"Everywhere and always demonic powers lurk in the dark, waiting for the moment when man is weak; when of his own volition he leaves his place in Creation, as founded for him by God in freedom; and when he yields to the forces of evil, he separates himself from the powers of a higher order; after voluntarily taking the first step, he is driven on and on to the next and to the next, at a furiously accelerating rate."
Die Weiße Rose, Fourth Leaflet, Munich, 1942
"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
"When you legitimize yourself entirely by inventing enemies, the truth ceases to matter, normal restraints of civilization and decency cease to matter, the checks and balances of normal politics cease to matter.
The dangers of fascist politics come from the particular way in which it dehumanizes segments of the population. It limits the capacity for empathy among other citizens, leading to the justification of inhumane treatment, from repression of freedom, mass imprisonment, and expulsion to, in extreme cases, mass extermination."
Jason Stanley, How Fascism Works
"In Spain, for the first time, I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie. I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed. I saw troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and traitors, and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as the heroes of imaginary victories, and I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that had never happened. I saw, in fact, history being written not in terms of what happened but of what ought to have happened according to various ‘party lines’."
George Orwell, Looking Back On the Spanish War and Other Essays
"The democracy gap in our politics and elections spells a deep sense of powerlessness by people who drop out, do not vote, or listlessly vote for the least worst every four years and then wonder why after every cycle the least worst gets worse. We’re told that we’re a polarized society, right? That’s the way the ruling classes have manipulated people for more than two thousand years: divide and rule."
Ralph Nader
"I know nothing that I may say can influence you. You have no souls to be influenced. You are spineless, flaccid things. You pompously call yourselves Republicans and Democrats. There are no Republicans nor Democrats in this House. You are lick-spittles and panderers, the creatures of the plutocracy.”
Jack London, The Iron Heel
Contemporary American finance, underpinned by the dollar, is a confidence game, a masterful combination of both fraud and force. As the fraud grows increasingly heavy-handed and its veneer of normality grown thin, force must inevitably increase, until all pretense of democracy and freedom and virtue are stripped away.
It is not a national policy or force, but rather the tool of a relatively narrow elite, which has been taking the best of the national wealth for their own for years.
Stocks rallied hard, for no particular reason, led by the overnight futures market.
It was risk on.
They hold most of those gains, giving up ground into the close.
The Fed will be announcing their latest rate decision this Wednesday.
Gold gained a bit, silver not so much.
The VIX fell.
There will be a Comex precious metal futures option expiration on Monday the 25th.
Biden has not done right by Julian Assange, among other moral outrages. How could he, being a charter member of the corporate Democrats led by the Clintons, with all that this implies.
Have a pleasant evening.
