“Reflect on what happens when a terrible winter blizzard strikes. You hear the weather warning but probably fail to act on it. The sky darkens. Then the storm hits with full fury, and the air is a howling whiteness. One by one, your links to the machine age break down. Electricity flickers out, cutting off the TV. Batteries fade, cutting off the radio. Phones go dead. Roads become impossible, and cars get stuck. Food supplies dwindle. Day to day vestiges of modern civilization – bank machines, mutual funds, mass retailers, computers, satellites, airplanes, governments – all recede into irrelevance. Picture yourself and your loved ones in the midst of a howling blizzard that lasts several years. Think about what you would need, who could help you, and why your fate might matter to anybody other than yourself. That is how to plan for a saecular winter. Don’t think you can escape the Fourth Turning. History warns that a Crisis will reshape the basic social and economic environment that you now take for granted.”
– “The Fourth Turning”, Strauss & Howe
o
"A crisis arises in response to sudden threats that previously would have been ignored or deferred, but which are now perceived as dire. Great worldly perils boil off the clutter and complexity of life, leaving behind one simple imperative: The society must prevail. This requires a solid public consensus, aggressive institutions, and personal sacrifice. People support new efforts to wield public authority, whose perceived successes soon justify more of the same. Government governs, community obstacles are removed, and laws and customs that resisted change for decades are swiftly shunted aside. A grim preoccupation with civic peril causes spiritual curiosity to decline. Public order tightens, private risk-taking abates, and crime and substance abuse decline. Families strengthen, gender distinctions widen, and child-rearing reaches a smothering degree of protection and structure. The young focus their energy on worldly achievements, leaving values in the hands of the old. Wars are fought with fury and for maximum result."
– “The Fourth Turning”, Strauss & Howe
o
Download “The Fourth Turning”, by Strauss & Howe here:
The Psyche, "The Great Deception of Modern Society"
"Are you truly living your own life or just following the script society has written for you? In this video, we uncover the illusions that shape modern life: the false ideals of success, the endless distractions of consumerism, and the invisible systems that quietly dictate how we think, act, and even see ourselves. Drawing on the wisdom of philosophers like Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Jung, we’ll explore how modern culture keeps us busy, obedient, and disconnected from our true selves. Discover why so many people feel empty despite having more comfort and technology than any generation before, and how this emptiness may actually be your soul rebelling against the illusion. Most importantly, learn how to awaken, reclaim your authenticity, and begin living from a place of true freedom and meaning. Stay until the end, because the final revelation will change how you see not only society - but yourself."
"I strongly urge you to pick up "Forgotten Civilization; New Discoveries on the Solar Induced Dark Age," by Robert Schoch. Schoch: In "Forgotten Civilization" covers a lot of ground, including the very important issue of the cataclysm that ended the last ice age, approximately 12,000 B.P. (before the present). Schoch shows (to my satisfaction) that it was almost certainly a solar eruption that did in the ice age mega-fauna (and almost all of our ancestors), and not a comet. Schoch is almost certainly right. Read Schoch’s book if you’re interested in this. But be forewarned: Schoch doesn’t pull any punches about the coming cataclysm. He gives us multiple lines of evidence that mean it’s overdue."
Hueyatlaco is an archeological site in the Valsequillo Basin near the city of Puebla, Mexico. After excavations in the 1960s, the site became notorious due to geochronologists‘ analyses that indicated human habitation at Hueyatlaco was dated to ca. 250,000 years before the present (my emphasis).[1][2]
These controversial findings are orders of magnitude older than the scientific consensus for habitation of the New World (which generally traces widespread human migration to the New World to 13,000 to 16,000 ybp). The findings at Hueyatlaco are the subject of continued debate by the scientific community, and have seen only occasional discussion in the literature." [3]
"You get that one chance; and damn it, you've got to take it! If there's one lesson I know I will take with me for eternity, its that there are those things that might happen only once, those chances that come walking down the street, strolling out of a café; if you don't let go and take them, they really could get away! We can get so washed out with a mindset of entitlement– the universe will do everything for us to ensure our happiness– that we forget why we came here! We came here to grab, to take, to give, to have! Not to wait! Nobody came here to wait! So, what makes anyone think that destiny will keep on knocking over and over again? It could, but what if it doesn't? You go and you take the chance that you get; even if it makes you look stupid, insane, or whorish! Because it just might not come back again. You could wait a lifetime to see if it will... but I don't think you should."
