Saturday, January 18, 2025

"Intense Sub-Zero Temperatures Slam 130 Million People"

Full screen recommended.
Snyder Reports, 1/18/25
"Intense Sub-Zero Temperatures 
Slam 130 Million People"
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"Another Bank Closure Friday, Hundreds More At Risk; The US Economic Crisis Isn't Funny"

Jeremiah Babe, 1/18/25
"Another Bank Closure Friday, Hundreds More At Risk; 
The US Economic Crisis Isn't Funny"
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Musical Interlude: 2002, "Beauty And Grace"

Full screen recommended.
2002, "Beauty And Grace"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"These cosmic clouds have blossomed 1,300 light-years away, in the fertile starfields of the constellation Cepheus. Called the Iris Nebula, NGC 7023 is not the only nebula to evoke the imagery of flowers. Still, this deep telescopic image shows off the Iris Nebula's range of colors and symmetries, embedded in surrounding fields of interstellar dust. 
Within the Iris itself, dusty nebular material surrounds a hot, young star. The dominant color of the brighter reflection nebula is blue, characteristic of dust grains reflecting starlight. Central filaments of the reflection nebula glow with a faint reddish photoluminesence as some dust grains effectively convert the star's invisible ultraviolet radiation to visible red light. Infrared observations indicate that this nebula contains complex carbon molecules known as PAHs. The dusty blue petals of the Iris Nebula span about six light-years."

"From Stardust to Sapiens: A Stunning Serenade to Our Cosmic Origins and Our Ongoing Self-Creation"

"From Stardust to Sapiens: A Stunning Serenade to 
Our Cosmic Origins and Our Ongoing Self-Creation"
By Maria Popova

"We were never promised any of it - this world of cottonwoods and clouds - when the Big Bang set the possible in motion. And yet here we are, atoms with consciousness, each of us a living improbability forged of chaos and dead stars. Children of chance, we have made ourselves into what we are - creatures who can see a universe of beauty in the feather of a bird and can turn a blind eye to each other’s suffering, creatures capable of the Benedictus and the bomb. Creatures who hope.

A generation after Maya Angelou held up a cosmic mirror to humanity with “A Brave and Startling Truth,” Pattiann Rogers - who writes with uncommon virtuosity about the intersection of the cosmic and the human, and whose poems have therefore been a frequent presence in "The Universe in Verse" - offers a poignant cosmogony of our self-creation in the stunning final poem of her book "Flickering" (public library).                                                            

  "Homo Sapiens: Creating Themselves"
by Pattiann Rogers, Read by Maria Popova

I.
"Formed in the black-light center of a star-circling
galaxy; formed in whirlpool images of froth
and flume and fulcrum; in the center image of herring
circling like pieces of silver swirling fast, a shoaling
circle of deception; in the whirlpool perfume of sex
in the deepest curve of a lily’s soft corolla. Created
within the images of the creator’s creation.

Born with the same grimacing wrench of a tree-covered
cliff split wide suddenly by lightning and opened
to thundering clouds of hail and rain.

Cured in the summer sun as if in a potter’s oven,
polished like a stone rolled by a river, emboldened
by the image of the expanse beyond earth’s horizon,
inside and outside a circumference in the image
of freedom.

Given the image of starlight clusters steadily silent
above a hillside-silence of fallen snow… let there be sleep.

II.
Inheriting from the earth’s scrambling minions,
images of thorn and bur, fang and claw, stealth,
deceit, poison, camouflage, blade, and blood…
let there be suffering, let there be survival.

Shaped by the image of the onset and unstoppable
devouring eclipse of the sun, the tempestuous, ecliptic
eating of the moon, the volcanic explosions of burning
rocks and fiery hail of ashes to death… let there be
terror and tears. Let there be pity.

Created in the image of fear inside a crawfish
skittering backward through a freshwater stream
with all eight appendages in perfect coordination,
both pincers held high, backing into safety beneath
a fallen leaf refuge… let there be home.

III.
Made in the image of the moon, where else
would the name of ivory rock craters shine
except in our eyes… let there be language.

Displayed in the image of the rotting seed
on the same stem with the swelling blossom…
let there be hope.

Homo sapiens creating themselves after the manner
and image of the creator’s ongoing creation — slowly,
eventual, alert and imagined, composing, dissembling,
until the right chord sounds from one brave strum
of the right strings reverberating, fading away
like evening… let there be pathos, let there be
compassion, forbearance, forgiveness. Let there be
weightless beauty.

