“Allegory Of The Cave Updated”

“Allegory Of The Cave Updated”

by T4C

"Socrates: “Why do people think philosophy is bullsh*t? Let me put it this way - imagine you’re in a cave, all chained up so you can’t turn your body at all, and all you get to look at is this one wall. Some fools behind you are making shadow puppets using the light from a fire and making echo noises and that’s all you or anyone else chained up has seen or heard all your life. Sounds terrible, right? Except it’s all you’ve ever known, shadows and echoes, and that’s your whole world - there’s no way you could know that, really, you’re watching a slightly-improved M. Night Shyamalan film.

In fact, you get pretty good at understanding how the patterns in the show work, and everyone else chained up is like, ‘Holy sh*t bro, how did you know that that tree was going to fall on that guy?’ and you’re like, ‘It’s because I f*****g pay attention and I’m smart as sh*t.’ You’re the smartest of the chained, and they all revere you.”

Glaucon: “But Socrates, a tree didn’t really hit a guy. It’s all shadows.”

Socrates:  “No sh*t, Glaucon, but you don’t know that. You think the shadows are real things. Everyone does. Now STFU and let me finish.

So eventually, someone comes and unchains you and drags you out of the cave. At first you’d say, ‘Seriously, what the f**k is going on?!’ Well, actually, at first you’d say, ‘HOLY SH*T MY EYES’ and you’d want to go back to the safe, familiar shadows.” But even once your eyes worked you wouldn’t believe them, because everything you ever thought was real is gone. You’d look at a tree, and say ‘That’s not a tree. I know trees. And you, sir, are no tree. THAT DOWN THERE is a tree.’ But you’re wrong. Down there is a shadow of a tree.

Slowly, as your eyes got better, you’d see more and more. Eventually, you’d see the sun, and realize that it’s the source of all light. You can’t see sh*t without the sun. And eventually, you’d figure it out. Something would click in your brain: ‘oh, sh*t, that IS a tree. F**k me. So… nothing in the cave was real? I feel like such an assh**e.’ 

But it’s not your fault, so don’t be so hard on yourself. Finally you’d want to go down and tell everyone about everything you’ve discovered. Except, and here’s the hilarious part, they think you’ve gone f*****g crazy. 

You’d say, ‘Guys, real trees are green!’ and they’d say, ‘What the f**k is green? THAT is a tree over there.’ And you’d squint and look at the wall, but you know you’re f***ed because now you’re used to having sunlight, and now you can’t see sh*t. So they’d laugh at you, and agree that wherever it was that you went, no one should go there because it turns people into idiots.

Philosophy, same thing. The soul ascends and apprehends the forms, the nature of everything, and eventually the very Idea of Good that gives light to everything else. And then the philosopher has to go back to the cave and try to explain it to people who don’t even know what Green is, to say nothing of the Good. But the philosopher didn’t make up the Good, it was always there, and the only way to really make sense of it is to uncover it for yourself. You can’t force knowledge into a dumbass any more than you can force sight into a blind man.

So if you want to learn, be prepared for a difficult journey, and be prepared to make some mistakes. That’s okay, it’s all part of the process. True knowledge must be obtained the hard way, and some people just don’t want to see the light.”

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

◆

Put another way...

"In 'The Republic', Plato imagines human beings chained for the duration of their lives in an underground cave, knowing nothing but darkness. Their gaze is confined to the cave wall, upon which shadows of the world are thrown. They believe these flickering shadows are reality. If, Plato writes, one of these prisoners is freed and brought into the sunlight, he will suffer great pain. Blinded by the glare, he is unable to seeing anything and longs for the familiar darkness. But eventually his eyes adjust to the light. The illusion of the tiny shadows is obliterated. He confronts the immensity, chaos, and confusion of reality. The world is no longer drawn in simple silhouettes. But he is despised when he returns to the cave. He is unable to see in the dark as he used to. Those who never left the cave ridicule him and swear never to go into the light lest they be blinded as well."

- Chris Hedges

"Don't Imagine..."

"We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men. Do remember that dishonesty and cowardice always have to be paid for. Don't imagine that for years on end you can make yourself the boot-licking propagandist of any régime, and then suddenly return to mental decency."

- George Orwell

"Be Open Minded..."

"Be open minded, but not so open 

minded that your brains fall out."

-  Groucho Marx

"Who Are the 'Elite'”?

