Thursday, December 14, 2023

The Poet: Maya Angelou, "A Brave And Startling Truth"

"A Brave And Startling Truth"
by Maya Angelou

"We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual space,
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns,
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we discover
A brave and startling truth.

And when we come to it,
To the day of peacemaking,
When we release our fingers
From fists of hostility
And allow the pure air to cool our palms.

When we come to it,
When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate,
And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean.
When battlefields and coliseum
No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters
Up with the bruised and bloody grass,
To lie in identical plots in foreign soil.

When the rapacious storming of the churches,
The screaming racket in the temples have ceased.
When the pennants are waving gaily,
When the banners of the world tremble
Stoutly in the good, clean breeze.

When we come to it,
When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders,
And children dress their dolls in flags of truce.
When land mines of death have been removed,
And the aged can walk into evenings of peace.
When religious ritual is not perfumed
By the incense of burning flesh,
And childhood dreams are not kicked awake
By nightmares of abuse.

When we come to it,
Then we will confess that not the Pyramids
With their stones set in mysterious perfection
Nor the Gardens of Babylon
Hanging as eternal beauty
In our collective memory,
Not the Grand Canyon
Kindled into delicious color
By Western sunsets.

Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe
Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji
Stretching to the Rising Sun.
Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor,
Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores
These are not the only wonders of the world.

When we come to it,
We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe,
Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger
Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace.
We, this people on this mote of matter,
In whose mouths abide cankerous words
Which challenge our very existence,
Yet out of those same mouths
Come songs of such exquisite sweetness
That the heart falters in its labor,
And the body is quieted into awe.

We, this people, on this small and drifting planet,
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living.
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
That the haughty neck is happy to bow,
And the proud back is glad to bend.
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines.

When we come to it,
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body,
Created on this earth, of this earth,
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety,
Without crippling fear.

When we come to it,
We must confess that we are the possible,
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world.
That is when, and only when,
We come to it."

"How It Really Is"

 

"World War III Prelude, 12/14/23"

Full screen recommended.
OpenmindedThinker Show, 12/14/23
"Multiple Explosions Rock Israel; 
Tel Aviv, Ashdod, and Ashkelon Hit"
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Hindustan Times, 12/14/23
"'Gaza Situation Catastrophic': Putin Blasts 
Israel's War; Reiterates Support To Palestinian Cause"
"Russian President Vladimir Putin has once again backed Palestinian cause of independence and said that the situation in Gaza is catastrophic which has no comparison with Ukraine where Russia has waged a war since February 2022. Putin has been highly critical of Israel's war on Gaza and called on Tel Aviv to cease its actions following Hamas' assault on Israel on October 7."
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Scott Ritter, 12/14/23
"US Will Attack Iran To Divert Attention From Ukraine"
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Douglas Macgregor, 12/14/23
"Israel's Attacks On Gaza - Innocent Civilians In War"
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Scott Ritter, 12/14/23
"Hezbollah Will Shock The World 
With the Absolute Destruction Of Israel"
Comments here:

Dan, I Allegedly, "Fees to Use Cash? The Shocking New Proposal"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly 12/14/23
"Fees to Use Cash? The Shocking New Proposal"
"Imagine getting charged to use cash at a business? 
This is the proposal that is in the works."
Comments here:

Adventures With Danno, "Outrageous Price Increases At Kroger! This Is Ridiculous!"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 12/14/23
"Outrageous Price Increases At Kroger! 
This Is Ridiculous!"
"In today's vlog, we are at Kroger and are noticing massive price increases on groceries! We are noticing a huge surge on price increases to the likes we have not seen in a while. It is important now more than ever we are paying attention and stocking up on sales as we see them. It's getting rough out here as many food items are becoming unaffordable!"
Comments here:

Canadian Prepper, "Alert! UK Issues Dire Warning, 'The Big One Is Coming'; NATO Probes Moscow Airspace With Drones"

Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 12/13/23
"Alert! UK Issues Dire Warning, 'The Big One Is Coming'; 
NATO Probes Moscow Airspace With Drones"
Comments here:
o

Wednesday, December 13, 2023

Jeremiah Babe, "Alert! Game Over, Most People Will Lose Everything"

Jeremiah Babe, 12/13/23
"Alert! Game Over, Most People Will Lose Everything;
End Of US Dollar Was Confirmed Today"
Comments here:

Musical Interlude: Dire Straits, "Private Investigations"

Dire Straits, "Private Investigations"

"A Look To The Heavens"

"Some spiral galaxies are seen nearly sideways. Most bright stars in spiral galaxies swirl around the center in a disk, and seen from the side, this disk can appear quite thin. Some spiral galaxies appear even thinner than NGC 3717, which is actually seen tilted just a bit. Spiral galaxies form disks because the original gas collided with itself and cooled as it fell inward. Planets may orbit in disks for similar reasons.
The featured image by the Hubble Space Telescope shows a light-colored central bulge composed of older stars beyond filaments of orbiting dark brown dust. NGC 3717 spans about 100,000 light years and lies about 60 million light years away toward the constellation of the Water Snake (Hydra)."

