Jeremiah Babe, 5/17/25
"Car Bomb Explodes Near My House;
These Are Apocalyptic Times, Prepare Now"
Comments here:
So, we rise from the rubble...
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Saturday, May 17, 2025
"The New Dark Age"
"The New Dark Age"
The genocide in Gaza is not an anomaly. It illustrates something fundamental
about human nature and is a terrifying harbinger of where the world is headed.
by Chris Hedges
CAIRO, Egypt - "It is 200 miles from where I am in Cairo to the Rafah border crossing into Gaza. Parked in the arid sands in the northern Sinai of Egypt are 2,000 trucks filled with sacks of flour, water tanks, canned food, medical supplies, tarps and fuel. The trucks idle under the scorching sun with temperatures climbing into the high 90s.
A few miles away in Gaza, dozens of men, women and children, living in crude tents or damaged buildings amid the rubble, are being butchered daily from bullets, bombs, missile strikes, tank shells, infectious diseases and that most ancient weapon of siege warfare - starvation. One in five people are facing starvation after nearly three months of Israel’s blockade of food and humanitarian aid.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has launched a new offensive that is killing upwards of 100 people a day, has declared that nothing will impede this final assault, named Operation Gideon’s Chariots. There will be “no way,” Israel will stop the war, he announced, even if the remaining Israeli hostages are returned. Israel is “destroying more and more houses” in Gaza. The Palestinians “have nowhere to return.” “The only inevitable outcome will be the wish of Gazans to emigrate outside of the Gaza Strip,” he told lawmakers at a leaked closed-door meeting. “But our main problem is finding countries to take them in.”
The nine-mile border between Egypt and Gaza has become the dividing line between the Global South and the Global North, the demarcation between a world of savage industrial violence and the desperate struggle by those cast aside by the wealthiest nations. It marks the end of a world where humanitarian law, conventions that protect civilians or the most basic and fundamental rights matter. It ushers in a Hobbesian nightmare where the strong crucify the weak, where no atrocity, including genocide, is precluded, where the white race in the Global North reverts to the unrestrained, atavistic savagery and domination that defines colonialism and our centuries long history of pillage and exploitation. We are tumbling backwards in time to our origins, origins that never left us, but origins that were masked by empty promises of democracy, justice and human rights.
The Nazis are the convenient scapegoats for our shared European and American heritage of mass slaughter, as if the genocides we carried out in the Americas, Africa and India did not take place, unimportant footnotes in our collective history. In fact, genocide is the currency of Western domination.
Between 1490 and 1890, European colonization, including acts of genocide, was responsible for killing as many as 100 million indigenous people, according to the historian David E. Stannard. Since 1950 there have been nearly two dozen genocides, including those in Bangladesh, Cambodia and Rwanda.
The genocide in Gaza is part of a pattern. It is the harbinger of genocides to come, especially as the climate breaks down and hundreds of millions are forced to flee to escape droughts, wildfires, flooding, declining crop yields, failed states and mass death. It is a blood-soaked message from us to the rest of the world: We have everything and if you try and take it away from us, we will kill you.
Gaza puts to rest the lie of human progress, the myth that we are evolving morally. Only the tools change. Where once we clubbed victims to death, or chopped them to pieces with broadswords, today we drop 2,000-pound bombs on refugee camps, spray families with bullets from militarized drones or pulverize them with tank shells, heavy artillery and missiles.
The 19th century socialist Louis-Auguste Blanqui, unlike nearly all of his contemporaries, dismissed the belief central to Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Karl Marx, that human history is a linear progression toward equality and greater morality. He warned that this absurd positivism is perpetrated by oppressors to disempower the oppressed.
“All atrocities of the victor, the long series of his attacks are coldly transformed into constant, inevitable evolution, like that of nature… But the sequence of human things is not inevitable like that of the universe. It can be changed at any moment.” Blanqui warned.
Scientific and technological advancement, rather than an example of progress, could “become a terrible weapon in the hands of Capital against Work and Thought.” “For humanity” Blanqui wrote, “is never stationary. It either advances or goes back. Its progressive march leads it to equality. Its regressive march goes back through every stage of privilege to human slavery, the final word of the right to property.” Further, he wrote, “I am not amongst those who claim that progress can be taken for granted, that humanity cannot go backwards.”
Human history is defined by long periods of cultural barrenness and brutal repression. The fall of the Roman Empire led to immiseration and repression throughout Europe during the Dark Ages, roughly from the sixth through the 13th century. There was a loss of technical knowledge, including how to build and maintain aqueducts. Cultural and intellectual impoverishment led to collective amnesia. The ideas of ancient scholars and artists were blotted out. There was no rebirth until the 14th century and the Renaissance, a development made possible largely by the cultural flourishing of Islam, which, through translating Aristotle into Arabic and other intellectual accomplishments, kept the wisdom of the past from disappearing.
Blanqui knew history’s tragic reverses. He took part in a series of French revolts, including an attempted armed insurrection in May 1839, the 1848 uprising and the Paris Commune - a socialist uprising that controlled France’s capital from March 18 until May 28 in 1871. Workers in cities such as Marseilles and Lyon attempted, but failed, to organize similar communes before the Paris Commune was militarily crushed.
