"The Future Is Here, And It Will Be Filled With Endless Looting, Rioting And Civil Unrest"

"The Future Is Here, And It Will Be Filled 

With Endless Looting, Rioting And Civil Unrest"

by Michael Snyder

"Our civilization is crumbling right in front of our eyes. We have become accustomed to soaring murder rates, mass shootings, extreme degeneracy throughout the entire entertainment industry, violent rioting in our streets and severe corruption on all levels of government. To a certain extent, a lot of these things seem “normal” to many of us at this point. But the truth is that what we are experiencing is not even close to “normal”. We are literally watching our entire society slowly but surely go down the tubes, and it is heartbreaking to watch.

If you think that I am being overly dramatic, just consider what happened in northern California on Saturday night. A mob of more than 80 thieves wearing ski masks and armed with crowbars suddenly descended upon a Nordstrom store, and they ransacked the entire place in just minutes…"More than 80 people stormed and robbed a Nordstrom in California on Saturday night, according to a police report from the Walnut Creek Police Department. The robbery was over within minutes as thieves armed with crowbars and wearing ski masks streamed out of the Nordstrom into the dozens of cars lining the block."

Needless to say, Nordstrom workers were caught entirely off guard, and several individuals received injuries during the melee…"During the theft, two Nordstrom workers were punched and kicked, while another was sprayed with pepper spray. All three individuals were treated for their injuries on scene."

This sort of “organized crime” is becoming increasingly common, but the size and scale of this particular attack was particularly alarming. #Breaking About 25 cars just blocked the street and rushed into the Walnut Creek Nordstrom making off with goods before getting in cars snd speeding away. At least two people arrested at gunpoint. pic.twitter.com/AG3R94M9L3

— Jodi Hernandez (@JodiHernandezTV) November 21, 2021

This happened in one of the most prosperous areas of northern California, and one eyewitness described it as “like a scene out of a movie”… Brett Barrette is one of the managers of P.F. Chang’s restaurant across from the Nordstrom store. He watched as the bedlam unfolded. “I probably saw 50-80 people in like ski masks with crowbars, a bunch of weapons,” he said. “They were looting the Nordstrom.” “There was a mob of people,” he continued. “The police were flying in. It was like a scene out of a movie. It was insane.”

Meanwhile, the Louis Vuitton store in San Francisco was also hit by organized looters this weekend. "The Louis Vuitton in San Francisco union square just got emptied out 😳 pic.twitter.com/Imi6qbL0i1" — Yealenne (@Yealenne) November 20, 2021 Many of the looters got away, but police were able to nail a few of them.

"Louis Vuitton San Francisco, Union square got cleared out!!"

pic.twitter.com/7Sz6rlRo8n — Da Juan (@CARLITOSGUEY) November 20, 2021

Even though this sort of thing is taking place so frequently now, I am still shocked whenever I see these sorts of videos. For even more examples, please see my recent article entitled “In Some Parts Of America, Looting Has Become A Way Of Life”.

Over in Portland, approximately 150 rioters started fires and smashed things up following the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict. At one point, about a dozen police officers were forced back into a garage by an extremely unruly mob…"Video captured the moment protesters in Portland cornered police in a garage during riots over the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict. The footage shows a crowd of angry protesters aggressively yelling at the police dressed in full riot gear. The group of nearly a dozen officers are seen backing up into a garage. The door of the garage slowly closes as the protesters continue to confront the police, with one demonstrator even trying to push open the garage door."

Way too often, the bad guys are starting to get the upper hand in situations like this. And I think that does not bode well for the troubled times ahead.

For years, I have been warning that this sort of civil unrest would be coming in the future. Now the future is here, and the chaos in our streets is only going to be getting even more intense.

On the other side of the globe, rioting of a completely different nature is happening. As authoritarian measures become increasingly extreme, vast numbers of people are standing up and saying that enough is enough…"Violent protests have broken out against COVID-19 vaccine mandates and lockdowns across Europe amid new tough rules to curb winter waves of the virus. Demonstrators angry about the new measures gathered in Austria, Croatia, Italy, Northern Ireland, the French territory of Guadeloupe and the Netherlands to protest the moves."

In Belgium, approximately 40,000 protesters descended upon the capital, and police fired water cannons and tear gas to try to control the crowds…"Nearly 40,000 people descended on the capital Brussels to protest against new anti-Covid measures banning the unvaccinated from entering restaurants and bars. Some protesters were seen throwing projectiles at riot police and in response, officers fired water cannon and tear gas at the group. Police have made some arrests, but it is not immediately clear how many."

Next door in the Netherlands, the violence was even worse. At one point, police officers actually opened fire on one group of “rampaging rioters”…"Dutch police have arrested more than 30 people during unrest in The Hague and other towns in the Netherlands that followed an “ orgy of violence ” the previous night at a protest against coronavirus restrictions. The violence by groups of youths in The Hague and elsewhere Saturday night wasn’t as serious as Friday night in Rotterdam, where police opened fire on rampaging rioters and arrested 51 people."

By imposing such harsh authoritarian measures during this pandemic, governments in Europe and elsewhere are losing their legitimacy. And responding to protests with such violence will also result in a loss of legitimacy.

Part of living in a civilized society is being able to trust the government to do the right thing most of the time. But now we have gotten to a point where large numbers of people in industrialized nations all over the globe do not trust their own governments. And once that trust erodes far enough, it may get to a point where entire nations become virtually ungovernable by anyone.

