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Your reflections artfully weave together history’s harsh truths and the sobering prospect of an impending global conflict, eloquently contrasted against your breathtaking descriptive immersion in natural beauty, both within us and around us. It is a testament, delivered with a profound sense of hope and quietly graceful resilience. Bravo!

The line, "Even the total destruction of humanity and humaneness does not compel some to let the ring of power be taken from their hand," immediately brought to my mind the haunting image of Gollum in Tolkien's *The Lord of the Rings*, his slimy desperate fingers grasping for the ring—a powerful symbol of corruption and obsession. Though this resonance was most likely unintended, as you often remind us, the mind travels unique and curious paths.

“My precious, we wants it, we needs it, must have the precious…” – Gollum

Gollum, J.R.R. Tolkien's tragic anti-hero, embodies a mania that consumes him, both physically and spiritually. Once a Stoor hobbit of the Misty Mountains, he was overtaken by the allure of the Ring. The desire to possess it drove him to murder his own cousin, Déagol, and from that moment on, the Ring became his sole reason for being, transforming him from a joyful hobbit into a creature warped by compulsive desire. Brzezinski was clearly warped with loathing of Russia and his consuming desire to destroy it as a world power.

Gollum’s tragedy lies in his inner duality—a battle between Sméagol, the remnant of his gentler self, and Gollum, his corrupted, deceitful alter ego. These two personas clash within him, exposing the devastating impact of his fixation on the Ring. He becomes a symbol of a delusion's power to disfigure not only the body but also the soul, embodying what you've so hauntingly called "the unfathomably dark depths of the human being."

This fixation on power and control, believing it to be the key to happiness and security, ironically ensnares him in a cycle of endless longing and despair. Gollum’s character becomes a tragic reflection of the maniacal darkness that arises from unchecked belief. The fascinations fueled by a steady rhythm of propaganda emanating from a "certain metaphysical force or spirit."

Spoiler: In the trilogy's climax, his fixation seals both his and the Ring's fate. Overcome with triumphant joy, Gollum bites the Ring from Frodo’s finger, only to plummet into Mount Doom’s fires, where he and the object of his desire are finally destroyed. Gollum’s end is a grim parable—his fervent quest for dominion lead to ruin, illustrating the terrible consequences of blind ambition.

“My Precious” has become a cultural meme of our understanding of consumption with blind belief, desire and self-destruction. Much like Gollum, humanity stands on a precipice, teetering over the “darkest abyss,” with the Neocon's blind fixation on power, wealth, and global dominion threatening to ignite a devastating conflict. Gollum’s fate serves as a stark reminder: the very object of attraction, pursued at all costs, can become the instrument of humanity's undoing.

Your fervent pleading for authentic personal testimony sparks the courage in many who are silent and in some who practice the art of sincere speech within their sphere of influence, whether small or large, to steadily pick up their voice and carry on. Much thanks for your own gallantry to surrender to this flow of life.

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That's a very important point: "practice the art of sincere speech within their sphere of influence, whether small or large". Exactly - do little if you can't do more, but do the right thing, and do it with integrity. And cooperate with each other in order to be able to do more.

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"No one escapes the power of this symbolic framework, neither Russia nor America, Europe nor China. They all use propaganda, they all participate in the arms race,....."

Another reason why it's problematic to compare east to west etc., is that neocons have publicly stated that they want to break up Russia and downgrade China etc. So you could forgive them nations for taking a more aggressive posture....

China sends out building teams into developing nations, while the US sends out bombers to level cities, and occupying forces... I know which business model I'd prefer.

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Dr. Desmet,

Please allow me to use this sentence of yours to introduce a question I would like to ask you.

You wrote, "The enemy lies in an ideology, a way of thinking, in a certain metaphysical force or spirit."

I am an unknown musician working on a series. The first of that series I have titled "Lone Guitarist Fights World's Crime, Corruption and Injustice."

The reason I gave it that title is because I am using a position from a common, ordinary musician's point of view as a way to talk about what I see as the solution to such problems. And the solution I see is to deal with something not too far removed from what you describe in a nonspecific way as " ... an ideology, a way of thinking, in a certain metaphysical force or spirit."

Now, as I'm in the process of writing my 7th instalment in the series, I am planning to make a succinct reference to something I've heard you talk about, namely, mass formation.

The mass formation subject seems very plausible to me. What I have always wondered, though, is, is it possible that there is one instance of mass formation being exerted on general populations (by tyrants) while, at the same time, another is being exerted on the tyrants themselves?

