Lynn, Massachusetts, USA. Thanks for stopping by!
So, we rise from the rubble...
Wednesday, December 7, 2022
"The Majority Of Us..."
"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
"The Left Has Plenty Of Plans For This Crisis"
"The Left Has Plenty Of Plans For This Crisis"
by John Wilder
"This post is originally from April, 2021. I would normally be having a new post, but I feel just awful tonight. Tired. The Mrs. had Influenza A, and now I have it, I think. Or something. Unlike when AIDS, the flu, and COVID walked into a bar, this isn't some sort of sick joke. See? I've still got it. I anticipate new content on Friday, and no matter how I feel I should be ready to go for tomorrow's podcast at 9pm Eastern. I'm skipping my normal run 'round the 'net tonight, so I can get some sleep. I would make another sleep joke, but those are so tiring. Take care, all!"
- JW
"The last year has seen more change than the last twenty years, combined. This is to be expected, especially if you give Strauss and Howe’s "The Fourth Turning" idea any credence. A short version of The Fourth Turning (also known as Kondratieff Wave Theory) is that there is a roughly 80-year cycle of human affairs. Let me use the life of my Dad, Pa Wilder, to describe it:
When Pa Wilder was young he spent most of his childhood in Winter, the first defining experience of his life was the Great Depression. Back then, they had printed versions of the Internet that they would get delivered to their house every day, called newspapers. They also had cell phones that never needed charging, and that you could never lose because they were in the living room and conveniently connected by a cord to the wall.
I’m sure all of the kids on the playground talked with Pa about how obvious it was that the Federal Reserve’s® monetary policy, combined with bankers lending to anyone with a pulse led to near financial collapse. Oh, and how their parents couldn’t afford shoes. Thankfully, Pa lived in a farming community, and every little house in town had a very large garden out back. Food from the grocery store?
Why would you spend money on food when you had to pay for the mortgage? That’s the sort of lesson that bored itself into Pa Wilder’s mind. As a kid, he saw people lose houses, he saw people lose fortunes. He saw a nation nearing collapse.
Economic collapse led to the second thing that defined Pa Wilder’s youth: World War II. Not long after Japanese planes attacked Pearl Harbor he was in boot camp in Ft. Sill and before long was a 2nd lieutenant in the Army. The next four years he spent on an all-expenses-paid European vacation
The end of the war was the end of Kondratieff Winter. What followed was Spring. In post-war United States, growth and unrivaled prosperity followed from 1945-1965. Pa Wilder, like the rest of the G.I. generation, came back and built families and factories and farms. They looked out at a world that was shattered, and they made fortunes rebuilding it. They even found Dean Martin’s favorite eel. Don’t remember that? It’s a moray.
Spring was characterized by extreme faith in government institutions – sure the government had fumbled the ball in the Great Depression, but it had unified the country for World War II. It stayed back enough to allow growth, and Eisenhower’s America got out of North Korea and planted the seeds for the Super Science® projects that would provide unmatched weapons systems and the seeds of space exploration.
Spring gives over to Summer. Around 1965, the spiritual awakening was followed in 1975 by the “Me” decade. In Summer, the economy is humming along, the weather is great, and the first questioning of the previous ideas that led to the success of the country begins. It’s probably no coincidence that the disastrous Immigration Act of 1965, the arguably unconstitutional Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Lyndon Johnson’s voter-plantation Great Society acts (1964 and 1965) took place at the start of Summer when Americans were questioning their values, questioning the things that made America great.
Pa Wilder was an established businessman, working as the president of a very conservative farm bank. You could get a loan, but only if you had collateral and a good income stream. Pa Wilder told more people “no” than “yes” for loans. That bothered him, with the exception of the fact that he told me, “I’ve never had to foreclose on a house, son.” To him, it was a moral duty. Thankfully Pa never served in the paratroopers, otherwise, they would have called him “debt from above.”
In society, however, the big splits had started in 1965. The subversion of colleges started and would be nearly complete by the 1980s. Religious decline started, and Nixon got tired of hiding the fiscal shenanigans of the country that gold was exposing. His solution? Get rid of gold.
But Summer was still a good time. Autumn, however, is harvest. Pa Wilder was pretty close to retirement at this point, and the real economic power had moved to the Boomers. Pa’s natural fiscal conservatism led to a strong and stable business. The people that took over from him, however, would “give a loan to anyone with a pickup and a backhoe.” They even loaned out money on haunted houses, places they were sure were going to be repossessed.
Inertia is important in an economic system. But in 1985 the financial systems of the United States began to be harvested. “Greed is good” became the motto, and systems were run entirely for near-term economic benefit. Everyone from Pa Wilder’s generation was dead or retired – the new people in charge had no living memory of the national crisis brought on by The Great Depression.
The end of Autumn is the first chill of Winter, and the end result was the Great Recession (right on time!) in 2007-2008. In the Winter, things fall apart. I’ve been really quite amazed that things have held together so well since that first cold snap. Obama was, well, a disappointment. Trump seemed (in many ways) overwhelmed by the system and couldn’t figure out how to move the levers of power in any significant and lasting ways – which makes sense on a failing system.
That was the starter’s gun on the crisis, the date Winter began. We should have been a long way through it by now, but this Winter is different: The United States had a uniquely dominant position at the start of Winter, having both complete military dominance as well as a strong economic dominance of the world. The Federal Reserve© decided to just print all the money that it could to spend its way into continued prosperity.
Sure, sometimes government wants to stop a crisis so that the citizens can have a stable country. Sometimes. But other times, governments are waiting for the crisis, looking forward to it. Planning on it. In one article titled Sometimes the world needs a crisis: Turning challenges into opportunities(LINK), the Brookings Institute lists the things they love about crises. I admit that some of them are positive, but here are a few that I think are a bit more ominous – these descriptions are directly from Brookings:
Systemic Change: Global crises that crush existing orders and overturn long-held norms, especially extended, large-scale wars, can pave the way for new systems, structures, and values to emerge and take hold. Without such devastation to existing systems and practices, leaders and populations are generally resistant to major changes and to giving up some of their sovereignty to new organizations or rules.
Dramatic Policy Shifts: Sometimes the fear generated from a crisis and corresponding public outcry enables and even forces leaders to make bold and often difficult policy moves, even in countries not involved in or affected by the crisis.
COVID-19 was the big crisis they were waiting for this Winter. As the economic systems unwind under the unsustainable debt the ‘Rona is the perfect opportunity. Imagine the tapestry of that you see was planned. What end is being sought? Well, they told us already. Systemic Change. Changes to virtually every system in the United States. Want to have a nice, neat, prosperous, and orderly community? Too bad. That’s not a thing that’s going to happen. The police will be neutered. How badly will communities suffer? Here’s how bad it is now:
●Leftist controlled Chicago: arrests/stops are down 53 percent, murders are up 65 percent.
