Audio Transcription

Foster: Hi folks! Foster here with THRIVE Good News Episode 9.

Before diving into the stories, let me just share an empowering context of how I hold this. In a thriving world, no one would have more rights than others. Humanity, in my view, is waking up to realize that our natural-born, cosmic state of being is freedom, is sovereignty over ourselves, as long as we don’t violate anyone else with that freedom. Our salvation is in using that free will with responsibility to stand up to those who would try to assume control over us and say, “No, you may not violate me or anyone else.” Against the onslaught of destructive schemes from the would-be controllers that we’re seeing every day and the continuous bad news accounts of crime and corruption and violence that we get from the mainstream media, a few random reports of humanitarian success would, I think, have little impact and hold out little hope. So, I want to be clear that the greater purpose of these Good News reports is to show the direction of progress away from royalty and dictatorship and state tyranny and to highlight the themes of courage and wholeness and the principles of integrity and liberty that underlie successful solutions. So let’s take a look today, through the lens of liberty, at just a few of the stories that illustrate what people are doing all over the world and which consistently go under-reported by major news outlets.

First, I want to start off with the news that a Federal court in Portland, Oregon has ruled the Federal government’s “no-fly list” as unconstitutional because it violates the right to due process under the 14^th and the 5^th Amendments. Let me give you a little history on this… This case was brought to the court four years ago by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) after 13 American Muslims were put on the list without any explanation or any ability to appeal. In history, in this country, freedom of movement was assumed to be a natural right similar to the right to hold property and to self-defense, so it wasn’t even mentioned in the Constitution. But later, new laws such as the Mann Act put limitations on the freedom to travel and, in the 20^th century with the introduction of the automobile, government has continued to impose further restrictions on the right to travel. Now, in the 21^st century, that includes the so-called “free speech zones” that we refer to in THRIVE.

This ruling comes as the beginning of, hopefully, a new era when it comes to movement and another story that I find in ironic juxtaposition to that one is that we’re seeing what we might call a “no fly zone” for tyrants. This involves the exposure and prosecution of violations of human rights. Corrupt tyrants are finally starting to get exposed and limited in the places they can travel without risking embarrassment or arrest. But, they’re not being limited by some sort of state edict. They’re actually being limited by the consequences of their own destructive actions. Let me give you some examples: Condoleezza Rice, the former Bush Secretary of State had to cancel an appearance at Rutgers University due to the volume of protests that were being threatened. Attorney General Eric Holder had to cancel a commencement speech at a police academy. Dick Cheney had to cancel multiple appearances in Canada. George W. Bush cancelled a trip to Switzerland because of possible legal action for alleged torture. Henry Kissinger had to cancel a trip to Brazil due to human rights protests. These are all described in articles that we’ll cite at the bottom of this blog. Again, my point is I don’t think anyone should be restricted from travel, but I think anyone who goes and tortures and kills other innocent people should be restricted and, more than that, should at least have to face the protests of the people who believe that as well.

Moving on to the second story, this is about a nurse who won a case against mandatory vaccination. It’s a story of medical coercion being thwarted by one person standing up for their rights. This nurse, named June Valent from Hackettstown, New Jersey, was told in 2010 that she had to have a flu shot or be fired. Most nurses, understandably, caved to the pressure of needing to keep their job, but June Valent, also understandably, felt that flu shots were dangerous and she refused to do it. She’d done a lot of homework on it. And, she was fired. Then she claimed her own power and appealed the decision and, surprisingly given these times, delightfully, the judge concluded that the hospital had violated her right to freedom of expression and she won the suit.

I want to note here before going on to the rest of the so-called success stories: most of them are currently about legislative or legal victories and those are really helpful in Stages 1 and 2 of the 3-Stage Solutions Strategy that we propose in THRIVE and on our website. So, while we’re trying to bring as much integrity as possible to our current systems, I want to be clear that begging our slave masters for a few crumbs of justice or a few whiffs of liberty will never cut it in the long run. For each of these wins, there are hundreds of expansions of state power and tyrannical edicts. But, the transformation has to start with individuals, first getting educated about what their rights are and then claiming their power and taking a stand, even if it is, for now, in the government-ruled and manipulated political and justice systems.

