- Stephen King
So, we rise from the rubble...
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Wednesday, June 18, 2025
"In The End..."
The Poet: Wendell Berry, “A Warning To My Readers”
“A Warning To My Readers”
“Do not think me gentle
because I speak in praise
of gentleness, or elegant
because I honor the grace
that keeps this world. I am
a man crude as any,
gross of speech, intolerant,
stubborn, angry, full
of fits and furies. That I
may have spoken well
at times, is not natural.
A wonder is what it is.”
- Wendell Berry
Dan, I Allegedly, "No One's Ready for $12 a Gallon Gas!"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 6/18/25
"No One's Ready for $12 a Gallon Gas!"
"Get ready for a shocking look at what $12 gasoline could mean for all of us! In this video, I break down how escalating oil prices, driven by global conflicts, could send gas prices soaring - and the chaos it would unleash on our economy. From skyrocketing costs for groceries and goods to the collapse of small shipping companies and massive layoffs in transportation and retail, the ripple effect would be devastating. Experts predict oil could reach $300 a barrel, bringing diesel prices to unimaginable levels. This isn’t just about gas - it’s about the very foundation of daily life. I’ll also touch on rising food prices, the housing market downturn, and the impacts on logistics, air travel, and more. Plus, what could happen to gold prices as the economy struggles to recover? There’s so much to explore, and it’s crucial to stay informed."
Comments here:
“Thucydides in the Underworld”
“Master, what gnaws at them so hideously
their lamentation stuns the very air?”
“They have no hope of death,” he answered me…”
- Dante Alighieri, “The Inferno”
“Thucydides in the Underworld”
by J. R. Nyquist
“The shade of Thucydides, formerly an Athenian general and historian, languished in Hades for 24 centuries; and having intercourse with other spirits, was perturbed by an influx into the underworld of self-described historians professing to admire his History of the Peloponnesian War. They burdened him with their writings, priding themselves on the imitation of his method, tracing the various patterns of human nature in politics and war. He was, they said, the greatest historian; and his approval of their works held the promise that their purgatory was no prologue to oblivion.
As the centuries rolled on, the flow of historians into Hades became a torrent. The later historians were no longer imitators, but most were admirers. It seemed to Thucydides that these were a miserable crowd, unable to discern between the significant and the trivial, being obsessed with tedious doctrines. Unembarrassed by their inward poverty, they ascribed an opposite meaning to things: thinking themselves more “evolved” than the spirits of antiquity. Some even imagined that the universe was creating God. They supposed that the “most evolved” among men would assume God’s office; and further, that they themselves were among the “most evolved.”
Thucydides longed for the peace of his grave, which posthumous fame had deprived him. As with many souls at rest, he took no further interest in history. He had passed through existence and was done. He had seen everything. What was bound to follow, he knew, would be more of the same; but after more than 23 centuries of growing enthusiasm for his work, there occurred a sudden falling off. Of the newly deceased, fewer broke in upon him. Quite clearly, something had happened. He began to realize that the character of man had changed because of the rottenness of modern ideas. Among the worst of these, for Thucydides, was that barbarians and civilized peoples were considered equal; that art could transmit sacrilege; that paper could be money; that sexual and cultural differences were of no account; that meanness was rated noble, and nobility mean.
Awakened from the sleep of death, Thucydides remembered what he had written about his own time. The watchwords then, as now, were “revolution” and “democracy.” There had been upheaval on all sides. “As the result of these revolutions,” he had written, “there was a general deterioration of character throughout the Greek world. The simple way of looking at things, which is so much the mark of a noble nature, was regarded as a ridiculous quality and soon ceased to exist. Society had become divided into two ideologically hostile camps, and each side viewed the other with suspicion.”
Thucydides saw that democracy, once again, imagined itself victorious. Once again traditions were questioned as men became enamored of their own prowess. It was no wonder they were deluded. They landed men on the moon. They had harnessed the power of the atom. It was no wonder that the arrogance of man had grown so monstrous, that expectations of the future were so unrealistic. Deluded by recent successes, they could not see that dangers were multiplying in plain view. Men built new engines of war, capable of wiping out entire cities, but few took this danger seriously. Why were men so determined to build such weapons? The leading country, of course, was willing to put its weapons aside. Other countries pretended to put their weapons aside. Still others said they weren’t building weapons at all, even though they were.
Would the new engines of destruction be used? Would cities and nations be wiped off the face of the earth? Thucydides knew the answer. In his own day, during an interval of unstable peace, the Athenians had exterminated the male population of the island of Melos. Before doing this the Athenian commanders had came to Melos and said, “We on our side will use no fine phrases saying, for example, that we have a right to our empire because we defeated the Persians, or that we have come against you now because of the injuries you have done us – a great mass of words that nobody would believe.” The Athenians demanded the submission of Melos, without regard to right or wrong. As the Athenian representative explained, “the strong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept.”
The Melians were shocked by this brazen admission. They could not believe that anyone would dare to destroy them without just cause. In the first place, the Melians threatened no one. In the second place, they imagined that the world would be shocked and would avenge any atrocity committed against them. And so the Melians told the Athenians: “in our view it is useful that you should not destroy a principle that is to the general good of all men – namely, that in the case of all who fall into danger there should be such a thing as fair play and just dealing. And this is a principle which affects you as much as anybody, since your own fall would be visited by the most terrible vengeance and would be an example to the world.”
