"Wars And Rumors Of Wars, 5/14/24"

"War Theater: U.S. Aircraft Carriers 

And The Illusion Of Global Dominance"

By Mike Adams

View video here:

- https://www.brighteon.com/

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Full screen recommended.

Times Of India, 5/13/24

"Trouble For Israel? Big Nuclear Shocker From Iran; 

Lawmaker Reveals 'Already In Possession Of Nukes'"

"Iran has a secret nuclear weapons program and can decimate Israel with a surprise attack. We now have a blatant admission from an Iranian official who says Iran has a secret nuclear weapons program, confirming the warning of US Def. Dept. leaders in 2023 who warned that Iran could build a nuclear weapon in just "12 days." Now, we estimate Iran has 100+ nuclear warheads and the ability to deliver them with precision ballistic missiles. This means the situation in the Middle East is far more volatile than most people realize."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

Times of India, 5/14/24

"'Attacks Won't Stop': Hezbollah Chief Roars 

Against Israel & Arab Leaders Over Gaza Onslaught"

"Hezbollah Chief Hassan Nasrallah has sent shockwaves through Israel with his bold declaration to persist in the fight against the nation. Nasrallah's pledge comes amidst escalating tensions, as he warns Israel of an impending historical dilemma in Gaza. He predicts Israel will face either defeat or plunge into an abyss if it continues its military campaign. Moreover, Nasrallah celebrates the recent October 7 attack, hailing it as a revitalization of the Palestinian cause and underscoring the significant support for Palestine's full UN membership. The region braces for further developments as the conflict intensifies." 

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

"In 219 days, 35,034 killed,

78,755 injured by 'Israel' in Gaza"

by Al Mayadeen

"The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza announced on Wednesday that the number of Palestinians killed in the ongoing Israeli genocide in the Strip since October 7 has now reached 35,034, with 78,755 injured as the war marks its 219th day. The Ministry also reported that the Israeli occupation carried out eight massacres against families in the past 24 hours in the Strip, killing 63 people and injuring 114.

Read more: 'Israel' destroyed 53% of Gaza's water treatment facilities: BBC

Thousands of victims of the aggression remain trapped under the rubble and roads remain inaccessible to ambulance and civil defense crews, as the occupation continues to prevent rescue teams from reaching them, the ministry added.

In this context, the Ministry confirmed the death of 500 medical staff and 138 nurses as a result of the Israeli bombing of the Strip so far, calling on the international community to protect medical teams and healthcare institutions in Gaza, and to press for the opening of the crossings to bring medical aid into the Strip.

Earlier this week, the Government Media Office in Gaza said that the Israeli occupation has committed 3,094 massacres during the ongoing genocidal war on Gaza, resulting in a toll of 44,844 martyrs and missing persons. The number of children killed by the occupation has reached 15,002, the office said, adding that 30 others died due to the famine brought on by the Israeli siege and blockade.

With the ongoing Israeli invasion of Rafah launched on Monday, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) stated that approximately 300,000 people have been forcibly displaced from the city of over 1.3 million residents, emphasizing the lack of safe havens within the Strip.

Read more: Over 10,000 people under rubble in Gaza, years to retrieve bodies: UN

In conjunction with the Israeli ground offensive on Rafah, the Israeli occupation army announced launching a new operation targeting areas across northern Gaza, due to failure in "eliminating" the Resistance there despite seven months of a brutal war unprecedented in recent history.

Al Mayadeen's correspondent reported on Sunday that occupation vehicles are advancing eastward from the Jabalia camp towards al-Sikka Street, extending to Mazaya Street amid heavy confrontations with Resistance fighters. Additionally, vehicles are stationed west of Mazaya Street in the Riad al-Salheen area. He also noted that the Israeli incursion into the northern regions was accompanied by intense artillery fire, along with support from helicopters and Quadcopter drones.

In Jabalia, the re-intensified Israeli aggression forced the displacement of thousands of Palestinians, now looking for shelter among the rubble of destroyed schools and any standing facility."

- https://english.almayadeen.net/

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"Truth is incontrovertible, ignorance can deride it, 

panic may resent it, malice may destroy it, but there it is."

- Winston Churchill

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A Comment: Are you proud, Americans, with all that blood on your hands? Hang your head in shame and disgrace! YOU paid for every bomb, every bullet, every tank, every weapon, every single thing these psychopathically degenerate genocidal monsters are using to slaughter all these people, whom these ZioNazis openly call "human animals"! 15,000 CHILDREN murdered! Don't pretend you don't see, don't know! The entire world can now see what these creatures really are, what rabidly vicious mad dogs they are and always have been. So what do you do with a mad dog? Stipendium peccati mors est, Israel...Inshallah, so be it... - CP

Canadian Prepper, "IISS Nuclear Attack; Putin Preps Cabinet For WW III"

Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper, 5/13/24

"IISS Nuclear Attack; Putin Preps Cabinet For WW III; 

Mass Evac, Full Mobilization"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Food Shortages, Price Increases, and Some Empty Shelves! Be Prepared! It's Getting Worse!"

Adventures With Danno, PM 5/13/24

"Food Shortages, Price Increases, and Some Empty Shelves! 

Be Prepared! It's Getting Worse!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"The Homelessness Spike Happening All Around Us Is Just A Hint Of What Is Coming Next"

Full screen recommended.

