"How It Really Is"

 

Adventures With Danno, "Big Lots Returns!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures With Danno, 6/7/25

"Big Lots Returns!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Elsewhere...

Full screen recommended.

Travelling with Russell , 6/7/25

"I Went to Russia's Best Specialist Tool Store"

"Shopping for tools in Russia? I have discovered what is considered to be the best specialty tool store in the whole of Russia. Verisage Techmart has more than 30 years of experience in the Russian tool market. Is this really the best show in Russia?"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"20 Fast Food Chains Going Out Of Business As Farmers Shut Down Production In US"

Full screen recommended.

Downturn Report, 6/7/25

"20 Fast Food Chains Going Out Of Business 

As Farmers Shut Down Production In US"

"What happens when America’s food production slows to a halt? In this video, we uncover the deeper story. From rising supply chain costs to shortages in key ingredients, the impact of disrupted farming is now hitting your favorite fast food spots. We break down why this In US is more than just a trend - it's a wake-up call. What’s driving this crisis? How are small communities affected? And more importantly, what can be done before the next big wave of closures? This isn’t just about fast food - it’s about the future of food security, farming policy, and how we respond to changing supply chains. Whether you're a customer, a worker, or just someone trying to understand the bigger picture, this breakdown will help you connect the dots, a critical issue that touches every plate, paycheck, and town across the country."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

"McDonald's Warning Stuns USA/Customers"

"Alert: Russian Ambassador Just Warned of a Major Nuclear Escalation"

Full screen recommended.

Prepper News, 6/7/25

"Alert: Russian Ambassador Just Warned

 of a Major Nuclear Escalation"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Dan, I Allegedly, "People Have No Money for Anything - You're Not Alone"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, 6/7/25

"People Have No Money for Anything - 

You're Not Alone"

"People can’t afford furniture anymore, and it’s a sign of the times! In today’s video, I’m talking about the shocking closure of Progressive Furniture after 40 years, labor strikes affecting industries like bananas, and how rising prices are impacting everyday life. From crazy tipping stories to skyrocketing silver demands, it seems like nobody has money for even the basics these days. Plus, we touch on the housing market, real estate failures, corporate job cuts, and even new changes coming to stores like Costco."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"America's Economic Crisis Is Worse Than You Think, Just Look Around"

Jeremiah Babe, 6/6/25

"America's Economic Crisis Is Worse Than You Think, 

Just Look Around"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Life Under Sanctions: Real Moscow Walking Tour"

Meanwhile, in a sane and civilized society...

Full screen recommended.

Window to Moscow, 6/6/25

"Life Under Sanctions: Real Moscow Walking Tour"

Comments here;

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Clash of the Titans"

"Clash of the Titans"

by Joel Bowman

“Our democracy is not perfect, but we do 

have the best government money can buy.”

~ Mark Twain

Syros, Greece - "By now you’ve heard the news, dear reader. The Musk-Trump bromance is officially, spectacularly over... and the Internets are having a field day. Barely a week after Elon Musk revealed he was "disappointed" in President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill (from X:“I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful... but I don’t know if it can be both.”) the richest man on the planet and the leader of the free world were at each others’ throats, lashing out with threats and epithets enough to make a Kardashian blush.

Following some initial barbs and thinly veiled jibes, tensions escalated until Trump shot off the following on his Truth Social platform:

Came the counter attack from Musk, not half an hour later...

As one commentator remarked, “once you take the pin out of the grenade, there’s no putting it back in.” This was war. Fired Trump: “The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!”

Replied Musk: “Go ahead, make my day.” The man with the rockets went on to further up the ante, noting that such a move would effectively both end the International Space Station... and simultaneously provide no way to safely deorbit it. “In light of the President’s statement about cancellation of my government contracts, @SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately.”

Big Beautiful Breakup: Whoa! So rapid fire is the escalation, so volatile and unpredictable the egos involved, that by the time you read this, the pair will either have gone full nuclear... or be enjoying a post-makeup cigarette.

Of course, in a battle royale of such epic proportions, everyone has his own axe to grind and petty agenda to advance... Thus some sought to frame the “Big Beautiful Breakup” as the first public divorce of pride month... while others wondered who might get J.D. Vance in the divorce... and a few dark humors merely wished that President Biden were alive to see the whole sordid affair unfold. Even the old school print media got in on the scandalous action. Here’s the front page of yesterday’s New York Post:

Lost amidst all the cheap shots and tawdry mud-racking, a few thoughtful commentators looked back through the pages of history, replete with cautionary tales of what happens when colossal wealth clashes with tremendous power, to see what mess the weary public might be in for next.

Like wedding dresses and spaghetti bolognese, money and power is something of an ill-advised combination. Get them at the same table, and someone’s going to have some ‘splainin’ to do. And yet, no matter the inevitable splatter, man’s nature is such that he cannot help but err on the side of folly.

Lex Agraria: One recalls, for example, the cautionary tale of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus. A charismatic politician of the Roman Republic during the 2nd Century BC, Tiberius distinguished himself fighting in the Roman army in Africa during the Third Punic War and in Spain during the Numantine War.

