Great piece, thanks, D. Regarding your somewhat inexplicable feeling of happiness last night, I just read a piece in the Atlantic on Seamus Heaney. The author of the piece shares a quote from a poem of Heaney’s that she takes inspiration from: “Walk on air against your better judgement.” The author adds, “It gives you the ability, the permission, to hold the full complicated equation of life lightly.”
I also recently finished Rilke’s Book of Hours. Very beautiful and inspiring.
Back to the future...remember the old slogan "Workers of the World Unite!"? The global capitalist elite has been at this project a long time, and the ruined economies of Latin America are proof of the wreckage left behind when the corporate capitalist vultures move on. NAFTA was already a step towards nailing the coffin of American industry while exploiting workers in Mexico--a move that Canada has been happy to benefit from. Trump's tariffs aren't going to bring American industry back again...the corporations have moved on. Yes, we are all implicated, every single one of us who pays taxes, uses American banking / credit systems or has a stock investment. Short of living off the grid--which many are now doing like it or not, as "unhoused" people--we are participant-observers in the events of our time, and have to take responsibility for what's happening. What does that look like? Speaking truth to power, at minimum. We may be called to put our bodies on the line in the streets--which was pretty hazardous back in the '90s, if you remember the Occupy or NAFTA protests. I think the over-50 crowd, in particular, have a responsibility to speak up and demand that our elected representatives and court system do whatever they can to stop the criminal takeover of the United States by the corporate financial mafia you and Bolsen are describing. Yes, we should definitely be looking for opportunities for solidarity with people who have been or are being steamrolled in other countries. But we must be especially vigilant and active here, on our own streets and in our own backyards.
The economy is, and has been, a house of cards for decades, and the foundation is weakening substantially. Especially since the true foundation of any healthy economy must be a healthy Earth. I remember writing and speaking about this before the 2000s arrived. Also Bob Swan always talked about the importance of creating "life boats", and he was referring to community-based alternatives exactly as you mentioned here - land trusts, community currencies, housing and other forms of cooperatives, CSAs, and more. In one conversation I recall him saying he didn't know which would fail first - the economy or the environment. My response was, I think it will be both. This was the late 1980s I believe.
While I have left hope in the dust, I have a deep knowing that we absolutely CAN do this. Everything you mentioned is possible, and with an awareness of energy, consciousness, intention, and group work, not only is it possible, but the dire future most predict, does not have to come to pass. Even Earth, being alive and sentient has regenerative capacities beyond the logical and linear confines of science. So yes, I know we can do this. At the same time, the question remains: will we do this? We don't have much choice but to try at least. And the old way won't work. My sense is we need to implement what I call "magic" and integrate it into everything we do.
This piece is excellent - short, to the point, and outlines where the cracks are so we can position whatever it takes in those cracks, like strategic sticks of dynamite, and blow it open.
Interesting deep takes. I hadn’t kept up with Shahid Bolson for a minute but it was his takes that enlightened me quite a bit to what was happening in the Muslim world when the Gaza war broke out. When at the time so many people reacted with “where are the Muslim intellectuals? They are all monolithic blah blah” he was one of the sources that were hipping me to what was really going on. However after while I quit watching, he has his own biases and vilifies the West by taking a blind eye to homegrown issues in BRICS nations as well. I felt the truth was a bit more in the middle maybe. However, you brought him to my attention again and hot damn if that wasn’t a deep analysis of what’s happening.
in that particular video, I fear he's right about everything, but hope he's wrong about somethings. It's an even worse picture than believing Musk and Trump are simply trying to short cut the American system to become competitive in AI..
Another great piece on the metaphysical layers of this hyperstitional breakdown. Thank you for surfacing Bolsen; I’ve been saying similar things for the past several years and look forward to getting his takes.
From my research and visions through the years I have come to see history by and large as a ritual — an occult initiation conducted via mass traumatization events. Capital command and control is the veneer but the real roots are in something deeper, older, darker.
