On the Banks

Our Classes Start Next Week!

 

Freogan Fellowship Learning's classes for teens start next week!

We're very excited, and we think you should be too. We are launching Freogan Fellowship Learning with classes that address two of the most critical issues facing our world today - especially for anyone who cares about ever again living in a free society:

"Propaganda and the Personal" explores the ways in which information has been manipulated throughout the ages for the purpose of manipulating human beings, and how to avoid falling victim to it...

...and "Our Common-Law Foundations" looks at both the philisophical and practical underpinnings of a society based in law that protects rights vs. law that protects rulers.

Our regular price for each of these classes is $320, or $640 for both.

But now, if you sign up for BOTH classes, we will drop the price from $640 to $499!

See the posts below for class descriptions, or contact FFL for more information, and to register for classes.

And yes... for now, these are for teens (and some pre-teens) only. Sorry adults! We may add some classes for you in the future.

Freogan Fellowship Learning is the education arm of Freogan Fellowship Ministry, a private membership association, serving members only.

 

 

A Change in the Weather

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had an article up last week over at LewRockwell.com last week, about the work that needs doing, the urgency of doing it, and the very strong possibility that we just might win. Check it out.

As I leave my friend, the wind blows a lone cloth mask in front of me and it rolls across my path like a tumbleweed.

This wind. It’s tearing apart old alliances, old tribes, even long-held friendships. Even families.

But it’s also sweeping people into new groupings, pushing us together out of necessity, whereupon many of us realize: These are the people we should have had in our lives all along. These are the right alliances, better tribes. And it seems crazy that it’s taken this wild windstorm to bring us together.

By afternoon, the wind is in a real fury. Our giant inflatable pumpkin family has been blown across the yard and now sits huddled around our tiny weeping cherry tree. I go out and corral  them back into place next to the giant inflatable Halloween tree, and for a while anyway, all seems as it should be.

I don’t mean to suggest that any of this is going to be easy, or that there’s nothing to be afraid of...

 

Read the rest here.

COVID shows we need Sanctuaries For Medical Freedom!

For anyone who missed it earlier, here is my presentation on Sanctuaries for (Medical) Freedom, with Freedom Hub:

F0r a longer version of this presentation, that includes more history, and a discussion of why govt. regulation of medicine doesn't accomplish what it purports to - but doesn't include all of the solutions that are in the Freedom Hub video, see here.

 

You can find more Freedom Hub videos here or here.

 

How to be Free in an Unfree Society

 

Recently, I was on Josh Scandlen's show, talking about our upcoming education venture, building the structures that will replace what is crumbling around us, PMA healthcare, backyard chickens & CSAs, the rebirth of China in the late '80s and '90s... and the tremendous opportunity we have for bringing about liberty:

 

There's a Revolution Happening in Education - Oct 1-3

This conference is not for everyone.

My friend Dr. Edith Ubuntu Chan has brought together some of the most powerful voices in homeschooling and unschooling, for a three-day conference dedicated to breaking old education paradigms and building new ones.

This fall, many families are RISING UP and choosing to raise their children in ways that are far more respectful, and honoring of the individual child, than most of what we know as "education" has been. 

If you are among them, consider signing up, here. 

(Note: This is an affiliate link, and I will get a little something for everyone who signs up from it.)

 

Election-Night Custard

It's a little after 8:00pm on the night of the recall election - the election to remove (or not) California Governor Gavin Newsom.

I really have no idea which way it's going to go, and I'm not even sure I care. On the one hand, it would be awesome to give the criminal Newsom a public black eye, and to get him out of office. 

But on the other hand…

I know that as much as it may seem as if what California has become can be laid at the feet of one man, the source of our problems is much much deeper. And I worry that if Newsom is recalled, it may generate complacency among those of us who are of the anti-totalitarian persuasion, and we may ease up just a little on the work we need to be doing to ensure that nothing like this can ever ever happen again.

So I don't know. But I guess what I do know is that however this election turns out, my work remains the same. 

