The Poet: T.S. Eliot, "The Hollow Men"

"The Hollow Men" (read by Tom O'Bedlam)

"My Favorite Poem"

by Craig Boehman

"I’ve been experimenting with several of the AI platforms, attempting to learn all that I can about how the systems work and how to produce the best images from the prompts that I provide. My favorite platform is Midjourney, which is what I used to create the images for this poem. It’s a relatively straight-forward process over all, but there is a bit of learning when it comes to some of the finer aspects of telling AI exactly what it is that you want. Whether then AI can actually provide you with your desired results is another issue altogether, as I’ve discovered first-hand over the past week. 

Which brings me to "The Hollow Men" by T.S. Eliot, my favorite poem. I thought what better way to put Midjourney’s AI to the test? Surely, not even artificial intelligence can handle all of Eliot’s lines in a cohesive manner. I found this to be true. But in some cases, the visuals came pretty close to matching a visual interpretation of the lines. I’ll let you be the judge though. 

For each of the images below, the corresponding lines from the poem were fed into the bot as prompts, exactly as written, no other commands given except to make the images all in a 3:2 ratio. Other than that, you’re seeing only the results from Eliot’s own words."

- https://craigboehman.com/blog/

"The Hollow Men"

I

We are the hollow men,

We are the stuffed men,

Leaning together,

Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

Our dried voices, when

We whisper together

Are quiet and meaningless,

As wind in dry grass,

Or rats’ feet over broken glass

In our dry cellar.

Shape without form, shade without color.

Paralyzed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed

With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom,

Remember us - if at all - not as lost

Violent souls, but only

As the hollow men.

The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams

In death’s dream kingdom,

These do not appear:

There, the eyes are

Sunlight on a broken column

There, is a tree swinging,

And voices are

In the wind’s singing,

More distant and more solemn

Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer

In death’s dream kingdom.

Let me also wear

Such deliberate disguises

Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves

In a field,

Behaving as the wind behaves

No nearer -

Not that final meeting

In the twilight kingdom.

III

This is the dead land,

This is cactus land.

Here the stone images

Are raised, here they receive

The supplication of a dead man’s hand

Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this

In death’s other kingdom,

Waking alone,

At the hour when we are

Trembling with tenderness,

Lips that would kiss

Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here,

There are no eyes here

In this valley of dying stars,

In this hollow valley,

This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms.

In this last of meeting places

We grope together

And avoid speech,

Gathered on this beach of the tumid river.

Sightless, unless

The eyes reappear

As the perpetual starm

Multifoliate rose

Of death’s twilight kingdom,

The hope only

Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear,

Prickly pear prickly pear,

Here we go round the prickly pear,

At five o’clock in the morning.

Between the idea

And the reality,

Between the motion

And the act

Falls the Shadow.

                                                                                      For Thine is the Kingdom.

Between the conception

And the creation,

Between the emotion

And the response,

Falls the Shadow

                                                                          Life is very long.

Between the desire

And the spasm,

Between the potency

And the existence,

Between the essence

And the descent,

Falls the Shadow.

                                                                                              For Thine is the Kingdom.

For Thine is,

Life is

For Thine is the...

This is the way the world ends,

This is the way the world ends,

This is the way the world ends,

Not with a bang but a whimper."

- T. S. Eliot

"Societal Collapse"

"Societal Collapse"

by The ZMan

"Most people think of societal collapse as something like a zombie apocalypse where everything suddenly stops working. Instead of people turning into brain eating zombies, they stop going to work. The “system” collapses, so everyone just stops doing what they normally do all of a sudden. The next day, people divide up into gangs and begin to guard their turf using what is left of modern weapons. Life quickly returns to a hunter-gatherer existence with modern clothes.

This image of collapse is a powerful one. Google the phrase “United States collapse” or some version of it and you get results going back many years. Most of them start with economics but some start with culture. Right now, the people we call the Left for some reason think America is on the verge of collapse because they cannot force people to nod along with their weird morality. Many normal people think collapse is coming because they see the food bill every week.

Of course, there is a market for taking the contrary view. This is a popular gag for internet characters on what we continue to call the Right. They counter the claims from their fellow anti-leftists with arguments for why the “founding principals” will prevail and avoid societal collapse. Maybe they will point out that the magic of the free market has conquered communism, so it will conquer whatever is happening now. It is a form of strategic gainsaying to get attention.

The thing is societal collapse is a real thing that does happen just as civil wars, revolutions, wars and social upheavals are real things. Thirty years ago, the Soviet Union collapsed and we got to watch lots of it on television. When people suddenly realized that the guards were not going to shoot them if they tried to escape to the West, it did not take long before order broke down. Once the process started, there was no way to stop it and the system collapsed.

The thing is it did not happen overnight. The collapse actually started much earlier but people did not notice it. Little things stopped working. For example, people in Hungary began to notice that the border to Austria was not always guarded. Maybe the guards were there and ignored their duty or they just abandoned their post. Over time the border was not much of a border. Similar breakdowns of small systems became common over the course of the 1980’s.

