Thursday, May 30, 2024

Gregory Mannarino; "JFK's Executive Order 11100 Abolishing the Federal Reserve"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 5/30/24
"Economic Market Worsens; Fake GDP Numbers; 
Home Sales Nosedive; Trade Gap Worsens"
Mannarino on The Federal Reserve.
Comments here:
o
"JFK's Executive Order 11100 Abolishing the Federal Reserve"
by John P. Curran

“Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution specifically says that Congress is the only body that can "coin money and regulate the value thereof." The US Constitution has never been amended to allow anyone other than Congress to coin and regulate currency. So what’s the Federal Reserve?

In 1910 Senator Nelson Aldrich, then Chairman of the National Monetary Commission, in collusion with representatives of the European central banks, devised a plan to pressure and deceive Congress into enacting legislation that would covertly establish a private central bank. This bank would assume control over the American economy by controlling the issuance of its money. After a huge public relations campaign, engineered by the foreign central banks, the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 was slipped through Congress during the Christmas recess, with many members of the Congress absent. President Woodrow Wilson, pressured by his political and financial backers, signed it on December 23, 1913. The act created the Federal Reserve System, a name carefully selected and designed to deceive. "Federal" would lead one to believe that this is a government organization. "Reserve" would lead one to believe that the currency is being backed by gold and silver. "System" was used in lieu of the word "bank" so that one would not conclude that a new central bank had been created.

In reality, the act created a private, for profit, central banking corporation owned by a cartel of private banks. The Federal Reserve Bank, a.k.a Federal Reserve System, is a Private Corporation. Black's Law Dictionary defines the "Federal Reserve System" as: "A Network of twelve central banks to which most national banks belong and to which state chartered banks may belong. Membership rules require investment of stock and minimum reserves." Privately-owned banks own the stock of the FED. Who owns the FED? The Rothschilds of London and Berlin; Lazard Brothers of Paris; Israel Moses Seif of Italy; Kuhn, Loeb and Warburg of Germany; and the Lehman Brothers, Goldman, Sachs and the Rockefeller families of New York. Did you know that the FED is the only for-profit corporation in America that is exempt from both federal and state taxes? The FED takes in trillions of dollars per year tax free! The banking families listed above get all that money.

The FED basically works like this: The government granted its power to create money to the FED banks. They create money, then loan it back to the government charging interest. The government levies income taxes to pay the interest on the debt. On this point, it's interesting to note that the Federal Reserve Act and the sixteenth amendment, which gave Congress the power to collect income taxes, were both passed in 1913. The incredible power of the FED over the economy is universally admitted. Any one person or any closely knit group who has a lot of money has a lot of power. Now imagine a group of people who have the power to create money. Imagine the power these people would have. This is exactly what the privately owned FED is!

An often overlooked aspect of John F. Kennedy's attempt to reform American society involves money. Kennedy apparently reasoned that by returning to the Constitution, which states that only Congress shall coin and regulate money, the soaring national debt could be reduced by not paying interest to the bankers of the Federal Reserve System, who print paper money then loan it to the government at interest. He moved in this area on June 4, 1963, by signing Executive Order 11110 which called for the issuance of $4,292,893,815 in United States Notes through the U.S. Treasury rather than the traditional Federal Reserve System. That same day, Kennedy signed a bill changing the backing of one and two dollar bills from silver to gold, adding strength to the weakened U.S. currency.

When Kennedy signed this Order, it returned to the federal government, specifically the Treasury Department, the Constitutional power to create and issue currency- money - without going through the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank. President Kennedy's Executive Order 11110 gave the Treasury Department the explicit authority: "to issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury." This means that for every ounce of silver in the U.S. Treasury's vault, the government could introduce new money into circulation based on the silver bullion physically held there. As a result, more than $4 billion in United States Notes were brought into circulation in $2 and $5 denominations. $10 and $20 United States Notes were never circulated but were being printed by the Treasury Department when Kennedy was assassinated.

It appears obvious that President Kennedy knew the Federal Reserve Notes being used as the purported legal currency were contrary to the Constitution of the United States of America. Kennedy knew that if the silver-backed United States Notes were widely circulated, they would have eliminated the demand for Federal Reserve Notes. This is a very simple matter of economics. The USN was backed by silver and the FRN was not backed by anything of intrinsic value. Executive Order 11110 should have prevented the national debt from reaching its current level (virtually all of the $35 trillion in federal debt has been created since 1963) if LBJ or any subsequent President were to enforce it. It would have almost immediately given the U.S. Government the ability to repay its debt without going to the private Federal Reserve Banks and being charged interest to create new "money". Executive Order 11110 gave the U.S.A. the ability to, once again, create its own money backed by silver and realm value worth something.

President Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963 and the United States Notes he had issued were immediately taken out of circulation. Federal Reserve Notes continued to serve as the legal currency of the nation. According to the United States Secret Service, 99% of all U.S. paper "currency" circulating in 1999 are Federal Reserve Notes. It seems very apparent that President Kennedy challenged the "powers that exist behind U.S. and world finance."

Perhaps the assassination of JFK was a warning to all future presidents not to interfere with the private Federal Reserve's control over the creation of money. The Latin phrase, “Cui bono” ("To whose benefit?," literally "as a benefit to whom?”), is frequently applied in determining motive for a crime. Ask yourself, who had the most to lose if Kennedy had lived, and who benefited the most from Kennedy’s assassination? The answer is the same to both questions."
"No man did more to expose the power of the FED than Louis T. McFadden, who was the Chairman of the House Banking Committee back in the 1930s. In describing the FED, he remarked in the Congressional Record, House pages 1295 and 1296 on June 10, 1932: "Mr. Chairman, we have in this country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal reserve banks. The Federal Reserve Board, a Government Board, has cheated the Government of the United States and he people of the United States out of enough money to pay the national debt. The depredations and the iniquities of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal reserve banks acting together have cost this country enough money to pay the national debt several times over. This evil institution has impoverished and ruined the people of the United States; has bankrupted itself, and has practically bankrupted our Government. It has done this through the maladministration of that law by which the Federal Reserve Board, and through the corrupt practices of the moneyed vultures who control it."

Some people think the Federal Reserve Banks are United States Government institutions. They are not Government institutions, departments, or agencies. They are private credit monopolies which prey upon the people of the United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign customers. Those 12 private credit monopolies were deceitfully placed upon this country by bankers who came here from Europe and who repaid us for our hospitality by undermining our American institutions.

