The above image was made with stable diffusion using the prompt 'bitcoin network.'
Something interesting happened recently. My girlfriend and I were having dinner on the patio of a burger joint. We were talking about presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.. He's totally got his act together and everything he does makes him seem more electable. His latest video on the immigration crisis are a case in point.
On issue after issue, RFKJ takes a compassionate stand against business-as-usual, threatening entrenched bureaucracies and special interests. In interviews, he refuses to engage on the level of partisan politicking. And as a keynote speaker at the 2023 Bitcoin Conference in Miami, RFKJ staked out a position in favor of decentralized crypto and against CBDCs. Here's a quote from an article about it:
He said Bitcoin won him over when he witnessed the Canadian administration using surveillance and data tracking systems to block truckers who were protesting COVID mandates from accessing their bank accounts in a bid to end the demonstration. "When I witnessed this cataclysm, this devastating use of government repression, I realized for the first time how free money is as important to freedom as free expression," Kennedy said.
So we were talking about all of this, speculating about what might happen if RFKJ continues gaining traction with likely voters. Corporate interests will likely try even harder than they're already trying to censor his message. If corporate censorship doesn't stop him, there are several other ways he could plausibly be attacked by the powers that be. One obvious attack vector is financial.
When Wikileaks published documentation of US military war crimes, the US government established a financial blockade of the organization. Wikileaks' bank stopped providing services. MasterCard and Visa refused to process transactions. Instead of folding under this pressure, Wikileaks created a bitcoin payment channel in 2011 and survived for several additional years. In other words, the full weight of the United States couldn't stop bitcoin from funding Wikileaks.
Telling my girlfriend the story of Wikileaks and bitcoin in the context of considering how RFKJ might survive a financial blockade, I found myself getting really emotional. Not angry or heated at all. More like there was a raw passion welling up from some part of me I rarely hear from. The part of me that recognizes that society is at a critical juncture.
People are beginning to understand that the whole covid response was a giant farce. The FDA recently revoked authorization for the J&J vaccine that 19 million Americans took after being assured that the shot was safe and effective. This is just the latest in a long string of tacit admissions by officials that they got the whole pandemic terribly wrong.
Beyond covid, the technological revolution that's beginning will change nearly everything. So will the accelerating collapse of ecosystems and the proliferation of landless refugees, both foreign and domestic. My sense is that all of this will sum to a crisis of authority. There are already signs that such a crisis is underway.
Now, into this storm steps RFKJ, a man with integrity challenging the status quo. Challenging the status quo and making progress. Wherever it goes, I feel like his candidacy is a statement. What it says is that now is the time for people with integrity to step up and do something meaningful. Even if that means challenging the mainstream.
Read my novels:
- Small Gods of Time Travel is available as a web book on IPFS and as a 41 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt.
- The Paradise Anomaly is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Psychic Avalanche is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- One Man Embassy is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Flying Saucer Shenanigans is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Rainbow Lullaby is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- The Ostermann Method is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Blue Dragon Mississippi is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
See my NFTs:
- Small Gods of Time Travel is a 41 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt that goes with my book by the same name.
- History and the Machine is a 20 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt based on my series of oil paintings of interesting people from history.
- Artifacts of Mind Control is a 15 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt based on declassified CIA documents from the MKULTRA program.