Full screen recommended.
2002, "Chrysalis"
“Oceans of strings and choirs, flutes and keyboards lift us
out of the trials and tribulations of our daily lives as though
we were on a ship with gossamer sails, sailing on the moonlight.”
– Steve Ryals
So, we rise from the rubble...
Wednesday, November 6, 2024
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Gorgeous spiral galaxy NGC 3521 is a mere 35 million light-years away, toward the constellation Leo. Relatively bright in planet Earth's sky, NGC 3521 is easily visible in small telescopes but often overlooked by amateur imagers in favor of other Leo spiral galaxies, like M66 and M65. It's hard to overlook in this colorful cosmic portrait, though. Spanning some 50,000 light-years the galaxy sports characteristic patchy, irregular spiral arms laced with dust, pink star forming regions, and clusters of young, blue stars.
Remarkably, this deep image also finds NGC 3521 embedded in gigantic bubble-like shells. The shells are likely tidal debris, streams of stars torn from satellite galaxies that have undergone mergers with NGC 3521 in the distant past."
"I Keep Saying That..."
"Angel: Well, I guess I kinda worked it out. If there's no great glorious end to all this, if nothing we do matters... then all that matters is what we do. 'Cause that's all there is. What we do. Now. Today. I fought for so long, for redemption, for a reward, and finally just to beat the other guy, but I never got it.
Kate Lockley: And now you do?
Angel: Not all of it. All I wanna do is help. I wanna help, because I don't think people should suffer as they do. Because, if there's no bigger meaning, then the smallest act of kindness is the greatest thing in the world.
Kate Lockley: Yikes. It sounds like you've had an epiphany.
Angel: I keep saying that, but nobody's listening."
"The Mark Of Him..."
“The barbarian hopes, and that is the mark of him, that he can have his cake and eat it too. He will consume what civilization has slowly produced after generations of selection and effort, but he will not be at pains to replace such goods, nor indeed has he a comprehension of the virtue that has brought them into being. We sit by and watch the barbarian. We tolerate him in the long stretches of peace, we are not afraid. We are tickled by his irreverence; his comic inversion of our old certitudes; we laugh. But as we laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond, and on these faces there are no smiles.“
- Hilaire Belloco
Dan, I Allegedly, "It’s Time to Pay the Bill"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, PM 11/6/24
"It’s Time to Pay the Bill"
Comments here:
"Scott Ritter: Hezbollah Wipes Out Israeli Ground War, IDF Collapses on All Fronts"
Danny Haiphong, 11/6/24
"Scott Ritter: Hezbollah Wipes Out Israeli Ground War,
IDF Collapses on All Fronts"
Former UN Weapons Inspector and US Marine Corps Intelligence Officer Scott Ritter EXPOSES Israel's massive defeat at the hands of Hezbollah as the IDF's ground operation in Lebanon is put to a screeching halt. This must see video breaks down the massive impact that Israel's rapidly deteriorating situation in Lebanon will have on the region at large.
Comments here:
o
"The Day Has Been So Full Of Fret And Care..."
“The day has been so full of fret and care, and our hearts have been so full of evil and of bitter thoughts, and the world has seemed so hard and wrong to us. Then Night, like some great loving mother, gently lays her hand upon our fevered head, and turns our little tear-stained faces up to hers, and smiles; and though she does not speak, we know what she would say, and lay our hot flushed cheek against her bosom, and the pain is gone. Sometimes, our pain is very deep and real, and we stand before her very silent, because there is no language for our pain, only a moan. Night’s heart is full of pity for us: she cannot ease our aching; she takes our hand in hers, and the little world grows very small and very far away beneath us, and, borne on her dark wings, we pass for a moment into a mightier Presence than her own, and in the wondrous light of that great Presence, all human life lies like a book before us, and we know that Pain and Sorrow are but angels of God.”
- Jerome K. Jerome
"Too Often..."
"Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word,
a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring,
all of which have the potential to turn a life around."
- Leo Buscaglia
"The Last Time Always Happens Now"
"The Last Time Always Happens Now"
by David Cain
"William Irvine, an author and philosophy professor I’m a big fan of, often tries to point people towards a little-discussed fact of human life: "You always know when you’re doing something for the first time, and you almost never know when you’re doing something for the last time."
There was, or will be, a last time for everything you do, from climbing a tree to changing a diaper, and living with a practiced awareness of that fact can make even the most routine day feel like it’s bursting with blessings. Of all the lasting takeaways from my periodic dives into Stoicism, this is the one that has enhanced my life the most. I’ve touched on it before in my Stoicism experiment log and in a Patreon post, and I intend to write about it many more times in the future (but who can say?)
To explain why someone might want to start thinking seriously about last times, Bill Irvine asks us to imagine a rare but relatable event: going to your favorite restaurant one last time, knowing it’s about to close up for good.
Predictably, dining on this last-ever night makes for a much richer experience than almost all the other times you’ve eaten at that restaurant, but it’s not because the food, decor, or service is any different than usual. It’s better because you know it’s the last time, so you’re apt to savor everything you can about it, right down to the worn menus and tacky napkin rings. You’re unlikely to let any mistakes or imperfections bother you, and in fact you might find them endearing.
