"Life Lessons From George S. Patton, Jr."

Full screen recommended.

"Patton Speech"

Patton speech in Los Angeles 1945 and death.

 Narrated by Ronald Reagan.

"Life Lessons From George S. Patton, Jr."

by John Wilder

"I have been a long-time fan of General George S. Patton, Jr. It started when I was a kid, and my history teacher even ordered a few extra Patton films for the World War II section of U.S. history because he knew I was a Patton fan. Probably the biggest accolade that he could have was from the Germans who he fought, one of whom said simply, “He is your best.”

For whatever reason, though, I had never read "The Patton Papers 1940-1945."  On a whim a week or so ago, I ordered a copy, and I cracked it open at lunch the day it arrived before I headed back to work. I’m not sure I’ve ever enjoyed a book more. I’m not sure The Mrs. feels the same way, since when I’m reading it, about every five minutes I’ll come up with a snippet to read to her. She keeps saying, “Thanks, but no tanks.”

The book itself is a compilation of diary entries, letters Patton wrote, and orders he gave in the period from 1940-1945. To have the ability to read through those are amazing, even when he just writes about the mundane aspects of his life or his son having trouble in math at school. I didn’t start at the beginning, I just picked it up and started reading at a more-or-less random spot, which coincided with his taking command of American troops in North Africa. And then I couldn’t put it down.

While many passages have resonated with me, I decided to write about one in particular today. It consists of his instructions that were provided to his officers prior to launching Operation Husky, where he and Montgomery launched a naval invasion of Sicily. Spoiler alert: he did pretty well. This is one passage I’ll make sure to share with Pugsley and The Boy because there is so much truth not only in a military sense, but in life to what Patton wrote on June 5, 1943. Stuff in italics is Patton’s (from page 261 and page 262). My comments are in plain text.

"Discipline is based on pride in the profession of arms, on meticulous attention to details, and on mutual respect and confidence. Discipline must be a habit so ingrained that it is stronger than the excitement of battle or the fear of death.

Discipline can only be obtained when all officers are imbued with the sense of their lawful obligation to their men and to their country that they cannot tolerate negligence. Officers who fail to correct errors or praise excellence are valueless in peace and dangerous misfits in war."

Discipline starts with a single individual. In my case, it doesn’t come from without, it must come from within. Getting up on time. Paying the bills. Having a sense of purpose in life. It has been my observation that people will do what you want when you’re looking if they fear punishment. If they are being judged, they might do it when others are around. When it becomes a value, however, they do it every time, all the time, even when no one is looking, and even when no one will ever know.

"Officers must assert themselves by example and by voice."

People watch. And people listen. Letting things slide never creates excellence.

"There is no approved solution to any tactical situation."

There is only one tactical principle which is not subject to change. It is: “To so use the means at hand to inflict the maximum amount of wounds, death, and destruction on the enemy in the minimum of time.”

Obviously, war isn’t a game, but the lesson for life outside of attacking Sicily in 1943 still exists. And it’s not to use Claymores (FRONT TOWARD ENEMY) and a mortar barrage to open a business meeting. But I have been involved in business and life situations where time was of the essence, and being polite just had to go out the window.

"Never attack [enemy] strength, [but rather his weakness]..."

"You can never be too strong. Get every man and gun you can secure provided it does not delay your attack..."

"Casualties vary directly with the time you are exposed to effective fire... Rapidity of attack shortens the time of exposure..."

"If you cannot see the enemy, and you seldom can, shoot at the place he is most likely to be..."

"Our mortars and our artillery are superb weapons when they are firing. When silent, they are junk – see that they fire!"

One thread that runs through Patton’s writing and actions is his devotion to attacking. Defending wasn’t something that he was interested in. In life, I think that attitude is required. It’s easy to give up, it’s easy to fall into the trap that there’s nothing more to do, nothing more to gain. It’s similar to having all A’s on my eighth-grade report card and deciding to coast on that for the rest of my life.

Potential can only be realized if we push ourselves, and we can only push on the attack. So, attack life like a poodle going after a pork chop, up to the very last breath.

"Never take counsel of your fears. The enemy is more worried than you are. Numerical superiority, while useful, is not vital to successful offensive action. The fact that you are attacking induces the enemy to believe that you are stronger than he is..."

"A good solution applied with vigor now is better than a perfect solution ten minutes later..."

"IN CASE OF DOUBT, ATTACK ..." "Again, attack. But the additional thought is added: don’t listen to your fears. Fear is something that will paralyze even a strong man. And from my experience, the best way to get over fears and avoid the paralysis that comes with them is to take action. What action? Any action that leads you toward your goal. Even the smallest action often sets off a cascade of following actions that lead to...success."

