THE AUSTINS MASONS

 

This is the richest Masonic family who ever owned Texas. And here's the spoiler. Their name is on the capital city. The founder of the family was the Freemason who handed out Texas land to its first American settlers. When he died, his fortune went to his sister, and she became the richest woman in Texas. Decades later, oil was discovered on the family's old plantation. Stay until number one because this family's story is the story of Texas itself. But before we get there, we're counting down eight Texas families whose founders swore Masonic oaths and then built fortunes, cities, and dynasties. One of them was founded by the man who built the very first house in a city that exists today. Another carried a secret document into the battle that created Texas, and one family still runs a ranch that once covered more land than the state of Delaware. One important promise before we start. You'll find a lot of wild claims online about secret societies running everything. We're not doing that. Every family on this list has a Freemason with a recorded lodge, a historical marker, or an official record behind him. The real history is more than enough. Let's count them down. Number eight, the Seguín family. Long before most Americans had even heard of Texas, the Seguín family was already Texas royalty. Their roots in San Antonio go back to 1722, just a few years after the Spanish presidio was founded. The patriarch, Don Erasmo Seguín, became postmaster of San Antonio in 1807 and later its mayor. He helped create the first public school in the town, and the family had land, serious land. The Seguíns owned a ranch of about 22,000 acres, and Erasmo later added a 9,000 acre tract near present-day Floresville. His ranch house, called Casa Blanca, was a stone mansion on a hill over the San Antonio River. German immigrants passing through on their way to New Braunfels and Fredericksburg compared it to a castle on the Rhine. Here's the twist most people never hear. In 1821, the Spanish governor chose Erasmo Seguin to deliver the news to an American named Moses Austin. His request to start a colony in Texas had been approved. The Seguin family was there at the very beginning of the Austin story. And yes, the Austins will come back at the end of this list. Now for the Masonic connection. Erasmo's son, Juan Seguin, became one of the great heroes of the Texas Revolution. He fought for independence, carried messages out of the Alamo, and later served as mayor of San Antonio. According to the Austin Masonic Library and Museum, Juan Seguin was a member of Holland Lodge number one in Houston, the most historic lodge in Texas. And the family name is still on the map. The city of Seguin, east of San Antonio, took its name in 1839. It began as a community called Walnut Springs, and its citizens voted to rename it to honor the Seguin family's hero. That's a family that controlled land, the mail, and local politics, and then put its name on a city. And the next family on our list was connected to the Alamo in a way that will surprise you. Number seven, the Navarro family. Jose Antonio Navarro was born in San Antonio in 1795, and his life covered four different versions of Texas: Spanish, Mexican, the Republic, and finally the United States. He was a merchant, a self-taught lawyer, and a land investor with incredible timing. Here's what made him rich. During the 1830s, Navarro bought more than 50,000 acres of ranch land at a price of pennies per acre. Then, thousands of immigrants started pouring into Texas, and the demand for land exploded. According to the Texas Historical Commission, he sold parts of his holdings for up to $3 an acre. Buy it pennies, sell it dollars. That's one of the oldest wealth formulas in Texas, and Navarro mastered it early. Now for the Masonic link. The Austin Masonic Library and Museum lists Jose Antonio Navarro as a member of American Virtue Lodge number 10 in Saltillo, Mexico. He wasn't just a Mason. He was one of only two native-born Texans who signed the Texas Declaration of Independence in 1836. And here's the family connection to the Alamo. Navarro's nephew by marriage was none other than James Bowie, who died defending the Alamo. Bowie himself was a Freemason, a member of a lodge in Opelousas, Louisiana. After the battle, Navarro helped rescue the surviving women and child of his family. The Navarro name never left Texas. In 1846, the legislature created Navarro County in his honor, and he chose the name of its county seat, Corsicana, after his father's birthplace on the island of Corsica. His home in San Antonio, Casa Navarro, is now a National Historic Landmark and a State Historic Site. And his descendants still live in and around San Antonio today. From a Tejano land investor, we move to two brothers who helped light the fuse of the Texas Revolution. And they married into money. Number six, the Wharton family. In March of 1835, before the Texas Revolution had even started, five master masons met in secret in a grove of trees near Brazoria. Mexico had banned Freemasonry years earlier, so this meeting was risky. The five men decided to ask the Grand Lodge of Louisiana for permission to open the first Masonic Lodge on Texas soil. One of them was a young lawyer named John Austin Wharton. John and his older brother, William Harris Wharton, came to Texas from Tennessee. They were raised in Nashville, well-educated, and ambitious. They didn't come to Texas to farm. They came to lead. William became one of the loudest voices for Texas independence. After the revolution, he was sent to Washington as the Republic's minister to the United States, one of the most important diplomatic jobs in the young nation. John served as adjutant general at the Battle of San Jacinto, and later sat in the Congress of the Republic. Now, here's where the money comes in. William Wharton married Sarah Ann Groce, the daughter of Jared Groce, who was widely known as one of the wealthiest planters in early Texas. It was the Texas version of a royal marriage, political power joining one of the biggest fortunes in the colony. The brothers' lives were short. Both died in 1839, but Texas didn't forget them. In 1846, the