CCR, "Bad Moon Rising"
So, we rise from the rubble...
Tuesday, March 7, 2023
"Another Bank Goes Bust"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 3/7/23:
"Another Bank Goes Bust"
"Silvergate capital is a bank that has been open since 1988. They have billions of dollars worth of assets and have been the victim of the crypto industry. Plus, the central bank digital dollar is about to be unveiled. This will track everything that we do."
Comments here:
o
"Relax..."
"Relax. They're not going to kill us. They're going to
TRY and kill us. And that is a very different thing. "
- Steve Voake, "The Dreamwalker's Child"
"Nine Meals from Anarchy"
"Nine Meals from Anarchy"
by Jeff Thomas
"In 1906, Alfred Henry Lewis stated, “There are only nine meals between mankind and anarchy.” Since then, his observation has been echoed by people as disparate as Robert Heinlein and Leon Trotsky. The key here is that, unlike all other commodities, food is the one essential that cannot be postponed. If there were a shortage of, say, shoes, we could make do for months or even years. A shortage of gasoline would be worse, but we could survive it, through mass transport or even walking, if necessary.
But food is different. If there were an interruption in the supply of food, fear would set in immediately. And, if the resumption of the food supply were uncertain, the fear would become pronounced. After only nine missed meals, it’s not unlikely that we’d panic and be prepared to commit a crime to acquire food. If we were to see our neighbor with a loaf of bread, and we owned a gun, we might well say, “I’m sorry, you’re a good neighbor and we’ve been friends for years, but my children haven’t eaten today – I have to have that bread – even if I have to shoot you.”
There’s no need to speculate on this concern yet. There’s nothing so alarming on the evening news yet to suggest that such a problem might be on the horizon. So, let’s have a closer look at the actual food distribution industry, compare it to the present direction of the economy, and see whether there might be reason for concern.
The food industry typically operates on very small margins – often below 2%. Traditionally, wholesalers and retailers have relied on a two-week turnaround of supply and anywhere up to a 30-day payment plan. But an increasing tightening of the economic system for the last eight years has resulted in a turnaround time of just three days for both supply and payment for many in the industry. This a system that’s still fully operative, but with no further wiggle room, should it take a significant further hit.
If there were a month where significant inflation took place (The Feds lie say 9.1%; really now at least 17%), all profits would be lost for the month for both suppliers and retailers, but goods could still be replaced and sold for a higher price next month. But, if there were three or more consecutive months of inflation, the industry would be unable to bridge the gap, even if better conditions were expected to develop in future months. A failure to pay in full for several months would mean smaller orders by those who could not pay. That would mean fewer goods on the shelves. The longer the inflationary trend continued, the more quickly prices would rise to hopefully offset the inflation. And ever-fewer items on the shelves.
From Germany in 1922, to Argentina in 2000, and to Venezuela in 2016, this has been the pattern whenever inflation has become systemic, rather than sporadic. Each month, some stores close, beginning with those that are the most poorly capitalized.
In good economic times, this would mean more business for those stores that were still solvent, but in an inflationary situation, they would be in no position to take on more unprofitable business. The result is that the volume of food on offer at retailers would decrease at a pace with the severity of the inflation.
However, the demand for food would not decrease by a single loaf of bread. Store closings would be felt most immediately in inner cities, when one closing would send customers to the next neighborhood seeking food. The real danger would come when that store also closes and both neighborhoods descended on a third store in yet another neighborhood. That’s when one loaf of bread for every three potential purchasers would become worth killing over. Virtually no one would long tolerate seeing his children go without food because others had “invaded” his local supermarket.
In addition to retailers, the entire industry would be impacted and, as retailers disappeared, so would suppliers, and so on, up the food chain. This would not occur in an orderly fashion, or in one specific area. The problem would be a national one. Closures would be all over the map, seemingly at random, affecting all areas. Food riots would take place, first in the inner cities then spread to other communities. Buyers, fearful of shortages, would clean out the shelves.
Importantly, it’s the very unpredictability of food delivery that increases fear, creating panic and violence. And, again, none of the above is speculation; it’s a historical pattern – a reaction based upon human nature whenever systemic inflation occurs.
