Tuesday, September 3, 2024

Mark Twain, “On The Damned Human Race”

“On The Damned Human Race”
by Mark Twain

“I have been studying the traits and dispositions of the lower animals (so-called), and contrasting them with the traits and dispositions of man. I find the result humiliating to me. For it obliges me to renounce my allegiance to the Darwinian theory of the Ascent of Man from the Lower Animals; since it now seems plain to me that the theory ought to be vacated in favor of a new and truer one, this new and truer one to be named the Descent of Man from the Higher Animals.

In proceeding toward this unpleasant conclusion I have not guessed or speculated or conjectured, but have used what is commonly called the scientific method. That is to say, I have subjected every postulate that presented itself to the crucial test of actual experiment, and have adopted it or rejected it according to the result. Thus I verified and established each step of my course in its turn before advancing to the next. These experiments were made in the London Zoological Gardens, and covered many months of painstaking and fatiguing work.

Before particularizing any of the experiments, I wish to state one or two things which seem to more properly belong in this place than further along. This, in the interest of clearness. The massed experiments established to my satisfaction certain generalizations, to wit:

1. That the human race is of one distinct species. It exhibits slight variations (in color, stature, mental caliber, and so on) due to climate, environment, and so forth; but it is a species by itself, and not to be confounded with any other.

2. That the quadrupeds are a distinct family, also. This family exhibits variations (in color, size, food preferences, and so on; but it is a family by itself).

3. That the other families (the birds, the fishes, the insects, the reptiles, etc.) are more or less distinct, also. They are in the procession. They are links in the chain which stretches down from the higher animals to man at the bottom.

Some of my experiments were quite curious. In the course of my reading I had come across a case where, many years ago, some hunters on our Great Plains organized a buffalo hunt for the entertainment of an English earl. They had charming sport. They killed seventy-two of those great animals; and ate part of one of them and left the seventy-one to rot. In order to determine the difference between an anaconda and an earl (if any) I caused seven young calves to be turned into the anaconda’s cage. The grateful reptile immediately crushed one of them and swallowed it, then lay back satisfied. It showed no further interest in the calves, and no disposition to harm them. I tried this experiment with other anacondas; always with the same result. The fact stood proven that the difference between an earl and an anaconda is that the earl is cruel and the anaconda isn’t; and that the earl wantonly destroys what he has no use for, but the anaconda doesn’t. This seemed to suggest that the anaconda was not descended from the earl. It also seemed to suggest that the earl was descended from the anaconda, and had lost a good deal in the transition.

I was aware that many men who have accumulated more millions of money than they can ever use have shown a rabid hunger for more, and have not scrupled to cheat the ignorant and the helpless out of their poor servings in order to partially appease that appetite. I furnished a hundred different kinds of wild and tame animals the opportunity to accumulate vast stores of food, but none of them would do it. The squirrels and bees and certain birds made accumulations, but stopped when they had gathered a winter’s supply, and could not be persuaded to add to it either honestly or by chicane. In order to bolster up a tottering reputation the ant pretended to store up supplies, but I was not deceived. I know the ant. These experiments convinced me that there is this difference between man and the higher animals: he is avaricious and miserly; they are not. In the course of my experiments I convinced myself that among the animals man is the only one that harbors insults and injuries, broods over them, waits till a chance offers, then takes revenge. The passion of revenge is unknown to the higher animals.

Roosters keep harems, but it is by consent of their concubines; therefore no wrong is done. Men keep harems but it is by brute force, privileged by atrocious laws which the other sex were allowed no hand in making. In this matter man occupies a far lower place than the rooster. Cats are loose in their morals, but not consciously so. Man, in his descent from the cat, has brought the cats looseness with him but has left the unconsciousness behind (the saving grace which excuses the cat). The cat is innocent, man is not.

Indecency, vulgarity, obscenity (these are strictly confined to man); he invented them. Among the higher animals there is no trace of them. They hide nothing; they are not ashamed. Man, with his soiled mind, covers himself. He will not even enter a drawing room with his breast and back naked, so alive are he and his mates to indecent suggestion. Man is The Animal that Laughs. But so does the monkey, as Mr. Darwin pointed out; and so does the Australian bird that is called the laughing jackass. No! Man is the Animal that Blushes. He is the only one that does it or has occasion to.

Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it. It is a trait that is not known to the higher animals. The cat plays with the frightened mouse; but she has this excuse, that she does not know that the mouse is suffering. The cat is moderate (unhumanly moderate: she only scares the mouse, she does not hurt it; she doesn’t dig out its eyes, or tear off its skin, or drive splinters under its nails) man-fashion; when she is done playing with it she makes a sudden meal of it and puts it out of its trouble. Man is the Cruel Animal. He is alone in that distinction.

The higher animals engage in individual fights, but never in organized masses. Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and with calm pulse to exterminate his kind. He is the only animal that for sordid wages will march out, as the Hessians did in our Revolution, and as the boyish Prince Napoleon did in the Zulu war, and help to slaughter strangers of his own species who have done him no harm and with whom he has no quarrel.

Man is the only animal that robs his helpless fellow of his country, takes possession of it and drives him out of it or destroys him. Man has done this in all the ages. There is not an acre of ground on the globe that is in possession of its rightful owner, or that has not been taken away from owner after owner, cycle after cycle, by force and bloodshed.

Man is the only Slave. And he is the only animal who enslaves. He has always been a slave in one form or another, and has always held other slaves in bondage under him in one way or another. In our day he is always some man’s slave for wages and does that man’s work; and this slave has other slaves under him for minor wages, and they do his work. The higher animals are the only ones who exclusively do their own work and provide their own living.

Man is the only Patriot. He sets himself apart in his own country, under his own flag, and sneers at the other nations, and keeps multitudinous uniformed assassins on hand at heavy expense to grab slices of other people’s countries, and keep them from grabbing slices of his. And in the intervals between campaigns, he washes the blood off his hands and works for the universal brotherhood of man, with his mouth.

Man is the Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion, several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself, and cuts his throat if his theology isn’t straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother’s path to happiness and heaven. He was at it in the time of the Caesars, he was at it in Mahomet’s time, he was at it in the time of the Inquisition, he was at it in France a couple of centuries, he was at it in England in Mary’s day, he has been at it ever since he first saw the light, he is at it today in Crete (as per the telegrams quoted above) he will be at it somewhere else tomorrow. The higher animals have no religion. And we are told that they are going to be left out, in the Hereafter. I wonder why? It seems questionable taste.

