Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 12/21/23
"Alert! Hackers Warning: 'It's Worse Than People
Can Imagine'; Nationwide Cyberattack"
Comments here:
So, we rise from the rubble...
Thursday, December 21, 2023
Scott Ritter, "The US Would Lose A War With Iran And Yemen"
Full screen recommended.
Redacted, 12/21/23
Scott Ritter, "The US Would Lose A War With Iran And Yemen"
Comments here:
"Food Shortage Report and Grocery Items Going Up In Price!"
Adventures With Danno, PM 12/21/23
"Food Shortage Report and
Grocery Items Going Up In Price!"
"Food shortage report for winter and grocery items that are set to skyrocket in early 2024! Get your notepad ready, and this seems to be getting worse each week!"
Comments here:
"Gerald Celente, Trends In The News, 12/21/23"
Strong Language Alert!
"Gerald Celente, Trends In The News, 12/21/23"
"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:
"A Look to the Heavens"
"The Horsehead Nebula is one of the most famous nebulae on the sky. It is visible as the dark indentation to the orange emission nebula at the far right of the featured picture. The horse-head feature is dark because it is really an opaque dust cloud that lies in front of the bright emission nebula. Like clouds in Earth's atmosphere, this cosmic cloud has assumed a recognizable shape by chance. After many thousands of years, the internal motions of the cloud will surely alter its appearance.
The emission nebula's orange color is caused by electrons recombining with protons to form hydrogen atoms. Toward the lower left of the image is the Flame Nebula, an orange-tinged nebula that also contains intricate filaments of dark dust. Two prominent reflection nebulas are visible: round IC 432 on the far left, and blue NGC 2023 just to the lower left of the Horsehead nebula. Each glows primarily by reflecting the light of their central star."
The Poet: Matthew Schwartz, "Ex Obscurum, Adagio for Strings, Op. 11"
Full screen recommended.
"Ex Obscurum, Adagio for Strings, Op. 11"
"From emotional turmoil, hatred, and addiction the miracle of recovery begins in this Spadecaller Video entitled "Ex Obscurum" (From Darkness). Featuring original poetry narrated by the author and visual artist, Matthew Schwartz. Composer Samuel Barber's powerful musical score, adopted for the movie "Platoon", (Adagio for Strings) sets the background for this spiritual exodus "From Darkness."
"The True Dream..."
"Maybe we accept the dream has become a nightmare. We tell ourselves that reality is better. We convince ourselves it's better that we never dream at all. But, the strongest of us, the most determined of us, holds on to the dream or we find ourselves faced with a fresh dream we never considered. We wake to find ourselves, against all odds... feeling hopeful. And, if we're lucky, we realize in the face of everything, in the face of life - the true dream is being able to dream at all."
- "Dr. Meredith Grey", "Grey's Anatomy"
“I Can’t Wait For the Day When Life Finally Makes Sense”
“I Can’t Wait For the Day
When Life Finally Makes Sense”
by Rania Naim
“I can’t wait for the day when life finally makes sense, when we find the silver lining in every tragedy, when we learn the lesson from each mistake and when we understand why our hearts needed to get broken a few times to let love in.
I can’t wait for the day that we understand why we met the right people at the wrong time or the wrong people at the right time and why our lives didn’t align to bring us together. I wonder if it’s because they’re the wrong ones for us or because we still have a lot of growing up to do and we’re meant to be with someone who understand who we’re becoming not who we were.
I can’t wait for the day that we understand the lesson behind every struggle. Why we struggled to be successful, why we struggled to find love, why we struggled to reach our dreams and why we lost people who meant the world to us. I wonder if we needed these lessons to learn how to appreciate life and feel the pain of others or we just needed to learn that there is no living without suffering.
I can’t wait for the day that we understand why we had to hate ourselves to love ourselves, why we had to destroy ourselves to build ourselves up again and why we had to start over just before we got to the finish line. I wonder who saved us or who inspired us to save ourselves.
I wonder if we are meant to be reborn a few times so we can learn how to truly live. I want to know what triggered us to change and how we can no longer recognize who we used to be.
