Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 8/3/24
"Alert! We're Being Lied To About Nuclear War,
Russia And China Know The Truth"
Comments here:
So, we rise from the rubble...
Saturday, August 3, 2024
Jeremiah Babe, "Billionaires Selling Stocks Preparing For Major Crash"
Jeremiah Babe, 8/3/24
"Billionaires Selling Stocks Preparing For Major Crash;
Wall St. Freaking Out As Economy Implodes"
Comments here:
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Full screen recommended.
The Atlantis Report, 8/3/24
"Banks Are Pausing Withdrawals!
This Is Just The Beginning"
"Recently, certain banks have temporarily halted withdrawals, raising concerns among customers and financial analysts. Imagine needing cash urgently and finding out you can't access your money from the bank. That's what happened to many people recently when JP Morgan Chase stopped teller services due to a mysterious issue affecting their systems. This issue is not isolated to one bank or region; it's a worldwide problem with serious implications for the global financial system.
The Immediate Issue: System Outages: One of the primary causes of these withdrawal suspensions has been system outages. Banks, including major players like JP Morgan Chase, have faced technical glitches, making their teller services inoperative. Customers trying to withdraw cash have received apologies and reassurances that the issue is temporary, but the inconvenience has been significant."
Comments here:
"We All Know..."
“We all know that something is eternal. And it ain’t houses and it ain’t names, and it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even the stars… everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings. All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that for five thousand years and yet you’d be surprised how people are always losing hold of it. There’s something way down deep that’s eternal about every human being.”
- Thornton Wilder
◆
“I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge.
That myth is more potent than history.
I believe that dreams are more powerful than facts.
That hope always triumphs over experience.
That laughter is the only cure for grief.
And I believe that love is stronger than death.”
- Robert Fulghum
◆
“For Those Who Have Died”
“Eleh Ezkerah” (“These We Remember”)
“Tis a fearful thing
To love
What death can touch.
To love, to hope, to dream,
And oh, to lose.
A thing for fools, this,
Love,
But a holy thing,
To love what death can touch.
For your life has lived in me;
Your laugh once lifted me;
Your word was a gift to me.
To remember this brings painful joy.
Tis a human thing, love,
A holy thing,
To love
What death can touch.”
- Chaim Stern
Graphic: “Into The Silent Land”,
by Henry Pegram, 1905
◆
“We are travelers on a cosmic journey, stardust, swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of Infinity. Life is Eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share. This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in Eternity.”
- Paulo Coelho
◆
“Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.”
- Dr. Seuss
◆
And we shall meet again…
Full screen recommended.
Moody Blues, “The Day We Meet Again”
Musical Interlude: Deuter, "Along the High Ridges"
Full screen recommended.
Deuter, "Along the High Ridges"
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Galaxies don't normally look like this. NGC 6745 actually shows the results of two galaxies that have been colliding for only hundreds of millions of years. Just off the above digitally sharpened photograph to the lower right is the smaller galaxy, moving away. The larger galaxy, pictured above, used to be a spiral galaxy but now is damaged and appears peculiar. Gravity has distorted the shapes of the galaxies.
Although it is likely that no stars in the two galaxies directly collided, the gas, dust, and ambient magnetic fields do interact directly. In fact, a knot of gas pulled off the larger galaxy on the lower right has now begun to form stars. NGC 6745 spans about 80 thousand light-years across and is located about 200 million light-years away."
“You Deserve to Be Hanged for Treason”
“You Deserve to Be Hanged for Treason”
by Brian Maher
Annapolis, Maryland - “You are sick… You deserve to be hanged for treason.” This, reader I.W. has informed us. He elaborated his case no further, alas. His charges therefore lack the legal warrant for an official hanging. Upon this slender hope we hang… if you will indulge the expression. Yet the question dangles: Why would I.W. have us hanged? What have we done to rate a hanging?