And I also know that the real battle is not between people who want one person to rule over them vs. those who want another person to rule over them - but between those who want rulers and those who do not. Between those who believe that a majority of people voting for a thing renders the forcible imposition of that thing legitimate, and those of us who do not.

And no election is going to address any of that.

So, even though I did vote (yes to recall the bastard), I can honestly say I am ambivalent about which way it goes. 

Which is fine, because as I said, what I have to do doesn't change all that much - not at all really - based on the outcome of the recall election.

So I spent tonight doing what I usually do, lots of chores, a few tasks regarding the upcoming launch of our new education initiative (see here for details!) - and helping our son make custard.

Our teenage son happens to be a brilliant cook, and he recently discovered custard. Not the kind you bake, but the kind that goes inside choux pastries and on some tarts. He hasn't attempted the pastry part yet, but he's done an awesome job with the custard and I'm really proud of him. (And when I say I "helped" him, I mean he let me stir a little when his hand got tired.)

Here's something I noticed about making custard.

Once all the ingredients are blended, and you're stirring or whisking it on the stove, it can be frustrating because for a long time it can seem like nothing is changing, but then you get to a point where you recognize that something is changing. And it's an interesting little spot in the cooking process. Because the custard isn't yet thick, and I'm not even sure I'd say it's "thickening". The consistency doesn't seem to be any different yet. But something has changed. There are fewer bubbles now, and it all seems to be "coming together" somehow. It's a little hard to explain actually.

And I think that's where we are now. By "we", I don't just mean Californians, or even just Americans. I think I might mean the whole world. At least the parts of the world that have been upended by the Covid tyranny. 

What do I mean by that? I DON'T KNOW. I just know that when I take a step back and try to look at the world I live in from some sort of distance, as if I were an outsider, something has really shifted. 

Obviously, we've all been experiencing an unprecedented (in the US, UK, and parts of Europe anyway. Probably also Australia) level of outright totalitarian tyranny for going on two years now. But that's not what I mean. 

What I mean is that there is a real chaos to things now that wasn't there before. A genuine weirdness - from the fact that the person sitting in the Oval Office is very openly senile, to the complete lack of logic behind "vaccine passports" for a vaccine that - again, openly - does not prevent transmission, the resignations of top FDA officials, the now regular flip-flopping on major issues by public-health bigwigs, the quite literally Orwellian (and again, very open) altering of official definitions of long-established medical terminology to suit a political agenda, to… well, pretty much EVERYTHING about California.

What's weird about it is not the chaos itself - I think that can be explained. What's weird is that there are still a whole lot of people who don't recognize it as chaos. Who don't see the lack of logic, or question the altering of definitions, or maybe even think that there is anything at all amiss in this whole experiment in total statism. 

And what seems to be happening now is that the divide between those who recognize the chaos and those who do not is widening very quickly.

We are at some sort of critical point now. The dimension of our world that is made up of our connections to one another, of our social groups, our "tribes", and even our friends and our families, that dimension has undergone unprecedented seismic shifts over the past 18-plus months, and that shifting seems to be coming to a head now.

The consistency of the custard is changing. It's not yet "thick", and it's not yet clear just how it's going to turn out. But the very chemistry of things is different now. Some elements have been separated from each other, and other elements have become bound very much together. 

What is this all going to mean? I honestly don't know. But I believe that it is very significant, and I also believe that this shifting will mean unprecedented opportunities for real change. 

So I'm going to stay focused on the things I can do to help bring about that change. To help bring about genuinely free societies. And one thing I am more certain of now than ever before  is that it won't be elections that bring about the kind of change that we need to be free.

 

WTMWD #70: Jeremy Hammond's "The War on Informed Consent: The Persecution of Dr. Paul Thomas by the Oregon Medical Board"

Only days after publishing a study comparing long-term health outcomes of vaccinated children to those of unvaccinated children, Dr. Paul Thomas had his medical license suspended by the Oregon Medical Board. 

Jeremy Hammond's latest book tells Dr. Thomas' story, but is really about much more: Hammond builds the context within which the persecution of Dr. Thomas arose, and in doing so, tells the story of today's health freedom movement.

