Sarah Mclachlan, "In The Arms Of An Angel"
So, we rise from the rubble...
Saturday, July 17, 2021
"A Look to the Heavens"
"What's happening to this spiral galaxy? Although details remain uncertain, it surely has to do with an ongoing battle with its smaller galactic neighbor. The featured galaxy is labelled UGC 1810 by itself, but together with its collisional partner is known as Arp 273.
The overall shape of the UGC 1810 - in particular its blue outer ring - is likely a result of wild and violent gravitational interactions. This ring's blue color is caused by massive stars that are blue hot and have formed only in the past few million years. The inner galaxy appears older, redder, and threaded with cool filamentary dust. A few bright stars appear well in the foreground, unrelated to UGC 1810, while several galaxies are visible well in the background. Arp 273 lies about 300 million light years away toward the constellation of Andromeda. Quite likely, UGC 1810 will devour its galactic sidekick over the next billion years and settle into a classic spiral form."
Kahlil Gibran, “The Farewell”
“The Farewell”
“Farewell to you and the youth I have spent with you.
It was but yesterday we met in a dream.
You have sung to me in my aloneness,
and I of your longings have built a tower in the sky.
But now our sleep has fled and our dream is over,
and it is no longer dawn.
The noontide is upon us and our half waking has turned to fuller day,
and we must part.
If in the twilight of memory we should meet once more,
we shall speak again together and you shall sing to me a deeper song.
And if our hands should meet in another dream
we shall build another tower in the sky.”
- Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet”
The Poet: Mary Oliver, “October”
“October”
"There’s this shape, black as the entrance to a cave.
A longing wells up in its throat
like a blossom
as it breathes slowly.
What does the world
mean to you if you can’t trust it
to go on shining when you’re
not there? and there’s
a tree, long-fallen; once
the bees flew to it, like a procession
of messengers, and filled it
with honey.
I said to the chickadee, singing his heart out in the
green pine tree:
little dazzler
little song,
little mouthful.
The shape climbs up out of the curled grass. It
grunts into view. There is no measure
for the confidence at the bottom of its eyes-
there is no telling
the suppleness of its shoulders as it turns
and yawns.
Near the fallen tree
something - a leaf snapped loose
from the branch and fluttering down - tries to pull me
into its trap of attention.
It pulls me
into its trap of attention,
And when I turn again, the bear is gone.
Look, hasn’t my body already felt
like the body of a flower?
Look, I want to love this world
as thought it’s the last chance I’m ever going to get
to be alive
and know it.
Sometimes in late summer I won’t touch anything, not
the flowers, not the blackberries
brimming in the thickets; I won’t drink
from the pond; I won’t name the birds or the trees;
I won’t whisper my own name.
One morning
the fox came down the hill, glittering and confident,
and didn’t see me - and I thought:
so this is the world.
I’m not in it.
It is beautiful."
- Mary Oliver
"How To See Things As They Are"
"How To See Things As They Are"
by David Cain
"I’m in the back room of a coffee shop right now, switching between writing and another mental exercise: pretending I’m not here. I don’t mean I’m wearing a disguise, or hiding behind a potted plant. I’m doing a perspective-shifting practice that I’d recommend to anyone: now and then, wherever you are, look at the scene in front of you as though it’s happening without you.
From any seat, or standing spot, anywhere - in an office, a breakfast diner, a public square, a waiting room - see your surroundings just as they’d be if you weren’t here to see them. Focus on the look and feel of the setting. The way the light lays across things. Take it in like a shot from a movie. Notice the movement and speech of people or animals, the soundscape and overall ambiance. It’s just a little corner of the world where things are unfolding, and you’re not here. Maybe nobody is.
When you do this, you might notice a certain lightness or simplicity arising. Things are more poignant. Everything seems less complicated, because it’s just stuff happening, not stuff happening to you.
I used to call this practice “dying on purpose” but that sounds a bit dramatic. Maybe “looking at the world as though you don’t exist” is better, but a good way to understand how to do that is to simply watch what’s happening here as though you’ve died, or maybe never existed at all.
Right now, in this back room, there’s a long communal table, with three students working in front of a spread of laptops and textbooks. There’s music playing - a band that sounds like the Cranberries. Framed by the doorway to the front of the shop is short-haired, golden dog (this place allows animals) waiting for its owner to order. No humans are visible but there’s a lot of easygoing chatter. The far wall is all window, with potted plants on hanging shelves silhouetted against the mid-day brightness outside. Someone comes to pet the dog. There’s a warm, neighborly feeling in the room. Now the not-Cranberries song is over, and a Beach House song comes on.
This vignette, seen in a certain way - as though it is happening, but not happening to me - can be just what it is, without any entanglement with my own interests. None of my reflexive moral judgments are present. The angle of the sun doesn’t remind me of everything I still have to get done today. Seeing twenty-year-old students doesn’t make me wish I was younger. Because I’m not here. It’s just life unfolding, and on its own it’s beautiful.
We have a habit of looking at what surrounds us through a self-referential lens. We don’t just see a thing, we see the way that thing fits, or doesn’t fit, into our lives. Seeing a luxury car might elicit judgment, or envy, or brand loyalty. Seeing someone enjoying what seems to be a day off might remind you that you do not have the day off.
It’s not that we all think we’re the center of the universe. But our lives do tend to feel something like The Biggest, Most Pressing Thing Ever to Happen, when it’s really only a short thread running through a vast, endless fabric of happenings that is life on Earth.
Even a short glimpse of something as it is- of any scene free from entanglement with our stories -comes with relief. What you witness in this way still has meaning, but it’s intrinsic meaning, like beauty, or some nameless quality. The meaning isn’t “What this means for me and my ongoing story.”
Those short glimpses are always available, by looking at what’s before you as though it’s happening without you. Every scene has its own signature, its own identity to express, which can only come through when it’s not mixed up with yours.
It’s not hard to achieve this perspective, for a few seconds anyway. Just see it as it would be if you weren’t there. This parking lot. This row of houses. This quiet kitchen. It looks exactly the same, but it feels different to see it this way.
When you look at a bug climbing a railing - at least for a moment, it’s nothing but a bug climbing a railing.
