How did western civilization lose its connections to the historic moral and philosophical traditions that had imbued it with a love of progress, a respect for the past and sacrifice for the future for centuries? In this discussion between the New Lyre Podcast host David Gosselin and RTF director Matthew Ehret, this question is unpacked…
Dante’s Commedia, or How to Escape a Modern Inferno
By David Gosselin This is the accompanying article to a lecture given by the same author, as part of the RTF Lecture Series “The Renaissance Principle Across the Ages“. Many today would consider Dante Alighieri a “Dead White European Male” of dubious relevancy. However, Dante is in fact alive and well, as are so many…
RTF Dialogue with Dr. Edward Lozansky: The Spirit of Elbe Day and Its Strategic Importance
In this edition of Rising Tide Foundation Dialogues, Matt Ehret talks with American University in Moscow’s Dr. Edward Lozansky on his life’s work as a nuclear physicist, political exile, back channel diplomat between Russia and the USA and leading peace organizer with a focus on war avoidance, cooperation and education for over 40 years. We…
RTF Dialogues with Lawrence Freeman: Transaqua, the New Silk Road and a New Vision for Africa
In this episode of RTF Dialogues, Matt Ehret and Cynthia Chung talk with international Africa expert Lawrence Freeman on the rise of a new paradigm of development for Africa. Check out Lawrence’s website here: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com Bio: Lawrence Freeman is an outspoken opponent of the current policies of neo-colonialism. He is a highly respected researcher, writer,…
Political Pessimism and Opposition to the Development of the African Interior with Transaqua
By PD Lawton We live in strange times where supposedly well-informed analysts tell us that transformative infrastructure projects in Africa are soft power tools and that therefore development is dangerous…. Neither questions about the climate or development have ambiguous answers. The truth is not a variable! Carbon dioxide is plant food not a pollutant and…
Symposium: Renaissance Across the Ages
While all living beings are mortal, only human kind has access to the self-awareness of its own mortality. With this knowledge of our own finiteness, we may become cynical and fearful pessimists wallowing in despair and nihilism or we may choose to embrace a higher set of goals and principles for the identity we shape…
Shall We Allow Poets in the Republic? Part Three
By Gerald Therrien At the end of part 2 of ‘Shall We Allow Poets in the Republic’, we came upon the proposition that poets either must be ‘possessed and insane’ and derive their inspiration from some divine influence – like the oracles and prophecies of the priests and priestesses of the gods, or that poets…
A Journey with Jeff J. Brown Through China’s History, Political-economy and Culture
In our first official Rising Tide Foundation Podcast, Cynthia Chung and Matthew Ehret interview China Rising Radio’s Jeff J. Brown on all things China. In this extensive discussion, Jeff goes through the historic voyages of Admiral Zheng He generations before Columbus which brought commerce, culture and trade to Africa, Europe and even the Americas in…
The Chinese-Russian-Iranian Alliance Ushers in a New Hope for the Middle East
By Matthew Ehret Russia and China have accelerated the next phase of Middle East reconstruction and stabilization this week with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s March 24-30th Middle East tour resulting in the finalization of the long-awaited Five Point Initiative for Security in Southwest Asia on March 30th and $400 billion Iran deal on March 27th. These milestones were accompanied by…
Why Iran’s Development of Nuclear Energy Will Create Stability and Prosperity in the Middle East
By Cynthia Chung This is Part 3 of the series “Iran’s Century and a Half Fight for Sovereignty”. Part 1 is a historical overview of Iran’s long struggle with Britain’s control over Iranian oil and the SIS-CIA overthrow of Iran’s Nationalist leader Mosaddegh in 1953. Part 2 covers the period of the Shah’s battle with the Seven Sisters, the…
A Damned Murder Inc: Kennedy’s Battle Against the Leviathan
By Cynthia Chung As discussed in part two of this series, the war in Vietnam did not start on its official date, November 1st, 1955, but rather 1945 when American clandestine operations were launched in Vietnam to “prepare the ground”. Fletcher Prouty, who served as Chief of Special Operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Kennedy…
The U.S. Pivot to Asia: Cold War Lessons From Vietnam for Today
By Cynthia Chung In part one of this series, I discussed how a massive U.S. arms stockpile in Okinawa, Japan that was originally intended to be used for the planned American invasion of Japan was cancelled once the two atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. L. Fletcher Prouty, who served as Chief of Special…
RTF Review of “Seven Days in May”