The FED basically works like this: The government granted its power to create money to the FED banks. They create money, then loan it back to the government charging interest. The government levies income taxes to pay the interest on the debt. On this point, it's interesting to note that the Federal Reserve Act and the sixteenth amendment, which gave congress the power to collect income taxes, were both passed in 1913. The incredible power of the FED over the economy is universally admitted. Some people, especially in the banking and academic communities, even support it. On the other hand, there are those, such as President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, that have spoken out against it. His efforts were spoken about in Jim Marrs' 1990 book "Crossfire":

"Another overlooked aspect of Kennedy's attempt to reform American society involves money. Kennedy apparently reasoned that by returning to the constitution, which states that only Congress shall coin and regulate money, the soaring national debt could be reduced by not paying interest to the bankers of the Federal Reserve System, who print paper money then loan it to the government at interest. He moved in this area on June 4, 1963, by signing Executive Order 11110 which called for the issuance of $4,292,893,815 in United States Notes through the U.S. Treasury rather than the traditional Federal Reserve System. That same day, Kennedy signed a bill changing the backing of one and two dollar bills from silver to gold, adding strength to the weakened U.S. currency.

Kennedy's comptroller of the currency, James J. Saxon, had been at odds with the powerful Federal Reserve Board for some time, encouraging broader investment and lending powers for banks that were not part of the Federal Reserve system. Saxon also had decided that non-Reserve banks could underwrite state and local general obligation bonds, again weakening the dominant Federal Reserve banks. In a comment made to a Columbia University class on Nov. 12, 1963, ten days before his assassination, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy allegedly said: "The high office of the President has been used to foment a plot to destroy the American's freedom and before I leave office, I must inform the citizens of this plight." In this matter, John Fitzgerald Kennedy appears to be the subject of his own book... a true "Profile of Courage."
Executive Order 11110
AMENDMENT OF EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 10289 AS AMENDED, RELATING TO THE PERFORMANCE OF CERTAIN FUNCTIONS AFFECTING THE DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY. By virtue of the authority vested in me by section 301 of title 3 of the United States Code, it is ordered as follows:

SECTION 1. Executive Order No. 10289 of September 19, 1951, as amended, is hereby further amended — (a) By adding at the end of paragraph 1 thereof the following subparagraph (j): "(j) The authority vested in the President by paragraph (b) of section 43 of the Act of May 12, 1933, as amended (31 U.S.C. 821 (b)), to issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury not then held for redemption of any outstanding silver certificates, to prescribe the denominations of such silver certificates, and to coin standard silver dollars and subsidiary silver currency for their redemption," and (b) By revoking subparagraphs (b) and (c) of paragraph 2 thereof. 
SECTION 2. The amendment made by this Order shall not affect any act done, or any right accruing or accrued or any suit or proceeding had or commenced in any civil or criminal cause prior to the date of this Order but all such liabilities shall continue and may be enforced as if said amendments had not been made."
JOHN F. KENNEDY
THE WHITE HOUSE
June 4, 1963
Once again, Executive Order 11110 is still valid. According to Title 3, United States Code, Section 301 dated January 26, 1998: The 1974 and 1987 amendments, added after Kennedy's 1963 amendment, did not change or alter any part of Kennedy's EO 11110. A search of Presidential Directives has shown no reference to any alterations, suspensions, or changes to EO 11110."

"How It Really Is"

 

"The World Has Accumulated A $315 Trillion Mountain Of Debt, And Global Events Will Soon Bring It Crashing Down"

"The World Has Accumulated A $315 Trillion Mountain Of Debt, 
And Global Events Will Soon Bring It Crashing Down"
by Michael Snyder

"I suppose that congratulations are in order. It is no small feat to pile up a debt of $315,000,000,000,000, and we will never see a mountain of debt of this magnitude ever again after it comes crashing down. Even though delinquency rates are rising all over the world, as long as conditions remain at least somewhat relatively stable the game will be able to continue. Unfortunately, conditions won’t be relatively stable for long. Global events have started to accelerate significantly, and that is really going to shake things up in the months ahead.

According to a report that was just released by the Institute of International Finance, the total amount of debt in the world has reached a grand total of 315 trillion dollars…"The world is mired in $315 trillion of debt, according to a report from the Institute of International Finance. This global debt wave has been the biggest, fastest and most wide-ranging rise in debt since World War II, coinciding with the Covid-19 pandemic.

“This increase marks the second consecutive quarterly rise and was primarily driven by emerging markets, where debt surged to an unprecedented high of over $105 trillion—$55 trillion more than a decade ago,” the IIF said in its quarterly Global Debt Monitor report released in May."

We are in the midst of the greatest global debt binge in the history of the world. Household debt is at a level we have never seen before, business debt is at a level we have never seen before, and government debt is at a level we have never seen before…"Of the $315 trillion debt stock, household debt, which includes mortgages, credit cards and student debt, among others, amounted to $59.1 trillion.

Business debt, which corporations use to finance their operations and growth, stood at $164.5 trillion, with the financial sector alone making up $70.4 trillion of that amount. Public debt made up the rest at $91.4 trillion."

For the moment, conditions are at least somewhat relatively stable, and so everything seems fine. But it won’t take much to push us over the edge. For example, during a recent interview with Greg Hunter, Chris Martenson suggested that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan could trigger a sudden meltdown of the bond market…"In a new market meltdown, Dr. Martenson sees chaos and gives a hypothetical example: “China attacks Taiwan, and there is a 10 sigma move in the bond market. Oh no, all these derivatives have blown up. These people are supposed to be winners, and these people are supposed to be all losers. No, no, they don’t have any money for that stuff. It’s too complicated. I don’t think anybody understands how this works anymore. I could not find anybody who could tell me the whole thing. I could find people who knew bits and pieces, but they knew their slice. I am trying to stitch this thing all together. I get uncomfortable when I can’t answer the most basic questions, and that is how much risk is there in the system and where is it?”

In short, Dr. Martenson is worried about the whole financial system going down. Dr. Martenson says, “Yes, I am worried about the whole system going down, and that leads to all sorts of speculation. Imagine this, we wake up one day, and the markets are not open on Monday. Oh no, glitch. Problem. Then, it’s two days and not open, three days not open. People are getting worried. Friday, and the markets are still not open. Monday comes, and they say it’s a super big problem, and we don’t know how to resolve it. They offer you 100% value today in a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) account or you can wait it out and hope it gets resolved, and it might take a decade.”

The moment that the Chinese invade Taiwan, the U.S. and China will be at war. This is one of the three major wars that I have been warning about for a long time. Unfortunately, the Chinese continue to become more aggressive toward Taiwan. In fact, late last week they conducted the biggest practice run that we have seen so far…"China wrapped up a two-day, large-scale military exercise Friday after its forces deployed 111 aircraft and 46 naval vessels to areas around Taiwan.

Taiwan’s National Defense Ministry said 82 Chinese military aircraft crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait and some got very close to the 24-nautical-mile line that Taiwan uses to define its contiguous zone.

The military drills, branded as a “punishment” for Taiwan’s new president, Lai Ching-te, who China views as separatist, focused on conducting joint sea-air combat-readiness patrol, joint seizure of comprehensive battlefield control and joint precision strikes on key targets involving China’s army, navy, air force and rocket force."

