"Regrets? Don’t Regret Anything, Unless You Want Me To Slap You When You Are Old"

"Regrets? Don’t Regret Anything, 

Unless You Want Me To Slap You When You Are Old"

by John Wilder

"I’ve never written anything before that made me want to go to a hospice and slap a bunch of old dying people, but this particular post led me there. I’ll explain. It’s okay, it’ll all make sense in the end. I’m a trained professional.

I have made many mistakes in my life. Most of them I don’t remember – they were small and didn’t have any consequences, or at least any consequences I’ve seen yet.

Then there were some slightly larger mistakes – let’s call them medium size mistakes. There have been consequences to these. Again, medium-sized mistakes most often lead to medium-sized consequences. A scar here (carve away from your thumb, not towards it), a stock gone to zero there (thanks a lot, Enron®) and one really bad car trade when I was 24... medium-sized. Medium-sized mistakes are big enough for a big sting, but whatever permanent impacts there might be aren’t immediately fatal.

The biggest ones – I won’t give a laundry list of those. Most of those were where either passion, inexperience, a momentary lapse of character or judgement, or (worst of all) when all three contributed to a mistake. Some mistakes lasted longer, some were short. But all stung. The biggest include a marriage that led to divorce, underestimating a sociopathic boss, and wearing that white dress to my little sister’s wedding. I mean, I look fabulous in it, but some brides just have to be the center of attention. Also a bit weird because she wasn’t really my sister.

To put it bluntly, I am the author of almost every problem I have. If I didn’t cause the problem, I’m probably complicit in creating the problem or not dealing with the problem. But I don’t regret it. None of it. Not the victories, certainly, and not the failures. Why?

Life is a one-shot deal. And life is a ratchet. It only turns one way – we can’t take anything back. Regret isn’t a one-shot deal, though. If there’s anything that will burn a hole in your soul, it’s regret. Regret never comes alone – it brings guilt along for the ride.

If I were to dig more deeply into those feelings – regret and guilt are just ways that fear manifests itself. Fear of... what? Regret is a fear that the consequences of your choices or actions will impact you negatively, and cannot be changed. Here is a list of some of the common regrets from people on their deathbed (from a former palliative care nurse named Bronnie Ware, and, yes, I spelled that right – blame her parents, not me):

“I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”

“I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.”

“I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.”

“I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.”

“I wish that I had let myself be happier.”

Even a quick look at this list tells me one simple thing: regret is for losers. I have never seen a whinier pack of self-serving weakness since I last watched a presidential debate. Everything, absolutely everything on this “top five” list is just, well, sad.

Would you like to go to your grave worrying about any of those things? I can’t imagine doing it. I refuse to let regret rule me. And I refuse to let any decision I made twenty years ago rule me. Hell, I refuse to let any decision I made last week rule me, except for choosing that convenience store egg/muffin sandwich – I don’t need to explain why. Deal with the consequences? Certainly. But regret? No.

Let’s go down the “top five” list:

Not living a life “true to yourself”? I’ve never heard such nonsense in my life. I was talking with a guy the other day who quit his job because his boss asked him to do something illegal. That’s being true to yourself – he walked away without a paycheck but with his values and beliefs intact. If you’re not being true to yourself, you’re either weak or flighty. The good news? Anyone who reads this blog is neither.

Wishing you hadn’t “worked so hard”? That’s also nonsense. A soul thrives on doing good work that matters. Doing good work excellently is hard. The Mrs. teaches, and works hard at it – I can see from her talking about her students, talking about the ones who learned and improved, the ones who keep coming back to her classroom to report on their lives that her work matters. Working hard at work that matters is what makes us the best humans we can be. If you think you worked too hard, you weren’t doing anything worth doing. The good news? Change now. You have an entire lifetime to fix that mistake.

Didn’t have the “courage to express my feelings”? Wow. This is the weakest on the list, so far. Number one: do you have feelings that matter? Most feelings are stupid – and I have stupid feelings, too. Thankfully, I’m not a five year old – I am at least twelve. I get to examine my feelings and reject those that don’t reflect my values, my virtue, my beliefs. I get to choose. If I feel slighted by something silly or petty? I get to choose to understand what a fool I’m being and ignore that feeling. Again, if you don’t express your feelings, that’s not always a bad thing. Your feelings are often stupid.

I’m sorry that “staying in touch with your friends” was so hard. But it’s really not. The people you care about, that care about you, are there. They always have been, they always will be. I don’t Facebook® much – why? I call my friends, on an actual phone. I text my friends. Am I often the one that calls first? Sure. Do we develop different lives, does life pull us away for a while? Do hundreds or thousands of miles separate us? Maybe. But I make quite a few phone calls. And mostly my friends pick up. Sure, it’s true that the biggest miracle Jesus exhibited in the Bible was having 12, 11 close friends (thanks, Judas) after the age of thirty – but you just need a few – a few that will have your back. A few you can share with.

Seriously – number five on the list is a wish for “letting themselves be happier.” Happy is easy ("All You Will Ever Need To Read About How To Be Happy* (*Most of the Time")), being significant is hard. It requires hard work while being true to yourself. It requires expressing those feelings that your virtue allows to exist. Friends? The good ones will be with you forever, and you can restart your conversations with the slightest hint of time passing, even if you haven’t talked regularly in a decade, if they’re true friends.

I’ve never thought about going to a hospice and slapping someone, but this list made me want to do it. I know, I know, it’s too late for them. And this is the list of people who had regrets. People like me? I don’t have a single regret at this moment of my life. Not one. In a hospice, I hope I’d be the, “Regrets? No. More clam chowder, please,” guy.

To be clear – it’s not that I don’t care. It’s not that I’m not blameless. It’s not that I was always right. Not one of those things is true. But I have done the most important thing I can think of: When I do something I regret, I’ve changed myself so that I won’t ("Clintoncide", "John Bolton’s Waifu", and "October Market Crashes: Knock on Wood") do that thing again. I cannot change the past. But if I have learned, if I can help others not make the same mistakes while not repeating my own mistake? Like an algebra teacher for the soul, I have taken something negative and turned it into something positive. The bonus is I get to end the dreams of high school freshmen in the process.

And I’m not planning on having any regrets tomorrow. If you have regrets? Fix them now or recognize them for the dead weight they are and cut them loose. The alternative? Trust me, you don’t want to have me chasing you down in a hospice and slapping you silly."