Epic Economist, 5/13/24

"The Homelessness Spike Happening All Around Us 

Is Just A Hint Of What Is Coming Next"

"The homelessness crisis that is taking over our core urban areas is getting so out of control that tent cities are emerging everywhere, even next to the U.S. Supreme Court. Soaring rents and the most expensive housing prices in U.S. history are triggering a wave of evictions and foreclosures like nothing we have ever seen. In poorer communities, the lack of access to basic resources is putting millions of people in extreme situations. This crisis is spreading so rapidly that now middle-class Americans are also ending up without a home. That's according to a new report from Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies.

Researchers say that the United States is currently facing the biggest homelessness spike since 2012. In fact, since the pandemic, the population of unhoused Americans grew by 48%, with 12% of that increase happening over the past 12 months. From the first quarter of 2023 to the first quarter of 2024, almost 100,000 Americans started experiencing homelessness, which represented the largest single-year increase ever recorded. Today, it is estimated that more than 653,000 people in our country are living in the streets.

However, housing advocates argue that a more accurate figure for the population of unhoused Americans stands at roughly 3 million people. That includes people living in their vehicles, abandoned buildings, and alternative shelters. The latest statistics indicate that people becoming homeless for the first time were behind much of the surge.

With government assistance out of the reach of everyday Americans, the rate of evictions exceeded a 10-year record high in January 2024, and over 1 million cases were reported year-over-year. "We know there's health consequences, it's an incredibly traumatic event, especially for children," said Daniel Grubs-Donovan, a research specialist with the Princeton University's Eviction Lab.

Within the overall rise, homelessness among individuals went up by 11%, while jumping 7.4% among U.S. veterans, 15.5% among families with children. Additionally, more than a quarter of adults experiencing homelessness were over age 54, which highlights the fact that many Americans nearing or at retirement ages are currently living in poverty."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Jeremiah Babe, "AirBNB Apocalypse Coming; Homebuyers Bite The Dust"

Jeremiah Babe, 5/13/24

"AirBNB Apocalypse Coming; 

Homebuyers Bite The Dust"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Wars And Rumors Of Wars"

Full screen recommended.

Larry C. Johnson, 5/13/24

"Ukraine at Crossroads of Destruction or Survival,

 Russia Sends Message to West"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

Times Of India, 5/13/24

"Trouble For Israel? Big Nuclear Shocker From Iran; 

Lawmaker Reveals 'Already In Possession Of Nukes'"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

Richard Medhurst, 5/13/24

"Gaza War Update, Battles in Rafah and Jabalia,

 Egypt Joins ICJ Case vs Israel, and More"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Wait For Me"

Full screen recommended.

2002, "Wait For Me"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Near the outskirts of the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy some 200 thousand light-years distant, lies 5 million year young star cluster NGC 602. Surrounded by natal gas and dust, NGC 602 is just below center in this telescopic field of view with the angular size of the Full Moon on the sky. 

Click image for larger size.

The cluster itself is about 200 light-years in diameter. Glowing interior ridges and swept back shapes strongly suggest that energetic radiation and shock waves from NGC 602's massive young stars have eroded the dusty material and triggered a progression of star formation moving away from the cluster's center. Of course, the more extended wings of emission in the region suggest a popular name for the complex cosmic environment, The Flying Lizard Nebula.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150307.html

"I Would Rather Have..."

"When a bull is being lead to the slaughter, it still hopes to break loose and trample its butchers. Other bulls have not been able to pass on the knowledge that this never happens and that from the slaughterhouse there is no way back to the herd. But in human society there is a continuous exchange of experience. I have never heard of a man who broke away and fled while being led to his execution. It is even thought to be a special form of courage if a man about to be executed refuses to be blindfolded and dies with his eyes open. But I would rather have the bull with his blind rage, the stubborn beast who doesn't weigh his chances of survival with the prudent dull-wittedness of man, and doesn't know the despicable feeling of despair."

- Nadezhda Mandelstam

The Poet: Mary Oliver, "October"

“October”

"There’s this shape, 

black as the entrance to a cave.

A longing wells up in its throat

like a blossom

as it breathes slowly.

What does the world

mean to you if you can’t trust it

to go on shining when you’re

not there? and there’s

a tree, long-fallen; once

the bees flew to it, like a procession

of messengers, and filled it

with honey.

I said to the chickadee, 

singing his heart out in the

green pine tree:

little dazzler

little song,

little mouthful.

The shape climbs up out of the curled grass. It

grunts into view. There is no measure

for the confidence at the bottom of its eyes -

there is no telling

the suppleness of its shoulders as it turns

and yawns.

Near the fallen tree

something - a leaf snapped loose

from the branch and fluttering down - tries to pull me

into its trap of attention.

It pulls me into its trap of attention,

And when I turn again, the bear is gone.

Look, hasn’t my body already felt

like the body of a flower?

Look, I want to love this world

as thought it’s the last chance I’m ever going to get

to be alive and know it.

Sometimes in late summer I won’t touch anything, not

the flowers, not the blackberries

brimming in the thickets; I won’t drink

from the pond; I won’t name the birds or the trees;

I won’t whisper my own name.

One morning

the fox came down the hill, glittering and confident,

and didn’t see me - and I thought:

so this is the world.

I’m not in it.

It is beautiful."

- Mary Oliver

"What's He To Do then?"

