“Your Diatribe Against the Vaccines Is Most Unfortunate”

“Your Diatribe Against the Vaccines Is Most Unfortunate”

by Brian Maher

"The unvaccinated anywhere… evidently threaten the vaccinated everywhere. Thus reader Bruce reads us a sharp lesson in citizenship… and recalls us to our civic duties: Your diatribe against the vaccines is most unfortunate. As a concerned citizen, I participated in a Novavax Phase 3 trial of a vaccine that will probably be approved shortly. When we started, none had been approved, but I seriously felt something was needed and wanted to help. Those who refuse to be vaccinated are a threat to the rest of society, no matter how you phrase "Freedom," which is only socially acceptable if it is based on Responsibility!

Here is Bruce’s message, reduced to essentials: The renegade must lay aside his individuality. He must become a member of the regiment. He must march in step. That is: He must submit to the bodily invasion of alien genetic material. Society’s good requires it.

We admire Bruce’s elevation of others above self. We admire his courageous guinea-pigging. We admire his civic spirit. He is the ideal citizen, the model citizen, the copybook virtues in flesh. And it is our heart’s yearning that Bruce escapes his drug trial with a whole skin. It is, after all, an experiment.

The Civic Spirit of a Skunk: Your editor - unlike Bruce - embodies the civic spirit of a skunk. He instinctively grazes against the grain of popular opinion. He distrusts crowds… and navigates invariably around them. Perhaps the business is not entirely rational. It is more a reflex, as when a patient kicks the doctor hard when his knee is karate-chopped. Yet rarely has your editor discovered crowds to be repositories of wisdom or intelligence. They push along on passion, under hormonal steam. That is why you will often find us on our lonesome own.

And when we believe a crowd is under the spell of rogues, rascals, rapscallions… of brickheads, bandicoots and blackguards… of cads, clodpates and corruptos… of liars, lickspittles and lunks? That is, under the spell of a Dr. Fauci and his goons? We strike out on a line... 180 degrees the other way from that crowd... fast as two legs can deliver a man. This we have done. We have run the other way.

For we believe Dr. Fauci, the public health authorities and government officials heeding their counsel have taken the crowd for a sleigh ride. They have told us the one thing originally. They have then proceeded to tell us the opposite thing. Their rules have proven arbitrary, their rules have proven capricious. They often war with logic itself. Here is one personal example in point…

Lunacy: Your editor recently attended a company outing at a Baltimore drinkhouse. He stood primarily off to one side, aloof - as befits his temperament. But colleagues gathered in tight huddles, each formation throbbing with conversation, each formation throbbing with laughter. Yet this mandate was in force: To acquire a beverage from the bar, one had to place a surgical mask upon the face before lighting out. One was likewise required to remain in this masked state for the homeward journey. Only when the round trip was concluded, once he was back among his fellows, could he expose his naked face.

That is, no mask was required to assemble in bunches… inches from colleagues… blowing germ-filled gales into one another’s faces… and likely spitting saliva into one another’s faces... in the course of conversation. Yet when transiting to and from the bar in 100% solitude, in 100% silence, wordless and spitless... the mask had to go on. We filed a sharp grievance with the barman, attempting an appeal to his reason. But he informed us that the rules were the rules and that that was that. Thus it was - that.

But was it logic? If it was logic... it was a logic far beyond our comprehension. We hazard it is likewise a logic that would stymie and stupefy Aristotle. It would wobble the poor fellow dreadfully. Yet it is the logic of Baltimore City. And it is the logic of the establishments under its velveted, jackbooted heel.

Next we turn to the vaccines...

Vaccines Don’t Stop the Virus. Get Vaccinated Anyway: Alas, the weight of evidence sinks Bruce and his altruistic civics. That is because vaccination does not block a man from acquiring the virus. Nor does it block him from disseminating the virus. The unvaccinated therefore form no greater menace than the vaccinated.

Even the vaccine-drummers presently concede this point. They claim rather that it slashes hospitalizations and dyings - not that it meaningfully inhibits the travel. A question of course arises: Why mandate a vaccine if it fails to jail the virus in, if the microscopic felon slips so easily through the dragnet?

We have yet to hear one answer that appeals to the logic centers. The answers generally reduce to this: “Yes, you can still catch and spread the virus, which is why you must still wear a mask, even if fully vaccinated. But it is essential that you be fully vaccinated if we want to stop the spread.” Yet the literature reveals the most vaccinated peoples of Earth are enduring the greatest caseloads. The least vaccinated, meantime, are experiencing the lightest caseloads. The reasons may be complex. They likely are complex. Yet the facts are the facts. We were told the facts would be otherwise.

More Head-Scratchers: Another question: If the vaccinated must live in dread fear of the unvaccinated, what sort of vaccines are these? A man inoculated against measles - for example - does not cower from his uninoculated neighbor. He has his immunity, he does not feel menaced. Let the neighbor take his chance. Yet Bruce and others believe the unvaccinated are murderers-in-waiting - even the unvaccinated with natural immunity.

Meantime, the Centers for Disease Control cannot cite one solitary instance of the naturally immunized sickening anyone. Not one instance. Our minions have further shown us medical literature indicating that the immune... who undergo vaccination… are 56% more likely to acquire the virus. Why then must they endure vaccination?

Besides, it is now known these potions lose their oomph within months. The magic dissipates. Another dose is then required. It too will fade. Even Dr. Fauci acknowledges this fact. Even Mr. William Gates - vaccine kingpin - acknowledges this fact. Yet they insist upon universal vaccination.

A 60-fold Increase in Adverse Events: Once again, we wish Bruce every success in his vaccine trial. We hope sincerely that it does not sicken him - or worse. For the evidence of grave vaccine aftereffects continues to pile and pile…

For example: Thoroughbred professional athletes have endured a 60-fold increase in incidents such as heart attacks in 2021. Sixty-fold! Any professional athlete to endure such a calamity invariably rates mention in the sporting news. Thus the 60-fold increase in 2021 cannot owe to statistical cherry-plucking. Meantime, subversives within the medical field report that the hospitals are bulging with the fully vaccinated. Many are down with rare and confounding conditions.

“The Most Dangerous Vaccines in Human History”: Mr. Steve Kirsch cites evidence from data crackerjack and VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Effects Reporting System) authority, Albert Benavides: "As of Nov. 1, 2021, there have been more adverse events reported for the COVID vaccines than for all 70-plus vaccines combined since they started tracking adverse events 30 years ago. That’s a stunning statistic, nobody can deny it, but nobody in the mainstream medical community (or mainstream media) seems to care much...

