Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 2/15/23:
"Breaking! Nuke Bombers By UK;
Lavrov: "Point Of No Return"
Comments here:
So, we rise from the rubble...
Wednesday, February 15, 2023
"California Is Getting Crazy, Time To Say Goodbye; Retail Sales Jump As Consumers Go Broke"
Jeremiah Babe, 2/15/23:
"California Is Getting Crazy, Time To Say Goodbye;
Retail Sales Jump As Consumers Go Broke"
Comments here:
"Bankers And Tech Executives Know The Collapse Of Society Is Coming And Feverishly Prepare For It"
Full screen recommended.
"Bankers And Tech Executives Know The Collapse
Of Society Is Coming And Feverishly Prepare For It"
by Epic Economist
"While the general population is too busy working to the bone day after day just to be able to afford to live in an increasingly expensive and chaotic world, banks and tech executives are spending millions upon millions of dollars to quit this mundane narrative and disappear without a trace before a major meltdown begins. Sources confirmed that discussions about the collapse of society have become very popular at Silicon Valley and Wall Street, and as we will show you in this video, having a plan to escape seems to be a new priority among the tech elite as the threat of nuclear conflicts and falling economies continues to rise. Many big names in the financial world are explicitly warning about the real risk of ‘doomsday scenarios’ actually happening in a near future. Ladies and gentlemen, all of this mean that the ultra-wealthy know something that the rest of us don’t, and they are feverishly getting prepared for it.
What possible disruption could be coming for J.P. Morgan Chase’s global head of macro quantitative and derivatives research to publicly warn that the next financial crisis is going to result in social unrest that is unlike anything we’ve ever seen in decades? During an interview with CNBC, Marko Kolanovic alerted that the combination of severe stock market volatility and ineffective central bank actions is likely to provoke the eruption of multiple civil conflicts that could push our society to the brink in no time.
The expert notes that the forces that have transformed markets in the last decade, namely the rise of computerized trading and passive investing, are setting up conditions for brutal moves in the stock market at the end of this cycle. “There will be very rapid, sharp declines in asset values with sharp increases in market volatility,” Kolanovic told CNBC. Prior to 2020, previous flash crashes occurred during a backdrop of a U.S. economic expansion; but the new market hasn’t been tested in the throes of a recession, he highlights.
“Suddenly, every pension fund in the U.S. will be severely underfunded, retail investors will panic and sell, while individuals stop spending,” the banker continued. And the world's wealthiest are among those cautious of a coming calamity. When everything starts to fall apart, it’s safe to say that the elite won’t stick around for the day of reckoning.
According to Forbes’ Jim Dobson, lots of billionaires have private planes "ready to depart at a moment's notice." They also own motorcycles, weaponry, and generators. On top of that, a Bloomberg article makes some additional revelations. The paper reports that over the past two years seven “Silicon Valley entrepreneurs” have purchased survival bunkers from a company in Texas and shipped them to locations in New Zealand, where they’re buried 11 feet underground.
Survival comes at a price. Although these bunkers have been designed to withstand a nuclear blast or nature’s worst, they are a far cry from what most people might expect an underground shelter to look like. There are cinemas, swimming pools with water slides, spas, lounges, gyms, and indoor shooting ranges to keep occupants entertained. Last year, the average asking price for a bunker that could house up to 75 occupants was $4.5 million. So anyone outside the top 1 percent of income earners wouldn’t stand a chance to make it into those facilities.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of us don’t have the money to buy a luxury survival bunker or to fly to New Zealand on a private jet. Money may not be able to buy happiness, but it can buy a pretty good escape plan."
Judge Napolitano, "Col. Doug Macgregor - Ukraine, Ammunition, Tanks & the Russian Offensive"
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 2/15/23:
"Col. Doug Macgregor -
Ukraine, Ammunition, Tanks & the Russian Offensive"
Comments here:
Gerald Celente, "America: Private Armies, War Crimes, Cover Ups"
Gerald Celente, 2/15/23:
"America: Private Armies, War Crimes, Cover Ups"
"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present facts and truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for what’s next in these increasingly turbulent times."
Comments here:
"When We Can No Longer Tell the Truth "
"When We Can No Longer Tell the Truth "
by Charles Hugh Smith
"When we can no longer tell the truth because the truth will bring the whole rotten, fragile status quo down in a heap of broken promises and lies, we've reached the perfection of dysfunction. You know the one essential guideline to leadership in a doomed dysfunctional system: when it gets serious, you have to lie. In other words, the status quo's secular goddess is TINA - there is no alternative to lying, because the truth will bring the whole corrupt structure tumbling down.
This core dynamic of dysfunction is scale-invariant, meaning that hiding the truth is the core dynamic in dysfunctional relationships, households, communities, enterprises, cities, corporations, states, alliances, nations and empires: when the truth cannot be told because it threatens the power structure of the status quo, that status quo is doomed.
Lies, half-truths and cover-ups are all manifestations of fatal weakness. What lies, half-truths and cover-ups communicate is: we can no longer fix our real problems, and rather than let this truth out, we must mask it behind lies and phony reassurances.
