Monday, March 21, 2022

"Insane - One-third of Americans Support Nuclear War With Russia"

"Insane - One-third of Americans Support 
Nuclear War With Russia"
by Mike Adams

"Earlier this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the U.S. Congress via video link and implored the Legislative Branch to do more to help him save his country. While Zelenskyy did not ask for American boots on the ground, he did press for a “no-fly zone” or, in lieu of that, the transfer of Soviet-era fighter planes to his air force and additional anti-aircraft batteries, as well as additional offensive and defensive weapons. He got a standing ovation from attending American lawmakers, as well as a pledge for an additional aid package worth $200 million, bringing the total U.S. commitment to around $1 billion since Russian forces invaded Ukraine in late February.

But a growing number of Americans want their government to do more, even at the risk of provoking a nuclear exchange with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In fact, according to a Pew Research survey released on the heels of Zelenskyy’s speech, more than one-third of Americans support action by the U.S. military even at the risk of nuclear war.

“New Pew poll on Ukraine war: Thirty-five percent of Americans support the US ‘taking military action even if it risks a nuclear conflict with Russia.’ (62 percent oppose.),” The Washington Examiner’s chief political correspondent Byron York wrote on Twitter noting the survey’s results.

New Pew poll on Ukraine war: Thirty-five percent of Americans support the US ‘taking military action even if it risks a nuclear conflict with Russia.’ (62 percent oppose.) https://t.co/7TcpmEHkc7 pic.twitter.com/JsDoi2r09H
- Byron York (@ByronYork) March 16, 2022

“Roughly a third of Americans (32%) say that the United States is providing about the right amount of support to Ukraine as it fights to hold off the Russian invasion,” noted Pew Research in a report on the survey’s findings. A larger share – 42% – say the U.S. should be providing more support to Ukraine, while just 7% say it is providing too much support. About one-in-five (19%) say they are not sure,” the report continued.

However, virtually identical shares in both parties – 51% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents and 50% of Democrats and Democratic leaners – regard the Russian invasion as a ‘major threat’ to U.S. interests,” Pew Research noted further. “New Pew poll on Ukraine war: Thirty-five percent of Americans support the US ‘taking military action even if it risks a nuclear conflict with Russia.’ (62 percent oppose.),” The Washington Examiner’s chief political correspondent Byron York wrote on Twitter noting the survey’s results.

While just one-third of respondents favored U.S. military action at the risk of a nuclear exchange, about the same number of Republicans and Democrats (36% of Republicans, 35% of Democrats) held that view. Also, a large majority favors allowing Ukrainian refugees into the U.S., though Democratic respondents favored that more than did Republicans (80% vs. 57%).

The survey also found that most Americans are paying attention to what’s going on in Ukraine and have been for months. “About seven-in-ten adults (69%) now report having read or heard a lot about the Russian invasion, compared with 23% who said they had read or heard a lot about Russia’s military buildup on its border with Ukraine in a January survey,” Pew Research noted. “Today, nearly identical shares of Republicans (70%) and Democrats (71%) say they have heard or read a lot about the invasion,” the report added.

Meanwhile, the fallout from the war will have long-term - and devastating - implications for the entire planet, given that Russia and Ukraine account for nearly one-third of the world’s grain supplies. In addition, both are top fertilizer producers, and with Ukraine in flames and Western sanctions in place for Russia-produced goods, it is becoming clear that other countries that produce lots of food, like the United States, will suffer from decreased production at least this year and likely into next year as well.

The dearth of food production is coming at a time when food prices have been steadily rising for months in the age of Joe Biden and the leftist-induced global supply chain crisis following a year’s worth of pandemic lockdowns. The point is, the conflict in Ukraine will only compound the economic downturn that was already underway. Plan accordingly."

You know, every time I try to believe that people simply 
cannot be this willfully ignorant and stupid they prove me wrong...
We deserve what we get.

The Daily "Near You?"

Front Royal, Virginia, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"This is a Controlled Demolition of the Economy - Everything Crumbles"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly, 3/21/22:
"This is a Controlled Demolition of the Economy - 
Everything Crumbles"
"Nothing is working right. Inflation is completely out of control. The supply chains are broken door at affecting every industry. Farmers are stopping growing food because they can’t get fertilizer and cannot pay for the equipment that they need. This is a completely controlled demolition of the economy."

Bill Bonner, "A Permanent Ruin"

"A Permanent Ruin"
by Bill Bonner

"The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists."
~ Ernest Hemingway

San Martin, Argentina - "And now we have both, inflation and war! Any dope could see that when you lend money at below the going rate of inflation… stymie output with regulations, shutdowns, tariffs, and waste trillions of dollars… and try to make up for lost production with printing press money – you are asking for trouble. We said so (ad nauseam) in these pages.

The Fed doesn’t have many responsibilities. Controlling inflation is right up there at Numero Uno. Yet, not only did it fail to see the inflation it was causing… and then misdiagnose it as ‘transitory’… now, it has no idea of how to get the cat back in the bag.