I.W.’s laments attend our recent articles on the Ukrainian unpleasantness - articles in which we called United States involvement into severe question. Put simply: We argued against United States involvement in the Ukrainian war. That is because we fear it opens the roadway for direct United States conflict with Russia itself. Thus we are a Putin “apologist.” Thus we sanction, bless and enable the man’s multiple evils in Ukraine. Thus we are an agent of Satan and against every human decency. Thus we must hang for treason - by the neck - until dead.
Tread Carefully: Yet we might remind I.W. that nations can stumble into war… as easily as men can stumble into love. War’s dogs are willful and excitable hounds. They are forever plotting to break the leashes. The June 1914 assassination of an Austrian archduke did not by itself fire the guns of August. War was not an inevitability. But blunders were made… and miscalculations. That is, human beings were at their normal tricks. Two months later the guns were roaring. They roared for the next four years.
We would avoid a nuclear-age sequel - a sequel with a far less lengthy conclusion. We fear that the distance from initial clash with Russia… to nuclear clash with Russia… may be nearer than most imagine…That the howitzers of June that led to the tanks of February could lead to the aircraft of April and the troops of September and the atoms of October. How many homicides escalated from a simple shove? The graveyards and the jails crowd with examples.
What Would Adams Think? America “goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy,” said Adams (John Quincy) in 1821. More from whom: "She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own. She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings…
Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be…She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.
She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.
The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force.... She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit...America's glory is not dominion, but liberty… She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice."
Adams Says No to the Early Neoconservatives: In the early 1820s the nation of Greece was at war with the Ottoman Empire. It was a war for Greek independence - similar to America’s own war for independence from the British Empire. The Greek government formally solicited aid and assistance from the United States. Many Americans, including prominent politicos, were hot to jam their snouts into the thing. They believed the Greek cause was in essence the United States’ cause. And so they were for the Greek proposal. They were out to aid Greece materially - even to dispatch a squadron of the United States Navy to those distant, contested waters.
Yet Secretary of State Adams did not think “quite so lightly of a war with Turkey.” Thus he put out a very stern rebuke against the Greek request: "While cheering with their best wishes the cause of the Greeks, the United States are forbidden by the duties of the situation from taking part in the war, to which their relation is that of neutrality… Their established policy and the obligations of the laws of nations preclude them from becoming voluntary auxiliaries to a cause which would involve them in war."
Incidentally, Mr. Adams references the United States in the plural form - “the United States are…” That is because the United States was not yet an “it.” It remained a “them.”
What Would Adams Say About War With Russia? Would Secretary of State John Quincy Adams counsel war with Russia in 2024? Or would the fellow not think “quite so lightly of a war” with Russia? We do not presume to speak for the dead. And so we shall not presume to speak for Mr. Adams. Yet we can draw certain… inferences… based on his written declarations. And we believe he would be against war with Russia - for the very reasons he cited in 1821.
Must the United States of 2024… the “it”... cling to the doctrines of the “them” United States of 1821? No, it is under no such bonds. The world of 2024 is vastly different from the world of 1821. And the contemporary United States is free to chart its own course, to blaze its own path, to do as it pleases. It need not - must not - be devoted slavishly to the old ways. Even old Tommy Jefferson argued that the nation’s Constitution should be written anew every 19 years. And who are we to dispute old Tommy Jefferson? No one whomsoever.
What if Adams Was Right? Yet we must consider this possibility: The Adams admonitions of 1821 maintain their value in the year 2024. They may transmit a vast and enduring wisdom worth a good hard listen. Yet the living so rarely listen to the dead. The living believe they inhabit unrivaled times. That they confront unrivaled circumstances - and challenges. “This time is different” is their eternal refrain.
These unrivaled times, circumstances and challenges lead some to conclude that Russia constitutes a unique menace to global tranquility. And that the world’s civilized nations must scotch it before the menace grows… like a cancerous growth. They further believe that war with a nuclear-armed Russia is a tolerable risk in pursuit of this greater good. And some even believe that a man should hang for treason if he is against it…"
The Poet: Czeslaw Milosz, "Hope"
"Hope is with you when you believe
The earth is not a dream but living flesh,
That sight, touch, and hearing do not lie,
That all things you have ever seen here
Are like a garden looked at from a gate.
