Gnomusy (David Caballero), "Footprints On The Sea"
So, we rise from the rubble...
Tuesday, August 17, 2021
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Except for the rings of Saturn, the Ring Nebula (M57) is probably the most famous celestial circle. Its classic appearance is understood to be due to our own perspective, though. The recent mapping of the expanding nebula's 3-D structure, based in part on this clear Hubble image,indicates that the nebula is a relatively dense, donut-like ring wrapped around the middle of a (American) football-shaped cloud of glowing gas.
The view from planet Earth looks down the long axis of the football, face-on to the ring. Of course, in this well-studied example of a planetary nebula, the glowing material does not come from planets. Instead, the gaseous shroud represents outer layers expelled from the dying, once sun-like star, now a tiny pinprick of light seen at the nebula's center. Intense ultraviolet light from the hot central star ionizes atoms in the gas. The Ring Nebula is about one light-year across and 2,500 light-years away."
Free Download: Albert Einstein, “The World As I See It”
"The World As I See It:
Albert Einstein's Thoughts on the Meaning of Life”
by Paul Ratner
“Albert Einstein was one of the world’s most brilliant thinkers, influencing scientific thought immeasurably. He was also not shy about sharing his wisdom about other topics, writing essays, articles, letters, giving interviews and speeches. His opinions on social and intellectual issues that do not come from the world of physics give an insight into the spiritual and moral vision of the scientist, offering much to take to heart.
The collection of essays and ideas “The World As I See It” gathers Einstein’s thoughts from before 1935, when he was as the preface says “at the height of his scientific powers but not yet known as the sage of the atomic age”.
In the book, Einstein comes back to the question of the purpose of life on several occasions. In one passage, he links it to a sense of religiosity. “What is the meaning of human life, or, for that matter, of the life of any creature? To know an answer to this question means to be religious. You ask: Does it many any sense, then, to pose this question? I answer: The man who regards his own life and that of his fellow creatures as meaningless is not merely unhappy but hardly fit for life,” wrote Einstein.
Was Einstein himself religious? Raised by secular Jewish parents, he had complex and evolving spiritual thoughts. He generally seemed to be open to the possibility of the scientific impulse and religious thoughts coexisting. "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind," said Einstein in his 1954 essay on science and religion.
Some (including the scientist himself) have called Einstein’s spiritual views as pantheism, largely influenced by the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza. Pantheists see God as existing but abstract, equating all of reality with divinity. They also reject a specific personal God or a god that is somehow endowed with human attributes.
Himself a famous atheist, Richard Dawkins calls Einstein's pantheism a “sexed-up atheism,” but other scholars point to the fact that Einstein did seem to believe in a supernatural intelligence that’s beyond the physical world. He referred to it in his writings as “a superior spirit,” “a superior mind” and a “spirit vastly superior to men”. Einstein was possibly a deist, although he was quite familiar with various religious teachings, including a strong knowledge of Jewish religious texts.
In another passage from 1934, Einstein talks about the value of a human being, reflecting a Buddhist-like approach: “The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self.”
This theme of liberating the self is also echoed by Einstein later in life, in a 1950 letter to console a grieving father Robert S. Marcus: “A human being is a part of the whole, called by us "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion. Not to nourish it but to try to overcome it is the way to reach the attainable measure of peace of mind.”
In case you are wondering whether Einstein saw value in material pursuits, here’s him talking about accumulating wealth in 1934, as part of the “The World As I See It”: “I am absolutely convinced that no wealth in the world can help humanity forward, even in the hands of the most devoted worker in this cause. The example of great and pure characters is the only thing that can lead us to noble thoughts and deeds. Money only appeals to selfishness and irresistibly invites abuse. Can anyone imagine Moses, Jesus or Gandhi armed with the money-bags of Carnegie?”
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Freely download "The World As I See It", by Albert Einstein, here:
"The World Rests In The Night..."
“The world rests in the night. Trees, mountains, fields, and faces are released from the prison of shape and the burden of exposure. Each thing creeps back into its own nature within the shelter of the dark. Darkness is the ancient womb. Nighttime is womb-time. Our souls come out to play. The darkness absolves everything; the struggle for identity and impression falls away. We rest in the night.”
- John O'Donohue,
"Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom"
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“On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.
And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.
When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.
May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.”
○
John O'Donohue was an Irish author, poet, philosopher and former Catholic priest. He was born in County Clare on January 1, 1956. He died suddenly on January 4, 2008. He is best known for popularizing Celtic spirituality and is the author of a number of best-selling books on the subject.
"It May Be Then..."