I can’t wait for the day that we understand why we keep falling for the wrong ones over and over again, why we can’t forget those who hurt us and why we sometimes can still forgive them and take them back. I want to understand how our hearts operate, how they function, how they move us to do things we would never do and lead us to places that we know we shouldn’t go to. I’m curious to know why we listen to it, why we follow it blindly like it never got us lost before, why we trust it even though it left us broken and why do we always go back to it for questions when it keeps giving us the wrong answers. I wonder if there will come a day when we stop listening to it and if we’ll ever be truly alive without it.
They say everything happens for a reason and I truly believe that, but I also want to know what this reason is and why it chose us. Why some reasons keep recurring and why some reasons leave us even more perplexed. I want to understand why we go through certain things, what’s the message behind it and what if we never respond to this message, what if we just ignore it and keep living, what will happen then? Will our lives get lost in translation?
I can’t wait for the day that life makes sense – some days I understand why certain things happened and others I’m not so sure, but all I know is that somehow we’ll connect the dots and someday we’ll complete the puzzle, until then, we have to learn how to live our lives without trying to understand it and we have to learn how to be comfortable with the irony and uncertainty of life; otherwise we’ll lose our common sense trying to make sense of the life we’re living.”
Dan, I Allegedly, "Your Credit Cards Are About To Close"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly AM 12/21/23
"Your Credit Cards Are About To Close"
"With the latest legislation from the consumer financial protection bureau, you’re about to see millions of people lose their credit cards in the coming months. Plus did you know that Rite Aid was watching us via face recognition?"
Comments here:
"It's A Mess, Ain't It?"
Deputy Wendell: "It's a mess, ain't it, sheriff?"
Sheriff Bell: "If it ain't, it'll do till the mess gets here."
- "No Country For Old Men"
Oh, the mess is here alright. Look around, everywhere...
Full screen recommended.
"Network", "Mad As Hell"
"Death And Destruction In Gaza"
Full screen recommended.
"John Mearsheimer:
Israel Is Choosing 'Apartheid' Or 'Ethnic Cleansing'
"Death And Destruction In Gaza"
By Portfolio Armor
"The Man Who Predicted The Ukraine War Weighs In: Readers may recall that in 2015, Professor John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago presciently predicted Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Several years prior to that, Mearsheimer garnered attention for a controversial book he co-wrote called The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. This month, he turned his attention back to Israel, condemning its military operation in Gaza. We have posted Mearsheimer's piece on Israel below; following that, we have a journalist's explanation of the Israeli perspective on the Gaza operation. And then we'll close with a note about how Powell's pivot seems to be driving the market more than concern about the Mideast conflict, with an update on how that has impacted our system's security selection.
We'll start with Mearsheimer: "I do not believe that anything I say about what is happening in Gaza will affect Israeli or American policy in that conflict. But I want to be on record so that when historians look back on this moral calamity, they will see that some Americans were on the right side of history.
What Israel is doing in Gaza to the Palestinian civilian population – with the support of the Biden administration – is a crime against humanity that serves no meaningful military purpose. As J-Street, an important organization in the Israel lobby, puts it, “The scope of the unfolding humanitarian disaster and civilian casualties is nearly unfathomable.”[1] Let me elaborate.
First, Israel is purposely massacring huge number of civilians, roughly 70 percent of whom are children and women. The claim that Israel is going to great lengths to minimize civilian casualties is belied by statements from high level Israeli officials. For example, the IDF spokesman said on 10 October 2023 that “the emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy.” That same day, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced: “I have lowered all the restraints – we will kill everyone we fight against; we will use every means.”[2]
Moreover, it is clear from the results of the bombing campaign that Israel is indiscriminately killing civilians. Two detailed studies of the IDF’s bombing campaign – both published in Israeli outlets – explain in detail how Israel is murdering huge numbers of civilians. It is worth quoting the titles of the two pieces, which succinctly capture what each has to say:
• “‘A Mass Assassination Factory’: Inside Israel’s Calculated Bombing of Gaza”[3]
• “The Israeli Army Has Dropped the Restraint in Gaza, and the Data Shows Unprecedented Killing.”[4]
Similarly, the New York Times published an article in late November 2023 titled: “Gaza Civilians, Under Israeli Barrage, Are Being Killed at Historic Pace.”[5] Thus, it is hardly surprising that the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, said that “We are witnessing a killing of civilians that is unparalleled and unprecedented in any conflict since” his appointment in January 2017.[6]
Second, Israel is purposely starving the desperate Palestinian population by greatly limiting the amount of food, fuel, cooking gas, medicine, and water that can be brought into Gaza. Moreover, medical care is extremely hard to come by for a population that now includes approximately 50,000 wounded civilians. Not only has Israel greatly limited the supply of fuel into Gaza, which hospitals need to function, but it has targeted hospitals, ambulances, and first aid stations.
