So, we rise from the rubble...
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Wednesday, May 20, 2026
"The Worst Invention of All Time?"
"The Worst Invention of All Time?"
by J.D. Breen
"We love to mind each other’s business. And, unlike our benighted ancestors of a hundred years ago, we have just the tool to do it. I’m holding it in my hand, and most of you have it in yours. Has any century started worse than this one?
It’s a question typical of our short-sighted, self-centered, attention-deprived age. The answer seems obvious, and can be sought by looking a hundred years into the rearview mirror. There we see… closer than they appear… Theodore Roosevelt, the San Francisco Earthquake, the Federal Reserve, the income tax, the direct election of Senators, Woodrow Wilson, the Great War, the Russian Revolution, the Spanish Flu, the Treaty of Versailles, the Black Sox, and Prohibition.
Peak America: But let’s give this century its ignominious due. It has its own litany of self-inflicted calamity, exacted by meddling sculptors and know-it-all painters whose only tools are jackhammers and spray guns. And, to be fair, their work isn’t done!
In retrospect, the 1990s might have been Peak America… the blowoff top of a great bacchanal. The Soviets fell and prosperity reigned. History was at an end. The party was on. The US then succumbed to what economics calls the law of diminishing returns, and approached what Calculus refers to as the limit.
After running up the credit card and hitting the casino, America raided mom’s wine cellar and ransacked dad’s liquor cabinet. Then it passed out on the lawn, empty bottles and smoldering cigarettes strewn across the yard as the morning sprinkler sprayed its face. It’s been hungover and searching for its car keys ever since. Along the way, it’s tripped and stumbled into expensive errors. Thousands died in reckless wars. Millions were impoverished by rigged capital markets. Lockdowns closed countless small businesses while enriching big competitors. Medical mandates evicted millions from jobs.
And many Americans are just fine with this refrain of disaster that resembles a classic Bradbury book or a bad Billy Joel song. The Fourth Turning seems to be upon us. Not only is the pretense of liberty vanishing, the desire for it seems to be as well. Live and let live is dead. To each his own is not for us.
Sunlight to an Ant: We love to mind each other’s business. And, unlike our benighted ancestors of a hundred years ago, we have just the tool to do it. I’m holding it in my hand, and most of you have it in yours.
This century, we’ve become an hysterical people. Everything is over the top, overdone, overblown, and overreacted to. Even (or especially) regarding people we never met and would never care to meet, or things we know nothing about and about which, in a sane world, we’d not be able to care less.
The smartphone brings “news” to us the way a magnifying glass transmits sunlight to an ant. It hits us more intensely, and less beneficially, than we initially believe. It allows little or no time to think, and often leaves us worse off than had we not been exposed to it at all. We receive so much information that we usually know less than we did before. Our brains slowly fry.
Public opinion can be defined as what everyone thinks everyone else thinks, which inevitably influences what people think they are supposed to think. The smartphone fans these flames, which often burn out as quickly as they ignite.
Silent and Listen: Social media and instant news are not conducive to subtlety and nuance, but rather to instant reaction and plenty of noise. Smartphones stunt reflection and shorten time horizons. It’s appropriate that “silent” and “listen” are spelled with the same letters. But in social settings, our phones encourage the former yet discourage the latter. They “connect” us superficially from a distance, yet push us apart in proximity.
A random buzz, beep, post, photo, like, link, text, or tweet is sufficient pretext to disrupt a conversation or ignore someone in our presence. Digital correspondents become highest priority. The world of the real, the tangible, and the personal fades into the background. And, after wading mindlessly thru the self-selected cheer and artificial abundance of other people’s posts, it often feels inadequate.
Don’t get me wrong. The smartphone is one of the most useful, powerful, consequential, disruptive, convenient, informative, miraculous, and remarkable inventions of all time. But in some ways, it is among the worst. Like most anything else, it just depends how we use it. Or don’t."
"Weapons Of Mass Distraction And Booze Jokes"
Several generations, actually...
"Weapons Of Mass Distraction And Booze Jokes"
by John Wilder
"2026 is the 24th year of the smart phone, as the CrackBerry® was introduced way back in 2002. To put that into perspective, 23 years before 2002, Jimmy Carter was president and Hillary Clinton had only eaten six children.
But the BlackBerry© didn’t take over immediately – it was mainly a hit with the executive-set at first, since it allowed them to get emails while they were on the slopes at Gstaad or write ANGRY EMAILS IN ALL CAPS while munching on bigfoot filet roasted over Moonrocks at the beach down in Monaco.
The real killer smart phone, though, was the iPhone©. It was introduced just 18 years ago in 2007. The design standards for the iPhone™ quickly became the standard for cell phones, and it knocked BlackBerry® into oblivion within just a few short years because teenaged girls liked it much better because, selfies. To be fair, it was a pretty big jump in functionality and aesthetics.
The impact, though, of smart phones, however, is undeniable. They became the single most effective way to distract a person. Ever. You’ve seen the effect enough that it’s cliché – walk into a restaurant and it’s not a group of people talking to each other. Instead, it’s a group of people eating near each other while they take in content produced with the explicit objective of taking over their attention.
And, it has certainly worked if the goal was to distract. People now spend more time doomscrolling on their phones than they spend with their children, spouses, and friends. Combined, and Tinder™ has led to more one-night stands than wine coolers.
The reason smartphones grab our attention is somewhat seductive: every time a new notification hits, it sets off a small hit of dopamine in the brain. Just like lab rats, we love our dopamine. And the designers know it. On earlier versions of Twitter©, if I got multiple “likes” on a Tweet®, they would be delayed and doled out so that the action-anticipation-reward loop was optimized to keep me engaged.
And the format of Twitter© (that X™ retained) of scrolling through content, why, something super interesting might be at the bottom of the next swipe of my finger on the screen. So, I’d better just go two more minutes. And then an hour goes by . . .
X© is an attention harvester – they built the perfect trap to stick the rat to the app. And so is Facebook™. And Instagram©. And Snapchat®. These are designed to meld into our nervous system, and keep our eyes focused on the screen, day after day. I know this, because it works, and it worked on me.
After I realized that, though, I decided on a strategy: I would jealously guard my attention like CNN™ guarded information on Joe Biden’s ability to remember, you know, the thing. The reasons are many: Information overload leads to depression and anxiety. I had to ask myself, “Can I do anything about this?” and “Is this something I really care about?”
Here’s where I draw the line: Consciously, I decided I really don’t care about Ukraine and Russia. And you can’t make me care about them. I also decided the same thing with Israel and Gaza. They’re not here, and if I’m going to spend my attention and emotion, I’d rather do something to make the United States better, first – like doing everything I can to get as many illegals deported as possible and shutting down as many H-1B visas as possible so maybe someone at a call center could be intelligible. Or I could spend my time spreading the word about the wonders of PEZ™.
I also make a conscious decision (mostly) on what media I’m going to consume and when. I do personal emails three times a week because my inbox isn’t a slot machine for spam. I browse non-news websites three times a week (mostly – there are exceptions).
