Gregory Mannarino, AM 1/24/23:
"FED Deliberately Created Real Estate Bubble Is Bursting.
Inflation Continues To Rise"
Comments here:
So, we rise from the rubble...
Tuesday, January 24, 2023
"Stocking Up At Meijer! Prepping For The Future! What's Next!?"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 1/24/23:
"Stocking Up At Meijer!
Prepping For The Future! What's Next!?"
"In today's vlog we are at Meijer and noticing some strange 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! "
Comments here:
"We Must Ask Ourselves..."
''As Americans, we must ask ourselves: Are we really so different? Must we stereotype those who disagree with us? Do we truly believe that ALL red-state residents are ignorant racist fascist knuckle-dragging NASCAR-obsessed cousin-marrying roadkill-eating tobacco juice-dribbling gun-fondling religious fanatic rednecks; or that ALL blue-state residents are godless unpatriotic pierced-nose Volvo-driving France-loving left-wing communist latte-sucking tofu-chomping holistic-wacko neurotic vegan weenie perverts?''
- Dave Barry
"America’s Generational Failure Exposed, Episode 2: 'The Empire of Debt'”
"America’s Generational Failure Exposed,
Episode 2: 'The Empire of Debt'”
By Addison Wiggin
"The second installment of our acclaimed new miniseries America’s Generational Failure will be available free this afternoon at 12pm EST (9am PST).
Episode 2 is called “The Empire of Debt.” You might recognize it as the title of the New York Times bestseller by the same name that I wrote with Bill Bonner several years ago. Now fleshed out on camera, the electric story of the rise and fall of the American financial machine is a raw, unfiltered, and uncensored conversation between me and my long-time friend and mentor.
For Wiggin Sessions readers only, Episode 2 “The Empire of Debt” will be available at no cost for 24 hours. You don’t even need to sign up. Click here to watch @ 3pm this afternoon.
Trust me, this is information you can’t afford to miss. See you in the viewing room! Follow your own bliss."
"Mass Psychosis - How an Entire Population Becomes Mentally Ill"
Full screen recommended.
"Mass Psychosis -
How an Entire Population Becomes Mentally Ill"
"In this video we are going to explore the most dangerous of all psychic epidemics, the mass psychosis. A mass psychosis is an epidemic of madness and it occurs when a large portion of a society loses touch with reality and descends into delusions. Such a phenomenon is not a thing of fiction. Two examples of mass psychoses are the American and European witch hunts 16th and 17th centuries and the rise of totalitarianism in the 20th century.
This video will aim to answer questions surrounding mass psychosis: What is it? How does is start? Has it happened before? Are we experiencing one right now? And if so, how can the stages of a mass psychosis be reversed?"
Comments here:
"2023: Fourth Turning Meets Mass Formation Psychosis" (Excerpt)
"2023: Fourth Turning Meets Mass Formation Psychosis"
By Jim Quinn
Excerpt: “Four things need to exist or need to be in place if you want a large-scale mass phenomenon to emerge. The first thing is that there needs to be a lot of socially isolated people, people who experience a lack of social bonds. The second one is that there needs to be a lot of people who experience a lack of sense-making in life. And the third and the fourth conditions are that there needs to be a lot of free-floating anxiety and a lot of free-floating psychological discontent. So: meaning, anxiety, and discontent that is not connected to a specific representation.
So, it needs to be in the mind without the people being able to connect it to something. If you have these four things - lack of social bonds, lack of sense-making, free-floating anxiety, and free-floating psychological discontent -then society is highly at risk for the emergence of mass phenomenon.”
- Mattias Desmet, "The Psychology of Totalitarianism"
“Try to unlearn the obsessive fear of death (and the anxious quest for death avoidance) that pervades linear thinking in nearly every modern society. The ancients knew that, without periodic decay and death, nature cannot complete its full round of biological and social change. Without plant death, weeds would strangle the forest. Without human death, memories would never die, and unbroken habits and customs would strangle civilization. Social institutions require no less. Just as floods replenish soil and fires rejuvenate forests, a Fourth Turning clears out society’s exhausted elements and creates an opportunity.
