Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Recent Photo Albums

I think I'm done blogging, but I do plan on uploading photos:

Mood: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7zjDYa2rT2nRHyRr0hRgeM2FrGXnZukg

The comforting hole I talk into sometimes:

“I seek the truth, which never harmed anyone...the harm is to persist in one's own self-deception...”-Marcus Aurelius

"Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid."-Valery Legasov

Are you sure it's so important when the fleetingness of relevancy is so obvious? I'm not so much interested in the thing as your ego detached abstract existential analysis of the thing as a fellow ephemeral meat suited traveler.

"...one day she asked what was best for herself instead of trying to please...she sat there for hours not wanting to leave for the forest said nothing...it just let her breathe"
Strip away the excess noise and insanity\absurdity and you'll find the goal has to be...to be happy...below the surface, beyond the moment, sustainable happiness, contentment, satisfaction: wisdom. Wish this deep happiness for others...no strings attached other than honesty...and expect the same in return...get out of line and above the fray and see the world as it really is. The urge to control is the manifestation of fear and ego...suppress it in yourself and reject it from others. There are many ways to be happy…countless offerings and delusional illusions pushed onto us, but the most rewarding are those we customize for our honest inner self. Each human experiences the world through a teeny tiny single pinhole perspective and yet few grasp how obviously this limitation shapes our worldview. Logically it follows that societal "norms", institutions, media, and even seemingly concrete things like "history" and "science", etc. have been overly influenced by and mainly benefit the most powerful and willful in order to fit their perspective. Much of it is an illusion...it is logical to be skeptical. Treat everyone as a guide, although many will present as gatekeepers and try to project their offerings and obligations onto us. We are condemned to be free and mostly alone. There is not much right or wrong just a bunch of pros and cons and prioritizations. Anything can matter and yet not much really matters. Embrace the dialectic and dissonance. Counterintuitively, the answer is usually less not more. Find some things that matter to you...and allow that they may not matter to anyone else. Be discerning with your desires...you give power to what you fear or desire...make sure it's worthy. We are bombarded with stimulus that trigger our biological impulses and nudge us incessantly...pushing our fear and desire buttons over and over. Do not underestimate the intent, targeted precision, power, and intellect behind the stimulus storm. You can empower yourself against the storm...just make sure the dog is wagging the tail instead of the tail wagging the dog. Pause...even slightly...reflect on the impulse...are you safe, happy, etc...if so then let the impulse pass like a cloud in the sky...no action required. "A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone"-Thoreau...Empower your quiet resilient inner Stoic and disempower your illusion protecting amygdala. If you're honest with yourself and others, then it's impossible that you are doing it wrong. Don't be afraid...there is so much beauty.
https://youtu.be/34LGPIXvU5M (Manufacturing Consent)
For whom the struggle is real...it might be the nail:
My 18 year old son recently showed me a video about how humans and animals perceive the pulsating energy all around us so differently. He said it sent him down a rabbit hole for a good while. I consoled him and encouraged him to embrace the mystery and carry on benevolently. It seems that living things evolved to efficiently harness the ubiquitous energy all around us. When the conflagration of atoms (humans, flora, fauna, machines, etc) harnessing the energy wears out then they are recycled. Our brains have evolved to project meaning onto what is pulsating energy and the vastness of the unknown and it's resulted in politics, religions, etc. I get the human need to distill meaning, but humans cling too tightly rather than face the fleetingness of relevancy and then require others to adhere to their projections. If they could just loosely and benevolently cling to the projections and recognize them as a means of coping with uncertainty and the unknown then they might not be so adamant about projecting onto others. Life is an energy game. Honor it. There are many who desire to use our energy for their purposes. In monetary terms, debt steals energy from the future and inflation steals energy previously earned. Each material thing represents energy.

Cut the "fear and desire" strings used to control you...be unherdable:
https://youtu.be/34LGPIXvU5M (Manufacturing Consent)
Most of what we are told\shown is narrative storytelling that contains our thoughts within a safe Overton Window. Sanctioned alternative narratives are offered up as well that pretend to refute the official narrative, but whose real purpose is to manage dissension (e.g. Democrat vs Republican, CNN vs Fox). Don't confuse narrative with truth. There are truth and lies inside and outside the window. It's a beautiful technicolor world out there...follow the truth wherever it leads...the window is just an illusion keeping your mind from being free...get out and explore.
It should be obvious that there is a much bigger game afoot and that the Covid scamdemic is a "deep event". Stay vigilant...there are big global political and economic changes rapidly evolving...that's the real show. We are surely living in interesting times. We've all been duped in so many ways...take a knee and mourn your ego death for a minute and then pick yourself up and enjoy the show...the real show...not the plastic Truman Show we were all previously living in.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/umQfFungwPii/ (Awake when so many are not)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fb72ST7P03I (George Gammon and Whitney Webb)
I like the idea of industriousness, figuring things out with the goal of empowering oneself and others, but I don't care much for ego stroking ambition, especially if it results in disempowering others.
"Free people answer to their senses, to their consciousness, to their relationship with the natural surroundings and mysteries of the universe, and to the people they choose to love. Slaves answer to entities that don’t love them or care about them. Free people live their lives as art. Slaves react, react, react."