"Who Are the 'Elite'”?

by Todd Hayen

"People are always correcting me when I use the term “elite” to describe that group of “people” (or maybe lizards) who are calling the shots and who created the “agenda” and want the rest of us (useless eaters) either under their thumb or dead.

The people who correct me claim these people (or lizards) are not “elite” which falsely implies “better,” “advanced,” or “special.” They don’t want to give these people (or lizards) any credit they do not deserve. I get it. The clear and indisputable official definition of “elite” is: “A group or class of persons considered to be superior to others because of their intelligence, social standing, or wealth.” But who is doing the “considering” - them, or us, the “non-elite”?

However, it is an easy word to use to describe a group, just like “sheep” and “shrew” are easy to use. It’s not necessarily wholly accurate, but everyone knows what I am referring to when I use these terms. I get the same sort of criticism when I use the phrase “powers that be” - many people want me to use the more awkward expression, “powers that shouldn’t be” - yes, more accurate, but more awkward.

So, what about these “elite?” Who are they and what are they up to, and why are they considered, at least by themselves, to be “better,” “advanced” and “special?” What do they all have in common other than evil? Are they all evil? Are they actually lizards?

Well, I would venture to say the one thing they all unquestionably have in common is money - or at least the control over large amounts of money. A second common denominator is probably “power”—but isn’t that a given? To have money, you automatically have power.

Here are a few facts and figures to throw around. The wealthiest folks in the world are Elon Musk (worth over $230 billion), Bernard Arnault and family (worth over $200 billion), Jeff Bezos (worth over $160 billion) and Bill Gates (worth over $130 billion). As I am sure you’ve heard a million times before, the richest 1% of people hold more than 40% of the world’s total wealth. While the bottom 50% control less than 2%. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

These numbers, and people’s names attributed to be the wealthiest, could be outdated, incomplete, or even inaccurate. Who knows. And as with everything else, be skeptical. I could go on and on with these statistics, but you get the picture. And none of this is a mystery. But there still is a mystery here; things about these people and the lives they live, none of us know thoroughly. We can guess, of course. We can read books and articles about them and watch them in movies and video clips, but do we really know how they think, what they feel, or what level of empathy they are capable of? Or to what lengths they will go to preserve their “elite-ness?”

That’s a mystery. Sure, some of us have a better idea than others. There are people out there who have experienced the reverse of “rags to riches” and are actually wallowing around in squalor due to some form of accountability going awry or just their own stupidity, causing their fortune to skitter away due to one or another inept act or decision. Some “elite” wind up in prison, but even there, they may be treated like “inmate elites” and have the best of that world as they had the best of the world in general before incarceration. Being elite is a relative thing. “King among thieves” as they say.

The ones out in the world who have an impact on us peons are not just Kardashian-types who flit around in their multi-million-dollar yachts and private jets and buy expensive clothes at Louis Vuitton’s or Gucci’s. These are people who literally control the world. They control it through the manipulation of governments and leaders, through real estate, and business holdings. They control it through selective wars and conflicts, banking, currency manipulation, pharmaceuticals and global health policies

People are generally under the false impression that democracy runs the free world. It doesn’t. In the sort of democracy we are referring to when using the word “democracy,” each person who casts a ballot gets an equal vote. In the true democracy that runs the world, each $100 bill gets an equal vote, not a person.

So what, you might say. “If these folks are smart and are good businessmen and women, then why should we worry that they call the shots?” Because it is their lifestyle they want to preserve, not ours. They want a world that caters to them and what they find valuable.

As I said earlier, the mystery we encounter with these people is so profound that we typically ignore it. We believe them to be basically the same as us; in fact, we see them to be the ultimate of what we would desire to be ourselves (not all of you, of course, but a lot). For the most part, most people see them as elite. Superior, desirable, and free to do with their lives what they want. Unfortunately, they are not the same as us. Anyone who lives the style of life these people live, has changed psychologically to something that does not resemble, in the least, what we believe a human being to be.