- Strauss & Howe, "The Fourth Turning"
I recently finished reading Mattias Desmet’s fascinating and illuminating book "The Psychology of Totalitarianism", where he examines the mass formation psychosis which swept over the world during the time frame of early 2020 until present day. He explores some of the root causes of this psychological phenomena, comparing it to previous episodes in history, and delving into whether it occurred naturally or was purposely generated in order to implement a Great Reset agenda.
This type of spectacle has happened throughout human history, even documented by Charles Mackay in his 1841 book "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds." It is clear to me aspects of mass formation psychosis played a part in the previous two Fourth Turnings, as both sides in the U.S. Civil War displayed characteristics of those being hypnotized by a narrative, and the German people falling under the spell of Hitler and his rhetorical skills."
View full, highly recommended, article here:
"Economic Market Snapshot 1/24/23"
"Economic Market Snapshot 1/24/23"
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Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
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"It's a Big Club, and you ain't in it.
You and I are not in the Big Club."
- George Carlin
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A comprehensive, essential daily read.
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Financial Stress Index
"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI) is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: credit, equity valuation, funding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United States, other advanced economies, and emerging markets."
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Job cuts and much more.
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Commentary, highly recommended:
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"The more I see of the monied classes,
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
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Oh yeah... beyond words. Any I know anyway...
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And now... The End Game...
“The Job Cuts That Are Coming Are Going To Be Super Brutal”
“The Job Cuts That Are Coming
Are Going To Be Super Brutal”
by Michael Snyder
"A shockingly large wave of layoffs has already begun, and we are being warned that much larger layoffs are coming in the months ahead. That is very chilling to hear, because job cut announcements are already coming in so rapidly that I couldn’t possibly share them all with you. I wrote about some of the major layoffs that are happening just a few days ago, and now I have more to share. We haven’t seen anything like this since 2008, and many of you still have very painful memories of what the “Great Recession” was like. Unfortunately, America is now plunging into another severe economic downturn, and that means that there will be a tremendous amount of pain in the weeks and months to come.
Earlier today, I was stunned to learn that a new survey has found that 20 percent of business economists “expect employment at their company to fall in the coming months”…"A growing number of business economists expect companies to reduce their headcounts for the first time since the pandemic, a sign the job market is beginning to cool amid an increasingly dark economic outlook. That’s according to a new survey published on Monday by the National Association for Business Economics, which shows that about 20% of the group’s members expect employment at their company to fall in the coming months."
Is this survey representative of the U.S. economy as a whole? If it is, that is truly chilling. Can you imagine what our economy would look like if about one-fifth of all U.S. companies started suddenly letting workers go all at once? Hopefully that will not happen.
But it appears that the coming layoffs in the banking industry could be historic. In fact, one expert is publicly warning that “the job cuts that are coming are going to be super brutal”…"Banks are set to undertake the largest wave of job cuts in 15 years amid declining revenues. Industry watchers told the Financial Times (FT) the layoffs - expected to be in the tens of thousands - reverse a trend of widespread hiring and banks’ reticence to let go of workers during the pandemic. “The job cuts that are coming are going to be super brutal,” Lee Thacker, owner of financial services headhunting firm Silvermine Partners, told the FT in a Saturday (Jan. 21) report."
He didn’t just say that the job losses will be “brutal”. He said that they will be “super brutal”. Of course many would argue that the outlook for tech industry workers is even worse. At this point, “tens of thousands of employees” have already been laid off within just “the past few months”…
Big tech giants have laid off tens of thousands of employees over the past few months as recession fears, persistent inflation, and rising interest rates continue to weigh on earnings results. The likes of Google, Amazon, and Meta have let go of nearly 40,000 employees combined. But Gene Munster, managing partner at the tech-focused investment and venture capital firm Deepwater Asset Management (formerly Loup Ventures), believes the worst is yet to come. “There’s still another 15% to 20% of headcount reductions for these big tech companies in the next three to six months,” he told CNBC on Monday."