We are entering a new dark age. This dark age uses the modern tools of mass surveillance, facial recognition, artificial intelligence, drones, militarized police, the revoking of due process and civil liberties to inflict the arbitrary rule, incessant wars, insecurity, anarchy and terror that were the common denominators of the Dark Ages. To trust in the fairy tale of human progress to save us is to become passive before despotic power. Only resistance, defined by mass mobilization, by disrupting the exercise of power, especially against genocide, can save us.
Campaigns of mass killing unleash the feral qualities that lie latent in all humans. The ordered society, with its laws, etiquette, police, prisons and regulations, all forms of coercion, keeps these latent qualities in check. Remove these impediments and humans become, as we see with the Israelis in Gaza, murderous, predatory animals, reveling in the intoxication of destruction, including of women and children. I wish this was conjecture. It is not. It is what I witnessed in every war I covered. Almost no one is immune.
The Belgian monarch King Leopold in the late 19th century occupied the Congo in the name of Western civilization and anti-slavery, but plundered the country, resulting in the death - by disease, starvation and murder - of some 10 million Congolese.
Joseph Conrad captured this dichotomy between who we are and who we say we are in his novel “Heart of Darkness” and his short story “An Outpost of Progress.” In “An Outpost of Progress,” he tells the story of two European traders, Carlier and Kayerts, who are sent to the Congo. These traders claim to be in Africa to implant European civilization. The boredom, the stifling routine, and most importantly the lack of all outside constraints, turns the two men into beasts. They trade slaves for ivory. They fight over dwindling food and supplies. Kayerts finally murders his unarmed companion Carlier.
“They were two perfectly insignificant and incapable individuals,” Conrad wrote of Kayerts and Carlier, “whose existence is only rendered possible through the high organization of civilized crowds. Few men realize that their life, the very essence of their character, their capabilities and their audacities, are only the expression of their belief in the safety of their surroundings. The courage, the composure, the confidence; the emotions and principles; every great and every insignificant thought belongs not to the individual but to the crowd: to the crowd that believes blindly in the irresistible force of its institutions and its morals, in the power of its police and of its opinion.
But the contact with pure unmitigated savagery, with primitive nature and primitive man, brings sudden and profound trouble into the heart. To the sentiment of being alone of one’s kind, to the clear perception of the loneliness of one’s thoughts, of one’s sensations - to the negation of the habitual, which is safe, there is added the affirmation of the unusual, which is dangerous; a suggestion of things vague, uncontrollable, and repulsive, whose discomposing intrusion excites the imagination and tries the civilized nerves of the foolish and the wise alike.”
The genocide in Gaza has imploded the subterfuges we use to fool ourselves and attempt to fool others. It mocks every virtue we claim to uphold, including the right of freedom of expression. It is a testament to our hypocrisy, cruelty and racism. We cannot, having provided billions of dollars in weapons and persecuted those who decry the genocide, make moral claims anymore that will be taken seriously. Our language, from now on, will be the language of violence, the language of genocide, the monstrous howling of the new dark age, one where absolute power, unchecked greed and unmitigated savagery stalks the earth."
Musical Interlude: Yanni, “Standing in Motion”
Full screen recommended.
Yanni, “Standing in Motion”,
Live At The Acropolis, 25th Anniversary!
"A Look to the Heavens"
“Far beyond the local group of galaxies lies NGC 3621, some 22 million light-years away. Found in the multi-headed southern constellation Hydra, the winding spiral arms of this gorgeous island universe are loaded with luminous young star clusters and dark dust lanes. Still, for earthbound astronomers NGC 3621 is not just another pretty face-on spiral galaxy. Some of its brighter stars have been used as standard candles to establish important estimates of extragalactic distances and the scale of the Universe.
This beautiful image of NGC 3621 traces the loose spiral arms far from the galaxy's brighter central regions that span some 100,000 light-years. Spiky foreground stars in our own Milky Way Galaxy and even more distant background galaxies are scattered across the colorful skyscape.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090919.html
Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet: Freedom”
“Freedom”
"And an orator said, “Speak to us of Freedom.”
And he (the prophet) answered:
" At city gate and by your fireside I have seen you prostrate yourself
and worship your own freedom, Even as slaves humble themselves before
a tyrant and praise him though he slays them.
Aye, in the grove of the temple and in the shadow of the citadel I have
seen the freest among you wear their freedom as a yoke and a handcuff.
And my heart bled within me; for you can only be free when even
the desire of seeking freedom becomes a harness to you,
and when you cease to speak of freedom as a goal and a fulfillment.
You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your
nights without a want and a grief, But rather when these things
girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound.
And how shall you rise beyond your days and nights
unless you break the chains
which you at the dawn of your understanding
have fastened around your noon hour?
In truth that which you call freedom is the strongest of these chains,
though its links glitter in the sun and dazzle your eyes.
And what is it but fragments of your own self you would discard that
you may become free? If it is an unjust law you would abolish,
that law was written with your own hand upon your own forehead.
You cannot erase it by burning your law books nor by washing
the foreheads of your judges, though you pour the sea upon them.
And if it is a despot you would dethrone,
see first that his throne erected within you is destroyed.