Baby steps of 25 basis points – from here to eternity – will never do it. The Fed will be following inflation, not leading it. But let us return to our subject from Friday. The question is not what, but who is really behind the US inflation, Covid Panic, and now hysteria over the war between Russia and its former satellite?

A Who’s Who of War: In modern warfare, as we saw last week, the generals get their medals and sinecures. Raytheon shareholders get higher stock prices. The empire’s whole military/industrial/surveillance/think tank/university/press complex becomes richer and more powerful. So, it is hardly surprising that this huge complex – about which Dwight Eisenhower warned us 60 years ago, and which has only gotten richer and more powerful since – would want to get the country steamed up for war.

But while the military/industrial/etc complex is extensive… it’s not the whole “who” that is behind the obsession with the Russia/Ukraine conflict. Who else? Here’s Foreign Affairs with a hint: "Putin’s War Is Fortifying the Democratic Alliance." Yes, dear reader… there’s more to this complex… and it’s not just in the USA.

Let’s begin with the natty question: isn’t a strong, healthy America enough? Wouldn’t our leaders do well to focus on that goal, rather than obsess over who mis-governs a country on the other side of the world? Practically every day brings new threats of ‘an attack on democracy.’ The January 6th riot at the Capitol… Trump’s ‘stolen election’ claims… attempts to control who votes (or how often) – and now the Russian assault on the Ukraine.

But what is it that makes a democracy…or a global ‘Democratic Alliance’… so superior… so desirable? Of course, we ‘democratic’ countries don’t invade smaller countries, do we? Well…never mind that one… But at least we don’t have a few rich people… and a lot of poor ones. Uh… maybe that doesn’t apply either.

How about free speech? We can say what we want in America – without fear of repercussions, right? But say the ‘wrong’ thing, and your career is over. Hmm… at least we don’t try to put truth tellers in prison, do we? But what about Ed Snowden and Julian Assange?

The bottom line is this, isn’t it: in our countries are democracies ‘the people’ decide the important issues, not the ruling elite? Oops again. In America, the president changes… the ruling party changes… but the “deep state’ rulers – the deciders, the influencers, the manipulators – remain the same. So do the key policies. From Bush to Obama to Trump to Biden there was a big ‘cultural’ shakeup each time… (a brouhaha led by the press)… but no real change of direction. The rich got richer. Spending increased. Debt rose. No agencies were eliminated. No programs ended. If any Deep State apparatchik lost his job… he just bided his time for the next administration!

Look, we’d be a damned fool to argue that there is no difference between Russia and the US and say, Iraq. But the differences are not always as clear and stark as we imagine.

Naming Names: The masses will go along with almost any Great Cause. They are the taxpayers… consumers… ‘cannon fodder’ for war… and ‘useful idiots’ for the whole elite agenda. Mob Man is always ready to back his leaders… and get up to mischief. Russians support Putin. Ukrainians support Zelensky. Americans support Biden. And Germans supported Hitler right up until the Soviets turned out the lights.

Taken into a private room… shown the facts… and all the money spent… all the programs… all the bureaucrats, do-gooders, spooks and paper pushers… and then handed his share of the bill, the average voter would surely recoil in horror. But he still wouldn’t feel qualified to cast judgment on any agency or program. Should the Air Force build a new plane? Should hedge funds be allowed to carry forward their losses? Which side should we back in Eurasia – those who speak Russian or those who speak Ukrainian? Those questions are beyond his ken. He is a follower, not a leader. Those questions are for the elite – the experts – to decide.

But now we are wondering about the leaders themselves. Are they all as incompetent as Jerome Powell? Who are they? What do they want? We promised to name names. And here’s one: Chelsea Clinton. She was never elected to anything. She has little expertise at anything, certainly not medicine. Nevertheless, she was recently in the news, after she found it deplorable that people (Joe Rogan was whom she had in mind) should be able to earn money by giving out opinions without prior approval from her and her co-censors.

Interesting, no? She is an influencer. She’s someone whose comments the media believe are worth passing on. She’s rich. She is one of the people ‘the people’ turn to for guidance. She’s one of them – the elite, who actually control, directly or indirectly, US public policy. So, let’s take a closer look at Ms. Clinton (aka Ms. Mezvinsky) tomorrow. Stay tuned..."

Jim Kunstler, "National Assisted Suicide"

"National Assisted Suicide"
by Jim Kunstler

"The defining moment last week in America’s ongoing mental health crisis was U Penn swimmer Lia Thomas’s record-setting win in the NCAA women’s 500-yard freestyle championship race. It was celebrated in the sports news as a thing - that is, an alleged feature of reality. Lia Thomas began “transitioning” in 2019 when “she” was a full-grown male human being, otherwise known as a “man,” and was already competing in men’s NCAA swimming events. One thing you can conclude from this is that the board of the NCAA is insane.

It’s not the only institution in our country that has lost its mind. Are you comfortable with that? Outside of certain fairy-tales involving naked emperors, there is but one greater instance of a people being so willingly insulted by falsehood, namely, the still-continuing campaign to “vaccinate” and “boost” the public against Covid-19 with a genetic cocktail that doesn’t work to prevent illness or transmission of disease and has already killed or injured many thousands of people.

