"'Cause even with good people, even with people that
you can kinda trust, if the truth is inconvenient,
and if the truth doesn't, like, fit, they don't believe it. "
- Marie Adler
So, we rise from the rubble...
Friday, August 4, 2023
"Where I Needed To Be..."
“I know that I shall meet my fate somewhere among the clouds
above; those that I fight I do not hate, those that I guard I do not love.”
- W.B. Yeats
"Now, It’s Going to Be Bad"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly 8/4/23
"Now, It’s Going to Be Bad"
"Major downgrade from JP Morgan was just announced. They don’t
believe that the economy is going to be good now. They’re telling us to get ready."
Comments here:
Bill Bonner, "The Madam Butterfly Effect"
"The Madam Butterfly Effect"
From Puccini on Lake Constance to amputations
in Ukraine, a look at the megapolitics beneath it all...
by Bill Bonner
“Un bel di, vedremo…” *
"One day it will be there, far out, where the sea meets the sky, a slender thread of smoke that rises above the water. A great white warship! Steaming into the harbor, she will fire her cannon. There it is! I can see it! I want to run to meet him. But, no, I will stand right at the edge of the hill, and wait as long as it takes for him to get here, and not grow weary.
Then down below, coming out of the city, a man, like a tiny ant, begins to climb up our hillside. Do you know who he is? When he has reached the top, do you know what he will do? He will call out, 'Butterfly, where are you?' I will not answer yet. I will keep myself hidden, partly to tease him, but mostly, so not to die from his first embrace! Then, anxiously, again he will call for me, crying, 'Oh, darling little wife! Oh, my cherry blossom!', sweet names he gave me on the day we were married. It will be just that way, I know it! Keep for yourself your fear. I have faith! He will come!"
~ "Madame Butterfly", Giacomo Puccini
Zurich, Switzerland - "On Wednesday night, we had the pleasure of some good old-fashioned racism, cultural appropriation, hetero-normalized genderism, toxic masculinity and religious intolerance…we went to see “Madame Butterfly” performed in Bregenz. Puccini’s famous opera, performed on the waterfront of Lake Constance, was such a magnificent production, we didn’t sleep a minute.
In 2017, the opera was performed in Seattle. The local newspaper reported that: "According to Gabrielle Kazuko Nomura Gainor, Seattle Opera’s media-relations manager… other members of the Asian-American community believe the problems with “Madame Butterfly” stem from far more than ignorance.
“It’s not just the fact that it’s white singers playing Japanese characters,” Gainor said. “It’s not just the fact that Cio-Cio San represents a very tired stereotype about Asian women, or that this work is constantly reinterpreted again and again, typically by a white or European director. It’s also a larger conversation about racial equity in opera. In reality, Cio-Cio San is a sex-trafficked 15-year-old Japanese teenager. Why are we so comfortable with that, to the point of romanticizing it and telling the story over and over?”
Racists, Colonialists and Simpleminded Superiority: ‘Butterfly’ is a 15-year-old Geisha. Pinkerton is a young US Navy officer. It takes place in Nagasaki, Japan around the turn of the last century. Even when the lyrics are sung in Italian…and translated for the audience on a screen in German (neither of which we speak), the story is easy to follow:
Boy meets girl. Boy gets girl. Boy goes back to the US where he gets another girl. First girl waits for him…with the son that he has sparked. Butterfly and her kin are unrepentant racists; for them, the American is a ‘barbarian.’ And they are religious bigots! When Butterfly marries him and converts to Christianity, her uncle rejects her…telling her, in effect, to ‘go to Hell.’ Pinkerton and his new wife are also racists; they regard the Japanese with the simpleminded superiority of colonialists. After all, they are bringing the future to Japan.
Yes, the megapolitics of the situation favored the US. By the late 19th century, Americans had the wind of the industrial revolution already at their backs; Japan was decades behind them. Early in the opera, Butterfly wraps herself in the US flag, convinced that she will have a better life in the USA. But in the story, as in real life, neither race…gender…white patriarchy…nor heteronormative intersectionality really matter. What matters is character, conduct….and firepower. Butterfly is pure, innocent, and honest. Pinkerton is a cad and a bounder.
An Army Without Arms: We’re not going to give away the ending (you probably know it already), but the story does not end well. Though the opera was written in 1898, Pinkerton prefigures a whole genre of foreign policy interventions…from the German occupation of France to America’s retreat from Saigon. Ignorant of local culture, the troops blow things up and then leave behind them dead bodies and live babies. Here’s the latest disaster, now unfolding in America’s proxy war in the Ukraine. Business Insider: "Amputations in Ukraine are as widespread as in the trenches of World War I. Before the war, Ukraine had several thousand amputations annually. That figure has risen to around 50,000 since the start of the war, 17 months ago, the outlet said."
Pinkerton leaves Butterfly…and things go from bad to worse. Still, looking on the bright side, at least Nagasaki is still intact when he goes."
o
* "Un bel dì, vedremo" (Italian pronunciation: [um bɛl di veˈdreːmo]; "One fine day we'll see") is a soprano aria from the opera Madama Butterfly (1904) by Giacomo Puccini, set to a libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It is sung by Cio-Cio San (Butterfly) on stage with Suzuki, as she imagines the return of her absent love, Pinkerton. It is the most famous aria in Madama Butterfly, and one of the most popular pieces in the entire soprano repertoire."