It becomes clearer than ever, in other words, how great it was while it lasted, and how little the petty stuff mattered. On that last dinner, you can set aside minor issues with ease, and appreciate even the most mundane details. Anything else would seem foolish, because you’re here now, and this is it. It might even occur to you that there’s no reason you couldn’t have enjoyed it this much every time you dined here – except that all the other times, you knew there would be more times, so you didn’t have to be so intentional about appreciating it.
That’s an exceptionally rare situation though. Almost always, we do things for the last time without knowing it’s the last time. There was a last time – on an actual calendar date – when you drew a picture with crayons purely for your own pleasure. A last time you excitedly popped a Blockbuster rental into your VCR. A last time you played fetch with a certain dog. Whenever the last time happened, it was “now” at the time.
You’ve certainly heard the heart-wrenching insight that there’s always a last time a parent picks up their child. By a certain age the child is too big, which means there’s always an ordinary day when the parent picks up and puts down their child as they have a thousand times before, with no awareness that it was the last time they would do it.
Ultimately there will be as many last times as there were first times. There will be last time you do laundry. A last time you eat pie. A last time you visit a favorite neighborhood, city, or country. For every single friend you’ve ever had, there will be a last time you talk, or maybe there already has been.
For ninety-nine percent of these last times, you will have no idea that that’s what it is. It will seem like another of the many middle times, with a lot more to come. If you knew it was the last-ever time you spoke to a certain person or did a certain activity, you’d probably make a point of appreciating it, like a planned last visit to Salvatore’s Pizzeria. You wouldn’t spend it thinking about something else, or let minor annoyances spoil it.
Many last times are still a long way in the future, of course. The trouble is you don’t know which ones. The solution, Irvine suggests, is to frequently imagine that this is the last time, even when it’s probably not. A few times a day, whatever you’re doing, you assume you’re doing that thing for the last time. There will be a last time you sip coffee, like you’re doing now. What if this sip was it? There will be a last time you walk into the office and say hi to Sally. If this was it, you might be a little more genuine, a little more present.
The point isn’t to make life into a series of desperate goodbyes. You can go ahead and do the thing more or less normally. You might find, though, that when you frame it as a potential last time, you pay more attention to it, and you appreciate it for what it is in a way you normally don’t. It turns out that ordinary days are full of experiences you expect will keep happening forever, and of course none of them will.
It doesn’t matter if the activity is something you particularly love doing. Walking into a 7-11 or weeding the garden is just as worthy of last-time practice as hugging a loved one. Even stapling the corner of some pages together can generate a sense of appreciation, if you saw it as your final act of stapling in a life that’s contained a surprising amount of stapling.
Irvine uses mowing the lawn as an example, a task he doesn’t love doing. If you imagine that this is the last time you’ll mow the lawn, rather than consider it a good riddance, you might realize that there will be a time when you’ve mown your last lawn, and that there were a lot of great things about living in your lawn-mowing, bungalow-maintaining heyday. A few seconds later, it dawns on you that you still are.
You can get very specific with the experiences you do this with. The last time you roll cookie dough between your palms. The last time you get rained on. The last time you sidestep down a crowded cinema aisle. The last time your jeans smell like campfire smoke. The last time your daughter says “swannich” instead of “sandwich.” Virtually everything is a worthy candidate for this reflection.
It always brings perspective to your life as it is now, and it never gets old. It’s an immensely rewarding exercise, but it not a laborious one. It takes only two or three seconds - allowing yourself “a flickering thought,” as Irvine put it - to notice what you’re doing right now, and consider the possibility that this is indeed the last escalator ride at Fairfield Mall, the last time you put on a Beatles record, the last time you encounter a squirrel, or the last time you parallel park in front of Aunt Rita’s building."
○
Full screen recommended.
The Rolling Stones, "The Last Time"
"Halt And Catch Fire"
"There's a great phrase, 'Halt and Catch Fire', which means, basically, you know sh&t's going to hit the fan, so you stop, accept it and move the [another expletive we'd prefer not to write] on. 'Halt and Catch Fire'is an early machine command that sent the machine into a race condition, forcing all conditions to compete for superiority at once."
- Addison Wiggin
Canadian Prepper, "Alert! Great News, Civil War Averted! WW3 Cancelled? Economy Fixed?"
Canadian Prepper, 11/6/24
"Alert! Great News, Civil War Averted!
WW3 Cancelled? Economy Fixed?"
Comments here:
"The Politics of Cultural Despair"
"The Politics of Cultural Despair"
It is despair that is killing us. It fosters what the Roger Lancaster
calls “poisoned solidarity,” the intoxication forged from
the negative energies of fear, envy, hatred and a lust for violence.
by Mr. Fish
"In the end, the election was about despair. Despair over futures that evaporated with deindustrialization. Despair over the loss of 30 million jobs in mass layoffs. Despair over austerity programs and the funneling of wealth upwards into the hands of rapacious oligarchs. Despair over a liberal class that refuses to acknowledge the suffering it orchestrated under neoliberalism or embrace New Deal type programs that will ameliorate this suffering. Despair over the futile, endless wars, as well as the genocide in Gaza, where generals and politicians are never held accountable. Despair over a democratic system that has been seized by corporate and oligarchic power.