When you sit down with your coffee - just for a moment, the coffee shop is happening just as it does on days you’re not there, or as it might after you die.
When you look in the closet - just for a moment, it’s only clothing, hanging there quietly, as it does when nobody’s standing there choosing how they’re going to look today."
"We Are Never Deceived..."
"We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves."
- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
"Welcome To The 21st Century Sequel Of The Catastrophic 1600s"
"Welcome To The 21st Century Sequel
Of The Catastrophic 1600s"
by Charles Hugh Smith
"As the chart above on 'how systems collapse' illustrates, the loss of stabilizing buffers goes unnoticed until the entire structure collapses under its own weight.
• Disruptive extremes of weather: check
• Rising geopolitical tensions with no diplomatic resolution: check
• Multiplying scarcities in essential commodities: check
• Domestic disorder accelerates as extreme positions harden into irreconcilable conflicts: check
Welcome to the 21st century sequel of the catastrophic 1600s, an extended period of mutually reinforcing crises that overturned regimes and empires from England to China and triggered unremitting misery across much of the human populace. ("Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the 17th Century" is a riveting overview of this complex era.)
What can we learn from the catastrophic 1600s? Leading the list: humans don't respond well to scarcities. They get crotchety, argumentative, and prone to finding ways to become disagreeable rather than agreeable. Their derangement deepens as they form self-reinforcing echo-chambers of the like-minded, and the source of their misfortune shifts from fate to equally fixated human opponents.
Three extended quotes come to mind: the first bitter satirical rant from Mark Twain, the second from Patrick Henry and the third from James Madison:
Mark Twain: "O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle - be Thou near them! With them - in spirit - we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it - for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen."
Patrick Henry: "But we are told that we need not fear; because those in power, being our representatives, will not abuse the powers we put in their hands. I am not well versed in history, but I will submit to your recollection, whether liberty has been destroyed most often by the licentiousness of the people, or by the tyranny of rulers. I imagine, sir, you will find the balance on the side of tyranny. Happy will you be if you miss the fate of those nations, who, omitting to resist their oppressors, or negligently suffering their liberty to be wrested from them, have groaned under intolerable despotism! Most of the human race are now in this deplorable condition; and those nations who have gone in search of grandeur, power, and splendor, have also fallen a sacrifice, and been the victims of their own folly. While they acquired those visionary blessings, they lost their freedom."
James Madison: "Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people... (There is also an) inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and... degeneracy of manners and of morals.... No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
Apt descriptions of 1641 and 2021? Check, check and check. War and conflict appear to be the solution once people are in the grip of this crisis-hardened derangement, and they discover their folly after their misery has increased 100-fold.
So where does all this lead? Nowhere good. Concentrated wealth and power breed hubris and open the door to catastrophic consequences flowing from the addled decisions of the few at the top. Voices of calm reason are shouted down and excoriated, and compromise becomes impossible. Those seeking to maintain their exploitive grip on wealth and power whip up intensities of derangement to further their own self-interest, always under the banner of some noble cause.
In the confusion of decay and failure, the herd seeks a simplistic explanation and solution. Those seeking to maximize their private gain are keen to provide the easy answer, which just so happens to maximize their private gain at the expense of the herd.
In self-organizing emergent systems, every individual is making decisions based their perceived self-interests. This seems to be a stable arrangement, but the line between stability and instability thins in eras of scarcity and crisis, and trends that seemed linear and predictable suddenly shift into non-linear dynamics, in which seemingly small actions trigger enormously consequential reversals of trend. Stability wobbles and then dissipates, and those experiencing the loss of stability slowly come to realize there is no way to put the genie back in the bottle.
As the chart above on how systems collapse illustrates, the loss of stabilizing buffers goes unnoticed until the entire structure collapses under its own weight of artifice, debt, fraud, obfuscation, greed, inequality and incompetence. Two short quotes come to mind:
"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority,
but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."
- Marcus Aurelius
"I never did give anybody hell.
I just told the truth and they thought it was hell."
- Harry S. Truman"
"Economic Crash Will Be The Worst In History; Don't Go Into Debt Buying Dumb Stuff; Fake And Broke"
Full screen recommended.
Jeremiah Babe, PM 7/17/21:
"Economic Crash Will Be The Worst In History;
Don't Go Into Debt Buying Dumb Stuff; Fake And Broke"
Friday, July 16, 2021
"There is No More Stimulus or Free Lunch. The Party is Ending"
Full screen recommended.
Dn, IAllegedly, PM 7/16/21:
"There is No More Stimulus or Free Lunch. The Party is Ending"
"The Party is over! There will be no more stimulus or free lunch. People
need to get ready to get off the unemployment, pay their rent and get a job."
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Venus, named for the Roman goddess of love, and Mars, the war god's namesake, come together by moonlight in this serene skyview, recorded on July 11 from Lualaba province, Democratic Republic of Congo, planet Earth.
Taken in the western twilight sky shortly after sunset the exposure also records earthshine illuminating the otherwise dark surface of the young crescent Moon. Of course the Moon has moved on. Venus still shines in the west though as the evening star, third brightest object in Earth's sky, after the Sun and the Moon itself. Seen here above a brilliant Venus, Mars moved even closer to the brighter planet and by July 13 could be seen only about a Moon's width away. Mars has since slowly wandered away from much brighter Venus in the twilight skies of the coming days."
"They Warned Us That There Would Be A Collapse Of Civilization In Our Generation, And They Were Right"
Full screen recommended.
"They Warned Us That There Would Be A Collapse
Of Civilization In Our Generation, And They Were Right"
by Epic Economist
"The brightest scientific minds of our era are warning a dark future awaits us if we stay on our current course. For decades, our society became increasingly obsessed with the idea of short-term results and infinite growth, but maybe that obsession came from a fear of thinking about what would actually happen in the long run. Something we learned from the health crisis and the current economic recession is that our leaders are definitely not prepared to deal with the consequences of their actions nor are they willing to think about the longer term. Even though many still prefer to believe in what the politicians in Washington say - that all of this is transitory and everything will be fine - if we pay close attention to the latest global events, we can see that every aspect of our society is coming apart. However, the era that we are moving into will be even more nightmarish - a terror most people wouldn't dare to imagine.
