Jeremiah Babe,
“Bitcoin To Be Outlawed? Currency Crisis;
Survival Of Financial Fittest”
So, we rise from the rubble...
Monday, April 19, 2021
Gregory Mannarino, PM 4/19/21: "The Central Planners: Prices Are About To Rise Even Higher, Faster!"
Gregory Mannarino, PM 4/19/21:
"The Central Planners:
Prices Are About To Rise Even Higher, Faster!"
Musical Interlude: 2002, "Falling Through Time"
Full screen recommended.
2002, "Falling Through Time"
"A Look to the Heavens"
“This pretty, open cluster of stars, M34, is about the size of the Full Moon on the sky. Easy to appreciate in small telescopes, it lies some 1,800 light-years away in the constellation Perseus. At that distance, M34 physically spans about 15 light-years.
Formed at the same time from the same cloud of dust and gas, all the stars of M34 are about 200 million years young. But like any open star cluster orbiting in the plane of our galaxy, M34 will eventually disperse as it experiences gravitational tides and encounters with the Milky Way’s interstellar clouds and other stars. Over four billion years ago, our own Sun was likely formed in a similar open star cluster.”
Chet Raymo, “The Ring of Truth”
“The Ring of Truth”
by Chet Raymo
“In Salley Vickers’ novel, “Where Three Roads Meet,” the shade of Tiresias, the blind seer of the Oedipus myth, visits Sigmund Freud in London during the psychoanalyst’s final terrible illness. In a series of conversations, Tiresias retells the story of Oedipus - he who was fated to kill his father and sleep with his mother – a story at the heart of Freud’s own theory of the human psyche. At one point in the conversations, as Tiresias and Freud discuss the extent to which our lives are fated, the question of immortality arises. Freud says of Oedipus that “he made his story into an immortal one, so far as any story is.” And Tiresias replies, “But, Dr. Freud, stories are all we humans have to make us immortal.”
Oedipus lives on, whether he lived or not in actuality. Sophocles lives in our consciousness as vigorously as ever he did in life. They live because their stories touch something resonant and unchanging in human nature. Vickers suggests that what makes the Oedipal story immortal is not any necessary tendency of humans to act out the Oedipal myth, a la Freud, but rather Oedipus’s rage to know the truth - or become conscious of a truth he has known all along and suppressed – even though the truth will be his undoing.
The poet Muriel Rukesyser got it exactly right when she said: “The universe is made of stories, not atoms.” Even atoms are stories we tell about the world, having first paid close attention to how the world works. The plays of Sophocles and the other Greek dramatists live on not because their authors were immortal, but because nature endures and their stories tell us something that rings true about enduring nature. And, like Oedipus, we have a rage to know, even if knowledge will unseat some of our more comfortable illusions.”
"It's Human Nature..."
“We’ve all heard the warnings and we’ve ignored them. We push our luck. We roll the dice. It’s human nature. When we’re told not to touch something we usually do even if we know better. Maybe because deep down, we’re just asking for trouble.”
- “Meredith Grey”, “Gray’s Anatomy”
Well, it seems we've gotten what we asked for...and then some.
"The Bamboozle..."
“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
- Carl Sagan
"How Empires End"
"How Empires End"
by Jeff Thomas
"Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny." – Thomas Jefferson
Histories are generally written by academics. They, quite naturally, tend to focus on the main events: the wars and the struggles between leaders and their opponents (both external and internal). Whilst these are interesting stories to read, academics, by their very nature, often overlook the underlying causes for an empire’s decline.
Today, as in any era, most people are primarily interested in the "news" - the daily information regarding the world’s political leaders and their struggles with one another to obtain, retain, and expand their power. When the history is written about the era we are passing through, it will reflect, in large measure, a rehash of the news. As the media of the day tend to overlook the fact that present events are merely symptoms of an overall decline, so historians tend to focus on major events, rather than the "slow operations" that have been the underlying causes.
The Persian Empire: When, as a boy, I was "educated" about the decline and fall of the Persian Empire, I learned of the final takeover by Alexander the Great but was never told that, in its decline, Persian taxes became heavier and more oppressive, leading to economic depression and revolts, which, in turn led to even heavier taxes and increased repression. Increasingly, kings hoarded gold and silver, keeping it out of circulation from the community. This hamstrung the market, as monetary circulation was insufficient to conduct business. By the time Alexander came along, Persia, weakened by warfare and internal economic strife, was a shell of an empire and was relatively easy to defeat.
The Tang Dynasty: Back then, I also learned that the Tang Dynasty ended as a result of the increased power amongst the eunuchs, battles with fanzhen separatists, and finally, peasants’ revolts. True enough, but I was not taught that the dynasty’s expansion-based warfare demanded increases in taxation, which led to the revolts. Continued warfare necessitated increasing monetary and land extortion by the eunuchs, resulting in an abrupt decrease in food output and further taxes. Finally, as economic deterioration and oppression of the citizenry worsened, citizens left the area entirely for more promise elsewhere.