- https://wilderwealthywise.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

St. James, Michigan, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Don't Wonder..."

"Don't wonder why people go crazy. Wonder why they don't.

In the face of what we can lose in a day, in an instant,

wonder what the hell it is that makes us hold it together."

- "Grey's Anatomy"

"Wars And Rumors Of War"

Full screen recommended.

Times of India, 7/17/24

"Hezbollah Boss Nasrallah's Chilling Warning To Israel:

 'Palestinians Will Finish Cancerous Tumor'"

"Hezbollah boss Hassan Nasrallah has issued a chilling warning to Israel. He vowed that the Palestinian resistance fighters will remove 'cancerous tumour' Israel. His warning came at a time when Hezbollah hammered Israeli military positions in Kiryat Shmona and Meron with nearly 100 Katyusha rockets."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

Crux, 7/17/24

"Iran Warns Netanyahu Of "Hell With No Return", 

Hezbollah Threatens To Destroy All Israeli Tanks"

"Two drones were launched against a base in Iraq where US-led coalition forces are stationed. A police official said “an attack using two drones” targeted Ain al-Assad base in Anbar province on July 16. Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu drew fierce criticism from families of hostages following a report about his remarks at a meeting. Former IDF Major General Amos Gilad  accused the Israeli PM of preventing Hamas military chief Mohd Deif from being harmed in a strike. Hezbollah leader threatened to target Israeli towns that have not yet been subjected to Hezbollah’s attacks if Israel continues to “target civilians”. Iran's interim foreign minister has warned that Lebanon will “definitely be a hell with no return” for Israel, if it dares expand its brutal war. Israeli leader Benny Gantz slammed Netanyahu’s war management and accused Netanyahu of delaying necessary operations in Gaza. Watch the video to find out more."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Danny Haiphong, 7/17/24

"Pepe Escobar: Russia & NATO On Brink Of All Out War,

And Putin Isn't Bluffing With This Move"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

“In The Long Run… We Are All Alive”

“In The Long Run… We Are All Alive”

by MN Gordon 

“In 1976, economist Herbert Stein, father of Ben Stein, the economics professor in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, observed that U.S. government debt was on an unsustainable trajectory. He, thus, established Stein’s Law: “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” Stein may have been right in theory. Yet the unsustainable trend of U.S. government debt outlasted his life.  Herbert Stein died in 1999, several decades before the crackup. Those reading this may not be so lucky.

Sometimes the end of the world comes and goes, while some of us are still here. We believe our present episode of debt, deficits, and state sponsored economic destruction, is one of these times.. We’ll have more on this in just a moment. But first, let’s peer back several hundred years. There we find context, edification, and instruction.

In 1696, William Whiston, a protégé of Isaac Newton, wrote a book. It had the grandiose title, “A New Theory of the Earth from its Original to the Consummation of All Things.” In it he proclaimed, among other things, that the global flood of Noah had been caused by a comet. Mr. Whiston took his book very serious. The good people of London took it very serious too. Perhaps it was Whiston’s conviction. Or his great fear of comets. But, for whatever reason, it never occurred to Londoners that he was a Category 5 quack.

Like Neil Ferguson, and his mathematical biology cohorts at Imperial College, London, Whiston’s research filled a void. Much like today’s epidemiological models, the science was bunk. Nonetheless, the results supplied prophecies of the apocalypse to meet a growing demand. It was just a matter of time before Whiston’s research would cause trouble…

Judgement Day: In 1736, William Whiston crunched some data and made some calculations. He projected these calculations out and saw the future. And what he witnessed scared him mad. He barked. He ranted. He foamed at the mouth to anyone who would listen. Pretty soon he’d stirred up his neighbors with a prophecy that the world would be destroyed on October 13th of that year when a comet would collide with the earth.

Jonathan Swift, in his work, “A True and Faithful Narrative of What Passed in London on a Rumour of the Day of Judgment,” quoted Whiston: “Friends and fellow-citizens, all speculative science is at an end: the period of all things is at hand; on Friday next this world shall be no more. Put not your confidence in me, brethren; for tomorrow morning, five minutes after five, the truth will be evident; in that instant the comet shall appear, of which I have heretofore warned you. As ye have heard, believe. Go hence, and prepare your wives, your families, and friends, for the universal change.”

Clergymen assembled to offer prayers. Churches filled to capacity. Rich and paupers alike feared their judgement. Lawyers worried about their fate. Judges were relieved they were no longer lawyers. Teetotalers got smashed. Drunks got sober. Bankers forgave their debtors. Criminals, to be executed, expressed joy.

The wealthy gave their money to beggars. Beggars gave it back to the wealthy. Several rich and powerful gave large donations to the church; no doubt, reserving first class tickets to heaven. Many ladies confessed to their husbands that one or more of their children were bastards. Husbands married their mistresses. And on and on…

The Archbishop of Canterbury, William Wake, had to officially deny this prediction to ease the public consternation. But it did little good. Crowds gathered at Islington, Hampstead, and the surrounding fields, to witness the destruction of London, which was deemed the “beginning of the end.” Then, just like Whiston said, a comet appeared. Prayers were made. Deathbed confessions were shared. And at the moment of maximum fear, something remarkable happened: the world didn’t end. The comet did not collide with earth. It was merely a near miss.

The experience of Whiston, and his pseudoscience prophecy, shows that predictions of the end of the world come and go while people still remain. Sometimes the fallout of these predictions, and the foolishness they provoke, is limited. Other times the foolishness they provoke leads to catastrophe. Here’s what we mean…

“In the long run we are all dead,” said 20th Century economist and Fabian socialist, John Maynard Keynes. This was Keynes rationale for why governments should borrow from the future to fund economic growth today. Of course, politicians love an academic theory that gives them cover to intervene in the economy. This is especially so when it justifies spending other people’s money to buy votes. Keynesian economics, and in particular, counter-cyclical stimulus, does just that.

U.S. politicians have attempted to borrow and spend the nation to prosperity for the last 80 years. Over the past decade, the Federal Reserve has aggressively printed money to fund Washington’s epic borrowing binge. Fed Chair Jay Powell confirmed that the Fed will pursue policies of dollar destruction to, somehow, print new jobs.