●Leftist controlled New York City: arrests/stops are down 38 percent, murders are up 58 percent.
●Leftist controlled Louisville: arrests/stops are down 35 percent, murders are up 87 (not a typo) percent.
●Leftist controlled Minneapolis: arrests/stops are down 42 percent, murders are up 64 percent.
●Leftist controlled Los Angeles: arrests/stops are down 33 percent, murders are up 51 percent.
●Leftist controlled St. Louis: in 2020, the murder rate hit “a 50-year high, with 87 out of every 100,000 residents being murdered.”
When there is murder and mayhem there is control. This is their plan. This is the crisis. Remove police – replace with ideological commissars that aren’t bound by law. Now, if they see a “crime” that they feel is wrong, they can punish it however they see fit. Most commonly, this will just be by removing the protection of the law and letting the mob do the rest. The biggest crimes? The crimes against the Left.
That’s just the first of the planned Systemic Changes. There are more planned.
●Universal basic income.
●Boards to approve hiring at private companies.
●Equity everywhere.
●More rules than you can imagine. All of them will be based on some fear – guns in rural areas will be restricted because people in the city can’t stop killing each other.
●Climate change lunacy: to meet Joe Biden’s climate goals, Americans would be restricted to four pounds (344 milliliters) of meat a year. This will be walked back.
●And your ideas: they probably won’t be as bad as the real plans.
To be clear: Winter is here. The Left has an endless list of Leftist goals to accomplish during the crisis to come. The Winter will be dark. Where are our goals? The Right cannot just have the goals of “what the Left wants, but less,” or, “the opposite of what those guys want."After that? Organization. And leadership. And longjohns. Winter is here."
"None So Blind..."
"Why does truth carry such a dreadful face? Why does subjugation carry
such a happy mask? It becomes sad when people understand that they
can lead a better life as long as they bow their heads, ignoring the truth."
- Lionel Suggs
"There are none so blind as those who will not see. The most deluded
people are those who choose to ignore what they already know.”
- John Heywood, 1546
Fred Reed, "Ukraine War"
"Ukraine War"
The encirclement of Russia by NATO (i.e. America) is very roughly
equivalent to having Russian forces in El Paso, Tijuana, and Toronto
by Fred Reed
"Given that pushing a third of Americans are functionally illiterate or close, that twenty percent think that the sun revolves around the earth, and seventy percent cannot name the three branches of the federal government, it isn’t surprising that few have much idea of how the war in Ukraine came about. What does surprise is that so few of the intelligent and schooled have much more grasp. Many of these, friends, say that Putin tries to reconstitute the Soviet Union, that Russia is a threat to NATO, that Putin is (sigh) Hitler, and everything from inflation to falling hair is Putin’s fault. No.
Let’s look at things from the point of view of people who pay more attention: In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed and Reagan promised Gorbachev that NATO would not move eastward. As a well-known Russian has said, the United States is not agreement capable. It soon began moving NATO eastward, increasing from thirteen countries in NATO to thirty today in an obvious military encirclement of Russia. In 2014 the US attempted a coup in Ukraine aimed at putting an American puppet in Kiev but it didn’t work and Russia retrieved the Crimea. For the next eight or so years NATO, meaning America, trained Ukrainian forces in preparation for the war we now have. This is well known to military analysts and students of eastern Europe.
During this time Russia said over and over and over and over that it wasn’t going to allow Ukraine in NATO, de facto or de jure. This would put American forces on Russia’s border and in Crimea, as well as American naval forces in Sebastopol. American hypersonic nuclear missiles would have been about five minutes of flight time from Moscow.
Look at a map. Note where the Ukraine and the Crimea are. Note that America was wooing Georgia for membership in NATO: More encirclement of Russia. And after Georgia, Azerbaijan, giving American forces access to the Caspian and Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Astrakhan in Russia, and the northern coast of Iran.
This would be very roughly equivalent to having Russian forces in El Paso Tijuana, and Toronto. Do you see why Russia wasn’t going to do this? Which Washington knew, but kept pushing. This gave Russia a choice between two very bad ideas. First, let the Ukraine into NATO, a great victory for Washington, or, second, fight, hoped to be an even greater victory. This was all well understood, calculated, and apparently led by Vicky the Newt Nuland of the State Department.
In Washington, sophisticated people of my acquaintance have never heard of any of this. It isn’t that they disagree, but that they just don’t know. The power of the media to control thought is astonishing.
Why does Washington keep this war going? The proximate answer - as what’s-his-Raytheon, the Secretary of Defense has put it - is to rope Russia into a long, debilitating war that would exhaust it, end it as a world power, and overthrow Vladimir Putin. The gravy on this sirloin was that, or so it was hoped, it would firm up Washington’s control of Europe, make Europe buy more American costume-jewelry weaponry, force Europe to buy high-priced American LNG, and bring more countries, such as Sweden and Finland into NATO. Also, and here we come to the Big Picture, or part of it, the war would end Nordstream II forever.
Blocking the completion of Nordstream II, the Russian under-Baltic gas pipeline to Germany, has been a high-profile goal of American policy for years. How many Americans have heard of it? Why block the pipeline? Because Asia is rising. Asia is rising fast. Not just China, but the whole shebang. China alone has four times the American population, superb universities, several times as many engineering grads annually, the world’s best civil engineering and, in addition to being almost every country’s largest trading partner, is the world’s largest market for almost everything. In many fields it is still behind America, but the gap closes. Washington knows this, and knew that the pipeline would tie Germany into the growing Eurasian ecosystem.
China’s Belt and Road Initiative, its plan to link all of Eurasia - not Asia, Eurasia - into one huge trading bloc, is working, or at least the connectivity is happening. Here we could name many of its new, recent, or underway rail links - China-Vientiane, Pakafuz, China-Mandalay, Lanzhou-Tashkent, China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, Jakarta-Bandung, the now-old Nairobi-Mombasa line. If Asian countries link up and develop commercially, they will dwarf the United States. So much for empire.
Washington has pushed Russia, China, and Iran together into a de facto alliance. This was stupid. The first rule of empire is “never let your enemies unite,” but the US, perhaps not realizing that this is no longer 1955, seems to believe that it can overcome all of them at once. Now India informally leans East, saying that it will trade with Russia, no comments from Washington needed. Trade corridors in Asia open apace, for example the INSTC, the International North-South Transport Corridor, sort of Mumbai-Chabahar-Azerbaijan-Russia. Don’t even think about China’s heavy commercial investment in Latin America and Africa.