This despair has been played out on the bodies of the disenfranchised through opioid and alcoholism addictions, gambling, mass shootings, suicides - especially among middle-aged white males - morbid obesity and the investment of our emotional and intellectual life in tawdry spectacles and the allure of magical thinking, from the absurd promises of the Christian right to the Oprah-like belief that reality is never an impediment to our desires. These are the pathologies of a deeply diseased culture, what Friedrich Nietzsche calls an aggressive despiritualized nihilism.
Donald Trump is a symptom of our diseased society. He is not its cause. He is what is vomited up out of decay. He expresses a childish yearning to be an omnipotent god. This yearning resonates with Americans who feel they have been treated like human refuse. But the impossibility of being a god, as Ernest Becker writes, leads to its dark alternative - destroying like a god. This self-immolation is what comes next.
Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party, along with the establishment wing of the Republican Party, which allied itself with Harris, live in their own non-reality-based belief system. Harris, who was anointed by party elites and never received a single primary vote, proudly trumped her endorsement by Dick Cheney, a politician who left office with a 13 percent approval rating. The smug, self-righteous “moral” crusade against Trump stokes the national reality television show that has replaced journalism and politics. It reduces a social, economic and political crisis to the personality of Trump. It refuses to confront and name the corporate forces responsible for our failed democracy. It allows Democratic politicians to blithely ignore their base - 77 percent of Democrats and 62 percent of independents support an arms embargo against Israel. The open collusion with corporate oppression and refusal to heed the desires and needs of the electorate neuters the press and Trump critics. These corporate puppets stand for nothing, other than their own advancement. The lies they tell to working men and women, especially with programs such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), do far more damage than any of the lies uttered by Trump.
Oswald Spengler in “The Decline of the West” predicted that, as Western democracies calcified and died, a class of “monied thugs,” people such as Trump, would replace the traditional political elites. Democracy would become a sham. Hatred would be fostered and fed to the masses to encourage them to tear themselves apart.
The American dream has become an American nightmare. The social bonds, including jobs that gave working Americans a sense of purpose and stability, that gave them meaning and hope, have been sundered. The stagnation of tens of millions of lives, the realization that it will not be better for their children, the predatory nature of our institutions, including education, health care and prisons, have engendered, along with despair, feelings of powerlessness and humiliation. It has bred loneliness, frustration, anger and a sense of worthlessness.
“When life is not worth living, everything becomes a pretext for ridding ourselves of it,” Émile Durkheim wrote. “There is a collective mood, as there is an individual mood, that inclines nations to sadness. For individuals are too closely involved in the life of society for it to be sick without their being affected. It's suffering inevitably becomes theirs.”
Decayed societies, where a population is stripped of political, social and economic power, instinctively reach out for cult leaders. I watched this during the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. The cult leader promises a return to a mythical golden age and vows, as Trump does, to crush the forces embodied in demonized groups and individuals that are blamed for their misery. The more outrageous cult leaders become, the more cult leaders flout law and social conventions, the more they gain in popularity. Cult leaders are immune to the norms of established society. This is their appeal. Cult leaders seek total power. Those who follow them grant them this power in the desperate hope that the cult leaders will save them.
All cults are personality cults. Cult leaders are narcissists. They demand obsequious fawning and total obedience. They prize loyalty above competence. They wield absolute control. They do not tolerate criticism. They are deeply insecure, a trait they attempt to cover up with bombastic grandiosity. They are amoral and emotionally and physically abusive. They see those around them as objects to be manipulated for their own empowerment, enjoyment and often sadistic entertainment. All those outside the cult are branded as forces of evil, prompting an epic battle whose natural expression is violence.
We will not convince those who have surrendered their agency to a cult leader and embraced magical thinking through rational argument. We will not coerce them into submission. We will not find salvation for them or ourselves by supporting the Democratic Party. Whole segments of American society are now bent on self-immolation. They despise this world and what it has done to them. Their personal and political behavior is willfully suicidal. They seek to destroy, even if destruction leads to violence and death. They are no longer sustained by the comforting illusion of human progress, losing the only antidote to nihilism.
Pope John Paul II in 1981 issued an encyclical titled “Laborem exercens,” or “Through Work.” He attacked the idea, fundamental to capitalism, that work was merely an exchange of money for labor. Work, he wrote, should not be reduced to the commodification of human beings through wages. Workers were not impersonal instruments to be manipulated like inanimate objects to increase profit. Work was essential to human dignity and self-fulfillment. It gave us a sense of empowerment and identity. It allowed us to build a relationship with society in which we could feel we contributed to social harmony and social cohesion, a relationship in which we had purpose.
The pope castigated unemployment, underemployment, inadequate wages, automation and a lack of job security as violations of human dignity. These conditions, he wrote, were forces that negated self-esteem, personal satisfaction, responsibility and creativity. The exaltation of the machine, he warned, reduced human beings to the status of slaves. He called for full employment, a minimum wage large enough to support a family, the right of a parent to stay home with children, and jobs and a living wage for the disabled. He advocated, in order to sustain strong families, universal health insurance, pensions, accident insurance and work schedules that permitted free time and vacations. He wrote that all workers should have the right to form unions with the ability to strike.