Now, a disclaimer, I am fully aware this does not apply to every single one of these wealthy and powerful people. There are still some who come upon great wealth and do not lose their humanity. Maybe more than I presently imagine. Love and compassion is a powerful force that is very difficult to completely cover up. I think this is one reason why David Icke came up with his “Reptoid” theory proclaiming that “a race of shape-shifting reptilian beings, originating from another dimension or planet, secretly controls the world by taking on human forms and infiltrating positions of power thus manipulating global events to maintain control over humanity.” If this were true then we would not have to “dehumanize” fellow human beings, we would just have to accept that they are inhuman shape shifting alien reptiles—not human at all. That’s a lot easier to grok. Of course, Icke may be correct and Reptoids may not be just a metaphor. It certainly would answer a lot of questions if he were.

If completely consumed by the evils of consumerism (and most people these days are) these people do not want to live with less than what they already have, no matter how much that might be. If someone has $1,000 they don’t want to lose $500. If someone has $200 billion, they don’t want to lose $100 billion. If someone drives a BMW, they don’t want to drive a Kia, if someone drives a Lamborghini, they don’t want to drive a BMW. If someone flies around in their Gulfstream private jet, they don’t want to fly coach on Air Canada. This is an advanced form of the survival instinct.

People with money, power, and assets, believe if they lose even a fraction of these things, they will not survive. This is an aspect of the incentive of these people that I believe most of us peons do not factor in. When we believe that our leaders could not possibly do anything without us useless eaters being considered, we don’t realize that all the incentives the actual puppet masters have in the world are for their own survival - and their definition of “survival” is radically different than ours. This includes continued control of the wealth and global resources, it includes control and power over the masses, and may even include eliminating the chaff - the useless eaters. Wow, if that isn’t doomsaying, I don’t know what is.

Well, we do have numbers in our favor. If we all woke up and peacefully made changes, we could still get a handle on this. But, obviously, these folks (or lizards) have a pretty good thumb on all of us. Their psyops are highly effective. Let’s hope that changes."

- https://off-guardian.org/

Todd Hayen PhD is a registered psychotherapist practicing in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He holds a PhD in depth psychotherapy and an MA in Consciousness Studies. He specializes in Jungian, archetypal, psychology. Todd also writes for his own substack, which you can read here.

Dr. Hayen's references to "lizards" is best explained here:

- https://coyoteprimeblog2.blogspot.com/

o

BlazeTV, 12/29/24

"Kash Patel on The Deep State and

 Who's Really Been Running the Country"

"Glenn Beck interviews Kash Patel who is Donald Trump's choice to lead the FBI. Patel worked with the National Security Council, the secretary of defense, and the Department of Justice. And he spearheaded the investigation into Russia’s campaign to influence the 2016 election - meaning he knows what was really Russian disinformation and what was the Deep State and the Clinton campaign’s meddling. He saw the Deep State firsthand, fought it, and he’s naming names. And it’s all going up on Glenn’s chalkboard..."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Lake Village, Indiana, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

“Screw The Way Things Are, I Want Out!”

“Screw The Way Things Are, I Want Out!”

by Paul Rosenberg

“This is a beautiful planet, filled, in the main, with decent, cooperative humans. And yet, I want out. Give me any kind of functional spaceship and any reasonable chance, and I’ll take it.  This place is anti-human. It chokes the best that’s in us, aggressively and self-righteously. I was struck not long ago by a comment of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s, in which he expressed the same kind of feeling: “I ought to have become a star in the sky. Instead of which I have remained stuck on earth…”

All of us who’ve had a moment of transcendence - who made some type of contact with what is truly the best inside ourselves - have also sensed that life in the current world is incompatible with it. I think we should stop burying that understanding beneath piles of “that’s the way things are,” “we should be realistic,” and “you can’t fight City Hall.”

Screw the way things are, screw “realistic,” and screw City Hall too. I was made for better things than this, and you were too.

Everywhere I turn, some kind of ruler, sub-ruler, enforcer, regulator, or “right-thinking” quasi-enforcer demands not only my money but also for me to make myself easy to punish, thus showing myself to be a good subservient. That’s not just wrong; it’s a disease. I don’t care whether such people are “following orders,” “just doing their job,” or whatever else they tell themselves to soothe their rightly troubled souls. That mode of living is perverse, and these people are enforcing a disease.

Let me make this part very clear: The desire to control others is disease; it is corruption. Willing controllers are a morally inferior class. And the truly deranged thing is that these people rule the world! Forget about why this is so - we can debate that later - focus rather on the utter insanity of this: A minority of moral defectives, who think extortion is a virtue, rule people who are happy to live and let live, by force.

