So, we rise from the rubble...
Sunday, September 13, 2020
"Be Like The Bird"
"Be Like The Bird"
“What matter if this base, unjust life
Cast you naked and disarmed?
If the ground breaks beneath your step,
Have you not your soul?
Your soul! You fly away,
Escape to realms refined,
Beyond all sadness and whimpering.
Be like the bird which on frail branches balanced
A moment sits and sings;
He feels them tremble, but he sings unshaken,
Knowing he has wings.”
– Victor Hugo
"If We Dare Not Even Look..."
"True, we must dare look things in the face before we dare think, speak, act,
or assume responsibility. If we dare not even look, what else are we good for? "
~ Lu Xun, 1925 - 1961
Freely download "Selected Works of Lu Xun" here:
"The US And Its Constitution Have 2 Months Left"
"The US And Its Constitution Have 2 Months Left"
by Paul Craig Roberts
"Treason doth never prosper, what's the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason."
- Sir John Harington
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason."
- Sir John Harington
"Bob Woodward writes that Trump’s Secretary of Defense, General James Mattis, and Trump’s Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats, spoke together about taking “collective action” to remove President Trump from office. General Mattis said Trump is “dangerous. He’s unfit.” This is the same thing that the Generals and the CIA said about President John F. Kennedy.
When Generals and the CIA say that a president is unfit and dangerous, they mean he is dangerous to their budget. By “unfit” they mean he is not a reliable cold warrior who will keep hyping America’s enemies so that money keeps pouring into the military/security budget. By serving defense contractors instead of their country, generals end up very wealthy.
Both Kennedy and Trump wanted to normalize relations with Russia and to bring home US troops involved in make-war operations overseas that boost the profits of defense contractors. To stop Kennedy they assassinated him.
To stop Trump they concocted Russiagate, Impeachgate, and a variety of wild and unsubstantiated accusations. The presstitutes repeat the various accusations as if they are absolute proven truth. The presstitutes never investigated a single one of the false accusations. These efforts to remove Trump did not succeed. Having pulled off numerous color revolutions in which the US has overthrown foreign governments, the tactics are now being employed against Trump. The November presidential election will not be an election. It will be a color revolution. See, for example, here and here.
We have reached the point in the demise of our country that a simple statement of obvious truth is not believable. As a number of carefully researched and documented books, some written by insiders, have proved conclusively, the CIA has controlled the prestige American media since 1950. The American media does not provide news. It provides the Deep State’s explanations of events. This ensures that real news does not interfere with the agenda. The German journalst, Udo Ulfkotte, wrote a book, "Bought Journalism," in which he showed that the CIA also controls the European press.
To be clear, there are two CIA organizations. One is an agency that monitors world events and endeavors to provide more or less accurate information to policymakers. The other is a covert operations agency. This agency assassinates people, including an American president, and overthrows uncooperative governments. President Truman publicly stated after he was out of office that he made a serious mistake in permitting the covert operations branch of the CIA. He said that it was an unaccountable government in itself.
President Eisehnower agreed and in his last address to the American people warned of the growing unaccountable power of the military/security complex.
President Kennedy realized the threat and said he was going “to break the CIA into a thousand pieces,” but they killed him first.
It would be easy for the CIA to kill Trump, but the “lone assassin” has been used too many times to be believable. It is easier to overthrow Trump’s reelection with false accusations as the CIA controlls the American and European media and has many Internet sites pretending to be dissident, a claim that fools insouciant Americans. Indeed, it is the leftwing that the CIA owns. The rightwing goes along because they think it is patriotic to support the military/security complex.
After the CIA overthrows Trump, they will use Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and their presstitutes to foment race war. Then the CIA will ride in on the Pale Horse, and the population will submit. The scenario is unfolding as I write. Very few will believe it until it happens. Even then the CIA’s ability to control explanations will keep the population in hand. In America today, liars have more credibility than truth tellers."
"Market Fantasy Updates 9/13/20"
"Market Fantasy Updates 9/13/20"
Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
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"The more I see of the monied classes,
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
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Updated live.
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Daily Update (September 11th to 14th)
Gregory Mannarino,
AM 9/13/20: “Markets: A Look Ahead, Important updates”
"The Love of Life in the Face of Death: Keith Haring on Self-Doubt, the Fragility of Being, and Creativity as the Antidote to Our Mortal Anxiety"
"The Love of Life in the Face of Death: Keith Haring on Self-Doubt,
the Fragility of Being, and Creativity as the Antidote to Our Mortal Anxiety"
by Maria Popova
“It is very important to be in love with life… Life is very fragile and always elusive. As soon as we think we ‘understand,’ there is another mystery. I don’t understand anything. That is, I think, the key to understand everything.”
“Life loves the liver of it,” Maya Angelou observed as she contemplated the meaning of life in 1977, exhorting: “You must live and life will be good to you.”
That spring, the teenage Keith Haring (May 4, 1958–February 16, 1990) - who would grow up to revolutionize not only art and activism, but the spirit of a generation and the soul of a city - grappled with the meaning of his own life and what it really means to live it on the pages of his diary, posthumously published as the quiet, symphonic wonder "Keith Haring Journals" (public library).
