"A Warning About The Coming Shortages Of Diesel Fuel, Diesel Exhaust Fluid And Diesel Engine Oil"

"A Warning About The Coming Shortages Of Diesel Fuel,

 Diesel Exhaust Fluid And Diesel Engine Oil"

by Michael Snyder

"What I am about to share with you is a developing situation, and I hope to share more once the facts become clearer. It appears that a very serious diesel crisis is coming in the months ahead, and that will have a dramatic impact on our economy. As you will see below, we are being warned that there will be shortages of diesel fuel, diesel exhaust fluid and diesel engine oil. Most diesel vehicles require all three in order to run, and so a serious shortage of any of them would be a major disaster. Needless to say, simultaneous shortages of all three could potentially be catastrophic. Most Americans don’t spend much time thinking about diesel, but without it our supply chains collapse and we don’t have a functioning economy. In a recent Time Magazine article discussing the coming diesel fuel shortage, we are told that “the U.S. economy runs on diesel”…

Though most consumers shake their heads at the cost of gasoline and complain about the cost of filling up their car tanks, what they really should be worried about is the price of diesel. The U.S. economy runs on diesel. It’s what powers the container ships that bring goods from Asia and the trucks that collect goods from the ports and bring them to warehouses and then to your home. The farmers who grow the food you eat put diesel in their tractors to plow the fields, and the workers that bring construction equipment to build your home put diesel in their trucks.

Since January, supplies of diesel fuel have been steadily getting tighter. As supplies have gotten tighter, prices have skyrocketed. The average price of a gallon of diesel fuel hit $5.50 a gallon in early May, and it has remained above that level ever since.

One of the biggest reasons for the supply crunch is a serious lack of refining capacity. Back in 1980, the U.S. had twice as many refineries…"There are also fewer refineries, which process crude oil into diesel and other products, in the U.S. than were just a few years ago. There are just 124 now operating, down from twice as many in 1980, and down from 139 in 2016, according to the U.S. Energy Information Association. The northeast region is particularly spare, with just seven refineries today, down from 27 in 1982."

There have already been some temporary outages of diesel fuel at a few locations around the country, and we are being warned that disruptions are likely to intensify during the summer months. But the good news is that we aren’t going to run out of diesel fuel. It may become a lot more expensive, and there may be painful temporary shortages, but we won’t run out of it.

Unfortunately, the crisis that we are facing with diesel exhaust fluid is potentially much more serious. If you have just been skimming this article, this is the part where you need to start really paying attention. Newsweek is telling us that the United States “could soon experience a severe shortage of diesel exhaust fluid”…"The U.S. could soon experience a severe shortage of diesel exhaust fluid (DEF), impacting U.S. drivers already hit with soaring fuel prices. DEF is a solution made up of urea and de-ionized water that is needed for almost everything that runs on diesel. It reduces harmful gases being released into the atmosphere and works by converting nitrogen oxide produced by diesel engines into nitrogen and steam."

If you have a diesel vehicle that was sold in the United States after 2010, your vehicle could technically run without DEF, but in most cases your vehicle will simply not let you start it if the DEF tank is dry…"Can we call it a DEF jam? Everything is in short supply as supply chains continue to unlink. The latest commodity reportedly hit is DEF, or the blue diesel exhaust fluid that every diesel sold in the U.S. after 2010 needs to cut emissions. This means that every diesel truck, diesel RV, SUV, and car owner will likely have to look harder, and pay more for, DEF. A diesel engine can technically run without DEF, but your diesel vehicle likely won’t let you start it if the DEF tank is empty."

A lack of urea is the biggest reason for the growing shortage of DEF. The United States is one of the largest importers of urea in the world, and Russia and China are two of the largest exporters. In previous years that wasn’t a problem, but now the war in Ukraine has dramatically changed things…"A major portion of our urea comes from Europe, and because of the war in Ukraine we’re seeing a shortage of it, according to Newsweek. Russia is one of the world’s major exporters of it. China, too, is a major exporter of it, and it has suspended exports. Weather, too, has caused supply chain disruptions. Since it’s also a major component in fertilizers, there’s intense competition for urea." Without enough DEF, our economy is going to be in for a world of hurt.

Meanwhile, Mike Adams is reporting on the growing shortages of diesel engine oil that are starting to happen all over the nation…"Retailers, customers and distributors are all reporting shortages in diesel engine oil. This is not an imaginary problem, it is a real problem that is so far entirely ignored by the corporate media."

Apparently there are some diesel engine oil additives that are in extremely short supply, and one industry insider is telling us that this problem isn’t going to be resolved any time soon. So what this means is that people are going to start running out of diesel engine oil. In fact, it is already being reported that the trains in Sri Lanka will soon have to completely shut down because of a lack of diesel engine oil…"Sri Lanka Railways said that it will NOT be possible to operate trains in the future due to the lack of engine oil. A senior official at Sri Lanka Railways said that the current level of engine oil would only last for another two months."

That’s in line with the warning we’re hearing in the states: About 8 weeks of diesel engine oil remaining in the pipeline. Just solving one of the shortages that I have described in this article will not be enough. As I noted in the opening paragraph, a diesel vehicle requires diesel fuel, diesel exhaust fluid and diesel engine oil in order to operate. You need all three.

This is a story that I will be following very closely. Needless to say, there are enormous implications for our supply chains and for our economy as a whole if solutions cannot be found."

- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

○

Related:

"RED ALERT: Entire U.S. supply of diesel engine oil may be 

wiped out in 8 weeks. No more oil until 2023

 due to “Force Majeure” additive chemical shortages."

by Mike Adams

Excerpt: "According to information you'll see here (and explained in more detail in today's podcast, below), chemical manufacturers of diesel engine oil additives have declared force majeure and have ceased supply operations to the diesel engine oil manufacturers. Without a miraculous solution, the current supply of diesel engine oil will likely be gone in 4-8 weeks. After that, unless a solution is quickly found, there will be no diesel engine oil available until some time in 2023.

All transport trucks, farm tractors, construction machinery and transport trains run on diesel engines. A shut down of diesel engine oil would grind all transportation to a halt. No food for grocery stores, no coal for power plants, no hardware inventory, no crops being harvested, nothing."

Complete article and video here:

- https://www.naturalnews.com/

○

"Famine: Diesel Prices Hit Farmers Hard, Food Is Going To Get Scarce"

○

Now we have a timeline. And what then? God help us...

"How It Really Is"

Yeah, we remember...

"Ridiculous Price Increases At Kroger! This Is Not Good!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures with Danno, 6/23/22:

"Ridiculous Price Increases At Kroger! This Is Not Good!"

"In today's vlog we are at Kroger, and are noticing a ridiculous amount of price increases! This is not good as we are seeing skyrocketing prices everywhere, and a lot of empty shelves! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"

Gregory Mannarino, "Hidden In Plain Sight! The FED's Balance Sheet Is Increasing; Economy Continues To Crater"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 6/23/22:

"Hidden In Plain Sight! The FED's Balance Sheet 

Is Increasing; Economy Continues To Crater"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Canadian Prepper, "WW3: A Dire Message From Lithuania"

Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper, 6/22/22:

"WW3: A Dire Message From Lithuania"

"The fires are being stoked for the next battleground."

"Cancel Your Contract, This Is The Worst Time To Buy A Home; Recession Will Trigger Food Crisis"

Jeremiah Babe, 6/22/22:

"Cancel Your Contract, This Is The Worst Time To

 Buy A Home; Recession Will Trigger Food Crisis"

"The Cruelest Joke Of All..."

"The smallest decisions made had such profound repercussions. One ten-minute wait could save a life or end it. One wrong turn down the right street or one seemingly unimportant conversation, and everything was changed. It wasn't right that each lifetime was defined, ruined, ended, and made by such seemingly innocuous details. A major life-threatening event should come with a flashing warning sign that either said ABANDON ALL HOPE or SAFETY AHEAD. It was the cruelest joke of all that no one could see the most vicious curves until they were over the edge, falling into the abyss below."

- Sherrilyn Kenyon

"Panic Sweeps Across Supermarkets As Desperate Hoarding Of Basic Supplies Leave Stores Empty"

Full screen recommended.

"Panic Sweeps Across Supermarkets As Desperate 

Hoarding Of Basic Supplies Leave Stores Empty"

by Epic Economist

"Waves of desperation are emerging in every corner of the United States. Americans are now realizing that supply chain issues, delivery delays, and extensive shortages are here to stay. That’s why basic supplies have been flying off the shelves at a shocking speed in recent weeks. People have started hoarding everyday essentials in anticipation of more shipping disruptions and price hikes after industry executives warned about the real chances of widespread grocery shortages and even higher consumer prices hitting U.S. stores this summer. Millions may be left scrambling to find enough supplies at their local supermarkets in the coming weeks and months as ports brace for record congestion ahead of the peak shipping season. A new panic buying frenzy is erupting across the country, and we have a lot to discuss in today’s video.

After contending with two years of empty shelves, Americans are getting fed up with so many shortages of everyday essentials, and they’ve been preparing for the challenges that are coming next. In recent weeks, grocery store shelves have started to be wiped clean by desperate U.S. consumers who are tired of struggling to get the products they want and need. But shelves are staying empty as retailers, big and small, can’t restock their inventories fast enough to meet the growing demand. In several parts of the nation, household staples, such as milk, bread, meat, canned soups, hygiene products, and cleaning supplies are becoming incredibly hard to find.

In a recent interview with FoxNews, some consumers expressed their growing frustration with the seemingly endless supply chain nightmare. "Honestly, it looks like March of 2020, when everybody was panic-buying and the shelves were bare," one man shopping at a Walmart store in Oklahoma city said. “One week, you find the food you’re looking for, the brands you’re looking for, and the next week, they’re nowhere to be found,” said a woman named Cathy shopping at a Giant grocery store. "Everything, meat, egg, dairy, certain breads are out of stock, as well as most vegetables, and fresh items," she added.

“To ensure we don’t have any shortages in our pantry, we’re having to purchase as much as possible and as often as possible,” she revealed. According to Carol Mathews, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Florida, U.S. consumers’ trust and sense of security have been repeatedly broken over the past two years, that’s why waves of panic-buying are likely to accelerate when shortages start becoming more widespread. “In the face of uncertainty, panic-buying is a natural response,” Mathews argues.

“We have seen lockdowns for weeks and months on end, supply-chain disruptions, price gouging, and the feeling of never having enough, never being truly prepared, which is the unfortunate truth in the matter,” she explains. Right now, the sudden rush to hoard food and other basic supplies continues to intensify and it is leaving store shelves even emptier right as the busiest shipping season begins. At this point, even Joe Biden has publicly admitted that the coming food shortages are “going to be real”, and the head of the UN World Food Program is saying that we could soon see “hell on Earth” because of the lack of food will be so severe. Conditions are going to deteriorate a whole lot more in the months ahead. We’re being told to expect even more chaos in the second half of this year. Some are already getting ready. The important question is: do YOU have a plan?"

- https://www.epiceconomist.com/

○

Related:

Panic? Oh, we haven't seen panic yet, but we will...

"RED ALERT: Entire U.S. supply of diesel engine oil may be 

wiped out in 8 weeks. No more oil until 2023

 due to “Force Majeure” additive chemical shortages."

Excerpt: "According to information you'll see here (and explained in more detail in today's podcast, below), chemical manufacturers of diesel engine oil additives have declared force majeure and have ceased supply operations to the diesel engine oil manufacturers. Without a miraculous solution, the current supply of diesel engine oil will likely be gone in 4-8 weeks. After that, unless a solution is quickly found, there will be no diesel engine oil available until some time in 2023.

All transport trucks, farm tractors, construction machinery and transport trains run on diesel engines. A shut down of diesel engine oil would grind all transportation to a halt. No food for grocery stores, no coal for power plants, no hardware inventory, no crops being harvested, nothing."

Complete article and video here:

- https://www.naturalnews.com/

Now we have a timeline. And what then? God help us...

Gregory Mannarino, "The FED Is Still Buying It All! More Propaganda, Lies, Distractions, And Misinformation"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 6/22/22:

"The FED Is Still Buying It All! 

More Propaganda, Lies, Distractions, And Misinformation"

- https://traderschoice.net/

View comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfuklFpPfvg

Musical Interlude:Liquid Mind: "Slow World"

Liquid Mind: "Slow World"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Planetary nebula Abell 78 stands out in this colorful telescopic skyscape. In fact the colors of the spiky Milky Way stars depend on their surface temperatures, both cooler (yellowish) and hotter (bluish) than the Sun. But Abell 78 shines by the characteristic emission of ionized atoms in the tenuous shroud of material shrugged off from an intensely hot central star. The atoms are ionized, their electrons stripped away, by the central star's energetic but otherwise invisible ultraviolet light.

The visible blue-green glow of loops and filaments in the nebula's central region corresponds to emission from doubly ionized oxygen atoms, surrounded by strong red emission from electrons recombining with hydrogen atoms. Some 5,000 light-years distant toward the constellation Cygnus, Abell 78 is about three light-years across. A planetary nebula like Abell 78 represents a very brief final phase in stellar evolution that our own Sun will experience... in about 5 billion years.”

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

"Our Dilemma..."

"Our dilemma is that we hate change and love it at the same time;

what we really want is for things to remain the same but get better. "

- Sydney J. Harris

The Poet: Anne Sexton, "Courage"

"Courage"

"It is in the small things we see it.

The child's first step,

as awesome as an earthquake.

The first time you rode a bike,

wallowing up the sidewalk.

The first spanking when your heart

went on a journey all alone.

When they called you crybaby

or poor or fatty or crazy

and made you into an alien,

you drank their acid

and concealed it.

Later,

if you faced the death of bombs and bullets

you did not do it with a banner,

you did it with only a hat to

cover your heart.

You did not fondle the weakness inside you

though it was there.

Your courage was a small coal

that you kept swallowing.

If your buddy saved you

and died himself in so doing,

then his courage was not courage,

it was love; love as simple as shaving soap.

Later,

if you have endured a great despair,

then you did it alone,

getting a transfusion from the fire,

picking the scabs off your heart,

then wringing it out like a sock.

Next, my kinsman, you powdered your sorrow,

you gave it a back rub

and then you covered it with a blanket

and after it had slept a while

it woke to the wings of the roses

and was transformed.

Later,

when you face old age and its natural conclusion

your courage will still be shown in the little ways,

each spring will be a sword you'll sharpen,

those you love will live in a fever of love,

and you'll bargain with the calendar

and at the last moment

when death opens the back door

you'll put on your carpet slippers

and stride out."

~ Anne Sexton

Bill Bonner, "The Courage Not to Act"

"The Courage Not to Act"

Title of a memoir the Feds will never author.

by Bill Bonner

Youghal, Ireland - "It was the longest day of the year. The sun rose here at 5:11 AM. It set at 9:55 PM. It was a glorious, stretched-out midsummer day… the solstice… with flowers in bloom…birds singing in the trees…and a warm breeze off the Atlantic brought the temperature here up to a delightful 68 degrees.

In the morning, before US markets opened, we drove a friend back to the airport in Shannon, admiring the hills, valleys, and towns along the way. We were cutting through Tipperary, with its lush fields, fat cows and antique stones.

“They’re trying to get Irish farmers to stop raising beef,” says a neighbor. “The idea is to reduce greenhouse gasses. But the Germans don’t stop eating beef. They just buy it from South America instead. They chop down the rainforest… and then send the beef 4,000 miles in a refrigerated ship. How does that make sense?”

We stopped to fill up the tank. It’s a large tank. Still, the cost – 197 euros ($206) – was a shock. But we’re getting used to big price increases. We saw them coming years ago. Now they’re here. So are big price decreases – for cryptos, techs, junk bonds, and stocks in general. And today’s cogitation is, broadly, about when all this price commotion will settle down. Not anytime soon, is our guess. And to give you a peak at what lies ahead…

Decision of the Century: Now taking matters into his own hands, Mr. Market is deflating the price of assets, correcting mistakes made by Yellen, Powell et al. As the corrections go deeper, pressure on the Fed to ‘do something about it’ will increase. Then cometh The Decision of the Century, when the Fed will have to either let Mr. Market finish his house cleaning… or burn the house down completely with more money-printing. We think we know which way it will go… but we don’t want to spoil the story. So let’s read on…

And here comes POTUS, doing his part to whip inflation now. According to our sources (Bloomberg), today, the president will announce a suspension of federal taxes on gasoline: "President Joe Biden will call on Congress to enact a gasoline tax holiday, a person familiar with the plans says, as he looks to cool soaring pump prices heading into summer. Biden will make a statement Wednesday calling on Congress to enact the pause, the person said, speaking on condition of anonymity ahead of an announcement.

Gasoline taxes are the best kind of taxes. They tax drivers to get the money to maintain highways. Canceling the tax doesn’t make the expense go away. It just shifts it to other people – including those who don’t drive. And since the feds have no extra tax revenue lying around, the money will have to be borrowed… adding further pressure to interest rates and/or to the Fed to print more money. So, this is just another jackass political move, shifting the cost of highway maintenance from a user tax to an inflation tax.

But yesterday, investors seemed confident; they seemed to think that the Powell-Yellen team would win the battle with inflation… without ever having to draw blood. Big talk. Small rate hikes. Letting their bonds ‘run off’ without renewing them. Piece of cake, right?

Dow 33,000? Then, the Fed could go back to doing what it does best – making Wall Street richer while destroying the Main Street economy. When prices settle down, in other words, it can ‘bring back the punchbowl’ and let the good times roll again. By the close of business, the Dow had gained 641 points.

Does this mark the crest of the inflation wave… and the beginning of a rebound in the stock market? The old-timers say that if a market can bounce back and recover 50% of its loss, it is a sign of a recovery. If the bounce fails to reach the 50% market – which would be Dow 33,000 or so – the bear market will probably continue. You can take that for what it is worth – which is not much.

But remember, Mr. Market is in control now. He’s doing what he always does at the end of a bubble – bringing prices back down to earth. And like a cat, he plays with his food before he devours it. So far, he has whacked asset prices. But just as asset price inflation produces a ‘wealth effect,’ asset price deflation engenders a ‘poverty effect.’ People have less to spend. Sales, profits, wages, tax revenues – everything goes down.

From assets to consumer prices, deflation seeps into everything. And the main source of leakage is housing. The fall in stocks and bonds leaves most people high and dry. But when the housing market takes on water, almost everyone gets drenched. Households drown as mortgage payments rise.

And now, says Bloomberg, the leakage has begun: “We’re already seeing the stock market selloff spin into the housing market.” Yes, dear reader, left alone, inflation will take care of itself. Mr. Market will get the job done. The economy will go into recession. People will have less to spend. Businesses will make less money. Prices will fall. But will the Fed have the courage not to act? We’re as curious as you are."

- bonnerprivateresearch@substack.com

Judge Napolitano, "Scott Ritter - Ukraine Russia War Update"

Full screen recommended.

Judge Napolitano, Judging Freedom, 6/22/22:

"Scott Ritter - Ukraine Russia War Update"

View comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIYSqqkqxkk

Gonzalo Lira, "Israel Provokes Russia"

Gonzalo Lira, 6/22/22:

"Israel Provokes Russia"

View comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mvjs3a4Vi_o

The Daily "Near You?"

Port Dover, Ontario, Canada. Thanks for stopping by!

"This Really Moron Thing..."

"Housing or the Airlines - What Will Crash First?"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly 6/22/22:

"Housing or the Airlines - What Will Crash First?"

"We are now getting the numbers from builders and seeing that more homes are uncompleted than ever. We are also learning that the problems with the airlines are only going to be escalated by the fuel cost, labor cost and high price of the dollar."

View comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"World War 3 for Dummies" (Excerpt)

"World War 3 for Dummies"

by Gaius Baltar

Excerpt: "Some knowledgeable people, apparently including the Pope, are beginning to suspect that there may be more going on in the world than just the war in the Ukraine. They say that World War 3 has already started and things will get worse from now on. This can be difficult to determine while we are participating in the unfolding events and do not have the benefit of the historical perspective. It is doubtful that people back in 1939 realized that they were looking at the start of a major worldwide conflict, although some may have suspected it.

The current global situation is in many ways like a giant jigsaw puzzle where the general public only sees a tiny part of the complete picture. Most don’t even realize that there may be more pieces and don’t even ask these simple questions: Why is all this happening and why is it happening now?

Things are more complicated than most people realize. What they see is the evil wizard Vladimir Saruman Putin invading innocent Ukraine with his orc army – for absolutely no reason. This is a simplistic view, to say the least because nothing happens without a reason. Let’s put things in perspective and see what is really going on – and why the world is going crazy before our eyes. Let’s see what World War 3 is all about.

The pressure cooker: The West (which we can define here as the US and the EU and a few more) has been maintaining pressure on the entire world for decades. This does not only apply to countries outside the West, but also to Western countries which strayed from the diktats of the West’s rulers. This pressure has been discussed widely and attributed to all kinds of motives, including neocolonialism, forced financial hegemony, and so forth. What is interesting, particularly during the last 20 years, is which countries have been pressured and what they do not have in common.

Among the pressured countries we find Russia, China, Cuba, Venezuela, Libya, Syria, Serbia, Thailand, and Iran to mention a few. There have also been recent additions, including India and Hungary. In order to understand why they have been pressured, we need to find out what they have in common. That’s not easy since they are extremely different in most ways. There are democracies and non-democracies, conservative and communist governments, Christian, Muslim and Buddhist countries, and so on. Still, many of them are very clearly allied. One must ask why conservative and religious countries such as Russia or Iran would ally themselves with Godless communists in Cuba and Venezuela.

What all these countries have in common is their desire to run their own affairs; to be independent countries. This is unforgivable in the eyes of the West and must be tackled by any means necessary, including economic sanctions, color revolutions, and outright military aggression.

The West and its NATO military arm had surrounded Russia with hostile countries and military bases, armed and manipulated Ukraine to be used as a hammer against it, and employed sanctions and threats. The same thing was and is happening in Asia where China is being surrounded by all means available. The same applies to all the Independents mentioned above to some extent. In the past 10 years or so the pressure has increased massively on the Independents and it reached almost a fever pitch in the year before the Russian invasion of the Ukraine.

During the year before the Ukraine war, the US sent its diplomats around the world to tune up the pressure. They were like a traveling circus or a rock band on a tour, but instead of entertainment, they delivered threats: buy this from us and do what we tell you or there will be consequences. The urgency was absolute and palpable, but then came the Ukraine war and the pressure went up to 11. During the first month of the war, the entire West’s diplomatic corps was fully engaged in threats against the ‘rest of the world’ to engineer the isolation of Russia. This didn’t work, which resulted in panic in political and diplomatic circles in the US and Europe.

All this pressure through the years, and all the fear and panic when it didn’t work, are clearly related to the events in the Ukraine. They are a part of the same ‘syndrome’ and have the same cause."

Please view this complete article here:

- https://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/explain-it-to-me-please/

"Explain It to Me, Please"

"Explain It to Me, Please"

If you want a war with Iran, Russia, China and Venezuela 

tell me why and how it would benefit Americans.

by Philip Giraldi

"So Honest Joe Biden is now going to give another $1.2 billion to the Ukrainians on top of the sixty or so billion that is already in the pipeline, but who’s counting, particularly as Congress refused to approve having an inspector general to monitor whose pockets will be lined. The money will be printed up without any collateral or “borrowed” and the American taxpayer will somehow have to bear the burden of this latest folly that is ipso facto driving much of the world into recession. And it will no doubt be blamed on Vladimir Putin, a process that is already well under way from president mumbles. But you have to wonder why no one has told Joe that the whole exercise in pushing much of the world towards a catastrophic war is a fool’s errand. But then again, the clowns that the president has surrounded himself with might not be very big on speaking the truth even if they know what that means.

Having followed the Ukraine problem since the United States and its poodles refused to negotiate seriously with Vladimir Putin in the real world, I have had to wonder what is wrong with Washington. We have had the ignorant and impulsive Donald Trump supported by a cast of characters that included the mentally unstable Mike Pompeo and John Bolton followed by Biden with the usual bunch of Democratic Party rejects. By that I mean deep thinkers about social issues who would not be able to run a hot dog stand if that were what they were forced to do to make a living. But they are real good at shouting “freedom” and “democracy” whenever questioned concerning their motives.

Indeed, opinion polls suggest that there is a great deal of unrest among middle and working class Americans who see a reversion to Jimmy Carter era financial instability, at that time caused by the oil embargo. Well, there is a new energy embargo in place brought about by the Biden Administration’s desire to wage proxy war to “weaken” Russia. Analysts predict that the costs for all forms of energy will double in the next several months and surging energy costs will impact the prices of other essentials, including food. Given all that, the fundamental issue plaguing both Democrats and Republicans is their inability to actually explain to the American people why the country’s foreign and national security policy always seems to be on the boil, searching for enemies and also creating them when they do not exist, even when the results are damaging to the interests of actual Americans.

That a serious discussion of why the United States needs to have a military that costs as much as the next nine nations in that ranking combined is long overdue and rarely addressed outside the alternative media. The 2023 military budget has been increased from this year’s, totaling $858 billion, and, if one includes the constantly growing largesse to Ukraine, approaching a hitherto unimaginable trillion dollars. The military budget has become a major driver of the country’s unsustainable deficits. The deaths of millions of people directly and indirectly in the wars started in 9/11 aside, the wars of choice have cost an estimated $8 trillion.

The Constitution of the United States makes it clear that a national army was only acceptable to the Founders when it was dedicated to defending the country from foreign threats. Do Americans really believe that bearing the burden of having something like 1,000 military bases scattered around the world really makes them safer? The recent rapid collapse of the security situation in Afghanistan suggests that having such bases turns soldiers and bureaucrats into potential hostages and is therefore a liability. One might also suggest that the insecurity currently prevailing in the country can in large part be attributed to the government’s depiction of numerous “threats” in order to justify both the commitment and the expense.

So where does all the money go? And what are the threats? Starting with a war that the United States is de facto though not de jure involved in, Ukraine, what was the Russian threat that demanded Washington’s intervention? Well, if one discards the nonsense of a “rules based international order” or a plucky little democracy Ukraine fighting valiantly against the Russian bear, Moscow did not threaten the United States in any way before the missiles starting flying. Putin sought to negotiate a settlement with Ukraine based on a number of perceived existential Russian national security interests, all of which were negotiable, but the US and its friends were uninterested in compromise while also plying the corrupt Zelensky regime with weapons, money and political support. The final result is a conflict that will likely only end when the last Ukrainian is dead and it includes the possibility that a misstep by the United States and Russia could lead to a nuclear holocaust. To put it succinctly, what is going on does not enhance US national security, nor does it benefit Americans economically.

And then there is China. Biden let the cat out of the bag on his recent trip to the Far East. He stated that the United States would defend Taiwan if China were to attempt to annex it. In saying that, Biden demonstrated that he does not understand the strategic ambiguity that the US and the Chinese have preferred over the past fifty years as an alternative to war. The White House for its part quickly issued a correction to the Biden statement, explaining that it was not true that Washington is obligated to defend Taiwan. Some uber hawkish congressmen have apparently found the Biden gaffe appealing and are promoting a firm US commitment to defend Taiwan, coupled with a $4.5 billion military assistance package, of course.

At the same time, some officials in the Pentagon and the usual gaggle of congressmen also keep warning about the over the horizon threat from China as an excuse to boost defense spending. Most recently, there was alarm over Chinese participation in a meeting in May in Fiji to consider a China-Pacific Islands free trade pact! In reality, the only serious current threat from China is as an economic competitor. A trade war with China would be a disaster for the US economy, which is heavily dependent on Chinese manufactured goods, but Beijing, with its relatively small military budget, does not pose a physical threat to the United States.

And let’s not ignore Iran which has been hammered by economic sanctions and also through the covert killing of its officials and scientists. The US/Israeli war on Iran has also spilled over into neighboring Syria, where Washington actually has troops on the ground occupying the country’s oil producing region and stealing the oil. Iran’s possible expansion of its nuclear program to produce a weapon was effectively impeded through monitoring connected to a multilateral 2015 agreement called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) but Donald Trump, unwisely and acting against actual American interests, withdrew from it. Joe Biden has been warned by Israel not to re-enter the agreement, so he will no doubt comply with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s determination to have Washington continue to apply “extreme pressure” on the Islamic Republic. Does either Iran or its ally Syria threaten the United States in any way? No. Their crime is that they are in the same neighborhood as the Jewish state, which finds the US government easy to manipulate into acting against its own interests.

Finally, in America’s own hemisphere there is Venezuela, which has been elevated to the status of Washington’s most hated nation in the region. Venezuelans have been subjected to increasingly punitive US sanctions, including some new ones just last week, which hurt the poorer citizens disproportionately but have not brought about regime change. Why the animosity? Because the country’s leader Nicolas Maduro is still in power in spite of a US assertion that the country’s opposition leader Juan Guaido should rightfully and legitimately be in charge after a possibly fraudulent election in 2018. The latest therapy applied by the United States on Caracas consisted of blocking the country as well as Nicaragua and Cuba from participating in the recent meeting of the Ninth Summit of the Americas which was held in Los Angeles. 

A State Department spokesman explained that the move was due to the three countries “lacking democratic governances.” Mexican President Lopez Obrador protested against the move and removed himself from his country’s delegation, saying “There can’t be a Summit of the Americas if not all countries of the American continent are taking part.” The despicable US Senator Robert Menendez of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee then felt compelled to add his two cents, criticizing the Mexican president and warning that his “decision to stand with dictators and despots” would hurt US-Mexico relations. So where was the threat from Venezuela (and Cuba and Nicaragua) and why is the US involved at all? Beats me.

What all of this means is that there is absolutely no standard of genuine national security that motivates the US’s completely illegal aggression in many parts of the world. What occurs may be linked to a desire to dominate or a madness sometimes described as “exceptionalism” and/or “leadership of the free world,” neither of which has anything to do with actual security. And the American people are paying the price both in terms of decline in standards of living due to the upheaval created in Ukraine and elsewhere as well as a completely understandable loss of faith in the US system of government. By all means, let us shrink the US military until it is responsive to actual identifiable threats. Let’s elect a president who will follow the sage advice of President John Quincy Adams, who declared that “Americans should not go abroad to slay dragons they do not understand in the name of spreading democracy.” At this point, one can only imagine an America that is at peace with itself and with what it represents while also being considered a friend to the rest of the world."

- https://www.unz.com/

"The Heaviest Burdens..."

 

"Dismissing Reality"

"Dismissing Reality"

by David Marks

"Historians analyzing the Covid-19 pandemic will one day consider what was going on in the minds of those who supported a narrative that only served profits and power. Looking back, they will greatly appreciate the analysis of contemporary experts, particularly Mattias Desmet, a professor in the Department of Psychology and Educational Sciences at Ghent University in Belgium. He is recognized as a leading thinker in his field, and has written over one hundred peer-reviewed academic papers.

Desmet has presented his understanding of human behavior in response to the pandemic and vaccine policies to forums and international media. His book on the topic, "The Psychology of Totalitarianism", was published in June of 2022. It examines the emotional climate that has allowed a singular, focused, crisis narrative that forbids dissenting views and relies on destructive groupthink.

The central tenet of Desmet’s evaluation of the emotional response to the pandemic rests on the psychological concept of mass formation. It is a general term that applies to individual, group, and crowd behavior as influenced by the manipulations and conduct of dominant social forces. The concept is not new - nor is it in any way a stretch to apply it in analyzing the extensive anxiety driving the attitudes and demeanor of billions of people during the world-wide pandemic.

Mass formation can be associated with mass psychosis, a disturbance in the minds of small or large groups - to the degree where there is a loss of contact with reality - often with an eclipse of morality and objectification of an imagined enemy. The hostile and dismissive response to Desmet’s perspective on the pandemic’s emotional climate is both fascinating and revelatory.

Enter The Media: Desmet was interviewed by a number of prominent individuals in a variety of media outlets, with his views on the current rise of mass formation taken seriously by some of the public and medical professionals with open minds. Detractors quickly appeared in an attempt to minimize his impact.

When Dr. Robert Malone, respected veteran expert in molecular biology and a pioneer in mRNA research, discussed and amplified Desmet’s theory on the “Joe Rogan Experience,” a threshold seemed to have been crossed. Mainstream media and medical websites went into high gear pronouncing mass formation as discredited and bunk. The distain for anyone invoking the term was overt. Medpage Today reported, “It sounds like the name of your friend's failed high school band.”

The vast majority of criticism had little to say about the reasonable theory that government representatives, a huge portion of the medical profession and at least one-third of the general population had fallen into a trance. And most importantly, there was no willingness to consider that there might be a powerful psychological force skewing judgement and provoking irrational behavior.

In a show of reflexive impulsive bias, media coverage claimed that the concept of mass formation did not exist. This response simply revealed how the process of mass formation blinds the minds of scientists and journalists.

Widely attributed press sources, including Reuters, quickly found experts who said that, “Mass formation psychosis is not an academic term recognized in the field of psychology, nor is there evidence of any such phenomenon occurring during the COVID-19 pandemic.” To ensure readers need not fear they were under any spell, they advised, “numerous psychologists have also told Reuters that such a condition is not officially recognized.”

Mass formation was also dismissed in a number of articles because it is not mentioned in the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders", a simplified clinical guide to individual psychiatric disorders that does not cover crowd psychology.

Not Necessarily The News: The blast of commentary was presented as objective news, yet the press response directly conflicts with the knowledge of prominent psychotherapists, including luminaries who enriched the modern understanding of the human psyche, such as Scipio Sighele, Gustave Le Bon, Elio Cannetti, and Hannah Arendt.

In his 1921 book on "Crowd Psychology and Ego Analysis", the founder of psychotherapy, Sigmund Freud, discusses mass formation and its ramifications, saying, “The strangest and at the same time most important phenomenon of mass formation is the increase in affectivity evoked in each individual (as) exaltation or intensification of emotion.”

The preeminent psychiatrist, Carl Jung, highlights mass formation in his prescient 1957 book, "The Undiscovered Self", on the state of mankind and the dangers of modern materialism. His perspective is foundational, relative to Desmet’s recent findings: “Under the influence of scientific assumptions, not only the psyche but the individual man and, indeed, all individual events whatsoever suffer a leveling down and a process of blurring that distorts the picture of reality into a conceptual average. We ought not to underestimate the psychological effect of the statistical world picture: it displaces the individual in favor of anonymous units that pile up into mass formations.”

Despite a wealth of historical precedents, the reaction to Desmet’s ideas was bizarre and unfounded. A renowned and respected psychotherapist had postulated that we might need to reconsider the unconscious response to lockdowns and mandates - and his ideas were summarily dismissed by the voice of the state.

The diagnosis is clear. Deriding mass formation and dismissing its influence during a global crisis is in itself a verification of the phenomenon. Mainstream media demonstrates how it perpetuates mass formation by indulging in another well-accepted psychological phenomenon: denial. Considering the degree of unwillingness to confront the reality of ineffectiveness and dangers of the COVID-19 vaccines, an evaluation of the news media’s response to the current plague can also be deemed delusional.

The Syndrome Persists: In recent decades, studies have shown that psychological problems are increasing geometrically. Rather than attempting to reverse this dysfunction, powerful forces in government and the corporate press continue to mislead and prey on an expanding susceptible population, who in the face of crisis, cling to authority. It is the vulnerability of dissatisfied populations that allows mass formation.

Desmet suggests that a number of factors, including; isolation, a sense that life is meaningless - and particularly free-floating anxiety, frustration and aggression - independently or in unison, can lead to mass formation and its repercussions.

Jung also viewed precursors to dysfunction in the context of a modern age where the “State” and “Scientific Rationalism” play critical roles in supporting mass formation, saying: “Science supplies us with, instead of the concrete individual, the names of organizations and, at the highest point, the abstract idea of the State as the principle of political reality. Apart from agglomerations of huge masses of people, in which the individual disappears anyway, one of the chief factors responsible for psychological mass-mindedness is scientific rationalism, which robs the individual of his foundations and his dignity. As a social unit he has lost his individuality and become a mere abstract number in the bureau of statistics. He can only play the role of an interchangeable unit of infinitesimal importance.”

The concept of mass formation and its relevance to the pandemic are undeniable when our current crisis is examined carefully, particularly when the inadequacies and inconsistencies of prevention and treatment are analyzed and understood.

Vaccines were initially presented as the only viable way to stem a deadly disease. A subsequent admission that they did not stop transmission was revealed in the context that they continued to be effective and safe. Any serious analysis of these claims confirms this also is a fabrication.

There is an important and viable inquiry asking how a false and deadly narrative continues to be accepted. Policies supporting repressive controls and ongoing vaccination have no foundation other than nonsensical dictates and support from a public bolstered with questionable data, prodded to near-hysteria.

The very forces that are responsible for the false narrative can only take a defensive position when light is shed on their methodology. The dogmatic negation of the idea that a mass formation is responsible for blind compliance and irrational acceptance of dangerous therapies is striking and revelatory.

As time passes, the induced fear and coerced consent will continue to be exposed as part of a scheme promoting selfish interests, and verifiably nothing to do with good health. Eventually this epoch will be recognized for its essential impetus; the nefarious entrancement of a vulnerable world."

- https://www.rwmalonemd.com/

- https://www.clarkcountytoday.com/

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Very highest recommendation:

Full screen recommended.

"Are We Being Hypnotized, And Do We Like It?"

 - A Conversation with Professor Mattias Desmet, PhD

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Freely download "The Undiscovered Self", by Carl Jung, here:

- https://fleurmach.files.wordpress.com/

"The Politics of Obedience"

"The Politics of Obedience"

by Brian Maher

“The best slave is the one who thinks he is free.”

- Johann von Goethe

“A people enslaves itself, cuts its own throat, when, having a choice between being vassals and being free men, it deserts its liberties and takes on the yoke, gives consent to its own misery, or, rather, apparently welcomes it.” We believe the 16th-century French political theorist Étienne de La Boétie hooked onto a truth here. We plucked this passage from his masterly work "The Politics of Obedience by" title.

We believe it enjoys high relevance in this, the 21st century. More from which: "It is incredible how as soon as a people becomes subject, it promptly falls into such complete forgetfulness of its freedom that it can hardly be roused to the point of regaining it, obeying so easily and so willingly that one is led to say, on beholding such a situation, that this people has not so much lost its liberty as won its enslavement." Thus the frog goes into its pot of gradually heating water - and never jumps out.

Perfectly Imperfect: We've wondered why so many continue to accept the verdicts of Dr. Fauci... his understrappers within the field of public health… and the elected officials who boss us. In nearly every particular they have proven mistaken - intentionally or unintentionally... Mistaken on masks. Mistaken on lockups. Mistaken on medicines. Mistaken on vaccines. What they claim one day is proven false the following day. What they deny one day is proven true the following day. If not the following day, then the following week. If not the following week, then the following month.

It is not the erring that flusters us. Sincere men - men of good faith - can botch badly. We are merely confounded and discombobulated that so many continue heeding them… and submitting to their blemished authority. And why do so many have such blistering heat against those who point to holes in official theories, who announce that the emperor is well and truly nude? Would they prefer to be foxed, conned and tricked - to believe the emperor is garmented? These are the questions we tackle today...

No Judgment: We do not hector, we do not preach, we do not badger, we do not hold forth today. Nor do we judge. A man shoots an accusing finger outward and three shoot back at him… as is said. We are merely out to solve a puzzle, the way a detective is out to solve a crime, the way an autopsist is out to solve a death.

For light, we turn to Professor Mattias Desmet. This fellow professes psychology at Belgium’s Ghent University. A people acquire an acute anxiety, he explains. In the case before us, acute anxiety of the virus. Coney-catchers, sharpers and opportunists - that is, political leaders - emerge in response, holding out salvation. The people accept the outstretched hand. It soothes and comforts them. Anyone who slaps away this hand is a hellcat, a hobgoblin, a menace to the public happiness.

“Mass-Formation: Here the professor speaks of “Mass-Formation.” As summarized: "In Mass-Formations people become radically intolerant of dissident voices. This person threatens to wake the people up and they get angry when confronted by the initial anxiety and discontent they experience by challenges to the official doctrine. The crowd directs all their aggression at dissident voices.

At the same time they are radically tolerant of their leaders who pronounce the mainstream narrative. These people can lie and cheat and do everything they want and will always be forgiven by the crowd. All the lying, dishonesty and misbehavior is seen by the crowd as doing it for their own safety."

We suffer the acquaintance of certain individuals who fit this description to a fare-thee-well… as perfectly and precisely as the size 10 foot fits the size 10 shoe. They, like your editor, are reasonably sane. They are reasonably reasonable, they are reasonably tolerant. They are generally pleasant and agreeable.

Jekyll and Hyde: But tell them that Dr. Fauci has been less than fully truthful. Tell them that masks are minimally effective. Tell them that lockups fail to jail the virus. Above all… Tell them that these vaccines are not as safe or as formidable as the drummers claim. Now you have a demon on your hands. They will scourge you as a conspiracy theorist… a delusional… an imbecile… a witless dupe of the bedlamite fringe.

Here we speak with the invincible authority of personal experience. We know such gentlemen and ladies. We had best keep the names dark, lest our attorneys receive a sharp note claiming character defamation.

No matter what you hurl against them, it bounces off unbreachable armor… spitballs off a tank. They simply will not listen. They are sunk in a sort of intoxicating hypnosis. And woe to anyone out to shatter the spell…

Why Facts Don’t Work: More: Similar to hypnosis, people in this hyper-focused state are narrowly focused. In hypnosis, only the hypnotized are focused in this way… In Mass-Formation, leaders emerge which are even more narrowly focused than the followers. When people experience this mental intoxication it no longer matters if the narrative is wrong or even blatantly false. What matters is that it leads up to this mental intoxication. This is why they will continue to go along with the narrative.

The resistance to understanding the narrative is false or wrong is driven by the fear of returning to the state of Free-Floating Anxiety and wanting to continue to experience the mental intoxication. This explains why arguing based on facts will not work. Facts no longer matter to them. Given the facts, they are unable to come to sensible conclusions, even in their own best interests.

Here we believe the author lowers his hammer square upon the nailhead. We believe his thesis holds vast explanatory powers. It is immensely plausible. Again: We do not judge or condemn whom we consider the entranced. They consider us entranced. They are of course correct.

For example: This editor of yours believes he is the reincarnated soul of the Emperor Nero. He believes that he is a masterful lover. He believes that he is nice. He accepts them as fact… though in honest moments he concedes he lacks all confirming evidence. But let it go...

The Real Blame: Our grievance is not with the entranced, but rather with the spellbinders who entrance them. That is, with those who would wreck a society over a virus rate with a survival rate in excess of 99%...

With those who would decry the use of safe and effective drug treatments because they would harpoon the legal justification for experimental, emergency-use vaccines… With those who promised us we could discard our facial masks once we took aboard the vaccines… With those who would torture statistics to declare a false “pandemic of the unvaccinated”...

With those who deny that these vaccines have murdered many thousands of people and mangled hundreds of thousands more… With those who would inform mothers-to-be that these vaccines will not injure their child… With those who would vaccinate young children, young children who face infinitesimal risk of sickness or death and who are far more likely to perish from the vaccine itself… With those who believe they can and should dictate the medical choices of free men and women.

It is they who frost our nose. It is they who wring our gizzard. It is they who rile our customary serenity and our detached indifference to the world’s events.

Time for Inaction: We conclude today’s issue where we commenced - with Monsieur Étienne de La Boétie. Here is how to break the hypnotist’s spell… for those who care to break it. His counterspell requires not action - but inaction: "You can deliver yourselves if you try, not by taking action, but merely by willing to be free. Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break into pieces. The time for inaction is now…"

- dailyreckoning.com

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Freely download "The Politics of Obedience" by Étienne de La Boétie here:

- https://mises.org/library/

"Mass Formation Psychosis, Or... Mass Hypnosis - The Madness Of Crowds"

"Mass Formation Psychosis,

Or... Mass Hypnosis - The Madness Of Crowds"

by Robert W Malone MD, MS

"As many of you know, I have spent time researching and speaking about mass psychosis theory. Most of what I have learned has come from Dr. Mattias Desmet, who realized that this form of mass hypnosis, of the madness of crowds, can account for the strange phenomenon of about 20-30% of the population in the western world becoming entranced with the Noble Lies and dominant narrative concerning the safety and effectiveness of the genetic vaccines, and both propagated and enforced by politicians, science bureaucrats, pharmaceutical companies and legacy media.

What one observes with the mass hypnosis is that a large fraction of the population is completely unable to process new scientific data and facts demonstrating that they have been misled about the effectiveness and adverse impacts of mandatory mask use, lockdowns, and genetic vaccines that cause people’s bodies to make large amounts of biologically active coronavirus Spike protein.

These hypnotized by this process are unable to recognize the lies and misrepresentations they are being bombarded with on a daily basis, and actively attack anyone who has the temerity to share information with them which contradicts the propaganda that they have come to embrace. And for those whose families and social networks have been torn apart by this process, and who find that close relatives and friends have ghosted them because they question the officially endorsed “truth” and are actually following the scientific literature, this can be a source of deep anguish, sorrow and psychological pain.

It is with those souls in mind that I included a discussion of the mass formation theory of Dr. Mattias Desmet during a recent talk I gave in Tampa, Florida to an audience of about 2,000. As I looked out into the audience and spoke, I could see relief on many faces, and even tears running from the eyes of stoic men.

Unknown to me, someone recorded the speech and appended the vocal track to a series of calming images of natural landscapes, producing a video that has gone viral throughout the world. The video below video, as well as some notes to clarify and supplement the talk are appended below. Many have told me that they find it very healing. I hope it may help you also.

Full screen recommended.

A brief overview of Mass Formation, which was developed by Dr. Mattias Desmet. He is a psychologist and a statistician. He is at the University of Ghent in Belgium. I think Dr. Mattias is onto something about what is happening and he calls this phenomena:

Mass Formation Psychosis: So, when he says “mass” formation, you can think of this as equivalent to “crowd” formation. One can think of this as: crowd psychosis. The conditions to set up mass formation psychosis include lack of social connectedness and sensemaking as well as large amounts of latent anxiety and passive aggression. When people are inundated with a narrative that presents a plausible "object of anxiety" and strategy for coping with it, then many individuals group together to battle the object with a collective singlemindedness. This allows people to stop focusing on their own problems, avoiding personal mental anguish. Instead, they focus all their thought and energy on this new object.

As mass formation progresses, the group becomes increasingly bonded and connected. Their field of attention is narrowed and they become unable to consider alternative points of view. Leaders of the movement are revered, unable to do no wrong.

Left unabated, a society under the spell of mass formation will support a totalitarian governance structure capable of otherwise unthinkable atrocities in order to maintain compliance. A note: mass formation is different from group think. There are easy ways to fix group think by just bringing in dissenting voices and making sure you give them platforms. It isn’t so easy with mass formation. Even when the narrative falls apart, cracks in the strategy clearly aren’t solving the issue, the hypnotized crowd can’t break free of the narrative. This is what appears to be happening now with COVID-19. The solution for those in control of the narrative is to produce bigger and bigger lies to prop up the solution. Those being controlled by mass formation no longer are able to use reason to break free of the group narrative.

Of course, the obvious example of mass formation is Germany in the 1930s and 40s. How could the German people who were highly educated, very liberal in the classic sense; western thinking people… how could they go so crazy and do what they did to the Jews? How could this happen? To a civilized people? A leader of a mass formation movement will use the platform to continue to pump the group with new information to focus on. In the case of COVID-19, I like to use the term “fear porn.” Leaders, through main stream media and government channels continuously feed the “beast” with more messaging that focus and further hypnotize their adherents. We're seeing the exact same process with Ukraine now.

Studies suggest that mass formation follows a general distribution:

● 30% are brainwashed, hypnotized, indoctrinated by the group narrative.

● 40% in the middle are persuadable and may follow if no worthy alternative is perceived.

● 30% fight against the narrative.

Those that rebel and fight against the narrative, become the enemy of the brainwashed and a primary target of aggression. One of the the best ways to counter mass formation is for those against the narrative to continue to speak out against it, which serves to help break the hypnosis of some in the brainwashed group as well as persuade the persuadable middle to choose reason over mindlessness.

Dr. Desmet suggests that for something as big as COVID-19, the only way to break the mass formation psychosis is to give the crowd something bigger to focus on. He believes that totalitarianism may be that bigger issue. Of course, after COVID-19, global totalitarianism may be the biggest issue of our time."

- https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/

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Related:

• "Mattias Desmet on Our Grave Situation"

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• "FFWN: Monstrous Provocations (with Helen Buyniski)"

False Flag Weekly News

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• "COVID Idiots Now Turned Ukraine Idiots"

"How did the COVID idiots transform overnight into Ukraine idiots? If I were a crazy conspiracy theorist I would wonder whether those American bioweapons labs in Ukraine came up with a new COVID variant, genetically tailored to affect Western liberals, that infected susceptible brains with virulent Russophobia.

But that’s a pretty goofy theory, even compared to some of the stuff I hear from my friends. (“Watch the water,” anyone?) For a much more plausible psychological diagnosis, check out "The Psychology of Totalitarianism" by Matthias Desmet. He argues that “mass formation,” a a sort of totalitarian mind-virus, can rapidly affect societies racked by loneliness and isolation, meaninglessness, and free-floating anxiety, frustration, and aggression."

- https://www.unz.com