The one piece that I feel is missing in this analysis is an honest and thorough understanding of Socialism with Chinese characteristics. I disagree that it is just another manifestation of the same exploitation program. China’s methods unequivocally work when it comes to raising standards of living, providing housing food and healthcare, building long horizon infrastructure, and waging peace. Hastening the decline of the unipolar American/NATO hegemony and allowing us to transition into a multipolar model will open possibilities we cant necessarily see from our vantage. My hope is that we can pick up the rubies from the rubble of the American way as we move into a Chinese century.
thanks but still the problem with China is that people live under fear, can't express themselves freely, and that is just not right. But for now, China is looking much better than the US where it seems the idea is to throw most people into the gutter and make them as stupid as possible before replacing them with AI and robots. At least as you say they seem to care more about their own people (if not the Tibetans or Uyghurs).
Exactly, and this is where the doomerism falls short. There is a reason why the American techbroligarchy (okay that’s a keeper) is so determined to get us to hate and fear China. It’s because they don’t answer to the same masters. China did in the 50s and 60s what they know is coming to them now - literally destroyed the rentier class and instituted a flawed but profoundly effective proletariat society.
Every time I hear or read the words “mutual aid” or the longer version, “we can make government support programs irrelevant by being reliable to one another,” I feel a little ping of recognition that feels a bit like a calling…
I appreciate this turn toward hope that your last couple articles have made Daniel. It was getting exhausting to see nothing anywhere at all except reportage on the carnage and chaos—an exhaustion that breeds the exact despair and helplessness that Musk and Trump benefit most from.
But now I’m poking my head out a little bit. If they’re burying us, how can we best become seeds? If they’re wiping the slate clean and likely to fall into infighting once they’ve dealt with their imagined external enemies, how can the awakened prepare ourselves to step in with an alternative that simply out competes their shitty plans for us?
And yeah, it feels like my part might be Mutual Aid. But I don’t know how to get involved. Are these organizations secret? Why can’t I find anything actionable online? How do I sign up?
Thank you Daniel for the way you continue to show up day after day.
And for this: "Late last night, as I was pondering all of this, I went out to get something from my corner deli and I had almost a mystical experience of joy or Satori. This may sound weird, but I felt so happy that I wasn’t rich, and hence compromised or complicit. As I realized this, something shifted in me on an almost cellular level."
I feel strongly prompted to highlight this paragraph, leaving others to their excellent commentary on your harrowing analysis of what is going on and where we might find hopeful potential. This was so liberating to read, especially considering that you had this satori-like experience as you were "pondering all of this". Not escaping or transcending it, not taking a much needed and undoubtedly well-deserved break from it, but rather pondering it. Maybe your pondering could be understood as a form of deep acceptance of a situation that is both disturbing and terrifying, but ours to ponder nonetheless? Maybe pondering is one of the many faces of Love? Maybe I'm a little crazy, but it feels to me that your way here of linking opposites, especially in this latest essay, your way of coupling the entertainment of positive potential with the intrepid facing of unprecedented danger offers something vitally important to all of us.
Again, what you have written here reminds me of Joanna Macy's "Active Hope - How to Face the Mess We're In Without Going Crazy." Something shifted in you, making it more likely for that same shift to happen in others.
I think we’re going to get Antichrist either way. Either party was going to utilize AI in authoritarian ways that we cannot have imagined 5 years ago. Just a matter of which flavor of tyranny, subtle or obvious, right or left social values being enforced.
Totally agree, and I don't see much written about this. It's always the other side to blame. In my view, there is no doubt that the other side will do the same things. The transnational elites exist on both sides and are having their way with us. Here in Canada, Liberal Mark Carney, who will soon be installed as Prime Minister (in a parliamentary system no less) said that what this country needs IS an elite, globalist approach. And, he has said he will rely on Emergency powers. Again. After freezing bank accounts during the trucker protest in Ottawa of which he applauded. Here in Canada, the party on the left, froze peoples' bank accounts to shut down a protest. Of course the other side(s) will use the levers at hand to maintain and grow their power.
