Franklin Delano Roosevelt famously said, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” But David P. Goldman, a speaker at Hillsdale’s Center for Constructive Alternatives lecture series “The Great Reset” said, “We aren’t nearly scared enough. I’m going to try to scare you as much as I can and hopefully provide the solution.”
Hillsdale hosted its second CCA of the academic year from Nov. 7 to 10. The four-day lecture series included sessions on the COVID-19 pandemic, the woke movement, the inclination towards a cashless society, China’s rise, and the proper response.
Speakers said world leaders and large corporations have a plan to “reset global order.”
Michael Rectenwald, author of “Beyond Woke,” spoke at the CCA on Sunday afternoon about the World Economic Forum — a global organization that pushes global, societal, and economic reform — and the usage of the COVID-19 pandemic to gain governmental control.
He defines “The Great reset” on his website.
“The great reset is really a propaganda cmpaign initiated by the World Economic Forum,” he said. “It’s an effort to reset the economy and really reset the whole social structure.”
Brian Wesbury, chief economist at First Trust Portfolios LP, said during his Tuesday night talk the World Economic Forum “wants a change in the entire relationship between government and people.”
“What they want is a Green New Deal, free college, free childcare, single-parent healthcare system, federal controlled financial system, higher tax-rates, wealth tax, more control over the education system,” he said.
David Goldman discussed China’s success in the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the necessity for America to match its competitor in his talk “The Great Reset from China’s Perspective.”
“We need another Reagan, we need another Kennedy,” he said. “We need that kind of appeal to our sense of wonder, our desire for a challenge, something that will make our young people want to throw away the video games and hit an engineering text book and make us great again.”
Goldman said America matched the Soviet Union and needs to step up to China now.
“We’ve done it before, I pray we can do it again,” he said.
Chinese development has advanced in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, beginning around March 2020, through artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing under the cover of tracking the pandemic, he said.
Other speakers included Vivek Ramaswamy, author of “Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam” and James Rickards, author of “The New Great Depression: Winners and Losers in a Post-Pandemic World.”
History repeating itself was an overall theme of the CCA.
“King Solomon said, ‘There is nothing new under the sun’ and I’ll translate to ‘human nature doesn’t change,’” Wesbury said.
Wesbury also provided a solution in religious faith and specifically the system of law.
“Once you put the law in place, we all operate under the same rules: getting rid of the law takes us back to violence,” he said. “That’s the underlying philosophy. That’s the underlying thing that made America great. That’s what we have to defend.”
Freshman Keara Gentry, who attended the CCA, and said she appreciated how the speakers laid out facts in an orderly way, allowing the audience to draw conclusions, especially the second lecture by Vivek Ramaswamy.
“Whatever you do, do it well. Pursue excellence,” Gentry said. “And I would say, that’s what it is to bring the Kingdom on earth. The Kingdom of God on earth is the pursuit of excellence.”
Wesbury finished by saying Hillsdale is part of the solution to the problem.
“The alternative to the Great Reset is more Hillsdales,” he said.