Of earth and sky, Homo sapiens creating themselves,
following the mode and model of the creator’s creation,
particle by particle, quest by quest, witness by witness,
even though the unknown far away and the unknown
nearby be seen and not seen… let there be goodwill
and accounting, let there be praise resounding."

Complement with astronomer-poet Rebecca Elson’s ode to dark matter and the mystery of being, “Let There Always Be Light,” non-speaking autistic poet Hannah Emerson’s astonishing “Center of the Universe,” and Jane Hirshfield’s “To Be a Person,” then revisit Pattiann Rogers’s harmonic of the human and cosmic perspectives, read by David Byrne and illustrated by Maira Kalman."

"Seeing Through The Apocalypse: The Biggest Secret"

"Seeing Through The Apocalypse:
The Biggest Secret"
by Zen Gardner


 “And he said unto them, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”
- Mark 4:9

“It has been said that wisdom is not in seeing things,
 but in seeing through things.”
- Manly P. Hall

"They don't own the earth. They don't own you and me. They don't own all their stupid secret symbols. They don't own the present, they don't own the future. They don't even own themselves. They're usurpers, in every sense of the word. And absolutely nothing to fear. That these invading power freaks striving to control the world should try to lay claim to some secret knowledge and power source is a fraud. That they think they can bring on world changing events that result in national clampdowns and population reduction is their personal nightmare in the making. And we need to see it for what it is. A charade. They have no secret powers. The nightmare is theirs, not ours. The fact is, there is no secret but that which is willfully withheld or deliberately ignored. And to the conscious, nothing is hidden that cannot be revealed.

So much of the big lie that we're witnessing on the world stage is simply projected pride- the big, fat, stinking manufactured pride of pathological egomaniacs reinforcing a fabricated world of their ugly, demented imaginations. Whether world conquest piggy-backing on natural and manufactured catastrophes, or attempting to morph humanity and terraform our environment to meet their specifications for world control, it's all defensive.

They're scared. It is they who are running and hiding from something so incredibly powerful they have to erect giant sand castles to hide behind while they attempt to exterminate all those who carry this amazing potential to realize Truth.

Us. An awakened and empowered us is what they're absolutely frightened of. Our warfare is a spiritual one. Whether we encase this understanding in one of the more classic frameworks or see it completely metaphysically, the play we're witnessing is nothing to fear. The feverish power struggles and social engineering taking place on such a massive scale are all based in fear. Fear of you, and fear of me. Because we represent the potential connection to Truth. And their inevitable downfall.

A perfect example of this shadowy charade is the "Brotherhood's" usurpation of symbols. While we know this supplanting of authority is true about their false hierarchy and self-imposed "ownership" of lands, natural and even human resources, they've cleverly tried to co-opt the inherent powers of the so-called mystery schools, the language of which is numbers and symbols.

What people forget is almost all of these symbols occur naturally with wonderful positive, regenerative properties. What these lying entities have done is simply attach negative and destructive and abusive connotations to anything they can. A perfect example of how once you're wrapped up in their world of interpretation with an abusive, violent world around you to back it up, you begin to think the lie is true.

Therein lies their only power. Your "belief" and entertaining of their notions, empowered to appear real only by your participation. Turn it off. Turn off their sources- mainstream media, staged events, manipulated music, shallow publicity, even phony personal responses and relationships.

It's time to get real. Remember, their whole plan is designed to replace reality with a false matrix of power that's fed by fear. Don't dwell on it, and see it for what it is. And reverse the flow. Each one of us changes the direction of Spaceship Earth. By our very clarity of understanding, our conscious awareness of the Truth and our not submitting to their web of deceit, we throw off the illusory shackles of the would-be controllers. Just one person's total lack of fear, not giving any obeisance to their societal, political, economic or physical oppression network, is a flame in their flimsy cobweb.

Be it.

They're lying usurpers..but it only works with our agreement. Our conscious awareness, as vague as that may seem to some, is the ultimate weapon. And it starts with waking the hell up and then keep waking up...rattling as many other cages as we can in the process. It's not always a smooth process, but it requires honesty and guts. And cutting the bullshit.

