Bill Bonner, "Tilting at Windmills

"Tilting at Windmills

Circular thinking on how to ruin a perfectly imperfect economy.

by Bill Bonner

"You cannot step into the same river twice, 

for other waters are continually flowing on."

~ Heraclitus

Geneva, Switzerland - "Herewith… a rumination on why the economy cannot recover from the damage inflicted since 2008.

We drove back up to Paris on Saturday… Almost immediately, our rental car began scolding us about our speed, crossing the white line, following too close and so forth. This electronic back seat driving is completely unnecessary. That’s what we have wives for. Then, stopping at a roadside restaurant for breakfast, we were disappointed to find it had no orange juice on the menu. “We haven’t gotten a delivery of oranges in weeks,” the young woman explained. “What…they grow oranges in the Ukraine, too?” The girl laughed. But we all know that the Ukraine is the new Covid – it explains everything.

All-Time Gas High: Maybe US gasoline comes from the Ukraine too. CBS News Los Angeles reports: "Gas prices in Los Angeles have yet again reached an all-time high, just as 3.1 million Southern Californians were expected to hit the roads and skies over the extended Memorial Day Weekend. As the number of travelers rose, so did gas prices and cost of travel, as Los Angeles experienced it's fifth-consecutive day of increasing gas prices, reaching a record $6.16 per gallon – up nearly two dollars from the previous Memorial Day record of $4.29 in 2012. One gas station in Beverly Grove displayed an astounding $7.49 per gallon of regular unleaded gas."

In the past, we looked forward to a drive in France. The countryside is beautiful… punctuated by fascinating castles and picturesque towns. But today, the view is effaced by monsters – huge ‘eoliennes’ – wind turbines, hundreds of them. You look over a charmingly bucolic scene… and there they are… menacing… like an army of giant robot warriors from outer space, with their deadly blades slicing the air, ready to do battle with all things human.

The turbines are supposed to generate electricity. But many of them were idle. Do they do more harm than good? Do they make the planet worse, not better, by ruining the sweet landscapes that have charmed artists and tourists for generations? Are they like face masks… a sign of mindless obedience, destroying the beauty of France in order to appease the Green Gods?

Once in Paris, we returned the car to Hertz and then went for lunch at ‘Le Train Bleu,’ an iconic restaurant in the Gare de Lyon. The décor is rich and voluptuous… with ornate, gilded moldings and bare-breasted women sculpted on the walls. It was built for the Paris Exposition of 1900 and takes its name from the famous “Blue Train” that took travelers from the chilly English Channel all the way to the Mediterranean. Large paintings still recall the cities served by the train and the warm glory of the South of France in the 19th century.

(Le Train Bleu in Gare de Lyon. Source: Getty Images)

Today, the Gare de Lyon serves Provence, and carries passengers to Lyon, Marseilles, Grenoble, Cannes… and of course Geneva. And the restaurant, in the train station itself, celebrates not only the technological progress of the Third Republique… but the sumptuous ebullience of the Belle Epoque, too.

Crazier and Crazier: Our son, Henry, lives in Paris; he joined us for lunch and brought us up-to-date on France’s situation. “Crazier and crazier;” he gave us his conclusion first. Speaking of France’s ruling class: “They’re not quite as obsessed by things like race and gender. But when it comes to the Green Agenda, the door falls off the hinges. That’s why you see those wind turbines all over the country. The goal is to keep the planet from heating up. Are they effective? I don’t know. But temperature is not the only thing that matters. France used to be beautiful. Now, practically everywhere you look you see those ugly windmills.

Since the power they generate is not really commercially viable, they’re subsidized… which takes capital away from other investments. And since the wind is unreliable, you still need traditional back-up power sources. So when you figure it all out… and add in all the fossil fuel required to make the steel and the concrete, and the environmental damage of having to look at those things, it is not at all certain that you’re ahead of the game.

But that’s just a part of the Green Agenda. Now they’ve got a new law that makes it illegal to throw anything away. It’s part of what they call a ‘circular economy.’ Everything is supposed to be recycled. So, businesses can’t write off unsold inventory, for example. And supermarkets aren’t allowed to throw away food.”

France’s leaders, probably more than those in the US, are technocrats. They do not represent ‘the people’ nor do their bidding. Instead, they believe they are like Moses, leading ‘the people’ to a better world. Henry studied physics in college; he continued: “The idea of the circular economy probably comes from a mistaken reading of the first law of thermodynamics – the conservation of energy. It tells us that the sum of energy in a closed system is constant. It takes energy to make something. So they think you can get the energy back by un-making it. Or save the energy by not making it. But that’s not the way it works. There are a lot of things that go only one way. You can wreck a car. But you can’t un-wreck it. There’s no circularity to it. It’s the end of the line. All you can do is to salvage a few pieces.”

The Ultimate One-Way Road: The same is true for a human life, we thought to ourselves. It only goes one way. And when it comes to the end, you might be able to recycle a few organs, but once the spark of life is gone, you can’t bring the corpse back to life by reassembling the body parts. Time, too, is the ultimate one-way road. You can’t save it. And there’s no backing up. No pausing. No recovering the past. You step into the river only once.

“You use a lot of resources, time, and energy to build a windmill. Of course, you can take it apart. You can break up the concrete foundation, for example. But you can’t just add water and make a new one. Concrete is a one-way phenomenon. As for the rest of it, you’ll just get a lot of scrap steel, plastic, and copper. They can be recycled, but it will cost more – in energy and CO2 emissions – than starting from scratch.

“Same is true for an economy. You can slow it down. You can distort it. You can take it apart. But then, you can’t put the parts back together the way they were. Companies go out of business. Skills are lost. Workers retire… or don’t want to come back to the office. Time can’t be recovered. And capital does not reappear after you wasted it. It’s gone forever.

And who wants to build a new factory if they have to worry that it will be shut down by a new virus? Who wants to buy a bond yielding 3% when the dollar is losing 8% per year? Who’s going to plant more corn when he can’t get parts for his tractor? An economy takes all the ‘knowns’ into account – including the damage that you caused.  It’s a new river, in other words. Like a husband and wife after one has been caught cheating, the marriage can go forward… but it can never go back to what it was."