Defense Minister Gallant’s comment on 9 October captures Israeli policy: “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we are acting accordingly.”[7] Israel has been forced to allow minimal supplies into Gaza, but the amounts are so small that a senior UN official reports that “half of Gaza’s population is starving.” He goes on to report that, “Nine out of 10 families in some areas are spending ‘a full day and night without any food at all’.”[8]
Third, Israeli leaders talk about Palestinians and what they would like to do in Gaza in shocking terms, especially when you consider that some of these leaders also talk incessantly about the horrors of the Holocaust. Indeed, their rhetoric has led Omar Bartov, a prominent Israeli-born scholar of the Holocaust, to conclude that Israel has “genocidal intent.”[9]
Other scholars in Holocaust and genocide studies have offered a similar warning.[10] To be more specific, it is commonplace for Israeli leaders to refer to Palestinians as “human animals, ”human beasts,” and “horrible inhuman animals.”[11] And as Israeli President Isaac Herzog makes clear, those leaders are referring to all Palestinians, not just Hamas: In his words, “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible.”[12] Unsurprisingly, as the New York Times reports, it is part of normal Israeli discourse to call for Gaza to be “flattened,” “erased,” or “destroyed.”[13] One retired IDF general, who proclaimed that “Gaza will become a place where no human being can exist,” also makes the case that “severe epidemics in the south of the Gaza Strip will bring victory closer.”[14]
Going even further, a minister in the Israeli government suggested dropping a nuclear weapon on Gaza.[15] These statements are not being made by isolated extremists, but by senior members of Israel’s government.
Of course, there is also much talk of ethnically cleansing Gaza (and the West Bank), in effect, producing another Nakba.[16] To quote Israel’s Agriculture Minister, “We are now rolling out the Gaza Nakba.”[17]Perhaps the most shocking evidence of the depths to which Israeli society has sunk is a video of very young children singing a blood-curdling song celebrating Israel’s destruction of Gaza: “Within a year we will annihilate everyone, and then we will return to plow our fields.”[18]
Fourth, Israel is not just killing, wounding, and starving huge numbers of Palestinians, it is also systematically destroying their homes as well as critical infrastructure – to include mosques, schools, heritage sites, libraries, key government buildings, and hospitals.[19]
As of 1 December 2023, the IDF had damaged or destroyed almost 100,000 buildings, including entire neighborhoods that have been reduced to rubble.[20] Consequently, a stunning 90 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians have been displaced from their homes.[21] Moreover, Israel is making a concerted effort to destroy Gaza’s cultural heritage; as NPR reports, “more than 100 Gaza heritage sites have been damaged or destroyed by Israeli attacks.”[22]
Fifth, Israel is not just terrorizing and killing Palestinians, it is also publicly humiliating many of their men who have been rounded up by the IDF in routine searches. Israeli soldiers strip them down to their underwear, blindfold them, and display them in a public way in their neighborhoods – sitting them down in large groups in the middle of the street, for example, or parading them through the streets – before taking them away in trucks to detention camps. In most cases, the detainees are then released as they are not Hamas fighters.[23]
Sixth, although the Israelis are doing the slaughtering, they could not do it without the Biden administration’s support. Not only was the United States the only country to vote against a recent UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, but it has also been providing Israel with the weaponry necessary to wage this massacre.[24] As one Israeli general (Yitzhak Brick) recently made clear: “All of our missiles, the ammunition, the precision-guided bombs, all the airplanes and bombs, it’s all from the U.S. The minute they turn off the tap, you can’t keep fighting. You have no capability. Everyone understands that we can’t fight this war without the United States. Period.”[25] Remarkably, the Biden administration has sought to expedite sending Israel additional ammunition, by-passing the normal procedures of the Arms Export Control Act.[26]
Seventh, while most of the focus is now on Gaza, it is important not to lose sight of what is simultaneously going on in the West Bank. Israeli settlers, working closely with the IDF, continue to kill innocent Palestinians and steal their land. In an excellent article in the New York Review of Books describing these horrors, David Shulman relates a conversation he had with a settler, which clearly reflects the moral dimension of Israeli behavior toward the Palestinians. “What we are doing to these people is actually inhuman,” the settler freely admits, “But if you think about it clearly, it all follows inevitably from the fact that God promised this land to the Jews, and only to them.”[27] Along with its assault on Gaza, the Israel government has markedly increased the number of arbitrary arrests in the West Bank. According to Amnesty International, there is considerable evidence that these prisoners have been tortured and subjected to degrading treatment.[28]
As I watch this catastrophe for the Palestinians unfold, I am left with one simple question for Israel’s leaders, their American defenders, and the Biden administration: have you no decency?"