Like I said at this beginning of this article, we are watching civilization crumble all around us, and that should make all of us very sad. We are rapidly plummeting into an abyss of anarchy, madness and chaos, and the days ahead are not going to be pleasant."

- http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

"When Everything Is Artifice and PR, Collapse Beckons"

"When Everything Is Artifice and PR, Collapse Beckons"

by Charles Hugh Smith

"The consequences of the drip-drip-drip of moral decay is difficult to discern in day-to-day life. It's easy to dismiss the ubiquity of artifice, PR, spin, corruption, racketeering, fraud, collusion and narrative manipulation (a.k.a. propaganda) as nothing more than human nature, but this dismissal of moral decay is nothing more than rationalizing the rot to protect insiders from the sobering reality that the entire system is unraveling and heading for its final reckoning: collapse.

We've become so accustomed to the excesses of marketing that we've lost the ability to recognize the difference between "science" that's been carefully designed to reach a pre-planned conclusion and science that accepts the outcome, even if it harms well-funded interests.

The vast expanses of ignorance greatly aid this artifice. Even though high school physics, chemistry and biology are sufficient to tease apart the vast majority of rigged experiments, trials and studies, few Americans have the interest or fortitude to read Phase III trial results, etc. critically, and so the corporate media can trumpet bogus results without fear of exposure: all the statistical tricks and gimmicks are passed off as "science" to the distracted and gullible.

And if someone dares to examine the results critically, then those benefiting from the ignorance make the results "secret" until the year 2929. And that's the entire game in a nutshell: maximizing private gain from artifice, PR, spin, corruption, racketeering, fraud, collusion and narrative manipulation, all masked by an putrid spew of virtue-signaling and PR.

Every institution that was once trustworthy has been debauched to maximize private gain: higher education, science, medicine, national defense - the list includes virtually every sector and industry in America. Nothing can be trusted because somebody behind the scenes is spinning the story and data to mask their self-interest, their immense gains and the carefully contrived structure of diverting investigation and eliminating transparency, competition and accountability.

Our technocratic obsession denies the existence of the moral universe, reducing the world to techno-gimmicks (electric air taxis for everyone!), techno-fantasies (fusion reactors on every corner!) and techno-distractions (which billionaire will be the first on Mars?), as if a nation and society hurtling toward moral, social, civic and economic collapse can be saved by some "innovation" that beneath the surface is nothing more than another profiteering monopoly or cartel.

Many people fear collapse, but quality, service and reliability have already collapsed. The washing machine that two generations ago was designed and built to last 25 years now breaks down after a few years - so sorry, the motherboard failed. That will cost you almost as much as new washer, and so the manufacturer, bank and retailer win because the weary, clueless consumer will do the easy thing and buy a new, expensive appliance on credit. The "old" appliance (brand-new by previous standards) is hauled off to the landfill, the ultimate destination of everything in our Landfill Economy of poorly made junk.

Service would be hauled to the landfill as well if it was tangible. Alas, it is simply maddening, as nothing works and Kafkaesque bureaucracies have so much power that they are immune to transparency, competition and accountability. their websites don't work, they botch the most basic transactions and they perpetuate incorrect information, but too bad - there is no recourse.

Big Tech is equally impervious to transparency, competition and accountability. Your "crime" is never explained, and there is no recourse, for the Machine has no judiciary or human contact: you query the Machine knowing full well that you will never extract anything remotely fair or just from its algorithmic monstrosity.

Technology doesn't extinguish moral decay or eliminate the stench of self-serving artifice, PR, spin, corruption, racketeering, fraud, collusion and narrative manipulation. Technology only enhances the potential for profiteering under the tissue-thin guise of "innovation," "technological advance" and the threadbare delusions of a populace that has watched too many contrived narratives in which technology saves the day.

The moral buffers have already thinned; there is nothing left to tap. There is nothing left in what actually matters: social cohesion, moral legitimacy, civic virtue - all stripped, depleted, gone.

Drones and robots won't save us from collapse. Neither will fusion reactors, electric air taxis, billionaires in space, missions to Mars, algae-based meat or any of the other thousand "innovations" those profiting from moral rot promote in the hopes that the banquet of consequences being served can be swept away by more gimmicks, more artifice, more delusions, more fantasies, more PR, more spin and more narrative control.

Collapse can't be gimmicked away. The notion that consequence can be as easily managed as PR is the ultimate artifice and the ultimate delusion."

- https://www.oftwominds.com/

"Streets of Philadelphia, Kensington Ave, Day and Night"

Nov. 19, 2021; Full screen recommended.

"Streets of Philadelphia, Kensington Ave, Day and Night"

"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.1 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 2015.2 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.3 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 opioids2 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.4 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."

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Full screen recommended.

Bruce Springsteen, "Streets of Philadelphia"

"A Lot Of People..."

"When science discovers the center of the universe,

a lot of people will be disappointed to find they are not it."

- Bernard Baily

"The Real Hopeless Victims..."

 

"It is no measure of health to be well

adjusted to a profoundly sick society."

- Jiddu Krishnamurti

"Venice Beach is Still a Mess Just Like Our Economy"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly AM 11/22/21:

"Venice Beach is Still a Mess Just Like Our Economy"

"A Big Flip?"