The world as it was once known – where a dollar was as good as gold – has come and gone. Today, in life after the end of that world, we are witnessing the illusion of wealth, erected by four generations of borrowing and spending, crumble before our eyes. Moreover, contrary to Keynes, in the long run we are not all dead. In fact, in the long run we are all very much alive. And we are all living with the compounding consequences of shortsighted economic policies.”

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

R.E.M., "It's The End Of The World As We Know It 

(And I Feel Fine)"

"How It Really Is"

Dan, I Allegedly, "100% Chance of a Interest Rate Cut"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, 7/17/24

"100% Chance of a Interest Rate Cut"

Wow. The economy is not doing well. With what Jerome Powell just said 

there is a 100% chance that we will have a rate cut between now and September.

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Gregory Mannarino, "The Fall Of America... Things Just Took A Massive Turn For The Worst!"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 7/17/24

"The Fall Of America... 

Things Just Took A Massive Turn For The Worst!"

- https://traderschoice.net

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Adventures With Danno, "Strange Prices At Target! Grocery Options & Price Decreases!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures With Danno, AM 7/17/24

"Strange Prices At Target! 

Grocery Options & Price Decreases!"

Comments here

- https://www.youtube.com/

Bill Bonner, "Manifest Debt"

"American Progress," 1872, by John Gast

"Manifest Debt"

It is unusual, exceptional, when a country becomes vastly more powerful 

than all others. It happens. But then, its own people help it to un-happen.

by Bill Bonner

Poitou, France - "In the news, the dots come in torrents. But the patterns are unmistakable. It is the way the world works. Down... then up... then down again. From average to excellence... then, like a drop of water headed to the sewer, the exceptional thing is drawn to mediocrity. The molecules, within the water, ask no questions. The caterpillar doesn’t choose to become a butterfly. And people adjust their attitudes and thoughts to play their roles in the great drama. We are parts of the pattern…not masters of it.

A former Chinese ambassador to the US: "America was very different back then compared to now. In the 1980s, America was confident. It identified the Soviet Union as its main rival and boasted about "Star Wars"; it viewed Japan as an economic threat, attacking its financial and manufacturing sectors. By the 1990s, with the end of the Cold War, America became the only superpower, proudly promoting the so-called "Washington Consensus" and even declaring the "end of history."

Later, things changed. America instigated several regional wars around the world, orchestrated several "color revolutions," and caused chaos in many places. American-led financial capitalism triggered a global financial crisis. People worldwide, including many Chinese, gradually realized that America's strategic focus is its global hegemony, not the welfare of all humanity, especially people in developing countries. The so-called "Pax Americana" does not necessarily benefit world peace, stability, and development; modernization does not equate to Westernization or Americanization. Their methods cannot navigate us to our goals, and their grand teachings often come with double standards in practice.

In recent years, many unexpected and perplexing events have occurred in America itself. People worldwide, including Americans, are re-evaluating the United States. Now, even Washington no longer believes in the old "Washington Consensus," and the "end of history" theory has itself ended. A few years ago, when I gave a speech at Harvard University, I posed a question: "What happened to the confident America?" No one answered me. In the summer of 2021, when I returned to China, I told Dr. Henry Kissinger and other Americans that the America I saw in 2021 seemed different from the one I arrived in back in 2013. They surprisingly agreed with me, making it feel like an entirely different world."

Americans appear to have lost their swagger. They are eager to ‘make America great again,’ but not by doing what made it great in the first place. Where they were once optimistic, confident and unafraid of the future... now, they see bogeymen everywhere. It is unusual, exceptional, when a country becomes vastly more powerful than all others. It happens. But then, its own people help it to un-happen.

Jefferson sent ships to quiet the Barbary Coast, in the Mediterranean, very early in America’s march to full-fledged empire status. Afterward, the US quickly went back to minding its own business. By the 1880s, the US had the world’s biggest economy; the temptation to hegemony was irresistible. It was our ‘manifest destiny,’ said our early homeland Caesars. And by the 20th century, the Caribbean was a ‘mare nostrum’ for the USA. The Wilson Administration used it to ferry US troops to anywhere the United Fruit Company or the US Department of State wanted to meddle.

Pax Americana: America achieved its truly exceptional status after WWII... and went on to do what no nation before it ever had - gaining ‘full spectrum dominance’ over the whole planet. No sparrow could fall, anywhere on the planet, without setting off alarm bells at the CIA and countdown codes at the Pentagon. America’s warships ruled not just its own two coasts - where they might conceivably block an enemy attack - but coasts and inlets far from home where they had no special interest, no knowledge, nor any purpose.

Today there is apparently no business anywhere that is not America’s business. US fleets patrol the far reaches of the Atlantic and the Pacific... the Gulf of Aden... the coast of the Levant (where they apparently assist Israel in its slaughter of terrorist toddlers)... the Java Sea... the Red Sea... the Indian Ocean. Naive or merely curious readers might wonder what all this surveillance, patrolling, and garrisoning costs. Closely related is the question... where does it lead?

We wrote a book about it (with Addison Wiggin) nearly twenty years ago. In Empire of Debt we suggested that “an empire is a rare thing... nature will tolerate it for a while, but sooner or later the imperial people must revert to becoming a normal race.” How does nature go about ‘un-happening’ an empire? The dot patterns from history are clear enough. It encourages rivals to challenge, invade, and harass... and turns the imperial people themselves into morons. They spend too much... stretch too far... and line up behind incompetents and dumbbells.

Currently, the cost of the empire agenda is about $1.3 trillion per year. Looking back through the whole 21st century, so far, the price of being the Big Man on the Earth’s campus is about equal to the entire national debt. Back in 2000, the US national debt was only $5 trillion. We controlled it. Now, at $35 trillion, it controls us. More to come.

- https://www.bonnerprivateresearch.com/

“The Inevitability of Snollygosters”

“The Inevitability of Snollygosters”

by Jeff Thomas

“Snollygoster is an archaic term for, “A fellow who wants office, regardless of party, platform or principles, and who, whenever he wins, gets there by the sheer force monumental talknophical assumnancy.” All right, that’s a rather antiquated definition, but then, “snollygoster” is a very antiquated term. It hasn’t been in use since the mid-1800’s. Another definition is, “A shrewd, unprincipled person, especially a politician.”

So, of what interest is this bygone nomenclature to us today? Well, the definitions are exactly in keeping with our present-day politicians. When we look at our senators, parliamentarians, presidents and prime ministers, we see that, even with the passage of considerable time, the term snollygoster is applicable today.

