"Don't wonder why people go crazy. Wonder why they don't.
In the face of what we can lose in a day, in an instant,
wonder what the hell it is that makes us hold it together."
- "Grey's Anatomy"
So, we rise from the rubble...
Wednesday, February 7, 2024
The Poet: Mary Oliver, "Coming Home"
"Coming Home"
"When we are driving in the dark,
on the long road to Provincetown,
when we are weary,
when the buildings and the scrub pines lose their familiar look,
I imagine us rising from the speeding car.
I imagine us seeing everything from another place-
the top of one of the pale dunes, or the deep and nameless
fields of the sea.
And what we see is a world that cannot cherish us,
but which we cherish.
And what we see is our life moving like that
along the dark edges of everything,
headlights sweeping the blackness,
believing in a thousand fragile and unprovable things.
Looking out for sorrow,
slowing down for happiness,
making all the right turns
right down to the thumping barriers to the sea,
the swirling waves,
the narrow streets, the houses,
the past, the future,
the doorway that belongs
to you and me."
- Mary Oliver
"A Perpetual Illusion..."
"Human life is thus only a perpetual illusion; men deceive and flatter each other. No one speaks of us in our presence as he does of us in our absence. Human society is founded on mutual deceit; few friendships would endure if each knew what his friend said of him in his absence, although he then spoke in sincerity and without passion. Man is then only disguise, falsehood, and hypocrisy, both in himself and in regard to others. He does not wish any one to tell him the truth; he avoids telling it to others, and all these dispositions, so removed from justice and reason, have a natural root in his heart."
- Blaise Pascal
"Believe Them..."
"When people tell you who they are, Maya Angelou famously advised, believe them. Just as important, however, when people try to tell you who you are, don’t believe them. You are the only custodian of your own integrity, and the assumptions made by those that misunderstand who you are and what you stand for reveal a great deal about them and absolutely nothing about you."
- Maria Popova
“9 Short Quotes That Changed My Life and Why”
“9 Short Quotes That Changed My Life and Why”
by Ryan Holiday
“Like a lot of people, I try to collect words to live by. Most of these words come from reading, but also from conversations, from teachers, and from everyday life. As Seneca, the philosopher and playwright, so eloquently put it: “We should hunt out the helpful pieces of teaching and the spirited and noble-minded sayings which are capable of immediate practical application – not far-fetched or archaic expressions or extravagant metaphors and figures of speech – and learn them so well that words become works.”
In my commonplace book, I keep these little sayings under the heading “Life.” That is, things that help me live better, more meaningfully, and with happiness and honesty. Below are 9 sayings, what they mean, and how they changed my life. Perhaps they will strike you and be of service. Hopefully the words might become works for you too.
o
“If you see fraud and do not say fraud, you are a fraud.”
- Nassim Taleb
This little epigram from Nassim Taleb has been a driving force in my life. It fuels my writing, but mostly it has fueled difficult personal decisions. A few years ago, I was in the middle of a difficult personal situation in which my financial incentives were not necessarily aligned with the right thing. Speaking out would cost me money. I actually emailed Nassim. I asked: “What does ‘saying’ entail? To the person? To the public? At what cost? And how do you know where/when ego might be the influencing factor in determining where you decide to go on that public/private spectrum?” His response was simple: If it harms the collective, you speak up until it no longer does. There’s another line in Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar.‘ Caesar, having returned from the conquest of Gaul, is reminded to tread lightly when speaking to the senators. He replies, “Have I accomplished so much in battle, but now I’m afraid to tell some old men the truth?” That is what I think about with Nassim’s quote. What’s the point of working hard and being successful if it means biting your tongue (or declining to act) when you see something unfair or untoward? What do you care what everyone else thinks?
o
“It can have meaning if it changes you for the better.”
- Viktor Frankl
Viktor Frankl, who was imprisoned and survived three separate Nazi concentration camps, lost his wife, his parents, job, his home and the manuscript that his entire life’s work had gone into. Yet, he emerged from this horrific nightmare convinced that life was not meaningless and that suffering was not without purpose. His work in psychology – now known as logotherapy – is reminiscent of the Stoics: We don’t control what happens to us, only how we respond. Nothing deprives us of this ability to respond, even if only in the slightest way, even if that response is only acceptance. In bad moments, I think of this line. It reminds me that I can change for the better because of it and find meaning in everything – even if my “suffering” pales in comparison to what others have gone through.
o
“Thou knowest this man’s fall;
but thou knowest not his wrassling.”
- James Baldwin
As James Baldwin reflected on the death of his father, a man who he loved and hated, he realized that he only saw the man’s outsides. Yes, he had his problems but hidden behind those external manifestations was his own unique internal struggle which no other person is ever able to fully comprehend. The same is true for everyone – your parents, your boss, the person behind you in line. We can see their flaws but not their struggles. If we can focus on this, we’ll have so much more patience and so much less anger and resentment. It reminds me of another line that means a lot to me from Pascal: “To understand is to forgive.” You don’t have to fully understand or know, but it does help to try.
o
“This is not your responsibility, but it is your problem.”
