"As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence
is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being."
- C. G. Jung
So, we rise from the rubble...
Sunday, April 11, 2021
Chet Raymo, “The Sound And Fury”
“The Sound And Fury”
by Chet Raymo
“Not so long ago, I mentioned here Himmler and Heydrich, two of Hitler's most terrible henchmen. A friend said to me: "If there's no afterlife, no heaven or hell, then those two diabolical creatures got away with it. Their fate was no different than that of any one of their victims, an innocent child perhaps." And, yes, if there is no God who dispenses final justice, then we are left with an aching feeling of irresolution, of virtue unrewarded, of vice unpunished. Heydrich was gunned down by partisan assassins, and Himmler committed suicide a few hours before his inevitable capture, both fates arguably less tragic than that of their victims. How much more satisfying to think that the two mass murderers will spend an eternity in hell, while their victims find bliss.
This may not be a logically consistent argument for the existence of God, but it is certainly compelling. My friend says: "If there's no afterlife, then it's all sound and fury, signifying nothing. Of course, this emotive argument for the existence of God is balanced by another argument against his existence– the problem of evil: How can a just and loving God allow the existence of a Himmler or Heydrich in the first place. Here the argument is not just emotional, but consists of a thorny contradiction.
It comes down, essentially, to head vs. heart- what we would like to be true with all of our heart, vs. what our head tells us is an unresolvable conundrum. So each of us decides: To follow our hearts and make the blind leap of faith, or to follow our heads and learn to live with the sound and the fury. For those of us who choose the second alternative, the relevant words are that distressing coda, "signifying nothing." Our task is one of signification, of finding a satisfying meaning this side of the grave.
For many of us, that means finding our place in the great cosmic unfolding, and of recognizing that our lives are not inconsequential, that by being here we jigger the trajectory of the universe in some way, no matter how small, and preferably for the good and just. Yes, we make a leap of faith too, I suppose- that love, justice, and creativity are virtues worth living for- but at least it is a leap of faith that is not into the unknown, does not embody logical contradiction, and is consistent with what we know to be true, or at least as true as we can make it.”
The Poet: Rainer Maria Rilke, "Book of Hours II, 16"
"Book of Hours II, 16"
"How surely gravity's law,
strong as an ocean current,
takes hold of even the strongest thing
and pulls it toward the heart of the world.
Each thing-
each stone, blossom, child-
is held in place.
Only we, in our arrogance,
push out beyond what we belong to
for some empty freedom.
If we surrendered
to earth's intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.
Instead we entangle ourselves
in knots of our own making
and struggle, lonely and confused.
So, like children, we begin again
to learn from the things,
because they are in God's heart;
they have never left him.
This is what the things can teach us:
to fall,
patiently to trust our heaviness.
Even a bird has to do that
before he can fly."
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
"A Chime Of Words..."
"Yes there is a meaning; at least for me, there is one thing that matters -
to set a chime of words tinkling in the minds of a few fastidious people."
- Logan Pearsall Smith
“With Tears in Their Eyes, They Fired…”
“With Tears in Their Eyes, They Fired…”
by Bill Bonner
“In front of the restaurant, on the corner of the Boulevard du Montparnasse and the Boulevard Saint-Michel in Paris, stands the statue of the greatest soldier who ever lived, Michel Ney, standing near the spot where he was executed. French Superhuman: It’s when things go bad that you open your eyes. What will the present crises reveal about our own character? We presume we will see.
And Ney? Everything went bad. But his statue still shows the unblemished energy of a real soldier. When we read Ney’s exploits during the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, battle after battle…mad cavalry charges… slashing sabers and booming cannon…wounded again and again in nearly constant fighting over a 20-year period…across the barren steppes of Eurasia…the mountains of Spain…the deserts, wastes, towns, and fastnesses of Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Poland…and France itself…we hold our breath, as if it were not possible that one man had done so much.
What sort of man was this? What meat did he eat? What wine did he drink? Ney was almost superhuman…perhaps a demigod of war created by Mars himself.
Life and Death: Back then, battles were matters of life and death, with the commanders often on the frontlines. Ney, on horseback, pulled out his sword and rode straight towards the enemy muskets. How today’s Deep State “warriors” – such as Generals David Petraeus and Keith Alexander – must hold their manhoods cheap in comparison! Never in real danger and never short of air-conditioning and Coke, their toughest battles were fought on the carpets of the Pentagon. And then, after long careers filled with “surges,” lights at the end of tunnels, and other claptrap, the grateful nation sent the two counterfeits to enjoy the rich rewards of Wall Street.
Not so for Ney. He enjoyed no comfort-controlled duty assignments. No attractive, fawning reporters – to whom he could reveal military secrets – accompanied him on campaign. And no grateful nation provided a sinecure. Instead, it shot him.
It was amazing that Ney survived so long. He was captured by the enemy at Neuwied in modern-day Germany…and slept out in the open in Russia in temperatures of -30 degrees Celsius. He was wounded many times – thrown from his horse…sliced by swords…and struck by cannon and bullets in the thigh, wrist, and neck (any one of which should have put him under the earth).
In the Battle of Waterloo alone, he had five horses shot from under him. He even managed to get out of Russia after Napoleon’s ill-fated invasion, commanding the rear guard in a catastrophic campaign where 90% of the troops died. Legend has it that he was the last French soldier to cross the bridge at the Berezina River, firing his musket as he beat a retreat, before the bridge was taken by the Cossacks, who proceeded to massacre as many as 10,000 French and Swiss troops left behind.
French Disaster: Napoleon had planned to retreat from Russia into Poland, crossing the Berezina. The river should have been frozen solid at that time of the year. The French had counted on it. But a thaw left it uncrossable. They were trapped, with three Russian armies converging on them. Immediately, bridge builders leapt into the water to construct a 100-meter bridge. A man could survive for only about 30 minutes in the freezing river. Most of the builders died quickly. But somehow, they managed to put together a bridge, allowing the Emperor and much of his army to cross. Still, the French lost as many as 40,000 troops and stragglers in the battle. Even today, “Berezina” is interchangeable with “disaster” in French.
