Wednesday, December 13, 2023

“Viva The Chainsaw!”

“Viva The Chainsaw!”
Argentina's government gets the chop, 
while the American Dream soars out of reach...
by Bill Bonner

Baltimore, Maryland - "The most exciting thing in the world of money and politics, right now, is the remarkable story of Javier Milei in Argentina. He brandished a chainsaw at campaign events, pledging to use it on the government. Now, against all odds, he is El Presidente…and he’s cutting the deadwood. All over the world people are wondering: shouldn’t we try this at home? We have two of our Bonner Private Research team on the scene to bring us the straight skinny – one in Buenos Aires and the other in Cafayate. Here’s the ‘Chainsaw Report” from Joel Bowman In the Paris of South America:

"Within the first 48 hours in office, Sr. Milei has...
Cut the number of "under secretaries" from 182 to 140.
Cut the number of secretaries [department chiefs] from 106 to 54.
Cut the number of ministries from 18 to 9.

He's also cut all superfluous ministerial expenses (staff cell phones, drivers, travel accounts, etc.) Currently, all people hired by the outgoing president (Alberto) across all divisions of the government are under review. The presidential spokesperson reiterated that "the national spending cuts have just begun." Also in the news, perhaps unrelated, a fire has broken out in the building next to the Ministry of Labor with reports there was an explosion. Some are speculating they're "burning documents."

Yesterday, more wood chips flew. Bloomberg: "Argentina’s Milei Devalues Peso by 54% in First Batch of Shock Measures." Government to introduce crawling peg that weakens 2% per month. Milei to slash subsidies and social security payments The newly inaugurated administration weakened the official exchange rate to 800 pesos per dollar, Economy Minister Luis Caputo said in a televised address after the close of local markets on Tuesday. It was 366.5 per dollar before the address.

Milei needs to move fast. Argentina has run out of money. And the parasites, powers-that-be, and elite know-it-alls around the world are doing everything they can to stop him. Because he is a real reformer, not a fake. Milei is no ‘right-winger’…no ‘Trump clone.’ He’s something else altogether; he’s actually trying to reduce the power of a bankrupt government. Is it possible? With so many powerful special interests against him? We will see.

The American Dream - In the meantime, the Biden Team goes in the other direction, and wonders why Americans don’t appreciate it. CBS news: The "American Dream" costs far more than most people will earn over their lifetime. The "American Dream" costs about $3.4 million to achieve over the course of a lifetime, from getting married to saving for retirement, according to a recent analysis from financial site Investopedia.

Meanwhile, median lifetime earnings for the typical U.S. worker stand at $1.7 million, earlier research from the Georgetown University has found. Another analysis, from USA Today, found that funding the American Dream costs about $130,000 a year for a family of four. Median household income stands at about $74,450, according to the Census Bureau.

‘What went wrong?’ is the question we’ve been asking. How come the richest people in the world, in what should have been the richest period in their history – 1980-2020 – made so little progress…and actually slipped backward by most measures?

In our businesses and our private lives, pruning goes on all the time. Businesses go belly up. Investments fail. People are fired. Wives file for divorce. Customers go over to the competitor. People die. The sound of chainsaws is never far away. Like cutting off the ‘suckers’ on a fruit tree, unnecessary or unproductive limbs are lopped off.

In a sense, the whole idea behind Fed policies of the last 20+ years was to keep the chainsaws off the job. The dead wood was propped up by ultra-low interest rates; bad ideas were financed with below-inflation loans; no-hope ‘investments’ drew in billions in EZ money. There was no discipline…no corrections. With phony prices, often there was no way to tell what was a good use of money and what wasn’t.

One Nation, Under Debt - The most telling artifact of the period, 1980-2020, is the nation’s $34 trillion in debt. Each dollar is a mark of shame. Baby boomers wanted ‘something for nothing.’ They got it by leaving their sons and daughters the bill; giving them nothing for something. Younger generations will pay, probably for their entire lives…and probably in the form of financial chaos and higher prices, for goods and services delivered to their elders.

How was it possible, they might wonder, that people so rich – the richest people ever in the history of the world – couldn’t pay their own way? Were they so strapped for cash that they had to put the costs for their wars and jackass programs onto their children? Did they think that their own plans…goals…and Christmas lists were so important that other people – even those who hadn’t been born yet – should pay for them? And that their children would have no spending plans of their own? What the US needs is a good Husqvarna too. More to come…"

"How It Really Is"

 

"A Primer For The Propagandized: Fear Is The Mind-Killer"

"A Primer For The Propagandized:
Fear Is The Mind-Killer"
by Margaret Anna Alice 

“Those who can make people believe absurdities, 
can make people commit atrocities.”
- Voltaire

"The noose is dangling gently around our necks. Every day, they cinch it tighter. By the time we realize it’s strangling us, it will be too late. Those who – gradually and gleefully – sacrifice their freedoms, their autonomy, their individuality, their livelihoods, and their relationships on the altar of the “common good” have forgotten this is the pattern followed by every totalitarian regime in history.

Everyone wonders how ordinary Germans could have been manipulated to participate or stand dumbstruck while their government was transformed into a genocidal juggernaut. This is how. Read Sebastian Haffner’"Defying Hitler" memoir to see how this can happen anywhere - including here.

