"COVID and the Noble Lie"

"COVID and the Noble Lie"

by Brian Maher

“Unethical”... “dystopian”... “totalitarian”... These are the words of the British government’s primary scientific advisory bunch — the "Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviour," by title. These scientific advisors presently droop their heads in shame. For these are the very words they employ to describe their own conduct. They concede: Last March their wicked counsel encouraged government officials to wildly inflate the true viral threat. Only a pitiless torturing of facts — argued these men and women of science — could terrify the public into locking themselves in, locking themselves up, locking themselves down.

The London Telegraph: "In March [2020] the Government was very worried about compliance and they thought people wouldn’t want to be locked down. There were discussions about fear being needed to encourage compliance, and decisions were made about how to ramp up the fear." Fear came ladling out by the ton. Millions and millions would perish in agonies scarcely describable, they howled. The hospitals would overflow into the streets, they screeched. Only the near-cessation of all public life could cage the menace. The halfway men, the men counseling a measured response… were drummed out of court.

“Using Fear Smacks of Totalitarianism”: Group psychologist Gavin Morgan, confessing his atrocities: "Clearly, using fear as a means of control is not ethical. Using fear smacks of totalitarianism. It’s not an ethical stance for any modern government. By nature I am an optimistic person, but all this has given me a more pessimistic view of people."

A pity, it is, that this fellow is not a Daily Reckoning reader. We would have squeezed the optimism from him long ago… and pumped in an implacable pessimism. It would have spared him an awful letting-down, a massacre of his innocent delusions.

Here another (unnamed) scientific advisor enters the confession booth: "The way we have used fear is dystopian. The use of fear has definitely been ethically questionable. It’s been like a weird experiment. Ultimately, it backfired because people became too scared." Another member was “stunned by the weaponisation of behavioural psychology.”

Yet another head-shrinker likens his witchcraft to mind control: "You could call psychology ‘mind control.’ That’s what we do…” Might we suggest another term for what they do? Might that term be… ‘propaganda?’

Propaganda: Let us consult Mr. Webster and his famous thesaurus. He defines propaganda this way: "Information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view… ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one's cause or to damage an opposing cause."

We will assume the Telegraph’s reporting in this instance is authentic. If true... has not the British government… purposefully broadcast propaganda? We are compelled to conclude it has. And since the United States government let out similar shrieks, can we conclude it too has broadcast propaganda — and for identical reasons? ‘Maybe it did,’ you argue. ‘But the government needed to exaggerate the threat, else too few people would take it seriously. More people would have died. They did what they needed to do.’

That is, you give a wink and nod towards what Plato labeled “the noble lie.” It may be a lie, you allow. But it is a lie conscripted in the service of a higher good. Perhaps your argument has juice in it. But is not a noble lie… nonetheless a lie? And should democratic governments lie to We the People, however nobly? As well heave the civics books into the hell box.

Noble Lies: The men gathered at Philadelphia in 1787 lacked authorization to draft a Constitution. Their mandate was to sand down the rougher edges of the Articles of Confederation, to rub on some polish, to give a slight renovation. They instead dynamited the thing to bits and pieces. The public was denied all knowledge of their mischiefs, denied all voice in the outcome. It represented — in essence — a coup, a treason against the United States. Yet it glows in history as the Miracle at Philadelphia. We label the plotters “Founding Fathers.” And they mounted Olympus rather than the gallows.

The Good Guys Don’t Always Sport White Hats: Mr. Lincoln was no more determined to banish slavery than a bought policeman is determined to banish the narcotics trade. He would look away from Southern evil so long as he could count his tariffs at the ports of Charleston, Savannah and New Orleans.

What does the noble lie mistell us? That Old Abe was monomaniacal against the scourge of chattel slavery… and that “every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword.”

Here is another noble lie: The Kaiser’s soldaten bayoneted Belgian babies during the First World War. In August 1914, the British scissored the undersea German communications cables running west to American shores. All trans-Atlantic flows would therefore issue from the British Foreign Office… the same British Foreign Office that sweated mightily to enlist the United States in its cause. Hence the dreaded Hun’s skewering of poor Belgian infants and similar atrocities. Come now to Dec. 8, 1941…

Dastardly, Yes. But Unprovoked? Roosevelt — Franklin Delano — raged against Japan’s dastardly and unprovoked attack the morning prior. Yet was it entirely unprovoked? In July 1941, the United States government froze all Japanese assets in its possession. In August 1941, the United States government embargoed oil and gasoline exports to Japan. Over 80% of Japan’s supply shipped in from the United States. Officials knew well that Japan might take a desperate armed lunge in response. These men believed war was all but assured. But it was critical that Japan deliver the initial blow… to incense the American public.

United States War Secretary Henry Stimson, on the wrecks of Pearl Harbor: “My first feeling was of relief ... that a crisis had come in a way which would unite all our people.”

Picking Fights With Germans: Prior to Pearl Harbor, the United States Navy had also been initiating jousts against German U-boats along the Atlantic convoy routes. Was the United States a neutral power prior to December 1941? And did razzing German U-boats constitute a breach of this neutrality?

Many historians will tell you Mr. Roosevelt was attempting to lure the Germans into another Lusitania trap. But Herr Hitler saw the worm wriggling upon Roosevelt’s hook. He ordered his men to avoid all tangles with vessels flying the neutral flag of the United States. He laced into any U-boat man who gobbled the American bait — even in strictest defense.

Not Defending Japan or Germany: Let it go immediately into the record: We do not throw in with the Japanese Empire… or with the Austrian corporal’s National Socialist German Workers’ Party. In our residence, Victory in Europe Day and Victory Over Japan Day are events of high revelry. They are third only to Independence Day and Flag Day.