Most of Napoleon’s marshals went on – shrewdly – to betray him. They opened their eyes and saw it was time to change camps. But not Ney. Napoleon had been shipped off to the Isle of Elba, leaving the French to rebuild the nation under another Louis. But the Corsican escaped from Elba and was soon back on French soil, with another army no less.
Blinded by loyalty or miscalculation, Ney – who had pledged obedience to the king in the meantime – rallied to the Emperor’s cause and joined the last campaign, of the “hundred days.” Then, it was Michel Ney, the Prince of the Moskva, of course, at the front of the magnificent cavalry charges at Waterloo, waving his sword and urging his men on against Wellington’s cannon, which he briefly managed to capture. Alas, with the Prussian Blücher arriving from the east, like a hammer coming down on the English anvil, Napoleon realized that the situation was hopeless and gave the order to retreat. And then, it was over. Soon, Napoleon was captured…Ney, too.
Found Guilty: The Emperor was sent to Saint Helena, an island so remote and so inaccessible, there was no hope of getting away. Ney was tried for treason. Found guilty in 1815, the only concession the new government granted France’s greatest hero was that it let him command his own firing squad. He did so as follows: “Soldiers, when I give the command to fire, fire straight at my heart. Wait for the order. It will be my last to you. I protest against my condemnation. I have fought a hundred battles for France, and not one against her…Soldiers, fire!” The soldiers, some in tears, pulled the trigger as they had been commanded.”
“In A Word..."
“In a word, there are many thorns, but the roses are there too.”
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
○
Full screen!
Tchaikovsky, “1812 Overture”
Magnificent!
The story: “On September 7, 1812, at Borodino, 120 km (75 mi) west of Moscow, Napoleon’s forces met those of General Mikhail Kutuzov in a concerted stand made by Russia against the seemingly invincible French Army. The Battle of Borodino saw casualties estimated as high as 100,000 and the French were masters of the field. It was, however, ultimately a pyrrhic victory for the French invasion.
With resources depleted and supply lines overextended, Napoleon’s weakened forces moved into Moscow, which they occupied with little resistance. Expecting capitulation from the displaced Tsar Alexander I, the French instead found themselves in a barren and desolate city, parts of which the retreating Russian Army had burned to the ground.
Deprived of winter stores, Napoleon had to retreat. Beginning on October 19 and lasting well into December, the French Army faced several overwhelming obstacles on its long retreat: famine, typhus, frigid temperatures, harassing Cossacks, and Russian forces barring the way out of the country. Abandoned by Napoleon in November, the Grande Armée was reduced to one-tenth of its original size by the time it reached Poland and relative safety.”
“Three Hard Truths About American Collapse”
“Three Hard Truths About American Collapse”
by Umair Haque
“I’m going to keep this short and bittersweet. America’s probably not going to recover in our lifetimes, if ever. Let me start with some alarming and necessary factoids. America’s a country whose three main indicators are all blinking nine-alarm red – they’re what “collapse” really means. Life expectancy’s falling. Real incomes are shrinking. And 80% of people live paycheck to paycheck. By all means – elect anyone you want to. An electoral change might mitigate those, but it’s not going to magically alter the downwards trajectory. The American future is a grim choice between a return to yesterday’s slow collapse and the continuation of today’s light-speed implosion – probably not anything remotely like Europe or Canada’s gentle, hopeful upwards trend in quality of life.
That’s because these megatrends of collapse are the culmination of decades of self-destructive choices, trickle-down economics, neoliberalism, market fundamentalism, a total lack of investment in people, a culture of cruelty, a modern day caste society, Walmart capitalism, all of which added up to Weimar republic style ruin – letting middle classes implode, leaving the poor to die in the streets, because a predatory elite was allowed to capture more than 100% of society’s gains, and worse still, Americans were told to believe, by wise men, that all that was noble, righteous, and true: only the strong should survive. So these megatrends, because they took decades to gather momentum, and carry great inertia, are not going to be undone overnight, or even in a year, or even in a decade. Reversing them is the work of a generation, at the very least. Why?
America doesn’t have any functioning institutions whatsoever – and it’s not going to anytime soon. Government, media, corporations, judiciary, “jobs”, healthcare, transportation, finance, banking, pensions, retirement, education - go down the list. Do any of these function as they should – even remotely, in a healthy society? Its media is still fawningly profiling Nazis. Its opposition party is the most craven thing since Neville Longbottom. It has no agenda whatsoever. Its “best” educational institutions turn out little soulless predators aspiring to be hedge fund managers – hardly statesmen, intellectuals, and decent human beings. And so on.
For these three megatrends of collapse to be reversed, America’s going to have to be remade whole – first institutionally, and then via a new social contract. Think of Britain’s NHS or BBC, the German idea that unions sit on company boards, the French national pension system, Scandinavian social democracy as a whole. Institutions that make up a better social contract. But every single one of America’s institutions is broken. The question isn’t so much reforming dysfunctional ones as building functional ones. But the idea that America should have an NHS or BBC or debt-free education or a Public Retirement System is science fiction, and it always has been. Not only does neither party support it – though maybe the “democratic socialists” come mildly close – but nobody in any position of power in society seems aware that such a problem of broken institutions even exists. So who’s going to build them?
America doesn’t have the values to prosper without self-destructing – and it probably never did – because its prosperity has always been predatory. America doesn’t have working institutions because Americans, quite frankly, don’t care about each other. American prosperity has been based more on predation, people keeping others down, than it has on people lifting each other up. But that approach can only end in collapse. I know you’ll find that harsh.