Generally popular among the “elites” of his day, Tiberius courted the favor (and money) of the Roman aristocracy and equestrian class during his bid to become plebeian tribune... both of which he enjoyed until his election, when he promptly began pushing for radical land reforms.

Known as Lex Sempronia Agraria, the reforms were essentially a massive redistribution of properties, both public and private, from the state itself and wealthy landowners alike, to the masses. A quote from Tiberius survives in Plutarch’s Lives:

"The wild beasts that roam over Italy... have every one of them a cave or lair to lurk in; but the men who fight and die for Italy enjoy the common air and light, indeed, but nothing else; houseless and homeless they wander about with their wives and children. And it is with lying lips that their [commanders] exhort the soldiers in their battles to defend sepulchres and shrines from the enemy; for not a man of them has an hereditary altar, not one of all these many Romans an ancestral tomb, but they fight and die to support others in wealth and luxury, and though they are styled masters of the world, they have not a single clod of earth that is their own."

Predictably popular not only with the soldiers, but with the hoi polloi who stood to benefit from the massive wealth redistribution, successful passage of the legislation would augur well for Tiberius’ chances of securing higher office. But when the tribune took the law directly to the Popular Assembly, bypassing the Senate entirely, he drew the ire of the senatorial elite, many of whom stood to lose fortunes in the land deal.

In 133 BC, Tiberius sought reelection, an unprecedented move at the time and one his enemies in the Senate used to accuse him of making a power play at monarchy, anathema to Roman republican values.

The Tiberius River: During a public assembly on the Capitoline Hill, Senator Scipio Nasica led a mob that stormed the meeting. Nasica, the pontifex maximus (chief priest) at the time, entreated his followers with a well known formula for levying soldiers in an emergency: “Anyone who wants the community secure, follow me.” (qui rem publicam salvam esse volunt me sequatur)

With his toga drawn over his head, Nasica attempted to frame the killing as a religious rite (consacratio), taken to free the state from an incipient tyrant. Armed with clubs, wooden staves, and broken furniture (carrying swords in the capital city was at the time forbidden) Nasica and other senators bludgeoned the tribune to death. Tiberius’s body was thrown into the Tiber River... along with 300 of his followers.

Often seen as one of the first instances of organized political violence in the late Roman Republic, the event marked a turning point in Roman politics, ushering in an era of increasing instability, populist reform, and elite backlash. Money had won the battle... but politics was ready for war. Stay tuned for more Notes From the End of the World..."

- https://joelbowman.substack.com/

Musical Interlude: Vangelis, "Alpha"

Full screen recommended.

Vangelis, "Alpha"

"One summer night, out on a flat headland, all but surrounded by the waters of the bay, the horizons were remote and distant rims on the edge of space. Millions of stars blazed in darkness, and on the far shore a few lights burned in cottages. Otherwise there was no reminder of human life. My companion and I were alone with the stars: the misty river of the Milky Way flowing across the sky, the patterns of the constellations standing out bright and clear, a blazing planet low on the horizon. It occurred to me that if this were a sight that could be seen only once in a century, this little headland would be thronged with spectators. But it can be seen many scores of nights in any year, and so the lights burned in the cottages and the inhabitants probably gave not a thought to the beauty overhead; and because they could see it almost any night, perhaps they never will."

- Rachel Carson

"A Look to the Heavens"

"The most distant object easily visible to the eye is M31, the great Andromeda Galaxy some two and a half million light-years away. But without a telescope, even this immense spiral galaxy - spanning over 200,000 light years - appears as a faint, nebulous cloud in the constellation Andromeda. In contrast, details of a bright yellow nucleus and dark winding dust lanes, are revealed in this digital telescopic image. 

Click image for very large size.

Narrow band image data recording emission from hydrogen atoms, shows off the reddish star-forming regions dotting gorgeous blue spiral arms and young star clusters. While even casual skygazers are now inspired by the knowledge that there are many distant galaxies like M31, astronomers seriously debated this fundamental concept in the 20th century. Were these "spiral nebulae" simply outlying components of our own Milky Way Galaxy or were they instead "island universes" - distant systems of stars comparable to the Milky Way itself? This question was central to the famous Shapley-Curtis debate of 1920, which was later resolved by observations of M31 in favor of Andromeda, island universe.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100109.html

Chet Raymo, “New Philosophy”

“New Philosophy”
by Chet Raymo

"It is one of Albert Einstein's most-often quoted quotes: "The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is at all comprehensible." Is the world comprehensible? Apparently at least partially so. Consider the NASA solar eclipse atlas I referenced the other day. It is possible to calculate the precise locations and times for solar eclipses thousands of years into the future and past. That's comprehensibility for you.

Of course, there are still things we do not comprehend, such as consciousness or the development of organisms, but there is no good reason to suppose those things are intrinsically beyond human understanding. The whole of modern technological civilization and medicine is a monument to comprehensibility.

Why? Why this strange consonance between the world and the human mind? For centuries the answer was simple. God created a world of space and time, a finite mirror, so to speak, of his own intelligence. He created humans in his own likeness. Human intelligence partook of the intelligibility of God. Everything in the closed, human-centered cosmos was ordered in his likeness. The world was comprehensible because it was made that way - for us to comprehend.

