Tuesday, August 23, 2022

"Hidden in Plain View"

"Hidden in Plain View"
by Jeff Thomas

"In 1796, the US issued its first quarter dollar. On the obverse, it displayed the image of Lady Liberty, and above the image (in case there was any doubt about the message), the word "LIBERTY" was prominently displayed. The coin was minted from silver (90%) and copper (10%). Over the years, the design of the US quarter changed repeatedly. Then, in 1932, a new quarter (image #1, above) was issued that featured the image of American Founding Father George Washington. As before, the word "LIBERTY" appeared above his image - a continuing reminder of the primary principle upon which the US was founded. And as before, the coin was minted from silver (90%) and copper (10%).

So far, so good. The quarter remained unchanged until 1965. The new quarter (image #2) was the same in every way, except that it contained no silver whatsoever. It now contained only copper and nickel. (At today’s metals prices, the intrinsic value of the quarter dropped suddenly to 1% of its previous value.)

Conceptually, the American people should have been outraged, as they had effectively lost the ability to hold real, redeemable wealth. The coin they would hold in future would not have the value of silver; it would be a mere token. The new coin represented no more than a "promise of value" on the part of the US government. However, there was almost no outcry. The reason? Because the new quarter still retained the same purchasing power it had when it was made of silver. As long as the quarter was perceived by all and sundry as having value for the purpose of payment, most Americans were content to accept the switch.

In 1999, the quarter’s design did change (image #3). The word "LIBERTY" was removed from above the head of Washington and in its place were the words, "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA." It might have been argued at the time that those words needed to be on the quarter to remind holders of the coin what nation had issued it. However, those words had always appeared on the reverse of the Washington quarter, and I recently saw a 1999 quarter that had those words on both sides - a very odd redundancy for a coin, which, by its very size, has little space to spare, even for essential information.

The word "LIBERTY" was still in evidence on the new coin, but it had been moved lower down, beneath Washington’s chin, and was now much smaller. It would seem one reason for the change in design had been to diminish the importance of Liberty as an American concept. (Later, when the "states" quarters were issued, the Mint dropped the "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" on the reverse and retained it on the obverse.) In any case, as in 1965, there was no outcry from the American people - again, for the same reason as before. The coin retained the same purchasing power, so the change in design was simply not an issue.

Readers of this publication may have a different slant on the subject. It may be argued that the two changes in the American quarter reflect the changes in the US as a nation. There can be no doubt that the value of US currency in general has been dramatically reduced in purchasing value since 1932. It is also true that none of the US currency (whether paper notes or metal coins) have any true, redeemable value. They have only perceived value, which is subject to dramatic change, depending upon economic conditions. (In the last century, the un-backed currencies of some twenty nations have been rendered valueless, as a result of hyperinflations.)

In 1796, when the quarter was first minted, the quarter was in itself wealth. The paper bank notes that came later (beginning in 1861) were initially fiat (during the war) but were quickly replaced by notes backed by, and redeemable for, silver. The redemption of US bank notes for silver bullion ended in 1968. Today, if a US citizen seeks to build up his wealth, he cannot do so by holding the currency of his country. All US currency, whether paper or metal, only represents his faith in the currency to retain its value, which it is unquestionably losing. Therefore, merely by dealing every day in US currency, the holder is paying a hidden tax, and his wealth is diminished accordingly.

As to US Liberty, many would agree that that, too, has been devalued, particularly after 1999. Laws such as the Patriot Act of 2001, its expansion in 2011, and the National Defense Authorization Act of 2011 have stripped Americans of their constitutional rights on a wholesale basis. There is an old saying that, "The best place to hide something is in plain view." If true, a reminder of what the US citizen has lost may be found in plain view, merely by reaching into his pocket and examining his change."

Monday, August 22, 2022

"The System Is Breaking Apart; Retail And Restaurants Decimated"

Jeremiah Babe, 8/22/22:
"The System Is Breaking Apart; Retail And Restaurants Decimated"
Comments here:

"Tent Cities Are Taking Over Vast Stretches Of Our Major Cities (And It Is Only Going To Get Worse)"

Full screen recommended.
"Tent Cities Are Taking Over Vast Stretches Of Our 
Major Cities (And It Is Only Going To Get Worse)"
by Epic Economist

"Tent cities are spreading across America, and as the economy slumps, millions of people may face homelessness. Right now, the U.S. economy is in shambles. Housing markets are officially in recession, businesses are laying off thousands of workers, consumers are coping with the highest prices in over 40 years, and the cost of living crisis continues to financially destroy millions of families out there. At the same time, tent cities are popping up all over the nation, and as economic conditions deteriorate, the country’s homelessness crisis is bound to get dramatically worse. At this point, even corporate-controlled media is admitting that “America’s homelessness problem has the makings of an acute crisis”. The population of people living in the streets, in tents, or in their cars is steadily rising, and many more Americans may fall straight into poverty while a new downturn begins.

In Portland, the situation has become so out of control, that many residents are resorting to selling their homes and moving due to the massive increase in the local homeless population and the spike in the number of encampments right outside their front doors. This year, Portland has seen a 26-year high in the number of car theft cases. Authorities say that oftentimes the stolen cars and trucks are ending up in tent city open-air chop shops.

Of course, Portland is not the only one. Several communities all along the West Coast are seeing a stunning surge in the number of tent cities. In many cases, these encampments are filled with people experiencing mental illnesses and substance abuse. But this is not just a West Coast issue, it’s spreading all over the U.S.