Kahlil Gibran, "The Madman"

"The Madman"
by Kahlil Gibran

"It was in the garden of a madhouse that I met a youth with a face pale and lovely and full of wonder. And I sat beside him upon the bench, and I said, “Why are you here?” And he looked at me in astonishment, and he said, “It is an unseemly question, yet I will answer you. My father would make of me a reproduction of himself; so also would my uncle. My mother would have me the image of her seafaring husband as the perfect example for me to follow. My brother thinks I should be like him, a fine athlete. And my teachers also, the doctor of philosophy, and the music-master, and the logician, they too were determined, and each would have me but a reflection of his own face in a mirror. Therefore I came to this place. I find it more sane here. At least, I can be myself.” Then of a sudden he turned to me and he said, “But tell me, were you also driven to this place by education and good counsel?”
And I answered, “No, I am a visitor.”
And he answered, “Oh, you are one of those who live in the madhouse on the other side of the wall...”

Chet Raymo, "Asperges Me, Domine "

"Asperges Me, Domine"
by Chet Raymo

"Our earliest mammalian ancestors were presumably nocturnal - to escape the predations of dinosaurs - but for most of human history we have been afraid of the dark, huddling in caves around stuttering fires, curled together in darkness like mice in a burrow. Night belonged to animals with big, dark-adapted eyes and sharp teeth, to footpads and graverobbers, to werewolves and vampires. Ironically, it was with the coming of electric illumination that it became reasonably safe to go out and about at night, even as the illumination erased the best reason to do so.

William Blake called day Earth's "blue mundane shell... a hard coating of matter that separates us from Eternity." At night we peer into infinity, awash in a myriad of stars. We creep to the door of the cave and look up into the Milky Way and catch a glimpse of divinity - everlasting, all-embracing, utterly unknowable. Night - that cone of shadow, that wizard's cap of spells and omens - is the chink in Earth's shell through which we court Ultimate Mystery the way Pyramus courted Thisbe.

Which is why, I suppose, that whenever I think of "the porch" of people who visit here, I imagine Carolina rockers on a southern summer verandah, far from city lights, Vega, Deneb and Altair swimming in the Milky Way, fireflies flickering on the lawn. At some point the conversation ceases and we simply sit, rock, and listen to the sounds of the night- the whippoorwill, the bullfrog, the cricket and the owl - and let starlight fall upon our heads like a sprinkling of holy water."

"Asperges Me, Domine"
"Wash me, Lord. Sprinkle me with hyssop and I shall be clean."
- The Catholic Mass

"Russia & Turkey Send Troops Into Gaza Palestine Against Israel!"

Full screen recommended.
Tech Show 12/13/23
"Russia & Turkey Send Troops 
Into Gaza Palestine Against Israel!"

"In this video, we look at the surprising and momentous occurrence in which Russia and Turkey sent troops into Gaza to aid Palestine. The entry of Russian and Turkish forces into Gaza has shocked the Middle East and the international community, changing the region's geopolitical landscape. We'll look at the reasons for this unusual move, the potential implications, and the larger backdrop of their intervention.

The long-running and contentious Israeli-Palestinian conflict has seen little progress in peace talks over the years. Russia and Turkey's involvement adds a fresh aspect to this complex scenario, promising both promise and alarm. We will examine the geopolitical variables at work as we discuss this development, underlining Russia's strategic goals in the Middle East and Turkey's devotion to the Palestinian cause.

For Palestinians, the deployment of foreign troops provides a ray of optimism in their decades-long campaign for self-determination. Generations of Palestinians have lived through conflict, relocation, and occupation, and they are cautiously optimistic about the possibility of restarting peace talks with international mediators such as Russia and Turkey.

Israel, on the other hand, has harshly opposed the presence of foreign forces into Gaza, considering it as a danger to its national security and sovereignty. This trend has damaged Israel's relationship with its traditional ally, the United States. The international community's reaction has been divided, with some countries expressing sympathy for the Palestinian cause while others warning of growing regional instability.

As we assess the unfolding situation, we will consider several scenarios and their implications, including as the prospects for fresh peace talks, the risk of escalation, the possibility of greater regional participation, and the shifting alignments in the Middle East. We will also stress the necessity of diplomacy and conflict settlement in the region, as well as the responsibility of the UN and global powers in dealing with this situation.

The intervention of Russia and Turkey in Gaza offers a complex and developing situation that necessitates serious study and international coordination. The purpose of this video is to present a comprehensive review of the fundamental elements, motivations, and prospective outcomes of their deployment, providing light on the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead in the pursuit of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East."
Comments here:

The Daily "Near You?"