And, we, the constituents, could be referred to as “grumbletonians,” a word common in England in the 1600’s for those who are angry or unhappy with their government. And we’re just as likely to be so exasperated with our political leaders that we resort to a “whipmegmorum” – a Scottish word from the 1700’s for a noisy quarrel about politics.

These ancient and forgotten terms may be entertaining, but they may additionally raise a question in modern minds. We may ask ourselves, “Do you mean that it isn’t just that our present leaders are virtual cartoons – and destructive ones at that? Do you mean that (gulp) it’s always been this way?

’Fraid so. But, how is this possible? How is it that, regardless of the times we’re in, and regardless of whether we have literally hundreds of millions of citizens to choose from (in the larger countries), we end up with literal cartoon characters as leaders? Is it that we’re so bad at making a selection that we always choose the worst person?

Well, actually, there, the answer would be, “No.” Voters don’t actively seek out the worst. The problem is that they’re presented with the worst. In the UK, we can complain about how useless someone was; that she continually dropped the ball and repeatedly acted with foolhardy overconfidence. But, if asked, “Would you rather have had him?” those of us who grumble are likely to respond vehemently in the negative. (We don’t wish to jump from the pan into the fire.)

So, the problem is not that the voters “get the leader they deserve.” The problem is that the game is rigged – that there are no good choices. In a small country, it’s easy to introduce a candidate whom the electorate actually believe in, then to push him forward to victory. But, the larger the country, the more impossible it is for anyone who deserves a leadership position, to actually achieve it. (The system promotes its own kind.) But, this notion presupposes that the majority of people within the political structure are already “contaminated,” that they, too are, for all practical purposes, undesirable. Can this actually be the case?

Again… ‘fraid so… But how is this possible? Well, as long as we’re discussing definitions, there are two more that we might want to investigate. Let’s look at this one: “A long-term pattern of abnormal behavior characterized by exaggerated feelings of self-importance, an excessive need for admiration, and a lack of understanding of others’ feelings. People affected by it often spend a lot of time thinking about achieving power or success.”

Well, that certainly fits virtually all political leaders and political hopefuls. This definition is used to describe “narcissistic personality disorder.” A fuller description is: “Persistent grandiosity, excessive need for admiration, and a personal disdain for, and lack of empathy for other people;  Arrogance, a sense of superiority; actively seeks to establish abusive power and control over other people; openly disregards the feelings and wishes of others, and expects to be treated as superior, regardless of their actual status or achievements; usually exhibits a fragile ego, an inability to tolerate criticism, and a tendency to belittle others in order to validate their own superiority.” Take a moment and ask yourself whether the above describes a leader near you.

And, here’s another interesting definition: “A pervasive and persistent disregard for morals, social norms, and the rights and feelings of others. Individuals with this personality disorder will typically have no compunction in exploiting others in harmful ways for their own gain or pleasure and frequently manipulate and deceive other people, achieving this through wit and a facade of superficial charm.”

This is a definition for sociopathy, or “antisocial personality disorder.” To expand, sociopaths demonstrate a “Disregard for right and wrong, persistent lying or deceit to exploit others, callous, cynical and disrespectful of others, using charm or wit to manipulate others for personal gain or personal pleasure, arrogance, a sense of superiority and being extremely opinionated… repeatedly violating the rights of others through intimidation and dishonesty, impulsiveness or failure to plan ahead, hostility, significant irritability, agitation… lack of empathy for others and lack of remorse about harming others, unnecessary risk-taking or dangerous behavior with no regard for the safety of self or others… failure to consider the negative consequences of behavior or learn from them.”

Initially, we may be tempted to say to ourselves, “Surely, it’s not as bad as all that.” But, if we really want to get an accurate picture, a useful exercise might be to picture a specific leader whose behavior we’ve witnessed repeatedly and then read the above descriptions once again, whilst picturing his face. The surprising truth is that many political leaders and political hopefuls display these characteristics exactly. Many are clearly narcissists, sociopaths, or both.

But, why should this be? Well, the easy answer is “obsessive behavior.” Those who have the above disorders will literally do anything to achieve superiority over others and will have no remorse or regret whatever. Therefore, it’s perfectly predictable that, over time, any government will become populated by pathological individuals.

This is not a new occurrence. ‘Twas ever thus. The snollygosters have been a chronic dominant presence in governments for millennia. And they’ll continue to be dominant. However, there is a positive takeaway here. If we recognize that this syndrome is in fact the norm, in any age, in any country, we can stop hoping for a hero to arise and save us from the parasitical dominance of governments. We can accept that, if we’re to thrive, this may only be accomplished through our own independence of mind and action, not through the empty promises of pathological leaders.”

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/
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“The barbarian hopes, and that is the mark of him, that he can have his cake and eat it too. He will consume what civilization has slowly produced after generations of selection and effort, but he will not be at pains to replace such goods, nor indeed has he a comprehension of the virtue that has brought them into being. We sit by and watch the barbarian. We tolerate him in the long stretches of peace, we are not afraid. We are tickled by his irreverence; his comic inversion of our old certitudes; we laugh. But as we laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond, and on these faces there are no smiles.“ 

- Hilaire Belloco

“Thoughts on Evil, Human Nature”

“Thoughts on Evil, Human Nature”

by W. Christopher Epler

“Carl Sagan, author and astrophysicist from Cornell, used to wonder if atomic weaponry would be the nemesis of most “advanced species”. A flight of fancy of sorts since whales and elephants are certainly advanced species but don’t feel the need for technology (and should we patronize them for this since they aren’t rapidly destroying the planet?). Is it possible that much of science and technology are actually synonyms of self destructive stupidity? A kind of short sighted greed, perhaps.

In any event, what has now totally blocked the evolution of the human species is pure evil. The fringe of astronomically rich sociopaths is the absolute outer limit of evil. Similarly, so do all mentally ill religious fanatics poison the march of human civilization. And, probably most of all, the Earth’s Paris Hiltons and astronomically rich parasites (and vampires – remember, it’s all really OUR wealth), necessitate convoluted social/financial structures and processes which are the “crown of thorns” or highway to hell (or your metaphor of choice) for Homo sapiens. Maybe the wrong species got killed off during the demise of the Neanderthals.

