Moody Blues, "The Story In Your Eyes"
So, we rise from the rubble...
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Friday, December 25, 2020
"The Cruelest Joke Of All..."
“The smallest decisions made had such profound repercussions. One ten-minute wait could save a life… or end it. One wrong turn down the right street or one seemingly unimportant conversation, and everything was changed. It wasn’t right that each lifetime was defined, ruined, ended, and made by such seemingly innocuous details. A major life-threatening event should come with a flashing warning sign that either said ABANDON ALL HOPE or SAFETY AHEAD. It was the cruelest joke of all that no one could see the most vicious curves until they were over the edge, falling into the abyss below.”
- Sherrilyn Kenyon
"A Time Of Great Tragedies..."
“We live in radical times surrounded by tasks that seem impossible. It has become our collective fate to be alive in a time of great tragedies, to live in a period of overwhelming disasters and to stand at the edge of sweeping changes. The river of life is flooding before us, and a tide of poisons affect the air we breathe and the waters we drink and even tarnish the dreams of those who are young and as yet innocent. The snake-bitten condition has already spread throughout the collective body. However, it is in troubled times that it becomes most important to remember that the wonder of life places the medicine of the self near where the poison dwells. The gifts always lie near the wounds, the remedies are often made from poisonous substances, and love often appears where deep losses become acknowledged. Along the arc of healing the wounds and the poisons of life are created the exact opportunities for bringing out all the medicines and making things whole again.”
- Michael Meade, “Fate And Destiny”
"The Gray Curtain Descends"
"The Gray Curtain Descends"
by Robert Gore
"Democracy is also a form of worship.
It is the worship of jackals by jackasses."
- H.L. Mencken
"It’s a close contest between which officially approved story is more implausible: Coronavirus as the Scourge of Humanity or America’s Free and Fair Election. The former enabled the latter, and they were propagated by the same people pursuant to an all-in power grab. Both are riddled with glaring inconsistencies and fraud, none of which are mentioned in polite society.
"It was strange, she thought, to obtain news by means of nothing but denials, as if existence had ceased, facts had vanished and only the frantic negatives uttered by officials and columnists gave any clue to the reality they were denying."
- "Atlas Shrugged," Ayn Rand, 1957
The stories’ propagators don’t address the inconsistencies and fraud because they can’t; they simply deny their existence. They suppress questions, inquiry, and exploration of actual evidence and facts, and promote mindless slogans. The legacy media censorship has been overt, but not as effective as hoped, thanks in large part to the alternative media. The censorship itself is a red flag. If the approved stories are Shining Truth, why can’t they bear challenge?
The propagandists are suppressing free inquiry and debate, and they’re about to eliminate it entirely. With next month’s ascension of Biden and Harris and the predatory and parasitic ruling cabal to which they answer, the prize is in sight. They see no need to continue feigning fealty to anything other than subjugation and control.
For the most part they’ve even dropped their shopworn rhetoric of concern for their subjects. In the good old days there was “for the people” codswallop with the goodies, which you got as long as you did what you were told. The new diktat will be to do as you’re told or else, but there will be no goodies; governments are bankrupt and the ruling cabal has no ability to produce. They will not be bothered by destitution and deaths among the ruled, that’s a feature, not a bug. Indeed, any detectable concern would be grounds for immediate expulsion from the cabal.
Let’s dispense with the obscenity that expressed intentions excuse all crimes and consequences. Totalitarianism has never produced anything but destruction, destitution, and death and never will, regardless of the totalitarians’ lofty rhetoric. Totalitarians are vultures, not eagles, and the current kettle of vultures intend to dine on the corpse of history’s most advanced civilization.
Draft animals work harder for a morsel or kind words than for the whip or switch, but somehow humans are different. Whips, switches, prisons, and subjugation pave the road to utopia. When they instead lead to a charnel house, that’s not the fault of the whippers, switchers, wardens, or subjugators. Except it is. Orwell said it best: “The object of power is power.” Power’s trite slogans and rationalizations don’t excuse its murderous depredations, they only increase its inescapable guilt.
Compromise between good and evil spells death for the good. If I ask you to drink a cup of cyanide and you refuse, but we compromise on half a cup, who wins?
It’s these sort of compromises, exacted bit by bit over decades, that have destroyed a once great nation. It’s understandable how it happened. There’s a problem and more power for the rulers is always the solution: a Civil War, central bank fiat debt, an income tax, make the world safe for democracy, a New Deal, Frontier, or Covenant, Hope and Change, leader of the Free World, wars on poverty, drugs, terror, and now, germs, and so on.
The compromises serve as precedents that launch the next compromises and consequent government accretions of power. (The Civil War was precedent for both the income tax and fiat currency 48 years later.) Solutions are always presented in a blinding blaze of propaganda. There are always the unblinded few who question and dissent. They are always ostracized or worse.