"Passion doesn't count the cost. Pascal said that the heart has its reasons that reason takes no account of. If he meant what I think, he meant that when passion seizes the heart it invents reasons that seem not only plausible but conclusive to prove that the world is well lost for love. It convinces you that honor is well sacrificed and that shame is a cheap price to pay. Passion is destructive. It destroyed Antony and Cleopatra, Tristan and Isolde, Parnell and Kitty O'Shea. And if it doesn't destroy it dies. It may be then that one is faced with the desolation of knowing that one has wasted the years of one's life, that one's brought disgrace upon oneself, endured the frightful pang of jealousy, swallowed every bitter mortification, that one's expended all one's tenderness, poured out all the riches of one's soul on a poor drab, a fool, a peg on which one hung one's dreams, who wasn't worth a stick of chewing gum."
- W. Somerset Maugham
"Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time;
it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable."
- Sydney J. Harris
The Poet: David Wagoner, "Getting There"
"Getting There"
"You take a final step and, look, suddenly
You're there. You've arrived
At the one place all your drudgery was aimed for:
This common ground
Where you stretch out, pressing your cheek to sandstone.
What did you want to be?
You'll remember soon.
You feel like tinder under a burning glass,
A luminous point of change.
The sky is pulsing against the cracked horizon,
Holding it firm till the arrival of stars
In time with your heartbeats.
Like wind etching rock, you've made a lasting impression
On the self you were,
By having come all this way through all this welter
Under your own power,
Though your traces on a map would make an unpromising
Meandering lifeline.
What have you learned so far? You'll find out later,
Telling it haltingly like a dream,
That lost traveler's dream under the last hill
Where through the night you'll take your time out of mind
To unburden yourself
Of elements along elementary paths
By the break of morning.
You've earned this worn-down, hard, incredible sight
Called Here and Now.
Now, what you make of it means everything,
Means starting over:
The life in your hands is neither here nor there
But getting there,
So you're standing again and breathing, beginning another
Journey without regret
Forever, being your own unpeaceable kingdom,
The end of endings."
~ David Wagoner
"Why.."
"Why does truth carry such a dreadful face? Why does subjugation carry
such a happy mask? It becomes sad when people understand that they
can lead a better life as long as they bow their heads, ignoring the truth."
- Lionel Suggs
"We Are All Like Elephants "
"We Are All Like Elephants "
by Marc Chernoff
"In many ways, our past experiences have conditioned us to believe that we are less capable than we are. All too often we let the rejections of our past dictate every move we make. We literally do not know ourselves to be any better than what some opinionated person or narrow circumstance once told us was true. Of course, an old rejection doesn't mean we aren't good enough; it just means some person or circumstance from our past failed to align with what we had to offer at the time. But somehow we don't see it that way - we hit a mental barricade that stops us in our tracks.
This is one of the most common and damaging thought patterns we as human beings succumb to. Even though we intellectually know that we're gradually growing stronger than we were in the past, our subconscious mind often forgets that our capabilities have grown. Let me give you a quick metaphorical example.
Zookeepers typically strap a thin metal chain to a grown elephant's leg and then attach the other end to a small wooden peg that's hammered into the ground. The 10-foot tall, 10,000-pound elephant could easily snap the chain, uproot the wooden peg and escape to freedom with minimal effort. But it doesn't. In fact the elephant never even tries. The world's most powerful land animal, which can uproot a big tree as easily as you could break a toothpick, remains defeated by a small wooden peg and a flimsy chain.
Why? Because when the elephant was a baby, its trainers used the exact same methods to domesticate it. A thin chain was strapped around its leg and the other end of the chain was tied to a wooden peg in the ground. At the time, the chain and peg were strong enough to restrain the baby elephant. When it tried to break away, the metal chain would pull it back. Sometimes, tempted by the world it could see in the distance, the elephant would pull harder. But the chain would not budge, and soon the baby elephant realized trying to escape was not possible. So it stopped trying.
And now that the elephant is all grown up, it sees the chain and the peg and it remembers what it learned as a baby - the chain and peg are impossible to escape. Of course this is no longer true, but it does't matter. It doesn't matter that the 200-pound baby is now a 10,000-pound powerhouse. The elephant's self-limiting thoughts and beliefs prevail.
If you think about it, we are all like elephants. We all have incredible power inside us. And certainly, we have our own chains and pegs - the self-limiting thoughts and beliefs that hold us back. Sometimes it's a childhood experience or an old failure. Sometimes it's something we were told when we were a little younger. The key thing to realize here is this: We need to learn from the past, but be ready to update what we learned based on how our circumstances have changed (as they constantly do)."
"We're Rapidly Becoming A "1984 Society" & It's Only Going To Get Worse"
"We're Rapidly Becoming A "1984 Society"
& It's Only Going To Get Worse"
by Michael Snyder
"Are you a potential domestic terrorist? You may not think so, but the Department of Homeland Security may see things quite differently. A brand new terrorism advisory has just been issued, and some of the things that it identifies as “potential terror threats” should chill us to the core. You see, the truth is that the definition of a “terrorist” is constantly evolving. In the old days, a Middle Eastern male that dresses in traditional Islamic attire, that grows opium in his field and that carries around an AK-47 would have been considered a “potential terrorist” by U.S. authorities. But now we have lost the war in Afghanistan and the Taliban are partying like it is 1999 in the presidential palace in Kabul. As a result, our spooks need a new group of “potential terrorists” to send to Guantanamo Bay, and so they are setting their sights on you.
