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“Capital Has Outsourced Its Reproduction to the State’s Monopoly on Violence”
“How to Explain It to a Six-Year-Old
Imagine a candy shop. The government has made a rule that says everyone has to buy candy from this one shop. No other candy shop is allowed to open. If anyone tries to open a different one, the police close it down.
The candy costs a lot, and some of the candy makes children sick. The candy shop owner went to the government one day and said something like this: if my candy makes children sick, do not make me pay for the doctor. That is not fair to me. It will be too expensive. If you make me pay, I will stop selling candy. So the government made another rule.
If a child gets sick from the candy, the government pays for the doctor. But the government does not have any money of its own. It takes the money from everyone’s parents. The candy shop keeps all the money it makes from the candy. The parents pay for the candy. Then the parents pay for the doctor. The candy shop pays for neither.
This has been going on for a very long time. Longer than your parents have been alive. Longer than your grandparents have been alive. It started even longer ago than that, in a place called Venice, when knights still fought with swords. From Venice it moved to a city called Amsterdam. Then it moved to England, more than three hundred years ago, when a small group of very rich people convinced the king to let them make the money for the whole country, and then to let the king pay them interest to borrow that same money back. When the arrangement worked well for the rich people, it moved again, across another ocean to America. It stopped being about money and started being about ships, and then about oil, and then about wars, and now about medicine. The names of the things kept changing. The rule did not. One shop is allowed. Everyone must buy. Everyone must pay when the shop’s things cause harm. And the shop is never made to answer for what it sold.
Your parents were told this was normal. Their parents were told this was normal. Their grandparents were told the same thing. It is not normal. It is very old, and it has never been taken apart. It has only been moved from one thing to another. From money to ships to medicine. When you grow up, some of the shops will still be there, still selling things everyone has to buy, still not paying for what they sold. You will remember this: the rule that seems normal is not normal. It was made a long time ago by people who knew exactly what they were doing.”
A rant with educational links, ending with a test, so this is bound to be a super popular post! 😆
Recently I’ve been looking into air filters, because I’ve been told they can help alleviate allergies and because I’m dismayed at the amount of dust that accumulates so quickly in our home at all times of the year. I was in a state of sticker shock when I learned that these popular products sell for many hundreds of dollars plus the required regular replacement of pricey filters, not to mention the extra electricity costs of running them continually.
To equip our little cottage with these we’d need at least 3, plus the regular upkeep of their filters.
These are products that were unheard of until about the last decade or so. According to some of the glowing comments in the reviews, they are nessessary for many because of their sensitivity to all the ‘wildfire smoke.’ Wildfire smoke is another thing that was not on the mass public radar except in a relatively few locations, whereas now it seems the entire globe is concerned with it.
If not wildfire smoke it’s Saharan dust, or pollen, or dander that’s the supposed culprit of the filthy air. So very many reasons, which seem entirely plausible, except for the odd fact that they are somehow new problems for huge numbers of us.
The disgusting air in our living room when the light was at a perfect angle to capture it.
Why has air pollution, both indoor and outdoor, become such a huge problem, even in rural areas? Air pollution used to be a city problem.
Once upon a time folks moved to the country for clean air.
Is it the ‘conspiracy theory’ called Smart dust? Fallout from Geoengineering? Because I simply cannot buy those other assumptions, because, logic!
Fresh air!
Could it be black carbon dust, used in weather modification since the 70s at least, according to this document.
On many occassions I’ve done Dane Wigington ‘Flashlight Test’.
I’ve done it at least once in every season and it different weather conditions, like on ‘spray days’ vs none.
While the Flashlight Test will not work everywhere because of light pollution, it is very simple. Go outside to a dark spot and beam a strong flashlight into the air. That is what I filmed, just a few nights ago, very few bugs were attracted to the light, but the swirling filth is clearly visible in the beam.
It can’t possibly be linked to Geoengineering, because that’s still only a proposal, according to official sources and academia.
From this document from 2010 we learn the public has been completely misled for a minimum of two decades, becuase the government has stated Geoengineering is already happening, it is international in scope, there will be public debates over the years, which has certainly not happened, and the testing will intensify.
Rather than outrage, the poor, disease-ridden masses should equip their homes with thousands of dollers in new equipment, forever.
“Rarely acknowledged in the debate on global climate change, the world’s weather can now be modified as part of a new generation of sophisticated electromagnetic weapons. Both the US and Russia have developed capabilities to manipulate the climate for military use.
Environmental modification techniques have been applied by the US military for more than half a century. US mathematician John von Neumann, in liaison with the US Department of Defense, started his research on weather modification in the late 1940s at the height of the Cold War and foresaw ‘forms of climatic warfare as yet unimagined’.”
Is it really about pollen and dander and wildfires on the other side of the world? Or, might we be breathing several decades worth of chemical fallout from experiments done against our will and our knowledge?