That’s outright lunacy. And to support the lunacy, we have lies, intimidation, and slogans: “In a democracy, you’re really ruling yourself,” “Only crazy people disagree,” “It’s always been this way,” and so on. To all of which I reply, How stupid do you think we are? You drilled that crap into us when we were children, but we’re not children anymore. And if “our way” isn’t as bad as North Korea, that makes it right? Only to a fool.

And the results of “the way it’s always been”… my God, the results… A study from the 1980s found that since 3600 BC, the world has known only 292 years of peace. During this period there have been 14,531 wars, large and small, in which 3.6 billion people have been killed.

This is what I’m supposed to serve with all my heart and soul? A Bronze Age system that can’t keep itself from slaughter? We’re talking about a 5,600-year track record of mass death, and yet fundamental change is considered unthinkable? Well, screw that too, because I think deep, fundamental change is called for, and was called for a long time ago.

Again, this is a wonderful planet and most of the people on it are decent, but it is ruled by insanity, and I want out. Yes, I know, there’s really nowhere to go. Every place I might go is dominated by the same diseased model, and dissent is punished the same, and in some places worse. That’s one of the reasons space appeals to me; it gives me a chance to escape this madness.

I’ll draw this to a close with a passage from C. Delisle Burns’s wonderful "The First Europe," describing why the Roman Empire collapsed: “Great numbers of men and women were unwilling to make the effort required for the maintenance of the old order, not because they were not good enough to fulfill their civic duties, but because they were too good to be satisfied with a system from which so few derived benefit.”

I, for one, am unwilling to expend any effort to maintain the present order. It is by its nature incompatible with the best that is in us, and always will be. Those of us who want to be more and better cannot support the current order without opposing what’s best in ourselves. Screw that.”

- https://www.freemansperspective.com/

"If We're Lucky..."

“Maybe we accept the dream has become a nightmare. We tell ourselves that reality is better. We convince ourselves it’s better that we never dream at all. But, the strongest of us, the most determined of us, holds on to the dream or we find ourselves faced with a fresh dream we never considered. We wake to find ourselves, against all odds, feeling hopeful. And, if we’re lucky, we realize in the face of everything, in the face of life the true dream is being able to dream at all.”

- Dr. Meredith Grey, "Grey's Anatomy"

"This Species is Amusing Itself to Death. The Addictive Contaminated Media Reality"

"This Species is Amusing Itself to Death.

The Addictive Contaminated Media Reality"

By Dr. Gary G. Kohls

“And when they found our shadows (grouped ‘round the TV sets), they ran down every lead; they repeated every test; they checked out all the data in their lists. And then the alien anthropologists admitted they were still perplexed, but on eliminating every other reason for our sad demise they logged the only explanation left: This species has amused itself to death.”  - Roger Waters

“Apathy and indifference are nurtured in the modern age as most peoples’ free time is frittered away with worthless trivia like ball games, computer games, movies and soaps, and fiddling with their mobile phones. These distractions might be fun, but after most of them you’ve learnt nothing of any value, and remain ignorant, malleable and suggestible, which is just how the elites want you.” – Clive Maund

“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

“A lie gets halfway around the world before

the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”

– Winston Churchill

"30 years ago (1985) Neil Postman (a professor of communications arts and sciences at New York University – until his death in 2003) wrote the best-selling book “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business”. (Free download below.) The book exposed, among other things, the subtle but profound dangers to the developing mind from the mesmerizing (and addictive) commercial television industry.

The lessons from that book have essentially been ignored by the amoral and corrupted sociopathic capitalist system that says “damn the torpedoes/full steam ahead” and blindly and greedily promotes unlimited growth no matter what the costs and who or what gets hurt long–term in the resource-extractive, exploitive and permanently polluting processes.

But Postman’s thesis applies even more strongly today to the current internet/computer/ age-inappropriate, pornographic sex and pornographic violence-saturated televangelist/political-contaminated media reality with which the prophetic Postman was properly alarmed.

SOMA, the Drug That Predicted Prozac by 50 Years: In the classic “Brave New World” (1932) Aldous Huxley wrote about the new form of totalitarianism that has now come to pass in the developed world, thanks to the privatized profit-driven, drug, medical and psychiatric corporations whose practitioners were once (naively or altruistically?) mainly concerned with relieving human suffering and trying to holistically and permanently cure their distressed patients’ ailments (rather than lucratively “managing” said “clients” as permanently paying consumers of unaffordable prescription drugs). Nearly 30 years after he wrote the book, Huxley said,

“And it seems to me perfectly in the cards that there will be within the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda, brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods.” Neil Postman’s very last sentence of his book concerned the prescription drug-infested victims of the new form of totalitarianism that Huxley had described in “Brave New World”.