Five days before his nineteenth birthday and shortly before he left his hometown of Pittsburgh for a netless leap of faith toward New York City, he confronts the difficulty of knowing what we really want and writes: "This is a blue moment… it’s blue because I’m confused, again; or should I say “still”? I don’t know what I want or how to get it. I act like I know what I want, and I appear to be going after it - fast, but I don’t, when it comes down to it, even know."
In a passage of extraordinary precocity, he echoes the young Van Gogh’s reflection on fear, taking risks, and how inspired mistakes propel us forward, and considers how the trap of self-comparison is keeping him from developing his own artistic and human potential:
"I guess it’s because I’m afraid. Afraid I’m wrong. And I guess I’m afraid I’m wrong, because I constantly relate myself to other people, other experiences, other ideas. I should be looking at both in perspective, not comparing. I relate my life to an idea or an example that is some entirely different life. I should be relating it to my life only in the sense that each has good and bad facets. Each is separate. The only way the other attained enough merit, making it worthy of my admiration, or long to copy it is by taking chances, taking it in its own way. It has grown with different situations and has discovered different heights of happiness and equal sorrows. If I always seek to pattern my life after another, mine is being wasted re-doing things for my own empty acceptance. But, if I live my life my way and only let the other [artists] influence me as a reference, a starting point, I can build an even higher awareness instead of staying dormant… I only wish that I could have more confidence and try to forget all my silly preconceptions, misconceptions, and just live. Just live. Just. Live. Just live till I die."
And then - in a testament to my resolute conviction, along with Blake, that all great natures are lovers of trees - he adds: "I found a tree in this park that I’m gonna come back to, someday. It stretches sideways out over the St. Croix river and I can sit on it and balance lying on it perfectly."
“Perspective” by Maria Popova
Within a decade, Haring’s resolve to “just live” until he dies collided with the sudden proximity of a highly probable death - the spacious until contracted into a span uncertain but almost certainly short as the AIDS epidemic began slaying his generation. A century after the uncommonly perceptive and poetic diarist Alice James - William and Henry James’s brilliant and sidelined sister - wrote upon receiving a terminal diagnosis that the remaining stretch of life before her is “the most supremely interesting moment in life, the only one in fact when living seems life,” Haring, having taken a long break from his own diary, returns to the mirror of the blank page and faces the powerful, paradoxical way in which the proximity of death charges living with life:
"I keep thinking that the main reason I am writing is fear of death. I think I finally realize the importance of being alive. When I was watching the 4th of July fireworks the other night and saw my friend Martin [Burgoyne], I saw death. He says he has been tested and cleared of having AIDS, but when I looked at him I saw death. Life is so fragile."
In a sentiment evocative of neurologist Oliver Sacks’s memorable observation in his poetic and courageous exit from life that when people die, “they leave holes that cannot be filled, for it is the fate - the genetic and neural fate -of every human being to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death,” Haring adds:
"It is a very fine line between life and death. I realize I am walking this line. Living in New York City and also flying on airplanes so much, I face the possibility of death every day. And when I die there is nobody to take my place… That is true of a lot of people (or everyone) because everyone is an individual and everyone is important in that they cannot be replaced."
But even as he shudders with the fragility of life, Haring continues to shimmer with the largehearted love of life that gives his art its timeless exuberance: "Touching people’s lives in a positive way is as close as I can get to an idea of religion." "Belief in one’s self is only a mirror of belief in other people and every person."
He returns to the love of life that charged his days with meaning and his art with magnetism - a love both huge and humble, at the center of which is our eternal dance with mystery: "I think it is very important to be in love with life. I have met people who are in their 70s and 80s who love life so much that, behind their aged bodies, the numbers disappear. Life is very fragile and always elusive. As soon as we think we “understand,” there is another mystery. I don’t understand anything. That is, I think, the key to understand everything."
Again and again, Haring declares on the pages of his journal that he lives for work, for art - the purpose of which, of course, if there is any purpose to art, is to make other lives more livable. As the specter of AIDS hovers closer and closer to him, this creative vitality pulses more and more vigorously through him, reverberating with Albert Camus’s insistence that “there is no love of life without despair of life.”
In early 1988, weeks before his thirtieth birthday and shortly before he finally received the diagnosis perching on the event horizon of his daily life, Haring composes a seething cauldron of a journal entry, about to boil with the overwhelming totality of his love of life: "I love paintings too much, love color too much, love seeing too much, love feeling too much, love art too much, love too much."
By the following month, he has metabolized the terrifying too-muchness into a calm acceptance radiating even more love: "I accept my fate, I accept my life. I accept my shortcomings, I accept the struggle. I accept my inability to understand. I accept what I will never become and what I will never have. I accept death and I accept life."
After the sudden death of one of his closest friends in a crash - a friend so close that Haring was the godfather of his son - he copies one of his friend’s newly poignant poems about life and death into his journal, then writes beneath it: "Creativity, biological or otherwise, is my only link with a relative mortality."
But perhaps his most poignant and prophetic entry came a decade earlier - a short verse-like reflection nested in a sprawling meditation on art, life, kinship, and individuality, penned on Election Day:
"I am not a beginning.
I am not an end.
I am a link in a chain."
Keith Haring died on February 16, 1990, barely into his thirties, leaving us his exuberant love of life encoded in mirthful lines and vibrant colors that have made millions of other lives - mine included - immensely more livable.
