"Independence Day 2023"

"Independence Day 2023"

Classic Thoughts Re-Written for the Modern Patriot

Contemplations on the Tree of Woe

"Any man with any measure of heroism in his blood who actually reads the texts and speeches of our Founders cannot help but to feel the call to pick up his musket and fight Britain. Moreover, the tyrannies endured by our ancestors seem almost trivial in comparison to the daily villainies perpetrated on their descendants by those who purport to rule them; shouldn’t the urgency of action be all the greater? And yet…

Perhaps I should clarify: Any man or woman who can actually read the texts and speeches cannot but help to feel the call to action. But today almost no one can actually read them. The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level of Patrick Henry’s “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” speech is 11th grade; of the Declaration of Independence, 12th grade; of the U.S. Constitution, 18th grade.

According to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy, 57% of Americans have a reading grade below 9th level, and 13% have a reading grade below 5th level. Only 13% can understand the Declaration or Patrick Henry’s speech, and virtually none can understand the Constitution. And that includes all Americans. Among Generation Z, it’s far worse. They are the least literate generation in American history.

Spend a few minutes on YouTube watching our young people be interviewed on the most basic matters of our history and values. They do not know anything of the good, the true, and the beautiful; and even if they wanted to, they could not learn it because the texts are inaccessible to them. Far too many have been cognitively crippled.

If we are to properly motivate the masses, we must speak the language of the masses. I am called to action. I have spent weeks immersing myself in the Gen Z gathering hall known as “TikTok.” Today, on the 4th of July, I present our finest patriotic texts in a style that will speak to the young men and women of today. Check ‘em out, fam.

"The Declaration of Independence"

"Aight, so check this, when peeps decide to dip from the squad and do their own thing, it's only fair they spit some facts about why they're peacing out. It's just how it is, you know? We all believe some truths are just straight-up, like we're all equal, and our Creator gave us some dope rights, like life, freedom, and chasing what makes us happy.

And if the government isn't vibing with that, then we've got the right to switch it up and set up something new that'll keep us secure. That's just keeping it real. But when a long list of whack stuff happens, it's not about being salty; it's just time to bounce and do what's gotta be done. And that's where we're at with the British Crown. So, here's the tea.

Like, we're not about to ghost without giving the full deets. Let's get into it, shall we? We've been super patient and chill, trying to work stuff out with the British king. But he's been on a total power trip, acting like a toxic friend that just won't quit.

He's put laws on us that are totally unfair, messed with our courts, and has been all up in our business, trying to control our lives and telling us what to do.

And it's not like we haven't tried to talk it out. We've been sending the king all these messages, trying to get him to understand our side of things. But he's been ghosting us, ignoring our probs, and acting like everything's all gucci when it's totally not. It's obvious he's just trying to flex and show his power, and we're over it.

So, we're taking a stand and cutting ties. We're saying 'bye, Felicia' to the king and declaring ourselves as free and independent states. We'll make our own alliances, trade with who we want, and fight our own battles. We're going to stand up for each other and do everything that free countries do because that's what we are.

We're fully aware that this is a major step, so we're not going to do it without some serious thought. We respect the connections we've had with Britain, and we're not looking to cut ties unless it's absolutely necessary. But they've forced our hand, and we need to do what's best for us.

With a clear conscience and with respect to the opinions of humanity, we're putting it all on the line. We're entrusting our cause to the universe and its divine law. We're ready to face the consequences and stand up for what we believe.

In other words, it's on, fam. We're doing this. We're declaring independence.

Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death

Do we really need all these troops and warships for a love and reconciliation gig? Haven't we been chill enough to make peace, or do they gotta flex their muscle to win back our vibe? Don't kid yourself, fam. This is all about power and control, the final say for those in the high castle.

I gotta ask, peeps, why all this military showoff if not to make us kneel? What else could it be for? Does Britain have any beef with anyone around here to justify all this military overkill? Nah, bro, there's none. It's all about us. They're prepping these chains the Brit government's been crafting for ages.

What's our move? Do we try to out-talk them? We've been doing that for a solid decade. Got any fresh takes? Nah, nothing. We've explored this from all angles, all for nothing. Do we beg and plead? What else can we say that hasn't been said already?

Please, fam, let's be real. We've done all we could to dodge this incoming storm. We've filed petitions, we've protested, we've pleaded, we've basically thrown ourselves at the king's feet, begging him to stop the savage acts of the government and Parliament. Our pleas have been ignored, our protests only made them more aggressive, our pleas fell on deaf ears, and we've been kicked aside with nothing but contempt. After all this, dreaming of peace and reconciliation is pointless. Hope has left the chat.

If we want freedom, if we intend to keep the valuable privileges we've been fighting for, if we don't plan on ditching this epic fight we've been in, and swore never to quit till we win, we gotta fight!

I say it again, we gotta fight! Calling on our weapons and the big guy upstairs is all we've got left!

They're saying we're weak; can't handle an enemy this tough. But when will we be stronger? Next week? Next year? When we've got no defenses left and a British soldier's snooping around every house? Does doing nothing and procrastinating make us stronger? Will we gain the power to resist by just lying down and hugging false hopes, till our enemies chain us up?

Nah, we're not weak if we use what nature's given us right. Three million folks, armed for the holy cause of freedom, in a country like ours, can't be defeated by whatever our enemies throw at us.

Plus, we won't be fighting alone. There's a just God looking over nations' fates; He'll bring allies to fight with us. The victory ain't just for the strong; it's for the vigilant, the active, the brave.

Plus, we've got no choice. Even if we were cowardly enough to want it, it's too late to back down now. There's no going back unless we surrender and become slaves! Our chains are ready! You can hear 'em in Boston! War's coming and let it come! I say it again, let it come.

We can't sugarcoat this, fam. Some may shout, "Peace, Peace" but there's no peace. War's already here! The next chill from the north will carry the sound of clashing arms! Our brothers are already out there!