Nordstream II was part of a growing connection between Asia and Germany that Washington could not allow. It didn’t, as blowing up the pipeline showed. This was done apparently by England on Washington’s orders. It illustrates American desperation to prevent Europe, a football being fought over by East and West, from engaging commercially with Asia.
The list of Asian advances in commerce, technology, and connectivity could go on for hundreds of pages, and has, in many books. The bottom line, as we say, is that Washington is looking down the barrel of a gun. It has to stop the growing integration of the rest of the world by any possible means as the days of American supremacy wane. The United States has, or may have, a narrow window of opportunity to maintain hegemony. The first step is to exhaust Russia with the current war and then move on to strangle China.
Can it do this? We shall see, but it seems unlikely. The US can compete with China neither in manufacturing nor in building infrastructure - rail lines, cities, ports - for countries around the world. At home it faces poor and declining education, huge trade deficits and national debt, growing poverty as Washington prioritizes its wars over its people, massive corruption, an evaporating technological lead, crime and social disintegration, and domestic disunity. The military with its vast network of bases around the world swallows resources that might alleviate some of the foregoing.
China’s main weaknesses, apart from the Straits of Malacca in a world war, are Taiwan and semiconductors. This Washington understands. The details of the “chip wars” are complex. In a nutshell, America either makes the machinery needed to manufacture semiconductors, or controls the countries that do - chiefly the company ASML in the Netherlands, TSMC in Taiwan, Tokyo Electron in Japan, and South Korea. It prohibits the sale of advanced ships to China. However, control over the main countries in the chip business arouses hostility since companies do not like losing a vast market to further Washington’s global ambitions. Pushback by the industry, including in America, grows.
Regarding Taiwan, Washington seems to be playing the same game it played with Ukraine. China has said, over and over and over and over, that Taiwan is part of China. Under the famous One China policy, which kept the peace for decades, the US agreed that Taiwan was Chinese and Beijing tacitly agreed not to invade. Now Washington is salami-slicing the One China doctrine out of existence, first sending Pelosi to Taipei, then Congressional delegations, then sending arms, and in general ignoring Chinese objections. These are intentional provocations aimed at making Taiwan a de facto independent state. Washington’s intense interest in Taiwan exists because Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s largest and most advanced chip fab, is there. America currently cannot make advanced chips. It’s greatest nightmare is that China might get control of TSMC.
This will eventually force China either to give up Taiwan, which it won’t, or fight. Washington will then, as in the Ukraine, accuse Beijing of starting the war, perhaps send the Navy to defend the island, and supply weapons so that the Chinese can kill each other. Here again the US seems to think we live in the Fifties and the Navy is a fearsome force that will intimidate Beijing. It isn’t.
None of this is original with me, secret, or hard to find. It is, however, suppressed by the highly controlled American media. Few notice."
o
"How It Very Really Is"
“You know, I've been around the ruling class all my life, and I've been
quite aware of their total contempt for the people of the country.”
- Gore Vidal
While you, of course...
"Maybe..."
“We’ve all heard the warnings and we’ve ignored them. We push our luck. We roll the dice. It’s human nature. When we’re told not to touch something we usually do even if we know better. Maybe because deep down, we’re just asking for trouble.”
- “Meredith Grey”, “Gray’s Anatomy”
If so, we've certainly gotten all we want...
"Breaking: Russia on High Alert, More Attacks; Poland is Mobilizing For War!"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 12/6/22:
"Breaking: Russia on High Alert, More Attacks;
Poland is Mobilizing For War!"
"More attacks on Russian bases in the last 24 hours as nuclear forces are on high alert; Hundreds of tanks land in Poland and Romania for possible campaign into western Ukraine as US on high state of combat readiness. Polish to conduct 200,000 military draft. Ukraine cities will be unliveable by Christmas according to NGO; UK nuclear subs set new record; US tripling weapons production."
Comments here:
o
o
Full screen recommended.
Scott Ritter, 12/7/22:
"Is Russia Running Out of Missiles?
Ukraine Continues to Shell Civilians"
"We are joined by Konstantin Sivkov, Russian military expert, geopolitician, military political scientist and strategist, Doctor of Military Sciences. Chairman of the Union of Geopoliticians, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Rocket and Artillery Sciences, 1st Rank Captain, Corresponding Member of the RARAN, Member of the Academy of Military Sciences, Vice-President of the Academy of Missile and Artillery Sciences for information policy."
Comments here:
"The Chief Obstacle..."
"The chief obstacle to the progress of the human race is the human race."
- Don Marquis
"In the mass of mankind, I fear, there is too great a majority of fools
and knaves, who, singly from their number, must to a certain degree
be respected, though they are by no means respectable."
- Philip Stanhope
"Massive Price Increases At Aldi! This Is Ridiculous! What's Next?"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures with Danno, 12/7/22:
"Massive Price Increases At Aldi!
This Is Ridiculous! What's Next?"
"In today's vlog we are at Aldi 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!"
Comments here:
"Stop Lying to Me"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 12/7/22
"Stop Lying to Me"
"You can believe anything you want. We are not heading anywhere. We are in
a big fat recession right now. What’s going to happen next will be a depression."
Comments here:
o
"Giving Anarchy a Bad Name"
"Giving Anarchy a Bad Name"
by Jeff Thomas
"Here we have a photo of Corporal Maxwell Klinger, a character in the American television comedy, M.A.S.H., filmed in the early 1970’s. The Klinger character was written as a soldier in the Korean War, who hoped that, if he became a transvestite, he’d qualify for a Section Eight discharge and would be sent home. In this photo, Corporal Klinger was taking part in a troop inspection.
In the early 70’s, America was still involved in the Viet Nam War. The liberal press graphically covered that war and its travesties – to the point that a majority of Americans became sick of the seemingly endless (and pointless) conflict and thoroughly sympathized with the Klinger character.
But, make no mistake about it: Corporal Klinger was an anarchist. He did not desert on the firing line; he was not violent to his superiors; he simply dressed in an entertaining series of female outfits in order to be classified as insane, so he could be allowed to go home. His superior, Captain Pierce, sympathized with Klinger’s effort, often commenting something to the effect, "Do I think he’s insane? Only if it’s insane to object to having your government send you half way around the world in order to get shot at."
But the 70’s were different times. Back then, the media were not owned by the same corporations that were profiting from the war. Today, the major corporations that profit from warfare not only donate heavily to the political campaigns of both political parties, thereby assuring that there will be a proliferation of unnecessary wars; they also control both the news programs and the film industry, assuring that there will be no equivalent of M.A.S.H. for present-day Americans to watch.
