Mar 30, 2023
International Man: Throughout history, governments have used crises-real or imagined-to eliminate freedoms, expand the power of the State, and justify all sorts of things the populace would never accept in normal times. After World War II, Winston Churchill famously said, "Never let a good crisis go to waste." This was when he and other leaders came together to form the United Nations, which they probably could not have created without the crisis of WWII. Ever since, it seems that each new supposed crisis causes a further centralization of global power. The War on (Some) Drugs, the War on Terror, the COVID hysteria, and the so-called climate crisis have all ratcheted up the centralization of power on a global scale. What do you make of this trend? Doug Casey: It makes sense that Rahm Emanuel, a sleazy Obama apparatchik, would have stolen the phrase from Churchill. But the statement is quite correct, regardless of the source. Government lives on crisis. As Randolph Bourne said