The Athenians were not moved by the argument of Melos; for they knew that the Spartans generally treated defeated foes with magnanimity. “Even assuming that our empire does come to an end,” the Athenians chuckled, “we are not despondent about what would happen next. One is not so much frightened of being conquered by a power like Sparta.” And so the Athenians destroyed Melos, believing themselves safe – which they were. The Melians refused to submit, praying for the protection of gods and men. But these availed them nothing, neither immediate relief nor future vengeance. The Melians were wiped off the earth. They were not the first or the last to die in this manner.
There was one more trend that Thucydides noted. In every free and prosperous country he found a parade of monsters: human beings with oversized egos, with ambitions out of proportion to their ability, whose ideas rather belied their understanding than affirmed it. Whereas, there was one Alcibiades in his own day, there were now hundreds of the like: self-serving, cunning and profane; only they did not possess the skills, or the mental acuity, or beauty of Alcibiades. Instead of being exiled, they pushed men of good sense from the center of affairs. Instead of being right about strategy and tactics, they were always wrong. And they were weak, he thought, because they had learned to be bad by the example of others. There was nothing novel about them, although they believed themselves to be original in all things.
Thucydides reflected that human beings are subject to certain behavioral patterns. Again and again they repeat the same actions, unable to stop themselves. Society is slowly built up, then wars come and put all to ruin. Those who promise a solution to this are charlatans, only adding to the destruction, because the only solution to man is the eradication of man. In the final analysis the philanthropist and the misanthrope are two sides of the same coin. While man exists he follows his nature. Thucydides taught this truth, and went to his grave. His history was written, as he said, “for all time.” And it is a kind of law of history that the generations most like his own are bound to ignore the significance of what he wrote; for otherwise they would not re-enact the history of Thucydides. But as they become ignorant of his teaching, they fall into disaster spontaneously and without thinking. Seeing that time was short, and realizing that a massive number of new souls would soon be entering the underworld, the shade of Thucydides fell back to rest.”
Stipendium peccati mors est, Israel...
"The Real National Emergency: Endless Wars, Failing Infrastructure, and a Dying Republic"
"The Real National Emergency: Endless Wars,
Failing Infrastructure, and a Dying Republic"
By John & Nisha Whitehead
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” - President Dwight D. Eisenhower (April 16, 1953)
"Seventy years after President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned about the cost of a military-industrial complex, America is still stealing from its own people to fund a global empire. In 2025 alone, the U.S. has launched airstrikes in Yemen (Operation Rough Rider), bombed Houthi-controlled ports and radar installations (killing scores of civilians), deployed greater numbers of troops and multiple aircraft carriers to the Middle East, and edged closer to direct war with Iran in support of Israel’s escalating conflict.
Each of these “new” fronts has been sold to the public as national defense. In truth, they are the latest outposts in a decades-long campaign of empire maintenance—one that lines the pockets of defense contractors while schools crumble, bridges collapse, and veterans sleep on the streets at home.
This isn’t about national defense. This is empire maintenance. It’s about preserving a military-industrial complex that profits from endless war, global policing, and foreign occupations - while the nation’s infrastructure rots and its people are neglected.
The United States has spent much of the past half-century policing the globe, occupying other countries, and waging endless wars. What most Americans fail to recognize is that these ongoing wars have little to do with keeping the country safe and everything to do with propping up a military-industrial complex that has its sights set on world domination.
War has become a huge money-making venture, and the U.S. government, with its vast military empire, is one of its best buyers and sellers. America’s role in the Russia-Ukraine conflict has already cost taxpayers more than $112 billion. And now, the price of empire is rising again.
Clearly, it’s time for the U.S. government to stop policing the globe. The U.S. military reportedly has more than 1.3 million men and women on active duty, with more than 200,000 of them stationed overseas in nearly every country in the world. American troops are stationed in Somalia, Iraq and Syria. In Germany, South Korea and Japan. In Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Oman. In Niger, Chad and Mali. In Turkey, the Philippines, and northern Australia.
Those numbers are likely significantly higher in keeping with the Pentagon’s policy of not fully disclosing where and how many troops are deployed for the sake of “operational security and denying the enemy any advantage.” As investigative journalist David Vine explains, “Although few Americans realize it, the United States likely has more bases in foreign lands than any other people, nation, or empire in history.”
Incredibly, America’s military forces aren’t being deployed abroad to protect our freedoms here at home. Rather, they’re being used to guard oil fields, build foreign infrastructure and protect the financial interests of the corporate elite. In fact, the United States military spends about $81 billion a year just to protect oil supplies around the world.
America’s military empire spans nearly 800 bases in 160 countries, operated at a cost of more than $156 billion annually. As Vine reports, “Even US military resorts and recreation areas in places like the Bavarian Alps and Seoul, South Korea, are bases of a kind. Worldwide, the military runs more than 170 golf courses.” This is how a military empire occupies the globe.
For 20 years, the U.S. war machine propped up Afghanistan to the tune of trillions of dollars and thousands of lives lost. When troops left Afghanistan, the military-industrial complex simply shifted theaters - turning Yemen, Iran, and the Red Sea into new frontlines.
Each new conflict is marketed as national defense. In reality, it’s business as usual for the Pentagon's global footprint, with American soldiers used as pawns in the government's endless quest to control global markets, prop up foreign regimes, and secure oil, data, and strategic ports - all while being told it’s for liberty.
This is how the military-industrial complex, aided and abetted by the likes of Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and others, continues to get rich at taxpayer expense. Yet while the rationale may keep changing for why American military forces are policing the globe, these wars abroad aren’t making America—or the rest of the world - any safer, are certainly not making America great again, and are undeniably digging the U.S. deeper into debt. War spending is bankrupting America.