"A Big Flip?"

by Jim Kunstler

"Proposing a hypothetical: What if “Joe Biden” has worsening symptoms of an adverse reaction to his late September Covid booster shot? Does that account for the sudden flurry of interest in how his handlers might manage the problem of Kamala Harris? And what, is the problem with Kamala Harris? That she is Vice-president and next-in-line for Commander-in-chief in the (adverse) event that “JB” has to step aside. And why is that a problem? Because she is widely loathed and distrusted among those who know her in Washington.

That’s what bubbled up last week as “Joe Biden” went into Walter Reed Hospital for a checkup, including an alleged colonoscopy. What if that was not the test he had? What if they ran him through a CT scan or an MRI to detect neurological damage or vascular irregularities in his brain? (In 1988, “JB” did have a couple of brain aneurysms and endured a four-and-a-half-hour microsurgical craniotomy.) Briefly during this exam, Veep Kamala Harris carried the nuclear football, gaining no yardage in the process, but curdling the spinal fluxes of many casual observers in our nation’s capital. Later, the president’s doctors issued a detailed report that portrayed an elderly gentleman “fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency...”

And so, for the next three days “Joe Biden” proceeded in his august duties. Late Friday, after the checkup ordeal, he successfully pardoned a Thanksgiving turkey (convicted of mis-gendering a capon). On Saturday, he successfully attended evening mass at a church in Wilmington. And on Sunday he did nothing, with apparent success. Today, he flies to Fort Bragg for a “Friendsgiving dinner” with soldiers. One must imagine that Kamala Harris could keep up with a schedule like that, though perhaps without successfully easing the woes and travails of the American people in this time of Covid, Climate Change, inflation, and white supremacist terrorism.

Of course, if it turned out that “Joe Biden” presented symptoms of an adverse reaction to his Covid booster shot, that might flip the government’s claim that the mRNA vaccines are harmless. It might actually blow away the entire rationale for pushing the American people around over all things Covid. It would drive a stake through the heart of the CDC and end the career of Dr. Anthony Fauci. It would end all the efforts to destroy small business and public school in the USA. It would also prompt severe reactions from the citizens in other advanced nations - especially among what is called the West - and put a stop to their lockdowns, health passports, and proposals for mandatory vaccinations.

So, you see, whatever might be going on with “Joe Biden” health-wise has got to be a national security matter. And so, considering that our government lies liberally about thousands of other matters of lesser importance, one can see that they would be motivated to not tell the truth about “JB’s” checkup.

Also, of course, getting rid of Ms. Harris would be another extremely touchy matter, starting from the basic proposition of declaring a woman-of-color not sufficiently competent to lead the nation. Say, what…?!? Don’t even think about it! But then imagine our Veep elevated to the highest office: all a’giggle when meeting other heads-of-state, trying out amusing foreign accents on visits abroad (our own Inspector Clouseau), attending to the “root causes” of illegal immigration by remote viewing, perhaps declining to pardon next year’s Thanksgiving turkey, but rather persuading AG Merrick Garland to bring additional charges.

Who might the Democratic Party scrounge up to replace poor Kamala Harris, anyway? Surely it would have to be another woman-of-color. In terms of sheer seniority, the nod ought to go to Maxine Waters. Wouldn’t that be a helluva ride? I’d like to see her duke it out with Uncle Xi and head-fake nasty old Vlad Putin. For sheer liberal sadomasochism, though, I’d have to put my money on Rashida Tlaib, a born punisher if ever there was one. She’d have all those white supremacist enemies-of-the-state duck-walking through the federal courts like so many cattle through the slaughterhouse. And then capitalism will go on trial, ensuring that no one will ever work for a living again in this land as the government is anointed Breadwinner-in-chief.

Following this year’s great celebration of thankful prayer, gluttony, football, and napping, we can look forward to the battle over raising the national debt ceiling. There will be much remonstrating and rending of garments, and then Congress will cave and boost it. Enjoy the histrionics between your own Black Friday battles in the chain store aisles over the vanishing inventory of Christmas schwag and the vanishing purchasing power of your dollars. Or else just drive up to a Nordstrom’s with eighty of your close friends and enjoy the new style of shopping: bum-rush the clerks, grab everything you can get your hands on, and dash back to the car. Just keep it under $950 and you’ll be fine. Happy holidays everyone!"

- https://kunstler.com/

Gregory Mannarino, "AM/PM 11/22/21"

Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...

Only the consequences are real - to you!

Your guide:

Gregory Mannarino

Gregory Mannarino, AM 11/22/63

"The Entire System Is Corrupt"

- https://traderschoice.net/

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Gregory Mannarino, PM 11/22/21:

"Need To Know Alert: 

The Market Is Ignoring Increasing Risk"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"How It Really Is"

"Economic Market Snapshot AM 11/22/21"

"Economic Market Snapshot AM 11/22/21"

"Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will

do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone."

- John Maynard Keynes

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"The more I see of the monied classes,

the better I understand the guillotine."

- George Bernard Shaw

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MarketWatch Market Summary, Live Updates

- https://www.marketwatch.com/tools/marketsummary

CNN Market Data:

- https://money.cnn.com/data/markets/

CNN Fear And Greed Index:

- https://money.cnn.com/data/fear-and-greed/

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A comprehensive, essential daily read.

