Puxi, The Bund and Pudong Lujiazui, Shanghai, China
"New World Order"
As 'The West' continues slip-sliding away,
a new civilization reaches for the clouds...
by Bill Bonner
'Mankind'… has no aim, no idea, no plan, any more than the family of butterflies or orchids. 'Mankind' is a zoological expression, or an empty word. … I see, in place of that empty figment of one linear history which can only be kept up by shutting one’s eyes to the overwhelming multitude of the facts, the drama of a number of mighty Cultures, each springing with primitive strength from the soil of a mother region to which it remains firmly bound throughout its whole life-cycle; each stamping its material, its mankind, in its own image; each having its own idea, its own passions, its own life, will and feeling, its own death."
~ Oswald Spengler
Poitou, France - "It’s big. It’s grand. It’s pretentious. Does it have any real world meaning? We’re talking about today’s theme – about the slip-sliding of ‘The West.’ After more than 1,000 years, western civilization – or, what Spengler called “Faustian culture” – is facing a serious challenge. The BRICS…the developing countries of Muslims, Slavs, Chinese and Africans…are jockeying for leading roles. They’re growing faster. They’re buying more, spending more, and saving more. They’re still benefiting from fossil fuels. They’re dodging sanctions. They’re making new alliances…and finding new sources of financial aid and technical guidance. They’re resisting NATO in the Ukraine…and denying the West’s moral superiority in Israel. They are forging a new world order…one without the USA at the top of it. Does it matter?
Place Your Bets: Warren Buffett says you should never bet against America. But never is a long time…even for Buffett. What’s this? MarketWatch: "Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway cash pile hits record $157 bln with deals scarce."
Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway ended the third quarter with a record cash pile and reported a deeper overall loss due to weakness in the stock market…You’re either long or you’re short. You own it, or you don’t own it. You bet on America’s businesses…or you hold cash. Buffett is now betting against America. He’s ‘short’ its stocks (not owning them) by a wider margin than ever before.
What to make of it? And what to make of the bond market? US bonds are backed by the full faith and credit of the US government. Banks, insurance and retirement funds hold big wads of US paper…debt, that is. Corporate treasuries, non-profits, university and hospital endowments – almost the entire capital structure of stocks, bonds and real estate is directly or indirectly supported by US bonds.
So what happens when investors lose faith in the issuer? What happens when the credit quality declines? What happens when a nation…an empire…or a whole ‘civilization’ hits the skids? CNN reports: "Moody’s sends a warning to America: Your last AAA credit rating is at risk." The United States is one step closer to losing its last perfect credit rating after Moody’s Investors Service changed the outlook of the nation’s debt to negative on Friday after markets closed. Even the prospect of a US downgrade could hurt Americans’ investment portfolios, make it even more expensive for them to borrow money, and make it more costly for the government to pay off its debts.
Decline and Fall: Let’s return to Oswald Spengler. We’ve heard of his ‘Decline of the West,” published in 1918, all our lives. But we have never read it. Dan reports that it is unreadable…written in heavy, academic German, which translation scarcely improved.
We mentioned American politics yesterday. It is the “same stupid clown car with a different driver,” says Representative Dusty Johnson. Democracy works tolerably well when it is done at a local level. But it is not scalable.
In the famous painting by Norman Rockwell above, a working man stands up at a town meeting and says his piece. It could be about the new school…about moving the town dump…and an ordinance that bans spitting on the sidewalk – whatever it is, the man can have an informed opinion on the matter. But suppose he is one of 150 million voters? And suppose he has to choose his candidates from TV ‘debates’ and mainstream media coverage? Suppose he is asked his opinion on AI…or the need for a new fighter plane…or a quarter-point increase in the Fed Funds rate? What are the odds that he will have a coherent, well-informed view?
The larger the scale, the dumber the policies…and the more real policy making is hijacked by elites for their own purposes. Who benefits from America’s non-stop wars? Who benefits from DEI/LBGQT+ spending? Who benefits from anti-racism indoctrination…from tariffs…from laws, rules, and regulations – often thousands of pages long…costing trillions of dollars – that no one (save the insiders) has even read?
The result is an unaffordable, corrupt and incompetent leadership. Every ‘Europeanized’ government – including Japan – is now deeply in debt. Each spends more than it can afford. Each has made promises that cannot be fulfilled. And each muddles along making things worse with every move. How much faith can you have in such a government? How much credit can you give it? More to come…"
"The Horseman Of The Economic Apocalypse Draws Near"
By Mike Adams
"US treasury debt has just been downgraded to negative. It costs a trillion dollars a year just to pay interest on the debt. The fed's money printing machine is running all out, while fewer and fewer investors trust the ability of the US to ever pay back its debt obligations. The dollar collapse draws near. Full coverage in today's Brighteon broadcast here:
"We're diving into the looming Real Estate Armageddon amidst the Mezzanine Loan Crisis! With an industry on the brink, it's time to explore how office buildings are being wiped out in what could be a new real estate crash. The financial chaos and how these high-stake loans are playing a pivotal role."
“War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.”
"Whether it is a distinguished general who came to his senses in 1935, after doing the bidding of the monied interests by initiating conflict throughout the world to fill their coffers with blood money, or a rock & roll star fifty years later writing a hit song about the exact same theme, the song remains the same. The wealthy always benefit from war, the poor always die in their wars, and politicians are bribed to continually foment conflict, hate, and railing against whoever their puppet masters choose as the enemy of the moment. This is not a recent development, it has spanned centuries, just the sums of money feeding the military industrial complex are now astronomical.
