"6 Years Of Being Manipulated By Manufactured Waves Of Outrage With No End In Sight"

"6 Years Of Being Manipulated By Manufactured 

Waves Of Outrage With No End In Sight"

by Michael Snyder

"Are you starting to notice a pattern by now? For the past six years, the American people have been emotionally manipulated by what I call “manufactured waves of outrage”. Once the corporate media identifies a trigger, it will obsessively focus on it for weeks or months on end, and the narrative that develops will be echoed and magnified by millions upon millions of social media denizens. Before too long, much of the population is whipped up into an irrational emotional frenzy, and that frenzy is used to move certain agendas forward.

To me, this new era began in 2016. Donald Trump was a political candidate like no other, and the elite absolutely hated the fact that he did not follow their rules and that they could not control him. So when he actually won, it truly was a catastrophic event for them. From that moment forward, most corporate media outlets relentlessly demonized Trump. Never before in U.S. history had a sitting U.S. president been treated in such a fashion, and we may never see anything like it ever again.

The anti-Trump narratives which were being pumped out by the corporate media were constantly fed to social media influencers on both sides of the political spectrum, and that ultimately created extremely deep political divisions in this country which still exist to this day. Many on the left are entirely convinced that Trump is the devil, while many on the right believe that he is the greatest American that ever lived.

Of course the truth is that Trump is not actually on the far end of the political spectrum that currently exists in this country. There is a lot about Trump that liberals should actually like, and there is a lot about Trump that conservatives should actually be criticizing. But that is not how the debate has been framed. If you hate Trump you are on the left, and if you love Trump you are on the right, and that is the end of the story.

In 2020, a couple things happened that caused new manufactured waves of outrage. One was the tragic death of George Floyd. His death sparked the BLM movement, and our country was whipped up into an emotional frenzy. Protests, civil unrest and riots erupted all over the nation, and the level of violence that we witnessed shocked the entire planet.

But if you did not support the protesters, you were suddenly a bad person. Instead, it was the police that were relentlessly demonized by the media, and this greatly upset a lot of us that are very supportive of the police.

Without a doubt, the U.S. has had problems with police brutality. And without a doubt, there is a lot of racism out there. I have been boldly speaking out against racism for many years, and I will continue to speak out against it. I believe that every man, woman and child on the entire planet was created equal, and I believe that every single one of us possesses immense value. But there were millions upon millions of us that did not agree with the political agenda of the BLM movement, and many of the specific political positions that the organization adopted were deeply alarming. Does that make us bad just because we don’t agree with their far left agenda?

2020 also brought us the COVID pandemic. Our societal divisions became deeper than ever before as we endlessly debated about masks, vaccines, mandates and other restrictions. Manufactured waves of outrage about COVID dominated our national discourse for nearly two full years, but we were finally getting to a point where we were almost ready to put it all behind us.

And then the Ukraine war came along, and now everyone has a reason to be outraged again. I think that Elon Musk summed things up very well in one of his latest tweets.

pic.twitter.com/CfoJ3qdCRJ

- Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 14, 2022

You may have noticed that hordes of social media lemmings are plastering their profiles with Ukrainian flags these days. Next month, they may have to switch back to COVID again. Then in May, the hot topic may be racial injustice. Of course every June is reserved for the alphabet people.

Social media has become a very clear reflection of society as a whole, and so much of what goes on in our world today is being driven by social media. Last week, I was stunned to learn that the Biden administration had actually conducted a briefing on the war in Ukraine for 30 key TikTok influencers… "To get ahead of misinformation and spread its messaging, the Biden administration on Thursday briefed 30 top TikTok stars on key information regarding the war in Ukraine, The Washington Post reports.

The online influencers received updates about the U.S.’ “strategic goals in the region” while National Security Council staffers and White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki “answered questions on distributing aid to Ukrainians, working with NATO, and how the United States would react to a Russian use of nuclear weapons.”

Can you imagine the Reagan administration doing such a thing? Of course not. But the world has changed. Today, the elite need the support of influencers on social media, because those social media influencers can whip up tremendous waves of manufactured outrage.

If you asked random U.S. social media users to tell you what caused the war in Ukraine, the vast majority of them could not give you any sort of a coherent answer. And the vast majority of them would not be able to point out Ukraine on a blank map of the world. But they do know that Russia is really bad and Ukraine is really good, and that is all that the elite really need for them to know.

For years, I have been encouraging my readers to think for themselves. Because if you don’t learn to think for yourself, there are others that will be more than happy to do your thinking for you. That can be a tempting path to follow, but when you let others do your thinking for you it is way too easy for them to manipulate your emotions with the latest wave of manufactured outrage."

- http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

"In These Downbeat Times..."