Meanwhile, both sides just continue to escalate matters in Ukraine. It is being reported that French forces will soon be heading to Ukraine to help “train” Ukrainian troops, and that is a very ominous development…"Ukraine’s military says it is ‘welcoming’ French trainers in Ukraine, in new remarks which strongly suggest that for the first time France is deploying its troops to Ukraine soil. This marks the beginning of major ‘boots on the ground’ escalation in a formal, public capacity by a NATO state.

“Ukraine’s top commander said on Monday he had signed paperwork allowing French military instructors to visit Ukrainian training centers soon,” Reuters reported Monday, referencing head of the armed forces Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi. “I am pleased to welcome France’s initiative to send instructors to Ukraine to train Ukrainian servicemen,” Syrskyi said following video link talks with French defense minister Sebastien Lecornu."

We are getting closer and closer to the day when western forces will be in direct conflict with Russian forces, and this is something that I have been warning about for many years. The third major war that will greatly shake the entire planet is the war that has erupted in the Middle East. sraeli forces keep going even deeper into Rafah, and the IDF and Hezbollah continue to exchange fire along the northern front. Eventually this war is going to escalate to an extremely dangerous level, and we could potentially see that happen by the end of this calendar year.

In addition to military conflict, major pestilences are also a factor that could turn the global financial system upside down. Earlier today, we learned that over 4 million chickens at just one farm in Iowa will have to be destroyed because of a bird flu outbreak there…"More than 4 million chickens in Iowa will have to be killed after a case of the highly pathogenic bird flu was detected at a large egg farm, the state announced Tuesday.

Crews are in the process of killing 4.2 million chickens after the disease was found at a farm in Sioux County, Iowa, making it the latest in a yearslong outbreak that now is affecting dairy cattle as well. Last week, the virus was confirmed at an egg farm west of Minneapolis, Minnesota, leading to the slaughter of nearly 1.4 million chickens. Overall, 92.34 million birds have been killed since the outbreak began in 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture."

Please keep in mind that the figure that the U.S. Department of Agriculture is quoting is just for the United States. Overall, hundreds of millions of birds have been killed around the globe since the beginning of this pandemic.

Let’s just hope that H5N1 does not mutate into a form that can spread easily from human to human, because if that happens our planet will be paralyzed by fear on a much higher level than we experienced during the last pandemic.

It is also being reported that a hemorrhagic fever that can cause “Ebola-like bleeding” is rapidly spreading among rodents in northern Europe…"A potentially deadly virus that can jump from animals to humans is already sweeping through northern Europe, putting the UK highly at risk. The horrifying virus can be transmitted from rodents to humans and cause Ebola-like bleeding, according to new research. Bank voles in Sweden carrying the pathogen have already infected two people, causing them to come down with a Viral Hemorrhagic Fever (VHF) – the same type of illness as Ebola." I will be closely watching for any human cases of that disease, because any type of hemorrhagic fever that starts spreading widely among humans would cause a tremendous amount of panic.

On top of everything else, I believe that we should brace ourselves for unexpected natural disasters in the months ahead. For example, our sun has been exceedingly active lately, and we are being warned that more coronal mass ejections may soon be heading our way…"Earth could be hit by another powerful solar storm this week that is predicted to trigger radio blackouts and incredible northern light displays. 

Earlier this month, the sun unleashed the most powerful streams of plasma, known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs), in 20 years, causing communication disruptions worldwide. The sunspot that caused the chaos has swung back around and released a powerful flare toward Earth’s region on Monday. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) a 60 percent chance of radio blackouts on Tuesday and throughout the rest of the week." Before this current solar cycle is over, I believe that solar activity will make a lot more headlines.

So much is happening right now, but what we have experienced so far is just the tip of the iceberg compared to what is coming. It won’t be too long before we are being hit by one catastrophic event after another, and that is going to cause tremendous chaos for the global financial system. So take advantage of this period of relative stability while you still can, because we are moving into a time when everything that can be shaken will be shaken."
o

Adventures With Danno, "Deals At Kroger This Week!"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, AM 5/30/24
"Deals At Kroger This Week!"
Comments here;

Gregory Mannarino, "The World Economy is Collapsing Faster, And Society Is Being Deconstructed"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 5/30/24
"The World Economy is Collapsing Faster,
 And Society Is Being Deconstructed"
Comments here:

Dan, I Allegedly, "This is As Good As It Gets - Fed Freezes Rate Cuts"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 5/30/24
"This is As Good As It Gets - 
Fed Freezes Rate Cuts"
"Now we are hearing that there will be no interest rate cuts. 
This is as good as it gets. The economy is teetering on disaster right now."
Comments here:

Bill Bonner, "Gaming the System"

"Gaming the System"
Capitalism benefits no one in particular and everyone in general. Overall, things get better. Politics benefits specific groups - the elites. -  at the expense of everyone else. 
Overall, things get worse.
by Bill Bonner

"See that? That’s sh*t.
And this... this is shinola."
- "The Jerk"

Dublin, Ireland - "We are reporting on a remarkable essay in the weekend Financial Times. In it, Ruchir Sharma explained what’s really ailing capitalism - too much government. As we've seen the ‘government’ - along with thought leaders in the press, politicians, academic economists, think tanks, the Deep State and Wall Street - have solved every problem that came our way... from the falling dominoes of Southeast Asia to the poverty and discrimination of Watts. But all this problem solving has left us with a much larger problem, $35 trillion worth of national debt.

How will they solve that one? At stake is the entire world economy... the dollar... US prosperity... and the Primary Trend - the whole shebang. Here’s a brief resume of what we learned yesterday.

Approximately 96% of the US economy was ‘capitalist’ in 1930. That is, people went about their business, as best they could, offering goods and services to each other. Then, the government (including state, local, and regulatory agencies) grew so much that only about half of the economy is now still free to do what it wants.

The rest is dictated by government budgets and regulations. As we’ve seen, almost all of this spending is squandered... on bombs, bailouts, and bamboozles. Beyond that, the whole economy is twisted into grotesque shapes by another arm of the government, the Fed.

We saw that the much-criticized ‘small government era’ of the Tea Party Republicans... and the ‘deregulation’ following Ronald Reagan... never happened. Government spending and regulation increased steadily. Military spending (funding the empire) and domestic spending (social programs) and welfare for rich and poor alike - all increased.

And it continues. Joe Biden has just given away $7.7 billion to voters who hadn’t paid their student debt. Donald Trump, meanwhile, is said to be offering tax cuts in exchange for campaign contributions. The Fiscal Times: "Trump Woos Wealthy Donors With Promises of Huge Tax Cuts."

Who’s going to pay for Biden’s student loan forgiveness or Trump’s tax cuts? You are, of course. That’s how politics works. Capitalism benefits no one in particular... and everyone in general. Overall, things get better. Politics benefits specific groups - the elites - at the expense of everyone else. Overall, things get worse.

Grosso modo, the more capitalism you have... the freer people are to get what they want honestly. The more politics you have, the more people ‘game the system,’ working out deals with politicians, and using the power of government for their personal wealth or aggrandizement.