Couple with "Drawing on Walls" - a wonderful picture-book biography of Haring inspired by his journals - then revisit a young neurosurgeon’s poignant meditation on the meaning of lifehttps://www.brainpickings.org/2016/01/13/when-breath-becomes-paul-kalanithi/ as he faces his own death, an elderly comedian-philosopher on how to live fully while dying, and an astronomer-poet’s sublime “Antidotes to Fear of Death.”
“A Brief Visit to the End of the World“
“A Brief Visit to the End of the World“
by David Cain
“People mostly want the same thing, and many of us already have it, but we don’t really notice it. I have no way of confirming this, but I bet that if you could interview people across different centuries and cultures, asking them what they wanted most, you would notice a distinct theme in their answers. Some people would want great riches or power. Others would say they want something very specific: to invent a particular thing, or for a particular person to love them, or to win a gold medal or give an Oscar speech.
But I suspect most of them would say they want something like this: I want to be able to do my work and spend time with my friends and family, free to live my own values in relative peace. I just want a fair chance to pursue love and happiness, and a stable, humble life.
You could call this “The Peacetime Dream”, a life with the normal share of ups and downs - necessarily including heartbreak, health issues, setbacks and disappointments - but which isn’t defined by war or persecution. Almost universally, people want basic stability and basic freedom, and to someone who doesn’t have those things they are clearly the best things in the world.
But to someone who does have those things, their greatness is not so clear. It’s easy to forget, or never notice at all, that many or most of us already have this state of affairs, more or less -certainly most people who read blogs in their spare time. It’s also easy to forget that many (or most?) of history’s humans never had the Peacetime Dream. I wonder how many billions of individual human lives have been lived under tyrannical regimes, forced servitude, or during a war or a plague, or maybe all of those things.
I don’t know what your everyday worries are about, but I often worry about things like my work being criticized, the difficulty in making friends post-high-school, the ease of putting on weight at Christmas, the advance of age, the murkiness of our tax laws, and the declining quality of consumer products.
One defining characteristic of all of these concerns, aside from their ability to dominate my mind on a regular basis, is that they would evaporate the instant my basic freedom and stability were threatened. If the power went out and it became clear that it wasn’t coming back on, suddenly few of our day-to-day worries would matter much. All we would care about is regaining the Peacetime Dream, that relatively stable state of affairs that allows a person to build a life.
But when we live in the Peacetime Dream, and always have, we don’t even notice it. Imagine already having the one thing human beings most covet, and not knowing it. Our ability to take this foundation for granted is quite amazing. Even when I do worry about true horrors like incarceration, starvation and violence, I’m worrying on behalf of other people. I believe (without realizing it) that it will always be someone else who experiences them.
In those rare moments when you’re aware of the Peacetime Dream, to even go for a walk down the street is a joy. I remember being touched by a photo of a British Spitfire pilot crouching down to kiss the ground after a rough flight. Even if it’s right under our feet, we simply can’t see the value of what we have until we have some sense of being without it.
Noticing the ground we walk on: A friend and I were talking about living under catastrophe while playing Fallout 4, where a wholesome, 1950s-style America is razed by a nuclear war. The intro is a moving sequence in which a whole neighborhood rushes to an underground shelter, leaving televisions on and stoves lit - because suddenly one’s house burning down is a very minor thing - as the bombs ignite on the horizon and the sky turns orange. It didn’t immediately occur to us that this could really happen (and in fact has). Thinking aloud, I said that European civilians in the 1940s, who watched their cities get bombed to rubble, must have been convinced at the time that the end of the world was actually arriving. My very smart friend replied that for a lot of people, the end of the world is exactly what it was.
This was a new thought to me. We tend to think of the something like the Second World War as an unthinkable series of atrocities that is thankfully over. But for about seventy million people, each viewing the proceedings from their own corner of the world, it truly was the apocalypse, the very end. The end of the world isn’t just something that will happen to our species someday. It is something that has happened, to real people.
Of course, when we talk about “the end of the world”, we don’t mean the destruction of the planet. That event is assured, but so is our absence for it. The sun will incinerate our blue marble in a few billion years, but that will be long after every trace of our history has been erased. (Well almost every trace.)
When we talk about the end of the world, we mean the loss of civilization as we know it - the collapse of everything dear and precious, everything that had ever seemed secure, right before our eyes. This is a real thing that happens sometimes. (And is literally happening right now... - CP)
I realize this sounds morbid. We don’t like to think about the end of the world. But that’s why we probably should, occasionally but deliberately. We are so attached to civilization, stability, and freedom that we don’t want to even imagine life without them. For that reason, we stop noticing these huge, essential pieces of our happiness, and we fill our heads with worries about the state of the smallest pieces - missed appointments, insensitive comments, and other day-to-day ephemera that probably won’t matter a month from now.
The Peacetime Dream is the holy grail of backdrops for a human life, and it is a peculiar tragedy that we still aren’t great at finding happiness in it. Ironically, what would perhaps help us most is to look out at our neighborhoods and picture what they might be like as ruins. Reminding ourselves of the possibility of losing everything isn’t a new idea, but it isn’t especially popular. Alain de Botton often talks about reviving the Middle-Ages practice of keeping a human skull on one’s writing desk, which reportedly has a powerful clarifying effect on one’s priorities.
The occasional apocalyptic daydream is similarly powerful perspective exercise, a bit like looking up at the stars to remind you that your problems are a small part of the whole show. Taking twenty seconds to picture your surroundings as a post-apocalyptic ruin doesn’t sound pleasant, but it has a palpably liberating effect. Suddenly it seems significant that civilization is still happening—it turns out your timing was excellent.
Imagining the end of the world is the grand-scale version of my favorite gratitude practice: glancing at a loved one as though they’re gone and you’re only remembering them. The payoff isn’t in the morbid fantasy about loss, it’s the instant when you return from the daydream and recognize what you really have, that you’re living right in the middle of a fragile golden era. It’s unique and beautiful and will one day be gone, and you are fantastically lucky to be here for it.”
“Alea Iacta Est”
“Alea Iacta Est”
“Alea iacta est is a Latin phrase attributed by Suetonius to Julius Caesar on January 10, 49 B.C. as he led his army across the Rubicon river in Northern Italy. With this step, he entered Italy at the head of his army in defiance of the Senate and began his long civil war against Pompey and the Optimates. The phrase, either in the original Latin or in translation, is used in many languages to indicate that events have passed a point of no return.
The historian Frances Titchener has given a stylized description of the context of Caesar’s pronouncement: “We know from [Caesar's journals] that Caesar is not taking this lightly. He knows that if he marches on Rome with his armies, then he is a public enemy, and that he will either have to win, or die. For a Roman patrician like Julius Caesar there is no life without military service; there is no life without service to the state. He cannot simply ‘go native’ and stay in Gaul, and he does realize that if he goes back to Rome, he would be killed. At this time the northernmost border of the Roman territory in Italy is the River Rubicon. Once someone crosses the River Rubicon, he’s in Roman territory. A general must not cross that boundary with his army – he must do what the Romans call lay down his command, which means surrender his right to order troops, and certainly not be carrying weapons.
Caesar and his armies hesitate quite a while at this river while Caesar decides what to do, and Caesar tells us that he informs his soldiers that it’s a little tiny bridge across the river, but once they cross it they’ll have to fight their way all the way to Rome, and Caesar is well aware that he’s risking not just his own life, but those of his loyal soldiers, and he might not win. Pompey is a formidable enemy. It’s also impossible to avoid the fact that Caesar was attacking the state, and as a patrician Roman this would have been very difficult for him, equivalent to beating up your father. He wouldn’t have done any of this lightly. Finally he makes a decision, it’s time to go, and he uses a gambling metaphor: he says ‘Roll the dice’, ‘Alea iacta est’. Once the dice start rolling they cannot be controlled, even though we don’t know what the outcome will be as the dice roll and tumble. Julius and his men swiftly cross the river and they march double time toward Rome, where they almost beat the messengers sent to inform the Senate of their arrival.”
"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 9/13/20"
Coronavirus Map: Tracking the Global Outbreak
The coronavirus pandemic has sickened more than 28,746,700
people, according to official counts, including 6,504,633 Americans.
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- https://www.zerohedge.com/
SEP 13, 2020 2:35 PM: "Czech Republic Suffers Another Record Jump In COVID-19 Cases As Florida Deaths Drop To Just 8: Live Updates"
09/13/2020 - 12:05: "It's Far Too Late To Think Lockdowns Can Make COVID-19 Go Away"
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Updated 9/13/20, 1:26 AM ET
Click image for larger size.
Saturday, September 12, 2020
Greg Hunter, "Election Chaos Means Market Chaos"
"Election Chaos Means Market Chaos"
by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
"Money manager and economist Michael Pento predicts, “We are going to have an election in this country that is the most contested vote this country has ever seen. Whichever party that loses is not going to accept the results. That’s mad chaos for the stock market, and that is one of the things I am thinking about when I am managing money.”
Another thing Pento is thinking about is massive Fed money printing in response to CV19. They have printed a massive amount in a very short amount of time. Pento explains, “They borrowed $3.3 trillion in fiscal 2020. All of it was monetized by the Federal Reserve. We switched to an inflationary hedge, and that worked out wonderfully for us. Then a funny thing happened at the end of July, the PPP loans, the paycheck protection loans, they were exhausted. The money that was spent and sent by helicopter, $1,000 per adult, $500 per child and $600 in enhanced unemployment, that was all spent too.So, you have this massive fiscal cliff I warned about is here and here now. Last week, I got much more defensive. We borrowed $3.3 trillion, and that was monetized by the Fed, and that is all going away. The amount of new borrowing is done.”
Pento points out one huge lingering problem, and that is unemployment and people still collecting a check. Pento says, “There are many programs that people have access to get unemployment insurance. One of the major ones is called Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA). That number is 29.6 million people when you include continuing claims and pandemic claims for unemployment. The PUA portion was up one million people last week. The number of claims might be going down under the traditional channels, but they are all filing claims under the PUA. We have a huge divergence of what’s happening in the stock market to what’s happening in the underlying economy. Rod Serling could not have imagined how crazy this stock market valuation has become. The valuation inequities is 180% of GDP. o put that into perspective, it was 140% of GDP in March 2000 just before NASDAQ lost 85% of its value.”