Although the U.S. constitutes only 5% of the world's population, America boasts almost 50% of the world's total military expenditure, spending more on the military than the next 19 biggest spending nations combined. In fact, the Pentagon spends more on war than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety. The American military-industrial complex has erected an empire unsurpassed in history in its breadth and scope, one dedicated to conducting perpetual warfare throughout the earth.
Since 2001, the U.S. government has spent more than $10 trillion waging its endless wars, much of it borrowed, much of it wasted, all of it paid for in blood and taxpayer dollars. Add Yemen and the Middle East escalations of 2025, and the final bill for future wars and military exercises waged around the globe will total in the tens of trillions.
Co-opted by greedy defense contractors, corrupt politicians and incompetent government officials, America’s expanding military empire is bleeding the country dry at a rate of more than $32 million per hour. In fact, the U.S. government spent more money every five seconds in Iraq than the average American earns in a year.
Talk about fiscally irresponsible: the U.S. government is spending money it doesn’t have on a military empire it can’t afford. Even if we ended the government’s military meddling today and brought all of the troops home, it would take decades to pay down the price of these wars and get the government’s creditors off our backs.
As investigative journalist Uri Friedman puts it, for more than 15 years now, the United States has been fighting terrorism with a credit card, “essentially bankrolling the wars with debt, in the form of purchases of U.S. Treasury bonds by U.S.-based entities like pension funds and state and local governments, and by countries like China and Japan.”
War is not cheap, but it becomes outrageously costly when you factor in government incompetence, fraud, and greedy contractors. Indeed, a leading accounting firm concluded that one of the Pentagon’s largest agencies “can’t account for hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of spending.”
Unfortunately, the outlook isn’t much better for the spending that can be tracked. A government audit found that defense contractor Boeing has been massively overcharging taxpayers for mundane parts, resulting in tens of millions of dollars in overspending. As the report noted, the American taxpayer paid:
"$71 for a metal pin that should cost just 4 cents; $644.75 for a small gear smaller than a dime that sells for $12.51: more than a 5,100 percent increase in price. $1,678.61 for another tiny part, also smaller than a dime, that could have been bought within DoD for $7.71: a 21,000 percent increase. $71.01 for a straight, thin metal pin that DoD had on hand, unused by the tens of thousands, for 4 cents: an increase of over 177,000 percent."
The fact that such price gouging has become an accepted form of corruption within the American military empire is a sad statement on how little control “we the people” have over our runaway government. Mind you, this isn’t just corrupt behavior. It’s deadly, downright immoral behavior.
Americans have thus far allowed themselves to be spoon-fed a steady diet of pro-war propaganda that keeps them content to wave flags with patriotic fervor and less inclined to look too closely at the mounting body counts, the ruined lives, the ravaged countries, the blowback arising from ill-advised targeted-drone killings and bombing campaigns in foreign lands, or the transformation of our own homeland into a warzone.
The bombing of Yemen’s Ras Isa port by U.S. forces - killing more than 80 civilians - is just the latest example of war crimes justified as national interest. That needs to change. The U.S. government is not making the world any safer. It’s making the world more dangerous. It is estimated that the U.S. military drops a bomb somewhere in the world every 12 minutes. Since 9/11, the United States government has directly contributed to the deaths of around 500,000 human beings. Every one of those deaths was paid for with taxpayer funds. With the 2025 escalation, those numbers will only rise.
The U.S. government is not making America any safer. It’s exposing American citizens to alarming levels of blowback, a CIA term referring to the unintended consequences of the U.S. government’s international activities. Chalmers Johnson, a former CIA consultant, repeatedly warned that America’s use of its military to gain power over the global economy would result in devastating blowback.
The 9/11 attacks were blowback. The Boston Marathon Bombing was blowback. The attempted Times Square bomber was blowback. The Fort Hood shooter, a major in the U.S. Army, was blowback. The U.S. military’s ongoing drone strikes will, I fear, spur yet more blowback against the American people.
The war hawks’ militarization of America - bringing home the spoils of war (the military tanks, grenade launchers, Kevlar helmets, assault rifles, gas masks, ammunition, battering rams, night vision binoculars, etc.) and handing them over to local police, thereby turning America into a battlefield - is also blowback.
James Madison was right: “No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” As Madison explained, “Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes… known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.” We are seeing this play out before our eyes.
The government is destabilizing the economy, destroying the national infrastructure through neglect and a lack of resources, and turning taxpayer dollars into blood money with its endless wars, drone strikes and mounting death tolls. The nation’s infrastructure is in shambles. Public schools are underfunded. Mental health care is collapsing. Basic needs like housing, transportation, and clean water go unmet. Meanwhile, government contractors drop bombs on third-world villages and call it strategy.
This isn’t just bad budgeting. It’s moral bankruptcy. A country that can’t care for its own people has no business policing the rest of the world. Bridges collapse, water systems fail, students drown in debt, and veterans sleep on the streets - while the Pentagon builds runways in the desert and funds proxy wars no one can explain.
Clearly, our national priorities are in desperate need of overhauling. We are funding our own collapse. The roads rot while military convoys roll. The power grid fails while the drones fly. Our national strength is being siphoned off to feed a war machine that produces nothing but death, debt, and dysfunction. We don’t need another war. We need a resurrection of the republic.
It’s time to stop policing the world. Bring the troops home. Shut down the military bases. End the covert wars. Slash the Pentagon’s budget. The path to peace begins with a full retreat from empire. At the height of its power, even the mighty Roman Empire could not stare down a collapsing economy and a burgeoning military. Prolonged periods of war and false economic prosperity largely led to its demise. As historian Chalmers Johnson predicts:
"The fate of previous democratic empires suggests that such a conflict is unsustainable and will be resolved in one of two ways. Rome attempted to keep its empire and lost its democracy. Britain chose to remain democratic and in the process let go its empire. Intentionally or not, the people of the United States already are well embarked upon the course of non-democratic empire."
