Wednesday, August 14, 2024

Fred Reed, "Left and Right: Twin Halves of the National Lobotomy"

"Left and Right: 
Twin Halves of the National Lobotomy"
by Fred Reed

"Consider two children, white, boys, growing up in contented middle-class families in the same suburb of Washington, DC, equally bright, popular, successful with girls, and so on. One becomes a growling conservative, the other a chirping liberal. I think of them as woofers and tweeters.) Why the difference in outcome? A likely explanation, or so it seems to me, is that political orientation is innate or, as we would say today, a result of genetic predisposition.

Biological determination of behavioral traits is a matter of common observation. Differences of intelligence in individuals, races and breeds of animal are well known as are degrees of of aggressiveness, sociability, and protectiveness. Why political leaning should not be equally a matter of genetics, making us robots rather than the thinkers we believe ourselves to be, is not clear.

Note that liberal and conservative traits cluster together rather than assorting randomly, suggesting some underlying linkage. For example, we rarely see an ardent capitalist who favors racial integration, or a passionate liberal who will consider the possibility of racial differences in intelligence. There seem to be underlying patterns that determine the aggregate constellation of traits.

Today this luminous and inerrant column will propose the following insight, patent applied for. At their purest, conservatives are heartless and liberals, goofy. I hope this will unite Left and Right in a lynch mob thirsting for my blood. Comity at any price, I say. I will leave a false address. Anyway, some observations. It may not be fair to say that conservatives want to bomb the world into rubble and liberals, to breast feed it. So i won’t say it. But I may think it when no one is looking.

Liberals are more at ease with the new and different, whether racial, ethnic, or linguistic. Conservatives look back nostalgically to a former world of purity and honor, usually one that never existed. They tend to be intensely loyal to their group, racial or cultural, circling the wagons and looking out warily at a world suspected of being hostile. Liberals go dizzily dancing into the future, propelled by heartwarming ideas apparently conceived by a three year old girl with a new doll.

Also reinforcing the biological provenance of political behavior we believe to be the result of reason is that women are less aggressive than men, and that as men age and their androgens drop, they often become less combative. However, though women are less inclined than men to engage in bar fights, they are not without feral tendencies. One is reminded of Menken’s dictum, “A misogynist is a man who hates women as much as they hate each other.”

Women are more nurturing than men, perhaps accounting for an indefinable but noticeable feminine flavor of the Democrats compared to Republicans. Certainly a divide exists between underlying motives of Left and Right, with liberals being nicer people and conservatives, more practical. That is, conservatives are better at doing things that should not be done in the first place, whereas liberals are better at not doing things that should be done.

A conservatives worst nightmare, that wakes him in the early hours with night horrors and the sweating gollywobbles, is the thought of paying for anything for somebody else. This is heartless. By contrast, liberals want to pay for everything for everybody else with money that doesn’t exist. This is goofy.

To see this, note that China finds its brightest young with rigorous testing and then pays for their education on the grounds that it is good for the country. In America, liberals block testing so as to collect morons and conservatives refuse to pay for education as being too expensive. Actually this makes sense since the students have been chosen for being ineducable. This also is good for China.

Liberals think all races and ethnicities should live together in warmth and fuzziness, while conservatives say they would rather have a moist skin disease and anyway it just doesn’t happen.

Liberals want free medical care for everyone. Conservatives object that it would cost too much. This amounts to saying, “Let them die if they can’t pay,” which is heartless but, from the conservative point of view, practical. and anyway they prefer aircraft carriers.

Liberals favor immigrants, saying that these new people just want a better life, all four or so potential billion of them. Conservatives don’t care what kind of life they have, as long as they do it somewhere else.

Conservatives think that medical students should be tested for intelligence. Liberals want to admit retards of color because it makes them feel all inclusive and deserving. They seem unable to understand that a “doctor” who does not know which end of the body the head is attached to will kill people. This is goofy.

Conservatives believe that outcomes stem from deliberate choices. that is, the black crack whore with a 70 IQ and five birth-defective children decided to use crack and to sell sex to pay for it, and so deserves the life she has. The white upper-class woman decided to have a high IQ and to go to Yale and become married before gravid, and so also deserves the life she has. It’s just a question of choices.

Liberals believe that character, and thus behavior, are shaped by environment and thus are not the responsibility of the person exhibiting the behavior. No one is responsible for anything. The only exceptions are whites, who are malign and hate God, or would if he existed. That is, liberals believe that intelligence, which doesn’t exist, is equally distributed across the nonexistent races but that free will is greater among some races, that don’t exist, than others. This is giving me a headache.

Again, at their purest, conservatives are heartless and liberals, goofy. For example, racial conservatives cannot bring themselves to say that African chattel slavery was wrong, despite its gruesome record, which is heartless. However, it was not irrational. Slavery was a recognized way of making money. By contrast, the liberal drive to eliminate literacy tests for college and elite schools, to favor minorities, is goofy. It makes no sense, and would result in…well, today’s America.

Conservatives tend to regard the homeless as human detritus, suffering the consequences of their own moral failures and fecklessness. They deserve no sympathy and should be subject to unspecified measures to get them out of sight. This is heartless. Liberals want to put the homeless in hotels at public expense or build housing for them, which is kindhearted but tends to produce more homeless. i myself might well become homeless, at least for a really good hotel.

Liberals want to pay blacks reparations for slavery. This, requiring people who didn’t do it to pay people to whom it wasn’t done, is goofy. Conservatives want nothing to do with blacks, at all, ever, and don’t care what happens to them. While perhaps not precisely heartless, it leans that way.

The liberal belief that you can be guilty of things you didn’t do is exquisitely goofy. However it gets confusing. For example, I didn’t kill Abraham Lincoln and am therefore guilty of it, and therefore owe reparations to, well, somebody. Perhaps eight billion other people also didn’t kill him, making this an inverse mass murder of frightening proportions.