- http://www.shadowstats.com/

 Nov. 21st to 23rd, Updated Daily

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Financial Stress Index

"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI) is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: credit, equity valuation, funding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United States, other advanced economies, and emerging markets."

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- https://www.freightwaves.com/

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Daily Job Cuts

- https://www.dailyjobcuts.com/

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- https://wallstreetonparade.com/

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- https://www.zerohedge.com/

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- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

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- https://www.whatreallyhappened.com/

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- https://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/

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Commentary, highly recommended:

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

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And now, the End Game...

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Oh yeah...

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"Seeds Of Economic Crisis Have Been Sown; Real Estate Feeding Frenzy; Financial Foundation Cracking"

Jeremiah Babe, PM 11/21/21:

"Seeds Of Economic Crisis Have Been Sown; 

Real Estate Feeding Frenzy; Financial Foundation Cracking"

"This Is Like Nothing I've Seen Before: Supermarkets Use Decoys To Fill Gaps Left By Shortages"

Full screen recommended.

"This Is Like Nothing I've Seen Before: 

Supermarkets Use Decoys To Fill Gaps Left By Shortages"

by Epic Economist

"Chaos has become commonplace in America's supply chains. Executives say that almost every day a new disruption emerges, making it harder and harder to find a way out of this crisis. Here in the US, and pretty much everywhere in the world, grocers are having a hard time keeping store shelves full. Given that conditions worsen by the day at ports, where congestion is creating gigantic piles of containers to the point some of them are overflowing into city streets, crushing cars and provoking accidents, billions of dollars worth of goods are stuck and out of reach. Shipping delays mean that some stores are only going to get their products after almost a month of waiting. That situation is aggravating local and nationwide shortages and making consumers extremely worried.

Unfortunately, industry experts argue this is going to be the new normal for the foreseeable future. And there's only so much store owners can do to cope with shrinking inventories and empty shelves. Many of them are having to come up with creative ways of making the store appealing and seemingly organized for customers. That includes placing products in unlikely places across the store.

Consumers reportedly said on social media that they have witnessed large beer boxes piled into aisles previously reserved for prepackaged meals. Others revealed that they have seen several boxes of chocolate filling placed next to fresh fish and produce. One of them posted a picture of refrigerated displays stocked with shelf-stable products, such as sauces and salad dressings. In essence, grocers are doing all sorts of unexpected things just for consumers to walk in and not see empty shelves.

Some of them are having to take quite desperate measures such as filling up a whole aisle with items that would normally have a small space on one shelf. Others are hiding the gaps with empty product packagings, such as sandwich boxes, or even cardboard “dummies” -- a strategy that always existed, but now consumers are not only noticing but also finding it quite problematic because it is happening so frequently.

On Twitter, thousands of users compiled in a recent thread, photos of depleted supermarket shelves and other funny and odd solutions store owners have been finding to cope with the situation. Many have been making fun of shelves displaying photos of food instead of the real thing and calling out retailers for faking it so shamelessly.

The thread began when one used posted pictures of rows of fake asparagus at Tesco. The post called the attention of many other users who started to show what they were seeing at their local stores and their recent shopping experiences. At this point, even big supermarket brands that have their own shipping systems are not escaping from product shortages despite having a wide network of suppliers, capital, and space for extra inventory. The shopping experience continues to be disrupted as the crisis intensifies.

That has led some larger chains to try to secure additional warehouse space to store extra inventory ahead of the holidays. Some will be cutting back on discounts to ease consumer demand. Kroger Co., the largest grocery chain in the U.S., recently announced that it increased its safety stock of items in more than 70 categories, sourced additional warehouse space to house the extra products, and spread out the ports it uses for imports. Walmart also revealed that it has diverted ships to less congested ports, while hiring 20,000 supply chain workers and automated warehouse operations wherever possible.

Sadly, the vast majority of small grocery retailers have way less flexibility and continue to struggle to restock inventories. They're having to plan what items will show up on shelves on any given day.“I’ve had over a decade of retail experience and this is like nothing I’ve experienced or seen before,” highlighted I’Talia McCarthy, general manager of the Dill Pickle Food Co-op in Chicago., which she said is dealing daily with deliveries arriving incomplete or not at all. “We have made a huge effort in making sure we’re not having these huge gaps.”

Those who have ignored economists' warnings over the past few months will probably start to regret that decision right now. It's probably too late to start stockpiling food and other goods given that shortages are becoming more widespread with each passing week. However, what we're currently experiencing is not the worst of this crisis just yet. Problems are compounding and another ravaging winter threatens to aggravate congestion at ports and lead to further disruptions in food production. We will have some extremely troubled times ahead of us and the coming challenges are going to be much harder than most people think."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com

Musical Interlude: Ocarina, "Song Of Ocarina"

Ocarina, "Song Of Ocarina"

"'Song of Ocarina' is the name of a 1991 song recorded by the musicians Jean-Philippe Audin and Diego Modena. It is entirely instrumental and is played on ocarina by Modena and cello by Audin. Released as first single from the album Ocarina, it achieved a huge success in France, topping the chart, and becoming in this country the first instrumental number-one hit."

"A Look to the Heavens"

“What will become of these galaxies? Spiral galaxies NGC 5426 and NGC 5427 are passing dangerously close to each other, but each is likely to survive this collision. Typically when galaxies collide, a large galaxy eats a much smaller galaxy. In this case, however, the two galaxies are quite similar, each being a sprawling spiral with expansive arms and a compact core. As the galaxies advance over the next tens of millions of years, their component stars are unlikely to collide, although new stars will form in the bunching of gas caused by gravitational tides.

