Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly 8/31/23
"None of This Is Real"
Here we go again. We just got revised numbers on GDP they keep doing this months later and lowering earlier economic statistics
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So, we rise from the rubble...
Thursday, August 31, 2023
Gregory Mannarino, AM/PM 8/31/23
"It's a Big Club, and you ain't in it.
You and I are not in the Big Club."
- George Carlin
Gregory Mannarino, AM 8/31/23
"The Stock Market Is In For A Big Shock! And Here's Why"
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o
Gregory Mannarino, PM 8/31/23
"Direct Petrodollar Threat Is Very Real,
And Millions Will Pay A Terrible Price"
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o
The Economic Ninja, 8/31/23
"Dollar General Stock Plunges, A Warning Declared"
Comments here:
"Buying What We Can Afford At Kroger! This Is Crazy!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 8/31/23
"Buying What We Can Afford At Kroger! This Is Crazy!"
"In today's vlog, we are at Kroger and are buying what we can afford as these grocery prices have just gotten beyond expensive. It's getting harder and harder to stock up on food these days as prices just keep going up!"
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Wednesday, August 30, 2023
"Map Reveals Imminent WW3 Escalation, Russia Frantically Deploying Reserves To South"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 8/30/23
"Map Reveals Imminent WW3 Escalation,
Russia Frantically Deploying Reserves To South"
The pace of escalation is incredible, the system is collapsing.
Comments here:
"Jeremiah Babe, 8/30/23"
Jeremiah Babe, 8/30/23
"Living In A Tiny Home Will Be An Amazing $133K Jail Cell;
Car Lots Fill Up With EVs; AirBNB Bubble"
Comments here:
"Walmart And 9 Large Retailers Are Closing Stores As Retail Crisis 2023 Continues"
Full screen recommended.
The Atlantis Report
"Walmart And 9 Large Retailers Are
Closing Stores As Retail Crisis 2023 Continues"
In a world full of mass retail shutdowns and a tough economic environment, Consumers have halted buying non essential items. A wave of unprecedented collapse is extremely destructive for the consumer and retail sector alike. According to multiple sources, retail stores which never saw a yearly negative revenue, always re-invested and opened new branches across the US are either filing for bankruptcy or cutting down staff by a huge margin. Unlike the rest of industries, the retail sector is most affected by inflation, declining sales and increased debt burdens.
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"8 Items That Have Been Skyrocketing In Price At The Grocery Stores!"
Adventures With Danno, PM 8/30/23
"8 Items That Have Been Skyrocketing
In Price At The Grocery Stores!"
"These are 8 common grocery items that are soaring in price in the fall of 2023! We are exposing the truth on what nobody is talking about. Inflation and food shortages in the grocery stores are making it harder for most families to even put food on the table!"
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"10 Signs China's Economic Collapse Has Finally Begun"
Full screen recommended.
"10 Signs China's Economic Collapse Has Finally Begun"
by Epic Economist
"China’s economic structure is getting increasingly unsustainable. Several indicators show that the world’s second-largest economy is standing on very shaky ground right now. A major meltdown is already in motion after the collapse of the country’s second-largest property developer Evergrande, whose shares collapsed by 80% on Monday. But Evergrande’s bankruptcy is just one aspect of the historic crisis gripping the Eastern economic superpower. China’s growth is falling, production levels are rapidly declining, and dropping trading volumes suggest that economic activity is grinding to a halt. The pandemic recovery officials were expecting hasn’t materialized yet. Instead, new data suggests that it will take years before the economy gets back on its feet.
Even though many experts predicted that the Chinese economy would soon eclipse the American economy and replace the U.S. as the global hegemon, today, they say that when and if that scenario comes to fruition, it will be mostly due to our domestic policy failures rather than China’s success. The mistakes of our leaders may have given our adversaries in Beijing some leverage in the global market. However, the deleterious policies of the Chinese Communist Party have been destroying businesses, causing record unemployment, and stirring social unrest all over the nation.
With people’s purchasing power being squeezed, consumer prices are dropping for the first time in several years as demand continues to fall. While inflation is a major concern of the Federal Reserve, the People’s Bank of China is currently dealing with the opposite problem. Deflation – the trend of crashing prices throughout the economy – presents a particular threat to the Chinese economy, which carries a massive amount of debt. David Dollar, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute's China Center, explains that deflation means the real value of debt goes up. Although inflation is certainly bad for any economy, it does help manage debt burdens over time. But deflation actually does the opposite. The crisis helps to explain China's weak second-quarter GDP, which came in lower than expected at 6.3%.
The party’s corruption is eviscerating the private sector and putting the financial market in great danger as elitists take control of the system to obtain more and more wealth. Their goal of having absolute power is deteriorating the health of the population and the economy. Recent figures add to the anxiety that cascading failures will completely break down the Chinese economy. Earlier this year, JPMorgan’s analysts predicted that China risks a 1990-style “Japanification” if officials fail to address the housing market crash, financial imbalances, and aging demographics.