",,,all roads lead to Rome. Just a matter of if we take the direct route or the scenic route...the focus on narrative over reality is now widespread in every sector...You are promoted if you are a team player, and you are a team player if you support the narrative...If we are strong, responsible, with resiliency built into our lives, we have control. If we don’t, a bureaucrat has control. Terrible place to be."

The world runs on energy, materials, food, water, population control via bio\tech\media\religion\politics, and the currency exchanged for them. The apex predators who run or desire to run the world control these things...and they are not benevolent...we are irrelevant other than a currency of exchange. Anyone or any organization desiring the support of the apex predator cartel network must serve the cartel...and they do...look at the scale and speed of global ESG\Covid transformations. People may start out naive and benevolent but once they realize the immensity of the power they are up against, most of any status choose to compromise themselves and share in the ill-gotten spoils rather than exit the system and live simply. The cartel network self-selects and promotes for sociopathy and compliance...and harnesses the benevolent well-meaning energy of so many blind to reality. Things are the way they are because those in control want it that way. We will never be able to independently develop or even know of things that could empower the general population...the apex predators control our reality for their benefit...endlessly projecting shadows on the cave wall of what we mistake for reality.

The movie “There Will Be Blood” is such a great allegory for humanity. There's an exploitive oilman promising worldly comforts and an exploitive spiritual leader promising eternal comforts. Both understand the real game of wealth and power and all the lies, but also recognize each other as the only worthy players amongst the masses and, thus, they are bitter rivals. For the masses the correct answer is and will always be to look inward rather than follow, but humans just can’t seem to learn that lesson and probably never will. Desire feeds power and power attracts exploitive predatory deceitful monsters. The masses underestimate the depravity...the difference in ability and motivation to manipulate is like the difference in ability and motivation of the weekend hobbyist versus a world class chess master, musician, or athlete...like taking candy from a baby. It's all a web of lies. With power there's always a smiley faced "clean" side and a ruthless dirty side...always...don't be fooled. Trust nothing and empower yourself. Trust is everything, and thus, the first thing co-opted by power. Be thankful when you see a wolf because you know what a wolf is. The worst and most successful wolves look like sheep. Individual to individual seems fine, but trust should decrease proportionally to power and the number of individuals involved. You can pretty much guarantee that anything organized and opposed to power is already co-opted and marginalized...don't trust it. Live your life and ignore it as best you can, but never forget that it is organized crime and blood money so flying flags, wearing logo's, and generally taking pride in the situation seems inhumane...humility seems more appropriate. Cut yourself some slack though, as long as you acknowledge the depravity and you're not scrambling to indulge all the impulses being triggered and equating worth with ability to satisfy the impulses, then you're ok. Simply step away and off the hedonic treadmill. We were all dropped down into this Faustian system,  detached from any direct connection to the earth, consequence, etc...we're allowed some slack. Branding\Virtue-Lifestyle signaling obscure direct connection and reality. It's hard these days to discern if you really like something directly or if you like the idea of liking something...or worst of all: you like the idea of others liking that you like the idea of liking something. Try to keep reality and direct connection in the forefront...do vs watch, create vs adorn, etc. Some of it is true...enough for you to keep playing...the best propaganda always is...and you may even benefit some for a time, but only as a side effect or a means to an end...it's never about you or for you. It's always wealth and power consolidation and control...everything else is propaganda. Wealth and power only respect wealth and power...anything else is just livestock...or less...since livestock implies value. It's never about morals, ethics, democracy, freedom, our way of life, rule of law, humanitarianism, etc...ever...stop falling for it. Stop being gullible, stop being afraid, and stop being a slut with your loyalty and allegiances. Be your own "team", control your own narrative, and carry on benevolently. Control the narrative and control the world...cui bono (who benefits)? 
"...he says we are trained to be slaves from infancy - servitude is basically a habit with us. He points out that most people have no idea what freedom even feels like, so we don't miss it."
"Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces.

