mr smith presents another of those 'you are here' moments in this essay;

The incontestable incompetence of the USSA's monopolies, institutions and agencies is about to take center stage in 2021.

When I mention that the U.S.A. feels increasingly like the U.S.S.R., a surprising number of people tell me they feel the same way. Welcome to the U.S.S.A.: United Simulacra States of America where everything is an absurdly transparent simulation with little connection to reality and dissent is crushed by an everpresent, ubiquitous narrative police state enforced by the union of Big Tech social media, search and other monopolies and the Savior State: do what we tell you and you'll get a piece of our endlessly spewed trillions.

My colleague Mark Jeftovic recommended an insightful book on the unraveling of the USSR, Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation.

It's an academic book so there are the required servings of jargon and references to suitably opaque academic tropes, but beneath the conceptual clutter lies a profound analysis of how humans adapt to and navigate a system that has lost all authenticity and survives entirely on the ceaseless marketing of artifice: in other words, the USA today.

Of particular interest are the book's personal accounts of dutiful Party members going through the motions of obedience as a means of enjoying their private friendships and lives. Joining the Party's machinery was a way to meet friends who you recruited for your committee work. Everyone went through the motions but nobody actually believed any of it: you did homework while "listening" to the endless canned speeches, you went out for coffee while telling the Party functionary that you were on Party business, and you worked on parades and activities that were a bit of fun despite the dreary official purpose which everyone ignored.

Despite the enormous effort put into placing propaganda everywhere, nobody actually saw any of it: it was all background noise. When it changed, nobody noticed.......read more......

 mr hornberger makes some great points about how the empire acts and reacts in this essay i'm sure you will be enlightened by after reading;

U.S. officials have long criticized Japan for its supposedly unprovoked military attack on Pearl Harbor, which enabled President Roosevelt to fulfill his desire to intervene into World War II. As I showed in my blog post yesterday, the Japanese attack was hardly unprovoked, given Roosevelt’s actions that were designed to provoke Japan into “firing the first shot,” which would enable Roosevelt to exclaim: We’ve been attacked! We are shocked! This is a day that will live in infamy! Now give me my declaration of war so that I can enter World War II.

Given the outrage over what the court historians and the U.S. mainstream press have long maintained was an unprovoked attack by Japan on the United States, why have these same court historians and mainstream media outlets given a pass to the U.S. government for initiating an unprovoked attack on Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in 1961?Oh sure, there have been countless books and articles written about how the attack turned out to be a debacle for the U.S. government, specifically the CIA, one of the three main elements of the national-security branch of the federal government. But they never go after the CIA and the rest of the U.S. government for doing what Japan supposedly did — initiate an unprovoked attack on an independent country.

The U.S. national-security establishment has long maintained that it had the “right” to initiate its attack on Cuba because Cuba had established a communist government and a socialist system.

But since when does a disagreement with a country’s political and economic systems justify an unprovoked attack on that country? If Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor because of America’s New Deal system, which was characterized by both socialism and economic fascism, would that have made the attack justifiable? Does the U.S. government today have the “right” to attack Vietnam, China, North Korea, and, yes, Cuba because they have communist and socialist systems? Indeed, do communist regimes have the “right” to attack the United States because the U.S. has a “capitalist” system, or does the principle work only one way?.....read more......

 i aught to post this entry every day until 'our free press' presents something beyond the programming we've all been subjected to since march. we're being misled and those in positions to present that are being attacked;

Law enforcement authorities in Tallahassee, Fla., on Monday raided the home of a data scientist who had been fired by Gov. Ron DeSantis after refusing to manipulate numbers.

In the months since her firing, Rebekah Jones has continued to publish coronavirus statistics independently, while also issuing warnings on Twitter and cable news. DeSantis, meanwhile, has continued to downplay the severity of the epidemic, which has killed nearly 20,000 Floridians.

Jones posted video of the raid, which was conducted by Florida state police Monday morning. She said the police “took all my hardware and tech,” for which they obtained a warrant following a Department of Health complaint.

“They pointed a gun in my face,” Jones said in her message, which was shared by thousands of people. “They pointed guns at my kids.”.........read and watch more......

just a few words from your 'betters' as they'd like to have it be seen and done; 

 change my mind, if you feel qualified and able;

 every once in a while as i read and post i consider ending my posts with the comment: nothing will change for  the better as the empire is committed to death and destruction. then i remember silence is acceptance and as of now, continue. caitlin has some thoughts about slow joes selection for the war department head you may wish to be aware of;

The mass media are reporting that the Biden camp has selected former general Lloyd J. Austin III to be the next secretary of defense, assuaging fears among antiwar activists that the position would go to bloodthirsty psychopath Michele Flournoy as commonly predicted.

As has become the standard ritual for Biden’s cabinet picks, the mass media are holding a parade to celebrate the fact that Austin would be the first Black chief of the US war machine while virtually ignoring the murderous agendas he has facilitated throughout his career. As head of Central Command Austin actively campaigned to resurrect the Pentagon’s spectacularly failed program of trying to arm “rebels” in Syria to fight ISIS, and in 2014 he backed immunity for US troops from war crimes prosecutions by the government of Afghanistan. He helped spearhead the Iraq invasion, and he is a member of the same private equity fund which invests in defense contractors as Flournoy and Biden’s warmongering pick for Secretary of State Tony Blinken.........read more......

 the media in all of its variations frequently presents lists to ponder and here are ten absurd items about the covid you're expected to ignore or accept;

There’s never been a bigger contradiction of rules, regulations, laws and just plain lack of common sense than we’re seeing right now in America, with the Covid lockdowns, mask mandates, social distancing and vehement push for a vaccine. It’s all a bunch of haphazard, mind-numbing, control-tripping, absurd contradictions that fly in the face of intellect, safety and health, but never mind all of that. Here we go, exposing the idiocy once again.

Let’s get right down to business with the nonsense

#1. Attention shoppers: You cannot bring your own bag to certain grocery stores (Trader Joes), and the clerks must be extra careful and use gloves to touch any cash money you use, but the clerks touch every single product with their bare hands that you just handled to put in the cart or basket, doesn’t matter if you just sneezed or coughed all over your hands or the items.

#2. Attention parents: All students attending school must have all of their own class materials and cannot dare share anything with other students, yet at P.E. or recess, they all touch the same equipment, swing sets, balls, bats, jump ropes, etc., then touch their mouth, nose, eyes and masks (if they even have them on outside at all).

#3. Attention hypochondriacs: Nearly every Covid mask being worn by civilians during the “pandemic” has holes that are 3 to 5 microns large, where the Covid virus is less than 2 microns in size, which is like throwing a tennis ball through a basketball hoop. Can you mumble “worthless” behind your mask without coughing? Don’t touch it! You’ll contaminate it instantly.

#4. Attention all vaccine fanatics: People rush to get flu shots, only to end up getting the flu or injured by the shot, or getting a worse case of the flu the next year due to the flu shot. Now they’re practically standing in line to get a Covid vaccine, which is rushed to market, untested for safety or efficacy, contains human abortion cells, and strains of Covid that are morphing as you read this, rendering the vaccine worthless and dangerous to boot. Vaccines are the most dangerous form of medicine, but most Americans think they’re 100 percent “safe and effective” because that’s all the media and CDC keep repeating, over and over..........read more......