"What Genius Thinks of Education"

"What Genius Thinks of Education"

by Paul Rosenberg

"As I compiled the thoughts from geniuses last week, one group of thoughts that I left out – simply because there were so many of them – were the thoughts of geniuses on the subject of regimented education. Thus, today’s list. The brightest men and women reach a surprisingly consistent set of conclusions on education, and a very interesting set of conclusions. And so I’ll share a number of them with you, beginning with Albert Einstein:

Albert Einstein: "It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. School failed me, and I failed the school. It bored me. The teachers behaved like sergeants. I wanted to learn what I wanted to know, but they wanted me to learn for the exam… I felt that my thirst for knowledge was being strangled by my teachers; grades were their only measurement. I learned mostly at home, first from my uncle and then from a student who came to eat with us once a week. He would give me books on physics and astronomy. Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school."

Thomas Sowell: "Back when I taught at UCLA, I was constantly amazed at how little so many students knew. Finally, I could no longer restrain myself from asking a student the question that had long puzzled me: ''What were you doing for the last 12 years before you got here?'' "The problem isn't that Johnny can't read. The problem isn't even that Johnny can't think. The problem is that Johnny doesn't know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling."

Baruch Spinoza: "Academies that are founded at public expense are instituted not so much to cultivate men’s natural abilities as to restrain them."

Marshall McLuhan: "Anyone who tries to make a distinction between education and entertainment doesn’t know the first thing about either."

Ivan Illich: "School is the advertising agency which makes you believe you need the society as it is."

Bertrand Russell: "Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education."

Mary Wollstonecraft: "There is not, perhaps, in the kingdom, a more dogmatical, or luxurious set of men, than the pedantic tyrants who reside in colleges and preside at public schools."

Agatha Christie: "I suppose it is because nearly all children go to school nowadays, and have things arranged for them, that they seem so forlornly unable to produce their own ideas."

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: "Truth has to be repeated constantly, because Error also is being preached all the time, and not just by a few, but by the multitude. In the Press and Encyclopedias, in Schools and Universities, everywhere Error holds sway, feeling happy and comfortable in the knowledge of having Majority on its side. A teacher who can arouse a feeling for one single good action, for one single good poem, accomplishes more than he who fills our memory with rows on rows of natural objects, classified with name and form."

Celia Green: "Education by the State is a contradiction in terms. Intellectual development is only possible to those who have seen through society. It is easier to make people appear equally stupid than to make them equally clever, so teaching methods are adopted which make it practically impossible for anyone to learn anything."

John Stuart Mill: "A general State education is a mere contrivance for molding people to be exactly like one another: and the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the predominant power in the government or the majority of the existing generation; in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by natural tendency to one over the body."

Ludwig von Mises: "Education rears disciples, imitators, and routinists, not pioneers of new ideas and creative geniuses. The schools are not nurseries of progress and improvement, but conservatories of tradition and unvarying modes of thought. The mark of the creative mind is that it defies a part of what it has learned or, at least, adds something new to it."

H.L. Mencken: "The plain fact is that education is itself a form of propaganda – a deliberate scheme to outfit the pupil, not with the capacity to weigh ideas, but with a simple appetite for gulping ideas ready-made. The aim is to make ‘good’ citizens, which is to say, docile and uninquisitive citizens."

Sigrid Undset: "I hated school so intensely. It interfered with my freedom. I avoided the discipline by an elaborate technique of being absent-minded during classes."

Abraham Maslow: "We know that children are capable of peak experiences and that they happen frequently during childhood. We also know that the present school system is an extremely effective instrument for crushing peak experiences and forbidding their possibility. The natural child-respecting teacher who is not frightened by the sight of children enjoying themselves is a rare sight in classrooms."

Isaac Asimov: "Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is."

Boris Sidis: "Our young generation is trained by fear into discipline and obedience. We thus suppress the natural genius and originality of the child, we favor and raise mediocrity, and cultivate the philistine, the product of education, ruled by rod, not by thought. It is time that the medical and teaching profession should realize that functional neurosis is not congenital, not inborn, not hereditary, but is the result of a defective, fear-inspiring education in early child life."

Aldous Huxley: "Children are nowhere taught, in any systematic way, to distinguish true from false, or meaningful from meaningless, statements. Why is this so? Because their elders, even in the democratic countries, do not want them to be given this kind of education."

Buckminster Fuller: "Education by choice, with its marvelous motivating psychology of desire for truth and the exercise of this desire for truth, will make life ever cleaner and happier, more rhythmical and artistic. Our greatest vulnerability lies in the amount of misinformation and misconditioning of humanity. I’ve found the education systems are full of it."

Ralph Waldo Emerson: "We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bellyful of words and do not know a thing."

Buddha: "Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it."

- https://freemansperspective.com

o

"According to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy, 57% of Americans have a reading grade below 9th level, and 13% have a reading grade below 5th level. Only 13% can understand the Declaration or Patrick Henry’s speech, and virtually none can understand the Constitution. And that includes all Americans. Among Generation Z, it’s far worse. They are the least literate generation in American history.

"Gen-Z Can't Answer the Most Basic Questions"

"Insane: Young Americans Don't Know ANYTHING!"

Spend a few minutes on YouTube watching our young people be interviewed on the most basic matters of our history and values. They do not know anything of the good, the true, and the beautiful; and even if they wanted to, they could not learn it because the texts are inaccessible to them. Far too many have been cognitively crippled."