From an unstable economy to a debt-ridden property market to anti-business policies and demographic imbalances, Beijing is buried in problems right now. State officials must come up with better strategies than hiding negative information if they want to save the Chinese economy from the ongoing meltdown. The economic superpower is losing its strength and in danger of falling apart just as Japan did in 1990. But if China goes down, the entire world will suffer repercussions. That outcome could push us into one of the biggest economic and financial crises in history, and the consequences of it will be absolutely destructive for the global market. In this video, we identified 10 signs that prove that China is in deep trouble as economic and social stability continues to erode across the country. So keep tuned until the end to understand what’s behind the downfall of the Chinese empire."
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o
Full screen recommended.
The Atlantis Report, 8/30/23
"The Chinese Economy Is About To Pull Us Under"
"It’s no surprise that China’s economy is in big trouble, and today we’ve got the latest financial news, and how this crisis will impact the United States. The Evergrand Group, the world’s most indebted real estate developer, has reported a significant narrowing in its net losses for the first half of 2023, thanks to a rise in revenue because of a “short boom” earlier this year. But its stock still plunged more than 70% on Monday August 28th, when it resumed trading following a 17-month suspension, even as shares in most Chinese property firms traded higher after a series of weekend announcements by officials aimed at boosting demand for property.
For years, the Shenzhen-based company was one of China’s largest property developers by sales. But it had borrowed heavily to fund its expansion and defaulted on its debt in 2021, sparking a crisis in China’s real estate sector, which once accounted for as much as 30% of the country’s economy. Earlier this month, it applied for bankruptcy in the United States."
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Gerald Celente, "America: The Devil's Bargain"
Gerald Celente, Trends Journal, 8/30/23
"America: The Devil's Bargain"
The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present facts and truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for what’s next in these increasingly turbulent times.
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Musical Interlude: Little River Band, "Cool Change"
Full screen recommended.
Little River Band, "Cool Change"
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Two stars within our own Milky Way galaxy anchor the foreground of this cosmic snapshot. Beyond them lie the galaxies of the Hydra Cluster. In fact, while the spiky foreground stars are hundreds of light-years distant, the Hydra Cluster galaxies are over 100 million light-years away.
Three large galaxies near the cluster center, two yellow ellipticals (NGC 3311, NGC 3309) and one prominent blue spiral (NGC 3312), are the dominant galaxies, each about 150,000 light-years in diameter. An intriguing overlapping galaxy pair cataloged as NGC 3314 is just above and left of NGC 3312. Also known as Abell 1060, the Hydra galaxy cluster is one of three large galaxy clusters within 200 million light-years of the Milky Way. In the nearby universe, galaxies are gravitationally bound into clusters which themselves are loosely bound into superclusters that in turn are seen to align over even larger scales. At a distance of 100 million light-years this picture would be about 1.3 million light-years across. "
○
Related, highest recommendation:
"How Many Galaxies Are In The Universe?"
"The deepest image ever taken, the Hubble Extreme Deep Field, revealed ~5,500 galaxies over an area that took up just 1/32,000,000th of the sky. But today, scientists estimate that there are more than ten times as many galaxies out there than Hubble, even at its limits, is capable of seeing. All told, there are some ~2 trillion galaxies within the observable Universe. Here's how we know."
View this complete, extraordinarily fascinating, article here:
"The World Rests In The Night..."
“The world rests in the night. Trees, mountains, fields, and faces are released from the prison of shape and the burden of exposure. Each thing creeps back into its own nature within the shelter of the dark. Darkness is the ancient womb. Nighttime is womb-time. Our souls come out to play. The darkness absolves everything; the struggle for identity and impression falls away. We rest in the night.”
- John O'Donohue,
o
"Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom"
○
“On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.
And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colors,
indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.
When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.
May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.”
○
John O'Donohue was an Irish author, poet, philosopher and former Catholic priest. He was born in County Clare on January 1, 1956. He died suddenly on January 4, 2008. He is best known for popularizing Celtic spirituality and is the author of a number of best-selling books on the subject.
Chet Raymo, “In Wildness Is The Preservation Of The World?”
“In Wildness Is The Preservation Of The World?”
by Chet Raymo
“In earlier times, when I was still teaching, it was my habit to occasionally take a wildflower, or piece of rotten bark, or pinch of oil into a biology lab where I had access to a high-quality dissecting microscope. I'd put my sample on the stage of the scope and go exploring. A hawkweed blossom, say, became the concise equivalent of a tropical jungle, teeming with wildlife.
We bemoan the loss of wilderness, and rightly so I suppose. But there are vast tracks of wilderness that we do not despoil, on a scale too small for annihilation by our marauding hand. Elephants and gorillas may be in danger of extinction, but the ants are doing just fine.
In fact, they seem to find my kitchen countertops entirely to their liking. A paradise of crumbs. An Eden of spilled nutrition. Just look at them, armies of them, as small as the period at the end of this sentence, scampering in gleeful forays.
To my eye they are only featureless specks. But I know that they have legs, antennae, mouth and anus. Sense organs. Reproductive strategies. In other words, we have a lot in common, the ants and me, including common ancestry. It's all a matter of scale. For me the wilderness is mostly gone. For the ants, it's just changing form.