If so, it seems to me that this would suggest a source outside of the both groups.

I hope my question is sensible, and I look forward to hearing back from you.

Monty

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Desmet has previously given examples of top down and bottom up totalitarianism. Also, tyrants tend to believe in their own propaganda over time... So there doesn't necessarily need to be a hidden group pulling everyone's strings..., especially in a financial system when callousness pays dividends, and principles are harmful to profit.... (Big Pharma, Military industrial complex, Gender-affirming surgery etc?).

'Mass formation' is a fancy term, I refer to it simply as hysteria. ;-) There are plenty of well documented cases on wikipedia, etc., from the Salem witch trials, to Beatlemania :-) and Iraqi scuds; but people talk like it's a new concept. See 'groupthink'.

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Although my comment was directed to Mattias Desmet, I thank you for your comments. It's a good point you make that "... there doesn't necessarily need to be a hidden group pulling everyone's strings." But my question was, *is* there one? The reason I have wondered is that it seems beyond ordinary that so many of the globalist types (a term I'll use for now) have become so amalgamized and all at the same time. It just strikes me that *they*, as much as anyone else, are exhibiting tendencies resembling people under some sort of spell.

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Mattias, your notion that Russia attacked Ukraine because it was threatened by NATO is complete nonsense. It was not Western brainwashing or cunning coercion, but the experience of Russian occupation that made countries like the Baltic states want to join NATO. To get into NATO, we had to actively want it ourselves. It seems that you, far away on the Dutch-German border, view Ukraine (and probably also Poland and the Baltic states) as nasty warmongers who should not have their own will as a nation and people. It is very strange that, as an expert in the psychology of totalitarianism, you have taken such a one-sided position on the issue of Russia.

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You don't have "own will as a nation and people", you gave that up a long time ago. Instead you live in world of propaganda and pure ideological nonsense. Mattias has described and analysed the situation perfectly; if you don't want to grasp that, that's your problem.

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I don't think it's wise to pick a side in a nuclear conflict but rather solve the problem, and the author obviously knows it. More info:

https://substack.com/@keepingyouhonest/note/c-74399526

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What position? If it's Harris, it'll be business as usual. If it's Trump, he's already promised to end the war on Day-1. So that means stopping the money flow immediately, withdrawing US troops (trainers, you understand, not combatants), and talking directly with Putin (who has repeatedly said that all he wants is self-determination for Donbas, as required by the Minsk Agreement (2014), wjich the Ukraine government unilaterally abrogated.

The question is: Who do you trust to do what they say? Harris, or Trump (kept just about all of his 2016 campaign promises)?

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Whoever is elected will not truly be elected but rather appointed by the powers that be (i.e. the very influential families some of which Mattias mentioned in his article). Unfortunately whoever it is, they are both zionists but from a different brotherhood. WW3 is inevitable not because of how world powers are shaking up the geopolitical chessboard but more poignantly because of how these elite families have been planning it all along.

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Mattias, I would like to add a link which is very useful for this subject:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_S._Herman

Edward Samuel Herman (April 7, 1925 – November 11, 2017) was an American economist, media scholar and social critic. Herman is known for his media criticism, in particular the propaganda model hypothesis he developed with Noam Chomsky, a frequent co-writer.

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'I feel people everywhere becoming aware that only the Act of sincere speaking... ' I am learning to speak my truth without hardening. Yet speaking truth with softness and firm sincerity at the same time. People like yourself give me the courage to step it up.

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Thank you! ❤️

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How does the idea that we are likely to enter a world war to assert US dominance square with the BRICS Kazan declarations which have just endorsed the same globalist WEF agenda as their supposed Western opponents?

https://edwardslavsquat.substack.com/p/would-you-like-know-what-brics-just

Could it be the geopolitics is actually psyop/theatre with all participants party to violent misdirection and manipulation intended to lead to the establishment of a "New World Order"?

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Since convid scam global lockstep synchronisation I'm surprised Mattias actually believes that there are still sides...

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It still surprises me how media manipulation turned 'progressives' into warmongers; who think that prolonging the war somehow helps Ukrainians... I doubt the population can ever recover now, after so many people being thrown into the meat grinder...

"No one escapes the power of this symbolic framework, neither Russia nor America, Europe nor China."

Besides that, I still think a multipolar world offers different ways of organising society - it is my understanding that Russia and China prevent billionaires becoming oligarchs (unlike the West...).