And yet, the logic is very simple. America never developed what we might call the values of a genuinely civilized society. Empathy, compassion, truth, wisdom, benevolence, humanity. Fundamentally, that if everyone’s only out for themselves, then there is nothing that everyone in a society can enjoy as a basic human right. But if that’s the case, quite obviously, people will go without decent healthcare, education, finance, media, and so on. Worse, if everyone’s trying to compete for those things, punching everyone else down, by definition, those very things will always be absent in society – even when they can and should be available to all.
Public institutions provide social goods for all people to enjoy. America is the only – the only – rich society in the world that never built them. Why? Well, the premise of America until 1965 or so was segregation – and before that, slavery. But you can’t build public institutions that work for everyone if the point of your society is to discriminate, subjugate, and repress.
And yet, even after 1965, every single time the issue of working public institutions was raised, American whites, especially elites, flatly, absolutely refused them. They didn’t want anything that belonged to everyone in society, not healthcare, not education, not income, not retirement – their attitude was more or less, “As long as I get mine, why should I care about those dirty blacks, immigrants, Mexicans, gays, Jews, Muslims? They don’t deserve anything!” And that attitude still what prevails. It’s what kept America from building the working institutions of a functioning society, which might have provided good lives for everyone. But without those institutions, America was only getting rich by preying on itself – and that game had to run out sometime. That time is now, when 80% of Americans are broke. Bang! Prosperity based on predation leads to collapse.
Do you see the irony? Americans just don’t value one another as human beings, really – and they never have. Only some people – whites value whites, elites value elites, and so on. Hence, Americans would rather keep the basics of life from one another, in order to preserve superiority and dominance over others, than grant them to everyone, and live better lives. They have always thought this way – and nothing has ever changed that underlying logic. But that logic is not only immoral – it’s also self-destructive. Because there comes a point when the price of dominance is self-destruction. If I’m denying you healthcare, so that I keep you down, and retain a higher social status, stratum and income, but it costs me and my kids and our very own healthcare, sanity, and life expectancy, too – then what’s the purpose of the game I’m playing, except spiteful ruin? And yet, that’s what America is, and what it always has been.
The irony of America, if you ask me, is that it never understood this most basic lesson of history. The problem with a Promised Land is that it tempts people to believe that its abundance must belong only to them, and to them alone. In that way, a Promised Land can never be a place for everyone. It will be a bitter, bruising war for conquest, possession, and domination, forever – instead of being something like a healthy, sane, caring society. And yet a war against itself is what America has always been – and what, if you ask me, it will go on being. Unless, improbably, it grows up, and recognizes the dignity and possibility in every life is worth more than any Promised Land will ever be.
America probably isn’t going to make it. If you are, though, I think that a life worth living begins there.”
The Poet: Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Dirge Without Music"
Full screen recommended.
"The Hero" - "Gently They Go Scene"
The terminally ill Lee (Sam Elliott) listens as Charlotte
(Laura Prepon) reads to him one of her favorite poems.
○
"Dirge Without Music"
"I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.
Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains,but the best is lost.
The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,
They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.
Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned."
- Edna St. Vincent Millay
Gregory Mannarino, AM 4/11/21: "Markets, A Look Ahead: Opportunity Are Everywhere"
Gregory Mannarino, AM 4/11/21:
"Markets, A Look Ahead: Opportunity Are Everywhere"
“Feeling Fed Up with Humanity, In the World and in Ourselves”
“Feeling Fed Up with Humanity, In the World and in Ourselves”
by Madisyn Taylor, The DailyOM
“We are all capable of the best and the worst that humanity has to offer and knowing this allows us to find compassion. From time to time, we may all feel fed up with humanity, whether it’s from learning about what’s going on around the world, or what’s going on next door. There are always situations that leave us feeling as if people are simply not capable of behaving in a way that is coming from a place of awareness. Often it seems as if people are actually geared to handle things in the worst possible way, repeatedly. At the same time, none of us wants to linger in a judgmental mood about our own species. As a result, we might tend to repress the feelings coming up as we take in the news from the world and the neighborhood.
It is natural to feel let down and disappointed when we see our fellow humans behaving in ways that are greedy, selfish, violent, or uncaring, but there are also ways to process that disappointment without sinking into despondency. As with any emotional response, we honor our feelings by feeling them fully, without judging or acting on them. Once we’ve done that – and we may need to do it every day, as part of our daily self-care – we can begin to consider ways that we might help the situation in which humanity finds itself.
As always, we start with ourselves, utilizing our awareness of the failings of others to renew our own commitment to be more conscious human beings. We are all capable of the best and the worst that humanity has to offer, and remembering this keeps us in check, as well as allowing us to find compassion for others. We may find ourselves feeling compelled to serve people who are suffering injustices at the hands of other people, or we may begin to speak out when we see something that we don’t think is right. Whatever the case, the only thing we can do is pledge to serve the best, rather than the worst, of what humanity has to offer, both in the world, and in ourselves.”
"Permanent Adolescence: The Epidemic That Will Destroy America"
"Permanent Adolescence:
The Epidemic That Will Destroy America"
by Dr. Paul Kindlon
"As a Humanities professor I have had the opportunity to teach psychology and social psychology for more than 20 years. Occasionally the knowledge obtained in these areas allows me to analyze and understand social behavior and certain cultural trends. This is one those occasions.
If one is able to observe American society in an objective manner (granted no easy task) it becomes clear that the country is suffering from an epidemic of arrested emotional development (AED). This particular illness is characterized by some combination of: addiction, greed, immaturity, fear, blame, shame, resentments, anger, confusion and suffering. What it means is that the vast majority of Americans are stuck in adolescence exhibiting behavior like lying, negative attitudes, disobedience and disrespect, drug and alcohol abuse, depression, and issues of sexuality.