For how can a tyrant rule the free and the proud,
but for a tyranny in their own freedom and a shame in their own pride?
And if it is a care you would cast off,
that care has been chosen by you rather than imposed upon you.
And if it is a fear you would dispel,
the seat of that fear is in your heart and not in the hand of the feared.
Verily all things move within your being in constant half embrace,
the desired and the dreaded, the repugnant and the cherished,
the pursued and that which you would escape.
These things move within you as lights and shadows in pairs that cling.
And when the shadow fades and is no more,
the light that lingers becomes a shadow to another light.
And thus your freedom when it loses its fetters
becomes itself the fetter of a greater freedom."
- Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet: Freedom”
○
Freely download "The Prophet", by Kahlil Gibran, here:
"Relax..."
"Relax. They're not going to kill us. They're going to
TRY and kill us. And that is a very different thing. "
- Steve Voake, "The Dreamwalker's Child"
"We Were Made For These Times..."
by Clarissa Pinkola Estes
“My friends, do not lose heart. We were made for these times. I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world now. Ours is a time of almost daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people.
You are right in your assessments. The lustre and hubris some have aspired to while endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, is breathtaking. Yet, I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is that we were made for these times. Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement.
I grew up on the Great Lakes and recognize a seaworthy vessel when I see one. Regarding awakened souls, there have never been more able vessels in the waters than there are right now across the world. And they are fully provisioned and able to signal one another as never before in the history of humankind.
Look out over the prow; there are millions of boats of righteous souls on the waters with you. Even though your veneers may shiver from every wave in this stormy roil, I assure you that the long timbers composing your prow and rudder come from a greater forest. That long-grained lumber is known to withstand storms, to hold together, to hold its own, and to advance, regardless.
In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. There is a tendency, too, to fall into being weakened by dwelling on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without raising the sails.
We are needed, that is all we can know. And though we meet resistance, we more so will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and guide us, and we will know them when they appear. Didn’t you say you were a believer? Didn’t you say you pledged to listen to a voice greater? Didn’t you ask for grace? Don’t you remember that to be in grace means to submit to the voice greater?
Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good.
What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take everyone on Earth to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale.
One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these – to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity.
Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.
There will always be times when you feel discouraged. I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it. I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate. The reason is this: In my uttermost bones I know something, as do you. It is that there can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours. They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here. In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall: When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for.”
“As I’ve Aged”
“As I’ve Aged”
- Author Unknown
“You ask me how it feels to grow older. I’ve learned a few things along the way, which I’ll share with you…
As I’ve aged, I’ve become kinder to myself, and less critical of myself. I’ve become my own friend. I don’t chide myself for eating that extra cookie, or for not making my bed, or for buying that silly cement gecko that I didn’t need, but looks so avante-garde on my patio. I am entitled to a treat, to be messy, to be extravagant.
I have seen too many dear friends leave this world too soon; before they understood the great freedom that comes with aging. Whose business is it if I choose to read or play on the computer until 4 AM and sleep until noon? I will dance with myself to those wonderful tunes of many years ago, and if I, at the same time, wish to weep over a lost love… I will.
I will walk the beach in a swim suit that is stretched over a bulging body, and will dive into the waves with abandon if I choose to, despite the pitying glances from the jet set. They, too, will get old.
I know I am sometimes forgetful. But there again, some of life is just as well forgotten. And I eventually remember the important things. Sure, over the years my heart has been broken. How can your heart not break when you lose a loved one, or when a child suffers, or even when somebody’s beloved pet gets hit by a car? But broken hearts are what give us strength and understanding and compassion. A heart never broken is pristine and sterile and will never know the joy of being imperfect.
I am so blessed to have lived long enough to have my hair turning gray, and to have my youthful laughs be forever etched into deep grooves on my face. So many have never laughed, and so many have died before their hair could turn silver.
As you get older, it is easier to be positive. You care less about what other people think. I don’t question myself anymore. I’ve even earned the right to be wrong. So, to answer your question, I like being old. It has set me free. I like the person I have become. I am not going to live forever, but while I am still here, I will not waste time lamenting what could have been, or worrying about what will be. And I shall eat dessert every single day (if I feel like it). May our friendship never come apart especially when it’s straight from the heart!”
Full screen recommended.
Alan Parsons, "Old And Wise"
"Doug Casey on the End of Western Civilization"
"Doug Casey on the End of Western Civilization"
by International Man
"International Man: The decline of Western Civilization is on a lot of people’s minds. Let’s talk about this trend.
Doug Casey: Western Civilization has its origins in ancient Greece. It’s unique among the world’s civilizations in putting the individual - as opposed to the collective - in a central position. It enshrined logic and rational thought - as opposed to mysticism and superstition - as the way to deal with the world. It’s because of this that we have science, technology, great literature and art, capitalism, personal freedom, the concept of progress, and much, much more. In fact, almost everything worth having in the material world is due to Western Civilization.
Ayn Rand once said "East minus West equals zero." I think she went a bit too far, as a rhetorical device, but she was essentially right. When you look at what the world’s other civilizations have brought to the party, at least over the last 2,500 years, it’s trivial.
