"No Time for Crybabies"

"No Time for Crybabies"

by Jim Kunstler

"Do you know what most of America wants? I will tell you: America wants Daddy to step up and say, “Okay, you can stop being insane now. Really, enough is enough.” Trouble is, America is short on daddies these days. That’s what happens when you throw The Patriarchy on the old garbage barge. Mr. Trump was a kind of daddy, but to many women, especially, he was the wrong kind, Bad Daddy, the worst kind of daddy, the kind who makes you clean up your room and come home before midnight. They traded him in for demented Grampa. He just wants to fondle you - and not in a good way - but family decorum requires that we don’t talk about that. In the meantime, we can do whatever we feel like.

It’s a fact that more-educated folks are most susceptible to mass delusion, and the reason will surprise you. It’s because of status-seeking. Yes, even more than money. We’re hard-wired for it. And status is liable to send money in your direction, anyway. Among the educated managerial class, going along with everybody else is crucial because careerism in a bureaucratic system, public or private, demands it. If you seek to rise in the hierarchy, or are just angling for brownie points, you must appear to subscribe to the reigning beliefs-of-the-moment, no matter how crazy, and the punishments are severe for appearing to not go along - like losing your career and livelihood, and all prospects of a comfortable life.

The main belief-of-the-moment is that battling the invisible menace called Covid-19 requires the most extreme measures, and anyone against that is an enemy, a domestic terrorist! Thus, it is most urgent to “vaccinate” every human being in the nation. Why? Because Dr. Tony Fauci, America’s doctor, says so. Why does he say so? Because the Covid-19 “vaccines” are the crowning achievement in his long vainglorious quest to bring forth a world-saving magic cure for a dread disease. And since Dr. Fauci is The Science incarnate, and The Science must be followed (because…come on… we are modern people in a modern world ruled by Science), we must follow Dr. Fauci!

But it’s obvious now, after a year on-the-scene, that the vaxxes work poorly at best to protect against infection or control the spread, and, at worst, induce terrible long-term damage to organs, blood vessels, and the immune system. The. vaxxes can kill you or gravely disable you. The statistics in the CDC’s VAERS registry show this in no uncertain terms: 1,003,992 Covid vaxx adverse event reports including 21,745 deaths linked to them through January 7 - and these figures are said to be deeply understated due to the poor design and difficulty using the VAERS website with its clunky, out-dated code that the CDC refuses to fix.

Dr. Fauci has avoided addressing these adverse reactions and the negative efficacy of the “vaccines.” He simply states that the vaxxes are “safe and effective.” That so many Americans believe him, despite all the evidence, and go along with the crusade to vaxx-up everybody, is proof that they are insane. But now that the whole story is unravelling, they are ever more determined to stick to the script. Covid-19 has been their security blanket for two years. As long as it was in the picture, raging and killing as an invisible demon, it could be the focus of all their free-floating terror.

Terror of what, you might ask? Of the meaninglessness, alienation, and debility induced by the managerial class in its own sick institutions and corporations… in short, the 21st-century America that the managers evolved in and supported - a culture of junk food, junk work, junk art, junk environments, junk government, junk economics, and, lately, junk science… a sickening panorama of systems out-of-control and entering failure mode. Confronting the disaster of its own incapacity to sustain a healthy culture and an economy with a future, the managerial class went nuts. Its insane actions now are killing people while seeking to punish those who refuse to walk sheepishly into America’s version of the gas chamber, the Anthony Fauci “vaccines.”

One way out of a trap like this is to follow your insanity into all-out Götterdämmerung, chaos and destruction. That’s the Hitler way (preceded by a period of psychotic totalitarian social control and sadistic scapegoating). I don’t recommend it. When it’s over, there’s not much left to assist the continuity of the human project. But we are led, at the moment, by a very Party of Chaos that is making all those moves. Check the boxes: social control freakery, check… punishment unto the unvaxxed, check… loony war-drumming, check….

The cries for more lockdowns and punishments grow shrill as omicron burns across the land, presenting a fair chance of putting a stop to Covid 19. We’ll know in a couple weeks where this is going. Will those tell-tale “all-cause deaths” mount in the insurance companies, suggesting that the “vaccines” seeded millions with lurking illness? Will the public turn on Dr. Fauci and run him from public health to rough justice? Will the inept “Joe Biden” regime start World War Three in Ukraine, a place of no real interest to us, or the South China Sea, just to change the channel?

You can feel the paradigms straining to shift under your feet now. For that degenerate managerial class, and its psychotically woked-up minions on the campuses and in the news-rooms, this thing would likely go the Schopenhauer way: the new paradigm is at first ridiculed, then violently opposed, then accepted as self-evident. Snap your fingers and they’ll come out of it, just like that.

The managerial class will try to pretend that they never did the things they did. A few will offer weak apologies. But the damage is done. Before long, an economic rip-tide takes the drowning out to sea. The rest of us left on dry land have a lot of work to do. It’ll be no time for crybabies."

- https://kunstler.com/

"This Is Not Just A Supply Chain Collapse"

Full screen recommended.

"This Is Not Just A Supply Chain Collapse"

by Epic Economist

"Day after day, we hear more news reporting the collapse of our supply chain. From lockdowns disrupting the flow of goods across the globe to skyrocketing freight rates and a persistent shortage of shipping containers. From severe congestion at our key ports to a lack of enough dockworkers, warehouse staff, and truck drivers to make all of those goods reach your local stores. In recent weeks, Americans have been resorting to social media to complain about increasingly barer shelves as the latest surge of infections leaves the already-tight labor market even tighter. The truth is that our supply chain is the perfect representation of our economy - because the supply chain is essentially the economy. Every single step in the production, processing, and distribution of a product requires resources, personnel, and logistics. And when the supply chain starts to break down, so does the economy. That's what the economist, financial strategist, and commentator James Rickards has detailed in a recent analysis published in The Daily Reckoning.