- C. JoyBell C.
o
Delta Blues Brother,
"The Graveyard of Good Intentions"
"Not every wasted life is ruined by bad choices. Some are ruined by waiting too long. “The Graveyard of Good Intentions” is a dark Delta blues reflection on hesitation, fear, postponed dreams, and the quiet tragedy of never doing the things you meant to do."
“Whatever your fate is, whatever the hell happens, you say, “This is what I need.” It may look like a wreck, but go at it as though it were an opportunity, a challenge. If you bring love to that moment- not discouragement- you will find the strength there. Any disaster you can survive is an improvement in your character, your stature, and your life. What a privilege! This is when the spontaneity of your own nature will have a chance to flow. Then, when looking back at your life, you will see that the moments which seemed to be great failures, followed by wreckage, were the incidents that shaped the life you have now. You’ll see this is really true. Nothing can happen to you that is not positive. Even though it looks and feels at the moment like a negative crisis, it is not. The crisis throws you back, and when you are required to exhibit strength, it comes.”
"Take heed of The Hound’s warning, and let it free you. There is no guarantee of a job or safety net, there is no absolute security from evil doers, and there is only so much you can do to prevent accidents and illness. The silver lining is that recognizing this is the best way to cushion yourself from the vulnerabilities of an unpredictable world.
Brienne of Tarth, in "Game of Thrones", nobly intends to uphold an oath she swore to Lady Stark to keep her children safe. But she is also a bit naive about the nature of the world in which she lives. Brienne thinks she can bring Arya to a safe place, wherever that is. But as The Hound so eloquently reminds her: “There is no safety you dumb bit*h. And if you don’t know that by now, you’re the wrong one to watch over her.”
If Brienne thinks she can ever let her guard down, or relax, she will never be safe. There is no destination at which point she and Arya will be ultimately secure. It just does not exist. And Sandor Clegane - The Hound - is right; if Brienne of Tarth cannot understand this basic fact about the world, she is the wrong person to be watching over Arya.
The Hound’s negative view on the danger in the world actually leaves him less vulnerable. He never expects to be safe, and is therefore safer because he is alert to danger.
As rough as the Hound is, Arya was in fact safe the entire time she was with him. This was no guarantee, it’s just how it happened, mostly due to the fact that The Hound knows is being constantly vigilant against danger. And although Brienne’s goal is to make Arya even safer, she instead severely wounds the person protecting Arya. Brienne incorrectly judges The Hound to be a danger to Arya, and then fails to secure Arya, leaving her more defenseless than she had been previously.
Brienne’s actions actually prove The Hound’s point. Brienne’s belief that she could bring Arya to safety created a dangerous situation that could have been avoided if she only realized that safety is a constant effort, and not a destination.
But Should We Really Apply a Lesson From a Fake Story in a Mythical Setting? In the modern world we are much safer than humans were in the middle ages. And in the real world there are certain things we don’t have to worry about, like white-walkers and dragons. But unfortunately we do still have to contend with the likes of Cersi and the Lannisters, the Ramsy Boltons, and the treacherous Freys all playing their part in our world’s own “Game of Thrones”. In our lives, they are usually less murdery and slightly more subtle in their elitist desire for domination.
The lesson however remains: there is no guarantee of safety (you dumb bit*h). But before you think I am being gloomy and pessimistic, consider the gift of understanding this. In the pursuit of the ultimate goal of “safety” we expose ourselves and society to all sorts of dangers.
For instance, even assuming the US government had the best intentions over last two decades of drone bombing the Middle East, to supposedly make us more safe, all it really did was create more terrorists. When innocent civilians get murdered by the USA’s bombs, their friends and family become radicalized. Would there still be terrorists and crazy people without all that provocation? Yes, I’m sure. But the numbers would most likely be lower, and we could focus on actual defense.
