"Never More Frightening..."

"Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than

when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right."

~ Laurens van der Post

○

"In 'The Republic', Plato imagines human beings chained for the duration of their lives in an underground cave, knowing nothing but darkness. Their gaze is confined to the cave wall, upon which shadows of the world are thrown. They believe these flickering shadows are reality. If, Plato writes, one of these prisoners is freed and brought into the sunlight, he will suffer great pain. Blinded by the glare, he is unable to seeing anything and longs for the familiar darkness. But eventually his eyes adjust to the light. The illusion of the tiny shadows is obliterated. He confronts the immensity, chaos, and confusion of reality. The world is no longer drawn in simple silhouettes. But he is despised when he returns to the cave. He is unable to see in the dark as he used to. Those who never left the cave ridicule him and swear never to go into the light lest they be blinded as well."

- Chris Hedges

The Daily "Near You?"

Port-of-spain, Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago

Thanks for stopping by!

"Sometimes..."

 

"Life..."

"Life is not what you see, but what you've projected.

It's not what you've felt, but what you've decided.

It's not what you've experienced, but how you've remembered it.

It's not what you've forged, but what you've allowed.

And it's not who's appeared, but who you've summoned.

And this should serve you well until you find what you already have."

- The Universe

Greg Hunter, "Fed Kills the Economy – Michael Pento"

"Fed Kills the Economy – Michael Pento"

by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"Money manager and economist Michael Pento warns to keep your eyes on the Fed. It will be responsible for the next market crash coming this year or next. Just look what happened after the most recent Fed meeting last week. Pento says, “After the June FOMC meeting, the Fed talking about tapering sent stock prices skidding. When they actually announce they are tapering, and when they actually announce a date for tapering that, I believe, will be in August at Jackson Hole, the market will sell off absolutely.”

The Fed has been propping up the markets with massive amounts of printed money since the financial meltdown of 2008. Something has changed, and Pento points out, “Now, the inflation has become such a problem that even the Fed can no longer ignore it. Now, the calculation goes like this: Either the economy will slow significantly on its own to slow the rate of inflation, which will cause the earnings per share to collapse and the stock market will collapse, or the Fed is going to kill it for you. There has been an epiphany, a watershed moment at the Fed, they are all starting to notice the inflation. Even the core rate of inflation has gotten out of hand, and they have to address it. They can’t ignore it, and this is the big watershed change. I cannot stress this enough. The big change is the success of creating 2% inflation, which is now well over double what the Fed wants it to be.” They wanted 2%, and it’s now over 5%. The Fed is going to kill the economy or the economy is going to roll over on its own. I think it’s going to be both.”

What’s coming next? Pento warns, “I think the Fed is going to taper asset purchases just as the monetary cliff kicks in. In that case, watch out. They are losing control of the monetary system. They are losing control of inflation. They are losing control of asset prices. They are losing control of the fiat currency system. They are losing control of everything.”

In closing, Pento says, “We are going to go through iterations of inflation and then rapid and devastating deflation. And with each iteration, the bubble gets bigger and the amount of debt grows exponentially. Do we have one more left or two more left? I don’t know, but I am calling for a rapid and violent deflationary bust of asset prices probably early in 2022. At some point, bond market yields spike out of control. That is not happening yet. After that, you are going to see a problem with helicopter money like we have never seen before and inflation like we have never seen before.”

Pento also says he’s long term bullish on gold and short term bullish on the dollar, too. He explains in detail in the 55 minute interview."

- https://usawatchdog.com/

"Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One with economist and 

money manager Michael Pento, founder of Pento Portfolio Strategies."

- https://rumble.com/

"How to Remember You're Alive"

"How to Remember You're Alive"

by David Cain

"One way to appreciate virtually any moment of your life is to pretend that the whole thing is already over. Your life came and went a long time ago, but for some reason you’ve just been sent back to this random moment, here in this office chair, or in line at Home Depot.

It isn’t clear why you’ve been sent back. Maybe it was a cosmic accounting error, or a boon from a playful God. All you know is that you’re here again, walking the earth, having been inexplicably returned to the temporary and mysterious state of Being Alive.

Any moment will do for this experiment. In fact, the more mundane the moment, the more profound the effect. You might find yourself, in this instance, pushing a cart through the frozen foods aisle. Or maybe you’re seated in front of a bowl of cereal at the speckled Formica breakfast table you bought on Craigslist. Or you’re carrying a bag of recycling down the back stairwell on a muggy night. It’s definitely your life though, and at least for now, you get to be alive again.

When you view life as something you’re returning to — rather than something that has never not been happening — it feels like the gift it perhaps always should. It’s just so damn interesting to be alive and experiencing things, and choosing what to do during those experiences.

Seeing life as the curious and rare condition it is gives even ordinary events the character of a brilliant film. An oblong rectangle of sunlight on the table flutters with the shadows of leaves. While you fold laundry, your phone lights up: a friend texting you a cheesy pun she knows you will appreciate. A short-lived party of bubbles appears and disappears when you fill a glass of water from the tap. A thin mist pours from the open freezer display onto your sandaled feet. It’s all spectacular, just because it’s happening, and once it’s over you would greatly miss it if you could. So why not miss it now? Or at least understand why you would.

The state of Being Alive also comes with a rich and distinct sense of possibility. You can make any number of interesting things happen by sheer will. You can scrawl sentences on a scrap of paper that will trigger certain thoughts later, for you or someone else. You can touch a few buttons on your phone and be speaking to any of a hundred people you know, and whatever is said would change each other’s day, or life, in some way. You could clean the house this afternoon, or leave it messy, and each option would give a different shape to the evening.

Can you believe that this condition – of being in the world, of feeling stuff and doing stuff - was once happening all the time? Remember being able to open windows and pet dogs and wash your hands in warm water? What an amazing time that was. No matter what happened, whether life was decidedly going “well” or not, it was always so eventful, and you got to decide what to do in each moment of it.

It’s all over, of course, which is too bad. You didn’t realize at the time how small a window it was, and you can’t believe you spent a lot of it complaining. However, for right now at least, for some reason, you’re back. You have at least this moment to enjoy being alive. There may be more coming afterward, but you can’t count on that. Not this time anyway.

Except in moments of extreme emotional tilt, this exercise always seems to work. I can almost always, when I think of it, choose to see the current moment as a certain kind of an unexpected gift - a long-awaited return to the most interesting thing ever, which is being alive.

It works because if it were true - you really had just been sent back to the realm of the living - chances are you really would think it’s unutterably great to be here, even if you didn’t the first time. By mentally jumping out of life and then back in, it becomes clear that the experience of being alive really is a profoundly interesting thing, and we can live with an ongoing awareness of that. That few seconds of contemplation reframes virtually any moment as the best thing that can happen: you, enjoying a rich pocket of Being Alive Right Now, amidst a vast universe that is almost entirely not that.

At least, it becomes interesting when you’re aware that there’s no reason any of this should necessarily be the case. There will not always be things happening. You will not always have the ability to experience the world and respond how you please. But - by the grace of whoever - you do right now. Whatever the metaphysics of it really is, the point is that the window is small, and if you’re in it right now, that should probably be regarded as a profoundly lucky thing, whether it’s your first time here or you’ve been sent back for another tour.

However, because the window is open continuously until it’s closed for good, it’s hard to feel the luckiness of being alive while life is still happening. This is one way to contact that sense of good fortune reliably - see the moment as an inexplicable return to the wild and spectacular condition of Being Alive, which was once so abundant you forgot to appreciate it. This experience you’re having right now, of being here in a body, experiencing the world and choosing how to respond - is gone, and by the Law of Joni Mitchell, you only now know what you had. But by some unbelievable stroke of luck, here it is again."

- https://www.raptitude.com/

"How It Really, Crazily, Is"

 

The Poet: Henry Austin Dobson, “The Paradox Of Time”

“The Paradox Of Time”

“Time goes, you say? Ah no! 

Alas, Time stays, we go; 

Or else, were this not so, 

What need to chain the hours, 

For Youth were always ours? 

Time goes, you say? – ah no! 

Ours is the eyes’ deceit 

Of men whose flying feet 

Lead through some landscape low; 

We pass, and think we see 

The earth’s fixed surface flee - 

Alas, Time stays, – we go! 

Once in the days of old, 

Your locks were curling gold, 

And mine had shamed the crow. 

Now, in the self-same stage, 

We’ve reached the silver age; 

Time goes, you say? – ah no! 

Once, when my voice was strong, 

I filled the woods with song 

To praise your ‘rose’ and ‘snow’; 

My bird, that sang, is dead; 

Where are your roses fled? 

Alas, Time stays, – we go! 

See, in what traversed ways, 

What backward Fate delays 

The hopes we used to know; 

Where are our old desires? 

Ah, where those vanished fires? 

Time goes, you say? – ah no! 

How far, how far, O Sweet, 

The past behind our feet 

Lies in the even-glow! 

Now, on the forward way, 

Let us fold hands, and pray; 

Alas, Time stays, – we go!”

- Henry Austin Dobson

○

“Time passes in moments. Moments which, rushing past, define the path of a life, just as surely as they lead towards its end. How rarely do we stop to examine that path, to see the reasons why all things happen? To consider whether the path we take in life is our own making, or simply one into which we drift with eyes closed? But what if we could stop, pause to take stock of each precious moment before it passes? Might we then see the endless forks in the road that have shaped a life? And, seeing those choices, choose another path?”

- Gillian Anderson as Dana Scully, “The X-Files”

○

The Alan Parsons Project, "Time"

"Why Are Large Numbers Of Birds Suddenly Dropping Dead In Multiple U.S. States?"

"Why Are Large Numbers Of Birds Suddenly 

Dropping Dead In Multiple U.S. States?"

by Michael Snyder

"As if we didn’t have enough weird things going on, now birds are suddenly dropping dead in large numbers all across the eastern half of the country. Before they die, a lot of these birds are exhibiting very strange symptoms. Experts are telling us that in many cases birds are developing “crusty or puffy eyes”, and often they appear to go completely blind. In addition, quite a few of these dying birds lose their ability to stay balanced, and we are being told that some even seem to be having “seizures”. If scientists understood what was causing this to happen, that would be one thing. But at this point they have no idea why this is taking place, and that is quite alarming.

So far, confirmed incidents of this strange phenomenon have been documented in Washington D.C., Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana. Could it be possible that we are dealing with a “mystery disease” that started in one state and that has now spread to other surrounding states? Or is something else going on here?

We are being told that “blue jays, common grackles and European starlings” are the most common birds that are being affected. But whatever is happening is not just limited to one species of birds, and I think that should be a red flag.

If our best experts even had a decent working theory about why so many birds are dying, I probably would not have written this article. But at this point they are openly admitting that they have absolutely no idea why so many birds are suddenly dropping dead… “We’re experiencing an unusual amount of bird mortality this year,” said Kate Slankard, an avian biologist with the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. “We have yet to figure out what the problem is. The condition seems to be pretty deadly.”

In Kentucky, the bird deaths seem to have begun in late May. The following comes directly from the official website of the Kentucky Department of Fish & Wildlife Resources… "In late May, the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources began receiving reports of sick and dying birds with eye swelling and crusty discharge, as well as neurological signs. Wildlife agencies in Indiana, Maryland, Ohio, Virginia, Washington, D.C. and West Virginia have reported similar problems.

State wildlife agencies are working with diagnostic laboratories to investigate the cause of mortality. Kentucky Fish and Wildlife has sent more than 20 samples for lab testing to the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study at the University of Georgia. More results are pending, but no definitive cause of death has been identified at this time."

After testing 20 samples, they still have no idea what is going on. According to Slankard, “hundreds of birds” in her state have now become victims… “They’ll just sit still, often kind of shaking,” Slankard said. “It’s pretty safe to say that hundreds of birds in the state have had this problem.” But of course the truth is that we have no way of knowing how many birds have actually been affected. It could be thousands of birds in the state. It could be hundreds of thousands. We just don’t know, and Kentucky is just one of the states that has been hit.

In Indiana, authorities tested for avian flu and West Nile virus, but those tests came back negative… "Indiana wildlife officials said there have been suspicious deaths of blue jays, robins, northern cardinals and brown-headed cowbirds in five counties. James Brindle, spokesman for the state’s Department of Natural Resources, said birds there have tested negative for avian influenza and West Nile virus."

One theory that is floating around is that these birds are ingesting large amounts of pesticides because of all the cicadas that they are eating. Some experts are flatly dismissing that theory because “the disease has also appeared in states where cicadas are not present”. But how can they be so sure that it is a disease if they have absolutely no idea why this is happening?

I don’t think that we should jump to any conclusions that are not backed up by science. Obviously a lot more testing needs to be done. If it does turn out to be a disease that is causing this, is it a disease that can also spread to humans? Moving forward, that could be one of the most important questions that needs to be answered. Hopefully we can get some solid answers, because this is not the first time something like this has happened. Back in September, one expert said that it appeared that “hundreds of thousands” of birds were dropping dead in New Mexico…

"Wildlife experts in New Mexico say birds in the region are dropping dead in alarming numbers, potentially in the “hundreds of thousands.” “It appears to be an unprecedented and a very large number,” Martha Desmond, a professor at New Mexico State University’s department of fish, wildlife, and conservation ecology, told NBC’s Albuquerque affiliate KOB."

But whatever was causing those deaths to happen in New Mexico seems to have stopped. Is there any connection between that event and the deaths that are happening in the eastern half of the country now? I wish that I had the answer to that question.

We live at a time when pesticides, high technology and other forms of human activity are having a greater impact on birds and animals than ever before. But we have also entered an era when I believe that great pestilences are going to become very common. Obviously something is killing all those birds, and hopefully scientists will have something solid to tell us very soon. With each passing day, our world is getting crazier, and so much is going wrong all around us. Many are hoping that 2020 and 2021 will just turn out to be anomalies, but I am entirely convinced that they are just the very small tip of a very large iceberg."

- http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

Gregory Mannarino, AM 6/23/21: "Important Updates"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 6/23/21:

"Important Updates: 

Stock Market, Gold, Silver, Crypto, Dollar, Crude, MORE"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"Shortage Of Everything Is Here! Prices Are Soaring: Prepare Yourself For Panic And Chaos!"

Full screen recommended.

"Shortage Of Everything Is Here! Prices Are Soaring: 

Prepare Yourself For Panic And Chaos!"

by Epic Economist

"If 2020 was the year the health crisis tumbled the economy, 2021 is the year of stressed supply chains, widespread shortages, and rampant inflation. Most of the U.S. industries are still feeling the cascading effect of global supply chain disruptions, rising commodity prices, soaring freight costs, a computer chip shortage, and now an acute labor shortage is threatening to hold back the economic recovery for much longer than expected. From cyberattacks to extreme weather to panic buying, our supply chains have experienced one major challenge after the other. But while inventories have been at all-time lows, pent-up demand and skyrocketing container prices are pushing consumer prices to sky-highs. That's why you should start stocking up on food supplies right now because experts are alerting that prices are about to explode.

Economists have been warning that grocers will have no hesitation about passing on those increased costs to consumers. In fact, grocery stores are not only passing on the bill of rising commodity and freight prices to shoppers but also testing their limits to see how much they can send prices up before demand starts cooling and they effectively start losing money. Consumer prices for food increased by 2.2% in May, compared to the same time in 2020. The price of pork, seafood, fruits, vegetables, and milk, all jumped between 1.9% and 9%. Higher milk prices and a shortage of other ingredients and supplies are affecting even Starbucks, making it hard for consumers to get their favorite drink. In the company's app, the first thing you see is a pop-up that reads, “Sorry for the inconvenience, some items are temporarily unavailable". Just like many other chains, the company is having to remove some products from the menu because prices are just too high to turn a profit.

But that’s just one sign of how deep this crisis is getting. Supply chain problems are affecting almost every industry from Starbucks to cars to pretty much every sector you can think of. And adding transportation issues to product shortages and soaring demand, the result is very painful inflation for American consumers. As food prices continue to surge, beef and pork have been leading the rise. Pork prices jumped 2.6 percent in the month of April and 4.8 percent from a year ago, adjusting for seasonality. While beef and veal prices went up by 3.3 percent from a year ago, according to data released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis on Friday.

After a cyberattack shut down one of the biggest meat processing plants in the U.S., the decline in meat production dropped to the lowest level recorded since 1996, and since meat and pork production have been dwindling since last year, and stockpiles in cold storages have significantly shrunk, meat shortages might get a whole lot worse this summer as demand has already increased 7.7 percent this year. While retailers are running out of a wide range of products, from bicycles to hot tubs and most notably - since they weigh so heavily in retail sales - new and used vehicles, this mess is still showing up on inventories. A recent report released by the Census Bureau exposed that inventories at retailers, from grocery stores to new and used vehicle dealers, plunged to $602 billion in April, marking the lowest inventory-sales ratio in the history of data going back to 1992.

And if you think things might improve throughout the year and inventories might get restocked, according to meteorologists an above-average hurricane season is likely to worsen U.S. supply chain woes this year. Todd Crawford, chief meteorologist at The Weather Company, says that there will be at least 19 named storms, eight hurricanes, and four major hurricanes in the outlook. However, as Convoy's Terrazas pointed out, hurricanes won't be the only disasters that will affect supply lines this summer. "We're obviously watching all kinds of weather. It's not just hurricane season, but it's also shaping up to be a pretty active Western drought and wildfire season. Basically, the Western half of the United States is in severe drought at this point already," he said.

For that reason, the best way to fight against such catastrophic shortages and insane price hikes is to prepare in advance for potential disruptions, especially when natural disasters are looming. "The sooner you get your bottled water and your canned food needs in your garage or in your basement, you're going to be prepared for whenever it strikes and put less stress on supply chains through last-minute shopping," Terrazas concluded. So get your emergency supplies ready before a threat arises and, of course, before they become too expensive. We should be prepared for the perfect storm that is coming because once it hits there's going to be a mad rush all over the country."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com​

Gerald Celente, "Trends Journal: Stock Market Crash, The Bankster's Gang Gamble"

Gerald Celente,

"Trends Journal: Stock Market Crash, 

The Bankster's Gang Gamble"

- https://trendsresearch.com/

“California Bailout; The Market Must Crash; Gambling On Ponzi themes; Greed Is A Killer”

Jeremiah Babe, PM 6/22/21:

“California Bailout; The Market Must Crash; 

Gambling On Ponzi Schemes; Greed Is A Killer”

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

"I Am That..."

 

Chet Raymo, “Trying To Be Good”

“Trying To Be Good”

by Chet Raymo

“A few lines from Mary Oliver's poem "Wild Geese":

    "You do not have to be good.
    You do not have to walk on your knees
    for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
    You only have to let the soft animal of your body
    love what it loves."

"I've quoted these lines before, if not here, then elsewhere. When I first read them back in the late 80s, they resonated with what I felt at the time. I had spent part of my earliest adulthood walking on my knees, both literally and metaphorically, seeking to tame what I took to be the animal within. Saint Augustine was whispering in my ear, and Bernanos' gloomy country priest walked at my side. I was ready to follow Thomas Merton into the desert; indeed, I once took myself briefly to the monastery at Gethsemane, Kentucky, where Merton was in residence.

That was a journey of more than a hundred miles, and I was busy repenting, although of what I don't know.

As I read those lines from Mary Oliver in middle age, I had long been cultivating the "soft animal" within, immersing myself in the is-ness of things, the flesh and blood, the gorgeously sensual. No more walking on my knees, repenting. I walked proudly upright, with my sketchbook and my watercolors, my binoculars and my magnifier, sniffing the world like an animal on the prowl. I was letting my body learn to "love what it loves." Those were the years I wrote "The Soul of the Night" and "Honey From Stone" - the most intensely creative years of my life. The world offered itself to my imagination, if I may borrow another line from "Wild Geese."

And now, another half-lifetime has passed. The soft animal dozes, the body seeks repose. And I think of the first line quoted above: "You do not have to be good." What could the poet have possibly meant by that? Of course one has to be good. In a cell at Gethsemane or on the bridge over Queset Brook, one has to be good. And so one tries, one tries. The soft animal of the body that nature has contrived for us is not fine-tuned for goodness.”

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

•

“Wild Geese”

"You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things."

- Mary Oliver

The Daily "Near You?"

Mound, Minnesota, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

Gregory Mannarino, PM 6/22/21: "The Fed. Again Promises To Buy It All. "Not Concerned" About Inflation"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 6/22/21:

"The Fed. Again Promises To Buy It All. 

"Not Concerned" About Inflation"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"On The Mean Streets Of America, The Gun Battles Never Seem To End…"

"On The Mean Streets Of America, 

The Gun Battles Never Seem To End…"

by Michael Snyder

"Did you know that 296 mass shootings have happened in the United States this year? Needless to say, the vast majority of the mass shootings are taking place in our core urban areas, and at this point many of our largest cities are becoming open war zones. We desperately need more law enforcement officers on the streets, and as I wrote about yesterday, even some of our most liberal cities are now racing to “re-fund” the police. Crime rates spiked dramatically all over the nation in 2020, and they are skyrocketing even higher in 2021. But if you think that things have been bad so far, just wait, because we are being warned that “a bloody summer” is on the way…

“The spike in homicides and nonfatal shootings is extremely alarming,” said Miami Police Chief Art Acevedo, who recently left the Houston Police Department and leads the Major Cities Chiefs Association, an organization of law enforcement executives. “One of the reasons we talk about a bloody summer ahead for our country is because it’s already been a very bloody year, a very deadly year for Americans.”

There is usually more violent crime when the weather is warmer, and we have definitely seen that so far here in the month of June.

Mass shootings are considered to be incidents in which at least four people are wounded, and during this past weekend we witnessed mass shootings in New Jersey, Colorado, Indiana, Virginia, Alaska, Louisiana, Minnesota, Texas and California. They are happening with such frequency now that each one barely makes a blip in the news before the next one happens.

To me, the most disturbing incident during the weekend took place in Chicago… "And in another deadly shooting in the city on Saturday night, two individuals were attacked by a group of men after a crash took place at Humboldt Park, prompting a large crowd to surround Gyovanny Arzuaga’s vehicle. He and his girlfriend, Yasmin Perez, were attending a Puerto Rican People’s Day parade in the park, Newsweek reported, when a group of two or three gunmen ambushed them and opened fire. A video of the incident, posted to Twitter, purportedly shows Arzuaga surrounded by a group of men, who leave him lying unresponsive on the ground."

Words cannot really convey the true horror of that attack. If you have not seen the video footage yet, you can watch it right here. When I first watched it, I could hardly believe what I was seeing. There has always been violence in our streets, but nothing like this. What in the world is happening to our country?

Overall, the number of shootings in the city of Chicago is up 18 percent so far this year. I know that sounds bad, but other major cities are seeing much larger spikes. In Philadelphia, the number of shootings is up 27 percent so far this year. It is supposed to be “the city of brotherly love”, but it is rapidly becoming one of the most dangerous places in America.

In Atlanta, the number of shootings is up 40 percent so far this year. But at least the Hawks are doing well, right?

In Los Angeles, the number of shootings is up 51 percent so far this year. Crime is now the number one political issue in the L.A. area, and even tourist areas such as Venice Beach are being totally trashed.

In New York City, the number of shootings is up 64 percent so far this year. As I discussed yesterday, in the Big Apple running gun battles even happen during broad daylight these days.

In Minneapolis, the number of shootings is up 90 percent so far this year. I spent a lot of time in Minneapolis growing up, because I have a lot of relatives in the area. I can’t believe how far that once beautiful city has now fallen. But there is one major city that even has Minneapolis beat.

In Portland, the number of shootings is up 126 percent so far this year. Everywhere you look, there is chaos and violence, and what we have been through so far is just the beginning. It is almost as if a significant percentage of the population has gone completely and totally nuts over the past couple of years. In this sort of an environment, you never know what some crazy person might do. Here is just one example… "A Bel Air homeowner is in shock after coming face to face with a violent naked man who broke into his house and killed the family pets. Mat Sabz was home alone Thursday afternoon when his wife called to tell him that security cameras showed a naked man breaking into their home."

You have got to be really sick to want to kill somebody’s pets. Sadly, right now there are vast numbers of really sick people running around out there, and many of them would kill you and your family without even thinking twice about it.

Up to this point in 2021, a total of 20,729 Americans have died as a result of gun violence, and by the time most of you read this article that number will inevitably be even higher. Ironically, many of the cities that have the strictest gun laws also have some of the highest murder rates.

In Chicago, the number of gang members is more than ten times greater than the number of law enforcement officers, and that is causing enormous problems. The politicians can pass as many laws as they want, but violent criminals are going to remain heavily armed and they are going to retain the upper hand for the foreseeable future.

Of course Chicago is far from alone. Violent criminals are gaining the upper hand in communities all over the country, and meanwhile police officers are resigning in record numbers from coast to coast after being relentlessly demonized by the mainstream media for months on end.

Our society really is coming apart at the seams all around us. Unfortunately, most Americans still do not understand what is happening. Most Americans still assume that things will eventually “return to normal”, but a “return to normal” is simply not in the cards."

- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/