It’s a tale of two competing views of reality. Repeating a lie, paltering, or spin often doesn’t make it true. Consider these examples of competing claims about reality: there are those who believe that several of the 2020 election results in key states were stolen, while other deny that claim. There are those who believe that man made climate change is an existential threat, while others look at super-polluter Communist China building new coal fired electric plants or private jet elites flying to climate conferences that shake their head ‘no’ and deny view. Some believe manufactured homes are a good value and are needed to solve the U.S. affordable housing crisis, but others look down on manufactured homes as ‘mobile homes’ that attracts ‘trailer trash’ and “predatory” corporate behavior. Some think it’s basic biology to say that there are males and females, while others claim that people can change their gender or other ‘identity’ with a mere change of mind or mood. Some believe in God and think that humanity needs to live by the light of Divine Revelation, but others deny God – or if they ‘believe’ – they don’t think that the Ten Commandments or other Divine teachings should apply anymore. These are examples of what at its core are battles over reality. It’s a question of what is real and true. But it also includes elements of propaganda, domination, and more subtle behavioral influences in education, media, or human foibles as habits and the exploitation of data deployed at personal frailties.

According to a recent survey, some 70 percent of the country believes the U.S. is heading in the wrong direction. If someone flashes back to 2 years ago, as politically turbulent that time was, there is no comparison to what has been occurring since the outbreak of COVID19 went from Wuhan, China and swept the world.

For example. Lockdowns occurred in numerous ‘free’ nations, including the United States, Canada, England, Italy, Australia, or New Zealand, to name but a few. As one report reflected, the rich – the nation’s top billionaires – have become richer. Much of the rest of the country has become poorer. While housing prices and thus ‘equity’ has surged, as has much of the stock market, when measured against the highest official rate of inflation in some 30 years, a case-by-case analysis would reflect that even some of the middle or upper middle class may or may not be better off than 2 years ago.

It is against this backdrop that Zero Hedge posted a recent John W. Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute commentary on 11.11.2021. The Rutherford Institute’s tag line says: “Our job is to make the government play by the rules of the Constitution.” On the about us page it says, “Here at The Rutherford Institute, we believe that the best defense against tyranny is an educated citizenry that knows their rights and is prepared to stand up for them. That’s why we continue to sound the alarm over threats to our freedoms and help Americans push back against the government’s heavy-handed tyranny on almost every front.”

The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) described lauds Whitehead as follows: “John W. Whitehead is an attorney and author who has written, debated and practiced widely in the area of constitutional law and human rights. Whitehead’s concern for the persecuted and oppressed led him, in 1982, to establish The Rutherford Institute, a nonprofit civil liberties and human rights organization whose international headquarters are located in Charlottesville, Virginia. Whitehead serves as the Institute’s president and spokesperson, in addition to writing a weekly commentary that is posted on The Rutherford Institute’s website (www.rutherford.org), as well being distributed to several hundred newspapers, and hosting a national public service radio campaign. Whitehead’s aggressive, pioneering approach to civil liberties issues has earned him numerous accolades, including the Hungarian Medal of Freedom.”

Whitehead, an attorney, author, and constitutional activist and his wife Nisha are among those across the left-right divide who have been sounding the alarm for years about an erosion of our God-given, Constitutionally protected rights. More recently, that concern by Whitehead and his colleagues has been amplified, as his thought-piece from Zero Hedge and his own blog reflects.

 

“The Metaverse Is Big Brother In Disguise: Freedom Meted Out By Technological Tyrants”

Authored by John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

“The term metaverse, like the term meritocracy, was coined in a sci fi dystopia novel written as cautionary tale. Then techies took metaverse, and technocrats took meritocracy, and enthusiastically adopted what was meant to inspire horror.”

– Antonio García Martínez

Welcome to the Matrix (i.e. the metaverse), where reality is virtual, freedom is only as free as one’s technological overlords allow, and artificial intelligence is slowly rendering humanity unnecessary, inferior and obsolete.

Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, sees this digital universe—the metaverse—as the next step in our evolutionary transformation from a human-driven society to a technological one.

Yet while Zuckerberg’s vision for this digital frontier has been met with a certain degree of skepticism, the truth—as journalist Antonio García Martínez concludes—is that we’re already living in the metaverse.