Mexico City, Mexico. Thanks for stopping by!

Dan, I Allegedly, "Get Ready for the 100 Year Mortgage"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 12/13/23
"Get Ready for the 100 Year Mortgage"
"It’s getting worse and worse. People are so desperate to buy a home that they could realistically extend mortgage payments out to 100 years. This is the only thing that will make house is affordable because the prices are sky high."
Comments here:

"Long Live Liberty, Damnit!"

"Long Live Liberty, Damnit!"
"Scenes of freedom in the national theater
 here in Argentina's capital...
by Joel Bowman

“Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.”
~ Victor Hugo

Buenos Aires - “It’s a minarchist revolution!” declared one guest... “A tyrannical overthrow!” retorted another... “The end of the road for the political caste,” rallied a third, “and not a moment too soon!”

The weekend’s MexiChrisMakkuh festivities were just getting going. Three dozen guests from over half a dozen countries converged in our modest Buenos Aires apartment to munch tacos, quaff malbec and – as so often happens these days – debate the hot button socio-political topics of the minute.

Gender pronouns and culture wars in the US... the fall of the ANC and race riots in South Africa... the temperature of the earth half a century from now and what (if anything) should be done about it...and of course, the local topic du jour, the rise and rise of self-described anarcho-capitalist, Javier Milei, to the highest office in the land down here in Argentina.

Long Live Liberty, Damnit! Ordinarily, when it comes to being into politics, we’re mostly into being out of them. That is to say, we tend to think of the whole fetid cesspool as an occupational hazard. We check in from time to time the same way someone living in the Australian Outback checks his boots before he puts them on (redback spiders love the dark, warm hiding spots.)

Left to our own devices, we’d just as soon spend our days flânuering the city’s many cafés, parks and plazas, book in hand, whistling a cheerful tune. And yet, we are drawn to the idea of liberty in our time or, as the newly-elected Argentine president has it, “¡Viva la libertad, carajo!” (“Long live liberty, damn it!”)

You see, it’s hard to “live and let live” when The State is hellbent on spreading misery and corruption into everything it touches. And in a country where the currency is inflating away at an annual rate of ~200%, where the bloated bureaucracy bleeds into every aspect of life, where prices are controlled, markets are regulated and commerce severely restricted, all in favor of the parasitic political class, the leviathan becomes more than just a minor inconvenience, a splinter in the craw, an intellectual abstraction...

So when we see videos like the one below, in which the audience at the nation’s prized Teatro Colón greet their incoming president with a spontaneous outburst of...“¡Libertad! ¡Libertad! ¡Libertad!”...it’s impossible to ignore the swelling feeling of optimism for the future of this once-proud nation and its long-suffering people. Play video here.
In the first few days of his presidency, Mr. Milei has taken his trademark motosierra (chainsaw) to the rotten limbs of the administrative state, hacking hollow branches and abolishing whole ministries. Within 48 hours of entering office, he had:

Cut the number of under secretaries from 182 to 140...
Slashed the number of secretaries from 106 to 54...
Halved the number of ministries from 18 to 9.

Also announced: the suspension of all government subsidies to media outlets... the end of all government permits for importer-exporters... the end of all energy and fuel subsidies.

Hmm... a free press... free trade... and a free market. Piece by piece... brick by brick... the State is being dismantled and liberty is being returned to the people of Argentina. The world is watching. “¡Viva la libertad, carajo!”

“Viva The Chainsaw!”

“Viva The Chainsaw!”
Argentina's government gets the chop, 
while the American Dream soars out of reach...
by Bill Bonner

Baltimore, Maryland - "The most exciting thing in the world of money and politics, right now, is the remarkable story of Javier Milei in Argentina. He brandished a chainsaw at campaign events, pledging to use it on the government. Now, against all odds, he is El Presidente…and he’s cutting the deadwood. All over the world people are wondering: shouldn’t we try this at home? We have two of our Bonner Private Research team on the scene to bring us the straight skinny – one in Buenos Aires and the other in Cafayate. Here’s the ‘Chainsaw Report” from Joel Bowman In the Paris of South America:

"Within the first 48 hours in office, Sr. Milei has...
Cut the number of "under secretaries" from 182 to 140.
Cut the number of secretaries [department chiefs] from 106 to 54.
Cut the number of ministries from 18 to 9.

He's also cut all superfluous ministerial expenses (staff cell phones, drivers, travel accounts, etc.) Currently, all people hired by the outgoing president (Alberto) across all divisions of the government are under review. The presidential spokesperson reiterated that "the national spending cuts have just begun." Also in the news, perhaps unrelated, a fire has broken out in the building next to the Ministry of Labor with reports there was an explosion. Some are speculating they're "burning documents."