"You've seed how things goes in the world o' men. You've knowed men to be low-down and mean. You've seed ol' Death at his tricks... Ever' man wants life to be a fine thing, and a easy. 'Tis fine, boy, powerful fine, but 'tain't easy. Life knocks a man down and he gits up and it knocks him down agin. I've been uneasy all my life... I've wanted life to be easy for you. Easier'n 'twas for me. A man's heart aches, seein' his young uns face the world. Knowin' they got to get their guts tore out, the way his was tore. I wanted to spare you, long as I could. I wanted you to frolic with your yearlin'. I knowed the lonesomeness he eased for you. But ever' man's lonesome. What's he to do then? What's he to do when he gits knocked down? Why, take it for his share and go on.”

- Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

"When I hear somebody sigh, 'Life is hard,' 

I am always tempted to ask, 'Compared to what?'" 

- Sydney J. Harris 

"When You Are In Deep Trouble..."

 

Free Download: Aldous Huxley, “Brave New World"

“O, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! 

How beauteous mankind is! 

O, brave new world, That has such people in't!”

- William Shakespeare, “The Tempest” (V, 1)

“Till at last the child's mind is these suggestions, and the sum of the suggestions is the child's mind. And not the child's mind only. The adult's mind too- all his life long. The mind that judges and desires and decides- made up of these suggestions. But all these suggestions are our suggestions...” 

- “Brave New World: Suggestions from the State”
•

Freely download “Brave New World", by Aldous Huxley here:

- http://www.idph.com.br/conteudos/ebooks/BraveNewWorld.pdf

“Mutiny of the Soul”

“Mutiny of the Soul”

by Charles Eisenstein

"Depression, anxiety, and fatigue are an essential part of a process of metamorphosis that is unfolding on the planet today, and highly significant for the light they shed on the transition from an old world to a new. When a growing fatigue or depression becomes serious, and we get a diagnosis of Epstein-Barr or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or hypothyroid or low serotonin, we typically feel relief and alarm. Alarm: something is wrong with me. Relief: at least I know I'm not imagining things; now that I have a diagnosis, I can be cured, and life can go back to normal. But of course, a cure for these conditions is elusive.

The notion of a cure starts with the question, "What has gone wrong?" But there is another, radically different way of seeing fatigue and depression that starts by asking, "What is the body, in its perfect wisdom, responding to?" When would it be the wisest choice for someone to be unable to summon the energy to fully participate in life?

The answer is staring us in the face. When our soul-body is saying No to life, through fatigue or depression, the first thing to ask is, "Is life as I am living it the right life for me right now?" When the soul-body is saying No to participation in the world, the first thing to ask is, "Does the world as it is presented me merit my full participation?"

What if there is something so fundamentally wrong with the world, the lives, and the way of being offered us, that withdrawal is the only sane response? Withdrawal, followed by a reentry into a world, a life, and a way of being wholly different from the one left behind?

The unspoken goal of modern life seems to be to live as long and as comfortably as possible, to minimize risk and to maximize security. We see this priority in the educational system, which tries to train us to be "competitive" so that we can "make a living". We see it in the medical system, where the goal of prolonging life trumps any consideration of whether, sometimes, the time has come to die. We see it in our economic system, which assumes that all people are motivated by "rational self-interest", defined in terms of money, associated with security and survival. (And have you ever thought about the phrase "the cost of living"?) We are supposed to be practical, not idealistic; we are supposed to put work before play. Ask someone why she stays in a job she hates, and as often as not the answer is, "For the health insurance." In other words, we stay in jobs that leave us feeling dead in order to gain the assurance of staying alive. When we choose health insurance over passion, we are choosing survival over life.

On a deep level, which I call the soul level, we want none of that. We recognize that we are here on earth to enact a sacred purpose, and that most of the jobs on offer are beneath our dignity as human beings. But we might be too afraid to leave our jobs, our planned-out lives, our health insurance, or whatever other security and comfort we have received in exchange for our divine gifts. Deep down, we recognize this security and comfort as slaves' wages, and we yearn to be free.

So, the soul rebels. Afraid to make the conscious choice to step away from a slave's life, we make the choice unconsciously instead. We can no longer muster the energy to go through the motions. We enact this withdrawal from life through a variety of means. We might summon the Epstein-Barr virus into our bodies, or mononucleosis, or some other vector of chronic fatigue. We might shut down our thyroid or adrenal glands. We might shut down our production of serotonin in the brain. Other people take a different route, incinerating the excess life energy in the fires of addiction. Either way, we are in some way refusing to participate. We are shying away from ignoble complicity in a world gone wrong. We are refusing to contribute our divine gifts to the aggrandizement of that world.

That is why the conventional approach of fixing the problem so that we can return to normal life will not work. It might work temporarily, but the body will find other ways to resist. Raise serotonin levels with SSRIs, and the brain will prune some receptor sites, thinking in its wisdom, "Hey, I'm not supposed to feel good about the life I am living right now." In the end, there is always suicide, a common endpoint of the pharmaceutical regimes that seek to make us happy with something inimical to our very purpose and being. You can only force yourself to abide in wrongness so long. When the soul's rebellion is suppressed too long, it can explode outward in bloody revolution. Significantly, all of the school shootings in the last decade have involved people on anti-depression medication. All of them! For a jaw-dropping glimpse of the results of the pharmaceutical regime of control, scroll down this compilation of suicide/homicide cases involving SSRIs. I am not using "jaw-dropping" as a figure of speech. My jaw literally dropped open.

