KEEPING YOUR SANITY BY UNDERSTANDING ONE MAN’S ROTTEN INFLUENCE ON US
Today let’s talk about one of my least favorite historical figures: Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). Pretty much all it will take for him to be one of yours too is this opening line in the Wikipedia entry on him:
“His Discourse on Inequality and The Social Contract are cornerstones in modern political and social thought.”
Being against reason, science, civilization, individual liberty, and self-discipline, his thinking has been at the root of much of the psychological, political, and cultural trouble of our time. It has specifically popularized a philosophy of emotions that has done and continues to do great harm.
As you’ll discover, the insanities of today’s Woke Left can be traced right back to this foul man.
TRULLI
At the top of Italy’s boot heel, there’s an ancient village named Alberobello that’s become a World Heritage Site.
This is because the villagers have preserved a prehistoric building technique with the conical roofs of their homes built up of corbelled limestone slabs with no mortar. The homes are collectively called trulli (true-lee) as each home individually is a called a trullo (true-low). Some trulli are centuries old albeit regularly rebuilt in the traditional way and maintained immaculately.
It’s a fascinating look into unique millennia-old living. Yet it is only one example of this little-visited part of far southern Italy that’s worth exploring. There’s so much more to Italy than Rome, Florence, Venice and such tourist magnets, as worthwhile visiting them may be. You’ll learn that very quickly when you start exploring Italy’s remoter regions.
(Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #255 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
WOKETARD LOGIC
FLASHBACK FRIDAY – QARI BABA
Afghanistan, 1984. Yes, that’s me with the legendary Qari Baba, Commander of the Harakat Mujahaddin waging a war of liberation against the Red Army of the Soviet Union – and my dear friend. I told him he looked like a combination of Genghiz Khan and Buddha, and he couldn’t stop laughing. We had so many extraordinary experiences together – like blowing up the Soviet High Command of Bala Hissar in Ghazni.
After the war was won with the final Soviet retreat in February, 1989, Qari Baba became the Governor of Ghazi Province. Then Pakistani Intelligence (ISI) created the Taliban to seize control of the country. Qari Baba had to take up arms anew against them. In March of 2006, he was assassinated by a Taliban hit team on orders from the ISI. I will never ever forget him. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #111 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
HALF-FULL REPORT 01/27/23
Finger-pointing at government corruption elsewhere in the world is small beer, as it’s so painfully embarrassing for us Americans to see that our own government is the most corrupt on the planet.
Our White House is run by a treasonous crime family, put and kept there by a ludicrously corrupt Dem-FBI-Media cabal who stole it from its rightful predecessor. Jesse laid much of this on the table last night (1/26), but the question is – what can be done about it when the Justice Department and FBI are corrupt to the core?
Well, now that Speaker Kevin has promised there will be no cuts in Social Security nor Medicare in debt ceiling resolution (following the wise advice of Trump), how about, say, a full 50% cut of the FBI budget (from last year’s, not from the projected increase of this year)?
Here we go – come on in for another great HFR!
AN ENTICEMENT FOR A MARVELOUS ADVENTURE
There is a paradise of islands of staggering beauty and idyllic weather year round, that’s a tax haven and the cost of living is low, that’s self-sufficient in food and everything grows in abundance, that’s so peaceful and serene crime is virtually unknown and there’s a total absence of wokeism.
What’s more, the people who live here love liberty so much they’ve had this motto emblazoned on their coat of arms for centuries: Antes morrer livres que em paz sujeitos – Rather die free than live in peaceful subjugation.
Oh, you can fly there non-stop from the east coast in a few hours as it’s closer than Europe.
Where and what are we talking about? The Azores of Portugal. They, along with the other Atlantic Portugal island of Madeira, are what Rebel and I call Atlantic Paradises.
So what’s the enticement? I’ll give you $1,000 off if you’ll join Rebel and me on our Atlantic Paradises Adventure this June. The catch? We’re extending our deadline of January 20 to February 3, so you have a week to make up your mind.
Atlantic Paradises Adventure is for anyone in normal health. We stay in great hotels, enjoy fabulous food and wine, and have a marvelous fun time. Click on the link to enjoy all the photos – realize you’ll soon be there. Write to me at [email protected] and I’ll explain how you get your $1K discount.
Carpe diem – life is short – the time for a life-memorable adventure is now!
SKYE’S LINKS 01/26/23
Covid and the War in Ukraine
OR
The Loss of Faith in the System
Readers old enough to remember the Hoover Administration between 1920 and 1930 probably recognize the systemic collapse of faith in the system we experience today. It is truly epic and worth additional study, continuing with this week's Skye's Links. Covid and the war in Ukraine bring to light so much fraud, dishonesty, and institutional incompetence that no one can deny that it's time to clean out the entire system. It's happening.
