The myth of American freedom

294 Responses

1. I <3 Vishen. So intuitive, informed, eloquent, and unapologetic. It's an embarrassing time to be an American.

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2. Please don’t email me with your political views. I know America is still the best country on earth. If you want to compare it others and don’t feel free then that is your right but leave me out. I feel lucky to born an American, was able to serve my country and I found this email depressing and biased. Keep your political views out of your business. P.S. We are a Republic and not a democracy.

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   1. “I know America is still the best country on earth.”
      Aha. That’s because you are American. Right? What more proof do you need!
      Try another dose of a different reality, if you can take it. LOL.
      Try another point of view. Like, for example, an Australian one:-

      “America Amok
      By Richard Neville
      Good Weekend, Sydney Morning Herald, 19 May 2001
      Maybe George W Bush has done the world a favour. When, in March, he renounced the Kyoto treaty on greenhouse emissions (because it would hurt America) he helped peel away the mask of sanity from Uncle Sam, revealing him for what he is, in all his savagery and nonchalance – a glutton and a psychopath. Forget the Taliban, Gaddafi or the beastly Saddam Hussein, it is the United States that is out of control, the wildest rogue nation of all.

      The assertion of America’s lifestyle rights, come what may, over any other consideration – including the survival of future generations – was made during the week of the Oscars. Catching a transit-lounge glimpse of this spectacle, I marvelled at its imperial might, its furious flame-fanning of consumer desire. The desire for beauty (although of an exterior kind), wealth, fame, luxury and crappy movies.

      The Oscars are Hollywood at its height: an off-camera underclass at beck and call, the comedians neutered, cosmeticians in the wings, the cost of designer gowns ranging from $US10,000 to $40,000 per star, not to mention the diamonds. The confirmation of America’s technical flair and export prowess came with the crowning of Gladiator, along with an unconscious identification with Imperial Rome. See, we rebuilt the Colosseum.

      And therein lies the beguiling genius of Uncle Sam – the dissemination of illusions consumed as reality. Not just in movies, but in its products, politics and foreign policy.

      America is the land of the free. Really? How about an Oscar from the World Academy of Jailers for holding the highest proportion of its citizens in custody. Of the global prison total, one quarter is incarcerated in the US, minus the 152 inmates executed by George W. Bush when Governor of Texas – a State that provides no funds for the defence of the poor. Much of Australia’s prison system is now in the managerial grip of a US correctional chain.

      America fosters unbridled competition, which benefits all. In media, manufacturing, high tech, entertainment, oil, groceries and much more, the giants are on a roll. Four companies now control 87 per cent of American beef, another four control more than 84 per cent of its cereal, and just two companies control almost 80 per cent of the world’s grain trade. Almost all primary commodities are controlled by six or fewer companies.

      From such an elite are drawn the President’s puppeteers: $US2.3 million from Exxon Mobil helped elect Bush, whose administration is awash with former oil executives. Another Bush supporter, Rupert Murdoch, is now seeking to bypass cross-media ownership restrictions in New York and extend his opinion-shaping domain. The man who pays the piper produces Gladiator as well as the daily news. As in the ecosystem, diversity is shrinking.

      Happiness is honoured. How come the most prosperous nation on earth exhibits the highest rates of clinical depression? The country which wrote the happiness quest into its constitution reels from an epidemic of the malignant sadness. This, too, is a marketing opportunity. The annual report of pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly chortles, “Prozac changed everything, and that’s just the beginning.”

      America promotes the global expansion of human rights. Not according to the record. Kyoto apart, the US has spurned vital international treaties on war crimes, land mines, the prohibition of the execution of juveniles, arms controls, test bans and even the Convention of the Rights of the Child (standing alone with Somalia). The refusal is based on a fierce assertion of US sovereignty. As law professor Peter J. Spiro noted in the journal Foreign Affairs: “Only free trade agreements, as long as they are limited to free trade and do not include environment, labour issues or human rights, pass muster … because they are thought to serve American interests.” The nation so keen to safeguard its own identity is quick to submerge that of its trading partners. The key human right promoted abroad is the right to shop.

      The land of opportunity. Yes, but the deck is stacked. The richest 1 per cent has more financial wealth than is possessed by the poorest 90 per cent of Americans combined; the starkest inequality among major Western nations. The net worth of Bill Gates, according to Ralph Nader, is equal to the combined net assets of the poorest 120 million Americans. The impact of such division percolates through the country. You see it the moment you land at the airport and feed a credit card into the trolley machine: the tattered touts, the stretch limos, the battered buses, the bright lights of Tiffany’s. What’s unseen is worse. About 40 million US citizens are not covered by any form of health insurance, a figure that is increasing each year.

      And so on, and on: the decline of public education, infrastructure, welfare and all the rest. Basically, the US is a republic of lobbyists attached to a global public relations machine bent on turning the whole of life into a series of paid-for, staged events, like guzzling fake food in themed restaurants, while displaying designer sportswear, and chattering about Gladiator’s special effects as we wash down Prozac with a Starbucks soy latte, and remain largely oblivious to the deeper tragedy taking place on the late great planet Earth.