>>Without the CDC’s authority in public health emergencies, for instance, the space is opened for pharmaceutical giants and private health providers to dominate.
The CDC gets a lot of funding from Big Pharma. And I doubt that disengaging from the WHO is something that these companies would want.
Please don’t continue to use AI for your writing. Doing that makes you part of the problem.
Well there are different sectors of different industries. It would be interesting to track what the response from Pharma has been. Or maybe we will see, upcoming. I suppose the point is patent protection slows down what they want to do, so the same investors backing the US pharma cos can then invest in companies in the global south and make bigger profits, even if the American companies suffer.
Hmm. You might be arguing against yourself a bit. It's true as you pointed out I think in another article that the merger of corporate and government power is a hallmark of authoritarian governments if not fascism. But in this case Pharma with its enormous and outsized real-world power and influence cozying up to and funding a government institution that's supposed to exist for the benefit and well being of the average US citizen doesn't seem to bother you. I think that NIH has also received highly suspect Pharma money if I'm not mistaken. Many on the left admit to the reality of large amounts of waste, fraud, and abuse in our government institutions. Bill Maher cited a GAO figure of $500 billion that I seem to recall was tied to fraud alone but I'll see if I can double check that.
I’m sure none of these agencies was perfect and some of the critiques have merit, but simply liquidating them without any sort of congressional hearing or public process is insane. Also it is clearly not about saving money as they intend to raise the debt ceiling $4 trillion with $4.5 trillion tax breaks for the rich.
This is the feeding frenzy at the end of the empire before it all breaks down.
“Not perfect” is the understatement of the year as we used to say. CDC and NIH incompetence and industry subservience is an extremely pivotal and important concern.
That said, I think we are in agreement about Musk and the methods being used. In my recent Common Dreams article I wrote: “It’s time to sound the alarm. What Musk is doing is tantamount to hacking the inner core of the federal government and the public trust—a blatant coup and power grab for technocratic ends. Yes, there is a definite case to be made for rooting out government waste, abuse, and corruption. But there’s a better and more measured way to proceed.”
By the way, I confess that I have speculated from time to time whether either Trump or Musk might fit the description of the anti-Christ according to the parameters of how that prophecy has been described in various religious and/or spiritual traditions. And there are Steiner adherents who have made the case that AI's Ahrimanic nature also makes it a candidate.
the only thing about mass strikes and refusals: it might speed up the drive to replace workers with AI. It would be disruptive if it happens right now, but this might be the last moment when they would even notice or care that people refused to work
Annie OCGFC refers to the ‘owners and controllers of global financialized capital’ and comes in 2 flavors- nationalist and regionalist, and a-national….mega wealthy types sovereign only to themselves.
"Argentine President Javier Milei’s attempt to downplay his role in a crypto scandal is crumbling. His problems started Friday when he directed millions of social media followers to the Libra token, sending its value soaring. Within hours, the coin’s value more than quadrupled, making the total outstanding amount worth $4 billion. It then crashed, handing speculators large losses. On Monday, Milei tried to contain the effects of the debacle in a television interview. But that effort backfired when parts that weren’t broadcast were accidentally uploaded to YouTube and subsequently deleted."
This must be what is in store for us here. Elno's idol and role model, Milei, embraced bitter austerity to curb inflation, all the world praised him for cutting inflation; but then pumped a shit coin to the poor precariats, and washed his hands of it as the shit coin crashed.
Great piece, thanks, D. Regarding your somewhat inexplicable feeling of happiness last night, I just read a piece in the Atlantic on Seamus Heaney. The author of the piece shares a quote from a poem of Heaney’s that she takes inspiration from: “Walk on air against your better judgement.” The author adds, “It gives you the ability, the permission, to hold the full complicated equation of life lightly.”
I also recently finished Rilke’s Book of Hours. Very beautiful and inspiring.
Thanks again.