Yet, they’re still out there pimping for the vaxxes: Rochelle Walensky of the CDC, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Mary Basset (New York Commissioner of Public Health), and many other officials in other lands. This is a major part of the scripted suicide of the USA, along with the rest of Western Civ. Our government’s own Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) now lists a total of 24,177 pericarditis and myocarditis cases for all of year 2021, and 11,829 cases for just January and February of 2022. Do you see an ominous trend there? Those are but two deadly conditions linked to the vaxxes; there are over a thousand more.

The deluded people getting boosted now are taking on-board additional toxic spike proteins to the ones they already acquired in the first two shots. Might one predict that quite a few of them will develop a horrifying array of bodily disorders and die or become disabled in the next two years? It might soon even get hard for the Woked-up, vaxxed-up, Trump-maddened “blue” multitudes to ignore the impending mass murder they have been subjected to.

Such an unappetizing prospect might account for America’s reckless poking of the Russian bear over the future of Ukraine, a distraction from the developing picture of national assisted suicide here at home. The prospect of World War Three is apparently more compelling than the emerging information that indicates the US government is killing off its own population, and lying its face off in the process.

“Joe Biden” and company might have prevented Russia’s “operation” there by simply reiterating what NATO itself had declared: that Ukraine would not be invited to join the alliance. But Ukraine has been a special client of the USA since 2014, when we changed-out a pain-in-the-ass government there. Since then, we’ve used Ukraine as an international money laundry, a proxy forward base for NATO, and, apparently, a place removed from the USA to set up bio-weapons labs when our own government called an at-home “moratorium” on gain-of-function research in 2014.

Part of the forward base activity in Ukraine since 2014 was the training and arming of the 600,000-troop Ukrainian army, one of the biggest armed forces in the world, which Russia now feels constrained to disarm and neutralize. How successful Russia might be in that endeavor, with an operational force of about 200,000, is the subject of a propaganda war being waged one level removed from the action on the ground.

The reality, as one might expect from such basic troop numbers, has been an onerous grind for the Russians. American javelin missiles have proven deadly to Russian tanks and armored vehicles. But, contrary to the narrative script of CNN and The New York Times, Russia is hardly “losing” the contest. Russian forces are in the process of kettling up Ukraine’s most potent units, the notorious Azov battalions, along the Donbass line in the east. There are a lot of them. They are surrounded, cut off from their central command, and now given the choice of surrendering or being slaughtered. For the moment, it is Ukraine’s choice.

For the Russians, this is, as they say, an existential matter, something they have faced before and understand the stakes of - think Napoleon and Hitler. The US has shown, at least, an exorbitant will to antagonize Russia using Ukraine. This, too, is yet more insanity. In Mr. Putin’s early years as head-of-state, Russia asked to join NATO, in Russia’s quest to be treated as a normal European nation after overcoming 75 years of Soviet insanity. Request rebuffed.

Twenty years later, and many instances of antagonism in the meantime, Russia had enough. It is doing something America no longer can do: establishing boundaries. Ukraine will not be used as a platform for further antagonisms. Our response: wreck the global economy starting with the international money system, and possibly bring on a world famine by destroying supply lines for fossil fuels and things made from them, such as fertilizer.

Our country is interested only in dissolving boundaries - geographical, as in our boundary with Mexico, behaviorally, as in the boundary between male and female, psychologically, as in the boundary between reality and fantasy, and existentially, as in being alive or dead. And now Russia, at considerable cost, has to literally teach the USA a lesson in the importance of boundaries. They are going to complete their operation in Ukraine and they’ll likely work-around the “sanctions” heaped on them. Their part of the world these days has all the production, a great many valuable commodities, and most of the world’s population.

Our part of the world seems bent on submitting to self-imposed tyranny and suicide. At least that has been the trend until now. Suddenly information is busting out from all angles penetrating and shattering the dome of unreality we’ve lived under for years. Yes, those vaxxes are killing a lot of people… yes, the Intel Community and the DNC overthrew the previous president… yes, every US Intel bigwig in the land lied to you about Hunter Biden’s laptop… yes, that laptop is crammed with hard evidence of bribery and, arguably, treason involving the current president… yes, the US economy is tanking because we’ve borrowed more money than we can ever pay back and we don’t produce enough stuff of value… and no, Russia is not “losing” in the Ukraine - rather, Russia is showing the commitment and fortitude of a nation interested in self-preservation. You think we might learn something from that?"

"Economic Market Snapshot 3/21/22"

Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
"Economic Market Snapshot 3/21/22"
Updated as available.
MarketWatch Market Summary, Live Updates
CNN Market Data:
CNN Fear And Greed Index:
Latest Market Analysis, Updated 3/21/22
A comprehensive, essential daily read.
March. 21st to 22nd, 2022
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."
Daily Job Cuts
Commentary, highly recommended:
"The more I see of the monied classes,
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
Oh yeah...
And now... The End Game...