Once, under the heavy instigation of liquor, we even hung Herr Hitler in effigy — and set his mannequin aflame. We additionally made a voodoo doll of Tojo… and gave his ghost a frightful jabbing. We merely wish to illustrate that truth is war’s first battlefield fatality. The lie may or may not be noble. But a lie it often is. Examples multiply and multiply.

The Noble Lie of Climate Alarmism: The noble lie lives yet… as the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviour demonstrates. In recent years, the noble lie has also covered the planet itself — climate change. Alarmists insist we perch perilously upon the devil’s shovel. If man continues coughing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, Earth will catch a raging fever. Thus the world no longer confronts “climate change.” It confronts a “climate crisis.”

The noble lie writes the warrant for the mass merchandising of alarm. Stanford climate scientist Stephen Schneider: "On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method... On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. To do that we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, means getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest." There, in a walnut shell, you have the noble lie.

Crying Wolf: The noble liars have yelled wolf so often, so loudly, they have cashed in their credibility. Here is the danger: One day the wolf may truly snarl at the door. An authentic plague or environmental cataclysm may menace us. But they have already squandered their credit. They will shout wolf and shout wolf and shout wolf again… telling a noble truth... Only this time… no one will heed them."

- dailyreckoning.com

"Doug Casey on the Labor Shortage and Other Disturbing Distortions in the Economy"

"Doug Casey on the Labor Shortage and 

Other Disturbing Distortions in the Economy"

by International Man

"International Man: According to the recent Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) jobs report, only 266,000 new jobs were created in April - well below the one million new jobs that was expected. At the same time, American businesses are desperately seeking to fill job openings which they can’t fill. A survey by the National Federation of Independent Business found that 44% of small businesses had jobs they couldn’t fill, which is a record high. What’s going on with these seemingly contradictory trends?

Doug Casey: First of all, I don’t trust the government’s statistics. Some are surely better than others, but especially when we’re looking at monetary and economic numbers, it’s increasingly apparent that the US government’s statistics are only marginally more reliable than those of the Argentine government at this point. As the US is increasingly politicized, they’ll deteriorate further, fudged and adjusted for propaganda purposes. Eventually, they’ll approach the inaccuracy of those in the old Soviet Union. It’s understandable, I suppose, because people believe in, and love to quote, that old saw of Franklin Roosevelt’s: "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." It’s nonsense, of course; you can ignore reality, but you can’t ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.

The government likes to publish happy, optimistic numbers for lots of reasons. A belief that economic health is based on psychological smiley faces is prominent among them. Unfortunately, optimism can blow away as easily as a pile of feathers in a hurricane. That said, there are huge distortions that have been cranked into the economy because of the ongoing COVID hysteria, compounded by the government’s reaction to it. It appears there are over 16 million workers collecting unemployment bennies, while there are about 8.5 million job openings, 13% more than in the before times. How is that possible? Lots of fast-food chains are paying $15 an hour, plus recruiting bonuses—and that’s for unskilled labor. There are loads of highly-paid manufacturing and construction jobs going begging. Anyone who wants a job can have one.

There are several reasons for this. One is that COVID hysteria is slacking off somewhat but still in high gear. A high proportion of the population wear masks when driving alone, walking alone, or even participating in a Zoom call (presumably to virtue signal). Needless to say, these types are afraid to go to work or be among other people. They want to self-isolate out of fear. They won’t work, or will work less, from hypochondria. Those that will work have to be induced with hazard pay.

Meanwhile, a combination of state unemployment benefits, $300 Federal unemployment, and Federal stimmy checks means that a lot of them can take home more not working than working. It’s easier to stay home, get up late, binge-watch Netflix, and collect tax-free money than commute to work. After a year, it can turn into an ingrained bad habit.

International Man: Since the beginning of the pandemic, the US government has been sending stimulus checks to Americans - mostly to those who experienced no reduction in their income or job loss. This flurry of free money has led to people choosing not to work. What’s your take on this?

Doug Casey: You get what you pay for. And if you pay people to stay at home, they'll do that. People are consuming more than ever. Retail sales are way up because of all the funny money the government is practically helicopter dumping, while a lot less people are producing. This is a guaranteed formula for economic disaster. And it's not just an economic failure but a moral failure. They’re being told it’s all right to take free money and not produce anything in exchange. In the long run, the moral failure is even more serious than the economic consequences. The public is being induced to act like children - or even criminals.

There is, however, one favorable consequence to all of this. Some of the smarter people collecting their stimmy and unemployment checks can see there’s high demand for labor. I’ll bet lots of Americans are working off the books - unofficially, for cash - so that they don’t compromise their unemployment and stimmy checks. Is it illegal, and arguably immoral? Perhaps. But it’s demonstrating what a massive lie government bailout programs are to millions of people. On the other hand, maybe I’m just a perpetual optimist, always looking on the bright side.

The development of a large informal economy, an untaxed shadow economy, is almost inevitable when billions in extra cash, lots of government regulations, and a generally declining standard of living come together in a witch’s brew. It causes huge distortions in the marketplace - and in the way people think the world works. Whole new classes of people will use the government as a milk cow, as well as a predator. This is the way it works in corrupt Third World countries, which the US is increasingly emulating. We no longer have an implicit social contract of fair play; it’s become a war of all against all.

This trend is another reason why the government wants to eliminate cash. When everything goes digital - as it already has in China and Sweden - it will be much harder to work off the books. They’ll know about everything you make, everything you spend, everything you own, because it’s all computerized. Let’s hope Americans will resist the trend. But, based upon their bovine acceptance of orders during the COVID hysteria, I doubt it.

International Man: It’s clear that the government response to COVID decimated many small businesses. What do you think the government’s further actions will do to the small businesses that survived the pandemic?

Doug Casey: It’s part of the phenomenon of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. A big government prefers dealing with big businesses, for lots of reasons. Big government helps big businesses like Amazon, Facebook and Google get much bigger. Little businesses don't have the capital, the lobbying power, and the bribing power to compete. Government, and the type of people who work for it, are naturally antagonistic to entrepreneurs. They want to see everyone as a regimented employee.