Is there a pattern here? Let’s have a more detailed look - at another empire.
The Spanish Empire: In 1556, Philip II of Spain inherited what was regarded as Europe’s most wealthy nation, with no apparent economic problems. Yet, by 1598, Spain was bankrupt. How was this possible? Spain was doing well but sought to become a major power. To achieve this, Philip needed more tax dollars. Beginning in 1561, the existing servicio tax was regularized, and the crusada tax, the excusado tax, and the millones tax were all added by 1590.
Over a period of 39 years (between 1559 and 1598) taxes increased by 430%. Although the elite of the day were exempt from taxation (the elite of today are not officially exempt), the average citizen was taxed to the point that both business expansion and public purchasing diminished dramatically. Wages did not keep pace with the resultant inflation. The price of goods rose 400%, causing a price revolution and a tax revolution.
Although Spain enjoyed a flood of gold and silver from the Americas at this time, the increased wealth went straight into Philip’s war efforts. However, the 100,000 troops were soon failing to return sufficient spoils to Philip to pay for their forays abroad. In a final effort to float the doomed empire, Philip issued government bonds, which provided immediate cash but created tremendous debt that, presumably, would need to be repaid one day. (The debt grew to 8.8 times GDP.) Spain declared bankruptcy. Trade slipped to other countries. The military, fighting on three fronts, went unpaid, and military aspirations collapsed.
It is important to note that, even as the empire was collapsing, Philip did not suspend warfare. He did not back off on taxation. Like leaders before and since, he instead stubbornly increased his autocracy as the empire slid into collapse.
Present-Day Empires: Again, the events above are not taught to schoolchildren as being of key importance in the decline of empires, even though they are remarkably consistent with the decline of other empires and what we are seeing today. The very same events occur, falling like dominoes, more or less in order, in any empire, in any age:
• The reach of government leaders habitually exceeds their grasp.
• Dramatic expansion (generally through warfare) is undertaken without a clear plan as to how that expansion is to be financed.
• The population is overtaxed as the bills for expansion become due, without consideration as to whether the population can afford increased taxation.
• Heavy taxation causes investment by the private sector to diminish, and the economy begins to decline.
• Costs of goods rise, without wages keeping pace.
• Tax revenue declines as the economy declines (due to excessive taxation). Taxes are increased again, in order to top up government revenues.
• In spite of all the above, government leaders personally hoard as much as they can, further limiting the circulation of wealth in the business community.
• Governments issue bonds and otherwise borrow to continue expansion, with no plan as to repayment.
• Dramatic authoritarian control is instituted to assure that the public continues to comply with demands, even if those demands cannot be met by the public.
• Economic and social collapse occurs, often marked by unrest and riots, the collapse of the economy, and the exit of those who are productive.
• In this final period, the empire turns on itself, treating its people as the enemy.
The above review suggests that if our schoolbooks stressed the underlying causes of empire collapse, rather than the names of famous generals and the dates of famous battles, we might be better educated and be less likely to repeat the same mistakes. Unfortunately, this is unlikely. Chances are, future leaders will be just as uninterested in learning from history as past leaders. They will create empires, then destroy them.
Even the most informative histories of empire decline, such as "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," by Edward Gibbon, will not be of interest to the leaders of empires. They will believe that they are above history and that they, uniquely, will succeed. If there is any value in learning from the above, it is the understanding that leaders will not be dissuaded from their aspirations. They will continue to charge ahead, both literally and figuratively, regardless of objections and revolts from the citizenry.
Once an empire has reached stage eight above, it never reverses. It is a "dead empire walking" and only awaits the painful playing-out of the final three stages. At that point, it is foolhardy in the extreme to remain and "wait it out" in the hope that the decline will somehow reverse. At that point, the wiser choice might be to follow the cue of the Chinese, the Romans, and others, who instead chose to quietly exit for greener pastures elsewhere."
The Poet: Robinson Jeffers, "Love That, Not Man Apart From That"
"Love That, Not Man Apart From That""Then what is the answer? Not to be deluded by dreams.
To know that great civilizations have broken down into violence,
and their tyrants come, many times before.
When open violence appears, to avoid it with honor or choose
the least ugly faction; these evils are essential.
To keep one’s own integrity, be merciful and uncorrupted
and not wish for evil; and not be duped
By dreams of universal justice or happiness.
These dreams will not be fulfilled.
To know this, and know that however ugly the parts appear
the whole remains beautiful. A severed hand
Is an ugly thing and man dissevered from the earth and stars
and his history... for contemplation or in fact...
Often appears atrociously ugly.
Integrity is wholeness, the greatest beauty is
Organic wholeness, the wholeness of life and things,
the divine beauty of the universe.
Love that, not man apart from that,
or else you will share man’s pitiful confusions,
or drown in despair when his days darken."
- Robinson Jeffers
and their tyrants come, many times before.
When open violence appears, to avoid it with honor or choose
the least ugly faction; these evils are essential.