Everyone wonders how Russians could have permitted and even zealously reported fellow citizens for imprisonment and execution under "Article 58", the penal code invented to incarcerate anyone who dared express the slightest whisper of noncompliance under Stalin’s homicidal state. This is how. Read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s meticulously documented "The Gulag Archipelago" to witness this progression of authoritarian lunacy.

Everyone wonders how Hutus could have suddenly started axing their Tutsi neighbors to death after being inundated with waves of anti-Tutsi propaganda from "Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines." Read Philip Gourevitch’"We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda."

The list goes on. And on. And on. From Machiavelli’"The Prince" to Étienne de la Boetie’s "The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude" to Edward Herman’s and Noam Chomsky’s "Manufacturing Consent" (and accompanying documentary) to BBC’s "The Century of the Self," mechanisms of mass control have been chronicled for millennia.

George Orwell wrote, "As far as the mass of the people go, the extraordinary swings of opinion which occur nowadays, the emotions which can be turned on and off like a tap, are the result of newspaper and radio hypnosis.”

Can you imagine what master propagandist Edward Bernays would have done with access to today’s mainstream media conglomerate combined with the global surveillance infrastructure of Big Tech? And you really think that’s not happening now - with another century of psychological, neurological, and technological research under their belts?

The present ability to curate reality and coerce obedience is unprecedented, far beyond what Orwell envisioned in "1984", Bradbury in "Fahrenheit 451", Huxley in "Brave New World," and Burgess in "A Clockwork Orange."

A textbook example of "Problem Reaction Solution", the current tsunami of worldwide hysteria is the latest and potentially most threatening example of mass control in history.

The recipe is simple. Take a naturally occurring phenomenon, say a seasonal virus, and exaggerate its threat far beyond every imagining - despite exhaustive evidence to the contrary. Suppress, silence, ostracize, and demonize every individual who dares present facts that expose the false mono-narrative.

Whip up a witches’ brew of anger, envy, and, most importantly, fear, escalating emotions to a boil so as to short-circuit our faculties of reason and logic.

Isolate us from one another, supplant real-world interactions with virtual feuds, label nonconformists as a threat to the group, and pump the public with a disinformation campaign designed to confuse and atomize. In essence, foster a cultlike mentality that shuts down thought to guarantee assent.

Cultivate and wield our cognitive biases - especially ingroup biasconformity bias, and authority bias - against us in a comprehensive divide-and-conquer policy that keeps us too busy squabbling amongst each other to recognize and unite against those corralling us into a Matrix-like collective delusion that enables the powerful to extract our resources for their own gain.

This ideological mass psychosis is religion - not science. If this were about science, the Media–Pharmaceutical–Big-Tech complex would not be memory-holing every dissenting voice, vilifying every thought criminal, and censoring every legitimate inquiry in quest of the truth.

Mark Twain said, “It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.” He also said: “In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.”

The next time you’re watching the news, reading a social media post, listening to a friend repeat a scripted talking point, pay attention. Learn to identify the earmarks of propaganda, the clickbait used to trigger your emotions, the mechanisms employed to engineer your cognitive biases.

Don’t let your pride prevent you from seeing - and admitting - the Emperor is naked. We are losing our last sliver of opportunity to resist authoritarianism. This is not a partisan issue. Those who wish to control us have made it such because disunited lemmings are easier to steer than independent, critical thinkers.

This is a human issue. This is about crushing the middle class - the backbone of a democratic republic - and transferring trillions from the middle and lower classes to the ruling plutocracy. This is about demolishing the foundations of a free society and building it back - not better, but better-controlled.

I will close by recommending a series of illuminating videos on menticide (“the systematic effort to undermine and destroy a person’s values and beliefs … to induce radically different ideas”) throughout history by "Academy of Ideas." This analysis of mass psychosis is nonpartisan and of value to every thinking human being.

"Dare to question. Dare to disbelieve. 
Dare to defy ideology in favor of science while you still can."

"Huxley vs. Orwell"

"Huxley vs. Orwell"
by Neil Postman

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one...
o
Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those 
who  would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism...
o
Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us.
Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance...
o
Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we 
would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent
 of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy...
o
As Huxley remarked in 'Brave New World Revisited', the civil libertarians and the rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.” In '1984,' Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In 'Brave New World,' they are controlled by inflicting pleasure...In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us."

Huxley was quite obviously correct...
o
“What opinions the masses hold, or do not hold,
is looked on as a matter of indifference. They can be
granted intellectual liberty because they have no intellect.”

To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself – that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word “doublethink” involved the use of doublethink.”
 George Orwell, 
“Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel” (1949)
Freely download “1984″, by George Orwell here:

Greg Hunter, "Death Touch for Global Debt Coming"

"Death Touch for Global Debt Coming"
by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"Renowned radio host, filmmaker, book author and archeological dig expert Steve Quayle says just about every aspect of American life is under a new threat from unimaginable debt. There is record credit card debt, an implosion in commercial real estate, millions are delinquent on mortgage payments and car payments and, to top it all off, hundreds of trillions in unpayable derivative debt that Warren Buffett called “weapons of mass destruction” is coming due. It’s all coming to a head in a so-called debt reset we have heard about for years. The mass destruction is coming in the not-so-distant future. Steve Quayle explains, “They may be able to do some shenanigans, but this is the ‘Great Reset.’ This is the takeover and take-down of the global economy, and the dominos are beginning to fall. The mainstream media, which I call the mainstream accessory to genocide, are not reporting this. The question is what is the final touch? In martial arts, it’s called the Dim Mak or death touch. What is the death touch that is going to push the leaning financial Tower of Pisa over? I am telling you it’s going to be the derivative debt. A trillion dollars of credit card debt can never be repaid. Why does our government spend money they cannot even raise in the markets?”

