Jim Kunstler, "Only Half Gone"

"Only Half Gone"

by Jim Kunstler

“The Democrats are self-immolating on the altar of 

their own tenuous relationship with common decency.” 

- Tom Luongo

“Life imitates art,” Oscar Wilde was fond of saying. And so, all of a sudden on Sunday, the USA became an episode of Veep, after President “Joe Biden” had that fateful sit-down with God he’d hinted at a week or so ago:

God: Yeah, it’s me again. What I told you ‘bout dis ‘lection bidness?

“JB”: (cough cough) I gotta finish the job. (cough cough.)

God: Job, my ass. You ain’t done nuttin’ but eat ice cream cones, spend money dat don’t exist, and sniff up every chile come near you.

“JB”: No, you don’t understand! I’m defending democracy.

God: Oh yeah? Since when my will subject to some pissant caucus? In my mansion dey’s many doors, and this one is da exit, son. What I say, go. And when I say, ‘go,’ dat mean you git yo’self gone! I done wrote the letter and you signin’ on da dotted line right now.

“JB”: What if I won’t?

God: I’ma have to smite yo’ ass.

“JB”: Well, since you put it that way...but, say, do you happen to also have that pardon document we talked about?

And so it went in the study at Rehoboth Beach Sunday afternoon. And all of a sudden, Veep Kamala Harris is elevated to be the putative nominee of the Party of Chaos going into the August convention. Most of the other talked-about replacements instantly endorsed her - Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer, Pete Buttigieg, et al. - as a convocation of mullahs might bless a goat about to be sacrificed. Kamala issued a stirring war cry: “Together, we will fight. And together, we will win.” Yawn...

It was all pretend, of course, or, shall we say, a continuation of the pretend that is the core operating principle of the party. Everything it does is fake. Case in point, the marvelous statement by HRC (a.k.a. She-Whose-Turn-it-Ever-Is or Rodan the Flying Reptile), who put out this smarmy gem: "President Biden has capped his extraordinary career of service with a Presidency that has lifted America out of an unprecedented pandemic, created millions of new jobs, rebuilt a battered economy, strengthened our democracy, and restored our standing in the world. By any measure, he has advanced our founders’ charge to build a more perfect union and his own stated goal of restoring the soul of our nation.”

“Joe Biden” did all that? Hillary, you see, is buttering up the cloacal vent of the party so that she can wriggle up there and eat its brain, like one of those parasitical wasp larvae that get into a caterpillar. She’s supporting Kamala until it becomes opportune not too, which is to say when the Deep State blob gets the heebie-jeebies about failing to steal the election, losing its positions of power and perqs, and very possibly facing prosecution for serious crimes. Of course, the weekend developments suggest that “Joe Biden” will have to vacate his position as Commander-in-Chief altogether. It’s too self-evident to even rehearse the particulars. It’s only a matter of when, and that probably hinges on his negotiated severance package - basically something that keeps his various family members out of prison. Kamala will then rise to the Oval, ha ha ha.

In this moment of maximum uncertainty, then, the Party of Chaos will pretend to go along with Ms. Harris for a week or two, allowing the first woman president of-color many chances to utter world-scaring inanities and fall into cackling fits so as to demonstrate she can’t possibly be taken seriously. Suddenly you will see the long knives come out slicing and dicing Kamala like a daikon radish on the hibachi table, and anyone else besides HRC who dares to step up will get the same treatment. Notice that Mr. Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Hakim, and Chuck (Nine-Ways-From-Sunday) Schumer haven’t chimed in for Kamala. They will, by God, get their convention free-for-all, though every bit of it will be scrupulously managed by the Big Dawgs. And out of that pandemonium will fly the indomitable Hillary, screeching, “Caw caw, abortion! Caw caw, Russia!” Could it work? No way. In a truly fair election, Hillary would be run over by the Trump-Vance convoy and left a bit of smoldering roadkill, drawing flies, a sad end to all that coruscating ambition.

Not to change the subject too abrubtly, but here goes...have you caught that little convo on YouTube between George Gammon and Robert Barnes on the Trump assassination attempt? Woo-wee, this one will rock your weltanschauung. Here it is in a nutshell: "The attempted rub-out at Butler, PA, (Mr. Barnes theorizes) was a NeverTrumper/blob/neo-con joint operation that was supposed to work as follows: Nikki Haley and Mike Pompeo, Deep Staters both, are on the outs with a GOP solidifying around Mr. Trump. Before the Milwaukee GOP Convention opens, they are chatting-up delegates in preparation for a kind of coup. The Butler, PA, op is timed before any nomination can occur. It’s (obviously) intended to eliminate the former president for once and for all and make sure there’s no veep candidate to step into his shoes. The blob then blames the Trump assassination on Iran, instantly conjuring up a fresh new war to distract the nation. The GOP Convention nominates war goddess Nikki for president and Pompeo for veep. The DC war party carries on in triumph. Fait accompli.