- Cheryl Strayed
Though I came to Cheryl Strayed late, the impact has been significant. In the letter this quote came from, she was speaking to someone who had something unfair done to them. But you see, life is unfair. Just because you should not have to deal with something doesn’t change whether you in fact need to. It reminds me of something my parents told me when I was learning to drive: It doesn’t matter that you had the right of way if you end up dying in an accident. Deal with the situation at hand, even if you don’t want to, even if someone else should have to, because you’re the one that’s being affected by it. End of story. Her quote is the best articulation I’ve found of that fact.
o
“Dogs bark at what they cannot understand.”
- Heraclitus
People are going to criticize you. They are going to resist or resent what you try to do. You’re going to face obstacles and a lot of those obstacles will be other human beings. Heraclitus is explaining why. People don’t like change. They don’t like to be confused. It’s also a fact that doing new things means forcing change and confusion on other people. So, if you’re looking for an explanation for all the barking you’re hearing, there it is. Let it go, keep working, do your job. My other favorite line from Heraclitus is: “Character is fate.” Who you are and what you stand for will determine who you are and what you do. Surely character makes ignoring the barking a bit easier.
o
“Life is short – the fruit of this life is a
good character and acts for the common good.”
- Marcus Aurelius
Marcus wrote this line at some point during the Antonine Plague – a global pandemic spanning the entirety of his reign. He could have fled Rome. Most people of means did. No one would have faulted him if he did too. Instead, Marcus stayed and braved the deadliest plague of Rome’s 900-year history. And we know that he didn’t even consider choosing his safety and fleeing over his responsibility and staying. He wrote repeatedly about the Stoic concept of sympatheia - the idea that all things are mutually woven together, that we were made for each other, that we are all one.
It’s one of the lesser-known Stoic concepts because it’s easier to only think and care about the people immediately around you. It’s tempting to get consumed by your own problems. It’s natural to assume you have more in common and the same interests as the people who look like you or live like you do. But that is an insidious lie – one responsible for monstrous inhumanity and needless pain. When other people suffer, we suffer. When the world suffers, we suffer. What’s bad for the hive is bad for the bee, Marcus said. When we take actions, we have to always think: What would happen if everyone did this? What are the costs of my decisions for other people? What risks am I externalizing? Is this really what a person with good character and a concern for others would do? You have to care about others. It’s sometimes the hardest thing to do, but it’s the only thing that counts. As Heraclitus (one of Marcus’ favorites) said, character is fate. It’s the fruit of this life.
o
“Happiness does not come from the seeking,
it is never ours by right.”
- Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt was a remarkable woman. Her father killed himself. Her mother was verbally abusive. Her husband repeatedly betrayed her – even up to the moment he died. Yet she slowly but steadily became one of the most influential and important people in the world. I think you could argue that happiness and meaning came from this journey too. Her line here is reminiscent of something explained by both Aristotle and Viktor Frankl – happiness is not pursued, it ensues. It is the result of principles and the fulfillment of our potential. It is also transitory – we get glimpses of it. We don’t have it forever and we must continually re-engage with it. Whatever quote you need to understand this truth, use it. Because it will get you through bad times and to very good ones.
o
“You could leave life right now.
Let that determine what you do and say and think.”
- Marcus Aurelius
If there is better advice than this, it has yet to be written. For many civilizations, the first time that their citizens realize just how vulnerable they are is when they find out they’ve been conquered, or are at the mercy of some cruel tyrant, or some uncontainable disease. It’s when somebody famous – like Tom Hanks or Marcus Aurelius – falls ill that they get serious. The result of this delayed awakening is a critical realization: We are mortal and fragile, and fate can inflict horrible things on our tiny, powerless bodies. There is no amount of fleeing or quarantining we can do to insulate ourselves from the reality of human existence: memento mori – thou art mortal. No one, no country, no planet is as safe or as special as we like to think we are. We are all at the mercy of enormous events outside our control. You can go at any moment, Marcus was constantly reminding himself with each of the events swirling around him. He made sure this fact shaped every choice and action and thought.
o
“Some lack the fickleness to live as
they wish and just live as they have begun.”
- Seneca
After beginning with Seneca, let’s end with him. Inertia is a powerful force. The status quo – even if self-created – is comforting. So people find themselves on certain paths in life and cannot conceive of changing them, even if such a change would result in more personal happiness. We think that fickleness is a negative trait, but if it pushes you to be better and find and explore new, better things, it certainly isn’t. I’ve always been a proponent of dropping out, of quitting paths that have gotten stale. Seneca’s quote has helped me with that and I actually have it framed next to my desk so that I might look at it each day. It’s a constant reminder: Why am I still doing this? Is it for the right reasons? Or is it just because it’s been that way for a while?
The power of these quotes is that they say a lot with a little. They help guide us through the complexity of life with their unswerving directness. They make us better, keep us centered, give us something to rest on – a kind of backstop to prevent backsliding. That’s what these 9 quotes have done for me in my life. Borrow them or dig into history or religion or philosophy to find some to add to your own commonplace book. And then turn those words… into works.”