Liberals always want to do nice things for blacks without actually coming into contact with them and apparently not noticing that the money is accomplishing nothing. This is goofy but characteristic.

In fairness, it should be noted that liberals and conservatives can work together toward a common goal. For example, in a shared rush to wreck the United States, liberals engage in domestic destruction by lunatic social policy, while conservatives keep the country in disastrous and crippling wars. Similarly,democrats fight to keep the borders open while Republicans work to maximize hostility between races. It is a serviceable modus vivendi. See? There is hope.

Goofiness, sometimes called the “squirrel factor,” appears in a great deal of liberal thinking, if that is quite the word. For example, as mentioned above, conservatives want to find the brightest children with tests and put them into schools at their levels while crushing them with student loans. Liberals literally - I am not being cute - want to ban testing and select students by race to be all heartwarming. This is goofiness at its finest. It also plays to the resentment of underperformers against the more able, who don’t exist. Here again we see the superior niceness of liberals. They don’t want any group to feel left out or unequal. Thus they try to eliminate differences by fiat. It doesn’t work, but what counts is the spirit of the thing.

It invites parody: There are no septuagenarians with thick glasses and lousy jump shots in the NBA. disparate impact. I want reparations. A full–up Corvette, with tangerine metal-flake lacquer, would be acceptable. On the other hand, the IGMFY philosophy (“I got mine, screw you”) outlook common among conservatives and codified as capitalism, has its own downstream effects. These can involve bloodthirsty mobs, guillotines, burning at the stake, and suchlike. We aren’t quite there. Yet. There is a bottle of Wild Turkey in the kitchen. I am going to consort with it."

The Daily "Near You?"

Durand, Michigan, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"A 'Retail Apocalypse' Is Gaining Momentum All Over America. Is Your Favorite Chain Closing Stores?"

"A 'Retail Apocalypse' Is Gaining Momentum All Over America. 
Is Your Favorite Chain Closing Stores?"
by Michael Snyder

"Why are retailers closing thousands of stores if the U.S. economy is in good shape? Of course the truth is that the U.S. economy is not in good shape at all. The cost of living crisis is absolutely crushing working families all over the nation, and U.S. consumers simply don’t have as much discretionary income as they once did. Needless to say, our retailers are highly dependent on discretionary spending, and many of them have been reporting very disappointing sales numbers recently. Sadly, the problems that our retailers are experiencing are only going to intensify as U.S. economic activity continues to slow down.

According to CBS News, U.S. retailers have announced the closing of more than 3,000 locations in 2024…"The retail industry is going through a tough time as it copes with inflation-weary consumers and a rash of bankruptcies, prompting chains to announce the closures of almost 3,200 brick-and-mortar stores so far in 2024, according to a new analysis. That’s a 24% increase from a year ago, according to a report from retail data provider CoreSight, which tracks store closures and openings across the U.S." The closing of 3,200 stores sounds really bad, but it is important to note that the quote above is from a CBS News story that was published on May 13th.

Since that time, there have been a lot more store closing announcements. For example, last week we learned that Big Lots plans to close nearly 300 stores…"Two months after announcing plans to close about 40 stores nationwide due to financial woes, Big Lots has indicated on its website it intends to close almost 300 stores. The discount retailer announced in June it was facing several areas of financial strain that would result in 35-40 stores closing across the country. However, an audit of the Big Lots website on Aug. 2 reveals almost 300 stores are slated to close in the United States, including 18 in New England."

Meanwhile, a home goods retailer that has been in business since 1890 is preparing to permanently shut down over 170 stores…"A home goods retailer is closing all of its more than 170 stores after filing for bankruptcy. Conn’s HomePlus, based in The Woodlands, Texas, operates stores in 15 states, including 11 in Louisiana. The company began in 1890 in Beaumont, TX. The Conn’s HomePlus store on Derek Drive in Lake Charles is included in the closures."

Burdorf Interiors has been in business for even longer, but now they have also reached the end of the road…"Burdorf Interiors, a 157-year-old local business, is shutting down, according to Louisville Business First. The company announced the closure in a news release Wednesday. “It’s with a heavy heart that we are announcing the closing of Burdorf Interiors,” the release said. “The business has been open in several locations throughout Louisville since 1867." Just think about that. They opened their doors just after the end of the Civil War, and now it is all over.

Drug store chains have been hit particularly hard by our ongoing retail apocalypse. Rite Aid was once a retail powerhouse that was expanding like crazy, but now they plan to close 780 stores…"Rite Aid, which was based in East Pennsboro Township near Camp Hill for decades and is now based in Philadelphia, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in October to begin restructuring to significantly reduce its debt. Since October, the company has announced in bankruptcy filings the closing of 780 stores."

Of course Dollar Tree has Rite Aid beat. During the course of the next few years, Dollar Tree plans to close almost 1,000 stores…"Dollar Tree on Wednesday said it plans to close nearly 1,000 stores over the next several years, after disclosing significant losses in its latest earnings report. The discount store chain lost $1.7 billion in the fourth quarter, down sharply from earnings of $452.2 million a year ago."

Unfortunately, this is just the beginning. Analysts at UBS are projecting that approximately 45,000 stores will be permanently shut down in the U.S. during the years in front of us…"About 45,000 retail stores may close in the coming years as retail’s physical footprint increasingly shifts to serve as fulfillment and distribution centers, UBS analysts led by Michael Lasser said in an April 22 report."

Can you imagine what this is going to look like? Our landscape is going to be peppered with thousands upon thousands of derelict buildings that have been boarded up to keep criminals out. Of course some of our core urban areas already have lots and lots of empty commercial spaces that used to be thriving retail locations.