What is going to be destroyed? Quayle says, “Destruction and devastation are coming. We are not just talking about annuities, 401ks, pension plans and everything that is out there that makes people rely on the efforts of crazy people to make sure they have money to live on. Commercial real estate is dying. We don’t have the infrastructure in the retail community or the banking community. By open admission of the globalists, it’s time for the global reset. The global reset is this, I quote the late Brent Scowcroft who said, ‘By consent or by conquest, there will be a New World Order.’ This is the intentional destruction of the United States. We are watching the most sinister, most demonic, supernatural evil make these (CV19) bioweapons. We watched the willing submission of the walking dumb bleeps to submit to their own demise because of group think and a bull manure narrative that was nothing but lies. We are dealing with the biggest mass murder in history. We are talking about the biggest global agreement on mass genocide. We are dealing with genocide.”

In closing, Quayle says, “We are watching the complete taking apart of the western financial system based on the Petro-dollar. The insanity now is actually part of the takedown and takeover of the United States. I believe it’s over for the United States. I don’t believe there is a political solution to a spiritual problem.” Quayle also gives dire warnings of cancellations to credit cards, mortgages, bank accounts and much more that Steve Quayle’s financial sources say is coming soon. There is much more in the 52-minute interview."

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he talks to radio host, filmmaker and top selling author Steve Quayle who warns of massive banking, financial and debt troubles coming soon.

"Last Rights: The Death Of American Liberty"

"Last Rights: The Death Of American Liberty"
by James Bovard

This is the first chapter of James Bovard's new book:

"Chapter One: Tyranny Comes To Main Street: Americans today have the “freedom” to be fleeced, groped, wiretapped, injected, censored, injected, ticketed, disarmed, beaten, vilified, detained, and maybe shot by government agents. Politicians are hell-bent on protecting citizens against everything except Uncle Sam. Is America becoming a Cage Keeper Democracy where voters merely ratify the latest demolition of their rights and liberties?

“We live in a world in which everything has been criminalized,” warned Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. There are now more than 5,200 separate federal criminal offenses, a 36% increase since the 1990s, along with tens of thousands of state and local crimes. More laws mean more violators who can be harshly punished on command, resulting in the arrests of more than 10 million Americans each year. Thanks to the Supreme Court, police can lock up anyone accused of “even a very minor criminal offense” such as an unbuckled seatbelt.

The Founding Fathers saw property rights as “the guardian of every other right.” But today’s politicians never lack a pretext for plundering private citizens. Despite being charged with no crime, half a million Americans have been robbed by government agents on the nation’s sidewalks, highways, and airports in recent decades. Federal law enforcement agencies arbitrarily confiscate more property from Americans each year than all the burglars steal nationwide. The IRS pilfered more cash from private bank accounts because of alleged paperwork errors than the total looted by bank robbers nationwide. Federal bureaucrats blocked landowners from farming or building on a hundred million acres of their own property because of puddles, ditches, or other suspected wet spots.

Police have killed more than 25,000 citizens since the turn of the century, but the federal government does not even bother compiling a body count. SWAT teams use battering rams and flash-bang grenades to attack 50,000 homes a year, routinely terrorizing people suspected of dastardly crimes like spraying graffiti or running poker games. Cops in many cities have been caught planting guns on hapless targets, while corrupt police labs fabricated tens of thousands of bogus drug convictions. Police unions have more sway over government policy than anyone on the wrong end of a baton or Taser. Despite perpetual promises of reform, most police who brutalize private citizens still automatically receive legal immunity. Federal Judge Don Willett derided the “Constitution-free zone” courts created where “individuals whose constitutional rights are violated at the hands of federal officers are essentially remedy-less.”

Gun owners are America’s fastest-growing criminal class. One state after another is enacting “Show us the gun and we’ll find the crime” laws. Judges and politicians are justifying mass disarmament in the name of “freedom from fear” — as if no one will be safe until government controls every trigger. Federal agencies consider all 20+ million marijuana users who own firearms to be felons (unless their last name is Biden). Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden both retroactively outlawed widely-owned firearm accessories, creating new legions of potential jailbirds. At the same time many federal agencies are stockpiling automatic weapons, Biden calls for banning semiautomatic pistols and rifles owned by 50 million Americans.

Politicians and bureaucrats exploited the COVID‑19 pandemic to forbid any activities they chose, from going to church to buying garden seeds. Governors in most states effectively banned hundreds of millions of citizens from leaving their homes. Shutting down entire states was the equivalent of sacrificing virgins to appease angry viral gods. In Los Angeles, citizens were prohibited from going outside for a walk or bike ride. Tens of thousands of small businesses were bankrupted by shutdown orders, while federal “relief” spurred a $600 billion worldwide fraud stampede. Most Americans suffered COVID infections despite government decrees that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito labeled “previously unimaginable restrictions on individual liberty.” Government officials endlessly invoked “science and data” to sanctify their power. But many pandemic policies were simply Political Science 101, using deceit and demagoguery to domineer humanity.