Truth is power, lies are weakness. All we get now are lies, statistics designed to mislead and phony reassurances that the status quo is stable and permanent. The truth is powerful because it is the core dynamic of solving problems. Lies, gamed statistics and false reassurances are fatal because they doom any sincere efforts to fix what's broken before the system reaches the point of no return.
We are already past the point of no return. The expediency of lies has already doomed us.
Honest accounts of hugely successful corporations that implode share one key trait: in every case, managers were pressured to hide the truth from top management, which then hid the truth from investors and clients. is the key dynamic in failed oligarchies as well: if telling the truth gets you sent to Siberia (or worse), then nobody with any instinct for self-preservation will tell the truth. If obscuring the truth saves one's job, then that's what people do. That this dooms the organization is secondary to immediate self-preservation.
A distorted sense of loyalty to the family, community, company, institution, agency or nation furthers lying as the solution to unsavory problems. Daddy a drunk? Hide the bottle. Church a hotbed of adultery and thieving? Maintain the facade of holiness at all costs. Company products are failing? Put some lipstick on the pig. The statistical truth doesn't support the party's happy story? Distort the stats until they do what's needed. The agency failed to fulfill its prime directive? Blame the managerial failure on a scapegoat.
Pathological liars and cheats rely on self-preservation and misplaced loyalty to mask their own failure and corruption. A hint here, a comment there, and voila, a culture of lying is created and incentivized.
Obscuring the truth is the ultimate short-term expediency. Now that it's serious, we have to lie. We'll start telling the truth later, we say, after everything's stabilized, we hope. But lying insures nothing can ever be truly stabilized, so there will never be a point at which the system is strong enough and stable enough to survive the truth.
We are now an empire of lies. The status quo,politically, socially and economically, depends on lies, half-truths, scapegoats and cover-ups for its very survival. Any truth that escapes the prison of lies endangers the entire rotten edifice.
In an empire of lies, leaders say what people want to hear. This wins the support of the masses, who would rather hear false reassurances that require no sacrifices, no difficult trade-offs, no hard choices, no discipline. The empire of lies is doomed. Lies are weakness, and they prohibit any real solutions. Truth is power, but we can no longer tolerate the truth because it frightens us. Our weakness is systemic and fatal."
○
Related:
"Figuring Forward in an Uncertain Universe"
"Figuring Forward in an Uncertain Universe"
by Maria Popova
"We make things and seed them into the world, never fully knowing - often never knowing at all - whom they will reach and how they will blossom in other hearts, how their meaning will unfold in contexts we never imagined. (W.S. Merwin captured this poignantly in the final lines of his gorgeous poem “Berryman.”)
Today I offer something a little apart from the usual, or sidelong rather, amid these unusual times: A couple of days ago, I received a moving note from a woman who had read "Figuring" and found herself revisiting the final page - it was helping her, she said, live through the terror and confusion of these uncertain times. I figured I’d share that page - which comes after 544 others (here are the first), tracing centuries of human loves and losses, trials and triumphs, that gave us some of the crowning achievements of our civilization - in case it helps anyone else.
Click image for larger size.
Meanwhile, someplace in the world, somebody is making love and another a poem. Elsewhere in the universe, a star manyfold the mass of our third-rate sun is living out its final moments in a wild spin before collapsing into a black hole, its exhale bending spacetime itself into a well of nothingness that can swallow every atom that ever touched us and every datum we ever produced, every poem and statue and symphony we’ve ever known - an entropic spectacle insentient to questions of blame and mercy, devoid of why.
In four billion years, our own star will follow its fate, collapsing into a white dwarf. We exist only by chance, after all. The Voyager will still be sailing into the interstellar shorelessness on the wings of the “heavenly breezes” Kepler had once imagined, carrying Beethoven on a golden disc crafted by a symphonic civilization that long ago made love and war and mathematics on a distant blue dot.
But until that day comes, nothing once created ever fully leaves us. Seeds are planted and come abloom generations, centuries, civilizations later, migrating across coteries and countries and continents. Meanwhile, people live and people die - in peace as war rages on, in poverty and disrepute as latent fame awaits, with much that never meets its more, in shipwrecked love.
I will die.
You will die.
The atoms that huddled for a cosmic blink around the shadow of a self will return to the seas that made us. What will survive of us are shoreless seeds and stardust."
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Light-years across, this suggestive shape known as the Seahorse Nebula appears in silhouette against a rich, luminous background of stars. Seen toward the royal northern constellation of Cepheus, the dusty, obscuring clouds are part of a Milky Way molecular cloud some 1,200 light-years distant.
Click image for larger size.
It is also listed as Barnard 150 (B150), one of 182 dark markings of the sky cataloged in the early 20th century by astronomer E. E. Barnard. Packs of low mass stars are forming within, but their collapsing cores are only visible at long infrared wavelengths. Still, the colorful stars of Cepheus add to this pretty, galactic skyscape."
