Stunning Meditation on Walking into the Questions of Our Becoming”
by Maria Popova
“The role of the artist, James Baldwin believed, is “to make you realize the doom and glory of knowing who you are and what you are.” This, too, is the role of the forest, it occurs to me as I walk the ferned, mossed woods daily to lose my self and find myself between the trees; to “live the questions,” in Rilke’s lovely phrase – to let the rustling of the leaves beckon forth the stirrings and murmurings on the edge of the psyche, which we so often brush away in order to go on being the smaller version of ourselves we have grown accustomed to being out of the unfaced fear that the grandeur of life, the grandeur of our own untrammeled nature, might require of us more than we are ready to give.
Those disquieting, transformative stirrings are what the poet and philosopher David Whyte explores with surefooted subtlety in his poem “Sometimes,” found in his altogether life-enlarging collection “Everything Is Waiting for You” (public library) and read here by the poet himself as part of a wonderful short course of poem-driven practices for neuroscientist and philosopher Sam Harris’s “Waking Up” meditation toolkit (which I can’t recommend enough and which operates under an inspired, honorable model of granting free subscriptions to those who need this invaluable mental health aid but don’t have the means).
"Dr. Charles Hoffe, a family physician from Lytton, British Columbia, wrote to Dr. Bonnie Henry, B.C. provincial health officer, in April 2021 with serious concerns about COVID-19 vaccines. One of his patients died after the shot, and six others had adverse effects. While their small town had no cases of COVID-19, Hoffe said the vaccine was causing serious damage and he believed “this vaccine is quite clearly more dangerous than COVID-19.”
Hoffe was quickly accused of causing “vaccine hesitancy” and local health authorities threatened to report him to the licensing body, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia. He was also told by government health authorities that he could not say anything negative about the COVID-19 vaccine, but the issues Hoffe was seeing compelled him to speak out anyway.
Blood Clot Formation With mRNA Vaccines ‘Inevitable’: In each dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine are 40 trillion mRNA - or messenger RNA - molecules. Each mRNA “package” is designed to be absorbed into your cell, but only 25% stay in your arm at the site of the injection. The other 75%, Hoffe says, are collected by your lymphatic system and fed into your circulation. The cells where mRNA is absorbed are those around your blood vessels - the capillary network, which are the tiniest blood vessels in your body.
When the mRNA is absorbed into your vascular endothelium - the inner lining of your capillaries - the “packages” open and genes are released. Each gene can produce many COVID-19 spike proteins, and your body gets to work manufacturing these spike proteins, numbering in the trillions.
Your body recognizes the spike protein as foreign, so it begins to manufacture antibodies to protect you against COVID-19, or so the theory goes. But there’s a problem. In a coronavirus, the spike protein becomes part of the viral capsule, Hoffe says, but when you get the vaccine, “it’s not in a virus, it’s in your cells.” The spike protein, in turn, can lead to the development of blood clots: “So it therefore becomes part of the cell wall of your vascular endothelium, which means that these cells, which line your blood vessels, which are supposed to be smooth so that your blood flows smoothly, now have these little spiky bits sticking out.
So it is absolutely inevitable that blood clots will form, because your blood platelets circulate around in your vessels and the purpose of blood platelets is to detect a damaged vessel and block that damage when it starts bleeding. So when a platelet comes through a capillary and suddenly hits all these covid spikes that are jutting into the inside vessel, blood clots will form to block that vessel. That’s how platelets work.”
62% of Recently Vaccinated Patients Have Evidence of Clotting: Hoffe spoke with Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi, a retired professor, microbiologist and infectious disease and immunology specialist who, along with several other doctors and scientists, formed Doctors for COVID Ethics. Bhakdi has also warned that the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein binds to the ACE2 receptor on platelets. The subsequent activation of the platelets can lead to disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC), i.e., a pathological overstimulation of your coagulation system that can result in abnormal, and life threatening, blood clotting, as well as thrombocytopenia (low platelet count) and hemorrhaging.
While some of the blood clots you may have heard about associated with the COVID-19 vaccines are the large variety that show up on MRIs and CT scans, Hoffe states that the variety he’s referring to are microscopic and scattered throughout the capillary network, so they won’t show up on any scan. The only way to find out if this predictable mechanism of clotting is happening is with a test called D-dimer. D-dimer is a protein fragment produced by the body when a blood clot dissolves. It’s typically undetectable or present only at very low levels, buts its level may significantly rise when the body is forming and breaking down blood clots.
According to Bhakdi, “Now a number of German doctors have been measuring the D-dimers in the blood of patients before vaccination and days after vaccinations and with respect to the symptoms they have just found out that triggering of clot formation is a very common event with all vaccines.”
Hoffe has been conducting the D-dimer test on his patients within four to seven days of them receiving a COVID-19 vaccine and found that 62% have evidence of clotting. While he’s still trying to accumulate more information, he said: “It means that these blood clots are not rare. The majority of people are getting blood clots and they have no idea that they even have them. The most alarming thing about this is that there are some parts of your body, like your heart and your brain and your spinal cord and your lungs, which cannot regenerate. When those tissues are damaged by blocked vessels, they are permanently damaged.”