The metaverse is, in turn, a dystopian meritocracy, where freedom is a conditional construct based on one’s worthiness and compliance.

In a meritocracy, rights are privileges, afforded to those who have earned them. There can be no tolerance for independence or individuality in a meritocracy, where political correctness is formalized, legalized and institutionalized. Likewise, there can be no true freedom when the ability to express oneself, move about, engage in commerce and function in society is predicated on the extent to which you’re willing to “fit in.”

We are almost at that stage now.

Consider that in our present virtue-signaling world where fascism disguises itself as tolerance, the only way to enjoy even a semblance of freedom is by opting to voluntarily censor yourself, comply, conform and march in lockstep with whatever prevailing views dominate.

Fail to do so—by daring to espouse “dangerous” ideas or support unpopular political movements—and you will find yourself shut out of commerce, employment, and society: Facebook will ban you, Twitter will shut you down, Instagram will de-platform you, and your employer will issue ultimatums that force you to choose between your so-called freedoms and economic survival.

This is exactly how Corporate America plans to groom us for a world in which “we the people” are unthinking, unresistant, slavishly obedient automatons in bondage to a Deep State policed by computer algorithms.

Science fiction has become fact.

Twenty-some years after the Wachowskis’ iconic film, The Matrix, introduced us to a futuristic world in which humans exist in a computer-simulated non-reality powered by authoritarian machines—a world where the choice between existing in a denial-ridden virtual dream-state or facing up to the harsh, difficult realities of life comes down to a blue pill or a red pill—we stand at the precipice of a technologically-dominated matrix of our own making.

We are living the prequel to The Matrix with each passing day, falling further under the spell of technologically-driven virtual communities, virtual realities and virtual conveniences managed by artificially intelligent machines that are on a fast track to replacing human beings and eventually dominating every aspect of our lives.

In The Matrix, computer programmer Thomas Anderson a.k.a. hacker Neo is wakened from a virtual slumber by Morpheus, a freedom fighter seeking to liberate humanity from a lifelong hibernation state imposed by hyper-advanced artificial intelligence machines that rely on humans as an organic power source. With their minds plugged into a perfectly crafted virtual reality, few humans ever realize they are living in an artificial dream world.

Neo is given a choice: to take the red pill, wake up and join the resistance, or take the blue pill, remain asleep and serve as fodder for the powers-that-be.

Most people opt for the blue pill.

In our case, the blue pill—a one-way ticket to a life sentence in an electronic concentration camp—has been honey-coated to hide the bitter aftertaste, sold to us in the name of expediency and delivered by way of blazingly fast Internet, cell phone signals that never drop a call, thermostats that keep us at the perfect temperature without our having to raise a finger, and entertainment that can be simultaneously streamed to our TVs, tablets and cell phones.

Yet we are not merely in thrall with these technologies that were intended to make our lives easier. We have become enslaved by them.

Look around you. Everywhere you turn, people are so addicted to their internet-connected screen devices—smart phones, tablets, computers, televisions—that they can go for hours at a time submerged in a virtual world where human interaction is filtered through the medium of technology.

This is not freedom. This is not even progress.

This is technological tyranny and iron-fisted control delivered by way of the surveillance state, corporate giants such as Google and Facebook, and government spy agencies such as the National Security Agency.

So consumed are we with availing ourselves of all the latest technologies that we have spared barely a thought for the ramifications of our heedless, headlong stumble towards a world in which our abject reliance on internet-connected gadgets and gizmos is grooming us for a future in which freedom is an illusion.

Yet it’s not just freedom that hangs in the balance. Humanity itself is on the line.

If ever Americans find themselves in bondage to technological tyrants, we will have only ourselves to blame for having forged the chains through our own lassitude, laziness and abject reliance on internet-connected gadgets and gizmos that render us wholly irrelevant.

Indeed, we’re fast approaching Philip K. Dick’s vision of the future as depicted in the film Minority Report. There, police agencies apprehend criminals before they can commit a crime, driverless cars populate the highways, and a person’s biometrics are constantly scanned and used to track their movements, target them for advertising, and keep them under perpetual surveillance.