This is the “unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex” that President Dwight Eisenhower warned us not to let endanger our liberties or democratic processes. Eisenhower, who served as Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe during World War II, was alarmed by the rise of the profit-driven war machine that emerged following the war - one that, in order to perpetuate itself, would have to keep waging war. We failed to heed his warning.
As I make clear in my book "Battlefield America: The War on the American People" and in its fictional counterpart "The Erik Blair Diaries," war is the enemy of freedom. As long as America’s politicians continue to involve us in wars that bankrupt the nation, jeopardize our servicemen and women, increase the chances of terrorism and blowback domestically, and push the nation that much closer to eventual collapse, “we the people” will find ourselves in a perpetual state of tyranny. In the end, it’s not just the empire that falls. It’s the republic it hollowed out along the way."
"Heaven And Hell..."
"Many people don't fear a hell after this life and that's because hell is on this earth, in this life. In this life there are many forms of hell that people walk through, sometimes for a day, sometimes for years, sometimes it doesn't end. The kind of hell that doesn't burn your skin; but burns your soul. The kind of hell that people can't see; but the flames lap at your spirit. Heaven is a place on earth, too! It's where you feel freedom, where you're not afraid. No more chains. And you hear your soul laughing."
- C. JoyBell C.
Free Download: Dante Alighieri, “The Divine Comedy”
Dante Alighieri, “The Divine Comedy”
“The Divine Comedy (Italian: Divina Commedia) is an epic poem written by Dante Alighieri between c. 1308 and his death in 1321. It is widely considered the pre-eminent work of Italian literature, and is seen as one of the greatest works of world literature. The poem's imaginative and allegorical vision of the afterlife is representative of the medieval world-view as it had developed in the Western Church by the 14th century. It helped establish the Tuscan dialect, in which it is written, as the standardized Italian language. It is divided into three parts: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso.
On the surface, the poem describes Dante's travels through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven; but at a deeper level, it represents allegorically the soul's journey towards God. At this deeper level, Dante draws on medieval Christian theology and philosophy, especially Thomistic philosophy and the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. Consequently, the Divine Comedy has been called "the Summa in verse".
The work was originally simply titled Commedìa and was later christened Divina by Giovanni Boccaccio. The first printed edition to add the word divina to the title was that of the Venetian humanist Lodovico Dolce, published in 1555 by Gabriele Giolito de' Ferrari."
Free download links:
Dante Alighieri’s "Divine Comedy – Inferno" (6.57MB)
Dante Alighieri’s "Divine Comedy – Purgatorio" (3.74MB)
Dante Alighieri’s "Divine Comedy – Paradiso" (1.89MB)
"Israel’s “Doomday” Plan Thwarted, Iran’s Genius Strategy Explained"
Full screen recommended.
Mahmood OD, 6/18/25
"Israel’s “Doomday” Plan Thwarted,
Iran’s Genius Strategy Explained"
Comments here:
John Wilder, "The Three Horsemen and One Bikini of the Apocalypse"
"The Three Horsemen and
One Bikini of the Apocalypse"
by John Wilder
• Job Replacement.
• The Multicultural West.
• The Fiat Financial House of Cards.
• Sydney Sweeny’s bikini.
"Each of these, if dealt with on its own, presents a danger as great as being between Gavin Newsom and a camera. But it is likely something we could work through as a country peacefully. Heck, maybe even two of the three, though that’s difficult, and history has the receipts:
For example, when the United States was a nation, we worked through the Great Depression. The Great Depression was likely brought about at the fundamental level from the transformation of the nation from an agrarian society driven by horsepower to a manufacturing colossus driven by iron, steam, and electricity. Sort of if A.I. were cars and assembly line production, but covered in tasty Radium®.
Of course there was a finance side of the Great Depression. It was egged on by a stock market mania, margin credit, and the optimism brought about by new technology. Stocks never go down, right? That creates a bumpy road for a bit. But, as we were a singular people, we got through it. I mean, the single bloodiest war in human history counted as a bit of a bumpy road, right? We also dealt with multi-cultural forces in America in our history.
• First, the founders only allowed in Western Europeans,
• Second by fighting, defeating, and corralling Indians (some of them are still sore about this),
• And, finally, by blocking out many non-Western Europeans with the Immigration Act of 1924 since we already had the recipes for all their good food.
1924 was when we as a nation realized that we were getting too much “diversity” too quickly and saw that certain groups of foreigners couldn’t or wouldn’t assimilate and never be Americans. We dealt with that in a calm manner and got picky and sorted diversity like a bouncer at a cartel nightclub. We maintained (for a time) the basic ethnic makeup of the United States – we didn’t throw them out, but we made sure we’d outnumber them.
We dealt with fiat currency in the wake of the Revolutionary War victory when the phrase “isn’t worth a Continental” referred to the money printing excesses that led to the Constitutional Convention and the Constitutional clause of “No state shall coin money, emit bills of credit, or make any thing but cold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts.” The nation survived, though it did end up changing our form of government entirely.
Lincoln floated fake cash during the Civil War to pay for it, and that could arguably be said to have started “The Long Depression” – a hangover period from 1873-1896 as we vomited out all of that fiat money. The Long Depression was also exacerbated by the transition of the American manufacturing from craftsmen to big factories.
The establishment of the Federal Reserve Bank™ followed by Nixon ignoring the clear intent of that clause in 1971 led to the crack-up we see today. Money, gold and silver, has been replaced by cash which is too expensive to print – we can just use ones and zeroes.
