"The same retailers that have helped to push consumer prices up by 20% over the past four years are getting desperate as shoppers aggressively tighten their spending to cope with stubborn inflation. Some of the biggest retail chains in America are on a price-cutting spree to gain back their customers now that sales are declining faster than expected and financial results have started to disappoint. They are finally feeling the consequences of the substantial price hikes they have passed on to consumers since 2020. That's why some companies are reporting discounts of up to 30% to lure people back into their stores.
Big name-retailers like Target, Walmart, Aldi, Best Buy, Home Depot, and more, are introducing a shift in sales strategy to prevent facing even bigger financial losses over the coming quarters, according to multiple reports. Executives are saying that American consumers have become too “price-conscious” and “choosy” after years of persistent price increases.
At this point, not only those at the bottom of the economic ladder are curbing their spending. Chad Lusk, consumer and retail group managing director for consultancy firm Alvarez & Marshal, noted that upper-income households are also changing their consumption patterns due to lower affordability. “The 'budget conscious consumer' is no longer just low- or middle-income earners," he told CNN. "By far the starkest decrease in intent to spend is coming from the higher-income groups, and those that were previously the most immune to an economic downturn are now tightening their belts."
The rapid change in consumer behavior is prompting swift action by retailers, who cannot afford to lose any more customers. Last week, Target executive vice president and chief food, essentials, and beauty officer, Rick Gomez revealed that more than 1,500 items faced price cuts in the past month alone, including staples like frozen chicken breast, cheese, butter, and baby supplies, like diapers and cleansing wipes."
The 12th Duke of Devonshire owns the castle at nearby Lismore -
where we went on Saturday night. It was the Blackwater
Opera Festival, the highlight of the social season in the area.
by Bill Bonner
Dublin, Ireland - "In our first visit, almost 30 years ago, Dublin was still a grim city on the Liffey. And it took three hours to drive... on little, winding roads... to get down to our office in Waterford. Eating out was not an easy matter back then; there were few good restaurants. And bars were still of the “old Ireland” vintage.
In one, we recall standing on a bed of sawdust and talking to an Irishman, both of us holding big tankards of Guinness. In the course of the conversation, our companion got drunker and drunker. And then, he fell down... not once, but three times. Remarkably - and perhaps as proof of his Old Ireland pedigree - he didn’t spill a drop of his beer.
But that charm has all been swept away by wealth and progress. Today, a modern highway system spreads out from Dublin. In just an hour and a half, you can zip along to Waterford. And the old pubs? Some are still there. Many have been turned into Italian... or Thai... or French restaurants. Even the Irish themselves have changed. “We think of ourselves as European,” explains a neighbor.
Like Europe, Ireland has become risk averse and law abiding. No more drinking at the pub until late at night. Now, dads share childcare... and put on helmets before riding a bicycle. Still, we ran into a little of the Old Ireland at home in Youghal over the weekend.
The Old Ireland: Colm is a man in his 40s. The weather was cool and breezy, but he was dressed only in jeans and a T-shirt, shod in a heavy pair of rubber boots. He came over with two chainsaws and offered to cut down some trees in exchange for the firewood. He had a youngish face, a bit like Michael J. Fox... with straight dark hair, gray on the edges, that bristled out like a toilet brush. After a few words of introduction, Colm lit a cigarette and bent to put gasoline in his chainsaws. Your editor stepped back. But Colm knew what he was doing. After cutting for a while, he came over to talk.
“I was down on the river yesterday,” he said, the cigarette still between his teeth. “When I’m not milking cows or cutting trees, I like to fish. I use the weir right down there.” Colm pointed down to a salmon weir on the river. It is a simple thing... a stockade made of ash sticks driven into the mud. The salmon, swimming upriver, get trapped in it. “I thought you weren’t allowed to fish in the river. The Duke of Devonshire has the fishing rights... hasn’t he had them since the 17th century... something like that?”
The 12th Duke of Devonshire owns the castle at nearby Lismore - where we went on Saturday night. It was the Blackwater Opera Festival, the highlight of the social season in the area. You dress up. You explore the extensive gardens, a glass of champagne in hand. Then you sit for a meal under a big tent and say hello to your friends.