Then… unfortunately… the cavalry arrives. At that point, it would be very likely that the central government would step in and issue controls to the food industry that served political needs rather than business needs, greatly exacerbating the problem. Suppliers would be ordered to deliver to those neighborhoods where the riots are the worst, even if those retailers are unable to pay. This would increase the number of closings of suppliers.
Along the way, truckers would begin to refuse to enter troubled neighborhoods, and the military might well be brought in to force deliveries to take place. (If truckers could afford $5.75 a gallon diesel fuel.)
So, what would it take for the above to occur? Well, historically, it has always begun with excessive debt. We know that the debt level is now the highest it has ever been in world history. (US debt as of October 2022: $31.12 trillion; World debt as of Feb. 2022: $303 trillion.) In addition, the stock and bond markets are in bubbles of historic proportions. They will most certainly pop.
With a crash in the markets, deflation always follows as people try to unload assets to cover for their losses. The Federal Reserve (and other central banks) has stated that it will unquestionably print as much money as it takes to counter deflation. Unfortunately, inflation has a far greater effect on the price of commodities than assets. Therefore, the prices of commodities will rise dramatically, further squeezing the purchasing power of the consumer, thereby decreasing the likelihood that he will buy assets, even if they’re bargain priced. Therefore, asset holders will drop their prices repeatedly as they become more desperate. The Fed then prints more to counter the deeper deflation and we enter a period when deflation and inflation are increasing concurrently.
Historically, when this point has been reached, no government has ever done the right thing. They have, instead, done the very opposite – keep printing. A by-product of this conundrum is reflected in the photo above. Food still exists, but retailers shut down because they cannot pay for goods. Suppliers shut down because they’re not receiving payments from retailers. Producers cut production because sales are plummeting.
In every country that has passed through such a period, the government has eventually gotten out of the way and the free market has prevailed, re-energizing the industry and creating a return to normal. The question is not whether civilization will come to an end. (It will not.) The question is the liveability of a society that is experiencing a food crisis, as even the best of people are likely to panic and become a potential threat to anyone who is known to store a case of soup in his cellar.
Fear of starvation is fundamentally different from other fears of shortages. Even good people panic. In such times, it’s advantageous to be living in a rural setting, as far from the centre of panic as possible. It’s also advantageous to store food in advance that will last for several months, if necessary. However, even these measures are no guarantee, as, today, modern highways and efficient cars make it easy for anyone to travel quickly to where the goods are. The ideal is to be prepared to sit out the crisis in a country that will be less likely to be impacted by dramatic inflation – where the likelihood of a food crisis is low and basic safety is more assured."
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"Countless Americans Plunge Into Despair As Hunger Spreads Like Wildfire All Across America"
"Countless Americans Plunge Into Despair As
Hunger Spreads Like Wildfire All Across America"
By Michael Snyder
"We haven’t seen anything like this in a long time. A couple of factors are combining to push millions of Americans into a state of food insecurity. First of all, food prices have been rising aggressively throughout the past year, and so our money does not go nearly as far as it once did. Meanwhile, food stamp benefits are being slashed. The federal government had greatly enhanced food stamp benefits for many Americans during the pandemic, but now that emergency program is coming to an end. So what this means is that many Americans are going to have very little money to spend on food at a time when economic conditions are starting to get really rough.
The Washington Post recently sent a reporter named Tim Craig to Kentucky, and he discovered that poor people are waiting in “a mile-long line” just to get some free food…"As he claimed the first spot in a mile-long line for free food in the Appalachian foothills, Danny Blair vividly recalled receiving the letter announcing that his pandemic-era benefit to help buy groceries was about to be slashed.
Kentucky lawmakers had voted to end the state’s health emergency last spring, by default cutting food stamp benefits created to help vulnerable Americans like Blair weather the worst of covid-19. Instead of $200 a month, he would get just $30. Blair actually gets up at 4 AM in the morning so that he can be first in line for these handouts. On the Friday that the reporter from the Washington Post interviewed him, he ended up staying in that line for nine hours."
I couldn’t imagine waiting in line for that long, but Blair feels like this is what he and his wife must do in order to survive…"He crumpled up the letter and threw it on the floor of his camper. “I thought, ‘Wow, the government is trying to kill us now,’” said Blair, 63, who survives on his Social Security disability check and lives in a mobile home with his wife after their house burned down five years ago. “They are going to starve us out.”