You may be tempted to think that I am exaggerating. I truly wish that I was. NBC News is telling us that a “terror alert” has just been issued by Homeland Security, and during their report on this new “terror alert” a very alarming graphic was shown to the viewers.
Under the heading “POTENTIAL TERROR THREATS”, the following three categories were listed…
- “OPPOSITION TO COVID MEASURES”
- “CLAIMS OF ELECTION FRAUD, BELIEF TRUMP CAN BE REINSTATED”
- “9/11 ANNIVERSARY AND RELIGIOUS HOLIDAYS”
NBC reports new DHS Terrorism Advisory is “Not based on any actual threats or plots”. Goes on to claim “potential” threats from anti-governmental sentiment, anti-COVID, pro-Trump…and uses 9/11 and “religious holidays” as triggering this warning. Is this PSYOPS or news? pic.twitter.com/9IRXWUKib2 - Bree A Dail (@breeadail) August 14, 2021
We have never seen anything quite like this before.
Now “opposition to COVID measures” is something that can make you a “potential terrorist”?Wow. So precisely what does that mean? Does someone become a “potential terrorist” if they speak out against masks, lockdowns or vaccines? What about sharing information that contradicts the official narratives about COVID? Will that make someone a “potential terrorist” as well?
If that is the case, then researchers at the Mayo Clinic may soon get hauled off to Guantanamo Bay… "Researchers from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, found that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine – the most commonly used shot in the U.S. – was only 42 percent effective against infection, while the Moderna vaccine was only 76 percent effective in July. For the study, published on pre-printer server medRxiv.org – meaning it has not yet been peer review – the team gathered data on more than 25,000 Minnesotans from January to July."
When Dr. Fauci was asked about that study, he quickly dismissed it as bad information. And whatever Fauci says must be the gospel truth, because we have been told that any criticism of Fauci is an attack on science itself… “Attacks on me, quite frankly, are attacks on science,” Fauci said Wednesday. “All of the things I have spoken about, consistently, from the very beginning, have been fundamentally based on science. Sometimes those things were inconvenient truths for people.”
Some have even gone so far as to suggest that any “far-right extremists” that dare to criticize Fauci should be treated like terrorists. So be very careful about what you say about beloved Lord Fauci.
At one time we actually had freedom of speech in America, but now those days are long gone. Even if you don’t get into trouble with the government, the big tech companies may decide to censor you into oblivion if you start saying the wrong things. (They might even delete your blog without warning... CP)
And most Americans can never actually keep up with the latest speech standards, because they are constantly in a state of evolution. For example, earlier today I was absolutely shocked to learn that you can get banned on YouTube for offering to pray for someone that has COVID. Apparently that can qualify as “content” that encourages people to avoid needed medical treatment… “Content that encourages the use of home remedies, prayer, or rituals in place of medical treatment such as consulting a doctor or going to the hospital”
We really are becoming a “1984 society”, and it is only going to get worse. If your goal is to conform as much as possible, you are in luck, because the Department of Homeland Security has issued some key information guidelines for you to follow so that you can “stay safe” while you are online…
"Rely on trusted sources. For situational updates on COVID-19 and stay-at-home guidelines, rely on information provided by state and local health officials, as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) at coronavirus.gov and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) atcisa.gov/coronavirus.
Think before you link. Slow down. Don’t immediately click to share posts, memes, videos, or other content you see online. Some of the most damaging disinformation spreads rapidly via shared posts. Check your sources before sharing.
Be careful what you post. The information you share online can be misunderstood or repurposed via manipulation. Do a privacy check on your social media accounts and make sure you are not sharing content broadly that you mean only for close family and friends. Be aware that agents of disinformation often steal identities of real people, profile photos, and other information.
Be wary of manipulative content. Agents of disinformation are known to create or repurpose emotional videos and photos, and to use sensational terms to divide us. Be especially careful of content that attempts to make people angry or sad or create division."
In other words, embrace whatever they tell you to believe, and don’t you dare share anything online that even looks like it might contradict any of their narratives. Personally, I am stunned at how rapidly our society is changing. As I discussed a few days ago, a bill has actually been introduced in Congress which would permanently ban those that have not been fully vaccinated from ever flying again. That is completely insane, and hopefully that bill never becomes a law, but the Biden administration has already pushed things way too far. Each week we take even more steps into authoritarianism, and that should deeply alarm all of us. If our leaders are willing to get so extreme during a relatively minor crisis like this pandemic, what are they going to do when things start getting really, really crazy?