The startling layoffs that we just witnessed at Google made headlines all over the planet, because most of the experts didn’t see them coming. Sadly, many of those that were laid off didn’t see them coming either. Can you imagine giving 20 years of your life to Google and then getting suddenly laid off one day via email?…
"A software engineer described the way he found out Google was laying him off as a “slap in the face.” Jeremy Joslin, whose LinkedIn profile says he had worked at the tech giant since 2003, said Friday the company gave him the news over email. “It’s hard for me to believe that after 20 years at Google I unexpectedly find out about my last day via an email,” he tweeted. “What a slap in the face. I wish I could have said goodbye to everyone face to face.”
That is cold. But it appears that this is becoming something of a trend. In fact, Vox just laid off 7 percent of its workforce, and those that lost their jobs were “notified through email”…"Vox Media, the publisher of news websites such as Vox and The Verge, in addition to New York magazine, will lay off 7% of its workforce, chief executive Jim Bankoff said in a Friday morning memo to staff. Bankoff said the layoffs, which will result in about 130 people losing their roles, impacted multiple teams, including editorial. Those who had their jobs eliminated were notified through email, followed by a later meeting with a human resources officer who would discuss severance packages with them."
If you are in human resources and you are reading this, please don’t ever do something so cruel at your own company. It may be much easier to fire people by email, but it is simply the wrong thing to do.
On Monday we also learned that Spotify will be conducting mass layoffs…"Spotify has joined a slew of other tech giants in laying off employees. Monday’s announcement shared by CEO Daniel Ek said that impacted employees, about 6% across the company, will be notified Monday morning."
I suppose that they have to pay Joe Rogan somehow. But it always pains me when I hear of people losing good paying employment. Sadly, for many firms one wave of layoffs will not be enough. As we plunge into a very harsh economic environment, some companies will have to get out the axe again and again.
For example, just look at what the Winklevoss twins are doing. They just conducted their third round of layoffs within the last eight months…"Cryptocurrency exchange Gemini is slashing 10 percent of its staff – the third round of layoffs within just eight months. The announcement was made in an internal message on Monday by founders and identical twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, 41, The Information reported. The company also cut staff in July, according to TechCrunch, just a month after it laid off 10 percent in June." Instead of subjecting us to horrifying renditions of some of our most beloved classic songs, perhaps they should have spent more time trying to figure out how to keep their company afloat.
In any event, it turns out that the doe-eyed optimists were dead wrong and the economic realists were quite correct. The massive economic meltdown that we have been relentlessly warned about is happening. Hordes of American workers have already been laid off, and countless more will be laid off as 2023 rolls along. So you may want to try to butter up your boss while you still can, because otherwise you may be one of the people that gets “laid off by email” in the months ahead."
"Oh Sh*t, All The Eggs Are Disappearing"
Full screen recommended.
Redacted, 1/23/23:
"Oh Sh*t, All The Eggs Are Disappearing"
"Are eggs the new gas? It sure seems like that. With bird flu popping up on every continent and, you know, Russia, egg prices are through the roof. We take a look at how this is hurting farmers, the climate policies that are not helping, plus some new theories about animal feed that could be hurting us all."
Comments here:
Monday, January 23, 2023
"The Street People Of Kensington: How Did This Happen? A Documentary About Kensington, Philadelphia"
Full screen recommended.
Mobile Instinct, 1/23/23:
"The Street People Of Kensington: How Did This Happen?
A Documentary About Kensington, Philadelphia"
Comments here:
"If You're Lonely..."
"If you're lonely when you're alone,
you're in bad company."