"In these downbeat times, we need as much hope and courage as we do vision and analysis; we must accent the best of each other even as we point out the vicious effects of our racial divide and pernicious consequences of our maldistribution of wealth and power. We simply cannot live in the twenty-first century at each others throats, even as we acknowledge the weighty forces of racism, patriarchy, economic inequality, homophobia, and ecological abuse on our necks. We are at a crucial crossroad in the history of this nation - and we either hang together by combating these forces that divide and degrade us or we hang separately. Do we have the intelligence, humor, imagination, courage, tolerance, love, respect, and will to meet the challenge? Time will tell. None of us alone can save the nation or world. But each of us can make a positive difference if we commit ourselves to do so."

- Cornel West

Deuter, "Endless Horizon"

Deuter, "Endless Horizon"

Full screen recommended. Feel it...

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"I cannot paint

What then I was. The sounding cataract

Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,

The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,

Their colors and their forms, were then to me

An appetite; a feeling and a love,

That had no need of a remoter charm,

By thought supplied, not any interest

Unborrowed from the eye.

That time is past,

And all its aching joys are now no more,

And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this

Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur: other gifts

Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,

Abundant recompense. 

For I have learned

To look on nature, not as in the hour

Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes

The still, sad music of humanity,

Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power

To chasten and subdue." 

- William Wordsworth,

"Lines Written A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey"

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“Some feelings sink so deep into the heart that 

only loneliness can help you find them again. 

Some truths are so painful that only shame can help you live with them. 

Some things are so sad that only your soul can do the crying for them.”

- Gregory David Roberts, "Shantaram"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Globular clusters once ruled the Milky Way. Back in the old days, back when our Galaxy first formed, perhaps thousands of globular clusters roamed our Galaxy. Today, there are less than 200 left. Many globular clusters were destroyed over the eons by repeated fateful encounters with each other or the Galactic center. Surviving relics are older than any Earth fossil, older than any other structures in our Galaxy, and limit the universe itself in raw age.

There are few, if any, young globular clusters in our Milky Way Galaxy because conditions are not ripe for more to form. Pictured above by the Hubble Space Telescope are about 100,000 of M72's stars. M72, which spans about 50 light years and lies about 50,000 light years away, can be seen with a small telescope toward the constellation of the Water Bearer (Aquarius).”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120819.html

"Catastrophic Inflation: 'I’ve Never Seen Prices Jump This High, This Fast'”

Full screen recommended.

"Catastrophic Inflation: 

'I’ve Never Seen Prices Jump This High, This Fast'”

by Epic Economist

"The U.S. economy is heading to an inflationary collapse of catastrophic proportions. What we’re witnessing right now are just the very early stages of that meltdown. The road will only get bumpier from here. Last week, official agencies reported that consumer prices have jumped 7.9% in February compared to one year ago, breaking the previous record set in January and marking the highest rate of inflation in 40 years. Of course, if you watch our videos on a regular basis, you already know that the reality is much worse than it seems.

Over the past seven days, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the U.S. went up by 13 percent, and compared to a year ago, gasoline prices soared by an impressive 38 percent. And now that the conflict is threatening to disrupt global energy exports, Americans will have to cope with skyrocketing energy prices all across the board. Drivers are already facing sticker shock at gas stations all over the country, but there are many other ways in which higher global energy costs can ripple through the economy. For example, there have been reports of airlines reducing the number of flights due to soaring fuel costs. Meanwhile, truckers are adding fuel surcharges to be able to deliver goods across the nation. During an interview, one trucking company executive was asked about the current state of affairs and the impacts of rising fuel prices, and he said that this situation is extremely distressing for both customers and service providers.

“Customers really don’t want to hear it, but fuel prices are going through the roof so we’re having to charge more,” said John Migliorini, vice president of Lakeville Trucking in Rochester, N.Y., where diesel costs have nearly doubled to about $400,000 a month. “What choice do we have? I’ve never seen prices jump this high, this fast.” And he is absolutely right. A new study released by the UN, analysts warned that global food prices could soon face another double-digit spike. This is really devastating news for the billions of people that are already living in poverty all over the planet. Last month, food prices had reached another record due to high demand, input and transportation costs, and port disruptions. The new price increases mean that the global number of undernourished people could surge by eight to 13 million people in 2022, according to FAO. As a result, grocery prices are going to get a lot more expensive. At the end of the day, consumers end up paying for the crises caused by global leaders.

Meanwhile, our own economic conflict with Russia continues to get worse. The U.S. government has launched a series of economic sanctions on Russia, and they’re causing severe damages to the Russian economy. But ours is going to be impacted just as well. Palladium and neon are two resources that are key to the production of semiconductor chips. And considering that Russia supplies over 40 percent of the world’s supply of palladium and Ukraine produces 70 percent of the global supply of neon, the global semiconductor shortage is going to become even more acute in the coming months. We cannot underestimate the seriousness of this shortage. Semiconductors are essential components of industrial machinery. Without them, it’s not possible to make those types of equipment operate properly. So if that shortage aggravates even further, our domestic manufacturing is going to significantly slow down as companies are forced to shut down factories, leading to mass lay-offs and billions in losses.