We must invest our energy into organizing mass movements to overthrow the corporate state through sustained acts of mass civil disobedience. This includes the most powerful weapon we possess – the strike. By turning our ire on the corporate state, we name the true sources of power and abuse. We expose the absurdity of blaming our demise on demonized groups such as undocumented workers, Muslims or Blacks. We give people an alternative to a corporate-indentured Democratic Party that cannot be rehabilitated. We make possible the restoration of an open society, one that serves the common good rather than corporate profit. We must demand nothing less than full employment, guaranteed minimum incomes, universal health insurance, free education at all levels, robust protection of the natural world and an end to militarism and imperialism. We must create the possibility for a life of dignity, purpose and self-esteem. If we do not, it will ensure a Christianized fascism and ultimately, with the accelerating genocide, our obliteration."
Adventures With Danno, "Massive Price Increases At Dollar General & Empty Shelves Everywhere"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, AM 11/6/24
"Massive Price Increases At Dollar General &
Empty Shelves Everywhere"
Comments here:
"Trump Shocks The World (This Is Karma); Stock Market Goes Crazy; When Does the Chaos Begin?"
Jeremiah Babe, 11/6/24
"Trump Shocks The World (This Is Karma);
Stock Market Goes Crazy; When Does the Chaos Begin?"
Comments here:
Bill Bonner, "The Primary Political Trend"
"The Primary Political Trend"
Big Government was triumphant. And Big Government means big spending,
big budgets, big deficits, big debt... and knucklehead, big-shot delusions.
by Bill Bonner
"Yes, I know I've been untrue.
And I have hurt you through and through.
But please have mercy on this heart of mine,
Take me back and try me one more time."
- Ernest Tubb
Baltimore, Maryland - "Finally, the election fever has broken. The sun still shines. The world still turns. Beer still goes flat. The nation has taken Donald J. Trump back. It will give him another try.
Last week came an opinion from Rana Foroohar in the Financial Times. It’s not too late, she says. We can still make America great again. All we need to do is to identify the problems and make the right choices. Just as we did in the 1890s.
"Both countries [Britain and the US] were ultimately able to pass sweeping reforms that improved workers’ rights and labour standards, increased access to education, enfranchised new groups of voters and so on. The national renewal of Victorian Britain and Progressive-era America reflect this point. In both cases, political and business figures, activists, trade unions and various grassroots movements were part of a robust national discussion about reform. I’d argue that this factor is also present in the US today where, despite political polarization, there is a rich bottom-up debate about how the country should change."
Oh my. Ms. Foroohar completely misunderstands what happened. She thinks that anti-trust legislation... labor protections... giving women the vote - the conscious efforts of well-meaning citizens in the late 19th century - pulled the country out of a funk.
What really happened, we believe, was just the opposite. The 1880s were the most successful years in America’s history... with more wealth and more freedom than we had before or since. But then, prosperity and success turned Americans’ heads. They came to believe that they could force other people to do things that would make a better world. They passed new laws. They wrote new rules. They hired G-men…government men…to enforce the ruling elites’ decrees.
“There are tides in the affairs of men,” wrote Shakespeare. Just as there are ‘Primary Trends’ in markets...there are tides in politics, too...powerful currents that have a life of their own. These deep currents are not driven by what people want or what they think; instead, like an unrelenting river, they carve the valleys, shape the stones, and erode the shorelines of human thought.
And now...in what direction does the water flow? Whatever it is, the president is elected to follow, not to lead. He drifts with the Primary Political Trend; he doesn’t create it. For all the arguments about whose economy - Trump’s or Biden’s - was better, the truth is, presidents don’t really affect near-term results very much. Whatever trend was underway when the new president entered the White House is the same trend we’re likely to have when the president leaves.
Year after year, administration after administration...ever since Jimmy Carter left the White House, federal power has increased. Budgets got bigger. Deficits got larger too. The three biggest spenders in US history (in terms of the percentage of debt added) were Roosevelt, Wilson and Reagan, in that order. Roosevelt had a war to deal with. Wilson found a war he could get into. And Reagan thought he was in a life-or-death struggle with communism. No matter what their thoughts...they all did the same thing - expanding the reach of the Federal government.
Reagan was obviously mistaken. By 1991, communism - a creed based largely on fantasy economic theory - had collapsed. At that point, the US could have enjoyed a massive “Peace Dividend.” For the next 33 years, America faced no real military challenge.
But by the ‘90s, it was too late. The current was too strong. There was no choice. Big Government was triumphant. And Big Government means big spending, big budgets, big deficits, big debt... and knucklehead, big-shot delusions. And now, happy days are here again. Mr. Trump - whose first administration added more new government debt/year than any other in history - can get back to work."
o
Ernest Tubb, 'Try Me One More Time"
Tuesday, November 5, 2024
Jeremiah Babe, "Brace For Impact, Your Life Depends On Tonight's Election"
Jeremiah Babe, 11/5/24
"Brace For Impact,
Your Life Depends On Tonight's Election"
Comments here:
Gerald Celente, "Live Election Night - Trends Analysis & Consequences"
Full screen recommended.
Gerald Celente, 11/5/24
"Live Election Night -
Trends Analysis & Consequences"
Tune in for Live Coverage of the U.S presidential election
with Gerald Celente, Scott Ritter, Garland Nixon, and Joe Lauria"
Comments here:
Musical Interlude: Prelude, "After The Gold Rush"
Prelude, "After The Gold Rush", Studio version.
Prelude, "After The Gold Rush", Live version.