Man is the Reasoning Animal. Such is the claim. I think it is open to dispute. Indeed, my experiments have proven to me that he is the Unreasoning Animal. Note his history, as sketched above. It seems plain to me that whatever he is he is not a reasoning animal. His record is the fantastic record of a maniac. I consider that the strongest count against his intelligence is the fact that with that record back of him he blandly sets himself up as the head animal of the lot: whereas by his own standards he is the bottom one. In truth, man is incurably foolish.

One is obliged to concede that in true loftiness of character, Man cannot claim to approach even the meanest of the Higher Animals. It is plain that he is constitutionally incapable of approaching that altitude; that he is constitutionally afflicted with a Defect which must make such approach forever impossible, for it is manifest that this defect is permanent in him, indestructible, ineradicable. I find this Defect to be the Moral Sense. He is the only animal that has it. It is the secret of his degradation. It is the quality which enables him to do wrong. It has no other office. It is incapable of performing any other function. It could never have been intended to perform any other. Without it, man could do no wrong. He would rise at once to the level of the Higher Animals.

Since the Moral Sense has but the one office, the one capacity (to enable man to do wrong) it is plainly without value to him. It is as valueless to him as is disease. In fact, it manifestly is a disease. Rabies is bad, but it is not so bad as this disease. Rabies enables a man to do a thing, which he could not do when in a healthy state: kill his neighbor with a poisonous bite) one is the better man for having rabies: The Moral Sense enables a man to do wrong. It enables him to do wrong in a thousand ways. Rabies is an innocent disease, compared to the Moral Sense. No one, then, can be the better man for having the Moral Sense. What now, do we find the Primal Curse to have been? Plainly what it was in the beginning: the infliction upon man of the Moral Sense; the ability to distinguish good from evil; and with it, necessarily, the ability to do evil; for there can be no evil act without the presence of consciousness of it in the doer of it.

And so I find that we have descended and degenerated, from some far ancestor (some microscopic atom wandering at its pleasure between the mighty horizons of a drop of water perchance) insect by insect, animal by animal, reptile by reptile, down the long highway of smirch-less innocence, till we have reached the bottom stage of development (namable as the Human Being). Below us, nothing.”
Freely download: "'What Is Man' And Other Essays", by Mark Twain, here:

The Daily "Near You?"

Lynn, Massachusetts, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

Dan, I Allegedly, "Big Brother is Watching"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, PM 9/3/24
"Big Brother is Watching"
"Big Brother's speed trap: your car's secret spy is here! Welcome back to IAllegedly, where we dive into the shocking reality of how our lives are monitored. Imagine your car reporting your speed to other drivers by 2030, thanks to California's Senate Bill 961! It's a privacy invasion, but it's happening. Join me as I unravel the truth behind this, and more, with stories of surveillance from companies like Cox Communications and Facebook."
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"Neil Howe: We May Suffer A Collision of Financial, Social & Geo-Political Crises All At Once"

"Neil Howe: We May Suffer A Collision of Financial, 
Social & Geo-Political Crises All At Once"
The Fourth Turning is getting real...
By Adam Taggart

"The fault lines that divide our society are widening. The K-shaped recovery that we've seen since COVID has rewarded asset owners at the expense of everyone else. And millennials and Gen Zers, who are losing faith in being able to achieve a middle class lifestyle, look with increasing bitterness at the relative prosperity of the Boomer generation. These simmering grudges are only getting inflamed further by the divisive rhetoric of November's approaching US presidential election. Are we at risk of a class war? A generational war? An ideological civil war? Or a combination of all of these? Or, will we find a way to bridge our differences and come together?

For perspective, we have the privilege of speaking today with demographer Neil Howe, co-author of the seminal book "The Fourth Turning" and its sequel "The Fourth Turning Is Here." This interview is densely-packed with great nuggets of insight & the wisdom of history, folks.
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"The 18-Year-Olds’ League"

"The 18-Year-Olds’ League"
My dream of what could be.
by Paul Rosenberg

"In 2025, after realizing that humanity had been at war for some 6,000 years with seldom a break of even a single year – and very often in a dozen places at once – a simple thought appeared in at least a hundred young minds scattered across our planet:

It's not the evil old men who keep all the wars going; it's us, the 18-year-olds.

The problem, they saw, was that they kept obeying the bitter and rapacious old men. Swept along by authority and the fear of standing alone, they had been – for millennia – marching off to kill other young people exactly like themselves. The 18-year-olds on the opposite sides of all the battle lines had been doing precisely the same thing: obeying the orders of their own bitter and rapacious old men.

If the 18-year-olds in every country agreed to not fight, who would? After all, the old men never fought for themselves. And so, being a generation gifted with worldwide communication, they began to find each other and to talk among themselves. Some of them dug into military literature to see if they were missing something. Others read studies in the psychology of killing. A few researched guerrilla warfare. And then, one by one, they began to study economics, cooperation and consent. Within months, they had no more doubt; war was almost wholly dependent upon them.

Old men with bloodlust would never stop the killing; once they passed 50 or 60 years old, they were never going to change. But that wasn't really much of a problem, because a sufficient number of 18-year-olds could stop war anytime they wanted. And so, in a matter of days, they wrote an agreement to be published in every country. They agreed they would carry it to their schools and to the streets of all their cities… they would eventually confront every young person in the world and encourage them to take their vow and add their names to the list of 18-year-olds who refused to march off to war. Their agreement read as follows:

"We, young men and women of all nationalities,
 hereby vow not to kill each other at the behest of old men and women.

We don’t want to fight. We do not want to die. We do not want to see our friends dismembered, nor do we want to dismember others… or even to assist in it.

We want to live and love. Most of us want families. All of us want 
rewarding lives. And we do not want to live with the nightmares of war.

If the old people want war so badly, let them go fight it. 
They’ve already had their families and careers.

Bitter old men and women will send us off to war forever if we let them. 
They’ve been doing just that, continuously, for 6,000 years; they’re not going to change.

The jungle warlord and the militant senator are precisely the same in this; they need war. 
For 6,000 years they’ve issued orders to us, and we – confused and obedient – 
have marched off, in thousands and even millions, to kill each other.