‘The Worst Is Yet to Come’: As Bhakdi explained, post-vaccination it’s possible to end up with so many blood clots throughout your vascular system that your coagulation system is exhausted, resulting in bleeding (hemorrhaging). Hoffe now has patients who get out of breath much more easily than they used to because “they’ve clogged up thousands of tiny capillaries in their lungs.” This is only the first problem, as it can lead to more significant, permanent damage. Hoffe noted: “The terrifying thing about this is not just that these people are short of breath and can’t do what they used to be able to do. Once you block off a significant number of blood vessels to your lungs, your heart is now pumping against a much greater resistance to try to get the blood through your lungs.”
The end result can be pulmonary artery hypertension, which is basically high blood pressure in your lungs, because the blood can’t get through due to the many vessels that are blocked. “People with this usually die of right-sided heart failure within three years,” Hoffe said. “So the huge concern about this mechanism of injury is that these shots are causing permanent damage and the worst is yet to come.”
As he noted, while some tissues, like your liver and kidneys, can regenerate, others, like your heart, cannot. An increased risk of myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart muscle, has already been seen among young males who receive an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine. “They have permanently damaged hearts,” Hoffe explained, adding: “It doesn’t matter how mild it is, they will not be able to do what they used to do because heart muscle doesn’t regenerate. The long-term outlook is very grim, and with each successive shot, it will add more damage. The damage is cumulative because you’re progressively getting more damaged capillaries.”
Because of the risk of the formation of blood clots in your vessels, Bhakdi went so far as to say that giving the COVID-19 vaccine to children is a crime: “Do not give it to children because they have absolutely no possibility to defend themselves; if you give it to your child you are committing a crime.”
Spike Protein Damages Human Cells: The key causative agent causing damage from COVID-19 vaccines appears to be the spike protein. Scientists from the University of California San Diego created a pseudo virus, or cell surrounded by the spike proteins that did not contain a virus. Using an animal model, the researchers administered the pseudo virus into the lungs and found the virus was not necessary to create damage. Instead, the spike protein was enough to cause inflammation, damage to vascular endothelial cells and inhibited mitochondrial function.
Dr. Robert Malone, the inventor of the mRNA and DNA vaccine core platform technology, has also spoken out about the dangers of the spike protein used in COVID-19 vaccines. In its native form in SARS-CoV-2, the spike protein is responsible for the pathologies of the viral infection, and in its wild form it’s known to open the blood-brain barrier, cause cell damage (cytotoxicity) and, Malone said, “is active in manipulating the biology of the cells that coat the inside of your blood vessels - vascular endothelial cells, in part through its interaction with ACE2, which controls contraction in the blood vessels, blood pressure and other things.” Bhakdi also described this as “a disastrous situation” paving the way for clotting. “This is a disastrous situation, because the spike protein itself is now sitting on the surface of the cells, facing the bloodstream. It is known that these spike proteins, the moment they touch platelets, they active them [the platelets], and that sets the whole clotting system going.
The second thing that should happen, according to theory, is that the waste products of this protein that are produced in the cell, are put in front of the ‘door’ of the cell, and is presented to the immune system. The immune system, especially the lymphocytes, recognize these and will attack the cells, because they don’t want them to make viruses or viral parts. And the viral parts are now being made in locations where viral parts would never, ever reach [naturally], like the vessel wall in your brain.
If that ‘tapestry’ of the wall [i.e., the lining of the blood vessel] is then destroyed, then that is the signal for the clotting system to [activate], and create a blood clot. And this happens with all of these vaccines because the gene [the instruction to make spike protein] is being introduced to the vessel wall.”
Physicians Forbidden From Countering Narrative: Equally as disturbing as the potential harm caused by experimental mRNA vaccines is the censorship going along with it, such that the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO), which regulates the practice of medicine in Ontario, issued a statement prohibiting physicians from making comments or providing advice that goes against the official narrative - basically anything “anti-vaccine, anti-masking, anti-distancing and anti-lockdown.”
The statement was released, according to CPSO, because physicians, in isolated incidents, have been spreading blatant misinformation via social media, which is undermining “public health measures meant to protect all of us.” But if a physician is unable to speak freely, the independent relationship between doctor and patient ceases to exist, and so does the doctor’s ability to act in the best interest of the patient.
Hoffe certainly experienced this but is still speaking out, putting his patients first and trying to get the word out that, he believes the COVID-19 vaccination program should be stopped until the causes of the many injuries and deaths are understood. The tragic question is, how many others with similar concerns have been intimidated into remaining silent?"
"Perspectives on the Pandemic: 'Blood Clots and Beyond'"
by Journeyman Pictures
"In February, 2021, Professor Sucharit Bhakdi, M.D. and a number of his colleagues warned the European Medicines Agency about the potential danger of blood clots and cerebral vein thrombosis in millions of people receiving experimental gene-based injections. Since then, two of the four injections have been suspended or recalled in Europe and the United States for just that reason. In this episode of Perspectives, Professor Bhakdi explains the science behind the problem, why it is not just limited to the products already suspended, and why in the long term we may be creating dangerously overactive immune systems in billions of unwitting subjects."
"Master, what gnaws at them so hideously their lamentation stuns the very air?"
"They have no hope of death," he answered me..."
- "The Inferno," Dante Alighieri
"Thucydides in the Underworld"
by JR Nyquist
"The shade of Thucydides, formerly an Athenian general and historian, languished in Hades for 24 centuries; and having intercourse with other spirits, was perturbed by an influx into the underworld of self-described historians professing to admire his History of the Peloponnesian War. They burdened him with their writings, priding themselves on the imitation of his method, tracing the various patterns of human nature in politics and war. He was, they said, the greatest historian; and his approval of their works held the promise that their purgatory was no prologue to oblivion.