Remember, “human” is a generic word that evolution has experimented with in actually a great many forms – we’re just the form that is still standing. But what’s the problem? Not a candy ass “religious” problem or a candy ass “political” problem but THE problem? Why is our species well on its way to going extinct? Indeed, why is it a near certainly that Home sapiens are going bye bye in the relatively near future (and taking countless “innocent by-stander” species with us in the process)? However, alas, they are just a sample of evil, since evil is as omnipresent as our breath. But what IS evil? Well, we don’t have to get particularly metaphysical about this. Evil is a function of human society. It has to do with the interactions of quantities of us (or probably any advanced life form).

So there’s a decidedly “quantitative” variable here. As our numbers increase, so does the complexity of our social infrastructure. And that seems to be the rub, since invisibly and insidiously the “social game rules” are conditioned into our vulnerable, biological brains. And just here is the door to hell. This dimension can be called “consensus reality” and it’s an admixture of language (always language!), the past, memory (not always our friend), and the miscellaneous conditionings of our time, place, and families (often profoundly dysfunctional). More openly, here are the programmed religions, laws, constitutions, and “theories” we so love to worship. In short, here is the stopping point of our species. Not atomic weapons, but the accumulated programming of years of social/psychological conditioning. The “operational definition” of all of the above is thought, because consensus realty IS thought; hence the thing the human race does best is think itself to death.

On a positive note, words like liberation, transcendence, and Enlightenment are “mystical” (the shoe fits) alternatives to this “swallowed whole” existence. The intelligence limitations of our species are still sublimely unknown, but whatever pragmatic value consensus reality may offer, our lives don’t even BEGIN until we get straight that this fire storm of conditioning that has become the “mind set” of the entire human race (indeed, the very “God” of the human race), is fundamentally, radically, and biologically arbitrary and random. In the context of this piece, what this means is that the social game rules that perpetuate the “Have’s,” that justify their astronomical wealth and power, and that (worst of all!) give an obscene “righteousness” to deranged lunatics who so love to commit genocide for the glory of God, aren’t worth the toilet paper they are printed on.

And exactly here is where our species is probably doomed, since many are called but few are chosen when it comes to being true to your birthright self and finding a reality/creativity/intelligence center that trivializes millennia of evil-perpetuating conditioning. Remember phrases like, “Might makes right”, “Manifest Destiny”, “survival of the fittest” (translation, survival of the wealthiest), and the loathsomely hypocritical “Divine Right”.

Of course these sayings (and even laws) are merely the tip of the iceberg. The dungeon is elsewhere. It is deep within the infrastructure of the collective human mind. Do we know that it is infinitely unjust that the elites spend more money on their wardrobes than most of us spend on our families in an entire lifetime? Do we know it is evil when religious fanatics try to steal an entire country and turn the lives of the people who have been living there for centuries into a WW2 concentration camp?

One response to these questions could be that we’re not sure if these things are evil, but almost certainly the world does know these things are filthy, evil, and infinitely unjust. However, you can know things on the “surface” of your mind that you play games with in the depths of your mind. The tragedy is that the world basically turns the other way from these evils and injustices because in the depths of our conditioning we are historically programmed to accept them. Hence, it is the deep, collective mind set that permits and justifies evil. We know better, but our “unconscious” (to use that word) “accepts” evil because we have been programmed to adapt to it for millennia.

The literally unimaginable suffering that necessarily goes with the existence of Greek God-like elites would make Jesus weep, but we accept The Haves (the evil) – indeed, most of us probably envy them. This is the paradox of evil. If we didn’t “accept” evil, it couldn’t exist! But since literally billions of us DO accept evil, that makes us an evil species.

This is not intellectualizing or empty theory. If the human race said no to “The Beast”, to the “Have’s”, to genocidal religious fanatics, to the Rockefeller’s, to the Rothschild’s, to the Bush’s, to murder in the name of God subhuman filth, to Saudi Princes, etc., etc., we could destroy them in a week. And I mean “non theoretically” destroy them in a week. Remove them from the planet as in cease to exist – now you see them, now you don’t! There are times in life you must be limitlessly aggressive. We can either watch The Beast destroy Mother Nature and our children’s future, or WE can destroy the beast. Remember, we know exactly who they are and we know exactly where they are. So what in the name of truth, beauty, and goodness are we waiting for? Certainly not for the paper bullets of religion and politics. ULTIMATE hardball is the name of this game.

Hence, looked at one way, there is great hope. Looked at another way, it is hopeless. It all comes down to how each of us deals with a lifetime of conditioning. Liberation is transcending the box. The world IS the box. So consensus reality (the home of evil) can be left. This is called being true to ourselves, or perhaps even Enlightenment. However, as a species, the probability that we will leave the box in sufficient percentages to “eliminate” evil is probably very, very small. Fortunately, even though our paralyzed and conditioned species continues to equate life with a moronically defective consensus mind set, each of us is still able to stretch our intelligence/spiritual eagle wings and leave this evil box forever. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: we’re the dogs – never the tails.”

- http://www.sott.net/

○

Freely download “Beyond Good And Evil”, by Friedrich Nietzsche, here:

-https://www.planetebook.com/free-ebooks/beyond-good-and-evil.pdf

“Now Is the Time of Monsters”

“Now Is the Time of Monsters”

by Jeff Thomas

“In ancient Rome, interregnum was the term given to the period between stable governments when anything untoward might occur, and sometimes did – civil unrest, warfare between warlords, power vacuums and, finally, succession wars. But eventually the dust would settle and the victors, whoever they might be, would at some point restabilize the empire, often with a new map, showing the latest lines of geographic possession.

In 1929, the Italian Antonio Gramsci was in a fascist prison, writing about what he considered to be a new interregnum – a Europe that was tearing itself apart. He anticipated civil unrest, war between nations and repeated changes in the lines of geographic possession. At that time, he was attributed as saying, “The old world is dying and the new world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters.”

And, of course, looking back from our vantage point in the twenty-first century, we have no difficulty in confirming that he was correct in his prognosis. The world war that followed brought forward the worst traits in mankind. The sociopaths of the world came center-stage. By the time the dust had settled, tens of millions were dead.

What we do have difficulty with is recognizing that the same pattern is again with us. National leaders and their advisors are spoiling for war, building up weaponry, creating senseless proxy wars in other nations’ backyards and playing a dangerous game of “chicken” with other major powers. This will not end well. It never does. Once the shoving-match has begun, it only escalates. At some point, whether it’s the false-flag assassination of an Archduke, as in World War I, or the false flag invasion of Germany by Poland, as in World War II, we can always count on some excuse being created to justify diving headlong into war.