To keep one’s own integrity, be merciful and uncorrupted
and not wish for evil; and not be duped
By dreams of universal justice or happiness.
These dreams will not be fulfilled.
To know this, and know that however ugly the parts appear
the whole remains beautiful. A severed hand
Is an ugly thing and man dissevered from the earth and stars
and his history... for contemplation or in fact...
Often appears atrociously ugly.
Integrity is wholeness, the greatest beauty is
Organic wholeness, the wholeness of life and things,
the divine beauty of the universe.
Love that, not man apart from that,
or else you will share man’s pitiful confusions,
or drown in despair when his days darken."
- Robinson Jeffers
"Fools and Their Money Get Together"
"Fools and Their Money Get Together"
by Bill Bonner
YOUGHAL, IRELAND – "When the money goes, everything goes. Today, we look at what went last week. Yes, Dear Reader, at this late, degenerate stage of the Bubble Epoch, nothing is so crazy… so absurd… or so appalling that it isn’t front-page news. And from Capitol Hill last week came the usual pernicious headlines.
First, the Democrats say they want to pack the Supreme Court, to make it easier for them to do any fool thing they want. Second, they want to pave the way for giving reparations to people whose families suffer – allegedly – from a wrong done to their ancestors 170 years ago. And that doesn’t include all the other nonsense on the agenda – forgiving student debt, providing regular stimmy checks, another $2.3 trillion “infrastructure” boondoggle, etc., etc.
Arbitrary Rearrangement of Wealth: When money is no object, no object is too asinine to spend it on. Economist John Maynard Keynes described it in 1919: "By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security but [also] at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth.
[…]. As the inflation proceeds and the real value of the currency fluctuates wildly from month to month, all permanent relations between debtors and creditors, which form the ultimate foundation of capitalism, become so utterly disordered as to be almost meaningless; and the process of wealth-getting degenerates into a gamble and a lottery."
Some get rich from the government’s “arbitrary rearrangement” of wealth. Those on the receiving end – contractors, connivers, and cronies – do well. But the disorder soon spreads to the rest of the economy, where money itself… and the process of getting and spending it… becomes a joke.
Great Visionaries: In this respect, Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer must be viewed as great visionaries. On December 6, 2013, they launched Dogecoin – a cryptocurrency that was apparently half serious and half spoof. From the very beginning, the one-liners kept coming. Two weeks after the launch, the crypto money went up 300% in 72 hours – to be worth $0.00095 each! Six days later, the system was hacked. Millions of coins were stolen. By 2017, the Dogecoin market was worth $2 billion.
January, 2020 – a price spike sent the coin up 800% in 24 hours, after Tesla CEO Elon Musk began posting mysterious tweets. “No highs, no Lows, only Doge,” quoth the oracle. Last week, a big runup put Dogecoin up almost 8,000% for the year. Whoopee! “Hey guys. I just became a Dogecoin millionaire,” announced one Reddit user. Another anonymous enthusiast (perhaps with the initials, EM?) apparently now has a $15 billion fortune – based on his Dogecoin holdings alone (assuming he has not lost the key to his wallet.)
Missing the Point: What do you do when you have that kind of money? It is strange “wealth,” neither clearly the fruit of win-win nor of win-lose. It is more like win – huh? What can you do with that kind of “win-huh?” money? How about buying a Non-Fungible Token (NFT)? Last week, too, set new records in the NFT market. Here’s ABC News: "An NFT called The Pixel — an image of a single pixel — was also up for auction, fetching $US1,355,555 million after a 90-minute bidding battle. The artist is known only as Pak, with the Twitter handle @muratpak.
NFTs are an almost perfect match for cryptocurrencies. They provide what we like to call a safe space for the digital fantasists (SSDF).Normally, things (and people, too) are judged on two basic criteria. They are either useful or decorative. If they are neither, they have no value. But in this new SSDF, weird money meets weird consumer items – neither of which has any physical form – and they live happily ever after. NFTs have no utility. Nor are they much fun to look at. The Pixel piece is just a square of gray.
And if you’re looking for value in an NFT like The Pixel… or in Dogecoin… or in the hundreds – maybe thousands – of publicly traded, money-losing U.S. companies… or in the U.S. dollar… or in federal financial policies – you are missing the point. They are valuable precisely because they have no value. They have neither utility nor aesthetic value. They destroy real wealth; they don’t create it. But the more wealth they destroy, the more important they become. Does that make sense? We didn’t think so.
Who Gets It? But we’re trying to connect some pretty slippery dots – like beads of mercury in a hot skillet – so stick with us. When the money is fake, people change their attitudes towards it. If you are a politician… whether Donald Trump or Elizabeth Warren… you want to “go big” with some monumental program – like the Great Pyramid of Giza – that will signal your greatness for years. If you are an artist, you create an NFT. Even cooler, you sell it, letting it be known that you think the buyer is a moron. Cooler still, you buy it… And coolest of all if you pay far too much money for it. You say to your friends, “I paid a million dollars for this.” And your friends think you are an idiot. But you’re a very cool idiot… one who “gets it” and can afford to throw away a million dollars to prove it.