In "The Creation", E. O. Wilson writes: "Ants alone, of which there may be 10 thousand trillion, weigh roughly as much as all 6.5 billion human beings." In the kitchen, I still outweigh the interlopers, but take the whole island and I suppose they might outweigh me. In any case, they don't seem to be aware of a loss of wilderness.
And while we are on the subject of scale, consider the nematodes, mostly tiny, threadlike worms whose millions of species make up four-fifths of all animals on Earth. A handful of loam might contain a thousand. They live virtually everywhere- soil, water, desert sand, arctic ice, hot springs, and as parasites of plants and animals, including humans. Pinworms and hookworms are nematodes. For the nematodes, we are part of the wilderness.”
Dan, I Allegedly, "We Are Under Attack"
Dan, I Allegedly PM 8/30/23
"We Are Under Attack"
"The cyber criminals are working overtime right now. We are victims of multiple cyber attacks, ransom, ware, attack, and malware hitting our homes and businesses. You need to protect yourself and make sure that your data is backed up."
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The Poet: Czeslaw Milosz, “Hope”
“Hope”
“Hope is with you when you believe
The earth is not a dream but living flesh,
That sight, touch, and hearing do not lie,
That all things you have ever seen here
Are like a garden looked at from a gate.
You cannot enter. But you’re sure it’s there.
Could we but look more clearly and wisely
We might discover somewhere in the garden
A strange new flower and an unnamed star.
Some people say we should not trust our eyes,
That there is nothing, just a seeming,
These are the ones who have no hope.
They think that the moment we turn away,
The world, behind our backs, ceases to exist,
As if snatched up by the hands of thieves.”
- Czeslaw Milosz,
“Hope”, from “The World”
"For I Know One Thing..."
"Happily men don't realize how stupid they are, or half the world would commit suicide. Knowledge is a will-of-the-wisp, fluttering ever out of the traveller's reach; and a weary journey must be endured before it is even seen. It is only when a man knows a good deal that he discovers how unfathomable is his ignorance. The man who knows nothing is satisfied that there is nothing to know, consequently that he knows everything; and you may more easily persuade him that the moon is made of green cheese than that he is not omniscient."
- W. Somerset Maugham
"Sometimes I Wonder..."
"Sometimes I wonder if the world is being run by smart people
who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it ."
- Laurence Peter
"Russia-Ukraine War Update 8/30/23"
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 8/30/23
"Ukraine War Weakening America
Around the World w Tony Shaffer fmr DoD"
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o
Stephen Gardner, 8/30/23
"Ex-CIA: US Pentagon Desperate
To Cover Up Ukraine’s Defeat"
Ex CIA Larry Johnson shares with Stephen Gardner the real news update on the Ukraine Russia war. What really happened to Yevgeny Progozhin? Was Putin involved? Has news in Ukraine improved or worsened? Are the talking heads on CNN clouding judgment for clicks and money? Are Generals Lloyd Austin and Mark Milley bought and owned by the military-industrial complex?
Comments here:
o
Redacted, 8/30/23
"Ex-CIA: 'Zelensky is finished,
prepare for the CIA to remove him."
Ex-CIA agent Larry Johnson joins Redacted to reveal how the intelligence community plans to remove Zelensky from power. The CIA has a long history of removing leaders that have used up their usefulness from Gaddafi to Hussein the playbook is rich with how this will unfold for Ukraine.
Comments here:
"How It Really Is"
"Back when I taught at UCLA, I was constantly amazed at how little so many students knew. Finally, I could no longer restrain myself from asking a student the question that had long puzzled me: ''What were you doing for the last 12 years before you got here?''
- Thomas Sowell
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"The problem isn't that Johnny can't read. The problem isn't even that Johnny can't think. The problem is that Johnny doesn't know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling."
- Thomas Sowell
○
"The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds." - Will Durant
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"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance."
- Thomas Sowell
"Get Your Stuff Together..."
“We all got problems. But there’s a great book out called “Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart.” Did you see that? That book says the statute of limitations has expired on all childhood traumas. Get your stuff together and get on with your life, man. Stop whinin’ about what’s wrong, because everybody’s had a rough time, in one way or another.”
- Quincy Jones
Bill Bonner, "Trans Economy"
"Trans Economy"
The US is entering a period of confusion, doubt... and transition.
by Bill Bonner
Poitou, France - "A quick update…The US economy is in transition. It is leaving a period of rising stock and bond prices and entering a period in which, we believe, they are falling…in real terms. The transition is a mess, thanks to the confusion of a deflationary monetary policy mixed with an inflationary fiscal policy. The federal government continues to run large deficits, while the Fed is raising rates…and letting its portfolio of bonds expire (reducing the nation’s monetary footings.)
Reuters reports: "Powell signals no retreat, no surrender." "Crucially, Fed Chair Jerome Powell has once again reinforced the "higher for longer" mantra that has underpinned most of his, and his officials', communications this year, no matter how much market participants have bet otherwise. Stocks have held more or less steadfast near the top of their range.
Strapped for Cash: But in the early part of this transition, where we are now, the major risk to investors is still a stock market crash. The Fed is no longer supporting the market with EZ credit. Instead, it is withdrawing credit. So, there is danger of a credit crisis that will whack asset prices.