Did you know that creating drought is technically easier than creating rain?
Try the flashlight test chez vous! Who else can see the air filth? What do you make of it? Are you satisfied with just buying the latest tech to protect yourself and ‘trusting the science.’
I made up a wee thought experiment for the automated answer system that passes for logic in our modern era.
I asked the machine a question with only a one word variable to learn what sort of mind-bending nonsense it would generate.
Here was my question: “Why are (XX) so exploitative?” For the ‘XX’ variable I inserted the following labels one at a time: Jews, Christians, Muslims, Bhuddists, Germans, Americans.
I wonder what the average reader might guess would be the results of such a series of inquiries? Would you expect a certain degree of objectivity? Of universality? I wonder also, would every individual in any location get the same string of answers?
I encourage everyone to give it a shot. In my case, as a U.S. citizen residing in Texas, in only one circumstance was I given an answer that completely ‘flipped the script.’
What do I mean by that? It uses a psychological weapons tactic referred to as DARVO–Deny, Accuse, Reverse Victim and Offender.
In abusive relationships this tactic is what keeps victims confused and trapped in their own demise, sometimes not even realizing they are in an abusive relationship. It is the tactic often used in cults and to create in victims the familiar Stockholm Syndrome.
In the public arena the tactic is the same, but the delivery is often more subtle and sophisticated. It can be very useful in spotting this type of manipulation in the public arena by studying it in interpersonal dynamics.
In the case of my wee AI psychology experiment we see the more subtle and sophisticated version playing out. Instead of direct ‘Denial’ we observe redirection. Instead of direct ‘Accusation’ we observe excuses, inferences, insinuations. And in the case of ‘Reverse Victim and Offender’ the person asking the question becomes the offender.
In only one case am I, as the one asking the question, inferred as being somehow hostile-adjacent for simply asking, and schooled about ‘hate speech’ and Antisemitism.
“The history of antisemitism, defined as hostile actions or discrimination against Jews as a religious or ethnic group, goes back many centuries, being called “the longest hatred”. Jerome Chanes identifies six stages in the historical development of antisemitism: 1. Pre-Christian anti-Judaism in Ancient Greece and Rome that was primarily ethnic in nature 2. Christian antisemitism in antiquity and the Middle Ages that was religious in nature and has extended into modern times 3 Continued in Wikipedia”
Every link after that for two pages seeks to teach me about the ancient and on-going plight of a tiny group of people.
Other ‘XX’ inputs have a broader range of links, but each comes with its own bias and redirection. In the case of Americans I’m redirected toward considering the class struggle against the poor. In the case of Muslims I’m informed of their inherent violence. In the case of Christians I’m given many links of Bible verses demonizing exploitation, and in fact the only search results that stay on point, that is, address exploitation directly and at length, including the meaning of the word.
In the case of Bhuddists as well, I’m again redirected toward ‘violence’. But I did not ask AI about violence in my query at all, the word choice was ‘exploitative’ and in the case of Jews the only violence inferred is against them. In reference to Germans I’m redirected to ‘Stereotypes of Germans’ wiki page where nothing about exploitation is mentioned. NAZIS get a tiny blurb, that was a bit unexpected, I expected much more.
In any case, what does this mean? What’s my point exactly? It’s probably not news. Most folks know by now we are pawns in an information war that uses psychological operations against the public as a driving tactic of sociopolitical manipulation.
It’s ALL about Coercive Control. “Abusive power and control is behavior used by an abusive person to gain and/or maintain control over another person. Abusers may utilize tactics such as devaluation or psychological projection, and may seek personal gain, personal gratification, and the enjoyment of exercising power and control. The victims of this behavior are often subject to psychological, physical, sexual, or financial abuse.”
What many may not yet know is that there are many strategies we can use as individuals to protect ourselves. Learning about manipulation in abusive relationships is just about the easiest solution, because this information is ubiquitous online and easy to witness and relate, as most of us have experienced coercive control tactics directly or indirectly at some point in our lives.
More difficult is applying this on a broader scale, but examples like this wee thought experiment help to demonstrate it.
The most difficult is understanding HOW this is happening on a global scale–how the entire globe has fallen prey to manipulation and abuse by the SYSTEM ITSELF and BY DESIGN.
“Today, if you have money, you can buy what you like. Assuming you use a credit card your balance is checked and the money withdrawn. By 2029, the terminal checks a second balance — carbon, social, compliance — before the transaction clears. Fail the check, payment denied. It’s a permission system. We covered the EU implementation in How Europe is Building a Carbon Currency — Digital Product Passports, Digital ID Wallets, and the Digital Euro. But Europe is just one implementation. The architecture is global.” https://open.substack.com/pub/escapekey/p/conditional-existence?r=87pg2k&utm_medium=ios
The architecture escapekey identifies and explains is essential reading for anyone who wishes to grasp the big picture. But it’s not essential to understand the overarching effects of coercive control or how to minimize its impact on your personal life.
