“Thus, it should be understood that when pro-US figures use the term, 'rules-based international order,' they are not referring to anything analogous to the rule of law. Quite the opposite, they are using Orwellian language to describe a system in which essentially no rules can be established and/or observed, given that the dominant state has the prerogative to violate and/or rewrite “rules” at its whim.” Aaron Good, American Exception
Lead, kindly Light, amidst the grey and gloom
The night is long and I am far from home
Here in the dark, I do not ask to see
The path ahead— one step enough for me
Lead on, lead on, kindly Light.
I was not ever willing to be led
I could have stayed, but I ran instead
In spite of fear, I followed my pride
My eyes could see, but my heart was blind
Lead on, lead on, kindly Light.
And in the night, when i was afraid
Your feet beside my own on the way
Each stumbling step where other men have trod
Shortens the road leading home to my God,
Lead on, lead on,
My God, My God,
Lead on, lead on, kindly Light.
Audrey Assad, based on The Pillar of the Cloud by J. H. Newman
Stocks went sideways for the most part today, as risks in the world seemed to weigh on the markets.
Gold and silver caught a bid, with gold sticking a close over 1340.
The US has charged Iran with the attacks on the two Japanese tankser in the Strait of Hormuz, while the prime minister of Japan was meetin with them in Tehran. No evidence was provided.
"To the pure all things are pure, but to the corrupt and unbelieving nothing seems pure. Their very minds and consciences are corrupted. They profess to know God, but they deny him by their actions. They are disobedient and unfit for any good work."
Titus 1:15-16
"Money, again, has often been a cause of the delusion of the multitudes. Sober nations have all at once become desperate gamblers, and risked almost their existence upon the turn of a piece of paper."
Charles Mackay
“'The ambition of Caesar and of Napoleon pales before that which could not rest until it had seized the minds of men and controlled even their unborn thoughts,' said Mr. Wilde. 'You are speaking of the King in Yellow,' I groaned, with a shudder."
Robert W. Chambers, The King in Yellow
Stocks attempted to rally but failed, again, for the third day.
They must gather themselves together and go forward, or risk falling back to test the lows.
Gold and silver were up slightly, as was the Dollar.
The markets seem to be betting heavily on a Fed rate cut.
It will be interesting to see how they react if they do not get this, or assurances of a near term cut, next week at the FOMC meeting.
"The arrest of Julian [Assange] marks the official beginning of the corporate totalitarianism and constant state surveillance, now far advanced in China, that will soon define our lives. The destruction of all protection of the rule of law, which is what we are witnessing, is essential to establishing an authoritarian or totalitarian state.
There has been a coordinated smear campaign against Julian by our Thought Police, one that is amplified by the very media organizations that published WikiLeaks material. The campaign was detailed in a leaked Pentagon document prepared by the Cyber Counterintelligence Assessments Branch and dated March 8, 2008. The document called for eradicating the 'feeling of trust' that is WikiLeaks’ 'center of gravity' and destroying Julian’s reputation.
There is nothing like the boot of the oppressor on your neck to give you moral clarity."
Chris Hedges, The Thought Police Are Coming
"In the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, traitors, heady, high-minded having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.
This is the way in which he conceals from you the kind of work to which he is putting you; he promises you illumination, he offers you knowledge, science, philosophy, enlargement of mind. He scoffs at times gone by; he scoffs at every institution which reveres them.
He prompts you what to say, and then listens to you, and praises you, and encourages you. He bids you mount aloft. He shows you how to become as gods. Then he laughs and jokes with you, and gets intimate with you; he takes your hand, and gets his fingers between yours, and grasps them, and then you are his."
John Henry Newman, The Time of Antichrist
"The most important problem in the world today is your soul, for that is what the struggle is about."
Fulton J. Sheen
There are many things that one can worry about. There are many possessions people covet, associations and access that they treasure, and credentials that they flaunt and wear so proudly.
In the end there will be only one thing that really matters.
Stocks were attempting to rally from the early monrning hours today, and the spokesmodels had their pom poms out and were doing backflips.
But alas, it once again proved to be just another illusion of The Recovery™. But we do love our illusions.
This is the second rally attempt that failed badly into the close.
Gold and silver were hit early with silver maintaining its balance. Gold came back into the close.
The merry marketeers are hoping for a rate cut from the Fed next week. The first rate cut that we see may signal that the beginning of the end is at hand.
Need little, want less, love more. For those who abide in God abide in love, and love in them.
"Cult leaders [demagogues] arise from decayed communities and societies in which people have been shorn of political, social and economic power. The disempowered, infantilized by a world they cannot control, gravitate to cult leaders who appear omnipotent and promise a return to a mythical golden age.
The cult leaders vow to crush the forces, embodied in demonized groups and individuals, that are blamed for their misery. The more outrageous the cult leaders become, the more they flout law and social conventions, the more they gain in popularity.
Cult leaders are immune to the norms of established society. This is their appeal. Cult leaders demand a God-like power. Those who follow them grant them this power in the hope that the cult leaders will save them."
Chris Hedges, Cult of Trump
"Mounting a campaign against plutocracy makes as much sense to the typical Washington liberal as would circulating a petition against gravity. What our modernized liberal leaders offer is not confrontation but a kind of therapy for those flattened by the free-market hurricane: they counsel us to accept the inevitability of the situation."
Thomas Frank, Rendezvous With Oblivion
"We of the Republic sensed the truth that democratic government has innate capacity to protect its people against disasters once considered inevitable, to solve problems once considered unsolvable. We would not admit that we could not find a way to master economic epidemics just as, after centuries of fatalistic suffering, we had found a way to master epidemics of disease. We refused to leave the problems of our common welfare to be solved by the winds of chance and the hurricanes of disaster. In this we Americans were discovering no wholly new truth; we were writing a new chapter in our book of self-government.
Franklin Roosevelt, Second Inaugural Address
"The problem of the last three decades is not the 'vicissitudes of the marketplace,' but rather deliberate actions by the [corporatist] government to redistribute income from the rest of us to the one percent."
Dean Baker
The the public at large, and their leaders and the professional classes, have lost their sense of common purpose and mutual dependency. And sooner or later that is going to bring some serious consequences to bear.
Stocks popped on the phony trade tariff conflict with Mexico being created and then resolved by Trumpolini.
Alas, the sugar high of such antics did not last, and stocks gave up much of their gains from the open, but managed to hang on to the phony pop.
Gold and silver were hit hard, which was not entirely unexpected for the day after a Non-Farm Payrolls report and the recent run up to some very stiff resistance at $1340.
The Dollar was slightly higher against the DX index of currencies.
Tomorrow we will be getting the PPI inflation number, and CPI the day after. This will all be input to the FOMC meeting next week.
Let us pray for those whose hearts are hardened against His grace and loving kindness by greed, fear, and pride, and the seductive illusion and crushing isolation of evil.
We pray that we all may experience the three great gifts of our Lord's suffering and triumph: repentance, forgiveness, and thankfulness. And in so doing, may we obtain abundant life, and with it the peace that surpasses all understanding.
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