Yesterday, more wood chips flew. Bloomberg: "Argentina’s Milei Devalues Peso by 54% in First Batch of Shock Measures." Government to introduce crawling peg that weakens 2% per month. Milei to slash subsidies and social security payments The newly inaugurated administration weakened the official exchange rate to 800 pesos per dollar, Economy Minister Luis Caputo said in a televised address after the close of local markets on Tuesday. It was 366.5 per dollar before the address.

Milei needs to move fast. Argentina has run out of money. And the parasites, powers-that-be, and elite know-it-alls around the world are doing everything they can to stop him. Because he is a real reformer, not a fake. Milei is no ‘right-winger’…no ‘Trump clone.’ He’s something else altogether; he’s actually trying to reduce the power of a bankrupt government. Is it possible? With so many powerful special interests against him? We will see.

The American Dream - In the meantime, the Biden Team goes in the other direction, and wonders why Americans don’t appreciate it. CBS news: The "American Dream" costs far more than most people will earn over their lifetime. The "American Dream" costs about $3.4 million to achieve over the course of a lifetime, from getting married to saving for retirement, according to a recent analysis from financial site Investopedia.

Meanwhile, median lifetime earnings for the typical U.S. worker stand at $1.7 million, earlier research from the Georgetown University has found. Another analysis, from USA Today, found that funding the American Dream costs about $130,000 a year for a family of four. Median household income stands at about $74,450, according to the Census Bureau.

‘What went wrong?’ is the question we’ve been asking. How come the richest people in the world, in what should have been the richest period in their history – 1980-2020 – made so little progress…and actually slipped backward by most measures?

In our businesses and our private lives, pruning goes on all the time. Businesses go belly up. Investments fail. People are fired. Wives file for divorce. Customers go over to the competitor. People die. The sound of chainsaws is never far away. Like cutting off the ‘suckers’ on a fruit tree, unnecessary or unproductive limbs are lopped off.

In a sense, the whole idea behind Fed policies of the last 20+ years was to keep the chainsaws off the job. The dead wood was propped up by ultra-low interest rates; bad ideas were financed with below-inflation loans; no-hope ‘investments’ drew in billions in EZ money. There was no discipline…no corrections. With phony prices, often there was no way to tell what was a good use of money and what wasn’t.

One Nation, Under Debt - The most telling artifact of the period, 1980-2020, is the nation’s $34 trillion in debt. Each dollar is a mark of shame. Baby boomers wanted ‘something for nothing.’ They got it by leaving their sons and daughters the bill; giving them nothing for something. Younger generations will pay, probably for their entire lives…and probably in the form of financial chaos and higher prices, for goods and services delivered to their elders.

How was it possible, they might wonder, that people so rich – the richest people ever in the history of the world – couldn’t pay their own way? Were they so strapped for cash that they had to put the costs for their wars and jackass programs onto their children? Did they think that their own plans…goals…and Christmas lists were so important that other people – even those who hadn’t been born yet – should pay for them? And that their children would have no spending plans of their own? What the US needs is a good Husqvarna too. More to come…"

"How It Really Is"

 

"A Primer For The Propagandized: Fear Is The Mind-Killer"

"A Primer For The Propagandized:
Fear Is The Mind-Killer"
by Margaret Anna Alice 

“Those who can make people believe absurdities, 
can make people commit atrocities.”
- Voltaire

"The noose is dangling gently around our necks. Every day, they cinch it tighter. By the time we realize it’s strangling us, it will be too late. Those who – gradually and gleefully – sacrifice their freedoms, their autonomy, their individuality, their livelihoods, and their relationships on the altar of the “common good” have forgotten this is the pattern followed by every totalitarian regime in history.

Everyone wonders how ordinary Germans could have been manipulated to participate or stand dumbstruck while their government was transformed into a genocidal juggernaut. This is how. Read Sebastian Haffner’"Defying Hitler" memoir to see how this can happen anywhere - including here.

Everyone wonders how Russians could have permitted and even zealously reported fellow citizens for imprisonment and execution under "Article 58", the penal code invented to incarcerate anyone who dared express the slightest whisper of noncompliance under Stalin’s homicidal state. This is how. Read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s meticulously documented "The Gulag Archipelago" to witness this progression of authoritarian lunacy.

Everyone wonders how Hutus could have suddenly started axing their Tutsi neighbors to death after being inundated with waves of anti-Tutsi propaganda from "Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines." Read Philip Gourevitch’"We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda."

The list goes on. And on. And on. From Machiavelli’"The Prince" to Ã‰tienne de la Boetie’s "The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude" to Edward Herman’s and Noam Chomsky’s "Manufacturing Consent" (and accompanying documentary) to BBC’s "The Century of the Self," mechanisms of mass control have been chronicled for millennia.

George Orwell wrote, "As far as the mass of the people go, the extraordinary swings of opinion which occur nowadays, the emotions which can be turned on and off like a tap, are the result of newspaper and radio hypnosis.”