The crisis could enter the stock market from two different directions. It could stagger in the front door, for example, after trying to refinance its debt. Households are paying twice as much to refinance their mortgages. Business debt, too, is much more expensive to rollover. We’ve already seen the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th largest bank failures in US history. It wouldn’t be surprising to see more.
Or, like an old reprobate sneaking into church and taking a seat in the back row, it could go almost unnoticed, as consumers run out of money. They’ve gone through their stimmies. They’ve exhausted their savings. They’re facing over $1 trillion of credit card debt – at 20% interest! What’s left? Here’s DNYUZ: "U.S. Consumers Are Showing Signs of Stress, Retailers Say." "Now there are signs that some shoppers are becoming more cautious, as Americans’ savings erode, inflation continues to bite and other factors tighten their wallets - namely, the resumption of student loan payments in October. Financial reports from retailers - including Macy’s, Kohl’s, Foot Locker and Nordstrom - that landed this week suggest a shift is underway, from consumers buying with abandon to spending more on their needs.
Debt Stress Mounting: And here’s Business Insider: "America's consumer-debt stress is mounting - mortgage rates top 7%, credit-card liabilities hit $1 trillion, and now auto-loan defaults are on the rise. The early-stage past-due rate for auto loans – which measures outstanding payments from 30 to 89 days – has climbed above pre-pandemic levels, representing worse credit conditions for Americans, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Scheme's 2023 risk review.
The rise in auto loan defaults is yet another worry for the American consumer – who must contend with mortgage rates hitting over 7% and an alarming increase in unsecured personal debt to $225 billion in 2023, per TransUnion. US consumer credit-card debt topped $1 trillion last quarter for the first time ever, according to Fed data.
The early stages of this kind of transition are usually deflationary. Prices tend to go down as people have trouble keeping up with current expenses and past debt. They look at the boat in the driveway and say: ‘What do I need that for?’
Inflate or Die: Over the longer term, prices can remain more or less constant…and still fall in real terms. That’s what happened in the 1970s. Taking inflation into account, stocks are down (using the Dow as a benchmark) about 10% from their 2021 top already. Even at a fairly modest rate of 4% per year…10 years of inflation would reduce the value of debt outstanding by more than a third.
The trouble is, US government debt is now increasing at about the same rate. What inflation taketh away, Congress and the Biden Administration giveth back, adding new debt at a rate of around $5 billion per day. The level of debt has to go down, or there remains a problem to be resolved. How? There are only two choices, neatly seated on the two ends of the teeter-totter, either ‘inflate or die.’ Either inflation reduces the debt…or the debts die, by defaults, bankruptcies, write-offs, etc. It’s a policy decision, typically made under the influence. Our inquiries into the nature of government – to which we will return anon – are just attempts to understand which way it will go. Stay tuned…"
Dan, I Allegedly, "Bank Risk is Getting Worse"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly 8/30/23
"Bank Risk is Getting Worse"
The FDIC just had a meeting, and they have insisted that banks increase their risk. There will be no such thing as too big to fail. Even midsize banks that have $100 billion in assets are going to have to change the way they do business.
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"Maybe Viktor Orbán Was Right"
"Maybe Viktor Orbán Was Right"
A Dangerous Escalation In The Russia-Ukraine War
by Portfolio Armor
"In his recent interview with Tucker Carlson, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán offered a stark warning: "This is a very dangerous moment now," he concludes, adding that it should be obvious to everyone that "The third world war is knocking on our door." Hot on the heels of Orbán's warning, a new kind of strike hit Russia.
"Big fire at Pskov International Airport, looks like fuel. There are a lot of unconfirmed reports right now, two planes have supposedly been damaged, some sources are reporting that the drones came from the west, which would imply that they were launched from Latvia or Estonia."
What was new about this strike wasn't just the scale of it - Russian blogger Anatoly Karlin suggested it might have been the most significant air strike in Russia since World War II...
But the location of it. Note where Pskov is relative to the Ukraine.
Pskov is much closer to NATO members Estonia and Latvia (50 and 65 kilometers, respectively) than it is from the Ukraine (800 kilometers). What's more, Pskov is on the opposite side of Russian-allied Belarus from the Ukraine. Hence military analyst Sergei Witte's concerned post (tweet) below.
What Happened Here: In a long post (tweet) on X (Twitter), Armchair Warlord sketched out some possibilities. "Biggest development of the ongoing Ukrainian War today was a massive drone attack on Pskov Airfield that appears to have destroyed two Il-76 transport planes and started a fuel fire. Here's the issue - Pskov is on the other side of Belarus from Ukraine.
So our options are: 20+ Ukrainian strike drones flew over 660km of hostile territory (including the entire breadth of Belarus) without anyone noticing. This is unlikely;
Ukrainian DRGs launched 20+ strike drones from inside Russia. This is well beyond any capability they've ever demonstrated and would represent a major waste of assets against a peripheral target; or
The drones were launched from Latvia or Estonia, or ships in the Baltic Sea and overflew them enroute. This explains why Pskov was targeted and the lack of prior warning given the city is only about 60km from the border. I find this theory most likely.