state created Wharton County, named for both brothers, with the city of Wharton as its county seat. Today, that county covers more than a thousand square miles of prairie and timberland along the Colorado River. Think about that. Two brothers, one of them a founder of the first Masonic Lodge in Texas, and their family name is now stamped on an entire county. And the next family didn't just get a county. The patriarch built the first house of a city that exists today. Number five, the Ross family. This is one of the clearest Masonic families in Texas history, because the father and the son sat in the very same lodge. It starts with Shapley Prince Ross, a frontiersman and Texas Ranger born in Kentucky in 1811. He brought his family to the Republic of Texas in 1839 and started buying land right away. 640 acres, then 640 more, then another 600 in Burleson County. Then came the deal that made the family legendary. In 1849, the founders of a new town on the Brazos River wanted a famous frontiersman to settle there. To convince Shapley Ross, they gave him four city lots, the exclusive right to run a ferry across the Brazos, and the right to buy farmland at $1 an acre. In March of 1849, the Ross family built the first house in the town, a double log cabin on a bluff overlooking the springs. His daughter Kate became the first settler child born there. That town was Waco, and that's why Shapley Ross is considered the founder of Waco. He didn't stop there. He became the town's first postmaster, ran its first hotel, and operated the ferry. And according to Waco Masonic Lodge number 92 itself, Shapley Ross was a charter member of the lodge and its first junior deacon. Now meet the son. Lawrence Sullivan Ross, known as Sul Ross, became a master mason in that same lodge his father helped create. And his resume is almost unbelievable. Texas Ranger, the man who led the company that recovered Cynthia Ann Parker from the Comanche in 1860, Confederate General, Sheriff, State Senator, Governor of Texas from 1887 to 1891, and then president of the school we now call Texas A&M University. One family, a founding father of a city and a governor who shaped the largest university system in Texas, both sitting in the same Masonic Lodge. And now, before we reveal the family that carried a secret document into the battle for Texas, I need a quick favor. This channel is still small, and we're working to reach our very first 1,000 subscribers. If you're enjoying this countdown, please tap subscribe right now. It's free, it takes 1 second, and it truly helps a small channel grow. And let's try to reach 2,000 likes on this video. If you've learned something new so far, hit that like button. Now, back to the countdown. Number four, the Jones family. Remember those five Masons who met in secret near Brazoria in 1835? The leader of that group was a doctor named Anson Jones. He was a member and past master of Harmony Lodge number 52 in Philadelphia, and in Texas, he became the first master of the new lodge they called Holland Lodge. Then the revolution exploded, and this is the part that sounds like a movie. The Mexican army marched through Brazoria, and the lodge's property and records were destroyed. But the official charter from Louisiana arrived while the Texas army was on the march. It was handed to Anson Jones somewhere between Groce's store and San Jacinto. And he kept it in his saddlebags. On April 21st, 1836, the Texas army attacked Santa Anna at San Jacinto and won the battle that created the Republic of Texas. And Anson Jones had that Masonic charter with him the entire time. Historians believe it may be the only Masonic lodge charter in history that was carried into battle before it was ever presented to its lodge. After the war, Jones rose fast. When the Grand Lodge of the Republic of Texas was formed, he became its very first Grand Master. He served as a congressman, as secretary of state, and finally, as the fourth and last president of the Republic of Texas. He was the man in charge when Texas officially joined the United States in 1846. Holland Lodge still exists today in Houston as Holland Lodge number one. And a whole community carries a reminder of those days. The lodge that began in a grove near Brazoria became the seed of the Grand Lodge of Texas, one of the largest Masonic Grand Lodges in the world. The Jones family gave Texas its last president and its first Grand Master. But the next family did something even more Texan. They turned a canyon into a cattle empire. Number three. The Goodnight and Adair dynasty. Charles Goodnight is one of the most famous cattlemen in American history. Texas Ranger in 1857, army scout, trailblazer, and according to the Austin Masonic Library and Museum, a member of Phoenix Lodge number 275 in Weatherford, Texas. But his story starts with a crash. After making a small fortune driving cattle, Goodnight put most of his money into a bank he helped organize in Pueblo, Colorado. Then the panic of 1873 hit and he lost nearly everything. He didn't quit. In 1876, he drove about 1,600 longhorns into Palo Duro Canyon in the Texas Panhandle, a place he remembered from his days as a scout. The next year, he met the man who would change his life, John Adair, a wealthy landowner from Ireland who wanted to invest in the American West. On June 18th, 1877, they signed a partnership. Adair would put up the money and pay Goodnight a salary. Goodnight would build and run the ranch. After 5 years, Adair would take 2/3 and Goodnight 1/3. They branded the cattle with Adair's initials and the JA Ranch was born. It was the first cattle ranch in the Texas Panhandle and it grew into a monster. At its peak in 1885, the JA Ranch grazed about 100,000 head of cattle on roughly 1.3 million acres. That's more land than the entire state of Delaware. Goodnight also negotiated a famous deal with the Comanche leader Quanah Parker, offering two beeves every other day if his people would leave the herd alone. And here's a connection most people miss. Quanah Parker was the son of Cynthia Ann Parker, the woman whose recovery was led by Soll Ross from our number five family. Texas history is a small world. Now, here's the part that