Then, in the 16th and 17th centuries, came the great disruption, which Alexandre Koryé described in his seminal 1957 book "From the Closed World To the Infinite Universe." Daring thinkers resurrected the Greek idea that the universe might be infinite in extent and eternal in duration - no boundaries in space, no beginning or end in time. It was a radical thought, heretical really, but it meshed well with what the astronomers and physicists were learning about the world we live in. As the poet John Donne wrote:

    "And new philosophy calls all in doubt,
    The element of fire is quite put out,
    The sun is lost, and th' earth, and no man's wit
    Can well direct him where to look for it.
    And freely men confess that this world's spent,
    When in the planets and the firmament
    They seek so many new; they see that this
    Is crumbled out again to his atomies.
    'Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone,
    All just supply, and all relation."

Of course, it wasn't as bad as all that. Galileo and Newton provided a new coherence. The physical world itself took on two characteristics of the Godhead - omnipresence and everlasting life. Everything unfolded not in accordance with the divine will, but according to eternal and immutable laws of nature. The Divine Artifex, master craftsman, in Koyré's words, was replaced by the Dieu fainéant, a lazybones God with nothing to do. And the comprehensibility of the world became- well, as Einstein said- incomprehensible. But...things were about to get more complicated. 

Koyré's "From the Closed World To the Infinite Universe" was published in 1957. When I started teaching college in 1964, the required reading for my general studies science course included two articles by two prominent physicists published in "Scientific American" at about the same time as Koyré's book. George Gamow, a principal architect of the big bang theory, made the case for a universe that began billions of years ago as an explosion from an infinitely dense and infinitely small seed of energy. Fred Hoyle, stalwart champion of the steady state theory, took the stand for an infinite universe with no beginning and no end, in which matter is continuously created in the space between the galaxies.

Both theories had strengths and weaknesses. For example, the big bang successfully accounted for the known abundances of hydrogen and helium in the universe but posited an embarrassing beginning that could not be explained. The steady state theory avoided the stumbling block of a universe that seemed to come from nowhere but replaced it with many little unexplained beginnings (those particles of matter appearing continuously from nothing). Yet the big bang theory made one prediction that was testable: if the universe began in a blaze of luminosity, a degraded remnant of that radiation should still permeate the cosmos, and the precise spectral distribution of this microwave-frequency background could be calculated.

Then, that very year I started teaching, the cosmic microwave background radiation was serendipitously discovered by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, with precisely the predicted spectrum, a triumph of comprehensibility. The universe- space and time- had an apparent beginning! For some people, this extraordinary development re-opened the door to a creator God, whose intelligence is the source for the intelligibility of the world. Koyré may have anticipated this. In his final paragraph he wrote: "The infinite Universe of the New Cosmology, infinite in Duration as well as in Extension, in which eternal matter in accordance with external and necessary laws moves endlessly and aimlessly in eternal space, inherited all the ontological attributes of Divinity. Yet only those - all the others the departed God took away with Him."

What others? Personhood. Love. Justice. And intelligence. Intelligence that is the source of the intelligibility of the world. But for Einstein, and many of us here, the mathematical singularity which is the big bang is an opaque barrier. To say the universe is created by God conveys no more information than to say it is created by X. We learned to live without Koyré's Dieu fainéant, the lazybones God who had nothing to do, and see no reason to bring him out of retirement. So why is the universe comprehensible?

There are reasonable arguments for the incomprehensibility of human consciousness, and some of them were given here the other day in Comments. Let me offer arguments for the contrary.

First, one very important feature of consciousness has already been comprehended. We can say with a high degree of confidence that there is no ghost in the machine, that consciousness is an emergent physio-chemical property of the material brain. Whether consciousness is deterministic or involves some measure of quantum uncertainty remains to be seen, but I find Roger Penrose's argument for quantum uncertainty unconvincing. For the moment, Ockham's Razor rules.

Second, we can study emergent consciousness by observing other organisms, from sea snails to chimpanzees. That is, in principle, we can build up an understanding of human consciousness incrementally. This assumes, of course, that human consciousness differs from that of other organisms only in complexity, not kind. Again, for the moment, the Razor rules.

Third, as I mentioned here once before, a project is underway to fully map the neuronal structure of the human brain, at which point it should be possible to construct an operational electronic analog of the brain. Will such machines be conscious? Google "artificial consciousness" and you'll find arguments for both sides. At the very least we will pare away some of the incomprehensibility.

Fourth, we may already have created a "conscious" machine: the internet, which approaches the human brain in its degree of interconnected complexity. It is continuously "aware," sensitive to millions of sensory inputs- touch, vision, hearing, smell, and for all I know even taste. I can ask a question in human language or tap an icon and instantly have a response from the internet's vast memory. The internet and its myriad of input/output devices mimic enough of the aspects of human consciousness for us to be increasingly confident that consciousness is not intrinsically beyond in principle understanding. And isn't in principle understanding all we ask of science, and Life?"

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

"Sometimes..."