John Frankenheimer’s “Seven Days in May” (1964) may be a Hollywood movie but it is also an incredibly insightful account of the problem with Cold War thinking, based off of the book by the same title. At the time it was meant to be a lesson and warning to those who allowed themselves to be…
Pulling Back from the Brink of Self-Annihilation: MLK’s ‘Beyond Vietnam’ Revisited
This Easter Sunday, April 4th marks a solemn day as we recall the sacrifice and immortal living spirit of Jesus Christ and also a man who lived his life in the model of Christ… Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. It was 54 years ago, on April 4, 1967 that King delivered one of his boldest…
Leaping from Despair into Hope: The Lesson of Rembrandt’s Resurrection for Today’s Troubled World
By Matthew Ehret Today, the world finds itself moving through a turbulent transformation between two systems. Collapsing at a faster rate every day are the foundations of a failed imperial world order defined by zero-sum thinking, consumerism and materialism which has defined our existence for decades. The question is now: will the new world system…
Why the Study of Ancient History Must Be Reformed
Our understanding of humanity’s place in the universe and how it came to be is the result of centuries or even millennia of scholarship and dedicated inquiry. But what happens when an intellectual heretic arises, one whose ideas or theory threatens to undermine humanity’s most essential understanding of itself? Is the heretic and his or her…
Clarity vs. Obscurity V: Eliot’s Masks
By Adam Sedia Click here for Part I, Part II, Part III , and Part IV to this series. T.S. Eliot means many things to many different people. Like Yeats he won the Nobel Prize in Literature. In the academy he numbers among the titans of twentieth-century poetry, with The Waste Land hailed as the epic of our…
Escaping the Brave New World: Defeating the Culture of Zeus
This week, the New Lyre Podcast’s David Gosselin sat down with RTF’s Matthew Ehret in order to discuss the important matter of art, science and politics. It is taken as self-evident that humanity transmits its ideas, discoveries and passions across countless generations via the power of culture. But what is this thing called “culture” and…
On H.G. Wells’ ‘The Shape of Things to Come’
By Cynthia Chung “It has become apparent that whole masses of human population are, as a whole, inferior in their claim upon the future, to other masses, that they cannot be given opportunities or trusted with power as the superior peoples are trusted, that their characteristic weaknesses are contagious and detrimental to the civilizing fabric,…
The Historic Clash of Two Opposing Paradigms: Gilpin’s Landbridge vs. Mahan’s World Maritime Empire
By Matthew Ehret Compared the great initiatives taken on behalf of freedom and anti colonialism throughout the past 260 years, today’s America appears to be a strange and foolish creature running roughshod over the dignity of people and nations in a race for mass nuclear extermination. Such is the image projected by Mike Pompeo’s anti-China…
Colbert, Leibniz and Vattel: The Cameralist Roots of the American System
Everyone knows of the American Revolution and Declaration of 1776. Very few people know of the deeper historical currents and networks of republicans stretching across space and time that made this revolution happen and upon whose ideas, a system came into being which was named “The American System of Political Economy”. On Sunday July 12th,…
Prometheus and America: The True Story of the American System by Anton Chaitkin
In this second presentation of the series “A Harmony of Interests: Inquiries into the True Nature of the American System“, sponsored by the Rising Tide Foundation, historian Anton Chaitkin (author of Treason in America [1984] and The Unauthorized Biography of George Bush [1991]) introduces his upcoming book and guides us through a powerful sweep of…
The First NATO: Re-assessing the Anglo-French Alliance of the 19th Century
During this lecture, Martin Sieff (award winning journalist with Sputnik News and Strategic Culture) delivers an explosive re-assessment of world history during the mid-late 19th century. Since many disturbing elements of history have begun to repeat in our modern age, it is vital to come to a greater awareness of this forgotten past now while…
Tomorrow’s Arctic: Theatre of War or Cooperation? The Real Story Behind the Alaska Purchase
By Matthew Ehret Today, the Arctic has increasingly become identified as a domain of great prosperity and cooperation amongst world civilizations on the one side and a domain of confrontation and war on the other. In 2007, the Russian government first voiced its support for the construction of the Bering Strait rail tunnel connecting the Americas with…
Halton Arp and the Fight for Our Living Universe
Is there reason to believe that the Big Bang which most scientists believe kick started the universe as we know it 13.7 billion years ago, may not be true? In this Rising Tide Foundation lecture, Matthew Ehret takes the opportunity to introduce some competing alternatives to Big Bang Cosmology and standard model quantum mechanics which…