Notice, Mr. Barnes says, that CNN and other news networks that usually avoid broadcasting Trump rallies, are actually covering the Butler, PA, event live. They want all of America to see Donald Trump’s head explode like a Crenshaw melon on TV - sending the message: this is what happens to anyone who challenges the blob. Many other observers and investigators unconnected with the government are busy looking into the site forensics, lines of fire, shot acoustics, the strange facts around the alleged “shooter” (possibly patsy) Thomas Matthew Crooks, the stupendous failures of the Secret Service. A picture is resolving.

The old Sicilian adage goes, revenge is a dish best served cold. Surely, Mr. Trump knows a thing or two about what really went down July 17. His adversaries know he knows, and he knows they know he knows. Notice Mr. Trump is not jumping up and down going woo-woo-woo over all this. Rather, he’s sitting tight and calmly and holding his cards close to his chest. He will eventually be coming to settle accounts. So, you must suppose they’ll try again. Or figure out a way to postpone the election indefinitely. Nothing is beneath these fiends. Strangely - a lot of people have noticed - it seems that God is on our side. Stand by and keep your hats on."

- https://kunstler.com/

Jeremiah Babe, "No Surprise: Biden Out, Harris In"

Jeremiah Babe, 7/21/24

"No Surprise: Biden Out, Harris In"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Neil H, "To the Gateway of Eternity"

 

Neil H, "To the Gateway of Eternity"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Globular star cluster Omega Centauri, also known as NGC 5139, is some 15,000 light-years away. The cluster is packed with about 10 million stars much older than the Sun within a volume about 150 light-years in diameter. It's the largest and brightest of 200 or so known globular clusters that roam the halo of our Milky Way galaxy.

Though most star clusters consist of stars with the same age and composition, the enigmatic Omega Cen exhibits the presence of different stellar populations with a spread of ages and chemical abundances. In fact, Omega Cen may be the remnant core of a small galaxy merging with the Milky Way. Omega Centauri's red giant stars (with a yellowish hue) are easy to pick out in this sharp, color telescopic view."

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210603.html

The Poet: Margaret Atwood, "The Moment"

"The Moment"

"The moment when, after many years

of hard work and a long voyage

you stand in the center of your room,

house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,

knowing at last how you got there,

and say, I own this,

is the same moment when the trees unloose

their soft arms from around you,

the birds take back their language,

the cliffs fissure and collapse,

the air moves back from you like a wave

and you can't breathe.

No, they whisper. You own nothing.

You were a visitor, time after time

climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.

We never belonged to you.

You never found us.

It was always the other way round."

- Margaret Atwood

"Morning in the Burned House"

“The Farewell”

“The Farewell”

“Farewell to you and the youth I have spent with you.

It was but yesterday we met in a dream.

You have sung to me in my aloneness,

and I of your longings have built a tower in the sky.

But now our sleep has fled and our dream is over,

and it is no longer dawn.

The noontide is upon us and our half waking has turned to fuller day,

and we must part.

If in the twilight of memory we should meet once more,

we shall speak again together and you shall sing to me a deeper song.

And if our hands should meet in another dream

we shall build another tower in the sky.”

- Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet”

The Daily "Near You?"

Mesa, Arizona, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"The Truth...:

I've always believed you can handle the truth, given the chance...It may not be what you want to hear, but it is the truth to the best of my ability to determine. What if anything you do with it is of course up to you... - CP

"Lessons From The Unraveling Of The Roman Empire: Simplification, Localization"

"Lessons From The Unraveling Of The Roman Empire:

 Simplification, Localization"

The fragmentation, simplification and localization of the 

post-Imperial era offers us lessons we ignore at our peril.

by Charles Hugh Smith

"There is an entire industry devoted to "why the Roman Empire collapsed," but the post-collapse era may offer us higher value lessons. The post-collapse era, long written off as The Dark Ages, is better understood as a period of adaptation to changing conditions, specifically, the relocalization and simplification of the economy and governance.

As historian Chris Wickham has explained in his books "Medieval Europe" and "The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages 400-1000," the medieval era is best understood as a complex process of social, political and economic natural selection: while the Western Roman Empire unraveled, the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) continued on for almost 1,000 years after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and the social and political structures of the Western Roman Empire influenced Europe for hundreds of years.

In broad-brush, the Roman Empire was a highly centralized, tightly bound system that was remarkably adaptive despite its enormous size and the slow pace of transport and communication. Roman society was both highly hierarchical--the elites claimed superiority and worked hard to master the necessary tools of authority-- slaves were integral to the building and maintenance of Rome's vast infrastructure--and open to meritocracy, as the Roman Army and other classes were open to advancement by anyone in the sprawling empire: every free person became a Roman Citizen once their territory was absorbed into the Empire.

When the Empire fell apart, the model of centralized control/power continued on in the reigns of the so-called Barbarian kingdoms (Goths, Vandals, etc.) and Charlemagne (768-814), over 300 years after the fall of Rome. (When the Ottomans finally conquered Constantinople in 1453, they also adopted many of the bureaucratic structures of the Byzantine Empire.)

Over time, however, the feudal model of localized fiefdoms nominally loyal to a weak central monarchy replaced the centralized model of governance. This adaptation fit the highly fragmented nature of European societies in this era.

But centralized influence never went away. The Christian churches based in Rome and Constantinople continued to exert centralized influence in politically fragmented regions, and monarchies continued to exist, in various states of strength and weakness. The Holy Roman Empire--as Voltaire is reputed to have observed, "neither Holy, Roman or an Empire"--had an enormously complex history in Germany and the rest of Europe. The monarchies in England and France remained in place, and the city-states of northern Italy wielded influence via trade and shifting alliances.

In other words, the Medieval era was ultimately a complex competition between overlapping models of governance and sharing resources, a competition between centralized and localized (what Wickham calls "cellular") nodes of power and the various ways that rulers and those they ruled dealt with each other.

Throughout the era, the legitimacy of rulers ultimately flowed from public assemblies, a tradition inherited from Rome that manifested in aristocratic courts and the church's leadership (bishops, etc.) and eventually, in parliaments. This tension played out in the sharing of costs and resources and the general direction of the state.

As a general rule, when monarchs consolidated too much power, they engaged in catastrophically costly and doomed wars (The Hundred Years War) because they were able to override or ignore the cautious counsel of elite assemblies. Understood as a selective process of adapting to changing circumstances, this history offers us valuable lessons and templates for our future.

Once the centralized power of Rome fragmented, economic, social and political power simplified and relocalized. Trade volume shrank and trade routes vanished. Once the bureaucratic and military structures dictated by Rome collapsed, regions and localities were on their own.

Elites naturally sought out the best means to consolidate and expand their power, and residents (as a general rule, the peasantry and town-dwellers) sought to improve their own lives by reducing costs and securing access to resources.

The immense geographic, cultural, social and economic diversity of Europe was in effect freed to play out. This diversity is still evident; the European Union may have unified the European financial system, but cultural and social divisions have not dissolved.

Wickham distinguishes between two primary sources of income and wealth accessible to elites and governments: land and taxes. Collecting taxes requires an immense bureaucracy to identify and assess property owners, tenant farmers, merchants, collect duties on trade flows, etc. Taxes are the only reliable way to fund professional armies and the stupendous bureaucracy required to manage a complex centralized empire. The Byzantine Empire survived multiple rivals, invasions, etc. largely due to its competent tax collection bureaucracy, and European monarchies could only fund long, costly wars once they established tax collection bureaucracies.

Wealth from land--surplus skimmed from the labor of peasants--was adequate to fund highly localized nobility (many of which had one or two castles and a small fiefdom), but it wasn't reliable enough or large enough to support professional armies or vast centralized states.

How does this history offer a template for the next 20 years? I have long held that the dominant global forces binding the global economy are globalization and financialization. Both have greatly increased the income and wealth that nation-states can tax to fund their vast structures: military, social welfare, and bureaucracies of management, regulation and control.

I have also held that globalization and financialization became hyper-structures prone to over-extension and the diminishing returns of the S-Curve. (see chart below) Both have reversed and are now in decline, a decline that I anticipate will accelerate unpredictably and rapidly as each dynamic is centralized and tightly bound, meaning each subsystem is highly interconnected with other subsystems. Should one break, the entire system unravels.

Globalization may appear to be decentralized, but the vast majority of global trade and capital flows through a few centralized nodes, and many aspects of trade depend on a very small number of routes and suppliers. This makes global trade exquisitely sensitive to disruption should any critical supplier or node fail.

Financialization is equally centralized and tightly bound, to the absurd degree that obscure financial structures (reverse repos, etc.) can trigger cascading crises in the real-world economy.