- bonnerprivateresearch@substack.com

"How It Really Is"

"Massive Price Increases At Sam's Club! What's Next? What's Coming?"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures with Danno, 5/31/22:

"Massive Price Increases At Sam's Club! 

What's Next? What's Coming?"

"In today's vlog we are at Sam's Club, and are noticing massive price increases! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices, and a lot of empty shelves! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"

Gregory Mannarino, "Very Important Must Know Updates"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 5/31/22:

"Very Important Must Know Updates:

10yr Yield, Stocks, Crude, Commodities, Crypto"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"Here's What They Arent Telling You..."

Canadian Prepper, 5/30/22:

"Here's What They Arent Telling You..."

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Cycle of Time"

Full screen recommended.

2002, "Cycle of Time"

Simply beautiful...

"A Look to the Heavens"

“The constellation of Orion holds much more than three stars in a row. A deep exposure shows everything from dark nebula to star clusters, all embedded in an extended patch of gaseous wisps in the greater Orion Molecular Cloud Complex. The brightest three stars on the far left are indeed the famous three stars that make up the belt of Orion. Just below Alnitak, the lowest of the three belt stars, is the Flame Nebula, glowing with excited hydrogen gas and immersed in filaments of dark brown dust.

Click image for larger size.

Below the frame center and just to the right of Alnitak lies the Horsehead Nebula, a dark indentation of dense dust that has perhaps the most recognized nebular shapes on the sky. On the upper right lies M42, the Orion Nebula, an energetic caldron of tumultuous gas, visible to the unaided eye, that is giving birth to a new open cluster of stars. Immediately to the left of M42 is a prominent bluish reflection nebula sometimes called the Running Man that houses many bright blue stars. The above image, a digitally stitched composite taken over several nights, covers an area with objects that are roughly 1,500 light years away and spans about 75 light years.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120212.html

"Job Market Shock Threatens To Trigger One Million Layoffs Or More As Distruptions Soar"

Full screen recommended.

"Job Market Shock Threatens To Trigger One 

Million Layoffs Or More As Distruptions Soar"

by Epic Economist

"A labor market shock is looming. Cracks are appearing everywhere in the U.S. labor market. Companies are now looking to curb hiring, and many started announcing mass lay-offs last week amid falling profit margins as the U.S. economy begins to march towards a historic recession. With economic conditions deteriorating at a stunning pace, inflation still hot, and the housing standing on its last leg, the last pillar holding up the U.S. economy – the labor market – has just hit a brick wall, and experts say it’s all downhill from here. Americans should brace for a new wave of lay-offs this summer that could wipe out over one million jobs, and result in significantly lower wages as businesses struggle to stay afloat in face of slower growth.

Remarkable shifts are occurring in the U.S. labor market. Last week, the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose, hitting a four-month-high and signaling a major drop in demand for workers amid tightening financial conditions. Jobless claims increased by 21,000 to 218,000, and according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of people receiving benefits increased to 1.3 million while the number of employees who quit their jobs in April also hit a new record, rising above 4.5 million.

On Thursday, earnings reports were finally released and showed corporate profits falling across the board in the first quarter. Now, economists are warning that the historic profit margin crunch and declining share prices are about to force more and more companies to pause hiring and start laying off workers.

Commenting on the impending surge in layoffs, Piper Sandler's chief economist Nancy Lazar says that "rightsizing means that lots more layoffs are coming" and adds that "many companies overhired and overpaid during the health crisis." Lazar also highlighted that "the stay-at-home bubble was a bubble, and not a "new paradigm" of goods consumption" which means that a right-sizing cycle is going to accelerate, with weaker growth in jobs and wages.

Piper Sandler economists warned in a recent note that this summer is going to be a turbulent one for American workers. “We could see a million layoffs or more, as many goods sectors that benefited from the [health crisis] now realize they added too much capacity,” they wrote, underlining that “Low-income workers are now most at risk of layoffs, with remaining job holders to see much slower wage growth.”

At least 107 tech companies have laid off employees since the start of the year, according to Layoffs.fyi, which tracks job cuts across the sector. Economists are afraid that the job cuts seen in the tech sector soon ripple through other sectors. In a new report, Bank of America alerted that the demise of some big companies is likely to trigger a chain reaction and result in a sharp increase in hiring freezes, job cuts, and wage stagnation.

In other words, our leaders will have to decide what’s worse: recession and bear market or runaway inflation as millions of Americans start to see their wages "revert back to normal" if they are lucky, while many other millions are about to lose their jobs.

And soon, the U.S. population will have to confront the terrible fate of seeing their purchasing power slashed right in the middle of another historic economic recession while unemployment rises once again. If you do have a job, you should hold on to it while you can because we surely have a very bumpy road ahead of us. And it is safe to say that nobody will come to rescue us from this gigantic mess."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com/

"Food Too Dangerous To Eat; Home Buyer Regret, Economy Seizing Up; Credit Card And Spending Addiction"

Full screen recommended.

Jeremiah Babe, 5/30/22:

"Food Too Dangerous To Eat; Home Buyer Regret; 

Economy Seizing Up; Credit Card And Spending Addiction"

"Police State in Slo-Mo"

"Police State in Slo-Mo"

by Jeff Thomas

"For many years, I’ve forecasted that the US will evolve into a police state; that it will begin slowly; then as more and more freedoms are removed, the creation of the police state will accelerate. We’re now seeing that acceleration, as more and more Americans are detained, questioned, and having their property confiscated than ever before.

As an example, in 2016, some 20,000 travellers in and out of the US were stopped, often at random. Typically, their baggage was searched, their documents photocopied, access codes to their electronic devices demanded and their files copied. In most cases, no explanation was given, but they were advised that if the search was refused, they would be detained indefinitely. The following year, in 2017, the numbers of people detained rose by 50%, to 30,000.