Big Fraud: Gets what? That “money” no longer represents real worth. And that by spending it recklessly, he is throwing swill before swine. A man can buy a box at the Super Bowl without honest toil, without saving, without starting a business, nor by increasing the world’s wealth with useful or decorative output. He might have simply bought Dogecoin… or got a stimmy check… or put his money in the stock market and let the Federal Reserve make him rich. The meaning of “wealth” itself has evolved towards what the Fed has made it – a gamble and a lottery. But also a fraud. And it is such a big fraud that – one way or another, winner or loser – we are all in on it."
"Knaves And Fools..."
"There are more fools than knaves in the world,
else the knaves would not have enough to live upon."
- Samuel Butler
"Vast Stretches Of America Have Now Descended
Into A State Of Deep Economic Hopelessness"
by Michael Snyder
"Even though the stock market has been booming and the corporate media is full of talk about “recovery”, there are many communities in the United States where a permanent atmosphere of despair seems to hang in the air. The federal government gives us doctored numbers that show that the national unemployment rate is low, but in small towns all across the country it seems like almost everyone is either unemployed or working extremely low paying jobs. Earlier this month, one such town was profiled by USA Today. Even before the COVID pandemic came along, the little town of Ogdensburg, New York was deeply struggling, but now economic conditions have become extremely dire…
"Ogdensburg is tiny and desperately poor, so it experiences these national trends in concentrated form. The median house in this city of 10,000 people sells for $68,000, according to the U.S. Census. The average family earns $42,000 a year, and 2,300 residents live below the federal poverty line, giving Ogdensburg a poverty rate 75% higher than the rest of New York State.
Then the economy closed. The governments of Canada and the United States tried to limit the spread of COVID-19 by shutting the international border, including the curvy suspension bridge between Ogdensburg and Prescott, Ontario. In the small industrial park east of town, the few remaining warehouses and Canadian-owned factories shut down. The hospital in Ogdensburg furloughed 174 people. Most restaurants and grocery stores stayed open, primarily by firing every person they could. Like millions of other Americans, most people living in Ogdensburg are just trying to find some way to survive month after month."
The fact that stock market investors are rolling in giant mountains of cash doesn’t matter to the citizens of Ogdensburg. At this point the city government is “nearly bankrupt”, and the latest economic downturn has fueled “a spike in narcotics overdoses and deaths”… "The economic collapse fueled further crises. Ogdensburg’s city government is nearly bankrupt, says City Manager Stephen Jellie. Stores that depend on customers crossing the border from Canada are nearly empty. The pandemic closed 12-step groups across the St. Lawrence Valley, causing a spike in narcotics overdoses and deaths."
Ogdensburg’s struggles started 62 years before the pandemic, when the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway destroyed the city’s port. Now the city faces so many problems simultaneously, it’s difficult for people here to imagine what “recovery” even means.
Of course Ogdensburg is far from alone. Similar articles could have been written about thousands of other towns and cities from coast to coast. There is so much economic pain out there right now, and it is getting worse with each passing month.
As he drives to work each day, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell gets a firsthand view of the economic suffering that he has helped to cause. Just two blocks away from his office, a tent city has sprung up that just keeps growing and growing… "As he drove past the intersection of 21st and E streets in Northwest Washington, a 68-year-old man peered through the window,struck by an encampment of homeless people here that grew from 10 tents to 20 in the past year. Then 30. Now 40.
The people living in those tents had no idea that their burgeoning village kept this man, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, up at night, or that he kept thinking about them as he drove two blocks south to his office. Powell doesn’t know their names or backstories, either. But what he saw was clear. A visceral reminder of the uneven economic recovery. Right there in the Fed’s shadow."
Powell sure seems to know how to shower stock market investors with cash, but he appears to be powerless to do anything about the tent cities that are mushrooming all over the nation. Unfortunately, the housing crisis in this country is only going to get worse. As foreign governments, real estate investment companies and wealthy individuals gobble up properties at a feverish pace, millions upon millions of ordinary Americans are being priced out of the market.
This is particularly true for young adults. At this point more of them have moved back home with their parents than ever before… "The number of adults aged 18-34 living at home with their parents continues to accelerate to levels not seen in decades, according to Goldman Sachs, citing US Census Bureau data which found that just over 33% have returned to the nest."
And while real estate in major markets is booming, the percentage of young adults in the ‘boomerang generation’ – who leave the nest only to return years later – has taken a dive, as unemployment and punishing (self-inflicted) student debt has forced many younger Americans out of the housing market.
But at least the financial markets have been doing well, right? If you believe that this financial bubble is real, you are just deceiving yourself. It isn’t going to last, but the social decay that is rapidly growing all over America will.