I’ve written about all of these three separately, and for the most part, we as a nation were able to make it through, but it’s important that we realize that we’re dealing with all three of these leading to a crisis right now when we are observably no longer a nation.
The first is A.I. It has already been a steamroller that has eliminated tens of thousands of jobs. I would expect that soon enough it will be hundreds of thousands. Recently, I called up my bank to do some banking. The transaction wasn’t unique, it probably happens thousands of times a day. The person I was talking to, “Mitch” had a perfect Midwestern accent. What tipped me off was that “Mitch” didn’t connect the reason for the error to the resolution. “Mitch” transferred me to “Anna” because he wasn’t authorized to grant a request.
“Anna” had, of course, the thickest Indian accent – the kind that is so poorly pronounced that it is nearly unintelligible if fast. Her actual name was probably something like Ananneedanothasylabble-Ganish-Prajeeta. At that moment that the smart Midwestern dude transfers the call to a barely verbal woman in Ramamamadingpoopabad, I realized that Mitch was an A.I.
As an anon mentioned on my last post on A.I., “Think about all of the Indian scammers out there today. Now think about what happens if AI wipes out most of the call center and coding jobs causing most of India’s 1.3 billion people to be out of work. It’s going to get ugly.” He had a point. A.I. is going to make it too expensive to pay Indians pennies a day just to steal money from old ladies. This is India’s worst nightmare.
This scenario requires no Artificial Superintelligence. This requires only the application of existing capabilities. Said differently: ChatGPT 4.0® already has an I.Q. greater than three-quarters of the Subcontinent.
This has implications, but match it with the house of cards that is the world financial system. That thing was already strained tighter than Syndey Sweeney’s bikini holding in all the printed money flooding in from the United States and the world. A country like India, unable to feed all the Indians, will collapse. No jobs. No prospects of jobs.
But it will be, perhaps, worst in the West. On top of the economic dislocation of the A.I. Revolution, on top of the piles of fake money, we are not even a people.
The latest riots in L.A. have proven that out. Most of the “immigrants” that have come to “enrich” us have actually come to replace us. That’s their goal. You can watch on the news the Pakistanis fighting the Indians over which of them has the best claim to London. You can watch young men of military age strutting in Los Angeles with the flags of foreign countries like a U.N. parade, but somehow worse. You can read posts on X® or even Reddit©: they are not here to assimilate – they are here to conquer and take over.
This adds the final layer of instability required to ensure that the United States and the whole of the West is facing the direst crisis since the threats to Europe that were ended at the Battle of Tours in 732, or the Battle of Vienna in 1683. This level of crisis is graver than any the West has faced in over 340 years, if not greater. Whatever comes out of this will be different. Thankfully, we still have all the tasty Radium™ you can eat!"
"Chas Freeman: Iran Attacked - Turning Point for Russia & the World"
Glenn Diesen, 6/18/25
"Chas Freeman: Iran Attacked -
Turning Point for Russia & the World"
"Chas Freeman argues Washington has thrown away much of its credibility with the attack on Iran, and the collapse of trust for the deceit will have wide consequences. Ambassador Freeman is a career diplomat (retired) who was Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs from 1993-94, earning the highest public service awards of the Department of Defense for his roles in designing a NATO-centered post-Cold War European security system and in reestablishing defense and military relations with China. He served as U. S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia (during operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm). He was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs during the historic U.S. mediation of Namibian independence from South Africa and Cuban troop withdrawal from Angola."
Comments here:
"Mohammad Marandi: Iran Just Cracked Israel’s Iron Dome"
Dialogue Works, 6/18/25
"Mohammad Marandi:
Iran Just Cracked Israel’s Iron Dome"
Comments here:
Bill Bonner, "Clash of Civilizations"
"Clash of Civilizations"
We offer no opinion on the morality of any of the participants in these regime
change wars. But US involvement, sin or not, is likely to be a mistake.
by Bill Bonner
Stephen Kinzer: "Mark Twain was an eviscerating anti-imperialist…
he used to write that Americans fighting in foreign wars
were carrying a polluted musket under a bandit’s flag."
Amy Goodman: "Makes me wonder if his books will start
to be taken out of libraries around the country."
Youghal, Ireland - "Yesterday, reporters had a hard time keeping up with the whirlpool illegality, bumph, and bad judgement that is the US president. First, on the news screens, came this notice: "Trump returning to Washington to handle Iran. French president Emmanuel Macron guessed that he was going to negotiate a ceasefire. But Trump corrected and insulted him almost immediately. Trump: “Publicity seeking President Emmanuel Macron, of France, mistakenly said that I left the G7 Summit, in Canada, to go back to DC to work on a “cease fire” between Israel and Iran. Wrong! He has no idea why I am now on my way to Washington. But it certainly has nothing to do with a Cease Fire. Much bigger than that. “Whether purposely or not, Emmanuel always gets it wrong.”
Bigger than a cease fire? Uh oh. And he went on to say that all of Tehran should evacuate ‘immediately.’ Yes, the US chief executive told ten million residents of a foreign capital 6,000 miles from Washington, in a country with which the US is not at war…which has no capacity to harm the US neither economically nor militarily…whose language he doesn’t speak…and whose history he doesn’t know…that they must get out of town at once.
Then, he continued. The New York Times: "President Trump declared on Tuesday that “we now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran” and called for Iran’s “unconditional surrender” amid mounting evidence that the United States was considering joining Israel’s bombing campaign against the country."