And this is just one way out of hundreds that our economy is going to be impacted by the sanctions imposed on Russia. Most Americans do not understand how terrible conditions will become if this conflict persists for an extended period of time. At this point, we should hope for the best but prepare for the worst because the things we’re watching play out right in front of our eyes may be the events that change modern life forever."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com/

"Retail Investors Will Be Sacrificed., Not Blackrock; Markets Fall Apart Again; Beware Bank Closures"

Jeremiah Babe, PM 3/14/22:

"Retail Investors Will Be Sacrificed., Not Blackrock;

 Markets Fall Apart Again; Beware Bank Closures"

"Fake Economics is Alive and Well"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly, 3/14/22:

"Fake Economics is Alive and Well"

"It seems that the only consistency in the Markets is that they are fake. It’s crazy that when we get bad news the market goes up. This week is going to be very tumultuous because we’re going to get a tremendous amount of bad news that will affect worldwide economics. We should have a cataclysmic drop off of the stock market."

The Daily "Near You?"

Niceville, Florida, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"The Last Straw"

"The Last Straw"

by Jim Rickards

"The U.S. and its allies in the EU and others around the world have imposed the harshest economic sanctions on Russia that have ever been used. In the past, even nations directly at war with each other would continue to pay the debts they owed each other. Since this war is in Ukraine, let’s look at another war that took place in present Ukraine from 1854–56, during the Crimean War.

Britain (and France) was at war with Russia. Yet throughout the war, the Russian government kept paying interest to British holders of its debt. The British government also kept paying its debts to the Russian government. One British minister said that civilized nations should pay their debts, even to an enemy during wartime.

But that was then and this is now. The U.S. and its European allies outside of Ukraine aren’t even directly at war with Russia (not yet anyway), but they’ve still imposed the most punitive economic sanctions in history. To a great extent, the Russian economy has been cut out of the global economy.

The Effects Will Last for Decades: Russia has been kicked out of the SWIFT global financial telecommunications system. A long list of Russian banks, oligarchs and major companies have been listed among those who cannot transact with Western parties. These include Gazprom (the major Russian natural gas company), among others. Biden has also prohibited exports of semiconductors, high-tech equipment and other technology to Russia. When you add it all up, we should expect a decline on the order of 25% in Russian GDP in the first half of 2022. That’s massive.

Even when the kinetic war is over, probably in a month or so, the economic war will continue and the effects on the global economy (not just Russia) will last for decades. Still, Russia is not a punching bag that takes hits without hitting back. They’ll fight the sanctions both with retaliatory measures of their own and with inventive workarounds designed to defeat the sanctions.

For example, Russia will be teaming up with China to roll out the Chinese credit card system (UnionPay) for Russian consumers. This comes after Visa and Mastercard ended all business with Russia. Their efforts won’t end there.

Good Luck Sanctioning Russian Gold: Russia is working with banks in China and India to reestablish hard currency payment channels. There’s now proposed legislation in the U.S. Senate to freeze gold reserves held by the Central Bank of Russia. Well, here’s the problem: The gold is physical, about 2,300 metric tonnes worth about $150 billion, and is stored inside Russia. It can’t actually be frozen or seized at all. The legislation would impose secondary boycott sanctions on any party that assists Russia in transporting or transacting in gold. But this presumed sanction would be easy to evade.

For example, if Russia puts 100 metric tonnes of gold on a plane and flies it to Beijing in exchange for manufactured goods, they’re not exactly going to issue a press release about it. That’s the kind of transaction that will go undetected by U.S. intelligence.

Gold is an element, atomic number 79, and is easily melted down and re-refined into new gold bars with Chinese markings that are untraceable. The Central Bank of Russia can buy more gold from Russian miners for rubles to make up for the shipment. Again, that gold is untraceable (Russia and China both have numerous gold refineries). If this is the best the U.S. can do then Putin is not only on his way to winning the shooting war, but he may win the financial war as well.

Unintended Consequences: Russia has also implemented capital controls that will shift the pain of sanctions from Russian borrowers to Western lenders who will now suffer defaults on the Russian bonds they own. And Russia has announced that it will cut off exports of important chemicals, metals and processed gasses to any nation that has sanctioned Russia. These exports are indispensable to manufacturing processes including semiconductors, automobiles and agriculture. In the end, most of the economic pain will fall on Western manufacturing and farming.

This is where the law of unintended consequences comes into play. Over 65% of the processed neon gas used to power lasers that make semiconductors comes from Ukraine. Between 35% and 50% of strategic metals, such as titanium and aluminum, used in aircraft manufacture by Boeing and Airbus come from Russia. Much of the grain that feeds the Middle East and Africa comes either from Ukraine or Russia. Russia also exports metals used in battery production for EVs including lithium, cobalt and nickel. The list goes on topped by oil, natural gas and coal, where Russia is the leading supplier to Europe.