 

The Poet: Mary Oliver, “White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field”

“White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field”
 
“Coming down out of the freezing sky
with its depths of light,
like an angel, or a Buddha with wings,
it was beautiful, and accurate,
striking the snow and whatever was there
with a force that left the imprint
of the tips of its wings - five feet apart -
and the grabbing thrust of its feet,
and the indentation of what had been running
through the white valleys of the snow -
and then it rose, gracefully,
and flew back to the frozen marshes
to lurk there, like a little lighthouse,
in the blue shadows -
so I thought:
maybe death isn't darkness, after all,
but so much light wrapping itself around us -
as soft as feathers -
that we are instantly weary of looking, and looking,
and shut our eyes, not without amazement,
and let ourselves be carried,
as through the translucence of mica,
to the river that is without the least dapple or shadow,
that is nothing but light - scalding, aortal light -
in which we are washed and washed
out of our bones.”

 - Mary Oliver

"The Chief Obstacle..."

"The chief obstacle to the progress of the human race is the human race."

- Don Marquis

"In the mass of mankind, I fear, there is too great a majority of fools and knaves,
who, singly from their number, must to a certain degree be respected, 
though they are by no means respectable."
- Philip Stanhope

Free Download: Nevil Shute, “On The Beach”

“On The Beach”

by Nevil Shute

“Nevil Shute’s 1959 novel “On the Beach” is set in what was then the near future (1963, approximately a year following World War III). The conflict has devastated the northern hemisphere, polluting the atmosphere with nuclear fallout and killing all animal life. While the nuclear bombs were confined to the northern hemisphere, global air currents are slowly carrying the fallout to the southern hemisphere. The only part of the planet still habitable is the far south of the globe, specifically Australia and New Zealand, South Africa, and the southern parts of South America.

From Australia, survivors detect a mysterious and incomprehensible Morse code radio signal originating from the United States. With hope that some life has remained in the contaminated regions, one of the last American nuclear submarines, the USS Scorpion, placed by its captain under Australian naval command, is ordered to sail north from its port of refuge in Melbourne (Australia’s southernmost major mainland city) to try to contact whoever is sending the signal. In preparation for this long journey the submarine first makes a shorter trip to some port cities in northern Australia including Cairns, Queensland and Darwin, Northern Territory, finding no survivors.

The Australian government makes arrangements to provide its citizens with free suicide pills and injections, so that they will be able to avoid prolonged suffering from radiation sickness. One of the novel’s poignant dilemmas is that of Australian naval officer Peter Holmes, who has a baby daughter and a naive and childish wife, Mary, who is in denial about the impending disaster. Because he has been assigned to travel north with the Americans, Peter must try to explain to Mary how to euthanize their baby and kill herself with the pill should he be killed on the ocean voyage.

The characters make their best efforts to enjoy what time and pleasures remain to them before dying from radiation poisoning, speaking of small pleasures and continuing their customary activities, allowing their awareness of the coming end to impinge on their minds only long enough to plan ahead for their final hours. The Holmeses plant a garden that they will never see; Moira takes classes in typing and shorthand; scientist John Osborne and others organize a dangerous motor race that results in the violent deaths of several participants. In the end, Captain Towers chooses not to remain with Moira but rather to lead his crew on a final mission to scuttle their submarine beyond the twelve-mile (22 km) limit, so that she will not rattle about, unsecured, in a foreign port, refusing to allow his coming demise to turn him aside from his duty and acting as a pillar of strength to his crew.

Typically for a Shute novel, the characters avoid the expression of intense emotions and do not mope or indulge in self-pity. They do not, for the most part, flee southward as refugees but rather accept their fate once the lethal radiation levels reach the latitudes at which they live. Finally, most of the Australians do opt for the government-promoted alternative of suicide when the symptoms of radiation-sickness appear.”

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Beach_(novel)

o

Freely download “On the Beach”, by Nevil Shute, here:

- http://www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20131214

o

Full screen recommended.

Complete movie "On The Beach"

The Daily "Near You?"

Santa Clara, California, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Not Much Mental Distance..."

“A man who has blown all his options can't afford the luxury of changing his ways. He has to capitalize on whatever he has left, and he can't afford to admit - no matter how often he's reminded of it - that every day of his life takes him farther and farther down a blind alley. Very few toads in this world are Prince Charmings in disguise. Most are simply toads, and they are going to stay that way. Toads don't make laws or change any basic structures, but one or two rooty insights can work powerful changes in the way they get through life. A toad who believes he got a raw deal before he even knew who was dealing will usually be sympathetic to the mean, vindictive ignorance that colors the Hell's Angels' view of humanity. There is not much mental distance between a feeling of having been screwed and the ethic of total retaliation, or at least the random revenge that comes with outraging the public decency.”

- Hunter S. Thompson

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

hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats."