Back to the future...remember the old slogan "Workers of the World Unite!"? The global capitalist elite has been at this project a long time, and the ruined economies of Latin America are proof of the wreckage left behind when the corporate capitalist vultures move on. NAFTA was already a step towards nailing the coffin of American industry while exploiting workers in Mexico--a move that Canada has been happy to benefit from. Trump's tariffs aren't going to bring American industry back again...the corporations have moved on. Yes, we are all implicated, every single one of us who pays taxes, uses American banking / credit systems or has a stock investment. Short of living off the grid--which many are now doing like it or not, as "unhoused" people--we are participant-observers in the events of our time, and have to take responsibility for what's happening. What does that look like? Speaking truth to power, at minimum. We may be called to put our bodies on the line in the streets--which was pretty hazardous back in the '90s, if you remember the Occupy or NAFTA protests. I think the over-50 crowd, in particular, have a responsibility to speak up and demand that our elected representatives and court system do whatever they can to stop the criminal takeover of the United States by the corporate financial mafia you and Bolsen are describing. Yes, we should definitely be looking for opportunities for solidarity with people who have been or are being steamrolled in other countries. But we must be especially vigilant and active here, on our own streets and in our own backyards.
protests across the country are happening tomorrow: https://www.buildtheresistance.org/
The economy is, and has been, a house of cards for decades, and the foundation is weakening substantially. Especially since the true foundation of any healthy economy must be a healthy Earth. I remember writing and speaking about this before the 2000s arrived. Also Bob Swan always talked about the importance of creating "life boats", and he was referring to community-based alternatives exactly as you mentioned here - land trusts, community currencies, housing and other forms of cooperatives, CSAs, and more. In one conversation I recall him saying he didn't know which would fail first - the economy or the environment. My response was, I think it will be both. This was the late 1980s I believe.
While I have left hope in the dust, I have a deep knowing that we absolutely CAN do this. Everything you mentioned is possible, and with an awareness of energy, consciousness, intention, and group work, not only is it possible, but the dire future most predict, does not have to come to pass. Even Earth, being alive and sentient has regenerative capacities beyond the logical and linear confines of science. So yes, I know we can do this. At the same time, the question remains: will we do this? We don't have much choice but to try at least. And the old way won't work. My sense is we need to implement what I call "magic" and integrate it into everything we do.
This piece is excellent - short, to the point, and outlines where the cracks are so we can position whatever it takes in those cracks, like strategic sticks of dynamite, and blow it open.
Interesting deep takes. I hadn’t kept up with Shahid Bolson for a minute but it was his takes that enlightened me quite a bit to what was happening in the Muslim world when the Gaza war broke out. When at the time so many people reacted with “where are the Muslim intellectuals? They are all monolithic blah blah” he was one of the sources that were hipping me to what was really going on. However after while I quit watching, he has his own biases and vilifies the West by taking a blind eye to homegrown issues in BRICS nations as well. I felt the truth was a bit more in the middle maybe. However, you brought him to my attention again and hot damn if that wasn’t a deep analysis of what’s happening.
It is very clarifying whether some of his other ideas are right or not
in that particular video, I fear he's right about everything, but hope he's wrong about somethings. It's an even worse picture than believing Musk and Trump are simply trying to short cut the American system to become competitive in AI..
I
Another great piece on the metaphysical layers of this hyperstitional breakdown. Thank you for surfacing Bolsen; I’ve been saying similar things for the past several years and look forward to getting his takes.
From my research and visions through the years I have come to see history by and large as a ritual — an occult initiation conducted via mass traumatization events. Capital command and control is the veneer but the real roots are in something deeper, older, darker.
The one piece that I feel is missing in this analysis is an honest and thorough understanding of Socialism with Chinese characteristics. I disagree that it is just another manifestation of the same exploitation program. China’s methods unequivocally work when it comes to raising standards of living, providing housing food and healthcare, building long horizon infrastructure, and waging peace. Hastening the decline of the unipolar American/NATO hegemony and allowing us to transition into a multipolar model will open possibilities we cant necessarily see from our vantage. My hope is that we can pick up the rubies from the rubble of the American way as we move into a Chinese century.
thanks but still the problem with China is that people live under fear, can't express themselves freely, and that is just not right. But for now, China is looking much better than the US where it seems the idea is to throw most people into the gutter and make them as stupid as possible before replacing them with AI and robots. At least as you say they seem to care more about their own people (if not the Tibetans or Uyghurs).