"Global Economy 2/7/24"
Gregory Mannarino, PM 2/7/24
"A Worldwide Commercial Real Estate Meltdown
Is Going To Occur, Just Not Now"
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Epic Economist. 2/7/24
"China's Stock Market Tumbles:
The Hong Kong Crisis Deepens - $6 Trillion Market Wipe Out"
"This video dives into the heart of the Hong Kong crisis as China's stocks hit record lows, wiping out $6 trillion. It uncovers the complex factors, from a selloff in stocks to real estate woes, triggering a market chaos. Discover the human stories behind the numbers, with families, businesses, and a city grappling with economic challenges. Explore the government's responses, investor sentiments, and the social media outcry, offering a comprehensive view of the unfolding turmoil."
Comments here:
"How It Really Is"
Jethro Tull, "Locomotive Breath"
o
"When people pile up debts they will find difficult and perhaps even impossible to repay, they are saying several things at once. They are obviously saying that they want more than they can immediately afford. They are saying, less obviously, that their present wants are so important that, to satisfy them, it is worth some future difficulty. But in making that bargain they are implying that when the future difficulty arrives, they’ll figure it out. They don’t always do that.”
– Michael Lewis, “Boomerang”
Robert Gore, "Controlled Instability"
"Controlled Instability"
Would-be rulers embrace a moronic oxymoron.
by Robert Gore
"The Houthis stymie 12 percent of the world’s shipping. Israel has bitten off more than it can chew and is desperately trying to maneuver the U.S. into a broader Middle Eastern engagement and years of pointless war. In Europe, farmers and truckers are protesting and blocking roads over climate change measures and other grievances. In the U.S., a governor ignores a Supreme Court decision and receives support from 25 fellow governors.
At the recently concluded confab at Davos, the world’s would-be rulers conferred on how they would rule the world. How quaint. They’re going to rule a world that’s spinning out of their, or anybody else’s, control. A Russian politician, Konstantin Dolgov, coined a phrase for the oxymoronic pipe dream that prevails in Washington, Davos, Brussels, and Tel Aviv: “The Americans need controlled instability to realize their own plans.” Dolgov noted: “But this instability has long been out of Washington’s control.”
Controlled instability is a futile hope from a bygone age. The instability that manifests daily is anything but controlled. Texas Governor Greg Abbott and his fellow governors’ defiance marks an emerging phase: instability and conflict among actors within the political system. It may be posturing, but it still amounts to a middle finger from the governors to the federal government and its once revered Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court has been rubber-stamping expansion of the federal government’s power since the Constitution was ratified. The most egregious recent examples were National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (2012) and King v. Burwell (2015), the decisions that upheld Obamacare. Nobody protested against the program that hastened the destruction of American health care. Nine years after Burwell, anti-government rage is kindling fires in the U.S. and all over the world. Control is losing; instability is winning, and the game is still in the early innings.
The control freaks cling to their empire and wars. Empire is untenable, but the U.S. military is being deployed into another Middle Eastern quagmire. The Middle East is particularly unsuited for U.S. imperial ventures. The sum total of Western knowledge of the region is a nanoparticle compared to the Everest of its ignorance.
The Middle East is tribal; the concept of a nation with a national government is a foreign import. Tribal rivalries date back to Old Testament times and have always undermined the best laid plans of emperors, kings, sultans, sheiks, satraps, and other poobahs. The Islamic religion has been the one quasi-unifying force, but it is split and both the Sunni and Shia denominations are splintered into various sects.
The secret Sykes-Picot treaty of 1916 between Britain and France, with assent from the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Italy, drew lines on the map of the Ottoman Empire (allied with the losers in World War I), specified European spheres of influence, and created so-called nations to be dominated by the European victors.
It was hubristic folly, matched by the Balfour Declaration one year later. In a letter from British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Lord Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish Community, the British government declared its endorsement of a “national home for the Jewish people” in what would become, in 1922, the British Mandate for Palestine and Transjordan. At that time, Jews were only a single-digit percentage of Palestine’s population.
Outsiders, especially those bent on domination, have never fared particularly well in the Middle East. It’s tough enough for insiders bent on domination. Outsiders can generally find compliant satraps whose ostensible loyalty is secured through bribery and extortion, but the average Mohammad deeply resents his overlords and resists them in his own way. No wonder then, that Sykes-Picot and the Balfour Declaration proved to be recipes for disaster.
The U.S. threw it and the UN’s weight behind the Zionist project in 1948, when Palestine became Israel and Jews began displacing Palestinian Arabs, an ongoing process that has accelerated since the October 7 Hamas massacre. Pre-October 7 controlled instability in Gaza has given way to all-out war, ostensibly against Hamas insurgents, but the death toll among Palestinian civilians is approaching 30,000.
The U.S. has long considered Israel its forward base in the Middle East. That imperial projection is now under attack on multiple fronts. Anyone who claims to know how the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas, and various other insurgent groups in Iraq and Syria - collectively known as the Axis of Resistance - are structured, coordinate with each other, or interact with Iran is lying. However, they are making war on the U.S.-Israel alliance, gradually ratcheting up the pressure, and last week the U.S. lost its first three soldiers since October 7.