As our collective consciousness grows more awake and aware it gains power and tremendous momentum. The x-factor is synchronicity. When each of us responds to Universal consciousness things change dramatically. Life's signs become increasingly apparent and start challenging and leading our lives more and more, activating them in ways we never knew could have such a powerful influence. With each and every wake up the war is won. It was won in the beginning. We just need to stop believing the illusions around us and acting on our true conscience. At that point it becomes now."

o
Who are 'They'?
"It's no wonder truth is stranger than fiction. 
Fiction has to make sense."
 -Mark Twain 

Someone asked me a question about David Icke and his work. Rather than getting into a discussion of it, here's a FREE download of "The Biggest Secret." Read it, and decide for yourself what to believe. From the introduction: "David Icke's most powerful and explosive book so far. Every man, woman and child on the planet is affected by the stunning information that Icke exposes. "The Biggest Secret" is a unique book and is quite rightly dubbed "The book that will change the world." No one who reads it will ever be the same again. If you want to wake up and see the conspiracy this book is for you."
Freely download "The Biggest Secret", by David Icke, here:

Don't judge it until you've read it, with an open mind...
- CP

“Allegory Of The Cave Updated”

“Allegory Of The Cave Updated”
by T4C

"Socrates: “Why do people think philosophy is bullsh*t? Let me put it this way - imagine you’re in a cave, all chained up so you can’t turn your body at all, and all you get to look at is this one wall. Some fools behind you are making shadow puppets using the light from a fire and making echo noises and that’s all you or anyone else chained up has seen or heard all your life. Sounds terrible, right? Except it’s all you’ve ever known, shadows and echoes, and that’s your whole world - there’s no way you could know that, really, you’re watching a slightly-improved M. Night Shyamalan film.

In fact, you get pretty good at understanding how the patterns in the show work, and everyone else chained up is like, ‘Holy sh*t bro, how did you know that that tree was going to fall on that guy?’ and you’re like, ‘It’s because I f*****g pay attention and I’m smart as sh*t.’ You’re the smartest of the chained, and they all revere you.”

Glaucon: “But Socrates, a tree didn’t really hit a guy. It’s all shadows.”

Socrates:  “No sh*t, Glaucon, but you don’t know that. You think the shadows are real things. Everyone does. Now STFU and let me finish.

So eventually, someone comes and unchains you and drags you out of the cave. At first you’d say, ‘Seriously, what the f**k is going on?!’ Well, actually, at first you’d say, ‘HOLY SH*T MY EYES’ and you’d want to go back to the safe, familiar shadows.” But even once your eyes worked you wouldn’t believe them, because everything you ever thought was real is gone. You’d look at a tree, and say ‘That’s not a tree. I know trees. And you, sir, are no tree. THAT DOWN THERE is a tree.’ But you’re wrong. Down there is a shadow of a tree.

Slowly, as your eyes got better, you’d see more and more. Eventually, you’d see the sun, and realize that it’s the source of all light. You can’t see sh*t without the sun. And eventually, you’d figure it out. Something would click in your brain: ‘oh, sh*t, that IS a tree. F**k me. So… nothing in the cave was real? I feel like such an assh**e.’ 

But it’s not your fault, so don’t be so hard on yourself. Finally you’d want to go down and tell everyone about everything you’ve discovered. Except, and here’s the hilarious part, they think you’ve gone f*****g crazy. 

You’d say, ‘Guys, real trees are green!’ and they’d say, ‘What the f**k is green? THAT is a tree over there.’ And you’d squint and look at the wall, but you know you’re f***ed because now you’re used to having sunlight, and now you can’t see sh*t. So they’d laugh at you, and agree that wherever it was that you went, no one should go there because it turns people into idiots.

Philosophy, same thing. The soul ascends and apprehends the forms, the nature of everything, and eventually the very Idea of Good that gives light to everything else. And then the philosopher has to go back to the cave and try to explain it to people who don’t even know what Green is, to say nothing of the Good. But the philosopher didn’t make up the Good, it was always there, and the only way to really make sense of it is to uncover it for yourself. You can’t force knowledge into a dumbass any more than you can force sight into a blind man.

So if you want to learn, be prepared for a difficult journey, and be prepared to make some mistakes. That’s okay, it’s all part of the process. True knowledge must be obtained the hard way, and some people just don’t want to see the light.”