Exactly, and this is where the doomerism falls short. There is a reason why the American techbroligarchy (okay that’s a keeper) is so determined to get us to hate and fear China. It’s because they don’t answer to the same masters. China did in the 50s and 60s what they know is coming to them now - literally destroyed the rentier class and instituted a flawed but profoundly effective proletariat society.
Every time I hear or read the words “mutual aid” or the longer version, “we can make government support programs irrelevant by being reliable to one another,” I feel a little ping of recognition that feels a bit like a calling…
I appreciate this turn toward hope that your last couple articles have made Daniel. It was getting exhausting to see nothing anywhere at all except reportage on the carnage and chaos—an exhaustion that breeds the exact despair and helplessness that Musk and Trump benefit most from.
But now I’m poking my head out a little bit. If they’re burying us, how can we best become seeds? If they’re wiping the slate clean and likely to fall into infighting once they’ve dealt with their imagined external enemies, how can the awakened prepare ourselves to step in with an alternative that simply out competes their shitty plans for us?
And yeah, it feels like my part might be Mutual Aid. But I don’t know how to get involved. Are these organizations secret? Why can’t I find anything actionable online? How do I sign up?
Thank you Daniel for the way you continue to show up day after day.
And for this: "Late last night, as I was pondering all of this, I went out to get something from my corner deli and I had almost a mystical experience of joy or Satori. This may sound weird, but I felt so happy that I wasn’t rich, and hence compromised or complicit. As I realized this, something shifted in me on an almost cellular level."
I feel strongly prompted to highlight this paragraph, leaving others to their excellent commentary on your harrowing analysis of what is going on and where we might find hopeful potential. This was so liberating to read, especially considering that you had this satori-like experience as you were "pondering all of this". Not escaping or transcending it, not taking a much needed and undoubtedly well-deserved break from it, but rather pondering it. Maybe your pondering could be understood as a form of deep acceptance of a situation that is both disturbing and terrifying, but ours to ponder nonetheless? Maybe pondering is one of the many faces of Love? Maybe I'm a little crazy, but it feels to me that your way here of linking opposites, especially in this latest essay, your way of coupling the entertainment of positive potential with the intrepid facing of unprecedented danger offers something vitally important to all of us.
Again, what you have written here reminds me of Joanna Macy's "Active Hope - How to Face the Mess We're In Without Going Crazy." Something shifted in you, making it more likely for that same shift to happen in others.
You are so welcome!
From Jules Evans' article you linked to:
"German occult Theosophists like Rudolf Steiner and Guido von List also predicted a global race war between higher Aryans and subhuman non-whites, and also called for ‘cosmic eugenics’ to create superior beings." https://substack.com/home/post/p-157050375?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Wondering if that will be included in your Steiner course.
I think we’re going to get Antichrist either way. Either party was going to utilize AI in authoritarian ways that we cannot have imagined 5 years ago. Just a matter of which flavor of tyranny, subtle or obvious, right or left social values being enforced.
Totally agree, and I don't see much written about this. It's always the other side to blame. In my view, there is no doubt that the other side will do the same things. The transnational elites exist on both sides and are having their way with us. Here in Canada, Liberal Mark Carney, who will soon be installed as Prime Minister (in a parliamentary system no less) said that what this country needs IS an elite, globalist approach. And, he has said he will rely on Emergency powers. Again. After freezing bank accounts during the trucker protest in Ottawa of which he applauded. Here in Canada, the party on the left, froze peoples' bank accounts to shut down a protest. Of course the other side(s) will use the levers at hand to maintain and grow their power.
Yes I think it is more obvious in Canada, what they do more subtley down here. It is hard for me to say which one will be worse.