I have, at least at my age, also decided that multitasking isn’t something I’m going to count on unless the task is really mindless. I try to focus more on just one thing at a time – then I’m really there. The problem in 2025 isn’t time management, it’s attention management. And I have to have time to:
Think deeply, so I’m not just reacting to stimulus and so I can better see propaganda. Honestly, I’ve gotten to the point that I don’t trust any media unless I can verify the claim.
Relax, so I’m not so wound up about things. Life shouldn’t be so tense. That’s what caffeine is for.
Create, because I really enjoy it, and because that’s the way that maybe I can change the world. Without distractions, I can crush out a first draft of a post in about an hour. Pounding and sanding the result takes one or two more, and then I gotta add memes. To do any of those things requires attention.
We are the sum of what we spend our attention and effort on. If I’m distracted, I know that I simply won’t have the focus I need in order to make the best decisions. Who, indeed, would like the American public distracted and not paying attention to what exactly is going on in the world?
Smartphones have become weapons of mass distraction. Yet each time we’re distracted by one, it’s the result of a choice. So, why let them win? I’ve got to look forward to 2048, 23 years into the future from now. I imagine Barron Trump will be in his third presidential term by then..."
Full screen recommended.
Steve Cutts, "Are You Lost In The World Like Me?"
Dan, I Allegedly, "Global Supply Chains Are Breaking Again - Prices & Shortages Will Surge"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 5/20/26
"Global Supply Chains Are Breaking Again -
Prices & Shortages Will Surge"
"The global supply chain crisis is getting worse again - and most people have no idea how serious this could become. In this video, I break down the shocking new data showing global shipping delays, transportation costs, manufacturing bottlenecks, and freight congestion reaching the worst levels since 2020. We’re already seeing major disruptions tied to Middle East shipping routes, rerouted cargo vessels, rising oil prices, inventory shortages, and exploding logistics costs. This is affecting groceries, electronics, auto parts, appliances, construction materials, and everyday household products.
I also explain why companies are panic-stockpiling inventory again and why consumers should start preparing NOW before prices surge even higher. During the last supply chain breakdown, Americans dealt with empty shelves, delayed deliveries, and massive inflation - and the warning signs are flashing again. If you remember the cargo ship crisis off the California coast, this video connects the dots on what’s happening globally and how it will directly impact your wallet, your household, and your ability to buy everyday essentials in the months ahead."
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Marine Traffic App:
"Commercial Oil Inventories Are “Depleting Very Fast” And Global Supply Chain Stress Is Spiking"
by Michael Snyder
"We are watching a slow-motion train wreck play out right in front of our eyes, and nobody can stop it. Every single day that the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, commercial oil inventories will get even lower and national strategic oil reserves will get even lower. Right now the global economy is using more oil than it is producing, and everyone agrees that we are reaching a major crisis point.
Unfortunately, we may arrive at that major crisis point even sooner than many experts were originally projecting. The head of the International Energy Agency is warning that commercial oil inventories are “depleting very fast”…"International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol warned that the tally of commercial oil inventories is shrinking at an accelerated pace. “I think it is depleting very fast,” he told reporters at the sidelines of a meeting of Group of Seven finance ministers in Paris, echoing comments from last week. It will be “several weeks, but we should be aware of the fact that it is declining rapidly,” he said.
He also highlighted that the spike in fertilizer and diesel prices comes at the start of the travel and planting season. “This could have major implications for the food prices and together with the higher energy prices they might give a big push to inflation numbers,” he said.
Once the cushion that we are running through now is gone, energy prices will go completely nuts and we will see widespread rationing and shortages. In fact, we are already beginning to experience a shortage of motor oil. This is something that I wrote about yesterday, and today CNN issued a major report about this… Wholesale motor oil prices are rising rapidly, and some industry executives are warning of imminent shortages caused by the war with Iran. Damage to key facilities in the Middle East and the shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz have combined to create a perfect storm in this tiny but critical corner of the oil market.
The risk is that some of the most popular kinds of motor oil will be in very short supply, forcing drivers to delay getting their oil changed or rely on suboptimal lubricants. “We’re looking at shortages - I have no doubt in my mind,” Holly Alfano, CEO of the Independent Lubricant Manufacturers Association (ILMA), an industry trade group, told CNN. “It’s a big mess - and it’s not going to be resolved quickly. It could take a year or so before we see any real relief.”
We all use motor oil, and so this is going to hurt. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has thrown global supply chains for motor oil into a state of complete and utter chaos… The motor oil situation is another reminder of the fragile nature of global supply chains. The problem is that almost half (44%) of the most important base oil used to make motor oil, known as Group III, comes from just three Persian Gulf producers, according to ILMA. Those Middle East supplies have been derailed by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz after the war started in late February.
Not only that, but Pearl GTL, the world’s largest gas-to-liquids (GTL) plant located in Qatar, was attacked and seriously damaged in Iran. That means one of the leading suppliers of Group III base oils has been knocked offline indefinitely.
Can you imagine paying $200 for an oil change? If the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, that is not inconceivable. Of course countless other supply chains have been severely disrupted as well, and global supply chain stress is absolutely soaring as a result…
One week after Maersk CEO Vincent Clerc warned CNBC of a “new wake-up call” for global trade amid the ongoing disruption of the Strait of Hormuz and a deepening energy crisis that could intensify further in June, UBS analysts are out with a new note telling clients they have “reactivated” their Global Supply Chain Stress Index in response to increasingly alarming signals emerging across global logistics networks. “Supply chain stress is rising at its fastest pace since the early pandemic,” UBS analyst Pierre Lafourcade wrote in a note on Sunday. Lafourcade explained that global supply chain stress is emerging quickly, with the index rising by 1.2 standard deviations in March and April, the second-largest two-month jump since July 2020.
Slowly but surely, the consequences of this crisis are starting to filter their way through the economy. For example, more than 5,000 supply chain workers have already been laid off here in the United States…"A sweeping wave of layoffs and facility closures has hit the U.S. supply chain, with more than 5,183 workers affected across at least 20 states. According to a report from FreightWaves by Noi Mahoney, the cuts stem from shutdowns, restructurings, customer contract losses, and operational consolidations in logistics, manufacturing, and transportation. Major employers including FreshRealm, GEODIS, Ryder, and DSV have announced significant workforce reductions as companies seek to cut costs amid softening industrial demand."
Authorities have been trying to keep everyone calm. But investors are starting to get really jittery. In fact, Treasury bond yields are beginning to rise at a very alarming pace…"What the president hasn’t been able to do, however, is address the worrying rise in Treasury bond yields, which remain elevated heading into the Tuesday session. Benchmark 30-year bonds were trading near the highest levels since 2007 at 5.147%, and 10-year notes traded at a 15-month peak of 4.613%.
That could feed further into inflation pressures, which are already building as the economy holds firm, labor markets outperform, and government spending remains elevated from passage of last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act."
We desperately need the Strait of Hormuz to be reopened. But if more fighting with Iran erupts, that is not going to happen for an extended period of time. On Tuesday, President Trump warned that there will be “another big hit on Iran” if a peace deal is not reached… President Donald Trump said he was considering “another big hit on Iran” just a day after he said he delayed possible strikes following progress on a possible deal to end the war.“I hope that we don’t have to do the war. But we may have to give them another big hit,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday. “I’m not sure yet. You’ll know very soon.”