The alliance will lose because it can’t win. The only way an outside power can “win” in the Middle East is to stay out. Occupation is the concomitant of empire, but now the costs of invasion and occupation dwarf the costs of insurgency. It’s no sure thing that the Israelis will be able to expel the Palestinians, their ultimate aim. Even if the do, it will only lead to greater instability over a wider area. The Axis of Resistance is opening new fronts almost daily across the Middle East. The U.S. empire and Israel have neither the military and financial staying power nor the regional support necessary for a lengthy war.
At Israel’s behest, demented warmongers are urging an alliance attack on Iran, which would exponentially compound its difficulties. An attack would probably bring in Russia and perhaps China. The alliance’s only option would be to take it nuclear, which could lead to humanity’s extinction. That’s apparently what the warmongers have been looking for all these years.
The West’s rulers and string pullers regard their internal opposition as so many Hamas, Houthis, Hezbollah, and Iranians. That characterization is more apt than they realize, particularly in the well-armed U.S. Anything those “extremists” can do in the Middle East can be done by what the Biden administration reckons are tens of millions of “domestic extremists” in the U.S. And what the Middle Eastern extremists are in the process of doing is defeating the U.S. government and its allies.
While much of the Western citizenry remains supine and susceptible to state propaganda and narratives, the ranks of the aware and engaged, fed by the alternative media hydra, keep expanding. Even the Corruptocracy and its media mouthpieces are starting to realize that fundamental change is afoot. At Davos, there were begrudging admissions (and lamentations) that the media no longer controls the narrative and dim recognition that nobody trusts it. Invitees even subjected themselves to Argentinian president Javier Milei’s and Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts’ excoriations.
What the Davos set doesn’t get is that for the next few centuries, change will messily burble up from the bottom, not be neatly imposed from the top. That’s actually the way it’s been for centuries, but the top has gotten all the press. Politics, governments and war are newsworthy, innovation and progress are not. The perpetual war of the former on the latter never gets mentioned at all. Regardless, the top will go on proposing; the bottom will go on disposing.
The transition in global affairs is hailed as multipolarity, but multipolarity proponents show little recognition that it’s not just the American empire and its confederates in the crosshairs, but all governments. Those coming together in the various not-the-West arrangements are still governments, and are just as tyrannical and corrupt as Western governments, in many cases more so.
Multipolarity will proceed full steam ahead, but it won’t stop until there are 8 billion plus poles, call it multi-multipolarity. The age of the state and ostensible control is giving way to the age of the individual and instability. That doesn’t mean that order won’t eventually emerge, but it will be order based on individual sovereignty, cooperation, and voluntarily exchange, or as friend of SLL Leif Smith calls it—freeorder—“Order spontaneously emergent from the imaginations and actions of free people.”
Recognition can come from anywhere. Governments may offer concessions to the new reality, their wiser functionaries realizing that limits on their power are better than no power at all. Argentina’s Milei could turn out to be in the vanguard of a much larger trend. Governments will never abolish themselves, but any moves towards freedom and away from control will be beneficial. In the interim, instability will reign, and we ain’t seen nothing yet."
"Banking Collapse 2/7/24"
"Banking Collapse 2/7/24"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, AM 2/7/24
"Banks Are Crumbling - Time to Panic?"
There’s another bank that has dropped it stock price by almost 40% since the first of the year. When do we get concerned about this? Plus, the price of EV cars are dropping to the floor. Is this a sign that the industry is in big trouble?"
Comments here:
o
Gregory Mannarino, AM 2/7/24
"Multiple Banks Are About To Fail, Take Action Now"
Comments here:
Adventures With Danno, "Massive Price Increases At Walmart! This Is Crazy, What Now?"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, AM 2/7/24
"Massive Price Increases At Walmart!
This Is Crazy, What Now?"
"In today's vlog, we are at Walmart and are noticing massive price increases on groceries. This is not good as we see another wave of price increases at Walmart. It's getting rough out here as many families are struggling to put food on the table."
Comments here:
Bill Bonner, "What Would Clausewitz Say?"
"What Would Clausewitz Say?"
America's Firepower Industrial Complex
storms into the Middle East... again...
by Bill Bonner
“No one starts a war – or rather, no one in his sense ought to do so –
without first being clear in his mind what he intends
to achieve by the war and how he intends to conduct it.”
- Carl Von Clausewitz
Normandy, France - "This is not an ideal time to take the ferry from Ireland to France. Most of the passenger ferries aren’t running. Your only choice is to go with the Polish truck drivers on the Stena Line. And then, when you get out in the Atlantic, the sea is rough. The clouds are low. The wind is stiff. All you can do is to lie in your berth, and let the gentle, or not so gentle, rock of the boat put you to sleep.
Last night, the on-board restaurant was nearly empty. The truck drivers have their own restaurant. There were probably only 4 or 5 passengers who were not truck drivers on the ship, including one older man with wild white hair, who resembled Albert Einstein in later life. We could not linger over dinner. The ship was beginning to rock and roll too violently. So, we made our way down the corridor, bouncing from one side to another, to our cabin.
There, we hastened to bed. Lying flat seems to be a good way to avoid getting sick. Then – except for the crash of the waves against the hull…and the creak of every piece of metal above the water line – you can imagine that you are on a hammock softly swinging in a summer breeze. But here we are. It is still very gray and cold. But, there’s work to do. Reckoning to reckon with. Dots to connect.