It’s either one or the other. Capitalism or politics. Sh*t or shinola. The idea that there is a happy balance of the two... or that adding more sh*t to the shinola makes it even shinier... is just nonsense.

Large enterprises with lobbyists... and clerks... could manage Washington’s regulations and take advantage of its many bailouts, subsidies and other opportunities. They grew bigger. But big businesses represent past growth. Small businesses are the hope of the future. And with the weight of government on their backs, small companies can barely crawl, let alone sprint.

The rate of growth in productivity has been cut in half since the 1960s. At the top, big companies dominate major industries. At the bottom are the ‘zombies’ - companies that can’t even pay the interest on their debt. Weak and unproductive... like government itself, they waste valuable resources. In between, is a stagnant pool of mid-sized companies struggling to innovate and to survive in a hostile environment of laws, regulations, taxes, inflation and debt.

But wait... Wall Street got rich. The 1% got richer than ever. Surely all that ‘financialization’ and ‘inequality’ was capitalism’s fault, right? No, it wasn’t. Again, the feds are to blame. Sharma: "The spring from which capital flowed was governments and central banks. Including debt and equity, the size of financial markets grew from slightly larger than the global economy [world GDP] in 1980 to almost four times larger today…The driving force behind runaway financialization of capitalism was easy money flowing from the government."

Yes, it was the rotten money that ruined the barrel. But what now? Sharma: “Their [US policymakers] overconfidence needs to be contained before it does more damage. Capitalism is still the best hope for human progress, but only if it has enough room to work.” But there’s more to the story, isn’t there? It’s not just a matter of “overconfidence,” is it? The public may prefer shinola, but neither Biden nor Trump really sparkle, do they? Tune in tomorrow..."

Greg Hunter, "Entire Financial System Can Go Down Soon"

"Entire Financial System Can Go Down Soon"

"Dr. Chris Martenson holds a PhD in pathology from Duke University, is a futurist and an economic researcher. Dr. Martenson was one of the very few scientists who called BS on the FDA’s approval of Pfizer’s CV19 vax back in August 2021. Dr. Martenson went on the record to say, “Comirnaty CV19 Vax Approval is Actually Fraudulent.” Now, Dr. Martenson is out warning about a new kind of fraud that could leave you broke in the next financial disaster. Dr. Martenson thinks financial trouble of Biblical proportions could be coming sooner than most people think. 

Dr. Martenson is not worried about a brokerage going under, such as Lehman Brothers in the 2008. Martenson is worried about the entire system melting down and says, “When the system freezes up, they get really scared. If you are not a complete moron, you would make that system smaller because it scared you that much, but instead, they made it even bigger. We not only have to worry about a brokerage going down, but we now have to worry about these clearing parties. These are the houses that are supposed to be clearing all the trades with the derivatives and the loans. The law says the brokerages have to hold your shares and bonds you have in a proportional amount. They don’t hold them. A higher company does that, and you can’t peer into them. It you want to see what Fidelity or Schwab has I found out you cannot see an audit trail.”

In a new market meltdown, Dr. Martenson sees chaos and gives a hypothetical example: “China attacks Taiwan, and there is a 10 sigma move in the bond market. Oh no, all these derivatives have blown up. These people are supposed to be winners, and these people are supposed to be all losers. No, no, they don’t have any money for that stuff. It’s too complicated. I don’t think anybody understands how this works anymore. I could not find anybody who could tell me the whole thing. I could find people who knew bits and pieces, but they knew their slice. I am trying to stitch this thing all together. I get uncomfortable when I can’t answer the most basic questions, and that is how much risk is there in the system and where is it?”

In short, Dr. Martenson is worried about the whole financial system going down. Dr. Martenson says, “Yes, I am worried about the whole system going down, and that leads to all sorts of speculation. Imagine this, we wake up one day, and the markets are not open on Monday. Oh no, glitch. Problem. Then, it’s two days and not open, three days not open. People are getting worried. Friday, and the markets are still not open. Monday comes, and they say it’s a super big problem, and we don’t know how to resolve it. They offer you 100% value today in a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) account or you can wait it out and hope it gets resolved, and it might take a decade.”

Dr. Martenson likes gold, silver, land and basically all (clear title) physical assets to protect you from “The Great Taking.” Martenson has an upcoming seminar with “The Great Taking” author David Webb (and others) to help you to counter the theft that will surely come in the next financial meltdown.

In closing, Dr. Martenson says, “This has been a series of large amplitude blunders that keep getting bigger and bigger. "The Great Taking” is the framework built, that just in case all this colossal blundering blows up, Congress and Wall Street flips a coin and you get heads we win and tails you lose. This is the oldest story in the book.” There is much more in the 38-minute interview.

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One
 with the founder of PeakProsperity.com, Dr. Chris Martenson: 

Wednesday, May 29, 2024

Canadian Prepper, "Putin Declares Total Mobilization; NATO Attack On Russia Are Imminent; Nukes Armed"

Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 5/29/24
"Putin Declares Total Mobilization; 
NATO Attack On Russia Are Imminent; Nukes Armed"
Comments here:

Musical Interlude: Michael Jackson, "Earth Song"

Full screen recommended.
Michael Jackson, "Earth Song"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Is our Milky Way Galaxy this thin? Magnificent spiral galaxy NGC 4565 is viewed edge-on from planet Earth. Also known as the Needle Galaxy for its narrow profile, bright NGC 4565 is a stop on many telescopic tours of the northern sky, in the faint but well-groomed constellation Coma Berenices. This sharp, colorful image reveals the spiral galaxy's boxy, bulging central core cut by obscuring dust lanes that lace NGC 4565's thin galactic plane.
An assortment of other background galaxies is included in the pretty field of view. Thought similar in shape to our own Milky Way Galaxy, NGC 4565 lies about 40 million light-years distant and spans some 100,000 light-years. Easily spotted with small telescopes, sky enthusiasts consider NGC 4565 to be a prominent celestial masterpiece Messier missed."

"The Dangerous History Behind Netanyahu’s Amalek Rhetoric"

"The Dangerous History Behind 
Netanyahu’s Amalek Rhetoric"
by Noah Lanard

11/3/2023 - "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israelis were united in their fight against Hamas, whom he described as an enemy of incomparable cruelty. “They are committed to completely eliminating this evil from the world,” Netanyahu said in Hebrew. He then added: “You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember.”

There are more than 23,000 verses in the Old Testament. The ones Netanyahu turned to, as Israeli forces launched their ground invasion in Gaza, are among its most violent - and have a long history of being used by Jews on the far right to justify killing Palestinians.

As others quickly pointed out, God commands King Saul in the first Book of Samuel to kill every person in Amalek, a rival nation to ancient Israel. “This is what the Lord Almighty says,” the prophet Samuel tells Saul. “‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’” ("So, I, God, will punish them by YOU killing them." Really?)