 - H. L. Mencken

Gregory Mannarino, "The Final 7 Stages, And No One Is Ready For This"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 6/6/25

"The Final 7 Stages, 

And No One Is Ready For This"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Gregory Mannarino, PM 6/6/25

"By Either Monetary Suicide Or Monetary Homicide 

This Is How It Ends"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Jeremiah Babe, "Elon Musk Declares Political Nuclear War On Trump"

Jeremiah Babe, 6/6/25

"Elon Musk Declares Political Nuclear War On Trump"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Dan, I Allegedly, "Everything Has a Cost - An Economic Nightmare"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, AM 6/6/25

"Everything Has a Cost - An Economic Nightmare"

"Get ready for a wild ride as we explore the latest proposal turning heads - limiting how far you can drive each year! Massachusetts lawmakers are floating ideas to curb travel and reduce pollution, but could it hurt local businesses? Plus, Washington’s bold speed governor plan, Pennsylvania’s $500 fines rule, and even proposals to eliminate driver's license renewals after 50 - what does it all mean for you and your freedom to hit the road? Everything has a cost, and I break it all down in this video. We also touch on some lighthearted stories, like a burning cargo ship filled with cars, dating advice you didn’t know you needed, and an update on California’s high-speed rail chaos. There’s so much happening, and I’m here to share it with you!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"How It Really Is"

 

"The Rule of Idiots"

"The Rule of Idiots"

In the last days of all empires the idiots take over. They mirror the

collective stupidity of a civilization that has detached itself from reality.

by Chris Hedges

"The last days of dying empires are dominated by idiots. The Roman, Mayan, French, Habsburg, Ottoman, Romanoff, Iranian and Soviet dynasties crumbled under the stupidity of their decadent rulers who absented themselves from reality, plundered their nations and retreated into echo chambers where fact and fiction were indistinguishable.

Donald Trump, and the sycophantic buffoons in his administration, are updated versions of the reigns of the Roman emperor Nero, who allocated vast state expenditures to attain magical powers; the Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang, who funded repeated expeditions to a mythical island of immortals to bring back a potion that would give him eternal life; and a feckless Tsarist court that sat around reading tarot cards and attending séances as Russia was decimated by a war that consumed over two million lives and revolution brewed in the streets.

In “Hitler and the Germans,” the political philosopher Eric Voegelin dismisses the idea that Hitler - gifted in oratory and political opportunism, but poorly educated and vulgar - mesmerized and seduced the German people. The Germans, he writes, supported Hitler and the “grotesque, marginal figures,” surrounding him because he embodied the pathologies of a diseased society, one beset by economic collapse and hopelessness. Voegelin defines stupidity as a “loss of reality.” The loss of reality means a “stupid” person cannot “rightly orient his action in the world, in which he lives.” The demagogue, who is always an idiote, is not a freak or social mutation. The demagogue expresses the society’s zeitgeist, its collective departure from a rational world of verifiable fact.

These idiots, who promise to recapture lost glory and power, do not create. They only destroy. They accelerate the collapse. Limited in intellectual ability, lacking any moral compass, grossly incompetent and filled with rage at established elites who they see as having slighted and rejected them, they remake the world into a playground for grifters, con artists and megalomaniacs. They make war on universities, banish scientific research, peddle quack theories about vaccines as a pretext to expand mass surveillance and data sharing, strip legal residents of their rights and empower armies of goons, which is what the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has become, to spread fear and ensure passivity. Reality, whether the climate crisis or the immiseration of the working class, does not impinge on their fantasies. The worse it gets, the more idiotic they become.

Hannah Arendt blames a society that willingly embraces radical evil on this collective “thoughtlessness.” Desperate to escape from the stagnation, where they and their children are trapped, hopeless and in despair, a betrayed population is conditioned to exploit everyone around them in a desperate scramble to advance. People are objects to be used, mirroring the cruelty inflicted by the ruling class.

A society convulsed by disorder and chaos, as Voegelin points out, celebrates the morally degenerate, those who are cunning, manipulative, deceitful and violent. In an open, democratic society, these attributes are despised and criminalized. Those who exhibit them are condemned as stupid; “a man [or woman] who behaves in this way,” Voegelin notes, “will be socially boycotted.” But the social, cultural and moral norms in a diseased society are inverted. The attributes that sustain an open society — a concern for the common good, honesty, trust and self-sacrifice — are ridiculed. They are detrimental to existence in a diseased society.

When a society, as Plato notes, abandons the common good, it always unleashes amoral lusts - violence, greed and sexual exploitation - and fosters magical thinking, the focus of my book “Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle.”

The only thing these dying regimes do well is spectacle. These bread and circuses acts - like Trump’s $40 million Army parade to be held on his birthday on June 14 - keep a distressed population entertained.

The Disneyfication of America, the land of eternally happy thoughts and positive attitudes, the land where everything is possible, is peddled to mask the cruelty of economic stagnation and social inequality. The population is conditioned by mass culture, dominated by sexual commodification, banal and mindless entertainment and graphic depictions of violence, to blame itself for failure.

Søren Kierkegaard in “The Present Age” warns that the modern state seeks to eradicate conscience and shape and manipulate individuals into a pliable and indoctrinated “public.” This public is not real. It is, as Kierkegaard writes, a “monstrous abstraction, an all-embracing something which is nothing, a mirage.” In short, we became part of a herd, “unreal individuals who never are and never can be united in an actual situation or organization - and yet are held together as a whole.” Those who question the public, those who denounce the corruption of the ruling class, are dismissed as dreamers, freaks or traitors. But only they, according to the Greek definition of the polis, can be considered citizens.

Thomas Paine writes that a despotic government is a fungus that grows out of a corrupt civil society. This is what happened to past societies. It is what happened to us.