You cannot enter. But you're sure it's there.
Could we but look more clearly and wisely
We might discover somewhere in the garden
A strange new flower and an unnamed star.
Some people say we should not trust our eyes,
That there is nothing, just a seeming,
These are the ones who have no hope.
They think that the moment we turn away,
The world, behind our backs, ceases to exist,
As if snatched up by the hands of thieves."
- Czeslaw Milosz,
"Hope", from "The World"
The earth is not a dream but living flesh,
That sight, touch, and hearing do not lie,
That all things you have ever seen here
Are like a garden looked at from a gate.
You cannot enter. But you're sure it's there.
Could we but look more clearly and wisely
We might discover somewhere in the garden
A strange new flower and an unnamed star.
Some people say we should not trust our eyes,
That there is nothing, just a seeming,
These are the ones who have no hope.
They think that the moment we turn away,
The world, behind our backs, ceases to exist,
As if snatched up by the hands of thieves."
- Czeslaw Milosz,
"Hope", from "The World"
"And It Was Pointless..."
“And it was pointless… to think how those years could have been put to better use, for he could hardly have put them to worse. There was no recovering them now. You could grieve endlessly for the loss of time and for the damage done therein. For the dead, and for your own lost self. But what the wisdom of the ages says is that we do well not to grieve on and on. And those old ones knew a thing or two and had some truth to tell… for you can grieve your heart out and in the end you are still where you were. All your grief hasn’t changed a thing. What you have lost will not be returned to you. It will always be lost. You’re left with only your scars to mark the void. All you can choose to do is to go on or not. But if you go on, it’s knowing you carry your scars with you.”
- Charles Frazier
“A Corrupt Tree Bringeth Forth Evil Fruit”
“A Corrupt Tree Bringeth Forth Evil Fruit”
By Brian Maher
“Every good tree bringeth forth good fruit,” says Matthew - “but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.”
"Today we are in transit. We lift our siege of Jekyll Island, Georgia… and take to the aerial ways. Our destination is the Maryland city of Annapolis, by way of the Baltimore-Washington International Airport. Yet before we take wing, we lower our ax upon the root of America’s corrupt money tree… and expose its evil fruit - the fiat dollar.
If you are a regular Daily Reckoning reader you are likely aware of the corruption. Yet as we have argued before: A man must occasionally recall himself to obvious truths. That is because the nose upon his face is obvious. It is so obvious he scarcely notices the nasal protuberance. It would serve him well to remember at times. We believe this is one such time.
The Dual Life of a Dollar: Is there a $20 bill nesting within your wallet? Please haul it up… This $20 bill represents an asset to you its holder. It is a meager asset in these inflationary days - yet it is an asset. It represents a legal claim upon all goods and services available within these United States. Yet this $20 bill of yours lives a coy existence, a dual existence. One aspect is seen. The other is unseen. That is because your $20 asset is at once a $20 liability.
You are aware of the asset, of the purchasing power you command. It is musculature in monetary form. But are you aware of its liability? You likely are not aware of its liability. Consider: All money in present circulation - all bills, coins, all checking and savings deposits, A through Z - was borrowed into existence. That is, all money in existence represents a debt… taken sometime… somewhere… by someone. That debt may not be your debt. Yet it is another man’s debt. This is the inner secret of the schizophrenic $20 bill you presently ponder.
Poor Andrew Jackson: Imagine poor Andy Jackson raging in his bleak Tennessee grave. Imagine how he spins and spins and spins. For this is the man who shuttered the Second Bank of the United States in 1836 - and retired the national debt for the first and only occasion in history.
Yet Old Hickory and his hawkish visage front the debt-fabricated $20 bill. That is, the poor fellow has been dragooned posthumously into the very banking system he proceeded against with such fantastic heat. It is almost as if the monetary authorities mock his memory - purposefully and intentionally. It is almost as if he has been paraded as a trophy of war, a helpless and lifeless captive. “As if” does not constitute proof of an actual doing. We harbor our suspicions nonetheless. But let it go.