I lived in the Orient for years. There are many things I love about it - martial arts, yoga, and the cuisine among them. But all the progress they’ve made is due to adopting the fruits of the West.
International Man: There are so many things degrading Western Civilization. Where do we begin?
Doug Casey: It’s been said, correctly, that a civilization always collapses from within. World War 1, in 1914, signaled the start of the long collapse of Western Civilization. Of course, termites were already eating away at the foundations, with the writings of people like Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Karl Marx. It’s been on an accelerating downward path ever since, even though technology and science have been improving at a quantum pace. They are, however, like delayed action flywheels, operating on stored energy and accumulated capital. Without capital, intellectual freedom, and entrepreneurialism, science and technology will slow down. I’m optimistic we’ll make it to Kurzweil’s Singularity, but there are no guarantees.
Things also changed with the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913. Before that, the US used gold coinage for money. "The dollar" was just a name for 1/20th of an ounce of gold. That is what the dollar was. Paper dollars were just receipts for gold on deposit in the Treasury. The income tax, enacted the same year, threw more sand in the gears of civilization. The world was much freer before the events of 1913 and 1914, which acted to put the State at the center of everything.
The Fed and the income tax are both disastrous and unnecessary things, enemies of the common man in every way. Unfortunately, people have come to believe they’re fixtures in the cosmic firmament. They’re the main reasons - there are many other reasons, though, unfortunately - why the average American’s standard of living has been dropping since the early 1970s. In fact, were it not for these things, and the immense amount of capital destroyed during the numerous wars of the last 100 years, I expect we’d have already colonized the moon and Mars. Among many other things…
But I want to re-emphasize that the science, the technology, and all the wonderful toys we have are not the essence of Western Civilization. They’re consequences of individualism, capitalism, rational thought, and personal freedom. It’s critical not to confuse cause and effect.
International Man: You mentioned that the average American’s standard of living has dropped since the early 1970s. This is directly related to the US government abandoning the dollar’s last link to gold in 1971. Since then, the Federal Reserve has been able to debase the US dollar without limit. I think the dollar’s transformation into a purely fiat currency has eroded the rule of law and morality in the US. It’s similar to what happened in the Roman Empire after it started debasing its currency. What do you think, Doug?
Doug Casey: All the world’s governments and central banks share a common philosophy, which drives these policies. They believe that you create economic activity by stimulating demand, and you stimulate demand by printing money. And, of course, it’s true, in a way. Roughly the same way a counterfeiter can stimulate a local economy.
Unfortunately, they ignore that, and completely ignore that the way a person or a society becomes wealthy is by producing more than they consume and saving the difference. That difference, savings, is how you create capital. Without capital you’re reduced to subsistence, scratching at the earth with a stick. These people think that by inflating - which is to say destroying - the currency, they can create prosperity. But what they’re really doing, is destroying capital: When you destroy the value of the currency, that discourages people from saving it. And when people don’t save, they can’t build capital, and the vicious cycle goes on.
This is destructive for civilization itself, in both the long term and the short term. The more paper money, the more credit, they create, the more society focuses on finance, as opposed to production. It’s why there are many times more people studying finance than science. The focus is increasingly on speculation, not production. Financial engineering, not mechanical, electrical, or chemical engineering. And lots of laws and regulations to keep the unstable structure from collapsing.
What keeps a truly civil society together isn’t laws, regulations, and police. It’s peer pressure, social opprobrium, moral approbation, and your reputation. These are the four elements that keep things together. Western Civilization is built on voluntarism. But, as the State grows, that’s being replaced by coercion in every aspect of society. There are regulations on the most obscure areas of life. As Harvey Silverglate pointed out in his book, the average American commits three felonies a day. Whether he’s caught and prosecuted is a subject of luck and the arbitrary will of some functionary. That’s antithetical to the core values of Western Civilization.
International Man: Speaking of ancient civilizations like Rome, interest rates are about the lowest they’ve been in 5,000 years of recorded history. Trillions of dollars’ worth of government bonds trade at negative yields. Of course, this couldn’t happen in a free market. It’s only possible because of central bank manipulation. How will artificially low interest rates affect the collapse of Western Civilization?
Doug Casey: It’s really, really serious. I previously thought it was metaphysically impossible to have negative interest rates but, in the Bizarro World central banks have created, it’s happened.
Negative interest rates discourage saving. Once again, saving is what builds capital. Without capital you wind up as an empty shell - Rome in 450 A.D., or Detroit today - lots of wonderful but empty buildings and no economic activity. Worse, it forces people to desperately put their money in all manner of idiotic speculations in an effort to stay ahead of inflation. They wind up chasing the bubbles the funny money creates.
Let me re-emphasize something: in order for science and technology to advance you need capital. Where does capital come from? It comes from people producing more than they consume and saving the difference. Debt, on the other hand, means you’re living above your means. You’re either consuming the capital others have saved, or you’re mortgaging your future.
Zero and negative interest rate policies, and the creation of money out of nowhere, are actually destructive of civilization itself. It makes the average guy feel that he’s not in control of his own destiny. He starts believing that the State, or luck, or Allah will provide for him. That attitude is typical of people from backward parts of the world - not Western Civilization.