It’s important to note that the travellers were not threatened with arrest, which suggests that the authorities were working on the basis that the Patriot Act of 2001 allows all of the above activities - without cause being given, without a warrant being obtained, without access to a phone call or legal representation being allowed, and that the individuals in question may be detained, indefinitely.

This, of course, is in direct violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, which states that people have the right "to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." However, when people travel, they are particularly vulnerable, so the travellers in question are extremely unlikely to refuse. They understand that, "indefinitely" means, "until a Supreme Court ruling is passed, overturning the Patriot Act as unconstitutional." If it hasn’t happened yet and isn’t under consideration, it’s safe to say that the level of police state allowed under the Patriot Act is permanent.

Police States have been implemented countless times throughout history. They tend to be most prominent where collectivism has already been instituted. Wherever collectivism is already firmly established, new crackdowns are generally introduced suddenly. In Germany, in 1938, under existing Nazi rule, Kristallnacht took people by complete surprise. Later, in 1961, under existing Soviet rule, the Berlin Wall went up with no previous announcement. In both cases, the collectivist tyranny was already in place and the people had already successfully been subjugated. These events were merely further losses of freedom.

But what of a country that still enjoys a few of its former freedoms and is in the process of being transformed into a full-blown collectivist state? Well, in such cases, the loss of freedoms is often done in slo-mo. Another way of describing this is the old adage of boiling a frog. Since a frog will jump out of a pot of hot water, place him in a pot of lukewarm water and slowly turn up the heat. Before he knows it, he’s being boiled to death. Likewise, when the intention is to convert a country to collectivism, make the early changes in stages. Get the people to accept that the losses of freedom are for the benefit of their safety. Then, the further along you go, the more you can accelerate the process.

At present, a majority of Americans appear to now understand that they’ve experienced a significant loss of their "guaranteed" freedoms. They’re now worried and, at each new stage of oppression they tend to say, "I’m not happy about this, but I can probably live with it… and, besides, they say that they’re doing it for my own safety." However, I think that it’s safe to say that a family returning from a holiday that’s just been isolated from each other, interrogated separately, frisked, had all their belongings pored through and copies of their papers and electronic files taken, without even being told the reason, does not feel as though it’s been done for their safety.

Remember, the 30,000 above were just hoping to reach their destination with no trouble from anyone. A generation ago, they never would have tolerated such a violation to their rights. But now, they submit and accept whatever they’re told to do. But, upon release, they most likely assumed that the authorities had been looking for something specific. They were not. In recent years, there have been very few actual prosecutions from such Gestapo-like shakedowns, in spite of the copying of documents and confiscation of minor items. The object here is not to prosecute anyone; it is to teach people to submit.

This will be important later on. What we’re witnessing is a loss of freedom in slo-mo. Just as Germans stood by and accepted Kristallnacht; just as they stood by and watched the Berlin Wall be built that would close off their freedom of migration, the great majority of Americans ultimately will stand by and watch the last of their freedoms be removed, because they’ve already been trained to submit to whatever indignities and restrictions are placed upon them.

After World War II, Lutheran Pastor Martin Niemöller was questioned as to how he and other Germans could possibly have simply stood by and watched as freedoms were removed, resulting eventually in total domination of the German people. He said, "First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak for me." Pastor Niemöller was able to make the above statement in 1976, as he was one of the few survivors of the concentration camps.

But, in addition to the above insight, there’s another very significant lesson to be learned here. Historically, whenever a government is instituting the transition into a collectivist state, one of the early warnings is a limitation on travel outside the country (getting the people used to the idea that they don’t have a right to leave). The US has now reached that point. The next development will be to teach them that, by travelling outside of the country, they are automatically suspect. The implication will be money laundering, drug trafficking, or terrorist activities.

Whether it’s accomplished through the use of a physical barrier, such as a wall, or through the intimidation of random searches and interrogations, as is presently underway in the US, or whether it’s simply the appearance of armed guards in ports of exit (like the armed guard in the photo above), the objective is not to obtain copies of your emails to your friends, or to go through socks in your luggage. It’s to teach you that your rights have been lost and you are expected to submit to any and all indignities and restrictions imposed on you.

Historically, the end-product is always the same. The final acceptance that you’ve waited too long to leave the increasingly oppressive country - and that you’ve been successfully locked in."

- internationalman.com

Gregory Mannarino, "Markets, A Look Ahead"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 5/30/22:

"Markets, A Look Ahead"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Jim Kunstler, "Careening Towards Grace"

"Careening Towards Grace"

by Jim Kunstler

"The World Economic Forum (WEF), a.k.a. the Davos Gang, held its 2022 schmoozefest in that tidy Swiss alpine village last week, after a nearly three-year hiatus on account of the coronavirus pandemic they generously arranged for the rest of us. These are the self-defined leaders of the Great Re-set - Klaus Schwab, Bill Gates, and Klaus’s scaly majordomo, Dr. Yuval Noah Harari, the inverse Adolf Eichmann, famous for declaring that “humans are hackable animals.” Did he mean, like, with a meat cleaver?

Who do these schnitzel-scarfing, Krug-guzzling punks think they are? Or, to paraphrase the immortal words of one Pete Hogwallop, who elected them boss of this outfit? Nobody, that’s who, on this whole, wide, ever-turning world, which they literally aim to take over. Actually, from the way they talk, it already looks like they’ve hijacked the sucker and us “worthless” and “useless” humans riding on it, as Dr, Harari has labeled the multitudes riding the planet in economy class. Kind of looks like we’re in for a rough landing.

As first hallucinated in Herr Doktor Schwab’s pulsating brain, apparently many years ago, the Great Re-set was initially scheduled for 2050, a sort of leisurely stroll-in-the-park to the shimmering gates of transhumanism. Then the gang got nervous and pushed it up to 2030 (climate change, and all). When that retrograde monster of US politics, Donald Trump, came on the scene, they panicked and re-set their Re-set for 2023. Now, despite the surface decorum of this year’s Davos meet-up, it looks like they are - as we say here in the old New World - losing their sh*t.

