"Empires in decline tend to behave badly. Indeed, whether British, French or Russian, the twilight years of imperialism often brought brutal repression of subjects abroad, the suppression of civil liberties at home and general varieties of brutality toward foreigners, be they refugees or migrants.
"Look to the Lord and Fear Not"
Aggressive wars abroad pollute the domestic political discourse and breed hypernationalism, racism and xenophobia. The 18 or so years of war following the 9/11 attacks have seen this ostensible republic sink to new lows of behavior.
Aggressive wars of choice have ushered in rampant torture, atrocities in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, indefinite detention at Guantanamo Bay, extraordinary rendition, drone assassinations, warrantless wiretapping, mass surveillance of the citizenry...
It’s all connected. The empire — all empires — eventually come home."
Maj. Danny Sjursen, An American Tragedy: Empire at Home and Abroad
"Should you know any one who has made you feel that there was a higher life than this daily one, and a brighter world than that you see; or encouraged you, or sobered you, or opened a way to the inquiring, or soothed the perplexed; if what he has said or done has ever made you feel well inclined towards him; remember such a one in time to come, though you hear him not, and pray for him, that in all things he may know God's will, and at all times he may be ready to fulfill it."
John Henry Newman, A Parting of Friends
'Optimism' sparked the equity markets today, and they ran to new highs.
VIX has dropped to the area where we might begin to take caution.
The US Dollar finished mostly unchanged.
Gold and silver advanced a little higher.
The large speculative gold interest is getting gut punched a bit ahead of the option expiration on the Comex.
It struck me today that, if in the unlikely and almost unthinkable event, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump could have a child, it could be Boris Johnson.
Love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.
Have a pleasant evening.