Unfortunately, the ongoing economic recession is only going to intensify as the months roll along. In 2008 and 2009, millions of Americans lost their jobs when the economy plunged into a major downturn. After a job loss, many households living paycheck-to-paycheck will no longer be able to afford their homes, just as happened back then. Soon, hundreds of thousands of American families may find themselves on the streets. Many of us still remember how devastating the last recession really was. It was a very dark chapter in our history, and countless people had their lives turned completely upside down.

Sadly, it appears that the nightmare is starting again. In the coming months, hundreds of thousands of Americans will be losing their jobs. A couple of weeks ago, electric truck maker Rivian said will be laying off approximately 840 workers. 7-Eleven has also revealed that it will be eliminating 880 corporate jobs. Shopify is laying off thousands of people. Vimeo announced that it will be eliminating 6 percent of its current workforce. Similarly, Redfin and Robinhood said they will be reducing the size of their workforce by 8 and 23 percent, respectively.

All of this is coming at a time when the housing market is starting to collapse. While demand is cratering due to weaker affordability, prices remain at record highs. In July, the median price of a home was $403,800, an increase of 10.8% year over year. First-time buyers represented just 29% of buyers last month. Historically, they usually make up about 40% of sales, but they are clearly struggling the most with soaring prices.

The stage is being set for a historic economic downturn, and we would like to encourage you to do what you can to get prepared for it. 2008 and 2009 were extremely hard. What is coming will likely be even harder. And as the economy declines, tent cities will continue to take over more neighborhoods all over America."

You'd better enjoy what you have now, while you can...

"‘We’re in the Matrix’: U.S. On a Trajectory That’s Not Going to End Well"

Stansberry Research, 8/22/22:
"‘We’re in the Matrix’: 
U.S. On a Trajectory That’s Not Going to End Well"
"The Inflation Reduction Act passed last week does almost anything except address inflation, says David Morgan, author of The Silver Manifesto and founder of TheMorganReport.com. The "misnomer bill" only accelerates the current trajectory of the U.S., "and it does not end well," he tells our Daniela Cambone. Based on the current geopolitical landscape, "globalization is breaking up and is basically a failure," Morgan concludes."
Comments here:

Gregory Mannarino, "Without Immediate Action By Central Banks Its Done! The Entire System Is Insolvent!"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 8/22/22:
"Without Immediate Action By Central Banks Its Done! 
The Entire System Is Insolvent!"
- https://traderschoice.net/
Comments here:
Related:
"The Party Is Over, Economic Collapse Is Happening NOW;
 SHTF 2022"
Comments here:

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Even Now"

2002, "Even Now"

Musical Interlude: The Rolling Stones, "If I Was A Dancer (Dance Pt. 2)"

The Rolling Stones, 
"If I Was A Dancer (Dance Pt. 2)"

Attitude. In Philly, pronounced at-tee-tood...
Turn it UP!
- CP

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Except for the rings of Saturn, the Ring Nebula (M57) is probably the most famous celestial band. Its classic appearance is understood to be due to our own perspective, though. The recent mapping of the expanding nebula's 3-D structure, based in part on this clear Hubble image, indicates that the nebula is a relatively dense, donut-like ring wrapped around the middle of a football-shaped cloud of glowing gas.
The view from planet Earth looks down the long axis of the football, face-on to the ring. Of course, in this well-studied example of a planetary nebula, the glowing material does not come from planets. Instead, the gaseous shroud represents outer layers expelled from the dying, once sun-like star, now a tiny pinprick of light seen at the nebula's center. Intense ultraviolet light from the hot central star ionizes atoms in the gas. In the picture, the blue color in the center is ionized helium, the cyan color of the inner ring is the glow of hydrogen and oxygen, and the reddish color of the outer ring is from nitrogen and sulfur. The Ring Nebula is about one light-year across and 2,000 light-years away.”

Chet Raymo, “Cosmic View”

“Cosmic View”
by Chet Raymo

“When writing about Philip and Phylis Morrison's “Powers of Ten” I found I had made the following notation in the flyleaf, perhaps a dozen or more years ago:

Britannica
32 volumes
1000 pages per vol
1200 words per page
5 letters/wd
=200 million letters

So, 200 million letters in the 32 volume set of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Why was I making that estimate? I can think of several possibilities. Perhaps…

1. I was making a comparison with the number of nucleotide pairs in the human DNA; that is, the number of steps - ATTGCCCTAA, etc. - on the double-helix. If the information on the human genome - an arm's length of DNA in every human cell - were written out in ordinary type, it would fill 15 sets of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Nearly 500 thick volumes of information labeled YOU.

Think of that for a moment. Fifteen 32-volume sets of the Encyclopedia Britannica in every invisibly-small cell of your body. And every time a cell reproduces, all of that information has to be transcribed correctly. Did I say the other day that it took a semester to stretch the imagination to grasp the universe of the galaxies? It could take another semester to stretch the imagination to grasp the scale of the molecular machinery that makes our bodies work.

Or maybe…

2. I was trying to give an insight into the complexity of the human brain. There are something like 100 billion nerve cells in the brain. That's equivalent to the number of letters in 500 sets of the Britannica! Each many-fingered neuron connects to hundreds of other neurons, and each synaptic connection might be in one of many levels of excitation. I'll let you calculate the number of potential states of the human brain. We've left behind the realm of Britannica. Even talking of libraries would be insufficient.

I was marveling here recently about the amount of digital memory Google must command to store all of those 360-degree Street View images from all over the planet, all of it instantly retrievable by anyone with access to a computer and the internet. I imagined banks and banks of electronics in some cavernous building in California. Big deal! I'm sitting here right now in the college Commons and I can bring to mind street views of every place I've lived since I was three or four years old.

