Canadian Prepper, 6/27/26
"Alert! Trump Strikes Iran!
Massive Attack, Ceasefire Dead"
Comments here:
So, we rise from the rubble...
StatCounter
Saturday, June 27, 2026
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Gorgeous spiral galaxy NGC 3521 is a mere 35 million light-years away, toward the constellation Leo. Relatively bright in planet Earth's sky, NGC 3521 is easily visible in small telescopes but often overlooked by amateur imagers in favor of other Leo spiral galaxies, like M66 and M65. It's hard to overlook in this colorful cosmic portrait, though. Spanning some 50,000 light-years the galaxy sports characteristic patchy, irregular spiral arms laced with dust, pink star forming regions, and clusters of young, blue stars.
Remarkably, this deep image also finds NGC 3521 embedded in gigantic bubble-like shells. The shells are likely tidal debris, streams of stars torn from satellite galaxies that have undergone mergers with NGC 3521 in the distant past."
"A Dangerous Place..."
"If I were to remain silent, I'd be guilty of complicity."
- Albert Einstein
"Wrong is wrong, even if everyone is doing it.
Right is right even if only you are doing it."
- Author Unknown
"They Want To Own You - A Financial Transformation Is Underway"
Jeremiah Babe, 6/27/26
"They Want To Own You -
A Financial Transformation Is Underway"
Comments here:
"America Has Officially Hit The Breaking Point - Millions Are Snapping"
Full screen recommended.
Finance Economist, 6/27/26
"America Has Officially Hit The Breaking Point -
Millions Are Snapping"
"55% of Americans say their finances are getting worse the highest since Gallup started asking in 2001. Higher than the pandemic. Higher than the Great Recession. 67% are actively stressed about money. Two-thirds couldn’t attend birthday dinners or weddings because they couldn’t afford it and 55% lied about why. 84% of workers say burnout is affecting their productivity. 72% have been pressured to work through mental health struggles. 40% of senior managers received a new mental health diagnosis this year. One-third skip meals to afford a doctor. Rent is up 54% since 2017. Housing up 60% since 2019. Credit card debt up 63% since 2021. And the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget just published a paper called Break Glass because “the US has never experienced an economic shock as indebted as we are today.” Nobody is coming to help you. Prepare now or you will regret it."
Comments here:
"What's Coming To America Should Worry Everyone - and You're Not Ready"
Full screen recommended.
Across The States, 6/27/26
"What's Coming To America Should Worry Everyone -
and You're Not Ready"
"Why are everyday expenses in America rising even when many people are working full-time? This video connects the dots between global oil markets, the Strait of Hormuz, rising fuel costs, food inflation, farming challenges, and the financial pressure millions of U.S. families are feeling in 2026. Here's the thing… inflation isn't just about one expensive grocery trip. It's a chain reaction that begins with energy prices, impacts transportation, farming, manufacturing, and eventually reaches your monthly budget. What most people don't realize is that higher diesel costs, fertilizer shortages, electricity bills, and supply chain disruptions are all connected in ways that affect every household. The reality is that small businesses, farmers, commuters, and working families are experiencing these changes differently. In this video, we break down the facts, explain what's driving these economic shifts, and discuss what they could mean for the months ahead. Watch till the end and share your thoughts—how have rising prices affected your daily life?"
Comments here:
Dan, I Allegedly, "One In Three Adults Still Lives With Mom & Dad"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 6/27/26
"One In Three Adults Still Lives With Mom & Dad"
"One out of every three Americans under the age of 35 is still living with their parents, and over 25 million young adults are delaying independence because housing has become increasingly unaffordable. In today's video from the Shelby American Museum, I break down the affordability crisis, rising rents, stagnant wages, and why so many people are struggling to move out, even while holding full-time jobs. Is this simply an economic problem, or has personal responsibility changed as well? I also cover New York City's historic decision to freeze rent on nearly one million rent-stabilized apartments and explain why this may create even bigger problems for landlords, housing supply, and property maintenance in the years ahead. We'll discuss inflation, real estate, the housing market, personal finance, the economy, rent affordability, and what these trends mean for America's middle class. Let me know your thoughts in the comments."
Comments here:
"We All Know..."
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“We all know that something is eternal. And it ain’t houses and it ain’t names, and it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even the stars… everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings. All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that for five thousand years and yet you’d be surprised how people are always losing hold of it. There’s something way down deep that’s eternal about every human being.”
- Thornton Wilder
o
“I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge.
That myth is more potent than history.
I believe that dreams are more powerful than facts.
That hope always triumphs over experience.
That laughter is the only cure for grief.
And I believe that love is stronger than death.”
- Robert Fulghum
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“For Those Who Have Died”
“Eleh Ezkerah” (“These We Remember”)
“Tis a fearful thing
To love
What death can touch.
To love, to hope, to dream,
And oh, to lose.
A thing for fools, this,
Love,
But a holy thing,
To love what death can touch.
For your life has lived in me;
Your laugh once lifted me;
Your word was a gift to me.
To remember this brings painful joy.
Tis a human thing, love,
A holy thing,
To love
What death can touch.”
- Chaim Stern
Graphic: “Into The Silent Land”,
by Henry Pegram, 1905
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“We are travelers on a cosmic journey, stardust, swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of Infinity. Life is Eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share. This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in Eternity.”
- Paulo Coelho
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“Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.”
- Dr. Seuss
◆
And we shall meet again…
Full screen recommended.
Moody Blues, “The Day We Meet Again”
"The Things They Leave Behind"
Full screen recommended.