Put another way...
"In 'The Republic', Plato imagines human beings chained for the duration of their lives in an underground cave, knowing nothing but darkness. Their gaze is confined to the cave wall, upon which shadows of the world are thrown. They believe these flickering shadows are reality. If, Plato writes, one of these prisoners is freed and brought into the sunlight, he will suffer great pain. Blinded by the glare, he is unable to seeing anything and longs for the familiar darkness. But eventually his eyes adjust to the light. The illusion of the tiny shadows is obliterated. He confronts the immensity, chaos, and confusion of reality. The world is no longer drawn in simple silhouettes. But he is despised when he returns to the cave. He is unable to see in the dark as he used to. Those who never left the cave ridicule him and swear never to go into the light lest they be blinded as well."
- Chris Hedges

"Don't Imagine..."

"We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men. Do remember that dishonesty and cowardice always have to be paid for. Don't imagine that for years on end you can make yourself the boot-licking propagandist of any régime, and then suddenly return to mental decency."
- George Orwell

"Be Open Minded..."

"Be open minded, but not so open 
minded that your brains fall out."
-  Groucho Marx

"Who Are the 'Elite'”?

"Who Are the 'Elite'”?
by Todd Hayen

"People are always correcting me when I use the term “elite” to describe that group of “people” (or maybe lizards) who are calling the shots and who created the “agenda” and want the rest of us (useless eaters) either under their thumb or dead.

The people who correct me claim these people (or lizards) are not “elite” which falsely implies “better,” “advanced,” or “special.” They don’t want to give these people (or lizards) any credit they do not deserve. I get it. The clear and indisputable official definition of “elite” is: “A group or class of persons considered to be superior to others because of their intelligence, social standing, or wealth.” But who is doing the “considering” - them, or us, the “non-elite”?

However, it is an easy word to use to describe a group, just like “sheep” and “shrew” are easy to use. It’s not necessarily wholly accurate, but everyone knows what I am referring to when I use these terms. I get the same sort of criticism when I use the phrase “powers that be” - many people want me to use the more awkward expression, “powers that shouldn’t be” - yes, more accurate, but more awkward.

So, what about these “elite?” Who are they and what are they up to, and why are they considered, at least by themselves, to be “better,” “advanced” and “special?” What do they all have in common other than evil? Are they all evil? Are they actually lizards?

Well, I would venture to say the one thing they all unquestionably have in common is money - or at least the control over large amounts of money. A second common denominator is probably “power”—but isn’t that a given? To have money, you automatically have power.

Here are a few facts and figures to throw around. The wealthiest folks in the world are Elon Musk (worth over $230 billion), Bernard Arnault and family (worth over $200 billion), Jeff Bezos (worth over $160 billion) and Bill Gates (worth over $130 billion). As I am sure you’ve heard a million times before, the richest 1% of people hold more than 40% of the world’s total wealth. While the bottom 50% control less than 2%. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

These numbers, and people’s names attributed to be the wealthiest, could be outdated, incomplete, or even inaccurate. Who knows. And as with everything else, be skeptical. I could go on and on with these statistics, but you get the picture. And none of this is a mystery. But there still is a mystery here; things about these people and the lives they live, none of us know thoroughly. We can guess, of course. We can read books and articles about them and watch them in movies and video clips, but do we really know how they think, what they feel, or what level of empathy they are capable of? Or to what lengths they will go to preserve their “elite-ness?”

That’s a mystery. Sure, some of us have a better idea than others. There are people out there who have experienced the reverse of “rags to riches” and are actually wallowing around in squalor due to some form of accountability going awry or just their own stupidity, causing their fortune to skitter away due to one or another inept act or decision. Some “elite” wind up in prison, but even there, they may be treated like “inmate elites” and have the best of that world as they had the best of the world in general before incarceration. Being elite is a relative thing. “King among thieves” as they say.

The ones out in the world who have an impact on us peons are not just Kardashian-types who flit around in their multi-million-dollar yachts and private jets and buy expensive clothes at Louis Vuitton’s or Gucci’s. These are people who literally control the world. They control it through the manipulation of governments and leaders, through real estate, and business holdings. They control it through selective wars and conflicts, banking, currency manipulation, pharmaceuticals and global health policies

People are generally under the false impression that democracy runs the free world. It doesn’t. In the sort of democracy we are referring to when using the word “democracy,” each person who casts a ballot gets an equal vote. In the true democracy that runs the world, each $100 bill gets an equal vote, not a person.