Of course, the collapse of the Soviet Union did not send these societies back to the stone age either. Politics became increasingly chaotic. Law and order broke down to the point where criminal gangs were imposing their will on whole cities, because the police no longer had the ability or desire to stop them. The people got poorer in many small ways, but mostly in the breakdown of trust. They could not rely on the system, so they slowly abandoned it for alternatives.

We do not think of social trust as a part of the poverty equation, but in realty it is the key component of social happiness. High trust societies may not have unlimited consumer goods, but the people trust the system, because they trust one another. This allows for long term planning. Africa will never be rich, despite having massive natural resources, because social trust is near zero. Finland will never be poor because the Finns can count on their fellow Finns to always be Finnish.

Social collapse, like war and revolution, will reflect the material relations of the age because those reflect the resources of society. Revolution in the 18th century was peasants with pitchforks, because that is how you can revolt in an agrarian society operating under feudal rules. In the 19th century revolution was workers hurling homemade bombs and shooting at the authorities, because that is how you can stage a revolt in an industrial urban society.

This is the information age, so revolution will reflect the weapons we choose to use in this age, which will be money and knowledge. Money in all of its forms is a type of information that says things about the general state of affairs. In completely financialized societies like the West, money is the big weapon. It is also other information, like the government hiring clowns and carnies to nudge people in the “right direction” during the Covid panic.

The great tumult in the West over the last decade has been centered on the things that are important in the information age. The rise of a new group of oligarchs was made possible by the technological revolution. Just as agrarian people measured wealth in land and industrial people measured wealth in capital, technological people measure wealth in control of information flows. The reason Mark Zuckerberg is richer than Bill Gates is he controls something more valuable than PC’s.

Societal collapse in the information age will, at least at the beginning, reflect the socioeconomic relations of the age. Trust in what we are told by the media has collapsed, because it is easier to see the lying than in prior ages. In 1985 you could think the New York Times was biased, but predictably so. Today, you cannot trust anything they say because it is false in unpredictable ways. Trust in the media has collapsed because their information is chaotically false.

The slow collapse of trust in our information is spreading. We used to think that the courts were predictable, if not always fair. Poor people might not get the same justice as rich people, but the reason was understood. If you could afford a competent lawyer, he would get the most from the system for you. Today, no one knows what the hell will happen in a courtroom. Alex Jones got fined a billion dollars because the regime supporters are still salty about the 2016 election.

Of course, trust in government is collapsing not because they do not fix the streets or make the buses run on time. Trust is falling because they lie. It is not about politicians lying, which is expected and predictable. It is the government itself. For example, they appear to be faking key economic data. Their inflation numbers are laughable as anyone who buys food will tell you. They also like to change the meaning of words, which puts an Orwellian spin on the lying.

Getting back to the topic of collapse, what happens in the information age when no one trusts the information? In a world where your bank may close down your account because they claim you hold the wrong opinions; how can you trust them to be straight about anything else? If the government is faking economic data, how can we trust anything else they are doing? When the people responsible for 100% of disinformation claim to be fighting disinformation, who can we trust?

When the Soviet system began to collapse, it was the symbols of its power that first came under pressure. When people stopped fearing the border guard, they slowly stopped fearing the system behind it. The same will be true in this age. When people stop trusting the information that runs this world, they will slowly begin to stop trusting the system behind it. It is at that point the system begins to slowly unravel as alternative trust networks form up to fill the void.

The bottom line is those waiting for collapse are mistaken. It is not a thing that is looming over the horizon. It is a thing that is happening now. Every day there is a new reminder that the system cannot be trusted. Maybe it is ten dollar gas in Germany or skyrocketing food prices in England and America or demonstrably false claims from the drug makers with regards to the Covid jab. These things chip away at trust in the system and like the game of Jenga, the result is inevitable."

- https://thezman.com/

○

Related:

Jared Diamond, 

"Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed"

○

Joseph Tainter, 

"The Dynamics of the Collapse of Human Civilization"

"Mundus Vult Decipi, Ergo Decipiatur"

"Mundus Vult Decipi, Ergo Decipiatur"

"Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur," a Latin phrase, means "The world wants to be deceived, so let it be deceived." The saying is ascribed to Petronius, a Roman satirist from the first century, CE. "The pontifex maximus Scævola thought it expedient that the people should be deceived in religion; and the learned Varro said plainly, that "There are many truths, which it is useless for the vulgar to know; and many falsities which it is fit the people should not suppose are falsities." Hence comes the adage "Mundus vult decipi, decipiatur ergo."

"Mr. Biden's War"

"Mr. Biden's War"

by Joel Bowman

"Yeah, some folks inherit star-spangled eyes

Ooh, they send you down to war, Lord

And when you ask 'em, "How much should we give?"

Ooh, they only answer, "More, more, more, more!"