- "Independence Day 2023"

"We're so freakin' doomed!"

- The Mogambo Guru

The Daily "Near You?"

Yerington, Nevada, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"A Refining Process..."

“Life is a refining process. Our response to it determines whether we’ll be ground down or polished up. On a piano, one person sits down and plays sonatas, while another merely bangs away at “Chopsticks.” The piano is not responsible. It’s how you touch the keys that makes the difference. It’s how you play what life gives you that determines your joy and shine.”

- Barbara Johnson

"Wars And Rumors Of Wars, 5/15/24"

Full screen recommended.

Scott Ritter, 5/15/24

"Israel Losing Support of Europe & U.S, 

Condemn Policies Against Palestine"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Full screen recommended.

Hindustan Times, 5/15/24

"Iran Planning Something Big? Call For 'Destruction

 Of Cancerous Tumor Israel' Amid Rafah Attack"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Col. Douglas Macgregor states that Hezbollah has 200,000 missiles. Iran has many more, including precise targeting hypersonic missiles, with now admitted nuclear weapons

speculated to total at least 100. Stipendium peccati mors est, Israel...

o

Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 5/15/24

"Prof. Jeffrey Sachs : 

Zelensky Out of Office, Netanyahu Out of Options"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Dan, I Allegedly, "Consumer Confidence Crashes: What You Need to Know"

Full screen recommended

Dan, I Allegedly, AM 5/15/24

"Consumer Confidence Crashes: 

What You Need to Know"

"If you listen to the experts, everybody’s doing just fine right now. I had so many people

 write me and tell me how they do not have any extra money and cannot even find a job."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Bill Bonner, "The Deep Currents of History"

"The Deep Currents of History"

We need to expect the Primary Trend - towards lower real asset prices, 

higher interest rates, inflation... along with chaos and corruption - to continue.

by Bill Bonner

Dublin, Ireland - "A deep, mega-political kind of corruption twists policies away from the well-being of the public and the nation, in favor of elite special interests. Today’s favored industries, pet projects, and key voter groups get money they didn’t earn, and the next generation gets a $35 trillion debt bomb.

Let’s begin with the Russo-Ukrainian war. The Russians appear to be winning. But that is merely a detail. The important thing is that the Ukrainians are losing, and taking the US down with them.

US involvement began as a result of neocon ideologues in Washington, and the firepower industry that funds them and profits from their warmongering. The war in the Ukraine followed the pattern of Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. That is, US involvement begins with lies and misconceptions, continues with payoffs, double dealing and overspending, and ends in disgrace. And in the Ukraine, the US goes further. It shows the world that its military strategists are incompetent, its sanctions are impotent, and its modern, high-tech weapons are no match for the Russians.

​​In other words, supporting the Ukrainians was more than just a waste of money. It revealed to us all that the empire of ‘the West’ is not nearly as strong as it pretends to be…and invites challengers. ​

Sanctions Fail: The combined resources (GDP) of the NATO allies are 30 times greater than those of Russia. So, there was never any real danger that Russian troops would go boating on the Seine. And stopping Putin’s invasion of the Ukraine looked like a cinch. And when the US first rolled out its sanctions, it was believed that they would cripple the Russian economy, that Putin would soon be gone, and the ‘The West’ would be triumphant.

But the sanctions didn’t work. Russia’s economy is now thought to be growing three times faster than the US’s. And the financial restrictions brought China, Iran, Russia, Turkey, India - most of the world’s population - closer together to invent their own trading systems. The latest news, from the Straits Times: "Malaysia rebuffs US on Iran oil sales, says it recognizes only UN sanctions."

Then, when sanctions fizzled, the US and NATO allies sent their latest weapons. These were ‘game changers,’ said the press; they would clearly show the superiority of ‘western’ technology. But what happened? AP: "Ukraine has sidelined U.S.-provided Abrams M1A1 battle tanks for now in its fight against Russia, in part because Russian drone warfare has made it too difficult for them to operate without detection or coming under attack, two U.S. military officials told The Associated Press."

Captured US tanks were put on display in Moscow, their technology and construction minutely analyzed by Russian experts. Other US weapons were ‘too sophisticated’ or simply ‘inappropriate’ for the terrain. Or, there weren’t enough of them. The ‘game’ went on, unchanged.

Now, the press reports that Russian forces have regained the initiative and are pushing westward. And the defensive lines, that US aid supposedly paid for, aren’t there. According to press reports, corrupt contractors never did the work, and disappeared with the money.

A reasonable, ‘America First’ foreign policy would have been not to meddle in Ukrainian politics in the first place. US money and weapons were better kept at home. The Pentagon might have benefited from the war as an observer, carefully studying Russian weapons and tactics, rather than getting whupped itself.

Sensible policy was overruled by corruption. Big money from the firepower lobby prevents an honest, reasonable response. (Money sent to the Ukraine, as Joe Biden let us know, ‘comes back to us’... or, at least the part that isn’t stolen... to the Northern Virginia arms industries).

But corruption comes with a fuse attached, and it’s lit. Overseas, it strengthens the empire’s designated ‘enemies’, and hastens the day of its own collapse. And at home, here’s the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget: "In the first seven months of Fiscal Year 2024, spending on net interest has reached $514 billion, surpassing spending on both national defense ($498 billion) and Medicare ($465 billion). Overall spending has totaled $3.9 trillion thus far. Spending on interest is also more than all the money spent this year on veterans, education, and transportation combined. "

The problem is not political... it’s mega-political. Mega-politics tells us that people don’t always say what they want, know what they want, or get what they want. Instead, they think what they need to think... do what they want to do... and get what they deserve. And they end up where they ought to be... carried along by the deep currents of history.