Government decrees are blighting more lives than ever before. Vague laws convert bureaucrats into czars who dictate as they please. More than a thousand occupations have been closed to anyone who fails to kowtow to absurd state licensing requirements, from fortune tellers in Massachusetts to anyone rubbing feet in Arizona. Tens of thousands of drivers have been injured and hundreds killed thanks to red light traffic ticket cameras notorious for multiplying collisions. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission made it a federal crime to refuse to hire ex-convicts. The Americans with Disabilities Act has spurred half a million “discrimination” lawsuits, including by narcoleptics who fell asleep on the job and by a deaf guy outraged about missing captions on porn videos.

Schoolchildren are being sacrificed on an altar of social justice. From No Child Left Behind to Common Core, federal dictates have subverted academic standards and squandered billions of hours of kids’ lives. Teacher unions have worked to destroy local control of education, prevent teacher accountability, deny parents any voice in their children’s education, and pointlessly shut down schools during the pandemic. In lieu of literacy, government schools are redefining gender and indoctrinating kids with values that many parents detest. When mothers and fathers raised hell at school board meetings, the Biden administration and the FBI labeled them as terrorist suspects.

Politicians are increasingly dividing Americans into two classes — those who work for a living and those who vote for a living. Subsidy programs have multiplied even faster than congressional ethics scandals. Federal aid propelled college tuition increases that turned ex-students into a new debtor class endlessly clamoring for relief. Farm subsidies wreak chaos in markets while providing a gravy train for affluent landowners. Federal mortgage policies have been “wrecking ball benevolence,” whipsawing the housing market and spawning the 2007–08 collapse that reduced the net worth of black and Hispanic households by 50%. The number of handout recipients has more than doubled since 1983, and the feds are now feeding more than 100 million Americans. Government grants are eventually followed by government restrictions, and dependence often turns into submission. The ultimate victim of handouts could be democracy itself: politicians cannot undermine self-reliance without subverting self-government.

While politicians boast of bestowing freebies, taxes have become a financial Grim Reaper. The Internal Revenue Service is Washington’s ultimate sacred cow because it delivers trillions of dollars to allow politicians to work miracles (or at least get re-elected). Americans are forced to pay more in taxes than their total spending on food, clothing, and housing. Tax codes have become inscrutable at the same time the IRS pummels people with ten times more penalties than in earlier decades. The Biden administration is racing to hire 87,000 new IRS agents and employees to squeeze far more money out of both rich and poor taxpayers. Inflation has become the cruelest tax as the dollar’s purchasing power fell 17% since Biden took office, fleecing any citizen with a savings account.

The federal government is generating so many absurdities nowadays that even cynics cannot keep up. The Transportation Security Administration epitomizes Washington’s boneheaded command-and-control approach to modern perils. TSA’s Whole Body Scanners doused tens of millions of travelers with radiation while taking nude pictures of them. TSA’s groin-grabbing “enhanced pat-downs” spark thousands of sexual assault complaints from women every year. TSA terrorist profiles have warned of travelers who are either staring intently or avoiding eye contact, or who fidget, yawn, or sweat heavily; anyone who is whistling and/or staring at their feet; Boston blacks wearing backward baseball caps; and anyone who “expresses contempt” for TSA Security Theater antics.

Federal surveillance leaves no refuge for dissent. Government agencies are secretly accumulating mountains of data that could be used for “blackmail, stalking, harassment and public shaming” of American citizens, according to a 2023 federal report. The National Security Agency has stalked Americans via their cellphones, covertly installed spyware onto personal computers, and treated anyone “searching the Web for suspicious stuff” like a terrorist suspect. The Patriot Act spurred the illegal seizure of personal and financial information from tens of millions of Americans. Customs agents can seize and copy the cellphones, laptop drives, and private papers of any American crossing the U.S. border. The Drug Enforcement Administration is building a secret nationwide network of license plate scanners to track every driver. Federally funded “fusion centers” are stockpiling Suspicious Activity Reports on tourists who photograph landmarks, “people who avoid eye contact,” and anyone “reverent of individual liberty.” The FBI’s “terrorist warning signs” include hotel guests using “Do Not Disturb” signs and the Gadsden “Don’t Tread on Me” flag.

At the same time spying on citizens skyrocketed, Washington dropped an Iron Curtain around itself. The government is committing more crimes than citizens will ever know. Whistleblowers and journalists are hounded as if exposing official lies is a heresy against democracy. Every year, the federal government slaps a “secret” label on trillions of pages of information — enough to fill 20 million filing cabinets. Any document which is classified is treated like a holy relic that cannot be exposed without damning the nation. Self-government has been defined down to paying, obeying, and wearing a federal blindfold. There are plenty of laws to protect government secrets but no law to protect democracy from federal secrecy.