"How It Really Is"
And you really expect these girly-men to fight the Chinese and
Russians, real men, who are laughing themselves comatose at the thought?
If you do you're as nuts as these degenerates are...
That's my opinion, thank you - CP, Veteran, US Marine Corps
o
How the mighty have fallen...
Aww, he hurt their tender feelings...
As the great Mogambo Guru said, "We're so freakin' doomed!"
We are, and here's why...
Jim Kunstler, "Desperation Creeps In"
"Desperation Creeps In"
by Jim Kunstler
“There is only one way to explain this shambles: Every one of these crises traces back to the Democratic Party’s obsession with taking and holding power more or less indefinitely to suit its hubristic, end-of-history “narrative” of righteous liberal triumph.” - Patrick Lawrence
"That silence you hear these dog days of a wilting empire is the calm before the storm and everybody knows it. “Joe Biden’s” final desperate ploy against the menace of Donald Trump looks about on par with the Ukraine spring offensive, hardly even worth a “hey, nice try.”
So, the best they could do was to charge Mr. Trump with objecting vocally to an election that looked as rotten as Hunter’s uncapped teeth? We all saw what happened overnight November 3 and 4, 2020: what the numbers looked like in the swing precincts at midnight and the magic mathematics that swapped tens of thousands of votes over from the Trump column to the Biden column (say, whu?)… the shutdown of the Fulton County State Farm Arena due to a supposedly leaking toilet and the ensuing monkey business with rolly-bags full of ballots under the tables captured by the closed-circuit cameras… the miraculous wee-hour harvest of ballots in Milwaukee… US Postal Service truck full of completed ballots out of Bethpage, Long Island, that turned up in Philadelphia… Mark Zuckerberg’s $419-million-dollar operation using two front orgs, the Center for Technology and Civic Life (CTCL) and the Center for Election Innovation and Research (CEIR) to staff precinct election boards with party shills and buy votes… the thumb drives and modems in the vote-counting machines….
Special Counsel Jack Smith may find it difficult to prove that expressing an opinion about all that is some kind of crime. Meanwhile, he’s turned Mr. Trump into the poster boy for the many other aggrieved victims of a government weaponized against its own people. More than half the country sees exactly what’s going on and no amount of video footage showing “JB” and Jill holding hands on the beach is going cover for that. We are on the threshold of a king-hell national crisis.
Consider: a 27.4 drop in goods of all kinds “roaded-in” on semi-trucks to the northeast USA this summer. That’s everything from auto parts to lumber, clothing, and food. What else do you think sent the Yellow Corp trucking company, one hundred years old, spinning into sudden bankruptcy this week? Yellow won’t be bought and reorganized, either. It owes three quarters of a billion dollars in loans to the federal government (i.e., to us taxpayers) and untold pension obligations. Next, 22,000 Yellow Corp workers will hit the unemployment rolls. Yellow Corp had a special role in the supply chain: the LTL (less-than-truckload) niche, often the final journey of a product to the customer. It was also the cheapest. Whoever picks up the work - FedEx, ABF Freight? - will cost more, and so will everything you have to buy.
Behind this crumbling economy looms the fragile financial system of banks, securities markets, a wilderness of derivatives trades, and currencies. How long do you think it will take before that clockwork of debt obligations and ownerships in failing enterprises breaks down? Think: four to eight weeks, starting with when everyone comes back from the beach or the lake after Labor Day. Banks will resume failing, too, followed by bail-out efforts that will open a trapdoor under the dollar. The country will finally learn what Bidenomics means.
Money trouble tends to blot out whatever else is happening to you, so the nation may not even notice that the Ukraine war is a lost cause. Not that we actually lost it, the Ukrainians did, poor buggers. What role did it play in American life besides money laundromat for the Biden family and a convenient stash for any number of bio-weapons labs? Are you still pretending that the war we provoked there was a heroic stand for “democracy?” Will the place matter to us when Russia has to take it on as a charity? The only thing a lot of newly-broke Americans will notice is the more than $150-billion we pounded down that rat-hole, and the thought will not make them feel warm and fuzzy.
Have you noticed the clamor about a coming new pandemic virus? The catch is that it doesn’t even have to be some kind of lab-grown novelty disease this time. All it will take now to remove millions from the voter rolls is an ordinary seasonal flu, considering how many Americans are walking around with wrecked immune systems from the mRNA vaccines they lined-up for so giddily.
There will be so much going on this fall that the nation might not even notice the impeachment hearings against Mr. Biden, AG Garland, and Mr. Mayorkas of Homeland Security. The major media won’t even cover the proceedings. The only open question around all of these things - a presidential scandal, the Ukraine war, an economic train wreck, political show trials - is how much civic upheaval there might be on-the-ground across the land while all this plays out, especially if our lawless, faithless, clueless government tries to lay a climate emergency trip on everybody as a final, desperate diversion?"
"Stocking Up At Sam's Club! Preparing For The Future! Get Ready!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 8/4/23
"Stocking Up At Sam's Club!
Preparing For The Future! Get Ready!"
"In today's vlog, we are prepping our pantry with everything we buy from Sam's Club! Times are getting tough as we face more price increases on food and other items. We take you with us as we show some long shelf life options, as well as explain ways to save money."