Let us now ponder the staggering realities of today’s debt-based money…
$96 Trillion Into Thin Air: Recall, all money under today’s monetary “system” constitutes an expression of debt. The asset merely represents the positive face of the liability, the reverse face. We must therefore conclude, as we have concluded before: If all dollar-based debt were retired - all $96 trillion, public and private - each dollar would vanish into the nonexistence whence it came. It goes flushing into the void. Can you imagine it? Attempt the try.
Now lift your jaw from the floor. Now rediscover your footing. Now recover your wits. Here we do not speculate. We read directly from the book…
The Fed’s Open Confession: Mr. Marriner Eccles bossed the Federal Reserve in May 1941. At that time he sat down in front of the House Committee on Banking and Currency. A bewildered congressman - Patman, by name - asked this Eccles how the Federal Reserve had acquired the funds to purchase $2 billion of Treasury bonds in 1933. Our minions have fished up this exchange from the Congressional Record:
ECCLES: We created it.
PATMAN: Out of what?
ECCLES: Out of the right to issue credit money.
PATMAN: And there is nothing behind it, is there, except our government’s credit?
ECCLES: That is what our money system is. If there were no debts in our money system, there wouldn’t be any money.
“The Tragic Absurdity of Our Hopeless Situation Is Almost Incredible” Did Mr. Eccles botch the facts? He did not. Here is the credit manager of the Federal Reserve’s Atlanta outpost, Mr. Robert Hemphill: "If all the bank loans were paid, no one could have a bank deposit, and there would not be a dollar of coin or currency in circulation. This is a staggering thought. We are completely dependent on the commercial banks. Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation, cash or credit. If the banks create ample synthetic money we are prosperous; if not we starve. We are absolutely without a permanent money system. When one gets a complete grasp of the picture, the tragic absurdity of our hopeless situation is almost incredible - but there it is."
There it is indeed.
“All Money Would Disappear” Mr. G. Edward Griffin is the author of "The Creature From Jekyll Island." As we have noted these past two days: That creature is of course the Federal Reserve. And we have visited the site of its conception - its bastard conception. Here Griffin gets in back of Messieurs Eccles and Hemphill:
"It is difficult for Americans to come to grips with the fact that their total money supply is backed by nothing but debt, and it is even more mind-boggling to visualize that if everyone paid back all that was borrowed, there would be no money left in existence. That’s right, there would be not one penny in circulation - all coins and all paper currency would be returned to bank vaults - and there would be not one dollar in anyone’s checking account. In short, all money would disappear…
Every dollar that exists today, either in the form of currency, checkbook money or even credit card money - in other words, our entire money supply - exists only because it was borrowed by someone; perhaps not you, but someone. Let us now strike at the root of today’s corrupt money tree…
Don’t Forget About the Interest: A bank loans a man $10,000. He must repay the $10,000 at a future date - with a bit of interest into the bargain. Assume the $10,000 comes tethered to a 5% rate of interest. Assume further the bankman thunders at his door five years hence, calling in his loan. The debtor must hand the fellow $12,762.74 That is, the principal plus the $2,762.74 in accumulated interest. Where will this sap secure the $2,762.74 to service the interest? The larger question: Must the Federal Reserve issue increasing quantities of money to service all outstanding debt - $96 trillion in the case of the United States? Mr. Griffin:
One of the most perplexing questions associated with this process is “Where does the money come from to pay the interest?” If you borrow $10,000 from a bank at 9%, you owe $10,900. But the bank only manufactures $10,000 for the loan. It would seem, therefore, that there is no way that you - and all others with similar loans - can possibly pay off your indebtedness.
The amount of money put into circulation just isn’t enough to cover the total debt, including interest. This has led some to the conclusion that it is necessary for you to borrow the $900 for the interest, and that, in turn, leads to still more interest. The assumption is that the more we borrow, the more we have to borrow, and that debt based on fiat money is a never-ending spiral leading inexorably to more and more debt.