We've all heard the news: "....a person was found dead overnight...". We sit up and focus our attention...and then hear "....on the southside of blah blah blah city". Then we're relieved and think to ourselves, "Oh...thank goodness...I thought they were talking about real people that matter...you know...people like me". To the people that run the world...we are all just people on the southside of blah blah blah city who don't matter. Now you get the picture and understand just how important and impactful you really are to the real owners. Now you know why they might run some planes into buildings, lie about "our enemies", drop atomic bombs on or poison, starve, or economically ruin innocent people...because to them the world is full of people on the southside of blah blah blah city who don't really matter...livestock...actually probably less than livestock since livestock implies value to the "owners". Fine with me and good to know. Now I know why things weren't making sense and that I can ignore them...it's not depressing in the least, rather so cathartic and freeing...fuck them. I hear REM in my mind: "It's the end of the world as we know it...and I feel fine." Right? Fuck them.
It's on us that we "freedom loving patriots" allowed ourselves to become "the dumb giant" (according to Winston Churchill) for the global capital "high cabal" and carry out the undermining and probable extinction of sovereignty around the world. Those who support Empire should at least own it and start wearing British (Perfidious Albion) wigs or Darth Vader masks. Most people think our lifestyle justifies the actions of Empire and don't realize our lifestyle is a debt based illusion diabolically maintained only for the purpose of manufacturing consent for Empire and its small owner cabal.
Our world is built on Faustian bargains. We are surely comfortable so it follows that we have bargained away a good portion of our soul in return. At what point will we wean ourselves of such "bargains".
The apex predators of wealth and power are insatiable. We have always been livestock and "useless eaters" to them. Eugenics was all the rage in the early 20th century enamored with efficiency in all aspects of life. It was openly espoused by wealth and power and embraced by the commons who trusted the wealth and power that brought about the new age. To the dismay of the elite, the implications of Eugenics were recognized by the non-sociopathic\non-psychopathic (Nazis didn't help) and Eugenics was forced into the shadows...but it did not go away. Modern advances have always been funded by wealth and power to provide cover for their ultimate goal of power and control over the livestock and useless eaters who consume and defile the planet's finite resources.
Watch military's Giordano's talk at Livermore Labs in 2017
Interesting foreshadowing by Terence McKenna in this late 90's interview...says increasing complexification, novelty, and transcendence is the point. Our biological forms are but a transitory stage being used, whether we like it or not, as we progress and evolve into a transhumanist future.
I find the current state of affairs fascinating...as in the ancient saying "may you live in interesting times.". I'm just glad somebody finally changed the channel from ESPN\HGTV\Hallmark to History...I was about to put a fork in my eye...now I'm enjoying the show.

I agree with Superman's mom...I don't think the bulk of humanity is worth saving...just another dead end evolutionary culdesac. I imagine myself sitting among the most corrupt evil elite in the Roman Coliseum during the height of bread and circuses as we intellectually bond and disdainfully mock the exploited masses and all the try hard's lapping up the sensory buffet...but although I find the puppet masters intellectually stimulating, I am disgusted by them as well so I go outside to hang with the remnant...the few humble truth-seeking Stoic\Spartan friends who also find the whole thing ridiculous. Ego is the downfall...the desire to matter and, especially, to be recognized...so easy to harness that eager energy for evil purposes...embrace small, distributed, and benevolent. Power requires compliance...compliant will turn on non-compliant. I will smile as the most braindead family, neighbor, friend comes for me...they are who I always knew them to be.  

"The war-fighting cartel is not unique. America is little more than a putrid porridge of politically powerful and politically sacrosanct cartels: Big Tech, Big Pharma, Big Ag, Big Banks, Higher Education, Sickcare, Bread and Circuses and so on. The only constants are infinite greed and near-infinite corruption and incompetence."

"The only entity that could possibly stop all this would be the U.S.-created European Union. Either they will turn against their creator, and join with Russia and China against U.S. and UK (which would put an end to the Rhodesist team’s insanity), or there will be World War III (though probably not in the near-term future), in which the U.S. regime will blitz-nuclear attack Russia, though that would destroy the planet."