Comments here:
"Russia Has Eliminated 400,000 Ukrainian Soldiers Thus Far"
Col. Douglas Macgregor, Straight Calls, 8/4/23
"Russia Has Eliminated 400,000 Ukrainian Soldiers Thus Far"
"Analysis of breaking news and in-depth discussion of current
geopolitical events in the United States of America and the world.
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Redacted, 8/3/23
"Col. Douglas MacGregor:
'America Has Turned Ukraine Into A Graveyard'"
"America's proxy war against Russia has Turned Ukraine into a graveyard. Colonel Douglas MacGregor joins Redacted to talk about how Ukraine has so many bodies piling up that it has no way of picking them all up. NATO's strategy has been to push Ukraine into an armored assault against Russian forces. This has been an utter massacre."
Comments here:
o
Scott Ritter, 8/3/23
"Ukraine Is Being Blown Apart By Russia!"
"Scott Ritter speaks with Stephen Gardner about the Russia-Ukraine war. Sadly, Ukraine is being blown apart by Russia. Ukraine has attempted to terrorize the citizens of Moscow to get them to turn on Putin, but this plan has backfired and made Russian more resolute in their desire to see Ukraine lose the war."
Comments here:
Thursday, August 3, 2023
Gerald Celente, "Trends Journal: The Worst Is Yet To Come"
Very strong language alert!
Gerald Celente, 8/3/23
"Trends Journal: The Worst Is Yet To Come"
"In today's TITN Gerald Celente discusses Fitch's downgrade of
US credit, the updates on the Niger coup, and the failure in Ukraine."
Comments here:
"Stop Buying Dumb Stuff! It's All About Economic Survival Now; Beware of Desperate People"
Jeremiah Babe, 8/3/23
"Stop Buying Dumb Stuff! It's All About
Economic Survival Now; Beware of Desperate People"
Comments here:
"Amazon Is Destroying Thousands Of Big Box Stores As Mass Store Closings Intensify"
Full screen recommended.
"Amazon Is Destroying Thousands Of
Big Box Stores As Mass Store Closings Intensify"
by Epic Economist
"The retail apocalypse is in full force in 2023 — and Amazon is only making it more deadly for many retailers. In recent years, the shopping behavior of consumers has dramatically changed. Nowadays, more and more people are entirely relying on the internet for any purchasing. And brick-and-mortar stores have been closing by the thousands as competition in the sector is getting tougher. According to a Morgan Stanley analysis, Amazon accounts for almost a third of all retail sales and is responsible for half of the growth in the sector. From household products to electronics, clothing, and groceries, everything is available on the platform, and that’s a huge advantage for the company. However, that is absolutely killing other brands that have been with us for decades, and many of them are at risk of going under this year amid a new wave of retail bankruptcies.
The megaretailer has been blamed for the downfall of major chains, forever changing the way we shop, and crushing millions of small businesses. But the truth is that the path to total Amazon domination is just beginning. One investment firm has even created a “Death by Amazon” index that tracks the stock prices of retail chains they believe are most threatened by the online retailer. In 2017, the company at the top of the index was Toys R Us. Back then, the retailer was offering discounts to customers in an attempt to attract them back after Amazon made it all too easy to buy the hottest toys at the click of a button. But still, sales continued to decline by double digits, and in September of that year, the company filed for bankruptcy due to the $5 billion debt it had accrued.
Every year since then, the index has accurately forecasted which companies will be knocked down by Amazon, even predicting the demise of JPMorgan in 2020, and more recently, the collapse of Bed, Bath & Beyond. This year, many retail giants are reporting dropping sales, slower foot traffic, declining revenues, and announcing store closings. Hundreds of brick-and-mortar retailers are currently on Moody’s bankruptcy watchlist.
Blue Apron is one of them. Data shows that since Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods, Blue Apron has been hanging by a thread. Since 2021, the company is on a bankruptcy watchlist, and the non-essential service is likely to get hit hard as the downturn unfolds. Macy’s is also seen as another potential victim of the ‘Amazon effect’ in 2023. The department store has been declining for a while, and Amazon's growth has hastened its downfall. Hundreds of Macy’s stores have disappeared since the pandemic, sales are down, and the outlook remains discouraging for the retailer.
Retail experts suggest that the biggest bankruptcy of the year was also fueled by Amazon. For years, Bed Bath & Beyond was struggling with falling profits, and the home furnishing sector has been feeling the squeeze since the e-commerce company started offering free shipping to many shoppers. In April, the brand filed for bankruptcy and closed 360 stores nationwide.
All of this shows that the impact of the Amazon Effect has been undeniable. Amazon is putting its flag in the ground in one industry after another, cementing its role as the global leader in virtually everything. Many companies are now gone, due in part to pressure from the online retailer that’s upended the American retail landscape. And if others figure out a solution fast, they might be the next stores destroyed by Amazon."
Comments here:
Musical Interlude: Procol Harum, "A Whiter Shade of Pale"
Full screen recommended.
Procol Harum, "A Whiter Shade of Pale"
Procol Harum performing "A Whiter Shade of Pale"
with the Danish National Concert Orchestra and choir at
Ledreborg Castle, Denmark in August 2006.
