- Robert Fulghum
So, we rise from the rubble...
Monday, April 17, 2023
"One Needs To Learn The Difference..."
"The Elimination of Reason"
"The Elimination of Reason"
by Jeff Thomas
"Recently, I paid for an item with the exact amount requested, including 89 cents in change. The salesgirl stared at the coins and clearly wasn’t sure what to do. Eventually, she reached for a calculator and began to total them up one at a time: 25 + 25 + 25 + 10 + 4. Having been schooled in the age prior to calculators, I’m accustomed to doing arithmetic in my head, but this particular instance evidenced a level of "dumbing down" over the last fifty years that was beyond what I had realized.
Since the dumbing down has been so consistently prevalent over the decades, it’s clear that this is no accident, nor is it an experiment in "alternative education" that hasn’t worked out as was intended. It’s clearly the result of a conscious effort to diminish the average person’s ability to think. As such, it’s had a long gestation period and was expected to require generations, but was nevertheless a conscious goal.
But why on earth would the controlling elite of any country seek to diminish the power to reason? Surely, reason is the basis of all independent thought – the catalyst for new ideas and improvement on existing goods and systems. The answer, in a word, is control. Independent thought is the prime enemy of those who seek to dominate a people. For that reason, those who rule will happily sacrifice technological and social progress if it means that their dominance can be increased.
Controlling both the answers and the questions: It’s the nature of humans to question their situation and their surroundings. However, a clever leader will surmise that that means he needs to not only provide the answers, but the questions. If he can keep the people preoccupied with questions that are of little consequence to him, and provide answers that are easy for the people to absorb, he will control the areas of thought and, in so doing, will diminish the likelihood that he or his actions will be questioned.
Since time immemorial, successful leaders have understood that, in order to take the attention off their actions, carefully constructed distractions are called for. For centuries, when leaders have been under criticism by their minions, they’ve used the distraction of war. War not only tends to unify a people, it also helps them to accept the removal of their basic rights for an "emergency" period. (Of course, most leaders don’t replace the rights after the emergency has ended. War therefore is also a good tool to increase tyranny, generally.) As Ludwig von Mises observed, "War was not an affair of the peoples; it concerned the rulers only. The citizens detested war, which brought mischief to them and burdened them with taxes and contributions."
However, in modern times, propagandists have become far more sophisticated. Let’s look at a few. Adolf Hitler said, "Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually, they will believe it."
Vladimir Lenin was a great believer in the idea that, "The art of any propagandist and agitator consists in his ability to find the best means of influencing any given audience, by presenting a definite truth, in such a way as to make it most convincing, most easy to digest, most graphic, and most strongly impressive."
Two of the greatest inventions in making propaganda easy to sell have been political parties and television. In the days of kings, it was common to hate the king and want his downfall, but, with political parties, it’s possible to get one half of the people hating one party and the other half hating the other party. Then, all that’s necessary is to assure that each party has roughly the same amount of apparent power and the people will focus all their attention on the hatred of the opposing party and fail to notice those who are pulling the strings equally for both parties. The kings thereby remain the kings forever, whilst remaining invisible. The idea is not to defeat the anger of the people, but to redirect it. As Friedrich Hayek commented,
"The skillful propagandist then has the power to mold their minds in any direction he chooses, and even the most intelligent and independent people cannot entirely escape that influence if they are long isolated from all other sources of information."That last phrase is key. In today’s world, we possess the most significant propaganda tool that has ever been invented: television. Through this medium, we can create a major issue out of a minor incident, create two opposing viewpoints, each designed to appeal to one group or the other, and then repeat the propaganda unceasingly until the people have become thoroughly polarized from each other on the issue. In this fashion, we can begin with a minor incident, such as the one in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014. Arrange for one set of pundits to state unequivocally that the problem was racist Caucasian police, whilst presenting another set of pundits who just as vehemently proclaim that the problem is lawless blacks. Then, as Brother Adolf states, repeat the message endlessly – in this case, on the news seven days a week, from morning till night, for over six months."
Mission accomplished. The conservative group has redoubled its belief in the necessity for an increased police state, whist the liberal group dug in its heels on its perception of class warfare and the need for increased collectivism to combat that class warfare. Once this issue has played itself out, it can disappear completely from the television and a new issue takes its place.
As stated above, in creating this means of propaganda, we have first created the question in the mind of the people, then we have spoon-fed two opposing answers – one designed to appeal to those who are by nature conservative and one to those who are by nature liberal. If we do our job well, the groups will become so blindly polarized that no social gathering, such as a dinner party, will contain both liberal and conservative invitees, or it will be a disaster.