Ellsberg described a vicious cycle, in which leaders lie pervasively, then learn to have so much contempt for the public that swallows those lies, that they feel justified in lying more. “My awareness of how easily Congress, the public, and journalists were fooled and misled contributed to a lack of respect for them,” he wrote. “That, in turn, made it easier to accept practices of deception,” and “their resulting ignorance made it all the more obvious that they must leave these problems to us.”
"...you get a darker view of American exceptionalism. It’s not just the wonderful good guys screwed up once in a while, which was one view of Vietnam. Maybe it’s systemic. Maybe this is what we are. Maybe we are the bullies, maybe we are the wasters. And it’s kind of a harsh message that, you know, most people, even people who consider themselves progressive, don’t really want to accept."
"...it’s really quite amazing, in a society that prides itself on individual integrity and freedom and accountability and democracy, that we have very few David Harrises. Very few Daniel Ellsbergs, very few Edward Snowdens."
"Ken Burns...managed to pretty much ignore that central fact, that it was the uprising of citizens that made this war impossible to continue. And that involved millions of people."
"When Geis protested that the Liberty was under attack and needed help, Hart said, McNamara retorted that “President [Lyndon] Johnson is not going to go to war or embarrass an American ally over a few sailors.” The Day Israel Attacked the USS Liberty. Hmmm...still on the fence about Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, Gulf of Tonkin, 9/11, ...or just how evil our owners and leaders are...even to our own...Pat Tillman anyone? Livestock...or less.
It’s beyond me why people have a hard time distrusting everything…especially everything with power. Most distrust a long list of things…but balk when you try to get them to keep going. They just can’t make the jump to distrusting everything. Seems the most logical natural obvious position based on the overwhelming evidence. Trust is everything...and, thus, the first thing co-opted by power. If you can get someone to see the obvious then they lash out and say “Fine, but what can I do about it?” Then when you say “Nothing…other than to mock it to expose the absurdity and to stop believing it and then maybe if enough do the same it will crumble and be replaced”. They can’t even do that…can’t even just change their perspective and carry on benevolently…so strange. I can distrust government, news, sports and entertainment, experts, religious leaders, employers, financial\education\sickcare systems, NGO's, non-profits, foundations, charities, etc…and carry on just fine.
If you compare the eyes of who TPTB tell us is good, Jack Bogle, and who they say is bad, Osama Bin Laden...it seems OBL's eyes are much kinder and gentler. Me thinks we've been hoodwinked. I've seen it written that Black Rock is really just the old East India Company and Vanguard is the old Hudson Bay Company.
"It strikes him as obviously implausible that such an institution has any staying power. It can be overthrown in an instant if people withdraw their consent. He then investigates the mystery as to why people do not withdraw, given what is obvious to him that everyone would be better off without the state. This sends him on a speculative journey to investigate the power of propaganda, fear, and ideology in causing people to acquiesce in their own subjection."

The most atrocious things have happened when people have acted in unison. Acting in unison can certainly be for the good sometimes, but it is too often harnessed for bad. Be skeptical and vigilant of large groups acting in unison. It gives me the heebee geebies to see large groups acting in unison like reciting an oath, prayer, or pledge. It seems better to be loosely and only transitorily associated in numbers and then to quickly dissolve and disperse with the wind. Ignore the shiny, the entertaining, the scary, etc...just look away...pay no attention...be unherdable. "Apply YOUR Rules when playing THEIR game... we are still in charge of our unpredictable behaviour! They are after predictability after all."
"The very nature of international, economic, civil-state, and even human-to-human relations is transforming at a record pace, with folks either choosing to remain asleep like the "deep state" wants or wake up and peacefully try to stop them if it's even at all still possible to do so."

Be prepared. Everything is about data and blurring the biological and virtual worlds. To those who run the world, let's call them The House, the resources in the biological world are finite and the "useless eaters" are defiling and depleting them rapidly, but in the virtual world there are infinite growth possibilities and opportunity to exploit the "useless eaters". The House have declared the carrying capacity of the planet to be around 1 billion "useless eaters". The House doesn't care which game in the casino you play...just that you play...because when you play...they win. Everything must be tagged and measured. Your outcomes are irrelevant to The House. What is relevant is that you play. It's pointless to reason with The House on outcomes, ethics, morality, etc...they don't care...just play. There are huge investments in the good guy illusions in order to get you to play...all the terms and ideas have been co-opted: health, social impact, diversity, poverty, climate, education, pay for performance, opportunity zones, etc.. They will tool it, gamify it, measure it, report on it, fix it, etc...and, more importantly, financialize and securitize it all. It doesn't matter if self driving cars work or not or any of the other Jetsons\Star Trek illusions. This is the most diabolical bait and switch in history...all those futuristic illusions are to distract from the dystopian control infrastructure being built. We built our own cages...diabolically brilliant really. The House strokes the egos and desires of the brightest and most ambitious with research grants, important sounding positions, etc. and voila...complete control of the dirty masses. The control infrastructure is what matters to The House. There is a spectrum where people realize the Faustian bargains are no longer worth it...many are waking up and seeing through the games and jumping off the train with some dignity still intact. What are you still trusting...and why? Individual to individual trust seems fine, but trust should decrease proportionally to the number of individuals involved and, especially, power.
A new world is emerging and a new economic system is being birthed. Nobody knows when the music will stop, the latest unsustainable long term debt cycle will bust, and the current economic system will die...but it will. When it does...resource usage will be restricted. A new Social Impact Digital Twining economy will replace the current real world consumption economy...the soft consumers in the developed world used to satiating every impulsive desire will be in for a shock. 1. Travel restrictions via Common Pass (covid psyop) 2. Central Bank Digital Currencies tied to big data and behavioral psychology 3. New financial system based on Social Impact Investment, rather than consumption, with real world and digital twin worlds blurring into an IoBNT, Human+ Transhumanist future with geofencing travel restrictions, granular individualized blurred real\digital world "privileges" (not rights).  
https://twitter.com/Philly852/with_replies (Alison McDowell has a real gift...she rocks)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gru6HHO8pY (Don't be fooled...we are the bad guys)