How come? Well, for one thing, we appear to be in a close race between Klaus’s controlled demolition of the global economy and the US midterm elections this November, and perhaps the gang perceives that won’t go so well for them. Their key project in the 2022 offensive, the War in Ukraine, isn’t working out, either. The idea, it seems, was to bog down and humiliate the Russians so as to bring on the defenestration of Mr. Putin, who, believe it or not and despite the tsunamis of aspersion loosed on him by WEF-funded propagandists, is strangely and actually a defender of Western Civ. Yeah, I know, a stunner, right? (God works in mysterious ways - but the Davos Gangsters don’t believe in him/her /they.)

In their cuckoo clock universe, they are too busy counting the teeth on the gears inside because they are the “experts” and that’s what they do. Which brings us to one of the central fallacies of the mechanistic world-view: that if you measure enough things, you will be able to control them. Their beloved data is failing them. They screwed-the-pooch on the Covid-19 caper and now the data is biting Klaus and Company on the ass. Especially Oberstleutnant Bill Gates’s ass, who was supposed to be in charge of the vaccine op and is jetting around the world now talking out of said cloacal aperture so recklessly that folks are looking to the lampposts of every country he lands in.

Hence, the desperate attempts at censorship by WEF stooges-in-place all around the world. And see how well that has gone, especially in the USA under WEF-installed “Joe Biden,” the cigar-store-Indian in executive drag, who fronts for a US wrecking crew cabinet of oafs, losers, and reprobates. Has the world ever seen a more laughable official exercise as the botched appointment of one Nina Jankowicz, the Singing Censor, to the idiotically-conceived Disinformation Governance Board? They might as well have taken out a Jumbotron billboard ad in Times Square screaming We Suck in flashing psychedelic pixels.

And yet, that demolition of the global economy proceeds a’pace as, with all demolitions, once things start crashing, nothing will stop it. Supply chains for everything are breaking, with sneaky ramifications. For instance, the ammonia-based chemical additive for diesel fuel used to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions from trucks is getting scarce. New EPA rules require computerized sensors in truck engines that register nitrous oxide levels. If they are too high, the sensors automatically cut the engine. Result: trucks stop running. Further result: nothing gets delivered. Furthest result: you starve.

The WEF worked on its starvation program from other angles, too. The Ukraine-Russian war was engineered to reduce the global wheat supply by a hefty percentage, say around 30 percent, as well as to curtail fertilizer exports from the world’s main producers of them: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus. No khobz f’tir for you, peoples of North Africa! (And no Hostess Ding Dongs for you, peoples of Calumet Heights, Illinois!).

Meanwhile, recall the parting admonition of the late eminent virologist Luc Montagnier, discoverer of HIV, the virus behind AIDS, who, just prior to his death predicted that 100-percent of the people vaccinated with mRNA Covid “vaccines” would be dead in two years. Yes, yes, pretty stark stuff, I know. But that was his professional opinion. Forgive me for mentioning it, but there it is, like the proverbial turd in the punchbowl.

We’re in for all kinds of interesting surprises - those of us who survive this clusterf**k - but the biggest one of all will be the WEF’s Great Re-set falling on its aforesaid ass as, when the dust settles, their grandiose, totalitarian, and ultimately wicked model of the human project yields to the astounding re-enchantment of a world pregnant with meaning, purpose, and grace. I’m not kidding around. God may be a prankster, as I’ve suggested many times, but he’s also still God, and he doesn’t appreciate wannabe faux-messianic technocrat pricks like Klaus Schwab messing with his glorious creation."

- https://kunstler.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Ennis, Montana, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Memorial Day, Lest We Forget"

"Memorial Day, Lest We Forget"

By John Kass

"We had some fine traditions in America, though many have been pushed aside because they get in the way of modern politics. And when it comes to patriotism on the days when we mourn our war dead, you can feel the media groaning. Patriots and patriarchs aren’t much appreciated these days. They’re now considered just too toxic, too masculine and they’re such a bother.

America once prized merit and competition. Now, though, we prize politics and our cultural institutions strive to make Beta males. There are unintended costs to all of this, including all those young men lost, boys adrift without fathers to guide them, lonely confused boys who rage in the anonymous shadows of social media. Add unfettered access to violent violent video games, unfettered access to internet porn, raised by mothers who resent the fathers who walked away, shaped by anger and the social isolation that comes from closing schools for the past few years.

Throw in the absence of a spiritual life and the absence of a common morality. Add guns. This stew of rage boils over into murder sprees, in rural areas, in urban centers.

We ignore what we feel in our bones to be wrong. We’d rather play our politics instead.

Ultimately the day comes - and it always comes - when some other powerful nation that isn’t obsessed with creating Beta males shows up with its armies. They come to take all that you have and all that you’d ever dreamed of having. They come to take your food, your life, the lives of your children. Your spine. Your hope. Your identity. Everything. And then you don’t have a country. The landless descend into wandering barbarism. They become as beasts of no nation, because their nation is gone.

Don’t think it can’t happen. It happens. It has happened in many other ages. It happened to Thebes. That nation had destroyed the unstoppable superpower and military might of Sparta, but soon Thebes was itself destroyed, all the way down to the scattered, nameless stones, the people dead or sold off in the slave markets. And who and what they were was forgotten. All that was left were scratches on stones bleaching like bones in the sun.

History tells us these stories again and again, if we’d listen. History warns of what happens to nations that weaken themselves and abandon their own borders, prizing sensitivity and men without chests above virtue.

A culture becoming fragile is awash with tears, but it becomes dry, like pottery. It cracks. And as the ages forget the names, history smirks. When the people are threatened, with the people desperate and frightened, it is then that soldiers are appreciated, welcomed and needed. The armed forces, forming that thin line between civilization and chaos are honored for a time. Though eventually, if they’re successful in defense, they are inevitably forgotten, again. All soldiers throughout history have understood this dynamic, especially in free, prosperous nations like ours.

Our war dead didn’t risk or lose their lives to be praised and petted with flowery words. They knew they were led to slaughter by fine words from the double-tongues about great honor and great sacrifice. But they also knew this: They had a job to do, protecting our liberty and our nation with their bodies and blood. I suppose they hoped, as Americans, that we would live up to our half of the bargain and not dishonor the freedom they’d given to us, that was bought with their lives.