It’s also true that, when empires get into economic trouble that’s too far gone for any viable solution, a trick that’s always employed by political leaders to keep the citizens from removing them from their seats of power, is to start a war. A people will, if they believe their homeland is in peril, accept the “temporary” removal of their freedoms. Even in the United States, the famed “Land of the Free,” political leaders have routinely imprisoned dissidents in times of warfare. People tend to get behind their leaders in wartime, no matter how undeserved that loyalty might be.

And so, now is the time of monsters, as Mr. Gramsci rightly stated. A time of uncertainty, when countries are in turmoil and would-be leaders are jostling for power with existing leaders. An interregnum.

Troubled times tend to bring out all the crazies – all the sociopathic-types that would find it hard to succeed in stable, prosperous times. In such times, the average person becomes worried that things are not going to turn out well. That’s perfectly understandable. Unfortunately, most people lack both the imagination and the courage to cope with how the times are impacting their lives. They instead rely on others to provide a torch that might help them escape from the darkness. Not surprising then, that every snake-oil salesman in town sees an opportunity to offer big promises – promises that he has neither the ability nor the inclination to fulfill.

At such times, the people of a country tend to become polarized, placing their faith in one political party or another, hoping that their party will “make the bad stuff go away.” In the US we see, on the liberal side, promises for “free health care for all,” a guaranteed basic income, housing for those who cannot afford it, and an endless stream of promises that, if the government were to implement them all, they will not be able to pay for them, even with 100% taxation from those who presently pay tax.

On the conservative side, we see promises such as “Make America Great Again,” with tax rebates that do not rejuvenate the economy, breaks for firms that have expatriated, but do not fool them into returning, claims to cut budgets, only to increase them, and promises to eliminate debt, only to expand it.

We see presidential elections in which one of the two leading candidates is a textbook narcissist, whilst the other displays all the traits of senility. And we see a waitress elected to Congress by a substantial margin, raised to the status of heroine merely for promising all things to all people, whilst offering no plan as to how that might come about. Record numbers of candidates pour into the political arena, seeking a last grab at power prior to systemic failure.

To be fair, the US is by no means alone in delivering incapable people with nonsensical solutions to the higher offices. In the UK, each leading party states emphatically that the other party would be a disaster, yet neither party can come up with a working alternative. What they can do, as in America, is point fingers and shout invectives at each other.

In France, whilst the disconnected president essentially says, “Let them eat cake,” serving only to create further fury on the street. To be sure, the problem begins at the top. But it doesn’t end there. It sifts down to the proletariat, who, unable to come up with constructive solutions, create their own monsters, trashing the shops and burning the cars of people who had no hand in creating the problem.

But surely this is just a one-off phase, in which the best and brightest are temporarily pushed offstage, but will soon return, yes? Well, unfortunately, no. Historically, a period such as this one is followed by one of increased madness. Historically, the next step is societal breakdown. Riots, secessions and revolutions become commonplace, accompanied by economic collapse.

Out of these events come the worst monsters of all. It’s in the wake of such developments that the people of any country then turn away from those that made the empty promises and toward those who promise revenge against an ill-defined group who are characterized as having caused the problems. That’s when the Robespierres, the Lenins, the Hitlers – the greatest monsters – are swept into power. They invariably deliver the same message – that they’ll seek out the aristocracy, the gentry, the patricians, and strip them of their positions and possessions.

Invariably the way that this shakes out is not that the average man rises up, taking his “fair share” of the spoils. Instead, the leaders take the spoils and the proletariat are reduced to an equality of poverty. Our friend Mr. Gramsci found himself imprisoned by Benito Mussolini and died from illnesses incurred in prison. Unfortunately, his approach was to complain, but remain, as his country deteriorated around him. This proved, for him, to be the worst of choices. And, so it is today.”

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

"Why Are People So Reluctant..."

"Why are people so reluctant to believe that sociopaths and narcissists can use the power of the pen to prey on people? Because they are well spoken and organized? We would contend that these are the most dangerous of the emotionally warped with a need to acquire, dominate and control, because they are smarter and more calculating than the impulse murderers, burglars, rapists, thieves, and pedophiles.

There is a need for economic law and enforcement as there is a need for the less cerebral, hairy knuckled criminal law and enforcement. The notion that people become naturally good, rational and well-adjusted because they are wearing a suit is ludicrous, especially to anyone who has worked with many of those who move in the upper echelons of money and power.

Some of the scariest people we have ever met were articulate and pathologically driven borderline psychopaths with a need to acquire political and economic power. It is the focus of their illness that makes them powerful. They are not distracted by the diffusion of emotional responses that color most people's actions. They have a need, and the will to satisfy it, no matter what it takes.

There will always be those at the extremes who need to 'take it to the limit,' with a well stocked foreign retreat in case things get ugly. But for most of us, restoring a sense of justice and order and putting the nation back into some kind of working balance will be high on the priority list, if not for ourselves, then for our families."

Jesse, "Predator Class," 26 December 2008

- https://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/

"The Ascendance of Sociopaths in U.S. Governance"

"The Ascendance of Sociopaths in U.S. Governance"

by Doug Casey

"An International Man lives and does business wherever he finds conditions most advantageous, regardless of arbitrary borders. He’s diversified globally, with passports from multiple countries, assets in several jurisdictions, and his residence in yet another. He doesn’t depend absolutely on any country and regards all of them as competitors for his capital and expertise.

Living as an international man has always been an interesting possibility. But few Americans opted for it, since the U.S. used to reward those who settled in and put down roots. In fact, it rewarded them better than any other country in the world, so there was no pressing reason to become an international man.

Things change, however, and being rooted like a plant – at least if you have a choice – is a suboptimal strategy if you wish to not only survive, but prosper. Throughout history, almost every place has at some point become dangerous for those who were stuck there. It may be America’s turn.

For those who can take up the life of an international man, it’s no longer just an interesting lifestyle decision. It has become, at a minimum, an asset saver, and it could be a lifesaver. That said, I understand the hesitation you may feel about taking action; pulling up one’s roots (or at least grafting some of them to a new location) can be almost as traumatic to a man as to a vegetable.