makes this a true dynasty. The JA Ranch still exists today and it's still operated by Adair's descendants. Its headquarters became a national historic landmark in 1960. Nearly 150 years of continuous family ownership built on a partnership run by a Freemason. But as big as that ranch was, the next family put its name on the biggest city in Texas. Number two, the Houston family. Sam Houston is the most famous name in Texas history, the general who won San Jacinto, the first president of the Republic of Texas, and later a governor and a United States senator. And he was a deeply committed Freemason, a member of Cumberland Lodge number eight in Nashville, Tennessee, and later of Holland Lodge in Texas. Here's what most people don't know. In 1837, during his first term as president of the Republic, Sam Houston joined Holland Lodge. And on December 20th of that year, he presided over the convention of Freemasons that formed the Grand Lodge of the Republic of Texas. The following spring, he personally installed its first grand master and officers. Let that sink in. The president of the country presided over the founding of the Masonic Grand Lodge. There's probably no clearer picture of how close Freemasonry and power were in early Texas, and the Houston name became the most valuable brand in the state. The city of Houston, today one of the largest cities in the United States, was named after him. So was Sam Houston State in Huntsville. The family didn't stop with Sam. He and his wife, Margaret Lea, had eight children, and several of them carried the name into public life. His son, Andrew Jackson Houston, was appointed a United States Senator in 1941, a century after his father first led Texas. Another son, Temple Lea Houston, became a well-known lawyer and state senator. One man founded a republic, helped found the Grand Lodge, and gave his name to a city of millions. That's a family legacy few in American history can match. And yet, even the Houstons don't sit at number one. Before we reveal the family whose name is on the capital of Texas, let me ask you one more time. If this video has surprised you even a little, please subscribe and help us reach our first 1,000 subscribers. We're getting closer every day, and your subscription really makes the difference. And drop a comment telling me what city or state you're watching from. I read every single one. Now, let's reveal number one. Number one, the Austin family. They call Stephen F. Austin the father of Texas, and for once, the nickname is not an exaggeration. The family story begins with his father, Moses Austin, who received permission from Spanish authorities in 1821 to bring American settlers into Texas. And remember number eight? The man chosen to deliver that news was Erasmo Seguín. Moses Austin died before he could carry out the plan, and his son, Stephen, took over. As an empresario, a land agent for the Mexican government, Stephen F. Austin brought in the first American colonists, famously known as the Old Three Hundred. In practical terms, Austin sat at the center of who received land in the richest part of early Texas. Very few people in American history have ever held that kind of power over territory. And Stephen F. Austin was a Freemason, a member of Louisiana Lodge at Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, before he ever came to Texas. Now, here's where it gets dramatic. On February 11th, 1828, Austin called a meeting of Freemasons at San Felipe, his colony's capital. They elected him Worshipful Master and sent a petition to Mexico asking for permission to open the first lodge on Texas soil. The petition reached Matamoros, and then silence. Why? The Mexican government was afraid that liberal-minded settlers in Texas might push for independence, and it knew exactly what political ideas were circulating among American Freemasons. On October 25th, 1828, Mexico outlawed Freemasonry. The following year, Austin and his brothers decided it was too dangerous to try again. In hindsight, Mexico's fear wasn't entirely wrong. Within a few years, those same kinds of men were fighting for Texas independence. But, this is a list of about family wealth, so here's the part almost nobody talks about. Stephen F. Austin died in 1836, shortly after independence, and he never married. His entire estate went to his sister, Emily Austin Perry. She inherited livestock and extensive landholdings, and she became one of the largest landholders in Texas. Historians describe her as the wealthiest woman in Texas in her time, and Emily was no passive heir. She helped found the San Luis Company, invested in the Brazos and Galveston Railroad, and donated land to help found Austin College. The family's home base was Peach Point Plantation in Brazoria County, land originally granted to Stephen F. Austin as an empresario. Then came the final twist. After the Civil War, Peach Point declined, but in the early 20th century, oil was discovered on the property, and it brought a new wave of prosperity to the family. Land handed out by a Freemason in the 1820s was producing oil wealth almost a century later. And the name? The capital of the state of Texas is called Austin. The state capital, the legislature, the governor, and the University of Texas all sit in a city named after this family. No other family on this list or anywhere in Texas can say that. That's why the Austins sit at number one. A Freemason father of Texas who controlled its land. A sister who became the richest woman in the state. Oil under the family plantation and their name on the capital city forever. In every way that matters, this is the Masonic family that owned Texas. So, those were the eight Masonic families who shaped Texas. From the Seguíns of San Antonio to the Austins of the capital. Which story surprised you the most? Was it the charter in the saddlebags, the ranch bigger than Delaware, or the Freemason who built the first house in Waco? Tell me in the comments and don't forget to let me know where you're watching from. If you made it this far, you're exactly the kind of viewer this channel is built for. Subscribe, help us reach those first 1,000 subscribers, and I'll see you in the next one.