"Mine fields, while dangerous, are not impassable. They are far less of a hazard than artillery concentrations..."

"Speed and ruthless violence on the beaches is vital. There must be no hesitation in debarking. To linger on the beach is fatal."

We are going to run into problems. Some of them huge. Some of them of our own making. The idea is to push through. The Mrs. and I watched a kid on the local wrestling team that was just awful in terms of skills, experience, and well, brains. But, he’d get it in his head that he could win, and he would go out and win some very, very unlikely matches. Why? He didn’t hesitate. He jumped on the chances he made.

I’ll probably have a few more of these as I go through the book. And, as much fun as it is to read, I’m going to take my time to enjoy it. I’d best show a little bit of discipline... Patton might be watching."

- https://wilderwealthywise.com/

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Full screen recommended.

"Patton" (1970), Reincarnation scene.

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Freely download "The Patton Papers 1940-1945" here:

- https://archive.org/

Paulo Coelho, "The Bird And The Cage"

"The Bird And The Cage"

by Paulo Coelho

"Once upon a time, there was a bird. He was adorned with two perfect wings and with glossy, colorful, marvelous feathers. One day, a woman saw this bird and fell in love with him. She invited the bird to fly with her, and the two travelled across the sky in perfect harmony. She admired and venerated and celebrated that bird. But then she thought: He might want to visit far-off mountains! And she was afraid, afraid that she would never feel the same way about any other bird.

And she thought: “I’m going to set a trap. The next time the bird appears, he will never leave again.” The bird, who was also in love, returned the following day, fell into the trap and was put in a cage. She looked at the bird every day. There he was, the object of her passion, and she showed him to her friends, who said: “Now you have everything you could possibly want.”

However, a strange transformation began to take place: now that she had the bird and no longer needed to woo him, she began to lose interest. The bird, unable to fly and express the true meaning of his life, began to waste away and his feathers to lose their gloss; he grew ugly; and the woman no longer paid him any attention, except by feeding him and cleaning out his cage.

One day, the bird died. The woman felt terribly sad and spent all her time thinking about him. But she did not remember the cage, she thought only of the day when she had seen him for the first time, flying contentedly amongst the clouds. If she had looked more deeply into herself, she would have realized that what had thrilled her about the bird was his freedom, the energy of his wings in motion, not his physical body.

Without the bird, her life too lost all meaning, and Death came knocking at her door. “Why have you come?” she asked Death. “So that you can fly once more with him across the sky,” Death replied. “If you had allowed him to come and go, you would have loved and admired him ever more; alas, you now need me in order to find him again.”

- http://paulocoelhoblog.com/

"It's Just Life..."

“Bad things don’t happen to people because they deserve for them to happen. It just doesn’t work that way. It’s just… life. And no matter who we are, we have to take the hand we’re dealt, crappy though it may be, and try our very best to move forward anyway, to love anyway, to have hope anyway… to have faith that there’s a purpose to the journey we’re on.”

- Mia Sheridan

"The Limits of Our Freedom"

"The Limits of Our Freedom"

by Mark Harrison

"Viktor Frankl, the Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, wrote in "Man's Search for Meaning", "Between stimulus and response there is a space, and in that space lies all our freedom."In the most extreme conditions of privation imaginable, Frankl discovered that he was, remarkably, free to choose his response to any situation. I love this quote because it sums up the essence of my philosophy. I believe it is the cornerstone of a happy and effective life. A real, experiential understanding of this radical freedom is life changing, liberating and empowering. To suddenly come upon the realization that we have always been free, not in some abstract sense, but in a real, personal and imminent way, is like being let out of prison.

We are not free to control others: The point is that we are free. And so is everyone else. That means we cannot impinge on the freedom of others. This is not some moral statement. I'm not saying we should not interfere with other people's freedom - it is simply impossible to do so. You cannot make another person do anything. Even putting a gun to someone's head cannot make them do anything. If someone is threatened to the extent that they fear for their life, they are likely to comply with whatever is being demanded of them, but this compliance is not a result of the threat, it is still a choice they make. If you doubt it, think about the people who have been threatened and not complied, think about people who have died for what they believe in rather than comply with an external demand.

The belief that we can control and coerce others, bending them to our will, is the cause of a great deal the misery in the world. This belief, springing from the external control psychology that we have overwhelmingly been conditioned to accept, is the cause of much of our pain. To let go of our belief that we can control others is astonishingly liberating. To accept other people as they are, to make no demands on them, simply to dance our own dance, as Anthony de Mello would have put it, and to accept that we cannot but allow everyone else to do the same, is not only the only choice that makes any sense, but is also the only way we can make any difference in the world.