"A Look to the Heavens"
“Near the outskirts of the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy some 200 thousand light-years distant, lies 5 million year young star cluster NGC 602. Surrounded by natal gas and dust, NGC 602 is featured in this stunning Hubble image of the region.
Fantastic ridges and swept back shapes strongly suggest that energetic radiation and shock waves from NGC 602's massive young stars have eroded the dusty material and triggered a progression of star formation moving away from the cluster's center. At the estimated distance of the Small Magellanic Cloud, the picture spans about 200 light-years, but a tantalizing assortment of background galaxies are also visible in the sharp Hubble view. The background galaxies are hundreds of millions of light-years or more beyond NGC 602.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130113.html
“Now Is the Time of Monsters”
“Now Is the Time of Monsters”
by Jeff Thomas
“In ancient Rome, interregnum was the term given to the period between stable governments when anything untoward might occur, and sometimes did – civil unrest, warfare between warlords, power vacuums and, finally, succession wars. But eventually the dust would settle and the victors, whoever they might be, would at some point restabilize the empire, often with a new map, showing the latest lines of geographic possession.
In 1929, the Italian Antonio Gramsci was in a fascist prison, writing about what he considered to be a new interregnum – a Europe that was tearing itself apart. He anticipated civil unrest, war between nations and repeated changes in the lines of geographic possession. At that time, he was attributed as saying, “The old world is dying and the new world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters.”
And, of course, looking back from our vantage point in the twenty-first century, we have no difficulty in confirming that he was correct in his prognosis. The world war that followed brought forward the worst traits in mankind. The sociopaths of the world came center-stage. By the time the dust had settled, tens of millions were dead.
What we do have difficulty with is recognizing that the same pattern is again with us. National leaders and their advisors are spoiling for war, building up weaponry, creating senseless proxy wars in other nations’ backyards and playing a dangerous game of “chicken” with other major powers. This will not end well. It never does. Once the shoving-match has begun, it only escalates. At some point, whether it’s the false-flag assassination of an Archduke, as in World War I, or the false flag invasion of Germany by Poland, as in World War II, we can always count on some excuse being created to justify diving headlong into war.
It’s also true that, when empires get into economic trouble that’s too far gone for any viable solution, a trick that’s always employed by political leaders to keep the citizens from removing them from their seats of power, is to start a war. A people will, if they believe their homeland is in peril, accept the “temporary” removal of their freedoms. Even in the United States, the famed “Land of the Free,” political leaders have routinely imprisoned dissidents in times of warfare. People tend to get behind their leaders in wartime, no matter how undeserved that loyalty might be.
And so, now is the time of monsters, as Mr. Gramsci rightly stated. A time of uncertainty, when countries are in turmoil and would-be leaders are jostling for power with existing leaders. An interregnum.
Troubled times tend to bring out all the crazies – all the sociopathic-types that would find it hard to succeed in stable, prosperous times. In such times, the average person becomes worried that things are not going to turn out well. That’s perfectly understandable. Unfortunately, most people lack both the imagination and the courage to cope with how the times are impacting their lives. They instead rely on others to provide a torch that might help them escape from the darkness. Not surprising then, that every snake-oil salesman in town sees an opportunity to offer big promises – promises that he has neither the ability nor the inclination to fulfill.
At such times, the people of a country tend to become polarized, placing their faith in one political party or another, hoping that their party will “make the bad stuff go away.” In the US we see, on the liberal side, promises for “free health care for all,” a guaranteed basic income, housing for those who cannot afford it, and an endless stream of promises that, if the government were to implement them all, they will not be able to pay for them, even with 100% taxation from those who presently pay tax.
On the conservative side, we see promises such as “Make America Great Again,” with tax rebates that do not rejuvenate the economy, breaks for firms that have expatriated, but do not fool them into returning, claims to cut budgets, only to increase them, and promises to eliminate debt, only to expand it.
We see presidential elections in which one of the two leading candidates is a textbook narcissist, whilst the other displayed all the traits of senility. And we see a waitress elected to Congress by a substantial margin, raised to the status of heroine merely for promising all things to all people, whilst offering no plan as to how that might come about. Record numbers of candidates pour into the political arena, seeking a last grab at power prior to systemic failure.
To be fair, the US is by no means alone in delivering incapable people with nonsensical solutions to the higher offices. In the UK, each leading party states emphatically that the other party would be a disaster, yet neither party can come up with a working alternative. What they can do, as in America, is point fingers and shout invectives at each other.
In France, whilst the disconnected president essentially says, “Let them eat cake,” serving only to create further fury on the street. To be sure, the problem begins at the top. But it doesn’t end there. It sifts down to the proletariat, who, unable to come up with constructive solutions, create their own monsters, trashing the shops and burning the cars of people who had no hand in creating the problem.
But surely this is just a one-off phase, in which the best and brightest are temporarily pushed offstage, but will soon return, yes? Well, unfortunately, no. Historically, a period such as this one is followed by one of increased madness. Historically, the next step is societal breakdown. Riots, secessions and revolutions become commonplace, accompanied by economic collapse.
Out of these events come the worst monsters of all. It’s in the wake of such developments that the people of any country then turn away from those that made the empty promises and toward those who promise revenge against an ill-defined group who are characterized as having caused the problems. That’s when the Robespierres, the Lenins, the Hitlers – the greatest monsters – are swept into power. They invariably deliver the same message – that they’ll seek out the aristocracy, the gentry, the patricians, and strip them of their positions and possessions.