Finally, a bell clangs to tell you it’s time for the opera to begin. Julius Caesar, by Handel, was on stage. And it was dreadful. Painfully boring. The arias were unbelievably repetitive. The music was uninspired, even dull. And the characters dressed and acted in ways that made little sense. Caesar was played by a woman. What message were they trying to convey? It wasn’t clear. Tolomeo, Cleopatra’s scheming brother (who had Pompey killed and sent the head as a gift to Caesar) was portrayed as a foolish, fat, gay man with a taste for gaudy outfits. Only Cleopatra was plausible.
Our mind wandered. How many people have died watching this opera, we wondered? It’s been around for hundreds of years. Yet, the show is so tedious, it must result in a substantial death toll. And for each one whose heart stopped, there must have been hundreds of others whose will to live was stretched to the breaking point.
As a point of American interest, Kathleen Kennedy, sister of JFK, once figured in the history of the castle. Despite the objections of her mother, Rose, she married a protestant, William Cavendish, (aka Billy Hartington) who was in line to become the 10th Duke of Devonshire. Unfortunately, he was killed in WWII only four months after their marriage. The title, and the fishing rights in the Blackwater River, went to his brother.
After a few years of widowhood, Kathleen, known as “Kick Kennedy,” took up with another British aristocrat, the 8th Earl Fitzwilliam. This time her mother threatened to disown her; her new squeeze was divorced. Kick flew to France, in 1948, to plead her case with her father and died in a plane crash.
“Aren’t you afraid of getting caught?” we asked Colm. “The Duke doesn’t have to know I’m out there. And I don’t take many fish; he won’t miss them. “And I did get caught. Once. I got home and there were two gardai (policemen) waiting for me. “But they didn’t know anything about the fishing rights. I told them I have a special license that gave me the right to fish out in the ocean or in the river. It was not exactly true... but who really wants to look out for the Duke of Devonshire’s fish? I invited them in. We had a drink. Then, they left. That’s how you settle problems in Ireland." (The Hutchs and the Kinahans should have thought of that.)
“But now, with your new neighbor [billionaire James Dyson bought the property next door], everything has changed. He has a security team. They drive around and keep everybody out. I can still come up the river, but I can’t come the way I used to... from the river bank. And over there (Colm pointed to the old abbey that has been in ruins since the ninth century), he even tried to prevent people from going to look at it. But that is sacred here in Ireland. No Englishman is going to come in here now and keep us from going there. Even if it is on his land.
They had closed the gates and told everyone they couldn’t come in. But then the security team got a visit from some old IRA guys. I guess they made it clear that if Dyson didn’t want his new house burned down, he would open up the gates. They were opened the next day.” Stay tuned."
"It happened so gradually that a lot of people didn’t even realize what was happening. The cost of living just kept rising faster than paychecks were, and little by little our standard of living just kept going down. Now we have reached a stage where the ultra-wealthy are thriving but almost everyone else is struggling. For most people, it is a real fight just to pay the bills from month to month. The majority of the population is deep in debt, and meanwhile the cost of just about everything is going up and up. Millions of Americans feel like they are drowning financially, and there is no easy way out. Sadly, many of them don’t even realize that the game was designed to get them on to a hamster wheel and keep them running for as long as possible.
When I was a kid, the United States had a very large and very prosperous middle class. Life certainly wasn’t perfect in those days, but just about everyone that I knew could afford to live a comfortable middle class lifestyle. Sadly, now everything has changed.
According to a survey that was just conducted by Seven Letter Insight, 65 percent of Americans “who earn more than 200% of the federal poverty level” admit that they are struggling financially…"In the large poll of 2,500 adults, 65% of people who earn more than 200% of the federal poverty level - that’s at least $60,000 for a family of four, often considered middle class - said they are struggling financially.
If 65 percent of those that “earn more than 200% of the federal poverty level” are struggling, what about those that earn less than that? Needless to say, almost all of them are struggling.
That same survey discovered that 46 percent of Americans don’t even have 500 dollars saved up…"About 40% of respondents were unable to plan beyond their next paycheck, and 46% didn’t have $500 saved. The February poll found that more than half said it’s at least somewhat difficult to manage current levels of debt."
Over the past couple of years, the stock market has been “booming” and the ultra-wealthy have been getting richer and richer. But things have been getting worse for virtually all the rest of us. According to Zillow, over the past four years “the monthly mortgage payment on a typical U.S. home has nearly doubled”…"The real estate firm Zillow reports that since January 2020, the monthly mortgage payment on a typical U.S. home has nearly doubled. It’s up 96% in just four years. According to Zillow, a typical buyer will now pay nearly $2,200 a month, with a 10% down payment. Meaning, homeownership now costs well above the 30% of median income that was once thought to equate to “affordable” housing cost in America."