o
o
That's your hand, Good American. That's my hand. That's all our hands for allowing and supporting this absolute horror. That's who we are, what we are. 20,000 people... old, women and 7,000 children killed. Remember that as you proudly wave your little Israeli flags... - CP
Bill Bonner, "Gods, Demons and Politicians"
Fresco by Johann Michael Rottmayr
"Gods, Demons and Politicians"
And between them all, ordinary, hard-working people...
By Bill Bonner
"We have come to tell you that not only are
the politicians not God; they are the cause of our problems."
~ Javier Milei, Argentine President, yesterday.
Baltimore, Maryland - "On Monday and again on Tuesday, stocks hit new highs. On Wednesday, they were still in the green until late in the day. Then, suddenly, they began to go straight down. Markets insider: "Dow tumbles 476 points as recession fears snap the stock market's winning streak. US stocks plunged on Wednesday as investors weighed the odds of recession and reined in their enthusiasm for expected rate cuts."
Forbes adds: "Shares of FedEx tanked Wednesday after a declining sales forecast delivered during the firm’s earnings report disappointed investors, causing red-hot stock indexes to slide as FedEx’s results revealed potentially worrisome signs for broader consumer spending habits. Investors may have been expecting clear sailing, after the Fed announced its ‘sort of’ pivot. They should look out the window."
An Ugly Vista: More and more student loans are falling into arrears…more Americans say they skip meals to keep up with bills…credit card debt hit a new $1.3 trillion high (with 20% interest!)…Car payment defaults haven’t been this high since the last century; more and more people are working two jobs to keep up with the cost of living.
And Fedex is not just another company. It’s the company that delivers the goods. If its sales and profits are going down, it means that there are fewer goods being delivered…which means, the economy is slowing down.
In the meantime, the risk of a crisis is high. There is more than $300 trillion of debt outstanding in the world…now being rolled over at rates that are 2 to 5 times higher than they were a couple years ago.
Here’s Harry Dent: "Since 2009, this has been 100% artificial, unprecedented money printing and deficits; $27 trillion over 15 years, to be exact. This is off the charts, 100% artificial, which means we're in a dangerous state…I think 2024 is going to be the biggest single crash year we'll see in our lifetimes."
Maybe. Only the gods know. And they’re not talking. In today’s $107 trillion world economy, nobody can predict or control what will happen. All we can do is to study the patterns of history….and guess. But let us try to dive down…beneath the surface chop…to the deep currents below. We have promised to explore the dark regions of ‘megapoiltics’ to find out what is really going on. So, we put on our facemask and flippers…and plunge into the cold water.
The Pretense of Knowledge: The US Federal Reserve pretends to know exactly – within a quarter of a point – what the nation’s key lending rate should be…and is even able to tell us what future rate moves will be necessary to get there. And though it has demonstrated over and over that it is operating far above its pay grade, it keeps at it. The problem, as Milei puts it, is not the chef. Fed governors are not dumb. It’s the recipe. ‘It’s the idea that a group of bureaucrats in an office can plan the lives of millions of human beings,’ Milei explained yesterday.