The 20th Century began with Butler doing the bidding of the monied classes in South America, Mexico, and Europe, disguised as keeping America safe for democracy – the usual propaganda fed to the masses when they are running their racket. Just as Edward Bernays clearly laid out in his 1928 book – "Propaganda" – that the world is run by an invisible government who manipulate the minds of the masses to do as they are told, Butler unequivocally described why we are perpetually at war and who benefits from perpetual warfare. The invisible government/insiders run this world and have always run this world. Once you reconcile yourself to this fact, you will be well on your way to understanding all of the major events happening in the world today.
“A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small “inside” group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes. In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War.”
It seems many more millionaires and billionaires have been created since World War I, the war Wilson promised not to enter. What a coincidence the Federal Reserve was created in shadowy back rooms on a secretive island in 1913 by men constituting the invisible government (bankers, corporate executives, corrupt politicians), just before the outbreak of the Great War. Of course, it was only great for the bankers, arms dealers, and corporations getting rich off the blood of the 20 million innocent soldiers and civilians who died to fill up their war chests with gold. Once the politicians, bankers, and connected corporations had the ability to use a central bank to print fiat and fund their wars for eternity, we’ve had over a century of total war.
“It is no coincidence that the century of total war
The moneyed classes profit from warfare no matter who wins. But even better, they profit the most when no one wins and the war is perpetual. Perpetual war equals perpetual profits. The United States has not been invaded by a foreign enemy since the War of 1812. The $1.8 trillion allocated to the Department of Defense in 2023 exceeds the GDP of most countries in the world and is a self sustaining mechanism where politicians: approve the trillions in blood money while promoting chaos and war around the globe; become multi-millionaires from bribes accepted from the corporations enriched by the military industrial complex; accelerate the downfall of America by enslaving future generations in chains of unpayable debt; and then convince the poor to become cannon fodder in their bloody game of thrones.
“Every war, when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.” – George Orwell
The propagandists for the military regime always need a “bad guy” to justify their wealth generating wars. First it was Hitler, even though corporate leaders like Ford admired and profited from his rebuilding of Germany. Then it was the generic “communist” which was used by the war profiteers to justify Korea and Vietnam. Keeping the world safe for democracy and corporate profits, at the cost of only 100,000 American lives and several million natives. Evidently a beneficial trade-off for the American Empire and the military industrial complex, warned about by Eisenhower.
The modern day “homicidal maniacs”, who threatened the peace that the American Empire has spread at the point of a gun and demanding use of their fiat currency, have included: the Ayatollah Khomeini when fighting our ally Sadaam Hussein, until Sadaam Hussein became the “homicidal maniac”; Soviet leadership in Afghanistan fought by our ally Osama bin Laden until bin Laden became the “homicidal maniac” blamed for 9/11; Muammar Gaddafi when he dared not fall in line regarding the USD; Bashar al-Assad when gas pipelines were needed to keep profits flowing; Vladimir Putin for revealing U.S. and Biden family corruption in Ukraine; and now Hamas because they tired of living in the open air Israeli prison of Gaza.
None of these “homicidal maniacs” has ever threatened the American homeland with invasion or meaningful attack. But they did provide justification for the Patriot Act, a never ending War on Terror, doubling of military spending, sacrifice of American lives for nothing more than oil and mammon, and creation of new eternal enemies across the globe (aka blow back). You see the regime propaganda media declare we are running low on bombs, missiles and military hardware because we’ve sent over $100 billion worth to their anti-Putin puppet Zelensky (with 10% for the big guy), and now we need tens of billions more to give to Netanyahu to aid in his genocide of Palestinians. What if the trillions spent on destroying things and killing people over the last seventy five years had been used for productive purposes?
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”
The arms dealers who keep the war machine killing are more than happy to ramp up production to support the ongoing Ukraine debacle and now the powder keg in the Middle East which threatens to explode into World War III. Imagine the corporate bonuses if we get ourselves a new world war. Politician’s coffers will be filled with blood money. And if the neo-cons can just get China to attack Taiwan, champagne corks will be popping all over Washington DC. Since the Biden/CIA provoked Ukraine war began in early 2022, defense contractor stocks have soared (BAE Systems: +100%; Lockheed Martin: +36%; Northrup Grumman: +32%; General Dynamics: +26%), while the overall stock market was down 8%. It’s good to be the kings of war.
Our dementia ridden puppet president let the truth slip last week by saying these wars are good for the economy. And by good for the economy, he means good for the bankers, mega-corporations, military industrial complex, and the bank accounts of politicians bought off by war loving donors. What it is not good for are the bank accounts of average Americans, as relentless inflation created to wage these wars destroys their purchasing power as they spiral towards impoverishment. It’s not good for the poor who enlist and get to shed their blood for no good reason at all. It’s not good for the innocent civilians across the globe killed by the promoters of endless war and declared collateral damage by the likes of Dick Cheney, Lindsay Graham, Victoria Nuland, Hillary Clinton and Nikke Haley. It’s not murder if you are waving the flag of neo-con justice.
“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished
unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.”