Earlier today, I came across an article that claimed that the “knockout game” has now returned to New York City… "Areas of the city which were generally thought to be safe, such as Midtown Manhattan, Chelsea and the leafy Upper West Side, have all been locations on random assaults in recent months.Some are describing the assaults as proof of the return of the so-called ‘knockout game.’"
And civil unrest continues to rage in many of our major cities on an almost nightly basis. In fact, rioters in Portland set an Apple Store on fire on Friday night… "Despite advance warnings, Portland Police Bureau officers were powerless to stop another night of rioting, arson, and gunfire carried out by Antifa. Rioters set multiple fires and engaged in drive-by gunfire. Antifa rioters set an Apple Store on fire Friday night during the third declared riot in five days. The fire was one of the multiple fires Portland police officers were powerless to prevent."
Didn’t those rioters know that Apple is a “woke” company? Sadly, those involved in the rioting, looting and violence are not going to check whether you are “woke” or not when they come to your neighborhood either. As I have warned for a very long time, civil unrest in the United States is going to rise to absolutely horrific levels.
A lot of people out there expected the civil unrest to go away once Joe Biden got into the White House, but that obviously hasn’t happened. As economic conditions deteriorate, people are only going to get even angrier, and the rest of the world will watch with great interest as American cities burn."
"Going For The Guidestones"
"Going For The Guidestones"
by Ray Jason
"The realization hit me like a bolt of mental lightning. The bastards are GOING FOR THE GUIDESTONES! They are betting that their long campaign to dumb down the global population combined with their evil-eye surveillance grid, will now allow them to stomp Humanity into total submission.
These soulless predators, who I scornfully and gleefully, describe as our Malignant Overlords, are not particularly motivated by greed. They all have more than enough money. What they truly desire is POWER – the sickest variety – the type that allows them to utterly control the lives of ordinary people.
Yet, even that is not enough to satisfy the desires of the most wicked of them. They find the common people so loathsome, that they would prefer to eliminate the vast majority of them. Their scheme is to transform the planet into a 21st century Techno-Feudalism – but with an enormously reduced population.
A tiny core of self-proclaimed Elites would rule. Beneath them, the Technicians would run the computers, the robots and the Artificial Intelligence. The next level down would be the Enforcers. The Police and the Military who would provide security for The Despised at the top. At the very bottom would be the Neo-slaves of the global Cyber-plantation. They would struggle to exist at even a subsistence level. They would be forced to do the undesirable work that even the robots would refuse to perform. Their income would barely support them; and their pastimes and pleasures would be dictated by the World Government via their mandatory, personal screens.
These devices would also monitor everything about them – their movements, bank accounts, vaccine compliance, health status, etc. These “miracle devices” could even discover any dangerous anti-government proclivities.
With this control grid in place, the oppressors could convert the entire planet into one gigantic Club Med – or should that be Club Mad – for themselves. They would no longer have to share the ski slopes at Aspen with the little people. The French Riviera would be cleansed of the riff-raff. Only the powerful would travel by air or enjoy sea cruises. That is the true intention of the U.N.’s Agenda 21/2030. It would convert Earth into a resort for the rich – and a gulag for the rest.
When that flash of recognition jolted me, I suddenly realized that after many decades of careful preparation, the Malignant Overlord’s had finished setting the trap. Now, they were about to spring it. Their Georgia Guidestones moment had arrived.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with this strange monument that stands 16 feet tall, sneering down at the lesser people, that is to be expected. After all, every single day you are being simmered in a toxic sludge of industrial grade propaganda. Your controllers want you misinformed, confused, terrified and incapable of resistance.
BTW, these so-called Guidestones are the perfect rebuttal to the claim that “there are no secret cabals of powerful men conspiring for world domination.” These gigantic granite slabs were designed and financed by an “anonymous person, who represented a clandestine group that never revealed itself.” And it has now been over 40 years since those mysterious modern Ten Commandments were placed in a north Georgia pasture.
The very first edict, which is carved into the granite – in EIGHT different languages – states “Maintain Humanity under 500 million in perpetual balance with Nature.” The “in perpetual balance with Nature” phrase seems admirable. However, the 500 million number sickens me. I suspect that the other 7.5 billion humans, who would have to be eliminated, are also appalled by this directive.
A normal person might interject at this point that nobody is so evil that they wish to kill the vast majority of the people on Earth. But you believe that because you possess “decency bias.” You are blessed with compassion, empathy and the tendency to “live and let live.” You don’t wish to rule anyone’s life, and you certainly don’t wish to rule everyone’s life.
But tragically, there is a subset of homo sapiens that doesn’t just desire control over others, they crave it! And what makes this addiction even more horrific is their ability to delude themselves with the lie that their control freak sickness is actually for “the Greater Good.” They are so convinced of their personal superiority and the nobility of their cause, that they feel no guilt in subjecting people to gruesome, joy-trampling domination. Don’t forget, we are only a couple of decades removed from a century that witnessed the deaths of hundreds of millions of people at the hands of their cold-blooded leaders.