There will also be no news broadcasts that expose the US government creating and funding rebel organizations such as ISIS – that create chaos that the US must then come in and "control." If the American people were to receive such news on their televisions, they would today be asking meaningful questions as they did in the 70’s, such as, "How is it possible for the US, the greatest military power on earth, to invade a country like Afghanistan, fighting against disorganized sheepherders for 20 years, spending trillions dollars doing it, and not gaining any ground whatever – in effect, being no further ahead than when they started?"
And how can returning veterans of that war be treated by Government as being potential terrorists - classified as "threats to democracy" upon their return? The American media of today does not present these questions to viewers and they shall not do so in the future.
But, what of the anarchists? Of course, when we think of anarchy, we think of groups like the SLA (Symbionese Liberation Army), who, at the time when M.A.S.H. was being aired, were a small group of people who armed themselves, robbed banks, kidnapped and killed people in the name of "liberation." The SLA were not, in fact, terrorists; they were a small gang of thugs. They were annihilated by the Los Angeles police, in a shoot-out and conflagration, and justifiably so, as they had violently aggressed against others without provocation.
Today, we incorrectly see groups like Black Lives Matter and Antifa as anarchists and, of course, we’re encouraged to view them in this light, as they’re groups that use force in order to terrorise others. Presented in this light, we could be forgiven if we regard anarchists as "evil people who wish to destroy us." Of course, we would oppose their activities and even their existence. They represent force, violence and intimidation.
The trouble is, "anarchy" is being misrepresented by both governments and the media in order to assure that the citizenry is compliant. In truth, a definition of anarchy is, "The absence or non-recognition of authority." Another definition is, "The absence of government and absolute freedom of the individual." What these true definitions represent, therefore, is, "leave me alone to live my life as I choose. As long as I don’t aggress against others, my liberty should be respected."
Of course, this was the primary principle of America’s founding fathers – that the US would be a republic – a state of rule in which the rights of the individual are of paramount importance – not the will of leaders, or even the will of the majority. And, in M.A.S.H, we have Corporal Klinger defending that inalienable right. He’s a classic anarchist – a draftee into a system that he does not believe in. He offers no force, he simply states, in a peaceful manner, that he does not wish to participate in his government’s invasion of a sovereign nation halfway round the world. The fact that he does so through a comical manner makes his anarchy no less valid.
During America’s involvement in the Viet Nam War, peace activist Charlotte Keyes wrote an article entitled, "Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came?" The title became a minor anthem thereafter. Its supporters were anarchists – people who suggested that governments can create all the aggressive foreign adventures they want, but those who are being invited to become the cannon fodder in those adventures should be able to choose not to participate. And, they should have every right to do so.
Centuries ago, leaders rode the horse that was at the head of the charge, followed by any who wished to arm themselves and fall in behind the leader. Today, that’s decidedly not the case. The entire world is a grand chessboard, as Zbigniew Brzezinski has so eloquently described it, and political leaders never see the back of a horse. They, instead, provide for themselves the safest of perches upon which to sit, whilst they send out the gullible citizenry to do battle. They fund their wars through taxation - the fruits of the labour of the people they are elected to represent.
The people of a country pay the price with their earnings and their blood. The leaders take no personal risk, but are the recipients of the spoils. Not surprising then, that they do all they can to discredit not only the anarchist, but the very concept of anarchy. To the American founding fathers, the anarchist was respected for his reasoning and his courage. With or without the dress, the anarchists of today are equally worthy of our respect. They represent the voice of Liberty just as much as they did in 1776."
o
Full screen recommended.
"Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came?"
"It’s a Conspiracy!"
"It’s a Conspiracy!"
by Jim Rickards
"I work hard to avoid promoting conspiracy theories. They’re too easy to adopt as explanations for all sorts of strange events and are highly implausible in most cases. They require extreme amounts of intelligence, coordination and competence that, quite frankly, the alleged conspirators simply aren’t capable of. Usually, stupidity is a perfectly good explanation especially when it comes to politicians and other public officials.
Even when elite coordination is apparent it’s not necessarily a conspiracy at work. It may just be the case that like-minded individuals are pursuing a common goal. Elites mostly went to a fairly small group of top schools and took similar courses taught by a tight-knit group of academics. They came up through the ranks in the same government agencies and multilateral institutions. With that much in common, it’s no surprise they think alike and share the same globalist goals. At the same time, some conspiracies are real. It’s naïve to believe otherwise.
The Real Deal: But how do you distinguish between the dime-a-dozen conspiracy theories and the real thing? Smoking gun evidence helps, but that’s rare. Firsthand experience with the matter under consideration is one of the best approaches. That brings me to this story…
It involves the CIA, the failed crypto exchange FTX, money-laundered campaign contributions to Democrats, the Pakistani bank BCCI (which was a criminal enterprise on stilts that collapsed in 1991) al-Qaida, Jeffery Epstein and the crypto stablecoin Tether. That’s a lot to unpack.
I handled Citibank’s financial control in Africa in the 1980s and BCCI was a bank we ran into constantly. We knew it was bad news then years before the collapse and made sure we kept as far away from them as possible. I also converted Citi to Islamic banking in Pakistan around the same time. My Pakistan experience was one reason I was recruited by the CIA to do financial counterterrorism aimed at al-Qaida and others in the 2000s. That experience deserves a few words…
Project Prophesy: The CIA recruited me as part of Project Prophesy, which was launched as a strategic study under the direction of CIA veteran Randy Tauss, who was also a seasoned options trader. I was tapped to join the group based in part on my experience with Islamic banking in Pakistan. That was considered useful in understanding the mindset of potential terrorist traders. I later became one of two project managers reporting to Tauss.
In 2004, I helped build a working prototype of a Project Prophesy machine using artificial intelligence, applied mathematics, news feeds, price feeds, computing and human oversight. We were looking for terrorist insider trading. We developed Project Prophesy in total secrecy. And much of my work is classified. But I can tell you that on Aug. 7, 2006, Prophesy’s system uncovered warning signs of an impending terrorist attack. Three days later in London, a plot to blow up 10 U.S. passenger jets was thwarted. Twenty-four Pakistani extremists were arrested.
The Government Ignored My Warnings: Then in 2007, my system spotted an impending crash in the real estate and stock markets. I presented my findings to Treasury officials. But they ignored my warnings. We all know what happened next.
We were ready at that point to build a more robust version of this for the CIA and sought additional funding. But the CIA decided not to move forward with the project mainly for political reasons. They were worried about possible adverse headlines if it were made to appear that the intelligence community was trolling through citizens’ personal trading records. That was never true; we used open-source price feeds to get initial leads and then operated through the judicial system after that. But the publicity risk was there and the CIA did not want to take a chance.