"French Historian: World War III Has Already Begun"
"French Historian: World War III Has Already Begun"
by Paul Joseph Watson
"A French historian who accurately predicted the fall of the Soviet Union over a decade in advance says that World War III has already begun as a result of the conflict in Ukraine. The comments were made by Emmanuel Todd, one of France’s leading intellectuals, during an interview with the Le Figaro newspaper. “It is evident that the conflict, initially a limited territorial war, has evolved into a global economic confrontation between the whole West on one side, and Russia, backed by China, on the other. It has become a world war,” Todd said. Todd added that “the resistance of the Russian economy is pushing the U.S. imperial system toward the abyss” and that Biden must “hurry” to rescue a “fragile” America.
According to the historian, U.S. control of the world financial system is at risk because the Russian economy’s resistance to sanctions is pushing “the American imperial system” toward the precipice,” with Russia still able to rely on China for monetary backing. Todd says America “cannot withdraw from the conflict, they cannot let go,” because it has no exit strategy and the stakes are too high. “This is why we are now in an endless war, in a confrontation whose outcome must be the collapse of one or the other,” said the intellectual.
Todd is a widely respected figure, having accurately predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union 14 years before it happened. As we highlighted last month, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church cautioned that any attempt to “destroy Russia” by “madmen” trying to impose their values will lead to “the end of the world.” “We pray to the Lord so that he enlightens those madmen and helps them understand that any desire to destroy Russia will mean the end of the world,” said Patriarch Kirill.
Elon Musk also recently warned that “most are oblivious to the danger” of a new global conflict. Donald Trump also recently cautioned, “We’re on the brink of World War 3,” and in a campaign video last week asserted, “If I were president, the Russia Ukraine war would never have happened… never in a million years.”
"Get The Hell Out Of There" - Ohio's Apocalyptic Chemical Disaster Rages On" (Excerpt)
"Get The Hell Out Of There" -
Ohio's Apocalyptic Chemical Disaster Rages On"
by Tyler Durden
Excerpt: Update (1300ET): "During a press conference, the NTSB referenced a video from Salem, Ohio, about 20 miles from East Palestine which shows sparks and flames emitting from beneath the train. The apparent structural issue with the train was captured on a security camera when it was travelling through Salem. According to Michael Graham, board member on the NTSB, two videos they had obtained were indicative of mechanical issues attributed to the rail car axles which likely led to the derailment.
The second video obtained from when the train was passing through Salem was recorded by a processing plant nearby a hotbox detector which scans the temperature of the axles as trains pass by. According to Graham, the wayside defect detector reading resulted in an alarm alerting the crew of a mechanical issue shortly before the derailment in East Palestine. Consequently, that alert forced the train to execute an emergency brake application which may have been the cause of the derailment. Presently, the NTSB is reviewing the trains data and audio recordings in order to examine the cause of the derailment and which hotbox detector indicated a mechanical error preceding the accident. The NTSB is expected to issue a preliminary report on its findings within 30 days.
While the US government is dispensing millions of dollars in resources to treat balloons as an existential crisis, a small town in Ohio finds itself engulfed in what actually looks like the apocalypse. Perhaps by design, all of the drama surrounding violations of US airspace by Chinese spy initiatives has done well to keep what is becoming one of the worst environmental disasters in recent memory from getting any headlines.
The chaos began early last week when a train of more than 100 cars derailed in East Palestine, Ohio near the state’s border with Pennsylvania with roughly 5,000 residents. The accident launched fifty of those hundred freight cars from the tracks. Twenty of the freight cars on the train were carrying hazardous materials, ten of which were derailed. While the accident had no fatalities, of those ten cars, five contained pressurized vinyl chloride, a highly flammable carcinogenic gas.
In order to address the volatile scenario around the crash site, the Ohio Emergency Management Agency executed its plan of venting the toxic gas with a controlled burn in order to evade an uncontrolled explosion which presented the risk of catastrophic damage. “Within the last two hours, a drastic temperature change has taken place in a rail car, and there is now the potential of a catastrophic tanker failure which could cause an explosion with the potential of deadly shrapnel traveling up to a mile,” Gov. Mike DeWine warned in statement explaining the decision to take action to avert widespread devastation.
However, that operation sent large plumes of smoke containing vinyl chloride, phosgene, hydrogen chloride, and other gases into the air as the flames from the controlled burn raged on for days. Phosgene in particular is a highly toxic gas that can cause vomiting and respiratory issues. The toxicity of phosgene gas is so potent that it was previously used as a chemical weapon during the First World War."
Full, truly terrifying article with videos is here:
o
Related:
Bill Bonner, "Just Say No"
"Just Say No"
"No" to inflation... "No" to war...
and "No" to the elite's self-serving agenda...
by Bill Bonner
Dublin, Ireland - "We are on our way to South America. We’re going to check up on the farm. But we have a hidden agenda…stay tuned. Meanwhile, inflation did not cooperate last month. CNBC: "Inflation is higher than expected at 6.4%, with the 'most important' measure remaining elevated. Core inflation, which is the price of all items on the index except for food and energy, went up slightly to 0.4%, compared with 0.3% in December. Since food and energy prices are volatile, core inflation is seen as a better indicator of overall inflation trends." The figure for January inflation (including food and energy) was 0.5%. Annualize it, and you get inflation over 7%. Some things are more easily reversed than others.