International Man: What does it say about the economy and society that people work so hard to interpret what officials from the Federal Reserve and other central banks say?
Doug Casey: It’s a shameful waste of time. They remind me of primitives seeking the counsel of witch doctors. One hundred years ago, the richest people in the country - the Rockefellers, the Carnegies, and such - made their money creating industries that actually made stuff. Now, the richest people in the country just shuffle money around. They get rich because they’re close to the government and the hydrant of currency materialized by the Federal Reserve. I’d say it’s a sign that society in the US has become quite degraded. The world revolves much less around actual production, but around guessing the direction of financial markets. Negative interest rates are creating bubbles, and will eventually result in an economic collapse.
International Man: Negative interest rates are essentially a tax on savings. A lot of people would rather pull their money out of the bank and stuff it under a mattress than suffer that sting. The economic central planners know this. It’s why they’re using negative interest rates to ramp up the War on Cash - the push to eliminate paper currency and create a cashless society.
The banking system is very fragile. Banks don’t hold much paper cash. It’s mostly digital bytes on a computer. If people start withdrawing paper money en masse, it won’t take much to bring the whole system down. Their solution is to make accessing cash harder, and in some cases, illegal. That’s why the economic witch doctors at Harvard are pounding the table to get rid of the $100 bill.
Take France, for example. It’s now illegal to make cash transactions over €1,000 without documenting them properly. Negative interest rates have turbocharged the War on Cash. If the central planners win this war, it would be the final deathblow to financial privacy. How does this all relate to the collapse of Western Civilization?
Doug Casey: I believe the next step in their idiotic plan is to abolish cash. Decades ago they got rid of gold coinage, which used to circulate day to day in people’s pockets. Then they got rid of silver coinage. Now, they’re planning to get rid of cash altogether. So you won’t even have euros or dollars or pounds in your wallet anymore, or if you do, it will only be very small denominations. Everything else is going to have to be done through electronic payment processing.
This is a huge disaster for the average person: absolutely everything that you buy or sell, other than perhaps a candy bar or a hamburger, is going to have to go through the banking system. Thus, the government will be able to monitor every transaction and payment. Financial privacy, even what’s left of it today, will literally cease to exist.
Privacy is one of the big differences between a civilized society and a primitive society. In a primitive society, in your little dirt hut village, anybody can look through your window or pull back the flap on your tent. You have no privacy. Everybody can hear everything; see anything. This was one of the marvelous things about Western Civilization- privacy was valued, and respected. But that concept, like so many others, is on its way out…
International Man: You’ve mentioned before that language and words provide important clues to the collapse of Western Civilization. How so?
Doug Casey: Many of the words you hear, especially on television and other media, are confused, conflated, or completely misused. Many recent changes in the way words are used are corrupting the language. As George Orwell liked to point out, to control language is to control thought. The corruption of language is adding to the corruption of civilization itself. This is not a trivial factor in the degradation of Western Civilization.
Words - their exact meanings, and how they’re used - are critically important. If you don’t mean what you say and say what you mean, then it’s impossible to communicate accurately. Forget about transmitting philosophical concepts.
Take for example shareholders and stakeholders. We all know that a shareholder actually owns a share in a company, but have you noticed that over the last generation shareholders have become less important than stakeholders? Even though stakeholders are just hangers-on, employees, or people who are looking to get in on a shakedown. But everybody slavishly acknowledges, "Yes, we’ve got to look out for the stakeholders."
Where did that concept come from? It’s a recent creation, but Boobus americanus seems to think it was carved in stone at the country’s founding. We’re told to protect them, as if they were a valuable and endangered species. I say, "A pox upon stakeholders." If they want a vote in what a company does, then they ought to become shareholders. Stakeholders are a class of being created out of nothing by Cultural Marxists for the purpose of shaking down shareholders.
Right now, the US is the most polarized it has been since the Civil War. The next couple of weeks could be the most chaotic period in US history. The stakes are higher than they’ve ever been in living memory. The consequences of this could be crippling to the average person."
"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
"The Gospel of Ignorance"
"The Gospel of Ignorance"
by Paul Rosenberg
"The good news about ignorance? Yes, and emphatically yes. The good news about ignorance is that it sets us free from mental chains. Now, to be clear, what I’m talking about here is accepting and admitting our ignorance. This is essential if we want to actually know things, as opposed to making a show of knowing things. And I can tell you from personal experience that it really works. I gained the habit of admitting my ignorance (almost advertising it) back in the early 1980s, and that habit has helped me toward more understanding and discovery than I’d be able to itemize.
The School Model: Most people pull back from admitting their ignorance, and while the roots of the problem are probably very old, I’m convinced that it has been supercharged by factory-style schooling; that is, by the government schools nearly all children are forced to attend. The universal model of schooling over the past century has been “memorize and repeat.” And so expressing the right answer has become grounds for praise and expressing the wrong answer has become grounds for ridicule.
In fact, getting the wrong answer in school very often spawns public ridicule, from other kids or from the teacher. Bear in mind that public ridicule is among the harsher blows a young psyche can take. And so the instinct to avoid such blows sticks. People are wildly evasive of being shown wrong.