After 2008, I moved on to other projects, but I never lost sight of the potential predictive power that we had discovered in Project Prophesy. I learned that the techniques I developed were useful far beyond the realm of counterterrorism. They could be used for any kind of geopolitical threats carried out in capital markets.
Cryptos and Capital Markets: And I’ve been expert on cryptos since 2010 shortly after they were created in 2009. Besides, I’ve followed the Tether story for years and have been able to drill down on FTX in real-time. In other words, I’ve had enough hands-on experience in third-world bank fraud, intelligence work, cryptocurrencies and other touch points to know this story hangs together and makes a highly credible case.
I’ll leave the story to you rather than repeat all of the details. Here’s the main takeaway: FTX is just the tip of the iceberg. Tether does not have the liquid dollar assets it claims to support its $80 billion of coins issued. When Tether does collapse the impact will be multiples of the FTX impact and will certainly affect mainstream finance leading to bank and hedge fund failures.
If the Tether collapse is delayed somewhat it will be because the CIA finds it so useful in financing Ukraine (a Democratic money-laundering scheme) and so-called “color revolutions” around the world. It’s all playing out before our eyes. Meanwhile, the crypto dominos continue to fall, and will continue to fall until they’ve knocked down mainstream finance.
Bye, Bye, BlockFi: The crypto exchange BlockFi has filed for bankruptcy. BlockFi had been on the ropes for some time, and finally suspended redemptions by its customers on Nov. 11 because it lacked available funds to repay those customers. It had agreed to be acquired by a bigger crypto exchange FTX, but that deal was abandoned after FTX was revealed to be the biggest crypto fraud of all. In the end, BlockFi was illiquid with a crashing valuation and no way to pay customers, so it closed its doors and filed for bankruptcy.
There are a number of important lessons for investors to take from this even if you have no direct involvement with cryptocurrencies…The first is that the crypto world is densely connected. One exchange will leave its funds on deposit with another exchange and so on in a daisy chain of interlocking deposits. Of course, if one link in the chain fails, the entire chain fails, and no one is repaid. That’s bad enough, but what has been happening in crypto land is even worse.
House of Cards: The parties who receive deposits from others borrow against those deposits. This introduces leverage so that the amounts involved in a collapse are far greater than the amounts originally received. Many of the participants in this reckless conduct offered to pay customers interest. How could they offer interest when the actual cryptos are not securities and don’t earn anything themselves?
Don’t ask. A party paying “interest” would receive a yield from another party paying “interest” so that the interest component was also added to the original fraud. Interlocking deposits, borrowings, leverage, interest, derivatives and more were all part of the crypto scam. In addition, many of the “billion dollar” losses you read about in the crypto world are not actually dollars but losses, loans and deposits in cryptocurrencies that are valued in dollars at highly inflated values of the cryptos (another form of leverage).
What’s left is a house of cards that is now tumbling down. Luna and Three Arrows failed before FTX. BlockFi and others have failed since. Genesis may be the next in line. This slow-motion sequential collapse is far from over. It’s just a matter of time before the crypto-world collapse leaks into the mainstream financial world of banks, brokers and hedge funds. All I can say is give it time."
Tuesday, December 6, 2022
"Ford Truck Prices Go Crazy; Beware Of Scammers; Shopping At Discount Stores"
Jeremiah Babe, 12/6/22:
"Ford Truck Prices Go Crazy;
Beware Of Scammers; Shopping At Discount Stores"
Comments here:
"Putin Doesn’t Bluff"
"Putin Doesn’t Bluff"
by Jim Rickards
"The war in Ukraine has been in a partial hiatus for the past two months. But that hiatus is coming to an end as Russia prepares its next move. Today, we’re looking ahead to what’s coming next. And here’s a hint: We could be entering a very dangerous period.
First off, the situation on the ground in Ukraine is best understood as a competition between the narrative and reality. The narrative consists of what you hear from mainstream media, the White House, the Pentagon, and official sources in the U.K., France, Germany and both EU and NATO headquarters in Brussels.
The narrative says that the Armed Forces of Ukraine, AFU, have beaten back Russian forces and reoccupied Kherson, which lies strategically on the Dnipro River, Kyiv’s main access to the Black Sea. Based on these advances, the narrative says that Russia is in retreat, Russian troops are demoralized, Putin is in jeopardy of being replaced and complete victory for Ukraine is just a matter of time. The narrative is then used as a basis for increased financial aid from the United States (over $60 billion and growing) and increased weapons shipments from NATO members.
Narrative vs. Reality: But as I’ve explained recently, the situation on the battlefield in Ukraine is almost completely at odds with the Western narrative. It’s true that Ukraine made recent advances in the east, but they were against lightly defended Russian positions on or near open terrain. Much has been made of Ukraine’s retaking of Kherson, but Russia regarded it as a city of little strategic value. Rather than waste resources fighting for it, they withdrew. The Russians also let the Ukrainians have the open land, which will later become a killing field for Russian artillery. That’s the reality you’re not being told.
In the words of retired U.S. Army Col. Douglas Macgregor: "The Biden administration repeatedly commits the unpardonable sin in a democratic society of refusing to tell the American people the truth: Contrary to the Western media’s popular “Ukrainian victory” narrative, which blocks any information that contradicts it, Ukraine is not winning and will not win this war. Months of heavy Ukrainian casualties, resulting from an endless series of pointless attacks against Russian defenses in southern Ukraine, have dangerously weakened Ukrainian forces."
Russia Is Preparing to Lower the Hammer: In the meantime, Russia is preparing to launch a massive counteroffensive. It’s completed its 300,000-man mobilization, with over 180,000 of those troops now deployed behind Russian lines in combat formations. The remaining 120,000 troops will arrive soon. This brings total Russian strength up to about 30 divisions.
Once again, Col. Macgregor: "The coming offensive phase of the conflict will provide a glimpse of the new Russian force that is emerging and its future capabilities…The numbers continue to grow, but the numbers already include 1,000 rocket artillery systems, thousands of tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones, plus 5,000 armored fighting vehicles, including at least 1,500 tanks, hundreds of manned fixed-wing attack aircraft, helicopters and bombers. This new force has little in common with the Russian army that intervened nine months ago on Feb. 24, 2022." Meanwhile, Ukrainian strength has been greatly diminished due to high casualty rates and being stretched thin.
Then What? If successful, the upcoming counteroffensive would give Russia control of the entire coast from the Sea of Azov to the Black Sea. It would also give Russia control of the Dnipro River, which separates the western part of Ukraine from the eastern part and connects Kyiv to the Black Sea. Ukraine would be left as a rump state between Kyiv and Lviv. Almost all the industrial, technological and natural resource capacity of former Ukraine would be under Russian control. Whether any of this succeeds remains to be seen. Still, it is definitely coming, and the situation will grow more violent and chaotic.