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Globular star cluster Omega Centauri, also known as NGC 5139, is some 15,000 light-years away. The cluster is packed with about 10 million stars much older than the Sun within a volume about 150 light-years in diameter. It's the largest and brightest of 200 or so known globular clusters that roam the halo of our Milky Way galaxy.
Though most star clusters consist of stars with the same age and composition, the enigmatic Omega Cen exhibits the presence of different stellar populations with a spread of ages and chemical abundances. In fact, Omega Cen may be the remnant core of a small galaxy merging with the Milky Way. Omega Centauri's red giant stars (with a yellowish hue) are easy to pick out in this sharp, color telescopic view."
"The Monstrous Thing..."
“The monstrous thing is not that men have created roses out of this dung heap, but that, for some reason or other, they should want roses. For some reason or other man looks for the miracle, and to accomplish it he will wade through blood. He will debauch himself with ideas, he will reduce himself to a shadow if for only one second of his life he can close his eyes to the hideousness of reality. Everything is endured – disgrace, humiliation, poverty, war, crime, ennui – in the belief that overnight something will occur, a miracle, which will render life tolerable. And all the while a meter is running inside and there is no hand that can reach in there and shut it off.
All the while someone is eating the bread of life and drinking the wine, some dirty fat cockroach of a priest who hides away in the cellar guzzling it, while up above in the light of the street a phantom host touches the lips and the blood is pale as water. And out of the endless torment and misery no miracle comes forth, no microscopic vestige of relief. Only ideas, pale, attenuated ideas which have to be fattened by slaughter; ideas which come forth like bile, like the guts of a pig when the carcass is ripped open.
Somehow the realization that nothing was to be hoped for had a salutary effect upon me. For weeks and months, for years, in fact, all my life I had been looking forward to something happening, some intrinsic event that would alter my life, and now suddenly, inspired by the absolute hopelessness of everything, I felt relieved, felt as though a great burden had been lifted from my shoulders. At dawn I parted company with the young Hindu, after touching him for a few francs, enough for a room. Walking toward Montparnasse I decided to let myself drift with the tide, to make not the least resistance to fate, no matter in what form it presented itself.
Nothing that had happened to me thus far had been sufficient to destroy me; nothing had been destroyed except my illusions. I myself was intact. The world was intact. Tomorrow there might be a revolution, a plague, an earthquake; tomorrow there might not be left a single soul to whom one could turn for sympathy, for aid, for faith. It seemed to me that the great calamity had already manifested itself, that I could be no more truly alone than at this very moment. I made up my mind that I would hold on to nothing, that I would expect nothing, that henceforth I would live as an animal, a beast of prey, a rover, a plunderer. Even if war were declared, and it were my lot to go, I would grab the bayonet and plunge it, plunge it up to the hilt. And if rape were the order of the day then rape I would, and with a vengeance.
At this very moment, in the quiet dawn of a new day, was not the earth giddy with crime and distress? Had one single element of man’s nature been altered, vitally, fundamentally altered, by the incessant march of history? By what he calls the better part of his nature, man has been betrayed, that is all. At the extreme limits of his spiritual being man finds himself again naked as a savage. When he finds God, as it were, he has been picked clean: he is a skeleton. One must burrow into life again in order to put on flesh. The word must become flesh; the soul thirsts.
At this very moment, in the quiet dawn of a new day, was not the earth giddy with crime and distress? Had one single element of man’s nature been altered, vitally, fundamentally altered, by the incessant march of history? By what he calls the better part of his nature, man has been betrayed, that is all. At the extreme limits of his spiritual being man finds himself again naked as a savage. When he finds God, as it were, he has been picked clean: he is a skeleton. One must burrow into life again in order to put on flesh. The word must become flesh; the soul thirsts.
On whatever crumb my eye fastens, I will pounce and devour. If to live is the paramount thing, then I will live, even if I must become a cannibal. Heretofore I have been trying to save my precious hide, trying to preserve the few pieces of meat that hid my bones. I am done with that. I have reached the limits of endurance. My back is to the wall; I can retreat no further. As far as history goes I am dead. If there is something beyond I shall have to bounce back. I have found God, but he is insufficient. I am only spiritually dead. Physically I am alive. Morally I am free. The world which I have departed is a menagerie. The dawn is breaking on a new world, a jungle world in which the lean spirits roam with sharp claws. If I am a hyena I am a lean and hungry one: I go forth to fatten myself.”
- Henry Miller, "Tropic of Cancer"
"They Are Saying..."
"When people pile up debts they will find difficult and perhaps even impossible to repay, they are saying several things at once. They are obviously saying that they want more than they can immediately afford. They are saying, less obviously, that their present wants are so important that, to satisfy them, it is worth some future difficulty. But in making that bargain they are implying that when the future difficulty arrives, they'll figure it out. They don't always do that."
- Michael Lewis, "Boomerang"
“More To Come…”
“More To Come…”
By Jeff Thomas
“Years ago, when visiting the US, I’d often watch late night television. Just prior to each interval, in order to ensure that viewers would sit through the adverts, the show would run a panel that said, “More to Come.” This, of course, was effective, as the viewer would be anticipating that the best part of the program would come in a later segment and would be more likely to continue watching.