~ "Fortunate Son," by Creedence Clearwater Revival (1969)

Buenos Aires, Argentina - "Speaking of the End of the World... has anybody checked Joe Biden’s meds recently? (Or Hunter Biden’s cocaine stash?) Apparently not content with having detonated his own political party at home, the Warmonger In Chief now appears bent on dragging the whole world to the brink of nuclear annihilation before he shuffles from the Oval Office in a couple of months.

From NATO’s newswire of choice, Reuters: "WASHINGTON - President Joe Biden's administration has allowed Ukraine to use U.S.-made weapons to strike deep into Russia, two U.S. officials and a source familiar with the decision said on Sunday, in a significant reversal of Washington's policy in the Ukraine-Russia conflict. Ukraine plans to conduct its first long-range attacks in the coming days, the sources said, without revealing details due to operational security concerns."

Headless Chickenhawks: Mere hours after Washington gave the green light, those missiles lit up the eastern skies, blasting deep into Russian territory. They included U.S.-made long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) and, as of yesterday, British-made Storm Shadow cruise missiles.

Who said ol’ Joe Reaper can’t still “get ‘er done”? This is a man, after all, whose career lowlights include goading the US Senate into funding the quagmire in Iraq, as well as supporting bombing campaigns in Serbia and Montenegro and, as Vice President, strikes in both Libya and Syria. Yessir, with millions of corpses piled high on his bloodstained resumé, Biden’s is the kind of foreign policy record that should be hung alongside those of the Clintons, Bushes, Obamas and Cheneys, et al. Hang ‘em good and hang ‘em high, we say.

But wait, there’s more! It’s not only supersonic ballistic missiles on the outgoing President’s Christmas list. He also approved the Ukraine’s use of anti-personnel landmines (which the US just happens to have lying around in convenient stockpiles), a move that has drawn sharp criticism from international human rights organizations. Remarked Ben Linden, a top official with Amnesty International USA: “It is devastating, and frankly shocking, that President Biden made such a consequential and dangerous decision just before his public service legacy is sealed for the history books.”

Added Hichem Khadhraoui, executive director of the Center for Civilians in Conflict advocacy group: “Anti-personnel landmines are indiscriminate weapons that kill and maim civilians, and especially children, for generations after wars end. These weapons cannot distinguish between civilians and combatants as required by international humanitarian law.”

Alas, Washington’s appetite for war at all (Ukrainian) costs comes precisely as Ukrainians themselves – you know, those warm, dismembered bodies bleeding out on the front lines – express their human, all too human desire for the war to end. This, from Responsible Statecraft: "A new Gallup study indicates that most Ukrainians want the war with Russia to end. After more than two years of fighting, 52% of those polled indicated that they would prefer a negotiated peace rather than continuing to fight. Throughout the country, Kyiv polled the highest in support of a continued fight with Russia at 47%, and the eastern regions of Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, and Zaporizhzhya all polled just 27% in support. Every region in the country polled below 50%."

Never mind what the Ukrainians themselves want, Mr. Biden and his soulless ghouls howl. It’s ours to decide… and theirs to die! For when soldiers in far away lands and wailing mothers clenching brave sons’ hands dare ask, “How much should we give?” the answer from the beltway chickenhawks is always and forever the same: “More, more, more, more!”

Cui Bono? Of course, there’s always more to the story than meets the eye. The curious mind might be left to wonder, for example... Why would an outgoing US president, one who was obliged to withdraw his own candidacy for reelection owing to demonstrable cognitive impairment, seek to escalate a conflict in a far off land that poses zero security risk to his own nation?

Why would a man who can barely find his own mouth with a plastic spoon approve such ghastly weapons, which stand in direct contravention to international humanitarian laws, to do so? And perhaps above all, as the famous Roman judge Lucius Cassius was fond of asking, “Cui bono?” That is, “who benefits” from the protracted conflict... and from repeatedly dodging the negotiating table? Ah, now the saw draws closer to the bone.

In the days immediately following the US election earlier this month, news crept across the wires that must have chilled NATO’s blood-lusting desk warriors to their cold, dark hearts. Putin was (once again) ready to pursue peace talks, on the radically reasonable condition that US-led NATO withdraw its ballistic missiles from Moscow’s doorstep and allow the Ukraine to remain a neutral zone.

Reuters again: "MOSCOW, Nov 20 - Vladimir Putin is open to discussing a Ukraine ceasefire deal with Donald Trump but rules out making any major territorial concessions and insists Kyiv abandon ambitions to join NATO, five sources with knowledge of Kremlin thinking told Reuters. The news came after Donald Trump pledged throughout his campaign to swiftly end the conflict “on day one” of his presidency, an outcome that must keep Biden’s Deep State puppeteers in cold sweats each and every night."

Nothing Else Matters: So here we are, 1,000 days into the gruesome war, with an estimated 600,000 Ukrainians dead, millions injured, and countless millions displaced, never to return to their razed homeland, and the rabid maw of America’s Military Industrial Complex is not yet sated.