Can you imagine what master propagandist Edward Bernays would have done with access to today’s mainstream media conglomerate combined with the global surveillance infrastructure of Big Tech? And you really think that’s not happening now - with another century of psychological, neurological, and technological research under their belts?

The present ability to curate reality and coerce obedience is unprecedented, far beyond what Orwell envisioned in "1984", Bradbury in "Fahrenheit 451", Huxley in "Brave New World," and Burgess in "A Clockwork Orange."

A textbook example of "Problem Reaction Solution", the current tsunami of worldwide hysteria is the latest and potentially most threatening example of mass control in history.

The recipe is simple. Take a naturally occurring phenomenon, say a seasonal virus, and exaggerate its threat far beyond every imagining - despite exhaustive evidence to the contrary. Suppress, silence, ostracize, and demonize every individual who dares present facts that expose the false mono-narrative.

Whip up a witches’ brew of anger, envy, and, most importantly, fear, escalating emotions to a boil so as to short-circuit our faculties of reason and logic.

Isolate us from one another, supplant real-world interactions with virtual feuds, label nonconformists as a threat to the group, and pump the public with a disinformation campaign designed to confuse and atomize. In essence, foster a cultlike mentality that shuts down thought to guarantee assent.

Cultivate and wield our cognitive biases - especially ingroup biasconformity bias, and authority bias - against us in a comprehensive divide-and-conquer policy that keeps us too busy squabbling amongst each other to recognize and unite against those corralling us into a Matrix-like collective delusion that enables the powerful to extract our resources for their own gain.

This ideological mass psychosis is religion - not science. If this were about science, the Media–Pharmaceutical–Big-Tech complex would not be memory-holing every dissenting voice, vilifying every thought criminal, and censoring every legitimate inquiry in quest of the truth.

Mark Twain said, “It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.” He also said: “In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.”

The next time you’re watching the news, reading a social media post, listening to a friend repeat a scripted talking point, pay attention. Learn to identify the earmarks of propaganda, the clickbait used to trigger your emotions, the mechanisms employed to engineer your cognitive biases.

Don’t let your pride prevent you from seeing - and admitting - the Emperor is naked. We are losing our last sliver of opportunity to resist authoritarianism. This is not a partisan issue. Those who wish to control us have made it such because disunited lemmings are easier to steer than independent, critical thinkers.

This is a human issue. This is about crushing the middle class - the backbone of a democratic republic - and transferring trillions from the middle and lower classes to the ruling plutocracy. This is about demolishing the foundations of a free society and building it back - not better, but better-controlled.

I will close by recommending a series of illuminating videos on menticide (“the systematic effort to undermine and destroy a person’s values and beliefs … to induce radically different ideas”) throughout history by "Academy of Ideas." This analysis of mass psychosis is nonpartisan and of value to every thinking human being.

"Dare to question. Dare to disbelieve. 
Dare to defy ideology in favor of science while you still can."

"Huxley vs. Orwell"

"Huxley vs. Orwell"
by Neil Postman

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one...
o
Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those 
who  would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism...
o
Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us.
Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance...
o
Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we 
would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent
 of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy...
o
As Huxley remarked in 'Brave New World Revisited', the civil libertarians and the rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.” In '1984,' Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In 'Brave New World,' they are controlled by inflicting pleasure...In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us."

Huxley was quite obviously correct...
o
“What opinions the masses hold, or do not hold,
is looked on as a matter of indifference. They can be
granted intellectual liberty because they have no intellect.”

To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself – that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word “doublethink” involved the use of doublethink.”
 George Orwell, 
“Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel” (1949)
Freely download “1984″, by George Orwell here:

Greg Hunter, "Death Touch for Global Debt Coming"

"Death Touch for Global Debt Coming"
by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"Renowned radio host, filmmaker, book author and archeological dig expert Steve Quayle says just about every aspect of American life is under a new threat from unimaginable debt. There is record credit card debt, an implosion in commercial real estate, millions are delinquent on mortgage payments and car payments and, to top it all off, hundreds of trillions in unpayable derivative debt that Warren Buffett called “weapons of mass destruction” is coming due. It’s all coming to a head in a so-called debt reset we have heard about for years. The mass destruction is coming in the not-so-distant future. Steve Quayle explains, “They may be able to do some shenanigans, but this is the ‘Great Reset.’ This is the takeover and take-down of the global economy, and the dominos are beginning to fall. The mainstream media, which I call the mainstream accessory to genocide, are not reporting this. The question is what is the final touch? In martial arts, it’s called the Dim Mak or death touch. What is the death touch that is going to push the leaning financial Tower of Pisa over? I am telling you it’s going to be the derivative debt. A trillion dollars of credit card debt can never be repaid. Why does our government spend money they cannot even raise in the markets?”