Why are we just standing around? What do y'all want? What's the deal? Is life that precious, or peace that cool, that we'd buy it with chains and slavery? Nah, not on my watch, Almighty God! I don't know what others will do; but for me, it's either freedom or it's game over!"

- https://treeofwoe.substack.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

"Humiliating: 

Gen-Z Can't Answer the Most Basic Questions"

"Millennial Job Interview"

"We're so freakin' doomed!"

- The Mogambo Guru

Bill Bonner, "Of The People, By The People, For The People"

Battle of Chancellorsville, 1863

"Of The People, By The People, For The People"

by Bill Bonner

"General, I have been a soldier all my life. I have been with soldiers engaged in fights by couples, by squads, companies, regiments, divisions, and armies, and should know, as well as any one, what soldiers can do. It is my opinion that no fifteen thousand men ever arrayed for battle can take that position."

- General Longstreet to General Lee on the eve of Pickett’s Charge

Paris, France - "It’s July the 4th…it is also the 160th anniversary of the most decisive battle in the War Between the States. It is usually called the “Civil War” but a civil war is one where two groups fight for control of one government, like the English civil war, or the Irish civil war or the many civil wars in China.

The War Between the States was a war with two groups, each with its own government. The southern states wanted to go their own way – much like the Donbas and Luhansk areas of Eastern Ukraine today, who sought their independence after the Maidan coup d’etat in 2014. And like the Kyiv government today, Washington wanted to take the breakaway states back…by force.

The war began when Southerners tried to take possession of a Union-held fort built on an artificial island to protect Charleston, SC. – Fort Sumter. When the Union commander refused to give it up, the Confederates lobbed artillery shells into the fort, until the Yankees surrendered. That incident was probably not significant enough to set off a real war. But war was in the ‘air du temps’ and both sides were ‘gunning up.’ By July, 1861, hotheads on both sides were ready for action. The Northerners invaded Virginia, expecting an easy victory. Washingtonians drove out to Bull Run in their carriages, with picnic baskets, to watch the anticipated rout of the “Johnny Rebs.” It didn’t work out as planned and the gawkers soon hastened back across the Potomac.

But once underway – like an empire, inflation or a love affair – war takes on a life of its own. People lose sight of what they are fighting for and concern themselves only with winning. They use “any means necessary” – murder, mayhem, deceit, invention, starvation, poison…whatever they can come up with – to beat their opponents. Ultimately, the goal is to inflict so much pain on the enemy that he calls it quits. That is why Richard Nixon tried to bomb North Vietnam ‘back to the stone age.’ And it is why George W. Bush hit Iraq with a campaign of ‘shock and awe.’

In order to win the war, the Yankees had to conquer the South. The Confederates would win by not being conquered. But the Yankees had decisive advantages. They had industries that could make weapons and supply their armies. They had a navy that could blockade Southern ports and cripple the Confederate economy. And they had thousands of immigrants—many of them Irishmen who had come to Boston, New York and Philadelphia to escape the famine – whom they could draft into the army.

After two years of warfare, the Confederates had proved their fighting elan. They won battles, often against much superior forces. But each victory brought them closer to defeat. Because the South could not readily replace its fallen soldiers or its lost supplies.

The Battle of Chancellorsville showed Robert E. Lee’s skill as a commander. Military historians call it a ‘perfect battle.’ Union general Joseph Hooker tried to take on Lee’s army from the front and the rear in a ‘double envelopment.’ Lee, outnumbered more than two to one, managed to defeat both of Hooker’s armies. But in the battle, Lee lost his ‘right arm’ – Gen. Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson -- who was accidentally shot by his own troops in the half light of evening.

Lee won a great victory at Chancellorsville. ‘Many more victories like that,’ said an astute observer on his staff, ‘and we will lose the war.’ It was then, in the spring of 1863, that the Confederates decided on a different strategy. They needed some ‘shock and awe’ of their own to bring the Yankees to the bargaining table. And they badly needed supplies. So, they invaded Maryland and Pennsylvania, leading to the Battle of Gettysburg.

What the Confederates really needed was Stonewall Jackson. He had spent 10 years teaching tactics at the Virginia Military Institute. He had studied Napoleon’s campaigns, in detail. He had watched, too, as his own troops were able to beat back more powerful Union assaults by taking protected positions and letting the enemy come to them. He had understood how, with improvements in riflery, it was almost impossible for the attacker to dislodge a well-positioned defender.

And yet, at Gettysburg, that is what Lee’s Army tried to do. By July 3rd, the battle had already been going on for three days. The Union army held the high ground. Now, on its own ground, it was the defender, not the attacker. And in the center of its main line was a low stone wall at a place aptly named, “Cemetery Ridge.”

Lee’s most trusted subordinate, Jackson, was dead. General Longstreet argued against attacking the ridge. But he couldn’t dissuade Lee. So, after noon on the 3rd, some 12,500 Confederate soldiers, under General George Pickett tried to take the ridge. They had to cross a large, mostly open area, where they were hit by artillery and rifle fire from several directions. Only a handful of them reached the stone wall, but were soon beaten back. Half of the attackers lay dead on the field. Lee retreated back to Virginia. The war went on for nearly two years more, before the the South, exhausted, finally gave up.

As Lincoln put it, the war was fought so that ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.’ But by 1865, the people of the South were ruled by Lincoln’s armies."

- https://bonnerprivateresearch.substack.com/

"Gregory Mannarino, AM 7/4/23"

"It's a Big Club, and you ain't in it.

You and I are not in the Big Club."

- George Carlin

o

Gregory Mannarino, AM 7/4/23

"Markets, A Look Ahead, What You Need To 

Know Right Now. Where Is This All Going?

- https://traderschoice.net/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

"Brace Yourselves: The S&P 500 Is About to 

Experience a Crushing Blow Comparable to the 1929 Crash"

"Shopping Day At Meijer! Stocking Up On The Sales!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures With Danno, 7/4/23

"Shopping Day At Meijer! Stocking Up On The Sales!"