Because of this, people stay far away from admitting ignorance. That’s a silly thing to do, of course – we’re all ignorant of a great many things – but emotional damage tends to override reason. This, however, locks us out of further inquiry. When we see a situation steering us toward possible ridicule we shut it down; all that matters is getting away. And thus learning is evaded right along with the possibility of pain.
The Lust For An Ultimate Ruleset: Just behind the terror of ridicule comes a quest for an unassailable ruleset. And while I won’t take the space to dig deeply into this, I will make one essential point: We cling to rulesets because they save us from responsibility. The ruleset becomes the responsible party, saving us from exposure and the possibility of blame. And once this is in place, our lives descend into unending arguments over which ruleset is right. Please re-read that a few times and give it some thought.
We’re probably millennia away from anything resembling a perfect ruleset, if such a thing is possible at all. Pretending to have such a ruleset, however, locks us into it, and locks us into defending those parts of it that are either partial or wrong… and at this stage of human development every ruleset will be full of such things. When we latch on to a dogma – a doctrine, a political movement, a metaphysics, whatever – we cut ourselves off from proper humility and we erect barriers to further knowledge. We need to get past this.
What We Once Had: Political ideologies have become weaponized rulesets in recent times. By rejecting your rules (and vocabulary) the other party becomes wrong, crazy, deranged, and so on. The foundation of Western civilization, however, was very much otherwise. Here’s how professor Carol Quigley explained it: "Western Civilization… might be summed-up in the belief that “Truth unfolds through time in a communal process.”
This is a great core of Western civilization, if not the core. Westerners use phrases like “we know that…” or “we have no information on…” Every time we use such words, we presume that truth is built, that all of us may contribute to it, and that we will certainly have more truth in the future than we have now. But if the final truth is yet to be discovered, who can say that he or she has full knowledge?
By becoming clear on the fact that we don’t know ultimates and ends, we both consolidate what we do know and open a door to learning… moving toward the day when we can properly conceive of ultimates and ends. Western civilization was never pure, of course, but this belief went a long way toward bringing us forward.
Say It Loud And Say It Proud: So, when something comes up that you don’t know, say it loudly and clearly: “I don’t know.” “I’m ignorant about that.” By doing this you open your mind and tell the world (as well as yourself) that you’re strong enough to portray yourself honestly… that you’re no longer terrified of being wrong. It’s the sensible thing to do, and it works."
"It takes considerable knowledge just to
realize the extent of your own ignorance."
- Thomas Sowell
"How It Really Is"
Oh no we haven't...this is just the beginning.
Deputy Wendell: "It's a mess, ain't it Sheriff?"
Sheriff Ed Tom Bell: "Well, if it ain't, it'll do till the mess gets here."
- "No Country For Old Men"
Oh, the mess is here alright...and you ain't seen nothin' yet...
Brace for impact.
"Many Americans Are Not Prepared To Deal With Depression Level Living"
"Many Americans Are Not Prepared
To Deal With Depression Level Living"
by Milan Adams
"The forces are mounting that will eventually overwhelm most Americans and send their standard of living to unknown depths. Americans that have only known the post WWII prosperity are ill equipped and educated to deal with depression level living. Easy credit and instant gratification have created a nation of whining, self absorbed, entitlement minded people with no moral or mental toughness.
Doug Casey believes we are headed for what he calls a super depression created by the ending of a debt super cycle. The bigger the debt cycle the bigger the depression that follows. That’s how reality works and most people are not prepared for reality.
When this depression, which has already started, gets momentum, it will overwhelm the plans of a society that is expecting to get things like social security, pensions and payouts from retirement plans they have paid into for many years. All of those things will disappear almost overnight and leave society gasping and stupefied over what to do. Their reactions will be to yell and scream and try to identify who to blame but the only person they should blame is the one in the mirror.
Many very smart people have raised the alarm and done their best to warn the sleeping public, but those slumbering masses have ignored the warnings and hit the snooze button one more time. The masses do not understand economics, do not want to understand economics and they will pay dearly for that ignorance in the coming days.
When the real unemployment rate becomes common knowledge as it increases substantially, people will be left to survive on what resources they have saved up outside the banking system that cannot be stolen by the politicians and bankers. That is a key point here. The assets you have outside the system that cannot be stolen from you with a few key strokes on some computer.
Those hoping for some miraculous event that will send the U.S. back to the days of manufacturing might and jobs for all will never see it happen. Those days are gone. The west line theory tells us our economy will slow down and become more modest as the shipping center of the world moves west to the next powerhouse region which is Asia. This is what history teaches us.
When people suddenly wake up one morning and they have no job, their retirement is gone and they need to care for their family, what will they do? When government services have collapsed and they suddenly realize they are now living in a third world country with few government services, what will they do? When the banks are closed and only a select few connected people have any type of money or access to goods, what will they do?
This is the reality that many people will face in the future and they have no idea how bad it can get. They refuse to contemplate the harsh reality they will be living in and take steps to mitigate the effects. To do so would be to acknowledge it could happen and they are taking personal responsibility. Personal responsibility is a dirty phrase in today’s entitlement society. To see some of the effects one only has to look at the collapse of society in Venezuela today to see what awaits.