Blair and his wife hop into their truck twice a month at 4 a.m. to ensure they get a few staples at the Hazel Green Food Project’s giveaway. On a recent Friday, they waited nine hours until local prisoners on work duty started loading bags of meat and vegetables, potato chips and cookies into vehicles in one of the nation’s most impoverished communities."
Sadly, there are countless others out there that are in the same position. The Post also interviewed another man named Henry Tolsen that openly admitted that he is so poor that the day before he “only ate a bowl of cereal and a can of peaches”…“Yesterday, I only ate a bowl of cereal and a can of peaches,” said Tolsen, as he turned off his truck to save gas until the line started moving again. “I would like to be able to eat bacon and eggs, biscuits and gravy for breakfast, a decent lunch, and a homegrown supper like I used to.”
This is the country that we live in now. Once upon a time, we had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world, but now the middle class is being systematically destroyed. The cost of living is increasing faster than our paychecks are, and that means that our standard of living is going down.
For example, it is being reported that housing is more unaffordable right now than it was at any time during the last housing crash…"The Atlanta Fed’s Housing Affordability Monitor, which compares median home prices and other housing costs with median household income, shows that housing affordability is worse today than during the peak of the 2008 housing bubble. As of December, the median American household would have to spend about 42.9% of their income to afford the median-priced house, according to the index."
Auto loans have become extremely oppressive as well, and now that the economy is going downhill the number of Americans getting behind on their payments is rapidly increasing…"Borrowers with low credit scores are falling behind on their car loan payments as inflation eats away at consumer spending power. A report from Cox Automotive found 1.89% of auto loans in January were “severely delinquent” and at least 60 days behind payment, the highest rate since 2006."
Unfortunately, this is just the beginning. We are in the early chapters of a major economic downturn, and the tsunami of layoffs that we have been witnessing is going to get a lot worse. In fact, we just learned that Salesforce will be giving the axe to approximately 8,000 highly valued workers…"Salesforce, the cloud-based “customer relationship management” software colossus co-helmed by the definitely-not-Hawaiian Marc Benioff, is the latest in a slew of tech giants to lay off thousands of employees, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Per the WSJ, the company will be letting go of 8,000 members from its massive workforce, formerly referred to by Benioff - who, again, is definitely not Hawaiian - as the “Salesforce ohana,” ohana being the Hawaiian name for “family.” (Salesforce stepped away from using that and other Hawaiian terminology and practices back in 2019 due to cultural appropriation concerns.)
The economic despair that we are already witnessing should break all of our hearts, but it is just the tip of the iceberg. As economic conditions continue to deteriorate, the suffering that we will eventually see will be off the charts. And when people get desperate, they can often do desperate things.
Earlier today, I was horrified to learn that Antifa just attacked a police facility in the Atlanta area…
That attack appears to have been politically motivated, but I believe that much of the civil unrest that we will eventually see will be sparked by economic turmoil. When people don’t have enough food to eat, they tend to get really angry. And at this moment hunger is spreading like wildfire all across America. You better buckle up, because we are about to experience a very bumpy ride."
o
"Shopping At Meijer! Major Baby Formula Shortage"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno,3/7/23:
"Shopping At Meijer!
Major Baby Formula Shortage"
"In today's vlog we are at Meijer, and are noticing a major baby formula shortage. This is not good as stores around the country have been struggling to get it. We are also shopping some shelf stable items, as we prep for the future!"
Comments here:
Monday, March 6, 2023
"Things Are Becoming Very Dangerous; People Are Getting Nervous; Mortgage Rates Will Rise Much Higher"
Jeremiah Babe, 3/6/23:
"Things Are Becoming Very Dangerous;
People Are Getting Nervous; Mortgage Rates Will Rise Much Higher"
Comments here:
Gregory Mannarino, "Systemic Breakdown Accelerating"
Gregory Mannarino, PM 3/6/23:
"Systemic Breakdown Accelerating.
Bank of America WARNS "Inflation Has NOT Peaked."
Comments here:
"Walmart Permanently Shut Down All Stores In Portland As Historic Theft Rises"
Full screen recommended.