BERNIE SPEECH ON BILLIONAIRS

 Thank you, San Francisco. This is a great crowd and I thank all of you for coming out tonight. As you know, we had to change uh the venue because of the tragedy that took place at the Warfield Warfield. Um a gentleman there was shot last night uh and died and um the venue was closed and we are where we are right now. Uh and um what happened last night was horrific. We send our deepest condolences to the family of the victim and to the staff of the Warfield who witnessed and survived the incident. And we thank the paramedics and first responders who were there to help. Let me begin by expressing my deep appreciation to those in the trade union movement who have done the enormously difficult work of getting Proposition 40 on the ballot. It is not easy taking on some of the wealthiest people in the world. It is not easy taking on the political establishment. It is not easy running a campaign where you're going to be greatly outspent, but that is what you are doing and the entire country is proud of what you're doing. In my view, Proposition 40, the California Billionaire Tax Act, is the most important ballot initiative in the country because it deals with the most important issue facing this country. AND THAT ISSUE IS can the American people sustain democracy, take on the greed and power of the billionaire class, and create an economy and government that works for all, or are we destined to live in an oligarchic society where our economic and political lives are controlled by a handful of the wealthiest people in the world? That is the real question on the ballot here in California on November 3rd. And that is why the whole country, and frankly people around the world, are paying attention to what is happening here. It's what people are asking, is it possible? And you all going to do it and show the world IT IS POSSIBLE. THAT WITH ALL OF THEIR money and all of their power, the people united are going to beat them. Now, why is Proposition 40 so important for California and in fact for the country? And here is why. Never before in American history have so few people owned so much. Never before have we had the kind of income and wealth inequality that we have today in which the top 1% now owns more wealth than the bottom 93% while 60% of our people are living paycheck to paycheck and we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major country on Earth. We have never in the history of America seen the kind of inequality that we're seeing right now. All of us studied, you know, when we were at school, you remember studying the Gilded Age? Rockefeller and Jay Gould and J.P. Morgan, all those guys. They were really rich. Nothing compared to what exists right now. And it's not only the income and wealth inequality never before in American history have we had such grotesque concentrations of ownership. Fewer and fewer people owning more and more. Never before in American history have we seen a billionaire class with so much political power. And never before have we seen such an unprecedented level of greed, arrogance, and irresponsibility on the part of the ruling class of this country. In America today, Elon Musk the wealthiest You know, Mr. Musk. The wealthiest man on Earth He now owns, hear this, and this is why what you are doing is so important. Musk himself now owns more wealth than the bottom 53% of American households. One man. Today, CEOs of large profitable corporations are now making 350 times more than the average worker. And over the last year, after after receiving the largest tax break in history fewer than 1,000 billionaires, fewer than 1,000, fewer than the people in this room became over $2.2 trillion richer. Brothers and sisters, let us be clear. The unprecedented income and wealth inequality that we're seeing now has not just happened under Donald Trump. It has been going on year after year, decade after decade. Over the past 37 years, the top 20 20 households in America became nearly $4 trillion richer, while the bottom 50% of households became nearly $5 billion poorer. Over the last 50 years, nearly $80 trillion of wealth has been redistributed. Redistributed from the bottom 90% to the top 1%. Today, the average American worker today is making $25 a week less than he or she did 53 years ago after adjusting for inflation. When I was a kid, and I grew up in a working-class family. So did most of the other kids in the neighborhood, working-class neighborhood. Most families at that time needed just one breadwinner to pay the bills. How many working-class families do you know today that can make it with one breadwinner? While the billionaire class and the 1% are doing better than any time in American history, tens and tens millions of our people are struggling to put food on the table, pay for housing, pay for health care, pay for child care education, put gas in the tank, and pay for all the basic necessities of life. That is not the kind of America we accept. But, it's not just income and wealth inequality. We have more concentration of ownership than ever before. While profits on Wall Street and corporate America saw a handful of giant corporations dominate sector after sector, agriculture, transportation, energy, financial services, you name it. And that concentration of ownership brings price fixing and forces us to pay far higher prices than we should. And it's not just the overall economy. Importantly, these guys own the media as well. Elon Musk owns Twitter. Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post and Twitch. Mark Zuckerberg owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Threads. Larry Ellison owns CBS, TikTok, Paramount, Skydance, and MTV, and is on his way to owning CNN and Warner Brothers. And our good friend Rupert Murdoch owns Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post. But, it's not just income and wealth inequality. It's not just concentration of ownership. In America today, billionaires are hell-bent on own on not only owning our economy, but they want to own our political system as well. As a result of the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision, billionaires are legally able to spend as much as they want on campaigns through their so-called super PACs. As we all know, Mr. Musk spent at least 290 million dollars to elect Trump. And right now, at this moment, is spending some 200 million to try to keep Republicans in control of Congress. The 100 richest people in our country spent 2.6 billion on the last election, more than double what they spent 4 years prior. Today, billionaires are spending over 1 and 1/2 billion dollars on midterm elections. So, what we are seeing is Silicon Valley, the AI industry, spending some 300 million. Crypto industry has already spent over 200 million. AIPAC has spent over 100 million. All of which takes us back to why we are here tonight. And to Proposition 40 and the fantastic work that you are doing here in California. For the first time, for the first time in our nation's history, you have put a proposition on the ballot which would establish a tax on billionaires. This initiative would raise about a hundred billion dollars, enough to prevent three million working-class Californians from losing the health care they currently have as a result of Trump's disastrous legislation. And do not forget that the reason that these millions of people in California and people in Vermont are losing their health insurance is so that the 1% could receive a trillion dollars in tax breaks. In terms of Proposition 40, let us be clear. No one with a net worth of less than a billion dollars would pay a penny more in taxes on the Proposition 40. This tax would only apply to some 260 billionaires in California who are now collectively worth over 2.4 trillion dollars. As a result of the very rigged tax code that we have, six Nobel Prize winning economists who support this initiative recently pointed out that while these billionaires more than tripled their wealth over the past decade, they paid a lower effective tax rate than a plumber or a nurse. Let me repeat. Over the past decade, billionaires in California more than tripled their wealth and paid a lower effective tax rate than an average worker. Incredibly, these billionaires became $500 billion richer last year alone. That is five times as much as the California wealth tax would raise. All right. In other words, if Proposition 40 passes, and it will pass, billionaires in California would still be $400 billion richer than they were last year. We'll get