Why now? Well, the great Ukrainian counteroffensive is culminating about 10km from its line of departure and with it hopes of Ukrainian victory. The Baltic States have distinguished themselves in their belligerence during this war and likely see the postwar writing clearly on the wall for their own long-term fates sandwiched between an ascendant Russia and the Baltic Sea. I can see a sufficiently irresponsible leader authorizing such an attack in the hopes of Russian retaliation triggering a general war with NATO to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
Here's the thing though - NATO isn't remotely ready for that war right now, and anyone claiming they are is deluded. NATO does not have the troops and gear in Eastern Europe to fight Russia right now. It's furthermore made quite clear to members that alliance membership does not guarantee NATO sponsorship if you just decide to attack someone. All loud talk aside, the NATO heavy hitters are about as interested in war with Russia as the Russians are in war with them right now. With that said, face must be saved.
The Russian authorities have yet to release an official statement placing blame for the attack at Pskov. This is quite significant because they've already released statements for the usual drizzle of sporadic Ukrainian drone attacks last night. If my assessment is correct and this attack came out of the Baltic States, I expect a tightly controlled Russian response - and I expect NATO proper to stay on the sidelines for it. Discussions about what exactly this will look like are probably ongoing between the parties as we speak.
It would seem pretty reckless for NATO members to have facilitated this strike, but then again destroying the Nord Stream pipelines seemed pretty reckless too. Perhaps Russia's lack of retaliation for Nord Stream emboldened whoever was involved with the attack on Pskov. Hopefully, cooler heads will prevail."
Gregory Mannarino, "The Economy Is DE@D!"
Gregory Mannarino, AM 8/30/23
"The Economy Is DE@D! Home Affordability Hits
40 Year Low; It's Getting Much Worse"
Comments here:
"Massive Price Increases At Dollar General! This Is Ridiculous1"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 8/30/23
"Massive Price Increases At Dollar General!
This Is Ridiculous1"
In today's vlog, we are at Dollar General and are noticing massive price increases! It's getting rough out here as some stores seem to be struggling with getting products and charging very high prices due to inflation and other factors!
Comments here:
Tuesday, August 29, 2023
“The Loss Of Dignity”
“The Loss Of Dignity”
by The Zman
“If you step back and think about it, the normal man can probably list a dozen things he cannot say in public that he grew up hearing on television, usually as jokes. Then the jokes were no longer welcome in polite company and soon they were deemed “not funny” by the sorts of people who worry about such things. The same was true of simple observations about the world. Somehow noticing the obvious became impolite, then it became taboo and finally prohibited.
The reverse is true as well. Middle-aged men can probably think of a dozen things that were unimaginable or unheard of, which are now fully normal. Of course, normal is one of those things that is now prohibited. It implies that something can be abnormal or weird and that itself is forbidden. The proliferation of novel identities and activities that demand to be treated with dignity and respect is a function of the old restraints having been eliminated. When everything is possible you get everything.
The strange thing about all of this is there is seemingly no point to it. The proliferation of new taboos was not in response to some harm being done. In most cases, the taboos are about observable reality. The people turning up in the public square with novel identities or activities demanding respect did not exist very long ago. If they did, not one was curious enough to look into it. The public was happy to ignore people into unusual activities, as long as they kept it to themselves.
Of course, none of what we generally call political correctness is intended to be uplifting or inspirational. The commissars of public morality like to pretend it is inspiring, but that’s just a way to entertain themselves. These new identity groups are not demanding the rest of us seek some higher plane of existence or challenge our limitations. In fact, it is always in the opposite directions. It’s a demand to lower standards and give up on our quaint notions of self-respect and human dignity.
In the "Demon In Democracy", Polish academic Ryszard Legutko observed that liberal democracy had abandoned the concept of dignity. This is the obligation to behave in a certain way, as determined by your position in society. Dignity was earned by acting in accordance with the high standards of the community. In turn, this behavior was rewarded with greater privilege and responsibility. Failure to live up to one’s duties would result in the loss of dignity, along with the status it conferred.
Instead, modern liberal democracy awards dignity by default. We are supposed to respect all choices and all behaviors as being equal. There are no standards against which to measure human behavior, other than the standard of absolute, unconditional acceptance. As a result, the most inventively degenerate and base activities spring from the culture, almost like a test of the community’s tolerance. Instead of looking up to the heavens for inspiration, liberal democracies look down in the gutter.
Dignity comes from maintaining one’s obligations to his position in the social order, but that requires a fidelity to a social order. It also requires a connection to the rest of the people in the society. In a world of deracinated individuals focused solely on getting as much as they can in order to maximize pleasure, a sense of commitment to the community is not possible. Democracy assumes we are all equal, therefore we have no duty to one another as duty requires a hierarchical relationship.
In the absence of a vertical set of reciprocal relationships, we get this weird lattice work of horizontal relationships, elevating the profane and vulgar, while pulling down the noble and honorable. The public culture is about minimizing and degrading those who participate in the public culture. In turn, the public culture attracts only those who cannot be shamed or embarrassed. The great joy of public culture is to see those who aspire to more get torn down as the crowd roars at their demise.
The puzzle is why this is a feature of liberal democracy. Ryszard Legutko places the blame on Protestantism. Their emphasis on original sin and man’s natural limitations minimized man’s role in the world. This focus on man’s wretchedness was useful in channeling our urge to labor and create into useful activities, thus generating great prosperity, but it left us with a minimalist view of human accomplishment. We are not worthy to aspire to anything more than the base and degraded.
It is certainly true that the restraints of Christianity limited the sorts of behavior that are common today, but he may be putting the cart before the horse. The emergence of Protestantism in northern Europe was as much a result of the people and their nature as anything else. Put more simply, the Protestant work ethic existed before there was such a thing as a Protestant. The desire to work and delay gratification evolved over many generations out of environmental necessity.
Still, culture is an important part of man’s environment and environmental factors shape our evolution. It is not unreasonable to say that the evolution of Protestant ethics magnified and structured naturally occurring instincts among the people. With the collapse of Christianity as a social force in the West, the natural defense to degeneracy and vulgarity has collapsed with it. As a result, great plenty is the fuel for a small cohort of deviants to overrun the culture of liberal democracies.
Even so, there does seem to be something else. Liberal democracy has not produced great art or great architecture. The Greeks and Romans left us great things that still inspire the imagination of the man who happens to gaze upon them. The castles and cathedrals of the medieval period still awe us. The great flourishing of liberal democracy in the 20th century gave us Brutalism and dribbles of pain on canvas. The new century promises us primitives exposing themselves on the internet.
There is something about the liberal democratic order that seeks to strip us of our dignity and self-respect. Look at what happened in the former Eastern Bloc countries after communism. Exposed to the narcotic of liberalism they immediately acquired the same cultural patterns. Fertility collapsed. Religion collapsed. Marriage and family formation collapsed. These suddenly free societies got the Western disease as soon as they were exposed to western liberal democracy.
The reaction we see today is not due to these societies being behind the times, but due to seeing the ugly face of liberal democracy. It is much like the reaction to the proliferation of recreational drugs in the 1970’s. At first, it seemed harmless, but then people realized the horror of unrestrained self-indulgence. That’s what we see in the former Eastern Bloc. Their leaders still retain some of the old sense of things and are trying to save their people from the dungeon of modernity.
That still leaves us with the unanswered question. What is it about liberal democracy that seems to lead to this loss of dignity? It is possible that such a fabulously efficient system for producing wealth is a tool mankind is not yet equipped to handle without killing ourselves. Maybe we are just not built for anything but scarcity. Want gives us purpose and without it, we lose our reason to exist. Either way, without dignity, we cannot defend ourselves and the results are inevitable.”
"Global Alert: Biggest Attack On Russia Yet, 'Nuclear Strike On Robotyne', All Airports Shut"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 8/29/23
"Global Alert: Biggest Attack On Russia Yet,
'Nuclear Strike On Robotyne', All Airports Shut"
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Gerald Celente, Trends Journal 8/29/23
Strong language alert!
Gerald Celente, Trends Journal 8/29/23
"Blimpitis Hits America:
US Death Rate Outpaces Its Peers"
"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present Facts and Truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for What’s Next in these increasingly turbulent times."
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"Gas Prices Will Hit Record Levels In September As Inventory Outages Hit Stations"
Full screen recommended.
"Gas Prices Will Hit Record Levels In
September As Inventory Outages Hit Stations"
by Epic Economist
"There’s no way you haven’t noticed how fast gas prices have risen in August. From $3.55 to $3.75, and now $3.87, the cost of a gallon of gasoline jumped by more than 30 cents in less than 30 days! U.S. motorists will have to cope with even higher prices in September, according to official estimates. By the end of the week, the average cost of regular gasoline could surge by another 10 cents and hit the $4 mark on Labor Day. From that point on, prices are expected to continue to climb due to a huge policy mistake made by the U.S. government. Analysts say that despite of the recent rise in domestic oil production, refiners still won’t be able to refill inventories and put a lid on fuel prices this year. This will not only cause some serious sticker shock at the pump, but also hit your spending power right ahead of the holiday season, and force companies to keep raising their prices to offset higher transportation costs. The fuel crisis is going to affect every aspect of the economy and cause real hardship for American families.
Data shared by Yahoo Finance's Ines Ferre shows that this fall gasoline and diesel prices are expected to rise by $0.50 to $1.00, respectively, due to a policy mistake that is leaving America with a serious supply gap. Economists from the S&P Global Market Intelligence explained that there's about a 70% correlation between gas prices and the way that consumers think of the U.S. economy. And when you take into consideration that the cost of a gallon of gasoline is at the highest level in a year, of course, there are going to be higher implications down the supply chain. Higher fuel costs do not just impact consumers but are likely to keep driving inflation higher instead of lower as the Federal Reserve expects. For retailers, further pressure on transportation costs often results in price hikes on their products.