Nobody wants to die, for example, but everybody does. Nobody wants Social Security to go broke. But if not corrected, it will. Both Trump and Biden have pledged not to touch America’s ‘insurance’ programs; so, they can’t be fixed.

And so, it comes to pass that even the greatest empire shuffles towards its own funeral pyre. This happens in plain sight, like an old man dying in a nursing home. It’s a natural, organic corruption, much like the rot that gets into old bones and old trees. They hollow out... they gnarl... and then they break.

The US butts up against $35 trillion in debt... going up at the rate of about $5 billion per day while the interest alone (based on the latest figures, above), tots to $2.4 million per day. Who wants that? Who wants to die? Who wants to saddle his own children with a lifetime of debt? But who can stop it?

Looking out for ourselves, and our Dear Readers, the answer is: probably no one. So, we need to expect the Primary Trend - towards lower real asset prices, higher interest rates, inflation... along with chaos and corruption - to continue. Stay tuned."

- https://www.bonnerprivateresearch.com/

"How It Really Is"

The best little whorehouse, well, anywhere...

Well, it works for Congress...

"Mass Starvation: Here's Why Most Of America Is Completely Unprepared"

"Mass Starvation: Here's Why Most 

Of America Is Completely Unprepared"

by Brandon Smith

"The concept of mass starvation has not been in the forefront of American society for a very long time. Even during the Great Depression the US was majority agrarian and most people knew how to live off the land. In fact, the US has never suffered a true national famine. There have been smaller regional instances of famine (such as during the Dust Bowl in the 1930s), but nothing coming remotely close to the kinds of famines we have seen in Asia, the Eastern Bloc, Africa or the Middle East in the past 100 years.

Even Western Europeans dealt with major famines during the World Wars (like the Dutch Famine) and that experience has left an imprint on their collective consciousness. Most Americans, on the other hand, don’t get it. Because we have lived in relative security and economic affluence for so long the idea of ever having to go without food seems “laughable” to many people. When the notion of economic collapse is brought up they jeer and call it “conspiracy theory.”

Compared to the Great Depression, the US population today is completely removed from agriculture and has no idea what living off the land means. These are not things that can be learned in a few months from books and YouTube videos; they require years of experience to master.

I will say that things have changed dramatically in the past two decades I have been writing for the liberty media. When I started back in 2006 the preparedness movement was incredibly small and often people were afraid to broach such topics in public forums.

In the past several years preparedness culture has EXPLODED in popularity. Millions of Americans are now dedicated survival experts with extensive preps and firearms training. Prepping and shooting is no longer the realm of tinfoil hat “crazies”, now it’s considered cool.

The credit crash of 2008-2009 certainly helped wake people up to the reality of economic instability in the US. Then the covid pandemic, the lockdowns and the attempts at medical tyranny really shocked Americans out of their stupor. Everything we “conspiracy theorists” have been warning about was suddenly confirmed in the span of a couple of years. Every time globalists and governments create a crisis they only inspire more preppers.

The greater problem in terms of famine is not that individual Americans are not aware of the threat; many of them are. The problem is that our infrastructure and logistical systems are designed to fail and there’s not much the average citizen can do about it.

The just-in-time freight system is perhaps one of the worst ever devised in terms of community redundancy. Any disruption no matter how minor could cut off supplies to a town or city for days or weeks. Then there’s the interdependency that comes with food being produced outside most states. If your state does not have a solid agricultural base then it will be reliant on outside food sources during a crisis. What guarantees are there that your region will be able to secure food from elsewhere?

Furthermore, most of the populace, even those that are preparing, have never experienced large scale starvation events before. It’s difficult to adapt mentally to a threat that one has never seen.

I suggest people who want to know what starvation feels like practice it from time to time. Try fasting for 24 hours, then try fasting for 48 hours. See how many days you can go without eating (just be sure to drink plenty of water). My maximum was seven days (after months of practice), and what I found was that after day three the hunger pangs actually stop altogether. You don’t go crazy, you don’t get violent; at most you might get tired, but you will also be surprised at how heightened your thinking becomes and how much energy you still have.

The human body can survive for three weeks or more without a single bite of food. My suspicion is that initial panic over potential hunger is the thing that causes the most violence during famines. People encounter starvation and lose their minds within the first three days. First-stage stomach pains and fogginess causes them to react without thinking and this leads to the widespread riots and other crisis events we are used to seeing in history during food shortages.

Fasting is a way to educate yourself on what it means to starve; it’s not as bad as it seems as long as you have some fat stores in your body. When you hit the point of muscle loss and organ deprivation, that’s when things change and the possibility of death arises. Having some familiarity with the feeling of true hunger will help you to avoid panic should the real thing ever occur in the future.

The greater problem is not what you can endure, though. Watching people you care about starve is much more difficult. This is not something you can practice for and it could be a far more powerful motivator when it comes to looting and crime during a crash.

The goal of course is to avoid famine altogether. Food storage is the foundation of any survival plan. Anyone who claims that jumping right into agriculture and hunting and wild edibles is the solution has never actually had to survive off the land in their lives. The reality is, finding enough food and growing enough food to live on is difficult for most people even in normal times.

During collapse crops are often difficult to plant safely. They can be stolen or destroyed easily and require large communities of people to maintain and protect. Even smaller gardens can draw attention from undesirables and are hard to hide.

Hunting might be useful initially if you live in a rural area, but you won’t be the only person with the same idea and animals will move out of a region quickly if they are being hunted on a daily basis. You’ll have to go further and further out to find them and that’s risky during a crisis.

Wild edibles are nice in spring and summer when they are plentiful, but then again, if you’re hiking around expending more calories that you can get from these plants then the entire exercise is pointless. I tend to find that wild edibles proponents are the most delusional when it comes to the logistics of survival. Survivalists who think they’re going to run to the woods and live off of the random plants they find will probably die.

Growing food, hunting food and foraging food are all supplemental measures, especially in the first years of any crisis event. Without a primary emergency supply most people will not make it. Food storage has been a mainstay of civilization for thousands of years for a reason – It works. When larger secure communities are established then agriculture can return and self sustaining production makes food storage less important. Until then, what you have in your basement or your garage is the only thing that’s going to keep you alive.

Unfortunately, there are some people out there who think they don’t need to store supplies because they plan to take from other people. Firstly, anyone who makes this their Plan A is probably a psychopath and I have zero empathy for them. Secondly, such people won’t stay alive very long. With every violent encounter the risk of injury or death increases; looters and raiders will be whittled down rather quickly as they get picked off by people defending their resources. It’s not like the movies, folks; marauders will disappear swiftly during a crash. After the first year I would be surprised if any of these individuals or groups still exist.

In the meantime, the initial stages of collapse are going to be a shock for many Americans. It could be a grid down event, an economic collapse, a supply chain collapse, etc., but the panic associated with hunger will be ever present. People who understand the nature of famine can avoid panic and organize for safety. They will survive and thrive. People who don’t understand famine will freak out in the first week without food and make detrimental mistakes.

Mental preparedness is just as important as physical preparedness. Keep that in mind as we move forward into uncertain times."

- https://alt-market.us/

o

"Nine Meals from Anarchy"

Greg Hunter, "Climate Cult Wants Marxist Control"

"Climate Cult Wants Marxist Control"

by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"America and the world are in a battle with evil godless demons for control. This is where all of the problems we face are coming from. It is that simple. Award winning meteorologist, newsman and best-selling author Brian Sussman lays out the plan for total tyranny and domination of everyone’s life in an upcoming book called “Climate Cult: Exposing Their War on Life, Liberty & Property.” Sussman explains, “I know the title to the book is an attention getter, but the ‘climate change’ agenda has all the facets of a cult. The first is doom. They keep telling us if the temperature rises another half degree, it’s going to be the end of the earth as we know it. 

If we go back to The Industrial Revolution, which basically got rolling in 1850, we had the use of fossil fuels. We have had billions more people on the planet, countless cars, trucks, planes and rockets. Since the 1850’s, we have only warmed one degree–one degree! That is perfectly in keeping with temperatures as we know it based on geological records. They say another half degree and it’s over. So, they are scaring the pants off people. Then, just like all cults, they look at you as the problem. They say, ‘You are a carbon sinner,’ especially if you live in the United States of America. Shame on you! You are a carbon sinner. Oh, but there is atonement. You can atone by reducing your carbon footprint. You can atone by becoming an activist. You can atone by planting a tree. Then they promise you utopia. These people have partnered with the UN and the World Economic Forum. I have the documents. This climate change agenda will give us no more social injustice. There will be no more social inequity, and we will all live in peace in a brand-new world. These are their plans. It’s frightening, but that is how they get people into this cult.” Sussman contends, the “Climate Cult” wants Marxist control.

Sussman says big business is involved with something called ESG (Environment, Social Governance). Sussman says, “These companies want to play by their ESG scores, and this has become a multi-trillion dollar investment business. People are picking their investment based on a company’s ESG score. The problem is as these companies attempt to fulfill their ESG status and raise their ratings, they are doing it at the expense of the investors. So, it’s really bass- ackwards, and it is biting investors in the shorts. It’s a loser, but the climate change agenda is all in on this.”

Sussman says, “The Biden Administration is full of the ‘climate cult’ idiots, and they are carrying the torch to go forward, not just to end global warming and climate change, it is to end the way we live in America. They believe as Karl Marx did. They believe in the ‘Laws that Matter.’ The Laws that Matter basically say some people are born with a better brain than others. Those with a better brain have a responsibility to rule over those with a lessor brain. Otherwise, those with the lessor brains will kill one another and destroy the planet. That’s what Marx believed, and that’s what the modern-day liberal Democrat party believes to this day. For example, that stupid ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ that recently passed Congress, there is $250 billion to be spent on climate change. This goes to line the pockets of people with degrees that are worthless. It’s stupid.”

Sussman says he wrote the book to try and get young people out of the “Climate Cult,” and he points out, “We have to do something to wake people up. Just like prior to the American Revolution, there was a shining light of truth that went forth. There was an old-fashioned revival that took place, and it gave the people courage to stand up to the biggest military in the history of the world, and guess what, they won, and we are up against a big enemy right now.”

There is much more in the 35-minute interview.