As I have detailed in previous articles, there is no way that the Iranians are going to agree to a deal that is acceptable to Trump. So more bombing is coming, and Fox News is reporting that Israel is rapidly getting prepared for the next wave of airstrikes…Israel is preparing to take part in a potential U.S. strike on Iran, despite President Donald Trump’s statement on May 18 that he had paused a planned attack, according to reports. Citing officials, Israeli broadcaster Channel 12 reported Tuesday that officials also believe Trump’s announcement may have limited his options. The officials suggested that unless Tehran presents a significantly improved proposal - which Israeli leaders consider unlikely - Trump may decide military action is unavoidable, the report says, according to The Times of Israel.
On Monday night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with top military officials for five hours. Needless to say, this was not a casual gathering… Last night’s limited security meeting convened by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lasted nearly five hours – with the IDF chief of staff, air force chief, head of military intelligence, head of the Operations Directorate, and other senior defense officials in attendance – to ensure full preparedness for the possibility of an American strike, the report says.
There is a general consensus among pundits in the western world that the Iranians will eventually back down if they experience enough pressure. They believe that because they don’t understand the Iranians. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazen Gharibabadi has publicly stated that there are only two options for his nation…“Iran, united and resolute, is prepared to confront any military aggression,” Gharibabadi wrote on X. “For us, surrender holds no meaning; we either triumph or become martyrs.”
In their eyes, agreeing to Trump’s terms would be surrender. So that isn’t going to happen. The Iranians have been feverishly preparing for the next round of the war, and they are warning that they are ready to use “new equipment and new methods”…Iran’s army warned on Tuesday that it would “open new fronts” if the war resumed. “If the enemy is foolish enough to fall into the Zionist trap again, and launches new aggression against our beloved Iran, we will open new fronts against it, with new equipment and new methods,” said army spokesman Mohammad Akraminia, according to Iran’s ISNA news agency.
They keep issuing veiled threats like this. I am convinced that what they are hinting at is the use of unconventional weapons. Of course if Iran crosses that line, the U.S and Israel will likely cross that line as well. We are so close to an apocalyptic scenario in the Middle East, and most people in the western world have no idea. Meanwhile, economic conditions are crumbling all around us, and we are going to see some absolutely crazy things happen in the months ahead."
Wars And Rumors Of War: The Middle East"
A Must-view!
Stoic Path Stories, 5/20/26
Jeffrey Sachs, "Iran-Israel Crisis Explodes Overnight"
Overnight developments in the Middle East have shocked global leaders and intensified fears of a wider international crisis. Rapid military escalation, rising geopolitical tensions, and unexpected events across the region are creating uncertainty about what could happen next. In this video, Jeffrey Sachs analyzes the latest developments involving Iran, Israel, the United States, and the growing instability across the Middle East. He explains the strategic consequences of the overnight escalation, the risks of further conflict, and the potential global impact on security, politics, and international relations. Watch till the end for in-depth geopolitical insight, military analysis, and breaking updates on one of the world’s most dangerous and rapidly evolving crises.
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World Affairs In Context, 5/20/26
"Alex Krainer: The End of U.S. Supremacy -
All-Out War & Economic Demise of The West"
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Col. Larry Wilkerson, 5/20/26
"Israel Is Running Out Of Time, And Trump Knows It"
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Tuesday, May 19, 2026
"King Trump: 'I Don't Think About The Americans Financial Situation. I Don't Think About Anybody"
Strong language alert!
Gerald Celente, 5/19/26
"King Trump: 'I Don't Think About The Americans
Financial Situation. I Don't Think About Anybody"
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"Poseidon: Russia's Nuclear Tsunami Weapon Is Moving Toward U.S. Coast - No Defense Exists"
Full screen recommended.
Col. Douglas Macgregor, 5/19/26
"Poseidon: Russia's Nuclear Tsunami Weapon
Is Moving Toward U.S. Coast - No Defense Exists"
"Russia has deployed two Poseidon nuclear-armed autonomous underwater vehicles in the North Atlantic. They are moving toward the American East Coast. At 1,000 meters depth. And American antisubmarine warfare cannot reach them. The Poseidon is not a torpedo designed to destroy a ship. It is designed to detonate at 500 meters depth, 300 kilometers offshore, and generate a nuclear tsunami. Wave height at the American coastline: between 100 and 500 meters. Warning time after detonation: 25 minutes. And every American ASW weapon - SOSUS, sonobuoys, MK-48 torpedoes - has a maximum depth of 600 to 800 meters. The Poseidon operates 200 meters below all of them.
Tonight we break down exactly what the Poseidon is and exactly what a nuclear-generated tsunami does to the East Coast. We go inside the Poseidon's engineering - nuclear propulsion, 1000 meter operating depth, autonomous navigation, two-megaton warhead, detonation geometry. We walk through the tsunami physics - pressure wave propagation, continental shelf amplification, wave height calculation, 25-minute warning time. We explain system by system why American ASW cannot stop it - SOSUS detection limits, sonobuoy depth limits, Virginia-class operating envelope, MK-48 maximum depth. And we assess Putin's strategic calculation - why a weapon whose use ends civilizations is deployed as a coercive signal. This is not mainstream commentary. This is the analysis that takes a nuclear tsunami weapon as seriously as its physics demand. Two Poseidons. 1000 meters depth. 500 meter wave. 25 minutes warning. No defense. Moving now."
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Full screen recommended.
The Last Day Theory, 2/21/26
"Russia's Poseidon Weapon
Detonates Near New York Harbor"
"The weapon that could end the world is sleeping at the bottom of the ocean. But what if it wakes up? We simulate, second by second, the first 30 minutes after Russia launches its legendary "Poseidon" nuclear torpedo at the US Eastern Seaboard. In this cinematic mini-documentary, we explore how a 100-megaton thermonuclear warhead, combined with radioactive Cobalt-60 salting, transforms into a 100-meter-high toxic tsunami known as "The Green Wall," targeting major cities like Washington D.C. and New York. Based on declassified intelligence, submarine technology, and real physics, this scenario is not just science fiction - it is the ultimate geopolitical nightmare. Can the Poseidon drone be stopped? What happens to the blast zone? And how would the world react to the brink of WWIII?"
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Full screen recommended.
Times Of India, 10/29/25
"Putin's Nuclear Poseidon To Hit US Like Tsunami?
What Russia's 'Super Weapon' Can Do"
"Russia has conducted its nuclear-capable test of the Poseidon underwater “super weapon,” following the Burevestnik nuclear cruise missile trial. President Vladimir Putin announced the successful test of the Poseidon 2M39, calling it a revolutionary nuclear-powered torpedo capable of evading all existing defences. The Kremlin described it as a “strategic breakthrough,” signalling Moscow’s determination to revive the 21st-century arms race. The Poseidon, powered by a compact nuclear reactor, can reportedly travel thousands of miles underwater at high speeds and to extreme depths, carrying a warhead up to two megatons - 133 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Weighing over 90 tons and stretching nearly 60 feet in length, it is designed to trigger tsunami-like destruction along enemy coastlines. The weapon, known to NATO as Kanyon and to Russian engineers as Status-6, could be deployed aboard the Belgorod nuclear submarine. Watch for more details."