Pento says his portfolio is now weighted with 20% Gold and Silver. He predicts Fed policies that are coming soon on inflation, and interest rate suppression “will be rocket fuel for gold and silver. And gold and silver are just getting started. If Bitcoin is $10,000 per unit, why can’t gold be $5,000, $10,000 or $15,000 per ounce? With the amount of dollars out there, it could easily be $5,000 or $8,000 per ounce, and that is where it is headed.” Pento also says, “The bond market will eventually collapse, but the biggest collapse coming is the faith in all fiat currencies.”
Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com as he goes
One-on-One with economist Michael Pento.
"Ex Obscurum" ("From Darkness")
"Ex Obscurum"
by Spadecaller
"From emotional turmoil, hatred, and addiction the miracle of recovery begins in this Spadecaller Video entitled "Ex Obscurum" (From Darkness). Featuring original poetry narrated by the author and visual artist, Matthew Schwartz. Composer Samuel Barber's powerful musical score, adopted for the movie Platoon, (Adagio for Strings, Op. 11) sets the background for this spiritual exodus "From Darkness."
"True artists never bow to trend or the demands forced upon them by politics and ideology. I will not apologize for or defer from creating art that is faithful to my personal vision of the world. The idea that artists need to hide from the world to create beauty is also repugnant to me. Truth is beauty; even when it is sad or disturbing. We live in an intrusive society; and must wake up to this fact or fall victim to its control." - Spadecaller
His writing, videos, and artwork call "a spade a spade." Through a vast library of video creations, he showcases digital art, paintings, poetry, and photography on YouTube."
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About Spadecaller
"Spadecaller (Matt Schwartz) is the pseudonym he uses for his visual art, writing, poetry, and video creations; initially, the name came about by his direct approach on subjects that focus on humanitarian issues that impact our world today. He's known to call a spade a spade."True artists never bow to trend or the demands forced upon them by politics and ideology. I will not apologize for or defer from creating art that is faithful to my personal vision of the world. The idea that artists need to hide from the world to create beauty is also repugnant to me. Truth is beauty; even when it is sad or disturbing. We live in an intrusive society; and must wake up to this fact or fall victim to its control." - Spadecaller
His writing, videos, and artwork call "a spade a spade." Through a vast library of video creations, he showcases digital art, paintings, poetry, and photography on YouTube."
"A Look to the Heavens"
"NGC 253 is one of the brightest spiral galaxies visible, but also one of the dustiest. Dubbed the Silver Coin for its appearance in small telescopes, it is more formally known as the Sculptor Galaxy for its location within the boundaries of the southern constellation Sculptor. Discovered in 1783 by mathematician and astronomer Caroline Herschel, the dusty island universe lies a mere 10 million light-years away. About 70 thousand light-years across, NGC 253, pictured, is the largest member of the Sculptor Group of Galaxies, the nearest to our own Local Group of galaxies.
Click image for larger size.
In addition to its spiral dust lanes, tendrils of dust seem to be rising from a galactic disk laced with young star clusters and star forming regions in this sharp color image. The high dust content accompanies frantic star formation, earning NGC 253 the designation of a starburst galaxy. NGC 253 is also known to be a strong source of high-energy x-rays and gamma rays, likely due to massive black holes near the galaxy's center. Take a trip through extragalactic space in this short video flyby of NGC 253."
"No Other Way..."
“Sometimes you imagine that everything could have been different for you, that if only you had gone right one day when you chose to go left, you would be living a life you could never have anticipated. But at other times you think there was no other way forward – that you were always bound to end up exactly where you have.”
- Kevin Brockmeier
“Winter Is Coming”
“Winter Is Coming”, Part 3
by Jim Quinn
“The very survival of the nation will feel at stake. Sometime before the year 2025, America will pass through a great gate in history, commensurate with the American Revolution, Civil War, and twin emergencies of the Great Depression and World War II.”
– Strauss & Howe, “The Fourth Turning”
“In Part One of this article I laid out the reasons for Gray Champions arising to meet challenges during crisis periods in history. In Part Two of this article I assessed the configuration of Gray Champions throughout the world and the potential impact on the course of this Fourth Turning.
The swirling fog of confusion enveloping the globe as the high lords of the universe play their game of thrones has even the most critical thinking individuals baffled by the course of events. The desperation and blatant lawlessness of the Deep State players in their endeavor to preserve their hegemony over the course of global affairs is palpable with every attack, false flag, accusation, and ratcheting up of their propaganda media machine.
Like “Game of Thrones,” the behind the scenes machinations, subterfuge, and deceptions taking place outside the purview of the common folk are designed to only benefit the rich and powerful players undertaking these traitorous actions. Open warfare will not happen until it is thought to be in the best interests of those manipulating the levers of society and the narrative produced by their perpetual propaganda media machine. But, in the end, it will be the innocent common people who will suffer the consequences, while the lords reap the riches, glory and power.
“Why is it always the innocents who suffer most,
when you high lords play your game of thrones?”
– “Lord Varys”,
- George R.R. Martin, “Game of Thrones”
The common people have always been blind to the next turning until after it fully arrives. Even now, the average person has no idea we are in the midst of a crisis period which will change the course of history. The overwhelming majority of the 335 million Americans, and billions around the globe, try to go about their daily lives oblivious to the intrigues, conspiracies, and treachery playing out at the highest levels of government and in smoky backrooms, where deals are made, wars plotted, and billions dispersed to the oligarchical lords running our world.