The Amalek reference is one of many comments by Israeli leaders that serve to help justify a devastating response to the brutal Hamas attack on October 7 that took the lives of more than 1,400 people in Israel. A member of the Knesset has called for a second Nakba, in reference to the expulsion of Palestinians that Israel carried out in its 1948 war with Arab neighbors. A military spokesperson said about Israel’s initial airstrikes that “the emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy.”

More than 9,000 people (now 36,000 5/24) in Gaza have now been killed, including more than 3,700 children, (Now 15,000 5/24) according to the Gaza Health Ministry. A spokesperson for UNICEF now says that Gaza is a “graveyard for thousands of children” and a “living hell for everyone else.” Forty-seven percent of Israeli Jews said in a poll conducted last month that Israel should “not at all” consider the “suffering of the civilian Palestinian population in Gaza” in the next phase of fighting. Casting the enemy as Amalek reinforces that attitude.

Joshua Shanes, a professor of Jewish Studies at the College of Charleston, explained that the biblical animosity toward the Amalekites stems from what is described as the merciless ambush they launched against vulnerable Israelites making their way to the promised land. The attack leads God to tell Moses to wipe out Amalek. Hundreds of years later, Saul nearly fulfills the command by killing all Amalekite men, women, and children. But he spares their king, who keeps his people barely alive by having a child. Many more generations later, one of his descendants, the villain Haman, goes on to develop a plot to kill all the Jews living in exile under a Persian ruler. The lesson, when read literally, is clear: Saul’s failure to kill every Amalekite posed an existential threat to the Jewish people.

Jews traditionally hear the story of the Amalek ambush and God’s decree that they be eliminated on the Shabbat service before the holiday of Purim. Shanes said it is perhaps the most important of all Torah readings. Rabbi Jill Jacobs—the head of T’ruah, a rabbinical human rights organziation—said that rabbis generally agree that Amalek no longer exists, and that references to it do not provide a morally acceptable justification for attacking anyone. “The overwhelming history of Jewish interpretation is to interpret it metaphorically,” Jacobs said, explaining that one common approach is to see it as a call to stamp out evil inclinations within ourselves.

Nevertheless, Jacobs said that it remains common for Israeli extremists to view Palestinians as modern-day Amalekites. In 1980, the Rabbi Israel Hess wrote an article that used the story of Amalek to justify wiping out Palestinians. Its title has been translated as “Genocide: A Commandment of the Torah,” as well as “The Mitzvah of Genocide in the Torah.”

In his 1997 book, The Vanishing American Jew, celebrity attorney and Harvard professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz made a point of expressing his disgust about the article and the idea that Palestine was Amalek. He asked, “How can anyone distinguish this incitement to murder from similar incitements by Muslim fundamentalists who quote the Koran as authority for genocide against Jews?”

The Brooklyn-born extremist Baruch Goldstein also saw Palestine as Amalek. In 1994, he slaughtered 29 Muslims praying at a mosque in Hebron, a city in the occupied West Bank that is sacred to Jews and Muslims. Goldstein carried out the massacre on Purim, one week after he would have heard the biblical retelling of the command to wipe out a rival nation. As the journalist Peter Beinart and others have written, the timing was not a coincidence.

Goldstein’s grave has become a pilgrimage site for the Israeli far right. His tomb says he died of “clean hands and pure heart.” Goldstein’s admirers have included Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s current minister of national security. For Purim, a holiday on which Jews sometimes wear costumes, Ben-Gvir dressed as Goldstein on multiple occasions in his youth. He kept a picture of Goldstein in his living room until 2020. He has an extensive criminal record that includes convictions for supporting a terrorist organization and inciting racism.

Shanes said that it was “incredibly dangerous and irresponsible and deliberate” for Netanyahu to invoke Amalek, given the ongoing war and it how is understood by the far right. He added that calling the enemy Amalek will make it more difficult for people who try to defend the position that Israel is not “involved in a crime against humanity or a genocidal act.”

Beinart, an Orthodox Jew who previously edited the New Republic and now writes on Substack, expressed similar concern. “The wisdom of rabbinic tradition was to declare that we no longer know who Amalek is because that restrains the genocidal plain meaning of the Biblical text,” he wrote in email. “So in claiming that he knows who Amalek is, [Netanyahu] is undoing the moral scaffolding created by Jewish tradition and asserting a Biblical literalism that is alien to the Judaism of the last two thousand years and, given the military power at his disposal, is frankly terrifying.”

Jacobs stressed that Netanyahu saying Amalek does not mean that Israel is carrying out genocide. She said that while Hamas and Israel have committed war crimes, Israel’s actions do not meet the international standard of genocide. “It’s not a term that should be thrown around casually at all,” she explained, particularly against a people that have experienced genocide. Instead, Jacobs sees Netanyahu, who she described as “totally right-wing and incompetent,” referring to Amalek as yet another case of him “being irresponsible and inciting.” (Netanyahu has previously compared the prospect of a nuclear Iran to Amalek.)

In a brief phone call, Dershowitz told me this week that he supported Netanyahu “100 percent” to the extent that the prime minister was equating Hamas with Amalek. When I mentioned the command to kill Amalekite women and children, Dershowitz responded, “There are other parts of the Bible that say the opposite; that you can’t even destroy a fruit tree.” That is true, but Netanyahu did not cite those parts of the Bible. Instead, he turned to something that the far right has long used as a justification for genocide during a war in which some argue Israel is committing genocide. (On Thursday, a group of United Nations experts said that Palestinians are at “grave risk of genocide.”)

Shanes was not convinced by Dershowitz’s defense that Hamas is Amalek. For one, he said, Amalek is clearly described as a nation, not a political party. “If someone says, ‘I just mean the bad members of the Palestinians. I mean Hamas…,’ that’s not the effect it has in the body politic,” Shanes said. “The effect it has is, We have to wipe these people out.”
o
I Samuel 15: 3-4: "Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass."

What kind of "God" could command such a horror, which the  psychopathically degenerate Israeli ZioNazi monsters are now all too eager to carry out? What kind of people could allow and support this nightmare, and pay for every single bullet and bomb, every tank and airplane, knowing full well what genocide is happening in Gaza? You did, and do, America. What kind of person are YOU, American? Every drop of blood is on your hands, too...What's that make YOU, and all of us?

Gerald Celente, "Bibi's Continued Slaughter, Biden's Continued Support"

Full screen recommended.
Gerald Celente, 5/29/24
"Bibi's Continued Slaughter, Biden's Continued Support"
"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 American Worker Is Being Destroyed Right In Front Of Our Eyes And It's Worse Than You Think"

Full screen recommended.
Epic Economist, 5/29/24
"The American Worker Is Being Destroyed Right
 In Front Of Our Eyes And It's Worse Than You Think"

"The decline of our country is explicit. While 99% of our population is struggling to adapt to the rising cost of basic necessities, the top 1% of ultra rich Americans has seen their wealth increase by nearly 500% over the past four years. Though an America where some have more money than others is nothing new, in the past generation, the financial gap between the elites and everyone else has become obscene. Economists are convinced that something has gone awry in our economic system, threatening the underpinning of the American Dream. They say we're living a tale of "two Americas", divided between the "haves" and the "have-nots."

