by James Corbett
corbettreport.com
June 11, 2023

Perspective

Those who have seen Carol Reed’s classic 1949 film, The Third Man, will doubtless remember the scene where the film’s protagonist, Holly Martins (played by Joseph Cotten), encounters the film’s antagonist, Harry Lime (played by Orson Welles), on the Wiener Riesenrad. During the scene, Martins and Lime discuss Lime’s diabolical business scheme: stealing penicillin from post-war Vienna’s military hospitals, diluting it and selling it on the black market, leading to the death of countless infants.

In one of the film’s most iconic moments, Lime opens the door of the Ferris wheel car as it approaches the top and invites Martins to look down at all the people scurrying around on the streets below.

“Look down there,” Lime commands Martins. “Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you £20,000 for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money? Or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? . . . Free of income tax, old man. Free of income tax! It’s the only way to save money nowadays.”

From Lime’s perspective, the people down below are mere “dots” to be manipulated, maimed or even killed in the pursuit of wealth. The deaths of those poor souls he looks down on produce no pang of conscience. He assumes Martins (and, by extension, the audience) will see things the same way.

Sadly, this line of thought, as blood-curdling as it is, is perfectly familiar to those who have studied the mindset of the elitist eugenicists, whose vast fortunes are made at the expense of us little “dots.” The scene on the Ferris wheel perfectly encapsulates the calculus that goes into the Rothschilds’ monetary manipulations and the Rockefeller-sponsored “Green” Revolution and the Gates-led Gene Revolution and all the other schemes by which the Powers That Shouldn’t Be make money and increase their might by crippling or killing those of us down below. The only thing missing from this incisive study of the operation of power in our society is the recognition that the Gateses and the Rockefellers and the Rothschilds and their ilk are, unlike the criminal fugitive Harry Lime, actually admired by the largely ignorant masses, lauded for their “philanthropy” and their business acumen even as they commit atrocities against humanity.

Meanwhile, here in May of 2023, I sit in a 787 breaking through cloud cover at 5,000 feet as we make our final approach into London Heathrow. I see the houses, the buildings, the cars, the bustling of the people on the streets below. But, unlike Lime, I don’t see little dots who can be manipulated, crippled or killed in the pursuit of money or power. I see mothers and fathers on outings with their family, businessmen and women rushing to their jobs, trucks transporting goods from one place to another, shops and schools and homes and farms buzzing with activity. I see the outskirts of a vibrant city spread out beneath me, full of good things and bad things and everything in between things. I see the flourishing of humanity in all its fallible beauty.

I see life. And I rejoice.

It’s all a matter of perspective.

Card Only

A couple thousand years ago, the Romans completed their conquest of Britain, establishing the Roman province of Britannia. Discovering a natural hot spring in the valley of the River Avon, they promptly built a temple to Minerva (the Roman goddess of healing) next to the site and established a small urban settlement known as Aquae Sulis there. And, being Roman, they naturally decided to turn the hot spring into a public bath.

Historians, archeologists and museum guides tell us that the temple was constructed somewhere around 60–70 AD and that the bathing area was gradually built up over the course of the next three hundred years. They also tell us that the site fell into disrepair in the 5th century and the original Roman baths were destroyed in the 6th century. . . but what do they know?)

What they do know is that the original complex, now buried below street level, was excavated in 1870 and was gradually turned into the museum and visitor attraction that it is today. You can walk around the excavated site, learn about its history, and see various exhibits displaying the remnants of Aquae Sulis and its inhabitants.

One exhibit I found particularly interesting was a display of some of the thousands of Roman coins that had been thrown into the “Sacred Spring,” presumably as an offering to the goddess. In fact, according to the World History Encyclopedia, the practice of throwing coins into the spring even predated the Romans. “The local tribes—the Dobunni and the Durotrigesis—threw the coins, styled with imagery of ships, human heads, and triple-tailed horses into the sacred spring as offerings to the [Celtic] goddess [Sulis].”

So, to sum up: thousands of years ago, people travelled to the site of these springs to bathe in their healing waters and to throw coins in this spring as an offering to the gods.

But if you go there today, you’ll see this:

I got very used to seeing “CARD ONLY” and “CASHLESS” signs in businesses during my brief stint in England, but this sign at the Roman Baths had to take the crappy cashless cake. Oh, yes, there’s still a cash box for you Luddites out there, but the gods now prefer contactless payment, please.

Indeed, wherever I went in my travels throughout the UK, the contactless payment device was always offered first and cash was only taken begrudgingly if I insisted on it. In a fair number of shops, cash was no longer even an option. I can’t say I’m surprised by this development, but it caused a bit of culture shock nonetheless.

Look, I know the cashless dystopia is coming. Heck, I’ve written and warned about the coming cashless control grid over and over and over again. But from my perch here in Japan, it’s more of a threat that’s looming over the horizon than a present-day reality.

Paper money is still good for any and every conceivable transaction in the land of the rising sun, right up to and including the purchase of cars. (I should know: that’s how we bought our vehicle!) While various payment apps are gradually becoming more widely adopted here, it’s scarcely conceivable that a public-facing, functioning business in Japan wouldn’t expect cash to be the default payment option. And the idea of not accepting cash at all? Thankfully, that’s not something I have had to worry about here yet.

