Aim true: Anna Thomasson sets her sights on empowering women through firearms training



There’s something about firing an AR-15 on full auto that puts a big smile on your face.

At least it does for my colleague, Helen Roy. It’s also addictive, apparently; no sooner has she emptied the entire magazine into the target than she asks, “Is that all?”

'A lot of the ladies that do come on a regular basis call it "lead therapy," because while you're out there, you're going to feel all this energy hitting you, and then you just want more of it.'

Behind her, David Prince laughs knowingly. A tall, grandfatherly former CPA, Mr. Prince (as everybody calls him) owns the spacious and immaculate Eagle Gun Range, where we’ve just spent the last few hours getting a crash course in how to shoot.

Beaming next to him with almost maternal pride is Helen's instructor, Anna Thomasson. She — along with her husband, Bryan Wertz — has been kind enough to spend the afternoon giving us a highly condensed version of the extensive firearms training she offers women through her company, Dallas-based Aim True.

Matt Himes

Although Thomasson grew up around firearms, she was always more observer than participant. "My family is very traditional,” the petite Texan explains. “My dad is ‘boys shoot guns and girls stay in the kitchen.'”

That changed in 2015, when Thomasson was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her husband, Bryan Wertz, was a lifelong avid shooter; during her recovery he suggested she join him at the range as a way to spend time together while getting outside and getting some sun.

Thomasson found she enjoyed it. And not only that — learning to handle a firearm seemed to restore some of the inner strength sapped by her medical ordeal. “I got the feeling I could be confident in the world again,” she says.

She never looked back, taking course after course and honing her skills. She formed Aim True in 2017 as way to teach firearm self-defense to other women. She also organized the “ladies-only” training group Diamonds and Derringers.

Like Thomasson, Helen has always been comfortable around guns. Her father and her older brother (military veteran and active military, respectively) both enjoy shooting, as does her husband. While she's often joined them at the range and has fired off a few shots of her own on occasion, she's never gotten much, if any, formal training. She's here to rectify that. Helen tells Thomasson she should consider her a beginner.

Gun-shy

We start in a tidy, well-lit classroom tucked away near Eagle Gun Range’s front desk. When I ask how they met, Wertz and Thomasson smile as they describe their courtship, more or less finishing each other’s sentences.

There’s an ease between them that automatically puts us at ease, and it sets the tone for the hours to come. As Thomasson runs the training, Wertz sits to the side, doing work on a computer, every so often interjecting to expand or emphasize a point Anna makes.

Thomasson begins by explaining what’s different about firearms training for women.

To begin with, says Thomasson, many of her students are motivated by a newfound sense of vulnerability.

“I have a lot of clients coming to me when they’ve had a divorce, or they’ve lost their spouse, or they’ve had a break-in at their home,” she says. “They’ve never wanted to hold a gun before, they've never had any interest in it, and now a situation has dictated that this is something [they] have to do.”

Matt Himes

According to Wertz, this reluctance tends to make women who do show up for the course very diligent students.

“We always say that a man feels like he was born to stick a gun in his pants and walk around with it,” says Wertz. A woman, on the other hand, “says I really want to know about this gun and I want to make sure that I don't hurt someone with it, that someone doesn't hurt me with it, that I really understand all aspects of it and how to use it and be confident.”

When that confidence finally comes, it’s often a revelation, says Thomasson. “Sometimes they have an emotional reaction to shooting the first time. And sometimes it just goes straight into, oh my gosh, I am going to be able to take care of myself and I don't have to rely on anybody else.”

Pick a holster

When it comes to buying a gun, Thomasson likes to start with an often overlooked question: Can you find a holster for it? “My clients go to Highland Park Village, get a really pretty gun, and I say, ‘And you can leave it on your bedside table because there's no holster to fit it,’” says Thomasson.

Unless you’re planning to use your gun exclusively out in the country, Thomasson recommends a concealed-carry holster, typically worn inside the waistband.

Choosing the right gun

“Our hands are different from men's,” notes Thomasson. “They're usually a little bit smaller.”

That doesn’t necessarily mean you want a smaller gun, but rather a “grip size that we can actually reach the trigger on.”

Ultimately, says Thomasson, how a gun fits your hand can come down to personal preference. She likens choosing a gun to buying shoes. “I can't buy you a pair of shoes and say, ‘Love these shoes. You should wear them.’ But [I can] teach you the aspects of the gun and what you should be looking for.”

Sometimes bigger is easier

One common misconception Thomasson encounters is the assumption that a smaller gun will always be easier to shoot.

“This is our mindset as women. We think the bigger the gun, the harder it is to control, and the smaller the gun, the easier it is to control.”

Thomasson recalls a recent exchange with a client.

“[A woman] in her 70s called and she said, ‘I'm about five foot tall and I don't have much strength. I have a really big gun, a 9mm, and I think I want to sell it and have you teach me how to use a smaller gun.’”

Thomasson quickly got her to reconsider. “I talked to her about the recoil … and the weight of that bigger gun taking some of that recoil away from your hands and your shoulders. Whereas a smaller gun doesn't have the weight to [absorb] that recoil … and it ends up hitting you harder.”

For Thomasson, this is an essential part of the training she offers: “learn[ing] how to figure out what kind of gun is going to suit you best for your hand strength … [and] your situation.”

Loading the magazine

Thomasson leads us over to a table on which she’s placed a Glock semiautomatic pistol with a special slide for training as well as a pile of inert dummy rounds — in this case, spent Simunition blank cartridges. She begins by teaching Helen to load the magazine, which she recommends bracing against the tabletop.

Laughing at how surprisingly difficult she finds it, Helen says, “You know what, this is very important. How do you do gun stuff and maintain a manicure?”

Thomasson has anticipated the question. “You know there's always a girl way and a boy way,” she says, fetching a small device from a nearby shelf and handing it to Helen. It’s called an UpLULA, and before long it significantly increases Helen’s efficiency.

Trigger warning

Matt Himes

Now that the gun is loaded, it’s time to pick it up. But first Thomasson imparts a basic principle of gun safety: “[You] don't ever want to touch the trigger until [you’re] ready to touch the trigger.”

“This gun is developed to be comfortable in your hand when your finger is on the trigger,” explains Thomasson. “So that's the way that your hand is going to want to pick this up.”

To avoid this, says Thomasson, we have to force ourselves to rest our finger on the frame as we grab the rest of the gun with our hand.

Thomasson points to the fleshy webbing between Helen’s index finger and thumb. “When you pick this gun up … I want you to see how high you can get this part of your hand up here,” she says, indicating the curved little overhang separating the top of the grip from the rest of the pistol.