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he interviews Brian Sussman, award winning meteorologist, newsman and best-selling author, as he talks about his upcoming new book called “Climate Cult: Exposing Their War on Life, Liberty & Property,”

- https://rumble.com/

Gregory Mannarino, "As We Predicted! 'Goldilocks' CPI; Massive Debt Buying"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 5/15/24

"As We Predicted! 'Goldilocks' CPI; 

Massive Debt Buying"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

John Wilder, "Economic Doom? You’re Soaking In It"

"Economic Doom? You’re Soaking In It"

By John Wilder

“Two Purple Hearts – Leningrad and Siberia. Youngest man to be decorated by the president. You robbed the Federal Reserve Depository. Life sentence, New York Maximum Security Penitentiary. I’m ready to kick your ass out of the world, war hero.” – "Escape From New York"

"I’m a bit under the weather (sniffles). The good news is that some of the memetic content/graphs I found on the Internet about the current economy probably speak mostly for themselves. So, comments may be shorter than usual. I guess I’ll offer you this shorter post and an IOU for a longer one sometime in the future when I sober up get better.

First off – the dollar and gold used to have (depending on the era) a very similar volatility – at one point dollars were gold. What if the dollar was more volatile than gold, for the first time in 45 years?

Click image for larger size.

Normally, longer term bond and notes have higher interest rates than shorter ones. The reason is uncertainty – if I was going to borrow money for thirty years, there’s more risk of crazy things happening, like Civil Wars or George Lucas selling Star Wars™ to Disney© in a thirty-year time span than in a three month time span. But when things get uncertain, that ratio flips. If you look below, note that even a small inversion is a strong, strong signal of an impending recession. Well.

Click. image for larger size.

How bad has Biden been? Median mortgage payments (average selling price and current interest rates) are higher than Hunter Biden at a Burning Man®.    

Click image for larger size.

Homeowners aren’t the only ones paying huge interest payments. Here’s what’s happening on the national debt.

Click image for larger size.

But it didn’t have to be that way. If someone remotely intelligent was in charge at Treasury, it wouldn’t be an issue at all. Don’t know where this snip came from, but it’s spot on:

Janet should be managing a grade school lunch kitchen. How deep does the rot run in the Banking Industrial Complex? O’Keefe tells us tons with one of his people hacks:

Click image for larger size.

Thankfully the Fed™ has infinite money to lend. Or, at least the balance sheet shows that. In this case, this shows the economy as needing three times as much cash injected into the system as in 2008 to prop it all up and keep everything from draining into the abyss. In this case, the big vertical line represents the Silicon Valley Bank© failure.

That happened because Silicon Valley Bank™ had a lot of low interest, long term assets. Let’s just say I’m happy with my 4% mortgage right now, since I actually lose money by paying it back, since I can get 5%+ from banks. Silicon Valley Bank© had lots of crappy, long positions, and exploded.

When that happened, I really expected that the vibrations would shake the system into a bigger failure by that October – this stuff takes a while to propagate. Instead, the Fed pulled a very cunning move: it printed buttloads of cash, allowed the banks to deposit the crap they had with the Fed™ and then the Fed™ took the losses. Of course, since they haven’t sold the crap the banks gave them, those are “realized” yet, so those losses are like a girlfriend so ugly you make her hide in the closet when your friends come over.

In addition to that, the Fed© has also lost at least $161 billion, according to the Fed©. Total? A trillion? Who knows? It’s not like anyone’s counting.

Click image for larger size.

Back in the Before Time, the Fed™ never bought the debt of the United States. Why would they? They debt of the United States was to Ma and Pa Citizen, central banks all around the world, and, (oddly) to the United States when it spent the Social Security funds on Popcorn, PEZ™, Pantyhose, and Pachyderm Rides. Yup, the United States would spend the Social Security cash, and then write itself an IOU and put it (seriously!) into a filing cabinet in D.C.

Can you imagine a job that’s more futile? It’s like I wrote myself an IOU for stealing money from my kid’s college fund to buy beer, and then made my kid file the IOU, knowing full well that the file would experience “surprise combustion” in the backyard fire pit when I sobered up.

You really should be concerned. Unless you want to send me your cash so I can send you an IOU. I promise I won’t blow it on Popcorn, PEZ™, Pantyhose, and Pachyderm Rides."

- https://wilderwealthywise.com/

Musical Interlude: Dr. John, "Right Place, Wrong Time"

Dr. John, "Right Place, Wrong Time"

"Alert! Mass Evac Underway; Nationwide Power Outages; Ukraine Collapse; 45 Chinese Warplanes; USA Starts War Economy"

Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper, 5/14/24

"Alert! Mass Evac Underway; Nationwide Power Outages; 

Ukraine Collapse; 45 Chinese Warplanes; USA Starts War Economy"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Israel Is On Red Alert After Türkiye And Saudi Arabia Cut Off Trade"

Full screen recommended.

Larry Johnson, 5/14/24

"Israel Is On Red Alert After 

Türkiye And Saudi Arabia Cut Off Trade"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Gerald Celente, "With God's Help We Will Be Victorious! Netanyahu...You Mean Satan's Helper"

Strong Language Alert!

Gerald Celente, 5/14/24

"With God's Help We Will Be Victorious! 

Netanyahu...You Mean Satan's Helper"

"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present facts and truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for what’s next in these increasingly turbulent times."

- https://trendsjournal.com/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"15 Retailers Going Out Of Business In 2024"

Full screen recommended.

