The Rise And Fall...why?

Is there some flaw in the basic makeup of man that will always doom us to climb just so high and then fall because we get weak or corrupt when our successes become to great? Empires rise and then fall. Over and over this has been the lot for people all over the world and all through time.

Have we gone too far to fast and now must pay for our prideful over successful civilization with an even greater fall. Unlike the falls in the past we face an almost bottomless pit. We can't take a step back. The people today don't understand the technology that they now use and have forgotten and lost the older technologies that we used for centuries.

When the machines fall idle how will we till the fields? The animals that were at the core of the past are mostly gone as are the people that know how to train then and harness them. We will fall back to the hand to mouth farming of human labor.

Why do we always have to repeat the same mistakes over and over. Will we never learn?

 

I agree that one person having a billion dollars is obscene. The sad fact is that several are either at or past the trillionaire mark. On the flip side of this though are the people that won't work. Refuse to take responsibility for their own and their children's care and health that just hold out their hands begging and breeding like rats. In the middle are the poor ignorant people that actually do all the work that supports the poor and enriches the rich. This is why over and over socialism keeps popping up. Like Democracy it SOUNDS good at first until you involve PEOPLE. Then like all other things that we have tried it goes to hell.

 

The human species is essentially flawed.

Speaking of Venezuela ...

"What Life Is Really Like For A Venezuelan Mom"

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-06-21/what-life-really-venezuelan-mom

 

A lot of civilizations have fallen but I fear that this fall will be farther than any ever before. There are actually several scenarios that all end the same way. The problem is that our energy distribution systems are antiquated and vulnerable to the point that they may just go down without any real catastrophic cause.

I wonder if the problem isn't in our genes. The human species killed all other hominid cousins. Think how many type of bears and cats there are and then realize that Homosapien is alone. Once we killed all our cousins we started killing ourselves. Over and over people travel thousands of miles to kill total strangers that did nothing to them...

 

Here in the USA, many states that have terrible winters see a lot of folk with electric generators. After hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, gangs stole lots of generators from folk living in rural areas. The people there are not armed or if they are, they do not have repeating arms. Bands of bandits beg for beau-coup buckets of bullets. Military rifles have historically had wooden hand guards to keep soldiers' hands from being burned by blazing barrels.

There's a lesson here.


You need a generator if you need electricity. However you'll not be keeping that generator if you can't hose down the area around your compound with a whole lotta lead. Same is true if people see your windmill or your solar panels. You're going to have to wound, kill, blind, maim bunches of mean people.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-puerto-rico-homicides-20180111-story.html

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/21/organised-gangs-behind-rural-crime-wave-drugs-theft

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...s-Dealers-focus-areas-believe-make-money.html

One winter, I put our generator between my house and the neighbor's house so that both of us could tap it. Some folk gotta keep insulin. Insulin can also be kept in a makeshift evaporator refrigerator.
https://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Pot-in-a-Pot-Refrigerator

 

After a couple of the hurricanes there were people here that were without power for as long as si weeks. For the first week or so almost nobody had power. No power means that in general gas pumps don't work. If a store got a generator they could pump gas but it didn't last long before they were out. The roads were a mess with cars everywhere out of gas or broke down. The other problem was that as the cars ran out of gas they blocked the gas stations and convenience store drives. In most cases the stores were cleaned out and closed because there was no way to get deliveries. In a few instances at stores that were locally owned they stayed open so people could use the bathrooms. In some cases refugees from the coastal areas lived in the parking lots for over a week. The interstate highway was a 6 lane hundred long mile parking lot with people living in their cars and under the overpass bridges.

I remember watching these poor people and realizing that as they just sat there waiting for someone to come and help them that in the sort of end of the world disaster that I can foresee they would all probably just sit there and die. What kind of idiot evacuates their home and hits the road with a quarter tank of gas, no water, just a diet drink or soda and a bag of chips for their kids. If it hadn't been for the local churches feeding people and the military going around passing out bottled water and MREs it would have been bad.

People in general seem to think that all that they have to do in an emergency is wait and someone will come tell them what to do and take care of them. I think that in a way it is actually that people now just don't KNOW how to take care of themselves. I know lots of people that totally live on prepared foods that are frozen or canned and take out from restaurants. They don't really know how to cook. They don't deal with any of the normal little life traumas like flat tires, little leaks or broken windows. They just call someone to fix it. They don't ever know enough to turn off the water when a pipe breaks.

I am a people watcher. I almost never see anyone in line at the grocery stores that are buying the sort of things that I am. I buy lots and lots of basically raw ingredients and fresh produce. I like frozen pizzas too but that is not all that I buy. We always have potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, salad greens and various melons and fruits on hand at home. We eat a lot of beans and peas and rice. We make soups, stews, casseroles and cook a lot of stuff from scratch. We were both raised by country people and actually eat a pretty simple diet and like that. We eat a lot of meat. LOL, most kids (people under the age of 30) these days don't even know how to open a can without an electric can opener. I was at a friends house and their can opener died while they were cooking. They did not have a way to open a can. I laughed and they watched amazed as I opened their cans for them with a P-38 military can opener that I carry on my keyring.

We as a people are so totally dependent on our THINGS that most people might as well be electrically powered. they will die almost as fast as their electic appliances when the power goes off.

 

The first three chapters of a Genesis describe it well. We are fallen, broken creations by choice and by nature

 

It really is astounding to hear people express the idea that the government will come and rescue everyone . I suppose they have always lived in a bubble where they have never experienced a grid down , thus food chain down , gas down situation that lasted for weeks . They just strike me to be living a fantasy . I am not a head shrink but I figure they really wouldn't be able to handle a permanent grid down situation so they are trying to convince themselves and anyone else they can that it will never be that bad . Then there is the I want to be a HERO and organize the community into a survivable group personality . Then sometimes you see both personalities in the same person " IT WILL NOT BE THAT BAD AND I will RISE FROM THE SH-- AS A HERO , mind set person .

 

Good morning TexDanm and all,

One of the best books I've ever read is Oswald Spengler's DECLINE OF THE WEST, pub. 1918 or 1919. He wrote it right after the Great War Part I. This book gives background - and the future - for the subject you introduced here.

Add TMT Tactical's illustration in re the gasoline rationing circa 1973 and it's understandable to some as to why much of east Asia has a rising standard of living and the US standard is declining.

Spengler does qualify as a sage. With 100 years to look at what he wrote about, major changes are occurring here as I type this.

 

Keith H.


While you are certainly entitled to your opinion....no problem with me on that ....

You do make some incredibly dumb posts.....depending on the ignorance and emotional instability and self justification of most human nature......not thinking....non thinking.. but instead emoting.

You are breaking no law here.


Observe.....

Tell me something here Keith....these wealthy...you are describing....what law are they breaking.....????

Laws in the books have citation numbers....please tell me what law these wealthy are breaking/violating..by citation number.???




Of recent I had a discussion with a LGBT woman who was trying to blame the problems here in America on

Rich heterosexual, white , males.

Now this woman had a Masters degree...and was no dummy....but had clearly succumbed to the very blame game so popular among so many today with primarily a television and movie education.


I caught her in the scam she was pulling by asking the same question I asked you....what is the citation covering the law or trespass she was attempting to describe ...as a moral violation....a broken law???

She went around several times before I brought her back several times and finally admitted that these people where breaking no codified law.


I also find it disgusting and an abomination ...that so many try to blame wealthy people for figuring out how to earn a lot of money.....

That these wealthy people should be supporting the non wealthy...and thus be subject to bondage or involuntary servitude to serve such an system wherein they take first place risks with their time and monies but come in second third and fourth place ...in the pecking order while others get goods and services for free.

That wealthy people should be guilt ridden and ashamed of their success..

There are people out here Keith who are so incredibly dumb...that they believe it is ok to make others into bondage and servitude to serve their politics of guilt and shame...redistributing someone else's wealth .....for votes..and power..
They really think it is justified to make some expendable and disposable for votes and power and think non one notices it is happening. That people are somehow guilty for making or creating wealth.

What is happening in many nations under such socialist claptrap..is that someone in such touchy feely governments are making the middle class ...expendable and disposable and hoping no one notices it is happening...long enough for them to be elected and re elected......before the next round of elections and the accompanying scams/giveaways/freebees for votes.

To me Keith ..you have bought into the very blame game and guilt programming as they are teaching and preaching in our public schools and colleges here in America....and on the left.

This LGBT woman was not accustomed to people being able to think their way around their programming....but only succumbing in shame and guilt.

She finally had to admit that no law was broken.

What she did not realize is that it was she who had morphed into a racist, a sexist, a homophobe...and was openly practicing the same.....including socialist claptrap of wealth redistribution....while not being able to cite what law had been broken.



You are good Keith..but you are not that good..

People who can and will think for themselves do not want to be "Herded" by either the left or the phony right....

They do not want to be "Herded" period...they will make up their own mind and in their own way and for their own reasons.



Oh......before I forget.....

It was about a week after this discussion with this pro LGBT woman...that I found this U Tube music video..out concerning the very topic I was discussing with her.

I had to consider whether she had been listening to and buying into the programming/brainwashing via such music videos...further entrenching the blame game into her devout and zealous religion.

https://www.breitbart.com/entertain...ng-rids-the-world-of-rich-white-straight-men/

This really is disgusting and hardly qualifies to me as music..but makes for great propaganda/politic/herding. And make no mistake...this pattern of operation is become a religion to some that they believe they can heap shame and guilt on others for success....while having no solutions themselves...only the blame game/guilt shaming.


My non Ishmaelite .02,
Watcherchris

 

Pragmatist,

WW1 and WW2 were manufactured wars....as was the Great Depression occurring between the wars. Korea and Vietnam too.

And so too was the 1973 gas rationing ...a manufactured crisis.

There were a lot of tankers here in this harbor and back then with heavy waterlines waiting to unload...going no where...anchored out....doing nothing for a long time.....manufactured.


And so too many of todays events ...manufactured on a global scale....

There are those of us who know some of the history behind groups like the Milner Round Table, The Crown, The Club of Rome....and numerous others scarcely mentioned in most of the MSM as well as public school books...even college courses.

Even the California Owl Grove...folks.


This world is not what it appears to be on the surface for which we are "allowed " to know....but never to be able to lift the rug and look underneath. This is forbidden to most.

People who tell or try to tell what is under the rug....are often persecuted or live short lives...

I believe Mr. Epstein is about to bear witness to this devout and religious dogma at work. And it "is" a devout and zealous religion....just not one with which most people would be familiar or have a clue.


My non Ishamelite .02,

Watcherchris

 

Thanks, I will have a look at this book. Here is a link to free downloadable versions in a variety of formats

https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.191128

 

Good morning Watcherchris,

You're using terminology too cloudy for a proper reply to you and other forum participants. Were the Napoleon wars "agricultural wars" ? Was the Peasants' Revolt, the largest European uprising until the French Revolution, spontaneous shop-keeper violence ? Luther initially supported this "uprising".

The Great Depression started well prior to the Great War's intermission. Just ask any Chinese or resident of the Wiemar Republic. I admit to not knowing what you are trying to present by mentioning Korea and Vietnam.

On this thread were cited the terms "shortage" and "rationing". Thus, here, too, I do not understand your point that the 1973 gas rationing was a "manufactured" crisis. I was in the oil industry at the time working between Indonesia and Brunei Borneo. The senior people I worked with did not call the 1973 US gas rationing a "manufactured crisis".

The commodities market said otherwise in re "a lot of tankers ... waiting to unload". If you are conversant in this subject and know about demurrage and lay time, you'd know that the cargo would have no value when factoring in the cost of the discharge wait.

Some know background history of groups. Some of us participate in groups. I once worked for the Political Department of a US oil company on Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C. and participated in 3 wars and 3 insurrections. Had also attended 2 staff colleges, had been a military and civilian reservist. I mention this because you present material above that is refuted.

"Been there; done that"

 

Treaties guaranteed in WW 1 that all the correct nations would get into it when the time came.

And this war was started by an Anarchist....of the Antifa type....in today's terms....with the assassination of the Archduke and his wife Sophie...and the treaties fell into line.

WW2 was the guarantee that Germany and even Japan would be starved for the resources and capital they needed to maintain their industry....same game going on today.

Germany was re industrialized with the help of Western Banks as well as western resources....Chilean Nitrate.....Occidental Petroleum...and other companies setting up shop in and for Germany. Yet none of these banks and industries were on trial at Nuremburg....they should have been.

Japan kept getting squeezed to the point that she could not support her industries and by Western banks and industries seeking to monopolize the resources as well as the trade routes...same as is going on today.

Japan got her know how from the West...as to how to build capital ships and submarines ...build airplanes etc etc etc.
We built our own enemy....and then fought them...and continue to do so today.....feed and arm our next enemy.

But she/Japan had to go outside her country to get the resources to feed her industries....and there was the rub....she became competition for and from other more influential nations.....particularly the Crown.....who were running the world drug trade....
When the Japanese moved into taking most of Asia they took over the world drug trade in that area...along with certain industries...oil refineries and rubber plantations etc etc...resources in China....et al.

These guys do not brook competition ....unauthorized competition in this club.

But they do get others to do the fighting for them...to protect their investments.


Only the United States can be continually this stupid so as to go to war over and over and over to protect someone else's profits...not American.......and survive.

This task would have broken most nations and their economies.

Americans can be some stupid stupid people about the status of events going on in this world.

We need to be dropping many of these nations off our breast with the next war..and make no mistake...another is coming...

For a long long time now ..we have not had a leader capable of keeping us out of the next war.

The victors are supposed to get the spoils as the olde cliché goes. Only Americans can be this stupid so as to forget this history ....or we have been stupid enough to fight for someone else's profits...someone not American.
We go to war...over and over and over and bring home no new spoils or territories...this tells you something is very very wrong with the set up.

Ishmaelites at work.........again...


Watcherchris
Not an Ishmaelite.

 

I am just a backwoods country guy . Not a multi country globe trotter . I am not directing this toward anyone so I hope no one feels personally attacked . But it seems to me Socialism and Prepping / surviving is like trying to mix oil and water . Their polar opposites . Trying to be self reliant and at the same time wanting the government to hand you free stuff seems to counteract with each other . I can understand someone finding themselves living in a socialist country through no fault of their own and wanting to be a prepper . To embrace socialism for their country and still want to be an independent and free prepper is just something I don't understand . I am sure someone can enlighten me of my ignorance .

 

Pragmatists,

Not at all Pragmatist....the Napoleanic wars was the Attempt by France to establish herself as a world empire in competition with England and the Crown...merchants ...on a world wide scale.

It became the same with the Germans....the same with the Japanese in the Orient...Asia for the Asiatics as the dogma took it's form.

Pan Germanism...on the part of the Kaiser..and also Adolph Hitler.

Most People have never heard of these dogmas of world power and control.


Angle Saxon Superiority and Rule of the World...one world ideology.

Pan Americanism.

Pan Germanism

Pan Asia or Asia for the Asiatics..

Pan Slavism..


The four lower ideologies have fallen by the wayside to the top one...one world ideology.

The French under Napolean became competitors to the Crown Merchants for world trade and conquest...for Empire..


The French Revolution and sometimes called "The First Scientific Revolution" is a scam...because it became a massive democide...death by ones own government and set the stage for up and coming revolutions ....particularly via the "Internationale" which became the communist party....

The proof is that under Communist governments they historically go quickly into Democide...death by democracy ...death for their own people ..wherever they take over. This history is often concealed from us in the west by our media..our leadership and also our public school systems. We are not to know this about the Internationale or the Communists as we are ever moved in this direction from Socialism to Communism..the ultimate Herding...absolute power...in the hands of men....godless men....

The liars and deceivers about so much are here in the west Pragmatist....here in the West...

The great depression ..was laid out before the great war.....in or about 1913 when two pieces of legislation were laid out onto the backs of the American People.

The 16th Amendment and the Federal Reserve act..to work in concert to fleece the American public.


The Federal Reserve act....began the road to irredeemable paper monies and phony copper nickel token coinage...massive credit issuance particularly to government against the governments collateral..the taxing power of government.

The Income Tax is the collateral the government has for it's ever increasing deficits/borrowing.. No one want to tell this truth to the American Public but that is what it is. It has become a huge huge scam...a shakedown....a pyramid scheme...for generations to come.

I suspect that Trump and Company may be a threat to this carefully laid out shakedown scheme by international finance who have owned our debt for many many years now.


As to the gas and oil.....the shortage was man made and man managed. Even this was further verified by a minister on the Alaska pipeline wherein different groups worked hard and steadfast to guarantee that Alaskan oil would not be coming to the United States so as to depress oil prices further. This oil wound up going to the orient wherein it could command a higher price and more profit.
The difficulties of bringing out the Alaskan Pipeline is a story mostly concealed from Americans.

I understood this when we went into Iraq and the Middle East for the second time...that the talk about Iraqi Oil coming to the United States would not be happening. Oil prices would not be allowed to drop....beyond a certain point here stateside.

After 9/11 and for a brief time ..oil prices dropped drastically but soon enough went back up....when the oversupply was used up.

What we have done in Iraq..is bring the country into 21st century standards at taxpayer expense in certain areas.....and then put the country into storage..most of the resources off the marketplace..or low key....just as we did in Vietnam.


There is too much oil on todays marketplace and a disaster for profits if allowed to run unchecked and in the wrong hands.
The key is keeping this surplus and potential in the correct managing hands and profits to the maximum..by careful control/reulation....in like manner to how diamonds are regulated. There is also no shortage of diamonds in the marketplace...but artificially kept in short supply...and prices up.

This.....

Not if your goal is to get the price up where someone wants it...manipulating supply and demand to move prices..even if it needs be done artificially...man made.

There have been oil shortages going back to WW1..and when the price got up sufficiently ..there was plenty of oil.

The problem today is still how to keep prices up and manage supplies.


It is the same Pragmatist with capital...how to manage the supply of capital..

But there s a huge fly in this ointment.....called Federal Deficits....Huge!!!

But that is another topic line

Watching the clock ..gotta run now.

Thanks,
Watcherchris

Not an Ishmaelite

 

Societies become successful which leads to a relaxing of work ethic and morality. The latter causes collapse and the deaths of millions. People become frighted, get their act together, become successful, the work ethic relaxes as do morals, ...

Maybe we'll get better in the future. Right now, the world is in for a Drano enema. Maybe when over 80% of the world's population is killed-off, people will sober up for a longer period of time. I'm no Prophet. I'm no psychic.

"How America Has Changed"

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-07-25/how-america-has-changed

 

Although I think Spengler is right up there with Gibbon when it comes to a macro-view of history, I think one of the best ways to get an insight into what is happening in the west (especially the US)today and in the future is Will Durant's The Story of Civilization, especially his volume 3 Caesar and Christ. Easy to read for the intelligent layperson and well documented with all the citations you'd care to slog through, Volume 3 allows you to see all the parallels between the rise and fall of Rome and the rise and fall of the Western liberal democracies.

Unlike Gibbon, who took an overly-religion-centric view, Durant shows all the complex interactions that were involved in Rome from a podunk po'folks neighborhood of the Etruscan world to its collapse in the 6th century AD and the later destruction of Byzantium by the Turks eight hundred years later.

To understand America, you must understand Rome.

 

My thinking is simple . When the human population exceeds the ability of the planet to feed the masses . The result will be the same as the ancients experienced on Easter Island " a massive die off ". But honestly I think something else horrific will happen to the population before we reach critical mass starvation .