Ready, Fire…Aim: If you’re going to have any hope at all of understanding and anticipating what’s coming our way…you need a framework – a structure on which to hang the baubles and bangles of the daily news. For example, in the news last week was this, CNN: "President Joe Biden’s decision to strike 85 targets in Iraq and Syria on Friday in response to the death of three American soldiers last weekend amounted to a middle ground: short of a direct strike inside Iran, which would almost certainly spark a wider war, but still more expansive than any action the US has taken so far against the groups it accuses of destabilizing the region."
Whether the 125 precision-guided missiles fired over 30 minutes Friday night will have the effect of preventing further attacks on Americans is a question officials aren’t yet ready to answer. “I think it is a real strong deterrence,” said Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat and Iraq War veteran. “We’re saying: Listen, we don’t want to go to war. But have a little taste of what we can do. Here you go. Eighty-five targets. And I think that that is part of the balancing act that we need to be engaged in right now.”
Eighty-five targets? One hundred and twenty-five missiles? Show them what we can do? We pause for breath. To the clowns currently listed on ballots across the country must be added the jokers who run America’s military machine…aka, the firepower industry. Between them – civil and military authorities – these deciders have the wherewithal to ruin the economy and bring the empire to its knees. What to make of them? Are they not nature’s way…like mold on yogurt…to turn a wholesome dessert into sickening slime?
A Military Maxim: What is the likelihood that the same intel geniuses who missed 9/11 and the Hamas attack have now peered into the dark hearts of ‘terrorists’ in 85 separate locations? Where is the risk/reward calculation that tells us it would be a good idea to kill them…even at the risk that the survivors will become sworn, lifelong enemies of the USA? Where in the US Constitution does it give a president the right to start a war on his own say-so?
And what would Clausewitz say? Where is the plan? What are the war aims? Have the pros and cons been debated by the peoples’ representatives? ‘You shoot at everything…you hit nothing.’ It’s a military maxim that applies to the rest of life. You try to do everything, you end up getting nothing accomplished. That’s why Clausewitz has been so popular with business schools. Commerce, like war, is competitive. The competitor who tries to be everything to everyone gets nowhere. The winners are those who know where to attack…and do so precisely. Military power, too, needs to be focused…on particular, achievable objectives. It’s not meant to be hurled around like cheap threats in a Saturday night barroom.
Smart attackers do not disperse their firepower, they concentrate it on specific points for specific reasons – to cut off the enemy from his supplies, to capture (or destroy) a vital bridge, to eliminate a small force before it can join with others, and so forth. As Clausewitz explains, there’s ‘emotion’ involved in war. And chance. But they are tempered and directed by reason. Where’s the reason in Biden’s missile barrage?
Forever Wars:The logic of Generalissimo Biden’s war must be to ‘send a message’ to Iran. But this is the same kind of numbskull thinking that had the US bombing the hell out of Laos and North Vietnam…threatening to send them ‘back to the stone age.’
It did no good. In Laos, US bombing killed a tenth of the population. No advantage was gained. In Vietnam, the ‘enemy’ bobbed and weaved…in a kind of lightweight military ‘rope-a-dope’ strategy. The Pentagon’s amateur bean counter - Robert McNamara - could do all the body counts and pain assessments he wanted. But in the end, the US had no alternative but to run away…with a final, disgraceful retreat by helicopter from the roof of the US embassy in Saigon.
And anyone who thinks the ‘terrorists’ will now back off – in shock and awe at American firepower – is just not paying attention. The Iraqis have had more than a “little taste” of US firepower; they got a full meal of it during America’s war to liberate them. Now, they want the US to get the hell out. And the Houthis are regarded as the heroes of the whole Muslim world…and much of the rest of it. They’ve been taking US-made ‘incoming’ fire for the last 20 years. They’re not going to stop now that it is coming directly from the US rather from its proxies in Saudi Arabia.
What outcome is likely? What would Clausewitz say? More to come…"
Canadian Prepper, "Alert! NATO F-16s Target Russian Missile! Romania Attack Plan! Russia Schools Nuke Training; Iran"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 2/7/24
"Alert! NATO F-16s Target Russian Missile!
Romania Attack Plan! Russia Schools Nuke Training; Iran"
Comments here:
Tuesday, February 6, 2024
"How Stupid And Gutless Can You Be To Obediently Follow Your Ignorant, Arrogant Political Leaders?"
Strong language alert!
Gerald Celente, 2/6/24
"How Stupid And Gutless Can You Be To Obediently
Follow Your Ignorant, Arrogant Political Leaders?"
"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:
Jeremiah Babe, "Red Alert: System Is Being Run By Criminals, Get Out; McDonald's $18 Big Mac"
Jeremiah Babe, 2/6/24
"Red Alert: System Is Being Run By Criminals, Get Out;
McDonald's $18 Big Mac"
Comments here:
Musical Interlude: Yanni, “To the One Who Knows”
Full screen recommended.
