The Two Most Destructive Frauds in History

It’s getting harder and harder to not abandon faith in the supposedly respectable institutions we once relied on, and to unequivocally reject what has become their core governing premises. So here goes: the entire “climate crisis” is an opportunistic hoax; the entire “equity” (along with diversity and inclusion) movement is a corrupt fraud. This fraud and this hoax have permeated and overwhelmed every “respectable” sector of American life, with disastrous consequences that are only beginning to be felt.

If you are someone who still has faith in the ultimate resilience of the institutions that once made America great, try to research positive new ideas. Try to identify and promote solutions to genuine challenges. Invariably as you peruse the promotional literature of today’s innovators, no matter what it is you’ve found, you’ll have to sift through endless drivel about carbon this and carbon that, along with diversity this and diversity that, before you might find any facts that matter.

This is a huge problem, because obsessive attention to climate and equity priorities, regardless of how important they may be, obscure the essence of pretty much anything, and deflect attention from whether or not it might have genuine value. We get it. Less carbon. More diversity. But does it work? Thanks to the obfuscating filters of climate and equity, separating useful ideas from monstrous scams is far more laborious than it ought to be, and all the while, the scams are getting bigger.

Climate and Equity Politics Will Destroy America

It’s becoming reasonable to conclude that the standard of living of all but the wealthiest Americans is being deliberately reduced by people who are utterly indifferent to their fate. This deliberate destruction of an entire nation doesn’t have to be a conspiracy, because so much of it is the merely the logical response to an open, incessantly trumpeted “consensus” that’s noble in its aspirations, but diabolical in its impact. It goes something like this: The climate emergency, along with the inequity of white privilege, are existential threats to humanity, and therefore both require a “reset.”

To make it almost impossible for Americans to unite and stop the destruction of their way of life, in case the sacred and urgent consensus regarding climate and equity isn’t enough, Americans are being trained to hate each other. And that trope, repeated endlessly and everywhere in myriad iterations, goes like this: If you are a member of the heteropatriarchy, you are an oppressor. If you’re not, you’re a victim. But this entire narrative must be questioned, because it’s a pack of lies.

The problem with scientists who can personally vet every equation and offer expert opinion on climate change theory is they are, every one of them, aware that their career and reputation depends on saying what they’re supposed to say. They are not permitted to express doubt. Those scientists who do stand up to the “consensus” are typically retired and less vulnerable to having their livelihoods terminated. But these “deniers” are banned from social media as soon as they develop a following of any consequence, and the mainstream media ignores them unless the purpose is to smear their reputations.

As for “equity,” even black conservatives cannot share basic truths. Intact families with a father and mother are the most reliable guarantor of individual success in life. But if you say this, as the eloquent Larry Elder often has, you are chastised as “the black face of white supremacy.” According to the Smithsonian Institution, no less, if you have a work ethic, a useful education, if you are punctual, polite, self reliant, and think rationally, you are giving in to “white dominant culture.” If, on the other hand, you embrace thug culture, and commit crimes at a disproportionate rate, your offenses are excused because you were victims of white racism.

This infantile nonsense, and those examples barely begin to describe it, has been spewed into American culture for two generations. It has turned the average voter into a Pavlovian stooge, completely unaware that it’s not white privilege, or climate change, or racism, that is responsible for the price of rent to double in the last 12 months, or the price of gas to triple, or the price of food to quadruple. Rather this reset trauma is a logical next step in the consolidation of wealth and power in America into the hands of a few hundred billionaires.

Thwarting Obvious Solutions to Revive America’s Middle Class

Here are some of the major problems Americans face, along with obvious solutions. Here as well are the reasons our elite claim these solutions are unacceptable, the real reason for their objections, the solution they’re pushing instead, and why their solution is dreadfully wrong.