Freedom is such a fragile and precious thing. Previous generations of Americans understood this, and they were extremely diligent to make sure that future generations of Americans would live free too. But now dark times are here, and if you express your love for freedom too loudly you may soon discover that authorities have identified you as a “potential terrorist” too."
"An Invisible Man..."
"I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids - and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination - indeed, everything and anything except me."
- Ralph Ellison, "Prologue to Invisible Man"
Chet Raymo, "The Ring of Truth"
"The Ring of Truth"
by Chet Raymo
"In Salley Vickers' novel, "Where Three Roads Meet," the shade of Tiresias, the blind seer of the Oedipus myth, visits Sigmund Freud in London during the psychoanalyst's final terrible illness. In a series of conversations, Tiresias retells the story of Oedipus- he who was fated to kill his father and sleep with his mother- a story at the heart of Freud's own theory of the human psyche. At one point in the conversations, as Tiresias and Freud discuss the extent to which our lives are fated, the question of immortality arises. Freud says of Oedipus that "he made his story into an immortal one, so far as any story is." And Tiresias replies, "But, Dr. Freud, stories are all we humans have to make us immortal."
Oedipus lives on, whether he lived or not in actuality. Sophocles lives in our consciousness as vigorously as ever he did in life. They live because their stories touch something resonant and unchanging in human nature. Vickers suggests that what makes the Oedipal story immortal is not any necessary tendency of humans to act out the Oedipal myth, a la Freud, but rather Oedipus's rage to know the truth- or become conscious of a truth he has known all along and suppressed - even though the truth will be his undoing.
The poet Muriel Rukesyser got it exactly right when she said: "The universe is made of stories, not atoms." Even atoms are stories we tell about the world, having first paid close attention to how the world works. The plays of Sophocles and the other Greek dramatists live on not because their authors were immortal, but because nature endures and their stories tell us something that rings true about enduring nature. And, like Oedipus, we have a rage to know, even if knowledge will unseat some of our more comfortable illusions.
Free Download: Carl Bernstein, "The Idiot Culture"
"The minds of men were gradually reduced to the same level, the fire of genius was extinguished. The name of Poet was almost forgotten; that of Orator was usurped by the sophists. A cloud of critics, of compilers, of commentators, darkened the face of learning, and the decline of genius was soon followed by the corruption of taste. This diminutive stature of mankind was daily sinking below the old standard."
- Edward Gibbon,
"The Decline And Fall of The Roman Empire"
"We are in the process of creating, in sum, what deserves to be called tbe idiot culture. Not an idiot subculture, which every society has bubbling beneath the surface and which can provide harmless fun; but the culture itself For the first time in our history the weird and the stupid and the coarse are becoming our cultural norm, even our cultural ideal."
Freely download "The Idiot Culture", by Carl Bernstein, here:
Monday, August 16, 2021
"What Matter..."
"What matter if this base, unjust life
Cast you naked and disarmed?
If the ground breaks beneath your step,
Have you not your soul?
Your soul! You fly away,
Escape to realms refined,
Beyond all sadness and whimpering.
Be like the bird which on frail branches balanced
A moment sits and sings;
He feels them tremble, but he sings unshaken,
Knowing he has wings."
– Victor Hugo
"I Feel Like I Am Living In Crazytown"
Full screen recommended.
"I Feel Like I Am Living In Crazytown"
by Epic Economist
"We haven't seen a prolonged inflationary period like this since the Jimmy Carter era of the 1970s, but our politicians and policymakers seem to believe that creating more inflation is the best way to take us out of the recession, without any consideration for the long-term consequences. They keep insisting that this inflation spike is going to be "transitory", and they deny that the economic crisis they're creating while trying to generate a non-stimulus-induced rebound in economic growth is real. They try to minimize the severity of these issues so that they can keep on creating, borrowing, and spending even more money. The inflation crisis is reaching totally insane levels, but unfortunately, most Americans don't seem to be aware of it or to care that this is even happening. Every day it goes by, this country gets closer to turning into the hyperinflationary Weimar republic, and those who are driving us there have become completely crazy.
It's safe to say that most people that lived through the 70s would never imagine they would see the same crazy level of inflation ever again, but it is now here and it's already visible. Particularly, in the price of food, gasoline, and vehicles. This month, new vehicle prices jumped 6.4 percent on the year, the largest 12-month increase since the period ending January 1982. Meanwhile, used car prices and gasoline soared by a staggering 42 percent from a year ago. Food staples and many other everyday items faced massive price hikes in the past year. Bacon was up 11 percent and whole milk and beef roast were both 8 percent higher on the year. Travel expenses skyrocketed from last summer’s depressed base level, with hotels up 24 percent and airfare up 19 percent. Rising inflation is putting the economic rebound in jeopardy as it cancels much of the benefit of workers' higher pay due to the soaring prices. As a result, this is significantly impacting our standard of living, because although wages are rising, they aren’t rising nearly as fast as the cost of living is.