Today, we’re looking at the reverse of that situation. The program we’re watching is The Decline and Fall of the American Empire and those who recognize the decline are viewing with ever-increasing trepidation, the developments that are unfolding there. Even those of us who are not American and don’t live there are glued to our screens, as we’re aware that were viewing the early stages of a collapse that promises to be the greatest social, political and economic event that we’re likely to see in our lifetimes.
Following World War Two, the US was in a boom beyond anything the world had ever seen. The Americans came to the war late, after having built up their manufacturing capacity for war dramatically, at the expense of the Allied powers in Europe. And they did this, essentially for free. It was paid for with the gold from the vaults of the European allies. After the war, Europe was trashed and it would take decades for them to get on their feet again. Meanwhile, the US had been going flat out in production, had first-rate modern factories and, most important, held the majority of the world’s gold.
The 1944 Bretton Woods Agreement ensured that the US dollar would become the world’s default currency and, later, become the petrodollar, ensuring American hegemony over much of the rest of the world. There can be no doubt that, in the first decades after the war, the US had an amazing run and was, arguably, one of the best places to live in the world.
But, unfortunately, as so often happens, American political and industry leaders became full of themselves and couldn’t resist going out on limb to gain even more for themselves. In so doing, they turned the US from the world’s foremost creditor nation into the world’s foremost debtor nation. Worse, when they reached this unprecedented point, they opted to just keep going.
Worse still, it would appear that today’s leaders are aware that the mother of all bubbles that they’ve created is going to pop sometime in the near future, as they’re preparing themselves for the mother of all pushbacks from the populace when the crashes come.
The FBI, CIA, NSA, and a host of other authorities have either been created or expanded, allowing the creation of the world’s foremost police state. And, beginning in 2001 with the Patriot Act, have created a host of laws to assign authority to any of those bodies to exert ever-increasing control over the population. Capital controls, migration controls, higher taxes, confiscation of deposits in banks and quite a bit more have been passed in legislation, including the ability to declare the US in its entirely to be a “battle zone,” through which habeas corpus and the court system can be suspended nationally.
Yipes. (Or, blimey, depending on where you’re from.) At this point, any American who’s paying attention could be forgiven if he’s genuinely frightened at where his government is going with all this.
And so, we come back to the title of this essay – “More to Come.” A regular flow of proposed laws is now coming down the pipeline that would have been considered the stuff of a bad movie a few decades ago, but is now only too real and threatening to the freedoms of the average citizen. Instead of “more to come” meaning that the best is still on the way, the opposite would appear to be the case, and the worst is here, now.
But, how can this be, we ask ourselves. Surely those in power – the politicians, the industrialists, the central bankers, etc., must have seen this coming and, if that’s so, surely they’d have done something to stop it. Well, historically, that’s never been the case. Those in the greatest positions of power have never suddenly reversed an empire when it was about to self-destruct. What they tend to do instead is to guard against becoming casualties of the disaster they’ve created.
So, is that what’s happening this time around? In a word, yes. The Bernie Madoffs of the world go to jail. However, those who commit the same fraudulent acts from within the system never go to jail. For example, if the heads of a bank commit massive fraud, the bank pays an enormous fine. The fine is then paid by the stockholders. And should the fine be large enough to crash the bank, the bankers can appeal to the government to bail them out, as they’re “too big to fail.” Thus, the taxpayers pick up the bill.
At this point, what we’re witnessing is an era in which laws are regularly being passed to ensure that the creators of the bubble will get a “Get Out of Jail Free” card and others will sustain the losses.
This is the very essence of what happens in an endgame run. Just as a hitman who places a bomb in a building makes his exit before the bomb can go off, the creators of bubbles safeguard themselves before the economic bomb can go off. They have no intention of being around to live with the resultant devastation that they’ve put into play.
Pete Townshend wrote prophetically, “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” in 1971, in which he hopes that the latest gang of leaders will be better than the last. In the final line of the song, he grimly announces, “Meet the new boss – same as the old boss.”
And, in fact, this is the usual outcome. Perhaps the reason why empires collapse much in the same way, time and again, and their citizens consistently fail to see it coming, is that empires general last a long time before collapsing. The Venetian Republic lasted 200 years. The Spanish Empire lasted just over 120 years. Holland lasted 130 years, Russia – 200, the UK, just under 120. And it’s been much the same for the others. In every case, they last longer than a single lifetime, so it’s rare that any individual sees more than one empire collapse in his own lifetime and doesn’t understand that empires don’t end with a whimper. They end with a crescendo, not unlike the Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”
We are witnessing the collapse of the world’s foremost empire. This is not mere conjecture. The US has all the symptoms that we’re now coming close to the final stages. And, if history plays out yet again, as it has repeatedly, we can expect that, in the lead-up to the collapse, the controls by governments will become increasingly draconian. As we consider, “more to come,” we should be braced for the likelihood that the worst controls are yet to be revealed.”
The Poet: Langston Hughes, "Dreams"
"Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow."
- Langston Hughes
"As I've Aged"
“As I’ve Aged"
- Author Unknown
“You ask me how it feels to grow older. I’ve learned a few things along the way, which I’ll share with you…
As I’ve aged, I’ve become kinder to myself, and less critical of myself. I’ve become my own friend. I don’t chide myself for eating that extra cookie, or for not making my bed, or for buying that silly cement gecko that I didn’t need, but looks so avante-garde on my patio. I am entitled to a treat, to be messy, to be extravagant.