If Russia follows through, we could be looking at a shutdown of major industries around the world from semiconductors (essential for automobiles, appliances, electronics, etc.) to heavy equipment and transportation. The Biden administration will find out the hard way that in a globalized, densely connected world, what happens in Russia doesn’t stay in Russia. Russia may be the first victim of U.S. sanctions. But the entire world will pay the final price. So will the dollar…

My Vision Is Coming to Pass: In 2009, I facilitated and participated in the first-ever financial war game hosted by the Pentagon. This war game was conducted at the top-secret Warfare Analysis Laboratory of the United States (code name: WALRUS) located in the Applied Physics Laboratory, about halfway between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore.

I wrote about this in 2011 in Chapters 1 and 2 of my book "Currency Wars." The scenario I presented at the time was that Russia and China would accumulate large gold reserves, pool their gold and launch a new digital currency backed by gold in place of the U.S. dollar. Russia and China would then insist that any purchases of Russian energy or Chinese manufactured goods be paid for in the new currency. It would be a clear-cut effort to get out from under U.S. dollar hegemony and to protect themselves from U.S. dollar-based economic sanctions. Of course, that’s exactly what’s playing out today.

The Last Straw for Russia and the World: It took the U.S. dollar 33 years (1914–1944) to achieve its status as the leading global reserve currency. The dollar lost its gold link in 1971 but remained the leading reserve currency due in part to the petrodollar deal that was worked out by Nixon and Kissinger in 1974. The world was flooded with dollars through a combination of Fed money printing and U.S. trade deficits.

The difficulties began in the 1990s and early 2000s when the U.S. used financial sanctions to punish enemies such as Iran, North Korea, Venezuela and, to a limited extent, Russia. The U.S. kept going back to sanctions over and over. Now that the U.S. has frozen the reserves of the Central Bank of Russia, this is the last straw for Russia and the world.

After all, if dollar reserves are no longer a safe haven, then who needs dollar reserves? The world will demand something more dependable that can’t be frozen on U.S. whims. The U.S. is destroying the value of the dollar by abusing sanctions. In the future, the dollar will not be that important. It won’t happen overnight, but the unprecedented sanctions against Russia will only accelerate the process."

- dailyreckoning.com

"The Great Depression II"; “The Bubble Pops March 16th At Exactly 2 P.M"

"The Great Depression II"

by Jeff Thomas

"Whenever a movie has been a huge hit, the film industry tries to follow it up by doing a sequel. The sequel is almost invariably far more costly, as there’s the anticipation by those who create it that it will be an even bigger blockbuster than the original.

The Great Depression of the 1930’s is seen by most people to be the be-all and end-all of economic catastrophes and there’s good reason for that. Although the economic cycle has always existed, the period leading up to October 1929 was unusual, as those in the financial sector had become unusually creative.

Brokers encouraged people to buy into the stock market as heavily as they could afford to. When that business began to level off, they encouraged people to buy on margin. The idea was that the buyer would only put up a fraction of the money for the purchase and the broker would "guarantee" full payment to the seller. As a condition to the agreement, the buyer would have to relinquish to the broker the right to sell his stock at any point that he wished, should he feel the need to do so to get himself off the hook in the event of a significant economic change.

Both the buyer and the broker were buying stocks with money that neither one had. But the broker entered into the gamble so that he could charge commissions, which he would be paid immediately. The buyer entered into the gamble, as he had been promised by the broker that stocks were "going to the moon" and that he’d become rich.

Banks got into the game, as well. At one time, banks took money on deposit, then lent that money out at interest. They would always retain a percentage of the deposited money within the bank to assure that they could meet whatever the normal demand for withdrawals might be. But, eventually, bankers figured out that, if they were prepared to gamble, they could lend out far more money – many times the amount that they had received on deposit. As long as very few loans turned bad, they would eventually get the money back, with interest.

And so, in the 1920’s, they loaned money to people so that they could buy into the stock market more heavily. From that point forward, an investor who was tapped out and couldn’t afford to buy more stock, then bought on margin. When he was no longer able to even afford to buy on margin, he borrowed money from the bank to buy on margin. That meant that only a tiny percentage of the "money" that passed hands actually existed. The great majority of investment funds only existed on paper.

Of course, the very existence of this absurd anomaly depended upon a market that was thriving and moving steadily upward. If for any reason, there were a sudden loss of confidence in the banks, large numbers of depositors would demand to withdraw their deposits and there would be bank failures, as the banks had been playing with money that did not exist. Likewise, if that loss of confidence were to take place with regard to the stock market, large numbers of stockholders would try to sell at the same time and the market would collapse, as the brokers had been playing with money that did not exist.

In the 1920’s, fortunes were being made by those who ran banks and brokerage houses – at a rate that greatly exceeded anything that had ever existed. Unfortunately, they’d created the greatest financial bubble in history and, when it popped, as all bubbles do, it popped in a very big way.

Thousands of banks were wiped out. Thousands of brokerage houses were wiped out. And millions of investors were wiped out. Not surprising that laws were then passed to assure that such a disaster could never occur again. Of particular importance was the Glass Steagall Act.