One of the primary reasons why retailers are shutting down so many locations in core urban areas is because shoplifting in this country has risen to unprecedented levels. According to a recent survey that was conducted by LendingTree, close to a fourth of the entire population admits that they have shoplifted…"Nearly one-quarter of American adults have shoplifted, according to a new survey from LendingTree, the personal finance site. Roughly 1 in 20 consumers have shoplifted within the past year."

Shoplifting is a complicated crime. The motive can range from adolescent rebellion to adult thrill-seeking to hand-to-mouth poverty. Many of us steal things we don’t need and won’t use. “I’ve learned that a lot of people have given shoplifting a try for lots and lots of reasons,” said Matt Schulz, chief credit analyst at LendingTree. At this point, shoplifting has become one of our primary national pastimes.

And it is increasingly becoming a “team sport” in many parts of the nation. On Friday night, a team of approximately 50 teens stormed a 7-Eleven in Los Angeles and completely ransacked it…"A large group of juveniles used “bodily force” to ransack a 7-Eleven store in Los Angeles Friday night, authorities said. A Los Angeles Police Department spokesperson confirmed to KTLA that about 50 teens descended upon the 7-Eleven at the corner of Olympic and La Cienega boulevards in Pico-Robertson at 7:50 p.m. The teens, many of whom were wearing masks, forcibly stole property from the store, the spokesperson said."

This particular incident barely made a blip in the news cycle. Why? These days, giant mobs loot stores so frequently that this sort of thing isn’t even considered to be very newsworthy anymore.

The thin veneer of civilization that we are all depend upon is disintegrating right in front of our eyes, and our once great country is descending into complete and utter chaos. If things are this bad now, what will our cities look like once economic conditions become far more painful than they are currently?"

"A Well-Packaged Web Of Lies..."

“A truth’s initial commotion is directly proportional to how deeply the lie was believed… When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker, a raving lunatic.”
– Dresden James

Chris Hedges Report, "The Arab-Jew Experience Exposes the Myths of Middle Eastern Antisemitism"

"The Arab-Jew Experience Exposes 
the Myths of Middle Eastern Antisemitism"
It was Israel that brought the divide and plight of the Jews in the Middle East.
by The Chris Hedges Report, 8/14/24

"A significant justification for Israel’s existence relies on the narrative that, because of the alleged inherent and rabid antisemitism of Arabs and Islam, the Jews of the Middle East never had a home. Without Israel, it is said, these Jews would be left on the fringes of Middle Eastern societies, marginalized for an irrational prejudice against their religion and ethnicity by Muslims.

Historian and author Avi Shlaim details in his book, “Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab Jew,” through personal experience and historical analysis the lies that this narrative is constructed upon. “There was no history of antisemitism in the Arab world. Antisemitism is a European disease,” Shlaim tells Chris Hedges. “In the 1930s, antisemitism was exported from Europe to Iraq in particular, and it's striking that there was no antisemitic literature in Arabic. So antisemitic literature had to be translated from European languages into Arabic…”

Shlaim was born in Iraq, where a thriving, educated and economically diverse society existed for Jews during his childhood. He describes how “It took Europe much longer than it took the Arab world to accept the Jews as equal citizens,” and how “Jews were very much part of the fabric of Iraqi society. We were not a foreign body. There were thriving Jewish communities throughout the Arab world, in Lebanon, in Syria, in Iraq, in Egypt, throughout North Africa, but the Jewish community in Iraq was the most successful, the most prosperous, and also the best integrated of all the Jewish communities.”

It was Israel, according to Shlaim, that brought the divide and plight of the Jews in the Middle East. Shlaim mourns a time where his family experienced peaceful coexistence: “Muslim and Jewish coexistence was not an abstract idea. It wasn't a distant dream. It was the everyday reality.”

Shlaim’s accounts also utilize his skills as a historian, diving into the incontrovertible evidence he discovered that reveals false flag atrocities committed by the Israelis against Iraqi Jews themselves. These attacks fomented a fear of antisemitism amongst Arab Jews, correlating with a significant spike in Iraqi Jewish emigration, and ultimately, coercively reinforced the legitimacy of the Jewish state.

“This false flag operation,” Shlaim said, referring to the 1950 and 1951 Israeli bombings of Iraqi Jews, “is a terrible indictment of the State of Israel, because Israel was created to provide a safe haven for Jews fleeing persecution. Israel was not established in order to destabilize and frighten and create insecurity for the Jews of the diaspora.” “The real upheaval,” Shlaim recounts,“ happened when Israel was created in 1948 and as my mother said to me, when Israel was created, everything was turned upside down.”
o
You want the truth? Read this if you dare...

And now the monstrous psychopathically 
degenerate Zionist experiment must and will end...

The Poet: Wendell Berry, "A Warning To My Readers”


"A Warning To My Readers”

“Do not think me gentle
because I speak in praise
of gentleness, or elegant
because I honor the grace
that keeps this world. I am
a man crude as any,
gross of speech, intolerant,
stubborn, angry, full
of fits and furies. That I
may have spoken well
at times, is not natural.
A wonder is what it is.”

- Wendell Berry

"The Model Soldier"

Napoleon Addressing the 2nd Corps of his Army at the Bridge over the Lech at 
Augsburg, Germany, on October 12, 1805. Painting by Pierre-Claude Gautherot, 1808.