The First Amendment is becoming a historic relic. Federal Judge Terry Doughty recently condemned the Biden administration for potentially “the most massive attack against free speech in United States history.” That verdict was ratified in September 2023 by a federal appeals court ruling slamming the White House and federal agencies for actions that resulted in “suppressing millions of protected free speech postings by American citizens.” Federal agencies pirouetted as a “Ministry of Truth,” according to the court rulings. Censorship converts citizens into captives. Federal censorship tainted the 2020 and 2022 elections, suppressing tens of millions of tweets, YouTube videos, and Facebook posts from conservatives and Republicans. White House officials even ordered Facebook to delete humorous memes, including a parody of a future television ad: “Did you or a loved one take the COVID vaccine? You may be entitled…”

Rather than the Rule of Law, we have a government of threats, intimidation, and browbeating. “Government of the people” defaulted into “government for the people,” which degenerated into perennially punishing people for their own good. Twenty-five years ago, Supreme Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg warned against permitting federal agencies “the extraordinary authority… to manufacture crimes.” Entrapment schemes proliferate as G-men fabricate crimes to justify budget increases. The FBI, pretending that rosary beads could be extremist symbols, is targeting traditional Catholics across the nation because of their conservative moral values. The FBI entitles its legions of confidential informants to commit more than 5,000 crimes a year, dragging many unlucky bystanders to their legal doom. The number of inmates in federal prison increased 500% since 1980, and America has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Politicians are more anxious to control citizens than to protect them. More people are busted each year for marijuana possession than for all violent crimes combined, while the futile War on Drugs causes more fatalities than ever before.

Every recent administration has expanded and exploited the dictatorial potential of the presidency. Former President Richard Nixon shocked Americans in 1977 when he asserted during a television interview: “When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” But Nixon’s slogan is the Oval Office maxim for the new millennium. Presidents now only need to find a single federal lawyer who says, “Yes, Master!” President George W. Bush’s lawyers secretly decided that neither federal law nor the Constitution could limit the power of the president, who could declare martial law or authorize torture at his whim. President Barack Obama claimed a prerogative to assassinate Americans he labeled terrorist suspects. President Donald Trump boasted of “an absolute right to do what I want to with the Justice Department.” In 2022, President Biden proclaimed that “liberty is under assault.” But he was referring solely to a few court rulings he disapproved, not to the federal supremacy he championed for almost 50 years in the Senate and the White House.

The authoritarian trendline in American political life is more important than the name or party of any officeholder. “One precedent in favor of power is stronger than a hundred against it,” as Thomas Jefferson warned during the American Revolution. Unfortunately, there are a hundred precedents in favor of government now for each precedent in favor of liberty. There is a “No harm, no foul” attitude towards violating the Constitution, and Washington almost always hides the harm. The sheer power of federal agencies such as the FBI is becoming one of the gravest perils to American democracy.

Elections are becoming demolition derbies that threaten to wreck the nation. Historian Henry Adams observed a century ago that politics “has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.” Nowadays, politics seems hell-bent on multiplying hatred. Enraged activists are increasingly tarring all their opponents as traitors. Many of the protestors who spent years vehemently denouncing Trump were not opposed to dictators per se; they simply wanted different dictates. More than half of Americans expect a civil war “in the next few years,” according to a recent survey.

Americans are indoctrinated in public schools to presume that our national DNA guarantees that we will always be free. But few follies are more perilous than presuming that individual rights are safe in perpetuity. None of the arguments on why liberty is inevitable can explain why it is becoming an endangered species. Yet many people believe that liberty will inevitably triumph because of some “law of history” never enacted by God, a convocation of cardinals, or even the Arkansas state legislature. Presuming that freedom is our destiny lulls people against political predators.

Federal Judge Learned Hand warned in 1944: “Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it.” But Americans are more likely to encounter liberty in history books instead of their own lives. Many young people are unaware of bygone eras when Americans could travel without being groped, buy a beer or smoke a cigar without committing a federal offense, or protest without being quarantined in an Orwellian “free-speech zone.” Is the spirit of liberty dead? Almost a third of young American adults support installing mandatory government surveillance cameras in private homes to “reduce domestic violence, abuse, and other illegal activity.”

We have an Impunity Democracy in which government officials pay no price for their crimes. Americans today are more likely to believe in witches, ghosts, and astrology than to trust the federal government. Washington’s legitimacy is in tatters thanks to a long train of bipartisan perfidy. If government is lawless, elections merely designate the most dangerous criminals in the land.

At a time when foreign democracies are collapsing like dominos, can America avoid becoming the “elective despotism” the Founding Fathers dreaded? The first step to reviving liberty is to recognize how far politicians have stretched their power. But nothing can safeguard freedom except the bravery of citizens who refuse to be shackled."

Gregory Mannarino, "AM/PM 12/13/23"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 12/13/23
"Today We Hear From World Control 
As The Global Economic Freefall Worsens"
Comments here:
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Gregory Mannarino, PM 12/13/23
"The Scam Continues: FED Supercharges The Market! 
Expect Oceans Of More Easy Money"
Comments here:
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Related:

"Home Depot Christmas 2023 Store Walkthrough, Place Is Dead; Lowes, No Customers In Store"

Full screen recommended.
Jeremiah Babe, 12/12/23
"Home Depot Christmas 2023 Store Walkthrough, 
Place Is Dead; Lowes, No Customers In Store"
Comments here:

"Alert! World War III Prelude, 12/12/23'"

Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 12/12/23
"Alert! Full Scale Cyberwar; ATMs Down; Beirut Evacuated;
 Poland Mobilizes For WW3; 'Putin To Hell'"
Comments here:
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Full screen recommended.
Hindustan Times,12/12/23
"Israel Army Attacks Syria, Lebanon, Gaza In 
12 Hours & Loses 8 Soldiers | IDF Toll Tops 113'"
Comments here:

Tuesday, December 12, 2023

"A Blues Musical Interlude: "Make It Rain"

Foy Vance, "Make it Rain"
The original, Ed Sheeran's version is the cover.
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Ed Sheeran, "Make it Rain"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"From our vantage point in the Milky Way Galaxy, we see NGC 6946 face-on. The big, beautiful spiral galaxy is located just 20 million light-years away, behind a veil of foreground dust and stars in the high and far-off constellation of Cepheus. From the core outward, the galaxy's colors change from the yellowish light of old stars in the center to young blue star clusters and reddish star forming regions along the loose, fragmented spiral arms.
NGC 6946 is also bright in infrared light and rich in gas and dust, exhibiting a high star birth and death rate. In fact, since the early 20th century at least nine supernovae, the death explosions of massive stars, were discovered in NGC 6946. Nearly 40,000 light-years across, NGC 6946 is also known as the Fireworks Galaxy. This remarkable portrait of NGC 6946 is a composite that includes image data from the 8.2 meter Subaru Telescope on Mauna Kea.”

The Poet: Jane Hirshfield, "The Task "

"The Task"

"It is a simple garment, this slipped-on world.
We wake into it daily - open eyes, braid hair -
a robe unfurled
in rose-silk flowering, then laid bare.
And yes, it is a simple enough task
we've taken on,
though also vast:
from dusk to dawn,
from dawn to dusk, to praise, and not
be blinded by the praising.
To lie like a cat in hot
sun, fur fully blazing,
and dream the mouse;
and to keep too the mouse's patient, waking watch
within the deep rooms of the house,
where the leaf-flocked
sunlight never reaches, but the earth still blooms."

- Jane Hirshfield

"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

Adventures With Danno, "Food Shortage Report And Surging Prices! This Is Not Good!"

Adventures With Danno, PM 12/12/23
"Food Shortage Report 
And Surging Prices! This Is Not Good!"
"We are going over the food shortage report for winter 2023, and what food items are going to skyrocket in price in early 2024! This is not good as many people are struggling now to even put food on the table!"
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"Proof That We’re In The Biggest Collapse Since The Great Depression"

Full screen recommended.
The Atlantis Report, 12/12/23
"Proof That We’re In The Biggest Collapse
 Since The Great Depression"
"In the story of our economy, we've seen significant bumps – like the dot-com bubble in the late '90s and the 2008 financial crisis. Fast forward to 2023, and there’s growing proof that we might be on the brink of something even bigger. Ominous signs are emerging, portending something potentially greater and more profound than the upheavals of the past. As we look ahead, the risks seem more substantial, and the traditional safeguards may not be enough. This is a heads-up, a warning to pay attention. The lessons from the dotcom bubble and the 2008 crash remind us that things can go south when we least expect it. What's coming might outdo those past events, and how we navigate these challenges will determine where our economy goes from here."
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Gerald Celente, "Fools On The Hill: 'No Gaza Cease Fire, War Is Peace"

Full screen recommended.
Very strong language alert!
Gerald Celente, Trends Journal 12/12/23
"Fools On The Hill: 
'No Gaza Cease Fire, War Is Peace"
"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present facts and truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for what’s next in these increasingly turbulent times."
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The Daily "Near You?"

Plymouth, United Kingdom. Thanks for stopping by!

The Very Idea..."

"In the last few years, the very idea of telling the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth is dredged up only as a final resort when the
alternative options of deception, threat and bribery have all been exhausted."
- Michael Musto

"A Wise Man Once Said..."

“A wise man once said you can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it. What he meant is nothing comes without a price. So before you go into battle, you better decide how much you’re willing to lose. Too often, going after what feels good means letting go of what you know is right, and letting someone in means abandoning the walls you’ve spent a lifetime building. Of course, the toughest sacrifices are the ones we don’t see coming, when we don’t have time to come up with a strategy to pick a side or to measure the potential loss. When that happens, when the battle chooses us and not the other way around, that’s when the sacrifice can turn out to be more than we can bear.

So, how do you beat the odds when it’s one against a billion? You’re just outnumbered. You stand strong, keep pushing yourself against all rational limits, and never give up. But the truth of the matter is despite how hard you try and fight to stay in control, when it’s all said and done, sometimes you’re just outnumbered.”
- "Meredith", "Gray's Anatomy"

Dan, I Allegedly, "Banking Hack Nightmare - Be Ready"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 12/12/23
"Banking Hack Nightmare - Be Ready"
"We discuss several controversial finance and business stories. Topics covered include a Florida couple getting hackec and losing $1.7 million when their title company was hacked, issues with insurance companies not covering homeowners' hurricane damage repairs, China's debt problems, and new US business transparency laws aimed at preventing financial crimes."
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"No More Money"

President of Argentina Javier Milei and his sister Karina Milei greet supporters as they leave the National Congress after his Inauguration Ceremony on December 10, 2023 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
"No More Money"
The political caste, a budget chainsaw and 
front row seats to the end of the world...
by Bill Bonner and Joel Bowman

Baltimore, Maryland -  “There is no more money.” ~ Javier Milei. Argentina’s new president took up his post last week. And with it, he took up an enormous challenge. Among other things, he pledged to cut spending by 5% of GDP. That would be equivalent to a reduction of about $1.2 trillion in the US budget…wiping out the entire US deficit.