"The Things They Leave Behind"
"When someone we love finally goes, what happens to the space they leave behind? In this deeply emotional stop-motion claymation, we explore the silent echoes of grief. It lives in the heavy brown coat on the hook, the dent in the cushion, the ticking of the clock, and the little grey cat still waiting at the door. We set a plate for the ghost, and we read the recipes written in yellowing ink. But as the seasons pass, we realize a beautiful truth: they step from the room, but they are never truly gone. They live in the sweater, they breathe in the fire, and they stay in the wood. If you are missing someone today, come sit by our fire. Let this comforting lullaby wrap around your heavy heart. They are the quietest ghosts that we never outgrow, and they are still right here with you."
Native Elder, "What Happens When You Die"
Full screen recommended.
Native Elder,
"What Happens When You Die"
o
o
Full screen recommended.
Edgar Cayce,
"What Happens to the Soul
in the First 3 Days After Death"
"By the Time You Learn What Matters"
Full screen recommended.
Delta King's Blues,
"By the Time You Learn What Matters"
"Most people spend years chasing the wrong things. And only later realize… what actually mattered. “By the Time You Learn What Matters” is a Delta blues reflection on work, time, family, and the quiet truth that life’s biggest treasures are usually the simplest ones."
“Are You Sane?”
“Are You Sane?”
by Charles Hugh Smith
“A sane person to an insane society must appear insane.”
- Kurt Vonnegut, “Welcome to the Monkey House”
“Madness has engulfed the entire world, with a concentration of power in the hands of a few psychopathic financial elite wielding an inordinate and dangerous expanse of power over the lives of the common man. They are a modern day version of Al Capone, except their weapons of choice aren’t machine guns, but a printing press, peddling debt, creating derivatives of mass destruction, and peddling heaping doses of disinformation. The contemporary criminal class wears Hermes suits, Rolex watches and diamond studded pinky rings, drops $500 to dine at Masa in NYC, travels by chauffeured limo, lives in $10 million NYC penthouse suites, occupies luxurious corner offices in hundred story glass towers, and spends weekends hobnobbing with the other financial elite at their villas in the Hamptons. They have nothing but utter contempt for the lowly peasants who depend upon a weekly paycheck to make ends meet. Why work when you can steal $1 or $2 billion from farmers with no consequences?
The willfully ignorant masses are kept at bay by the selling them a false dichotomy of Republicans versus Democrats, conservatives versus liberals, and capitalism versus socialism. The ruling class distracts the public with fake wars on poverty, drugs and terror, while using these storylines to further enrich themselves and keep the public alarmed and frightened. We’ve been “fighting” the wars on poverty and drugs for over four decades and poverty is at record levels, while drugs are easier to obtain than candy in a candy store. The war on terror is nothing more than a corporate arms dealer welfare plan. The end of the Cold War put a real crimp in the bottom lines of Lockheed Martin and the rest of the peddlers of death. 9/11 and the subsequent undeclared wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria, and now with Iran, have been a godsend to the bottom lines of the corporations Eisenhower warned about in 1961.
In reality, the politicians are interchangeable and bought off by corporate and special interests. The people are sold a fable, and controlled opposition is the fairy tale. They perpetuate the welfare/warfare state that enriches Wall Street, the military industrial complex, the healthcare service complex, politically connected mega-corporations and the corporate media propaganda complex. The American people are given the illusion of choice by their keepers. The system is rigged. The real decisions are made by unelected secretive men who operate in the shadows and use their wealth to direct the decision making of the politicians, government bureaucrats, and corporate entities that benefit from those decisions. Edward Bernays described a society that existed in the 19th Century, 20th Century, and has now grown to immense proportions in the 21st Century:
“Political campaigns today are all sideshows. A presidential candidate may be ‘drafted’ in response to ‘overwhelming popular demand,’ but it is well known that his name may be decided upon by half a dozen men sitting around a table in a hotel room. The conscious manipulation of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.”
– Edward Bernays, "Propaganda"
The manipulation of the masses has been perfected by the ruling class through decades of corporate mass media messaging the purposeful dumbing down of the populace through government public school education that teaches children how to feel rather than how to think. The conscious manipulation of the masses has been designed to produce obedient non-thinking consumers of corporate products, educated to believe the accumulation of material goods with debt constitutes wealth, to fear whatever the government tells them to fear, and never look up from their iGadgets long enough to actually think for themselves. We are bombarded with Orwellian memes designed to keep us sedated and pliant, as the ruling class pillages the national wealth and expands their power and control over our lives.
Conform; Stay Asleep; Do Not Question Authority; Obey; Consume; Reproduce; Submit; Watch TV; Buy; Follow; Doubt Humanity; No New Ideas; Feel, Don’t Think; Fear; Accumulate; Honor Apathy; Believe Experts; Surrender; Spend; No Independent Thought; Win; Want More; Hate; Succumb To Desire; Yield To Power; Choose Safety Over Liberty; Choose Security Over Freedom
This insane world was created through decades of bad decisions, believing in false prophets, choosing current consumption over sustainable long-term savings based growth, electing corruptible men who promised voters entitlements that were mathematically impossible to deliver, the disintegration of a sense of civic and community obligation and a gradual degradation of the national intelligence and character.
Vonnegut and Huxley’s social commentary reveals a basic truth that societies and human beings have been prone to bouts of madness over the course of decades and centuries. Humans are a weak species, susceptible to the vagaries of greed, lust, gluttony, wrath, sloth, envy and pride. The seven deadly sins are in full bloom today, as the American empire descends through Dante’s inferno of reality TV, celebrity worship, religious zealotry, adulation of wealthy titans, military conquest and worship of false idols.