Yanni, “To the One Who Knows”
"A Look to the Heavens"
“What will become of these galaxies? Spiral galaxies NGC 5426 and NGC 5427 are passing dangerously close to each other, but each is likely to survive this collision. Typically when galaxies collide, a large galaxy eats a much smaller galaxy. In this case, however, the two galaxies are quite similar, each being a sprawling spiral with expansive arms and a compact core. As the galaxies advance over the next tens of millions of years, their component stars are unlikely to collide, although new stars will form in the bunching of gas caused by gravitational tides.
Close inspection of the above image taken by the 8-meter Gemini-South Telescope in Chile shows a bridge of material momentarily connecting the two giants. Known collectively as Arp 271, the interacting pair spans about 130,000 light years and lies about 90 million light-years away toward the constellation of Virgo. Recent predictions hold that our Milky Way Galaxy will undergo a similar collision with the neighboring Andromeda Galaxy in a few billion years.”
The Poet: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "What If?"
"What If?"
"What if you slept?
And what if,
In your sleep
You dreamed?
And what if,
In your dream,
You went to heaven
And there plucked
A strange and
Beautiful flower?
And what if,
When you awoke,
You had the flower
In your hand?
Ahh, what then?"
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The Poet: Czeslaw Milosz, "Hope"
"Hope"
"Hope is with you when you believe
The earth is not a dream but living flesh,
That sight, touch, and hearing do not lie,
That all things you have ever seen here
Are like a garden looked at from a gate.
You cannot enter. But you're sure it's there.
Could we but look more clearly and wisely
We might discover somewhere in the garden
A strange new flower and an unnamed star.
Some people say we should not trust our eyes,
That there is nothing, just a seeming,
These are the ones who have no hope.
They think that the moment we turn away,
The world, behind our backs, ceases to exist,
As if snatched up by the hands of thieves."
- Czeslaw Milosz,
"Hope", from "The World"
The earth is not a dream but living flesh,
That sight, touch, and hearing do not lie,
That all things you have ever seen here
Are like a garden looked at from a gate.
You cannot enter. But you're sure it's there.
Could we but look more clearly and wisely
We might discover somewhere in the garden
A strange new flower and an unnamed star.
Some people say we should not trust our eyes,
That there is nothing, just a seeming,
These are the ones who have no hope.
They think that the moment we turn away,
The world, behind our backs, ceases to exist,
As if snatched up by the hands of thieves."
- Czeslaw Milosz,
"Hope", from "The World"
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.
This comes to mind because I just spent fifteen minutes on my knees in the yard watching ants excavate a nest in the ground. One by one they scurry out of the hole carrying a tiny grain of sand, which they dump in a ring around the hole. A circular pile. Now if the ants just dumped their burdens at the mouth of the hole, pretty soon the pile would get so steep that the sand grains would slide back into the hole. Instead, the circular ring gets higher and wider, with a slope that never exceeds the angle at which the grains will slip - the angle of repose. Now here's the thing: the ants almost invariably carry their grain to just beyond the top of the pile. If the grain slips, it will slide away from the hole. These tiny ants, hardly bigger than sand grains themselves, understand a little physics in their mysterious instinctive way.
Wallace Stegner has a novel titled "Angle of Repose." It is indeed an evocative phrase. In a job, in a relationship, in life itself, many of us instinctively seek that maximum degree of individual gratification that will satisfy emotional needs without doing violence to our essential repose, and that of those around us - the art of walking close to the edge, the thrill without the spill. Every day in the news we hear of folks - politicians or celebrities - who tipped the plank too far, whose lives went sliding into self-destruction, who failed to grasp, metaphorically speaking, something that a tiny ant instinctively understands.”
"The Level Of Intelligence..."
"If man were relieved of all superstition, and all prejudice, and had replaced these with a keen sensitivity to his real environment, and moreover had achieved a level of communication so simplified that one syllable could express his every thought, then he would have achieved the level of intelligence already achieved by his dog."
- Robert Brault
Fred Reed, "A View from Mexico"
"A View from Mexico"
by Fred Reed
"We south of the border hear considerable rumbling and grumbling about things we frijoleros, genuine and only sort of, do that set poorly in the north. Well, yes and no. A few reflections.
In 1965 the United States, not Mexico, changed the immigration laws, apparently to encourage immigration from the south. What other reason could there have been? Why else would you change laws that successfully prevented the influx to laws that encouraged such? Having thus asked for a mass ingress, it seems odd for America to complain that it got one.
Odd. In America there is much anger at the ingress that America invited and its government protects. Why doesn’t Mexico do something about it? A Mexican might ask why it is Mexico’s duty to protect America’s borders when America purposely won’t. Open borders are an American, not a Mexican, policy.
Yes, most Americans want to end the flood. Yet the federal government – that is, America – as a matter of national policy, maintains the frontier open. For example, as I write Washington forbids Texas to use barbed wire to stop the influx. This is official policy. From a Mexican point of view, America’s refusal to protect its borders is a major problem as it draws immigrants from all of Latin America, no favor, and then Mexico has to put up with America’s anger at Mexico’s failure to do what America should do for itself.
Drugs? From a Mexican point of view, the drug trade is a serious problem inflicted on it by the United States. The drug trade exists because Americans want drugs. They want them very, very much, and will pay high prices for them. If this were not so, there would be no demand, no drugs, and no cartels. Neither Mexicans nor the Chinese nor Colombians force Americans to take drugs. They take them because they want to. It has proved impossible to keep them from doing so even with laws and specialized police forces.