Has your income doubled over the past four years? If not, you are falling behind. The American people absolutely hate what is being done to their standard of living. In fact, during a recent interview Neel Kashkari astutely observed that Americans “really, viscerally hate high inflation”…"Neel Kashkari, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, says one of the things he has learned in the past few years is that consumers would rather see the economy fall into a recession than to continue to suffer the pain of soaring prices."
“The American people – and maybe people in Europe, equally – really hate high inflation,” Kashkari told the Financial Times podcast “The Economics Show with Soumaya Keynes” last week. “I mean, really, viscerally hate high inflation.”
He is right. I really detest inflation. I am sure that you do too. But what he didn’t mention is that the Federal Reserve and our politicians in Washington are responsible for creating the epic cost of living crisis that we are currently facing. They caused this mess, and now they don’t seem to have any solutions for cleaning it up. Meanwhile, economic activity just continues to slow down.
On Tuesday, we learned that the number of job openings in the U.S. has fallen to the lowest level in more than 3 years…"Job openings fell more than forecast in April, signaling a potential weakening in the labor market that could provide the Federal Reserve with more impetus to start lowering interest rates. The Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey released Tuesday showed that the level of employment vacancies slipped to 8.06 million for the month, down by nearly 300,000 from March and close to 19% lower than a year ago."
Moreover, the total marked the lowest since February 2021. And more workers are being dumped into the streets with each passing day. For example, Rubio’s Coastal Grill just announced that it will be permanently closing 48 locations in the state of California…"California’s $20-an-hour fast food minimum wage has its first casualty. Mexican chain Rubio’s Coastal Grill is shuttering 48 restaurants in the state – because of the ‘rising cost of doing business in California’. ‘While painful, the store closures are a necessary step in our strategic long-term plan to position Rubio’s for success for years to come,’ a Rubio’s spokesperson added."
As this year rolls along, we will see a lot more stories like this. For a long time, our leaders were able to keep the party going by flooding the system with money. But now inflation is out of control and we have reached the terminal phase of the “greatest credit bubble in human history”…"Mark Spitznagel, chief investment officer of Universa Investments, is known for being a “permabear” when it comes to the stock market outlook. Spitznagel told Bloomberg in an earlier interview that we’re witnessing the “greatest credit bubble in human history.” “Credit bubbles end. They pop. There’s no way to stop them from popping,” he said, adding that the Fed has brought the economy to a place “where there’s no turning back.”
Spitznagel is right on target. There really is no turning back now. Our leaders have wrecked the greatest economic machine in the history of the world. What is ahead of us is a tremendous amount of pain. So if you think that things are bad now, just wait until you see what is coming next. For years, little by little our standard of living has been collapsing. But now we are entering a time when our economic slide will become an economic avalanche. Decades of absolutely disastrous decisions have brought us to this point, and now we shall truly reap what we have sown."
"It’s Going to be a Cool Summer - Economic Freeze"
"Experts agree. The economy is slowing down. it’s going to be a cool summer. The Bureau of Economic Analysis is seeing a slowdown in the U.S. economy, with inflation wreaking havoc on families. People are cutting back on expenses, and the ripple effects are visible everywhere—from empty tourist spots to plummeting housing markets."
"Take a tour with me of a Russian Luxury Supermarket in Moscow, Russia. Azbuka Vkusa has more than 150 stores in Russia. All of which sell luxury, imported and locally made products. Would you shops in Azbuka vkusa based the quality or the price."
"I Went to Russia's Largest Shopping Mall: AviaPark"
"Take a walk inside Russia's largest shopping mall. Aviapark Shopping Centre has over 500 shops spread over 4 levels. What does Aviapark look like in Moscow, Russia? How does it feel inside, what is the mood like on a spring afternoon in Moscow?"
"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present Facts and Truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for What’s Next in these increasingly turbulent times."
"We are born into the certitude of our eventual death. Every once in a while, something - perhaps an encounter with a robin’s egg, perhaps a poem - staggers us with the awful, awe-filled wonder of aliveness, the sheer luck of it against the overwhelming cosmic odds of nonexistence. But alloyed with the awe is always the half-conscious grief that one day the light of consciousness will be extinguished. It is a heavy gift to hold, this doomed delirium of aliveness. It is also a buoyant gladness, if we are limber enough to stretch into the cosmic perspective that does not come naturally to us small, Earth-bound bipeds corticed with tender self-importance.