- John Rivero
Remember, being alone does NOT mean lonely...
"We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and - in spite of True Romance magazines - we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely - at least, not all the time - but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don't see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness." - Hunter S. Thompson
"You'll Never Walk Alone"
Barry Manilow, Cilla Black
Canadian Prepper, "Alert: East Coast of USA - Russian Nuclear Warship"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 1/23/23:
"Alert: East Coast of USA - Russian Nuclear Warship"
"Around 20 data points that suggest we're almost there..."
Comments here:
"Massive Price Increases On Groceries! How Do We Fix This?"
"Adventures With Danno, 1/23/23:
"Massive Price Increases On Groceries! How Do We Fix This?"
"In today's vlog we are noticing massive price increases on groceries everywhere across the country! We are focusing on skyrocketing prices, and the empty shelves situation! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products, and charging really high prices on items! We will also go over some ways to stock up on items, and save money in the process."
Comments here:
"A Look to the Heavens"
"M82 is a starburst galaxy with a superwind. In fact, through ensuing supernova explosions and powerful winds from massive stars, the burst of star formation in M82 is driving a prodigious outflow. Evidence for the superwind from the galaxy's central regions is clear in sharp telescopic snapshot. The composite image highlights emission from long outflow filaments of atomic hydrogen gas in reddish hues. Some of the gas in the superwind, enriched in heavy elements forged in the massive stars, will eventually escape into intergalactic space.
Triggered by a close encounter with nearby large galaxy M81, the furious burst of star formation in M82 should last about 100 million years or so. Also known as the Cigar Galaxy for its elongated visual appearance, M82 is about 30,000 light-years across. It lies 12 million light-years away near the northern boundary of Ursa Major."
Viktor Frankl, "Life Changing Quotes" ("Man's Search For Meaning")
Full screen recommended.
Viktor Frankl, "Life Changing Quotes" ("Man's Search For Meaning")
"Viktor Emil Frankl was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist as well as a Holocaust survivor. Frankl was the founder of the logotherapy method and is most notable for his best-selling book Man's Search for Meaning."
Freely download "Mans Search For Meaning", by Viktor Frankl, here:
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Highest recommendation:
"Our Collective Fate..."
"We live in radical times surrounded by tasks that seem impossible. It has become our collective fate to be alive in a time of great tragedies, to live in a period of overwhelming disasters and to stand at the edge of sweeping changes. The river of life is flooding before us, and a tide of poisons affect the air we breathe and the waters we drink and even tarnish the dreams of those who are young and as yet innocent. The snake-bitten condition has already spread throughout the collective body.
However, it is in troubled times that it becomes most important to remember that the wonder of life places the medicine of the self near where the poison dwells. The gifts always lie near the wounds, the remedies are often made from poisonous substances, and love often appears where deep losses become acknowledged. Along the arc of healing the wounds and the poisons of life are created the exact opportunities for bringing out all the medicines and making things whole again."
- Michael Meade, "Fate And Destiny"
"A Dreamer..."
And why does it make you sad to see how everything hangs by such thin and whimsical threads? Because you’re a dreamer, an incredible dreamer, with a tiny spark hidden somewhere inside you which cannot die, which even you cannot kill or quench and which tortures you horribly because all the odds are against its continual burning. In the midst of the foulest decay and putrid savagery, this spark speaks to you of beauty, of human warmth and kindness, of goodness, of greatness, of heroism, of martyrdom, and it speaks to you of love.”
- Eldridge Cleaver
"I Can't Believe How Bad It's Getting; One Paycheck Away From Homeless; Survive Financial Crisis"
Full screen recommended.
Jeremiah Babe, 1/23/23:
"I Can't Believe How Bad It's Getting; One Paycheck
Away From Homeless; Survive Financial Crisis"
Comments here:
Douglas Macgregor, "Everything About Russia's Massive Winter Offensive in Ukraine"
Full screen recommended.