But no more. We, the 18-year-olds of the world, hereby affirm that we will not go to war. We will protect our home towns if necessary, but we will not march off, based upon the fears and intimidations of old men and women, to fight other 18-year-olds like ourselves.

We are confirmed in this resolve by the wise words of Albert Einstein: 
“Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.”

We therefore jointly refuse. Let the old men kill each other if they care so much."

This, their agreement, was presented to young people in almost every school in the world, in thousands of town squares, and in countless homes. The names of more than 10 million signers were posted to Internet pages before they were certified as “domestic terror sites” and hijacked. After that, they moved to the DarkNet. At that point, the old men and women panicked, banned the evil, unpatriotic document, and threw thousands of the young people into jail cells. But there were too many, and soon there weren’t enough obedient enforcers to attack the young petitioners and not enough government cages to hold them."

"The War Can Only End With More War"

"The War Can Only End With More War"
by The Good Citizen

"The tragedy of modern war is that the young men die fighting
 each other – instead of their real enemies back home in the capitals.” 
- Edward Abbey

"The youngbloods cry out with screams of mercy while prone in the sunflower fields of Lugansk. “The Cauldron is forming and soon we’ll be surrounded! When does it end!?” The big blue sky above ignores them. A nearby Azov officer hears them ask to surrender. Two by two the screamers get taken to the shallow side of a slope and shot in the back of the head. Final thoughts while gazing out to the horizon to take in their last breath: my death is happening because it was entirely preventable.

The entirely preventable war can only end with more war. The entirely preventable deaths can only end with more death. NATO’s orders. It was always going to end the way we know it will end. With more war.

The only thing they’re trying to prevent now is any narrative that undermines their aims to prevent it from ending. They say World War One was fought for reasons nobody really knows. The death and devastation were so unfathomable, so inconceivable, it was to be the war to end all wars. As long as people believe only war can end wars, then the war will only end with more war.

This war is being fought for reasons nobody with a functioning brain really believes. Democracy? Freedom? Insert all the laughing, crying, rolling on the muddy death fields of Ukraine emojis in the digital universe, plus all the facepalms, and pregnant men facepalms.

Forget the Nazis, the Oligarchs, the cocaine comic, the NATO clowns, the American empire war complex, the district of corruption, the demented diapered one, the EU tyrants begging for economic and energy catastrophes a la carte.

They all stand to gain from the blood of young Ukrainians, from their sacrifice for a set of conditions that were never going to be met even when all the world knew it before a single shot was fired. They played Russian roulette with a country and most people celebrating its sacrifice for global evil can’t point to it on a map. They all cry out in unison like one mindless drone across the earth: “Keep dying youngbloods! The war will only end with more war!”

Now we can see the wave rising at the border of Poland and Ukraine, on the horizon set for a prearranged destiny that nobody wants besides those with nothing to risk. All their instruments of war crossing the border will ensure that the war will surely end with more war.

You can see the wave of youngbloods across the muddy fields. They wore their boots out running for the Oligarchs safely in London. They were there in late February, forced to stay and fight. The young men in cheap nylon ski jackets, trapped in their national prison, kicked off the trains, stopped at the borders, told to go and die for the Oligarchs safely on their yachts in Monaco.

“Putin is evil young man, don’t you know that?” The youngbloods nod in agreement and move their gaze toward the ground utterly disgusted with themselves for nodding and not asking, “Why?”

The baby-faced boys of Kyiv fresh from their gaming chairs and Uber Eats delivery routes. Once giddily bouncing from school classes to casual conversations at cafes that young people have. A rifle stuffed into their hands, three days of performative training, and a swift shove to the meat grinders. Forcibly conscripted into the NATO death machine.

The war must continue and will only end with more war. Five hundred million for more war. Seven hundred million. Do I hear eight hundred million? Do I hear nine hundred? 44 billion?

There’s money to wash through the national laundering operations pouring forth from the U.S. Department of treasury like a fire hose plugged into the central bank of the fourth most corrupt country on earth. Too many pockets need lining before the youngbloods can be called back home from the fronts.

All wars really end with a negotiated peace. Not this one. The word peace is forbidden. So is the word diplomacy.

Even when Russia has mopped up the final villages for liberation in the Donbas and taken Odessa in the south, and the final Ukrainian Nazis are rounded up for trials and detention and a decade henceforth after all regions are flying the Trikolor flag, the Americans will be finding more weapons to send and demanding the comic find more youngbloods to sacrifice.

Their mothers and sisters sit in Polish and German refugee shelters, waiting for news. That dreaded news that no mother ever wants. It’s the waiting that’s most painful. The mothers know the Oligarchs agreed to the war. And the mothers know that western powers created the war. And the mothers know that the cocaine comic who ran on a peace mandate acquiesced to the war before showing his bloody fangs to the parliaments of the world begging for more weapons of war and more money and more cocaine and claimed “democracy” was at stake, as he was told.

And the mothers know it will be their sons who die for the Oligarchs, the western war powers, and the cocaine comic. They all dreamed of riches that could be justified by making Russia suffer and turning half of Ukraine into a post-apocalyptic hellscape. The mothers know their sons will be the ones to make their dreams come true.

And if they don’t know all this now, they will know it very soon one day after they get that call. And start asking questions. Why did my son have to die for this? Didn’t his dreams ever matter? How about my dreams for him?

It’s been two years in the fields, on the trucks, in the bombed-out concrete ruins of old brutalist apartment blocks, now gone forever. The only silver lining of the war. Thousands of youngbloods are already dead. (600,000 dead Ukrainian troops, 80,000 dead Russians.)

The living youngbloods are skinny, thirsty, tired. Their boots are worn down at the toes and heels. They haven’t showered for weeks. An American colonel yells orders at them with a southern drawl they can barely understand.

Soon the war will heat up. The eastern cauldrons will form. The Russians will surround them. The supply lines will grow thin and then stop and even with no water, food, or ammunition left to fight, the commands will come over the radios to the youngbloods of Ukraine, “The war will only end, with more war. Hold your positions.”

And the youngbloods who were conscripted into the NATO-CIA meat grinder will one day find themselves on some godforsaken pile of unfarmed dirt. They will look to their right flank and see Nazi hooligans that bullied and beat them at school and threatened to shoot them in the back if they deserted. Then to their left flank and see the pink flicking uvula of a screaming American Colonel they cannot comprehend, and in that moment of chaos and confusion and inevitable madness that they were forced into, they will grab their unloaded rifles and charge the Russian line.