So what, you might say. “If these folks are smart and are good businessmen and women, then why should we worry that they call the shots?” Because it is their lifestyle they want to preserve, not ours. They want a world that caters to them and what they find valuable.

As I said earlier, the mystery we encounter with these people is so profound that we typically ignore it. We believe them to be basically the same as us; in fact, we see them to be the ultimate of what we would desire to be ourselves (not all of you, of course, but a lot). For the most part, most people see them as elite. Superior, desirable, and free to do with their lives what they want. Unfortunately, they are not the same as us. Anyone who lives the style of life these people live, has changed psychologically to something that does not resemble, in the least, what we believe a human being to be.

Now, a disclaimer, I am fully aware this does not apply to every single one of these wealthy and powerful people. There are still some who come upon great wealth and do not lose their humanity. Maybe more than I presently imagine. Love and compassion is a powerful force that is very difficult to completely cover up. I think this is one reason why David Icke came up with his “Reptoid” theory proclaiming that “a race of shape-shifting reptilian beings, originating from another dimension or planet, secretly controls the world by taking on human forms and infiltrating positions of power thus manipulating global events to maintain control over humanity.” If this were true then we would not have to “dehumanize” fellow human beings, we would just have to accept that they are inhuman shape shifting alien reptiles—not human at all. That’s a lot easier to grok. Of course, Icke may be correct and Reptoids may not be just a metaphor. It certainly would answer a lot of questions if he were.

If completely consumed by the evils of consumerism (and most people these days are) these people do not want to live with less than what they already have, no matter how much that might be. If someone has $1,000 they don’t want to lose $500. If someone has $200 billion, they don’t want to lose $100 billion. If someone drives a BMW, they don’t want to drive a Kia, if someone drives a Lamborghini, they don’t want to drive a BMW. If someone flies around in their Gulfstream private jet, they don’t want to fly coach on Air Canada. This is an advanced form of the survival instinct.

People with money, power, and assets, believe if they lose even a fraction of these things, they will not survive. This is an aspect of the incentive of these people that I believe most of us peons do not factor in. When we believe that our leaders could not possibly do anything without us useless eaters being considered, we don’t realize that all the incentives the actual puppet masters have in the world are for their own survival - and their definition of “survival” is radically different than ours. This includes continued control of the wealth and global resources, it includes control and power over the masses, and may even include eliminating the chaff - the useless eaters. Wow, if that isn’t doomsaying, I don’t know what is.

Well, we do have numbers in our favor. If we all woke up and peacefully made changes, we could still get a handle on this. But, obviously, these folks (or lizards) have a pretty good thumb on all of us. Their psyops are highly effective. Let’s hope that changes."

Todd Hayen PhD is a registered psychotherapist practicing in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He holds a PhD in depth psychotherapy and an MA in Consciousness Studies. He specializes in Jungian, archetypal, psychology. Todd also writes for his own substack, which you can read here.
Dr. Hayen's references to "lizards" is best explained here:
o
BlazeTV, 12/29/24
"Kash Patel on The Deep State and
 Who's Really Been Running the Country"
"Glenn Beck interviews Kash Patel who is Donald Trump's choice to lead the FBI. Patel worked with the National Security Council, the secretary of defense, and the Department of Justice. And he spearheaded the investigation into Russia’s campaign to influence the 2016 election - meaning he knows what was really Russian disinformation and what was the Deep State and the Clinton campaign’s meddling. He saw the Deep State firsthand, fought it, and he’s naming names. And it’s all going up on Glenn’s chalkboard..."
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The Daily "Near You?"

Lake Village, Indiana, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

“Screw The Way Things Are, I Want Out!”

“Screw The Way Things Are, I Want Out!”
by Paul Rosenberg

“This is a beautiful planet, filled, in the main, with decent, cooperative humans. And yet, I want out. Give me any kind of functional spaceship and any reasonable chance, and I’ll take it.  This place is anti-human. It chokes the best that’s in us, aggressively and self-righteously. I was struck not long ago by a comment of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s, in which he expressed the same kind of feeling: “I ought to have become a star in the sky. Instead of which I have remained stuck on earth…”

All of us who’ve had a moment of transcendence - who made some type of contact with what is truly the best inside ourselves - have also sensed that life in the current world is incompatible with it. I think we should stop burying that understanding beneath piles of “that’s the way things are,” “we should be realistic,” and “you can’t fight City Hall.”

