Arvada, Colorado, USA. Thanks for stopping by!
So, we rise from the rubble...
Monday, July 26, 2021
"The Economy is a Black Hole - Flood of Real Estate About to Hit the Market"
Fill screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly AM 7/26/21:
"The Economy is a Black Hole -
Flood of Real Estate About to Hit the Market"
"An Appeals Court has overturned the Eviction Moratorium. It is over and it looks like there won’t be any more extensions. Will bitcoin finally be shut down? The economy is in a precarious spot."
"What Goes Around Comes Around"
"What Goes Around Comes Around"
by Bill Bonner
NORMANDY, FRANCE – “China is defying US pressure to change its behavior,” says a Financial Times headline. The FT reports: "As Wendy Sherman, US deputy secretary of state, prepared to fly to China this weekend, Beijing imposed sanctions on seven Americans, in a tit-for-tat blow that illustrated the dismal state of US-China relations."
And China is not the only one. The U.S. effort to change Russia’s behavior using “sanctions” also failed, most recently in the Baltic Sea. There, the U.S. tried to sanction companies putting down a pipe to bring Russian natural gas to Germany. But the Russians sent their own team to do the work. And now, the Germans will soon be using Russian gas, rather than the more expensive liquid natural gas, LNG, shipped over from the U.S.
The World’s Best: What goes around comes around. And going round now is a growing indifference and hostility to U.S. bullying. Why? "To much of the world,” writes columnist Spengler in the Asia Times, “the U.S. looks like it is in decline. Because it is in decline.”
We were thumbing through an old book, one that we published in 1988. Titled "The World’s Best," it told readers about the best things we had discovered in almost 10 years of publishing the magazine "International Living." The book began by describing our attempt to rate the world’s countries from best to worst, giving them scores for everything from Freedom to Infrastructure… Culture to Cost of Living.
It was an ambitious undertaking, probably foolhardy. There are too many regional differences and nuances to make such a score meaningful. In America, for example, life on a true grit western Montana ranch has very little in common with life in gritty West Baltimore. But it was good fun… and made for interesting reading. And in 1988, guess what country came out as Numero Uno… the world’s best place to live? Here’s how we reported it then:
The United States takes first place, with a total score of 88.88. Although it is not outstanding in all categories, its consistently good scores in most categories averaged out to put it on top. Here’s a breakdown of the U.S. category rankings. In health, it ranks 15th. In the culture category, it ranks first. In the economy category, the U.S. ranks 20th. In cost of living, it comes in a mediocre 49th [it was not cheap to live in the U.S… compared to the rest of the world]… In terms of political stability, the U.S. ties for third place… It ranks first for infrastructure… In recreation/environment, the U.S. also fares well, tying with Australia, France and Italy and New Zealand for first place. And in freedom, the U.S. ties with 21 other countries for first place.
Now, it’s 33 years later. How are we doing?
Bad News: "International Living" gave up its quality-of-life scoring efforts years ago, but almost all the other rankings show the U.S. slipping… and after 2000, almost in freefall. According to one score, reported last week in Al Jazeera, the U.S. has dropped 18 places down from the top: "The US remains one of the most prosperous countries in the world, ranking 18 out of 167 nations, the conservative-leaning, London-based think-tank [the Legatum Institute] said in its 2021 "United States Prosperity Index."
The index, which Legatum publishes annually, measures US prosperity using 11 pillars: safety and security, personal freedom, governance, social capital, business environment, infrastructure, economic quality, living conditions, health, education and natural environment… The COVID-19 crisis has weakened prosperity in the United States, but even before the pandemic, mass shootings, elevated obesity levels and mental health issues had taken their toll on Americans’ quality of life. Compared to 1988, almost all the news is bad.
The federal government owed just under $2.5 trillion at the beginning of 1988. Now, the debt is more than 10 times as much. The cost of living today is at 5% and going up. In 1988, it was 4% and going down. Social tensions, today, are heating up - exacerbated by a big increase in inequality. “Wealth inequality widens to a record level,” says a headline in this morning’s FT. (Thanks to the Fed’s stimmies, your editor adds.)
