Dissolve Your Problems
Gary Webb
A cardboard box of declassified documents should not be dangerous. But in the summer of 1995, a reporter named Gary Webb found a paper trail that did not fit the official story. He was sitting in a quiet courtroom in California, looking at evidence that linked a local drug ring to a foreign war funded by the United States government.
Webb was not a celebrity. He was a grinder. He worked for the San Jose Mercury News, a solid regional paper known for covering Silicon Valley tech, not international espionage. He wore simple clothes and drove a used car. He believed in the old rules of reporting: if you find a document that proves a lie, you print it.
He did not know that he was about to touch the “third rail” of American journalism.
The story he was chasing was simple but terrifying. In the 1980s, cheap crack cocaine flooded the streets of South Central Los Angeles. Lives were destroyed. Neighborhoods burned. At the same time, the U.S. government was illegally funding a guerrilla army in Nicaragua called the Contras.
Webb’s documents connected the two worlds. He found that Contra sympathizers had sold tons of cocaine in Los Angeles and used the profits to buy guns for the war. He found that government agencies knew about it and looked the other way.
He spent a year verifying the facts. He traveled to Central American prisons. He tracked down pilots and dealers. He built a map of names, dates, and bank accounts. The evidence was heavy, specific, and undeniable.
In August 1996, the Mercury News published “Dark Alliance.”
The reaction was immediate. For the first time, a newspaper put its full investigation online. The servers crashed from the traffic. In Los Angeles, people read the story and finally understood why their neighborhoods had fallen apart. The story did not just make news; it validated the suffering of thousands of people.
Then the system woke up.
The three biggest newspapers in the country—the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times—had missed the story. They had more money, more staff, and better sources in intelligence agencies. But a regional paper in San Jose had beaten them.
According to the unwritten rules of the media establishment, this was impossible. If the story was true, the major papers had failed. If the story was false, order could be restored.
The institutions did not send reporters to investigate the drug dealers or the government officials. They sent reporters to investigate Gary Webb.
They picked apart his word choices. They attacked his personal character. They used anonymous sources from the very agencies Webb was exposing to deny his claims. They did not try to advance the truth; they tried to silence the messenger.
This is how the machinery works. It does not need to arrest a journalist to stop them. It only needs to isolate them. When the pressure becomes too high, the system demands a sacrifice to return to normal.
The fracture happened in his own newsroom.
Webb’s editors, who had initially celebrated the story, began to feel the heat from the national press. They stopped defending the work. They stopped defending him. In May 1997, the newspaper published a column apologizing for the series. They called it “flawed.”
They didn’t fire Webb. They did something worse. They transferred him from the investigative desk to a small bureau in Cupertino, 150 miles away from his family. His job was no longer uncovering state secrets. His job was to write brief reports about police blotters and local parades.
He arrived at the new office, and the phone did not ring. The silence was absolute.
Webb refused to quit. He kept digging. He wrote a book expanding on his evidence. But the label “disgraced reporter” followed him everywhere. The major papers had successfully branded him as a conspiracy theorist. He applied for jobs at daily newspapers, but no one would hire him. The door to his profession was locked.
For seven years, he watched from the outside.
In 1998, the CIA’s own Inspector General released a classified report. It was quiet, dense, and difficult to find. But inside, it admitted that the agency had known about the drug trafficking connected to the Contras. It admitted they had protected the traffickers from legal investigations.
Webb had been right.
But the apology never came. The major papers ran short summaries of the report on their back pages. The narrative was already set. Webb was the man who got it wrong, even though facts showed he had found the truth.
He lost his career. His marriage ended. He sold his house to pay debts. By 2004, the man who had exposed one of the darkest chapters of the 20th century was moving boxes for a moving company to make ends meet.
He had believed that the truth was a shield. He learned that without power, the truth is just a target.
On a Friday in December 2004, Gary Webb typed a note to his family. He placed his driver’s license on the bed so he could be identified. The system had taken his voice, his reputation, and his purpose.
He was 49 years old.
History eventually corrected the record. Today, the “Dark Alliance” series is taught in journalism schools. The documents are public. The connection between the drug war and foreign policy is accepted history.
But vindication is a cold comfort when you are not there to see it.
The question is not whether Gary Webb was perfect. No reporter is. The question is why the institutions designed to tell the truth worked so hard to destroy the man who actually did it.