I've long been of the opinion that 80% of this COVID disaster is a scam. It’s the best means of controlling the masses since the invention of central banking and the income tax. Better, actually, since everybody cares about their health, but not everybody cares about money.

That may sound like a conspiracy theory, though I’m not partial to conspiracy theories for a number of reasons. But the fact that this hysteria took over the world so quickly, exclusively benefiting the people in charge, makes me very suspicious. Scared people are much more prone to look for leadership promising to solve a problem. Even if it’s an artificial one they created.

The slavish psychology of the average human is a real problem. The capite censi believe they live in a democracy where legislators represent their interests. So they do what they’re told by the representatives of our phony democracy. These busybodies and power grubbers get together to pass new laws. The new laws don’t enshrine wisdom. They simply tell people what they must do and must not do.

Every day the legislature is in session further limits the freedom of its subjects. And increases costs - because every new law requires paid enforcers. People who look to legislators to solve their problems are complicit in their own throats being cut. In our recent book Assassin, John Hunt and I highlight the way this works. No government department wants to lose its funding. They have an interest in manufacturing problems simply in order to justify their existence. COVID may turn out to be a classic example of that.

International Man: Is Universal Basic Income (UBI) already here to stay for good in the US? What are the investment and other implications?

Doug Casey: I believe it is. And it’s going to cement in place the distortions that we were talking about earlier. It's going to encourage whole new groups of people to do nothing and expect free stuff from the State as their moral right. Americans will increasingly resemble Cargo Cult natives in the South Pacific.

The near-term consequence of the trillions of dollars of funny money showered on America is probably going to be a crack-up boom. It’s a paradoxical situation where - in the midst of a declining standard of living - there’s a mad flurry of economic activity. So much new money being pumped into the economy encourages everybody to go out and buy stuff. They have lots of depreciating currency and want to spend it ASAP. But fewer and fewer people are producing, even while more are consuming. It’s called living out of capital.

The UBI, free money just for existing, is going to be very hard to take away. Everybody is encouraged to consume promiscuously because that will stimulate the economy. It’s idiotically said to be patriotic to consume. But nobody has to produce.

One big question is what will happen to millions of renters now in "forbearance." They're not paying the rent, and several million homeowners are also in forbearance. The landlords are going to be looking for back rent, and the banks are going to be looking for mortgage arrears. Are millions going to be kicked out of their apartments and houses? Does this mean we're going to have a new wave of homeless people? Or will the State just take over their obligations, so we have overtly socialized housing? The small landlords, in particular, will be hurt worst. I’m not sure what the way out is. The country has been painted into a corner.

I'm shocked that I don't see any of this being discussed anywhere. The country is sleepwalking into a living nightmare, and we’re just scratching the surface of all the problems that will have to be confronted in the years to come."

- InternationalMan.com

"The Only Time..."

“Go without a coat when it’s cold; find out what cold is. Go hungry; keep your existence lean. Wear away the fat, get down to the lean tissue and see what it’s all about. The only time you define your character is when you go without. In times of hardship, you find out what you’re made of and what you’re capable of. If you’re never tested, you’ll never define your character.”

- Henry Rollins

"How It Very Really Is"

"Economic Market Snapshot 5/19/21"

"Economic Market Snapshot 5/19/21"

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"Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will

do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone."

- John Maynard Keynes

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"Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...

Only the consequences are real - to you!

Your guide:

Gregory Mannarino, AM 5/19/21:

"Alert! PAN Sell-off"

- https://traderschoice.net/

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Dan, I Allegedly, "This Country is Going to the Dogs"

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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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MarketWatch Market Summary, Live Updates

- https://www.marketwatch.com/tools/marketsummary

CNN Market Data:

- https://money.cnn.com/data/markets/

CNN Fear And Greed Index:

- https://money.cnn.com/data/fear-and-greed/

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A comprehensive, essential daily read.

- http://www.shadowstats.com/

May 18th to May 20th, Updated Daily

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Financial Stress Index

"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI) is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: credit, equity valuation, funding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United States, other advanced economies, and emerging markets."

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Daily Job Cuts

- https://www.dailyjobcuts.com/

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- https://www.zerohedge.com/

WED MAY 19, AT 4:49 AM: "Everything Is Crashing: Stocks, Bonds, Crypto, Commodities All Tumble"

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- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

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- https://wallstreetonparade.com/

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- https://www.whatreallyhappened.com/

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- https://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/

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Commentary, highly recommended:

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

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And now, the End Game...

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Oh yeah...

Gerald Celente, "Trends Journal: Unvaxxed Lives Matter"

Gerald Celente,

"Trends Journal: Unvaxxed Lives Matter"

- https://trendsresearch.com/

Gregory Mannarino, PM 5/18/21: "Goldman Sachs Warning; Dollar Falls"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 5/18/21:

"Goldman Sachs Warning; Dollar Falls"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Musical Interlude: 2002, “Where The Stars And Moon Play”

Full screen recommended.

2002, “Where The Stars And Moon Play”

“Pamela and Randy Copus are the duo known as 2002. Randy Copus plays piano, electric cello, guitar, bass and keyboards. Pamela Copus plays flutes, harp, keyboards and a wind instrument called a WX5. Both musicians also provide all of the vocals on their albums, recording their voices many, many times and layering them to create a "virtual choir" with a celestial, angelic quality.”

"A Look to the Heavens"

“This colorful skyscape features the dusty, reddish glow of Sharpless catalog emission region Sh2-155, the Cave Nebula. About 2,400 light-years away, the scene lies along the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy toward the royal northern constellation of Cepheus.