We have a choice: In every situation, there is a choice. Accept that we cannot control other people or try to force, coerce, manipulate and bully to get our own way. The latter course of action damages relationships and, in the end, leads to pain and dysfunction. Or, we can accept people as they are, accept they are utterly free agents, accept that we cannot force them, and concentrate instead on building relationships with them and on building the inner world which echoes back to us as our experience. When we have good relationships, things work. Perhaps not in the way we might have expected, or even in the way we would have preferred, but things will work. The world is not ours to control, so let it go, and let it work in its own miraculous way. This is the effortlessness to which Lao Tzu alluded when he wrote, "The world is a mysterious instrument, not meant to be handled." Those who act on it never, I notice, succeed. 

We are responsible: We are responsible for ourselves. We make our choices and then we must live with them, not blaming others or circumstances, and not cowardly abdicating responsibility to some external forces. We are not victims! We are in control. By the same token, we are not responsible for other people. Their fear, their anger, their pain, their misery - it's all a choice they make, as freely as we make ours, and they need to shoulder the consequences of these choices, they are not our crosses to bear. Their happiness, their success, their joy - it's all their doing, not ours.

Being proactive: So here lies our freedom, it is inside us every moment and we can recognize it and live our lives according to the truth of this freedom, or we can continue to behave in the way we have been conditioned by society and try to force our way through life, pushing and coercing others into doing our will. One way is peace and happiness, the other way is pain and madness. Being proactive is the first of Steven Covey's "Seven Habits" and is the cornerstone of a truly effective life. I believe that living a proactive life, centered in the self, accepting that we can change nothing but ourselves, and choosing to focus on the good in our life and seeking to attract more it to ourselves is the purpose of our existence." 

- http://www.thechangeblog.com/

"How It Really Is, Always Was, And Always Will Be"

 

"The more I see of the monied classes,

the better I understand the guillotine."

- George Bernard Shaw

"Our 101 Trillion Dollar Problem: This Is The Number One Tool The Elite Use To Enslave Us"

"Our 101 Trillion Dollar Problem: 

This Is The Number One Tool The Elite Use To Enslave Us"

by Michael Snyder

Right now, a tremendous awakening is happening as people all over the world become educated about the tools that the elite use to enslave us to their system. The number one tool that they use to enslave us is debt. The financial powers of the world use it to enslave individuals, corporations and governments. For thousands of years humanity has been taught the proverb that “the borrower is the servant of the lender”, and yet today billions of people around the globe have willingly made themselves servants of the money powers. 

You see, when you borrow money from a financial institution, you not only have to pay that money back, but you also have to pay a significant amount of interest. In fact, often the interest ends up being much more than the principal of the loan. Thus the borrower ends up devoting a great deal of his or her labor to earning money for the lender. Yes, there are times when it is necessary to borrow money. But what we have been doing over the last 30 years goes far beyond “necessary” borrowing. The fact that the U.S. government is now 36 trillion dollars in debt gets a lot of attention, but the truth is that state and local governments, corporations, and U.S. households have piled up enormous mountains of debt as well.

I want to show you a chart from the Federal Reserve that is hard to believe. In the mid-90s, the total amount of debt in the system was about 20 trillion dollars, but now we have reached the 101 trillion dollar mark…

The word “insanity” does not even begin to describe what we have been doing to ourselves. It takes a lot of really hard work to add 80 trillion dollars of debt in just 30 years. Every time we pile up more debt, there is a winner and there is a loser. Debt strips you of your freedom and slowly drains you of your wealth. It puts the fruits of your labor into the pockets of others. That is true for individuals, and it is true for a nation as a whole.

Getting others enslaved by debt is how the most powerful financial institutions in the world became so dominant. It is one of the most profitable ways of making money ever invented. What many people don’t realize is just how much interest they end up paying on some of their debts.

For example, if you go to mortgagecalculator.org, you can calculate the amount of interest that you will pay over the life of your home mortgage. According to that calculator, someone with a $400,000 mortgage at an interest rate of 6.98% over 30 years will end up paying $556,102.18 in interest before the mortgage is finally paid off. When those 30 years are over, you will have bought a house for yourself and you will also have bought a house for the bankers.

So what should we do? We need to stop feeding the monster. They are getting insanely wealthy by financially enslaving all the rest of us.

Unfortunately, many Americans find themselves deep in debt because the cost of living has been rising faster than our paychecks have. One of the great joys that men in free societies have long enjoyed is the ability to earn an honest wage for an honest day of work. In particular, the amazing capitalist engine that powered the U.S. economy for decade after decade greatly rewarded the incredible hard work and industriousness of the American people. America was known as the land of opportunity, and we built the largest middle class in the history of the world by working incredibly hard.