Sources: Kill the Messenger by Nick Schou; Dark Alliance by Gary Webb; CIA Inspector General Report (1998); Columbia Journalism Review archives.
1984 George Orwell
Quote of the Day
“Recommend to your children virtue; that alone can make them happy, not gold.” – Ludwig van Beethoven, Composer (1770 – 1827)
Life Without Bread – Dr Lutz
He removed sugar. His patients got better. Medicine looked away.
1950s Austria.
Dr. Wolfgang Lutz is doing everything right.
Prescribing approved drugs. Following modern guidelines. Trusting the science of his time.
His patients keep coming back.
Diabetes controlled, not reversed.
Pain managed, not resolved.
Chronic disease after chronic disease.
So Lutz does something risky.
He thinks.
He digs into old medical literature. Before processed food. Before pharmaceutical dominance. Before calories became doctrine. One idea keeps reappearing.
Low carbohydrate eating.
He is skeptical. But honest. So he tries it on patients who have failed everything else.
His rules are simple.
Under 72 grams of carbohydrates per day.
No limits on meat, eggs, cheese, or butter.
Real food. No sugar. Minimal starch.
The results shock him.
Blood sugar normalizes.
Weight drops without hunger.
Inflammation fades.
Digestive disorders disappear.
Arthritis improves.
People do not just comply.
They recover.
So he keeps going. For decades. Thousands of patients. Same result every time.
Remove sugar and starch. Health returns.
In 1967, he publishes Leben Ohne Brot.
Life Without Bread.
Real patients. Real outcomes. Clear instructions.
Medicine ignores it.
This is the age of low-fat dogma. Margarine. Vegetable oils. Carbs as salvation. A doctor prescribing butter and steak is labeled as dangerous.
Lutz keeps going anyway.
He has something stronger than consensus.
He has results.
In 2000, at age 89, he publishes follow-up data. Patients low carb for over 30 years. Healthy. No early death. No arterial collapse. No cholesterol catastrophe.
He dies at 97.
Still low carb.
Still right.
We did not lack evidence.
We lacked courage.
You Are Cause
Lifestyle Habits of Billionaires
The Green Rucksack
I locked the classroom door. The metal click echoed like a gunshot in the sudden silence.
I turned to the twenty-five high school seniors staring at me. They were the Class of 2026. They were supposed to be the “Zoomers,” the digital natives, the generation that had everything figured out.
But from where I stood, looking at their faces illuminated by the blue light of hidden phones, they just looked tired.
“Put the phones away,” I said. My voice was quiet, but they heard it. “Turn them off. Not silent. Off.”
There was a grumble, a collective shifting of bodies in plastic chairs, but they did it.
For thirty years, I have taught History in this gritty, working-class town in Pennsylvania. I’ve watched the factories close. I’ve watched the opioids creep in like a fog. I’ve watched the arguments at home turn into wars on the news.
On my desk sat an old, olive-green military rucksack. It belonged to my father. It smells like old canvas and gasoline. It’s stained. It’s ugly.
For the first month of school, the students ignored it. They thought it was just “Mr. Miller’s junk.”
They didn’t know it was the heaviest thing in the entire building.
This year’s class was brittle. That’s the only word for it. You had the football players who walked with a swagger that looked practiced.
You had the theater kids who were too loud, trying to drown out the silence. You had the quiet ones who wore hoodies in September, trying to disappear into the drywall.
The air in the room was thick. Not with hate, but with exhaustion. They were eighteen years old, and they were already done.
“I’m not teaching the Constitution today,” I said, dragging the heavy rucksack to the center of the room. I dropped it on a stool.
Thud.
The sound made a girl in the front row flinch.
“We are going to do something different,” I said. “I’m passing out plain white index cards.”
I walked the rows, placing a card on each desk.
“I have three rules. If you break them, you leave.”
I held up a finger.
“Rule one: Do not write your name. This is anonymous. Completely.”
“Rule two: Total honesty. No jokes. No memes.”
“Rule three: Write down the heaviest thing you are carrying.”
A hand went up. It was Marcus, the defensive captain of the football team. A giant of a kid, usually cracking jokes. He looked confused. “What do you mean, ‘carrying’? Like, books?”
I leaned back against the whiteboard. “No, Marcus. I mean the thing that keeps you awake at 3:00 AM. The secret you are terrified to say out loud because you think people will judge you. The fear. The pressure. The weight on your chest.”