      George W. Bush is not an original. He is pursuing the doctrine formulated by his father on the eve of the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, 1992, which laid the groundwork for Kyoto. Bush the Elder said he was prepared to talk about the environment, but – here’s the rub – “the American way of life is not negotiable”. Got it? This mantra should be burnt into the brains of six billion earthlings, because the American way of life is now diminishing the life of everyone else. In disaster movie speak, it’s Planet Hollywood versus the world.

      Already, with less than 5 per cent of the global population, the US uses almost 30 per cent of the planet’s resources. Its emission record is the world’s worst, spewing 20 tonnes of greenhouse gas per person per annum – a quarter of the world’s total. (Australia comes in second with 18 tonnes.) The US consumes a quarter of the world’s oil, a third of its paper, and 40 per cent of its beef and veal.

      The reason given by the US President, G.W. (Global Warming) Bush for his abandonment of Kyoto was uttered with commendable brevity: “Emission controls do not apply to the developing world.” So? In most cases, their energy use is minuscule, only 5 per cent of per capita emissions of the West, while its inhabitants are climate fodder already, living and dying on the frontline of hurricanes and floods.

      Emissions from developing nations will rise, but let’s not overlook the reason. Their farms, factories and infrastructure are throbbing to service the appetites of distant consumers, whether it’s Kenya airlifting flowers to the Netherlands, or Korea shipping cut-price cars. The source of the fumes ascending from their smokestacks is … us.

      Meanwhile, the average American uses 10 times more coal than the average Chinese person – and contributes over 50 times more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. The average American also requires four times as much grain and 27 times as much petrol as the average Indian. The land of the free is also the land of the fat; its citizens are plagued with obesity.

      While many may deny the existence of global warming, the overwhelming advice of the scientific community is that we should prepare now for rising seas and disruptive weather. Earlier this year, the massive Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), reported that the 1990s were the hottest decade since the 1860s, when instrument records were first taken, and that 1998 was the hottest year. It foretold “future large-scale and possibly irreversible changes in Earth’s systems”. This report broke new ground by citing the cause of the warming as “mostly due to human activity”. And this activity is not about to wind down.

      The American way of life is not negotiable. Worse – the American way of life is inescapable. And the nation that runs the world is ruining the world as it runs amok in Armani, dazzling us with Julia Roberts and gangsta rap, making us sick with fast food, workaholia and porno violence, as its hordes of silent seamstresses in tropic locations stitch Calvin Klein onto our Y-fronts. All for the glory of shareholder value.

      And yet, according to the Economic Policy Institute, “85 per cent of the increase in the stockmarket since 1976 has accrued to 1 per cent of the population”. It’s worth it, you say, it’s worth it. On highways, at airports, at universities, for a splash of change, I can slake my thirst with a Burger King strawberry milkshake. Even in Kathmandu, probably. It’s the nearest thing to mother’s milk, evoking dairy maids and Jersey cows, a singing-dancing Julie Andrews plucking the fleshiest berries. Actually, this beverage contains more than 50 chemical flavours, including yummy amyl acetate, ethyl methyl-phenyl-glycidate and methyl anthranilate. Most of the flavour in most of the food eaten today in the US is concocted by scientists. Like the Oscars, it is the triumph of illusion over reality. It might be bad for our health, bad for the ecosystem, but it’s good for shareholder value. The economy, stupid.

      The deeper you dig, the worse it gets. As soon as I write it, I hate that sentence. It’s not that I think everything about America is appalling – far from it. Many of its products are delightful, irresistible, like Austin Powers, jazz, literature, the First Amendment, Jewish humour and the PowerBook. On a dark, stormy highway with famished toddlers, I’ve even felt a rush of gratitude at the sight of the Golden Arches – sure, we’ll have fries with that, unaware such an impulse serves to shrink the world’s variety of crops. As with other food chains, according to the Worldwatch Institute, McDonald’s demands in each country it enters that the varieties of potatoes grown by local farmers be replaced by their global standard, the Idaho Russet. Taste and technique must remain uniform, so the global potato harvest is now “precariously homogenous”, dependent on pesticides of declining oomph. As climate warms, the range and resilience of the pests increase, invoking fears of a potato blight – a global replay of the Irish famine.

      In my madder moments of reflection about America, it seems like it’s the Vietnam War all over again; except, instead of “killing gooks”, it’s about making a killing. Instead of poisoning the forest with Agent Orange, it’s about despoiling the biosystem. Once a “peace probe” referred to the annihilation of a village; now the term “outsourcing” stands for a sweatshop. Once it was the Vietcong who were blitzed with US propaganda, now it is the rest of us who are blitzed with US propaganda. Maybe the old slogan is true, after all: “We are all Vietcong.”

      The ad biz is a friendly harbour for creative types and some of its output is witty and fun. At its core, however, the industry is a volcanic eruption of lies: CDs will never scratch, you too can have the shiniest hair in the world, the stealth bomber is invisible, we appreciate your patience and will be with you shortly. No longer confined to promoting products, advertising has insinuated itself into the culture in such a way as to be indistinguishable from everyday life. It is not just the commercials seen on TV, it is the lifestyle depicted by the TV: the logos, restaurants, cars, facelifts and how-to-solve-a-problem-with-a-gun. The ads and the programs are synonymous. Without being aware of it, we live inside a nonstop marketing event.