Here’s what the evidence shows: "The COVID vaccines are the most dangerous vaccines in human history. They are 800 times more deadly than the smallpox vaccine, which was the previous record holder. The vaccines have killed over 150,000 Americans and permanently disabled even more… For kids, it is estimated that we kill 117 kids for every COVID death we prevent."

The Pfizer six-month trial showed the drug can save one life for every 22,000 people vaccinated. It also appeared from the trial that the drug killed more people than it saved (there were 20 deaths in the treatment group versus 14 in placebo after unblinding). So we are “saving” fewer than 10,000 lives at the expense of over 150,000 deaths. In short, we kill 15 people to save one...

They can’t admit that they missed the signals now because that would be an admission they missed them before. So they will try to discredit this article with ad hominem attacks (this is a technique used to win an argument when you cannot win on the evidence). Thus one wag - a certain Anthony Vera - quips on Twitter: “What we really have now is a pandemic of people who can’t admit they were wrong.”

Are these naysayers correct? If so… why do the American people continue to heed the “experts”... and take aboard their medical advice? Answer tomorrow…"

- dailyreckoning.com

○

Must read:

"Unthinkable Thoughts"

Musical Interlude: The Alan Parsons Project, "Sirius", "Eye In The Sky"

The Alan Parsons Project, "Sirius", "Eye In The Sky"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Why doesn't the nearby galaxy create a gravitational lensing effect on the background galaxy? It does, but since both galaxies are so nearby, the angular shift is much smaller than the angular sizes of the galaxies themselves. The featured Hubble image of NGC 3314 shows two large spiral galaxies which happen to line up exactly. The foreground spiral NGC 3314a appears nearly face-on with its pinwheel shape defined by young bright star clusters. Against the glow of the background galaxy NGC 3314b, though, dark swirling lanes of interstellar dust can also be seen tracing the nearer spiral's structure. Both galaxies appear on the edge of the Hydra Cluster of Galaxies, a cluster that is about 200 million light years away. 

Gravitational lens distortions are much easier to see when the lensing galaxy is smaller and further away. Then, the background galaxy may even be distorted into a ring around the nearer. Fast gravitational lens flashes due to stars in the foreground galaxy momentarily magnifying the light from stars in the background galaxy might one day be visible in future observing campaigns with high-resolution telescopes."

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

"What Are The Facts?"

“What are the facts? Again and again and again – what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what “the stars foretell,” avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the un-guessable “verdict of history” – what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!”

- Robert A. Heinlein

○

“It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny of all hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great openness to new ideas. If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you. On the other hand, if you are open to the point of gullibility and have not an ounce of skeptical sense in you, then you cannot distinguish the useful ideas from the worthless ones.”

- Carl Sagan

○

○

And always remember...

"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains,

however improbable, must be the truth."

- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "Sherlock Holmes"

The Poet: John Jefferson, “Wounded But Not Slain”

“Wounded But Not Slain”

“I am wounded but I am not slain.

I’m bruised and faint they say…

I shall lay me down and bleed a while,

then I shall rise and fight again.

Just let me lie and bleed awhile;

I’ll not be long this way.

My Spirit’s low and my eyes flow.

My heart is sad and sore;

But when my pen’ent tears are gone,

I’ll stand and fight some more.

I’ll bind these wounds; I’ll dry these tears;

I’ll close this bleeding vein;

I’ll not lie here and weep and die:

I’ll rise and fight again.

‘Twas yesterday I bowed so low,

Was weak from tears and pain;

Today I’m strong; my fears are gone;

Today I fight again.”

- John Jefferson

"The Most Damned Of All..."

“Damned is the soul that dies while the evil it committed lives on. And the most damned of all are those who see the evil coming for others and refuse to confront it. For it is not out of fear that heroes are born, but rather out of their selfless love that will not allow them safety bought from the torture, death, and degradation of others. It is better to die in defense of another than to live with the knowledge that you could have saved them but chose to do nothing. And to those who think that one person cannot make a difference, I say this… the deadliest tidal wave begins as an unseen ripple in a vast ocean. Live your life so that your integrity will motivate others to strive for excellence long after you’ve passed on, and know that no good deed or sacrifice, or offer of sincere friendship or love, is ever forgotten by the one who receives it.”

- Sherrilyn Kenyon

“Nine Meals from Anarchy”

“Nine Meals from Anarchy”

by Jeff Thomas

“In 1906, Alfred Henry Lewis stated, “There are only nine meals between mankind and anarchy.” Since then, his observation has been echoed by people as disparate as Robert Heinlein and Leon Trotsky. The key here is that, unlike all other commodities, food is the one essential that cannot be postponed. If there were a shortage of, say, shoes, we could make do for months or even years. A shortage of gasoline would be worse, but we could survive it, through mass transport, or even walking, if necessary.

But food is different. If there were an interruption in the supply of food, fear would set in immediately. And, if the resumption of the food supply were uncertain, the fear would become pronounced. After only nine missed meals, it’s not unlikely that we’d panic and be prepared to commit a crime to acquire food. If we were to see our neighbor with a loaf of bread, and we owned a gun, we might well say, “I’m sorry, you’re a good neighbor and we’ve been friends for years, but my children haven’t eaten today – I have to have that bread – even if I have to shoot you.”

So, let’s have a closer look at the actual food distribution industry, compare it to the present direction of the economy and see whether there might be reason for concern.

The food industry typically operates on very small margins – often below 2%. Traditionally wholesalers and retailers have relied on a two-week turnaround of supply and anywhere up to a 30-day payment plan. But an increasing tightening of the economic system for the last eight years has resulted in a turnaround time of just three days for both supply and payment for many in the industry. This is a system that’s already under sever pressure, and has no further wiggle room should it take significant further hits.

If there were a month where significant inflation took place (say, 3%), all profits would be lost for the month, for both suppliers and retailers, but goods could still be replaced and sold for a higher price next month. But, if there were three or more consecutive months of inflation, the industry would be unable to bridge the gap, even if better conditions were expected to develop in future months. A failure to pay in full for several months would mean smaller orders by those who could not pay. That would mean fewer goods on the shelves. The longer the inflationary trend continued, the more quickly prices would rise to hopefully offset the inflation. And ever-fewer items on the shelves.

From Germany in 1922, to Argentina in 2000, to Venezuela in 2016, this has been the pattern, whenever inflation has become systemic, rather than sporadic. Each month, some stores close, beginning with those that are the most poorly-capitalized. In good economic times, this would mean more business for those stores that were still solvent, but, in an inflationary situation, they would be in no position to take on more unprofitable business. The result is that the volume of food on offer at retailers would decrease at a pace with the severity of the inflation.