But where, our dear readers might be asking, is the so-called “anti-war left” in all this? Where are the Forest Gump-like scenes of mass protests lining the National Mall in DC? Where are the peaceniks with their “No Nukes” signs, blasting Dylan and Creedence Clearwater Revival from the rattling speakers of dad’s smoke-filled station wagon?

It goes without saying that the Deep State goons and their invertebrate minions in the Legacy Media want nothing more than for Homo Credulous to remain distracted by divisive bread and circuses at home while they dig another million shallow graves in distant lands. As long as the Offense Contractors in Bethesda and McClean and Falls Church have order books to fill, government marionettes will always find villains in need of “shock and awe” campaigns afar.

But regardless of whether you voted Republican or Democrat (or not at all!) in the last election, whether you think boys should be allowed in girl’s locker rooms or whether Trump really is a fascist after all, just remember:

Gender neutral pronouns don’t matter...

Just Stop Oil doesn’t matter...

Kellogg's Froot Loops don’t matter...

Non-farm payrolls don’t matter...

Vaccine mandates don’t matter...

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) doesn’t matter...

Trade wars with China don’t matter...

Crypto “to the moon” doesn’t matter...

12 million illegal immigrants don’t matter...

My body, my choice doesn’t matter...

Dow 50,000 doesn’t matter...

Make America Great Again doesn’t matter...

Fed policy doesn’t matter...

The Greatest Political Experiment of Our Time doesn’t matter…

$36 trillion in national debt doesn’t matter...

Building a single new pediatric hospital anywhere on the planet doesn’t matter...

if we are all vaporized in a nuclear armageddon.

End the war. Stop the killing. Peace in our time. Now pass it on…"

 - https://joelbowman.substack.com/

CCR, "Fortunate Son"

The Daily "Near You?"

Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Thanks for stopping by!

Never Fair..."

"Life is never fair,

and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not."

- Oscar Wilde

"Simple Rules To Be Happy"

"Simple Rules To Be Happy"

by Insatiable Curiosity

"A 92-year-old man, small, very proud, dressed and clean-shaven, with his hair perfectly combed, moves into a nursing home one morning at 8:00. His 70-year-old wife has recently passed away, forcing him to leave his home. After several hours of waiting in the nursing home lobby, he smiles kindly when we tell him his room is ready.

As he walks to the elevator with his walker, I give him a description of his small room, including the drape hanging from his window as a curtain. "I like it a lot," he says with the enthusiasm of an 8-year-old boy who has just received a new puppy. "Mr. Vinto, you haven't seen the room yet, wait a minute."

"That has nothing to do with it," he says. "Happiness is something I choose in advance. Whether I like my room or not does not depend on the furniture or the decorations - it depends on how I perceive it. In my head it is already decided that I like my room. It is a decision I make every morning when I wake up. I can choose, I can spend the day in bed counting the difficulties I have with the parts of my body that do not work, or get up and thank the heavens for the ones that still work. Every day is a gift and as long as I can open my eyes, I will focus on the new day and on all the happy memories I have collected throughout my life. Old age is like a bank account. You withdraw from what you have accumulated."

So, my advice to you would be to deposit a lot of happiness in your bank account of memories. Thank you for participating in filling my bank account, where I continue to deposit. Remember these simple rules to be happy:

1. Free your heart from hate.

2. Free your head from worries.

3. Live simply.

4. Give more.

5. Expect less."

- https://insatiablecuriosityscorner.quora.com/

"The Trick..."

The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable,

or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same.

- Carlos Castaneda

Gregory Mannarino, "The US/World Economic Collapse Is Worsening Faster And There Is No Way To Stop It!"

Gregory Mannarino, 11/21/24

"The US/World Economic Collapse Is Worsening Faster 

And There Is No Way To Stop It!"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

'How It Really Is"

"Dear Child II"

Full horrifying screen recommended.

Chris Hedges, "Dear Child II"

"Written as a letter to a child in Gaza, the film takes the audience on a haunting & realistic journey through Gaza today from a child’s perspective imbued with guilt of a foreign journalist. Stylish, artistic, horrifying, yet hopeful that we can do better. We must."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Mankind's Favorite Pastime..."

Full screen recommended.

Steve Cutts, "A Brief Disagreement"

"A visual journey into mankind's 

favorite pastime throughout the ages."

"Since the rise of the state some 5,000 years ago, military activity has occurred over much of the globe. The advent of gunpowder and the acceleration of technological advances led to modern warfare. According to Conway W. Henderson, "One source claims that 14,500 wars have taken place between 3500 BC and the late 20th century, costing 3.5 billion lives, leaving only 300 years of peace (Beer 1981: 20).] An unfavorable review of this estimate mentions the following regarding one of the proponents of this estimate: "In addition, perhaps feeling that the war casualties figure was improbably high, he changed 'approximately 3,640,000,000 human beings have been killed by war or the diseases produced by war' to 'approximately 1,240,000,000 human beings...'" The lower figure is more plausible but could still be on the high side considering that the 100 deadliest acts of mass violence between 480 BC and 2002 AD (wars and other man-made disasters with at least 300,000 and up to 66 million victims) claimed about 455 million human lives in total."