Anyone who wonders where that movement sprung from, or why thousands of parents around the world are so passionate about defending their right to choose what medical treatments their children are given, should start with this book.

Jeremy's book, "The War on Informed Consent: The Persecution of Dr. Paul Thomas by the Oregon Medical Board", can be found here.

You can find Jeremy's writing, and support his work, here.

And my interview with Dr. Thomas from last December is here.

 

 

WTMWD # 69: Revolutionizing Healthcare - with Dr. Keith Smith

Dr. Keith Smith, of the Surgery Center of Oklahoma,  is one of the heroes of the free-market healthcare reform movement. In this episode, we talk about what's really behind the dysfunction of this industry - and what can be done about it.

See ReasonTV's 2012 piece on the Surgery Center of Oklahoma.

The site Dr. Smith mentions for finding direct primary care providers is DPCFrontier.com

And this is the site for the Free Market Medical Association.

Sanctuary Jurisdictions for Medical Freedom - tomorrow at 1pm Pacific Time

 

UPDATE: The recorded video is up here.

Mothers forced to give birth in masks; family members prevented from being with loved ones in hospitals; increased efforts to force vaccines on those who don't want them. State infringement of our rights in the realm of medicine and healthcare is nothing new. The time is ripe now for some practical solutions, and Bretigne Shaffer has some ideas, based in common law and the tradition of nullification of laws that violate our rights.

Please invite your friends and colleagues to join the discussion and ask questions.

Tomorrow, Weds. August 11, at 1:00pm Pacific Time, 4:00pm Eastern.

https://YourFreedomHub.com/sanctuary

 

WTMWD #68: Kevin McKernan on the Dr. David Martin video and how patent law really impacts research

 

By now you've probably seen the video where Reiner Fuellmich speaks with Dr. David Martin about his examination of patent records, which he says show that there is nothing "novel" about SARS-Cov-2, and that the genetic components that purportedly make it "novel" were in fact patented many years ago.

Kevin McKernan, CSO of Medicinal Genomics, knows quite a lot about genetic science and  he also knows a thing or two about patent law -  in particular the patent law around genetic research. So today, I asked him for his take on what Dr. Martin said in that video, and in his accompanying dossier.

In this episode, we hit some of the major points from Dr. Martin's presentation, and Kevin points out a few places where he thinks Dr. Martin gets it wrong. There's a lot more to dig into here though, and Kevin suggests a future conversation with himself and Dr. Martin - I'll keep everyone posted about that.

We also talk about the legitimacy of patent law, and intellectual property itself, and about whether patent protection helps medical research to flourish, or serves to stifle it.

The transcript of the video with Dr. Martin can be found here.

Kevin's Twitter thread on some of the issues we discussed can be found here.

And you can follow Kevin on Twitter here.

 

 

 

WTMWD #67: Remember when Dr. Colleen Huber was Kicked off of Twitter?

No, you probably don't. And that's part of what is so insidious about this information purge: So much of it happens without anyone even noticing.

Dr. Huber had been posting information about things like mask harm, the damage done by lockdowns, and evidence for effective treatments for Covid-19 - including some of her own research. In 2021, all of this is heresy. And so, back in April, she was "permanently suspended" from Twitter.

We talk about her suspension, and about some of the information that got her suspended. 

A note: I apologize for the choppiness of the audio in some spots. We had some connection problems, and while I've edited out the worst ones, there are still some brief choppy spots.

You can find Dr. Huber's research and writing on masks, lockdowns, and related topics, here.

And you  can find Dr. Huber's books on Amazon. Her book "The Defeat of COVID: 500+ medical studies show what works & what doesn't" is here.

 

Can Mass Psychosis be Defeated?

 

Why it turns out, yes it can.

Many thanks to JP Sears for sending on this video, which without referring to the specifics of our current world, very aptly describes it. And pay close attention to the advice from Vaclav Havel near the end, regarding setting up "parallel systems." All the stuff I'm talking about in my new membership group? None of it is new - the people who have fought and defeated totalitarian regimes in the past knew all about it. Now it's our turn. And maybe, hopefully, if we can do an even better job of this, nobody will have to take a turn at this ever again.

