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This last show of Dave Emory’s For The Record looks at the seastedding movement, a new trend in fascist ideology that seeks to create independent « cities » offshore, i.e. outside any country’s jurisdiction, in gigantic seaships as big as aircraft carriers. Individuals such as Patri Friedman, grandson of fascist economist Milton Friedman, and Peter Thiel, co-founder of Pay-Pal, support this movement that intersects, among other elements of the corporate community, with the Koch Brothers, the Carlyle Group and Palantir firm. « Charter Cities » is another variation of this scheme in which control of particular cities will be turned over to corporations. Henry Ford, one of Adolf Hitler’s early backers and main source of inspiration, tried such an experiment with the city of « Forlandia » in Brazil, which failed.

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder seems to have been working behind the scenes to implement a local mixture of seastedding in his own state. Applying the basic principals of Shock Doctrine, he recently submitted a budget for the State of Michigan that is expected to cut financial aid to cities and towns. As a result, evidently, much of those cities will end up in difficult financial situation. By pure « coincidence », Snyder is also pushing a bill that would give him and his administration the power to declare certain towns and cities in a state of financial « emergency ». The bill specifies that the Governor will then be in a legal position to appoint a kind of « czar » figure to manage the « crisis » for a particular town and that that czar will have the power to do virtually anything, including to terminate collective bargain agreements or any other contracts and to dismiss elected officials. In the end, the management of these towns in « crisis » will be turned over to corporations that will have the power to even terminate them at will. Continuer la lecture →