As the centuries rolled on, the flow of historians into Hades became a torrent. The later historians were no longer imitators, but most were admirers. It seemed to Thucydides that these were a miserable crowd, unable to discern between the significant and the trivial, being obsessed with tedious doctrines. Unembarrassed by their inward poverty, they ascribed an opposite meaning to things: thinking themselves more “evolved” than the spirits of antiquity. Some even imagined that the universe was creating God. They supposed that the "most evolved" among men would assume God’s office; and further, that they themselves were among the “most evolved.”
Thucydides longed for the peace of his grave, which posthumous fame had deprived him. As with many souls at rest, he took no further interest in history. He had passed through existence and was done. He had seen everything. What was bound to follow, he knew, would be more of the same; but after more than 23 centuries of growing enthusiasm for his work, there occurred a sudden falling off. Of the newly deceased, fewer broke in upon him. Quite clearly, something had happened. He began to realize that the character of man had changed because of the rottenness of modern ideas. Among the worst of these, for Thucydides, was that barbarians and civilized peoples were considered equal; that art could transmit sacrilege; that paper could be money; that sexual and cultural differences were of no account; that meanness was rated noble, and nobility mean.
Awakened from the sleep of death, Thucydides remembered what he had written about his own time. The watchwords then, as now, were "revolution" and "democracy." There had been upheaval on all sides. "As the result of these revolutions," he had written, "there was a general deterioration of character throughout the Greek world. The simple way of looking at things, which is so much the mark of a noble nature, was regarded as a ridiculous quality and soon ceased to exist. Society had become divided into two ideologically hostile camps, and each side viewed the other with suspicion."
Thucydides saw that democracy, once again, imagined itself victorious. Once again traditions were questioned as men became enamored of their own prowess. It was no wonder they were deluded. They landed men on the moon. They had harnessed the power of the atom. It was no wonder that the arrogance of man had grown so monstrous, that expectations of the future were so unrealistic. Deluded by recent successes, they could not see that dangers were multiplying in plain view. Men built new engines of war, capable of wiping out entire cities, but few took this danger seriously. Why were men so determined to build such weapons? The leading country, of course, was willing to put its weapons aside. Other countries pretended to put their weapons aside. Still others said they weren't building weapons at all, even though they were.
Would the new engines of destruction be used? Would cities and nations be wiped off the face of the earth? Thucydides knew the answer. In his own day, during an interval of unstable peace, the Athenians had exterminated the male population of the island of Melos. Before doing this the Athenian commanders had came to Melos and said, "We on our side will use no fine phrases saying, for example, that we have a right to our empire because we defeated the Persians, or that we have come against you now because of the injuries you have done us - a great mass of words that nobody would believe." The Athenians demanded the submission of Melos, without regard to right or wrong. As the Athenian representative explained, "the strong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept."
The Melians were shocked by this brazen admission. They could not believe that anyone would dare to destroy them without just cause. In the first place, the Melians threatened no one. In the second place, they imagined that the world would be shocked and would avenge any atrocity committed against them. And so the Melians told the Athenians: "In our view it is useful that you should not destroy a principle that is to the general good of all men - namely, that in the case of all who fall into danger there should be such a thing as fair play and just dealing. And this is a principle which affects you as much as anybody, since your own fall would be visited by the most terrible vengeance and would be an example to the world."
The Athenians were not moved by the argument of Melos; for they knew that the Spartans generally treated defeated foes with magnanimity. "Even assuming that our empire does come to an end," the Athenians chuckled, "we are not despondent about what would happen next. One is not so much frightened of being conquered by a power [like Sparta]." And so the Athenians destroyed Melos, believing themselves safe - which they were. The Melians refused to submit, praying for the protection of gods and men. But these availed them nothing, neither immediate relief nor future vengeance. The Melians were wiped off the earth. They were not the first or the last to die in this manner.
There was one more trend that Thucydides noted. In every free and prosperous country he found a parade of monsters: human beings with oversized egos, with ambitions out of proportion to their ability, whose ideas rather belied their understanding than affirmed it. Whereas, there was one Alcibiades in his own day, there were now hundreds of the like: self-serving, cunning and profane; only they did not possess the skills, or the mental acuity, or beauty of Alcibiades. Instead of being exiled, they pushed men of good sense from the center of affairs. Instead of being right about strategy and tactics, they were always wrong. And they were weak, he thought, because they had learned to be bad by the example of others. There was nothing novel about them, although they believed themselves to be original in all things.
Thucydides reflected that human beings are subject to certain behavioral patterns. Again and again they repeat the same actions, unable to stop themselves. Society is slowly built up, then wars come and put all to ruin. Those who promise a solution to this are charlatans, only adding to the destruction, because the only solution to man is the eradication of man. In the final analysis the philanthropist and the misanthrope are two sides of the same coin. While man exists he follows his nature. Thucydides taught this truth, and went to his grave. His history was written, as he said, "for all time." And it is a kind of law of history that the generations most like his own are bound to ignore the significance of what he wrote; for otherwise they would not re-enact the history of Thucydides. But as they become ignorant of his teaching, they fall into disaster spontaneously and without thinking.
Seeing that time was short, and realizing that a massive number of new souls would soon be entering the underworld, the shade of Thucydides fell back to rest."