The common people get up, go to work, try to earn enough to survive or get ahead in life, raise their children, and endeavor to attain the lifestyle sold to them by their overlords based on delusion and debt. They are easily distracted by technological baubles, watching sporting events, enslaved by government handouts, and told what to believe by their keepers. They don’t want to experience the challenges of winter, but a never ending summer. They don’t want to think and be responsible for their lives. They want to be left in peace on Twitter and Facebook, but that isn’t how it works during a Fourth Turning winter.
“The common people pray for rain, healthy children, and a summer that never ends,” Ser Jorah told her. “It is no matter to them if the high lords play their game of thrones, so long as they are left in peace.” He gave a shrug. “They never are.”
– George R.R. Martin, “A Game of Thrones”
There is no telling how the next ten or so years will play out; which alliances prove to be successful or disastrous; whether Trump is compromised by the Deep State or wins this internal struggle; and the outcomes of the fast approaching civil and global wars, which are inevitable given the current state of affairs in the world. The Fourth Turning isn’t a prediction. It’s a period of crisis driven by the generational alignment which happens like clockwork every 80 to 100 years. It predicts nothing. The course of events is up to the individuals driving those events.
Those who attempt to dismiss this generational theory by calling it doom porn or saying it is impossible to predict the future are revealing their fears rather than arguing based on facts or substance. A man who fears the coming trials and tribulations has already lost. Fear works far better than swords in keeping the masses controlled. Take the Russian bogeyman scenario being utilized at the present time to keep the ignorant masses distracted and bemused. Praying for a lone wolf to save the day and restore the world to its summer like condition is irrational and again based upon fear. Winter winds are already blowing at gale force.
“When the snows fall and the white winds blow,
the lone wolf dies but the pack survives.”
– “Ned Stark”,
– George R.R. Martin, “Game of Thrones”
It’s fear that appears to be pushing people over the edge. The common people are being manipulated by the “powers that be” though propaganda, mistruths, distractions, iGadgets, hero worship, irrelevant social justice warrior issues, the illusion of political choices, and being lured into debt servitude by the banking cabal and their mega-corporation co-conspirators. They have successfully divided us into angry subsets of lone wolves unwilling or unable to unite and fight the true enemies.
The common people will again do the dying and get the short end of the stick, just as they did during the Civil War, Great Depression and World War II. In order to change the dynamics of this Fourth Turning from one where the lords determine our fate, it would require the majority to open their eyes to see the truth and be led by truly just men to overcome the forces of darkness currently in control. Based on history, this is an unlikely scenario, but still possible.
“Opening your eyes is all that is needing. The heart lies and
the head plays tricks with us, but the eyes see true.”
– “Syrio Forel”,
– George R.R. Martin, “Game of Thrones”
An extremely important question on which hinges the future course of history, will need to be answered in the near future. Is Trump a moral, just, honorable leader who has the best interests of the American people as his sole priority or will he continue to represent the interests of the vested interests (aka Deep State)? Words are not enough. It’s his deeds by which he will be judged. Is he a wolf in sheep’s clothing, or a noble warrior doing battle with Deep State enemies?
His contradictory and baffling actions over his time in office have given hope to many, infuriated others, and confused the majority. Does he have principles or is everything negotiable? His decision making, relationships with foreign adversaries, ability to defeat his domestic enemies, and courage to do what is right whether it is popular, will determine his place in history. Failure could be catastrophic for the nation.
While Trump, Putin, and Xi play their game of thrones for world dominance, we the people still have to do our part at this crucial time in history. While the vast majority of Americans may not be intellectually capable of independent thought or critical thinking due to decades of dumbing down through the government education gulags and a steady diet of government propaganda, there are a minority of patriotic people who respect the Constitution and will need to man the wall.
We know the existing social order will be demolished by the end of this Fourth Turning and courageous acts will matter, sacrifice required, and defeating enemies from within and without will be compulsory. There will be no glory for common men who make the ultimate sacrifice and die for a better tomorrow for their children and grandchildren. Everyone has the potential to make a difference. Danger is omnipresent.
“I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men.”
– The Oath of the Brothers of the Night’s Watch
– “Game of Thrones”
You don’t have to be a fan of the ‘Game of Thrones’ or a believer in the Fourth Turning to realize the world is in the midst of a crisis. Denial and willful ignorance will not turn back time to better days. Whether it be a fictional battle for control of the seven kingdoms or a real battle for control of petro-currencies, gas pipelines, natural resources, and military dominance, the humans locked in these battles never change.
Human nature has remained the same throughout history. The shortcomings of men across centuries have remained consistent: greed, power seeking, arrogance, cruelty, immorality, and hubris. Even Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a man of true courage, knew “the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being”.
The coming storms will bring out the best and the worst in humanity. The nation could be snuffed out or be elevated to new glorious heights. If good wins out over evil the heroic deeds of the winners will become the stuff of myths and legends. If evil wins out over good the final shocking scene in “The Planet of the Apes” may be our future. The choices we make will matter.
