So, we rise from the rubble...
Sunday, April 7, 2024
Gregory Mannarino, "Markets, A Look Ahead: We Are In A Debt Death Spiral"
Gregory Mannarino, 4/7/24
"Markets, A Look Ahead:
We Are In A Debt Death Spiral"
Global debt is now 336% of GDP.
Comments here:
o
"US Facing ‘Death Spiral’ Of Swelling Debt"
by RT
Only a “miracle” can reverse the problem,
the renowned economist believes.
"The burgeoning US debt pile is akin to a “death spiral” that only a “miracle” could extract the country from, economist and 'Black Swan' author Nassim Taleb said, as quoted by Bloomberg. Taleb defined the expanding US debt load as a “white swan,” meaning a risk event that is highly predictable and more probable than a “black swan” event, a metaphor describing an occurrence that comes as a complete surprise.
“So long as you have Congress keep extending the debt limit and doing deals because they’re afraid of the consequences of doing the right thing, that’s the political structure of the political system, eventually you’re going to have a debt spiral,” Taleb said. “And a debt spiral is like a death spiral.”
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said that the absolute level of US public debt looks like “a scary number.” US government federal debt is now $34,633 trillion.* It now amounts to about $102,000 for an average American family of three. In 2023 alone, it grew by more than $4 trillion.
According to Taleb, a former trader who is best known for publishing several bestselling books on economics, white swans include both the US deficit and the American economy that has grown more vulnerable to shocks than in previous years. He called such vulnerability a feature of globalization, as problems in one region can ricochet around the world.
When asked how the US “debt spiral” could play out, Taleb said, “we need something to come in from the outside, or maybe some kind of miracle,” adding that this makes him “kind of gloomy about the entire political system in the Western world.”
o
Saturday, April 6, 2024
Jeremiah Babe, "Get Out Of Credit Card Debt Now; Crazy Events Are Happening Daily"
Jeremiah Babe, 4/6/24
"Get Out Of Credit Card Debt Now;
Crazy Events Are Happening Daily"
Comments here:
Musical Interlude: 2002, "Greater Than The Sum"
Full screen recommended.
2002, "Greater Than The Sum"
In Ancient Greece, philosopher Aristotle (384–322 B.C.)
wrote “The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.”
Beautiful...
"A Look to the Heavens"
“How many arches can you count in the below image? If you count both spans of the Double Arch in the Arches National Park in Utah, USA, then two. But since the below image was taken during a clear dark night, it caught a photogenic third arch far in the distance - that of the overreaching Milky Way Galaxy. Because we are situated in the midst of the spiral Milky Way Galaxy, the band of the central disk appears all around us.
The sandstone arches of the Double Arch were formed from the erosion of falling water. The larger arch rises over 30 meters above the surrounding salt bed and spans close to 50 meters across. The dark silhouettes across the image bottom are sandstone monoliths left over from silt-filled crevices in an evaporated 300 million year old salty sea. A dim flow created by light pollution from Moab, Utah can also be seen in the distance.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110524.html
"And It Was Pointless..."
“And it was pointless… to think how those years could have been put to better use, for he could hardly have put them to worse. There was no recovering them now. You could grieve endlessly for the loss of time and for the damage done therein. For the dead, and for your own lost self. But what the wisdom of the ages says is that we do well not to grieve on and on. And those old ones knew a thing or two and had some truth to tell… for you can grieve your heart out and in the end you are still where you were. All your grief hasn’t changed a thing. What you have lost will not be returned to you. It will always be lost. You’re left with only your scars to mark the void. All you can choose to do is to go on or not. But if you go on, it’s knowing you carry your scars with you.”
- Charles Frazier
"If..."
If you were facing a firing squad, and we all are...
wouldn't you at least want to know why?
And who stood you against the wall?
Free Download: Edward Gibbon, "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire"
"Edward Gibbon: On The Seven Key
Indicators Of Civilizational Decline"
By Kaisar
"Most modern historians are weak. But there is one who stands out above the rest. I can think of no post-Enlightenment historian who better captured why civilizations wither and die than Edward Gibbon. His 1788 work "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" describes the process of collapse well, using Rome as the example. I highly recommend this read, even if using the abridged versions.
Here is a brief summary: "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" is a monumental work by Edward Gibbon, published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788. Gibbon’s magnum opus provides a comprehensive historical account of the decline and collapse of the Roman Empire, spanning from the height of its power to its eventual fragmentation and fall. The work is considered a masterpiece of historical literature and a key text in the study of the Roman Empire.