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Full screen recommended.
The Poseidon torpedo with a 100 megaton warhead explodes deep underwater, causing a 1,600 foot high tidal wave which would destroy everything on the U.S. East Coast as far inland as West Virginia. England would simply disappear beneath the waves...
o
Full screen recommended.
"The True Power of Russia's Tsunami Bomb"
"Mankind has reached a point in its destructive capabilities that it is literally beyond our comprehension. So what is it we really have to fear? The Poseidon (Russian: Посейдон, "Poseidon", GRAU index 2M39, NATO reporting name Kanyon), previously known by Russian codename Status-6 (Russian: Статус-6), is an autonomous, nuclear-powered unmanned underwater vehicle reportedly in production by Rubin Design Bureau, capable of delivering both conventional and nuclear warheads. The Poseidon is one of the six new Russian strategic weapons announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin on 1 March 2018."
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"You're Living Through The Greatest Collapse In American History"
Full screen recommended.
Finance Economist, 5/19/26
"You're Living Through
The Greatest Collapse In American History"
"You are poorer today than you were last year. The Treasury declared the US insolvent. Banks are hiding $306 billion in losses. 150,000 bankruptcies in 90 days. 113,000 tech workers fired. 30 million behind on credit cards. And the government called it the last of their concerns. This is not a recession. This is a collapse. And nobody is connecting the pieces for you. Until now."
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"A Look to the Heavens"
"How do clusters of galaxies form and evolve? To help find out, astronomers continue to study the second closest cluster of galaxies to Earth: the Fornax cluster, named for the southern constellation toward which most of its galaxies can be found. Although almost 20 times more distant than our neighboring Andromeda galaxy, Fornax is only about 10 percent further that the better known and more populated Virgo cluster of galaxies.
Fornax has a well-defined central region that contains many galaxies, but is still evolving. It has other galaxy groupings that appear distinct and have yet to merge. Seen here, almost every yellowish splotch on the image is an elliptical galaxy in the Fornax cluster. The picturesque barred spiral galaxy NGC 1365 visible on the lower right is also a prominent Fornax cluster member. "
Chet Raymo, “Yet…”
“Yet…”
by Chet Raymo
“My suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose,
but queerer than we can suppose.”
- J. B. S. Haldane
“Legend has it that after reciting his official recantation, kneeling on the floor of the Holy Office in Rome before assembled officials of the Inquisition, Galileo whispered, “And yet it moves.” To save his life, or at least to avoid some dank dungeon and perhaps torture, the old man had publicly denied that he ever believed or taught that the Earth orbits the Sun, rather than the other way around. The public recantation was real enough. Whether Galileo whispered the private qualification we’ll never know. It makes a lovely story. In any case, he was allowed to go back to Florence under house arrest and in the final years of his life invented (I will dare to assert) mathematical physics.
And yet it moves. The Earth goes spinning around the Sun with its sister planets. The Sun whirls with its neighboring stars around the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. The Milky Way drifts with its attendant galaxies toward the Andromeda cluster. The Milky Way Galaxy, the Great Andromeda Galaxy, and their lesser galactic companions, the so-called Local Group, dance somewhere near the outer edge of the Local Supercluster of galaxies. Which are but the tiniest swarm of galaxies in the whole outward-racing shebang.
It moves. Oh, yes, it moves, and Galileo didn’t know the half of it. His inquisitors didn’t know any of it, but they thought they knew all of it. And their descendants still claim infallibility. But let me not beat up on the dogmatists. We should all whisper to ourselves now and then, “And yet, and yet.” Our descendants may be surprised at our own naivety. Wholly new paradigms may be required before we understand the origin of the universe or the mysteries of biological development and consciousness.
Such a little word, “yet.” Maybe the most significant word in our vocabulary.”
"For Nothing is Fixed..."
"For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out."
- James Baldwin
The Poet: Rainer Maria Rilke, "Book of Hours II, 16"
"Book of Hours II, 16"
"How surely gravity's law,
strong as an ocean current,
takes hold of even the strongest thing
and pulls it toward the heart of the world.
Each thing-
each stone, blossom, child-
is held in place.
Only we, in our arrogance,
push out beyond what we belong to
for some empty freedom.
If we surrendered
to earth's intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.
Instead we entangle ourselves
in knots of our own making
and struggle, lonely and confused.
So, like children, we begin again
to learn from the things,
because they are in God's heart;
they have never left him.
This is what the things can teach us:
to fall,
patiently to trust our heaviness.
Even a bird has to do that
before he can fly."
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
'There Is No Escape..."
"The precept: "Judge not, that ye be not judged" is an abdication of moral responsibility: it is a moral blank check one gives to others in exchange for a moral blank check one expects for oneself. There is no escape from the fact that men have to make choices; so long as men have to make choices, there is no escape from moral values; so long as moral values are at stake, no moral neutrality is possible. To abstain from condemning a torturer is to become an accessory to the torture and murder of his victims.The moral principle to adopt in this issue, is: "Judge, and be prepared to be judged."
- Ayn Rand
"Col. Larry Wilkerson: Israel's Worst Defeat Yet, it's Over"
Dialogue Works, 5/19/26
"Col. Larry Wilkerson:
Israel's Worst Defeat Yet, it's Over"
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"Iran Just Hit Israel So Hard The Entire War Changed Overnight"
Shadow Front, 5/19/26
"Iran Just Hit Israel So Hard
The Entire War Changed Overnight"
"Nobody in Washington wants to say it out loud - so Colonel Douglas McGregor will. The war that existed last month is gone. Iran didn't just fire missiles. Iran broke the entire strategic framework the United States and Israel built this campaign on. Missile stockpiles are running dry. Oil infrastructure across the Persian Gulf is offline. The global economy is on the edge. And behind closed doors, the people closest to President Trump are telling him the same thing - there is nothing left to win here. In this powerful monologue, retired U.S. Army Colonel Douglas McGregor - one of America's most respected and unfiltered military analysts - breaks down exactly what happened, why the war changed overnight, and what no mainstream outlet is willing to tell you:
→ How Iran's 45,000-missile arsenal was built specifically to drain American defenses.
→ Why our most critical weapons stockpiles are now dangerously low.
→ The real financial forces that pushed the U.S. into this war.
→ What the collapse of the petrodollar means for everyday Americans.
→ Why Trump is privately looking for an exit -and why getting out won't be easy.
→ The one scenario that could change everything and terrify the entire world.
This isn't commentary. This is a reality check from someone who has spent decades inside the system - and is no longer willing to stay quiet about what's really happening. Watch till the end. The last few minutes hit different."
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, 5/19/26
"Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: Israel On the Brink"
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Delta Blues Brother, "You Can't Fix Stupid"
Full screen recommended.
Delta Blues Brother, "You Can't Fix Stupid"
"Some problems don’t need fixing - they need distance. “You Can’t Fix Stupid” is a dry, ironic Delta blues reflection about learning when to stop explaining, stop arguing, and stop wasting breath on things that refuse to change. A slow, worn blues guitar drags the truth across the floor - no rush, no polish. The harmonica sighs between lines, like an old man who’s seen the same mistakes repeat for decades. The groove stays steady, patient, and tired of nonsense. This is the blues of experience - not anger. The kind that comes from knowing some lessons can’t be taught, only lived. Wisdom ain’t loud - it just walks away."