Epic Economist, 5/14/24

"15 Retailers Going Out Of Business In 2024"

"The American retail landscape isn't the same as it was just a few years ago. Businesses that used to be a synonym of success are dying at a pace that is simply astonishing. Brands that used to have thousands of stores across the U.S. are going out of business after struggling for years. Many of them have done everything they could to prevent this from happening, or at least, delay their disappearance. But the economic decline gripping our nation has been unforgiving.

Over the past few years, we've lost more purchasing power than at any other point since the 1970s. We've seen the income gap get wider, with many middle-class Americans falling into the cracks and straight into poverty. The soaring cost of living has made it almost impossible for average U.S. households to save for their future. People are being very careful about their spending because, with each passing month, the cost of bare necessities like rent, food, and gas is getting higher.

That's why seeing boarded up storefronts has become the new normal. In this environment, American retailers are literally fighting for their survival. Now, they are taking every step to streamline their operations and cut costs. That includes reducing their store count even further in order to improve profitability and save their businesses from bankruptcy.

Although for some of them that's too little, too late, others are acting fast before conditions deteriorate any further. If you have a favorite brand or store, make sure to visit it while you can, because the truth is that it might not be there a few months from now. Today, we listed 15 big retailers that announced mass store closings or are going out of business in 2024. Without further ado, let's check out this list."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"New Homes Are Built Like Trash; Home Depot Warns Of Economic Slowdown; Restaurants On Life Support"

Jeremiah Babe, 5/14/24

"New Homes Are Built Like Trash; Home Depot 

Warns Of Economic Slowdown; Restaurants On Life Support"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Believe"

Full screen recommended.

2002, "Believe"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Massive stars, abrasive winds, mountains of dust, and energetic light sculpt one of the largest and most picturesque regions of star formation in the Local Group of Galaxies. Known as N11, the region is visible on the upper right of many images of its home galaxy, the Milky Way neighbor known as the Large Magellanic Clouds (LMC).

The above image was taken for scientific purposes by the Hubble Space Telescope and reprocessed for artistry by an amateur to win the Hubble’s Hidden Treasures competition. Although the section imaged above is known as NGC 1763, the entire N11 emission nebula is second in LMC size only to 30 Doradus. Studying the stars in N11 has shown that it actually houses three successive generations of star formation. Compact globules of dark dust housing emerging young stars are also visible around the image.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130211.html

Free Download: "The Essential Rumi"

"All day I think about it, then at night I say it. Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing? I have no idea. My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that, and I intend to end up there. Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul? I cannot stop asking. If I could taste one sip of an answer, I could break out of this prison for drunks. I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way. Whoever brought me here, will have to take me home."

- Rumi, "The Tavern," Ch. 1:, p. 2, from "The Essential Rumi"

Freely download "The Essential Rumi" here:

- https://littlethingsaboutmeeh.files.wordpress.com/

"Teach Them..."

"Teach them a spider does not spin a web. Spiders spin meaning. 

Cut one strand and the web holds. Cut many, the web falls. 

With the web's fall, so too falls the spider. 

Break the web. Break the spider. So breaks the circle of life."
- Frederic M. Perrin

"Life Changing Poems for Hard Times"

RedFrost Motivation, 

"Life Changing Poems for Hard Times"

Read by Shane Morris

Poems:

 "Defeat" by Khalil Gibran

 "A Psalm of Life" by H. W. Longfellow

"If" by Rudyard Kipling

 "Invictus" by William Ernest Henley

 "Desiderata" by Max Ermann

The Daily "Near You?"

Stevenson, Alabama, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"The Times..."

"The times might be unpleasant, repulsive. The ghastly chaos, the abhorrent incivility might be intolerable, might force us into argument or leave us panic-stricken. On such occasions people build within themselves a conviction that the world outside is diabolical. The whimsical insults test our level of endurance, causing us to plead for mercy, wanting us to be pitied than exploited and victimized. Often this grief and shame form a delusion within us that there no longer exists good in this world, that good people are fictitious, and that goodness has lost its definition altogether. But such is not true because there are still people who are virtuous, unselfish, willing to help and possessing the ability of restoring our faith in humanity. To disregard them, their presence, would be as heinous as the deeds of the people who are unlike them. The times might be unpleasant, repulsive, but we'll come out it, unharmed and liberated."

- Chirag Tulsiani

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Sam: "It's like in the great stories Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn't want to know the end because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end it's only a passing thing, this shadow, even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines it'll shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something even if you were too small to understand why. But I think Mr. Frodo, I do understand, I know now folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going because they were holding on to something.
Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?
Sam: That there's some good in the world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for."

- Samwise Gamgee, "Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers"

“The Meaning Of Good And Evil In Perilous Times”

“The Meaning Of Good And Evil In Perilous Times”

by Brandon Smith

"Perhaps the most destructive idea ever planted in the minds of the general public is the notion that nothing in this world is permanent – that all things can and must be constantly changed to suit our whims. The concept of impermanence fuels what I call “blank slate propaganda.” The usefulness of the blank slate as a weapon for social control should be explained before we examine the nature of good and evil, because these days it infects everything.

The push for never ending social “evolution” has been called many things over the decades. In the early 1900s in Europe it was called “futurism;” an art and philosophical movement that helped spawn the rise of communism and fascism in politics.The argument that all old ideas and longstanding traditions should be abandoned to make way for new ideas, new technologies, news systems etc., assumes that the supposedly new ways of doing things are superior to the old ways of doing things. Things are rarely this simple, and in most cases the new methods so proudly championed by movements for social change are usually recycled and repackaged old ideas that are notorious for failure.

