Forget “A Republic If You Can Phoenix it.” How about: “An Empire If You Can Vaticanize it?”
By Rick Hines
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.”
-Matthew 23:15, New International Version
Today I was watching a discussion by Whitney Webb about dollars and Stable Coin Dollars, the US Dollar Hegemony, Argentina and El Salvador, and her mention of “Soft Power.” Halfway through it, I thought of something: a new verb.
“To Vaticanize.”
“Vaticanize” means to transform an Empire when it officially collapses, turn it into a diffuse Empire, and then use soft power to keep and maintain its control, as the Hard Empire crumbles. Centralized “decentralized” control replaces overt Centralized control. And it is done by using a central narrative, or faith, to hold it together, seducing adherents from abroad into becoming priests of that faith which they then use to do the Empire’s bidding.
Now I’m going to do a quick and dirty reminder of history, a back of napkin calculation, “good enough for government work” as they say to explain:
When Rome ruled, officially, that is, Pagan Rome, it was all about Boots On The Ground.
It ruled directly, with armies composed of men of proper Roman, or Italic, ethnicity. But what inevitably happened, we are told in school, was the Empire got weak and hollowed out from inside and corrupt. It increasingly became plagued with financial instability and unpayable debt. Having its armies spread thin, it could no longer hold it together.
Fast forward a couple hundred years and we have Vandals and Goths and Visigoths sacking and pillaging Rome and Rome “falls” into a heap of mayhem.
A few hundred years later it came back like a Phoenix rising from the ashes. But this time it was no longer administered and maintained by only Italians. No longer did Italians put on boots and don armor to occupy nations directly. Instead, we are told, it became an “Empire of Faith.” It ruled through soft power, and got “Germanics” (northern Europeans) onboard to do its bidding. It did this by seducing them into a faith, a story, a narrative. It had become the “Holy Roman Empire,” that is, the Papacy, or Vatican.
It ruled indirectly for a thousand years by controlling narratives, beliefs, and seduced non-Italians on board to do its bidding. Everyone –France, England, Germany– everyone– may have had their own local kings, fiefs, and lords butstill answered to Rome at the end of the day. Meanwhile, people who were wealthy could pay their indulgences to be able to sin. They paid the tithe and tax to the Holy Roman Catholic Church and Papacy.
This is how the “Phoenixed” Empire maintained its control. Of course, this might be an oversimplification, when you also consider Venice and its intelligence agencies and financial dealings, but it’s what we are told in high school and sometimes it’s best to start with the simple and relatable to get a point across, as I am trying to do here.
We are schooled into believing at an early age that this was the dominant order that held through the Middle Ages.
Fast forward eight hundred years and you find Britain, at the end of World War I. Britain’s empire, we are told, was on its last legs, at least officially. By 1950, it began losing its power to put boots on the ground in Kenya and India and other places. Crushed under the weight of debt, it could no longer put British soldiers on the front lines of colonial administration like it used to be able to do. There were just not enough British soldiers anymore to hold it together, and not enough taxpayers to support this top-heavy beam. It had spread too thin.
So what does Britain do?
It “Vaticanizes.”
It creates a new Holy Priesthood all of its own making: the Holy Priesthood of Scientism. It invites people from all over the world, from every ethnicity, to become “More British than British” by taking their Rhodes Scholar classes, and putting on their Rose badges.
One thing that stood out to me during this most recent episode of Breaking History on Badlands with Ghost of Based Patrick Henry and Matt Ehret was Mikheil Saakashvili from Georgia wearing his British Rose.
The rose Saakashvili is wearing is very similar to the rose lapel worn by Queen Elizabeth II as well as other members of the British Royal Family and other high officials, seen here:
The discussion on the podcast was about the flag, however, which came from the flag of the Templar-run Kingdom of Jerusalem.
But Georgia’s newest flag just so happens to also be close to an early version of the British flag, because both, we are told, originate from St George’s Cross. You can even say that Georgia’s flag resembles that of Britain even more so than the Templar flag because the cross on that was yellow, while the original St George’s flag before the British flag evolved into the Union Jack was red:
So, without doing any research or verifying any facts at all about Saakashvili or looking into his life, one immediately asks: what school did Saakashvili go to? Like a pig slopping at some trough, what trough did he slop from? The same trough that others, Rhodes Scholars, slop from? So, in this Holy British “Vaticanized” faith system, you go to Rhodes Schools like Oxford (But I like to call it “Rhodes School” because it really is more like a vocational indoctrination center than a real learning institution to help one develop his or her epistemology).