The absurdity of allowing rich men to decide millions should die for a fake cause in order to sustain their wealth, power and control, infuriates me and is why I hold out little hope for a positive outcome to this Fourth Turning. How could so many be so obtuse as to not see what is happening right in front of their eyes? I have no animosity towards average Russians, Ukrainians, Chinese, Iranians, Syrians, Turks, Palestinians, Israelis, or anyone on this earth trying to live normal lives. It’s the rich and powerful rulers of countries, kingdoms, and empires who I despise. Despite having no personal quarrel against anyone, the shadowy psychopaths in suits behind the curtain use religion and psychological manipulation to convince the masses they should hate and kill an enemy they are instructed to loathe and fear.
“What is absurd and monstrous about war is that men who have no personal quarrel should be trained to murder one another in cold blood.” – Aldous Huxley
Whether it was World War II or what is playing out before our very eyes today, the song remains the same. Rich man’s war, poor man’s fight.
Most have not come to the realization we are already in the midst of World War III. It began in the spring of 2022 when Boris Johnson was instructed by the globalist cabal to stop Zelensky from signing an agreed upon treaty between Russia and Ukraine to end the conflict. There was billions in war profits to be made and the opportunity to bleed Russia of financial resources. When this disastrous venture, which has killed 600,000 innocent victims, began to run out of steam and the enthusiasm of clueless dolts with their “Support Ukraine” lawn signs began to wane, miraculously Hamas attacked Israel. How convenient for the war machine.
World War II started in September 1939, but Americans set the date at December 7, 1941. In reality, the U.S. was already at war in 1939, as we supplied the UK with arms and financial support, while provoking Japan into attacking through economic sanctions. It is exactly the same situation today. We have been at war with Russia for over a year through our puppet proxy, the actor Zelensky. We are now at war in the Middle East through our Israeli proxy point of the spear. None of this is declared, but anyone with critical thinking skills knows we are calling the shots. What the military industrial complex is now actively seeking is a new Pearl Harbor, Gulf of Tonkin, or 9/11. They need a horrific event to usher in World War III. They are gathered in black masses, plotting death and destruction, while feeding their insatiable desire for mammon.
So here we are, on the edge of Armageddon, waiting for the next shoe to drop. I don’t believe a word my government tells me. I consider those who are running this country, whether they be “elected” politicians, shadowy billionaires constituting the invisible government, or the globalist cabal seeking a new world order, to be my sworn enemies. When they initiate the false flag, designed to falsely generate the patriotic spirit of the masses and mobilize them for war against the enemy of their choosing (likely Russia, China or Iran), I will not be obeying, complying or sacrificing my three sons as cannon fodder for their evil agendas and wars for profit. The only ammo fired by my family in this coming conflict will be at any government thug attempting to invest my sons in their wars. That is my red line and I will die defending it. Time to prepare for the real war against the real enemy."
"First they received a fillip because of the Russia-Ukraine war, and now they've gotten a boost from the raging Israel-Hamas war. Western weapons manufacturers are cashing in on the rise in conflicts around the world, issuing a forecast which is rosy for them, but grim for the rest of the world."
"In today's vlog, we are at Meijer and urging everyone to stock up on these items. They are having a massive holiday sale on groceries. We take you with us showing every great deal they have to offer. Stock up now as we may never see these kinds of sales again!"
'Israel is Killing Itself And We Can't Stop Them'"
"Is The United States preparing for war in the Middle East? A broader regional war. It sure as hell seems that way. Over the past 24 hours the U.S. struck Iraninian bases in the region and Iran vows to fight back. Meanwhile U.S. soldiers were killed during middle east training exercises in Cyprus. Was it an accident? Col. Douglas MacGregor joins us to analyze the very latest moves."
"Spiral galaxy NGC 4651 is a mere 35 million light-years distant, toward the well-groomed constellation Coma Berenices. About 50 thousand light-years across, this galaxy is seen to have a faint umbrella-shaped structure (right) that seems to extend some 50 thousand light-years farther, beyond the bright galactic disk. The giant cosmic umbrella is now known to be composed of tidal star streams. The streams themselves are extensive trails of stars gravitationally stripped from a smaller satellite galaxy that was eventually torn apart.
Recent work by a remarkable collaboration of amateur and professional astronomers to image faint structures around bright galaxies suggests that even in nearby galaxies, such tidal star streams are common. The result is predicted by models of galaxy formation, including the formation of our Milky Way."
“ Are we truly alone With our physics and myths, The stars no more Than glittering dust, With no one there To hear our choral odes?”
“This is the ultimate question, the only question, asked here by the Northern Irish poet Derek Mahon. It is a poem of exile, from the ancient familiar, from the sustaining myth of rootedness, of centrality. A poem that the naturalist can relate to, we pilgrims of infinite spaces, of the overarching blank pages on which we write our own stories, our own scriptures, having none of divine pedigree.
Yes, we feel the ache of exile, we who grew up with the sustaining myths of immortality only to see them stripped away by the needy hands of fact. We scribble our choral odes. Who listens? We speak to each other. Is that enough? Having left the home we grew up in, we make do with where we find ourselves, gathering to ourselves the glittering dust of the here and now.
Are we truly alone? Mahon again:
“If so, we can start To ignore the silence Of infinite space And concentrate instead on the infinity Under our very noses - The cry at the heart Of the artichoke, The gaiety of atoms.”
Better to leave the blank page blank than fill it with sentimental hankerings for home, with those prayers of our childhood we repeated over and over until they became a hard, fast crust on the page. Incline our ear instead to the faint cry that issues from the world under our very noses, from there, the tomato plant on the window sill, the ink-dark crow that paces the grass beyond the panes, the clouds that heap on the horizon - the dizzy, ditzy dance of atoms and the glitterings of stars.”