Because the United States is so voracious a drug market, with something approaching civil war between a population lusting for dope and a government that doesn’t want the public to have it, Mexico is overrun with DEA agents and threatened with military invasion. The drug racket is not of benefit to Mexico. If America enforced its drug laws, Mexico would have few narcotraficantes.
Note that Mexico does not have a fentanyl problem, which is interesting. Only America does. Why? It is just my guess, but I suspect the reason is that America, once a pleasant land, is now miserable with declining living standards, rising crime, virulent political antagonisms, and little hope for the future. Before fentanyl, hundreds of thousands died of Oxycontin poisoning, and Washington did nothing about this either. Oxies were produced by American pharmaceutical companies, and thus easily controlled had the government wanted to. Being as I am a Pollyanna, I cannot imagine that Big Pharma, getting rich by peddling oxies to the miserable in regions devastated by offshoring, would bribe congressmen to look the other way. Perish forfend.
The United States actively supports the drug cartels. Mexico cannot control these because the cartels have military armament in large quantities, coming from the United States. Washington knows this, has known it for decades, and does nothing. This is probably because the arms industry buys congressmen in bulk lots, though some say it is because of the Second Amendment. If Mexico armed the New York Mafia with anti-tank weapons and rocket launchers, and claimed some constitutional clause to justify it, would that be OK?
While we are on the subject of the drug trade, I offer a conspiracy theory. Everybody else seems to have several, so why not me?
The drug trade is too big to fail. It exists because too many people get rich from it, like oil. I occasionally see the figure of sixty billion dollars as the annual take. That’s a lot of potatoes, as Damon Runyon would say. That much moolah does not go into the pockets of dirtball drug lords to buy pricey pickup trucks and gold chains. Where does it go?
A portion goes into the pockets of those supposedly trying to end the trade, DEA, FBI, Mexican police, and so on. When you get paid for solving a problem, the last thing you want to do is to solve it, because then you stop getting paid. Another portion goes to politicians to, as a probable example, prevent the prevention of arms sales or too much attention to money laundering. The bulk, I will bet, ends up in the big banks, hedge funds, and offshore tax havens. Note that the heavy flow of armament, condoned and apparently protected by Washington, prevents Mexico from doing anything effective against the narcos. Again, where is the money going?
Serious question: Do you really think that anyone on the receiving end of that much money will want to end the industry that provides it? And do you think that, if Mexico and China disappeared in a flash of blue light, nobody else would start doing the same thing? That is, that the sixty billion in honey would not attract new flies?
Massive illegal immigration causes many grave problems, certainly to the US, and no sane country would allow it. Still, it might be interesting to look at it from the standpoint of the immigrants, or many of them. Let us consider Paco and Lupita, living in a dirt-floored cinder block hovel in San Salvador, and listening nightly to their two children crying because they are hungry. They are not hungry because Paco and Lupita are stupid or lazy, but because there are no jobs in San Salvador.
The couple, desperate, powwow and decide that the only solution is for Paco to go to the United States, work, and send money back home. Paco has never been outside of El Salvador, perhaps not outside of San Salvador, so this is not an easy decision. It seems the only decision, though.
While their friends and relatives are as poor, they manage to pool a bit of money to help Paco on the way. He starts hitchhiking north through Central America, manages to cross into Mexico, and proceeds further north on the Train of Death, as it is known, a freight train line. Having gotten to the US border miraculously still in possession of his grubstake, he finagles his way across the border and, following advice from local Latinos, manages to reach relatives in Indiana, where he gets a job in a meatpacking plant.
He sends money home. His children stop crying from hunger. He starts preparations to bring his family north.
This is illegal, and Americans have every right to oppose it. But we are looking at it from Paco’s standpoint. He thinks the wellbeing and future of his family matter more than the laws of any country. In the same predicament, what would the reader do? Would it not be irresponsible not to do it?
Them’s my thoughts. I will now go into hiding."
Epic Economist, "15 Things You Should Do To Survive A Food Supply Chain Attack"
Full screen recommended.
Epic Economist, 2/6/24
"15 Things You Should Do To
Survive A Food Supply Chain Attack"
"American Patriots, inflation is on a meteoric rise, and supply chain shortages are becoming more and more obvious. With many global disruptions in America's supply chains, we are facing shortages in the upcoming months of this year that Americans are only beginning to understand. Even worse, the potential for a devastating attack on our food supply chains is becoming more likely each day.
For American Patriots, this is an issue that needs to be addressed before the situation becomes critical. If you're not prepared for the upcoming supply chain crisis, you could very well be looking at the hardest and most difficult year you've seen. It's never too late to start preparing, though. These are 15 things you should do to survive a food supply chain attack!"
Comments here:
Gregory Mannarino, "The US Is Going To Light The Middle East On Fire! Much More War, Here's Why"
Gregory Mannarino, PM 2/6/24
"The US Is Going To Light The Middle East On Fire!