One MIT study from 1972 made the headlines this week as a group of scientists that projected that our civilization would collapse at some point during the 21st century has now confirmed that we're right on track of witnessing the end of the world as we know it. The team studied the risk of civilizational collapse over several years using the dynamics model known as ‘limits to growth’ (LtG), and revealed that the collapse of our industrial civilization is already underway due to the overexploitation of our planetary resources. The most alarming part of their findings is that the decline of our society is likely to happen within less than 25 years.
The study was conducted by Gaya Herrington is now available on the KPMG website. Herrington's analysis examined data such as population, fertility rates, mortality rates, industrial output, food production, services, non-renewable resources, persistent pollution, human welfare, and ecological footprint. The research team found that the data most closely aligns with two particular scenarios, ‘BAU2’ (business-as-usual) and ‘CT’ (comprehensive technology).
As it turns out, both scenarios have extremely bleak outcomes. In the comprehensive technology scenario, the economic collapse would already have started, and a series of negative impacts such as a major drop in food production, wild swings across a number of categories, including industrial output, and also the significant decline of the global population, would put the entire world on the edge. In that context, only a substantial investment in education and technology could save us. We would have to quickly readapt our model of production to pursue sustainable alternatives. In that case, while new technology develops food production would eventually recover and the societal collapse wouldn't occur under those specific circumstances.
On the other hand, there's no room for optimism or hope if we chose to take the second track, known as the business-as-usual scenario. In this scenario, we would essentially continue to ignore the growing risks and make no changes to our current behavior. Similar to the CT scenario, our economic growth would be dwindling, but it would hit a wall around 2030. However, that wouldn't be a temporary blip nor lead us to a period of stagnation, it would mark the point of no return - which means, by 2040, the entire planet would irreversibly collapse. The world's population, food production, industrial output, and several other key aspects of our civilization would all take a steep decline, with pollution levels soaring while we rapidly exploit and burn the planet's remaining available resources with absolute disregard for the catastrophic consequences.
At this point, both scenarios are still possible, the study noted. But that also means that to avert the complete degeneration of our society we would have to start making major changes in the way we live right at this moment, and that doesn't seem like a realistic option to our increasingly divided population. Herrington stressed that the window of opportunity to change things around is closing fast and if we don't act rapidly enough, our future is going to be apocalyptic.
To make matters worse, geopolitical tensions and social turbulence are already triggering widespread chaos in many countries. Our society is growing more unequal, politically divided, and angry. The rate of offenses is skyrocketing, and some of the wild scenes that are playing out around the globe are just utterly shocking. As we move closer to into the abyss of collapse, the best we can do is to try to get prepared before everything starts to fall apart around us. The coming years are going to be extremely chaotic, so we can suggest only that you plan accordingly."
"Are Americans Ready to “Storm the Bastille?”
'"Are Americans Ready to 'Storm the Bastille?'”
by Brian Maher
"Why did furious revolutionary tantrums seize France in 1789? And do they afford us a frightful glimpse of the American future? Today we glance backward… in the hope it may help us look forward.
From yesterday’s reckoning (and our co-founder Bill Bonner): "By the 18th century, France had become the greatest power in Europe, the richest and most populous country in the western world, and the clear leader in art, science, philosophy, education, cuisine, fashion, architecture...and, of course, viticulture. It had the richest people in the world, the prettiest women, and the best booze. It also had the most enlightened economists - the physiocrats - from whom Adam Smith was boosting some of his best ideas.
A poll taken in the early 1780s might have shown the French to be extremely optimistic and confident. And why shouldn't they be? The last major financial crisis - caused by John Law's Mississippi Bubble - blew up over 60 years before. And had the world ever seen anything approaching the splendor of Versailles?"
Then came 1789 and its revolutionary deliriums: "But in 1789, Paris mobs came to the crossroads of history and veered left. They replaced an absolute monarch who had very limited power, with a people's republic restrained neither by common sense nor common decency."
Does Mr. Bonner “pity the plumage but forget the dying bird?” That is, does he oversympathize with the monarchy... and undersympathize with its subjects? Perhaps he does - to hammer home a larger point. But the larger point may be plenty sharp.
Austrian political scientist and journalist Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn (dates 1909-1999): "Much of what may appear positive to us today – liberality, intellectuality, humanitarianism – had all been already brought to us by the liberal, courtly absolutism, while the French Revolution which used all these words in reality did nothing more than brutally extinguish them."
Revolutionary Sparks: What spark - or which sparks - set the revolutionary fires raging?
Caveat lector: You do not hold a history book in your hands. You hold what passes as a financial newsletter… and barely at that. Its editor is not a historian at a lectern. He is instead a popinjay in an armchair, given to the simplifications, half-truths, errors and pomposities of the type. We nonetheless proceed… in the spirit of scholarly inquiry...
First, there was the estates system; a feudal hierarchy, a social pyramid. At the pinnacle was the First Estate - the church and its officiating clergy. Wedged in the middle, in the Second Estate, was the nobility. Below the nobility squatted the remaining 98% of France, the massive base of the pyramid - the Third Estate - merchants, tradesmen, lawyers, peasants, etc.
The government squeezed the majority of its tax revenues from this Third Estate. That is, the lower 98% hauled the bulk of the freight. The 98% kept the 2% bouncing along in a sort of opulence. Naturally... the 98% bristled and bridled under the burden. But they had been accustomed to the business for generations. Why finally raise a mighty rumpus in 1789?
The Hungry Times: An army marches on its stomach, it has been said. A people too marches on its stomach. And in the 1780s, the people of France were falling out of formation...
France was the most populous nation in Europe. It thus required the most foodstuffs. A fantastic volcanic eruption in 1783 - in present Iceland - threw out so much soot it blew out the sun. Winter was grim. And the 1784 harvest yielded lean, lean pickings. The following summers witnessed drought, busted harvests… and famine.