Helen does, which gives Thomasson the chance to point out an important physiological difference between men and women. “Now if I had one of the boys pick this up, then all of the meat [between his thumb and index finger] would be squished up at the top. But females don't have that kind of muscular development in that part of our hand.”

It’s a difference that can often be overlooked, says Thomasson. “A male instructor will tell the female you need a higher grip, you need a stronger grip. And the lady says, ‘This is all the grip I've got. I don't have any more hand.’”

It's something neither of us have ever thought about, apparently. "It's almost as if men and women are different," marvels Helen with mock incredulity. She examines my hand and compares it to hers.

"I do have that space," she says, smiling brightly. "Confirmed woman!"

"Confirmed woman!"Matt Himes

When it comes to finding a properly fitting gun, Thomasson says it’s all about how your finger reaches the trigger. You want to have it close enough that you comfortably pull it back, without it being so close that your finger wraps around to the other side.

Proper stance

After teaching Helen how to complete the grip with the placement of her non-shooting hand, as well as how to use the pistol’s metal sight, Thomasson talks proper stance.

“Did you notice that you leaned back?” she asks Helen. “The minute you picked up that gun, you got away from it.”

Thomasson says this is an unconscious expression of fear — “we think the gun is going to go off and cause a big bang and we’re already scared of it.” This is precisely what her training seeks to overcome.

Lead therapy

After Thomasson advises Helen on the proper stance, it’s time to dry fire — that is, “shoot” the gun without any live ammunition. We all know it’s loaded with inert rounds, but as Helen aims, the tension in the room builds, and when the hammer makes its quiet little “click,” there’s a tangible sense of release.

Helen lets out a deep exhale and smiles. She looks a little flushed.

“What went through your mind?” asks Thomasson gently.

“Something about having bullets in the gun made me a little nervous,” says Helen. “It's weird, there's so much psychological stuff built up around guns. And I have shot guns before, but ...”

“Because you loaded this and you made that action happen,” says Thomasson. She puts her hand on Helen’s shoulder. “How are you doing?”

“I'm good. It's kind of powerful, though. Do women often have an emotional reaction when they shoot?”

“I would say 75% of the females that I have, the first shot they go into tears. We put the gun down and we step back and we hug and we talk about it for five or ten minutes. A lot of the ladies that do come on a regular basis call it ‘lead therapy,’ because while you're out there, you're going to feel all this energy hitting you, and then you just want more of it.”

Get a grip

At this point Bryan chimes in to emphasize the power of a good grip.

“So a lot of times, ladies will ask Anna, you know, should I have a gun because I'm tiny and a man will take it from me?”

He demonstrates by trying to pull the gun out of Helen’s hands. He can’t. “I'm just not going to get it from you before you could use your blaster.”

He then addresses how to hold the gun before you’re ready to point and shoot; for example, if you’re preparing to defend yourself against what could be an intruder in your house. In this case, says Wertz, its best to hold the gun pointed down toward the floor.

He demonstrates on Helen. If she holds her gun above her head, pointed toward the ceiling, it’s easy for him to keep her from bringing the gun level.

Wertz then shows what happens if he grabs Helen’s gun when it's pointed to the floor. “If you kneel, then what am I giving you? I’m giving you the perfect first shot.”

Home on the range

David Prince is old enough to have had an entire career before this one, but he radiates boyish enthusiasm when he talks about Eagle Gun Range.

He opened it in 2012, after noticing that there hadn’t been a range built in the Dallas area for 30 years.

“My wife's inspiration is my perspiration,” he jokes. After building a fence and a rock garden, among other projects, they decided to think bigger. “Let us build a gun range. … I can do that.”

“We wanted someplace [that was] really family-friendly,” Prince says. “Especially friendly to the mothers and the women, because stereotypically, women and guns don't mix. … We wanted a place for them to come and feel safe.”

A big component of Eagle Gun Range’s family-friendly atmosphere is its state-of-the-art air filtration system, which removes the contaminants produced by firearm discharge. “It’s cleaner in the range than it is outside,” says Prince.

It’s clear that he’s proud of what he’s created. “Our mission statement says it all: to have a place that's safe and fun to shoot.”

And it’s not that he’s pandering to the ladies, either.

“Indoor shooting is a great co-ed sport,” he says. “Women outshoot guys all the time. Women are great shooters. It’s a fun sport. It doesn't take massive muscles. You can do it and compete against each other, and it's a fun thing, especially for families. Kids get to shoot against the parents. It’s something the whole family can enjoy.”

Shots fired

Now it's time for Helen to put her classroom training into practice.

We head to the private bay Prince has graciously arranged for us, and Thomasson introduces Helen to the first gun she'll be shooting. It's a Glock 9mm, the same as the practice gun she used. Only this one, of course, shoots real bullets.

Matt Himes

Helen loads the magazine, sorts out her grip, and gets into her stance. She aligns her sights at the paper target, then finds the trigger. She takes a deep breath and very slowly pulls it back.

Bang. We all exhale. Helen smiles. "There we go. That was fun."

It was a decent shot, hitting the human silhouette just above the bull's-eye over the chest. Helen fires off another. This one still hits the target, but a little wide. Thomasson reminds her to take it slow.

"When you pull it really fast, you kind of jerk the gun down, and then that's when you end up with shots that are not in the target. Not that, if you were defending yourself, it still wouldn't hurt the person. But if we want to get that perfect shot, [we need] control of the trigger."

Thomasson then has Helen shoot the same cartridge in a smaller gun: a subcompact Glock in turquoise. This gun's grip is significantly thinner and shorter than the previous one; Helen's pinky just barely wraps around the bottom.

When she shoots, the kick is powerful enough that her left hand slips off a little. Helen also notices that because the gun's size allows her finger to wrap all the way around the trigger, it has a tendency to pull to the right when shooting.

It's all a vivid demonstration of Thomasson's earlier point about women and gun size. "[They] say shrink it and pink it and that's how you sell it to a woman," says Wertz. "Well, that's no good because then it's just a pink gun and it's tiny."

As an alternative, Thomasson shows us the Walther PDP F-Series, a full-size 9mm pistol designed for shooters with smaller hands. To get the gun's ergonomics and fit just right, Walther consulted with expert female shooters, including Olympian Gabby Franco.

'Smith and Wesson ... and me'

Noting that the training so far has used Austrian and German pistols, I ask Wertz about the American gun industry.

"When we get into rifles, bolt-action rifles, semiautomatic rifles, carbines, we win," says Wertz, "but the Europeans kind of have a hold on the striker-fired market. The polymer lower, steel upper type gun like Glock, Sig, H&K, Walther, all really great handgun manufacturing companies."

Wertz is quick to add that Smith & Wesson does make an excellent striker-fired pistol that many competitors use.