What is going to be destroyed? Quayle says, “Destruction and devastation are coming. We are not just talking about annuities, 401ks, pension plans and everything that is out there that makes people rely on the efforts of crazy people to make sure they have money to live on. Commercial real estate is dying. We don’t have the infrastructure in the retail community or the banking community. By open admission of the globalists, it’s time for the global reset. The global reset is this, I quote the late Brent Scowcroft who said, ‘By consent or by conquest, there will be a New World Order.’ This is the intentional destruction of the United States. We are watching the most sinister, most demonic, supernatural evil make these (CV19) bioweapons. We watched the willing submission of the walking dumb bleeps to submit to their own demise because of group think and a bull manure narrative that was nothing but lies. We are dealing with the biggest mass murder in history. We are talking about the biggest global agreement on mass genocide. We are dealing with genocide.”

In closing, Quayle says, “We are watching the complete taking apart of the western financial system based on the Petro-dollar. The insanity now is actually part of the takedown and takeover of the United States. I believe it’s over for the United States. I don’t believe there is a political solution to a spiritual problem.” Quayle also gives dire warnings of cancellations to credit cards, mortgages, bank accounts and much more that Steve Quayle’s financial sources say is coming soon. There is much more in the 52-minute interview."

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he talks to radio host, filmmaker and top selling author Steve Quayle who warns of massive banking, financial and debt troubles coming soon.

"Last Rights: The Death Of American Liberty"

"Last Rights: The Death Of American Liberty"
by James Bovard

This is the first chapter of James Bovard's new book:

"Chapter One: Tyranny Comes To Main Street: Americans today have the “freedom” to be fleeced, groped, wiretapped, injected, censored, injected, ticketed, disarmed, beaten, vilified, detained, and maybe shot by government agents. Politicians are hell-bent on protecting citizens against everything except Uncle Sam. Is America becoming a Cage Keeper Democracy where voters merely ratify the latest demolition of their rights and liberties?

“We live in a world in which everything has been criminalized,” warned Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. There are now more than 5,200 separate federal criminal offenses, a 36% increase since the 1990s, along with tens of thousands of state and local crimes. More laws mean more violators who can be harshly punished on command, resulting in the arrests of more than 10 million Americans each year. Thanks to the Supreme Court, police can lock up anyone accused of “even a very minor criminal offense” such as an unbuckled seatbelt.

The Founding Fathers saw property rights as “the guardian of every other right.” But today’s politicians never lack a pretext for plundering private citizens. Despite being charged with no crime, half a million Americans have been robbed by government agents on the nation’s sidewalks, highways, and airports in recent decades. Federal law enforcement agencies arbitrarily confiscate more property from Americans each year than all the burglars steal nationwide. The IRS pilfered more cash from private bank accounts because of alleged paperwork errors than the total looted by bank robbers nationwide. Federal bureaucrats blocked landowners from farming or building on a hundred million acres of their own property because of puddles, ditches, or other suspected wet spots.

Police have killed more than 25,000 citizens since the turn of the century, but the federal government does not even bother compiling a body count. SWAT teams use battering rams and flash-bang grenades to attack 50,000 homes a year, routinely terrorizing people suspected of dastardly crimes like spraying graffiti or running poker games. Cops in many cities have been caught planting guns on hapless targets, while corrupt police labs fabricated tens of thousands of bogus drug convictions. Police unions have more sway over government policy than anyone on the wrong end of a baton or Taser. Despite perpetual promises of reform, most police who brutalize private citizens still automatically receive legal immunity. Federal Judge Don Willett derided the “Constitution-free zone” courts created where “individuals whose constitutional rights are violated at the hands of federal officers are essentially remedy-less.”

Gun owners are America’s fastest-growing criminal class. One state after another is enacting “Show us the gun and we’ll find the crime” laws. Judges and politicians are justifying mass disarmament in the name of “freedom from fear” — as if no one will be safe until government controls every trigger. Federal agencies consider all 20+ million marijuana users who own firearms to be felons (unless their last name is Biden). Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden both retroactively outlawed widely-owned firearm accessories, creating new legions of potential jailbirds. At the same time many federal agencies are stockpiling automatic weapons, Biden calls for banning semiautomatic pistols and rifles owned by 50 million Americans.

Politicians and bureaucrats exploited the COVID‑19 pandemic to forbid any activities they chose, from going to church to buying garden seeds. Governors in most states effectively banned hundreds of millions of citizens from leaving their homes. Shutting down entire states was the equivalent of sacrificing virgins to appease angry viral gods. In Los Angeles, citizens were prohibited from going outside for a walk or bike ride. Tens of thousands of small businesses were bankrupted by shutdown orders, while federal “relief” spurred a $600 billion worldwide fraud stampede. Most Americans suffered COVID infections despite government decrees that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito labeled “previously unimaginable restrictions on individual liberty.” Government officials endlessly invoked “science and data” to sanctify their power. But many pandemic policies were simply Political Science 101, using deceit and demagoguery to domineer humanity.