Consider this. For each of us, one thing is true: Had any one variable been ever so subtly different - had your parents mated on a different day or at a different altitude, had the early universe cooled a fraction of a second faster after the Big Bang, you would not exist as the particular constellation of atoms configuring the particular consciousness that makes you you. Because chance plays such dice with the universe, and because the die dictates that the vast majority of energy and matter never had the luck of cohering into this doomed delirium of aliveness, it is, in some profound and practical sense, a staggering privilege to die - one that betokens the privilege of having lived. To lament death, then, is to lament our luck, for any negation of the possibility of death is a negation of the improbable miracle of life, a wish for there to be nothing to do the dying - nothing to have partaken of the beautiful, bittersweet temporality of aliveness.
It is easier to bend the intuitive mind into this correct but counterintuitive perspective while walking in a cemetery at the height of summer. Doing this very thing while thinking these very thoughts, I was reminded of a passage from one of the most lucid and lens-clearing books written this side of Darwin - "Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder" (public library) by the visionary and often controversial (which is the social fate of every visionary) British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins.
"We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?"
“Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”
"Scientists Discovered A Pre-Historic Mega Structure
On A Mountain You Never Knew Existed"
"Ollantaytambo, a vast complex situated in the Sacred Valley of the Incas northwest of Cusco, is renowned for its exceptionally precise megalithic polygonal masonry. Among its most notable structures is the Temple of the Sun, which features impressive stonework. This includes massive slabs of pink granite, intricately carved and precisely aligned. These stone blocks, weighing between 50 and 70 tons each, are so precisely fitted together that not even a sheet of paper can slide between them. Remarkably, these blocks were transported from a different mountain, across a plain and a river, before being brought up the mountain to Ollantaytambo. The precision, scale, and transportation of these stone blocks demonstrate a highly advanced level of technological and engineering sophistication, leading some to believe that such capabilities were beyond the reach of the Incas at that time."
"Scientists have discovered a pre-historic mega structure in Baal Bek, Lebanon that was impossible for man to make. Learn more about this fascinating archaeological find in this video. What mysterious secrets does this megalithic structure hold? Stick around and find out with added insights from Graham Hancock."
"Join me on a tour of a Russian Shopping mall in Moscow, Russia. How does it look inside, how does it feel, after 700 days of extreme sanctions imposed on Russia?"
"A star cluster around 2 million years young surrounded by natal clouds of dust and glowing gas, M16 is also known as The Eagle Nebula. This beautifully detailed image of the region adopts the colorful Hubble palette and includes cosmic sculptures made famous in Hubble Space Telescope close-ups of the starforming complex.
Described as elephant trunks or Pillars of Creation, dense, dusty columns rising near the center are light-years in length but are gravitationally contracting to form stars. Energetic radiation from the cluster stars erodes material near the tips, eventually exposing the embedded new stars. Extending from the ridge of bright emission left of center is another dusty starforming column known as the Fairy of Eagle Nebula. M16 lies about 7,000 light-years away, an easy target for binoculars or small telescopes in a nebula rich part of the sky toward the split constellation Serpens Cauda (the tail of the snake)."
The first airport in Russia with a Metro Station opened recently connecting Moscow City with Vnukovo Airport. Concidered Impossible, the Kalininsko-Solntsevskaya line of the Moscow Metro is the first Metro line in Russia to take you directly to Vnukovo Airport.
Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies – or else? The chain reaction of evil – hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars – must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.”
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
”I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.”
"In today's vlog, we are at Sam's Club and are noticing massive price increases! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices and a lot of empty shelves! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"
"Credit Unions are buying banks. We are seeing the banking crisis expanding. The financial landscape is shifting, and it's crucial to understand why. New regulatory changes now allow nonprofit credit unions to buy for-profit banks. But is this really a good thing? With the FDIC reporting $517 billion in unrealized losses and 62 banks failing stress tests, we're staring at a potential banking collapse and bank runs. Stay informed, protect your assets, and know what's really going on behind the scenes."