This is where the interests of those in power and those being ruled have coincided, as a fiat based monetary system allowed unlimited spending to keep the welfare/warfare state growing, enriching the crony capitalists, deepening the power of the state, and providing the masses with foreign made trinkets, baubles, corporate logoed clothing, techno-gadgets, and pimped out financed wheels. The concepts of self-restraint, discipline, saving for a rainy day, prudence, discretion, and deferred gratification are rarely displayed in modern day America. In a case of mass delusion, Americans have convinced themselves to live for today, recklessly ignore their futures, irresponsibly spend money they don’t have on things they don’t need, neglect their civic duty towards future generations, choose ignorance over knowledge, and vote for spineless politicians who promise them entitlements that are mathematically impossible to honor. The public’s foolish attitude towards debt accumulation matches the arrogance of our gutless, intellectually dishonest leaders.”
Free Download: Aldous Huxley "Brave New World"
“O, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is!
O, brave new world, That has such people in't!”
- William Shakespeare, “The Tempest” (V, 1)
○
“Till at last the child's mind is these suggestions, and the sum of the suggestions is the child's mind. And not the child's mind only. The adult's mind too - all his life long. The mind that judges and desires and decides - made up of these suggestions. But all these suggestions are our suggestions...”
- “Brave New World: Suggestions from the State”
○
Freely download "Brave New World," by Aldous Huxley, here:
"Loss of Depth"
"Loss of Depth"
by Todd Hayen
"What in God’s name has happened to our youth? Not all of them, not yet - but the affliction is spreading fast. What contagion has taken hold? I could name a dozen, but the one that troubles me most - and the one that flows from all the others - is the loss of depth. By that I mean the quiet abandonment of any real pursuit of meaning, the evaporation of purpose, and the slow death of genuine passion.
Am I merely an alarmist? Would most people push back and say I’m exaggerating? Possibly. People have probably been saying similar things about the young for centuries - about my generation fifty years ago, about the one before that, and so on, stretching back a thousand years or more. Maybe this drift toward spiritual shallowness began generations ago.
I suspect humanity has been sliding along a very slow trajectory toward inner emptiness for a long time, though the decline wasn’t steady or steep until perhaps the mid-19th century. Since then, especially with the erosion of spiritual awareness, it has accelerated dramatically. The causes are tangled and overdetermined. It’s hard to pin the blame on any single cultural shift - the fading belief in God, the moral unravelling of society, or the rise of smartphones and social media. I sound like an old preacher on a soapbox, Bible in one hand, fist shaking at the sky, preaching fire and brimstone.
To be fair, in some measurable ways humanity has improved. We no longer tolerate the routine horrors once considered normal: the systemic subjugation of women, the open acceptance of slavery, the casual use of torture as public spectacle, or the brutal treatment of children and the mentally ill. Life expectancy has risen, literacy is widespread, and basic human rights have gained ground in many parts of the world. Yet I struggle to reconcile these gains with the deeper rot I see. Maybe I’m just an incorrigible doomster. Or maybe, after the apparent optimism following World War II - when it seemed we might finally make peace with centuries of ugliness - things quietly went off the rails.
Look around today: the Epstein scandal and its lingering shadows, what many describe as genocide in Gaza, the explosion of powerful synthetic drugs, widespread child trafficking, rampant pornography that has warped entire generations, endless foreign wars, the normalization of surveillance states, and what appears to be a reckless, almost wanton effort to injure or kill large swaths of the global population through a novel pharmaceutical intervention pushed with unprecedented coercion. It feels as though the devil has finally claimed the throne he has coveted for millennia.
But I digress - or do I? Let’s return to the young and their apparent surrender of purpose and the search for meaning. In my practice, I see many people between eighteen and thirty. The majority show signs of this peculiar zombie-itis. Don’t misunderstand me - by conventional modern standards, many are “successful.” They chase high-earning careers that promise shiny toys, luxury homes, expensive cars, and attractive partners. Yet beneath the surface, their relationships are often dysfunctional, their own children seem headed for the same void, and real contentment is rare.
Yes, therapists mostly see the troubled ones, so I can’t claim a perfect sample. Still, I witness the same pattern in my personal life, on social media, in films and television, and in the broader culture. It’s everywhere. These young people fixate on making as much money as possible with the least effort, dressing in the finest clothes they can afford, acquiring the biggest house and flashiest car, and securing the most physically appealing partner available.
Few show interest in the deeper workings of the world they inhabit - beyond having convenient targets for outrage (Trump, naturally, and nearly everything associated with him). Hobbies rarely extend beyond gym routines. Learning for its own sake, travel as genuine exploration, or any serious engagement with religion or spirituality for inner growth? Almost nonexistent. The conscious pursuit of meaning and purpose simply isn’t on the menu.
Are they happy? I don’t believe so. Some convince themselves they are, as long as the stream of instant material gratification keeps flowing. For brief intervals, the dopamine hits mimic happiness. But the feeling fades quickly, leaving them emptier than before.
How long can a culture sustain itself on such shallow soil? Aldous Huxley’s "Brave New World" offers a chilling blueprint. In that dystopia, society engineers happiness through genetic conditioning, consumerism, casual sex, and above all, the drug soma - a perfect pharmaceutical that delivers euphoria without hangover, physical dysfunction, or disruption. Soma doesn’t just numb pain; it erases any need for depth, reflection, or struggle.
Citizens remain placid and productive precisely because they never confront discomfort, loss, or the big questions of existence. The “happiness” it provides is stable and endless - until the rare Savage from outside the system introduces real feeling, at which point the fragile illusion cracks. In our world, the modern equivalents of soma (endless scrolling, consumption, pharmaceuticals, and curated outrage) seem to work much the same way: they sustain a zombified equilibrium far longer than one might expect, precisely because they starve the soul of anything real.