Government decrees are blighting more lives than ever before. Vague laws convert bureaucrats into czars who dictate as they please. More than a thousand occupations have been closed to anyone who fails to kowtow to absurd state licensing requirements, from fortune tellers in Massachusetts to anyone rubbing feet in Arizona. Tens of thousands of drivers have been injured and hundreds killed thanks to red light traffic ticket cameras notorious for multiplying collisions. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission made it a federal crime to refuse to hire ex-convicts. The Americans with Disabilities Act has spurred half a million “discrimination” lawsuits, including by narcoleptics who fell asleep on the job and by a deaf guy outraged about missing captions on porn videos.

Schoolchildren are being sacrificed on an altar of social justice. From No Child Left Behind to Common Core, federal dictates have subverted academic standards and squandered billions of hours of kids’ lives. Teacher unions have worked to destroy local control of education, prevent teacher accountability, deny parents any voice in their children’s education, and pointlessly shut down schools during the pandemic. In lieu of literacy, government schools are redefining gender and indoctrinating kids with values that many parents detest. When mothers and fathers raised hell at school board meetings, the Biden administration and the FBI labeled them as terrorist suspects.

Politicians are increasingly dividing Americans into two classes — those who work for a living and those who vote for a living. Subsidy programs have multiplied even faster than congressional ethics scandals. Federal aid propelled college tuition increases that turned ex-students into a new debtor class endlessly clamoring for relief. Farm subsidies wreak chaos in markets while providing a gravy train for affluent landowners. Federal mortgage policies have been “wrecking ball benevolence,” whipsawing the housing market and spawning the 2007–08 collapse that reduced the net worth of black and Hispanic households by 50%. The number of handout recipients has more than doubled since 1983, and the feds are now feeding more than 100 million Americans. Government grants are eventually followed by government restrictions, and dependence often turns into submission. The ultimate victim of handouts could be democracy itself: politicians cannot undermine self-reliance without subverting self-government.

While politicians boast of bestowing freebies, taxes have become a financial Grim Reaper. The Internal Revenue Service is Washington’s ultimate sacred cow because it delivers trillions of dollars to allow politicians to work miracles (or at least get re-elected). Americans are forced to pay more in taxes than their total spending on food, clothing, and housing. Tax codes have become inscrutable at the same time the IRS pummels people with ten times more penalties than in earlier decades. The Biden administration is racing to hire 87,000 new IRS agents and employees to squeeze far more money out of both rich and poor taxpayers. Inflation has become the cruelest tax as the dollar’s purchasing power fell 17% since Biden took office, fleecing any citizen with a savings account.

The federal government is generating so many absurdities nowadays that even cynics cannot keep up. The Transportation Security Administration epitomizes Washington’s boneheaded command-and-control approach to modern perils. TSA’s Whole Body Scanners doused tens of millions of travelers with radiation while taking nude pictures of them. TSA’s groin-grabbing “enhanced pat-downs” spark thousands of sexual assault complaints from women every year. TSA terrorist profiles have warned of travelers who are either staring intently or avoiding eye contact, or who fidget, yawn, or sweat heavily; anyone who is whistling and/or staring at their feet; Boston blacks wearing backward baseball caps; and anyone who “expresses contempt” for TSA Security Theater antics.

Federal surveillance leaves no refuge for dissent. Government agencies are secretly accumulating mountains of data that could be used for “blackmail, stalking, harassment and public shaming” of American citizens, according to a 2023 federal report. The National Security Agency has stalked Americans via their cellphones, covertly installed spyware onto personal computers, and treated anyone “searching the Web for suspicious stuff” like a terrorist suspect. The Patriot Act spurred the illegal seizure of personal and financial information from tens of millions of Americans. Customs agents can seize and copy the cellphones, laptop drives, and private papers of any American crossing the U.S. border. The Drug Enforcement Administration is building a secret nationwide network of license plate scanners to track every driver. Federally funded “fusion centers” are stockpiling Suspicious Activity Reports on tourists who photograph landmarks, “people who avoid eye contact,” and anyone “reverent of individual liberty.” The FBI’s “terrorist warning signs” include hotel guests using “Do Not Disturb” signs and the Gadsden “Don’t Tread on Me” flag.

At the same time spying on citizens skyrocketed, Washington dropped an Iron Curtain around itself. The government is committing more crimes than citizens will ever know. Whistleblowers and journalists are hounded as if exposing official lies is a heresy against democracy. Every year, the federal government slaps a “secret” label on trillions of pages of information — enough to fill 20 million filing cabinets. Any document which is classified is treated like a holy relic that cannot be exposed without damning the nation. Self-government has been defined down to paying, obeying, and wearing a federal blindfold. There are plenty of laws to protect government secrets but no law to protect democracy from federal secrecy.