Even though U.S. oil production is one of the highest in the world and it is on track to set a new record this year, our domestic inventories aren’t rising significantly. The largest share of refined oil products is immediately sent by the market to meet demand, which is making it harder and harder to fill in the supply gap created in 2022. After the conflict between Russia and Ukraine began in February 2022, the Biden administration released large volumes of crude from the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve to tame oil prices. In March of that year, officials announced the largest-ever sale from the reserve of 180 million barrels.
The use of the SPR as an oil market management tool infuriated some OPEC+ producers. In other others, the latest increase in domestic production of 100,000 barrels per day isn’t going to make a true difference in the cost of fuels. No wonder why the administration is on “alert” mode, said Robert McNally, the president of consultancy Rapidan Energy “The White House only has two kinds of modes when it comes to oil prices: oblivious or panicked.”
The White House is finally realizing that it has committed a huge mistake, and our dependence on the global market means that the government can no longer control the situation at home. For that reason, we should all prepare for some major volatility on the gasoline market in September and beyond. It looks like a reckoning day has just arrived, and our system is going to face some drastic shifts as we move closer to 2024."
"There Will Be No Recovery; Consumers Are Being Pushed To The Financial Brink; Credit Card Crisis"
Jeremiah Babe, 8/29/23
"There Will Be No Recovery; Consumers Are Being
Pushed To The Financial Brink; Credit Card Crisis"
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Musical Interlude: Deuter, "Endless Horizon"
Full screen recommended.
Deuter, "Endless Horizon"
Beautiful...
"A Look to the Heavens"
"A gorgeous spiral galaxy some 100 million light-years distant, NGC 1309 lies on the banks of the constellation of the River (Eridanus). NGC 1309 spans about 30,000 light-years, making it about one third the size of our larger Milky Way galaxy. Bluish clusters of young stars and dust lanes are seen to trace out NGC 1309's spiral arms as they wind around an older yellowish star population at its core.
Not just another pretty face-on spiral galaxy, observations of NGC 1309's recent supernova and Cepheid variable stars contribute to the calibration of the expansion of the Universe. Still, after you get over this beautiful galaxy's grand design, check out the array of more distant background galaxies also recorded in this sharp, reprocessed, Hubble Space Telescope view.”
"Maybe..."
"Maybe we're not supposed to be happy. Maybe gratitude has nothing to do with joy. Maybe being grateful means recognizing what you have for what it is. Appreciating small victories. Admiring the struggle it takes to simply be a human. Maybe, we're thankful for the familiar things we know. And maybe, we're thankful for the things we'll never know. At the end of the day, the fact that we have the courage to still be standing is reason enough to celebrate. "
- "Grey's Anatomy "
Free Download: George Orwell, “Animal Farm"
"Animal Farm"
by George Orwell
Biographical note: "George Orwell, 1903-1950, was the pen name used by British author and journalist Eric Arthur Blair. During most of his professional life time Orwell was best known for his journalism, both in the British press and in books such as "Homage to Catalonia," describing his activities during the Spanish Civil War, and "Down and Out in Paris and London," describing a period of poverty in these cities. Orwell is best remembered today for two of his novels, "Animal Farm" and "Nineteen Eighty-Four."
Description: Power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely- and this is vividly and eloquently proved in Orwell's short novel. "Animal Farm" is a simple fable of great symbolic value, and as Orwell himself explained: "it is the history of a revolution that went wrong." The novel can be seen as the historical analysis of the causes of the failure of communism, or as a mere fairy-tale; in any case it tells a good story that aims to prove that human nature and diversity prevent people from being equal and happy, or at least equally happy.
"Animal Farm" tells the simple and tragic story of what happens when the oppressed farm animals rebel, drive out Mr. Jones, the farmer, and attempt to rule the farm themselves, on an equal basis. What the animals seem to have aimed at was a utopian sort of communism, where each would work according to his capacity, respecting the needs of others. The venture failed, and "Animal Farm" ended up being a dictatorship of pigs, who were the brightest, and most idle of the animals.
Orwell's mastery lies in his presentation of the horrors of totalitarian regimes, and his analysis of communism put to practice, through satire and simple story-telling. The structure of the novel is skillfully organized, and the careful reader may, for example, detect the causes of the unworkability of communism even from the first chapter. This is deduced from Orwell's description of the various animals as they enter the barn and take their seats to listen to the revolutionary preaching of Old Major, father of communism in Animal Farm. Each animal has different features and attitude; the pigs, for example, "settled down in the straw immediately in front of the platform", which is a hint on their future role, whereas Clover, the affectionate horse" made a sort of wall" with her foreleg to protect some ducklings.
So, it appears that the revolution was doomed from the beginning, even though it began in idealistic optimism as expressed by the motto "no animal must ever tyrannize over his own kind. Weak or strong, clever or simple, we are all brothers." "When the animals drive out Mr. Jones, they create their "Seven Commandments" which ensure equality and prosperity for all the animals. The pigs, however, being the natural leaders, managed to reverse the commandments, and through terror and propaganda establish the rule of an elite of pigs, under the leadership of Napoleon, the most revered and sinister pig.