It may look like total complicated chaos in Afghanistan, but journalist Lara Logan, who lived there covering the war, says it’s all being allowed to happen. Why is the Taliban being allowed to take over? Logan says because this is the outcome the Biden Administration wants. Logan points to the actions that are “too stupid to be stupid,” like turning over big air force bases to the Taliban without a fight. This is part of the reason the Taliban took over Afghanistan in 11 days. The U.S. just evacuated in the middle of the night, and that left people only one choice–to evacuate. That is the Kabul Airport that is surrounded by Taliban forces. Logan says, “The U.S. military could have easily stopped this, but they don’t. “It’s because the Biden Administration wants the Taliban in control of Afghanistan.” It’s that simple.
The dark powers keep pushing masks and forced vaccinations with the experimental CV19 jab. Who cares if half of Americans already have natural immunity, and the science says they don’t need the experimental jab? Who cares if there are cures that the medical community is withholding? Who cares if they are killing people by withholding that treatment? Who cares that big Pharma, the FDA and CDC withheld proven scientific treatments to force people to have an experimental jab that allows Big Pharma to have insane profits for a so-called vaccine that now needs a third booster shot? The vax is a scam, and they withheld real cures to sell a vax that was unneeded and is proven dangerous for many, but who cares?
Don’t kid yourself, the economy is rotten from the inside out, and the Fed is just masking risk. This is what Peter Schiff says, and that idea is hard to dispute. Cycle analysts, like Bo Polny, say the U.S. dollar is going to fall soon, and it’s going to be ugly. Data mining analyst Clif High says the Biden Administration will collapse in the fall because of hyperinflation. It’s hard to imagine that people like High and Polny will be wrong at the same time, but we are going to find out soon. I would not bet against either of them. If they are only half right, very hard times are coming, especially for the U.S. dollar."
“A now famous picture from the Hubble Space Telescope featured Pillars of Creation, star forming columns of cold gas and dust light-years long inside M16, the Eagle Nebula. This false-color composite image views the nearby stellar nursery using data from the Herschel Space Observatory's panoramic exploration of interstellar clouds along the plane of our Milky Way galaxy. Herschel's far infrared detectors record the emission from the region's cold dust directly.
The famous pillars are included near the center of the scene. While the central group of hot young stars is not apparent at these infrared wavelengths, the stars' radiation and winds carve the shapes within the interstellar clouds. Scattered white spots are denser knots of gas and dust, clumps of material collapsing to form new stars. The Eagle Nebula is some 6,500 light-years distant, an easy target for binoculars or small telescopes in a nebula rich part of the sky toward the split constellation Serpens Cauda (the tail of the snake).”
“In Stacy Schiff's biography of Cleopatra, I came across this epigraph from Euripides: "Man's most valuable trait is a judicious sense of what not to believe." I have no idea which of Euripides' plays the quote is from, but it strikes me as a suitable source for reflection. Credulity is the default state of a human life. Children are born to believe, to accept as true what they are told by adults. An innate credulity has survival value in a dangerous world. If a grown-up says "There are crocodiles in the river," it is probably best to stay out of the water.
Skepticism, on the other hand, must be learned. I was late in realizing that I didn't have to believe the received "truth." My best teacher was a somewhat older Panamanian secular Jew I went to graduate school with at UCLA. We took our brown-bag lunches together in the university's botanical garden, and spent the hour talking about physics, religion, and the "meaning of life."
Moises was the first person I had encountered after sixteen years of Catholic education who mentioned the word "skepticism." "Why do you believe that?" he would ask, and often I had no answer except that it was what my family and teachers told me was true. The idea that I might actually examine the basis for my beliefs was a rather new concept. In matters of religion, like almost everyone else in the world, I had embraced uncritically the faith story into which I was born.
And thus began my search for "a judicious sense of what not to believe." When later, as a teacher, I wrote a little column for each issue of the college newspaper, I called it "Under a Skeptical Star," from a line of the Scots poet/scholar William MacNeile Dixon: "If there be a skeptical star I was born under it, yet I have lived all my days in complete astonishment." A liberating sense of what not to believe opened the door to a vastly more interesting world whose diverse and astonishing riches I continue to explore to this day."
The Biggest Stock Market Crash In World History Is Coming!"
by Epic Economist
"All factors are aligning; economic and financial indicators are signaling; experts are warning that an epic stock market crash is near. At this moment, the S&P 500 and the Dow are at all-time highs despite the huge selloff that happened on Tuesday. The Nasdaq is also close to record levels, and all three indexes went up between 14% and 18% just this year. It's when the market hits its peak that things start to crumble, and September, historically known as the worst month for stocks, is right at the corner. Right after that comes October, which is remarkably known for the devastating stock market crashes in 1929, 1987, 2008, and, most recently, 2018. And if you haven't noticed yet, there is a series of determinants weighting upon Wall Street and worrying investors right now. The worsening of the health crisis due to the emergence and fast spread of the Delta variant is one of them, along with concerns about the alarming growth of inflation and how the Federal Reserve will handle it. On top of all that, chaos is looming all over the world with rising threats of civil disorder and social conflicts. All of these factors are adding major pressure to the markets and putting the market's bull run at risk of derailing.