I anticipate a global simplification of trade and finance as fragile hyper-structures collapse as the failure of subsystems cascade through the entire system. These systems have greatly accelerated extremes of wealth-income inequality by their very nature, and these vast distortions and imbalances are unsustainable. Also unsustainable is the immense expansion of the plundering of the planet's remaining resources via globalization and financialization. These dynamics will collapse under their own weight.

What will be left? Once the income and wealth that supported enormously costly nation-state governments contracts, central governments will no longer be able to fund their gargantuan systems. (States that attempt to fund their activities by printing money will only speed the collapse of their finances and thus their coherence.)

As in the post-Roman era, central authority may well continue, but its actual power and influence will be greatly reduced. Without expanding income and wealth to tax, the central state may attempt to extract most of the nation's surplus, but this stripmining of elites and commoners alike will trigger pushback and revolt.

A more sustainable response would be to offload most of the central government's financial burdens onto states, provinces, counties, etc., in effect pushing the impossible task of maintaining entitlements and promised spending on local entities.

Given the diversity of cultures, social values and economic dynamics in large nations and regions, we can anticipate a flowering of adaptations to these greatly reduced means. Some localities will favor increasing authoritarian controls, others will favor reducing authoritarian controls and ceding authority to the smallest units of public assembly.

Locales (shall we call them fiefdoms?) will divide naturally along geographic boundaries, just as fiefdoms in medieval Europe fell into natural boundaries shaped by rivers, valleys, mountain ranges, etc., and along economic and cultural borders.

This relocalization may manifest in the well-known forecasts of the US breaking into multiple regional states, or it might manifest as I suggest in a much-weakened but still influential central government ceding power to local political structures which may themselves fragment or form alliances with nearby entities with whom they share cultural and economic ties.

In other words, a churn of evolutionary adaptations can be expected. Just as there was no one post-Roman adaptation that worked equally well everywhere, we can expect there to be some adaptations of roughly equal success and many that are unsuccessful.

As individuals and households, we want to be located in successful adaptations that share our values and offer us agency, i.e. a say in public assemblies and the freedom to move and work as we see fit.

As I have outlined many times in the blog and in my books, locales that are highly dependent on long global supply chains and distant capital for their essentials will fare very poorly once those supply chains break and the capital dries up. Regions and locales that generate their own essentials (food, energy, metals, concrete, electronics, etc.), talent and capital are much more likely to generate enough resources to satisfy both local elites and the public.

As I explain in my book "Self-Reliance," we who have lived in the past 75 years of expanding production and consumption of Everything have lost touch with both the natural world that sustains us and the social and practical skills needed to endure and prosper in an era in which the engines of centralized power and wealth (globalization and financialization) decay and collapse.

Some locales will choose to foster relocalization and individual agency. Others will cling on to failing models of authoritarian control and globalization/financialization. Ironically, perhaps, the most successful regions will be prone to indulging in hubris and denial, just as the Roman elites, basking in their centuries of dominance, dismissed the "Barbarians" and clung to their delusions of grandeur even as their world fragmented around them. Those locales left behind by globalization and financialization may well offer much better opportunities for successful adaptation, relocalization and individual/household agency.

It is human nature to find reasons to dismiss the storm clouds on the horizon. We look around and find solace in the apparent strength of our institutions and economy, while ignoring their sobering dependence on unsustainable hyper-globalization and hyper-financialization.

The fragmentation, simplification and localization of the post-Imperial era offers us lessons we ignore at our peril. It's important to view these lessons not just as an academic abstraction but as a guide to your own decisions about what places are most conducive to your security and well-being. Not every locale will do equally well, and the culture of many places may not be a great match for your own values and goals. If you decide to move, sooner is better than later."

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

"They Are Saying..."

"When people pile up debts they will find difficult and perhaps even impossible to repay, they are saying several things at once. They are obviously saying that they want more than they can immediately afford. They are saying, less obviously, that their present wants are so important that, to satisfy them, it is worth some future difficulty. But in making that bargain they are implying that when the future difficulty arrives, they'll figure it out. They don't always do that." 

- Michael Lewis, "Boomerang"

"Dollar Tree Reports 700 Percent Price Hike On Thousands Of Different Products"

Full screen recommended.

Epic Economist, 7/21/24

"Dollar Tree Reports 700 Percent Price Hike 

On Thousands Of Different Products"

"If you shop for groceries at this retailer, chances are your food may have been contaminated by rats. Consumers have often criticized this chain for being dirty and disorganized, but many would never imagine that their food would be sitting next to dozens of dead mice.

Family Dollar is now paying a multimillion dollar fine for the absolutely disgusting conditions of its warehouses. The company was recently hit with a record $41.7 million fine for ignoring product safety standards after it sold thousands of items that had been stored with live, dead and decaying vermin, according to health officials.