The rest learn the lesson. Herd behavior is hard-wired. Like a pack of wildebeests after one spots a lion, there are times when reflexive flight is the right response. However, nothing government does is quick enough to be considered reflexive; there’s been time enough to question, analyze, and protest virtually everything the US government has done since its inception. Unfortunately, at the individual level, sticking with the pack often makes perfect sense. To be the one who refuses to obey, or to even question the dictates of a powerful government that is both stoking and benefiting from herd frenzy, is to risk ruin, imprisonment, and sometimes, death.
The crowd does what the crowd does. Regardless of the arguments, and perhaps the insults and deprecations from the few outside the crowd, it rationalizes its own behavior. Who are we to question? It’s still a great nation, it could be worse. Why risk our comfortable lifestyle for intangible principles? Better safe than sorry. And there’s the secret thought: yes, there may be unfortunate consequences, but I’ll be dead by then.
Except the unfortunate consequences have arrived. We’re confronted by a dystopian totalitarianism the design of which the totalitarians are no longer trying to hide. Virtually everything has already been compromised and the meager remnant of freedom is on the table. As the crowd is prodded into the cattle cars (not social distancing, their well-being no longer even a faux concern) uneasy whispers circulate: is the final destination the abattoir?
However flimsy the excuses offered by the ruled have been, they’ve at least had the usual rationalizations of cowardice. There’s no excuses or rationalizations for our rulers. They want to impoverish, subjugate, or kill us. Don’t give them too much credit believing the latter isn’t the preferred option. Such deeds never spring from motives other than all-encompassing, unremitting malice and hate. The honest and honorable are left to wonder what, if anything, has replaced those forfeited souls. We may never know the answer.
What do they get from their brave new world? Adding to their already substantial fortunes? Still more power over an impoverished, cowed population, more transhuman robots than people, dutifully following orders but unable to produce anything beyond what is programmed into their quantum microchips, bereft of the sparks of inquiry, innovation and joy that propels humanity and make life worth living? Do they not know that a gray curtain will descend over the dazzling world of wealth and privilege they now inhabit? That turning people into appliances plugged into an all-seeing internet will leave everyone in a electric panopticon that’s as sterile and joyless for the watchers as the watched?
The gray curtain descends. What further demonstration is necessary of impoverish, subjugate, and kill than Coronavirus totalitarianism, which has done all three? It’s the preview of coming attractions. The last flimsy excuse for the ruled is the one that would presumably be offered by roadkill if it wasn’t dead: it was too stunned by the headlights to think or act. The moment is nigh: you’ll be totalitarian roadkill if you’re too stunned by the brazen evil unfolding to think and act, now.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are no more the rightful president and vice president than I would be the rightful owner of your house if I forced my way in, held a gun to your head, and made you sign over the deed. Unlike the solipsistic plaints after President Trump won a semi-legitimate election in 2016 (“Not my president!”), Joe Biden will not be my or anyone else’s rightful president in 2021. (The 2016 election probably was rigged - for Hillary - the riggers just didn’t do an adequate job, unlike 2020.) Biden and his partner in crime are usurpers and SLL will not refer to either one by their stolen titles. Until the inauguration SLL will refer to Biden as Not Our President-Elect, or NOPE. They’re small gestures, but revolutions start with small gestures.
NOPE and Vice-NOPE will be nominal capos of the largest organized crime syndicate in history. Unchallenged crime and evil are not static; they get worse. Investing any hope in “things will get better” has been a loser for more than a century. Governments generally do nothing but get worse - more taxes, more laws and regulations, more debt, more fiat fraud, more wars, more corruption, and more power -as the freedom of individuals who must live under them vanishes. Hope without action is not a strategy, but there is cause for hope if it’s coupled with action."
Part Two will be posted next week."
- https://www.theburningplatform.com/
Thursday, December 24, 2020
Merry Christmas!
I wish you all a safe, happy and peaceful Christmas!
Josh Groban, "You Are Loved (Don't Give Up)"
Full screen recommended.
Christmas Musical Interlude: "The 100 Most Beautiful Christmas Songs Performed by the Legends of Music with a Fireplace (Classics)"
Christmas Music, "The 100 Most Beautiful Christmas Songs
Performed by the Legends of Music with a Fireplace (Classics)"
(Perry Como, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra,
Dean Martin, Elvis Presley, Bing Crosby )
Full screen mode highly recommended!