Screw the way things are, screw “realistic,” and screw City Hall too. I was made for better things than this, and you were too.

Everywhere I turn, some kind of ruler, sub-ruler, enforcer, regulator, or “right-thinking” quasi-enforcer demands not only my money but also for me to make myself easy to punish, thus showing myself to be a good subservient. That’s not just wrong; it’s a disease. I don’t care whether such people are “following orders,” “just doing their job,” or whatever else they tell themselves to soothe their rightly troubled souls. That mode of living is perverse, and these people are enforcing a disease.

Let me make this part very clear: The desire to control others is disease; it is corruption. Willing controllers are a morally inferior class. And the truly deranged thing is that these people rule the world! Forget about why this is so - we can debate that later - focus rather on the utter insanity of this: A minority of moral defectives, who think extortion is a virtue, rule people who are happy to live and let live, by force.

That’s outright lunacy. And to support the lunacy, we have lies, intimidation, and slogans: “In a democracy, you’re really ruling yourself,” “Only crazy people disagree,” “It’s always been this way,” and so on. To all of which I reply, How stupid do you think we are? You drilled that crap into us when we were children, but we’re not children anymore. And if “our way” isn’t as bad as North Korea, that makes it right? Only to a fool.

And the results of “the way it’s always been”… my God, the results… A study from the 1980s found that since 3600 BC, the world has known only 292 years of peace. During this period there have been 14,531 wars, large and small, in which 3.6 billion people have been killed.

This is what I’m supposed to serve with all my heart and soul? A Bronze Age system that can’t keep itself from slaughter? We’re talking about a 5,600-year track record of mass death, and yet fundamental change is considered unthinkable? Well, screw that too, because I think deep, fundamental change is called for, and was called for a long time ago.

Again, this is a wonderful planet and most of the people on it are decent, but it is ruled by insanity, and I want out. Yes, I know, there’s really nowhere to go. Every place I might go is dominated by the same diseased model, and dissent is punished the same, and in some places worse. That’s one of the reasons space appeals to me; it gives me a chance to escape this madness.

I’ll draw this to a close with a passage from C. Delisle Burns’s wonderful "The First Europe," describing why the Roman Empire collapsed: “Great numbers of men and women were unwilling to make the effort required for the maintenance of the old order, not because they were not good enough to fulfill their civic duties, but because they were too good to be satisfied with a system from which so few derived benefit.”

I, for one, am unwilling to expend any effort to maintain the present order. It is by its nature incompatible with the best that is in us, and always will be. Those of us who want to be more and better cannot support the current order without opposing what’s best in ourselves. Screw that.”

"If We're Lucky..."

“Maybe we accept the dream has become a nightmare. We tell ourselves that reality is better. We convince ourselves it’s better that we never dream at all. But, the strongest of us, the most determined of us, holds on to the dream or we find ourselves faced with a fresh dream we never considered. We wake to find ourselves, against all odds, feeling hopeful. And, if we’re lucky, we realize in the face of everything, in the face of life the true dream is being able to dream at all.”
- Dr. Meredith Grey, "Grey's Anatomy"

"This Species is Amusing Itself to Death. The Addictive Contaminated Media Reality"

"This Species is Amusing Itself to Death.
The Addictive Contaminated Media Reality"
By Dr. Gary G. Kohls

“And when they found our shadows (grouped ‘round the TV sets), they ran down every lead; they repeated every test; they checked out all the data in their lists. And then the alien anthropologists admitted they were still perplexed, but on eliminating every other reason for our sad demise they logged the only explanation left: This species has amused itself to death.”  - Roger Waters

“Apathy and indifference are nurtured in the modern age as most peoples’ free time is frittered away with worthless trivia like ball games, computer games, movies and soaps, and fiddling with their mobile phones. These distractions might be fun, but after most of them you’ve learnt nothing of any value, and remain ignorant, malleable and suggestible, which is just how the elites want you.” – Clive Maund

“A truth’s initial commotion is directly proportional to how deeply the lie was believed… When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker, a raving lunatic.” – Dresden James

“A lie gets halfway around the world before
the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”
– Winston Churchill

"30 years ago (1985) Neil Postman (a professor of communications arts and sciences at New York University – until his death in 2003) wrote the best-selling book “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business”. (Free download below.) The book exposed, among other things, the subtle but profound dangers to the developing mind from the mesmerizing (and addictive) commercial television industry.