By the way…

3. The number of letters in 500 sets of the Britannica is about the number of stars in the Milky Way Galaxy.

And…"

"What Is Hope?"

"What Is Hope?"

"What is hope? It is the pre-sentiment that imagination is more real and reality is less real than it looks. It is the hunch that the overwhelming brutality of facts that oppress and repress us is not the last word. It is the suspicion that reality is more complex than the realists want us to believe.

That the frontiers of the possible are not determined by the limits of the actual; and in a miraculous and unexplained way, life is opening creative events which will light the way to freedom and resurrection. But the two - suffering and hope - must live from each other. Suffering without hope produces resentment and despair. But hope without suffering creates illusions, naïveté and drunkenness.

So let us plant dates even though we who plant them will never eat them. We must live by the love of what we will never see. That is the secret discipline. It is the refusal to let our creative act be dissolved away by our need for immediate sense experience, and it is a struggled commitment to the future of our grandchildren. Such disciplined hope is what has given prophets, revolutionaries and saints the courage to die for the future they envisage. They make their own bodies the seed of their highest hope."

- Rubin Alves

"To Never Look Away..."

"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget."
- Arundhati Roy

"The Pig Farmer"

"The Pig Farmer"
by John Robbins

"One day in Iowa I met a particular gentleman - and I use that term, gentleman, frankly, only because I am trying to be polite, for that is certainly not how I saw him at the time. He owned and ran what he called a “pork production facility.” I, on the other hand, would have called it a pig Auschwitz. The conditions were brutal. The pigs were confined in cages that were barely larger than their own bodies, with the cages stacked on top of each other in tiers, three high. The sides and the bottoms of the cages were steel slats, so that excrement from the animals in the upper and middle tiers dropped through the slats on to the animals below.

The aforementioned owner of this nightmare weighed, I am sure, at least 240 pounds, but what was even more impressive about his appearance was that he seemed to be made out of concrete. His movements had all the fluidity and grace of a brick wall. What made him even less appealing was that his language seemed to consist mainly of grunts, many of which sounded alike to me, and none of which were particularly pleasant to hear. Seeing how rigid he was and sensing the overall quality of his presence, I - rather brilliantly, I thought - concluded that his difficulties had not arisen merely because he hadn’t had time, that particular morning, to finish his entire daily yoga routine.

But I wasn’t about to divulge my opinions of him or his operation, for I was undercover, visiting slaughterhouses and feedlots to learn what I could about modern meat production. There were no bumper stickers on my car, and my clothes and hairstyle were carefully chosen to give no indication that I might have philosophical leanings other than those that were common in the area. I told the farmer matter of factly that I was a researcher writing about animal agriculture, and asked if he’d mind speaking with me for a few minutes so that I might have the benefit of his knowledge. In response, he grunted a few words that I could not decipher, but that I gathered meant I could ask him questions and he would show me around.

I was at this point not very happy about the situation, and this feeling did not improve when we entered one of the warehouses that housed his pigs. In fact, my distress increased, for I was immediately struck by what I can only call an overpowering olfactory experience. The place reeked like you would not believe of ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, and other noxious gases that were the products of the animals’ wastes. These, unfortunately, seemed to have been piling up inside the building for far too long a time.

As nauseating as the stench was for me, I wondered what it must be like for the animals. The cells that detect scent are known as ethmoidal cells. Pigs, like dogs, have nearly 200 times the concentration of these cells in their noses as humans do. In a natural setting, they are able, while rooting around in the dirt, to detect the scent of an edible root through the earth itself. Given any kind of a chance, they will never soil their own nests, for they are actually quite clean animals, despite the reputation we have unfairly given them. But here they had no contact with the earth, and their noses were beset by the unceasing odor of their own urine and feces multiplied a thousand times by the accumulated wastes of the other pigs unfortunate enough to be caged in that warehouse. I was in the building only for a few minutes, and the longer I remained in there, the more desperately I wanted to leave. But the pigs were prisoners there, barely able to take a single step, forced to endure this stench, and almost completely immobile, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and with no time off, I can assure you, for holidays.

The man who ran the place was - I’ll give him this - kind enough to answer my questions, which were mainly about the drugs he used to handle the problems that are fairly common in factory pigs today. But my sentiments about him and his farm were not becoming any warmer. It didn’t help when, in response to a particularly loud squealing from one of the pigs, he delivered a sudden and threatening kick to the bars of its cage, causing a loud “clang” to reverberate through the warehouse and leading to screaming from many of the pigs. Because it was becoming increasingly difficult to hide my distress, it crossed my mind that I should tell him what I thought of the conditions in which he kept his pigs, but then I thought better of it. This was a man, it was obvious, with whom there was no point in arguing.

After maybe 15 minutes, I’d had enough and was preparing to leave, and I felt sure he was glad to be about to be rid of me. But then something happened, something that changed my life, forever - and, as it turns out, his too. It began when his wife came out from the farmhouse and cordially invited me to stay for dinner. The pig farmer grimaced when his wife spoke, but he dutifully turned to me and announced, “The wife would like you to stay for dinner.” He always called her “the wife,” by the way, which led me to deduce that he was not, apparently, on the leading edge of feminist thought in the country today.

I don’t know whether you have ever done something without having a clue why, and to this day I couldn’t tell you what prompted me to do it, but I said Yes, I’d be delighted. And stay for dinner I did, though I didn’t eat the pork they served. The excuse I gave was that my doctor was worried about my cholesterol. I didn’t say that I was a vegetarian, nor that my cholesterol was 125.