"Walmart Permanently Shut Down
All Stores In Portland As Historic Theft Rises"
By Epic Economist
"Our cities are deteriorating so rapidly that now big names in the industry are announcing widespread store closings, and last week, Walmart joined the list saying it will shut down all of its stores in Portland. The company has started to close multiple locations in several states, eliminating thousands of jobs, and leaving communities it served for years. A massive wave of store shutdowns is taking place all over the United States right now as businesses’ financial losses continue to rise.
By the end of this month, Portland residents won’t be able to visit their local Walmart stores anymore. Late last week, the big-box retailer announced it will close all of its stores in the city, noting that the closings are being conducted because the locations were not meeting the company’s financial expectations. But this isn’t the whole story. Many people have questioned if the decision came about as the result of rampant shoplifting. Portland has seen a massive increase in the rate of serious offenses, theft, and depredation of local businesses, and Walmart hasn’t been immune to that.
A few months ago, CEO Doug McMillion warned that the retail chain would close stores and hike prices due to historically high rates of theft at its locations. "Theft is an issue. It’s higher than what it has historically been," McMillion stressed. He added that "prices will be higher and stores will close" because authorities don’t crack down on prosecuting shoplifters.
The stores that are about to go dark have become a staple in the retail habits of so many. At least 580 jobs will be lost due to the closures. And thousands more are on the line as the company prepares to shutter unprofitable locations in Wisconsin, Illinois, Arkansas, Washington, Florida, Louisiana, and New Mexico. In places like Portland, which used to have a prosperous economic landscape until criminality became an epidemic, many companies are being forced to leave given that authorities continue to overlook the city’s social issues. In recent years, thousands of downtown businesses have been closed, with 2,600 shutdowns happening just over the past three years.
Needless to say, the more chaos we witness in our core urban areas, the more people and businesses run away in search of greener pastures. Sadly, it isn’t just our big cities that are falling apart. Our whole society is deteriorating. If we stay on this self-destructive path, the consequences are going to be downright terrifying. And our population has no idea how messed up the state of our economy really is.
Things weren’t always this horrible. America used to have some of the brightest, most opulent cities in the world. Our citizens once had opportunities for personal financial growth, they treated one another with respect, and they worked incredibly hard. But now our nation is teeming with extremely slothful degenerates that want everything handed to them on a silver platter.
Moral decay is everywhere that you look, delinquencies are completely out of control. We are facing a drastic shift in our standard of living, and businesses and consumers alike are suffering from all that. So let us hope that we reverse course while there is still time to do so because evil continues to spread like wildfire all over America. And our time is running up."
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"A Look to the Heavens"
“NGC 253 is not only one of the brightest spiral galaxies visible, it is also one of the dustiest. Discovered in 1783 by Caroline Herschel in the constellation of Sculptor, NGC 253 lies only about ten million light-years distant.
NGC 253 is the largest member of the Sculptor Group of Galaxies, the nearest group to our own Local Group of Galaxies. The dense dark dust accompanies a high star formation rate, giving NGC 253 the designation of starburst galaxy. Visible in the above photograph is the active central nucleus, also known to be a bright source of X-rays and gamma rays.”
Chet Raymo, “Into The Night”
“Into The Night”
by Chet Raymo
“I first became intimate with the night sky on the sleeping porch of my grandmother’s house on Ninth Street in Chattanooga, Tennessee, during the early 1940s. A screened sleeping porch might be found attached to any southern home of a certain vintage and substance, usually on the second story at the back. On sultry summer nights you could move a cot or daybed onto the porch and take advantage of whatever breezes stirred the air. I slept there when I visited because it was the only place to find a spare bed. I was usually alone in that big spooky space, with only a thin wire mesh separating me from the many mysteries of the night.
Far off in the house I could hear the muffled voice of the big Stromberg-Carlson radio in the parlor, where grown-ups listened to news of the war or the boogie-woogie tunes of the Hit Parade. Outside was another kind of music, nearer, louder, pressing against the screen, which seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, a million scratchy fiddles, out-of-key woodwinds, discordant timpani. These were the cicadas, crickets and tree frogs of the southern summer night, but to me at that time they were the sounds of the night itself, as if darkness had an audible element.
Some nights the distant horizon would be lit with a silent, winking illumination called “heat lightnin’.” And closer, against the dark grass of the badminton court, the scintillations of fireflies- “lightnin’ bugs”- splashed into brightness.