When it happens it will all fall back to you to take responsibility for your family and take care of them for the duration. To do that you need to plan now for that eventuality and build up the resources you will need to provide food, shelter, clothing and security when the system fails to do it for you. You need to be Noah on his ark not the people watching as he floated away.
Having resources stored up is a must but it may not get you all the way through if the situation lasts for many years. That is why you need some type of plan to replace those resources as time goes by and have some way to generate some type of income or at least items to trade. Usable goods are for the short term and things like gold ,silver and production equipment are for the long term to help you get through the crisis with the least amount of pain.
Even with proper planning the days ahead will not be easy as the standard of living of society will fall substantially to levels only seen in failed third world countries or old pictures. The assets actually owned by people today is very small compared to how they live. They will default on their home loan, their car loan, and their credit card debt leaving them with very few real possessions and few ways to move what they have left even if they have some place to go. Ultimately these people will become the new serfs to the wealthy class that will take possession of anything of value. Feudalism will once again rule.
The lack of planning by society will make this a reality if it is allowed. What will you do when everything you have worked a lifetime for is suddenly taken away? Do you have a plan to keep what you have? Do you have a plan to make money when you cannot find a job? Do you have a way to take care of your family until things stabilize? Do you have a home you will not lose if the whole system breaks down? What will you do if electricity or fuel is too expensive to buy or not available to the general population? These are the questions you should be asking yourself now and you better have a good answer because your family will be asking them when the greater depression sets in."
Dan, I Allegedly, "We Are Collapsing From Within - The American Dream Is Dead"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, AM 5/17/25
"We Are Collapsing From Within -
The American Dream Is Dead"
"California is spiraling into an economic crisis, and I’m here to break it all down for you. From skyrocketing living costs to a massive $15 billion deficit, things are getting worse before they get better. Over 35% of Californians can’t afford basic necessities - despite most households having at least one working member. The struggles don’t stop there: rising property taxes, fuel prices, and even car insurance are pushing families to the brink. And when it comes to EVs? Tesla’s inventory issues and the shocking truth about their lifespan are just the beginning.
Businesses are collapsing too - stores like JC Penney and high-end brands like Burberry are closing locations and cutting jobs. Even resorts like Sunseeker in Florida can’t stay afloat with dismal occupancy rates. Meanwhile, shady practices from companies like T-Mobile and utility providers are squeezing every last dollar from consumers. This isn’t just a California problem; it’s a snapshot of a nation on the edge."
Comments here:
"US States in Big Trouble as Major Retailers Pull Out Fast"
Full screen recommended.
Downturn Report, 5/17/25
"US States in Big Trouble as Major Retailers Pull Out Fast"
"This documentary reveals the top 15 U.S. states in crisis as the retail apocalypse sweeps across America. From small towns to entire regions, we investigate how big retailers are quietly retreating - and why they’re doing it faster than ever. In this deep dive, we examine the top 15 states where retailers cut back fast, leaving working-class families in economic uncertainty. As the retail crisis deepens, the retail chain landscape is changing. You’ll see how big retailers closing is not just about empty stores - it’s about lost jobs, food deserts, and a vanishing sense of stability. These are the top 15 U.S. states in the eye of the storm, each facing a different kind of collapse. But is it too late to reverse course?
With exclusive insights into which U.S. states in crisis are suffering the most from the retail apocalypse, this video gives you a clear picture of how big retailers affect not only the economy - but your neighborhood. Learn which top 15 states are losing access to affordable goods, local jobs, and even basic services as retailers cut back fast.
We don’t just report - we ask the hard questions: What happens when a retail chain vanishes overnight? Which top 15 U.S. states in the country are now ground zero for economic decline? How can we prepare for what comes next? This isn’t just a list - it’s a wake-up call. The retail crisis is real, the retail apocalypse is accelerating, and these top 15 states are only the beginning. This is the Downturn Report – where the truth gets personal."
Comments here:
Judge Napolitano, "INTEL Roundtable w/Johnson & McGovern: Weekly Wrap 16-May"
Full screen recommended.
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 5/16/26
"INTEL Roundtable w/Johnson & McGovern:
Weekly Wrap 16-May"
Comments here:
"Jim Rickards: 'Central Banks Are About To Collapse The Economy and Here's How'"
Full screen recommended.
Plain Finance Reborn, 5/17/25
"Jim Rickards: 'Central Banks Are About
To Collapse The Economy and Here's How'"
"Jim Rickards talks about the U.S national debt that is going up and up forever and how the Central Bank will blow up the economy with it, then talks about MMT or Modern Monetary Theory, which doesn't make any sense to him."
Comments here:
"As The Sun Goes Nuts, Unusual Natural Disasters Are Occurring All Over The Globe"
"As The Sun Goes Nuts, Unusual Natural
Disasters Are Occurring All Over The Globe"
by Michael Snyder
"Why is the mainstream media in the United States being so quiet about what is happening on the Sun? The giant ball of fire that we revolve around makes life on this planet possible, and it has started to behave very erratically. This should definitely be getting a lot more attention, because the link between solar activity and seismic activity has been well established by now. Some scientists still try to dispute this, but the truth is that when the Sun becomes more active we tend to see more large earthquakes and more volcanic eruptions. And of course if a large enough solar storm erupts, it could fry our power grids and throw our entire society into a massive state of chaos.