That said, there are bright exceptions. Not every young person has been fully captured by the mold the prevailing agenda has cast. Many who pursue serious art or music operate from an entirely different paradigm - one that values creation, beauty, and inner exploration over external metrics.
The same often holds for those drawn to skilled craftsmanship, deep philosophical inquiry, genuine community service rooted in compassion, or any disciplined spiritual path that demands self-confrontation. And then there are those rare souls who, for whatever mysterious reason, simply never swallowed the poison - perhaps protected by family, temperament, or sheer stubborn grace.
Still, the trend is unmistakable and accelerating. A society that loses depth in its young eventually loses its future. Without purpose, passion, and the willingness to wrestle with meaning, we drift toward a Huxleyan stasis - comfortable, efficient, and profoundly hollow. The real question isn’t whether this loss is happening. It’s whether enough of us still remember what depth feels like, and whether we can model it fiercely enough for those coming after to recognize its absence - and begin, once again, to seek it."
Todd Hayen PhD is a registered psychotherapist practicing in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He holds a PhD in depth psychotherapy and an MA in Consciousness Studies. He specializes in Jungian, archetypal, psychology. Todd also writes for his own substack, which you can read here.
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Freely download "Propaganda", by Edward L. Bernays, here:
"7 Unexpected Consequences of an Economic Crisis Nobody Is Talking About" (Excerpt)
A critically important must-read!
"7 Unexpected Consequences of an
Economic Crisis Nobody Is Talking About"
by Madge Waggy
"Any fool can know, the point is to understand"
- Albert Eistein
Excerpt: "The most dangerous economic crises are not necessarily the ones that arrive with the loudest warnings. The collapse of confidence, which is often the foundation of every modern financial system, tends to happen gradually and almost invisibly. A society does not suddenly wake up one morning and discover that the structures supporting daily life have disappeared. Instead, the transformation begins through a series of decisions that appear rational when viewed individually: a company reducing its workforce to protect profits, a government delaying infrastructure projects because budgets are under pressure, a family postponing major purchases because the future feels uncertain. Each decision makes sense in isolation. The danger emerges when millions of similar decisions begin happening at the same time.
Throughout history, economic systems have often appeared stronger than they truly were because periods of prosperity conceal weaknesses. During times of growth, institutions expand, debt becomes easier to manage, consumers maintain confidence, and societies gradually forget that stability is never guaranteed. The prosperity itself creates the conditions that later make adjustment more painful. Businesses become dependent on cheap financing, governments become comfortable with increasing debt, and households adapt to living standards that may rely on economic conditions that cannot continue indefinitely.
The fictional scenario explored in this article begins with a world that looks remarkably familiar. There is no sudden destruction, no dramatic moment when governments announce that the old order has ended. Instead, the crisis develops beneath the surface of ordinary life. Financial markets remain open. Cities continue functioning. People continue going to work, shopping, and making plans for the future. Yet behind that appearance of normality, a series of pressures begins interacting in ways that institutions struggle to control.
The underlying problem is not simply money. Money is only the visible layer of a much deeper structure. Modern societies depend on a complicated network of relationships between education, agriculture, healthcare, energy, technology, transportation, and finance. When one area experiences stress, others usually absorb the impact. The difficulty begins when several areas become vulnerable at the same time.
A prolonged economic crisis would not only affect bank accounts and investment portfolios. It would challenge assumptions that have shaped modern life for generations: that higher education will always provide economic mobility, that food systems will always deliver abundance, that healthcare capacity will always expand when needed, and that technological progress will automatically improve living standards for everyone.
In this imagined future, the first signs are dismissed because they do not resemble the dramatic collapse people have been conditioned to expect. There are no burning cities or immediate shortages. Instead, there is something far more unsettling: a gradual realization that institutions once considered permanent are beginning to operate under extraordinary pressure.
The crisis becomes visible not when the system fails completely, but when ordinary people begin noticing that the systems around them no longer function with the same reliability. And that is where the first major transformation begins."
Full, most highly recommended article is here:
Friday, June 26, 2026
Musical Interlude: "1968"
Richard Harris, “MacArthur Park”, 1968
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Mason Williams, "Classical Gas", 1968
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Paul Mauriat, "Love is Blue", 1968
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Why does this galaxy have such a long tail? In this stunning vista, based on image data from the Hubble Legacy Archive, distant galaxies form a dramatic backdrop for disrupted spiral galaxy Arp 188, the Tadpole Galaxy. The cosmic tadpole is a mere 420 million light-years distant toward the northern constellation of the Dragon (Draco). Its eye-catching tail is about 280 thousand light-years long and features massive, bright blue star clusters.
One story goes that a more compact intruder galaxy crossed in front of Arp 188 - from right to left in this view - and was slung around behind the Tadpole by their gravitational attraction. During the close encounter, tidal forces drew out the spiral galaxy's stars, gas, and dust forming the spectacular tail. The intruder galaxy itself, estimated to lie about 300 thousand light-years behind the Tadpole, can be seen through foreground spiral arms at the upper right. Following its terrestrial namesake, the Tadpole Galaxy will likely lose its tail as it grows older, the tail's star clusters forming smaller satellites of the large spiral galaxy."
"Entitled People Are Out Of Control - What Is Happening To America?"
Full screen recommended.
Epic Economist, 6/26/26
"Entitled People Are Out Of Control -
What Is Happening To America?"