I was trying to be a polite and appropriate dinner guest. I didn’t want to say anything that might lead to any kind of disagreement. The couple (and their two sons, who were also at the table) were, I could see, being nice to me, giving me dinner and all, and it was gradually becoming clear to me that, along with all the rest of it, they could be, in their way, somewhat decent people. I asked myself, if they were in my town, traveling, and I had chanced to meet them, would I have invited them to dinner? Not likely, I knew, not likely at all. Yet here they were, being as hospitable to me as they could. Yes, I had to admit it. Much as I detested how the pigs were treated, this pig farmer wasn’t actually the reincarnation of Adolph Hitler. At least not at the moment.

Of course, I still knew that if we were to scratch the surface we’d no doubt find ourselves in great conflict, and because that was not a direction in which I wanted to go, as the meal went along I sought to keep things on an even and constant keel. Perhaps they sensed it too, for among us, we managed to see that the conversation remained, consistently and resolutely, shallow. We talked about the weather, about the Little League games in which their two sons played, and then, of course, about how the weather might affect the Little League games. We were actually doing rather well at keeping the conversation superficial and far from any topic around which conflict might occur. Or so I thought. But then suddenly, out of nowhere, the man pointed at me forcefully with his finger, and snarled in a voice that I must say truly frightened me, “Sometimes I wish you animal rights people would just drop dead.”

How on Earth he knew I had any affinity to animal rights I will never know - I had painstakingly avoided any mention of any such thing - but I do know that my stomach tightened immediately into a knot. To make matters worse, at that moment his two sons leapt from the table, tore into the den, slammed the door behind them, and turned the TV on loud, presumably preparing to drown out what was to follow. At the same instant, his wife nervously picked up some dishes and scurried into the kitchen. As I watched the door close behind her and heard the water begin running, I had a sinking sensation. They had, there was no mistaking it, left me alone with him. I was, to put it bluntly, terrified. Under the circumstances, a wrong move now could be disastrous. Trying to center myself, I tried to find some semblance of inner calm by watching my breath, but this I could not do, and for a very simple reason. There wasn’t any to watch.

“What are they saying that’s so upsetting to you?” I said finally, pronouncing the words carefully and distinctly, trying not to show my terror. I was trying very hard at that moment to disassociate myself from the animal rights movement, a force in our society of which he, evidently, was not overly fond. “They accuse me of mistreating my stock,” he growled. “Why would they say a thing like that?” I answered, knowing full well, of course, why they would, but thinking mostly about my own survival. His reply, to my surprise, while angry, was actually quite articulate. He told me precisely what animal rights groups were saying about operations like his, and exactly why they were opposed to his way of doing things. Then, without pausing, he launched into a tirade about how he didn’t like being called cruel, and they didn’t know anything about the business he was in, and why couldn’t they mind their own business.

As he spoke it, the knot in my stomach was relaxing, because it was becoming clear, and I was glad of it, that he meant me no harm, but just needed to vent. Part of his frustration, it seemed, was that even though he didn’t like doing some of the things he did to the animals -cooping them up in such small cages, using so many drugs, taking the babies away from their mothers so quickly after their births - he didn’t see that he had any choice. He would be at a disadvantage and unable to compete economically if he didn’t do things that way. This is how it’s done today, he told me, and he had to do it too. He didn’t like it, but he liked even less being blamed for doing what he had to do in order to feed his family. As it happened, I had just the week before been at a much larger hog operation, where I learned that it was part of their business strategy to try to put people like him out of business by going full-tilt into the mass production of assembly-line pigs, so that small farmers wouldn’t be able to keep up. What I had heard corroborated everything he was saying.

Almost despite myself, I began to grasp the poignancy of this man’s human predicament. I was in his home because he and his wife had invited me to be there. And looking around, it was obvious that they were having a hard time making ends meet. Things were threadbare. This family was on the edge. Raising pigs, apparently, was the only way the farmer knew how to make a living, so he did it even though, as was becoming evident the more we talked, he didn’t like one bit the direction hog farming was going. At times, as he spoke about how much he hated the modern factory methods of pork production, he reminded me of the very animal rights people who a few minutes before he said he wished would drop dead.

As the conversation progressed, I actually began to develop some sense of respect for this man whom I had earlier judged so harshly. There was decency in him. There was something within him that meant well. But as I began to sense a spirit of goodness in him, I could only wonder all the more how he could treat his pigs the way he did. Little did I know that I was about to find out. . .

We are talking along, when suddenly he looks troubled. He slumps over, his head in his hands. He looks broken, and there is a sense of something awful having happened. Has he had a heart attack? A stroke? I’m finding it hard to breathe, and hard to think clearly. “What’s happening?” I ask. It takes him awhile to answer, but finally he does. I am relieved that he is able to speak, although what he says hardly brings any clarity to the situation. “It doesn’t matter,” he says, “and I don’t want to talk about it.” As he speaks, he makes a motion with his hand, as if he were pushing something away.

For the next several minutes we continue to converse, but I’m quite uneasy. Things seem incomplete and confusing. Something dark has entered the room, and I don’t know what it is or how to deal with it. Then, as we are speaking, it happens again. Once again a look of despondency comes over him. Sitting there, I know I’m in the presence of something bleak and oppressive. I try to be present with what’s happening, but it’s not easy. Again I’m finding it hard to breathe. Finally, he looks at me, and I notice his eyes are teary. “You’re right,” he says. I, of course, always like to be told that I am right, but in this instance I don’t have the slightest idea what he’s talking about. He continues. “No animal,” he says, “should be treated like that. Especially hogs. Do you know that they’re intelligent animals? They’re even friendly, if you treat ’em right. But I don’t.”