Colleagues Tom Dyson and Joel Bowman are down there now. They have the good fortune to be living in Argentina while it conducts one of the greatest political experiments of modern times.

Elites always control the media…and the government. And the tendency, in any stable political system, is for what Milei calls “the political caste” to rig the laws and the government so as to increase its own wealth and power. Typically, the process is only interrupted by some major event that the elites cannot control. As mentioned here yesterday, the plague of the 13th century broke up the relationship between elite landowners and the peasants who tilled the ground. With a third of the laborers dead, those remaining could demand a bigger slice of the pie.

Heads of State: Wars or revolutions can have the same effect – often by driving away the elites…or murdering them. Before the French revolution, for example, the aristocracy had given itself exorbitant privileges – including excusing itself from taxes – that left it living in luxury while most people were on the edge of starvation. The elites had the system they wanted. They thought it would last forever. And then they got their heads chopped off.

The other thing that can force a big change is a severe financial crisis. Hyperinflation wipes out the value of existing credits, up-ends relationships between haves and have-nots, and destroys the promises and pretensions of the elites. In a democracy, for example, the elite can still promise pay-offs to the voters…but as Milei told them on Sunday: ‘There is no more money.’

Without some big shock, the people in charge stay in charge…and continue to rip everyone else off. The rich get richer; the poor get (relatively) poorer. And the discontent builds. This little insight will become more important as we look more carefully at what is happening in the USA.

Breitbart: "The average monthly mortgage payment in Joe Biden’s America has soared to $3,322, per analysis from the Wall Street Journal. That $3,322 is nearly double the average monthly mortgage payment when His Fraudulency assumed office. When former President Trump left office, the average monthly mortgage payment was $1,787.

“Homeownership has become a pipe dream for more Americans,” writes the WSJ, “even those who could afford to buy just a few years ago. Many would-be buyers were already feeling stretched thin by home prices that shot quickly higher in the pandemic, but at least mortgage rates were low,” the report adds. “Now that they are high, many people are just giving up.”
The Political Caste

The 40 years, 1980-2020, that should have been the most glorious in human history turned into a puzzling period of pathetic underperformance. After such a spectacular show, 1950-1980, you would have expected a spectacular sequel. Momentum alone should have guaranteed success. But it didn’t turn out that way.

“What went wrong?” is the question on the table. Yet it is the question economists never ask. To raise the issue would put their own competence in doubt. They’ve been in the driver’s seat during the last 40 years; the ditch in which the bus now sits is the one they drove us into.

They are, of course, part of the “political caste”…or the managerial elite…who have gained so much over the last 40 years. In Argentina, they are the people whose wealth and power Milei wants to reduce. And therein the new president finds his task; in comparison, Sisyphus’s rock must have been a piece of cake. He needs to take power away from the very people who have the power to prevent him from doing it.

Can it be done? Can a democracy reform itself, without violence? Or does Argentina need to go through another bout of hyperinflation, as it did 30 years ago? And what about America…?That’s the experiment now being conducted on the pampas. We’ll watch carefully, because it might give us a hint of what will happen in the US."
o
Joel’s Note: Our little barrio of Palermo Chico was quiet Sunday morning. A handful of locals stood in line at the little French boulangerie across the street, waiting for their café and croissants.

“Can you believe El Loco has done it?” whispered one gentleman, referring to Señor Javier Milei’s rise and rise to the presidency. “My whole family prayed for him. Three generations. Whether he can actually deliver from here, well…”

Added the woman behind him, a young mother. “He can’t be any worse than those other boludos [no translation provided]. They were ruining us. I don’t think we would have lasted another year. The inflation alone would have killed us…” “It can go on for much longer than you think,” chimed a Venezolano wearing an orange Rappi [food delivery] backpack. “But trust me when I say, it only gets worse. My own country is a mess. But here, I have hope…”

A 20-minute ride downtown, out front of the neoclassical Congreso building, Sr. Milei was delivering some harsh truths to the gathered masses. “The challenge before us is titanic,” he told a crowd numbering in the tens of thousands, “But I’d rather tell you an uncomfortable truth than a comfortable lie.” Argentina is in a state of “emergency,” said Milei, with four in ten citizens below the poverty line. (Almost one in ten are in a state of “extreme poverty.”) Any wonder… with inflation running at 200%… and climbing.

Already, Sr. Milei has begun eliminating government ministries, with 11 set to get the chop (#Afuera!)… including the “Ministry of Women, Gender and Diversity", as seen here:
The big question, however, is what Sr. Milei can do to the engine room of the country’s rampant inflation. On the eve of his inauguration, this past Saturday night, Milei’s supporters held a symbolic wake out front of the nation’s central bank, which Milei has vowed to “burn to the ground.” Meanwhile, Argentines await announcements this week on the next step toward dollarization. And they keep the matches and the gasoline handy…"

Adventures With Danno, 'My Shopping Trip To Meijer and What Deals I Found!"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, AM 12/12/23
'My Shopping Trip To Meijer and What Deals I Found!"
Comments here:

"How It Really Is"

 

Gregory Mannarino, "Expect A Systemic Meltdown Of The Highest Order And An Entirely New System"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 12/12/23
"Expect A Systemic Meltdown Of The Highest Order 
And An Entirely New System"
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"A Dangerous Place..."