"The Model Soldier"
Lest We Forget: The State Wins Every War

"War is the health of the State.”
~ Randolph Bourne

Miami, Florida - "When Napoleon crossed the Niemen, at the outset of the 1812 French invasion of Russia, he had under his command some 422,000 men. When he approached those same waters the next year, this time from the east, in sluggish, worn down retreat after defeats in Moscow, Borodino, Smolensk…his ranks had been cut to barely 10,000. A few enfeebled diehards were all that remained of the Grande Armée.
Click image for larger size.
Charles Joseph Minard’s famous graph illustrates the decreasing size of the Grande Armée. The brown line (followed from left to right) shows Napoleon’s march to Russia. The black line (followed from right to left) depicts his retreat. The size of the army is shown equal to the width of the lines. Source: Public Domain

Doomed to Repeat: Even the most accomplished military strategists may prove slow to learn and quick to forget, especially when it comes to fighting the battles/repeating the mistakes of the past. Napoleon wasn’t the only intelligent fool to covet the vast plains of the east. One hundred and thirty years later, Adolf Hitler embarked on Operation Barbarossa, the largest military operation in human history, both in terms of manpower…and casualties.

His monstrous panzer divisions rolled east, pounding Napoleon’s tracks past Minsk, Orsha and Smolensk. They thundered north, over the River Dvina to Leningrad, and South, through the Ukraine and onto Stalingrad. Once again it was a remarkable show, equal parts brute strength and determined stupidity. In the end, the weather and the Russians buried the Germans too, just as they had The Little Corporal’s men. All in, 4.3 million Germans fell during the campaign — a fatality count ten times the size of Napoleon’s entire army. During the whole of WWII, the German army lost a total of 5.5 million soldiers.

To many, it would be obscene to talk about the “sacrifice” made by Napoleon’s army. Most people recognize it for what it probably was: an organized band of thugs invading other people’s land. And yet, the Frenchmen laid down their lives by the hundreds of thousands. They were patriotic to the last. Many considered themselves “liberators,” abolishing feudal laws and birthright privileges across the continent. Equally, it would be considered a breach of decency to hail the bravery and dedication of the Nazi soldiers. They are recognized as aggressors, as brutal occupiers and ruthless killers. And so they should be. But were they not highly trained and committed to their cause, too? Did they not “sacrifice” their lives by the millions for their country, for their own maniacal leader? Did they not join heartily in that hollow chorus, “Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer” And did they not fall for Horace’s old lie, “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori”?

Unnatural Born Killers: In both cases, the defeated armies’ men were nothing short of model soldiers. They marched. They obeyed orders. They killed on command. And when the blood dried and the dust settled, they were awarded medals for murdering people they’d never before met, whose names and stories they’d never know. In this manner, they were not unlike their opposition…though without the good fortune of having “won” the war; a fate, as Tolstoy famously observed, that was probably beyond their control in any case.

The ground under a dead German may well be as cold and hard as that under a dead Russian or a dead Frenchman, but history doesn’t remember all soldiers equally. Nor does it tend to separate soldiers - whose job it is to kill - too well from civilians - whose desire it is not to be killed.

It is estimated that between one and three million German civilians were killed during WWII. Who murdered these people? What were their names? Their pastimes? Their unfulfilled dreams? It’s almost considered impolite to ask, lest any blame fall on heroes’ shoulders. Over in the Pacific, Japan lost between a half- and one-million civilians. Who killed these people, these men and women and children? Did they receive medals for doing so? Were they honored by their own State, duly feted, welcomed home with parades and showered in confetti?

Imagine for a second that The Axis Alliance was victorious in WWII. How might history remember President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, ordering the internment of 110,000 Japanese Americans in “War Relocation Camps” across the United States?

The Agony of War: Moreover, what might history have to say about the only two nuclear weapons ever to have been deployed during wartime? Little Boy, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, killed between 90,000-166,000 people. Fat Man, dropped on Nagasaki three days later, killed between 60,000-80,000 people. In both cases, the vast majority of the victims were civilians. They died of flash or flame burns…falling debris…radiation sickness. Millions more were maimed, deformed, condemned to lives of unceasing pain and misery.

Here’s what US President Harry Truman told the public in a radio address after dropping Fat Man: “We have used [the Atomic Bomb] in order to shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans. We will continue to use it until we completely destroy Japan’s power to make war.”

Who were these “thousands and thousands of young Americans” Truman was protecting? Surely not the same boys he was sending off to war. The US lost more than 400,000 soldiers on various battlefields in Europe and the Pacific…but “only” 1,700 civilians. Statistically, the best way to protect oneself against war abroad was then, as it is now, simply not to go. Suppose they gave a war, as the saying goes, and nobody came?

Switzerland, which stayed famously neutral (despite their inconvenient geography), lost zero soldiers… and “only” 100 civilians. Remote New Zealand, meanwhile, tucked safely away at the world’s end, lost nearly 12,000 troops, many of whom fell in places like Maleme and Galatas, during the Battle of Crete, and in far flung outposts in Italy and in Northern Africa. Again, these poor sods would have done better to stay at home, tending to their personal affairs, taking care of their families and ignoring heartfelt pleas from “society” for “shared sacrifice.” In all of WWII, not a single Kiwi civilian life was lost due to war.

Alas, The State’s message, articulated by Truman and emulated by “enemy leaders” around the world, was then as it is now: “We will make war in order to shorten it. We will make war until the other side cannot.” Recall that it is during times of conflict when The State is most able to arrogate authority and resources unto itself. War, as Randolph Bourne solemnly observed, is the very health of The State. Not so for those who end their sorry days face down in the muck.

Contrary to these bellicose hollering of the political class, therefore, the message of peace should not be to “share the sacrifice”…but to avoid both suffering and inflicting it as best one can. Lest we forget: The State wins every war."