Traditions are an important means for a people trying to stave off cultural betrayal. This is why traditions are often targeted by agents of change. The old traditions remind us who we are, what we were, reminding us of our ideal selves, of virtue lost to time and what we call progress.

But today is Memorial Day, 2022, when we mourn the fallen of the United States Armed Forces who died for our liberty. And because it is Memorial Day, not burger and beer day, not sports day, not play video games day, not chips and dip day, there is one tradition I hope we try our best to keep. It involves us taking time out to think hard and long about a soldier’s poem and the poppies, row on row.

“In Flanders Fields” is that soldier’s poem, written in World War I by Col. John McCrae, a man who’d seen the devastation of war, and hopelessness. Yet with clear eyes and a clean heart he wrote of poppy blossoms as rebirth of hope, those bright orange/red papery thin blossoms, as delicate as dreams, waving in the breeze over the freshly dug graves of the dead.

The scene was Ypres, Belgium at a farm converted to a military hospital, where McCrae was an Army doctor, doctor, dealing with pain and death and disease. Flanders Fields is particularly tragic. The political leadership had led their citizens into hell, and still the citizen soldiers marched toward death and the trenches and the barbed wire, and the gas.

My mother, 92 years old and born of the United Kingdom, hasn’t forgotten. She was born in Guelph, Ontario, the town where Col. McCrae is from. She knew his family. They all knew of the McCraes, but they did not treat them as celebrities. Instead, they respected them. My mom would put a book of his poetry on the breakfast table when my sons were little boys, so that we’d remember as we taught the boys. And that is how traditions are maintained.

And my friend Bill Gritsonis, a former soldier of the U.S. Army and member of the American Legion Hellenic Post 343 hasn’t forgotten. The entire American Legion hasn’t forgotten. The legion remembers the poem and the poppy, and members hand out poppies to help commemorate Memorial Day. “We’d hand out the poppies around City Hall,” he said. “Some of the veterans who survived are so very old. They’re still holding on. We have to do this for them, for us, for our kids, for our country. We just can’t forget.”

On this Memorial Day, when too many of us are thinking of grilling meat and drinking beer and staring at ballgames with sports announcer talking of the loss of a game as if it is death. American Legion posts and Veterans of Foreign Wars and many other groups will attend and participate in ceremonies of somber remembrance and mourning.

Some will be at parades in small towns. Or in quiet gatherings in cemeteries. They’ll bow their heads as a bugler plays “Taps” in a town square, or as the notes from the horns echo on the gravestones in great national cemeteries.

American Legion Hellenic Post 343 plans on being at Elmwood Cemetery, in River Grove, Il., as they have for years, since the 2011 dedication of the Hellenic American Veterans Memorial that honors Greeks who served. “This began way before my time, with others, the group as a whole, Hellenic Post 343 bought the land at Elmwood Cemetery, raised the funds,” Gritsonis said. “The Scouts remember. Our former commander, Anastasios “Steve” Betzelos, he’s 98 and a half. He’s going to try to make it.”

Gritsonis isn’t looking for a mention. He’s not like that. Once a top soldier, he doesn’t seek glory in the words of others. He’d rather that I write around his name. But he and other former U.S. Armed Service Personnel and those on active duty will remember. Why? Once you learn about Flanders Fields, once you read the poem, it sears. It is difficult to forget.

And perhaps because we all come from someplace else. We’re Americans. And whatever our ethnicity or creed, we’re bound together by the ideas that maintain our liberty. They’re written in the Constitution of the United States and The Bill of Rights added to the Constitution by wise and great men, that form a nation that is still the last, best hope of mankind on earth.

Some old soldiers will be asked about Col. McCrae’s poem and the poppies on the graves. I hope they’re asked about it. You might want to print this poem out, take it with you to the cemetery, or a parade, or a lonely grave. You might leave a copy of the poem on a picnic table, as others stuff their faces and guzzle beers without a thought of the Americans who gave everything for them. I don’t mean to shake it at them as if it’s some kind of dare. We’ve had too much of that on all sides.

Politicians and their angry mouthpieces are waging wars of words right now over what to do in the aftermath of mass shootings, like the one in Texas. The way they talk, they’re all about winning some kind of advantage, hoping to crush their political opponents. It’s as if their words were political tomahawks fashioned from the bones of the dead children from that school in Uvalde. The dead children become the pointed tips of their rhetorical spears.

And others wage wars of words over escalating the war in Ukraine, the same voices that frightened the nation about those weapons of mass destruction that couldn’t be found in Iraq, the same voices that argued for that war. The same voices that assured us that Western-style democracy could be imposed on people with no idea or appreciation for our democratic traditions. These are same voices that told us not to worry about the rise of the American Surveillance State.

And all these barking dogs on all sides sound as if they have a deep faith, not in God, but in themselves, and their own special talents. The anonymous life on social media has left them unbound. They rage and become their own gods, and for as long as they keep barking, I suppose they feel they’ll never be held accountable. So the barking continues.

When “In Flanders Fields” was first published anonymously, in the English magazine “Punch” on Dec. 15, 1915, it seemed as there was a common purpose to our history. And then as now, the young wanted so desperately to live. It became an anthem. Here is John McCrea’s poem:

There have been other poems. But this, to me, to many of us, on this Memorial Day, when we mourn our war dead, is one of a kind. ‘Lest we forget."

- https://johnkassnews.com/

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"For the Fallen"

 

"With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,

England mourns for her dead across the sea.

Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,

Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal 

Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,

There is music in the midst of desolation

And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,

Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.

They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;

They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: 

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again; 

They sit no more at familiar tables of home;

They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;

They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound, 

Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,

To the innermost heart of their own land they are known

As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust, 

Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;

As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness, 

To the end, to the end, they remain."

- Laurence Binyon

"The Saddest..."