Cue the dawning of the Age of the Internet of Things (IoT), in which internet-connected “things” monitor your home, your health and your habits in order to keep your pantry stocked, your utilities regulated and your life under control and relatively worry-free.

The key word here, however, is control.

In the not-too-distant future, “just about every device you have—and even products like chairs, that you don’t normally expect to see technology in—will be connected and talking to each other.”

By the end of 2018, “there were an estimated 22 billion internet of things connected devices in use around the world… Forecasts suggest that by 2030 around 50 billion of these IoT devices will be in use around the world, creating a massive web of interconnected devices spanning everything from smartphones to kitchen appliances.”

As the technologies powering these devices have become increasingly sophisticated, they have also become increasingly widespread, encompassing everything from toothbrushes and lightbulbs to cars, smart meters and medical equipment.

It is estimated that 127 new IoT devices are connected to the web every second.

This “connected” industry has become the next big societal transformation, right up there with the Industrial Revolution, a watershed moment in technology and culture.

Between driverless cars that completely lacking a steering wheel, accelerator, or brake pedal, and smart pills embedded with computer chips, sensors, cameras and robots, we are poised to outpace the imaginations of science fiction writers such as Philip K. Dick and Isaac Asimov. (By the way, there is no such thing as a driverless car. Someone or something will be driving, but it won’t be you.)

These Internet-connected techno gadgets include smart light bulbs that discourage burglars by making your house look occupied, smart thermostats that regulate the temperature of your home based on your activities, and smart doorbells that let you see who is at your front door without leaving the comfort of your couch.

Nest, Google’s suite of smart home products, has been at the forefront of the “connected” industry, with such technologically savvy conveniences as a smart lock that tells your thermostat who is home, what temperatures they like, and when your home is unoccupied; a home phone service system that interacts with your connected devices to “learn when you come and go” and alert you if your kids don’t come home; and a sleep system that will monitor when you fall asleep, when you wake up, and keep the house noises and temperature in a sleep-conducive state.

The aim of these internet-connected devices, as Nest proclaims, is to make “your house a more thoughtful and conscious home.” For example, your car can signal ahead that you’re on your way home, while Hue lights can flash on and off to get your attention if Nest Protect senses something’s wrong. Your coffeemaker, relying on data from fitness and sleep sensors, will brew a stronger pot of coffee for you if you’ve had a restless night.

Yet given the speed and trajectory at which these technologies are developing, it won’t be long before these devices are operating entirely independent of their human creators, which poses a whole new set of worries. As technology expert Nicholas Carr notes, “As soon as you allow robots, or software programs, to act freely in the world, they’re going to run up against ethically fraught situations and face hard choices that can’t be resolved through statistical models. That will be true of self-driving cars, self-flying drones, and battlefield robots, just as it’s already true, on a lesser scale, with automated vacuum cleaners and lawnmowers.”

For instance, just as the robotic vacuum, Roomba, “makes no distinction between a dust bunny and an insect,” weaponized drones will be incapable of distinguishing between a fleeing criminal and someone merely jogging down a street. For that matter, how do you defend yourself against a robotic cop—such as the Atlas android being developed by the Pentagon—that has been programmed to respond to any perceived threat with violence?

Moreover, it’s not just our homes and personal devices that are being reordered and reimagined in this connected age: it’s our workplaces, our health systems, our government, our bodies and our innermost thoughts that are being plugged into a matrix over which we have no real control.

It is expected that by 2030, we will all experience The Internet of Senses (IoS), enabled by Artificial Intelligence (AI), Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), 5G, and automation. The Internet of Senses relies on connected technology interacting with our senses of sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch by way of the brain as the user interface. As journalist Susan Fourtane explains:

Many predict that by 2030, the lines between thinking and doing will blur. Fifty-nine percent of consumers believe that we will be able to see map routes on VR glasses by simply thinking of a destination… By 2030, technology is set to respond to our thoughts, and even share them with others… Using the brain as an interface could mean the end of keyboards, mice, game controllers, and ultimately user interfaces for any digital device. The user needs to only think about the commands, and they will just happen. Smartphones could even function without touch screens.

In other words, the IoS will rely on technology being able to access and act on your thoughts.