One has only to watch American movies or television shows to get a snapshot of juvenile, puerile, and base comedy characteristic of adolescent humor. It’s no accident that 46 year old Jimmy Fallon is essentially the “eternal teenager” performing comedy that mostly includes bathroom humor and gags that are based on and appeal to a silly sense of immaturity. The other darling of late-night shows in America is Stephen Colbert who specializes in insulting public figues in an overtly adolescent display of negative attitude and disrespect.
Another hallmark of AED is to evade responsibility and blame others for failure. One had only to observe the millions of Hillary supporters to understand this phenomenon. Also common for AED sufferers is to show disrespect in sophomoric ways usually by damaging property as we see with monuments being defaced and destroyed.
Teenagers, of course, tend to have identity issues often involving sexuality which is another phenomenon all too apparent in contemporary America. It’s almost uncool not to be LGBT or confused about your gender nowadays. Soon there will be as many genders as ice-cream flavors for it’s all just a matter of taste!
In terms of cognitive activity AED is characterized by exaggeration and over-simplification. If you are angry with one of your parents you might refer to them as a Nazi or Fascist.
This negative attitude now is extended to anyone who disagrees with you and can be seen in slogans such as “No Trump, No KKK, No Fascist USA”. Adults are an endangered species. The cognitive effect of exaggeration and over-simplification leads to irrationality and confusion. Witness the millions of people who think they are being anti-racist by opposing “White Supremacy”. No anthropologist on earth would claim that “White” is a race (although a Neo- Nazi would) It’s not even a primary color. The Irish were discriminated against for more than a hundred years in America due to Anglo-Saxon racism yet the Irish are considered “white”. There are millions of Americans of German, Polish, and Scandinavian extraction who have been working-class and lower for a very long time. Are these “white people” guilty of supremacy? Against whom? Themselves?
Of course, what the protestors should be focusing on is class and not race which is really an arbitrary term. Unfortunately. the progressive movement in America has gone from “Occupy Wall street” to “occupy the public bathroom”. Lenin would be turning over in his grave – if he had one. With regard to alcohol and drug addiction in America, the statistics are startling. Opiod addiction alone is becoming a national health issue as is depression. Alcohol abuse, of course, is also quite high. Lying is also becoming commonplace. It used to be just politicians and lawyers who were known to “play with the truth”. Nowadays the mainstream media is widely seen as a mainstream of lies with CNN now wearing the title of FAKE NEWS.
The teenage attempt to rebel and show disobedience is often manifested through the use of profanity intended to shock the older generation. Gratuitous profanity is pervasive in American culture and has replaced the imagination as a form of creativity. It is not an accident that Pussy Riot – a group of “performance artists” using profanity in a Cathedral considered sacred to “shock” the Russian public and “disobey” authorities – has found a home in the United States and been befriended by Madonna, another symbol of eternal adolescence. Her AED was on full display when she publicly offered all men fellatio if they voted for Hillary Clinton. And as any rebellious teenager attempting to shock the “older generation” she had to announce that she “swallows”. Stay classy, Madonna. Keep in mind we’re talking about a 59 year old mother of six.
You see…if everyone is a teenager there is no adult supervision. That is the problem. After an autopsy is conducted years from now to ascertain how and why the American Empire expired, the obituary will include multiple causes of death and AED will be listed prominently. Perhaps a precocious teenager will be allowed to write the epitaph that will read…”When extended, the bridge between adolescence and adulthood can take a heavy toll”.
○
“Most people don’t grow up. It’s too damn difficult. What happens is most people get older. That’s the truth of it. They honor their credit cards, they find parking spaces, they marry, they have the nerve to have children, but they don’t grow up. Not really. They get older. But to grow up costs the earth, the earth. It means you take responsibility for the time you take up, for the space you occupy. It’s serious business. And you find out what it costs us to love and to lose, to dare and to fail. And maybe even more, to succeed."
- Maya Angelou
Saturday, April 10, 2021
Musical Interlude: Deuter, "Atmospheres"
Full screen, and relax... beautiful.
Deuter, "Atmospheres"
00:00 ⋄ Uno
05:45 ⋄ Deux
11:58 ⋄ Drei
18:27 ⋄ Four
25:15 ⋄ Cinque
31:58 ⋄ Sei
36:33 ⋄ Sieben
42:22 ⋄ Huit
50:55 ⋄ Nine
57:27 ⋄ Dieci
"A Look to the Heavens"
“Big, beautiful, barred spiral galaxy NGC 1300 lies some 70 million light-years away on the banks of the constellation Eridanus. This Hubble Space Telescope composite view of the gorgeous island universe is one of the largest Hubble images ever made of a complete galaxy.
NGC 1300 spans over 100,000 light-years and the Hubble image reveals striking details of the galaxy's dominant central bar and majestic spiral arms. In fact, on close inspection the nucleus of this classic barred spiral itself shows a remarkable region of spiral structure about 3,000 light-years across. Unlike other spiral galaxies, including our own Milky Way, NGC 1300 is not presently known to have a massive central black hole.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120325.html
"A Lot Of People..."
“When science discovers the center of the universe,
a lot of people will be disappointed to find they are not it.”
- Bernard Baily
"There Comes A Time..."
"Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency ask the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But, conscience ask the question, is it right? And there comes a time when we must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right."
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Restaurant Prices Soar; Small Business Not Rebounding; Debt Fueled Spending; Worst Trade Deficit"
Jeremiah Babe,
"Restaurant Prices Soar; Small Business Not Rebounding;
Debt Fueled Spending; Worst Trade Deficit"
"Cultural Revolution in America?"
"Cultural Revolution in America?"
by Charles Hugh Smith
"There is a whiff of unease in the air. Beneath the cheery veneer of free money for almost everyone, growing inequality and polarization are rapidly consuming what's left of common ground in America. Though there are many systemic differences between China and the U.S., humans in every nation are all still running Wetware 1.0. So it is instructive to consider what can be learned from China's Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) and see what applies to the U.S. today.