The term "supply chain" comprehends an intricate system of manufacturing, processing, transportation, packaging, marketing, advertising, customer relations, vendor and supplier relations, and, of course, capital – the main element that provides support to the relation between the supply and demand of every single every physical, digital, intellectual or artistic artifact on the entire world. The supply chain is everywhere, as explains Rickards. To illustrate the complexity and extensiveness of supply chains, the analyst cites an experiment suggested by MIT scholar Yossi Sheffi in his book "The Resilient Enterprise", in which you consider yourself as a one-person supply chain to understand how rooted these dynamics are in our daily lives. Sheffi highlights that supply chain processes are hidden in every single thing we buy and consume.

The collapse of global supply chains can be attributed to two different factors: efficiency and energy. The modern version of supply chain management began in the 1980s, as globalization and the growth in technology combined to make supply chains more complex and also offered tools to manage that complexity. That’s to say, for example, if you have a company and want to lower costs for your customers by reducing your trucking providers to the two that offer the lowest rates, you’re actually increasing your vulnerability to disruptions. If one of these providers suffers a strike or is hit by a natural disaster, you probably won’t get your deliveries in time. In other words, the hidden cost of efficiency is vulnerability, which leads us to the second issue: energy.

Intricate and dynamic systems such as the supply chain require a huge amount of energy to function. The big problem is that the global energy input rises in relation to the scale of the system. In simple terms, this means that if you double the scale of a system, you’ll probably need a lot more energy to run, which includes electricity, capital, and labor. According to the analyst estimates, you’ll need 5 times more energy in such a scenario.

So when profits from expanding the scale of the system are high and energy costs are low, these lopsided ratios of scaling functions may still be profitable on net. But when profits start to decline and energy prices surge, the consequences of higher energy input costs on an extremely stretched supply chain network are translated into major disruptions to the operation of the system as a whole. Other factors currently weighing on the supply chain are the health crisis and rising geopolitical tensions. Global superpowers such as Australia and China are trying to eradicate the virus even as the rest of the world faces a new outbreak. That seems quite impossible. It’s almost the same as pursuing a policy in which no one catches a cold. They want a utopia but the price to pay is very real.

In America, our leaders’ policies have ended up creating even worse congestion at ports and led to painful fines for companies that weren’t able to move their containers due to a lack of workers. The worker shortage, however, can be attributed to our government’s lack of competence in creating a safe environment for workers to stay at their posts during the sanitary outbreak with fair pay. All of those increased costs are being passed on to consumers, who have been dealing with the sharpest inflation spike in almost four decades. Given today’s outlook, supply chains must be restructured. But as Rickards warned: ”reconfiguring the supply chain will take five to 10 years to accomplish. In the meantime, you should expect empty shelves, higher costs, and slower growth in companies most affected by the breakdown.”

- https://www.epiceconomist.com​

Musical Interlude: Liquid Mind, “Zero Degrees Zero”

Liquid Mind, “Zero Degrees Zero”

"A Look to the Heavens"

"The most distant object easily visible to the eye is M31, the great Andromeda Galaxy some two and a half million light-years away. But without a telescope, even this immense spiral galaxy - spanning over 200,000 light years - appears as a faint, nebulous cloud in the constellation Andromeda. In contrast, details of a bright yellow nucleus and dark winding dust lanes, are revealed in this digital telescopic image.

Narrow band image data recording emission from hydrogen atoms, shows off the reddish star-forming regions dotting gorgeous blue spiral arms and young star clusters. While even casual skygazers are now inspired by the knowledge that there are many distant galaxies like M31, astronomers seriously debated this fundamental concept in the 20th century. Were these "spiral nebulae" simply outlying components of our own Milky Way Galaxy or were they instead "island universes" - distant systems of stars comparable to the Milky Way itself? This question was central to the famous Shapley-Curtis debate of 1920, which was later resolved by observations of M31 in favor of Andromeda, island universe.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100109.html

"Here We Are..."

"Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why."

- Kurt Vonnegut

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But perhaps there's something that transcends "no why..."

"If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be meaning in suffering."

"The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity - even under the most difficult circumstances - to add a deeper meaning to his life. It may remain brave, dignified and unselfish. Or in the bitter fight for self-preservation he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal. Here lies the chance for a man either to make use of or to forgo the opportunities of attaining the moral values that a difficult situation may afford him. And this decides whether he is worthy of his sufferings or not."

- Viktor Frankl

"No Room For Cowards..."

“Life has no victims. There are no victims in this life. No one has the right to point fingers at his/her past and blame it for what he/she is today. We do not have the right to point our finger at someone else and blame that person for how we treat others, today. Don’t hide in the corner, pointing fingers at your past. Don’t sit under the table, talking about someone who has hurt you. Instead, stand up and face your past! Face your fears! Face your pain! And stomach it all! You may have to do so kicking and screaming and throwing fits and crying – but by all means – face it! This life makes no room for cowards.”

- C. Joybell C.

"They Don’t Always Do That..."

"When people pile up debts they will find difficult and perhaps even impossible to repay, they are saying several things at once. They are obviously saying that they want more than they can immediately afford. They are saying, less obviously, that their present wants are so important that, to satisfy them, it is worth some future difficulty. But in making that bargain they are implying that when the future difficulty arrives, they’ll figure it out. They don’t always do that.”