The question then becomes, would the U.S. stand by and watch Russia defeat Ukraine militarily? Will it become more directly involved in ways that could risk actual conflict with Russia? After all, the U.S. is essentially fighting a proxy war against Russia. Ukraine is merely a means to an end as far as the U.S. goes. The U.S. has committed significant resources to defeat Russia, and a Russian victory would further undermine U.S. credibility in the world. The chances of escalation are therefore significant.
The Greatest Risk of Nuclear Confrontation Since the Cuban Missile Crisis: Depending on how events unfold, the world is potentially facing the greatest risk of nuclear confrontation since the Cuban Missile Crisis. A limited nuclear war is a real possibility in the not-distant future. Why do I say that?
U.S. elites have started psychological operations (psyops) aimed at Putin with nuclear weapons as the bait. They claim that Putin has threatened to use tactical weapons in Ukraine and possibly other parts of Eastern and Central Europe. That’s a lie; Putin never said that. When asked, both Putin and Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev said that if attacked, Russia would defend itself by all means necessary including the possible use of nuclear weapons. That’s not news. That has been Russian or Soviet policy since the early 1950s.
This lie about Putin’s intentions quickly morphed into another psyop about a “false flag” operation. That’s when you stage an attack disguised to look like an attack by your enemy in order to justify your own “retaliation,” which you were planning all along.
Nukes, “Dirty Bombs” and False Flags: Recently the narrative that Putin would use nukes or conduct a false flag operation morphed into a related narrative that Putin would use a “dirty bomb.” In effect, Putin would detonate a dirty bomb and then blame the Ukrainians and Americans. A dirty bomb is not a nuclear weapon, but it does employ radioactive material wrapped around conventional explosives. When detonated, the radioactive material is dispersed and can poison or kill any people or livestock in the area. It’s akin to what happened at Chernobyl in 1986. That nuclear reactor meltdown was an accident, not a bomb. But the effect of spreading radioactive material was similar to a dirty bomb.
Not to be outdone, the Russians countered by saying the U.S. or Ukraine would conduct the false flag by detonating a dirty bomb and then blaming the Russians as an excuse to escalate Western involvement in Ukraine. At this point, we have both sides warning the other side will conduct a false flag with a dirty bomb in order to justify their own pre-planned escalation. If a dirty bomb does go off, each side will blame the other and the truth will be a casualty of war.
Putin Doesn’t Bluff: It’s difficult to know what comes next. It could be that Russia uses a tactical nuclear weapon. Russia might detonate a dirty bomb and blame Ukraine. The U.S. may use a tactical nuclear weapon if it suspects Russia is about to do so, an example of a first-strike advantage. The U.S. may detonate a dirty bomb and blame Russia in a classic false flag operation. Regardless, it’s not difficult to know that we’re on a path to nuclear war.
We also know that Putin doesn’t bluff. When George W. Bush raised the issue of Ukrainian entry into NATO, Putin invaded Georgia. When Obama staged a coup against a pro-Russian president in Kyiv, Putin annexed Crimea. When Biden green-lighted a Ukrainian assault in Donbas, Putin invaded Ukraine. Again, Putin doesn’t bluff. It would be a great blunder to believe otherwise. We’re sleepwalking down a road that could potentially lead to Armageddon."
"Buy Lots Of Fuel And Store It Some Place Safe, Because Massive Outages Are Coming This Winter"
Full screen recommended.
"Buy Lots Of Fuel And Store It Some Place Safe,
Because Massive Outages Are Coming This Winter"
by Epic Economist
"If you need to drive to work on a regular basis or if you rely on fuel to heat your home, it’s time to consider stocking up on energy supplies and storing fuels in a safe place because the signs of a winter crisis are already multiplying. The U.S. is currently grappling with one of the worst fuel shortages in decades, with reserves at the lowest seasonal level ever. As we head into the winter, inventories of distillate fuels are being rapidly depleted, and some areas of the country have already started rationing fuel. Now, we’re being warned that despite the recent decline in prices seen over the past few weeks, winter prices will be very different. Demand for energy supplies is expected to soar this month, and so is the cost of filling up your tank and keeping your home warm amid falling temperatures. Industry executives are very alarmed about the impact this crisis is going to have on household budgets, and you should be, too.
Official data released by the Energy Information Administration revealed that national inventories of distillate fuels, - which include gasoline, diesel, and heating oil, - are at their lowest level since 2008. These shrinking reserves are why diesel prices are above $5.00 a gallon nationwide, even though the nationwide average price for gasoline has dropped below $4.00 a gallon. Unfortunately, the measures that allowed that decline to happen can’t stay in place forever because they’re causing some serious imbalances in the fuel industry. Refineries were ordered to produce more gasoline to expand supply and lower prices, and in turn, they were producing less diesel, which pushed prices up by 265% since January 2021 in the spot market of New York harbor, and caused a 38% rise in November alone.
While most consumers may not be directly impacted by skyrocketing diesel prices, they’re actually indirectly impacted in a host of different ways. Given that manufacturers use diesel to power up their operations and truckers need the fuel to deliver goods all over the country, the trickle-down effect of those increased costs eventually hit consumers, who are already confronting the most acute inflation spike in a generation.
To rebuild the inventory of diesel, refineries must produce less gasoline, which will then result in another surge in prices at the pump. In the East Cost, drivers have seen gas prices hit $8 to $10 a gallon this year, and Bloomberg reported that many gas stations have completely run out of supplies already, and these stockouts are silently spreading across the country. On top of all that, diesel is the main component of heating oil, which is used by millions of U.S. households during the winter. Electricity operators also need the fuel. The combustion of the distillate produces natural gas, the energy supply used to power up our homes.
Things could get exponentially worse as the cold season begins. All in all, the diesel crisis could cost the US economy $100 billion this year, according to Mark Finley, an energy fellow at Rice University's Baker Institute of Public Policy. "Anything and everything that gets moved in our economy, diesel is there. Moving stuff around is one thing. People potentially freezing to death is another," he said. In the short term, there are no signs of relief in sight for this situation. And, at the end of the day, “it’s not gonna be pretty for the consumer,” as pointed out by Robert Yawger, director of the futures division at Mizuho Securities USA."
Musical Interlude: Vangelis, "Alpha"
Despite ourselves, this song always suggested the images of
Mankind's relentless march through the ages to our unknown destiny...