The lessons from that book have essentially been ignored by the amoral and corrupted sociopathic capitalist system that says “damn the torpedoes/full steam ahead” and blindly and greedily promotes unlimited growth no matter what the costs and who or what gets hurt long–term in the resource-extractive, exploitive and permanently polluting processes.

But Postman’s thesis applies even more strongly today to the current internet/computer/ age-inappropriate, pornographic sex and pornographic violence-saturated televangelist/political-contaminated media reality with which the prophetic Postman was properly alarmed.

SOMA, the Drug That Predicted Prozac by 50 Years: In the classic “Brave New World” (1932) Aldous Huxley wrote about the new form of totalitarianism that has now come to pass in the developed world, thanks to the privatized profit-driven, drug, medical and psychiatric corporations whose practitioners were once (naively or altruistically?) mainly concerned with relieving human suffering and trying to holistically and permanently cure their distressed patients’ ailments (rather than lucratively “managing” said “clients” as permanently paying consumers of unaffordable prescription drugs). Nearly 30 years after he wrote the book, Huxley said,

“And it seems to me perfectly in the cards that there will be within the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda, brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods.” Neil Postman’s very last sentence of his book concerned the prescription drug-infested victims of the new form of totalitarianism that Huxley had described in “Brave New World”.

Of course, Huxley’s book was all about his imaginary psychotropic drug SOMA that Prozac’s makers and promoters in the late 1980s to falsely claim to make its swallowers “feel better than well”. One of the characters in Brave New World said: “And if ever, by some unlucky chance, anything unpleasant should somehow happen, why, there’s always Soma to give you a holiday from the facts. And there’s always Soma to calm your anger, to reconcile you to your enemies, to make you patient and long-suffering. In the past you could only accomplish these things by making a great effort and after years of hard moral training. Now, you swallow two or three half-gramme tablets, and there you are. Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your morality about in a bottle. Christianity without tears; that’s what Soma is.”

Postman ended his book by writing: “What afflicted the people in Brave New World was not that they were laughing instead of thinking, but that they did not know what they were laughing about and why they had stopped thinking.” A couple of years after the publication of Postman’s book, Roger Waters (of “Pink Floyd’s The Wall” fame) released a “concept” album that was inspired by the book. He titled the album “Amused to Death”. The lyrics of the title track are as follows:
“Amused To Death”
by Roger Waters

"Doctor, Doctor what’s wrong with me?
This supermarket life is getting long.
What is the heart life of a color TV?
What is the shelf life of a teenage
queen?
Ooh western woman,
Ooh western girl,
News hound sniffs the air
When Jessica Hahn goes down
He latches on to that symbol of
detachment
Attracted by the peeling away of
feeling
The celebrity of the abused shell
of the belle
Ooh western woman
Ooh western girl
And the children of Melrose strut
their stuff
Is absolute zero cold enough?
And out in the valley warm and clean
The little ones sit by their TV screens
No thoughts to think
No tears to cry
All sucked dry down to the very
last breath.

Bartender what is wrong with me,
Why I am so out of breath?
The captain said excuse me ma’am,
This species has amused itself to death
We watched the tragedy unfold,
We did as we were told.
We bought and sold,
It was the greatest show on earth.
But then it was over,
We oohed and aahed,
We drove our racing cars,
We ate our last few jars of caviar,
And somewhere out there in the stars
A keen-eyed look-out
Spied a flickering light
Our last hurrah.

And when they found our shadows,
Grouped ‘round the TV sets,
They ran down every lead
They repeated every test,
They checked out all the data in
their lists.
And then the alien anthropologists
Admitted they were still perplexed.
But on eliminating every other reason
For our sad demise,
They logged the only explanation left.
This species has amused itself to death.
No tears to cry,
No feelings left,
This species has amused itself to
death…"
Freely download “Amusing Ourselves to Death:
Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business”, by Neil Postman, here:

"How It Really Is"

“One could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness."
- Hannah Arendt, "The Origins of Totalitarianism"

Of course, we know very well what to expect...