"I went out to get something from my corner deli and I had almost a mystical experience of joy or Satori." Mudita to you!
>>Without the CDC’s authority in public health emergencies, for instance, the space is opened for pharmaceutical giants and private health providers to dominate.
The CDC gets a lot of funding from Big Pharma. And I doubt that disengaging from the WHO is something that these companies would want.
Please don’t continue to use AI for your writing. Doing that makes you part of the problem.
Well there are different sectors of different industries. It would be interesting to track what the response from Pharma has been. Or maybe we will see, upcoming. I suppose the point is patent protection slows down what they want to do, so the same investors backing the US pharma cos can then invest in companies in the global south and make bigger profits, even if the American companies suffer.
Hmm. You might be arguing against yourself a bit. It's true as you pointed out I think in another article that the merger of corporate and government power is a hallmark of authoritarian governments if not fascism. But in this case Pharma with its enormous and outsized real-world power and influence cozying up to and funding a government institution that's supposed to exist for the benefit and well being of the average US citizen doesn't seem to bother you. I think that NIH has also received highly suspect Pharma money if I'm not mistaken. Many on the left admit to the reality of large amounts of waste, fraud, and abuse in our government institutions. Bill Maher cited a GAO figure of $500 billion that I seem to recall was tied to fraud alone but I'll see if I can double check that.
I’m sure none of these agencies was perfect and some of the critiques have merit, but simply liquidating them without any sort of congressional hearing or public process is insane. Also it is clearly not about saving money as they intend to raise the debt ceiling $4 trillion with $4.5 trillion tax breaks for the rich.
This is the feeding frenzy at the end of the empire before it all breaks down.
“Not perfect” is the understatement of the year as we used to say. CDC and NIH incompetence and industry subservience is an extremely pivotal and important concern.
That said, I think we are in agreement about Musk and the methods being used. In my recent Common Dreams article I wrote: “It’s time to sound the alarm. What Musk is doing is tantamount to hacking the inner core of the federal government and the public trust—a blatant coup and power grab for technocratic ends. Yes, there is a definite case to be made for rooting out government waste, abuse, and corruption. But there’s a better and more measured way to proceed.”
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/elon-musk-technocrat
By the way, I confess that I have speculated from time to time whether either Trump or Musk might fit the description of the anti-Christ according to the parameters of how that prophecy has been described in various religious and/or spiritual traditions. And there are Steiner adherents who have made the case that AI's Ahrimanic nature also makes it a candidate.
Yes and Musk could be the Dragon who works with the Antichrist !
Matthew Fox just published a book about Trump as the antichrist.
Thanks. Interesting. I will check it out. This one is also worth a read:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Star_Rising
the only thing about mass strikes and refusals: it might speed up the drive to replace workers with AI. It would be disruptive if it happens right now, but this might be the last moment when they would even notice or care that people refused to work
Annie OCGFC refers to the ‘owners and controllers of global financialized capital’ and comes in 2 flavors- nationalist and regionalist, and a-national….mega wealthy types sovereign only to themselves.
Elno's idol:
"Argentine President Javier Milei’s attempt to downplay his role in a crypto scandal is crumbling. His problems started Friday when he directed millions of social media followers to the Libra token, sending its value soaring. Within hours, the coin’s value more than quadrupled, making the total outstanding amount worth $4 billion. It then crashed, handing speculators large losses. On Monday, Milei tried to contain the effects of the debacle in a television interview. But that effort backfired when parts that weren’t broadcast were accidentally uploaded to YouTube and subsequently deleted."
"https://x.com/P_Kallioniemi/status/1891390218097263101"
https://x.com/BTnewsroom/status/1891987599947944400
This must be what is in store for us here. Elno's idol and role model, Milei, embraced bitter austerity to curb inflation, all the world praised him for cutting inflation; but then pumped a shit coin to the poor precariats, and washed his hands of it as the shit coin crashed.
Which Lovecraft stories were in the rooms at Hereticon? Curious.