Full screen recommended.
Leonard Cohen, "Anthem"
So, we rise from the rubble...
Monday, March 27, 2023
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Cradled in cosmic dust and glowing hydrogen, stellar nurseries in Orion the Hunter lie at the edge of a giant molecular cloud some 1,500 light-years away. Spanning nearly 25 degrees, this breath-taking vista stretches across the well-known constellation from head to toe (top to bottom). The Great Orion Nebula, the closest large star forming region, is right of center. To its left are the Horsehead Nebula, M78, and Orion's belt stars. Red giant Betelgeuse is at the hunter's shoulder, bright blue Rigel at his foot, and the glowing Lambda Orionis (Meissa) nebula at the far left, near Orion's head.
Of course, the Orion Nebula and bright stars are easy to see with the unaided eye, but dust clouds and emission from the extensive interstellar gas in this nebula-rich complex, are too faint and much harder to record. In this mosaic of broadband telescopic images, additional image data acquired with a narrow hydrogen alpha filter was used to bring out the pervasive tendrils of energized atomic hydrogen gas and the arc of the giant Barnard's Loop.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap101023.html
Chet Raymo, “Angling For Happiness”
“Angling For Happiness”
by Chet Raymo
“There is a concept in physics called angle of repose. Set an object, a book say, on a plank. Now slowly tip up one end of the plank until the moment when the book just starts to slide. The angle between the plank and the horizontal is the angle of repose, where the component of the gravitational force down the plank becomes greater than the maximum friction force holding the book at rest. Or, in more evocative terms - as I write I am lying on the couch with the laptop in my lap, in perfect repose. If you started tipping up the couch, at some point I'd go sliding into a heap at the bottom. That's the angle of repose, or perhaps it would be more accurate to call it the angle of the end of repose.
- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/
"Joy, Shipmates, Joy...”
“Night and day the river flows. If time is the mind of space, the River is the soul of the desert. Brave boatmen come, they go, they die, the voyage flows on forever. We are all canyoneers. We are all passengers on this little mossy ship, this delicate dory sailing round the sun that humans call the earth. Joy, shipmates, joy.”
- Edward Abbey
"NATO Is In Deep SH*T in Ukraine And Putin Knows It"
Full screen recommended,
Redacted, 3/27/23
"NATO Is In Deep SH*T in Ukraine And Putin Knows It"
"NATO has found itself in the worst possible conundrum in Ukraine right at the worst possible moment. President Zelensky just admitted his proxy army is out of bullets and won't do anything until the West bails him out. European leaders are flying to China to talk peace in Ukraine because the U.S. won't do it. Things could not be worse for NATO."
Comments here:
"Emergency Meeting at UN, Nukes Moved to Belarus, Moscow Attacked, Israel Chaos!"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Preppier, 3/27/23
"Emergency Meeting at UN, Nukes Moved to Belarus,
Moscow Attacked, Israel Chaos!"
Comments here:
"They Sense..."
"People cling to their hates so stubbornly because they sense,
once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain."
- James Baldwin
"Where Do You Go in a Hurricane?"
"Where Do You Go in a Hurricane?"
by Jeff Thomas
"As a West Indian, I’ve lived through quite a few hurricanes in my time. My level of responsibility in each varied quite a bit. I was eight years old in my first hurricane and I thought it was great fun, as it was so exciting during the hurricane and, afterward, the landscape had changed so much that I had lots of new places to play.
On the other end of the scale, in 2004, my country, the Cayman Islands, experienced a Category 5 hurricane, with winds up to 200 miles per hour that sat on us without moving for 36 hours. I was responsible for ensuring that safety be provided for scores of my employees prior to the hurricane. After the storm, one of my companies took on the complete rebuilding of the country’s wholesale and retail food distribution facilities in order to ensure that the country’s population would have the most essential commodities - food and water. (A big change in level of responsibility over the years.)
In addition to having spent decades planning for hurricane damage, I’ve also spent decades as an economist, planning for major economic storms. In 1999, I determined that the world would experience what Doug Casey has termed a Greater Depression that would be more devastating than any economic event the world had ever seen. I predicted that it would happen in stages and that the final stage would be the most devastating. I would have been quite pleased to have been incorrect, but unfortunately, my predictions have come to pass. I believe we’re now quite close to the final destruction stage, a period that will lead to the collapse of many of the world’s formerly strongest economies, coinciding with a period of devastating warfare. In both the economic and warfare cases, those who are the world’s major players will believe that they’ll be able to control the extent of devastation and even profit from it, but events will go beyond their control and take on a life of their own.
As in the image above, there will not be just one, but multiple epicentres. Europe and North America will be hit the hardest economically. Next in line will be those countries, such as Japan, Australia, etc., that are the most closely linked economically with these centres. The next tier down will be those countries that are dependent on the centres, but more peripherally, such as Panama or Mexico. Finally, there will be those countries that are the least linked to the major centres, such as Uruguay or Thailand.
All countries will be impacted by the coming economic hurricane, but the effects will vary. Those in the US and Europe will experience the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane. Those in Australia and Japan will experience a Category 4. Countries in the third tier will experience a Category 3, and those countries that are either distant from or the least economically dependent upon the epicentres will experience Category 2 or even Category 1 damage.
This is not mere speculation. In examining previous depressions and the last two world wars, we can see that those countries that were the least connected to events tended to fare well. This will hold true this time around as well.
When we turn on the television and the weatherman says that a hurricane is approaching, we have to make a decision. Do we trust in the hope that it might not pass directly over us? Do we question the severity of the storm as it’s being described to us? Should we plan to stay at home, as in a Category 1 or Category 2 storm, or should we plan to go to a local shelter as in a Category 3 or Category 4 storm? Or, do we believe we’ll be experiencing the devastation of a Category 5, in which case we’d pack our bags, wave goodbye to our home, and get as far away from the epicentre as possible?
Well, first, we’d better look at the categories, then, based on where we’re located, ask ourselves what we need to do. We’re presently already experiencing Category 1 conditions.
Category 1 Warfare: Minor civil disobedience and/or riots.
Category 1 Economics: Increased mortgage foreclosures, some strip-shop and mall closings, decreased spending overall.
Category 2 Warfare: Major civil disobedience, riots, and/or insurrection.
Category 2 Economics: The above, plus tariff wars, stock and bond market crashes.
Category 3 Warfare: Minor bombing and/or ground invasion.
Category 3 Economics: The above, plus minor inability of governments to pay entitlements, significant inflation, credit collapse.
Category 4 Warfare: Major bombing and/or ground invasion.
Category 4 Economics: The above, plus the end of the dollar as a reserve currency/end of the petrodollar, considerable inflation, short-term bank closures.
Category 5 Warfare: Nuclear destruction.
Category 5 Economics: The above, plus major inability of governments to pay entitlements, permanent closure of the majority of banks, currency collapse, confiscation of deposits, major internal capital controls.
The above descriptions are not by any means comprehensive. They represent basic categories, to which many details can and should be added.
So, what should your personal plan be? Well, if you’re located in one of the epicentres (the EU and US), you might devise a plan to head out to the country, if you have a destination that you either own or rent. Then, depending on the severity of the storm, you may survive the damage. (A rural area is the equivalent of a hurricane shelter.) However, if you’re dependent on your government for income, you may not be able to survive a Category 3 storm. Even if your income is independent of your government, you may not be able to survive a Category 4 or 5 storm, as you’ll still be under the control of a collapsing system.
The closer you are to an epicentre, the worse the damage promises to be to you personally. And the stronger the hurricane, the greater the damage. It’s important to remember that personal preparedness will help, but the worse the state your government, infrastructure, local businesses and neighbors will be in, the more you’ll be impacted by their condition, even if you’re personally prepared.
As an example, those who choose to sit out a Category 5 monetary and/or warfare hurricane in Uruguay would be likely to fare quite well, just as the Europeans who went there during the world wars. (Very few of them returned after the wars, having found a better life abroad.)
In a Category 4 hurricane, life would be likely to remain relatively stable in areas such as the southeastern provinces of Mexico. In a Category 3, New Zealand might just be manageable.
However, in order to assess your personal situation, it would be advisable to have another look at the categories above and decide for yourself what degree of damage is likely in the near future, then make a personal assessment as to whether you’re willing to chance experiencing that level of damage.
We’ve passed the point of whether there’ll be a hurricane; we just can’t be sure how severe it’ll be. The winds are already picking up and those who choose to make a move will need to do so soon."
"Oh, That Could Never Happen Here!"
“Consider a turkey that is fed every day. Every single feeding will firm up the bird’s belief that it is the general rule of life to be fed every day by friendly members of the human race ‘looking out for its best interests,’ as a politician would say. On the afternoon of the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, something unexpected will happen to the turkey. It will incur a revision of belief.“
- Nassim Taleb
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble.
It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
- Mark Twain
And of course...
Always fully and truthfully informed by their government
and mass media, deeply concerned Americans
react as expected to disastrous economic and social news...
"Code Red for a Black Swan"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 3/27/23
"Code Red for a Black Swan"
"We are seeing several warning signs that the current banking crisis could be the latest black swan event to take down the economy. This will affect everything from Banking to the Stock Market."
Comments here:
"The Devil Is Knocking At The Door, Prepare For Reality. Food Theft And Shortages Are Rising"
Full screen recommended.
Jeremiah Babe, 3/27/23
"The Devil Is Knocking At The Door, Prepare For Reality.
Food Theft And Shortages Are Rising"
Comments here:
"Amazon Reports Mass Grocery Store Shutdowns As Business Starts Falling Apart"
Full screen recommended.
"Amazon Reports Mass Grocery Store
"Amazon Reports Mass Grocery Store
Shutdowns As Business Starts Falling Apart"
by Epic Economist
"Amazon’s grocery business model is falling apart. Despite its global domination of the online shopping space, the largest e-commerce enterprise in the world, with an annual revenue of over $450 billion, is struggling to survive in one of the most prominent retail categories. And now mass store shutdowns and layoffs are being announced proving that the retail apocalypse is victimizing even the biggest companies in the industry. In fact, a new analysis shows that very soon Whole Foods, Amazon Go, and Amazon convenience stores may disappear for good from the U.S. economic landscape. There has never been so much pressure in the sector as retailers are facing right now. And the downfall of these food retail chains should be a wake-up call for everyone.
During the company’s latest earnings call, CEO Andy Jassy admitted that Amazon still hasn’t nailed down a successful model when it comes to the grocery sector. Jassy revealed that many locations are about to be closed and that the retailer is canceling plans to expand its chains until it figures out how to differentiate them from established competitors in the market.
This action came after its growth results showed figures that were significantly below expectations. Its Fresh supermarkets and cashier-less convenience stores saw a sales boom during the pandemic, but since the second half of 2021, foot traffic has sharply declined, and the company’s revenue is steadily shrinking.
In contrast, the online shopping giant is now having to introduce several cost-cutting measures to its brick-and-mortar business. Last week, Amazon revealed that it is postponing the construction of its second headquarters in Northern Virginia, Virginia, outside of Washington, DC. In January it confirmed plans to cut 18,000 jobs from its global workforce. And on Monday, Andy Jassy said in a memo to staff that the retailer is going to eliminate an additional 9,000 jobs in the next few weeks. The job cuts would mark the second largest round of layoffs in the company's history, bringing the 2023 total to 27,000. However, Jassy noted that Amazon is not done making final decisions on which roles will be eliminated, and in the next couple of months, more roles could be on the chopping block.
At the moment, the retailer is closing one-third of its Amazon Go stores. Meanwhile, Whole Foods Market, its natural and organic foods chain, announced that it is shuttering dozens of supermarkets in four states. The decision was made public right after Amazon reported that Whole Foods Markets faced the highest quarterly loss in seven years. Many industry analysts questioned the viability of the grocery chain.
In fact, according to analysts at Retail Wire, Amazon’s grocery business may not survive another 5 years, especially considering the threat of a severe economic downturn "There's no unique differentiation towards what they're selling, so it's a very middle-of-the-road concept," noted Rupesh Parikh, senior equity research analyst for Oppenheimer & Co. If they can’t figure out that model and how to do this business on thin margins, in 5 years, all of the stores could be gone,” the analysts forecasted.
When even such a massive and resource-rich company fails to adapt to the unforgiving brick-and-mortar retail sector, that begs the question of how smaller brands are really doing in such a troubled environment at this moment. Conditions for businesses are getting significantly worse and the pressure to keep up and stay afloat has never been so intense. But the red flags are starting to emerge everywhere, and unless Amazon reformulates its entire business model, its grocery store chains will continue stuck in a permanent limbo."
Comments here:
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"Visiting Walmart Garden Center! Checking Price Increases And Shortages!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danny, 3/27/23
"Visiting Walmart Garden Center!
Checking Price Increases And Shortages!"
"In today's vlog we are at Walmart, and are noticing some price increases. We also notice some shortages in their lawn and garden department. It's getting rough out here as stores continue to struggle getting in products. Inflation is also a factor as we are seeing prices skyrocket!"
Comments here:
Gregory Mannarino, "The Con-job Continues: New 'Emergency' Funding Program For Failing Banks"
Gregory Mannarino, AM 3/27/23
"The Con-job Continues: New 'Emergency'
Funding Program For Failing Banks"
Comments here:
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And how's that Emergency Funding working for YOU, Good Citizen?
Oh, right, they have something else for you...
"Economic Market Snapshot 3/27/23"
"Economic Market Snapshot 3/27/23"
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Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
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"It's a Big Club, and you ain't in it.
You and I are not in the Big Club."
- George Carlin
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A comprehensive, essential daily read.
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Financial Stress Index
"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI) is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: credit, equity valuation, funding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United States, other advanced economies, and emerging markets."
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Job cuts and much more.
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Commentary, highly recommended:
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"The more I see of the monied classes,
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
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Oh yeah... beyond words. Any I know anyway...
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And now... The End Game...
Jim Kunstler, "An Eastertime Carol"
"An Eastertime Carol"
By Jim Kunstler
“The true administration of justice is the firmest pillar of good government” - Inscription on the pediment of the Manhattan Criminal Court.
"After wolfing down a heartburn-inducing Popeye’s Shrimp Tacklebox Combo for supper, Manhattan District attorney Alvin Bragg retires to his four-poster Sleep Number bed beset with anxiety about the grand jury he has convened for fulfilling his campaign promise to stuff Donald Trump into a state prison cell. From the wall-mounted flat-screen across from his bed, the specter of a of giant rabbit emerges, gaunt and grizzled, draped in chains and weighty padlocks.
“Who are you, spirit?” Bragg asks. “I am the ghost of prosecutions past,” it moans. “This night you will be visited by three other spirits: The ghost of what you wish to be, the ghost of what should be, and the ghost of actually what-it-is.” "Oh, Gawd,” Bragg groans, his esophagus on fire with acidified hot-sauce residue.
The DA falls back into a febrile sleep, but wakens minutes later. The bedroom of his condo has transformed itself into a sunny street scene. He is riding an open limousine down Broadway through a blizzard of tickertape, the sidewalks filled with cheering citizens. Beside him sits a nubile person of the birthing persuasion, with supernaturally large infant-feeding glands, not unlike a certain star of adult films at the center of his brilliant case against the former president.
“I am the ghost of what you wish to be,” she says, her breath warm in his ear. “You’re a bigger star now than ever I was in life, and without all the mess.” “Yeah? What’s that up ahead?” he asks. “The steps of City Hall where you will receive your Nobel Peace Prize and be handed the nomination for governor, your stepping stone to the White House.” “We gonna have to change the name of that place,” Bragg grumbles.
Suddenly a box appears on Bragg’s lap. It contains two McDonald’s Sausage, Egg, and Cheese McGriddles® plus an apple fritter and a caramel macchiato. No sooner do his teeth close on that first delicious bite, when the confetti in the air turns to pixels, which dissolve along with the street scene, and then Bragg is back in his bed. Laughter rings across the big room, but with a demonic dissonance. A large white man with a silvery mane of hair and a nose like an Appalachian dulcimer, draped in black judicial robes, sits up behind a lofty bench, wearing a scowl of privilege.
"What do you want?” Bragg asks. “Your law license, assh*le.” “Who do you think you are?” “I am the spirit of what should be,” the judge-like figure growls. “This is a racist ploy!” Bragg barks back. “Plus, you got no standing!” More fiendish laughter from the bench, joined suddenly by a chorus of a million other laughers, people of all sizes, genders, and colors, a collage of Manhattan humanity, each one pointing a finger at Bragg, who retreats in terror under his king-size duvet. The laughter dissolves into Bragg’s own blubbering wails of despair.
The DA wakes a third time, trembling, to the sound of the doorbell, which he tries to ignore, but it keeps on ringing and ringing. Finally, Bragg kicks off the duvet, plods over to the door, and throws it open. A tall, stout, white man with a mystifying platinum hair-doo stands framed within. “DoorDash, at your service,” the ghost of actually what-it-is says.
“Oh, no…” Bragg cries out, as he is handed a paper bag. He opens it and peers in, only to loose a nauseating stench that instantly fills the room. “Hey, this is not the Build Your Crème Brûlée Pancake Combo from the IHOP,” Bragg complains. The DoorDash looks at his phone. “It says here you ordered the sh*t sandwich.”
Bragg’s feels like his head will explode. He reaches out to strangle the malevolent specter but wakes up choking his Saatva premium pillow instead. Eventually, he comes back to his senses, but feeling utterly drained from the night’s visitations. He washes the night-sweats away in the shower, dons a fine chalk-strip suit the size of a Coleman six-person tent, and meets his driver waiting at the end of his building’s canopy. In the backseat of his city limo there is a bag with his usual breakfast: two Starbuck’s Double-Smoked Bacon, Cheddar & Egg Sandwiches, a blueberry scone, a glazed donut, and a Starbuck’s Reserve® Hazelnut Bianco Latte. He horses it all down in traffic on the way to the DA’s headquarters on Hogan Place.
It is Monday morning, of course, roughly a week after the world was expecting him to issue an indictment against former president Donald Trump for writing off payments to a porn star as a campaign expense. But there was much to think about as the week marched along, much to mull over, many options to consider…the future to assess. The office is spookily quiet as Bragg strides in. An attractive blonde of a certain age approaches him warily.
“Ready to rock and roll, boss?” asks Lisa DelPizzo, Chief of the Trial Division, expecting Bragg to make his historic announcement shortly to the dozens of assembled reporters waiting in the press lobby. “Get me a ham sandwich,” he grunts. “And bring it down to the grand jury chamber. We got work to do!”
Sunday, March 26, 2023
"1930s - Street Scenes New York"
Full screen recommended.
NASS, "1930s - Street Scenes New York"
"I colorized, restored and created a sound design for this video of New York in the 1930s. We start on Manhattan's West Side, at 12th Avenue and 42nd Street, at the ferry terminal of the West Shore Railroad, the New York, Ontario and Western Railway, and the Weehawken Ferry. After we have a Crowd Scene street where we can see the beautiful fashion in the 30s."
Comments here:
Fascinating...
Musical Interlude: Ludovico Einaudi, “In A Time Lapse”
Full screen recommended.
Ludovico Einaudi, “In A Time Lapse”
“In A Time Lapse's” Track List:
02:25 - Walk
05:43 - Discovery At Night
09:51 - Two Trees
16:18 - Life
20:40 - Brothers
24:43 - Orbits
28:05 - Corale Solo
31:01 - Waterways
35:56 - Ronald's Dream
39:41 - Bever
45:33 - Newton´s Cradle
50:35 - Time Lapse
56:08 - Circles
58:19 - Experience
1:03:04 - Underwood
1:06:44 - Burning
"A Look to the Heavens"
“This wide, sharp telescopic view reveals galaxies scattered beyond the stars and faint dust nebulae of the Milky Way at the northern boundary of the high-flying constellation Pegasus. Prominent at the upper right is NGC 7331.
A mere 50 million light-years away, the large spiral is one of the brighter galaxies not included in Charles Messier's famous 18th century catalog. The disturbed looking group of galaxies at the lower left is well-known as Stephan's Quintet. About 300 million light-years distant, the quintet dramatically illustrates a multiple galaxy collision, its powerful, ongoing interactions posed for a brief cosmic snapshot. On the sky, the quintet and NGC 7331 are separated by about half a degree.”
Kahlil Gibran, "The Madman"
"The Madman"
"It was in the garden of a madhouse that I met a youth with a face pale and lovely and full of wonder. And I sat beside him upon the bench, and I said, “Why are you here?” And he looked at me in astonishment, and he said, “It is an unseemly question, yet I will answer you. My father would make of me a reproduction of himself; so also would my uncle. My mother would have me the image of her seafaring husband as the perfect example for me to follow. My brother thinks I should be like him, a fine athlete. And my teachers also, the doctor of philosophy, and the music-master, and the logician, they too were determined, and each would have me but a reflection of his own face in a mirror. Therefore I came to this place. I find it more sane here. At least, I can be myself.”
Then of a sudden he turned to me and he said, “But tell me, were you also driven to this place by education and good counsel?” And I answered, “No, I am a visitor.”And he answered, “Oh, you are one of those who live in the madhouse on the other side of the wall...”
- Kahlil Gibran
The Poet: Mary Oliver, “Some Questions You Might Ask”
“Is the soul solid, like iron?
Or is it tender and breakable, like
the wings of a moth in the beak of the owl?
Who has it, and who doesn’t?
I keep looking around me.
The face of the moose is as sad
as the face of Jesus.
The swan opens her white wings slowly.
In the fall, the black bear carries leaves into the darkness.
One question leads to another.
Does it have a shape? Like an iceberg?
Like the eye of a hummingbird?
Does it have one lung, like the snake and the scallop?
Why should I have it, and not the anteater
who loves her children?
Why should I have it, and not the camel?
Come to think of it, what about the maple trees?
What about the blue iris?
What about all the little stones, sitting alone in the moonlight?
What about roses, and lemons, and their shining leaves?’
What about the grass?”
- Mary Oliver
"When One Cannot Be Sure..."
"When one cannot be sure that there are many days left, each single day becomes as important as a year, and one does not waste an hour in wishing that that hour were longer, but simply fills it, like a smaller cup, as high as it will go without spilling over."
- Natalie Kusz
"We Must Marvel..."
“In our society, confidence leads to knowledge – which leads to power – which leads to pride – which leads to a fear of seeming ignorant – which constricts learning like an iron vise. We must understand that confidence is a blessing, for it is the embodiment of self-love, and through it we find the fuel for innovation and progress. We must realize that ignorance is merely the opportunity to learn more. And lastly, we must marvel rather than groan at the fact that there will always be more to learn… Only then will we be free of the intellectual prisons we have so readily caged ourselves within.”
- Zeb Reynolds
"Banks Call an Emergency Meeting"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 3/26/23
"Banks Call an Emergency Meeting"
"The FSOC got together to decide what’s going to happen with some of the regional banks. This is the Financial Stability Oversight Council. They don’t want to admit that things are much worse than they are leading on."
Comments here:
"How Did We Get Here?"
by John Wilder
“Dividing and mutating at the same time?”
– "The Andromeda Strain"
"I think it’s fair to look around and ask a very simple question: How did we get here?
Certainly, the United States is in a heck of a mess in almost any way one can look at it. When it comes to cohesion, half of the country is like dad sitting on his easy chair after a hard day working at the PEZ® mines. The other half just wants to pester him because he doesn’t care enough about The Current Thing. They have been careful to not make dad put the paper down. Yet. Because that’s when the spanking hand comes out.
The ability of our economy to manufacture critical goods has been outsourced around the world, because, let’s face it, no one is better at sewing up a soccer ball than an 8-year-old Pakistani kid. And if we took the time to teach them and spent the money to build the factories, no one is better at making iPhones™ than Chinese women who are locked in those factories who have to put up nets to keep people from actually killing themselves when they try to jump off that same factory roof. I think the Chinese even charge the women an “amusement park ride fee” when they jump.
So, how did we get here? The United States has always had an ornery streak. I think Andrew Jackson would have happily had every single central banker in the United States executed – of course, the central bankers retaliated by putting his face on the $20 bill, but I assure you they waited until they were certain he was dead.
How, then, do you take a country that has divided in a massive War Between The States, been brought back (mostly) together, and divide the nation again? In many ways the three items I’ll bring up are intertwined and feed off of each other, but I’ll take each one in turn.
Propaganda. The first part is to skew the definition of America. America was a nation even up into the 1960s, where most (85%-90%) of people had a common ancestry in northwestern Europe, with Great Britain having the largest contribution. Scots may have had problems with the Irish, and the Irish with the English, they might have been neutral about the Swiss, and all of them might have been irritated by the French and Germans, but the common bounds of country and culture were there.
What changed? The idea that if you came to America, it would be expected that you would assimilate to America. Sure, your name might have been Giuseppe, but your grandkid’s name might be Colin, or Brandon, or Brayden. You left that old world behind and consciously gave it up for the new culture. The American culture.
The first lie is the lie that there is no American culture. I can understand that from the point of view of most of the world. How would a fish know about water when he’s swimming in it? American culture (with due credit to Great Britain for kickstarting it) became the most pervasive in the world, spinning off ideas and music and clothes and food at an amazing rate.
Now, of course, propaganda would tell us that we have no culture, and it is evil for us to expect people who come to our country to learn our language, and respect our culture first. No, that’s inverted. It does no good to a person who would divide a country for that to happen. Instead? It’s evil to ask people to learn English. If they kill chickens to sacrifice to Gorbo and marry off their eight-year-old kids to 32-year-old first cousins? We are expected to celebrate that.
No. That’s an inversion. They came here. If they can’t assimilate into American culture and American norms? Out. And take the chickens.
Other ways that propaganda has hurt America are numerous, probably enough for a book. One that’s still hurting us is the idea that nuclear power is evil. It isn’t. It’s funny that all the Green® power seems to be either more polluting or require those 8-year-old kids in Pakistan to learn how to mine lithium rather than sew up soccer balls to make batteries for cars fueled on pure Hopium. No, if you don’t like oil and gas, the only real solution is either condemning the country to an unending abject poverty or to build nuclear power plants.
The warfare culture post 9/11 has also been difficult. What, exactly, were we doing in Afghanistan after Osama Bin Laden assumed ocean temperature? Don’t know. Why did we go into Iraq? Don’t know. Why did we overthrow governments in Libya, Syria, and Ukraine?
Don’t know. But the propaganda that accompanied all of those divided the country, though it’s not nearly as bad as the race grievance industry that’s been in full tilt in the last two decades – but I’ll save that for a future post.
Pathological Altruism. If I have a puppy, and it piddles on the floor and everyone laughs and it’s cute, well, when it’s a big dog no one laughs. Then the dog wonders why I’m beating it for something I was laughing about. No one wants to be the bad guy and say, “No, you have to be punished for your actions so you won’t do it again.” Everyone wants to give people another chance.
A friend of mine had his house broken into. They were able to catch the criminals, and he attended the trial. Result of them stealing thousands and thousands of dollars of his property? A suspended sentence for one guy (who had multiple prior felony convictions) and two years for the other. What message, exactly, is that sending?
The Hart-Cellar Immigration Reform Act of 1965 (plus the amnesties that have followed and will follow) are horrifying in their pathological altruism and use of propaganda. The composition of the country has changed - it's no longer a nation. Where once there was a central culture, now every viewpoint is expected to be equally valid, and (I’m not making this up) the incoming medical school class pledged to honor “all indigenous ways of healing that have been historically marginalized by western medicine.”
Let’s go kill some chickens, because that will get rid of the gunshot wound. Oh, right, don’t forget the Ouija® board.
Corruption. The United States has always been corrupt, let’s get that out first. But the beauty of the corruption early on is that, mostly, it was limited because the scope of the Federal government was limited. Sure, Sheriff Smith over in Mount Pilot would take bribes, but he’d eventually be caught. And did several members of the state legislature take bribes to get the “right” senator into office?
Sure. That happened, too. Three events ushered in eras of nearly unfettered power for the Federal government: the Civil War, the 16th and 17th Amendments, and the New Deal. The Civil War ended the idea that the Several States were sovereign – they became mere political subdivisions of the United States. The 16th and This level of corruption concentrated power at the Federal level and made the farces we see today where people who are on the Right receive massive sentences at the Federal level for minor crimes, but people on the Left are not even indicted, and almost anyone who has power has a free pass for anything but killing someone on-screen at halftime during the Superbowl™, and that only counts as a delay of game penalty.
Amendments made it possible to tax and ended the appointment of Senators. Now, Senators became Representatives with six-year terms, rather than appointed representatives of the Several States – a huge difference.
I originally had more items here, but had to delete them because otherwise this could become a book. I’m certain, though, that the top three cover it well enough for now. I do think that America is getting ready to get out of the easy chair. And the spanking hand is getting ready. "
"When Sorry? An Open Letter from We, The Peasants..."
"When Sorry?An Open Letter from We, The Peasants..."
By Joel Bowman
Buenos Aires, Argentina -
"To whom remain unconcerned,
We – the collective, excess mass of humanity you so casually refer to, down your long, sneering noses, as “The People” – would like to know: When might we expect that apology? Eh? Eh? We appreciate you’re busy, what with protecting us from the uncertainty of the big, scary future and all. You have rates to fiddle, markets to diddle and thumbs to twiddle, even as the Empire burns. Your Climate Panjandrum, John Gulfstream Kerry, assures us you are a “select group of human beings,” on a mission to “save planet earth.” An “extraterrestrial” task, as he put it.
Gee whizz! The air must surely be thin, up there on the mountaintop! Though nothing compared to your Capital-C Causes, Great and Grand, we’ve been busy, too, down here on the flatlands of filth and ignorance... busy tending our own gardens, sweeping our own stoops, making our own beds and generally minding our own business. It’s not quite saving the planet, granted, but at least it’s honest. (You’ll just have to take our word for it.)
Even so, with all our stubborn own-business-minding, we couldn’t help but notice you seem to have... dare we venture... erred of late. We’re sure these peccadillos are mere oversights, products neither of malice or stupidity. (How else to explain the presence of evil in a world invigilated by beings omnipotent, omniscient and beneficent? Hmm...) Still, we reckon they’re worth bringing to your attention. Herewith, a few areas of concern...
No doubt you’ve noticed (how could you not have?) some fissures appearing in the financial system of late. The edifice, built on a foundation of trust in the “full faith and credit” of the American Government, over which many of you – elected and unelected alike – preside, appears to be giving way. Silvergate Bank... Silicon Valley Bank... Signature Bank... Credit Suisse... Deutsche Bank... First Republic Bank...
And yet, it was only a few short years ago (the blink of an eye for your immortal/undead ilk) when then Chairperson of the Federal Reserve, Ms. Janet Louise Yellen, stood in front of the nation and declared, with a straight face: “Would I say there will never, ever be another financial crisis? You know probably that would be going too far but I do think we’re much safer and I hope that it will not be in our lifetimes and I don’t believe it will be.” ~ Janet Yellen, June 20, 2017
But lo! Contrary to her highly paid prognostications... Ms. Yellen lives, even as major institutions under her bailiwick pass one by one into the shades. Even more astounding, Ms. Yellen is not earning her keep as one of Santa’s dopey elves at the local shopping mall, or spinning a pizza sign at an abandoned intersection, or even authoring weekend columns in some fringy Substack publication (Hermes forbid!)... but instead serves as both head of the United States Department of the Treasury and chief financial officer of the federal government of the United States of America.
Benevolent overlords, we are not without a sense of humor... but you’re going to have to unpack that punchline for us.
Then there’s Ms. Yellen’s comrade-in-arms, over at the Federal Reserve. Now, before you furrow your almighty brow, we understand that Chairman Powell inherited a mess of epic proportions. And we get that the Powell bone connects to the Yellen bone connects to the Bernanke bone, etc. And yes, we appreciate that The Covid wasn’t the Chairman’s leak (about which, more in a second).
But by pinning rates to the floor for 21 months straight, right as his mates over in the federal government were hosing the economy down with trillions of gallons of jet fuel, it was Mr. Powell who lit the match that set off the greatest conflagration in prices in over forty years. What’s more, to do so while telling Americans of the non-bazillionaire class – who were at the time gagged, locked down and lathered in Lysol, as per expert recommendations – that such a painful spike would be “transitory,” was more than a mere breach of decency. It was downright duplicitous.
Now, if it were just a money thing... confined to your meddling with the price of credit, the value of your devilish fiat, the stability of your stacked and corrupted financial system... we could maybe turn a half-blind eye. Unlike your kind, we lowlanders do not worship exclusively at the feet of mammon (although a little predictability, stability and durability in our money is not unappreciated... ergo, gold).
The problem, alas, is that your creepy McMission creep McCrept into other realms of our lives, too. In our language, you see, concepts like “liberty” and “self-determination” and “privacy” are not pejoratives, but values we hold dear. And so it is your overt and relentless intrusions into these realms with which we must take umbrage. (And please, kindly excuse our use of the “Royal You” hereafter – we mean no undue respect by it.)
Remember when you told us you were not conducting Gain of Fauci research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology...when you were?
Remember when you told us that so much as asking questions about a possible “lab leak” was tantamount to attacking “The Science”...when it wasn’t?
Remember when you locked down our communities, our businesses, our schools, our churches, our theaters, our airports, our state and national borders, our kids’ playgrounds, because it was necessary for “our own safety”...when it wasn’t?
Remember when you tackled people to the ground for yearning to breathe freely...when fresh air was what they needed most?
Remember when you built quarantine camps in the Australian outback...and then told us we should “be grateful” for them?
Remember when you assured us the vaccines were safe and effective...when they were neither?
Remember when you told us you had conducted clinical trials into their efficacy regarding transmission...when you hadn’t?
Remember when you sacked millions of nurses, firefighters, policemen, pilots, teachers, surgeons, factory workers and truck drivers, when they dared exercise their own bodily autonomy...exactly as was their right?
Remember when you told us to mask our dear children, because gagging their precious little faces was necessary to protect them...when it wasn’t?*
Remember when you told us Black Lives Matter was not a giant scam, designed to relieve well-intentioned non-racists of their hard-earned money...right before the founder purchased a $6 million private mansion?
Remember when you told us biological males had no advantage over females in sports...then failed to flatten Lia Thomas’s curve?
Remember when you said there were Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq...when there weren’t?
Remember when you promised, repeatedly, you would “bring an end” to the Nord Stream pipeline...and then claimed you didn’t?
Remember when you said the Hunter Biden laptop story was fake news...when it was as real as the Big Guy’s paychecks?
Remember when you told us that 2+2 could = 5...when, 4.
Remember when you said we had two, five, ten, twenty, pick-a-number years before the ice caps melted...and then they didn’t?
Remember when you said the Great Barrier Reef was going to die off...right before it grew at a record rate?
Remember when you said hurricanes and extreme weather events were increasing because of global warming...then refused to retract your “stories” after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (which you cited!), disputed your claims?
Remember when you said advanced, industrialized economies, like Germany, could run just fine on renewables...right before citizens there spent the winter felling virgin forests and burning trash to keep warm?
Remember when you said this constituted “peaceful protests”?
Remember when you said climate-related deaths were exploding...when they’re at historic lows?
Remember when you said we should “defund the police”...right before an epic crime wave?
Remember when you said you’d drain the swamp/close Gitmo/rein in government spending...then you didn’t?
Remember when you told us that you couldn’t define a woman...because you’re not a biologist?
Remember when you said “non-women” could get pregnant... when... really, do we have to even do this one?
We could go on. Indeed, our abiding readers are no doubt champing at the bit, another dozen examples of your ineptocracy at the very tip of their tongue... (do drop ‘em in the comments section, below...)
On these, and so many other fronts, you not only failed the smell test, you positively stunk the joint out. And yet, you continue to claim authority over our lives, our freedoms, our fates. Why should we listen to you, who could not have been more wrong… on more subjects… with more frequency?
We do not ask for much in this life, mere peasants that we are. To be left alone, to live and let live, to chart our own course, as best we can... We are but a simple people, having eschewed the miseducation of your woke, monoculture, Ivy League factories. Yes, we’ve read your books... your Keynes and Marx; we’ve suffered your opinion pages, your Krugman and Friedman; we’ve even endured your alleged “comedians,” your Colbert and Fallon. We’ve listened, politely, when you hurled your unlettered epithets – deplorables, conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers, racists, etc.
But all we really want to know, given the high crimes and misdemeanors perpetrated by your wretched lot, is...when sorry?
Oh, and may there be an especially noxious cauldron, bubbling away across the River Styx, waiting for those of you who enforced that gruesome diktat."
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