“When Fascism came into power, most people were unprepared, both theoretically and practically. They were unable to believe that man could exhibit such propensities for evil, such lust for power, such disregard for the rights of the weak, or such yearning for submission. Only a few had been aware of the rumbling of the volcano preceding the outbreak.”
Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom
“Truth and love will overcome lies and hatred. The dormant goodwill in people needs to be stirred. People need to hear that it makes sense to behave decently or to help others, to place common interests above their own, to respect the elementary rules of human coexistence. They want to be told this publicly. They want to know that those ‘at the top’ are on their side. They want to feel recognized and cultivated. For goodwill to develop and have an impact it must hear this, so that the world does not ridicule it.”
Vaclav Havel, Summer Meditations
"Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction. Boredom is nothing but the experience of a paralysis of our productive powers. Exploitation and manipulation produce boredom and triviality; they cripple man, and all factors that make man into a psychic cripple turn him also into a sadist or a destroyer."
Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom
"Demagogy enters at the moment when, for want of a common denominator, the principle of equality degenerates into the principle of identity."
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Flight to Arras
"Let's be clear about this, the oligarchs are flush with victory, and feel that they are firmly in control, able to subvert and direct any popular movement to the support of their own fascist ends and unslakable will to power.
This is the contempt in which they hold the majority of American people and the political process: the common people are easily led fools, and everyone else who is smart enough to know better has their price. And they would beggar every middle class voter in the US before they will voluntarily give up one dime of their ill gotten gains.
But my model says that the oligarchs will continue to press their advantages, being flushed with victory, until they provoke a strong reaction that frightens everyone, like a wake up call, and the tide then turns to genuine reform."
Simon Johnson, The Quiet Coup
"Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege."
Thomas Clement Douglas
"And Peter understood that neither Nero, nor all his legions, could overcome the living truth— that they could not overwhelm it with tears or blood, and that now its victory was beginning. He understood with equal force why the Lord had turned him back on the road. That city of pride, of crime, of wickedness, and of a lust for power, was beginning to be His."
Henryk Sienkiewicz, Quo Vadis
The leadership of the world's democracies is fallen low.
And it may not have yet reached bottom.
"As Jesus drew near he saw the city, and wept over it saying, 'If only you knew the way for peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. For the days are coming when your enemies will raise a barrier, and encircle and hem you in on all sides. They will smash you to the ground, and crush your children within, and will not leave one stone upon another, because you did not recognize this moment of God's mercy.'”
The Dollar was slightly higher, gold and silver finished slightly lower.
The SP 500 made a gain, the NDX not so much.
The Fed will announce it's latest on Wednesday.
Have a pleasant evening.