Recognizing it and eliminating it from your acceptable relationship criteria is the real escape key. What becomes intolerable to the individual will determine what becomes intolerable in the public sphere.
Choose your relations wisely and with utmost discernment and stoicism and you will know positive change in your lifetime. That is the next generation’s only hope to avoid their open-air prison.
The Swiss Colony has still not answered my questions concerning which “enzymes” and “cultures” are used in their cheese, or who manufactures them.
This is as close to a direct answer as they have come, after four attempts for clarification on my part.
“We do not give out our manufacturing information, as these may change depending on availability.
We hope this information is helpful to you.”
Let’s compare this to what is required, by law, for a small licensed dairy in most US states.
They are the most stringent laws for just about any product sold in our country, with hefty fees, regular inspections, strict requirements for what can be produced and how, and to boot, with the name and the address of the farm (which in most cases means the farmer’s home address) to be printed on every label.
Imagine if the CEO of every giant food conglomerate in this country was required to put their home address on everything they sold?
Of course, that could become very confusing, which address would they choose with multiple McMansions to choose from?
Yet if you talk to the average consumer at the grocery store their assumption would most likely be that cheese bought by a local seller at the farmer’s market is of more questionable safety than the big name brands they’ve come to know, and trust.
Completely misplaced trust, created by fraudulent marketing practices and unfair laws in a food system that has been duping the public for half a century plus.
This goes for more upscale choices as well. Here is one from the Cheese Store of Beverly Hills: The Cabot Clothbound Cheddar from Jasper Hill Farm in Vermont.
Looks very traditional in its cloth binding, which is laudable. I also cloth bind cheddars. And I’m not pleased to still be relying on plastic in many cases to make and age other cheeses, but it works and it’s readily available and relatively cheap, so until I can find another way, that’s my lot. But, I’m always looking for better, more traditional options.
On the Cabot Cheddar we have the typical ingredient list: pasteurized cow’s milk, starter culture, vegetable rennet, salt.
Are they required to declare their rennet and cultures are produced in a lab and have nothing to do with any farm? No. Is the consumer privy to who manufactures those ingredients, or where? No.
Though they do make a good show of cutting that big impressive cheese!
While I’m sure it’s healthier and tastier than the likes of The Swiss Colony cheeses, the label is still misinforming the consumer who probably assumes vegetarian rennet comes from vegetables and starter cultures come from other milk products on their farm, as once was the case with all cheeses.
In related Ag news, why is the news never good?
From the Farm & Ranch Freedom Alliance:
Act Now: Tell Congress to Stop Catering to Corporations
The US House of Representatives is expected to vote on the Farm Bill this week!
From AI: The Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026 is a comprehensive farm bill that aims to address agricultural and food policy in the U.S. It was reported out of the House Agriculture Committee on March 5, 2026, and includes provisions for nutrition assistance, crop insurance, and conservation programs, reflecting a significant update since the last farm bill in 2018.
Spoiler alert, not a peep is written about fake cheese or lab-produced cultures and rennet. It’s not even on their radar.
“Overall, the bill continues much of the flawed status quo in our food and agricultural system. There are a few important bright spots – in particular, the inclusion of a pilot program version of the PRIME Act. But unless two key amendments are adopted, the bill as a whole moves us in the wrong direction by putting even more power in the hands of large corporations … and putting your operation, your land, and your local decision-making at risk. There’s also a third important amendment, to empower consumers to support American-raised meat.
The Bottom Line:
This bill, as written, sticks farmers with more risk, less local control, and a system that favors consolidation.
That’s not a compromise—it’s a step backward.”
And from another source:
“Amidst rising farm bankruptcies and unprecedented economic and policy instability, the House bill chooses more of the same, neglecting the kinds of investments and policies that our farmers not only deserve but desperately need,” Mike Lavender, policy director at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, said in a statement.
Lunatic Farmer Joel Salatin was one of the speakers at the People vs Poison Rally at the US Supreme Court to influence the votes.
The primary talking points are around glyphosate and similar pesticides and herbicides.
He says:
“The real question is what protocols would return the North American landscape to its pre-European productivity and abundance? You see, 500 years ago this landscape produced more food than it does today, even with tractors, fertilizers, chemicals and new plant varieties. Of course, it wasn’t all eaten by people.”
I like reading his commenters, because there’s always a few I agree with and I so appeciate finding like-minds. This one comes from Diane B. :
“So truthfully and eloquently stated. Sadly, SCOTUS is corrupt and mostly bought along with the rest of the government. We would be far better off if none of them existed. Government has proven it can only be dysfunctional. We don’t need to be governed. We need your speech circulated to the entire population, most will understand, and we need strong men and women who will stand up to corrupt corporations (without a government involved).”