      As insistent and pervasive as it is – piped into planes, buses, schools, motels, Borneo – its source is singular. Seinfeld and Friends are screened on most Qantas flights; the menu of movies-on-demand in Australian hotels is almost exclusively from Hollywood. Does this matter? You be the judge. When did you last watch a sitcom from Brazil, a pop clip from India, a movie on love and marriage among Kurdish refugees in Paris? (On SBS, the last one. No guns, no fisticuffs; riveting.) While US content lately honours ethnicity, to the point of caricature, and even alternative attitudes, the slant is quintessentially God Bless America. “Ours is a wonderful culture,” a US soccer star said on TV. “We’re individualistic, we’re competitive, we’re aggressive.” Her team went on to conquer the local Matildas, just like her “wonderful culture” is set to conquer the world.

      Back in 1924, Monsieur Costil, then head of the French Gaumont cinema chain, told his countrymen it would be “a very long time” before French films found favour in America. They were “too strange and complicated”. Success in the US required “a formula”. Three-quarters of a century later, Costil’s deconstruction of a Hollywood hit remains intact: “voyages, sports, dances, records and audacious examples of force”. Meanwhile, American movies and the values they embody have swept the world. From his grave, Costil’s final caution has bite: “remember, every American is at heart a ‘business man'”. And so, too, now are we.

      The Man from Snowy River, having turned himself into a brand, is hunched at midnight over a business activity statement, pitting the depreciation of assets, including his “small and weedy beast”, against GST. Perhaps he now regrets his capture of the colt from old Regret.

      Most people I know are working their guts out, even the ones who should be singing soft-rock ballads around the piano in pink dressing-gowns at Shady Acres. “Have you been on the Harbour Bridge at 7.30 pm?” gasps a friend. “It’s still peak hour.” As Jack Mundey points out, in 1800 the Governor of NSW set the working hours for convicts at 50 hours a week, and today many people are working longer hours than convicts in a penal colony 200 years ago.

      Workaholia is not the only Wall Street export. Share options and pay for performance have also spread to Europe and Australia, further sharpening wealth disparities. In the past decade, the salaries of CEOs in the US have jumped 481 per cent while worker pay has risen only 28 per cent. Overall, American CEOs earn 419 times the pay of the average US worker. In 1976, an Australian CEO earned three times the average wage, today it can be up to 30 times as much. A survey conducted by the Australian Financial Review found that two years ago, CEO salary packages of Australia’s top 100 companies rose by 22 per cent, to an average annual whack of $1.45 million. On top of that come share options, with an average gross value of $6.15 million.

      Everyone is desperate to be a millionaire, a superstar, a dot.com (still!), a brand name – even the teens. This trivialisation of desire reaches into our innermost being, and that of our offspring. Marketing prattle is unstoppable, without any sense of its own absurdity: “Teens have a keen sense of ‘me’,” notes an analyst, whether it’s “selecting the colour of their laptop … or customising the colour of their cell phones.” Being aware of the latest fad has come to define what it means to be a child.

      The Web site iTurf uses “hip street talk to lure its young customers and sell them products online,” reported The Sydney Morning Herald, “discussing such topics as breast size, how to attract sensitive boys and repel body hair”. Its founder plans to expand iTurf to offer teens their first credit cards, their first mortgages, their first chat-room romances. His goal is clear: “We’re going to own this generation.” Perhaps he will.

      Thin on the ground are the anti-heroes; the mystics and mavericks who proclaim alternative values and hold in contempt the obsessive accumulation of wealth – today’s Jack Kerouac, Martin Luther King, Ned Kelly, Timothy Leary, the young Germaine GreerŠ Since I can remember, New York has hosted a profusion of wild young things, rebels without a super fund, or even a charge account at Gap, whose mission was to have fun and shatter the self-confidence of millionaires. They set alight dollar bills on Wall Street, let buzzards loose in Macy’s, raged, plotted and howled against the machine. While times a-change and all that, even so, during a brief visit last year, I was taken aback by this fabulous city’s capitulation to materialism and its brazen credo: get as much as you can as fast as you can.

      People pound pavements shouting into mobiles; the skyscrapers double as billboards, the cafe dockets are emblazoned with bold reminders, “gratuity not included”, each worthy recipient allotted a dotted line: chef, maître d, waitperson, etc, plus tax. The fixed price is becoming obsolete, inciting haggling, even over the price of toothpaste. This is fine in Morocco, enfolded into a ritual of mint tea, pipe passing and Sydney Greenstreet, but wears a bit thin in an alcove at Macy’s at rush hour.

      Don’t imagine you can counter the vibe by cruising the Museum of Modern Art, where the “voluntary donation” is compulsory and the marketing relentless. (In the mid-1990s, gallery space at 120 large museums grew by 3 per cent while the amount of space given to museum stores jumped by nearly 30 per cent.) Even the message of the themed exhibition – the idealists – mirrors the mood of the times: marvel at these hoodwinked dreamers who contemplated a fairer world and wound up with Stalin. Silly Picasso.