This is a partial truth. It is true that there is not enough money created to include the interest, but it is a fallacy that the only way to pay it back is to borrow still more. A partial truth? What is the entire truth, sir?
The Exchange Value of Labor: “The assumption fails to take into account the exchange value of labor.” Please elaborate: Let us assume that you pay back your $10,000 loan at the rate of approximately $900 per month and that about $80 of that represents interest. You realize you are hard-pressed to make your payments so you decide to take on a part-time job…
The decision then is made to have the bank’s floors waxed once a week. You respond to the ad in the paper and are hired at $80 per month to do the job. The result is that you earn the money to pay the interest on your loan, and - this is the point - the money you receive is the same money which you previously had paid. As long as you perform labor for the bank each month, the same dollars go into the bank as interest, then out the revolving door as your wages and then back into the bank as loan repayment. Just so. You serve the interest by serving your master.
Yet what if you decline to wax the bank’s floors? What if you fail to serve your master? It is not necessary that you work directly for the bank. No matter where you earn the money, its origin was a bank and its ultimate destination is a bank. The loop through which it travels can be large or small, but the fact remains all interest is paid eventually by human effort.
Modern Serfdom: What - then - are we to conclude from the foregoing? The significance of that fact is even more startling than the assumption that not enough money is created to pay back the interest. It is that the total of this human effort ultimately is for the benefit of those who create fiat money. It is a form of modern serfdom in which the great mass of society works as indentured servants to a ruling class of financial nobility.
This conclusion appalls us. Yet we hazard Mr. Griffin draws a reasonable sketch. And so we hazard this question: Shall we strike the chains of bondage from our wrists? That is, should we all repay each dollar we owe - all $96 trillion? Should we call in all money from circulation?
The question is theoretical, of course. As we have maintained before: We can no more afford to break the chains of debt than we can afford to break our necks. We are locked in. These chains will snap only when they can no longer endure the relentless weight pressing upon them. Not because we choose to snap them. That is, the chain-snapping will be imposed upon us. On that bright and glorious day, however distant, we shall finally be free… Free… without one penny to our name…"
"When We Can No Longer Tell the Truth "
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"When We Can No Longer Tell the Truth "
by Charles Hugh Smith
"When we can no longer tell the truth because the truth will bring the whole rotten, fragile status quo down in a heap of broken promises and lies, we've reached the perfection of dysfunction. You know the one essential guideline to leadership in a doomed dysfunctional system: when it gets serious, you have to lie. In other words, the status quo's secular goddess is TINA - there is no alternative to lying, because the truth will bring the whole corrupt structure tumbling down.
This core dynamic of dysfunction is scale-invariant, meaning that hiding the truth is the core dynamic in dysfunctional relationships, households, communities, enterprises, cities, corporations, states, alliances, nations and empires: when the truth cannot be told because it threatens the power structure of the status quo, that status quo is doomed.
Lies, half-truths and cover-ups are all manifestations of fatal weakness. What lies, half-truths and cover-ups communicate is: we can no longer fix our real problems, and rather than let this truth out, we must mask it behind lies and phony reassurances.
Truth is power, lies are weakness. All we get now are lies, statistics designed to mislead and phony reassurances that the status quo is stable and permanent. The truth is powerful because it is the core dynamic of solving problems. Lies, gamed statistics and false reassurances are fatal because they doom any sincere efforts to fix what's broken before the system reaches the point of no return.
We are already past the point of no return. The expediency of lies has already doomed us.
Honest accounts of hugely successful corporations that implode share one key trait: in every case, managers were pressured to hide the truth from top management, which then hid the truth from investors and clients. is the key dynamic in failed oligarchies as well: if telling the truth gets you sent to Siberia (or worse), then nobody with any instinct for self-preservation will tell the truth. If obscuring the truth saves one's job, then that's what people do. That this dooms the organization is secondary to immediate self-preservation.