Then, in 1999, Glass Steagall was repealed. This was done under the advice of Fed chairman Alan Greenspan, and was accepted readily by then-president Bill Clinton, as he was assured that the repeal would mean a dramatic increase in investment, which would assure a shining legacy for him as he left office.

My own first reaction to the repeal was that, over the ensuing years, we’d see irrational investment in the real estate market, made possible through bank loans. This would lead to a crash in real estate, followed by a crash in the stock market. I believed that this debacle would be papered over by governments, eventually leading to a further crash, and that the latter crash would be of epic proportions.

But, why should this be? Why should the second crash be so much greater? Well, the magnitude of a crash tends to be equal to the magnitude of the economic abnormality that preceded it. The crash of 1929 was greater than previous crashes, because bankers and brokers had found new ways to inflate the bubble beyond anything that had existed before. Likewise, they’ve become even more creative this time around and have inflated the bubble far beyond what existed in 1929. The level of debt far exceeds anything the world has ever seen.

The 2008 crash was, in effect, a mini-crash. No correction ever took place. Instead, it was papered over by massive increased debt, assuring that, when the inevitable big crash did occur, the severity would be far beyond any other crash in history. The sequel to the 1929 crash will be much like movie sequels. With movies, the producers invest more money into the sequel than they spent on the original movie, in the belief that, if they just throw enough money at it, it will somehow be better and make them even more money than the original.

Likewise in economic events, the assumption is that, if a great deal of money had been made in the buildup to the last major collapse, surely, by creating even more debt this time around, the profit to be made will be far greater than before. And this has proven to be true. Financial institutions have entered into an era of profit that has historically been without equal. The original was a monster and the sequel will prove to be an even bigger monster.

Of course, there’s a difference between movies and economic events. With movies, the producers cash in when the moviegoers pay their admissions fee. With economic crises, the producers make their fortunes in the lead-up to the crash. The crash itself simply passes the bill for the disaster to the moviegoers.

The question that’s always asked prior to any crash is, "When will it happen?" Unfortunately, although crises can be analyzed and predicted beforehand, the date is more uncertain. The decisive factor is the loss of confidence by the general public. When they collectively get weak knees about the economic future – when they withdraw their deposits from banks and sell their shares in the market, the bubble will suddenly pop.

And so, the actual screening of this particular epic could be a year from now, or it could be next week. So, it might be premature to buy your box of popcorn now, but, when crashes come, they come suddenly and without warning. Since it’s not possible to predict an exact date, those who don’t wish to be casualties of the collapse may wish to prepare for it – to get free of debt, to liquidate assets that will be devalued in a crisis, to turn the proceeds into real money (precious metals) and to relocate to a place that’s likely to be less impacted by the monetary and social crisis that will ensue."

- internationalman.com

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“The Bubble Pops Tomorrow - Jim Rickards"

by Brian Maher

"Jim Rickards has been on TV countless times warning of the massive stock market bubble. But he’s never issued a warning like this. Because on March 16th at exactly 2 p.m… This bubble is finally set to pop. And when it does it could take the entire U.S. financial system down with it. With less than 48 hours on the clock, there’s nothing left to do but prepare. So click here now to see what’s coming and what he recommends.

"This Weird Pattern Has Preceded Every Market Crash Since 1919…

And It’s Set To Appear Again On March 16th At Exactly 2 P.M."

- dailyreckoning.com

Gregory Mannarino, "The UN Warns Of Possible Nuclear War; Gold, Silver, Crude Fall"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 3/14/22:

"The UN Warns Of Possible Nuclear War;

 Gold, Silver, Crude Fall"

- https://traderschoice.net

Bill Bonner, "The Liberal World Order"

"The Liberal World Order"

Corporate chiefs, Wall Street heavies, 

Hollywood celebrities and other empty-headed jackassery...

by Bill Bonner

     "Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur."

      "The world wants to be deceived, so let it be deceived."

San Martin, Argentina - "The US media is privately owned. But it acts an arm of the US government… which is itself an arm of the Entire Elite Establishment (EEE, aka the “liberal world order.”) No surprise. Reporters go to the same schools, read the same newspapers, and believe the same things as Washington’s movers and shakers. They are not intentional propagandists; they just see the world in the same way. So, they generally accept the whole agenda – equity, de-carbonization, racism, financial manipulation, military adventurism, neutral pronouns etc. – of the ‘liberal world order.’ In other words, they become cheerleaders for the powerful EEE, not critics of it.

Never has this been clearer than reporting on the war between Russia and the Ukraine. The war in itself is nothing remarkable. Russia insists that Ukraine remain a neutral buffer between itself and NATO. Ukraine – lured and spurred by the US – doesn’t want to do that.