The Justice Department actually described the penalty as "the largest-ever monetary criminal penalty in a food safety case". Hundreds of products have been discarded, while others have been recalled, which resulted in painful financial losses for the company. Rodent infestations, product recalls, and mass store closings have only accelerated the decay of this discount chain this year. But experts say these are just symptoms of a much bigger problem."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"How it Really Is"

 

Dan, I Allegedly, "Squatters Are Living in a Rite Aid - No Consequences"

"A Culture Of Criminality"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, AM 7/21/24

"Squatters Are Living in a Rite Aid - No Consequences"

"There are no consequences. Squatters have taken over a Rite Aid in New York. They have spray-painted the building and even set fire inside. No one is doing anything to stop them."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

Cash Jordan, 7/21/24

"NYC Gets Worse... Shoplifters Loot Lululemon"

"Shoplifters in NYC have found a new target in their war on the law abiding, and they're now looting lululemon's throughout NY and America because of the massive payday they get... when they resell the goods online."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

"The Squatters of Beverly Hills"

Adventures With Danno, "Dollar Tree, Pantry Filling Options!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures With Danno, AM 7/21/24

"Dollar Tree, Pantry Filling Options!"

In today's vlog, we are at Dollar Tree and checking out items that would be good to buy to fill up our pantries! We also come across some new food items they have. Get your notepad ready as you will want to take advantage of some of these items.

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Canadian Prepper, "Alert! A New Massive War Has Begun; Truth About The Global Cyber Outage"

Canadian Prepper, 7/20/24

"Alert! A New Massive War Has Begun; 

Truth About The Global Cyber Outage"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Jeremiah Babe, "You May Not Get A Paycheck This Month"

Jeremiah Babe, 7/20/24

"You May Not Get A Paycheck This Month, 

Debt Is The Greatest Danger To Fear"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Breathing Light"

Full screen recommended.

2002, "Breathing Light"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“The beautiful Trifid Nebula, also known as Messier 20, is easy to find with a small telescope in the nebula rich constellation Sagittarius. About 5,000 light-years away, the colorful study in cosmic contrasts shares this well-composed, nearly 1 degree wide field with open star cluster Messier 21 (top right).

Trisected by dust lanes the Trifid itself is about 40 light-years across and a mere 300,000 years old. That makes it one of the youngest star forming regions in our sky, with newborn and embryonic stars embedded in its natal dust and gas clouds. Estimates of the distance to open star cluster M21 are similar to M20's, but though they share this gorgeous telescopic skyscape there is no apparent connection between the two. In fact, M21's stars are much older, about 8 million years old.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140828.html

Chet Raymo, “The Sound And Fury”

“The Sound And Fury”

by Chet Raymo

“Not so long ago, I mentioned here Himmler and Heydrich, two of Hitler's most terrible henchmen. A friend said to me: "If there's no afterlife, no heaven or hell, then those two diabolical creatures got away with it. Their fate was no different than that of any one of their victims, an innocent child perhaps." And, yes, if there is no God who dispenses final justice, then we are left with an aching feeling of irresolution, of virtue unrewarded, of vice unpunished. Heydrich was gunned down by partisan assassins, and Himmler committed suicide a few hours before his inevitable capture, both fates arguably less tragic than that of their victims. How much more satisfying to think that the two mass murderers will spend an eternity in hell, while their victims find bliss.

This may not be a logically consistent argument for the existence of God, but it is certainly compelling. My friend says: "If there's no afterlife, then it's all sound and fury, signifying nothing. Of course, this emotive argument for the existence of God is balanced by another argument against his existence – the problem of evil: How can a just and loving God allow the existence of a Himmler or Heydrich in the first place. Here the argument is not just emotional, but consists of a thorny contradiction.

It comes down, essentially, to head vs. heart - what we would like to be true with all of our heart, vs. what our head tells us is an unresolvable conundrum. So each of us decides: To follow our hearts and make the blind leap of faith, or to follow our heads and learn to live with the sound and the fury. For those of us who choose the second alternative, the relevant words are that distressing coda, "signifying nothing." Our task is one of signification, of finding a satisfying meaning this side of the grave.

For many of us, that means finding our place in the great cosmic unfolding, and of recognizing that our lives are not inconsequential, that by being here we jigger the trajectory of the universe in some way, no matter how small, and preferably for the good and just. Yes, we make a leap of faith too, I suppose - that love, justice, and creativity are virtues worth living for- but at least it is a leap of faith that is not into the unknown, does not embody logical contradiction, and is consistent with what we know to be true, or at least as true as we can make it.”

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

"When One Cannot Be Sure..."