"How It Really Is"

Dan, I Allegedly, "Home Depot’s Shocking Sales Drop - Collapsing House of Cards"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, AM 8/14/24
"Home Depot’s Shocking Sales Drop - 
Collapsing House of Cards"
"Home Depot has always been a bellwether for the economy, and right now, the numbers don't lie – sales are down, transactions are down, and people just aren't spending like they used to. We're in Huntington Beach, one of the busiest Home Depots around, and even here, the decline is evident."
Comments here:

Adventures With Danno, "Grocery Sales At Meijer This Week!"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, AM 8/14/24
"Grocery Sales At Meijer This Week!"
As prices continue to rise on food items everywhere, I take you along with me
 to show all of the best deals going on so you can save as much money as possible.
Comments here:

"Alert! Talks Collapse; Blinken Cancels Trip; Iran's Day X Plan; Russia's Leaked Plan To Nuke Europe"

Canadian Prepper, 8/14/24
"Alert! Talks Collapse; Blinken Cancels Trip;
 Iran's Day X Plan; Russia's Leaked Plan To Nuke Europe"
Comments here:

Bill Bonner, "The Sad Night"

Human sacrifice before the Temple of Tenochtitlan, from 
"The History of the Indies of New Spain", manuscript by Diego Duran, 1579.

"The Sad Night"
Problem solving - by government - is a problem in itself. 
It adds costs and complexity... creating more problems to solve... 
and ultimately dooming a society to failure.
by Bill Bonner

"Exploitation is a normal cost of stratification... 
bad government is a normal cost of government..."  
- Joseph Tainter 

Poitou, France - "Imagine your joy! Your chest swells with pride, just before the priest thrusts his obsidian knife in... and carves out your heart. You have been chosen as a special guest of honor at a great event. The old emperor had died. His son will take over. Sacrifices must be offered.

Human sacrifices were ‘normal’ in pre-Columbian meso-America. The Aztecs did them on such a scale that historians couldn’t believe it. Did they really sacrifice twenty thousand people in one ceremony? Did they eat them all? And why?

One theory: it was a problem-solution situation. The problem was that people in what is now called ‘Central America’ had no domesticated food sources. No sheep, cattle or pigs that they could use as sources of protein. So, they ate each other. More precisely, the elites and their favored supporters ate the non-elites. They exploited less powerful groups (often, captives from other tribes).

We have no particular insight into the whys and wherefores of cannibalism. Nor do we pretend to know anything about Aztec civilization. But we know that all civilizations have their challenges…and all eventually go extinct. One of the theories meant to explain this phenomenon is ‘complexity.’

We shocked visitors from America this summer. We mused about the only member of Congress of whom we approved, Thomas Massey. ‘Because he voted no on everything,’ we said. “What? That’s crazy,” came the reply. “These people are trying to solve problems. Of course, they miss the mark sometimes. But they’re probably right at least half the time.”

Problem solving - by government -- is a problem in itself. It adds costs and complexity... creating more problems to solve... and ultimately dooming a society to failure. At least, that is Joseph Tainter’s explanation. In his ‘Collapse of Complex Societies,’ he looked at the record of ‘societal collapse’ and came to the conclusion that it was the result of problem solving. Each challenge brought a response. Each response took energy, resources and time. The accumulated problem-solving ‘investments’ left nothing for the future.

But today, we offer a counter example. (Only because we happen to be reading Victor Davis Hanson’s book ‘The End of Everything.’) "Aztec civilization didn’t just ‘decline.’ It came to an abrupt and final end when Hernán Cortés - a Spanish adventurer - led a small group of a few hundred conquistadors into the heart of the Aztec capital at Tenochtitlan. He was appalled and wrote a letter to Charles V in 1519:

"They have another custom, horrible, and abominable, and deserving punishment, and which we have never before seen in any place, and it is this, that, as often as they have anything to ask of their idols, in order that their petition may be more acceptable, they take many boys or girls, and even grown men and women, and in the presence of those idols they open their breasts, while they are alive, and take out the hearts and entrails, and burn the said entrails and hearts before the idols, offering that in sacrifice to them. Some of us who have seen this say that it is the most terrible and frightful thing to behold that has ever been seen."

Cortes intended to set himself on top of Aztec civilization and exploit the locals. But the initial visit to the capital didn’t go well. Cortés entered the city with his Tlaxcalan allies peacefully. The Aztecs judged his force too small to be a genuine threat. And they were, naturally, curious. But then, the Spaniards made their famously audacious move - capturing the ruler, Montezuma, and holding him hostage. The Aztecs were confused. But they did not submit. And it became gradually clear to Cortés that while he might hold Montezuma, he and his little army were also captive... surrounded by many thousands of Aztec warriors.

The Aztec capital was built on an island in the middle of a shallow lake. There were causeways leading to the city, making it easy to control access. Beginning to fear that they might soon be the main course at an Aztec feast, the conquistadors attempted a breakout. At night, Cortés took one of the causeways out of town... but was soon detected. From hundreds of canoes, the ‘Indians’ threw rocks and shot arrows. Word went ahead to destroy the causeway so the foreigners couldn’t get away. But the Spaniards filled the gap with their own dead bodies... The Florentine Codex described it: "Those who followed crossed to the other side by walking on the corpses."

It was a disastrous escape, known to Spanish history as the Noche Triste (the Sad Night). That might have been the end of the story. But Hernán Cortés survived. And so did a few hundred of his soldiers. Despite his troops’ ‘wish to return to Veracruz and go back to Spain,’ Cortés rebuilt his alliances (su). In a matter of months, he was back on the trail... with battled-hardened veterans, fresh allies and a new strategy. He would build warships, in pieces... assemble them on the shores of the great lake... and lay siege to the city. Another bold move... and this time, it worked. Cortés not only won the war... he annihilated the whole Aztec civilization. Stay tuned... "

Tuesday, August 13, 2024

Jeremiah Babe, "Grid Down, I Couldn't Use Cash Or Card Today"

Jeremiah Babe, 8/13/24
"Grid Down, I Couldn't Use Cash Or Card Today"
Comments here"

Musical Interlude: Procol Harum, "A Salty Dog"

Procol Harum, "A Salty Dog"
"Ulysses"

"There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me -
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads - you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

"A Look to the Heavens"

Click image for larger size.
"Milky Way Behind Three Merlons"
"To some, they look like battlements, here protecting us against the center of the Milky Way. The Three Merlons, also called the Three Peaks of Lavaredo, stand tall today because they are made of dense dolomite rock which has better resisted erosion than surrounding softer rock. They formed about 250 million years ago and so are comparable in age with one of the great extinctions of life on Earth. A leading hypothesis is that this great extinction was triggered by an asteroid about 10-km across, larger in size than Mount Everest, impacting the Earth. Humans have gazed up at the stars in the Milky Way and beyond for centuries, making these battlefield-like formations, based in the Sexten Dolomites, a popular place for current and ancient astronomers."