A distorted sense of loyalty to the family, community, company, institution, agency or nation furthers lying as the solution to unsavory problems. Daddy a drunk? Hide the bottle. Church a hotbed of adultery and thieving? Maintain the facade of holiness at all costs. Company products are failing? Put some lipstick on the pig. The statistical truth doesn't support the party's happy story? Distort the stats until they do what's needed. The agency failed to fulfill its prime directive? Blame the managerial failure on a scapegoat.
Pathological liars and cheats rely on self-preservation and misplaced loyalty to mask their own failure and corruption. A hint here, a comment there, and voila, a culture of lying is created and incentivized.
Obscuring the truth is the ultimate short-term expediency. Now that it's serious, we have to lie. We'll start telling the truth later, we say, after everything's stabilized, we hope. But lying insures nothing can ever be truly stabilized, so there will never be a point at which the system is strong enough and stable enough to survive the truth.
We are now an empire of lies. The status quo,politically, socially and economically, depends on lies, half-truths, scapegoats and cover-ups for its very survival. Any truth that escapes the prison of lies endangers the entire rotten edifice.
In an empire of lies, leaders say what people want to hear. This wins the support of the masses, who would rather hear false reassurances that require no sacrifices, no difficult trade-offs, no hard choices, no discipline. The empire of lies is doomed. Lies are weakness, and they prohibit any real solutions. Truth is power, but we can no longer tolerate the truth because it frightens us. Our weakness is systemic and fatal."
Read Online: Kahlil Gibran, “The Garden of the Prophet”
“The Garden of the Prophet”
by Kahlil Gibran
“Oftentimes we call Life bitter names, but only when we ourselves are bitter and dark. And we deem her empty and unprofitable, but only when the soul goes wandering in desolate places, and the heart is drunken with over-mindfulness of self.
Life is deep and high and distant; and though only your vast vision can reach even her feet, yet she is near; and though only the breath of your breath reaches her heart, the shadow of your shadow crosses her face, and the echo of your faintest cry becomes a spring and an autumn in her breast.
And Life is veiled and hidden, even as your greater self is hidden and veiled. Yet when Life speaks, all the winds become words; and when she speaks again, the smiles upon your lips and the tears in your eyes turn also into words. When she sings, the deaf hear and are held; and when she comes walking, the sightless behold her and are amazed and follow her in wonder and astonishment.”
Read “The Garden of The Prophet” online here:
"Making Your Best Guess"
"Making Your Best Guess"
by Arthur Silber
"We are not gods, and we are not omniscient. We cannot foretell the future with certainty. Most often, cultural and political changes are terribly complex. It can be notoriously difficult to predict exactly where a trend will take us, and we can be mistaken. We do the best we can: if we wish to address certain issues seriously, we study history, and we read everything that might shed light on our concerns. We consult what the best thinkers of our time and of earlier times have said and written. We challenge everyone's assumptions, including most especially our own. That last is often very difficult. If we care enough, we do our best to disprove our own case. In that way, we find out how strong our case is, and where its weaknesses may lie.
Barring extraordinary circumstances, we cannot be certain that a particular development represents a critical turning point at the time it occurs. If we dare to say, "This is the moment the battle was lost," only future events will prove whether we were correct. We do the best we can, based on our understanding of how similar events have unfolded in the past, and in light of our understanding of the underlying principles in play. We can be wrong. "
"The Blow That Ended America 111 Years Ago"
"The Blow That Ended America 111 Years Ago"
by Paul Rosenberg
“There is a lot of ruin in a nation,” wrote Adam Smith. His point was that it takes a long time for nations to fall, even when they’re dead on their feet. And he was certainly right. America took its fatal blow in 1913, one hundred years ago; it just hasn’t hit the ground yet. This is a slow process, but it’s actually fast compared to the Romans. It took them several centuries to collapse.
The confusing thing about our current situation is that America – and by that I mean the noble America that so many of us grew up believing in – has long been poisoned. Its liver, kidneys, and spleen have stopped functioning. but it still stands on its feet and presents itself as immortal.