Much More War, Here's Why"
Comments here:
"Inevitable Secession And Civil War; Geopolitical Analysis"
"Inevitable Secession And Civil War;
Geopolitical Analysis"
by Mike Adams
"The illegitimate Biden regime is waging "invasion warfare" against U.S. states, deliberately attempting to overwhelm them with invading migrant forces that await battle orders to "activate" inside the United States. This is pushing state leaders and citizens to call for secession, and secession may lead to civil war as the desperate Dems try to maintain their tyrannical grip over the productive "red" states where most of America's GDP actually comes from.
Today I bring you a detailed analysis plus a new interview with Steve Quayle on secession, world war III, conflict with Russia and the accelerating collapse of the US financial system."
View video here:
"Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 2/6/24"
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 2/6/24
"Lt. Col. Karen Kwaitkowski:
Is the US Govt a Ponzi Scheme?"
Comments here:
Don Miguel Ruiz, "Don't Take Anything Personally"
"Don't Take Anything Personally"
by Don Miguel Ruiz
"Whatever happens around you, don't take it personally. Using an earlier example, if I see you on the street and I say, "Hey, you are so stupid," without knowing you, it's not about you; it's about me. If you take it personally, perhaps you believe you are stupid. Maybe you think to yourself, "How does he know? Is he clairvoyant, or can everybody see how stupid I am?"
You take it personally because you agree with whatever was said. As soon as you agree, the poison goes through you, and you are trapped in the dream of hell. What causes you to be trapped is what we call personal importance. Personal importance, or taking things personally, is the maximum expression of selfishness because we make the assumption that everything is about "me." During the period of our education, or our domestication, we learn to take everything personally. We think we are responsible for everything. Me, me, me, always me!
Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves. All people live in their own dream, in their own mind; they are in a completely different world from the one we live in. When we take something personally, we make the assumption that they know what is in our world, and we try to impose our world on their world.
Even when a situation seems so personal, even if others insult you directly, it has nothing to do with you. What they say, what they do, and the opinions they give are according to the agreements they have in their own minds. Their point of view comes from all the programming they received during domestication.
If someone gives you an opinion and says, "Hey, you look so fat," don't take it personally, because the truth is that this person is dealing with his or her own feelings, beliefs, and opinions. That person tried to send poison to you and if you take it personally, then you take that poison and it becomes yours. Taking things personally makes you easy prey for these predators, the black magicians. They can hook you easily with one little opinion and feed you whatever poison they want, and because you take it personally, you eat it up.
You eat all their emotional garbage, and now it becomes your garbage. But if you do not take it personally, you are immune in the middle of hell. Immunity to poison in the middle of hell is the gift of this agreement.
When you take things personally, then you feel offended, and your reaction is to defend your beliefs and create conflicts. You make something big out of something so little, because you have the need to be right and make everybody else wrong. You also try hard to be right by giving them your own opinions. In the same way, whatever you feel and do is just a projection of your own personal dream, a reflection of your own agreements. What you say, what you do and the opinions you have are according to the agreements you have made- and these opinions have nothing to do with me.
It is not important to me what you think about me, and I don't take what you think personally. I don't take it personally when people say, "Miguel, you are the best," and I also don't take it personally when they say, "Miguel, you are the worst." I know that when you are happy you will tell me, "Miguel, you are such an angel!" But, when you are mad at me you will say, "Oh, Miguel, you are such a devil! You are so disgusting. How can you say those things?" Either way, it does not affect me because I know what I am. I don't have the need to be accepted. I don't have the need to have someone tell me, "Miguel, you are doing so good!" or "How dare you do that!"
No, I don't take it personally. Whatever you think, whatever you feel, I know is your problem and not my problem. It is the way you see the world. It is nothing personal, because you are dealing with yourself, not with me. Others are going to have their own opinion according to their belief system, so nothing they think about me is really about me, but it is about them.
You may even tell me, "Miguel, what you are saying is hurting me." But it is not what I am saying that is hurting you; it is that you have wounds that I touch by what I have said. You are hurting yourself. There is no way that I can take this personally. Not because I don't believe in you or don't trust you, but because I know that you see the world with different eyes, with your eyes. You create an entire picture or movie in your mind, and in that picture you are the director, you are the producer, you are the main actor or actress. Everyone else is a secondary actor or actress. It is your movie.
The way that you see that movie is according to the agreements you have made with life. Your point of view is something personal to you. It is no one's truth but yours. Then, if you get mad at me, I know you are dealing with yourself. I am the excuse for you to get mad. And you get mad because you are afraid, because you are dealing with fear. If you are not afraid, there is no way you will get mad at me. If you are not afraid, there is no way you will hate me. If you are not afraid, there is no way you will be jealous or sad.
If you live without fear, if you love, there is no place for any of these emotions. If you don't feel any of those emotions, it is logical that you will feel good. When you feel good, everything around you is good. When everything around you is good, everything makes you happy. You are loving everything that is around you, because you are loving yourself. Because you like the way you are. Because you are content with you. Because you are happy with your life. You are happy with the movie you are producing, happy with your agreements with life. You are at peace, and you are happy. You live in that state of bliss where everything is so wonderful, and everything is so beautiful. In that state of bliss you are making love all the time with everything that you perceive.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)