to that in a minute. And here is the point. The greed and arrogance of the billionaire class is really extraordinary and is now on display for the whole world to see. Instead of doing the right thing and saying, "You know what? We have making all kinds of money. My God, last year Trump gave us a tax break. Getting all this money and you know, I'm seeing kids without any health care, working people without any health care. Now, let's do the right thing. Let's make sure that these people do not lose their health care. Let's make sure that some of them do not unnecessarily die. That's the right thing to do. But, that is not what the billionaires in California are doing. What they are doing is now spending over 225 million and I'm hearing that it may be a lot higher than that, but at least 225 million dollars to oppose this proposition. The effort against proposition 40 40 is being led by Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google, who is spending 100 million dollars of his own money in opposition. So, who is Mr. Brin? Well, Mr. Brin is the fourth wealthiest person in the world. He is worth some 274 billion dollars. And hear this, since Donald Trump was elected, Mr. Brin has become 130 billion dollars richer. And if proposition 40 is passed, Mr. Brin would owe 13.7 billion dollars more in taxes. Larry Page, Google's other co-founder, is the second wealthiest man alive, worth 294 billion. His wealth has increased by over 140 billion since Trump was elected. 140 billion since Trump was elected, he would owe 14.7 billion dollars. You know what, Mr. Page? You can afford to pay that. And on and on it goes. Guys are making huge amounts of money, more money they could spend in a thousand lifetimes. And right now, there are children who are sick and parents are worried that they're not going to be able to get them to a doctor. And let me tell you something that really disgusts me about the campaign that the billionaires here in California are waging against Proposition 40. Now, I can understand that billionaires don't want to pay more in taxes. I got it. I can understand that they're more interested in buying their third yacht or their fifth mansion than they are about the needs of hungry children or struggling workers. I get that. It's pathetic, but I get it. It is greed on steroids. But what is really outrageous is that instead of being honest about their position and simply coming forward and saying to the people of California, you know, basically, we're multi-billionaires, we got it all, and we want it, and we really don't give a damn about your children. We don't give a damn about working people. We don't give a damn if you die because you have an illness you're unable to get to a doctor on time. They don't have the guts to be honest and tell the world what they really feel. So, what they are doing is resorting to extortion. You know what I mean by that? What they are saying and what much of their campaign is about is saying, "If you want justice, if you want kids in the state of California to be able to get health care, if you want to take the stress off the backs of working people so they can afford health care, if you want to do that, and you pass this Proposition 40, we are going to punish you. We're going to move out of the state of California." So, essentially, what they are saying is heads, billionaires win, tails, working families lose. They are putting a gun at people's heads and saying, "If you vote to provide health care for working class kids by raising our taxes, we're going to leave the state and maybe take our companies with us." Who knows? Maybe they'll even pick up and go to Saudi Arabia where they can live comfortably with other oligarchs who don't believe in democracy. That is the essence of what these greedy people are saying. And that is their argument of these wonderful patriots who love America so much. How pathetic and how immoral is that? And the question that we have got to ask and people all over California and the country are asking the same question in general. How many bloody mansions do you need? How many yachts do you need? How many private jets and private islands do you need? So today we say to the billionaire class, stop your greed, get off your private islands, get out of your gated communities, get off of your yachts and your rocket ships, take a break from your cocktail parties, and take a look around you. Take a look. Take a look at the 15 million Americans, not only in California and Vermont and every other state in this country, who are losing their health insurance to pay for Donald Trump's $1 trillion tax break that benefited the billionaire class. 20 million Americans have already seen their premiums double on average. Nursing homes, hospitals, and community centers are being devastated because of Trump's $1 trillion cut to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. In California and in Vermont, and this is not rhetoric, it is based on studies. Tens of thousands of Americans will die if we do not restore those health benefits to working people. So, I say to California billionaires and billionaires all over this country, show a little bit of concern for your fellow Americans. Understand that you and your class have never ever had it so good, but you cannot have it all. I think what the people of California and people all over this country are saying to these billionaires, instead of spending over 225 million on TV ads against this wealth tax, we have a better idea. Start paying your fair share of taxes. And let me be clear, and Ro Ro Khanna just made this point a moment ago. Once California passes Proposition 40, trust me, that will not be the end of this discussion. If I have If Ro and I have anything to say about it, and we do, we will enact a national wealth tax on billionaires. And that is an annual 5% wealth tax on billionaires. Which, and I want you to I want you to hear this. I know I'm throwing out a I know I'm throwing out I know I'm throwing out a lot of numbers here, but I want you to stay with me on this one. Because I want to indicate to you just how absurd the maldistribution of wealth and income in America is. If the bill that Ro and I are working on passes, it would raise 4.4 trillion dollars over a 10-year period. And let me tell you what that bill would do. This is a 5% tax on billionaires' wealth. In the first year, we would provide every man, woman, and child in a household making less than 150,000 a $3,000 direct payment. All right? $12,000 for a family of four. We would end homelessness and the housing CRISIS IN AMERICA BY building 7 million units of low-income and affordable housing and apartments. We would expand Medicare to cover dental, vision, and hearing. We would provide universal child care throughout the country. We would strengthen public education by ensuring that no teacher in America makes less than 60,000 a year. We would undo the damage that Trump did and restore health care to 15 million Americans who have lost it. In other words, with one tax, 5% tax, and by the way, it would leave these guys zillions of dollars. This ain't confiscatory. They would hardly know the difference. In 19 In 1933, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said, and I quote, "We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both." What Brandeis said was accurate 93 years ago. It is even truer today. So, what you here in California are doing is of extraordinary importance. And the reason that the billionaire class is so upset is they know that if you can pull this off here in California, we're going to do this all over the country. And I can tell you as somebody who has traveled from end of this country to the other and given a whole lot of speeches, I can tell you that whether people are conservative, progressive, moderate, socialist, whatever they may be, people are sick and tired of the greed of these billionaires. They're tired of them undermining democracy and trying to take over our political system, which is exactly what you're seeing right here. She wants her in $25 million because she wants children and working people to have health care, really? So, what you are doing, and you're in the forefront of this, is leading the effort to create a movement in America which says, at the end of the day, we are going to have an economy, we are going to have a government which represents all of us and not just the billionaires and wealthy campaign contributors. So, California, congratulations on what you're doing. Let's go forward together.