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War

"It would indeed be a tragedy if the history of the human

 race proved to be nothing more than the story of an

ape playing with a box of matches on a petrol dump." 

- David Ormsby-Gore

Bill Bonner, "Gasoline and Matches"

"Gasoline and Matches"

War is not necessarily certain. And certainly not necessary.

 But like drugs and adultery, it never quite goes out of style. 

Instead, it goes around and comes around.

by Bill Bonner

"World War I... Wall Street called it the ‘war bride’ years, was the first time America got a taste for how profitable war could be. The worse it gets around the world, the more assets will seek safe harbor (US assets?) and the worse it gets the more likely politicians sign those long-term rearmament contracts (again US assets). So I don't think risk assets are ignoring the risks, I think they are ripping because of the risks... war is good for America. "

- Radigan Carter

"Say ‘goodnight’ Gracie."

- George Burns

Baltimore, Maryland - "And now we switch tempo from ‘lamentoso’ to ‘malinconico’... that is, from ‘worse case’ to the ‘worst case’ scenario... the biggest loss of all... up to and including the end of the world as we have known it. Agence France Presse: "Russian President Vladimir Putin formally lowered Moscow’s nuclear threshold on Tuesday in response to U.S. President Joe Biden authorizing Ukraine to use long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems (known as ATACMS) to strike limited targets inside Russia... Moscow “reserves the right” to use nuclear weapons to respond to a conventional weapons attack that threatens Russia’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov said on Tuesday. He affirmed that a Ukrainian attack using long-range U.S. missiles could trigger such a response, though the doctrine remains broad enough to allow Putin to avoid committing to nuclear engagement."

Garrett Baldwin adds: "As they head out the door, the Biden Administration and the rest of the Pro-War bureaucrats will attempt one last shock and awe. In addition to allowing Ukraine to use long-range U.S. missiles to fire into Russia, the Biden Administration reversed policies and will now allow land mines. Land mines!"

Geopolitical risk will be front and center for the next sixty days. War is not necessarily certain. And certainly not necessary. But like drugs and adultery, it never quite goes out of style. Instead, it goes around and comes around.

The Franco Prussian war of 1870 began - supposedly - because of a diplomatic slight. It only ended after a siege left Parisians so hungry they were eating the animals in the zoo. ‘La Terrine d’Antilope aux Truffes’ was said to be a favorite.

And WWI got its start, according to historian Barbara Tuchman, as the combatants were ‘sleepwalking.’ No one knew then or now what the ‘reasons’ for the war actually were. Neither side stood to gain much of anything. And in the end, neither side did gain much of anything.

But the costs were high. By the end, there were forty million corpses spread all over Europe... with a few in Africa, and the Near East too. All the major combatants, save the US, suffered major damage. The Bolsheviks took over in Russia. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was dissolved. France and England were effectively bankrupt. And in Germany, people were so humiliated by the peace settlement that they signed on to the National Socialists’ (NAZI) program in an attempt to regain their pride.

Sometimes, good leaders are able to resist war. In 1956, Dwight Eisenhower, for example, was invited to join England and France in a glorious operation to retake control of the Suez canal from the Egyptians. He demurred. Within hours, the war was over.

President Kennedy in the Oval Office, talking with 

Air Force pilots who flew reconnaissance missions over Cuba.

John F. Kennedy also avoided a war with the Soviet Union. By-passing his own “intelligence” and “diplomatic” bureaucracies, he set up a back-channel conversation with Nikita Khruschev and agreed to remove US missiles from Italy and Turkey in exchange getting Soviet firepower out of Cuba. But Kennedy was assassinated sixty-one years ago tomorrow. Eisenhower died six years later.

Joe Biden could have followed Eisenhower and Kennedy. He could have stopped the war in the Ukraine and the massacres in Gaza, both with a phone call. Instead, he chose war. "Sometimes, people yearn for war... they search for meaning... for purpose... for someone to blame... for a victory they can feel good about... or just some way to kick someone else in the head. And war pays. Generals enjoy fat sinecures, suppliers get rich and politicians get re-elected with suppliers’ money. Veterans get special benefits. What agency has the biggest payroll in Washington? Veterans’ Affairs."

And so, from time to time, the world catches fire as the Primary Political Trend shifts from peace, freedom and fraud to war, politics and brute force. But it is not purely random. One follows the other. “The first panacea of a mismanaged nation,” wrote Hemingway, “is inflation. The second is war...” Most western governments are already hooked on inflation. Deep in debt... facing rising interest payments -- without some other source of funding, the political caste will be forced to cut back and lose power.

That is what makes the Musk/Ramaswamy initiative so fascinating. The two entrepreneurs believe they can save the system by making it act like more of a business. That is, they think they can provide a painless budgetary Ozempic, causing the political caste to voluntarily downsize... and reduce its own power. It won’t work. They are taking on the entire Elite Establishment…from the universities, to the press, to Wall Street, the firepower industry, Congress, the bureaucracy and the Deep State. Their cuts will be headline news…and insignificant.