I looked them in the eyes. “We call this ‘The Rucksack.’ What goes in the bag, stays in the bag.”
The room went tomb-silent. The air conditioning hummed.
For five minutes, nobody moved. They looked at each other, waiting for the first person to crack.
Then, a girl in the back—Sarah, straight-A student, perfect hair—picked up her pen. She wrote furiously.
Then another. Then another.
Marcus, the football player, stared at the blank white card for a long time. His jaw was tight. He looked angry. Then, he hunched over, shielding his paper with his massive arm, and wrote three words.
When they were done, they walked up, one by one. They folded their cards and dropped them into the open mouth of the rucksack. It was like a religious ritual. A silent confession.
I zipped the bag shut. The sound was sharp.
“This,” I said, resting my hand on the faded canvas. “This is this room. You look at each other and you see jerseys, or makeup, or grades. But this bag? This is who you actually are.”
I took a deep breath. My own heart was hammering. It always does.
“I am going to read these out loud,” I said. “And your job—your only job—is to listen. No laughing. No whispering. No glancing at your neighbor to guess who wrote it. We just hold the weight. Together.”
I opened the bag. I reached in and pulled the first card.
I unfolded it. The handwriting was jagged.
“My dad lost his job at the plant six months ago. He puts on a suit every morning and leaves so the neighbors don’t know. He sits in his car at the park all day. I know he’s crying. I’m scared we’re going to lose the house.”
The room felt colder. I pulled the next one.
“I carry Narcan in my backpack. Not for me. For my mom. I found her blue on the bathroom floor last Tuesday. I saved her life, and then I came to school and took a Math test. I’m so tired.”
I paused. I looked up. Nobody was looking at their phones. Nobody was sleeping. They were staring at the bag.
I pulled another.
“I check the exits every time I walk into a movie theater or a grocery store. I map out where I would hide if a shooter came in. I’m eighteen and I plan my own death every day.”
Another.
“My parents hate each other because of politics. They scream at the TV every night. My dad says people who vote for the ‘other side’ are evil. He doesn’t know that I agree with the ‘other side.’ I feel like a spy in my own kitchen.”
Another.
“I have 10,000 followers on TikTok. I post videos of my perfect life. Last night, I sat in the shower with the water running so my little brother wouldn’t hear me sobbing. I am more lonely than I have ever been.”
I kept reading. For twenty minutes, the truth poured out of that green bag.
“I’m gay. My grandfather is a pastor. He told me last Sunday that ‘those people’ are broken. I love him, but I think he hates me, and he doesn’t even know it’s me.”
“We pretend the WiFi is down, but I know Mom couldn’t pay the bill again. I eat the free lunch at school because there’s nothing in the fridge.”
“I don’t want to go to college. I want to be a mechanic. But my parents have a bumper sticker on their car that says ‘Proud College Parent.’ I feel like I’m already a disappointment.”
And finally, the last one. The one that made the air leave the room.
“I don’t want to be here anymore. The noise is too loud. The pressure is too heavy. I’m just waiting for a sign to stay.”
I folded the card slowly. I placed it gently back in the bag.
I looked up.
Marcus, the tough linebacker, had his head in his hands. His shoulders were shaking. He wasn’t hiding it.
Sarah, the girl with the perfect grades, was reaching across the aisle, holding the hand of a boy who wore black eyeliner and usually sat alone. He was gripping her hand like a lifeline.
The barriers were gone. The cliques were dissolved.
They weren’t Jocks, or Nerds, or Liberals, or Conservatives. They were just kids. Kids walking through a storm without an umbrella.
“So,” I said, my voice cracking slightly. “That is what we carry.”
I zipped the bag. The sound was final.
“I’m hanging this back on the wall. It stays here. You don’t have to carry it alone anymore. Not in here. In this room, we are a team.”
The bell rang. Usually, it triggers a stampede.
Today, nobody moved.
Slowly, quietly, they began to pack up their things. And then, something happened that I will never forget.
As Marcus walked past the stool, he didn’t just walk by. He stopped. He reached out and patted the rucksack, two gentle thumps. I got you.
Then the next student. She rested her palm on the strap for a second.
Then the boy who wrote about the Narcan. He touched the metal buckle.
Every single student touched that bag on the way out. They were acknowledging the weight. They were saying, I see you.