Astronomical explorations of the region reveal that it has formed at the boundary of the massive Cepheus B molecular cloud and the hot, young, blue stars of the Cepheus OB 3 association. The bright rim of ionized hydrogen gas is energized by the radiation from the hot stars, dominated by the bright blue O-type star above picture center. Radiation driven ionization fronts are likely triggering collapsing cores and new star formation within. Appropriately sized for a stellar nursery, the cosmic cave is over 10 light-years across.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

The Poet: Arthur O’Shaughnessy, "Music and Moonlight"

"Music and Moonlight"

"We are the music makers,

And we are the dreamers of dreams,

Wandering by lone seabreakers,

And sitting by desolate streams;

World-losers and world-forsakers,

On whom the pale moon gleams:

Yet we are the movers and shakers

Of the world forever, it seems…

We, in the ages lying

In the buried past of the earth,

Built Ninevah with our sighing,

And Babel itself in our mirth;

And o’erthrew them with prophesying

To the old of the new world’s worth;

For each age is a dream that is dying,

Or one that is coming to birth."

- Arthur O’Shaughnessy

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"The Dreamers Of Dreams..."

"The division of one day from the next must be one of the most profound peculiarities of life on this planet. We are not condemned to sustained flights of being, but are constantly refreshed by little holidays from ourselves. We are intermittent creatures, always falling to little ends and rising to new beginnings. Our soon-tired consciousness is meted out in chapters, and that the world will look quite different tomorrow is, both for our comfort and our discomfort, usually true. How marvelously too night matches sleep, sweet image of it, so nearly apportioned to our need. Angels must wonder at these beings who fall so regularly out of awareness into a fantasm-infested dark. How our frail identities survive these chasms no philosopher has ever been able to explain."

- Iris Murdoch

The Daily "Near You?"

Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, United Kingdom.

Thanks for stopping by!

"Only One..."

"There is only one basic human right, 

the right to do as you damn well please.

And with it comes the only basic human duty, 

the duty to take the consequences."

- P. J. O'Rourke

"Be The Person..."

"We are fast moving into something, we are fast flung into something like asteroids cast into space by the death of a planet, we the people of earth are cast into space like burning asteroids and if we wish not to disintegrate into nothingness we must begin to now hold onto only the things that matter while letting go of all that doesn't. For when all of our dust and ice deteriorates into the cosmos we will be left only with ourselves and nothing else. So if you want to be there in the end, today is the day to start holding onto your children, holding onto your loved ones; onto those who share your soul. Harbor and anchor into your heart justice, truth, courage, bravery, belief, a firm vision, a steadfast and sound mind. Be the person of meaningful and valuable thoughts. Don't look to the left, don't look to the right; we simply don't have the time. Never be afraid of fear."

- C. JoyBell C.

"What Just Happened Off The California Coast Can’t Be Explained! 2021"

Full screen recommended,

"What Just Happened Off The California 

Coast Can’t Be Explained! 2021"

"How ‘Woke’ May Be Leading Us to Civil War"

"A statue of Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola in Ferrara, Italy, on Sept. 25, 2018. Savonarola enforced a 1497 version of cancel culture on Florence, Italy, according to Roger L. Simon. (Gianni Careddu via Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0)"

"How ‘Woke’ May Be Leading Us to Civil War"

by Roger L. Simon

"The other day, I wrote that “woke” was the new conformism. It is, of course, but I undersold it. It’s much more than that and more dangerous. As Tal Bachman notes at Steynonline, it’s now our state religion, a state religion in a country that - constitutionally and for good reason - isn’t supposed to have one.

But “Wokism” is yet more than that, too. It’s a mass psychosis similar to many that have arisen throughout history when the masses followed leaders who, in their zeal or self-interest, took them to disastrous ends. A good example was when the Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola - in a 1497 version of “cancel culture” - swept up everything secular in Florence from some of the most extraordinary paintings and sculpture of all time to the works of Boccaccio and burned them in the so-called Bonfire of the Vanities.

Being Jewish, I am also reminded of the bizarre tale of Sabbatai Zevi, the 17th-century Sephardic rabbi who proclaimed himself the long-awaited true messiah of the Jews, garnered thousands of followers, and then ended up leaving them completely in the lurch when he converted to Islam. (Interestingly, Bachman writes that “wokism” resembles Islam structurally.)

Closer to our time, the great Italian director Federico Fellini, in his film “La Dolce Vita” (1960), shows us what seems like hundreds of people rushing about, tears streaming, trampling each other, believing reports that the Madonna has been sighted. As the scene progresses, the crowd grows, with more and more people convinced of the sighting. Of course, what Fellini documents is more or less harmless - not so “woke.” This psychosis has a political dimension and the capability of changing a society, which it has already done.

Face Excommunication: “Woke” gains adherents much in the manner of “est” - the cult-like Erhard Seminars Training - that I attended in the 1970s at the behest of a movie producer interested in making a film about it. (It never happened.) If you’re too in, you’re out. For est, several hundred people sat in a large conference room listening to the “training” for hours under instructions not to get up, even to go to the bathroom, until they raised their hands signaling they “got it” (i.e., effectively joined the cult). Nature’s calling being what it is, most eventually did.

Although operationally similar, “woke” is exponentially more perilous than the now-defunct est training. Our position in society, our livelihoods, and our children’s educations and futures are being held over our heads, not our mere use of a restroom. An iron-fisted, ideologically extreme minority has our country under its thumb - play along or face ex-communication. This is stronger than anything in our history and almost identical to what we see and have seen in totalitarian countries.

It’s a psychosis approaching mass hallucination. In Franco’s Spain, they shouted, “Viva la muerte!” (“Long live death!”) Here we are asked to proclaim just as loudly “Black Lives Matter,” to display signs saying as much on our lawns, although we never thought otherwise and always thought (naively, we are told) that all lives mattered.

All key aspects, most parts of them anyway, of our society “get it” as they did in est (i.e., now believe in ”woke”) or, yet more ominously, cynically say they do - the media, the corporations (“Better woke than broke!”), the government bureaucracy, the Democratic Party, the Department of Justice, the FBI, the military (yikes!), entertainment, the university system, the K–12 system, the medical community, the scientific community (incredibly), the religious community (sadly), and on and on.

All, to one extent or another, believe in “woke” except - the people. Most of the people anyway. Most of what used to be called the common men (or women) in the street roll their eyes at “woke” - including even some silent, but browbeaten, Democrats - and do their best to move on, although many realize that “woke” and its sister “social justice” are in essence euphemisms for an ideology far more totalitarian than any ever in control of this country, communism.

Rebellion Brewing: How long can this gaping dichotomy continue? How long before they stop rolling their eyes? A rebellion against “woke” is brewing, particularly in red states, some of which are banning or have already banned critical race theory in their schools, among other pushbacks. (Kudos to Rep. Mark Green, Republican of Tennessee and Iraq War veteran, for introducing legislation to block critical race theory training at U.S. military academies.)

But will that be enough against a federal government that lives and breathes this evil ideology and that is essentially governed by a homegrown politburo - the thought that Biden acts by himself is ludicrous - determined to impose it? As this imposition increases, the “contradictions,” as the Marxists would say, are heightened. What the extremist ideology of “woke” actually provokes is talk of - and not just talk - secession and even civil war.

Few of us have heard anything like that in our lifetimes. But now it’s real. We have been driven apart as never before. We have been awakened indeed. Anything can happen and some of us, who would never have considered anything like secession and civil war, suddenly do - highly disturbing to us as those thoughts may be.

So why do we even tolerate “woke”? Bachman gives us a quotation from Austrian philosopher Karl Popper that is remarkably apposite for our times: “Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.”

From Antifa to BLM (whose leader apparently identifies with the mass murderer Chairman Mao) to the willfully blind talking heads of left-wing cable TV, no one is as intolerant as the ”woke” folks. They break all domestic records in that regard. Time to stop tolerating them."

- https://www.theepochtimes.com/

Musical Interlude: The Who, "Tommy"

The Who, "Overture" from "Tommy"

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The Who, "Tommy", "See Me, Feel Me/Listening to You"

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The Who, "Tommy", Full Album 1969

"How It Really Is"

 

Gregory Mannarino, AM 5/18/21: "Market Updates; Gold And Silver- What You Must Know Now"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 5/18/21:

"Market Updates; Gold And Silver- What You Must Know Now"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"Eternal Springtime"

"Eternal Springtime"

by Bill Bonner

YOUGHAL, IRELAND – “Transitory” or not? Economists are studying the numbers. Is inflation heating up… or cooling off? Should they be looking at the Consumer Price Index (CPI)? The CPI-U (for urban customers)? With or without food and energy? The Personal Consumption Expenditure price index (PCE)? ShadowStats? They watch the thermometer and check the skies. In the following few words, we explain why we think they are wasting their time.

You can tell it’s getting warmer by looking at data points. Check the thermometer every day and you may begin to see a trend. But if you are planting a crop or planning a vacation… you might also check the calendar. Yes, there are bigger patterns… longer… more durable… more predictable. Temperatures go up and down. You may see the temperature going down every day for a week. But come the month of May, the flowers come out anyway.

Sunny Forecast: Politico gives us the forecast: The very firm conventional wisdom around the financial industry is that the recent spike in inflation – which just hit the highest level in a decade – will be entirely transitory. Janet, Joe, and Jerome are telling us not to get too excited about the latest inflation numbers. Put away the umbrellas and raincoats, they say. Sunshine ahead. They believe there is too much “spare capacity” in the economy. It will need to be taken up, they say, before business or labor have any real pricing power.

And those higher prices we are seeing? Don’t pay any attention to them, they add; they’ll be gone as soon as the problems in the supply chain are removed. Then, too, they say that price levels were so low a year ago – caused by the COVID-19 scare – that the latest measurement of inflation is cockeyed. What we are looking at is a statistical aberration, they say, not real inflation.

Irrelevant Argument: On the other side, the inflation alarmists believe the “spare capacity” argument is poppycock. They see storm clouds building. This inflation is “intentional, deliberate, and disastrous,” writes colleague Simone Wapler. It is structural, not cyclical. So the “spare capacity” is irrelevant.

Venezuela, for example, has idle factories, idle land, and idle labor aplenty. But it also had inflation two years ago at 10,000,000%. And in America, businesses can’t find people to take up jobs. They are forced to raise wages. But it’s not because there aren’t plenty of idle hands available. More likely, it is because the feds were too promiscuous with their stimmy money. In many cases, people got more money from being unemployed than they used to get on the job.

And then, too, 30 years of stimmy – with ultra-low interest rates and Fed-backed asset markets – has created a “financialized” economy… where the big money is no longer made by honest labor or investment – producing goods and services (real wealth) for others – but by borrowing and speculating.

Never Better: Naturally, the rich – and the elite – have never had it better. They own the assets the Federal Reserve has been pumping up. Can you blame the not-so-rich for wanting to join them? As we reported here, one of the latest fad cryptos went up 1,700% in just a week earlier this month. And the whole crypto sector came from nothing just over a decade ago to be now worth more than $2 trillion. That’s “wealth” that didn’t exist a few years ago. And it’s enough to make a whole generation believe it is more profitable to trade cryptos than to work. Again, it was the inflation that caused the “spare capacity,” not the other way around.

As for the “low base” argument, you can look through the freakish Plague Year figures by “stacking” the inflation readings up in two-year increments. What you see is the same rising trend line, but at a gentler angle.

Perpetual Springtime: Here at the Diary, we are sometimes right, sometimes wrong… and always in doubt. Will the April numbers mark the decisive turning point – when inflation turns definitively and dramatically upwards? Or will they turn out to be more like an exploratory mission by UFOs… before the full invasion force takes over the planet, making pets of the few humans who survive? We’ll know in a few months. In the meantime, we reach for a deeper insight.

Consumer price inflation comes as a result of monetary inflation; that is all we know for sure. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) tells us that government is the source of money (which the MMTers believe is the same as wealth). It’s government printing and spending that make the money world turn, they say. They add that the feds can print and spend as much as they want – “investing” to create a safer, more prosperous, and more perfect union – until consumer price inflation rises.

When that day comes, they promise, they will “pivot” to inflation-fighting policies. But lo! That day came last Wednesday. And what’s this? Quelle surprise! Their eyes still on the thermometer… they tell us why the recent readings are not to be trusted. “No need to pivot just yet,” they say.

We live in a world of perpetual springtime; they’re convinced of it. Stocks always push up, like jonquils in April. The warm rain of deficits and money-printing eternally stirs the dull roots of the economy. And any datapoint outside the springtime range must be a fluke.

Too Late: They would do better to go back to the calendar. It’s not government printing and spending that create real wealth; instead, as sure as June follows May, they create real inflation. And if you wait for the Bureau of Labor Statistics to confirm the trend, it may be too late to plant your radishes."

- www.rogueeconomics.com

“This Was A Test, And We Failed”

“This Was A Test, And We Failed”

by Jim Quinn

“The Truth, when you finally chase it down, 

is almost always far worse than your darkest visions and fears.” 

~ Hunter S. Thompson

"I think Hunter S. Thompson is being proven right by revelations becoming obvious daily. I’m a natural skeptic, so I rarely believe anything I’m told without verifying facts, analyzing data and understanding the motivation of those making declarations and assertions. For most of my life I thought I generally understood how the world worked.

Doubts about my understanding began to creep into my mind between 2000 and 2008, as I watched my government cover-up the truth about 9-11, use it to institute an Orwellian surveillance state through the Patriot Act, invade Iraq based upon a false narrative of WMD and links to 9/11, and watching those controlling the Federal Reserve create the dot.com bubble and follow it up with a housing bubble – all done to benefit Wall Street banks, billionaires, connected politicians, and Deep State apparatchiks.

The national debt was $5.6 trillion in 2000, the budget was as close to balanced as it had been in decades, the defense budget ($300 billion) was at decades low as there was no major conflicts in the world, and term limits were still a legitimately discussed election issue. If someone was told on January 1, 2000 that in 2021 the national debt was going to hit $30 trillion, with annual deficits of $3 to $4 trillion, a defense budget of $750 billion as war looms on the near-term horizon, and all semblance of governing through legislation to benefit the citizenry had dissipated, they would have laughed, accused you of being a conspiracy nutjob, and said the nation would be a hyperinflationary banana republic with 50% interest rates if any of that came to pass. The truth is always far worse than your darkest visions and fears.

What has occurred in the last year has befuddled me, as the level of treachery, deception, disinformation, and false narratives has reached excessive elevations, indicating a sense of urgency and desperation by those wielding power over society. It has been depressing and frustrating to witness the level of obedient compliance by the majority of frightened sheep in this country, with complete subservience to authoritarian dictates of their overlords.

The extremeness of the response to a bad annual flu virus leads me to believe the truth behind what has happened and is happening is far worse than most can conceive or comprehend. The level of pure malevolence and disregard for humanity exhibited by the despots wielding power over our political, economic, medical, and social structures has pushed the country to the edge of civil chaos, calculated political pandemonium, global conflict, and unavoidable debt manufactured financial collapse.

Sometimes I find myself wondering whether I’m the crazy one for not believing a piece of cloth will protect me from catching a flu virus with a 99.8% survival rate, or not voluntarily allowing a Big Pharma corporation, with no liability for the consequences of its experimental gene therapy, to treat me as their animal test subject to increase my survival chances to 99.85%, or questioning why I need to wear a face diaper because I can catch the virus while walking to my restaurant table but not once I sit down, or why six foot distancing is safe but 5 foot distancing is dangerous. Why are the predictions of doom by “experts”, which never come true, overlooked and disregarded by the corporate fake news media?

Why did Dementia Joe call the governors of Texas, Florida, and Mississippi Neanderthals six weeks ago for ending mask mandates and this week he ended the mask mandate for the entire country? I thought he followed the science. But it appears raging inflation, a terrible jobs report due to his policy of paying people not to work, a hemorrhaging border crisis, gas pipelines proving to be somewhat important, the Middle East exploding, and his woke executive order agenda being ridiculed on a daily basis, convinced Joe’s handlers to distract from his 100 days of disaster by reversing the ridiculous Covid restrictions and sending the Covid cult into convulsions of fury.

Their pathetic lives of mask virtue signaling, twitter haranguing, and vaccination shaming are about to be invalidated, as a return to normalcy will relegate the Biden brigade to their previous status of inconsequential drones on Facebook posting pictures of their nine cats.

What little faith I had in humanity after this past year of cowardly compliant obedience to totalitarian governmental dictates and proclamations, was fully extinguished this weekend while making an early morning stop at Wal-Mart. The Biden administration’s sudden reversal on masks, after fear mongering and preaching doom for months, immediately led to Trader Joe’s, Costco and Wal-Mart announcing no more masks required to enter their stores, with an unenforceable caveat about being vaccinated. After a year of mask mandates, I pondered whether I should enter the Wal-Mart like this fine gentleman.

But I just sauntered in like everyone else, expecting to see dozens of other unmasked Americans breathing fresh air, thankful to be free of those disgusting face diapers which have done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to reduce the spread of this over-hyped annual flu with a scary name and largest marketing campaign in history. Instead, I witnessed dozens of masked sheep still following orders even after those orders had been rescinded by their self-appointed science shepherds.

An overwhelming feeling of disgust swept over me, as I only witnessed two other sensible human beings out of the hundred or so roaming the aisles. My disappointment with the vast majority of citizens in this country has now reached all-time lows. I am chalking it up to a new version of PTSD, in the era of covid hysteria, PMSD (Post-Mask Stress Disorder). A large portion of the populace have developed a mental illness, purposely provoked by their own lying government and authoritarian politicians. This entire scam has been a lesson in abuse, fear propaganda, lies, false appeals to science, and censorship of the truth.

There are now millions of sheep who do not know how to readjust to reality and lose the masks, which convinced them they were brave, noble and “in this together”. Trying to use facts and reason to convince these people masks never worked and their chances of dying from this flu were no higher than the annual flu is a useless endeavor. The Covid Cult cannot let go of their mask virtue signaling because they will lose that feeling of superiority and arrogance towards the unmasked masses.

The loss of this covid cudgel is being rapidly substituted with these Big Pharma multi-billion-dollar profit generating experimental gene therapies, disguised as vaccines. They desperately want to condescendingly force the jab upon everyone and force vaccine passports upon the masses as their new virtue signaling badge of compliant obedience. After spending tens of billions of your tax dollars on a vaccine marketing campaign, employing famous athletes, Hollywood influencers, medical “experts”, and non-stop TV commercials, only 37% of the American population is fully vaccinated. It has been a gigantic FAIL.

Everyone who wanted to be vaccinated, is vaccinated. They have resorted to cash payments, million-dollar lottery prizes, free donuts, free burgers & fries, and a multitude of other bribes to get the jab. Now they are falling back on the totalitarian methods used during the lockdown. Get the jab or wear a mask forever threatens Dementia Joe. Colluding with corporations and schools to force employees and children to get the jab. Threatening to impose vaccine passports to travel, enter sports and concert arenas, and to generally cancel the non-vaccinated. It is failing.

With only 37% of the public sheeplike enough to get the jab, any “woke” business that continues to invoke mask mandates or require proof of vaccination will find their profits dissipate faster than Trump’s lead in swing states at 3:00 am. If you were to believe the fake news media and government drones, you would believe the majority have been vaccinated and the “anti-vaxxers” were a crazy conspiracy theorist minority. As with most things being fed to you daily, this is a big fat lie. The rational, resistant (not hesitant), critical thinking MAJORITY are done with this scamdemic. Biden and his handlers are being forced to throw in the towel, for now.

The propaganda press polluters of the truth are still selling a completely false narrative about the vaccines being the reason cases, hospitalizations and deaths have plummeted since January 1 of this year. The excess mortality rate in the country is now back below the averages from 2015 – 2019. The crash in death rates occurred while less than 15% of the population had been vaccinated. The bloviating about needing 70% of the population vaccinated to stop the pandemic is complete and utter bullshit.

Masks never protected anyone from infection and the vaccine is unnecessary to resume normal life. This flu follows the same infection pattern as the annual flu (which mysteriously disappeared from the globe in 2020-21) and has run its course. Vaccine rates per state are showing ZERO impact on the downward trend of cases and deaths. They are falling and have been falling with or without the vaccine.

The India variant and “surge” fear mongering has fallen on deaf ears as their death rate per 100,000 is only a fraction of the U.S. and U.K. These propaganda tactics have worn out their welcome. Very few are believing the feckless mainstream media miscreants. Their ratings are lower than whale shit.

No matter how hard they try to reinstall the fear, enough people are tired of this farce to derail further attempts at lockdowns, mask mandates and vaccine passport requirements. Every day with declining cases, vaccination rates, and deaths makes it harder for the Covidian cult medical tyrants to pretend there is a national emergency. Their sense of desperation is palpable. This sense of desperation is seen in their attempt to force this experimental therapy on children and their complete lack of concern or acknowledgement of the hundreds of thousands of adverse reactions and thousands of deaths attributed to their gene therapy experiments on human guinea pigs.

These medical experts and doctors seem to have forgotten the first rule of their Hippocratic Oath – DO NO HARM. More likely, they sold their souls to Big Pharma for big bucks. The science says 1 in 300,000 of children under 18 will die from Covid but based on actual data 3 in 300,000 will die from the vaccine. They are pushing these vaccines on children for profits, not for health reasons. Always follow the money.

I believe Solzhenitsyn’s famous quote about “how we burned in the camps later” regarding what would have happened if they resisted and killed their oppressors when they had the chance will be restated years from now when the long-term consequences of these experimental gene concoctions are felt by the children forced to participate in this evil experiment. If we had only resisted.

This is communism in a new repackaged marketing campaign, where Bernays’ propaganda techniques have been perfected through technological mind manipulation by Big Government conspiring with Big Tech and Big Business. The tripe of political correctness, wokeism, anti-racism, cancel culture, and fear of the annual flu has been taken to a level never seen before. Theodore Dalrymple captures the essence of this new communism.

“Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.” ― Theodore Dalrymple

Dalrymple is correct in pointing out how these modern communists use humiliation and shaming to ram their false narratives and authoritarian agendas down our throats through the power of fake news media and the Silicon Valley social media censorship tyrants. They blatantly flog provably false narratives through their media mouthpieces, disguised as impartial journalists, medical experts, university professors, and anyone the masses might look up to. Those who knowingly assent to these obvious lies have become just as evil as those telling the lies.