 

Close inspection of the above image taken by the 8-meter Gemini-South Telescope in Chile shows a bridge of material momentarily connecting the two giants. Known collectively as Arp 271, the interacting pair spans about 130,000 light years and lies about 90 million light-years away toward the constellation of Virgo. Recent predictions hold that our Milky Way Galaxy will undergo a similar collision with the neighboring Andromeda Galaxy in a few billion years.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130825.html

Paulo Coelho, "The Water Pitcher"

"The Water Pitcher"

by Paulo Coelho

"A legend tells of a man who used to carry water every day to his village, using two large pitchers tied on either end of a piece of wood, which he placed across his shoulders. One of the pitchers was older than the other and was full of small cracks; every time the man came back along the path to his house, half of the water was lost. For two years, the man made the same journey. The younger pitcher was always very proud of the way it did its work and was sure that it was up to the task for which it had been created, while the other pitcher was mortally ashamed that it could carry out only half its task, even though it knew that the cracks were the result of long years of work.

So ashamed was the old pitcher that, one day, while the man was preparing to fill it up with water from the well, it decided to speak to him. "I wish to apologize because, due to my age, you only manage to take home half the water you fill me with, and thus quench only half the thirst awaiting you in your house."

The man smiled and said: "When we go back, be sure to take a careful look at the path." The pitcher did as the man asked and noticed many flowers and plants growing along one side of the path. "Do you see how much more beautiful nature is on your side of the road?" the man remarked. "I knew you had cracks, but I decided to take advantage of them. I sowed vegetables and flowers there, and you always watered them. I've picked dozens of roses to decorate my house, and my children have had lettuce, cabbage and onions to eat. If you were not the way you are, I could never have done this. We all, at some point, grow old and acquire other qualities, and these can always be turned to good advantage."

- http://paulocoelhoblog.com/

The Poet: Kuroda Saburo, "I Am Completely Different"

"I Am Completely Different"

"I am completely different.

Though I am wearing the same tie as yesterday,

am as poor as yesterday,

as good for nothing as yesterday,

today

I am completely different.

Though I am wearing the same clothes,

am as drunk as yesterday,

living as clumsily as yesterday, nevertheless

today

I am completely different.

Ahh...

I patiently close my eyes

on all the grins and smirks,

on all the twisted smiles and horse laughs -

and glimpse then, inside me

one beautiful white butterfly

fluttering towards tomorrow."

- Kuroda Saburo

"An End In Itself..."

"Life is an end in itself, and the only question as to whether

it is worth living is whether you have had enough of it." 

- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

"I Wish You Enough"

"I Wish You Enough"

by Bob Perks

"I never really thought that I'd spend as much time in airports as I do. I don't know why. I always wanted to be famous and that would mean lots of travel. But I'm not famous, yet I do see more than my share of airports. I love them and I hate them. I love them because of the people I get to watch. But they are also the same reason why I hate airports. It all comes down to "hello" and "goodbye." I must have mentioned this a few times while writing my stories for you.

I have great difficulties with saying goodbye. Even as I write this I am experiencing that pounding sensation in my heart. If I am watching such a scene in a movie I am affected so much that I need to sit up and take a few deep breaths. So when faced with a challenge in my life I have been known to go to our local airport and watch people say goodbye. I figure nothing that is happening to me at the time could be as bad as having to say goodbye. Watching people cling to each other, crying, and holding each other in that last embrace makes me appreciate what I have even more. Seeing them finally pull apart, extending their arms until the tips of their fingers are the last to let go, is an image that stays forefront in my mind throughout the day.

On one of my recent business trips, when I arrived at the counter to check in, the woman said, "How are you today?" I replied, "I am missing my wife already and I haven't even said goodbye." She then looked at my ticket and began to ask, "How long will you... Oh, my God. You will only be gone three days!" We all laughed. My problem was I still had to say goodbye. But I learn from goodbye moments, too.

Recently I overheard a father and daughter in their last moments together. They had announced her departure and standing near the security gate, they hugged and he said, "I love you. I wish you enough." She in turn said, "Daddy, our life together has been more than enough. Your love is all I ever needed. I wish you enough, too, Daddy." They kissed and she left. He walked over toward the window where I was seated. Standing there I could see he wanted and needed to cry. I tried not to intrude on his privacy, but he welcomed me in by asking, "Did you ever say goodbye to someone knowing it would be forever?" "Yes, I have," I replied. Saying that brought back memories I had of expressing my love and appreciation for all my Dad had done for me. Recognizing that his days were limited, I took the time to tell him face to face how much he meant to me. So I knew what this man was experiencing.

"Forgive me for asking, but why is this a forever goodbye?" I asked. "I am old and she lives much too far away. I have challenges ahead and the reality is, the next trip back would be for my funeral," he said. "When you were saying goodbye I heard you say, 'I wish you enough.' May I ask what that means?" He began to smile. "That's a wish that has been handed down from other generations. My parents used to say it to everyone." He paused for a moment and looking up as if trying to remember it in detail, he smiled even more. "When we said 'I wish you enough,' we were wanting the other person to have a life filled with just enough good things to sustain them," he continued and then turning toward me he shared the following as if he were reciting it from memory...