What initially triggered my Guidestones revelation, was my careful examination of the way that the political and medical establishment had responded to the Wuhan Virus. When you examine the actions that these “deciders” have imposed, they make no sense if they are actually fighting a battle for health. BUT, if their hidden agenda – their TRUE goal – is to fulfill the depopulation directive of the Georgia Guidestones, then their policies make complete sense.
Here are some examples that demonstrate this:
Lockdowns: For many centuries the best way of dealing with a virulent disease, was to isolate the sick people away from those who are healthy. This allowed the infected to receive specific treatment, while permitting the un-afflicted to develop antibodies and herd immunity. If this method has worked for centuries, why was the protocol reversed for the Wuhan Virus? It makes no sense – unless your true purpose is to sicken and not to heal.
Masks: The absurdity of these cheap blue masks as a disease inhibitor is mind-boggling. It actually states on the box that they come in, that they are not suitable for stopping the spread of viruses. The masks are so porous that a great descriptive meme was created back in early 2020 to describe the lunacy of their usage. It joked that these masks were about as reliable as “stopping a mosquito with a chain link fence.”
But even though there is no upside to these embarrassing face diapers, there is plenty of downside. And I am not referring to their symbolic value as badges of obedience to “the Science the State.” I am referencing the fact that they dramatically block the flow of oxygen to all of the vital organs in our bodies. AND they force us to repeatedly breathe in particles that our systems are trying to expel through our exhalations. So, masks make no medical sense, unless you are trying to weaken and destroy massive amounts of people.
The Non-Vaxx Vaxx: Why the unceasing demands that everyone be vaccinated? After all, the survival rate for this supposed pandemic is around 99%. And there are cheap alternative therapies such as HCQ and Ivermectin that are very effective. And the vaccine itself is not even a vaxx – it is some experimental gene altering concoction (I won’t grace it with the word “therapy.”). Furthermore, it only received “emergency approval” by by-passing the usual rigorous testing required of new vaccines. Maybe that was because in the few animal tests that they did on gerbils and rats, all of the animals DIED!!
A clear thinker would conclude that a disease that is no more severe than the common flu and that can be treated effectively with safe, inexpensive drugs, surely does not require a mandatory global campaign of mass vaccination. That same unbiased thinker would have to examine the DARK possibility that the vaxx is not a cure jab … but a KILL JAB.
As I conclude this essay, I am deeply saddened by how easily the vast majority of Humanity fell for this massive Covid scam. Even though several hundred of us have been on the World-Wide Watchtowers sounding the alarm, it feels like we have just been barking at the dark side of the moon. It appears that the dream of the Malignant Overlords for planetary control, that they carved onto those granite slabs, will soon be fulfilled.
But then I think of other gigantic monuments erected by prior megalomaniacs, who also had dreams of omnipotent control. I recall the Pharaohs and their pyramids and the Caesars and their Colosseum. Slowly, a smile brightens my un-masked face. For I suddenly realize that those enormous structures are now only … RUINS. They are windswept monuments to the failure of those who seek to dominate! And one day … the Guidestones will also crumble."
○
Hat tip to The Burning Platform for the original material.
"The Movie Follows the Script"
"The Movie Follows the Script"
by Jim Kunstler
"Rep. Maxine Waters (D – Calif) laid it out neatly Friday night on a visit to Minneapolis, where she apparently went to stir a pot of racial hatred that was already on boil without her help, following the accidental killing of felonious bail jumper Daunte Wright (first-degree aggravated robbery, fleeing from police, and possession of a handgun without a permit): “We got to stay on the street,” Ms. Waters yelled at the mob gathered in the suburb of Brooklyn Center, “get more confrontational!” Yes, exactly what the sore-beset city needs, as it awaits this week’s verdict in the trial of Derek Chauvin, about which she added: “I am very hopeful… that we will get a verdict that says guilty, guilty, guilty. If we do not, we will not go away.”
Former police officer Chauvin is charged with Murder 2, Murder 3, and Manslaughter all predicated on varying degrees of intention and recklessness in the death of George Floyd, the internationally acclaimed saint-of-oppressed-peoples who died under Mr. Chauvin’s knee in an indelible video shared ‘round the world last May. The video has the status of a religious icon, portraying, as it seems to, the vivid distillation of the black experience in America: pure, unalloyed, hateful, murderous subjugation.
The trouble is what’s not in the indelible picture: Mr. Floyd’s prodigious ingestion of the world’s hardest narcotic, fentanyl, at a level likely to cause death, plus methedrine, plus THC, on top of a 90-percent blockage of a coronary artery, and other cardiopathies, and Covid-19, all according to the official medical examiner. Also, as it happened in the instance of his arrest, Mr. Floyd was failing to follow police instructions, and acting dangerously deranged - behavior apt to lead to police restraint, under which he died, rest his soul.