"How It Really Is"

 

"Prices Are Getting Ridiculous At Target! - What's Coming?"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures with Danno, 3/21/22:
"Prices Are Getting Ridiculous At Target! - What's Coming?"
"In today's vlog we are at Target and are noticing massive price increases! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices, and a lot of empty shelves! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products."

Gregory Mannarino, "Be Ready Now... Energy And Food Shortages, Surging Inflation, And More"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 3/21/22:
"Be Ready Now... Energy And Food Shortages,
 Surging Inflation, And More"

Sunday, March 20, 2022

"Economic Fairy Tale Ending, Get Ready For Destruction; Debt Collectors Wiping Out Bank Accounts"

Jeremiah Babe, PM 3/20/22:
"Economic Fairy Tale Ending, Get Ready For Destruction;
 Debt Collectors Wiping Out Bank Accounts"

"Food Supply Chain Breakdown Push Prices To Skyrocket 500% As Global Starvation Plan Accelerates"

Full screen recommended.
"Food Supply Chain Breakdown Push Prices To 
Skyrocket 500% As Global Starvation Plan Accelerates"
by Epic Economist

"Are you ready for the coming food crisis yet? Because events are accelerating at a much faster speed than most people realize, and a global supply shock is about to trigger catastrophic levels of food insecurity all over the world. In America, food prices are already skyrocketing, and a perfect storm is threatening to dramatically collapse domestic food production, exacerbate shortages and push prices even higher in the coming months. Industry insiders are warning that U.S. consumers are going to spend 20% more on groceries this year, and many farmers are losing their motivation to plant new crops as fertilizer prices soar up to 500% in some states. All of this means that we experienced so far is just a hint of what is coming next. The facts we’re about to expose in this video are truly shocking, but the best thing we can do in times like these is to stay informed so that we can prepare for the challenges ahead.

Americans are suffering from the effects of the worst food inflation since the turn of the century. Farmers, economists, industry experts, and even the UN are warning that the U.S.-led sanctions imposed on the Russian economy in response to the offensive in Ukraine are going to result in devastating consequences for the entire planet. Given that Russia is also the biggest manufacturer of fertilizer in the world, and China a nation aligned with Russian interests and historically unfriendly to the United States and the West, is the second on that list, the outlook is not good at all for American farmers.

The situation is becoming so worrying that Bloomberg analyst Alexis Maxwell is calling it a ‘march to disaster’. The main problem is that without fertilizer farmland is significantly less productive. Industry experts estimate that the lack of fertilizer can collapse corn and wheat yields in the U.S. by more than 40%. And considering that prices are expected to go much higher, farmers will either have to plant without fertilizer or raise the prices of their products accordingly. But that increase can be much more acute than we imagine. "The cost of fertilizer is up as much as 500% in some areas," revealed Indiana Farm Bureau President Randy Kron. "It would be unbelievable if I hadn't seen it for myself as I priced fertilizer for our farm in southern Indiana. Fertilizer is a global commodity and can be influenced by multiple market factors, including the situation in Ukraine, and all of these are helping to drive up costs."

On top of that, we’re also struggling with soaring prices for gasoline and diesel, which are key for today’s mechanized farming and for delivering food to consumers. Even the UN is sounding the alarm over a “hunger hurricane,” that is already being felt in some parts of the globe. In the U.S. this will mean supply shortfalls and explosive prices. But elsewhere in the world, it will mean starvation. And our leaders are definitely not helping to ease the situation.

That’s probably why John Catsimatidis, the billionaire supermarket CEO is now advising Americans to stock up now because food inflation will only get much worse. “I’ve seen price increases coming through for the month of March. I’ve seen them coming through April and May,” said the CEO of New York City supermarket chain Gristedes, in an interview with FoxNews on Tuesday.

And with historic inflation, surging fuel prices, and shrinking food supplies, the U.S. is about to face an absolutely horrifying food crisis. But once again, those responsible are unlikely to be held accountable for their reckless actions. Actually, perhaps some of them will. After all, food shortages caused ravaging riots that led to the overturning of governments during the Arab Spring, and dissatisfaction with the U.S. government continues to grow, so maybe we should start preparing for some civil unrest, too.

Greg Hunter, "800,000 Lives Could Have Been Saved with Ivermectin and HCQ"

"800,000 Lives Could Have Been Saved 
with Ivermectin and HCQ"
by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"In October, Dr. Pierre Kory, a world renowned pulmonary and critical care Covid expert, warned, “The suppression of early treatment in this country is one of the most historically calamitous actions, and history will not be kind here.” Sadly, Dr. Kory was right and explains, “If you look at us now, we are over 900,000 deaths, and a huge proportion could have been saved. If you look at Dr. Peter McCullough’s protocol, it was published in August of 2020. He argued for combination therapy protocols, a combination of Ivermectin (IVR) and Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). We know the vast majority, 85% to 90% of the hospitalizations and deaths, would have been prevented. You apply that to, let’s say, 800,000 excess deaths, and you are talking about a massive humanitarian crisis that resulted from the suppression of early effective repurposed drug treatments.” (IVR & HCQ)

Dr. Kory goes on to say, “We are in a war of information. They call us ‘misinformation-ists.’ They are ‘disinformation-ists.’ They are actually employing disinformation. They want everyone to be convinced that Ivermectin is a horse dewormer, and only uncredible people would take it for a viral syndrome. They have never shown it is an anti-viral, and it’s been shown for 10 years to work on a number of viruses. So much of the medical establishment and doctors have been propagandized to have bizarre behaviors. They are still pushing vaccines because they have been told lies. They are still attacking Ivermectin based on lies and wrong information. It’s the same thing with Hydroxychloroquine.”