1787 and 1788 brought more hungry times. With them, inflation. That is because slender harvests raised the price of flour - hence, the price of bread. Hunger plus inflation is a dreadful combination. A shrinking belly... twinned with a shrinking currency... equals a growing crisis. It means a heart filling with resentment and a head filling with ideas. It meant - in this instance - revolution. It meant the slaughter of civilization. It meant rivers, lakes, seas of blood. It meant war… ultimately.
It meant two centuries of ideological mischief of one sort or other. Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro and other 20the century hellcats took their examples from the French revolutionists and their bloodlettings.
The Alan Greenspan of the 18th Century: But we have neglected the crucial role of a critical actor... “the Alan Greenspan of the 18th century” - Monsieur Jacques Necker - to whom we now turn. As Mr. Bonner explains: "None of this might have happened, however, except for the efforts of the Alan Greenspan of the late 18th century - Jacques Necker. It was Necker who replaced laissez-faire economist, Jacques Turgot, as French finance minister in 1776.
Turgot's free-trade policies had the fatal flaw of all sensible rules - they benefited everybody to the advantage of nobody in particular. Turgot dissolved the guild system, eliminated the corvee (the forced labor of the peasants), imposed a simple property tax and opposed all forms of economic privilege at the expense of the common good. He even set himself against Marie Antoinette, by refusing to grant favors to her cronies. Since everybody in France in the 18th century as well as every American in the 21st wanted the privilege of picking someone else's pocket, Turgot eventually made enemies of nearly every class. Louis XVI, though responsible for the well-being of the entire nation, had not the strength to stand up to the special interests.
Turgot even had a prophetic intuition and a view of history similar to our own. Periods of civilized progress are followed, he noted, by periods of barbarism and madness. Dismissed in 1776, he warned Louis XVI: "Do not forget, Sire, that it was feebleness that placed the head of Charles II on the block."
Necker made enemies of no one. His program was the opposite of Turgot's; he favored particular privileges at the expense of everybody else. Rather than tax people to pay for state expenses, Necker borrowed - taking short-term, high-interest loans that brought the government close to bankruptcy. Then, Necker turned to accounting tricks to show that the government was actually running a surplus! The patsies loved it.
Pushed out for the first time in 1781, Necker was called back on the eve of revolution in 1788 for another dose of his financial magic. But it was too late. The old miracle elixirs - heavier debt and cooked books - wouldn't work any longer; bankruptcy was unavoidable. The aristocrats got rid of him again — on July 14, 1789. The mob, which still had faith, was so disappointed… it headed for the Bastille."
History Doesn’t Repeat, But It Rhymes: History does not repeat. But it does rhyme, as said the great scalawag Mark Twain. Now this question: Will Americans head for their own Bastille?Perhaps they already have in one sense... Substitute July 14, 1789, for January 6, 2021… substitute the Bastille for the United States Capitol… and you may have yourself a rhyme.
The cadence is a bit off, of course. The only blood at the Capitol came spilling out of a 35-year-old Air Force veteran’s neck, shot through by a Capitol policeman. No heads went up on spikes at the Capitol - feet merely went up on Nancy Pelosi’s desk. And the marauders walked out not long after they walked in… and went home. Nor were they famished. By the appearance of many, rather the opposite. In brief, 2021 America is not 1789 France. The Church is punchless, American nobility is a contradiction, no king beleaguers us.
Rhymes: But do millions of Americans believe they are being bossed and exploited by an overbearing elite? Do they believe they are languishing at the base of the economic pyramid... while the pyramid’s tip lives grandly - almost royally? Many do, yes. Do they believe the Federal Reserve chairman - whoever it may be - is a modern Jacques Necker? Again, many do.
Are they ready for a man upon a white horse? We do not know. But many believe, rightly or wrongly, that a man with white hair was fraudulently elected over a man with orange hair. Rasmussen reports that 41% of American voters do not believe the sitting president was lawfully elected. An electoral audit is far underway in Arizona’s Maricopa County. Momentum builds for additional audits in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. We do not pretend to know what they will reveal (our spies report alarming whispers. But we had best keep them dark).
Another possible historical rhyme: As in 1789 France, inflation is on the jump. It may or not prove transient. But take a frustrated population sat upon by elites… many wallowing economically… and losing faith in elections… and set an inflationary fire… And history’s rhyme might just be an awful clang. A prediction? No, of course not. Merely a possibility. And perhaps an unlikely one at that. But what is the ultimate impact of the French Revolution? “Too early to say.”
"Big Danger Is Ahead; Toxic People; Global Crisis - Depression 2.0; Foreclosure Flood Coming"
Full screen recommended.
Jeremiah Babe, PM 7/16/21:
"Big Danger Is Ahead; Toxic People;
Global Crisis - Depression 2.0; Foreclosure Flood Coming"
"Enemies of the People"
"Enemies of the People"
by Jim Kunstler
"Edging now into high summer, the “Joe Biden” apparatus swerves toward the totalitarian seizure of all communications. A White House equerry name of Jeff Zients with the awesome title Covid Response Coordinator called on “Biden allied groups” (DNC? NSA? AFT? CCP?) to monitor Short Message Services (SMS, i.e., texts) on cell phones in search of “disinformation being spread about vaccinations”… Surgeon General Vivek Murthy asked social media to “step up” to address “false claims feeding vaccine resistance”… White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki let slip that “We’re flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation”….
America is oh so problematic! You people are working a little too hard to think for yourselves - you basket of deplorable, brain-damaged, flyover gorks - so pardon us while we remove your impure thoughts from the nation’s thought-spaces. We will do your thinking for you, because 1) we know better, and 2) we say so… Can you see now how things are working perfectly toward an autumn explosion of, shall we say, unpleasant disagreeableness?
Meanwhile, “Joe Biden” and “Biden allied groups” have engineered the US intel and security agencies to label anyone and anything that opposes the shutdown of wrong-think as “white supremacist domestic terrorism.” the FBI officially tweets: “Family members and peers are often best positioned to witness signs of mobilization to violence. Help prevent homegrown violent extremism. Visit https://go.usa.gov/x6mjf to learn how to spot suspicious behaviors and report them to the #FBI.” Nice set-up. Thus, Nancy Pelosi and Merrick Garland’s year-to-date production of the “Capitol Insurrection” pageant, and the captivity, in solitary confinement for months on end, in defiance of habeas corpus, of January Sixth’s hapless, selfie-snapping trespassers. That should prevent any outfit beside BLM and Antifa from mounting mostly peaceful protests, especially against “Joe Biden’s” creeping totalitarianism.