So, now it will be left to the jury to sort all this out, under the threat of getting “doxed” (having their home addresses disclosed) by the Black Lives Matter org, as well as following the $27-million lawsuit settlement on the Floyd family for “wrongful death” by the Minneapolis City Council before the trial commenced - not exactly a propitious lead-in for a fair outcome. One might even view the public expressions of black opinion leaders and politicians as coercive - but then coercion is the animating spirit of liberal Wokery, the wish and the will to punish at all costs.
In any case, the fine spring weather around the country invites the young and energetic to caper angrily in the streets after a harsh winter of lockdowns. The mobs will turn out, things will burn, businesses will get looted (and destroyed), and people will get hurt. So it will be for two reasons: groups of people follow social scripts and societies give tacit permission for the acting-out of feelings - in this case, feelings of grievance that demand retribution and vengeance.
What’s actually at issue here is whether black people in America really want to join with the other ethnic groups present in the land in a national common culture - that is, a consensus about behavior, ceremonies, and manners - or would rather opt out of it, oppose it, or violently destroy what’s left of it. The key to these questions is how to explain the failure-to-thrive of a large black demographic despite the apparent victories of a long civil rights campaign, colossal expenditures of tax money for assistance, and affirmative action galore. I would explain it as the malign influence of neurotic white liberalism acting on the aforesaid black ambivalence about joining in or remaining apart from that common culture.
The upshot, for now, is that white liberalism has given black America permission to act violently and destructively, to disobey the law, to oppose officers attempting to enforce the law, and to justify the whole package of uncivil behavior on the grounds that “systemic racism” and “white supremacy” are the forces that keep black Americans from thriving. The script for all this prevails because liberalism cannot otherwise explain its own failure to uplift black America over many years of sedulous striving. They are left disappointed, ashamed, and guilty, and neurotically give themselves permission to support black hostility and hatred against white people as a form of self-punishment. The catch is that not all white people in America are neurotic liberals and they are not in favor of continuing white self-punishment.
The question at hand is how much longer this crazy script will be allowed to run. It appears that the country is about evenly split between those in favor of promoting black hostility and those disinclined to further submission. It’s up to American political leadership to decide, and for now the liberals are the party holding the levers of power - government, in essence, representing the blunt force that determines which way things go. And, at the head of this government sits the inert and tractable Joe Biden, who seems to have had it decided for him."
Sunday, April 18, 2021
"So Who Wants A Hot War?"
"So Who Wants A Hot War?"
by Pepe Escobar
"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives."
- Smedley Butler
"It’s a scorpion battle inside a vortex of distorted mirrors inside a circus. So let’s start with the mirrors in the circus.The non-entity that passes for Ukrainian Foreign Minister traveled to Brussels to be courted by US Secretary of State Blinken and NATO secretary-general Stoltenberg. At best, that’s circus shadowplay. Much more than NATO advisers in a frantic revolving door in Kiev, the real shadowplay is MI6 actually working very close with President Zelensky. Zelensky’s warmongering script comes directly from MI6’s Richard Moore. Russian intel is very much aware of all the fine print. Glimpses were even carefully leaked to a TV special on the Rossiya 1 channel.
I confirmed it with diplomatic sources in Brussels. British media also got wind of it – but obviously was told to further distort the mirrors, blaming everything on, what else, “Russian aggression”. German intel is practically non-existent in Kiev. Those NATO advisers remain legion. Yet no one talks about the explosive MI6 connection. Careless whispers in Brussels corridors swear that MI6 actually believes that in the case of a volcanic but as it stands still preventable hot war with Russia, continental Europe would burn and Brexitland would be spared.
Dream on. Now back to the circus. Oh, you’re so provocative Both Little Blinken and NATO straw man Stoltenberg parroted the same script in Brussels after talking to the Ukrainian Foreign Minister. That was part of a NATO “special meeting” on Ukraine – where some Eurocrat must have told a bunch of extra clueless Eurocrats how they would be carbonized on the spot by Russian TOS-1 Buratino’s terrifying explosive warheads if NATO tried anything funny.
Listen to the sound of Blinken yappin’: Russian actions are “provocative”. Well, his staff certainly did not hand him a copy of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu examining step by step the deployment of the annual US Army DEFENDER-Europe 21: “The main forces are concentrated in the Black Sea and Baltic region.”
Now listen to the sound of Stoltenberg yappin’: We pledge “unwavering support” to Ukraine. Woof woof. Now go back to play in your sandboxes. No, not yet. Little Blinken threatened Moscow with “consequences” whatever happens in Ukraine.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov’s infinite patience is nearly Daoist. Sun Tzu’s "Art of War", by the way, is a Daoist masterpiece. Peskov’s answer to Blinken: “It is simply not necessary for us to go around forever proclaiming: ‘I am the greatest!’ The more one does this sort of thing, in fact, the more people doubt it…”
When in doubt, call the irreplaceable Andrei Martyanov – who always tells it like it is. The Crash Test Dummy gang in D.C. still does not get it – although some Deep State pros do. Here’s Martyanov: "As I am on record constantly – the United States never fought a war with its Command and Control system under the relentless sustained fire impact and its rear attacked and disorganized. Conventionally, the United States cannot win against Russia in Europe, at least Eastern part of it and Biden Admin better wake up to the reality that it may, indeed, not survive any kind of escalation and, in fact, modern Kalibrs, 3M14Ms, as a matter of fact, have a range of a 4,500 kilometers, as well as 5,000+ kilometer range of X-101 cruise missiles, which will have no issues with penetrating North American airspace when launched by Russia’s strategic bombers without even leaving the safety of Russia’s airspace."