Gibbon begins with the reign of Marcus Aurelius in the second century AD and traces the history of the Roman Empire through its various phases, ultimately concluding with the fall of Constantinople in 1453. You can take his causes of decline from the fall of Rome and apply it to every major national collapse since then. We can summarize these causes into seven key categories:
Internal Decay: Gibbon argues that internal decay played a crucial role in Rome’s decline. This included moral decadence, corruption, and a loss of civic virtue among the ruling class.
Military Challenges: The Roman military, once a formidable force, faced challenges such as overextension, external invasions, and reliance on mercenaries, contributing to its decline.
Economic Issues: Economic factors, including heavy taxation, inflation, and a reliance on slave labor, are highlighted by Gibbon as contributing to the empire’s decline.
Religious Factors: Gibbon explores the role of religion in the decline, emphasizing the rise of Christianity and its impact on the traditional Roman values and institutions. This created a breakdown from the original tradition, and a splintering within the foundational values of the state.
Barbarian Invasions: External pressures from barbarian invasions, particularly by Germanic and Hunnic tribes, are obviously identified as significant contributors to the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
Administrative Inefficiency: Gibbon critiques the Roman administrative system, pointing to bureaucratic inefficiency, corruption, and a lack of responsiveness to emerging challenges.
Division of the Empire: The division of the Roman Empire into East and West is seen as a weakening factor, with the Western Roman Empire eventually succumbing to various pressures while the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire) persisted for several more centuries.
Any of those sound familiar? I have just recently written on each one of these regarding the current American system:
Internal Decay: America Is Babylon
Military Challenges: The Condition Of The U.S. Military: Lying Dog-Faced Pony Soldiers
Economic Issues: Recognizing The Foundational Crack
Religious Factors: The Fall Of Christendom And The Great Lie Of The Enlightenment
Barbarian Invasions: The Ominous Purpose Of Illegal Immigration
Administrative Inefficiency: Bureaucracy Will Destroy Us
Division of the Empire: The [Much Needed] Great American Partition
If you didn’t know I was talking about Rome when you read the first list, you’d probably think this article was about the United States. Even the division piece – we don’t have an outright division yet, but the foundation is there, just as it was for Rome.
Remember: this work was written around 1788. When you read the above seven points, you would think it’s a critique of the current American state. But nope, this was Rome circa pre-collapse. It’s a great work, if you can stomach the sheer amount of content included. Those seven key indicators of decline are helpful to recognize; to properly discern the signs of the times. The lessons the book provides are phenomenal for extrapolating to future collapses. And pensively, to our own current condition."
Freely download "The Decline and Fall
of the Roman Empire" here:
"America Is Hurtling Toward a Full Blown Hot Civil War" (Excerpt)
"America Is Hurtling Toward a Full Blown Hot Civil War"
by Justin Smith
Excerpt: "It never ceases to amaze me at how little so many people in this country have done to train their minds to critically analyze information. They have eyes to see and ears to see, and yet, somehow the truth of any major issue still seems to evade them, or they simply refuse to recognize the truth with it standing right in front of them, slapping them in the face.
So many things are currently plumb damned fouled up by this Biden regime and going awry on their own through the dynamics set in motion by this anti-American, lawless regime, that it’s nearly impossible to properly address them all in a single commentary. But I’ve tried to give the Reader as comprehensive an assessment as I possibly can with this piece.
Michael Savage, a longtime renown radio host, was fond of noting that “liberalism is a mental disorder” and we’re witnessing the result of its heavy utilization for far too many years without being grounded in common sense and a certain amount of pragmatic realism. And so here we are, on the cusp of the final fall of America, short of a miracle from God or true patriots taking a firm stand with rifles in hand and refusing to give an inch of ground and any further movement towards the new world order desired by our amerikkan commies.
It might sound quaint and out of touch with what some have now accepted as “the new normal”, but I say we should all wrap ourselves in the American Flag and send out the clarion call for a rush of strong, capable men to come to the aid of their country, in a manner as never before. ~ J.O.S."
“I may be crazy. But it’s no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” ~ Ivor Browne, Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the University College Dublin [2017]
In an ideal and perfect world, all Americans would be following a righteously guided conscience and their better angels, and they could trust that their elected leaders were doing likewise; but, we live in a far from perfect world or society, and the fools of the country have abandoned Christian kindness, the Golden Rule and humanity for the evil of trans-humanism. Heartwarming words advocating for true freedom and liberty are far and few between in today’s society and political arenas, in a manner not too unlike the years between 1850 and 1860 that led to the Civil War; and tho’ some on both side of the political aisle still exude goodness in a way that makes each day seem a bit brighter, by and large, the Democratic Party has been completely infiltrated by Marxist-Maoist Communists, who are driving the nation towards the darkest tyranny and bloodiest days ever witnessed in America, as they attempt to stamp out the tenderness and beauty in each person’s soul and reduce us all to mere mindless cogs in their authoritarian machine.