The risk of catastrophe will be very high. The nation could erupt into insurrection or civil violence, crack up geographically, or succumb to authoritarian rule. If there is a war, it is likely to be one of maximum risk and effort – in other words, a total war…
History’s howling storms can bring out the worst and best in people. The next Fourth Turning can literally destroy us as a nation and people, leaving us cursed in the histories of those who endure and remember. Alternatively, it can ennoble our lives, elevate us as a community, and inspire acts of consummate heroism – deeds that will grow into myth-like legends recited by our heirs far into the future.”
– Strauss & Howe, “The Fourth Turning”
Chet Raymo, “It”
“It”
by Chet Raymo
“A Howard Nemerov poem might be twelve pages long or twelve words long. He was equally adept at the epic and the aphorism. He could be serious or fun. Sometimes both at the same time. Consider the following poem, called “A Life,” which I quote in its entirety. (How does “fair use” apply to something so short?)
“Innocence?
In a sense.
In no sense!
Was that it?
Was that it?
Was that it?
That was it.”
In a sense.
In no sense!
Was that it?
Was that it?
Was that it?
That was it.”
Now I hear my spouse’s voice whispering in my ear: What’s all this musing about death lately? Why all this late-life pessimism? Your blog is becoming morbid. Morbid? Not really. I don’t yet feel the Grim Reaper’s cold breath on my neck. But surely it’s that time of life to begin a summing up. I don’t want to expire mid-sentence, with an unfinished thought…
So, was it innocent? In a sin? In a sense. Not Original Sin, perhaps, but plenty of my own devising. No sin? Nonsense.
It. What?
That. Why?
Was. When?
That. Why?
Was. When?
A matter of emphasis. In phases. In phrases. That was it. That was it. That was it.
Wasn’t it?”
- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/
“88 Truths I’ve Learned About Life”
“88 Truths I’ve Learned About Life”
by David Cain
“In the early days of this blog I published what I thought was a throwaway post, entitled “88 Important Truths I’ve Learned About Life”. It was nothing but 88 sweeping aphorisms I had collected as they occurred to me, delivered with a bit of snark. But it was a huge hit and still brings new people to Raptitude. Today I can’t bear to look at it. It’s just too preachy. But I understand the appeal. It’s fun to throw down an aphorism, and ask yourself if you really believe it. Here’s what I’ve learned (I think) in the seven years since. Also quite preachy.
1. Growth means doing things that are hard for you right now. There’s no other way.
2. The news doesn’t show you how the world is. It shows you whatever will make you watch more news.
3. Metal tools and utensils cost a lot more, but last about twenty times as long as plastic ones.
4. Good listeners are rare. When you find one, keep them in your life. And pay it forward.
5. Nobody sees you the way you see yourself, which should probably come as a relief.
6. Often nobody wants to make decisions for the group. Everyone appreciates the person willing to propose a time or a place.
7. Every generation thinks the one that came before them and the one that came after them are the worst.
8. For whatever reason, everywhere in the world human beings are willing to spend enormous amounts of money and time on alcohol.
9. Almost all casual photos would be improved simply by getting closer. You don’t need to get people’s entire bodies in the frame.
10. You don’t really know someone until you know what they struggle with most.
11. Not long ago, tea, sugar and spices were really hard for ordinary people to get. But they’re still as delicious as they always were. So enjoy!
12. If you spend a week tracking how you actually spend your waking hours, you will probably be shocked.
13. Friendships take work to maintain, and it’s possible the other person is doing all the work.
14. One way to add hours to your week, and months to your life, is to put your phone somewhere beyond arm’s reach.
15. Often, to make a breakthrough with something, you just need to stick with it a little longer than you usually do. Even five or ten minutes.
16. You can shave a decade or two off your working life by understanding compound interest and the long-term value of your purchases.
17. It’s almost impossible to convince someone of something once they see you as being on the “other side”.
18. Losing weight really is as simple as reducing the number of calories you eat. Not easy, but very simple.
19. Often we convince ourselves that we have less freedom than we really do, so that we don’t have to be responsible for doing the right thing.
20. Listening to the blues really does help when you have the blues.
21. I said this last time, but as a reminder: it’s worth retrying foods you didn’t like the first time.
22. We all have unconscious biases, even nasty ones about race, class and sex. Don’t believe anyone who says they don’t have any.
23. We are all thinking and ruminating nearly all day long, which is why we constantly seek activities that can relieve us from it, like music, TV, drinking, sex and death sports.
24. Romantic love might be a pretty recent invention, so don’t get too bent out of shape if your experience doesn’t fit the mold.
25. When you quit smoking you immediately realize how bad you stank all those years.
26. Daily meditation has a way of making solutions to many of your problems suddenly obvious.
27. “Comfort zone” is an annoying term but it sure is useful. It’s the only place to find solutions to your longest-running problems.
28. Everything has more detail to be found, if you take some time to look even closer. Especially plants.
29. The main reason we argue online is because it feels good, but we like to imagine it’s also somehow noble or helpful.
30. “Act the way you want to feel” actually works a lot of the time.
31. One thing nobody regrets is becoming a fit, active person.
32. Our beliefs about right and wrong come from mostly from intuitions and gut feelings, not logic.
33. We evolved to go days without food. Missing a meal shouldn’t be a big deal, but if you skip the odd lunch people will assume you have an eating disorder.