Recently, a number of corporate executives have started to announce even more price hikes in the months ahead. For instance, the popular burger chain Shake Shack announced it will be implementing another round of price increases in 2021 to fight inflation. Last week, during a conference call, Shake Shack’s chief financial officer Katherine Fogerty said customers will be paying 3 to 3.5 percent more for their food for the rest of the year. Many other companies are also raising prices to offset higher inflation and increased costs of products, parts, and labor.
None of this is going to end well. But despite all the warnings and evidence, our leaders' response to this crisis is still creating, borrowing, and spending even more money. In fact, a new fiscal package has just been passed and, as soon as it was approved on the Senate, the new administration immediately began working on a new spending package twice as big. On Tuesday, the Senate passed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure package, and then, the upper chamber started to work on a second $3.5 trillion package of further government spending. By Wednesday morning, the Senate had already passed the framework of the $3.5 trillion bill, but some furious representatives alerted for the dangers of further spending.
Out-of-control inflation is extremely dangerous especially because it erodes people's purchasing power and it severely affects low-income families and elderly pensioners. Once that purchasing power is gone, there's no turning back. We will never return to "normal" levels. If they were so worried about helping our society as they claim to be, their decisions would be a whole lot different. At this point, it's getting harder not to feel hopeless. Even the motto "hope for the best and prepare for the worst” doesn't quite fit in this situation, because it feels like hoping for the best is just pointless. We already know how this story goes. We know what they are up to, and what they are going to do and how our lives will be affected by this.
We can only recommend you to prepare for the worst and do not let your guard down, because darker times are approaching us. With Congress passing another wild spending package after the many other spending packages that were already passed, things will eventually get really, really bad. The Fed continues to pump billions upon billions of fresh dollars into the financial system even though everyone who saw the previous financial bubbles bursting is now warning about an imminent epic crash. This is being called the greatest bubble in the history of the world. But as our problems keeping being swept under the rug, all we can do is watch how long it can last before it finally implodes."
Musical Interlude: Kevin Kern, "Above The Clouds"
Full screen recommended.
Kevin Kern, "Above The Clouds"
"A Look to the Heavens"
"If not perfect then this spiral galaxy is at least one of the most photogenic. An island universe of about 100 billion stars, 32 million light-years away toward the constellation Pisces, M74 presents a gorgeous face-on view. Classified as an Sc galaxy, the grand design of M74's graceful spiral arms are traced by bright blue star clusters and dark cosmic dust lanes.
This sharp composite was constructed from image data recorded by the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys. Spanning about 30,000 light-years across the face of M74, it includes exposures recording emission from hydrogen atoms, highlighting the reddish glow of the galaxy's large star-forming regions. With a lower surface brightness than most galaxies in the Messier catalog, M74 is sometimes known as the Phantom Galaxy."
"Into The Graveyard of Empires"
"Into The Graveyard of Empires"
by Brian Maher
“Love is like war,” said Henry Louis Mencken - “easy to begin but very hard to stop.” After 20 loving years, the United States has walked out on Afghanistan. The Taliban is already squiring the lovelorn around Kabul. Matrimony… holy or unholy… is imminent.
Have you looked at the television? Afghans are so hot for the Taliban’s hug they are smuggling themselves into the wheel wells of United States Air Force transport planes - with frightful consequences.
But the stars had always crossed this unlikely dalliance. The thing was doomed before the first kiss.
Americans Are Poor Imperialists: As we have written before: Americans are a restless, fitful people. We are eternally on the jump. We are forever hunting the fresh adventure, the next chance. We are perpetually peeking over the next hill. That is, Americans are poor imperialists. We simply lack the patience the business demands. And the patience required to tame and police an Afghanistan would have taxed old Job beyond all human endurance… and worn the soul clear out of him.
Afghanistan is less a nation than a sort of Asian West Virginia. It is a badland of warring McCoys and Hatfields. Will they ever come to terms… and clasp hands? The lion and the lamb will first clasp hands. "You Americans have the watches," said the Taliban. "But we have the time." They did - they do - have the time.
The Taliban Didn’t Need to Win… to Win: The Taliban did not need a victory. They merely needed to avoid a defeat. They were the hopeless prizefighter matched against the great champion. Their strategy was to waltz around the ring for all 12 scheduled rounds, to frustrate their pursuer... and tie him up in clinches when cornered. That is, their central ambition was not to deliver a blow - but to avoid a blow. They wagered the fellow would tire of the chase eventually… throw up the sponge… and climb out of the ring. They wagered accurately. And they are presently collecting a fantastic purse.
The American reputation is absorbing a severe trouncing. The scene here is the United States embassy in Saigon. The year is 1975:
The scene here is the Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul. The year is 2021:
The aircraft is moving… incidentally. These desperates are frantic to climb in nonetheless.