When it comes to the so-called vaccines, Dr. Kory says it all should have come to a grinding halt with all the deaths from the inoculations very early on. Dr. Kory explains, “The stopping point for an experimental intervention, therapy or vaccine, that stopping point was exceeded within weeks of the rollout. The scale of what we are talking about now is almost indescribable. The traditional stopping point with deaths associated, that was exceeded in January of 2021, and the agencies (FDA & CDC) ignored it. The VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System) data just kept climbing and climbing and climbing. I can’t even keep up. Last I checked, there were over 24,000 death reports in VAERS.”

Dr. Kory goes on to talk about the unvaxed and vaxed patients he is treating. Dr. Kory talks about the deaths and injuries from the vaccines and thinks they will keep climbing as he predicted at the beginning of 2022. Dr. Kory will also tell you how you can help yourself no matter if you are vaxed or unvaxed.

Dr. Kory tells people to go to the FLCCC Alliance website and get information for treating Covid19 and vax injuries for free."

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One with Dr. Pierre Kory, one of the top Pulmonary and Critical Care experts on the planet, who is co-founder of the Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance. (There is much more in the 1 hour & 15 min. interview.)

Musical Interlude: Deuter, “Loving Touch”

Full screen recommended.
Deuter, “Loving Touch”

"A Look to the Heavens"

“These three bright nebulae are often featured in telescopic tours of the constellation Sagittarius and the crowded starfields of the central Milky Way. In fact, 18th century cosmic tourist Charles Messier cataloged two of them; M8, the large nebula left of center, and colorful M20 on the right. The third, NGC 6559, is above M8, separated from the larger nebula by a dark dust lane. All three are stellar nurseries about five thousand light-years or so distant.
The expansive M8, over a hundred light-years across, is also known as the Lagoon Nebula. M20's popular moniker is the Trifid. Glowing hydrogen gas creates the dominant red color of the emission nebulae, with contrasting blue hues, most striking in the Trifid, due to dust reflected starlight. The colorful skyscape recorded with telescope and digital camera also includes one of Messier's open star clusters, M21, just above the Trifid.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

"When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged
in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams,
to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where
he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars."

- Walt Whitman

"It's The Way..."

"It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it."
- Lena Horne

"The 11 Nations Of The United States"

Click image for larger size.
"The 11 Nations Of The United States"
by Andy Kiersz and Marguerite Ward

"This map above shows how the US really has 11 separate 'nations' with entirely different cultures. Author and journalist Colin Woodard identified 11 distinct cultures that have historically divided the US. His book "American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures in North America" breaks down those cultures and the regions they each dominate.

From the utopian "Yankeedom" to the conservative "Greater Appalachia" and liberal "Left Coast," looking at these cultures sheds an interesting light on America's political and cultural divides. In response to the coronavirus pandemic, some governors are acting among these factions - like California, Oregon, and Washington, of all which have parts comprising of "The Left Coast" group."
Please view this complete and fascinating article here:

"Too Often..."

"The majority of us lead quiet, unheralded lives as we pass through this world. There will most likely be no ticker-tape parades for us, no monuments created in our honor. But that does not lessen our possible impact, for there are scores of people waiting for someone just like us to come along; people who will appreciate our compassion, our unique talents. Someone who will live a happier life merely because we took the time to share what we had to give. Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have a potential to turn a life around. It’s overwhelming to consider the continuous opportunities there are to make our love felt."
- Leo Buscaglia

Free Download: Albert Camus, "Lyrical And Critical Essays"

"We have not overcome our condition, and yet we know it better. We know that we live in contradiction, but we also know that we must refuse this contradiction and do what is needed to reduce it. Our task as [humans] is to find the few principles that will calm the infinite anguish of free souls. We must mend what has been torn apart, make justice imaginable again in a world so obviously unjust, give happiness a meaning once more to peoples poisoned by the misery of the century. Naturally, it is a superhuman task. But superhuman is the term for tasks we take a long time to accomplish, that’s all.

Let us know our aims then, holding fast to the mind, even if force puts on a thoughtful or a comfortable face in order to seduce us. The first thing is not to despair. Let us not listen too much to those who proclaim that the world is at an end. Civilizations do not die so easily, and even if our world were to collapse, it would not have been the first. It is indeed true that we live in tragic times. But too many people confuse tragedy with despair. “Tragedy,” [D.H.] Lawrence said, “ought to be a great kick at misery.” This is a healthy and immediately applicable thought. There are many things today deserving such a kick."
- Albert Camus

Freely download "Lyrical And Critical Essays", by Albert Camus, here:

"I Enjoy Talking To You..."