Unfortunately, things have changed. Thanks to globalization and extremely rapid advances in technology, the labor of U.S. workers is rapidly losing value. Automation, robotics and AI have made many jobs obsolete. In addition, American workers now must compete against workers from all over the world. Global corporations often find themselves having to choose whether to build a factory in the United States or in the third world. But in the third world workers often earn less than 10 percent of what American workers earn, corporations are often not required to provide any benefits to those workers, and there are often very few oppressive government regulations to contend with.

How can American workers compete against that? The truth is that labor is now a global commodity. It is exceedingly difficult for a worker in the United States to effectively compete with a desperate, half-starving worker in the third world that will work like mad for two dollars an hour. But this is what we get for letting our politicians push “free trade” down our throats. Most American workers had no idea that free trade would mean that they would suddenly be competing for jobs against workers in the Philippines and Malaysia. But this is the cold, hard reality of globalism.

Of course the top executives at the big global corporations are certainly enjoying this new environment, because their salaries have soared. In 1950, the ratio of the average executive’s paycheck to the average worker’s paycheck was about 30 to 1. Now it is 268 to 1. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.

That is what globalism is all about. The elite make out like bandits as they exploit third world labor pools, while the American middle class finds itself slowly being crushed out of existence. Our system has been designed to funnel nearly all of the rewards to the very top. Meanwhile, the vast majority of Americans are left wondering why things just don’t ever seem to work out for them.

If you talk to many Americans, they just can’t seem to figure out why they can’t make things work out even though they are working as hard as they can. Millions of Americans have found themselves taking on second or even third jobs in a desperate attempt to provide for their families.

Sadly, things just keep getting worse with each passing year. As I have discussed in previous articles, demand at food banks is at an all-time high, homelessness in the U.S. is at an all-time high, and homelessness in the U.S. is growing at the fastest pace ever recorded.

But there are elitists out there that are still attempting to claim that the U.S. economy is in great shape. Of course most of us aren’t buying the propaganda anymore, and that is one of the primary reasons why the election turned out the way that it did. We need to return to an economy where good workers are valued and where hard work is rewarded. We need to return to an economy where having a large middle class is an important national goal. We need to return to an economy where we build American businesses, where we hire American workers, and where we buy American products.

But unless the American people wake up, American workers are going to continue to be devalued. And if you think that things are bad now, just wait until AI starts taking millions of our jobs. Are we just going to sit back and let American living standards decline to third world standards, or are we going to do something about it?

Perhaps the greatest victims of the economic nightmare that is unfolding right in front of our eyes are our children. The overall economic numbers are really bad, but when you examine the impact that this economy is having on children things get really horrifying. Today, 16 percent of U.S. children live in poverty and 14 million U.S. children are on food stamps. It has been estimated that approximately 50 percent of all U.S. children will be on food stamps at some point before they reach the age of 18.

We were once the most prosperous nation on the entire planet. How could we let this happen? Meanwhile, the rich have gotten even richer. In 2009, there were 8 million millionaires in the United States. Now there are 22 million. If everyone was becoming wealthier, that would be great. Unfortunately, the poor have been left with an increasingly smaller slice of the pie to divide among themselves. At this point, the bottom 50 percent of Americans control just 2.5 percent of the wealth.

I have been ranting about all of this for over a decade, and yet conditions have just continued to deteriorate year after year. We can’t have an economy that works for the top 10 percent but that sucks the life out of the bottom 90 percent. Our debt-based financial system needs to be fundamentally reformed, and it is time for us to demand action."

- https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

Dan, I Allegedly, "America's Decline is Over - Here’s What’s Next!"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, AM 1/21/25

"America's Decline is Over - Here’s What’s Next!"

"America’s new era is here, and things are looking up! From the inauguration of Trump as 45th and 47th president to exciting shifts in the economy, we’re stepping into a golden age full of opportunities. In today’s video, I talk about how businesses like Amazon, Apple, and others are poised for a comeback, and what this means for YOU. Plus, get updates on everything from Isabelle County’s hilarious budget issues to surprising news about Walgreens, Jack Daniels, and even the state of luxury art sales. There’s so much to cover!

Join me as I discuss how corporate accountability, local improvements, and fresh investments in manufacturing are paving the way for a brighter future. Also, did you hear about the housing market shake-ups in Las Vegas or the ongoing Costco Teamster strike? It’s all here—along with my thoughts on some truly outrageous stories, like $50,000 teddy bears and dining delivery woes. Let’s navigate this transformative era together."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"The Future..."

Bill Bonner, "A Completely Foreseeable Crisis"

"A Completely Foreseeable Crisis"

America has been in noticeable decline for the last quarter of a century. 

The people most responsible for that decline were on display yesterday - 

George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald J. Trump, and Jo

by Bill Bonner

"A new golden age for America... The decline is over."

- Donald J. Trump

"The future of civilization is assured."