We? On his own say-so, Trump brought 330 million Americans into another grotesque war. What’s it all about, they may have wondered? Maybe it has something to do with Iran’s weapons of mass destruction? Apparently not. Tulsi Gabbard, America’s director of national intelligence, says Iran has no nukes and is not developing them. Trump says: “I don’t care what she thinks.”
You have to wonder why we keep 17 different spook agencies…with Gabbard at the head of them…on the payroll, if the president’s genius makes them unnecessary. But in the year of our Lord 2025, neither real intelligence, the US Constitution, nor saving money matter.
Unusual? Yep. Unprecedented? Maybe not. It may be just the latest in more than 100 different US attempts to undermine, overthrow, or subvert foreign governments since 1949. And not the first time for Iran.
But the ‘regime change’ weed has its roots in far deeper soil. On display today may be a sequel to what the ancient Hebrews did to the Canaanites in approximately 1,300 BC. It was from God Himself that they took their marching orders: "You shall not leave alive anything that breathes. But you shall utterly destroy them."
Then, Joshua bent to his bloody work: "Thus Joshua struck all the land, the hill country and the Negev and the lowland and the slopes and all their kings. He left no survivor, but he utterly destroyed all who breathed, just as the Lord, the God of Israel, had commanded…He left nothing undone of all that the Lord had commanded Moses. (Joshua 10:40, 11:15)" When he was finished, it must have looked like modern-day Gaza.
And Tehran may be next. Iran, of course, has a right to defend itself. What it lacks are the means to do so. Its planes, drones and missiles are no match US/Israeli firepower. And gone now are all the illusions of the Rule of Law. It’s now the ‘Rule of the Jungle’ where Israeli/US might — combined with billions in campaign donations, lobbying, biased media coverage, and Jeffrey Epstein’s blackmail airplane - make all the ‘right’ you need.
“We” control the skies over Tehran, says POTUS. Iran must submit, or else be destroyed. After all, we’re fighting to ‘save Western civilization’ from the evil Muslims and their nuclear weapons.
So far, the Clash of Civilizations (CoC) is going well. We asked Grok 3. It tells us that as many as 125,000 Christians, 4,000 Jews (defenders of Western civilization) and a few non-denominational martyrs have been killed since the beginning of this century. But talk about a good deal! The death toll among Muslims is estimated at over four million, most of them civilians. Europe now hosts 12.4 million refugees - many of whom are additional victims of the CoC.
We offer no opinion on the morality of any of the participants in these regime change wars. But US involvement, sin or not, is likely to be a mistake. The more foreign nations “we” attack, the more they all feel they need nuclear protection. Bruce Fein: ‘One thing is certain. Israel’s example will awaken every country in the world to the imperative of acquiring nuclear weapons to preserve sovereignty. The Doomsday Clock is nearing midnight.’ The Primary Trend in politics is towards more of it…ultimately expressed in violence. And the more Muslims the defenders of Western Civilization gun down the less ‘civilized’ the West becomes."
Gregory Mannarino, "Trump Weighing Direct U.S. Military Strike On Iran, Iran Responds"
Gregory Mannarino, 6/18/25
"Trump Weighing Direct U.S. Military
Strike On Iran, Iran Responds"
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Adventures With Danno, "Items At Target Everyone Should Be Buying Before Prices Go Up!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, AM 6/18/25
"Items At Target Everyone Should
Be Buying Before Prices Go Up!"
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Tuesday, June 17, 2025
"The USA is Going to War! Russia and China Are Preparing"
Full screen recommended.
Prepper News, 6/17/25
"The USA is Going to War! Russia and China Are Preparing"
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"In Hours U.S. Will Enter War With Iran, Makes Historic Threat! Nuclear Test Planned?!"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 6/17/25
"In Hours U.S. Will Enter War With Iran,
Makes Historic Threat! Nuclear Test Planned?!"
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"Meltdown In The Middle East; Evacuate Tehran Now; WW3 Has Begun"
Jeremiah Babe, 6/17/25
"Meltdown In The Middle East;
Evacuate Tehran Now; WW3 Has Begun"
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"A Look to the Heavens"
"This fantastic skyscape lies near the edge of NGC 2174 a star forming region about 6,400 light-years away in the nebula-rich constellation of Orion. It follows mountainous clouds of gas and dust carved by winds and radiation from the region's newborn stars, now found scattered in open star clusters embedded around the center of NGC 2174, off the top of the frame.
Though star formation continues within these dusty cosmic clouds they will likely be dispersed by the energetic newborn stars within a few million years. Recorded at infrared wavelengths by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2014, the interstellar scene spans about 6 light-years. Scheduled for launch in 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope is optimized for exploring the Universe at infrared wavelengths."
"Only Barbarians..."
“Only barbarians are not curious about where they come from,
how they came to be where they are, where they appear to be going,
whether they wish to go there, and if so, why, and if not, why not.”
- Isaiah Berlin
"Cognitive Dissonance And the Human Mind"
"Cognitive Dissonance And the Human Mind"
by Dan Eden
"When “Robbie” the robot was told to shoot a weapon at a man in the movie Forbidden Planet, his electronic brain sparked and short-circuited. His creator had programmed him to never harm a human and so the conflicting ideas paralyzed him. Human beings often are presented with opposing thoughts also, but our brains have developed a way of resolving these conflicts through a process call cognitive dissonance. We are taught, like “Robbie,” that killing is prohibited — but what about war? And many anti-abortionists support the death penalty… conflicting behavior is all around us. So how exactly does that work?
Simply put, congitive dissonance theory states that when you have two opposing ideas (or ideologies) at the same time, you will act upon the one that causes the less distortion to your ego. According to Wikipedia: "Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously. The “ideas” or “cognitions” in question may include attitudes and beliefs, and also the awareness of one’s behavior. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, or by justifying or rationalizing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. Cognitive dissonance theory is one of the most influential and extensively studied theories in social psychology.