"When a bull is being lead to the slaughter, it still hopes to break loose and trample its butchers. Other bulls have not been able to pass on the knowledge that this never happens and that from the slaughterhouse there is no way back to the herd. But in human society there is a continuous exchange of experience. I have never heard of a man who broke away and fled while being led to his execution. It is even thought to be a special form of courage if a man about to be executed refuses to be blindfolded and dies with his eyes open. But I would rather have the bull with his blind rage, the stubborn beast who doesn't weigh his chances of survival with the prudent dull-wittedness of man, and doesn't know the despicable feeling of despair."
"We’ve grown accustomed to regarding the US as the most powerful country on earth. Since the end of World War II, it’s been the economic powerhouse that’s dictated terms to the rest of the world. War production created the world’s most modern factories, allowing for a postwar boom in manufacturing goods of every description. The fact that the US held two-thirds of the world’s gold by the end of the war enabled it to dictate that the US dollar would be the default currency for trade. And later on, the creation of OPEC ensured that all gas and oil would be settled in the petrodollar.
The resultant overwhelming economic power enabled the US to assume the role of the world’s policeman, with a defense budget that equaled that of the next ten most powerful countries combined. But all that power led the leaders of the US empire to assume that it was omnipotent. In 1971, they went off the gold standard, and over the ensuing decades, the US went from being the world’s largest creditor nation to its largest debtor nation.
The US can no longer produce goods, as its ever-increasing union labor costs have priced it out of the market, even for local consumption. It’s now dependent upon China, Mexico, and other countries for virtually all goods. And yet, the US is threatening those countries with controls. With help from the FATF and OECD, the US has become an economic ball and chain to the economies of the First World and, to a lesser extent, beyond.
The US is now a hollowed-out empire. By any measure, it’s a goliath that’s likely to fall in the near future. But recently, the above conditions have been exacerbated to a degree that’s unprecedented in the post-war world.
In March of 2021, the US made the fatal mistake of confiscating privately-held assets of the Russian people. Although this was seen by Americans as just punishment for Russia’s invasion of the Donbas, the rest of the world saw it differently. The leaders of even small countries took note, realizing that the rulebook had just been tossed out the window. If the US could seize foreign privately-owned assets in Russia… they could do it anywhere.
Although almost no one in the US noticed it at the time, more than two-thirds of the world’s countries quietly began to create treaties with China and Russia – seeking to build a new alternative to the robber empire. Although this still appears to be insignificant to Americans, the change has taken place quickly and substantially. Scores of new treaties are now in place, and more are on the way. The world is now "rent in twain."
Saudi Arabia moved decisively to shift its loyalty to China, along with other OPEC nations, assuring that the petrodollar will soon be no more. New treaties have been inked to allow the world’s countries to trade in their own countries, bypassing the dollar, assuring that the US dollar as the reserve currency is also on its way out.
An entirely new global paradigm is underway – one that’s not even on the news in the US. Americans are blissfully unaware that their country is now a house of cards, looking for a strong wind. That strong wind has come up in the Middle East in the form of a war that promises to break the bank of the US. The US pours $830 billion into the Military Industrial Complex annually for weaponry that has been outmoded, in some cases, for decades, while other powers have continued to advance and, today, far outweigh the US militarily.
Add to this the astonishing stupidity of American leaders to choose this time to emasculate their own military. No matter how supportive a country may be of gay rights, a de-emphasis on masculinity in the armed forces creates a military that no red-blooded man wants to be a part of. The US armed forces are gutted.
Be assured: this is not simply a country experiencing a downturn. It’s an empire in its death throes. To wit:
• The most prosperous cities in America are in dramatic decline. Downtown areas are filled with the homeless and the drug-addicted.
• Those who loot stores are not prosecuted, leading to a crime epidemic that’s closing entire blocks of previously-successful shops.
• Entire downtown areas are unable to support commerce, leading to an emptying out of cities.
• Banks are laying off tens of thousands of staff.
• Competent workers cannot be found. They may have credentials but can’t finish tasks. They maximize sick days and otherwise fail to show up for work.
• Simple business tasks fail to be performed. Deadlines can’t be met. Retiring older workers cannot be replaced with motivated replacements.
• Businesses are chronically understaffed – restaurants cannot serve customers; mechanics leave cars unrepaired; trash isn’t removed; flights are cancelled due to airline staff failing to turn up.
• Most countries recovered from lockdown mode, but in the US, literally millions of people have chosen not to return to the workplace.
Elsewhere in the world, the opposite is occurring. In Asia, in particular, there’s tremendous enthusiasm for new growth. New businesses are being created. Even in "communist" countries like Vietnam, it’s possible to stand on a street corner and see countless peasants setting up shop on the pavement each day: capitalism in the making.
None of this is a random occurrence. Countries have a life cycle. Empires have a life cycle. The level of prosperity a country achieves at its height is directly proportional to the severity of its eventual collapse. The First World, particularly the US, is indeed running on empty and can be expected to go down, literally, in flames. From inside the US, it’s difficult to understand that the remainder of the world began its consolidation and rise eighteen months ago and that the new dominant power is rising rapidly. The non-First world recognizes that this is not the end of the world but a global shift in predominance.