All liberals will be unified in their thinking, just as all conservatives will be. Of course, those who are libertarian will be vilified by both of the other groups, as they represent a third alternative. (The success in indoctrinating a people and destroying their ability to reason can be measured by their vehemence in rejecting a third choice of reason.)
However, reason must be blocked out on a continuous basis, or there’s danger that it may return over time. As early as 600 BC, Lao Tzu had figured this out: "The muddiest water is cleared as it is stilled."
Hence the importance of the endless repetition of the message. As a news item, Ferguson was deserving of a minor mention, perhaps once a week. But by suspending the outcome (whether charges would be laid against the officer), fuel could be added to the rhetoric fire day in, day out, for months on end. When it had finally outlived its usefulness, it was time to create another event. Of course, one shooting every six months in a population of 320,000,000 is a minor blip, but, through the continuous carpet-bombing of the viewer’s brain with the same rhetoric, two such events a year would seem like an epidemic.
Once we reach this level of thought control, it’s possible to offer utterly unacceptable candidates for public office and still have them gain election. All that’s needed is that they parrot the same rhetoric the people have become dependent on as a replacement for reason. Whether it be Communist Russia, Nazi Germany or Fascist America, once the people have been successfully conditioned to allow Big Brother to dictate thought, the next step has always been totalitarian rule."
"Goodbye, I Will Never Forget You, Rest In Peace Gigi"
Jeremiah Babe, 4/17/23
"Goodbye, I Will Never Forget You, Rest In Peace Gigi"
Comments here:
"How Unfair is This?"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly 4/17/23
"How Unfair is This?"
"There are power companies that want to solicit recommendations to have a flat rate power fee based on your income. How unfair is this? This will make the entire system right for fraud."
Comments here:
"First Gradually Then Suddenly – The Everything Collapse" (Excerpt)
"First Gradually Then Suddenly –
The Everything Collapse"
by Egon Von Greyerz
Excerpt: "The inevitable consequence of the current Global Debt Bubble will be the Bankruptcy of the financial system and many of its participants. The one Swiss and three US banks that just went under is just a foretaste of what is to come.
As the US and European banking systems come under pressure, The Everything Collapse will cause a collapse in financial markets of a magnitude that has never before been seen in history. Since the global financial system is a mesh which reaches every financial player in the world, from sovereigns to private individuals, no-one will be able to escape the The Everything Collapse.
So how will the The Everything Collapse or Bankruptcy start. Well, it has already started but the world hasn’t noticed it yet. Four collapsed banks have already been shaken off by investors as a light headache which was cured by a few hundred billion dollars of central bank aspirin.
As Hemingway said, you go bankrupt first Gradually and then Suddenly. But no one should be deceived by the gradual phase of bankruptcy or collapse we are in currently. We have just had the final warning. This gradual phase might last a few months or longer but it is the last chance investors have to put their house in order. If you wait until the sudden phase, the panic will paralyze you as you wait for a recovery which will not happen. Instead, the horrid losses will just get worse.
So what will actually collapse? Well that’s obvious! The Everything Collapse is primarily a debt crisis. Global debt has trebled in this century and if we include derivatives (a major part of which will become debt), we are looking at up to $3 quadrillion. This is 20X global GDP and obviously of a magnitude that will cause major harm to the world."
Full article is here:
o
"Empire of Decadence"
Pigeons add their contribution to Marx’s theories.
"Empire of Decadence"
The folly of collectivism, the "curse" of capitalism
and lessons from the end of the world...
by Bill Bonner and Joel Bowman
Dublin, Ireland - "Today, we turn our heads, looking back…trying to learn from our experience in Argentina. But we begin by noticing changes in America. TIME Magazine, for example, was once respectable and intelligent. Now look at it: "We Have Put Individualism Ahead of the Common Good for Too Long."
"America’s genius lies not just in our spirit of entrepreneurship and pick-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps individualism, but also in our decision to make sure that this value on personal responsibility and success is never absolute. To varying degrees over the course of our history, it has been matched by a concern for the community and the collective. We measured success both by how well we were doing and how well the communities and the country we belonged to were doing, and we tended to view our individual and collective well-being as powerfully entwined."
We take the hammer to TIME today not because its drivel is so unique but because it is so common. A large part of the population agrees with it. “Capitalism is a curse,” say millennials. “Yeah…people think only of themselves,” they say. Or… “successful people should ‘give back’ to the community.” Policies with billion-dollar price tags are routinely justified on the grounds not that they will make a few people rich…but that they will ‘serve the community’…and somehow be good for us all.