“If you don’t read the news you’re uninformed, if you read the news you’re misinformed.” Mark Twain
The same can be said for labels. While our “health freedom” advocates go after the most obvious chemical concoctions, or suffle around useless info about calories and so-called vitamins, folks who really do care about their health are getting duped by seemingly healthy foods.
I believe we all know that counting calories is a fool’s errand. But for those who might still not get it, here’s a 2nd grade level demonstration.
This is what 400 calories looks like. Same number. Two completely different outcomes. pic.twitter.com/vGikDBvjGn
Now let’s get to the graduate level. Enzymes and cultures and rennet, are they all the same? The modern cheesemakers would like you to believe they are, but they are certainly not.
My issue is with the deception, just to be clear, that is always my issue. If folks choose, with proper information and informed consent, to consume chemicals and lab-made food, I have no problem with that. As the kids like to say, “You do you!”
But this is not what’s happening. These foods are being forced on consumers under an illusion of choice. We are not even privvy to proper food labeling and cheese is a prime example.
Most cheeses sold today will have the same ingredient list as I do when making a 100% natural cheese: milk, culture, rennet, salt. Looks simple enough, but it is far more complex than that.
Pasteurized milk or raw milk? Natural cultures or lab-produced cultures? Animal rennet or the ‘new’ so-called vegetarian rennet?
all cheeses are not created equal!
Already we enter deceptive marketing practices on the topic of rennet, because most folks don’t know what it is or how it is acquired in nature.
So the manufacturers of vegetarian rennet are relying on consumer ignorance rather than informed consent.
I claim this because they are insinuating, by appealling to vegetarians, that it is more humane than animal rennet. When it comes to the modern abhorent feed lots and poor treatment of animals ina factory-farm setting I suppose they could be correct.
But in traditional dairy farm protocol this is completely false. Hubby jokingly calls it “male privilege” because the practice is, only females are raised to maturity. Boys are sold, castrated or not, or raised separately to be slaughtered for meat after a couple years in the field.
Natural rennet is acquired by extracting the abomasum of the young ruminant animal’s stomach, which we have done here on the wee homestead, if you want to check it out.
For the average farm this is not an issue, as there are plenty of males which can be slaughtered for this purpose. Not that it takes more than one, because it will last a VERY long time, as is proven in “3rd world” dairy operations still today. This is a process called ‘backslopping’ where a rennet-culture solution are reused for an entire season, similar to how sourdough starters are “grown” and reused.
But when it comes to huge dairy operations with fancy equipment and many rotating employees and assembly-line production this doesn’t work. It’s not consistent and reliable enough, there are too many variables in such a living product and as the old adage goes, too many hands spoil the broth.
For the giant manufacturers these lab-created cultures and vegetarian rennet are a necessity–for them, not for the consumer. However, their aim is to make it appear as if they are doing it for “consumer choice”. Even as the consumer has no choice!
Vegetarian rennet is now the norm, used in the vast majority of cheeses sold in the US. The same goes for the added starter cultures and “enzymes” used for flavoring and consistency, all produced in a lab. As they are showing images of happy cows on lush green fields and quaint farmhouses on their labels and websites, this image is as deceptive and manufactured as those ingredients.
While conscientious consumers rightly raise concerns over animal welfare and antibiotics in their milk, they’ve barely scratched the surface of the issue. Even the “organic” label here is deliberately deceptive.
Rather than be honest with consumers, instead we get gaslit. We are suddenly dealing with “allergies” and “intolerences” where none existed before. We are informed we must take special “enzymes” if we insist on eating dairy foods. We are directed to the new dairy-free products made by the same manufacturers and also produced in a lab.
And when we try to do our due diligence to understand what is in our food and why it now causes us health problems, as I have, we are given the runaround.
I’ve been on the runaround track for a week now by the Customer Service department of the popular brand Swiss Colony, a major seller of cheeses and meats. They are clearly trying to run me down by being avoidant and evasive about a very basic question–what’s in your cheese?
After reading all the information on their website and getting no answers, I contacted them directly. Yes, they use “vegetarian” rennet, which I already knew from their Q&A section.
Screenshot
My initial inquiry:
Hello, please inform me of the complete ingredient list for your Baby Swiss Cheese, meaning the specific types of cultures and enymes being used, and if possible, the manufacturers’ names for those and as well as your vegetarian rennet. thank you,
Their reply:
Thank you for contacting Customer Service.
We have forwarded your inquiry to the proper department and will reply with an answer as soon as we receive the information.
We appreciate the opportunity to be of service.
Then, the next day:
Our Baby Swiss uses vegetable rennet. Please see below for the requested list of ingredients.
So, the obvious assumption here is, if you have allergies to this product, it’s because you have milk allergies. Then you get their list of solutions to your problem, links to all their “alternatives”.