I have taught American History for three decades. I have lectured on the Civil War, the Great Depression, and the Civil Rights Movement. But that hour was the most important lesson I have ever taught.
We live in a country obsessed with winning. With looking strong. With the “highlight reel” we post on social media. We are terrified of our own cracks.
And our kids? They are paying the price. They are drowning in silence, right next to each other.
That evening, I received an email. The subject line was blank.
“Mr. Miller. My son came home today and hugged me. He hasn’t hugged me since he was twelve. He told me about the bag. He said he felt ‘real’ for the first time in high school. He told me he was struggling. We are going to get help. Thank you.”
The green rucksack is still on my wall. It looks like garbage to anyone who walks in. But to us, it’s a monument.
Listen to me.
Look around you today. The woman ahead of you in the checkout line buying generic cereal. The teenager with the headphones on the bus. The man shouting about politics on Facebook.
They are all carrying a rucksack you cannot see. It is packed with fear, with financial worry, with loneliness, with trauma.
Be kind. Be curious. Stop judging the surface and remember the weight underneath.
Don’t be afraid to ask the people you love: “What are you carrying today?”
You might just save a life
US Consumer Sentiment and Shares vs Gold
The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index is one of the clearest windows into how the average American actually feels about the economy.
Each month, the university surveys households across the country, asking straightforward questions about personal finances, job prospects, inflation, and expectations for the future. Those responses are distilled into a single number that captures the public’s economic mood. Because it has been tracked for decades, the index offers a long-running reality check on confidence at the household level.
Today, the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index is sitting near record lows — decisively below levels seen during the 2008 financial crisis, the dot-com bust, and even the deep recessions of the early 1990s and 1980s.
How can stock market valuations be at or near historical highs while the average American is about as pessimistic as they’ve ever been?
This contradiction is a perfect illustration of the financial fun house — and the extreme distortions that relentless money printing has pumped into the system.
If fiat currency is a dishonest measuring stick — and it is — then how do we accurately measure the stock market?
The best option is to measure value in gold, honest money that no politician can arbitrarily debase.
If measuring in fiat is like looking into a fun house mirror, then gold is a mirror of truth. And when we measure the stock market in gold, that truth becomes clear. Below is a chart of the S&P 500 measured in gold going back to 1950.
Viewed through the lens of gold, the stock market tells a very different story than it does in fiat terms — and this chart makes that unmistakably clear.
The most striking feature of the chart is what isn’t there: a sustained upward trend. The S&P 500 today is worth the same amount of gold it was in 1995.
Despite decades of nominal gains, the stock market has repeatedly given back those gains when measured against gold. In other words, the rising stock market was more a reflection of currency debasement than of real wealth creation.
This helps explain the disconnect at the heart of today’s market. In fiat terms, stock prices appear to be at record highs. But in gold terms — a unit that cannot be printed — the market looks far less extraordinary.
Measured in gold, US stocks peaked in 1999, when the S&P 500 was worth just over 164 grams of gold. Today, the index is worth 43 grams — a decline of more than 73% from its 1999 peak.
More recently, the S&P 500 peaked at about 82 grams of gold in late 2021. Today, it’s worth roughly 43 grams. In other words, despite the recent melt-up and the stock market ripping to new nominal all-time highs, when measured in gold, the S&P 500 is down more than 47% since late 2021 and sitting at roughly the same level it was in 1995.
In other words, when we look at the stock market through a mirror of truth rather than a fun house mirror, it becomes clear that it is in a deep bear market. It’s no wonder consumer sentiment is near an all-time low.
Despite the nominal melt-up in stocks, most Americans are becoming poorer when measured in real, honest money — not fake government confetti.
I expect this dynamic — a nominal stock market melt-up alongside Americans becoming poorer — to accelerate in 2026. I expect the stock market to go higher and valuations to become even more insane — but I expect gold to rise even faster.
Currency debasement is driving this trend, and unfortunately, all signs point to much more of it in 2026.
This is exactly why positioning matters far more than headlines in the years ahead. If stocks continue rising only because the dollar is being sacrificed, then real gains will increasingly come from assets that benefit from that debasement rather than from it being disguised.
Gold has already been signaling this shift — and within the gold space, select opportunities stand to outperform dramatically as this trend accelerates into 2026.
Source: https://internationalman.com/articles/the-melt-up-trap-why-stocks-must-rise-until-the-dollar-breaks/