Of course, the iconic American brand has other claims to fame. "Smith & Wesson makes a better revolver than anybody in the world," says Wertz. "And then if you want a 1911-style, old kind of World War II Heritage American pistol, nobody makes them better than we do."

In this latter category, Wertz singles out Florence, Texas-based Staccato. "Anna's got a Staccato that she carries a lot, and they make a better gun than than just about anybody else."

'It's gonna get sporty'

Matt Himes

According to Prince, Helen is something of a natural. He pulls her target and examines it with admiration. "This is extremely good shooting. She's at five yards, but she shot with several firearms, not having any practice rounds."

Helen does equally well on the AR-15 rifle Prince offers her; in fact, she finds it to be her favorite firearm of the day. "I feel so much more confident with [the AR-15] than the smaller ones," she says, when asked if she'd rather have it or a pistol for self-defense.

Wertz says that despite the media's relentless propaganda about "assault rifles," this is a common reaction from women after they shoot an AR-15. "You can see how accurate you were with very little effort and without having any training."

Then it's time to try the rife on full auto. Prince is thorough and professional as he coaches Helen on what to expect; at the same time, you can tell he can't wait for her to let it rip. "It's just natural — when you first squeeze the trigger, you're going to let it rattle off about five rounds. You're going to let go. We're going to reload. Squeeze. Turn around and smile."

Just before Helen pulls the trigger, Wertz smiles. "It's gonna get sporty."

Matt Himes

To watch some of Helen's training with Aim True at Eagle Gun Range, check out the video below.

For more information about Aim True and the wide variety of firearms and emergency preparedness training it offers, see here.

To learn more about Eagle Gun Range or to explore its online store, go here.

'Reagan' actor Robert Davi on Hollywood left: 'They want DEI except for thought'



Robert Davi didn’t just bring Leonid Brezhnev to life in “Reagan,” this year’s eagerly awaited biopic of the 40th U.S. president. The veteran actor brought volumes of research to both the role and the set.

Davi, beloved for work in classics like “Die Hard,” “The Goonies,” and “Licence to Kill,” spent time in Russia speaking to citizens about the late Soviet Union leader.

In a business that routinely punishes conservative stars, the film's producers bucked groupthink, casting not only Davi but talented actors such as Nick Searcy, Pat Boone, and Kevin Sorbo.

He dug deep into Brezhnev’s complicated legacy, learning of his bond with President Richard Nixon and affinity for fast cars.

Command performance

For Davi, “Reagan” deserved nothing less than his full commitment. It explains why he has endured as an actor whose career stretches back to 1977’s “Contract on Cherry Street” with Frank Sinatra.

“Reagan,” now available via digital on demand, finds Davi and co-stars fleshing out “The Gipper’s” remarkable life and political career. Some viewers, familiar with iconic Reagan moments like his “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” speech, may not know how Reagan battled communism behind the scenes in Hollywood.

For Davi, the biggest takeaway may be how little has changed in America since the Reagan Revolution.

Back to the future

He said pop culture and the press loathed Reagan, much as they do President Donald Trump. In fact, the moment Trump descended the Trump Tower escalator to announce his candidacy, the actor connected the mogul’s populist message to that of vintage Reagan.

Davi also notes that both Reagan and Trump were badly underestimated by their opponents — until it was too late.

The actor wishes the film could have included even more of Reagan’s life and legacy. Notably, he would have loved to see Nancy Reagan (Penelope Ann Miller in the film) reacting to new President George H.W. Bush’s vow to build a “kinder, gentler nation” — a not-so-subtle dig at his former boss of eight years.

An 'eye-opening' biopic

Still, the movie packs plenty into the running time, including how Reagan reached across the aisle to get legislation done. His scenes with Congressmen Tip O’Neill (Dan Lauria) epitomize that attitude. It also explains the dawn of the Reagan Democrat.

That, and so much more featured in the film, will prove “eye-opening” to younger viewers, Davi predicted.

“The new generation needs to watch that to understand the difference between the extreme left and the conservative movement,” he said.

Davi’s “Reagan” contributions didn’t end with his Brezhnev performance. The versatile star also sings two tracks on the film: “This Town” and “Nancy (with the Laughing Face).” He studied music extensively earlier in his career and, in recent years, has brought the Sinatra catalog to vibrant life via “Davi Sings Sinatra.”

He also directed the charming 2007 film “The Dukes” along with the 2022 biopic “My Son Hunter,” which cast Laurence Fox as the embattled first son. The film stands in sharp contrast to how Hollywood either ignored or lionized Hunter Biden throughout his various scandals.

Davi’s conservative bona fides are no Hollywood secret. He continues to work, although often in independent features like this year’s “Bardejov.” That film recalled the true-life heroism of Rafuel Lowy, who saved hundreds of Jewish lives during the Holocaust.

Hollywood rebels

It’s no accident that Davi is not the only openly right-of-center actor in the “Reagan” cast. In a business that routinely punishes conservative stars, the film's producers bucked groupthink, casting not only Davi but talented actors such as Nick Searcy, Pat Boone, and Kevin Sorbo.

Sorbo has said his unofficial Hollywood blacklisting began roughly a decade ago when his agent left him over his conservative beliefs. Oscar nominee James Woods hasn’t had a sizeable film role since his supporting turn in 2014’s “Jamesy Boy.”

Davi confirms the new blacklist is “worse than it was during the McCarthy era,” adding that communists did infiltrate the Hollywood community during the 1950s.

For his part, Davi won't be cowed. He contributes thoughtful op-eds to Breitbart News and keeps creating art on his terms. He promises a new album to drop in 2025 in addition to a European tour. He’s close to starting work on a new film called “The Ministry” about a group tied to vigilante justice.

The ultimate irony? Hollywood continues to make movies about the blacklist era while stars are penalized for their political beliefs in 2024, he said. George Clooney will bring his “Goodnight, and Good Luck” film, recalling journalist Edward R. Murrow’s scraps with Sen. Joseph McCarthy, to Broadway starting in March.

“They want DEI except for thought. … People wanna talk about the ‘fascists’ in the MAGA movement,” Davi said with a laugh. “The fascists in the liberal left will denigrate you, dispel you.”

Interview: Beck & Stone co-founder Andrew Beck



Last April, Andrew Beck wrote an article in First Things commemorating the 10-year anniversary of Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich's forced resignation from the company he co-founded.

Eich, the tech visionary behind JavaScript, was undone by his quiet support of Proposition 8, legislation opposing same-sex marriage in California. After opponents of Eich's appointment unearthed a series of small donations (totalling $3,100) he'd made years before, the online firestorm was sufficiently distracting that Eich stepped down after just eleven days.