"In today's vlog, we are stocking up on the grocery sales at Meijer 

and showing some of the best ways to save a lot of money this week!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"How It Really Is"

"In three words I can sum up everything I've

learned about life: It goes on.”  - Robert Frost

Happy 4th Of July

 

"The Stars and Stripes Forever"

Boston Pops Orchestra with John Williams

"The Stars and Stripes Forever" 

"The Stars and Stripes Forever," composed by John Philip Sousa in 1896. It is the national march of the United States of America and probably Sousa's greatest composition. God bless America!"

"The Declaration of Independence"

Full screen recommended.

"The Declaration of Independence" 

(as read by Max McLean)

A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America in General Congress Assembled, 28 June 1776 - Adopted July 4, 1776.

WHEN in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.

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 - That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security. Such has been the patient Sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The History of the present King of Great-Britain is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World.

   He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public Good.

   He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing Importance, unless suspended in their Operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

  He has refused to pass other Laws for the Accommodation of large Districts of People, unless those People would relinquish the Right of Representation in the Legislature, a Right inestimable to them, and formidable to Tyrants only.

   He has called together Legislative Bodies at Places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the Depository of their public Records, for the sole Purpose of fatiguing them into Compliance with his Measures.

   He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly Firmness his Invasions on the Rights of the People.

   He has refused for a long Time, after such Dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the Dangers of Invasion from without, and Convulsions within.

   He has endeavoured to prevent the Population of these States; for that Purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their Migrations hither, and raising the Conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

  He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

   He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the Tenure of their Offices, and the Amount and Payment of their Salaries.

   He has erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harrass our People, and eat out their Substance.

  He has kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies, without the consent of our Legislatures.

   He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

   He has combined with others to subject us to a Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

    For quartering large Bodies of Armed Troops among us:

   For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

   For cutting off our Trade with all Parts of the World:

   For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

   For depriving us, in many Cases, of the Benefits of Trial by Jury:

   For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended Offences:

  For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an arbitrary Government, and enlarging its Boundaries, so as to render it at once an Example and fit Instrument for introducing the same absolute Rule into these Colonies:

  For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

 For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with Power to legislate for us in all Cases whatsoever.

 He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

 He has plundered our Seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our Towns, and destroyed the Lives of our People.

 He is, at this Time, transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the Works of Death, Desolation, and Tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and Perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous Ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized Nation.

 He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the Executioners of their Friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

 He has excited domestic Insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the Inhabitants of our Frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known Rule of Warfare, is an undistinguished Destruction, of all Ages, Sexes and Conditions.

 In every stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble Terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated Injury. A Prince, whose Character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Ruler of a free People.

  Nor have we been wanting in Attentions to our British Brethren. We have warned them from Time to Time of Attempts by their Legislature to extend an unwarrantable Jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the Circumstances of our Emigration and Settlement here. We have appealed to their native Justice and Magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the Ties of our common Kindred to disavow these Usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our Connections and Correspondence. They too have been deaf to the Voice of Justice and of Consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the Necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of Mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace, Friends.

 We, therefore, the Representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the Rectitude of our Intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly Publish and Declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, Free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political Connection between them and the State of Great-Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

 Signed by Order and in Behalf of the Congress,

 JOHN HANCOCK, President.

o

Hat tip to Robert W. Malone, MD, MS

"A Patriotism of the Heart"

"A Patriotism of the Heart"

by Brian Maher

"Here is the trouble with America’s jingos, warhawks, drum-beaters, glory hounds, world-improvers, do-gooders and idealists: They are not patriotic. A jolting, nearly scandalous claim, it is true. Do these Americans not cry tears red, white and blue? Do they not yell about American “greatness”... American “exceptionalism”... the “shining city” atop the hill? That and more they do, yes. Yet they are not patriotic. That is the curious case we haul before the jury today.

Yes, we are stepping away from our normal beat of manna and markets… and reflecting upon the virtue of patriotism. (We first doff our cap to the late writer Joseph Sobran, upon whose insights we rely today).

Country or Empire: Famed English writer G.K. Chesterton once denounced Rudyard Kipling’s “lack of patriotism.” The fellow’s lack of patriotism? What did Chesterton mean? Kipling was chief rah-rah man for the British Empire, its loudest bugler. English civilization overtopped all rival powers, he believed - as Everest overtops all rival peaks. And as was proper… Great Britain gave the law in all four corners of Earth.

From Kipling’s story "Regulus", citing Virgil’s "Aeneid": “Roman! let this be your care, this your art; to rule over the nations and impose the ways of peace…” Substitute Britain for Rome, and you have Kipling. Why then did Chesterton deny his patriotism? The reason is subtle. Subtle… yet critical.

“He Admires England, But He Does Not Love Her” Chesterton argued that Kipling admired England because she was powerful. He did not love her because she was England: "He admires England, but he does not love her; for we admire things with reasons, but love them without reasons. He admires England because she is strong, not because she is English."

Now Chesterton. He loved England as England — its customs, its eccentricities, its people. Even, if you can believe it, its “food.” A man loves his mother. It is a wordless love, wide and deep. He requires no reason. He requires no justification. And as he loves his mother, so he loves his country. Be it China, be it Russia, be it Chile, be it Romania… it is all one.

Sobran: "Of course Chesterton was right. You love your country as you love your mother - simply because it is yours, not because of its superiority to others, particularly superiority of power."

A Spacious Patriotism: Does the other fellow believe his own mother towers high over all others? Well, friends, maybe he does believe it. But that in no way irritates, annoys or threatens the other fellow. No harm flows from it. After all... Adults allow children to cherish the fiction that reindeer fly and round men descend chimneys... A husband allows his wife to cherish the fiction that she is a superior cook or automobilist… as a wife allows her husband to cherish the fiction that he is a skillful and formidable lover... or that his bald head is actually ennobling.