Instead, explains John Dienner... the real solution..."Will be to further debase their currencies. Of course, doing so will devastate wage earners, savers and pensioners living on fixed incomes. But that is a price elite political insiders are willing for the working classes to pay in order to remain in power for a little longer."

Trump won the election by appealing to a deep undercurrent of dissatisfaction. But rising prices, tariffs, depressions, deportations and chaos will not make the frustration go away. The inflations and depressions of the 1920s and ‘30s provided the dry tinder for the ‘kinetic’ wars and mass murders of the 1940s. And now, looking into the haze of the future…more like a recurring nightmare than a prediction…Is that someone carrying a can of gasoline and a pack of matches? More... tomorrow..."

- https://www.bonnerprivateresearch.com/

Adventures With Danno, "Very Shocking Holiday Prices At Kroger, This Is Unbelievable"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures With Danno, 11/21/24

"Very Shocking Holiday Prices At Kroger,

 This Is Unbelievable"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Meanwhile, elsewhere...

Full screen recommended.

Travelling with Russell, 11/21/24

"Russian Typical Food Market: Would You Shop There?"

"What is it like to shop in a typical Russian food market? Danilovsky Market is Moscow's oldest food market, dating back to 1262. What types of food can you buy inside a Russian Food Market? Join me to find out."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Dan, I Allegedly, "You Can Work For Elon?"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, AM 11/21/24

"You Can Work For Elon?"

"Discover the shocking truth about Tesla's $270,000 remote work opportunities that don't require a college degree! While other tech giants demand return-to-office, Elon Musk is breaking the mold by offering high-paying remote positions at Tesla and SpaceX. From AI tester positions for humanoids to senior engineering roles, these jobs offer competitive compensation packages and flexible work arrangements. Unlike companies like Washington Post that are ending remote work, Tesla is embracing the future of work-from-home opportunities."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com

"Emergency Alert! ICBMs Launched, Multiple Impacts; NATO Warning Systems Triggered; Nuclear Test"

Canadian Prepper, 11/21/24

"Emergency Alert! ICBMs Launched, Multiple Impacts; 

NATO Warning Systems Triggered; Nuclear Test"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

Danny Haiphong, 11/21/24

'NATO Attacks Russia; 

Putin Fires Warning Shot At Ukraine - WW3 Next?"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

CNN, 11/21/24

"‘Russia Is Furious’: Expert Explains Putin’s 

Military Response To Ukraine’s Attack inside Russia"

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- https://www.youtube.com/

"Red Alert! UK Attacks Russia! Nuclear Hotline Shutdown! Doomsday Plane In Air, Putin Missing!"

Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper,11/20/24

"Red Alert! UK Attacks Russia! Nuclear Hotline Shutdown! 

Doomsday Plane In Air, Putin Missing!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Jeremiah Babe, "The Shocking Waste Of Your Hard Earned Tax Dollars"

Jeremiah Babe, 11/20/24

"The Shocking Waste Of Your Hard Earned Tax Dollars, 

Where Did All Your Money Go? Financing WW3"

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- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Douglas Macgregor, 11/20/24

"Putin Issues Final Nuclear Warning,

 Ukraine At Risk Of Total Destruction"

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- https://www.youtube.com/

A Blues Musical Interlude: John Campbelljohn, "Knocked Down"

John Campbelljohn, "Knocked Down"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"This colorful cosmic skyscape features a peculiar system of galaxies cataloged as Arp 227 some 100 million light-years distant. Swimming within the boundaries of the constellation Pisces, Arp 227 consists of the two galaxies prominent on the left; the curious shell galaxy NGC 474 and its blue, spiral-armed neighbor NGC 470. The faint, wide arcs or shells of NGC 474 could have been formed by a gravitational encounter with neighbor NGC 470. Alternately the shells could be caused by a merger with a smaller galaxy producing an effect analogous to ripples across the surface of a pond.

Remarkably, the large galaxy on the right hand side of the deep image, NGC 467, appears to be surrounded by faint shells too, evidence of another interacting galaxy system. Intriguing background galaxies are scattered around the field that also includes spiky foreground stars. Of course, those stars lie well within our own Milky Way Galaxy. The field of view spans 25 arc minutes or about 1/2 degree on the sky."

                 - http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100211.html

"Write Your Worries On The Sand..."

“I walked slowly out on the beach.

A few yards below high-water mark I stopped and read the words again:

WRITE YOUR WORRIES ON THE SAND.

I let the paper blow away, reached down and picked up a fragment of shell.

Kneeling there under the vault of the sky,

I wrote several words, one above the other.

Then I walked away, and I did not look back.

I had written my troubles on the sand.

The tide was coming in.”

- Arthur Gordon

"Consider It..."

 

"15 Reasons Why You Should Be Prepping Like Crazy Right Now"

Full screen recommended.