So let’s go on to the third story. This is about the legalization of marijuana. I’m delighted to see that the slightest move toward a true free market is already showing signs of improving health and decreasing crime. Here are some examples: New York has passed the legalization of marijuana and they’re the 23^rd state to do so (and there are many lined up with bills in process). This is my favorite story: American pot farmers are starting to put the Mexican cartels out of business. The Mexican drug cartels that are focusing on marijuana are already struggling to survive as growing and consuming cannabis plants is decriminalized. As further indication of where the trend is going toward freedom and more honesty, the DEA itself, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the very guys who are supposed to wage the ongoing disastrous and unethical “war on drugs”, have petitioned the FDA to drop the classification of marijuana as a Schedule Ⅰ drug, which it currently is (and is the same category that heroin is in). I want to state clearly on this topic that I’m not promoting pot or any other drug. What I’m doing here is I’m advocating for freedom of choice and voluntary transactions for every single adult everywhere on the planet accompanied by accountability for anyone whose behavior violates another.

Further updates on the GMO area because GMO bans could well be said to be sprouting all over the world and the violation of our bodies, our health, and our planet’s eco-systems that these GMO seeds and subsidies represent is continuing to lose the protection of the State’s monopoly on money and force. Here are a few examples of the turning tide: Massive protests have been halting Monsanto’s seed imperialism in Canada. In Jackson County, Oregon, a landslide victory has banned genetically engineered crops. Bavaria has become the 62^nd country to go GMO-free. Russia and Kyrgyzstan have rejected GMOs and will grow organic food instead. The GMO company Syngenta’s methods of silencing GMO opposition are getting exposed as people like German dairy farmer, Gottfried Gloekner, who refused to back down in the face of intimidation and he’s come out publicly describing exactly how he and other farmers are being treated by Syngenta, and this is behavior that goes on with Monsanto and other GMO companies around the world. He’s describing that, first of all, they’re approached with bribes. They’re offered new equipment and lots of money and if they don’t accept this, then they’re given threats: threats of blackmail, threats of character assassination, threats of bankruptcy, etc. And if they still don’t go along — and I have to say this reminds me of John Perkins and this whole global “economic hit man” strategy of the IMF and the World Bank — what these companies will then do if you haven’t knuckled under so far is they start with legal attacks with trumped-up lawsuits. So, you might be asking yourself as I’m describing that, “What’s the good news in all of that?” and what I’m proposing is that the good news is that it’s getting exposed. It’s been said that sunlight is the best disinfectant, so the change starts with bringing these violations out into the light, and it’s happening.

The next story that particularly caught my attention has to do with showing that anti-statist sentiments are not only moral and philosophical, they’re also practical and it’s getting confirmed once again by the growing failure of the European Union super-State. You can see articles that we’ve linked to here showing that the people of France, Greece, Denmark, Italy, Germany, and the U.K. have all been voting recently in favor of separating from the European Union. We’ll include a picture here of the grid that we illustrated in THRIVE to show the global system for domination, which is dependent on the creation of these super-States. I’m sincerely hoping as these stories are coming out that the people in the regions intended to be the other super-States (the American Union, the African Union, and Pacific Union) are paying attention to the disastrous consequences of centralized domination of both the political and financial systems in the European Union.

Finally, there’s an inspiring story that we were told about by a journalist (Michael Levitin) that we met at the United We Stand event when Kimberly and I were in L.A. a few weeks ago. He’s recently written an inspiring article on a synergistic, whole-systems solutions movement taking root here in northern California. It combines the efforts of a group called CropMobster, which is re-distributing excess produce and cutting down on food waste, Sonoma Clean Power, which is an organization that’s boosting local power re-generation and is now supplying tens of thousands of Sonoma County residents and businesses with solar and other types of renewable energy, and also in coordination with Bay Bucks, which is an alternative currency that helps businesses in northern California trade in services and get off dependency of the dollar. Like our Solutions Hub, this can act as a model for communities worldwide.

That’s my last item that I’m going to take time with today, but, finally, what can we take from all this information? For me, I want to suggest that I’m seeing that people are finding their center. They’re finding their backbone. And they’re finding each other. Out of this, they’re creating successful results and these results keep pointing us in the direction of equal rights for everyone and the moral imperative of the non-aggression principle. We’ll be coming out soon with blogs, videos, and papers that are intended to provide a deep understanding of the principles of liberty and to address the most common myths, misunderstandings, and arguments so that we can explore all together how we can get to a world where everyone has the chance to thrive. Meanwhile, let us know your solutions activities. Let us know how they’re going and be sure to access the proven tools and over 1,000 active groups on our Solutions Hub.

Until next time, be free and be bold. Bye for now.