A newfound burst of energy propels their skinny legs forward directly to the phalanx of Chechen warriors, eager to get their bayonets into Azov hearts. The youngbloods are racing, they’re in it, they’re moving now, they’re getting there. They haven’t felt more alive since they were told to die.

Their faces light up with smiles as they confront the inevitable, which finally makes sense as they meet it on their own terms, in their own way. As they hear the first cracks of Russian bullets overhead they turn to one another with the only sane weapon they have left and burst out in fits of raucous laughter. As youngbloods do."

"Addicted"

"Addicted"
by Charles Hugh Smith

"I realize nobody wants to hear that most of their "wealth" was conjured out of thin air, but there it is: and that which was conjured out of thin air will return to thin air. Something for nothing is a powerful attractor, but it doesn't offer a narrative that the delusionally self-important demand: I earned this by working hard and being smart. Oh, right, yeah, sure. It had nothing to do with currency being created out of thin air and made available to insiders, financiers, banks, etc., or being able to leverage this new money into ever-larger bets, all guaranteed to be winning trades by the Federal Reserve. Nope, you're all stone-cold geniuses.

Back in reality, tangible assets - real as opposed to financial conjuring - are at historic lows relative to financial-bubble assets. Tangible assets represent such a meager proportion of total assets that we might assume they could slip to zero without affecting our "wealth" much at all.

The Fed Is the “Greater Fool”: If we compare financial-bubble assets to the nation's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a (flawed) measure of real-world activity, we find they’re worth over six times the nation's real-world economy. This reflects what happens to valuations when "money" is created out of thin air and then leveraged into fantastic, monstrous illusions of "wealth." Assets are chasing their own tails higher, completely disconnected from the real world.

Here’s the sole dynamic driving assets higher: the Fed is the “greater fool.” What do I mean? Everyone knows the Fed will always save the day. Should valuations falter, buyers know there will always be a greater fool willing to pay more for an overvalued asset because the Fed has promised us it will always be the greater fool. This obviously isn’t just plain old normal healthy "capitalism" at work.

So by all means, lavish yourself with praise for your hard work and genius, and keep chasing your own tail because the Fed has promised us it will always be the greater fool. What a pretty fantasy. But aren’t we on "the road to recovery?” The "recovery" has an unfortunate but all-too accurate connotation: recovery from addiction.

No Recovery From Addiction to the Fed’s Free Money: The "recovery" does not include any treatment of the market's addiction to Federal Reserve free money for financiers. Rather, the "recovery" is entirely dependent on a never-ending speedball of Fed smack and crack and a booster of Fed financial meth.

The addiction to Fed speedballs had already turned the entire financial sector into a casino of lunatic junkies who delusionally believe they're all geniuses. Beneath the illusory stability of the god-like Fed has our back, the addiction to free money has completely destabilized America's social, political and economic orders by boosting wealth and income inequality to unprecedented extremes.

While it was convenient to blame the carnage on the response to the Covid pandemic, the damage to the speedball-addicted financial system had already reached extremes before the pandemic. The addiction began decades ago, but like all addictions, the amount of stimulus needed to maintain the high keeps expanding, and eventually the need can't be met without toxic doses: then the junkie addicted system collapses.

Both Smack and Crack: The ever-greater doses of Fed speedballs had unleashed both deflation (smack) and inflation (crack). Real returns on ordinary savings had been crushed to zero (deflation of ordinary income), and as the cost of capital/credit had been dropped to near-zero, then the purchasing power of wages has deflated while the speculative gains of those who own assets have soared (asset inflation).

By lowering the cost of capital to zero, the Fed had generated fatally perverse incentives. With the cost of capital at zero, it made sense to buy labor-saving technologies to replace costly labor - labor that is costly to employers because of America's perverse sickcare system, which burdens employers with ever-higher costs.

Not only have the Fed's free-money speedballs made it essentially free for financiers to speculate in the stock market casino, the Fed had rigged the game and bailed out its cronies whenever their bets soured. This has fueled infinite moral hazard: Go ahead and gamble with free money from the Fed, and go ahead and leverage it up 10-to-1 because the Fed will bail you out if you lose, but if you win, the stupendous gains are yours to keep.

The problem with addiction is you're dependent on the high, no matter what the eventual consequences may be. Long-term consequences are ignored because all that matters to the addict is to get the next Fed speedball and throw it on the gambling table to keep the high going.

Our entire economy is now dependent on ever-expanding speculative gains. Should the casino winnings falter, our economy will crash. And given the primacy of money and consumption in our society and political system, the financial collapse of the Fed's casino lunacy will sweep those systems over the falls.

The Fatal Consequences of Addiction: As the level of Fed smack and crack needed to maintain the high increases, system fragility increases geometrically. The irony of addiction is that when the crack/meth kicks in, the addict feels god-like, in control, invulnerable. This artificial confidence is entirely illusory, a deadly combination of delusion and hubris. In this delusional state of supreme confidence, the addict loses touch with reality, i.e. the fatal consequences of the addiction. That's the detour we've taken in becoming addicted to the Fed's free-money speedballs.

Now the road to recovery has ended in a trackless wilderness. There is no way back and no way forward. The addict's addled confidence will push them into the ice-cold river. And as they're swept over the falls, the realization that it was all a drug-induced delusion will come too late to make a difference."

"How It Really Is"

 

Gregory Mannarino, "Bank Runs Are Coming; Liquidity Crisis; Vastly Expanding Debt; More War"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 9/3/24
"Bank Runs Are Coming; Liquidity Crisis;
 Vastly Expanding Debt; More War"
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"Wars And Rumors Of War: Geopolitics"

Full screen recommended.
OpenmindedThinker Show, 9/3/24
"So… Israel Just Having A Secret Coup?"
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o
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 9/3/24
"Alastair Crooke: US Duped by Israeli Lies?"
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o
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 9/3/24
"Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: The Looming War With Iran"
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"8 Food Items That Are Set To Skyrocket In Price For Fall 2024!"

Adventures with Danno, 9/3/24
"8 Food Items That Are Set To Skyrocket
 In Price For Fall 2024!"
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"Holy Sh#t! NATO Is Preparing For A Decapitation Strike On Russia! WW3 Plans Accelerated!"

Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 9/3/24
"Holy Sh#t! NATO Is Preparing For A Decapitation
 Strike On Russia! WW3 Plans Accelerated!"
Russia thinks NATO is preparing for a decapitation strike and may strike first.
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Bill Bonner, "Another Bamboozle"

"Another Bamboozle"
Big bankers wanted to be able to make big bets without the 
risk of going broke. They solved that problem by creating the Fed in 1913.
 When business is good, they keep the profits. When bad, bailouts.
by Bill Bonner

"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back." - Carl Sagan

Poitou, France - "In her celebrated interview last week - her first! - Ms. Harris managed to answer some questions and not answer others, always in the same way, by giving out a line of talk, much rehearsed and little challenged. It is “important to find a common place of understanding where we can actually solve problems,” she said. The gist of our comment today: whatever problems she thinks she is solving... she’s creating much bigger ones.

The most obvious illustration: the US government is on target to run deficits of $2-$3 trillion per year - solving problems... many of them that were supposedly solved long ago. This will bring total government debt to nearly $60 trillion within the next ten years - assuming nothing goes wrong.

But we soar over the big picture today... and splash down into the swamp of details. In addition to trying to get corporations to stop gouging their customers... Ms. Harris proposes to give first-time house buyers a $25,000 gift. How nice for the buyers! But does that solve a problem?
Click image for larger size.
In 1971, the average house sold in the upper $20,000 range. The average wage, meanwhile, was around $10,000 per year. So, it would have taken less than three years’ wages to buy the house. If we recall correctly, no one thought that was a problem.

Today, the average house sells for $412,000. When Ms. Harris came into the White House, the average price was $260,000. So, house prices have gone up by $38,000 per year - the fastest pace in US history - while she was on watch. Now, the typical buyer has to save all of his income for nearly seven years - more than twice as long as 1971. These outsized price increases during Ms. Harris’s time as VP suggest not a shortage of demand, but too much of it... compared to the supply of houses for sale. Adding more demand (more money) will, most likely, boost prices even further.

But how did they get so high in the first place? Why did house prices shoot up so much right under Ms. Harris’s own nose? If there was too much demand, where did it come from? She hasn’t asked us. And she needn’t. Anyone with half a brain could tell her: the problem arises from previous efforts at problem solving.

First, the big bankers wanted to be able to make big bets, but without the risk of going broke. They solved that problem by creating the Fed in 1913. Now, when business is good, they keep the profits. When their bets go bad, they get bailed out by the Fed, generously sharing their losses with the public.

Then, in the late ‘60s, the feds spent far too much money on their ‘guns and butter’ programs - the War in Vietnam overseas and the Great Society at home. The solution? In 1971, they created a new kind of dollar - a credit money that they could “print” on demand and never have to settle up in gold. Now, the feds really could ‘just throw money’ at problems.

By the early 2000s, the Fed had become an activist problem solver, manipulating interest rates to stimulate or suppress the economy as needed. So, when the Nasdaq crashed and the economy slowed, it quickly cut its key lending rate by 500 basis points (5%). The lower rates stimulated a massive bull market in the real estate market, peaking in 2007.

This, of course, led to a mortgage finance crisis…which threatened to bankrupt some of the biggest institutions on Wall Street, including Goldman Sachs. But the solution of 1913 worked. Main Street (the real economy) got whacked hard, while Wall Street got a bailout. The Fed solved the larger problem (falling real estate prices) the way it solved the last one - with lower lending rates.

This time, it put its key rate below zero in real terms, and left it there for the better part of the next ten years. By the time Harris was sworn into the VP role, the average mortgage rate was less than 3.5% and it looked like rates would stay low forever. Naturally, housing prices kept going up. And now houses are once again so expensive that young families cannot afford them. And once again, Ms. Harris proposes to throw more money - the very thing it least needs - into the housing market. This is all so obvious that it makes us wonder: does Ms. Harris really want a solution? Or just another bamboozle?"

Monday, September 2, 2024

"Alert! A Black Swan Event Will Cripple The US Economy; The Mother Of All Housing Bubbles Is Here"

Jeremiah Babe, 9/2/24
"Alert! A Black Swan Event Will Cripple The US Economy;
 The Mother Of All Housing Bubbles Is Here"
Comments here:

"Geopolitics 9/2/24"

Full screen recommended.
"Pepe Escobar: Putin, China and Iran
 Drop Bombshell on Israel, Netanyahu Furious"
"Geopolitical Analyst Pepe Escobar reveals the shocking military maneuvers between Russia and Iran that has Israel, Netanyahu, and their U.S. military backers in absolute panic. Pepe also breaks down China's role as an economic juggernaut leading these multipolar powers toward a major confrontation with Israel and the empire of chaos."
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"Larry C. Johnson: Ukraine's Army Crushed by
 Kursk Incursion?! Israel Helpless Against Hezbollah?"
Comments here:

Musical Interlude: Adiemus, "Adiemus"

Full screen recommended.
Adiemus, "Adiemus"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“This shock wave plows through space at over 500,000 kilometers per hour. Moving toward to bottom of this beautifully detailed color composite, the thin, braided filaments are actually long ripples in a sheet of glowing gas seen almost edge on. Cataloged as NGC 2736, its narrow appearance suggests its popular name, the Pencil Nebula.
About 5 light-years long and a mere 800 light-years away, the Pencil Nebula is only a small part of the Vela supernova remnant. The Vela remnant itself is around 100 light-years in diameter and is the expanding debris cloud of a star that was seen to explode about 11,000 years ago. Initially, the shock wave was moving at millions of kilometers per hour but has slowed considerably, sweeping up surrounding interstellar gas.”

"Never Argue..."

 

Chet Raymo, “The Silence”

“The Silence”
by Chet Raymo

“The hiding places of my power
Seem open; I approach, and then they close;
I see by glimpses now; when age comes on,
May scarcely see at all, and I would give,
While yet we may, as far as words can give,
A substance and a life to what I feel…”

“These few lines from Wordsworth’s “The Prelude” leapt off the page at me. They capture well enough what my life has become. All those years of teaching, of writing in the Boston Globe, were years of sharing public knowledge, knowledge that had been vetted by the scientific community. The work was not about me. The teacher was me, the writer was me, but what I taught and wrote was reliable, consensus knowledge of the world. A student in my classes or a reader of my newspaper columns would have been hard pressed to know my politics or my religion or the nature of the questions that came in the darkest hours of the night. And that is the way it should have been; that was my homage to objectivity.