The constellations of fireflies were answered in the sky by stars, which on those evenings when the city’s lights were blacked out for air-raid drills, multiplied alarmingly. I would lie in my cot, eyes glued to the spangled darkness, waiting to hear the drone of enemy aircraft or see the flash of ack-ack. No aircraft appeared, no ack-ack tracers pierced the night, but soon the stars took on their own fierce reality, like vast squadrons of alien rocket ships moving against the inky dark of Flash Gordon space.
In time I came to recognize patterns, although I did not yet know their names: the Scorpion creeping westward, dragging its stinger along the horizon; the teapot of Sagittarius afloat in the white river of the Milky Way; Vega at the zenith; the kite of Cygnus. As the hours passed, the Big Dipper clocked around the Pole. And sometimes, in late summer, I would wake in the predawn hour to find Orion sneaking into the eastern sky, pursuing the teacup of the Pleiades.
One memorable Christmas of my childhood, my father received a star book as a gift: “A Primer for Star-Gazers” by Henry Neely. As he used the book to learn the stars and constellations, he included me in his activities. The book was Santa’s gift to him. The night sky was his gift to me.
That book, now long out of print, is still in my possession. A glance takes me back half a century to evenings on the badminton court in the back yard of our own new home in the Chattanooga suburbs, gazing upwards with my father to a drapery of brilliant stars flung across the gap between tall dark pines. He told me stories of the constellations as he learned them. Of Orion and the Scorpion. Of the lovers Andromeda and Perseus, and the monster Cetus. Of the wood nymph Callisto and her son Arcas, placed by Zeus in the heavens as the Big and Little Bears. No child ever had a better storybook than the ever-changing page of night above our badminton court. My father also taught me the names of stars: Sirius, Arcturus, Polaris, Betelgeuse, and other, stranger names, Zubenelgenubi and Zubeneschamali, the claws of the Scorpion. The words on his tongue were like incantations that opened the enchanted cave of night.
He was a man of insatiable curiosity. His stories of the stars were more than “connect the dots.” He wove into his lessons what he knew of history, science, poetry and myth. And, of course, religion. For my father, the stars were infused with unfathomable mystery, their contemplation a sort of prayer.
That Christmas book of long ago was a satisfactory guide to star lore, but as I look at it today I see that it conveyed little of the intimacy I felt as I stood with my father under the bright canopy of stars. Nor do any of the other more recent star guides that I have seen quite capture the feeling I had as a child of standing at the door of an enchanted universe, speaking incantations. What made the childhood experience so memorable was a total immersion in the mystery of the night- the singing of cicadas, the whisper of the wind in the pines, and, of course, my father’s storehouse of knowledge with which he embellished the stars. He taught me what to see; he also taught me what to imagine.”
"A Cherokee Proverb..."
"An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.” The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?” The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”
"A Cherokee Proverb"
"One Chance..."; "It Just Means..."
“You get that one chance; and damn it, you’ve got to take it! If there’s one lesson I know I will take with me for eternity, its that there are those things that might happen only once, those chances that come walking down the street, strolling out of a café; if you don’t let go and take them, they really could get away! We can get so washed out with a mindset of entitlement – the universe will do everything for us to ensure our happiness – that we forget why we came here! We came here to grab, to take, to give, to have! Not to wait! Nobody came here to wait! So, what makes anyone think that destiny will keep on knocking over and over again? It could, but what if it doesn’t? You go and you take the chance that you get; even if it makes you look stupid, insane, or whorish! Because it just might not come back again. You could wait a lifetime to see if it will… but I don’t think you should.”
- C. JoyBell C.
The Poet: Langston Hughes, “Life Is Fine”
“Life Is Fine”
“I went down to the river,
I set down on the bank.
I tried to think but couldn’t,
So I jumped in and sank.
I came up once and hollered!
I came up twice and cried!
If that water hadn’t a-been so cold
I might’ve sunk and died.
But it was Cold in that water! It was cold!
I took the elevator
Sixteen floors above the ground.
I thought about my baby
And thought I would jump down.
I stood there and I hollered!
I stood there and I cried!
If it hadn’t a-been so high
I might’ve jumped and died.