We’re presently witnessing the early stages of the collapse of the world’s greatest empire. That’s difficult to even conceive of, let alone picture. Yet, the early events are unfolding and are in evidence before us. If we bother to read the tea leaves, we’ll see that the larger events are about to play out. It’s entirely possible that, by 2030, we’ll be watching the dust settle on the past empire.
But history advises us that dying empires do not go quietly. In every case, they attempt to hold onto their dying power through warfare. If no war is needed, one is invented. The excuse for the war is unimportant. What matters is that there is conflict sufficient enough to subjugate the people of the empire into sacrificing their rights in favour of their country in its hour of need. And it’s also true that even a dying power can do massive damage on its way out.
Whether the reader lives in the US, another First World nation, or an outlying nation that’s likely to be less affected by the unfolding conflict, it would be wise to distance oneself from the fray. A dying lion is a dangerous beast."
"The situation in the Middle East continues to escalate by the day, putting us all on a path toward nuclear war. Just this weekend, Israel stuck 40km deep inside Lebanon's territory, and Hezbollah is showing off anti-ship missiles that could be used to target US Navy vessels. Meanwhile, huge natural gas and oil reserves have been found underneath Gaza, providing yet another reason for Israel to want to control the land.
For its part, the US wants a justification to bomb Iran, but so far Iran is refusing to go along with the escalation. Nevertheless, the situation remains tense. Full details in today's Brighteon Broadcast News, plus an alarming interview with John Moore, The Liberty Man, who discusses the global consequences of escalation in the Middle East."
Tracing the "Faustian Civilization's" long fall from grace...
by Bill Bonner
Poitou, France - "Between today and next week, anything can happen. Stock prices can turn on a dime. But big trends have momentum. …the Primary Trend must run ‘all the way’ to the end. If the Primary Trend is now down – for stocks and bonds – there’s more bad news coming. And what about the bigger picture…the future of America…and of Western Civilization? Is it like a huge ship, headed to the dock and going much too fast?
On our drive down to below the Loire River, we pass a sign: ‘Battle of Poitiers, 732.” It is on a rural road, between Tours and Chauvigny…the middle of nowhere. No one visits. Because there is nothing to visit. It is along the banks of the Vienne River, rolling slowly down….past where David Ogilvy had his famous chateau (now for sale). No one knows for sure if the battle took place there…or elsewhere. It might not have taken place at all, but instead might have been nothing more than skirmish with a scouting party…reaching the limit of its incursion into what is now France.
The native Poitevins were the Palestinians then! The Saracens – mostly Berbers from North Africa – had conquered all of the Iberian Peninsula. By 730, they were seeing how deeply they could go before getting turned back. Poitiers was it. There, a force led by Charles Martel (the Hammer) stopped them. And thus did the tide turn, almost 1,300 years ago…against the Islamic world of Arabs, Turks, Persians, Berbers and dozens of other nationalities that had converted to Islam…in favor of Christian Europe.
False Prophets: The drive to push the Muslims out of Iberia took another 700 years. It was then, when Granada fell to the forces of Ferdinand and Isabella, that the Reconquista was completed. Then, it was the Muslims and Jews who were Palestinians…they had to flee, convert or become slaves. (Later, after they had converted, they were often accused of being ‘false Christians’…and burnt at the stake. In Mexico, even Lutherans were killed, as heretics.)
Even before Muslims were swept out of Spain, Europeans were on the move. Crusaders established their own fiefs on the coast of what is today Israel. They conquered Jerusalem…and took Sicily from the Saracens. Little later, they were sending out explorers…and then colonizers…all over the world. North America, South America, Australia, Asia, Africa – Judeo-Christian European civilization was triumphant…almost everywhere.
“The West” won. Its capitalism…its democracy…its fossil fuels and internal combustion engines…nation states…the rule of law…rational inquiry…bombs…science – those are the things that put western civilization on top of the heap. For more than a millennium, European civilization ruled the world.
But what’s this? Forbes: "The West Has Lost Its Dominant Global Position." Veteran diplomat and philosophical provocateur Kishore Mahbubani in his new book asks a question that has crossed many minds of late: “Has the West lost it?”
If “it” is the dominant position of Europeans and North Americans in the world, then yes. The rest of the world has caught up and are overtaking the West because they received and applied the gift of Western wisdom – i.e., scientific reason and an approach to governance where the rulers are accountable to their people, not the other way around. In this sense, the West is the victim of the success of its own ideas.
A Party of Losers: Talk about a Primary Trend! What Oswald Spengler called the “Faustian Civilization” – now called “the West” – is on the skids. A thousand years of history… always on the up-swing…always up-staging the competition…always with the upper hand against its enemies…and now ‘the West’ is slip-sliding into second-fiddle status.
Just look at the virtuoso of ‘The West’ – the US. Its elections reveal the rot at its core of the whole system. In the Republican candidates’ debate, Vivek Ramaswamy says his own party is a ‘party of losers.’ He accuses the president’s family of taking a bribe from the Ukrainians. He says the media is “corrupt.” And that the firepower industry has “spent trillions, killed millions, and made billions” for themselves. He – an upstart, an outsider with his own money – is the only one who makes any sense at all. Naturally, the commentators named him the ‘biggest loser’ in the debate.
Most likely, the election will be headlined by the same two worn-out husks the nation has suffered for the last 7 years – Biden and Trump. The former should simply retire and save his family further embarrassment. The latter should never have been allowed into public life in the first place.