Of course, Huxley’s book was all about his imaginary psychotropic drug SOMA that Prozac’s makers and promoters in the late 1980s to falsely claim to make its swallowers “feel better than well”. One of the characters in Brave New World said: “And if ever, by some unlucky chance, anything unpleasant should somehow happen, why, there’s always Soma to give you a holiday from the facts. And there’s always Soma to calm your anger, to reconcile you to your enemies, to make you patient and long-suffering. In the past you could only accomplish these things by making a great effort and after years of hard moral training. Now, you swallow two or three half-gramme tablets, and there you are. Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your morality about in a bottle. Christianity without tears; that’s what Soma is.”

Postman ended his book by writing: “What afflicted the people in Brave New World was not that they were laughing instead of thinking, but that they did not know what they were laughing about and why they had stopped thinking.” A couple of years after the publication of Postman’s book, Roger Waters (of “Pink Floyd’s The Wall” fame) released a “concept” album that was inspired by the book. He titled the album “Amused to Death”. The lyrics of the title track are as follows:

“Amused To Death”

by Roger Waters

"Doctor, Doctor what’s wrong with me?

This supermarket life is getting long.

What is the heart life of a color TV?

What is the shelf life of a teenage

queen?

Ooh western woman,

Ooh western girl,

News hound sniffs the air

When Jessica Hahn goes down

He latches on to that symbol of

detachment

Attracted by the peeling away of

feeling

The celebrity of the abused shell

of the belle

Ooh western woman

Ooh western girl

And the children of Melrose strut

their stuff

Is absolute zero cold enough?

And out in the valley warm and clean

The little ones sit by their TV screens

No thoughts to think

No tears to cry

All sucked dry down to the very

last breath.

Bartender what is wrong with me,

Why I am so out of breath?

The captain said excuse me ma’am,

This species has amused itself to death

We watched the tragedy unfold,

We did as we were told.

We bought and sold,

It was the greatest show on earth.

But then it was over,

We oohed and aahed,

We drove our racing cars,

We ate our last few jars of caviar,

And somewhere out there in the stars

A keen-eyed look-out

Spied a flickering light

Our last hurrah.

And when they found our shadows,

Grouped ‘round the TV sets,

They ran down every lead

They repeated every test,

They checked out all the data in

their lists.

And then the alien anthropologists

Admitted they were still perplexed.

But on eliminating every other reason

For our sad demise,

They logged the only explanation left.

This species has amused itself to death.

No tears to cry,

No feelings left,

This species has amused itself to

death…"

- https://www.globalresearch.ca/

○

Freely download “Amusing Ourselves to Death:

Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business”, by Neil Postman, here:

- https://interesi.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/amusing.pdf

"How It Really Is"

“One could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness."

- Hannah Arendt, "The Origins of Totalitarianism"

Of course, we know very well what to expect...

Gregory Mannarino, "Markets and The Economy: A Grand Deception And A Fundamental Lie"

"Markets and The Economy: 

A Grand Deception And A Fundamental Lie"

By Gregory Mannarino

"Quick review: In finance and economics there exists only two fundamental truths, which when implemented are beneficial to We the People of the world. These two fundamental truths are:

1. To have a strong economy you need a strong currency. A strong currency meaning having purchasing power, not relative strength. (Relative strength refers ONLY to comparative strength). Both the mainstream media and politicians prey on people not being aware of the difference between relative/comparative strength, and absolute strength, referring to purchasing power. Politicians will say things like “our currency is strong.” This is deceptive, as most people perceive this as the currency having strong purchasing power.

2. To have a strong currency, meaning high purchasing power, you need a corresponding rate of interest high enough to support the purchasing power of the currency.

The two above listed fundamental truths are universal. However, when these two fundamental truths are flipped upside down, both the economy and the people suffer. However, for those who run the system and know how to take advantage of it, they benefit GREATLY by turning them upside down.

Selling a fundamental lie: Central bankers, Politicians, and Wall Street all work closely together, and are in the business of selling lies, deceptions, distractions, half-truths, backtracking, propagating public misinformation and the like, (devilism in my opinion).