And even if we assume, for example, that the PATRIOT Act and indefinite detainment clause in the NDAA were passed with the best intentions of targeting terrorists, they has made our own government a much greater threat with the powers they granted. The people who advocate gun control, strict Covid lockdowns, or a government safety net are like Brienne of Tarth, making us less safe because they misunderstand the inherent danger that life carries with it.
If other people take away our agency to respond decide what are the biggest threats facing us, or force us to respond to those threats in a particular way, they will inevitably put us in more danger. That is especially true if they suffer no consequences for their decisions. For example if the people who ban guns can afford to hire private security, then what difference does it make to them if you can’t protect yourself when your home is invaded?
We like to imagine a perfect society in which we are secure, safe, comfortable, and just generally all set, happily ever after. But the desire for a finish line is elusive. We can make ourselves robust against threats, or even anti-fragile so that we could gain from disorder, as Nicholas Nassim Taleb says. But even this requires maintenance and vigilance. You always have to be understanding new threats, and preparing more options which you can choose to exercise, depending on what happens next.
And this goes as much for economics as for physical safety. Don’t expect Social Security to be there for you, have a backup plan. There is no guarantee that any one currency will always stay stable, valuable, or even continue to exist. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, including streams of income, and the skills you have to earn a living.
At the end of the day, safety comes down to vigilance. Unless you are constantly on alert to those things which threaten your safety, you will be taken by surprise. It doesn’t really matter if the person making you less safe is the well meaning but naive Brienne of Tarth or the calculating power hungry Cersi Lannister.
Cersi, in a sense, is safer to be around, because you understand that she is dangerous, and can protect yourself. But how can you protect yourself from someone who thinks they have your best interests at heart, whether you like it or not?
Some people will have noble goals and try to force you into their “safe” world that they have flawlessly designed for security. Their ignorance makes you just as vulnerable as Cersi’s malevolence. Others will offer us safety, utopia, and ultimate security that we can just accept and then forget about. This will lead us down a path of vulnerability.
Whether those who lure you into the false sense of security are doing so because their goals are noble, or because their motives are nefarious hardly matters. We must each be at liberty to look after our own safety.
Arya, for example, had chosen to stick around The Hound and benefit from the safety he provided. When he was incapacitated, she could have chosen to be protected by Brienne, but instead she chose to go it alone, and protect herself. She ultimately became much more capable for it. And that is essentially the option we all need if we hope to make the world a safer place.
We should be able to choose our own government - and not just from the 200 or so very similar, subpar options currently available. And we should also be able to choose to go it alone, or create our own society, if we don’t like the options available. The ability to take our business elsewhere, without threat or force, will create a market for the best protection against various threats, which will improve the variety and quality of the services offered."
Annapolis, Maryland - “You are sick… You deserve to be hanged for treason.” This, reader I.W. has informed us. He elaborated his case no further, alas. His charges therefore lack the legal warrant for an official hanging. Upon this slender hope we hang… if you will indulge the expression. Yet the question dangles: Why would I.W. have us hanged? What have we done to rate a hanging?
I.W.’s laments attend our recent articles on the Ukrainian unpleasantness - articles in which we called United States involvement into severe question. Put simply: We argued against United States involvement in the Ukrainian war. That is because we fear it opens the roadway for direct United States conflict with Russia itself. Thus we are a Putin “apologist.” Thus we sanction, bless and enable the man’s multiple evils in Ukraine. Thus we are an agent of Satan and against every human decency. Thus we must hang for treason - by the neck - until dead.
Tread Carefully: Yet we might remind I.W. that nations can stumble into war… as easily as men can stumble into love. War’s dogs are willful and excitable hounds. They are forever plotting to break the leashes. The June 1914 assassination of an Austrian archduke did not by itself fire the guns of August. War was not an inevitability. But blunders were made… and miscalculations. That is, human beings were at their normal tricks. Two months later the guns were roaring. They roared for the next four years.
We would avoid a nuclear-age sequel - a sequel with a far less lengthy conclusion. We fear that the distance from initial clash with Russia… to nuclear clash with Russia… may be nearer than most imagine…That the howitzers of June that led to the tanks of February could lead to the aircraft of April and the troops of September and the atoms of October. How many homicides escalated from a simple shove? The graveyards and the jails crowd with examples.