Yet, the flop-sweat is running like a babbling brook from end-to-end down Pennsylvania avenue as, in actual fact, the “Joe Biden” show lurches into its final act - which will be the collapse of the “Joe Biden” show in an odoriferous heap of bad faith and criminality. The specter of election audits is getting to the animatronic teleprompter-reader heading the federal regime. His chamberlains foolishly sent him out to Philadelphia this week to squelch any rising sentiment among PA state legislators to audit alleged ballot irregularities of 11/3/20. “Joe B’s” legitimacy is shredding and he looks more and more like a mere ghoul in the Oval Office, Jacob Marley in Uncle Sam drag, wailing and whispering of his political sins.
In Philly, the poor boob said, “For those who challenge the results and question the integrity of the election: No other election has ever been held under such scrutiny and such high standards!” That mouthful was followed by an even bigger gulp: “The Big Lie is just that: a big lie.” Did he know what he said there? (Cue: Joseph Goebbels spinning in grave with admiration.) The utterance was the perfect companion to his Big Brag on the campaign trail last October, saying, “We have put together, I think, the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics.” Indeed, you did, Joe - or, at least, your worker bees in the DNC did, with, perhaps, some help from the Deep State’s Intel Community. That’s why folks all over the land have got a hankering to look inside those black boxes of ballots and Dominion voting machines.
Of course, it’s hard to tell now whether the “Joe Biden” act will go down in a flaming glob of proven election fraud, or just on its sheer abysmal performance, trying to put over one great big totalitarian hustle while the real economy craters and institutions augur into pits of corruption, recklessness, and incompetence - for instance, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s astounding move to invite a committee of UN rapporteurs to assess America’s standing vis-Ã -vis human rights and racism. Great idea! Let’s get envoys from Liberia, Yemen, Laos, Venezuela, El Salvador, and Chad to hold a CRT struggle session with the staff in Foggy Bottom... or, hey, maybe it’s time to defund the State Department.
When all else fails (to control the restive US population) it’s back to good old reliable Covid-19. The Delta variant is upon us, they say. Face masks are back in California, in contradiction to the CDC’s latest directives on masks. That ought to seal the deal on Governor Gavin Newsom’s recall election fate, scheduled now for September 14. (But can anyone rescue the state from sliding completely down the drain?) How about another round of lockdowns to ensure that nobody ever tries to start a small business again? Well, you know, small business is racist. Look at how many people of color are prevented (by racism) from starting small businesses. We demand social justice! Abolish small business! There, America, I fixed that for you!"
"The Future..."
"We do not rest satisfied with the present. We anticipate the future as too slow in coming, as if in order to hasten its course; or we recall the past, to stop its too rapid flight. So imprudent are we that we wander in the times which are not ours, and do not think of the only one which belongs to us; and so idle are we that we dream of those times which are no more, and thoughtlessly overlook that which alone exists. For the present is generally painful to us. We conceal it from our sight, because it troubles us; and if it be delightful to us, we regret to see it pass away. We try to sustain it by the future, and think of arranging matters which are not in our power, for a time which we have no certainty of reaching. Let each one examine his thoughts, and he will find them all occupied with the past and the future. We scarcely ever think of the present; and if we think of it, it is only to take light from it to arrange the future. The present is never our end. The past and the present are our means; the future alone is our end. So we never live, but we hope to live; and, as we are always preparing to be happy, it is inevitable we should never be so."
- Blaise Pascal
Gregory Mannarino, AM/PM 7/16/21
Gregory Mannarino, AM 7/16/21:
"US Treasury Secretary WARNS Of 'RAPID INFLATION COMING'
As The Economy Continues To Crater"
○
Gregory Mannarino, PM 7/16/21:
"'Rapid Inflation' And Another
'Possible Economic Shutdown' Spooks The Market"
"Julie Noble Was Vaccinated. Here Are Her Before And After Videos. PLEASE Watch Them!"
"Julie Noble Was Vaccinated.
Here Are Her Before And After Videos. PLEASE Watch Them!"
by Ben Nobles
"Does Julie’s tragic horror story even need commentary? Yes, it does. To you folks who haven’t yet been vaccinated, but are considering it… be afraid, very afraid. Julie’s story is NOT rare, despite the massive efforts of the Big Pharma, Government, and the Main Stream Media to convince you otherwise. They are lying to you. Politicians. Always. Lie."
Full story and videos are here:
○
"How the Covid 'Pandemic' Was Orchestrated"
"Biden's Vaccine 'Strike Force' Plan Stinks Of Desperation"
"Biden's Vaccine 'Strike Force' Plan Stinks Of Desperation"
by Brandon Smith
"If there is one rule liberty minded people need to remember, it is that the establishment does not like losing control of the narrative. And when they do, noticeably weird things start to happen. For example, it is becoming painfully obvious that the narrative on the experimental mRNA “vaccines” has slipped right through the fingers of the Biden Administration, and as a consequence they are now in a scramble to get millions of vaccines injected into as many skeptical arms as possible before the public organizes for a full push-back against the agenda. It seems to me that they are in a bit of a panic.
The issue became more evident since January when various government entities and the media began to openly complain about the number of vaccine doses that were being thrown in the garbage because of expiration. Why were the vaccines expiring before use? The media spin suggests that it was due to “government mismanagement”, while officials at the state level have admitted that it has been due to a significant drop in demand.
In the meantime, Biden has shipped over 500 million covid vaccine doses overseas in June while at the same time claiming that the US was on track to meet his 70% vaccination goal by July 4th. Needless to say this never happened. The Biden admin now claims that the US population is now 67% vaccinated, and if this was actually true then it would be very close to meeting Anthony Fauci’s original guidelines for herd immunity. So why all the frantic hype about unvaccinated people?
Firstly, Fauci has continually moved the goal posts for herd immunity to the point that he is now telling the public to ignore herd immunity altogether and that the only option is to get EVERYONE vaccinated. Many of us in the liberty media said this is exactly what he would do, and he has proven to be incredibly predictable. Secondly, the CDC vaccination numbers seem to be inflated in order to create a manufactured consensus.
While claiming an overall vaccination rate of 67%, CDC stats indicate a maximum of around 184 million Americans with at least one dose, then indicate 160 million people with a double dose. Yet, according to the Mayo Clinic data map, only four states have a vaccination rate of 67% or more, all in the Northeast. Even California and New York are well under 67%, and the vast majority of states are sitting at around 50% or less.
Frankly, I don’t believe the CDC vaccine numbers at all. New dosage numbers are plunging across the US according to state officials; anyone who hasn’t been jabbed by now is not going to get jabbed unless they are forced to. There are no long lines for vaccines. No wait times. The CDC has even removed the wait time between doses. And still, CVS and Walgreens have been throwing away expired doses by the hundreds of thousands.
If we look at the CDC stats for full vaccination we are closer to 51% of the total US population, which matches more accurately with the Mayo Clinic state statistics. There is no indication that this percentage will be growing beyond the 51% mark anytime soon, if the stats are accurate at all.
This means that at least half the US population is in defiance of the program. This is probably why Fauci and Biden have become more aggressive in their vaccination agenda the past month. If they were getting the nearly 70% vax rates they claim, then they would not be stomping their feet indignantly over unvacinated people. The stats show a HUGE number of Americans are refusing to take the jab – There’s a vast army of us out there, and this is a good thing.
Why? Because there is simply no reason to take the experimental mRNA vaccine.
FACT: Covid-19 has a median IFR (Infection Fatality Rate) of 0.26% or less. Why take an experimental vaccine over a virus that 99.7% of the population outside of nursing homes will easily survive? In my home county, only 17 people died from covid in 16 months time, many of them in nursing homes. The majority of the population also stopped wearing masks and ended the lockdowns about three months after the initial outbreak when it became clear that covid was a nothing-burger. The so-called “Delta variant is also prominent here, and neither deaths nor infections have increased in a noticeable way.
Most people here have already had the virus, and it was essentially like a bad flu with an extra kick or extra brain fog. After around a week people recovered. Easy. I perfectly understand people’s concerns when the pandemic first started; we had no idea what we were dealing with. However, after a few months the reality was evident. The continued delusional fear and terror over Covid is just self indulgent paranoia at this point.
FACT: Covid infections and deaths started collapsing LONG before the vaccines were widespread. The mainstream media continually suggests that the vaccines are the reason for the fall in infections, but this is a lie. Covid cases peaked in January of 2021 and then plunged precipitously. In February of 2021 only 5.9% of the US population had received at least one dose of the mRNA cocktail. In conservative states where mandates were lifted far ahead of blue states and vaccinations are lower, infections and deaths fell even faster. Vaccines have NOTHING to do with the lower infections. Nothing.
FACT: At least 81% of people who have had covid are unlikely to be reinfected. Fauci continues to ignore the science on herd immunity and completely dismisses people who have had covid as being immune. Yet, this is the reality. If we count the large numbers of people that have had covid, then the US hit herd immunity many months ago. This is why infections and deaths dropped off a cliff, not because of vaccinations.
FACT: The mRNA vaccines have NO long term testing data supporting them or proving their safety. Initial testing for the average experimental vaccine is 2-4 years, and then another several years of observation and further testing is required before approval. Overall, vaccines are supposed to be tested and retested for 10-15 YEARS before being released to the public. The covid mRNA vaccines were released to the public in a matter of months with no official FDA approval and no long term data, at least none that has been revealed openly. The bottom line is that we have no idea what the long term side-effects of these vaccines will be. Though, there are some experts that are sounding the alarm…
FACT: Multiple vaccine experts are warning about potentially dangerous autoimmune disorders and infertility caused by experimental mRNA vaccines, including the doctor that invented mRNA technology. We have received numerous warnings by virology and vaccine experts calling for caution when it comes to the covid vaccines. Former VP of Pfizer Michael Yeadon and many of his medical associates have published a call for vaccinations to stop until more testing can be pursued. Yeadon specifically warned of possible autoimmune disorders as well as infertility side effects. He has since been attacked relentlessly by the media.
MRNA vaccine inventor Dr. Robert Malone spoke out on the dangers of mRNA gene therapy, specifically noting that the spike protein which the covid vaccine instructs your cells to manufacture could pose long term health risks, including blood clots and infertility in women. Malone’s interview has since been erased from YouTube and his accomplishments have been quietly removed from websites like Wikipedia. He is slowly being non-personed.
Finally, in hospitals across the country 30% of medical professionals have refused to take the vaccines. Some have only taken the jab because their jobs were threatened.
The controlled media argument against warnings like these from experts in the field is that they are “crazy” and should be dismissed. So, only the medical professionals that get a government paycheck and agree with the government mandates are somehow “sane”? Interesting… When gaslighting doesn’t work, the spin doctors (no pun intended) pull out some classic fuzzy logic, claiming that there is “no evidence that the vaccines will cause any damage”. Well, that’s verifiably false as anyone doing a rudimentary search will see many people around the world have died or suffered health side effects right after taking the vaccine. But, of course, vaccine apologists then argue that this is not 100% “proof” that the vaccines are dangerous overall.
Well, there’s also NO EVIDENCE that the vaccines are safe. There is no long term safety data. And in medical science the rule is to err on the side of caution, not take reckless risks over a virus that is a non-threat to 99.7% of the population.
So let me make this perfectly clear to the covid cult which does not understand basic medical science – The burden of proof is ON YOU, on the government and on the pharmaceutical companies, not on on us. YOU must prove that the vaccines are safe, through long term testing. It is not for us to simply take the jab and become guinea pigs in the world’s largest medical experiment based on blind faith and empty opinions backed by zero data.
Biden’s “Vaccine Strike Forces”: These facts and more are being digested by the American public and the results are clear – Millions upon millions of us will not be taking the jab. It’s not going to happen. We will fight rather than comply, and eventually we will win. The globalist Reset agenda demands total vaccination, vaccine passports and complete compliance. They aren’t getting it, so, the natural outcome will be an attempt to force unvaccinated people to accept the jab.
Recently, Biden announced a plan to field “survey teams” across America which would go door-to-door, like census agents, to determine who specifically has taken the vaccines and who hasn’t. These teams would also “encourage” people who are not vaccinated to take the jab at a nearby location. These surveys are, in my opinion, a ruse more than anything else. They could not possibly collect accurate counts because they have no way of knowing if people are telling the truth or not. The likely purpose of the surveys is to locate homes that refuse to talk to the teams on principle and mark them as “problematic”.
Biden’s press secretary let slip some interesting language on these teams, perhaps revealing their true intent when she called them “strike teams”. Is this to say that the initial goal will be to force people to take the jab on their own doorsteps? No, not right away. However, I believe the survey teams are the next step towards that very policy in the future.
For now, the covid cult is using corporations to enforce medical mandates by demanding employees and even customers get vaccinated before they can have access to employment or services. This is unacceptable, as many of these corporations have enjoyed endless stimulus injections from the government and are therefor beholden to taxpayers. Their private property rights do not extend to control over our personal medical decisions or histories.
Any corporation or business that demands proof of vaccination on behalf of the government or the globalists should be picketed and run into the ground. Any competing businesses that refuse to ask for vaccine passports should be supported by the public and protected from government retribution. My home state of Montana has made it illegal for companies to ask for vaccine passports, but many states have not. It is up to regular Americans at the local level to let businesses know you will not be tolerating medical tyranny.
By extension, Biden’s survey teams are a no-go. They are a precursor to door-to-door forced vaccinations and invasive pressure from the federal government on any number of other issues. This is called “incrementalism”, and they think we are too distracted to notice it. As the agenda continues to fall apart in the US, the establishment will get desperate. When the vaccine passport mandates by corporations fail (and they will), they will have to take violent action in the near term to get what they want.
These teams should be kicked out of any community they show up in. They should not be allowed to go door-to-door. The liberty movement is gaining incredible ground in this fight, but this means that the elites will become more unhinged and more dangerous in their rhetoric and actions. When control freaks and psychopaths do not get what they want, they tend to throw epic temper tantrums."
Greg Hunter, "Clif High: 'Predictive Linguistics'"
(Program Note 7/14/21: What is written here is a fraction of what is in this 70 min. interview. I will not be doing a Weekly News Wrap-Up on Friday 7/16/21. I did this a month ago when Clif High was on, and this interview is better than that one. Please take time to carefully listen as High lays out what to expect from August to the end of the year.)
"Clif High: 'Predictive Linguistics'"
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
"Clif High is an Internet data mining expert who uses something he calls “Predictive Linguistics,” which sorts through billions of bits of information on the Internet to predict future trends and events. He has many well-documented correct predictions. High predicted a month ago, “The Biden Administration would be in full collapse by this fall.” The CV19 Vax door knocking campaign from the Biden camp, to harass people into getting the jab, is simply a prelude to the coming collapse. High explains, “It’s a sign of desperation, and it’s a sign of weakness. What they do not realize is the people doing this work are going to be assaulted by the people they are going to be talking to verbally and sometimes physically. It won’t go well for the workers. It’s going to cause lots and lots and lots of videos and audio recordings to come into existence that the Biden Administration will desperately not want to have happened. At some point, I think it will be the PR aspect that will get them to cancel it. People will take the opportunity to ‘red pill’ these workers and record it. It will be like my enemy is sending his troops to me. Let me see if I can convert them to my purpose.”
How will the collapse of the Biden Administration take place? High says, “This is an economic issue. We exist on the petro-dollar empire, and that empire is dying very rapidly. We are in the very final phases of that death. In that final phase, we reach hyperinflation. We are at the point that hyperinflation has broken loose. It’s reported at 5.4%, but it’s really hyper. It really is three times that or four times that. Energy, since Biden took over, is up 40%. We are now reaching a point of the inflation to run parallel with the debt that is going to reach an extreme. This extreme, by my calculations, should impact the Biden Administration in some form of a catastrophic crisis around the last half of September. Fundamentally, it will be the inability to pay for things. It will be a situation where the hyperinflation has so outpaced normal expectation that all of the government contracts in the computers, which have limits and constraints, will have blown beyond those limits and constraints. The government will not be able to write checks because the computers will refuse to print them. This is a crude way of explaining it. There are thousands of constraints built into software configured at a time when there was a more rational view of inflation.”
High goes on to say, “We are at that point where empire is collapsing. The empire is collapsing because the money is no good.”
High also talks about the breakdown of society because so many high-skilled people will die from the jabs. High says the “lockdown plan that would have killed many has failed,” because of President Trump. High also contends, “The power elite are committed. They can’t back down now, and they must continue with the idea of trying to kill as many of us as possible, especially now that we have had this great awakening and they have broken the veil of secrecy so to speak. This is why the door to door thing. Inoculation is not a good thing, and the elite are trying to inoculate 95% of humanity out of existence.
Going back to my data to 2003 and onward, there has always been this area of data that said 1.24 billion people would be dying prematurely. We are at the point right now that a little more than 2 billion people have been inoculated, injected with these mixtures, and if we take the numbers out of various institutes out of London they estimate between 60% and 70% this coming winter will fall ill, and the vast majority of those people will die. This is very close to what my data has predicted since 2003 – 1.24 billion people dying. So, imagine what that is going to do to our social order. At that level, our society will be hovering around breakdown. We won’t have truck drivers, doctors, dentists, and a lot of the healthcare workers inoculated themselves. We won’t have airline pilots, and we may not have pilots for large ships to get them in and out of port. That’s a highly skilled job, and it takes years to train someone.”
High also has data on the massive amounts of bodies that will need to be buried or cremated because of the deaths from the CV19 jabs. It is gruesome.
High also talks about bitcoin, gold, silver, the stock market and how a new financial system will emerge. Spoiler alert: gold, silver and Bitcoin are not going lower in price, according to Clif High - just the opposite. High also talks about data on election fraud, the CCP attack on Nov 3, 2020, and how it will all be coming out into the open. Will Donald Trump get back into office? High has data on that too and will explain it. High says the elite will become prisoners of “We the People.” The great awakening of “We the People” will leave the elite no place to hide and no place to run."
Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes
One-on-One with Internet data mining expert Clif High:
○
Related, an absolute Must Read:
Thursday, July 15, 2021
The Economy is Collapsing and Jerome Powell Says Not to Worry"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, IAllegedly, PM 7/15/21:
"The Economy is Collapsing and Jerome Powell Says Not to Worry"
"Today we are in Driftwood, Texas at Camp Ben McCulloch. Jerome Powell spoke to Senators today and convinced them that inflation will only be moderate in the future. Our economy is collapsing around us."
“Revolution Within the Form”
“Revolution Within the Form”
by Brian Maher
"Yesterday we maintained that the American Revolution was a “revolution not made but prevented.” Less a revolution than an anti-revolution… we might properly label the thing a revolt. A child may revolt against parental sovereignty. But is he a revolutionary?
Here was the American colonists’ animating purpose: To retake preexisting rights the crown had muscled away from them. They were not out to create the world anew. They had no care to carve out an “indispensable nation,” or “shining city on the hill.” No ideological stars dazzled them, no ideological sugar plums waltzed within their skulls. They were grounded in the good American earth. Historian Clinton Rossiter: "However radical the principles of the Revolution may have seemed to the rest of the world, in the minds of the colonists they were thoroughly preservative and respectful of the past… The political theory of the American Revolution, in contrast to that of the French Revolution, was not a theory designed to make the world over."
Adds historian and political theorist Russell Kirk: "For novel abstract theories of human nature and society, most of the men who subscribed to the Declaration and the Constitution had no relish."
All Men Are Created Equal: Did not Mr. Tom Jefferson claim that all men are created equal? He did, yes. Yet as Kirk noted: "Jefferson, not unaware of his own remarkable talents, scarcely could have thought that every man… could become the intellectual peer of Thomas Jefferson… There were some demagogues in the Continental Congress, but Jefferson was not of their number, and the large majority of the Declaration’s signers were realists with broad experience of the world, not given to sentimental or false slogans...
The men of the Continental Congress... did not take Jefferson’s equality clause as an affirmation of literal equality in body and mind. (In one early draft of the Declaration, the phrase is “equal & independent”; in another rough draft, “& independent” is crossed out… they did not look upon the average American, let alone the average man everywhere, as their literal equals. They did subscribe to two venerable concepts of human equality: equality before the law, and equality in the judgment of God."
To this day scholars flog their brains to decode Jefferson’s riddle. But after America’s “Second Founding” - following the Civil War and the 14th Amendment - the Declaration and the Constitution underwent a transformation. They began to give off ideological glows previously undetected. That is, they began to radiate the crusading ideology of egalitarianism previously undetected. As Mr. Lincoln had declared at Gettysburg: The American nation “shall have a new birth of freedom.”
The New Freedom: The new birth of freedom demanded the death of the old freedom. It required an energetic, centralizing government... busy with the business of equality on ever-expanding and heavily contested fronts. The civil rights legislation of the 1960s was perhaps its high moment, its culmination. For good? For ill? Neither? Both?
Here we offer no judgment. We merely report the record, as a sportscaster reports the action, or an obituarist reports a death. Yet equality’s reach forever exceeds its grasp. Today the very concept of equality is being shouldered out of the way by “equity.” That is, equality in opportunity is yielding to equality in outcome. Again, for good or ill? We once again reserve judgment.
Revolution Within the Form: Yet this we maintain with confidence: The United States Constitution has endured what old Aristotle labeled “a revolution within the form.” A revolution within the form? “Old Right” journalist Garet Garrett: "Aristotle observed that “People do not easily change, but love their own ancient customs; and it is by small degrees only that one thing takes the place of another; so that the ancient laws will remain, while the power will be in the hands of those who have brought about a revolution in the state.”
The Constitution, the original Constitution, throbs with such vitality, such life... it is so alive… it is nearly dead. The outer structure remains, yes. The skeleton, the form, is intact. Yet scalpel your way through to the innards. Cut your way through the outer layers... to the vital organs. You will discover a corpse.
The old confederation of sovereign and independent states, mightily jealous of their rights, has yielded to the leviathan central state we enjoy so much today. Every last detail of American life this creature watches, regulates and controls. Where does it locate its authority in the Constitution? Not in the text. The original words remain, yes. Yet their meaning is not what they once were. They have undergone a sort of revolution - a revolution within the form. The Constitution has become an ideological battle axe in the service of an abstraction. Let us now, briefly, direct our attentions to the French Revolution…
The Ideological Revolution: The French Revolution, in contrast to the American Revolution, sizzled and crackled with ideology. It looked to build society anew - from root to branch, from cellar to attic. It blasted away all existing social and political foundations.
God, Himself was chased out of France, deported, banished, exiled. Revolutionists sat “reason” down in the vacated throne. Savagery, barbarism and slaughter on the wholesale followed. Yet how did it come to be?
France had become a dazzling star of Europe by the 1700s, attaining fantastic civilizational heights. Explains our co-founder Bill Bonner: "By the 18th century, France had become the greatest power in Europe, the richest and most populous country in the western world, and the clear leader in art, science, philosophy, education, cuisine, fashion, architecture...and, of course, viticulture. It had the richest people in the world, the prettiest women, and the best booze.
It also had the most enlightened economists - the physiocrats - from whom Adam Smith was boosting some of his best ideas. A poll taken in the early 1780s might have shown the French to be extremely optimistic and confident. And why shouldn't they be? The last major financial crisis - caused by John Law's Mississippi Bubble - blew up over 60 years before. And had the world ever seen anything approaching the splendor of Versailles?"
Then came the revolution: "But in 1789, Paris mobs came to the crossroads of history and veered left. They replaced an absolute monarch who had very limited power, with a people's republic restrained neither by common sense nor common decency."
Why then did France plunge into revolutionary psychosis in 1789? Does it offer a worrying tale of caution to 21st century America? These questions we tackle tomorrow…"