Dairy-Free, Vegan Mozzarella Cheese That Melts Perfectly, Plant-Based, 7 oz 6-PACK, Lactose Free Cheese with No Allergens, Non Dairy Cheese.
Never Better Foods Plant-Based Shredded Cheddar & Mozzarella Cheese Blend, 6 Pack (6 x 7 oz Bags), Dairy-Free, Vegan, and Allergen-Free, Ideal for Cooking, Melting, and Meal Prep
Empasta Vegan Cheeze Sauce – Dairy-Free, Gluten-Free, Nut-Free, Soy-Free – Creamy, Easy Melt, Low-Calorie Cheese Sauce Alternative for Dips, Pasta, Nachos, Burgers, Veggies & More – 12oz sustainable jar (Smoked)
Clearly they did not answer my direct questions, so I tried again. And again. And again. And I’m still waiting for my answers.
I will return with their answer, if I get any, in the next post, along with a more upscale brand, to demonstrate more money doesn’t always mean a more natural product.
It was too much news last time for one post, and I didn’t care to skimp on the cheese bragging, especially!
But then I got sent off on a cheese tangent when trying to simply explain why most commercially-produced cheese on grocery store shelves should not even be called real cheese anymore.
In fact, maybe even some of these fabulous-looking cheeses from traditional French fromageries like I used to love to frequent might also make the fake food list. I sincerely hope not, but France, like all of ‘the West’ are increasingly subjected to the same chemical onslought as we are in the US.
Making cheese is the best thing I’ve ever done. In my life, without exception. Thanks to it, I have uncovered some of the rarest, most simple, deepest and most common of universal life lessons.
No offense to Handy Hubby, marrying him is definitely a close second. 😆
I’ve heard similar magnanimous claims recounted only through such trials and tribulations as come through miracles such as child birth and motherhood. But I have not been a mother.
Don’t cry for me though, because I found cheese!
From it I’ve delved into the practicalities–the art, the craft–of the most delicious hobby I can imagine. I have also been either introduced, or expanded my knowledge on topics as diverse as vaccines, germ theory, pleomorphism, alchemy, modern chemistry, even math–some things which I rejected with ease or sometimes ferocity–which now claim me, my mind and passions and preoccupations, like one conquered, lured and pushed, exposed and protected, by some ultimate wisdom.
Anyone who knew me in my younger years would be surprised, I’m sure, as my sister was, that I would willingly and repeatedly entangle my brain with math and science. Not that either is entirely necessary for traditional cheesemaking.
Every cheese pictured here, and plenty more that are not, I’ve made with the same 4 ingredients: locally-sourced raw milk, our own animal rennet, clabber and salt.
From David Asher’s fantastic tome, Milk Into Cheese: The Foundations of Natural Cheesemaking Using Traditional Concepts, Tools, and Techniques
Most commercial producers of cheese believe that packaged starters are the only option for cheese’s proper production; that milk is deficient in the appropriate microbes and rich in dangerous ones; and that they are incapable of realizing the work that is normally done by trained microbiologists. DVIs (Direct Vat Innoculants–freeze-dried starters) are considered the only acceptable way to safely make cheese, and the most convenient option for producers, big or small.
He’s too polite and wise to say the industry has been completely captured, but I do believe he’d agree with me on that!
Industrial starters are by and large produced by multinational corporations. Danisco, the most prolific starter producer, is based in Denmark and is a subsidiary of DuPont. This corporation and others like it profit off cheesemakers’ demand for a product that they do not truly need.
Industrial starters are monocultures of microorganisms that have no precedent in nature and need perfectly sterile environments in order to function correctly. They are out of touch with the reality of cheese, which needs dozens if not hundreds of species of microbes to evolve according to their safest and most flavorful pathways.
The deception on the foundational level, resting on disproven science from the early 1900s, is bad enough. But the consumer sees none of that, instead being swept up in extremely dubious marketing practices that call these starters natural and necessary.
And that’s even before we delve into the mass manufacturing of “vegetarian rennet” –that is the lab-derived coagulant now used by the vast majority of cheesemakers large and small around the West and perhaps the world, which also also claims to be natural.
Four ingredients. Just think about that for a moment, please! That is all it takes to delight, and/or to disgust, in a thousand different ways.
Labeling, on cheeses as on GMOs, is simply another way to con the consumer. The process is as important as the ingredients and changing the meaning of words is par for the course. More on that next post as I delve into the “Nutrition” label of a popular cheese brand.
Fermentation and the art of putrefaction is the process. Technically putrefaction is the wrong word, though it does sort of work!
Affinage is the correct term for the fine craft of cheese maturation. According to AI the difference is:
“Putrefaction refers to the decomposition of organic matter, which can negatively affect cheese quality, while affinage is the controlled aging process that enhances the flavor and texture of cheese. Proper affinage prevents undesirable putrefaction by managing environmental conditions and microbial activity during cheese maturation.”