What Would Adams Think? America “goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy,” said Adams (John Quincy) in 1821. More from whom: "She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own. She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings…
Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be…She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.
She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.
The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force.... She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit...America's glory is not dominion, but liberty… She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice."
Adams Says No to the Early Neoconservatives: In the early 1820s the nation of Greece was at war with the Ottoman Empire. It was a war for Greek independence - similar to America’s own war for independence from the British Empire. The Greek government formally solicited aid and assistance from the United States. Many Americans, including prominent politicos, were hot to jam their snouts into the thing. They believed the Greek cause was in essence the United States’ cause. And so they were for the Greek proposal. They were out to aid Greece materially - even to dispatch a squadron of the United States Navy to those distant, contested waters.
Yet Secretary of State Adams did not think “quite so lightly of a war with Turkey.” Thus he put out a very stern rebuke against the Greek request: "While cheering with their best wishes the cause of the Greeks, the United States are forbidden by the duties of the situation from taking part in the war, to which their relation is that of neutrality… Their established policy and the obligations of the laws of nations preclude them from becoming voluntary auxiliaries to a cause which would involve them in war."
Incidentally, Mr. Adams references the United States in the plural form - “the United States are…” That is because the United States was not yet an “it.” It remained a “them.”
What Would Adams Say About War With Russia? Would Secretary of State John Quincy Adams counsel war with Russia in 2026? Or would the fellow not think “quite so lightly of a war” with Russia? We do not presume to speak for the dead. And so we shall not presume to speak for Mr. Adams. Yet we can draw certain… inferences… based on his written declarations. And we believe he would be against war with Russia - for the very reasons he cited in 1821.
Must the United States of 2026… the “it”... cling to the doctrines of the “them” United States of 1821? No, it is under no such bonds. The world of 2026 is vastly different from the world of 1821. And the contemporary United States is free to chart its own course, to blaze its own path, to do as it pleases. It need not - must not - be devoted slavishly to the old ways. Even old Tommy Jefferson argued that the nation’s Constitution should be written anew every 19 years. And who are we to dispute old Tommy Jefferson? No one whomsoever.
What if Adams Was Right? Yet we must consider this possibility: The Adams admonitions of 1821 maintain their value in the year 2026. They may transmit a vast and enduring wisdom worth a good hard listen. Yet the living so rarely listen to the dead. The living believe they inhabit unrivaled times. That they confront unrivaled circumstances - and challenges. “This time is different” is their eternal refrain.
These unrivaled times, circumstances and challenges lead some to conclude that Russia constitutes a unique menace to global tranquility. And that the world’s civilized nations must scotch it before the menace grows… like a cancerous growth. They further believe that war with a nuclear-armed Russia is a tolerable risk in pursuit of this greater good. And some even believe that a man should hang for treason if he is against it…"
"Cuba is facing massive blackouts, fuel shortages, and growing economic chaos while Americans are quietly draining their savings accounts just to survive. In today’s video, Dan from i Allegedly breaks down the shocking collapse happening inside Cuba, why the country is running out of diesel and electricity, and what it could mean for the global economy moving forward. With rolling blackouts lasting up to 20 hours a day, humanitarian aid controversies, and economic instability spreading worldwide, this story is bigger than most people realize.
We also dive into the alarming trend of Americans spending down savings, tapping retirement accounts, relying on credit cards, and struggling with rising costs. Major CEOs including McDonald’s, Whirlpool, and Kraft Heinz are warning that consumers are pulling back spending at record levels. From foreclosures and housing declines to inflation, debt, and shrinking purchasing power, this video covers the economic warning signs that many people are now experiencing firsthand. Share your thoughts below and let us know what you’re seeing in your area."
"Where do shops, restaurants, and cafes in Russia buy their food? Join me at a wholesale food market on the outskirts of Moscow, Russia. Buhkta is one of Russia's largest wholesale and bulk food markets. What interesting things can we find in there?"
"U.S. households are now 18.79 trillion dollars in debt. In 1980, U.S. households were just 1.4 trillion dollars in debt. Over the past several decades we have witnessed a household debt binge that is unlike anything that we have ever witnessed in our entire history. But if consumers could handle that debt load, there wouldn’t be such a high level of concern. Unfortunately, just like we witnessed prior to the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009, Americans are getting behind on their debts at a staggering rate. This isn’t going to end well, but of course many of you know that already.