It is tempting to personalize the decay, as if ridding ourselves of Trump will return us to sanity and sobriety. But the rot and corruption has ruined all of our democratic institutions, which function in form, not in content. The consent of the governed is a cruel joke. Congress is a club on the take from billionaires and corporations. The courts are appendages of corporations and the rich. The press is an echo chamber of the elites, some of whom do not like Trump, but none of whom advocate the social and political reforms that could save us from despotism. It is about how we dress up despotism, not despotism itself.

The historian Ramsay MacMullen, in “Corruption and the Decline of Rome,” writes that what destroyed the Roman Empire was “the diverting of governmental force, its misdirection.” Power became about enriching private interests. This misdirection renders government powerless, at least as an institution that can address the needs and protect the rights of the citizenry. Our government, in this sense, is powerless. It is a tool of corporations, banks, the war industry and oligarchs. It cannibalizes itself to funnel wealth upwards.

“The decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness,” Edward Gibbon writes. “Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the cause of the destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest; and, as soon as time or accident had removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight. The story of the ruin is simple and obvious: and instead of inquiring why the Roman Empire was destroyed we should rather be surprised that it had subsisted for so long.”

The Roman emperor Commodus, like Trump, was entranced with his own vanity. He commissioned statues of himself as Hercules and had little interest in governance. He fancied himself a star of the arena, staging gladiatorial contests where he was crowned the victor and killing lions with a bow and arrow. The empire - he renamed Rome the Colonia Commodiana (Colony of Commodus) - was a vehicle to satiate his bottomless narcissism and lust for wealth. He sold public offices the way Trump sells pardons and favors to those who invest in his cryptocurrencies or donate to his inauguration committee or presidential library.

Finally, the emperor’s advisors arranged to have him strangled to death in his bath by a professional wrestler after he announced that he would assume the consulship dressed as a gladiator. But his assassination did nothing to halt the decline. Commodus was replaced by the reformer Pertinax who was assassinated three months later. The Praetorian Guards auctioned off the office of emperor. The next emperor, Didius Julianus, lasted 66 days. There would be five emperors in A.D. 193, the year after the assassination of Commodus.

Like the late Roman Empire, our republic is dead. Our constitutional rights - due process, habeas corpus, privacy, freedom from exploitation, fair elections and dissent - have been taken from us by judicial and legislative fiat. These rights exist only in name. The vast disconnect between the purported values of our faux democracy and reality means our political discourse, the words we use to describe ourselves and our political system, are absurd.

Walter Benjamin wrote in 1940 amid the rise of European fascism and looming world war: "A Klee painting named Angelus Novus shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned towards the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe, which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress."

Our decay, our illiteracy and collective retreat from reality, was long in the making. The steady erosion of our rights, especially our rights as voters, the transformation of the organs of state into tools of exploitation, the immiseration of the working poor and middle class, the lies that saturate our airwaves, the degrading of public education, the endless and futile wars, the staggering public debt, the collapse of our physical infrastructure, mirror the last days of all empires. Trump the pyromaniac entertains us as we go down."

- https://chrishedges.substack.com/

Jim Kunstler, "What Movie Is This?"

"What Movie Is This?"

by Jim Kunstler

“MAGA is developing “tech right” fatigue.” 

-  Cernovich on “X”

"In this age of info overload, when everybody’s brain has become a memory hole, we’ll see how long anyone remembers Elon Musk’s epic tantrum. The latest news is that Mr. Trump and Wonderboy have scheduled a phone convo for today, Friday, supposedly to “make-up.”

The whole psychodrama looks like an episode out of the Batman movie that America has become. You could see the current plot twist from a thousand miles away. Even back in the summer, Elon’s spastic cavortings on the campaign trail looked suspiciously drug-edged. He’s reported to use ketamine, which induces mood changes from euphoria to anxiety and agitation, as well as slurred speech. Also, altered judgment and disinhibition that might provoke risky behavior. You just have to kind of wonder.

Meanwhile, the fabled Fourth Turning enters full churn. Western Civ, of which we are part, continues to go sideways into history. In case you are distracted by Mr. Musk’s histrionics, we are on a path toward World War, political crack-up, and global bankruptcy.

Among the strange doings, note former CIA Director Mike Pompeo showing up a week ago at a “Black Sea Security Forum” in Odessa, Ukraine, where - say, what? - he called for called for a "complete victory" over Russia, and advocated for Crimea to be recognized as part of Ukraine (which is not in the folder labeled “Reality”).

A call for “victory” implies that we’re at war with Russia, or seek to enter such a war. Granted, the US neocon-intel-blob sparked the Ukraine-Russia War, starting in 2014, when State Department Cookie Monster Victoria Nuland set off the Maidan color revolution. And “Joe Biden” kept stoking the conflict with cash and ammo - and inflammatory rhetoric. But Mr. Trump has been working this year to put out the fire, difficult as that is, with the EU and the rest of NATO beating war drums offstage.

What was Mike Pompeo up to in Odessa? You can make the case that he was violating the Logan Act: attempting to make freelance foreign policy outside government, and in a rather dangerous way, calling for war, however obliquely. And then you have Senators Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal flying to Kiev to confab with the unelected coke-head running Ukraine’s war machine... and alakazam, the next day Ukraine pulls off its long-distance bombing prank deep into Russia, destroying some of its strategic nuclear force. Surely, the purpose of that was to provoke a response that could amount to a cassus belli for the EU to launch its (insane and suicidal) longed-for war against Russia.