A new report from the Congressional Budget Office exposes that income inequality in the United States has never been worse. Even though Americans are working harder than ever before, they are earning less when accounting the current cost of housing, food, energy, healthcare, and other essentials. The bottom 20% of U.S. households earns an average income before taxes and transfers of just $21,900 while the top 20% earns more than $400,000 a year. What’s more, the top 1% of households made almost five times as much income as the rest of the population from 2020 to now.

Data released by the Pew Research Center shows that the top 10% of households have over $6.7 million in wealth. At the same time, the bottom 50% of households have just $50,000 in wealth. As a group, the top 10% holds 66.9% of the nation's household wealth. In contrast, the bottom 50% only holds 2.5%.

Today, the concentration of income toward the ultra rich is at its highest point since 1980. In fact, over the past four decades, average incomes grew by 135% for upper-class Americans, but just 38% and 23% for middle and low-income Americans, respectively. Although the latter income brackets account for more than 60% of the nation's consumption, their purchasing power is getting significantly lower."
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o
"The more I see of the monied classes,
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw

Jeremiah Babe, "I Can't Believe What I Saw Today; Buy A Home With No Money Down; Homebuyers Will Be Decimated"

Full screen recommended.
Jeremiah Babe, 5/29/24
"I Can't Believe What I Saw Today; 
Buy A Home With No Money Down; Homebuyers Will Be Decimated"
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Gregory Mannarino, "The MMRI Has Hit 'Red Zone, This Could Get Very Bad, Very Fast"

Gregory Mannarino, 5/29/24
"The MMRI Has Hit 'Red Zone, 
This Could Get Very Bad, Very Fast"
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The Daily "Near You?"

Bristol, Connecticut, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

Travelling with Russell, "I Went Walking in the World-Famous Gorky Park in Russia"

Full screen recommended.
Travelling with Russell, 5/29/24
"I Went Walking in the World-Famous 
Gorky Park in Russia"
Come for a walk with me around the world-famous Gorky Park in Moscow, Russia. Locally known as Park Kultury, or Park of Culture. Discover what it's like on a beautiful Monday evening. Sunset time in Gorky Park, amazing.
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"What We Gain By Recognizing The Role Of Chance In Life"

"What We Gain By Recognizing
 The Role Of Chance In Life"
By Mark S. Rank

"Your luck, they say, can turn around. All you need to do is work a little harder. As a saying often attributed to the Roman philosopher Seneca goes: ‘Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.’ A similar proverb is dated to the 16th century: ‘Diligence is the mother of good luck.’ And even the French chemist Louis Pasteur echoed the idea when he declared in 1854 that ‘chance only favours the mind which is prepared’. Today, many of us still believe that our fortunes can be engineered. But that is not always how the world works. Luck plays an ungovernable and unpredictable role in our lives, which we can’t fully mitigate through preparation or diligence. So why do we continue to believe we can turn our luck around?

On 18 August 1913, at a casino in Monte Carlo, a roulette wheel was spun, and the ball fell on black. This is not unusual. The alternating red and black colours of a roulette wheel mean that, like a coin toss, there is roughly a 50-50 chance that the ball will land on either color. But as the ball continued to land on black, again and again and again, gamblers rushed to the table, placing bets on red in the belief that the alternating colour must be coming up. Convinced that things would eventually balance out, gamblers raised their bets each time the ball landed on black. But they continued to lose. Improbably, the ball would settle on black a total of 26 times.

The ‘Monte Carlo fallacy’, also known as the ‘gambler’s fallacy’, is the belief that a string of bad luck must end. It is the belief that there is a sense of balance in how luck plays out. It explains why gamblers playing roulette mistakenly believe that one color is overdue after a consecutive series of the other color, even though the odds remain 50-50. But the relevance of the Monte Carlo fallacy goes far beyond the tendencies of gamblers in casinos.

Though anecdotal evidence for the fallacy is well established, only in recent decades have experts confirmed our belief that a string of bad luck must end. In a 2005 study, two US researchers studying decision-making, James Sundali and Rachel Croson, analysed gambling behaviour at casinos in Reno, Nevada. Among those who were making 50-50 bets in roulette, Sundali and Croson found that gamblers who had watched one spin of the wheel evenly divided their bets between red and black. However, as the wheel landed on red (or black) in consecutive spins, the betting changed significantly. After five consecutive reds, 65 per cent of the bets were placed on black, and after six consecutive reds, 85 per cent of the bets were on black. Though the sixth spin of a roulette wheel is not influenced by the previous five spins, gamblers still placed their bets as if it was. Our intuitive sense is that imbalance must be corrected.

Closely related to this is the mistaken belief that the distribution in small numbers will reflect the distribution in large numbers. Take the case of flipping a coin. The odds in any one flip are 50 per cent heads, 50 per cent tails. If we flip a coin 10,000 times, close to 50 per cent of the total flips will be heads and close to 50 per cent tails. However, if we flip a coin 10 times, the result could easily be seven heads and three tails. Though it is a mistake to think the odds of a small number of cases will reflect the odds of a large number of cases, we find this belief in many areas of life. For example, parents who have had several children of the same gender may believe that they are overdue for a child of the other sex and that their odds will shift if they keep trying.

Part of the reason why we cling to the belief that a string of bad luck must end is that we find it hard to reconcile the difference between the odds of large and small numbers, but there is also a deeper explanation for why these fallacies are so hard to shake: we like to believe the world is just and fair. We like to believe in balance. When someone works hard and plays by the rules, we hope they’ll be appropriately rewarded; when a crime is committed, justice is seen as being served if the criminal is sentenced to a punishment that fits the nature and severity of the crime. On the other hand, if an individual commits a serious crime and is neither apprehended nor punished, we feel an injustice has occurred. Thus, in situations where individuals experience events that are incongruent with their prior actions and behaviors – like young children who have terminal cancer, or civilians who are killed during a war – the world appears unbalanced and unjust. Our intuitive sense is that such an imbalance must be corrected. Unfortunately, this isn’t always possible.

Chance and luck have little interest in our notions of balance and deservedness. In life, bad things can happen to good people, and good things can happen to bad people. Accidents take place, illnesses strike, and unlucky breaks occur indiscriminately. In this regard, the randomness of the universe is blind to any sense of justice. We can attempt to rectify some of the negative consequences of this randomness, and be grateful when good luck strikes, but we should not deceive ourselves into believing that the world is always fair.

The philosopher Nicholas Rescher stated this well in "Luck" (1995) when he wrote: "The trenchant question of old (posed by unfortunate and fortunate alike) is: Why me; what have I done to deserve this? The irony of course is that the appropriate and correct answer is: Nothing. It is simply a matter of chance – of fortuitous luck."