I have seen too many dear friends leave this world too soon, before they understood the great freedom that comes with aging. Whose business is it if I choose to read or play on the computer until 4 AM and sleep until noon? I will dance with myself to those wonderful tunes of many years ago, and if I, at the same time, wish to weep over a lost love… I will.
I will walk the beach in a swim suit that is stretched over a bulging body, and will dive into the waves with abandon if I choose to, despite the pitying glances from the jet set. They, too, will get old.
I know I am sometimes forgetful. But there again, some of life is just as well forgotten. And I eventually remember the important things. Sure, over the years my heart has been broken. How can your heart not break when you lose a loved one, or when a child suffers, or even when somebody’s beloved pet gets hit by a car? But broken hearts are what give us strength and understanding and compassion. A heart never broken is pristine and sterile and will never know the joy of being imperfect.
I am so blessed to have lived long enough to have my hair turning gray, and to have my youthful laughs be forever etched into deep grooves on my face. So many have never laughed, and so many have died before their hair could turn silver.
As you get older, it is easier to be positive. You care less about what other people think. I don’t question myself anymore. I’ve even earned the right to be wrong. So, to answer your question, I like being old. It has set me free. I like the person I have become. I am not going to live forever, but while I am still here, I will not waste time lamenting what could have been, or worrying about what will be. And I shall eat dessert every single day (if I feel like it). May our friendship never come apart especially when it’s straight from the heart!”
"Not Such An Easy Business..."
“Over the years you get to see what a struggle life is for most people, how tough it is, how easy it is to be judgmental and criticize and stand outside of situations and impart your wisdom and judgment. But over the decades I've got more tolerant of people's flaws and mistakes. Everybody makes a lot of them. When you're younger you feel: "Hey, this person is evil" or "This person is a jerk" or stupid or "What's wrong with them?" Then you go through life and you think: "Well, it's not so easy." There's a lot of mystery and suffering and complication. Everybody's out there trying to do the best they can. And it's not such an easy business.”
- Woody Allen
Gerald Celente, "Economic Hell is Coming!"
Full screen recommended.
Gerald Celente, 8/3/23
"Economic Hell is Coming!"
"In this video, trend forecaster Gerald Celente criticizes the global economy's artificial prop-up through low/negative interest rates and "fake money." He warns of an impending "economic hell" due to high, underreported inflation rates. Celente also highlights the wealth gap, with big corporations and the wealthy benefiting at the expense of average workers. He predicts a decrease in inflation but an increase in gold prices as the dollar weakens. Lastly, he speculates that the BRICS countries, tired of U.S. hegemony, may consider gold-backed currencies."
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Bill Bonner, "Bombs Bursting In Air"
Bregenz, Austria and Lake Constance at sunset.
"Bombs Bursting In Air"
Ratings agency downgrades US Government credit,
cites "expected fiscal deterioration"...
by Bill Bonner
Bregenz, Austria - "We got here just in time for the fireworks. Bregenz is just across the river from Switzerland…and only a stone’s throw from Liechtenstein and Germany too. And on Tuesday night, we crossed the river to visit friends in Switzerland. They live in a castle, perched on a hill overlooking the entire valley down to Lake Constance. At the bottom, down in what is now a wine cellar, is a pediment that was put up in the 10th century. Above it rose the castle – reworked after mischief, fires, and many years of neglect had done their damage. And upon the castle was a circular tower. It was from this vantage point, after dinner, that we waited for the colorful explosions.
As it happened, we expected fireworks on Wall Street too. The rating agency, Fitch, had just downgraded US debt. CNBC: "Nasdaq drops more than 2% in worst day since February as Fitch downgrade ignites selloff." "Fitch Ratings cut the long-term foreign currency issuer default rating for the U.S. to AA+ from AAA Tuesday night, citing “expected fiscal deterioration over the next three years.” The last time the U.S. got a downgrade from a major ratings agency was in 2011 when Standard & Poor’s cut the rating to AA+ from AAA.
Bombs Bursting In Air: As expected, US bonds went down. Yields went up. Bloomberg: "Treasury Yields Hit 2023 Highs." "US 10-year yield climbs as much as 10 basis points to 4.12%." Increasing the cost of loans – in a country with $32.6 trillion in debt already…that needs to borrow $1 trillion per month (in this quarter) – is bound to have consequences. It is those ‘consequences’ that we are waiting for.
In the meantime, Tuesday was the Swiss national holiday, commemorating an event that happened a long time ago. In 1291, three cantons – Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden – got together, forming the nucleus of what grew into the Swiss Confederacy. Remarkably, the cantons have been able to hold onto their rights and power. Even today, few people know or care who the president of Switzerland is. It doesn’t matter, because the real power is at the local, cantonal level.
As soon as it began to get dark, the fireworks began. Clusters of white sparkles…great, booming bombs…dazzling displays of shooting red stars and bursting incendiaries – everyone seemed eager to blow up something. “I’m disappointed,” said our host. “It’s usually more dramatic. People compete with their neighbors to put on the biggest show. I guess the Swiss are just feeling more subdued.”