– Michael Lewis, “Boomerang”

"Doug Casey on Implications of the 'Great Reset' Agenda and What it Means for You"

"Doug Casey on Implications of the 'Great Reset'

 Agenda and What it Means for You"

by International Man

International Man: "By now, most people have heard about the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) “Great Reset” agenda led by Klaus Schwab. The WEF sees the COVID pandemic as an opportunity to reshape the economic and social structures of the world. With the unpleasantness of 2020 and 2021 behind us, what do you think will be the next phase of their global agenda?

Doug Casey: For many years, conspiratorially oriented people have looked askance at the Council on Foreign Relations, Bilderberg, Bohemian Grove, Concordia, WEF, and similar groups where the rich and powerful people gather to wheel and deal. Despite my visceral dislike of these people, I actually accepted an invite to Concordia out of curiosity and wrote an article about it. I won’t be going back because it’s simultaneously boring and disturbing to be in the company of self-important bureaucrats, opportunists, and slimy rent-seekers.

These people predictably make a huge deal about COVID. The pandemic impresses me as about 90% hysteria from a medical point of view. You don’t want to get it, obviously, but unless you’re old and sick, it appears to be just the flu, especially now that it’s burning out, the way viruses do. The average age of decedents is about 80 - a fact which is never reported. We’ve certainly never seen carts going through the streets crying, “Bring out your dead. Bring out your dead.” But I personally know people who think it’s stalking them like an assassin. The hysteria has mutated into mass psychosis.

Governmental reaction to the flu, actively promoted by the groups I just mentioned, has reshaped the way the world works. It’s definitely a crisis these miscreants haven’t let go to waste. In fact, what’s gone on over the last two years is probably the biggest upset in world history, at least since World War II - and that’s saying something. It’s been a real catalyst for the “Great Reset” promoted by these powerful busybodies, and it’s still evolving. We could see genuine chaos before 2022 is over.

So what’s next, now that the whole world seems to be going insane? Billions of thoughtless people have been terrified; they’re ripe for the next medical emergency, real or imagined. In order to be proactive, our faux guardians in government are undoubtedly going to attempt something like a vaccine passport. That way, when the next thing comes up, they can pretend to react quickly and more easily get the masses to do what they’re told.

Of course, this is all highly destructive. Your health is something that should be between you and your doctor - not some DMV look-alike government employee.

International Man: The short video released by the WEF during the pandemic included a strange statement about the state of the world by 2030 - “you’ll own nothing and be happy.” What do you think this implies about individual freedom and private property?

Doug Casey: One big change over the last two years is that, for the first time, people are spending many hours a day binge-watching television. Of course, people have watched “too much” TV for decades, but now billions have been under virtual house arrest with nothing to do but glue their eyes to the flat screen and absorb massive amounts of indoctrination. These insane lockdowns have prevented billions of people from both working and socializing. They’re in enforced isolation, virtual prison.

TV and welfare are a very effective update of the old Roman concept of “bread and circuses.” A flat-screen TV with 1000 channels - everybody has one - offers a much easier and better way to kill time than going to the Colosseum or Circus Maximus, especially from the point of view of the rulers, since the proles can be indoctrinated while they’re isolated. That decreases the odds of the natives getting too restless.

Meanwhile, governments everywhere have been sending their populations loads of free money, so they can sate themselves with junk food. Biden’s Build Back Better program will pass in some form, making bread and circuses a permanent feature of life in America. Our version might be called “Pizzas and Netflix.”

The people who frequent forums, such as the WEF, see themselves as a special class - the elite. They all know each other, go to the same schools, and socialize at the same clubs. They have high incomes, a lot of power and influence, and groom their kids to join the party.

They’ve jelled into an informal ruling class. Even while they mouth hypocritical platitudes about democracy, diversity, equity, and other PC nonsense, they, in fact, despise the common man. I wouldn’t be surprised if they would really like to see - as people such as Ted Turner and Bill Gates have intimated - 80% of the world’s population to just disappear. That way, when they visit places such as Machu Picchu, St. Mark’s Square in Venice, and other fashionable places, they won’t be annoyed by the hoi polloi wandering around as if they were equals. Enough money and power can get the elite to start thinking that way. Not to mention that these people are mostly sociopaths, with a heavy admixture of real psychos.

Perhaps they’d like to see the “nonessential” proles isolated in their apartments, sedated by Xanax and Prozac, stuffed with cheap carbohydrates, stimulated by Fentanyl and meth, and programmed by the MSNBC, while their “betters” figure out what to do with them. I suspect my hero Charles Knight will have to confront this problem in the next novels in the series John Hunt and I are doing.

International Man: What drastic economic and social changes need to take place for the WEF’s agenda to become a reality?

Doug Casey: It’s very clear - more state power. Governments throughout the world have grown like cancer throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Look at a chart showing the percentage of the economy controlled by states everywhere in the world over the last 100 years. The state has gone from being a minor nuisance - taking a small part of the economic production - to now controlling 30, 40, 50%, or more everywhere. Even with massive income taxes, 20% Value Added Taxes, gigantic borrowing, and catastrophic currency inflation, governments everywhere are bankrupt. We’re at a tipping point.

Governments have become very powerful, and they’re getting even more powerful. It’s an accelerating trend. Financial, tech, and media corporations, in particular, have turned into behemoths by merging with each other, working hand-in-glove with the government. Their nomenklatura, aided by an inflated stock market, has been enriched by the revolving door between the state and corporations. It’s Mussolini’s dream of state corporatism, i.e., fascism, come true on a grand scale.