      Another light that’s failed, at least during my visit, is environmentalism. The only endangered species that sparked concern was a trench coat by Yves Saint Laurent, costing $US9,250, which had been scooped from the stores. The coat is made from the skin of rainforest pythons. More than 10 million pythons have been taken from the wild in the past 15 years, over half from Indonesia. A pink python jacket from Chanel, with white chiffon trim and matching skirt, retailing at $US8,455, had also slithered out of the boutiques. “Spokeswomen for four fashion houses that use python,” The New York Times wryly noted, “said they had no idea where the skins come from.”

      Hardly anyone knows or cares where anything comes from, or where it ends up, because it is only what’s on show that matters, in the windows, in your face, on the billboards, at the Oscars … fame, riches, power; these are the drivers that seem to be shaping the third millennium, whether we like it or not, despite their ravaging of planet and personhood. “Wealth beyond what is natural is of no more use than water to a container that is full,” said the Epicurean philosophers of Ancient Greece, but the dazzling package of popular culture proclaims the opposite – happiness depends on high consumption. We’ll keep on splurging till the wells run dry.

      Soon after the trip to New York, I visited Tonga, one of the poorest nations on earth. Its political system is unjust, resources are few, and yet I was surprised by joy. Not mine so much, as that of the inhabitants. Laughter echoing through open doorways day and night, none of it canned (scarce TV), extended families and communal lifestyle (free babysitting), time plentiful, shops few, food fresh, a profusion of local poetry, song and dance, none of it tech-dependent, and the people not bent on turning every tourist into a meal ticket. Not yet, anyway.

      Sure, most of us would prefer to live in pulsating New York than to emulate the Tongans, including the Tongans themselves, probably, and therein lies the dilemma of our time. If everyone lived like New Yorkers, what would be left alive? Perhaps the flurry of survivor TV shows is a subliminal playing out of this post-apocalypse vision. Solar panels and recycling are not much chop against melting ice caps, rising seas, gaping ozone holes and the mass extinction of species. Even if Kyoto is fully enforced, it will only reduce atmospheric carbon by 5 per cent within 10 years. What is required to stabilise climate is a reduction of between 60 and 80 per cent.

      The American way of life is not negotiable. And it is not sustainable. The loss of biodiversity, according to Worldwatch’s editorial director Ed Ayres is “arguably the most dangerous of all threats to human security at large, and to the long-term sustainability of civilisation”. He cites an American Museum of Natural History survey of 400 biological scientists which found “a large majority” believe that during the next 30 years, one of every five species alive today will become extinct. It is no longer enough to have an ecological notion; we need to create an ecological self. This is a hard call when you’re wearing a trench coat stitched from pythons.

      Sooner or later, the business community will need to come to its senses. It will need to go further than putting in skylights and greening its logos. Can we rely on its leadership? Corporate titans would much rather win a battle for market dominance than save a species from annihilation. But in the end, there may not be a market, unless the wholesale theft of the future is stopped.

      What Monsieur Costil foresaw as the philosophic failure of American movies all those years ago – action, force, a formula – was more recently echoed in the Harvard Business Review by consultant Gary Hamel as he skewered the lack of managerial foresight: “The future is left largely unexplored and the capacity to act, rather than to think or imagine, becomes the sole measure of leadership.” A common trait in this country, too, both in business and politics.

      Will globalisation accentuate future-blindness, or can it also trigger a countervailing wave of enlightenment? It will do both. Thankfully, a growing number of Americans share the above concerns, although few of them sit on Capitol Hill. The global Green Party boycott of Exxon Mobil and other predators of the commons is a clue to future strategy, as was the showdown over proprietary drug rights in AIDS-stricken Africa. Global tax, global justice, a global environmental agency, are all on the horizon. The concept of sovereignty was already transcended by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea in 1982, which protects the ocean as “the common heritage of all mankind”, in which all rights in the resources of the area are vested. By similar means, eventually, all arms trading can be ended and an agency can be established to distribute all surplus food to the starving. At its deepest level, globalisation is about sharing, just like the Internet, and once understood will incite a value revolution of such sweep that within 100 years the main business of business will no longer be business, and politics will no longer be about swapping preferences, placating nutters and jailing refugees. The total goal will be planetary restoration – social, economic, ecologic. The question to ask ourselves as we journey into the 21st century is this: is each of us at heart a businessman, or is each of us at heart a human being? On our answer will hinge the fate of the earth.

      Richard Neville was a director of the Futures Foundation.

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3. I have really enjoyed being a member of Mindvalley with access to the various courses and remote events. With that said it has been troubling to see Vishen’s attempt to persuade his users politically, based on propaganda. With that said, I fully encourage transparency and freedom of speech to any human being, and strongly encourage open debate and discourse.

   I really wanted to share some truth being Canadian to the information shared in this post, which is not accurate. It is absolutely incorrect that the “top countries for internet freedom are Canada”. One of the only platforms that Canadian speech is not censored on is X- Shout out to Elon Musk. If you shared literature on vaccines or helpful wellness protocols for Covid, or your own personal vaccine injury that was counter to the liberal funded (leftist) media in Canada aka the mass propaganda campaign of “safe and effective” for every man, women, child, baby, and pregnant women, your post was removed, or your account would be suspended, so incorrect on the internet freedom front. Everything Canadians do, following 2020 are labelled as misinformation if outside of government funded media narrative.