"I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright.

I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun more.

I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive.

I wish you enough pain so that the smallest joys in life appear much bigger.

I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.

I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.

I wish enough "Hello's" to get you through the final "Goodbye."

He then began to sob and walked away. My friends, I wish you enough!"

- http://www.gaia.com/quotes/topics/life?page=33

The Daily "Near You?"

Davisburg, Michigan, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

Gregory Mannarino, "Markets, A Look Ahead"

Gregory Mannarino, 11/21/21:

"Markets, A Look Ahead; JPM Caught Again 

Rigging Gold/Silver Prices; Protests Across Europe."

- https://traderschoice.net/

"The Deadly Gaze of American Love"

"The Deadly Gaze of American Love"

By Mark Sashine

"The cat then hugged the mouse and purred, 'I love you to death.'"

- Old Turkish saying.

"The Deadly Gaze in the U.S.: Several years ago I wrote that the U.S. behaved toward Iraq like a rapist who, after raping a woman, tells her to clean herself because of her disgusting appearance. I was expecting a barrage of comments, but, instead, I got silence. In the U.S., however, silence doesn't mean assent; it means a deliberate ignoring. Somehow they are okay with an act of killing performed by a man with a gun.

In my research to understand that pattern of brain passivity, I several times stated my perceptions directly into the faces of my fellow Americans. Whenever I did that, the reaction was the same. The person would look sideways and say nothing. I tried to catch that frozen gaze on the person's face, and, when I managed to do that, I recognized it as a gaze I hadn't seen for a very long time. It was the gaze of a bully from my childhood. You can sometimes notice such a gaze in dogs. It is the deadly gaze.

The Boy With the Deadly Gaze: He was transferred to our school when we were in the 5th grade, so most of us were about twelve at the time. That was the age when a teenager "grows out of his uniform," as one teacher said. Of course, in Russia at the time, we didn't have cell phones or the Internet; we didn't even have good clothes. Most of us wore uniforms: greenish-gray pants and jackets for boys, white blouses and brown skirts for girls. We were the "young pioneers," and each of us had a triangular red tie, symbolizing equality, fraternity and liberty, as well as the sacrificial blood of the martyrs of the Revolution. The strict collective code of honor included studying hard, helping other people to learn, helping the weak, and respecting society by behaving properly.

At the same time, every teenager of our time lived most of his or her life on the beat, and we learned the unwritten "street rules' by experience. As an overweight kid, I had a tough time. No matter what happened between us kids, the worst possible thing you could do was to rat on your peers to adults. We had our rules, though: It was a shame for a boy to hit a girl and for a girl to instigate a fight. It was a shame to hurt someone weaker than yourself, unless that someone had asked for it. And it was a shame to tease old people and to torture animals. Not that we were perfect: We smoked, drank (sometimes with tough health consequences), stole things, fought ferociously and cruelly, cheated on homework and exams, lied repeatedly, and disturbed the peace. But I could say we were honorable. The bully wasn't, however. We saw this from the start.

He was a tall, lanky, blondish boy with a strange, sticky voice. When he talked, it seemed the words came out of him in slow-motion. We noticed his voice first, because it was full of sh*t. He used profanity as a primary way of communication. It was kind of like the way movie characters talk these days. We all used bad words, but coming from him they sounded exceptionally dirty. He had two followers who looked very much like him, though not as repulsive, and this unholy triad roamed the school hallways and nearby streets night and day. Nobody knew where he lived; it seemed as if he could appear and disappear at will. You could go out for groceries and bump into him. He would then perform his ritual of pretending to be your friend, pawing you, especially if you were a girl, then complaining that you didn't appreciate him, so he had to hurt you for your own good.

All that would usually end with some really dirty thing, like throwing your groceries on the pavement and stomping on them, throwing stones at your pet, or lighting a match near a girl's skirt so that it created a huge hole in the only uniform she had - etc, etc. While his goons laughed their ears off, he never laughed. Instead, his frozen smirk seemed to become more like a mask and his expressionless gaze would get uglier than ever. Sometimes he would force a kid to do something dirty to others; he called it a coalition. That wouldn't last for long, however, because you could never satisfy his perverse appetites. Eventually, he would discard his temporary allies and hurt them even more. At that time, I didn't know about moronic evil, or such terms as "sadism." If had known about them, I would have recognized the pattern in the bully. But I was a bookish boy, and I recognized him instead in references I encountered to the Hitlerjugend and the SS. The bully was like them. In books about the Nazi culture, the training of young children that deprived them of a social conscience was described in gory detail. One of the main goals was to develop in them a sense of total indifference to, and contempt for, "others"- the inferior beings, whether animals or humans. The children were also pushed to have fun hurting people. In that context, our own bully was a "natural."

People noticed his behavior and tried to change it. Teachers warned him repeatedly, and the pioneer organization threatened to take away his tie (a very tough public punishment). One day, when he had been caught in some bad action, he put on quite a spectacle, promising to change and become a better person. To the kids who were his victims, though, this was a disgusting sight. We all knew he didn't mean it. The smirk was there all the time.