Free Download: Henry Hazlitt, "Economics In One Lesson"
"'Economics In One Lesson':
A Review of a Classic"
by Sean Ring
"If you’ve ever found yourself cornered at a dinner party by that one guy with a conspiratorial gleam in his eye and a penchant for explaining why the economy is “just a series of smoke and mirrors,” you’ll appreciate Henry Hazlitt’s "Economics in One Lesson." It’s The Book that offers the economically curious a set of brass knuckles to face the muddled nonsense of popular economic “thought.” And by “thought,” I mean whatever passes for it in political speeches, social media debates, or the average op-ed.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. First, a quick primer: Hazlitt’s book is an economics classic, albeit one that uses plain language to dismantle the kind of Keynesian tomfoolery that has turned deficit spending into a national sport. Published in 1946, it’s a slim volume that packs a heavyweight punch. Think of it as the literary equivalent of Muhammad Ali in his prime - quick, elegant, and devastatingly effective.
A Double-Edged Sword: Hazlitt begins with the titular “One Lesson”: the art of economics consists of not just looking at the immediate effects of any policy but at the longer-term effects, as well. Further, it demands that the consequences of that policy be examined for all groups, not just one. A lesson so obvious it seems like common sense - until you realize it’s precisely what most policymakers and pundits ignore.
Why? Looking at all the consequences of an economic policy requires work, patience, and critical thinking. It’s far easier to promise free lunches than to explain why those lunches aren’t free. Hazlitt’s brilliance lies in his ability to show how economic fallacies perpetuate precisely because they focus on immediate, visible effects while conveniently ignoring long-term, invisible ones. The result? Politicians handing out economic band-aids while ignoring the arterial bleeding beneath.
Smashing Windows (and Fallacies): Hazlitt’s first stop is the famous “Broken Window Fallacy.” You’ve heard the argument before, even if you didn’t realize it: destruction stimulates economic activity. The idea is that rebuilding a shattered window, for example, creates jobs for glaziers, boosts spending, and pumps life into the economy. What could possibly be wrong with that? Everything.
Hazlitt dismantles this nonsense by pointing out the unseen cost: the money spent on the new window could have been used for something else - perhaps a new pair of shoes. Instead of creating new value, we’ve merely replaced what was lost. It’s like celebrating a flat tire because it “supports” the tire repair industry. Hazlitt’s takeaway: destruction doesn’t create wealth; it squanders resources. So, the next time someone extols the “economic benefits” of rebuilding after a hurricane or a riot, feel free to remind them that their logic is as sound as a screen door on a submarine.
Not Free, But Taxpayer-Funded: Ah, public works! The bread and circuses of modern governance. Hazlitt addresses the perennial myth that government spending on infrastructure - roads, bridges, statues of politicians with dubious legacies - is a magic wand for economic growth.
But wait, you ask, aren’t those things good? Sure, they can be. The problem, Hazlitt reminds us, is that taxes fund such projects. And taxes, lest we forget, take money out of the pockets of individuals and businesses. What could those people have done with that money? We’ll never know because the government has already spent it on a bridge to nowhere. Hazlitt’s biting critique should be required reading for anyone who still believes in the economic tooth fairy.
Luddites of the World, Unite! Ever since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, there’s been a persistent fear that machines will destroy jobs. Hazlitt gleefully trashes this notion, pointing out that technological progress doesn’t eliminate jobs; it reallocates them. Machines increase productivity, lower costs, and free up human labor for other pursuits - like writing snarky economic reviews. It’s a shame Barack Obama didn’t read this book. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have bemoaned how ATMs took the jobs of bank tellers. (They didn’t; see here.)
The real “curse” of machinery isn’t job destruction; it exposes the economic illiteracy of those who cry wolf every time a new technology emerges. Remember when computers were going to put us all out of work? Funny how that turned out.
The Donald Should Read About Tariffs: Hazlitt’s takedown of tariffs is a masterclass in economic wit. Hazlitt argues tariffs are a tax on consumers disguised as “protection” for domestic industries. Yes, they shield those businesses from foreign competition. But they shield them at the expense of everyone else. Higher prices, reduced choices, and economic inefficiency are the actual costs of protectionism. So, the next time someone suggests that tariffs are a “win” for the economy, remind them that taxing your citizens to prop up uncompetitive industries is about as bright as burning your house down to keep warm.
Inflation: The Illusion of Prosperity: Hazlitt’s chapter on inflation is remarkably prescient in today’s economic climate. He explains inflation is a stealthy way for governments to rob their citizens, not a sign of prosperity. It’s a tax that a central bank unethically levies, not a legislature. Inflation erodes the value of savings, distorts investment, and wreaks havoc on the economy. And yet, inflation is often sold to the public as a necessary evil or even a good thing. Hazlitt’s advice? Don’t buy it. Inflation benefits debtors (read: governments) at the expense of savers and wage earners. It’s the economic equivalent of a shell game, and you’re the sucker being fleeced.
Profit: Capitalism’s Dirty Word: Perhaps one of Hazlitt’s most important lessons is his defense of profits. In an era where “profit” is often treated as a four-letter word, Hazlitt reminds us that profits are essential for economic progress. They signal where resources should be allocated, incentivize innovation, and reward risk-taking. Destroy profits, and you destroy the engine of growth. It’s a message that should resonate with anyone who’s ever complained about greedy corporations while simultaneously complaining about them by posting on X from their iPhones while wolfing down avocado toast and an egg nog latte.
Why You Should Read This Book (Again): Hazlitt’s "Economics in One Lesson" is a survival guide for navigating the economic nonsense that permeates modern discourse. So, the next time someone tells you that we need more government spending, higher tariffs, or artificially low interest rates, do yourself a favor: hand them a copy of "Economics in One Lesson" and watch as their arguments crumble faster than a house caught in a tornado’s path.
Wrap Up: Hazlitt’s "Economics in One Lesson" is a welcome relief in a world celebrating economic illiteracy. It reminds us that good economics is about understanding the unseen, the long-term, and the big picture. So, grab a copy, pour yourself a stiff drink, and prepare to see the world - and its economic absurdities - in a new light. Just be warned: once you’ve read Hazlitt, you’ll never be able to watch the news without yelling at your TV."
Freely download "Economics In One Lesson", by Henry Hazlitt, here:
"Michael Hudson Warns: Imminent Economic Catastrophe - War, Oil Crisis & Bond Market Panic"
Full screen recommended.
World Affairs in Context, 5/19/26
"Michael Hudson Warns: Imminent Economic Catastrophe -
War, Oil Crisis & Bond Market Panic"
Comments here:
"Gas Prices Will Skyrocket In The Next 4 Weeks"
Full screen recommended.
Snyder Reports, 5/19/26
"Gas Prices Will Skyrocket In The Next 4 Weeks"
Comments here:
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Full screen recommended.