And the remarkable thing is that no one seems to question it. Why do we have a Fed? Why does it prefer rates that turn out to be too low rather than too high? Nor does anyone particularly care that these geniuses are managing trillions of dollars’ worth of money that is not their own…and that this self-same money is fraudulent. While it is impossible to know exactly ‘why’ any of these things are so, down in megapolitics we find ‘reasons’ that at least sound plausible.
Every society, since the days of the Sumerians and human sacrifices, sorts itself into an elite – an aristocracy, a priesthood, a ruling class – and everyone else. As time goes by these elites – almost by definition; they are capable, well-informed and intelligent – find ways to improve their status and add to their wealth. That’s the process that Milei is trying to unwind in Argentina. The ‘political caste,’ as he calls it, has strangled the real economy in order to give itself special privileges and benefits. Here, you can watch the opening to his speech, yesterday, in which he strikes at the root of the problem. (Click here to view video.)
Show Us The Money: Voters don’t like taxes. Investors don’t like lending to a bankrupt government. So, the simplest way for an elite to take power and money from ‘the people,’ in a modern democracy, is to diddle the money. “I don’t care who makes the laws,” said a shrewd Rothschild,” just give me control of the money.”
In that regard, America’s post-1971 money system was a big step forward – for the elites. Thenceforth, the wages of ‘The People’ remained stable. But the wealth of the upper classes – those who owned the ‘means of production’ – rose steeply. The Wilshire 5000 stock index, for example, of which the common man owned little, rose about 20 times. (The Wall Street Journal reports that equity ownership in the US is at an all-time high. Still, for the average person stock market gains are dwarfed by income from working.)
For the average working man, almost everything went up in price – except the real value of his major asset: his time. So, he had to spend more time to get the basics in life. Before the money switcheroo, he had to labor for about 4 years to buy a house, for example. Today, it will cost him more than 8 years of labor. House prices have gone way up over the last 50 years – gaining more than $30 trillion in value. ‘The People’ may not own stocks, but they own houses. Alas, most of that gain too – about ¾ of it – went to the elites.
In other words, the ‘recipe’ worked for some…but not for all. The ‘political caste,’ got fat and happy. Milei is trying to put them on a diet. But for America’s elite, it’s still ‘all you can eat’... 24/7. More to come…"
Adventures With Danno, "Outrageous Prices At Kroger! Saving On What We Can"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, AM 12/21/23
"Outrageous Prices At Kroger!
Saving On What We Can!"
"In today's vlog, we are at Kroger and continue to see very high prices on groceries. We go throughout the store, pointing out whatever decent deals we come across. It's getting harder to afford groceries with these prices continuing to rise!"
Comments here:
o
Canadian Prepper, "I Just Got Scammed! Holy Sh*t! This Will Destroy Society In 2024"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 12/20/21
"I Just Got Scammed! Holy Sh*t!
This Will Destroy Society In 2024"
Comments here:
Wednesday, December 20, 2023
Gerald Celente, "The Government Is God. Merry Christmas"
Gerald Celente, The Trends Journal 12/20/23
"The Government Is God. Merry Christmas"
"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:
Dan, I Allegedly, "Huge Hacking! Was Your Data Stolen?"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly PM 12/20/23
"Huge Hacking! Was Your Data Stolen?"
"This is incredibly serious. We just heard that Comcast was hacked and that 36 million peoples data was stolen. Watch this video to understand exactly what they took and how you can protect yourself."
Comments here:
Musical Interlude: Soothing Relaxation, "Relaxing Piano Music & Rain Sounds"
Full screen recommended.
Soothing Relaxation,
"Relaxing Piano Music & Rain Sounds"
"A Look to the Heavens"
“Massive stars, abrasive winds, mountains of dust, and energetic light sculpt one of the largest and most picturesque regions of star formation in the Local Group of Galaxies. Known as N11, the region is visible on the upper right of many images of its home galaxy, the Milky Way neighbor known as the Large Magellanic Clouds (LMC).
The above image was taken for scientific purposes by the Hubble Space Telescope and reprocessed for artistry by an amateur to win the Hubble's Hidden Treasures competition. Although the section imaged above is known as NGC 1763, the entire N11 emission nebula is second in LMC size only to 30 Doradus. Studying the stars in N11 has shown that it actually houses three successive generations of star formation. Compact globules of dark dust housing emerging young stars are also visible around the image.”