That's why investors have been increasingly scared that stocks may soon experience a sizable crash from recent highs. Stocks haven't faced a reckoning since the first round of lockdowns in March 2020, which resulted in a brief bear market and triggered a 20 percent crash from prior peak levels. But many are still ignoring the fact that the Delta variant could lead to another wave of mass shutdowns and push the economy to another recession. Overvalued stocks and an unrealistic economic outlook are setting the stage for what could be the worst financial catastrophe of the century. The notable investor and personal-finance guru Robert Kiyosaki is alerting that financial markets are moving toward their worst crash ever. In a recent Yahoo Finance interview, the "Poor Dad Rich Dad" author pointed out a number of reasons why we might soon witness a stock market crash like no other. He started by stressing that the US government borrowed too much and debased the dollar, trumpeted the value of debt to investors, and encouraged young people to start businesses without offering the right conditions for them to actually stay in business.
"Build a business that does well in crashes, booms, or busts. Young people shouldn't go to school and become employees. They should become entrepreneurs and capitalists, and build businesses that create jobs. I'm not saying that having a stock portfolio is right or wrong, but there are other alternatives. Just open your eyes and see how the rich are really getting richer," he outlined. He also revealed that currently his stock portfolio is empty and he is mainly focusing on Bitcoin. The founder of Rich Global and Rich Dad Company also reminded investors that the entire financial system is changing very fast. His decision to step away from stocks is rooted in a growing concern that investors are becoming too complacent and taking the bull market for granted. "Everyone says the market will stay up two more years. What if bottom falls out tonight? Will you be richer or poorer?" he asked.
Kiyosaki acknowledged that economic booms and surging asset prices, and the thrill of joining the upward path of a bubble can be electrifying, but cautioned that the subsequent downturns are horrifying to live through. "Booms are fun. Everyone is excited," Kiyosaki wrote on Twitter. "Busts are terrifying. Crashes are terrifying." For that reason, Kiyosaki has been sounding the alarm on a massive sell-off. "The next [stock market] crash is basically an avalanche waiting for the last snowflake," he says. "Since 2008, all the federal government has been doing is piling more debt on the mountainside, and they're just waiting for the next snowflake to hit. It's going to be the biggest crash in world history," warned the expert.
Kiyosaki is just one of several high-profile experts who have been sharing their concerns about the current market. The "Big Short" investor Michael Burry and the GMO co-founder Jeremy Grantham both see the greatest bubble ever formed now on the brink of bursting. Likewise, billionaire investors Leon Cooperman, Stanley Druckenmiller, and Jeffrey Gundlach don't believe the speculative frenzy can last for much longer. All signs are pointing to a stock market crash of unprecedented proportions, and if your assets are on the line, you should run for the exits before it's too late."
"The greatest happiness is to scatter your enemy and drive him before you. To see his cities reduced to ashes. To see those who love him shrouded and in tears. And to gather to your bosom his wives and daughters."
– Genghis Khan, first Great Khan of the Mongol Empire
POITOU, FRANCE – "It’s easy to criticize the Biden Team for its breathtaking incompetence in Afghanistan. So that’s what we’ll do. But the debacle illustrates far more than just the failure of one president, one party, or one administration.
It shows us how the whole elite scam works…
from the delusion that the rest of the world wants to be like the USA… if it could only get the chance…
to the fantasy that its experts know what they’re doing…
to the “exceptional nation” vanity… and misplaced faith in high-tech, super-expensive U.S. firepower…
to the kind of misadventure you get up to when you can pay for it with fake money…
to the collaboration of Wall Street and America’s leading industries…
to the complete lack of historical perspective or intelligent political leadership…
to the bovine-like acceptance by the public of the elites’ conjob…
and the toadiness of its leading media.
Classic Elite Scam: As we pointed out in an early book, "Empire of Debt," the U.S. never really got the hang of imperial finance. Early empires must have been exhilarating… and rewarding. The conquerors raped the women, made slaves of the men, and carried off all the treasure they could get their hands on.
The Roman Empire was more sophisticated. Victorious troops won slaves and booty, and then the captured people paid regular tribute to Rome.
The British Empire was a more modern, commercial variant, taking raw materials from colonies and using them to make finished products in Britain, which were then sold at a profit.
But the U.S. empire was a money-loser from the beginning. The elite enjoyed the thrill of playing World of Warcraft with live ammunition. They also got the jobs… the contracts… and the power. But they never figured out how to make it pay, except for themselves… and only by taking the money from their own people. It was a classic elite scam, in which the rewards go to the people at the top… and the costs (including most of the fatalities) fall upon the public.
Eyes on the Money: Yes, in the Afghanistan debacle, it’s all there… right before our eyes, like a corpse dumped on the highway. And now we ask: What other incompetence are the elites hiding? What other lies are they telling? And… will the lies and bungling continue for years… and then come crashing down in a matter of days?
Our beat here at the Diary is economics and finance. So we will ignore the war against COVID-19, the War on Drugs, diversity, democracy, anti-racism, climate control, and the rest of the claptrap. We’ll keep our eyes on the money. And we note, again, that it’s amazing what you can’t see when you’re paid to be blind.
Investors have made fortunes by not noticing that their stocks are priced nowhere near what they are really worth…
Statisticians are paid to miscalculate the inflation rate…
Economists build careers by ignoring the basics of economics…
Politicians win office by promising to spend more than we can afford…
And Federal Reserve chief Jerome Powell becomes the most famous public servant since Pontius Pilate by closing his eyes to the destruction caused by his phony interest rates and trillions of dollars’ worth of fake money.