Meanwhile, most humans have become cattle-lookalikes. The only question is whether we’re feedlot cattle or free-range cattle. The feedlot cattle, standing shoulder-to-shoulder eating silage at the feed trough, are like the old proletariat. They have no personal efficacy at all. The upper ranges of the middle class are more like the so-called free-range cattle. They have a bigger field to wander around in, get to eat grass, and have the illusion of freedom. But it’s important not to kid yourself about the big picture.

International Man: In the background of all of this, many governments are entertaining the concept of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC) as a solution to their failed monetary policies. All the fiat currencies in the world are backed by nothing, and they’re being printed in enormous quantities. What does a CBDC mean for the viability and future of government-issued fiat money?

Doug Casey: Central Bank Digital Currencies are a truly big disaster. They’re coming down the road, barreling toward us like a maniac’s truck in Road Warrior. The ubiquitous smartphone has made them almost inevitable.

Everybody has a smartphone; it’s convenient and always with you. People are attached to them like appendages. You can access everything else on your cell phone today - so why not money? Feedlot cattle everywhere will go for CBDCs with enthusiasm. It’s already happened to a great degree in China and Sweden. CBDCs give the government total knowledge and control of everything you buy, sell, or own. The feedlot cattle love it; they believe the State is their friend. Free-range cattle may need some prodding, but they’ll go along to get along; they won’t want to lose their privileges.

The whole world is being propelled towards CBDCs. When your whole financial life is necessarily on your cell phone, and cash doesn’t exist, the State will know - everything - you’re doing, where you’re doing it, and with whom. The process will be aided by an omnipresent camera and your frenemies, Siri and Alexa.

It will tie in nicely with our evolving social credit system like the Chinese now have. Your score might get dinged by what you say, whom you talk to, and where you go. But most cattle like it; it makes them feel safe and virtuous.

Like cattle, most people rather like a welfare state; it’s not unpleasant being given food while you can sit there and watch your television or play with your smartphone all day. It’s actually pretty comfortable being a feedlot cow - a lot more comfortable than trying to be a wild buffalo that has to forage to fend off starvation and fight for survival. So, of course, the world is changing in that direction.

We really are headed towards a Great Reset that Klaus Schwab and his criminal pals anticipate. However, the fact that they have plans to put everybody in a well-ordered and comfortable feedlot doesn’t repeal the laws of economics. The Greater Depression isn’t going to disappear.

On the bright side - and I always look at the bright side - today’s corrupt system is likely to collapse in the onrushing crisis. It is, to use an overly popular word, unsustainable. Currencies will lose value radically. Markets will go up and down like an elevator with a lunatic at the controls. On the dark side, things usually get worse during major tumult - France in 1789, Russia in 1917, and China in 1949 are examples.

I continue to anticipate that the Greater Depression is going to get much more serious this year, even though increasing levels of debt and high government spending are papering things over for the moment. In fact, I’m starting to think that “Greater Depression,” a term I coined, understates the situation. The likely next step is a major financial upset, cascading into serious economic problems, at which point all the feedlot cows are going to clamor for “strong” leadership. They’ll get what they ask for.

The Jacobins in control in Washington, DC - for at least the next three years - won’t let the crisis go to waste. From there, things could slide into social chaos similar to what we saw in 2020. And perhaps a serious war; governments everywhere love to blame foreigners for domestic problems.

The 2020s could be the nastiest decade that we’ve had since the Industrial Revolution of the early 1800s - notwithstanding huge advances that continue to be made in most areas of science and technology."

- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

The Poet: Czeslaw Milosz, “A Song On The End Of The World”

“A Song On The End Of The World”

“On the day the world ends

A bee circles a clover,

A fisherman mends a glimmering net.

Happy porpoises jump in the sea,

By the rainspout young sparrows are playing

And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be.

On the day the world ends

Women walk through the fields under their umbrellas,

A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,

Vegetable peddlers shout in the street

And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,

The voice of a violin lasts in the air

And leads into a starry night.

And those who expected lightning and thunder

Are disappointed.

And those who expected signs and archangels’ trumps

Do not believe it is happening now.

As long as the sun and the moon are above,

As long as the bumblebee visits a rose,

As long as rosy infants are born

No one believes it is happening now.

Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet

Yet is not a prophet, for he’s much too busy,

Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:

There will be no other end of the world,

There will be no other end of the world.”

~ Czeslaw Milosz

The Daily "Near You?"

Wesson, Mississippi, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"No Special Hurry..."

“The world breaks everyone, and afterward many are strong in the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too, but there will be no special hurry.”

- Ernest Hemingway, “A Farewell To Arms”

"Helpless People"

"Helpless People"

“The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident

which everybody had decided not to see." 

~ Ayn Rand

“Almost all Americans have had an intense school experience which occupied their entire youth, an experience during which they were drilled thoroughly in the culture and economy of the well-schooled greater society, in which individuals have been rendered helpless to do much of anything except watch television or punch buttons on a keypad.

Before you begin to blame the childish for being that way and join the chorus of those defending the general imprisonment of adults and the schooling by force of children because there isn’t any other way to handle the mob, you want to at least consider the possibility that we’ve been trained in childishness and helplessness for a reason. And that reason is that helpless people are easy to manage.

Helpless people can be counted upon to act as their own jailers because they are so inadequate to complex reality they are afraid of new experience. They’re like animals whose spirits have been broken. Helpless people take orders well, they don’t have minds of their own, they are predictable, they won’t surprise corporations or governments with resistance to the newest product craze, the newest genetic patent - or by armed revolution. Helpless people can be counted on to despise independent citizens and hence they act as a fifth column in opposition to social change in the direction of personal sovereignty.”