Those were valuable years, years of building up a sturdy polder in the sea of mystery, a place to stand with a firmness of foot. And now, in retirement, with time on my hands- and on my mind- I find myself more inclined to explore what Wordsworth called “the hiding places of my power.” I approach. They close. I touch with my hand the surface of the pond that Pat wrote about the other day; my hand comes out of the depths to meet me. I see by glimpses. It is, I suppose, a kind of forgetting. With the forgetting comes a certain freshness. My fingertip touches the surface of the world from above and from below, and concentric circles spread outwards, rippling, like a soundless sound, and I struggle, in words, as best I can, to give a substance and a life to what I feel.

This does not mean, I trust, that I am going soft, finding supernaturalist religion or getting all New Age squishy as “age comes on.” I keep my feet planted on solid fact and read my weekly “Science” and “Nature” along with my Wordsworth. No, it is rather a simple freedom to explore the hiding places, attending to private particulars as opposed to public universals, listening for the small voice that whispers from the nooks and crannies of yet unassimilated reality.

There is a passage in “The Prelude” where a young Boy (the poet?), standing in evening air by the glimmering lake, makes a mimic hooting with his hands to his mouth and the owls answer. Twooo-twooo. And the reply. Twooo-twooo. Then, unaccountably, the answers cease. And in the silence the boy becomes more keenly aware than ever of water, rocks, and woods, and mountain torrents, “that uncertain heaven, received into the bosom of the steady lake.” Thoreau has something similar. He rejoiced in owls; their hoot, he said, was a sound well suited to swamps and twilight woods. The interval between the hoots was a deepened silence, suggesting, to Thoreau, “a vast and undeveloped nature which men have not recognized.” It is that that I now attend: the deepened silence between the hoots.”

“Incidit In Scyllam Cupiens Vitare Charybdim”

“Incidit In Scyllam Cupiens Vitare Charybdim”
by Steve Candidus

“One of the great things about ancient Greek Mythology is that the stories all teach a lesson. They don’t end with – and the moral of the story is – though. They leave it to the reader to figure them out. So in addition to being just plain fun to read they are wonderful teachers about life. Perhaps the best thing about this one is that we still use the expression it contains exactly the same way that the ancient Greeks intended it almost 3,000 years ago. That almost never happens. Language is fluid and the meanings of words and expressions changes from one generation to another, but this one is an exception. The everyday expression it contains is one that we often refer to without really knowing where it came from.

This is one of the tales of Odysseus who was the heroic king of Ithaca and of whose ten-year journey back to Greece after the Trojan War was immortalized in Homer’s ‘Odyssey’. There was a point in his journey when his ship had to enter a narrow strait. It was a passage so narrow that it could only be made under special conditions. They had to have both the wind at their backs and the current in their direction. However, once committed it was impossible to turn back.

Unknown to the sailors the strait was guarded by two deadly perils. On the one side, it was guarded by Scylla. Scylla was a six-headed monster that disguised itself as a rock. On the other side, it was guarded by Charybdis, a terrible deadly whirlpool born of the sea god Poseidon.

In olden times, it was common to refer to any place that a ship came to rest on land as being in a hard place. It didn’t matter if it was blown on shore by a storm, grounded on a reef or brought up intentionally for repair. If it was on shore, it was on a hard place as opposed to the soft place – water.

It also applied to a ship that had foundered. A ship that sinks will eventually rest on the bottom. The land at the bottom of the ocean is therefore called a hard place. It used to be a common term, but it has since pretty much fallen out of practice in common language today. A deadly whirlpool such as Charybdis could take a ship and send it straight to the bottom – a hard place.

So, now as we return to the story of Odysseus we see that their ship had entered a narrow strait and that strait was guarded by two evil perils with hardly enough room for a ship to pass between them. They were forced to choose between the six headed monster ‘Scylla’ disguised as a rock or the dreaded whirlpool ‘Charybdis’ that would surely send them to a hard place and they could not turn back.

There is a Latin proverb from this story, “Incidit in Scyllam cupiens vitare Charybdim” which translates to, “He runs on Scylla, wishing to avoid Charybdis.” In modern day English, we simply say, “They were between a rock and a hard place”. And now you know…”

The Daily "Near You?"

Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa. Thanks for stopping by!

"The Life Of Man..."

"The life of Man is a long march through the night, surrounded by invisible foes, tortured by weariness and pain, towards a goal that few can hope to reach, and where none may tarry long. One by one, as they march, our comrades vanish from our sight, seized by the silent orders of omnipotent Death. Very brief is the time in which we can help them, in which their happiness or misery is decided. Be it ours to shed sunshine on their path, to lighten their sorrows by the balm of sympathy, to give them the pure joy of a never-tiring affection, to strengthen failing courage, to instill faith in times of despair."
- Bertrand Russell

"The Only Basic Human Duty..."

"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you
damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty,
the duty to take the consequences."
- P. J. O'Rourke

"The Twilight Zone"

"The Twilight Zone"
by Jeff Thomas

"Imagine if you will, a situation in which the economy of a nation is overdue to experience an economic collapse of epic proportions, but remains endlessly at the brink. Every day, a collapse is more likely, yet the economic house of cards remains in a state of suspended animation. Some people become increasingly edgy, while others become more complacent. Only a few choose to actually prepare for what’s coming. An impossible situation? Yes. But we’d be well-advised to recognize that it couldn’t only occur… in the Twilight Zone."

For those old enough to remember "The Twilight Zone," the quirky "what if" American television program, this episode introduction by host Rod Serling would seem to fit right into the show’s format. The program ran from 1959 to 1964, presenting somewhat unreal twists on the normal world we live in. Each episode would examine how people would deal with the episode’s situation and generally end with a moral lesson from Mister Serling as to the nature of mankind. Strangely, the above episode, as unlikely as it might have seemed a mere decade ago, is playing out in real life.

Stocks are climbing in price, whilst dividends are in decline or, for some of the fastest-growing companies, non-existent. Bonds are a worse bet, yet a bond bubble of epic proportion exists. The world’s governments are dumping US debt, yet the Fed is buying billions of dollars of debt each month. Indeed, debt is now growing at least twice as fast as the economy that must pay for it.