"Ex Obscurum, Adagio for Strings, Op. 11"

Full screen recommended.
"Ex Obscurum, Adagio for Strings, Op. 11"
"From emotional turmoil, hatred, and addiction the miracle of recovery begins in this Spadecaller Video entitled "Ex Obscurum" (From Darkness). Featuring original poetry narrated by the author and visual artist, Matthew Schwartz. Composer Samuel Barber's powerful musical score, adopted for the movie "Platoon", (Adagio for Strings) sets the background for this spiritual exodus "From Darkness."

"So We Never Live..."

"We do not rest satisfied with the present. We anticipate the future as too slow in coming, as if in order to hasten its course; or we recall the past, to stop its too rapid flight. So imprudent are we that we wander in the times which are not ours, and do not think of the only one which belongs to us; and so idle are we that we dream of those times which are no more, and thoughtlessly overlook that which alone exists. For the present is generally painful to us. We conceal it from our sight, because it troubles us; and if it be delightful to us, we regret to see it pass away. We try to sustain it by the future, and think of arranging matters which are not in our power, for a time which we have no certainty of reaching. Let each one examine his thoughts, and he will find them all occupied with the past and the future. We scarcely ever think of the present; and if we think of it, it is only to take light from it to arrange the future. The present is never our end. The past and the present are our means; the future alone is our end. So we never live, but we hope to live; and, as we are always preparing to be happy, it is inevitable we should never be so."
- Blaise Pascal

"Things Just Got Even More “Interesting” In The Middle East And In Ukraine"

"Things Just Got Even More “Interesting” 
In The Middle East And In Ukraine"
by Michael Snyder

"Most people don’t seem to realize this yet, but we have entered a time of global war. While millions in the western world are partying, an apocalyptic all-out war is threatening to erupt in the Middle East and Ukraine has launched a surprise invasion of Russia. Needless to say, seeing Ukrainian troops come pouring across Russia’s lightly defended border in the Kursk region came as quite a shock to Vladimir Putin and his generals. The Ukrainians have decided to take things to the next level, and the Russians are beyond angry. Meanwhile, Israel is bracing for a “large scale” Iranian attack at any time…

Israel is expecting a ‘large scale’ Iranian attack and Hezbollah has evacuated its Beirut headquarters in anticipation of an all-out war with Israel, according to reports. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin that Iran was making preparations for a large-scale military attack on Israel during a phone call on Sunday, Axios News reporter Barack Ravid wrote on X. The planned attack could happen ‘within days’, according to two sources who spoke to CNN. Meanwhile, Hezbollah has evacuated its headquarters in Beirut, according to Lebanese news outlet Al Joumhouria – further raising concerns.

We have been waiting for Iran to strike Israel since the end of July, but so far such an attack has not materialized. Many were hoping that cooler heads had prevailed in Iran. Sadly, it appears that an attack is still coming, and Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant is warning that Iran and Hezbollah “are threatening to harm us in a way they haven’t done in the past”. That sounds rather ominous.

If there is an attack, it will almost certainly be more substantial than what we witnessed last time around. For the moment, however, the Iranians seem to be enjoying keeping everyone in suspense… “There may be no attack at all, or there could be one tonight,” an Iranian regime insider told the Financial Times. “Waiting for death is more difficult than death itself.” “Iran has launched a psychological warfare campaign to keep Israel’s military, security, and logistical capabilities on edge, denying residents of the occupied territories any sense of calm,” the insider added.

Maybe they will keep playing this game for a while. Or maybe they will attack tonight. We just don’t know. There have been reports of missile launchers being moved into position. But that could just be more of their mind games.

The U.S. is certainly not taking any chances. According to John Kirby, the U.S. is operating under the assumption that an Iranian attack could come as early as this week…"The U.S. is preparing for Iran or its proxies to attack Israel as soon as this week, according to White House national security spokesman John Kirby. He confirmed Monday that the U.S. is increasing its military presence in the region and said that President Joe Biden had talked with European allies about support for Israel."

If the Iranians attack, the U.S. will defend Israel. A guided missile sub is being deployed to the Middle East, and the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group has been ordered to “sail more quickly to the area”…"U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered a guided missile submarine to the Middle East and told the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group to sail more quickly to the area, as the U.S. said Monday it believes Iran or its proxies could launch a strike against Israel as soon as this week.

The moves, announced by the Defense Department Sunday, come as the U.S. and other allies push for Israel and Hamas to achieve a cease-fire agreement that could help calm soaring tensions in the region after the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut." I will be watching the USS Abraham Lincoln very closely. If all-out war erupts, it could become a prime target for either the Iranians or Hezbollah.

Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine has taken an unexpected turn. The Ukrainians have been slowly but surely losing ground in eastern Ukraine, and so they decided to do something dramatic to change the momentum of the war. Nobody expected the Ukrainians to invade Russian territory, and so the Russians were completely surprised when that actually happened…"Ukraine’s shock incursion across the Russian border into Kursk Oblast may force important strategic decisions on Moscow as President Vladimir Putin’s troops are taken as prisoners of war and supply lines are threatened. The Ukrainian attack took Russian forces by surprise, according to one U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly.