Straight Calls with Douglas Macgregor, 1/23/23:
"Everything About Russia's Massive Winter Offensive in Ukraine"
"Your home for analysis of breaking news and in-depth discussion of current geopolitical events in the United States and the world. Geopolitics. No ego descriptions. No small talk. Straight to the point. Calls with the relevant analysis only."
Comments here:
"In A Word..."
“In a word, there are many thorns, but the roses are there too.”
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
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Full screen recommended.
Tchaikovsky, “1812 Overture”
The story:
“On September 7, 1812, at Borodino, 120 km (75 mi) west of Moscow, Napoleon’s forces met those of General Mikhail Kutuzov in a concerted stand made by Russia against the seemingly invincible French Army. The Battle of Borodino saw casualties estimated as high as 100,000 and the French were masters of the field. It was, however, ultimately a pyrrhic victory for the French invasion.
With resources depleted and supply lines overextended, Napoleon’s weakened forces moved into Moscow, which they occupied with little resistance. Expecting capitulation from the displaced Tsar Alexander I, the French instead found themselves in a barren and desolate city, parts of which the retreating Russian Army had burned to the ground.
Deprived of winter stores, Napoleon had to retreat. Beginning on October 19 and lasting well into December, the French Army faced several overwhelming obstacles on its long retreat: famine, typhus, frigid temperatures, harassing Cossacks, and Russian forces barring the way out of the country. Abandoned by Napoleon in November, the Grande Armée was reduced to one-tenth of its original size by the time it reached Poland and relative safety.”
"Our Society Is In The Process Of Breaking Down All Around Us"
Full screen recommended.
"Our Society Is In The Process
Of Breaking Down All Around Us"
By Epic Economist
"Our society is in the process of breaking down all around us, and signs of its impending collapse are everywhere. Have you noticed that nowadays people don’t treat one another with the same level of respect and civility that they once did? Americans are constantly fighting with each other, and these days it feels like most people can’t solve anything through dialogue and empathy, and this should greatly alarm all of us. The worsening polarization across our nation can be a contributing factor, but recently, even those that are supposedly on the same side are treating each other with extreme contempt. Conservatives are fighting with conservatives, liberals are fighting with liberals, Christians are fighting with Christians, and we’re also seeing families break up all over the place. Hearts are growing so cold, and all of the conflict and discord that we are witnessing right now is leaving us wondering about what things will be like when economic conditions in this nation really start falling apart in the months ahead.
Given that we have become disturbingly disconnected from each other, we tend to focus on what’s happening inside our social bubble and forget the narratives others are living. But when we take a step back and take a deeper look at our current situation, the extent to which our society has already deteriorated is quite shocking.Unfortunately, we’re seeing similar scenes play out all around the United States night and day, and nothing really changes. With rampant unemployment and a fast-declining economy, it’s safe to say that this is only going to get worse in the coming months.
On the East Coast, things are no different. Official numbers show that New York City has also seen a 42 percent rise in burglaries in the past twelve months, and the number of outrageous wrongdoings that resulted in fatalities rose by a staggering 91% over that same span. No wonder why, approximately 299,557 people have already moved out of the city in search of a safer place to live in 2022, according to data from the U.S. census.
Sadly, extremely wicked acts continue to occur in our major cities, and such incidents are happening so frequently that they barely make a blip in the news. In Chicago, public hospitals report that 50 percent of victims arriving with severe injuries caused by immoral offenders are children under the age of ten. And about 37 percent of them lose their lives in a hospital bed.
Is this what America has become? Have we become a place where the lives of children under the age of ten are at risk? How can parents raise their kids safely in such chaotic environments?