Vangelis, "Alpha"
“The sands of time blew into a storm of images... images in sequence to tell the truth! Glorious legends of revolutionaries, bound only by a desire to be true to themselves, and to hope! Parables of colliding worlds, of forbidden love, of enemies healing the wounds of circumstance! Projected myth of persecution through greed and selfishness... and the will to survive! The Will to survive! And to survive in the face of those who claim credit for your very existence! We survive not as pawns, but as agents of hope. Sometimes misunderstood, but always true to our story. The story of Man."
- Scott Morse
"A Look to the Heavens, With Chet Raymo"
“Learning And Yearning”
by Chet Raymo
“This photograph of the Eagle Nebula made by a rather modest telescope - the 0.9 meter instrument at Kitt Peak, Arizona - appeared on APOD. I sat in front of the computer screen for ten minutes, breathless. One tiny corner of the Milky Way Galaxy, one of tens of billions of galaxies that we can potentially see with our telescopes! At the center are the so-called "Pillars of Creation" from a famous Hubble photograph.
I recall when the Hubble photograph appeared in the media hundreds of viewers claimed to see the face of Jesus in the billowing clouds. Which prompted these observations from "Skeptics and True Believers": "In an article on the psychological basis of belief, the psychologist James Alcock proposed that two aspects of the human brain might be called the "yearning unit" and the "learning unit." He probably didn't mean these terms to be taken literally, as referring to separate compartments of the brain, but yearning and learning are certainly central to the way we interact with the world. It is hard to imagine how we can be fully human without a little of each. Finding the proper balance between the two is a task that can keep us occupied for most of our lives.
We yearn when we dream of fulfillment, of greater happiness, of knowing more. We yearn when we love, when we laugh, when we cry, when we pray. Yearning is wondering what is around the next bend, over the rainbow, beyond the horizon. Yearning is curiosity. Yearning is the driving force of science, philosophy, and religion.
Learning is listening to parents, wise men, shamans. Learning is reading, going to school, traveling, doing experiments, being skeptical. Learning is looking behind the curtain for the Wizard of Oz, touching the stove to see if it's hot, not taking anyone's word for it. In science, learning means trying as hard to prove that something is wrong as to prove it right, even if that something is a cherished belief.
Yearning without learning is seeing Elvis in a crowd, the fossilized footprints of humans and dinosaurs together in ancient rocks, weeping statues. Yearning without learning is buying tabloid newspapers with headlines announcing "Newborn baby talks of Heaven" and the like. Yearning without learning is looking for UFOs in the sky and the meaning of life in horoscopes.
Learning without yearning is pedantry, scientism, dogmatic belief. Learning without yearning is believing that we know it all, that what we see is what we get, that nothing exists except what can be presently weighed and measured. Learning without yearning is science without a heart, without a dream, without a hope of beauty. Yearning without learning is seeing the face of Jesus in a gassy nebula. Learning without yearning is seeing only the gas."
We yearn when we dream of fulfillment, of greater happiness, of knowing more. We yearn when we love, when we laugh, when we cry, when we pray. Yearning is wondering what is around the next bend, over the rainbow, beyond the horizon. Yearning is curiosity. Yearning is the driving force of science, philosophy, and religion.
Learning is listening to parents, wise men, shamans. Learning is reading, going to school, traveling, doing experiments, being skeptical. Learning is looking behind the curtain for the Wizard of Oz, touching the stove to see if it's hot, not taking anyone's word for it. In science, learning means trying as hard to prove that something is wrong as to prove it right, even if that something is a cherished belief.
Yearning without learning is seeing Elvis in a crowd, the fossilized footprints of humans and dinosaurs together in ancient rocks, weeping statues. Yearning without learning is buying tabloid newspapers with headlines announcing "Newborn baby talks of Heaven" and the like. Yearning without learning is looking for UFOs in the sky and the meaning of life in horoscopes.
Learning without yearning is pedantry, scientism, dogmatic belief. Learning without yearning is believing that we know it all, that what we see is what we get, that nothing exists except what can be presently weighed and measured. Learning without yearning is science without a heart, without a dream, without a hope of beauty. Yearning without learning is seeing the face of Jesus in a gassy nebula. Learning without yearning is seeing only the gas."
"So, How Do You Beat The Odds..."
“So, how do you beat the odds when it’s one against a billion? You’re just outnumbered. You stand strong, keep pushing yourself against all rational limits, and never give up. But the truth of the matter is despite how hard you try and fight to stay in control, when it’s all said and done, sometimes you’re just outnumbered.”
- "Meredith", "Gray's Anatomy"
The Poet: W.H. Auden, "September 1, 1939"
"September 1, 1939"
"Defenseless
under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out
wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame."
- W.H. Auden
On September 1, 1939 Nazi Germany invaded Poland. You know the rest...
Mark Twain, “On The Damned Human Race”
“On The Damned Human Race”
by Mark Twain
“I have been studying the traits and dispositions of the lower animals (so-called), and contrasting them with the traits and dispositions of man. I find the result humiliating to me. For it obliges me to renounce my allegiance to the Darwinian theory of the Ascent of Man from the Lower Animals; since it now seems plain to me that the theory ought to be vacated in favor of a new and truer one, this new and truer one to be named the Descent of Man from the Higher Animals.
In proceeding toward this unpleasant conclusion I have not guessed or speculated or conjectured, but have used what is commonly called the scientific method. That is to say, I have subjected every postulate that presented itself to the crucial test of actual experiment, and have adopted it or rejected it according to the result. Thus I verified and established each step of my course in its turn before advancing to the next. These experiments were made in the London Zoological Gardens, and covered many months of painstaking and fatiguing work.
Before particularizing any of the experiments, I wish to state one or two things which seem to more properly belong in this place than further along. This, in the interest of clearness. The massed experiments established to my satisfaction certain generalizations, to wit:
1. That the human race is of one distinct species. It exhibits slight variations (in color, stature, mental caliber, and so on) due to climate, environment, and so forth; but it is a species by itself, and not to be confounded with any other.
2. That the quadrupeds are a distinct family, also. This family exhibits variations (in color, size, food preferences, and so on; but it is a family by itself).
3. That the other families (the birds, the fishes, the insects, the reptiles, etc.) are more or less distinct, also. They are in the procession. They are links in the chain which stretches down from the higher animals to man at the bottom.
Some of my experiments were quite curious. In the course of my reading I had come across a case where, many years ago, some hunters on our Great Plains organized a buffalo hunt for the entertainment of an English earl. They had charming sport. They killed seventy-two of those great animals; and ate part of one of them and left the seventy-one to rot. In order to determine the difference between an anaconda and an earl (if any) I caused seven young calves to be turned into the anaconda’s cage. The grateful reptile immediately crushed one of them and swallowed it, then lay back satisfied. It showed no further interest in the calves, and no disposition to harm them. I tried this experiment with other anacondas; always with the same result. The fact stood proven that the difference between an earl and an anaconda is that the earl is cruel and the anaconda isn’t; and that the earl wantonly destroys what he has no use for, but the anaconda doesn’t. This seemed to suggest that the anaconda was not descended from the earl. It also seemed to suggest that the earl was descended from the anaconda, and had lost a good deal in the transition.