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Related, highly recommended:

"Everybody Does It"

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Big Brother & The Holding Company, 

"Heartache People"

"The Brutal Truth About Violence When The SHTF"

"The Brutal Truth About Violence When The SHTF"

Selco interviewed by Daisy Luther

"Are you prepared for the extreme violence that is likely to come your way if the SHTF? No matter what your plan is, it’s entirely probable that at some point, you’ll be the victim of violence or have to perpetrate violence to survive. As always, Selco is our go-to guy on SHTF reality checks and this thought-provoking interview will shake you to your core.

If you don’t know Selco, he’s from Bosnia and he lived through a year in a city that was blockaded with no utilities, no deliveries of supplies, and no services. In his interviews, he shares what the scenarios the rest of us theorize about were REALLY like. He mentioned to me recently that most folks aren’t prepared for the violence that is part and parcel of a collapse, which brings us to today’s interview.

How prevalent was violence when the SHTF in Bosnia? It was wartime and chaos, from all conflicts in those years in the Balkan region Bosnian conflict was most brutal because of multiple reasons, historical, political and other. To simplify the explanation why violence was common and very brutal, you need to picture a situation where you are “bombarded” with huge amount of information (propaganda) which instills in you very strong feelings of fear and hate. Out of fear and hate, violence grows easy and fast, and over the very short period of time you see how people around you (including you) do things that you could not imagine before.

I can say that violence was almost an everyday thing in the whole spectrum of different activities because it was a fight for survival. Again, whenever (and wherever) you put people in a region without enough resources, you can expect violence.

We were living a normal life, and then suddenly we were thrown in a way of living where if you could not “negotiate” something with someone, you solve the problem by launching a rocket from an RPG through the window of his living room. Hate stripped down the layers of humanity and suddenly it was “normal” to level an apartment building with people inside with shells from a tank or form private prisons with imprisoned civilians for slave work or sex slaves.

Nothing that I saw or read before could have prepared me for the level of violence and blindness to it, for the lives of kids, elders, civilians, and the innocent. Again, the thing that is important for readers is that we were a modern society one day, and then in few weeks it turned into carnage. Do not make the mistake of saying “it cannot happen here” because I made that mistake too. Do not underestimate power of propaganda, fear, hate, and the lowest human instincts, no matter how modern and good your society is right now and how deeply you believe that “it can not happen here”.

I’ve mentioned warlords and gangs in several of my articles. Were they responsible for the majority of the violence or was it hungry families? Fighting of the armies through the whole period of war brings violence in terms of constant shelling from a distance from different kind of weapons. For example a few multiple rocket launchers (VBR) could bring in 30 seconds the destruction in an area of 3-4 apartment buildings, and being there in that moment and surviving it gives you a completely new view on life. Snipers were a constant threat and over time you simply grow a way of living that you constant scan area in front of you where your next steps gonna be. Are you gonna be visible and from where? Etc.

Most brutal violence was actually lawlessness and complete lack of order between different factions and militias, so in some periods there were militias or gangs who simply ruled the cities or part of the city where they were absolutely masters of everything in terms of deciding of taking someone’s life. In lawlessness, you as one person could be really small and not interesting, or join some bigger group of people to be stronger, some family or militia or gang.

An example of a gang would be group of people of some 300 or 500 people who “officially” were a unit or militia and operate for some faction, but in reality they operate mostly for themselves. That included owning part of the black market, having prison (for forced labor or ransom), attacking people and houses for resources, smuggling people from dangerous areas. Violence from those kinds of group was the most immediate violence, the most visible in terms of SHTF talking. If those people came on your door you could obey, fight, or negotiate, but mostly you could not not ask for help from any kind of authority, because there was no real authority.

In any society, no matter where you are living, there are a great number of people who are waiting for the SHTF to go out and do violent things. Small time criminals or simply violent persons who are not openly violent because system is there to punish them for that. It is like that. Some gang leaders that I knew were actually completely sick people with a strange type of charisma that makes people follow them, weird situations that can happen only in a real collapse. They are people who just waited for their time to rise. Those kinds of people together with criminal organization that are already there in any city in the world will be the backbone of SHTF gangs.

Who were the most likely victims? A very simple answer would be that the most likely victims were people who had interesting things without enough defense. But it was not always that simple. For example one of the first houses that got raided in my neighborhood, right at the beginning of collapse while there was still some kind of order, was a rich family’s home. They had a nice house with bars on the windows, a pretty good setup for defense, and they had enough people inside so they could give pretty good resistance to the mob. But they got raided simply because they were known that they are rich, so they were attacked with enough force to be overwhelmed.

It was not only about how much manpower you had and how well-organized defense of your home was, it was also about how juicy a target you were. If you are faced with 150 angry people attacking your home because they are sure you have good stuff inside your chances are low, no matter how good and tough you are. People who were alone were a pretty easy target and old people without support of family or friends.

It was not always about killing someone or violence. For example, if you were alone and without resources but you had something else valuable like some kind of skill or knowledge you could easily be “recruited” for some faction or group, not by your will of course.

What were some ways to prevent yourself from becoming a victim of violence? How do you recommend that people prepare themselves for the possibility of violence? It can be done in steps, or in layers:

• Do not be interesting (or attract attention) when the SHTF. This means a lot of things, for this article I can give a few examples with shortened explanations because it is a huge topic:

• Do not look like a prepper (before or after SHTF). There is no sense in announcing that you are prepping for EMP, civil collapse, apocalypse, or whatever. With that you are risking the probability that when the SHTF, people will remember that you have interesting things in your home. Your home should look ordinary. For example, if you are living in the city on a street where all houses look similar, there is not much sense in making your home look like a fortress. You’ll just attract attention.