The Poet: Czeslaw Milosz, "A Song on the End of the World"
"A Song on the End of the World"
"On the day the world ends
A bee circles a clover,
A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
Happy porpoises jump in the sea,
By the rainspout young sparrows are playing,
And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be.
On the day the world ends
Women walk through the fields under their umbrellas,
A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,
Vegetable peddlers shout in the street
And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,
The voice of a violin lasts in the air
And leads into a starry night.
And those who expected lightning and thunder
Are disappointed.
And those who expected signs and archangels’ trumps
Do not believe it is happening now.
As long as the sun and the moon are above,
As long as the bumblebee visits a rose,
As long as rosy infants are born
No one believes it is happening now.
Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet
Yet is not a prophet, for he’s much too busy,
Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:
There will be no other end of the world,
There will be no other end of the world."
- Czeslaw Milosz
"Hang In There..."
“Using time, pressure and patience, the universe gradually changes caterpillars into butterflies, sand into pearls, and coal into diamonds. You’re being worked on too, so hang in there. Just because something isn’t apparent right now, doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. It’s not until the end do you realize, sometimes your biggest blessings were disguised by pain and suffering. They were not placed there to break you, but to make you.”
- “The Angel Affect”
“What the caterpillar calls the end of the world the master calls a butterfly.”
- Richard Bach
John Wilder, "The Unraveling"
"The Unraveling"
by John Wilder
"The unraveling continues. In one sense, what’s happening is predictable. Looking back in history, while not everything happens in the same way, things very much rhyme. That’s why certain aspects of the current financial collapse are very, very familiar.
The Fed® still has enough influence that it can stop a snowball. Can the Fed® stop an avalanche? Not so much. They may have some tricks to push the day of reckoning down the line if it isn’t off the rails. Again, like a presidential election, it’s a short-term solution to a long-term problem.
If it were merely a financial problem, the actions might be enough. But it’s not just financial. Other problems include extreme societal decadence. Decadence is a strong word. When I was a kid, it was applied to places like the late Roman Empire, or Willy Wonka’s® Chocolate Factory™ where those Umpa-Loompas wore those scanty tight outfits.
But when people take kids – elementary-age kids – to Pride®©™ parades that contain actual nudity and sex acts between adults, and then suggest putting hormones into five-year-olds because they pretended to cook in a pretend kitchen one day, you know that this is the point where God told Noah, “Get the boat,” and told Lot, “Tell everyone to wear sunglasses – I don’t care if it’s night.”
Whatever fetish sex act that any individual wants to do “because it’s Thursday” now seems to take the place of virtue. Replacing actual virtue with temporary individual passions is exactly what every single functioning society in history has avoided to in order to remain functioning. When people follow passions that are productive, like building rockets, they add to society. When people act on passions counter to virtue? Those passions consume and destroy society. Period.
We don’t live in a world where “if it feels good, do it” can ever be a policy that lead to a productive society. At some point, we must be guided by virtue, we have to have a shared vision for a future, and a shared desire to build. Can you imagine a single event that would bring us all together again? I can’t. We have to have that shared vision – if nothing else, to survive. Do we have it?
We do not. We are divided. The idea of a selfless devotion to duty seems to have (in many places) evaporated. Cops are supposed to put themselves into danger to save the innocent – that’s the only reason we put up with the rest of the nonsense that they get up to. If they have changed their motto from “Protect and Serve” to “Hide Until We Can and Give Traffic Tickets to People That Don’t Scare Us” then they’re not much use.
Globalism is likewise something that sounds good, but isn’t. I can understand the need for some places like, say, deserts to import grain and Alaska to import medicine and export oil and good vibes. But can someone tell me that we’re in a better and safer position as a country now that we depend on far-flung nations for things. When I talked to The Boy about careers, the advice I gave him was simple – don’t do anything that someone can do over the Internet. If you do, you’re competing with a job with millions or billions of people.
We have reached the stage of cultural collapse. I’m in favor of capitalism – but amoral capitalism is different. When capitalism is allowed to meet any need, the result isn’t good. Like any system, it needs boundaries. As John Adams said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Freedom needs boundaries. Freedom needs responsibility. Liberty, real liberty, requires obligation for stability. Otherwise? It descends into chaos.
So, we’ve established that we’re in a difficult place. The things that we depended upon are slowly slipping away. The economy is in a very precarious place, culturally we’re shattered to the point that not even another 9-11 would bring us together. The difficulties that we see from here on out won’t serve to bring us together, they will bring us apart. How about the economic difficulties related to just high fuel prices alone?
The Lefties love it, even as it destroys our economy. Heck destruction of the economy might even be the point. But stresses have consequences. If I drop an orange, it will fall. If we destroy an economy, it will fail. Some parts of it will be predictable: interest rates going up will make housing prices go down. Simple.
The one thing that I can tell you, is what comes next won’t be like what came before. The problems that we have rhyme with the problems of the past, but they’re not the same. During the Great Depression, we were at least (mostly) homogeneous as a country. Now, not so much. The end state is tied to the initial conditions. And the initial conditions of the Great Depression were greatly different than they are today, so there’s no way that we’ll see the same results. And things will never go back to “normal” because we simply cannot go back in time, and there isn’t any such thing as “normal” nor any time period which is “normal”. They will be different. What we have, though, is the rhyme. It won’t allow us to predict perfectly. But it will allow us to see, dimly."
'How, Then..."
"How, then, shall we face the future? When the sailor is out on the ocean, when everything is changing all around him, when the waves are born and die, he does not stare down into the waves, because they are changing. He looks up at the stars. Why? Because they are faithful..."
- Soren Kierkegaard
○
Procol Harum, "A Salty Dog"
"Anarchy and Voluntaryism"
"Anarchy and Voluntaryism"
by Doug Casey
You’re likely aware that I’m a libertarian. But I’m actually more than a libertarian. I don’t believe in the right of the State to exist. The reason is that anything that has a monopoly of force is extremely dangerous. As Mao Tse-tung, lately one of the world’s leading experts on government, said: "The power of the state comes out of a barrel of a gun."
There are two possible ways for people to relate to each other, either voluntarily or coercively. And the State is pure institutionalized coercion. It’s not just unnecessary, but antithetical, for a civilized society. And that’s increasingly true as technology advances. It was never moral, but at least it was possible, in oxcart days, for bureaucrats to order things around. Today it’s ridiculous.
Everything that needs doing can and will be done by the market, by entrepreneurs who fill the needs of other people for a profit. The State is a dead hand that imposes itself on society. That belief makes me, of course, an anarchist.
People have a misconception about anarchists. That they’re these violent people, running around in black capes with little round bombs. This is nonsense. Of course there are violent anarchists. There are violent dentists. There are violent Christians. Violence, however, has nothing to do with anarchism. Anarchism is simply a belief that a ruler isn’t necessary, that society organizes itself, that individuals own themselves, and the State is actually counterproductive.
It’s always been a battle between the individual and the collective. I’m on the side of the individual. I simply don’t believe anyone has a right to initiate aggression against anyone else. Is that an unreasonable belief? Let me put it this way. Since government is institutionalized coercion - a very dangerous thing - it should do nothing but protect people in its bailiwick from physical coercion. What does that imply? It implies a police force to protect you from coercion within its boundaries, an army to protect you from coercion from outsiders, and a court system to allow you to adjudicate disputes without resorting to coercion.
I could live happily with a government that did just those things. Unfortunately the US Government is only marginally competent in providing services in those three areas. Instead, it tries to do everything else.
The argument can be made that the largest criminal entity today is not some Colombian cocaine gang, it’s the US Government. And they’re far more dangerous. They have a legal monopoly to do anything they want with you. Don’t conflate the government with America - it’s a separate entity, with its own interests, as distinct as General Motors or the Mafia. I’d rather deal with the Mafia than I would with any agency of the US Government.
Even under the worst circumstances, even if the Mafia controlled the United States, I can’t believe Tony Soprano or Al Capone would try to steal 40% of people’s income from them every year. They couldn’t get away with it. But - perhaps because we’re said to be a democracy - the US Government is able to masquerade as "We the People." That’s an anachronism, at best. The US has mutated into a domestic multicultural empire.