"Americans Are About To Find Out
What $10 Gas Really Means"
by Finance Hour
"Americans are about to find out what $10 gas really means. The Washington Post reported this week that the Strait of Hormuz has been mostly shut to marine traffic for two months. Twenty percent of the world's oil supply has been cut off since February 28th. Gas is at $4.11 per gallon nationally according to AAA. Diesel hit $5.62, a 49 percent increase since the war started. Reuters reported that analysts forecast oil could hit $200 per barrel if Kharg Island is damaged. Goldman Sachs warned Hormuz closure could push oil to $150 or higher. The Middle East Monitor documented that every $10 increase in oil prices raises consumer inflation by half a percent. At $200 oil the math at the pump is $10 per gallon.
The average American drives 800 miles per month to work. At $10 gas in a vehicle getting 25 miles per gallon that commute costs $320 per month. For a two-car household that is $640 per month in fuel just to earn a paycheck. Diesel at $14 per gallon means a single grocery delivery that costs $511 in fuel today would cost $1,274. Trucking companies pass that cost to grocery chains and grocery chains pass it to you. The farm-to-shelf supply chain has six to eight energy-dependent steps and the cost compounds at each one. Grocery stores carry 72 hours of inventory. Sixty million rural Americans have no public transit alternative. A nurse in rural West Virginia driving 35 miles to the hospital would spend $560 per month on fuel at $10 gas on a take-home pay of $3,700. Five and a half million households in the Northeast heat with oil. At $12 per gallon a typical New England winter costs $7,200 to $9,600.
The CDC documents approximately 1,300 hypothermia deaths per year concentrated among the elderly and the rural poor. Airlines would ground regional routes as jet fuel costs double. The U.S. Travel Association estimates the travel industry supports 16 million jobs. At 8 to 10 percent inflation the Fed would be forced to raise rates aggressively. Mortgage rates could climb past 10 percent. The stock market fell 57 percent during the 2008 crisis. A retiree with $500,000 who loses 30 to 40 percent has $300,000 left. The system that delivers $3 gas to your pump is a 21-mile-wide waterway between Iran and Oman. It has been closed for two months. And 230 loaded oil tankers are sitting on the other side of it."
Comments here:
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Full screen recommended.
The Economic Ninja, 5/19/26
"California's Fuel Shortage Gets Critical -
Here's What's Coming"
Comments here:
"There Was Truth..."
"Being in a minority, even a minority of one, did not make you mad.
There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth
even against the whole world, you were not mad.”
- George Orwell, “1984”
"Has Orwell’s 1984 Become Reality?"
"Has Orwell’s 1984 Become Reality?"
by Bert Olivier
Excerpt: "To some readers it may seem like a rhetorical question to ask whether the narrative of George Orwell’s dystopian novel, "Nineteen Eighty-Four" (or 1984), first published in Britain in 1949, has somehow left its pages and settled, like an ominous miasma, over the contours of social reality. Yet, closer inspection – which means avoiding compromised mainstream news outlets – discloses a disquieting state of affairs.
Everywhere we look in Western countries, from the United Kingdom, through Europe to America (and even India, whose ‘Orwellian digital ID system’ was lavishly praised by British prime minister Keir Starmer recently), what meets the eye is a set of social conditions exhibiting varying stages of precisely the no-longer-fictional totalitarian state depicted by Orwell in 1984. Needless to stress, this constitutes a warning against totalitarianism with its unapologetic manipulation of information and mass surveillance.
I am by no means the first person to perceive the ominous contours of Orwell’s nightmarish vision taking shape before our very eyes. Back in 2023 Jack Watson did, too, when he wrote (among other things): "Thoughtcrime is another of Orwell’s conjectures that has come true. When I first read 1984, I would never have thought that this made up word would be taken seriously; nobody should have the right to ask what you are thinking. Obviously, nobody can read your mind and surely you could not be arrested simply for thinking? However, I was dead wrong. A woman was arrested recently for silently praying in her head and, extraordinarily, prosecutors were asked to provide evidence of her ‘thoughtcrime.’ Needless to say, they did not have any. But knowing that we can now be accused of, essentially, thinking the wrong thoughts is a worrying development. Freedom of speech is already under threat, but this goes beyond free speech. This is about free thought. Everybody should have a right to think what they want, and they should not feel obliged or forced to express certain beliefs or only think certain thoughts."
Most people would know that totalitarianism is not a desirable social or political set of circumstances. Even the word sounds ominous, but that is probably only to those who already know what it denotes. I have written on it before, in different contexts, but it is now more relevant than ever. We should remind ourselves what Orwell wrote in that uncannily premonitory novel.
Considering the rapidly expanding and intensifying, electronically mediated strategies of surveillance being implemented globally – no doubt aimed at inculcating in citizens a subliminal awareness that privacy is fast becoming but a distant memory – the following excerpt from Orwell’s text strikes one as disturbingly prophetic, considering the time it was written.
"Behind Winston’s back the voice from the telescreen was still babbling away about pig-iron and the overfulfilment of the Ninth Three-Year Plan. The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it, moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live - did live, from habit that became instinct - in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized."
Before adducing compelling instances of the contemporary, real-world surveillance equivalents of 1984’s ‘telescreen,’ which have become sufficiently ‘normal’ to be accepted without much in the form of protest, and to refresh your memory further, here’s Hannah Arendt, in "The Origins of Totalitarianism" (New edition, Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich 1979, p. 438): "Total domination, which strives to organize the infinite plurality and differentiation of human beings as if all of humanity were just one individual, is possible only if each and every person can be reduced to a never-changing identity of reactions, so that each of these bundles of reactions can be exchanged at random for any other. The problem is to fabricate something that does not exist, namely, a kind of human species resembling other animal species whose only ‘freedom’ would consist in ‘preserving the species.’"
As Italian thinker Giorgio Agamben would say: totalitarianism reduces every singular human being to ‘bare life;’ nothing more, and after having been subjected to its mind-numbing techniques for a certain time, people start acting accordingly, as if they lack the capacity to manifest their natality (unique, singular birth) and plurality (the fact that all people are singular and irreplaceable). The final blow to our humanity comes when totalitarian rule’s coup de grȃce is delivered (Arendt 1979, quoting David Rousseton conditions in Nazi concentration camps,m p. 451):
"The next decisive step in the preparation of living corpses is the murder of the moral person in man. This is done in the main by making martyrdom, for the first time in history, impossible: ‘How many people here still believe that a protest has even historic importance? This skepticism is the real masterpiece of the SS. Their great accomplishment. They have corrupted all human solidarity. Here the night has fallen on the future. When no witnesses are left, there can be no testimony. To demonstrate when death can no longer be postponed is an attempt to give death a meaning, to act beyond one’s own death. In order to be successful, a gesture must have social meaning…’"
Surveying the present social scene globally against this backdrop yields interesting, albeit disturbing results. For example, Niamh Harris reports that German MEP Christine Anderson and British politician Nigel Farage have both warned that globalists are frantically trying to establish a fully fledged surveillance state ‘before too many people wake up’ to this state of affairs. Anderson – whose caution is echoed by Farage – points to the irony that people are waking up precisely because globalist efforts to hasten the installation of a totalitarian surveillance state are accelerating and becoming conspicuous. Hence, the more the process is ramped up, the louder critical voices become (and protests are likely to occur), and correlatively, the more anxious the neo-fascists become, to close the net around citizens of the world. She warns that: "Digital identity is not so your life is easier. It’s so government has total control over you.’ Digital currency [is] the crème de la crème of all control mechanisms…What do you think is going to happen the next time you refuse to take an mRNA shot? With the flip of a switch, they just cancel your account. You cannot buy food anymore. You cannot do anything anymore."