As JP says:

This video, in very clear objective ways, outlines the physiological tactics tyrants use to control the masses. One of the reasons why I think this video is so impactful is that it doesn't use any literal references from the tyranny we see happening today. The information more digestible, especially to people who are either unaware or just beginning to wake up to what's happening in our world. Watch and share it here.

 

If You Want to be on the Mailing List:

 

 

Yes, I am starting a list for those who want to be in my new membership group – the one for people who are serious about building alternative systems to the one that is falling down around us. (See below. Also, I forgot to mention in that post, both protection and justice. Those need new systems too, and will be part of our discussions.)

If you'd like to be on this list, please just email me. You can find my email at the "email me" link to the right of this post - or... right here: BretigneATgmailDOTcom.

And welcome aboard!

 

 

An Announcement

 

 

 

I've been saying for years now that the most important thing we can do – those of us who care about liberty and about having a free society to live in – is to build the foundations of that society now. Not to complain about the increasingly authoritarian society we find ourselves in, but to build its replacement.

For me, this is especially true in the realm of what most of us call "social services": Caring for the most vulnerable, education, and health care. (For some background as to how the state has stifled private solutions in these areas, see my video on Sanctuary Jurisdictions for Medical Freedom.) And, as I just got home from five weeks in the hospital with our daughter, dealing with her seizures, the need for solutions here is especially fresh for me.

Now, halfway into 2021, and amid the wreckage that has been wrought – in healthcare, in education, and in the lives of the most vulnerable among us – this focus is needed more than ever. For me, that means that it is time to stop talking and start building.

So I am going to be putting my podcast on hold – not stopping it entirely, but I will no longer commit to producing an episode each week. If something comes up, and especially if it is directly related to what I am building, then I will put out the occasional episode. The same goes for my writing and blogging generally.

What will I be doing instead? A few things, starting with creating a small, Private-Membership-Association school, and with laying the groundwork for a self-sustaining home and community for those with intellectual disabilities that require them to have support and care throughout their lives.

There will be many pieces to this larger project, including healthcare, therapy, vocational training, and hopefully the incorporation of elder care. Ultimately, we will be looking for other like-minded entrepreneurs to partner with us.

And of course, these projects are part of a much bigger picture. I'm not the only one who realizes that this is what we need to be doing. All over the world, people are looking into and starting intentional communities, Private Membership Associations, and other structures for carving out spaces where people can live as they choose. There has long been a need for this, but after the sudden (it wasn't really all that sudden) takeover of our lives by authoritarian overlords, the need has become urgent.

So we need to be talking with each other. I don't mean that we all need to agree about precisely what our solutions will look like, or even have a shared grand vision. Only that we share the core principle of human liberty, and a desire to connect, support each other, share ideas, and in some cases collaborate.

To this end, I will be starting a membership group for people who are serious about building free societies. If you have created, or are looking to create, a PMA, a mutual-aid society, a "sanctuary for freedom" city, any kind of alternative healthcare or health insurance project, an organic food co-op or network, homeschooling co-op, or are serious about creating any kind of alternative support system and/or society that respects individual liberty, then this might be the group for you. 

Basic membership will be free. Later, I will probably add a paid membership option, for things like webinars with people with expertise in these areas, and maybe training sessions. I will keep everyone posted as it develops, and should have something in place by mid July. 

Finally, thank you to everyone who has been listening to "What Then Must We Do?" I promise the podcast will be back full-time, at some point in the future. For now, though, I need to focus on building.

WTMWD # 66: Externalities: Is Carrying Germs an Act of Aggression? With Don Boudreaux

 

 

 

 

Don Boudreaux is the perfect person to address the "you don't have a right to infect others" argument. Don is a professor of economics (among many other accomplishments), and he also has a law degree. So he has quite a lot to say about the nature of "externalities", both from an economic perspective and one grounded in law, and in common-law principles in particular.