The worst things always come wrapped in the disguise of benevolence. It's a trick as old as time and a favorite of Machiavellian power...and people keep falling for it...power doesn't yield...the same small cabal has been running the world for centuries.
https://cynthiachung.substack.com/p/who-really-runs-the-middle-east
https://siliconicarus.org/2021/08/22/the-devils-currency-pt1-open/

"Don Ho used to say: "The missionaries came, and said 'put your hands together and look to heaven,' and when we looked down, the land was gone." It's like that."

I see the inability of so many to follow nuanced truth seeking to any detail, thus all the shallow binary thinking. Its heaven or hell and nothing else. The powers that be exploit this weakness. The world is infinitely nuanced. If we honor truth\honesty then we can explore the nuances and solve many problems constructively from many sides. However, honest problem solving is like peeling an onion...it takes time and probing to reveal honest constructive solutions. It turns out people don’t really prioritize truth\honesty. Their ego lashes out at the dissonance as they cling to their internal and external attachments at the expense of truth. They want nothing more than to “make it stop” and retreat to the safety of their illusions\delusions. We end up in a world full of manipulation, coercion, and battles of will.
"...a Yellow orientated lifestyle is much more free than a lifestyle in any of the other value systems. Yellow oriented people seemed to move and express themselves completely free and independent of their life environment...they were not afraid anymore to be rejected and they didn’t fear other people’s or God’s judgment. They didn’t show the need to make an impression on others...and they didn’t have the need to belong to something...these were people without irrational fears, compulsive needs and compulsive behaviors...Yellow oriented people are very much involved and show a lot of compassion. The biggest difference with people from other value systems is that their life environment is not fearfully or compulsively leading them."

The enemies of truth are both those who hide it and those who hide from it. The enemies of freedom are both those who impose their will and those who expect, allow, or even welcome the imposition. Sociopaths and syncophants...they need each other. "Nothing [is] more surprizing ... than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers."-David Hume

If you're not getting your news from sites like on the right side of the Swiss Policy Research media navigator below then you're being propagandized and misinformed. "Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed; everything else is public relations.". The US is the most sophisticatedly propagandized nation in the world. We are shown kayfabe with policies carefully curated to trigger us and keep us divided within a tightly controlled overton window while the owners play the real game of wealth and power consolidation. We assume our media inform us of everything important. They don't...because they don't work for us...they work for the owners. The public is not allowed to weigh in on anything to do with wealth and power consolidation, especially foreign policy. Media manufacture our consent with lies, distractions, and good guy narratives so that we support or, at least, don't impede the efforts of the owners and often those efforts have horrific consequences.      
https://youtu.be/34LGPIXvU5M (Manufacturing Consent)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bfu_RIdGT2A (It's All Propaganda...Turn It Off)
https://youtu.be/j8ckm5Dpeio (Confessions of an Economic Hitman)
The public get a disconnected controller to distract them 

After going down the rabbit hole and trying to figure out how the world works and how we got here, I came away with a few main observations:
"But a more reasonable explanation is that, (A) we don't even know we are doing it, and (B) we cling to institutions dedicated to making sure we never find out."
"Meanwhile, here we are, American riders on the short bus, barreling into the Grand Canyon. With typical American gunpoint optimism, we've convinced ourselves we're in an airplane. A few smarter kids in the back whisper about hijacking and turning the bus around."
"Exactly zero percent of the world’s worst criminals are in prison. Imperialists. War profiteers. Ecocide profiteers. The very worst of thieves are financial elites. The system isn’t designed to protect us from society’s worst, it’s designed to protect society’s worst from us."
Like many, I was hopeful with the Obama presidency. Knowing what I know now, I realize just how humorously pathetic and naïve we are of the real power and just how deep and pervasive it is and how long it has been entrenched...and how culpable we are because we have been warned so many times. The real owners are Global Capital and are not going anywhere. We are their dumb giant and carry out their will. The best we can do is try to pay attention so that we can try to distill the underlying motivations and personally avoid the worst side effects...and ignore what the owners are peddling. Offer only skepticism and contempt for the system until it is worthy. "...see the oligarchic empire with fresh eyes. How ugly it is. How horrifying it is. How psychopathic it is." Nothing less than millions of people showing up in person and not budging until there is something like a new constitutional convention will change anything. People are way too comfortable right now...they won't push away from the punch bowl on their own...things have to collapse to get their attention.
"Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness – and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe.”