Real Prices, Real People: Once you mix cement and water, you can’t unmix them; it’s going to harden in whatever shape you leave it. And once you blow up a major piece of foreign infrastructure, you can’t un-blow it up. All you can do is to say you’re sorry and try to make amends. Likewise, when inflation gets going, there’s no going back. Some prices go up and down. Some go only one way. Salaries, for example, tend to only go up. And once risen, they give businesses a new cost structure. So, consumer prices can’t go back down either.
Despite the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ valiant efforts (taking food out of the ‘core’ inflation reading), when you go to the supermarket, you still have to pay higher prices. Joel reported over the weekend, for example, that the cost of a Super Bowl party rose at a double digit rate last year. That was not seasonally adjusted nor hedonically enhanced. That was a real number…paid by real people.
Also very real is the cost of groceries, generally…which rose at a 10.1% rate last month. People have to eat. And they have to live somewhere. Here’s USA Today on housing inflation: "…housing costs – which make up 40% of the index – rose 0.7% for the month and increased 7.9% from a year ago."
Just Say “No”: But wait…why do we have inflation? It’s a choice, right? Policymakers choose it as a way of financing their spending. And a single word would stop it – no. As in ‘no more money printing…no more ultra low interest rates…no more budget deficits.’ Presto…as if waving a magic wand, price increases would halt. And yet, there it is. Plenty of inflation. And a shortage of ‘no’s.
And war…we have that too, even though the same two-letter word would stop it. Just say the word – ‘no’ – and war would be over. Without continued support from Americans, Ukrainians and Russians would come to terms quickly, drink vodka shots together, and dance like Cossacks.
We left off yesterday wondering what the elite want. And now we have our answer. They want ‘yes.’ They control the Deep State. The Deep State controls the empire. And of all the blah-blah claptrap coming out of the White House, Congress and the bureaucracy…millions of words flowing like toxic waste from a chemical plant…one of the simplest words of all – no – is missing.
Why? Why no no’s? The answer is obvious. The elite don’t want no. An honest republic minds its own business. But the US elite run an empire. And the empire’s game is war…funded by inflation. War, because that’s what empires do, either protecting their frontiers…or expanding them. And inflation? Because, that’s how they keep the money flowing. And war and inflation? That’s how an empire destroys itself."
"Anyone Who Isn't Confused..."
"Anyone who isn't confused really doesn't understand the situation."
- Edward R. Murrow
"Gut Check"
"Gut Check"
By Tim “xrugger” Stebbins
"What does it mean to be a free man anymore? Am I truly free when the money I pay in taxes goes to support the excesses of a profligate, overreaching, and immoral government? Am I truly free when the scum that make the rules do not abide by them? Am I not free then to ignore the rules? Am I truly free when some cowardly dimwit at the grocery store looks askance at me for not wearing a filthy rag over my face? I know he is having an internal debate about whether he should confront me.
My hope is always that he decides in the negative, as I have had just about enough of this crap. Now, the highest court in the land has turned a blind eye to the egregious theft of the Presidency itself. Marxists across the nation are celebrating the final nail in the coffin of the American Republic. Democrats held it. “Conservatives” have hammered it home. The outward forms of ordered liberty are dead and there is no recourse for the redress of grievances. It is time for every patriot to face the situation, without illusion or reservation.
If we would recover our liberty, then we must look inward and assess our own desires, motives, and abilities. A time of choosing is upon each and every one of us. What do we owe and to whom do we owe it. What follows is an attempt to answer those questions for myself and myself alone. Others of a similar spirit may take what they wish from it and leave the rest.
The Indefensible Nation: What do I owe to my country? Its central government is thoroughly and irredeemably corrupt. It is bankrupt both fiscally and morally. As of this writing, its judiciary has shown itself incapable of defending the Republic against the depredations of leftist rabble. The tentacles of its bureaucracy reach into the lives and wallets of the productive class “eating out the substance of the people” exactly as Jefferson warned. Yet still, with the stench of corruption and theft pervading the country, this government assumes my loyalty.
What, pray tell, has it done to deserve it? Mobs of the indoctrinated expect that we should all just “get over it” and “come together to heal” as if the gangrenous clot of necrotic tissue that is the political culture of this nation will ever heal. Our rulers, our media, and half our “countrymen” piss down our backs and still insist it’s raining. The fealty of helots is what the Lords of Washington expect. They will not get it from me.
The loyalty of free men is reserved for a government of equals, not an aristocracy of reptiles. The latter is what we suffer now. The former we once possessed, but it lies now in the dust of history. The outward form and function remain, but the spirit of liberty, which animated it, has gone. The ties by which free men bind themselves voluntarily to any form of government have long since been sundered by the actions of those who have chosen to rule rather than govern. I will not suffer those ties to become shackles.
Since my forbears bequeathed to me a form of government that no longer exists, I am released from further obligation to the abomination that has replaced it. My loyalty, like my liberty, belongs to me and me alone. It is mine to give or to withdraw as I see fit. I owe the rulers of this land nothing: not life, not liberty, not the pursuit of my own happiness. These things are mine from my first breath to my last gasp. They cannot be abrogated, regulated, or terminated by the denizens of a distant city who presume to know what is best for me. These…people (I do not have the words for the contempt I feel for them) have polluted our forms of government, destroying what they can, dismantling what they cannot.