The Cultural Revolution is not an approved topic in China today, and that alerts us to its importance. China's Cultural Revolution was remarkably different from Mao’s communist military-political victory in 1949 over the Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek. The political revolution was managed by the centralized hierarchy of the Communist Party (CCP). But the Cultural Revolution quickly morphed from a movement launched by Mao into a decentralized mass movement against all elites, including Party and state elites who had been sacrosanct and untouchable.
The important point here is that the Cultural Revolution was not controlled by the political authorities. They did maintain control of the Party and central government hierarchy in Beijing. But this was nothing more than an illusion of control.
The Irony of Cultural Revolution: The forces of the Cultural Revolution had broken free of central command and control, even as the Red Guards expressed their loyalty to Mao and the principles of the Party. But those expressions were only the politically approved cover for their rampage. That's the irony of Cultural Revolution.
The authorities cannot claim it is a political counter-revolution because the cultural revolutionaries proclaim their loyalty to the very ideals and principles the authorities themselves claim to be upholding - but have failed to do so. Cultural Revolutions in effect claim the higher ground. They bypass the political process and take direct action to further the ideals that the authorities have abandoned or betrayed. Given the fragmentary nature of China’s Cultural Revolution, the history is equally fragmentary - especially given the official reticence to discuss it.
A recent academic book, "Agents of Disorder: Inside China's Cultural Revolution", provides granular detail on the fragmented, decentralized, rapidly evolving dynamics of the movement: (The author) devoted decades to examining the local records of nearly all of China's 2,000-plus county-level jurisdictions. He found that factions emerged from the splintering, rather than the congealing, of class-based groups. Small clusters of students, workers, and cadres struggling to respond to Mao's shifting directives made split-second decisions about whom to align with. Political identities did not shape the conflict; they emerged from it. To explain this process of identity formation, he offers a theory of 'factions as emergent properties' and suggests that similar dynamics may characterize social movements everywhere.
In other words, groups modified their alliances, identities and definitions of "class enemies" on the fly, entirely free of central authorities. Factions splintered, regrouped and splintered again. In the chaos, no one was safe. Those who lived through The Cultural Revolution are reticent about revealing their experiences. Even in the privacy of their homes in the U.S., their voices become hushed and their reluctance to give voice to their experiences is evident.
What Cultural Revolutions Share in Common: Here’s the unifying thread in my view: The accused belonged to some "counter-revolutionary" elite - or they were living vestiges of a pre-revolutionary elite (children of the landlord class, professors, etc.) - and it was now open season on all elites, presumed or real. What generates such spontaneous, self-organizing violence on a national scale? My conclusion is that cultural revolutions result from the suppression of legitimate political expression and the failure of the regime to meet its lofty idealistic goals.
Cultural revolutions are an expression of disappointment and frustration with corruption and the lack of progress in improving everyday life. These frustrations have no outlet in a regime of self-serving elites who view dissent as treason and/or blasphemy. By 1966, China's progress since 1949 had been at best uneven, and at worst catastrophic. The Great Leap Forward caused the deaths of millions due to malnutrition and starvation, and other centrally planned programs were equally disastrous for the masses. Young people found there was no avenue for dissent within the Party, and no way to express their frustration with the Party's failure to fulfil its idealistic goals and promises.
When there is no relief valve in the pressure cooker, it's eventually released in a Cultural Revolution that unleashes all the bottled-up frustrations on elites which are deemed politically vulnerable. These frustrations have no outlet politically because they threaten the status quo. All these repressed emotions will find some release and expression, and whatever avenues are blocked by authorities will channel the frustrations into whatever is still open.
A Cultural Revolution gives the masses permission to criticize the abstract class that "deserves" whatever rough justice is being delivered by the Cultural Revolution. As the book review excerpt noted, the definition of who deserves long overdue justice shifts with the emergent winds. So those at the head of the Revolution might find themselves identified as an illegitimate elite that must be unseated. I submit that these conditions exist in the U.S. today.
The Falcon Will No Longer Hear the Falconer: The systemic failure of the status quo to deliver on idealized promises and the repression of dissent outside "approved" (i.e. unthreatening to the status quo) boundaries. What elite can be criticized without drawing the full repressive powers of the central state? What elite will it be politically acceptable to criticize? I submit that "the wealthy" are just such an abstract elite.
To protect itself, a repressive status quo implicitly signals that the masses can release their ire on an abstract elite with indistinct boundaries - a process that will divert the public anger, leaving the Powers That Be still in charge. But just as in China's Cultural Revolution, central authorities will quickly lose control of conditions on the ground. They will maintain the illusion of control even as events spiral ever farther from their control. The falcon will no longer hear the falconer.
In other words, once the social pressure cooker valve gives way, then the unleashed forces soon grasp that there are few limits on what they can criticize as long as they do so within an implicitly approved narrative. For example, "the wealthy" hoarded wealth and power and so it is just to claw it back by whatever means are available. Since the government failed to do so, the people will have to do so.
The Pressure Cooker Is Getting Hot: The extreme inequalities of wealth and power that are now the dominant dynamic in America are heating the cultural pressure cooker. When the pressure can no longer be contained, then being recognized as wealthy will shift very quickly from something desirable to something to avoid at all costs.
The lesson of China's Cultural Revolution in my view is that once the lid blows off, everything that was linear (predictable) goes non-linear (unpredictable, fragmented, contingent, emergent, prone to extremes, uncontrollable). If America experiences a Cultural Revolution, the outcome won't lend itself to tidiness or predictability.
To use an analogy, if the pendulum is pushed to an extreme, when it's released, it will reach an equivalent extreme (minus a bit of friction) at the opposite end. That could be an unexpected but entirely foreseeable Cultural Revolution. Those who claim that can't happen in America are safely outside the pressure cooker, protected by a delusional confidence that ‘since I'm doing great, everyone is doing great.’ Since real political agency is no longer allowed, then the pressure will find release outside the political system. And yes, it could happen here."