Back in the 1970s, dissidents in the Soviet Union were often hospitalized in mental institutions and given drugs similar to the ones used to treat depression today. The reasoning was that you had to be insane to be unhappy in the Socialist Workers' Utopia. When the people treating depression receive status and prestige from the very system that their patients are unhappy with, they are unlikely to affirm the basic validity of the patient's withdrawal from life. "The system has to be sound - after all, it validates my professional status - therefore the problem must be with you."

Unfortunately, "holistic" approaches are no different, as long as they deny the wisdom of the body's rebellion. When they do seem to work, usually that is because they coincide with some other shift. When someone goes out and gets help, or makes a radical switch of modalities, it works as a ritual communication to the unconscious mind of a genuine life change. Rituals have the power to make conscious decisions real to the unconscious. They can be part of taking back one's power.

I have met countless people of great compassion and sensitivity, people who would describe themselves as "conscious" or "spiritual", who have battled with CFS, depression, thyroid deficiency, and so on. These are people who have come to a transition point in their lives where they become physically incapable of living the old life in the old world. That is because, in fact, the world presented to us as normal and acceptable is anything but. It is a monstrosity. Ours is a planet in pain. If you need me to convince you of that, if you are unaware of the destruction of forests, oceans, wetlands, cultures, soil, health, beauty, dignity, and spirit that underlies the System we live in, then I have nothing to say to you. I only am speaking to you if you do believe that there is something deeply wrong with the way we are living on this planet.

A related syndrome comprises various "attention deficit" and anxiety "disorders" (forgive me, I cannot write down these words without the ironic quotation marks) which reflect an unconscious knowledge that something is wrong around here. Anxiety, like all emotions, has a proper function. Suppose you left a pot on the stove and you know you forgot something, you just can't remember what. You cannot rest at ease. Something is bothering you, something is wrong. Subliminally you smell smoke. You obsess: did I leave the water running? Did I forget to pay the mortgage? The anxiety keeps you awake and alert; it doesn't let you rest; it keeps your mind churning, worrying. This is good. This is what saves your life. Eventually you realize - the house is on fire! - and anxiety turns into panic, and action.

So if you suffer from anxiety, maybe you don't have a "disorder" at all - maybe the house is on fire. Anxiety is simply the emotion corresponding to "Something is dangerously wrong and I don't know what it is." That is only a disorder if there is in fact nothing dangerously wrong. "Nothing is wrong, just you" is the message that any therapy gives when it tries to fix you. I disagree with that message. The problem is not with you. You have very good reason to be anxious. Anxiety keeps part of your attention away from your tasks of polishing the silverware as the house burns down, of playing the violin as the Titanic sinks. Unfortunately, the wrongness you are tapping into might be beyond the cognizance of the psychiatrists who treat you, who then conclude that the problem must be your brain.

Similarly, Attention Deficit Disorder, ADHD, and my favorite, Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) are only disorders if we believe that the things presented for our attention are worth paying attention to. We cannot admit, without calling into question the whole edifice of our school system, that it may be completely healthy for a ten-year-old boy to not sit still for six hours in a classroom learning about long division and Vasco de Gama. Perhaps the current generation of children, that some call the Indigos, simply have a lower tolerance for school's agenda of conformity, obedience, external motivation, right-and-wrong answers, the quantification of performance, rules and bells, report cards and grades and your permanent record. So we try to enforce their attention with stimulants, and subdue their heroic intuitive rebellion against the spirit-wrecking machine.

As I write about the "wrongness" against which we all rebel, I can hear some readers asking, "What about the metaphysical principle that it's 'all good'?" Just relax, I am told, nothing is wrong, all is part of the divine plan. You only perceive it as wrong because of your limited human perspective. All of this is only here for our own development. War: it gives people wonderful opportunities to make heroic choices and burn off bad karma. Life is wonderful, Charles, why do you have to make it wrong?

I am sorry, but usually such reasoning is just a sop to the conscience. If it is all good, then that is only because we perceive and experience it as terribly wrong. The perception of iniquity moves us to right it.

Nonetheless, it would be ignorant and fruitless to pass judgment upon those who do not see anything wrong, who, oblivious to the facts of destruction, think everything is basically fine. There is a natural awakening process, in which first we proceed full speed ahead participating in the world, believing in it, seeking to contribute to the Ascent of Humanity. Eventually, we encounter something that is undeniably wrong, perhaps a flagrant injustice or a serious health problem or a tragedy near at hand. Our first response is to think this is an isolated problem, remediable with some effort, within a system that is basically sound. But when we try to fix it, we discover deeper and deeper levels of wrongness. The rot spreads; we see that no injustice, no horror can stand in isolation. We see that the disappeared dissidents in South America, the child laborers in Pakistan, the clearcut forests of the Amazon, are all intimately linked together in a grotesque tapestry that includes every aspect of modern life. We realize that the problems are too big to fix. We are called to live in an entirely different way, starting with our most fundamental values and priorities.

All of us go through this process, repeatedly, in various realms of our lives; all parts of the process are right and necessary. The phase of full participation is a growth phase in which we develop gifts that will be applied very differently later. The phase of trying to fix, to endure, to soldier on with a life that isn't working is a maturation phase that develops qualities of patience and determination and strength. The phase of discovering the all-encompassing nature of the problem is usually a phase of despair, but it need not be. Properly, it is a phase of rest, of stillness, of withdrawal, of preparation for a push. The push is a birth-push. Crises in our lives converge and propel us into a new life, a new being that we hardly imagine could exist, except that we'd heard rumors of it, echoes, and maybe even caught a glimpse of it here and there, been granted through grace a brief preview.