However, the demand for food would not decrease by a single loaf of bread. Store closings would be felt most immediately in inner cities, when one closing would send customers to the next neighborhood, seeking food. The real danger would come when that store had also closed and both neighborhoods descended on a third store in yet another neighborhood. That’s when one loaf of bread for every three potential purchasers would become worth killing over. Virtually no one would long tolerate seeing his children go without food because others had “invaded” his local supermarket.

In addition to retailers, the entire industry would be impacted and, as retailers disappeared, so would suppliers, and so on, up the food chain. This would not occur in an orderly fashion, or in one specific area. The problem would be a national one. Closures would be all over the map, seemingly at random, affecting all areas. Food riots would take place, first in the inner cities, then spread to other communities. Buyers, fearful of shortages, would clean out the shelves.

Importantly, it’s the very unpredictability of food delivery that increases fear, creating panic and violence. And, again, none of the above is speculation; it’s an historical pattern – a reaction based upon human nature whenever systemic inflation occurs.

Then… unfortunately… the cavalry arrives. At that point it would be very likely that the central government would step in and issue controls to the food industry that served political needs, rather than business needs, greatly exacerbating the problem. Suppliers would be ordered to deliver to those neighborhoods where the riots were the worst, even if those retailers were unable to pay. This would increase the number of closings of suppliers. Along the way, truckers would begin to refuse to enter troubled neighborhoods and the military might well be brought in to force deliveries to take place.

So what would it take for the above to occur? Well, historically, it has always begun with excessive debt. We know that the debt level is now the highest it has ever been in world history. In addition, the stock and bond markets are in bubbles of historic proportions. They are most certainly popping.

With a crash in the markets, deflation always follows, as people try to unload assets to cover for their losses. The Federal Reserve (and other central banks) has stated that it will unquestionably print as much money as it takes to counter deflation. Unfortunately, inflation has a far greater effect on the price of commodities than assets. Therefore, the prices of commodities will rise dramatically, further squeezing the purchasing power of the consumer, thereby decreasing the likelihood that he will buy assets, even if they’re bargain-priced. Therefore, asset-holders will drop their prices repeatedly, as they become more desperate. The Fed then prints more to counter the deeper deflation and we enter a period when deflation and inflation are increasing concurrently.

Historically, when this point has been reached, no government has ever done the right thing. They have, instead, done the very opposite – keep printing. Food still exists, but retailers shut down because they cannot pay for goods. Suppliers shut down because they’re not receiving payments from retailers. Producers cut production because sales are plummeting.

In every country that has passed through such a period, the government has eventually gotten out of the way, and the free market has prevailed, re-energizing the industry and creating a return to normal. The question is not whether civilization will come to an end. (It will not.) The question is the liveability of a society that is experiencing a food crisis, as even the best of people are likely to panic and become a potential threat to anyone who is known to store a case of soup in his cellar.

Fear of starvation is fundamentally different from other fears of shortages. Even good people panic. In such times, it’s advantageous to be living in a rural setting, as far from the centre of panic as possible. It’s also advantageous to store food in advance that will last for several months, if necessary. However, even these measures are no guarantee, as, today, modern highways and efficient cars make it easy for anyone to travel quickly to where the goods are. The ideal is to be prepared to sit out the crisis in a country that will be less likely to be impacted by dramatic inflation – where the likelihood of a food crisis is low and basic safety is more assured.”

- http://www.24hgold.com/

○

“It is well enough that the people of the nation do not

understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did,

I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”

- Henry Ford

"You Can’t Borrow Your Way To Riches - Never Ending Inflation is Here"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly, PM 11/17/21:

"You Can’t Borrow Your Way To Riches - 

Never Ending Inflation is Here"

The Daily "Near You?"

Blue River, Wisconsin, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

Gregory Mannarino, "Risk In This Market Continues To Rise - This Is What You Should Do Now"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 11/17/21:

"Risk In This Market Continues To Rise - 

This Is What You Should Do Now"

-  https://traderschoice.net/

"How Fanatics Took Over the World"

"How Fanatics Took Over the World"

by Jeffrey A. Tucker

"The closer the crash of the empire, the crazier its laws are."

- Marcus Tulius Cicero

"Early in the pandemic, I had been furiously writing articles about lockdowns. My phone rang with a call from a man named Dr. Rajeev Venkayya. He is the head of a vaccine company but introduced himself as former head of pandemic policy for the Gates Foundation. Now I was listening.

I did not know it then, but I’ve since learned from Michael Lewis’s (mostly terrible) book "The Premonition" that Venkayya was, in fact, the founding father of lockdowns. While working for George W. Bush’s White House in 2005, he headed a bioterrorism study group. From his perch of influence - serving an apocalyptic president - he was the driving force for a dramatic change in U.S. policy during pandemics. He literally unleashed hell.

That was 15 years ago. At the time, I wrote about the changes I was witnessing, worrying that new White House guidelines (never voted on by Congress) allowed the government to put Americans in quarantine while closing their schools, businesses, and churches shuttered, all in the name of disease containment. I never believed it would happen in real life; surely there would be public revolt. Little did I know, we were in for a wild ride…

Last year, Venkayya and I had a 30-minute conversation; actually, it was mostly an argument. He was convinced that lockdown was the only way to deal with a virus. I countered that it was wrecking rights, destroying businesses, and disturbing public health. He said it was our only choice because we had to wait for a vaccine. I spoke about natural immunity, which he called immoral. So on it went.

The more interesting question I had at the time was why this certified Big Shot was wasting his time trying to convince a poor scribbler like me. What possible reason could there be? The answer, I now realized, is that from February to April 2020, I was one of the few people (along with a team of researchers) who openly and aggressively opposed what was happening.

There was a hint of insecurity and even fear in Venkayya’s voice. He saw the awesome thing he had unleashed all over the world and was anxious to tamp down any hint of opposition. He was trying to silence me. He and others were determined to crush all dissent. Fat chance. His greatest fears have been realized. The movement against what he did is now global, ferocious, and insuppressible. It’s not going away. It is only going to grow, despite his best efforts.

This is how it has been for the better part of the last 21 months, with social media and YouTube deleting videos that dissent from lockdowns. It’s been censorship from the beginning. Now we see what happens: the lockdowns have birthed a new movement plus a new way of communicating plus new platforms that are threatening monopoly control the world over. Not only that: political and economic upheaval seem inevitable.

For all the problems with Lewis’s book, and there are plenty, he gets this whole backstory right. Bush came to his bioterrorism people and demanded some huge plan to deal with some imagined calamity. When Bush saw the conventional plan - make a threat assessment, distribute therapeutics, work toward a vaccine - he was furious. “This is bulls**t,” the president yelled. “We need a whole-of-society plan. What are you going to do about foreign borders? And travel? And commerce?”