Meanwhile, Congress – distracted by ‘culture wars’ – shirks its duty to avoid real ones…and can’t even put together a budget, much less balance it. As near as we can tell, the latest flop on the imperial frontier is in the Ukraine. The US promised to stand by Zelensky until he had driven the Russians out of the Eastern (Russian speaking) provinces. Now, after spending more than $100 billion, US policymakers are looking for other alternatives.
Ask No Questions: Another big flop is shaping up in Israel, where the whole world watches as the Israelis, backed by the US, conduct a ferocious killing campaign that won’t soon be forgotten. Whatever else may come of it, the US will never again be able to claim the moral high ground without triggering laughter and derision.
America’s financial situation is in trouble too. It is presided over by a privately-owned bank cartel – the Fed – whose mis-guidance added $27 trillion to the national debt so far this century (with more coming!). And it still pretends to be able to manage the US economy.
And the voters themselves are much too busy trying to make ends meet to look beneath the headlines. They are victims of a self-serving media establishment. The mainstream press no longer speaks ‘truth to power.’ It merely recites the latest propaganda talking points...and asks no questions.
In short, the whole foundation of ‘the West’s’ supremacy is falling apart – democracy, Congress, the dollar, firepower. Our most basic institutions are failing. And where does it lead? Can you still protect your wealth by buying leading US stocks and taking ‘the long view?’ Stay tuned..."
"Does It Seem Like Everything Is Falling Apart? It Is"
by John Wilder
"The story of the 20th century was one of things coming together. Part of it was based on technology – the world shrank as successive technologies made communications, typically mass communications, easier and quicker. The world went from letters carried over land to telegrams to telephones and then radio and television. Information that previously took weeks to get out, could now go out to millions nearly immediately so we could all know how tough Meghan Markle had it last weekend.
With this communication, the model was simple: one to many. One person could have their ideas spread out to literally everyone. In the Soviet Union, radio versions of Stalin’s speeches could be broadcast instantaneously to every person with a radio in the Soviet Union, though those radios were powered by large industrial tractors produced in Tractor Collective Number 323 that weighed 17 metric tons.
Europe itself clumped together into the EU, which, oddly, was exactly the plan of an Austrian art-school reject. Up until the 1990s, clumping together was all the rage. There was strength in being together, and it was also strength in the titanic war without weapons between two competing ideologies: Western Capitalism versus Eastern European and Asian Collectivist Communism.
Some have said (and I would have argued, incorrectly, in the past) that technology is neutral. It is not. Technology absolutely changes the equation between the types of governments that can exist. Take, for example, weapons:
To be really good with a sword takes a lot of practice. I assume this because I watched a lot of movies where people learn to be good swordsmen and people always seem to get older in the montage. Beyond that, the suit of armor that a knight had to have was really, really expensive? How expensive? More than “hot dog at an NFL® game” expensive, it was completely unaffordable unless you had a manor and a bunch of dudes growing stuff for you. And, if you had it, those dudes couldn’t really do anything to you when you were out and about.
Freedom, in this case, belonged to those who had armor. That equation changed over time, and it’s a real reason I like firearms. I can go in a store and buy a close copy (or in some cases much better stuff) than the United States Army gives to the rank-and-file soldier. Remember, “military grade” is the code word for the cheapest stuff that they could buy that might do the job.
Anyway, as long as millions of Americans are as well armed as the average infantry soldier in our army, we are free. Round us up and try to put us in concentration camps like they did in Australia during the recent pandemic? Not going to happen because, well, all the guns. It doesn’t even take a montage to learn how to use a firearm.
Mao may have been ugly and smelled bad, but he knew something very true: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” Why does the Left want to take away guns? Because they want power, and as long as you have weapons that equal theirs, they cannot make you do whatever it is that they want.
But that’s a digression. Technology allowed the flourishing of really large empires, mainly due to information management and that “one to many” communication model. Being together in these combinations allowed two sides to fight each other. Until they didn’t.
The biggest failure of Soviet-style communism wasn’t the socialist part, but the collectivist part. Capitalism in the West simply out produced them, but the collectivist mindset wasn’t really “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” That sounds spiffy, but in reality it became, “From each according to how little work they could get away with, to each according to how much they could milk the system for.”
This collapsed. I think it was a coincidence that it was just as the Internet began to flourish, but the Internet has changed the entire way that communication can flow. The old model was “from one to many” while the new model is “from many to many”. Not everyone has an equal voice, but ideas now flow freely. This is what puts the panties of Those Who Are In Power into a wad – they have lost control of the Narrative. It’s also going to be the story of the 21st century: the time when things dissolve.
We’ve seen it start with Brexit. Brexit would never have happened under the previous mode where the only options were the options from TPTB. In this case, the people rose up, and said no. Of course, in the case of Great Britain, TPTB decided to keep the unending flow of illegals headed there, because the last thing they want to reward were people from Great Britain deciding their own destiny.
It’s too late to put the genie back into the bottle, however. We see strains on NATO where vastly divergent incentives have weakened that alliance, and I see similar strains on the EU right now, where countries like Poland and Hungary are being ostracized for not wanting to become minorities in their own lands.
Likewise, we see the pressures of division putting strains on the United States. Every reader here is a part of that, since you regularly partake in ideas that are not approved by those who would have you live in pods and eat bugs and give up your arms. For the greater good, you know.
The story of the 20th century was of coming together. Our story, right now, is of things coming apart."