What’s even sadder is the fact that many children out there are also victims of their own parents. For example, due to the worst addiction crisis this country has ever seen, many babies are addicted to illegal substances from the moment they’re born. In fact, in the city of Baltimore, approximately one out of every four babies is born dependent on opioids. Doctors at Mt. Washington Pediatric Hospital say babies born with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome - a set of conditions caused by withdrawal from exposure to illegal substances - now account for 25% of the hospital’s admissions.
That’s so wrong on so many levels, and it means that the future of many of these babies is taken from them before they even have the opportunity to know the world."
"Beware of a Shocking New Tax"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 1/23/23:
"Beware of a Shocking New Tax"
"The city of Toronto’s real estate board has lost its mind. They’re going out and they’re going to tax people like never before. When does it end? People are complaining about layoffs like little girls."
Comments here:
"America’s Generational Failure Exposed, Episode 1: 'The Day America Dies'”
"America’s Generational Failure Exposed,
Episode 1: 'The Day America Dies'”
By Addison Wiggin
"Our team just put out a massive project. It’s been in the works for the last 3 months. We call it "America’s Generational Failure Exposed." It’s a 4-part miniseries about fear, greed, corruption and the toll they’ve taken on America and its citizens. We gave readers a sneak preview into Episode 1 “The Day America Dies” in December, and the feedback from thousands of viewers was overwhelmingly positive. Our inbox was flooded with countless messages of congratulations and thanks. Today, we celebrate the official world premiere of the entire series:
To celebrate, we’re making the world premiere screening absolutely free. Each episode will be available at no cost for 24 hours. You don’t even need to sign up. Click here to watch Episode 1 @ 3pm EST (12pm PST) this afternoon (or you can visit generationfailure.com in your browser).
Trust me, this is information you can’t afford to miss. See you in the viewing room! Follow your own bliss."
Bill Bonner, "When the Roof Falls In"
"When the Roof Falls In"
Plus, worshipping "The Science,"
ignorant masses and more inconvenient truths...
by Bill Bonner
Poitou, France - "It was a very cold weekend. The temperature fell to 4 below zero, centigrade, each night. Our house in Poitou – old, drafty, large – is almost impossible to heat. So we turned up the radiators full blast…and still shivered underneath the covers.
To bring new readers more fully into the picture, we bought our house in very rural France in 1994. It was a ramshackle place. We like fixing up old houses and restoring old gardens. We had plenty to do on both counts.
We needed a large house for our six children, mother, aunt, and a tutor who came with us to France to work with the children until they learned enough French to attend local schools. As it happened, the tutor almost died of a chest tumor, and the children were forced into the local school with hardly a word of French. Fortunately, children adapt to new languages quickly, and it was only a few weeks later that we were asking them to help translate.
Twenty-eight years later, the children have lives of their own. And there is still a lot of work to do – much of it redoing the repairs and renovations we made 25 years ago. And there are always surprises. Tout casse…tout passe
“It happened around noon,” explained Patrice, the farmer across the road. “I came back from putting out some hay…and I knew something didn’t look right. And then I realized that the roof had fallen in.”
The old clay tile roof leaked. Over many years, one of the oak beams that held up the roof had rotted. Two weeks ago, it gave way and came down on the cattle inside. “It was almost a miracle. One calf was trapped in the wreckage, but otherwise none of the cows were hurt,” Patrice explained. We made a quick visit over the weekend to check on rebuilding the barn. Tout casse…tout passe, say the French. Everything breaks up and goes away.
Poor Patrice. At 60 years old, he got kicked in the knee by a cow. This seemed to trigger a bad case of osteoarthritis. He limped, favoring his good leg. Then, the extra stress on the good knee caused it to go bad too. Now, he is an invalid, waiting for operations on both knees…and wondering if he will ever be able to go back to work.