Dissonance normally occurs when a person perceives a logical inconsistency among his or her cognitions. This happens when one idea implies the opposite of another. For example, a belief in animal rights could be interpreted as inconsistent with eating meat or wearing fur. Noticing the contradiction would lead to dissonance, which could be experienced as anxiety, guilt, shame, anger, embarrassment, stress, and other negative emotional states. When people’s ideas are consistent with each other, they are in a state of harmony or consonance. If cognitions are unrelated, they are categorized as irrelevant to each other and do not lead to dissonance.
Let me give you some examples. There are lots of schemes and con-artists trying to get your money these days. Almost every day I receive dozens of e-mails from people like Abada Muzoola from Nigeria, who just happened to get my e-mail address and wants me to help him transfer 70-million dollars to my bank in return for a 10 percent commission. Wow, I could use 7-million dollars! All he needs is my bank account number and pin-code. He is even willing to transfer the total amount to my account because he trusts me so much. I continue to receive variations of this scheme every day. Why? Because they work. Somewhere in the world is a victim who will have cognitive dissonance.
On a more sophisticated scale, Bernie Madoff bilked hundreds of wealthy people out of an estimated 50-billion dollars by manipulating the same mental process (and would have continued doing so had he not bragged to his sons, who turned him in). So how is it that people are able to convince others to give them access to their funds or to willingly give them their cash? First, one more example: You’re walking down a busy street deep in your own private thoughts. All of a sudden a smiling woman jumps out of somewhere, stands in front of you, and puts a flower in your hand. “Hello dear… isn’t it a wonderful day today? I want you to have this flower!,” she says.Now you have a beautiful flower in your hand. It’s a nice gift and she seems friendly. She begins to walk with you, telling you that you have nice, kind eyes. She says she noticed right away that you were special and so wanted to meet you. You forget your previous thoughts about work, bills or your own life. Suddenly you feel good… appreciated… uplifted. Then, in the same friendly voice and bright smile, she says, “I know you are a good person and you can help me by giving me a something for the beautiful flower — right?”
What happens inside your head at that moment is cognitive dissonance. The dissonance or dis-harmony comes from two conflicting ideas or decision paths. One path tells you that you should just say “No thanks!” and keep on walking; maybe return the flower and feel insulted even if it means she will become disappointed with you. The other path tells you that she has made you feel good and has earned your friendship and a couple of bucks. She has been friendly and you don’t want to ruin the brief relationship you have formed. Heck, you should probably even give her back the flower so she can use it on the next victim. Which decision will cause the least damage to your ego?
In cognitive dissonance theory the outcome of these opposing thought paths will be the one that requires the least emotional stress. Most victims will pay up rather than feel they are being cruel or disrespectful to someone who has made them feel so good. In the case of the Nigerian philanthropist, Abada Muzoola, it is often less stressful to believe that you are the lucky “chosen” beneficiary than to believe you are one of the thousands of e-mails he has sent this offer to. Later, after their bank account has been cleaned out, most people realize that they should have known better and are puzzled by their own vulnerability. Many feel so embarassed that they don’t report the crime to the authorities.
Psychologists refer to this vulnerability as the “willful suspension of disbelief,” where one can easily see the potential manipulations and evil motives of ther perpetrator, but, because they have already made some prior committment to go along with this, it is easier to continue than to back out. The investors of Mr. Madoff knew that a 10% to 12% annual return on an investment, especially in the current bear market, was impossible. Something dishonest or illegal had to be going on. But because they had been made to work so hard to let him take their money — often begging him to please allow them to invest millions of dollars — they had made the psychological investment that “locks in” the cognitive dissonance. After that, it was more stressful to admit that this was a ponzy scheme than to just avoid worrying about it.
In Festinger and Carlsmith’s classic 1959 experiment, students were asked to perform boring and tedious tasks (e.g. turning pegs a quarter turn, over and over again). The tasks were designed to generate a strong, negative attitude. After an hour of working on the tasks, participants were asked to persuade another subject (who was actually a confederate) that the dull, boring tasks the subject had just completed were actually interesting and engaging. Some participants were paid $20 for the favor, another group was paid $1, and a control group was not asked to perform the favor. When asked to rate the boring tasks at the conclusion of the study, those in the $1 group rated them more positively than those in the $20 and control groups. This was explained by Festinger and Carlsmith as evidence for cognitive dissonance. The researchers theorized that people experienced dissonance between the conflicting cognitions, “I told someone that the task was interesting”, and “I actually found it boring.” When paid only $1, students were forced to internalize the attitude they were induced to express, because they had no other justification. Those in the $20 condition, however, had an obvious external justification for their behavior, and thus experienced less dissonance.
Are you beginning to understand how this works now? Cognitive dissonance has been used to control larger groups and populations also. In World War II there was a famous campaign where citizens were asked to donate all their old pots and pans, supposedly to be melted down to make tanks, munitions and war planes. The collection was highly effective and the psychological “investment” initiated solidarity and nationalism for the war effort. Of course, all those pots and pans ended up buried in landfills.
Here’s a modern day example: When the US invaded Afghanistan, ex-President Bush came on the television asking families to donate whatever they could to help the school children in Afghanistan who needed paper and pencils. Thousands of school kids collected coins in classrooms across the nation and sent the donations to the White House. The funds ended up being put in to some vague account that never did what it was donated to do. But the “investment” was enough to gain support for a far-away war in an obscure land for vague reasons. Sometimes, as with the tragic collapse of the World Trade towers on 9-11, the “investment” is made for us. In this way an entire nation can be made to feel that they have already sacrificed something and that they should choose the path of war over peace forgetting about the Iraqi civilian casualties — or even that Iraq was not responsible. I once belonged to an Episcopal church in New Mexico that collected oil for M-16s to send to the troops in Iraq! They also invested the church funds with Raytheon and Haliburton.