Everywhere is grift and graft. They have taken nearly everything, yet they still want more. They want my body shackled, my spirit humbled, and my mind enslaved. They try to steal the very breath from my body with their filthy rags. They have trampled upon my God-given rights, indoctrinated my children, accused me, threatened me, and silenced me. Now they have stolen even my choice from me. This government and its leftist appendages have betrayed my trust and half my fellow citizens treat me and mine with undisguised contempt. My loyalty to them and to their government is at an end.
The Shenandoah Syndrome: What then, am I to do personally in the face of this betrayal? My mind often comes back to the old Jimmy Stewart movie “Shenandoah.” In it, Stewart plays the patriarch of a family trying to stay out of Lincoln’s War. He hopes to keep his family intact and neutral in the conflict. He wants no part of it and sees no reason why he, or his sons, should choose sides in a war that is, in his view, peripheral to the concerns of his family and the life they have built. It is only when rape, murder, plunder and the other accouterments of war destroy the precarious balance he has maintained, that Stewart realizes that the choice has been made for him.
I know that, in the end, what is happening in this nation will come to blood. I know too, that I and mine cannot hope to be left untouched while the nation tears itself apart. My one hope is that, by virtue of where we call home, we will see the tenor and scope of the destruction before it touches our lives directly. Perhaps that small grace will allow us additional time to prepare, though I believe I have done all that common sense demands and limited resources allow in that regard.
What remains to be done is the taking an intensely personal inventory. Will I fight, run, or hide? Will I be able to lead and defend my family when the crunch comes? Would I be willing to leave them behind to engage in some broader defense of my own and other’s liberty? Do I wait for the storm or go to meet it? At 60 years of age, am I even mentally or physically capable of such an effort? My fervent wish is to be left alone to live a peaceful life. I know many like me wish the same, but Jimmy Stewart was just an actor, and my “Shenandoah” a bucolic dream. The fight will be forced upon us all. The choices we make will define us. In Lincoln’s words, “No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.”
The Refining Fire: I am a peacetime veteran. I served a three-year hitch in the eighties, half that time with the 2nd Ranger Bn. in Ft. Lewis, Washington and half with a line infantry company. I do not count myself among the many chest-thumpers who are overly certain of their own intestinal fortitude and are not afraid to expound upon their warrior attributes in any number of internet outlets. In my limited experience, those who talk the most usually run the fastest. I do not include in that company those who have seen war and its desolation first hand and who now seek to educate and guide those of us who have not. I’m talking about the posers who crow about “taking back the country,” and explain in detail their future exploits in the battle for freedom.
Personally, I am certain of only a few things: I know what it is like to exit an aircraft more door bundle than man and land in a heap in the Alaskan snow. I know how dark it gets in an equatorial jungle and what it’s like to sit in the rain for days on end. I know what trench foot looks and feels like. To my everlasting embarrassment, I know the feeling of waking up with my own .45 (in the hands of a very angry platoon sergeant) staring me in the face because I fell asleep guarding a pallet of live ammo.
I know what it is like to catch multiple fragments of a 7.62 mm ricochet in the face due to the negligence of a range safety officer and the stupidity of a member of my M60 crew. I know that face and scalp wounds bleed a lot. These are some of the things I know, but they are the experiences of long ago and comparing them to the trials of actual combat would be like comparing regular roulette to the Russian variety.
I do not think I lack personal courage, but the simple fact is that I know what I do not know, and anyone who has not been in a fight like the one coming can say no different. Any man who claims a virtue not yet tested by the fight we face is a liar and a fool. As a young man, I would have welcomed the test. Now, decades on, I ponder the depth of my commitment, the strength of my arm, and the clearness of my mind. Is the man I am now fit for the fight? Only the fight itself will reveal the truth of it. I simply do not know how I will behave when the shooting starts and to claim otherwise is the height of hubris. At the least, I hope that this old man will give good account for blessings received while on this good earth.
Hope: No good thing ever achieved by man remains unsullied by the grasping hands of those who seek to exploit it. So it is with these United States. Time, trials, the certainties of fallen human nature, and the machinations of the unprincipled have accomplished what they always accomplish. This nation will crumble and the ensuing chaos will engulf us all to one degree or another. Something good, either a restoration of the old or the institution of the new, will rise from the blood and ashes. I pray that I do not love this life so much that I would live it as a slave or be unwilling to expend it for the sake of those to come. That, at least, is my hope."
○
"A man who does not have something for
which he is willing to die is not fit to live."
- Martin Luther King Jr.
"The Illusion Of Freedom..."
“The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.” - Frank Zappa
“The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better.” - George Orwell, "1984"
"The False Choice Society"
"The False Choice Society"
by The Zman
"The false dichotomy, sometimes called the false choice, is one of the most popular rhetoric tricks used in liberal democracy. The point is to frame the debate in such a way as to either avoid some unpleasant topic or narrow the scope to the benefit of one party in the debate. “We either do X or we allow this terrible thing to continue” is an effective way to compel action. After all, everyone knows that doing nothing in never an acceptable action. Only monsters choose that option.