Full, highly recommended article is here:
o
Freely download "1984", by George Orwell, here:
"The Noble Savage"
"The Noble Savage"
by Sofia Karstens
"Eisenhower warned us: “Beware the military-industrial complex.” Those words are widely remembered. Less so the companion warning: “Holding scientific discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific technological elite.” That second warning may prove the more prophetic. The convergence of those two forces – the industrial machinery of power and the technological elite capable of shaping reality itself – is where we now find ourselves.
The AI singularity is typically described as the point at which artificial intelligence surpasses human intelligence, triggering an uncontrollable “intelligence explosion.” At this tipping point, AI becomes capable of recursive self-improvement…designing smarter versions of itself…leading to rapid, unpredictable, and profound and irreversible change in human civilization. We are told this is imminent. But the more uncomfortable question is: what if it isn’t a future event at all? What if it’s a process – and we are already inside it?
The speed, scale, and coordination of change we are witnessing are historically anomalous. Entire systems – economic, informational, political – are shifting faster than human action alone can plausibly explain. We are living through transformations that are, by any historical standard, too fast, too coordinated, and too opaque to be purely organic. The pace alone suggests something more than human-scale decision-making. Whether acknowledged or not, the system in which we are embedded is already behaving as though intelligence has outpaced us.
Consider that, even militarily, civilians are approximately 20-30 years behind (that we are aware of). We became aware of the F-117 decades after it was already built. How far behind do you suppose we are from other more advanced forms of technology already in play? I do not think it’s unreasonable to assume that the AI we are using is not the same AI “they” are using; I think I can say with a fair amount of confidence that they’re not using Claude and ChatGPT…
The military industrial complex (or anything that ends in -industrial complex) is the corporatocracy, is the CIA, is the globalists, is the transhumanists, is the mob…and we appear to be already on the train of “rapid, unpredictable, and profound changes in human civilization.” I don’t think even Eisenhower could have understood how prescient he was all those years ago.
Two hundred fifty years ago, a small group of people faced a fundamental problem: How do you build a system strong enough to prevent tyranny…without becoming tyrants yourselves? How do you hold the fledgling bird tightly enough to keep it from falling, but loosely enough not to crush it? How do you build scaffolding that supports without becoming a cage? Their answer was a decentralized constitutional republic; an experiment in constrained power. They risked everything for the idea that it is better to die on your feet than live on your knees.
We are now confronting the same question again – but on a vastly more complex battlefield. Today, the terrain is not just physical. It is informational. Psychological. Digital. Meta. And the call is coming from inside the house.
There is the illusion of opposition because we are taught to think in binaries. Democrat vs. Republican. One side vs. the other. But these are often false choices within a closed system. Certainly we have Democrats and Republicans – a red car and a blue car – but the real question is: who is driving the car?
There is a system behind the curtain. The military-industrial complex, the corporatocracy, intelligence agencies, global capital, technological elites…These are not separate entities. They are interlocking components of a single machine. That’s not to say there aren’t distinct and even warring factions within…but Mom and Dad are still the parents. Not everyone on the cubical floors gets along…but they all stand around the same watercooler because it’s the same building and the same company.
We instinctively look for villains: governments, parties, nations, individuals. But that instinct misleads us. It’s the system, not the players. We are not dealing with a hierarchy – there is no single mastermind at the top twirling their mustache in the mirror. It is a net around the globe; a system: diffuse, self-reinforcing, and global. A distributed, self-strengthening network of incentives, institutions, and power structures that no longer require a central puppeteer because the machinery runs itself. Removing individuals changes nothing. The system is designed to replace them.
Political parties become two wings of the same bird. Corporate competition becomes theatre. Conflict itself becomes profitable. And when conflict is profitable, it persists.
When was the last time the US did not have an existential enemy? Could it be the 1930’s? Before the rise of outsourced corporate defense contractors? If conflict is profitable…then the state of man at the mercy of the monied interest will prevail.
Maybe defense contractors should be not-for-profit organizations…but until such a day and while we have an understanding of our military industrial complex and the often not-so-subtle connection of world events, the question we always have to ask is: Why now? The answer is that it’s never a “two sides” equation; it’s not a zero-sum game.
The Cartel had its hand up the puppet that was Maduro and his wife. Now the cartel has its hand up the puppet that is Delcy and her brother…either way it’s the cartel running the show (and always has been). Only ever the puppeteer, and never the actual sock puppet, matters…And the hand up the puppet of the Cartel…is the CIA.
One might ask…to what end? Why? There is a direct relationship between manufactured reality and perpetual crisis. If conflict drives profit…and profit drives the system…then crisis is not an anomaly. It is the fuel. And everything in which we engage at the human level becomes deck chairs on the Titanic. Public attention is directed toward surface-level conflicts while the underlying structure remains untouched. Half the ship is already underwater, the other half is sinking fast, and those in power who know what’s what have already absconded with all the lifeboats. All we are doing is changing the curtains.
We keep pulling on the thread to find the monster at the end of the leash, and keep finding that there is always a bigger scarier monster behind that monster. Another Russian doll. Our government is a wholly owned subsidiary of the pharmaceutical industry and every other industry because our government agencies are funded by the industries they are charged with regulating. Capture is only a small piece of the pie but it’s a critical pillar because without it the rest of the machinery would grind to a halt. The depth of the system is almost unfathomable. Every layer reveals another layer. A “wilderness of mirrors.” In such a system, incompetence and malice become indistinguishable.
In this such scenario where technology, control, and integration intersect, AI is not the beginning…it is an accelerant. The trajectory moves from influencing behavior to integrating with the human system itself. The incentive trap catches most. The system persists because participation is rewarded and resistance is costly. Convenience is exchanged for compliance. It’s a digital cage and the endpoint is voluntary enclosure – a gilded cage. Coercion and inducement take care of most of the rest – people are tricked into believing a false reality.
On the other side, there is very little resistance. Because who doesn’t want a magic pill? You can be whatever you want, whomever you wish…you can look younger and live longer and treat illness and, and…and what happens when you don’t comply? We just saw what happens when you don’t comply during the pandemic. So, do you just plug back into the matrix and go along to get along? Where does that lead?
Prima fascia, it might even look really good – but it’s still a backdoor surveillance system – a digital control grid – and no one sees it because they built the prison themselves. Steroidal Stockholm Syndrome.
There is compelling evidence to suggest that the MK Ultra program was always inclusive of what we are now calling the transhuman aspect. Dulles/Gottlieb/CIA have been involved in mind control experiments for decades. The military industrial complex/CIA is in on the ground floor of all things DARPA, MK Ultra, mind control and, yes, technological advancements.