Fourtane outlines several trends related to the IoS that are expected to become a reality by 2030:

1: Thoughts become action: using the brain as the interface, for example, users will be able to see map routes on VR glasses by simply thinking of a destination.

2: Sounds will become an extension of the devised virtual reality: users could mimic anyone’s voice realistically enough to fool even family members.

3: Real food will become secondary to imagined tastes. A sensory device for your mouth could digitally enhance anything you eat, so that any food can taste like your favorite treat.

4: Smells will become a projection of this virtual reality so that virtual visits, to forests or the countryside for instance, would include experiencing all the natural smells of those places.

5: Total touch: Smartphones with screens will convey the shape and texture of the digital icons and buttons they are pressing.

6: Merged reality: VR game worlds will become indistinguishable from physical reality by 2030.

This is the metaverse, wrapped up in the siren-song of convenience and sold to us as the secret to success, entertainment and happiness.

It’s a false promise, a wicked trap to snare us, with a single objective: total control.

George Orwell understood this.

Orwell’s masterpiece, 1984, portrays a global society of total control in which people are not allowed to have thoughts that in any way disagree with the corporate state. There is no personal freedom, and advanced technology has become the driving force behind a surveillance-driven society. Snitches and cameras are everywhere. And people are subject to the Thought Police, who deal with anyone guilty of thought crimes. The government, or “Party,” is headed by Big Brother, who appears on posters everywhere with the words: “Big Brother is watching you.”

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, total control over every aspect of our lives, right down to our inner thoughts, is the objective of any totalitarian regime.

The Metaverse is just Big Brother in disguise. ##

 

Techno-Censorship: When Censoring
‘Disinformation’ Becomes Silencing Truth

It’s a slippery slope from censoring so-called illegitimate ideas to silencing truth. Eventually, as George Orwell predicted, telling the truth will become a revolutionary act. Whatever we tolerate now—whatever we turn a blind eye to—whatever we rationalize when it is inflicted on others, whether in the name of securing racial justice or defending democracy or combatting fascism, will eventually come back to imprison us, one and all. This is how it starts.

 

See Whitehead on ShadowDragon and related at this link here.
ShadowDragon’s self-promo video is above. Whitehead reminds readers in a column linked here
that the U.S. Government previously detained citizens and noncitizens alike
without trial or benefit of their constitutionally protected and God-given
liberties. He warns it is about to happen again. Some already say that those involved in the
January 6 Capitol breach are already political prisoners’
being held unconstitutionally. 

MHProNews sounded the alarm early in 2020 that “the party is over.” It is no longer “business as usual.” For those who claim or pretend otherwise, they are either sadly deluded and/or they are a de facto part of the illusion creating machine. But we sounded the alarm in 2016 too, including citing information obtained from now silenced Julian Assange led WikiLeaks. This platform and our MHLivingNews sister site have demonstrably stood by the rights of ‘others’ from whatever background from the outset. That said, matters were apparently worse than reasonable and hopeful freedom loving people might have believed.

For regular readers of MHProNews and MHLivingNews, we have always aimed at dealing with reality. We have brought forth more third-party research than any platform in our industry, period, end of story. Either one of our platforms arguably has more third-party research than the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) and all of their parroting mouthpieces that blog or do trade publishing combined. Perhaps that helps explain why even those who don’t like what we publish are routine readers?

So, some years ago when evidence of a serious prior misread about the reality of what was keeping affordable manufactured housing from performing to its potential during an affordable housing crisis occurred, MHProNews followed the evidence reported it and then pressed it. Among those early triggers for us was when the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) clearly spun a report on a Senate hearing that was contradicted by a CSPAN video of that hearing. MHProNews was tipped on that concern. MHProNews explored it, verified the tip’s accuracy, and then reported it and editorially called for the resignation or termination of MHI President and CEO Richard “Dick” Jennison and then Executive Vice President (EVP) Lesli Gooch. In response, 21^st Mortgage Corporation President and CEO Tim Williams organized a show vote of support that arguably attempted to sweep the actual details of the incident under the proverbial rug.