Look around. Half or more of America’s citizenry have lost their minds and are six steps or more removed from reality, either due to the mind-numbing communist indoctrination they have absorbed from their “education” in the public school system, something genetic or a trauma from their life, some new maniacal drug that has them hooked and out of their minds, or a combination of all three."
Full, highly recommended article here:
Hat tip to The Burning Platform for this material.
Dan, I Allegedly, "The Rules Don’t Apply to the Rich"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly 4/6/24
"The Rules Don’t Apply to the Rich"
"It is unbelievable. We keep hearing about the twenty dollars per hour wages that are destroying California. These are coming to a city near you. Our governor is advertising two of his restaurants for workers that was nowhere near the twenty dollars an hour."
Comments here:
The Poet: Wendell Berry, "The Circles Of Our Lives"
"The Circles Of Our Lives"
"Within the circles of our lives
we dance the circles of the years,
the circles of the seasons
within the circles of the years,
the cycles of the moon,
within the circles of the seasons,
the circles of our reasons
within the cycles of the moon.
Again, again we come and go,
changed, changing. Hands
join, unjoin in love and fear,
grief and joy. The circles turn,
each giving into each, into all.
Only music keeps us here,
each by all the others held.
In the hold of hands and eyes
we turn in pairs, that joining
joining each to all again.
And then we turn aside, alone,
out of the sunlight gone
into the darker circles of return,
Within the circles of our lives..."
- Wendell Berry
○
“We are travelers on a cosmic journey, stardust,
swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of Infinity.
Life is Eternal.
We have stopped for a moment to encounter
each other, to meet, to love, to share.
This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in Eternity.”
- Paulo Coelho
"It Becomes Sad..."
"Why does truth carry such a dreadful face? Why does subjugation carry
such a happy mask? It becomes sad when people understand that they
can lead a better life as long as they bow their heads, ignoring the truth."
- Lionel Suggs
"The Great Enemy..."
"In a society in which nearly everybody is dominated by somebody else's mind or by a disembodied mind, it becomes increasingly difficult to learn the truth about the activities of governments and corporations, about the quality or value of products, or about the health of one's own place and economy.
In such a society, also, our private economies will depend less and less upon the private ownership of real, usable property, and more and more upon property that is institutional and abstract, beyond individual control, such as money, insurance policies, certificates of deposit, stocks, and shares. And as our private economies become more abstract, the mutual, free helps and pleasures of family and community life will be supplanted by a kind of displaced or placeless citizenship and by commerce with impersonal and self-interested suppliers...
Thus, although we are not slaves in name, and cannot be carried to market and sold as somebody else's legal chattels, we are free only within narrow limits. For all our talk about liberation and personal autonomy, there are few choices that we are free to make. What would be the point, for example, if a majority of our people decided to be self-employed?
The great enemy of freedom is the alignment of political power with wealth. This alignment destroys the commonwealth - that is, the natural wealth of localities and the local economies of household, neighborhood, and community - and so destroys democracy, of which the commonwealth is the foundation and practical means."
- Wendell Berry
Freely download
"The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays"
o
"The Free and the Brave"
"The Free and the Brave"
by Todd Hayen
"Whatever happened to that (the free and the brave)? Whatever happened to the attitude that had Patrick Henry at the Virginia convention in 1775 say “give me liberty, or give me death”?
Whatever happened to the patriotic fervor and the uncanny commitment to face suffering and death that resulted in over two million young men volunteering for service in World War I, and five times that number volunteering to serve in World War II?
Whatever happened to the ability to conquer fear and ride on the excitement for adventure and potential for immeasurable success that drove hundreds of thousands of men and women into the wild, and dangerous, frontiers of the American West?
Whatever happened to the spirit that filled the souls of those that faced stark adversity, danger to life and limb, that lead over 50,000 hapless men and women (mostly men) into the jungles of Central America to build the Panama Canal? - ultimately killing over 5,000 of them as a result of accidents, all manner of diseases including malaria and dysentery?
What happened?
Yeah, this is about us, guys (me included!) Sure, women can be brave - any biological sexual orientation can activate the warrior archetype - but more commonly it is the gendered male that falls into this archetypal constellation. Bravery - a compulsion to protect those he loves, have a critical and logical assessment of a difficult situation, and the force and power, at the very least a potential force and power, ready to inflict whatever necessary to protect partner and family, community and nation. We, us men, have seemed to have lost much of that. Have we become a bunch of puss-balls?