It is fair to say that our political system is built upon the false choice. Every election we are asked to choose between the two offerings put forward by the parties. In most cases, one option is ridiculous. That is why over 90% of incumbents win reelection. In races with real competition, the options put forward are nearly identical. Both parties offer up a plank of wood spouting whatever slogans are popular at the moment. The voters select between two robots programmed by the same people.
The reason this is a false choice is there is at least one other option. The voters could stage a boycott of the election. Maybe demand some reforms as a condition of rejoining the charade of democracy. Of course, the voters could riot at the polling stations, hurl the voting machines into the river and burn the ballots. They could vote for a third party candidate as a protest. Picking from one of the two options offered up from the uniparty is a false choice, because there are other options.
Of course, people do not select the other options because they are constantly reminded that those are all bad options. No rational person votes third-party. Even the most cynical critics of democracy say the third party option is a waste of time. Similarly, boycotts are dismissed as pointless. Rebellion, of course, is dismissed out of hand, despite the fact the country was literally founded on rebellion. The one thing everyone seems to agree upon is you have no choice but to pick from the two parties.
Another example of where the false choice is the foundation of liberal democracy is in the current Covid panic. The reason the rulers took a wrecking ball to society is they were sure they had just two options. It was either the wrecking ball or do nothing and we all know that doing nothing is never an option. They had to do something, and all of the choices were bad, so they happily went with the bad option. When you eliminate the best option, you are always left with the worst options.
The false choice plays out in more subtle ways too. Unwilling to leave well enough alone, the rulers are now trying to impose a vaccine passport. The idea is to require this for travel or to attend public gatherings. Given that liberal democracy looks a lot like fascism, businesses and banks are making noises about requiring the vaccine in order to have a job or use the financial system. You can get the vaccine, the choice is yours, but you may not be able live in society.
People are rightly upset about this turn of events. House broken conservatives are banging on about how the vaccine passport if just like when their grandparents made the Jews wear gold stars. The point of the yes/no debate on the vaccine passport is to distract from the real problem. The people in charge of public health are incompetent and have turned a minor public health problem into a disaster. Worse yet, they seem to take some pleasure in being incompetent at it.
Not so long ago, proof of vaccination was a common requirement for travel. People were given a card that showed their vaccinations. This was before computers when the people in charge were somewhat competent at their jobs. People went along with it because they understood it was for public health. They could trust the people in charge enough to go along with it. The people who cured things like polio and smallpox were proud of it and the policies that made it possible.
Today, of course, no one trusts anyone. There can be no public pride in collective accomplishment because we have accomplished nothing, other than putting men in dresses and desecrating some statues. This is why half the public is skeptical of the vaccine and the passport business. Instead of dealing with that reality, we choose to have a debate about the passport itself. The false choice here is whether to get the vaccine or not. Whether to have a proof of vaccine or not.
The promise of democracy is that public policy is no longer set according to the narrow interests of a small ruling class. Instead, the marketplace of democracy will set the priorities and select the polices based on majority will. In reality, democracy is a mass delusion where the public debates pointless issues and selects from identical options, all in order to avoid facing reality. Say what you will about aristocracy, at least everyone knows who is in charge and who is to blame.
The Covid hysteria underscores how the false choice society staggers on through inertia and dumb luck. Faced with a real crisis, the current regime would collapse in a pile, with the people bickering with one another over how best to celebrate the pile once the dust settles. The false choice society is a society built on lies the people tell one another in order to avoid reality. The trouble is reality is the thing that does not go away when you stop believing in it."
Judge Napolitano, "Ukraine, Ammunition, Tanks & the Russian Offensive - Col. Doug Macgregor"
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 2/15/23:
"Ukraine, Ammunition, Tanks & the Russian Offensive
- Col. Doug Macgregor"
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 2/14/23:
"Alert: Nuke Warships Deploy; Moldova Closes Airspace;
NORAD/Alaska/Washington DEFCON"
Comments here:
o
- Jim Quinn
"Palestine, Ohio Train Wreck: It’s The Dioxin" (Excerpt)
"Palestine, Ohio Train Wreck: It’s The Dioxin"
by Eric F. Coppolino
Excerpt: "It's not just what was in the tanker cars. It's what happens when they burn and combine. This may be the largest dioxin plume in world history. I know of no more serious release, ever. Most coverage of the train wreck in Palestine, Ohio is missing one word: dioxin. There were reportedly 14 tanker cars full of vinyl chloride, a precursor to polyvinyl chloride - that is, vinyl. Burning vinyl is the most serious source of dioxin in the environment - whether from trash incinerators, house fires or chemical spills.
While vinyl chloride is a precursor chemical to making PVC, any time chlorinated compounds burn there will be dioxins created. And dioxin is a manufacturing byproduct of any manufacturing process involving chlorine, from “disinfectants” to the bleaching of paper. There was plenty of dioxin in those tanker cars before they caught fire.
This mess of 14 tanker cars (really, many more, but 14 had vinyl chloride) was then set on fire by the government, apparently to make it easier to clear the railroad tracks. This was the worst possible decision. It has turned many, many miles into what should be no-man’s land. But I have not heard of one single test for dioxin being done.