○
"Cultural Revolution?"
"BLM Founder Branded 'Fraud' After Buying
Million-Dollar Home In Mostly-White LA Enclave."
"The co-founder of the polarizing Black Lives Matter movement is under fire for buying a $1.4 million home in a posh California neighborhood that’s 88 percent white. It’s an interesting decision for Patrisse Cullors, a self-professed Marxist and race-baiting activist who has paid lip service to promoting black pride. According to Dirt.com, the home is located in Topanga Canyon, an idyllic rustic neighborhood about 48 minutes outside of Los Angeles and less than 30 minutes from tony Malibu."
"Social justice warrior", huh? Right...
I'm shocked, shocked I tell you! Oh no I'm not...
"Today’s Inflation Is Deliberate… and Disastrous"
"Today’s Inflation Is Deliberate… and Disastrous"
by Bill Bonner
"As I’ve been describing in recent Diaries, the financial markets are beginning to realize that the coming inflation is not “cyclical”… It is structural. The distinction is important. Cyclical inflation is more or less benign. It is a feature of the business cycle. As the economy heats up, demand grows for consumer products and the raw materials to make them. This is a healthy trend, but it engenders an immediate feedback loop. That is, the demand for financing increases.
Businesses need financing to boost output and meet the rising demand. Consumers need financing, too. They enhance their lifestyles – with new houses and new cars – counting on rising incomes to help pay for them. This increasing demand for credit raises interest rates, which tends to cool down appetites for both credit and further consumption. Price inflation subsides… interest rates decline… and growth rates cool.
Related to and concurrent with this phenomenon is the government’s need for credit. In an economic expansion, the government also expands. And it tends to absorb credit like a sponge. In a healthy and honest financial system, this is self-limiting, too. Excess government borrowing “crowds out” private borrowing (because the feds are the most reliable borrowers in the world). This raises interest rates even further… thus putting the kibosh on the expansion… and usually leading the Chamber of Commerce, among others, to call on the feds to back off.
Fake Money and False Pretenses: But cometh the Federal Reserve’s fake money, and the whole cyclicality of it collapses. Prices rise, not because a robust economy has increased demand… but because the government has created fake dollars that bid for goods and services just as if they had been gotten honestly. Then, too, consumers, businesses, and the government itself can borrow as much as they want – because the Federal Reserve, through the banking system, is creating new credit at will.
Interest rates do not necessarily rise… because the feedback loop has been severed. The Fed provides fake savings, indistinguishable from real savings… which keeps lending rates low. Even the ever-alert financial press cannot tell the difference. Hardly a day passes without a report that the “U.S. savings rate is soaring” or that “Americans are sitting on a huge pile of savings.”
How could savings increase when GDP is down… unemployment is up… and millions of small businesses are going broke? How is that possible? It is possible because a crisis – especially one where millions of people are under house arrest – always reduces consumer spending. But this time, the savings rate is altogether a different thing. Much of what people “save” today is money they never earned. It is money given to them by the generous folks at the U.S. government. It is fake money, given away on false pretenses. And now, it is fraudulently described as “savings.”
These ersatz savings help depress interest rates, until people realize how it works. Then, they see that the incipient inflation is not cyclical. It is structural. It is part of the government’s program… a program that the feds can’t stop.
Intentional, Deliberate, and Disastrous: Prices are beginning to rise, in other words, not because a real boom is increasing demand for goods and services. Instead, fake demand – a bigger supply of dollars – is driving up prices, with no offsetting increase in goods or services. This phenomenon has a feedback loop of its own. But it’s not self-correcting… It’s self-destructive.
Instead of increasing interest rates and thereby reducing demand for credit, the fake money increases debt loads, dependency, and the need for more cheap credit – more money-printing – to keep up with it. This time, governments are not encouraged to cut back on their programs to prevent “crowding out” private borrowers.
Instead, they’re begged to step up their money-printing, to spend more money, to buy more bonds (or, later, stocks too), to provide more “stimmy” money, to build more highways, to control the planet’s temperature, to right the wrongs of the past, and to look into the changing future and make sure it never happens.
Investors soon figure out that this means higher prices and less output. They take steps to protect themselves… And the government takes steps to prevent them from protecting themselves. “Structural inflation,” in other words, is not a natural feature of the business cycle. It is government policy. Intentional. Deliberate. And disastrous."
"The Life Of The Mind..."
"All of the available data show that the typical American citizen has about
as much interest in the life of the mind as does your average armadillo. "
- Morris Berman
Apologies to armadillos for the comparison...
Friday, April 9, 2021
"Jim Rickards Warns America: War On Cash Has Started, Prepare Your Self For Digital Dollar"
Full screen recommended.
"Jim Rickards Warns America: War On Cash Has Started,
Prepare Your Self For Digital Dollar"
by Epic Economist
"A dangerous war on cash has started and it is threatening to eliminate all paper dollars forever. According to the economist James Rickards, plans that once seemed too absurd to be true and might have been dismissed as baseless speculation or conspiracy theories are now being publicly enforced by people who occupy the highest levels of power. The ongoing development of central bank digital currencies is going to be the next blow on our personal freedom, as governments will start to collect people's private information to impose punitive measures, negative rates, automatize the deduction of taxes and increase surveillance on all of our banking transactions. The United States is now facing a critical moment as rising inflation is putting the dollar's leading position as the world's reserve currency at risk and that, according to the expert, is going to be the perfect cue for our leaders to justify implementing digital dollars and abandoning paper money. But the consequences of this change will be obscure and will be many. And that's what we're going to discuss in this video.
Economist, investment banker, and financial writer James Rickards recently published an article on the Daily Reckoning warning that the global financial system is experiencing a structural reform that will change money as we know it forever. The Great Reset, as most specialists call it, is finally here, and it is rapidly and silently developing on the dark backstage of central banks all around the world. The health crisis has undoubtedly ravaged economies all over the planet, but it also allowed governments, particularly the U.S. government, to engage in massive spending, expanding our money supply by the trillions. That, however, is putting our position as the world's reserve currency at risk, as rising inflation is threatening to sharply collapse the value of our currency.