Invariably the way that this shakes out is not that the average man rises up, taking his “fair share” of the spoils. Instead, the leaders take the spoils and the proletariat are reduced to an equality of poverty. Our friend Mr. Gramsci found himself imprisoned by Benito Mussolini and died from illnesses incurred in prison. Unfortunately, his approach was to complain, but remain, as his country deteriorated around him. This proved, for him, to be the worst of choices. And, so it is today.”
"How Andrew Jackson Freed America From Central Bank Control - and Why It Matters Now"
"How Andrew Jackson Freed America From
Central Bank Control - and Why It Matters Now"
by Nick Giambruno
"It’s hard to believe the United States government was ever debt-free. But it happened once - in 1835 - thanks to President Andrew Jackson. He was the first and only president to pay off the national debt completely. One biographer says the former president viewed debt as a "moral failing," a sort of "black magic." When he became president, Jackson was determined to rid the US of its national debt. After all, debt enslaves you to your creditors. Jackson knew that being debt-free was essential to independence. This outlook resonated with many Americans back then.
With that in mind, Jackson attacked the institutions and powerful people who promoted and enabled the federal debt. This included the banking elites and the Second Bank of the United States, the country’s central bank at the time and precursor to today’s insidious Federal Reserve system. While campaigning against the evils of national debt and central banking, Jackson miraculously survived an assassination attempt when an assassin’s two pistols both misfired. Shadowy interests tied to the central bank were almost certainly behind the effort.
However, Jackson survived and went on to "End the Fed" of his days. He successfully bested the central bank - and the powerful interests behind it - and shut down the Second Bank of the United States. He also repaid the federal debt in full, which was no easy task.
Jackson couldn’t squeeze the American people with a federal income tax to repay the debt. It didn’t exist at the time and would have been unconstitutional. He also couldn’t simply print currency to pay off the debt. Perpetuating such an insane fraud - which the Fed does on a massive scale today - likely never entered his mind. Instead, Jackson had to rely on tax revenue from other sources, mainly import tariffs and excise taxes, to pay down the debt. He also drastically cut federal spending and frequently vetoed spending bills.
Jackson’s determination worked. By January 1835, the US was debt-free for the first time. Unfortunately, it didn’t last much more than a year. After that, the US would never again be debt-free - not even close.
Revenge of the Central Bankers: After Jackson succeeded in ending the Second Bank of the United States, anything associated with a central bank became deeply unpopular with the American public. So, central bank advocates tried a new branding strategy.
Rather than call their new central bank the "Third Bank of the United States," they went for a vague and boring name. They called it "the Federal Reserve" and managed to hide it from the average person in plain sight. As a result, over 100 years since its founding, most Americans have no idea what the Federal Reserve is or what it actually does.
Ironically, Jackson’s face has been on the $20 "Federal Reserve Note" since 1928. So in a sense, this symbolic move is central banking advocates giving the middle finger to one of their most steadfast opponents. After all, the Fed is really the "Third Bank of the United States." No doubt, Jackson would have been disturbed at having his face on its fake confetti money.
In any case, most Americans today have no idea who Jackson is, what he did, or why he did it. To the extent he is ever mentioned, the media, academia, and the rest of the establishment unjustly besmirch him as - you guessed it - a "racist."
That’s exactly what the Deep State - the permanently entrenched bureaucracy - wants. It doesn’t want the average citizen to understand why Jackson shut down the central bank and (temporarily) freed Americans from national debt bondage. Doing the same thing today would be a mortal threat to their power. This is one of the reasons the establishment will try in the coming years to replace Jackson on the $20 bill with the more politically-correct Harriet Tubman… pushing Jackson further down the memory hole.
Trillions and Trillions: You often hear the media, politicians, and financial analysts casually toss around the word "trillion" without appreciating what it means. A trillion is a massive, almost unfathomable number. The human brain has trouble understanding something so huge. So let me try to put it into perspective. Suppose you had a job that paid you $1 per second, or $3,600 per hour. That amounts to $86,400 per day and about $32 million per year. With that job, it would take you 31.5 years to earn a billion dollars. With that job, it would take you over 31,688 YEARS to earn a trillion dollars. So that’s how enormous a trillion is.
When politicians carelessly spend and print money measured in the trillions, you are in dangerous territory. And that is precisely what the Federal Reserve and the central banking system has enabled the US government to do. It took 146 years after Jackson fully paid off the debt in 1835 - or until 1981 - for the US government to rack up its first trillion in debt. The second trillion only took four years. After that, the next trillions came in increasingly shorter intervals.
Today, Congress has normalized multi-trillion dollar federal spending deficits. The US federal debt has gone parabolic and is scores of trillions. If you earned $1 per second, it would take over 1,131,261 YEARS to pay off the current US federal debt. And that’s with the unrealistic assumption that it would stop growing.
The US federal government has the largest debt in the history of the world. And it’s continuing to grow at a rapid, unstoppable pace. The debt will keep piling up as the US government continues to pay for political promises regardless of who sits in the White House. It’s virtually inevitable. The federal debt also represents an outrageous crime inflicted on the next generation. They are the ones who will be stuck with this massive unpaid bill from today’s spending, and it will turn them into indentured serfs.