"When one cannot be sure that there are many days left, each single day becomes as important as a year, and one does not waste an hour in wishing that that hour were longer, but simply fills it, like a smaller cup, as high as it will go without spilling over."

- Natalie Kusz

"None Of You Seem To Understand..."

“A person who has not been completely alienated, who has remained sensitive and able to feel, who has not lost the sense of dignity, who is not yet ‘for sale’, who can still suffer over the suffering of others, who has not acquired fully the having mode of existence – briefly, a person who has remained a person and not become a thing – cannot help feeling lonely, powerless, isolated in present-day society. He cannot help doubting himself and his own convictions, if not his sanity.” - Erich Fromm

"I often question my sanity. Occasionally, it replies."

 - Darynda Jones

"Never..."

“Never has our future been more unpredictable, never have we depended so much on political forces that cannot be trusted to follow the rules of common sense and self-interest - forces that look like sheer insanity, if judged by the standards of other centuries.”

 - Hannah Arendt, "The Origins of Totalitarianism"

○

Freely download "The Origins of Totalitarianism" here:

- https://cheirif.files.wordpress.com/

"Death in the Afternoon"

"Death in the Afternoon"

by Joel Bowman

"To be immortal is commonplace; except for man, 

all creatures are immortal, for they are ignorant of death; 

what is divine, terrible, incomprehensible, is to know that one is mortal."

~ Jorge Luis Borges

"Everything is illuminated against its opposite; truth against fallacy; light against darkness; life against death. And who would have it any other way, even if they could? What would life on this mortal coil be, for instance, without the eternity of its terminally mysterious counterpoint?

If there exists a perfect setting for these and associated meditations, it must surely be the magnificent Recoleta Cemetery, located right here in Buenos Aires. On any given weekend, this sacred resting place for thousands of the city’s most famous – and infamous – people is found to be one of the liveliest places in town. Notable interments include a who’s-who list of Argentine writers, painters, poets, musicians, scientists and luminaries from other noble fields of interest. And, because nothing, including death, is beyond the law of equilibrium, a handful of politicians also rot underfoot.

Tourists pour in to adorn Maria Eva Duarte de Perón’s grave with flowers, for instance, bypassing the resting place of a Nobel Prize-winning chemist and a dozen honest writers to do so. Other, temporary attendees pose with Colgate smiles to have their picture taken beside weeping cement angels, frozen, as they are, in a state of perpetual sorrow. Young boys give the “peace” symbol next to the generals’ tombs whose armies laid to waste to tens of thousands of men, not much older than they, the bodies of whom are long forgotten, their makeshift graves unmarked.

Nowhere does irony live a fuller life than in a cemetery. Walking among the deceased, reading bookend dates on the bronze plaques, one is reminded of the finite nature of all things; organisms, currencies, political regimes, class structures. When the cemetery was constructed, back in 1822, it must have been a good ride from the exclusive barrios of San Telmo and Montserrat. The rich probably wouldn’t have been caught dead around the grounds of the Monks of the Order of the Recoletos, nor near the shabby, patchwork graveyard that was built there the same year the group disbanded.

Half a century later - and with Argentina still reeling from the War of the Triple Alliance and its own, subsequent civil war - a yellow fever epidemic tore through the capital city. Its wealthier, southern quarters were among the worst hit areas. Death toll estimates range from thirteen to twenty-five thousand. The clase alta packed up and moved north, largely into and around the Recoleta barrio. As such, the marbled vaults came to be populated with members of this same aristocracia, who, though they escaped the fever, came to rest here eventually just the same.

Today, you could buy an entire building in San Telmo for the same price as some of the finely appointed homes in Recoleta. An entire block in Montserrat might go for half that much.

And so it goes. People die…cities and empires crumble to the ground…and time, indifferent to the fleeting anguishes and triumphs of men, presses on.

At the turn of the 20th century, Argentina was ranked as the 8th most prosperous nation on earth. Only Belgium, Switzerland, Britain and a handful of former English colonies - including the United States – were more favorably positioned, economically. In 1913, Argentina’s bustling, cosmopolitan capital, Buenos Aires, had the thirteenth highest per capita telephone penetration rate in the world. Her per capita income was, around this time, 50% higher than in Italy, almost twice that of Japan and five times greater than its northern neighbor, Brazil. Argentina’s industry churned out quality textiles and leading edge, refrigerated shipping containers carried her prized beef, first introduced in 1536 by the Spanish Conquistadors, from the fertile plains of the pampas to the farthest reaches of the known world.