We also address the question of whether the perpetrators of the devastating lockdowns and other restrictions should be held accountable for the harm they have done via something similar to the Nuremberg trials.

And in the end, I think I even manage to cheer him up a little regarding humanity's prospects for the future.

Don writes about externalities here.

...and you can find more of his writings here, or on Cafe Hayek where he blogs regularly.

Some of the LA fireworks videos we talk about are posted here.

 

Someone REALLY Doesn't Want You to See this Summit!

 

 

Last Friday, I received this email, from the "Truth over Fear Summit" folks:

"Today is the day!  We will be digging into Patrick Coffin's Truth Over Fear summit, featuring the courageous Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, the brave clergyman who exposed two major scandals in The Catholic Church and wrote a highly compelling letter to President Trump regarding the battle between good and evil at play with the current lockdown crisis. Also on the line-up is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Steven Mosher, Dr. Judy Mikovits, Reiner Fuellmich, and some seriously courageous experts who are battling evil with everything they've got."

 

About eight hours later, I got this email from them: "Truth Over Fear Summit CANCELLED by Censors." It read:

"Today was supposed to be the day that this epic list of featured speakers became open for us all. We have received hundreds of emails from you guys wondering what happened. Error messages, etc. We were able to talk to the organizers directly and our suspicions were correct—they have been censored. The Truth Over Fear Summit was cancelled and de-platformed without warning, on launch day by Kartra, their software provider."

 

The above is literally everything I know about the cancelling of this summit. I don't know why Kartra made the decision to cancel their support for the summit, and I hope that more details will emerge soon - including details on the lawsuit against the company for breach of contract.

But I will say that this kind of thing has become disturbingly common. In a bone-chilling announcement earlier this week, Dr. Joseph Mercola told readers that he would be deleting from his website "all articles related to vitamins D, C, Zinc, and Covid-19." 

Why? 

Dr. Mercola gives a detailed accounting of official efforts to silence those who write or speak critically about vaccines. Including, in what can only be a direct violation of the First Amendment, calls by some state attorneys general for Facebook and Twitter to ban the speech of those identified by HealthGuard (part of NewsGuard, and funded by the PR firm Publicis Groupe, which is a partner with the World Economic Forum) as leading "anti-vaxxers." 

Mercola also writes about the call by Dr. Peter Hotez (president of the Gates-funded Sabin Vaccine Institute), to treat intellectual challenges to vaccine orthodoxy as "aggression" deserving of a "counteroffensive" involving a task force that would include "experts who have tackled complex global threats such as terrorism, cyber attacks and nuclear armament..."

Let that sink in for just a moment. According to this guy, who by all appearances made it all the way through medical school, a challenge to one's beliefs about the world is the equivalent of violence.

But what does any of this have to do with Vitamin D, C, or Zinc? And why has Dr. Mercola decided to remove all articles about these supplements and Covid-19 from his website?

Here's what he has to say:

"You may have noticed our website was recently unavailable; this was due to direct cyber-attacks launched against us. We have several layers of protective mechanisms to secure the website as we’ve anticipated such attacks from malevolent organizations.

"Through these progressively increasing stringent measures, I have refused to succumb to these governmental and pharmaceutical thugs and their relentless attacks. I have been confident and willing to defend myself in the court of law, as I’ve had everything reviewed by some of the best attorneys in the country.

"Unfortunately, threats have now become very personal and have intensified to the point I can no longer preserve much of the information and research I’ve provided to you thus far. These threats are not legal in nature, and I have limited ability to defend myself against them. If you can imagine what billionaires and their front groups are capable of, I can assure you they have been creative in deploying their assets to have this content removed."

 

If this doesn't send a chill up your spine, then I'm not sure what will. I am tempted to say that we are living in unprecedented times, but the truth is that the desire of powerful people to censor information that runs counter to whatever their agenda is at the moment is nothing new. Even schoolchildren should be able to point to a few prominent examples from history. But what is deeply, deeply, disturbing is the extent to which, even today, even in the year 2021, so very few people even recognize it for what it is, or if they do, are disturbed by it.