My understanding of the world:
1) Return on capital\power and control (the house must always win) is what motivates the world shapers
2) It's all organized crime. Some of us work on the cleaner side of the house, but it's all pretty much dirty now.
3) Global senior capital control most\all sovereigns from the shadows (The French Revolution revealed the odds of keeping your head attached to your neck are better if you stay hidden from public view)
4) Global senior capital is old, old, old, money (royal and aristocratic families, their merchant bankers, The Vatican, etc). Bloodlines matter. It's not just by chance that some very influential families and institutions have been around for 500-1000 plus years.. surviving political systems, wars, etc. There's almost certainly some sort of need to know hierarchy, but the power is wielded through alignment of incentives...everything else follows. The titled\entitled power of history don't just go away...they still run the world.
5) Organized crime includes a mixture of benevolent partnerships and required partnerships. Ultimate power and control is non-negotiable. There is no "free market may the best man win" ruleset. Real power knows honest competition is for the chump masses. It's ruthless. All wars are their wars not ours.

6) The China\Russia\Iran\Venezuela etc saber rattling is about enforcing the terms of a "required" partnership. The terms are being worked out and will probably result in diabolical collateral damage for us all.
7) There is no limit to their enforcement measures: financial, atomic, chemical, biological, psychological, etc.
8) They are master manipulators. They will use anything to trigger us to act on their behalf: patriotic and religious symbolism, false flag attacks they perpetrate, "we were attacked" accusations, communism\socialism\terrorism scare tactics, etc. They use it...because it works. Fear and desire...rinse and repeat.
9) Ideologies, politics, religion, etc are illusions to manipulate the masses. It's a zero sum game to the real players.
10) Liberals and Conservatives are just good cop bad cop roles...they both answer to senior global capital
11) The illusions are wearing off, there are systemic cracks, and the rulers are battling for position. They are not a monolith and their world is full of palace intrigue, shifting alliances, and deceit. Who are the main rulers and their fronts (sovereign, political, corporate, etc))? Maybe disagreement on US-centric Empire (Anglo\Zionist zealots and other status quo beneficiaries like big oil) vs Globalist Empire (The real power: multipolar capital desiring best returns and control over rising instability (e.g. financial, climate, demographics, depleting resources))? Maybe new kid Tech\Data\Behavioral\DeFi fighting\merging with old guard Finance. It seems like all the distractions, empty rhetoric, and general incompetence is by design whenever ownership is downsizing\liquidating...fascinating.
12) Militarily enforced world reserve currency (petro dollar) and world stores of trade surplus\value (US treasuries and other financial instruments) manipulations are adding to rising instability and loss of trust around the world. New store of value\trade settlement being worked out...gold\multinational\crypto? combination.
13) UBI like stipends are coming to the unwashed...probably digital, but it's not a precursor to a benevolent Star Trek like utopian future...it will be to try and keep the house of cards ponzi debt pyramid from collapsing. Authoritarian control will tighten. The super wealthy will be pulling hardest on the levers of shared sacrifice...consolidating wealth and power...while safely protected in their offshore tax shelters, etc., framing the merely wealthy et al to take the brunt of the hit. Thanks for playing.
There's always been battles at the top between global elite finance\property\bloodline capital and industrious builder "do-er" capital. They often work together but sometimes battle because, in the end, bloodline finance capital are at the top. They manipulate, lie, and won't let anyone else in their club, which annoys the "do-er" capitalists since they're doing the inventing and building. The solution for bloodline finance capital is to have the "do-er" capitalists fight each other, fund both sides, and then reset the game. Many libertarians are "do-er" capitalists, ala John Galt in Atlas Shrugged. Many, especially tech types, are optimists and envision a Star Trek future. They talk of disruptive technologies to empower people and use terms like honesty and transparency and human potential, but other libertarians are pessimist elitists and are all about the "freedom" to protect themselves from the mob of humanity and are not too interested in things like integrity and stewardship. It seems the technologies developed by the optimist builders always end up being controlled by those at the top to consolidate wealth and power. The libertarians are not winning elections, but they are winning from the shadows. However, it's not the benevolent libertarians...it's the other ones.     
Insatiable expansionary capitalists have an unspoken agreement with the American public: allow us to expand our wealth and power consolidation without questioning how or why and, in return, we will erect a sophisticated fictional good guy narrative, a sort of religion, so that you can participate in some of the spoils with a clean enough conscience to ensure the perpetuation of the game. The how and why should matter, but don't.
US bankrupted itself on Vietnam and then worked with Global Capital to reset the economy without the gold standard limitations. Global Capital developed the US-smiley-faced-outlaw-empire and expanded wealth and power exponentially using massive debt sterilized by export surplus nations, especially Saudi Arabia, Japan, and later China. That game has been winding down since 2014 and is now over...China\Russia have made it clear that they prefer not to be assimilated. The current chaos is the result. The wealth effect is mostly a debt based illusion. Now the Fed is forced to buy huge amounts of US Treasury debt required by expansionary assimilation. However, Global Capital, who own all central banks including our Fed, are mostly only interested in brokering debt and not owning debt, especially low yielding\non-performing debt. Big boy poker game going on now between Big Daddy Global Capital fronted by US-smiley-faced-outlaw-empire and China\Russia led non-assimilated capital. The real game is always between capital holders and we, the people, are just pawns.
"The World Economic Forum started in 1971. It developed a Young People Training programme (Puppets). First graduates were Merkel & Gates Macon, Kurz (Austria), Trudeau (Canada), Ardern (NZ), and many more."
At the movies we root for Luke. In real life we fight for Vader. War is the worst thing humans do to each other. The US is an organized crime war\intimidation\extortion machine and has been in almost continuous conflict since its inception. Much effort goes into obfuscating facts and glorifying intentions.
"Anyone with a brain can see that there is no real threat to the United States from outside US borders...The US government is the one threatening nations with obliteration if they do not obey its dictates, not the other way around. Nobody is threatening America...the real threat to America comes from oligarchs, imperialists and war profiteers who see the US government and its historically unprecedented military force as a tool for expanding power and wealth no matter what the human cost might be."
Gain Of Function Hall of Shame
"The empire’s need to control the world’s affairs is like a macrocosm of the human ego, which also exists out of a fear that something bad will happen if I can’t remain in control of it all. But the world is forever out of control, and attempts to reign it in can only lead to disorder and suffering. Our species will not survive if we cannot collectively learn to relinquish the impulse to control, both within and without, and let life dance to its own beat on this beautiful blue world."

"And so it's one monolithic faction that tells the government what it's going to do. And the military basically works for that faction now. Whatever the imperative is, whichever foreign country we want to tackle in order to take their resources, that's what they figure out — how to come up with a strategy to sell the American people on why the military needs to go conquer that country. The ideology is just global control — it's this quest for power, it's pure narcissism, it's the most destructive form of pathology that humans have. It's narcissism, a need to dominate and control and have power over everything else."
The only people that should even be allowed to okay the existence of our Imperial Military are those who have been direct witness to the starving, maiming, and killing of conflict...anyone else can shut the fuck up...even those who have otherwise served...and especially those who haven't served and sip their latte's in their comfortable protected lives and say things like "thank you for your service". "But, what if I don't want to get maimed or killed or do that to anyone else?" "Well, that 's just what you have to do...for me to continue sipping latte's and watching football games...now don't make me get mad at you...you get on out there and fight fight fight for the home team. I promise to thank you for your service if you return...I mean...when you return." The norm should be the celebration and support of constant dissenting views in order to keep ourselves honest and make sure we are doing the right thing with such overwhelming power. Something's wrong when dissention and power aren't increasing and decreasing together. 
It’s so evil. Take young people filled with energy and desire to be part of something that matters (beyond working in fulfillment or delivery) and then marginalize them and cut off avenues at home so you can trick them into doing your bidding...stealing, killing, and undermining rivals and potential rivals (which is pretty much everyone but a small cadre)...with lies and deceitful propaganda including promises of free training and education which they purposely deny at home in order to create the desperation. We are not the good guys and the world would love for us to take the boot off their throats (1000 bases in 175 countries, massive extortive dirty financial network, etc). Imagine what we could do with all the resources, energy, and desire deployed in a collaborative constructive way.

The apex predators who run the world compete in a dog eat dog diabolical power struggle rather than the peace loving collaborative way they promote in the propaganda we are fed. To the apex predators in the developed world (global north), the rest of the world (global south) is sitting on top of OUR (the developed world's) resources. The global north has sabotaged development in the rest of the world in order to benefit the developed world. Now, the people in the developed world are finding out what the rest of the world has experienced...as the resources are being depleted faster and faster, the apex predators are now recognizing people in the developed world as "useless eaters" consuming the elite's diminishing resources. The developed world's leaders have known for a long time that the planet cannot sustain a global population with high living standards and they have actively undermined the rest of the world accordingly. Now, they are coming for the "useless eaters" in the developed world. The living standard in the developed world must fall.
Honest dissent promotes integrity. It seems worthy to be extremely discerning, some would say stingy, with loyalty and pride. Lady Truth is worthy and always the beacon.
I'm not un-patriotic. On the contrary, there are many true patriots like me who aren't fooled by the Elitist Empire-Loving Oligarchic Kleptocratic Psychopathic-Sociopathic swill who have been running this American Soap Opera. They fly jets over the games and swindle us with their patriotic symbolism, all the while using their corrupt money system to undermine everything truly Bill of Rights "American". They divide and weaponize the American public just like they actively undermine cooperation and sovereignty around the world instead of working collaboratively and celebrating and taking a humble place amongst all the proud rich diverse cultures. They're snakes. They lie, lie, lie and then hide like the swine they are behind all the good guy narratives and "we were attacked" false flags...don't support them. Don't let fear and ego pull your strings...the urge to control is the manifestation of fear and ego.
"The USA treats business as war, while treating war as business." "The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag." Gen Smedley Butler in "War Is A Racket"
"The US empire is the creepiest thing in the world. This smiley faced serial killer monologuing about freedom and democracy and churning out movies about how fun and happy it is while butchering human beings all around the world. The more you think about it the creepier it gets."

"Coffee, sugar, rum, opium, tea, tobacco, and so on. Many dirty wars have been fought over who got to grow them for profit and who did not. Nothing is too dirty, no disease too dangerous to spread around. And the US military has largely been involved in that too, you want to know why they are such assholes now, they always have been, just like now."

Sovereignty...here...and around the world.
Only about 5-10% supported the Patriots and the Patriots got Shay's Rebellion in thanks. The masses are non-player characters...they will always choose the status quo...to play it safe...don't look to them as a reliable indicator of much of anything.
"I too would question how “peace loving” Americans were, but would definitely describe them as gullible. Sane people simply can’t comprehend how truly evil psychopaths really are, which makes them easy marks."
"...Kissinger’s takeover of the State Department ushered in a new era of British occupation of American foreign policy, whereby the republic increasingly became the “Dumb Giant” acting as “American Brawn for the British brains” using Churchill’s words."
"Hmm… America Keeps Getting Attacked By Nations It Hates In Ways Only The CIA Can See. I'd like to tell you a folktale. It's called "The Emperor's New 9/11. Don't be a sucker. Be the child at the Emperor's parade."
"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

"At the time of Kissinger’s ascent to power as Secretary of State under Nixon, a new grand strategy was unleashed designed to create a new “master-slave” dependency between the developed and undeveloped sectors of the world."

Most of us live in our insulated lives and have such a vague understanding of the world, but once you pause, look a little closer, and the picture pops into perfect focus, you realize just how gullible you've been. The truth was always there...staring us in the face: Wealth and power respect wealth and power...everything else is livestock. There is nothing they will not do to manage the livestock...wars, atomic, biological, and chemical weapons, constant undermining of cooperation, and so many lies...so of course they wouldn't care even the slightest about running some planes into some buildings in order to accomplish bigger strategic goals. It's just so obvious now.

"Welcome to the Orwellian world of America … where the same American Empire that bombs, invades, sanctions, regime changes, encircles, or colonizes multiple nations around the world whines like a triggered little snowflake that poor innocent war criminal America is being threatened."

"...America still believes, we must kill them over there so they don't kill us over here. That justifies everything forever."

"The US government simply is not what Americans were taught it is in school, and it is not what they tell you it is in the news. It’s a mostly unelected power establishment which operates in the interests of imperialist expansionism and oligarchic control."

“The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.”― Frank Zappa
The illusions are wearing off. That's good....and bad. There will be less carrots and more sticks. You didn't think it would be easy? Silly rabbit. The system cannot be fixed from within. It's crumbling of its own accord, but the waking masses may speed up the process. The enemy isn't all the various projections of "bad"....it's power. The antidote, not utopia or even close, is decentralization\distribution of power and systems that keep it dissipated.

It feels like a hard fork is coming...where people will have to choose to continue along the Faustian bargain path or attempt to disentangle themselves from the bargain. Power doesn't usually let you just opt out. Be kind to each other...it could get messy.

"However, just as the Russian people had to stop kidding themselves with silly dreams about “democracy” and had to tackle the real problems of Russia, so will the people of the USA have to find the courage to deal with their real problems, frontally and deliberately."
You are being played...we all are...acknowledge it...and then try to be as honest as you can with yourself and others. "Propaganda is the single most overlooked and under-appreciated aspect of our society. Respect the fact that the science of modern propaganda has been in research and development for over a century"...question everything.
https://youtu.be/p8ERfxWouXs (Ruled From The Shadows)