The latest numbers published by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York show that delinquency rates for auto loans, student loans and credit card debt have all soared to very alarming levels… "Today, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY) published new data showing that the share of Americans behind on a range of household consumer debts reached all-time highs in the first quarter of 2026. As the nation hurdles toward an historical record of $19 trillion in total household debt, Americans saw the highest rates of auto loan delinquency that FRBNY has ever recorded, rates of credit card delinquency near those last seen at the height of the 2008 financial crisis, and student loan delinquency at its worst since before the COVID-era payment pause."
Thanks to our accelerating cost of living crisis, most U.S. households are barely scraping by from month to month these days. So if you are feeling financially squeezed right now, I want you to know that you are not alone. As financial pressure rises, an increasing number of households are reaching a breaking point. As a result, we are beginning to witness a tsunami of delinquencies…
"While families took on more debt, they also fell behind. Credit card delinquency rates are now the highest they have been in 16 years (13.1 percent). Overall student loan delinquency rates soared to 10.3 percent, the highest recorded since 2020. Significantly more student loan borrowers are also entering serious delinquency, with their loans more than 90 days past due (10.9 percent) compared to the first quarter of 2025 (8.0 percent). In fact, delinquency rates have increased for all credit types tracked by the FRBNY since the final quarter of 2025."
Those figures are deeply troubling. And I haven’t even mentioned mortgages yet. In April, there were more than 42,000 foreclosure filings…New data released by real estate analytics firm ATTOM found that 42,430 properties nationwide received foreclosure filings in April 2026, including default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions.
Is that a high number? Yes, it is. In fact, it is 18 percent higher than last year’s very high figure for the month of April…Foreclosure filings across the US have surged 18 percent compared to last year in a troubling sign that mounting financial pressure is beginning to hit homeowners. It is a red flag that is reminiscent of the foreclosure spike in the run up to the 2008 Great Recession – that financial pressure is mounting for thousands of families.
Many of you clearly remember that we experienced a growing wave of foreclosures well before the financial markets started to crash in late 2008. It was obvious that the housing bubble was crashing way in advance, and we can see the same thing happening again.
In Seattle, the number of homes listed for sale is nearly twice the usual figure, and prices are beginning to fall… There are 8,630 homes listed for sale across the Seattle metro right now. In a normal April, there are about 4,600.
Nick Gerli, CEO of the real estate analytics firm Reventure, posted that data on Sunday on X. His read: Seattle’s housing market is going through a historic inventory shock, driven by layoffs, historic unaffordability, and outbound migration. King County values are already down 2.5% year over year. Prices are falling, and a typical listing is still right around $1 million, with a monthly mortgage payment of $7,000 to $8,000. That’s $84,000 to $96,000 a year just on the mortgage. The median household income across the Seattle metro is about $112,000 before taxes. After federal and state deductions, that household is taking home somewhere around $85,000 to $90,000. The mortgage alone consumes virtually all of it.
The market is cracking. Regular people still can’t afford to buy. Yes, the market in Seattle is most definitely cracking. And the same thing could be said about dozens of other markets all over the nation. It is inevitable that home prices will fall because we have reached a point where most of the population simply cannot afford a typical mortgage payment. In our “K-shaped economy”, those at the very top have been thriving while the vast majority of the country has been deeply struggling.
Sadly, there are a lot of young adults out there that have simply stopped trying. This is particularly true for young men, and the numbers clearly show that millions upon millions of them have chosen to drop out of the labor force…The Department of Labor keeps careful track of employment and the demographics thereof. Their latest report on men in the labor force is both mysterious and deeply alarming. It turns out that the labor force is missing about 7 million men who would otherwise be working. Close to a third of working-age men have vanished from the labor force.
The labor force participation rate among “prime age men,” age 25 to 54, in the 1950s approached 100 percent. Now it is 89 percent, meaning roughly 11 percent are not in the labor force (neither working nor looking for work). Among all men over 16 years of age, the rate is a devastatingly low 66 percent, so about one-third are gone. Among U.S.-born men, nearly 22 percent are gone.