   Additionally, something that did not happen to our neighbors to the south – the US, was in Canada there was a peaceful protest held at our capital in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, with the aim of having the government drop the vaccine mandates, that men, women and children should not be coerced with taking an experimental gene therapy (mRNA) injectable product “Vaccine” just to stay in school or keep their job. That Canadian’s should have a say of what is injected into their bodies, otherwise you have the same rights as a farm animal, which is none. If you did not directly participate in the peaceful protest of singing our national anthem in downtown Ottawa with some honking (while leaving emergency passage open) your bank account was suspended just for donating ANY amount of money to the most beautiful civil rights movement in Canadian history – The freedom Convoy. This was mirrored by the tractor convoys of the Dutch Farmers against their own government tyrannical measures for “climate change”. Attack the people that grow our food, that seems like this is in the peoples best interest? While their green energy is creating rolling black outs in Europe, as most recently reported in Spain and France. While child labor and environmental atrocities continue with lithium mining for our “green” future. I wish Vishen was aware and speaking about the Agenda 2030 through the World Economic Forum essentially anti-human agenda. You will own nothing and be happy, you will eat insects and printed meat, and every aspect of your life with be under government and technocratic surveillance.

   Tamara Lich was one of the key organizers of the protest for the Canadian Freedom Convoy or “truckers”, I have met her personally and she was a beautiful soul, she is in the courts where she is likely to serve 7 years in prison found guilty for “mischief”. That is more then what they give murders in this country! Our Charter of Rights and Freedoms allows for freedom of movement, freedom to gather, and freedom of speech, all of those Canadian rights were violated, including Tamara’s. If you did not agree with the idea that you should have a right to bodily autonomy, you were called a “racist”. They were calling black truckers racist … and Canada is a highly multi-cultural country, from generations of legal immigrants.

   If you do not post this, you are also guilty of censorship, just like the Canadian government that you are promoting as the top 3 globally for internet freedom, we are not far behind communist china and their social credit system, that is where the World Economic Forum and their 2030 agenda/Great reset would like for most of the global population. Also when you have meaningful conversations you risk offending people, that is part of freedom of expression and speech, not everyone is going to like it, but people should be able to express their experience, perception and truth without censorship. It is noteworthy that there was almost 9 years of government propaganda in Germany with censorship, before they actually started murdering people in the death camps. Canada is 5 years into their propaganda campaign with censorship of its citizens. Rebel news is one of the only news platforms in Canada that is not paid by the current political party – the liberals.

   Donald Trump and RFK is one of the best things to happen to the leadership of the US. It is unfortunate that Vishen believes in the divisive propaganda that promotes division through race. Yes countries should have boarders, so if you illegally migrate to a Country such as the US, you may face the consequences. You can always go about obtaining citizenship legally through naturalization and a work visa, and Trump encourages that. It is not racist to deport individuals that have illegally come into a country or committed a crime. By the way George Floyd died of a drug overdose, not from police brutality as the media and other corrupt non-profits would have the masses believe. It is not acceptable to burn down businesses, break the law, damage property, and put others in dangers because there was there was appropriate use of force by police on a drug addict. If you can say “I cant breath” you can breath, being on drugs makes it more challenging for police to detain someone. You should absolutely have to be a legal citizen to vote. How is it appropriate that to not have to show your ID to be able to vote!? The Biden administration was promoting this, this was going on. The previous administration that Vishen seems to idolize, was actively encouraging children to have their sexual tissues mutilated, voter fraud through having illegal immigrants voting, and excessive increase in incredible violence and crime from illegal immigrants against US citizens, that were being funded by the American People, while legal Americans were suffering.

   There was several assassination attempts on Trump, one which lead to a bullet physically hitting him. Trump already is a billionaire, he did not need to risk his life, be treated so egregiously by the mainstream media, there is a huge issue with free speech when the President is kicked off twitter, and put up with the corrupt deep state to attempt to remove him from the ballet through the court system, all unsuccessful, a testament to his resilience and love for the American People. Thank goodness for the US constitution, Canada has nothing like it, our Prime minster, although elected answers to the Crown not to its citizens. Canadians do not have fair elections as the many immigrants that are brought in, are aloud to vote basically immediately.

   Does Vishen know that the U.S. has some of the highest child sex trafficking’s in the world!? How that has been happening, especially with the open boarder in the previous administration is undocumented minors being brought into the US (not by their parents) and being sold and distributed after entry in the US.

   It is shocking how anti-Trump Vishen is, being a fellow Entrepreneur, trump highly encourages American Business, they are doing very well, I personally plan on bringing my business to the US. Health Canada does not allow Canadian citizens to have basic access to natural health products, and have taken our ability to own a hand gun. When the government takes away your firearms it is because they are about to do something that you would want to shoot them for.