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Big, beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 1055 is a dominant member of a small galaxy group a mere 60 million light-years away toward the aquatically intimidating constellation Cetus. Seen edge-on, the island universe spans over 100,000 light-years, a little larger than our own Milky Way galaxy. The colorful, spiky stars decorating this cosmic portrait of NGC 1055 are in the foreground, well within the Milky Way. But the telltale pinkish star forming regions are scattered through winding dust lanes along the distant galaxy's thin disk.
Click image for larger size.
With a smattering of even more distant background galaxies, the deep image also reveals a boxy halo that extends far above and below the central bulge and disk of NGC 1055. The halo itself is laced with faint, narrow structures, and could represent the mixed and spread out debris from a satellite galaxy disrupted by the larger spiral some 10 billion years ago."
"I Wish You Enough"
"I Wish You Enough"
by Bob Perks
"At an airport I overheard a father and daughter in their last moments together. They had announced her plane’s departure and standing near the door, he said to his daughter, “I love you, I wish you enough.” She said, “Daddy, our life together has been more than enough. Your love is all I ever needed. I wish you enough, too, Daddy.” They kissed good-bye and she left.
He walked over toward the window where I was seated. Standing there I could see he wanted and needed to cry. I tried not to intrude on his privacy, but he welcomed me in by asking, “Did you ever say good-bye to someone knowing it would be forever?” “Yes, I have,” I replied.
Saying that brought back memories I had of expressing my love and appreciation for all my Dad had done for me. Recognizing that his days were limited, I took the time to tell him face to face how much he meant to me. So I knew what this man was experiencing.
“Forgive me for asking, but why is this a forever good-bye?” I asked. “I am old and she lives much too far away. I have challenges ahead and the reality is, her next trip back will be for my funeral, ” he said.
“When you were saying good-bye I heard you say, ‘I wish you enough.’ May I ask what that means?” He began to smile. “That’s a wish that has been handed down from other generations. My parents used to say it to everyone.” He paused for a moment and looking up as if trying to remember it in detail, he smiled even more.
“When we said ‘I wish you enough,’ we were wanting the other person to have a life filled with enough good things to sustain them,” he continued and then turning toward me he shared the following as if he were reciting it from memory.
"I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright. I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun more. I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive. I wish you enough pain so that the smallest joys in life appear much bigger. I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting. I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess. I wish enough “Hello’s” to get you through the final 'Good-bye.'” He then began to sob and walked away."
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"What is life?
It is the flash of a firefly in the night.
It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.
It is the little shadow which runs
across the grass and loses itself in the sunset."
- Crowfoot, Blackfoot Warrior and Orator
"Give Thanks..."
“When you arise in the morning give thanks for the
food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for
giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself.”
- Tecumseh
"And Tho'..."
“... and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "Ulysses"
"2020 Year in Review"
"2020 Year in Review"
"Making sense of the craziest year we’ve yet lived through."
by Dave Collum
"Imagine, if you will, a man wakes up from a year-long induced coma - a long hauler of a higher order - to a world gone mad. During his slumber, the President of the United States was impeached for colluding with the Russians using a dossier prepared by his political opponents, themselves colluding with the FBI, intelligence agencies, and the Russians.
A pandemic that may have emanated from a Chinese virology laboratory swept the globe killing millions and is still on the loose. A controlled demolition of the global economy forced hundreds of millions into unemployment in a matter of weeks. Metropolitan hotels plummeted to 10% occupancy. The 10% of the global economy corresponding to hospitality and tourism had been smashed on the shoals and was foundering.
The Federal Reserve has been buying junk corporate bonds in total desperation. A social movement of monumental proportions swept the US and the world, triggering months of rioting and looting while mayors, frozen in the headlights, were unable to fathom an appropriate response.
The rise of neo-Marxism on college campuses and beyond had become palpable. The most contentious election in US history pitted the undeniably polarizing and irascible Donald Trump against the DNC A-Team including a 76-year-old showing early signs of dementia paired with a sassy neo-Marxist grifter with an undetectable moral compass. Many have lost faith in the fairness of the election as challenges hit the courts.
Peering through the virus-induced brain fog the man sees CNBC playing on the TV with the scrolling Chiron stating, “S&P up 12% year to date. Nasdaq soars 36%.” The man has entered The Twilight Zone."
Please view this lengthy, complete article here:
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"Every year, friend-of-the-site David Collum writes a detailed “Year in Review” synopsis full of keen perspective and plenty of wit. This year’s is no exception. As with past years, he has graciously selected PeakProsperity.com as the site where it will be published in full. It’s quite longer than our usual posts, but worth the time to read in full. A downloadable pdf of the full article is available here, for those who prefer to do their power-reading offline."
Gregory Mannarino, Noon 12/24/20: "Stocks Gain Again! With No Help For The American People In Sight"
Gregory Mannarino, Noon 12/24/20:
"Stocks Gain Again! With No Help For The American People In Sight"
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