If you are in the midst of this process, you need not suffer if you cooperate with it. I can offer you two things. First is self-trust. Trust your own urge to withdraw even when a million messages are telling you, "The world is fine, what's wrong with you? Get with the program." Trust your innate belief that you are here on earth for something magnificent, even when a thousand disappointments have told you you are ordinary. Trust your idealism, buried in your eternal child's heart, that says that a far more beautiful world than this is possible. Trust your impatience that says "good enough" is not good enough. Do not label your noble refusal to participate as laziness and do not medicalize it as an illness. Your heroic body has merely made a few sacrifices to serve your growth.

The second thing I can offer you is a map. The journey I have described is not always linear, and you may find yourself from time to time revisiting earlier territory. When you find the right life, when you find the right expression of your gifts, you will receive an unmistakable signal. You will feel excited and alive. Many people have preceded you on this journey, and many more will follow in times to come. Because the old world is falling apart, and the crises that initiate the journey are converging upon us. Soon many people will follow the paths we have pioneered. Each journey is unique, but all share the same basic dynamics I have described. When you have passed through it, and understood the necessity and rightness of each of its phases, you will be prepared to midwife others through it as well. Your condition, all the years of it, has prepared you for this. It has prepared you to ease the passage of those who will follow. Everything you have gone through, every bit of the despair, has been necessary to forge you into a healer and a guide. The need is great. The time is coming soon.”

- https://charleseisenstein.net/essays/mutiny/

The Daily "Near You?"

Napier, Hawke's Bay, New Zealand. Thanks for stopping by!

'In Retrospect..."

“In retrospect, the spark might seem as ominous as a financial crash, as ordinary as a national election, or as trivial as a Tea Party. The catalyst will unfold according to a basic Crisis dynamic that underlies all of these scenarios: An initial spark will trigger a chain reaction of unyielding responses and further emergencies. The core elements of these scenarios (debt, civic decay, global disorder) will matter more than the details, which the catalyst will juxtapose and connect in some unknowable way. If foreign societies are also entering a Fourth Turning, this could accelerate the chain reaction. At home and abroad, these events will reflect the tearing of the civic fabric at points of extreme vulnerability – problem areas where America will have neglected, denied, or delayed needed action.” 

– "The Fourth Turning", Strauss & Howe

"The All-Important Doorman"

"The All-Important Doorman"

by Jeff Thomas

"Picture this: A tribal leader from a distant country visits the US. He’s brought to a large apartment building in New York City. When he gets out of the car, he looks up at the great building and is quite impressed. A uniformed doorman exits the foyer and comes out on the sidewalk. The tribesman sees the gold braiding and brass buttons of his coat and immediately decides that this is a very important person. Again he looks up at the building and says to the doorman, “This is a very great home you have. You must be very important indeed.”

Of course, if we were present, we might chuckle at the tribesman’s naiveté. The owners of such a great building would never greet people at the entrance. They leave such trivial tasks to hired servants, whilst they run the real business without ever needing any direct contact with visitors as they enter the building. And, in addition, doormen come and go – they are, after all, disposable. The owners – those who control what happens in the building – retain their positions over the long term… and may remain anonymous, if they so choose.

We find this simple concept easy enough to understand, and yet we chronically have difficulty in understanding that, in most countries, the president, or prime minister, is not by any means the man who makes the big decisions in the running of the country.

We assume that, because we were allowed to vote for our leader, he must actually be our leader. But, as Mark Twain has at times been credited as saying, “If voting made any difference, they wouldn’t let us do it.”

Similarly, the man whose family took over the financing of Europe, Meyer Rothschild, said, “Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation and I care not who makes its laws.” His family has been calling the shots for centuries, but like the owners of the apartment building, they keep a low profile. Remarkably, most people will nod their heads at the above quotes, yet somehow still imagine their elected leader to be in charge.

Most anyone will accept that the voting system in their country has been corrupted in one way or another and it’s even more likely that they’ll acknowledge that the central banks control the flow of money. Yet, they persist in believing that, even if elections are financed by the big banks, the military industrial complex, Big Pharma, etc., somehow, those who are elected remain loyal to the voters, not to those who paid for their election. And, they imagine these elected members to be running the show. Further, whilst they often acknowledge that the political party that they oppose is bought and paid for, they prefer to think that the one they favor is not.

At this point, both the EU and the US are run by the Deep State. In Europe it’s a bit more obvious, as the EU is a visible, unelected body that holds sway over all of the most significant developments in Europe. In the US, it’s a bit less obvious, but it’s generally understood that the CIA, FBI and other similar organizations run independently of the president. (He has the power to fire a Director, but does not have the power to eliminate these organizations or change their agenda.)

The US is run as a corporatist body – joint rule by big business and the state. The elected members are, like doormen, temporary. They are, of course, highly visible, which they’re intended to be, as they’re meant to distract the public eye away from those who are truly in charge. And, like doormen, they’re disposable. They can be unelected at four-year intervals and the agenda continues as planned. They are, in fact, largely irrelevant to the direction that the country takes.