The whole brouhaha should be of little interest to the average American. His problems are here at home – such as $5 a gallon gasoline – and they are being made worse by the US sanctions. But every headline insists that he take an interest. And they tell him which side to support. Ukrainians are noble freedom-lovers (rarely are its neo-Nazis mentioned) and the Russians are brutes. Putin is compared to Hitler. The Russian army is accused of dastardly war crimes, etc. Last week, one ‘news’ item even featured an adorable stray puppy that had attached himself to a Ukrainian military unit. Are there no puppies among the Russians? Apparently not.

Much of the coverage is just puffery and claptrap. Some stories are actual lies – the Russians did not attack a nuclear reactor… Miss Ukraine is not actually fighting for her country. And some delicious details are hardly noticed; Zelensky really is a former clown/comedian who got elected after playing a teacher on TV who got elected president! Life imitates art… especially when the art is (allegedly) funded by George Soros.

But little attempt is made to observe, study or understand. Instead, the ‘liberal world order’ is on the field itself. Zelensky leads the home team. And the American media… along with the public, as gullible as ever… puts on its jerseys and flies its colors.

McUnhappy Deal: You can fool most of the people most of the time. And that’s plenty for government work. People want to be fooled. That’s what politicians, with their empty-headed jackassery, depend on. And corporate chiefs, Wall Street heavies, and Hollywood celebrities join in too… and share the glory of the winning team.

Leonardo de Caprio said he has sent money to Ukraine. McDonald’s shut down its business in Russia. Wall Street is pulling out too. Business Insider: "Goldman Sachs is shutting down its operations in Russia, becoming the first major US bank to do so. The company said the move was "in compliance with regulatory and licensing requirements."

From the UK comes word that fans may not even be able to watch a soccer match. Because the team’s owner is Russian. Bloomberg’s Matt Levine is on the story: "The U.K. froze the assets of Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich, as Boris Johnson’s government dramatically stepped up its sanctions against prominent Russians over the invasion of Ukraine.

Abramovich and six others face a full asset freeze and travel ban, and are prohibited from transacting with U.K. citizens or businesses, the Foreign Office said in a statement Thursday. The move effectively derails Abramovich’s plan to sell Chelsea, which plays in England’s highest soccer league, and raises major questions about the future of the club.

Chelsea won’t be able to sell new tickets for matches, including games in the European Champions League, and the club’s merchandise stores will be closed. Player transfers are banned, as are new contracts."

Speaking of Sanctions…: Even Switzerland is giving up a foreign policy that has served it well for centuries – neutrality – in order to pile on. The Swiss had protected American oil and metals trader Marc Rich for almost two decades, after he was accused of dealing with Iran (among other things). Legal scholars at Harvard and Georgetown later concluded that he had committed no crime; they advised Bill Clinton to give him a pardon, which he did. But henceforth, oligarchs, dictators, traders… Christians or Jews – none can depend on Switzerland to shield them from the long arm of the ‘liberal world order.’"

Yes, dear reader, sanctions work! Look at what they are doing to Afghanistan. USA Today: "As a result of all this economic disruption, including the loss of billions of dollars of aid, 22.8 million people – more than half the population – are facing acute food insecurity. They include a million children under 5 "at risk of dying due to severe acute malnutrition," according to UNICEF." It is not clear why the Biden administration has imposed such devastating sanctions on Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, the Chinese look on. Tom Friedman believes they have a simple choice. They can stick with Putin. Or they can join the ‘western’ coalition against him. Seeing the awesome firepower of our weaponized money system, he thinks they will buckle under: "There are signs that China recognizes some of these new realities - that no country is too big to be canceled in the wired world."

Get it? The end of history. No country can stand against the ‘liberal world order.’ The wired world has been leveled after all. And yet, the media never even asks the basic question: what does the fight between Ukraine and Russia matter to Americans? Why are we so keen to expand the ‘liberal world order’ onto the Eurasian steppes? What’s it really all about? Or, to put it more provocatively, and borrowing from Country Joe and the Fish who asked the same question about the War in Vietnam, “it’s one, two, three…what are we fightin’ for?”

Might food shortages be another “unintended consequence” of the global upheaval right now? We’ve seen (and continue to see) rising prices at the pump and a squeeze on industrial metals. But while people are generally not too put out having to wait an extra week or two for their iGadgets and expendable luxury trinkets, going without wheat, corn, soy and other essential crops is a whole ‘nutha story. Remember the Arab Spring? Imagine that… but impacting billions of people worldwide.

Tune in tomorrow..."

- bonnerprivateresearch@substack.com

"What Can We Know?"

“What can we know? What are we all? Poor silly

 half-brained things peering out at the infinite, 

with the aspirations of angels and the instinct of beasts.”

- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

"Man has one name, and many more than two natures. But the 

essential two are these: that he shall strive to impose order on chaos,

and that he shall strive to take advantage of chaos…

A third element of man's nature is this:

that he shall not understand what he is doing."