As far as I'm aware, both Russia and China didn't mandate covid shots; it makes you wonder which peoples are really the freer...

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Russia and china had mandates as everybody else (or some coercive strategies)

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Russia and China are participants in the same global theatre.

Failure to play becomes expensive (Slovakia may be trying to stand aside?) and most countries are not even asked, they are simply managed from outside by puppets or co-conspirators.

https://edwardslavsquat.substack.com/p/would-you-like-know-what-brics-just

Putin is the poster boy for energy industry billionaires. Mostly he keeps most of his ownership in other peoples names, family, friends, underlings but he has been at it for a long time and is not short of personal fortune, a little digging will unearth the quiet parts that are usually left unspoken. The substack above will possibly have a post on Putin but not sure.

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Yet put Putin gives long academic lectures on the formation of civilisations etc., and tries to preserve the family, while his Western counterparts can barely string a sentence together...

I just posted why it's problematic to compare east to west etc., in that neocons have publicly stated that they want to break up Russia and downgrade China etc. So you could forgive them nations for taking a more aggressive posture....

China sends out building teams into developing nations, while the US sends out bombers to level cities, and occupying forces... I know which business model I'd prefer.

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USA, EU, BRICS all have identical goal. Gain maximum foreign resources for the minimum cost. The methods differ somewhat depending on what is palatable at home and abroad and on what can be conveniently achieved with present economic, military, political and industrial strength.

The Russians did mandate covid shots. The Chinese had obscene lockdowns. Every bad policy we hate from the government they are leading or following the same trajectory as the west.

In the 1960's my father was present in regular office conversations in West Germany at regular engineering companies. He says that Africa would never be allowed to advance beyond what was required to extract the mineral/fossil/natural (these days also labour) resources.

A decade ago I saw a clip from a big cheese economics leader giving a speech at a global seminar. He had a map of the world with figures for economic importance for the continents and Africa was left unmarked. An African delegate questioned why Africa was not included in the list and he simply replied Africa is not relevant.

Look up GLOBAL500 headquarters and see if you can spot the 3 global power blocks? Africa is not one of them. These are the three teams that are playing and everything else I believe is collateral damage in the theatre.

"locations-of-companies-in-the-fortune-500-global"

Right now still things are worse in Russia and China but the plan is to make things as bad as that everywhere unless you have US$10 million to grease the wheels of your lifestyle and can insulate yourself from the normal bureaucracy. This is why little islands are so popular with billionaires no government offices.

The same way a tobacco company will break the law or poison customers and simply pay the fine so too will China, it is the worlds largest vertically integrated company with a profit driven board room at the top. If it can offer an African country a loan to finance a railway they will build (getting all the money back with interest after getting paid for the work) they will do it because they have cheap labour and will use the railway to extract minerals from the continent.

What has happened is that the greed has become destructive of the golden goose (humanity) and the natives are getting restless and starting to notice the big game instead of remaining asleep.

In the same way that fiction tells us the power blocks are at war with each other and the alliances will change as required. USA and Russia were ALLIES in the second world was against Europe (Axis powers). Russia was originally allied with Japan who was fighting China that was allied with USA. All smoke and mirrors.

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Thank you for your insightful analysis on the present threat looming over humanity.

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Besides the last paragraphs this article is unfortunately sounds like literal Russian propaganda

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You are a soft and naive. Mattias offers you cold-blooded historical, political analysis; but you prefer to believe the masters.

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I don't believe you read to the end.

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Only if you've been indoctrinated with collective west propaganda...

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Thank you so much, Mattias, your article may well be a spark, among others, to launch your workshop; as one possible participant I would like to suggest Swiss historian Daniele Ganser, who, next to researching about 9/11 eg, conducts workshops about mindfulness; a new crop of scientists, like yourself, to combine science with the love of mankind. Thank you.

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Dear Mathias what a beautiful endeavour you pursue! I love your eloquence. Some of your descriptions of nature are sublime.I have found a practice that has moved me from a reticent and fearful voyeur to a fearless and compassionate speaker in the Port Hedland Motion movement in Australia. It is a miracle I asked for. It is to do with the complex of my parts expressing as feelings. I have managed to engage compassionately with them all and finally found the key to self compassion. This has released me into a spsce where I am free and unconstraned to go forth with heart and courage. It is a revolution in my own psyche. Is this of interest to you?

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This is an amazing article. This article avoids the dreaded diviseness which most people have been subjected to and relays valuable information. Brilliant insight and understanding portrayed by the author

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