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interesting

YT REALLY!!!! Wanted me to see this!!!!-save4later-

ros

me singing my poetry in ai

 

diAmnonds

By now, [music] you probably know the top line of this whole situation. Companies like Debeers have manipulated the public with advertising [music] and marketing to convince us that diamonds have some intrinsic value that we must pursue and buy and adore when in reality diamonds are worthless common [music] stones. But there is something happening here which people almost always ignore. Consider a magic trick. [music] When we learn how the trick is performed, it generally loses its appeal. Well, we have learned how this diamond trick [music] is performed. The truths of the diamond industry are all but common knowledge at this point. Still, every year, more and more people [music] buy diamonds. We know the trick and we still fall for it. Why is that? How is that? When we get these answers, we can understand a whole lot more than just diamonds. I wouldn't be able to make videos like these if we didn't have free flowing, balanced access to information. In fact, I wouldn't be able to understand the world. Unfortunately, we are at risk of this kind of danger. On September 18th, President Trump banned CNN, MSNBC, and Politico from the White House in an egregiously anti-free speech move. Thankfully, just yesterday, at time of recording, a judge ruled this unconstitutional and overturned the ban. When I read this story on ground news, I get the reassuring news that both sides of the political spectrum are covering it pretty evenly, but with subtly different messaging. Left-leaning outlets are saying Trump had banned these news networks because they were fake news and fiction and lies. Right- leaning outlets, meanwhile, vaguely note that the administration cited national security concerns for the ban. Fortunately, there's not really a reason to think Trump is done trying to censor the media. In times like these, getting a full picture of the world's events is more than important. It's one of the best ways to fight back against top-down censorship. Over the past couple of years, Ground News has been my only sponsor. It's because I'm not interested in promoting predatory gambling companies or surveillance state mobile games. I genuinely believe in the work that the team at Ground News is doing and I believe more people should be using the service. Unlike other platforms, they don't push or suppress stories to influence your perception of the world. Their platform pulls in thousands of articles from around the world and organizes them by story to show how the left, center, and right are framing the story differently. For every news item, the color-coded layout makes it easy to see the political bias of each so-called unbiased outlet and a history of failing fact checks and even which sources are independently owned or owned by large media conglomerates with corporate interests. When it comes to news, finding the truth is getting more difficult every day. I sincerely believe ground news can help us write the ship on this whole issue. Ground News is fully independent and supported by readers like us, but I partnered with them to get my viewers 40% off the same Vantage plan I've been using. Go to ground.news/horses by clicking the link in my description or scan my QR code to get a great deal on the Vantage plan with all the features I just mentioned. By signing up, you're directly supporting the work I do here and your ability to think critically. I think the less time we spend on this the better, but some background is important. Debeers is the world's leading diamond company. They specialize in mining, trading, and marketing of diamonds, and the company basically has a monopoly on the industry. In the 1930s, new mines in Africa and a sluggish depression era economy had dragged diamond prices downward. By this time, Debeers had spent decades consolidating all of the world's diamonds into a single limited supply. Debeers accumulated diamonds to sell them as much as they did to control their market price. But now, Debeers needed to control demand in the same way they already controlled supply. So, in 1938, the Beers hired an ad agency to help make this happen. This is a whole story in of itself, but is not really what this video is about. Suffice to say, the ad campaign was a huge success. It ultimately established a few cultural tenants about diamonds. The agency put diamonds on the rich and famous, gave lectures to high school about diamond etiquette, and had stories published in newspapers about what diamonds celebrities were wearing. So now the stone was the aspirational object in American society. The agency also tied diamond size to love. The bigger the diamond, the more a man loved his fiance. The implicit opposite was also true. The less he spent on the diamond, the less he loved his partner. The agency invented the 2 months salary budget rule for an engagement ring, which later became 3 months. Finally, they came up with the line, "A diamond is forever," which cemented the diamond as an eternal symbol of love. There is historical precedent for people liking diamonds. Diamond mining appears to have originated around 700 B.CE in ancient India. Historical royals and elites have treasured or gifted diamonds to one another. But altogether, these are examples of a sparse exclusive tradition. It is true that Debeers invented the diamond culture we have today. And that's exactly where the puzzle emerges. Most people know some version of this already. Most people know the entire diamond industry is built on basically pure nonsense. You, the individual, may have no interest in buying a diamond. Many people feel this way, but data shows that while it's a little complicated, diamond sales are generally increasing every year. So why does this charade still work? Most objects function as pretty straightforward signs. A sign is anything that stands for something in the eyes of the individual. A stethoscope around the neck is a sign. We interpret that person to be a doctor. A company logo is a sign. We see the Nike swoosh and think physical activity or sneakers or whatever. Even a red octagon is a sign. We in America anyways think to stop. Diamonds are also a sign. A sign can work in three ways. The first is by being a symbol. Consider a red and white barber pole, a skull and crossbones meaning pirates, or a stop sign. If something communicates its meaning through being a symbol, this is entirely arbitrary without all of us just agreeing on this meaning. It can be changed. There's no obvious physical reason in particular that a red and white pole should mean haircuts or a skull and crossbones should mean piracy. We could change all stop signs to purple circles and eventually that shape would carry the same meaning as the red octagon does. Now, diamonds can work this way as well. Diamond companies have toyed with this through advertising. Big stones were once in vogue, then small, then colored stones. This type of sign is so arbitrary that it's incredibly easy to change. So, while diamonds can work as a symbol, this is artificial and doesn't really solve our problem here. A sign can also communicate meaning by being an