- John Greenleaf Whittier, "Maud Muller"

"How to Impoverish the Whole World"

"How to Impoverish the Whole World"

One carbon conscious, dollar destroying, virtue signaling step at a time...

by Bill Bonner

Geneva, Switzerland - "Prices rising. Shelves empty. This is a ‘good thing,’ isn’t it? It will mean less consumption, less production, less CO2 in the atmosphere, lower standards of living, people will get less of what they want… and they will be poorer. But it will save the planet, right?

Right. Friday, we made some suggestions about how you personally can enjoy your indigence with a sniffy, superior air. Today, we focus on the bigger picture, the whole economy. How can we impoverish other people too? And here we connect some big, fat dots. Let’s look first at the basics.

Home to Hovel: You don’t have to do anything to be poor. In fact, for an individual, the less you do, ceteris paribus, the more poverty you get. Poverty is easy. It gives you plenty of time to read The New Yorker magazine, update your Facebook page or watch CNN.

Prosperity, on the other hand, takes work, self-discipline, investment, learning, savings, innovation – and a few rules. Respect for each others’ property is one of them. If you can’t hold onto your stuff, it won’t work. A rich man’s house, for example, is the product of many generations’ worth of trial and error… and a multitude of inputs by skilled artisans and engineers – with HVAC systems and stylish moldings… and carefully laid tile work… expert carpentry… and all the other things that go into a modern, expensive house. Nobody would bother to build such a house if he thought it might be taken away from him.

The poor man’s house, by contrast, is a hovel, little changed in the last 2,000 years. In our area of Argentina, for example, people still live in mud huts. Mud on the floor. Mud on the walls. Mud on the roof. Few inputs. And those few are rude, rustic and unskilled. Doors are made of wooden planks held together with rawhide strips. There is no plumbing (and until recently), no electricity.

Poverty is a natural condition. But it’s also natural for people not to want to be poor. The human species was barely better off than orangutans for the first 290,000 years of its existence. People lived in small family or tribal groups, with little change from one generation to the next. It’s only in the last 10,000 years or so that it has made much material progress.

And now, people can get ahead in life… and live in comfort, with the satisfaction of getting richer than their brothers-in-law. They innovate, work hard, go to college, etc. As if by an ‘invisible hand,’ are they guided to win-win deals, giving to others so that they get from them what they want too. One learns how to treat cataracts. Another builds tree-houses. Progress is made. Left alone, in other words, growth happens. Wealth increases. And ‘the people’ are better off.

From Riches to Rags: So, if we want to move the meter in the opposite direction – towards poverty – we are going to have to backtrack; we’ll need to get control of ‘the people.’ We can’t allow them to do what they want… live their lives the way they want, trying to get what they want by working, saving, building, learning, inventing and so forth.

Prosperity depends on letting ‘the people’ do their thing. But de-growth and poverty depend on stopping them. And that’s what the feds are for. If they’re going to make us poorer, they’ll have to step up to the plate… and whack us with the bat. And they have plenty of models and ‘five year plans’ to guide them. North Korea, for example. Cuba. The Soviet Union. Baltimore.

There’s a reason South Korea is a lot richer than North Korea. The difference is public policy. The latter is a society tightly controlled by a political elite, swinging a big stick. The former is a ‘light touch’ society, with much more individual freedom. So if poverty is the new prosperity, we will have to imitate North Korea, not South Korea. The North Korean deciders know how to stimulate poverty; and they’re good at it. And the North Korean people are model citizens for the Brave New World of planet-savers. No Hyundai for them. No Samsung. No Korean barbecue. No Squid Game. No passports; if they were let out of the country, they may not come back.

Few of them have cars. They eat little… and very little meat. Their clothes are drab. They travel rarely… almost never leaving the country. In short, they use little fossil fuel. The Davos elite applaud their tiny carbon footprints. And some are even virtuous enough to starve to death."

- bonnerprivateresearch@substack.com

"How It Really Is"

 

Greg Hunter, "Lunatics are Leading Us to Death – Gerald Celente"

"Lunatics are Leading Us to Death – Gerald Celente"

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com 

"Renowned trends researcher and publisher of “The Trends Journal,” Gerald Celente, boldly stated in March “World War III has Begun.” Don’t expect that trend to change anytime soon. Celente explains, “Hey, I’m the President of the United States, and I am going to send weapons of death to kill more people. Am I an accessory to the crime? Yes. It’s not a proxy war with the United States and Russia, it’s at war. We have maniacs in charge, and Biden just said we will defend Taiwan. World War III began with the Ukraine war and the United States and NATO giving others what they need to go kill. Now, they are heating it up with China. Anybody with a brain bigger than a pea would say if we go to war with China and Russia, it’s the end of the world. There will be nuclear destruction. That’s anybody with a mind bigger than a pea. The people in charge, they are lunatics, and they are not men. They have cajones smaller than a pea. These are the people leading us to death. These are insane people. They are mentally ill, and they cover it with a good act playing a politician.”

Celente sees a big trend for Russia this year. Celente predicts, “Russia is going to become one of our top trends for 2022. It will have a self-sufficient economy. Go back to Davos, and they want to control all. Russia, because of what the United States, along with 30 other nations, have done to them with sanctions, is going to become a self-sustaining economy. They are pulling out of globalization. They have all the natural resources they need. What’s happening to Russia, and what the world is forcing on them, is going to be a gem for Russia. It’s going to be a fight about over what they can’t get against those who have it.”

The trend on inflation is not good, and Celente says it’s mostly happening because of the current leadership in the Biden/Obama Administration. Celente says, “The whole society is collapsing in front of us. We have freaks and fools ruining our lives. It’s not going to be stag-flation, it’s going to be drag-flation. We are dragging down as inflation skyrockets. We have maniacs in charge. These are people that could not get a real job that are running or ruining our lives. We are going to see a global disaster the likes of which we have never seen before.”

On gold and silver, Celente says, “Gold and silver, right now, the prices are soft. They are going to go down again when interest rates go up because the dollar gets stronger. When will gold and silver go up? Now hear this, when the equity markets crash because that’s when the common person knows how bad it is, and that’s when they start freaking out. When Wall Street crashes, the common people that look up to these clowns will know how bad it is, and that’s when you are going to see precious metals spike.”