Dr Mark McDonald, a prominent medical doctor with a speciality in psychiatry, doesn’t mince words when he says while describing the psychological state of men and women during this crises: "We essentially have men with no balls, and then we have histrionics, women who have no emotional containment, because there are no men to contain them anymore.”
Sexist? Maybe some will think so, but McDonald is not putting all the blame on one sex, or exclusively on the masculine or feminine archetypes, the responsibility here is rather well balanced.
What does this mean? Very basically it means we have created a culture that has done a pretty good job of emasculating men - the radical feminist movement, as well as a general lack of situations where men can express their “man-ness” in a healthy way, has been a big part of the problem.
“Toxic Masculinity” is a phrase and concept that has taken the world by storm, and contributes quite a bit to the confusion that men are experiencing while trying to ascertain what a “real man” is in today’s “anti male” culture. “Oh boo hoo” some of you may be saying. “Men, through their powerful patriarchal history of abusing women and treating them as inferior partners in relationships deserve a little pull back!” There certainly is truth to that, but two wrongs don’t make a right. You can’t carve out an essential part of being a “man” without some collateral damage, all the way around.
So what does being a “real man” have to do with bravery? A lot, actually. Facing adversity and danger, primarily in order to protect the physically weaker, is a very important attribute of the masculine archetype of warrior, or even king if you want to get more detailed about it. Historically and traditionally the man has been the protector, the physical, and sometimes intellectual (intelligence that is present in logic reasoning and critical thinking) found in masculine archetypes (again, archetypes both men and women have access to).
These attributes are primarily directed toward protection and outwardly projected as strength and resolve. This often stabilizes the more emotional feminine archetypal factors that again, typically, are activated by the female, or woman, in a relationship.
As a psychotherapist, and an archetypal psychologist at that, I see these archetypal powers and influences playing out in my clients every day. Most of the problems I find in a couple’s therapy stems from an imbalance, or a dysfunction, in these energies of masculine and feminine. Again, the “man” in a couple can be activating both masculine and feminine archetypes, as well as the “woman.” The problem comes in if the archetypes activated are inappropriate, out of balance, and create a result that is unexpected, undesired, or not beneficial. Most of these influences run in the unconscious, so very seldom are they consciously manipulated.
It wasn’t until I met Dr McDonald that I connected some very important dots. McDonald recently wrote and released a book titled "United States of Fear." The subtitle of the book, “How America Fell Victim to a Mass Delusional Psychosis” is the primary focus.
McDonald holds nothing back when he addresses what he believes to be a fundamental cause of this mass psychosis. He believes that women (feminine archetypes driving the woman’s behavior) need a strong, and masculine man, to contain her emotionality (due to the unfettered expression of her feminine archetypes.) McDonald, in an interview given on Jerm Warfare, said:
"Do you think men with masks on make women feel safe? It only shows they have no balls. I’ve spoken with female police officers who see men in camouflage, tattooed, driving around in trucks with gun racks - wearing masks. They tell me, ‘this does not make me feel safe. This makes me afraid. If they are this scared of a virus, how will they react to a real threat - what’s going to happen when the bear comes out of the woods? What’s going to happen when a rapist tries to attack me? What’s going to happen when my children are going to be kidnapped by the man in the park, what are they going to do? With their mask on are they going to say, “Please stop. Please. Please.” They’re not going to put their lives on the line. They won’t even put their mouth on the line.’”
Harsh words, my brothers. Harsh words, but I think quite on the money. Is this the only thing that is driving the collapse we are seeing in those that cannot stand up to this current tyranny, and say “Enough is enough, step back!” No, of course not, but, in my opinion, it is a large part of the problem.
Our culture, at least in the West, has been set up for this to happen. We have become more and more dependent on government taking care of us, thus losing our own personal drive to develop character and strength. We depend on government and authority to think for us, and tell us what is best for us to, in a word, parent us. We comply, we stay children, and we ultimately suffer.
The brave hold onto what makes them free and are willing to fight for it. Freedom is a God given right, not one bestowed upon us by any other authority. The healthy masculine archetypes of warrior and king have at their side the symbolic sword representing their power over adversity and danger.
There is a time for the warrior to pull the sword from its scabbard just a few inches to allow the sun to glint off of its polished surface, flashing in the eyes of a potential enemy, letting them know who they are dealing with. And then there is the time to pull the sword completely free from its confines and slash what is seriously threatening the warrior and those he loves. Now is the time to fight."