Your defense should be based on more subtle means. Some examples are having means to reinforce doors and windows quickly when you need it, or to reinforce them from inside. Make changes in your yard to funnel possible attackers where you want them to be (trees, fence, bush…). You can make your home look abandoned or already looted.

• Think about what survival is! Survival is about staying alive, it is not about being comfortable at the expense of losing your life. I have seen many times people lose their lives simply because they were too attached to their belongings (house, car, land, goods…) so they simply did not want to leave something and run in a particular moment.

• Everything can be earned and bought again except life. Forget about statements like “I will defend it with my life” or “over my dead body” or similar because the real SHTF is usually not heroic or noble. It is hard and brutal. When you are gone you are gone and there might be nobody to take care of your family just because you have been stubborn or trusted in movies when it came to violence. To rephrase it: Be ready to leave your home in a split second if that means you and your family will survive, no matter how many good things you have stored there.

• Be mentally ready for violence: In a way, it is impossible to be ready for violence, especially widespread violence when the SHTF, but you can minimize shock when that happens with some things. If you are not familiar with what violence is, you can try to get yourself close” to it today (in normal times). It can be done, for example, by doing some voluntary work for example in a local hospital, ER or similar… or simply by working with homeless people. Sounds maybe strange but activities like this can get you a bit of a feeling of what it is all about, not to mention that you can learn some practical and useful skills for SHTF.

• Have means and skills (physically) to defend – or to do violence: No matter how old or young you are, your gender or religion I assure you that you are capable of doing violence. It is only a matter of the situation and how far you are going to be pushed. It is not just “some people are capable of violence.” Everybody is capable. Not everybody enjoys doing it or is willing to do it so easily.

In today (normal times) you can learn some violence skills and you should do it, again no matter if you are a woman or old or young. You should own a weapon and know how to use it. You should practice with it, or have at least some basic knowledge about hand-to-hand combat. The worst case scenario is to have a weapon that you try for the first time when SHTF. Be familiar with your means for defense, let your family members know what they need to do in case of attack of your home, have plan, and go through it. Only through practice will you minimize chances for mistakes.

• Use common sense: I know lot of survivalists almost dream about how they are going to use weapons against bad guys when SHTF, and that they will be something like super heroes from movies, saving innocents and killing villains. Truth is that in a real collapse, a lot of things are kind of blurred and you are not sure who the bad guys are. Good guys turn out to be lunatic gang members who want to bring food to their kids. There are no super heroes when SHTF, and if some of them show up they end up dead quickly.

There is only you and your skills and mindset and what you prepared. Use violence as a last resort because of the simple fact that by using violence you are risking of getting killed or hurt. Remember when SHTF there is maybe no doctor or hospital to take care of your wound. It is a time when even a small cut can eventually kill you through infection and lack of proper care.

Reader questions:

"I’m a single mom with a household full of girls. In an SHTF situation, what would our best strategies be to remain safe?" Just like I have mentioned before, strategy is always same for any part of survival, and shooting from the rifle is pretty similar no matter are you man or woman. Being single mom with household full of girls on first look make you as a ideal target in some situations, but we are talking here in prepper terms so there is no reason not to be perfectly well prepared as a single mom with girls.

But yes I admit it is not perfect situation, even if you are prepared well, some things are sure, you need to connect with other people even more. House with couple of girls will always look like easy prey for some people. It is like that.

"Were people in the city safer than people in the country? Can you tell us more about rural living during this time?" In my case definitely no. In the essence it always come to the resources and people. City meant more people less resources, country (rural) meant less people more resources, and because that level of violence simply was lower. That was most important reason.

There are few more reasons why it was much better in the country. People in the country (rural settings) were much more “connected to ground” they were more tough if you like, they grew their own food, had cattle, lived more simple life prior SHTF and when everything collapsed they had less problems getting use to it. Yes they also did not have electricity and phones, running water or connection to other places but they adapted easier to the new life because they had more useful skills then people in the city. Life was harder for them too than prior to the collapse, but they had means to get resources: land, woods, river…

Another thing is that people in small rural communities “in the country” were more connected to each other, people knew their neighborhood and some things were easier to organize, like community security watch, help in case of diseases and similar.

"What types of weapons did people have for self-defense?" It was different political system prior the collapse where it was not so usual to own a weapon legally. And to own one illegally could mean a lot of troubles. Right prior to SHTF, it became possible to buy different weapons on the black market but still, a majority of people did not own weapons. When it all collapsed, it was possible to get a weapon through trade.

Because of the military doctrine here prior to the collapse, we used “East Bloc” weapons. A favorite was AK-47 in all different kind of editions, or older weapons like M-48 rifle, SKS rifle, 22 and similar. People used what they had, so in one period you would be lucky if you had any kind of pistol and knife. Later through the different channels weapon become more available so people had them more. A lot of that was actually junk that some warlords somehow “imported”. Weapons 50-60 years old without proper ammunition, or not in operating condition. A lot of people simply did not have a clue how to use any kind of weapon so a lot of accidental deaths happened.

I remember people storming abandoned army barracks that was mostly looted, but they found in one building a lot of RPGs while other part of the same building was burning. Two guys were trying to figure out a single-use RPG, and while they were messing with it clearly not knowing how that thing worked, they accidentally armed it and launched a rocket that flew through the crowd, not hurting anyone and exploding in wall 100 meters from where they stood. They were smiling, clearly happy because they thought they figured out how that thing worked.

"What weapons do you suggest to have for SHTF?" It is a never-ending discussion and a favorite prepper topic, and I must say that whole discussion is overrated. I have used them in a real situation, and tried and tested lot of different kind of weapons and what works for me may simply not work for you. For example, here for me good choice is AK-47 rifle, maybe for you wherever you are it is very bad choice.