This week, the giant ball of fire that we revolve around “unleashed the strongest solar flare of the year”…"The sun has unleashed the strongest solar flare of the year, triggering strong radio blackouts across the globe. Just after 11:30 a.m. ET, a massive X2.7-class solar flare erupted from a newly emerging dark region known as AR4087. X-class flares are the most intense in the solar storm scale - capable of disrupting communications, damaging satellites, and even threatening power grids on Earth."
Subsequently, there was another very large solar flare on Wednesday…"Just before 7:20am ET Wednesday morning, sunspot AR4087 emitted yet another solar flare: an M7.74. Sunspot AR4087 is absolutely enormous, and there is concern that more solar flares could be unleashed as it “rotates into direct alignment with Earth in the coming days.” Experts warn that more flares may be on the way as sunspot AR4087 rotates into direct alignment with Earth in the coming days, increasing the chances of further solar storms.
What we are witnessing right now is definitely not normal. A solar filament that erupted from the Sun’s northern hemisphere earlier this week was more than 600,000 miles long. That made it over twice as long as the distance from the Earth to the moon…"On Tuesday, astronomers watched as a vast ‘bird wing’ eruption sent waves of superheated plasma surging across the sun’s northern hemisphere. At over 600,000 miles long (one million km), the filament of solar material was more than twice as long as the distance from the Earth to the moon."
Nobody can deny that the Sun has been extremely active this month. So have we seen a corresponding increase in seismic activity? Well, this month we did see a magnitude 7.4 earthquake strike just off the coast of Argentina…"A powerful earthquake has struck off the southern coasts of Chile and Argentina, triggering a tsunami warning. The 7.4 magnitude quake struck 136 miles off the coast of the city of Ushuaia, Argentina on Friday afternoon, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS). Authorities in Chile issued an evacuation alert for the entire coastal section of the Strait of Magellan in the country’s south."
Here in the United States, California has been rattled by hundreds of earthquakes over the past week, and that includes three sizable earthquakes right along the San Andreas fault…"California has experienced three earthquakes in the last 24 hours in an area being closely monitored for a major quake. The US Geological Survey (USGS) detected the seismic activity along the San Andreas Fault, which spans 800 miles from Cape Mendocino in the north to the Salton Sea in the south. Scientists warn this fault is overdue for a ‘Big One’ - a magnitude 7.8 earthquake or higher.
Of course it isn’t just the state of California that has been getting shaken. In Nevada, a magnitude 4.0 earthquake just hit an area of the Earth’s crust that is “gradually being pulled apart”…"Nevada was rocked by a 4.0 magnitude earthquake on Wednesday in a region where the Earth’s crust is slowly tearing apart. The US Geological Survey (USGS) detected the tremor at 5:35 am local (8:35am ET) near Valmy that sits on top of the Basin and Range Province, which stretches across much of the western US. In this area, the Earth’s crust is gradually being pulled apart, causing faulting and frequent earthquakes."
And Salt Lake City was recently rattled by a magnitude 3.9 earthquake…"A 3.9 magnitude earthquake hit just outside of Utah’s capital city Thursday morning. The US Geological Survey (USGS) detected the tremor at 6:11am ET, with the epicenter located in Independence, about 43 miles southeast of Salt Lake City. More than 2,200 people within a 45-mile radius reported feeling the shaking."
Meanwhile, we continue to see unusual volcanic activity all over the globe as well. In fact, scientists are warning that a mile-wide volcano near the coast of Oregon could literally erupt at any moment…"Scientists have issued a stark warning about the most active volcano in the Pacific Northwest, cautioning that it could erupt as soon as tomorrow. The Axial Seamount is a mile-wide underwater volcano that sits 300 miles off the coast of Oregon and more than 4,900 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean. Researchers with the National Science Foundation’s Ocean Observatories Initiative say there has been massive uptick in the number of earthquakes under the seamount, caused by magma pushing to the surface."
On the other side of the world, the largest supervolcano in Europe has been shaking like crazy…"Fear in Campi Flegrei where since 12:07, as reported by the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, a seismic swarm has been underway. The most intense event had a magnitude of 4,4 and an epicenter 3 kilometers deep in the port of Pozzuoli. Following the event, the Italian Situation Room of the Civil Protection Department contacted the local structures of the National Civil Protection Service. An uninhabited building in Via Campana collapsed. There is a lot of fear in Pozzuoli where citizens have poured into the streets for fear of being surprised at home by another strong shock. Over ten shocks have been recorded since this morning, two of which with a magnitude greater than 3, following the strongest."
If a full-blown eruption of the Campi Flegrei supervolcano were to happen, it could cause a nuclear winter which would devastate global food production and plunge us into a multi-year worldwide famine. For much more on this, please see my previous article entitled “Is One Of The World’s Largest Supervolcanoes About To Erupt?” I expect that the Sun will continue to behave erratically in the months ahead, and I also expect to see plenty of major natural disasters. So buckle up and hold on tight, because it is going to be a bumpy ride."
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