“When I was working, I thought how nice it would be to take some time off. But now that I can’t work, I’m miserable. I’ve spent my whole life outside on the farm. I don’t like being cooped up at home. Christine doesn’t like it either.” Patrice nodded towards his long-time companion, who rolled her eyes slightly. Later in the day…
An Absolute Mess: “If I were you, I’d stay in Ireland,” suggested a friend. Our neighbors are very sociable. They invite us to dinner…or cocktails; they come over to chat; they bring us up-to-date. “France is an absolute mess. There are too many people getting too much money from the government for doing too little.” “Sounds familiar,” we replied.
Earlier in the day, we attended mass at St. Pierre, in Le Dorat. It is a magnificent church in a charming medieval town. The church is huge…built of heavy gray granite in the 10th century. It has tall columns and soaring arches…and paving stones worn smooth by 30 generations of believers.
The sky was the color of lead. Light snow fell in occasional flurries. Unheated, the church felt like the inside of a freezer. In the center pews, there were radiant heaters focused down on the faithful. But on the wings, where we and other sinners were seated, there was no heat at all.
In the middle ages, masses were given in Latin. The people didn’t speak Latin. That was a language reserved to the educated elite, who treated it as a sacred knowledge and used their access as a source of power. The clergy, back then, knew the secrets of the Bible. The masses did not. They needed priests to intercede, to explain, to mediate between Heaven and Earth…to bridge the mysterious gulf between their hard, everyday lives and the promises of everlasting paradise in the hereafter.
It was not until the 16th century that the Bible was made available in local languages. Then, people could read it themselves. In England, Holland and Germany – but not so much in France – they disintermediated the priest class.
In today’s jargon, the printing press and local language translations ‘disrupted’ the monopoly power of the Catholic church. People could read the words themselves and decide what they meant. Out of this disruption came the “protestant” religions – Methodist, Baptist, Quaker, Presbyterian…and so forth. By contrast, the Church of England, known as ‘Episcopalian’ in the US, is not a ‘protestant’ religion; it is a catholic religion with someone other than the pope at its head.
Ignorant Masses: “The elite always pretend that they have some special knowledge,” continued our learned friend. “Today, it is not the Latin Bible that keeps the elite in power; it is their claim to know ‘The Science.’” Our friend was on a roll. In the remote countryside of France, she had found a sympathetic ear. Two of them.
“We didn’t know – when the Covid first appeared – what it meant. The authorities said it was like the plague that wiped out a third of the population of Europe. We, the ignorant masses, didn’t know any better. We were at the mercy of the scientists.
But then we realized, the scientists didn’t know any more than we did. And it turned out it was just another virus…more dangerous than some, less dangerous than others. And it didn’t matter if you stayed at home, put on a mask and got three shots…you’d still get it. And you wouldn’t die.
And it’s pretty much the same thing with the war in the Ukraine. We have foreign policy ‘experts’ who tell us that they know best. They know that Russia must be stopped, or our democracy in France, such as it is, will be put in danger. Soon, Russian troops will be goose stepping down the Champs Elysee.
So, we send billions in aid…to keep the war going. US defense industries…and US energy companies…make a lot of money. But here in Europe we pay higher prices for everything. I don’t think we’ve seen the end of the protests. [She was referring to the ‘manifestations’ against pension reform.]
And anyone who pays attention to the news knows the whole thing is a fraud. The Russians can barely hold onto the Eastern provinces of the Ukraine… There is no way they pose a threat to Western Europe. And those areas that the Russians control now are full of Russians, not Ukrainians. Democracy has nothing to do with it; the people there voted to break away from the Ukraine.
And I saw your Al Gore on TV the other day. He was almost coming apart at the seams, giving a speech to Davos. He said the oceans were boiling…and that ‘rain bombs’ were coming down on our heads. He’s been warning for the last 20 years.” Al Gore’s movie, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ came out in 2006. He drew on “The Science” to warn that the world would be a dreadful place by now. The inconvenient thing is: it’s not.
“It’s the same sort of thing. Today, people worship ‘The Science’ the same way they used to worship the Latin Bible. They don’t know what’s in it, but they are sure it holds the key to salvation.”
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