Delayed Reaction: The fake dollar was introduced 50 years ago last Sunday. It probably would have disappeared long ago had not then-Fed chair Paul Volcker given it a new lease of life in 1980. Thereafter, the U.S. held together fairly well for the next 20 years. So we can probably date the real drift into fantasyland to about the same time as the invasion of Afghanistan… in the early 2000s.
“Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter,” said then-Vice President Dick Cheney in 2003. Of course, deficits do matter. But not necessarily right away. And by the time you realize that they do matter, you are trying to take off from a crowded runway… with dozens of people clinging to your wheels. More to come…"
"Is there an answer to the question of why bad things happen to good people? The response would be… to forgive the world for not being perfect, to forgive God for not making a better world, to reach out to the people around us, and to go on living despite it all, no longer asking why something happened, but asking how we will respond, what we intend to do now that it has happened."
Wright warns that "there's nearly universal belief that America and the world are in for one of the most dangerous, unpredictable times in modern history." He continues: "Afghanistan has shown the world - enemies & allies alike - that our military & intel assets are largely irrelevant because we can't deploy them successfully."
The blame lays at the feet of multiple Presidents. The Generals. The Spies. The Congress.
America's Elites are trash.
China knows it. They will become emboldened, covertly & overtly. War over Taiwan and contested islands in the S. China Sea and E. China Sea is now more likely. Russia will consider similar covert & overt moves, focused on Crimea, & former Soviet satellites. The fear is that China & Russia will act in concert. Why? America was whipped by a tiny rebel force and couldn't even retreat properly.
Meanwhile, the American people are angry, COVID weary, & divided. If there were ever a time to push American hegemony aside, this is it.
If Cold War III grows hot, America will need to quickly build up & work with foreign counterparts. But who will trust America after Afghanistan? Who believes we have the leadership to use our military might well? Who will trust us when we say "We Will Stand With You"?
Beyond China/Russia, others will take gambles too. Terror orgs like al-Qa'ida & ISIS are degraded but not dead. Their ideology is very much alive. Iran's Hizballah - with terror cells throughout the US - may see an opening to create chaos too.
Meanwhile, the disaster inside Afghanistan is only just beginning. The Taliban will launch a terror campaign against American collaborators. The pictures will shock the conscience of the world, further degrading American moral authority. Biden & Co will struggle to respond.
There's also the nightmare of tactical weaponry now awash in Afghanistan, in the hands of the Taliban and - soon -on the global black market. These arms will fuel chaos around the world for decades. The Pentagon has no idea where this stuff is and no plans to destroy it.
Finally, if Afghani refugees pour into the US, there are profound implications for security, culture, the economy, & politics.
• Are they properly vetted?
• Do they hold Western/tolerant values re: women, gays?
• Do they bring skills/education?
• Which party will they support?
The existential problem is that America needs good leadership to right its ship but there is none. Our federal bench is weak. Biden is a corrupt old man. Impeachment is a long shot; VP Harris is an unpopular paperweight. The Legislature is a feckless cabal of empty suits. Leadership could come from a state Governor, it's true, but not soon enough.
The above threats by China, Russia, & Co will metastasize well before the 2024 elections, and even a heroic new President will need years to clean things up. Again, our enemies and allies know this.
Upshot: There is fear and outrage streaming through former intel officers over the Afghanistan debacle. America is rudderless. And the world now knows it. Grave dangers lie ahead, some predictable, others unimaginable.
Keep your loved ones tight. Pray. And vote for change."
“It Was Always Going To End This Way In Afghanistan”
by Dick Polman
"Anyone who professes to be shocked by the Taliban victory in Afghanistan has not been paying attention. It was always bound to happen. It was merely delayed because Uncle Sam kept his trillion-dollar finger in the dike for 20 years. Were we fated to remain forever, in a land that had already proved fatally inhospitable to the British and the Russians and Alexander the Great?
The harbingers of failure had long been obvious, but most Americans, benumbed by the war, had long ago stopped paying attention. In 2019, word leaked that the U.S. officials entrusted with propping up the Afghan regime were disgusted with their proteges, saying in memos and private interviews that “after almost two decades of help from Washington, the Afghan army and police are still too weak to fend off the Taliban.”
They were weak largely because they were deeply corrupt. In the private words of Ryan Crocker, a former U.S. ambassador, “they’re useless as a security force because they are corrupt down to the patrol level.” Nevertheless, as another U.S. official admitted to government interviewers in 2015, “The less they behaved, the more money we threw at them.”
Fairly or not, President Biden will own the humiliating images of retreat – but, in reality, the Afghanistan debacle was authored by American presidents from both political parties. What we’re seeing now is a bipartisan clustermuck.
It was launched by George W. Bush, who committed us to the impossible task of nation-building. (From his 2005 Inaugural address: “It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture,” even though, he admitted, “our country has accepted obligations that are difficult to fulfill.”)
It was sustained by Barack Obama, who approved a troop surge in 2009 and whose military spokesmen kept saying there was light at the end of the tunnel (Gen. James Mattis to Congress in 2010: “We’re on the right track now.”).
It landed in the capacious lap of Donald Trump, who decided it was time to get out, who invited the Taliban to Camp David in 2019 (“We’re getting along very, very well with the Taliban”), and who set a May 1, 2021 withdrawal deadline for U.S. forces.
Nevertheless, Republicans are predictably hammering Biden, conveniently forgetting that antiwar sentiment has long been rampant in their own ranks. Mitt Romney, the Republican's presidential nominee in 2012, said of Afghanistan in 2011: “We’ve learned that our troops shouldn’t go off and try and fight a war of independence for another nation.”