So yeah, I want to be McKinsey, but I want be McKinsey from 1985, when the economy was awful.

Beck, working in the New York City tech scene at the time, remembers this moment as "a major escalation in the culture war," a warning that "ideological conformity to the top-down, programmatic transformation of the country that was rapidly taking place was all that mattered."

Indeed, in Eich's early "cancellation," the then-nascent progressive regime created a template for dealing with dissidents; it has since been used many times over.

But what interests Beck isn't the tediously familiar script employed against Eich but rather how Eich responded to that script.

Instead of protesting his unpersoning in the same rigged court of public opinion that enabled it, Eich put his head down and continued to do what he'd always done: developing technology in the service of human prosperity and freedom. His company released the popular, privacy-focused browser Brave in 2019.

As a devout Catholic, Eich can understand his work in terms of a transcendent good, bigger than both himself and his attackers. For Beck, it's the difference between a career and something more like a calling.

Beck doesn't mention it in the article, but Eich's resignation roughly coincides with another, more personal milestone: the day Beck and his partner, Austin Stone, founded the brand consultancy Beck & Stone in 2015.

Since then, Beck & Stone has built a successful business based on a rather countercultural conviction: Wisdom, beauty, and truth sell. In Eich, the company has found an example of how to persevere and even thrive in an environment hostile to such a philosophy.

"Finding work to do that makes you fearless will make you unstoppable," writes Beck. "Setbacks will become stepping stones to a more refined vision of one’s vocation. The wrongs done to you will become opportunities for cultivating wisdom necessary for your next iteration, making you stronger, more resilient, less fragile."

Fearless is hardly the first word that comes to mind when one thinks of the "creative services" industry. Brands often tend to be safeguarded by risk-averse courtiers, each with one eye on his or her own precarious status within the company. Companies that seek their business do well to take a similarly neurotic approach.

The kind of cloying, self-congratulatory language with which many agencies turn pushing a noxious influencer-branded "energy drink" into a feat of maverick shamanistic thought leadership is notably absent from the Beck & Stone website.

Instead, a series of elegantly written yet eminently practical case studies summarize the thoughtful, design-driven work the company has done for clients like First Things, the New Criterion, and Upward.

Beck himself embodies this pleasant mix of humility and ambition. And he really does have a vision, one compelling enough to attract high-level talent to the firm and genuinely disruptive enough to make enemies.

Even though Beck is suffering from a slight cold, his voice booms from my computer screen as he fluently and precisely diagnoses the current malaise afflicting American business and culture, while still conveying a measured but wholly uncynical optimism for the future.

The following are excerpts from our conversation. They have been condensed and edited for clarity.

On the return of competency

[Beck & Stone] is completely bootstrapped. People pay us money; we pay other people money. What we have left over is what the shareholders make. Capitalism simply doesn't work that way any more. It hasn't for a long time.

People understand the system. People are smarter than we give them credit for when it comes to smelling out where there is reward. And so I always talk about perverse incentives. And it's just perverse incentives all the way down at this point. It's seeping into every institution.

[But] the social engineering programs of the 21st century, which is this DEI stuff, they're starting to fall apart. Because now competency is the thing, right? The easy money is starting to run out. Now we gotta make the hard money. People want to see profits, actual on-paper profits.

Companies that have all the earmarks of the liberal worldview come to us because they say, "We can't trust a progressive firm to seek our best interest; they're ultimately trying to placate someone else."

[Progressive firms] haven't hired for competency. The reputation that McKinsey used to have, in the '80s, they would come in and they would tell you the hard truths. You know, a good consultant tells you what you need to hear because they're telling you the truth, and the truth will always hurt. So a consultant hurts you.

Now, it's "You need to tell me what I want to hear. You need to tell me that everything is good."

And look at the reports that have blown up in McKinsey's face, the DEI report, the ESG report. They made billions of dollars of capital move in that direction, whole corporations move in that direction. The whole green program, too — a complete disaster.

I mean, look, it can always get worse. You can become South Africa, where they just flat-out say white people can have jobs once the black people have [their jobs]. So technically it could get worse. But there is hope.

The real hope is that things become miserable enough before they become irreversible. Miserable enough so that liberals and people who enjoy nice things and who want to live in a relatively safe, peaceful, and prosperous society say, "I don't like this, something's wrong here, something's really wrong."

On the need for economic literacy

The more I've done this, the more I've realized [how crucial] economic literacy is. Looking at Instagram and seeing people talking about inflation or shrinkflation or these different things, and they repeat the lines that they hear from Elizabeth Warren, from Barack Obama, from Joe Biden.

All these people talking about how it's greed. It's just greed.

"See, all these [rich] people, they have money and they're not giving you that money. You know, that's the real problem here. If they just took less ..."

No. Do you want everything to go out of business? Do you want food? You're not a farmer. You're not a hunter. You live off of these plastic-wrapped goods. Do you want those plastic-wrapped goods to show up in your supermarket? You better start paying attention to how things like supply chains and how economic incentives work.

On rebuilding the American brand

The American brand needs to be rebuilt. It's been so damaged.

The most visited website on the planet is YouTube because people are isolated and they want to see what other people are doing. Much of what has driven a lot of mass migration — really these invasions of Western countries — is social media.

They look at their situation. Trump called it. Trump said, "These people live in sh**holes and we don't." And once you have that information, [your mentality] becomes: "Well, now I'm going to live there no matter what you say and no matter what you do, and you're going to help me."

Whereas before [the idea] was, "There is this greater land of opportunity, and I'm going to go and I'm going to make it work. And I'm going to prove to the people who are there that I'm worthy of being one of them." That's a completely different mindset [that] social media and the internet have done away with.

The American myth is dead, and that's the real danger: People can now see behind the curtain. [Now] the American ideal is if you go there, you will have a nicer, easier lifestyle than you ever thought possible. You can steal things; you won't go to jail. You can squat in houses. No one will kick you out.

On good propaganda

Really good propaganda seeps into the bloodstream of the ones who are being propagandized. So then they themselves create propaganda. That's what the internet, social media, and giving everyone a smartphone have done. It's created these contagions where now you can even have bots that replicate that behavior and spread it even more. So creating something that can act as the contagion is the goal, right?

[On the right], we're trying to centrally plan a propaganda campaign to change people's minds. We give too much credit to the propagandists and too little credit to the person [with a phone] in their hand. You're actually more susceptible to propaganda that's coming from your neighbor than you are propaganda that's coming from some central authority. That's what Black Lives Matter was.

War has been declared on us, basically. And what conservatives have done since [at least] Obama is try to build up these little fortresses where we can now defend against — first it was the liberals, then it was Obama, then it was the feds, now it's the woke, it just goes on and on and on.