○
“You cannot kill me here. Bring your soldiers, your death, your disease, your collapsed economy because it doesn’t matter, I have nothing left to lose and you cannot kill me here. Bring the tears of orphans and the wails of a mother’s loss, bring your God damn air force and Jesus on a cross, bring your hate and bitterness and long working hours, bring your empty wallets and love long since gone but you cannot kill me here. Bring your sneers, your snide remarks and friendships never felt, your letters never sent, your kisses never kissed, cigarettes smoked to the bone and cancer killing fears but you cannot kill me here. For I may fall and I may fail but I will stand again each time and you will find no satisfaction. Because you cannot kill me here.”
- Iain S. Thomas
"Masked, Homeless, and Desolate"
"Masked, Homeless, and Desolate"
By Edward Curtin
“Personality is persona, a mask…The mask is magic…Larva means mask; or ghost…it also means mad, a case of demoniacal possession.” – Norman O. Brown, "Love’s Body"
"Walk the streets in the United States and many countries these days and you will see people possessed by demons, masked and anonymous, whose eyes look like vacuums, staring into space or out of empty sockets like the dead, afraid of their own ghosts. Fear and obedience oozes from them. Death walks the streets with people on leashes in lockstep.
That they have been the victims of a long-planned propaganda campaign to use an invisible virus to frighten them into submission and shut down the world’s economy for the global elites is beyond their ken. This is so even when the facts are there to prove otherwise. It is a clear case, as Peter Koenig tells Michel Chossudovsky in this must-see interview, that is not a conspiracy theory but a blatant factual plan spelled out in the 2010 Rockefeller Report, the October 18, 2019 Event 201, and Agenda 21, among other places.
Who can wake the sleepwalkers up in this cowardly new world where culture and politics collude to create and exploit ignorance?
Fifty-nine years ago on July 20, 1965, Bob Dylan released his song “Like a Rolling Stone.” It arrived like a rocking jolt into the placid pop musical culture of the day. It was not about wanting to hold someone’s hand or cry in the chapel. It wasn’t mumbo-jumbo like “Wooly Bully,” the number one hit. It wasn’t like the pop pap that dominates today’s music scene. It wasn’t Woody Guthrie in slow time.
It beat you up. It attacked. It confronted you. Maybe, if you were alive then, you thought Dylan was kidding you. You thought wrong. Bitching about his going electric was a dodge. He was addressing all of us, including himself.
Still is. But who wants to hear his recent “Murder Most Foul” and read Dylan’s scathing lyrics about the assassination of JFK, the killing that started the slow decay that has resulted in such masked madness. “And please, Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” he tells us in capital letters for emphasis. Exactly what all the mainstream media have done, of course, and not by accident.
There are no alibis. “How does it feel/To be on your own/with no direction home/A complete unknown/Like a rolling stone?”
It was in the mid-1960s when confidence in knowing where home was and how to get there disappeared into thin air. If you left mommy and daddy, could you ever get back from where you were going? Who had the directions? Absolutes were melting and relativity was widespread. Life was wild and the CIA was planning to make it wilder and more confusing with the introduction of LSD on a vast scale. MKUltra was expanding its scope.Operation Mockingbird was singing so many tunes that heads were spinning, as planned. The national security state killers were in the saddle, having already murdered President Kennedy and Malcolm X as they sharpened their knives for many more to come. The peace candidate, Lyndon Baines Johnson, had been elected nine months earlier with 61.1% of the popular vote and went immediately to work secretly expanding the war against Vietnam. War as an invisible virus. Who knew? Who, but a small anti-war contingent, wanted to know? War takes different forms, and the will to ignorance and historical amnesia endure. War is a disease. Disease is weaponized for war. In 1968 Richard Nixon was elected on a “secret plan” to end the Vietnam War and then ramped it up to monstrous proportions, only to be reelected in 1972 by carrying 49 out of 50 states.
Who wants to know now? The historian Howard Zinn once said correctly that this country’s greatest problem wasn’t disobedience but obedience. What’s behind the masks? The lockstep?
On the same day that Dylan released “Like a Rolling Stone,” Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, just back from a “fact-finding” trip to Vietnam, recommended to LBJ that U.S. troop levels in Vietnam be increased to 175,000 and that the U.S. should increase its bombing of North Vietnam dramatically. This was the same McNamara who, in October 1963, had agreed with JFK when he signed NSAM 263 calling for the withdrawal of 1,000 military personnel from Vietnam by the end of 1963 and the remainder by the end of 1965. One of the moves that got Kennedy’s head blown open.