Hey, if the president wants a plan, he’ll get a plan. “We want to use all instruments of national power to confront this threat,” Venkayya reports having told colleagues. “We were going to invent pandemic planning.” This was October 2005, the birth of the lockdown idea.

Dr. Venkayya began to fish around for people who could come up with the domestic equivalent of Operation Desert Storm to deal with a new virus. He found no serious epidemiologists to help. They were too smart to buy into it. He eventually bumped into the real lockdown innovator working at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico. His name was Robert Glass, a computer scientist with no medical training, much less knowledge, about viruses. Glass, in turn, was inspired by a science fair project that his 14-year-old daughter was working on.

She theorized (like the cooties game from grade school) that if school kids could space themselves out more or even not be at school at all, they would stop making each other sick. Glass ran with the idea and banged out a model of disease control based on stay-at-home orders, travel restrictions, business closures, and forced human separation. Crazy right? No one in public health agreed with him but like any classic crank, this convinced Glass even more.

I asked myself, “Why didn’t these epidemiologists figure it out?” They didn’t figure it out because they didn’t have tools that were focused on the problem. They had tools to understand the movement of infectious diseases without the purpose of trying to stop them. Genius, right? Glass imagined himself to be smarter than 100 years of experience in public health. One guy with a fancy computer would solve everything! Well, he managed to convince some people, including another person hanging around the White House named Carter Mecher, who became Glass’s apostle.

Please consider the following quotation from Dr. Mecher in Lewis’s book: “If you got everyone and locked each of them in their own room and didn’t let them talk to anyone, you would not have any disease.” At last, an intellectual has a plan to abolish disease - and human life as we know it too! As preposterous and terrifying as this is - a whole society not only in jail but solitary confinement - it sums up the whole of Mecher’s view of disease. It’s also completely wrong.

Pathogens are part of our world; they are not generated by human contact. We pass them onto each other as the price for civilization, but we also evolved immune systems to deal with them. That’s 9th-grade biology, but Mecher didn’t have a clue.

Jump forward to March 12, 2020. Who exercised the major influence over the decision to close schools, even though it was known at that time that SARS-CoV-2 posed almost no risk to people under the age of 20? There was even evidence that they did not spread COVID-19 to adults in any serious way.

Didn’t matter. Mecher’s models - developed with Glass and others - kept spitting out a conclusion that shutting down schools would drop virus transmission by 80%. I’ve read his memos from this period - some of them still not public - and what you observe is not science but ideological fanaticism in play.

Based on the timestamp and length of the emails, Mecher was clearly not sleeping much. Essentially he was Lenin on the eve of the Bolshevik Revolution. How did he get his way? There were three key elements: public fear, media and expert acquiescence, and the baked-in reality that school closures had been part of “pandemic planning” for the better part of 15 years. The lockdowners, over the course of 15 years, had worn out the opposition. Lavish funding, attrition of wisdom within public health, and ideological fanaticism prevailed.

Figuring out how our expectations for normal life were so violently foiled, how our happy lives were brutally crushed, will consume serious intellectuals for many years. But at least we now have a first draft of history. As with almost every revolution in history, a small minority of crazy people with a cause prevailed over the humane rationality of multitudes. When people catch on, the fires of vengeance will burn very hot.

The task now is to rebuild a civilized life that is no longer so fragile as to allow insane people to lay waste to all that humanity has worked so hard to build."

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

- https://brownstone.org/articles/

○

"The corrupt establishment will do anything to suppress sites like the Burning Platform from revealing the truth. The corporate media does this by demonetizing sites like mine by blackballing the site from advertising revenue. If you get value from this site, please keep it running with a donation. [Burning Platform LLC - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal

on the website. PayPal - The safer, easier way to pay online!

"We Like To Think..."

“We like to think that we are rational beings; humane, conscientious, civilized, thoughtful. But when things fall apart, even just a little, it becomes clear we are not better than animals. We have opposable thumbs, we think, we walk erect, we speak, we dream, but deep down we are still routing around in the primordial ooze; biting, clawing, scratching out an existence in the cold, dark world like the rest of the tree-toads and sloths.”

- “Grey’s Anatomy”

"It Has Begun – Get Ready To Pay Much Higher Prices For Meat From Now On"

"It Has Begun – Get Ready To Pay Much 

Higher Prices For Meat From Now On"

by Michael Snyder

"The era of cheap meat is over. For those that are carnivores, that is really bad news. For decades, Americans have been able to count on the fact that there would always be mountains of very inexpensive meat at the local grocery store, but now those days are gone and they aren’t coming back. As I was writing this introductory paragraph, it struck me that what is happening to meat prices actually parallels what I wrote about yesterday. Just as the left doesn’t want us to use traditional forms of energy because they believe that doing so is “bad” for the climate, so they also detest that a lot of us like to eat a lot of meat because the production of meat causes levels of certain greenhouse gases to rise. Sometimes we joke about the methane that comes from “cow farts”, but radicals on the left take this stuff deadly seriously. And at the same time that gasoline prices are soaring into the stratosphere, the exact same thing is happening to meat prices. In fact, we just learned that the price of beef in the U.S. has risen more than 20 percent since last October…

"Behind unleaded gasoline, beef prices have risen the most on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) since October 2020, rising 20.1% in the past year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics." An increase of over 20 percent in one year is deeply alarming.

Unfortunately, it isn’t just the price of beef that is soaring. Tyson Foods just released some new numbers which show that beef, pork and chicken prices are all rising dramatically…"The biggest meat company by sales in the United States has announced significant price rises for the fourth quarter, as the impact of the highest inflation for 30 years continues to be felt. Tyson Foods, based in Springdale, Arkansas, announced on Monday that chicken prices rose 19 percent during its fiscal fourth quarter, while beef and pork prices jumped 33 percent and 38 percent, respectively."

During the early portion of this crisis, Tyson Foods was reluctant to pass increasing costs along to consumers, but now we are being informed that they don’t intend to make the same mistake again…"Stewart Glendinning, the chief financial officer of Tyson Foods, said that they have been slow to increase their prices, in line with inflation, but are now making up for the delay. ‘We expect to take continued pricing actions to ensure that any inflationary cost increases that our business incurs are passed along,’ he said, on the company’s quarterly earnings call."

Sadly, this is just the beginning. The price of meat is only going to go higher from here, and eventually it will get to a point where meat prices become exceedingly painful. Of course there are many that would argue that we are already there. As food prices continue to climb, those that help the needy are going to have a much more difficult time trying to do so.