However, travelling in England has brought the problem into focus for me in a way that was not apparent before. There are situations where I can imagine it’s extremely difficult if not impossible for people in the UK to pay with cash. The idea of Cash Friday and the push to support cash-friendly businesses have thus become more important than ever.

. . . I just wonder when the Bath Spa operators are going to discover the 10 yen coin that some nameless tourist threw into the spring in defiance of that bothersome sign.

Meeting People is Easy

Yes, everyone knows that digital communication is not real communication. So much of the human element of conversation is utterly lost when we communicate with others through our keyboards instead of in face-to-face interaction. But then we promptly forget that distinction when we log in and start having online chats/rants/arguments with our internet “friends.”

There’s no better cure for the cybernetic simulacrum of society, then, than gathering with real people. In an actual room. In real life. A radical idea these days, to be sure.

Luckily, that was precisely what I was able to do in Bath earlier this month at the Better Way Conference. These conferences are always important places for attending talks, delivering presentations, connecting with other researchers and discussing news and events. But more important than all of that (for me at least) is that they present the chance to actually meet some of my audience in person.

In fact, considering that I spend so much of my time talking to cameras and working online, all the human interaction at these types of events is a bit overwhelming at first, but soon becomes a real source of joy in and of itself. The opportunity to connect names with faces and getting to hear people’s personal experiences is incredible. Hearing how much your work has meant to someone while you’re locked in a firm handshake with them (or even receiving a hug from them) is worth 1,000 internet comments. Being able to not only answer people’s questions but to query them back and engage in actual dialogue is worth 1,000 hours of keyboard-enabled text exchanges. And being able to see someone’s expression? Hear their tone of voice? Pick up on their body language? It’s priceless.

I know this may sound trivial, but I assure you it isn’t. And I fear that as we plunge further and further into the Media Matrix, we will gradually forget that this online chatting is just a poor, faded copy of genuine, authentic human communication.

So if you find yourself spending more time with devices than with real people today, why not put down the phone, put aside the keyboard, and try meeting some friends face to face? I bet you they’ll appreciate it.

The Least Important Story in the World

OK, bear with me here. Apparently, there’s somebody named “Phillip Schofield.” And it seems he was a host of some kind of morning program in the UK. And he recently admitted that he had had an affair with some young staffer. And now his broadcasting career reportedly lies in ruins.

Now, if you’re not from the UK you’re probably just shrugging your shoulders at these facts. Who cares?

But if you are from the UK, you’ll know that the Schofield affair is the BIGGEST STORY IN THE ENTIRE WORLD right now. Or, at the very least, you’ll be aware that every mainstream media outlet is treating this story as if it were a groundbreaking scandal of such proportions that it threatens to alter the fabric of civilization itself.

As you may or may not know, I tend to avoid lamestream media altogether except when researching a specific story or monitoring the latest propaganda. However, while in England (or “whilst” in England, as the Brits would say), I did pick up a few newspapers and turn on the evening news once or twice just to acquaint myself with the narratives that the British are being indoctrinated with. And, when I did so, I found nothing but wall-to-wall coverage about Phillip Whatshisface.

So if you’re of the British persuasion, let me assure you: it is physically impossible for someone not from the UK to care any less about this completely irrelevant non-story, and it is utterly baffling to us outsiders why anyone would devote more than two seconds of thought to such nonsense.

Having said that, my experience witnessing this tidbit of tabloid trivia being treated like a world-shaking news story of monumental proportions was a valuable one. We often get so caught up in the narratives within our cultural bubbles that we start to take for granted the pointless twaddle served up by the deceptive distractors of the dinosaur media.

Of course everyone is talking about the latest celebrity scandal. Of course that’s “news.” What else could we possibly be talking about?

Stepping outside whatever bubble we exist in, however, and seeing the hysteria surrounding some foreign event helps even the most hardened and cynical boycotters of the MSM (like myself) to keep the truly inconsequential chatter of the bought-and-paid-for presstitutes in perspective.

So, the next time you’re in a foreign country, try it for yourself. Pick up a newspaper or two, flip on the TV in the hotel room (but only for a few minutes) and remember: the “news of the day” in your own country looks as absolutely stupid to foreigners as their “news” looks to you.

Recommended Reading

Technocracy in Action: WHO and European Commission Partner for “Digital Health” with New COVID-19 Digital Certificate

Digital ID in Canada and Japan

You are being conned: Data, studies & UN IPCC all reveal Canadian fires not due to ‘climate change’

Recommended Listening

Are Libertarians Greedy and Delusional?

Recommended Viewing

Better Way Conference on-demand streaming

8 conversations around topics of food, environment and health with speaker presentations and discussion panels (including yours truly)

Just For Fun

British People / Bri’ish

CLICK HERE to visit the New World Next Week shop and use the coupon code subscriber25 at checkout to receive a 25% discount on any Corbett Report DVD or USB (or the new Mass Media: A History online course) just for being a Corbett Report member!