Poor McNamara, the fog of war must have clouded his conscience, confused the poor boy, just like Secretary of State Colin Powell holding up that vile vial of “anthrax” at the United Nations on February 5, 2003 and lying to the world about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Powell recently said, “I knew I didn’t have any choice. He’s the President.” How “painful,” to use his word, it must have been for the poor guy, lying so that so many Iraqis could be slaughtered. Of course, he had no choice. These war criminals all wear masks. And have no choice.
Masks, or demonic possession, or both. You?
Also in that fateful year 1965, far out of sight and out of mind for most Americans, the CIA planned and assisted in the slaughter of more than a million Indonesians, led by their man, General Suharto. This led to the coup against President Sukarno, who two years earlier had been on good terms with JFK as they worked to solve the interrelated issues of Indonesia and Vietnam. Their meeting planned for early 1964 was cancelled in Dallas on November 22, 1963. And the politicians and media luminaries came out in their masks and told the public that communists everywhere were out to get them.
It’s tough being on your own. It hurts to think too much. Or think for yourself, at least. To obey an authority higher than your bosses. “I was tricked” is some sort of mantra, is it not?
"You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns
When they all did tricks for you..."
Dylan was lost and disgusted when he wrote the song. His own music sickened him, which, for an artist, means he sickened himself. He had just returned from a tour of England and was sick of people telling him how much they loved his music when he didn’t. He needed to change.
What else is the point of art but change? If you’re dead, or afraid of getting dead, you aren’t going to change. You’re stuck. Stuck is dead. Why wear a mask if you know who you are?
Knowledge, or more accurately, pseudo-knowledge or mainstream media lies, is a tomb “the mystery tramp” sold to us, a place to hide to avoid pain and guilt.
I have read more books than anyone I know. It sickens me.
I know too much. That sickens me.
I sicken myself. All the news sickens me.
I know so much no one believes me.
As Francesco Serpico once told me: “It’s all lies.”
Of course. Dylan and Serpico are blood brothers.
Only art tells the truth. Real art. Not bullshit pop art. Some say “Like a Rolling Stone” is about Edie Sedgwick, “the girl of the year” in 1965 and one of Andy Warhol’s superstars. Perhaps to a degree it is, but it’s far more than that. It’s about us.
Poor Edie was poisoned by her wealthy family at a young age and barely had a chance. She was an extreme example of a rather common American story. People poisoned in the cradle. Thinking of her got me thinking of Andy Warhol, the death obsessed hoarder, the guy who called his studio “The Factory” in a conscious or unconscious revelation of his art and persona, his wigs and masks and the hold he has had on American culture all these years. Isn’t he the ultimate celebrity?
Warhol once took my photo on a deserted street. His and my secret but this is the truth. West 47thStreet on an early Sunday morning, 1980. I guess he thought he was doing art or collecting images for his museum of dead heads. When I asked him why, he said I had an interesting face. I told him he did too, rather transparent and creepy, but I didn’t want to capture him. He was a ghost with a camera, a face like a death mask, trying to capture a bit of life. I told him I didn’t give him permission to shoot me, but he turned and walked away into the morning mist. The shooters always just walk away in pseudo-innocence.
I then went down the street to the Gotham Book Mart that was my destination and asked James Joyce why he had written “The Dead,” and Joyce, secretive as ever, quoted himself, “Ed,” he said, “Think you’re escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home.” Now that was direction.
Only those who know how to play and be guided by intuition are able to escape the living tomb of so-called knowledge; what Dylan called, lifelessness. But that was from “Desolation Row,” released as the closing track of Highway 61 Revisited on August 30, 1965. The only acoustic song on the album. Slow it down to make the point another way. “Like a Rolling Stone” was the opening track.
Do you feel all alone or part of a masked gang roaming the streets incognito? Miss and Mr. Lonely, does that mask help? How do you feel? Desolation means very lonely. From Latin, de, completely, solare, lonely. Does that mask help? Do you feel alone together now, one of the crowd? Do you really want to know about desolation row? It’s here. It was here in 1965, too. Only the true lonely know how it feels to really be all alone.
The Umbrella People, those who some call the deep state or secret government under whose protection all the politicians work, say they want to protect us all from death and disease. They are lying bastards who’ve gotten so many to imitate their masked ways. They can only sing a mockingbird’s song.
Listen to real singers. Dylan has arched the years, as true artists do. Who has paid close attention to what he said this year about the assassination of President Kennedy in his song, “Murder Most Foul”? Or were many caught up in the propaganda surrounding corona virus, and rather than contemplating his indictment of the U.S. government and its media accomplices, were they contemplating their navels to see if a virus had secreted itself in there. Viruses lurk everywhere, they say, and the corporate media made certain to circulate a vaccine about the truth in Dylan’s song. This is normal operating procedure.
We are still on Desolation Row. “Take Off the Masks.” That was the title of a book by Rev. Malcolm Boyd that I reviewed long ago. He was a gay priest who decided that his mask was a lie. He came out into the light of truth. He had guts. It is time for everyone to take off the masks. Escape from Desolation Row by seeing what’s going on behind our backs. Listen to Dylan, long ago – today:
"At midnight all the agents
And the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone
That knows more than they do
And they bring them to the factory
Where their heart attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders
And then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles
By insurance men who go
Check to see that nobody is escaping
To Desolation Row
Praise be to Nero’s Neptune
The Titanic sails at dawn
Everybody’s shouting
'Which side are you on?'”
Bob Dylan, "Desolation Row"
"The World Wants to Be Deceived"
"The World Wants to Be Deceived"
by Brian Maher
“Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur.” -
the world wants to be deceived, so let it be deceived.
"We believe there is vast justice here. The world yearns to be deceived, eternally and infinitely deceived. Why else - sisters and brothers - do people attend magic shows… consult psychics… or read New York Times editorial columns? Why, indeed, do people vote? The answer, so far as we can discern, is because they wish to be deceived. The human craving to be deceived appears as natural as the human craving to exist. And we agree - if the world wants to be deceived, let the world be deceived.
Nasty, Brutish and Short: Life is “nasty, brutish and short,” in the words of Mr. Thomas Hobbes. He must grab something - anything to soothe him and to ease his way across the perilous valley. As we have noted before: Like gazing into the midday sun, the normal human being cannot long gaze directly into reality. He can only approach it from an angle.
Hence the world’s desperate, eternal plea for soothing deception. Hence its iron embrace of frauds and pitchmen eager to gratify it. Hence the world’s infinite supply of frauds and pitchmen rising forth to meet the impossible demand. And the grimmer the reality… the greater man’s desperation to be conned, foxed and deceived. Consider his lot…
Cold, Hard Reality: A man is thrown unaskingly and unwillingly into this wicked and wrathful world. He is then dangled cruelly between two infinities - one behind him, one ahead of him - knowing his earthly candle will flicker, fade and fizzle. While he lives, he careens through space aboard an inconsequential chunk, wheeling around an inconsequential star, itself occupying an inconsequential corner of an inconsequential galaxy. That inconsequential galaxy is cast among an infinity of inconsequential galaxies.
Sit down momentarily with these bleak realities - if you can summon the steel. If you do not run a razor across your wrists within 30 seconds, you - friend - are one stoutheart. Believe it!
Next man confronts this elemental fact: Come his demise, the odds are excellent he will boil in pitch for all eternity. This we have on infallible authority - 1 Corinthians 6:9–10: "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters… nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God." Ninety-nine percent of humanity thus stands condemned - and 100% of the District of Columbia. Your editor is of course among them. He is guilty on five counts at least. Perhaps all counts.
Happy Delusions: Here are certain deceptions men cherish — cherished because they help him through this sorrowful vale…
That wise and learned experts from ivied institutions can repeal the granite laws of economics…
That deficits do not matter, that the ledgers need never square…
That prosperity springs from the printing press, that money and wealth are identical twins, to have money is to have wealth. That the examples of Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Argentina, Weimar Germany, post-WWII Hungary - to name some - count nothing…
Relatedly, that the addition of water to wine yields more wine instead of less wine. That is, that diluting the purchasing power of money yields not less money but more money…
Relatedly, that a man can lunch cost-free…
That plunging the nation into debt will raise it up into wealth…
That the Bureau of Labor Statistics puts out truthful labor statistics…
That honest government exists…
That man can cook and cool Earth…
That negative interest rates are positives…
That democracy - the theory that the individual may be a dunce but that 330 million dunces are Einsteins - is a superior form of government…
And perhaps the most enchanting and permanent of all the world’s delusions:
That this time is different.
How many stock market evangelicals, presently aflame with zeal for artificial intelligence stocks, are infested by this belief? We hazard the answer is handsome. How many cryptocurrency crusaders are similarly aflame with a parallel zeal? Again, we hazard the answer is handsome.
“Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur.” Not All Lies and Delusions Are Bad: Do we denounce the world in its cowardly resort to delusion and deception? Not in the least. As we have asked before: Why must the world peer defiantly into the fathomless pit? Why must it take the cold bath stoically and bravely?