Come to Marx: Even the supposedly ‘conservative’ Heritage Foundation has had its ‘come to Marx’ moment. Business Insider: “Combating monopolies, redistributing income, and even guiding production in essential industries are all valid public policy options,” says a new report from Heritage…This is a sharp turn from when Heritage doubled down on free markets and opposed the industrial policy of the European Union in 2019.
Heritage said the aim of the report was to clarify the disagreements between the two major branches of conservatism. On one side are national conservatives like Sen. Josh Hawley who wants the government to boost domestic manufacturing and break up Big Tech. On the other side are libertarian conservatives like Sen. Rand Paul who opposes interfering with free markets.
The Reaganite fusion of free markets, social traditionalism, and anti-communism "is fundamentally dead," Geoff Kabaservice, vice president of political studies at the market-oriented think tank Niskanen Center, told Insider."
But it is all claptrap. Somebody always makes the decisions. In a free market, they’re made by shoppers, families, individuals who ‘vote’ for what they want with their own money. In an un-free market, someone else decides.
And there are no ‘policies’ that benefit ‘the common good.’ Instead, every law and every regulation takes from some and gives to others. The only exceptions are the broad, basic, efficient and universal rules – drive on the right (or left!)…don’t steal…don’t kill…don’t rip people off. Probably less than 2% of federal spending falls into this category. In the rest, lambs get slaughtered so the wolves might eat a ‘gigot roti.’
No Consent Given: TIME begins with a typical fraud. It refers to ‘our decision’ …as if we were all in this together. But we don’t remember even being asked. Were you asked? Nope? Of course not. No consent was ever given. And the whole idea…that “we” can choose to put “individualism ahead of the common good” is just goofy and stupid. “Individualism” is the source of the ‘common good,’ not an alternative to it. We each decide for ourselves what we want. Millions of these decisions – aggregated and informed by millions of transactions over thousands of years – determined what we have…what we get…and what we are. A strong community is merely one in which the people choose what they want and get what they deserve.
Calls for ‘empowering the community’…or the ‘common good’ are really just scams. Except for rare cases, human life is always collective…communitarian…associative. There are families…clubs…religions…businesses…work, love, pray – all these things bring people together. When people do business together…work together…attend church together…get married…sing in choirs…shop at a local store – all of these are voluntary ‘collective’ activities. All contribute to the ‘common good,’ because they help people get what they want.
Elitist Parasites: The only real question is whether we choose for ourselves…or someone else chooses for us. Here’s an example that came up over the weekend. Example: the World Economic Forum wants to make parking more expensive so you’ll be forced to travel their way. Here’s the WEF: "The challenge: In many cities, on-street parking is either underpriced, or there’s an over-abundance of off-street parking. On average, parking takes up around a third of city land mass and with around eight spots for every car. Spaces optimized for cars reduce the ability for cities to accommodate other types of transit, or solutions such as bike sharing or scooter sharing docking stations or vehicle charging stations…"
Wouldn’t that be jolly? Cut out the parking so you can share a bike! Less CO2; the planet is saved! Thank God the elite are on the case. Impose subsidies, regulations, penalties. Better yet, take out guns and bark orders…send them to gulags…let loose the tax collectors…the thought police…old guys wear white sheets and torch crosses…young people put on arm bands and set banks on fire – for the ‘common good,’ of course.
When empires reach their decadent stage…when the elite becomes parasitic… when the money goes bad and society turns upside down – then, the thugs come out and the peacemakers disappear – the bullies and bandits become the deciders…shifting power from those who have skin in the game to those who ‘talk a good game’…and from those whose decisions make their own lives better, to those who claim to be making other peoples’ lives better.
Hola! Welcome to Argentina! It happened there 70 years ago. It’s been downhill ever since. More to come!"
o
Joel’s Note: Down here at the ‘fin del mundo’ (end of the world), reports tell us that inflation in Argentina has increased to 7.7%… per month. The Ministerio de Economia reported on Friday the fastest rise in prices since 2002, taking the annual rate of inflation to an knee-buckling 104.3%. The last time Argentina witnessed triple digit inflation, Nirvana’s Nevermind was top of the charts and Kurt Cobain (RIP) was still among the quick. Here’s a chart from Reuters (citing the official INDEC data)…
Click image for larger size.