As the century wore on, protectionist policies at home and increased competition from the export-led, post-WWII economies – particularly from Japan and Italy – undermined Argentina’s international advantage. From 1900 through to the beginning of the new millennium, Argentina’s real GDP per person grew at a rate of 1.88% per year. Brazil outpaced her handily, clocking a 2.39% annualized growth rate. Japan, starting with a real GDP per person of just over $1,500 (2006 dollars) at the turn of the twentieth century, grew an average of 2.76% per year. By the middle of last decade, Japan’s real GDP per person had doubled that of Argentina. By 2020, it was more than quadruple.

The phenomenon is so conspicuous, the local Argentines even have a joke for it. “There are four types of countries in the world,” they lament. “First world. Third world. Japan, where nobody can figure out how they did so much with so little. And Argentina, where nobody can figure out how we did so little with so much.”

War, currency debasement, civil unrest, military rule and the catalyzing agent of political aspiration, harbored by the equally corrupt and inept, all conspired to stultify this once-proud nation’s potential. The great Argentine poet and essayist, Jorge Luis Borges, described one such retarding factor with characteristic flare and wit: “The Falklands thing was a fight between two bald men over a comb.”

On a comfortable Sunday afternoon in late February, an elderly group of well-dressed gentlemen met at their favorite restaurant, right by the gate to the Recoleta Cemetery, for lunch. They took a table outside, one in the shade and with a view of the passing foot traffic. The waiters, having brought the regulars the same thing, more or less, every Sunday for as long as they could remember, immediately set about filling their table. There was bife de lomo and chorizo sausages, mozzarella and buffalo tomatoes and papas fritas by the pile. Rich, Argentine Malbecs and Cabernets flowed freely and the merriment of the group soon became infectious. They flirted with the pretty waitresses and joked with patrons at the nearby tables.

After more than a few bottles, one of the gentlemen got chatting with an Australian editor of no particular importance. “I am a judge here,” he eventually told the younger man. “My friends and I have seen it all in this city…riots, economic crises, war, people’s entire life savings wiped out overnight.”

One of his friends lent over and placed a knowing hand on the judge’s shoulder. “Today, we enjoy the moment,” he said to his lifelong friend, before adding, one long finger pointed over the cemetery wall, “because tomorrow…ha ha…well, you know our next stop old man.” And the table erupted in laughter, as the sun set over the angel’s heads in the background.

Cheers,"

- bonnerprivateresearch@substack.com

The Daily "Near You?"

Oaxaca, Mexico. Thanks for stopping by!

"Every Normal Man..."

"Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands,

hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats."

 - H. L. Mencken

"The War Can Only End With More War"

"The War Can Only End With More War"

by The Good Citizen

"The tragedy of modern war is that the young men die fighting

 each other – instead of their real enemies back home in the capitals.” 

- Edward Abbey

"The youngbloods cry out with screams of mercy while prone in the sunflower fields of Lugansk. “The Cauldron is forming and soon we’ll be surrounded! When does it end!?” The big blue sky above ignores them. A nearby Azov officer hears them ask to surrender. Two by two the screamers get taken to the shallow side of a slope and shot in the back of the head. Final thoughts while gazing out to the horizon to take in their last breath: my death is happening because it was entirely preventable.

The entirely preventable war can only end with more war. The entirely preventable deaths can only end with more death. NATO’s orders. It was always going to end the way we know it will end. With more war.

The only thing they’re trying to prevent now is any narrative that undermines their aims to prevent it from ending. They say World War One was fought for reasons nobody really knows. The death and devastation were so unfathomable, so inconceivable, it was to be the war to end all wars. As long as people believe only war can end wars, then the war will only end with more war.

This war is being fought for reasons nobody with a functioning brain really believes. Democracy? Freedom? Insert all the laughing, crying, rolling on the muddy death fields of Ukraine emojis in the digital universe, plus all the facepalms, and pregnant men facepalms.

Forget the Nazis, the Oligarchs, the cocaine comic, the NATO clowns, the American empire war complex, the district of corruption, the demented diapered one, the EU tyrants begging for economic and energy catastrophes a la carte.

They all stand to gain from the blood of young Ukrainians, from their sacrifice for a set of conditions that were never going to be met even when all the world knew it before a single shot was fired. They played Russian roulette with a country and most people celebrating its sacrifice for global evil can’t point to it on a map. They all cry out in unison like one mindless drone across the earth: “Keep dying youngbloods! The war will only end with more war!”

Now we can see the wave rising at the border of Poland and Ukraine, on the horizon set for a prearranged destiny that nobody wants besides those with nothing to risk. All their instruments of war crossing the border will ensure that the war will surely end with more war.