"Everybody and his dog is writing about Palestine. The dogs are probably doing it more intelligently, but I can’t change my phylum, or even species. We columnists do what we can and suffer what we must.
OK, Israel. The current war is an ordinary case of colonialism. In the late Forties the Jews grabbed Palestine militarily. When you do that, the people displaced hate you and want to kill you. The only way to control them is brutally. Which the Jews did, and do. Eventually the colonized revolt. They just did. When this happens, the occupying power responds without measure or mercy. It is as predictable as the value of pi.
There is nothing particularly Jewish about it. Colonialism was all the rage for centuries among Eurowhites. The Jews just had poor timing, getting into colonialism when everybody else was getting out. European peoples, certainly to include Americans, acquired most of the world at gunpoint, exactly as the Jews are absorbing parts they like in the Middle East. America got half of Mexico, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. The Philippinos, who did not want to be colonials, fought. The Americans crushed them with stomach-turning savagery. If interested in this, read "Little Brown Brother", by Leon Wolff.
Europeans got all of Latin America, India, most of Southeast Asia, Africa, much of China, the Muslim world, and Gaza. The philosophy was that if you see something you like, and have better weapons, just say, “Mine!,” and snatch it.
What the Jews are doing is sickening, but usual. The Europowers (today often called in the Global South, Anglo-Saxons) routinely did things at least as bad as what the Jews now do in Palestine. These atrocities were hideous, but now largely unknown as they are not permitted in history books. The mass killings, torture, starvation, poisoning and so on were nauseating.
You may think that the British were above such barbarity, being noble and quoting Shakespeare and such. No. They were quite ordinary. Try this: Ten Atrocities That the British Don’t Want You To Know. French (Algeria), Belgians (the Belgian Congo), Spanish (Mexico et al), and America (the Philippines). The treatment of slaves in the sugar plantations of the British West Indies was ghastly. Go to Zacatecas in Mexico and see the torture instruments in the museum. You may blow your lunch.
To understand American foreign policy, remember that it has three, and only three, goals: Money, power, and empire. This may sound like high-school cynicism. It isn’t, or if it is, high-schoolers are more perceptive than they used to be. Governments, certainly Washington and Tel Aviv, don’t give a wan etiolated damn about democracy, human rights, values, war crimes, truth, justice, or the American way (as, anciently, the announcer droned of the latter three as Superman jumped out of the window). They don’t care about dead children or bombed hospitals, though they have to make mooing noises about these things while doing nothing.
In Gaza, the essential fact is that Israel can do anything it wants because Washington will support it without limit. This is because Jewish influence in America is immense and unshakable. If this were not so Israel probably would not last since it has nothing America needs or wants and the Arabs have oil, lots of it. Conservatives grouse about AIPAC’s power, but with no effect. One might as well complain of sunrise or gravitation.
Since the US wields a veto in the United Nations, this august box of pointless chatter can do nothing but wave its hands and say, “the children, the children.” Money, power, empire. Washington will urge a ceasefire and orate about humanitarian aid while sending arms and aircraft carriers to Israel. It will also stall until Israel has accomplished whatever it intends to accomplish. Huge demonstrations against the killing will probably have no effect as Western countries have learned to be democracies without the populaces having power.
No point exists in honking about international law. Law exists only when there are means of enforcing it. Who is going to make the United States follow laws?
Much breath is wasted in lamenting the killing of civilians. It would make more sense to drink beer and watch Star Trek reruns. This would have as much effect and be more agreeable. As long as America supports the killing, it will continue. Besides, killing civilians has a long and celebrated past in the West. The firebombing of Tokyo, Dresden, and other cities, the obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki eliminated hundreds of thousands, often by burning. These were not military targets. The German siege of Leningrad did yeoman work in the starvation line. The Americans killed God knows how many Viet civilians in that war and often treated them bestially. The Germans, now called “Nazis” to disguise what Germans are and did, killed lots of Jews. When Americas pilots bombed Baghdad, perhaps they didn’t know that civilians lived in cities. Things can slip one’s mind.
When it comes to killing civilians, the Jews have been barely more than wannabes, though maybe only because they didn’t have the opportunity. In this century and the last, the heavy hitters in such matters as burning children alive have been chiefly the Americans, British, and Germans, with the Turks making a good showing in the early years of the last century. The Japanese did pretty well too. The Brits starved additional millions to death in India, but I don’t think they should be allowed to count these since it wasn’t intentional but just a result of using India’s food to support WW II or deny it to the Japanese.
Apparently some Israeli has mentioned the possibility of nuking Gaza. Whether this was casual blather or calculated intimidation, I don’t know. The Jews have also said that they could do to Beirut what they are doing to Gaza. Tel Aviv’s nuclear warheads presumably reduce the ardor of Hezbola and Iran for joining the fray.
But Iran is Israel’s bugaboo, as Iraq formerly was. An interesting question is what would happen if Israel nuked Iran. The Israeli approach is just do it, brazen it out, rely on American protection, and wait a few years for indignation to die down. What would, or could, any country do? Washington would be shocked, horrified, concerned, make disapproving noises, and do nothing. The “world community” would gnash its hair, pull its teeth, turn purple, and do nothing. That is, nothing effective. Countries would summon ambassadors, sever relations, stop trading with Israel for a few years, and maybe wave their hands in the air. Washington would Say Stern Tings, but do nothing, and make sure nobody else did either. Onward and upward.Or think beer and Star Trek reruns."