- Elon Musk

Baltimore, Maryland - "It was a winter wonderland here at the farm yesterday. We hunkered down in front of the fire to watch the inauguration. It was unlikely to produce anything really new... but you never know. At the very least, it would help us gauge the zeitgeist of our era.

As expected, the inauguration was a mixture of decent sentiments... with indecent proposals... fraudulent pomposity mixed with solemn deceit... and a few delightful zingers mixed with blah-blah. “I was saved by God to make America great again,” said the new President. We don’t know God’s mind any better than he does. But our guess is that he is precisely wrong about what his real historical mission is. He came to Washington yesterday to praise the American empire. His real role is to bury it.

America has been in noticeable decline for the last quarter of a century. The people most responsible for that decline were on display yesterday - George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald J. Trump, and Joe Biden. And now, in electing Trump again, is it likely that he will radically change course? Will he do something different... something he didn’t dare to do during his first term?

Mr. Trump spoke about the challenges he sees ahead. Alas, he didn’t seem to notice the one that is most likely to trip him up. The Panamanians are apparently over-charging for the use of the canal. Foreigners don’t respect us. And there’s a flood of immigrants pouring across an unguarded border along the Rio Grande.

Are there just two genders? What if you’re ‘undecided?’ Should Mt. McKinley be named after one of America’s so-so presidents rather than by some ‘Indian handle?’ Does anyone really care if the Gulf of Mexico is called the Gulf of America?

Maybe they do. But changing names is not going to prevent the real calamity, now advancing on Team Trump. Nor will sending people to Mars. Janet Yellen: "Treasury currently expects to reach the new limit between January 14 and January 23, at which time it will be necessary for Treasury to start taking extraordinary measures." What measures will be taken? None were mentioned, extraordinary or otherwise. Instead, Mr. Trump turned his attention elsewhere.

His first time at bat was marked by the ‘national emergency’ he declared in March 2020. He thought that the Covid virus threatened the whole country and decided to use the police power of the feds to try to stop it.

This time, he’s introducing two more national emergencies. The immigrant situation has brought forth one of them. The other involves the energy industry. Why can’t they be handled in the regular course of calm and careful federal business? Where’s the fire? He didn’t say.

Federal finances, meanwhile, are aflame. Last year’s deficit ran over $2 trillion, bringing the total since 2020 to over $11 trillion. The largest contribution to that total came from Mr. Trump himself, whose 2020 deficit bulged over $3.3 trillion.

So far this year, the deficit is running at a nearly $3 trillion annual rate (sure to slow down when tax revenue picks up in April.) There is some loose talk in Washington about how higher growth - from tax cuts and ‘drill, baby, drill’ energy policies - will close some of the deficit gap. Tax cuts - at the margin - can increase GDP. But the math doesn’t work. If the tax take is 20% of GDP, the latter has to rise by 5 times as much to bring in the same revenue. Cut taxes by $1 trillion, for example, and GDP would have to increase by $5 trillion to recoup the lost income.

As for making it easier to drill for oil, the probable result will be lower oil prices...putting marginal producers, now producing oil, natural gas, coal, solar and other forms of energy at higher prices, out of business. Besides, fuel has been cheaper in the past; no big increase in GDP growth was observed.

The presumptive new Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent says that the feds don’t have an income problem; they have a ‘spending problem.’ Mr. Trump’s DOGE was supposed to do something about that. But the Musk part of the DOGE has already admitted that eliminating the deficit was merely ‘aspirational,’ not something you could count on.

And in yesterday’s news, we discovered that the other half of the DOGE leadership – Mr. Ramaswamy – is bailing out completely. Business Insider with the news: "Vivek Ramaswamy is leaving President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency. Instead of leading the group with Elon Musk, he's expected to run for governor of Ohio, according to various media reports."

Unless we missed it, at yesterday’s inauguration there was no mention of the fiscal crisis now bearing down on the US. It will come like a thief in the night... unbidden, unexpected, and unwelcome…but completely foreseeable."

- https://www.bonnerprivateresearch.com/

"Trump In The Fight Of His Life, America's Decline Is Over Now; Biden Pardons Crime Family"

Jeremiah Babe, 1/20/25

"Trump In The Fight Of His Life, America's Decline Is Over Now; 

Biden Pardons Crime Family"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Deuter, "Along the High Ridges"

Full screen recommended.

Deuter, "Along the High Ridges"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"From afar, the whole thing looks like an Eagle. A closer look at the Eagle Nebula, however, shows the bright region is actually a window into the center of a larger dark shell of dust. Through this window, a brightly-lit workshop appears where a whole open cluster of stars is being formed. In this cavity tall pillars and round globules of dark dust and cold molecular gas remain where stars are still forming. Already visible are several young bright blue stars whose light and winds are burning away and pushing back the remaining filaments and walls of gas and dust.