No matter what ethnicity you hail from, be it Arab, Iranian, Indian, Argentinian, African, or American, you walk into this building which is the British Empire, you go through this training, you slurp from this sloth being doled out, and you come out the other end as –something–. Like in Pink Floyd’s The Wall movie, you go through this machine as Play-Doh (not Plato), and you get pressed and molded into…, something.
Youbecome a World Global Leader, you become a media spokesman or woman, or a head of an NGO, or maybe a corporation. And you put on your Bishop Hat to start “bishoping” for this new Decentralized-But-Centralized Holy British Empire over your region. Or…should I say…you put on your Bertrand Russell hat, and start repeating the mantra of “Science.” What is “Science” for a devoted grand strategist of the British Empire?
Why the “Science of Limits!” The “Science of What You Cannot Do,” as Matt Ehret so brilliantly put it. Or what others called “The dismal science”.
Dismal is such an appropriate word, because it implies pessimism and doom and gloom. And isn’t that what we hear constantly day in day out from “experts?”
But wait…there’s more…
If you are rich enough to pay your Carbon Taxes, then you can run your mansion at a high energy consumption. Just like Al Gore! Or maybe fly a private jet to a climate conference, just like John Kerry. You can indulge now in Science “sins” that normie folks can’t, as they get their hamburgers cut out and replaced by seed oil seeping Plant burgers. Is this starting to look familiar now?
Britain had Vaticanized. It had ceased to be ethnically British and became Multicultural, multiethnic. Like in Disney’s Mandalorian show of Star Wars, where Djin Darin says Mandalore is no longer a race but a way. It used to be a race, but now it’s a way of life that anybody can be a part of, provided they jump through enough hoops, get their training, don their Beskar armor, get taken under the wing of someone important (you DO have to be connected), and become Mandalorianized.
Britain had “Vaticanized.” It had replaced “Direct British” with “Holy British” rule. It’s all about converts now. Yuval Noah Harari, who is Middle Eastern and has a thick Israeli accent, is more “British” than some English working class punk rocker in a slum in northern Manchester speaking in a thick Cockney accent.
For, Yuval Harari preaches the Gospel.
The Gospel of Climate and Carbon and Transhuman Faith.
“We’re going to merge with Machine and become Cyborgs,” “We’re going to replace the Human,” “There’s too many useless people.” “What do we do with all these useless people?” (here speaking about AI replacing jobs and echoing Malthus). Britain’s faith is the Gospel of Scientism, ala Bertrand Russel, Bacon, Malthus, Darwin, Dawkins, etc. You have all no doubt heard the unfortunately all-too familiar line: Material reality is all that exists, forget about the supernatural, energy and time is running out, we’re doomed because of heat death and climate change, etc etc.
This is to the British Empire what Roman Catholicism had been to the revived Roman Empire in the Middle Ages.
Meanwhile, the US had replaced the British Empire as the official, “Boots On the Ground” empire, acting like Italian Romans proper back in Roman pagan days. And Dollar hegemony and the US war machine kept it going. But the debt tab just kept going up and going up. And, maybe there aren’t enough American soldiers to enforce it all. It’s so overwhelming. And so many countries want to de-dollarize.
So what does America do?
America will have to Vaticanize in its own way just as Rome and Britain did. That is, if it still wants to remain an empire rather than restoring its moral foundation as a republic as it should. But cynicism, and the power of financial elites, almost certainly dictates that it will probably adopt the former rather than the latter.
Is Libertarianism the New Faith that will replace Boots-on-the-Ground Empire with decentralized, centralized control?
Well, if future history in the next few years goes like what Whitney Webb is saying in this video, this is where it looks to be going:
“It’s ALL Pre-PLANNED…” – Whitney Webb
Though she doesn’t use the words “Vaticanize,” what she is describing paints a clear and concise picture of what I am calling Vaticanization. Finding a soft power and faith-based replacement for boots on the ground as a way to seduce bishops abroad and from other nations to do Empire’s bidding. Creating a faith, a faith that Milei seems to be zealously implementing. It is the Gospel of Libertarianism and Privatization. But I have heard others call it Free Market Fundamentalism. As Caleb Maupin often likes to say, it is “the delusion that you can cut your way to growth.”
Indeed, in the short time since Milei took over presidency in Argentina and implemented his privatization and re-dollarization agenda, much has been done and the results and fruits are in: poverty rates have soared above 53% and debt is higher than ever. Results indeed! For the billionaire class, that is!
Argentina’s poverty rate spikes in first 6 months of President Milei’s shock therapy
And yet, this is exactly what Ramaswamy and Elon Musk swear that they want to do for America in the up and coming administration. As Ramaswamy himself tweeted (or should I say “X’ed?”): “Milei on steroids!”
