Monday, July 4, 2022

"A Buddhist Prayer of Forgiveness"

"It’s forgiveness that makes us what we are. Without forgiveness, our species would’ve annihilated itself in endless retributions. Without forgiveness, there would be no history. Without that hope, there would be no art, for every work of art is in some way an act of forgiveness. Without that dream, there would be no love, for every act of love is in some way a promise to forgive. We live on because we can love, and we love because we can forgive."
- Gregory David Roberts, "Shantaram"
"A Buddhist Prayer of Forgiveness"

"If I have harmed anyone in any way
either knowingly or unknowingly
through my own confusions
I ask their forgiveness.
If anyone has harmed me in any way
either knowingly or unknowingly
through their own confusions
I forgive them.
And if there is a situation
I am not yet ready to forgive
I forgive myself for that.
For all the ways that I harm myself,
negate, doubt, belittle myself,
judge or be unkind to myself
through my own confusions
I forgive myself."

"The Real Glory..."

"The image that comes to mind is a boxing ring. There are times when you just want that bell to ring, but you're the one who's losing. The one who's winning doesn't have that feeling. Do you have the energy and strength to face life? Life can ask more of you than you are willing to give. And then you say, 'Life is not something that should have been. I'm not going to play the game. I'm going to meditate. I'm going to call "out". There are three positions possible. One is the up-to-it, and facing the game and playing through. The second is saying, "Absolutely not. I don't want to stay in this dogfight." That's the absolute out. The third position is the one that says, "This is mixed of good and evil. I'm on the side of the good. I accept the world with corrections. And may the world be the way I like it. And it's good for me and my friends." There are the only three positions."
- Joseph Campbell
“The real glory is being knocked to your knees and then coming back.
That’s real glory. That’s the essence of it.”
- Vince Lombardi
“How Buster Douglas Beat Mike Tyson” 
by johnnysmack7

“Going into the fight, Mike Tyson was the undefeated and undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. He held the WBC, WBA, and IBF titles. Despite the several controversies that marked Tyson’s profile at the time, such as his notorious, abusive relationship with Robin Givens; the contractual battles between longtime manager Bill Cayton and promoter Don King; and Tyson’s departure from longtime trainer Kevin Rooney, Mike Tyson was still lethal in the ring, scoring a 93-second knockout against Carl “The Truth” Williams in his previous fight. Most considered this fight to be a warm-up bout for Tyson before meeting up with then-undefeated number 1 heavyweight contender Evander Holyfield (who was ringside for the fight). Tyson was viewed as such a dominant heavyweight that he was not only viewed as the world’s top heavyweight, but often as the number one fighter in the world pound-for-pound (including by “Ring Magazine”), a rarity for heavyweights.

Buster Douglas was ranked as just the #7 heavyweight by Ring Magazine, and had met with mixed success in his professional boxing career up to that point. His previous title fight was against Tony Tucker in 1987, in which he was TKO’d in the 10th round. However, a string of six consecutive wins gave him the opportunity to fight Tyson. In the time leading up to the fight, Douglas faced a number of setbacks, including the death of his mother, Lula Pearl, 23 days before the fight. Additionally, the mother of his son was facing a severe kidney ailment, and he had contracted the flu on the day before the fight.”
Full screen mode recommended.
At 2:40 of this video Douglas takes a tremendous uppercut and goes down, kneeling to clear his head; look closely...you can see him wondering to himself if he should get up. No one at all expected him to, but he reached for something deep inside himself, found an inner strength perhaps even he was unaware of, and got back up to continue the fight. The rest, as they say, is history… and real glory. – CP

100-Year-old Veteran Worried About America: "We haven't got the country we had when I was raised."

Full screen recommended.
"100-Year-old Veteran Worried About America:
'We haven't got the country we had when I was raised.'"
On his 100th birthday, Marine and World War II veteran Carl Dekel said he loves his country and that's why he's worried about the future of America. During an emotional interview, he said he worries future generations won't have the same opportunities he had, despite having to fight and watch his fellow countrymen die on the front lines. Watch and read more about Dekel's service and his 100th birthday celebration in Plant City, Florida:
What we once were... God help us...
Full screen recommended.
Ray Charles, "America The Beautiful"

"How It Really Is"

Savor this vacation...

"Pretending..."

“Human beings are, necessarily, actors who cannot become something before they have first pretended to be it; and they can be divided, not into the hypocritical and the sincere, but into the sane who know they are acting and the mad who do not.”
- W.H Auden

"A dog might feel as majestic as a lion, might bark as loud as a roar, might have a heart as mighty and brave as a Lion's heart, but at the end of the day, a dog is a dog and a lion is a lion."
 - Charlyn Khatero

Bill Bonner, "America, Now and Then"

"America, Now and Then"
From humble beginnings to total control, 
a look at whence we came and where we're headed...
by Bill Bonner

Youghal, Ireland -  "Today is a holiday in the USA. Americans celebrate what they used to be. And pretend they still are. But back then, the government was microscopic. No Department of Energy. No Environmental Protection Agency. No troops all over the world. No foreign wars. No unpayable debt, unresponsive bureaucracy or unworkable plans. Washington, DC, was still farmland.

With the important exception of the slaves, Americans were free to pursue happiness in their own way. And if they didn’t get ahold of it, it was their own damned fault. There were no “Independence” cards. No unemployment benefits. No ‘disability’ or gimmie-stimmie checks. The government did not aim to save people… nor save the planet. It neither led nor prodded; it was too feeble to do much of either.

Today, it’s a different story. Whether it is the inflation rate… poverty… the business cycle… racism… diversity… drugs… crop yields… working conditions… medical care… airline safety… the governments of foreign nations, the borders between them and who can trade with whom – the Feds are on the case. With so much time and money devoted to stamping it out, it is amazing that there is any evil left in America at all.

Total Control: But now we focus on what must be the feds’ boldest – and potentially, most disastrous – program. Forget invading Russia! Forget the Cultural Revolution! They are aiming higher than ever – trying to control the world’s weather. We’re just wondering how it will turn out.

The feds want to wean the world off fossil fuel. This, they say, will reduce carbon emissions and keep temperatures from rising. We offer no opinion as to whether this is true or not. Nobody really knows; it’s never been done before. We only note that reversing the Industrial Revolution is not risk-free. And if the program succeeds, it will be one for the record books, a remarkable exception to the general rule: the more ambitious the government program, the greater the calamity that follows.

Will it turn out like WWI… the war that was supposed to make the world ‘safe for democracy’ and ended up killing 20 million people? Instead of promoting democracies, it led to a Bolshevik revolution in Russia and a fascist crackpot in Berlin.

Or maybe the fight against higher temperatures will go like the fight against alcohol after WWI. There were a lot of very good reasons for wanting to ban booze. But prohibition turned drinkers into criminals… gave a big boost to the mob… and may have actually increased consumption of alcohol!

Or maybe we’re looking at something more like China’s Great Leap Forward. That program was supposed to increase food production (by planting seeds closer together)… and bring China into the modern age (with backyard steel furnaces). Result: 50 million people starved to death.

Unexamined Consequences: So, let’s look at what an energy cut-off, in a poor country, looks like. VICE reports: "Jason Anthony has been in a two-kilometer fuel queue for two days now. In the capital city of Colombo, in the crisis-hit South Asian nation of Sri Lanka, the 35-year-old sleeps in his tuktuk when he’s exhausted, or sits on the pavement with other drivers who have been there for several days too. When the fuel station closes for the day, he walks several kilometers back home, only to return the next day to queue up. He showed VICE World News his makeshift home by the road over a video call.

“I was forced to quit my job as a tourist guide in February when things got bad here and tourists stopped coming. I had to become a tuktuk driver,” Anthony said. “Now, the fuel is so scarce that I’ve not worked in the last month. I can barely make ends meet at home but I’m forced to spend my days at fuel stations.”

Last week, newly-appointed Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe admitted at a parliament meeting that the country’s economy has hit rock bottom. “We are now facing a far more serious situation beyond mere shortages of fuel, gas, electricity and food,” he said. “Our economy has completely collapsed.” “Demonstrations have continued over the past month,” adds The Guardian, “as the country faces its worst economic crisis in 70 years with food, fuel, and medicine in short supply…”

Meanwhile, Argentina – always ahead of the curve – is suffering from rolling blackouts and fuel shortages, too. When we left in May, gas stations were running out of gas. Lines were forming. Rationing was proposed. The country has substantial reserves of oil. But the gaucho feds rigged the price of gasoline (keeping it low) to appease the voters. And with an inflation rate of 50%, even the state-owned oil companies can’t raise the capital needed to drill for oil and refine it into gasoline.

Almost Worthless: The story is much the same in Venezuela, which has the largest oil reserves in the world. For years, the country kept the price of gasoline below the cost of making it. And it paid oil workers in currency that was almost worthless. The employees got even. Parts disappeared. Tools disappeared. Trucks disappeared. Then, the employees disappeared…and finally, the gasoline itself disappeared. Even natural gas – for cooking dinner – disappeared; which was not such a problem, because there wasn’t anything left to cook anyway.

None of these countries were always in such desperate straits. How did they get that way? Government policies – regulations, restrictions, corruption, incompetence, a big idea, a few bad decisions… and a little bad luck. Could that happen in the ‘Western’ world… to modern, fully developed countries? Imagine Sri Lanka’s problems… or Venezuela’s problems… imagine a Great Leap Forward to a Post-Fossil Fuel World projected onto America, France, Britain and Germany.

What could go wrong? The same thing that went wrong in Sri Lanka, Argentina and Venezuela? We don’t know. But we’re going to find out."

Must View! "I See A Very Ominous And Scary Economy Ahead - Everything Bubble Will Burst Leaving Millions Broke"

Full screen recommended.
Jeremiah Babe, 7/4/22:
"I See A Very Ominous And Scary Economy Ahead - 
Everything Bubble Will Burst Leaving Millions Broke"
Comments here:
Related:

"We Are Witnessing A Stunning Breakdown Of Law And Order, And The Overwhelmed Police Seem Powerless To Stop It"

"We Are Witnessing A Stunning Breakdown Of Law And Order,
 And The Overwhelmed Police Seem Powerless To Stop It"
by Michael Snyder

"This country is not the same place that it was ten years ago. In fact, it is not even close to the same place that it was five years ago. Violent crime is out of control in many of our major cities, and there aren’t enough police to handle it all. So in many cases a police officer literally never shows up when someone reports a serious crime. Unfortunately, the number of serious crimes just keeps going up. In 2020, we witnessed the worst spike in violent crime in U.S. history, but 2021 was supposed to be a year when rates of violent crime started going back down. Of course that didn’t happen, and now 2022 is on pace to be even worse than either 2020 or 2021…

"Violent crimes are on the rise in six of America’s major cities and set to outpace the already historic levels of 2021 violent crime. Baltimore, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Atlanta, and New York City are all on pace to break their 2021 levels of violent crime halfway through this year, with the nation’s largest city leading the group, according to crime data reviewed by Fox News. At this point, violent crime is up 25.8 percent in New York City compared to the first half of last year."

That is staggering. Of course New York City still has a way to go before it gets as bad as Chicago. In the Windy City, there are hundreds of thousands of “high-priority emergency service calls” each year, and last year there were no police available to respond to those calls 52 percent of the time…"New data uncovered by Wirepoints through public records requests to the Chicago Police Department (CPD) reveal that in 2021 there were 406,829 incidents of high-priority emergency service calls for which there were no police available to respond. That was 52 percent of the 788,000 high-priority 911 service calls dispatched in 2021."

So if you are the victim of a violent crime in Chicago, your odds of having a police officer available to help you are about the same as guessing a coin flip correctly. The following is a partial list of “high-priority emergency service calls” for which no police officer was available in 2021…

14,955 – assaults in progress.
17,828 – batteries in progress.
16,350 – person with a gun.
5,210 – person with a knife.
12,787 – shots fired (reports from people, not the city’s automated “Shotspotter”)
1,352 – person shot.
887 – person stabbed.
14,265 – domestic battery.

Despite numbers such as these, there are lots of people out there that are relentlessly calling for the police to be “defunded”. Do they want total anarchy? Because that is what would happen. Our streets are already bad enough. As you can see from this video, police in Chicago are having a really difficult time even protecting themselves at this point.


But Chicago actually doesn’t have the highest murder rate in the nation. That honor goes to New Orleans…"It’s no secret that New Orleans struggles with violent crime, but new statistics paint a grim picture of the Crescent City being on pace to be the murder capital of the United States if trends don’t change in 2022.

According to data from AH Datalytics, compiled using the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program, New Orleans has a per capita year-to-date homicide rate of 72 per 100,000 residents. The next three U.S. cities behind New Orleans are Birmingham with a per capita homicide rate of 59 per 100,000 residents and Baltimore and St. Louis, each with a per capita homicide rate of 58 per 100,000 residents."

So far this year, the murder rate in New Orleans is up 44 percent. But the corporate media is trying to convince us that all of this is perfectly “normal”, aren’t they? Do you believe them?

One man that will never be fooled is World War II veteran Carl Spurlin Deke. He just turned 100 years old on June 29th, and when he was interviewed by a local news outlet he boldly declared that the U.S. “is going to hell in a handbasket”…"Deke’s gratitude for his life quickly turned into an emotional confession about his concern about the entitlement and ungrateful grievance erupting from younger generations saying, “People don’t realize what they have. They b*tch about it. And then nowadays, I am so upset because the things we did, the things we fought for, and the boys that died for it, it’s all going down the drain.” Deke began weeping as he added “Our country is going to hell in a handbasket. We haven’t got the country we had when I was raised, not at all.” The 100-year-old WWII vet cried for those growing up in America today saying, “Nobody will have the opportunity I had. It’s just not the same. That’s not what our boys, that’s not what they died for.”

Sadly, he is 100 percent correct. We are in an advanced state of decline, and it is getting worse with each passing day. If things are this bad now, what will this country look like once economic conditions deteriorate quite a bit more?

Previous generations of young Americans were equipped to handle adversity. This generation of young Americans is not. The thin veneer of civilization that we all used to be able to take for granted is steadily disappearing, and our society is evolving into a horror show that would have been unrecognizable to previous generations. If we would have done things differently, we could have gotten much different results. Our choices have consequences, and now most of our major cities are being transformed into crime-infested hellholes right in front of our eyes."

"Strange Prices At Publix! Kroger VS Publix - Which Is Cheaper?"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures with Danno, 7/4/22:
"Strange Prices At Publix! 
Kroger VS Publix - Which Is Cheaper?"
"In today's vlog we are at Publix and are noticing massive price increases! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices, and a lot of empty shelves! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"
Comments here:

Gregory Mannarino, "Markets A Look Ahead: A Bizarre Phenomenon Is Occurring - Hidden In Plain Sight"

Gregory Mannarino, 7/4/22:
"Markets A Look Ahead: A Bizarre Phenomenon 
Is Occurring - Hidden In Plain Sight"
Comments here:
Related, highly recommended:

Sunday, July 3, 2022

"15 Signs That The U.S. Economy Is Starting To Slow Down Dramatically"

Full screen recommended.
"15 Signs That The U.S. Economy Is
 Starting To Slow Down Dramatically"
by Epic Economist

"The pace at which economic conditions are deteriorating is shocking the experts. Just a few months ago, authorities were saying everything was under control and things would soon start improving again. But since the start of 2022, a major shift has taken place. Most of the headlines have been about the highest consumer prices in decades and how poorly American families are faring in this economy. To make things worse, huge stock market declines and a cooling housing market are having a major impact on our economic activity. At this point, consumers can't afford to meet their basic needs. Home sales and auto sales are dropping like a rock, business bankruptcies, layoffs, and unemployment claims are ticking back up, and the U.S. middle-class continues to get squeezed.

At this point, a series of new Fed surveys are showing that manufacturing activity in the U.S. is dramatically slowing down. A new report released by the Richmond Fed indicated that factory activity contracted in the U.S. last month, with the Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity index dropping 23 points from a positive reading of 14 in the month prior to a minus nine, the lowest reading since May 2020, when much of the economy was still suffering from business shutdowns. In a separate report, the New York Fed’s Empire State survey of manufacturing showed that business activity sharply plunged in June. The index of general business conditions fell 36.2 points to a negative reading of 11.6 last month. “New orders declined and fell into negative territory. Shipments fell at the fastest pace since early in the pandemic and also turned negative. Both the prices paid and prices received indexes are still elevated, indicating strong inflationary pressures remain despite the slowdown in orders,” the report revealed.

New data shows that the U.S. economy has shrunk at an even faster rate than expected during the first quarter of 2022. The Bureau of Economic Analysis's third and final estimate of first-quarter GDP was released on Wednesday morning, and it showed a 1.6% annualized drop in economic growth in the first three months of 2022, more than the 1.4% previously reported and which was expected by economists, according to estimates from Bloomberg. "The economy is slowly sliding in the direction of weakness as consumers are buying less to keep GDP afloat," FWDBONDS Chief Economist Christopher Rupkey stressed in a note. Right now, optimism is being replaced by a growing feeling of frustration and disbelief as more and more people started realizing that the economic downturn that is now upon us will ultimately be even worse than what we experienced a decade ago.

Most of us are working as hard as we can, but our living standards continue to be systematically destroyed by rampant inflation, soaring everyday expenses, rising mortgage rates, crashing financial markets, and the reckless policies of our leaders. And the worst part of it all is that we are still only in the very early chapters of this crisis. It looks like the second half of this year will be even more turbulent than the first half, and that is going to have severe implications for all of us. For that reason, today, we gathered new numbers that show just how profound is the economic slowdown of 2022."
Comments here:

Happy 4th of July!

 
Have a safe, happy and peaceful 4th of July, folks!

Musical Interlude: Jason Mraz, "I Won't Give Up"

Full screen recommended.
Jason Mraz, "I Won't Give Up"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"In the heart of the Rosette Nebula lies a bright open cluster of stars that lights up the nebula. The stars of NGC 2244 formed from the surrounding gas only a few million years ago. The featured image taken in January using multiple exposures and very specific colors of Sulfur (shaded red), Hydrogen (green), and Oxygen (blue), captures the central region in tremendous detail.
A hot wind of particles streams away from the cluster stars and contributes to an already complex menagerie of gas and dust filaments while slowly evacuating the cluster center. The Rosette Nebula's center measures about 50 light-years across, lies about 5,200 light-years away, and is visible with binoculars towards the constellation of the Unicorn (Monoceros)."

"When the Sky Is No More Than Remembered Light: Mark Strand Reads His Poignant Poem 'The End'”

"When the Sky Is No More Than Remembered Light:
Mark Strand Reads His Poignant Poem 'The End'”
- by Maria Popova

“Not every man knows what is waiting for him, or what he shall sing,
when the ship he is on slips into darkness, there at the end.”

“It’s such a lucky accident, having been born, that we’re almost obliged to pay attention,” the Pulitzer-winning poet Mark Strand (April 11, 1934–November 29, 2014) observed in contemplating the artist’s task to bear witness to the universe. And yet this universe in which we live is predicated on impermanence, and the lucky accident of our existence is crowned with the certitude of its end from the start. Why, then, are we always so shocked by the finitude of all we hold dear and, above all, by our own mortality? Few are those who can say with sincerity, like Rilke did an exquisite 1923 letter, that “death is our friend precisely because it brings us into absolute and passionate presence with all that is here, that is natural, that is love.” Instead, we spend our lives shuddering at any reminder of our inevitable end, unsalved by the miracle of having lived at all.

Montaigne articulated the central paradox of being perfectly in 16th-century meditation on death and the art of living: “To lament that we shall not be alive a hundred years hence, is the same folly as to be sorry we were not alive a hundred years ago.” Still, lament we do, and some of our greatest art gives voice to that lamentation.

That paradox is what Strand explores with transcendent courage and curiosity in his poem “The End,” found in his "Collected Poems" (public library) - the trove of truth and beauty that gave us Strand’s love letter to dreams.

In this hauntingly beautiful recording, courtesy of The New York Public Library, an aged Strand reads his poignant poem shortly before he repaid his own debt to mortality:

"The End"
by Mark Strand

"Not every man knows what he shall sing at the end,
Watching the pier as the ship sails away, or what it will seem like
When he’s held by the sea’s roar, motionless, there at the end,
Or what he shall hope for once it is clear that he’ll never go back.

When the time has passed to prune the rose or caress the cat,
When the sunset torching the lawn and the full moon icing it down
No longer appear, not every man knows what he’ll discover instead.

When the weight of the past leans against nothing, and the sky
Is no more than remembered light, and the stories of cirrus
And cumulus come to a close, and all the birds are suspended in flight,
Not every man knows what is waiting for him, or what he shall sing
When the ship he is on slips into darkness, there at the end."

Complement with the lyrical "Duck, Death and the Tulip", Marcus Aurelius on mortality and the key to living fully, and the great Zen master Seung Sahn Soen-sa’s explanation of death and the life-force to a child, then revisit Strand’s celebration of clouds and everything they mean."

Chet Raymo, “We Are Such Stuff...”

“We Are Such Stuff...”
by Chet Raymo

“Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometimes voices,
That, if I then had wak'd after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again.”

"Caliban is talking to Stephano and Trinculo in Shakespeare's “Tempest”, telling them not to be "afeard" of the mysterious place they find themselves, an island seemingly beset with magic, strangeness, ineffable presences. And you and I, and, yes, all of us, find ourselves inexplicably thrown up on this island that is the world, and we too, if we are attentive, hear the strange music, the sounds and sweet airs, that seems to come from nowhere and everywhere

No, I'm not talking about the usual ubiquitous clamor, the roar of internal combustion, the blare of the television, the beeping of mobile phones. I'm not talking about the televangelists, the blathering politicians, the twitterers and bloggers (including this one). I'm not even talking about the exquisite music of Mozart, the poetry of Wordsworth, the theories of Einstein.

I'm talking about the sounds we hear in utter silence, in moments of repose, in the heart of darkness, when we are a little bit afraid, disoriented, off kilter. A strange music that comes from beyond our knowing, a felt meaning. You've heard it. I've heard it. You'd have to be deaf not to have heard it. 

Where we differ is how we describe it. Mostly, we give its source a name. Angels. Fairies. Gods or demons. Yahweh. Allah. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Nixies, E.T.s, shades and shadows. Naiads, dryads, Ariel and Puck. A host of invisible creatures who are, in one way or another, images of ourselves. And, in naming, we are a little less afraid.

And some of us are just content to listen, to take delight. Having woken to the inexplicable mystery of the world- the sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not- we let the music lull us back into a sweet slumber, a kind of dreamless dream, a reverie. Does reverie share a deep root with reverence? I don't know.”

The Poet: David Wagoner, "Getting There"

"Getting There"

"You take a final step and, look, suddenly
You're there. You've arrived
At the one place all your drudgery was aimed for:
This common ground
Where you stretch out, pressing your cheek to sandstone.

What did you want to be?
You'll remember soon.
You feel like tinder under a burning glass,
A luminous point of change.
The sky is pulsing against the cracked horizon,
Holding it firm till the arrival of stars
In time with your heartbeats.
Like wind etching rock, you've made a lasting impression
On the self you were,
By having come all this way through all this welter
Under your own power,
Though your traces on a map would make an unpromising
Meandering lifeline.

What have you learned so far? You'll find out later,
Telling it haltingly like a dream,
That lost traveler's dream under the last hill
Where through the night you'll take your time out of mind
To unburden yourself
Of elements along elementary paths
By the break of morning.

You've earned this worn-down, hard, incredible sight
Called Here and Now.
Now, what you make of it means everything,
Means starting over:
The life in your hands is neither here nor there
But getting there,
So you're standing again and breathing, beginning another
Journey without regret
Forever, being your own unpeaceable kingdom,
The end of endings."

~ David Wagoner

The Daily "Near You?"

Farmington, Maine, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Always Remember..."

"We live in radical times surrounded by tasks that seem impossible. It has become our collective fate to be alive in a time of great tragedies, to live in a period of overwhelming disasters and to stand at the edge of sweeping changes. The river of life is flooding before us, and a tide of poisons affect the air we breathe and the waters we drink and even tarnish the dreams of those who are young and as yet innocent. The snake-bitten condition has already spread throughout the collective body.

However, it is in troubled times that it becomes most important to remember that the wonder of life places the medicine of the self near where the poison dwells. The gifts always lie near the wounds, the remedies are often made from poisonous substances, and love often appears where deep losses become acknowledged. Along the arc of healing the wounds and the poisons of life are created the exact opportunities for bringing out all the medicines and making things whole again."
- Michael Meade, "Fate And Destiny"

"Hell Is On This Earth..."

“Many people don’t fear a hell after this life and that’s because hell is on this earth, in this life. In this life there are many forms of hell that people walk through, sometimes for a day, sometimes for years, sometimes it doesn’t end. The kind of hell that doesn’t burn your skin but burns your soul. The kind of hell that people can’t see, but the flames lap at your spirit. Heaven is a place on earth, too! It’s where you feel freedom, where you’re not afraid. No more chains. And you hear your soul laughing.”
- C. JoyBell C.
- John Milton, 

"A Nation of Sheep, Ruled By Wolves, Owned By Pigs: Americans Have Tamely Surrendered Their Liberties"

"A Nation of Sheep, Ruled By Wolves, Owned By Pigs:
Americans Have Tamely Surrendered Their Liberties"
by Gen Z Conservative

"Americans, by and large, have not kept themselves informed, and adhered to the limits the Constitution imposes upon our government, which has resulted in more than half the problems we face today as a country, a nation of sheep. And, because the voters themselves do not know, or care, what the Constitution says, they elect candidates who have no intention, or desire, to support and defend it — believing in “the end justifies the means”. It is a vicious cycle that repeats itself every election cycle and won’t stop until the people take the time to learn what the drafters of the Constitution intended when they wrote it.

So, as Lysander Spooner so aptly said, “But whether the Constitution really be one thing or another, this much is certain – that it has either authorizes such a government as we have had or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.” I could almost stop right there, saying that is how I feel about our system of government and the document that established it…but I won’t.

Even though the Constitution outlined a fundamentally sound system of government, in theory, the problem is that it was the creation of a group of men who held differing views on what government should look like and what powers it should hold.

Ben Franklin explained it best when he said: “For when you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men, all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly can a perfect production be expected? It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does; and I think it will astonish our enemies, who are waiting with confidence to hear that our councils are confounded like those of the Builders of Babel; and that our States are on the point of separation, only to meet hereafter for the purpose of cutting one another’s throats. Thus I consent, Sir, to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure, that it is not the best. The opinions I have had of its errors, I sacrifice to the public good. I have never whispered a syllable of them abroad. Within these walls they were born, and here they shall die. If every one of us in returning to our Constituents were to report the objections he has had to it, and endeavor to gain partizans in support of them, we might prevent its being generally received …” (Source: Franklin’s Final Address to the Constitutional Convention.

There were many concerns expressed by these patriots who opposed the Constitution, but the underlying theme that can be found in most of their writings is that the Constitution created a consolidation of the States into a Union under a strong centralized government.

In a more perfect union, a more perfect Republic, our sovereign and independent states would reassert the 9th and 10th Amendments more forcefully, since they have been abrogated out of existence by federal laws and judicial activism; the states should unite themselves together by a perpetual confederacy, without ceasing to be, each individually, a perfect state. They will together constitute a federal republic: their joint deliberations will not impair the sovereignty of each member, though they may, in certain respects, put some restraint on the exercise of it, in virtue of voluntary engagements. A person does not cease to be free and independent when he is obliged to fulfill engagements which he has voluntarily contracted.

One of the primary concerns of the anti-Federalists was: Did the Constitution do away with the status quo and create a consolidation of the States into a single, indivisible Union; or Republic, or did the States still retain all powers which were not expressly given; allowing the government to intrude into and interfere with the lives and liberties of the people.

On June 5, 1788, in a speech opposing ratification of the Constitution, Patrick Henry expressed those exact sentiments as follows: “I rose yesterday to ask a question which arose in my own mind. When I asked that question, I thought the meaning of my interrogation was obvious: The fate of this question and of America may depend on this: Have they said, we, the States? Have they made a proposal of a compact between states? If they had, this would be a confederation: It is otherwise most clearly a consolidated government. The question turns, Sir, on that poor little thing-the expression, We, the people, instead of the States, of America.“

It should be obvious, that the people had already established republics by their having created their own State Legislatures, so they actually had no need to create another Republic for the purpose of governing them all. The purpose for which the delegates were sent to Philadelphia was to arrive at suggestions for amendments, in order to make the existing Confederation Government adequate for the needs of the country; not to toss the existing form of government in the trash heap and replace it with one of their creation.

If the powers given to this new form of government were to be exercised primarily upon the States, then why did the drafters of the Constitution demand that it be ratified by the voice of the people; as it was the States whose authority would be further restricted, or usurped, by the creation of this new form of government. However, if this new system of government was, in fact, a consolidation and a diminishing of the sovereignty of the States, then it would make sense that the people must give their consent to it.

Yet, in Federalist 45 James Madison attempted to ensure the people that the States would retain their authority over the lives and liberties of the people by saying: “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected.

The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.”

Most Americans believe the Bill of Rights protects certain rights against governmental interference. That is only partially true since the Bill of Rights are amendments to the Constitution which created our federal government; not the constitutions which framed the various State governments. Therefore, technically they only apply to the federal government. However, an argument can also be made that, since the Constitution itself is the Supreme Law of the land, any amendment to it could be implied to apply to the States as well.

Keeping things simple, let’s just say that the Bill of Rights only applies to the federal government. How is it then that the government can dictate what kind of guns private citizens may own; how is it that the Supreme Court — which is PART of the federal government — decides whether a State may display the Ten Commandments, or that children be prohibited from praying in school; how is it that the federal government can violate the 4th Amendment by spying upon the private conversations of every man, woman, and child in this country, just to keep us safe from terrorism?

There exists a whole list of things the federal government has done which are not among the powers listed in Article 1, Section 8 as those powers are given to Congress; which in case you have forgotten, is the lawmaking body of our government; not the President as so many seem to think.

This has all been done because of the concept of implied powers; something introduced while George Washington was President. That occurred because the Constitution itself did not provide specific enough limitations upon the powers it was granting government; leaving loopholes by which government has expanded its power well beyond those originally intended. So, if that is true, then the Constitution itself failed the people as it did not provide sufficient means for the people to resist the encroaching powers of government and to ward off tyranny and oppression.

Not one individual can provide me with the Article and Clause that grants any of us the authority to arrest and charge any of our elected officials, for the crime of violating the Constitution, because such a clause simply does not exist. And, it is this oversight that has resulted in the Constitution’s failure, by not providing the means to oppose a government that no longer adheres to any kind of limits upon their power and authority.

I only care whether the party that is in control adheres to the Constitutional limitations imposed upon them and seeks to protect and defend my rights…that and nothing more, and both parties have failed miserably in this duty. If the government does not do this, then I revoke my consent to being governed by it.

Why do Americans still support a government that no longer resembles or represents the ideas and beliefs which led our Founders to seek their independence from a tyrant? Why do they so meekly submit to tyranny and oppression today? Is there not a drop of patriotic blood left in their bodies?

One certainly must wonder what has kept Americans from marching on D.C, with rifles in hand and sixteen feet lengths of rope, so criminals like Obama, Biden, Hillary Clinton, Loretta Lynch, James Comey, John Brennan, Samantha Power, Andrew McCabe, Robert Mueller, John Kerry, Susan Rice, Alexander Vindman and so many others can be hung from the highest tree or the balcony of the Capitol Building; especially in light of the current double standard of “law” applied in America.

All I see is a nation of sheep who meekly obey the commands of their masters. What has become of the land of the free and the home of the brave?

I seek and work to restore America — along with any and all like-minded Americans — to Her Founding Principles and more of an Originalist approach towards the implementation of the U.S. Constitution, which has been bastardized far and away from anything ever intended by the Founding Fathers.

If Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, and Thomas Jefferson were alive today they would either have fled the country, or they would be serving time in Guantanamo Bay as domestic terrorists, because our government has become a soul-sucking, liberty killing monster and the bulk of the people of this country no longer seem to truly care about limited government or individual liberty, seeking only comfort and security, whether it’s the Democrats or Republicans providing it. And it makes me sick to death to watch."

"Intense Cognitive Workout, Enter a Highly Focused Mental State - Isochronic Tones"

Full screen recommended.
Headphones are NOT REQUIRED for this video/track.
Jason Lewis - Mind Amend,
"Intense Cognitive Workout, 
Enter a Highly Focused Mental State - Isochronic Tones"

"This is a high-intensity audio brainwave entrainment session, using isochronic tones. Use this video to increase focus and concentration while studying, working and doing any mentally taxing activity. Listen to this track with your eyes open while doing the task/activity you want to focus on. Although headphones are not required you may find they produce a more intense effect, because they help to block out distracting external sounds.

Isochronic tones are a fast and effective audio-based way to stimulate your brain. Among many of the benefits, they can help improve focus, relaxation, energy levels, sleep and more, without taking drugs or needing any special equipment. What isochronic tones essentially do is guide your dominant brainwave activity to a different frequency while you are listening to them, allowing you to influence and change your mental state and how you feel."
"Isochronic Tones –
How They Work, the Benefits and the Research"
This is a brainwave entrainment audio session using isochronic tones combined with music. The isochronic tones are the repetitive beats you can hear on top of the music throughout the track. If you are new to this type of audio brainwave entrainment, find out how isochronic tones work and how they compare to binaural beats here: 
Works for me... Listen folks, whether you want to know it or not we're in the fight of our lives, for our lives right now, and it's going to get unimaginably worse. Some of you reading this will not survive, and I may not either, so I'll take any edge I can get, and you should too... 
- CP

“Don't Just"

"The Psychology Of Totalitarianism" (Excerpt)

"The Psychology Of Totalitarianism"
by Dr. Joseph Mercola

Excerpt:
"Story At-A-Glance:
• Mass formation is a form of mass hypnosis that emerges when specific conditions are met, and almost always precede the rise of totalitarian systems.

• Four central conditions that need to exist in order for mass formation to arise are widespread loneliness and lack of social bonding, which leads to experiencing life as meaningless, which leads to widespread free-floating anxiety and discontent, which leads to widespread free-floating frustration and aggression, which results in feeling out of control.

• Under mass formation, a population enters a hypnotic-type trance that makes them willing to sacrifice anything, including their lives and their freedom.

• Key strategies to disrupt the mass formation process are to speak out against it and to practice nonviolent resistance. Dissenting voices keep totalitarian systems from deteriorating into abject inhumanity where people are willing to commit heinous atrocities.

Ultimately, “totalitarianism” refers to the ambition of the system. It wants to eliminate the ability of individual choice, and in so doing, it destroys the core of what it is to be human. The quicker a system destroys the individual, the sooner the system collapses

Professor Mattias Desmet, a Belgian psychologist with a master’s degree in statistics, gained worldwide recognition toward the end of 2021, when he presented the concept of “mass formation” as an explanation for the absurd and irrational behavior we were seeing with regard to the COVID pandemic and its countermeasures. He also warned that mass formation gives rise to totalitarianism, which is the topic of his new book, "The Psychology of Totalitarianism." Desmet’s work was further popularized by Dr. Robert Malone, whose appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast was viewed by about 50 million people.

But as the search term “mass formation” exploded in popularity, Google responded by manipulating the search engine results in an attempt to discredit Desmet and show people in their search results information that would cause them to discount the importance of this work. Why? Because Google is at the core of the global cabal and movement toward totalitarianism.

Understanding the Psychology of the Times Is Crucial: Those who refuse to learn from history are bound to repeat it, they say, and this appears particularly pertinent in the present day because, as explained by Desmet, if we don’t understand how mass formation occurs and what it leads to, we cannot prevent it. How did Desmet reach the conclusion that we were in the process of mass formation? He explains: “In the beginning of the Corona crisis, back in February 2020, I started to study the statistics on the mortality rates of the virus, the infection fatality rates, the case fatality rate and so on, and immediately, I got the impression - and with me, several world-famous statisticians, such as John Ioannidis of Stanford, for instance - that the statistics and mathematical models used dramatically overrated the danger of the virus.

Immediately, I wrote an opinion paper trying to bring some of the mistakes to people's attention. But, I noticed immediately that people just didn't want to know. It was as if they didn't see even the most blatant mistakes at the level of the statistics that were used. People just were not capable of seeing it.”

This early experience made him decide to focus on the psychological mechanisms at play in society, and he became convinced that what we were seeing were in fact the effects of a large-scale process of mass formation, because the most salient characteristic of this psychological trend is that it makes people radically blind to everything that goes against the narrative they believe in.

They basically become incapable of distancing themselves from their beliefs, and therefore cannot take in or evaluate new data. Desmet continues: “Another very specific characteristic is that this process of mass formation makes people willing to radically sacrifice everything that is important to them - even their health, their wealth, the health of their children, the future of their children.

When someone is in the grip of a process of mass formation, he becomes radically willing to sacrifice all his individual interest. A third characteristic, to name only a few, is that once people are in the grip of a process of mass formation, they typically show a tendency of cruelty towards people who do not buy into the narrative, or do not go along with the narrative. They typically do so as if it is an ethical duty.

In the end, they are typically inclined, first, to stigmatize, and then, to eliminate, to destroy, the people who do not go along with the masses. And that's why it is so extremely important to understand the psychological mechanisms at work, because if you understand the mechanisms at work, you can avoid the mass formation to become so deep that people reach this critical point in which they really are fanatically convinced that they should destroy everyone that does not go along with them.

So, it's extremely important to understand the mechanism. If you understand it, you can make sure that the crowd, the mass, will first destroy itself, or will exhaust itself, before it starts to destroy the people that do not go along with the mass. So, it's of crucial importance, and that's what my book describes. It describes how a mass, a crowd, emerges in a society, under which conditions it emerges, what the mechanisms of the process of mass formation are, and what you can do about it. That's extremely important. I will mention this from the beginning.

Usually, it is impossible to wake up the masses. Once a process of mass formation emerges in a society, it's extremely difficult to wake the masses up. But, [waking them up is] important, [because] you can avoid the masses and their leaders becoming so fanatically convinced of their narrative that they start to destroy the people who do not go along with them.”

Indeed, to those of us who did not fall under the spell of the irrational COVID narrative, the cruelty with which political leadership, media and people at large tried to force compliance was shockingly abhorrent. Many were physically attacked, and some even killed, simply for not wearing a face mask, which we knew was a useless prevention strategy."
Please view video and this complete article here:

"Imagine If You Will..."

“Imagine if you will - and you will - a mushroom cloud bigger than anything that you currently see out that window. Imagine jet planes and bombers the size of apartment complexes and hypersonic missiles dropping technological marvels of deconstruction upon this city, this world, all around the epicenter of a blooming death cloud. Imagine that mushroom coming to a head, knowing that it is filled with unimaginable heat and concrete, dust, papers - human faces, eyes, and brains. Gray matter filling the radioactive cloud with electricity as all that is inside us leaves us and becomes one with the mushroom. Glass will melt and connect with steel, and we will melt and connect with each other as everything that made us whole is criminally dissected and rearranged. Everything below us, from the sewer tunnels to the subway line, will be consumed into the cloud and jettisoned into the stratosphere, where it will become nothing but silken ash, hardened to a black substance, and turned back to a black dust, transfixed into a black nothing. A stinking, glowing crater all that remains of where you had your first kiss and told someone that you loved them. A mess of a world where everything you’ve ever done quickly becomes all that you’ll ever do.”
- Michael A. Ferro, "TITLE 13: A Novel"
“The Americans have no sense of doom, none whatever.
 They do not recognize doom when they see it.”
- James Baldwin, "Giovanni's Room"