The Eagle emission nebula, tagged M16, lies about 6500 light years away, spans about 20 light-years, and is visible with binoculars toward the constellation of the Serpent (Serpens). This picture involved over 12 hours of imaging and combines three specific emitted colors emitted by sulfur (colored as red), hydrogen (yellow), and oxygen (blue).”

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

The Poet: Wendell Berry, "The Circles Of Our Lives"

"The Circles Of Our Lives" 

"Within the circles of our lives

we dance the circles of the years,

the circles of the seasons

within the circles of the years,

the cycles of the moon,

within the circles of the seasons,

the circles of our reasons

within the cycles of the moon.

Again, again we come and go,

changed, changing. Hands

join, unjoin in love and fear,

grief and joy. The circles turn,

each giving into each, into all.

Only music keeps us here,

each by all the others held.

In the hold of hands and eyes

we turn in pairs, that joining

joining each to all again.

And then we turn aside, alone,

out of the sunlight gone

into the darker circles of return,

Within the circles of our lives."

- Wendell Berry

"Walmart CEO Sounds Alarm On Grocery Prices In 2025 As Hard Times Begin"

Full screen recommended.

Epic Economist, 1/20/25

"Walmart CEO Sounds Alarm On 

Grocery Prices In 2025 As Hard Times Begin"

"If you're seeing your grocery bill going higher every time you shop at Walmart - you're not going crazy! Even though official inflation numbers are cooling down, food inflation is still going up, and the company’s CEO Doung McMillon is sounding the alarm about price hikes this year due to the combination of lower agricultural production in the U.S., and import tariffs that are expected to go into effect over the next few weeks.

Walmart's top boss has lifted the lid on what Americans should expect for grocery prices in the first quarter of 2025 - and, as you can imagine, it's not good news. McMillon forecasted that food inflation - at record highs even after four years of frequent increases - will likely get worse this year, and he said he's 'disappointed' with current prices, pointing to eggs and dairy as key contributors to the latest increases.

During the Morgan Stanley Global Consumer and Retail Conference, McMillon stated that stubbornly high inflation will not go away any time in the foreseeable future, and cautioned investors to temper their optimism going into the new year. “I don’t know what the whole year is going to look like. I hope and I think it could be better as these commodities adjust - at least some of them,” he said. “I’m disappointed to see food inflation start to tick back up. It’s primarily driven by eggs and what’s happening with dairy right now,” the CEO added.

“But it’s not just those categories — there’s pressure on cocoa and other inputs. So, we look at pricing compared to last week, last month, last year, but we also look at it compared to pre-pandemic. And if you look at all of the food, prices are a lot higher than they were before the pandemic, which is not what the customers want and not what we want.”

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"The Sky is Falling"

"The Sky is Falling"

by Jeff Thomas

"Governments are in the flimflam business. Pared down to the bare essentials, governments can be very useful in passing and enforcing a small number of very basic laws. These laws should be limited to policing those who would seek to aggress against others, or their property. Governments may also have a value in providing protection from invasion – organizing an army of able-bodied people to address this collective problem, if and when it occurs.

And that’s about it. Beyond that, the private sector can, and almost always does, do a better job at virtually everything else. Therefore, a government should be small, cost very little to run and do as little as possible.

But since a government already exists, why not have it do more? Why not assign to it some of those tasks that tend not to attract businessmen? Well, the simple, but almost universally little-understood, reason is that governments do not actually produce anything. They are, in fact, a parasitical construct that consumes money but creates nothing of worth. Unlike businesses, they don’t operate on a profit basis. In fact, few politicians or civil servants have any grasp of the concept that prosperity is only created when someone invests his money in a venture, creates a profit and saves or re-invests the difference.

Although this may seem like a harsh criticism, it’s borne out by the fact that all governments consume money and are more wasteful than any business would be. Worse, politicians and civil servants typically fail entirely to understand that this is a fundamental problem. And, yet, like all people, people in governments wish to personally advance, both in position and financial worth. And here is where the perennial bugbear of governments appears.

Since governments, by rights, should never expand unless absolutely necessary, and since this is never enough for those who people any government, they must somehow con the public into believing that government expansion is "for the good of the people."

Ergo, even the smallest of governments, in the smallest of jurisdictions, will learn to cajole the public. As the government grows, the con-game grows and duplicity, trickery and skullduggery become the lifeblood of the government – any government. The con-game becomes, "Vote for me and I’ll provide you with something at the expense of someone else." "It is the primary business of any government to grow its own power and wealth at the expense of its people."

At some point, all governments figure out that the greatest way to expand their own power and personal wealth is through fear. If a people can be made afraid, the government can bypass reason and appeal to emotion – always an easier sell.

