"Even if it were to explode into smithereens today, the fact would remain that it [NSDAP] recently won fifteen million voters. Its brutish, loud-mouthed and brainless behavior has acted not as a deterrent but rather as an attraction, and has generated unconditional and subservient followers."
Carl von Ossietzky, Die Weltbühne, January, 1933
"It is very odd that the unhappiness of the world is so often brought about by small men."
Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front, 1928
"I have tried to keep memory alive, that I have tried to fight those who would forget. Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices. We could not prevent their deaths the first time, but if we forget them they will be killed a second time. And this time, it will be our responsibility.
And that is why I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must – at that moment – become the center of the universe."
Elie Wiesel, Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech, 10 December 1986
"What theology, history and common sense have taught me is that the civilizations which allow the gap to widen between the ideal to which they claim and the realizations which they propose of it, these civilizations are dying of their hypocrisy.“
Henri-Irénée Marrou, France ma patrie, Le Monde, 5 avril 1956
"The Barbarian hopes — and that is the mark of him, that he can have his cake and eat it too. He will consume what civilization has slowly produced after generations of selection and effort, but he will not be at pains to replace such goods, nor indeed has he a comprehension of the virtue that has brought them into being. We sit by and watch the barbarian. We tolerate him in the long stretches of peace, we are not afraid. We are tickled by his irreverence; his comic inversion of our old certitudes and our fixed creed refreshes us; we laugh. But as we laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond, and on these faces there are no smiles."
Hillaire Belloc, This That and the Other, 1912
"Turning to them Jesus said, 'Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me. Weep instead for yourselves and your children.'"
Luke 23:28
"The days are coming when men will go mad, and when they meet a man who has kept his senses, will rise up against him, saying, 'You are mad, because you are not like us.' And I saw the snares that the enemy spreads out over the world and I said, groaning, 'What can get us through such snares?' And then I heard a voice saying to me — humility.”
Saint Anthony the Great, Abbot of Colzim Egypt, 251-356
Gold topped and closed above $4000 today.
This marks the consummation of a forecast about the global economy and the 'currency wars' in the resolution of Bretton Woods II that I had made in the late 1990s with gold at $300.
I am very grateful that I have been allowed to live long enough to see this all unfold.
Silver lagged a bit, being weighed down by the economy and the equities.
Stocks sagged but held a level. When they give way they could fall quite a bit, but we'll need to see some trigger event for that.
But is is coming, sooner or later. And it will be remarkable.
I haven't had a vacation in a very long time. As you know I have been posting pretty much every day since 2008, through thick and thin.
So I am going to take a little time off now. Unless some other forecast event in the markets comes to pass, I will probably see you again around Thanksgiving if God wills it.
I have an abiding concern that some truly unfortunate geopolitical event is going to take the markets down, and perhaps some people and significant organizations, even nations, down with them.
There have been a lot of very ugly things that we've seen over the past 70 years or so. The Vietnam war and the political assassinations and lies that paved the way for it were awful to live through. The Cold War was a little frightening for a child. The Civil Rights struggle was both thrilling and discouraging in its hope and brutality.
But the shameless rise of lawlessness and cruelty among our leaders, with their complicity in the horrific war crimes of proxy wars and the sadistic genocide in Gaza, has just about broken my heart.
So let's remember to pray, and heed the storm warnings as they develop, and be mindful of the wickedness of those who lie and deceive people in order to ensnare their souls.
And they are certainly out there and on the prowl, even now.
'What can get us through such snares?' And then I heard a voice saying to me — 'humility.'
See you then.
Have a pleasant evening.
"Fear not, little flock, for your Father delights to welcome you into His Kingdom." Luke 12:32