The Magic of the Atom
If human activity moves into planetary bodies, the distances are daunting and challenges manifold. What type of energy sources will be needed to support a species capable of making journies to Mars or beyond? What sort of energy sources would open up new avenues of creativity on earth at the same time? Chemical fuel and…
Towards An Age of Creative Reason Symposium
To register for upcoming RTF lecture series, please contact info@risingtidefoundation.net Today, perhaps more so than at any time in history, we are experiencing a divide between what is considered to be the “domain” or “confinement” of art as wholly separate from the domain of “politics.” The irony of such a perception is its failure to…
The Power of Metaphor
By David Gosselin Metaphor should not be approached as some “thing,” but as a transformative power, the invisible process by which “things” come into being. Using metaphor, even very simple language and very common-place images can be brought into new, unique constellations. Contrary to the sundry definitions of metaphor proffered by many school teachers and…
Why the Poetic Principle is Imperative for Statecraft
Cynthia Chung Today, perhaps more so than at any time in history, we are experiencing a divide between what is considered to be the “domain” or “confinement” of art as wholly separate from the domain of “politics.” The irony of such a perception is its failure to recognise that the root of our political system…
No More Brainwashing Into Fascism and War!
By Irene Eckert “It would be difficult to overestimate the extent to which liberty and democracy in the United States are currently endangered …” Albert E. Kahn, Treason in Congress, April 1948 “… mankind is threatened with wars, compared with which the past ones look like poor attempts and they will come without a doubt if the hands…
An Overview of the Bay of Pigs and its Relevance for Today
By Cynthia Chung “There is a kind of character in thy life, That to the observer doth thy history, fully unfold.” – William Shakespeare Once again we find ourselves in a situation of crisis, where the entire world holds its breath all at once and can only wait to see whether this volatile black cloud…
Toussaint Louverture, the Haitian Revolution and the Evolution of the American Republic
In this lecture, historian and author Gerald Therrien introduces the turbulent world of 1787-1804 which shaped (and was in turn shaped by) the Haitian Revolution establishing the world’s second republic. This was a world shaped by battles within America itself between opposing factions of Americans who read the newly established Constitution from diametrically opposing worldviews….
Frederick Douglass, Lincoln and the Fight to Save the Soul of America
To quote Martin Luther King: “Is anything more obvious than the presence of evil in the universe? Its nagging, prehensile tentacles projects into every level of human existence. We may debate the origin of evil, but only a victim of superficial optimism would debate its reality. Evil is stark, grim, and colossally real. … Within…
The Harmony Between Tianxia and Westphalia
By Matthew Ehret I have noticed that many pro-Chinese thinkers and writers have lately made the mistake of presuming that Chinese culture and civilization stands in total opposition to the divisive/imperially minded western culture which has laid waste to much of the world over the past centuries. This perception has expressed itself in the various…
Multipolar vs Unipolar RTF Symposium
To participate in all upcoming Rising Tide Foundation Zoom Lectures, simply write to info@risingtidefoundation.net. Visit our Symposia page for more information. America’s Forgotten Fight for Universal ProgressLecturer: Anton Chaitkin (author of Who We Are: America’s Fight for Universal Progress) Teddy Roosevelt’s Last Mad CrusadeLecturer: Martin Sieff (author of Cycles of Change) Hamiltonian Economics and the…
The International Dimensions of 1776 and How an Age of Reason Was Subverted
By Matthew Ehret Today, a larger-than-usual shadow is cast upon America which has come face-to-face with some serious historic reckonings. While the existence of an oligarchy and international “deep state” should not be ignored as a political force of history- arranging wars, assassinations and promoting economic enslavement of people and nations throughout the centuries, the…
Conceptualizing Humanity’s Long Term Survival: Open vs. Closed Systems
During this March 2, 2021 lecture to a class at the Moscow National Research Nuclear University hosted by Dr. Edward Lozansky, the Rising Tide Foundation’s Matt Ehret introduces the two opposing options for conceptualizing systems both in general terms and with concrete examples in human economics. Whether we choose to assume that boundaries to our…
Benjamin Franklin and Chinese Civilization