Who Will Trust the United States? What about America’s allies? Will they trust it to brawl alongside them in case of a fight? They have seen these images. They have tracked the news. Neither the images nor the news instills confidence in American resolve.
In the 1870s, the German government would not accept American bonds - “even if signed by an angel in heaven,” as one fellow styled it. If the signature of a heaven-based angel cannot instill confidence, then what about the signature of an Earth-based politician? And a Washington-based politician at that? Why should an ally trust the pledges of the United States government to fight for them? Perhaps it is time these allies pursued alternate defense arrangements. And perhaps the United States should take them off its hook… and let them go their independent ways.
We hazard Mr. Putin is having a good hard belly laugh this day. It was in Afghanistan that the Soviet Empire came to grief - in part because of American arms handed to its Afghan foes. Now the United States has taken the licking. How has it come to pass? The route to Kabul is long. And it is packed with twists…
Going Abroad in Search of Monsters: America "goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy," said Adams (John Quincy). But the once modest American Republic took up the hunt at the end of the 19th century. It found its first monster, a sad caricature of a monster, in Spain. As we have quipped before: Americans remembered the Maine. And forgot their Adams. They have been forgetting their Adams ever since...
America has gone buccaneering around the globe. It has chased down monsters during WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq - twice - and Afghanistan. For every evil it scotched, another rose in its place. Hitler shouldered the Kaiser out of the way. Stalin, Hitler. Osama bin Laden threw Stalin aside in 2001…
The Mischievous Gods: 21 years ago, America was undisputed heavyweight champion of Earth. Its fleets commanded the Seven Seas, its armies policed the four corners of the globe. It was the Pax Americana.
But the gods, they are a jealous lot. They will abide no mortal that has outgrown its britches. They will abide no hubris… So they hatched a plot. They enlisted zanies to fly airplanes into New York’s two identical towers - and Virginia’s Pentagon - on Sept. 11, 2001. President George Herbert Walker Bush rose to the bait. He ordered his men into Afghanistan. The gods proceeded to place their feet upon the table… settle in for the show… and munch buttered popcorn. They knew there is a reason why Afghanistan is labeled “the graveyard of empires.”
They set the same trap for Alexander the Great over 2,000 years ago. Afghanistan was his ruin. They coaxed in Great Britain in the 19th century. Afghan warriors gave these British a savage, savage trouncing. The wrathful gods gave the godless Soviet Union a divine Afghan lesson during the 1980s. And now… in 2021… these gods have brought low their latest target - the United States. The graveyard of empires has another head marker.
Is China Next?
Note the caption atop the image — “Next up: China.” Is China next up? We do not know the answer. Yet we do know they… like Russia… enjoy razzing the United States over Afghanistan. Here the editor of Beijing mouthpiece The Global Times gives a good ribbing: "Chinese netizens joked that the power transition in Afghanistan is even more smooth than the presidential transition in the US."
Pity the Nation: But our concern is not China. Our concern is the United States - our beloved United States. And she is having a very rough go of things. Her name is being blackened. Thus our head drops in sorrow.
"Empires have a logic of their own," our co-founders Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin wrote in "Empire of Debt" concluding: "That they will end in grief is a foregone conclusion." It would appear so. But as we have also written before: "If the American empire is ending in grief, we hope for a quiet grief, a whimpering grief... not a shrieking grief. Perhaps - just perhaps - the United States can even restore the republic its founders intended..."
"Life Is Lumpy..."
"One of life's best coping mechanisms is to know the difference between an inconvenience and a problem. If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire – then you’ve got a problem. Everything else is an inconvenience. Life is inconvenient. Life is lumpy. A lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat and a lump in the breast are not the same kind of lump. One needs to learn the difference."
- Robert Fulghum
Dan, iAllegedly, "Real Estate Will be the First Bubble to Burst - with Scott Walters"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly, PM 8/16/21:
"Real Estate Will be the First Bubble to Burst -
with Scott Walters"
"The Real Estate Bubble will be the first to burst. Today I brought in Scott Walters Realtor to share his expertise on where he thinks real estate is headed."
"When Your Paycheck Runs Out, Too Broke To Prepare; Long Beach Homeless Crisis; Wealth Inequality"
Full screen recommended.
Jeremiah Babe, PM 8/16/21:
"When Your Paycheck Runs Out, Too Broke To Prepare;
Long Beach Homeless Crisis; Wealth Inequality"
"Trash Heap of Empires"
"Trash Heap of Empires"
by Bill Bonner
"If historians searched for the precise date on which America’s singular dominance ended, they might settle on August 15, 1971."
– American author William Greider
POITOU, FRANCE – "Yesterday, August 15, marked several important anniversaries and events. Not only was it the date of the Virgin Mary’s assumption into Heaven… it was also the date, in 1971, when America broke the golden lock that protected the nation’s money and opened the door for its descent into Hell. Thirty years later, like the obligatory scene in a horror movie, it went down into the basement. Where, exactly? Afghanistan!