;-)

The Daily "Near You?"

Jackson, Tennessee, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Night..."

“The day has been so full of fret and care, and our hearts have been so full of evil and of bitter thoughts, and the world has seemed so hard and wrong to us. Then Night, like some great loving mother, gently lays her hand upon our fevered head, and turns our little tear-stained faces up to hers, and smiles; and though she does not speak, we know what she would say, and lay our hot flushed cheek against her bosom, and the pain is gone. Sometimes, our pain is very deep and real, and we stand before her very silent, because there is no language for our pain, only a moan. Night’s heart is full of pity for us: she cannot ease our aching; she takes our hand in hers, and the little world grows very small and very far away beneath us, and, borne on her dark wings, we pass for a moment into a mightier Presence than her own, and in the wondrous light of that great Presence, all human life lies like a book before us, and we know that Pain and Sorrow are but angels of God.”
- Jerome K. Jerome

"Waltzing To Armageddon"

"Waltzing To Armageddon"
by Chris Hedges

"The Cold War, from 1945 to 1989, was a wild Bacchanalia for arms manufacturers, the Pentagon, the C.I.A., the diplomats who played one country off another on the world’s chess board, and the global corporations able to loot and pillage by equating predatory capitalism with freedom. In the name of national security, the Cold Warriors, many of them self-identified liberals, demonized labor, independent media, human rights organizations, and those who opposed the permanent war economy and the militarization of American society as soft on communism. That is why they have resurrected it.

The decision to spurn the possibility of peaceful coexistence with Russia at the end of the Cold War is one of the most egregious crimes of the late 20th century. The danger of provoking Russia was universally understood with the collapse of the Soviet Union, including by political elites as diverse as Henry Kissinger and George F. Kennan, who called the expansion of NATO into Central Europe “the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era.”

This provocation, a violation of a promise not to expand NATO beyond the borders of a unified Germany, has seen Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, Croatia, Montenegro and North Macedonia inducted into the Western military alliance.

This betrayal was compounded by a decision to station NATO troops, including thousands of U.S. troops, in Eastern Europe, another violation of an agreement made by Washington with Moscow. The Russian invasion of Ukraine, perhaps a cynical goal of the Western alliance, has now solidified an expanding and resurgent NATO and a rampant, uncontrollable militarism. The masters of war may be ecstatic, but the potential consequences, including a global conflagration, are terrifying.

Peace has been sacrificed for U.S. global hegemony. It has been sacrificed for the billions in profits made by the arms industry. Peace could have seen state resources invested in people rather than systems of control. It could have allowed us to address the climate emergency. But we cry peace, peace, and there is no peace. Nations frantically rearm, threatening nuclear war. They prepare for the worst, ensuring that the worst will happen.

So, what if the Amazon is reaching its final tipping point where trees will soon begin to die off en masse? So what if land ice and ice shelves are melting from below at a much faster rate than predicted? So what if temperatures soar, monster hurricanes, floods, droughts, and wildfires devastate the earth? In the face of the gravest existential crisis to beset the human species, and most other species, the ruling elites stoke a conflict that is driving up the price of oil and turbocharging the fossil fuel extraction industry. It is collective madness.

The march towards protracted conflict with Russia and China will backfire. The desperate effort to counter the steady loss of economic dominance by the U.S. will not be offset by military dominance. If Russia and China can create an alternative global financial system, one that does not use the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency, it will signal the collapse of the American empire. The dollar will plummet in value. Treasury bonds, used to fund America’s massive debt, will become largely worthless. The financial sanctions used to cripple Russia will be, I expect, the mechanism that slays Americans, if not immolation in thermonuclear war.

Washington plans to turn Ukraine into Chechnya or the old Afghanistan, when the Carter administration, under the influence of the Svengali-like National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, equipped and armed the radical jihadists that would morph into the Taliban and al Qaeda in the fight against the Soviets. It will not be good for Russia. It will not be good for the United States. It will not be good for Ukraine, as making Russia bleed will require rivers of Ukrainian blood.

Pandora’s Box of Evils: The decision to destroy the Russian economy, to turn the Ukrainian war into a quagmire for Russia and topple the regime of Vladimir Putin will open a Pandora’s box of evils. Massive social engineering - look at Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya or Vietnam - has its own centrifugal force. It destroys those who play God.

The Ukrainian war has silenced the last vestiges of the Left. Nearly everyone has giddily signed on for the great crusade against the latest embodiment of evil, Vladimir Putin, who, like all our enemies, has become the new Hitler.

The United States will give $13.6 billion in military and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, with the Biden administration authorizing an additional $200 million in military assistance. The 5,000-strong EU rapid deployment force, the recruitment of all Eastern Europe, including Ukraine, into NATO, the reconfiguration of former Soviet bloc militaries to NATO weapons and technology have all been fast tracked.