There are tears welling up in his eyes. And he tells me that he has just had a memory come back of something that happened in his childhood, something he hasn’t thought of for many years. It’s come back in stages, he says. He grew up, he tells me, on a small farm in rural Missouri, the old-fashioned kind where animals ran around, with barnyards and pastures, and where they all had names. I learn, too, that he was an only child, the son of a powerful father who ran things with an iron fist. With no brothers or sisters, he often felt lonely, but found companionship among the animals on the farm, particularly several dogs, who were as friends to him. And, he tells me, and this I am quite surprised to hear, he had a pet pig.

As he proceeds to tell me about this pig, it is as if he is becoming a different person. Before he had spoken primarily in a monotone; but now his voice grows lively. His body language, which until this point seemed to speak primarily of long suffering, now becomes animated. There is something fresh taking place. In the summer, he tells me, he would sleep in the barn. It was cooler there than in the house, and the pig would come over and sleep alongside him, asking fondly to have her belly rubbed, which he was glad to do.

There was a pond on their property, he goes on, and he liked to swim in it when the weather was hot, but one of the dogs would get excited when he did, and would ruin things. The dog would jump into the water and swim up on top of him, scratching him with her paws and making things miserable for him. He was about to give up on swimming, but then, as fate would have it, the pig, of all people, stepped in and saved the day. Evidently the pig could swim, for she would plop herself into the water, swim out where the dog was bothering the boy, and insert herself between them. She’d stay between the dog and the boy, and keep the dog at bay. She was, as best I could make out, functioning in the situation something like a lifeguard, or in this case, perhaps more of a life-pig.

I’m listening to this hog farmer tell me these stories about his pet pig, and I’m thoroughly enjoying both myself and him, and rather astounded at how things are transpiring, when once again, it happens. Once again a look of defeat sweeps across this man’s face, and once again I sense the presence of something very sad. Something in him, I know, is struggling to make its way toward life through anguish and pain, but I don’t know what it is or how, indeed, to help him.

“What happened to your pig?” I ask.
He sighs, and it’s as though the whole world’s pain is contained in that sigh. Then, slowly, he speaks. “My father made me butcher it.”
“Did you?” I ask.
“I ran away, but I couldn’t hide. They found me.”
“What happened?”
“My father gave me a choice.”
“What was that?”
“He told me, ‘You either slaughter that animal or you’re no longer my son.’”

Some choice, I think, feeling the weight of how fathers have so often trained their sons not to care, to be what they call brave and strong, but what so often turns out to be callous and closed-hearted. “So I did it,” he says, and now his tears begin to flow, making their way down his cheeks. I am touched and humbled. This man, whom I had judged to be without human feeling, is weeping in front of me, a stranger. This man, whom I had seen as callous and even heartless, is actually someone who cares, and deeply. How wrong, how profoundly and terribly wrong I had been.

In the minutes that follow, it becomes clear to me what has been happening. The pig farmer has remembered something that was so painful, that was such a profound trauma, that he had not been able to cope with it when it had happened. Something had shut down, then. It was just too much to bear. Somewhere in his young, formative psyche he made a resolution never to be that hurt again, never to be that vulnerable again. And he built a wall around the place where the pain had occurred, which was the place where his love and attachment to that pig was located, which was his heart. And now here he was, slaughtering pigs for a living - still, I imagined, seeking his father’s approval. God, what we men will do, I thought, to get our fathers’ acceptance.

I had thought he was a cold and closed human being, but now I saw the truth. His rigidity was not a result of a lack of feeling, as I had thought it was, but quite the opposite: it was a sign of how sensitive he was underneath. For if he had not been so sensitive, he would not have been that hurt, and he would not have needed to put up so massive a wall. The tension in his body that was so apparent to me upon first meeting him, the body armor that he carried, bespoke how hurt he had been, and how much capacity for feeling he carried still, beneath it all.

I had judged him, and done so, to be honest, mercilessly. But for the rest of the evening I sat with him, humbled, and grateful for whatever it was in him that had been strong enough to force this long-buried and deeply painful memory to the surface. And glad, too, that I had not stayed stuck in my judgments of him, for if I had, I would not have provided an environment in which his remembering could have occurred.

We talked that night, for hours, about many things. I was, after all that had happened, concerned for him. The gap between his feelings and his lifestyle seemed so tragically vast. What could he do? This was all he knew. He did not have a high school diploma. He was only partially literate. Who would hire him if he tried to do something else? Who would invest in him and train him, at his age? When finally, I left that evening, these questions were very much on my mind, and I had no answers to them. Somewhat flippantly, I tried to joke about it. “Maybe,” I said, “you’ll grow broccoli or something.” He stared at me, clearly not comprehending what I might be talking about. It occurred to me, briefly, that he might possibly not know what broccoli was.

We parted that night as friends, and though we rarely see each other now, we have remained friends as the years have passed. I carry him in my heart and think of him, in fact, as a hero. Because, as you will soon see, impressed as I was by the courage it had taken for him to allow such painful memories to come to the surface, I had not yet seen the extent of his bravery.

When I wrote "Diet for a New America," I quoted him and summarized what he had told me, but I was quite brief and did not mention his name. I thought that, living as he did among other pig farmers in Iowa, it would not be to his benefit to be associated with me. When the book came out, I sent him a copy, saying I hoped he was comfortable with how I wrote of the evening we had shared, and directing him to the pages on which my discussion of our time together was to be found. Several weeks later, I received a letter from him. “Dear Mr. Robbins,” it began. “Thank you for the book. When I saw it, I got a migraine headache.”