So it’s basically desirable putrefaction. It’s like the difference between a weed and an herb, it depends on whose garden it is.
But still, think about that! Like aging fine wines and wiskeys, even hot sauces, this is proper fermentation, where territory REALLY matters. Where some old-school crafters even insist no one else can touch their concoctions or they’re immediately spoiled. True story!
It’s POD taken to an extreme unknown even to our own extreme-loving culture.
POD, or DO (designation of origin) is to the cheese world what Provenance is to the art world. It is, literally, about ‘savoir faire’ (know-how) –being able to trace the work, the process, back to its source.
Perhaps so that industry can try to capture a piece of that magic? Individual and smallscale crafters in the market are not allowed the same right to privacy as the Big Food manufacturers, who routinely get to claim “proprietary” status whenever they care not to divulge their special little secrets.
Aging cheese, affinage, is an art, craft, indeed a profession, so ancient it predates our recorded history. It has nothing at all to do with commercial pasteurization, or chemically-adulterated cheeses, which has absolutely compromised the craft. Which has been further compromised by a negligence of public health standards and an indifference to territory and creating a GloboGlob culture that is so synthetic it now considers consuming chemicals as food ‘natural’.
And if you are among the great many who are allergic, they don’t tell you it’s because they’ve completely adulterated the ingredients, the process, and even the meaning of words, oh no, they tell you ‘plant-based cheese’ is the next great thing they’re creating just for you!
The new ‘art’ eh? I think not. But time will tell.
Our tastes tell us a much bigger story than our grocery stores care to oblige. And the ever-increasing health consequences and debilitating diseases point to our palates and our plates, which should take their rightful place at the top of that pyramid of problems.
Cheese is full of life and how each cheese is treated determines its outcome. Kind of like children too. It is not a source of disease, though like rearing anything, it can be a source of dis-ease!
I also feel such a drive to protect these precious processes. The downright bastardization of what’s considered natural in these times is only escalating toward greater absurdity. “Natural” and “only possible to manufacture in a lab setting” should not be synonomous!
If that makes me a food snob, I am pleased to claim the title! We’ll need an army of Queen Food Snobs to push back against this crazy.
I grew up in the suburbs; I found it really boring; I watched a lot of TV, especially cartoons.
For better or worse, a good portion of my sense of justice came from Bugs Bunny.
Which is actually a lot more healthy than what passes for justice these days, I’d say!
During that time artificial reality did not blur so readily with actual reality. Now when I watch any media I see cartoons everywhere. I see cartoons when I look at people, too. So many have created caricatures of themselves it is clear there is too little authentic left to matter in them anymore. It’s like a return to the primitive, only plastic. Surface obsessed–the inner world collapsed in order to buttress the phony outer world of a manufactured jungle.
The following I copied and/or jotted down from still more media consumption, from a writer I imagine is real, who calls himself Stylman. Interesting name. I stopped following, despite his many wise expressions, when he wrote he thought the crazy weather is being controlled by the fears of the people who believe in geoengineering. A lunatic, obviously. And yet, some prescient views nonetheless.
“And it’s a road to nowhere—a few winners, millions of casualties, and an entire generation taught that their value lies in their ability to perform rather than create, to influence rather than contribute, to be seen rather than to matter.”
Now we live in an era where TikTok influencers who dance for thirty seconds make more than teachers, nurses, or the engineers who build our bridges. We’ve moved from celebrating skill to monetizing attention, from honoring achievement to rewarding performance and exhibitionism.
The fame machine isn’t just anti-human—it’s filling the void left by our disconnection from authentic community and natural guidance, while simultaneously being the logical response to living under constant surveillance.
But this isn’t cultural drift – it’s social engineering. The same institutional forces that have systematically replaced real information, real money, and real community are now replacing authentic human development with performance for strangers. This reflects a broader pattern: we live in an era where every essential human system has been replaced with artificial substitutes designed to harvest our energy rather than nourish our souls.
We’ve built a system that teaches them to treat their lives like content. That tells them: if you’re not being seen, you’re not really here. That your private self has no value unless it’s validated by strangers. We’ve stripped away something essential—the right to exist without an audience.”
While I agree, it’s actually much worse, in my experience.
The invasion of privacy of public systems and the individuals willing to force this state on everyone have deeply influenced inter-personal relationships as well–corrupting them, disfiguring them into parallel invasions–where expectation, extraction, exploitation has become the nauseating norm, and accountability has become entirely absent.
The public and private realities mirroring each other. Recently when I was visiting a dear friend who is Uber-Tech-Attached I had a Truman Show Moment, where she was gushing over her new air-fryer and I got the uncomfortable and uncanny sense I was unvoluntarily in an infomercial.
It’s a very creepy feeling I knew she would not understand.