We build fortresses for defense instead of building fortresses [the way] the Normans did — build fortresses in enemy territory and then use them for offense and to subjugate the enemy. Instead we think, "We can just hide in here with our little group of people and hopefully wait it out."

You're not gonna wait them out because you're ceding all the territories to them. You're ceding all the resources to them.

And how conservatives do that is through branding. "I'm conservative. I am a patriot American, MAGA, anti-woke." All the different words they say because they don't have much and they know it.

But there's this niche — growing, maybe, but it's still a niche — of people who will be very interested in this. So we capture them and we'll make sure we get our little fortress and those people [will] come to us. We have our fortress, and now I'm gonna be king of my little castle

It would be nice [for us] to realize how close we are to victory. I don't want to stifle competition, I don't want to stifle entrepreneurship, I don't want to stifle the will and the pioneering mindset that Americans should have.

You always have new companies popping up. I mean, look at Anduril and Palantir in defense and how they're challenging IBM and Boeing.

On being 'the McKinsey of the right'

I would love [Beck & Stone] to say, "We're here to take down McKinsey."

People call us the McKinsey of the right. And I say I just want to be McKinsey. I don't care if it's right-wing or not. I just want to be known as, "You're the killers who come in here and cause pain, but you cause pain because you're telling us the truth. You're going to work with us on resolving these pain points so that we can make money, so that we can grow, so that we can benefit."

These basic principles have been completely lost because people have been living in a fantasy world of easy money that is going away. And I can't wait.

I know, yes, we're a small team, we have 14 full-time employees and 10 or so freelancers who are rotating in and out. But McKinsey also used to be small. They just had very smart people who were able to go and were able to focus on something and work through those issues and then move on.

Now scaling out means that you're proposing broad strokes versus looking at individual situations. "Everyone needs to get on this ESG thing and you'll make money." It's all BS. It's all a pitch deck where they're giving you some thoughts and some bigger plans. ... That's not consulting.

The value proposition of consulting is that we will actually get our hands dirty. You have to be very diligent in terms of the tactical execution of what you are proposing. And then your reputation lives or dies based upon: Did your plan work? Was your diagnosis correct? Did you help resolve it?

This doesn't exist any more at a larger scale. [Companies like] Deloitte, McKinsey, IBM get a government contract [and it's all] soft deliverables: Fill out this form, write this email, copy and paste this from this column to that column. Horrendous waste, but people think that that's consulting.

So yeah, I want to be McKinsey, but I want be McKinsey from 1985, when the economy was awful. And when [clients] had to say, "We're going down, and we already had to cut 200 jobs. But all 2,000 of these people will lose their jobs unless we get some other minds in here and make a little investment so that we can turn this place around."

I gave this talk at this parallel economy conference. You know, people say, "Oh, this is the guy who hacked the parallel economy."

I succeeded in the parallel economy because I don't operate in the parallel economy. That's the whole point. You want to participate in the real thing. So you want to see it as the perpendicular economy where you're just coming at it from an oblique angle and you're trying to disrupt something that is all going in one direction. They're all doing the same bad things. And now you have to act differently in order to make your mark.

And that's risky. It's painful. It takes time. It means you have to be content to work for less. It means you have to be content to spend more time.

On building a company culture

It's incredibly difficult to find even 14 people who are very good. It is so hard.

Part of it is generational for sure, but much of it is also fighting through the perceptions. Okay, people think we're the right-wing McKinsey. They come in here and think that they don't have to work.

Everyone's working here, from the partners down to the interns. This is a brutal life. If you don't want to work, go not work somewhere else, right? Because we can't afford it. We will literally not be able to afford it.

However, it then means that for the people who do work here and who do put effort into it, we have a quarterly bonus structure. If you make us money, you will make money. You may have to work harder, you may have to start with less, but the rewards are going to be there for you taking ownership of the thing that I ultimately own. It's because the incentives have been corrected.

We have always had this mentality that client success is our success. Our success is tied to the client success.

You set up metrics the best you can. But you also need to be able to triangulate metrics and say, "I know what a vanity metric is versus a real metric."

If we were going to have two [most important] values, it would be quality of life and quality of work. And these feed off of each other. If you do quality work, you will have a quality life. If you have quality of life — if you can enjoy yourself working hard — you're actually gonna produce good work.

So these things have to work. If one of those things is broken, if I'm not seeing improvement for the client, I'm asking, "What's happening with the work? Is there some quality of life problem that someone is dealing with? Is it [because it's] remote? Are they lonely? Are they distracted? Do they need me to jump in here? Do they need help? Are they in over their heads?"

Because it's so difficult to work at Beck & Stone, the people who end up coming here want to impress us right away. And so they end up biting off more than they can chew and getting a lot of stress.

So we need to get them to relax. If you've proven yourself and you're in, you're in. You just need to focus on delivering. And talk to us. Communication, honest communication. And this is the bottom line: Tell the truth. Truth hurts, and truth also sets you free.

It may hurt to say, "Beck, this account is struggling. There isn't growth and I don't know what I'm doing wrong." But honest conversation between me and the person working creates an honest conversation between me and the client. Then we can figure things out together.

If there is no way forward, we will just tell the clients that there is no way forward. "This cannot and will not work. We don't want to take your money any more."

On healthy conflict in the workplace

I've been surprised at how often the original thesis has been validated, but it's not a thesis based on the type of client we want to attract — that we only want to work for conservative or libertarian or classically liberal intellectuals and think tanks or the people who have been influenced by those ideas.

Through our work, these ideas have become more commonplace. And I'm proud of what we were able to accomplish in getting some of these things into the bloodstream when we started out nine, 10 years ago. But we did not purposely try to make a firm that just talked about this stuff.

We wanted to make a firm based upon truth and based upon honesty. It starts with the partners. Austin Stone, he isn't as plugged in to the firm these days; he's more in an advisory role, both because of health issues and also just knowing where his true value is. But us having that honesty where could fight with each other [was essential].

Guys fighting with each other is actually normal. And many times it's good.

But having serious arguments with your co-workers is not allowed any more. It goes right to HR and then HR has to decide who's in the right, who's in the wrong, who's going to manage it. It turns out whoever can say whatever the company guideline is, whatever the HR mandate is, they win. And it has nothing to do with the actual task.

It's all open office now, of course. You can't fight with each other because no one has private offices. There's no privacy. Everything is under the watchful eye of the HR regime. And so everyone is frozen.

People make a huge deal about not being able to make jokes, but that's small potatoes compared to the actual work that is inhibited, the actual honesty and that comes through conflict.