Good advice is: you need to have a weapon that most people have around you because of multiple reasons: spare parts, repairing, ammunition availability, possibility that you can pick that rifle from other people and you know how to use it. What caliber and similar is a matter of discussion again. I am talking from the point of owning a rifle. Another thing is that you need to know how that weapon works. Luckily, most of my readers live in an area where gun laws are great comparing to region where I am. You have much more choices when it comes to owning a weapon and practicing with it. Use that.

And do not forget that using a weapon in a real life situation is not like shooting at beer bottles with your friends after a barbecue. In real life you might be in a situation to use a weapon while you are tired, dirty, and hungry and while someone is screaming next to you. It is going to be maybe when you are not ready to do that, maybe in pitch dark, maybe after you have been awake for 48 hours. At least think about that.

"When should you use violence?" Contrary to some popular beliefs in the prepper community, the point is to use violence only as a last solution. The reason is as I mentioned already, the risk that you can be hurt or killed too, but also once you do violence you change your own rules, or push it more forward, and it is easy to get lost in violence. There are consequences to that, and you are not going to be the same person ever again.

Violence is a tool, not a toy. You need to know how to use it as best as possible, but also to avoid using it when it is not necessary. It is a good idea to set up a clear set of rules (mentally too) when you are gonna use violence and to try to stick to it. For example you will use weapon if someone tries to break your home and attack you, and you need to be ready to do that without hesitation.

"What else should we know about post-collapse violence?" Think with your head and research. One thing that is absolutely important when it comes to understanding how violent it is going to be and what can you expect in your own case of SHTF, is to understand how much media can influence people in making their decisions about violence.

In my case, the media built up situation where people feared so much from other people that they actually hated them. They hated them so much that they actually strip them down from humanity. In a real-life example, it works in a way that people killed other people, including kids and women, because they hated them so much because media told them.

It may look ridiculous and not possible to you, and you might again think “that can not happen here” but please trust your own resources, look for independent information, not mainstream media, in order to get the right information about what is really happening in the beginning of collapse. Do not be pulled into “popular opinion” just because the “man from TV” (whoever he might be) told you so. It is easier today. Because of the internet, you have much more choices for correct information than in my time. But still be careful, you might find yourself rioting together with 500 people just because you trusted some media."

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

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"More information about Selco: Selco survived the Balkan war of the 90s in a city under siege, without electricity, running water, or food distribution. In his online works, he gives an inside view of the reality of survival under the harshest conditions. He reviews what works and what doesn’t, tells you the hard lessons he learned, and shares how he prepares today. He never stopped learning about survival and preparedness since the war. Regardless what happens, chances are you will never experience extreme situations like Selco did. But you have the chance to learn from him and how he faced death for months. Real survival is not romantic or idealistic. It is brutal, hard and unfair. Let Selco take you into that world."

Read more of Selco’s articles here: 

- https://shtfschool.com/blog

Paul Craig Roberts, "By Refusing Security to Russia Washington Has Opened the Door to War"

"By Refusing Security to Russia

 Washington Has Opened the Door to War"

by Paul Craig Roberts

"As readers are aware, I regard Washington’s refusal to accommodate Russia’s security concerns as totally irresponsible. By denying security guarantees to Russia, Washington essentially told the Kremlin that Washington intends to locate nuclear missiles on Russia’s borders and to use color revolutions among former Russian provinces to destabilize the Russian Federation. In other words, Washington has shown that the US represents a life-threatening hostility to Russia.

Russia is not going to sit and wait for that to happen. Ukraine most certainly will not be permitted to be a member of NATO. Russia would reincorporate Ukraine into Russia rather than permit that to happen. No US or NATO missile bases will be permitted in Ukraine. If they are there or are put there, they will be destroyed.

The existing US missile bases in Romania and Poland will be destroyed. Russia can achieve this by air or missiles and has no need to invade. It would be pointless for NATO to mobilize as its conventional forces are small compared to Russia and incapable of putting up any kind of fight against Russian armies. Russia could overrun Eastern Europe long before the US could mobilize enough forces to put up a fight.

Stratfor, which provides geopolitical intelligence information to corporate clients says that the four armies in Russia’s Eastern Military District are in the process of being moved to the Western front. I have no opinion about the reliability of Stratfor’s information or any knowledge of who might be behind the organization.

The Stratfor report perhaps is an indication that the Kremlin expected the talks with the West to be unsuccessful and is positioning Russia to roll back NATO as the Russian deputy foreign minister indicated. Unless Russia’s security problems are resolved, he said, there will be dire consequences.

Prior to using force, Russia is likely to position nuclear missiles 200 miles off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the US as a constraint on Washington turning a low-key conventional action into nuclear war in order to save face. Washington in its arrogance and stupidity has set itself up for a defeat that it will find difficult to accept, especially as Washington will have brought it on itself.

Putin has expressed his despair many times that Washington cannot accept the sovereignty of other countries and learn to live together in the world. To maintain peace, all Washington needed to do was to demilitarize the NATO members that border Russia and cease adding countries to NATO. Instead, an over confident Washington drowning in hubris made a bad decision.

It is possible that nuclear war will be the result. But it would require more stupid decisions in Washington. It is not Russia’s intent.

Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko told reporters on Wednesday that Russia and NATO failed to find common ground. He summed up Wednesday’s meeting: “By NATO’s decision, all practical cooperation between Russia and the alliance in areas of common interest have been suspended. Today we do not have any unifying positive agenda, none at all.” He said that the West has presented Russia with an “unacceptable threat” that Russia will have to counter.