icon. This means it physically resembles the thing it represents. For example, the picture of a man on the door of a men's restroom, a smiling emoticon, a model of an airplane. Diamonds subtly work in this way, and this has been exploited by advertisers. Diamonds have high clarity, and they're very hard. The ideal of love is one that is transparent and everlasting. Think a diamond is forever. This connection is tenuous and it is one that has been made more actual purely by advertising. But it is based in some amount of physical reality. However, the true power of diamonds relies in their function as the third kind of sign, an index. An index is something that has a real actual link to another thing in the physical tangible sense of the word. Smoke is an index of fire. A scar is a mark of an injury in a specific place on the body. This is more than a social agreement or a cultural imprint. A diamond is often an index. An individual's diamond has a connection to some event or action. Their spouse gave them the diamond when they proposed. Their grandparents passed on the diamond before they died. These things are divorced from the whims and marketing strategies of companies like Debeers. They are real. They are significant and meaningful in a way that marketing really cannot be. There is another layer to all of this. We learn the meanings of signs just like we learn vocabulary. This should explain the installation of the diamond myth. The beers spent years linking diamonds in love or luxury or exclusivity. It would be easy then in turn to say that once we learn diamonds actually carry almost no natural meaning, we should lose interest entirely and that if we do not lose interest, we are weak-minded victims of marketing. However, there is a problem with this model, especially when it comes to diamonds. In this model, meaning exists entirely outside of the individual and entirely in the collective. It does not account for the U and the individual is exactly the reason this model fails when we talk about diamonds. The meaning of an object is not so much a fixed concrete thing in the way that the meaning of a word is. Instead, the meaning of an object is an event which occurs every time we encounter that object. It can and does change from one year to the next or from one person to the next. Consider, for example, your favorite toy from childhood. As a child, your reaction to it was jubilant. As a teenager, it likely struck you as childish and embarrassing. Then, as an adult, this toy could very well ignite feelings of fond nostalgia. And of course, another person would have a totally different and likely more ambivalent opinion of that toy. So in addition to the object and what cultural implications have been bestowed upon it, there is also the you the interpreter. This interpreting process produces massively different results depending on who's doing the interpreting and what they know, remember, or feel. The object then doesn't only hold the meaning that culture, marketing, or society has given it, but the meaning that an individual person brings to it. be it a diamond, a toy, a stop sign, or anything else. When this happens, people are able to feel one way about a category of items while still feeling a completely different way about their own example of that item. This is why so many people know that diamonds are something like a scam while simultaneously treasuring their own example. their diamond has some meaning which is entirely different from the meaning of the category as a whole. This should not denigrate people's love for their diamonds. This meaning that people find as individuals is profoundly real and true. It is not just some petty half-hearted excuse to like a shiny object. If anything, this kind of meaning is probably the most honest of them all. It is born out of one's own self rather than installed artificially by marketing apparatuses or societal pressure. This is more or less why people are so okay with falling for the diamond scam. Objects are not just empty meaningless things that wait for some advertiser or culture to fill them. People individually in ways not attached to some big herd also provide these meanings. You found an antique on your honeymoon. Now this dusty old thing carries the weight of love. Your grandmother gave you a diamond ring before she died. Now the diamond is separate from the idea of diamonds as a whole. Really though, all of this fuss is just a tiny microcosm of a much larger conversation. see our relationship with material things in a really polarized sort of way. We think that things are things and people are people. An individual may be a greedy ostentatious materialist enamored and romanced by things and money. Or a person may be the presumably holier option, a monkish minimalist who has become so wise that objects have no meaning. These ideas seem to orbit around a central sort of thesis. We live in a period with so much stuff that we value our stuff way more than we value anything else. It feels like a sort of default enlightened option to believe that attachment to objects replaces attachment to people or self-worth or some other ostensibly more pure version of happiness. Attachment to material things within this way of thinking is compensation for some other iteration of failure or sadness. But I don't think this is true at all. To be clear, I'm also not of the opinion that more possessions is always a good thing or that objects are inherently good for you. But the ideas that we should either aspire to accumulate everything or aspire to cast off all things, I think they do rob us of much of life's color. It is really not the quantity of things which demands attention. Having a thousand things has no more accurate or profound meaning than having just one. The number alone does not tell you anything. Instead, we must look at the depth and intensity of the things. Not all objects, of course, are created or possessed equally. You go to Walmart and buy a stack of styrofoam cups, chances are those really have no meaning. You could lose them and very little disruption would occur. But this isn't true for everything. A ring inherited or a collector's most soughtafter book carries meaning that allows it to transcend its own physical properties or even its own practical function. Just like a wall or a beam in a house, an object can be loadbearing. This idea can be manifested in many different ways. Some objects are irreplaceable and they carry with them a biography much in the way that people do. An inherited item carries with it a legacy of past generations. An antique has lived a life more full than most people. These things, these loadbearing objects are so intimately tied to their biographies that even if you were given an exact, perfect, onetoone cloned replica, you would still feel a sense of loss. A loadbearing object may also carry the weight of a relationship, perhaps even a relationship that no longer exists. If an object was given, inherited, chosen together, used together, or argued over, all of that becomes imbued in the object itself. A whole relationship may be carried on through some material inanimate object. Memory is fallible. People come and go from our lives like a breeze through the trees. But when an object