Free Download: Richard Bach, "Illusions"

"We Are All. Free. To Do. Whatever. We Want. To Do.”

by Richard Bach

“We are all free to do whatever we want to do,” he said that night. “Isn’t that simple and clean and clear? Isn’t that a great way to run a universe?” “Almost. You forgot a pretty important part,” I said. “Oh?” “We are all free to do what we want to do, as long as we don’t hurt somebody else,” I chided. “I know you meant that, but you ought to say what you mean.”

There was a sudden shambling sound in the dark, and I looked at him quickly. “Did you hear that?” “Yeah. Sounds like there’s somebody…” He got up, walked into the dark. He laughed suddenly, said a name I couldn’t catch. “It’s OK,” I heard him say. “No, we’d be glad to have you… no need you standing around… come on, you’re welcome, really…”

The voice was heavily accented, not quite Russian, nor Czech, more Transylvanian. “Thank you. I do not wish to impose myself upon your evening…” The man he brought with him to the firelight was, well, he was unusual to find in a midwest night. A small lean wolflike fellow, frightening to the eye, dressed in evening clothes, a black cape lined in red satin, he was uncomfortable in the light.

“I was passing by,” he said. “The field is a shortcut to my house…” “Is it?” Shimoda did not believe the man, knew he was lying, and at the same time did all he could to keep from laughing out loud. I hoped to understand before long.

“Make yourself comfortable,” I said. “Can we help you at all?” I really didn’t feel that helpful, but he was so shrinking, I did want him to be at ease, if he could. He looked on me with a desperate smile that turned me to ice. “Yes, you can help me. I need this very much or I would not ask. May I drink your blood? Just some? It is my food, I need human blood…”

Maybe it was the accent, he didn’t know English that well or I didn’t understand his words, but I was on my feet quicker than I had been in many a month, hay flying into the fire from my quickness. The man stepped back. I am generally harmless, but I am not a small person and I could have looked threatening. He turned his head away. “Sir, I am sorry! I am sorry! Please forget that I said anything about blood! But you see…”

“What are you saying?” I was the more fierce because I was scared. “What in the hell are you saying, mister? I don’t know what you are, are you some kind of VAM-?” Shimoda cut me off before I could say the word. “Richard, our guest was talking, and you interrupted. Please go ahead, sir; my friend is a little hasty.” “Donald,” I said, “this guy…” “Be quiet!” That surprised me so much that I was quiet, and looked a sort of terrified question at the man, caught from his native darkness into our firelight.

“Please to understand. I did not choose to be born vampire. Is unfortunate. I do not have many friends. But I must have a certain small amount of fresh blood every night or I writhe in terrible pain, longer than that without it and I cannot live! Please, I will be deeply hurt – I will die – if you do not allow me to suck your blood… just a small amount, more than a pint I do not need.” He advanced a step toward me, licking his lips, thinking that Shimoda somehow controlled me and would make me submit.

“One more step and there will be blood, all right. Mister, you touch me and you die…” I wouldn’t have killed him, but I did want to tie him up, at least, before we talked much more. He must have believed me, for he stopped and sighed. He turned to Shimoda. “You have made your point?” “I think so. Thank you.”

The vampire looked up at me and smiled, completely at ease, enjoying himself hugely, an actor on stage when the show is over. “I won’t drink your blood, Richard,” he said in perfect friendly English, no accent at all. As I watched he faded as though he was turning out his own light… in five seconds he had disappeared.

Shimoda sat down again by the fire. “Am I ever glad you don’t mean what you say!” I was still trembling with adrenalin, ready for my fight with a monster. “Don, I’m not sure I’m built for this. Maybe you’d better tell me what’s going on. Like, for instance, what… was that?”

“Dot was a wompire from Tronsylwania,” he said in words thicker than the creature’s own. “Or to be more precise, dot was a thought-form of a wompire from Tronsylwania. If you ever want to make a point, you think somebody isn’t listening, whip ‘em up a little thought-form to demonstrate what you mean. Do you think I overdid him, with the cape and the fangs and the accent like that? Was he too scary for you?”

“The cape was first class, Don. But that was the most stereotyped, outlandish… I wasn’t scared at all.” He sighed. “Oh well. But you got the point, at least, and that’s what matters.”

“What point?” “Richard, in being so fierce toward my vampire, you were doing what you wanted to do, even though you thought it was going to hurt somebody else. He even told you he’d be hurt if…”

“He was going to suck my blood!” “Which is what we do to anyone when we say we’ll be hurt if they don’t live our way.”

I was quiet for a long time, thinking about that. I had always believed that we are free to do as we please only if we don’t hurt another, and this didn’t fit. There was something missing.

“The thing that puzzles you,” he said, “is an accepted saying that happens to be impossible. The phrase is hurt somebody else. We choose, ourselves, to be hurt or not to be hurt, no matter what. Us who decides. Nobody else. My vampire told you he’d be hurt if you didn’t let him? That’s his decision to be hurt, that’s his choice. What you do about it is your decision, your choice: give him blood; ignore him; tie him up; drive a stake of holly through his heart. If he doesn’t want the holly stake, he’s free to resist, in whatever way he wants. It goes on and on, choices, choices.”

“When you look at it that way…”

“Listen,” he said, “it’s important. We are all. Free. To do. Whatever. We want. To do.“

○

“Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah”

by Richard Bach

“Born in 1936, Richard Bach is an American author who has written many excellent books. His quotes are inspirational and motivational. “Jonathan Livingston Seagull;” “Illusions;” “The Bridge Across Forever;” to name only a few of his books.

Notice: This electronic version of the book has been released for educational purposes only. You may not sell or make any profit from this book. And if you like this book, buy a paper copy and give it to someone who does not have a computer, if that is possible for you.

FREELY download “Illusions”, in PDF format, is here:

- http://img1.liveinternet.ru/images/

"And Like The Poet Said..."

"A sad fact, of course, about adult life is that you see the very things you'll never adapt to coming toward you on the horizon. You see them as the problems they are, you worry like hell about them, you make provisions, take precautions, fashion adjustments; you tell yourself you'll have to change your way of doing things. Only you don't. You can't. Somehow it's already too late. And maybe it's even worse than that: maybe the thing you see coming from far away is not the real thing, the thing that scares you, but its aftermath. And what you've feared will happen has already taken place. This is similar in spirit to the realization that all the great new advances of medical science will have no benefit for us at all, thought we cheer them on, hope a vaccine might be ready in time, think things could still get better. Only it's too late there too. And in that very way our life gets over before we know it. We miss it. And like the poet said: The ways we miss our lives are life."

- Richard Ford

Chet Raymo, “Living In The Little World”

“Living In The Little World”

by Chet Raymo

"My wisdom is simple," begins Gustav Adolph Ekdahl, at the final celebratory family gathering of Ingmar Bergman's crowning epic “Fanny and Alexander.” I saw the movie in the early 1980s when it had its U.S. theater release. Now I have just watched the five-hour-long original version made for Swedish television. Whew!

But back to that speech by the gaily philandering Gustav, now the patriarch of the Ekdahl clan and uncle to Fanny and Alexander. The family has gathered for the double christening of Fanny and Alexander's new half-sister and Gustav's child by his mistress Maj. A dark chapter of family history has come to an end, involving a clash between two world views, one- the Ekdahl's- focussed on the pleasures of the here and now, and the other- that of Lutheran Bishop Edvard Vergerus, Fanny and Alexander's stepfather- a stern and joyless anticipation of the hereafter. It is not the habit of Ekdahls to concern themselves with matters of grand consequence, Gustav tells the assembled guests. "We must live in the little world. We will be content with that and cultivate it and make the best of it."

The little world. I love that phrase. This world, here, now. This world of family and friends and newborn infants and trees and flowers and rainstorms and- oh yes, cognac and stolen kisses and tumbles in the hay. The Ekdahl's are a theatrical family; we will leave it to the actors and actresses to give us our supernatural shivers, says Gustav. "So it shall be," he says. "Let us be kind, and generous, affectionate and good. It is necessary and not at all shameful to take pleasure in the little world."

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

"Here's A Question..."

“Here’s a question every angry man and woman needs to consider: How long are you going to allow people you don’t even like – people who are no longer in your life, maybe even people who aren’t even alive anymore – to control your life? How long?”

- Andy Stanley

“That goes for old wounds, too, you know. I really wish we’d had the chance to talk before this,” he says, cracking the window so the smoke can escape. “There’s a Longfellow quote I have stuck on my bulletin board at the church office – ‘There is no grief like the grief that does not speak’ – and it’s true. I’ve found that keeping pain inside doesn’t give it a chance to heal, but bringing it out into the light, holding it right there in your hands and trusting that you’re strong enough to make it through, not hating the pain, not loving it, just seeing it for what it really is can change how you go on from there. Time alone doesn’t heal emotional wounds, and you don’t want to live the rest of your life bottled up with anger and guilt and bitterness. That’s how people self-destruct.”

- Laura Wiess

"This Difficult Thing of Being Human"

"This Difficult Thing of Being Human"

by Bodhipaksa

"It's always good to remember that life isn't easy. I don't mean to say that life is always hard in the sense of it always being painful. Clearly there are times when we're happy, when things are going well, when we feel that our life is headed in the right direction and that even greater fulfillment is just ahead of us, etc.

What I mean is that even when we have times in our life that are good, that doesn't last. In fact, often the things we're so excited and happy about later turn out to be things that also cause us suffering.

For example, you start a brand new relationship and you're in love and it's exciting and fulfilling. And then you find yourself butting heads with your partner, and you hurt each others feelings. Maybe you even split up. Does that sound familiar?

For example, the new job that you're thrilled about turns out to contain stresses you hadn't imagined. Has that ever happened?

For example, the house you're so pleased to have bought inevitably ends up requiring maintenance. Or perhaps the house value plummets. Or perhaps your circumstances change and you find it a struggle to meet the mortgage. Maybe you've been lucky, or maybe you've been there.

Happiness has a way of evaporating. Unhappiness has a way of sneaking up on us and sucker-punching us in the gut.

On a deep level, none of really understand happiness and unhappiness. If we truly understood the dynamics of these things, we'd be happy all the time and would never be miserable. We'd be enlightened. But pre-enlightenment, we're all stumbling in the dark, and sometimes colliding painfully with life as we do so.

This being human is not easy. We're doing a difficult thing in living a human life. It's good to accept all this, because life is so much harder when we think it should be easy. When we think life should be straightforward, and that we think we have it all sorted out, then unhappiness becomes a sign that we've failed. And that makes being in pain even more painful.

We haven't failed when we're unhappy; we're just being human. We're simply experiencing the tender truth of what it is to live a human life.

So when you're unhappy, don't beat yourself up about it. Don't fight it. Accept that this is how things are right now. Often when you do that, you'll very quickly - sometimes instantly - start to feel better. By accepting our suffering, we start to move through it. And as you look around you, realize that everyone else is doing this difficult thing of being human too. They're all struggling. We're all struggling. We all want happiness and find happiness elusive. We all want to avoid suffering and yet keep stumbling into it, over and over.

Many of the things that bother you about other people are their attempts to deal with this difficult existential situation, in which we desire happiness, and don't experience as much of it as we want, and desire to be free from suffering, and yet keep becoming trapped in it. Their moods, their clinging, their anger - all of these are the results of human beings struggling to find happiness, and having trouble doing so.

If we can recognize that this human life is not easy - if we can empathize with that very basic existential fact - then perhaps we can be just a little kinder to ourselves and others. And that would help make this human life just a little easier to navigate."

- https://www.wildmind.org/

The Poet: Theodore Roethke, “The Geranium”

“The Geranium”

“When I put her out, once, by the garbage pail,

She looked so limp and bedraggled,

So foolish and trusting, like a sick poodle,

Or a wizened aster in late September,

I brought her back in again

For a new routine -

Vitamins, water, and whatever

Sustenance seemed sensible

At the time: she’d lived

So long on gin, bobbie pins, half-smoked cigars, dead beer,

Her shriveled petals falling

On the faded carpet, the stale

Steak grease stuck to her fuzzy leaves.

(Dried-out, she creaked like a tulip.)

The things she endured!

The dumb dames shrieking half the night

Or the two of us, alone, both seedy,

Me breathing booze at her,

She leaning out of her pot toward the window.

Near the end, she seemed almost to hear me -

And that was scary -

So when that snuffling cretin of a maid

Threw her, pot and all, into the trash-can,

I said nothing.

But I sacked the presumptuous hag the next week,

I was that lonely.”

- Theodore Roethke

The Daily "Near You?"

Temperance, Michigan, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Bear Baiting"

"Bear Baiting"

by Fred Reed

"Today, disordered thoughts on a world allowing no other kind. We have yet another war. Always we have another war. Lousy medical care, decaying schools, but another war. Is that disordered or what? We see consequences of a government with the instincts of a menopausing wolverine but not the intelligence. We are doomed.

Ok, ok, after this I am never going to write about the Ukraine again. I promise. Or sort of promise, mostly at least. But in the Reed-Gonzalez household with Washington apparently intending to stretch the fighting out as long as possible, it is beginning to look like a generational international Super Bowl. What will happen? Will the world decently blow up? Will the bombing go on forever? Or maybe eventually come down to the two-minute warning and Tom Brady, in his early sixties, drops back and….

Hordes of people are writing that the war is the most historically gaudy, galacto-determinative, watershed sort of thing since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Well, yeah. Even a congressman could probably figure this out, at least with encouragement and some hints. But isn’t it the smartest bit of geopolitical jujitsu since who knows when?

I thought the first rule of strategy was to give the other guy only bad choices. So somebody smart at State (I know, I know, but weirder things have happened. Probably in Transylvania.) said Let’s push NATO into the Ukraine, and then Putin will have to surrender, a great victory for America, or start a war that he can’t win. And that too would be a great victory for America.

Russia can’t win because even if it wins, it loses. I mean, what are the possible outcomes? Well, Russia could conquer the entire country, and all of the American-controlled world would hate Russia like poison and leave the sanctions in place while smuggling arms to the resistance to suck Russia into a Slavic Vietnam. A victory for Washington. Russia could withdraw entirely, with NATO probably moving in behind, sanctions still in place, a victory for Washington. Or it could do something else, with the same results.

At the moment it looks as if the Yankee Capital gives Putin a choice of invading the cities in bloody street-by-street fighting, a victory for Washington, or face a lengthening war with increasing shipments of armaments to the Ukies, also a victory for Washington. Even juicier, from Washington’s point of view, commercial integration of Europe and Asia will be stopped, or at least slowed, which is what the war is about.

Am I missing something? Probably. I’m just some mutt in west-central Mexico with a computer. People way smarter that I am say that the Ukraine thing is a great success for the Global South, the beginning of the dissolution of American hegemony. Well, maybe, but I figure if you believe this you must own several bridges.

Meanwhile, Washington sits back and laughs. It’s like Elizabethan bear-baiting: Have the bear tied down so it can’t really fight, and watch the dogs slowly tear it apart. For Washington, what’s not to like? They’ve got the Russkies and Ukies doing the dying, the Ukies having their cities blown up and people starved, and Russia having its economy wrecked. Europe loses the minor amount of sovereignty it had, loses lucrative trade with Russia, and becomes yet more dependent on the Great White Father on the Potomac.

And of course Biden gets a victorious war to distract attention from his catastrophic incompetence. He does good Sincerity and pretty good Sternness and these, along with his war, make him just like Churchill. In time for the midterms. Brilliant.

It is customary to say that the wily Chinese play chess while America plays checkers. This time, I figure America plays chess while Russia plays hopscotch. I mean, somebody tell me: How is Russia going to come out of this better than when it went in?

Among pointy-headed intellectuals, the Ukrainian adventure will one day be played as a conflict of leviathans, of large international forces in titanic struggle on a darkling plain, maybe even a clash of civilizations, but it is nothing of the sort. The war is the work of a small number of people, such as Tony Blinken and Victoria Newland Kagan at State, doubtless Pompeo and Bolton barking from under the sofa and of course Biden the Occasionally Conscious. Congress will make fierce noises with an eye to reelection and try to look like a deliberative body.

It isn’t. If you asked the entire lot what countries border the Black Sea, a few might know. The statistical centerline for Congress is a mediocre shyster from the second district of Nebraska, a watermelon-farming region whose chief political interest is insecticide legislation. He doesn’t know whether Sulawesi is north or south of Lukashenko. In fact congressmen don’t read the thousand-page legislative goody baskets they vote on. You could include a paragraph ordering that the Navy nuke a major American city on the third Friday of each month and nobody would notice.

The media? I have never seen such a gush of unembarrassed bullshit as this war is producing. The first rule of television, being used to the hilt, is to get a woman to cry and fill the frame as this pulls at instinctual strings anchored deep in limbic recesses. Next, work the children, the children, the children and their sufferings, which has the same effect. Of course without the Blinkokagans and the Pompeoboltons in the shadows behind them, there would be no war and no suffering children but the rule in politics is ignore the mind, squeeze the glands.

It is a war of contrived reality. Early on Violeta saw video purportedly of a Russian tank rolling over an occupied Ukrainian car and crushing those within. Why, she wondered, didn’t this Russian tank look like all the other Russian tanks she proceeded to look for? Maybe it was an idiosyncratic tank, with a streak of individualism? Russian tanks were green with unit markings, the Ukie tanks being black without unit markings. The crushing tank was black without unit markings. Perhaps it was a Russian tank in disguise, maybe on an undercover mission.

Vi has a powerful memory for images and swears that many devastated buildings presented as due to Russian artillery are in fact in Russian enclaves that Russians would not hit. On maybe CBS - anyway an American outlet - we saw that Russia is threatening to leave an American astronaut stranded in the international Space Station, utterly bogus and the station had to know it.

The Americans are winning the twaddle war hands down. To control the people, control their screens. We watch in Spanish Telemundo from Mexico, DW from Germany, Euronews, France24 from France, and Univision, none showing independence of Washington. We did watch RT, the Russian video outlet until YouTube, meaning Washington, banned it. Why a quasi-governmental American entity has the right to decide what Mexicans can see is not something that springs to the mind. (RT Live can still be found at VK.com and RT.com, the print version, is still up, at least in Mexico. If you want the Chinese governmental point of view, globaltimes.com is it.)

Now for cosmic thought. (FOE is that sort of column.) So: the question is what the US will do next and what the world will do about it. Is Washington going to do with Taiwan what it has done with the Ukraine, provoke a war while it still has hopes of winning? Can anyone restrain Washington?

Not easily. America, it turns out, can cut countries off from the international banking system (Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, North Korea, and part, so far, of Russia). It can confiscate national reserves (of Venezuela by England, the most submissive of its poodles, of Afghanistan; and now of Russia. It can cut countries off from semiconductors (China and Russia). It now seems that it can decide what countries are allowed to see what online. And it can largely dictate the foreign policy of the vassals as if they were trained mice.

Can the world do anything about this? Will China, Russia, and the EAEU actually come up with a SWIFT alternative? Or just talk, talk, talk If so, will the BRICS pile on, the Global South en masse? Will the A-A-rabs accept yuan? Or will the US be the uncontested hegemon, sacking the globe in an orgy of plunderment and corruption? Stay tuned, boys and girls, for the next exciting episode…"

- https://fredoneverything.org/

"Human History In The Future..."

"We have got some very big problems confronting us and let us not make any mistake about it, human history in the future is fraught with tragedy. It's only through people making a stand against that tragedy and being doggedly optimistic that we are going to win through. If you look at the plight of the human race it could well tip you into despair, so you have to be very strong."

- Robert James Brown

"The KunstlerCast - Laying Out the Ins and Outs of the Hot Mess"

"The KunstlerCast - 

Laying Out the Ins and Outs of the Hot Mess"

by Tom Luongo

"I had the distinct pleasure of sitting down with James Howard Kunstler last week for a one-hour chat. Jim did his level best to keep me on point and I do think I was a bit more manic than I’ve been in other contexts. Probably too much actual caffeine that day. But what we discuss in this podcast is important and it highlights how all of the motivations of the players are affected by the underlying architecture of global finance. These basic principles of what money is, what its function is, how it circulates, where certain players’ advantages lie, etc. are the key to unlocking why the War for Ukraine is unfolding the way it is.

That ‘Hot Mess’ is what I believe Jim wanted to pull out of me and I think, at times, he succeeded well. The big issue is that of ‘inside money’ versus ‘outside money’ that I talked about, at length, in the article here a couple of weeks ago.

As I look at the headlines of the past couple of days you can see the underpinnings of that war between the deflation of ‘inside money’ versus the inflation of ‘outside money’ is what is really ‘hotting up’ now.

Yesterday Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that all “Unfriendly Countries” will have to pay for Russian exports with Russian rubles. They won’t have the luxury of paying in their local currencies. So, they will have to go find rubles on the open market to pay for gas, oil, wheat etc. Then there’s this morning’s announcement that tells you Russia is playing for keeps, just like I told you they would right after the war started.

NEW – Russia to accept #Bitcoin as payment for energy exports, says Pavel Zavalny, Chairman of the Energy Committee. pic.twitter.com/wUEOzX8Kfz

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) March 24, 2022

So, without further ado, here’s the podcast with Jim, a real gentleman that I can learn a thing or two about manners and decorum from. I mean seriously, who else can use the phrase Clusterf**k Nation with such aplomb? It’s a gift."

Listen to the KunstlerCast Episode here.

- https://tomluongo.me/

"The Russian Bear"

"The Russian Bear"

by Bill Bonner

San Martin, Argentina - "The Russian bear has claws… and teeth. Here’s the latest, from Fortune: "In the FX world, the ruble had its biggest gain in the week yesterday, climbing nearly 7% against the dollar. One impetus for that came from Russian president Vladimir Putin's surprise statement on Wednesday to demand that "hostile states" - presumably the European Union - pay for Russian energy imports in rubles." That confusing statement knocked global equities and sent natural gas and oil prices soaring in afternoon trading on Wednesday as confusion gripped the markets about what Putin could possibly mean.

Let’s take a guess. The ‘democratic alliance,’ led by the USA, ‘sanctioned’ Russia’s dollars. Russians who had no part in Putin’s war suddenly found their money was no good. They couldn’t access their foreign bank accounts. They couldn’t go about their business as usual - even as they were offering valuable goods and services to overseas buyers. Financially, they were ‘de-platformed.’

Cancel Finance: What good is money that someone can cancel with a flip of a switch… on his own say-so? Not much. So, it was inevitable that the Russians would look for workarounds. Michael Hudson comments: "If you sanction a country, you force it to become more self-reliant and across the board, from agriculture to dairy products to technology, Russia is forced to become more self-reliant and at the same time to depend much more on trade with China for the things that it is still not self-reliant in.

So America is bringing about exactly the opposite of what it intended… American sanctions are driving Russia and China together, and America has gone to China and said, Please don’t support Russia. Most recently, on Monday, March 14, Jake Sullivan came out and told China, we will sanction countries that break our sanctions against Russia. And basically, China said, fine."

Yes, the decline of the American Empire continues… one blunder at a time. The US feds are actively undermining the dollar with inflation… and reducing its reliability further with sanctions. It is only a matter of time before a replacement is found. Cryptos? A gold-backed ruble? The yuan? We’ll see.

In the meantime, fixed-income investments – in dollars – are taking a beating. Bloomberg: "Global bond markets have suffered unprecedented losses since peaking last year, as central banks including the Federal Reserve look to tighten policy to combat surging inflation. The Bloomberg Global Aggregate Index, a benchmark for government and corporate debt total returns, has fallen 11% from a high in January 2021. That’s the biggest decline from a peak in data stretching back to 1990, surpassing a 10.8% drawdown during the financial crisis in 2008."

In the 1970s, investors thought they could protect themselves from inflation by buying stocks. Stock prices held more or less steady throughout the decade. But inflation steadily reduced real values. By the end of the decade, adjusted for inflation, investors were down about 60%. But in an inflationary period, bonds get killed even deader than stocks. In the ‘70s, bonds were called “certificates of guaranteed confiscation.” And now, over the last 14 months, $2.6 trillion has been confiscated… but from whom? Well… from savers… retirees… people with fixed-income investments.

And consumers. Consumer spending is said to be 70% of the GDP… which puts it at about $15 trillion. At today’s inflation rate, consumers will have $1.21 trillion ($22 x .079) ‘confiscated’ this year. That’s how much more they will have to spend just to get the same goods and services.

And so… the rip-off continues. And we continue to wonder: what is really behind it? Why would America’s elite be so ready to sacrifice the dollar… and punish the middle and lower classes? The answer seems obvious. One man’s loss is often another man’s gain. One man is the confiscator. Another is the confiscatee. All of that money, now being taken away from consumers, investors, and savers, goes to someone else. To whom? Oh, dear reader… that is such a ‘soft-ball’ question!

Digging Deeper: The elite controls the US government and uses it to shift wealth from the public to itself. But the federal government owes approximately $30 trillion. At today’s 7.9% inflation rate, the fed’s pile of debt will shrink by $2.37 trillion, in real value, this year – a huge saving.

That money may have been spent years ago – provided to cronies, clients… Wall Street… bureaucrats… lobbyists… Critical Race Theorists… whatever. The Feds didn’t have the money then. So, they paid for it ‘on credit.’ And now, they’re settling up. In effect, inflation is just another tax… and another way to continue moving money from the Main Street economy to the 10% of the population who actually run things. But let’s dig a little deeper.

The point we have been making is this: the biggest crime in American politics is not committed by Democrats against Republicans…nor ‘conservatives’ against ‘liberals.’ Instead, the perps are the corrupt ‘influencers’ (we highlighted the two presidential scions – Chelsea Clinton and Hunter Biden yesterday) using their power to feather their own nests… and push their own pet projects.

You might think that a democracy would undertake programs designed to help the majority of its citizens. But the vast majority of people detest inflation; they do not benefit from it. Nor is there any real mystery about what causes it. The Fed ‘printed’ ten times as much new money, over the last 13 years, as it did from its founding in 1913 up until 2008. And it has kept interest rates below zero, adjusted for inflation, for almost that entire period, too.

Of course, you could go through the entire federal budget. Line by line, you would see huge spending programs designed to reward the few at the expense of the many. The deciders… their friends… their colleagues and clients, all benefit. One way or another… everybody else pays.

But now, Vladimir Putin has taken a swipe at the ‘democratic alliance’ and its money. The Chinese are watching carefully. What will happen next? Stay tuned..."

- https://bonnerprivateresearch.substack.com/

"Stimulus Checks Are Back! - Federal and State Proposals"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, 3/24/22:

"Stimulus Checks Are Back! - Federal and State Proposals"

"Everybody has wanted that fourth stimulus check. Well it looks like you’re about to get one. There are multiple federal programs being mentioned and even the states are getting in on it. We are seeing the real estate market completely tank right now with sales dropping for two months in a row."

"Peter Schiff: It’s Only Going To Get Worse! Inflation Crisis Turns Into Worst Recession In History"

Full screen recommended.

The Atlantis Report, 3/24/22:

"Peter Schiff: It’s Only Going To Get Worse! 

Inflation Crisis Turns Into Worst Recession In History"

“The Ukrainian Army Has Been Defeated. What’s Left Is Mop-Up”

“The Ukrainian Army Has Been Defeated.

 What’s Left Is Mop-Up”

by Gihamdin

"Question 1– Can you explain to me why you think Russia is winning the war in Ukraine?

Larry C. Johnson– Within the first 24 hours of the Russian military operation in Ukraine, all Ukrainian Ground Radar Intercept capabilities were wiped out. Without those radars, the Ukrainian Air Force lost its ability to do air to air intercept. In the intervening three weeks, Russia has established a de facto No Fly Zone over Ukraine. While still vulnerable to shoulder fired Surface to Air Missiles supplied by the U.S. and NATO to the Ukrainians, there is no evidence that Russia has had to curtail Combat Air Operations.

Russia’s arrival in Kiev within three days of the invasion also caught my attention. I recalled that the Nazi’s in Operation Barbarossa took seven weeks to reach Kiev and then required 7 more weeks to subdue the city. The Nazis had the advantage of not pulling punches to avoid civilian casualties and were eager to destroy critical infrastructure. Yet many so-called American military experts claimed that Russia was bogged down. When a 24 mile (or 40 mile, depends on the news source) convoy was positioned north of Kiev for more than a week, it was clear that Ukraine’s ability to launch significant military operations had been eliminated. If their artillery was intact, then that column was easy pickings for massive destruction. That did not happen. Alternatively, if the Ukrainian’s had a viable fixed wing or rotary wing capability they should have destroyed that column from the air. That did not happen. Or, if they had a viable cruise missile capability they should have rained down hell on the supposedly stalled Russian column. That did not happen. The Ukrainians did not even mount a significant infantry ambush of the column with their newly supplied U.S. Javelins.

The scale and scope of the Russian attack is remarkable. They captured territory in three weeks that is larger than the land mass of the United Kingdom. They then proceeded to carry out targeted attacks on key cities and military installations. We have not seen a single instance of a Ukrainian regiment or brigade size unit attacking and defeating a comparable Russian unit. Instead, the Russians have split the Ukrainian Army into fragments and cut their lines of communication. The Russians are consolidating their control of Mariupol and have secured all approaches on the Black Sea. Ukraine is now cut off in the South and the North.

I would note that the U.S. had a tougher time capturing this much territory in Iraq in 2003 while fighting against a far inferior, less capable military force. If anything, this Russian operation should scare the hell out of U.S. military and political leaders.

The really big news came this week with the Russian missile strikes on what are de facto NATO bases in Yavoriv and Zhytomyr. NATO conducted cyber security training at Zhytomyr in September 2018 and described Ukraine as a “NATO partner.” Zhytomyr was destroyed with hypersonic missiles on Saturday. Yavoriv suffered a similar fate last Sunday. It was the primary training and logistics center that NATO and EUCOM used to supply fighters and weapons to Ukraine. A large number of the military and civilian personnel at that base became casualties. Not only is Russia striking and destroying bases used by NATO regularly since 2015, but there was no air raid warning and there was no shutdown of the attacking missiles.

Question 2– Why is the media trying to convince the Ukrainian people that they can prevail in their war against Russia? If what you say is correct, then all the civilians that are being sent to fight the Russian army, are dying in a war they can’t win. I don’t understand why the media would want to mislead people on something so serious. What are your thoughts on the matter?

Larry C. Johnson– This is a combination of ignorance and laziness. Rather than do real reporting, the vast majority of the media (print and electronic) as well as Big Tech are supporting a massive propaganda campaign. I remember when George W. Bush was Hitler. I remember when Donald Trump was Hitler. And now we have a new Hitler, Vladimir Putin. This is a tired, failed playbook. Anyone who dares to raise legitimate questions about what's happening is immediately tarred as a Putin puppet or a Russia stooge. When you cannot argue facts the only recourse is name calling.

Question 3– Last week, Colonel Douglas MacGregor was a guest on the Tucker Carlson Show. His views on the war are strikingly similar to your own. Here’s what he said in the interview: “The war is really over for the Ukrainians. They have been ground into bits, there is no question about that despite what we hear from our mainstream media. So, the real question for us at this stage is, Tucker, are we going to live with the Russian people and their government or we going to continue to pursue this sort of regime change dressed up as a Ukrainian war? Are we going to stop using Ukraine as a battering ram against Moscow, which is effectively what we’ve done.” (Tucker Carlson– MacGregor Interview)

Do you agree with MacGregor that the real purpose of goading Russia into a war in Ukraine was “regime change”? Second, do you agree that Ukraine is being used as a staging ground for the US to carry out a proxy-war on Russia?

Larry C. Johnson– Doug is great analyst but I disagree with him - I don’t think there is anyone in the Biden Administration that is smart enough to think and plan in those strategic terms. In my view the last 7 years have been the inertia of the NATO status quo. What I mean by that is that NATO and Washington, believed they could continue to creep east on Russia’s borders without provoking a reaction. NATO and EUCOM regularly carried out exercises - including providing “offensive” training - and supplied equipment. I believe reports in the United States that the CIA was providing paramilitary training to Ukrainian units operating in the Donbass are credible. But I have trouble believing that after our debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan, we suddenly have Sun Tzu level strategists pulling the strings in Washington.

There is an air of desperation in Washington. Besides trying to ban all things Russian, the Biden Administration is trying to bully China, India and Saudi Arabia. I do not see any of those countries falling into line. I believe the Biden crew made a fatal mistake by trying to demonize all things and all people Russian. If anything, this is uniting the Russian people behind Putin and they are ready to dig in for a long struggle.

I am shocked at the miscalculation in thinking economic sanctions on Russia would bring them to their knees. The opposite is true. Russia is self-sufficient and is not dependent on imports. Its exports are critical to the economic well-being of the West. If they withhold wheat, potash, gas, oil, palladium, finished nickel and other key minerals from the West, the European and U.S. economies will be savaged. And this attempt to coerce Russia with sanctions has now made it very likely that the U.S. dollar’s role as the international reserve currency will show up in the dustbin of history.

Question 4– Ever since he delivered his famous speech in Munich in 2007, Putin has been complaining about the “architecture of global security”. In Ukraine we can see how these nagging security issues can evolve into a full-blown war. As you know, in December Putin made a number of demands related to Russian security, but the Biden administration shrugged them off and never responded. Putin wanted written assurances that NATO expansion would not include Ukraine (membership) and that nuclear missile systems would not be deployed to Romania or Poland. Do you think Putin’s demands are unreasonable?

Larry C. Johnson– I think Putin’s demands are quite reasonable. The problem is that 99% of Americans have no idea of the kind of military provocation that NATO and the U.S. have carried out over the last 7 years. The public was always told the military exercises were “defensive.” That simply is not true. Now we have news that DTRA was funding biolabs in Ukraine. I guess Putin could agree to allow U.S. nuclear missile systems in Poland and Romania if Biden agrees to allow comparable Russian systems to be deployed in Cuba, Venezuela and Mexico. When we look at it in those terms we can begin to understand that Putin’s demands are not crazy nor unreasonable.

Question 5– Russian media reports that Russian “high precision, air-launched” missiles struck a facility in west Ukraine “killing more than 100 local troops and foreign mercenaries.” Apparently, the Special Operations training center was located near the town of Ovruch which is just 15 miles from the Polish border. What can you tell us about this incident? Was Russia trying to send a message to NATO?

Larry C. Johnson– Short answer - YES! Russian military strikes in Western Ukraine during the past week have shocked and alarmed NATO officials. The first blow came on Sunday, March 13 at Yavoriv, Ukraine. Russia hit the base with several missiles, some reportedly hypersonic. Over 200 personnel were killed, which included American and British military and intelligence personnel, and hundreds more wounded. Many suffered catastrophic wounds, such as amputations, and are in hospital. Yet, NATO and the western media have shown little interest in reporting on this disaster.

Yavoriv was an important forward base for NATO. Until February (prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine), the U.S. 7th Army Training Command was operating from Yavoriv as late as mid-February. Russia has not stopped there. ASB Military news reports Russia hit another site, Delyatyn, which is 60 miles southeast of Yavoriv (on Thursday I believe). Yesterday, Russia hit Zytomyr, another site where NATO previously had a presence. Putin has sent a very clear message - NATO forces in Ukraine will be viewed and treated as combatants. Period.

Question 6– Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been lionized in the western media as a “wartime leader” and a modern-day “Winston Churchill”. What the media fails to tell its readers is that Zelensky has taken a number of steps to strengthen his grip on power while damaging fragile democratic institutions in Ukraine. For example, Zelensky has “banned eleven opposition-owned news organizations” and tried to bar the head of Ukraine’s largest opposition party, Viktor Medvedchuk, from running for office on a bogus “terrorist financing” charge. This is not the behavior of a leader that is seriously committed to democracy. What’s your take on Zelensky? Is he really the “patriotic leader” the media makes him out to be?

Larry C. Johnson– Zelensky is a comedian and an actor. Not a very good one at that in my view. The West is cynically using the fact he is Jewish as a diversion from the size-able contingent of Neo-Nazis (and I mean genuine Nazis who still celebrate the Ukrainian Waffen SS unit’s accomplishments while fighting with the Nazis in WW II). The facts are clear - he is banning opposition political parties and shutting down opposition media. I guess that is the new definition of “democracy.”

Question 7– How does this end? There’s an excellent post at the Moon of Alabama site titled “What Will Be The Geographic End State Of The War In Ukraine“. The author of the post, Bernard, seems to think that Ukraine will eventually be partitioned along the Dnieper River “and south along the coast that holds a majority ethnic Russian population.” He also says this:

“This would eliminate Ukrainian access to the Black Sea and create a land bridge towards the Moldavian breakaway Transnistria which is under Russian protection. The rest of the Ukraine would be a land confined, mostly agricultural state, disarmed and too poor to be built up to a new threat to Russia anytime soon. Politically it would be dominated by fascists from Galicia which would then become a major problem for the European Union.”

What do you think? Will Putin impose his own territorial settlement on Ukraine in order to reinforce Russian security and bring the hostilities to an end or is a different scenario more likely?

Larry C. Johnson– I agree with Moon. Putin’s primary objective is to secure Russia from foreign threats and effect a divorce with the West. Russia has the physical resources to be an independent sovereign and is in the process of making that vision come true."

- https://globalintelhub.com/

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Bio– Larry C Johnson is a veteran of the CIA and the State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism. He is the founder and managing partner of BERG Associates, which was established in 1998. Larry provided training to the US Military’s Special Operations community for 24 years. He has been vilified by the right and the left, which means he must be doing something right. His analysis and commentary can be found at his blog, https://sonar21.com/

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Related:

"The Great Reset, Part 2 - Ukraine"

Gregory Mannarino, "FReaK Show: The Data Is ALL FAKE! More Deceptions, Misinformation, Lies, And Distractions"

Gregory Mannarino, 3/24/22:

"FReaK Show: The Data Is ALL FAKE! 

More Deceptions, Misinformation, Lies, And Distractions"

- https://traderschoice.net/

○

"'Gas Stations Will Run Dry': Catastrophic Scenario 

For Diesel Emerging According To World's Biggest Energy Traders"

"How It Really Is"

"Shocking Numbers That Show That The Middle Class In The U.S. Is Being Systematically Destroyed"

"Shocking Numbers That Show That The Middle Class

 In The U.S. Is Being Systematically Destroyed"

by Michael Snyder

"People often wonder why I get so upset about inflation. Well, the truth is that there are many reasons, but one of the big ones is because it destroys the middle class. This has been true for a long time, but here in 2022 prices are rising at a far faster rate than most of our paychecks are. That means that our standard of living is steadily going down. It is taking more out of our incomes to pay for essentials such as housing, food and gasoline, and that is leaving a lot less money for other things. Of course there are many Americans that are going into tremendous amounts of debt in order to maintain the standard of living that they are currently enjoying. But going into debt only brings more pain in the long run.

As our leaders have absolutely flooded the system with new money, those at the very top of the economic food chain have greatly prospered. Meanwhile, the colossal gap between the ultra-wealthy and the rest of us just continues to grow.

Today, almost 52 million American workers make less than $15 an hour… "With an effort by Democrats to boost the national minimum wage stalled, a new report finds that on average one in three U.S. workers is still making less than $15 an hour, while the share of women and people of color earning that amount is even greater.

Nearly 52 million U.S. workers — or 32% of the country’s workforce — earn less than $15 an hour, according to a report published Tuesday by Oxfam America. The data help quantify how many Americans could be impacted by the Raise the Wage Act, which would set a $15 federal hourly minimum and has been pending in Congress since January 2021."

Once upon a time, $15 an hour was a really good wage. But thanks to inflation, in 2022 you simply cannot live a middle class lifestyle in the United States on less than $15 an hour.

The Social Security Administration compiles extremely detailed information about how much money American workers make each year. The final numbers for 2021 won’t be out for a number of months, but for 2020 the median yearly wage in the U.S. was just $34,612.04. In other words, half of all American workers made more than $34,612.04 and half of all American workers made less than $34,612.04.

If you are making less than $34,612.04 per year, life is certainly not easy. When you break that down, that is less than $3,000 a month, and that is before taxes are taken out. That isn’t a lot of money.

In the old days, the vast majority of U.S. adults could look forward to owning a nice home, but now housing prices are soaring to absolutely absurd levels. In fact, we just learned that the average price of a new home in the United States just rose above $500,000 for the first time ever… "New Home Sales are still down 6.2% YoY (down YoY for the ninth straight month)."

And the average new home sales price topped $500k for the first time ever. The primary reason why new home prices are spiking so dramatically is due to building costs. Just about everything that goes into the construction of a new home has become insanely expensive, and that isn’t going to change any time soon.

So buying a brand new home is now out of reach for many formerly middle class Americans, and this has caused the inventory of unsold homes to balloon to a very alarming level…"The inventory of new single-family houses for sale rose to 407,000 houses in February (seasonally adjusted), the largest unsold inventory since August 2008, up by 40% from a year ago. This represents 6.3 months of supply at the current rate of sales, according to data from the Census Bureau today."

Of course it isn’t just housing costs that are soaring to unprecedented heights. As I have covered extensively in recent weeks, the price of food and the price of gasoline have both been surging. Our lawmakers in Washington realize that U.S. consumers are deeply suffering, and so some of them want to send out another round of stimulus checks… "Americans already faced searing inflation when gas prices surged to an all-time high earlier this month. Now, some lawmakers want the federal government to offer stimulus payments or rebate checks to help reduce the pain at the pump.

Families with two children could get as much $300 per month as long as the nation’s average gas price exceeds $4 a gallon, according to one new bill proposed by Reps. Mike Thompson of California, John Larson of Connecticut and Lauren Underwood of Illinois. All three lawmakers are Democrats."

When members of Congress were considering the very first round of stimulus checks all the way back in 2020, I warned that if we let the genie out of the bottle we would never be able to put it back in. Every time there is even a bit of pain or discomfort, there will be some that will clamor for more stimulus checks. But every time our lawmakers borrow and spend money that we do not have, that creates even more inflation.

We just can’t keep flooding the system with more cash. It is complete and utter insanity. I really like how one prominent economics professor recently made this point… “They’re flying blind, and are too little, too late,” Steve Hanke says in disbelief, an Applied Economics professor of John Hopkins University. “It’s utter rubbish and nonsense” that Fed Chairman Jerome Powell sees supply chain issues as a root cause for inflation, he tells me, as we decipher the Federal Reserve’s latest official statements on the shape of the U.S. economy.

“The money supply in excess causes inflation, and the Federal Reserve appears to be almost clueless,” Hanke shares with me as we discuss last week’s conversation between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping. “Obviously the Chinese know this,” which is why their inflation rating is less than 1%, the former Senior Economist on President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers articulates to me."

Inflation is always destructive. Most of our leaders seem to think that “more money” is the solution to all of our problems, but they are systematically destroying the middle class and they are systematically destroying the reserve currency of the world.

We are literally committing national financial suicide, and so I don’t understand why more Americans are not deeply upset about all of this.

Once upon a time, the U.S. had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world. Now the middle class is dying, and our politicians seem absolutely determined to speed up that process."

- http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

Celente and The Judge: "Is Putin A Member Of The US War Criminal Club?"

Celente and The Judge, 3/23/22:

"Is Putin A Member Of The US War Criminal Club?"

"Don't Buy A House Now; Cars Will Flood Dealer Lots; Build Mental Toughness Now; Mortgage Crisis"

Jeremiah Babe, PM 3/23/22:

"Don't Buy A House Now; Cars Will Flood Dealer Lots; 

Build Mental Toughness Now; Mortgage Crisis"

"Panic Sweeps Across Energy Supply Chains As Shortages Push Prices To Stratospheric Levels"

Full screen recommended.

"Panic Sweeps Across Energy Supply Chains 

As Shortages Push Prices To Stratospheric Levels"

by Epic Economist

"A catastrophic shortage of gasoline, diesel, liquified natural gas, and other fuels is emerging on global markets, and it is going to push already elevated prices to stratospheric levels over the next weeks and months. The shortage is likely to hit U.S. consumers where it hurts them the most. Americans are already severely cost-burdened by soaring living expenses, and given that virtually everything we buy and consume requires transportation, that increase is going to ripple through the entire economy, aggravating the inflation outlook. To make things worse, one industry CEO is warning that gas stations will run dry if the shortages persist for much longer.

Over the past few days, a number of global traders have started sounding the alarm over a massive squeeze on fuel supplies, especially diesel and distillate fuels on an industry level, while on a consumer level, supplies of gasoline and natural gas are running perilously low. Conditions at global markets are increasing the risk of a “systemic” shortage that could lead to fuel rationing in the weeks ahead. More worryingly, power utilities around the world are likely to struggle to restock natural gas inventories for next winter considering the “paralyzed” state of the spot market.

Meanwhile, analysts at ZeroHedge are warning that fuel inventories could deplete even further if demand from manufacturers and freight carriers continues to outstrip the ability of oil producers and refiners to supply enough fuel. “Needless to say, without diesel, not only will maritime traffic grind to a halt but much if not all U.S. truck-based logistical support and supply chains will soon be paralyzed. The consequences for the global economy will be dire,” they wrote.

Fuel oil inventories in the United States are 30 million barrels – or about 21% - below the pre-health-crisis levels and at the lowest level since 2005, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported. Now, the global shortage of fuels is threatening to create a severe spike in oil prices just as it did in the first half of 2008. The shortage of distillate is already bleeding into the gasoline market. Gasoline inventorieshave dropped 6 million barrels below the seasonal average, And with drivers panic-buying gas, those inventories may be gone soon. A gallon of gas is now averaging $4.32 a gallon on a national level, marking a 51% jump from a year ago.

In some states, such as Florida, people are panic buying fuel in bulk to avoid higher prices and save money while they still can. Others, who cannot afford to pay such expensive prices for gas, have been drilling holes at gas tanks and stealing it from cars parked on the streets. The AAA says that gas theft is on the rise all over the nation, and with each passing day, more cases are being reported. At the same time, the experts are alerting that companies will have to raise gas prices much further to restrain consumption and avoid inventories falling to critically low levels, a phenomenon known as “consumer demand destruction”. In short, a lot more pain is coming for U.S. drivers.

During the 1970s, gas shortages led to incredibly long wait times at the pump, and staggered fill-up days based on license plates as the nation’s gas stations ran dry. As the offensive between Russia and Ukraine worsens and the world braces for further conflict, Americans are about to witness a repeat of what happened in the 70s. With the shortage of fuels intensifying by the day, gas rationing will become our new reality. As long as global leaders continue to weaponize oil-based fuels to ensure their geopolitical interest, the rest of the world will continue to suffer."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com/

Musical Interlude: Disturbed, "The Sound Of Silence"

Full screen recommended.

Disturbed, "The Sound Of Silence"

Singer David Draiman

793,792,931 views

This will touch your soul... it made me cry...

Gregory Mannarino, "Does Something Feel Off? Be Ready For Anything"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 3/23/22:

"Does Something Feel Off? Be Ready For Anything"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Musical Interlude: Liquid Mind, "Laguna Indigo"

Full screen recommended.

Liquid Mind, "Laguna Indigo"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Colorful NGC 1579 resembles the better known Trifid Nebula, but lies much farther north in planet Earth's sky, in the heroic constellation Perseus. About 2,100 light-years away and 3 light-years across, NGC 1579 is, like the Trifid, a study in contrasting blue and red colors, with dark dust lanes prominent in the nebula's central regions.

In both, dust reflects starlight to produce beautiful blue reflection nebulae. But unlike the Trifid, in NGC 1579 the reddish glow is not emission from clouds of glowing hydrogen gas excited by ultraviolet light from a nearby hot star. Instead, the dust in NGC 1579 drastically diminishes, reddens, and scatters the light from an embedded, extremely young, massive star, itself a strong emitter of the characteristic red hydrogen alpha light."

- http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap090130.html

"Are People Really Stupid?"

“All of the available data show that the typical American citizen has about

as much interest in the life of the mind as does your average armadillo.”

- Morris Berman

"Are People Really Stupid?"

by Fred Russell

"On the face of things, judging from the general level of knowledge and understanding, not to mention the intellectual pursuits, of most of the human race one is tempted to say that the overwhelming majority of mankind lacks the intellectual capacity, the intelligence, to contribute to human progress. And it is in fact a very small elite that has carried us beyond Neanderthal Man, without whom, if the truth be told, we might still be living in caves. It is, in a word, appalling to contemplate the level at which ordinary people use their minds, what they read, if at all, what they watch on TV, the movies they go out and see, and the ease with which they are seduced and manipulated by the technicians of the psyche, namely, politicians and advertisers.

The impression one gets when contemplating these tens and hundreds of millions of people glued to their TV screens for the reality shows and sitcoms or fiddling with their smartphones from morning till night is of complete empty-headedness. This is not to say that such people cannot be shrewd, resourceful, or, for that matter, simply decent. It is to say that at the average level of intelligence displayed by the human race, the great intellectual achievements of mankind seem to be beyond the scope of the vast majority of men and women. But are people really stupid? And if they aren't, who or what has held them back?

Now one may be inclined to place all the blame for our ignorance on the television producers and gadget makers, but the truth is that by the time they get to us the damage has already been done. All they really succeed in doing is dragging us down a little further. The problem starts in childhood. It starts in the schools with all those empty cells waiting to be filled and no one, not entire educational systems, really knowing how to fill them. In fact, the opposite result is achieved. By the time the child finishes elementary school, unless he is destined to join the intellectual or scientific or economic or political elite and is self-motivated, as the saying goes, he will have developed an aversion to the learning process that will persist for the rest of his life.

It is not hard to understand why. School bores him, and oppresses him. Its premise, fostered in the West by the Church the virtually exclusive supplier of teachers until fairly recent times, historically speaking is that as a consequence of Original Sin all men are born evil and must therefore be coerced into doing what is good. The result has been rigidly structured frameworks where teachers hammer away at the captive child until his head is ready to explode. Within just a few years, the public school system thus destroys the natural curiosity of the child and dooms him to a life of total ignorance, dependent, for whatever sense of the world he does have, on second rate journalists, who themselves lack the knowledge, understanding, discipline and integrity to be historians or even novelists and therefore shape his perception like the ignorant clerics of the Middle Ages, raining down on his head a disjointed and superficial body of information presented largely to produce effects, and even this is beyond his capacity to retain.

The man in the street may thus be said to have a great many opinions but very little knowledge, mindlessly repeating the half-truths of experts and analysts who reflect his own biases and constructing out of them a credo of dogmatic views that remain embedded in his mind for an entire lifetime like bricks in a brick wall.

Does it matter? After all, we have all the scholars and scientists we need, and besides, a world where everyone became one would be a dull place indeed. It can even be argued that it is better for the race if progress is opposed, since, judging from its products, it mostly expresses itself materially and economically in an unholy alliance of greed and technology. However, progress of this kind cannot be fought if all that people have on their minds is to wire themselves into this technology, and that is what they will be doing until their minds are engaged in less frivolous pursuits. They are thus doubly victimized, first by the schools, whose methods are not attuned to the temperament and capacity of the average child, and then by the economic elites who control the technologies and consequently the flow of information and whose only interest in the man in the street is as a consumer of their products.

Unfortunately, there is very little hope that any of this will change. The wrong people control human society and will continue to do so, because they created the model and are the only ones who know how to operate it. The sad truth is that today's man in the street is neither wiser nor more knowledgeable than a medieval peasant. Calling ourselves Homo sapiens, or even Homo sapiens sapiens, seemed like a good idea once but very few of us have lived up to the billing."

- https://www.counterpunch.org/

"Reality Avoidance"

"Reality Avoidance"

by Morris Berman

"It’s quite amazing how the news is endlessly about nonsense. Filler, is what I call it. Very little of this has anything to do with reality, which the Mainstream Media and the American people avoid like the plague. What then is real?

1. The empire is in decline; every day, life here gets a little bit worse; all our institutions are corrupt to varying degrees; and there is no turning this situation around.

2. A crucial factor in this decline and irreversibility is the low level of intelligence of the American people. Americans are not only dumb; they are positively antagonistic toward the life of the mind.

3. Relations of power and money determine practically everything. The 3 wealthiest Americans own as much as the bottom 50% of the population, and this tendency will get worse over time.

4. The value system of the country, and its citizens, is fundamentally wrong-headed. It amounts to little more than hustling, selfishness, narcissism, and a blatant disregard for anyone but oneself. There is a kind of cruelty, or violence, deep in the American soul; many foreign observers and writers have commented on this. Americans are bitter, depressed, and angry, and the country offers very little by way of community or empathy.

5. Along with this is the support of meaningless wars and imperial adventures on the part of most of the population. That we drone-murder unarmed civilians on a weekly basis is barely on the radar screen of the American mind. In essence, the nation has evolved into a genocidal war machine run by a plutocracy and cheered on by mindless millions.

Most Americans hide from these depressing, even horrific, realities by what passes for ‘the news’, but also by means of alcohol, opioids, TV, cellphones, suicide, prescription drugs, workaholism, and spectator sports, to name but a few. This stuffing of the Void is probably our primary activity. In a word, we are eating ourselves alive, and only a tiny fraction of the population recognizes this."

- https://morrisberman.blogspot.com/