- John Brunner

Jim Kunstler, "Playing Dumb"

"Playing Dumb"

by Jim Kunstler

"It must be obvious by now that the biggest complainers about “misinformation” in the USA are biggest spreaders of it. When you hear “baseless” and “conspiracy theory” do you not automatically now scent the rot of propaganda working through the delicate tissues of reality? Eventually the stench of psyop is so sharp that it even wakes up the walking dead.

Would our country be disappointed if Russia actually solves the problem of Ukraine? You have every reason to think so. For one thing, we would be stuck having to face our own problems, especially the ones caused by lying to ourselves, such as the nearly unthinkable obscenity of having possibly poisoned a majority of the US population with mRNA “vaccines” and killed hundreds of thousands of Covid-19 patients by withholding known effective treatments? What would you suppose we might do about that?

Hold people accountable? The scale of this disaster is so enormous that the country can’t begin to process it. And it’s not just us, it’s all of Western Civ, which is more or less interchangeable with NATO, now the chosen instrument of distraction. Do any of these member nations have the stomach to face their own gross institutional failures? Apparently not yet.

Even in the face of massive emerging data that the “vaccines” are a bust and have additionally injured and killed many people, the CDC still urges Americans to vaxx up and boost up. So, by the way, does allegedly “former president” Barack Obama, who tested positive for the virus over the weekend, despite being vaxxed to the max. Who will tell them to stop digging that hole they’re in before they dig all the way to China?

It’s only a matter of time before the swindled public flips and realizes it has been subject to mass murder by bureaucrats, politicians, doctors, pharmaceutical companies, and purveyors of the news. They’re all in this up to their necks, as are their corresponding officials in France, Germany, the UK, et cetera. They are trying to sweep this enormous lump of depravity under the rug, hoping that the masses of citizens will just leave the room.

They used the same playbook for SpyGate and 2020 election fraud, but the odor of those two exploits lingers, too. CBS’s 60-Minutes (“brought to you by Pfizer!”) was still working the latest narrative failure Sunday night, attempting to defame special prosecutor and former state supreme court justice Michael Gableman’s 2020 Wisconsin election report, which accused Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg of feloniously queering the vote by paying millions of dollars through a cut-out charity organization to replace actual local officials with Democratic Party activists to run the machinery of the election. Nothing to see there, declared CBS front-man Bill Whitaker. Judge Gableman’s report is just another conspiracy theory.

Threatened by losing the war against its own citizens, the US government now seeks a wider kinetic war over its would-be client state, Ukraine. The stakes must be pretty high for “Joe Biden” and Company to risk starting World War Three. Why else inflame a dangerous situation by sending more weapons there? I’ll tell you why: to prolong Russia’s operations to neutralize Ukraine so it won’t cause further trouble to them or anybody else in the world. The longer the US can keep that going, the longer we can put off the various reckonings at home.

America has no intention of actually defending Ukraine. It’s really just a global version of the interpersonal game “Let’s You and Him Fight,” as described by pioneering psychologist Eric Berne (1910 -1970), father of transactional analysis. The member nations of NATO have even less desire to join the battle, and are doing a poor job of pretending they oppose Russia’s disagreeable but necessary work there. So far, they have had to sacrifice desperately needed natural gas supplies from Russia. You can be sure they will find a way to sneak around US sanctions and reverse the blunder. They have no choice really, unless they want to go forward without any industries. Google-up the paintings of Pieter Bruegel the Elder and you’ll catch a glimpse of that possible European future. Of course, they’ll also have to answer to their own citizens for the awful mistakes of Covid-19.

The best outcome, as others have pointed out, will be the disassembly of Ukraine into an eastern Russian zone - perhaps annexed into Russia - and a rump western Ukraine state that will be as quiet and inoffensive as Moldova and Slovakia next door (When was the last time they caused any trouble in the world?) It would be best for everyone, and especially the Third World, if the Russian operation is concluded as quickly as possible with a structured peace settlement, leaving a chance to get a Ukrainian grain crop planted, because otherwise a lot of innocent people will go hungry. Is the USA interested in a peace settlement? Or do we want to drive events further toward tragedy and our own national suicide?"

- https://kunstler.com/

"How It REALLY Is"

"Diesel $10/gal At This Gas Station. Regular $8.75/gal"

"The U.S. of A-Bomb: How American Nuclear Weapons Changed the Course of Human History" (Excerpt)

"The U.S. of A-Bomb: How American Nuclear 

Weapons Changed the Course of Human History" (Excerpt)

by AMMODOTCOM

"The United States of America can take pride in a number of things, among them arguably the two greatest cultural and scientific achievements of human history: The moon landing and atomic power. It is the latter that we will focus on in the article, the unleashing of the power of the atom, for good and for ill.

America was the first nation to split the atom and applied it immediately to the war effort. It was not for a lack of trying on the part of America’s rivals: Germany famously had their own nuclear program. Less well known is that the Empire of Japan was also looking for a way to weaponize the primal forces of nature.