If you are among the few who are rightly disturbed by what is going on here, then I hope you will take a look at the Truth Over Fear Summit, now being held this coming Friday - the day after tomorrow. They've rebuilt on a new platform, and the Summit will be running for three days starting on May 7th at 8:00am Pacific Time. 

You'll hear about topics from treatments such as Ivermectin that are being suppressed, herd immunity, Covid-19 vaccine injury, the threat of mandated vaccination... and perhaps most importantly, how to fight back. Reiner Fuellmich, who is leading the charge to hold perpetrators of human-rights crimes accountable for their actions, will be speaking on Saturday, as will Barbara Loe Fisher and Peggy Hall. If you're serious about real solutions to this madness, you will want to hear these people.

You can see all of that by going here.

Yes, this is an affiliate link. Yes, I will get a little something if you click on it (I think). But what I've just described is part of the "Free Pass" program, and there's also more content that you can pay for. Whether you pay or not though, I hope you will check it out if for no other reason than to show the censors that they aren't going to win this.

 

 

WTMWD #65: What Roger Koops Learned When he Audited the CDC

 

 

 

 

As director of quality assurance for a pharmaceutical company, Roger Koops interacted closely with the FDA for many years. I speak with him in this episode about his experiences, the nature of that agency and about how the regulatory landscape has expanded and become more burdensome over time. He also tells about the time he was tasked with auditing the CDC, what that experience taught him, and what – if anything – that agency is good for.

We also discuss the problem of professional myopia in the world of science, and the implications that has for the rest of us.

Roger Koops is a contributing author for AIER, and is also a retired scientist, with a PhD in chemistry and over 25 years in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. He has authored or co-authored several papers on pharmaceutical technology and chemistry.

I spoke with Roger last month about why he doesn't plan to get the Covid-19 vaccine.

 

WTMWD #64: What Gene Epstein would tell Jordan Peterson about Austrian Economics

 

 

 

 

Recently, Jordan Peterson asked who he should have as a guest on his show to talk about Austrian economics, and Gene Epstein's name came up. In this episode, I ask Gene what he would say to Dr. Peterson, or to anyone looking to understand what Austrian economics is all about, what sets it apart from other schools, and why its insights are so important right now.

Gene is the former Barrons economics and books editor, and now hosts the Soho Forum. I spoke with him last month about where he thinks the economy is headed and what individuals can do to protect themselves, here.

The Soho Forum can be found here.

And if you'd like to learn more about Austrian economics, there is no better place to start than the Mises Institute.

I spoke with Mises Institute President, Jeff Deist last December, about whether it might be time for America to break up. 

 

WTMWD #63: The Tenth Amendment Center's Michael Boldin: How do we do this?

 

 

 

 

I start off asking Michael Boldin, of the Tenth Amendment Center, how we can use the principle of nullification to put an end to the lockdown insanity and create free societies... and we end up talking about everything from the legal foundations of nullification, how crappy most sheriffs are on constitutional rights, Freedom Cells, Vermin Supreme, and how very very important mutual aid is.

I even tell the story of my grandmother's experience with her amazing care home, provided by her mutual-aid society, and how the state has worked to shut these down across the country.

Michael works tirelessly for the Tenth Amendment Center.

The book I mentioned is "From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State", and you can find it here.

This Cato publication has some good stuff on mutual aid too, including an essay on the book above.

The Fully Informed Jury Association is here.

The Institute for Justice is here.

You can learn more about Freedom Cells here and here.

Read about the battle of Tinhorn Flats here.

And of course the Vermin Supreme Institute can be found here.

 

Building Free Communities with Private Membership Associations - a webinar with the Freedom Angels

 

Yesterday, the Freedom Angels hosted a webinar with Vanessa and Mike Colomb of Renegade Ranch, a new Private Membership Association (PMA) grocery store  in Penn Valley, Nevada County, California. They talk about Private Membership Associations - how they work, and how they can be used to build free communities.

You can watch here: