"Endgame Ukraine; Putin's Battleplan" (Excerpt)

"Endgame Ukraine; Putin's Battleplan"

by Mike Whitney

Excerpt: “Ukraine’s unquestioned strategic center of gravity is its western corridors to the Polish border where the vast majority of its war support enters the country. Their operational center of gravity is their resupply lines emanating eastwards from Kyiv to Ukraine’s various frontline positions. Without those two corridors, it would be nearly impossible for Kyiv to sustain wartime operations for more than a few weeks. Putin, therefore, may calculate the best use of those 218,000 additional troops will be to launch a three-pronged axis to cut both of those supply routes.” - Lt. Colonel Daniel L. Davis, Senior Fellow for Defense Priorities and Contributing Editor at 1945

“I want to emphasize again that all tasks of the special military operation will be unconditionally fulfilled.” - Russian President Vladimir Putin

"Another day of large-scale missile attacks on Ukraine’s hobbled energy infrastructure has plunged much of the country into darkness. The relentless attacks - which continued through the night and into the early morning hours - have intensified dramatically as Russian combat troops continue to join their units along the perimeter in preparation for a major winter offensive. Russian President Vladimir Putin has waited patiently for the Zelensky regime to grasp the gravity of their situation and press for bilateral negotiations. But the Ukrainian president has stubbornly rejected diplomacy at every turn opting instead to fight til the bitter end. He is fully supported in that decision by his backers in Washington who see the conflict as an opportunity to weaken Russia so it cannot obstruct US plans to “pivot” to Asia. The transformation of Ukraine into a frigid, uninhabitable wastelands is largely the result of Washington’s voracious geopolitical ambitions. This is from a post at the website Moon of Alabama:

"Previous attacks had limited the distribution capacity to some 50% of demand. Controlled blackouts over several hours per day allowed to give some electricity for a few hours to most parts of the country. The attack today created a much larger problem. Not only were distribution networks attacked but also so the elements that connect Ukraine’s electricity production facilities to the distribution network. All four nuclear power stations of Ukraine with their 15 reactors are now in shutdown mode. Kiev along with most other cities of Ukraine no longer has electricity.” "Ukraine – Lights Out, No Water And Soon No Heat”, Moon of Alabama

Ukraine Plunged Into Darkness - As of the morning of November 24, more than 70% of Kiev remains without electricity. There is no water in half of the capital. Power outages continue in all regions throughout the country….”Kiev goes Dark as NATO Sacrifices Ukraine”,Southfront

The widespread power outages are accompanied by freezing temperatures that will inevitably lead to an unprecedented humanitarian crisis. Millions of Ukrainians will be forced to flee across the border seeking refuge in Europe. Others will be left to hunker-down in makeshift emergency shelters that are sporadically heated by diesel-powered generators. There is no prospect that Ukraine’s dilapidated power-system will be fixed quickly if ever. And even if it could be cobbled-back together in some improvised capacity, it would only be a short-term fix. The fact is, the Russians have identified the main substations, terminals and auto-transformers across Ukraine and are picking them off one-by-one. Unable to defend itself against the daily barrage of precision-guided missiles, Ukraine is gradually being bombed into the Stone Age.

The objective of the Russian operation is to undermine Ukraine’s ability to wage war. The attacks on Ukraine’s power-grid, railway hubs, fuel deports, bridges and command-and-control centers are merely Phase 1 of a 2-phase operation that is designed to defeat the enemy and bring the war to swift end. Russia has gathered roughly 500,000 troops in a combat Strike-Force that will traverse the country along three main axes annihilating Ukrainian Forces wherever they are encountered and seizing key cities along the way. Critical supply-lines from Poland will be blocked, leaving troops at the front cut-off and vulnerable to attack. Eventually, the regime and their Right-bloc security forces will be killed or captured. Moscow will not allow a government that is openly hostile towards Russia to rule the country. This is from an interview with Colonel Douglas MacGregor:

"There are now 540,000 Russian troops stationed around the outskirts of Ukraine preparing to launch a major offensive that I think will probably end the war in Ukraine. 540,000 Russian troops, 1,000 rocket artillery systems, 5000 armored fighting vehicles including at least 1,500 tanks, hundreds and hundreds of tactical ballistic missiles. Ukraine is now going to experience war on a scale we haven’t seen since 1945.” Colonel Douglas MacGregor, Rumble

Full, highly recommended article is here:

- https://www.unz.com/mwhitney/

○

Full screen recommended.

"Ukraine Is About To Be Annihilated"

Straight Calls with Douglas Macgregor - Your home for analysis of breaking news and in-depth discussion of current geopolitical events in the United states and the world. Geopolitics. No ego descriptions. No small talk. Straight to the point. Calls with the relevant analysis only.

"How It Really Is"

"How many times do you have to get hit over the

head until you figure out who's hitting you?"

- Harry S. Truman

"Shopping At Trader Joe's! Trying Some Of Their Products!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures with Danno, 11/27/22:

"Shopping At Trader Joe's! Trying Some Of Their Products!"

"In today's vlog we are shopping at Trader Joe's, and are trying some of their products! We are here to try some of their produce as most produce has been terrible in some stores lately! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Kohl's Black Friday Retail Disaster, Shelves Full; Consumer Begins To Worry"

Full screen recommended.

Jeremiah Babe, 11/26/22:

"Kohl's Black Friday Retail Disaster, Shelves Full; 

Consumer Begins To Worry"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"They Just Lied To All Of Us!"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly 11/26/22:

"They Just Lied To All Of Us!"

"We were just told that this was the greatest Black Friday in the history of mankind. The only problem is that if you’ve been to a store or seeing people, you know that they have no money to buy anything."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Ludovico Einaudi, "Una Mattina"

Full screen recommended.

Ludovico Einaudi, "Una Mattina"

"A Look to the Heavens"

Why does this galaxy have such a long tail? In this stunning vista, based on image data from the Hubble Legacy Archive, distant galaxies form a dramatic backdrop for disrupted spiral galaxy Arp 188, the Tadpole Galaxy. The cosmic tadpole is a mere 420 million light-years distant toward the northern constellation of the Dragon (Draco). Its eye-catching tail is about 280 thousand light-years long and features massive, bright blue star clusters. 

One story goes that a more compact intruder galaxy crossed in front of Arp 188 - from right to left in this view - and was slung around behind the Tadpole by their gravitational attraction. During the close encounter, tidal forces drew out the spiral galaxy's stars, gas, and dust forming the spectacular tail. The intruder galaxy itself, estimated to lie about 300 thousand light-years behind the Tadpole, can be seen through foreground spiral arms at the upper right. Following its terrestrial namesake, the Tadpole Galaxy will likely lose its tail as it grows older, the tail's star clusters forming smaller satellites of the large spiral galaxy."

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210621.html

"You Must Be..."

"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can't help that," said the cat.

 "We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, 

"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"

I know, I know lol...

Thanks for stopping by!

Chet Raymo, "The Meaning Of Life"

"The Meaning Of Life"

by Chet Raymo

"There is only one meaning of life, the act of living itself."

– Erich Fromm

"I had heard from a high-school student in the midwest who had read my book 'Skeptics and True Believers,' in which, as you may know, I take to task all forms of faith that lack an empirical basis, including astrology and supernaturalist religion. He writes: "Are we just meaningless beasts roaming a meaningless Earth with the sole purpose of popping out babies so we can raise them to live longer, more meaningless lives?"

A good question, the best question. What we have learned about our place on Earth does indeed suggest that we are beasts, related even in our DNA and molecular chemistry to other animals. And, yes, the driving purpose of all animal life would seem to be "popping out babies." But our uniquely complex human brains allow us to be more than beasts, more than baby-poppers. As far as we know, humans are the most complex thing in the universe, and in our desire to gain reliable knowledge of the universe the universe becomes conscious of itself.

As for myself, I don't need stars or gods to give my life meaning. I work at meaning every day, in the love of family and friends, in caring for my own little pieces of the Earth, in art, in science, and in making myself conscious of the mystery and beauty - and terror - of the cosmos.

"Or is there a possibility that there may be more?" asks my midwestern correspondent. Yes, there is almost certainly more to existence than what we have yet learned. Just think how much more we know than did our pre-scientific ancestors. But that still greater knowledge will have to wait for minds other than my own. My children and grandchildren will know far more than I, and in that growing human storehouse of reliable knowledge I hope they will find some greater measure of meaning.

In the meantime, I attend to the fox that sometimes walks across my windowsill, the morning glory seedlings that reach achingly for the sun, and the moon that hangs like a great milky eye in the sky. Francis Bacon said that what a man would like to be true, he preferentially believes. That's a mistake I try to avoid. I choose instead to believe what my senses tell me to be palpably true."

- http://www.sciencemusings.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Arvada, Colorado, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"The Monstrous Thing..."

"The monstrous thing is not that men have created roses out of this dung heap, but that, for some reason or other, they should want roses. For some reason or other man looks for the miracle, and to accomplish it he will wade through blood. He will debauch himself with ideas, he will reduce himself to a shadow if for only one second of his life he can close his eyes to the hideousness of reality. Everything is endured - disgrace, humiliation, poverty, war, crime, ennui - in the belief that overnight something will occur, a miracle, which will render life tolerable. And all the while a meter is running inside and there is no hand that can reach in there and shut it off."

- Henry Miller, “Tropic of Cancer”

Freely download “Tropic of Cancer”, by Henry Miller, here:

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

"The Great Thing About The Internet..."

 "The great thing about the internet is that you get to meet people you

 would otherwise only meet if you were committed to the same asylum."
- Robert Brault

"How It Really Is"

 

Gerald Celente, "The Interest Rate Scam And What's Next; Beware More Nuke Talk"

Strong language alert!

Gerald Celente, Trends Journal 11/25/22:

"The Interest Rate Scam And What's Next;

 Beware More Nuke Talk"

"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current 

events forming future trends." Find out more here: - https://trendsjournal.com

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Strange Price Increases At Kroger! This Is Ridiculous! What's Next?"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures with Danno, 11/26/22:

"Strange Price Increases At Kroger! 

This Is Ridiculous! What's Next?"

"In today's vlog we are at Kroger, and are noticing very strange prices! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices, and the empty shelves situation! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

" I Used to Be Disgusted, Now I'm Just Tired"

" I Used to Be Disgusted, Now I'm Just Tired"

by Charles Hugh Smith

"The midterm elections, the “most important elections of our lifetimes,” are over. Whoever won, it wasn’t really going to change much. Today’s system is simply too deeply entrenched. While the much-touted differences between America's political parties get obsessive, hysterical attention, the sameness of Imperial corruption, waste and squalor regardless of who's in power gets little notice.

Scrape away the differences - mostly in domestic and cultural issues - and we see the dead hand of Imperial Corruption is on the tiller. The core of Imperial Corruption is the disconnect between the nation's ideals of representational democracy and open markets and the sordid reality: elites serve their interests by corrupting both democracy and open markets.

Elites Against Democracy: Unfettered democracy and markets cannot be controlled by a tiny, self-serving elite. Stripped of corruption, democracy and markets are free-for-alls that are constantly evolving. This open-ended dynamism is the beating heart of both democracy and open markets. But the dynamic adaptive churn of unfettered representative democracy and open markets are anathema to insiders, vested interests and elites. Each has gained asymmetric power by subverting democracy and markets to serve their private interests. They’ve destroyed the system’s natural dynamism.

When "competition" has been reduced to two telecoms, two healthcare insurers, two pork processors, etc., the system has been stripped of adaptability and resilience. Democracy has been replaced by an auction of political power to the highest bidder.

Everything’s Up for Grabs: It rewards cronies and devotes all its resources not to solving the nation's problems but to whipping up conflagrations of divisiveness and partisan hysteria that wash away the middle ground where problems can actually be addressed. This crippling of the nation's ability to actually solve difficult problems serves the interests of self-serving elites whose sole interest is accumulating personal wealth and power.

Their proclaimed interest in solving the nations' real-world problems are fraudulent tissues designed to hide the putrid reality that all their so-called "solutions" distill down to sluicing huge sums of state money to cronies and campaign contributors under the guise of "solving problems."

The only "problem" America's elites know how to solve is the "problem" of how to get personally richer while tightening their control of the nation-state's vast flood of (taxed/ borrowed) money. Cronies and contributors get tax breaks hidden in 1,000-page legislation and overflowing rivers of money (here's looking at you, Big Pharma, Big Defense, Higher Education, Sickcare, et al.).

Masters at Misdirection and Distraction: America's elites are masters at misdirection and distraction: it's always the other side's fault that the nation is sliding down the chute. The elites don't really care which side is in power, as they control them both to serve their own interests. Any advance that increases efficiency and productivity and furthers the public good is squelched, suppressed or co-opted by vested interests. They fear, rightly, that their share of the spoils might be diminished by advances that render obsolete their particular cartel, monopoly or other embedded skim, scam, fraud, embezzlement or simply unproductive dead weight.

But something funny happens on the way to gaining control of complex emerging systems: that control destroys the system's self-correcting mechanisms and adaptability. Rigging the system to serve one's own interests destroys the system's ability to adapt to changing circumstances and selective pressures.

Adapt or Die: Once a system has been crippled to serve the interest of an elite, when forced to adapt or die, it can only die as its mechanisms of adaptation were destroyed by the power-grab of elites. An economy dominated by a handful of cartels and quasi-monopolies is an economy that is doomed to slide into the dustbin of history, as cartels and monopolies "win" by crushing competition, as competition threatens their profits and control of markets and governance, a.k.a. "democracy."

Any system that serves the interests of the few by choking off adaptability and the dynamisms of a free-for-all churn lacks the tools needed to avoid systemic collapse. By enabling elites to organize the nation to serve their personal interests, America has been stripped of the dynamics needed to adapt. Without these dynamics, collapse is the only possible outcome.

Don’t Forget the Deep State! But no mention of today’s “democracy” can ignore the Deep State - the unelected and unaccountable Administrative State. The Administrative State has existed in some form in every nation-state/empire, but the U.S. Deep State only gained its vast global powers in World War II and the Cold War. That was when the Deep State learned the lesson that the public can’t always be counted on to do “the right thing.” They may choose unwisely (for example, choosing appeasement over preparation). And so the really important decisions needed to preserve the nation cannot be left to the public or parochial politicos in elected office. Those decisions must be in the hands of those who know what has to be done.

Democracy is simply the rubber stamp for doing what's necessary. Beyond that, it's a potentially fatal hindrance. That's the mindset of the Deep State, and if you and I were in upper-echelon positions in the Administrative State, we'd agree with this mindset when things get serious.

Trump: Why do you think they were so opposed to Donald Trump? Whatever you think of Trump personally, or what I think of him personally, is completely beside the point. This isn’t about politics. The fact is, the Deep State perceived him as a grave threat to its interests and did everything it could to stop him.

This mindset is a self-reinforcing group-think feedback loop. Those who believe the public should set policy are weeded out, either by self-selection or via being sent to bureaucratic Siberia. We're protecting you. That's all you need to know.

This opens the door to functionaries who came to do good but stayed to do well, i.e. those with the right credentials and connections to enter the Power Circle to "serve the public" but soon become insiders maximizing their own private gains. That's the problem with the Administrative State: it's ultimately unaccountable, not just to the public or elected officials but to itself.

Enjoy the Circus: But in the meantime, enjoy the political theatrics we’ve been treated to down on the sand-strewn floor of the Coliseum. While Imperial Corruption undermines what's left of the nation's ability to adapt fast enough and successfully enough to survive what lies ahead, we can cheer the "winners" of the political bloodsport. We can simply ignore the winds of disorder sweeping the land.

It seems like it can just go on forever. But everything is forever until systemic weaknesses reveal themselves, typically at the most inopportune junctures. We could well be at one of them. It's easy to be disgusted. But I’ve found that being disabused of the fantasy that the system is self-correcting is the healthier perspective. I used to be infuriated by it all. Now I'm just tired of it all."

- dailyreckoning.com

Greg Hunter, "Weekly News Wrap-Up, 11/25/22"

"Weekly News Wrap-Up, 11/25/22"

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"Warfare like lawfare is being waged against President Donald Trump. In the latest attack, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Trump should turn over his tax returns to vengeful communist Democrats in the House of Representatives. Trump expressed his outrage on his social media platform Truth Social by saying, in part, “It is unprecedented to be handing over tax returns, and it creates terrible precedent for future presidents. Has Joe Biden paid taxes on all of the money he made illegally from Hunter and beyond?” Of course, the Lying Legacy Media (LLM) will never report that Biden is a money launderer, tax cheat and is a traitor taking bribes from China.

The vote fraud fight is still going on in a few key states such as Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona. The LLM want to tell you to move on and there is nothing to see, but court cases are progressing, and more fraud is being exposed every day. Of course, the leaders of both parties work together against “We the People.” The most powerful thing you can tell people is the truth, and the truth is getting out.

A top virologist for the FDA died suddenly this week and so did a 13-year-old boy. These two are just a few of the people who “died suddenly” all over the world where the vax was injected. The virologist pushed the vax for children and expectant mothers and was, no doubt, vaxed and boosted. But how does a perfectly healthy 13-year-old collapse trying out for the basketball team? Was he vaxed too? Are we supposed to believe that people just drop over dead these days for no reason? People are waking up to the truth in many areas, and that is what I am thankful for this Thanksgiving."

- https://usawatchdog.com/t

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he talks about these 

stories and more in the Weekly News Wrap-Up 11/25/22:

- https://rumble.com/

Paulo Coelho, "Killing Our Dreams"

Click image for larger size.

Killing Our Dreams"

by Paulo Coelho

"The first symptom of the process of our killing our dreams is the lack of time. The busiest people I have known in my life always have time enough to do everything. Those who do nothing are always tired and pay no attention to the little amount of work they are required to do. They complain constantly that the day is too short. The truth is, they are afraid to fight the Good Fight.

The second symptom of the death of our dreams lies in our certainties. Because we don’t want to see life as a grand adventure, we begin to think of ourselves as wise and fair and correct in asking so little of life. We look beyond the walls of our day-to-day existence, and we hear the sound of lances breaking, we smell the dust and the sweat, and we see the great defeats and the fire in the eyes of the warriors. But we never see the delight, the immense delight in the hearts of those who are engaged in the battle. For them, neither victory nor defeat is important; what’s important is only that they are fighting the Good Fight.

And, finally, the third symptom of the passing of our dreams is peace. Life becomes a Sunday afternoon; we ask for nothing grand, and we cease to demand anything more than we are willing to give. In that state, we think of ourselves as being mature; we put aside the fantasies of our youth, and we seek personal and professional achievement. We are surprised when people our age say that they still want this or that out of life. But really, deep in our hearts, we know that what has happened is that we have renounced the battle for our dreams – we have refused to fight the Good Fight.

When we renounce our dreams and find peace, we go through a short period of tranquility. But the dead dreams begin to rot within us and to infect our entire being. We become cruel to those around us, and then we begin to direct this cruelty against ourselves. That’s when illnesses and psychoses arise. What we sought to avoid in combat – disappointment and defeat – come upon us because of our cowardice. And one day, the dead, spoiled dreams make it difficult to breathe, and we actually seek death. It’s death that frees us from our certainties, from our work, and from that terrible peace of our Sunday afternoons."

- http://paulocoelhoblog.com/

○

"Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?"

- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

"Walmart Black Friday No Shoppers; Costco Crazy Gas Line; People Spending Money They Don't Have"

Full screen recommended.

Jeremiah Babe, 11/25/22:

"Walmart Black Friday No Shoppers; Costco Crazy Gas Line; 

People Spending Money They Don't Have"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

15 Biggest Retailers In America Closing Down Stores Right Now"

Full screen recommended.

"15 Biggest Retailers In America 

Closing Down Stores Right Now"

by Epic Economist

"Retail stores continue to close by the hundreds. The retail apocalypse continues to sweep across America as our purchasing power is getting squeezed by many different fronts these days. After paying for housing, energy, gas, groceries and other monthly bills, most of us are left with an increasingly smaller amount of money for discretionary expenses. And some of us, aren't even spending that money at all - but rather saving it to weather the storm that is ahead. Consequently, even some of the biggest companies in the US are suffering from declining sales, shrinking profits and weaker earnings results. Many of them were already barely making it after two very complicated years for our economy - with a pandemic, supply chain problems, inflation and soaring commodity prices making conditions extremely difficult for these businesses. And now they are having to make some tough choices as we enter the holiday season. Even big names such as McDonalds and Disney are announcing they will be closing several locations in an attempt to cut costs and survive the downturn that is unfolding before our eyes.

Another example is Gamestop. The troubled video game retailer became a stock market and media sensation early last year when a legion of investing pranksters made headlines the world over by sending GameStop’s stock to the moon in an orchestrated move to hit hedge funds that were betting on the chain's continued demise. But it doesn’t seem like any of them actually shopped in there. With falling revenue and negative sales growth, the world’s largest gaming retailer has been shedding hundreds of stores over the last two years, shuttering a total of 1,000 locations in 2021. Now, 557 more stores are conducting clearance sales to go out of business as GameStop starts switching its focus to online operations.

When even some of the biggest brands out there are being forced to make some deep cuts to reduce operational costs, slashing jobs and closing up shop in the process, then you know for a fact that the economy is falling off the tracks. The worst part is that conditions aren't likely to get any better for consumers or businesses any time soon. As we just reported a few days ago, even one of the world's richest men is telling the public to avoid unnecessary purchases and stockpile cash to navigate through the turbulence that is approaching. This isn't good news for our iconic brands and major retailers. We'll continue to keep track of the retail apocalypse as this situation continues to develop in the coming months.

In today's video, we listed some industry giants that recently disclosed plans to shutter dozens or even hundreds of locations."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com/

Musical Interlude: Adiemus, “Adiemus”

Full screen recommended.

Adiemus, “Adiemus”

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Far beyond the local group of galaxies lies NGC 3621, some 22 million light-years away. Found in the multi-headed southern constellation Hydra, the winding spiral arms of this gorgeous island universe are loaded with luminous young star clusters and dark dust lanes. Still, for earthbound astronomers NGC 3621 is not just another pretty face-on spiral galaxy. Some of its brighter stars have been used as standard candles to establish important estimates of extragalactic distances and the scale of the Universe.

This beautiful image of NGC 3621 traces the loose spiral arms far from the galaxy's brighter central regions that span some 100,000 light-years. Spiky foreground stars in our own Milky Way Galaxy and even more distant background galaxies are scattered across the colorful skyscape.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090919.html

"A Pueblo Indian Prayer"

"Hold on to what is good, even if it's a handful of earth.

Hold on to what you believe, even if it's a tree that stands by itself.

Hold on to what you must do, even if it's a long way from here.

Hold on to your life, even if it's easier to let go.

Hold on to my hand, even if someday I'll be gone away from you."

~ A Pueblo Indian Prayer

Kahlil Gibran, The Madman"

 

"The Madman"

"It was in the garden of a madhouse that I met a youth with a face pale and lovely and full of wonder. And I sat beside him upon the bench, and I said, “Why are you here?” And he looked at me in astonishment, and he said, “It is an unseemly question, yet I will answer you. My father would make of me a reproduction of himself; so also would my uncle. My mother would have me the image of her seafaring husband as the perfect example for me to follow. My brother thinks I should be like him, a fine athlete. And my teachers also, the doctor of philosophy, and the music-master, and the logician, they too were determined, and each would have me but a reflection of his own face in a mirror. Therefore I came to this place. I find it more sane here. At least, I can be myself.” Then of a sudden he turned to me and he said, “But tell me, were you also driven to this place by education and good counsel?”

And I answered, “No, I am a visitor.”

And he answered, “Oh, you are one of those who live in the madhouse on the other side of the wall...”

- Kahlil Gibran

"The Consequences of Our Choices..."

“Life does not require us to be consistent, cruel, patient, helpful, angry, rational, thoughtless, loving, rash, open-minded, neurotic, careful, rigid, tolerant, wasteful, rich, downtrodden, gentle, sick, considerate, funny, stupid, healthy, greedy, beautiful, lazy, responsive, foolish, sharing, pressured, intimate, hedonistic, industrious, manipulative, insightful, capricious, wise, selfish, kind or sacrificed. Life does, however, require us to live with the consequences of our choices.”

- Richard Bach, “Running From Safety”

"How It Really Is"

 

"How To Get Your Money Out of the Bank?"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly 11/25/22:

"How To Get Your Money Out of the Bank?"

"Do you need to make arrangements for the crash. 

Here’s a detailed plan on how to get your money out of the bank."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"America’s ‘Dark Cluster Decade’"

"America’s ‘Dark Cluster Decade’"

A look into the murky past to see where we might be heading...

by Bill Bonner

Baltimore, Maryland - "In the late 1950s, led by the great decider, Mao Tse Tung, and the communist party, China engineered what was to become one of the darkest decades in human history. It was based on lies. And it set in motion a financial and social disaster. A real “cluster,” as kids say today. It was an ambitious crusade. The whole society – its government, politics, economics, finances, and industries – were all brought together, like an attacking army, to transform China into a modern industrial powerhouse.

At the time, China was an agrarian society. Most people still tilled the soil… and stuck to their traditional ways of life. It wasn’t the most sophisticated economy in the world. But it was capable of supporting 600 million people. In Mao’s new plan, farmers were forced onto collective farms. Private plots were made illegal. People who tried to keep their own gardens were branded as ‘counter-revolutionaries,’ and often tortured, imprisoned, killed outright, or worked to death.

So too, the customs of the countryside were banned. The ‘old things’ were supposedly holding China back. So, weddings, funerals, feasts – traditional rituals of rural society – were outlawed. They were replaced by propaganda meetings and ‘struggle sessions,’ in which those who didn’t go along were beaten… forced to admit their ‘crimes’… and often executed. The bigger the lie, the more it needs to be protected from the truth.

A Great Leap Backwards: Early on, Mao had played a little trick on his enemies. He invited criticism. This flushed out his adversaries, conservative intellectuals, and ‘bourgeois elements.’ Later, these people were targeted. The intellectuals were sent to the countryside, where they were worked and starved. The resistors were tortured, tried, and killed.

Critics learned to keep their mouths shut. Even at the height of the madness… when millions were dying, and it was obvious that the modernizing crusade was a ghastly failure… there was very little criticism or debate. The result? The biggest ‘cluster’ – mistakes combined with lies, arrogance and unrestrained power – in history.

The world changes. People don’t. They depend on honest money. When they don’t have it, things fall apart. Little understood about the Great Leap Forward is that it came after China had been completely flattened – by inflation. Between 1941 and 1949, Shanghai’s commodity index rose from 16 to 150,000,000,000,000. This is what gave Mao his communist victory. Nor was he the first dictator to come to power on a flood of inflation. Germany’s inflation of the early 1920s was what enabled Adolf Hitler’s rise to power.

When people can’t trust their money, they learn not to trust their government or their neighbors. Then, how do you hold a society together? Raw power. In ancient Rome, for example, in what historians call the “crisis of the 3rd century,” the silver denarius – the bedrock coin of the Roman economy – gradually got stripped of its silver content…until there was less than 1% left. This ‘inflation’ reduced the value of the denarius by 99.9%. And it so unsettled Roman society that only the military could maintain control. During this period – 200AD – 300AD – Rome had 26 emperors, every one of them from the military. And only one of them died a natural death. All the others were killed…often by their own troops. Or, in the case of Nero, a suicide.

Unfunny Money: Herewith, a few predictions...

• Under pressure, the Fed will ‘pivot.’ That could happen within weeks.

• Inflation will get worse. Prices will go up in fits and starts…but with no relief.

• What follows will be a Dark Cluster Decade…a chaotic period, with falling incomes and serial, unpredictable crises.

Yes, America’s decider elites have begun their own version of a Great Leap Forward…a leap into what they see as a better future. And unless you take precautions, I don’t think it is a future you’re going to like. Who are these deciders? University professors, lobbyists, politicians, activist billionaires, media and entertainment personalities, Wall Street honchos, Pentagon jefes, and Washington heavies.

And like China’s communists, they are shutting down their critics. Whether the subject is the Covid lockdowns, ‘gender reassignment,’ or the war in the Ukraine, only one point of view is permitted. Say the wrong thing and you are branded as a “Putin asset,” or a “white supremacist,” or a ‘climate denier’ or just ‘anti-science.’ You are not just wrong; you are evil. You deserve to be locked down and shut up. Canceled.

Unfortunately, in public affairs, the ‘wrong’ conclusion is often the right one. If the power grab by America’s wealthy elites in Washington and Wall Street goes unchecked, the next ten years will bring a ‘cluster’ for America, a destructive mess of inflation, recession, cut-throat politics, social disorder…and huge financial losses. Oh…and that’s the best case. As the Chinese example shows, it could be much worse. More tomorrow..."

- https://bonnerprivateresearch.substack.com/

"What It's Like When The Lights Go Out In A Warzone"

Full screen recommended.

Gonzalo Lira,

"What It's Like When The Lights Go Out In A Warzone"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Russia’s Electric War"

"Russia’s Electric War"

by Pepe Escobar

"Footfalls echo in the memory

Down the passage which we did not take

Towards the door we never opened

Into the rose-garden. My words echo

Thus, in your mind.

But to what purpose

Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves

I do not know."

- T.S. Eliot, "Burnt Norton"

"Spare a thought to the Polish farmer snapping pics of a missile wreckage – later indicated to belong to a Ukrainian S-300. So a Polish farmer, his footfalls echoing in our collective memory, may have saved the world from WWIII – unleashed via a tawdry plot concocted by Anglo-American “intelligence”.

Such tawdriness was compounded by a ridiculous cover-up: the Ukrainians were firing on Russian missiles from a direction that they could not possibly be coming from. That is: Poland. And then the U.S. Secretary of Defense, weapons peddler Lloyd “Raytheon” Austin, sentenced Russia was to blame anyway, because his Kiev vassals were shooting at Russian missiles that should not have been in the air (and they were not). Call it the Pentagon elevating bald lying into a rather shabby art.

The Anglo-American purpose of this racket was to generate a “world crisis” against Russia. It’s been exposed – this time. That does not mean the usual suspects won’t try it again. Soon. The main reason is panic. Collective West intel sees how Moscow is finally mobilizing their army – ready to hit the ground next month – while knocking out Ukraine’s electricity infrastructure as a form of Chinese torture.

Those February days of sending only 100,000 troops – and having the DPR and LPR militias plus Wagner commandos and Kadyrov’s Chechens do most of the heavy lifting – are long gone. Overall, Russians and Russophones were facing hordes of Ukrainian military – perhaps as many as 1 million. The “miracle” of it all is that Russians did quite well.

Every military analyst knows the basic rule: an invasion force should number three times the defending force. The Russian Army at the start of the SMO was at a small fraction of that rule. The Russian Armed Forces arguably have a standing army of 1.3 million troops. Surely they could have spared a few tens of thousands more than the initial 100,000. But they did not. It was a political decision.

But now SMO is over: this is CTO (Counter-Terrorist Operation) territory. A sequence of terrorist attacks – targeting the Nord Streams, the Crimea Bridge, the Black Sea Fleet – finally demonstrated the inevitability of going beyond a mere “military operation”. And that brings us to Electric War.

Paving the way to a DMZ: The Electric War is being handled essentially as a tactic – leading to the eventual imposition of Russia’s terms in a possible armistice (which neither Anglo-American intel and vassal NATO want). Even if there was an armistice – widely touted for a few weeks now – that would not end the war. Because the deeper, tacit Russian terms – end of NATO expansion and “indivisibility of security” – were fully spelled out to both Washington and Brussels last December, and subsequently dismissed.

As nothing – conceptually – has changed since then, coupled with the Western weaponization of Ukraine reaching a frenzy, the Putin-era Stavka could not but expand the initial SMO mandate, which remains denazification and demilitarization. Yet now the mandate will have to encompass Kiev and Lviv. And that starts with the current de-electrification campaign – which goes way beyond the east of the Dnieper and along the Black Sea coast towards Odessa.

That brings us to the key issue of reach and depth of Electric War, in terms of setting up what would be a DMZ – complete with no man’s land – west of the Dnieper to protect Russian areas from NATO artillery, HIMARS and missile attacks. How deep? 100 km? Not enough. Rather 300 km – as Kiev has already requested artillery with that kind of range.

What’s crucial is that way back in July this was already being extensively discussed in Moscow at the highest Stavka levels. In an extensive July interview, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov let the cat – diplomatically – out of the bag:“This process continues, consistently and persistently. It will continue as long as the West, in its impotent rage, desperate to aggravate the situation as much as possible, continues to flood Ukraine with more and more long-range weapons. Take the HIMARS. Defense Minister Alexey Reznikov boasts that they have already received 300-kilometre ammunition. This means our geographic objectives will move even further from the current line. We cannot allow the part of Ukraine that Vladimir Zelensky, or whoever replaces him, will control to have weapons that pose a direct threat to our territory or to the republics that have declared their independence and want to determine their own future.”

The implications are clear. As much as Washington and NATO are even more “desperate to aggravate the situation as much as possible” (and that’s Plan A: there’s no Plan B), geoeconomically the Americans are intensifying the New Great Game: desperation here applies to trying to control energy corridors and setting their price.

Russia remains unfazed – as it continues to invest in Pipelineistan (towards Asia); solidify the multimodal International North South Transportation Corridor (INTSC), with key partners India and Iran; and is setting the price of energy via OPEC+.

A paradise for oligarchic looters: The Straussians/neo-cons and neoliberal-cons permeating the Anglo-American intel/security apparatus – de facto weaponized viruses – won’t relent. They simply cannot afford losing yet another NATO war – and on top of it against “existential threat” Russia.

As the news from the Ukraine battlefields promise to be even grimmer under General Winter, solace at least may be found in the cultural sphere. The Green transition racket, seasoned in a toxic mixed salad with the eugenist Silicon Valley ethos, continues to be a side dish offered with the main course: the Davos “Great Narrative”, former Great Reset, which reared its ugly head, once again, at the G20 in Bali.

That translates as everything going swell as far as the Destruction of Europe project is concerned. De-industrialize and be happy; rainbow-dance to every woke tune on the market; and freeze and burn wood while blessing “renewables” in the altar of European values.

A quick flashback to contextualize where we are is always helpful. Ukraine was part of Russia for nearly four centuries. The very idea of its independence was invented in Austria during WWI for the purpose of undermining the Russian Army – and that certainly happened. The present “independence” was set up so local Trotskyite oligarchs could loot the nation as a Russia-aligned government was about to move against those oligarchs.

The 2014 Kiev coup was essentially set up by Zbig “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski to draw Russia into a new partisan war – as in Afghanistan – and was followed by orders to the Gulf oil haciendas to crash the oil price. Moscow had to protect Russophones in Crimea and Donbass – and that led to more Western sanctions. All of it was a setup.

For 8 years, Moscow refused to send its armies even to Donbass east of the Dnieper (historically part of Mother Russia). The reason: not to be bogged down in another partisan war. The rest of Ukraine, meanwhile, was being looted by oligarchs supported by the West, and plunged into a financial black hole.

The collective West deliberately chose not to finance the black hole. Most of the IMF injections were simply stolen by the oligarchs, and the loot transferred out of the country. These oligarchic looters were of course “protected” by the usual suspects.

It’s always crucial to remember that between 1991 and 1999 the equivalent of the present entire household wealth of Russia was stolen and transferred overseas, mostly to London. Now the same usual suspects are trying to ruin Russia with sanctions, as “new Hitler” Putin stopped the looting.

The difference is that the plan of using Ukraine as just a pawn in their game is not working. On the ground, what has been going on so far are mostly skirmishes, and a few real battles. But with Moscow massing fresh troops for a winter offensive, the Ukrainian Army may end up completely routed. Russia didn’t look so bad – considering the effectiveness of its mincing machine artillery strikes against Ukrainian fortified positions, and recent planned retreats or positional warfare, keeping casualties down while smashing Ukrainian withering firepower.

The collective West believes it holds the Ukraine proxy war card. Russia bets on reality, where economic cards are food, energy, resources, resource security and a stable economy. Meanwhile, as if the energy-suicide EU did not have to face a pyramid of ordeals, they can surely expect to have knocking on their door at least 15 million desperate Ukrainians escaping from villages and cities with zero electrical power. The railway station in – temporarily occupied – Kherson is a graphic example: people show up constantly to warm up and charge their smartphones. The city has no electricity, no heat, and no water.

Current Russian tactics are the absolute opposite of the military theory of concentrated force developed by Napoleon. That’s why Russia is accumulating serious advantages while “disturbing the dust in a bowl of rose-leaves”. And of course, “we haven’t even started yet.”

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

Jim Kunstler, "A Light in the Darkness"

"A Light in the Darkness"

by Jim Kunstler

“Sooner or later, there will be push-back against the Dems attempt to turn the USA into some kind of obese transgender liberal Wakanda run by crooks, freaks and thugs.” - The Saker of the Vineyard

The really stunning thing about Elon Musk’s campaign to clean up the back-stage rats’ nest at Twitter is that he’s the lone authority figure in the land who dared to act against the degenerate political Left’s impudent and remorseless cancellation of everything that held together America’s consensual reality.

Think of it: all the college presidents and deans, all the corporate CEOs, all the judges, all the governors, mayors, and agency heads, all the news editors and network producers who did nothing and said nothing about the wholesale demolition of truths, values, and principles carried out by Woke-Jacobin maniacs under their watch. And what’s more appalling: they all pretended not to notice each other’s craven inaction and silence.

And now, Mr. Musk strikes a blow almost every day, and with amazing insouciance, as if his effort to re-ignite free speech is the most self-evidently natural thing anyone in-charge might seek to do. And let’s face it: whatever Twitter started out as, however seemingly trivial this Internet app for social chit-chat was conceived to be, it evolved into an essential arena for public argument - especially as the old leaders in the American news business slouched into routinely retailing every sort of lie possible about public affairs that matter. (And as that happened, Twitter became for a number of years Mainstream Media’s enabler and chief enforcer of programatized untruth.)

So far, it’s hard to fault Mr. Musk’s performance just a little short of one month after taking ownership of Twitter. He acted swiftly finding the locus of rot in the company, and swept out thousands of petty tyrannical censors competing for Woke brownie points squashing free inquiry. He explained his actions plainly, without ornament, in Twitter’s own concise format. He laid out his own doubts and quandaries about a moderation board to establish responsible limits of fairness. He put important questions of procedure, such as yesterday’s proposed general amnesty for suspended accounts, to a vote. He did all this with wry humor based on an appreciation of how absurd Twitter’s internal culture had become.

He also offered succinct and apparently honest overviews of how his campaign was going against the background of our disordered national condition, and interesting insights into the disorder itself:

"Mainstream media will still thrive, but increased competition from citizens will cause them to be more accurate, as their oligopoly on information is disrupted.”

"SBF [Sam Bankman-Fried of FTX] is ineffective altruism, but they thought he was saying he was in effective altruism. Easy misunderstanding.”

It’s hard to overstate how damaging Twitter’s dark years of insidiously massaging public opinion have been to this country. Open debate could have clarified the fog of deliberate disinformation surrounding everything Covid-19. It would have been much harder for public health officialdom to gaslight America over the origin of the disease, and probably impossible to conceal the nefarious operations behind the Emergency Use Authorization, the suppression of effective early treatments, and the ties to drug companies’ profits. The result of that has been the broad deployment of dangerous and deadly pseudo-vaccines that have killed millions and disabled many more. The absence of honest debate has turned doctors into murderers and accomplices to genocide.

The scope of this bureaucratic crime is really outside the experience of most Americans, who never imagined that their elected and appointed leaders would act against them with such rank dishonesty, cruelty, and bad faith. But there it is. And if Twitter continues to open up, the more likely that the responsible parties will be held accountable.

Likewise, the now-pervasive Kafka-esque program of political persecution carried out against citizens by government officials, including the many seditious schemes of RussiaGate, the ongoing, escalating mischief around elections, and the use of the FBI and DOJ as a combined secret police and kangaroo court apparatus.

You can add to all that the wild irresponsibility of “Joe Biden’s” open border policy, our idiotic provocation of Russia in Ukraine, the surrender of America’s national sovereignty to the globalist Great Re-set cabal and its tools in the World Health Organization, and the domestic campaign by Woke Jacobins to sexually disorder the lives of American children.

I think Elon Musk is right: the Mainstream News Media will now face a venue where it's habitual lying is called out forcefully. You can already see The WashPo and CNN attempt to make small shifts in their coverage of events, which double as efforts to cover-up their past lying in the hopes that the public won’t notice that it happened.

Nothing else so far has confronted the Left’s crusade to overturn American life so stoutly as Elon Musk’s reform of Twitter. It seems to be working. The Wokesters are acting like a gang on-the-run. Pretty soon they’ll be ratting out each other to save their skins. Reality is a harsh mistress when you’ve spent years insulting and mistreating her."

- https://kunstler.com/

The Poet: Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "Ulysses"

"Ulysses"

"There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:

There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,

Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me -

That ever with a frolic welcome took

The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed

Free hearts, free foreheads - you and I are old;

Old age hath yet his honor and his toil;

Death closes all: but something ere the end,

Some work of noble note, may yet be done,

Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:

The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep

Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,

'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

Push off, and sitting well in order smite

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

Of all the western stars, until I die.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

○

Procol Harum, "A Salty Dog"

"A Thanksgiving Warning: Retailers Are In Deep Trouble; Small Businesses Going Out Of Business"

Full screen recommended.

Jeremiah Babe, 11/24/22:

"A Thanksgiving Warning: Retailers Are In Deep Trouble; 

Small Businesses Going Out Of Business"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Cycle of Time"; "Challenge From Heaven"

Full screen recommended.

2002, "Cycle of Time"

Full screen recommended.

2002, "Challenge From Heaven"