It’s doubtful Congress considers this even for a second. They are always eager to send billions to faraway foreign lands or the latest boondoggle. Of course, this is not a groundbreaking revelation. People like Ron Paul have warned Americans about the dangers of the federal debt for a long time. It’s just that nobody has heeded these warnings. And no one has taken serious political action to address the problem. Nor is anyone likely to.
The interest expense on the federal debt is now larger than defense spending and is about to exceed Social Security to become the BIGGEST expenditure in the federal budget. And it won’t stop there. In short, the US government is approaching the financial endgame and can no longer disguise its bankruptcy.
If we step back and zoom out, the Big Picture is clear. We are likely on the cusp of a historic shift… and what’s coming next could change everything. When the next crisis comes - and I think it could be imminent - the US government will have no choice but to drag everyone down with them as they make a desperate wealth grab. We will likely see incredible volatility in the financial markets as thousands of businesses go bankrupt and inflation spirals out of control. It could decimate your life savings, 401(k)s, IRAs, pensions, and Social Security.
But I’m not just talking about a stock market crash or a currency collapse…It’s something much bigger… with the potential to alter the fabric of society forever. Is the 2024 US presidential election going to be where it all comes to a head? There’s an excellent chance that it will."
o
"Wars and Rumors Of War"
Dialogue Works, 11/5/24
"Col. Larry Wilkerson: Netanyahu Fires Gallant!
Israel’s Crisis Deepens: Losing Control on All Fronts"
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Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 11/5/24
"Scott Ritter: Ukraine’s Done; Israel’s In Uproar"
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Times Of India, 11/5/24
"Israel Army 'Fails' In Lebanon;
Withdraws Troops As Hezbollah Ambushes Get Lethal"
"Israel has reportedly withdrawn several brigades from southern Lebanon amid progress in efforts to reach a ceasefire with Hezbollah. Ynet News claimed that the Israel Army was hoping the ceasefire deal would materialize in the next 15 days. The development comes amid Hezbollah fighters trapping Israeli soldiers in lethal ambushes at the border."
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Full screen recommended.
Owen Jones, 11/5/24
"Israel Keeps Shooting Kids In The Head -
And Its Cheerleaders Are Smearing Medics With The Evidence"
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Dan, I Allegedly, "The Chaos Economy Starts Today!"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 11/5/24
"The Chaos Economy Starts Today!"
"Nothing is working right now. People have no money. This is a lockdown economy. In today's video dives into the turbulent start of what I'm calling the "Chaos Economy." With everything from striking tech unions to high taxes crippling sports teams, it's clear that businesses are feeling the squeeze. Plus, we explore how everyday essentials have become luxury purchases for many families. With the economy shifting, it's critical to stay informed."
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"Election Day Options"
"Election Day Options"
By Paul Rosenberg
"Today is election day in America, and this time I’ll offer my opinions. I’m not endorsing anyone (the issues surrounding this year’s election are far larger than that) but I will contribute a few ideas. And to be very clear, I’m doing this for three distinct reasons: Because I love my neighbors; because I love the American people; and because the idea of America is far too important to lose.
On this last point, it’s worth remembering an old quote: England is a nation, France is a people, America is a willingness to believe. I’m writing this, especially, for those who believe.
The Facts On The Ground: As I’ve noted in our subscription letter, America is divided between 20 or 30 Blue cities and the rest of the country. The Blue cities are uber-political and the Red expanses are overwhelmingly peopled by those who build, grow, deliver and repair everything; or at least by those who aspire to such things.
Aside from observing every presidential election since 1968, over the past week or so I’ve spent three days in Blue cities and four days driving across several Red states. And my conclusion is this: There’s no way Ms. Harris wins this election without massive manipulation... worse-than-last-time manipulation. But there’s something afoot that’s even more important, which is this: The Western elite, many layers deep, have been utterly discredited over the past four years, and we all know it. This is the ambient in which today’s election takes place.
What I Recommend:
If Trump Wins:
Blues: Do not break, burn and steal. If you do that, you’re defining yourself in a very ugly way. Examine why your champion lost. Examine why other people didn’t believe in her, but do this honestly, not by calling everyone else nasty names.
Reds: Redefine what you believe in. Get back to the idea of America. Read Jefferson, the Adamses and so on. Don’t read what other people said about them, but read them directly. (This will help.) Then get busy building that model. Do not get pulled into another QAnon trap: There aren’t any secret good guys riding in to save you. If you don’t do this yourself, it won’t happen.
If Harris Wins:
Blues: Understand that the radical Blue agenda will be a disaster for you. You’ll have to moderate or crash the system altogether. The bloom is off the radical rose, and if you fail to recognize it, things could get ugly.
Reds: If you think the new regime is illegitimate, say so. Be clear that you do not consent and that you will no longer “respect the office.” But do not use violence. If you no longer believe in the regime, just stop servicing the regime; nothing will make your point better than that.
In The End...What we want... what we need... is a civilized way of life. We need a country filled with decent, productive people who carry civilization within themselves, rather than fighting to enforce it upon one another. This is the goal, and we all need to see it."
Bill Bonner, "Day of Reckoning"
"Day of Reckoning"
Debt piles up at the rate of $8+ billion per day; the day of reckoning comes
closer. Day after day, the feds must finance and refinance more debt.