We have expensive energy: the rational solution is to develop more oil and gas, along with nuclear power. We’re having a drought: the rational solution is to increase the supply of water by collecting storm runoff in new reservoirs and aquifers, desalinate water from the ocean, and recycle wastewater. We have a food crisis: irrigate more crops with the enhanced water supply, let cattle graze in the forests and build more meat processing plants. We have forest fires and lumber is too expensive: bring back the timber industry. We have a housing crisis: abolish the ridiculously overwritten building code requirements, relax the zoning laws that prohibit urban expansion, quit charging criminally high fees for building permits, and deregulate the industries that supply building materials.

None of this can be done because it is supposedly environmentally destructive. But notice the common thread: the obvious, common sense solutions involve creating abundance, something Americans used to be good at. But the preferred solution is to conserve, and pay higher prices. When you impose regulatory barriers in the name of sustainability, you don’t merely raise the price of water, energy, food, and housing. You drive out of business the small competitors that might emerge to serve the demand for these products and services. They don’t have the economies of scale to navigate the regulations, pay the permits, fight off the litigation. Meanwhile, monopolistic multinational corporations with sunk costs and strong balance sheets collect windfall profits because the demand driven prices they can charge increase far more than their production expenses.

It is impossible to overstate how centralized financial power in America has already become. BlackRock, an investment fund dedicated to divestment of American fossil fuels, now has over $10 trillion under management. BlackRock is only the biggest of many powerful investment funds promoting “ESG,” (an acronym for the words “Environmental, social, and governance,” these are climate change and equity inspired criteria used to screen investments), with the declared goal of eliminating fossil fuel. Any energy-literate person knows this is impossible. They will not succeed. But they can, and have, made the price of oil and gas prohibitively expensive.

But it isn’t just BlackRock, and the big hedge funds, that have tacitly agreed to turn America into a nation of Lords and serfs. With a few heroic exceptions, it’s every individual and company with a billion or more dollars to throw around. Ordinary people can’t afford homes anymore; the one sure way Americans used to build generational wealth. But institutional investors can buy homes by the millions, and pay for them in cash. To help keep housing prices rising, they’re letting foreign buyers get a piece of the action. That keeps real estate portfolios appreciating, and it also helps collateralize the dollar. Who wants Chinese gold, when you can buy American real estate with your surplus dollars? And to make sure that every time a family farm patriarch dies, it gets purchased by a multinational corporation or a billionaire hedge fund or a foreign sovereign wealth fund, cram down the production of nitrogen fertilizer, then jack up its price along with every other ag input from seeds to tractor fuel to irrigation water, and drive them out of business.

Do all this for the earth. Do it for sustainability.

Never mind that renewables are as destructive to ecosystems as conventional energy. Never mind that without nitrogen fertilizer, ordinary citizens in developed nations are driven into poverty, and those in poorer nations starve to death. Protect the climate! Fight racism! This is vacuous, unwarranted, evil nonsense, and yet we have to hear Judy Woodruff, Lester Holt, Nora O’Donnell, David Muir, and all the rest of the thespian marionettes that masquerade as national journalists intone this litany day after day, year after year, until we’re so numb we no longer realize we’re being fed garbage.

What’s happening to Americans, right now, is a monstrous crime. Through deliberate and easily reversed policies, the cost-of-living in America is being elevated to empower the wealthy and impoverish everyone else. The justification for all of this is the climate emergency that must be countered by any means necessary, and systemic racism that must be eradicated.

Climate alarmists and equity fanatics must be confronted. If they are sincere, they must be told they’ve been lied to. If they are opportunists, they must be held accountable. Candid and unequivocal rejection of the climate and equity agenda does not diminish concern for the environment and respect for the dignity of all individuals, in fact, it restores authenticity to those sentiments and opens pathways to practical solutions for genuine challenges. But if the people pushing this extreme agenda are not stopped, cold, and soon, they will destroy our civilization.

This article originally appeared in American Greatness.

Edward Ring

Edward Ring is a contributing editor and senior fellow with the California Policy Center, which he co-founded in 2013 and served as its first president. He is also a senior fellow with the Center for American Greatness, and a regular contributor to the California Globe. His work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, Forbes, and other media outlets.

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