Germany, for the first time since World War II, is massively rearming. It has lifted its ban on exporting weapons. Its new military budget is twice the amount of the old budget, with promises to raise the budget to more than 2 percent of GDP, which would move its military from the seventh largest in the world to the third, behind China and the United States.

NATO battlegroups are being doubled in size in the Baltic states to more than 6,000 troops. Battlegroups will be sent to Romania and Slovakia. Washington will double the number of U.S. troops stationed in Poland to 9,000. Sweden and Finland are considering dropping their neutral status to integrate with NATO.

This is a recipe for global war. History, as well as all the conflicts I covered as a war correspondent, have demonstrated that when military posturing begins, it often takes little to set the funeral pyre alight. One mistake. One overreach. One military gamble too many. One too many provocations. One act of desperation.

Russia’s threat to attack weapons convoys to Ukraine from the West; its air strike on a military base in western Ukraine, 12 miles from the Polish border, which is a staging area for foreign mercenaries; the statement by Polish President Andrzej Duda that the use of weapons of mass destruction, such as chemical weapons, by Russia against Ukraine, would be a “game-changer” that could force NATO to rethink its decision to refrain from direct military intervention - all are ominous developments pushing the alliance closer to open warfare with Russia.

Once military forces are deployed, even if they are supposedly in a defensive posture, the bear trap is set. It takes very little to trigger the spring. The vast military bureaucracy, bound to alliances and international commitments, along with detailed plans and timetables, when it starts to roll forward, becomes unstoppable. It is propelled not by logic but by action and reaction, as Europe learned in two world wars.

Staggering Hypocrisy: The moral hypocrisy of the United States is staggering. The crimes Russia is carrying out in Ukraine are more than matched by the crimes committed by Washington in the Middle East over the last two decades, including the act of preemptive war, which under post-Nuremberg laws is a criminal act of aggression. Only rarely is this hypocrisy exposed as when U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the body: “We’ve seen videos of Russian forces moving exceptionally lethal weaponry into Ukraine, which has no place on the battlefield. That includes cluster munitions and vacuum bombs which are banned under the Geneva Convention.”

Hours later, the official transcript of her remark was amended to tack on the words “if they are directed against civilians.” This is because the U.S., which like Russia never ratified the Convention on Cluster Munitions treaty, regularly uses cluster munitions. It used them in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Iraq. It has provided them to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen. Russia has yet to come close to the tally of civilian deaths from cluster munitions delivered by the U.S. military.

The Dr. Strangeloves, like zombies rising from the mass graves they created around the globe, are once again stoking new campaigns of industrial mass slaughter. No diplomacy. No attempt to address the legitimate grievances of our adversaries. No check on rampant militarism. No capacity to see the world from another perspective. No ability to comprehend reality outside the confines of the binary rubric of good and evil. No understanding of the debacles they orchestrated for decades. No capacity for pity or remorse.

Elliott Abrams worked in the Reagan administration when I was reporting from Central America. He covered up atrocities and massacres committed by the military regimes in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and by the U.S.-backed Contra forces fighting the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. He viciously attacked reporters and human rights groups as communists or fifth columnists, calling us “un-American” and “unpatriotic.” He was convicted for lying to Congress about his role in the Iran-Contra affair. During the administration of George W. Bush, he lobbied for the invasion of Iraq and tried to orchestrate a U.S. coup in Venezuela to overthrow Hugo Chávez.

“There will be no substitute for military strength, and we do not have enough,” writes Abrams for the Council on Foreign Relations, where he is a senior fellow: “It should be crystal clear now that a larger percentage of GDP will need to be spent on defense. We will need more conventional strength in ships and planes. We will need to match the Chinese in advanced military technology, but at the other end of the spectrum, we may need many more tanks if we have to station thousands in Europe, as we did during the Cold War. (The total number of American tanks permanently stationed in Europe today is zero.) Persistent efforts to diminish even further the size of our nuclear arsenal or prevent its modernization were always bad ideas, but now, as China and Russia are modernizing their nuclear weaponry and appear to have no interest in negotiating new limits, such restraints should be completely abandoned. Our nuclear arsenal will need to be modernized and expanded so that we will never face the kinds of threats Putin is now making from a position of real nuclear inferiority.”

Putin played into the hands of the war industry. He gave the warmongers what they wanted. He fulfilled their wildest fantasies. There will be no impediments now on the march to Armageddon. Military budgets will soar. The oil will gush from the ground. The climate crisis will accelerate.

China and Russia will form the new axis of evil. The poor will be abandoned. The roads across the earth will be clogged with desperate refugees. All dissent will be treason. The young will be sacrificed for the tired tropes of glory, honor and country. The vulnerable will suffer and die.

The only true patriots will be generals, war profiteers, opportunists, courtiers in the media and demagogues braying for more and more blood. The merchants of death rule like Olympian gods. And we, cowed by fear, intoxicated by war, swept up in the collective hysteria, clamor for our own annihilation."