"Watch what happens when people stop asking and start demanding. This compilation captures customers who do not want their problem fixed. They want someone punished for it. A cashier becomes the enemy. A rule becomes an insult. A receipt becomes evidence in a case only they are arguing. The clips run through five stages. Small grievances met with demands to end someone's career. Rules rejected as personal attacks. Complaints that no fact can answer, because the fact was never the point. Then the workers who finally push back, calm and worn out. And at the end, the slow weight carried by everyone who has to stand behind a counter and explain that no, the impossible thing is still impossible. Real footage. No reenactments. The kind of behavior that used to be rare and now happens before lunch."
Comments here:
Judge Napolitano, "INTEL Roundtable w/Johnson & McGovern - Weekly Wrap 26-June"
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 6/26/26
"INTEL Roundtable w/Johnson & McGovern -
Weekly Wrap 26-June"
Comments here:
"Wars And Rumors Of War: The Middle East"
Full screen recommended.
Scott Ritter, 6/26/26
"A Major Shift Just Happened…Israel Wasn’t Ready for This!"
"The geostrategic earthquake that former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter just detected is not a tremor - it is a full-blown tectonic shift, and the aftershocks are already ripping through the Strait of Hormuz, the hills of southern Lebanon, and the corridors of power in Washington and Tel Aviv. Ritter, a man who has spent decades dissecting the intricacies of Middle Eastern warfare and American foreign policy with the cold precision of a surgeon, has dropped a truth bomb that the mainstream corporate media is either too terrified or too compromised to touch. He has declared that something massive has just changed the occupation's war in Lebanon forever - and he is not talking about some minor tactical adjustment or a routine diplomatic kerfuffle. He is talking about the complete and utter unraveling of the entire American-Iranian Memorandum of Understanding, the very document that was supposed to bring a semblance of stability to a region that has been bleeding for months. What we are witnessing is not a diplomatic hiccup; it is a premeditated act of sabotage, orchestrated by the occupation forces and enabled by a complicit American administration that has proven time and again that its word is worth less than the paper its treaties are printed on.
The MOU, signed separately in Versailles and Geneva just last week, was supposed to declare the "immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon" and ensure "the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon". Yet the occupation forces have not withdrawn an inch from Lebanese territory. They have continued their strikes, killed dozens of people, and brazenly defied the terms of the agreement. Since the announcement of the ceasefire, the occupation regime has flagrantly violated the ceasefire by infringing upon Lebanon's territorial integrity and national sovereignty, resulting in the martyrdom and injury of several thousand Lebanese citizens, the displacement of two million people, and the destruction of the country's infrastructure and residential homes. And as if that were not enough, the occupation forces and the Trump administration have now deployed the IAEA nuclear chief to begin a pressure mechanism far from what was agreed upon in the MOU. IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi has claimed that inspections at Iranian nuclear sites were "going to happen". But Iran has categorically denied this. Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi stated that "in Switzerland, no meeting was held with Grossi, despite his request. There is also no program for access to the attacked facilities and nuclear materials".
Iran has insisted that discussions on inspections will only be considered within the framework of a final agreement and following practical action by the other side to lift all sanctions. In this explosive analysis, we break down Scott Ritter's chilling reaction to the refusal of the occupation forces to withdraw from Lebanon, the strategic genius - and diabolical cunning - of the American side in using Lebanon as a pressure valve, and why Ritter believes the MOU might collapse just after the November midterms. We expose the Mossad's fingerprints all over the nuclear inspection distraction, the hypocrisy of the IAEA, and the truth about who is really undermining peace in the Middle East."
Comments here:
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Full screen recommended.
Colonel Douglas MacGregor, 6/26/26
"The U.S. Greatest Military Power Ever Was Defeated By Iran"
Comments here:
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Pepe Escobar, 6/26/26
"Trump Could Restart War With Iran After The Midterms –
Iran Ready To Strike Back"
Comments here:
"A Point Of No Return..."
”There is a point of no return, unremarked at the time, in most lives.”
- Graham Greene
○
“When swimming into a dark tunnel, there arrives a point of no
return when you no longer have enough breath to double back.
Your only choice is to swim forward into the unknown…and pray for an exit.”
- Dan Brown
"The Pig Farmer"
"The Pig Farmer"
by John Robbins
"One day in Iowa I met a particular gentleman - and I use that term, gentleman, frankly, only because I am trying to be polite, for that is certainly not how I saw him at the time. He owned and ran what he called a “pork production facility.” I, on the other hand, would have called it a pig Auschwitz. The conditions were brutal. The pigs were confined in cages that were barely larger than their own bodies, with the cages stacked on top of each other in tiers, three high. The sides and the bottoms of the cages were steel slats, so that excrement from the animals in the upper and middle tiers dropped through the slats on to the animals below.
The aforementioned owner of this nightmare weighed, I am sure, at least 240 pounds, but what was even more impressive about his appearance was that he seemed to be made out of concrete. His movements had all the fluidity and grace of a brick wall. What made him even less appealing was that his language seemed to consist mainly of grunts, many of which sounded alike to me, and none of which were particularly pleasant to hear. Seeing how rigid he was and sensing the overall quality of his presence, I - rather brilliantly, I thought - concluded that his difficulties had not arisen merely because he hadn’t had time, that particular morning, to finish his entire daily yoga routine.
But I wasn’t about to divulge my opinions of him or his operation, for I was undercover, visiting slaughterhouses and feedlots to learn what I could about modern meat production. There were no bumper stickers on my car, and my clothes and hairstyle were carefully chosen to give no indication that I might have philosophical leanings other than those that were common in the area. I told the farmer matter of factly that I was a researcher writing about animal agriculture, and asked if he’d mind speaking with me for a few minutes so that I might have the benefit of his knowledge. In response, he grunted a few words that I could not decipher, but that I gathered meant I could ask him questions and he would show me around.
I was at this point not very happy about the situation, and this feeling did not improve when we entered one of the warehouses that housed his pigs. In fact, my distress increased, for I was immediately struck by what I can only call an overpowering olfactory experience. The place reeked like you would not believe of ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, and other noxious gases that were the products of the animals’ wastes. These, unfortunately, seemed to have been piling up inside the building for far too long a time.
As nauseating as the stench was for me, I wondered what it must be like for the animals. The cells that detect scent are known as ethmoidal cells. Pigs, like dogs, have nearly 200 times the concentration of these cells in their noses as humans do. In a natural setting, they are able, while rooting around in the dirt, to detect the scent of an edible root through the earth itself. Given any kind of a chance, they will never soil their own nests, for they are actually quite clean animals, despite the reputation we have unfairly given them. But here they had no contact with the earth, and their noses were beset by the unceasing odor of their own urine and feces multiplied a thousand times by the accumulated wastes of the other pigs unfortunate enough to be caged in that warehouse. I was in the building only for a few minutes, and the longer I remained in there, the more desperately I wanted to leave. But the pigs were prisoners there, barely able to take a single step, forced to endure this stench, and almost completely immobile, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and with no time off, I can assure you, for holidays.
The man who ran the place was - I’ll give him this - kind enough to answer my questions, which were mainly about the drugs he used to handle the problems that are fairly common in factory pigs today. But my sentiments about him and his farm were not becoming any warmer. It didn’t help when, in response to a particularly loud squealing from one of the pigs, he delivered a sudden and threatening kick to the bars of its cage, causing a loud “clang” to reverberate through the warehouse and leading to screaming from many of the pigs. Because it was becoming increasingly difficult to hide my distress, it crossed my mind that I should tell him what I thought of the conditions in which he kept his pigs, but then I thought better of it. This was a man, it was obvious, with whom there was no point in arguing.
After maybe 15 minutes, I’d had enough and was preparing to leave, and I felt sure he was glad to be about to be rid of me. But then something happened, something that changed my life, forever - and, as it turns out, his too. It began when his wife came out from the farmhouse and cordially invited me to stay for dinner. The pig farmer grimaced when his wife spoke, but he dutifully turned to me and announced, “The wife would like you to stay for dinner.” He always called her “the wife,” by the way, which led me to deduce that he was not, apparently, on the leading edge of feminist thought in the country today.
I don’t know whether you have ever done something without having a clue why, and to this day I couldn’t tell you what prompted me to do it, but I said Yes, I’d be delighted. And stay for dinner I did, though I didn’t eat the pork they served. The excuse I gave was that my doctor was worried about my cholesterol. I didn’t say that I was a vegetarian, nor that my cholesterol was 125.
I was trying to be a polite and appropriate dinner guest. I didn’t want to say anything that might lead to any kind of disagreement. The couple (and their two sons, who were also at the table) were, I could see, being nice to me, giving me dinner and all, and it was gradually becoming clear to me that, along with all the rest of it, they could be, in their way, somewhat decent people. I asked myself, if they were in my town, traveling, and I had chanced to meet them, would I have invited them to dinner? Not likely, I knew, not likely at all. Yet here they were, being as hospitable to me as they could. Yes, I had to admit it. Much as I detested how the pigs were treated, this pig farmer wasn’t actually the reincarnation of Adolph Hitler. At least not at the moment.
Of course, I still knew that if we were to scratch the surface we’d no doubt find ourselves in great conflict, and because that was not a direction in which I wanted to go, as the meal went along I sought to keep things on an even and constant keel. Perhaps they sensed it too, for among us, we managed to see that the conversation remained, consistently and resolutely, shallow. We talked about the weather, about the Little League games in which their two sons played, and then, of course, about how the weather might affect the Little League games. We were actually doing rather well at keeping the conversation superficial and far from any topic around which conflict might occur. Or so I thought. But then suddenly, out of nowhere, the man pointed at me forcefully with his finger, and snarled in a voice that I must say truly frightened me, “Sometimes I wish you animal rights people would just drop dead.”
How on Earth he knew I had any affinity to animal rights I will never know - I had painstakingly avoided any mention of any such thing - but I do know that my stomach tightened immediately into a knot. To make matters worse, at that moment his two sons leapt from the table, tore into the den, slammed the door behind them, and turned the TV on loud, presumably preparing to drown out what was to follow. At the same instant, his wife nervously picked up some dishes and scurried into the kitchen. As I watched the door close behind her and heard the water begin running, I had a sinking sensation. They had, there was no mistaking it, left me alone with him. I was, to put it bluntly, terrified. Under the circumstances, a wrong move now could be disastrous. Trying to center myself, I tried to find some semblance of inner calm by watching my breath, but this I could not do, and for a very simple reason. There wasn’t any to watch.
“What are they saying that’s so upsetting to you?” I said finally, pronouncing the words carefully and distinctly, trying not to show my terror. I was trying very hard at that moment to disassociate myself from the animal rights movement, a force in our society of which he, evidently, was not overly fond. “They accuse me of mistreating my stock,” he growled. “Why would they say a thing like that?” I answered, knowing full well, of course, why they would, but thinking mostly about my own survival. His reply, to my surprise, while angry, was actually quite articulate. He told me precisely what animal rights groups were saying about operations like his, and exactly why they were opposed to his way of doing things. Then, without pausing, he launched into a tirade about how he didn’t like being called cruel, and they didn’t know anything about the business he was in, and why couldn’t they mind their own business.
As he spoke it, the knot in my stomach was relaxing, because it was becoming clear, and I was glad of it, that he meant me no harm, but just needed to vent. Part of his frustration, it seemed, was that even though he didn’t like doing some of the things he did to the animals -cooping them up in such small cages, using so many drugs, taking the babies away from their mothers so quickly after their births - he didn’t see that he had any choice. He would be at a disadvantage and unable to compete economically if he didn’t do things that way. This is how it’s done today, he told me, and he had to do it too. He didn’t like it, but he liked even less being blamed for doing what he had to do in order to feed his family. As it happened, I had just the week before been at a much larger hog operation, where I learned that it was part of their business strategy to try to put people like him out of business by going full-tilt into the mass production of assembly-line pigs, so that small farmers wouldn’t be able to keep up. What I had heard corroborated everything he was saying.
Almost despite myself, I began to grasp the poignancy of this man’s human predicament. I was in his home because he and his wife had invited me to be there. And looking around, it was obvious that they were having a hard time making ends meet. Things were threadbare. This family was on the edge. Raising pigs, apparently, was the only way the farmer knew how to make a living, so he did it even though, as was becoming evident the more we talked, he didn’t like one bit the direction hog farming was going. At times, as he spoke about how much he hated the modern factory methods of pork production, he reminded me of the very animal rights people who a few minutes before he said he wished would drop dead.
As the conversation progressed, I actually began to develop some sense of respect for this man whom I had earlier judged so harshly. There was decency in him. There was something within him that meant well. But as I began to sense a spirit of goodness in him, I could only wonder all the more how he could treat his pigs the way he did. Little did I know that I was about to find out. . .
We are talking along, when suddenly he looks troubled. He slumps over, his head in his hands. He looks broken, and there is a sense of something awful having happened. Has he had a heart attack? A stroke? I’m finding it hard to breathe, and hard to think clearly. “What’s happening?” I ask. It takes him awhile to answer, but finally he does. I am relieved that he is able to speak, although what he says hardly brings any clarity to the situation. “It doesn’t matter,” he says, “and I don’t want to talk about it.” As he speaks, he makes a motion with his hand, as if he were pushing something away.
For the next several minutes we continue to converse, but I’m quite uneasy. Things seem incomplete and confusing. Something dark has entered the room, and I don’t know what it is or how to deal with it. Then, as we are speaking, it happens again. Once again a look of despondency comes over him. Sitting there, I know I’m in the presence of something bleak and oppressive. I try to be present with what’s happening, but it’s not easy. Again I’m finding it hard to breathe. Finally, he looks at me, and I notice his eyes are teary. “You’re right,” he says. I, of course, always like to be told that I am right, but in this instance I don’t have the slightest idea what he’s talking about. He continues. “No animal,” he says, “should be treated like that. Especially hogs. Do you know that they’re intelligent animals? They’re even friendly, if you treat ’em right. But I don’t.”
There are tears welling up in his eyes. And he tells me that he has just had a memory come back of something that happened in his childhood, something he hasn’t thought of for many years. It’s come back in stages, he says. He grew up, he tells me, on a small farm in rural Missouri, the old-fashioned kind where animals ran around, with barnyards and pastures, and where they all had names. I learn, too, that he was an only child, the son of a powerful father who ran things with an iron fist. With no brothers or sisters, he often felt lonely, but found companionship among the animals on the farm, particularly several dogs, who were as friends to him. And, he tells me, and this I am quite surprised to hear, he had a pet pig.
As he proceeds to tell me about this pig, it is as if he is becoming a different person. Before he had spoken primarily in a monotone; but now his voice grows lively. His body language, which until this point seemed to speak primarily of long suffering, now becomes animated. There is something fresh taking place. In the summer, he tells me, he would sleep in the barn. It was cooler there than in the house, and the pig would come over and sleep alongside him, asking fondly to have her belly rubbed, which he was glad to do.
There was a pond on their property, he goes on, and he liked to swim in it when the weather was hot, but one of the dogs would get excited when he did, and would ruin things. The dog would jump into the water and swim up on top of him, scratching him with her paws and making things miserable for him. He was about to give up on swimming, but then, as fate would have it, the pig, of all people, stepped in and saved the day. Evidently the pig could swim, for she would plop herself into the water, swim out where the dog was bothering the boy, and insert herself between them. She’d stay between the dog and the boy, and keep the dog at bay. She was, as best I could make out, functioning in the situation something like a lifeguard, or in this case, perhaps more of a life-pig.
I’m listening to this hog farmer tell me these stories about his pet pig, and I’m thoroughly enjoying both myself and him, and rather astounded at how things are transpiring, when once again, it happens. Once again a look of defeat sweeps across this man’s face, and once again I sense the presence of something very sad. Something in him, I know, is struggling to make it's way toward life through anguish and pain, but I don’t know what it is or how, indeed, to help him.
“What happened to your pig?” I ask. He sighs, and it’s as though the whole world’s pain is contained in that sigh. Then, slowly, he speaks. “My father made me butcher it.” “Did you?” I ask. “I ran away, but I couldn’t hide. They found me.” “What happened? “My father gave me a choice." “What was that?” “He told me, ‘You either slaughter that animal or you’re no longer my son.’”
Some choice, I think, feeling the weight of how fathers have so often trained their sons not to care, to be what they call brave and strong, but what so often turns out to be callous and closed-hearted. “So I did it,” he says, and now his tears begin to flow, making their way down his cheeks. I am touched and humbled. This man, whom I had judged to be without human feeling, is weeping in front of me, a stranger. This man, whom I had seen as callous and even heartless, is actually someone who cares, and deeply. How wrong, how profoundly and terribly wrong I had been.