In closing, Celente says, “Absolutely, America will be hit by nukes in the upcoming war with Russia. We need peace, and there is no peace movement in America. If we don’t stop it, it’s going to be hell on earth. United we stand, divided we die.”

"There is much more in the 43 min. interview."

- https://usawatchdog.com/

Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com as he goes One-on-One with the top trends researcher on the planet, Gerald Celente, publisher of The Trends Journal:

- https://rumble.com/

"We are Living Through an Economic Crash and Burn Playbook"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly 5/30/22:

"We are Living Through an Economic Crash and Burn Playbook"

"It does not matter where you live or what industry that you are in. This economy has taken its toll on everyone. I am calling us the crash and burn economy where things are bad but it looks like we haven’t seen anything yet. We are basically in the third chapter of this book. So much is about to happen."

"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

"Requiesce in Pace"

Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis. 

Rest eternal grant unto them, O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon them.

"Requiesce in Pace"

by Brian Maher

"It is Memorial Day… when we pause to honor the nation’s war dead. Most Americans will not, of course. It merely represents a chance to lie flat on a beach… to munch frankfurters… to dream the tall dreams of approaching summer. We will be among them. We will not be planting tiny American flags atop forgotten graves today. We will not be bugling taps. It is unlikely we will thank a veteran for his service - not out of disrespect - but because we scarcely know any.

We nonetheless recall strolling the American military cemetery above Omaha Beach one day… and how it brought us up short. The rows and rows and rows of bleach-white crosses - and an occasional Star of David - seeming to span from horizon to horizon. We wandered among the dead… and listened for their ghostly counsel.

Beneath the rustling breeze, we detected a faint murmur. It seemed to whisper a poem from the First World War: “In Flanders Fields.” From which:

"In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place, and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly,

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead; short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields."

Flanders Field

Standing above Omaha Beach that day, what fetched us was not so much the gravity of those events 78 years distant - but the soul-numbing waste of it all. What great things may have awaited that 21-year-old second lieutenant if a German bullet hadn’t cut him down on June 6, 1944? What did life have in store for that sergeant of the 2nd Ranger Battalion... who never made it up Pointe du Hoc that morning? What about this young paratrooper of the 101st Airborne Division, whose bones lie beneath a shady tree above Omaha Beach?

The American military cemetery above Omaha Beach

What might they have amounted to? Perhaps much. Perhaps nothing whatsoever. But they had lives to live. And every right to live them. Let us also not forget the pulverized and unidentified dead, known only to their Almighty creator. What about the futures they never had? 

"For of all sad words of tongue or pen,” lamented poet John Greenleaf Whittier, “the saddest are these: “It might have been.” What might have been... had they lived? Alas, we will never know.

Let us finally spare a thought for the vanquished…Not all the German dead were Nazi hellcats. They were rather conscripts taking orders. Most were broken and wrecked veterans of the Russian front, dispatched to Normandy to recuperate. And not all Germans in Normandy were… Germans. Many were Czechs, Poles, Ukrainians and Russians, conscripted into German service… and sent to man the Atlantic Wall. Conscripts from Azerbaijan, India, Mongolia, Korea, Japan, Indonesia - and Thailand - were likewise among the “Germans” defending the French coast.

“Germans”

But this is America’s day of remembrance. And so as we conclude this Memorial Day weekend…Let us lower our heads in mournful reflection of America’s martial departed… and what might have been. Requiescant in pace."

- dailyreckoning.com

Memorial Day 2022

 

"R.I.P. Good Times, Dark Days Ahead; Stock Up Now; Home Losses, Job Losses Accelerate"

Jeremiah Babe, 5/29/22:

"R.I.P. Good Times, Dark Days Ahead; 

Stock Up Now; Home Losses, Job Losses Accelerate"

"20 U.S. Health Care Statistics That Will Absolutely Astonish You"

Full screen recommended.

"20 U.S. Health Care Statistics That Will Absolutely Astonish You"

by Epic Economist

"The U.S. health care industry has become a massive money-making scam, and in today's video, we are going to show the statistics that prove it. The United States spends more on health care per person than any other country in the entire world, and even though we are the most medicated population on the planet, we are also one of the sickest. Amongst developed countries, we have the worst life expectancy and the highest infant mortality despite having to pay the highest prices for health care services by far. While millions of Americans are drowning in medical debt, big pharmaceutical corporations are recording billions of dollars of profits every year, but the quality of the health care that the U.S. population receives in return is rather quite poor.

Right now, health care bills cause more bankruptcies than anything else does. Millions of people are afraid to go to the hospital because they know that even a short visit could result in a gigantic financial burden that could devastate them for decades. Meanwhile, rates of cancer, heart disease and diabetes continue to rise all over the nation. Considering the gigantic piles of money we shell out for health care, we should have the greatest system in the entire world. But we definitely don't, and this is a major indication that something has gone horribly wrong.

According to Brookings data, spending on health care in the United States has grown steadily over the past two decades, rising from $2,900 per person in 1980 to $11,200 per person in 2020, marking a staggering 290% increase.

With each passing year, health bureaucrats and greedy corporations get increasingly richer with the demise of the U.S. health care system while the rest of us go broke trying to pay for our health care. Over the past three decades, Americans had to face an absurd rise in medical bills and deal with insane levels of medical debt.

According to estimates released by the Kaiser Family Foundation, in 2021 alone, 70% of Americans with medical bills had to lower their spending on food to avoid bankruptcy, while 59% had to dig into their savings, using most or all of it to cover an unexpected health expense, 41% were forced to take a second job to be able to pay their debt, and 37% had to borrow money.

Rather than doing something to address the abuses of the health insurance and pharmaceutical corporations, over the past two decades, U.S. politicians have actually come up with policies that gave these companies even more power. Under the current policies, our health care costs will go up even faster, and the quality of health care services will continue to go down.