The lies have been piled high in the last year as the annual flu was weaponized to cover-up the disintegration of our financial system and as a means to fraudulently conduct a coup against a president; the deaths of two black law breakers were utilized to usher in the colossal lie of systematic racism bought into by woke corporations and college campuses across the world; a clearly stolen election was declared honest by those controlling the narrative; lockdowns and masks were pronounced to be the only way to slow the spread even though all data refutes those assertions; an armed insurrection (with no arms) lie on January 6 has been used to wall off Washington DC and sell the big lie of white supremacy being a threat to the republic; the Federal Reserve creating trillions out of thin air and pumping it into the pockets of billionaires and Wall Street fat cats has not created raging inflation and an all-time high in wealth inequality according to the talking heads on CNBC and the rest of the fake news media complex; emergency use authorized vaccines were the only solution to a flu that doesn’t kill 99.8% of those infected, even though ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine have proven to be effective and safe in combating covid; and lastly these vaccines have been declared safe even though they are killing and maiming thousands and no one knows the long term effects on those who have chosen to be their lab rats.

We have become a society of emasculated liars, purposely deceiving ourselves because we are too cowardly to admit we have been had by those ruling over us with an iron fist. As a society we have decided resistance is futile and if we go along to get along, we will still be allowed to subsist, play with our techno-gadgets, and be sent stimmy checks, welfare payments, and be granted the ability to pay for stuff we cannot afford on credit. The willfully ignorant have chosen to become debt slaves and obey their masters, rather than resist tyranny and demand their independence from this dystopian nightmare we are currently living under.

We continue to elect corrupt politicians and willingly follow the orders of traitors, crooks, and despots, so we have become collaborators, rather than casualties. As a society we do not want the responsibility of freedom and have gladly exchanged our liberties for the illusory chimera of security. Those controlling the levers of power have taken advantage of this cowardly trait to abscond with the nation’s wealth and keep the masses in constant fear of new bogeymen (terrorists, white supremacists, flu viruses, and now aliens).

As I observe what is happening over the last week or so, I fall back on the words of the patron saint of sanity in a world gone mad.

Everything our government tells us every day is a lie. Biden’s sudden reversal on masks, supposedly based on science, is a lie. The story about the DarkSide Russian hackers shutting down the Colonial pipeline is a lie. It is just as likely it was done by the CIA. If a pipeline can be hacked then voting machines can be hacked, but they continue to lie about that. Anyone with critical thinking skills knows this virus came from a Wuhan bio-lab, which was funded by Fauci to develop these gain of function viruses. Fauci lied to Congress and has lied to the American public since February 2020 about masks, lockdowns, risks, and vaccines. They are lying about vaccine effectiveness and risks.

Every time Jerome Powell or one of his Fed cronies opens their mouth, they are lying. Anyone with any financial acumen knows stock, bond, crypto, housing, and virtually all markets are experiencing the biggest bubble in world history, but the financial “experts” tell you to buy before it is too late. They are lying because they are paid handsomely to do so. Lies about the selfie insurrection in the Capitol continue unabated. Biden and his handlers have been lying about their man made purposeful border crisis. Lies about Dominion voting machines and rigged election results are perpetrated by the paid hacks on CNN, MSNBC and even Fox, every day. The lies will continue until morale improves, or the ruling class can abscond with another trillion or so.

This pandemic is over. It has served its purpose to those in power. Biden is now playing the part of President Snow in Hunger Games by giving the plebs a little hope. Dangling the return to relative normalcy in exchange for being jabbed with their DNA altering cocktail is the latest narrative being peddled to the sheep. Many have or will make that trade. But, as of now, the majority are not falling for it. My hope is the spark is not contained and that good men and women do not stand idly by while evil continues to flourish. It is time for decent human beings to stand up and be counted and not allow a darkness to settle upon this nation, ushered in by the likes of Gates, Schwab, Soros, Obama, Biden, Bloomberg and their ilk.

The ruling class would prefer a Hunger Games plot where they continue to pit groups against each other: blacks versus whites, masked versus un-masked, vaxxed versus unvaxxed, liberal versus conservative, men versus women, modestly rich versus poor, taxed versus untaxed, and neighbor against neighbor. They want us fighting each other so we do not realize they are the true enemy.

This entire plandemic was a test to see how far they could push us before we pushed back. As a nation, we failed the test miserably. They are loosening the reins for now, but they now know they can force the masses to cower and beg for safety and security. They are supremely confident they can easily manipulate the masses, based once again on using the Big Lie method.

Recent developments make me suspicious something big is happening and the narrative is going to take a dramatic turn. First the take down of Cuomo by a previously fawning press and now the man who bankrolled the pandemic, creepy Bill Gates, is in the process of being taken down over his relationship with the king of pedophilia – Jeffrey Epstein (who didn’t kill himself). Fauci is about to be thrown to the wolves over his funding of the Wuhan bio-weapon lab. All the pandemic superstars are being cast aside.

Why now? Crucial infrastructure is supposedly being hacked. War is breaking out in the Middle East. Saber rattling between China – Taiwan and Russia – Ukraine is provoking worries of global conflict. Raging commodity inflation, labor shortages, and financial markets giving signs of an imminent crash could be the trigger for the next leg down in this shitshow portion of the Fourth Turning. Something big is coming and I expect it will happen before the 2022 elections. If you thought the last year was bad, you ain’t seen nothing yet. But don’t worry, the planet will be fine.

“We’re so self-important. So arrogant. Everybody’s going to save something now. Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save the snails. And the supreme arrogance? Save the planet! Are these people kidding? Save the planet? We don’t even know how to take care of ourselves; we haven’t learned how to care for one another. We’re gonna save the f***in’ planet? And, by the way, there’s nothing wrong with the planet in the first place. The planet is fine. The people are f***ed! Compared with the people, the planet is doin’ great. It’s been here over four billion years. The planet isn’t goin’ anywhere, folks. We are! We’re goin’ away. Pack your shit, we’re goin’ away. And we won’t leave much of a trace. Thank God for that. Nothing left. Maybe a little Styrofoam. The planet will be here, and we’ll be gone. Another failed mutation; another closed-end biological mistake.” - George Carlin

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

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