Why were Pompeo, Lindsey Graham, and Blumenthal not arrested when they flew back to the USA? Everything they were up to in Ukraine had the odor of serious mischief. Mr. Patel of the FBI, a former US attorney who knows how to manage such things, should have personally hauled all three of them into a windowless room for depositions. Who, exactly, does Mike Pompeo purport to represent these days? Who paid for his trip to Odessa, and who went with him? And why isn’t anybody asking these questions?

Elon Musk’s bout of intemperance was supposedly provoked by his disgust over the “big beautiful bill” before Congress, not a budget, really, but a mandatory spending reconciliation package with lots of bells, whistles, and kazoos attached. Of course, you have to ask: what legislation coming out of that animal farm is not a monstrosity? Maybe it takes a monster to fight a monster.

Maybe America needs to transition out of its Batman phase into something like King Kong versus Godzilla. The multitude of little folk underfoot are getting trampled, anyway. And the bankruptcy of America is already presenting itself as a sort of systemic sepsis driving ordinary people and small businesses to ruin, even while the stock and bond markets manage to levitate. No one can feel comfortable in the present situation.

The Democratic Party played the Joker the past ten Batman years, working overtime to throw the country into chaos. That movie’s over. Now, strange to relate, it’s looking more and more like the USA (King Kong) against Europe (Godzilla). Russia is the lady in peril down among the ferns watching the brutes roar at each other. China is something like Ming-the-Merciless from a distant planet (and another movie), waiting off-stage to see what happens.

Europe has a death wish. Its economy is cratering. It’s sacrificing two-thousand years of culture to a new barbarian invasion. The governments of the UK, France, and Germany, have gone full Orwell against their own citizens. The unelected EU has turned into a tyrannical machine grinding up anything that looks like enterprise. And the war drums they’re beating can only bring on a hard rain of Russian hypersonic “hazelnuts,” destroying the only thing they have left: their once-charming cities. If that’s not enough to finish Europe off, wait for the banking and bond market implosion.

Mr. Trump knows that Godzilla is fixing to fall off a cliff. He’s more inclined to take up with that lady down in the ferns and march back into the humid, welcoming jungle. If you really want to rescue what’s left of Western Civ, Russia in its current form, would be your natural ally, not your opponent. Nobody knows how we will get through this movie, but time does not stand still and some day we will be back in a world of nations that have given up acting like monsters... and maybe the next movie is something light-hearted like Carey Grant and Kate Hepburn with a pet leopard."

- https://www.kunstler.com/

Bill Bonner, "Musk vs Trump: Who Wins?"

"Musk vs Trump: Who Wins?"

by Bill Bonner

Youghal, Ireland - "Poor Elon. He lost the love of the loony left when he joined forces with Donald Trump. Now, breaking up with The Donald, he is alienating the MAGA mob. Fox is on the story: "Elon Musk on Wednesday sent out a missive to the 220 million people who follow him on his social media platform X (formerly Twitter) urging them to contact their members of Congress and voice their displeasure at the legislation, which the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office projects would add trillions of dollars to the national debt." And on Thursday he wrote: “Without me Trump would have lost the election.”

Axios adds: Ian Miles Cheong, a prominent Musk supporter and right-wing activist on X, tweeted: "President vs Elon. Who wins? My money's on Elon. Trump should be impeached and JD Vance should replace him." Musk responded to Cheong: "Yes."

When another follower suggested they could finally be honest about the stupidity of Trump's tariffs, Musk posted: "The Trump tariffs will cause a recession in the second half of this year." And get this, from Musk: "Donald Trump is in the Epstein Files. That’s the real reason they haven’t been released."

But then, Trump struck back. Forbes: "Shares of Tesla dropped by more than 8% on Thursday as the relationship between Elon Musk and President Donald Trump’s appeared to unravel, with Musk launching attacks at the president on X and Trump suggesting to telling reporters at the White House criticism of his signature bill from the world’s wealthiest person amounts to “Trump derangement syndrome.”

Isn’t this fun? The world’s richest man is now blasting away at the world’s most powerful man. Not since Louis 14th turned on his trusted lieutenant, the very rich and very successful Nicolas Fouquet, has the world seen anything like it. Jealous of Fouquet’s wealth and power, Louis had him arrested and took his property for his own, including the jewel of French chateaux, Vaux le Vicomte. Fouquet died in prison 19 years later.

And now it’s Musk vs. Trump. A Mega-Match-up. Money versus Politics. Brains vs. Brawn. Win-win against Win-lose. Ultimately, Musk is a win-win guy. He must satisfy his customers - including investors. If he fails, they will leave him. (Unfortunately for him, his biggest single customer is the US government.) Trump, on the other hand, is a win-lose guy. Even in business, he believed the way to make money was to ‘win’ - by making the other guy ‘lose.’ And when someone crossed him, he would hit back ‘ten times as hard.’

How will this turn out? In the next few days, we expect to see the battle go in Musk’s direction. Because, the current battlefield is the Big, Beautiful Budget Abomination (BBBA) in the Senate. Musk has the high ground. Trump’s position is indefensible. And Senate Republicans are having an identity crisis. Are they ‘conservatives?’ Are they RINOs? Or are they MAGA Trumpistas?