Right now, the health care system in the United States is so broken that it probably cannot be repaired. The entire structure needs to be dismantled and completely reinvented if we want to see actual improvement. But considering that the wealthy bureaucrats are pretty comfortable with their billion dollar profits, most of us won't likely see such a change happening in the U.S. health care system in our lifetime."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com/

"We Are in Big Trouble: The Next 30 Days Changes Everything"

Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper, 5/29/22:

"We Are in Big Trouble: The Next 30 Days Changes Everything"

"The US is sending weaponry which will escalate the conflict in Euro, Gas prices could reach apocalyptic levels, peace talks are likely doomed to fail, energy prices prohibit mitigation of record temps the time to prepare for the summer from hell is now!"

Musical Interlude: Ludovico Einaudi, "Lady Labyrinth & Nightbook"

Full screen recommended.

Ludovico Einaudi, "Lady Labyrinth & Nightbook"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"NGC 253 is one of the brightest spiral galaxies visible, but also one of the dustiest. Dubbed the Silver Coin for its appearance in smalltelescopes, it is more formally known as the Sculptor Galaxy for its location within the boundaries of the southern constellation Sculptor. Discovered in 1783 by mathematician and astronomer Caroline Herschel, the dusty island universe lies a mere 10 million light-years away.

About 70 thousand light-years across, NGC 253, pictured, is the largest member of the Sculptor Group of Galaxies, the nearest to our own Local Group of galaxies. In addition to its spiral dust lanes, tendrils of dust seem to be rising from a galactic disk laced with young star clusters and star forming regions in this sharp color image. The high dust content accompanies frantic star formation, earning NGC 253 the designation of a starburst galaxy. NGC 253 is also known to be a strong source of high-energy x-rays and gamma rays, likely due to massive black holes near the galaxy's center. Take a trip through extragalactic space in this short video flyby of NGC 253."

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap200414.html

"Promise Me..."

"For many great deeds are accomplished in times of squalid struggle. There is a kind of stubborn, unrecognized courage which in the lowest depths tenaciously resists the pressures of necessity and ill-doing; there are noble and obscure triumphs observed by no one, unacclaimed by any fanfare. Hardship, loneliness, and penury are a battlefield which has its own heroes, sometimes greater than those lauded in history. Strong and rare characters are thus created; poverty nearly always a foster-mother, may become a true mother, distress may be the nursemaid of pride, and misfortune the milk that nourishes great spirits."

- Victor Hugo

"The 'Titanic' Analogy You Haven't Heard: Passively Accepting Oblivion"

"The 'Titanic' Analogy You Haven't Heard:

Passively Accepting Oblivion"

by Charles Hugh Smith

"You've undoubtedly heard rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic as an analogy for the futility of approving policy tweaks to address systemic crises. I've used the Titanic as an anology to explain the fragility of our financial system and the "glancing blow" of the pandemic.

But there's a powerful analogy you haven't heard before. To understand the analogy, we first need to recap the tragedy's basic set-up.

On April 14, 1912, the liner Titanic, considered unsinkable due to its watertight compartments, struck a glancing blow against a massive iceberg on that moonless, weirdly calm night. In the early hours of April 15, the great ship broke in half and sank, ending the lives of the majority of its passengers and crew. Of the 2,208 passengers and crew onboard, 1,503 perished and 705 survived. The lifeboats had a maximum capacity of 1,178, so some 475 people died unnecessarily. Passengers of the Titanic (Wikipedia)

The initial complacency of the passengers and crew after the collision is another source of analogies relating to humanity's near-infinite capacity for denial. The class structure of the era was enforced by the authorities - the ship's officers. As the situation grew visibly threatening, the First Class passengers were herded into the remaining lifeboats while the steerage/Third Class passengers - many of them immigrants - were mostly kept below decks. Officers were instructed to enforce this class hierarchy with their revolvers.

Two-thirds of all passengers died, but the losses were not evenly distributed: 39% of First Class passengers perished, 58% of Second Class passengers lost their lives and 76% of Third Class passengers did not survive.

Rudimentary calculations by the ship's designer, who was on board to oversee the maiden voyage, revealed the truth to the officers: the ship would sink and there was no way to stop it. The ship was designed to survive four watertight compartments being compromised, and could likely stay afloat if five were opened to the sea, but not if six compartments were flooded. Water would inevitably spill over into adjacent compartments in a domino-like fashion until the ship sank.

What did the authorities do with this knowledge? Stripped of niceties, they passively accepted oblivion as the outcome and devoted their resources to enforcing the class hierarchy and the era's gender chivalry: 80% of male passengers perished, 25% of female passengers lost their lives. The loading of passengers into lifeboats was so poorly managed that only 60% of the lifeboat capacity was filled.

What if the officers had boldly accepted the inevitability of the ship sinking early on and devised a plan to minimize the loss of life? It would not have taken any extraordinary leap of creativity to organize the crew and passenger volunteers to strip the ship of everything that floated - wooden deck chairs, etc. - and lash them together into rafts. Given the calm seas that night and the freezing water, just keeping people above water would have been enough.

Rather than promote the absurd charade that the ship was fine, just fine, when time was of the essence, the authorities could have rounded up the women and children and filled every seat on lifeboats. Of the 1,030 people who could not be placed in a lifeboat, 890 were crew members, including about 25 women. The crew members were almost all in the prime of life. If anyone could survive several hours on a partially-submerged raft, it would have been the crew. (The first rescue ship arrived about two hours after the Titanic sank.)

Would this hurried effort to save everyone on board have succeeded? At a minimum, it would have saved an additional 475 souls via a careful loading of the lifeboats to capacity, and if the makeshift rafts had offered any meaningful flotation at all, many more lives would have been saved. Rather than devote resources to maintaining the pretense of safety and order, what if the ship's leaders had focused their response around answering a simple question: what was needed for people to survive a freezing night once the lifeboats were filled and the ship sank?

I think you see the analogy to the present. Our leadership, such as it is, is devoting resources to maintaining the absurd pretense that everything will magically re-set to September 2019 if we just print enough money and bail out the financial Aristocracy. Whether we realize it or not, we're responding with passive acceptance of oblivion. The economy and social order were precariously fragile before the pandemic, and now the fragilities are unraveling. We need to start thinking beyond pretense and PR."

- http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com

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Full screen mode recommended.