Another early warning was when Dick Jennison said the manufactured home industry should grow slowly. What? During an affordable housing crisis? After the industry had suffered a blow unlike any other before it? MHI’s Jennison said we should grow slowly? That episode – prior to the incident cited above – drew a different response from Williams. Williams apparently saw to it personally that Jennison corrected that statement, and did so publicly. Jennison gritted his teeth, but he said what he had to say.

 

But both were a case of following the facts, evidence, plus what history and common sense said the evidence might mean.

Reality always is what it is, whether we like it or not.

Those who blindly, willingly, out of habit or fear follow falsehoods will sooner or later face the consequences.

Warnings and concerns about “The Metaverse” – that includes Facebook and other left-leaning social media and tech titans – have been spreading for years. But the alternative reality of big tech and big media have their forerunners. Without the internet, National Socialists (Nazi) – the fascists of what became Adolf Hitler led Germany – took root with a blend of propaganda delivered in pamphlets, meetings, radio, and other media. In Soviet Russia or Communist China, an iron fisted control of media, education, and the various aspects of their respective governments over working conditions, health, housing, and religion are clear. Both the fascist and communist systems relied on groupthink, secret police, and incentives to make citizens turn in dissenters.

Manufactured housing is a subset of American housing and a subset of the broader society. It is necessary and useful to look around at an emerging authoritarian regime that people like Glen Greenwald and others on the left or Justin Haskins and others on the right are among those who have sounded the alarm.

 

Propagandists and manipulators of various stripes of necessity can’t – in their own minds – afford to ‘admit the con.’

Instead, they double down and may even become more shrill. As an example of how the system can work against the masses, in the aftermath of the stunning upsets in deep blue New Jersey and Virginia’s off year election just days ago, DINO Democrats mustered enough RINO Republicans to pass one of their stalled bills backed by CINO and PINO Joe Biden. While it is too much to say that there is no difference between the two major parties, it is not too much to say that when someone follows the money trail and evidence, there are members of both major parities that are beholden to the elites that seek to dominate government, economy, and society.  Indeed, if you believe Buffett, the powers that be have felt for some time that they did dominate society. They have for years, Buffett said. There are times when Buffett should be taken at face value.

 

Facts and evidence are necessary to break through to those who are beginning to awaken to the risk to themselves and their loved ones.

Facts and evidence are necessary to continue to foster the belief and understanding of those who are already aware of the disconnects.

When there is an alternative reality – a Metaverse – that all too many have bought into, it is necessary and useful to hammer away at what is real. At what is true. At what is just. At what is good and beautiful in the face of a hideous and ugly evil.

Speaking of evil, don’t miss today’s postscript.

In report after report, MHProNews and our sister site provide reality checks. The information that counters nonstop propaganda. While others are in the battle for reality, justice, and freedom in MHVille’s options among trade media, only MHProNews and MHLivingNews dares put out the facts that counter the bold fictions.

With no further adieu, get your daily dose of reality in the reports for the week that was from 11.7.2021 to 11.14.2021. You’ll find that these reports will stand the test of time because they are grounded in facts, evidence, and applied common sense that needs to become ‘more common’ again.

 

What’s New on MHLivingNews

 

What’s New from Washington, D.C. from MHARR

 

What’s New from the Words of Wisdom

What’s New on the Masthead

What’s New on the Daily Business News on MHProNews

Saturday 11.13.2021

Friday 11.12.2021

Thursday 11.11.2021

Wednesday 11.10.2021

Tuesday 11.9.2021

Monday 11.8.2021

Sunday 11.7.2021

 

Postscript

During a period of subtle to massive lies, paltering, ‘Deception and Misdirection,’ and other tactics, it is necessary to hammer away at facts and evidence that point to reality. But this could be so much simpler for those who have a proper grounding in the lessons of history and faith. History is important, as we’ve noted before, because anything that has happened before can happen again. Furthermore, history is in some ways the story of humanity’s struggle to be authentically free. It is a twisting or flawed misunderstanding of history to think that slavery was only a white on black matter in the U.S.  Slavery and serfdom have been the common lot of much of humanity for most of human history. Nor is slavery or serfdom ‘over.’ They have morphed and taken new forms. This is arguably part of what Whitehead and others like him are communicating.  Here in the U.S., where Ronald Reagan said that we are never more than a generation away from losing our rights, there has been a better than normal experience for many of what it means to be politically or economically more free.

