these donations were not from companies on their "preferred vendors list" and that they would not accept them or give them to the residents of the keys impacted by the storm. It was at that point that I realized, this is ALL ABOUT MONEY. These 'preferred vendors" are getting part of the money being released by the state and federal govt for each disaster. In turn, some of the "vendors" make it on the list because a friend gets them on the list, and in return for getting ridiculously outlandish amounts of compensation for the services they render, they give kickbacks.

So accepting outside donations, even though they are on location and can help people NOW, they would rather let people suffer so they can get their kickbacks.

Note: I’ve also made the strong case that many of the medical charities (e.g., the National Multiple Sclerosis Society) which exist to help people with a disease (but despite raising vast amounts of money over decades fail to produce treatments for the disease) will actively block promising treatments for the disease as a cure emerging would negate their reason for existing.

Helene’s Aftermath

A variety of factors caused Helene to unleash an immense amount of rain, resulting in between 8-31 inches of rain being dropped on the state, which then due to the mountainous geography, was funneled to the population centers (e.g., two river next to Asheville which normally crests a 1.5 feet reached 24.6 and 26.1 feet—heights not seen since the 1791 hurricane).

For example, one of my friends who put years of work and his life-savings into a business lost most of it to the Hurricane (and then had the rest looted). While that’s tragic, what’s worse is that it was insured, but he just found out his losses won’t be covered—a situation not that different from the people of Maui who’ve struggling to get insurance payouts for their lost homes and businesses (which is being made even worse by the fact FEMA is refusing to give payouts to people who are “covered” by insurance and that the insurance companies are blocking broader settlements from going to the affected victims so they can claim that money). Similarly, I expect a major issue in the years to come will be the remaining buildings becoming uninhabitable due to water damage (creating mold) but not be covered by insurance, a situation identical to Lahaina (where insurance is refusing to remediate homes the wildfire smoke made unlivable—something also seen with many previous fires).

Likewise, this was recently shared with my by one contact in the area:

[From another contact in the area] The sheer unstoppable power of water is almost unimaginable. I’m used to storms, but the sheer destructive force of what it has unleashed in southeastern Appalachia is jaw dropping.

The isolation of Asheville NC is Dresden-esque. Interstate 40 West at the border of Tennessee looks nearly bombed out where rushing water claimed it. I-26 experienced a similar fate and is still closed on the northbound side.

Power is slowly coming back online in the outskirts of town, but most are still without water. Restoring it will take time. Not only is infrastructure like pipes compromised, entire water treatment plants are destroyed.

53 people have been lost, and the tally continues to rise. Cultural hubs like the River Arts District and Biltmore Village have been completely swamped like never before. Outlying towns like Chimney Rock simply no longer exist, washed away in nearly biblical fashion.

Sometimes life and the universe pulls back the curtain just a bit to show you just how good and bad things can really get. We’re all a lot more fragile than we’d care to admit sometimes, and our plans can be laughably shrugged off in an instant by the bigger waves of fate

In turn, many heart-wrenching stories exist from the hurricane. Consider this one recently shared by JD Vance at the debate:

In turn much of the basic infrastructure is destroyed:

Likewise, news publications which are more willing to criticize the presidency are airing stories exposing what’s actually happening:

“They’re afraid. People are getting on edge,” retired Asheville, North Carolina, police Officer Steve Antle told Fox News Digital. “They’ve already had people doing some minor looting in the area. Because there’s no power … so it’s just a free-for-all at this point. There are no traffic signals. There are not enough police officers.”

In Fairview, a suburb of Asheville hit hard by floodwaters and mudslides after the worst of Helene Friday morning, residents drove around grocery store parking lots asking others where they got water, gasoline and food.

Due to the lack of electricity and cell service, locals are unable to communicate to find out where these necessities are. Communication with loved ones and emergency personnel is also spotty, and residents are relying on temporary cell service towers that have been set up in select locations. But outside those locations, there is still no service or roaming data.

James LaTrella told Fox News Digital he lost his house in the storm.

“Two giant oak trees fell on our house and took out the whole left side … first floor and the whole left side on the second floor,” LaTrell said. “I actually got sick to my stomach while seeing that. I was in shock.”

North Carolina locals reported seeing corpses in the water, buried beneath debris and trapped in cars crushed by trees.

John Nazarovitch, a brewer in Fariview, showed Fox News Digital the remnants of a home that had floated downriver during the storm. Large pieces of metal from the house were wrapped around trees, showing just how strong the current had been.

In Fariview and other nearby towns such as Swannanoa, Black Mountain, Biltmore Forest and Boone, some residents became trapped in their mountainside homes after roads were entirely washed away by floodwaters, with no way to communicate with their loved ones or emergency personnel.

Antle said locals have been voicing concerns to the state and U.S. government about the poor state of roads in the mountainous region, some of which are U.S. roads, for years. Now, those roads have been washed away, the retired officer said.

“It’s just a perfect storm,” Antle said. “I can’t imagine what it’s going to ever look like again.”

Note: the excuse FEMA has given for their inability to respond to the disaster is a lack of funds (which many believe is due to them having just emptied their budget by spending 640 million on illegal immigrants).

“It was incomprehensible, what we witnessed, as it relates to the magnitude it was,” he said. “[I]t was truly something that you really can’t even visualize unless you see it.”

Hundreds of thousands more remain without power and cell service, which has led to delays in locals getting help and trying to get in touch with loved ones affected by the hurricane.

While nearby highways remain relatively clear for traffic, many secondary roads are destroyed, streetlights are not working and traffic into grocery stores and gas stations is overwhelming across several counties around western North Carolina. 

Note: the death toll continues to rise and is currently at 182 people. Additionally, reports are starting to emerge of large numbers of bodies being found (which suggests the final death toll will be much higher). I presently believe the death count will be in thousands as I am now hearing from people I know there who have seen dead bodies piling up (e.g., one person I know got out minutes before everything washed away).

Democracy and Public Relations

Many are appalled at the fact the Biden administration is doing very little to help the hurricane’s victims (with the few things they have done appearing to be staged photo-ops). For example:

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) arrived in Western North Carolina Monday after Gov. Roy Cooper announced President Biden had approved federal resources, but locals in Fairview maintained that they hadn’t seen any federal officials in the area Monday.

“I haven’t seen anybody from the federal government other than the Army, which is running the helicopters,” Antle said. “I’ve seen lots of out-of-state rescue, lots of county ambulances. I’ve seen lots of state resources, wildlife resources. … But I haven’t seen any federal government. I guess when you have a disaster like this, you imagine the federal government would swoop in, but that hasn’t been the case here.”

The US announcement of the Tennessee National Guard Task Force deployment to the Middle East has sparked widespread criticism, with many arguing that they would be better tackling the state’s ongoing hurricane disaster.  

Last Thursday, Tennessee's Department of Ministry said that over 700 soldiers would leave their home state later on Saturday to receive training in Fort Bliss, Texas over the coming weeks before being deployed to Kuwait. 

According to the military, the initiative will span a year and is reported to be in support of the US Central Command’s Operation Spartan Shield, where US forces have been defending Israel from potential attacks by Iran.

In turn, as best as I can tell, the Federal response to Helene only started after Trump and Elon Musk drew attention to it by visiting the area, setting up donations for the victims and delivering aid directly to the community (e.g., Musk has sent hundreds Starlink kits into the area to reestablish the vital lines of communication with the internet—and also make it much harder to control the narrative of what is happening there).

This is quite extraordinary as we are expected to have a heavily contested election, and many of the key swing states were in the hurricane’s path (e.g., Asheville is one of the main Democrat voting blocks in NC, with Biden’s margin of victory there being 45% of Trump’s victory in the state)—yet they were completely abandoned by the government.

This in turn, touches upon a broader problem. In this article, I’ve repeatedly touched on the subject of public relations—a fusion of marketing and propaganda which has gradually become the invisible government of the country as most policies people in power want to enact (e.g., all of our pointless wars) can be sold to the public with a well crafted PR campaign. This is immensely frustrating because it’s transformed Democracy from a system where governmental policies are decided based on what the populace wants to one that constantly seeks to manipulate the public into voting against their own interests. As a result, the main restrain on government overreach has switched from being if the people want it to simply if it’s sellable.

Likewise, I believe the core problem in so many industries is that PR has made it much cheaper to create a positive image with the public (e.g., by championing social justice or fighting climate change) than it is to actually earn it by doing the right thing.

This all began during World War I when the nascent science of propaganda came into being. At the time, using propaganda within a democratic society was immensely controversial as taking away the people’s agency to make policy decisions was antithetical to the nature of what a Democracy was supposed to be. On one end, its proponents argued society had become too complex for the citizenry to know what the correct policies were so it was necessary to delegate those decisions to an “expert class” (and then sell the policies through propaganda). In contrast, the anti-propaganda side instead argued that our educational system must be revamped so that the electorate could understand the critical issues of the day and make the correct decisions on them.

Ultimately, the propagandists won (as due to the remarkable success Hitler had in Germany with propaganda it was feared the allies would lose without also adopting it). The last vestiges of the anti-propagandists were erased when Obama in 2013 signed a law which eliminated a 1948 law that had prohibited government from pushing propaganda on the American public—a move which I believe kicked government propaganda into overdrive.

The fundamental reason why propaganda “works” is because we have a monopolized media which will all disseminate the same tailored message on every day (while simultaneously blocking the counter narrative) and as a result, for me, living in America is the somewhat depressing experience of seeing the campaigns be routinely carried out and have most of the people around me fall for them regardless of how absurd they are.

However, the internet completely upended this, because it made it possible for millions of independent actors to create viral stories that opposed and often dismantled these massive propaganda campaigns. More importantly, since these independent campaigns cost a fraction of what the organized ones cost and can be produced in the blink of an eye, they often outmaneuver the traditional propaganda campaigns, thus making the previous model of government (selling bad policies to the public with propaganda) no longer viable.

As best as I can tell, the ruling class did not realize how dangerous the free diffusion of information on the internet was to their power, so by the time they tried to clamp down on it (e.g., by allowing the Biden administration to violate the first amendment by threatening the social media companies into censoring opposing narratives), it was too late to stop the tide. Instead, we’ve hit a situation where the propaganda apparatus is in a downhill spiral—since the people are losing trust in the government, propaganda is being deployed more and more to regain their trust, but as more and more people see through it, deploying all the propaganda is accomplishing the opposite of what was intended and instead causing people to lose even more trust in the government.

Note: all of the above is discussed in further above in this article by the Civilization Research Institute.

As such, the ruling class has two options:

•Try to double down on their outdated model of control through terror (e.g., increasing the tyranny of the government) and clamping down on all sources of free speech (e.g., Obama created the concept of censoring “misinformation” for the good of the public in October 2016).

•Try to switch to the second model of governance (an educated and empowered citizenry which can be trusted to make the correct decisions for society).

I would argue events like COVID-19, where the experts were catastrophically wrong and all worked together to silence the general public (who were correct) would argue we need to adopt the second model, and in turn, a key goal of this publication is to do my part in contributing to that societal shift.

Unfortunately, people never like to let go of power, and those in charge are choosing to go with the (ultimately futile) former approach. In turn, I am seeing more and more calls in the left-wing media (and from prominent Democrats) to get rid of the Constitution or at the very least that freedom of speech should permit censoring misinformation and shutting platforms like Twitter which allow free speech (some of which I compiled here).

For example, this was one of the most blatant examples I’ve seen recently:

Note: Kerry, beyond being Bush’s 2004 opponent, was also a fellow member of the Skull and Bones—a notorious secret society which has hundreds of alumni who’ve obtained prominent positions in the government (and which led to the infamous “Don’t Taze Me Bro” incident).

If you listen to Kerry’s speech, it’s clear his side is worried about losing power and are trying to argue that winning the 2024 election will give them a mandate to enact draconian censorship around the world (as opposed to just getting the public to trust them by simply telling the truth). The one thing that confuses me about this strategy is that talking about it openly makes them less likely to win the upcoming election—and to be honest, I’m not really sure why they’re doing it.

Note: this is similar to how Biden and Harris hiding from the press (along with Harris skipping the primary process and being anointed as the nominee) also has made them less likely to win but they nonetheless have done it.

Conclusion

I very much believe we are at inflection point where things could easily go in a very positive or negative direction. At this point, there seems to only be one card left for these people to play—convince the electorate the other side is so bad that it justifies looking past all of the morally repugnant policies being pushed (e.g., previously challenging the constitution would instantly disqualify a candidate). To some extent this has worked. For example, I recently saw a sad video circulating of a left-wing voter gloating over the hurricane eliminating her (deplorable) political opponents:

In contrast, I believe the thing that will likely decide where things go is the degree to which we can get past the hate the media has fed into the minds of people like the woman in the above video and instead come together. Events like this hurricane highlight how easily things can fall apart if we don’t have a connected network of support to help each other, and sadly, it’s quite likely we will face more of these (e.g., the playbook I described here will likely be used for future natural disasters too). In turn, my hope through highlighting both what’s happening now and what happened in Maui, will provide more productive models moving forward, and fortunately, as the community response shows in these events, most people are not ensnared by the hate and division the media puts forward and instead are willing to do all that they can to help their fellow Americans (in many cases even when it puts them at risk of being arrested).

For our species to evolve, we need to stop putting profits before people. For example:
•I can’t even begin to word how much suffering keeping therapies like DMSO from the public has done to the world
•The devastation of COVID could have been avoided if government had simply allowed doctors to treat patients with therapies the doctors knew worked.
•As I’ve tried to show in each of these disasters we see a similar pattern—aid people need is kept from them so someone else can benefit from the tragedy).

Fortunately, I believe mediums like Twitter are making that possible (e.g., there is far more awareness on there right about what’s going on in North Carolina and what happened in Lahaina than there’s been for any previous disaster).

It is very clear that this exposure terrifies the corporate class and ruling “elites,” and it is my sincere hope we are moving to an era where we have leaders who love and care for their people rather than ones who view us as chess pieces that exist to be manipulated. I thank each of you who can help bring awareness to what’s currently happening in the Appalachians and help the people there from the bottom of my heart.

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