I can remember [earlier in my career] pitching to Nasdaq, and I wanted to change the pitch. I said, "I think that this is off." Fortunately I was working on it with an old-school guy. We fought, he yelled at me, and I just didn't back down. And he storms out. He says, "All right, let me think about this."

And someone leaned over to me and said, "I can't believe that just happened and you're still here." But I didn't have that same fear because I was a contractor. They knew I had my own firm.

We're all equals here [at Beck & Stone]. I understand if someone's your boss, there needs to be a level of deference that you show. Just as if it's someone who is your employee, there's a degree of sensitivity you need to show because of the power imbalance.

But you should be able to fight things out without people taking it personally, which also means that people can't act personally either.

Having this pattern of being able to hash things out has created a culture where you are judged by your work and the quality of your ideas, not by your ability to navigate an HR regime.

On conservative journalism

It used to focus on business. It used to focus on people who are doing good work. You were being praised, you were being given honor. And what does honor mean? Honor means reward, okay? You're getting a reward for something that you've done. And business was a place where you could do that. There's nothing like that any more. Everything's about issues.

No more issues, okay? Just show us some people who are doing cool things. Tell us about cool technology. Tell us what's going on in the world that maybe we should be aware of that could impact business.

Everybody wants to make our brands based upon who we're not. And based upon how we're being attacked. After a while, that makes you look weak.

We need to be respected for the work that we do. We need to get out of the habit of jumping on whatever the hot topic is right now, [whether it's] trans or woke or whatever.

Commentary is oversaturated. Anybody can do commentary. What starts the commentary? That's what's becoming prized.

An artist and farmer cultivates creativity



"May I?"

I've just asked artist Stacy Tabb how she's managed to learn so many trades — web designer, leather crafter/shop owner, ceramicist, printmaker, and now orchard farmer, to name a few — and her husband, Dan, politely volunteers an answer.

'They're buying your story. They're buying a little part of you, which is not as horrible as it sounds. I'm out there for a reason. I'm happy to give that.'

Apart from a quick sidebar about pest-control strategies for small-scale tobacco growing, Dan has largely stayed off camera during my online interview with Stacy. But his wife is clearly a topic at least as near and dear to his heart as the caterpillar-liquefying efficiency of bacillus thuringiensis.

"I'm very proud of her because she has taught herself every single thing she does. She wanted to learn how to cook Turkish food; she learned how to cook Turkish food. She wanted to learn how to be a farmer; she learned how to be a farmer. She wanted to learn how to weave; she taught herself how to weave. She's taught herself everything she knows how to do right now. ... We get it from reading. We get it from doing our research."

"We're 55 years old and starting a farm," shrugs Stacy. "We've never been afraid to fail."

Stacy Tabb: Artist and orchard keeper(All images courtesy of Stacy Tabb)

You are what you eat

Farm?

I’ve contacted Stacy to talk about her art, which she sells online and at shows throughout the South, specifically her “You Are What You Eat” series, striking folk-art-inspired prints depicting a range of different wildlife composed of their primary food source: a humpback whale whose torso is made up of mackerel (some of which, in turn, reveal a tiny squid within), a Galapagos tortoise containing cacti, a Virginia opossum with a belly full of strawberries.

But just as we’re getting into the details of navigating a career as a professional artist, she casually mentions their side hustle: a 28-acre former hay farm in north Alabama the Tabbs purchased from Stacy's parents, who were downsizing.

Dan and Stacy are busy turning it into Ironspring Orchard & Farm, which they eventually intend to operate as a place visitors can come and pick their own fruits, vegetables, and flowers. “It's not open for business,” says Stacy. "I went ahead and made the website because I'm an idiot like that.”

Black walnuts and Red Devils

Or someone who’s always looking for one more project. Currently the largest part of the farm is dedicated to chestnut trees — five acres in total. They’re hybrids that maintain the character of the original American chestnut (once “a huge food crop in this country,” says Stacy) while offering resistance to the Japanese-imported blight that wiped them out in the 1800s.

They also have three acres of black walnut trees. Stacy: “Husband always wanted to grow black walnuts, even though it'll be our kids that are harvesting them — and harvesting them for lumber."

Another three acres boast over 110 fruit trees. “We planted the trees as we bought them,” says Stacy, “which we thought was kind of crazy but also kind of interesting.” They avoided widely available fare like peaches and pecans in favor of pears and cherries and many varieties of heritage apple, including Arkansas Black, Yellow Bellflower, and Red Devil.

Summer Rambo apples

Not to mention “masses of crabapples,” which Stacy notes some people still like to use to make pies.

Stacy is quick to point out that they’re not homesteaders. While they do maintain an Instagram account, you won’t find them posting the kind of carefully curated tableaus of pastoral bliss that have become the standard for a certain type of influencer.

“We want to grow fruit and we want to grow nuts and we want to grow flowers and we want to grow food that we can sell or give to our friends,” says Stacy.

Planting chestnut seedlings

Chestnut trees and fruit trees

Don't kill the good bugs

All while being good stewards of the land. “We don't want to kill the good bugs,” says Stacy, who explains that this is a matter of knowing “when to use pesticide at the right time so you don't impact the pollinators but still are able to protect your trees.”

“Right now we have Japanese beetles stripping our pear trees in the orchard, but we're able to use one of the harsher insecticides because none of those things are blooming. So they've got nothing [else] on them. No wasps, bees, nothing.”

“We don't want to ruin the soil,” Stacy adds, “and we’re trying to do this in as old-fashioned and non-chemical a way as we can. But we’re not evangelicals about ‘organic.’ It costs a lot of money to get organic certified, and the quality of the food that you get isn’t any better."

A growing obsession

While Stacy has been making art since she was a child — “my first memory of drawing something was a bird that I [got from] a magazine or a schoolbook and they asked me if I traced it” – and went on to study graphic design, drawing, and printmaking in college, agriculture is an interest she and Dan developed later in life.

The couple met, married, and started a family in Stacy’s hometown of Huntsville (Dan is originally from California). When their two children were very young, Dan’s job as mapmaker took them to Lakeland, Florida.

"We lived in a [suburban] neighborhood because the children were small and we wanted them to have neighborhood friends,” recalls Stacy. “But we had a little quarter-acre lot, and we would always start seeds in pots with the kids when they were little. ‘Hey, let's grow some plants.’ Just another thing to teach them, another thing for them to enjoy.”

As Stacy continues, I begin to understand that she and Dan are both the kind of people for whom a modest container garden could easily lead to more ambitious undertakings. To paraphrase Ron Burgundy, it escalated quickly.

“And then we tilled up a section of the yard and grew broccoli one very cold winter. It just went crazy from there. We tilled up the entire back yard. We were growing corn, we were growing tobacco, we were growing pumpkins. We got a 55-pound pumpkin off a vine one year. It only had a cup of seeds, which I thought was kind of funny, but they were very good when we roasted them.”