"If I were to remain silent, I'd be guilty of complicity."
- Albert Einstein

"Wrong is wrong, even if everyone is doing it.
Right is right even if only you are doing it."
- Author Unknown

“Before the Leaves Fall From the Trees”

“Before the Leaves Fall From the Trees”
by Simon Black

"The morning of June 28, 1914 began like any other normal day. It was a Sunday, so a lot of people went to church. Others prepared large meals for family gatherings, played with their children, or thumbed through the Sunday papers.

At that point, tensions had been high in Europe for several years; the continent was bitterly divided by a series of complex diplomatic and military alliances, and small wars had recently broken out. Italy and the Ottoman Empire went to war in 1912 in a limited, 13-month conflict. And the First Balkan War was waged in early 1913. Overall, though, the continent clung to a delicate peace. And hardly anyone expected that most of the next three decades would be filled with chaos, poverty, and destruction. And then it happened.

That Sunday afternoon, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire was assassinated during an official visit to Sarajevo. And the world changed forever. Five weeks later the entire continent was at war with itself. But even still, most of the ‘experts’ thought it would be a simple, speedy conflict. Germany’s emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm II, famously told his troops who were being shipped off to the front line in August 1914, “You will be home before the leaves fall from the trees...” It took four years and an estimated 68 million casualties to bring the war to a close. But that was only the prelude.

Following (and even during) World War I, a series of bloody revolutionary movements took hold in Europe, including in Russia, Greece, Spain, Turkey, and Ireland. Then came the Spanish flu, which claimed the lives of tens of millions of people. Later, Germany sunk into one of the worst episodes of hyperinflation in human history.

Communism began rapidly spreading across the world almost as quickly as the Spanish flu, often through violent fanatics who engaged in murder and arson in order to intimidate their opponents; this became known as the ‘Red Scare’ in the United States.

Of course there were some good years during the 1920s when people generally felt prosperous and happy; but it all came crashing down at the end of the decade when a severe economic depression strangled the entire world. It lasted for more than ten years, during which time the world was once again brought to an even more destructive war that didn’t end until atomic weapons obliterated the civilian populations of two Japanese cities.

Again – go back to June 1914. Who would have thought that the next 30+ years would play out so destructively? Even for the people who did predict that Europe would go to war in 1914, most leaders thought it would be over quickly. And almost no one expected it would spawn decades of chaos.

Today we’re obviously living in different times and under different circumstances. But we may be standing at a similar precipice as in 1914, staring at enormous trends that could shape our lives for years to come. Covid only scratched the surface.

We now know without a doubt, for example, how governments will respond the next time they feel there’s a threat to public health. They’ll say, “We’re listening to the scientists.” Really? The same scientists who told people they couldn’t go to work, school, or church, but it was perfectly fine for peaceful protesters to pack together like sardines without wearing masks because they’re apparently protected from the virus by their own righteousness? The same scientists who wanted to lock everyone down to prevent Covid, but are happy to accept skyrocketing rates of cancer, depression, suicide, heart disease, and domestic abuse as a result of those very lockdowns and so-called "vaccines'?

The public health consequences from this pandemic and "vaccine" will reverberate for years to come. And that doesn’t even begin to take the economic consequences into consideration. Western governments have taken on trillions of dollars in new debt and central banks have printed trillions more. Even with all that stimulus, however, there are still hundreds of millions of people worldwide who lost their jobs, and countless businesses that have closed. Future generations who haven’t even been born yet will spend their entire working lives paying interest on the debts that are being accumulated today. The long-term consequences of all this are incalculable.

And then there are the social trends – the rise of neo-Marxism that’s sweeping the world so fast. It’s the Red Scare of the 21st century. They despise talented, successful people. They believe it’s greedy for you to keep a healthy portion of what you earn, but it’s not greedy for them to take it from you and spend it on themselves.

Many of the people in this movement, of course, are violent fanatics who routinely engage in arson, assault, and vandalism. Same for the social justice warriors who are just as quick to violence and intimidation; plus they’ve already commandeered the decision-making of some of the largest, most powerful companies in the world. You can’t even watch a football game or a TV commercial anymore without some commentary on oppression and victimization. And any intellectual dissent is met with intimidation or censorship.

In fact the largest consumer technology companies in the world have become our censors. We’re not allowed to share scientific information that doesn’t conform to the Chinese-controlled World Health Organization’s guidance. And news articles that don’t match their ideology are blocked.

Let’s not kid ourselves – these trends are not going away any time soon. It’s great to be optimistic, hope for the best, and enjoy the good years as they come. But it makes sense to at least be prepared for the possibility that we could be at the very beginning of a period of enormous instability that may last a very long time."
"The Guns of August" 
"In this landmark, Pulitzer Prize–winning account, renowned historian Barbara W. Tuchman re-creates the first month of World War I: thirty days in the summer of 1914 that determined the course of the conflict, the century, and ultimately our present world. Beginning with the funeral of Edward VII, Tuchman traces each step that led to the inevitable clash. And inevitable it was, with all sides plotting their war for a generation. Dizzyingly comprehensive and spectacularly portrayed with her famous talent for evoking the characters of the war’s key players."
Freely read online here:
o
o
“It is history that teaches us to hope. It is well that war is 
so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it.”
- Robert E. Lee

But we've learned nothing from history, nothing at all, and our fondness, 
no, our absolute love of war, has only improved the weapons...