34. New York City is a pretty neat place. Don’t die without visiting, if possible.
35. Pretty much all double albums would have been better as single albums. Except maybe The Wall.
36. Propaganda’s effects can last forever. Two hundred years later, most people still think Marie Antoinette said “Let them eat cake”.
37. It’s really liberating, after trying to look smart for so many years, to start freely admitting when you’re wrong and when you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.
38. Every household should have an aloe plant. Don’t wait until you burn yourself to go get one.
39. We’re all going to die, and on the whole that is definitely a good thing. Wouldn’t it be terrible if all of this never ended? It would also get very crowded.
40. John Waters was on to something when he said, “If you go home with someone, and they don’t have any books, don’t f**k them.”
41. Voting is only one of many avenues individuals have for shaping the direction of society, and it’s an extremely low-leverage one.
42. The ability to make good art depends a lot on your willingness to make lots of bad art in between.
43. We tend to think more about negative events than positive ones. Knowing that is helpful, in case you think there’s something wrong with you.
44. A decent definition for self-love is “Doing for yourself what you would want your kids to do for themselves.”
45. Not making your bed in the morning sets the bar kind of low for the rest of the day.
46. Having a defensible opinion, on any topic at all, actually requires a ton of work. Mostly reading.
47. Everything you own has an effect on your psyche. Less stuff makes for a less disturbed mind in general.
48. Bachelors, if you want to class your place up a bit, a few plants goes a long way.
49. We are all atheists, in a sense. Every person denies the existence of either most or all of the gods that have been proposed.
50. The most insightful news source in America is The Onion.
51. Meeting and/or staying with locals completely changes the travel experience.
52. The best and worst thing about life is all the other people. Well, mostly.
53. Becoming exceptional at something is probably just a matter of making #15 your normal way of doing things.
54. Going for a walk almost always alters the mood, at least a little.
55. One quality everyone finds attractive is competence, at anything really. Experts are super sexy.
56. We would probably be more moral creatures if we acknowledged how difficult fairness and compassion actually is for members of our species.
57. Lasting habit changes always involve some kind of identity shift. Running every day stops being a grind only once you begin to feel like a runner.
58. To pass easily through crowded sidewalks, stare just above everyone’s hairline and keep your speed up. They will get out of the way.
59. Not hiding it when you’re wrong commands more respect than always appearing to be right.
60. We are all selfish, to a pretty alarming degree. If you’ve ever bought a cocktail, you bought it instead of eyeglasses or medicine for some poor kid somewhere.
61. Whoever invented the zipper was a goddamn genius.
62. When a party has degenerated into people showing each other their favorite YouTube videos, it’s time to call a cab.
63. Future societies will laugh at us for how we let advertising cover nearly every available public space.
64. Other people, generally, can see solutions to your problems more clearly than you can. (Use this to your advantage.)
65. Fears get stronger whenever you heed them, and weaker whenever you act in spite of them. This is a simple law you can depend on.
66. Most of the difficulty and awkwardness associated with a task is stacked right at the beginning, so it’s over with quickly unless you chicken out really early on.
67. Listening attentively to someone’s problem without trying to solve it is a skill that’s greatly appreciated, and is worth practicing.
68. Humans are too complex for everything in their lives to run smoothly at once; it’s probably normal to be a mess in at least a few areas.
69. Lots of people you know are hiding addictions, and you’d never guess who.
70. There will always be enough suffering in the world to horrify you a million times over, so it may not be worth dwelling on at times when you’re not doing anything about it.
71. There’s a kind of low-brow pleasure we get from being angry and indignant, and very often there’s nothing else we gain from it.
72. Most classic novels are very readable, but we think of them as dry and awful because of the ones forced on us in high school.
73. There is a paradoxical relationship between ease and difficulty; sticking to easy things makes life hard, while doing hard things makes life easy.
74. Posture has a predictable and immediate effect on mood.
75. Goals have to improve your life in the short-term in order for you to keep at it all the way to the long-term rewards.
76. It can be really freeing to see a given present moment as though it’s the beginning of your life. In a sense, it is.
77. People usually like it when you ask them for advice in their areas of expertise. Also, #64 makes this a smart thing to do.
78. How free you feel in day-to-day life depends a lot on your willingness to open up to discomfort when it happens. That can be practiced.
79. There’s no need to eat iceberg lettuce in a world with available romaine, baby spinach, arugula and endive. Branch out!
80. By the time voices are raised, communication has stopped.
81. A few fancy, high-quality grocery purchases are still way cheaper than even a crappy restaurant experience, and there will be leftovers.
82. People that lie to others in your presence would probably lie to you just as easily.
83. We overvalue pithiness because it’s immediately gratifying, and we undervalue nuance because it takes too much work. But you should share this post anyway.
84. Keeping secrets is really hard for almost everyone. The secret-keeper eventually confides in one other person, thinking they won’t do the same thing.
85. We tend to think the person we are is the person we’ve been so far.
86. Self-doubt is hard to deal with but it does keep our standards high. The worst art is made by people who think everything they do is great.
87. We always think that our latest dilemma is the one that will destroy us, but so far none of them have. The sky has fallen a thousand times already.
88. Don’t worry, everybody else is crazy too.”
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