Mathematically, there is no way this story ends well.
by Bill Bonner
"Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity."
- W.B. Yeats
Baltimore, Maryland - "What is that smell? Rank. Revolting. It is as if a raccoon had gotten trapped somewhere under the floorboards and died. You can’t get rid of it... not without tearing the house apart. It’s the decay of the American ‘system’ - its economy and its society, fastened to the dying animal of politics.
In a few hours, the voters will deliver their verdict. A third of the public will shout for joy. Another third will say the election was stolen. And the other third, the best of the lot, will shrug.
Whatever the verdict, the punishment will be the same: the public will be hanged. And the stink won’t go away. Which is not to say there is no difference between the two suits. One might trigger WWIII; the other might not. One might hasten the coming debt crisis; the other might delay it.
But which is which? We don’t know. Neither do they. The odds are good that a Kamala victory will merely continue the slow strangulation of the US by its deep state elites, the wire biting deeper into the neck. While a Trump victory risks more sturm and drang…more unknowns…and more drama.
The problem, from an economic point of view, is that both are fastened to suicidal politics. Debt piles up at the rate of $8+ billion per day; the day of reckoning comes closer. Day after day, the feds must finance and refinance more debt. Mathematically, there is no way this story can end well. “All roads lead to inflation,” says Paul Tudor Jones.
And politically, the problem is that this kind of leadership - favoring more spending, more deficits, more control, more programs, more laws, more regulations, more inflation and more war - not only leads to more debt…it is out of step with what ‘The People’ really want. There is the real divide. Not between Republicans and Democrats, but between the common folk and the elites. James Nielson:
"The people happen to be strongly against open borders, take pride in their country’s heritage, resent having to pay through the nose for energy in order to fight “climate change,” greatly dislike getting bullied by gender activists who think “transwomen” convicted of crimes, among them rape, should be put in prisons for females, find utterly ridiculous all the fuss about pronouns, and much else besides."
They don’t like getting poorer either! But the deciders don’t care. The Wall Street Journal: "The Biden Economy Is ‘Glorious’ - if You’re Wealthy." If you listen to the headline hoggers and glib, zinger slingers, you have been lectured more than once about how great the Trump economy once was and how wonderful the Biden economy now is. ‘If only people would recognize it!’ continue the reports.
Paul Krugman, for example, says the phenomenon is a kind of ‘irrational gloominess,’ a failure to recognize how glorious the economy is... a syndrome that typically strikes the deplorables, and the ‘garbage’ people outside of the elites’ zip codes. For them, the economy isn’t so great; the WSJ continues: "Mr. Biden’s economy has been glorious - for affluent liberals. It’s been awful for the working class. Socioeconomic disparities have grown in recent years owing to the policies that were supposed to shrink them. The well-to-do got wealthier while the rest got poorer."
The Journal cites a Fed study, showing that people who earn less than $60,000 were able to increase spending since January 2018 by 7.9% - less than half as much as those earning more than $100,000 a year. As you go up the socio-economic ladder, the view gets better and better... but below the top rungs, it is stale and dark.
Polls show, not by coincidence, that the more affluent and educated you are, the more likely you are to be ‘satisfied’ with Biden’s economy. Americans who own stocks are feeling good about the economy as they watch their 401(k)s and mutual funds grow. The S&P 500 index has surged by some 50% since January 2021. Ditto Americans who owned homes before interest rates rose in 2022 and may have refinanced at historically low interest rates. But others have seen inflation erode their wages and spending power. Those who can’t work from home are spending considerably more to fuel up. New home buyers are spending thousands more each month on mortgage payments than those who bought homes before Mr. Biden took office. It is no wonder the Establishment generally supports Kamala; she promises to keep the show on the road."
"15 Restaurant Chains Being Wiped Out By A Perfect Storm In 2024"
Full screen recommended.
Epic Economist,11/4/24
"15 Restaurant Chains Being Wiped Out
By A Perfect Storm In 2024"
"This year, unprecedented challenges are decimating some of the most beloved dining spots across the nation. Rising costs, labor shortages, and changing consumer habits - each one alone could strain even the most resilient businesses. But when combined, they create a devastating perfect storm, wiping out chains and family-owned favorites alike.
Americans are changing their dining habits, and it’s hitting the industry really hard. With inflation squeezing every dollar, more people are choosing to eat at home, leaving restaurants across the nation fighting for survival. Visits to sit-down restaurants dropped nearly five percent in just one year, and even the most popular chains in the country are feeling the pain. Take New York City, for example - over 40 bars and restaurants shut down in just two months, while others struggle to stay open, still reeling from the fallout of 2020. All across the nation, empty seats are becoming the new norm.
As we count down the 15 restaurants most at risk, brace yourself: some of these names may surprise you, and others might be places you thought would stand the test of time. These companies are being forced to close locations, struggling with financial pressure, and grappling with a consumer landscape that may never be the same. Stay tuned to see which familiar names could disappear next. Without further ado, here are 15 Restaurant Chains Being Wiped Out By A Perfect Storm In 2024."
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Full screen recommended.
Rico E, 11/4/24
"Why Wendy’s is Closing 240 Stores:
The Decline of Customer Service and Quality in Fast Food Chains"
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