Epic Economist, 11/20/24

"15 Reasons Why You Should Be 

Prepping Like Crazy Right Now"

"You should be feverishly preparing for the extremely turbulent times that are ahead of us. The November events are going to bring a lot of chaos to our streets, and what will happen next is anyone's guess. Stores can be looted, delivery trucks can be targeted, resulting in delays that might leave shelves empty for weeks. A lot can happen, and the challenges naturally brought on by fall and winter could further complicate matters.

Behind the scenes, forces are building to spark shortages, strain household budgets, and make essential supplies harder to come by. The food we eat, the energy we rely on, the products we need daily - all of these are becoming less secure as we move towards the final months of 2024.

At the moment, supply chains are faltering, resources are thinning, and the cost of essentials is ballooning. The question isn’t just about convenience; it’s about our preparedness to face a season unlike any we’ve seen before. Imagine reaching for pantry staples only to find prices that seem to climb daily, or checking in at your local pharmacy to find they’re out of basic medications. For some, it may mean cold nights due to rising energy costs or rationing essentials because stores can’t keep up with demand. If ever there were a time to prepare like never before, this is it.

In this video, we’ll walk through 15 pressing reasons why you should consider preparing for what lies ahead. We’ll break down the challenges, back them up with facts and insights, and show why a bit of planning today could make all the difference in the months to come. Let's get ready for a season that’s shaping up to be anything but ordinary. Without further ado, here are 15 Reasons Why You Should Be Prepping Like Crazy Right Now."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Adventures With Danno, 11/20/24

"Walmart Wants You To Know This 

& It's Very Disturbing"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Dan, I Allegedly, "You Can’t Get a Loan"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, PM 11/20/24

"You Can’t Get a Loan"

"The shocking truth about loan denials in 2024 is here! Banks are tightening their belts, and it's getting harder to borrow money. I'll break down the latest stats on credit card, mortgage, and auto loan rejections. Plus, we'll dive into the green energy scheme causing headaches for UK homeowners and why UPS is facing a bleak holiday season. "

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Doug Casey On The Looming Debt Crisis and What Lies Ahead"

"Doug Casey On The Looming 

Debt Crisis and What Lies Ahead"

by International Man

"International Man: The financial position of the US government has been gradually deteriorating for decade. With annual interest expenses on the federal debt now exceeding the defense budget - and on pace to surpass Social Security - has the situation reached a tipping point?

Doug Casey: People have been observing this trend since the late 1960s; the idea of the federal debt getting irredeemably out of control isn’t new. But I think that we’ve finally reached a genuine tipping point. In other words, when you keep racking up debt at interest, with growing deficits every year, bankruptcy is inevitable. But now it’s also imminent.

90% of the US government’s spending is baked in the cake. It’s not just that the spending is mandated by law and enthusiastically promoted by the agencies that dispense it. Government spending has totally corrupted the country, from welfare moms to giant corporations. They’ll all squeal like stuck pigs if the spending stops. I expect the accumulated distortions it’s caused to come unglued in the next few years.

International Man: President Trump has appointed Elon Musk to run the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Do you think it will have any meaningful impact on the US government’s financial problems, or is it just a token gesture to distract and entertain the public?

Doug Casey: I think that Trump is sincere, as are Elon and Vivek. But what we’re dealing with are absolutely massive entrenched programs. What’s worse, Trump has promised that he would not alter Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, and military spending. Those things alone add up to something like 80% of the federal budget. It’s very hard to get the number exactly, because the US government’s accounting is so complex. I’m reminded of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s comment on 9/10/01, saying that the Pentagon couldn’t track $2.3 trillion of spending.

On top of those things, you have to add the interest on the official national debt, which is over a trillion dollars a year. That debt is absolutely going higher as the debt burden grows, compounded by rising long-term interest rates. I’m not even counting another perhaps $150 trillion of contingent liabilities and off-balance sheet debt.

Can Elon and Vivek do anything about this trend? I suggest everybody visit https://www.usa.gov/agency-index. You’ll see hundreds of government agencies and departments listed - page through it. Few of them serve any useful purpose. In fact, almost all of them are wasteful and destructive. They’re bureaucracies employing drones (all of them with fat salaries, benefits, and pensions) to shuffle paper, basically to distribute tax dollars to favored entities. They should all be abolished.

Elon and Vivek should have a field day abolishing scores, even hundreds, of these departments and agencies. But will they be able to do it? I really question that, because individual Congress-critters have vested interests in their continuation - as do the other groups I mentioned earlier.

Can Trump do it by executive order? It’s highly questionable. Could he arm-twist the Senate and the House to abolish these agencies? Not much, especially since most of the Congress is not really ideologically aligned with Trump, even the Republicans. Forget about the Democrats.

International Man: Do you expect the debt crisis to erupt during Trump’s second term, and how do you think he will handle it?