   School shooting in the US have to do with the pharmaceutical psychotropic drugs that Doctors have handed out like candy to teens, not legally obtained firearms. RFK is actually working towards government agencies doing their jobs and regulating pharmaceutical products and not blindly rubber stamping with nothing but conflicts of interest with big pharma. Radical transparency, to make America Health Again. Since over 50% of US children have some form of chronic disease with strong evidence to suggest from large amount of vaccines and exposure through pesticide and toxins in the food system. The US has the highest infant fatality for the first day of life globally, and they also are the most vaccinated on their first day of life with high exposure to aluminum that crosses the blood brain barrier, leading to seizures, SIDS, autism later on, and allergies, etc.

   Very poor citations pulled, I would look deeper and follow the money. You already know there is no credibility with saying that Canadians have internet freedom … There is so much censorship in this country it is unreal and tyrannical. Canada was the last developed nation to drop vaccine and mask mandates for travel, and still has protesters in its jails today. Our government is trying to take away our access to Tik Tok as well.

   https://tuckercarlson.com/uncensored-diversity-equity-inclusion

   https://tuckercarlson.com/tucker-show-ben-carson (black American’s truth of the state of the US, he is brilliant)

   https://icandecide.org/ (what is actually going on in the US)

   Reply

4. Vishen, thank you for this incisive and insightful piece. Your diagnosis is spot-on–painfully so. As one who has been born and raised in this country, and lived through the fifties, sixties, and onward, I never imagined America would fall so far so fast. Your combination of delusion-dashing facts and words of hope are exactly what we need to hear. America cannot recover, let alone heal from this destruction alone and all by itself. While some of my fellow citizens may think we can pull this country out of the deep hole we’re in all by ourselves, I believe we will need help from other people and nations if we are going to crawl out of this abyss. I take encouragement from seeing more embers of resistance being fanned into flames. I don’t know what we will be after this administration is gone, and know that the damage is already severe and in some ways, irreversible, but I hope that a healthier, more honest America will emerge from the ashes. Thank you for saying things that help point us in the right direction.

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5. Vishen, you have some good ideas.

   1) What are your thoughts on border security?

   Other countries don’t allow people to enter illegally, without proper documentation and procedures, and stay indefinitely.

   Should the U.S. exercise the SAME level of border security as other countries around the world? (See below list)

   Or should the U.S. have
   “open borders”?

   2) Should the U.S. require people to be
   U.S. citizens to VOTE in U.S. elections
   just like other countries require people to be citizens of their country
   in order to vote in their elections?

   Germany Switzerland France Denmark Norway Sweden Finland Iceland Austria England Ireland Scotland Australia Japan China Russia India

   and ALL others I know of
   do NOT allow NON-citizens to vote in THEIR elections, or enter illegally.

   Should the US be any different,
   and if so, why?

   Thank you, Alecia

   Reply

6. This is the most powerful claim I have ever read or hear regarding USA’s freedom declarations. I traveled to Cuba once and they declare themselves as free everywhere and in all possible ways. And I wondered: How??? Why???
   The same I think on “America’s” self-declared freedom. I love how comprehensive this analysis is, all backed-up, brave and bold. Thank you!

   Reply

7. Hi all-

   Freedom, to me, is alignment with my values—not control.

   It’s when my nervous system feels like it’s a calm creek, not a constant war that keeps us trapped
   .
   It’s taking care of the invisible things, what I think, how I show up, how I take care of myself.

   As an empath, it’s taking care of the invisibles…. meditation, nervous system regulation and my mindset.

   It’s knowing that truth is quiet and I can trust it. It hums to my intuition.

   What I’m standing for?
   The kind of feminine leadership that gets stronger when we get quiet and listen.

   The courage and forgiveness it takes to heal our families, break inter-generational trauma, grow a new world by paying attention and focusing on what we want. Freedom doesn’t need to shout, freedom is loudest when it’s singing.

   —Rita Hickman
   Field Guide for the Woman’s Soul

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   1. Lovely & true. But that’s just one part of it. Maybe. I have said what i wanted, and now I am going back to my bed. Maybe, in the end, the sort of reality/way of being you suggest is all we may have to call our own…

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8. Best summary I have ever read. The entire country has been consumed by thoughts that are primarily led by somebody who believes that money is far more important than people. I was a CPA for 45 years and happen to know that in the legal profession they word it as In Business Money is the Only Thing that Matters. Money is important, thats my job, but people, their livelyhood, feelings and values are very important too.
   Wake Up!

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9. Vishen, you talk about freedom, and then you complain about healthcare and education. You don’t say, but you strongly imply, that there should be more government spending on these things. I’d like to point out that more government spending means more taxation. And taxation means using government guns to force people to hand over their money. When you request the use of government guns to solve a problem, you are not advocating freedom. Just the opposite. Please think about that. I even fear using my full name, because the “government guns” crowd is so violent and vicious. If you were truly advocating freedom, you would be calling for MUCH smaller government, as did the founders of this country. But you had better not do that, because you will be boycotted and canceled into oblivion.