What does this mean for the average “man on the street”? 'Zero capacity to save’ reads one headline from Reuters… ‘Food or medicine? Inflation squeezing retirees in Argentina’ echoes another, from AP…
Here in the capital, we receive notifications in the post every other month, informing us that the cost of our healthcare coverage has gone up 10… 15…20%… or more. Same with utility bills and building expenses. The local newspapers also cite official figures, telling citizens how much to raise salaries for “empleadas domésticas” (domestic employees): up 27% so far this year.
Particularly hard hit are seniors, 85% of whom are reliant on government pensions, which average 58,500 pesos a month (about US$265). The AP reports…"Argentina had one of the most advanced pension systems in South America, with retirement pensions increasing according to a mobility formula calculated by wages and taxes collected. Between January 2022 and March 2023, pensions rose 72.5%. But in the same period prices rose more than 100%."
Argentines head to the polls this October, with many predicting the calamitous economy will spell the downfall of the ruling Peronist coalition. People are so desperate, they are even considering voting for a (wait for it) libertarian candidate, Sr. Javier Milei. Here is a man who has promised, as his first order of business if elected, to burn the central bank to the ground. Argentines should be so lucky."
Jim Kunstler, "Call the Exorcist"
Democratic Party Authority Figure (Nuclear Energy)
"Call the Exorcist"
by Jim Kunstler
“Remember that all through history, there have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they seem invincible. But in the end, they always fall. Always.” - Gandhi
"You might be among those who have noticed that the people in authority in our country appear increasingly insane. It ought to be self-evident that this is deeply disturbing, but I will explain anyway to allay any residual mystification. In a sane human society, authority is granted to those who are trustworthy. People earn trust by demonstrating their allegiance to reality. Things generally work better when the people running them maintain cordial relations with reality. Now, you understand why so many things don’t work in the USA.
What more subtle minds are asking these days is: when does this insanity tip over into evil? Especially the insanity evinced in our authority figures. How about when someone positively refutes reality in the act of doing harm, for instance Rochelle Walensky, Director of the CDC. Ms. Walensky is, to this moment, still proffering mRNA Covid-19 “vaccines” for children despite the reality that reams of evidence exist showing these products to be harmful, even deadly - and, in particular, by the previously exacting standards of the CDC’s sister agency, the FDA, which hold that just a few demonstrated injuries will lead to a drug being withdrawn from medical practice. (Ms. Walensky is a medical doctor, by the way.)
Is it possible that Ms. Walensky is unacquainted with the genuine news all over the Internet about mRNA injury and death? Rate that hard-to-believe… that is, at odds with reality. If, for some reason, it escaped her attention, do you suppose that somebody among her ten-thousand-plus CDC employees might have alerted the director about all this? I would suppose so. The unappetizing conclusion is that Rochelle Walensky, in her very important role as a national public health officer, has tripped over the line from insane to evil.
As a general rule, human societies give individuals and groups permission to act in certain ways. Is it not obvious, for instance, that the deans and college presidents have issued blanket permission for students (and faculty) to mistreat invited speakers who purvey ideas contrary to the Woke campus consensus? Or that many big city mayors give permission to young people to create mayhem in the streets, steal from retail shops, and even injure or kill other people? Hence, college no longer works to expose young adults to the reality of competing ideas and the public realm in our cities is one big danger zone.
The college deans and presidents do this knowingly as do the big city mayors. When the predictable results manifest - abused speakers and urban chaos - the people in authority do nothing to discipline those who act-out, and so permission is granted to get more of that behavior. After the injuries are committed, the same authority figures offer insincere rationalizations to excuse the entire insane permission-granting dynamic, thus revealing their complicity. In short, they lie, employing complex confabulations. That seems evil.
The political Left these days is determined to promote sexual confusion as a crucial component of the common good. Politicians, agency officials, corporate executives, the chiefs of NGOs and public interest organizations all support public demonstrations of ignoble and sinister sexual acts, often involving the inversion of sexual roles between male and female. Here’s an interesting specimen posted Saturday, April 15, on Twitter.