As any intelligent observer surveys the world’s economic and political landscape, he has to be disturbed – even dismayed and a bit frightened – by the gravity and number of problems that mark the horizon. We’re confronted by economic depression, looming financial chaos, serious currency inflation, onerous taxation, crippling regulation, a developing police state, and, worst of all, the prospect of a major war. It seems almost unbelievable that all these things could affect the U.S., which historically has been the land of the free.

How did we get here? An argument can be made that things went bad because of miscalculation, accident, inattention, and the like. Those elements have had a role, but it is minor. Potential catastrophe across the board can’t be the result of happenstance. When things go wrong on a grand scale, it’s not just bad luck or inadvertence. It’s because of serious character flaws in one or many – or even all – of the players. So is there a root cause of all the problems I’ve cited? If we can find it, it may tell us how we personally can best respond to the problems.

In this article, I’m going to argue that the U.S. government, in particular, has been overrun by the wrong kind of person. It’s a trend that’s been in motion for many years but has now reached a point of no return. In other words, a type of moral rot has become so prevalent that it’s institutional in nature. There is not going to be, therefore, any serious change in the direction in which the U.S. is headed until a genuine crisis topples the existing order. Until then, the trend will accelerate.

The reason is that a certain class of people – sociopaths – are now fully in control of major American institutions. Their beliefs and attitudes are insinuated throughout the economic, political, intellectual, and psychological/spiritual fabric of the U.S. What does this mean to you, as an individual? It depends on your character. Are you the kind of person who supports “my country, right or wrong,” as did most Germans in the 1930s and 1940s? Or the kind who dodges the duty to be a helpmate to murderers? The type of passenger who goes down with the ship? Or the type who puts on his vest and looks for a lifeboat? The type of individual who supports the merchants who offer the fairest deal? Or the type who is gulled by splashy TV commercials?

What the ascendancy of sociopaths means isn’t an academic question. Throughout history, the question has been a matter of life and death. That’s one reason America grew; every American (or any ex-colonial) has forebears who confronted the issue and decided to uproot themselves to go somewhere with better prospects. The losers were those who delayed thinking about the question until the last minute.

I have often described myself, and those I prefer to associate with, as gamma rats. You may recall the ethologist’s characterization of the social interaction of rats as being between a few alpha rats and many beta rats, the alpha rats being dominant and the beta rats submissive. In addition, a small percentage are gamma rats that stake out prime territory and mates, like the alphas, but are not interested in dominating the betas. The people most inclined to leave for the wide world outside and seek fortune elsewhere are typically gamma personalities.

You may be thinking that what happened in places like Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, Mao’s China, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, and scores of other countries in recent history could not, for some reason, happen in the U.S. Actually, there’s no reason it won’t at this point. All the institutions that made America exceptional – including a belief in capitalism, individualism, self-reliance, and the restraints of the Constitution – are now only historical artifacts.

On the other hand, the distribution of sociopaths is completely uniform across both space and time. Per capita, there were no more evil people in Stalin’s Russia, Hitler’s Germany, Mao’s China, Amin’s Uganda, Ceausescu’s Romania, or Pol Pot’s Cambodia than there are today in the U.S. All you need is favorable conditions for them to bloom, much as mushrooms do after a rainstorm.

Conditions for them in the U.S. are becoming quite favorable. Have you ever wondered where the 50,000 people employed by the TSA to inspect and degrade you came from? Most of them are middle-aged. Did they have jobs before they started doing something that any normal person would consider demeaning? Most did, but they were attracted to – not repelled by – a job where they wear a costume and abuse their fellow citizens all day.

Few of them can imagine that they’re shepherding in a police state as they play their roles in security theater. (A reinforced door on the pilots’ cabin is probably all that’s actually needed, although the most effective solution would be to hold each airline responsible for its own security and for the harm done if it fails to protect passengers and third parties.) But the 50,000 newly employed are exactly the same type of people who joined the Gestapo – eager to help in the project of controlling everyone. Nobody was drafted into the Gestapo.

What’s going on here is an instance of Pareto’s Law. That’s the 80-20 rule that tells us, for example, that 80% of your sales come from 20% of your salesmen or that 20% of the population are responsible for 80% of the crime.

As I see it, 80% of people are basically decent; their basic instincts are to live by the Boy Scout virtues. 20% of people, however, are what you might call potential trouble sources, inclined toward doing the wrong thing when the opportunity presents itself. They might now be shoe clerks, mailmen, or waitresses – they seem perfectly benign in normal times. They play baseball on weekends and pet the family dog. However, given the chance, they will sign up for the Gestapo, the Stasi, the KGB, the TSA, Homeland Security, or whatever. Many seem well intentioned, but are likely to favor force as the solution to any problem.

But it doesn’t end there, because 20% of that 20% are really bad actors. They are drawn to government and other positions where they can work their will on other people and, because they’re enthusiastic about government, they rise to leadership positions. They remake the culture of the organizations they run in their own image. Gradually, non-sociopaths can no longer stand being there. They leave. Soon the whole barrel is full of bad apples. That’s what’s happening today in the U.S.

It’s a pity that Bush, when he was in office, made such a big deal of evil. He discredited the concept. He made Boobus americanus think it only existed in a distant axis, in places like North Korea, Iraq and Iran, which were and still are irrelevant backwaters and arbitrarily chosen enemies. Bush trivialized the concept of evil and made it seem banal because he was such a fool. All the while, real evil, very immediate and powerful, was growing right around him, and he lacked the awareness to see he was fertilizing it by turning the U.S. into a national security state after 9/11.

Now, I believe, it’s out of control. The U.S. is already in a truly major depression and on the edge of financial chaos and a currency meltdown. The sociopaths in government will react by redoubling the pace toward a police state domestically and starting a major war abroad. To me, this is completely predictable. It’s what sociopaths do."

- https://internationalman.com/

o

"The Sociopath Next Door"

by Martha Stout

"Imagine - if you can - not having a conscience, none at all, no feelings of guilt or remorse no matter what you do, no limiting sense of concern for the well-being of strangers, friends, or even family members. Imagine no struggles with shame, not a single one in your whole life, no matter what kind of selfish, lazy, harmful, or immoral action you had taken. And pretend that the concept of responsibility is unknown to you, except as a burden others seem to accept without question, like gullible fools.