Note that dioxin goes by several other names, including TCDD, and is sometimes abbreviated “2,3,7,8.” Dibenzofurans, or furans for short, are identical in their toxicity but are spoken about less often. Many other chemicals, such as PCBs, are “dioxin-like compounds.”
Watershed map - where the toxins could go.
This Affects A Very Large Region Of The Country: This is not a local issue. This massive plume will spread far and wide, and is being blown by the prevailing winds across Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York State, toward the population centers of the northeastern U.S. And via land and water, the toxins can spread in many directions, via water, soil movement and air (since the prevailing winds are only an average). And the contamination is so serious that even soil tracking will spread significant amounts."
Full, truly terrifying article here:
"Do You Believe Any of This?"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly, 2/15/23:
"Do You Believe Any of This?"
"We are seeing so many crazy things right now when it comes to inflation, and what will happen next. The Fed is out of options and they’re going to have to continue to raise interest rate. Everything will be more expensive."
Comments here:
"Empty Shelves Everywhere At Dollar Tree! Shrinkflation Concerns!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 215/23:
"Empty Shelves Everywhere At Dollar Tree!
Shrinkflation Concerns!"
Comments here:
"Global Food Inflation Is Leading To A Frightening Explosion In Global Hunger"
"Global Food Inflation Is Leading To A
Frightening Explosion In Global Hunger"
by Michael Snyder
We are currently facing “the worst food crisis in modern history”, and it seems to be getting worse with each passing month. I don’t have to tell any of you that food prices are a lot higher than they once were. The last time you went to the grocery store you could see that for yourself. Sadly, this is happening all over the world, and the poorest countries are being hit the hardest. Meanwhile, global food supplies just continue to get tighter and tighter. As a result, global hunger is on the rise. If you doubt this, I would like for you to read an excerpt that comes directly from a joint statement by the heads of the Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank Group, the World Food Program and the World Trade Organization…
Globally, poverty and food insecurity are both on the rise after decades of development gains. Supply chain disruptions, climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, financial tightening through rising interest rates and the war in Ukraine have caused an unprecedented shock to the global food system, with the most vulnerable hit the hardest. Food inflation remains high in the world, with dozens of countries experiencing double digit inflation. According to WFP, 349 million people across 79 countries are acutely food insecure. The prevalence of undernourishment is also on the rise, following three years of deterioration. This situation is expected to worsen, with global food supplies projected to drop to a three-year low in 2022/2023.[1] The need is especially dire in 24 countries that FAO and WFP have identified as hunger hotspots, of which 16 are in Africa.[2]
Please take a few moments and read that paragraph again. We really are facing “an unprecedented shock to the global food system”, and these global leaders really are telling us that the situation “is expected to worsen”.
At this point, things are so bad that even CNN is admitting that we are currently experiencing “the worst food crisis in modern history”…"Yet the world is still in the grips of the worst food crisis in modern history, as Russia’s war in Ukraine shakes global agricultural systems already grappling with the effects of extreme weather and the pandemic. Market conditions may have improved in recent months, but experts do not expect imminent relief."
That means more pain for vulnerable communities already struggling with hunger. It also boosts the risk of starvation and famine in countries such as Somalia, which is contending with what the United Nations describes as a “catastrophic” food emergency.
So what happens if some “black swan events” come along in 2023 and make the global food crisis far worse than it already is? In some of the poorest countries on the planet there are already vast numbers of people without enough food to eat. For example, in Somalia almost half of the entire population is in need of “immediate lifesaving aid”…"Somalia is in the midst of the longest and most severe drought in its history, following five consecutive poor rainy seasons, which has devastated the country. Roughly 8.25 million people, nearly half the population, require immediate lifesaving aid and protection."
Sadly, the truth is that this is just the beginning. In my latest book, I explain exactly why conditions will inevitably get a whole lot worse no matter what our leaders do now. Here in the United States, nobody is in danger of starving to death at this stage. But prices just continue to escalate. In fact, the new inflation numbers that we got from the government on Tuesday were not good news at all…"Republican lawmakers slammed President Biden after the latest inflation report, with one saying the president is “living in an alternate reality.” The congressional Republicans ripped into Biden on Tuesday after the latest inflation report that saw prices rise by 0.5 points to a 6.4 percent rate in January.
“Just last week Joe Biden took a victory lap on the economy, but today’s report confirms he’s living in an alternate reality than Americans watching prices get higher by the day,” House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., told Fox News Digital in an exclusive statement.
Even though the Federal Reserve has aggressively hiked interest rates, inflation has not been tamed. In particular, food prices just continue to go up and up. Earlier today, Jacki Kotkiewicz posted some numbers on her Twitter account that show how dramatically prices in certain key categories have risen over the past year…
Overall CPI: +6.4% y/y
Fuel Oil: +27.7%
Electricity: +11.9%
Groceries: +11.3%
Chicken +10.5%
Milk: +11%
Eggs: +70.1%
Bread: +14.9%
Potatoes: +12.4%
Baby Food: +10%
Airline Fares: +25.6%
Real Average Hourly Earnings: -1.8%
When I go to the grocery store now, there are some things that I simply will not buy unless they are on sale. Even the price of butter is going up. The last time I was in the grocery store, I spent nearly 30 dollars just on butter. Can you believe that?