No Real Evidence: Just to remind ourselves, after 9/11, the U.S. insisted Afghanistan turn over al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. The Taliban, then Afghanistan’s rulers, said they would turn him over if the U.S. produced evidence that he was guilty of masterminding the 9/11 attacks. Otherwise, they said, it would be an insult to Islamic justice. The Taliban even suggested a compromise – they would give bin Laden to a third country, where he might get a fair trial.
Even at the time, that seemed reasonable to us. But the Bush team had no real evidence against bin Laden. And the last thing it wanted (at least, as suggested by his murder by U.S. Navy Seals in 2011) was to give the man an honest hearing. So, in October 2001, it invaded Afghanistan and proceeded to rerun the British and Soviet experience for the following two decades.
Graveyard of Empires: And then on Sunday, like the other great empires before it, it came to the end of the road. The puppet government in Kabul, set up by the U.S. government, fled on helicopters… an eerie reminder of the fall of Saigon in 1975. Afghanistan is known as the “graveyard of empires.” And we doubt this episode will be an exception. The British left Afghanistan in 1919, after 80 years of frustrating warfare. Less than 20 years later, the British empire was, essentially, finished. The Soviet Union gave up trying to pacify Afghanistan in 1988; two years later, the Soviet Union collapsed. And now, it’s America’s turn.
Falling in Line: Last week, we wondered how it came to be that Facebook, Google, Twitter, et al. are falling in line as censors for the feds. Here, we trace the steps… In 1971, the U.S. cancelled the integrity of its money by breaking the link between the dollar and gold. Then, it used a new, fake currency to corrupt its most important institutions – the military, universities, the press, and business.
By the debut of the 21st century, all of them were ready to rumble. They went along with the invasion of Afghanistan… the War on Terror… the bailout of Wall Street in 2008… the stimmies… the lockdowns… Heck, even the major churches were on board. Only one brave member of Congress – Barbara Lee of California – dared to vote against the War on Terror in September 2001. And the press tore her to bits.
Republican… Democrat… every administration has gone right along with the program. “If I were slightly younger and not employed here,” said George W. Bush to the Afghanistan-bound troops, “I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed.” “This is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity,” said Barack Obama to the veterans eight years later.
A trillion dollars here. A trillion dollars there. A war lost here. Another there. The rich get richer; the poor get poorer. And the claptrap keeps coming. “It’s the Democrats’ fault…” say Republicans. “It’s Trump’s fault…” say the Democrats. “It’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and the socialists,” says Newsmax. “It’s the climate change deniers, white supremacists, and anti-vaxxers,” says The New York Times.
Smokescreen: Over the years, readers have accused us of being all these things – both liberal and conservative, red and blue… Democrat and Republican. We are none of them. We have no politics here at the Diary. We just don’t like anyone telling us what to do. And we notice that those who insist that we go along with their ideas are invariably morons.
But the partisan battle makes an excellent smokescreen. It conceals what is really going on – a power grab… by the small minority known here simply as the “elite.” Some are in the private sector. Others are in the public sector. Some call themselves “conservatives.” Some say they are “liberal.” Almost all share the same interests. Some take to them readily. Others see the benefits less clearly. Some are bullied or threatened. Almost all eventually wag their tails to get patted on the head.
Money and Power Corrupt: It is a phenomenon that deserves more study. Every society has an “elite.” Some people are natural leaders; others are naturally led. With being a leader comes power… and with power comes temptation, and inevitably, corruption.
Our hypothesis is that the rot began with the ability to “print” money, post-1971. Thereafter, wealth and power came less from supplying goods and services to others and more from working your way into the elite class… where you were among the chosen few, to whom the rewards of government spending were given.
Naturally, ambitious young people wanted to go into government rather than industry… into finance rather than chemistry… and to business school rather than into real business. They wanted to take their places among the elite. Because that’s where the money was. And once in, they could move from law firm to bank to think tank to lobbyist.
Wall Street, the professoriat, bureaucracies… the “Deep State”… academia… the press – they represent maybe 10% of the public. But they control the money, the ideas, the news flow… and the government. And, while they may argue bitterly about where and how the money is spent…there is one thing they almost all agree on – that the system must be protected, at all costs. Why? Because people come to think what they must think when they must think it. And when trillions of dollars are headed your way – you’re going to think it’s a pretty good idea!"
"Strange Days Ahead"
Left: The Fall of Kabul, 2021 - Right: The Fall of Saigon, 1975
"Strange Days Ahead"
by Jim Kunstler
“If American Airlines were in charge, they would’ve blamed all the cancellations on weather and then given everyone’s checked luggage to the Taliban.”
– Sean Davis, Editor, "The Federalist", on the action in the Kabul airport.