This is really quite shocking. We really do have a national crisis on our hands. The number of homeless Americans is at an all-time high. (770,000, -CP) Most of them are men. The number of drug addicts in our country is at an all-time high. Most of them are men.
So many people have been falling through the cracks in the system, and it seems to get worse with each passing year. Meanwhile, an increasing number of households are falling behind on their debts and America’s middle class is steadily shrinking. All of the long-term trends are taking us in the wrong direction, and it appears that our economic problems will only accelerate during the months ahead."
"You Have No Idea What's Coming For America In 2026…
And It's Already Too Late"
"Your money might be trapped right now and you don’t know it. $265 billion wiped. $150 billion locked behind gates. 722 banks hiding losses. The Fed injecting billions in secret. Bank of America just declared stagflation. AI eliminated 1.17 million jobs. Burry says the next crash is worse. 10 things are converging on this economy at the exact same time."
"How We Created a Stupid Generation Incapable of Thinking"
"We live in an age of information - yet never before has humanity been so misinformed, distracted, and intellectually fragile. How did we create a generation that no longer knows how to think? In this powerful and provocative video, we expose how education, media, technology, and culture have conspired to create a society of conformity - a world where comfort replaces curiosity, distraction replaces reflection, and emotion replaces reason."
528Hz Positive Energy, Self Healing with 417Hz Solfeggio frequency. Peaceful, empowering and soothing music and nature to nurture your mind, body, and soul. Supporting and empowering you on your life journey."
I can't praise this visually beautiful, and very effective, video enough. In these incredibly highly stressful times, please be kind to yourself and take the time to savor this exquisite work in full screen mode. Headphones suggested but not necessary. It works, as simple as that... - CP
“This wide, sharp telescopic view reveals galaxies scattered beyond the stars and faint dust nebulae of the Milky Way at the northern boundary of the high-flying constellation Pegasus. Prominent at the upper right is NGC 7331.
Click image for larger size.
A mere 50 million light-years away, the large spiral is one of the brighter galaxies not included in Charles Messier's famous 18th century catalog. The disturbed looking group of galaxies at the lower left is well-known as Stephan's Quintet. About 300 million light-years distant, the quintet dramatically illustrates a multiple galaxy collision, its powerful, ongoing interactions posed for a brief cosmic snapshot. On the sky, the quintet and NGC 7331 are separated by about half a degree.”
“A craven can be as brave as any man, when there is nothing to fear. And we all do our duty, when there is no cost to it. How easy it seems then, to walk the path of honor. Yet soon or late in every man’s life comes a day when it is not easy, a day when he must choose.”
"The country seems bigger, for you can see through the bare trees. There are times when the woods is absolutely still and quiet. The house holds warmth. A wet snow comes in the night and covers the ground and clings to the trees, making the whole world white. For a while in the morning the world is perfect and beautiful. You think you will never forget.
You think you will never forget any of this, you will remember it always just the way it was. But you can't remember it the way it was. To know it, you have to be living in the presence of it right as it is happening. It can return only by surprise. Speaking of these things tells you that there are no words for them that are equal to them or that can restore them to your mind. And so you have a life that you are living only now, now and now and now, gone before you can speak of it, and you must be thankful for living day by day, moment by moment, in this presence.
But you have a life too that you remember. It stays with you. You have lived a life in the breath and pulse and living light of the present, and your memories of it, remember now, are of a different life in a different world and time. When you remember the past, you are not remembering it as it was. You are remembering it as it is. It is a vision or a dream, present with you in the present, alive with you in the only time you are alive."
"Man: He’ll go along with just about anything. Given the right circumstances…a little programming…and enough time for it all to marinate in his soft, mammalian brain… there is almost nothing Homo Credulus will not learn to embrace. Don’t believe us?
Take a look at the historical record; you’ll soon wonder how we ever got this far. Sure, you’ll discover gizmos and flying contraptions, art and agriculture, music and mathematics. You’ll witness spectacular scientific breakthroughs, the number “0” and a man’s footprint on the moon. You’ll also find automobiles with so many cup holders, you won’t know where to holster your oversized 7/11 Big Gulp.