If you object to this behavior, you may be subject to extreme punishment (loss of career) for “transphobia.” The Left is taunting America with exhibitions like this (notice the child in the background at center). Is it not clear that this is some sort of insult to decency? The Left wants the non-Left to respond with acts of violence so that the Left can proceed to disarm the non-Left and prevent any opposition to the Left’s more serious plans to abolish personal liberty, such as a Central Bank Digital Currency that will monitor all your spending, punish you for your economic choices, and confiscate your earnings. The Left does these things in the name, they say, of “our democracy.” It’s a lie, of course. Democracy is the last thing they really care about. They do it in the name of pushing everybody around because all they really care about is coercion and punishment (applied with maximum sadism). Here’s one of the Left’s thought-leaders expressing this ethos the other day:
From "The Guardian"
Robert Reich was Labor Secretary in Bill Clinton’s cabinet. He is a much-published author, including a recent book titled (ominously) "The Common Good." He’s been a professor at Brandeis and UC Berkeley. He’s an eminentissimo among the Left’s authority figures. His insistence that the non-Left seeks to bring about a tyrannical marriage of corporate-and-government interests (fascism) is contrary to the reality that this is exactly the program currently carried out by his own Democratic Party. Look no further than the Twitter files and the censorship campaign of collusion between Woked-up government agencies and Woked-up social media executives (who, by a more than 90-percent ratio contributed campaign money to the Democratic Party). Robert Reich’s party is against free speech. Democracy requires freedom of speech. That’s why Madison, Hamilton and the others put it in our constitution. Robert Reich is a liar. He is against freedom of speech.
Human religious lore has it that the figure of Satan is the Father of Lies. Satan is the personification of evil. The political Left and the vehicle it rides on, the Democratic Party, with phantom president “Joe Biden” in the driver’s seat, has become the Party of Satan. We are in the presence of evil. (Call them psychopaths, if you’re more comfortable with that.) Whether you are religious or not, it represents a force at war with reality, and it happens to be at war against the rest of us. You can’t negotiate with it. It lies always and everywhere about everything. It must be vanquished."
"Economic Market Snapshot 4/17/23"
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Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
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"It's a Big Club, and you ain't in it.
You and I are not in the Big Club."
- George Carlin
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A comprehensive, essential daily read.
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Financial Stress Index
"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI) is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: credit, equity valuation, funding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United States, other advanced economies, and emerging markets."
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Job cuts and much more.
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Commentary, highly recommended:
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"The more I see of the monied classes,
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
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Oh yeah... beyond words. Any I know anyway...
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And now... The End Game...
Sunday, April 16, 2023
"Shots Fired in Korea; US Naval Alert; US Simulates Nuke War"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 4/16/23
"Shots Fired in Korea; US Naval Alert;
US Simulates Nuke War"
Comments here:
"The Car Market Collapse Is Going To Unleash The Most Devastating Financial Crisis Since 2008"
Full screen recommended.
"The Car Market Collapse Is Going To Unleash
The Most Devastating Financial Crisis Since 2008"
by Epic Economist
"New signs of stress in the ballooning trillion-dollar U.S. auto market are pointing to an impending collapse as storm clouds continue to gather in the economic and financial landscape. Serious delinquencies in auto loans - defined as behind on payments by 90 days or more - jumped the most since the 2008-09 Global Financial Crisis, putting the entire automobile financing market at risk of facing a massive default wave in the coming months. Experts are raising big alarms about the current condition of the car loan sector. They say that millions of American motorists will have their vehicles taken away in the months ahead, and warn about a brewing financial crisis that could reach unprecedented proportions and completely crush the U.S. economy.
Newly “delinquent”, or overdue, U.S. auto loans reached $23 billion and new “seriously delinquent” loans exceeded $8 billion; both are absolute levels not seen since the depths of the global financial crisis, the report shows. Right now, more and more buyers are having difficulty keeping up with auto payments, and a record 7 million Americans are at risk of losing their vehicles for being 90 days or more behind on their loans.
In March, official agencies alerted about the strongest expectation of debt delinquency for people under 40 since the spring of 2020, when 14 million people lost their jobs during the first pandemic shutdowns. That has raised fears of a massive default wave this year because Americans are loaded up on auto loans like never before. At the end of 2022, the total value outstanding nationwide was $1.55 trillion, more than double the amount 10 years ago. Put another way, auto loan debt totaled $4,800 for every person in the country.
Every year, about 80 percent of defaults end in repossessions. But the truth is that the entire market is set up for failure. Some financial analysts even claim that many lenders are ignoring typical reg flags associated with loan applicants who are already struggling to pay their previous auto loan properly.
That is the argument Andrew Schmidt of the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law makes in a recent article. He says state officials, lawmakers, and regulators aren’t doing anything to intervene in the car credit market to curb lenders’ ability to issue subprime loans. Frequently, lenders price cars as high as twice the Kelley Blue Book value, a practice that allows them to “profit from the down payment and origination fees alone.” The subprime loans they issue also carry exorbitant interest rates - sometimes exceeding 30 percent.