"I guess we had to find out the hard way that Afghanistan is not like Nebraska. Let others be cruel about it (and there’s plenty of that right now, elsewhere). The last ostensible hegemon who tried occupying the place before us was the Soviet Union, which discovered painfully that Afghanistan was not much like its Kemerovo Oblast, either, and shortly after it withdrew its troops in 1989, the Soviet Union commenced to collapse - which prompts one to wonder: How much is the USA of 2021 like the Soviet Union of those years?
Well, we’ve become an ossified, administrative nomenklatura of Deep State flunkies as the Soviets were, and lately we’re just as lawless as they used to be, constitution-wise - e.g., the abolition of property rights via the CDC’s rent moratorium… the prolonged jailing in solitary confinement of January 6 political prisoners… the introduction of internal “passports.” The USA is running on fumes economically as the Soviets were. Our dominant party leadership has aged into an embarrassing gerontocracy. Is it our turn to collapse?
Kind of looks like it. The days ahead are liable to be a rough ride. Surely China has taken the measure of our Woke military and is weighing the seizure of Taiwan in our moment of signal weakness. No more computer chips for you, Uncle Sam! Do we come to Taiwan’s defense with guns blazing, or perhaps nukes? And what if that doesn’t work out so well? I’ll tell you what: a major geopolitical reordering of things, leaving us… where? Unable to enforce our will around the world as has been the case for eighty years. Floundering. Friendless. Broke. Broken!
Of course, the domestic situation in our land has not been so fraught and overwrought since 1861. Everything is politicized, which is to say: used as a truncheon to beat-up adversaries and, let’s face it, mostly in the sense of Left against Right. This is especially true for the Covid-19 soap opera, which more and more pits the sanctimoniously vaccinated “progressives” against the recalcitrant conservative no-vax free-choicers - that is, coercive government trying to force supposedly free citizens to accept a pretty dubious experimental medical treatment.
Since when did the American Left become so pro-tyranny, and how’d that even happen? I have friends and relatives - I’m sure you do, too - who knocked themselves out in the 1960s protesting against the war, the government, the FBI, and the CIA… who fought in the streets for free speech and raged against official propaganda - and today they can’t get enough of coercing, punishing, brain-washing, and cancelling their fellow citizens. They’re going so far now as to engineer their vicious narrative to brand their opponents as “domestic terrorists.” Think that’s going to work?
I doubt it. And the fall of Afghanistan is sure to spark a resentful reaction among the many ex-soldiers who paid a heavy price pulling tours of duty in that hapless venture over twenty years. There’s a lot of them out there in Red America, and they were already pissed-off about the pernicious nonsense being jammed down their throats by the minions of Wokesterism: the race-and-gender hustles, the off-the-charts rise of violent crime, the wide-open border, the off-shoring of jobs, the Covid lockdowns and wrecking of small business, the MMT experiment launching inflation, and the new pussification of the armed forces they served and suffered in. They’ve laid rather low through years of this, just watching the scene in wonder and nausea, but you may see them turn more active now. And consider: they’ve been well-trained in weaponry and tactics.
Unsettling discoveries are in the offing going forward. The Wall Street Journal lately detected signs of life in the John Durham investigation, reporting that matters have gone to a grand jury. That means crimes are being prosecuted. We may soon become reacquainted with names that almost slipped down the memory-hole - the likes of Bruce Ohr, Glenn Simpson, Andrew McCabe, Rod Rosenstein, Pete Strzok… who else…? This may also lead to a catastrophic discrediting of the mainstream news media - who were fully in on the RussiaGate con - to the degree that some companies end up utterly wrecked and with many careers washed up.
Hard information about what actually went down in the 2020 election is also coming out, and not to the credit of the ruling regime that purportedly triumphed in that contest. Some of that info may redound to the issue of China’s involvement in our affairs, and beyond mere election meddling to the wholesale buying-off of the US political class. The pathetic thing is we already know several very prominent figures on-the-take from China, including Eric Swalwell, Diane Feinstein, and most conspicuously, Hunter Biden (and family), but the ranks of the known-to-be bought-off could swell dramatically.
Finally, there’s the fate of President “Joe Biden.” As Kabul falls this morning, he remains in his Camp David gopher hole. Observers conjecture that he’s had a few “bad days” lately, meaning he is not presentable. There is a rising clamor, even among his own partisans, for him to come out and say something, anything… for Gawdsake… just do more than pretend to be the leader of the free world! It could be curtains for Ol’ White Joe… resignation-time. Never before has a US president faced such a daunting loss of legitimacy, and hardly just on account of Afghanistan. And then consider who’s next-in-line for that position. (Did you shudder?)
Sometimes, Vlad Lenin observed, events take decades, and sometimes years happen in weeks. This looks like one of those times for the USA. Heads will soon be spinning like the little girl’s in The Exorcist, releasing a pea-soup spewage of shocking revelation. The old narratives will fall apart before our eyes. Minds will have to get right. Prepare for a whole lot of strange days rolling out.”
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