These are benevolent fictions conducive to the domestic peace and happiness. In that spirit, the patriot’s attitude toward the foreigner is relaxed. It is accommodative. It is spacious. He understands this fellow’s affection for his country is essentially the affection for his mother. But a Kipling does not love his country as a man loves his mother. His country must show all others its dust. It must outrace them all… else he feels diminished.

The Patriot Loves His Country Regardless: The United States of America stables many such gentlemen. They are dizzied, wobbled, staggered by a higher American vision. Their eyes roll perpetually heavenward. To these fellows, America must always be up to something big in this world.

She must be forever charging up San Juan Hill, going over the top, storming Omaha beach, bearing any burden, paying any price... She must be beating the Russians to the moon, beating the world at basketball, beating democracy into someone’s head. Tall deeds, some of these, and fantastic attainments.

But would the patriot love America less if she fell short of the glory… if her history was a page mostly blank? He would not. It is - after all - his country. And he loves her as he loves his mother. But to that certain species of American, America must dazzle and glitter upon the world’s stage. She must be the “indispensable nation.” If not indispensable… then dispensable. If dispensable, then unworthy of his love. Hence his lack of patriotism. He is Kipling.

The Difference Between the Patriot and the Nationalist: Sobran takes their measure: "Many Americans admire America for being strong, not for being American. For them America has to be “the greatest country on Earth” in order to be worthy of their devotion. If it were only the second greatest, or the 19th greatest, or, heaven forbid, “a third-rate power,” it would be virtually worthless… Maybe the poor Finns or Peruvians love their countries too, but heaven knows why - they have so little to be proud of, so few “reasons.”

And so Sobran trains his cannons on the nationalist ideologue: "The nationalist, who identifies America with abstractions like freedom and democracy, may think it’s precisely America’s mission to spread those abstractions around the world - to impose them by force, if necessary. In his mind, those abstractions are universal ideals... the world must be made “safe for democracy” by “a war to end all wars”... Any country that refuses to Americanize is “anti-American” - or a “rogue nation.” For the nationalist, war is a welcome opportunity to change the world."

We might list some names in point... but our legal counsel is wagging his finger and shaking his head. The patriot and the nationalist babble the same American tongue. The one is therefore mistaken for the other. Yet lean in. Listen closer. You will find they speak alien languages: "Because the patriot and the nationalist often use the same words, they may not realize that they use those words in very different senses. The American patriot assumes that the nationalist loves this country with an affection like his own, failing to perceive that what the nationalist really loves is an abstraction - “national greatness,” or something like that. The American nationalist, on the other hand, is apt to be suspicious of the patriot, accusing him of insufficient zeal, or even “anti-Americanism.”

A Patriotism of the Heart: The patriotism Sobran hymns is a relaxed, natural, healthful patriotism. It is a patriotism of the heart. This patriotism flies no ideological flag, hauls no missionary cargo, steers by no heavenly star. It is the patriotism of the prairie, of the plain, of the lonely jackrabbit crossroad, of the greasy spoon, of the truckstop, of the front porch, of the pool hall... of Main Street. And his fellow countrymen? The patriot takes them as he finds them.

Might they sometimes neglect to wash behind the ears? Might they mistake the salad fork for the dinner fork? Well, sometimes they may. But they are his countrymen… and that is enough. The patriot allows himself to laugh - not at his fellow Americans - but with them. The nationalist, meantime, does not laugh. He hectors. He preaches. He scolds.

“Patriotism Is Relaxed. Nationalism Is Rigid.” “Patriotism is relaxed,” as Sobran concludes. “Nationalism is rigid.” We in turn conclude, paraphrasing Chesterton: "The relaxed patriot, the average American, the American who tends to his own business and sweeps his own stoop, the American who loves his country as he loves his mother - this fellow is all right. But the rigid American, the uber American, the zealous American, the American nationalist hot to put the world to rights - the American who admires America for her strength - but fails to love her as herself? This fellow... he’s all wrong."

- dailyreckoning.com

"Living In America"

James Brown, "Living In America"

Turn it up! lol

Happy 4th Of July!

Full screen recommended.

Ray Charles, "America The Beautiful"

Have a safe, happy and peaceful Independence Day, folks!

Scott Ritter, "Ukraine's Ill-Fated Offensive"

Scott Ritter, 7/3/23

"Ukraine's Ill-Fated Offensive"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"We Are In Big Trouble, Disturbing Signs Are Everywhere"

Jeremiah Babe, 7/3/23

"We Are In Big Trouble, Disturbing Signs Are Everywhere"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"‘I Cry Quietly’: A Soldier Describes the Toll of Russia’s War"

Full screen recommended.

"‘I Cry Quietly’: 

A Soldier Describes the Toll of Russia’s War"

"For Valentyn, a Ukrainian soldier in the Donetsk region, the war’s death toll is more than a statistic. He is tasked with moving wounded troops - and dead bodies - away from the front lines, often under Russian fire."

"Under Russian Fire, 

A Ukrainian Soldier Evacuates the Wounded"

By Yousur Al-Hlou and Masha Froliak

Near Kremmina, Ukraine - "The sound of artillery launching and landing along the front line punctures the stillness of the forest just a few miles away, where combat medics are waiting to receive the wounded. On the horizon, a military vehicle moves along a dusty road and screeches to a halt when it reaches the trees. A soldier named Valentyn parks it there for natural camouflage from Russian drones scouting for Ukrainian military positions.

A group of soldiers, visibly shaken, quickly unloads three bodies that have just been recovered from the front line, placing each one into a plastic body bag and zipping it closed. Their position was shelled and then attacked by a drone, they say. “They’re shooting at you from all sides. You turn, you run, they hit you, and it’s impossible to get away,” said Maksym, who survived the attack. “This is a big tragedy for us.” “One more body is left behind with the Russian soldiers,” he added.