But it was High up there! It was high!
So since I’m still here livin’,
I guess I will live on.
I could’ve died for love -
But for livin’ I was born.
Though you may hear me holler,
And you may see me cry -
I’ll be dogged, sweet baby,
If you gonna see me die.
Life is fine! Fine as wine! Life is fine!”
- Langston Hughes
"A Wise Man Once Said..."
“A wise man once said you can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it. What he meant is nothing comes without a price. So before you go into battle, you better decide how much you’re willing to lose. Too often, going after what feels good means letting go of what you know is right, and letting someone in means abandoning the walls you’ve spent a lifetime building. Of course, the toughest sacrifices are the ones we don’t see coming, when we don’t have time to come up with a strategy to pick a side or to measure the potential loss. When that happens, when the battle chooses us and not the other way around, that’s when the sacrifice can turn out to be more than we can bear.
So, how do you beat the odds when it’s one against a billion? You’re just outnumbered. You stand strong, keep pushing yourself against all rational limits, and never give up. But the truth of the matter is despite how hard you try and fight to stay in control, when it’s all said and done, sometimes you’re just outnumbered.”
- "Meredith", "Gray's Anatomy"
o
“You cannot kill me here. Bring your soldiers, your death, your disease, your collapsed economy because it doesn’t matter, I have nothing left to lose and you cannot kill me here. Bring the tears of orphans and the wails of a mother’s loss, bring your God damn air force and Jesus on a cross, bring your hate and bitterness and long working hours, bring your empty wallets and love long since gone but you cannot kill me here. Bring your sneers, your snide remarks and friendships never felt, your letters never sent, your kisses never kissed, cigarettes smoked to the bone and cancer killing fears but you cannot kill me here. For I may fall and I may fail but I will stand again each time and you will find no satisfaction. Because you cannot kill me here.”
- Iain S. Thomas
“Screw The Way Things Are, I Want Out!”
“Screw The Way Things Are, I Want Out!”
by Paul Rosenberg
“This is a beautiful planet, filled, in the main, with decent, cooperative humans. And yet, I want out. Give me any kind of functional spaceship and any reasonable chance, and I’ll take it. This place is anti-human. It chokes the best that’s in us, aggressively and self-righteously. I was struck not long ago by a comment of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s, in which he expressed the same kind of feeling: “I ought to have become a star in the sky. Instead of which I have remained stuck on earth…”
All of us who’ve had a moment of transcendence - who made some type of contact with what is truly the best inside ourselves - have also sensed that life in the current world is incompatible with it. I think we should stop burying that understanding beneath piles of “that’s the way things are,” “we should be realistic,” and “you can’t fight City Hall.”
Screw the way things are, screw “realistic,” and screw City Hall too. I was made for better things than this, and you were too.
Everywhere I turn, some kind of ruler, sub-ruler, enforcer, regulator, or “right-thinking” quasi-enforcer demands not only my money but also for me to make myself easy to punish, thus showing myself to be a good subservient. That’s not just wrong; it’s a disease. I don’t care whether such people are “following orders,” “just doing their job,” or whatever else they tell themselves to soothe their rightly troubled souls. That mode of living is perverse, and these people are enforcing a disease.
Let me make this part very clear: The desire to control others is disease; it is corruption. Willing controllers are a morally inferior class. And the truly deranged thing is that these people rule the world! Forget about why this is so - we can debate that later - focus rather on the utter insanity of this: A minority of moral defectives, who think extortion is a virtue, rule people who are happy to live and let live, by force.
That’s outright lunacy. And to support the lunacy, we have lies, intimidation, and slogans: “In a democracy, you’re really ruling yourself,” “Only crazy people disagree,” “It’s always been this way,” and so on. To all of which I reply, How stupid do you think we are? You drilled that crap into us when we were children, but we’re not children anymore. And if “our way” isn’t as bad as North Korea, that makes it right? Only to a fool.
And the results of “the way it’s always been”… my God, the results… A study from the 1980s found that since 3600 BC, the world has known only 292 years of peace. During this period there have been 14,531 wars, large and small, in which 3.6 billion people have been killed.
This is what I’m supposed to serve with all my heart and soul? A Bronze Age system that can’t keep itself from slaughter? We’re talking about a 5,600-year track record of mass death, and yet fundamental change is considered unthinkable? Well, screw that too, because I think deep, fundamental change is called for, and was called for a long time ago.