As recently as last April, Trump endorsed Biden’s announced intention to withdraw the troops: “Getting out of Afghanistan is a wonderful and positive thing to do. I planned to withdraw on May 1, and we should keep as close to that schedule as possible.”
“Biden understood that the choice was between getting out or being stuck there with no end in sight, and he rightly judged that the former was better for the United States," wrote historian and veteran conservative commentator Daniel Larison. "The fact that the Afghan government has lost so much ground so quickly proves that the U.S. failed in building a functioning state that could fend for itself... Far from showing the folly of Biden’s decision, it confirms the wisdom of it. A state as rickety and incapable of protecting itself as this one would not have been saved by delaying withdrawal a few more months or even years.”
As Biden said on Saturday, “One more year or five more years of U.S. military presence would not have made a difference if the Afghan military cannot or will not hold its own country. And an endless American presence in the middle of another country’s civil conflict was not acceptable to me.”
That view also jibes with the sentiments of the most Americans. He’ll likely take a hit in the short run as the images of surrender resonate globally – although that’s akin to blaming President Gerald Ford for our chaotic final departure from Vietnam in 1975 – but the fact remains that the current withdrawal is supported by 70 percent of Americans, including 56 percent of Republicans.
What most Americans appear to understand – even while mostly tuning out the war – is that leaving Afghanistan is basically the least bad option. There’s no point in investing a few more trillion dollars and more American bodies just to keep meeting the definition of insanity, the compulsion to do the same thing over and over again in expectation of a different result. It takes wisdom and political courage to face reality."
"The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim. "
- Gustave Le Bon
Freely download "The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind",
"Imagine living in a world where every hospital is overrun with vaccine-injured patients of all ages, suffering from extreme neurological damage that places previously able-bodied people in the category of requiring constant medical assistance to survive. Imagine so many people dying from covid spike protein injections (“vaccines”) that entire apartment buildings are abandoned and condemned even with the spike protein-infested dead bodies inside because no one is willing to remove the dangerous bodies.
This dark vision of society may soon come to pass as the full effects of spike protein damage are realized. With nearly 2.5 billion around the world already injected with spike protein bioweapons, and with nearly 200 million Americans having lined up to take the shots, the world is rolling the dice on a global medical experiment that risks the survivability of entire nations (if not civilization itself) in the years ahead.
We already know that as many as 500,000 Americans have already been killed by the “clot shot,” but importantly, those are merely the short term vascular effects from blood clotting. These deaths do not take into account the long-term, slow-acting neurological damage that appears to resemble the human form of Mad Cow Disease, a prion-induced protein folding disorder that irreversibly destroys brain tissue over time. In an interview conducted yesterday (and soon to be posted), Dr. Chris Shaw, an expert in neurology and elemental toxicity, warned me that widespread, accelerating neurological damage is now a very real possibility since the spike protein and mRNA particles cross the blood-brain barrier.
This means toxic nanoparticles are circulating among the brains of the vaccinated. Bio-distribution studies have further confirmed that spike protein injections do not remain at the injection site. Instead, spike protein nanoparticles (or mRNA instructions) circulate throughout most of the body’s organs, including the brain.
What happens when the brain is exposed to a weaponized spike protein, developed via gain-of-function research in a laboratory run by a communist military? (Wuhan lab, via the CCP.) The answer shouldn’t be surprising: The spike protein disassembles healthy neurological tissue, destroying brain cells and impairing cognition in the process.
Imagine if millions of Americans suddenly collapsed to the cognitive level of Joe Biden. We might see homeless, desperate masses aimlessly wandering the streets of blue cities, crapping on the sidewalks and mumbling nonsensical things to themselves. Of course, we already see that in San Francisco and many liberal cities, but imagine the numbers of those afflicted exploding into many millions.
Even those who are closely watching vaccine injuries and vaccine deaths may be missing the longer term neurological implications of this insidious spike protein assault on humanity. What happens to society when tens of millions of people are injured or killed by a government-created biological weapon designed to attack human tissue? It seems we’re about to find out.
No matter what happens in the coming months, right now is certainly not a good time to need hospital care. We strongly urge all readers to do everything in your power to maintain a healthy lifestyle rooted in disease prevention and strong nutrition. Over the next year (or less), the health care facilities may be overrun with vaccine-damaged people, and “routine” medical services may collapse as a result.
"The Stupid Will Believe It And Ask To Be Treated:
Pandemic To Depopulate 1981"
by Martin Armstrong
"Jacques Attali is a well-known French economist and social theorist. He has been a political adviser but also a senior civil servant, which is in itself a distorted term for they never see themselves as serving the people. We have simply been a herd of sheep to manage. Additionally, Attali was a counselor to the French President François Mitterrand from 1981 to 1991 and was the first head of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in 1991-1993 which I use to visit often. The building was outrageously expensive with a huge white marble slab on each floor as you got off the elevator. I had NEVER in all my years ever visited such a decadent public office anywhere in the world.
I use to do a lot of work in France. I was even a Keynote Speaker for the Bank of International Settlements at a luncheon in Paris with all the central bankers of Europe. And I was asked to debate political leaders in Paris on national TV – but they declined. When I say I have worked behind the curtain for decades, I am not making such a statement up out of thin air.