While much of the world’s attention was fixated on the bloody urban battle taking place in Bakhmut, Russia’s campaign in eastern Ukraine was also raging in forests and fields about 50 miles north of the city, near Kreminna. Here, soldiers take positions in trenches surrounded by tall, slim trees, crouching to avoid the direct line of sight of their Russian enemies. “People say it’s harsh in Bakhmut,” said Valentyn, who joined the army seven months ago. “But it’s harsh here, too.”

For the past month, Valentyn has been stationed at this evacuation point, traveling back and forth to the front line almost daily to rescue wounded soldiers and recover the dead. His job requires him to drive directly toward Russian forces, and he has come under fire at times. “There is nothing good about it,” Valentyn said. “What is this war for?”

Ukrainian and Russian military officials have been reluctant to release data on casualties within their ranks, though the U.S. government and military experts estimate that both sides have suffered significant losses in the tens or hundreds of thousands.

For Valentyn, the work of responding to the casualties has been both grim and relentless. “There is blood everywhere,” he said, while cleaning it from his vehicle. “It has a smell. Especially fresh blood.” Bright red liquid trickled through his fingers as he rinsed out a bloodied cloth. He drained the cloth and used it again to wipe off the back seat. “It’s difficult to see young boys die,” Valentyn said. “Sometimes I cry quietly.”

In calmer moments when there is no one to evacuate, Valentyn travels deep into the forest to transport soldiers to and from the contact line, where Ukrainian and Russian soldiers are sometimes positioned just hundreds of meters apart. He said at least one group of soldiers couldn’t make it to their position because Russian troops had already taken it over.

“Every day is scary here,” said Viktor, a soldier who returned with Valentyn. “I feel constant anxiety, for our country and our lives.” His stoic face reflected the fear and horror known only to those who had witnessed the fight in the forest. “Those who haven’t been there will never understand.”

- https://www.nytimes.com/

Don't you dare look away! While our own country is going straight to hell in every way possible you, and me and all of us have paid at least $150 billion for this horror! The blood he's cleaning up is on all our hands, too... Col. Doug Macgregor says 300,000 to 400,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed, with 30,000 Russian troops dead, as we get unstoppably closer to a world-ending nuclear war between NATO and Russia. This was NONE of our business! That's the true situation, no matter what other fantasies you'd prefer. God help us, God save us all...                                                                          - CP

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Stillpoint"

Full screen recommended.

2002, "Stillpoint"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Cradled in cosmic dust and glowing hydrogen, stellar nurseries in Orion the Hunter lie at the edge of a giant molecular cloud some 1,500 light-years away. Spanning nearly 25 degrees, this breath-taking vista stretches across the well-known constellation from head to toe (top to bottom). The Great Orion Nebula, the closest large star forming region, is right of center. To its left are the Horsehead Nebula, M78, and Orion's belt stars. Red giant Betelgeuse is at the hunter's shoulder, bright blue Rigel at his foot, and the glowing Lambda Orionis (Meissa) nebula at the far left, near Orion's head. 

Of course, the Orion Nebula and bright stars are easy to see with the unaided eye, but dust clouds and emission from the extensive interstellar gas in this nebula-rich complex, are too faint and much harder to record. In this mosaic of broadband telescopic images, additional image data acquired with a narrow hydrogen alpha filter was used to bring out the pervasive tendrils of energized atomic hydrogen gas and the arc of the giant Barnard's Loop.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap101023.html

o

“Divinity is not playful. The universe was not made in jest but in solemn incomprehensible earnest. By a power that is unfathomably secret, and holy, and fleet.” You may recall these words from Annie Dillard’s “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.” There is nothing intrinsically cheerful about the world, she says. To live is to die; it’s all part of the bargain. Stars destroy themselves to make the atoms of our bodies. Every creature lives to eat and be eaten. And into this incomprehensible, unfathomable, apparently stochastic melee stumbles… You and I. With qualities that we have - so far - seen nowhere else. Hope. Humor. A sense of justice. A sense of beauty. Gratitude. But also: Anger. Hurt. Despair. Strangers in a strange land.

Galaxies by the billions turn like St. Catherine Wheels, throwing off sparks of exploding stars. Atoms eddy and flow, blowing hot and cold, groping and promiscuous. A wind of neutrinos gusts through our bodies, Energy billows and swells. A myriad of microorganisms nibble at our flesh.

We have a sense that something purposeful is going on, something that involves us. Something secret, holy and fleet. But we haven’t a clue what it is. We make up stories. Stories in which we are the point of it all. We tell the stories over and over. To our children. To ourselves. And the stories fill up the space of our ignorance. Until they don’t. And then the great yawning spaces open again. And time clangs down on our heads like a pummeling rain, like the collapsing ceiling of the sky. Dazed, stunned, we stagger like giddy topers towards our own swift dissolution. Inexplicably praising. Admiring. Wondering. Giving thanks.”

- Chet Raymo

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

The Poet: William Blake, “The Tyger”

“The Tyger”

“Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, and what art.

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand? and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp

Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,

And watered heaven with their tears,

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?”

- William Blake

Read Online: Gregory David Roberts, “Shantaram”

"Sometimes we love with nothing more than hope.

Sometimes we cry with everything except tears.

In the end that’s all we have – to hold on tight until dawn.”

“For this is what we do. Put one foot forward and then the other. Lift our eyes to the snarl and smile of the world once more. Think. Act. Feel. Add our little consequence to the tides of good and evil that flood and drain the world. Drag our shadowed crosses into the hope of another night. Push our brave hearts into the promise of a new day. With love: the passionate search for truth other than our own. With longing: the pure, ineffable yearning to be saved. For so long as fate keeps waiting, we live on. God help us. God forgive us. We live on.”