Cognitive Dissonance in Advertising and Marketing: In advertising there is a theory that a consumer may use a particular product because he or she believes the advertising for that product, which claims that the product is the most effective of its kind in the job that it does. Then the consumer may see a competitor’s advertisement that seems to prove conclusively that this competitive product is better. This creates dissonance. The consumer must now relieve the uncomfortable feeling that the dissonance brings about and will often do so by switching products. The theory acts as a double-edged sword, though, because while advertisers want to create dissonance for nonusers of their product, they do not want to create it for those who do use their product. This is why advertisers use their logos on things like NASCAR and sports arenas. They want you to become loyal to their brand. This will create distrust when you see the same product — even an apparently better product — with a different and unfamiliar brand.
Cognitive dissonance most often occurs after the purchase of an expensive item such as an automobile. A consumer who is experiencing cognitive dissonance after his or her purchase may attempt to return the product or may seek positive information about it to justify the choice. If the buyer is unable to justify the purchase, he or she will also be less likely to purchase that brand again. Advertisers of high-priced durable goods say that half of their advertising is done to reassure consumers that in purchasing their product the right choice was made.
Some good uses of cognitive dissonance: Congitive therapists use this technique to change bad behavior and decisions. The technique is called a “yes set.” Getting a patient to agree to treatment for addiction or to initiate some beneficial behavior is difficult. There is often a fundamental “batting of heads” between the patient and people trying to help. The breakthrough is achieved when the therapist purposely initiates a series of statements to which the patient can agree. After repeatedly agreeing with the therapist on a multitude of minor decisions, the patient begins to feel good and the therapist allows the patient to “invest” in this positive relationship. Then, with skill, the therapist introduces the crucial decision. “So don’t you think it’s really time for you go to rehab?” Faced with the option of agreeing or offending the therapist, the patient often continues the “yes” response. The example above is highly effective because the patient not only agrees to change the bad behavior but is immediately rewarded by the continuation of their positive self-esteem and good feeling.
Cognitive dissonance requires some skill to work: The concept doesn’t always work. Especially if it’s poorly executed. I was once shopping for a car and, after selecting a possible make and model, found myself sitting in the little room with the salesman, haggling about the price. At one point he asked me for my driver’s license or credit card and told me it was a “gesture” so that I would trust him. At the time, I just said “No way,” and split. For many customers, this simple act would be enough to form a psychological “investment” with the dealer, who could then use this to manipulate and close the sale. It might be more difficult for the customer to demand his license or credit card and storm out of the office than to sit there and be intimidated until they signed the sales contract.
Eliminating Cognitive Dissonance: There are several key ways in which people attempt to overcome, or do away with, cognitive dissonance. One is by ignoring or eliminating the dissonant cognitions. By pretending that ice cream is not bad for me, I can have my cake and eat it too, so to speak. Ignoring the dissonant cognition allows us to do things we might otherwise view as wrong or inappropriate. Another way to overcome cognitive dissonance is to alter the importance (or lack thereof) of certain cognitions. By either deciding that ice cream is extremely good (I can’t do without it) or that losing weight isn’t that important (I look good anyway), the problem of dissonance can be lessened. If one of the dissonant cognitions outweighs the other in importance, the mind has less difficulty dealing with the dissonance — and the result means that I can eat my ice cream and not feel bad about it.
Yet another way that people react to cognitive dissonance is by adding or creating new cognitions. By creating or emphasizing new cognitions, I can overwhelm the fact that I know ice cream is bad for my weight loss. For instance, I can emphasize new cognitions such as “I exercise three times a week” or “I need calcium and dairy products” or “I had a small dinner,” etc. These new cognitions allow for the lessening of dissonance, as I now have multiple cognitions that say ice cream is okay, and only one, which says I shouldn’t eat it.
Finally, perhaps the most important way people deal with cognitive dissonance is to prevent it in the first place. If someone is presented with information that is dissonant from what they already know, the easiest way to deal with this new information is to ignore it, refuse to accept it, or simply avoid that type of information in general. Thus, a new study that says ice cream is more fattening than originally thought would be easily dealt with by ignoring it. Further, future problems can be prevented by simply avoiding that type of information — simply refusing to read studies on ice cream, health magazines, etc.
Cognitive dissonance is all around us. We live in a world full of contradictions. Children are killed in Gaza in the name of peace. Feminists wear makeup, short skirts and high heels. Conservationists like Al Gore fly around in private, fuel guzzling jets. Anti-gay Christians tap their feet in public bathroom stalls… these opposing ideologies are all resolved somehow, somewhere, deep in our human psyche with cognitive dissonance."
- http://warofillusions.wordpress.com/
- http://www.beyondintractability.org
- http://www.beyondintractability.org
"If You Look..."
"We have got some very big problems confronting us and let us not make any mistake about it, human history in the future is fraught with tragedy. It's only through people making a stand against that tragedy and being doggedly optimistic that we are going to win through. If you look at the plight of the human race it could well tip you into despair, so you have to be very strong."
- Robert James Brown
"Col. Larry Wilkerson: Is War with Iran the Final Blow to the American Empire?"
Dialogue Works, 6/17/25
"Col. Larry Wilkerson: Is War with Iran
the Final Blow to the American Empire?"
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