While lenders profit from defaults, some borrowers spend decades paying off a car they only drove for a few months. To recoup loan balances, lenders engage in aggressive collections tactics such as lawsuits and wage garnishment. Some subprime lenders have attorneys on staff to keep up with the rapid rates of default.
But the heightened potential for mass debt default of subprime auto loans can send shockwaves through the financial system just like mortgages did in 2008, and Schmidt worries that this can have “disastrous consequences” for the economy. That’s why the auto market crash is likely to hit the poorest households hardest. “Without meaningful intervention, the subprime auto loan bubble is primed to burst,” Schmidt warns. Just like the other financial meltdowns that were fueled by reckless lending and speculation, this crisis will reach proportions most people don't even imagine. The dominoes are already falling in the financial world, and the automobile market may be the next shoe to drop."
Comments here:
Musical Interlude, Vangelis, "Space, Time Continuum"
Full screen recommended.
Vangelis, "Space, Time Continuum"
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Here in the Milky Way galaxy we have astronomical front row seats as M81 and M82 face-off, a mere 12 million light-years away. Locked in a gravitational struggle for the past billion years or so, the two bright galaxies are captured in this deep telescopic snapshot, constructed from 25 hours of image data.
Their most recent close encounter likely resulted in the enhanced spiral arms of M81 (left) and violent star forming regions in M82 so energetic the galaxy glows in X-rays. After repeated passes, in a few billion years only one galaxy will remain. From our perspective, this cosmic moment is seen through a foreground veil of the Milky Way's stars and clouds of dust. Faintly reflecting the foreground starlight, the pervasive dust clouds are relatively unexplored galactic cirrus, or integrated flux nebulae, only a few hundred light-years above the plane of the Milky Way.”
"What Keeps You Going..."
"What keeps you going isn't some fine destination but just the road you're on, and the fact that you know how to drive. You keep your eyes open, you see this damned-to-hell world you got born into, and you ask yourself, 'What life can I live that will let me breathe in and out and love somebody or something and not run off screaming into the woods?'"
- Barbara Kingsolver
Greg Hunter, "Ukraine War Causes Inflation & Higher Rates"
"Ukraine War Causes Inflation & Higher Rates"
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
Legendary financial and geopolitical cycle analyst Martin Armstrong was forecasting “chaos” in 2023. The Ukraine war is ramping up. China looks like it’s getting ready to invade Taiwan. President Trump was indicted by radical Deep State Democrats. The FDIC had to rescue some big banks and stop an economic implosion, and it’s just the first few weeks of spring. Don’t look for things to get better. Armstrong explains, “Bidens approval rating is collapsing. “Socrates” (Armstrong’s predictive computer program) has it now at 9.5%. What they are going to do is try to start war before the election, and that’s what this is all about. Their theory is no president that has ever been engaged in a war has ever lost an election. You don’t change horses in midstream. So, they intend to actually start war.”
What does Armstrong see for interest rates? Armstrong says, “Nobody wants to talk about the elephant in the room, and that is the Ukraine war. You have to understand how central banks really work. Powell (Fed Head) started raising rates as soon as the Ukrainian war started. He knows the number one factor in creating inflation is war. The amount of money that is being completely dumped down the drain with Ukraine is insane. Besides the guns and weapons and everything else, Biden is funding the entire Ukrainian government. He’s funding all their salaries and their pensions. Rates are going higher into 2024. The Fed is not going to tell the truth. It’s just not. They are not talking about the elephant in the room, and that is all the money going to Ukraine, and now you are talking about waging war to defend Taiwan.” So, more war means more inflation and much higher interest rates.
Armstrong also talks about Trump and his chance of getting back into the White House, the implosion of the legal system, rigged elections coming in 2024 and the real inflation rate that could top 30% soon. There is much more in the nearly 59-minute interview."
Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One with Martin Armstrong, cycle expert and author of the upcoming new book “The Plot to Seize Russia, Manufacturing World War III”
"Always The Hope..."
“What happens to people living in a society where everyone in power is lying, stealing, cheating and killing, and in our hearts we all know this, but the consequences of facing all these lies are so monstrous, we keep on hoping that maybe the corporate government administration and media are on the level with us this time. Americans remind me of survivors of domestic abuse. This is always the hope that this is the very, very, very last time one’s ribs get re-broken again.”
- Inga Muscio
It won't be...
The Poet: Robinson Jeffers, “Be Angry at the Sun”
“Be Angry at the Sun”
“That public men publish falsehoods
Is nothing new. That America must accept
Like the historical republics corruption and empire
Has been known for years.
Be angry at the sun for setting
If these things anger you.