The life of the United States can be divided into 80-90 year epochs, each about the length of human life, that repeat as the last memories of the previous epoch fade from popular memory. Each of these epochs is divided into four 20-year or so turnings that can be thought of as the seasons. We are in the fourth, in the coldest days of winter yet past the Winter Solstice, and the days are getting longer.
As we continue along the trajectory of the Fourth Turning's final phase, we find faith in institutions collapsing throughout the United States. Internationally, confidence in the WEF and New World Order has dropped so much that only one head of state from a Western country attended the Davos event. They sent many deputies instead. The theme this year was about developing new propaganda methods and tools to restore confidence lost by yesterday's propaganda and means. The people have had enough.
ESG is over. There will be inertia due to the number of positions staffed according to the paradigm, but people will be fired, and normalcy will return.
The war in Ukraine is making energy so expensive and life so uncomfortable in Europe that the entire climate change hoax is being ditched. It's okay for limousine liberals to tell the rest of us to go and die, but now things are getting expensive, even for them.
Nancy Pelosi allegedly invited a few priests for tea and called it an exorcism. What type of priests were these? The local Catholic diocese has no record, and no Catholic priests have reported as participants. If such an event had happened, it would have been a significant event involving at least the local Bishop and regional Arch Bishop. The story is linked because of its pathos; an old drunken Nancy is failing at life after decades of corruption.
So much about Covid appears to have been a psyop. Propagandists leveraged generalized anxiety in society through social isolation and by giving meaningless orders. The general discontent was cranked up and focused on Trump and rationalists for political power and access to the U.S. Treasury.
Come over to Skye's links and let's look at a series of links that discuss this most unusual of times. Perhaps your youngest children or grandchildren will experience the end of the next epoch, but for most, this is a once and a lifetime period of significant consequence. But just as with the end of a frozen winter, the birds are returning, and there are signs of new life.
THE YEZIDI BLACK SNAKE SACRED SPRING
At the Temple of the Peacock Angel in the Yezidi holy city of Lalish, you find this entrance to a Sacred Spring with a carved black snake, revered by Yezidis as they believe a black snake stuck itself into a hole in Noah’s Ark and saved humanity.
The Yezidis are among the most ancient of all peoples in the Middle East. Their heartland is in what is now Northern Iraq, or Iraqi Kurdistan. You may know of them through the horrific butchery perpetrated upon them by the medieval terrorists of ISIS which gained worldwide notoriety.
They are a fascinating people whose syncretic beliefs are a mélange of Zoroastrianism, Syriac Christianity, Sufi Islam spiced with their own interpretation of all three. In other words, they are their own people, no one else like them – peaceful, at ease with themselves, and immensely likeable.
Their protectors are the Kurds – an extraordinary people in their own right. We’ll be visiting Iraqi Kurdistan and the Yezidis once more next year. ((Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #89 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
WHAT THE HELL IS THE WEST WAITING FOR?
[Note by Jack Wheeler: Early yesterday morning (1/24), the London Daily Mail ran this cover story by British former (and quite possibly the future) Prime Minister Boris Johnson. By early this morning (1/25), Germany got the message, Der Spiegal announcing: Ukraine Will Receive 80 Leopard Tanks from Germany and Other European Countries, and the Wall Street Journal reporting: White House Approves Sending Abrams Tanks to Ukraine. Thanks, Boris!]
Come with me into the ochre mud of the churchyard in Bucha, past the bullet-riddled church of St Andrew. Stand over the graves of some of the 416 inhabitants of this town – 9 of them children – who were shot by the Russians in an attempt to terrify the rest.
Look at the photos of their corpses, their hands tied behind their backs, left in the street to rot or to be eaten by dogs.
Stand with me by the blackened remains of an apartment block in Borodyanka, the twisted plumbing and smashed children's toys. Look at what just one of Putin's 500kg airborne bombs can do to an eight-story building.
Try to meet the pleading eyes of the people who pulled 162 corpses from the rubble, and who searched for the 28 whose remains were never found.
Look at those brave Ukrainians and answer me this question: just what the hell are we waiting for?
WHY THE WORLD NEEDS A UKRAINIAN VICTORY
Why does the world need a Ukrainian victory? The answer is inarguable.
Because the world must help Ukraine to stop Russia’s genocidal war before the latter’s fascism and aggression spread and are copied by other nations.
Let’s unpack that with 14 specific reasons:
- To halt atrocity. Russia's occupation is genocidal. Wherever the Ukrainians recover territory, they save lives, and re-establish the principle that people have a right not to be tortured, deported, and murdered.
- To preserve the international legal order. Its basis is that one country may not invade another and annex its territory, as Russia seeks to do. Russia's war of aggression is obviously illegal, but the legal order does not defend itself.
- To end an era of empire. This could be the last war fought on the colonial logic that another state and people do not exist. But this turning point is reached only if Russia loses.