- Gregory David Roberts, “Shantaram”

o

“Shantaram”

by Gregory David Roberts

“Crime and punishment, passion and loyalty, betrayal and redemption are only a few of the ingredients in “Shantaram,” a massive, over-the-top, mostly autobiographical novel. Shantaram is the name given Mr. Lindsay, or Linbaba, the larger-than-life hero. It means “man of God’s peace,” which is what the Indian people know of Lin. What they do not know is that prior to his arrival in Bombay he escaped from an Australian prison where he had begun serving a 19-year sentence. He served two years and leaped over the wall. He was imprisoned for a string of armed robberies performed to support his heroin addiction, which started when his marriage fell apart and he lost custody of his daughter. All of that is enough for several lifetimes, but for Greg Roberts, that’s only the beginning.

He arrives in Bombay with little money, an assumed name, false papers, an untellable past, and no plans for the future. Fortunately, he meets Prabaker right away, a sweet, smiling man who is a street guide. He takes to Lin immediately, eventually introducing him to his home village, where they end up living for six months. When they return to Bombay, they take up residence in a sprawling illegal slum of 25,000 people and Linbaba becomes the resident “doctor.” With a prison knowledge of first aid and whatever medicines he can cadge from doing trades with the local Mafia, he sets up a practice and is regarded as heaven-sent by these poor people who have nothing but illness, rat bites, dysentery, and anemia. He also meets Karla, an enigmatic Swiss-American woman, with whom he falls in love. Theirs is a complicated relationship, and Karla’s connections are murky from the outset.

Roberts is not reluctant to wax poetic; in fact, some of his prose is downright embarrassing. Throughout the novel, however, all 944 pages of it, every single sentence rings true. He is a tough guy with a tender heart, one capable of what is judged criminal behavior, but a basically decent, intelligent man who would never intentionally hurt anyone, especially anyone he knew. He is a magnet for trouble, a soldier of fortune, a picaresque hero: the rascal who lives by his wits in a corrupt society. His story is irresistible. Stay tuned for the prequel and the sequel.”

– Valerie Ryan

Freely read “Shantaram” online, by Gregory David Roberts, here:

- https://www.readanybook.com/online/565858

There is a download option for registered users.

"In Ordinary Times..."

"In ordinary times we get along surprisingly well, on the whole, without ever discovering what our faith really is. If, now and again, this remote and academic problem is so unmannerly as to thrust its way into our minds, there are plenty of things we can do to drive the intruder away. We can get the car out or go to a party or to the cinema or read a detective story or have a row with a district council or write a letter to the papers about the habits of the nightjar or Shakespeare's use of nautical metaphor. Thus we build up a defense mechanism against self-questioning because, to tell the truth, we are very much afraid of ourselves."

- Dorothy L. Sayers

The Daily "Near You?"

Lansing, Michigan, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"16 Harsh Truths That Make Us Stronger "

"16 Harsh Truths That Make Us Stronger "

by Marc Chernoff

"1. Life is not easy. Hard work makes people lucky, it's the stuff that brings dreams to reality. So start every morning ready to run farther than you did yesterday and fight harder than you ever have before.

2. You will fail sometimes. The faster you accept this, the faster you can get on with being brilliant. You'll never be 100% sure it will work, but you can always be 100% sure doing nothing won't work. So get out there and do something! Either you succeed or you learn a vital lesson. Win, Win.

3. Right now, there's a lot you don't know. The day you stop learning is the day you stop living. Embrace new information, think about it and use it to advance yourself.

4. There may not be a tomorrow. Not for everyone. Right now, someone on Earth is planning something for tomorrow without realizing they're going to die today. This is sad but true. So spend your time wisely today and pause long enough to appreciate it.

5. There's a lot you can't control. Wasting your time, talent and emotional energy on things that are beyond your control is a recipe for frustration, misery and stagnation. Invest your energy in the things you can control.

6. Information is not true knowledge. Knowledge comes from experience. You can discuss a task a hundred times, but these discussions will only give you a philosophical understanding. You must experience a task firsthand to truly know it.

7. You can't be successful without providing value. Don't waste your time trying to be successful, spend your time creating value. When you're valuable to the world around you, you will be successful.

8. Someone else will always have more than you. Whether it's money, friends or magic beans that you're collecting, there will always be someone who has more than you. But remember, it's not how many you have, it's how passionate you are about collecting them. It's all about the journey.

9. You can't change the past. As Maria Robinson once said, "Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending."  You can't change what happened, but you can change how you react to it.

10. The only person who can make you happy is you. The root of your happiness comes from your relationship with yourself. Sure external entities can have fleeting effects on your mood, but in the long run nothing matters more than how you feel about who you are on the inside.

11. There will always be people who don't like you. You can't be everything to everyone. No matter what you do, there will always be someone who thinks differently. So concentrate on doing what you know in your heart is right. What others think and say about you isn't all that important. What is important is how you feel about yourself.

12. You won't always get what you want. As Mick Jagger once said, "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you might find you get what you need."  Look around. Appreciate the things you have right now. Many people aren't so lucky.

13. In life, you get what you put in. If you want love, give love. If you want friends, be friendly. If you want money, provide value. It really is this simple.

14. Good friends will come and go. Most of your high school friends won't be a part of your college life. Most of your college friends won't be a part of your 20-something professional life. Most of your 20-something friends won't be there when your spouse and you bring your second child into the world. But some friends will stick. And it's these friends, the ones who transcend time with you, who matter.

15. Doing the same exact thing every day hinders self growth. If you keep doing what you're doing, you'll keep getting what you're getting. Growth happens when you change things, when you try new things, when you stretch beyond your comfort zone.

16. You will never feel 100% ready for something new. Nobody ever feels 100% ready when an opportunity arises. Because most great opportunities in life force us to grow beyond our comfort zones, which means you won't feel totally comfortable or ready for it. 

 

And remember, trying to be someone else is a waste of the person you are. Strength comes from being comfortable in your own skin."