Watch the wheel slope and turn,
They are all bound on the wheel, these people,
Those warriors,
This republic, Europe, Asia.
Observe them gesticulating,
Observe them going down. The gang serves lies,
the passionate Man plays his part;
the cold passion for truth hunts in no pack.
You are not Catullus, you know,
To lampoon these crude sketches of Caesar.
You are far from Dante’s feet,
but even farther from his dirty
Political hatreds.
Let boys want pleasure, and men
Struggle for power, and women perhaps for fame,
And the servile to serve a Leader and dupes
to be duped.
Yours is not theirs.”
- Robinson Jeffers, 1941
"Night..."
“The day has been so full of fret and care, and our hearts have been so full of evil and of bitter thoughts, and the world has seemed so hard and wrong to us. Then Night, like some great loving mother, gently lays her hand upon our fevered head, and turns our little tear-stained faces up to hers, and smiles; and though she does not speak, we know what she would say, and lay our hot flushed cheek against her bosom, and the pain is gone. Sometimes, our pain is very deep and real, and we stand before her very silent, because there is no language for our pain, only a moan. Night’s heart is full of pity for us: she cannot ease our aching; she takes our hand in hers, and the little world grows very small and very far away beneath us, and, borne on her dark wings, we pass for a moment into a mightier Presence than her own, and in the wondrous light of that great Presence, all human life lies like a book before us, and we know that Pain and Sorrow are but angels of God.”
- Jerome K. Jerome
Musical Interlude: Disturbed, "The Sound Of Silence"
Full screen recommended.
Disturbed, "The Sound Of Silence", Studio version.
896 million views.
Full screen recommended.
Disturbed, "The Sound Of Silence", Live version.
136 million views.
"Col. Douglas MacGregor: Ukraine Spells Doom for Western Hegemony"
Full screen recommended.
Redacted, 4/16/23
"Col. Douglas MacGregor:
Ukraine Spells Doom for Western Hegemony"
"Colonel Douglas MacGregor sits down with Redacted Host Clayton Morris to talk about the impending collapse of western hegemony. The west continues to push for a direct confrontation with the Russia and China while U.S. can't even produce ammunition."
Comments here:
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Full screen recommended.
Col. Douglas Macgregor, Straight Calls, 4/16/23
"Fall Back Or Be Destroyed By The Russians"
"Analysis of breaking news and in-depth discussion of current
geopolitical events in the United States of America and the world."
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"Massive Price Increases At Kroger! This Is Getting Out Of Control!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 4/16/23
"Massive Price Increases At Kroger!
This Is Getting Out Of Control!"
"In today's vlog we are at Kroger, and are noticing massive price increases on groceries! This is not good as we are also seeing some empty shelves! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products, and also charging extremely high prices!"
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"Has the Collapse Begun?"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly 4/16/23
"Has the Collapse Begun?"
"It is crazy that we are seeing massive price increases for retailers. Costco has some items that are up as much as 50%. We are seeing retail sales Collabs and prices skyrocket."
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"The Laughing Face Of Madness..."
"We work in the dark. We do what we can to battle the evil that would otherwise destroy us. But if a man's character is his fate, it's not a choice but a calling. Sometimes the weight of this burden causes us to falter from the fragile fortress of our mind, allowing the monster without to turn within. We are left alone staring into the abyss, into the laughing face of madness."
- Fox Mulder, "X-Files"
"They Must Have A Good Reason"
"They Must Have A Good Reason"
by Todd Hayen
"There is a strange idea hovering about that if you don’t know something then it doesn’t exist. Kind of like the image of the proverbial ostrich with his head in the sand. But it goes beyond denial. Ignorance is when you don’t know something at all, denial is when you know it, but you ignore it.
What I am talking about here is when you know something and do not deny it, but simply rationalize it away with a statement like “they must have a good reason for doing that,” or similarly, “maybe we don’t know all that there is to know about that.” Which is often followed with, “and I don’t have the time, (inclination, care, interest, curiosity, ability, intelligence, etc.) to look into it further.”
This has always bugged me to some extent, but I must admit I have been marginally guilty of this sort of thinking myself. I mean, do we really have the time to check everything? Well, now I think we have to make the time, and, of course, not everything is important enough to require vetting it for truth. That is an awful thing to say, but I am afraid it is the truth.
Part of this “gullibility” that causes many people to just brush things off assuming that all is ok comes from indoctrination from an early age. I grew up in a culture that seemed to be really obsessed with people’s safety - particularly the safety of children. Think of all the recalls of toys and such. If some toy comes out that has the slightest bit of uncertainty about how it might harm your child, it is pulled.