Quantitative Easing was invented to bail out banks in 2008, but continues to this day, long after the problem was claimed to have ended.

Benefits from Welfare and Social Security programs are at an all-time high, yet they’re underfunded to the point of certain collapse in the near future, independent of the other impending economic calamities.

Meanwhile, multiple unnecessary wars are being waged at a staggering cost to a nation that’s already insolvent, yet additional countries are being threatened with possible warfare if they don’t "behave."

We’re in the extraordinary situation of being in the longest boom period in history, yet there’s no real boom, only the illusion of one. At such a time, it would be predictable that those who have become worried would flood toward precious metals, as they have done for thousands of years, whenever the economic situation became untenable. Yet only a tiny portion of the world’s population are doing so.

Never in history have the major economies of the world been in an economic bubble that includes virtually everything. And yet, incredibly, this situation has existed for over a decade. Technically, we’ve been in a depression since 2007 and yet the bubble that should have burst back then simply keeps growing.

So, does this mean that the age of crashes is over, that the bubble can expand forever without bursting? Well, no. The bubble will most certainly burst, and the more inflates, the worse the eventual debacle will be. We’re therefore in a state of suspended animation, waiting for the shoe to drop.

Some of the best economic minds began to warn about the coming crash as its causes began to take shape decades ago. And almost to a man, they predicted that it would have taken place already, at least five years ago. But how might they have estimated a possible date for such an event? Economic crashes are notoriously difficult to pin down as to timing.

Well, all of them (and here I must include myself) made the assumption that conditions would have become so economically unsupportable by now that surely a collapse would have been a virtual certainty. And in this we were conceptually correct. Where we were mistaken was that all logic supported the assumption that, once conditions had reached that point, money would begin to exit the system, ensuring a crash.

Historically, this is always what happens. When a crash is near, the smart money makes an exit. Yet, this time around, whenever money has left the system, it has been replaced by dramatically increased debt, obscuring the fact that the smart money has begun its exit. Therefore, we’ve continued to appear as though we remain in a boom – the longest boom in history. Unfortunately, the vast majority of people are unable to recognize the plethora of signs that are indicating that the economy has been hollowed out. In addition, stats like inflation and unemployment have been fudged ever since the Clinton administration, to mislead the population into believing that they’ve not risen to depression levels.

The icing on the cake has been that the media – 80% of which are owned by the same six Deep State corporations – deliver a daily message that the economy is on the rise and the public should "buy, buy, buy!" Not surprisingly, those who provided an early warning to the coming economic crisis are regularly told, "You’ve been crying, ‘Wolf!’ for years. The crash hasn’t happened. You were wrong." And this criticism is not unearned. There’s no question that the timing has been prolonged beyond all expectations. However, the fundamentals remain the same and, today, are far more pronounced than they were in 2007.

Back then, we expected a small crash, which did occur, followed by the "eye of the hurricane," a quiet period of three to five years when a false recovery would take place. That "eye" proved to be artificially expanded by the Deep State’s diverse players, to the ultimate detriment of virtually all people. The second, major crash – predicted prior to 2007 to occur several years after the 2007 minor crash – is not only still looming; it’s more certain than ever before. The fundamentals remain the same and will reach their logical conclusion. To be sure, this has led those economists who have been tracking the pending economic debacle for decades, to have the sensation of suspended animation for several years.

Not surprising then, that the present state of affairs seems like an episode of The Twilight Zone, with the unfortunate twist that this is not a television show; it’s an artificially delayed reality. Whether it’s groceries, medical care, tuition, or rent, it seems the cost of everything is rising. It’s an established trend in motion that is accelerating, and now approaching a breaking point. At the same time, the world is facing a severe crisis on multiple fronts."

Dan, I Allegedly, "They Need to be Shut Down - The Recall That's Killing People"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly,  AM 9/2/24
"They Need to be Shut Down -
 The Recall That's Killing People"
"Boar's Head Recall: The Shocking Truth Uncovered! We've got a serious situation. Boar's Head, known for its high-end meats, faces a massive recall due to a listeria outbreak linked to multiple deaths and illnesses. This isn't just about bad meat - it's about trust, safety, and accountability."
Comments here:

"How It Really Is"

 

Gregory Mannarino, "Markets, A Look Ahead: Expect A Rapid And Devastating Systemic Meltdown"

Gregory Mannarino, 9/2/24
"Markets, A Look Ahead: 
Expect A Rapid And Devastating Systemic Meltdown"
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"Worst Financial Reset (Over-Priced Everything)
 with Adam Taggart"
Over-priced, unaffordable, everything (housing included)!
 Great Depression 2.0. moves closer to reality.

"What’s Coming is Worse Than 1929 Depression, It Will Last For Decades"

Full screen recommended.
Proactive Thinker, 8/24/24
"What’s Coming is Worse Than 1929 Depression,
 It Will Last For Decades"
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
"Peter Schiff’s Last Warning:
 'The Crash Will Be Worse Than 2008'"
"Peter D. Schiff is an economist, stock broker, financial specialist, host of the Peter Schiff Show Podcast, and author. He is the CEO and chief global strategist of Euro Pacific Capital Inc. Mr. Schiff has also written a number of books on investing over the years. He educates people all over the world about free market economics and the principles and benefits of individual liberty, limited government and sound money."
Comments here:

“'Law' As A Mind Trick"

“'Law' As A Mind Trick"
by Paul Rosenberg

"About half the time it is used, the word “law” is fairly close to a mind trick, and there is nothing noble, righteous, or even ‘conservative’ in that. More or less all of us were pushed into the trick, which complicates things because people don’t like to admit anything that smells like a mistake.

Having been taught, repeatedly, to “respect the law,” nearly all of us have decided certain things must be right, simply because they were “the law.” We decided this, not because we understood the benefits that would follow certain actions, but because of repetitive prodding. And so it’s important to be clear on this: To uncritically, reflexively obey is not respect. Respect requires understanding.

Our habitual obedience, as it happens, came largely from intimidation: Obey, or else teacher will shame you; the other kids will laugh at you; important people will criticize you in public. Please note all of these are primitive, degrading reasons, but they were thrust upon us as children and they very often stuck.

The really damaging part, however, comes after you obey out of fear: when you justify your past actions. Again, not many of us enjoy admitting our errors, but if we want to become honest, conscious adults, that is precisely what we need to do.