The blank slate theory is designed to confuse people with self-doubt and to misrepresent the constructs of nature as constructs of society. It most effectively disrupts people’s relationship to their own moral compass by suggesting that moral compass should be completely ignored as artificial. The argument by blank slate proponents is that all boundaries are created by society instead of by inborn conscience, and that these boundaries often hold us back from achieving our goals, bettering ourselves as a species and generally getting what we want out of life.

But the things we want are not always the things we need, and this is something that movement’s for social change often refuse to grasp. If we are all blank slates and if morality and the human soul are myths, why not do whatever the hell we want, whenever we want and live life as if it is one big Roman orgy of feasting, self-medicating and overall addiction to sensation?

The problem with the blank slate concept is that while it purports that all restrictions in the human psyche are taught to us rather than being inborn and that they can be abandoned any time we want, we still can’t seem to avoid the consequences of breaking those restrictions.  People lose their sanity, societies crumble and nations fall to ruin over time the more we cast aside our principles in the name of social evolution or short term gain. It is unavoidable.

The only people who seem to benefit from the spread of the blank slate are the people already in political and economic power. For if they can convince the masses to ignore their conscience, they can then convince us to accept almost any other conditions.

To act in a manner consistent with inherent conscience, or to ignore conscience and act destructively, is a choice. It is the core pillar of free will. The choice to act destructively does not erase the reality of inherent conscience; in fact, people often have to be fooled into believing that a destructive and immoral action is a “good thing” before they are convinced to carry it out. Inherent conscience must be bypassed through trickery.

The problem with choosing to stick by one’s principles is that it is easy during times of relative stability, but increasingly difficult during times of struggle. In perilous days, the temptation to use destructive tactics to maintain an expectation of comfort or to merely survive can be high. It is no coincidence that power elites, the same people that tend to promote blank slate propaganda, also tend to deliberately engineer social crisis and chaos. But perhaps this needs a deeper explanation. We must define something most of us already understand intuitively. We must define “evil.”

Like inherent conscience and moral boundaries, blank slate theorists and social change advocates attempt to muddy the waters of what constitutes evil. Some will say there is no such thing — that evil is whatever we deem it to be in any given era depending on our biases.  Others will claim that tradition, permanence and anything in society that remains static is evil. The only “good” for them is constant change.

But evil is not as illusory and changing as these people suggest. In fact, most men and women recoil automatically from certain specific behaviors regardless of how they were raised, what environment they come from, what culture they were born into or what era they lived.  The people who don’t recoil at these behaviors are the people we have to watch out for because they are missing something integral to the heart and mind that makes the rest of us human.

In psychological terms, the characteristics of high level narcissists and sociopaths match most closely with our historic concept of evil.  And, in my view, most great evils done in history are in fact done by people with multiple narcissistic traits.  As far as global elitists are concerned, they represent a rather insidious threat, because they are narcissistic sociopaths that have organized into a predatory gang, so all the traits consistent with the behavior of your average serial killer are now magnified a thousandfold by their access to unlimited resources.

How do we identify these people? Well, this is a difficult prospect at times because narcissistic sociopaths commonly hide in plain sight.  Some people live with them for years before realizing exactly what they are. They also like to insert themselves into nonprofit organizations that claim to do good for the community as a cover for their more insidious motives.

Some traits and behaviors that are common are a lack of normal emotional response to traumatic events or joyous events, or they will mimic the responses of others to blend in but they come off as “forced” or “fake.” They have no concept of empathy; it does not exist for them.

They seek out centers of power and are drawn to positions of authority. They always seem to be demanding the efforts of others while rarely offering their own help. They make terrible leaders, always attempting to lead from a place of safety while letting their conscripts take the risks. Leading by example is a foreign concept to them.

They will lie repetitively about their accomplishments and their accolades. They will misrepresent their professional achievements in order to gain people’s trust. Ask them to prove through actions that they can do all the things they claim they can do, and they will try to avoid the test or respond indignantly and angrily.

They will gaslight their ideological enemies or people they are trying to control. They will accuse others of being “narcissists” or “sociopaths” or fascists or any moniker that will push the buttons of their target. Whatever evils they are guilty of, they will try to flip and lay at the feet of their enemies.

They always seem to have “minions” to do their dirty work for them and attack those that oppose them. People that have dealt with narcissistic sociopaths in their personal lives sometimes refer to these minions as “flying monkeys,” referencing the flying monkeys enslaved by the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz. Flying monkeys are essentially useful idiots that the narcissist employs through fraud and sometimes through pay. Whenever the narcissist is under threat of being exposed, they unleash their flying monkeys onto the streets or onto the internet to undermine truth tellers.

They do not believe in moral or personal boundaries which is why they are always trying convince people that such boundaries are a myth.  They will cross moral lines, always testing the fences for weaknesses; trying to wear others down until they give up and stop fighting back.

They desperately want to come out of the shadows and into the light of day. They want to be adored as the monsters they are, rather than the fake philanthropists they portray themselves as. In order to do this, every narcissistic sociopath makes it their duty to erase the idea of conscience, whether they are part of the globalist cabal or just another ghoul down the street. Their natural inclination is to corrupt whatever they touch, and if they cannot corrupt a thing, they will attempt to destroy that thing.