I was aware that many men who have accumulated more millions of money than they can ever use have shown a rabid hunger for more, and have not scrupled to cheat the ignorant and the helpless out of their poor servings in order to partially appease that appetite. I furnished a hundred different kinds of wild and tame animals the opportunity to accumulate vast stores of food, but none of them would do it. The squirrels and bees and certain birds made accumulations, but stopped when they had gathered a winter’s supply, and could not be persuaded to add to it either honestly or by chicane. In order to bolster up a tottering reputation the ant pretended to store up supplies, but I was not deceived. I know the ant. These experiments convinced me that there is this difference between man and the higher animals: he is avaricious and miserly; they are not. In the course of my experiments I convinced myself that among the animals man is the only one that harbors insults and injuries, broods over them, waits till a chance offers, then takes revenge. The passion of revenge is unknown to the higher animals.
Roosters keep harems, but it is by consent of their concubines; therefore no wrong is done. Men keep harems but it is by brute force, privileged by atrocious laws which the other sex were allowed no hand in making. In this matter man occupies a far lower place than the rooster. Cats are loose in their morals, but not consciously so. Man, in his descent from the cat, has brought the cats looseness with him but has left the unconsciousness behind (the saving grace which excuses the cat). The cat is innocent, man is not.
Indecency, vulgarity, obscenity (these are strictly confined to man); he invented them. Among the higher animals there is no trace of them. They hide nothing; they are not ashamed. Man, with his soiled mind, covers himself. He will not even enter a drawing room with his breast and back naked, so alive are he and his mates to indecent suggestion. Man is The Animal that Laughs. But so does the monkey, as Mr. Darwin pointed out; and so does the Australian bird that is called the laughing jackass. No! Man is the Animal that Blushes. He is the only one that does it or has occasion to.
Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it. It is a trait that is not known to the higher animals. The cat plays with the frightened mouse; but she has this excuse, that she does not know that the mouse is suffering. The cat is moderate (unhumanly moderate: she only scares the mouse, she does not hurt it; she doesn’t dig out its eyes, or tear off its skin, or drive splinters under its nails) man-fashion; when she is done playing with it she makes a sudden meal of it and puts it out of its trouble. Man is the Cruel Animal. He is alone in that distinction.
The higher animals engage in individual fights, but never in organized masses. Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and with calm pulse to exterminate his kind. He is the only animal that for sordid wages will march out, as the Hessians did in our Revolution, and as the boyish Prince Napoleon did in the Zulu war, and help to slaughter strangers of his own species who have done him no harm and with whom he has no quarrel.
Man is the only animal that robs his helpless fellow of his country, takes possession of it and drives him out of it or destroys him. Man has done this in all the ages. There is not an acre of ground on the globe that is in possession of its rightful owner, or that has not been taken away from owner after owner, cycle after cycle, by force and bloodshed.
Man is the only Slave. And he is the only animal who enslaves. He has always been a slave in one form or another, and has always held other slaves in bondage under him in one way or another. In our day he is always some man’s slave for wages and does that man’s work; and this slave has other slaves under him for minor wages, and they do his work. The higher animals are the only ones who exclusively do their own work and provide their own living.
Man is the only Patriot. He sets himself apart in his own country, under his own flag, and sneers at the other nations, and keeps multitudinous uniformed assassins on hand at heavy expense to grab slices of other people’s countries, and keep them from grabbing slices of his. And in the intervals between campaigns, he washes the blood off his hands and works for the universal brotherhood of man, with his mouth.
Man is the Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion, several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself, and cuts his throat if his theology isn’t straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother’s path to happiness and heaven. He was at it in the time of the Caesars, he was at it in Mahomet’s time, he was at it in the time of the Inquisition, he was at it in France a couple of centuries, he was at it in England in Mary’s day, he has been at it ever since he first saw the light, he is at it today in Crete (as per the telegrams quoted above) he will be at it somewhere else tomorrow. The higher animals have no religion. And we are told that they are going to be left out, in the Hereafter. I wonder why? It seems questionable taste.
Man is the Reasoning Animal. Such is the claim. I think it is open to dispute. Indeed, my experiments have proven to me that he is the Unreasoning Animal. Note his history, as sketched above. It seems plain to me that whatever he is he is not a reasoning animal. His record is the fantastic record of a maniac. I consider that the strongest count against his intelligence is the fact that with that record back of him he blandly sets himself up as the head animal of the lot: whereas by his own standards he is the bottom one. In truth, man is incurably foolish.
One is obliged to concede that in true loftiness of character, Man cannot claim to approach even the meanest of the Higher Animals. It is plain that he is constitutionally incapable of approaching that altitude; that he is constitutionally afflicted with a Defect which must make such approach forever impossible, for it is manifest that this defect is permanent in him, indestructible, ineradicable. I find this Defect to be the Moral Sense. He is the only animal that has it. It is the secret of his degradation. It is the quality which enables him to do wrong. It has no other office. It is incapable of performing any other function. It could never have been intended to perform any other. Without it, man could do no wrong. He would rise at once to the level of the Higher Animals.
Since the Moral Sense has but the one office, the one capacity (to enable man to do wrong) it is plainly without value to him. It is as valueless to him as is disease. In fact, it manifestly is a disease. Rabies is bad, but it is not so bad as this disease. Rabies enables a man to do a thing, which he could not do when in a healthy state: kill his neighbor with a poisonous bite) one is the better man for having rabies: The Moral Sense enables a man to do wrong. It enables him to do wrong in a thousand ways. Rabies is an innocent disease, compared to the Moral Sense. No one, then, can be the better man for having the Moral Sense. What now, do we find the Primal Curse to have been? Plainly what it was in the beginning: the infliction upon man of the Moral Sense; the ability to distinguish good from evil; and with it, necessarily, the ability to do evil; for there can be no evil act without the presence of consciousness of it in the doer of it.
And so I find that we have descended and degenerated, from some far ancestor (some microscopic atom wandering at its pleasure between the mighty horizons of a drop of water perchance) insect by insect, animal by animal, reptile by reptile, down the long highway of smirch-less innocence, till we have reached the bottom stage of development (namable as the Human Being). Below us, nothing.”
Freely download: "'What Is Man' And Other Essays", by Mark Twain, here:
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