For millennia, governments (like organized religions and for the same reason) have peddled the fear of a demon – usually in the form of an aggressive opponent from outside the jurisdiction who can be regarded as wishing to aggress against the country. In modern times, however, the spin doctors have done this concept one better – they’ve learned to peddle, not an individual, country or army as the demon, but a concept.

As the reader will know, in recent decades, all any government has needed to do is claim that something that they oppose is related somehow to terrorism and they will be given carte blanche to crush it, however implausible the given reasoning may be.

Another highly successful demon is Climate Change. The Climate Change concept was invented out of whole fabric by the Club of Rome, which was created in 1968 by David Rockefeller. It was originally called "Global Cooling," as, at that time, the earth was passing through one of its cyclic cooling periods. However, that period soon came to an end and the earth entered a global warming period. So, the same "science" that was used for Global Cooling was then attributed without any change whatever to the new "Global Warming."

When that cycle ended and the proponents of Global Warming again had egg on their faces for pushing warming during a new periodic cooling cycle, the proponents finally got clever and renamed it "Climate Change." From that day forward, any flood, drought, hurricane, tornado or variation in the ice caps has immediately been blamed on "increased Climate Change," even though such occurrences have been with us forever and will be with us forever.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has repeatedly polled scientists as to whether they agree that climate change exists, and the IPCC states that over 97% agree. What is not asked is whether Climate Change is a direct result of man’s intervention. Asked if climate changes from time to time, the answer is, of course, "yes." In fact, 100% of scientists should agree, based upon the wording of the question. But, of course, this is not science at all, but deception. Always phrase the question in such a way that you will receive the desired answer.

So, the outcome is that the great majority of people are sold on the idea that Climate Change is due to man’s creation of CO2 and that mankind has to be controlled, or he will destroy the planet with CO2 emissions. Since "scientists" are represented as agreeing on this, people tend not to question the logic. The fact that all plants breathe CO2 and would die without it and that, if all plant life were to expire, all animal life would then expire, does not occur to the listener. His government has spoken and he needs to be afraid.

Since the mid-1970s, politicians have periodically claimed that life on earth will come to an end in a decade or so if emissions are not eliminated globally. Whenever one of these deadlines passes, the presenters simply move up the date another decade or so, maintaining the fear, but never actually reaching the end of the world.

Of course, the Great Lie should be exposed, due to the fact that governments do not actually pass laws to eliminate CO2 emissions; they merely create taxation and fines for those manufacturers who create CO2. So, apparently, it’s all right to end the world, if you pay a hefty tax, instead of cutting CO2.

"The Jews will destroy Germany"… "The Iranians will destroy the world if they can make a nuclear bomb"… "Your car will destroy the earth"… but Air Force One, which creates 336 times the CO2 of a car, will not. With government propaganda, the sky is always falling. All the best propaganda appeals at a gut level. If people can be made to abandon reason and accept government-created fear, they can be controlled.

This doesn’t mean that governments can’t ever be trusted, but it means that they shouldn’t ever be trusted. They should always be questioned, not only as their propaganda is so often false, but as they are, inherently, in the flimflam business."

- https://swpcayman.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Metamora, Michigan, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

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

"A Primer For The Propagandized:

Fear Is The Mind-Killer"

by Margaret Anna Alice

“Totalitarianism, if not fought against, 

could triumph anywhere.”

- George Orwell

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A textbook example of "Problem Reaction Solution", the tsunami of worldwide Covid hysteria was the latest and potentially most threatening example of mass control in history. The recipe is simple. Take a naturally occurring phenomenon, say a seasonal virus, and exaggerate its threat far beyond every imagining - despite exhaustive evidence to the contrary. Suppress, silence, ostracize, and demonize every individual who dares present facts that expose the false mono-narrative.

Whip up a witches’ brew of anger, envy, and, most importantly, fear, escalating emotions to a boil so as to short-circuit our faculties of reason and logic. Isolate us from one another, supplant real-world interactions with virtual feuds, label nonconformists as a threat to the group, and pump the public with a disinformation campaign designed to confuse and atomize. In essence, foster a cultlike mentality that shuts down thought to guarantee assent.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• "Is a Mass Psychosis the Greatest Threat to Humanity?"

• "The Mass Psychosis and the Demons of Dostoevsky"

• "The Manufacturing of a Mass Psychosis – Can Sanity Return to an Insane World?
"

"Dare to question. Dare to disbelieve.

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

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

"Human Beings..."