"A mere seven hundred light years from Earth, toward the constellation Aquarius, a sun-like star is dying. Its last few thousand years have produced the Helix Nebula (NGC 7293), a well studied and nearby example of a Planetary Nebula, typical of this final phase of stellar evolution. A total of 90 hours of exposure time have gone in to creating this expansive view of the nebula.
Combining narrow band image data from emission lines of hydrogen atoms in red and oxygen atoms in blue-green hues, it shows remarkable details of the Helix's brighter inner region about 3 light-years across. The white dot at the Helix's center is this Planetary Nebula's hot, central star. A simple looking nebula at first glance, the Helix is now understood to have a surprisingly complex geometry."
"30 Non-Food Items To Stockpile Before The Collapse"
"A new crisis can emerge unexpectedly and dismantle the status quo. That's why, in today's world, the importance of prepping and stocking up on essentials cannot be overstated. With the increasing frequency of geopolitical conflicts and the ongoing impacts of climate change, supply chain disruptions and shortages have become a reality that we must prepare for.
Emergencies, whether they be natural disasters, power outages, or even economic crises, often strike without warning, leaving those who are unprepared in a precarious situation. By taking proactive steps to build a well-rounded emergency stockpile, we can ensure that we have the necessary resources to weather any storm. Prepping is not about paranoia, it's about being practical and forward-thinking. When we consider the potential for sudden interruptions in the flow of goods across the US and the globe, the importance of having a diverse range of non-food items on hand becomes clear.
While food is undoubtedly a critical component of any emergency stockpile, non-food items can be just as crucial for survival and comfort during a crisis. These items can help us maintain hygiene, provide medical care, ensure communication, and offer practical solutions to everyday challenges that arise when normal services are disrupted. The summer months, in particular, can bring their own unique set of challenges. Heatwaves, wildfires, hurricanes, and other weather-related events are more common, and being prepared for these specific scenarios is essential.
By stockpiling a thoughtful selection of non-food items, we can mitigate the risks associated with these events and ensure that we and our families remain safe, healthy, and comfortable. Here are 30 non-food items that you should stock up on before everyone starts looking for them over the summer."
"A solemn silence turned collective gasp in the District of Columbia Woke Circuit courtroom as two bailiffs entered the door beside the jury box with the small cream-colored bear suspended between them, his stumpy hind legs wheeling fruitlessly to seek purchase in the unavailing air. The Queen of Hearts, presiding, banged her gavel as the little bear was seated at the table for the defense beside another rather small, darkish, furtive figure.
The Queen of Hearts peered over her half-glasses at the defendant and snarled, “State your full name and residence.”
“Winnie-the-Pooh,” the defendant said. “From the Hundred Acre Wood.”
“What is your personal pronoun?”
The bear looked perplexed. “Oh, bother,” he said. “Nobody I know has such a thing?”
“Of course they do,” the Queen said.
“Perhaps it’s ‘the’,” the bear said.
“That is a definite article, not a pronoun!” the Queen barked. “Are you an imbecile?"
“I’m not sure. Maybe it’s ‘dear'”—
“That’s enough out of you!” the Queen said. “And let’s have no more impertinence! Do you have counsel?"
“Why, yes,” the bear said. “Mr. Kafka, who is seated beside me.”
“You are mistaken,” the Queen said. “That is a cockroach seated beside you, and the court is displeased to see it. Bailiff, please remove that disgusting cockroach from my court.” Mr. Kafka, gesticulating in protest with all six arms and legs, had to be dragged out.
“First witness!” the Queen screeched. “Counsel for the prosecution….”
"Calling Uncle Remus,” said the prosecutor, Andrew Weissmann, famous for his exploits in the Enron case and with The Mueller Team in the old Russia collusion days. An elderly gentleman-of-color with white beard and a kindly face limped forward and took the witness stand.
“Do you know this bear?” Weissmann asked.
“I knows a Brer B’ar,” Uncle Remus said. “But he a black b’ar. Dishyere one a white b’ar.”
“Exactly!” Weissmann said. “Dismissed.”
“Dat all?” Uncle Remus asked.
“It’s plenty,” Weissmann retorted and smirked at the jury, composed of members from the United Federation of Teachers, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and Antifa, who all nodded amongst themselves. “A white bear!” Weissmann repeated for emphasis, shaking his head. “And not a polar bear, either. A white bear. From England. Think about it…!” The jurors emitted growls of opprobrium.
“Next witness,” the Queen cried.
“Calling N-Word Jim,” Weissmann said.