One of the aspects I have always encountered in various meetings is very disturbing in today’s light. There is a French book entitled "L’Avenir De La Vie" (“The Future of Life”) by Michel Salomon, who is a journalist and doctor back in 1981, he interviewed twenty scientists including seven Nobel Prize winners, and which thus relates his conversation with Jacques Attali, who at the time was the adviser to François Mitterrand. In that interview, it provides a clear warning of how they look down upon us, the great unwashed, which is the blueprint for what they are doing using Covid-19 to change the world economically and politically.
1981: “In the future it will be about finding a way to reduce the population. We will start with the old, because as soon as he is over 60-65 years of age, man lives longer than he produces and costs society dearly. Then the weak and then the useless who do nothing for society because there will be more and more of them, and especially finally the stupid ones.
Euthanasia targeting these groups; euthanasia will have to be an essential instrument of our future societies, in all cases. Of course, we cannot execute people or set up camps. We will get rid of it by making them believe it is for their own good. Too large a population, and for the most part unnecessary, is something economically too expensive.
Socially, it is also much better for the human machine to come to a screeching halt rather than gradually deteriorating. We won’t be able to give intelligence tests to millions and millions of people, you can imagine!
We will find something or cause it, a pandemic that targets certain people, a real economic crisis or not, a virus that will affect the old or the big, it doesn’t matter, the weak will succumb to it, the fearful and the stupid will believe it and ask to be treated.
We will have taken care to have planned the treatment, a treatment that will be the solution. The selection of idiots will thus be done by themselves: they will go to the slaughterhouse on their own. “
“The Future of Life”, Jacques Attali, 1981, interview with Michel Salomon.
This book is currently out of print. Perfect coincidence. This road map to tyranny is well known. The Press will not report the truth nor Big Tech because they all assume that they will be part of those selected to remain. Indeed, society is nothing but a herd of sheep. They know very well that the majority “will go to the slaughterhouse on their own.” Nature will always cull the herd, so to speak. But that is simply how things have worked for thousands of years. Those who see themselves as elitists neither believe in God nor in Nature and simply think they should redesign the world. These ideas have been floating around for a very long time. I have listened to them in meetings for the past 40 years and often asked what was my opinion. While the computer has correctly forecast these dark years, it also clearly shows they will lose. For that, they never liked that forecast but assumed it was just my opinion. Sorry! Wrong again!"
"The first step is to realize that you are not alone. We have all made mistakes as part of our life and growth. We have all said, thought, felt, and done things we regret. Our worth is not dependent upon being perfect. Many of us have fallen into self-defeating cycles-behaving badly, leading to a lowered sense of self-worth, leading to more negative behaviors. If we can stop judging our mistakes so harshly, we can also stop ourselves from reactively engaging in the negative behaviors.
The second realization is that no matter what your behavior, you have done the best you could every day of your life. You may not agree with this. So before we tackle that question, consider this principle in relation to your parents or other caregivers: whether they were kind or abusive, they were doing the best they knew how in light of their own limitations, wounds, beliefs, fears, values, and anxieties. Their best may have been wonderful, or terrible, or somewhere in between. In the same way, even though you have certainly fallen short of your ideal many times and made mistakes, you have also done the very best you were capable of at the time.
Most of us have replayed in our minds an incident we wish we could do over. Maybe we could have done better on a job interview, a speech, an exam, or a performance. Or we may wish we could take back hurtful actions-moments of disrespect or dishonesty. You cannot change past mistakes, but you can avoid repeating them. The past no longer exists except as a set of memories and impressions you keep alive in the present. By focusing on doing what you can do now-by reviewing your mistakes with eyes of compassion and asking forgiveness- you do much to heal your fragmented sense of worth.
If you are sorry for never sending your mother a birthday card, send her a special one now. Even if she has passed away, write the card. And ask her forgiveness. If you hurt a brother, sister, parent, or other person, review that memory; then contact them, apologize, and ask for forgiveness. If they will not forgive you, then forgive them for not forgiving you. Then send them flowers or another gift, perhaps with a letter. Going inside and visualizing those you have hurt, and asking their forgiveness, provides a healing that begins to lift your sense of worth as it heals relationships.
The next time you feel that something good can't last, remind yourself that evolution moves in an upward spiral and that life can, and usually does, get better over time. You live and learn, stumble and evolve, rise and fall, fail and grow, expand, progress. If you pay attention and strive to improve, you become stronger, clearer, wiser, and more capable. Life is a process of rediscovering your worth and the worth of all beings.
Finally, it comes to this: To discover your worth, you have to reach within yourself and find it there. You have to create it through worthy actions. The key is to remember that even though we don't feel very kind, or brave, or even deserving, the roof over our head continues to shelter us from storms, the sun shines upon us, our chairs keep supporting us, and so do our lives. Life itself is an unearned gift- and that is the hidden meaning of grace.
Grace reveals that only this moment is real. That past and future exist only in our minds. Your scorecard is wiped clean in any moment of awareness, humility, or repentance. If you have a debt to pay, then pay it in the currency of kindness to the person it is owed, not by punishing yourself, not ever again. It is not necessary. It never has been."
"Everything in Business and the Economy Will Never
Be the Same Again - Nothing is Normal"
"I am in La Jolla, California. This is the La Jolla Cove. Jerome Powell just said that nothing in our economy will ever be normal again. There is no going back to the way things used to be. You have to get ready just to move forward and understand that so much is not going to come back."