The more our deficits grow and our purchasing power declines, the less people will trust in our currency. Knowing that the narrative of a decaying dollar scares most Americans, the central bank has been quietly working on the perfect solution. So when things go downhill and the imminence of severe financial losses sparks panic and chaos across broad swaths of the US population, the federal government and policymakers will arise with a life-changing proposal: digital money. Arguing that in order to reverse runaway inflation and major wealth losses the only logical move would be to completely abandon paper dollars and fully embrace an entirely digital currency, world leaders - who, by the way, unleashed inflation through the staggering monetary response to the health crisis - will come up with what will look like a helpful and progressive plan to get us out from the mess they created themselves.
The truth is that the total elimination of cash has been the global elite's pet project for decades, and now they finally found the ultimate chance to get started. For the wealthy 1%, digital currencies make the dream of infinite money come true, but for the average person, it means that central banks will have access to all of our private banking transactions, and more concerningly, it gives authorities a free pass to directly impose negative interest rates in our banking accounts. The European Central Bank agrees that negative rates will be applied as a “penalty” against “hoarding” cash.
Although the roll-out of the new digital dollar is being kept a secret, the consequences of its imminent issuance are already raising many eyebrows in the financial sector. Considering that banks and other financial institutions are the very foundations of today's stock market, determining valuations alongside the tech sector, CBDCs may represent the end of traditional banks, which also implies that the stock market would either have to significantly shrink in size or cease to exist as a whole. On top of all that, there's an even more obscure side to CBDCs. With no cash, there's no anonymity, and therefore, governments will be allowed to track your whereabouts and habits at all times only by analyzing your use of funds through the CBDC payment system. A central bank digital currency can also result in the automatic deduction of taxes with no alternative for holders to escape.
Given that our country has already started the process of enabling inflation and eliminating cash, anyone who is concerned about the prospect of being pushed into the new digital currency regime trap should make it a high priority to turn to hard money to preserve their savings outside of the financial system. Tough times are ahead for our nation in many different ways, and you should closely watch the next series of developments of the financial world, here, on Epic Economist."
"A Look to the Heavens"
“Close to the Great Bear (Ursa Major) and surrounded by the stars of the Hunting Dogs (Canes Venatici), this celestial wonder was discovered in 1781 by the metric French astronomer Pierre Mechain. Later, it was added to the catalog of his friend and colleague Charles Messier as M106. Modern deep telescopic views reveal it to be an island universe - a spiral galaxy around 30 thousand light-years across located only about 21 million light-years beyond the stars of the Milky Way.
Along with a bright central core, this stunning galaxy portrait, a composite of image data from amateur and professional telescopes, highlights youthful blue star clusters and reddish stellar nurseries tracing the galaxy's spiral arms. It also shows off remarkable reddish jets of glowing hydrogen gas. In addition to small companion galaxy NGC 4248 at bottom right, background galaxies can be found scattered throughout the frame. M106, also known as NGC 4258, is a nearby example of the Seyfert class of active galaxies, seen across the spectrum from radio to X-rays. Active galaxies are powered by matter falling into a massive central black hole.”
Chet Raymo, "Lessons"
"Lessons"
by Chet Raymo
"There is a four-line poem by Yeats, called "Gratitude to the Unknown Instructors":
"What they undertook to do
They brought to pass;
All things hang like a drop of dew
Upon a blade of grass."
They brought to pass;
All things hang like a drop of dew
Upon a blade of grass."
Like so many of the short poems of Yeats, it is hard to know what the poet had in mind, who exactly were the unknown instructors, and if unknown how could they instruct. But as I opened my volume of "The Poems" this morning, at random, as in the old days people opened the Bible and pointed a finger at a random passage seeking advice or instruction, this is the poem that presented itself. Unsuperstitious person that I am, it seemed somehow apropos, since outside the window, in a thick Irish mist, every blade of grass has its hanging drop.
Those pendant drops, the bejeweled porches of the spider webs, the rose petals cupping their glistening dew - all of that seems terribly important here, now, in the silent mist. There is not much good to say about getting old, but certainly one advantage of the gathering years is the falling away of ego and ambition, the felt need to be always busy, the exhausting practice of accumulation. Who were the instructors who tried to teach me the practice of simplicity when I was young - the poets and the saints, the buddhas who were content to sit beneath the bo tree while the rest of us scurried here and there? I scurried, and I'm not sorry I did, but I must have tucked their lessons into the back of my mind, a cache of wisdom to be opened at my leisure.
Whatever it was they sought to teach has come to pass. All things hang like a drop of dew upon a blade of grass."
"In Ordinary Times..."
"In ordinary times we get along surprisingly well, on the whole, without ever discovering what our faith really is. If, now and again, this remote and academic problem is so unmannerly as to thrust its way into our minds, there are plenty of things we can do to drive the intruder away. We can get the car out or go to a party or to the cinema or read a detective story or have a row with a district council or write a letter to the papers about the habits of the nightjar or Shakespeare's use of nautical metaphor. Thus we build up a defense mechanism against self-questioning because, to tell the truth, we are very much afraid of ourselves."
- Dorothy L. Sayers
"God Grant Me The Courage..."
“God grant me the courage not to give up what I think is right,
even though I think it is hopeless.”
- Adm. Chester W. Nimitz
"We said together, wistfully, 'Life, eh?' It says everything without having to say anything: that we all experience moments of joyful or painful reflection, sometimes alone, sometimes sharing laughs and tears with others; that we all know and appreciate that however wonderful and precious life is, it can equally be a terribly confusing and mysterious beast. 'Life, eh?"