 

"Message From the Future: Your Acceptance of Evil Has Condemned Us All"

"Message From the Future:

Your Acceptance of Evil Has Condemned Us All"

by Chris Floyd

"Sometime in December 2016, a strange transmission began bleeding through, ghost-like, on various computers around the world. It would suddenly appear for a few flickering moments while people watched movies or shopped on-line or looked at social media, then it would fade away. It purported to be a message from the future and showed an aged man who claimed he was a chrono-quantum technician whose work had been banned by the authorities to prevent me from doing exactly what I am doing now, at long last - sending a warning to our ancestors. The message was brief, but it was usually badly garbled by visual and aural static; it took weeks to compile, through crowd-sourcing, the full text. For what it's worth, the message - minus the brief intro - is presented below.

"You are taking a path into darkness. It began years ago, with your acceptance of crimes and inhuman practices on a vast scale. In the late 20th century, your leaders once confessed on national television that they had killed 500,000 innocent children with death-dealing sanctions - then declared this atrocious massacre was worth it. Yet there was no outcry, no outrage, no uprising, not even a peep of protest. Your new leaders lied brazenly to start a war that killed a million innocent people and led directly to decades of murderous instability in numerous countries. They too ended their days in wealth and comfort and public regard. Your new leaders refused to prosecute the crimes of aggression and torture openly committed by their predecessor; instead, they continued his practices, enshrining many of the heinous practices into settled law, waging undeclared war in more than half a dozen countries and personally signing off on extrajudicial murders every week.

By this time, the moral degradation of the people was so complete - they had countenanced, cheered or ignored so many crimes and so much corruption on so many levels - that they easily fell prey to a voracious, half-crazed demagogue and the forces of fascism, feudalism and lawless rule that he brought into power. This was the nominal end of your democracy, but it was already deeply rotted from within - rotted by your years of turning a blind eye to monstrous crimes committed in your name by both factions in your power structure.

Because of your shameful acquiescence, your shallow understanding of the forces that ruled you and used you and manipulated you, your bedazzlement by public image, your astonishing credulity at the transparent lies and hollow, sinister pieties you were fed, we, your descendants, have lived in squalor, rancor, violence and despair all our lives, for generations. There is no hope for us unless you abandon your slavish ignorance, your adherence to partisan fantasies about the factions of the power structure that rules you and rise up to overthrow it. Instead bring fearless clarity to bear on the reality of what you have accepted. The murder of 500,000 children. The millions murdered in the wars you started and the wars bred by your wars. Assassination. Torture. Dehumanization and demonization of your fellow human beings, both at home and abroad.

It is your acceptance of these things that has brought you to the final turning point. Now there is nothing left for you to do but resist: resist with all your might, with every means at your disposal - but always, always, with the full knowledge of how you came to this place, and your own connivance and collusion in this descent. Keep this in mind as you fight, so that it doesn't happen again. You are not exceptional, you are not plucked out by God for special favor: you are human beings like all the rest, and like so many human beings in so many societies down through the ages, you have failed to look your own evil in the eye, you have failed to confront and condemn acts that make you shudder with horror when you hear of them committed by other nations.

Own this knowledge - this terrible, tragic knowledge - and let it guide as you fight the putrescence that past crimes have now brought gushing forth, and as you build something better in the aftermath. Otherwise, you are lost, and we are lost, the world itself is lost."

- https://www.counterpunch.org/

- www.chris-floyd.com.

"Shocking New Drone Footage Shows Extent of Destruction in Gaza"

Full screen recommended.

On Demand News, 1/20/25

"Shocking New Drone Footage 

Shows Extent of Destruction in Gaza"

"This is Khan Younis, Gaza’s second biggest city, or at least what’s left of it. 15 months of fighting between Israel and Hamas has reduced the city, and many other parts of the Gaza strip, to rubble. Major roads have been blown up, water and electricity infrastructure is in ruins, and most hospitals no longer function."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Don't look away Good American! You paid for ALL of this, every bullet, every bomb, every airplane, every tank... every goddamned bit of it, ALL of it. You supported and allowed this horror to go on! 50,000 dead, including 18,000 CHILDREN, and at least 10,000 more buried under the bombed out rubble and unrecovered. Are you proud of the blood on your hands? Hang your head in eternal shame and disgrace... And Israel, "Stipendium peccati mors est,"and it's coming...

o

Full screen recommended.

Mahmood OD, 1/20/25

"Despite The Destruction Palestinians 

Begin Construction Work All Across Gaza"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen  recommended.

Times of India, 1/20/25

"Hamas Takes Over, Deploys Police On Gaza Streets; 

'Shame For Israel's After 15-Months...'

"Hamas-run police forces have been deployed across the Gaza Strip since the ceasefire, aiming to restore order. Uniformed police were seen in both southern and northern Gaza, ensuring safety and distributing humanitarian aid. The interior ministry has cooperated with government and municipal agencies to re-establish services, particularly in areas from which military forces withdrew."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/