Going pro

It was also in Lakeland that the Tabbs began to pursue art as a profession. Dan, a disabled Navy veteran who served during Desert Storm, had spinal surgery in an attempt to alleviate debilitating back pain from his injuries. While recovering, he was unable to work for three months.

Even after this, the pain still remained. At inpatient therapy for pain management, they told him he needed to find an activity that would keep his hands moving. He chose leather crafts, reactivating the skills his father had taught him as a boy. He even had his dad’s old tools.

Once again, there were no half measures for the Tabbs. “He started making things fast and crazy at home,” says Stacy. “And I was like, we can't live with all this stuff in our house. Let's go to the market in downtown Lakeland. And so we did.”

Stacy, meanwhile, had begun designing websites for the burgeoning blogosphere. Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit was an early customer, and the business soon took off. “I did a design for every single conservative blogger that there was — and some of the lefties too.”

But she soon threw herself into learning knitting, crocheting, and weaving. After a few years of selling their wares every Saturday, the Tabbs had honed their skills enough to score a grant from a local incubator to open a studio, where they taught classes in addition to selling their creations. It went well for three years; then came COVID.

Officially deemed “non-essential,” the store had to shut down. “It killed our business and broke our hearts,” says Stacy.

Hare print...

...and "translated" to clay

Sweet home Alabama

Shortly thereafter, Dan and Stacy moved back to Alabama. With their children now grown, they settled into their current life as artist farmers. Balancing the two is all about scheduling, says Stacy.

“It’s so bloody hot right now. [We do] farming in the morning, arting in the afternoon in the air conditioning. They kind of work out pretty well that way.”

Dan is also an artist, a sculptor working in stone. “Because he's a disabled veteran, he decided to pick the heaviest thing in the world to work on,” Stacy jokes.

I ask him about his work, and this time it is Stacy who fields the question for Dan. “His pieces are all related to being a disabled veteran — the challenges that veterans face. The very first one he did is called ‘23 of 22’ because it's about the veteran who chooses not to kill himself that day.”

“He makes people cry at art shows when he tells them about his pieces,” says Stacy, whose booth at art shows is usually beside her husband's. “I hear him making people cry and I’m saying, ‘Yeah, this whale has squid inside of it.’”

Dan Tabb and some of his pieces

Making it

The Tabbs hit the art show circuit in the spring and fall. The travel can be a grind, but in Stacy’s experience her art sells better face to face. “They're buying your story,” she says. “They're buying a little part of you, which is not as horrible as it sounds. I'm out there for a reason. I'm happy to give that.”

Meeting her buyers can also serve as a kind of market research. It was at the art fairs that Stacy first floated the idea of her latest print in the "You Are What You Eat" series: Godzilla.

"I had been teasing this one at art shows for a long time, and they said, ‘Well, what's he going to eat?’ And I said, ‘Tokyo.’"

Stacy later reconsidered. “That wasn’t accurate. Honestly he'd only ever eaten a train, and he didn't really eat it. He just chewed on it.” Reasoning that nuclear radiation was the legendary kaiju’s main source of nourishment, Stacy ended up putting a mushroom cloud in his belly.

Sharing these details, says Stacy, helps buyers connect to the art. “It's a thing they'll put up in their house, and they'll remember that you gave them a good story.”

The internet offers the chance to reach a far larger audience, but Stacy is clear-eyed about the challenges of cultivating buyers online.

“No matter what website [you use to sell your art], whether it's Etsy or your own personal website, unless you are driving traffic to it from a third party like your social media, it's not gonna do anything. You just hang it out there with the billions of other sites that are out there.”

"It's a slog,” Stacy admits. “You have to try and figure out what the algorithm wants, and nobody knows what that is. Nobody can tell you. I try to post once a day. I don't always do that, though.”

“The way it works is the more people you have commenting and liking and sharing your piece, the more the algorithm likes it. That is very tricky to make happen.

"A lot of times people scroll and read, [but] they're not liking anything. They're just scrolling and reading. They might appreciate something, but if they don't stop and like it or drop a comment on it, it doesn't help us very much. I'm glad we're entertaining them, but it doesn't do a thing.”

Building an art career requires patience and persistence. Apparently the same could be said about running an orchard.

“We're going to have to fight the birds for every cherry that we get,” says Stacy. “The cherries flowered this year, but they didn't fruit. They're not quite ready yet. Next year we expect to have to fight. We're going to have to fight everything for fruit.”

It’s a fight Stacy seems to enjoy, just as she seems to enjoy what she calls the “fiddly,” technically unforgiving process of carving her designs into linoleum print blocks.

“I start with the drawing, I put the drawing on the block, and then I have to start carving. And if a blade slips, then I have to do something different or I have to start over. It can be monstrous.”

Stacy plans to conclude the “You Are What You Eat” series with its 50th piece, which she intends to be a bald eagle. Then she’ll put them together in a book.

And after that? Stacy repeats a bit of advice she once gave a young painter about feeling stuck. It’s advice that she and Dan have clearly taken in forging the adventurous yet grounded path of their life together.

“Do something different. Go work in clay, work in printmaking, work in [fabric]. Do anything different as long as it's still creative and as long as you're keeping the avenue open.”

Stacy's studio

Stacy's press

The making of a print: Humpback Whale

The photos below show the progression of "You Are What You Eat" #30: Humpback Whale from initial drawing, to carved linoleum block, to print, and to watercolored print.

Jeffrey Sachs: Ukraine escalation could go nuclear



Cancel culture, we're assured, either never existed or has been effectively eliminated. But try telling this to Jeffrey Sachs, a globally respected economist who faced cancellation simply for telling the truth. To this day, he is treated as a pariah by the very outlets that once sought his commentary. Once he veered from the preapproved talking points, he faced immediate exile. Banned, never to return.

To understand exactly why, we must revisit September 26, 2022, when a brazen act of war occurred.

'The mainstream media have dissembled, hidden the truth, denied basic history, and promoted the false narrative that the Ukraine war was "unprovoked."'

On this day, the world was rattled by the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, a crucial conduit for natural gas supplies from Russia to Europe. Speculations were rampant, but amid the litany of accusations and counter-accusations, one voice cut through the noise with a simple, albeit controversial, take.

Shortly after the attack, Sachs appeared on Bloomberg Live. When asked who was responsible for the attack, the academic had the audacity to state the obvious: the United States.

Biden's boast

This assertion, grounded in a series of well-documented threats and policy statements, should have sparked a serious debate. Instead, it led to Sachs being effectively ostracized from the mainstream media. His sin was not spreading falsehoods but rather refusing to parrot the sanctioned narrative.