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10. I agree with most of your sentiments. Overall they are quite accurate, but there is a deeper analysis. There are powerful behind the scenes elites who manage the world for their own purposes. Politicians and political systems are all controlled by them. The people have to stop trusting authorities who work for their own interests and the elites who blackmail them. Some aspects of the freedom rankings are a joke. New Zealand had some of the most draconian Covid restrictions in the world. The UK and Germany arrest people for controversial posts on social media right now. Europe seems to blindly follow the lead of the USA to their detriment. Zionist interests seem to blackmail the governments of the western world. Also, there was no mention of the evil of fractional reserve banking as a huge global problem. Creating money out of thin air and charging interest on it! This only benefits the elites who are close to the money creation source. Western medicine is based on the Rockefeller model. Surgery, vaccines and drugs defined as healthcare. That is another huge problem. The USA subsidizes the world with this system by discounting drugs to the world while we pay unaffordable prices. We also are the subsidizing the wars of the world to help the tiny global elites. Maybe that is why the US cannot afford a better and more affordable healthcare model. We spend too much on arms, too much on drugs, and try to be the world’s policeman with 200 bases around the world. Vishen this has been a growing problem for decades. It is not a Trump phenomenon as you often hint. I still recall in 2016 when you made a veiled endorsement of Hillary. While I agreed with your assessment of Trump you over looked the obvious problems with Hillary which were equal or above Trump. That is why I did not vote for either. The problems the USA faces are bigger than any personality or party. Again you hint at political solutions from the uniparty. All controlled by the same forces from behind the scenes.

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    1. Agreed. The people who really control the world will never be seen.

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11. I agree with Ginger Allen above. I would also add that “undocumented” are ILLEGAL. NO COUNTRY allows hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants into their country except for UK, Ireland and other EU countries and that’s NOT WORKNING. Islam is DOES NOT spread love and forgiveness as Christianity does, therefore, these people do not integrate into Christian societies.

    Someone states “Free Palestine”. The have been offered their own country several times in the last 70 years and DECILED it every time and are NOT wanted in ANY Arab country as they destroy every country that they’ve been in. Someone needs to read the history of the Palestinians. Start with “The Green Prince”.

    Racism?? Are you kidding me? Black fatigue is real and look at who was beaten at a jazz concert in the last couple of days. I have (as a white woman) have dated black men and one man from India. Who was mean to ME? Not one white person, only the black and brown ones.

    Yes, the MSM is ‘owned’ and we know it. It’s our responsibility to seek the truth wherever we can find it. We can all be kind to everyone, no matter their ‘status’. We can all help someone in need- buy a lunch for a homeless person. My home has woods behind it. We (my neighbors and I) leave out blankets, socks, secondhand shoes and body wipes in the winter in a plastic tote where I know they live in the winter (I live in Florida) so that they can get what they need without the stigma of being homeless. We put out water, ice and canned food after hurricanes. We can’t save the world; we can only make our part of it better. AND I still claim that America is where you CAN do it if you want.

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12. Thank you for your thoughtful blog, which I read to the end. We all need to weigh in on what freedom means to humankind, and commit to supporting and maintaining freedom in our respective countries…so that ultimately we live in a free world. I’ve also read all the comments, and most of what I would have to say has been said in one way or another. Just one thing though. When countries/regions where people are at huge risk are mentioned, such as Gaza and Ukraine, almost always African countries are left out. The Sudan, Somalia, Mali, Congo, and others are involved in wars that are exacerbating starvation, displacement, etc. Here is an article which addresses that: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/6/3/why-are-humanitarian-crises-in-african-countries-so-ignored. I have not attended a single webinar, mastery, or other such event where any African people in devastating crisis are mentioned.

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13. After my previous message i forgot to mention how i experienced the same in the Netherlands. Politics became a joke which nobody takes seriously anymore. Everbody seemingly doing their best in order to first fix the problem of the person in charge before and then not daring to take any risk of responsibility to do anything else. Also feeding problems more and more with so called extra care and attention instead of removing them with solutions.
    Then again, and i never could have imagined me saying this but i am proud of our kingdom and royals because they show humanity and i truly hope that they will get to be more involved into leading us and restore faith again.

    Especially Princess Alexia i feel a very strong connection with. At her age being that open and honest about herself showing genuine real sincere personality is remarkable to say the least. She is the example we need in this world. Being herself trough everything happening around her with such high demands and expectations is pure class!
    Oh what would i love to give her a hug and show the respect that she truly deserves!
    To get back on topic is that we dont need so called leaders who are there for some personal benefit.
    It should just be about humanity as a collective just all souls connecting loving and living together in a natural flow of life. Nobody wins by excluding others or by placing someone else down. The mirror is our best daily reminder who we can always turn to.
    In order to always win just make sure nobody ever loses…

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14. Your piece stirred something deep. I’ve sat with it for a bit, and what came through was this:

    America was always meant to be an experiment — not a monarchy, not a machine. A living idea, stewarded by people.

    But that’s the tension now: people have to want to lead. And many don’t — not because they’re lazy, but because they’re exhausted. Survival is familiar. Growth requires visibility, courage, and disruption. That’s harder to choose when your nervous system has been in fight-or-flight for decades.

    We forget that flawed systems exist because we are flawed — beautifully, painfully, and still worthy.

    The reset we keep searching for isn’t political. It’s personal.