The Patrushev effect: The circus went on with the phone call from “Biden” – that is, Crash Test Dummy with an earpiece and a teleprompter in front of the phone – to President Putin. Call it the Patrushev effect. In his stunning interview to Kommersant, Triple Yoda Patrushev mentioned a very civilized late March phone call he had with US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. Of course there’s no smokin’ gun, but if anyone would come up with the face-saving idea of a Biden-Putin phone call that would have been Sullivan.
The spin from Washington and Moscow is only slightly divergent. The Americans highlight that “Biden” – actually the deciding combo behind him – wants to build “a stable and predictable relationship with Russia, consistent with US interests.” The Kremlin said that Biden “expressed interest in normalizing bilateral relations.”
Away from all this fog, what really matters is Patrushev-Sullivan. That has to do with Washington telling Turkey that US warships would be transiting the Bosphorus towards the Black Sea. Sullivan must have told Patrushev that no, they won’t be “active” in Donbass. And Patrushev told Sullivan, OK, we won’t incinerate them.
There are absolutely no illusions in Moscow that this putative Biden-Putin summit in a distant future will ever take place. Especially after Daoist Peskov had made it very clear that “no one will allow America to speak with Russia from a position of strength.” If that sounds like a line straight out of Yang Jiechi – who made shark fin’s soup out of Blinken-Sullivan in Alaska – that’s because it does.
Kiev, predictably, remains stuck in circus mode. After getting sharp messages from Mr. Iskander, Mr. Khinzal and Mr. Buratino, they changed their mind, or at least pretend to, and are now saying they don’t want war. And here comes the intersection between circus and the serious stuff. The “Biden” combo never said, explicitly, on the record, that they don’t want war. On the contrary: they are sending those warships to the Black Sea and – circus again! – designating an envoy, Ministry of Silly Walks-style, whose only job is to derail the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
So the cliffhanger – like a teaser for Snowpiercer – is what happens when Nord Stream 2 is completed. But before that, there’s something even more momentous: next Wednesday, on his speech to the Russian Security Council, President Putin will lay down the law.
It’s Minsk 2, stupid: Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergei Ryabkov, has struck a much less Daoist note than Peskov: “The United States is our enemy, doing everything to undermine Russia’s position in the international arena, we do not see other elements in their approach to us. These are our conclusions”. That’s stone to the bone realpolitik. Ryabkov knows the Hegemon’s “non agreement-capable” mindset inside out. So an added dimension to his observation is its direct connection to the only solution for Ukraine: the Minsk 2 agreements.
Putin reiterated Minsk 2 on his live teleconference with Merkel and Macron – and certainly to “Biden” in their phone call. The Beltway, the EU and NATO are all aware of it. Minsk 2 was signed by Ukraine, France and Germany and certified by the UN Security Council. If Kiev violates it, Russia – as a member of the UNSC – must enforce it.
Kiev has been violating Minsk 2 for months now; it refuses to implement it. As a faithful Hegemon satrapy, they are also not “agreement-capable”. Yet now they are seeing the – firepower – writing on the wall if they as much as think of starting a blitzkrieg against Donbass.
The open secret in the whole Ukraine/Donbass wilderness of mirrors under the circus tent is of course China. Yet Ukraine, in a sane world, would not only be part of a Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) corridor, but also part of the Russian Greater Eurasia project. China specialist Nikolai Vavilov recognizes the importance of BRI, but is also certain Russia is above all defending its own interests.
Ideally, Ukraine/Donbass would be inserted in the overall revival of the Silk Roads – as in internal Central Eurasian trade based and developed taking into consideration Eurasia-wide demand. Eurasia integration – in both the Chinese and Russian vision – are all about interconnected economies via inter-regional trade. So it’s not by accident that the Hegemon – on the verge of becoming an irrelevant player across Eurasia – is going no holds barred to harass and try to smash the continental integration by all means available. In this context, manipulating a failed state to meet its own doom is just (circus) business."
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Folks, we do NOT want to get into this...
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Related, highly recommended:
“Americans Spending Like Crazy; Consumers In Fantasyland; System Meltdown Inevitable; Fake Recovery”
Jeremiah Babe,
“Americans Spending Like Crazy; Consumers In Fantasyland;
System Meltdown Inevitable; Fake Recovery”
Musical Interlude: Yanni & Samvel Yervinyan, "Until The Last Moment"
Full screen recommended.
Yanni & Samvel Yervinyan, "Until The Last Moment"
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