There’s Law, and Then There’s Law: In the modern West, particularly in the US, there are two different kinds of law (common law and statute law). Unfortunately they are usually rolled up together and placed under a single tag. That’s a major part of this problem.

If the early days of Western civilization, law was simply the process of determining what was just. Law was considered good if it were reasonable, fair, and had stood the test of time. And that’s all. Law, in the old days, was developed locally, and judges were simply trusted men who reasoned well. The form we in the English-speaking world know best was the common law of England, and it was precisely this type of law. In fact, the historical record shows early English kings having to adopt customary law.

To understand how law based on reason and experience turned into what we have now, this needs to be grasped: Until recent times, law was not legislation. I know this is contrary to what you’ve understood, but it’s true all the same. Legislation is primarily a modern invention. Law in the old days was not made by politicians or even by princes (those were edicts). Law was, as we said above, the process of determining what was just. The common law was created and updated by judges, not by legislators.

To buttress this point, consider that when English philosopher Jeremy Bentham died in 1832, he was revered as “the founder of modern legislation.” I won’t belabor this point, but consider these two statements, please:

Legislation displaces law that is based upon reason and experience.
Legislation is the edict of politicians.

Under legislation, reason and experience are not required. Politicians create this type of law and can change it on a whim.

So…Is it sensible to worship the words of people we also condemn? And if we hold those words above critical thought, are we not holding them above reality? Is that not a kind of idolatry? We idolized law because we were trained to, of course, but we’re adults now; we should correct the errors of our youth. The law of reason and experience always stands, simply because it is reasonable and useful. An uncritical respect for legislation, on the other hand, requires us to bypass our minds and sacrifice our will."

Bill Bonner, "National Security And National Survival"

"National Security And National Survival"
"The feds, desperate to hold onto power, clamp down. Free speech is banned. Critics are silenced. Political candidates are selected - not in the rough and tumble of real democracy - but by party insiders."
by Bill Bonner

Poitou, France - "By popular demand! We’re going to take today off. It’s Labor Day, after all. But if our ‘Primary Trend’ picture is clear... Western consensual democracies are becoming less and less consensual. The model - take from young, growing, prosperous generations... give to old voters - is becoming less attractive. Because younger generations are smaller than they used to be. And less prosperous.

And the Empire is so larded with the burdens of the past - programs that never worked... wars that couldn’t be won... transfer payments to parasites and shysters - there is little energy or money left for the future. Already, the US public debt is more than America’s entire annual output…and combined with private debt, it is nearly four times GDP.

The voters are fed up. They turn away from the center... towards the extremes. Bloomberg: "Populists Surge in Germany’s Regional Votes, Humbling Scholz." "Far-right AfD on course to win regional ballot for first time. Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s ruling coalition was punished in two regional elections in eastern Germany on Sunday, with populist parties on the extreme right and left taking more than 60% of the vote in Thuringia and almost half in Saxony."

The Alternative for Germany is on course for a clear victory in Thuringia on 32.8%, according to projections for public broadcaster ARD. It represents the first triumph for a far-right party in a German state ballot since World War II, even if it’s highly unlikely to be able to form a government as it’s shunned by the other parties represented in parliament.

The feds, desperate to hold onto power, clamp down. Free speech is banned. Critics are silenced. Political candidates are selected - not in the rough and tumble of real democracy - but by party insiders.

The only way to keep the money flowing to key elites and the voters is to inflate the currency. And the only thing that will keep the public on board with the program is war. Nothing aligns the antediluvian passions of The People and the venal self-interests of the elite better than war. It marshals together the resources of the nation... and the emotions of the masses... for a great cause - national security... even national survival.

Anyone who resists can be branded a traitor. In the old days, he might have had his nose cut off. Today, they may cut off his credit card. But it’s Labor Day. No need to worry about the future now. So we will wait ‘til tomorrow to do our heavy fretting. As always... more to come."

Research Note, by Dan Denning: "On Friday, Bill mentioned that Telegram CEO Pavel Durov was arrested by French authorities for the lack of content moderation on the messaging service used by nearly one billion people. The authorities claim Telegram is used to facilitate drug trafficking and the distribution of illegal materials.

The assault on free speech and the promotion of censorship intensified over the long weekend. Former Clinton Secretary of Labor Robert Reich said Elon Musk should be arrested by ‘global regulators’ for ‘disseminating lies and hate’ on X (formerly known as Twitter). Meanwhile, a judge in Brazil banned Twitter in the country, joining a list of authoritarian countries blocking public access to the platform.

Here in the United States, Constitution Day is September 17th (Utah even has an entire Constitution Month that began yesterday!). Constitution Day commemorates the 237th anniversary of the signing of the Constitution in 1787. It was ratified by all 13 Colonies over a year later, with Rhode Island being the last to sign on (Rhode Island even proposed a comprehensive list additional rights and amendments that were not in the Constitution as ratified but would later appear in the Bill of Rights).

But an article published in the New York Times over the weekend makes the case that the Constitution is not only out-dated, it’s dangerous! The article rehashes the key points in a new book by Erwin Chermerinsky called "No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States."

In this interview on MSNBC, the Dean of Berkeley’s law school says the most outdated and dangerous parts of the Constitution are lifetime appointments for Supreme Court justices, the Electoral College, and Article 1, Section Three, Clause 1, which gives each State two Senators. Reform of these outdated provisions, through statute or a Constitutional convention, may be necessary to prevent a new wave of secession in the coming years, or the end of the Republic altogether.

Unsurprisingly, all these ‘reforms’ would concentrate even more power - including the power to restrict and censor speech - with the Federal government and especially Congress. For example, if Senate seats were apportioned based on the size of a State’s population instead of the principle of Federalism (in which each State has two Senators regardless of size), California would have twelve Senators, Texas would have nine, and Florida and New York would each have six. I’m not sure Wyoming would have one!

In theory, these ‘reforms’ would be far easier to amend the Constitutions - and make ‘common sense’ and ‘reasonable’ restrictions on the 1st and 2nd amendments - if the size of the Senate were based on each State’s population and the Supreme Court was either expanded or Justices ‘term limited’ (no term limits for Congress, of course!)

What do you think? Which is the bigger threat to ‘democracy,’ the Constitution or the Congress? Exercise your free speech (while it lasts) by leaving a comment below. And from all of us at Bonner Private Research, enjoy your Labor Day!"