In the bestselling book "When Bad Things Happen to Good People" (1981), the US rabbi and author Harold Kushner attempted to reconcile how God could allow so much injustice in the world. Kushner explained that these ‘bad things’ are basically random events. When they occur, one can turn to God for comfort and strength. Yet, as Jane Eisner wrote about Kushner, he believed it is our role ‘to accept the randomness of the universe, not to blame God or ourselves for tragedies but to believe in God’s omnipotent goodness as a nourishing force.’

Many decisions that affect us involve some element of luck and may have little to do with our abilities. Consequently, there may be times in life when there is little point to casting about for blame. The randomness of the universe simply does not abide by such a conjurer. In some respects, this understanding can be liberating. Rather than searching for blame or a causal reason, randomness can relieve us from such a burden.

So how else might we use a deeper understanding of chance and randomness to our advantage? Can luck help create fairness, balance and a better world? I think it can.

By recognizing the prevalence of luck, a strong argument can be made for the importance of perseverance in pursuing one’s goals. This is subtly different to the view of luck presented by Seneca or Pasteur, in which preparation and work lead to a change of fate. Many decisions affecting us involve some element of randomness and luck and these decisions may have little to do with our abilities or credentials. As the US sociologist Michael Sauder has observed, we often blame ourselves for things that could be attributed to chance: ‘We did not get the job we applied for because our application was misplaced by the hiring committee, but we assume we reached too far and attribute the outcome to our lack of worthiness.’

In discussing careers in the arts and entertainment fields (where good luck is often a prerequisite for getting ahead), the Canadian author Stephen Marche has observed that ‘persistence is the siege you lay on fortune’. We cannot control randomness and chance, but we can increase the odds that chance will shine in our favour by increasing the number of opportunities for a particular result to play out – we can, as the aphorism says, keep ‘many irons in the fire’. By being persistent, and thus increasing our chances, we can also increase the importance of talent and ensure that skill carries more weight.

Recognizing and accepting chance and luck also fosters a heightened sense of gratitude. The recognition of randomness in our lives helps ensure we don’t take the good things for granted – it helps us understand the precarious nature of good fortune. As we gain insights into the world of randomness, we realize how easily we might find ourselves in less favorable conditions. This is reflected in the saying ‘count your blessings’, but is slightly different in that it recognizes the precariousness of those blessings. In turn, this can help us develop a greater sense of both humility regarding our own accomplishments and empathy for the plight of others. While there is no denying that hard work and skills are important in life’s journey, there is also no denying that luck and chance may be every bit as important in shaping the course of our lives and our achievements. This splashes cold water on the belief that we live in a world of strict meritocracy where we deserve all that comes our way.

Randomness underlines the importance of a strong social safety net. By recognizing the ubiquitousness of chance in our lives, we are in a much better position to empathize with the misfortunes of others. Bad luck can strike anyone at any time. Accepting this fact allows us to imagine ourselves in the position of the less fortunate, and creates the possibility for more meaningful and empathetic connections with each other. In this way, recognizing luck has significant policy implications.

Randomness underlines the importance of ‘social insurance’ and a strong social safety net. When we insure our home or car, we don’t anticipate having an accident immediately. Instead, we are acknowledging the possibility that we may experience an accident at some point in the future. Likewise, a strong social safety net is designed to protect individuals from the bad luck of economic hardship that can strike at any point. By understanding the frequency and reach of bad luck, we can blunt and counteract some of its negative impacts through a set of robust safety-net programmes.

For the ancient Romans, the goddess of chance, Fortuna, would spin her wheel of fortune, causing some to rise and others to fall. What goes up can come down, and vice versa. She delighted in reversing the fortunes of us mortals, and 2,000 years later she is still spinning her wheel. Many of us believe that we can find some deeper logic to the outcome of her spinning wheel and anticipate how it will spin. But things don’t always balance out. We can’t always turn our luck around.

By acknowledging and better understanding chance, we can begin to better co-exist as we make our way through life. We can begin to see the world as it is, rather than how we imagined it to be."
o
Charles Bukowski, "Roll the Dice"
Read by Tom O'Bedlam

"It's Not the End of the World"

"It's Not the End of the World"
by Jeff Thomas

"Periodically, I’ll encounter someone who has read one of my essays and has decided not to pursue them further, stating, "You’re one of those ‘End of the world’ guys. I can’t be bothered reading the writings of someone who thinks we’re all doomed. I have a more positive outlook than that." In actual fact, I agree entirely with his latter two comments. I can’t be bothered reading the thoughts of a writer who says we’re all doomed, either. I, too, have a more positive outlook than that.

My one discrepancy with such comments is that I don’t by any means think that the present state of events will lead to the end of the world, as he assumes. But then, neither am I naïve enough to think that if I just hope for the best, the powers that be will cease to be parasitical and predatory out of sympathy for me. They will not.

For any serious student of history, one of the great realizations that occurs at some point is that governments are inherently controlling by nature. The more control they have, the more they desire and the more they pursue. After all, governments actually produce nothing. They exist solely upon what they can extract from the people they rule over. Therefore, their personal success is not measured by how well they serve their people, it’s measured by how much they can extract from the people. And so, it’s a given that all governments will pursue ever-greater levels of power over their minions up to and including the point of total dominance.

It should be said that, on rare occasions, a people will rise up and create a governmental system in which the rights of the individual are paramount. This was true in the creation of the Athenian Republic and the American Constitution, and even the British Magna Carta. However, these events are quite rare in history and, worse, as soon as they take place, those who gain power do their best to diminish the newly-gained freedoms. Such freedoms can almost never be destroyed quickly, but, over time and "by slow operations," as Thomas Jefferson was fond of saying, governments can be counted on to eventually destroy all freedoms.

We’re passing through a period in history in which the process of removing freedoms is nearing completion in many of the world’s foremost jurisdictions. The EU and US, in particular, are leading the way in this effort. Consequently, it shouldn’t be surprising that some predict "the end of the world." But, they couldn’t be more incorrect.

Surely, in 1789, the more productive people of France may have felt that the developing French Revolution would culminate in Armageddon. Similarly, in 1917, those who created prosperity in Russia may well have wanted to throw up their hands as the Bolsheviks seized power from the Romanovs.

Whenever a deterioration in rule is underway, as it is once again now, the observer has three choices:

Declare the End of the World: There are many people, worldwide, but particularly in the centers of the present deterioration – the EU and US – who feel that, since the situation in their home country is nearing collapse, the entire world must also be falling apart. This is not only a very myopic viewpoint, it’s also quite inaccurate. At any point in civilization in the past 2000 years or more, there have always been empires that were collapsing due to intolerable governmental dominance and there have always concurrently been alternative jurisdictions where the level of freedom was greater. In ancient Rome, when Diocletian devalued the currency, raised taxes, increased warfare and set price controls, those people who actually created the economy on a daily basis found themselves in the same boat as Europeans and Americans are finding themselves in, in the 21st century.

It may have seemed like the end of the world, but it was not. Enough producers left Rome and started over again in other locations. Those other locations eventually thrived as a result of the influx of productive people, while Rome atrophied.