- Miranda Hart
"How to Spot Your Own Self-Delusion"
"How to Spot Your Own Self-Delusion"
by Pamela Meyer
"What if deception is in the eye of the beholder? And what if lies can help us tell the truth? The biggest lies are the lies we tell ourselves. S.E. Hinton wrote in "The Outsiders", "I lie to myself all the time. But I never believe me." Maybe she was onto something. We've trained ourselves to accept certain truths about where we find fulfillment, where we find joy, and where we find success. But should we challenge that conventional wisdom? Recent studies show that much of what we know about leading a rewarding life is wrong. Some of it is delusional, and some of those delusions are self-inflicted. Here are 5 lies we tell ourselves that we should cleanse from our brains.
Lie #1: Idle Hands are the Devil's Workshop: A hard day's work is great. Mindless busy work is not. The greatest threat to success isn't an hour lunch break or a seven-hour day. Everyone's had a boss that believes working hard is the same as working smart. Take this 2013 study from the New Zealand Productivity Commission (yes, that's a thing). In it, experts draw a sharp contrast between work and productivity. The two are not interchangeable. Productivity, notes the study, is the efficient use of both labor and capital. You shouldn't waste labor, just like you shouldn't waste money. We're hardwired to equate quantity of work with quality of work. So we admire and promote the co-worker who puts in the longest hours, when we should be rewarding the co-worker who puts out the best work. We trick ourselves into emphasizing inputs instead of outputs.
Lie #2: "Winners never quit, and quitters never win." Vince Lombardi immortalized that can-do spirit, and has the creds to back it up. Today, we accept his cliché blindly. But quitters can win, and win big. Einstein was a patent clerk in his first gig. Lombardi's wisdom would've had Einstein working to be the best darn patent clerk in Germany. He quit, and traded a fulfilling civil service career for the theory of relativity. Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg quit Harvard, Steve Jobs quit Reed College - how significantly has our world changed thanks to their quitting spirit?
Winning strategies don't come from the senseless pursuit of bad ideas. To wit, that's precisely what this fascinating psychological report concludes. In an exhaustive study of 12,000 young people's progress over their lifetime, the University of Florida's Timothy Judge found a beguiling little demographic of successful individuals. Their success didn't come from their backgrounds, but from their ability to collective, analyze, and reject -quit, if you will--certain paths in front of them. Not only did they succeed, they succeeded at higher levels than peers who had greater advantages in pedigree and education.
Lie #3: "Money for Nothing": There's no such thing as a free lunch. This data from The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), read: a bunch of rich countries, found that working hours have gone down since 1991 while wages have gone up. Along with that trend comes the perception that success comes easy and money comes quick.We live in a world of miracle weight loss, fast cash and no-hassle loans. This is an era where people actually believe a Nigerian Prince is willing to pay them millions in exchange for a social security number. The reality is that if you want to make it, you need to get gritty and you need to get dirty. There's no quick, clean fix, there's rarely an easy set path, and there are no free rides. Richard Branson had a little record shop before he started signing bands like The Sex Pistols and founding Virgin Airways (no, not that kind of dirty.) He said: "You don't learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over."
Re: the grit and dirt part, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point is a good place to find both. Two West Point professors, along with two of their colleagues, confirm the bad news: "grit" and determination towards achieving a goal is just as important as your individual talent.
Lie #4 "I will win at all costs. I can do it." That philosophy worked so well for Lance Armstrong... But losing isn't just an option; it's the breeding ground for resiliency. And we shouldn't fear it. Harvard's Rosabeth Moss notes "the difference between winners and losers is how they handle losing." Walt Disney was fired from a newspaper gig for lacking "imagination" and "original ideas." Michael Jordan was cut from his High School basketball team. Oprah was demoted from her news gig because she "wasn't fit for television." Losing, writes Kanter in her book, is the building block of confidence. As the self-esteem generation rises -with its noted intolerance for criticism and defeat- the biggest winners will be the best losers.
Lie #5: Note to self: "You are my best friend: You are special": It sounded so good when Mr. Rogers said it. But we're not all special. Not until we do something to prove it. Psychologist Jean Twenge has studied what she calls the "Narcissism Epidemic" that courses through our society. It's a look at how an infatuation with ourselves is chipping away at the foundations of success and mental health. This self-deception, says John Reynolds of Florida State University, has engendered inflated ambitions and expectations, which -surprise!- leads to depression and feelings of failure.
So what's the antidote for all the special snowflakes out there? In "The Pyschology of Success", Carol Dweck speaks to the importance of having a "growth mindset" rather than a "fixed mindset." Put plainly, you can be special and you can be talented. But it isn't divinely appointed. Act mediocre, lead a mediocre life, and you'll be as special as a glass of lukewarm milk. Per Dweck, you either grow personally and professionally to fulfill your aspirations, or your stubbornly expect your aspirations to come to you.
All of this, of course, is easier said than done. The logistician Ludwig Wittgenstein said "nothing's so difficult as not deceiving ourselves." Clear heads are hard to come by, common sense is rarely common, and perception isn't always reality. True honesty isn't limited to the way you talk to your neighbors. It can also come from the way your heart talks to your brain.”
Gregory Mannarino, PM 4/9/21: "Central Banks Gone Wild! Expect A Tsunami Of Inflation To Hit"
Gregory Mannarino, PM 4/9/21:
"Central Banks Gone Wild! Expect A Tsunami Of Inflation To Hit"
"The Ironic, The Tragic Thing..."
“One can fight evil but against stupidity one is helpless… I have accepted the fact, hard as it may be, that human beings are inclined to behave in ways that would make animals blush. The ironic, the tragic thing is that we often behave in ignoble fashion from what we consider the highest motives. The animal makes no excuse for killing his prey; the human animal, on the other hand, can invoke God’s blessing when massacring his fellow men. He forgets that God is not on his side but at his side.”
“There is no salvation in becoming adapted to a world which is crazy.”
- Henry Miller
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)