A strapping middle-aged gentleman-of-color, dressed in ragged clothes, strode to the witness chair.
“You reside in libraries all over the world, is that correct?” the attorney asked.
“Yassuh, dat is so. But I’se originally fum Hannibal, Missouri.”
“Are you acquainted with the defendant?”
“I done seen him on many a shelf ‘round de worl’.”
“How much shelf space does he occupy compared to you?”
“Well, fur as I knows, ‘bout double.”
“Does that seem fair to you?”
“Way I sees it, he in mebbe twice as minny books as me and Huck.”
“Huck! Who is this Huck?”
“White boy I done made a journey down de ribber wif one time.”
“What is your experience with white folks, Jim?”
“Well, dey runs mos’ everything, I ‘spect. Leas’ as fur as I kin see.”
“Exactly!” Weissmann argued. “Is it not white privilege to — as you say — run everything?” he added, shaking his head gravely. “Hegemonizing and colonizing literature everywhere you look.”
“Say, what…?” the witness rejoined and pulled his chin.
“You can go back to your raft, Jim,” Weissmann said. “Dismissed. Calling Mr. Christopher Robin.”
A very old man, bent and trembling, shuffled forward to the stand, leaning on his brass-headed cane.
“You’ve been acquainted with the defendant for how many years?”
“I see,” Weissmann sneered. “And this ‘touching’ started when you were, what? About five years old?”
“I suppose. Yes. It was a very long time ago.”
“Do you recall an incident involving the defendant, a person named Piglet, and a broken balloon?”
“Yes… yes, I do!”
“That was not really a balloon, was it, Mr. Robin?”
“At the time, I thought…”
“You thought!” Weissmann barked. “We all think, don’t we? Sometimes maybe a little too much! I’ll tell you what I think: I think the jury can see exactly what was going on between you and the defendant, this very privileged bear. And if they think the way I do — that is, as a normal person with healthy morals — they’ll think that this was depraved behavior on the part of this bear, routinely abusing a five-year-old boy, year after year after year!”
The jury members all nodded avidly and buzzed between themselves.
Christopher Robin looked up at the bench.
“Balloon, indeed!” the Queen snorted, wagging her finger at both the bear and Christopher Robin. “I think we’ve heard enough.”
“No! I have one other witness,” Weissmann said. “Calling Peter Pan….” A figure wearing a leaf-green tunic and tights, and a feathered cap, flew across the room and landed in the witness seat.
“You’ve had occasion to work at the Disney Studios with the defendant, have you not?”
“I would see him around the lot on lunch breaks,” Pan said. “But we weren’t on the same pictures — except one time for a TV Christmas special where we all did cameos.”
“And what was your impression of this bear?”
“He made a crack about not believing in fairies. I didn’t know if he was kidding or not.”
“Were you hurt by that remark?”
“Not personally, but I saw what it did to my sidekick, Tinkerbelle. Her light almost went out.”
“Your honor, ladies, gentlemen, and non-binaries of the jury, we have definitely heard enough.”
“The defense rests!” the Queen of Hearts screeched. “Mr. Pooh, you have led a life of disgusting racism, colonialism, hate-ism, white supremacy, and depravity. I am directing the jury to find you guilty as charged and sentence you to be cancelled.” She pounded the bench with her gavel.
“Oh, bother,” Winnie the Pooh said, still perplexed and bewildered.
“Take him out, burn all those wicked books of his, and put him on top of the fire.”
“Lawks a’mercy,” Uncle Remus cried from the back of the room.
“See you up in sweet Beulah-land, Pooh, honey,” N-Word Jim said.
“Next case!” the Red Queen yelled above the commotion. “The people versus Robin Hood and his so-called Merry Men.”
"Most people in the West are familiar with the biblical story of Moses. In this tale, a spiritual leader, chosen by God, leads his people out of Egypt to the promised land. The Israelites are saved. God provides Moses with a list of commandments that they are to live by – pretty basic stuff: Don’t kill people, don’t steal or lie, don’t cheat on your spouse, etc. But interestingly, the second commandment exhorts the Israelites not to create false gods, nor to bow down to nor serve them.
Unfortunately, when Moses was away, the Israelites did create a false god. They couldn’t resist the very human urge to have a visible deity that would hopefully provide them with good times, as long as they were willing to prostrate themselves before it.