According to the Institute for the Study of War, Ukraine’s cross-border gambit has allowed Kyiv to seize the battlefield initiative, long held by Russian forces who were able to dictate the time and place of fighting and force Ukrainian troops to expend manpower and equipment on defensive operations.

On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke of the importance of removing these Ukrainian forces from Russian territory during a televised appearance…"President Vladimir Putin ordered his army on Monday to “dislodge” Ukrainian troops who have entered Russian territory as authorities said more than 120,000 people had been evacuated away from the fighting. Kyiv launched a surprise offensive into Russia’s western Kursk region last Tuesday, capturing more than two dozen settlements in the most significant cross-border attack on Russian soil since World War II. “One of the obvious goals of the enemy is to sow discord, strife, intimidate people, destroy the unity and cohesion of Russian society,” Putin told a televised meeting with government officials.

The Ukrainians will not be able to hold Russian territory for long. So why did they do this? Personally, my opinion is that the Ukrainians are trying to get the Russians so angry that they will decide to use tactical nuclear weapons. If Russia uses tactical nuclear weapons, NATO will be forced to intervene, and then we really will have a nightmare scenario on our hands.

This conflict with Russia is one of “the 3 wars of the apocalypse” that I keep warning my readers about. The coming all-out war in the Middle East is another one. All of the chess pieces are moving into position, and it won’t be too long before we witness global chaos on a grand scale."
o
Full screen recommended.
"The Unthinkable In 20 Minutes: 
Nuclear War Documentary"
"Imagine a world plunged into radioactive darkness. Uncover the chilling realities of nuclear war in a condensed 20 minutes. This video explores the unthinkable through gripping documentary footage and thought-provoking movie clips. Witness the devastating human cost and environmental impact of nuclear conflict. Learn why nuclear non-proliferation is crucial. Through film and fact, we explore the immediate effects of nuclear blasts and the long-term consequences such as nuclear winter. This video serves as a stark reminder of the devastating realities of nuclear war. By understanding the threat, we can work towards a world free from nuclear weapons."
Comments here:
o

Gerald Celente, "Presidential Reality Show: 'It's The Economy, Stupid'"

Very strong language alert!
Gerald Celente, 8/13/24
"Presidential Reality Show: 
'It's The Economy, Stupid'"
"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."
Comments here:
o

The Daily "Near You?"

Arkansas City, Kansas, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Humanity I Love You"

"Humanity i love you because when you’re hard 
up you pawn your intelligence to buy a drink..."

"Humanity I Love You"

"Humanity i love you
because you would rather black the boots of
success than enquire whose soul dangles from his
watch-chain which would be embarrassing for both
parties and because you
unflinchingly applaud all
songs containing the words country home and
mother when sung at the old howard

Humanity i love you because
when you’re hard up you pawn your
intelligence to buy a drink and when
you’re flush pride keeps
you from the pawn shop and
because you are continually committing
nuisances but more
especially in your own house

Humanity i love you because you
are perpetually putting the secret of
life in your pants and forgetting
it’s there and sitting down on it
and because you are
forever making poems in the lap
of death 

Humanity, i hate you"

- e. e. cummings

"As Humans..."

“It is easy to overlook this thought that life just is. As humans we are inclined to feel that life must have a point. We have plans and aspirations and desires. We want to take constant advantage of the intoxicating existence we’ve been endowed with. But what’s life to a lichen? Yet it's impulse to exist, to be, is every bit as strong as ours - arguably even stronger. If I were told that I had to spend decades being a furry growth on a rock in the woods, I believe I would lose the will to go on. Lichens don’t. Like virtually all living things, they will suffer any hardship, endure any insult, for a moment’s additional existence. Life, in short just wants to be.”
- Bill Bryson

The Poet: Stephen Levine, "Half Life"

"Half Life"

 "We walk through half our life
as if it were a fever dream,
barely touching the ground,
our eyes half open,
our heart half closed.
Not half knowing who we are,
we watch the ghost of us drift
from room to room,
through friends and lovers
never quite as real as advertised.
Not saying half we mean
or meaning half we say,
we dream ourselves
from birth to birth
seeking some true self.
Until the fever breaks
and the heart can not abide
a moment longer
as the rest of us awakens,
summoned from the dream,
not half caring for anything but love."

~ Stephen Levine

Free Download: Mark Twain, "Letters From the Earth"

"Mark Twain's 'Letters From the Earth'"
by Wikipedia

“Letters from the Earth” is one of Mark Twain's posthumously published works. The essays were written during a difficult time in Twain's life; he was deep in debt and had lost his wife and one of his daughters. Initially, his daughter, Clara Clemens, objected to its publication in March 1939, probably because of its controversial and iconoclastic views on religion, claiming it presented a "distorted" view of her father. Henry Nash Smith helped change her position in 1960. Clara explained her change of heart in 1962 saying that "Mark Twain belonged to the world" and that public opinion had become more tolerant. She was also influenced to release the papers due to her annoyance with Soviet propaganda charges that her father's ideas were being suppressed in the United States. The papers were edited in 1939 by Bernard DeVoto. The book consists of a series of short stories, many of which deal with God and Christianity. The title story consists of eleven letters written by the archangel Satan to archangels, Gabriel and Michael, about his observations on the curious proceedings of earthly life and the nature of man's religions. Other short stories in the book include a bedtime story about a family of cats Twain wrote for his daughters, and an essay explaining why an anaconda is morally superior to Man.