The average person has been propagandized into believing that it’s patriotic to do as he’s told. "We have to obey libraries of regulations, and I’m happy to pay my taxes. It’s the price we pay for civilization." No, that’s just the opposite of the fact. Those things are a sign that civilization is degrading, that the society is becoming less individually responsible, and has to be held together by force.
It’s all about control. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. The type of people that gravitate to government like to control other people. Contrary to what we’re told to think, that’s why you get the worst people—not the best—who want to get into government.
What about voting? Can that change and improve things? Unlikely. I can give you five reasons why you should not vote in an election (see this article). See if you agree.
Hark back to the ’60s when they said, "Suppose they gave a war and nobody came?" But let’s take it further: Suppose they gave a tax and nobody paid? Suppose they gave an election and nobody voted? What that would do is delegitimize government.
Remember you don’t get the best and the brightest going into government. There are two kinds of people. You’ve got people that like to control physical reality - things. And people that like to control other people. That second group, those who like to lord it over their fellows, are drawn to government and politics.
Some might ask: "Aren’t you loyal to America?" and "How can you say these terrible things?" My response is, "Of course I’m loyal to America, but America is an idea, it’s not a place. At least not any longer…" America was once unique among the world’s countries. Unfortunately that’s no longer the case. The idea is still unique, but the country no longer is.
I’ll go further than that. It’s said that you’re supposed to be loyal to your fellow Americans. Well, here’s a revelation. I have less in common with my average fellow American than I do with friends of mine in the Congo, or Argentina, or China.
The reason is that I share values with my friends; we look at the world the same way, have the same worldview. But what do I have in common with my fellow Americans who live in the trailer parks, barrios, and ghettos? Or even Hollywood, Washington, and Manhattan? Everyone has to be judged as an individual, but probably very little besides residing in the same political jurisdiction. Most of them - about 50% of the US - are welfare recipients, and therefore an active threat. So I have more personal loyalty to the guys in the Congo than I do to most of my fellow Americans. The fact we carry US passports is simply an accident of birth.
Those who find that thought offensive likely suffer from a psychological aberration called "nationalism"; in serious cases it may become "jingoism." The authorities and the general public prefer to call it "patriotism." It’s understandable, though. Everyone, including the North Koreans, tends to identify with the place they were born. But these things should be fairly low on any list of virtues.
Nationalism is the belief that my country is the best country in the world just because I happen to have been born there. It’s most virulent during wars and elections. And it’s very scary. It’s like watching a bunch of chimpanzees hooting and panting at another tribe of chimpanzees across the watering hole. I have no interest in being a part of the charade - although that’s dangerous.
And getting more dangerous as the State grows more powerful. The growth of the State is actually destroying society. Over the last 100 years the State has grown at an exponential rate, and it’s the enemy of the individual. I see no reason why this trend, which has been in motion and accelerating for so long, is going to stop. And certainly no reason why it’s going to reverse.
It’s like a giant snowball that’s been rolling downhill from the top of the mountain. It could have been stopped early in its descent, but now the thing is a behemoth. If you stand in its way you’ll get crushed. It will stop only when it smashes the village at the bottom of the valley.
This makes me quite pessimistic about the future of freedom in the US. As I said, it’s been in a downtrend for many decades. But the events of September 11, 2001, turbocharged the acceleration of the loss of liberty in the US. At some point either foreign or domestic enemies will cause another 9/11, either real or imagined. It’s predictable; that’s what sociopaths do.
When there is another 9/11 - and we will have another one - they’re going to lock down this country like one of their numerous new prisons. It’s going to become very unpleasant in the US at some point soon. It seems to me the inevitable is becoming imminent."
Dan, I Allegedly, "Are You Going to Drink That?"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly AM 12/20/23
"Are You Going to Drink That?"
"California has just announced that they are going to take waste water and turns into drinking water. Would you drink this water? Plus, we are seeing massive layoffs and bank closures."
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"Massive Shrinkflation At Dollar Store! Empty Shelves Everywhere!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 12/20/23
"Massive Shrinkflation At Dollar Store!
Empty Shelves Everywhere!"
"In today's vlog, we are at Dollar Tree and are noticing a lot of different grocery items that have shrunk in size. This has become a major issue as manufacturers are not only charging very high prices on food but are now shrinking the size of products and still charging the same amount!"
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