You can see the wave of youngbloods across the muddy fields. They wore their boots out running for the Oligarchs safely in London. They were there in late February, forced to stay and fight. The young men in cheap nylon ski jackets, trapped in their national prison, kicked off the trains, stopped at the borders, told to go and die for the Oligarchs safely on their yachts in Monaco.

“Putin is evil young man, don’t you know that?” The youngbloods nod in agreement and move their gaze toward the ground utterly disgusted with themselves for nodding and not asking, “Why?”

The baby-faced boys of Kyiv fresh from their gaming chairs and Uber Eats delivery routes. Once giddily bouncing from school classes to casual conversations at cafes that young people have. A rifle stuffed into their hands, three days of performative training, and a swift shove to the meat grinders. Forcibly conscripted into the NATO death machine.

The war must continue and will only end with more war. Five hundred million for more war. Seven hundred million. Do I hear eight hundred million? Do I hear nine hundred? 44 billion?

There’s money to wash through the national laundering operations pouring forth from the U.S. Department of treasury like a fire hose plugged into the central bank of the fourth most corrupt country on earth. Too many pockets need lining before the youngbloods can be called back home from the fronts.

All wars really end with a negotiated peace. Not this one. The word peace is forbidden. So is the word diplomacy.

Even when Russia has mopped up the final villages for liberation in the Donbas and taken Odessa in the south, and the final Ukrainian Nazis are rounded up for trials and detention and a decade henceforth after all regions are flying the Trikolor flag, the Americans will be finding more weapons to send and demanding the comic find more youngbloods to sacrifice.

Their mothers and sisters sit in Polish and German refugee shelters, waiting for news. That dreaded news that no mother ever wants. It’s the waiting that’s most painful. The mothers know the Oligarchs agreed to the war. And the mothers know that western powers created the war. And the mothers know that the cocaine comic who ran on a peace mandate acquiesced to the war before showing his bloody fangs to the parliaments of the world begging for more weapons of war and more money and more cocaine and claimed “democracy” was at stake, as he was told.

And the mothers know it will be their sons who die for the Oligarchs, the western war powers, and the cocaine comic. They all dreamed of riches that could be justified by making Russia suffer and turning half of Ukraine into a post-apocalyptic hellscape. The mothers know their sons will be the ones to make their dreams come true.

And if they don’t know all this now, they will know it very soon one day after they get that call. And start asking questions. Why did my son have to die for this? Didn’t his dreams ever matter? How about my dreams for him?

It’s been two years in the fields, on the trucks, in the bombed-out concrete ruins of old brutalist apartment blocks, now gone forever. The only silver lining of the war. Thousands of youngbloods are already dead. (600,000 dead Ukrainian troops, 80,000 dead Russians.)

The living youngbloods are skinny, thirsty, tired. Their boots are worn down at the toes and heels. They haven’t showered for weeks. An American colonel yells orders at them with a southern drawl they can barely understand.

Soon the war will heat up. The eastern cauldrons will form. The Russians will surround them. The supply lines will grow thin and then stop and even with no water, food, or ammunition left to fight, the commands will come over the radios to the youngbloods of Ukraine, “The war will only end, with more war. Hold your positions.”

And the youngbloods who were conscripted into the NATO-CIA meat grinder will one day find themselves on some godforsaken pile of unfarmed dirt. They will look to their right flank and see Nazi hooligans that bullied and beat them at school and threatened to shoot them in the back if they deserted. Then to their left flank and see the pink flicking uvula of a screaming American Colonel they cannot comprehend, and in that moment of chaos and confusion and inevitable madness that they were forced into, they will grab their unloaded rifles and charge the Russian line.

A newfound burst of energy propels their skinny legs forward directly to the phalanx of Chechen warriors, eager to get their bayonets into Azov hearts. The youngbloods are racing, they’re in it, they’re moving now, they’re getting there. They haven’t felt more alive since they were told to die.

Their faces light up with smiles as they confront the inevitable, which finally makes sense as they meet it on their own terms, in their own way. As they hear the first cracks of Russian bullets overhead they turn to one another with the only sane weapon they have left and burst out in fits of raucous laughter. As youngbloods do."

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

"No Smooth Road; Benedicto"

"Life has no smooth road for any of us; and in the bracing atmosphere

of a high aim the very roughness stimulates the climber to steadier steps,

till the legend, over steep ways to the stars, fulfills itself."

- W. C. Doane

o

"Benedicto"

"May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets' towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl, through miasmal and mysterious swamps and down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs, where deer walk across the white sand beaches, where storms come and go as lightning clangs upon the high crags, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you - beyond that next turning of the canyon walls."

- Edward Abbey