Who can denounce the former beauty, presently wrecked with age, who wishes the mirror would show her a fabulous fiction? A full and honest trial of the facts would send the world forever under the bed, hopeless and resigned. No one would budge a jot in the course of his day. To what point?
And let it go into the record: Your editor is not exempt from this immemorial human need for delusion. He cherishes certain beliefs particular to his station and circumstances. Go at them honestly - he must concede - and they may fail rigorous scientific audit.
More Lies and Delusion: Among these are the beliefs…
That he is vastly undersalaried and underappreciated for the exquisite labor he performs for his abominable employer…
That he is wiser than 1,000 Solomons roped together…
That he stands eight feet in height…
That every maiden - from ocean to ocean - rolls her eyes yearningly at the thought of him….
Most delusionally of all, and against all reason: He cherishes the gorgeous fiction that the New York Metropolitan Baseball Club will seize another World Series title before he sinks unrighteously into the cauldron… to roast forevermore.
Thus your editor is in deepest sympathy with the world and its ceaseless quest to be deceived. For he shares the identical passion. The world would simply be unendurable without comforting fictions to stroke our hair, caress our gills and hold our hand.
Confronting Reality Is Far Worse Than a Stock Market Crash: Might some of the world’s delusions invite calamity? Almost certainly. We have the stock market and the economy close in mind. But whatever miseries collapse may inflict… they cannot approach the miseries of unceasing warfare with grim reality. Thus we speak our piece for delusion.
“All are lunatics,” said the great scalawag Ambrose Bierce… “but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher.” And who wants to analyze his delusion? Who wants to be a philosopher? Yours in hopeless and eternal delusion..."
"Iran - Israel Conflict 4/6/24"
Full screen recommended.
Hindustan Times, 4?6/24
"Iran Army Chief's Chilling Warning After
Readying 'Revenge Plan' Against Israeli, U.S. Assets"
"Iran's Army Chief has issued a fresh warning to Tehran's 'enemies' during a ceremony to commemorate Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, who was killed in a suspected Israeli air strike on Iran's embassy compound in Damascus on April 1. General Mohammad Bagheri confirmed that Iran's plan was ready and that it will strike enemy targets with precision to make them regret the attack in Syria. This comes after U.S. intelligence suggested that Iran could target Israeli diplomatic facilities or consular buildings in retaliation as it blames Israel for the Syria strikes. The U.S. is also on high alert, and fears Iranian attack on its troops in the Middle East."
Comments here:
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Full screen recommended.
Larry C. Johnson, 4/6/24
"IDF Attacks Iran - Direct Confrontation Between Iran and Israel?"
"Larry C. Johnson is a veteran of the CIA and the State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism. He is the founder and managing partner of BERG Associates, which was established in 1998. Larry provided training to the US Military’s Special Operations community for 24 years. He has been vilified by the right and the left, which means he must be doing something right."
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Full screen recommended.
Col. Douglas Macgregor, 4/6/24
"Israel's Post-Ramadan Invasion Plan w/ US'
Blind Support & WW3 Is Trigger"
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Full screen recommended.
Scott Ritter, 4/6/24
"Hezbollah & Iran's Three Big Options
To Take Revenge On Israel And The US Factor"
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Col. Douglas Macgregor states that Hezbollah has 150,000 missiles, massive artillery resources, as well as over 100,000 extremely well trained and equipped professional soldiers, many battle-hardened by 10 years in the Syrian civil war. If Israel declares war, as threatened, The Israeli Occupation Force will be crushed. Hezbollah will take all of northern Israel and Syria will retake the occupied Golan Heights. Gaza will be swiftly resolved...
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Israel will cease to exist. So be it...
Adventures With Danno, "Stocking Up At Aldi!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno,AM 4/6/24
"Stocking Up At Aldi!"
"In today's vlog, we are at Aldi and are stocking up on some of these great deals on groceries. Aldi is having some great sales, and we all need to be taking advantage of this opportunity. We take you with us and show all of these great deals going on!"
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Canadian Prepper, "Alert! Israel Is Starting A Nuclear War With Iran!"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 4/5/24
"Alert! Israel Is Starting A Nuclear War With Iran!
People Are Panic Buying!"
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Friday, April 5, 2024
"The World Has Finally Turned Against Israel"
"The World Has Finally Turned Against Israel"
Health Ranger Report, 4/5/24
- Israel's actions in Gaza and calls for international intervention. (0:03)
- Israel's actions and potential consequences. (4:39)
- Israel's actions in Gaza and criticism of their actions. (9:09)
- Potential war between Israel and Iran with nuclear implications. (13:18)
- Preparedness for potential global catastrophes. (17:18)
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