Doug Casey: The government’s running a $2 trillion per year deficit right now. That’s ironic, in that Trump has always identified himself as the "king of debt." The only way out is to totally delete these agencies. Just replacing the personnel with "better people" is a mistake. Why? Because cutting costs means you’re just filling the piggy bank, so the next administration can gleefully empty it, and be heroes when they hire even more of the very same zombies that you fired. The only way to solve this problem is to abolish these agencies. Don’t reform them, but make sure they cease to exist. Pull them out by the roots and sow Agent Orange in the soil where they grew.

The US Constitution has mostly been interpreted out of existence. Or blatantly ignored, like the 9th and 10th Amendments. The government is force and should be limited in a civil society. The implies a military, to protect citizens from force from abroad. Police, to protect them from domestic crime. And a court system to adjudicate disputes without reverting to force.

All the other requirements of society should, could, and would be handled by entrepreneurs. In fact, a good argument can be made that the "essential" tasks of government are too important to be left to the type of people who are inevitably drawn to governments.

International Man: What do you think should be done about the US federal government’s growing debt problem?

Doug Casey: Let me make a radical proposal that will shock almost everybody reading this now. I suggest defaulting on the debt, for several reasons.

Number one, it’s immoral. It’s criminal to impose the repayment of that debt on the next generations of unborn Americans. The debt is so large that they’ll be turned into serfs or indentured servants to pay it back.

And the question is: Pay it back to who? We don’t "owe it to ourselves," which is what the liberals always used to say. It’s owed to particular people and institutions who have enabled the government to do all the destructive things that it does. They should be punished. I have no sympathy for the owners of government debt. In fact, these politically-wired people have enriched themselves at the expense of the average guy, who has few assets. It’s correct that they be punished.

There’s another reason. The debt the US government has is like a 100-story building that’s wobbling and is about to fall. There are two possibilities. You can wait for it to fall randomly and unpredictably. Or you can devise a controlled demolition. That’s the best alternative.

Of course, it can be "repaid" by printing. That’s the runaway inflation option, which would be as disastrous as a nuclear war for both the United States and the world at this point. However, there’s a very bright side to the default scenario: After a government default, all the real wealth - farms, factories, mines, buildings, technologies - would still exist. They’d just change ownership. Various government assets should be sold off. There’s obviously much more to be said about all this. I’m simply pointing out that the king has no clothes.

International Man: Given everything we’ve talked about, what is your outlook for US Treasuries and bonds in general? How should investors position themselves for the looming debt crisis?

Doug Casey: Bonds, in general, are a triple threat to your capital. First of all, interest rates are going up. Yes, it’s notoriously hard, if not impossible, to predict the direction of interest rates. They’ve been going up for the last two years, after a 40-year decline. With the dollar being debased as rapidly as it is, long-term bond buyers are going to insist on much higher rates. When interest rates go up, bond prices go down.

Number two is the currency risk. As I’ve often said, the US dollar itself is the unbacked liability of a manifestly bankrupt government, and it’s headed toward reaching its intrinsic value. The dollars the bonds are denominated in are rapidly losing value. From the government’s point of view, it’s "inflate, or die."

Number three is the default risk. That’s obvious to buyers of corporate and municipal debt. It’s why outfits like S&P rate their creditworthiness from AAA down to D. They apply the same ratings to national governments. In the past, people have bought US Treasuries, figuring there was no default risk. But at this point, with government debt and spending so out of control, I think some type of default is a real risk. FWIW, the US lost its AAA rating some years ago; it’s now only AA+. Government is not a magical entity - even the US government. You don’t want to own bonds at this point, other than as a way to speculate on interest rates.

How should investors position themselves for the looming debt crisis? There are two possibilities. One is a credit collapse, where the amount of debt in the world becomes unsustainable, and simply can’t be repaid. You’d have a credit collapse, where trillions of dollars are wiped out in a deflation. The other alternative is the government keeps printing dollars, leading to runaway inflation. Governments almost always choose the latter.

No one knows, for sure, which it’s going to be at this point. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has accumulated hundreds of billions in Treasury bills, apparently betting that short-term rates will keep up with currency debasement while protecting the company from a stock market collapse. Fair enough. But it doesn’t cover all the bases. And Buffet himself won’t always be there…

To preserve capital, I suggest looking at my old friend Harry Browne’s Permanent Portfolio plan. He divides your assets into four equal-sized baskets, essentially gold, stocks, T-bonds, and cash, rebalancing the portfolio every year to keep the percentage of each equal. It’s a good way of automatically buying low and selling high. I’ve always thought it was a smart way to preserve capital. My friend Porter Stansberry is resuscitating, modifying, and improving Harry’s original formula. I’ll explain how when he registers the fund to execute the plan.

Other than a permanent portfolio approach, the only thing that makes sense to me is learning to speculate, which presents risks if your intention is to preserve capital. Or to simply buy gold and Bitcoin, since they’re the only financial assets that aren’t simultaneously somebody else’s liability."

- https://internationalman.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Lawrenceville, Georgia, USA. Thanks for stopping by!