But even here in the U.S., a close look at authentic history reveals an ongoing struggle between those at the top that wanted to rule directly and/or subtly.

It is important to stand up for the rights of others. As Whitehead’s video above reminds people, when the rights of others are not protected, your rights are in danger too.

It is also important to be willing to examine the evidence, despite personal habits or perceived interests.  Greenwald, an openly homosexual man, did not shrink from calling out the manipulation of ‘woke’ thinking to make the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and its various acts of wrongdoing, cloaked in ‘gay pride.’

Put differently, Greenwald set his personal interests in that topic aside to expose a serious issue for American liberty.

It took decades of subtle ‘education,’ ‘entertainment,’ and various sources manipulated media and levels of public institutions of all types to bring us to this crisis moment in history. It is possible, but unlikely in the normal social order to expect it to change overnight.  That said, there are examples in human history when massive social change occurred with a combination of Divine insights and human leadership working within the boundaries of free will to accomplish authentic liberation.  The Exodus is such an example from Biblical times. While different, the rise of Christianity steadily upended the darker parts of the Roman Empire’s social order. During the so called ‘dark ages,’ monasteries and believers preserved the best parts of Roman and Greek thought during a time when the intellectual accomplishments of those societies were swept away by invading marauders. In Poland, it was believers working in conjunction with the Solidarity labor movement to work to restore freedom behind the Iron Curtain. A Catholic Pope, John Paul II, and a divorced and remarried Protestant President, Ronald Reagan, worked together in various ways to bring about the dramatic fall of the Iron Curtain and communism in Eastern Europe. Jumping back to the U.S. centuries before, it was a range of believers – often but not always Christians – who worked with people from all levels of society to free the 13 colonies from British rule and their ‘crown monopolies.’

Put differently, history tells us that it is often true that faith and the struggle for various types of authentic freedom work hand in hand.

• What appeared to be the once invincible Pharaohs of Egypt,
• the once ‘invincible’ Roman Empire,
• the once ‘invincible’ British Empire,
•  the once ‘invincible’ Communists of Eastern Europe,

all where eventually brought to an end. In each of those cases, people set aside some differences to work together for the benefit of the majority. In each of those cases, faith and freedom fighters worked together.

If our industry’s professionals, investors, advocates, and others of good will think that it will be different in 2021 than it was for millennium of human history, look again at the evidence.  Advances in the U.S. were often brought about by people of faith working for the greater good.

Furthermore, history reveals that it is often a minority – sometimes just a handful at first – that steps up to the plate to lead. It is a troubling time in American history. The outcome short term is uncertain. But in the end, the Godly who respond to the Divine Will shall in one way or another prevail. This is what history tells us. It should encourages us to face our own biases, habits, and short-sighted thinking. It should encourage us to overcome those often leftist billionaires who have slyly to openly controlled American society for too long to work with others of good will. Because the many have always been able to overcome the money. Moses ran away from his Divine calling before he finally responded.

The time is always right to do what is right. Or, as the Rev. Ivory Mewborn likes to say, “Working Together Works.” ###

 

Our thanks to you, our sources, and sponsors for making and keeping us the runaway number one source for authentic “News through the lens of manufactured homes and factory-built housing” © where “We Provide, You Decide.” © ## (Affordable housing, manufactured homes, reports, fact-checks, analysis, and commentary. Third-party images or content are provided under fair use guidelines for media.) (See Related Reports, further below. Text/image boxes often are hot-linked to other reports that can be access by clicking on them.)

By L.A. “Tony” Kovach – for MHProNews.com.

Tony earned a journalism scholarship and earned numerous awards in history and in manufactured housing.

For example, he earned the prestigious Lottinville Award in history from the University of Oklahoma, where he studied history and business management. He’s a managing member and co-founder of LifeStyle Factory Homes, LLC, the parent company to MHProNews, and MHLivingNews.com.

This article reflects the LLC’s and/or the writer’s position, and may or may not reflect the views of sponsors or supporters.

http://latonykovach.com

Connect on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/latonykovach

 

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