An integral part of their coordinated deception is selling We the People of the world on the grand idea that “lower rates is what we need to make our economy strong.” (Go ahead, make it up). If we understand that lower rates steal purchasing power from the currency, how is this beneficial to the economy and the people?

Having lower rates sounds good to those seeking to borrow however, having lower rates means that you now need to borrow more weakened currency, (brought about directly by lower rates). Moreover, now it will take even more devalued currency to pay back what you borrowed.

The overall effect of lower rates and therefore currency purchasing power losses is inflation. Moreover, the effect of low rates creates massive price action distortions. By weakening the currency and therefore creating inflation/weakening the economy, low rates are also responsible for producing asset bubbles/stock market bubbles AND real estate bubbles. (Today losses of currency purchasing power are also, among other things, causing cash to seek yield in cryptocurrencies). Low rates inflate stock market and real estate bubbles.

Cash always seeks yield! Low rates are directly responsible for inflating stock market bubbles. When rates are low, it opens a doorway for cash to flow into risk assets like stocks. This mechanism invariably leads to wild speculation in the stock market, and the result is massive price action distortions/stock market bubbles.

Low rates, and therefore currency purchasing power losses, inflate real estate/housing prices. The result is higher rent and vastly inflated real estate prices. Lower rates and therefore currency purchasing power losses also lower our standard of living. People now must work harder, and longer, to acquire more devalued currency to maintain a particular lifestyle.

Lower rates accelerate global debt hyper-bubbles: The simplest way to put a perspective on how lower rates accelerates debt hyper-bubbles is this. As lower rates are responsible for currency purchasing power losses, the demand for more currency grows.

The effect of lower rates/currency purchasing power destruction is an economic wrecking machine however, this mechanism allows central banks to inflate/introduce more “new money” into the system. The effect of new money pumped into the system does not affect all people equally, as those closest to the money benefit. This “close to the money benefit” is due to the inherent lag effect of how cash moves through an economy. (To further understand this principal, look up The Cantillion Effect).

Stock market investors, real estate investors, cryptocurrency investors, Wall Street Superbanks, Central Banks, the ultrarich, multinational corporations, all benefit from low rates/currency purchasing power losses by knowing how to capitalize on price action distortions. Low rates, and the promise of even lower rates to come, (possible even negative rates, as the world economy freefalls faster), will assure the creation of a modern global neo-feudalistic paradigm."

- https://traderschoice.net/

Dan, I Allegedly, "It’s Time to Buy Nothing"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, 1/18/25

"It’s Time to Buy Nothing"

"Discover how the 'Buy Nothing' Challenge can completely transform your finances in 2025! In this video, I dive into the powerful concept of cutting out unnecessary spending and focusing only on essentials to save big and live smart. From my daughter ditching food delivery apps to friends saving for their dream homes, you'll hear real-life stories of how people are embracing this lifestyle to build financial security. This isn't just about saving money -  it's about gaining control over your finances, creating an emergency stash, and preparing for anything life throws your way. I share practical tips, like tracking daily expenses, avoiding wasteful habits, and surrounding yourself with like-minded, motivated people who inspire growth. With the economy facing uncertainties, there's never been a better time to try this challenge. Don't let paycheck delays or rising costs derail your goals - start taking control today."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"How A Russia vs. US Nuclear War Will Start"

Danny Haiphong, 1/17/25

"How A Russia vs. US Nuclear War Will Start"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Jeremiah Babe, "Alert! Pilots Scan D.C. For Nuclear Threat; Struggling Americans Won't Survive Collapse"

Jeremiah Babe, 1/17/25

"Alert! Pilots Scan D.C. For Nuclear Threat; 

Struggling Americans Won't Survive Collapse"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Judge Napolitano, "INTEL Roundtable w/Johnson & Scott Ritter in for Ray McGovern"

Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 1/17/25

"INTEL Roundtable w/Johnson & 

Scott Ritter in for Ray McGovern"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Juzzie Smith, "Bluesberry Jam"

Juzzie Smith, "Bluesberry Jam"

Incredible one-man band!

"A Look to the Heavens"

“To some, the outline of the open cluster of stars M6 resembles a butterfly. M6, also known as NGC 6405, spans about 20 light-years and lies about 2,000 light years distant. M6 can best be seen in a dark sky with binoculars towards the constellation of Scorpius, covering about as much of the sky as the full moon.