But America got there first. And their ability to do so not only changed the course of the Second World War, it also changed the course of human history. For the first time ever, mankind has the ability to wipe away human life as we know it at the push of a button. On the other hand, we also have a clean, reliable fuel source that could outstrip all existing sources, if the political will were there.

This is the story of how America unleashed and harnessed the power of nuclear fission, for better or for worse."

Please view this complete article here:

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

"The Beginning Of The End Of The Road To Serfdom"

"The Beginning Of The End Of The Road To Serfdom"

by Charles Hugh Smith

"You may have noticed the news flow beyond the hot war in Ukraine is largely focused on capital: financial capital (markets, liquidity, interest rates, commodities, central bank tightening, etc.) and political capital (geopolitical maneuvering, sanctions, revising energy and defense policies, etc.) Notice who's left out, unnoticed and invisible? The serfs, the bottom 90% who have been decapitalized in the developed world and exploited in the developing world for the past 45 years.

With capital ascendant, the vast majority of financial and political gains flowed to the top tier of speculative capital (banks and billionaires) while the purchasing power of labor (i.e. wages) has been in a 45-year descent. (See chart below)

This disemboweling of labor transferred $50 trillion from labor to capital in the U.S. alone. Financialization and globalization devalued labor and working-class assets such as savings and boosted leveraged speculative bets only available to financiers and corporations, for example, stock buybacks funded by the tsunami of free money for financiers unleashed by the Federal Reserve and other central banks. (See chart below)

Even though the corporate media gives it no notice, serf-expression will become increasingly consequential. No, serf-expression is not a typo for self-expression, the core doctrine of modernism. By serf-expression I mean the serf's expression of what is no longer acceptable. Another term for this is cultural revolution. I address social and cultural revolutions in my new book, "Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States."

"Is a Cultural Revolution Brewing in America?" (April 9, 2021)

When the serfs no longer believe in the divine right of banks and billionaires, then the concentration of economic and political power in the hands of the few will no longer be acceptable, regardless of the fawning rationalizations being offered by the toadies, sycophants, enforcers, apparatchiks, minions, lackeys and other apologists for a status quo that benefits the few at the expense of the many.

Serf expressions are not organized by centralized political parties; they are self-organizing revolts against a failed religion worshiping capital and a failed system of centralized authoritarianism and exploitation. Serf expressions arise without warning and cannot be controlled by centralized authoritarianism, as the revolution is in the sphere of values and what's no longer acceptable, rather than in the sphere of politics.

Serf expressions will surprise a ruling order that reckoned the serfs would docilely accept any level of exploitation. Alexis De Tocqueville's trenchant description from his classic book, "Democracy in America" (1840), comes to mind: "The will is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided: men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting: such a power does not destroy... it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes and stupefies a people, till the nation is reduced to be nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals."

Eventually the "flock of timid and industrious animals" changes their minds about how much exploitation by the few is acceptable. Every repressive move by centralized authorities will only harden the resolve of the serfs that the divine right of banks and billionaires is false and the exploitation of the many for the benefit of the few is no longer acceptable.

The ruling elites' vast army of well-paid toadies, sycophants, enforcers, apparatchiks, minions and lackeys are all quick to declare this is impossible. Let's check back in ten years, in 2032, and see who's right."

- https://www.zerohedge.com

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Related:

"They’ve Conditioned Us And Enslaved Us…"

"Massive Shortages At Walmart! - What's Next? - Sevierville Tennessee!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures with Danno, 3/14/22:

"Massive Shortages At Walmart! - What's Next? - Sevierville Tennessee!"

"In today's vlog we are at Walmart with empty shelves everywhere! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices, and a massive food shortage! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"

Gregory Mannarino, "Important Updates! Chemical Attacks, Energy Shortages, And A Veterinarian"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 3/14/22:

"Important Updates! 

Chemical Attacks, Energy Shortages, And A Veterinarian"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"Economic Market Snapshot 3/14/22"

Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...

Only the consequences are real - to you!

○

"Economic Market Snapshot 3/14/22"

Updated as available.

MarketWatch Market Summary, Live Updates

- https://www.marketwatch.com/tools/marketsummary

○

CNN Market Data:

- http://money.cnn.com/data/markets/

CNN Fear And Greed Index:

- http://money.cnn.com/data/fear-and-greed/

○

Latest Market Analysis, Updated 3/14/22

- https://www.asktraders.com/analysis/

○

A comprehensive, essential daily read.

March 13th to 15th, 2022

- http://www.shadowstats.com/

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Financial Stress Index

"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI) is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: credit, equity valuation, funding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United States, other advanced economies, and emerging markets."

○

Daily Job Cuts

- https://www.dailyjobcuts.com/

○

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

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- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

○

- https://wallstreetonparade.com/

○

- https://www.whatreallyhappened.com/

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- https://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/

○

Commentary, highly recommended:

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

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"The more I see of the monied classes,

the better I understand the guillotine."

- George Bernard Shaw

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Oh yeah...

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And now... The End Game...