That's when those of us who had been hurt by him decided to take the matter into our own hands. On that rainy evening, we took off our red ties after school as usual, but we didn't go home. Instead, I went to intercept the bully, leaving the others ready to back me up. He was at his usual place and called me to approach, but I told him to f&ck himself, and when he started toward me in his deliberately menacing posture, I ran. Then the bully, accompanied by his two allies, followed me down the street and into the dark stone passage, through the cast-iron gates. Those gates were usually closed, but this time they were open. Right after they passed the gates, I reached the end of the passage, where the exit gates were closed. And at that moment a screeching sound told us that the entry gates were also closed. I stopped and looked at them. Then the shadows along the passage walls came alive and the enemy triad found itself surrounded, with nowhere to run.

As we presumed, the two butt kissers betrayed the bully in a second. We pushed them away, threw a blanket over him and started hitting. At that moment, we forgot that he was always bragging about carrying a knife. But, in this circumstance, he was lucky not to have one; if he had been carrying a knife, the enraged kids would likely have killed him with bricks. We knew this was our day. The deal between us was that we would stop punishing the bully when he began to cry. But he didn't cry. For some time we could only hear ourselves, our own animalistic rage. Suddenly, however, we heard a howl. He howled like a wounded beast in a paroxysm of helplessness and desperation. Then we stopped. We opened the gates on both sides and left in silence. None of us felt any satisfaction. We were just tired and empty. The one girl among us saved our souls that evening. When we all stopped to go our separate ways, she took out our red ties, which we had given her for safekeeping, and neatly put a tie on each of us. Then she smiled at us all and vanished into the darkness. The burden was lifted. We knew we had done the right thing.

The bully didn't come to school in the morning. The two others came, but they knew nothing of him. Eventually, we heard that his parents had transferred him to a special school for kids with psychological problems. We never saw him again and, for some reason, the bullying among ourselves also stopped entirely. None of us wanted to be like him, ever. We had all grown up.

When as a parent you introduce shame to your child, you do that by appealing to the child's sense of empathy and of self-preservation. Those are connected in a thoughtful human. Empathy tells you that you inflicted something on another person that you would not like to be subjected to yourself. And the sense of self-preservation tells you that the same kind of hurtful action could be directed toward you. Those realizations make you feel ashamed of your actions: you see them as not only mean, but also stupid. A person with no concept of shame, who sees the world only as an object for self-indulgence, is the bad seed. Such a person belongs in an asylum. From Reagan to Cheney and Obama, we have such people at the highest levels of power in the U.S. It is bad enough if one person is shameless. But what if this disease were to spread through the entire nation?

Our Gaze at the World: I have been living in this country for 28 years now, and through all those years we have been at war, either directly or indirectly. Here are the places I remember since Y1989: Iraq, Kuwait, Somalia, Panama, Sudan, Kosovo, Lebanon, Haiti, Iraq again, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria. In all these cases, we had our fun. We killed a lot of people after leaning on them, pretending to be their friends, and proclaiming our love. In all these cases, we denied any atrocities and vehemently called ourselves the best people in the world. In these cases, too, as well as in numerous cases before, we forced other people into a "coalition" with us.

Yet, NONE of these cases produced any positive outcome. In fact, we considerably worsened the world economy and devastated political structures, creating chaos and misery whenever we went. Those are the facts, and they are indisputable. If it wasn't for that insane gaze of ours, all of us here in the U.S. would be on our knees begging God's forgiveness. Instead, we celebrate after we've destroyed anything that even remotely resembles honest work for honest pay. We are truly unbelievable, and my little psycho-bully would fit in here very nicely. He would be in charge of some important department, and the media would be calling him "Slow, but Smarty, Mike," or whatever his ugly name was. The presence of the bully here has become so obvious that every morning I am afraid to see his face on TV. Sometimes the bullies come back, courtesy of Stephen King. They eat their breakfast, send their kids to school, and then proceed to spread their deadly love over other people, leaving dead bodies behind.

Americans are sick, and that sickness overtook them in the 20th Century when they benefited immensely from other people's miseries in two World Wars. Since that time, they have felt superior to other people and that feeling culminated in the BOMB. Not only do we have the BOMB; we actually used it and got away with it. Nobody threw a blanket over us and kicked us bad. Our hubris rules supreme. Our religion tells us that we are the freest, the smartest, the most righteous people on earth, and thus all our actions toward others are GOOD. We claim the right to dominate others, because we indulge ourselves and believe we are by default the ones who deserve it. Do you recognize the logic? It is the logic of a shameless, bratty toddler. There is no real love there, just self-adoration. We behave like a child who is "asking for it," and anyone who is at least a half-wit should become very worried indeed. Humankind is not very different from a middle school, and eventually the shadows will separate from the walls. Do we really want to risk being exposed?

I Am Not Fair: I concede that I am not entirely fair in comparing the whole American nation to a psycho kid from my childhood. There are plenty of good people in this country, and I have no right. No, I have every right! This is my home. Diversity: the real display of it is not in food, drinks and flowers. It is in the historical, generational experience, in the memory of the heart. I have an obligation before my people here to report a dangerous, maybe even fatal, psychic disease - a disease that once consumed the whole German nation and is now in full swing in America. I don't want to run again, panting and sweating into that dark passage. It is the light I seek, and in the light we fight. I am not fair. I am in love and I want to protect this beloved country of mine. In this battle I take no prisoners. It is easy to get cured. Just put the damned psychos into an asylum, where they belong!"