And I’m not without sympathy for those who want to believe. They find themselves in a world where politics is almighty, and where their comfort, prosperity, and perhaps their survival all hang in a delicate balance. They don’t want to upset anything, and questioning the bosses is a good way to get hurt. But just because someone wants to believe doesn’t make it so. We are not children and we are not powerless. We producers should never be intimidated by those who live at our expense. So let’s start looking at the facts.
1913: The Horrible Year: For all the problems America had prior to 1913 (including the unnecessary and horrifying Civil War), nothing spelled the death of the nation like the horrors of 1913. Here are the key dates:
February 3rd: The 16th Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, authorizing the Federal government to impose income taxes on individuals. An amendment to a tariff act in 1894 had attempted to do this, but since it was clearly unconstitutional, the Supreme Court struck it down. As a result – and mostly under the banner of bleeding the rich – the 16th amendment was promoted and passed.
As a result, the Revenue Act of 1913 was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson in October. Income taxes began in 1914, with the government swearing (as in, “only a crazy person would say otherwise!”) that the rate would never, ever go higher than one or two percent. And, by the way, the amendment was introduced by Senator Aldrich of Rhode Island, to whom we’ll come again shortly.
April 8th: The 17th Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, taking the powers of the states and transferring them to Washington, by mandating the popular election of senators. Previously, senators were appointed by state legislatures, which, by design, restrained the power of the national government. This change gave political parties immediate and massive power, nearly all of which was consolidated in the city of Washington.
The amendment was ratified in the name of making the national government a force for good, under the direct control of the people. It was true that state governments were often corrupt, but the implied idea that Washington was pristine… which was and remains a fantasy. A structure featuring small, separate pockets of corruption is far less dangerous than one featuring a single, large seat of corruption, to which oceans of money are gathered. As Thomas Jefferson wrote: "It is not by the consolidation or concentration of powers, but by their distribution that good government is effected."
December 23rd: Woodrow Wilson signs the Federal Reserve Act, which had passed Congress just the previous day. This system – called the Aldrich Plan, and promoted by Senator Nelson Aldrich of Rhode Island – gave a monopoly on the creation of dollars to a consortium of large banks. The Act was passed, by the way, in the name of financial stability.
And Senator Aldrich? Wikipedia says this about him: "He… dominated all tariff and monetary policies in the first decade of the 20th century… Aldrich helped to create an extensive system of tariffs that protected American factories and farms from foreign competition, while driving the price of consumer goods artificially high… Aldrich became wealthy with insider investments in streets, railroads, sugar, rubber and banking… His daughter, Abby, married John D. Rockefeller, Jr., the only son of John D. Rockefeller.
The Combination: Here is why I say that these three changes of 1913 killed America:
They robbed every producer in America of their money and handed it to politicians. Until 1913, ordinary people kept their money. Carpenters, grocers, and repair men were able to make business loans and to retire on stock dividends. Once the income tax came in, however, politicians were empowered to skim off more and more of their money, which is precisely what happened. While the modern skim is multi-faceted, the average producer is now stripped of half his or her earnings every year, leaving politicians to spend it.
They consolidated all power in Washington DC. This is precisely what James Madison wished to avoid when writing the US Constitution. (Again, note the Jefferson quote above.) By depriving the states of their remaining power, the City of Washington had no opposition. Since then, the Washington government has taken over practically everything on the continent and is choking it to death… a lot like the city and empire of Rome before it.
They created a money empire that took over everything. When you start talking about central banking, and how it provides politicians with free money, people generally turn away from it, because it’s just too much to take. And so I’ll stop here. There’s more to say but my point is made. America, as we grew up thinking of it, is over. The old ideas live on in some of us, but they no longer live in the political arena. What remains to be seen is what Americans will do next."
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Dan, I Allegedly, "The Recession is Here - We're Being Deceived!"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 8/3/24
"The Recession is Here - We're Being Deceived!"
"You cannot argue with the numbers anymore. The recession is here, and the impact is undeniable! Stocks are plummeting, layoffs are surging, and the economic landscape is shifting dramatically. In today's video, I dive deep into the harsh realities we're facing. From job numbers being revised downward to major stores like Home Depot overflowing with unsold merchandise, it's clear that consumer habits are changing. Intel and other tech giants are laying off thousands, signaling a grim outlook for the near future."