Sachs was simply joining the dots. In a much-discussed exchange on February 7, 2022, a reporter asked President Biden what would happen to Nord Stream 2 in the event of a Russian invasion of Ukraine. Biden responded, "If Russia invades, then Nord Stream 2 will cease to exist. We will bring an end to it." When the reporter inquired how this would be achieved, the president assured, "I promise you, we'll be able to do it."

It seems this was one promise Joe Biden actually kept.

“This was not the first time that a senior U.S. politician promised to end Nord Stream,” Sachs told me. “Many leading U.S. politicians had vowed to block Nord Stream 2 from operating. Of course, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, with his sources in the U.S. intelligence agencies, explained later the precise mechanics of how the U.S. blew up the pipeline.”

“Not surprisingly,” added the outspoken pundit, “European countries have played stupid, refusing to say anything sensible on the topic. Their silence speaks volumes. It is actually pathetic how they avoid the truth or the search for the truth."

Exile on mainstream

Sachs' truth-telling led to his alienation from the mainstream media. Once a frequent commentator on outlets such as MSNBC and CNN, he swiftly fell out of favor. Rather incredibly, CNN refuses to have Sachs on but is more than willing to have Jeffrey Toobin, a man known for his vigorous, hands-on approach during Zoom calls, back on.

"Basically, the mainstream media fell into line with the official narratives not only about Nord Stream 2 but about the war in Ukraine more generally. They don’t want to hear from me or others who challenge the official narrative,” said Sachs. “The mainstream media have dissembled, hidden the truth, denied basic history, and promoted the false narrative that the Ukraine war was 'unprovoked.'”

Sachs is not a Russian apologist. Rather, he argues that the Ukraine war originated with U.S. involvement in the violent overthrow of Ukraine's President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014. Yanukovych, who favored neutrality for Ukraine over NATO membership, was opposed by the U.S. and major European nations, who would not tolerate such a stance. Consequently, a coup was instigated. Petro Poroshenko, a strong advocate for Ukraine's integration into NATO, was installed.

Digging deeper

For those skeptical of U.S. involvement in Yanukovych's overthrow, it's essential to remember that over the past six decades, the U.S., often through the CIA, has been involved in numerous coups and regime changes worldwide, particularly during the Cold War era. These actions were usually justified under the guise of protecting American interests, promoting democracy, or countering the spread of communism.

In 1953, the CIA orchestrated a coup to overthrow Iran's democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh after he nationalized the British-controlled oil industry. The coup reinstated the shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who ruled as an autocrat until the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Similarly, in 1954, the CIA led Operation PBSUCCESS to oust Guatemala's democratically elected President Jacobo Árbenz, who had initiated land reforms threatening the interests of the American-owned United Fruit Company. The coup led to decades of military rule and civil war.

Following Congo's independence from Belgium in 1960, the CIA played a significant role in the overthrow and eventual assassination of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, perceived as a potential ally of the Soviet Union. This led to the rise of Mobutu Sese Seko, who established a dictatorial regime.

In 1973, the CIA supported the military coup that overthrew Chile's democratically elected President Salvador Allende, whose socialist policies and alignment with the Soviet bloc alarmed the U.S. The coup installed General Augusto Pinochet, who led a brutal dictatorship.

In Indonesia, the CIA provided support and intelligence to the Indonesian military during the anti-communist purge that led to the overthrow of President Sukarno in 1965. This purge, resulting in the massacre of up to a million suspected communists, brought General Suharto to power. The U.S. also backed the coup that led to the assassination of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem in 1963. Diem's oppressive regime and failure to garner broad support complicated U.S. efforts in the Vietnam War. His removal was intended to stabilize the government, though it resulted in further chaos.

During the 1980s, the CIA funded and trained the Contras, a rebel group fighting against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, which had overthrown the U.S.-backed Somoza dictatorship. This was part of the larger strategy to counter Soviet influence in Latin America. The list is extensive

Naturally, no mainstream media outlet will entertain the idea of the U.S. government's involvement in the events of February 2014. The intertwining of mainstream media and branches of government is no secret. "The media outlets are deeply aligned with the U.S. military-industrial complex, and especially the U.S. intelligence community. This is all very well documented over the course of many decades,” said Sachs.

Of course, he’s right. The New York Times, for instance, played a pivotal role in justifying the invasion of Iraq post-9/11 by propagating false narratives about weapons of mass destruction, narratives fed to outlet by government sources. This symbiotic relationship ensures that dissenting voices like Sachs' are systematically silenced.

Sachs and violence

It's important to note that Sachs is not some disgruntled madman. His credentials are impeccable, and his CV speaks volumes. He has worked with governments around the world for decades. He understands the intricacies of governance and the motives behind prolonged conflicts more than most. A seasoned macroeconomist, the Harvard graduate previously advised national governments in Latin America, Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet Union on transitioning from Marxism-Leninism to market economies.

Despite his exile from mainstream media, Sachs continues his work undeterred. "I study and promote economic development, environmental sustainability, social inclusion (e.g., ensuring that all children can get a good education), and practical solutions to end and prevent wars.” To carry out this work, he travels extensively. When he answered my questions, he was in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. When he isn’t advising governments in Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe, the 69-year-old can be found teaching at Columbia University.

On the future of the Ukraine conflict, Sachs remains clear-eyed and pragmatic. "The war will end either with negotiations based on Ukrainian neutrality, or it will end with Ukraine’s defeat on the battlefield, or it will end in nuclear war if the U.S. continues to escalate and in turn provokes Russia to escalate. Ukrainian neutrality is the only way to peace and security for Ukraine,” he contends.

Will the establishment heed his warning? The chances border on nonexistent.

Sachs' cancellation serves as a sobering reminder that, in the land of the free, telling the truth can exact a significant personal and professional toll. Even in 2024, the United States is a nation where narratives are tightly controlled and dissent is swiftly punished.

The word "courage" is often recklessly tossed around, like confetti at a Pride parade. But Sachs is courageous. Remember, he works at Columbia. Like many other elite universities, Columbia has been gripped by a sort of pathological progressivism. Here, dissenting opinions are neither sought nor tolerated. Those who deviate from a very specific script are met with vocal opposition. Sachs’ exile from the mainstream media is not merely a personal loss but a societal one, depriving the public of informed and critical perspectives at a time when they are desperately needed.

Saudi Arabia Shows Pride Month Corporate Manipulation

Saudi Arabia Shows Pride Month Corporate Manipulation

PROFILE: #WalkAway founder Brandon Straka discusses his political journey

For Straka and #WalkAway, the tenets that the left once stood for—equality, civil rights, acceptance, tolerance, honesty, and individualism—are now the purview of the right.