But you’ll also scratch your head. Perhaps you’ll even weep. And if you think hard enough, you’ll put a few things to serious question…“Central banks?” “Modern democracy?” “The Ellen DeGeneres Show?” How has mankind survived such atrocities? Self inflicted, no less! And why, moreover, does he rush so earnestly to repeat and replay his worst mistakes? (Ellen has been on air since 2003!) Don’t be too hard on yourself, Dear Reader. After all, repetition is nothing new…
You’ll recall that it was the Greeks who first gave the world democracy – from the Greek, dēmokratía, literally “Rule by ‘People’”. (And yes, it was those very same Greeks who put their own beloved Socrates to death, by a majority vote of 361-140.) Today, democracy is a cherished tenet of “the West.” It is woven into the civic religion, sewn into the social fabric. Men march off eagerly to fight for it, to proselytize it, and to die in forgotten ditches defending it.
At least, that’s what they believe they’re doing. As usual, the poor saps have been duped. Herewith, a little historical context…The phrase “Making the world safe for democracy” was actually a marketing slogan, coined back in the 1910s, as a way to sell “The Great War” to America. Weary from their own disastrous Civil War just a few decades earlier, in which hundreds of thousands of (mostly) young men gave up the ghost, Americans were mostly inward looking at the time. That is to say, they wanted little to do with what they largely saw as a “European affair.”
Polls might have indicated no appetite for battle, but the nation’s politicians were nonetheless starved for military misadventure. They sensed big profits abroad, both in manufacturing armaments and making onerous bank loans to foreign lands. Sure, “the nation” would have to fill tank and trench with warm young bodies, but very few soldiers would carry senatorial surnames along with their rifles. And so, after a public relations campaign of truly epic proportions, America marched off to war, wrapped in the delusion they had freshly been sold.
Eddie Bernays, the man who coined the phrase and, thus, peddled the war to America, made a fortune for his efforts. He was even invited by Woodrow Wilson to attend the Paris Peace Conference, in 1919, as a show of gratitude for his services. There, Bernays learned the full impact of his “democracy” slogan. An obviously bright fellow, the surreal experience caused him to think. If people will line up to kill one another under the influence of a mere marketing campaign they could surely be convinced to do, say and buy just about anything!
Bernays was right. In fact, he wrote a series of books, detailing his insights. They included "Crystallizing Public Opinion" (1923), "A Public Relations Counsel" (1927) and a neat little number titled "Propaganda" (1928), in which Bernays laid out the blueprint for mass social and psychological manipulation. The collected works went on to become a huge success, and the favorite of none other than Joseph Goebbles, Reich Minister for Propaganda in Nazi Germany between 1933-45.
Bernays himself, writing in his 1965 autobiography, recalls a dinner at home in 1933 where… "Karl von Wiegand, foreign correspondent of the Hearst newspapers, an old hand at interpreting Europe and just returned from Germany, was telling us about Goebbels and his propaganda plans to consolidate Nazi power. Goebbels had shown Wiegand his propaganda library, the best Wiegand had ever seen. Goebbels, said Wiegand, was using my book "Crystallizing Public Opinion" as a basis for his destructive campaign against the Jews of Germany. This shocked me. […] Obviously the attack on the Jews of Germany was no emotional outburst of the Nazis, but a deliberate, planned campaign."
It is indeed chilling to think of such a heinous undertaking as being engineered, blueprinted, premeditated and carried out according to some kind of script. And yet, there it is, in Bernays’ own words, the “Father of Propaganda.” Having acquired somewhat of a tainted reputation-by-association, propaganda, itself, underwent a “strategic rebranding” after WWII. But make no mistake, the very same métier thrives to this day, under the more socially palatable designation, “Public Relations.” Still, a ruse by any other name…
“Could we be so stupid again?” wonders the gentle reader. “Might the mob still be swayed by what Charles Mackay termed ‘extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds?’” Why, of course! That’s the nature of the mob! Whether in love, finance, politics or any other matter, man is wont to be convinced, assured, persuaded, often against his own best interests. Few are the absurdities in which he will not take refuge, invest his hard-earned capital or squander his morality. All he needs is a good story, something to arrest his imagination and cauterize his capacity for reason. A distraction from his lonely, quotidian existence. That, and a few crumbs to pass his lips.