In other words, neither Washington nor its NATO arm heard the Russians tell them that military bases on Russia’s borders are unacceptable. As the Kremlin has found reason and diplomacy to be useless in dealing with the West, the prospect of building common European security is no longer in the picture. Russia has “no choice but to implement a policy of counter-containment and counter-intimidation.”

Having refused Russia security, the idiot West can expect war.

Update: Washington’s stupidity is unbelievable. Democrat senators want sanctions placed on Putin personally. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “The imposition of sanctions against the head of state and against the leader of Russia is a measure that is comparable to severing relations.”

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

- https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/

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"Is Someone About To Light The Match 

Which Will Spark A War With Russia?"

Greg Hunter, "Headed for a Digital Concentration Camp"

"Headed for a Digital Concentration Camp"

by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"Catherine Austin Fitts (CAF), Publisher of The Solari Report and former Assistant Secretary of Housing (Bush 41 Admin.), says the central bankers want nothing short of “a complete digital control system.” CAF explains, “We have what we have been building for the last 20 or 30 years, and it’s getting much more obvious, but it’s been covert most of the time. They basically want digital control systems through the financial system, through the health system and government systems to implement control. That control is delivered one person at a time. You have extraordinary surveillance systems that have been built steadily for decades that are basically tracking everyone. That’s why the ‘vaccine passports’ and ‘central bank digital currencies’ (CBDC) are so dangerous. It’s important to understand what they are trying to do. They are trying to create complete transaction control. If they don’t want you going five miles from your home, your electric car will not work more than five miles from your home. If they don’t want you to buy pizza, your credit card will not allow you to buy pizza. They are talking about putting in extraordinary digital control systems and literally turning your car and your home into a digital concentration camp.”

How do you fight back to this digital tyranny? CAF explains, “You fight back by saying No. Do not comply. What we are seeing around the world is that the places where people refuse to comply, it’s not working. The mandates are not working, and the passports are not working where people say no. You are not going to control me. You are not going to tell me where I can and cannot go. I am not going along. You have to massively not comply.”

One good way to not comply is to use good old fashion cash for every transaction you can. CAF says, “You need to hold onto your cash because once the system goes all digital, that’s when you can convert to the digital concentration camps. If the system stays cash and more and more people use cash, the perfect system is part cash and part digital because cash can’t be controlled. What we are looking for is decentralization, and decentralization comes with cash and it comes with coin.”

As far as the CV19 “plandemic,” CAF says, “I don’t think depopulation is the only goal, and that is certainly what has been happening. The proof that that is happening is when the data started coming in about how bad the deaths and injuries were – they didn’t stop it or change it. They continued to double down on more and more effort on mandating when they knew the adverse events and deaths are very, very significant.”

CAF says there are many ways to fight back, and she talks about those strategies in the interview that is nearly 48 min. long.

- https://usawatchdog.com/

Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com as he goes One-on-One

 with Publisher of The Solari Report, Catherine Austin Fitts. 

- https://rumble.com/

"Prices Have Gone Up At Krogers! Empty Shelves, And What's Coming!?"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures with Danno, 1/16/22:

"Prices Have Gone Up At Krogers! 

Empty Shelves, And What's Coming!?"

"In today's vlog we visit Kroger Marketplace, and witness a lot of soaring prices. With stores struggling to get in products we are also dealing with another issue of skyrocketing prices. We will also check out the shelves as stores all across the country are having trouble."

"How It Really Is"

 

"I'm Leaving California, It's Mad Max; You Better Worry About You; Supermarkets Run Empty"

Jeremiah Babe, PM 1/15/22:

"I'm Leaving California, It's Mad Max; 

You Better Worry About You; Supermarkets Run Empty"

"Economic Tsunami is Coming - Recession Watch"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly, PM 1/15/22:

"Economic Tsunami is Coming - Recession Watch"

"It’s time to prepare for what is coming. Retail sales took a dive. You have had plenty of warnings. One day JP Morgan tells us it's the best economy in 40 years. A couple of days later we are headed to the abyss. We need to raise interest rates 6 or seven times."

Musical Interlude: Gnomusy, "Shadows In The Wood"; "Footprints On The Sea"

 

Gnomusy (David Caballero), "Shadows In The Wood"

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Gnomusy (David Caballero), "Footprints On The Sea"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Stars are sometimes born in the midst of chaos. About 3 million years ago in the nearby galaxy M33, a large cloud of gas spawned dense internal knots which gravitationally collapsed to form stars. NGC 604 was so large, however, it could form enough stars to make a globular cluster.

Many young stars from this cloud are visible in the above image from the Hubble Space Telescope, along with what is left of the initial gas cloud. Some stars were so massive they have already evolved and exploded in a supernova. The brightest stars that are left emit light so energetic that they create one of the largest clouds of ionized hydrogen gas known, comparable to the Tarantula Nebula in our Milky Way's close neighbor, the Large Magellanic Cloud."

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap121211.html

"In These Downbeat Time..."

“In these downbeat times, we need as much hope and courage as we do vision and analysis; we must accent the best of each other even as we point out the vicious effects of our racial divide and pernicious consequences of our maldistribution of wealth and power. We simply cannot live in the twenty-first century at each other’s throats, even as we acknowledge the weighty forces of racism, patriarchy, economic inequality, homophobia, and ecological abuse on our necks. We are at a crucial crossroad in the history of this nation - and we either hang together by combating these forces that divide and degrade us or we hang separately. Do we have the intelligence, humor, imagination, courage, tolerance, love, respect, and will to meet the challenge? Time will tell. None of us alone can save the nation or world. But each of us can make a positive difference if we commit ourselves to do so.”

- Cornel West