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When you “Vaticanize” your falling Empire, in order to Phoenix it back out from the ashes of its own debt overload and out from the spreading thin of its military, what you have to do is create a Faith that sounds good to people. Like: Hey, the Pope is the Vicar of Christ, right? But don’t worry: if you can pay your tithe -pay your tax- then you can indulge. See? Not so bad!
We are constantly told that America founded itself on being a “Self-Made Man,” and set itself up in opposition to the British Empire and opposition to hereditary landed aristocracy rule.
But unfortunately it became Imperial and corrupt, thinking it could occupy the world militarily. And so, in the minds of America’s corrupt oligarchs, it will need to make a Faith. Well it already has one: “Private.” “Libertarian.” “Freedom.” “Free Markets.”
The way America is going to Vaticanize is by selling this faith as “private” and “free market” and Bitcoin and Stablecoin Dollar and so on, as well as other cryptocurrencies, but in a market that is really rigged and connected to govt control in order to create monopolies. Fake Libertarianism, in other words, and fake “free markets” that are rigged in favor of guys like Peter Thiel.
Meanwhile guys like Milei in Argentina, and Nayib Bukele, president of El Salvador, who is famous in the podcast alternative media world for his love of Crypto, Bitcoin Cities, and pseudo “free market” zones where rich and connected guys buy up land unfairly and engage in pseudo John Galt type paradises run by guys like Peter Thiel and other hedge fund investor types… These guys…Milei and Bukele…, these are going to become the new Bishops of the Vaticanized Holy American Empire.
As Bret Weinstein says: “A republic if you can Phoenix it,” but it really should be said like: “An Empire if you can Phoenix it.” Or maybe even “An Empire if you can Vaticanize it.”
The Gospel will be this Big Data, AI, and govt intelligence agency-directed Pseudo-Libertarianism where you create fake free markets that are really rigged from the start to prop up and create monopolies. The rich bitcoiners who go and buy up land to create “autonomous” zones at the invite of guys like Milei and Bukele will become the new Fiefdoms of this American Papacy.
In Medieval days, as the Knights were going out to fight the Crusades, there was a saying: “To Be A Roman Is to Be a Christian, and To be a Christian is to be a Roman.”
Well maybe the American motto will go like: “To be an American is to be a Libertarian and to be a Libertarian is to be an American.”
But only certain, connected, people will be able to become “Libertarians” while the rest of us, the great mass, will be just trying to get by and survive from day to day. Maybe we’ll have to go to witchdoctors and get “magical” cures and recite prayers over potions or scrying crystals, hoping our grandfather’s or uncle’s or mother’s cancer will go away. Because we just can’t afford healthcare like a billionaire can.
When the cry of “You Will Own Nothing and Be Happy” rang out from the parapets of the World Economic Forum a few years ago, the MAGA crowd noticed it first, registered it, and voiced their opposition. They also voiced their hope that Donald Trump and other MAGA leaders would put up a legitimate opposition to the WEF’s “owning nothing and being happy” agenda.
One of the hallmarks of Owning Nothing and Being Happy, went many a podcaster, was that you will rent your house rather than owning your house. And you will pay exorbitant rents indeed, being at the mercy of a low vacancy rate and an “owner’s market” being increasingly gobbled up by housing corporations and real estate speculators, Black Rock, and so on.
But consider what happens if Ramaswamy and Musk convince the government to privatize Social Security, or Medicare, or put Medicare on Bitcoin so that it can float and be speculated upon. Next consider if Bitcoin crashes, taking down Medicare with it.
What are many aging Boomers and Generation X’ers going to do when they or a family member has a medical emergency? Say, Cancer, or Multiple Sclerosis, or any other number of genetically inherited maladies? What are they going to do in order to cover the medical expenses, never mind being out of work? Especially when these medical expenses are constantly rising and never falling?
Why, take out a second mortgage on their house, a house that they might have already paid for in full. Maybe they won’t be able to pay this mortgage, being incapacitated or unable to work due to medical conditions that require expensive drugs. Which are no longer covered, thanks to cuts inspired by Ramaswamy and the siren song of Free Market Fundamentalism and Self-Made-Man’ism.
Maybe they will also lapse on their property taxes. Now, with no inheritance of property left for their descendants, their descendants will now be turned loose to fend for themselves in this vicious, brutal, rental market. Maybe they will end up sleeping under the bridge or in a tent somewhere. That is…if they can avoid the hostile architecture.
NYC is Building Anti-Homeless Streets…
Talk about “Owning Nothing and Being Happy!” Who are they kidding?