The Roman poet, Juvenal, recognized as much when he mocked the panem et circenses (bread and circuses) stratagem almost two millennia ago. In his "Satire X", he referred to the Annona (a kind of grain dole) and the famous circus games, held in the Colosseum and elsewhere, as designed to keep the unthinking population fed and happy.
Look around you today, Dear Reader. What do you see, two millennia later, in the Year of Their Lord, 2026 AD? We’ve got reality television and stadium sports matches, food stamp programs and an Everest of transfer payments, we’ve had mask mandates at schools and the whole pretense of safety and security, there’s $39 trillion in national debt and government spending out the wazoo, plus a collapsing workforce, an opioid epidemic (out-killing COVID-19 in < 65s) and behind it all, the greatest bread and circuses show ever: modern representative democracy. Now, as then, the show goes on!"
“And when they found our shadows (grouped ‘round the TV sets), they ran down every lead; they repeated every test; they checked out all the data in their lists. And then the alien anthropologists admitted they were still perplexed, but on eliminating every other reason for our sad demise they logged the only explanation left: This species has amused itself to death.” - Roger Waters
“Apathy and indifference are nurtured in the modern age as most peoples’ free time is frittered away with worthless trivia like ball games, computer games, movies and soaps, and fiddling with their mobile phones. These distractions might be fun, but after most of them you’ve learnt nothing of any value, and remain ignorant, malleable and suggestible, which is just how the elites want you.” – Clive Maund
“A truth’s initial commotion is directly proportional to how deeply the lie was believed… When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker, a raving lunatic.” – Dresden James
“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”
– Winston Churchill
"30 years ago (1985) Neil Postman (a professor of communications arts and sciences at New York University – until his death in 2003) wrote the best-selling book “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business”. (Free download below.) The book exposed, among other things, the subtle but profound dangers to the developing mind from the mesmerizing (and addictive) commercial television industry.
The lessons from that book have essentially been ignored by the amoral and corrupted sociopathic capitalist system that says “damn the torpedoes/full steam ahead” and blindly and greedily promotes unlimited growth no matter what the costs and who or what gets hurt long–term in the resource-extractive, exploitive and permanently polluting processes.
But Postman’s thesis applies even more strongly today to the current internet/computer/ age-inappropriate, pornographic sex and pornographic violence-saturated televangelist/political-contaminated media reality with which the prophetic Postman was properly alarmed.
SOMA, the Drug That Predicted Prozac by 50 Years: In the classic “Brave New World” (1932) Aldous Huxley wrote about the new form of totalitarianism that has now come to pass in the developed world, thanks to the privatized profit-driven, drug, medical and psychiatric corporations whose practitioners were once (naively or altruistically?) mainly concerned with relieving human suffering and trying to holistically and permanently cure their distressed patients’ ailments (rather than lucratively “managing” said “clients” as permanently paying consumers of unaffordable prescription drugs). Nearly 30 years after he wrote the book, Huxley said,
“And it seems to me perfectly in the cards that there will be within the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda, brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods.” Neil Postman’s very last sentence of his book concerned the prescription drug-infested victims of the new form of totalitarianism that Huxley had described in “Brave New World”.
Of course, Huxley’s book was all about his imaginary psychotropic drug SOMA that Prozac’s makers and promoters in the late 1980s to falsely claim to make its swallowers “feel better than well”. One of the characters in Brave New World said: “And if ever, by some unlucky chance, anything unpleasant should somehow happen, why, there’s always Soma to give you a holiday from the facts. And there’s always Soma to calm your anger, to reconcile you to your enemies, to make you patient and long-suffering. In the past you could only accomplish these things by making a great effort and after years of hard moral training. Now, you swallow two or three half-gramme tablets, and there you are. Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your morality about in a bottle. Christianity without tears; that’s what Soma is.”
Postman ended his book by writing: “What afflicted the people in Brave New World was not that they were laughing instead of thinking, but that they did not know what they were laughing about and why they had stopped thinking.” A couple of years after the publication of Postman’s book, Roger Waters (of “Pink Floyd’s The Wall” fame) released a “concept” album that was inspired by the book. He titled the album “Amused to Death”. The lyrics of the title track are as follows:
