The utter insanity of the events of the past two weeks has been blinding, deafening and exhausting to watch. The stupidity is dumbfounding. The foolishness almost incomprehensible.
But, only almost.
We live in the final chapter of our civilization, so it should not surprise us that society is unraveling so ferociously. But, while I am not surprised, I am still shocked.
We are allowing the Jacobins to drag us under, and it’s a shameful end to the greatest empire ever built. Of course, when society dedicates itself to pleasure and depravity, a shameful end is entirely appropriate.
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Blinding Insanity – The Weekend Shock Letter for June 13th, 2020
Blinding Insanity – The Weekend ShockCast for June 14th, 2020
YouTube shortlink: https://youtu.be/EDHUQJ59TSo
MP3 Audio:
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This Week’s Playlist:
The Top Ten Videos for June 13th, 2020
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All empires come to an end. Sometimes they crash and burn like the Persians. Sometimes they just fade away like the British. Sometimes they do both, like the French. But, they always end. And, it looks like America’s time has also come.
The problem that I have with the end of America, is that it’s just so embarrassing. It’s like dying in an attempt to prove that the Earth is flat. It’s that stupid.
(Poor Mad Mike. At least he died doing what he loved.)
Would our world be any more crazy if we spent decades teaching kids that the Earth is flat and carried on the back of a space turtle?
Actually, now that I think about it… if I had a choice between that insanity and the one that we are suffering under now …proclaiming that the Earth is flat is a lot less crazy than the madness that is ripping apart our cities, our society and our financial institutions.
And corruption. Let’s not forget the utter thievery within our governments, corporations and even our healthcare system. We gave power and money to vermin, and now we have chaos, violence and the rise of tyranny. And, we act surprised that it’s happening.
It’s like the Fall of the Roman Empire, but instead of centuries, we’re going to do it all in a decade. How utterly sordid and shameful. How embarrassing.
And, completely appropriate.
We allowed morons to teach our kids and grandkids the belief that man is basically good, and that you don’t need God to be good. We even taught such foolishness in our churches, talking about the need to be ‘seeker friendly’ – instead of speaking the truth in love. And, every time our deceitful humanism led to a bad result, we always claimed that we just didn’t do it right, and that it will work, next time.
Well, a blinding insanity eventually leads to complete destruction. Always. The Jacobins running the streets and ruling in our government will eventually consume themselves, just like the Jacobins of the French Revolution. Eventually, they will take their own turn at the guillotine, just like Robespierre did on July 28th, 1794, but before they die, they will destroy everything. And, from the rubble, the ultimate lawless one will rise.
America and the world system that she created must fall to make way for the Antichrist. It needs to happen for prophecy to be fulfilled. I’m just disgusted at the blinding insanity of it all.
The News From This Week
I have DOUBLE the articles, this week, and it’s more than I can handle. The utter insanity of it all was so mesmerizing that just couldn’t drag myself away from it. It was like watching someone pour gasoline all over himself and search his pockets for matches.
THE WEEK AMERICA LOST ITS WAY
There are two articles from RealClearPolitics.com that I want to talk about.
The Week America Lost Its Way By Frank Miele
– and –
The Four Horsemen of America’s Apocalypse by Dennis Prager
And, I want to start off with Frank article, first.
The Week America Lost Its Way | RealClearPolitics
By Frank Miele
Frank starts off his article with making the connection between ‘The Lord of the Flies’ by William Golding and the morons who are running the streets in manufactured rage. But, I’m a little more interested in his connections to Hitler and Mao.
…When you saw white people taking a knee to prostrate themselves before looters and to renounce their “white privilege,” you also saw parallels to Mao’s Cultural Revolution and Hitler’s Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass.
The Cultural Revolution began with an attack on the old order, the old “privilege” represented by shop owners and college professors. To avoid the mob’s rage, the victims were forced to humiliate themselves publicly and to utter self-denunciations, to confess their “crimes” against the mob’s ideology. But there was no escaping the demented wrath of the self-anointed protectors of virtue. Eventually millions of those intellectuals and entrepreneurs were put to death — sometimes buried up to their necks so that they could continue to abase themselves until their final breath.
Then, lower down the article:
…So-called “good” Germans celebrated the lawless attacks on Jewish citizens in 1938, giving tacit permission for the death camps that would kill millions. Many in the power structure of the United States are likewise giving a green light to current and future violence by sanctioning riots as “protests” and by excusing looting and murder as a reasonable response to Floyd’s death.
Skipping a paragraph:
The rioting wasn’t about race or justice; it was about power. You saw people beat a woman in Rochester, N.Y., with a two-by-four; smash in the head of a man seeking to defend his store in Dallas; kill a retired 77-year-old policeman in St. Louis who was protecting a friend’s pawnshop; burn and destroy thousands of stores; and loot everything from Rolex watches to automobiles as if they were the Visigoths sacking Rome.
And then, he ends with this last connection to the barbaric children in The Lord of the Flies:
“The rules!” shouted Ralph, “you’re breaking the rules!”
“Who cares?” came the response from the children. If that is the same response we accept from our mayors, our governors, our generals, and our media elites, then we have not only lost our honor; we have lost our country.
And, my response is that we have, indeed, lost our country.
Then, on the same website, RealClearPolitics.com, the very Jewish Dennis Prager, speaks to a phrase that is straight out of Christianity, in his article titled:
The Four Horsemen of America’s Apocalypse | RealClearPolitics
And, he starts out his article like this:
It takes a lot to build a civilization, and though it is much easier to destroy a civilization, it takes a lot to do that, too.
But now we have four roots of evil that are guaranteed to do so.
And, I can hear is big bass voice echoing in my ears as he says those words.
Anyway, he then goes on to lay out what those ‘Four Horsemen’… those four roots of evil are:
No. 1: Victimhood.
No. 2: Demonization.
No. 3: A Cause To Believe In.
No. 4: Lies.
Dennis Prager is a very smart man, and I enjoy listening to him. But, he missed a horse:
No. 0: The Love of Money
Yeah. That’s the first one. They all want their money and their power. And the poor morons who see themselves as victims and who demonize everyone who disagrees with them… well, they’ve taken up a cause that is compatible with their view of themselves. And, they’ve built it all on a foundation of lies.
FALL OF THE EMPIRE – THE WOUNDED SEVENTH HEAD
Amir Taheri is an excellent writer with very thoughtful ideas, but I don’t quite think that he understands the significance of his article on gatestoneinstitute.org:
Return of Nation-States Need Not be a Threat
THAT is the fall of empire and even the collapse of civilization – not because we cannot go back to ‘nation-states’, but because what those in power will do to keep what they have and get what they want. Whether he knows it or not, Amir is describing the fall of the seventh empire – the seventh head in the Book of Revelation. A head that will be revived by the Antichrist.
Here are the main points of his article:
- The trend we witness in world politics is away from the initial forms of globalization and toward a reassertion of the nation-state as one of the two key players in international economic and business relations, the other player being transnational businesses.
- The disastrous performance of the World Health Organization (WHO) during the current Covid-19 pandemic is just one example of a more general malaise. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have been shining in their absence in the looming economic crisis affecting every single nation on earth. As the World Trade Organization (WTO) fades into irrelevance, its director jumps ship to look for a more rewarding job.
- Apart from Trump… nationalism has made spectacular comebacks in some other places, notably India, Brazil, Australia, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and, with Brexit, even Great Britain.
- The return of the nation-state, if reconfirmed in the years to come, could lead to a revival of classical international cooperation that, taking shape after World War II, created the mechanisms which have helped keep the peace, spread prosperity and foster the rule of law as never before in human history.
- For that to happen we must do away with trompe-l’oeil devices such as G7 which, at best, have never been more than insipid photo-ops for politicians craving attention.
- Nations reasserting their identity need not be a threat to world order; it may actually offer a second youth to an ailing geriatric system.
Yes, these institutions of empire are dying. They are falling apart, and people are losing their faith in them. And yes, it is possible for us to regain our national identities and deal with each other like adults.
But, in reality, we’re just The Lord of the Flies, with nuclear weapons.
THIS WILL NOT END WELL.
Our Wile E. Coyote Economy: Nothing But Financial Engineering – Charles Hugh Smith
Let’s turn our attention to something a little more dark and less visible. It’s all about the hollowing out of our economy by the fat cats who sit in boardrooms, chuckling over how much money they made, pillaging the corporations that they were hired to protect. And, Charles Hugh Smith has yet another great article on the subject:
oftwominds-Charles Hugh Smith: Our Wile E. Coyote Economy: Nothing But Financial Engineering
Charles combines a gift for words with a keen understanding of how our economy actually works, instead of how it SHOULD work. But, before jumping into this article, let me provide the official definition of ‘Financial Engineering’ from Investopedia:
Financial engineering is the use of mathematical techniques to solve financial problems. Financial engineering uses tools and knowledge from the fields of computer science, statistics, economics, and applied mathematics to address current financial issues as well as to devise new and innovative financial products.
Financial engineering is sometimes referred to as quantitative analysis and is used by regular commercial banks, investment banks, insurance agencies, and hedge funds.
There’s more to that definition than described there, so go to investopedia.com for the full, sugar-coated description. But, be warned that it is pure propaganda. Most financial engineering is legalized fraud, and Charles Hugh Smith and his reader – A.P. – make that clear.
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So, let’s jump into the article titled:
Our Wile E. Coyote Economy: Nothing But Financial Engineering – Charles Hugh Smith
Ours is a Wile E. Coyote economy, and now we’re hanging in mid-air, realizing there is nothing solid beneath our feet.
The story we’re told about how our “capitalist” economy works is outdated. The story goes like this: companies produce goods and services for a competitive marketplace and earn a profit from this production. These profits are income streams for investors, who buy companies’ stocks based on these profits. As profits rise, so do stock valuations.
It’s all win-win: consumers get competitively priced goods and services, workers have jobs producing goods and services and investors earn a return on their capital.
Sadly, this is a fairy tale that no longer aligns with the reality that the U.S. economy is now a decaying billboard of “producing goods and services” behind which the real money is made in financial engineering, a.k.a. legalized fraud. Take everyone’s favorite stock, Apple. The fairy tale is that Apple is in the business of making mobile phones and providing services to this customer base.
According to the fairy tale, Apple’s rise in value from $400 billion to $1.4 trillion is based on higher operating earnings, i.e. profits. But if we look at Apple’s operating earnings (see chart below), we see that they’ve been flat for years. So why is Apple worth $1 trillion more than it was a few years ago if profits haven’t risen, much less tripled?
The answer is financial engineering: Apple sells bonds that pay a paltry rate of return and then uses the proceeds from this debt (and most of its actual profits) to buy back its own shares–an astounding $338 billion over the past 7 years.
But look at the return on this legalized fraud: $338 billion added $1 trillion in “value” which can be sold by insiders to greater fools who believe the fairy tale.
All the “wealth” created by financial engineering / legalized fraud is fictitious, i.e. phantom. It’s based on leveraging debt and trickery, not on profits earned from producing goods and services. Virtually every “success” in America is not from producing goods and services; it’s based on leveraging debt, stock buybacks, asset bubbles, marketing (Facebook and Google) or skimming the thin layer of cream off the global supply chain (Walmart and Amazon).
Correspondent A.P. explained how the economy actually works in the following essay.
We humans don’t have the brain power to figure out the cause and effect of everything we do.
So, we create stories, shorthand rules of thumb that allow us, based on our previous observations, to predict how the world works.
When the predictive power of one of our stories fail, humans, being emotional rather than rational creatures, will bend over backward to make excuses for the story rather than telling ourselves that, in constructing the story, we ourselves were wrong.
Consistency bias is blindingly powerful.
* * *
I’m a physician.
When I quit my employer, I had certain knowledge that I was the highest producing employee of my class across five states.
Yet when I gave my notice, they didn’t bat an eye.
I also have certain knowledge that one year later my resignation led to a loss of $2 million of direct revenue from my labor that my employer would have otherwise captured.
That’s when I changed my paradigm.
I had been telling myself that my employer had wanted to purchase my labor.
What it turns out they wanted to purchase was my credibility.
Something they could get from anyone with an MD.
They wanted to use the foot traffic generated by the patients coming to see me to appreciate their real estate values.
They wanted to use my relationships to extract patient information for re-sale.
They wanted to use my name on the door to create the impression they were a healthcare company– tax exempt benefits and all.
The $2 million drop in their revenue meant nothing to them.
When I left, they simply shared my responsibilities among the remaining doctors, who in aggregate possessed enough credibility that the appreciation of commercial real estate, the sale of patient information, and the benefits of tax exemption continued unabated—dwarfing any revenue my labor could generate.
Then I realized that my former employer wasn’t special.
Today, virtually any public concern uses their ‘products’ as a similar ‘front.’
They’re not in the business of selling shoes, or oil changes, or makeup any more than banks are in the business of serving depositors or making loans.
They’re all in the business of financial engineering.
And because this business model requires access to capital markets, their ‘products’ are only there to create an impression that they’re actual businesses—enough so they can be plausibly sell their debt.
That’s why they don’t care if their stores get looted, or if they de-platform their most profitable users, the merchandise and revenue are nothing to them.
Being able to sell debt instruments and distribute the proceeds to the organization’s ‘keys to power’ (see The Rules for Rulers 18 min.) is the only thing that matters (and maybe some government subsidies on top).
Okay, let’s pause what A.P. is saying here and point out how important this video is:
That video is worth every minute. You’ll be disgusted at how psychopathic rulers are, but that’s how humanity works. Anyway, back to what AP has to say…
These companies will borrow and distribute, borrow and distribute until there is nothing left to leverage and the last holders of debt are left holding the bag—usually to be bailed out by Federal Reserve-printed dollars.
Then the leadership will move on to the next business, rewarded not for being shrewd businessmen but for being excellent wealth extractors and financial engineers.
When money is created without the creation of value, the financial reward of building a business by selling something for a profit is nothing compared to the rewards of using that same business to extract wealth through selling debt until nothing is left.
One could argue, in fact, that the virtue signaling we’re now seeing actually improves corporate access to the tools of financialization.
That’s why these public companies will definitely rebuild in the affected cities, though their efforts will be carried under their marketing budgets.
Debt vehicles with the aura of social approval command a premium.
The same paradigm can be applied to government at all levels, right down to school boards.
These organizations function as a front for the skim.
Public service unions, individual office holders, regulators waiting for their turn at getting hired by those whom they regulate . . .
All are in on it.
They all dip their beaks in the stream of confiscated money while generating no value in return.
The edifice of government simply provides just enough of a front so taxes can be collected to fund the skim without effective push back from the tax donkeys who pay.
This paradigm can be viewed as terribly cynical, but it does seem to explain everything that’s happening, and it hasn’t failed me yet.
Dollars have no value therefore value creation is not needed to gain them.
What’s needed is access to the system through which the printed dollars flow, while not being so blatant that folks have to tell themselves a new story—one in which real value is actually needed if one wants to acquire currency.
Current events are testing the limits people can be pushed to gaslight themselves.
Why pay taxes if the police won’t protect your business?
Why purchase a product whose manufacturer hectors you before you buy?
Is it because of a personal failing I wasn’t aware of?
Or is it because the world doesn’t work the way I’ve been telling myself it does?
Experience teaches that while the limits of human self-delusion are immense, they’re still finite.
Experience also teaches that when those limits are reached, the transition to a new story can be politely described as harsh.
Plan accordingly.
Cultivate what creates real value in your life.
Invest in your own social capital.
And remember:
The bad chases out the good.
First in money . . .
Then in everything else.
Thank you, A.P. for explaining how “business” is just a front for the sausage-making of debt, fraud and bailouts when the fraud unravels. Ours is a Wile E. Coyote economy, and now we’re hanging in mid-air, realizing there is nothing solid beneath our feet. Gravity is about to take control, regardless of whatever fraud the Federal Reserve bails out and papers over.
It’s wrenching and painful to accept this reality; the fairy tale was so much more Hollywood. But there can’t be a Hollywood ending for an economy based on the phantom “wealth” of debt, leverage, Fed free money for financiers, stock buybacks, collateralization scams and marketing skims. When all the skims, scams and frauds crash to Earth, it won’t be a cartoon.
Given these realities, Mark, Jesse and I lay out why We’re going “all-in” on bat guano futures (48 min.)
It’s all fun and games until the phantom capital evaporates; please review The Looming Bank Collapse The U.S. financial system could be on the cusp of calamity. This time, we might not be able to save it.
DIRK WILLEMS
The Anabaptists are the forerunners of the Mennonites and the Baptists. And, contrary to popular history, they were NOT Protestants, since they never were a part of the Catholic Church. They were a part of the long line of Christians who persevered under the persecution of the Roman Catholic Church.
Dirk Willems represents the ultimate moral quandary that we all have – saving the lives of those who will turn and kill us. Whether or not you agree with what Dirk did, it cannot be argued that it represents the finest expression of what it means to be a follower of Christ.
Here is what happened, from Christianity.com:
Dirk was captured and imprisoned in his home town of Asperen in the Netherlands. Knowing that his fate would be death if he remained in prison, Dirk made a rope of strips of cloth and slid down it over the prison wall. A guard chased him.
Frost had covered a nearby pond with a thin layer of ice. Dirk risked a dash across it. He made it to safety, but the ice broke under his pursuer who cried for help. Dirk believed the Scripture that a man should help his enemies. He immediately turned back and pulled the floundering man from the frigid water.
In gratitude for his life, the man would have let Dirk escape, but a Burgomaster (chief magistrate) standing on the shore sternly ordered him to arrest Dirk and bring him back, reminding him of the oath he had sworn as an officer of the peace.
Back to prison went Dirk. He was condemned to death for being re-baptized, allowing secret church services in his home and letting others be baptized there. The record of his sentencing concludes: “all of which is contrary to our holy Christian faith, and to the decrees of his royal majesty, and ought not to be tolerated, but severely punished, for an example to others; therefore, we the aforesaid judges, having, with mature deliberation of council, examined and considered all that was to be considered in this matter, have condemned and do condemn by these presents in the name; and in the behalf, of his royal majesty, as Count of Holland, the aforesaid Dirk Willems, prisoner, persisting obstinately in his opinion, that he shall be executed with fire, until death ensues; and declare all his property confiscated, for the benefit of his royal majesty.”
Dirk was burned to death on this day, May 16, 1569. His tongue was not clamped. The wind blew the flame away from him so that his death was long and miserable. Time and again Dirk cried out to God. Finally one of the authorities could not bear to see him suffer any longer and ordered an underling to end his torment with a quick death.
I’m not sure that I’m as good a man as Dirk Willems was. I hope that I am, but I won’t know for sure until I face the same test.
May we all be willing to lay down our lives, as Christ laid down His.
Dirk Willems, the man who saved his pursuer – Imgur
Dirk Willem Burned after Rescuing Pursuer – 1501-1600 Church History Timeline
I truly hope that you’ll be ready for this
A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself: but the simple pass on, and are punished. – Proverbs 22:3
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Here in the UK, we’ve imported the disorder and violence from the US.
Last weekend, far left BLM protesters injured nearly 50 police officers, defaced cenotaphs and statues and generally engaged in disorder. We even had police officers take the knee in front of baying BLM protesters, destroying their impartiality and authority in the process (which has been picked up on by veterans and the far right). Nevermind that we’re in the middle of a pandemic and that gatherings of groups of over six are currently illegal.
Since then, we’ve seen a historical statue torn down and dumped in a harbour while the police looked on and other statues of historical figures vandalised due to their involvement in slavery. There is most definitely a conversation to be had about whether such statues should still be displayed in public, but not by mob rule.
There is now a ‘hit list’ of statues and memorials, which has prompted guarding by veterans and some hard right groups due to lack of police action. In london, the churchill statue and cenotaph have been boarded up to prevent vandalism and there is talk of the churchill statue being permanently moved to a museum.
Fast forward to today where a counter-BLM protest in London has seen violence from the far right and the ghastly sight of a far right thug urinating on a fallen police officers memorial (this has unfortunately made the veterans look bad, who were also involved in the protest)
The lack of police action against the far left, even when officers were being attacked and the lack of action over memorials has embolden the far right, who now also see police as a target. This is playing straight into the BLM playbook, who are an anarcho-communist organisation who want to abolish the police and capitalism- have a look at their UK fundraising page!
https://uk.gofundme.com/f/ukblm-fund
What a mess……
I’m so sorry, Kyle. This rampant insanity will lead to tyranny, because the average person will beg for anyone to put a stop to it. – JL
I was pondering this week’s headlines myself when I thought of this quote:
Those Whom The Gods Would Destroy They First Drive Mad
An excellent write-up is available here:
https://albionawakening.blogspot.com/2018/06/those-whom-gods-would-destroy-they.html?m=1
While things seem to be rapidly disintegrating in the social-political realm, no one will remember the details once Bigger Things that are far more dangerous to our health and welfare arise.
Wait for it… Wait for it…
Revelation 13:
The Beast from the Sea
Selah,
Frances in NM
The thing about wickedness, is that it always leads to madness and stupidity. The problem is that you and I are forced to watch as they destroy themselves. Thanks, Frances. The Beast is indeed trying to rise. – JL
Unfortunately, the Dallas store owner you mentioned at the beginning of the article died. No mention of his black life mattering in the MSM. I think all sides need to understand they are being played and manipulated against each other. Martial law and death is coming. We, as Christians, may be clamoring for the very thing we have dreaded for 2000 years. The Man of Fearce Countenance… Dark days ahead.
Dan B.
Ouch. I’m so sorry. Thanks for the update, Dan. – JL
Hi John,
you’ve obviously seen this:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/truck-drivers-reject-deliver-cities-defunded-or-disbanded-police-departments
This is a harbinger of approaching a serious, thick, red line. Things behind it have “irreversible” painted all over them. When I was 10 years old (during martial law in Poland), entire nation sarcastically repeated a citation attributed to the first secretary of Polish Communist Party: “Our country stood over the precipice, but the Party made a bold decision to take a step forward”. Sad thing is that now so many people have no clue how close they are to this “bold step forward”…
Yours in Christ
Chris
ps.
Just to remind:
https://www.tdsource.com/2016/08/03/if-trucking-stops/
Yeah, I did see that. And, it’s a real problem. Thank you for that extra link. I have bookmarked it for review. I think that I remember seeing it before and talking about it, but memory is a chancy thing. Excellent input, Chris! – JL
Hi John,
of course, you DID tell about that, I remember this (just not sure when, and in what post). And, anecdote, I try to do the same, two times a year I have possibility to describe this problem to ~150 of young people (in the context of complex systems engineering). Typical reaction is shock and awe, but last year an interesting dialogue ensued. I got a question from the audience:
-Are you telling us that our civilization has potential to completely fall apart in two weeks?
-Exactly.
-So, why we are not told about this, why it is not a common knowledge?
-Excellent question. What’s your answer?
(there was a long moment of silence, followed by an answer from a different person)
-Because, when no one realizes what’s happening, you can blame everything you want.
-Bravo.
At that time I did not fully comprehend how good was that answer. Now, I think we are very close to experience it, with consequences.
Yours in Christ
Chris
That’s awesome, Chris. Exposing 150 ‘kids’ to the reality of our fragile civilization is a magnificent thing to do. Brain cells are rewired. Thoughts move on different paths. Lord willing, lives will have changed for the better. Excellent work, brother! – JL
PS. Sorry to miss this comment. I got extremely distracted,
You outdid yourself this week. Thank you and God bless.
Thank you, dkc. – JL