Dave Wang is Manager of Hollis Library and Adjunct Professor of St. Johns University– Article originally published on Reset DOC (Dialogue of Civilizations) Prof. Wang has published over twenty groundbreaking articles on the topic of Chinese influences on the founding fathers of America. You can find more of his incredible work athttps://foundingfathersandchina.blogspot.com Scholarship on the study…
Return of the Leviathan: The Fascist Roots of the CIA and the True Origin of the Cold War
By Cynthia Chung In 1998, the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group (IWG), at the behest of Congress, launched what became the largest congressionally mandated, single-subject declassification effort in history. As a result, more than 8.5 million pages of records have been opened to the public under the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure…
How To Conquer Tyranny and Avoid Tragedy: A Lesson on Defeating Systems of Empire
By Cynthia Chung This is a transcription of a lecture, which can be found here, given as part of the RTF series “Art, Science and Civilization: The Renaissance Principles Across the Ages.“ It is common today to be confronted with the belief that any country, any civilization that gains a certain degree of power, will…
How to Conquer Tyranny: A Lesson from Plato
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Plato’s Letter VII Plato to Dion’s associates and friends wishes well-doing. You write to me that I must consider your views the same as those of Dion, and you urge me to aid your cause so far as I can…
The Stupidity of Artificial Intelligence (RTF Lecture)
During this Rising Tide Foundation lecture, the history of Artificial Intelligence is examined from the 19th century to the present as the following questions are posed: 1) Is it truly possible to replicate the full spectrum of human mentation with “machine learning” as is popularly presumed today? 2) What are the positive roles for computer…
Kennedy’s U.S.-Russia Joint Space Vision Must Be Revived
By Matthew Ehret September 20th marks the anniversary of the last speech John F Kennedy delivered to the United Nations’ General Assembly. This event bears more relevance upon our present crisis than most people could possibly imagine. This is true not only because it is wise to pay homage to great ideas of the past which lesser souls…
The Day the World Stood Still: A Story of the First Atomic Bomb and Our Perpetual Cold War
By Cynthia Chung Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;And thus the native hue of resolutionIs sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,And enterprises of great pith and momentWith this regard their currents turn awry,And lose the name of action. – Shakespeare’s Hamlet Act III, scene I [This paper works as a follow-up…
Discourse On the Debt of Africa, Thirty-Three Years On
by PD Lawton Today, Africa stands at the cross-roads. This is the last opportunity for the continent`s leadership to decide the fate of 1.3 billion people. This is the most crucial moment in Africa`s history. The choice on one hand, is to continue following IMF diktat and agree to a future of economic policy that benefits the…
The Mind, Life and Insights of Confucius
While all living beings are mortal, only human kind has access to the self-awareness of its own mortality. With this knowledge of our own finiteness, we may become cynical and fearful pessimists wallowing in despair and nihilism or we may choose to embrace a higher set of goals and principles for the identity we shape…
The Poetic Principle in the World of the I Ching: Mankind’s Long Journey to Reason and Beauty
In this lecture Dr. Quan Le focuses on the I Ching, the first Confucian Classic (of five: Yi Jing, Shu Jing, Shi Jing, Chun Qiu and Zhou Li) which magnificently embodies the poetic principle famously outlined by Shelley, centuries later, in his Defense of Poetry which re-asserted that Poets are the true legislators of the world….
The Spirit of Win-Win Cooperation: 15-19th Century Diplomatic Success of China
Although it is well known that China has become the world’s largest and fastest growing economy in the world- outpacing the USA since the unveiling of the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013, it is too often forgotten that this dominant position is not new, but merely a return to the “normal” state of world…
The Spirit of Apollo-Soyuz Is Alive… With the Russia/China Space Alliance
By Matthew Ehret Forty five years ago, Cold Warriors in the Pentagon and CIA shook their fists angrily at the stars- and for good reason. On July 17, 1975 the first international handshake was occurring in space between Russian Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov and American astronaut Thomas Stafford as the first official act kicking off the…
How to Overcome Today’s Crisis: A Lesson from 1933
As the world is swept up by a two fold crisis led by a global coronavirus pandemic and financial collapse, it is no wonder that America’s great president Franklin Roosevelt is on everyones’ mind. Faced with the collapse of the cultural, economic and social fabric of society after 4 years of depression, President Roosevelt launched…