The president in particular falls into this category. There have been quite a few presidents who rose to that post with little or no previous experience in elected office. Their election is a result of popularity. If they do a better job of creating campaign-promises than their opponents, they emerge as the winners, even if they have no political ties, associations with other legislators, or previous experience in the job. And yet, we somehow assume that those who really pull the strings would spend hundreds of millions of dollars on elections, then tolerate a newly-elected outsider to wash away their investment by actually taking charge.

To be sure, there have been presidents who have bucked the Deep State, but they tend to change their tune rather quickly and get back into line. Those who have refused have sometimes found themselves on the business end of a bullet, although, more recently, the preferred tactic has been to invent accusations of corruption and indecency, then to produce questionable witnesses to discredit the leader. (A leader who has been forced out in disgrace is just as gone as one that’s been assassinated.)

But, almost invariably, the “leader” sees that it’s in his interest to cave in to the Deep State, as, perennially, they hold the real power. Campaign promises are tossed into the dustbin and it’s back to the previous, ongoing agenda. This we’ve witnessed time after time.

Does this mean that the president is only a mouthpiece for the Deep State? Well, no, it’s actually advantageous for him to express his own opinions, ruffle the public’s feathers and push his pet projects. It adds to the distraction that he’s in charge. However, the larger issues – particularly the flow of tax dollars into the pockets of corporations, continue exactly as planned, regardless of who’s in office. Bankers continue to receive absurdly large bailouts when they’ve grossly mismanaged their banks. The military industrial complex continues to enjoy perpetual warfare, so that they can supply armaments to the government for unnecessary conflicts. Big Pharma enjoys legislation that forces people to be vaccinated against their will and accept outrageously high prices for medications that are generally inexpensive to produce.

But, yes, as long as a president remains the spokesman to explain why such policies are not only tolerable, but essential, he may be allowed to occupy the oval office until the voters tire of him. But, if this is true, why do people so quickly and so readily accept the “leader” to actually be unilaterally responsible for every facet of every governmental policy and action?

Well actually, nothing could be easier. It’s human nature to want to put a face to our praise and/or criticism. We can’t muster the same focus if we’re advised that we’re being ruled by a faceless group. We tend to respond more readily and more intensely to a single individual – a face we can conjure up immediately. “People desire certainty,” Doug Casey once observed to me, when discussing a related subject, and that’s exactly so. If we’re uncertain during troubled times, we’ll instantly jump at the opportunity to put a single face to the problem, to blame one individual for whatever is troubling us.

This is evidenced by the presentation of photos of Lee Harvey Oswald and Osama bin Laden, mere hours after major events, as the certain culprits. They were immediately accepted, without any question, by a people desperately seeking certainty. Therefore, as soon as one leader is out and another takes his place, we’re able to immediately transfer our devotion or hatred to the replacement.

The concept of providing a single face to the public is one that was understood by George Orwell, who created the character of “Big Brother,” who would be on the video screens incessantly, as the face of the government. But, in stating all of the above, it may seem that I’ve portrayed the doorman as insignificant and this is not the case. He does play quite an important role.

He’s absolutely essential, as he, more than any other legislator, creates a suitable distraction from those who really run the show. He’s in front of the microphone, does interviews, is filmed almost on a daily basis, and is constantly credited by the media as being either the savior or the devil, depending upon which media outlet is providing the portrayal. And the shakier an economy, and the greater the problems of a country, the more essential it is that the “leader” be visible. After all, when things go badly awry, someone has to serve as the fall guy.

When this occurs, he is, of course, disposable. He leaves in disgrace or is voted out and a new puppet is voted in whose loyalty is again to the Deep State, not to the voters. And, most importantly, the real agenda continues, as planned, regardless of whatever new campaign promises got him elected. (This is not at all new. In 1933, Franklin Roosevelt introduced the Emergency Banking Act the day after his inauguration speech, in which he had assured the country that he would not mess with the currency.)

Campaign promises are dumped wholesale; the demeanour of the new leader may change dramatically, and the new leader’s very principles may suddenly evaporate after election day. However, the ongoing agenda does not. Regardless of who’s elected, or what party he professes to represent, we witness a continuation of the previous directions taken by those who truly hold the power.

What’s important to recognize is that, no matter how large the apartment building may be, no matter how impressive the presentation of the doorman may be, he is just that. He is only the front man, and he is disposable. The Deep State runs the show. Their presence is permanent and their agenda is both ongoing and impervious to the whims of the voting public."

- https://internationalman.com/

Dan, I Allegedly, "Millions Living on Credit Cards"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly AM 5/13/24

"Millions Living on Credit Cards"

"Credit card debt is climbing we just got the numbers and the average credit card debt is growing. People are using their credit cards to pay for every day expenses Are you struggling with credit card debt or know someone who is? You're not alone. As we navigate these financial waters, remember that understanding and discussing these issues is the first step toward change."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Gregory Mannarino, "Banks Are Going To Fall Like Dominos!"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 5/13/24

"Banks Are Going To Fall Like Dominos!"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Bill Bonner, "The Best And The Brightest"

"The Best And The Brightest"

The fantasy of American democracy is that the election process weeds out the dopes, jackasses and frauds. A single visit to the Capitol when Congress is in session is enough to dispel that myth.

by Bill Bonner

Dublin, Ireland - "It was a beautiful weekend in Ireland, the first warm and sunny weekend of the year. The flowers are in bloom. The grass is green and high. The sea sparkles in the distance and the cows mosey across the fields. “This has been the rainiest winter and spring I can remember,” says a neighbor. But yesterday, it all seemed worthwhile. Nowhere is prettier than Ireland on a sunny day.