Unfortunately, we all have to adapt to this new reality. The cost of living has become extremely oppressive, and at this point close to two-thirds of the entire nation is living paycheck to paycheck…"Rising prices have weakened consumers’ spending power, as inflation remains elevated and the Federal Reserve continues to tighten its monetary policies. Against the backdrop of recession risk and growing macroeconomic uncertainty, a higher number of Americans at all income levels are now living paycheck-to-paycheck.
In a report by PYMNTS in collaboration with LendingClub it was found that 64% of U.S. wage earners are currently living paycheck-to-paycheck. Even those that earn $100,000 or more per year are feeling the financial pinch as prices continue to climb and interest rates remain high."
As I end this article, there are a couple of things that I think that it is imperative for all of us to understand. Number one, we were all warned that this crisis was coming. Number two, eventually this crisis is going to get a whole lot worse. We are only in the very early chapters of this nightmare, and much more pain is ahead. So I would urge you to act accordingly, because the global food crisis is only going to intensify from this point forward."
Tuesday, February 14, 2023
"Just A Coincidence?"
"Just A Coincidence?"
"Watch this and have your mind blown. Its like who ever wrote this episode of X-Files knew what was about to happen and was trying to tell us all. Whoever wrote the script for this episode has to be a time traveler or a senior deep state operative who revealed the entire plan just for giggles. NO ONE could simply imagine this in 2016..."
OMG...Astonishing, incredible truth... HOW?
Gerald Celente, "Israel On Brink Of Civil War?"
Strong language alert!
Gerald Celente, 2/14/23:
"Israel On Brink Of Civil War?"
"Gerald Celente, publisher of The Trends Journal who accurately forecast the 1987 Stock Market crash, dot-com bubble bust, and the “Panic of ‘08,” said conditions around the world have never been so chaotic in his 43 years of tracking trends. Visit: TrendsJournal.com"
Comments here:
"We Are In Big Trouble, Everything Is Breaking"
Jeremiah Babe, 214/23:
"We Are In Big Trouble, Everything Is Breaking"
Comments here:
o
"We now live in a nation where doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the press destroys information, religion destroys morals, and our banks destroy our economy."
- Chris Hedges
"30 Million Americans Face Hunger As They Can't Afford Insane Grocery Prices"
Full screen recommended.
"30 Million Americans Face Hunger As
They Can't Afford Insane Grocery Prices"
by Epic Economist
"Can you believe that in the world’s richest country, 30 million people are on the brink of a hunger cliff because they simply cannot afford rising grocery prices? Yes, you heard that right. Nearly 10 percent of the U.S. population is facing the threat of hunger and about 70 percent of Americans say they are struggling to pay their grocery bills right now. These are just a few alarming findings from recent studies that we are going to expose today. On top of that, a warning coming directly from federal government agencies alerts that in a few weeks from now, 32 states are set to witness a massive rise in food insecurity levels, while charities and food banks from all around the country are already preparing for ”worst-case scenarios”.
The Agriculture Department is now warning 32 local governments that SNAP benefits are going to be slashed early in March. Now, 32 states are set to witness a stunning rise in the number of people experiencing food insecurity, says SNAP director Ellen Vollinger. "This hunger cliff is coming to the vast majority of states, and people will on average lose about $82 of SNAP benefits a month. That is a stunning number," Vollinger stressed.
“We are deeply concerned about the impact that the end of SNAP emergency allotment will have on millions of families that needed this critical lifeline for the past three years,” highlights Jerome Nathaniel, director of policy and government relations at City Harvest, an organization that collects food waste from restaurants, bakeries, and cafes.
The changes mean that a family of four will see benefits cut by roughly $328 per month, while elderly Americans who receive the minimum monthly benefit will see their SNAP payments fall from $281 per month to as low as $23, a $258 decrease. In 2022, the average monthly benefit per person was $230.88, an increase from $129.83 in 2019.
Of the 30 million SNAP recipients that are at risk of facing hunger, almost a third of them are already skipping meals, eating less, and going to food banks to manage grocery costs, according to the latest monthly survey by Provider, an app that aims to help low-income Americans improve their financial health.
For their part, food banks are bracing for “worst-case scenarios” as food aid is slashed. Demand is already so high right now that soon they will be forced to send people home with empty hands, charities’ representatives say. With the number of people seeking food assistance rising by 65% in December, and 90% of food banks in danger of running out of supplies due to big jumps in food costs – in a couple of months, charities will have no choice but to turn people away because there won’t be enough food for everyone in need.
Libby Campbell, CEO of West Texas Food Bank, expressed her shock: “I don’t know if we’ve ever seen this happen before, where we have pushed a whole new group of people into food poverty,” she said.
This devastating hunger crisis will leave many to suffer the consequences of a broken society that fails to address the basic needs of its citizens. This is the stark truth of our current situation – a reality that cannot be ignored or dismissed. This is America - where even the most basic human needs are becoming a luxury that most cannot afford."
Comments here:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)