2002, “Land of Forever”
So, we rise from the rubble...
Tuesday, July 6, 2021
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Do you see the horse's head? What you are seeing is not the famous Horsehead nebula toward Orion but rather a fainter nebula that only takes on a familiar form with deeper imaging. The main part of the here imaged molecular cloud complex is a reflection nebula cataloged as IC 4592. Reflection nebulas are actually made up of very fine dust that normally appears dark but can look quite blue when reflecting the visible light of energetic nearby stars.
In this case, the source of much of the reflected light is a star at the eye of the horse. That star is part of Nu Scorpii, one of the brighter star systems toward the constellation of the Scorpion (Scorpius). A second reflection nebula dubbed IC 4601 is visible surrounding two stars to the right of the image center."
The Poet: Mary Oliver, "What I Have Learned So Far"
"What I Have Learned So Far"
"Meditation is old and honorable, so why should I
not sit, every morning of my life, on the hillside,
looking into the shining world? Because, properly
attended to, delight, as well as havoc, is suggestion.
Can one be passionate about the just, the
ideal, the sublime, and the holy, and yet commit
to no labor in its cause? I don't think so.
All summations have a beginning, all effect has a
story, all kindness begins with the sown seed.
Thought buds toward radiance. The gospel of
light is the crossroads of - indolence, or action.
Be ignited, or be gone."
~ Mary Oliver
"Homeowners In Danger, Foreclosures Inevitable; Dollar Collapse Imminent; Cost Of Living Skyrockets"
Jeremiah Babe, PM 7/6/21:
"Homeowners In Danger, Foreclosures Inevitable;
Dollar Collapse Imminent; Cost Of Living Skyrockets"
Gerald Celente, "Trends in The News"
Full screen recommended.
Gerald Celente, "Trends in The News"
"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present Facts and Truth over hype and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for What’s Next in the increasingly turbulent times ahead."
"Curveballs..."
"Just when we think we figured things out, the universe throws us a curveball. So, we have to improvise. We find happiness in unexpected places. We find ourselves back to the things that matter the most. The universe is funny that way. Sometimes it just has a way of making sure we wind up exactly where we belong."
- "Dr. Meredith Grey", "Grey's Anatomy"
"Grotesque Shape of Things to Come"
"Grotesque Shape of Things to Come"
by Bill Bonner
YOUGHAL, IRELAND – "The Sunday papers raised the alarm about “Global Climate Change.” Apparently, people are sweltering almost everywhere – from Dubai to Canada. The newspapers showed frightening maps, with most of the Northern Hemisphere – like Hell itself – colored bright red. Some columnists claimed that large parts of the Earth could soon be uninhabitable if action weren’t taken. Others were confident that we could turn down the world’s thermostat, if we just put our minds to it; that is, if we got behind the elite’s program for climate regulation. “The Ecological and Solidarity Transition,” the French call it. “The Green New Deal,” is how they’re describing it in the U.S.
Liberation: But here in Ireland, it’s hard to get too worked up about the heat. July the 4th was much like every other summer day – with the temperature in the 60s and showers that made it seem even cooler. On the apocalypse maps, Ireland was light green.
Almost every family in Ireland has relatives – often very distant – in America. The 4th of July holiday is well known. Even our minister mentioned it in his sermon at mass on Sunday. “This is America’s Independence Day,” he began, “the day they celebrate their liberation from Britain. And, of course, we got the message on this side of the Atlantic, too, that we could liberate Ireland from Britain. It took another 146 years.
And yes, we can liberate ourselves from a government. We can change the people who rule us – either by force of arms or simply by voting for a different candidate. But we can’t change who we are… or the fundamental rules by which we live. Those rules were never voted on… and never fought over. You can deny them. You can ignore them. But you can’t liberate yourself from them. They are part of who we are… and what we are.”
You can ignore the laws of economics, he might have added. But you can’t ignore the consequences of ignoring them. You can “print” all the money you want, for example. You can manipulate prices. You can run trillion-dollar deficits. You can pay people for not working… and keep zombie businesses alive with “stimmy” money.
Elite Thinking: The elite of a society are supposed to think about these things. About the future. About consequences. About the lessons of the past. About the electric bill, when you leave the lights on… and about what happens when you give a trucker the finger or spend all your money on lottery tickets.
The proles may exercise their muscles… toting that barge and lifting that bale… But the 10% should use their brains. They should be rational… aware of history. They are supposed to lead, not follow. They are supposed to remember dangers and help the society avoid them. They should calm the mob… and throw cold water on irrational exuberance. They are supposed to do good, not just do well for themselves. They are supposed to think about consequences. What amazes us is how little real thinking the thinkers do.
In ancient Ireland, the Brehon Law established that there were five classes of people. The elites were kings and nobles, but included free people with property… and the thinkers. The “ollambh,” or ollave, were the highest class of thinkers… the “professors.” A “shanachie”’ was a professor of history. He was supposed to know consequences… and make sure the kings remembered them, too.
Patrick Weston Joyce’s "A Smaller Social History of Ancient Ireland", explains: "As a Shanachie or Historian, the ollave was understood to be specially learned in History, Chronology, Antiquities, and Genealogies of Ireland… He should know by heart 350 Historical and Romantic Stories. He was supposed to know the prerogatives, rights, duties, restrictions, tributes, etc. of the king of Ireland and of the provincial kings. As a learned man, he was expected to answer reasonable questions and explain difficulties. Once admitted to the coveted ranks, the guerdon was splendid; for he was highly honored, had many privileges and received princely rewards and presents."
Mr. Joyce then seems to have described the arc of life for all elites… But as might be expected, they often abused their position and privileges by unreasonable demands, so that many of them, while admired for their learning, came to be feared and hated for their arrogance.
Power Corrupts: What every group wants is more power… more status… and more wealth. An elite has power. Left unchecked, power corrupts it. It becomes arrogant. Then, it is very hard to resist using the government to get what it wants. That is the story, grosso modo, that we follow every day – in which America’s elite, funded by fake money, has become corrupt, incompetent, and self-serving. Instead of helping us remember the lessons of the past, it wants us to forget… and to believe that the ancient laws no longer apply. The elite has stopped thinking, in other words. More proof tomorrow…"
"The Genesis Of Our American Collective Meltdown"
"The Genesis Of Our American Collective Meltdown"
by Victor Davis Hanson
"This Fourth of July holiday we might have paused for a moment from our festivities to ask how we collectively lost our minds over the last 15 months - and are we yet regaining any semblance of our sanity?
A pandemic caused by the leak of a Chinese-engineered virus and its coverup was cause enough for nationwide madness. But the spread of COVID–19 was followed by a nationalized and often politicized “flatten-the-curve” quarantine that soon ensured a stir-crazy nation. Tens of millions saw no people, and heard nothing human other than what was fed to them through television and computers. No wonder they grew paranoid, conspiratorial, and angry, and soon forgot the therapeutic nature of personal interaction and the shared humanity of being in the physical presence of others.
Our first self-induced recession came next and lasted over a year, destroying all the hard work of the prior three years. Next ensued the death of George Floyd and a subsequent 120 days of rioting, looting, and arson. The immediate costs were $2 billion in damage, over 25 deaths, 14,000 arrests, and a Lord of the Flies anarchy with no-go zones in our major cities. A McCarthyite frenzy followed, as remote-controlled America hunted down the supposed “racists” among us - while career agendas, personal grudges, and ideological hatred fueled the cancel culture.
All this was antecedent to our first election in which Election Day voting was incidental, not essential, to the outcome. This was also our first presidential campaign in which the incumbent was stricken by a pandemic virus. And his opponent, due to his age and infirmity, simply reverted to the 19th century style of staying home and outsourcing the electioneering to the Democratic-media complex. Biden’s basement became the equivalent of the “front-porch” of homebound candidates of a century and more ago.
The derangement was then capped off, first, by a buffoonish riot at the Capitol followed by a Reichstag-fire style militarization of Washington, D.C., in a “never let a crisis go to waste” psychodrama. Then came a novel second and unprecedented presidential impeachment, without a special prosecutor, witnesses, or cross examinations. It was based on the myth of a deadly “armed insurrection” fueled by President Trump, which purportedly led to the murder of a police officer. Later most of the writs of the House impeachment were proven fantasies, from the idea of “armed” and “well-organized” to “murderous” revolutionaries. The only mysteries were the identity of the unnamed officer who fatally shot an unarmed female protester and military veteran, and why the government has still not released thousands of hours of video detailing the riot.
That impeachment charade was followed by a trial in the Senate - without the chief justice presiding - of a president, who was no longer in office.
The finale was the promise of a “moderate” good ol’ Joe Biden from Scranton - the supposed correction to Trump. In reality, Biden’s first 150 days proved, as the cynics predicted, that he was mere cover and conveyance for the implementation of the most radical agenda since the 1930s.
So we can cut America some slack when we ponder why the entire country is now descending into a collective madness, given the amount of propaganda and media distortion pumped out during the quarantine, and since.
The Chaos of Daily Living: Within the space of about 6 months in 2021, the costs of the essentials of life have skyrocketed - food, gasoline, housing, appliances, cars and trucks, and building materials. Non-ending streams of stimulus money, huge deficits, and pent-up demand so far have ensured that Americans would pay such spiking prices. And soon radical inflation may trigger 1970s stagflation and then recession, as the “why-go-to-work?” checks and consumer zeal finally cease, but the government printing machine keeps going. What good is free government money if spiraling prices eat away the entitlement?
California is the worst run of our states. But it is also always a helpful bellwether of where we are descending. The state has plenty of oil and natural gas. There are still remnants of a once thriving nuclear and hydroelectric industry. But power outages are now commonplace - to the point that, like Third-Worlders, we merely shrug when the lights go out as if it were a green way of reducing carbon emissions.
Forty million people driving on roads and highways intended for 20 million people - 27 percent of them not born in America - becomes a “Road-Warrior”-like wildness intended to discourage the kind of driving to which we became accustomed in the 20th century. Any trip over 200 miles cannot be calibrated by traditional “arrival times.” Ad hoc repairs on ancient roads paralyzes traffic not already slowed by accidents. Speeding and traffic violations are commonplace. Either the population ignores or does not know the law, or a paranoid law enforcement is reluctant to enforce the laws, or there are simply too few patrol cars responsible for too many drivers.
Gas can range from $4.00 to over $5.00 a gallon; $100 fill-ups are common. To go to a California Home Depot or Lowes store is to be amazed at grades of plywood priced at nearly $90 a sheet.
Californians are leaving in droves, but housing costs are still soaring. Californians love nice houses. But those who have them don’t like to allow anyone to build new ones for others.
A horrendous drought has dried up reservoirs and dropped the water tables of most aquifers. Privately, Californians know that it was madness not to build reservoirs, all cancelled over 30 years ago, or to allow the California Water Project’s infrastructure to decay, or to continue to allow scarce fresh water to flow into the sea, or not to invest in new technologies of underground water savings and storage.
But they also know that as long as the Bay Area’s activists have sufficient supplies of water (from their own early 20th century, far-seeing politicians who created the huge Hetch Hetchy transference and won first-dibs allotments from the subsequent California Water Project), they will continue to push green agendas, the disastrous consequences of which the elite avoid, given their own wealth and power.
High-speed rail is a tragic joke. It is inert and unfinished. The ostentatious half-built overpasses stand like modern graffiti-stained versions of Stonehenge. Its only ostensible purpose seems to have been a green plan to siphon money from road repair and expansion.
Mention San Francisco to a Californian, and the same, monotonous warnings arise: don’t go there! And if you must, don’t park there - since smashing into a car and stealing its contents are viewed as understandable redistribution rather than criminal acts. Others advise to check constantly the soles of your shoes: human and animal excrement is ubiquitous as the city’s sanitation regresses to something resembling Old Cairo or medieval London.
I drive often to the central Sierra. For the last 4 years the talk there was “Why don’t they do something about the millions of trees that have died from drought and bug infestation?” The locals now say of the incinerated forests “Why don’t they do something about the millions of those charred black trees?” Such sincere questions assume people matter more than ideology. They don’t.
In a state where defecation on the sidewalks apparently hurts no one, drought and fires consuming a forest are also OK - as long as it is likewise deemed a function of nature. In California, logging an acre of timber is insurrectionary; 400,000 acres going up in smoke is “stuff happens.”
Policies and Politicians: The truth is that the necessities of life - safety, affordability of the essentials, transportation, power, and fuel - are now iffy. If 15 years ago, Americans more or less saw each other as fellow citizens rather than as members of rival tribes, now they are resegregating into Dark Age bands. In place of oral bards and mythic sagas, we have dry and racist “critical race theory.”
There is no media credibility left after assuring us for years that the Steele dossier was the gold standard, that Robert Mueller’s dream team would prove “collusion,” that Donald Trump sicced the federal police on demonstrators for a cheap photo-op stunt, that Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation, and that only conspiracists could make a looney connection between COVID-19’s ground zero origins in Wuhan and a nearby level 4 virology lab, with ties to the Chinese military.
The current chaos of everyday life of course follows from national policy and politics. The streets are on a reverse trajectory into the 1970s, since crime is redefined as either tolerable collateral damage, “equity,” or a collective indictment of society rather than one of individual culpability. When mayors claim that burning a police precinct is a mere loss of “brick and mortar,” or taking over downtown Seattle is just part of a “summer of love,” or when the architect of the “1619 Project” claims looting is not violence, then crime is no longer crime.
The Left says it has not defunded the police because there are still police to be seen. But progressives have done something far more insidious: America has destroyed police deterrence by a year of anti-police venom, by prosecutors selectively and asymmetrically exempting the arrested, and by prompting police retirements, resignations or simple slowdowns. There is now in the minds of all big-city cops a constant cost-to-benefit calculation: going into the inner city has become a lose/lose/lose/lose/lose proposition in which a 911 call from the danger zone can get an officer killed, injured, fired, suspended, imprisoned, or rendered a fool, as the successfully arrested are summarily let go.
The country has gone mad with debt. Both parties are responsible for the massive spending. The Republican defense is that Democrats would spend even more - and, if they are lavishing entitlements to buy votes, why shouldn’t we? The Left’s excuse is not just the old idea of redistribution, but a new revolutionary myth that money and debt are really irrelevant constructs. A novel economic pseudoscience has revised or discarded the oppressive idea of having to pay back what was borrowed.
Traditionalists and conservatives always assumed that the military, the intelligence and investigatory agencies, and the prosecutorial industry were at least above politics, defenders of traditional and constitutional norms, and completely professional in their service.
No longer. There is now a new military-industrial-intelligence-legal complex. Its hierarchy is politically weaponized, and amply renumerated. The careers of John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, General Mark Milley and a score of retired 4-stars officers, Robert Mueller and his dream team, and the Department of Justice are characteristically determined and calibrated by politics rather than competence.
The usual consequences follow: half the country no longer trusts its once esteemed FBI, CIA, or military. And when these agencies veer from their assigned tasks, it is no wonder that they miss impending signs of terrorism in Boston, Fort Hood, and San Bernardino, had little clue that the “JVs” of ISIS were expanding in Iraq, and never really informed the American people about the costs, the benefits, the stakes and the likely future of the two-decade Afghan war. In the 1960s the Left sought to tarnish the reputation of what they saw as hated government institutions and failed; in the 2020s, the Left diminished the reputation of what they now saw as useful and malleable institutions and succeeded.
America does not quite know what will follow from the first months of the Biden Administration. Already, it has managed to destroy the idea of a border, with an anticipated 2 million entering the country illegally over a 12 month period. It demolished the idea of the police and prosecutorial deterrence curbing crime. It is ending the trajectory of America’s natural gas and oil renaissance that enriched the country, and freed it from Middle East entanglements. And it killed off the notion that government should seek to ensure that race is not how we collectively define the content of our individual characters.
Abroad: Meanwhile, our enemies and rivals - China, Iran, and Russia especially - are giddy at what America has become. The American Left, they believe, has done a much better job of denying Chinese culpability for a Chinese-engineered virus than had the Chinese communist media.
When billionaires, such as Michael Bloomberg, see China as essentially democratic (“The communist party wants to stay in power in China, and they listen to the public. Xi Jinping is not a dictator.”), when Charles Munger applauds their clampdown on outspoken capitalists like Jack Ma (“I don’t want the, all of the Chinese system, but I certainly would like to have the financial part of it in my own country, Communists did the right thing. They just called in Jack Ma and say, ‘You aren’t gonna do it, sonny.’””), and when Bill Gates believes that in the midst of the pandemic, a lying China had done “a lot of things right in the beginning,” we can conclude America’s richest are placing their bets on a Chinese-Communist controlled 21st century, and will adjust accordingly.
Our adversaries can’t quite believe their good fortune. Had they thought up ways to divide and impoverish America, to see its cities burned, and looted, to weaken its economy and currency, to erode the unity of its once feared military, and to entrench the most effective critics of America in America - not in Beijing, Moscow, Pyongyang, or Tehran, but in corporate boardrooms, campuses, newsrooms, Hollywood, Wall Street and the Pentagon - they could not have improved on what has happened in 2020-21, the era of our collective meltdown.”
"A Critique of mRNA Vaccines"
"A Critique of mRNA Vaccines"
by Martin Armstrong
"This is a reasonable 25-minute video on COVID-19 and the mRNA vaccine. Pathologist Dr. Ryan Cole discusses the virus & the vaccine including how it works & the spike protein impact. Also, he discusses the implications of vaccination for people who already have COVID-19 antibodies. The real question: why are governments mandating vaccines or pushing them? Have they just been bribed?
There is no independent review standing between the companies and the people. That is our greatest problem - TRUST. Meanwhile, Twitter bans anyone for even claiming a family member died from the vaccine. This is really getting out of hand. Twitter should be shut down as an agent of propaganda. How will we ever get the truth with all this political censorship?"
Hat tip to The Burning Platform
Please view this video on Rumble,
since Google Blogger won't allow embedding.
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Related, an absolute Must Read:
Gregory Mannarino, AM 7/6/21 "Crude Oil Surging. Out Of Control Inflation"
Gregory Mannarino, AM 7/6/21
"Crude Oil Surging. Out Of Control Inflation.
OPEC And Central Banks Are Playing A Dangerous Game"
Monday, July 5, 2021
"California Begs For More Electricity As Shift To Renewable Power Leaves State In The Dark"
Full screen recommended.
"California Begs For More Electricity As Shift
To Renewable Power Leaves State In The Dark"
by Epic Economist
"The state of California is currently facing the worst drought in 1,200 years and, as a consequence of such extreme weather conditions, water in key reservoirs is dropping to dangerously low levels, which is forcing the shutdown of major hydroelectric power plants and leaving the state in the dark amid one of the hottest summers ever recorded. The relentless drought and extreme heat, both worsened by climate change, are critically straining California's already-taxed electric grid, and pushing the water supply at Northern California's Lake Oroville to deplete rapidly. Early last month, the water level in Lake Oroville - the state's second-largest reservoir - was so low that hundreds of houseboats were hauled out because there wasn’t enough water to hold them. Today, however, state officials revealed the water level in the lake is even lower. In fact, water is at such "alarming levels" that the Edward Hyatt Power Plant is being forced to close for the first time since it opened in 1967, according to California Energy Commission spokesperson Lindsay Buckley.
On top of that, California energy grid officials are urging residents to reduce power consumption, particularly during the evenings when electricity demand is at its peak. If consumers don't reduce their electricity use during the peak time of the day, the state's grid might experience widespread power outages and suffer from damaged power lines. In essence, this situation highlights this is going to be a long, hot summer of higher electricity bills, periodic rationing, and blackouts for millions of households and businesses. Needless to say, those increased energy costs will also add to the inflationary pressures plaguing the U.S. economy.
To make matters even worse, Lake Oroville isn't the only one with dwindling water levels. A similar situation is occurring at the Hoover Dam - which forms Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the entire country, and produces enough electricity for approximately 8 million Americans. Now, the worsening drought is resulting in record-low water levels, and seriously compromising the efficiency of hydropower generation at Hoover Dam, as water is used to spin turbines to produce electricity. According to the latest data released, energy capacity at the dam already fell by roughly 25 percent. In short, Californians are not only facing the devastating effects of extreme heat but also the combination of a critical water crisis and a disastrous energy crisis that is adding chaos to what should be a joyful summer.
In addition to calling out for power-saving measures, state officials have been asking California residents to also reduce their water consumption as much as possible during the hot summer months. They are even requesting consumers to take shorter showers, fix leaks at home, plant drought-tolerant trees, and reduce watering home landscapes. But some officials have taken more "draconian" approaches and declared a water shortage emergency also issuing mandatory water restrictions that are punishable by fines in case consumers do not comply.
With meteorologists anticipating even hotter temperatures in the coming months, the state’s increasing reliance on gas-fired plants is going against its goal of transitioning to carbon-free electricity. “Our systems and infrastructure were designed and built in previous decades, to work in our old climate,” Diffenbaugh said. “As the Earth gets warmer, triggering extreme conditions, those systems are getting stretched - unfortunately beyond their capacity.” At this point, the crisis is getting so alarming that state energy officials have asked the California Independent System Operator, which runs most of the grid, to contract for additional power capacity for July and August, otherwise, it won't be able to meet demand during the evening when solar production decreases, according to a joint statement released last week from the grid, utility, and energy agencies.
In the meantime, the government continues to take a number of steps that already epically failed in the past. And knowing the state's measures aren't enough to avoid catastrophic outages just as seen in 2020, the state's grid operator is begging for more electricity. Notably, even Bloomberg, which doesn't hesitate when it comes to criticizing non-green sources of power, is admitting that California's problem is the state’s aggressive push to cut its carbon emissions by recklessly shifting to renewable energy without properly planning or coming up with a plan B considering seasonal weather changes. In other words, while Californians are learning the hard way that the state's grid has become extremely vulnerable to critical disruptions, politicians simply cannot deny that California's "green" push has been a complete disaster because now, millions of people will be left in the dark during hot summer days, while countless other tragedies and casualties continue to emerge on the horizon."
"A Patriotism of the Heart"
"A Patriotism of the Heart"
by Brian Maher
"Since yesterday was July 4th, it is a fine time to reflect on patriotism - what we believe it is - and what we believe it is not. So today we republish our musings on the distinction between patriotism and nationalism.
Here is the trouble with America’s jingos, warhawks, drum-beaters, glory hounds, world-improvers and idealists: They are not patriotic. A jolting, nearly scandalous claim, it is true. Do these Americans not cry tears red, white and blue? Do they not yell about American “greatness”... American “exceptionalism”... the “shining city” atop the hill?
That and more they do, yes. Yet they are not patriotic. That is the curious case we haul before the jury today. Yes, we are stepping away from our normal beat of manna and markets… and reflecting upon the virtue of patriotism. This, at a time when fists furl in the direction of Iran, China, Russia and other hellcats that menace the happiness of the United States. (We first doff our cap to the late writer Joseph Sobran, upon whose insights we rely today).
Country or Empire: Famed English writer G.K. Chesterton once denounced Rudyard Kipling’s “lack of patriotism.” The fellow’s lack of patriotism? What does Chesterton mean Kipling was chief rah-rah man for the British Empire, its loudest bugler. English civilization overtopped all rival powers, he bellowed — as Everest overtops all rival peaks. And as was proper… Great Britain gave the law in all four corners of Earth.
From Kipling’s story Regulus, citing Virgil’s Aeneid: “Roman! let this be your care, this your art; to rule over the nations and impose the ways of peace…” Substitute Britain for Rome and you have Kipling. Why then did Chesterton deny his patriotism? The reason is subtle. Subtle… yet critical.
“He Admires England, but He Does Not Love Her”: Chesterton argued that Kipling admired England because she was powerful. He did not love her because she was England: He admires England, but he does not love her; for we admire things with reasons, but love them without reasons. He admires England because she is strong, not because she is English.
Now Chesterton. He loved England as England — its customs, its eccentricities, its people. Even, if you can believe it, its “food.” A man loves his mother. It is a wordless love, wide and deep. He requires no reason. He requires no justification. And as he loves his mother, so he loves his country.
Be it China, be it Russia, be it Chile, be it Romania… it is all one. Sobran: "Of course Chesterton was right. You love your country as you love your mother - simply because it is yours, not because of its superiority to others, particularly superiority of power."
A Spacious Patriotism: Does the other fellow believe his own mother towers 900 feet over all others? Well, friends, maybe he does believe it. But that in no way irritates, annoys or threatens the other fellow. No harm flows from it. After all...
Adults allow children to cherish the fiction that reindeer fly and round men descend chimneys... A husband allows his wife to cherish the fiction that she is a superior cook or automobile operator… as a wife allows her husband to cherish the fiction that he is a skillful and formidable lover... or that his bald head is ennobling.
These are benevolent fictions conducive to the domestic peace and happiness. In that spirit, the patriot’s attitude toward the foreigner is relaxed. It is accommodative. It is spacious. He understands this fellow’s affection for his country is essentially the affection for his mother. But a Kipling does not love his country as a man loves his mother. His country must show all others its dust. It must outrace them all… else he feels diminished.
The Patriot Loves His Country Regardless: The United States of America stables many such gentlemen. They are dizzied, wobbled, staggered by a higher American vision. Their eyes roll perpetually heavenward. To these fellows, America must always be up to something big in this world. She must be forever charging up San Juan Hill, going over the top, storming Omaha beach, bearing any burden, paying any price... She must be beating the Russians to the moon, beating the world at basketball, beating democracy into someone’s head.
Tall deeds, some of these, and fantastic attainments. But would the patriot love America less if she fell short of the glory… if her history was a page mostly blank? He would not. It is - after all - his country. And he loves her as he loves his mother.
But to that certain species of American, America must dazzle and glitter upon the world’s stage. She must be the “indispensable nation.” If not indispensable… then dispensableIf dispensable, then unworthy of his love. Hence his lack of patriotism. He is Kipling.
The Difference Between the Patriot and the Nationalist: Sobran takes their measure: "Many Americans admire America for being strong, not for being American. For them America has to be “the greatest country on Earth” in order to be worthy of their devotion. If it were only the second greatest, or the 19th greatest, or, heaven forbid, “a third-rate power,” it would be virtually worthless… Maybe the poor Finns or Peruvians love their countries too, but heaven knows why - they have so little to be proud of, so few “reasons.”
And so Sobran trains his cannons on the nationalist ideologue: "The nationalist, who identifies America with abstractions like freedom and democracy, may think it’s precisely America’s mission to spread those abstractions around the world - to impose them by force, if necessary. In his mind, those abstractions are universal ideals... the world must be made “safe for democracy” by “a war to end all wars”... Any country that refuses to Americanize is “anti-American” - or a “rogue nation.” For the nationalist, war is a welcome opportunity to change the world."
We might list some names in point... but our legal counsel is wagging his finger and shaking his head. The patriot and the nationalist babble the same American tongue. The one is therefore mistaken for the other. Yet lean in. Listen closer. You will find they speak alien languages: Because the patriot and the nationalist often use the same words, they may not realize that they use those words in very different senses. The American patriot assumes that the nationalist loves this country with an affection like his own, failing to perceive that what the nationalist really loves is an abstraction - “national greatness,” or something like that. The American nationalist, on the other hand, is apt to be suspicious of the patriot, accusing him of insufficient zeal, or even “anti-Americanism.”
A Patriotism of the Heart: The patriotism Sobran hymns is a relaxed, natural, healthful patriotism. It is a patriotism of the heart. This patriotism flies no ideological flag, hauls no missionary cargo, steers by no heavenly star. It is the patriotism of the prairie, of the plain, of the lonely jackrabbit crossroad, of the greasy spoon, of the truckstop, of the front porch, of the pool hall... of Main Street.
And his fellow countrymen? The patriot takes them as he finds them. Might they sometimes neglect to wash behind the ears? Might they mistake the salad fork for the dinner fork? Well, sometimes they may. But they are his countrymen… and it does not matter to him. The patriot allows himself to laugh — not at his fellow Americans — but with them.
The nationalist, meantime, does not laugh. He hectors. He preaches. He scolds.
“Patriotism Is Relaxed. Nationalism Is Rigid.” “Patriotism is relaxed,” as Sobran concludes. “Nationalism is rigid.” We in turn conclude, paraphrasing Chesterton: "The relaxed patriot, the average American, the American who tends to his own business and sweeps his own stoop, the American who loves his country as he loves his mother - this fellow is all right. But the rigid American, the uber American, the zealous American, the American nationalist hot to put the world to rights - the American who admires America for her strength - but fails to love her as herself? This fellow... he’s all wrong."
"Two Thirds of All Restaurants Will Close"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, IAllegedly,
"Two Thirds of All Restaurants Will Close"
"As Problems continue to mount for Restaurants you will see over 2/3 of them close. I am upping my prediction from 1/2. This is because of the high prices and the desperate owners. They are resorting to things that will inevitably drive customers away."
Musical Interlude: David Gates, "Suite: Clouds and Rain"
Full screen recommended.
David Gates, "Suite: Clouds and Rain"
"A Look to the Heavens"
“Two stars within our own Milky Way galaxy anchor the foreground of this cosmic snapshot. Beyond them lie the galaxies of the Hydra Cluster. In fact, while the spiky foreground stars are hundreds of light-years distant, the Hydra Cluster galaxies are over 100 million light-years away.
Three large galaxies near the cluster center, two yellow ellipticals (NGC 3311, NGC 3309) and one prominent blue spiral (NGC 3312), are the dominant galaxies, each about 150,000 light-years in diameter. An intriguing overlapping galaxy pair cataloged as NGC 3314 is just above and left of NGC 3312. Also known as Abell 1060, the Hydra galaxy cluster is one of three large galaxy clusters within 200 million light-years of the Milky Way. In the nearby universe, galaxies are gravitationally bound into clusters which themselves are loosely bound into superclusters that in turn are seen to align over even larger scales. At a distance of 100 million light-years this picture would be about 1.3 million light-years across.”
The Poet: Wendell Berry, "Circles of Our Lives"
"Circles of Our Lives"
"Within the circles of our lives
we dance the circles of the years,
the circles of the seasons
within the circles of the years,
the cycles of the moon
within the circles of the seasons,
the circles of our reasons
within the cycles of the moon.
Again, again we come and go,
changed, changing. Hands
join, unjoin in love and fear,
grief and joy. The circles turn,
each giving into each, into all.
Only music keeps us here,
each by all the others held.
In the hold of hands and eyes
we turn in pairs, that joining
joining each to all again.
And then we turn aside, alone,
out of the sunlight gone
into the darker circles of return."
- Wendell Berry
Chet Raymo, “On Being Good”
“On Being Good”
by Chet Raymo
“Several years ago, I attended a seminar on the foundations of ethical systems. The participants quoted Plato, Jesus, Heidegger, and a host of other authorities; they trotted out every philosophical and theological reason why we can or should be good. Of course, prominent among the arguments was that old canard: Without the promise of eternal salvation or the threat of damnation, we would all be scoundrels.
No one mentioned that we are first of all biological creatures with an evolutionary history, and that altruism, aggression, fidelity, promiscuity, nurturing and violence might be part of our animal natures.
I looked around the auditorium and saw folks of every religious and philosophical persuasion, and of many cultural and ethnic backgrounds, and I thought, "Gee, I'd trust any one of these folks not to take my wallet in a dark alley." Sure, humans are capable of great evil, but most of us are pretty good most of the time, and I suspect that it has more to do with where we have been as a biological species than with where we hope to be going in some airy-fairy afterlife.
We are animals who have evolved the capacity to cherish our fellow humans and to resist for the common good our innate tendencies to aggression and selfishness, not because we have been plucked out of our animal selves by some sky hook from above, but because we have been nudged into reflective consciousness by evolution. When it comes to living in a civilized way on a crowded planet, I choose to put my faith in the long leash of the genes rather than fear of hellfire or the chance to walk on streets of gold.”
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