In the old days of the 20th century, there were liberals (Democrats) and conservatives (Republicans). Even then, there were two kinds of Republicans. There were the slick, big-city Rockefeller Republicans. And the bumpkin ‘conservatives’ of the farm belt.

The city Republicans were richer, dressed better and were more in tune with the needs of Wall Street. The country Republicans were down-to-earth, patriotic and more likely to go to church. Both were wary of Big Government. Hard headed and skeptical, they counted on family, God, the Constitution and old-fashioned self-reliance to improve the human condition (many were not so sure it could be improved). And they all hated deficits as they hated sin itself. Neither would have supported the BBBA. And by 1981, they had gotten the ratio of debt/GDP down to just 30%.

Things changed with the advent of the new money system in 1971. It took a few years for Republicans to realize it, but since the feds could now ‘print’ money, there was no longer a penalty - at least in the foreseeable future - for over-spending. In fact, the penalty went over to the other side. Vote against more spending and you might lose your seat in Congress. Vote in favor, on the other hand, and the feds would print more money to cover the costs. What’s more, from 1981 to 2020, interest rates actually went down as the Fed made more of this fake capital available. And today, the debt/GDP ratio is 120%.

There were a couple rear guard attempts, after 1990, to restore the ol’ time religion...such as ‘the Pledge’...and the Tea Party. But for the most part, Republicans became Democrats, ready to spend, spend, spend in exchange for votes. This new breed became known as RINOs - Republican in Name Only.

It fell to a life-long Democrat, however, to transform the Republican Party from a group of conservatives to a group better described as ‘Big Man socialists.’ No longer advocates for small government, they joined the Democrats in calling for a Big, Powerful, Ambitious Government. And how close are they to Democrats now? USA Today: "President Donald Trump announced he agrees with a longtime antagonist, Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, on the need to abolish the cap on the country’s borrowing."

Today, neither party wants a limit on how much debt it can add. But now, a penalty has returned. Musk is right; if deficits are not brought under control, a financial crisis will soon be upon us. And while the Trumpistas now dominate the Republican Party, there may not be enough of them to pass the BBBA - not without substantial changes. Stay tuned."

- https://www.bonnerprivateresearch.com/

"P.S. Advice to Musk; remember Fouquet."

"Alert! White House Implodes, WW3 Explodes, Widespread Blackouts In Iran"

Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper, 6/5/25

"Alert! White House Implodes, 

WW3 Explodes, Widespread Blackouts In Iran"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"The Painful Truth: People Are Losing Everything, Even Their Pets"

Jeremiah Babe, 6/5/25

"The Painful Truth: 

People Are Losing Everything, Even Their Pets"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Gerald Celente, "Dragflation And World War Escalation"

Strong language alert!

Gerald Celente, 6/5/25

"Dragflation And World War Escalation"

"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present facts and truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for what’s next in these increasingly turbulent times."

- https://trendsjournal.com/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Music For Positive Energy Healing; 528Hz Music For Meditation; Miracle Healing Frequency; Zen"

Full screen highly recommended.

Spirit Tribe Awakening, 

"Music For Positive Energy Healing; 

528Hz Music For Meditation; Miracle Healing Frequency; Zen" 

"Sound Vibration: The most elemental state of vibration is that of sound. Everything has an optimum range of vibration (frequency), and that rate is called resonance. When we are in resonance, we are balanced. Every organ and every cell in our precious body absorbs and emits sound with particular optimum resonate frequency. 432hz and 528hz tuned music creates resonance in our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual body.

All our music (self-composed and licensed from other composers) is tuned to 432Hz and 528Hz, and contains Solfeggio Frequencies; Miracle Tones that Heal, Change and Transform low vibrational energy (negative energy). Letting go of negative thoughts and emotions. Recharging the LIGHT within you. Refueling mind, body, heart and soul with Powerful Positive Energy that aligns you with your Innate Power, Potential and Resources. 

When you RAISE YOUR VIBRATION you also help to raise the collective vibration of our beautiful planet and all life on it. You are important. You are important to this planet. You are valuable. You are a beautiful expression of Life. Powerful BEYOND words."

"What you want, wants you."

 - Rumi

"A Look to the Heavens"

“A now famous picture from the Hubble Space Telescope featured Pillars of Creation, star forming columns of cold gas and dust light-years long inside M16, the Eagle Nebula. This false-color composite image views the nearby stellar nursery using data from the Herschel Space Observatory's panoramic exploration of interstellar clouds along the plane of our Milky Way galaxy. Herschel's far infrared detectors record the emission from the region's cold dust directly. 

The famous pillars are included near the center of the scene. While the central group of hot young stars is not apparent at these infrared wavelengths, the stars' radiation and winds carve the shapes within the interstellar clouds. Scattered white spots are denser knots of gas and dust, clumps of material collapsing to form new stars. The Eagle Nebula is some 6,500 light-years distant, an easy target for binoculars or small telescopes in a nebula rich part of the sky toward the split constellation Serpens Cauda (the tail of the snake).”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap160728.html

"This Is The Motive..."

"All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves."

- Blaise Pascal