For example, the Salvation Army is projecting that it will need 50 percent more funding than last year as it feeds more Americans than ever before…"The Salvation Army is planning to serve more meals than in 2020’s record year, and will need around 50% more funding to meet the buoyed demand, Hodder said. He expects rental and utilities assistance to lead the pack of requested aid. “We’re fearful of what we’re calling ‘pandemic poverty,’” Hodder said."

The price of gasoline continues to shoot up as well. On Tuesday, the average price of gasoline in California set a new record high for the third day in a row…"Gas prices in California have broken a new record with an average price tag of $4.687 for a regular gallon as of Tuesday morning, according to the American Automobile Association. It was the third day in a row the state has recorded record breaking prices as Monday’s average gas price was $4.682 and Sunday’s was $4.676 which broke the previous state record of $4.671 in October 2012."

Needless to say, the price of gasoline is quite a bit higher than that in certain urban areas. In downtown Los Angeles, one unfortunate motorist ended up paying more than six dollars a gallon on Monday…"Brian Sproule squinted against the sun on Monday as he examined the price board at a Chevron station in downtown Los Angeles, where a regular gallon of gas was $6.05. Sproule, 37, is a mobile notary who spends much of his time in his car. He said he’s used to spending about $40 to fill his tank, but by the time he capped off his Hyundai Elantra, the meter displayed a whopping $71.59."

Can you imagine paying that much for gasoline? Don’t think that it can’t happen where you live. Eventually, everyone in the entire country will be seeing such prices.

As “Bidenflation” makes headlines day after day, U.S. consumers are becoming increasingly pessimistic. Just check out the latest consumer confidence number released by the University of Michigan…"The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index fell to 66.8 in November – down sharply from the October reading of 71.7 and well below economists’ forecast for a reading of 72.4. “Consumer sentiment fell in early November to its lowest level in a decade due to an escalating inflation rate and the growing belief among consumers that no effective policies have yet been developed to reduce the damage from surging inflation,” Richard Curtin, the survey’s chief economist, said in a statement."

Americans haven’t been this negative about the economy in a really long time. And it is becoming increasingly clear that things are going to get even worse in the months ahead. Our leaders continue to promise that they will make progress on the problems that we are facing, but those problems just keep on escalating. In fact, the number of giant container ships waiting off the coast of southern California just hit another new record high…"On Friday and Monday, yet another record was set for the number of container ships stuck at anchor or in holding patterns off the ports: 83. The average wait time at anchor for ships arriving in Los Angeles hit yet another fresh peak on Tuesday: 16.9 days."

That really surprises me. Despite all of the national attention, and despite the fact that the Biden administration has gotten directly involved, the nightmare at the ports in southern California just continues to intensify. If we can’t even figure out how to get stuff unloaded and moved across the country in a timely manner, what hope do we have of properly addressing our more complex economic problems?

As our economy is shaken by crisis after crisis, millions upon millions of families all over the nation are deeply suffering. But of course not everyone is doing badly these days. It turns out that the vaccine manufacturers are laughing all the way to the bank…"The People’s Vaccine Alliance (PVA), an international non-profit working to close the global vaccine disparity, analyzed the earnings reports of Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna and found that the companies will make a combined $34 billion in profit this year. When broken down, that is $93.5 million a day, $65,000 a minute and more than $1,000 every second of profit."

When I look at those numbers, they literally make me want to vomit. The greed that we are witnessing has reached a level that is absolutely breathtaking. But this is what happens when the moral foundation of a society completely collapses. In about a month and a half, 2021 will be over and 2022 will be here. 2021 has been bad, but I believe that 2022 will be even worse. So I would encourage you to make preparations for a very rough year, because the days ahead are not going to be pretty.

- http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

"How It Really Is"

 

"Pilot Flies "FJB" And Middle Finger Pattern Over Arizona Skies "

"Pilot Flies "FJB" And Middle Finger 

Pattern Over Arizona Skies "

by Tyler Durden

"What began as an NBC reporter's attempt to suggest NASCAR fans shouting "F@ck Joe Biden" were actually saying "Let's go Brandon!" - has been a viral sensation for a month and a half. Fans at football stadiums across the country have chanted "F@ck Joe Biden" to voice their discontent with the president.

The speed at which "Let's Go Brandon," a coded vulgar insult towards the president, has spread throughout stadiums and social media has been astonishing. One can buy "Let's Go Brandon" t-shirts, Christmas ornaments, stickers, and other merchandise to express how they feel about Biden. Even a "Let's Go Brandon" rap recently made it to the number 1 rap song on iTunes.

"F@ck Joe Biden" or "FJB" for short has also made it to the sky. On Nov. 10, a pilot operating a Cessna commuter plane with the tail number "N23508" was recorded by flight-tracking website FlightAware. What's unique about this plane's flight route is that the pilot drew FJB and a middle finger.

The pilot was at an altitude of 2,500 to 3,500 feet near Phoenix, flying around 85-100 mph for 37 minutes last week while they created their masterpiece in the sky. Here's a playback of the flight.

Vulgar insults directed at the president show an ultra-polarized country ahead of next year's midterms. So how long until the FAA interviews this pilot?"

- https://www.zerohedge.com

○

Loza Alexander, "Lets Go Brandon"

Must View! Greg Hunter, "Collapse of Civilization Coming"

"Collapse of Civilization Coming"

by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

Clif High is an Internet data mining expert who uses “Predictive Linguistics” and computer programs to sort through billions of bits of information on the Internet to predict future trends and events. High has had many freakishly correct predictions months and even years in advance. In one prediction months ago, he said there would be increased traffic accidents that he named “vaxxidents,” and vehicle accidents recently reported are up more than 20% since the so-called vaccinations started. 

Clif High says the good news is the globalists are failing. The bad news is life is going to get much harder. High explains, “We are talking about the failure of systems, and we are at that point right now. This is the failure of systems to interact and work with each other. I see the signs of the failure of the United States all over. Even if there was not an organic response to it at a coordinated level, these people would be failing just on their own incompetency. They are trying to do things to a social order that is very, very diverse, and they are trying to do things as if the social order is not diverse. We truly are a melting pot that you have so many diverse cultures that a medium of expression is bound to fail attempting to go from culture to culture to culture, and we are seeing that failure now. Now, more people oppose BLM than support it. Now, what is going to be the impact of BLM with the Rittenhouse verdict? Will they riot? Will it show how weak they are? We are going to see all types of things happen here because the nature of the communist takeover is failing. We are going to watch it collapse.”

What about the economy and the social structure and how hard is life going to get? High says, “Let’s say the ultimate paranoid understanding is this is a collapse of civilization to some degree. In order to understand this, we should extract ourselves from as many of these failing systems as possible. If you can extract yourself from the money system as much as possible, the school system and any of these systems because they are all going to fail, and you don’t want to be dragged down by them. 