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Related:
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Full screen recommended.
The Atlantis Report. 8/2/24
"Millions Of Americans Have Stopped Paying Their Bills!"
"There has been a concerning trend in the American financial sector. Millions of Americans have stopped paying their bills, leading to a major increase in loan delinquencies across various sectors. This isn't just a minor economic issue; it's a growing crisis that's sending shockwaves through major financial institutions and causing concern among economic analysts. Big banks are reporting substantial losses due to bad debts and delinquencies. JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo, two of the largest financial institutions in the country, have reported combined losses of $3.5 billion. These losses represent debts that the banks don't expect to recover, even if some are sold to collection agencies at discounted rates."
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Friday, August 2, 2024
Canadian Prepper, "Holy F!$% Alert! Iran To Launch 1000s Of Missiles"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 8/2/24
"Holy F!$% Alert! Iran To Launch 1000s Of Missiles;
Markets Crashing; Israel's Nuclear Agenda"
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Adventures With Danno, "Multiple Shortages At Walmart & Aldi!"
Adventures With Danno, PM 8/2/24
"Multiple Shortages At Walmart & Aldi!"
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Musical Interlude: 2002, "Greater Than The Sum"
Full screen recommended.
2002, "Greater Than The Sum"
In Ancient Greece, philosopher Aristotle (384–322 B.C.)
wrote “The whole is greater than the sum of the parts”
"A Look to the Heavens"
“How many arches can you count in the below image? If you count both spans of the Double Arch in the Arches National Park in Utah, USA, then two. But since the below image was taken during a clear dark night, it caught a photogenic third arch far in the distance- that of the overreaching Milky Way Galaxy. Because we are situated in the midst of the spiral Milky Way Galaxy, the band of the central disk appears all around us.
The sandstone arches of the Double Arch were formed from the erosion of falling water. The larger arch rises over 30 meters above the surrounding salt bed and spans close to 50 meters across. The dark silhouettes across the image bottom are sandstone monoliths left over from silt-filled crevices in an evaporated 300 million year old salty sea. A dim flow created by light pollution from Moab, Utah can also be seen in the distance.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110524.html
The Poet: Henry Austin Dobson, “The Paradox Of Time”
“The Paradox Of Time”
“Time goes, you say? Ah no!
Alas, Time stays, we go;
Or else, were this not so,
What need to chain the hours,
For Youth were always ours?
Time goes, you say? – ah no!
Ours is the eyes’ deceit
Of men whose flying feet
Lead through some landscape low;
We pass, and think we see
The earth’s fixed surface flee -
Alas, Time stays, – we go!
Once in the days of old,
Your locks were curling gold,
And mine had shamed the crow.
Now, in the self-same stage,
We’ve reached the silver age;
Time goes, you say? – ah no!
Once, when my voice was strong,
I filled the woods with song
To praise your ‘rose’ and ‘snow’;
My bird, that sang, is dead;
Where are your roses fled?
Alas, Time stays, – we go!
See, in what traversed ways,
What backward Fate delays
The hopes we used to know;
Where are our old desires?
Ah, where those vanished fires?
Time goes, you say? – ah no!
How far, how far, O Sweet,
The past behind our feet
Lies in the even-glow!
Now, on the forward way,
Let us fold hands, and pray;
Alas, Time stays, – we go!”
- Henry Austin Dobson
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“Time passes in moments. Moments which, rushing past, define the path of a life, just as surely as they lead towards its end. How rarely do we stop to examine that path, to see the reasons why all things happen? To consider whether the path we take in life is our own making, or simply one into which we drift with eyes closed? But what if we could stop, pause to take stock of each precious moment before it passes? Might we then see the endless forks in the road that have shaped a life? And, seeing those choices, choose another path?”
- Gillian Anderson as Dana Scully, “The X-Files”
○
Full screen recommended.
Hans Zimmer, "Time"