From Whip to Wage: The US also began as a confederacy of independent states, much like the Swiss cantons. But American states lost their independence to their central government in a series of power grabs by Washington. Today, Americans can scarcely recall or imagine that it could be any different. In the recent Supreme Court decision on abortion, for example, most people were surprised when the court decided that reproductive rights were up to the states, not the federal government.
The biggest power grab by the feds came in the mid-19th century. Lincoln sent the US Army to bring the states of the southern confederacy into line. Since then, no state has seriously challenged Washington’s power.
But there was more to that story. Back then, slavery was being made obsolete by the Industrial Revolution; it was just cheaper to drive people with slave wages than to drive them with whips. The whole world was turning against slavery. But not at the same rate. In the Deep South of the USA, on the big plantations, slavery (apparently) still paid. In the North it did not. Was it so surprising that northerners led the opposition to it? They could enjoy the piety of opposing slavery, without the cost of giving something up.
Into the Mud: Ultimately, it was fossil fuel that put slavery out of business in the 1800s…not the high-minded intentions of Yankee abolitionists. The Industrial Revolution made it possible for machines to do far more work than a human slave. After thousands of years, keeping people in bondage became bad business…and then, just bad. Now, the Industrial Revolution has run its course. And today, the abolitionists have coal, oil and gas in their sights. They think they can make the world a better place by trampling down the internal combustion engine and gas-fired power plant.
But wait; they owe their wealth to coal, oil, and gas…don’t they? How could they turn against them? Oh dear reader...we have to sink into the mega political mud a bit further, don’t we? Stay tuned…"
Dan, I Allegedly, "It’s Not My Fault"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 8/3/23
"It’s Not My Fault"
"The United States just had its credit rating downgraded by Fitch. We’re going to have to start paying more money as a country to borrow money. Some of our politicians are blaming other people as a result of this. "
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"Nightmare Trip To Kroger! These High Prices Are Hurting Everyone!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, AM 8/3/23
"Nightmare Trip To Kroger!
These High Prices Are Hurting Everyone!"
"In today's vlog, we are at Kroger and are noticing massive price increases on groceries! This has become a complete nightmare as we are seeing yet another wave of price increases around the country and around the world."
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Gregory Mannarino, "Is This The Beginning Of A Super-Meltdown?
"It's a Big Club, and you ain't in it.
You and I are not in the Big Club."
- George Carlin
No, we just get the consequences, as always...
Gregory Mannarino, AM 8/3/23
"Is This The Beginning Of A Super-Meltdown?
The 10 Year Yield IS Spiking! Let's See"
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Wednesday, August 2, 2023
"Alert! Massive Attack On Moscow Coming; US Citizen Captured; Attack Near Romania"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 8/2/23
"Alert! Massive Attack On Moscow Coming;
US Citizen Captured; Attack Near Romania"
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"Shipping Prices Will Double From Current Levels As Supply Chain Nightmare Begins"
Full screen recommended.
"Shipping Prices Will Double From Current Levels
As Supply Chain Nightmare Begins"
by Epic Economist
"Have you noticed that delivery delays are becoming a lot more frequent recently? That’s because a new set of supply chain disruptions are impacting the shipping and trucking industry right now. Both maritime and road transportation companies are facing labor and capacity issues, increased costs, and bankruptcies in recent months, and these problems are rapidly pushing freight and shipping rates to levels last seen in the 2021 crisis, when supply chain bottlenecks triggered a 500% spike in transportation costs, consequently making the price of the items we buy and consume shoot up at retail stores and supermarkets from all around the nation. So far this year, three of the biggest trucking companies in the U.S. have collapsed, and the latest of such incidents is threatening to bring widespread empty shelves back to our local stores in the next few weeks. The 2023 supply chain nightmare has already begun, and today, we're going to reveal what’s truly behind this crisis.
While major shipping companies continue to report better-than-expected financial results, freight rates are now averaging $3,998 per forty-foot equivalent unit, meaning that they’re 85% more expensive than before the outbreak hit the U.S., according to data provided by Hapag-Lloyd, the world’s fifth-largest shipping line. These rates are expected to soar even more during the fall, the U.S. peak importing season. In the past two weeks alone, the average spot-market price to ship a 40-foot container from Asia to the US West Coast rose 34%, as reported by transport data firm Xeneta.
Conditions have changed drastically in recent months, as major shipping companies have gone under, erasing capacity and eliminating thousands of jobs from the system. In order words, the labor issues that caused U.S. ports to be clogged up just a couple of years ago, and wreak havoc on the trucking industry due to a shortage of drivers
Yellow was a 99-year-old firm, that became famous for its competitive prices, and its huge fleet of over 12,000 trucks that shipped freight across America for big brands such as Walmart and Home Depot. As it turns out, the firm’s bankruptcy will affect more than just the supply chain, but also American taxpayers because Yellow owed the federal government a huge amount of money. As of late March, the company had an outstanding debt of about $1.5 billion. Of that, $729.2 million was owed to the federal government.