Here’s how bad it’s going to get... Members of Congress will be rushing out of meetings, heaving their guts out and vomiting all over the hallways because of the emotional shock because of the death of the dollar. The death of the dollar is not going to be a slow thing. It will come to the point, probably fairly rapidly, and it might even be in just a couple of weeks because we have this drop dead date on December 3rd. Anyway, this is the thing to imagine, and that is we are coming to the end of a civilization, which, in my opinion, we will be able to rebuild for the first time a true Constitutional Republic the way it had been envisioned. It was taken over, at least in my life, since 1913 by the central banks (Federal Reserve)."

High talks about the mass death coming as a result of the vax, which is failing badly. He also talks about gold, silver, Bitcoin, China, how much longer this will last, the “Greatest Depression” and much more in this 1 hour and 15 min. interview."

- https://usawatchdog.com

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One with Clif High. He will give us an update as well as predicting future events and trends he sees with his data mining program. 

- https://rumble.com/

"Streets of Philadelphia, Kensington Avenue, Nov. 16, 2021"

Full screen recommended.

"Streets of Philadelphia, Kensington Avenue, Nov. 16, 2021"

Violent crime and drug abuse in Philadelphia as a whole is a major problem. The city’s violent crime rate is higher than the national average and other similarly sized metropolitan areas. Also alarming is Philadelphia’s drug overdose rate. The number of drug overdose deaths in the city increased by 50% from 2013 to 2015, with more than twice as many deaths from drug overdoses as deaths from homicides in 2015. A big part of Philadelphia’s problems stem from the crime rate and drug abuse in Kensington.

Because of the high number of drugs in Kensington, the neighborhood has a drug crime rate of 3.57, the third-highest rate by neighborhood in Philadelphia. Like a lot of the country, a big part of this issue is a result of the opioid epidemic. Opioid abuse has skyrocketed over the last two decades in the United States and Philadelphia is no exception. Along with having a high rate of drug overdose deaths, 80% percent of Philadelphia’s overdose deaths involved opioids and Kensington is a big contributor to this number. This Philly neighborhood is purportedly the largest open-air narcotics market for heroin on the East Coast with many neighboring residents flocking to the area for heroin and other opioids. With such a high number of drugs in Kensington, many state and local officials have zoned in on this area to try and tackle Philadelphia’s problem."

○

Full screen recommended.

Bruce Springsteen, "Streets of Philadelphia"

Gerald Celente, "Trends Journal: Metaworld"

Full screen recommended.

Strong Language Alert!

Gerald Celente, PM 11/16/21:

"Trends Journal: Metaworld"

"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present Facts and Truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for What’s Next in these increasingly turbulent times."

- https://trendsresearch.com/

"Walking Empty car Lots Today, Frightening Sight; Retail Sales Rise As Consumers Pay More"

Full screen recommended.

Jonathan Babe, PM 11/16/21:

"Walking Empty car Lots Today, Frightening Sight; 

Retail Sales Rise As Consumers Pay More"

"They Have Lost Control, And Now The Dollar Is Going To Die"

Full screen recommended.

"They Have Lost Control, 

And Now The Dollar Is Going To Die"

by Epic Economist

"Our leaders have jeopardized the future of our nation and our society is starting to feel the consequences of such reckless decisions. They probably thought that they could actually get away with it. They believed they could create, borrow and spend giant piles of money without facing any issues. But, of course, that plan has backfired. Since the creation of the United States, there have been many governments that have surrendered to the temptation of creating massive amounts of dollars, and every single time, things have ended badly. So by now, those who are leading this country should've learned their lesson.

More money is not the cure for a financial system terminally broken, and they should know that by now. Those policies caused so many imbalances in our economy that, at this point, no one stops talking about inflation. On the mainstream media, the alleged specialists seem mystified that things have gotten so bad so quickly. But anyone with a shred of common sense should have been able to see that this was coming.

You just need to go to the website of the agency that started this whole process. And, in there, the latest data will show you that something is clearly off. Money has been created at an exponential rate. What is happening to our money supply is complete and utter lunacy. It's even worse than what happened during the Weimar Republic, or at any moment in history. This undoubtedly will annihilate the dollar eventually. Our leaders clearly deceived themselves into thinking they wouldn't deal with the consequences of creating money so recklessly. But things have escalated very quickly and people have started to notice. And they are getting increasingly angrier with what they're seeing.

Americans have been facing very painful inflation everywhere they go. Last week, the Labor Department reported inflation across a wide range of products that consumers buy on a daily basis was even worse than expected in October, hitting its highest level in more than 30 years. The consumer price index, which tracks the price of a basket of products, ranging from gasoline and health care to groceries and rents, shot up by 6.2% from a year ago, the biggest jump since December 1990 and significantly higher than the 5.9% Dow Jones estimate.

If the inflation rate was still calculated the way it used to be, we would already be well into the double digits right now. Estimates released by John Williams of shadowstats.com, point that if we used the same formula we used during the 80s, the official rate of inflation would be around 15 percent right now. And as opposed to what the Fed says, this is not going away any time soon. In fact, it is evolving into a major national crisis as we speak.

One of the components that led to this staggering surge in the overall rate of inflation is the price of gasoline. Last month, gasoline prices climbed almost 50% from the same month a year ago, the highest level since 2014. Even the President admitted that gas prices are “exceedingly high” and that the surge is causing "a lot of anxiety" in sour society. As the winter approaches, Americans should brace for even more expensive energy prices too. Last month, U.S. consumers had already faced the biggest jump in their energy bills in more than a decade, but prices are going to soar higher in the coming months.

In October, the price of electricity rose 6.5% from the same month a year ago while consumer expenses paid to utilities for natural gas increased 28%, according to numbers released Wednesday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Fuel oil faced a dramatic jump of 59%, and costs for propane, kerosene, and firewood shot up by about 35%, the data show.If wages were inflating at the same pace everything else is, then those increased costs would be offset by higher paychecks. But that is definitely not what's happening.

Economists have been warning for quite a long time that this was coming, and sadly, what we've faced so far is just the very start of a much deeper crisis that will linger for decades. There's nothing the "experts" who are running the economy can do to reverse this crisis. In fact, Congress just passed another gigantic spending bill that will only make things worse. It is truly soul-crushing to admit but our course has been set and, at this point, there is no turning back. We're headed to the second stage of the economic collapse that started in 2020. And you can mark our words: America will never, ever be the same again."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com

"Watch This! Mannarino Has A Borderline Meltdown"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 11/16/21:

"Watch This! Mannarino Has A Borderline Meltdown"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Musical Interlude: Gnomusy, "Footprints on the Sea"

Gnomusy, "Footprints on the Sea"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Where did this big ball of stars come from? Palomar 6 is one of about 200 globular clusters of stars that survive in our Milky Way Galaxy. These spherical star-balls are older than our Sun as well as older than most stars that orbit in our galaxy's disk. Palomar 6 itself is estimated to be about 12.5 billion years old, so old that it is close to - and so constrains - the age of the entire universe. 