Textual references make clear that sections, at least, of “Letters from the Earth” were written shortly before his death in April 1910. (For instance, Letter VII, in discussing the ravages of hookworm, refers to the $1,000,000 gift of John D. Rockefeller Jr. to help eradicate the disease – a gift that was announced on October 28, 1909, less than six months before Twain's death.)"
Excerpt: "Letters From the Earth"
by Mark Twain

Excerpt: "This is a strange place, an extraordinary place, and interesting. There is nothing resembling it at home. The people are all insane, the other animals are all insane, the earth is insane, Nature itself is insane. Man is a marvelous curiosity. When he is at his very very best he is a sort of low grade nickel-plated angel; at his worst he is unspeakable, unimaginable; and first and last and all the time he is a sarcasm. Yet he blandly and in all sincerity calls himself the "noblest work of God." This is the truth I am telling you. And this is not a new idea with him, he has talked it through all the ages, and believed it. Believed it, and found nobody among all his race to laugh at it.

Moreover - if I may put another strain upon you - he thinks he is the Creator's pet. He believes the Creator is proud of him; he even believes the Creator loves him; has a passion for him; sits up nights to admire him; yes, and watch over him and keep him out of trouble. He prays to Him, and thinks He listens. Isn't it a quaint idea? Fills his prayers with crude and bald and florid flatteries of Him, and thinks He sits and purrs over these extravagancies and enjoys them. He prays for help, and favor, and protection, every day; and does it with hopefulness and confidence, too, although no prayer of his has ever been answered. The daily affront, the daily defeat, do not discourage him, he goes on praying just the same. There is something almost fine about this perseverance. I must put one more strain upon you: he thinks he is going to Heaven!"
Freely download "Letters From the Earth", by Mark Twain, here:

"Lift Up Your Eyes"

"Lift Up Your Eyes"
by Paul Rosenberg

"When was the last time you tasted the sublime? When did you last feel wonder? Can you remember feeling awed by something? These are things we need, if we are to thrive. They are fuel for the higher human abilities. If we lack them, as is currently endemic throughout the West, our higher abilities will lag. For lack of better terms we can call these feelings “upward movements of the heart,” and we are diminished when there is a lack of them. Without them we fail to develop our higher capacities and insights. We slide more and more toward becoming, in one critic’s words, “mere trousered apes.”

I am certainly not the first person to notice this. Here, for example, is something Albert Einstein wrote on the subject: "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."

Here’s a comment from Mozart: "Neither a lofty degree of intelligence, nor imagination, nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius."

And here’s a poem from Richard Feynman:

"Out of the cradle
onto the dry land
here it is
standing:
atoms with consciousness;
matter with curiosity.
Stands at the sea
wonders at wondering: I
a universe of atoms
an atom in the universe."

We need these things.

Currents to the Contrary: Sadly, the modern West has become a mad scramble to distract as many sets of eyes as possible, and to keep them – to own them – for as long as possible. And so long as professional distractors own your imagination, you won't experience much in the way of awe.

Think of Google and Facebook; these outfits bring in billions of dollars per month, based almost entirely on how much human attention they can capture. Likewise the many news networks; they get paid according to how many people watch their images for how many minutes. These people are serious about owning your brain cycles; they employ armies of employees to count, gather, plan, and improve their ownership of your eyes. Please understand the content they deliver serves only to grasp your attention.

Certainly websites like Freeman’s Perspective also want your attention but not for its own sake. I want your attention because I think we have something worthwhile to communicate, not to own your brain. Facebook and Google want to own you… the inner you.

Likewise the lords of academia; they want your mind to bear their impress... permanently. Consider, for example, the many academics who espouse cold, rationalist, materialistic philosophies: that we are no more than preprogrammed machines, that words can never really communicate anything, that humanity is ignorant and dangerous. Have you noticed that they reek of “smarter than thou”? Then if you have the opportunity, examine their lives for beautiful acts, for loving passions, for kindness and deep benevolence. If your experience is anything like mine, you’ll notice a striking lack of those things.

The Contrasts: Among the greatest of all contrasts to the upward movements of the heart are those pertaining to dominance, status, and rulership. They are natural antagonists.

Think of drinking in the wonders of the universe, the beauty of nature, the glorious love between a good parent and their child… and then contrast those things with the blight of the dominator “protecting” you at the point of a sword… of the politician cultivating your fears like a gardener cultivates a garden… of the lover of status who feels pleasure when seeing you beneath her.

Dominance, status, and rulership are the drives of the people who abuse us. And they are primary causes for our elevated experiences being diminished.

Moving Past the Blockage: We need to get away from these people and beyond these foul concepts. And once we do, life will expand. Here to make that point is a final quote, this one from Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel: "The loss of awe is the avoidance of insight. A return to reverence is the first prerequisite for a revival of wisdom…"

The things that contribute to our higher nature have been driven away from the Western world, and often systematically. Humans who are denuded of the higher things are far less trouble to rule, and they are far easier to manipulate… to own without their noticing. But don’t let yourself by driven away from the higher and better things:

Lay under the stars and wonder.
Look into the face of a child and experience his or her awe of the world.
Sit in the wilderness and imagine benevolence and beauty and goodness unchained.
Lie in bed and imagine yourself with a conscious sense of righteousness.
Imagine yourself with no embedded fear.
Ruminate over good things you could do in the future, over beautiful things you’d do in the right circumstances.

Politics poisons this, dominators wish to subdue it, sociopaths cannot experience it. Get as much of it as you can. Go out of your way to cultivate it.”
https://www.freemansperspective.com/
Full screen recommended.
2002, "Time Stands Still"

"I Have Accepted The Fact..."

"One can fight evil but against stupidity one is helpless. I have accepted the fact, hard as it may be, that human beings are inclined to behave in ways that would make animals blush. The ironic, the tragic thing is that we often behave in ignoble fashion from what we consider the highest motives. The animal makes no excuse for killing his prey; the human animal, on the other hand, can invoke God's blessing when massacring his fellow men. He forgets that God is not on his side but at his side."

 "There is no salvation in becoming adapted to a world which is crazy."
- Henry Miller

"How It Really Is"

"State law holds that stealing merchandise worth $950 or less is just a 
misdemeanor, which means that law enforcement probably won't bother to investigate."