Gregory Mannarino, "Markets and The Economy: A Grand Deception And A Fundamental Lie"

"Markets and The Economy: 
A Grand Deception And A Fundamental Lie"
By Gregory Mannarino

"Quick review: In finance and economics there exists only two fundamental truths, which when implemented are beneficial to We the People of the world. These two fundamental truths are:

1. To have a strong economy you need a strong currency. A strong currency meaning having purchasing power, not relative strength. (Relative strength refers ONLY to comparative strength). Both the mainstream media and politicians prey on people not being aware of the difference between relative/comparative strength, and absolute strength, referring to purchasing power. Politicians will say things like “our currency is strong.” This is deceptive, as most people perceive this as the currency having strong purchasing power.

2. To have a strong currency, meaning high purchasing power, you need a corresponding rate of interest high enough to support the purchasing power of the currency.

The two above listed fundamental truths are universal. However, when these two fundamental truths are flipped upside down, both the economy and the people suffer. However, for those who run the system and know how to take advantage of it, they benefit GREATLY by turning them upside down.

Selling a fundamental lie: Central bankers, Politicians, and Wall Street all work closely together, and are in the business of selling lies, deceptions, distractions, half-truths, backtracking, propagating public misinformation and the like, (devilism in my opinion).

An integral part of their coordinated deception is selling We the People of the world on the grand idea that “lower rates is what we need to make our economy strong.” (Go ahead, make it up). If we understand that lower rates steal purchasing power from the currency, how is this beneficial to the economy and the people?

Having lower rates sounds good to those seeking to borrow however, having lower rates means that you now need to borrow more weakened currency, (brought about directly by lower rates). Moreover, now it will take even more devalued currency to pay back what you borrowed.

The overall effect of lower rates and therefore currency purchasing power losses is inflation. Moreover, the effect of low rates creates massive price action distortions. By weakening the currency and therefore creating inflation/weakening the economy, low rates are also responsible for producing asset bubbles/stock market bubbles AND real estate bubbles. (Today losses of currency purchasing power are also, among other things, causing cash to seek yield in cryptocurrencies). Low rates inflate stock market and real estate bubbles.

Cash always seeks yield! Low rates are directly responsible for inflating stock market bubbles. When rates are low, it opens a doorway for cash to flow into risk assets like stocks. This mechanism invariably leads to wild speculation in the stock market, and the result is massive price action distortions/stock market bubbles.

Low rates, and therefore currency purchasing power losses, inflate real estate/housing prices. The result is higher rent and vastly inflated real estate prices. Lower rates and therefore currency purchasing power losses also lower our standard of living. People now must work harder, and longer, to acquire more devalued currency to maintain a particular lifestyle.

Lower rates accelerate global debt hyper-bubbles: The simplest way to put a perspective on how lower rates accelerates debt hyper-bubbles is this. As lower rates are responsible for currency purchasing power losses, the demand for more currency grows.

The effect of lower rates/currency purchasing power destruction is an economic wrecking machine however, this mechanism allows central banks to inflate/introduce more “new money” into the system. The effect of new money pumped into the system does not affect all people equally, as those closest to the money benefit. This “close to the money benefit” is due to the inherent lag effect of how cash moves through an economy. (To further understand this principal, look up The Cantillion Effect).

Stock market investors, real estate investors, cryptocurrency investors, Wall Street Superbanks, Central Banks, the ultrarich, multinational corporations, all benefit from low rates/currency purchasing power losses by knowing how to capitalize on price action distortions. Low rates, and the promise of even lower rates to come, (possible even negative rates, as the world economy freefalls faster), will assure the creation of a modern global neo-feudalistic paradigm."

Dan, I Allegedly, "It’s Time to Buy Nothing"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 1/18/25
"It’s Time to Buy Nothing"
"Discover how the 'Buy Nothing' Challenge can completely transform your finances in 2025! In this video, I dive into the powerful concept of cutting out unnecessary spending and focusing only on essentials to save big and live smart. From my daughter ditching food delivery apps to friends saving for their dream homes, you'll hear real-life stories of how people are embracing this lifestyle to build financial security. This isn't just about saving money -  it's about gaining control over your finances, creating an emergency stash, and preparing for anything life throws your way. I share practical tips, like tracking daily expenses, avoiding wasteful habits, and surrounding yourself with like-minded, motivated people who inspire growth. With the economy facing uncertainties, there's never been a better time to try this challenge. Don't let paycheck delays or rising costs derail your goals - start taking control today."
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Friday, January 17, 2025