Containing about 500,000 stars, Palomar 6 lies about 25,000 light years away, but not very far from our galaxy's center. At that distance, this sharp image from the Hubble Space Telescope spans about 15 light-years. After much study including images from Hubble, a leading origin hypothesis is that Palomar 6 was created - and survives today - in the central bulge of stars that surround the Milky Way's center, not in the distant galactic halo where most other globular clusters are now found."

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap211019.html

Free Download: Erich Fromm, "The Fear Of Freedom"

“Automaton Conformity”

by Erich Fromm

“In the mechanisms we have been discussing, the individual overcomes the feeling of insignificance in comparison with the overwhelming power of the world outside himself either by renouncing his individual integrity, or by destroying others so that the world ceases to be threatening. Other mechanisms of escape are the withdrawal from the world so completely that it loses its threat (the picture we find in certain psychotic states), and the inflation of oneself psychologically to such an extent that the world outside becomes small in comparison. Although these mechanisms of escape are important for individual psychology, they are only of minor relevance culturally. I shall not, therefore, discuss them further here, but instead will turn to another mechanism of escape which is of the greatest social significance.

This particular mechanism is the solution that the majority of normal individuals find in modern society. To put it briefly, the individual ceases to be himself; he adopts entirely the kind of personality offered to him by cultural patterns; and he therefore becomes exactly as all others are and as they expect him to be. The discrepancy between “I” and the world disappears and with it the conscious fear of aloneness and powerlessness. This mechanism can be compared with the protective coloring some animals assume. They look so similar to their surroundings that they are hardly distinguishable from them. The person who gives up his individual self and becomes an automaton, identical with millions of other automatons around him, need not feel alone and anxious any more. But the price he pays, however, is high; it is the loss of his self.”

- Erich Fromm, “The Fear of Freedom”

Freely download “The Fear of Freedom”, by Erich Fromm, here:

- http://realsociology.edublogs.org/files/

“In The Long Run… We Are All Alive”

“In The Long Run… We Are All Alive”

by MN Gordon

“In 1976, economist Herbert Stein, father of Ben Stein, the economics professor in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, observed that U.S. government debt was on an unsustainable trajectory. He, thus, established Stein’s Law: “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” Stein may have been right in theory. Yet the unsustainable trend of U.S. government debt outlasted his life. Herbert Stein died in 1999, several decades before the crackup. Those reading this may not be so lucky.

Herbert Stein, looking worried about the budget deficit.

Sometimes the end of the world comes and goes, while some of us are still here. We believe our present episode of debt, deficits, and state sponsored economic destruction, is one of these times.. We’ll have more on this in just a moment. But first, let’s peer back several hundred years. There we find context, edification, and instruction.

In 1696, William Whiston, a protégé of Isaac Newton, wrote a book. It had the grandiose title, “A New Theory of the Earth from its Original to the Consummation of all Things.” In it he proclaimed, among other things, that the global flood of Noah had been caused by a comet. Mr. Whiston took his book very serious. The good people of London took it very serious too. Perhaps it was Whiston’s conviction. Or his great fear of comets. But, for whatever reason, it never occurred to Londoners that he was a Category 5 quack.

William Whiston, reading from his doom by comet scroll. 

Like Neil Ferguson, and his mathematical biology cohorts at Imperial College, London, Whiston’s research filled a void. Much like today’s epidemiological models, the science was bunk. Nonetheless, the results supplied prophecies of the apocalypse to meet a growing demand. It was just a matter of time before Whiston’s research would cause trouble…

Judgement Day: In 1736, William Whiston crunched some data and made some calculations. He projected these calculations out and saw the future. And what he witnessed scared him mad. He barked. He ranted. He foamed at the mouth to anyone who would listen. Pretty soon he’d stirred up his neighbors with a prophecy that the world would be destroyed on October 13th of that year when a comet would collide with the earth.

Jonathan Swift, in his work, “A True and Faithful Narrative of What Passed in London on a Rumour of the Day of Judgment,” quoted Whiston: “Friends and fellow-citizens, all speculative science is at an end: the period of all things is at hand; on Friday next this world shall be no more. Put not your confidence in me, brethren; for tomorrow morning, five minutes after five, the truth will be evident; in that instant the comet shall appear, of which I have heretofore warned you. As ye have heard, believe. Go hence, and prepare your wives, your families, and friends, for the universal change.”

13th October 1736, according to William Whiston. 

Today he would be a “climate scientist”.

Clergymen assembled to offer prayers. Churches filled to capacity. Rich and paupers alike feared their judgement. Lawyers worried about their fate. Judges were relieved they were no longer lawyers. Teetotalers got smashed. Drunks got sober. Bankers forgave their debtors. Criminals, to be executed, expressed joy.

The wealthy gave their money to beggars. Beggars gave it back to the wealthy. Several rich and powerful gave large donations to the church; no doubt, reserving first class tickets to heaven. Many ladies confessed to their husbands that one or more of their children were bastards. Husbands married their mistresses. And on and on…

The Archbishop of Canterbury, William Wake, had to officially deny this prediction to ease the public consternation. But it did little good. Crowds gathered at Islington, Hampstead, and the surrounding fields, to witness the destruction of London, which was deemed the “beginning of the end.” Then, just like Whiston said, a comet appeared. Prayers were made. Deathbed confessions were shared. And at the moment of maximum fear, something remarkable happened: the world didn’t end. The comet did not collide with earth. It was merely a near miss.

In The Long Run We Are All Alive: The experience of Whiston, and his pseudoscience prophecy, shows that predictions of the end of the world come and go while people still remain. Sometimes the fallout of these predictions, and the foolishness they provoke, is limited. Other times the foolishness they provoke leads to catastrophe. Here’s what we mean…

“In the long run we are all dead,” said 20th Century economist and Fabian socialist, John Maynard Keynes. This was Keynes rationale for why governments should borrow from the future to fund economic growth today. 

Keynes holding his book. Many people believe that “counter-cyclical stimulus” is a sensible policy. It isn’t any more sensible than pro-cyclical stimulus would be. All these interventions disturb the smooth functioning of the market economy and end up wasting scarce resources. As a rule, only political cronies stand to benefit. And yes, we are definitely not “all dead in the long run”. 