Now as an author, you do want to have an impact on your readers. This, however, was not what I had had in mind. He went on, though, to explain that the headaches had gotten so bad that, as he put it, “the wife” had suggested to him he should perhaps read the book. She thought there might be some kind of connection between the headaches and the book. He told me that this hadn’t made much sense to him, but he had done it because “the wife” was often right about these things.

“You write good,” he told me, and I can tell you that his three words of his meant more to me than when the New York Times praised the book profusely. He then went on to say that reading the book was very hard for him, because the light it shone on what he was doing made it clear to him that it was wrong to continue. The headaches, meanwhile, had been getting worse, until, he told me, that very morning, when he had finished the book, having stayed up all night reading, he went into the bathroom, and looked into the mirror. “I decided, right then,” he said, “that I would sell my herd and get out of this business. I don’t know what I will do, though. Maybe I will, like you said, grow broccoli.”

As it happened, he did sell his operation in Iowa and move back to Missouri, where he bought a small farm. And there he is today, running something of a model farm. He grows vegetables organically - including, I am sure, broccoli - that he sells at a local farmer’s market. He’s got pigs, all right, but only about 10, and he doesn’t cage them, nor does he kill them. Instead, he’s got a contract with local schools; they bring kids out in buses on field trips to his farm, for his “Pet-a-pig” program. He shows them how intelligent pigs are and how friendly they can be if you treat them right, which he now does. He’s arranged it so the kids, each one of them, gets a chance to give a pig a belly rub. He’s become nearly a vegetarian himself, has lost most of his excess weight, and his health has improved substantially. And, thank goodness, he’s actually doing better financially than he was before.

Do you see why I carry this man with me in my heart? Do you see why he is such a hero to me? He dared to leap, to risk everything, to leave what was killing his spirit even though he didn’t know what was next. He left behind a way of life that he knew was wrong, and he found one that he knows is right.

When I look at many of the things happening in our world, I sometimes fear we won’t make it. But when I remember this man and the power of his spirit, and when I remember that there are many others whose hearts beat to the same quickening pulse, I think we will. I can get tricked into thinking there aren’t enough of us to turn the tide, but then I remember how wrong I was about the pig farmer when I first met him, and I realize that there are heroes afoot everywhere. Only I can’t recognize them because I think they are supposed to look or act a certain way. How blinded I can be by my own beliefs.

The man is one of my heroes because he reminds me that we can depart from the cages we build for ourselves and for each other, and become something much better. He is one of my heroes because he reminds me of what I hope someday to become. When I first met him, I would not have thought it possible that I would ever say the things I am saying here. But this only goes to show how amazing life can be, and how you never really know what to expect. The pig farmer has become, for me, a reminder never to underestimate the power of the human heart.

I consider myself privileged to have spent that day with him, and grateful that I was allowed to be a catalyst for the unfolding of his spirit. I know my presence served him in some way, but I also know, and know full well, that I received far more than I gave. To me, this is grace—to have the veils lifted from our eyes so that we can recognize and serve the goodness in each other. Others may wish for great riches or for ecstatic journeys to mystical planes, but to me, this is the magic of human life."

The Daily "Near You?"

Amherst, Virginia, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

Jim Kunstler, "Crazyland"

"Crazyland"
by Jim Kunstler

"The whole country is one vast insane asylum and 
they're letting the worst patients run the place." 
- Robert W. Welch, Jr.

"In a confab of friends on a warm evening this weekend, someone asked: Do you think what’s going on is due to incompetence or malevolence? The USA is certainly skidding into a great and traumatic re-set featuring a much lower standard of living for most citizens amidst a junkyard of broken institutions. But so are all the other nations of Western Civ. If it’s not being managed by malign forces, such as der Schwabenklaus and his WEF myrmidons, then it sure looks like some sort of controlled demolition. The big question hanging over the 2022 election, then, is: Must America commit suicide?

What provoked the mental illness of the Left? What turned the Democratic Party into the Party of Chaos? It seemed pretty sane in 1996 when President Bill Clinton declared - to much surprise - in his State of the Union address that “the era of big government is over.” Of course, few understood back then how cravenly corrupt the Clintons were, even especially as Hillary launched her own political career once Bill’s turn was over. Few, I daresay, thought at the time that Hillary would come to eclipse Bill in influence — though not so few suspected that the first lady operated as the demented megalomaniac she has proved to be.

Gawd knows what went on in that Shakespearean marriage… but the Democratic Party in the post-2000 Hillary years discovered that its very existence required the government to get ever-bigger because the American economy - the real, on-the-ground economy outside Wall Street’s financialization hall of mirrors - was withering away with the off-shoring of industry and something was needed to replace it. And, by the way, let’s stipulate that the Republican Party mostly abetted all that, even despite transient rumblings from its Tea Party renegades.

Forgive me at this juncture for repeating my oft-stated theory of history: Things happen because they seem like a good idea at the time. Off-shoring seemed like a good idea at the time. Fob off all those filthy, polluting factories onto other countries, and pay the natives three bucks a day to make all the stuff we needed. Plus, pay for the stuff with US treasuries (IOUs). What a racket! But then every activity in America was turning into a racket - which is to say, making money dishonestly - until it became the immersive economic milieu of the land. Even the two most noble endeavors in our society, education and medicine, disgraced themselves with shameless moneygrubbing.