In the minutes that follow, it becomes clear to me what has been happening. The pig farmer has remembered something that was so painful, that was such a profound trauma, that he had not been able to cope with it when it had happened. Something had shut down, then. It was just too much to bear. Somewhere in his young, formative psyche he made a resolution never to be that hurt again, never to be that vulnerable again. And he built a wall around the place where the pain had occurred, which was the place where his love and attachment to that pig was located, which was his heart. And now here he was, slaughtering pigs for a living - still, I imagined, seeking his father’s approval. God, what we men will do, I thought, to get our fathers’ acceptance.
I had thought he was a cold and closed human being, but now I saw the truth. His rigidity was not a result of a lack of feeling, as I had thought it was, but quite the opposite: it was a sign of how sensitive he was underneath. For if he had not been so sensitive, he would not have been that hurt, and he would not have needed to put up so massive a wall. The tension in his body that was so apparent to me upon first meeting him, the body armor that he carried, bespoke how hurt he had been, and how much capacity for feeling he carried still, beneath it all.
I had judged him, and done so, to be honest, mercilessly. But for the rest of the evening I sat with him, humbled, and grateful for whatever it was in him that had been strong enough to force this long-buried and deeply painful memory to the surface. And glad, too, that I had not stayed stuck in my judgments of him, for if I had, I would not have provided an environment in which his remembering could have occurred.
We talked that night, for hours, about many things. I was, after all that had happened, concerned for him. The gap between his feelings and his lifestyle seemed so tragically vast. What could he do? This was all he knew. He did not have a high school diploma. He was only partially literate. Who would hire him if he tried to do something else? Who would invest in him and train him, at his age? When finally, I left that evening, these questions were very much on my mind, and I had no answers to them. Somewhat flippantly, I tried to joke about it. “Maybe,” I said, “you’ll grow broccoli or something.” He stared at me, clearly not comprehending what I might be talking about. It occurred to me, briefly, that he might possibly not know what broccoli was.
We parted that night as friends, and though we rarely see each other now, we have remained friends as the years have passed. I carry him in my heart and think of him, in fact, as a hero. Because, as you will soon see, impressed as I was by the courage it had taken for him to allow such painful memories to come to the surface, I had not yet seen the extent of his bravery.
When I wrote "Diet for a New America," I quoted him and summarized what he had told me, but I was quite brief and did not mention his name. I thought that, living as he did among other pig farmers in Iowa, it would not be to his benefit to be associated with me. When the book came out, I sent him a copy, saying I hoped he was comfortable with how I wrote of the evening we had shared, and directing him to the pages on which my discussion of our time together was to be found. Several weeks later, I received a letter from him. “Dear Mr. Robbins,” it began. “Thank you for the book. When I saw it, I got a migraine headache.”
Now as an author, you do want to have an impact on your readers. This, however, was not what I had had in mind. He went on, though, to explain that the headaches had gotten so bad that, as he put it, “the wife” had suggested to him he should perhaps read the book. She thought there might be some kind of connection between the headaches and the book. He told me that this hadn’t made much sense to him, but he had done it because “the wife” was often right about these things.
“You write good,” he told me, and I can tell you that his three words of his meant more to me than when the New York Times praised the book profusely. He then went on to say that reading the book was very hard for him, because the light it shone on what he was doing made it clear to him that it was wrong to continue. The headaches, meanwhile, had been getting worse, until, he told me, that very morning, when he had finished the book, having stayed up all night reading, he went into the bathroom, and looked into the mirror. “I decided, right then,” he said, “that I would sell my herd and get out of this business. I don’t know what I will do, though. Maybe I will, like you said, grow broccoli.”
As it happened, he did sell his operation in Iowa and move back to Missouri, where he bought a small farm. And there he is today, running something of a model farm. He grows vegetables organically - including, I am sure, broccoli - that he sells at a local farmer’s market. He’s got pigs, all right, but only about 10, and he doesn’t cage them, nor does he kill them. Instead, he’s got a contract with local schools; they bring kids out in buses on field trips to his farm, for his “Pet-a-pig” program. He shows them how intelligent pigs are and how friendly they can be if you treat them right, which he now does. He’s arranged it so the kids, each one of them, gets a chance to give a pig a belly rub. He’s become nearly a vegetarian himself, has lost most of his excess weight, and his health has improved substantially. And, thank goodness, he’s actually doing better financially than he was before.
Do you see why I carry this man with me in my heart? Do you see why he is such a hero to me? He dared to leap, to risk everything, to leave what was killing his spirit even though he didn’t know what was next. He left behind a way of life that he knew was wrong, and he found one that he knows is right.
When I look at many of the things happening in our world, I sometimes fear we won’t make it. But when I remember this man and the power of his spirit, and when I remember that there are many others whose hearts beat to the same quickening pulse, I think we will. I can get tricked into thinking there aren’t enough of us to turn the tide, but then I remember how wrong I was about the pig farmer when I first met him, and I realize that there are heroes afoot everywhere. Only I can’t recognize them because I think they are supposed to look or act a certain way. How blinded I can be by my own beliefs.
The man is one of my heroes because he reminds me that we can depart from the cages we build for ourselves and for each other, and become something much better. He is one of my heroes because he reminds me of what I hope someday to become. When I first met him, I would not have thought it possible that I would ever say the things I am saying here. But this only goes to show how amazing life can be, and how you never really know what to expect. The pig farmer has become, for me, a reminder never to underestimate the power of the human heart.
I consider myself privileged to have spent that day with him, and grateful that I was allowed to be a catalyst for the unfolding of his spirit. I know my presence served him in some way, but I also know, and know full well, that I received far more than I gave. To me, this is grace - to have the veils lifted from our eyes so that we can recognize and serve the goodness in each other. Others may wish for great riches or for ecstatic journeys to mystical planes, but to me, this is the magic of human life."
- http://www.johnrobbins.info/blog/
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