The First Amendment is becoming a historic relic. Federal Judge Terry Doughty recently condemned the Biden administration for potentially “the most massive attack against free speech in United States history.” That verdict was ratified in September 2023 by a federal appeals court ruling slamming the White House and federal agencies for actions that resulted in “suppressing millions of protected free speech postings by American citizens.” Federal agencies pirouetted as a “Ministry of Truth,” according to the court rulings. Censorship converts citizens into captives. Federal censorship tainted the 2020 and 2022 elections, suppressing tens of millions of tweets, YouTube videos, and Facebook posts from conservatives and Republicans. White House officials even ordered Facebook to delete humorous memes, including a parody of a future television ad: “Did you or a loved one take the COVID vaccine? You may be entitled…”

Rather than the Rule of Law, we have a government of threats, intimidation, and browbeating. “Government of the people” defaulted into “government for the people,” which degenerated into perennially punishing people for their own good. Twenty-five years ago, Supreme Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg warned against permitting federal agencies “the extraordinary authority… to manufacture crimes.” Entrapment schemes proliferate as G-men fabricate crimes to justify budget increases. The FBI, pretending that rosary beads could be extremist symbols, is targeting traditional Catholics across the nation because of their conservative moral values. The FBI entitles its legions of confidential informants to commit more than 5,000 crimes a year, dragging many unlucky bystanders to their legal doom. The number of inmates in federal prison increased 500% since 1980, and America has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Politicians are more anxious to control citizens than to protect them. More people are busted each year for marijuana possession than for all violent crimes combined, while the futile War on Drugs causes more fatalities than ever before.

Every recent administration has expanded and exploited the dictatorial potential of the presidency. Former President Richard Nixon shocked Americans in 1977 when he asserted during a television interview: “When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” But Nixon’s slogan is the Oval Office maxim for the new millennium. Presidents now only need to find a single federal lawyer who says, “Yes, Master!” President George W. Bush’s lawyers secretly decided that neither federal law nor the Constitution could limit the power of the president, who could declare martial law or authorize torture at his whim. President Barack Obama claimed a prerogative to assassinate Americans he labeled terrorist suspects. President Donald Trump boasted of “an absolute right to do what I want to with the Justice Department.” In 2022, President Biden proclaimed that “liberty is under assault.” But he was referring solely to a few court rulings he disapproved, not to the federal supremacy he championed for almost 50 years in the Senate and the White House.

The authoritarian trendline in American political life is more important than the name or party of any officeholder. “One precedent in favor of power is stronger than a hundred against it,” as Thomas Jefferson warned during the American Revolution. Unfortunately, there are a hundred precedents in favor of government now for each precedent in favor of liberty. There is a “No harm, no foul” attitude towards violating the Constitution, and Washington almost always hides the harm. The sheer power of federal agencies such as the FBI is becoming one of the gravest perils to American democracy.

Elections are becoming demolition derbies that threaten to wreck the nation. Historian Henry Adams observed a century ago that politics “has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.” Nowadays, politics seems hell-bent on multiplying hatred. Enraged activists are increasingly tarring all their opponents as traitors. Many of the protestors who spent years vehemently denouncing Trump were not opposed to dictators per se; they simply wanted different dictates. More than half of Americans expect a civil war “in the next few years,” according to a recent survey.

Americans are indoctrinated in public schools to presume that our national DNA guarantees that we will always be free. But few follies are more perilous than presuming that individual rights are safe in perpetuity. None of the arguments on why liberty is inevitable can explain why it is becoming an endangered species. Yet many people believe that liberty will inevitably triumph because of some “law of history” never enacted by God, a convocation of cardinals, or even the Arkansas state legislature. Presuming that freedom is our destiny lulls people against political predators.

Federal Judge Learned Hand warned in 1944: “Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it.” But Americans are more likely to encounter liberty in history books instead of their own lives. Many young people are unaware of bygone eras when Americans could travel without being groped, buy a beer or smoke a cigar without committing a federal offense, or protest without being quarantined in an Orwellian “free-speech zone.” Is the spirit of liberty dead? Almost a third of young American adults support installing mandatory government surveillance cameras in private homes to “reduce domestic violence, abuse, and other illegal activity.”

We have an Impunity Democracy in which government officials pay no price for their crimes. Americans today are more likely to believe in witches, ghosts, and astrology than to trust the federal government. Washington’s legitimacy is in tatters thanks to a long train of bipartisan perfidy. If government is lawless, elections merely designate the most dangerous criminals in the land.

At a time when foreign democracies are collapsing like dominos, can America avoid becoming the “elective despotism” the Founding Fathers dreaded? The first step to reviving liberty is to recognize how far politicians have stretched their power. But nothing can safeguard freedom except the bravery of citizens who refuse to be shackled."

Gregory Mannarino, "AM/PM 12/13/23"

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