Something weird happened starting in 2004 when one Barack Obama came onstage at the Democratic convention that nominated the haircut-in-search-of-a-brain called John Kerry. The new star lit up the joint posing as a Great Uniter. And four years later he made a fool of Hillary, cutting her off at the pass from seizing her supposedly ineluctable turn - and supreme glass-ceiling-breaking triumph - as president. Where’d he come from? This pavement-pounding community organizer with the 1000-watt smile?

In retrospect, Barack Obama appears to have been manufactured out of some misty Marxist cabal of the Far Left that infested a sub-basement of the Democratic Party. He came on-board in 2009, just as all that skeezy financialization blew up the banks and launched the era of government rescue operations that heaped previously unimaginable quantities of debt on the USA’s already unmanageable burden. Republican George Bush II got the blame for all that and Mr. Obama proceeded to make it a lot worse.

Barack Obama served as liberalism’s bowling trophy, the capstone of the great civil rights crusade: a black president, proof of America’s moral uprightness. He managed to do next to nothing to change the conditions that had wrecked black America - namely, the paternalistic policies that shattered families - but he put up a good front while the country teetered economically. And notice that his DOJ, under Attorney General Eric Holder, managed to avoid prosecuting anyone but mortgage vampire Angelo Mozilo for all the banking crimes of the day. 

Meanwhile, President Obama took care of Hillary by anointing her Secretary of State, from which perch she grifted tens of millions of dollars into the coffers of the janky Clinton Foundation. Smooth moves there. In the end, Mr. Obama remained an enigma, passing the baton to Her Inevitableness in 2016 - which she commenced to blow utterly in overestimating her own political charm - she had none - and underestimating the appeal of her opponent, the Golden Golem of Greatness, Donald Trump.

Mr. Trump’s astonishing victory apparently disordered Hillary’s mind. She was reportedly too drunk late that election night to even appear at the podium to make the excruciating concession speech. But her Russian Collusion operation ginned up months earlier had already set in motion a great vengeance machine which partisans in the DOJ, FBI, CIA, and State Department ran with through the whole of Mr. Trump’s term in the White House, climaxing in the orchestrated election frauds of 2020, which installed Barack Obama’s empty vessel of a stand-in “Joe Biden” as president.

The amalgamated pathologies of Barack Obama’s reign - which includes the birth of Wokery, the Jacobin-Marxist crusade to trash culture and economy - and Hillary Clinton’s psychotic thirst for revenge has transformed the Democrats into the Party of Chaos, presiding over the suicide of America, and Western Civ with it. Which, of course, prompts the question: Who exactly is running Barack Obama? I don’t pretend to know at this point. Many people I know are sure it is an international banking claque. The part that doesn’t add up is the supposed banking claque’s utter lack of political charm. Nobody in Western Civ is for them, in the sense that they offer any salvation program from either the disorders of Woke culture or the disorders of crumbling economic globalism.

Mysteries abound now, and they are disconcerting to an extreme. How did the polite and rational society called Canada fall under the punishing sway of Justin Trudeau? Ditto the apparently insane Australia and New Zealand? Ditto the Europeans, who followed America’s absurd campaign to make Ukraine a war zone, and who now face a winter with no fuel for industry or home heating - and possibly a descent into new medievalism. Perhaps the Covid bamboozle did that, just drove them over the edge. (And they will soon learn what a deadly con that was, especially the “vaccine” feature.)

Personally, I think we under-appreciate the tendings of history per se, and that tending these days is the set of circumstances adding up to a Long Emergency, a.k.a. the Fourth Turning, a.k.a, Mr. J.M. Greer’s Long Descent. In plain English, we’re exiting the techno-industrial fiesta of the past 200-odd years and entering the uncharted territory of what-comes-next, and that is driving the immense anxiety of the age. Our business model for everything is broken, mostly because the fossil fuel situation has become so uncertain, and it is driving us nuts. Understand that and you will have enough mental equipment operating correctly to stay sane.

Suicide is hardly the only option. Resist those who want to drag you into it. We are going to carry on one way or another. We’re going to make it through this bottleneck. Let the insane bury the insane. Keep your eyes peeled, keep your hearts open, and keep your powder dry."

"Hand In Hand..."

"Apathy and evil. The two work hand in hand. They are the same, really... Evil wills it. Apathy allows it. Evil hates the innocent and the defenseless most of all. Apathy doesn't care as long as it's not personally inconvenienced."
- Jake Thoene, "Shaiton's Fire"
Yeah, God forbid anyone get's inconvenienced...
- CP

"A Major Food Crisis Coming In 2023? 'Prices Will Be On Steroids After The Election'”

"A Major Food Crisis Coming In 2023? 
'Prices Will Be On Steroids After The Election'”
by Michael Snyder

"We are being warned that food prices in the U.S. are going to go absolutely haywire after the election in November. I am taking such warnings very seriously, and I believe that you should too. Global officials have been telling us over and over again that we are heading into an unprecedented global food crisis, and I have been writing about this again and again in recent weeks. But so far, the vast majority of the population doesn’t seem to be taking this seriously. Agricultural production is going to be way below expectations all over the planet in 2022, and that means that there will be far less food to go around in 2023.

Let me give you a perfect example of what I am talking about. Just within the last couple of days, it has been reported that there will be crop losses “of up to 50 percent” in the German state of Baden-Württemberg…"Crop losses of up to 50 percent are now expected in parts of Germany due to drought, farmers in affected regions have claimed. Up to half of the crops in parts of the German state of Baden-Württemberg are likely to be lost due to drought, farmers in the region have claimed, with problems to do with the prices of fuel, fertilizer, and pesticides connected to the green agenda and war in Ukraine also reportedly causing problems for those in the region."

These are crop losses that haven’t happened yet. These are crop losses that will happen in the fall if sufficient rain does not arrive soon…"With the losses expected to materialize in the autumn, the farming chaos may end up being another crisis facing Germany’s floundering political class as fuel shortages combined with a freefalling economy hit a public already suffering from officials’ poor handling of the COVID-19 pandemic."

Just within the past week, I have written about how authorities are also projecting similar crop losses in key areas of the UK, France and Italy. And here in the United States, 37 percent of farmers in the western half of the country say that they will be killing their own crops because there is no chance that they will come to maturity due to the endless drought.

All of these crop losses haven’t hit the food system yet. So none of these crop losses are reflected in grocery store prices yet. That won’t happen until the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023. With all of that in mind, I would like to share with you a comment that was just posted on one of Southern Prepper’s videos…"Just a heads up. I have a family member who works in the corporate pricing department for groceries. This company has been in business 40 years. Meeting was called 1 day ago and they were told prices will be on steroids after the election. Owner said he’s never seen what’s headed our way in 40 of business. They just hired 10 more people and can not keep up with data input. All hands on deck and overtime included. Get your house in order. Buy Holiday grocery products while you can find and afford them. Boss told employees to stock up now. Please pay attention folks."

It would be easy to dismiss that comment because we don’t know who it is from and so we can’t verify the specific claims that are made. But this is entirely consistent with everything else that I am hearing. Food prices have been rising rapidly in recent months, but the really big deal is all the food that is not being grown right now. This lack of production is going to push prices to levels that would have once been unthinkable.

Most people simply do not realize how much our farmers are hurting right now. Just check out these numbers…"Nearly three quarters of US farmers say this year’s drought is hurting their harvest - with significant crop and income loss, according to a survey by the American Farm Bureau Federation, an insurance company and lobbying group that represents agricultural interests.

The survey was conducted across 15 states from June 8 to July 20 in extreme drought regions from Texas to North Dakota to California, which makes up nearly half of the country’s agricultural production value. In California - a state with high fruit and nut tree crops - 50% of farmers said they had to remove trees and multiyear crops due to drought, which will affect future revenue."

This is going to affect all of us. If farmers and ranchers don’t produce our food, we do not eat. Things are even worse in western Europe, and the war in Ukraine is greatly restricting the flow of agricultural goods from eastern Europe. In 2023, there is going to be a mad scramble for whatever food that is available, and global prices are going to go nuts.

We have already started to see food riots and civil unrest is some areas of the globe, but I anticipate that things will get much worse next year. Even here in the United States, I expect that there will be a lot of anger and frustration. And as we have seen, it certainly doesn’t take much for our major urban areas to explode. Things aren’t even that bad yet, and already we are seeing people behave in ways that are extremely bizarre. For example, just consider a very strange incident that just happened in Los Angeles

"The gang of people ransacked the store while shouting, completely destroying the COVID-19 safety screen that had been set up to grab as much as they could in Los Angeles, California. A group entered the convenience store near Figueroa Street and El Segundo Boulevard, with surveillance footage showing the looters shouting at each other, on August 15. They can be seen running across the store and grabbing drinks, cigarettes, lottery tickets, bags of chips and other items. Approximately 100 young people were involved in the violence."

When I read about this sort of a thing, it makes me very sad. I have been strongly warning that such unrest would be coming to America, and eventually it will get completely out of control. As food prices surge to crazy heights, those at the bottom of the economic food chain will not be happy. The coming food crisis will be a difficult time for our nation, and for the world as a whole. If you understand what is coming, it gives you an opportunity to get prepared. Sadly, most of the population doesn’t want to listen to the warnings, and that is extremely unfortunate."

"Feeling of Impending Doom for the Economy"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 8/22/22:
"Feeling of Impending Doom for the Economy"
"I just can’t shake the feeling that I’m getting right now. I am very worried about the massive layoffs that are coming. I’m really worried about the real estate downturn that is all around us. Inflation is just ravaging the average person and we are about to head into winter and people will not be able to afford to heat themselves."
Comments here:
Related:

"How It Really Is"

 

"Sam's Club Vs Costco! Which Is Better? Which Is Cheaper?"

 
Full screen recommended.
Adventures with Danno, 8/22/22:
"Sam's Club Vs Costco! Which Is Better? Which Is Cheaper?"
"In today's vlog we compare Sam's Club, and Costco Wholesale stores. With massive price increases in the grocery stores across the country, we put together a versus video on two grocery Giants. We will go over which one we think is better, cheaper, and overall best bang for your buck! Grocery stores seem to be struggling to get in products, so we are continuing to keep a close eye on everything good related."
Comments here:

Gregory Mannarino, "Global Bond Yields Surging Higher, Stocks Set To Fall"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 8/22/22:
"Global Bond Yields Surging Higher, Stocks Set To Fall"
Comments here:

"30% of US small businesses will close..."

"Economic Market Snapshot 8/22/22:

"Economic Market Snapshot 8/22/22"
Market Data Center, Live Updates:
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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: creditequity valuationfunding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United Statesother advanced economies, and emerging markets."
Job cuts and much more.
Commentary, highly recommended:
"The more I see of the monied classes,
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
Oh yeah... beyond words. Any I know anyway...
And now... The End Game...

"The Only Difference..."

"The only difference between the Republican and Democratic
parties is the velocities with which their knees hit the floor when
corporations knock on their door. That's the only difference."
- Ralph Nader