Is it really such a stretch to believe integration of technology or AI into humans was a part of what Dulles and the dark powers around him were working on all along? Is it possible that all roads were always and only leading here? What if “hybrid” isn’t little green men? What if the programmes with a “non-human” component about which we keep hearing refers to integrative technology in humans? Is Ohio (one of) ground zero for the Hollywood “Lab Kids” and integrative MK Ultra experiments because water is a key component of all this?
The Founders’ question, revisited is: How do you maintain human agency inside a system that can outscale human governance? The only viable response is to build the parallel. We must build parallel systems: local, decentralized, human…and reclaim what it means to be human.
We are increasingly separated from lived human experience. We are so disconnected from what it means to be human – from birth to death and everything in between. We protect ourselves from anything that makes us think about or confront our own mortality. And we end up protecting ourselves from LIFE to such a degree that we are separated from all the human processes that make us human.
Hearses have been replaced with plain white vans so we don’t have to think about or engage with death as it occurs in our communities. Birth has become a clinical process where a new life is whisked away to endure pharmaceutical intervention before it can bond in the outside world with the body it just lived inside of for 9 months.
We are separated from death when psychiatric meds are thrown at us for depression when it’s GRIEF, because life didn’t stop for us. We are separated from birth when we are labeled as having postpartum depression when we are LONELY, because life didn’t stop for us. We are even separated from the birth process itself by a physical partition – it’s become sterile.
We are separated from the death process itself which has become sterile. We are separated from our food which has become sterile. We are separated from our water – which is 90% of ourselves – which has become sterile. We don’t allow our biome to interact with the virome and instead we kill it all and make it sterile. We are separated from our own bodies which we are encouraged to sterilize daily. We are separated from education and learn through sterile textbooks instead of experience. We avoid engaging in life, we avoid confrontation, or conflict, or anything that defines the human experience.
How hard is it to take something away from someone that they have never felt viscerally connected to in the first place? The further we get from ourselves the more we don’t miss it. The more our connectedness is no longer a wellspring of strength and joy and hope and life itself the more we seek it in interventions of all kinds. The incremental departure from ourselves and each other knocks down barrier after barrier standing between our inherent knowing of what we truly are – one-ness – and locks us in a different reality.
If you can be an avatar forever and live longer and look younger and never experience pain or disease or death (or life) and you don’t remember what it’s like to be part of a community of humans…and the current infrastructure makes you more and more isolated (but they have a magic pill for that)…then why would you even bother? The further we get from each other the easier it is to cut us off from ourselves. The easier it is to take away that which defines our humanity. It’s not that resistance is futile…it’s that there is no resistance.
The final barrier would be our own sovereignty. And if we invite in the integration, those walls crumble. There is no more barrier. The only thing we have left is our choice. The line in the sand that matters: This is about agency.
You have to invite the devil in…and maybe the devil isn’t what we think it is. What happens when you invite in the very thing that cuts off what it means to be a natural born human and, depending on your world view, your connection to source? What happens when your ability to stand in your sovereignty and autonomy and full power to create your reality is dampened, dulled, or even hijacked? Or hijack-ABLE (which might be worse). There is a reason they call it “Meta.” The fabric of reality is infinite and quantum and if everyone is trapped in a cage they have no say in what that looks like.
While circumstantial, there is a preponderance of evidence involving financials and architecture that suggests this battle goes far beyond even a spiritual one. The globalists/transhumanists/anything that ends in -industrial complex/CIA/ corporatocracy/oligopoly is already at the helm. It already happened. They are in control of every aspect of our lives, including our own elections – and those of other countries. We do not understand that it is all an illusion. The Trojan horse is already inside the city walls.
We live in a reality created by these shadow powers but its scenery erected and canvas painted for our benefit…none of it is real. Pull back the curtain and you find that we have systematically given away our power and choice for so long that we have almost none of it left. We think we have rights, and a vote, and that our government ultimately has our best interest…but how much do the forest rangers care about the ants’ petitions for ants’ rights? It might be allowed to continue, until a new road needs paving…then despite the ants and their little protest signs, that road is going in. And I don’t think the road we are being sold leads where we think it does.
Meanwhile, it’s all a distraction…we argue over two things, neither of which is entirely over target, while the real culprit slips out the backdoor and continues to get away with atrocities of all kinds. Every named-group explanation is the misdirection.
We can’t unscramble the eggs. It’s a system, and you either participate in it or become a victim of it. The system is corrupt and fraudulent and that’s not a bug, it’s a feature. There will always be an individual with moral elasticity willing to come in and exploit a corrupt system that is designed to be exploited. When it comes to tyrannical government, the psychopaths at the helm care neither about global nor species annihilation. Perhaps the Cuban Missile Crisis never really ended…it only changed form.
Centralized power has its hands in every single aspect of our lives. We like to believe we have freedom in this country because we largely operate inside the box. We might think we’re rebels, but that’s only because we’re allowed to be. Try stepping outside that box someday and see how many freedoms you have. They can come and take you in the middle of the night, they can do whatever they want to you and they can make the world support it…or they can make it so the world never knows. The problem is, to what agency do you go when they are all “in on it?” When everything is centralized control at every level? Centralized, unlimited resourced, ultra powerful, dark, occluded, obscured, and occulted power. Perhaps Tolkien wasn’t so far off when he imagined Sauron.
Would the ultimate death be an eternal existence on a digital control grid from which you can never escape? Hell becomes eternity, and it’s not a fire-y pit…does that look like slavery inside the zeros and ones? “Your days are numbered…” And if you are not in control of it or yourself because you gave away your sovereignty…are you then trapped for eternity inside a prison from which you can never escape because you cut the only thread tethering you to salvation?
All is not lost…but we are not going to put the toothpaste back in the tube. We cannot go backward. We need to build the lifeboat, and local and hyperlocal is the answer. Community. Reversing and preventing dehumanization – it’s the village. People caring about where they live and each other. That doesn’t happen when we live in our devices instead of the real world. It’s very easy to hate someone who isn’t human and lives in your phone. But if your neighbor is human to you…you care about what happens to him and his family. And vice versa. This is how we link arms in this foxhole.
As soon as AI no longer needs humans we become adversaries. At that point is it lights out? Or do we become slaves? I do believe that line has yet to be crossed and in that lies our possible salvation. To reach that threshold will require multiple layers of redundancy, server farms, and baked-in solutions for many other downstream liabilities and inevitabilities. In that time, we must build strategic infrastructure for the course correct. Do we work within the system or build the alternative or both? What if it’s not insular – we engage with the outer world to protect our right to exist? How ironically meta of us.
Is another form of “integration” therefore more desirable? In other words, how might we integrate our VALUE rather than our SELVES? Make no mistake: this is the battle for who controls reality. The answer is neither retreat, nor blind participation. It is construction.
We must build parallel systems - local, human, decentralized. Communities that restore agency, connection, and choice. We must create a space where we have the CHOICE to exist this way if we so choose…And we need to lock that in Congressionally, bottom up, in the states. Because in the end, this is not just a political or technological battle. It is a question of what it means to remain human, and our true nature. For those who choose integration, that is their right. But for those who do not, that must also remain a choice.
I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees.
I choose to live as a natural-born human.
I choose to die the Noble Savage."
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