Again, this is a wonderful planet and most of the people on it are decent, but it is ruled by insanity, and I want out. Yes, I know, there’s really nowhere to go. Every place I might go is dominated by the same diseased model, and dissent is punished the same, and in some places worse. That’s one of the reasons space appeals to me; it gives me a chance to escape this madness.
I’ll draw this to a close with a passage from C. Delisle Burns’s wonderful "The First Europe," describing why the Roman Empire collapsed: “Great numbers of men and women were unwilling to make the effort required for the maintenance of the old order, not because they were not good enough to fulfill their civic duties, but because they were too good to be satisfied with a system from which so few derived benefit.”
I, for one, am unwilling to expend any effort to maintain the present order. It is by its nature incompatible with the best that is in us, and always will be. Those of us who want to be more and better cannot support the current order without opposing what’s best in ourselves. Screw that.”
"Doubt..."
“Cherish your doubts, for doubt is the handmaiden of truth. Doubt is the key to the door of knowledge; it is the servant of discovery. A belief which may not be questioned binds us to error, for there is incompleteness and imperfection in every belief. Doubt is the touchstone of truth; it is an acid which eats away the false. Let no one fear for the truth, that doubt may consume it; for doubt is a testing of belief. The truth stands boldly and unafraid; it is not shaken by the testing, for truth, if it be truth, arises from each testing stronger, more secure. He that would silence doubt is filled with fear; the house of his spirit is built on shifting sands. But he that fears no doubt, and knows its use, is founded on a rock. He shall walk in the light of growing knowledge; the work of his hands shall endure. Therefore let us not fear doubt, but let us rejoice in its help. It is to the wise as a staff to the blind; doubt is the handmaiden of truth.”
- Robert T. Weston
"Stop Believing"
"Stop Believing"
by Jeff Thomas
"In 1776, Thomas Jefferson was asked to create a draft for a founding document for what was to become the United States. In his second paragraph, he said. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." So firm was the vision of America’s founding fathers that this statement represented their collective belief that the twenty-eight signatories accepted it without any change in wording.
Could the same be said today? Do Americans possess a collective belief today? Do Americans perceive the word "rights" collectively? How about "liberty?" Would a random sampling of Americans generate the same definition of such words? Or, considering that most Americans who are unable to answer such simple questions as, "What state is New Your City in," how many Americans would respond to a request to define these words with no more than a blank stare?
But why should this be? Only a generation or two ago, Americans enjoyed educational standards that were exemplary in the world. Yet, today, it’s universally accepted that Americans have been dramatically "dumbed-down" to such an extent that a majority of high school graduates are not even proficient in simple math and grammar skills.
More worrisome is the fact that the basic beliefs of Americans have been transformed from relative certainty to being both arbitrary and confused. Let’s look at a few of these:
Religious faith: Most people imagine that they possess a basic understanding of right and wrong. Yet Americans often readily excuse Muslims for crimes against women, as they are merely "practicing their religion." Similarly, rap artists can be forgiven for misogyny, as their endorsement of abuse is classified as "cultural." Therefore, religious "conviction" actually becomes flexible depending upon whom it applies to.
Further, although roughly three-quarters of Americans see themselves as Christians, merely identifying oneself as a Christian may be sufficient to be accused of being antisemitic or racist. No logic is needed to explain this accusation; to be accused is to be guilty.
Family: For decades, welfare has helped to eliminate marriage, as a woman receives more welfare if there is no man present. During the COVID pandemic, parents discovered that their children are being indoctrinated by schools in ways parents never approved. Further, they were routinely told that the schools had greater authority over choice of information than parents. Parents are responsible for paying the expenses of the child, but the school is responsible for deciding what the child believes.
Biology: Here, belief becomes even more confused. Americans are told that men can be women and vice versa. All that’s required is to "identify" as the opposite gender, and it becomes an accepted fact. But it doesn’t stop there. There are no longer two genders; there are scores of them – so many that no one can remember them all, yet young people are continually fearful that they may refer to one of their classmates as one gender, mistaking the classmate’s self-perception and inviting shame from other classmates. LBGTQ+ has become a nightmare of confusion – an ever-morphing labyrinth that no one can get correct at this point.
Equality: Possibly one of the loftiest of beliefs is that of equality. Yes, we are all different in countless ways, but the concept of equality suggests that all people should have equal opportunity. It’s then up to the individual what he does with that opportunity. But equity inserts the word "fair." In practice, this has come to mean that, to be fair, we must ignore equality and embrace preference and prejudice.
Those with darker skin must receive greater entitlement, and those with lighter skin must experience shame. Those who are male must be diminished socially unless they identify as women, in which case, they may enjoy an advantage in sporting competitions. Those who are from a racial or ethnic minority must be given preference or even sole access to designated job opportunities. As George Orwell famously stated in his book Animal Farm, "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
So, what’s happening here? Is it simply that people are questioning traditional beliefs more than before? Are they becoming more open-minded and willing to consider alternative perceptions? Well, no. If that were true, then those who held a conventional view would not be shamed by those who did not. Students who defend conventional beliefs are expelled from their schools. Employees who defend conventional beliefs have been fired from their jobs merely for thinking "incorrect" thoughts. Those who decide not to get vaxxed can expect to have their basic rights removed.
There is a concerted movement, led by the media but supported by much of the public, to question conventional beliefs and eliminate them. So, is there a new set of beliefs that are meant to supplant the old beliefs? Well, not really. Last week, there were 52 genders; this week, there are 74. How about next week?
At this point, the average individual, try as he may (I hope that’s an acceptable pronoun), is likely to say, "Jeez, I don’t know what to believe anymore." And there we have it… the entire point of the re-education of belief. The point is to create such a level of confusion that people not only cease to voice their beliefs but eventually do away with their beliefs, agreeing with whatever they’re told to believe… for the moment. In doing so, a compliant populace is created. If totalitarian rule is to be accomplished, people must, above all, be compliant. They must willingly (and immediately) agree with whatever belief is being foisted upon them.
But for what purpose? Well, without belief, the individual is, in fact, not an individual. He is merely a useful tool of the state. Let that thought sink in a bit. This is the point at which it becomes necessary to step back and take in the big picture. When any state has reached the point that it grooms its people to cease to have beliefs, it has already gone far beyond the point of validity.
At such a point, the populace is faced with a very unpleasant choice of possible ways forward: The first is to rebel against the state in some form. The second is to bail out – to leave one’s country in hopes of finding greener pastures elsewhere. If both of these choices are too daunting to consider, there is a third choice.
Submit."
"Breaking! Biden Declares National State of Emergency as Putin Takes Key Ukraine City"
Full screen recommended.
Redacted, 3/6/23:
"Breaking! Biden Declares National State of
Emergency as Putin Takes Key Ukraine City"
"President Biden just signed a national declaration of emergency over Ukraine. This gives him unprecedented executive powers. In today's show, we're looking at his new moves on surveillance, digital currency and more."
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"Peak Focus for Complex Tasks With Beta Isochronic Tones"
Full screen recommended.
"Peak Focus for Complex Tasks
With Beta Isochronic Tones"
by Jason Lewis - Mind Amend
"This is a high-intensity audio brainwave entrainment session, using isochronic tones. Listen to this when you need a strong burst of intense focus to concentrate and study things like advanced mathematics, scientific formulas, financial analysis or any other complex mental activity. Listen to this track with your eyes open while doing the task/activity you want to focus on. Use this session in the morning, afternoon or early evening, to train your brain for better cognition, focus and thought processing. You can either sit somewhere quiet and comfortable with your eyes closed and give your brain a nice workout, or you can also listen to this while doing an activity that requires a boost in concentration.
Headphones are NOT REQUIRED for this video. Although headphones are not required you may find they produce a more intense effect, because they help to block out distracting external sounds.
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"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."
I strongly suggest you read Comments here:
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"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:
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Listen folks, we're out of time! Whether you want to know it or not we're literally in the fight of our lives, for our lives, right now, and it's going to get much, much 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... This works for me. Prepare yourself, brace for impact...
- CP
"People are About to Spend Less"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 3/6/23:
"People are About to Spend Less"
"It’s very apparent in the economy that people are spending less money than ever. As spring approaches, people realize that they do not have the money for anything extracurricular."
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