In 1988, the U.S. was ending a “Cold War” with the Soviet Union… Now, it is beginning a new one with Russia and China. And the outcome of the new cold war is no sure thing. Here’s Spengler again: "The people with big jobs in Washington came of age in the 1980s and 1990s, when America was the technological marvel of the world, and American inventions created the digital age. We haven’t done a lot lately except code some complicated software.
China has installed about 80% of the world’s 5G mobile broadband capacity… [essential] for the Fourth Industrial Revolution as much as railroads were for the First Industrial Revolution, and is moving much faster towards smart cities, automated ports, autonomous vehicles, self-programming robots and a wealth of other 5G applications."
How to meet these challenges? The armed wing of its Deep State wants more sanctions, backed by more aircraft carriers and more cyber warfare spending. The unarmed wing of its Deep State wants more stimmy – more fake cash to support its latest must-have fads and woke fashions.
Made in China: The U.S. response to the COVID-19 crisis, for example, was some $6 trillion in various forms of stimmy. What did it produce? An unprecedented consumer spending boom. But what were consumers buying? Imports from China! The U.S. trade balance shot up to a record $1 trillion.
Why can’t U.S. workers and U.S. businesses meet the new demand (albeit phony) from U.S. consumers? Because the whole system is based on claptrap. The fake interest rates/fake-money system discourages real saving and real investing (building factories… training workers… increasing real output) and favors short-term speculating, cockamamie gambling, and jackass politics.
Spengler notes that the U.S. is going through a “version of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, where the ‘woke’ equivalent of Red Guards hold self-criticism sessions at corporations and universities to extract confessions of racism, homophobia, transphobia and so forth.” Where does this lead? We’ll peek ahead tomorrow…"
"In a Hall of Mirrors You Have To Break Some Glass To See Clearly"
"In a Hall of Mirrors You Have To Break Some Glass To See Clearly"
by Jim Kunstler
"I’ll tell you what’s really funny: the new Sam Harris “Making Sense” podcast with Dr. Eric Topol, veep of Scripps Research. These two just can’t make sense of why the folks outside their Southern California smuggery bubble have any reservations about getting vaxed-up against Covid-19. It’s like a mental illness to them - all these selfish, Trump-driven, flag-smooching ignoramouses beyond the pale of Wokery, who are putting at risk their science-loving betters in the PhD hives of the New Normal, while that King Kong of Covid variants (code-name Delta) rages through the hillsides and canyons beneath Mullholland Drive. The insolence! Can’t these morons just follow simple instructions (available 24/7 at CNN)?
Okay, here’s why, Sam and Eric: Because every institution in American life has squandered its credibility in the service of a political program that seeks to destroy whatever used to be worth caring about in Western Civ, including free thought, free speech, free inquiry, free movement, truth, beauty, and the right to resist official coercion. Half the country has no trust in the government’s public health apparatus, led by the - shall we say - slippery Dr. Anthony Fauci. Should they believe NPR? The New York Times? CBS-News? Should they follow every bob and judder of Rachel Maddow’s Adam’s apple? Should they swallow every globule of obvious horse-shit served up by Jen Psaki?
Hey Sam and Eric, have you followed what went on in the US Department of Justice and the FBI the past five years, these supposed redoubts of rectitude? The manufactured “Russian Collusion” hoax? The official lying to FISA courts? The malicious prosecutions? The transparently seditious activities of CIA agent Eric Ciaramella & Co.? The hiding of Hunter Biden’s evidence-stuffed laptop? The enlistment of Facebook, Twitter, and Google in suppression of the news and censorship of opinion? Do you expect people to believe that the basement-haunting “Joe Biden” won an election with those slim victories in the Wokester-controlled, fraud-drenched city precincts of Philadelphia, Atlanta, Milwaukee, and Detroit? Or that Merrick Garland and Christopher Wray wouldn’t lie about it?
Can you detect something a little off in those aforesaid federal law enforcement agencies allowing BLM and Antifa to destroy over a billion dollars in small business and a bunch of civic infrastructure at will, for months on end, while overcharging felonies on the three-hour US Capitol trespassers you label “insurrectionists?” Can you point out “the science” in the Drag Queen Reading Hour? Is it a sound idea to promote racism in the public schools? And to instruct US military recruits that their nation is, maybe, not worth defending?
And now you want to convince half the country subjected to this tyrannical mind-f**kery to get a poorly-tested mRNA vaccine that might provoke blood clots and organ damage? Against a disease apparently manufactured under the sponsorship of our own government? I have to tell you, Sam and Eric, that your expectations are bit out-of-synch with the march of events. That half of the country not in thrall to your narratives won’t submit to your supposedly superior powers of reasoning and your empathic, nurturing concern for their well-being. They are quite convinced, based on a shit-ton of evidence and lived experience, that they are being played by a degenerate regime not at all run in their interests… that lies to them reflexively and incessantly.
What’s more, they want their country back - a land of free speech, fair play, and settled principle, like the right to a speedy trial. And here’s something else to consider, Sam and Eric: if the regime that you support goes a step further, as is looking more likely day by day, and if it moves to make these mRNA vaccines mandatory, it is going to pull the pin that detonates a national grenade. And when that happens, you and your Woke-Jacobin confederates will be on the run for a change, worrying about your own cancellation and whether, perhaps, it will get a fair hearing. You have the right to hope so.
We are slip-sliding toward that terrible moment. And, you better remember that that this strife over Covid-19 is but one part of a much bigger picture of evolving national woe. Looming beyond this mere skirmish over public health is an economy that has sunk into uniform racketeering, the disgraceful mismanagement of government spending, the specter of a dying currency, the developing quandaries for our food supply, the probability of a market blowup that will bring down the pension system and destroy the notional wealth of millions, and the growing antagonism of foreign polities who resent our badly-discharged power around the world and sense our growing weakness."
"How It Really Is"
And then...
July 21, 2021: "A Federal Eviction Moratorium Ends This Week,
Putting 12 Million Tenants At Risk"
"A federal moratorium that has protected millions of renters from eviction since late March expires Friday, leaving millions of people at risk even as the novel coronavirus continues to spread across the country. The moratorium covers renters who live in homes with federally backed mortgages, which the Urban Institute estimates to be 12.3 million households, or about 30 percent of all renters nationwide. Once the moratorium lapses, landlords can give their delinquent tenants 30 days’ notice and then begin filing eviction paperwork in late August.
The problems facing renters will only get worse once enhanced unemployment benefits run out and people exhaust their savings, said Dworkin, a former Treasury Department senior adviser on housing finance during the Obama and Trump administrations. Once any moratorium ends, tenants could be asked to come up with months of unpaid rent they can’t afford, he said.
“I am troubled about August and I am terrified about September,” he said. “A rental moratorium kicks the can down the road.”
So 12 million households, totalling a reported 40 million men, women and children, suddenly homeless, jobless, hopeless... What do you think is going to happen?
"Economic Market Snapshot PM 7/26/21"
"Economic Market Snapshot PM 7/26/21"
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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 7/26/21:
"Critical Updates! Crypto Surging Higher,
Stocks, Market, The Fed, More"
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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
CNN Market Data:
CNN Fear And Greed Index:
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A comprehensive, essential daily read.
July 24th to 26th, 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
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Commentary, highly recommended:
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And now, the End Game...
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Oh yeah...
"Cascade Of Consequences" (Excerpt)
"Cascade Of Consequences" (Excerpt)
by Jim Quinn
“There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.” – George Orwell, "1984"
“People will agree with you only if they already agree with you. You do not change people’s minds.” – Frank Zappa
"Orwell and Zappa’s words of wisdom have never been truer than they are today. The level of untruth proliferated by the government, mainstream media, central bankers, military leaders, Big Tech, Big Pharma, Big Corp., and billionaire oligarchs has reached prolific heights. We are lost in a whirlwind of lies, destined to grow into a tornado of tragedy and ultimately result in a cascade of consequences.
Since the installation of the illegitimate dementia patient as president of this dying empire of debt by the Deep State (billionaire oligarchs, surveillance state agencies, military industrial complex, Silicon Valley censorship tyrants, corrupt bought off state politicians, Soros installed bureaucrats, and their propaganda arm – fake news media outlets), the country has further fractured into warring factions.
It has been driven by political party, moral vs. immoral, black vs. white, criminals vs. police, normal vs. abnormal, capitalists vs. communists, Federal Reserve vs. the people, vaxxer sheep vs. natural immunity realists, authoritarians vs. freedom fighters, critical thinkers vs. non-thinking believers, privileged elite vs. common men and women, citizens vs. traitors, powerful vs. powerless, and evil versus good.
As Zappa realized, people believe the narrative they have been conditioned to believe, and no quantity of facts, data or rational arguments will change their minds. Arguing on twitter or facebook is not going to change the mind of those you are arguing against. Our public education indoctrination centers have taught multiple generations to feel rather than think, believe rather than question, obey rather than challenge, and allow their minds to be molded by elitists to follow orders and do as they are told, no questions asked.
This organized effort by men constituting a true invisible government has been a conscious, decades long, manipulation of the minds of the masses, through media propaganda, government cultural indoctrination, and most recently through internet social media platforms.
Those in control have achieved astounding success in exploiting the psychological weaknesses of millions of Americans by inducing them to believe absurd falsities, consume on command, become dependent on government handouts, go into debt, work soul crushing jobs, become addicted to the very technology used to manipulate them and surveil them, and believe anything authority figures tell them to believe. The past seventeen months have proven this to be true.
They convinced an enormous portion of the world’s population a non-lethal virus, for anyone under 80 years old in decent health, was such a threat they agreed to be locked down and masked for a year, destroying the global economy, putting tens of millions out of work, bankrupting hundreds of thousands of small businesses, and benefiting authoritarian government tyrants, mega-corporations, and criminal cabal who stole the presidential election for a senile hair sniffing angry gaffe machine functioning as a Trojan donkey (ass) to implement the Build Back Better, new world order WEF plan.
The Davos elite and their henchmen have accomplished more than they probably thought possible, achieving almost universal compliance and obedience to rules and dictates which have proven to be pointless in controlling Covid, but remarkable in controlling the masses. The throngs have demonstrated their willful ignorance and sheeplike qualities by unquestioningly trusting anything their superiors told them and obeying orders like submissive slaves. Those controlling the narrative took the teachings of Edward Bernays to heart and realized repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth.
The number of provable untruths conveyed by those running this global psy-op have reached colossal heights of deceit. When trusted medical “experts”, politicians, Hollywood stars, sports heroes, government health apparatchiks, and corporate media all relentlessly repeat the same lies, it is difficult for a dumbed down populace to not believe the official narrative. Anyone who presented factual data to counter the untruths has been immediately censored and disappeared by the Silicon Valley social media tyrants Zuckerberg and Dorsey.
When doctors and journalists, with opinions and views contrary to Saint Fauci and his fawning media minions, are banned from Facebook and Twitter, while a media conspiracy to cover up Hunter Biden’s laptop and documented voting fraud in multiple states is beyond doubt, and an unarmed selfie taking joke of an insurrection where a bunch of boobs were ushered into the Capital by the police has been portrayed as the worse attack than Pearl Harbor or 9/11, you realize your government is controlled by men who are actively working against your best interests. They are acting to make sure you remain enslaved in debt, beholden to token government handouts of money they have already taken from you, and locked down physically, mentally, and socially.
The blatant disregard for truth displayed by our overlords during the last two years is either a sign of utter disdain for the intelligence of the common man or an act of desperation as this global Ponzi scheme of debt, deception and delusion is teetering on the brink of collapse. I do know the Big Lie strategy has been utilized at a level of zeal monumental in scope and shameful in application against the citizens of this nation and the world.
I will try to document some of the more egregious falsehoods being perpetuated by those attempting to control the narrative and accomplish their goal of world domination, complete control over our lives, and accumulation of massive wealth, while we will own nothing and be happy. The execution of their plan has been virtually flawless until now.
I’ll address the numerous lies related to the plandemic, where the weaponization of relatively non-lethal flu to anyone under 80 years old not tipping the scales at 275 pounds has been used to steal a presidential election; destroy hundreds of thousands of small businesses while shifting the profits to mega-corps like Amazon, Wal-Mart and Target; created division and suspicion among the population making them easier to manipulate and control; effectively implemented authoritarian measures and mandates, putting a final nail in the coffin of our Constitutional rights; unleashed the power of a corporate fascist social media censorship regime designed to silence the truth and punish those who do not comply with the approved narrative; and creating perpetual unfounded fear among the masses in order to make them obey all orders from their oligarch controllers."
Please view this complete, critically important article here:
Sunday, July 25, 2021
“This Is The Biggest Bubble I've Ever Seen"; Stock Market Crash By Year's End!
Full screen recommended.
Stanley Druckenmiller: “This Is The Biggest Bubble I've Ever Seen"
Stock Market Crash By Year's End!
by Epic Economist
"A series of warnings about the looming stock market crash made the headlines again this week, as the market moves closer and closer to the epic burst of the greatest bubble of all time. Notably, the billionaire investor and Duquesne Family Office chief, Stanley Druckenmiller, shared a gloomy forecast: if the U.S. government keeps spending trillions upon trillions, we may witness not only a devastating crash but a financial crisis that will deeply hurt millions of Americans. In May, the veteran investor said that the current bull market was looking like something he had seen in the past, and back then, things did not end well. "I have no doubt that we are in a raging mania in all assets," he said. "I also have no doubt that I don't have a clue when that's going to end. I knew we were in a raging mania in '99, but it kept going on, and if you had shorted the tech stocks in mid-'99, you were out of business by the end of the year," Druckenmiller added, comparing today's market to the dot-com boom.
That wasn't the first time the billionaire investor cautioned Wall Street investors that U.S. markets were caught up in a "speculative frenzy" fostered by the trillions of dollars in government spending. Most recently, the market expert made a brief appearance on MSNBC's Morning Show with Stephanie Ruhle, who seemed a little unprepared to respond to his arguments about why the new government multi-trillion infrastructure plan will end up financially hurting America's working poor. Druckenmiller argued that the U.S. economy is experiencing some sort of "V-shaped" recovery right now, and it has been the sharpest rebound in history. However, he noted that it took more than a decade for the American economy to attain the same gains after the start of the Great Depression. The main problem of this rapid upturn is that the almost $6 trillion allocated by Congress to combat the economic impact of the health crisis has been spent after the economy concluded its rebound. The alarming growth of inflation and small and medium-sized businesses' inability to hike wages to hire new workers are definitely consequences of this imbalanced 'recovery'.
The financial expert explained that the biggest economic crises that occurred over the past 100 years have been mainly caused by asset bubbles and inflation. "Inflation is a tax the poor can't afford or avoid," Druck stressed, adding that any further stimulus spending will be directed to fix a problem that, in Druck's words, "doesn't exist anymore", meaning that there's no need for the economy to be artificially stimulated anymore. "If I was Darth Vader and I wanted to destroy the US economy, I would do aggressive spending in the middle of an already hot economy. You usually get a bubble out of that, and you get inflation out of that. Frankly, we now have both. This is the biggest bubble I've seen in my career," he said. Druckenmiller also reminded investors that the bubble doesn't just include stocks, but cryptocurrencies and housing markets too. "What are we going to get out of this? You're going to get a sugar high, the higher inflation, then an economic bust," the billionaire warned.
During the interview, when Druck said the government should postpone the issuance of the new infrastructure spending plan, Ruhle interjected, arguing that poor people do not care whether or not Bitcoin will crash, since they don't own that much crypto or stocks anyway. She maintained that the infrastructure plan would help all Americans, particularly those with the fewest resources. The investor then replied saying: "I don't think we need to do anything, we need to take a step back, take a breath, and see where we are. I think any net spending is a problem". He said that there are many exciting things inside the plan, such as investments in the digital infrastructure. However, it isn't something our economy could afford to bear at this moment. Druck pointed out that the growing retail exposure to equities means that a stock market crash will impact Main Street even more quickly and even harder this time around. It doesn't matter whether they do or don't hold financial securities or crypto assets, they will still be impacted by the economic downturn, as Druck laid out: "It's going to cause a financial crisis, it's going to cause inflation and nothing is going to hurt the poor more than that". Back in May, the expert predicted that we would see a crash before year's end. "I will be surprised if we're not out of the stock market by the end of the year, just because the bubbles can't last that long," he said."
Musical Interlude: Gandalf, “Once in a Star-Brightened Night”
Full screen recommended.
Gandalf, “Once in a Star-Brightened Night”
"A Look to the Heavens"
“Massive stars, abrasive winds, mountains of dust, and energetic light sculpt one of the largest and most picturesque regions of star formation in the Local Group of Galaxies. Known as N11, the region is visible on the upper right of many images of its home galaxy, the Milky Way neighbor known as the Large Magellanic Clouds (LMC).
The above image was taken for scientific purposes by the Hubble Space Telescope and reprocessed for artistry by an amateur to win the Hubble's Hidden Treasures competition. Although the section imaged above is known as NGC 1763, the entire N11 emission nebula is second in LMC size only to 30 Doradus. Studying the stars in N11 has shown that it actually houses three successive generations of star formation. Compact globules of dark dust housing emerging young stars are also visible around the image.”
"The Human Condition"
"The Human Condition"
by Meanings of Life
"Man remains largely unknown of himself. What are we, in our innermost recesses, behind our names and our conventional opinions? What are we behind the things we do in our lives, behind what we see in others and what others see in us, or even behind things science says we are? Is man the crazy being about whom Carl Gustav Jung spoke ironically, when he demanded a man to treat? Is man the Dr. Jerkyll that contains in himself a criminal Mister Hyde, and more than a personality, and contradictory feelings?
Are we the result of our dreams, as Prospero, in the Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” asked? Are we able to raise our nature and become the dignified beings evoked by Pico de la Mirandola (It’s the seeds a man cultivates that "will mature and bear fruit in him. If vegetative, he will become a plant; if sensual, he will become brutish; if rational, he will reveal himself a heavenly being; if intellectual, he will be an angel and the son of God")?
Almost two centuries ago, Spencer characterized the contradictory features of natives from the African east coast: "He has at the same time good character and hard heart; he is a fighter, conscientious, good in a precise moment, and cruel, pitiless and violent in the other; superstitious and rudely irreligious; brave and pusillanimous, servile and dominator, stubborn and at the same time fickle, relied to honor views, but without signs of honesty, niggard and economical, but careless and improvident".
It’s probably a good definition of a certain primitive man, to whom we are undoubtedly connected. But we are also cultural and ethic beings. We are able to change our values and behaviors. As William James says, human beings can change their lives through their mental attitudes. We can grow ethically. We can dominate part of our own instincts. And that’s why we can be different from the indigenous African described by Spencer. More: our thought dignifies us ("All the dignity of man consists in thought", says Blaise Pascal). We are, in many senses, the conscience of the Universe, and its utmost elaborated product. As Edgar Morin says, "in the core of our singularity, we carry not only all the humanity, all the life, but also all the cosmos, including its mystery, present in the heart of our beings".
We are creators, creator beings, and, in a sense, we can create, or recreate ourselves. All goes through our mind. It is our mind that constructs our truths and errors, and also the most sublime things in the Universe. And yet evil and stupidity exist in us. Sometimes we fall, we are stroked, and life reveals its cruelty, and we may think as Mark Twain, and say that it was a pity that Noah had arrived late to the ark. In our innermost recesses, there is also the cruelty and the inhumanity of life. Charles Darwin showed that we are descendants of inferior life forms: we have been long ago a "bush and a bird, and a fish silently swimming in the waters", to use the poetic terms used by Empedocles in its "Purifications."
From a genetic and evolutionist point of view, we contain in us the survival reflexes and the aggressiveness of the life forms that preceded us: "All that threatened the cave man - dangers, darkness, famine, thirst, ghosts, demons – all has passed to the interior of our souls, all troubles us, grieves us, threatens us from inside." (Morin). Besides, we are also beings that can differ significantly from each other. We are equal, but also different. "The awake involve a common world, but dreams deviate each one to its own world," Heraclites rather enigmatically declares. He thought we can’t help sleeping and living in illusory worlds, even when awake.
For all these reasons, Blaise Pascal’s celebrated definition of the human being, despite the hard language, not exactly agreeable to our ears, is undoubtedly one of the most powerful that can be applied to the rather unknown being that we can’t help being to ourselves: "What a chimera then is man! What a novelty, what a monster, what a chaos, what a contradiction, what a prodigy! Judge of all things, imbecile worm of the earth; depositary of truth, a sink of uncertainty and error; the pride and refuse of the universe! Who will unravel this tangle?"
“Are People Really Stupid?”
“Are People Really Stupid?”
by Fred Russell
“On the face of things – judging from the general level of knowledge and understanding, not to mention the intellectual pursuits, of most of the human race – one is tempted to say that the overwhelming majority of mankind lacks the intellectual capacity, the intelligence, to contribute to human progress. And it is in fact a very small elite that has carried us beyond Neanderthal Man, without whom, if the truth be told, we might still be living in caves. It is, in a word, appalling to contemplate the level at which ordinary people use their minds – what they read, if at all, what they watch on TV, the movies they go out and see, and the ease with which they are seduced and manipulated by the technicians of the psyche, namely, politicians and advertisers.
The impression one gets when contemplating these tens and hundreds of millions of people glued to their TV screens for the reality shows and sitcoms or fiddling with their smartphones from morning till night is of complete empty-headedness. This is not to say that such people cannot be shrewd, resourceful, or, for that matter, simply decent. It is to say that at the average level of intelligence displayed by the human race, the great intellectual achievements of mankind seem to be beyond the scope of the vast majority of men and women. But are people really stupid? And if they aren’t, who or what has held them back?
Now one may be inclined to place all the blame for our ignorance on the television producers and gadget makers, but the truth is that by the time they get to us the damage has already been done. All they really succeed in doing is dragging us down a little further. The problem starts in childhood. It starts in the schools with all those empty cells waiting to be filled and no one, not entire educational systems, really knowing how to fill them. In fact, the opposite result is achieved. By the time the child finishes elementary school, unless he is destined to join the intellectual or scientific or economic or political elite and is self-motivated, as the saying goes, he will have developed an aversion to the learning process that will persist for the rest of his life.
It is not hard to understand why. School bores him, and oppresses him. Its premise, fostered in the West by the Church – the virtually exclusive supplier of teachers until fairly recent times, historically speaking – is that as a consequence of Original Sin all men are born evil and must therefore be coerced into doing what is good. The result has been rigidly structured frameworks where teachers hammer away at the captive child until his head is ready to explode. Within just a few years, the public school system thus destroys the natural curiosity of the child and dooms him to a life of total ignorance, dependent, for whatever sense of the world he does have, on secondrate journalists, who themselves lack the knowledge, understanding, discipline and integrity to be historians or even novelists and therefore shape his perception like the ignorant clerics of the Middle Ages, raining down on his head a disjointed and superficial body of information presented largely to produce effects, and even this is beyond his capacity to retain.
The man in the street may thus be said to have a great many opinions but very little knowledge, mindlessly repeating the half-truths of “experts” and “analysts” who reflect his own biases and constructing out of them a “credo” of dogmatic views that remain embedded in his mind for an entire lifetime like bricks in a brick wall.
Does it matter? After all, we have all the scholars and scientists we need, and besides, a world where everyone became one would be a dull place indeed. It can even be argued that it is better for the race if progress is opposed, since, judging from its products, it mostly expresses itself materially and economically in an unholy alliance of greed and technology. However, progress of this kind cannot be fought if all that people have on their minds is to wire themselves into this technology, and that is what they will be doing until their minds are engaged in less frivolous pursuits. They are thus doubly victimized, first by the schools, whose methods are not attuned to the temperament and capacity of the average child, and then by the economic elites who control the technologies and consequently the flow of information and whose only interest in the man in the street is as a consumer of their products.
Unfortunately, there is very little hope that any of this will change. The wrong people control human society and will continue to do so, because they created the model and are the only ones who know how to operate it. The sad truth is that today’s man in the street is neither wiser nor more knowledgeable than a medieval peasant. Calling ourselves Homo sapiens, or even Homo sapiens sapiens, seemed like a good idea once but very few of us have lived up to the billing.”
The Poet: Paul Laurence Dunbar, “We Wear The Mask”
“We Wear The Mask”
“We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,-
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Why should the world be overwise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.
We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!”
- Paul Laurence Dunbar
"Just Because..."
"Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math,
that doesn't mean we deserve to conquer the Universe."
- Kurt Vonnegut
Free Download: J. Krishnamurti, “The Book of Life”
“Justifying Evil”
“Obviously the present crisis throughout the world is exceptional, without precedent. There have been crises of varying types at different periods throughout history – social, national, political. Crises come and go; economic recessions, depressions, come, get modified, and continue in a different form. We know that; we are familiar with that process. Surely the present crisis is different, is it not? It is different first because we are dealing not with money nor with tangible things but with ideas. The crisis is exceptional because it is in the field of ideation. We are quarreling with ideas, we are justifying murder; everywhere in the world we are justifying murder as a means to a righteous end, which in itself is unprecedented. Before, evil was recognized to be evil, murder was recognized to be murder, but now murder is a means to achieve a noble result. Murder, whether of one person or of a group of people, is justified, because the murderer, or the group that the murderer represents, justifies it as a means of achieving a result that will be beneficial to man. That is, we sacrifice the present for the future, and it does not matter what means we employ as long as our declared purpose is to produce a result that we say will be beneficial to man. Therefore, the implication is that a wrong means will produce a right end and you justify the wrong means through ideation. We have a magnificent structure of ideas to justify evil and surely that is unprecedented. Evil is evil; it cannot bring about good. War is not a means to peace.”