Like other open clusters, M6 is composed predominantly of young blue stars, although the brightest star is nearly orange. M6 is estimated to be about 100 million years old. Determining the distance to clusters like M6 helps astronomers calibrate the distance scale of the universe.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110906.html

Chet Raymo, “Singing Beside Me In The Wilderness”

“Singing Beside Me In The Wilderness”
by Chet Raymo

“In one of those infuriating lapses that go with being a certain age, we could not remember the other evening the name of the poet who wrote "A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou..." After scraping the tip of my tongue for a few minutes, I turned to the computer (Google is my browser's home page) and by typing "jug thou" brought Omar Khayyam back into consciousness. (Another click and I could have had the entire Rubaiyat.) (Freely download the entire "Rubaiyat" at that link. - CP)

And so it is that the Googlized internet arrives just in time to compensate for our withering brain cells. Everything I ever remembered is there to be Googled, plus everything I never remembered. Ten billions pages. The searchable memory of the human race. With more yet to come.

My great-great-grandchildren will no doubt have tiny video cameras implanted in the middle of their foreheads, like Hindu beauty marks, recording everything that passes before their eyes 24-7, with a sound track too. All of which will be stored digitally, ready for instant playback, and searchable by date, time, GPS coordinates, or keywords- the whole of a life, not only available to the subjects themselves in their memory-lapsed dotage, but to future generations. "Here's great-great-grandpa on his ninety-first birthday, back in 2027. Look how he dribbles soup on his shirt. Ha, ha."

I think nature knew what it was doing when it allows our memory to fade with age. It is particularly notable that the more unpleasant memories go first, so that every summer past was golden with sunshine, and every child was a model of respectful propriety. And no one, not even grandpa himself, remembers the time he... “

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

"The Essence Of Life..."

"It was the essence of life to disbelieve in death for one's self, to act as if life would continue forever. And life had to act also as if little issues were big ones. To take a realistic attitude toward life and death meant that one lapsed into unreality. Into insanity. It was ironic that the only way to keep one's sanity was to ignore that one was in an insane world or to act as if the world were sane."

- Philip Jose Farmer

"A Long March...:

"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

○

This always suggested the March of Mankind through the ages, and, 

incredibly, despite ourselves, we march on to our unknown destiny...

Vangelis, "Alpha"

The Poet: Charles Bukowski, "Darkness Falls"

"Darkness Falls"

"Darkness falls upon Humanity

and faces become terrible things

that wanted more than there was.

All our days are marked with

unexpected affronts - 

some disastrous, others less so,

but the process is

wearing and continuous.

Attrition rules.

Most give way,

leaving empty spaces

where people should be.

And now,

as we ready to self-destruct,

there is very little left to kill,

which makes the tragedy

less and more,

much, much more."

- Charles Bukowski

The Daily "Near You?"

Valley Center, Kansas, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Our Planet..."

"We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds;

our planet is the mental institution of the universe.”

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"What Will You Do When You Can’t Buy Or Sell Anything On The Internet Without Your UN-Mandated Digital Identity Chip?"

"What Will You Do When You Can’t Buy Or Sell Anything

 On The Internet Without Your UN-Mandated Digital Identity Chip?"

 by Michael Snyder

"Imposing mandatory digital identification on every nation on the entire planet has become a primary goal for the global elite. It isn’t going to happen tomorrow, but eventually the plan is to get virtually everyone in the world into the system. If the global elite get their way, a time will come when you will not be able to buy or sell anything on the Internet without logging in with your UN-mandated digital identity chip. You won’t be able to go to school, get a job or open a bank account without your UN-mandated digital identity chip either. In essence, you will become a complete and utter outcast from society.

I have been astounded by what I have discovered. Leo Hohmann and a few others have been writing about this, but the general population has no idea what the global elite have planned. All the way back in September 2018, the United Nations established the “UN Legal Identity Agenda Task Force”…

"Inspired by the Secretary-General’s determination to tackle the global problem of statelessness (affecting more than 10 million people worldwide), but also noting the wider (and larger) issue of lack of legal identity, the Secretary-General’s Executive Committee, in January 2018, mandated the Deputy Secretary-General to convene “UN entities to develop, in collaboration with the World Bank Group, a common approach to the broader issue of registration and legal identity…” To operationalize the decision of the Executive Committee, an inter-agency coordination mechanism - the UN Legal Identity Agenda Task Force (UNLIA TF) - was established from September 2018, where 13 UN agencies, under the chairmanship of UNDP, UNICEF and the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, are working together to try to assist Member States achieve SDG target 16.9.