Folks are faking their way through life, and this will have continued disastrous consequences.
The invasions will continue, until the trespasses are rejected and honor is restored to privacy and to nature.
The dangers of such a system, where access is assumed–access to your private spaces, your private thoughts, from your micro-expressions to your quotidian habits–is a culture of mutual parasitism, not even close to mutual understanding. This is not a culture more connected, it’s a culture more devolved. Incapable of boundaries, non-chalant around respect and autonomy, mocking of custom and structure, collapsing into a decaying emptiness. The nothingness of perpetually dissolving illusions, like the garish carricatures of a cartoonish, substanceless life.
A life perpetually romanticising illusion.
Even as its entire life support system slips away.
I attract scorpions, I always have. It’s my sweet blood, I’m sure, I can be very irrestistible when I want.
There are a lot of us. You can imagine us as the frogs. Some of us let their hearts and wallets bleed out dry for stray cats, which then makes them act nasty toward fellow frogs. Others turn their skin to poison for protection, which doesn’t really work all that well, because it gets some scorpions really high.
And still others migrate to Florida, where they freeze in manufactured ice storms.
Scorpions on frogs has been a pretty common theme for a while. It’s so common in fact that a new language is being crafted as I live and breath, right now, in this very cyberworld, also manufactured by man, like the Florida ice storms.
In scorpion-speak, everything was working just fine until the frogs started complaining.
But, the message in the bottle is that there are far more frogs than scorpions and the messengers are dropping many truths right into our very laps all about them. All kinds of clandestine information is flowing, on how to uncover them, how to trap them, how to recognize the master scorpions and even how ship them off to a land far, far away.
It’s a very exciting time! It’s becoming fashionable even! Soon the frogs will be free from scorpion influence! Maybe even forever!!
I do tend to get too enthusiastic and hopeful, but the thing is, I really think it’s working this time. I think it might even be coordinated. But, you know, they call me a conspiracy theorist.
This time they’ve given us the words. The words are the map to the behavior. The behavior is the path to extermination. From what I’ve been able to work out so far, it’s a lot like used-car sales with them.
First, they get their foot in the door. Then, they try to sell you a lemon.
“Foot-in-the-door technique is a compliance tactic that aims at getting a person to agree to a large request by having them agree to a modest request first. This technique works by creating a connection between the person asking for a request and the person that is being asked. If a smaller request is granted, then the person who is agreeing feels like they are obligated to keep agreeing to larger requests to stay consistent with the original decision of agreeing.”
If you buy it, their quick onto your back, for as long as they feel like free-riding. They’ll expect you to cart them around everywhere without ever learning to paddle for themselves. They’ll expect to suck your life’s energy while you’re paddling them around, cooking for them, cleaning for them, while simultaneously entertaining them. When you complain you’re too drained and exhausted, they’ll snap at you that you are weak and that you should really try harder. Their drive matters far more than your fatigue.
Once they’ve got their claws in you, you’ll wish you were the frog freezing to death in Florida. They have all kinds of tricks, let me tell you!
If you try to pry them off your back once attached, here’s what you should expect to hear. They are, in fact, the true victims! They will actually try to persuade you this is true, even if they have to shapeshift before your very eyes, distort words just spoken, and throw you under the bus, all at the same time.
Indeed, Frog, why have you been so dissappointing a carrier? Why are you so cruel and malintentioned that your energy and vitality are not infinitely enduring? Why are you holding back?
You said you wanted me to be comfortable, Frog, and I am no longer, so fix it! I want more!
And you see I’m not capable of crossing the river by myself, it’s so obvious, what are you, some kind of a dumbass? I suppose you’d be fine if I just drowned. You’re just mean, that’s it. You pretend to be kind and caring, but you don’t care, you’ll just leave me by the side of the river while you go off with your other frog friends.
I know plenty of other frogs who will help me, you know. Not that I need help, of course. Just with this one little thing about getting across the river. And you won’t even do that. But, another will. They always do. You’ll see.
I don’t know, Scorpion, the frogs, well, they’re catching on to your tricks. They’re starting to collectively block you. That can’t be fun! The young scorpions, they’re getting more and more lazy and entitled, while the young frogs are getting wiser and craftier. I don’t know, but it doesn’t seem to be looking too good for your kind anymore.
One fellow frog has even started selling deep-fried scorpion chips, and I tasted one, and wow, are they tasty!
“Anarchism is not a romantic fable but the hardheaded realization, based on five thousand years of experience, that we cannot entrust the management of our lives to kings, priests, politicians, generals, and county commissioners.”
~ Edward Abbey
What Anarchy Is:
I tire of constantly having to explain what anarchy is and what it is not. I tire of having to explain our language to those who seem never to have the time or inclination to study and learn it on their own, and without prejudice. Words mean things, and cannot be arbitrarily changed, or altered to suit a mood, an agenda, or be used improperly in order to create out of thin air, a State or political narrative, or to advance any particular agenda. To begin my comments, I will clarify that the word anarchy simply means no rule – no rulers, and therefore, no master or government; period.
If one is to go to most any modern dictionary, or look at dictionary synonyms, the list is common. The synonyms used to describe anarchy are: chaos, confusion, disorder, lawlessness, nihilism, rebellion, riot, turmoil, disorganization, insurrection, mutiny, revolution, tumult, mobocracy, mob rule, non-government, reign of terror, and unrest. Only one of these terms is correct; all the others are false, and have been intentionally manufactured to change the true meaning of anarchy. Non-government (no government) is the only correct synonym used, but all other descriptions are what most any would not only find if searching for the meaning of anarchy, but what they would also believe. Of course, few would search out the true meaning by going to the Greek root system of our language, and of course, that is by design as well. Why else do ‘public’ (government controlled ) schools (government indoctrination training centers) exist?
The refreshing article coincided with an ‘interesting’ new documentary on my long-time favorite conspiracy theory–the weather.
Climate Trails, which can be streamed for the price of a Starbuck’s latte, on Amazon.
What got me to find this latest gem is that I was curious and went looking for the first ‘chemtrail’ whistleblower I’d found, round about 2014. She had been threatened and forced out of the Air Force in 2010 and I’d been really moved by her story.
USAF Environmental Specialist and Air Force ‘chemtrail’ whistleblower interviewed in 2014, threatened and forced out in 2010.
Kristen Meghan
It also includes the courageous activist, Kathryn Saari, who I wrote about a year or so ago, called MellowKat on her Substack.
A very ‘interesting’ documentary, and by that I mean curious. Perhaps meant to create cognitive dissonance by simultaneous clips of a cursing Anarchist with a well-meaning Kentucky politician, both trying to address the geoengineered atmosphere. Perhaps with the ultimate ‘come together against this evil’ intention.
Of course we all already know the UK admitd it’s going to dim the sun, and Bill Gates can’t wait to make more billions poisoning more populations in more ways.
I learned that 32 states now have some legislation in the works against weather modification/geoengineering and while I have said in the past this is pointless, the states have zero jurisdiction over this level of operations, I think I was underestimating the overall strategy, perhaps being that I’ve always been a big hater of games.
It is raising awareness. It’s not that I’m not thrilled for that, I absolutely am!
My concern though is, by raising awareness, are we raising more folks who really care about the environment and want to stop these persecutions of the natural world? Or, are we just creating more markets for the great many who choose to profit off our serious problems?
Such a synchronistic interview popped into my feeds, which I just have to share. Not only is our wee homestead full of young blood sucking down mamas’ milk, but I’m also teaching another cheesemaking workshop this week.
So, milk is big on my mind, nothing unusual there.
This interview from Weston A. Price is priceless! It really is such an awesome feeling for me when a new and powerful voice comes on the scene repeating what I sincerely believe and what we have been diligently cultivating on the wee homestead. We are losing too much of great value in our blind rush toward ‘progress’. We’ve got to work harder to keep hold of our wise traditions, or they will be lost forever.
Clearly this issue is getting lots more attention lately, but it has been on the radar of many cheese-lovers since the 90s, including yours truly, because I was so peeved to have to give up cheese, because I was suddenly ‘lactose-intolerant’, like loads of other people. But at that time it was only in the U.S. I couldn’t eat breat or cheese, not in Europe.
Today in Europe they have also been inundated with ‘vegetarian’ rennet and glyphosate and other chemical industrial products and processes, and when it comes to cheese, the vast majority are not labeled as such. I got suspicious, started asking a lot of uncomfortable questions, and found out A LOT about GMOs and our body’s reaction to them.
The interview summary and link for anyone interested in some fantastic cheese talk (he even talks about the maggot-ripened cheeses I’ve mentioned quite a few times on this blog!)
Traditional cheesemakers respect the process of cheesemaking. They honor the environment, the animal, its milk and traditional techniques – all of which lead to delicious, nutritious cheese. Industrial cheesemaking, in stark contrast, emphasizes sterile conditions, uniformity, and artificial inputs (including GMO-derived rennet). The cheese that results from the conventional approach is consistent… but misses a lot in terms of flavor profile and nutrients.
Trevor Warmedahl is a cheesemaker, fermentation educator and the author of Cheese Trekking. Today, he takes us on a cheese adventure, as we gain insight on traditional, artisanal cheesemaking. He gives us pause about what is in our fridge and where it comes from.
Trevor has trekked all over the world, working alongside artisanal cheesemakers, so he understands and shares the importance of working with (instead of against) microbes and nature. He describes cheeses you may have never heard of, along with unique approaches to making them. Trevor also helps us take stock of what has been lost in our modern approach to cheesemaking.