- J. Krishnamurti, “The Book of Life”
○
“You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it.
That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies,
that is why you must sing and dance,
and write poems and suffer and understand, for all that is life.”
- Jiddu Krishnamurti
Freely download “The Book of Life” by Jiddu Krishnamurti, here:
"The Cave: An Adaptation of Plato's Allegory in Clay"
Full screen recommended.
"The Cave: An Adaptation of Plato's Allegory in Clay"
"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
Put another way...
"Allegory Of The Cave Updated"
by T4C
"Socrates: "Why do people think philosophy is bullsh*t? Let me put it this way - imagine you're in a cave, all chained up so you can't turn your body at all, and all you get to look at is this one wall. Some fools behind you are making shadow puppets using the light from a fire and making echo noises and that's all you or anyone else chained up has seen or heard all your life. Sounds terrible, right? Except it's all you've ever known, shadows and echoes, and that's your whole world - there's no way you could know that, really, you're watching a slightly-improved M. Night Shyamalan film.
In fact, you get pretty good at understanding how the patterns in the show work, and everyone else chained up is like, "Holy sh*t bro, how did you know that that tree was going to fall on that guy?" and you're like, "It's because I f*****g pay attention and I'm smart as sh*t." You're the smartest of the chained, and they all revere you."
Glaucon: "But Socrates, a tree didn't really hit a guy. It's all shadows."
Socrates: "No sh*t, Glaucon, but you don't know that. You think the shadows are real things. Everyone does. Now STFU and let me finish.
So eventually, someone comes and unchains you and drags you out of the cave. At first you'd say, "Seriously, what the f**k is going on?!" Well, actually, at first you'd say, "HOLY SH*T MY EYES!" and you'd want to go back to the safe, familiar shadows. But even once your eyes worked you wouldn't believe them, because everything you ever thought was real is gone. You'd look at a tree, and say,"That's not a tree. I know trees. And you, sir, are no tree. THAT DOWN THERE is a tree." But you're wrong. Down there is a shadow of a tree.
Slowly, as your eyes got better, you'd see more and more. Eventually, you'd see the sun, and realize that it's the source of all light. You can't see sh*t without the sun. And eventually, you'd figure it out. Something would click in your brain: "Oh, sh*t, that IS a tree. F**k me. So and nothing in the cave was real? I feel like such an assh**e."
But it's not your fault, so don't be so hard on yourself. Finally you'd want to go down and tell everyone about everything you've discovered. Except, and here's the hilarious part, they think you've gone f*****g crazy.
You'd say, "Guys, real trees are green!" and they'd say,"What the f**k is green? THAT is a tree over there." And you'd squint and look at the wall, but you know you're f***ed because now you're used to having sunlight, and now you can't see sh*t. So they'd laugh at you, and agree that wherever it was that you went, no one should go there because it turns people into idiots.
Philosophy, same thing. The soul ascends and apprehends the forms, the nature of everything, and eventually the very Idea of Good that gives light to everything else. And then the philosopher has to go back to the cave and try to explain it to people who don't even know what Green is, to say nothing of the Good. But the philosopher didn't make up the Good, it was always there, and the only way to really make sense of it is to uncover it for yourself. You can't force knowledge into a dumbass any more than you can force sight into a blind man.
So if you want to learn, be prepared for a difficult journey, and be prepared to make some mistakes. That's okay, it's all part of the process. True knowledge must be obtained the hard way, and some people just don't want to see the light."
Gregory Mannarino, AM 7/25/21: "Markets, A Look Ahead: Expect An EPIC Week... And Here's Why"
Gregory Mannarino, AM 7/25/21:
"Markets, A Look Ahead: Expect An EPIC Week... And Here's Why"
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