One of the responsibilities of this task force is to “oversee the implementation of the UN LIA at the regional and national level”. The following comes from the official UN website…To oversee the implementation of the UN LIA at the regional and national level;

• To develop and maintain normative work related to the UN LIA (with UNDESA leading as normative focal point);

• To convoke UN system-wide meetings to advance the implementation of the UN LIA;

• To brief the DSG and other senior UN principals as required (including the Strategic Results Group on SDG Implementation) on latest developments in the implementation of the UN LIA;

• To support the UNDP Administrator in his role as member of the WBG ID4D programme’s High-Level Advisory Council.

The United Nations Development Program is on the ground in 170 different countries and territories, and they have become one of the key UN agencies that is working to advance this agenda. On the UNDP website, they have an entire page that discusses what they intend to do. They argue that “embracing digitalization” will help to close the “global identity gap”…

"Legal identity serves as a fundamental gateway to accessing both public and private services. However, a staggering 850 million people worldwide lack the means to establish their identity. Embracing digitalization offers a pathway to bridging this global identity gap, with digital legal identity serving as a cornerstone of digital public infrastructure, fostering interoperability among diverse systems." Whenever they want to sell us on some horrible new thing that they want to do, they make it sound like it is something that is necessary to help the poor and needy.

The UNDP has listed five “compelling reasons” why digital identification must be imposed on the entire planet. The first reason they give is that digital identification will allow them to track all of us…"Digital legal identities offer a unique means of tracking population movements, facilitating swift access to essential information for each human being."

I’m sorry, but I don’t want the UN to ever track my movements. I am sure that you feel the same way. The second reason they give is that it will allow governments to register people more quickly during major disasters…

"Several countries are adopting digital IDs to register disaster impacts, aiding in the comprehensive understanding of these events. With support from UNDP, countries are establishing tracking systems to collect data from various agencies, including environment, health, public works, transport, agriculture, statistics, and others at national, provincial, and sub-national levels." So what would happen during a long-term global emergency such as a pandemic? Would everyone be required to register for “assistance” with their national governments?

The third reason they give is that digital identification is necessary for “identifying vulnerable populations and critical infrastructure”…"Digital IDs aid in identifying vulnerable populations and critical infrastructure, thereby bolstering resilience and guaranteeing a dependable energy supply during adverse events like extreme weather, seismic activity, wildfires, or power grid failures. Utility providers and emergency services can utilize this personal data during disasters to precisely locate individuals in need of special assistance, including those reliant on medical equipment powered by electricity or facing mobility challenges. Targeted support ensures that the most vulnerable members of the community receive prompt assistance and access to necessary energy resources." In other words, when things go wrong, digital identification will make it easier for governments to “help” us. We just have to give away all of our privacy first.

The fourth reason they give is that digital identification will help fight “climate change” because it will allow governments to “track energy consumption” and “inspire behavior change”…"Leveraging digital legal ID data to track energy consumption, inspire behavior change, and enhance sustainability measures can mitigate climate-related disasters." In other words, they want to monitor how much energy you are using. If you use too much, lowering your “social credit score” will “inspire” you to use less energy.

The fifth reason they give is that digital identification that is tied “directly to digital wallets” will allow authorities to encourage people to fight “climate change”…"By offering rewards or subsidies directly to digital wallets, individuals are encouraged to invest in renewable energy, leading to broader adoption and increased participation in sustainable energy initiatives."

Ultimately, linking your financial life to your digital identification is such an important part of their program. They will know what you buy, what you sell, and everything else that you are doing online. In fact, eventually they want to make it impossible to conduct any commerce on the Internet at all unless you have digital identification.

They argue that forcing everyone to reveal who they really are will make the Internet “safer” for everyone. But of course the potential for tyranny would be off the charts. Once you have the ability to track the behavior of everyone on the planet and you also have the ability to exclude people that are unwilling to submit to your demands from the system, you would be able to exercise a level of control over the globe that is unprecedented in the entire history of humanity."

- https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/