“Enjoy it while you can,” the neighbor adds. “Gather ye rosebuds, and all that. Joie de beaver... heh heh.” (It took us a while to understand that last remark, a bawdy corruption of the French, ‘joie de vivre’... or joy of living.)

The tone in St. Mary’s Cathedral in Youghal was more serious. “We don’t control the weather. We don’t vote on whether we breathe or not. There are some things we’re better off not deciding for ourselves,” the priest explained. He was commenting on a section of the Bible (Acts of the Apostles) where it tells us how the apostles replaced Jesus after he was crucified: And they cast lots... and the lot fell on Matthias; and he was added to the eleven apostles. “It might be better if we chose our political leaders that way too,” he continued, “rather than have to listen to all the election news every day.” The gist of today’s comment: He was right.

Compared to the US, elections in Ireland are fairly dignified and civilized. Ireland is smaller. The issues are more readily understood. And the Irish still have faith in their leaders, more or less.

Fools and Knaves: ​But in America elections have become vicious contests, often between fools and knaves... cutthroats and cads. All the voters can do is to try to decide which one is worse. A national lottery, choosing our politicians as Matthias was chosen - on the basis of chance, rather than fraud - would almost certainly be better.

Here at Bonner Private Research, we steer clear of politics. But politics doesn’t steer clear of us. Joe Biden will raise taxes. Forbes: "Under Biden Tax Plan, Capital Gains Tax Will Exceed 50% In 11 States."

He’s also planning to spike up tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles. Bloomberg: "President Joe Biden will quadruple tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles and sharply increase levies for other key industries this week, unveiling the measures at a White House event framed as a defense of American workers, people familiar with the matter said."

Not only will Americans pay more for their wheels, the US auto industry – protected by the feds – will become even less competitive. David Fickling: "Like birds on isolated islands, America’s carmakers are evolving to suit an oddly congenial environment - one where they can grow big and bloated in the absence of competition from hungry rivals. Gradually, they’ll lose the ability to fly. Consumers who’d like to get their hands on affordable, clean and innovative cars will be the ones to lose out."

Donald Trump, meanwhile, says will increase tariffs on all Chinese-made goods... thus raising prices on almost everything. He also says he will cut taxes. Bloomberg: “Instead of a Biden tax hike, I’ll give you a Trump middle class, upper class, lower class, business class big tax cut,” Trump said at a rally Saturday in Wildwood on the New Jersey shore."  Lower rates and lower taxes were Trump’s formula for his first term, but as we’ve seen, without spending cuts they will simply increase debt and end up imposing the worst tax of all - the ‘inflation tax.’

​​Neither candidate seems concerned by the big challenges facing the country - too much debt and too much war. And at least part of the explanation is the election process itself. Candidates court big money sponsors by promising a good return on investment to their donors. And the big money doesn’t take chances. It invests in both leading candidates... making sure the government continues to waste taxpayers’ money in the desired way. ​

The fantasy of American democracy is that the election process weeds out the dopes, jackasses and frauds. A single visit to the Capitol when Congress is in session is enough to dispel that myth. nstead of raising up the best and brightest, it does the very opposite. It elevates the big mouths and mountebanks... those most willing to peddle influence in exchange for campaign money.

A lottery would be more honest. It would spare the nation the cost of elections... and crescendo of BS that goes along with them. And almost any citizen, chosen at random, and not beholden to the Established Elite, would probably do less damage.

But wait. There is another candidate in the presidential derby. RFK, Jr. Is he really better than random? A reformed drug addict. Former brain worm victim. Is he seriously aiming for the White House? Or is he really just a spoiler? If so, for whom? Biden? Trump? And what if he fractures the electoral college vote... so that the election ends with no clear winner? Tune in tomorrow..."

- https://www.bonnerprivateresearch.com/

"How It Really Is"

 

"Dare..."

 

"It Is Our Fate..."

"Well, it is our fate to live in a time of crisis. To live in a time when all forms and values are being challenged. In other and more easy times, it was not, perhaps, necessary for the individual to confront himself with a clear question: What is it that you really believe? What is it that you really cherish? What is it for which you might, actually, in a showdown, be willing to die? I say, with all the reticence which such large, pathetic words evoke, that one cannot exist today as a person – one cannot exist in full consciousness – without having to have a showdown with one’s self, without having to define what it is that one lives by, without being clear in one’s mind what matters and what does not matter.”

- Dorothy Thompson

Jim Kunstler, "Monster Mash-up"

"Monster Mash-up"

By Jim Kunstler

“My take is that the US is incredibly unstable right now, and could go in almost any

 imaginable direction between now and the election, as well as some unimaginable ones.” 

- John Michael Greer

"Did you notice that it took just a little bit of internal chaos to alert the Party of Chaos that maybe chaos wasn’t the greatest thing to be the party of? Something went awry the past two weeks when thousands of creamy coeds on every campus across America donned the keffiyeh and, in effect, demanded submission to history’s most notorious misogynist cult. It struck a most cacophonous chord among progressives, like Kumbaya as orchestrated by Karlheinz Stockhausen. To awaken from Wokery, you see, is a brutal shock to the brain.

And so, over the weekend every big dog in the Democratic Party’s doghouse came out barking against the current direction of the Democratic Party - that is, over an electoral cliff, lemming-style. Bill Clinton lamented at the Milken Conference that “the political rewards of grievance politics and name-calling and being negative have been so immense that nobody could give ’em up. That’s what this whole shebang has come down to now.”

James Carville had a veritable nervous breakdown on X: “It’s going the wrong way, it’s not working. Everything we’re throwing is spaghetti at a wall, and none of it is sticking, me included.” Fareed Zakaria over on CNN confessed that “None of this is playing out the way I thought it would.” Gee, really?

None of them could bring themselves to actually name the doddering donkey in the room, “Joe Biden.” Nor did they dare call out the stage manager behind the old Joe-from-Scranton show, Barack Obama, not exactly coasting into his fourth term, as expected. They’re all surprised the way things are turning out. And, of course, “JB” himself did not come out of his Rehoboth Beach hidey-hole after declaring no more bullets and missiles for you, Israel, which landed amongst the Party’s donor class like a tear-gas bomb.

Hillary Clinton popped up on the Morning Joe show wearing royal purple to remind the audience that Donald Trump is another Hitler, threatening “the sanctity of the Constitution” and adding “maybe this will be our last election.” If she’s putting herself up as possible last-minute replacement for the ever more ghostly “Joe Biden,” she was not so crass as to say so. The party will have to come pleading to her on its knees, hoping she can once again muster the legions of indignant women to oppose the wicked Golden Golem of Greatness - who was, that very day, on display in a Manhattan courtroom having to endure the jibes of the paradigmatic wronged woman, porn-star Stormy Daniels.

What else have they got, really? Gavin Newsom? If Mr. Trump is Hitler, then think of Mr. Newsom as Godzilla with hair gel. Imagine what he could do to the whole USA after trashing California, as he has managed to do. Sorry to tell you, but in an election contest between Hitler and Godzilla, Hitler would probably win. It’s a rock-paper-scissors deal. Any other ringers they might throw in? The only name that ever comes up is Illinois governor JB Pritzker, who actually looks a bit like King Kong, and has certainly done a Kong-job on Chicago. And, by the way, that’s where the Democrats’ convention will happen in August. Wouldn’t it be something to see King Kong versus Godzilla there?

All of which is to say that something beyond desperation has set in amongst the Democrats, an emotion so dire that Elizabeth Kubler Ross couldn’t find a word for it on her transect of grief. They don’t know what to do at this point. They have only a few months to figure it out and there is more at stake than a mere turnover in administrative duties. The shadow of the gibbet looms in their nightmares. Their lawfare schtick was one thing, a kind of fun-and-games compared to what’s coming at them: the actual law, trials for more serious crimes than mere book-keeping errors and mis-pricing real estate valuations. Think: sedition, treason, bribery and tack on conspiracy to commit all the above.

Meanwhile, Mr. Trump provided a further shock to the awakening Woke with a Saturday evening fan meetup down-the-shore in Wildwood, New Jersey. Somewhere between eighty to a hundred-thousand voters showed up in what is said to be among the bluest states in the country. Bruce Springsteen must have been weeping into his avocado toast over in Red Bank. Then, across the Sunday morning news digests there was talk about “a landslide win,” and even more amazed chatter about RINOs and Never-Trumpers returning to the folds of the Golden Golem’s heavenly garment, as though Mr. Trump had virtually Jeezified himself through a year of tribulation.

Will the Democrats just go through the motions the next six months, awaiting execution? Naw. One way or another, they are going to jam Hillary into this psychodrama. Stay tuned for a couple of medical emergencies. First, Kamala Harris will resign on account of a sudden “health problem” that prevents her from attending to her duties. Cancer will be implied but not spelled out. “Joe Biden” will appoint HRC of the Purple Pantsuit as veep. Three weeks later, “JB” will submit his resignation for medical reasons, and nobody will need to ask why. Voila! The first woman president, she-whose-turn-has-finally-come, flies triumphantly out of the Democratic Convention in her hometown, Chicago, like Rodan the Flying Reptile emerging from the mythic volcano, cawing her battle-cry across the land. The Golden Golem answers with a roar. The great re-match is on!"

- https://kunstler.com/

The full name of Kunstler's website is SO accurate...

"Geopolitical Paradigm Shifts And Coping With Psychopaths" (Excerpt)

"Geopolitical Paradigm Shifts 

And Coping With Psychopaths"

by Tariq Marzbaan and Nora Hoppe

Excerpt: "Tariq Marzbaan and Nora Hoppe interview Professor Karaganov from Russia's leading public foreign policy organization, conversing with him on an array of issues, including Western escalation against Russia, the war in Ukraine, colonialism, and the genocide in Gaza.

It is clear that the Anglo-Saxon industrial-military-media complex, with the help of its vassals, intends to preserve its global hegemony and its colonialist conquests at all costs. The Hegemon cannot accept the paradigm shift of an emerging Multipolar World. Any discussion of peace, diplomacy, or negotiations regarding the wars it has started is out of the question. Western populations, whose minds are contaminated with neoliberalism and Russophobia, are currently terrified of an "imminent Russian invasion." Mass delirium is preventing REASON from returning to the West. How can the rest of the world cope with this madness? And what can the rest of the world hope for?"

Full article here:

- https://english.almayadeen.net/