- http://www.opednews.com/

"How It Really Is"

 

"Ten Things You Need to Know About the Experimental COVID mRNA Vaccines" (Excerpt)

"Ten Things You Need to Know About the Experimental 

COVID mRNA Vaccines" (Excerpt)

By Makia Freeman

"Experimental COVID Vaccines: Never-Before-Used Tools to Modify and Program Your Genetics: The COVID vaccines produced by Pfizer and Moderna are called mRNA (messenger RNA) vaccines – a completely new type of vaccine that has never been licensed or used on humans before. We have absolutely no idea what to expect from this vaccine, nor no way to know if it will be effective or safe. Traditional vaccines introduce pieces of a weakened virus to stimulate an immune response. mRNA vaccines inject molecules of synthetic genetic material from non-humans sources into your cells, thus hijacking your genes and permanently reprogramming them to produce antibodies to kill the alleged SARS-CoV-2 virus causing COVID (although, as regular readers of The Freedom Articles know, the virus has never been isolated, purified or proven 100% to exist). These newly created proteins are not regulated by your DNA and are thus completely foreign to your body.

Experimental COVID Vaccines: mRNA Vax is an Operating System: The mRNA vaccines of Moderna and Pfizer could barely be regarded as medicine in the traditional sense. They are transhumanistic tools to synthetically alter you at the genetic level. In fact, Moderna has even admitted on their website that their new COVID vaccines are an “operating system” and the “software of life”: “Recognizing the broad potential of mRNA science, we set out to create an mRNA technology platform that functions very much like an operating system on a computer. It is designed so that it can plug and play interchangeably with different programs. In our case, the “program” or “app” is our mRNA drug – the unique mRNA sequence that codes for a protein.”

Catherine Austin Fitts has recently been pointing out that these tools are ‘vaccines’ in name only, called so to give them legal immunity from liability, when actually they are operating systems: “Just as Gates installed an operating system in our computers, now the vision is to install an operating system in our bodies and use “viruses” to mandate an initial installation followed by regular updates. Now I appreciate why Gates and his colleagues want to call these technologies “vaccines.” If they can persuade the body politic that injectible credit cards or injectible surveillance trackers or injectable brain-macine interface nanotechnologies are “vaccines,” then they can enjoy the protection of a century or more of legal decisions and laws that support their efforts to mandate what they want to do.”

“Why are we calling these formulations “vaccines”? If I understand the history of case law, vaccines, in legal terms, are medicine. Intentional heavy metal poisoning is not medicine. Injectible surveillance components are not medicine. Injectible credit cards are not medicine. Injectible brain-machine interface is not a medicine. Immunity for insurance companies is not the creation of human immunity. We need to stop allowing these concoctions to be referred to by a word that the courts and the general population define and treat as medicine and protect from legal and financial liability.

Experimental COVID Vaccines: Safety Abandoned: Vaccines usually take 7-20 years to adequately research, test and bring to market. The slew of COVID vaccines produced by Big Pharma companies are being rushed to market in less than 12 months, which is nowhere enough time to meet established safety standards. No long-term safety studies were conducted, so no one has any real idea of the danger these vaccines could cause down the line. Many of the trials only lasted 3-4 months. Animal trials, an important part of safety testing, were skipped. While long-term safety is completely unknown, short-term safety looks extremely sketchy (see next section and list of links at end of article). It is no understatement to say that much of the worldwide population has just become Big Pharma’s guinea pigs."

Please view this lengthy, complete article here:

- https://www.globalresearch.ca/

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Critically important:

"Unthinkable Thoughts"

"A Giant Question Mark..."

"We are all of us born, live and die in the shadow

of a giant question mark that refers to three questions:

Where do we come from?

Why?

And where, oh where, are we going?"

- Tennessee Williams

"What Pains People The Most..."

"In this world, the thing people fear the most, and what pains people the most - is giving more than they receive. God forbid I cut off more of my fingernail for you than you cut from your fingernail, for me! Heaven forbid I hold my breath in longer while thinking about you, than the amount of time your breath is held in for me! Not a second longer! It is a sad fact of human nature that there you stand as an Infinite Soul and yet your greatest fear is not receiving from another person in proportion to what you give. Your viewpoint is low, your vision is clouded. You have become, in your eyes, a funny little drawing on the paper pad of the universe. Indeed, this race is yet to evolve. And yet, I am surrounded by such fear, to such a great extent that I begin to fear the same!"

- C. JoyBell C.

"There Comes A Time..."

"We Americans have a saying: It's more important what you stand for than who you stand with. I do not rely upon peer opinion to decide what is right and what is wrong. I make those decisions for myself, and even if I discover that every other human alive chose differently, that doesn't mean I was wrong.

There comes a time in every mans life when he has to choose sides. I have chosen my side. I am comfortable with my decision. I do not think everyone on my side is a saint, but I know that those on the other side are much, much worse.

Sometimes a man with too broad a perspective reveals himself as having no real perspective at all. A man who tries too hard to see every side may be a man who is trying to avoid choosing any side. A man who tries too hard to seek a deeper truth may be trying to hide from the truth he already knows. That is not a sign of intellectual sophistication and great thinking. It is a demonstration of moral degeneracy and cowardice."

- Steven Den Beste

"Our Financial System is Imploding Because of Inflation"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly 11/20/21:

"Our Financial System is Imploding Because of Inflation"

"The experts are wearing that there is impending doom headed our way. From Peter Schiff to Bank of America they are agreeing that there are big problems because of inflation. People should prepare themselves now for the future."