has been imbued with the heft of a relationship, suddenly that person or that time period becomes concrete. Certainly we cannot call this meaningless. We regard the accumulation of things as some kind of moral failing. We make many mistakes. One of them is displayed when we think about so many human practices that can be called admirable. Generosity involves the giving of things. Hospitality places objects at your guest's disposal. Food, drinks, a chair, a room, a house. Caring for your friends and loved ones may involve the handling of medicine, bedding, or food. Craft is one of the most incredible traits a person can have, and it is almost entirely manifested in the material world. How well can this thing look, operate, perform, or sustain its existence? Objects in these types of contexts certainly have intensely real meanings. There's also a notion that our things pollute some truer version of ourselves. That we are all actually encumbered and made more clumsy by material possessions. So if we remove them, we become more pure or true. But the fact is that objects do in part form who we are. This is true even before we have any concepts of materialism or minimalism. If you take a toy or a blanket from a baby, that child will be quite upset. This is not because the child is some Scrooge about his great material gains. Of course, it is because the object in question has genuine real meaning. It teaches the child about what he likes, what he doesn't like, what the world does, and how to operate within it. I think this probably holds true in adulthood. For example, look around your home. Look at all of those things that you have. Now imagine them disappearing one by one. The decor that you chose disappears from the walls. Your favorite books, the gifts you've been given by loved ones, the souvenirs from trips, your favorite clothes, your collection of whatever it is, all gone. Would you feel more like yourself? I think probably not. In fact, almost certainly the opposite. The things we own do help construct our identities. And that isn't necessarily bad. We find our tastes, express ourselves, and hold memories through these things. They are not at all meaningless. They are not some shroud cloaking a mysterious, serene, truer version of ourselves. There is further a strange thing which happens within the bounds of minimalism. Most primarily, casting off material possessions doesn't somehow unbound us from objects. Rather, it is a new alignment, a different material practice, not a non-material existence. Even the most pure versions of this non-materialism contradict themselves. Buddhism preaches detachment from material objects. But Buddhist temples, statues, and artworks are beautiful, maximal, often gilded expressions of faith. The Christian religion also has tenants rejecting material items. But even the oldest Christian churches and artwork have likewise always been magnificent and ornate. This is not to poke holes in either faith. I actually don't believe the teachings and the physical items are at odds. But as it almost always is, these rejections of material goods are not really rejections. They are realignments, selective material cultures rather than no material culture at all. Same thing tends to happen in more popular lifestyle versions of minimalism. Gurus or taste makers or whoever preach about casting off attachments to things so you can be happier. People look aspirationally at clean, minimal spaces and lifestyles. But this kind of thing only really works when you have money, which is in itself a material good. It costs money to not use your closets. It costs money to buy clothes which will last. It costs money to live in a big empty beautiful space. There is another thing to be considered as well. This whole idea that less stuff is better is only tenable if you have the option of owning stuff. It's easy to be blloze about material things when they are at your disposal, when you are poor. This most certainly is not the case. There are perfectly understandable reasons for people to reject the idea of things. In general, like any other cultural sentiment, minimalism is a reaction to the world around us. People believe civilization has become too excessive and indulgent and there is some past version of this place that was just right. This is understandable and it is something I often feel myself. It's easy to be overwhelmed by the material objects in our world and our abundance of choices and to simply give up and withdraw from it all is a understandable thing to do today. Everything is expensive. Real estate is impossible where there are jobs. Freelancing is on the rise. We've all been hoodwinkedked into benefitless occupations as independent contractors. There's hardly even a model for accumulation. And today's rich people seem to acrue wealth in strange, intentionally opaque ways that no one can really understand. The idea of ridding yourself of material things may feel like a good reaction. Having less feels a lot better when it is a choice. Meanwhile, if attaining things seems to appear only like a distant fantasy and economic outlook feels generally uncertain, owning fewer things is a rational decision. Furthermore, there are perfectly valid concerns about materialism. Hoarding is a very real disorder and should be treated as such. The treadmill of consumption is also real. You buy a nicer shirt, so now you need nicer pants, so now you need nicer shoes, so now you need a nicer closet, so now you need a nicer home, etc., etc. This never really ends. as a society. It is also true that we generally produce too many things in ways which are unsustainable. But all of this these are not problems inherent to things. They are other problems. And I'm not arguing against their respective existence. I am arguing though that a futile attempt to entirely divest from material things is no kind of solution. I was raised very poor. In adulthood, I was very poor for a long time. I have sold drugs, stolen money, and done much bad in pursuit of material things. For a period of several years, I lived in an abandoned radio station. I slept on a twin mattress on the floor, and I stole most of the things that I needed. It was hard to sleep. It was hard to eat. It was hard to be warm in the winter. If a man had come to me in that radio station and told me that actually material things are bad and you're lucky you don't have them, I would have been dumbfounded. I had no things and I knew that was bad. Stuff can bring over consumption, ecological damage, and obsession. But these are problems with the individual, not with the stuff itself. I think that stuff is just stuff. It's not inherently bad, nor is it inherently good. It's perfectly healthy to cherish your things. Ridding yourself of stuff is only a different material formation. It is not an exit from material life. It is not somehow above the petty orals of the rest of the world. Not owning requires money, effort, space, comfort, and indeed objects. Every day the things I own and value bring me great joy and comfort, and I cannot see what grand good it would do to renounce them. Cleaning your room is a very different thing [music] than cleaning your house.

great vid

bestesthouse

&mo

mo

r they allergic to truth