The U.S. job market is going to suffer, too. Yellow’s closure is the biggest in terms of jobs and revenue in the U.S. trucking industry, according to industry experts. Over 30,000 workers were left without jobs due to the firm’s bankruptcy. Even the cost of sending packages between states is going up this month. The US Postal Service increased the cost of Priority Mail by about 5.5%. Priority Mail Express became 6.6% more expensive, First Class Package Service prices were bumped up by 7.8% and Priority Mail commercial rates increased by about 3.6%. That’s why we should all start getting ready for chaos at supply chains once again. The catalysts of this crisis may be different from last time, but they’re creating problems just as severe as those we have faced before. After supply chains have been broken, they were never the same, and every time a new bottleneck emerges, we are at risk of seeing cascading failures on the system that can rapidly plunge our entire country into disarray."
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"Warning: Bank Closures And Trucking Companies Collapsing Means Big Trouble Ahead"
Jeremiah Babe, 8/2/23
"Warning: Bank Closures And Trucking Companies
Collapsing Means Big Trouble Ahead"
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"Thousand Of Truck Drivers Laid Off! More Banks Closing! Be Ready For The Collapse!"
Adventures With Danno, PM 8/2/23
"Thousand Of Truck Drivers Laid Off! More Banks Closing!
Be Ready For The Collapse!"
"In today's video, we go over the recent collapse of The Yellow Freight Company and how they just laid off over 30,000 employees. This is a huge blow as these truck drivers keep our country running. We also explain how many local banks inside grocery stores have quietly been closing their doors!"
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"A Look to the Heavens, With Chet Raymo"
“Like Rubies Ringed With Gold”
by Chet Raymo
“Here’s a Hubble Space Telescope composite photograph of two colliding galaxies in the constellation Corvus.
Each of the three books of Dante’s “Divine Comedy” ends with the same words: “the stars.” The Inferno concludes with distant stars glimpsed through the narrow exit of hell. “We emerged,” says the poet, “and saw the stars.” The poet’s journey through Purgatory ends on Earth’s highest mountain, with the heavens seemingly not so far away. He is “ready to ascend to the stars.” Finally, Dante looks down upon the stars from above, from the luminous realm of Paradise. He has experienced “the Love that moves the sun and the other stars.” The beauty of that final destination, the Empyrean Sphere that encloses the created universe in divine brilliance, taxes the poet’s powers of description:
“I saw light in the shape of a river
Flashing golden between two banks
Tinted in colors of marvelous spring.
Out of the stream came living sparks
Which settled on the flowers on every side
Like rubies ringed with gold…”
Nothing in Dante’s experience could have prepared him for the splendors of the heavens as revealed by the Hubble. The photograph of colliding galaxies in Corvus is a work of genius in the tradition of the “Divine Comedy” – imagination in service to humankind’s loftiest aspirations and longings.
In Dante’s time, astronomy was one of the seven liberal arts – with grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, and music – required of every student who aspired to a university degree. Of all the secular sciences, astronomy was deemed most likely to lead one to the contemplation of things divine. Yesterday’s Hubble pic made the hair stand up on the back of my neck, which is about as close to the divine as I ever get. Dante’s “Divine Comedy” is based on the medieval astronomical conception of the world – a system of concentric spheres centered on the Earth and bounded just up there by the Empyrean.
In the Hubble photograph of colliding galaxies we see something akin to Dante’s paradisal vision, but it is not a cosmos centered on the Earth. Here are other Suns and other Earths being born, in prodigious numbers, massive stars destined to die soon as supernovas, and other less massive stars that will live long lives, perhaps evolving life or consciousness on their planets. We see in the Hubble photograph a universe of a fullness and dimension that makes Dante’s human-centered cosmos of concentric spheres seem like a dust mote in an immense cathedral.
Astronomy is no longer a required course of study in our universities, and it’s something of a shame. Who can look at the photograph of colliding galaxies and not be moved to rapture? An understanding of the size, age, and prodigality of the universe should be part of every liberal arts graduate’s intellectual furniture.”
- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/
Freely download “The Divine Comedy” by Dante Alighieri, here:
Dante Alighieri’s “Divine Comedy – Inferno”
Dante Alighieri’s “Divine Comedy – Purgatorio”
Dante Alighieri’s “Divine Comedy – Paradiso”
The Poet: Anne Sexton, “Courage”
“Courage”
“It is in the small things we see it.
The child’s first step,
as awesome as an earthquake.
The first time you rode a bike,
wallowing up the sidewalk.
The first spanking when your heart
went on a journey all alone.
When they called you crybaby
or poor or fatty or crazy
and made you into an alien,
you drank their acid
and concealed it.
Later,
if you faced the death of bombs and bullets
you did not do it with a banner,
you did it with only a hat to
cover your heart.
You did not fondle the weakness inside you
though it was there.
Your courage was a small coal
that you kept swallowing.
If your buddy saved you
and died himself in so doing,
then his courage was not courage,
it was love; love as simple as shaving soap.
Later,
if you have endured a great despair,
then you did it alone,
getting a transfusion from the fire,
picking the scabs off your heart,
then wringing it out like a sock.
Next, my kinsman, you powdered your sorrow,
you gave it a back rub
and then you covered it with a blanket
and after it had slept a while
it woke to the wings of the roses
and was transformed.
Later,
when you face old age and its natural conclusion
your courage will still be shown in the little ways,
each spring will be a sword you’ll sharpen,
those you love will live in a fever of love,
and you’ll bargain with the calendar
and at the last moment
when death opens the back door
you’ll put on your carpet slippers
and stride out.”
~ Anne Sexton
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