- http://www.marcandangel.com/

"A Time of Unimaginable Sorrow is Upon Us"

"A Time of Unimaginable Sorrow is Upon Us"

By Stucky

"It was a nice cool sunny morning with some blue birds soaking up the sun, all in a row on the high wire. It took some time to figure out what happened. There were a few low rumbles, they seemed to be coming from north of here. We live on a farm out in the wooded hills of southern Missouri, and north would be up towards St Louis. Soon as the booming sounds started the power went off. At first, I didn’t pay much attention, but with all the military stirrings going on in the world these days, you just don’t know what to expect.

I went inside the house, but with the power off there’s no internet, so no way to find out what’s going on. At least until the power comes back on, or until I get the generator started up. More distant thunderous booms that echo now less like thunder and more like tremendous explosions – and I’m starting to get worried. My kids are at work and the grandkids are in school. I swear I‘m seeing sparks and smoke coming from under the hood of my car, but it’s not running. Now the power line where those bluebirds were singing looks like it’s getting really hot and smoke is coming from the bucket transformer on the poles. Wow! The transformer just blew up sending a shower of sparks and molten metal flying all around the pole! I can hear blasts all over the countryside from more pole transformers exploding. All the fences are sparking and smoking. The woods around the power lines and transformers are starting to go up in extremely violent flames. And the cars are now on fire – all of them! Even the old broken-down ones out in people’s pastures. Our emergency generators are smoking – I’ve got to get them away from the houses before they burn up.

Now I’ve got an idea of what’s happening, because I’ve heard of what an EMP event could do to electrical circuits. Electromagnetic Pulse. That’s what happens when a nuclear weapon explodes. The only other thing I can think of that would do this is a coronal mass ejection from a solar flare. It happened back in 1859 and it was named the Carrington Event. Fortunately, the world did not have much electrical infrastructure back then, just telegraphs, and the induced currents caused the wires to catch fire – sort of like what’s happening to the power lines out here right now. I don’t think it’s a solar event either, because the warmongers in Washington have been beating the nuclear drums for a while, and I’ve been afraid the Russians were going to get spooked and do a first strike. I guess this is it.

A big problem for those of us who might survive a while because we live in areas that aren’t targets is that we lose all sources of information. We don’t have any way of knowing what’s happening. Don’t know if it’s a first strike or a retaliatory strike. Does Washington DC even exist anymore, or is it just a huge radioactive smoking crater? Are those beautiful, magnificient buildings of the Kremlin still standing?

How many of our big cities are destroyed? I remember seeing pictures of the devastation that was Nagasaki and Hiroshima when that monster Truman murdered all those Japanese civilians, and thinking that those bombs were tiny compared to what the psychopaths have in their arsenals today – the Russians have bombs that could literally flatten New York City and/or Houston. I cannot, nor can anyone else, begin to fathom the destruction of a 10 or 20 megaton thermonuclear weapon could wreak on a major city.

Lights go off and then nothing. No TV; no internet. No football – the treasury department that writes all the government checks is gone. Fear-crazed citizens make runs on WalMarts and grocery stores and take everything they can. No one tries to stop them; the store employees are in a panic to get home. Problem is, with no operable vehicles, the only things people can take are what they can carry by hand. Everyone has to walk, even the police are stranded out on the highways. All troopers, city cops, and sheriff deputies are trying desperately to get home to their loved ones. No cops on duty anymore. No traffic moving anymore. Just lots of people running, screaming, hoping they can just get home, and that there still is a home.

Fires are blazing everywhere from the powerlines and transformers exploding. All electrical substations in the country are smoldering and blazing chaos. Forest fires are rampant and out of control all over the nation and there are no operable fire trucks. No firefighting planes or helicopters are available to fight the fires. Houses hundreds of miles away from the many ground zeros are burning both from the unchecked wildfires, and from EMP induced electrical shorts in home wiring. Almost every building in every town is on fire with no way to put them out. And these towns are far away from the targeted places where the bombs actually hit.

This is truly a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions, the like of which has never been witnessed in all of human history. There will never be electricity in this country again. Let that sink in. Freezers will thaw out and food will ruin. Untold thousands of people will perish, starting with those vaporized, then those being burned up in their homes, and there are no fire departments available to help anyone. No hospitals; doctors and nurses are gone, understandably abandoning useless smoldering medical facilities. No industry, no UPS deliveries, no more dog food for the pups. If your house didn’t burn to the ground, at least you may (for a while) have a (dark) shelter from the elements.

Huge blasts of radioactive winds blow hundreds of miles from the explosions, of which there have been many. The first wave was intended to take out the military establishment. No way of knowing, but there’s no reason to believe that anything remains of the Pentagon, DC or Langley, Norfolk, San Diego, Chicago, Houston, or any of the coastal cities where there are refineries. All cities with military infrastructure of any kind will be destroyed. The joke that has been for years a missile defense system has been exposed. The sick joke that a nuclear war could be “winnable” has also been exposed. The numbers of people succumbing to radiation sickness is beyond belief. There will be no schools, no stores, no food, and no government services; no disaster relief will be forthcoming. All banks will have ceased to function, so even if there is any money left, it won’t be worth anything. The bankers never were.

If you take medications to stay alive, you’d best have a good supply, because there won’t be any more. All livestock will either be dead from radiation, burned to a crisp in the fires, or promptly slaughtered by starving survivors, and it doesn’t matter to whom they belonged. Same with property. People will no longer obey private property signs, they will go anywhere they think there might be resources, food, water, at the risk of their lives, which aren’t worth much right now anyway. There will be no law!

Every military ship on and under the ocean, with the likely exception of a few submarines, will be sunk. All of the nuclear-powered ships will go to the bottom with reactors likely damaged, spewing radioactive contamination. Like dozens, maybe hundreds, of Fukushimas. Even the reactors that aren’t damaged will undergo meltdowns with no controls. The bible says that something will kill all of the fishes in the oceans, maybe this is how that happens.