Gregory Mannarino, "Markets, A Look Ahead: 100% Proof The FED Is Deliberately Fueling Higher Inflation"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 3/20/22:
"Markets, A Look Ahead: 100% Proof The FED 
Is Deliberately Fueling Higher Inflation"

"How It Really Is"

 

"Grave Faults..."

“Only the following items should be considered to be grave faults: not respecting another's rights; allowing oneself to be paralyzed by fear; feeling guilty; believing that one does not deserve the good or ill that happens in one's life; being a coward. We will love our enemies, but not make alliances with them. They were placed in our path in order to test our sword, and we should, out of respect for them, struggle against them. We will choose our enemies.”
- Paulo Coelho, "Like the Flowing River"

"US Moral Compass"

"Moral compass?!"
Surely you jest! This is 'Murica!

"The Sometimes Hidden Beauty of ‘This Too Shall Pass’

"It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent a sentence to be ever on view and which would be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words, 'And this, too, shall pass away.'"

"The Sometimes Hidden Beauty of ‘This Too Shall Pass’
By Richard Haddad

"“This too shall pass.” This proverb has no doubt been repeated millions of times in many different languages since the COVID-19 pandemic and it's consequences started. The sentiment may be difficult to accept amidst so many hardships from lost jobs, lost businesses and lost lives.

This adage grew from the roots of a Persian fable and became known in the Western world primarily through a 19th-century retelling by the English poet Edward FitzGerald, who crafted the fable “Solomon’s Seal” in 1852 illustrating how the adage had the power to make a sad man happy but, conversely, a happy man sad. The fable was reportedly also employed in a speech by Abraham Lincoln before he became the sixteenth President of the United States.

But the version I want to share today that I think is most beautiful and powerful was written in 1867 by American newspaper editor and abolitionist Theodore Tilton. He reworked the fable into a poem called “The King’s Ring.” Here again, the retooled adage wields a double-edged sword. It can help us endure the passage of difficult times, or keep our perspective and humility during good times. Here is the Tilton poem:

"The King’s Ring"

Once in Persia reigned a King,
Who upon his signet-ring
Graved a maxim true and wise,
Which, if held before his eyes,
Gave him counsel, at a glance,
Fit for every change or chance;
Solemn words, and these are they:
“Even this shall pass away.”

Trains of camels through the sand
Brought him gems from Samarcand;
Fleets of galleys through the seas
Brought him pearls to rival these.
But he counted little gain
Treasures of the mine or main.
“What is wealth?” the King would say;
“Even this shall pass away.”

In the revels of his court,
At the zenith of the sport,
When the palms of all his guests
Burned with clapping at his jests,
He, amid his figs and wine,
Cried, “O loving friends of mine!
Pleasures come, but do not stay:
Even this shall pass away.”

Lady fairest ever seen
Was the bride he crowned the queen.
Pillowed on his marriage-bed,
Whispering to his soul, he said,
“Though no bridegroom never pressed
Dearer bosom to his breast,
Mortal flesh must come to clay:
Even this shall pass away.”

Fighting on a furious field,
Once a javelin pierced his shield.
Soldiers with a loud lament
Bore him bleeding to his tent.
Groaning from his tortured side,
“Pain is hard to bear,” he cried,
“But with patience day by day,
Even this shall pass away.”

Towering in the public square
Twenty cubits in the air,
Rose his statue carved in stone.
Then the King, disguised, unknown,
Gazing at his sculptured name,
Asked himself, “And what is fame?
Fame is but a slow decay:
Even this shall pass away.”

Struck with palsy, sere and old,
Waiting at the Gates of Gold,
Spake he with his dying breath,
“Life is done, but what is Death?”
Then, in answer to the King,
Fell a sunbeam on his ring,
Showing by a heavenly ray -
“Even this shall pass away.”

I believe enduring well is an essential part of the test we must pass while on this Earth together. I am still taking this test. We all are. I also believe we must have a certain amount of faith and hope as we do all in our power to make things right in this world while also accepting that we don’t have the power to control all outcomes. I’ve been learning these truths and striving to apply them more in my own life. In the past I have sometimes hearkened to gloomy voices in the world. Many a time I entertained unnecessary doubt and worry. But I am learning that worry works against faith and hope. My mother once shared this other saying with me that I have tried to apply in my older years - “Worry is interest paid on money never borrowed.”

May we all strive to endure, live and love well, for this too shall pass."

"You See..."

"As Robert Oppenheimer said a short while before he died, "It is perfectly obvious that the whole world is going to hell. The only possible chance that it might not is that we do not attempt to prevent it from doing so." You see, many of the troubles going on in the world right now are being supervised by people with very good intentions whose attempts are to keep things in order, to clean things up, to forbid this, and to prevent that. The more we try to put everything to rights, the more we make fantastic messes. Maybe that is the way it has got to be. Maybe I should not say anything at all about the folly of trying to put things to right but simply, on the principle of Blake, let the fool persist in his folly so that he will become wise."
- Alan Watts

Musical Interlude: Disturbed, "The Sound Of Silence"

Full screen recommended.
Disturbed, "The Sound Of Silence"
Singer David Draiman

Simply incredible...
This will touch your soul...