    We can’t love others unconditionally until we learn how to extend that same grace inward.

    So maybe before we blame countries, governments, or religions — we start with ourselves.

    That’s where the real revolution begins.

    Thank you for opening this conversation. 🙏

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15. Thank you, Vishen! You had the courage and wisdom to summarize America’s current situation, which is definitely not encouraging of all the freedoms we have (or had). Instead we’re losing freedoms which so many people worked so hard and sacrificed so much to attain. I do not want to live in a system of tyranny, or one where the wealthy upper class rules the poor lower class.

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16. Thank you for finally speaking up and mentioning Gaza. People with your influence should definitely step up and speak real hard truths more often. People of the ‘spiritual’ world tend to stay quite about these subjects but they are the ones with the voice who should speak it out. I am of all religions. I am born a Muslim but I am all religions. I love Jews as much as I love everyone but Gaza has nothing to do with religion. It has to do with humanity, with human sacrifice and human dignity. So please don’t hesitate to use your voice for these causes.

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17. I have followed you for many many years and found wonderful insights. It is disappointing to read this blog because you left out so many wonderful things that make our country great. I was surprised, gjven how so much if your work focuses on personal development . The opportunity to go as far as your work takes you is not found anywhere else in the world. No one looks at that part of pholanthropy and the benefits provided to society as a whole. When you tell us that we live in such a broken country that we dont have freedom to succeed that is an insult to those of us who started with nothing and made a good life for oursrlves by hard work and help from our communities. How dare you tell us we cant get ahead because the country is against us. The socialist-leaning countries that your references rate so highly are leaving out a critical value/category, the desire to accomplish and achieve and leave the world better because you were here . You disappoint me in not mentioning that because it is the very thing you have made yourself wealthy by doing . I want nothing more to do with MindValley.

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18. Love this!
    Thanks for sharing.
    P.S. This was the best quote:
    “Free America from the illusion of freedom.”

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19. I like to look at the united states like the harley davidson motorcycle company…harley davidson does not sell motorcycles…I am sure you are thinking what are you talking about joe of course they build and sell the great american motorcycle right? But that is not true harley davidson sells the idea of freedom and the feeling of freedom on the open road they have never sold motorcycles in my lifetime they sell you the propaganda that gives you a feeling…a mental state…if you rated harley davidson motorcycles compared to other motorcycles based on quality and reliability compared to motorcycles that are made in europe and japan they would rate last at the bottom of the list but americans still put on leather jackets and fire up a harley and ride…and let me tell you that you do get that great feeling of freedom when you ride a harley…not because it is a quality motorcycle and not because it perfoms better than other motorcycles…you get that feeling of freedom because of the propaganda they sell you in advertisements…it is 100% mental…The unites states operates the same way as harley davidson they have never offered anyone complete freedom we all know that when the declaration of independance and the constitution were written they only applied to white men women were not allowed to vote for most of our history and we all know they did not apply to other races until recently…the united states has never offered complete freedom for anyone they sell the idea and the feeling of freedom the same way harley davidson does…are harleys junk of course they are and we all agree on that…is the united states broken of course it is it always has been but we still have that feeling of freedom…propaganda and suggestion are very powerful things…but you already know that brother vishen peace and love to you and your family my friend…joe

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20. Wow!!! this message made me feel so happy and also very proud in a strange way.
    To see and feel the transformation /evolution you went through since that live weekend summit which was my first Mindvally experience that didnt went all to great because my “rage of Fury”. Therefore again my sincere apologies for the way i acted out that day. It made me reflect on myself a lot, this showed where i needed to heal myself, from those deep inner pains and resentment. Result was to find incredible ways for growth, strength, faith and most important: Purpose. Thats exactly what i felt in your blog!
    So genuine, real and peaceful its truly amazing! Also wonderful you spend and share those weeks with your kids learning about true value in life!
    We were both triggerd that one day in ways we didn’t experienced before. After that you have truly shown your vulnerable side to the world and the real meaning of leading by example.
    You didnt chose the easy way out but instead went right trough that storm of struggles to rise as an absolute winner! And also as the great inspiring, motivating and powerfull human being you probably had always been before.
    Everybody gets lost sometimes and certainly our western society in general. It is not to blame anyone for this, except maybe all of us individually by getting more and more distracted and spillng our valuable energy on things that doesnt matter. Instead of turning around and start from the beginning again, politics tried to pursue and fix old roads on broken foundation, this took a heavy toll on all of us as humans and made us separate and more divided then ever before. Thats just what we all do when whe are exhausted and perhaps slightly irritated , we take it out on others around us in order to hopefully get a bit of releive in some sort. Now this is all short term and disguised as losing tension by anger in order to feel better but in fact we just give that oh so valuable last bit of scarce energy away to negativity. Without solutions or any goal to reach for healing/growing and becoming better ourselves.
    I wish for everyone to heal from their pains and find your inner child again with love, faith, purpose, passion an lots of good positive energy!

    Thank you so much Vishen for being real and giving the perfect example of taking responsibility!

    I hope to have the chance one day to speak with you about our situations. (Perhaps in Amsterdam which by *coincidence* is very close to me)

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