The USSR detonated a bomb of around 50-megaton yield back in 1961. It was called the Tsar Bomba. The weapon had a 100-megaton capacity, but for safety they modified the yield. Awe inspiring is just too mild of a description of what that looked like. Since the bomb was so powerful, they calculated that the plane that dropped it had only a 50 percent chance of surviving – that is even after the plane released the weapon several thousand feet up in the air with a parachute to slow it down while the plane flew away from the scene at full speed. It did almost destroy the plane – they said the blast wave overtook the plane some 45 miles from the explosion and it lost over a kilometer of altitude before the pilot, Andrey Durnovtsev, could regain control and keep it from crashing. That thing made a mushroom cloud 37, yes 37 miles, (60 km) high! An uninhabited village, Severny, 34 miles (55 km) from ground zero was obliterated, and buildings 100 miles away were damaged! The blast would have caused third degree burns 62 miles (100 km) from the explosion. I would expect if they still have these in their arsenal, they would use one on Cheyenne Mountain. It would probably take out Denver and Amarillo, TX and certainly everything in between. Instantly vaporized. What are our “leaders” thinking?

It sounds crazy, but if this happens, I want to be at one of the ground zeros. As bad as being vaporized sounds, it would be infinitely better than surviving into the nightmarish existence that would ensue. There will be marauding gangs of survivors, undoubtedly armed, in various stages of hunger, disease, emaciation, and injury. It will probably be a situation where anyone you encounter will be apt to kill you. For one thing, they won’t know whether you are out to kill them too, or maybe you have something they want/need to survive. A can of tuna or a bowl of beans might cost your life.

The landscape will be nightmarish. Imagine a few days or weeks after the event. There will be burned out stumps on land that was beautiful forest, now riddled with stagnant pools of black muddy radioactive slime, full of human and animal bones, charred flesh, and entrails. Few buildings will exist intact, and many will perish fighting over them. There will be no light at night. Light would attract unwanted guests. No music. No one will have any idea what’s going on. There may be a few survivors in places like subway tunnels, abandoned train cars, or in remote wilderness areas, but such people will have resorted to the basest of behavior, including cannibalism, in short order. Imagine! Human beings who once inhabited a civilized nation and lived decent lives will have to worry about being killed and eaten by other human beings! Zombie apocalypse, just with regular people, not zombies, although with burns and wounds, hair falling out and all out of sorts with radiation poisoning, they probably will look the part.

I have heard people talking like they plan to survive and stay healthy by hunting and foraging. Well, if a nuclear winter follows a nuclear apocalypse, foraging is going to be slim pickings. And the deer won’t last long if they manage to survive the bombs, radiation, and fires, there’ll probably only be a few very unhealthy specimens left, but if a gunshot rings out, I’m pretty sure it will attract whatever starving people hear it, so there might be more to deal with than just dressing a deer.

Bedraggled survivors will wander in shock around former cities in hopes of disaster relief which will never come. Desperate people will offer anything – gold, jewelry, ammunition, their own bodies, for sustenance. Helpless parents will watch in horror as their children starve, hoping against hope that they will awaken from this nightmare, but when this all comes down, it’ll be too late for them.

And we still won’t know what happened. Who decided that a nuclear war would be a good idea? Who “won” the war? Did any of our leaders survive to sign a surrender, and to whom? Or did Russia or China surrender? Will there be hordes of soldiers from some faraway land invading our country after the radiation dies down?

And what of the wealthy folk who built the magnificent bunkers filled with the necessities of life in which to wait out the nuclear winter? Do they actually believe they will emerge into a second garden of Eden complete with succulent fruit trees and minstrels singing their praises? First of all, the bible speaks of a great earthquake, such as has not occurred since people have been on earth, so I think a big part of those individuals will be entombed in those lavish bunkers. So maybe a few do survive, and after some months, maybe a few years tucked away, they stumble blindly onto the surface, a hardly recognizable landscape littered with human skulls, burned out cars and buildings, and destroyed terrain. When they went into the holes, they were wealthy, but after what has transpired, of the few commoners left, no one will be interested in their gold – and those old bank accounts? Well the digital age has completely and utterly vanished, and all those millions or billions they had on their ledgers is now squat.

Even by this time, there will undoubtedly still be a few scroungy survivors, but instead of the fawning proles these rich folks were used to in the old world, those survivors will undoubtedly have a taste for some well-fed and plump upper crust brisket, so thanks for preserving some. It won’t help their situation any when they discover that some of the survivors actually know they caused, or at least played a part in causing the disaster. The scenario described does not take into account the likelihood that hapless survivors will undoubtedly spend their time searching for air vents to the bunkers in which to pour gasoline or whatever else they can find to upset living conditions in said refuges down below. Any who survive this carnage will be on a mission and will not easily be placated!

Who knows what the final outcome will be. How many millions, or hundreds of millions of people will be counted among the slain? When this calamity happens, it will obviously involve the deaths of millions. This destruction, I believe is prophesied as the destruction of the modern Babylon in Revelation 18, and most people I’ve heard seem to think (as I do) that the place named as Babylon is the United States, and it is utterly destroyed in the space of one hour, by fire! Completely devastated to the point that (verse 22) “the music of harpists and musicians, pipers and trumpeters, will never be heard in you again,” and “no worker of any trade will ever be found in you again,” this decadent place will cease to be! According to scripture, it’s not a bad thing that this evil place is destroyed. “Rejoice over her, you heavens! Rejoice, you people of God! Rejoice apostles and prophets! For God has judged her with the judgement she imposed on you.” Time will tell, but I’m afraid we don’t have much."

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

- https://folkpotpourri.com/

Hat tip to Stucky and The Burning Platform for this material.

o

“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, 

but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”

- Albert Einstein

"I Can Choose..."

“Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have - life itself.” 

- Walter Anderson 

"How It Really Is"