And past eras are filled with such stories – naïve pagans sacrificing animals and humans to the deities in the hopes that they would provide rain, a good crop, healthy babies, freedom from inter-tribal aggression, etc. We can look upon otherwise-advanced cultures such as the Egyptians, the Romans, the Aztecs, etc., and shake our heads at their naivete. All of them created great ceremonies that involved blood sacrifices, in order to appease the deities. So, how are we doing? Have we banished paganism from the modern world?
Well, unfortunately, no. We may live in a more technological age, yet human nature remains the same. Those who are not highly focused within themselves have the perennial tendency to want to put their faith in some magical entity out there who will smile upon them and make all the bad things go away. But even more astonishing is the fact that, just as in days of yore, a majority of people are quite prepared to suspend logic in order to believe in such pagan deities.
A quick peek at the current religion of Climate Change reminds us of this. It began as "Global Cooling" but fell flat since a solar warm spell happened to occur just when the concept was introduced. It took the Global Cooling scammers over a decade to decide that they were on the wrong track, but when they did, they changed the name of the conceptual deity to "Global Warming," to match the existing weather conditions. But unfortunately, a cyclical solar cooling period was due to arrive and Global Warming failed to match the new weather conditions.
Time to give up and admit that a false deity had been imagined? Not at all. A further new name was given to the deity – Climate Change – that would encompass literally anything that happened in the weather. From that day forward, the prophets attributed every earthquake, every typhoon, every drought to the Climate Change deity. Every meteorological event therefore provided "proof" of man-made Climate Change.
And like the Pharisees of old, the Climate Change prophets proclaimed that the natural disasters were due to the sins of the population – that they were being punished by the deity… for driving SUVs and relying on coal for heating. And people bought it, as they always do. "The end of the world is nigh" has sold well for millennia. Paganism works every time.
And as any Climate Change activist will proclaim, "We must make sacrifices." The gods must be appeased and the prophets will always assure the tribe that a sacrificial offering is necessary to accomplish this. Thankfully, in this particular case, all that’s required to appease the god is to pay a carbon tax. It’s not clear how this will end Climate Change, but… have faith and pay. But Climate Change is a mere carnival sideshow in comparison to the main event.
Mankind has always had amongst its number those individuals (roughly four percent, according to studies) who are sociopathic, who are obsessive in their desire to control others, whilst having little or no emotional capacity to be concerned about the genuine welfare of the populace. In tribes, these individuals strive to rise to the top. In larger communities, they tend to form groups to provide leadership, and as any community grows large enough, sociopaths rise in prominence, to form and expand governments to rule their minions.
In every case, the larger a population becomes, the greater the opportunity to have power over them, since they can be taxed in order to fund the government. The greater their numbers, the greater the tax revenue. The greater the revenue, the greater the power of leaders to dominate the lesser mortals.
But along the way, some members of the hoi polloi may at times say, "Hang on a minute – why should we let the leaders dictate to us whilst they live off the fruits of our labor?" And invariably, neo-paganism is trotted out to fill its perennial role. The populace is reminded that, without obeisance on their part, there would be chaos and all would suffer. Therefore, all must sacrifice for the sake of "the common good."
The reader might recall Hillary Clinton commenting in 2004, "We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good." Mrs. Clinton was very up-front about the intention of the State, echoing predecessors such as Karl Marx, Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and a host of Caesars.
Most all political leaders have the same intent, although they’re generally a bit more subtle in their language. (A veiled intent attracts a greater number of willing followers.) The result is also perennial: The tribe accepts a condition of increased taxation and regulation and thereby becomes increasingly enslaved and subservient to the leaders. After all – to refuse obeisance would be to endanger the common good – to invite chaos.
But how are we to know when we’ve reached this point of subjugation? At what point do we go beyond "willing contributors" and degenerate into "servants of the rulers?" Thomas Jefferson made this distinction, circa 1800. He said, "When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty." When he and his cohorts formed the United States, their primary goal was to do away with obeisance to any government. At the close of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Benjamin Franklin was asked by a delegate, "What have we got?" Mister Franklin replied, "A republic… if you can keep it." But the republic, as anticipated, devolved into a mere democracy, which then further eroded into a plutocracy/bureaucracy – rule by the very rich in the form of a central banking cartel, enforced through non-elected officialdom.
Obeisance to any "greater being" is regressive, whether that greater being is a deity or a government. Liberty is, by definition, the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one’s behavior, views, or way of life."