Full screen recommended. Scott Ritter, 11/12/23 "Israel Bombed Lebanon, Hezbollah Will Beat Them With One Hand Tied Behind Their Back" Comments here: - https://www.youtube.com/
Note that Hezbollah has 150,000 battle-hardened, extremely well armed and equipped
professional soldiers, as well as 200,000 missiles than can strike anywhere in Israel...
o
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, AM 11/13/23
"Larry Johnson: (fmr CIA) - What Is Hezbollah Planning?"
“I hope you realize the ideological brain worms possessing group narcissists preclude condemnation of anything done in the name of the cause no matter how evil. The ends justify the means - no matter how depraved. This is why you can’t reason with them. Ideology binds and blinds.” - Aimee Therese on X
"The sun is low on the horizon all day long now, and darkness creeps in like a home invasion of your mind. Demons descend through a red and black sky and no help is on the way. Our country is so mentally hog-tied trying to unravel the twisted events of just a few years past that it has no mojo left for rationally anticipating the events of just a few years ahead. Have you ever felt more alone?
This is the end-process that we’ve been softened up for: the inability to think and plan. The gigantic “intel community” evolved from something intended to act as sensitized antennae for detecting threats against our republic into what is now a remorseless mind-fucking operation against our republic. That word, by the way, derives from the Latin res publica: the public thing, a society that literally belongs to the people, who decide its affairs. Now, so much is mysteriously decided for us, and not in any good way.
It’s no wonder more than half the country can’t think straight, and it’s a whopping irony that this group comprises most of our country’s thinking class - the bureaucratic managers, the professors, the curators, the editors, the reporters lost in mis-reporting. This group used to play a critical role in the res publica: to earnestly determine what is true and what is real, and to present us with a way of understanding all that so we can think and plan. They appear to be captured by malign forces. The scribes are hard at work defending every act of official malice. The dishonesty at work is epic. You need a decoder ring to keep your mind right.
You are probably desperate to understand why this is happening - how, for instance, a blatantly corrupt and ignorant attorney general in New York state can get away with bringing a politically-motivated nonsense case against the leading presidential candidate in a courtroom ruled by a judge who acts like a jester in a Shakespeare play. New York AG Letitia James gets away with it because the flagship organ of the thinking class, The New York Times, is in on the gambit. But why?
We struggle to sort this out. One explanation is that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has infiltrated the management of our country at every level so as to eventually conquer our territory for its resources while eliminating or enslaving the population? Surely, the CCP has made significant inroads, starting with the successful bribery and compromise of “Joe Biden,” probably other elected officials, too, in placing many CCP agents in the vast array of university research departments, NGOs, PACs, and lobbying gangs, and extending to the purchase of vital businesses and farmland to prepare the gameboard for eventual takeover. My opinion is they’ve accomplished a good bit of this, but it’s not the answer you’re seeking.
Another popular idea out there is that a sinister cartel or cabal composed of the World Economic Forum, the WHO, the EU, and a claque of super-rich megalomaniacs (e.g., Bill Gates, George Soros, Mark Zuckerberg) trying to usher in the so-called “transhumanist” next chapter of human history. This scheme is so full of preposterous contradictions that it remains hard to take seriously. The main one is that their engineered collapse of techno-industrial civilization would destroy the very network of complex systems that might support their supposed cyborg nirvana, especially a reliable electric grid. Secondarily, collapse would result not in centralizing power but just the opposite, re-localizing power away from the center, negating the possibility of global rule.
A third theory is that the USA has somehow gone “communist.” The universities have, for sure, but in a most half-assed way imaginable that presents more as a case of collective mental illness than a true political ideology. Higher education has lately enjoyed stupendous subsidies and revenues that funnel down to the miserable cat-ladies who have taken over the faculty department chairs, plus the deans and president’s offices. The Niagara of grants and lavish salaries has funded the dissemination of incoherent cat-lady ideas, such as the foundational notion that all men are hopelessly defective except the ones who pretend to be women or vice-versa. Such postulations lead to ridiculous actions like the drag queen story hour, or men competing in women’s swim competitions. These actions-and-effects are “communistic” only insofar as the induce some Marxist-Gramscian overthrow of normality (i.e., a coherent cultural consensus) in order to usher in the utopia of perfect social equity, where nobody is allowed to do better than anybody else - that is, a society of cat-ladies (plus men pretending to be cat-ladies), all equally miserable.
Are the editors and reporters of The New York Times all bought off by the CCP, Soros, Gates? I doubt it. That’s not what’s going on here. And the same goes for the Intel Community, much of the rest of the executive branch of the US government, the various “blue” state and blue city governments, and the great social media companies. Are all the employees of these vast bureaucracies dedicated communists? Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha….
What’s going on is that all these players are now desperate to evade the blame for and consequences of their many crimes. Hundreds of top bureaucrats and elected officials will be liable for prosecution for monstrous acts of perfidy and treason against our republic and its citizens. The New York Times and other compliant news outlets that lied about everything from Russian collusion to election fraud to the safety of Covid-19 vaccines to protect their fumbling allies in power are desperate to save their reputations - though that will be impossible as the truth eventually unfolds, and it will. Their knowing lies did real and lasting harm to the public thing.
Take heart in these darkening days. The light will not be extinguished. It will return, as everything does in this universe of endless cycles. A nation turned upside down will find its feet again. The wicked will answer. The counter-revolution has begun. You are not alone."
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