Now add to this strange fantasy the ability to conceal from other people that your psychological makeup is radically different from theirs. Since everyone simply assumes that conscience is universal among human beings, hiding the fact that you are conscience-free is nearly effortless. You are not held back from any of your desires by guilt or shame, and you are never confronted by others for your cold-bloodedness. The ice water in your veins is so bizarre, so completely outside of their personal experience, that they seldom even guess at your condition. In other words, you are completely free of internal restraints, and your unhampered liberty to do just as you please, with no pangs of conscience, is conveniently invisible to the world.

You can do anything at all, and still your strange advantage over the majority of people, who are kept in line by their consciences will most likely remain undiscovered. How will you live your life? What will you do with your huge and secret advantage, and with the corresponding handicap of other people (conscience)? The answer will depend largely on just what your desires happen to be, because people are not all the same. Even the profoundly unscrupulous are not all the same. Some people - whether they have a conscience or not - favor the ease of inertia, while others are filled with dreams and wild ambitions. Some human beings are brilliant and talented, some are dull-witted, and most, conscience or not, are somewhere in between. There are violent people and nonviolent ones, individuals who are motivated by blood lust and those who have no such appetites. Provided you are not forcibly stopped, you can do anything at all.

Maybe you are someone who craves money and power, and though you have no vestige of conscience, you do have a magnificent IQ. You have the driving nature and the intellectual capacity to pursue tremendous wealth and influence, and you are in no way moved by the nagging voice of conscience that prevents other people from doing everything and anything they have to do to succeed. You choose business, politics, the law, banking or international development, or any of a broad array of other power professions, and you pursue your career with a cold passion that tolerates none of the usual moral or legal encumbrances. When it is expedient, you doctor the accounting and shred the evidence, you stab your employees and your clients (or your constituency) in the back, marry for money, tell lethal premeditated lies to people who trust you, attempt to ruin colleagues who are powerful or eloquent, and simply steamroll over groups who are dependent and voiceless. And all of this you do with the exquisite freedom that results from having no conscience whatsoever.

You become unimaginably, unassailably, and maybe even globally successful. Why not? With your big brain, and no conscience to rein in your schemes, you can do anything at all. If you are born at the right time, with some access to family fortune, and you have a special talent for whipping up other people's hatred and sense of deprivation, you can arrange to kill large numbers of unsuspecting people. With enough money, you can accomplish this from far away, and you can sit back safely and watch in satisfaction. Crazy and frightening - and real, in about 6 percent of the population.

The high incidence of sociopathy in human society has a profound effect on the rest of us who must live on this planet, too, even those of us who have not been clinically traumatized. The individuals who constitute this 6 percent drain our relationships, our bank accounts, our accomplishments, our self-esteem, our very peace on earth.

Yet surprisingly, many people know nothing about this disorder, or if they do, they think only in terms of violent psychopathy - murderers, serial killers, mass murderers - people who have conspicuously broken the law many times over, and who, if caught, will be imprisoned, maybe even put to death by our legal system. We are not commonly aware of, nor do we usually identify, the larger number of nonviolent sociopaths among us, people who often are not blatant lawbreakers, and against whom our formal legal system provides little defense.

Most of us would not imagine any correspondence between conceiving an ethnic genocide and, say, guiltlessly lying to one's boss about a coworker. But the psychological correspondence is not only there; it is chilling. Simple and profound, the link is the absence of the inner mechanism that beats up on us, emotionally speaking, when we make a choice we view as immoral, unethical, neglectful, or selfish. Most of us feel mildly guilty if we eat the last piece of cake in the kitchen, let alone what we would feel if we intentionally and methodically set about to hurt another person. Those who have no conscience at all are a group unto themselves, whether they be homicidal tyrants or merely ruthless social snipers.

The presence or absence of conscience is a deep human division, arguably more significant than intelligence, race, or even gender. What differentiates a sociopath who lives off the labors of others from one who occasionally robs convenience stores, or from one who is a contemporary robber baron - or what makes the difference between an ordinary bully and a sociopathic murderer - is nothing more than social status, drive, intellect, blood lust, or simple opportunity. What distinguishes all of these people from the rest of us is an utterly empty hole in the psyche, where there should be the most evolved of all humanizing functions."

- http://www.cix.co.uk/~klockstone/spath.htm

- https://coyoteprimeblog2.blogspot.com/

o

"Brain Differences in Psychopaths Identified"

"Beyond incompetence; The Shooters & The Water Tower"

Full screen recommended.

Peak Prosperity, Dr. Chris Martenson, 7/16/24

"Beyond incompetence; The Shooters & The Water Tower"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Canadian Prepper, "WTF Alert! 'Iran Did It'; Trump VP; Another Shooter!; Ukraine WW3 Desperation"

Canadian Prepper, 7/16/24

"WTF Alert! 'Iran Did It'; Trump VP; 

Another Shooter!; Ukraine WW3 Desperation"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Prelude, "After The Gold Rush"

Prelude, "After The Gold Rush", Studio version.

Prelude, "After The Gold Rush", Live version.

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Near the outskirts of the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy some 200 thousand light-years distant, lies 5 million year young star cluster NGC 602. Surrounded by natal gas and dust, NGC 602 is featured in this stunning Hubble image of the region.

Fantastic ridges and swept back shapes strongly suggest that energetic radiation and shock waves from NGC 602's massive young stars have eroded the dusty material and triggered a progression of star formation moving away from the cluster's center. At the estimated distance of the Small Magellanic Cloud, the picture spans about 200 light-years, but a tantalizing assortment of background galaxies are also visible in the sharp Hubble view. The background galaxies are hundreds of millions of light-years or more beyond NGC 602.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130113.html

"I Would Rather Have..."

"When a bull is being lead to the slaughter, it still hopes to break loose and trample its butchers. Other bulls have not been able to pass on the knowledge that this never happens and that from the slaughterhouse there is no way back to the herd. But in human society there is a continuous exchange of experience. I have never heard of a man who broke away and fled while being led to his execution. It is even thought to be a special form of courage if a man about to be executed refuses to be blindfolded and dies with his eyes open. But I would rather have the bull with his blind rage, the stubborn beast who doesn't weigh his chances of survival with the prudent dull-wittedness of man, and doesn't know the despicable feeling of despair."

- Nadezhda Mandelstam

Oh, we're being led to the slaughter alright. 

Look around...what do you see?

"They're Lying About The Economy, This Is Now A Depression"

Full screen recommended.

Redacted, 7/16/24

"They're Lying About The Economy, 

This Is Now A Depression"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/