Of course, politicians love an academic theory that gives them cover to intervene in the economy. This is especially so when it justifies spending other people’s money to buy votes. Keynesian economics, and in particular, counter-cyclical stimulus, does just that.

U.S. politicians have attempted to borrow and spend the nation to prosperity for the last 80 years. Over the past decade, the Federal Reserve has aggressively printed money to fund Washington’s epic borrowing binge. Fed Chair Jay Powell confirmed that the Fed will pursue policies of dollar destruction to, somehow, print new jobs.

The world as it was once known – where a dollar was as good as gold – has come and gone. Today, in life after the end of that world, we are witnessing the illusion of wealth, erected by four generations of borrowing and spending, crumble before our eyes. Moreover, contrary to Keynes, in the long run we are not all dead. In fact, in the long run we are all very much alive. And we are all living with the compounding consequences of shortsighted economic policies.”

- https://acting-man.com/?p=55350

"Fools And Knaves..."

“There are more fools than knaves in the world,

else the knaves would not have enough to live upon.”

- Samuel Butler

The Poet: Anne Sexton, “Courage”

“Courage”

“It is in the small things we see it.

The child’s first step,

as awesome as an earthquake.

The first time you rode a bike,

wallowing up the sidewalk.

The first spanking when your heart

went on a journey all alone.

When they called you crybaby

or poor or fatty or crazy

and made you into an alien,

you drank their acid

and concealed it.

Later,

if you faced the death of bombs and bullets

you did not do it with a banner,

you did it with only a hat to

cover your heart.

You did not fondle the weakness inside you

though it was there.

Your courage was a small coal

that you kept swallowing.

If your buddy saved you

and died himself in so doing,

then his courage was not courage,

it was love; love as simple as shaving soap.

Later,

if you have endured a great despair,

then you did it alone,

getting a transfusion from the fire,

picking the scabs off your heart,

then wringing it out like a sock.

Next, my kinsman, you powdered your sorrow,

you gave it a back rub

and then you covered it with a blanket

and after it had slept a while

it woke to the wings of the roses

and was transformed.

Later,

when you face old age and its natural conclusion

your courage will still be shown in the little ways,

each spring will be a sword you’ll sharpen,

those you love will live in a fever of love,

and you’ll bargain with the calendar

and at the last moment

when death opens the back door

you’ll put on your carpet slippers

and stride out.”

~ Anne Sexton

“No, You Don’t Have To Care About Any Of This”

“No, You Don’t Have To Care About Any Of This”

by Joe Jarvis

“Lots of people are trying to force you to care about the things they care about. True, some of these issues are really important. But if you don’t care, you don’t care. You don’t have to pretend. And you don’t owe anyone an explanation. Henry David Thoreau summed it up almost 200 years ago when he said: “It is not a man’s duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous, wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him.”

See, a lot of self-righteous people can’t imagine how anyone could make a different calculation about the most important causes in the world. The person who donates to hungry children finds it absurd that others donate to animal shelters while there are still needy kids out there. But this is just another variation of how specializing makes things more efficient. If everyone works on the causes they care about most, their passion and efforts will go the furthest.

But Thoreau continues that even if someone doesn’t want to help eradicate a wrong, it is “his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support.” If you’re not contributing to wrong, that is enough. In fact that is MUCH BETTER than acting like you’re saving the world, when in reality you are contributing to evil.

It’s great to care about important causes, but “I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man’s shoulders. I must get off him first, that he may pursue his own contemplations too.” For example, helping poor people is a noble cause. Forcing others to help poor people is pursuing a noble cause “sitting upon another man’s shoulders.” No, he isn’t automatically evil if he doesn’t help the poor, “he may still properly have other concerns to engage him.”

These days you’ll hear people say things like, “it’s not enough to simply not be racist, you have to be actively anti-racist.” Incorrect. It is absolutely enough to simply not perpetuate an evil. They don’t know you. They can’t see inside your head, or into your life. They don’t know what you’re engaged in. But if you are not hurting others, that is enough.

Like imagine if someone told you, it’s not enough to not murder, you have to become a criminologist, and go out there and solve murders. You know I am grateful there are people out there who go into homicide investigation. But it’s not for me.

It’s pretty ironic actually. Because the same people who try to bully you into taking the action that they want you to take would scoff at your demands for a more peaceful and prosperous society.

Because guess what one of my causes is? It’s not enough to simply not steal others money. You must actively oppose the systemic theft the government calls taxes. Oh wait, but they need to steal from me in order to pursue their causes, because they do so “sitting upon another man’s shoulders.” They tell me that a portion of my income, my labor, my time, will be taken without my consent to support the causes they care about, while whatever I had planned for my labor and time will be subordinated to their whims.

But guess what? No one really cares about my cause. So I moved to Puerto Rico to take advantage of tax incentives, and now perfectly legally pay a 4% tax rate. That did a lot more for me than trying to get people to vote – as if there was anyone who would advance my causes anyway. Now, more than ever, as the chaos of the world seems to be reaching a crescendo, it is perfectly reasonable to tune out, and say, you know what, I just don’t care.

All the ships have sailed. It’s much more important to make sure you and your loved ones are in a position of strength moving forward. Everyone is going to tell you that you have to care about this, that your silence on that is as bad as whatever, that you’re either with us or against us…

I care about a lot of things, and have plenty of passionate ideas about how this world should turn out. But now is the time to keep your powder dry, and wits about you. In the board game Risk, you win by building strength while remaining unnoticed. The strongest players fight it out, and weaken each other. It is then, when the smoke clears, that it is easiest to control the board.

Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Live your life. Be a good person. That’s enough. Ignore the noise.”

- https://www.thedailybell.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Burlington, Kentucky, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Be The Person..."

"We are fast moving into something, we are fast flung into something like asteroids cast into space by the death of a planet, we the people of earth are cast into space like burning asteroids and if we wish not to disintegrate into nothingness we must begin to now hold onto only the things that matter while letting go of all that doesn't. For when all of our dust and ice deteriorates into the cosmos we will be left only with ourselves and nothing else. So if you want to be there in the end, today is the day to start holding onto your children, holding onto your loved ones; onto those who share your soul. Harbor and anchor into your heart justice, truth, courage, bravery, belief, a firm vision, a steadfast and sound mind. Be the person of meaningful and valuable thoughts. Don't look to the left, don't look to the right; we simply don't have the time. Never be afraid of fear."

- C. JoyBell C.

"The American Dream is Finished - Inflation is Running Rampant"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly AM 11/16/21:

"The American Dream is Finished - 

Inflation is Running Rampant"

"The Economic Freight Train is about to crash. Nothing can stop it right now. There is nothing being done to help the supply chain or slow down inflation."