Most of all, narcissistic sociopaths want everyone around them to believe that we are just like them. That “deep down” all of us are unprincipled and morally bankrupt and all it takes is a crisis or calamity, just a little chaos to bring out the devil in everyone.

But if this were really the case, then humanity would have died out long ago through endless self-destruction; something keeps bringing us back from the brink in our personal lives and in society as a whole. Conscience keeps defeating evil by refusing to grant evil people the utopia of blank slate chaos they want so badly. And this is what give me confidence that no matter how terrible our days might become there is something on our side that goes beyond the physical world.

Every crisis is a test, a test of each person and a test of our culture. Can we act with reason and courage and principle even in the worst of times, or will we be lured to make our struggle easier through malicious means? Will we do right by those around us, or will we happily trample over them in the name of “survival?”

In the end, the worst men bring the best men to the surface. This is the only “good” they will ever do.”

- https://www.zerohedge.com/news/

"Look How Civilized Israelis Are"

Full screen recommended.

Richard Medhurst, 5/14/24

"Look How Civilized Israelis Are"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

"Israeli is Evil personified,

Israel is Evil embodied."

- Scott Ritter

o

"This VILE Pro-Israeli Claim Taken Apart"

o

"2023: The Year Humanity Died"

By Seraj Assi

"As a Palestinian who was born two generations apart from the Nakba, I have never imagined that one day I would witness the genocide of my people unfold before my eyes in broad daylight. While I always feared the prospect of a Second Nakba, as many Palestinians do, I have never dreamed, not even in my worst nightmares, that I would live it, witness it, and write about it.

In my happy Palestinian innocence, I believed that even if Israel was keen on repeating the Nakba, or attempting to “finish the job of 1948,” as many Israeli officials have threatened over the years, the Free World would not allow it to happen. In my wishful thinking, I believed that the world had learned its lesson since the Nakba. Yes, the world failed the Palestinian people in 1948. Yes, it allowed Israel to carry out its ethnic cleansing and mass expulsion of Palestinians. Yes, it abandoned the Palestinian refugees, and rewarded Israel with a United Nations recognition and membership. But that was 75 years ago, the age of genocides and holocausts. A lot of progress had been made since, I told myself. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted. The U.N. evolved. Human rights groups mushroomed. Mandela won the Nobel Peace. True, genocide would occur so often and so uncontested in the decades since, but after the horrific genocides in Rwanda and Bosnia, the leaders of the Free World seemed to have had enough! They seemed adamant not to allow another genocide to happen - Never Again! Not in Palestine, not again!

Summit after summit, they vowed that such atrocities had no place in the new century. Even when the new century in Palestine ushered in the Second Intifada and the collapse of the Oslo Accords, I still believed that the horrors of the past were in check. Even when Israel mushroomed in size, and the settlements tripled, and the apartheid system was closing in on the Palestinians in the West Bank, and the merciless siege suffocating those in Gaza, where one million children were born and raised in captivity, I still believed that that was the peak of our suffering and nothing remotely close the terrors of Rwanda or Bosnia, or indeed the First Nakba, would happen to us, because the world was watching, and it was ready to dispatch its postwar moral arsenal to stop it!

As a Palestinian, as a human being, I feel that part of me has died in this war.

I was dead wrong. For eight bloody months since the Gaza Genocide first unfolded, the Free World has sat there watching, and cheering, and mocking us to death. During the first weeks, I still held onto my naïve optimism. True, the Free World betrayed Palestinians in Gaza; it allowed Israel to act with impunity; it tolerated its war crimes and mass atrocities; it denied the children of Gaza even the pretense of humanity. But ultimately it was bound to come to its senses and unleash its moral diplomacy to end this horror. So I persisted in my optimism. Perhaps the world needed more time to fathom what was happening. Perhaps it was waiting for a few more thousands of Palestinians to be killed before making its drastic move. Yet week after week, the world remained silent, blind to our deaths, deaf to our sufferings.

One month into the bloodshed, after Israel had killed 1,000 children, I said that’s it; the world would make its move now, if only to save the children! But the U.S. responded by vetoing a humanitarian cease-fire that could have saved thousands of innocent lives! A month after, when the death toll of children reached 10,000, I said enough is enough; it’s high time the world acted NOW, because humanity itself is at stake! U.N. officials had already sounded the alarm that Gaza was becoming a “graveyard for children,” so no one could pretend they did not know. The time to act was now or never! Yet there was another U.S. veto; another cold hand was raised to issue a new death sentence for Palestinians. Another spit in the face of humanity!

Now I’m lost for words. I have lost faith in humanity. The staggering death toll in Gaza is humanly impossible to fathom or accept without losing our sense of shared humanity. As a Palestinian, as a human being, I feel that part of me has died in this war. I know for certain that I will not emerge from this tragedy the same person I was before. None of us will.

Gaza may be annihilated, but it’s not going anywhere. When the dust of war settles, it will sit on our global conscience for generations to come. It will be a permanent stain on our humanity. The children of Gaza will not forget, if they survive. The living will remember, and the dead will haunt us forever. Gaza will be remembered not only as the crime of the century, but also as the site of our greatest shame, where humanity failed. 2023 will go down in history as the darkest in Palestine - the year humanity died."

- https://www.commondreams.org/

o

"State Of Israel Is An 'Apartheid' State &

Should Not Be Allowed To Exist"