I should not say I “grew up” with this because most of the crap I played with as a kid would be considered a lethal weapon today - Lawn Darts, BB and pellet guns, Vac-U-Forms, chemistry sets, Easy Bake ovens (this was my sister’s toy, she was a little girl, I was a little boy - I tell you this for clarity). The “safety craze” didn’t really start until a decade or so later. I even remember some kid I knew got an “Atomic Energy Lab” toy that had actual uranium ore in the kit. I would have died (literally) to get my hands on one of these. Those were the days.
So over the decades, due to these recalls and safety concerns, we have developed a false sense of security. What regulation agency would bother to recall Lawn Darts but at the same time allow an unsafe vaccine to reach the unwilling arms of children? Well, toys are toys, vaccines are medicine. There ‘ya go. The government, and other regulatory agencies, know what’s right, right?
Being born into a culture (US) that was known for its integrity, truthfulness, righteousness, and a penchant for character and goodness (ha, ha), no one would ever think that the CIA would have been actively trying to assassinate Fidel Castro, among others, for decades. I remember first hearing a rumor about this when I was about 15. “No way,” I thought to myself. “Assassinations are illegal! My country would never be involved in such a thing!” Especially attempting to murder a leader of a country that really was just minding their own business. At least so it seemed. (Today, when we hear of such things, we shrug our shoulders and say, “They must know what they are doing.”)
And what about Iran’s Mosaddegh? He was minding his own business overseeing the affairs of Iran as Prime Minister from 1951 to 1953. The US wasn’t happy with him for a number of reasons (primarily economic, like, for example, Mosaddegh wanted Iran to get a bigger share of oil profits that the US and UK were sucking out of his nation’s oil fields, imagine that! What audacity!). The CIA bopped him off as well—indirectly with a CIA created insurrection, which led to Mosaddegh’s imprisonment and more than likely contributed to his health issues, then he died). Sure there is detail here I am not presenting, but you get the picture. The US Government must have had a good reason.
How about Obama’s drone war? Killing a whole whack of people, including children (I would say “women and children” but I might get in trouble for that). He must have had a good reason. Personally, I don’t think there is any “good” reason to kill children - even if as collateral damage or unintentionally.
I am presenting here only a few examples among thousands…more than we even know of course. And this is just government actions, what about pharmaceutical actions, or other medical actions? They all must have good reasons.
As a whole most people seem to think that atrocities cannot happen in the US (or Canada, or the UK, or other countries in the “civilized” West). We are just too sophisticated for that. The irony here is the official spokespeople for the US, for example, actually present themselves as do-gooders. They either keep their actions covert and Top Secret, or they present them as “good things.” We only have to look to people like Julian Assange and Edward Snowden to see how the US treats whistleblowers who seek to expose the fact the US really doesn’t have a good reason to do much that it does - at least no reason that benefits us.
If you ever corner a sheep and throw this sort of stuff at them, they will first hit you with the statement, “Why do you have to be so negative? Why can’t you just trust your government to take care of business in our best interests as a nation?” They will say that the government has to have secrets in order to keep us safe, and those people who break the law (Assange and Snowden, among many others. Since we are counting, let’s include the truckers of Canada as well) are criminals, and it doesn’t matter if your intention is good, if you break the law you are a criminal and should be punished.
If you try to argue with these sheep about anything more complex, like the CIA’s intervention into Middle Eastern affairs, they will just blow it off and say something like, “All that overseas stuff is just too complicated to sort out. And those Middle Eastern countries (except Israel) are all bad guys, I don’t really care what the US does to them, they know what they are doing.”
Sheep are funny that way. “La, la, la, la, la, la” with fingers plugging their ears. It is easy to push them to this point. Sheep poking. Try it some time for fun and pleasure.
One good way to get them there really quickly is to bring up some false flag issue that has been in the big time news within the last few decades. The 9-11 fiasco is my favorite. You’ll get the sheep fingers into the ears really quickly with the “la la la’s” going full blast. Don’t try something too far out there though, like the moon landing, or the hot ticket now, germ vs. terrain theory. You’ll only just get eye rolls for those whacko topics.
I am curious though…speaking of 9-11… what will happen when that incident is exposed for what it was?* (Assuming that will ever occur.) I will bet you money, no matter how ludicrous it would be, their first response to the realization that their own government was responsible for the destruction of those buildings at the World Trade Center, will be, “They must have had a good reason.” Actually they did, but it wasn’t a good reason for us."
o
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