"Animal Farm" successfully presents how the mechanism of propaganda and brainwashing works in totalitarian regimes, by showing how the pigs could make the other animals believe practically anything. Responsible for the propaganda was Squealer, a pig that "could turn black into white." Squealer managed to change the rule from "all animals are equal" to "all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others." He managed to convince the other animals that it was for their sake that the pigs ate most of the apples and drank most of the milk, that leadership was "heavy responsibility" and therefore the animals should be thankful to Napoleon, that what they saw may have been something they "dreamed", and when everything else failed he would use the threat of "Jones returning" to silence the animals. In this simple but effective way, Orwell presents the tragedy and confusion of thought control to the extent that one seems better off simply believing that "Napoleon is always right".
Orwell's criticism of the role of the Church is also very effective. In Animal Farm, the Church is represented by Moses, a tame raven, who talks of "Sugarcandy Mountain", a happy country in the sky "where we poor animals shall rest forever from our labors". It is interesting to observe that when Old Major was first preaching revolutionary communism, Moses was sleeping in the barn, which satirizes the Church being caught asleep by communism. It is also important to note that the pig-dictators allowed and indirectly encouraged Moses; it seems that it suited the pigs to have the animals dreaming of a better life after death so that they wouldn't attempt to have a better life while still alive...
In "Animal Farm," Orwell describes how power turned the pigs from simple "comrades" to ruthless dictators who managed to walk on two legs, and carry whips. The story may be seen as an analysis of the Soviet regime, or as a warning against political power games of an absolute nature and totalitarianism in general. For this reason, the story ends with a hair-raising warning to all humankind: "The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again: but already it was impossible to say which was which."
Description: Power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely- and this is vividly and eloquently proved in Orwell's short novel. "Animal Farm" is a simple fable of great symbolic value, and as Orwell himself explained: "it is the history of a revolution that went wrong." The novel can be seen as the historical analysis of the causes of the failure of communism, or as a mere fairy-tale; in any case it tells a good story that aims to prove that human nature and diversity prevent people from being equal and happy, or at least equally happy.
"Animal Farm" tells the simple and tragic story of what happens when the oppressed farm animals rebel, drive out Mr. Jones, the farmer, and attempt to rule the farm themselves, on an equal basis. What the animals seem to have aimed at was a utopian sort of communism, where each would work according to his capacity, respecting the needs of others. The venture failed, and "Animal Farm" ended up being a dictatorship of pigs, who were the brightest, and most idle of the animals.
Orwell's mastery lies in his presentation of the horrors of totalitarian regimes, and his analysis of communism put to practice, through satire and simple story-telling. The structure of the novel is skillfully organized, and the careful reader may, for example, detect the causes of the unworkability of communism even from the first chapter. This is deduced from Orwell's description of the various animals as they enter the barn and take their seats to listen to the revolutionary preaching of Old Major, father of communism in Animal Farm. Each animal has different features and attitude; the pigs, for example, "settled down in the straw immediately in front of the platform", which is a hint on their future role, whereas Clover, the affectionate horse" made a sort of wall" with her foreleg to protect some ducklings.
So, it appears that the revolution was doomed from the beginning, even though it began in idealistic optimism as expressed by the motto "no animal must ever tyrannize over his own kind. Weak or strong, clever or simple, we are all brothers." "When the animals drive out Mr. Jones, they create their "Seven Commandments" which ensure equality and prosperity for all the animals. The pigs, however, being the natural leaders, managed to reverse the commandments, and through terror and propaganda establish the rule of an elite of pigs, under the leadership of Napoleon, the most revered and sinister pig.
"Animal Farm" successfully presents how the mechanism of propaganda and brainwashing works in totalitarian regimes, by showing how the pigs could make the other animals believe practically anything. Responsible for the propaganda was Squealer, a pig that "could turn black into white." Squealer managed to change the rule from "all animals are equal" to "all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others." He managed to convince the other animals that it was for their sake that the pigs ate most of the apples and drank most of the milk, that leadership was "heavy responsibility" and therefore the animals should be thankful to Napoleon, that what they saw may have been something they "dreamed", and when everything else failed he would use the threat of "Jones returning" to silence the animals. In this simple but effective way, Orwell presents the tragedy and confusion of thought control to the extent that one seems better off simply believing that "Napoleon is always right".
Orwell's criticism of the role of the Church is also very effective. In Animal Farm, the Church is represented by Moses, a tame raven, who talks of "Sugarcandy Mountain", a happy country in the sky "where we poor animals shall rest forever from our labors". It is interesting to observe that when Old Major was first preaching revolutionary communism, Moses was sleeping in the barn, which satirizes the Church being caught asleep by communism. It is also important to note that the pig-dictators allowed and indirectly encouraged Moses; it seems that it suited the pigs to have the animals dreaming of a better life after death so that they wouldn't attempt to have a better life while still alive...
In "Animal Farm," Orwell describes how power turned the pigs from simple "comrades" to ruthless dictators who managed to walk on two legs, and carry whips. The story may be seen as an analysis of the Soviet regime, or as a warning against political power games of an absolute nature and totalitarianism in general. For this reason, the story ends with a hair-raising warning to all humankind: "The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again: but already it was impossible to say which was which."
Free download George Orwell’s “Animal Farm" here:
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