Turn a Blind Eye: This is less dreary than the above approach, but it is nevertheless just as fruitless. It is, in fact, the most common of reactions – to just "hope for the best." It’s tempting to imagine that maybe the government will realize that they’re the only ones benefitting from the destruction of freedom and prosperity and they’ll feel bad and reverse the process. But this clearly will not happen. It’s also tempting to imagine that maybe it won’t get a whole lot worse and that life, although not all that good at present, might remain tolerable. Again, this is wishful thinking and the odds of it playing out in a positive way are slim indeed.

Accept the Truth, But Do Something About It: This, of course, is the hard one. Begin by recognizing the truth. If that truth is not palatable, study the situation carefully and, when a reasonably clear understanding has been reached, create an alternative. When governments enter the final decline stage, an alternative is not always easy to accept. It’s a bit like having a tooth pulled. You want to put it off, but the pain will only get worse if you delay. And so, you trundle off to the dentist unhappily, but, a few weeks after the extraction, you find yourself asking, "Why didn’t I do this sooner?"

To be sure, those who investigate and analyze the present socio-economic-political deterioration do indeed espouse a great deal of gloom, but this should not be confused with doom. In actual fact, the whole point of shining a light into the gloom is to avoid having it end in doom.

It should be said here that remaining in a country that is tumbling downhill socially, economically and politically is also not the end of the world. It is, however, true that the end result will not exactly be a happy one. If history repeats once again, it’s likely to be quite a miserable one.

Those who undertake the study of the present deterioration must, admittedly, address some pretty depressing eventualities and it would be far easier to just curl up on the sofa with a six-pack and watch the game, but the fact remains: unless the coming problems are investigated and an alternative found, those who sit on the sofa will become the victims of their own lethargy.

Sadly, we live in a period in history in which some of the nations that once held the greatest promise for the world are well on their way to becoming the most tyrannical. If by recognizing that fact, we can pursue better alternatives elsewhere on the globe, as people have done in previous eras. We may actually find that the field of daisies in the image above is still very much in existence, it’s just a bit further afield than it was in years gone by. And it is absolutely worthy of pursuit."

"How It Really Is"

 

Good luck!

Adventures With Danno, "Grocery Items At Walmart You Should Be Buying Right Now!"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 5/29/24
"Grocery Items At Walmart You Should Be Buying Right Now!"
In today's vlog, we are at Walmart and are shopping for cheaper grocery options.
  Shop with me as I attempt to find the best and budget food options available!
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Judge Napolitano, "Phil Giraldi: How Deep is DC Support for Israel?"

Full screen recommended.
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 5/29/24
"Phil Giraldi: How Deep is DC Support for Israel?"
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Dan, I Allegedly, "Real Estate Agents Are Fleeing Fast!"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 5/29/24
"Real Estate Agents Are Fleeing Fast!"
"Today, I’m reporting from the stunning Tamarak Beach to dive into the alarming trend shaking the real estate world. Why are agents quitting in droves? What massive changes are hitting the industry? From lawsuits against the National Association of Realtors to agents struggling to make ends meet, we break it all down."
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"Social Media Hijacks The Subconscious Mind"

Full screen recommended.
"Social Media Hijacks The Subconscious Mind"
by Paul Rosenberg

"Anything that affects the subconscious minds of billions of people, on a daily basis, is a very serious thing, and that is precisely what has happened over the past decade, as social media captured a large percentage of human cognition.

I am well aware that I am running against the stream. Mine, to be honest about it, is a small and largely unwanted voice. Still, someone needs to say these things, and the truth is that social media directly replaces natural subconscious functions. Or, perhaps more accurately, it displaces subconscious operations and acts in their place. And that is very, very dangerous.

As we go through this, please understand that I’m not saying these things precisely, simply because no one knows how to say them precisely. Any “expert” on the subject could be attacked by half a dozen contrary experts, each with their own theory of the unconscious. So, those who need to find fault may proceed as they must. I am doing my job all the same, because fear of the critic spawns self-censorship, and we very much need to address this.

What Social Media Does: I cannot affix a percentage to how much social media displaces our inborn subconscious minds, because no one knows how to measure such things. But that it does displace the human subconscious is easy to establish. Here, briefly, is some direct support:

Without a doubt, our subconscious minds filter our sensory inputs, delivering only a fraction of them to our conscious minds. Also without a doubt, social media does the same thing: Sifting through all the inputs in its system (which double, counteract or displace a large number of our own sensory inputs) and delivering to its user those inputs which serve the system’s needs.

Our subconscious minds search our internal data banks for relevant memories. Social media does the same thing, again displacing human operations. (While monetizing them.)

Our subconscious minds trigger involuntary reactions like disgust, outrage and revulsion. Social media hijacks this process and pulls such reactions out of its users, rather than allowing them to form naturally.

Our subconscious minds recognize and process impressions of status. Advertising has long monetized this, but social media monitors the user’s reactions and triggers them very precisely, accelerating and directing the process.

Social media corporations have employed and do employ a large number of professionals, precisely to develop routines to increase “user engagement” (which we might as well be honest and call “addiction”), thus increasing their profits. More or less all of this involves subconscious vulnerabilities. If not, these companies would simply reason with their users, convincing them to engage more. If you’re trying to make people do something, and if you’re not openly convincing them, you’re left with hijacking their instincts, aka their subconscious operations.

More than 12 years ago, Facebook ran an experiment on 685,000 unknowing users, to see if their system could, by tweaking headlines, change the (subconscious) moods of their users. And indeed they could. Not only that, but they measurably changed the moods of those users’ friends. (I leave you to speculate on what they’ve done with that information over the ensuing years.)

I know very well that half the world has raced into social media and will defend their choices as only pre-committed humans can. Still, facts stand.

If I’m At All Right…For those still with me, please bear in mind that by using social media, you are being provided with a custom environment, created specifically for you, and specifically for you on that day. Once immersed in that environment, you’ll be thinking and feeling in response to personalized stimuli. Your reactions will then be fed into a monstrous data system… a system that most definitely is not centered on your interests.

Social media operations are the most informed, most intimate and most adaptable systems of manipulation that have ever existed, and by far. We should also bear in mind that this work is being done by computers, at a near-zero per-instance cost. And yes, these systems are quite able to “drink from a fire hose;” they use heuristics that thrive on it and even require it.

If my argument is at all correct, we’d expect to see masses of humans who can be led directly from one collective stampede to another, despising those who refuse to join them. We’d also see whistle-blowers, psychologists raising warnings, people obsessively checking their feeds, and people who are unable to walk away, even though part of them is convinced they should.

In the end, social media functions by usurping free will. It is, properly, a mind parasite. Moreover, humanity has no natural immunity to this type of parasite, simply because no such thing has previously existed.

Finally, I will remind everyone that 25 years ago we had none of these “free” systems. (And “free” really should have been a clue.) Nonetheless, we lived in heated houses, drove cars, had jobs and friends, read books, fell in love, got married and had children. We didn’t have such mind parasites and we did at least as well without them."
o